Address—Walter Porter
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Can we begin by singing together hymn #256?
256.
Keep us, Lord, oh, keep us cleaving to thyself, and still believing till the hour of our receiving promised joys with thee.
Maybe some brother could start that.
Praise the Savior.
Give the golden blue and all what we know.
All the time.
In the heart, Jesus farting.
Forever.
In respectful.
Chasing never.
Near force, Lord God.
As ever, Lord, you see my love down here.
We are all.
We've had a little bit before us today about the collective side of the testimony and those things that Brother Robert brought before us that our hindrances to that and I would like to consider a little bit things in our personal life maybe.
With the Lord.
As opposed to the collective side, and I'd like to start with First Thessalonians chapter one.
We'll read a couple familiar verses at the end of First Thessalonians chapter one.
Verse 9.
For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you.
And how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
So we've considered today some of the things.
That have to do with our salvation and that it was not of us at all. It was God who worked those things to give us to turn to Him from whatever idols there were in our lives and to give us now the desire to serve the living and the true God and to wait for His Son from heaven.
Sometimes we come across things in our lives that are discouraging.
Maybe there are hindrances to us and maybe we have a difficult time dealing with them.
But in our hearts and we've been given a new nature, maybe I should say it that way, that wants to honor the Lord Jesus.
And so we find this in the middle here after their turn to God from idols. The purpose is to serve the living and true God and to bring honor and glory to Him and refreshment to his heart, as we've been talking about earlier.
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And we're waiting for him to take us home. But while we're waiting, there are things that come in. And Satan in these last days is very active to do whatever he can to discourage and dishearten, to distract and to destroy. And all of us probably have experiences in our lives that kind of follow that line of things. Let's turn to Second Timothy chapter 3.
And just read a little bit there about the last days.
The condition of things around us is not something that's taken God by surprise.
And he had the apostle Paul write to us about those things in this chapter in Two Timothy 3.
This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce.
Despisers of those that are good traitors, Heady.
High minded lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.
From such turn away.
And then I want to read a verse in Matthew 24.
Matthew 24 and verse 12.
And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
Does that sound anything like what we have around us today?
And as I speak these things.
I certainly want to.
Speak to my own heart as well.
Because the outlook gets rather bleak sometimes, some of us are more prone to.
Depression and looking on the dark side of things and others are.
The Lord knows each of our hearts.
And we're thankful for that.
We sung in our first hymn. Though our pilgrimage be dreary, this is not our resting place and we can be thankful for that.
We sung hymn #153.
That all other streams are dry. And you know, if we look around us in this world today and the Lord knows how many technological things help us to do that and look around us in this world.
There's plenty to distract, plenty to defile, plenty to discourage.
As we think of the things around us, and especially as we consider what's going on in the great House of which we are a part.
But I have been reading personally through Proverbs and let's turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one.
Because I was struck, as I was going through here, the difference between.
The outlook that we have in Proverbs 31 in the last part of the chapter with a virtuous woman, and what we have the preacher telling us in first chapter of Ecclesiastes.
And I thought how different an outlook we have there. Let's just read the first part of Ecclesiastes one quickly.
The words of the preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanity, saith the preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity, like our hymns said. All other streams are dry.
What profit hath it hath a man of all his labor, which he taketh unto the Son. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the South, and turneth about unto the north. It whirth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
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All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full.
Under the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of Labor. Man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which hath been, the thing which hath been it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done. And there is no new thing under the sun.
This is not a very happy outlook on things.
But you know, we don't have to have that kind of an outlook.
We have an uplook and if we keep ourselves in the love of God.
And have an exercise to be before the Lord, to take time to read the Word, take time to be in prayer, speak to the Lord and let him speak to us through His word. We don't have to have that kind of an outlook. It won't change the things that we see around us very much, although we may be a help to others more than we would have been if we were all discouraged. But.
We can choose to have more the.
Position of this virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 and I just would like to go through there and notice a few things that this woman occupied herself with.
I want to start. I want to read verse 23 first.
Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
When I read that verse, I think about Boaz and Ruth.
How he was one that was known in the gates, how he was one that had the respect of his brethren. And as we take up these few verses here, it struck me some time ago that we are all, if we are members, the body of Christ, we're part of the bride of Christ as the bride of Christ, every one of us, whether we're male or female.
We can be exercised about this portion about the virtuous woman.
There are young men here, some are not married, who may be interested in finding a woman that has a lot of these characteristics. And my question for such is, well, are you one who's known in the gates, sits among the elders of the land, if you will? What do the brethren think of you? How have you been applying yourself to these things?
