Address—C. Buchanan
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46 in the back of the book.
I'll read the last stance, then we'll sing the whole hymn.
Be there.
The object bright and fair to fill and satisfy the heart. My hope to meet thee in the air, And nevermore from thee to part that I may undistracted be to follow, serve, and wait for thee. Some brothers start displeased.
We will read the 6th chapter of Second Corinthians.
2nd Corinthians chapter 6. We then, as workers, together with him, beseech you also.
That ye receive not the grace of God in vain.
For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I suckered thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
Giving no offense in anything that the ministry.
Be not blamed, but in all things approving ourselves as the.
Ministers.
Of God in.
Much patience.
In affliction.
In necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumult, in laborers, in watching.
In fastings, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand.
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And on the left by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report.
As deceivers and yet true. As unknown and yet well known.
As dying, and behold we live as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is.
Enlarged. You are not straightening us, but ye are straightened in your own bowels.
Now for recompense in the same I speak as unto my children.
Be also enlarged.
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness?
With unrighteousness.
And what Communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? For what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?
Ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said.
I will dwell in them.
And walk in them.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.
And will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
It seemed good.
To take up this chapter.
With young believers, for young people, we trust believers because of the last verses, because there's that wonderful promise.
Based upon.
One stipulation.
Of separation.
From.
Unclean things.
From unbelievers, as we have had in first John one.
Suggested the two families.
Those are believers and unbelievers, John, making the point very strong.
Children of God.
And those of the wicked one.
There's no communion between darkness and light.
I just mentioned the end of the chapter in that way, and then we will go back to the beginning.
And.
Read We then as workers together.
This will need a little outline of the preceding chapters.
We will start with chapter three. You don't need to turn to it.
There we have.
The ministration of righteousness.
The ministry of grace, the ministry of righteousness in.
Direct contrast to the administration of condemnation, which was the law, the rest of our first verse here says.
We then.
As workers together, beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God.
In vain.
We are in the age of the grace of God. Oh, Paul writes to Timothy and says, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace.
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Of our Lord Jesus Christ, now the glory.
Now the administration of.
Righteousness far exceeds that glory.
That shone at the giving of the law, when the whole mountain quaked. If it's so much as a beast touched the mountain, it should be slain. So horrible it was the sight that they didn't want to look upon it, man.
Was not ready for that glory.
Now we have grace. And so the third chapter brings the ministry.
Now the 4th chapter of Two Corinthians brings the minister.
And we have this treasure in earthen vessels. You and I are walking about in earthen vessels.
In which are is held.
That wonderful ministry.
Of righteousness.
So the minister comes before us in the 4th chapter.
And in the 5th chapter.
We have the motives that actuate the minister.
At this point I think I should say that everyone here.
Who has?
Knowledge and is accepted.
That ministration of righteousness has in him self.
That service.
You are a minister.
I think it will be easy to develop that.
A minister of God, as we'll find out in our chapter, what is going to activate and motivate you and I to carry forward.
Walking in the truth.
And letting others know about it.
Well.
The glory comes in in that chapter, really at the end of the fourth chapter, and the Modis are in the 5th chapter, there's the glory. Oh, what a wonderful scene is before us, That glory. We're pressing toward it. We're almost there.
But not everybody is going to get into that glory. We are concerned about those that don't like Paul was.
And he says, therefore, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men there is another motive that animates you and I as a minister to seek to reach out and get the gospel of the grace of God.
To others, so that they might possess in themselves that wonderful treasure.
And then lastly in the 5th chapter.
It's the love of Christ. Oh, that love of Christ. How it draws.
How it constrains and we have that life as we have learned yesterday.
We're not going to get a new life when we leave this scene and go to the next one.
So there's the new creation. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. There is a new creation.
These things animate. They stir up.
To action the minister who has this wonderful ministry.
Let's read a few more verses here. We'll stop again.
Verse one again we then as workers.
Those who serve, those who work together, beseech you also, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. Then we have a parenthesis. For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted in the day of salvation have I suckered thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Paul was animated to remind them of their salvation, and that it is in the day of grace when salvation can be had.
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So he brings that in a parenthesis.
Then he says giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed. We had a little bit about that just at the close of the last meeting. What blames the people of God when they don't act according to the word of God?
And you and I have this wonderful ministry, the ministration of righteousness.
We don't want to give any offense about that.
We don't want to blame the ministry.
Then verse four, but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God. Now we've come to this wonderful statement, the ministers of gone.
When the Lord Jesus was here, he said.
The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give, to give his life a ransom.
For many.
Now he has raised up ministers today.
We have a perfect example in Christ.
