Address—Tim Ruga
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Good evening everyone.
I'd like to start the meeting we could by sending him #76 in the appendix.
Thine Jesus, Thine no more. This heart of mine shall seek its joy apart from thee. The world is crucified to me, and I am thine. 76 in the appendix.
Thank Jesus.
I.
Know.
Sounded, in the end, joy of heart.
Thee.
Wow, it's written by the beginning of the beginning.
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Let's pray. I thought that Father, we thank thee for this opportunity that we have to be here again, and thank you for take care today in the camp.
Where safety for bringing others to be with us too. And we just talk to thee for a time this evening. We pray that as we have been fed so well here that we would.
Be able to get so much needed food also from my work. We pray for help for the speaker, each one of yours as well. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
So tonight I want to speak a little bit to, uh, those who are saved. And my subject is a point of beginning or a starting point. I'll explain that in a minute, but.
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As I said, I wanna speak to those who are the Lords and in particular the young people who are here.
If you are not one of the Lord's own, then there's a different starting point for you.
A most necessary and wonderful one. That is, of course, the gospel that we heard last night and the gospel that I can give again right now in just a moment at the beginning of this meeting, that if you don't yet know, the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
That is a transaction you can make with God in just a moment while you're sitting here. Does the Word of God says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son? But whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And so that simple act of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is all that is needed for you to turn from death to life.
If you haven't done that, the rest of what I'm going to say probably won't make much sense to you.
But for those who I intend to speak tonight to tonight, my assumption is I'm going to grant everyone the benefit of the doubt. That's what you actually want to do as a believer. Is that the things that Brother Bob Tony spoke on two nights ago or what is your interest as well?
That you have a desire that you should live what is really like, and that you should go on to serve the Lord.
In your life and spend your life on those things that are important for eternity. And what I'm going to speak on is just a small part of that. It's intended to be a help, a starting point. And I can just relate it a little bit in terms of my own life that when I took an interest in trying to understand more of the truth of God, it was very helpful. I found, I found to get a starting point on the different trees.
And.
There are many different truths in the Word of God, I've just taken a selection from them.
Some of the ones that I found to be maybe more difficult in some ways or more challenged and umm, I just selected those ones and I want to give in the brief time that we have a brief starting point. So if we could, let's just turn. I'll explain that more in a minute, but let's turn over the second Timothy chapter one.
Second Timothy One.
The verse that we often refer to here at camp.
1St.
13.
Says hold fast the form of sound words and I'll just stop there. This morning we were going over an outline of things. And that's really what the thought is here, an outline of sound words. And that's important. But what I want to do tonight really starts at the beginning of that. And I think of it in terms of a profession that I'm not quite in, but I work with them surveyors. And when you have a surveyor, it goes out to do a survey.
Of land, he starts with a point. It's called apoba, point of beginning, and surveyor has to have that point. It's very important. If they don't have it, then the rest of the survey may not make much sense. I think of the rest of the survey, say, the outbounds of a property, as being something like an outline, right?
And an outline is good, but if you don't have a good point of beginning, the outline may not be so good.
Think of it also in terms of the treasure map. You can have a perfect treasure map without a point of beginning, and you have no idea where to start to follow so many paces to get to that tray and then go right so many paces. If you don't know where that first point is, it's difficult. Now, the Scripture isn't exactly like that because every truth of God has a number of verses that bear on it, But still, in my own life I have found that there are certain verses.
That were very helpful as starting points.
And that's what I'd like to try to pass on with the Lord's help here this evening. And so I'd like to just begin with, uh, the first one that I had on my list. And really I could ask it as a question, Is the Bible inspired? And you say, yes, the Bible is inspired, at least I hope so if you're a believer.
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The next question is where in the Bible does it say that and?
Probably quite a few in this room or right now thinking of a verse, maybe even several verses. But it's good to have a verse. Somebody asked you that and you want to know, you want to be able to turn somewhere in the Word of God, and it's good to be able to do that right there for these basic things. And so let's just go over a little further in Second Timothy.
To the verse that probably many in this room just thought of. These aren't gonna be hard things tonight.
