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Shall we consider the continue the chapter we began, brethren, I suggest we got down to the end of verse seven. We could read from there, but.
Second Peter 7. Second Peter one verse 8.
Where these things be in you and abound, they make you that he 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 it's forgotten that he was heard from his old sins.
Wherefore the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, he shall never fail. Fall so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Wherever I will not be negligent to put you all within remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, 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 my Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me. Moreover I will endeavor that He may be able, after my decease, to have these things.
Follow us in remembrance, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we make known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But we're eyewitnesses of His Majesty, where 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 them in the holy mountain. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto ye do well? That ye take heed is unto a light that shine up in a dark place until the day dawn.
And the day start, arise in your hearts, 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 spake as they were moved.
Last, uh, meeting we were talking about that like precious faith that's mentioned in verse one.
And in verse five, we are told to give all diligence to add to that faith, and there are seven things that we are to be diligent to manifest in connection with our faith in that list.
Virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity or love, Divine love.
Now you'll notice in the verses that follow a little expression.
These things I think I counted 5 as her brother was reading these verses. Notice in verse 8 For if these things be in you and abound.
Verse nine. He that lacketh these things.
At the end of verse 10 for if you do these things.
Verse 12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things.
Verse 15 Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after mighty cease to have these things always in remembrance. So that refers back to that list of characteristics that we need to add to our faith.
How important it is to pay attention to be diligent in the Christian pathway?
And to go back to verse eight, we find that if there is that diligence.
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. God wants us to be fruitful.
Rather, the last reading mentioned fruitfulness and mentioned John 15. And it is true, there should be fruitfulness. It is beautiful to see it in young ones and older ones. Fruitfulness for God. That's proper. But it's the result of being diligent in adding these things to our faith.
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These seven things.
Express the life of the Lord Jesus.
As a man here on earth.
And if we want to know him and not be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of himself.
Then we have to have that same care, these same things practically lived out in our own lives.
You can learn a lot of facts about a person without knowing that person's harder nature at all.
But God has given to us the life of the Lord Jesus, so that when practically that life is lived out in us, then we by that common life with himself can know our Lord Jesus, we can know His heart, we can know that which is holy.
That which is true as it is lived out and experienced in our lives. And so he wants us to know Lord Jesus wants us to know Him.
Not just as somebody we read about who lived a long time ago and did something wonderful for us so that someday we can go to heaven, but the Lord Jesus wants us to know Him personally.
Individually, so that when we see Him for the first time face to face, we're not meeting a stranger at all. We're meeting someone that we have known for a lifetime and whose heart and our hearts are in unison. As to these characteristics that are found perfectly in Him and by the life He has given to us are to be diligently lived in our own lives as well.
But just to go back and make a comment that's been made multiple times, you can't produce that in yourself. I cannot by force of my own will, make myself like the Lord Jesus in these seven things.
But God has said that if I occupy myself with him, and read of Himself, and have himself revealed to me in the word of God, then God says, by my spirit I will change you to be like that, because I will work upon that life of Christ that is in you. So that it is carried out in daily living to be an expression of Himself, and in so doing.
We can say we have the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we look at that verse eight in the in the uh, Darby translation.
It reads, uh, the if is left out.
And it says these things existing and abounding in you. And I believe that goes with what our brother John has just said, that we have that new life of Christ in US and we have the Spirit of God indwelling us and.
These seven things are really, we could say, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit.
So if we allow that look to be active in us, that new life and allow the Spirit of God to work in us, we shouldn't even have to try to produce those things from our old life. We can't anyway.
But they're they're in it if we allow them to come out.
That's what fruit is, isn't it? It's not. Sometimes I think we think of fruit as being the results of some effort of our own.
And, uh, I suppose there is that maybe sense of it in certain scriptures, but really fruit is that which is produced through fellowship with the Lord Jesus. It's the, uh, vine connected with the main trunk of the vine that produces fruit.
An apple tree doesn't have to wave its branches around to produce fruit. Just got to make sure that that where that blossom is remains connected to the main tree and that fruit will automatically be produced.
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It's not exactly the result of effort. And that's why in the fruits of the spirit that are mentioned in, in uh, Galatians 5, they're not any of them active things. They're all passive, Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering. They're not active things. They may be manifested in actions, but they are not act actions in themselves. It's the fruit of the spirit, beautiful.
3D how how things are done. Isn't it too?
Because this word here, Baron, I, I believe in some of the Bibles in margin in Darby, it's really idol.
So the work of the Spirit of God in us is to make us like the Lord Jesus.
Not to put us on display and share she will come and see us and then you can watch us. We're sitting on chairs and we look like the Lord, but he's left us in the world has his representatives so that in our activity in the world. This is who we are manifesting and how we work and how we perform at school and how we behave in society in our homes and how we behave Of course, and if anyone's involved in ministry and and teaching, but the character of the Lord Jesus carried out and it says here if these things be in you and abound, they will make that you shall not be idle.
