Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let me continue.
If any other brother has something for us or a suggestion.
You don't have to stay in First Peter 4.
With every man hath received again, Even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Any man speak, let him speak as the Oracle to broad.
In man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God-given it. The God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whom He praised, and dominion forever and ever men.
I love it thinketh not strange, and turning the part of the child which is the Bayou, as though some strange thing happened unto you. Look at joy as much as you are for takers of Christ suffering.
And when this glory shall be revealed, he may be glad also with exceeding joy.
Did he be reposed for the name of Christ? Happy are you, for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part He is even spoken of, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief.
Then if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, and let him glorify God on this behalf.
And the time is calm that judgment must begin at the House of God, and it first began at us, until the envy of them that obey not the gospel or God. And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where?
The ungodly and the Sinner appear.
Wherefore let them suffer according to the will of God, amidst the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing.
Creators.
Beginning at verse seven of this chapter, we have this expression. The end of all things is at hand.
And then falling, falling from that, we have a number of exhortations that we are to, uh, take heed to in view of the fact that we are in end times and that the end of all things is at hand. We've already spoken of the need to be sober and then the need to be in prayer for dependence upon the Lord.
And to love one another fervently.
And to use hospitality.
And now when we began reading today verses 10 and 11, we have another thing, and that is the need to use our gift to minister to others that God would be glorified in their souls.
And then in verses 12/13/14 we have another thing, and that is the need to rejoice in trial.
In the trial of suffering, for Christ's sake.
And then last but not least, the last four or five verses of the chapter to be on guard against misconduct, because there is a Father's hand dealing with us in government if that be the case.
So verses 10 and 11.
Bring out an important thing, and that is the need for ministry in these times. There's never more time than now to be found together and getting our souls built up on the most holy faith. And here he tells us that every man has a gift, says the gift that should be translated, a gift. Every one of us have a gift and we are to use that gift for the profit of our brethren and for their good and for their blessing.
And that's an important point to get ahold of.
Every Christian had a gift. There's three verses in the Bible, at least that I know of the New Testament, that indicate this.
One I think is in Matthew 25.
Let me just turn to that Matthew 25.
By way of the parable that the Lord gave.
00:05:07
Matthew 25, verses 14 and 15.
But the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a man traveling into a far country, who had called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods, and he gave unto 1.
UH-5 talons into another, two into another, and every man according to his several ability. The word I've been focusing on now is every man.
Seasons 4 gives you another place.
Ephesians 4/7.
But unto everyone, notice everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Each one of us has been given a gift and grace to carry out the service of that gift for the blessing of God's people. Then we have it again in our chapter verse 10. Every man has received a gift and isn't interesting.
Yeah, when it speaks about receiving a gift, there's no mention anywhere in the New Testament, not here, not in Ephesians, not in Matthew, nowhere that you get the idea that if you discern that you have a gift, that you should go to a Bible school or seminary to be ordained before you can use it. They'll learn to have a gift, or the possession of a gift is the warrant to use it, rather the very fact that one has a gift.
This is warrant to use it so it goes on and says.
If any man minister, let a minister according to the ability which God-given.
No mention.
That we need to be trained in some school or something like this.
So we all have a gift, but I would like to also say that this does not mean that we all have a gift to minister the Word. That's only one area where gift is used. We do not believe in every man ministry of the Word. We do believe that every man has a ministry, but not every man has a ministry necessarily and publicly giving the Word to the Saints of God.
Many gifts are not for that purpose, but some are.
Perhaps you could tell us the difference between ability and gift. I recall at a conference you made the distinction. I found it very helpful.
OK, well you have it in two places here in verse 10 and 11. You have gifts mentioned first in verse 10 and then in verse 11 you have the word ability used. And then back in that passage in Matthew 25 again it says the same thing. He gave a talent according to their several abilities. You have the giving of the gift and the talent and the ability.
There are two different things, uh, ability is to do with what we have, uh, received from God naturally from birth.
Our natural powers to, uh, our capabilities that we have naturally, but then, uh, we have, when we're saved, the Spirit of God gives us a spiritual gift when we receive the indwelling spirit and we are to exercise that gift. And God is wise in the way he gives it, that he gives it according to the ability that we have. And so he, since he gets spiritually that we've been given to what we are naturally, what he's been forming in our personality.
In other words, he would not necessarily give the gift of an evangelist to someone who is very, very reticent and is frightened of talking to people. It's more rather a person that is more outgoing and rather, uh, interested in souls in that way. So he matches the spiritual gift with what he's already been doing in the soul, even before the person is saying, informing his natural powers.
That would be an example, and I remember you brought out the converse. Just because you have a natural ability to say a very strong right arm, it doesn't mean to say you should become a quarterback and uh, uh, think you're going to use a spiritual gift in that in doing that case.
MMM. And so we get all three things, I believe, brought out in the word of God. Begat thee.
