Address—Bruce Anstey
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Let's begin speaking in First Samuel chapter 10, First Samuel, chapter 10. This is an introductory verse.
First Samuel, Chapter 10.
And verse 26.
And Saul also went home to Gibeah, and they went with him. A band of men whose hearts God had touched. They went with him a band of men whose hearts God touched her. Something beautiful about this expression, this verse, that has struck my.
Attention many years ago and it's beautiful because.
The principle involved is still applicable for us today. There's two things that happened here. God touched the hearts.
Of his people. And there arose a band of men that dropped everything that they were occupied with and followed the man of God's appointment. And uh, it's.
Something to think that God actually touches hearts and works in men's lives like this. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we left these meetings?
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On Monday afternoon, and it could be said of us, there goes a band of men and women whose hearts God has touched. I think there's not one person in this audience this afternoon that would have to say I'd like that to be said of me. If they could write that on my tombstone. It was a man or there was a woman who whose heart God had touched. Well, that's what God is seeking to do, even to this day, because the question may rise out of this. Yes, that's true. He touched their hearts. But does he really do that today?
And the answer is yes, indeed he does. He still touches hearts today, and I'd like to speak a little bit about that this afternoon.
Of course, as I say, this is just a principle involved here, because the man whom they were following was King Saul.
But God is still touching hearts and motivating persons, men and women, to follow the man of his appointment, his anointing, which is of course the man Christ Jesus, the Lord Jesus, our Savior. And so it could be nothing more pleasing to God himself. And to see the hearts of his people been taken up in affection for the Lord Jesus. And that would be a tremendous outcome of these meetings. I think the local brethren here would be very glad if, uh.
That was the case that we left here as a band of men and women whose hearts got it touched. I think that they would think that their effort was well, uh made and the money expended to put this uh occasion on would be well spent. So may it be so that our hearts may be touched this afternoon and through the course of the conference that we're here together. You know, I was talking to her sister one time and she said, have you ever noticed that sometimes it's just when persons get saved? There are people that, uh, just seem to go on straight after the Lord whose hearts seem to be really motivated.
And then there are others that, well, not so much. And then she just said sort of nonchalantly, I guess God just touches some, you know, and others I don't know. And I said to her, no, I don't think so. I don't like to think of it that way. I think that God is seeking to touch and is touching the hearts of all his people. The problem is, is that we're dull of hearing. We're dull and we don't feel the touch of his heart.
So I don't think that he picks out favorites and touches one and not another, but rather that he would touch all his people. And I believe that that is the intention of God this afternoon, every single one of the few people that are here under the sound of my voice. You like to touch your heart and change your life, make you motivated to follow the man Christ Jesus.
And so let's remember that that God is interested in motivating us to follow the Lord Jesus. You know, somewhere in the writings of Jan Darby, I can't remember where.
Does not really matter. But I recall reading something to this effect and he said that motivation and the dedication and devotion and that line of things is something like building a fire. He said there's God's part and there's man's part. Now, as I said to you in the meetings already, that you'll find many, many times you get God's sovereignty and man's responsibility put in Scripture side by side. And this is another case of that, you know there's God's side and there's man's side, he said. It's a bit like building a fire.
It's a bit like building a fire. There's first of all the the match that's needed to ignite the flame to get the fire going. But there is also another thing, and that is to the to the arranging of the kindling in such a way so that when the fire and the spark happens, it takes hold of the material and you get a real good burning fire. And he likened it unto the fact that God will put the spark there. He's a faithful God, but we're responsible.
To put the kindling in a right way, so that when God does light that fire, there's a real burning in the heart. And that's what I'd like to speak about this afternoon. So I got to thinking about it because Darby didn't go into it any further. What would the kindling pieces of kindling be put in the right way? B Well, I thought about it must be some things, like daily reading the scriptures, daily taking time to be with the Lord in prayer.
Uh, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves as a matter of some is as far as collective meetings like this and so on. Those kinds of things, if they're in place in our lives, even though it may be a little bit of bit mundane for us to come up to meetings sometimes or to maybe take a Bible in hand, you know, may not feel like it. You have other things you may want to do. But nevertheless, if that kindling is in the right place, there's a time and place coming, I can assure you, because God is faithful, he's going to light a fire to your life.
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And if there's those things that are in your life, if they're in place in your life, there's going to be a real fire for the Lord. There's going to be the touching of the hearts that we have here. But the problem is, though God is touching all the hearts, as I said, there's dullness on our heart, our part. And, you know, dullness in Scripture is addressed under the figure of sleepiness or drowsiness. And with that in mind, I'd like to look at four different sleepers in the scriptures and see what was the cause of their sleeping.