They're going to be, most of them, quite simple things, and so I might be speaking to a younger audience, but that's exactly where I was once. And if that's where you are, I hope this will help. Feel free to take some notes. So second Timothy, chapter 3.
And verse 16.
Every for all scripture is given by inspiration of God.
And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof and so on. But just that first part. Every Scripture is given by inspiration of God. That's a simple verse and it says it directly, and I would suggest it's a good verse to know.
This is challenged a lot. Many other things too related to it. We could take that up, but that's the subject. And you might want to go on from here and get a whole outline of a subject, the inspiration of scripture, but at least know the basics. Where does the scripture itself say that?
It's inspired and you might go to other things like what is Scripture and what does inspiration mean? Well, we could talk about that. Actually. The word is right here in this verse is God breathed and so inspiration. So you know what the words mean and the starting points. It means that God actually breathed out what He has in his words.
In his word. And that is not just the umm.
Subject that we have in the Bible, but it's the very words themselves are given by God as breathed from himself. God spoke, it says in another place, and this is what the inspiration of Scripture is. So I'll just leave that. I don't want to go into too much detail with that.
My next one would be What is the Bible about?
Let me say, well, the Bible is without a whole lot of things, Adam and Eve, and it goes all the way to Revelation. But still, the Bible is about something, or more correctly, someone, and it's good to know that.
The Bible is about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's actually a very important thing, because if we understand that, we won't get caught up into all kinds of confusion on things when we read the Word of God.
We will come to understand that what we're reading there must be in some way related to the Lord Jesus Christ, and if not, we're missing the point. Now where does it say that? What would be a point of beginning? Maybe there would be a number of them, but the one that comes to my mind is found in John chapter 5.
Sorry, usually I'm cold.
John 5 and.
Next chapter here.
And verse 39 says search the scriptures, bring them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify or bear witness of me.
Here's the Lord Jesus speaking, and he plainly says so. It's not the only place where he said that the Scriptures spoke of himself. You find this in other places as well. But this is a good place to know the word of God is about the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you go and you read in the Old Testament and you find out what's written there, you come to many different things and it's just a few quick examples. You have Abraham.
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And Isaac going up to offer his son. This is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and the cross.
Do you have Joseph a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ delivering his people? Many other types.
Uh, and shadows that are in the Old Testament all about the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you don't understand that, you can also get into errors. I remember reading one time, umm, have someone who said the book of Song of Solomon was just a marriage, umm, manual for Christians. Well, that's pretty interesting. How does that fit in with?
The Bible being about the Lord Jesus Christ, and I don't doubt that there's some very good things in there for Christian marriages, but that's not what the book of Psalmist Solomon is about. It's about Christ. And we need to learn to understand that wherever we're reading that in some way or another involves the Lord Jesus Christ and his glory. So that's just another starting point I want to give you now.
The history of the world, that's a big subject.
But did you know the Bible breaks it down into really the history of two men?
That's important thing and an important thing to understand as Christians. It has the history of this world is really the history of two men, and where do we get that?
It's actually in a number of places, but the place that comes to my mind is First Corinthians chapter 15, so let's go there.
My brother used to really hammer this in when I was young and I didn't forget it and I hope you can remember it too. 1St Corinthians 15.
Long chapter down near the end and it says in verse 47 the 1St man is of the earth earthly, the 2nd man is the Lord from heaven. And so this is what God has before him as to the history of the world.
That He put man on this earth and responsibility and He intended for man to act for him on this earth, to keep this earth. And of course man failed right away at the fall, and there was other failure there, but God always had before him the 2nd man, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so this second man, it says here very plainly, is the Lord from heaven. And this is important to understand.
That God has a man and that man is the center of his purposes. That man is going to rule and that man is the Lord Jesus Christ, the 1St man in his failure. I want to go on and talk about a little bit further now because it's important to much of the truth of Scripture. But first of all, have you ever wondered about this?
Creation, whether God may do something else like it again? Would there be another race of men? Before we pass on, I just want to point out.
That this very passage says no.
There will not be another race of men.
Proverbs 8 we have the Lord Jesus saying, my delights with the sons of men. That's where God's purposes were in connection with man. And right here in this chapter it tells us just up a few verses.