And prove this. So if if we have just had knowledge and somebody was we spoke about being having that gap. Well, if these things are really enough, they won't be that sort of a gap because that's what's gonna happen in our life. There's gonna be activity rather than island activity commanded by the Spirit of God and submission to the Lord doing those things that he set before us when he went from place to place, the Lord, he, he preached the word and so were the disciples. They were active in their lives. They were active in the power of the Spirit of God, but they were not not either idle or unfruitful.
So it's a character to be carried out in Activity, isn't it?
Just think of the word again, diligence. Yesterday a brother referred to that scripture about the diligent soul shall be made fat. I think we have an example of this in the life of Ruth. And if we just turn to the second chapter of that short book.
It says in verse 17.
So she gleaned in the field until even and beat out that which she had gleaned.
Then it gives us a specific amount that she had gleaned and that says and it was about an ephah of barley.
And if we go back to the 16th chapter of Exodus, we would read what the daily portion of Manna was, and that was an Omer.
And uh, there were 10 Ulmers that comprised or made-up in IFA. So she certainly was diligent. But I think one of the key things to note in this chapter is to see where she had gleaned. And that's brought before us in the 19th verse. It says, and her mother-in-law said unto her, where hast thou gleaned today and where wroughtest thou? So that's, that's the key, isn't it? She was gleaning in the right field.
And then her diligence is further brought out by looking at the last verse of that chapter. Not only did she do this once and but she seemed to continue with what she had started in verse 23, it says. And she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest.
And so there was a continuation, wasn't there? And so that's nice to see. And we're reminded of that virtuous woman, woman in in Proverbs that says she eateth not the bread of idleness. And so how important it is for us to be diligent in the things of the Lord.
Drift away from the Lord's things, be unfruitful, and maybe even those old propensities of the flesh will be revived, because it says here that he was purged from his old sins, and the Christian is.
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Forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
And they'll soon manifest themselves that be revived, if we are careless. So we should be exercised to walk in the proof of judgment, and reckon that all nature to be dead reckoned with God, or, as our brother Bob has explained it to me, think the same thoughts as God does about that old nature which we still have.
You're the word of God. Seeing or blindness.
Is very often connected with faith or unbelief.
Justice hearing in the Word of God is often connected with the will.
Having a willingness to hear either half an ear to hear, let him hear. And so hearing is often connected with our wills and scripture and when God uses it and seeing our blindness is often connected with faith. And you have a wonderful chapter in John nine that brings the whole panorama of that truth out. But here in our chapter, what purged us?
How did we re purge from our sins?
Do we forget?
That that purging took place by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who could put away those sins. And it is quite easy for us to start out in the pathway with God. The beginning of it requires that faith which we see that precious faith in the beginning of the chapter, which really comes from God himself.
That turns us away from ourselves and what we can do for ourselves, and puts us onto the mercy and grace and love of God and the work that He accomplished through His Son. And when we accept that in our hearts as a true report of what God has done for us, we receive salvation and we have the sense of our sins having been put away from us. But if we start through life and we lose the same walk of faith.
That continually relies upon God as the object and the Lord Jesus as the object of that faith. Go back again to Galatians 2, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me as the object of our faith.
Then these things are, it says we become blind or short sighted, we lose the vision of that which really transforms us because we get separated from looking upon the Lord Jesus. So as we have in 2nd Corinthians 3, we all with unveiled face looking upon the glory of the Lord are changed under the same image, even as by the Spirit of our God. But if our eyes are taken off the Lord Jesus.
And taken up with something else. And if they are, then it's going to be a disconnect in us to live by faith and the consequences, blindness. It's very easy in our Christian lives to become short sighted, or can I say in the life of faith to become blind. And the only answer to it is to go back to the one that God has given us.
Eyesight for.
And that's to gaze upon his son.
In Hebrews 2 we have therefore we ought to give more earnest heed to the things which he have heard less than any time we should let them slip. Now we read Mr. Derbyshire translation of the the the margin there it says run out as leaking vessels. It's not slip on a banana skin and crash If you have a bucket full and then all of a sudden you look at your bucket and it's only half full. And this really is the warning there that if I didn't pay more heed to that which the apostle had taught the glory of the person of the Lord Jesus.
Then instead of growing in their Christian lives, they would regress. And so we find that situation here where where umm, they're blind and they cannot see you far off. What does that mean? We can't get the Lords view on something and we end up being guided by our circumstances and we take guidance from circumstances instead of from the law. We don't have that the Lord's vision of, of where we are in our Christian lives and where he would have us go. We're just guided by our circumstances.
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That's so important, isn't that to?
In the world that we live in, the way things are going today is to have perception as to what is around us, have God's view of it. We are living in a culture that conditions us, that teaches us to respond to material circumstances.
You know it says in second Corinthians chapter 5 we walk by faith, not by sight doesn't mean that we close our eyes when we walk we're we realize what's going on around us but what should guide the Christian is not those things that are seen, but those things that are eternal, those things that are spiritual the.