And what the Lord did is a remedy to awake them out of their sleep, because we are a drowsy state as far as the collective state of the Christian testimony is concerned. And we have to lay our hands upon our heart that that's us.
So with that in mind, there's an introduction. Let's turn to.
4 Sleepers in the Scripture and see if we can't learn something from it. First of all, Song of Solomon chapter five. Song of Solomon, chapter 5.
Read from verse 2, which marks the 4th category.
Candical is just another word used for the Song of Solomon. If you read the old brethren writings, I'll say the like. Mr. Bell has a book called The Canticles. Uh, what book is he reading anyway? Is this the pacifier or something? But no, it's just uh, another word for.
The song of Psalm, it's just like Revelation that he used to call the apocalypse.
Remember the word, the titles and the most of the books in the Bible are man made. They're not divinely inspired. So if someone wants to call it the Apocalypse, or if somebody else wants to call it the Book of Revelation, that's OK as long as we're in the same page at the same time. I say most because there's one that has a name divinely inspired. Do you know which one that is? You're asking kids questions. I want to put you on the spot. The Psalms. The Lord said himself. The Psalms.
Anyway, let's uh look at Solomon chapter 5 verse two. I sleep but my heart waketh. It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh saying open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.
For my head is filled with dew and my locks with drops of the night. I have put off my coat. How shall I put it on? I have washed my feet. How shall I defile them? My beloved put his hand in by the hole of the door.
And my bowels were moved for him. I arose to open my to my beloved, and my hands dropped with mirror, and my fingers with sweet smelling mirror upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved, and my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone.
And my soul failed. When he spake, I sought him. I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchman went about. The city found me, and they smoked me and wounded me. And the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge your daughters of Jerusalem. If you find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love.
Here's the first sleeper.
She was sleeping and her beloved comes to her chamber.
And he wants to have a little time of fellowship, a little time alone with her.
He's the bridegroom, she's the bride, and it's right and proper that they should have a little time together and spend fellowship. But we find a situation here that is not uncommon among us as believers in the Lord Jesus in a spiritual sense.
And that is, we find that he's outside the door and she's taking her ease and comfort in her bed and doesn't have enough energy to get up and let him in. And so he knocks and seeks to arouse her from her drowsy state. And you know, I believe this is a picture for us of what the Lord is seeking to do every single day of our lives. He wants to to come into our lives and have a little quiet time with us, spend a little time in fellowship.
And to to enjoy our company. And very often we're like her. We have other things that have caused us to get a little drowsy. We don't have time, we don't have the energy to rise and to let the Lord into our life. And it only produces a sleepy state, a stage of of, I would say carelessness, I guess.
It's pitiful, but we have to lay our hands upon our heart because there goes myself at times.
And I would like to think that.
The cause of the sleepiness that's here is what we might call the neglect of having a little quiet time alone with the Lord in our lives. That's sure to cause a dullness to come over our souls. So we want to be sure to learn from this that that's not a good thing to do.
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But I also mentioned that I would like to speak a little as to what he did to, uh, arouse her out of the state, because you wanna learn something from this. But before I get there, verse three, it says I put off my coat, how should I put it on? I wash my feet and I define what was she doing there? She was making excuses for her state. She was making excuses for not opening and rising to him as she ought to have. And very often when our conscience speaks to us about maybe I should take a little time today to be alone with the Lord.
And I wanna do some other things in my conscience. Speaks like that. We often push back the conscience and say and make a bunch of excuses. Well, I'm busy. You know. I've got these things to do and I promise so and so to get out to so on and so on. I gotta go to work. I gotta go to school. I know I'm not pointing the finger at any of you here because we all feel and I re know what it is to.
Make excuses for our drowsy state, but nevertheless it doesn't deter him, and I can assure you that it does not deter the Lord. You know he is jealous of our affections, and when we allow our hearts to cool down, so to speak, toward him, and he's going to stir those affections up again. And isn't that something? You're delighted for your heart this afternoon to have your affections stirred for the Lord Jesus afresh?
Well, what does he do? Verse 4?
My beloved put forth his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved. My hands dropped with mirror and my fingers with sweet smelling mirror. Now you may say, what would this typify? What would this speak to itself? Well, he knew what would catch your attention. And so he stuck his hand in by the door, just showed his hand to her, and it surely stirred her up and ** *** began to yearn.