In verse 45, and so it is written, the 1St man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening.
Correct, the 1St man Adam of course is the Adam of Genesis chapters 1-2 and three and and that was the Adam who sinned in the garden and the Lord God gave him breath and made him a clicking a a living soul. But the second man we read about as the Lord from heaven and he's in this verse is called the last Adam.
Speaks of Adam when he talks about the head of a race. Adam was the beginning of the race of mankind.
But the Lord Jesus came to be the head of a new race, and that is in resurrection life, the head of the new creation. The Lord Jesus is the head of that race. And all those of us who are believers are now part of that race. We're under him. And you notice it doesn't say the second atom, it says the last atom because there won't be another race.
This is the fulfillment of God's purposes so.
I point that out because it's really connected with in my mind. The point is beginning on these two men. Good to remember these verses that we have right here. Now, the next one that I have in mind is in connection with that first man, and that is the utter depravity of man or total depravity of man.
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This is a truth that is actually much denied, not just in the world around us today, but.
Among Christians say that no, there is good in man and the Word of God teaches very definitely otherwise. And so you may often get into a discussion with Christians and they just don't agree. They feel that there is good in man and as a result we should be working to bring that out and we should be working for the betterment of society and and this world to improve conditions of things here.
But is that what the word of thought says?
So there's the point of beginning that I think of on this one is in Romans chapter 3, and I actually have two on this one. I'll give them both. Romans 3 is the 1St.
And we'll just take a few of the verses here.
So verse 10 says it is written there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understand it, There is none that seek it after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are all together become unprofitable. There is none that do it good, No, not one.
So not a single person is righteous before God. But it's even worse than that. That's why I want to go to the other verses that are found in Romans 8.
Romans 8.
And verse.
Eight or verse seven says, because the carnal mind or the mind of the flesh, that's what everyone born into this world is born with.
Is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can see.
That's saying impossible, just can't see.
Goes on to say more here the next verse so they that are in the flesh can.
Not please God. That's the other depravity of man. That which would please God, would make man in some way pleasing, in some way good. Each and everyone is found in this condition that we have here, but we don't have to reason that. We don't have to argue it. We have to read it and understand that this is what God says.
And believe it now this subject.
Umm, the first man and the utter depravity of man leads me to another one, and that is the whole subject of dispensation, and that's a very large subject.
And one that we couldn't cover in the rest of our time, we couldn't even probably begin to do it justice in the remaining time. And I remember talking to an old missionary once and he said, when it comes to dispensations, he says, I look at it very simply.
He said there's a verse.
That just proves the whole thing for me. Doesn't say everything about them and they turn to John chapter one. I'll give that as a point of beginning because I can't think of a better one to this day. John chapter one.
And verse 17.
Says For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
The idea of dispensations is that there are different times when God is dealing with man in different ways, and many reject that thought that this verse plainly says it. God gave the law to Moses and Moses gave it to the people was given by Moses.
And that's how God acted at that time. He put man under law.
Because man thought that man could do something that would please God. And that's the whole point of dispensations.
You go right from the beginning, whatever way God tested man, whether it was under conscience or government or law or any other way that God tested man, even grace and truth by Jesus Christ when he came.
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As a man on earth, it was all rejected, entirely rejected by men. They brought out nothing in man that was pleasing to God. In fact, when you take up this subject right to the very end, you find what the Lord Jesus says about it. He said in John chapter 15 He says if I had not come, they had not sinned. But now have they both seen and hated both.
My Father and me. So the Lord Jesus came, that perfect one, when they saw who God really was, rather than please God, they said.
We hate him, we're going to do away with him, and they crucified the Son of God.
That's the history of the 1St man.
The history of the trial of God of the first man the history of dispensation is really properly ends than at the cross. I'm just going to say that while we're on the subject. John chapter 12. The Lord Jesus says now is the judgment of this world. No longer was man on trial after that God acted in pure sovereign grace with man. He now commands all men to repent. The gospel goes out freely to all that which.
They did and their hatred against the Son of God. The end point of it all is that God goes out and grace to man and saves whoever will believe. And so that really to me is a very good starting point for dispensations.
Umm, if we could, I'd like to just go on to.
