Buena Park Conference: 1984
Table of Contents
Restoration
Address—Chuck Hendricks
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.
Turn with me to begin with tonight to 1St John chapter one, First Epistle of John chapter one, verse nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Chapter 2, verse one. My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not, and if any man sin.
We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And then some verses in Lukes Gospel chapter 22.
Verse 31 Luke 2231 And the Lord said Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you.
That he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.
And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the **** shall not crow this day. Before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.
Verse 54.
And then took they him and let him, and brought him into the high priest's house, and Peter followed afar off.
And when they had killed, kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them. But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man also was with him. And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not.
And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not.
And about the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed, saying of a truth, This fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean. And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake the cock crew and the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.
And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him before the **** crow, Thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. And then in the 24th chapter of Luke, verse 30. And it came to pass, as he sat at meet with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and break, and gave to them, and their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of.
Sight, and they said one to another. Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us, by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?
And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the 11 gathered together, and then that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon in First Corinthians 15.
A verse, verse 3 For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.
And that he was seen of Cephas then of the 12 and so on. I read these scriptures in the New Testament to be the background for what we're going to look at in the Old Testament.
What I'd like to look at tonight with the Lords help.
Is the provision that God has made to restore us into communion should that have lapsed because of sin, because of allowing the flesh, because of indulging in the world and.
Losing communion with himself. We were looking yesterday at the desire of the Lord's heart that there might be fruit for God from each of us, that Christ might be reproduced in our lives, and that fruit which he's looking for, which is sweet to his taste. And when the clouds have come in and dimmed our sight, and when we have lost the sweet sense of communion because we've allowed.
The flesh to act in one way or another.
God has provided in restoration to bring us back and to have us back in that sweet fellowship with Himself. Now turn with me to Numbers 19. Numbers 19 is one passage I didn't read in the New Testament, and I'll just allude to it.
00:05:01
And that's John 13 where the Lord Jesus washes the disciples feet. It's a picture of his advocacy.
To remove the defilements of this world as we pass through it, and that we might have part with Him, that we might have fellowship with Himself. He desires our fellowship. To me that is such a precious thought, that the Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory, has not only saved us to deliver us from hell, but He wants our fellowship. He wants us near to Himself.
And here we see in beautiful type from the Old Testament how he's made provision for it.
I want to make this comment too before we read Numbers 19. In each of the first four books of Moses, we have a central chapter which speaks of the death of Christ in Genesis. It's the 22nd of Genesis where you have the the Father giving the son, Abraham offering up Isaac. A beautiful type of the death of Christ, the Father giving his son for us in death.
In Exodus, the central chapter would be the Passover.
And the lamb that was slain and the precious blood that was shed to screen the Israelites from the destroying Angel as he passed through the land of Egypt that night. In Leviticus we have the central chapter would be the Leviticus 16 where you have the Day of Atonement that speaks of the provision that God is made to maintain.
And to secure relationship with his people, a sinful people, how can God?
Dwell in the midst of a sinful people. It's through the propitiate Tory work of Christ, through the atonement of Christ. And here are Numbers 19, which is the Wilderness book. We have this ordinance of the red heifer that speaks of Christ as the sin offering to maintain us in communion if we've lost it in our passage through the wilderness. Now, the way the Israelite became defiled, we'll see this as we read the.
Is by contact with death in one form or another. Death is the wages of sin, and so it speaks of for the Christian in type it speaks of contact with death would be to indulge in the world in one way or another.
The flesh has its attractions here, and we have that within us, the old nature that can be very much attracted and allured by the things of this world. We're passing through a scene which is a scene of death.
There is absolutely nothing here that can feed the new man. This world is a wilderness and we have nothing to seek nor to choose as we pass through it. We are going through it as strangers and pilgrims.
Well, just as an Israelite literally passed through the wilderness and there may be dead bodies that were lying around, they might contact death in one form or another, as we'll see as we read through the chapter. This meant that they were defiled. They had to be put outside the camp. A picture of a St. losing fellowship.
And being excluded from the fellowship of the congregation. Well, with that as a preface, the reason I read the New Testament scriptures is to show that there is that which answers in the New Testament to what we have here in Numbers 19 in type. We don't build our doctrine ever on the Old Testament. We build it upon the new. But the Old Testament enhances and fills in details that the new doesn't give us.
It fills out the picture in beautiful.
Arrangement, as we'll see pointed out here in Numbers 19. Now let's read the chapter. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak under the children of Israel.
That they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke. And ye shall give her unto Eliezer the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face. And Eliezer the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the Tabernacle of the congregation 7 times.
And one should burn the heifer in his sight, Her skin and her flesh and her blood with her dung shall he burn.
And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp. And the priest shall be unclean until the even. And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even. And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and lay them up without the camp in a.
00:10:21
Place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation.
It is a purification for sin, and he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even.
And it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them for a statute forever.
He that touches the dead bone, the dead body of any man shall be unclean. 7 days.
He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the 7th day he shall be clean.
But if he purify not himself the third day, then the 7th day he shall not be clean. Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifies not himself, defileth the Tabernacle of the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him.
He shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet upon him. This is the law. When a man dieth in a tent, all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent shall be unclean. 7 days. And every open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it is unclean. And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with the sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean. 7 days. And for an unclean person they shall.
Of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification For sin. And running water shall be put thereto in the vessel, and a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave.
And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the 7th day, and on the 7th day he shall purify himself and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be cleaned even. But the man that shall be unclean and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation.
Because he had to file the sanctuary of the Lord, the water of separation has not been sprinkled upon him. He is unclean. And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that the water separation shall wash his clothes, and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean, until even. And what's the weather the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean.
And the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.
We can say at the outset that what is written over this chapter very clearly is that association with evil defiles. To touch the unclean in one way or another renders 1 unclean. And that's because we all have a nature which responds to evil, and it has to be kept in the place of death and judgment.
Well, what defiles is partaking?
Of the things of this scene, which are the things of death, the results of sin. Before we look in detail at this chapter, turn back with me to numbers five and we'll see that there are three classes mentioned in numbers five that had to be put outside the camp.
Verse One. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and everyone that hath an issue. And whosoever is defiled by the dead, both male and female, shall ye put out without the camp? Shall ye put them that they defile not their camps in the midst whereof I dwell.
While leprosy is treated in Leviticus 13 and 14.
And the leper was to be put outside the camp. It speaks of an in a built in disposition and constitution for evil. The leprosy is a terrible thing and we can well understand that the leper would have to be put outside the camp. And then everyone that had an issue that's dealt with in Leviticus 15.
Some uncleanness flowing from within, outside.
To the outside, it might represent an I'll temper and uncontrolled temper, or you might think of some other things. The one that has an issue. But then it says and whosoever is defiled by the dead, well, that's numbers 19. Each one of those had to be put outside the camp.
00:15:03
The one that was defiled by the dead was to be outside the camp and the water of separation was to be sprinkled on them on the third day and on the 7th day. Well, they want to remain there forever. Provision was made for their cleansing and to bring them back into the camp. It's a solemn thing to think that when one is outside.
He's outside with the leper.
And the one with the running issue.
Let's go back to numbers 19 and look at the details.
This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer that was a female. It speaks of course of Christ, and I believe especially of him in his affections.
To have us near to himself. He wants our fellowship. And so provision has been made in this ordinance of the red heifer. You don't find it in the offerings in Leviticus. It's here in the midst of the wilderness book. It has a special, unique character, and that is to restore communion when it has been broken.
Notice that it's a water of separation.
That he's used to restore the soul, never a reapplication of the blood.
The blood is applied once and never has to be reapplied because its efficacy is eternal.
And we only have to be under the blood once, and we are eternally safe and secure as to our salvation. But the water of purification may have to be applied over and over again. The Lord Jesus may have to wash our feet as our advocate with the Father many times.
If we get out of communion, Peter got out of communion and the Lord had to wash his feet. He had to restore him. He prayed for him. And we have that all beautifully depicted here in type.
Bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke. He was the one who was the spotless One. He was the one who was altogether without the blemish or stain of sin in any way. Not only did He never sin, but he had no sin in him. There was no sin. He knew no sin. He was that holy One of God.
And upon which never came yoke. The yoke of sin was never upon him.
And here is the perfect victim, the perfect sacrifice to provide for our restoration to communion should it have been interrupted by the indulgence of the flesh and going out after the trinkets of this world and the allurements and attractions of this defiling scene.
How little we realize that we are passing through a scene which is altogether defiling to the Newman, to the Christian, absolutely nothing here to feed us. It's a scene of death. And under the judgment of God. Verse three. And ye shall give her unto Eliezer the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face. And notice now in verse 4.
Eliezer the priest shall take of her blood.
And with his finger and sprinkle of her blood directly before the Tabernacle of the congregation 7 times. The significance of that I believe is brought out in Exodus 29. Turn back with me to Exodus 29. Notice where the blood was sprinkled directly before the Tabernacle of the congregation.
Seven times in Exodus 29, verse 42.
This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord, where I will meet you to speak there unto thee, and there I will meet with the children of Israel.
And the Tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. So there the Lord said he would meet with Moses and with the children of Israel. The meeting place of God, with the people. The place of communion is the place where the blood was to be sprinkled 7 times.
So when an Israelite came to that place, they saw the sevenfold sprinkling of the blood, the testimony that their communion was based upon the precious blood of Christ, a perfect witness that they had title to fellowship with Him based upon the precious blood.
00:20:13
Christ, but you don't read of that blood being re sprinkled. Should communion be interrupted. The restoration to fellowship is not by a reapplication of the blood. The blood is sprinkled once, seven times before the Tabernacle of the congregation, showing that the title to fellowship was established.
By the work of Christ, but should that be interrupted, the way to restoration is another means. And we'll see that as we go into the chapter verse five. And one shall burn the heifer in his sight, her skin and her flesh and her blood with her dung. Shall he burn now as we look upon that heifer being consumed by those flames. The heifer was a sin offering, charged with all our sins.
Sins were transferred to the victim, and as I see that heifer being consumed by the flames of God's judgment in tight, that tells me that my sins are gone. They're concerned in the judgment of God, which fell upon my blessed substitute at the cross.
And I go free. I have the right to see Christ on the cross as bearing my sins and the judgment of God that my sins deserve falling upon him. And in the consumption of that heifer, reducing it to ashes, I can say my sins have been reduced to ashes in the death of Christ. The judgment of God has exhausted itself against him, against my sins. It fell upon him. But there's more.
In the burning of the heifer, verse six And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. What does the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet speak of the burning of the heifer charged with our sins as the sin offering is the consumption of our sins in the death of Christ. Praise God, my sins are gone. We sing and that's.
Truth that we see as we look at that heifer being consumed under the judgment of God.
But then there was in those flames that consumed the heifer, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet, cast in, and also consumed in the judgment of God. Turn with me to 1St Kings, chapter four, First Kings 429 And God gave Solomon wisdom.
And understanding exceeding much and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore.
And Solomon's wisdom excel the wisdom of all the children of the E country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezra height, and human, and Calcolo and Darda the sons of Mahal. And his fame was in all nations roundabout. And he spake 3000 Proverbs. And his songs were 1005. Now notice especially verse 33. And he spake of trees from the cedar.
That is, in Lebanon, even under the hyssop that springeth out of the wall, he spake also of beasts, and a foul, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon from all kings of the earth which had heard of his wisdom.
He spake of trees from the cedar tree, the stately cedar, the loftiest, the greatest, the most majestic of trees, the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the lowly hyssop that springs out of the wall. What is the Cedar Rd. in the hyssop speak of? I believe it speaks of all the wisdom of this world.
Solomon spake of wisdom from the cedar tree to the lowly hyssop. And then what does the scarlet speak of? It speaks of the glory of this world. And we know that in the death of Christ, not only has he put our sins away, not only have our sins been consumed under the judgment of God, and we can say that gone forever, they'll never be thrown up against us.
But that God judged the world in the whole world system.
In the death of Christ, now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out.
Paul says, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world. And as we look at the world, we can see, as we look at the cross, we can see not only our sins consumed in the death of Christ, but all the glory, the splendor, the wisdom, the majesty, the greatness of this world reduced to ashes in the death of Christ.
00:25:07
What folly for the Christian to seek his wisdom.
From the things of this world and from the from the man of this world.
No, we have Christ as our wisdom. Paul has to rebuke the Corinthians in the first chapter who they were seeking after wisdom, and he says, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them.
Believe. Where is the wisdom of this world, the wisdom of this world crucified, the Lord of glory?
What folly then to resort to man's wisdom, especially in assembly matters Now the wisdom of this world has come under the judgment of God, and we have all the wisdom that we need right here in this blessed book. And to turn to man's wisdom is the folly of those that call.
Themselves Christians, it's been judged in the cross, and all the glory, the greatness and the majesty of this world has come under the judgment of God. Well, this is essential to see that in the death of Christ, not only have our sins been judged, but the whole system, the whole world system through which we're passing everything that we see and have to do with.
And handle down here savers of this which is of man.
Vast system built around the first man. God has set aside and judged that man in the cross, and now we have a new man. And that new man is fed by manna from above the old corn of the land. An altogether different kind of food and fare that is served by the world.
Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even verse 8.
And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water.
And shall be unclean until the even. And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer.
Now what are those ashes? The ashes are the residue of the heifer, the seal wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet speaks of our sins, and the glory, wisdom, and majesty, and greatness of this world, all being reduced to ashes. And there we have the residue. There we have that which the Spirit of God can use to bring it to our consciences, when we have touched the world, when we have engaged.
Our affections in our will with the world, in one way or another, the Spirit of God brings in through to restore the soul. He brings back to our remembrance and gives us to see that it caused.
Our precious Savior, the infinite sufferings that he endured on the cross, to put those sins away and to deliver us from this present evil world. A man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and lay them up without the camp in a clean place.
And it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation.
It is a purification for sin. Now that might strike us as being strange. Why does he say? Why does it say water of separation? Because water hasn't even been mentioned. It's just the ashes.
Well.
In verse 17, let's read that here it says for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel. So here we have the ashes that which brings to our remembrance the sufferings of Christ.
To deliver us from our sins.
But more than that, not just to deliver us from hell, but to deliver us from the world.
And from the world system the Lord could say they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. What is the measure?
Of our deliverance from this world, how separate are we to be?
Well, the Lord answers that question. He says they are not of the world, even as I am not the world. That's the measure of our separation. He's the measure of our sanctification. But for Christ has been made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
00:30:16
Christ is our wisdom. We don't need to go to the world for it. Christ is our righteousness.
Any efforts to obtain it on our own works and under law? Absolutely futile. He is our righteousness, going to the world for wisdom, going to the world for trying to establish our own righteousness.
And trying to live a holy life on the ground of our own works. No Christ is our sanctification and He shows how separate we are to be from this world. And then He is our redemption. He is the one that has clean delivered us out from this world and its system.
Of works, religion, philosophy, education, whatever it is, we've been delivered clean out of it. Well, everything here is defiling. Everything that is of this world system has come under the judgment of God.
It says in verse 10 And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the even and it shall be under the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them for a statute forever. Young people, when you go to school. I went to college and.
I got saved between my freshman and sophomore year in college, and after I got saved I foolishly thought I should take a course in religion and it was nothing but defilement. Nothing but defilement. It was modernistic blasphemous, ridiculing the Bible.
It was a terrible mistake, but I went through it and it was defiling. It was infidel, the very heart of it. And there were many times when I came home from that class that I had to be washed by the Lord Jesus, that I had to have those evil thoughts judged. And you're going to have to do the same when you're subjected to the wisdom of this world.
Many of you will be if you go through classes.
Some kind of a degree or whatever it might be, just remember that the wisdom of this world.
Has come under the judgment of God and that.
That's not to lead us or guide us. Let's always be on our guard.
Because it's defiling and it can rob us of sweet fellowship and communion with the Lord and Ratus. And so God has provided for our cleansing. He wants us clean. He wants us so that He can have fellowship with us, the desire of His heart.
Is to have us near to himself Well how are we defiled? Verse 11.
He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with it. That's the water of purification. That's the ashes mixed with the running water. Running water, I believe, is typical of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God who applies.
To the soul of one that has indulged the flesh and gone out after something that's in this world system. And there's so many things that are there that are defiling or going through a defiling scene and we need to have our feet in the saviours hands and he has to wash them.
And make us fit for fellowship with himself. Where? Where he is in the glory. He's not here. Christianity isn't an earthly religion. He wants fellowship with himself, with us. But where is he is in the glory of man and the glory. And in order to have that, he has to remove these things of this scene, these things of the world, these things of earth, that we might have fellowship with himself.
So the instruction is here. The water of separation has been laid up, I should say the ashes.
Have been laid up in a clean place outside the camp. It says in verse nine, A man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, laid them up and without the camp in a clean place, it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel. And then the Spirit of God is always there to apply to us when we have allowed these things in our lives to apply them to us.
That we might judge ourselves in the light of the Cross.
