Address—M. Debu
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's look to the Lord, ask for his help.
Loving Godfather, we just thank thee for.
Bringing us here together for time apart with thy people.
To be over thy word, to encourage one another.
And to maybe.
Can it be refreshed? Lord, we all feel as we go through this world that there's.
Things that we pick up that are not profitable in our lives for thee. And so we thank you, Lord Jesus, for providing this venue. And this time we just pray for special help now as we open thy word that what is said would come from thee, Lord Jesus, that it would be according to thy word and that it would help us, all of us, maybe a little more to understand what that word doing, Lord.
And.
That we might maybe know a little bit more how we fit in today plans and how we are supposed to behave ourselves while we are down here on this earth. We pray for Thy help, Lord Jesus, and we thank Thee and Thy worthy name. Amen.
You know the subject I would like to take up.
Tonight briefly maybe might call it an introduction to God's timeline. It tells us and to him that there's a story and the word of God tells us a story. And as I said, what I would like to do is maybe take Canada 35,000 feet view and go from eternity to eternity and see what God is doing.
With mankind, what its purposes are.
How he has to deal with man and his failure, what's called central part in all of this and how do we fit in where do we fit in God's timeline? Because I think a lot of today and and the Christian world are confused as to what God is doing. What is the church, how does it fit in God's plans and so.
It will be going quick because there's a lot of ground to cover.
And any of those subjects or topics that will, you know, we kind of take up could be taken up in much more detail.
You know, there will be a little bit of history of what has already passed, there'll be a little bit of what is future, but it's certainly not, you know, my point here to do an outline of prophecy or anything like that has been taken up many times. There's many meetings out there that you can listen to that they get up in detail and they're very profitable. We'll touch on it a little bit.
But it's just going to be kind of a quick overview of what God is doing. But before we start with that, I want to read a few introductory verses and the first one.
Is in Isaiah 57.
You know, we talk about God's timeline and.
I think when we think of events and things, in a way we always correlate them to time because we're limited by that. That's all we know. But there's a verse in Isaiah 57, verse 15 that says this. For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity.
God as an eternal God, He's in no way bound by time. We are, and we can only think along those lines. But when we take up God's counsels, we're dealing with eternity. We're dealing with something much bigger than time. But it's almost in God's grace that He has given us time so we could make sense of what is going on.
Let's turn now to Ephesians chapter one.
And we all know this verse. Very familiar with it. I'll read verses 9 and 10.
I think that the thought actually starts in verse 3 where it speaks of blessed be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and then.
Jump down to verse 9. Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to his good pleasure which He had purposed in himself that didn't dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in the Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. So it's been said that this is a very central verse, pivotal verse in the whole world of Word of God.
00:05:03
It tells us about God's counsels, about God's will, and he has a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify one, his very Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, both in heaven and on earth. And it speaks of the fullness of times, and I think that speaks here of the Millennium. But we'll talk about that, about the Lord Jesus. It's a person that is central to all God's thoughts, to all God's counsels.
But I think if you look in the Derby translation, it speaks in the Christ. He might gather together into one all things in the Christ.
We'll see too.
That God has a very special place for a special companion for the Lord Jesus Christ for all eternity.
And so just going to keep this in mind as we start going through things. So we'll go back.
Maybe go first to John chapter one.
And we'll read the first couple of verses. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
So it's been said that there's several beginnings in the Word of God, and this is the one that goes back the furthest. It's a beginning that really is not a beginning because there's no beginning to it. God is eternal. He always was. He's the eternal I am. And it tells us here that from that, I mean moment on, that doesn't make sense if we talk outside of time, but we're limited.
There was the word of God, and the word was God and was with God.
And so here we get the introduction of that person, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is written here as an introduction of him coming into the world as as as the word, but it speaks of him always being there, being God. And now let's turn to Proverbs 8.
Read a few verses there.
And its poetic language will start in verse, maybe 22.
But it speaks of that same person. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before His works, of all that was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there was no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled before the hills, was I brought forth. Well as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He set a compass upon the face of the death, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened the fountains of the deep, when He gave to the sea His decree that the water should not pass his commandment, when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and almost daily His delight rejoicing always.