For to have him with herself again, And I believe that that really speaks to us of a recall to the atoning sufferings of the Lord Jesus, you say Now why would you say that? Well, first of all it says that was it uses the word mirror here and sweet selling mirror in scripture. Myrrh is a type of the sufferings of Christ, the atoning sufferings of Christ. And it's interesting to see that it was on his hand and he showed her his hand. And I believe that the Lord would like to do that this afternoon.
He would like to show us his hand in connection with the sufferings that he went through to redeem us. And you know, if he was to do that this afternoon, what would we see? She wouldn't have seen this, of course, with her beloved, but we would. We'd see a hand with a nail print in it, wouldn't we? We'd see a hand with a nail print in it because he paid a price to redeem us. And so this is calculated by the bridegroom, and I believe the Lord uses the same point as well.
And that is to steer us to a rekindling of our affections for him by a recall and a reconsideration of what he has accomplished in his atoning sufferings for us. And I think that the breaking of bread does that very often. We ought to come in the state of Seoul, that we are very glad to be in His presence. But for some of us we may come to the breaking of bed out of communion, and it may serve as a time to get back into communion when we have a fresh before our thoughts.
The Lord And what he paid his price to redeem us, well, it certainly got her up out of her bed, and I trust that that'll happen to us. This afternoon she opened to her beloved, and her beloved had withdrawn, he said. What does that mean? I thought he wanted to have fellowship with her. Now when she finally opens the door, he runs away, you say?
But there's a reason for doing this, and that is because she wanted to resume fellowship with him, as she would have had at other times without a word of acknowledgement that she had failed in this and he wasn't going to have fellowship on that line.
He wanted her to acknowledge what she had done and stifling him in his desire to have her company, and so he let her feel what it was like to have him withdrawn from her.
And she had to go through the experience.
Of seeking him and realizing that what her bad state had got her into cost her something.
My beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. So then she rises up. Now she's not just out of her bed. She's ready to get out of her chamber. She's ready to get out onto the road and find him. Where did he go?
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And now we see energy. We see earnestness.
And we find later in the chapter that he.
He allows himself to be found of her, and they're together again in happy fellowship. So I'd like to just say that this is the first thing that the Lord would like to do to Uh.
To correct, to redeem, to remedy our, our, Umm.
State or spiritual state of sleepiness. A fresh look at the sufferings of Christ. A fresh consideration of what He paid at the cross to save us. That's number one.
Let's turn over to another sleeper in Acts chapter 20.
Acts, Chapter 20.
Verse 7 And on upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached or discoursed unto them.
Ready to depart on the Morrow and continued his speech until the midnight till midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber and they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a young man named Eurekus being fallen down into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead. And Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him and said.
Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. And when he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten and talked a long while until Daybreak, so he that's all departed, and they brought the young man alive.
And we're not a little comforted. Well, this is a story of a young man named Eudicus. He was the first man that we know of in the Bible that fell asleep in in a meeting. But he's not the last one, I'll tell you.
Because we've all have had the experience I think at one time or another, but nevertheless we see here that UH, in falling down from the third loft, there was a recovery and we're we're thankful for.
The powers of recovery from ones who.
Have a fall like this?
Well, it was a wonderful scene, wasn't it?
What a an occasion to have the apostle Paul visit a town like this. This was Troyas and they had special meaning for him and he was talking and discoursing and uh, there was many lights in the upper chamber. It says it was the most favorable condition you could possibly get and perhaps the most gifted man in the history of the church was in their presence and he was ministering a full bar. And we find that all of that still did not keep this man.
From falling into asleep and departing from the meeting in a very innocuous way.
So it shows us something. It's not good preaching that keeps us in a good state. It's not having much light that keeps us. There needs to be personal self judgment and communion with the Lord and attention. And that's what was missing with this young man and he paid the price for it. And so we find here that he sat in a window and as I said, we want to look at the cause of the fall into sleepiness and then maybe the remedy that was taken to.
Recover the situation. So what was the cause here?
Well, judging by the position that he decided to take, which was to sit on a perch in the window, I would judge from that, that he had an interest in what was going on outside the meeting in the world, as well as an interest that was going on inside. And while he kept his eye on both things at the same time that I worked in his soul, something that caused him to fall asleep to what was being said by the Apostle Paul. And it wasn't long before he dropped out of the meeting, shall we say.
In a very dramatic way.
And uh, where did he fall? Did he fall into the meeting off the window sill? No. He fell into the dark night where he had been looking a picture of the world drawing someone away from the Lord. And we need to realize that the world is indeed, as scripture teaches us, an enemy, an enemy of our souls that has a way and a power to draw our attention and our thoughts away. And so it wasn't long after he was sitting in that window that Paul's voice just sort of tailed off into like.