In the light of what He suffered to put these things away, to put our sins away, and to deliver us from this present evil world, verse 12 Says He shall purify himself with it on the third day.
00:35:09
And on the 7th day he shall be clean. But if he purify not himself the third day, then the 7th day he shall not be clean. There were two sprinklings. There was the third day sprinkling, and there was the 7th day sprinkling. And they speak of something. Each one has its own significance and notice This is so important.
That it says over again, verse 19 And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day.
And on the 7th day, and on the 7th day, he shall purify himself and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean it even.
That is, after he has had the third day sprinkling and the 7th day sprinkling, then he goes through a ceremony, which is the same ceremony that is done at the consecration of the priests, symbolical of the new birth. In other words, I restored. What I learned from this verse 19 is that when a soul is restored back into communion.
He's just as clean as a newborn soul.
He is brought back into the same position of favor and blessedness, no strings attached, it says, And on the 7th day shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean it. Even a restored soul is brought back into a place of usefulness and service.
Just as though he had never sinned. That's the restoring grace of God. I know there are some that teach otherwise, but I don't think that's a teaching of the Word. I believe the Word of God teaches that when God restores a soul, that soul is restored and is fit for service.
As the Lord said to Peter, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And one who has fallen and has been restored, like a bone that's been broken and has been set properly and has healed, it'll never break at the same place again. It'll break somewhere else maybe, but it's stronger at the place of healing than any other place, and I believe that.
I know my own heart and I think if every one of us will confess honestly.
And look at their own hearts. They look at these pictures in the word of God, of Saints of God who have failed. I remember Brother Ch Brown used to say, thank God that God has recorded the failures of the Saints. If he hadn't, I would have given up a long time ago.
But he's recorded them very faithfully in his word. But his grace, His grace which picks up a Wretch like me and saves him, can restore a Wretch like me and put him back into fellowship with himself and make him useful who was absolutely useless.
Yes, he can. Oh, let's never, let's never accept anything that would, that would make, that would limit the infinite grace of God to bring back into blessing as well as to save those who were absolutely worse than not.
Well, what's the third day sprinkling?
I believe it speaks of self judgment and I thought, I think that when the Lord Jesus in Luke 22 he turned and he looked at Peter and Peter remembered the word of the Lord. There you have the Spirit of God bringing to Peters conscience the word of the Lord.
It's the third day sprinkling and bringing before him. Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And Peter, when he thought thereon, he went out, and he wept bitterly. And, brethren, if one has been dealt with in discipline, and has been put away.
Necessarily so we do no service to bring them back.
Until the third day sprinkling has taken place in their soul, until there has been a thorough judgment of and abhorrence of sin, until they have seen it in the light of the cross, until the Spirit of God has applied the ashes.
The water of purification. And I realize I have sinned against the love that put my sins away. I have, I have entertained that which caused my blessed Savior such infinite sufferings on the cross. That's the application of the water of purification and the power of the Spirit of God applying the ashes, the memory of the sufferings of Christ, to put my sins away and to deliver me from this present.
00:40:18
Evil world. And then I have allowed that I have gone out after that. That's the third day sprinkling. But you know, I've met souls that have been very hesitant to take their place at the Lords Table. And if you talk to them, they say, oh, I'm such a Sinner, I'm so bad, I'm not worthy, I don't deserve a place there. And they're so occupied with their wretchedness and their sinfulness.
That that's not good. It's good to judge ourselves, to judge ourselves thoroughly. Absolutely essential. If we've sinned, if any man's sin, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice it doesn't say if we ask for forgiveness. A little boy came to me and said, Daddy, I've been naughty today, please forgive me.
What did you do?
Oh, daddy, I'm sorry I've been naughty today. Please forgive me. What did you do, son? Well, I was bad. Well, what did you do? Tell me. Oh, that's so hard. That's so hard. The word of God says, don't say Lord, I'm sorry I was bad today, forgive me. That's not self judgment. If we confess our sins, if we put the finger right on them and name them and say, Lord, I did this.
I did this. He is faithful and justice to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In the New Testament we have the forgiveness of sins. We don't have to ask for the forgiveness of sins, but we confess our sins and then we have the conscious enjoyment of the precious truth that our sins are forgiven. He gives us to enjoy that.
So the third day sprinkling is sin.
In the presence of grace, I sinned against the grace that is put by sin away. I've sinned against the love that spent itself for me on the cross, that suffered such inscrutable agony on the cross to put my sins away. I've allowed it.
And now to judge that absolutely essential for the soul to be brought back into fellowship before that has taken place is to do.
Irreparable damage sometimes to that person because he's been restored to fellowship and has not really restored in his soul. What is the 7th day sprinkling? Well, that's grace in the presence of sin and I like to think that when.
The Lord Jesus rose from the dead, says he appeared to Simon. He was the first one. He appeared to Peter. And I think that what he said to Peter was Peter, you've judged yourself thoroughly. Now I want you to be occupied with my love and grace that has put that sin away. And I want you to be occupied with your sin any longer. I want you to be occupied with the grace that has brought you into fellowship. And until we come to that, we don't enjoy.
As long as we're occupied with how bad we are, we're not in the enjoyment of Christ, but when we occupied with the grace that has put the sin away, Brother Darby said in Romans 7, the apostle says, I know that in me and my that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He says, well, when we've come to that, we've thought enough of ourselves. Now we can think about him that is worthy of all our thoughts.
True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves.
But in not thinking of ourselves at all, we're not worthy to be thought about. He is worthy of all our thoughts. He is worthy of all our thoughts. And so there's the third day sprinkling self judgment. But we don't remain there. We don't remain constantly occupied with how bad we are or were or continue to be. But we're occupied with the grace that is saved a Wretch like me and restored.
A Wretch like me and brought me into blessing. And so there's the 7th day sprinkling as well.
What if we neglect that third day sprinkling? What if we neglect the self judgment? Verse 12. He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the 7th day he shall be clean. But if he purify not himself on the third day, then the 7th day he shall not be clean. Whoso toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, that is, he doesn't avail himself of the provision which God has made.
00:45:20
To restore him into fellowship. You know, it's a solemn thing to remain out of communion, Dreadful thing. It's dangerous to remain out of communion when he has provided for my restoration, for your restoration, he said. It says here, whoso toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, verse 13, and purifieth not himself.
Defileth the Tabernacle of the Lord, and that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
Because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet upon him, a very solemn thing. And it's wonderful to realize that God has provided for our cleansing. He's provided for our restoration.
Let's immediately, if we have allowed the flesh, if we've indulged it, if we've gone out after the trinkets of this world, let's judge it in the light of the cross and the power of the Spirit, and then committed the joy of the grace that has brought us, unworthy sinners as we were, into such blessing.
Now, what are the details as to how we are defiled?
Verse 14. This is the law. When a man dieth in a tent, all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent shall be unclean. 7 days, and every open vessel which hath no covering upon it, upon it shall be is unclean.
What's the tent? Well, that's where they lived. That was their home. That was their dwelling place. There were pilgrims in the wilderness. They didn't have houses. They had tents. And that's where they lived. And here you have death in the tent. When a man dies in a tent, all that come into the tent and all that is in the tent shall be unclean. Seven days. That's solemn. If there's death in my tent, then everyone that comes into my tent is.
Filed by it is unclean. Has to be put outside the camp. They may never have touched anything That's death, but there's death in the tent. Someone died in the tent. All that come into the tent and all that is in the tent shall be unclean. 7 days.
And notice the specifics of verse 15. And every open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it is unclean. Why does that? Why is that stated? What's the open vessel? Now I speak to you, fathers and mothers, everyone that has a child.
You have an open vessel because that's what the open vessel is. I believe with children in our families which have no covering bound upon it is unclean. The open vessel says that everything in the tent is unclean in verse 14, but then he singles out the open vessel and our children are open vessels. They take in everything that we allow in the tent, everything.
They are especially susceptible to defilement.
Because they're open vessels, they don't have discernment. They rely upon us to discern for them what we allow. Their reasoning is Daddy. Mommy would never allow anything for me to see or to look at or to handle.
Or to play with that will be defiling to me. I trust them. They have the discernment. But if they don't have the discernment, or they don't have that purpose of heart to keep out of the tent those things which defile, then the open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it shall be.
Unclean.
Very solemn. It's a word to all of us.
Is there death in the tent? Magazines. Pictures?
I remember when I was working at Sure Brothers just short of 30 years when I left and I remember when they when they had the celebration of the the anniversary of the advent of the invention of radio.
They had a newspaper article on the bulletin board and this is what it said. Radio was invented, and that was only radio. It wasn't television and the things that we have today. But it said now you can bring the world into your home. That's what it said. That was the testimony of the world.
00:50:16
A man came to a brothers home recently and was trying to sell him one of these modern commutative devices and he says we can bring the world into your home, Brother said. That's the last thing I want. That's the last thing I want. Thank you, Sir. And he closed the door. That's the very thing I want to keep out of my home, brethren.
How can we? How can I as a Christian Father?
I can't. I can't put this on my wife. No, I'm the head of the house, and so are you Christian fathers. How can you allow, how can we allow in our homes that which brings the world right there when we have open vessels that can be defiled by these things?
Beloved, if we can't speak plainly.
And these solemn issues.
Where are we?
Where are we, verse 16? And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, the open field, that's the world. That's when we're out there in the world. The tent is our home. That ought to be a little sanctuary. That ought to be the place where the children can retire from the world, where there's a shield, where they can be shielded from those evil defilements that are out there.
But now we're out in the open field, we're out in the world. And it says whosoever toucheth, one that is slain with a sword that speaks of violence in the open fields or a dead body, one that just died out there, wasn't killed by violence, but he just died.
That speaks of corruption. The world is filled with violence.
And corruption on the bone of a man. What does that speak of? I pondered that for a long time.
And I'd like to give you this suggestion. Turn with me to Job 20. Job 20, the bone of the man.
Verse.
11 He's talking about the wicked. His bones are full of the sin of his youth.
Which shall lie down with him in the dust now in the margin of the new translation. This is the way it reads.
His bones are full of his secret sins. Well.
I'd like to make this suggestion going back to numbers 19.
Here's an Israelite walking through the wilderness, and he stumbles upon a body, and he notices that that body had been slain with a sword. That's that's violence, and this world is just filled with violence.
You know I want to make this comment.
Forgive me for making it, but I'm going to make it anyway.
When the tragedy happened in our family.
Many Saints, I'd say most, were horrified.
At the thought that the murderer got into a Christian home.
And kill the whole family. And yet some of those, some of us, I'll include, I'll include myself. I'm no different, no better. For any moment, I wouldn't want to give the thought that I was. We might be horrified at that thought. And yet we might have something there that brings that very thing, violence and corruption, into the whole all the time it's there. Violence, corruption.
It's filled with it.
Can't pick up a newspaper without being defiled.
There isn't anything the world serves that isn't defiling. Nothing. Nothing. The bone of a man. Our secret sins. You know, we don't usually think that we're defiled because we think evil. Thoughts.
No one sees what I'm thinking. No one knows. I don't know what you're thinking. And.
And you might think a wicked thought, You might have a lustful thought. You might have a thought of revenge, You might think of cheating in a test you might think of.
Various evil things, and you might think you're not defiled by that.
A bone. You don't see my bones. They're all hidden by flesh, bone and muscle tissue. You don't see my bones, but they're there. So it might speak of our secret sins, something that no one can see. But God, he sees them. The bone of a man, Israelite going through the wilderness. He might even be tempted to pick up the bone. All the flesh has been eaten off by the animals and the birds, and it's just a bowl.
00:55:10
Surely that's not defiling. It is.
The bone of a man or a grave? What does the grave speak of? And I'll close shortly. Luke 11. Luke 11.
Verse 44.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them, while you could be out there walking, and someone's buried there in the wilderness.
And you can walk right over the grave and not even be aware of it. You're defiled by it, though. You have to be put outside the camp seven days just as much as if you touched a dead body. It says a grave. What is that? That's religious evil.
The religion, the hypocrisy of the Pharisee.
And he says, well, unto you Pharisees, you are as graves which appear not. And I don't believe there's an area where we are where we let our guard down more than when we deal with others that call themselves Christians because they are Christians and therefore everything has to be all right. How many times you have heard it said when someone is engaged in a business practice or a medical practice, but he's a Christian?
That sanctifies it, that all of a sudden that makes it OK because he's a Christian.
Does it? Should we not rather judge what we're engaged in by the Word of God and not the fact that I'm engaged in it, therefore that has to make it right because I'm a Christian?
Well, we can be defiled by a lot of things which are in this world that are religious, and I don't know anything more defiling than religious evil.
So I suggest that one slain with the sword speaks of violence, the dead body speaks of corruption, the bone of a man might speak of our hidden secret sins that only God knows about. How is our thought life? As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
What do you think about all day long? Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.
Thou God, seest me, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
And then the grave religious hypocrisy. How many times we can put on a religious air and a religious show and pretend to be something that we're not and be defiled there thereby shall be unclean 7 days. And then we've looked at the way of cleansing well beloved Saints of God.
If there was ever a day, and if the Lord has ever been speaking to us.
In loud, clear tones. It's today. He's been speaking to us. He's been speaking to me.
We're living in days of Second Timothy when they shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. They want to hear what they want to hear, and God preserve us from that. God give us to have our ears open to hear the word of God, no matter how much it hurts.
New Creation
God's Path for Believers
Happiness
Address—C. Buchanan
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.
We'll use verses first from a book which was written to a young person. I referred to First Timothy. You may turn there.
To the last chapter to read just a few verses, but I was thinking of that word. We started with happy.
And happiness.
We do desire, dear young people, your happiness.
And I'm quite sure that everyone of you wants to be happy.
As the Irishman said, you'll never find anything but where it is.
And happiness is that way too. And, briefly stated, obedience and happiness go together.
I trust you've made a profession of faith.
And I made a start.
The last words of Moses.
The very last verse that he uttered in Deuteronomy, he said something like this happy.
Is the people whose God is the Lord?
And the salvation comes in in that verse. The psalmist takes it up, 144th Psalm. So if you're going to be happy, you have to start at the beginning and then to go on and be happy every day is what we want.
Dear young lady down in the Dominican Republic.
With her and her family some six weeks ago.
She lives in a very nice family there who have been brought up in the truth.
The nice thing about her is that she's always happy. Now the reason she's always happy is because that's her name.
But she's always, almost always happy in her spirits, too. So we want to go through some scriptures that will direct you and us into that place. Where will you find happiness in the 32nd Psalm? I believe it is. It says blessed is the man.
Whose sins are forgiven?
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth, not iniquity. You can translate that happy is the man whose sins are forgiven. Now that salvation you get, and it brings happiness. But the very first Psalm begins with these words. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
Nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. That also can be translated.
Happened. Really. The 32nd Psalm would come first in your experience, to have your sins forgiven. But then what about your walk? What about your companions? What about your associations? You have to go on in that happy place of walking.
With the Lord. Well, let's read now.
In First Timothy chapter 6, beginning with verse nine, we will read 4 verses here to start with.
First Timothy 6.
9:00 But they that will be rich fall into temptation.
And the snare.
And into many hurt, foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil.
Which while some coveted after they have heard from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things.
And follow after righteousness, godliness.
Faith, love, patience, meekness, fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal life. Wherein to thou hast also was Thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
00:05:08
Have you profess there's lots of witnesses? We had some of them spoken about in the past. The faith this morning in the 11Th of Hebrews.
I suppose I am speaking to professors in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the heading of what I'm talking about here this afternoon we find in these verses and we could call this topic before's. There are 4 words here with speak. Start with that letter we find faith.
That's the first one, and then we find Flea in verse 11.
And then we find follow in verse 11.
And then we find fight in verse 12. Those are the foreheads. Faith, flee, follow, fight.
This is.
A brief description of your course.
If you're going to have faith and walk in it, you're going to have to flee certain things.
And you're going to have to follow a certain path.
And you're going to be in a battle. I like to talk to young people because they're strong. They don't get so frightened about a battle.
But it's very important that you have these 4S in your life.
Well, we must start with this first one, faith.
You know that word happiness? It's a long one, and right in the middle of it is the letter.
I that points to this person, I am I happy? Do I have happiness? Now? Faith is the same way. The middle letter in faith is I, you and I need to be right in the middle of faith in order to get into the middle of happiness.
Faith.
We read in Hebrews faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But I believe in in John three. I think it is. We have perhaps a better definition.
He that has received his testimony, that's God's testimony, has set to his seal that God is true.
That's really what faith is.
It says.
God says it, that says.
And then I believe that's the best way to turn that bumper sticker around there. Often you'll see God says it. I believe that that's settled. No, brethren, young people, when God says it's, it's already settled. God is the true God. We can believe everything that he says.
Now you must come again through the gospel of the grace of God and take the Lord Jesus as your Savior and have faith in Him and in His work to begin a course of happiness.
Well now looking at this verse.
9.
Where we began reading.
