Address—Dean Rule
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Perhaps before we could pray, we could just read a few verses in Exodus chapter 21.
Verse two. If they'll buy in Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he should go out by himself.
And if the servant shall plainly say.
I love my master, my wife and my children.
I will not go out free.
Then his master shall bring him under the judges.
He shall also bring him to the door or under the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awe, and he shall serve him forever. We pray.
Perhaps we could start Hebrews chapter 12.
And verse 28.
Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
In the mornings we've been hearing about the councils of God and about God's Kingdom and about the Kingdom of heaven and for making me think and reminded me of this verse that I had thought before some before coming to lesson says we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved. Everything in this world that we can see and it's just a repeat of what was said this morning, but everything we can see is going to be moved. It's unstable. It's not sure.
But we have something that is invisible, is sure and cannot be moved.
And we've heard about that and time is shorts and couldn't add anything to it. But let's go on then to the second-half of the verse. It says let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. One of from and I am getting farther and farther away from current lingo, if I can put it that way. But I think one of the common words that's being used today.
Is the word awesome?
Very common word and it's used and applied to different things. One of the words we have in this this verse, the word reverence comes from a root that's very much from what I understand or has a similar meaning to the word awesome. And so if you'll permit me to say it, we have an awesome God and we have an awesome Savior.
Far more awesome than anything that that word could be applied to in this earth. But that's our God.
And Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. And if we can go back for justice a minute to the verses we looked at a few days ago in the beginning of this chapter without going and reading them.
But talking about looking unto Jesus, I'd like you to leave your finger in this verse for a minute and go with me just for a minute to something that in the English language almost becomes a play on words. And that's in the last chapter of the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 4 and verse 2.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. And we'll just read that part of the verse in English. It works out as to almost a play on words because the Son of righteousness is the same one we know as the Son of God and the Son of man. And our desire this week is that all of us go away.
From this time.
With sun damage in our eyes, not our physical eyes. I'm not talking about going out and lying down on the baseball field.
And looking up into the sky so long with our eyes open that it begins to damage our physical eyes. But if we think of the verse that we read when we went on from vision and we talked a little bit together about communion where it says whom we have seen. And the vision doesn't go away if our eyes have been captured and they continue to be more and more captured to be as we look on the Lord Jesus Christ, as we read through the Gospels, as we read through the.
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God can see more and more things about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then the Sun of Righteousness can help damage our vision.
For this world.
He can leave such a permanent blood as a permanent damage in a sense on our vision for this world and have our vision so that it can only see him. You know, if a person can't see anything else in this world, the one thing that they can sense is on a bright day, on a sunny day, the light that comes from the sun, it's by far the brightest thing that there is.
Out in anywhere, basically, unless you're standing maybe right up next to a very bright light, but it's a very, very strong light.
And so hopefully our vision has been in a little way turned on the Lord Jesus and it's and that is something that will bring us more and more into communion with him. But if that's true, what do we have? At the end of this 12Th chapter of Hebrews, it says that we've received a vision from the Lord, perhaps.
We've gotten communion from him. We've been on the receiving end of the teaching in God's school.
And so does that mean we can stop? Does that mean that everything has to be on the receiving end? No, God wants us to go out and use our lives to serve him. And I want to look at two different ways that we can serve him. And they're in in Peter first, Peter chapter 2 and verse five is the first one.
But we're going to start from verse three and first Peter chapter 2. It says if so, be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious or the Lord is good. Have we tasted that the Lord is good? Do we have a sense of that in our hearts and our souls says here in verse four, to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious.
Going to stop right there. What did this world do to our savior?
What did this world do to our blessed Lord and what are our hearts like one of the in the hymn book we often use in in in in home assembly in the assemblies where we are in the evening for gospel meetings is the book that it has a song in there. And if you've not read it, I suggest you you maybe drop this title down and and you go back and read it. But if I see the crowd and pilots Hall, the furious cries I hear.
Their shouts of crucify appall and they can't remember the words but.
But one of the verses ends, and in that din of voices, rude, I recognize my own.
If we go back to the cross, how many of us can say we would have done anything any different than those that were around did?