Vessel fitted for the gift. That's the natural ability we get. The gift given of God, which is Bruce's brought out suits the natural ability of the individual. And then there's the development of the gift and the exercise of it. And I I like that comment. It's not by going to a seminary or a Bible school. Again, I'm not saying that God doesn't use them. He does.
00:10:14
But God would have you and me to develop that gift within the framework of the assembly and with our own exercise, meditation, reading of the Scriptures before Him. And I suggest if we are really before the Lord, there won't be a difficulty in discerning first of all, what our gift is, secondly, in what direction He would have us to move in developing it. And so all three are brought before us in Scripture.
I enjoy the old thinking, Uh, I've had sometimes young people.
Uh, ask how do you know what gift you may have? I'm not sure that we need to.
Think about that and try to determine that I enjoyed what one brother said. He, uh, used what the Mary said to the servants at the wedding face.
She sat.
Whatsoever he says unto you, do it.
In other words, my right hand does not say, Do I have the gifts of feeding this man?
No, it just simply obeys the head, picks up the board and starts to feed me. And I think that's what we need to be exercised about. Be responsive to the directions that the Lord gives you and I think in time.
You say the Lord may show us what our sin may be, but specially since gift is something that is developed, you do not get gift. But I can say by studying you get gifts because it's given.
But I'd like to point out something else that you mentioned Bruce and Ephesians chapter 4 where it says unto everyone is given.
Umm, they read it here.
Ephesians 4 and verse 7 Unto everyone of us that's given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Not everyone has the same measure of gift.
God knows what major he may have given you.
And it says is given grace and even though he may have a gift, we should always use it in the sense of looking up to the head who has given that? Yet if you don't get a continual supply of grace, sometimes very gifted people have been a great stumbling block and the people of God. And so we need grace.
To use that yet, there's another verse that I'd like to mention in Romans 12 where you get the body of Christ mentioned and also the gifts.
Yeah, verse 3.
He said, I saved through the grace that is, the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
But to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith, there it is connection with the gifts that follow every man. But it's here it's in connection with the measure of faith. And the faith is not always the same in every individual, so it needs to be exercised.
In faith, with a sense in the soul.
That the Lord has given something to me that he means for the prophet of his people. And look at you young people here. I know the Lord has given you a gift when we get to the glory did the judgment seat of Christ.
And the Lord says I gave you something, how did you use it? What are you going to respond and say, I didn't even realize I had a gift? Scripture is pretty clear that everyone has a gift and so you need to be exercised before the Lord. It's not always the same gift for everyone, but being the presence of the Lord, seek to seek His face as to what you might do for Him.
Don't be occupied too much with what your gift is, but be responsive to the Lord Jesus has had as He guides you. In whatever way He may guide you, He lays something on your heart.
00:15:12
Do it hardly for him.
Well, that's very good, Bob. I just, uh, following on with that, it's very instructive to see in verse 10 that we are stewards of what of the truth of God.
No.
Call grace of God. Why does it say that? Because everything that I have is on the ground of grace. Whether it's the truth that God has given to me, the gift to receive it, the gift to give it out, whatever measure He may give to any of us, whether in a public way or a private way, whether it be an evangelism or it be in the truth or in pastoral work or anything that the Lord may give me.
It's all the grace of God, and I'm only a steward. And to me, verses 9 and 10 go together here because I'm a steward of everything I have. If God has given me the ability for you to show hospitality.
Then I am only a steward of what God has given me. How do I use it? If He has given us a measure of gift and an appreciation of the things concerning Himself, I'm a steward of it.
How do I handle it? As someone has said, I can use what I have from the Lord in two ways. I can use it to seek to accredit and distinguish myself, or in a collective sense, ourselves. Or I can seek to use it wherever the Lord opens the door, whether it's for the gospel in terms of unbelievers, or whether it's the truth of God in terms of the whole body of Christ.
As Bruce brought before us in the address, there's a right way and a wrong way to do that. I don't compromise. I don't.
Build again the things that once I destroyed, But I recognize that I'm only a steward of what God has given me. But I agree 100% with that, Bob, that even though we don't have a sufficient sense in our souls of what our gift is, the Lord put something in front of you. Go ahead and do it.
I think verses uh, 10 and 11 go together too, and I think it's.
Very, uh, important to if we're going to speak.
To speak as the oracles of God or as the mouthpiece of God.
Your kids a message to be delivered. We need to be faithful in seeking to deliver that message.
As the Lord gives it to us.
But you know, sometimes, brethren, I think.
And I.
I have to point it myself as being guilty here, brother. We are good talkers and we talk on beyond the message that the Lord has given us, and that is.
Not good.
Remember a brother who got up and gave a message one time and a brother who was close to him.
And in confidence said to him, Brother you really had a good message the 1St 20 minutes.
For the next 10 minutes, you're just shoveling coal.
And I think you know what I mean. It's just that sometimes we have something from the Lord. We're so controlled by the clock in our country that we think we have to fill out the hour.
Maybe the Lord has somebody else that wants to say something too.