It says they that will be rich, going to hold up a bill which you can't read from there, but it says 10,000 on it. Now that's a peso note that I acquired down in Bolivia some 20 years ago, which when I acquired it was probably worth $0.25 or less.
I like to carry a 10,000 notes around with me just to look at once in a while.
Money, money.
Well, they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.
And into many foolish and hurtful lusts. Now look what it says next.
Which while some coveted after they have heard from the faith.
00:10:08
Heard from the faith if you have made a profession of faith.
We trust that it's real to those who are real. We could say in the faith.
Real believers in the faith. Now, if you are a believer.
You will always be in the faith as to your salvation.
I like to think of that word believe also the middle letter of that is.
Do you have faith? Do you believe? Do you enjoy happiness?
Are you confident I? Is the middle letter of that word confident too? I want to point to that little word letter I right back here, a small I and apply it to me. And I want you to do the same thing.
Do you have faith? Do you believe? Do you enjoy happiness? Are you confident? Confidence comes from believing God. It's a result because He never fails. We need this confidence, the full assurance of faith going on, but to err from the faith. And what is the result?
I respect you, dear young people, for your capacity.
Your ability, your quickness, alertness of mind to take hold of things. I don't worry much myself about going over your head.
Now I know there are those who are young in the faith and we need simple and basic things, and I think we who are old or needed too, but your capacity to take these things in and to enjoy them is great. What a sad thing then, to err from the faith, your profession.
Or I can think back in my years of many dear young people that I have known through those years who have heard from the faith.
And what has happened to them? They have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
You will not find happiness in taking up your own will. Sometimes we use the word license. Sometimes we speak of legality. Sometimes we speak of liberty. Liberty was mentioned, I believe this morning, and verses in John 8 included licensing the way we are using it today.
In our thoughts at least not the tag on your car.
But.
A kind of.
Openness to follow your own will.
That's what license is in the way we are thinking about it.
The allowance.
For you to do what you want to do when you want to do it well.
License will never bring happiness. Never. It's the old nature at work, and it produces. It is sin, and it brings the sad results of sin, and the wages of sin have never been reduced.
Their sorrow in the pathway, in the end, death.
We want you, dear young people, to go on in happiness.
And not to be allowed to do what your will wants to do when you want to do it. Now you have in you another nature.
Which does please God.
And never sins. I speak to believers.
Now liberty is.
The.
Following that new nature which does.
Always please God.
We had a standard before us in the blessed Savior this morning of perfection in there in Hebrews 12.
Perfection always that in his course through the world, and this is the standard that God always holds before you and I perfection, He never lowers that standard.
00:15:16
But the new nature in you to that new nature is spoken of in James as a law of liberty, because the new nature delights to do the will of God and to please John.
Here is part of your battle in between those two natures, and I speak for myself, bearing the old nature. As long as we're here, that's part of the battle.
Now we mentioned the word legality.
Legality would perhaps try to control the old nature by setting up rules and regulations, and God tested man under that for 4000 years, not quite 4000 years exactly, at least 1500 years after he gave the law.
And God has ended that test to see if flesh could produce anything under law. So we know that legalism will not work. What we want is the liberty of grace and.
The obedience and dependence which will bring us into that place, that force of happiness to err from the faith and the love of money, is just a blue.
Of all evil.
And Ohio, we want to avoid that. You young people are perhaps some of you preparing for your life employment, and that is a necessary thing in this world.
Earlier here it says we brought nothing into this world, verse 7, and it is certainly can carry nothing out. But while we're here we need things and God knows that. So the next verse says and having food and raiment. Let us be there with content. Oh, to have contentment in the supply that God has given and not to be always grasping after.
Money.
Thinking that that will bring us happiness. How often we have seen that large amounts of money bring sorrow instead of happiness. So we have this warning here. The love of money is a root of all evil and covetousness. Oh, that's an awful thing too, isn't it? While some coveted after wanting.
Money. Now we get positive instruction in verse.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things. We'll stop there. Wonderful thing that the apostle Paul could speak to a young man, and I'm looking at young men, and it includes young ladies too.
Calls Timothy.
Man of God.
I like to think I'm looking into the faces of men and women of God.
That's what you are. If you're one of God's children, you're in his family.
And all your responsibility now is to behave as one of Gods children.
To act like one of God's children. In other words, flee comes in.
We want to give you an illustration.
Of one thing.
That a young man fled from in the Old Testament.
Because we get instruction in the New Testament as to this particular sin, I'm going to read it, not make much comments on it. But you and I in the course of faith are going to have to learn that there are things that we have to shun, avoid, leave, run away from. I refer to Joseph back in Genesis 39, and it says in verse 11.
To pass about this time that Joseph went into the house that's his master's house, Pharaoh to do his business, and there was none of the men of the house there within. And she that's the wife of Pharaoh caught him by his garment saying lie with me, and he left his garment in her hand and fled.
00:20:10
And got him out of it.
Here was a man who fled at the right time.
Timothy was told to flee.
Certain things. Other things besides fornication.
But you, dear young people, are exposed to this much, I'm quite sure.
And briefly, the only instruction is to turn around and run from it.
Run from it says in the New Testament here. Flee fornication.
Here in the verse we're reading.
It says flee these things. That's going back and referring to other things. The grasping after things down here for the flesh. Those things should be given up to in the next book.
The Spirit of God through Paul says to Timothy, flee also youthfulness.
They don't profit those desires of youth, and they're very, very strong, and you won't find happiness in them. Gratifying the flesh never produces happiness, but sorrow.
And death.
Flee. Now there was another man named Joseph.
In the New Testament, let's turn and read about him. I think you might turn, if you care to, to Matthew chapter 2. It's quite a different case, but this Joseph was the husband of Mary to whom Jesus was born and.
Our blessed Savior.
Was under Satan's attack.
When he was obeyed.
And the father Joseph, who was of the line of David.
And we have his lineage here in Matthew. He was given instruction by the Spirit of God to flee something too. The 13th verse of Matthew 2.
When they were departed, behold, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt. Here was an obedient Joseph as well. He followed the guidance of the Spirit of God and protected that dear child.
He obeyed young people. When it's time to fleet, just turn around and run. Leave it, leave it. You'll find something to follow that'll bring you happiness.
Go on to that.
In our chapter.
Verse 11 again.
Thou, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness.
Faith. Love.
Hebrews 12:1-4
Reading
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.
Read the 12Th chapter of Hebrews. The 12Th chapter of Hebrews. Read it for us, please. Hebrews, chapter 12. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross?
Despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, as to be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reduced of him.
For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth, if he endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with Son.
For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if he be without chastisement, whereof all our partakers, then are you ******** and not sons? Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection and the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure.
But he for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet. But that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently lest.
Fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, as there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire.
Nor into the blackness and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard and treated, that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with the dart. And so terrible was a sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake, But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God.
The heavenly Jerusalem into an innumerable company of angels.
To the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of justice man made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, And to the blood of sprinkling. That speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not, who refused him that spake on earth much more? Shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven?
Whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he hath promised, saying yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as the things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 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. Well, I was thinking, brethren, how that in this chapter we have.
Two things specially brought before us. How first of all, God withdrawed our hearts by occupying us with His beloved Son, looking unto Jesus, so that that would be, as it was prayed, the all absorbing object of our hearts. But if it's not so, if we lose sight of Him, if we're not in the enjoyment of Himself, then it may be necessary for Him to use the chastening rod. But it's all in love. It's all.
Back so we really have the two things, and in this nice order that God would seek, first of all, to attract our hearts to Christ just by himself and all that He is and what He has done for us and the pattern for us. If that absorbing object doesn't fill our hearts, then He must use the other. But it's with the same end in view. And then in the end of the chapter He shows us that He's not the principle of law to which we have been brought.
00:05:11
But rather, God has a glorious future ahead of us where love and light will be supreme. And so he sets those two things before us in the end of the chapter. The negative side, what we're not called to, that is Mount Sinai with the thunderings of law.
But instead, a glorious future when we're going to be with and like Christ. And the thought of this not to produce a response so that we serve Him acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Well, I just mentioned these thoughts in connection with this chapter because I believe that's what is necessary for all of us, especially in these last days of the church's history.
In connection with suffering and trial.
He never did feel the suffering though, that we may suffer because of our sins, because He didn't know any sin.
He was not in connection with sin like we are because of our fallen nature. I know it's thought otherwise today, but the Lord Jesus did not have a fallen nature. You'll find this being taught all around us. But the Lord Jesus was without sin. He knew no sin.
But he did does feel with us in that which we go through.
In connection with our trials and difficulties. In fact, these trials and difficulties are all appointed of God for us, are they not? And they have a very definite end in blessing, as we notice here.
And so that we need to remember that if we pass through a trial, it isn't all of because there's sin connected with it. It may be because there's something He wants to bring about in our lives that'll be for our eternal good, no matter what it may be.
Now in the case of of Job, you know, he wasn't taking up the question of sin with Job. There was no doubt sin there, but that wasn't what he was taking up.
Wanted to bring Job into his presence so that he would know himself as God sees him.
And Joel went through deep trials until he found in the presence of God what he was.
Then the blessing came. Before that he was apprehensive.
Not not at liberty in the presence of God. And we were singing that little hymn this morning.
In heavenly love abiding, that's our true position now. We can't enjoy that if we have a feeling all the time that God is against us.
And so God wants us to realize what we are in his presence, and all that we've done is forgiven. We're new creatures in Christ Jesus. When we learn this, we're at liberty in his presence. And that's part of the lessons we have in this chapter in Hebrews, I believe.
It's been remarked that when trials overtake us, as our brother has just mentioned, they may not be trials to which we can definitely point a finger.
The tendency with us is to.
To God that He would remove the trial, and I suppose each of us has experienced that as to our reaction to a trial. But really our prayer should be show me what is to be learned by this trial. Then we are in the path of His blessing being manifested to us.
The 11Th chapter sets before us those of the past who walk the path of faith.
Not perfectly, each one whose name is mentioned there did not walk the path perfectly, but there was much that was an example like we have in the last chapter, whose faith followed, considering the end of their conversation. So that we can be encouraged by the faith of others. But we have a tendency sometimes, brethren, to follow their failures as well.
But we should only follow their faith. But we are compassed to vote with a great cloud, that is.
We have this testimony of those in the past who walked that path and it wasn't easy for them, as it has been remarked. They had many trials and difficulties, but they walked that path and God honored their faith and makes them an example for us. But there's only one that we can look at and see perfection in Him, in everything that He went through in His blessed pathway here He perfectly and fully.
00:10:13
God his Father, he could say, I do always those things that please him.
So the Lord Jesus felt what it was to be hungry and thirsty and weary. He felt even a reproach of men. Reproach has broken my heart, He said. I'm full of heaviness. The reproaches of them, That reproach thee fell on me. It's not wrong for us to feel things, but it is wrong when they create resentment in us. That's the problem with us. When we feel things, there's a tendency to.
Resentment that the Lord Jesus passed through every form and kind of suffering a righteous man could endure, but never was there anything but perfect submission to his Father. Indeed, the only time that we read of him rejoicing in spirit was at a time that to us would have been a time of great disappointment. Those cities where he had preached had rejected him. But he looks up and rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank the Father, Lord.
Heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. And this is so precious, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. This is the one who is the beginner and the finisher of the path of faith. This is the One who is the object for our souls. It's not so much to what He did to put away our sins, blessed as that is, but rather His blessed path as a pattern for us.
Suffering that he endured in such perfection, well, the joy that was set before him then was going to the presence of the Father as a man.
Having completed the work that the Father had given him to do, now in the fourth in the second chapter of Hebrews, we read of four things that he came to do.
A sin of the Father.
He came, that is four things connected with his death, the reason he died and one was to fulfill all the counsels of God.
But then also that he might make atonement.
Then that he might set those free who were under the power of death ourselves.
But lastly, which gives us more the thought of of Hebrews in general?
Came as a faithful and merciful High Priest.
So that he might be able to succor those who are tried and tested. Now those are the reasons he came to die and to glorify God down here. And so in going back to the Father.
It was that joy that was before him, the approval of his Father, of the finished work, a work that no one but the Son of God could do, and He glorified God in it fully.
So that God is seen by his preacher now in a very different light, not simply as God dwelling in thick darkness as in the Old Testament, His father not only to the church, but in varied relationships, like the nations. In the coming day come ye blessed of my father, so that the Father has been introduced.
As to his authority in general in the universe in a new way.
As we get in Ephesians so that the Lord Jesus has glorified God to the fullest extent. And now going back to the Father, it was joy that was before him.
With that, let's read Acts 2 and verse 28. It expresses that quite well what her brother has brought before us. Acts 2 we'll read 27 and 28. Because that will not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer, thine Holy One, to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life.
Then this expression, Thou shalt make me full of joy.
With thy countenance, that's what our brother was saying, His joy to return to the Father's house with the work all done that he had been sent to do as to redemption.
00:15:01
So our our second verse expresses that.
Who, for the joy that was sent before him, endured the cross?
He had that joy before him all through his pathway of returning to the Father's house.
With the work done. But I believe it carries with it the joy of bringing us in, because in the second chapter of Hebrews it says it became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain their salvation perfect through sufferings. And that involves what her brother was saying about his priesthood. He served that way too.
A perfect priest for us, but he looks on, I believe, to bringing us in to share in that joy which he has already gone into when he returned to the Father's house. Notice in our our chapter verse 22, it says ye are come now. This is looked at it seems to me.
As something that we are already come to and yet we're waiting for as to an experience.
All this belongs to us. These eight things that follow what we are come to, they belong to us. They are ours in Christ. But as an actual experience we will be there. So I believe the joy the Lord had all through His pathway, where He was a perfect example of a man of faith, was the return to glory with the work done.
And the bringing us there also.
Not rather the fact of our being brought there as children rather than the assembly in Hebrews.
That is, we probably don't realize the importance of that in Hebrews, that we're brought there as children before God.
We don't have the church mentioned in Hebrews, but twice, and that's by reference. It's it's children or fellows as we have in the first chapter, and that's a very blessed aspect of that relationship we have.
Now because of the work of the Lord Jesus were brought before the Father as children and to enjoy that place as children and the liberty that children have it it's not so formal perhaps some expressions that we we have the liberty of children in the heavens.
We're at ease, we're at home there because we're children. It's a blessing thought and also companions in Hebrew to think that not only are we children before the Father, but we will forever be the companions of the Lord Jesus in the glory. Now those are blessed. Bless the truth. I'm not saying that they're more blessed than the thought of the Church. We know that's not true, but still they're blessed the truth and they.
Should be distinguished, would you say, Brother London, that perhaps the expression in Isaiah 53.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied with the incorporated in your thoughts. Yes, I believe so.
Yes, he's going to see the results of all his work. Then again, in the second chapter of this book we have that expression, Behold, I and the children which God hath given me, that expresses what we have just heard. Perhaps our introduction into that scene will be those very words in terms of the Father and says here they are. Because of all this, because of all this, we're encouraged in these opening verses.
Run the Christian race with an object before us. There is One who has gone along in that path perfectly, and now He is set before us as the one who is the object. But there are hindrances in the race. The precious Savior in His pathway never allowed anything to hinder Him in doing His Father's will, but He suffered. He suffered more than any of us will ever know. And so if we find the path difficult.
More difficult it was for him, the one who is the object of our faith. And so this first verse tells us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience. The real word here is endurance. It's a path of endurance, brethren. It's not just, as we might say, starting out with a dash and because we've enjoyed a little time together and starting out, but.
00:20:07
A thing of endurance, it's going on from day-to-day seeking to live to please the Lord. And how many things there are that we could consider our weights. We often say, well, what's wrong with that or what is the harm in that? But no person would think of having a pair of heavy boots for a race. Not that heavy boots are wrong, but just because they would hinder him in the race. And I think when.
We look at our own lives. There are things that we could consider weights, things that we allow to hinder us from following Christ, and we argue for those things and say there's nothing wrong with them. But in the bottom of our hearts we know that they're really hindering us from following Christ. And so if we're told here to lay those things aside, the runner throws off those heavy shoes and says I can't, I can't run with those heavy.
I want to go on in the race and I want to win. And so that's the first thing. And then secondly, there are things that are positive sin now sometimes when it uses the word descend.
It's taken up as the sin of unbelief and I believe that is probably the greatest sin and lies at the root of all our failure. I believe all our failures springs from unbelief of the goodness in the heart of God.
But may I suggest this, that I believe everyone of us have some different thing that is a particular snare to us. What might be a snare, a sin that besets you might be a different one from what besets me. Every one of us have something that we know we have to be constantly watchful about things that we know could easily creep into our lives, dishonor the Lord, and hinder us from following Him.
So we not only need to set aside the weights, but let us in the presence of God, allow him, like the psalmist could say, search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. And those things how often a useful person has been hindered by allowing that weakness to.
Take over in their lives. We need to be constantly in self judgment that we don't allow this.