Before him, you know I'm reading these verses.
Because I think they give us a little bit of a glimpse into the atmosphere there was.
In past eternity, it was a scene of peace, it was a scene of harmony. It was a scene of love. And it tells us, or it teaches us something right away of the character of the God that we're going to talk about. He's a God of love. And we see that when we go back now to what we might call the beginning of time. So let's go to Genesis chapter one.
Genesis chapter one and verse one.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.
So God is eternal. He was always there.
And then it passed eternity, if we can call it that. He had these councils, he had these plans, and here he starts putting these plans into motion.
I don't know if first one is exactly the beginning of time as we have at least measurable time, but when we get at least two verse three, God said let there be light. It's the beginning of creation as we know it now and we'll be about 6000 years ago. And the first thing that we read is that God said let there be light. And I find that very interesting because it's the character of God, isn't it? God is like, you know, something had.
00:10:20
Happened that there was darkness and and it was void and darkness and that was not according to the character of God. And so the first thing he does.
When he's going to start preparing this earth to be the scene where his counsels will be played out?
It's he makes light. God is light. And so we go through the days of creation and then we learn a lot about God. We learn about God's incredible power. We learn about God's incredible wisdom in creation. We learn that God is a God of order. We learn to that God is a God that has a sense of beauty. You know, God is not.
Sterile. He, he, he.
Look, look around us. Look at the place we're at. We just drove over today from Seattle. We drove through the Cascade Mountains and so on. Beautiful. God created that God.
Is a God of beauty. So many things that we can learn about God.
In creation, but then we come to something in verse 26 that's very important and very special. It says in verse 26 God said let us make man in our image and our after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and so on. And when we get to that point and we look back, we realize.
That everything that God has done up to that point was in view of the creation of man.
Everything was created in such a way that it would be very suitable for men to live in.
God had something very special in mind for that part of His creation of nothing else. Everything he did was good, but of nothing else. Do we read that? It was after His own image and after His likeness. Man was made in the image of God, representation of God, and was made in the moral likeness of God. There was no sin in man when God created him and so we can we can see that God was able to enjoy communion with.
And to come down in the cool of the evening and have fellowship with man.
That we don't have to go very far till something comes in that is very drastically changes everything. And we go through chapter 3, and I'll just read the first verses. We know him, but I'll read them Now. The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said unto the woman, Yeah, had God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the tree of the garden.
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God had said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took off the fruit thereof, and.
Eat, and gave also unto her husband with her. And he did he. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sowed leaves, fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
And so here we see.
That probably very soon after man was created. He failed. Man failed. You know, sin had been in this world before. Because here's the serpent.
But here's man that now fails.
He rebels against God. God had given him one thing or one commandment to not eat of this tree. And man fails. And sometimes people use the expression, you know, that nothing was the same after that. And that's really applied to what happened here. After men chose to go against the will of God, everything changed.
Everything changed, but what we see too is that God's.
Plans are not set aside. God is love and He still wants to bless men. And so even man immediately rebelled and failed.
God's plans do not change and now we are 6000 years later.
A man might be more rebellious than ever against God, and God still wants to bless man. God's heart of love never changes.
00:15:08
The God is holy, remember, He's light. And so judgment has to come in. Man is now a sinful creature, and God cannot be in the presence of sin. And so right away what we see, the beginning here of man's history, there's this separation between God and man because of sin that has come in. But what we see too in this very chapter, and it's very beautiful.
Is that we are ready.
Get some glimpses of what God will do to fix what man has just done.
And he speaks of the woman's seed, referring to Christ. And we see the animal codes, the coats of skins that speak of a sacrifice of blood that will have to be made for there to be a covering for man in his sinful state.
But man continues in sin, and the result of sin is death. And we get that in chapter 5. It's just a series of and he died and he died and he died. That's man's history, the consequences of man's rebellion, of man's sin. And so when we look at the Old Testament.