Another one, but I think it's important, and that is what God's eternal purpose is.
And a lot of people.
Think that God's great purpose in this world is the salvation of man.
And that certainly is a great purpose of God, no question about that. And thank God for it. But that is not the eternal purpose of God. That isn't really what sums up God's purposes as revealed in the Bible. For that we can go to a verse that I think many know so very, very well. It's Ephesians chapter one and verse 10.
You probably heard this many times, but.
If you don't know where this is, learn it.
It's an important verse.
Says in Ephesians one, verse 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, you might gather, actually, let me back up. Sorry about that. Let's go to verse nine. We're in.
My glasses on, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him. Now notice in this verse.
It uses the word dispensation. We'll talk about that in a minute too, but this is the great purpose of God. It calls it His eternal purpose of the purpose of the ages when it brings us in, in connection with this in chapter 3.
And God's purpose is to glorify Himself in the person of his Son, and part of that glory is that his Son should have a bride, that is his body.
This is the eternal council and purpose of God. And when we think about man as the center of God's purpose, that man is to be saved, even if it is to bring glory to God, that misses the point.
And the central point of God's eternal purpose is that his Son should be glorified, and we're brought in in connection with that. The Lord Jesus Christ is the center of God's purpose. It's important to know that now we have those four dispensation, and this is actually one of the dispensations. It's a future one. I don't think of it so much as a trial, but this is a time when God is now committing.
All that he wanted man to have in his hands to his Son. It's speaking about the Millennium that we introduced this morning, talked about for a little bit. The thousand year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he is going to execute all that God wanted from man in absolute perfection at the end of that period of time, tells us in First Corinthians 15 that he's going to deliver that Kingdom up to God, even the Father.
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That will be done in absolute perfection.
So this is a dispensation, a way of God's feelings with man. And they don't want to say more about it than that. But the thing that's important that I want to look at this first is we're going to come back to later on, is what it says about things which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him. And it really means not that he's going to bring them together, but He's going to head them up.
That's what the J&D translation translates that as. So we head up in the Lord Jesus Christ and there's two spheres.
In which he's going to be head over and receive his glory and one of them is things in heaven. The other one is things in earth important that we understand that that's one of the reasons why this is such an important verse to get as a point of beginning that we understand that God has two spheres of operation. They go on into the future and the Lord Jesus has to do with both of them.
And so we're gonna come back and talk about that a little bit more.
At the end of our meeting, umm, but I just want to go on to the next thing and that is.
The different subject, but one that many people struggle with, that is God's sovereignty.
Which is the fact that God sovereignly chooses those who are to be saved. And then there's another side to that and this man's responsibility, and that is.
That man is responsible for God's offer of salvation, and if he doesn't receive it, then he is damned to eternal hell because he refused it and he was responsible.
That sounds like it doesn't add up maybe, but I want to see it. The important thing here is that we see what God says, not that everything makes sense to our finite minds. So the first one, the sovereign choice of God, we had just earlier in this chapter.
And let's go back and look at it verse 4.
Says according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be.
Fully and without blame before him in love.
So this first shows that God chose us before he ever made the world.
Remember this first. It's important. It teaches this subject, one of the number of verses that do, but it's maybe the clearest, at least for me, on this subject, that God chose me and everyone here who's trusted in Christ before He ever made this world. Did I have anything to do with that? Absolutely not. I wasn't there.
When I was born, it was just something God saw on me that was delightful to Him.
No, we already read about that. Everything about me was completely against God. It couldn't please him. But God saw me and chose me in spite of all the bad he said. I want Tim Ruga and I want each one here who is saved. That was his choice. But what about man's responsibility?
The survival teach that yes, it does, in the most definite way, and I want to give just one verse for that. There's many.
Let's go over to Revelation chapter 22.
OK.
Verse 17.
Says And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth, Say, come and let him that is a thirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. And so we preach the gospel, and this is what the word of God says, Whosoever will, do you desire to take the water of life freely?
We already spoke about John 316. Whosoever believeth in him will not perish, but have eternal life. Are you that whosoever?
God has said it. So yeah, that's me. I'm, I'm some of the anyone. So whosoever.