It's so important, brethren, because as it's just been remarked, the joy of the Lord Jesus had when he had completed his journey to have. I think it's beautiful the way it's worded there in the second of Acts, in the 16th song from which it's quoted, it says in my presence is fullness of joy, but in the second of Acts it's rather another side, it says.
Thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance, and that is the Father's joy in receiving the Son back as the one who had so perfectly glorified Him.
In his pathway and in the atonement that he made, well, I believe, brethren.
When you and I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, there will be nothing more wonderful to us than to think that there was something in our lives that was pleasing and glorifying to the Lord. And I believe we can have that joy. I believe the apostle had that joy as he came to the end of the race and had the thought of soon being with the Lord. And if you and I would have that prospect before us, we need to be watchful. Every one of us. We have weaknesses.
We have things that could easily hinder our enjoyment of the Lord and our testimony. Well may the Lord give us grace to take this exhortation to heart. And then remember it's only possible by looking under Jesus, not by looking at ourselves or our brethren.
But that Blessed One, who did everything for us and who now lives for us to supply grace to health and time of need.
The work of the Lord Jesus was perfect, and when he went home to the Father's house, he went home.
In in that perfection of that work, and I mentioned this because that our position with Christ rests upon that perfection. And when we get home to glory, we will be in a scene where all is perfect. And it'll be because of this that we are Speaking of this morning.
The work of the Lord Jesus in which He glorified God in every respect.
Redemption was the completion of that work, the fullness of it, and when he went home, the work was complete. Now we know that we still have our bodies.
00:25:11
Are not changed, but they will be changed. But He laid the foundation for it all. So in that day of glory, we'll be in a scene where all is perfect and all things are of God. And so when he went home to the Father's house.
He went home in the perfection of his work, and that's upon which our souls now rest and will rest for all eternity.
About the priesthood of Christ. And in the 7th chapter of Hebrews it says Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God, by him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us. That verse isn't primarily the thought of saving our souls, it's the thought rather of saving us from paths that would dishonor the Lord or getting away from Him.
And so as it's been remarked, that is the present work of the Lord Jesus for us now. And when it says save to the uttermost, some of us might say as we sit here, but you don't know the circumstances that I'm in, the temptations I'm surrounded with the pressure I have to meet the Lord looks down and says I fully understand he walked through every kind of thing situation in this world that it was possible.
Face and saving to the uttermost is there can't be too difficult a circumstance that he can't supply the grace needed. And so instead of failing, we might say, well, I couldn't help it because the pressure was so great and our precious Savior is our high priest that I would have supplied all the help you need if you had just called upon me. And that's what he's there to do for us to supply the grace to help.
And that's why we have him brought before us as the one. This second verse, when it says the author and finisher, I'm sure we all know that the margin is the beginner or the new translation, the leader. Now that is, he began the path of faith and completed it, and he's the captain of our salvation. A captain in the army might order some of his men into an engagement and he didn't know.
Those men were going to have to meet in that engagement. It might be far greater fire than he knew about, but not so if the Lord ever asked you and I to do something, He knows what it costs beforehand, brethren, he knows the difficulty. And he says I'm there as the captains of supply all your need. So the apostle could say, no man goes to work for at his own charges. We don't have to go at our own charges, our own strength, our own.
But we have one who is able to supply all that's needed, and there he lives all the time for us until that day when the journey is completed, and then he'll call us home.
Encouraging to think of the Lord Jesus.
As the one who walked perfectly here for God's glory in the path of dependence, so tracing his pathway in the gospel.
Is really tracing one who walked by faith and dependence?
As that man Christ Jesus, that pathway was perfect from beginning to end. Well, for ourselves we are called to walk as well and to live by faith. And perhaps we can understand that this is difficult.
Perhaps easy to trust the Lord for our salvation, but just to walk constantly aware of His loving care and calling us to a path that.
Hasn't really that which directs us as to right here, as to the man who sees things as they are in this world and is governed by that, but rather looking on beyond.
This light and trusting the one who is overall so looking unto Jesus is connected with faith, isn't it because He walked the path of faith here, even though as the Son of God, He was that perfect man and that perfect example for each of us in the school of God.
00:30:08
So we have lessons and these lessons he is teaching us.
Because he has gone before us, and in the Gospels we can trap, we can trace every step that has been taken by the Lord Jesus in the light of marking that path out, that you and I in some small way might be called to walk here. Lord Jesus always walked by the precepts of Scripture.
That's what it means to walk by faith.
I'm glad that's brought out because we speak of faith and we don't sometimes realize what it means.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
The Lord Jesus always acted on the precepts of Scripture, and He often used them in connection with his ministry. Referring back to he would say, Isaiah said, and so on, using the various parts of Scripture in his ministry.
But he himself walked by those Scriptures, even though he is the perfect Son of God, and he could say in the eighth of John, I am altogether that which I say unto you. Still He himself in perfect obedience. The brothers call her attention to in the gospel He walked always.
Using the precepts of scripture as the basis now, what is the difference between precepts and Law?
You find that both in the 100 and 18119 centimeters well.
There's a difference in the precepts of Scripture. It's supposed that one is waiting upon God for his mind.
That's really a precept.
We know that's true too, to the new newborn soul of the law, but in the special sense.
The new nature desires the mind of God to walk by, and those are the precepts of Scripture by the which the Lord Jesus Himself walked by.
I delight to do thy will. He's waiting for the mind of God. And he would say.
I do all of those things that please Him. He waited for a word from God before he would speak or act, and that was complete dependence, but dependence in the sense that he received it from the word of God himself.
Might say, but I'm not perfect, I'm not like him, but I think it's very important for us to see, brethren, that God has given to every believer the very life of Christ.
It tells us in Colossians 3 when Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. So we possess the life of Christ. And one is often said, God will never ask you as a Christian to do anything that the new man does not delight in doing. We have the very life of Christ, brethren. We're not going to have a different new life even when we get to heaven.
Than we already possess right now. Oh, but I might say I have an old nature beside.
Well, He has provided the power so that that man, that old man, might be kept in the place of death. The Holy Spirit of God indwells us, and it tells us in John three, God giveth not His Spirit by measure. That is, the Spirit of God is a divine person. It's true that we may not be using the power that's there. Many of us have automobiles. We're not always using the power that's there under.
But it is there for us to use, and if we stall on the hill, it's our own fault that we didn't use the power that was supplied. And God has given us a new life, and that life is the life of Christ. And so when God sets his Son before us as a pattern, then he has given us the very life of his Son so that we might follow him as a pattern when we find within us all that horrible old fallen nature that.
Man, God says, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The old man was crucified with him, and although he is there, he has no rights in our body at all. We're not to yield our members as instruments of righteousness and unrighteousness to sin, that is, we're to yield ourselves to God.
00:35:14
As those who possess this new life and the power has been supplied.
Well, I say this because there might be some here who would say, well, I know the Lord is a perfect example, but I'm just a poor thing and I have so many evil tendencies. Well, that God has given you the life of Christ. He has given you the Holy Spirit. And so he never makes excuse for our failure, but He does make provision for it. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.
Righteous, When we have sinned, we can come and confess it and be restored. But let's never excuse ourselves for sin. We have this object before us sufficient to fill our hearts, and He has given us His life. And so this is set before us here as an encouragement with our eyes upon Him. Like Peter walking on the water, we can be above the waves and all that's below.
Our brother has brought before us that.
He walked according to the word of God, and I believe we see that.
This in his beginning of his ministry, he said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. We also find that connected with the children of Israel in the light of the instruction given in Deuteronomy, because he quotes from Deuteronomy and that.
In the very early chapters of Deuteronomy, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Now we know that truth is liberty. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And there is enlargement in that path of liberty, isn't there? And this is what really is for us as a child of God.
We have been brought to liberty and to access, and both of these things come before us in the book of Hebrews, and here we are called to run a race.
Not only has.
It happened through grace that we have been saved, but we've been called to run a race and connected with that race. God has given to us an object looking unto Jesus.
But God would give us to realize that there is something before us which the Lord Jesus was looking onto in the light that He says for the joy.
That was set before him and it's been mentioned that endurance is connected with this, and a heart must have an object, and the only object that can satisfy our heart really is Jesus, the Lord Jesus, and the great joy is the joy of seeing Him in the glory.
Face to face and if we're going to endure.
We must have for our hearts that object and that glorious day before us.
When not only that He comes for us, but we are going to come with Him in His glory.
Verse 15. As for me, I will behold thy faith in righteousness.
I shall be satisfied when I await with thy likeness. He will be satisfied when he sees the traveller. Peace, soul. And we will also be satisfied when we are awake.
With His likeness and seek His face in righteousness. He wants His Saints to have an abundant entrance, does he not?
I was thinking of those verses in second Peter there, where it says He hath given us all things that about us, and that pertain to life and godliness. So the Lord has made every provision for us, and you think in Ephesians how it speaks of that power toward us, and in US and with us.
00:40:09
So the Lord has made every provision that we might go on to his glory, and it says.
In kind of a little divine formula here, if you do these things, you shall never fall. So the Lord wants us to be kept, and He wants us to finish our course with joy and be to his praise and glory.
That expression of her brother Alan Collins is not the Psalm 17, the word righteousness there.
It's it's not always perhaps understood the way the word righteousness is used.
It's not speaking there exactly of a righteousness that we have because we've trusted in Jesus.
But it's like it is in Peter two Peter the 1St chapter will need to turn to it. But there we find that we have through the righteousness of God in the sense that God is now righteous, righteous and completing all of his promises.
That's the thought you get that in the Psalms. God is going to complete everything that he said.
And Peter says in the first chapter of First Peter, why he says this is the salvation of your soul promised before. So God is righteous, proved righteous in the New Testament as to what he had promised in the old It's all being fulfilled. And the Lord Jesus goes on high in a completed work. I shall behold thy face in the righteousness.
In chapter 63, that comes before me.
Seeing that we are imperfect, we are in a place that's imperfect, but we do walk.
Helped by a perfect love.
And the perfect wisdom.
In Isaiah 63 and verse 17 there is a verse that perhaps would tell us of the.
Real bottom of the exercise, the greatest depth of exercise that Israel.
Will region perhaps is the one for us because.
We know God loves us.
We know he's in control.
We know he's the author of our circumstances.
So when we have not followed after him and he has not absorbed our hearts.
And we have erred from his ways.
Here is the question before us.
O Lord, why hast thou made us to air from thy wake?
Author of our circumstances.
And harden our heart from thy fear.
What is it? What was the weight or sin that he saw that I didn't see that he wants to show me so that I can go on with him?
For my joy and His joy.
We should always rest. Should we not have been heard in that love that never fails?
And has an end in you. That love is working with us toward an end that we see what is hindering so we can go on.
To the enjoyment of these promises, which He is righteous to fulfill for us. And we know I would add here that God is not the author of evil.
But we see him in love, as the author of our circumstances, as allowing things in our past.
To bring us down and humble us, and we'd like to know why, so we can see it in his presence and judge it, and go on with Christ. What is the resisting unto blood in the fourth verse?
Perhaps you could say the Lord Jesus would rather die than disobey. And so we see him there in the Garden of Gethsemane, sweating as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground, and yet saying that my will but thine be done. There sometimes comes a time in our lives.
When there's a great decision to be made, it's going to cost us a great deal. And as we think of the cost, we hold back. We say, well, I just couldn't endure that. The loss of my job, the loss of a loved one, or perhaps even death itself, and loyalty to Christ, like many of the martyrs of the past. And so we have an example. Here was one, and death to him was.
00:45:05
So horrible as we think of what it meant to him to be made thin.
For us, death is what the believers servant, to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. So it's really an encouragement to one, even if it meant death itself, to do the will of God, to be faithful to Him. I sometimes commented, brethren, that it's interesting in the different crowns that are mentioned as being given to believers.
For faithfulness to Christ, there is only one that is mentioned twice.
And that is the crown of life in Revelation Chapter 2.
It's given to us as the martyrs crown. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. But in James chapter one it's given in another side of things. It says, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive a crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Perhaps we think, well, in this country of liberty, I'm not too likely to be faced with having to be a martyr for Christ.
But I know many, many and especially young people know what it is not just wants to say, I won't deny my Savior, but every day and perhaps a dozen times a day to have to say no, to take a stand for the Lord Jesus, to rather please him than have the approval of the world and perhaps even a promotion to be faithful, the Lord says.
You're being faithful unto death in another way.
I believe, brethren, that's what resisting and the blood is. So that person who continually, day after day and month after month, stands up faithfully and says no when there is a temptation presented is really going to be given the crown of life, just like the martyred.
Well, this ought to encourage us to go on faithfully for the Lord, and especially when we have such an example before us. For may I say again, if you or I should face death for Christ sake, what a glorious future just to be out of this world in a moment and at home with him. But to the Lord Jesus, death to him was those hours of darkness that forsaking.
That awful load of sin.
In order that he might glorify God his Father and do His will. So we have an example who endured far more than we could ever endure. What an encouragement for us to be faithful brethren in the little things that we have to meet in comparison.
It's really in a sense losing our lives for His sake, isn't it? The Lord says he that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for my sake shall find them. So to endure the temptation day by day and go on, in a certain sense we lose our lives. Whereas if we compromise in this world because of advantage, then that is indeed lost.
Endure is a keyword in this chapter.
If ye endure.
That's in the seven first.
But now in the fifth verse it says in here forgotten the excitation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, or faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chastened, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. So we see here that there is a purpose.
In what the Lord allows in our lives.
And it will come out at our latter end. And I believe, brethren, even though we have sinned.
And we are suffering because of that sin. If there is faith in connection with it and a full repentance, I believe the Lord will use that very experienced for ultimate blessing for our souls. An interesting thing to see here that in the first part we have that Lord Jesus has the perfect example set before us. The object as soon as he begins to speak of chastisement. There was no example in the Lord Jesus of.
Because he always did his Father's will. So that he talks about what we can get through these things. Now, I'm not suggesting that every trial that believers have is necessarily chastisement. We know, as our Brother London remark, there are many things we go through as part of a groaning creation and other things that God may have to deal preventatively. And so there'd be more fruit. But the theme here is.
00:50:12
Chess has meant the Lord dealing with us for something.
So that we might lay aside the weight or the sin that hindering us. And I believe we could say here that there are three different ways that we can treat these situations. We can despise the chastening of the Lord, we can faint under it, or we can be exercised thereby. I believe to despise it means that we say, well, I seem to have more than my share of trouble.
I guess it's just that I seem to be one that has to go through all these things.
And we don't see any particular dealing of God in what He is passing us through. We really despise His hand, for He has a purpose. We find a little bit of that with Job, I believe, when he didn't see the reason God had. And so he said God wouldn't leave him alone till he swallowed down his fiddle. And he said that he had lived uprightly and he couldn't understand why it was happening. I believe that was the.
Of despising it. And Elihu said to him, Surely it is meat to be said unto God, That which I see not teach thou me. If I have done iniquity, I will do it no more. And that is, if he didn't see what the purpose was. It wasn't a good thing to give himself a clean sheet and just say God was hard on him, but rather to ask God what he had for him in the trial, and a willingness to lay aside that.
Her weight so that he might go on. Then I believe to faint under it is just to get discouraged and feel we have too much and more than we can bear. But we have that beautiful verse that God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.
But rather with the temptation make a way to escape that she may be able to bear it. That is, He's always able to give us what we need in these things.
And so let's not just faint under it. If my child is discouraged and says, well, I think my father's has a pick on me, he's always punishing me. He's going to miss the love the parent has in trying to do him good. And so we can faint under it and then we can profit thereby by exercise. May I just suggest this year to to them who are exercised thereby, I've always been.
The verse did not say find the reason for it because I don't believe we always do discover the reason, but by exercise we profit. And I'm sure all of us have spoken to others and they've gone through a trial. And you say, well, could you say you know just what the Lord had in it? No, I'm not sure, but it's drawn me nearer to the Lord. I can say that it's made me feel His presence in a way I hadn't felt.
So, brethren, we may not down here always learn, sometimes we do, but sometimes we don't. But we can always profit thereby. We can always be drawn nearer through the trial. And I believe he brings these three different attitudes, if I can use the expression in trial. And I believe they can speak to each one of us as we see the danger of the first two and the blessedness of the last one.
Man of the 73rd Psalm, he says. I was plagued and chastened every morning.
He had the entirely wrong outlook, and God had to deal with him in such a way that he realized that he had the thinking of the world, and he didn't get corrected in that until he came into the sanctuary of God. And so I believe, like in Romans 12, we need that renewing of our mind. I believe it is a daily exercise.
There is a difference between.
The chasing that comes because of our willfulness.
And that which comes because of a special work that the Lord is doing in our souls.
And even then sometimes.
As we get in, Job has been mentioned, we have, I think it's the 36th chapter, that in which he exceedeth. There is such a thing as going too far and God has to come in. Now with Job, there are two things in which he was tried 1St and that is that God took away everything that he had. He took away his all his goods, He took away his sons and daughters.
00:55:12
And Job answered.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Lord has given. He's taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Well then, Satan had to try something else.