Spans about 4000 years of time and I think in the Old Testament the whole book is really a test of mankind.
Is man going to be able to undo what he did in the Garden of Eden? Is man going to be able to do anything that would please God on the basis of which God could accept him? And I don't think he'll come as a surprise if I say that the answer to that is no.
He will not be able to do that. But what we do have in the Old Testament is all these types and pictures and events that point forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, to the one who will be that true sacrifice of God and will be the Redeemer of mankind.
And so.
We'll kind of go really briefly to some of through some of these things. The first period that we have takes up about 1600 years and it's from man's fall to the flood, 1600 years approximately. And what we know very little about it. I mean very little is written because the, you know, in in chapter 6 is when the story of the flood starts.
During that time, God seems to have been pretty hands off. Man has now chosen to do his own thing. He has a conscience because he's eaten of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He knows what's right. He knows what's wrong. Nobody has to teach him. There's a lot of younger kids in here. You know what's right, you know what's wrong.
What did man do in those 1600 years and what was the result? Well, first of all, they populated the earth. Man lived for a long time, had lots of kids, lots of generations, and so the earth was really populated during that time, 1600 years. But what was the result of man going according to his conscience, man doing his own thing? It was that the earth was filled with violence and corruption, and that the thoughts of man's heart were only.
Evil continually.
So what does God have to do? Just like in the Garden of Eden, he has to come into judgment. And we'll see that as a pattern throughout. God cannot deny himself. God is not mocked. He is holy. And so when man fails, there's judgment. But what we'll see always stood at in judgment, it's never total judgment. There's always grace mingled with that judgment. And so Noah finds grace in the eyes of God and he and his family get spared. And there's a new beginning. We might.
Say and God introduces something new on the other side of the flood. It's the beginnings of government.
And we have another time period. We have a time period of about 400 years between Noah after the flood and between the call of Abraham. It's another important time period.
What do we get in that time period? Does man better? Do men say look at what happened in the flood when we didn't do the will of God and judgment came? No, there's failure. Once again, Noah himself fails in his responsibility. We read of man wanting to be on the same level of God and building the Tower of Babel.
And Abraham himself, the one who is called by God, that tells us in Joshua that he and his father served other gods. They were idolaters. And so when God called Abraham, it was sovereign grace. Abraham couldn't say I was called because I was better than anybody else. No, he was in a far country and he was an idolater. And so you add those time periods together and we have a little over 2000 years now. Isn't that interesting? We're in Chapter 11 of Genesis.
00:20:19
And we've gone halfway or a little over halfway through the whole time span of the Old Testament.
Let's turn to chapter 12 and read the first few verses there.
They said, God called Abraham in sovereign grace. And it says, Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house until land, that I will show thee, and I will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thee thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless the encourage them that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
God makes a covenant.
An agreement with Abraham and it's a one way covenant. God says I will.
Bless thee, I will bless thee, and it's the beginning of God starting to intervene more directly.
With man on earth, it's the beginning of God.
Having an earthly people.
We'll kind of have to go fast. Time is going fast, but we get another time period from the call of Abraham to the people of Israel coming out of Egypt. That's about 430 years.
Abraham's descendants become a great nation, go into Egypt, are oppressed there, and the Lord delivers them. Here's part of that pattern. God acts in sovereign grace, man fails, there's judgment, God delivers. And what we see too, and what we learn, and it's a, it's a constant too, is that the world hates God and the world hates God's people. Often times God will use nations of the world to bring judgment upon his.
Faithful people. But we see so often that those nations go way beyond what God wanted them to do because of their hatred for God's people. And so judgment has to come in.
Let's turn to Exodus 19, where we get another important change, we might say in God's ways. This is after the people of Israel have just come out of the land of Egypt, and right now we're about 2500 years into the history of mankind, 1500 BC.
Exodus 19 verse three. And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountains, saying, Thus shalt thou say unto the House of Jacob, and to the children of Israel, Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bury an eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be unto me a Kingdom of.
And an holy nation, these are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
And Moses does, and the people say in verse 8, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. Up till now the story of Israel has been a story of sovereign grace.