Precious word of God, how important, especially dear brother. And when we're getting down to the end of this present age, we're looking for the Lord to come at any moment. And let me tell you, talk about confusion around us, how we're gonna get through these times. It's having God's view of things, be diligent in the things of God, have his understanding.
And we can only do that in the measure that we walk in fellowship with the Lord Jesus otherwise.
We're blind, cannot see, a far off, no depth of perception. What's going on in this world?
And it is so important in the day we live in.
Forgotten that purification over the purging of our sins in connection with one whose blind and wouldn't just bring before us this, this fundamental relationship with the Lord Jesus as our Savior, that that's how our sins were cleaned, were purged by this one dying on the cross. And if your Christianity is priceless, we're blind. We're just religious people and taking his name on our lips and we have no love for him and no assurance as to where we're going. We're really blind.
And being blind. And seems to me as the scriptures read, it seems that there's two things being blind.
And then not seeing a far off, you would think that's the same thing. It's not the same thing because if you're blind, then you can't see a far off. But what did we see a far off this weekend? We were here this morning and we went back in a moment 2000 years ago, and we were seeing that one hanging on that cross. Who was that? The Lord Jesus, the one that died to bring us close to God. Our brother yesterday was standing on a plan for me. We read from Isaiah chapter 2, and we were looking down in time and seeing the Lord of glory reign in majesty.
We can see afar off.
And talking about the circumstances of this world, well, if you look with our eyes, we might be troubled, but what's on the horizon for us here? Ones the coming of the Lord Jesus momentarily. Oh, God has given us faith now through his word to see these things and to enjoy them.
So instead of that, we have in verse 11 or verse 10. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall.
There's a recipe for not falling in the Christian pathway. How often we stumble in our Christian pathways. It's because of a lack of putting these things into practice. Lord help us. It's not that we are the ones that have our election in our own hands, but it's just that we confirm our own election by walking in this way.
It also brings out the practicality of our.
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Practice. This has been emphasized to us by our Lord Himself these last two days. And if we are living in appreciation, understanding and appreciation, living in Thanksgiving for what the Lord has done for us, do we believe what He's done for us? It's very clear what He's done for us. Do we consider it seriously? Do we live it out, the appreciation of what He's done for us? They will be a response. We will by faith seek His faith we will.
Desire fellowship with Him. We will open His word and depend on Him to provide for us for each day. Is that easy to do? I know how important it is for me to do it every morning when I get up. Do I spend the time I need to spend with Him? It's a battle. It's a battle. And this is where they're getting all diligence to live out our faith, to put it into practice, to be disciplined about it, to make a routine of it, to make good habits of it. This is our lifeline that we've got to hang on, to hold on to and maintain.
Living moment by moment, never forgetting the worst of our Lord Jesus Christ, what he accomplished on the cross, knowing full well that if there was anything else you could have given, he would have given it. But he gave everything. And also at the same time, I'd like to say that, uh, recognizing our other other in and of ourselves, our utter unworthiness.
When compared to the Lord help a prayer binding day. The Lord thank you for loving me a crumb because I'm a Crump. I'm nothing and you gave everything for me and for all of us crumbs who are willing to put our faith in you, simply believing in you and receiving you and at this incredible gift and the chasm that is between our under in our understanding between who we are and what he is and what he's done for us.
And how that generates.
Naturally, praise and Thanksgiving is managed and we can't help it. It's just a natural, organic manifestation of that inability to cross that custom between what we are and who He is and what He's done for us. And in the same vein.
Umm, I I The only way I can express my Thanksgiving to Him is in a practical sense, is with obedience. And so does reiterate a little bit of what I spoke of yesterday morning.
Uh, the Lord has asked us clearly to love one another. To what? To what extent the extent that he loved us and.
And, umm, there's a verse that says do not love. And I'm, I'm just paraphrasing because I'm not great with Bible verses, but he says do not love in Word nor in tongue, but in these and in truth. And the love, the truth of what love is, as Jesus expresses in one re respect was given. He gave everything he had. He, he was more than happy to live the life, uh, on the, on the level of a Baker.
To give everything just to keep giving. And it says that, that the books of the world cannot contain everything that he, that he, that all the good work that he's done and all the, the, the getting that he did of himself. And, uh, as he is our standard, uh, I think that, you know, umm, that's something we need to consider. How, how are we living out this love? Is it with words and, and, and with tongue, or is it indeed. And in truth. And as we meditate on that, uh, and as we.
Make steps for fulfilling that commandment to love other people in the way that Jesus loves us. Of course, in in a small degree in the beginning because we don't have the full revelation. But as we step out and faith and do that deliberate act of the will for our fellow man and there is no exception and enemies included that the Lord will come in and he will start to talk to us. He said you are my disciples indeed, if you if you keep my commandments. There's all these prompts precious promises in John 15, which we spoke with us today.