Are we sensitive as to the direction of His Spirit to leave it open so that the Lord can use somebody else?
Tell a story and myself that happened to me in Bolivia that really wasn't rebuilt to me.
And Oaxaca, Mexico, and they say it's not in Bolivia, it's in Mexico. I wish Brother Eller Cohn and and Doug Buchanan. And after the conference we would usually go around to the different assemblies and we would have a reading meeting in the afternoon and in the evening we'd have a gospel meeting in. Ramon was a senior brother. He usually took the lead in preaching the gospel.
00:20:13
And then we too would follow on.
That particular evening, because I followed on and when it was about 10 minutes left, I thought, ma'am.
They're expecting me to stand up and say something that I really don't have anything.
Since since they're expecting, I'm going to get up and say something.
And it was not the Spirit of God.
And while I was speaking.
My brother I saw got up and walked over and talked to in brother Ramon's ear and then went back and stepped down.
Brother Ramon is very functional in the end of the hour arcade, he always closed the meeting, and after he closed the meeting, he said too bad. Uh, Brother on Hill had something to say, but there was no time for him.
What do we do to me, brother?
We don't have anything to say. Let's keep our mouth shut. And I say that because, brother, I feel I'm guilty of that, of quenching the Spirit and other. My brethren. Lord, give us sensitivity.
If we're going to speak, speak as the oracles of God. Say what the Lord has given you.
Leave it there.
Some of us know our brother John Wilhelm Senior, and he used to exhort us younger brothers when we would preach the gospel or stand up for ministry.
And he would tell us, he said. You, younger brother, should be like electric motors. When the power is turned off, you quit.
This probably works both ways though, and sometimes the person has something to say and doesn't say it.
And sit there. And then everybody is sitting there and nothing is set. This happens especially in the breaking of bread, especially in small meetings.
And it's discouraging.
It says here in verse 10 that, uh, this gift, uh, as every man has received the gift, Even so administer the same one to another. And so we oftentimes get the idea that this, uh, is really for a crowd, an individual. Uh, but that's not so often times the gift of shepherding is an individual and working with another individual, uh, teaching is sometimes one-on-one. And, uh, there's a need to see individuals as God sees them and to recognize the need at the time in the field that need.
I would just, uh, point out something else that, uh, my wife, uh, told me of, uh, how she was in the hospital and perhaps you've heard me give this illustration, but I think it's helpful. She worked in the hospital with nine doctors and, umm, she said that they were, umm, in that hospital. They come in, they do their medical records and she worked in medical records department and they were, there were, umm, three or four doctors that were very gifted doctors. They had a good diagnosis.
Uh, The cases that came before them, they made their proper diagnosis, they were happy, they got their charts done. They just work that was just smooth. And then there were five of them or six of them that were in it for the, for the money. And she said, you never saw such miserable people that didn't like to go to work, didn't like to fill out their charts, had wrong diagnosis, lawsuits on their hands, all those sorts of things. And so I just point this out as an encouragement to us to exercise our gifts.
Post was exhorted by the apostle Paul to umm pick up that ministry, pick up that Commission that he'd received with the Lord could use it to use that gift for the prophet of God's people. No one else had been given the gifts that Arpanthus had. He was the only one that was called a fellow soldier. He was the only one that perhaps God had fitted in that day to be able to properly defend the hill of assembly there in Colossi and umm, he needed to be stirred up. So it just say that that if you exercise your gift.
00:25:14
Then, uh, when I add it, it's actually a breaking of bread there we're not referring to yet. It doesn't take yet to stand up and say thank you.
Or to praise his name. I just got it there. We sometimes think, Robert, that the gift is to be used in assembly meeting, but that is only one place for use of gift. It's to be used at all times in whatever circumstance the Lord may, uh, give you to, uh, circulate it. I was thinking, uh, first and second Timothy.
When Paul has addressed him to Timothy, what he says, and I think it's helpful. Timothy was a young man raised the apostle Paul speaks of his you and I like to read what he says to Timothy in First Timothy 4IN connection with the gifts. I don't know that we know what Timothy's gift might have been.
But it says in First Timothy 414.
It was not the gift that is indeed which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on in the hands of the Presbytery or the Elderhood.
In other words, each one has a gift and Timothy had a gift, but he was Tim, he was timid and he had to be encouraged. We need to be sensitive, brethren, as to our younger brother that are coming along.
To encourage them also to use that gift, Don't neglect it. God has given that to you for the good of all, and if you neglect it, not only you will suffer, but all the people of God are going to lack in something that He wants to give through that means.
But it's interesting, I said it was given to him by prophecy, and I suggest a thought here I'd like to hear.
Some brother has some other thoughts. Bust up perhaps?
The Apostle Paul or perhaps someone other?
Sense that God has given Timothy a particular gift and holy Timothy the Lord has given you something that is very helpful for the people of God use it. That's prophecy and then with the laying on of the hands of the elderhood. In other words, he was had the full fellowship of his local brethren when Paul.