God delivered them out of the nation of Egypt.
It was grace that did it. Now the people say let us do something, we will do it. And so things change and the law is brought in and the law is not a one way covenant, it's a two way covenant. This do and you shall live. It required man to perform and that's what man thought he could do before a holy God.
And so at this time, the law comes in and I think from this time on, we can speak of the first real dispensation in God's ways. You know, dispensation means God's house order, a specific way that God deals with his people. You know, at that point there have been different ages and, and, and some instructions, some revelation of God, but this is the first time now that God really directly deals with the people.
And up till this point, maybe man could have said, well, we didn't know exactly what we should have done to please God. But now when the law comes in, there's no more question.
The law is not just 10 commandments, there's hundreds of different.
You know, rules, commandments, whatever you would call them, that pertain to the whole of life, how people are supposed to interact. What if something happens? All those things. And so God really spells it out clearly. This is what I want.
00:25:11
The God is a good God. God wants man to succeed. God doesn't set men up for failure. So not only does he give him the law, but he gives him everything he could possibly give him to support them and to be successful. They have this beautiful religious system way of worshipping God, of accessing to God, bringing their sacrifices to him, having an approach and in a way for for getting instruction from God.
We'll actually learn a lot about that, I think, when we go through the Tabernacle here, how God revealed himself through these things.
He gave them judges, deliverers when they had failed and other nations overtook them.
When they asked for a king, he allowed it and even came in into blessing and overruled it. And some wonderful kings were raised up that were men of God, that were true rulers of the people.
He sent them profits so that when they failed, it could be brought back to the Word of God.
God wanted men to succeed, but what was the result of that? It's the same story. It's failure. And the more God did for man, the greater the failure became. The read of idolatry coming in and not just a little bit, just wholesale Dollar Tree. They, they brought in the gods of all the nation, the worst of them. So much so that the nations look down upon Israel, the nation that should have been representative of God and the light in the world.
And so judgment has to come in again.
The nation gets split up, there's a 10 northern tribes, there's a 2 tribes and a little later.
The 10 tribes get taken away by the Assyrians. That's about 750 BC about 150 years later. The two southern tribes then learn, then learn from the 10 tribes and they go down that same path and they too are judged by the Babylonians.
But what do we see again? And I hope it doesn't get old. It should just excite us more and more. God comes in in grace again. It's not a final judgment.
There's a seven-year period of captivity and then God raises up a Gentile king Cyrus, who allows them to go back.
And a portion of the people go back and God raises a faithful man like Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel. They build the temple, they build the walls. The word of God is red and the ears of the people and the sense is given of it beautiful. When there's a slacking, he sends prophets like Haggai and Zechariah to to tell him get with it, be occupied with the things of God. Give him his proper place and he will bless you.
But there's failure once again.
And we read the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, and it's a very, very sad state. And then we have about 400 years that there's kind of darkness. We don't read about it.
The man's time of testing is coming to an end. 4000 years is 40 centuries. 40 is God's number of testing. Let's turn to Galatians chapter 4.
Galatians chapter 4 and verse four. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son, come of a woman, come under the law to redeem them, that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Man has proven himself.
Incapable of pleasing God. But it's as if God will give man an ultimate test and he sent his son. And we have the parable in the new and the gospel that say surely they will honor the son. And what do they say to wicked man? Here's the air. Let us kill him so that we might have the inheritance. And that's exactly what happened when the Lord Jesus came. He came doing good.
And men rejected him. We will not have this man rule over us.
What was the primary reason for the Lord to come into this world? In John 1227? It says, Now is my sole trouble. Then what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?
Before this cause came out unto this hour, what is the hour he's talking about? It's the hour of his suffering. It's the hour of his atoning sufferings in which he would bear the judgment that man deserved and exhausted so that the work would be finished. What men could not do in those 4000 years? Make one step towards God. The Lord Jesus did in three dark hours upon the cross for all those who would have Him. And so.