Which I spoke up and it's something that we can grasp intellectually. It's something he has to do in obedience. And we see the fruit of it as we walk in it. Now he's called us sheep. Some people say, well, a lot, a lot of unbelievers don't like that, that, that, that name because, well, sheep are dumb animals, right? They're just animals. But he also called himself the Lamb of God. And so he's, he's associated with us and we associate with him. And what did she do? They follow the shepherd. All they know is that they know his voice and they trust that that shepherd is going to protect them and lead him to green pastures so they can just keep feeding.
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And, and just be happy and peace knowing that he's got a staff in his hand. We don't have to concern ourselves. The sheep don't have to concern himself with what the wolf is up to, you know, all his tactics and setting off his, you know, I used to study politics, trying to learn the devil's, uh, wild, you know, I mean, really that's what it was. And that brought me nothing but grief when I learned that the Lord spoke to me about that and said, listen, put your trust in me and you'll have your peace again. And it's been a, it's, it's been a walk with the Lord and, and all these things we're talking about getting diligent, yes.
Give intelligence, follow the Lord in such a way. This is the way we express our love for the Lord. Yes, we, we, we know who He is. We give him all the reverence, we give him all the praise, and the praise will be helping us organically.
We don't have to muster it up. They will come out of us. We will. It's like a fountain full of water. We will not, we will not be able to stop it. We will have a living relationship with Him, and this is the desire of all our hearts. We all want an intimate relationship with the Lord and He has made it available to all of us.
And it doesn't ask us to figure it all out. We don't have to beat ourselves trying to understand what people mean. They, they, they will be revealed to us as we walk in faith to what is the simple things. Let us do follow my voice. I'm do what I'm telling you to do. And everything is closed naturally from the.
I think verse 11 we have talks about an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
There have been kingdoms in the world and they have come and they have gone.
But when the Lord Jesus reigns, it is the Kingdom that will never be replaced by another. There will be no other kingdoms. And in that sense it's everlasting. It's the last and full one in which the Lord Jesus reigns. We know there's something in eternity beyond that, as we have in First Corinthians 15, when the sun delivers up the Kingdom to the Father, that God may be All in all and.
In, uh, Revelation 21 when?
God dwells with man that goes even beyond this verse, but here we have an abundant entrance into the Kingdom. You and I will be in the heavenly part of it when we the rapture takes place, and many others will be on earth.
What about the abundant entrance? I believe we see it in this way.
The measure of the abundance of the entrance for us will be seen in the measure in which we change at the time of the Rapture and if we are walking fully in the truth of what's brought before us here practically.
Morally, we won't have to change at all.
What motivates us now? What animates our lives now? What is important to us now if it is?
Live not short sightedly, but in view of the fact that we are already in the Kingdom of God.
Manifesting the nature of God, Then we're not going to have to change.
We're not going to have to change and it'll be an abundant entrance because yes, the circumstances will be different. Our bodies will be changed, the location where we live will be changed, but our lives won't have to change. Well, I think most of us would say, well, I think there's going to be a little change with me or maybe a big change with me. Because what's going to have to change is all those things that are presently.
Living out in our lives which are inconsistent.
With the truth of that which is to characterize God's Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is that Kingdom which displays the nature of God as light and love. And so if Christ is practically speaking, being lived out in us now, then there's no need for change. But if Christ is not our All in all now, then when we enter into the display of it that Peter is.
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Bringing out here in the in the time of it and it's displaying glory, then yes, to that measure we will have to change. But may the Lord have his way with us, brethren, that our entrance would be in abundance.
Bob talks about the view of the world and what its interests are and so on. Well, those this world's interests are not consistent with the Kingdom of God.
This world doesn't live with an interest of displaying the glory of God and to whatever measure were attached to that, then we're going to give it up and we are going to have to be changed significantly, practically speaking, in order to.
As Doug Buchanan's father often is said, and it's a wonderful thought, he says the Lord Jesus, God's Son, is in heaven and he's so pleased with what he is that he's going to fill people. He wants the heaven filled with people. They're just like him. And that will be the end result, that God is going to have a heaven that is filled with people that are just like his Son.
And yet God's working in us that we've just like His Son. He's doing a progressive work in us practically, that we will be like His Son when He takes us to glory.
We're passing through a world that is directly contrary to God and His purposes. And it becomes evident the more we live in this world how it is contrary. But brethren would exercise as my heart is, how much we are affected by the world we are passing through. And I have to say that traveling around through South America and North America, what's come to my own soul is that.
Our democratic way of thinking has done tremendous damage to the Christian testimony.
We think we have our rights. We think our brethren should understand us and listen to us.
And we think that we should have certain kind of treatment especially.
From our brethren.
Brethren.
That is not.
The thinking of a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the thinking that has been instilled in us by our democratic way of living. And I think, brethren, I cannot say how much I've been affected, but I think we need to put ourselves in the Lord's presence and ask Him to manifest what is not an agreement with Him, because what I see is the decline of the Christian testimony.
In this country, and it's because we have become man centered instead of Christ centered. Christ is not the living reality in our souls like He should be. And that's what they're talking about. In the Kingdom of heaven, who is supreme there? We read it yesterday in Isaiah 2. The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Every high hill will be brought low.