Then police take the water of life. That's what God says. Can you accept that? If so, you have life. So how do we put these things together?
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I don't know.
I don't know that I'll ever know. I don't think that's important either. What is important is that this is taught in God's Word, and you find these two truths running side by side in the Word of God, very clearly presented, and we just simply accept that There are many things I don't understand. I don't understand Infinity.
Endless time. Time that had no beginning, for instance.
Makes your head hurt. I don't understand God. I never will. Many things that none of us will ever understand.
And we need to let this be one of them. If I chooses that it should always be. So this makes perfect sense to God. He has taught it. There's no conflict here simply because God has said it, not because it has to make sense to me for there to be no conflict. So just a couple of verses on this subject of thoughts.
Sovereignty and man's responsibility.
Another subject I want to go on to is sanctification.
That's a difficult one there was for me, first of all, because it's a long word I hear a word like sanctification that so that just, we don't even talk that way. So what does that mean? And there are terms in the Bible that we don't use in our everyday speech and we need to come to learn them and what they mean and why they're important.
It's good to know that, and for this sanctification, it's good to have a point of beginning. And so if we take this subject, another thing I found about it was very confusing to me because there were different kinds of sanctification in the word of thought, and that just makes it more difficult to begin with. But when I realized that.
Of the different kinds of sanctification of the Word of God, there were two main ones.
And I'm just going to present them tonight. If you understand the two main ones, I think you'll have a pretty good idea of what sanctification is.
So first of all, what does it mean?
Sanctify means to set apart, and that's more like how we might talk today. I'm going to set this apart. I'll set this clean thing apart from these 30 things so it remains clean. For instance, we do this all the time in the kitchen.
And but it also has the thought and scripture of to make holy or more like the character of God and his character of life. And so really that's the thought of sanctification.
And what happens is that we are set apart to God. And that's the first kind that I want to talk about. The first major kind of sanctification that I want to present to you tonight is absolute sanctification. And this is what God does. The moment you believe the gospel, you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And God takes you, and he sets you apart to himself.
Set you apart from the world and all the filth and everything that you were involved in, and now he sets you apart to himself.
And averse for that. There's a number of good ones, but the one that I'd like to give is in Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews 10 and verse 14 four by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. You see that it's those that are sanctified. God makes them perfect forever. And how? By one offering of Christ. We could take up the passage and look at it, but you can do that later.
This is speaking about the perfect sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now we offered himself to God.
Because of my sins and your sins, and now because of that work.
We're made perfect forever. Am I perfect right now?
No, not in a certain sense.
Umm, I might easily go on and offend you. I probably have said something's wrong already in this meeting. We're not perfect, are we?
But yeah, God has made us perfect and this is something absolute that God does. It has to do with our standing before God.
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He sets us apart perfectly to himself forever. There's no change with that, no coming back from it. It's wonderful. It's good to get an idea of what that is. And so you read this in a lot of verses in the New Testament and umm, first Corinthians chapter 6, for instance, talks about a whole lot of awful things that the Corinthians had been. He says that's where some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified.
They completely have been changed positionally by God.
Made something entirely new, and that's what we are, sanctified, perfected forever because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But there's another kind, and let's just look at that briefly if we go to 2nd Thessalonians.
Sorry, first, that's 11.
Chapter 5.
So I think these are good verses to remember.
Again, I I don't, I'm not trying to say anything new here tonight.
Or go over these truths and my staff, but just to give some of the younger ones hopefully a starting point.
First Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved, blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So here and now we have the ongoing work. It's often called progressive or practical. I like practical sanctification. So work of the Holy Spirit of God in my life.
And your life as a believer?
To increasingly set me apart to the Lord, set me apart from those things that displeased Him, to make me more like the Lord Jesus in my life. And this is an important work that the Spirit of God does in US. And we could go on to talk about many things about how He does by occupying us with Christ. Second Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18 and verses like that show us how this works.
This whole process of sanctification, but it simply means that to be increasingly set apart by the Spirit of God to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
So very important subject, one that if you're young, don't wait to get acquainted with some of these true sanctification and, and also understand I'm skipping a lot of other major ones too, justifications so on. We just don't have the time to go into them all wonderful things, take them up and learn them as well. But I want to go on to another major one that we already had here, but it's often confused.