Some of them disappeared, some of them denied the Lord Jesus even of his own his own closest followers and our hearts are no different. He was disallowed of men. He was set aside. He suffered 3 hours at the hands of people like you and like me, and we might have been right there among them if we had been living in that time. But the most horrible thing he suffered were those last three hours when the lights is at where were turned out. God wouldn't permit anyone to see the.
That His beloved Son was going through for you and for me. Totally rejected. Totally rejected. And what was He bearing in those three hours? He had the burden of my sins on Him, and He had the burden of your sins on Him if you know Him as your Savior.
There's never been anyone like it. In all the history of mankind. No one has ever done what the Lord Jesus has done for us.
And it has to get a response in our hearts, our hearts that are so cold, that are so, so often so indifferent to the Lord Jesus. But what does it say here? Chosen of God, chosen of God, Could any of us have been there and done it? Absolutely not.
For sinful creatures, our whole eternity hinges on what the Lord Jesus Christ did in those three hours. And precious. The question today is the Lord Jesus precious to your heart.
And precious to my heart. Words that are thrown around, bantered around a lot. The word precious.
People talk about and with reason, precious stones because they're limited in quantity, they're high in price.
But when it comes down to the Lord Jesus Christ, there was only one, there's only one and there was only one who could ever take our place. And so how's the 1St way that we can serve, that we can give back something to him in verse five, He also is living lively stones are built up a spiritual house.
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And holy priesthood.
To OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.
By Jesus Christ.
If we go to John 10 and we won't take time, we don't have very much time, but it talks about going in and going out. The first service that you and I can do for the Lord Jesus Christ is to offer up the spiritual sacrifice of praise, of Thanksgiving and worship. Why do we praise? We praise the Lord Jesus because of what He's done on Calvary's cross. We praise Him because of what He's done.
Why do we worship? We worship the Lord Jesus because of who he is, the eternal Son of God.
Are you going to be bored in heaven? Am I going to be bored in heaven? Not a chance. Impossible for us to sit down right now and with our limited minds to think of spending a complete eternity forever praising and worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ, when sometimes when we sit down for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes on Lord's Day morning together and we remember the Lord in his death. And if you're like me, my mind can be wandering all over.
But every distraction will be left behind when we are with the Lord Jesus and we will have hearts that are going to be able to praise Him fully, to worship Him fully, and He's worthy. But that's the first service that we can do for him right now. Have you thought today when you got up this morning and said thank you to the Lord Jesus for who He is and for what He's done?
Have you said thank you for that? You know, if we go through the line and someone gives us food, we we say thank you. I think it's something that every one of us should do.
At the end of this week, but to say thank you to Wally and Dolores and for everything they've done, and say thank you to your counselors, for those who helped you in your cabinet and everything else.
But every day, every time we can think of it, perhaps every time we should, when we just give thanks for our food, we can thank the Lord Jesus for who he is and what he's done. You know, if we were in the Old Testament, what did they have to do? They had to go and pile up some stones and, and there they would take an animal and they would kill the animal on that altar and, and that was part of their sacrifice. But we don't have to do any of that wherever we are, individually or collectively.
We can stop and think about what the Lord Jesus has done.
You know, there's an interesting thing sometimes people say and call the meeting on usually Lords Day morning at different times and different places and things that when, when there's a a cup and a loaf on the table, they, they, sometimes people will call it the worship meeting.
But I think it's interesting, I don't know if he said this before this week, but I think it's interesting that the word of God doesn't call it that. It says it's the breaking of bread and it says we do it to make, to to remember the Lord in his death. And if you and I simply stop and think about what the Lord Jesus has done, it will produce praise and worship in our hearts. If we say I'm going to go worship and we try to get it from here inside, from something, we try to produce ourselves.
It may be something that's not real, but if we simply stop and consider the Lord Jesus Christ, it will produce true worship. And so that's the first kind of service. And then if we can, and I wish we'd had time for the verses in between, but we'll read them verse six and on. Wherefore it is also contained in the Scripture. Behold, a lay in cyan, a cornerstone elect.
Precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
An important point there, this world is full of people that are confounded, people that are confused, people that don't understand, you know what the first thing to do to get rid of being confounded is to get rid of the confusion as it were clear the spider webs away. It's to believe and then God starts taking care of the confusion of different things. And so if there's anyone in this room today who has not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
Don't expect all the all the questions you might have to be answered. Now. Believe, believe. Is it true that the Lord Jesus died? Why did he die? Did he die for you? If you believe that he did, if you know that he did, then he'll start taking care of the questions. But if you with your own mind, try to figure out the answers to all the questions before you're again trying to elevate your mind and put it up on a level with God's mind which is impossible.
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God will start answering the question.
If you'll just believe, if you haven't believed already. Verse 7.
Unto you therefore which believe He is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed.
The same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient were unto also they were appointed.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal.
Priesthood. Unholy nation, a peculiar people.
That you should show forth the praises or the excellencies.
Of him who hath called you out of darkness.
Into his marvelous light, the 2nd way that we can serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
The 1St way is by thanking him, by praising him, by adoring him. He's worthy going into his presence. And the second thing is to go out to this poor Dark World with the message.
That there is a Redeemer, that there is one who loves there. We heard last night about the Kinsman Redeemer like Boaz. Have you announced the Redeemer to those who you come into contact with every day?
If all of a sudden we could have a person here standing here next to me and that person, we could say, well that person has 5 minutes to live and you have the next 5 minutes to talk to that person. How would you respond?
Would you say, well, I'm really pretty busy and I I don't have time and we're gonna finish things? No, I think you would respond very quickly and tell the person of their need to be saved before it's too late. Can we turn over for a few minutes to a verse in Proverbs?
Proverbs, chapter 24.
And verse 10.
If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small, if thou for bear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain.
What does it mean to for Bear in this case? I think it means to neglect to perform a duty that you have.
If someone is on the point of dying.
If someone is on the point of dying and you could come up to them and give them the thing that would give them life and you neglected to do it.
What would happen if you were in a hospital and you were standing next to the bed of someone who you loved?
A parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, and you were next to that person and you noticed that the person was starting to go into a coma and you were concerned that they would never come out of it. And so you hit the nurses call button and the nurse comes running down and the nurse looks and the nurse calls out the code. Whatever the code is in that hospital that says every able body who knows what to do get here because we've got an emergency.
We've got an emergency and the Doctor Who has the most knowledge about it says.
If I go now, my lunch is going to get cold. I'll go after I'm finished my lunch.
And the doctor comes up after lunch and the sheets already pulled over the head.
I don't know if you've ever been in one of those situations with a family member, but my father, before he passed away, my dad, I was in the hospital one time.
And we had just gone home from visiting and we got the call.
And the call said a code, and I don't remember what the details were. A code has gone out. And I answered and they said, who is that for, your dad? And immediately we went back to the car and drove as fast as we possibly could to get to the hospital, go running up the stairs. A code had gone out.
That there was a mistake. They had called us and it was someone else.
And there was already then a man dead in the intensive coronary care unit of Riverside Hospital in Columbus, OH. And I have to admit that I had very, very mixed feelings. I was very thankful that my father was still alive. But I thought about that man, and I wondered, you know, I miss him, but I'm going to be with him again. But there was a man who had died in the few minutes before that. The code had gone out. We'd gotten the wrong call.
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I don't know where that man is. I don't know where he is. How about the people that you and I come into contact with? They're ready to be slain. They're on, as it were, their deathbed. What if the Lord Jesus Christ were to come back today? People that I have been too afraid to talk to.
May go into an eternity without hearing about the Lord Jesus Christ. I understand fully that God is sovereign.
But God never told us that we could hide behind the fact that He's sovereign, that He works in hearts in spite of ourselves. All we can rest in that in a sense, but it's never given to us as an escape for our responsibility.
And so let's go on to verse 12 and Proverbs chapter 24. If thou sayest, behold, we knew it not.
That not he, that pondereth the heart considerate and doth not he? And he that keepeth thy soul, does he not know it?
Does not even render to every man according to his works. I have a question.
Does it matter to you and does it matter to me that every day thousands and thousands of people are passing into an eternity without the Lord Jesus Christ? If we were to go around the world, and I don't remember the exact numbers, but.
There's something like 19% of the world, between 19 and 20% of the world are Muslims.
They don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. Something like.