So then he brought upon him the boils and all the physical discomforts and trials.
Then Joel began answers that.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, He would not, He would not allow Satan to get anywhere.
Into his heart to turn away from the Lord. That was sure. But then the Lord has to use the third means. He has to reach into Job's heart.
Through his friends and his relatives, I don't think we realize how much is involved in the trials and testings of God's people. I believe there were seven things in connection with Joel. First of all, we had the angels, sons of God. The angels. Those are the ones who are doing God's bidding. They're always on hand. You got them in Hebrews.
In the first chapter, Ministering spirits.
But then we have Satan coming in to test Job.
Next we have the.
Kindred.
Then we have Job himself, the elect 1.
We have Jehovah's friends, someone who said they were used to heat the furnace for Job in his trial. But then we have also the.
They Eli knew who was the days men who came in.
And one among 1000 to bring before job what he needed.
And that is brought in the 33rd chapter I believe. Where?
Showing a man not his righteousness.
But the fact that he should repent is really the thought of that verse so that.
Elihu was the one who brought home the job, the the really the reason that God is dealing with him. And then we have the Lord at the end who actually brings Job on his face.
In two different ways to show job that.
What God is really doing in the book of Job was to give Job to see himself.
As God saw him in his presence, and it's been said and rightly said that many Saints have never been in God's presence.
Never realized what they were in God's presence, and I'm sure that most of us have never realized fully what we are in God's presence. But Job was brought into God's presence to discover what he was now before he said the thing which I feared has come upon me, but not afterwards. He was at liberty afterwards all over with.
But here he was going through life with some some fear upon him all the time he wasn't at liberty.
Until this trial came, but then he was set free and you see the end of the job.
Now he had twice as much at the beginning. It, of course, is not a picture of the church, but it's a picture of God's ways, whether it's the government down here.
Notice that Joe didn't get complete deliverance until he had prayed for his brother. God won't have us harboring any ill feelings and bitternesses, especially when those things came upon Job for his own good. But his friends certainly didn't answer wisely. In fact, they speculated, and they got into very deep water. They didn't answer right as Joe did in the end.
But still, his attitude towards them must have been very bad and so there wasn't a complete deliverance until he prayed for his friends.
Brother Gladding giving a few thoughts on this verse and I made a note in my margin, he said.
Think of four words that begin with the letter P.
And the first was this verse speaks of preparation, it's preparatory discipline and how essential that is.
Dear young people, early in our lives, I rather think it was appropriate to put that word first, preparatory for the Christian life. We need to know this is a child needs to learn the discipline of its parents when it is young and it doesn't like that discipline, but as it grows older it looks back and is thankful for it.
01:00:21
So in the Christian we need that preparedness, and sometimes it comes.
With the chastisement of the Lord.
He said the word preventive.
And how the Lord graciously comes and intrudes, as it were, into a course of life which is not pleasing to Him, and He brings a chastisement that puts us aside, which.
Perhaps we can use the word duress. The duress of the Lord against us causes us to desist. It's preventive from our degenerating further away and withdraws back rather to Him.
But then there also is the thought Brother gave us of the word punitive. Now it's been brought to our attention already that we should never say to one who is in trouble while the Lord is speaking to you because you have done something that needs chastising.
But there are times when this does exhibit the grace of the Lord toward us, and we know His hand of punitive, a punishment for what we have done. And that's done in love as a father loves his child to correct the path and to bring him back into the joy of walking as children before gone.
And then the final one was productive. All these things speak to us of that which can be productive in our Christian life.
If we heed the admonitions of the Lord and.
Don't despise or resist them. Part of this chapter comes in because if we lay aside the weights and the sin which easily besets us, then this is not necessary. In other words, to put it simply, there are two ways to find out the stove is hot. Listen to the warning and not touch it. Or touch it and get your fingers burned and find out the hard way.
And I'm afraid many of us have to try the second one and learn by experience. We touch the thing and we get our fingers burned. Might have to bear the stars too. So it's very blessed that God does give us warnings, does give us the privilege of coming to Him and acknowledging our weakness and finding that grace to help in time of need. I was thinking, brethren, in connection with what our brother Lundeen was saying about Job, too.
There's one thing that I think there's a tendency in us all to resent, and that is false accusation because those friends of Jobs were doing just that. They were really falsely presenting his case, you know? But I think it's important for us to realize that we get, we learn more about ourselves from false accusations than true ones. When a brother falsely accuses me, the natural feeling in my heart is to.
Say, imagine him saying I do a thing like that. I never did a thing like that. I wouldn't think of such a thing. And what does that discover? Discovers just what it discovered in Job and in me. Pride. And that's exactly what God was trying to correct in Job was that pride. It was not for something that he had done, but that pride of his heart that he thought he was better. Just like Peter, he thought he was better.
And so if anyone says something about you or I and it's not true.
Let us say to ourselves, well, it could have been true, I was capable of doing exactly what that person said, and if I've been kept from it, it's only God's goodness and grace. And that humbles us and makes us think more of him because in his goodness he preserved us and He wants us to walk in that dependence. And I believe that's why in the end, Job had learned that dependence. So he prayed for his friends, his friends.
Had brought all these things, now he prays for them because he realizes that God had used them and he was actually no better than his friends in his heart. And if any of us have been preserved, we can only say, like the apostle Paul, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
Well, I believe if when these things come, we sought to take them from the Lord, it would be a real blessing to our souls and we would profit. Let's watch against that spirit of resentment that rises up. God allows it to show us what we are. For the two great lessons of our wilderness life are these, to learn what's in the heart of God and to learn the nothingness of ourselves and the poor, wretched things that we are in ourselves.
01:05:20
And we never fully learned this, but that's what God is teaching us for His glory and for our good. I suppose Joe went through the scourging, didn't he? That's the extreme of God's ways with his, with his children. We got the expression here of my son in verse 5.
Important to notice the relationship when God is dealing with his children. That's in the sense of love because of what he wants to bring out.
In our latter end, and the peaceable fruits of righteousness are in view, are they not?
So this was true in Job's end. There were the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
Seen here on the earth, they may not always be seen here, but there will be a fruit of righteousness as a result of the work in our souls. And so there may have to be the scourging, but it's the extreme. And if we don't learn by faith.
There may have to be discourages.
Hebrews 12:5-11
Reading
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.
He had forgotten the expectation to speak about the US and the children. My son is five knocked out with tasty the Lord from faith and our reducing them.
No, and scourge it there is Son whom he receiveth. He endure chastening. God dealeth with you is with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, where of all our partakers then are you ******** and not sons?
Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. Let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
Correction is the way of life, is it not?
Man is a fallen creature and there must be correction.
It's the way of life. Get that in the book of Proverbs.
No chastening here. I was thinking at the close of the last meeting, the last reading, that in Joe's experience we can certainly learn this, that God will not give up, that He will have His way in the end. And we see that with Job there was real integrity, so much so that Satan could not break him down.
And it appears as though Satan went away.
Defeated, but God was not finished. He had a work that was necessary. And certainly we can learn that that God will not give up with his own. It may take a long time, but He will have His way.
That's really right. I'm thinking of that of the verse, verse seven or verse six, whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Well, that word scourging, I think our brother Lundin mentioned this morning that it had to do with a very hard whipping. But the word chastening has to do with or it could include a word of instruction. So sometimes when we see someone going on in a bad.
We wonder why doesn't the Lord do something? Well, the Lord may be doing something, but he does it in his own time and in his own way. It may be in the beginning, just a word of instruction or a word of warning. But if those words of warning are despised, or if they are not paid attention to, the Lord will increase that and he may go even to all the way to the end of the spectrum, to a scourging, because he's going to.
His work. But why does he do this? He does it because he loves us, whom the Lord loveth. He chasteneth and scourgeth every son. So he's got so much invested in us that he's not willing to let us go our own way. This verse is often really spoken to me as a parent to think that there are times when we overcorrect. There are times when we under correct or even do it at the wrong time but God's.
Correction is always at the right time and in the right way.
And mixed with infinite love and infinite wisdom. And we should accept it from Him. And I really enjoyed the thought this morning that it's unto them that are exercised thereby. So when things come into our lives, even though we may not understand them, we need to get on our knees and search our hearts, because their God may be speaking to us.
Someone here who is not safe. And remember that you never will know anything spiritually without correction. Repentance comes first.
00:05:04
Book of Proverbs, the very first verses of the first chapter it says to know. What does that mean? To know spiritually? Is the experience of a wise man corrected and disciplined?
It's the experience of a wise man, corrected and disciplined. That's to know spiritually. You never know anything spiritually because man's a fallen creature unless he's corrected and disciplined.
Is that the thought in connection with the latter part of the sixth verse?
Scourges every man, every son whom he receiveth. Is the Scourging a part of the transformation from a lost soul to a saved soul? Yes. Discouraging, of course, would be the extreme and.
We noticed that with job that there is with each of us, I believe something going on continually because this is the way of life. We need to, we need to know these things.
And the way we know them is through the work.
And the Lord is using the word continually and if we don't bow to the word then he will use other methods to awaken us and to till we do. But still it's the word that corrects us eventually.
Something of this persistence of God in the expression in first Peter 4, where it says, If the righteous scarcely be saved, or that is, if the righteous with difficulty be saved, God persists in working with His children. And it was expressed this morning in connection with the verse in Hebrews 7 where it says.
He is able to save to the uttermost.
All them that come unto God by him see he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
It's God finishing the work, working with everyone of his children.
To bring them all the way home.
It is to realize that Jesus is Lord, that is, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart, thou shalt be saved. And so we come under his Lordship. We come under the one who has been given a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
And God has given him that exalted place.
And we must give him the 1St place He will have it, because it's given to Him. So as the children of God, we come under the lordship of Christ, and to own Him daily in our lives is really going to be for our blessing, but most of all for His glory.
A book of Job when it Eli who has spoken to him and told him that if he didn't understand why he should ask the Lord. Surely it is meat to be said unto God. I have borne chastisement, I will not offend anymore. And then the 33rd verse. Should it be according to thy mind?
He will recompense it whether thou refuse or whether thou choose and not. I therefore speak what thou knowest.
Sometimes we have an idea how God should correct us, but the way he does it may not be according to our mind at all.
Because in our minds we always have self before us and God is seeking that which would be produced in US. I was thinking of Second Corinthians chapter 4.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4, verses 10 and 11.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake.
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
You notice these two verses, similar indeed, but very different in another way, and that is in the 10th verse. It's when we do it ourselves. That is when we recognize that there is no good in self. When we put the sentence of death upon self, then we can receive the instruction that God has for us. But how often self stands in the way and we don't like the kind of correction?
00:10:02
An idea of our own that God would correct us without bringing us down to law or humbling us because we generally have high thoughts about ourselves. And so in this tenth verse, God brings us to the recognition that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He brings us down so that self is not trusted. And then we learn independence, that path, that instruction our brother was talking about.
From God for our pathway. But if self is still allowed, then we have to be delivered unto death. And there's none of us that escaped that. For it says He scourges every son whom he receives. And here in this 4th chapter, we which live are all we delivered unto death. There is no one of us as believers that can say we haven't needed chastisement at some time or other, and perhaps quite.
In our lives because we're so slow to learn what is pleasing to God.
And to really put self in its right place. But it's nice to notice the way these two versus end. In the 10th verse it says that the life of Jesus might be manifest, made manifest in our body. In the 11Th verse, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh, that is.
When we learn in communion with God to put self in the place of death, self is not seen but the life of Jesus.
So that when Elisha, for instance, saw Elijah go up and the chariot of fire take him, and then he picked up, he first ran his own mantle. That was really a picture of being done with old Elijah. And he picks up the old yes, and picks up the mantle of Elijah. And when he crosses over, they said the spirit of.
Elijah doth rest upon Elisha. He had put an end to self, as it were, by rending his own mantle.
And he didn't have to tell them because they saw that manifested in him as he crossed the Jordan, that river of death. But as I say in the 11Th verse, then its mortal flesh, that is God, has to pass us through something. And perhaps like Jacob, Jacob learned in some ways the end of his pathway was brighter than Isaac and Abraham.
Because we see he had learned, and the life of Jesus was manifest in mortal flesh.
And it tells us he worshipped leaning on the top of his staff, in other words.
What he could have learned an easier way, he learned the hard way, but thank God he learned it and the life of Jesus was seen even though he was a lame man and had to lean upon something outside of himself. Well, I think this is also blessed in our chapter. The Spirit of God here brings before us that which is objected, objective looking to Jesus, being willing to recognize that anything that comes in that helps us to.
Rid of those hindrances and have her eyes upon Christ will be for our blessing. But if we don't learn that way, then he uses the other. And I say again, none of us can say we can escape it. There is no Christian that learns everything without experience in a difficult way. God wants to teach us that way brethren, but I believe we all more or less have to learn.
He chastens every son whom he receives.
And he keeps on because his desire is the life of Jesus should be seen.
And it's not nice to connect with the verse our brother read in the 17th Psalm. The life. It says, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. That's what's going to be the end of it all. When in glory we look at one another, what will be seen? The life of Jesus and nothing else. And God is teaching us these things here, but he has that blessed end in view.
You refer to Jacob. I'd just like to mention that it's been said that if Jacob hadn't stumbled in his early life.
He wouldn't have had to halt the rest of his life because we we sometimes do things that.
Make a scar for the rest of our lives. And this was Jacob's problem. But I'd like to mention too, that Jacob spent 17 years in the land of Goshen. You don't hear much about him.
But at the end of those 17 years, he gave a prophecy concerning his sons.
00:15:05
And that was through his going back over his own history and the goodness of God in connection with his ways with him, so that he had the wisdom to prophecy of his sons for.
Perhaps down through the millennial day or further, because he had spent those 17 years in God's presence in reviewing all that had passed through in his life. Now that's the the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
As a result, we have to face up to the fact that we're all too much influenced by the Laodicean Spirit about us, and we see how plain are the words of the Lord Jesus there. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. He loves us too much to let us just go on and to take on that spirit of the age, the Laodicean Spirit.
I'd like to call attention to two verses in Job that might help in what we're taking up. Job has been smoking of the 33rd chapter and the 23rd verse.
Elihu speaking, if there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among 1000, to show unto man his duty, it should read duty.
That is what is his duty? Repentance.
Now in the 36th chapter.
It says.
Because there is wrath verse 18.
He's speaking to Job now.
Because there is wrath. Beware lest he take thee away with his chastisement.
That is.
Job is under discipline.
The government of God.
And even though he was a believer, he might be taken out of this world.
Solemn, isn't it?
If there wasn't a response.
To the exercises that were set before him, if he didn't respond to that duty, that.
Eliyu brought before him. He didn't repent.
Solemn thing Speaking of what you were saying there about the Lord saying as many as I love, I review can chase and I've always enjoyed how in the first one in Ephesus we read I have against thee that I was left thy first love and then in the last one the Lord says as it were, but I haven't left my first love. I still love you even though you've been willful and I'm going to have to correct you for your good.
So it's just the proof of his unchanging love that he felt it when they had left their first love. But that love may have to display itself sometimes in correcting us just as a parent. It says he that love with his child chasing at him betimes.
Even our chapter here, I believe, indicates that the parent would do the best that it could.
Where it says they according to.
Their pleasure, it slips my eye right now in verse 10. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. That's a little severe. I believe it should read something to the effect as seemeth good or meat unto them, as the margin reads. But what does it say but He for our prophet. Why is that? Because he is the Father of spirits. He knows what is the spirit behind this.
Or action, As a parent, we may know our children better than most, but still we can make a mistake. But he doesn't make any mistakes because he knows exactly what is the spirit behind it. That's good to consider, isn't it? What does it mean at the end of that verse that you just read?
We might be partakers of His Holiness.
Well, it speaks for itself, does it not, Brother Hamilton?
He doesn't want us to follow the way the course of this present evil world.
And He loves us too much to let us go that way. So we are holy brethren. That's our standing before God. But we know it's ever the work of the Spirit of God to bring us in practice up to our standing so that we might be partakers of His Holiness. How faithful he is.
00:20:15
As the father of spirits mentioned here in Numbers, it's the God of the spirits of all flesh. But this is Christianity, so we have relationship brought in and that makes the discipline.
For us with an object, because we, we want to please the one who has done so much for us. And if we need correction, if there's the right spirit, we'll respond immediately to it.
But the Christian needs to know is the way should go. It isn't the law, but it's it's instruction that he needs. Because we don't know which way to turn, which way to go unless we're instructed from the word.
And sometimes we need the correction to awaken us to receive the word that He's given us.
Suppose when it says here be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live. It's a similar thought to what we have in Romans where it says, if you live after the flesh, he shall die, but if ye through the spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Now that is you and I have this new life, and it's the path of death to go and live after the flesh, because God put an end to that flesh at the cross our old man was.
With him And now what ought to be manifested in our lives is that.
New life. And so we're not living unless we are living as Christians. She that liveth in pleasure is dead, while she liveth saw the pathway of a believer when he's acting like the world is really a pathway of death. But now God is correcting us so that we might walk in the way of life. And the way of life, of course, is the manifestation of the life of Jesus.