Uh, it says in chapter 16 of Acts one is Timothy to go with him. He was one who had a good testimony of the brethren in his locality. Oh how?
Helpful. That is when that is the case. But like Chris was mentioning, First Timothy is when things were in order. But now notice Second Timothy chapter one when there was ruin in the public testimony.
And Hurst.
Six Therefore I put the in remembrance, that thou stirred up the gift of God, which is in thee, by the putting on of my hand.
Not here of the elderhood any longer. We're in days when we don't name elders. We don't have a process to do that. But the apostles, but umm, also Paul had laid on his hands, he had given Timothy his full fellowship to go forward and to be a help amongst the people of God. And he says, uh, to, not uh, to stir up the gift of God.
Spanish translation, it says wake up the gift of God. It was dormant in him. And I fear brother, that there is a lot of dormant gifts amongst us. May the Lord help us. You dear young people, older ones too. Yeah, that God has given for the good of his people. That is not being used. May the Lord help us.
Are there gifts that come from exercise? Is there a I remember a bird saying earnestly desire the best gift? Is that related?
00:30:13
This Corinthians 13 that is.
Stop.
31St verse of chapter 12. Excuse me?
It says, but covet earnestly the best gift.
Yet show I unto you a more excellent way.
That's referring to the assembly, uh, being in prayer to God that there would be a good plentiful supply of ministerial gifts so that his assembly would be, uh, blessed. Not referring to individuals desiring to have a certain gift. And I look at my brother Bill, the gift of teaching. I like to be like that. We don't, uh, covet one another's gift in that way. It's more the thought of being in prayer before God and desiring.
Him.
That he would supply the assembly with a good uh.
Number of ministerial gifts such as that would be prophecy and build up the Saints in the most holy faith. So it's a collective desiring here. Did you agree with that 100%? Yes. I think we would all agree to that in the sense in which Bruce is mentioning that Timothy was also told in Second Timothy 4 to do the work of an evangelist. Now we don't need to argue about whether he had the gift of an evangelist or not. Some would feel that he did.
And that it simply ended stirring up, uh, personally, I prefer to think that perhaps he was having to do something that maybe he wasn't altogether gifted or qualified for. And we may find that.
To me, it's significant that that remark is in Second Timothy because in the days of ruin in which we are, we may find that the needed gift because of the confusion and ruin that has come in is not immediately available to us. And we all know the old story about the wife that was sick in the hospital. And what does the husband do? He does his best in the kitchen, not because he's trying to compete with his wife.
Our husbands can be good cooks. I don't mean that, but if it were me, I wouldn't compete with my wife. But the point is, if the children are hungry, the husband does his best and he may improve with time, as Bruce says, simply because.
He is working at it. And so there is that sense, I believe, in these last days where I do something because the Lord, as Bob says, puts it in front of me.
And maybe I say, well, I'm not. I'm not that gifted, I must confess.
To use Bruce's analogy, more than once in our local assembly I've said, Oh, if only we had so and so here, or if only we had so and so, and I'll throw the ball back at Bruce. I've said more than once when?
Brethren were pitching difficult questions about prophecy around. I've said I wish we had brother Bruce here, but he's 2500 miles away in Richmond, BC. So what do we do? We do the best we can.
And is there a sense of that in these last days? I believe there is. And so it's not that we're trying to pretend to be something, but it's that we do what the Lord puts in front of us to the best of our ability.
And we will improve with time.
So was that the case possibly with Moses?
The 5th chapter of Exodus when God gave me the permission to make the children of Israel out of Egypt and he puts up his protest, even saying that I'm not elegant, I can't talk and God even gets angry with him as to his excuses and his.
Defer this Commission, perhaps. And then I wonder, what was Moses, you know?
Did Moses have again or did God just say you're going to do what I meant to do?
00:35:01
His ability to do it really. Read later that he was Tamika of all men.
An interesting answer must be the use of God for what he accomplished there in Egypt brings that people out. And then there's the Apostle Paul. He says there in Prince. His second Prince is, I believe, something about.
When God has a purpose to accomplish, he uses such creatures as we as a marble. We need to begin with, but then he would take pictures, Moses and friends, the apostles fall to him, perhaps others.
Purposes and so, uh, there may be in the beginning for each of them in a way that apparently shows no gift but.
I think it has to do with the when a person receives a gift by the Spirit of God when he's saved, God gives it an embryo, so to speak, and it leaves it for the individual to exercise that and to develop it so that it becomes.
Uh, E efficient with it and where I would, uh, turn you to, to show you that in the life of, uh, the ministry of the Lord Jesus would be in math. No, it's in Mark 4.
When he speaks about the, uh, the growth of seeds and it's, uh, 60643060 and then 100 showing that because that lessons with regard to service in Mark's gospel. And he's showing there that as the serpent goes forth in the early use of his gift, he may produce 30 fold, but as he goes on and develops that gift is 60 fold until 100 fold. And that's the normal order of things, whereas he and Matthew, it takes it. Then the numbers go in reverse because he's not talking about the exercise of gifts and service. He's talking about dispensational things.