00:30:08
Testing is done. They failed and always. And so in Romans we read that there's no no one that can do a good. No, not one. All have failed and come short of the glory of God. And if we follow the pattern, what's supposed to come after man's failure, It's God's judgment. It's God's judgment. And sure enough, we read in the word of God of a time of judgment that's coming upon this world A7 year period that we call the Tribulation.
God will judge.
This world for what they have done to his Son. And when we think of God's judgment, it's a righteous judgment. It's according to man's deeds. And so we read, and again, this is not an outline of prophecy. We read of this time of judgment and we'll see that the worst, the most concentrated judgment falls upon that people. An area that has had the most light of God, Israel, the prophetic earth, the surrounding nation where the gospel has gone out.
For a long time.
And very clearly. But the judgment goes out through the whole world.
But what's so beautiful is even during that time, there's this remnant that we find throughout God in grace again, reaching out to have a people that they have their hearts by grace turned to himself. How does the this time end? Let's turn to Revelation 19. Read a few verses there.
Revelation 19 and um.
Let's see here where should I start.
Let's start in verse 11. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, the White Horse, and he that sat upon him was called faithful and true.
And in righteousness he don't judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood. And his name is called the Word of God. Remember reading in John one about the Word. It's the very same one. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And out of his mouth go with a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treaded the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he had on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
You know, the last we might say public view this world has had of the Lord Jesus was him hanging as the chief criminal on the cross.
His visage more, more than any man. That's what man had done.
This is the next glimpse, and it's going to be a glimpse that no one will be able to not see. It's going to be like a bright flash of lighting over this world when the Lord Jesus comes back.
The first time he came, came as a baby, born in a stable, laid in a Manger and said that light came into the world and the darkness comprehended it not.
This is a completely different character, isn't it? Here he's coming as the righteous 1 to take up his rights, to take up his Kingdom, and the first thing he'll do is put down his enemies, put down his enemies. The next thing that happens is we'll see it in chapter 20. Here Satan is bound 1000 years.
We read one of the first verses there in Ephesians 1 spoke of the fullness of time, the Millennium. This is the beginning of it. It's 1000 year period in which the Lord Jesus will reign in righteousness.
It'll be a tremendous time. You know, we started with the Garden of Eden.
This far surpasses it. The Lord will visibly reign. It tells us that righteousness will reign. That's a concept. Concept that's completely foreign to this world. Righteousness does not reign whatsoever.
But then righteousness will reign.
The curse will be reversed. You know when man sinned.
That whole first chapter where God made everything perfect and comfortable and suitable for men.
00:35:01
Was affected by it. It tells us in Romans 8 that the whole creation groaneth because of sin that has come in. That will be reversed. We read verses where the sower will overtake the Reaper. That will be crops on the mountain tops. Unbelievable things that will happen during that Millennium. A tremendous time of blessing. But how does it end?
It's very solemn. The same chapter here, Revelation 20, it says verse seven. And when 1000 years are ended or expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. Now Satan, remember, he's the one that started in Eden to destroy what God had set up and he's still working today. He's never stopped. But during those thousand years he's bound. He's not allowed to do his thing. But now at the end of 1000 years, he's loosed. And what does he do? He does exactly what he.
Done.
He shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle.
And you would hope you would read an unfollowed them because they had 1000 years of tremendous blessing. But what does it say? The number of whom is as the sand of the sea. Man's heart is incurable, desperately wicked. Who can know it? And they went up on the breath of the earth, and compass the camp of the Saints about and the beloved city.
And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived the most cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are. And they shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever. That's the end of those opposers of those enemies. That's the end. And then the last verses here speak of the final judgment. It's the great white throne where God will.
Raise up all those that throughout man's history have rejected God in whatever way He has revealed himself at that time, but they've rejected Him.
And they all will be assigned to the lake of fire, the eternal judgment.
Very solemn.
And then there's one more.
Can't say time anymore. That comes in because from this moment on, time is no more. Time is no more. It's the eternal state and in the eternal state.
It doesn't say that righteousness.