All the Cedars of Lebanon will be brought low.
Is there any desire of my heart?
That, brethren, should treat me in a certain way, and if they don't, I'm out of here.
So, brethren, that is too much the case. We need to thank God's thoughts. Things are going to dramatically change in this world and they should be different for us now we're passing through this world and I for one, have to can't point the finger at anybody else here. I have to say, I know I've been affected by that way of thinking, but I need to judge it in the Lord's presence.
That we might see as we have in that text on the wall.
Man save Jesus only.
May the Lord help us, brethren.
I think we have the, uh, the thought, uh.
Perhaps also that the day of manifestation is coming for every one of us.
Not every Christian finishes their course with joy. The Apostle Paul did. We, uh, read in the book of Acts. His desire was to finish his course with joy. It's not how you start out in the Christian life.
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We know that there are many Christian life is a conflict in the beginning arrayed against us world, the flesh, the devil. But we have a wonderful provision.
That we all know the history of Lot. He goes to save soul. Some might even wonder would Lot be in heaven? Yes, he's going to be in heaven. He's a righteous man who vexed his soul every day and godless Sodom.
But he's not going to have.
Saved life, a saved soul and a lost life. We don't want to end our course like that. We want to end it for the glory of God. Remember that every little act in your life and mine.
Not that it is the motive, but it's an incentive. Every little act of faithfulness will have its reward in that day. It's recorded in the book of Remembrance that our brother brought before us yesterday. There it's recorded. And it will all be.
Reckoned and and manifest and rewarded by the Blessed Lord, though it's all the fruit of the is grace in our souls.
It's so important that you said I will not be negligent, to put you always in remembrance of these things. You know, in our society today, we seem to be enchanted with a new thing or a different way of presenting things. Let's not be afraid of going over the same things again and again. That's what Peter says here. 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.
And he said, yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you.
In remembrance.
That word remembrance comes up quite a few times, remember?
Then he says, knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able after my deceased, to have these things always in remembrance. And here we are 2008 having these things in remembrance again.
May the Lord help us brethren to remember.
God sees the need that some things be.
Refreshed in our souls and the importance of it that God sees, I'm sure far exceeds any apprehension we have of it. And so the Lord Jesus.
Instituted for us a time every week. Well, at least we do it every week as often.
It's commonly done on the Lord's Day, as we did this morning, that we had a time with the Lord of remembrance, that we might go back to the cross and remember Him. And it stirs in our souls the affection that God has placed there, and the praise and the worship. And so we see in Revelation chapter 5.
Thou was slain, and it says there the sense of it as a Lamb freshly slain.
When we get to glory, we are going to have brought to our perpetual remembrance the work of the cross in such a way that it will always and forever be as as if it took place that day. It will be forever fresh and a present thought in the Saints of God in the heavenly company, and will as a result produce a continual worship and praise to the Lamb that will last for eternity.
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And so that same principle is seen in this chapter there the truth, the present truth that God has for us to live out in our lives today needs continual remembrance of it and it has to stay fresh in the soul. And the the moment we turn to the ideas Bob just mentioned to hear or tell of some new thing, we're in trouble because what it suggests is.
When we say that, we're really saying the Lord Jesus doesn't satisfy me completely anymore. So what new thing can you give me in addition to that? So the children of Israel had a diet of the manna that was given to them day by day to last them through the whole of the desert journey until they got to the land. But after a while some of them despised it. It, it wasn't enough to them. They they said, no, we like what we had in Egypt, why can't we go back and have that diet?
And when these things lose their sense of that it's Christ himself that we're actually to feed on, then we can despise it. And then if we despise it, we cease to care about it and we lose it in practice and.
How many of us in this room have sung most every week for 50 years, some here more. Jesus loves me, this I know. But what a loss if if we ever came to a point in our lives where we said, I've heard that.
The danger is a lot of us can sing it without paying attention to the words. It's so ingrained in our minds and it's so much a part of us in the memory of it. That's a thing that we have to concentrate on is that our mind be where our words are because it's very easy for us to say. Not many of us. Jesus loves me and be thinking about what we're gonna do later or something, as we say 1,000,000 miles away. But may the Lord truly bring things to our remembrance in a way that they become ever fresh in our souls.
I had this special privilege this summer to be in the very room where that Him, Jesus loves me was composed some time ago.
I was in a Christian bookstore and I picked up a little book. It was the story behind the well known children's book Jesus Loves Me. And uh, I read through that book and I was thrilled reading the story of Anna Warner and her sister who lived on a little island called Constitution Island.
Uh, right off the Hudson River from the West Point Military Academy.
At the end of the book it mentioned that.
There were tours through the house, designated times during the summer months. And so I called the number that was at the end of the book. And I had the privilege of driving up the West Point and I had to be admitted into the Military Academy. And there I went down to the dock and I got a a boat over to the house. And there were those that took visitors through the house. And it was a real thrill.