And I think also there's the thought of authority here.
God has instituted authority and saw that parents are put in that place and children are to recognize it and be in subjection. How much more to the one in whom we have been brought into this new relationship, and in whom we live and move and have our being. So there is that relationship to God.
And that is even higher than the natural relationship. It's interesting in Proverbs.
We have the opening chapters have to do with parents setting before their children the way of life and death, bringing before them that pathway of wisdom in which they should lock. And then when we come to the 8th chapter, when the voice of the parent is no longer heard, we have the voice of wisdom crying and warning. And it's interesting in that chapter how in the end the Lord takes the place of being the creator of all things.
It speaks in the end of that chapter about how He made the heavens above and the earth and gave to the sea His decree. If we are learning something from our parents who are correcting us as best they can, how much more when we are in the instruction of that One who knows all about us, who always knows the right path? I, as a parent, didn't always know the right path for my child.
Didn't always correct him at the right time, but God our Father who made us who knows every part of our being. He knows our frame, our emotional build up and everything. And that's the kind of a father. Can we ever think in his ways with us that we would have been wiser? I think that's why Elihu said to Job. He said that they're in those verses we read. He said, are are you going to choose or is God going to choose?
He said. It isn't the way I choose. I'm just talking to your job. It isn't the way you choose either, but it's the way God chooses and he knows just exactly what is right and best.
Being partaker of His Holiness, would that be true with King David and what had taken place in his life?
In the Psalms where we find in chapter 51 That after he was brought to repentance and we find in verse 10.
He says, Create in me a clean heart of God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit or Thy willing spirit.
00:25:25
And the spirit of holiness.
You desired so much before.
The presence of God to so live.
That he wouldn't dishonor God as he had previously. That spirit of holiness, that desire to.
You so walk to glorify God and in first John.
First Epistle of John.
Chapter One.
In verse 9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
To not only that you would know that we were forgiven, but that we would hate the thing that we had allowed to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Bring us back so that we walk in full communion.
With him and walking the standard that he has set be holy, for I am holy.
Yes, and just might mention there that take not Thy Holy Spirit from me and the new translation, it's the Spirit of Thy holiness. In the Old Testament, believers were not indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God, although He was active and souls were born again by the Spirit. But what is characterized of this characteristic of this present time is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
But the thought is the spirit of thy holiness.
There's always a tendency, brethren, when we have failed to look lightly upon it, not to see it as God sees it. And he desired that when he was restored, He would always abhor that sin. I heard a young man who had failed, and after he had failed, he said, well, we all fail sometimes, but he didn't have that spirit of holiness. It's true that we do, but if he had looked at it in the light of God's holiness, he wouldn't have said that. He wouldn't have.
That way he would have thought what it cost God to put it away. That's why in the 19th chapter of Numbers, the man was sprinkled with the ashes of the heifer on the third day. And if he wasn't sprinkled on the third day, then he was not clean on the 7th. And unless we judge sin in the light of what it cost God to put it away.
We never really get restored when we say, well, I have failed but.
Others do it too, or something like that. Then we never get restored. We never really come to the third day. But when we have come to the thought of what it cost God to put away sin and see in that death the end of all that nature that produced those sins which we allowed them.
There's a true judgment of it in the presence of God and the thought in the seventh day.
Is a real restoration. So it's often said, well, that person said he's sorry.
But I wonder if he has really judged it. Well, that's really what we're saying. What is taking place there? The third day being in the presence of God. I like the little hymn that says in his spotless souls distress I have learned my guiltiness. We never really measure sin by comparing it with others or looking in or something like that.
What is sin in God's sight? The true picture of what sin is, is Calvary.
There we see the Holy Son of God made sin. We never realize what sin is properly unless we look at the cross. Well, it's lovely to see a Christian who has failed get to the meaning of that third day and then be truly and happily restored.
The 7th day, I say again, is what we would call a real or a perfect restoration.
He abhors the sand, He doesn't look lightly on it, he doesn't justify himself. I also think of the Naomi. When she came back she had learned something of that, and she said, I went out full and the Lord hath brought me home again empty. She didn't say, well, you know why I went out? There was a famine and that was my reason for going. Do you blame me?
00:30:10
No, she thoroughly judges herself and says there was no good reason for me leaving God's Lamb.
I left in self will, and I didn't even come back by my own will. The Lord hath brought me home again and I didn't gain anything by all that sojourn in the land of Moab. I just thank the Lord. He's brought me back and his grace comes in. She's restored and Blessing comes to Ruth too. A lovely picture of a real restoration.
That's an important principle in the Word of God. We see how much was involved in connection with the restoration of Josephs brethren. We can see right away their conscience was hit. There's no question about that. The guilt of what they had done to Joseph immediately came before them. No doubt it was always upon their conscience all those years, but we see that Joseph kept himself estranged to them until that work was.
And thorough in their souls. We cannot hurry those things along. And I might just mention that too, in connection with Hosea. We, we've been considering this lately, and I believe it's so important to lay hold of the principle.
In the book of Hosea.
Chapter 6 or five.
Here we see how severe the measure is in verse 14. For I will be unto Ethereum as a lion. That's a very severe measure. And as a young lion to the House of Judah, I even I will tear and go away. I will take away a nun shall rescue him. I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense and seek my face.
In their affliction they will seek Me early. Well, it appears as though it was working. Chapter 6. Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn, and He will heal us. He has smitten, and He will bind us up. After 2 days will He revive us. In the third day will He raise us up, and we shall live in His sights. So there we see that important principle, and I believe in.
Testament. We have that thought in connection with Peter. That is, the Lord appeared to him alone. He hath appeared unto Simon. He appeared, appeared unto him alone, perhaps to assure him of His love and forgiveness. But then there was that public restoration, as we have there in the 20th chapter, where the Lord had to search him out. Simon's son of Jonas. Lovest thou me more than these three times over? That was a hard experience.
Peter But it accomplished more than just his immediate need. I believe it assured the others that the Lord valued His ministry and wanted them to know that. So I just mentioned that.
Between those two chapters, Hosea, because that's the last chapter you read, is the time when they will return. So there's been those 2000 years for Israel and they're going to be restored according to Romans.
Through jealousy.
The church is brought in in the mean time, and then they're exercised as a nation and they will be brought back.
For us to do is not to grieve the spirit that indwells enough, but they have full liberty so that we can bear His fruits as we have been a licensed Chapter 5.
There's.
22.
This is what to characterize a Christian in his daily life. But the fruit of the Spirit is love.
Joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, these are the 9 virtues of the Spirit, the Son of gifts, the virtues of the Spirit, and But we agreed our Holy Ghost together.
We won't be able to see this fruit in ourselves, but how wonderful it is if we could show this fruit in our daily life for the glory of God. Not for our glory, but for the glory of God, because it is the fruit of the Spirit. Now I have fruit ourselves, but it is said that sometimes, as is happening with three of the Spirit in us, our holy guests.
00:35:12
It's nice to see the plainness of Scripture in the 11Th verse, isn't it? Now? No chastening, for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous. That's language we can all understand.
As has been mentioned, there isn't one of us that hasn't come along the journey without some chastening.
And none of us would ever say the chastening was pleasant. We've had this verse before us tells us prior verse. We've had the chastening of our parents when we were young and that wasn't pleasant either. But I think how it must please the Lord as it would please an earthly parent to have one who is under.
Chastening.
Accept the chastening in the spirit of true remorse and confession, and then returning to the one who administered the chastening and expressing that to such an one, the mother or father, or in our case, to the Lord, then we have that wonderful fruit thereof.
Violet was grievous as we went through it.
It afterward yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness. But how important the last part of the verse unto them which are exercised thereby.
Some of us remember as a boy I had a certain capacity to grit my teeth, as it were, when I had discipline from my father, and bear up under it. But one looks back with sadness that there were times when there was no confession of the guilt, just accepted the punishment.
But one wondered.
The exercise by it returned then to the parents. In those suitable expressions there was a mutual.
Joy, a mutual.
Acceptance of one another's affections that off times was deeper in a relationship than existed before.
So with the Christian, these things are very practical.
And I do hope our young people will bear these in mind, because you too.
Your young brother. Young sister.
Know the Lords Hand of chastening, I know you do, we all do. And how happy it is to be exercised to that point where we are then in truth, in Verity, able to go to him and to confess. We've been speaking about David and the 51St Psalm, how he made that confession of contriteness.
And after that the Lord used him.
More than before, and Peter too. So we have these things very practically before us in the Word. And this verse, verse 11, gives us those thoughts.
The subject of conviction comes in connection with confession.
One might confess something that they have never been convicted as to the depth of it.
So the conviction and confession of sin is the ground of all.
True.
Exercise of soul and morality, because there must be a conviction of it, and that one's own heart apparently put before their child something that we're speaking now with disobedience.
But, and they may say, yes, I'm sorry I did that, but that doesn't mean there's been conviction of it. We find with Israel in those 2000 years, there's real conviction.
I don't mean that it takes 2000 years, but it's a picture to us of that which is necessary in the soul.
To come around, as our brother said, to the 7th day, an exercise of soul. We find this with a prodigal son.
He had made-up a speech in the far off country that he never gave when he came home. Make me as one of the hired servants.
He, he just said, Father, I've sinned. And that's the lesson of life, isn't it, Father, I have sinned and that's enough. He had his father's arms around him. In fact, his father had begun to to run after him before.
00:40:14
And I know that the 10 pieces of silver in the in the middle of the story the account.
Speaks of something that's lost, and that's the believer.
Now he was lost and now he's found. But I do believe we have something deeper in that. We have the woman sweeping the house to recover something.
And I believe it has to do with that conviction that came about with that prodigal son. On the way home. The woman was sweeping the house. In Luke, the house is the inside of the person. In Matthew, the house is the outward profession, but in Luke, it's the N word.
The moral responsibilities brought before us in Luke. And so the woman is sweeping the house.
To do away with everything that's contrary to that new position that the prodigal would be in, because when he gets into that new position, we find it's all grace, nothing left of the old man at all. Sometimes that verse rejoiced in the Lord alway. And again I say rejoice is used out of context because here it says.
No chastening, for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.
Sometimes jubilant spirit at a time when God is dealing is not a good sign. We don't like it with our children when we have to correct them and they just act as if it was a kind of a joke, Our correction, We expect them. We want them to feel it and feel that it's done and that it hurts them and it hurts us. But afterward, when they have learned it, then the blessing comes, and I do believe.
That there are times when a broken and a contrite heart are very much in keeping. The joy will certainly follow. Just like that boy in the far country you're talking about. He was pretty much broken down when he had to go out there and feed those pigs and not have enough for himself to eat. When he comes back and has it all out with his father, then the rejoicing takes place. And so I believe there's a proper time for.
Rejoicing and this verse for the present, that doesn't seem to be joyous but grievous, but the result afterwards in the life is the proof that it was necessary and that the person has profited by it for God's glory, and their blessing comes back and has it all out with his Father. Then the rejoicing takes place. And so I believe there's a proper time for this.
Rejoicing.
And this, this verse, for the present, it doesn't seem to be joyous, but grievous.
But the result afterwards in the life is the proof that it was necessary, and that the person has profited by it for God's glory and their blessing.
Do these things connect with James Three, in the last two verses, we're Speaking of God and His wisdom, working with us as children, seeking to bring us through, complete the work in US. And there's the fruit of righteousness here.
Reading the last two verses of James 3. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy, And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
Well, we try to straighten out things by our own wisdom very often, and there's envy and strife in our hearts trying to prove ourselves right very often. But if we if there are difficulties arise, it's certainly very important for us that we meet them in that wisdom that comes from above. We've often heard the expression the flesh never corrects the flesh, and so very often when we see something wrong.
We try to correct the flesh in another with the flesh in ourselves, and that had never really accomplishes anything good. But oh how beautiful this is. The wisdom that comes from above doesn't overlook sin, but it treats it as God seeks the restoration and the good.
00:45:05
Of his own and we ought to do it in that way. If I ever have to speak to a brother or take up something with a brother, am I really doing it in this spirit that we have in our chapter seeking his good? Or am I really trying to prove myself right, perhaps even a little envious of him and now I'm glad he's put down a little bit or something our hearts are very, very wretched, you know but.
It can exercise us as to whether, when we try to help somebody else, whether we're doing it in the same spirit in which God our Father corrects us in love.
Thinking of peace and righteousness, we find in Romans that the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
That is the moral side of the Kingdom of God, isn't it?
That's really what it is, and that's why he's leading us, perhaps through chastening and other things, to come into the real enjoyment of the Kingdom of which we are in. Through sovereign grace, of course. But he would have it there, enjoying himself. We've been Speaking of the prodigal son.
Who thought of coming back as a servant? Perhaps that would have satisfied his heart.
But that would not have satisfied the heart of his father. So when he is truly brought back, owning his guilt, saying that he had sinned, then the father is now ready to show out his heart to him. And with his arms around him, he's ready to give him that which will cause him to rejoice.
There isn't any thought of his ever desiring to leave.
His father after that work of bringing him so low, but nevertheless, in order for him to enjoy the Father's house, this, which is true of the Kingdom of God, had to be part of his enjoyment. And for our souls it's the same, isn't it? And for Israel it will be the same, the Kingdom of God.
Is not meat and drink. It's not an outward thing, but rather an inward thing.
Righteousness.
Peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Brother Curry or the end of the prodigal son story. They began to be married, They the father and the son, not just the one. And there is no report of the merriment ever ceasing.
So I was almost going to say the same thing. I was thinking of the fact that.
What God was doing with the prodigal was for his own eternal enjoyment.
God is preparing each one for happiness there, which will be his own happiness when he has children in his presence. And they'll be they'll be fit for that presence.
And that's the picture we have with the product because we don't hear anymore about the prodigal, but we hear about the father's joy from then on.
That's why it immediately follows with this. Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. If that boy had come home, and his father had been unwilling to receive him, and throw his arms around him, and recognize what grace had wrought in his heart by the boy might have said, It's no use. I tried.
But after bringing before us God's chastening.
And He never lowers the standard. There has to be the fruit of righteousness. His desire is that we should be partakers of His Holiness. And again the 14th verse follow peace with all man, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. There is a definite spot there where a person can be discouraged instead of encouraged when God has begun to work.
And we see that in Second Corinthians. That man that was dealt with in First Corinthians.
God had brought repentance in his heart, and now Paul has to write specially to the Saints there of Corinth and say that such an one might be swallowed up with over much sorrow. It's very necessary and good for us to recognize where God is working repentance, even if we only see a little bit of the beginning of it. Let us be thankful and encourage us. Otherwise the person is liable, as it says here, to get thoroughly discouraged and.
00:50:18
No use. And his hand sank down, his knees become feeble, and he said.
I'm afraid that I can't go on because.
The repentance is not recognized, but there is no mistake that God our Father, He sees that He has rotted himself. He restoreth my soul. But this is an exhortation, I believe, to us in connection with it. And if any of us have failed ourselves, let us not be discouraged. When we come back, the Lord receives us, and the Lord can encourage us and help us to walk in those straight paths for our feet.
We have that illustration when Moses was praying and.
Aaron and her upheld his his arms.
In connection with the battle and the battle prospered before the Israel when.
He was stayed by these two.
And so that.
The Israel won the battle because of the intercession of Moses, but he was helped by the other two.
Is that not a reference to what we have here? Make straight?
Lift up the hands which sang down and feeble knees, and then make straight paths for your feet.
That was what was brought out about the prodigal. I think when he came back, he hadn't said a word, but his father knew that if he came back, there must be something going on in his soul that he would make that way back. And so he threw his arms around him. That made the confession much easier. And the Scripture says the goodness of God.
Leadeth thee to repentance. It's knowing that God hasn't changed toward us.
Even in spite of our failure, that really draws our hearts back and makes us want to come, because He still loves us in spite of it all. And we who are believers ought to know how to manifest that same spirit, shouldn't we? As you said, it can be premature and we only hinder the person, like in the case of Absalom. But let's be ready to notice the first signs of real repentance and it already.
Begun in the heart of that prodigal. And so then it was easy after his father showed him that he still loved him.
For him to say all that was in his heart, wasn't it?
Well, don't we have an extremely important.
Principle in these verses referred to verse 12 and 13.
In respect to our responsibility before one another, in the 10th chapter, we have provoking one another unto love and good works.
In John 16 we have the washing of one another's feet.
I see a distinction here between the washing of the feet and the upholding of one who is weak. But I like Brother London's thought that.
While we might apply the feeble hands.
And the knees.
Not functioning well to ourselves. It also I think has a dual application. As I look on another who is in that capacity and am I just going to be very casual about it and ignore him or am I going to have some concern? Am I going to seek to strengthen that one? And how can I do that except my own feet are walking in a straight path.
If I go to Section 1, no matter how earnestly, and seek to encourage him, and he can say, well, I'll find one, you are to speak, you're just as bad off as I am. There's no help, is there? But if our own pathway is correct, then the one who is hindered, his sight is dim.