Rains anymore, but righteousness dwells. That's in second Peter that we have, that it's a fixed state. Nothing will ever change that nothing of sin or the effects of sin will ever touch those new heavens and the new earth. And it tells us in first Corinthians 15 that God is all and in all beautiful.
And so let's recap God's timeline. We have God created man for blessing man's sins.
And death comes in.
You have this perfect time of testing the whole Old Testament God showing blessing and favor upon man, that man failing, man found absolutely hopeless and helpless and guilty.
The Lord Jesus Christ comes.
He accomplishes the work of the cross.
Which was what was necessary to to glorify God, to satisfy God as to the question of sin.
But it's also a tremendous testimony as to man's guilt and man's hatred of God. God's judgment follows that we just had in this tribulation time and the Millennium is set up. There's a final rebellion. God puts it down, and we have the eternal state. So you can see how God's timeline is a perfect logical timeline. But if we had, end the meeting now.
I think everybody would say, aren't we missing something?
Yes, we are. But what we're missing, what we're going to talk about a little bit does not in any way.
Affect or mess up the timeline we've had. What we've been following is God's dealings with the earth.
And it's a perfect.
Sequence of things. Nothing has been missing, nothing is out of order. It's perfect.
But obviously there is something that we haven't talked about that's very important.
And that's something that we're going to talk about is amazing because again, it testifies to God's Amazing Grace.
00:40:00
What did he do after his son was rejected and crucified?
He didn't set aside judgment.
It's coming, but he says. I'm going to hold off a little bit and I'm going to bring in something very special.
When we read Ephesians 110 is spoke of on earth, but it's also in heaven.
God wants a heavenly people, God wants a special companion for his Son that's absolutely perfectly suitable for him for all eternity. And So what we're talking about now, the day of grace that we live in these 2000 years that we sometimes call the church period.
It's something separate, and it's something that's very little understood among Christians today. They try to fit it in in God's earthly timeline, and they say, well, if it has to fit in.
Israel has to be done with. No, we just saw Israel was not done with. When that tribulation time starts, God takes up with Israel again. He judges them for their guilt of, of of crucifying the Lord Jesus. But he works in a remnant to have Israel to have an earthly people for the Millennium, for all eternity.
But what he's doing now is he calling out a heavenly people, that special companion.
For his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's called the church. And 1St Corinthians 10, it tells us that we have the Jew, the Gentile, and the church. And in Ephesians, Stuart tells us that he has broken down the middle wall of partition between the Jew and the Gentile to form that one heavenly company, the Church sometimes called the body of Christ.
This church is called the Bride of Christ too.
It speaks of extreme closeness of relationship. You know, Israel was God's people and they had a special favorite position, but nowhere are they addressed as His bride.
No, we are part now of something very special and we should keep it special. Don't bring it down to God's earthly timeline. If I can say it like that, where God's heavenly people, we're not an upgrade from Israel, we're something entirely new.
You know, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, it was something that he looked forward to. He says upon this rock will I build my church. He looked forward to that. He knew what was going to happen. He knew about his rejection, but he knew that he was going to make the special fashion. And the church is started in Acts 2IN Acts 2 we read about the day of Pentecost.
And how the Holy Spirit will support out. But first maybe I should read a verse in Colossians.
Colossians, Chapter One.
Verse 18.
And he that is the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Christ is the first born. It talks in First Corinthians about him being the first fruit.
There's a new race of people now that are according to his image, and he's the first one. And for this church to be able to exist and to come into existence, he had to die.
He had to go into death, He had to be raised, and he had to ascend. You know, we sometimes hear, and it's very true, that the day we live in is characterized by two things. It's a glorified man in heaven, and it's a heavenly person, the Holy Spirit dwelling on earth.
How can he dwell on earth? Because there's a clean place now, Because there are those that have been washed by the blood of Christ.
And the Spirit can indwell those people. It's a clean place. And so we see in the Acts how that special vessel is formed. In Acts two it was Jews. In Acts 8 we get the Samaritans being brought in. In Acts 10 and 11 we have the Gentiles brought in one church, one people, one body of Christ.