And that is the church.
And Israel and brother Bob gave this in his meeting. Umm there are so many verses that talk about this.
But I always like the one that her brother Bob used. So I want to give that as the point of beginning. Matthew 16. I think it's a great point of beginning because it really proves that there is a difference. And from here you can go on to see so many other things about that difference and other proofs of it.
But if you need one simple verse that most people know just to get in your mind, I don't think you can do better than Matthew 16 and verse 18.
Says And I say also unto thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church in the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It doesn't take much in this passage.
Who are this part of the Word of God? To see that there's a difference between the church and Israel, you just go back, for instance, to Matthew 15 and verse 31. You see that they're glorifying the thought of Israel. No question that Israel had been around, was around at that time, and had been around for a long time already.
But here the Lord speaks of something new. He says I will sell my shirts. Don't forget that.
It didn't exist yet. It was going to be built on the rock of himself, and it couldn't be built until the Lord Jesus went back up into heaven. And this is all further part of this truth, and sent the Spirit of God down to form His body on earth, and then His church would be formed.
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And all of those verses you'll find laid out one by one. But get this one at least simply in your mind that the church is different from Israel. And it was future to when the Lord Jesus said these words in Matthew 16. It hadn't happened yet. It was going to be sometime after that. And then you won't get confused by those who try to mix these things up and say that Israel is the church somehow.
It's the church in the Old Testament they like to go to in the book of Acts.
Which doesn't mean that at all. It's just simply speaking about an assembly there and so simple verse get it and I think it'll be a help to you. The next one that I'd just like to look at is the place that is our home. A lot of Christians aren't too clear on this either and we sometimes say our home is in heaven. Our home is not here and so.
In the assembly, we have a sense of that, but where does it say anything like that in the Bible? And it's good to get at least one simple verse that you can turn to. And if I had to pick one, I would pick the one in Philippians chapter 3. So I'm going to give that one to you.
Philippians, Chapter 3.
And verse 20 says.
For our conversation is in heaven.
From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Or we look for the Lord Jesus to come as savior. I think there's a sense of that. But that word conversation really is our Commonwealth, the place of our Commonwealth. Or we might just say our citizenship.
That's our country. That's what this person is saying. The place of our Commonwealth or the place of our citizenship is in heaven. Not the only verse that says this, but I think it's very clear and it's important that we understand that we are people of heaven. We are not people of earth. The Lord Jesus is going to come and he's going to take us there to heaven, to our home.
And that's what he says in John chapter 14. He says in my father's house are many masses, are many dwelling places.
He says I go to prepare a place for you. Is that on earth? No, that place is in heaven. Just what this verse says. Another one you can remember. We all know John 14, right? Many learn those verses. So it's another good point of beginning on this subject.
But that brings up the next subject, the Rapture. Do you know where the Rapture is? I would think probably many. Most would, but if you're young.
You've heard of the rapture. We talked about it this morning, how that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come at any moment out of heaven and he's going to give a shout and call us away from this earth and we're going to be with him. But where is that in the Bible? Somebody asked you about the rapture. Can you turn to it? There are those who say the rapture isn't even found in the Bible. So that becomes a special challenge now, doesn't it?
And in fact, the rapture is found in the Bible. So let's turn to.
First Thessalonians, chapter 4.
And we'll just read two of the verses here at the time.
So first Thessalonians 4 and verse 16 the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.
With the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
You can remember those verses. Very helpful. They're not the only verses on the rapture, but they're the only verses that actually speak about what is properly the rapture.
And that is this word that we had in verse 17 caught up.
The Latin form of that is rapture, and it simply means to ****** away the Lord. Jesus is going to come and he's going to raise the dead as we read. He's going to change them. You get all that in First Corinthians chapter 15. And then those of us who are alive, we're going to be caught up together with them, snatched away by the Lord.
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And we're going to be there with him in the air. We're gonna meet him in the air. We're gonna forever be with the Lord that says that we're gonna go, as he said, to that place where he's prepared dwelling places for us, the Father's house. That's where he's going to take us to be with himself. Our proper home. Heaven. Now our time is pretty much gone. I just wanna end with.