To be in that very room where that hymn was composed. And another thing that I found very thrilling was that they sought to reach others, too. As soon as you got on the porch, there were piles of mats.
That they passed out to the cadets when they came over to visit the house and and a Warner and her sister had a a ministry amongst the cadets and for 40 years they had Bible studies with the cadets.
And they passed out these mats to put on the lawn so that they wouldn't get their white uniform pants stained with the grass. And so it was a real thrill. And then I learned while I was there that Anna Warner and her sister were the first civilians to be buried in the West Point Military Cemetery. So I was able to get directions from somebody there on the Academy. And I took a walk through the cemetery. And there in the corner of that cemetery, there's a.
A stone for Anna Warner and her sister, and there was a plaque on the ground.
00:50:02
Hannah Warner, author of the beloved children's hymn Jesus Loves Me. And then it had the first verse of Jesus Loves Me right there in stone for everyone to see that visits that. What a thrill it was.
But getting along with what was said concerning.
Remembering.
A lot of what we want to remember.
Really goes along with what we value, doesn't it?
And I was just thinking of that verse that is often quoted, March, day, morning, and red, and lamentations. Is that nothing to you all ye that pass by, behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto our sorrow. Our brother Dawn mentioned that it's easy to despise things to things do not have the same after a period of time the same fresh.
Freshness in our lives. And I understand the first part of that verse and Lamentations is on a War Memorial in the city of Seattle, WA. So anyone that walks by that memorial sees those words. Is it nothing to you that passed by? Well, later on in Lamentations we're we're told to remember mine. Affliction and my misery, the Wormwood and the gall.
So it's again putting him in remembrance, isn't it?
Since this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. And then the previous verse it says, My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.
I just remember that.
Actually the need and remembrance is in some sense connected with our limitations as human beings, that the mind has to be refreshed or it eventually pages and the memory goes away of something. God doesn't have that limitation.
God isn't one who has any limitation of the passage of time changing his memory about anything. He in himself knows anything in all things. But wonderful be our God. He has chosen not to bring to His mind a certain thing forever.
He could only do it by an exercise of his own will, otherwise it would remain before him forever.
But God has said their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Blessed be our God, that He by an act of his own will, has chosen that he will never bring back to mind and mem remembrance our sins and iniquities that have been purged by the precious blood of Christ of the Cross.
I enjoyed on that. In the way it's put it says I will remember.
No more.
It seems to indicate that all our sins and iniquities were remembered once when Jesus was hanging on that cross and those three hours of darkness and laid upon him. And now he says, I will remember them no more.
About doctrine and.
Little emphasis put on doctrine generally.
Uh, we hear them say it doesn't matter what you believe, we are all, uh, one in Christ and, uh, let's uh, go on together. Well, that's, uh, true, but there is the present truth and, uh, we should, uh, value the revelation that God has given to us.
In his word for the present dispensation, the truth of the, the church and our justification and these wonderful aspects of truth, we need to be established in them, our eternal security, our heavenly calling, the position of the believer in the world today. Uh, alas, we do not find these, uh, truths ministered in Christendom. So, uh, we should be so thankful.
Only by the grace of God that we are gathered to the name of the Lord, where all the truth and sound doctrine is, uh, is uh, presented and uh, seek to be established in the present proof that God has, uh, left to us.
00:55:14
In our reading at home, we've been through Lamentations, we've been reading Mr. Davis comments in the synopsis, and there's a passage here that perhaps I'd like to read from the second of Lamentations and the starting of verse five. The Lord was as an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel, He has swallowed up all her palaces, He had destroyed his strongholds, He had increased in the daughter of Judah Morna, and mourning and lamentation, and He had violently taken away his cabinet as if it were of a garden. He had destroyed his palaces of the assembly. The Lord has caused the solemn feasts and the Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion and the despised.
In the indignation of his anger, the King and the priest, the Lord has cast off his altar, He hath a board, His sanctuary. He have given up into the hand of the enemy the walls and her palaces. Now Mr. Darby makes a comment on that. He said it's a solemn, solemn thing when the Lord destroys that which He set up.
And he said the reason the Lord did it was because it no longer represented him. And so we have the apostles concerned here. I believe that though they have the present truth, though you know them and be established in the present truth, and all those things that John has mentioned about a very, very precious person may be valuable.
And I mean, we've got to admit.
That the Lord has dealt with us. There are places where there was a testimony those gathered to the Lords name a few years ago and we can no longer say that that's still true.
But as as as individuals, but also of course as those locally gathered to the Lords name, do we reflect?
The greatest of the Lord are shown in those seven qualities that we've been discussing.
Because it got to the stage in Israel where they were going through the motions. They had the temple, they had the altar, and the Lord said it was my altar, but He destroyed it because it no longer represented him.
Just comment on that umm.
The principle or that point, that's what is brought before us in Revelation. True with respect to Ephesus.