13% or 12 or 13% of the people in the world are Hindus and 12 or 13% of the people in the world are Buddhists.
They don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior either.
And you go on around there's 818 or 20% something like that of the 5.5 approximately billion people in the world.
Who have no quote UN quote religion. They don't follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
They don't follow anyone else. There are several percent that are animus. They're out worshipping the trees or the animals or the rocks or the weather or whatever it is.
And then one in every 400 people about in the world is a Jew. Not very many. It's pretty amazing the things they've accomplished for being only one in 400 people in the world. And that leaves about 1/3 of the people in the world professing to be Christian in some way. And if you take that, maybe 1/4 of those, some people have estimated maybe 1/4 of those people approximately really know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
Can you and I say that the others don't matter?
Is that possible for you and I to say that the others don't matter? Do they matter to the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ who gave everything to save us? If they matter to Him, they should matter to us also. How are we responding? Are there people that you're in school with that you work with, that I work with, that I have as neighbors?
Who I've never told them of the Savior's love.
Can I serve the blessed Savior by telling them of the Savior's love?
Can you serve the Savior by telling them of the Savior's love? Yes, you can.
And yes, I can. Is it important to us? I don't remember the name, Maybe someone can remember the name, but.
On a bulletin board behind my desk for a long time and I don't have it anymore. There was there was a little girl who was caught in a, you know, an abandoned well in the backyard. We've got a book about it at home. I don't remember what the person's name was, but do you remember a few years ago, Jessica?
Jessica and I remember when Jessica was down in that hole.
And they were drilling a whole parallel to it. And 24 hours a day someone was there working and then they had to drill a hole sideways to get her from from below. And then they brought Jessica out and everyone's attention was focused on saving the life of that little girl. And I had a someone had written a statement and they had it. And I don't have it on where it is now, but something like.
If.
If you realize that X 20,000 or 30,000 or some number.
Of Jessica's. We're going into a lost eternity every day. Would you focus some of your attention on that?
Have you ever had someone you've gone to school with or worked with that you saw on Friday?
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And you went back and on Monday morning they were no longer going there.
They were dead. I had a friend, George.
We met at a certain place in high school, like 10th grade, and we rode our bicycles from that place to school.
Every day, almost every day when we would meet up. One weekend, George got a new bicycle. He was an exchange student from Hong Kong, living in Columbus. He got a new bicycle, didn't bother to put a new light on it. He worked at a Chinese restaurant on the weekends as a waiter. He was coming home, coming down to Main Street in town.
On Saturday night.
On Lord's Day, another sister went to the meetings on large, day said. Did you hear about George? No, George is dead.
The week before we talked something about eternity and he said I've got time, people don't have time. You and I are acting so often and I put myself first on the list like all our neighbors have an eternity to wait to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ.
But it may be too late by the time we get back, because we're on our way home to the glory. So let's serve the Lord Jesus.
With reverence and godly fear, let's serve him by offering him what he deserves in some as much as we can in worship and praise and Thanksgiving. Let's worship him by in that, but let's also serve him. Why is this verse said by being royal priests, by announcing to this world that there's a Savior who loves them? You know, it's a wonderful message.
It's a it's a a very important and very limited thing.
The United States, as big a country as it is, has only approximately 200 ambassadors in the whole world. That's all. There's only about 200 people that represent the United States and the whole world.
And I've only met one ambassador in my life, But you and I have been told in the Word of God that we can be ambassadors for Christ in this Dark World. We can be ambassadors for Christ. Does the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ burn in your heart and my heart so much that it's something we can't contain?
If he's real to us, if he's overflowing in our hearts, it'll go out to others.
If we find that he's not overflowing, we'll keep it to ourselves, but then it's time to go back.
And to get into his presence quietly, individually, until the Lord Jesus means so much that we can't hold the message back.
We just close by reading the last couple of verses of God's Word.
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.
Amen. And I'm going to stop there and ask a question. If you had never read the last half of verse 20 and verse 21 of Revelation 22 and you just heard these words for the first time, surely I come quickly.
Let's stop for justice 10 seconds or something and just think about how we would respond to those words.
The divinely inspired response was Even so. Come Lord Jesus, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen. Could we pray?