And in dispensational truth with regard to God's ways, everything diminishes as the dispensation comes to the close of its, uh, time. And so it's completely different than Matthew. And so God gives us a gift in embryo. We are responsible to exercise it and to, uh, use it in dependence upon the Lord. And we will be more and more, uh, effective with it. A number of you older brethren will remember Armistead Barry.
Mr. Clark told Wayne and I that, uh.
Mr. Hayhoe Senior Hayhoe Mr. Harry Hayhoe used to sit in his front room and say when he first started ministry we thought I have a gift and he said we had a proof it was painful.
But he says, you know, after he got going, he would he would got better and better. Now it's so good. I just love it. Well, what happened? Did he acquire a gift along the way? No, he didn't. He had it all alone, but it needed to be developed.
And those of us who know of Mr. Barry's ministry, it was good ministry.
Very sound and and full of the grace of God. So I would just say for the younger ones that are here that God has given you a gift. If you're saved, you may not know what it is, but as you do those things that are before you, it will become evident as you go along in your Christian pathway. And the reason why I say this is because that's the reason why we don't take, let's say, let's say there's a 15 year old boy that's here. He's been saved. He's got to get and it's a gift of teaching. Well, why don't we get him to sit here on this chair here and teach it. He's got a gift of teaching.
Well, there's more to it than that. It needs to be developed. He needs to learn the truth, take it in and then be exercised about how to give it out. And in time he will be useful. But at 15 it, it's not effective yet. And I would be out of place for him to to be teaching in in that state. And so there is, as we were saying, there's ability, there's gift, then there's the development of the gift. And then there's also that the exercising it independence upon the Lord. Maybe some brother and I know there are, but here in this room this afternoon.
To have a gift that could explain these things as good as any person here.
But they, there's the Spirit of God that leads and they carry it out in dependence upon the Lord. And maybe the Spirit of God is not leading at this time with regards to certain ones. So we need to realize and take into consideration that, uh, it is, it has to be carried out independence upon the Lord. Would you agree with it that way?
00:40:12
I remember, uh, your father-in-law kind of Bill who was encouraging his younger brothers one time Albert Hagel and.
So the first time he got up to give the gospel, I guess it must have been in Toronto, and there were quite a few senior brothers and.
Said he was trembling so bad that his mouth went dry and to pick up the glass of water and his hand was trimmed and so that he had to hold it with both hands get it up to his mouth.
That didn't have us to remember hearing Albert Hale preach the gospel. What a tremendous gift he had in that particular area. It shows that gift has to be developed so.
Don't get discouraged young brother, if you make your mistakes.
Get more dependent on the Lord and continue on in our military, in the Special Forces, it's interesting to notice, I forget how many there are in their teams, but let's say there's ten. They train everybody to do all the jobs of everybody else. But there's one guy who's very good at each job. There's a sniper, there's a medic, but they all are trained how to do triage. They're all trained and do how to do sniper work. They're all trained in the individual talent. Somebody is an explosive expert and so on. But there's one guy who's really gifted at it, but they train everybody to do it. And I thought about this, that.
If you look at all the gifts that are in the Bible, to some extent those things should show up in every Christian's life. Like let's say the gift of health, which shouldn't all Christians be helpful?
The gift of faith.
Should all Christians manifest faith?
The gift of teaching sent all Christians bell to explain, even if it's to one person, the truth. If all the gifted teachers are away in an assembly, they're all sick or something and you, you come together. Should they sit in silence and no one say anything? I think the Lord can lead if, uh, one of those guys in special forces is wounded and falls by the way, or killed, someone picks up part of that job because there's a need to. I like the, some of the thoughts that were expressed about the times that we're in. And it is not that somebody that has the, a lesser ability would step up and say, well, I can do that too. I'll just take over here and, and take care of it.
No, maybe they stepped into that fight. Then I had another thought in this regard about the mentoring. When we look in the New Testament, no, we don't see clergy and we don't see seminaries, but we do see mentors. We do see older brethren mentoring the younger ones. Timothy and Titus would be examples of that, wouldn't it? Well, when you went, if those who went to public school and went to gym class, gym class, you played volleyball, you ran, you did all kinds of things. Well, often the gym classes.
Uh, were run by coach and they will notice things. They'll notice the kid that can really run and they may come to him and say, you ought to cry for track and I'll notice the kid that can really kick the soccer ball in gym class. You know, maybe we need you as a place kicker on the football team. That something is seen as they watch them go about exercising what they do and somebody who has an eye for the talent is watching and saying, you know, maybe you should try out for that because you seem to have an ability.
Well, you may see some kid may throw the football and be pretty good with these little buddies and he's a short little guy. You may not tell that guy to try out for the quarterback position, but the guy that's big and tall and can throw it half the length of the football team, uh, the football, uh, field, You may, the coach will say, you know what, you ought to come try out for the football team. I've thought about it in that way that when somebody comes alongside and says, you know, brother.