God placed the church in the world as a light bearer to express himself to the world. God is light as it says in Ephesians chapter 5. Ye are the light of the world. God is love and God has placed the church.
As a light bearer in this world to express what he is as love.
What was being said to Ephesus was if you do not.
And you have lost it in yourselves if you do not express what I am to this world as love, and you can't express it if it's not practiced in you, if it's not yourselves as love in the Lord, then you can't express it to others. And if you don't express it to others, then your purpose as a light bearer.
Is gone and I will remove you as a Candlestick.
And that is going to happen. It happens to the individual assembly of Ephesus, and it is going to happen with the church as a whole in the earth that the day comes when the church is removed completely from the earth as a responsible witness for God as to what He is. And it's a humbling thing, brethren, that it is to be so.
Because the Church and as God sees it, he doesn't look at denominations and those gathered to the Lord's name and this and that as we tend to, but he looks at it as a whole and he says, no, it does not represent me and I will remove it. And so if it is not a reality in our souls, even individually, we cannot.
01:00:21
Represent God.
As we're taught in Ephesians 5 as light and love.
And so it ought to be something that would humble us, and to make us, if you will, diligent to call these things to remembrance that we might.
At least, while imperfectly, it may be more nearly.
And more in practice, honor what God is and what the Lord Jesus is to our fellow man and to one another.
And especially in view of what's coming, brethren, uh, verse 16.
Forwards speaks of the Mount Transfiguration experience that we have in.
Uh, three of the Gospels and it says we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. These are not fables we're talking about. These are historical realities. This actually happened. He said we were eyewitnesses, notice.
Not only were the eyewitnesses, but it says in verse 18, this voice which came from heaven, we heard. It's the same as the Apostle John says in his first epistle chapter one and verse three, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you interesting through those two means.
God has given witness to that future.
Kingdom that is going to enter into this world in power and glory, as we mentioned yesterday.
To today, the Kingdom is in tribulation and patience. Those that recognize and seek to own the authority of the Lord Jesus are persecuted, are killed in many parts of the world. But the Kingdom is coming in power and glory, and the apostles had a preview of it. Peter, James and John that is.
Taken up into the Mount of Transfiguration, a preview of the Kingdom. And like Don says, there's different.
Parts of the Kingdom. Jesus was transfigured. His face shone.
As the Son, the supreme authority in that future Kingdom.
Then there were those heavenly occupants of the Kingdom, Moses and Elias.
Appeared in glory. It's interesting. They were talking with Jesus. What were they talking about? Not talking about the glories of heaven.
They were talking about something that was extremely more glorious, his decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Tremendous to try to think about that. Tremendous.
And it's interesting to me as I think of that amount of transfiguration. We know that Peter, James and John were quite odd at seeing Moses and Elijah. Of course, they've never seen them before. First time they see these two figures that were so well known in Israelite history.
But it doesn't seem in looking at the story in the three gospels that Moses and Elijah.
Recognize the presence.
Peter, James and John, they were the earthly side of the Kingdom, representative of the earthly side of the Kingdom.
Why didn't? Why didn't it seem like they recognized their presence?
They were in the presence of Jesus when we get there.
Oh brother, what is it going to be to be face to face with him?
I don't think our bodies are capable of even taking that in right now. To see him is going to transform us not only morally and spiritually, but physically gonna be transformed into His image.
What a day it's gonna be.
Let me see him.
#168.
01:05:12
I'd like to make a comment on the glories here in verses 16 and 17. We'll keep your hymn in mind, brother. That's a wonderful ham. But we got a wonderful subject here before us too. The glory and that Transfiguration mount was.
Uh, preview of the earthly Kingdom, I believe here on earth. And I'd just like to point out, I, I trust I'm right in this, uh, uh, two different kinds of glory that were there that these verses speak of. First of all, in verse 16, we have the, uh, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and they were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. That is, he was transfigured there before them on earth. And I take that as a picture.
Of the glory with which the Lord Jesus will come to earth in his Kingdom.
When he establishes order here on earth. But after Peter made that, those infamous comments about building making tabernacles and spoiled it.
There came out of another glory here. It calls that the excellent glory, and Peter comments on this and he calls it the excellent glory. I don't believe he was talking about the glory with which the Lord was transfigured before them.
He was talking now about where that voice came from. This is my well beloved son. Hear him?
That was from the Father, and I believe it represents the heavenly glory.
Uh, and I've got in God's presence and which really is the place that we are called to as the bride of Christ. And Peter seems to get a hold of that here and he calls it the, the excellent glory.
Am I right in that brother?
Nice and in John 17.
Father I will that they be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.
Tells us that in connection with that excellent glory, there are things that the Lord Jesus was saying to the Father in John 17. Father, I want to bring them here where you and I are.
Because there are glories to be seen here that cannot be seen on the earth. And so it's only when we are brought in and will be brought into His presence and be with Him where He is, according to John 17, that we are going to behold glories that we now do not see and are not able to see. There are those things which belong to the family of God, to the bride of Christ.