The future and we're taking up prophecy.
Umm, a little bit in the morning meetings for those who've been with us today.
So I just want to say something about prophecy. Somebody asked what is prophecy? What is the definition of it? And so in the context that we're taking up prophecy is is speaking about things that haven't happened yet. There's another meaning in Scripture, but in the context of what we're speaking, prophecy is foretelling the future. And we considered this morning how.
There were two parts to prophecy laid out in theater about how the prophet spoke and spoke about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. To go right through the Old Testament, you find so many prophecies all having to do with those two things, and that's really what we're trying to take up a little bit in the morning meetings, but if I could give.
A starting point, it's not a very common one. There's one verse that in light of all that we had tonight that I think is very helpful. Let's just turn over to Daniel.
Manual.
In Chapter 7.
And I'll just spend the remaining time instead of it on this.
Says in verse 27 and the Kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom.
Under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the Saints of the Most High, whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, should be His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him. To start at the end of that verse and go back to it for a moment.
His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom. Do we know who that is?
If we understood Ephesians one verse 10, we do know who that is. Isn't it the eternal purpose of God to head up all things in Him, things which are in heaven and which are on earth? And now in this verse we have.
These things mentioned, there's a heavenly place and there's an earthly place, and there's two groups of people, one for each of those places. They're laid out right here. Those who denied, I don't know what they do with this verse. It's a good verse to remember.
Because it speaks about the beginning of it. It says about the Kingdom and dominion, the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heaven. This is clearly under heaven that is speaking about, talking about the earth here. And who is this Kingdom on earth to be given to, is to be given to the people of the Saints of the Most High.
That's not one people, is it? That's two people. There's a Saints of the Most High and then.
They're the people of the Saints of the Most High, two different groups. And so these people are going to be given that Kingdom that's on earth. And then there's others that are the things of the Most High. And we have that all the way through the New Testament that we're already seated with Christ right now in heavenly places. That's what this term really is referring to.
We are those people, the most High plus Old Testament Saints that have died, martyrs of the coming days. There's a number of them that are going to be with us.
With Christ and glory there in heaven, but these people are going to be the Lord's people, Israel on the earth in that coming day. And this is just one verse. I picked it because it has all these elements just found in one verse. Uh, there's so many others that bring these things out very clearly. And we don't have to confine ourselves to one verse, but, uh, I just thought I'd give that for tonight.
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And in closing, I want to just turn over because.
I wanna make the point at the end that what we went over tonight is just a point at the beginning, a starting point, and if you were to trace out all of these things and all the other teachings as well.
Umm, to the full outline and all the details that fill in those outlines. You still wouldn't have the whole. I think it's important to know that. So I'd like to just stand on the first second, Peter.
Chapter One.
Second Peter chapter one and verse 5.
Emphasize this.
Giving all diligence, Add to your faith virtue, and add to virtue knowledge. We've been talking a little bit about knowledge tonight. That's just one small piece of the puzzle. Christianity is so much more than figuring out what the Bible says.
It's important to know what the Bible says. It's important to get this point at the beginning. It's important to get the outline to fill in the details. But there's much more to the Christian life than that. And I just, even though we don't have time to go into it, the meeting is finished. I want to make that point just to keep this in context. He goes on to stay here and he says.
Add to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience.
And the patient's fuzziness. And to godliness, probably kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity or love. For these things be in you, and abound. They make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. And the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's a more complete picture and I just want to leave you with that, I suppose, with prayer.
Our God and our Father.
We thank thee so much for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for Thy eternal councils, for Thy sovereign choice and eternity past, that we should be associated with Him.
We rejoice in this Father. We thank thee so much.
That we can take up these things and know what thy mind is and what my purposes are in Him and our place with Him. That is just about to be fully realized when He comes to take us home.
We pray that in the meantime that that would help us to live more for His honor and glory, since that would help us, each one, to take up more with Thy Word, Thy truth, but not just the knowledge, but every other Christian virtue, that we would be set apart more and more by Thy Spirit practically in our lives until that day when He comes to take us home.
And we ask it in the name and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.