We can read that word serve. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom. For many it means the same thing, just to be a servant, to serve.
By Love.
Serve one another.
A man called JND said that self likes to be served and thinks itself great.
Love serves and is great. What lessons we have from scripture and from those who have taught us the truth.
Now when we come to chapter 6.
We have the moral traits.
Of the minister and there's a big long list of them.
We don't expect to get very far into them. I don't think it's necessary to try to explain many of them.
But those moral traits ought to be seen in everyone of us.
You know, in Israel.
They had priests and Levites.
They were types for the age in which we live.
And it's been remarked that in this age.
Of the dispensation of the grace of God.
Every child of God is a priest for worship. Oh what a high position that is. We can draw near with a full assurance of faith.
But we're also Levites to serve.
Now I'm talking to young people in particular.
Naturally speaking, have a long life ahead of you.
And you can serve.
I'm going to call attention to the first mark of the minister in this verse we're reading.
We stopped with ministers of God, verse four again in all things, approving ourselves as the ministers of God.
Now the first mark is in much patience.
Not just patience, but much.
Patience.
Now you have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the latter end of the Lord.
That he is pitiful and of tender mercy.
Job.
I believe.
There are more chapters.
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Written about that man.
Than any character in the Bible that I know of. There are 42 Chapters and it's pretty well job from start to finish.
God has set that man before us and told us much about His.
Long life, a most remarkable character.
Chose the best man there was to run him through those tests.
So that we could learn about patience.
About patience.
Think of that, man.
Tested by Satan.
Tested by his three friends Have you got three friends?
Do they ever say things?
That are not very nice about you.
Then he had Eli you to talk to him.
But it took the Lord.
To get job, to realize what he wants.
He could finally say, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
To his three friends he had said, Miserable comforters, are ye all?
He had also said, No doubt that ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.
But he was brought into the presence of God.
And he learned what self was there.
And then he was ready.
For something, but God took up the case.
Of his three friends.
As far as I can find, God didn't say anything.
To those three friends about what they had said about Joe.
But what they had said about him, that was to be taken up.
They hadn't spoken of God right as his servant Job had, so they had to bring an offering and come to Job. He sort of acts as a mediator.
What a humiliating thing for those three friends.
But Jobs life wasn't over by a long shot.
He had to pray for those three friends and then he got the blessing.
Then they got another family.
And then he lived 140 years after that.
Don't you? Don't you think job experience many things that taught him patience?
The ministers of God, we are here to serve. Patience comes in.
I want to go back to First Corinthians and read.
Two scriptures in one, Corinthians 1.
And 1St Corinthians.
16.
To draw out of the scriptures.
A family.
That minister.
And it's not just old folks that serve, it's all of us here are to minister.
In First Corinthians chapter one.
We just catch the first part.
Now verse 16 Paul speaking, I baptized also the house.
Hold of.
Now turn to the last chapter of 1 Corinthians and find out.
How this family turned out.
It's in the 15th verse.
1St Corinthians 16, verse 15.
I beseech you, brethren.
You know the House of Stephanus, that would be his household. Those who were in his home. Doubtless in my thinking, children may be servants too. That it is the first fruits of achaya. Now this last part of the verse, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the Saints.
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Brethren, if you're going to be ministers of God.
They're going to be ministers.
Of the Saints.
Comes out very practical.
And there are some things that are good to get addicted to.
Things some things that are very bad to get addicted to. Here's a good one.
Now I'm going to go back.
And relate a little of the history.
Of a family.
In the Dominican Republic.
That, in my estimation, is an example of this family, this household of Stephanus.
Now let's be careful what I say.
Because.
Some of this family may be known to you.
And I wouldn't for anything make any remarks that would reflect anything on that family.
It is the family of a man named Eduardo Fairmin.
My privilege to know that family.
From the very beginning of them coming into the truth, or in their earliest years and before some of the children were born.
Eduardo was a teacher.
A teacher isn't rated very high there, especially in salary.
But Eduardo with his wife Kyotista.
Was a family that went on well for very many years. The whole family, I believe, addicted themselves to the ministry. As the children grew up, they had their household in order. They lived at Rio San Juan where some of you may have visited.
But there was a little assembly at a place called Sanchez, something like 40 or 50 kilometers away.
Who only had a very few brethren living there.
And Eduardo had an exercise to move to Sanchez to help serve over there to minister in that little assembly.
And the Lord helped him to move to Sanchez.
We had been in his home in Rio San Juan. He was very poor. In those years. The home was right down on the beach where you might like to build a castle if you saw the place, but it was in the slums of Rio San Juan.