He's lame, he doesn't see the way very well. Then he has one in whom he has confidence.
And feels that there's assurance in listening to this one. I feel very strongly that we do have a strong obligation by the to have this attitude toward one another.
00:55:07
And so much the more as we see the day approaching, to bear one another up where it isn't to provoke one another, but to provoke to love and to good work.
I was thinking in Galatians 6. There it says ye which are spiritual restore such in one in the spirit of weakness considering thyself, or the spirit of meekness considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Well, that's a real work when God can give that wisdom and ability to be of some help to another that way. But to do so there has to be that considering of self because.
We're just as liable to the same temptation and that I believe that's the thought of the spiritual man in that connection, that he has a realization that he could fail in the same way. And it's good to see that. I I was thinking of another thing too, in connection where one has been out of fellowship, the apostle says, wherefore confirm your love unto him.
That seems to indicate that love was always there, but wisely it couldn't manifest itself.
Until there was a work of repentance, how much wisdom there is needed in that connection because we're so prone to just want some set of rules to follow. But we've got to use spiritual discernment. We've got to seek wisdom from God in each individual case and consider every case on its own merits because there may be a time and a right time, of course, when.
Communication can be re established and when.
There can be and should be that confirming of the love to the individual. Well, that's going maybe into more complex things, but.
We have laid and love brought together here. Don't we follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord? And that is, we like peace. We don't like to have problems and difficulties. We perhaps are inclined at times to pass things over that should be taken up, because we have to remember that God is holy.
Well, they're both brought together.
Our feet are to be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. We're not to be always looking for trouble, but if it comes, it's necessary that it should be taken up and dealt with. And so we have the two. The Scripture says God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the Saints, sometimes unnecessarily, we can bring in things that.
Upset the peace of the assembly, but when it's a question of holiness.
Holiness become a thine House of God forever. And so there are cases when things must be brought up. So this following after holiness is not really to get it, because holiness is the nature, but following after it, that it might be constantly manifested in US. And that is that others should see what holiness really is in US. For holiness is the abhorrence of evil with delight in what is good.
And that is what ought to characterize us as Christians. That is what ought to be seen to in the assembly is gathered to the Lord's name. And so here we have them brought together. It isn't that we want to make trouble. We desire peace of God's peace as a holy peace. And so the two are brought. And then the next verse looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God.
We must always remember that God's dealings with us are in grace, and what is grace is God's undeserved.
What did any of us deserve? If left to ourselves, any of us? If we received what we deserved, it would be eternal banishment from God's presence. As our brother mentioned this morning, we were saved by grace. We stand in grace, and grace will be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So in all these things, whether it's in God's dealings with ourselves or in our dealings with our brethren, let us never forget grace.
Because the fail of the grace of God is to perhaps exalt ourselves, and then we can't deal with these situations. But when we take our true place on our faces before God is very striking that in the Old Testament, when there was a case of uncertain evil in the camp, the only way that they could find out was to take the dust of the Tabernacle and mix it with water.
01:00:07
And when the woman drank of it, had discovered her true condition.
And so there are many things that rise among us, brethren, that we just don't have the wisdom. But if we were humble enough and got before the Lord on our faces and had a sense of grace in our own souls as well as of God's holiness, and that mixed with the light and direction of the word, that's the the water, I think many things would become clear and God would give us the wisdom and guidance that we need. There are so many complicated.
Cases come up, we say, why can't we solve them? The only way that that complicated case could be solved in the Old Testament was to get the dust of the Tabernacle mixed with water. You've got to get on your knees to get the dust of the Tabernacle, to realize that even in God's presence, what four things we are at best. And then when it's given to the woman, God made it manifest for his own glory and for her blessing ultimately.
That's the 14th 1St.
Is a little bit difficult.
Without which no man shall see the Lord.
That part.
I suppose we have the thought there that.
Where to pursue?
A piece of all men and holiness.
I think you brought out the practical side.
But the point is that unless one has that, they will never see the Lord.
Is the thought then, that our testimony here should be of that, so that those who are not saved may may see it? Is that the thought?
If we didn't have a holy nature, we could never be in God's presence, could we ourselves?
So it's a testimony really to the those about us, our walk down here.
That failing of the grace of God, I believe, is something we need to think about and consider because it has been a very real exercise to my own heart. That is, the grace is available. We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. So what does it mean looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God? Well, it's available. We need to ask the Lord for grace, and especially if we're passing.
Through chastisement, there may be bitterness is connected with it, and if those bitternesses aren't judged the root of them, they can spring up and trouble and it can cause a great deal of defilement. That thing will rear its ugly head and it'll affect others. It can't be hidden. If there's a bitter feeling against another, it will crop out in some way. It will manifest itself. It won't be hidden. So we really need to have.
To avail ourselves of this grace we we fail when we don't avail ourselves. It's available, we just need to ask.
The Lord for more grace to overcome these bitter feelings and heal surely.
Help us.
More often problems come among the people of God because of that very thing. I was thinking of the two cases in the Old Testament when the man of Ephraim came out to Gideon after and were upset because they weren't called to the battle. We find that Gideon meets it in wonderful grace and he says what was I able to do in comparison of you are not the gleanings of.
Ephraim better than the vintage of aviation.
Aviator. In other words, he was willing to recognize them and he met that situation in grace and the result was the whole thing was settled right then and there. But Jepsen didn't handle it that way at all. When they came along, the same people came along and chided with Gideon, then with Jeff, Sir, Rather, he.
Talked back to them very unkindly and everything and said.
Well, I was in trouble and you didn't help me. And so he made them very bitter, didn't they? And then a big battle arose and 42,000 people were slain over the pronouncing of a word. You know, we can't pretend that it's holiness. But very often there's other things. We haven't. We haven't, as it says here, we have failed in the grace of God. I think that Gideon met them in grace and Jeptha met them in the flesh. And very often, brethren.
01:05:01
I have noticed the difficulties that rise among the Saints. If you really get to the root of it, there's some there's some feeling over a difficulty and they're looking for something and then a difficulty arises. Bitterness comes in, So many things result.
We need to get back to this. It's grace. It's grace that saved us. And if we have in any way sought to live to please the Lord, it's grace. It's only the grace of God that has kept any of us.
Hebrews 12:12-21
Reading
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.
The brethren to go on with Hebrews 12 or someone else on something on the heart suggested we go on with Hebrews 12 verse 12.
Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet with that which is lame. Be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Fall of peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, must there be any fornicator or profane person, as he saw, who for one more slow meat sold his birthright? For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, where he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. For your not come unto the mouth that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and Tempest.
The sound of a trumpet, the voice of words, which voice they that heard and treated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. But they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with the dark. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, into an innumerable company of angels.
To the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that she refused not him that speaketh. Where if they escape not, who refused him that spake on earth much more? Shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven?
Whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he hath promised, saying yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. This word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of those things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 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. Thinking of a verse before we.
Move on, not to go back, but in Second Corinthians Chapter 7 and verse three, I would like to read it. I believe as it's in the new translation. The apostle says I speak not this to condemn you, for I have said before that ye are in our hearts.
To die together and to live together. And it's been mentioned, I know, but I'd like to just add this to emphasize the the thought that we're in it together.
And in the case of job it was mentioned how that.
Job had to pray for his friends and it was mentioned about Peter that he was to help his brethren.
And if we understand, I believe that what this government of God is over us for we we understand somewhat of his dealings with us.
Job, a man who was exemplary, he could say the Lord giveth.
Many times I've done things and I've pushed something and.
Worked my own schemes and when I got something I really wasn't settled. I had a little edge in my conscience that wouldn't let me say the Lord give it.
So when time of troubles come, I was settled on that issue. But Job could say the Lord giveth.
Job would give no credit to Satan, he said. The Lord taketh away.
And he triumphed. He said blessed be the name of the Lord. But that wasn't enough. It wasn't the end.
These verses that we've read come afterward. After what?
Job had to say I am vile. He did not. I was vile, but I am vile. That wasn't enough. I abhor myself.
So that he wouldn't become her hero in having learned this lesson and to pray for his friends, God made him one. He bound them up together.
Peter the same way he was able to strengthen his brethren. So here we have a verse that tells us that we are beloved as though we were sitting by the deathbed of each other, so that we can enjoy one another in resurrection and light in Christ.
00:05:04
And you know, I believe the thinking of this the other day, too.
The bottom of our troubles the Lord touched on with Peter, when he, as it were, stood Peter up in the midst of the disciples, and said.
Now, Peter, do you love me more than these love me and I?
Wonder, you know, Suppose He would stand us up in the midst of this group today and ask us, do you love me more than the rest do?
But what? Our hearts respond.
Or suppose he stood me up in the midst of Christendom?
The extent of his thoughts would carry me on out to all his own. And say, publish, Thou mean more than these.
Or our hearts would respond wrongly, probably. But what he wants to do is to bring us together.
The trial is not over. Can we say it this way? The trial is not. We don't see the afterward until we are living together. After we have died together. We really are in it together. And in so doing, He makes Christ everything.
And he has chosen such a way, as one writer has said, to bring us into blessing.
As makes Christ everything, and he would bring you and me into the full joy.
What we have in Christ and this government over us has its end in glorifying Him. We read in Second Thessalonians. He will come to be admired in his own and this work of government that he has done in leading each of each of us through this scene and making Christ more and more and more to us.
The moment by moment basis we'll just read down one day to His glory.
So we need to look up, as he says here, and lift up our hands and be encouraged, but not forget what he's getting at.
That is, that together we might have Christ for our joy. We have had something already on some have felt a little bit more explanation would help.
But do I understand this then to be?
That every believer has a nature now of holiness.
And.
A person who doesn't have this will never see God.
We have a practical application here, do we not, in this verse? And so we're to pursue peace and holiness in a practice down here. And that's our testimony as believers. It doesn't simply we have something inside that no one knows about but God. But the point here is that there is such a thing as the evidence seen in this world of what we do have. Is that right?
I think the reason it comes in here and looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. That it is what our brother was just saying too. That it's important that we realize that God is dealing with us in grace. None of us can ever claim that we deserved anything from His hand, but His judgment and every blessing that we receive is entirely undeserved and must be followed.
Go on with a sense of this.
Peter thought he was a little better than the rest of his brethren and he was really off the ground of grace, wasn't he? Paul could say, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And brethren, I have often noticed that speaking here of these roots of bitterness, that really they often have their roots when God was dealing with some individual. Perhaps there was.
An individual or a family who were going through a trial and we started pointing the finger.
We started making out that God was having to deal for some particular reason or something like this, and the families got stirred up and roots of bitterness began. And I believe it's because we're off the ground of grace, because if the Lord has to deal with me, it's because He does it to do me good at my latter end. But when we start looking at one another, we're really taking our ground above the other and feeling well, that brother needed.
But I didn't, and how often we see as we trace these things that they spring from that very feeling in our hearts that we have never really got into the presence of God, to recognize that we ourselves are the subjects of grace. Let's never forget this, brethren. We're saved by grace. We stand in grace, and it's grace that will be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
00:10:23
And so if the Lord has to deal with you or with me.
Let's realize that we would be exactly the same but for the grace of God.
And so, just as God our Father is seeking our good through that discipline, let us on the other hand, seek the good of another, not because we are better than Him, but simply that we desire that there should be those precious fruits produced in His life. And that's why it says, follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
I believe it's a very important issue, and I think in my observation I have noticed how often difficulties in an assembly begin when God began to deal with some individual or family.
And instead of taking a gracious attitude and realizing that I could have been the subject of it myself, it was only the grace of God that it was any different with me then that helps me to seek that brothers good. And those roots of bitterness don't get their start.
I believe we have to watch that and always remember what is brought before us in Hebrews. As he says in the last chapter, it's a good thing that the heart be established with grace.
I was thinking of the expression the root of bitterness springing up. A root doesn't spring up unless there's nourishment for it, and how well it is for us to keep the fundamental base of our thoughts and.
Attitudes toward one another in the humble attitude.
And in love toward others. I don't believe a root of bitterness is a spontaneous thing. It is a reflection of an attitude that has been nourished and the root springs up. So may we be more occupied with esteeming others better than ourselves, and being occupied, of course, with Christ.
It's so good to see in Israel's experience how God would teach us.
Most valuable lessons I was thinking over in Jeremiah chapter 32 how that the nation there will not be a full recovery until they are brought to the state of Seoul, where they keenly feel the division between them and where there's a deep and a longing feeling of loss in regard to.
The 10 tribes that are dispersed over in chapter 31 of Jeremiah.
It says in verse 15. And thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Rhema, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears. For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord. And they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine ends, saith the Lord, and thy children shall.
Again to thine own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. Thou hast chastened me, and I was chastened as a Bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented, and after that I was instructed. I smote upon my thigh. I was ashamed, gay, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Now notice this language.
Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. While I believe all of this indicates the Lords desire to bless His people and to bring about a full restoration. And we see that once that is brought about, there will be that warmth in that true unity and oneness among the people.
That's the only way there can be real blessing and restoration. The trouble with the root is that it may travel a long way before it springs up. There are certain trees, like a wild plum tree that has long roots, and you'll find, if you trace it, that a new tree will spring up perhaps several feet away from the original tree. And that's true of many plants.
00:15:10
Now the whole thing is that it should never take root.
If it takes root and is allowed to go on, it will spring up and cause trouble. And so there should be the judgment of these things immediately. And there's a responsibility on the part of both, that is.
Thou shalt an all wise rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him, if it is evident it's the kindness to call attention to the brother or sister.
Something that may cause trouble among the Saints of God.
So we should be, we should be in self judgment ourselves, but we should also be seek to be a help to another who may not realize that what he's saying or doing is going to cause trouble. Because in many points we all offend and in many points we're ignorant, two of them of the principles of scripture of the Kingdom. But we we need our help, the help from our brother.
And not to sit and censure on them.
But to be a help to correct what may be wrong, because it affects all the people of God. And so that that route, if it travels a long way, it may cause a lot of trouble where it could have been checked immediately and then that trouble wouldn't come. Another. We should always do it in the spirit. Shouldn't we have Galatians chapter 6 considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
And we see so beautifully in the prophet Jeremiah.
That if God was going to warn his people of judgment that He was going to have to bring upon them, He chose a man who could say all that my head were as water as in mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. He was one who entered into what it would mean when God had to deal, and if it were necessary, and it was necessary for him to announce judgment upon them, He.
Did it in the spirit that he he entered into it with tears himself.
Even the blessed Lord Jesus himself, when having to announce judgment upon Jerusalem, we see that same blessed One. Of course, He was perfect in all things, but He wept. There was no tendency in Him ever to be like others, willful, but nevertheless, He felt what was going to come upon the people because of their willfulness and their disobedience. And I believe, brethren, if they're just mentioning why the chapter ends as it does.
It's just exactly in keeping with all this we find first, the mention of Esau, because Esau was a man who acted after the flesh, and all that he was concerned about was that he had lost the blessing. That was all that he cared no care for his sin, only that he was concerned about what he had lost. And then the Spirit of God takes up the two different ways in which we can approach these things. We can approach them in the ground of.
That was Mount Sinai, where the law was thundered. And surely if plenty of us stood there at Mount Sinai, if there was any wonderful man of God, it was Moses. But he feared in quake too, as he stood there. And the psalmist could say, Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no flesh living be justified. But then he shows that that isn't the ground on which we stand before God at all. We stand upon Mount Zion, which.
Grace. And so the whole subject is taken up first, how the Lord has to deal with us in chastisement for our good and for our blessing. And then it seems to me the whole attitude in which we approach these things, whether it's in the attitude of grace or whether it's in the attitude of law, or whether it's not. Looking at ourselves and realizing that if we stood there at Sinai, we'd be just like Moses. We'd be quaking too, because.
Who of us could ever boast? Well, I think it's beautiful the way it's all opened up in this chapter about discipline and the way it affects others and the way it affects ourselves in a special way, it seems to me, in connection with the Hebrews to whom the book was written.
Or we call them Jews. The Messiah had come to the Jews, the Lord Jesus. He had been presented.
To them, and they had the opportunity to receive them in grace. And instead of that, like Esau, they sold their Messiah, They sold their birthright in order to get just a few carnal privileges under the Romans.
00:20:16
Back in John 11, it says the Pharisees and those leaders of the Jews say about Jesus. If we let him thus alone, the Romans will come and take away our place and nation.
So they sold their Messiah, Pilate says to them. Behold your.
King, they said. We have no king but Caesar.
Now the book of Hebrews was written to Hebrew Christians who had.
Heard and made a profession of the Gospel of the grace of God.
And the warning here is to not fall from the grace of God.
To go on in it, the book was written.
Probably about five years before Jerusalem was destroyed. Now here were those who had professed.
And the warning is about Esau.
Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
That's what happened to the Jews a few years later. Their place was taken away.
Still there when the book was written, but the place was taken away, the city was destroyed, and so those who.