Uh, I've noticed something about you. You seem to be, whenever there's a need, you seem to be there to be helping somebody. When I was in the assembly in, in Des Moines, there were, there was a couple there that if anybody ever asked me who has the gift of health, I named them right away because they're always there. And that was the subtle it, Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland, I said, man, they're always there. Whenever there's a need, they're there. They're always doing it and just quietly and behind the scenes.
That may be somebody's main gift. There may be somebody that has several, but older brethren can come alongside and say, you know, I've noticed something. Perhaps you ought to look to the Lord about it. Maybe you should pray in regard to this. I've seen this in you.
00:45:06
I like what is at the end of the 1St 11 is about to get. We've been speaking up for a while. It gives the end of it or the purpose.
That it's not to exult ourselves. It's one that I've often heard said Christensen, is a vast arena where men are striving to put themselves forward. Well, this is the contrast of that and the purpose of gift, the end of it that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praised and dominion forever and ever, though be A and in that way, brother Steve, I think that partly explains the.
Bodily presence of Paul being weak and his speech contemptible.
Sometimes when God gives a gift, yes, He does prepare the vessel for it gives the ability. But sometimes, especially with a prominent gift, the Lord may deliberately make the vessel.
Less appealing in the natural sense. In order that Christ may be exalted and in order that God may be glorified, man must be more in the background, I believe. And so if that happens sometimes.
Well, the Corinthians were right there. They they wanted someone that looked very good and so on. Remember someone remarked to me, you said, have you all, have you noticed how that it's usually tall men, good looking men that get to be president of the United States? There's a reason for that.
Sure, that doesn't mean that they've got everything between the ears, but people like that kind of a person. And I don't say that to pick on the United States. It was just a statement that was made. But sometimes God deliberately makes the vessel less attractive in the natural sense in order that Christ might be more honored and glorified. And so we should seek to attract to Christ, not to ourselves. When God gives the gift, you don't thank the gift, you thank the giver of the gift.
Yeah, and I think we need to be, umm, careful in how we encourage not to puff up rather, but that's the Lord would be glorified.
Let's say that I feel Lord has had to deal with me very strongly at times to make me feel when I.
Terrible dependence on Him at all times. There's going to be any blessing from your life to your young people or older ones to it's because of the Lord using you and if you get clocked with your own importance.
You won't be a vessel that the Lord can use. I feel that happens sometimes.
Look to the Lord at all times. He is the one that gives the blessing, uses human instruments, but if we think we are important then he may not be able to use this like he wants to.
Lord help us that's in verse 7 Bob at the end of verse seven is the safeguard, isn't it be ye therefore sober it is we want their thoughts. What are we about and it's by watching undue prayer. That's twice of defense. That's what that's where we're found in that place. It's a tenants. It's been fair.
Well, we probably should go on a bit if we're going to finish the chapter.
Well, we have two more things here that are brought before us.
In verses 1213 and 14.
We have the reproach for the name of Christ.
And that is a very real thing in this world.
It's a very direct thing in many parts of the world today. Perhaps we're not so much aware of it, but they tell me on good authority that.
Probably it's a conservative figure that close to 200,000 people as believers give up their lives for the name of Christ every year. In the world of today, you don't hear much about it. You may hear about the odd one, but it goes on. The name of Curtis is not wanted and you and I live in lands where we don't have to experience that for the moment.
But there is a reproach for the name of Christ, And if we can.
Play a little emphasis on what was said in the address this afternoon if we're going to be faithful to Christ in the true sense of the Word and walk according to His precious Word.
00:50:06
There is a cross to be born that will not be popular, even in some cases among fellow believers and in the House of God.
Scripture now calls it a great house in Second Timothy 2 and in the Great house, sad to say. And we're not here, as Bruce said, to throw rocks at other believers or speak I'll of any particular group.
But merely to say that the devil has done a good job of bringing Christianity down to the level of the world, mixing it with the world so that it has an air of respectability, an air of tolerance that was never intended in the first place.
And if you and I seek to follow a rejected Christ with a full heart, we will find that these verses will apply even in these favored lands.
But I say to you, and I trust that I say it to my own soul, remember the truth at verse 14.
Never fear the reproach of Christ that someone has said. It will make your face shine like an Angel.
And it will, because you will realize that the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
And so if we're spoken I'll of in the pathway of faithfulness, it's a wonderful thing. The next few verses, and we'll get to them in a few minutes, speak of our speak, someone speaking I'll of us because of wrongdoing. That's a serious thing for a believer and we have to be careful not to mix the two. I've seen believers pretend that it was the reproach of Christ when they were being reproached for letting the flesh show itself in their lives.
But if we're truly reproached for the name of Christ, there's a special glory, isn't they're connected with it that nothing can match?
Virus. In what way do the liver partake of Christ's sufferings?
You know well we could never partake of the atoning sufferings in that way, can we? That was only in the three hours of darkness on the cross. But I believe in the sense that we suffer in this world for following one who is rejected.