Sometimes in high tidal high tides, the water would come up into their first floor. They only had one floor and yet it was a good place to live. But they moved to Sanchez.
They had a home there and the whole family addicted themselves to the ministry.
Is a treat to visit in that home. Hear them read the Bible together.
Be it meeting together and seek to help in that little gathering up there.
But the government decided to put a new road through. In those early years, it was a Jeep or a mule to get into some of those places. Well, the road was going to go right.
In their front yard.
That was part of the reason, but another reason was Eduardo couldn't get.
A job teaching there, so he moved back voice. They all attended meetings faithfully.
Eduardo.
Began to get sick about five or six years ago. He declined in health.
I saw him those two years, just lying on the bed, finally waiting to go home, wanting the Lord to come first. But the Lord took him home.
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Maybe four years ago.
His daughters are all gathered to the Lord's name.
His two sons.
Are not.
They touch the unclean thing.
Their testimony is very poor.
This is sad. There is the necessity.
Of separation from evil. What is unclean?
And even separation from unbelievers when it comes to.
Yokes or those kind of things.
Now back in our chapter.
The patients.
Ministers of God in much patience.
Back in our hometown of Lawrenceville, there's a.
Godly.
Woman who runs a floor covering place on the Main Street along with her husband, and she likes to put wise sayings on the Billboard out in front. And one day a few years ago went by there and she had out on the Billboard patients. His life's hardest lesson. And I thought, I don't disagree with that, but I've got something that makes it.
Harder, and that is it's life's longest lesson for myself. It never does get over with in much patience. And then this list goes on.
In afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, we'll talk a little bit about those distresses because they come in connection with another statement.
On in the chapter, but to explain distresses, we'll go back to the.
4th Psalm.
And the first verse.
Distress has come upon us for a reason.
Allowed by God.
And we will read the first verse of Psalm 4.
Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness, Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.
Enlarged in distress.
An old brother in England who lived at the beginning of this century named F Lovington.
Wrote a pamphlet on the 4th sound. I recommend that you all get it and read it, and especially if you have trials and tribulations.
Which if you don't have, you're going to stay here long. You're going to have because they're natural to this light.
And he uses the word pressure.
And pressure hast thou enlarged me?
It's sort of like blowing up an inner tube, the more pressure you get.
The bigger it gets.
And Paul writes about.
Enlarged Hearts.
Well, that's the kind of heart trouble we all ought to have.
Enlarged hearts. We'll get to that as we go on.
In stripes and imprisonments, In tumults and laborers and watchings and fastings.
What a list we have here and as we consider Paul and his experiences which he relates in Chapter 11, I believe it is of this book, we can say he knew what he was writing about.
Beaten of stripes, and so on. In prison, in two molts, in laborers, in watchings, in fastings.
I'll use that word tumult.
And draw another illustration, which happened in traveling with Eric Smith in Bolivia many years ago. We were traveling by truck through the Andes, the Alto Plano.
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And you go for hours and hours is the back in the days of.
Kikiwana and the attempt to communize.
Bolivia.
And they put gourds at every town.
To check on every truck that came into town.
And they had a chain across the road. We came up to this town up in the Altoplano named Cotagaita. A poor place, but we were thankful to get to any place after traveling through those mountains in the dust and cold in the back of a truck.
Where we came up to the chain stretched across the road and stopped and all of us in the back piled out.
The Eric was in the front. He got out.
And there was a crowd to receive.
Those who came, this was an event.
In that town of Kota Gaita. So they looked us all over.
Wasn't very long until.
A man.
Raised an accusation against Eric Smith.
He said he went to the mayor and probably the police chief, who were both there. This man owes me money he didn't pay me years and years ago. Eric Smith.
Well, I tell you when Eric heard that accusation.
He knew what it could have meant.
And he said to me.
Come on Clem, let's go tell the Lord on this man.
He didn't stir up anymore tumult. There was enough around there.
He didn't accuse that man to anybody. He just, we, I helped him told the Lord on that man.
Didn't take long for the Lord to help us.
Within 15 or 20 minutes, the authorities of the town knew Eric Smith. They knew his history, his truth, and they knew that accuser and his word did not stand against Eric's.
But that was a lesson for me.
When you are slandered, accused make bites, as we had in our Titus this morning, What do you and I do?
What have you heard done amongst brethren as to slanders, as to rumors, as to accusations, one person to another?
It's bad. That's the devil's business. That's not God's to accuse this brother to that brother, this man to that man. There are the authorities in the world, but amongst the Saints, slander.
I thought as our brother was telling about that this morning.
A nice saying.