Until after a while, he didn't hear it at all. His ear became deaf to Paul's doctrine and Paul's ministry. And then what happened was the inevitable as I said, he dropped out of the meeting.
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And he found out that the world.
Is a hard place because he met an impact at the bottom of the building that caused him to.
Be dead.
So while Paul was preaching long or long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead.
You know the this would typify not a person losing their salvation because you can't lose your salvation. We know that from scripture. But what it really speaks to itself is a person getting out of communion because there is an aspect of death used in the scripture to denote that. It's in Romans chapter 8, verse 13. It says if we should live after the flesh you shall die. And he's talking to believers there. Die in what way? Not physically, but it is always the thought in connection with death, separation.
It's the idea of being separated from communion with God and is used into the figure of being dead. So I would take it that this would typify that he didn't lose. If a person leaves the meeting gets off into the world, doesn't mean they lose their salvation, it means that they, uh very often lose their communion with God and get away from him in that way.
So there he was, taken up dead. Now the remedy for this I think is interesting. It says Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him and so on, and when they brought him up again, there was life.
So it was not Paul's doctrine that restored the man. It was Paul's embrace. I think that's important to see. It's not Paul's doctrine that revived him.
He didn't go over to the window and shout a few favorite verses from one of his epistles that he had written down to him. You know, he he got out of the room himself and went down to the level for which this man had fallen. And he embraced him. And that would bring before us the affectionate side, the moral side of Paul's ministry, the Kingdom of God's side of the truth rather than the the doctrinal side. And I believe that when there are those who slip, away, drop out of meeting, depart from 1:00.
Like this, that we do need to be exercised about seeking to recover, to restore. I'm not talking about someone who's been put out of fellowship because they have a charge on them. Which scripture is clear that we should not have fellowship with them? I'm talking about some that are like this man who slips into the world inadvertently. And uh, we should seek to realize that we have a responsibility to our brother. You know, umm are we our brother's keeper? That's what Cain said to the Lord. Am I my brother's keeper? Well, what was the answer to that?
Yes, you are your brother's keeper. And thank God we have ones who have gone after us at times. Well, anyway.
Paul went down and he embraced him and he brought him up again and all the the people that were there got involved with it because it doesn't say he brought the young man up alive. It says they brought the young man up alive. And I think it's nice when Brethren as an assembly can be interested in seeking those ones who have taken a position where they have been drawn into the world in one way or another.
So I would say that the the cause here is just an interest in the world that overpowers an interest in the things of God and becomes vice, one vice for the other, until finally a person is drawn out altogether. And what is needed is the affectionate side of the truth being ministered in such a way that there's a revival. May it be so, and thank God when it is. Now let's look at another passage.
Matthew Chapter 25.
Matthew chapter 25. Just read a few verses in this chapter. This is the chapter about the foolish virgins and the wise virgins.
Chapter 25 verse one.
Then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened unto 10 virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
And five of them were wise, and five of them were foolish. And they that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight there was a cry made. Behold, the bridegroom cometh go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
We'll stop there. Right now. Here we have a scene where there was these UH versions that were set out on the highway and they went forth to meet their bridegroom that we were expecting to come. And it's a picture really of the early church and Christian testimony.
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That's what happened. The church went forth from the world. There are three things that characterized these uh, virgins that are very nice and commendable. First of all, they took lamps. Took their lamps that would bring before us the fact that they had a profession of faith. Some of them were wise and some of them were foolish, which means that some of them really were only merely professing Christians. They were not sincerely professing ones, as we mentioned in the meeting, but nevertheless they did do the right thing in taking their lamps. And every one of us, as a Christian, has made a profession in this world. If we have confessed to be a believer on the Lord Jesus, we have a lamp, a lamp of testimony.
And then we find that they went forth, so they broke away from all secular and religious.
Connections that they've had prior to conversion. And the other church was marked by separation and a testimony of their faith in the Lord Jesus. But there's a third thing that's marked here mentioned here, and that is they went forth to meet the bridegroom. They had an expectation. They had a hope of the coming of the Lord Jesus as the bridegroom. This, as I say, is what characterized the early church. But what happened was that there was a sleepiness, a state of drowsiness that came over the church.
And the the Saints of God would read any kind of church. History will show you that they lost sight of the Eminence, of the hope and the hope of the Lord's coming.
And for many hundreds of years there was been not a idea at all as to the fact that the Lord was coming to take his people home, The rapture as we speak, they knew of the appearing of Christ and imagined that the rapture was part of it and was all confusion. But there came in history in the 1800s a revival of the hope of the Lord's coming, as depicted in the fact that there was a cry here made of the bridegroom coming, and then there was a stir.