That have to do with our Lord Jesus, the knowledge of the scriptures and being able to be useful to the Lord in some kind of service to Him among our brethren, maybe in words of the gospel to the lost, whatever it might be.
But as we go through here, I think it's nice to consider that this virtuous woman ought to be a picture of us.
And these things ought to be an exercise in our hearts. So in and in connection with her husband.
Sometimes we say, Oh well, that so and so's wife.
And you know, if people know that we're Christians, it ought to impart some kind of a dignity to our walk, because we belong to the Lord Jesus. If our life is not in correspondence with that, that's a sad thing, and it ought to be an exercise to us, each one.
So here are some of the things that this woman occupied herself with because she was, as we might say, the bride of Christ. So we have our position already settled. We know that our title to heaven, we read in his blood, We're on our way there and we ought to hear show ourselves as those that belong to this One who has done so much for us.
Verse 10 of Proverbs 31 Says who can find?
A virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband death safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need or lack of spoil.
A question for my own heart is.
How far can the Lord trust us?
With our business dealings, with our personal lives, with our lives in the assembly, it's a good question for us to consider.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.
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Verse 12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. That word willingly is interesting to me because we find it in Scripture in a number of places, and notably with Bezaleal and those in the Old Testament, because it says God was going to provide those who would work willingly with their hands who wanted to give themselves to the service of God.
They saw what Jehovah was doing and they said we belong to him. We've been redeemed, if you will.
And now what can we do for him? And may that be more of an exercise in each of our hearts because we belong to him. We're not here to please ourselves. We read in Second Corinthians that we're not our own. We're bought with a price. I take that as two separate things.
We're not our own because we didn't ask to be created.
We didn't put up a wish list and say this, I want to be like this. I want to be strong or beautiful or intelligent or something like that. No, God did all those things his own way, his own time. Like was said in the meetings. We didn't choose our parents, We didn't choose how we were going to be. But he made us this way and whatever we have belongs to him and we should use it for him now.
We're not our own by creation. And then it says you're bought with a price.
That's beyond creation. That's now you're being bought back. We were lost. We went off on our own. We did our own thing. We were born.
In Rebellion.
But the Lord came in, he created us for his pleasure, it says in Revelation 4. And then he's redeemed us back to himself. And now it ought to be our part, as the apostle Paul said every day of our life, to say, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do? How should we be occupied? Now, maybe we get a few of those things a little further down in our chapter here, but how nice if that can be a willing thing. I know maybe we've all come across people to say, well.
Lord would just tell me what to do and spell it all out. Well, I would just do it. Well, that's like being a robot or just an employee or something. And the Lord doesn't want that. He wants something from our hearts.
Something that would well up from inside. Thankfulness for all that He's done for us in the position we've been brought into as we were speaking about today. That none of these things we would have been able to do for ourselves. But here we find ourselves gathered to the Lord's name, saved by his, his precious blood, there on the cross, the work that he did. Does that mean anything to us?
I hope it means more and more to us every day as we go on.
Verse 14 She's like the merchant ship. She brings her food from afar.
She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household and apportion to her maidens. And let's just skip up to down diverse 18 the last half of the verse. Her candle goeth not out by night.
So here we just read she rises while it's yet night, and in verse 18 we see their candle goes not out by night. And so that expression is she's burning the candle at both ends.
Is there that kind of a purpose in our heart to live for the Lord Jesus?
What do we do with our time?
How do we spend those resources the Lord's given to us? We all have 24 hours a day.
We all have different kinds of abilities. Been given gifts of the Lord. What do we do with them? Do we squander them on ourselves? What kind of a sad life that is?
So she rises while it's yet night, and gives meat to her household and apportion to her maidens.
She had a household. Many of us here have households.
Some here are starting out on a household.
But there are those.
If you're very old at all, you have those that look up to you. Maybe it's younger brothers, younger sisters. Maybe it's a kid at school you befriended. Maybe it's a coworker. This maybe just gotten saved and they don't know what it is to be a Christian and they're coming to you asking for help. Maybe, and maybe not even verbally, but you can tell they'd like to have what you've got and they'd like to understand a little more scripture and maybe they know that you have a little something you can share with them.
So this one, she felt that responsibility.
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Of those that were brought into relationship with her, maybe there are actual children.
But she rises while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and apportion to her maidens. And I don't have thoughts or time to speak about these different things as we go down through here. But she considers a field, and buyeth it with the fruit of her hand. She planted the vineyard. She was a diligent soul.