I came across about a month ago in reading the ministry of SG Patterson. Young people, I hope you will read every one of FG Patterson's books. The truth of the ground, of gathering, the truth of Paul's doctrine, the truth of Christ in the church is much clearer.
And easier to understand, and perhaps more accurate than in some of the.
Better known writers? Well, this is the statement.
The 115 years ago came out in his writings.
The saying is there is perhaps no more common device.
Of the enemy against the.
Divine position was gathered to the Lord's name, than to make insinuations against those that bear it, even to insinuate.
Like he said this morning, Roberto.
Was out in the street at midnight, shouting at 3:00 in the morning. You know how the next person would take that up in the chain?
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Oh, what lessons there are to learn from God's precious book.
Well, let's go on.
By pureness, the words are in until we get to this point. Now it's by just a little change in the preposition.
By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering. You could read that long-suffering.
Yes, patience is a long time thing and we are to suffer long.
By kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned. These are all wonderful things.
And we are equipped as ministers of God, having that new life.
The divine life to carry on in these things, or by these things. Verse 7.
By the word of God.
By the power of God, there is no shortage of power.
The Holy Spirit's here, we've already had that in the sixth verse, By the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, we are to be equipped.
With that which will protect us on both sides by honor and dishonor. My evil report and good report as deceivers, and yet true, I suppose, accusations of dishonor and and of deceiving against the true thing.
As unknown and yet well known this.
Part of the verse is on the tombstone that marks JN Darby's grave in Bournemouth, England. I have seen it.
What a man that was. I can't find his name in the current.
Reports that is published every year as to great men, as to great events.
Some time ago his name would appear in some places. Can't find it anymore, but there are some to whom he is well known. And it's true.
The last time I saw the grave it was still well kept. Somebody still knows about Jay and Darby as well as unknown yet well known.
As dying, and behold we live, ye have not yet resisted under.
Blood striving against sin, we get in.
Hebrews 12 I believe it is. That is, we're all living.
We haven't been murdered yet.
So as dying, and behold, we live as chastened and not killed. We're still here, but we do get chastisement as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things. What a contrasting group of things we have here.
That are said about the ministers of God.
And those that minister to the Saints, these things come out.
And it's for our good as well as the witness. Now Paul loved those Corinthians and he said, Oh ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. That's the affections. Oh, he how he loved those Corinthian Saints.
And they were kind of naughty children to him. You'll find they are even calling in a question His apostleship. Yet doubtless He was apostle unto them.
But his heart was enlarged toward them. He says Ye are not straightened in US.
That wasn't the fault of the apostle, but ye are straightened in your own bowels in your.
Own affections.
He didn't say they were heartless, but amounts to that. Oh, we need our hearts stirred up.
An affection one for another. And if you think of the Corinthians, how they should have loved that apostle, doubtless they did.
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But they didn't always express it. How about we and some of our brethren?
How about Job and his three friends?
What did they say about each other?
We've got to watch our speech, don't we?
As we had this morning.
Now for a recompense, in the same verse 13 I speak as unto my children. He calls them his children's. Later on he brings a little more into that, and he says.
The children ought not to lay up for their parents, but the parents for the children.
I'd like to say a little bit on that because I think we touched on it this morning.
The aged men, the aged women tracing down.
Recalling the 78th Psalm back in those days of Israel.
When the parents.
Taught the children.
And the children's children. And still another generation to carry down.
In the truth.
Now, when the apostle says the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children even wasn't saying that. Paul, I'm going to get a whole pile of riches and carry it over to Corinth and you can have it. That wasn't what he was talking about. They were rich at Corinth. They didn't lack in those things. They were gifted too. What was he talking about?
Christ and the truth of this blessed book. Your parents love your children. If you're going to pass anything on to them, pass on the truth, the truth of God. Teach them to addict themselves to the ministry of the Saints and be yourselves ministers of God.
Be also enlarged largeness of heart. Well, distresses and pressure will sometimes quite frequently produce a larger heart to reach out and seek the good of others.
May it be that we end up like Mordy Ki. Let's turn to the last verse of Esther and read that.
It just precedes job.
And an old brother named John Wilson said, I call this the Book of Mordecai. I don't call this the Book of Esther.
He seems to be the hero, doesn't he?
Mordecai the Jew.
Was next under Kingrus and great among the Jews. Look how the how much prominence he got.
And accepted of the multitude of his brethren.
Seeking the wealth of his people and speaking.
Peace to all his seed. Let's sing in closing #311.
It's a short one, but it talks about Communion and it talks about Everlasting Union.
That's what we're headed for. No more breakups of brethren that day. Some brothers start #311 for us, please.