An awakening.
So while we can see a historical little picture of the church and the revival of the hope of the Lord's coming, and finally the Lord's coming, as mentioned in verse 10. And while they went to buy the bridegroom came, and they were were ready went with them to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came there the other virgin saying, untrust Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know not watch therefore for you know not whither the day nor the hour.
Now the next 6 words are not supposed to be in the text We're in. The Son of Man cometh because it's the Lord's coming for the His people, the Church, the.
As a bridegroom, he doesn't come as the Son of Man in that way. That's when he comes at the pairing. When judgment coming as the Son of Man is always in connection with judgment, is always in connection with the appearing of Christ. Remember that I mean this is the coming of the the Lord as a bridegroom. And so if you check any critical translation, you'll find that those last 6 words are not to be found there. My point though is this. There is a time coming when the Lord is going to come and take us home and those who are merely professing are going to be left behind. Is this illustrates?
Now, having looked at it in its historical setting, we wanna get the moral and practical lessons for us here. And that is simply.
What happened? How did they fall asleep and what awoke them?
Well, they started out well, but I guess while the time wiled on and the days became weeks and years and so on, in the early church what happened was there was a losing sight of the eminence of the Lord's coming, and it wasn't long before the church lost sight of the hope of the Lord's coming. Then there becomes this drowsiness, becomes this mixture mixing with the ones who were foolish, that were not even real. And a state of drowsiness has pervaded the Christian testimony for 1500 years.
We're not here to pick on our dear fellow Christians that have lived before us. Our point is to see that the bridegroom, the Lord, is not going to let the state of that state to continue forever. And He arouses them out of it, and there's a cry being made at midnight.
Verse six at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Now again the better reading is to behold the bridegroom. The word cometh, just not in the text.
It's certainly true he does come, but that's been inserted there by translators, and it does distract from the point of the passage because it's more the thought of the idea that the person of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, is coming.
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Not so much the event of it. And when he says Bridegroom cometh, it leads our thoughts to the event of the coming, which it certainly is an event, but the Lord does not want and God does not want.
Us to think of the Lord's coming as a prophetic event. It is a prophetic event, but we don't want to think of it as a prophetic event because he's our eternal lover. He's coming to get us and to take us home. He's coming to take us to the marriage and we're all should be ready and for this.
And so it's more Behold the bridegroom.
And so the tension was taken away, awakened, and their focus was on him. And then they mentioned go ye out to meet him. There was a historically, in the 1800s, those who were taken by this cry were very much exercised about going out again. There was a need to go out again, that is, to break all secular connections with the world and all religious connections with the world, and to be outside of it all waiting for their bridegroom to come. And that did happen in the 1800s.
And so we're on the eve of the coming of the Lord Jesus. You know something? The rapture, which we're all waiting for is the greatest event that will take place in the last 2000 years. I would say that it rivals and is is a greater event is the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But since the death and resurrection of Christ some 2000 years ago, there hasn't been a an event in history.
That would rival what we're waiting for. We are living at a time when the greatest event in the last 2000 years and world history is going to take place. And what are we doing? Are we in the state that these virgins were in? Drowsy mixing with the world, half asleep, not really concerned, not really being ready for him and so on. Well, I'm not picking anybody here. I feel the coldest of my own soul. There's a hymn that we often sing, you know, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it.
But anyway, there's this revival which was so beautiful, it was a fresh presentation of the coming of the person of the Lord Jesus. So I believe that that was really what will revive us in our thinking. And our hope will become burning brighter if we start to think about the fact that the Lord is coming for me, He is a person is coming, and it's more than just a prophetic event.
You know when we when we think of what Scripture tells us as far as indications of the nearness of the Lord's coming.
We ought to be thrilled in our souls to think that we could be this afternoon when the Lord's come. There are many things in Scripture, at least six or seven of them, that I've found, that would point to the fact that we are living in the very last moments of the Church's history on earth, and the Lord could come at this very moment. One of the things is what we find in what is mentioned is the Laodicean condition of the Church. I hope everybody knows what I'm talking about there. But in Revelation 2 and three, there's these seven churches which depict the Church's history.
And there's various epochs that the church passes through. And the last of the mall is Laodicea, if you read that in Chapter 3.
And what you find there is this state that the Laodiceans are found in, which is really obnoxious to the Lord, but they're very casual, they're very self-sufficient and very confident in self not knowing. They're naked in their wretched condition. And then after the 7th church takes place, the church history is viewed as being over and we can look in the Christian testimony today. And if there isn't a day that depicts this, I don't know what else is so more accurate in all of the seven of churches, because the church, most definitely.