We partake of his sufferings, but we don't have time to develop it. But there's a difference between suffering for Christ and suffering with Christ. Suffering for Christ, perhaps, is what we might.
Mention as active persecution against the name of Christ that we bear.
Suffering with Christ is what we experience perhaps more inwardly in suffering from within all that he felt in the pathway of faithfulness to God his Father in this world. And that in one sense is sometimes a much deeper thing because it's not outward in the way that suffering for Christ is. But I believe both are in view here. And in that sense I would suggest.
We're partakers of Christ's sufferings in the sense that we not only share.
That place of rejection that he shared, but we feel everything according to how he felt. You get a little bit of a bit of in First Corinthians 11 There where Paul would say or Second Corinthians 11, sorry.
Where he would say who is well, better read it.
Someone else could quote it right off and I'm going to stumble over it, but.
2nd Corinthians Chapter 11 and verse 29 he says who is weak?
And I am not weak who is offended and I burn not.
Paul could have said them O Come on, get off it. Don't be offended.
His only retort was, well, don't bark your shins on the way down. He didn't have any sympathy for her at all.
Hall felt that even though it was wrong to be offended, but he felt for the individual who was offended.
Because they were one of Christ's sheep. I don't know. Does that, does that commend itself, Bruce, or is there something else there that we're missing?
Romans 8, I think speaks of, uh, suffering with Christ. And perhaps it's an additional thought to what you mentioned, Bill, but uh, I've enjoyed it. He says in verse 17 of Romans 8, if children then heirs, heirs of God and joined heirs with Christ, If so, they that we suffer.
00:55:13
With him that we may be also glorified together and in that chapter it takes a lot of the groaning of this present creation. When you follow the pathway of the Lord Jesus through this world, you find that oftentimes he groans. Why did he groan? Because he found everything here in such disorder and.
Out of the current of what God's purpose for this creation was, that there was nothing else you could do but wrong. And we grown too, it says in Scriptures.
And I think when we look around and see such disorder in the world around and even in Christian circles, we can groan and in a certain way is suffering with him.
I have a question.
Is there any thoughts when you stay with him? Well, we have. He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities that when we suffer, we don't suffer alone. Is there any thought in that, that he feels it?
And with.
Hi, Kurt. I think so. I think so. I believe so, yes. I believe that's the same thought. The Lord suffers in that sense with us. There isn't one bit of suffering that you and I go through, but what the Lord doesn't feel it with us.
Because we are His own. But then He calls on you and me to have that same spirit so that we suffer, as we said a moment ago. Because we ought to feel what others are going through, even though we are not going through it. But we ought to feel the fact that our blessed Lord and Master doesn't have His rightful place, and that all the unrighteousness that is present in this world.
Is an affront to the one who is the rightful king, and he doesn't have his rightful place.
Maybe I could just add that, uh, we, we all suffer with Christ because we have a life in nature and because of the Spirit of God is with us. We have the Spirit of Christ that we've seen what he feels as we see the groaning creation and persons suffering because of what sin has brought in the creation. And so we all more or less suffer with him.
But suffering for Christ is a definitely an elective thing. We can, we can get, we can get rid of that one by just being unfaithful. Suffering for Christ comes because we put ourselves in the, in the path of testimony, suffer as a result of rejection, reproach and that sort of thing.
Well, I have a Christian friend that was blind and he asked me the question and he was born that way.
So sometimes I wonder about the suffering that I that comes from it.
N.
When you see him in that state and you try to sympathize with what he must be feeling, you are suffering with Christ because Christ himself feels it when he sees his own creatures suffering as a result of what sin has wrought and we suffer with him because we have the spirit of Christ. That's what Romans 8 about. Well, that's, that's me. But he was asking me about him himself, the suffering that he feels prominent how he can relate to Christ in his suffering. Now I, I, you know, I feel for him. I'm amazed at him. I, I walk with him. I walk with him outside his house and nailed a sign to the to a fence out without any help from anybody. I mean, it's amazing.
What he's able to do. But he asked me about how he sometimes suffered because of his disability, how he could relate that with suffering with Christ and those thoughts. And uh, I, I don't think I gave him a good answer.
Well, I just suggest the thought that as our great High Priest, we know that according to Hebrews 4, we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
We are yet without sin, and some might say, and I say it with all reverence.
01:00:04
Using your man as an example of the believer you're talking about, he might say, but the Lord was never blind.
So how could he identify with me?
Let me use an illustration.
We won't name any particular country, but I visit and others here do, two countries in the world where conditions are very different to what they are here in North America. And in some places things are downright, shall we say, filthy and downright in disorder and confusion. And I've asked myself sometimes as I watch people in those countries, I feel for them the misery, the sorrow, the heartache, the things they have to go through.
And in one sense I can say, yes, I'm here, but in a matter of a few weeks I can get on the plane and go home again.
But who notices it the most? The person who lives there and who gets accustomed to it? Or the person who comes from something that is far different?