This time period or this dispensation, we got us definitely working in a very special way today towards his people is characterized by grace.
00:45:07
Remember when we talked about Adam and it being a one way deal? How God says I will bless thee. That's the time that we live in now. But it goes beyond what Abraham was promised.
God blesses us, we are coming into blessing to the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in your part of that Church of Christ.
But now we just have a little bit of time left.
So, you know, kind of keeping in mind the timeline that we've had.
We should see now kind of where we fit in, in God's plans. He has plans for an earthly people. He has plans for a heavenly people.
This day of grace that we live in, the church period, is not an infinite period. It will come to an end. It tells us in First Thessalonians about a shout that we will hear one day, and we trust it's very soon.
And we will be called up. Why? Because we're a heavenly people. This is not our home. It tells us in first Peter Two that were pilgrims and strangers. Pilgrims are people that are passing through and we're just passing through on the way to our home or heavenly home. And strangers are people that are a little bit different and don't quite fit in. And since we're not of this world, we do not quite fit in.
It tells us in Colossians that our life is hidden. Christ.
What we do and why we do it, the world does not understand because they don't know the one that motivates us to live the way that we live. They have different goals than we do, and so we're strangers and pilgrims. But it tells us to. And let's turn to that in Second Corinthians chapter 5.
That God has left us here for a reason.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and had given to us the ministry of reconciliation. So God has given us something. It's a ministry, It's a service of reconciliation. And we haven't talked about that word yet, but it's being brought back in full favor to God. That's what God did. What the Lord Jesus did on the cross, we've seen throughout the whole Old Testament.
Man was far from God and couldn't come any closer.
The Lord Jesus did the work by which we might be brought back into full favor of God. That's the ministry of reconciliation. What should we do with it?
Well, we'll keep reading verse 19 to with that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and had committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors. That fits in again with the fact that we're pilgrims and strangers. This is not our home. We are ambassadors for Christ as though God that besieged by us, we pray in Christ stead be reconciled to God.
So this is one thing that God has given us to do here now is to go out with this ministry of reconciliation. It's to tell this world by our.
Not just by our words, by by the way that we live. You have to be reconciled with God. You have to be reconciled with God.
So isn't that interesting? What does an ambassador do? He promotes the interests of his home country. You know, we have ambassadors of the US all over the world and they promote the interests, be it business, whatever it is, of the home country in those places.
But one thing we're not supposed to do as ambassadors is to fix this world.
It's not our job and we can't do it. We've read in Revelation 19 of the Lord Jesus coming back as the King of King and Lord of Lords.
He will fix it and He can do it. We can't do it, and that's not our purpose, but we are here to promote God's interests in this world.
We should think about that because sometimes it's very easy to slip into a state where we spend maybe a little bit too much of our time and efforts with the things of this world instead of the things of heaven.
00:50:02
Another thing that we should be well aware of is that we are very close to this day of grace coming to an end. Very, very close. We've got lots of indications about that. And first of all, the Lord himself said, surely I come quickly and we can take God at His word. He's never failed His word. But what else do we see?
We see things like there being a nation of Israel.
That's tremendous.
Israel plays a very central role in what's going to come after the Church Age. Israel is there and we already see it kind of being a hotbed, a central part of the world.
The world is characterized by violence and corruption once again, just like in the days of Noah, Another thing that we see and it's sad and it speaks again to the pattern that we've had. The church is in ruin. The church testimony is in ruin and the Lord knows who those who are his and and none of them will will, you know, will be left behind or anything like that. But as a testimony, just like Israel failed, the church has failed tremendously. And then 2IN.
Lot of times it speaks of two days, two days, 2 days, and it tells us that with God, 1000 years is like a day. Now we think of the story of the Good Samaritan. What did he do? He left the wounded man in the end and he said that he would come again for him after two days. Well, we are there, we are there, the end of the two days.
And so as we are here at the end.
We are supposed to be ambassadors, but there's several little instructions that the Lord gives US1 That I'm thinking of is twice it speaks or it tells us to redeem the time, redeem the time. What does that mean? Well, redeem is another word that's very important and, and I think it was when we read in Galatians, it spoke of the Lord Jesus being the Redeemer. What does it mean to redeem? What's to buy back and to set free?