Is marked by alea, DC and condition all kinds of confusion and lukewarmness, carelessness, self satisfaction.
And all the rest of it. That's just one thing. We are most definitely in a Laodicean day and that means we're right near the end because there's no more churches that have come to in the Bible after Laodicea. It's the 7th and final one and seven is what the number of completion, the church's history is about to be completed On earth is my point. Not forever because where our history continues in heaven, but I mean on earth, another thing. The midnight cry has gone forth. The midnight cry that we're reading about here has gone forth. What do I mean by that? Well, as I said, there's a historical backdrop in here.
And in the 1800s when there was a revival of churches in churches, history of the Lord's coming in 18. And when brethren began to look into scripture and found out that the Lord is coming, the rapture was revived in the church all over many denominations and church groups were upheld this and were in the expectation of the Lord's coming as a result of this recovery of truth. Well that happened in the 1800s, a 150 years ago. And the very thing that happens after the midnight cry is what the bridegroom comes.
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So we must be real close to the coming of the bridegroom if the bridegroom, the bridegroom is the.
The cry has already been made and 150 years have gone by.
The Jewish national independence has uh been revived in the last 65 years or so. You know the Lord said in Matthew 24 chapter before this that there would be the the rebutting of the Lee and the leads would come on the fig tree. Fig tree is this type of Israel and it really speaks to us of the national independence of Israel or at least the Jews. And we all Co cognizant with history in the of the world in the last 100 years we know.
Now, for 2000 years, the Jews and Israel had no land. They were not a national.
Uh, entity at all. They were just scattered in many nations. But in in 1947 or 48 they actually acquired a piece of land in the land of Canaan or were over there in the Holy Land, and they declared their national independence for the first time in 2000 years. And I believe that the Lord hinted at that when he said that behold the fig tree it would bring forth to shoot forth its leaves. That is, there's going to be a profession that life is about to happen. Doesn't mention there's any fruit.
But figs being but there is at least leaves, so there's some show of life going on. Well, that's happened some 60 years ago.
And so that would point us to the fact that we're getting very, very near, because when the Lord said behold the fig tree, then he mentions his coming.
So we know he's coming. He's connected with that. Some say it's the same generation that sees that will see the coming alone. I don't know. I don't know how long a generation is in the Bible. So I'm not gonna pro project any kind of a.
Speculated idea more than that Daniel Chapter 12 he is told that there would be a rapid pace of life in the end times. Well when would that be? And he also was told that there would be an increase of knowledge and information How if you know world history, you know that that has to be Speaking of this last hundred years or so. I mean think of it 100 years ago they were pushing buggies around and horses and stuff and now we're flying in jet planes and all the rest of it and test cell phones. There has been an incredible.
Increase of technology and advancement in all manners and aspects of life.
And mechanical devices and everything I like. In fact, I'll tell you when you heard me say this before, but you know, my dad told me he came home from school one day. He was about six or seven years old. And he said to his dad, Dad, I saw a car today. He said you did not.
No, that's a lot of advance. He saw a car today where we just drove down to California. All we saw was cars, and it was bumper to bumper from Seattle to LA. I saw cars. Lots of them.
So the rapid pace of life, I've never seen people drive so fast as those Californians. Not picking on anybody but.
And the increase of knowledge it's got to be today.
It's it's we're living in that day.
They tell us that knowledge and computers and all this is, what is it doubling every, I don't know what it is every six months or something like that. It's incredible, the increase of unbelief and skepticism. So Peterson apostle Peter says that in the last days they're going to say, oh, where is the promise of his coming and all this skepticism. There's always been unbelief.
In the coming of the Lord, there's always been unbelief in the things of God. I don't say that, but I'm saying the increase of it. It is prolific Today, every person you turn to is filled with that kind of thing. It it was Peter's day, I'm sure, but it was here and there. Today it's everywhere. So we know again we're in the last days. Another thing and you'll find in Scripture, we don't have time to detour into it, to show us that we are indeed in the last days, and that is that Scripture does point to the fact that the Lord would be away under a figure.
In Scripture of two days. Because he says in two or three places in scripture that two days or at least a day is as 1000 years with the Lord and 1000 years is as a day. So you have two days, it would be 2000 years. It's only a little figure, little picture on it saying the Lord's coming back in exactly 2000 days, 2000 years. But we are in that time frame, are we not? Again points to the fact that the Lord is coming and there's some dozen places in the Bible where the Lord would go away and deal with the the Gentiles and return in two days.