You know the answer to that. The one who visits feels it, sees it, is affected by it much, much more, even though in himself he doesn't have to be part of it. Now, we do sometimes partake of it in a practical way in the Lord Jesus did too. But I don't believe, to put it straightforwardly, that the Lord was ever sick. I don't believe he ever had the flu. I don't believe he ever had a migraine headache or some of the things that we have.
He wasn't subject to all those effects of sin because he never did sin.
But from without, he felt it all, and in seeing it all, and in walking through this world.
I believed he felt it in a way that makes him a merciful and faithful high priest, and so I believe he can and does enter into all those things.
Even though we could say practically the Lord never had cancer, the Lord never had a heart attack, the Lord never was blind or something like that. But in coming down from those heights of glory to walk and live in all of the things that sin had wrought, he could weep at the grave of Lazarus and feel it as none other could.
What I told him was that don't despise it.
He called you as a blind man. He saved you as a blind man. God has purposed in you being a blind man for him.
In something in there, whether you understand it or not, God has good from that, in that you're blind. And I've watched how he can help other people, how he teaches other blind people and so on. I said there's redemption in that and identifying it with it. God has a purpose in you being a blind servant for him. And that that was the thought that I had suggested to him, that there's something in that if you see it that way, that I'm a blind man for Christ and if I suffer in some way.
Then it's for him.
I wonder if the 9th of John would bring go ahead.
I I wondered if the 19th verse wouldn't be an answer to your question and I puzzled over that verse many a time in the sense it doesn't say as unto a faithful Redeemer or anything else like that, but as unto a faithful Creator.
And I think the last verse of the book of Jonah gives you an example of that, the care that God has over his creation. I'll read it.
You should not ice bare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than 64000 persons that cannot discern between their right hands and their left hand and also much catalyst. God is concerned about that. Hmm, it's interesting Ernie, because her 17.
Speaking of the judgment that's beginning at the House of God, even these persecutions God can use in his own dealings with us in his house for his own purposes.
I remember brother Speaking of that last verse of our chapter one time and he made this comment. He said I believe that there were many martyrs burnt at the stake that never felt the force of the flames.
He is a faithful creator and he knows what it means to be burned, and He puts the sensibilities into our bodies and He will sustain this in whatever situation he may call it to pass through. I thought that was very helpful.
Before we leave the passage, could we have a bit of a word on verse 18, just so that we.
01:05:03
Have it clear, because it could be understood if the righteous, scarcely or with difficulty, perhaps it could read, be saved. Where shall the ungodly and the Sinner appear? What is the sense of that, so that we don't cast aspersions on what the work of Christ has done for us? What does that verse mean?
Jewish folks and that he writes to a remnant saved and they had it hard.
That's the thought, Bruce.
There are many difficulties in the pathway. That's why you quoted Janjardi's translation. If the righteous, uh, was difficult, is saved. And so there are many difficulties in the pathway and we need, uh, practical salvation in those things. And if we are going to make it through without being overcome and taken by the various, uh, things that we have to face as Christians, how much more the ungodly understanding.
Because they are going to.
Isn't this encompassing salvation in its total Not not just about being saved from hell. It's a saved life that has saved everything. That's right. I've seen faith in the powers and.
And so we shouldn't, shall I say, be dismayed. Sometimes we are by God's judgment in his house. Sometimes believers can think and we have a song that brings it out while there are others living so wicked, it says year after year, and the Lord doesn't seem to interfere. God isn't dealing with the world at this moment, is he?
Yes, he's looking after the whole situation and accomplishing his purposes, but his time to judge this world has not come yet. Not that he doesn't on occasion as we have. For example, in Luke's Gospel chapter 13, where he allowed the Lord, Jesus remarked on the tower of Siloam that fell on some, and they told him about those that pilot had mingled their blood with their sacrifices.
The Lord may use some as examples of judgment that is coming, but for the most part, the Lord isn't there now publicly to judge this world.
But he's intervening in his house because we belong to him, and he's going to have the last word with everyone of us. And if we could make this practical comment, sometimes we see a dear brother or a dear sister who is used in real blessing to others. And perhaps others under the hand of God have found that dear brother or dear sister a tremendous help and a tremendous encouragement.
But if you and I have ever been used in that way, there's a danger of our getting to think, well, I don't need correction. I don't need straightening out. I help others when the Lord's dealing with them. I help others when the Lord's straightening out things in their lives. But I don't need it. And then if the Lord puts his hand on me, Ouch. I may resist it, I may pretend I don't need it, and I may make real shipwreck.
Of the faith in my life. And so let's not be unwilling to listen to the Lord's hand, whether it's directly his hand or whether it's through the instruments of others, because God intends it for our good. He intends it for our blessing.
And there is government in the House of God. In one sense, thank God that there is, because it would not be God's house if he just allowed everything to go on the way we would like it. But he intervenes for our good and our blessing, and not an order that he may cause us pain, but in order that we might be more useful to him after having passed through the trial.
01:10:05
#168.