So if we have to redeem more time, it means that in a way your time is kind of captive and we have to do something about it. You know, the enemy is at work and he tries to fill up our thoughts and our time with all kinds of things that would distract us from what God has left us here in this world. And so we need to be diligent to set aside time for the things of God.
And the parable of the pounds in Luke's gospel.
God or the Master who gave the servants each a pound and we've all been given something to do. He says occupy till I come. We need to be busy. We need the Lord wants us to be busy.
And it tells us in Hebrews chapter 4 that there is a rest for the people of God.
You know we live in a place.
Where it's so tempting to take a rest down here, that's not what the Lord wants us to do.
Our rest is going to be when we're with Him. How can we be at rest in a world that's under judgment and that is rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ?
The Lord tells us another thing that we should do. Let's turn to Luke chapter 12.
Luke chapter 12, verse 34. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and eat yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh he may open, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find.
Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to me, and will come forth and serves them. So. The Lord wants us to be watching, and we will be watching.
If verse 34 is true for us, it says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Your treasure is something that is very important to you.
And we all know that things that are important to us are things that we think about and are occupied with.
Is our treasure the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven? It should be. If that's our treasure, that's where our heart will be. And if our heart is occupied with Christ and His interest.
Daily will be longing for his return. We want to see our Savior face to face. We want to be with Him, so we should be watching.
And I'll read one more verse in Second Thessalonians.
00:55:03
Chapter 3.
2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 three verse five. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting, and it could read of Christ.
You know, sometimes we're impatient and we think, surely, behold, surely, I come quickly as taking a long time.
Well, there's one.
Who's waiting to? And that's the Lord Jesus Christ, And he's waiting with a lot more intensity, might we say, than we are. He wants to see of the fruit of the travel of a soul and be satisfied He died for us, and He wants us to be with him. But there's a patience of Christ. He is waiting, but he's doing it in a certain character his way, doing it in his character of love, not willing that any should perish.
And that's why we are still here. And so we should have that same character of patience, yes.
We should fervently want the Lord Jesus to come, but as he leaves us down here, maybe another day, another week, another year.
Our interest should be his interest. He's waiting with patience and with a desire that more would come to the saving knowledge. And so as we are down here as as ambassadors and lights, that's what we can do. But there's one more thing.
That we are left here to do and that's to encourage our fellow believers. Hugely important.
And so as we can at the beginning of this camp, maybe we'll have very little contact us with people in the world, people that are not saved, but we'll have plenty of contact with the Lords people and we can do very important work here and pleasing work to the Lord. And there's to be a help and an encouragement to one another because we all need it. We all need it. And so it's wonderful to be here. It's wonderful to, you know, have a little bit of.
Outline of what God is doing. Christ is central in the whole thing.
But it's the Christ. We are part of what God has in mind. We're that special vessel, the bride of Christ.
If God loves us so much that he was willing to send his Son to die. If God loves us so much that we were part of his counsels before the foundation of the earth to be the most blessed of people.
Let it stir our hearts.
To be closer to him, to live for him more. Let's pray.
Godfather we.
We can only kind of stand in awe and marvel when we consider.
Thy councils and.
How we are part of those councils.
You know it speaks of man as enemies of God, and yet thy love and thy grace is so tremendous.
That we are seeing as in Christ and Christ very position before God.
That we are the objects of thy favor here tonight, Lord. What a wonderful thing. We thank you for it on as we contemplate these things, Lord.
We pray that it might touch and warm our hearts, and if necessary, that it might help us to rededicate our lives to the Lord Jesus. We just pray that for each one, these things, maybe for younger ones, are a little hard to enter into and to understand, but we can all understand. Our Godfather, that thou lovest us. We can all understand that the Lord Jesus died for our sins, and we can all understand.
That soon we'll be with you for all eternity. We thank you and we bless Thee, Lord Jesus, and thy worthy name. Amen.