And so we can be sure that the Lord's coming is very near. Now we don't want to arrive at the fact that the Lord's coming is very near. Like Mr. I think it was Mr. Stoney who said, well, I'm sure that the Lord is coming, because I'm sure the Lord is not coming, he said. Because I would like to think that I live in communion with him, and the Lord has never told me that he was coming today, so I'm pretty sure he's not coming. We don't want to be that way because he's as much as saying that I live so close to the Lord that he would have told me he's coming.
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He's, in other words, he's trusting on his communion with the Lord and with God to indicate whether the Lord is coming or not. That's a bad ground to get on. You must stick with Scripture and what we see from the word of God. Is the Lord coming today? I can't say that he will be, but he's coming very, very soon. And he's made a promise, and he's kept every promise he's ever made. So I know he's going to keep this one. But when we don't know when, but we need to be like these virgins arise, awaiting, looking, watching, working.
And not slumbering.
Let's look at one last one and Jonah.
Jonah.
Prophet Jonah.
Chapter One.
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah. The sentiment saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it. For the wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee to unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the feather of and went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty Tempest. That's a storm in the sea.
So that the ship was like unto be broken. But then the Mariners were afraid, and cried every man to his God, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides, or into the lower part of the ship.
And he lay, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said, What meanest thou wilt sleeper, Arise, calleth upon thy God, if it be so, that thy God will think upon us, that we perish not.
And so on. Here we have another sleeper. As I said, we're looking at the causes for the sleep and for the remedy.
Well, what was the problem here? Jonah was a prophet of the Lord, and he had been given a mission. He was to go to Nineveh, which is a gentile city. These gentiles who had just trounced the children of Israel, they were Assyrians.
And of course, anybody who would wipe out your uncles and brothers and take your cattle and your land and just destroy your land, you're not necessarily very fond of them, to say the least. He was given a mission to go tell them that God would spare them from judgment. He didn't really like that. But whatever the case is we find in the end of the book, he actually did go and preach to them the word of the Lord came unto Jonah.
And he was to go to Nineveh and cry against the city because his wickedness was so great. God would have mercy on them. Though Jonah didn't want to have any part of this mission. And so he turned his back on the word of the Lord and he went the opposite direction. The Lord said, go E to Nineveh. He said, I'm going West to Tarshish. Apparently Tarshish is somewhere in the Mediterranean. That's not a good idea to do.
I suppose we all know that to disobey the word of the Lord positively and, uh, manufacturing like that is never a good thing in Scripture. And when we get our our ourselves moving in a direction like that, we can be sure there's going to be difficulties and trouble.
And so he goes down to He goes down to Joppa, which is a sea town where you get to find a ship. And sure enough, he found one going to Tarshish. It's often been said that you know if you want to go away from the Lord, you want to disobey the Lord. Satan will make sure that you can get the the right boat to get there. He goes down there. Lo and behold, there's one leaving this afternoon, so to speak. So he jumps on the boat and takes off, pays the fair thereof. And it is interesting to notice that when Jonah was restored and brought back.
Who? Who provided that vehicle? Was it the devil? No, it wasn't. It was the Lord. He prepared a fish that brought him back. He went out on a boat and came back on a fish whale.
So he goes down with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. This man is on a crash course with a destiny of nothing but trouble. And So what happens is that the Lord sends out a great win against the sea, and there's a storm.
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And uh, you'd think that the storm would turn them on to turn to God. But it didn't. He just went down to the sides of the ship and went to sleep.
He was a real case, but the Lord can stop the ones who are defiant disobedient.
Posers to his will.
And so we find these. We find them fast asleep here.
And the Lord does send storms in our life, You know, if we're disobedient to His word, if the Lord is showing us very clearly what he'd have us to do and live in our life, and we want to choose another lifestyle, another way, live in some sinful way, you can be sure that the Lord is going to have a word to say about it. And He'll send forth His storms, his disciplines in our lives.
You know, the Lord wants our attention. He's paid too much of A price to let us go our own way and to do our own thing. He's going to bring us back. But it may be painful, and it often is one of the last things that uh, Christy Coleman said to me. She said the Lord wants our attention. And I said to her, and he's going to get it too. And she was just speaking about how many people there are in this world and they're not listening to the voice of the Lord. The Lord's people are not listening.
Excuse me but.
I've often thought about that. You know, the Lord wants our attention.
Dear brethren, the Lord wants your attention.
And he's gonna get it.
But he may have to bring discipline into our lives.
To get it.