Which can only be enjoyed and entered into when we are in that very scene of the excellent glory. So we have a lot to look forward to. Peter got a glimpse of the source of it, but even what he saw as a source of it, it still remains for anyone to be able to enter into it. And but yet we will when we are there.
It's a wonderful thing.
Uh, to realize too that the Lord had acquired glories to, didn't he think of that scripture and, uh, Genesis 45 where?
Joseph is giving instruction to his brother, and he says in the 11Th or uh, the 13th verse of that chapter. And you shall tell my father of all my glory. Earlier in the code of many colors we had.
We really cannot fully enter into that, but in the 45th chapter there were those things that he acquired as and Joseph, of course, being typical of the Lord Jesus that were acquired in the land of Egypt. And I think we'll enter into some of that more fully too, won't we?
We will always be creatures, and in First Timothy chapter 6 we are told that God dwells in light which no man can approach unto. Simply mention that to say that there are absolute glories in God that we as creatures will never grasp. We will never be even exposed to them that God is so.
01:10:20
Great in Himself and His own glory, that He does dwell in light which no man can or ever will approach unto, and both the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have within themselves, and that which they are, those essential glories of their being that will always be beyond us, the creature. But God has come out in the greatness of His own.
Self to display Himself in glory in a way that we as creatures are going to and can now lay hold of, or they can lay hold of us. And that is that God has come out in the person of a man and all that we could ever enter into. He has come down from himself in the person of the Lord Jesus to display Himself.
And his glory in its greatness in the person of the Lord Jesus, and so that we might enjoy it for all eternity. The Lord Jesus has made perhaps the greatest decision of his being was as given to us in Exodus 21. I love my Master, my wife and my children. I will not go out free. And so the Lord Jesus.
The Son of God has chosen to remain in the place of manhood for eternity so that God's glory might forever be in display to us in a way that we could view it. And the Lord Jesus has chosen to remain that as a servant. That's a servant's place for him to remain a man. And yet he says I'll remain in the servant's place forever.
That in love to my Father, I may display His glory to man. He has chosen to remain in that place because He says to us.
I'll never separate myself.
From you I have set my love upon you. I will never separate myself from you by going back into that place of essential glory that you cannot come. And so he says, I'll take the place of service and love to you because I love you. And he when it says the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, it separates the giving and the love in that sense that the Lord Jesus.
Including his love. I don't know that I can make the thought clear, but it's a precious thought. The Lord Jesus invested himself in US completely to the full extent of his love. Meaning that if you're not happy, he can't be happy.
You know, if you love somebody and they're not happy, you yourself are affected by that love that you have for that person. And if I could speak reverently, because he loves us to the extent that his own personal joy and satisfaction now is dependent in one sense upon us. And so his work is that which will ensure that in the coming glory he can rest in his love.
And he will do everything and has done everything necessary to the satisfaction of the Father, the glory of God, but also taking us the extent of himself that loved me is all the way. It's it's even beyond the sense of the love that took him to the cross. It is a love that totally connects him with us.
In a way, brethren, that we'll never perhaps ever fathom the fullness of it, but when we when we're there and we we see it, you know, when we met, when we see the face of the Lord Jesus according to Psalm 16, it says.
Thy countenance, Mr. Garvey's translation. Thy countenance is fullness of joy. When you and I behold the countenance of the Lord Jesus face to face, we're going to know what fullness of joy is, because we're going to see it in His face.
01:15:19
You are going to look upon the face of the Lord Jesus, and you're going to look upon a face the countenance of which is the fullness of joy, and it's all Himself in his satisfaction and the joy of His heart, that you are with Him now forever.
I was thinking, uh, before we, I know I find it's nearly gone, but it might be, uh, aptitude to just comment, uh, very briefly on verse 19. Uh, we also have a more sure word of prophecy.
Uh, whereunto ye do well, that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the daystar arise in your hearts. We've been Speaking of the Transfiguration scene, which is a preview of the Millennium. Really. That is the dawning of the day for this world, when all oppression and uh, all the results of sin and the rebellion will be obliterated, and Christ will have His rightful place.
He rejoiced to look forward to that time because he's rejected now. But then the daystar rising in our hearts is a little different thought. We know that the daystar appears long before the dawn. I suppose it's the planet Venus, perhaps very early in the morning. It appears there on the horizon long before the actual day breaks. And that day star, is the hope of the Lord's coming and it.
Should arise in our hearts. Now, we're not exactly, uh, looking for the establishment of the Kingdom, although we're going to rejoice when, uh, it is accomplished and the Lord has his rightful place. But the daystar is the Morning Star, and that should be arising in our hearts right now. Like I will give unto him the morning star, the Church of Thyatira. That's the hope of the Lord's coming. We're not looking for a better world.
We're not down here to improve the world, but our hope is the Lord's return. How often I speak for myself. We forget this and settle down to the things of time and sense. But that daystar has arisen in our hearts. The bright prospect that even before this day is over, the Lord could come. Well, may the Lord keep us in the enjoyment.