She girded her loins with strength and strengthened at her arms. We might call that exercise. There are young men here. Maybe they'd like to. Some hang around in trees, and some like to go to the gym and work out. Some run. But that's exercise. You're getting yourself ready for what's coming and keeping yourself in shape so that when the need arises, you've got what it takes to do what's necessary. And there's a spiritual aspect to all of that.
What are we doing to be exercised in the Lord's things?
So that when the occasion arises, and I think it was mentioned in the meetings, to give an answer to everyone that asks the reason of the hope that's within you. What do you say to people? Oh, where do you go to church? Do we have an answer? Do we have any kind of a thought about it? Can we point them to some scriptures? Exercise will bring that to us. We can be in the Word. We can come to the meetings, come to the conferences and get those things that we need.
Like this woman here who girded her loins with strength and strengthened her arms.
Verse 1818 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good.
Her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. I take it that's the spinning wheel?
Verse 20 She stretches out her hand to the poor. Yeah, she reaches forth her hands to the needy.
Now.
I think a lot of times we may talk to a brother and he says, yeah, I took another position because, you know, it's better for my career path and I'll be making a lot more money.
Well, that's nice, I guess, but what are you going to do with the money and what's your purpose in all that? And I think when I read about this woman here buying a field, planting a vineyard.
Doing her work on the spinning wheel, stretching out her hand to the poor. Why did she do those things? I don't think it was to aggrandize herself and to better her position. I think she was doing those things because she wanted to be of service to others.
Because in our language we could say of all that's been done for us.
You think of what's been done for us and do we just want to accumulate and and gather together things to aggrandize ourselves or make our retirement better or whatever that kind of a thing may be.
This woman is kind of a picture to us of someone who didn't do that, and she was concerned about those that were around her. There were poor ones, Mr. Darby says. Afflicted.
They're needy ones, they're people that need things. Is there any concern with us to be a help to them?
You know, we read about the master, that he went about doing good, what is good.
Can any of us do good to others? I'm sure there's a lot of things that you can think of. It would be a help and encouragement to others. Sometimes I speak to the children in Sunday school and I say speaking about gifts or something. And I say everybody has a gift. And I look at the Leon children. I say even you do. And they look at me and I smile at them and they smile back and I say that's something you can give to somebody else.
Why don't you go smile at an older person and see what it does for them?
Little things it doesn't have to be very much Hold the door for an old brother.
Her brother Robert here.
Those kinds of things, it shows that there's something in our hearts that wants to respond to all that the Lord has done for us. And how nice if that can be seen even when we're little.
Verse 21 She's not afraid of a snow for her household, for all her household were clothed with scarlet.
And I think it's a nice exercise that.
The scarlet might speak to us of the blood of the Lord Jesus, and to one every. No, so that we can we want everyone in our acquaintance to be covered with that precious blood.
Maybe there are other children in our neighborhood. Maybe there's that other person that work.
The other student that sits in the desk next to you, or whatever it might be, is your concern for them that they would come under that same blood that you've been put under?
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We can preach the gospel to them. We can make sure they understand that the blood of Christ is available.
The way is made open there, and they can go there too. This woman.
She wanted to make sure they were clothed with scarlet and especially those of her own household. So when we have these little children at home or our grandchildren, how nice if there can be that desire to put before them those things that have to do with eternal realities and that they're sinners and they need to have a Savior. They need to have those sins washed away. We can do that when they're very young.
Verse 22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing as silk and purple.
And I don't think that this has to do with going to the store and buying lots of clothes.
But I I just have applied it this way in my own thoughts that it's making herself attractive to her husband.
She maketh herself coverings of tapestry. And you know we can do that. It says in the Revelation 4 I already alluded to that we were put here for His pleasure. And it pleases him when we do things just for His benefit, because he feels like we feel like he would like us to. And one of them is this remembrance of the Lord that we've been talking about in our meetings, to come there and just sit there and to remember the Lord and all that He did for us.
That's a joy to his heart and so this woman.
She had a way of making herself attractive to her husband. And again verse 23, the focus is not the woman, it's not her works, but her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. So we've been united by the blood of Christ to that one who is going to have the highest place, who is seated on the right hand of God at this moment.
Who gave everything for us?
And what kind of a desire do we find in our hearts? And may the Lord encourage it and cause it to grow, to want to be here for Him and to respond to Him and all that He's done for us, and to see that then flow out to others, that there might be blessing among His people and with the loss that are all around us.