You know, I was reading and I wish I brought it with me to read to you, but I was reading a little book, like just before I left home by Jan Darby, and he was talking about discipline and the lives of the Saints.
And he said that, uh, there are different reasons for discipline to come into our lives, to train us, to educate us, to teach us the dependents and so on. But then he made a statement that I thought was very interesting to pass on to you. He said, But most of our discipline in our life is because our own self will and God is speaking to us about it, sickness, trouble and finances and so on. We don't like to speak of it that way. We often say, well, there's many different ways in which God speaks and most of the time it's for other reasons and so on. But he says that sickness, solve problems, troubles most of the time, is because we're not listening to his voice.
And he's had to discipline us in a punitive way.
I'm not pointing the finger at anybody here. I know my own soul, soul. I'm just saying that God will bring discipline into our lives and does bring it into us. And we need to listen to his voice. Well, he's not listening at all here. So the shipmaster, he gets a hold of him and he says, what menace thou, O sleeper, arise, call upon thy God.
The point that I would get from this is that God may use someone to come to speak to us in our life.
If we're not listening to his his storm, he may have to send some profit or profit us to come and speak to us and address our state. And so he wakes him up. Thank God for a faithful brother or sister who come and wake us up.
Well, you know what happened If you read the whole story. Jonah realizes that the Lord is speaking to him and he needs to return. The only problem is he's out at sea. How is he going to get back? Amazing amount of faith this man had when he turned back to God. At least he began to turn to God, and that is that. He said just cast the end of the sea and God will take care of me. And he did too. He cast, they cast him. They didn't want to. They tried to roll the ship to shore, but they realized it wasn't going to happen. So finally they said, OK, we'll give you what you want. And they threw them into the sea.
And God prepared a fish to swallow him up, and he drove him back or swam him back. I don't know how he shipped the the the fish got back there, but he got back.
But in the ship, in the excuse me, in the fish's belly, we have recorded for us in the second chapter.
Jonah's prayer.
And we find that Jonah finally breaks down and turns to the Lord, and the Lord uses him to go and do that message to Nineveh, as he told him.
And he was a blessing there.
And the reason why that Jonah did not really want to go there is because he knew the heart of God as being a merciful God, and he knew that those people repented that God would re would repent of his evil that he had pronounced upon him.
Upon them. And what would happen then? He would lose his prophetic office. Because you see, one of the qualifications for being a prophet in Israel is your message must always be true and right. If he goes and preaches to Nineveh as he does, and then he says, yet in 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown and then God doesn't overthrow them. Guess what? Your office as a prophet is finished. It's over.
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So he had his reputation on the line and he didn't want to do that because he was gonna lose his reputation and he had to learn that. You need to get rid of your reputation. We need to get rid of our reputation. For the blessing of souls is more important than our reputation. I don't wanna leave this place saying, oh, he spoke very well this afternoon. What if I spoke really poorly? Like, you can tell, you know, if you got a blessing out of it, wouldn't it be better than my re reputation? It'd be out the door rather than and people get a blessing. But that's what he had before him. He was more concerned about how he would look as a prophet in Israel.
Than those poor people that were perishing and were going to die under the judgment of God and so he refused to act for God and that until finally the Lord broke him down and he even at that he had a bad attitude about it in the end in the 4th chapter which we won't get into.
But this guy, I shouldn't call him a guy. Excuse me, this I'm going to call him a brother. But he's not a Christian. But uh, he's this prophet, This dear St. of God. This dear believer was one tough hombre.
Have you ever noticed what it took to get him to turn? Have you ever noticed?
How long was he in the fish's belly? 3 days and three nights. When did he pray?
On the first day, no way.
On the second day, No way. On the third day, he finally broke and prayed. Isn't that amazing? Chapter 2, verse one.
I'll read verse 17 of chapter one. Now the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.
And Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days and three nights. Doesn't mention he prayed all that whole time. Then chapter 2 Says Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God. After three days and three nights, God finally broke him and he prayed. Now that man is 1 tough hombre. If you were swallowed by a fish when you turn to God, and you whom you knew that would deliver if he could and would not Jonah, he was determined.
But God can break him down, and he does.
Breakdown the hardest hearts. Thank God for the grace has broken our hearts.
Well, you've had four sleepers here this afternoon.
And it's time to close. May it be that the dullness that is on our hearts would be taken away by an affectionate call, a wake up call, a shake up call as you get here, and so on. Let God have his way with us.
Because it's worth it. He's a great savior, and he wants our hearts to be touched. That we might be, as we read this at the beginning, a band of men and women whose hearts God had touched. May it be so.