Rejected. The Messiah didn't go on in grace. It was a warning to those to whom the book was written. Go on in grace, you have no place.
In the old order of things, as Jews under the law, Christ died under that the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
So here was Esau. He wanted just a mess of pottage. Well, that nation that doomed Jesus came, they said.
If we let him alone, the Romans will come and take away our place. They had a place. It wasn't very much of A place, but they had some authority under the Romans and they said we want that instead of the Messiah. Well, they sold their Messiah and they lost everything.
Well, now the warning to us today, if we've made a profession of grace, we must go on in grace and practice grace every day of our lives. That's the way of blessing grace. And it's the person who is the place now. It's no, it's no physical center. It's no Jerusalem in that sense. It's the person who is everything. And when we have him, we have a place too. So that nation.
How they have sought a place.
With tears for nearly 2000 years and that little company that's back there now, they've found a wailing wall for how that expresses. He found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. They've just got a wailing wall over there. That nation that rejected their Messiah. All blessing today comes through the Lord Jesus in grace.
My father.
But he didn't cry for in repentance, and that was the trouble.
He he wept, but he wept for the blessing. I wonder sometimes if this isn't a picture of a of a profession of Christ. Souls will weep over their sins, but they'll never repent of them.
There are two nations that will not receive an inheritance in the Millennial Day.
That are mentioned in scripture and one is Edom.
And justice because they had a perpetual bitterness for Jacob.
They they would not repent of their bitterness against their brother.
And so the book of Obadiah gives us the picture there of their destruction. In fact, in the 83rd Psalm we find there the leader of the confederacy against Israel.
00:25:04
To destroy them from being a nation.
But they will never receive an inheritance. Their inheritance will be taken away by Israel.
But there's another nation too, and that's the Philistines. They will also lose their inheritance.
But there were those who represent the profession.
Religious profession within the land.
And they're going to lose their place and their their land is going to be a place of shepherds for the children of Israel. Instead, it's solemn.
Because they never repented either. They were perpetual plague to Israel and.
There will be nations who will be blessed in the Millennial day.
Like Syria?
In Egypt, 19th of Isaiah.
But they will be blessed in the millennial day, the sovereign grace of God.
But God in righteousness is answering to what they have done for his people. And even though they were a wicked nation, both of them the nations, but still there were some things that they had done for Israel. For instance, Egypt preserved the Christ child when Joseph went down into Egypt.
And.
So we find that God will never forget what is done for his name. I don't say that's the basis of which they were spared, but I I believe that God remembered it. Your sovereignty spared them and will spare them in the millennial day. But.
He rewards that which was done to his name.
And.
So that it's a very sound thing we have right here in this passage, the.
The secret behind it is repentance.
Repentance.
And that's what we find with the prodigal son. There was repentance and sometimes, you know, in repentance.
And there doesn't need to be any words. It's it's every bit evident. And the father throws his arm around his prodigal son and all his son has said, father, I've sinned, that's all.
But the father knew it was down in the heart.
And so it doesn't necessarily a lot of words.
But it's the heart in a true repentance, and that's necessary too for salvation.
There has to be a complete turning around.
And acknowledging.
What God sees in me, and that's what happened to Job, I think, to an understanding of the Epistle to the Hebrews. We need to always see that there are actually three classes in the Epistle to the Hebrews. There are those who are real, that is, true believers in their hearts, and those are addressed and encouraged to go on. Then there is the mere professor.
He is warned that if he gives up the profession, it would be apostasy, and for him it would be a terrible thing to give up even the profession. That is, there may be some sitting here, you're not real, but you're here at the meeting and you're under the sound of the Word, and that's a very great blessing. And God in His goodness may deepen the work in your heart and bring you to true repentance and salvation.
But then the third class are not addressed at all.
But the warning is given of the awful end of apostasy, and apostasy is turning one's back upon Christ. And so that's what we see brought before us all through the Hebrews. And I think it helps us to understand, if I can say again, those who were real are encouraged to go on. We are not of them who draw back on the perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
God again in the 6th chapter of Hebrews it says. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and the things that accompany salvation.
Though we thus speak so we see that those who are real are often put to the test, but it only proves the reality of what they have. And then there were the professors and that warning, and then apostates. Well, I believe the discipline of God brings this out. And so when trial comes into the life of the real believer, he is exhorted to realize that this is sent in love for his good and.
00:30:12
That he might be encouraged and he might be restored where there has been failure and go on for the Lord. But if a person is only a professor, and we've seen this often some terrible sorrow will come into their life and they turn against God. They actually despise what God has done. And that's a very sad and solemn thing. And eventually leads if they're only.
Professor to the giving up of God altogether, or of Christ. And so they'll say, why did this happen to me? If God is a God of love, why did all this happen? And so I believe that the whole subject of God's dealing is taken up here the right way that we should take it and the blessing that God purposes in it.
But what we can expect to see in the world and perhaps in the life of a believer, maybe there might be someone here. You've come to the meetings, you've made a profession, and then a terrible sorrow comes in your life. It's overwhelming. And God is testing the reality of what you have. If you're a true child of God, you can see the hand of God in it. But the devil is going to whisper, Oh, it's no use.
God has allowed all this. He's turned against you and so on.
And So what a solemn thing it is when God begins to deal. But what a blessing for those of us who know the Lord and who receive it as from a loving Father's hand, the Father of spirits, the one who knows this exactly what is best for us. And he's dealing with us for our good and for our blessing. And so I think that it's very important for us in these trials to see how God is speaking for our good.
But it's also solemn for those who are professors that when God speaks, do they turn away? Do they turn their back? Says in the I think it's in Isaiah. The people turn not to him that smite at them. God has perhaps sent a trouble, and he doesn't intend man to turn away, but rather to turn to him. But now Esau was an example brought up in the same place of privilege and favor as his brother there was.
Real work in his soul. He saw his birthright. When he lost the blessing, all that he was concerned about was not his own sin. No recognition of need of repentance, but only that he lost the blessing. And then he turns in bitterness toward his brother and hates him, Hates him to this very day because he got the blessing and he didn't. What a picture of the whole human race, shall I say. But oh, I feel it's so important for us, brethren.
When these trials come to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
And we'll never be able to cast our care upon Him until we have first humble ourselves and realize that it would never have happened unless God our Father saw that it was necessary and for our good. Unless an apostate, unless He had made a profession, could He and.
You see, Esau knew of the promises.
He was well aware of all that was involved.
But he despised it in his heart.
I do not think that it's it's a one step downward. I believe it's more than one step downward. I believe there are opportunities for him. We find that in the third chapter of Hebrews that the first thing is that they heard.
And they didn't receive the message and then their way was wicked. You find that in Judas he was he was 3 1/2 years with the Lord Jesus and he heard all that precious ministry. But then we find the next picture was that he had the bag and carried the money.
And he was a thief, so it was evident, although the other disciples didn't notice it, apparently. Still there was the evidence there of a of a wicked heart already.
Showing itself. But then that wicked heart departed from the living God. He went out, and it was night. And that was the last step in which he showed himself to be a true apostate.
I'm not saying apostate from Christianity because their Christianity hadn't come in, but from Christ which is the same thing really. So there has to be first the profession of Christ before 1 can be an apostate of Christianity. It's really giving up known or professed truth isn't it? Apostasy and turning away from God.
00:35:20
May I just elaborate a little on that? Because occasionally.
We encounter some who we are confident are the Lords, but they're disturbed by the expressions.
Found in Hebrews chapter 6 and again in chapter 10 in regard to those who, having been in the truth, willfully sin, and there's no hope for such. I know perhaps in our company today there are some who are holding that in question and wondering whether they are lost.
Although they have in faith accepted Christ as Savior, they are lost because they have gone back into sin.
So that they're very much, but our brother Hayhoe gave to us as well as what our brother Londina just said, that we need to distinguish that those who are spoken of in Hebrews are those who never were believers, but who did hear the word, were under the sound of it. They even enjoyed it. They entered into the work of the Holy Spirit being in the company.
But of themselves, there was no real life.
So we do have eternal security, those who are really the Lords though we may, sadly.
Revert to sinful ways. We still are his, the children of God. No way of repentance as we have.
In verse 17.
And we think of this in the light of the need of repentance, but also there is that which hindered the repentance. And that was his feelings toward his brother. They really came between him and his really owning before God what he was. And this can be so with us. It can be feelings towards others.
That really keep us from the way of repentance.
Would we say that that it was really after he had sold his birthright, then he had those feelings?
Hatred toward his brother. And because of those feelings toward his brother, he didn't find a way of repentance, and this prevented him from coming to the place where he could get the blessing. Because there's only one way to God, isn't there?
And that is?
Through repentance.
Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ cometh to me. I will in no wise cast out. The gospel is very simple. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that thou shalt be saved in thy house. Verily, verily, I send you he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me half everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment.
So we need to have the helmet of salvation on and the one who simply.
Who just saved, we might say, and believe that he has eternal life. The enemy is going to to try to disturb him and make him feel that, well, he's not living up to it. But I'd like to see one person in this room that can stand up and say I have lived up to the profession. There's not one can say that because we stand by grace.
Sovereign grace. And so it's a question.
Of what God does and simple faith in what He does, we have to confess our sins.
And the provision is made.
That he will forgive those sins.
Upon confession, not asking for forgiveness, but confession, that's the point, confessing the sin itself. And so I believe that we're simple before God and realize that it's all His work and we take that attitude that we believe His word, what it says, even though we may fail.
The simplest believer can go on in the enjoyment of knowing Christ as his Savior and unconfessing his sins if he if he does, sins.
And go on happily in the Lord. He doesn't need to be disturbed by what Satan says, that he's not a believer just because he's done something wrong.
00:40:01
We shouldn't do things wrong, but there's no man on earth that sinneth not, Solomon said. And we should repent of that which we've done. But still we mustn't be disturbed by Satan, and I believe that he does. He wants to disturb all believers that he can in verse 17.
There's a way that applied to Esau, and there's a way that applies to the gospel of the grace of God.
He saw, knew what the birthright was. It was really Christ, the line, the promise down through Abraham, Isaac, and then it transferred to Jacob instead of Esau because he sold it.
That was the final thing for him. He could not get it back. He sold it. Now the afterward, I believe the gospel, the grace of God.
Applies after a person leaves the earth. The sin of man hath power on earth to forgive sins. We can't say that anybody is an apostate. God could, but we can't. The gospel of the grace is for all. It's to whosoever and the chief of sinners was saved, and a lot of lesser ones and big ones too have been saved since, and they still can be saved.
But it's a awful warning to have this kind of a warning now that you sell.
If you sell Christ in the gospel, the grace of God, there's going to be an afterward. There's going to be a time when the gulf is fixed. Well, it was so sad with Esau. He sold it. He could not get it back. He found no place of repentance. It's not that he wanted to repent and God refused him. There was no willingness on his part to repent. He wanted the blessing apart from repentance. We have to remember that Cain and Abel both.
The same God but one came without any recognition of his sin and guilt, bringing the first fruits of a cursed ground and presenting it to God, and he was rejected, whereas Abel came with the recognition that sin had come in. So he puts between himself and God the death of a sacrifice, and he is accepted.
And so with Esau, he wanted to get the blessing, and there's many people who would like to get to heaven some other way than through the death of Christ.
I've heard people say, but we all believe in the same God. Well, I say again, Cain and Abel believed in the same God, but Cain approached God the wrong way and he was rejected. And he saw he wanted to get the blessing, but there was no recognition of his guilt. And the scripture says, except you repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And so coming to God with no recognition of guilt and wanting to get salvation apart.
Work of Christ it is impossible, but it isn't. I think it's important to see it isn't that God turns away someone who comes with reality. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. But no one would come unless God worked by his Spirit. And so there is such a thing, brethren, and it's a solemn thing by spirit shall not always strive with man, and God may give up after a person has over and over.
Refused. It's the most solemn thing, as our brother said, we can't point to that person and say that person is an apostate and God will never save that man. We don't know, but we know there is such a thing and we find that in the Scripture that there is such a thing as God giving up and no longer striving. And Esau was an example of that. And, and so the point in this passage here is, I believe the awfulness.
Of trying to come to God in any other way but through the work of Christ. There is no other way that we can come before Him. And if we have come in that way and been received by then salvation is secure, because all the promises of God in Christ are yay and in him. Amen to the glory of God by us.
Perhaps someone might say, But why then are those warnings? Why are people addressed and warned about turning back?
Well, because let me put it this way, supposing that.
There's someone sitting right here in this meeting. He's been coming, or she's been coming regularly to the gospel meeting and sitting under the sound of the Word. And then one day they tell us, well, I've decided to go to such and such a place where the Bible is denied.
00:45:05
The finished work of Christ is denied. The blood of Christ is not preached. Don't be mourn that person. We may not feel they're saved, but we certainly warn them and tell them it was a blessing that you had a birthright, that you had perhaps of a Christian home to be sitting under the sound of the Word with the gospel constantly presented. But we warned them that if they turn their back upon that privilege and go where the gospel is never preached, it may end up.
Solemn end that we have of Esau that they tread that course. The Spirit of God ceases to strive and they end in the lost eternity. So there is a warning to a professor but again, just to make this point clear. The warning is not to a real believer that he might give up. The warning is to a person who merely has the profession. The encouragement to the believer is to rejoice in what Christ has done and then in a practical.
Way to walk in the enjoyment of it and recognizing that there needs to be in our lives practical holiness. Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Chapter was referred to and I just want to make this remark that it says for it is impossible for those who are once enlightened. Now the point of impossibility is not that God cannot save them, but the point is that if they rejected grace, there is no other way. I believe that's the point there if they have rejected grace as Esau did.
There is no other way.
To be saved, God has no other provision.
Made for salvation other than through the blood of Christ, the.
So some have stumbled over that and they said, well, it's impossible now I've sinned. But that's not the point at all. The point is one who has rejected the way of salvation, there's no other way that God has for them. He can't save them in any other way but through the blood of Christ. Esau in relation to the Jew today, because I think it's so interesting.
The times in which we are living and the remarks about Esau wanting.
The blessing.
Without getting it in grace, you might say.
He had sold it. The Jew today wants the blessing. They want the place, they want the land, they want the nation, and they're trying to get it without Christ.
They won't have it without Christ. They won't get that blessing without Christ.
They're going to go through far more tiers than they've ever gone through, the Lord said to them.
I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until I drink it new with you and my Father's Kingdom. He said, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, and you will not another verse says, Till ye say, Blessed he is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. I can't get that, but you may know it.
They're going to have to confess that Jesus is their Lord before they get the blessing.
But they sold out under the law, and they sold out Jesus come in grace, who was their king, and they cannot get it, just as Esau could not get that blessing in that way. Again, it's going to have to be in another way. The day of grace goes on.
And there is a time when the day of grace will close. Any person who gets blessing today has to get it under Gray.
And they have to get it while they're on the earth, just as they were determination of the time of the law and salvation and accepting the Messiah as their king who would have brought in the Kingdom and blessing to the Jew as a nation in that time. So there's going to be a close of the day of grace, and then there's going to be an entering into judgment and all what judgment before the New covenant ever is taken up for the Jew for their blessing under the New.
But we in grace come in getting all the blessings of the new Covenant without being under any covenant relationship at all. These things are brought out in this book. So what a warning it is to us who have heard so much of grace. Would anyone turn to anything else for blessing? We need to realize that in that passage that says.
00:50:09
Jacob have I love, but Esau have I hated. There's a history connected with that.
That is considered after a period of time when it became clear and evident.
That Esau had a perpetual hatred against his brother and his descendants, so it reaches on to their final outcome and attitude toward their brethren. I was thinking too, that Scripture does make a a distinction between the children of wrath and children of disobedience. I believe a son or a child of disobedience is in a very hopeless state, but we wouldn't want to say who is in that condition.
There seems to be no hope laid out and we're among those of that sort, but we couldn't say who was in that condition because God is very merciful and sometimes we see that he'll save one who perhaps has heard the gospel many times over. In fact, just this trip we heard of an 80 year old man who was saved. So he's able the Lord can do it. But that's a terrible state to be in the son of disobedience that.
That there was a constant refusal of the grace of God until there was no more opportunity. That was not said until the history was over, though. That's in Malachi where that was said. That Jacob have I loved and he so have I hated. So it wasn't known as to what God's attitude was until her history was closed.
Oh, and Jacob that he loved was that he valued the promises.
And Esau did not.
It's interesting, or I mean, I think it's important to remember that those two boys were not only brothers, but they were twins, very much alike. And we look so much alike down here, professors and possessors. Let's make sure that we're possessors, not just professors here where we have come to, but first of all, where we have not come to.
We are not come unto that mouth, that Mount Sinai, where where Israel were not able to, or nor even a beast go near it, because of the awful character of that mountain of judgment and.
All these things that are mentioned are connected with Israel's history and what the law without Christ, what the law itself would bring upon them because they couldn't keep it.
But He does go on to tell us where we are come to, and that's the part we are especially interested in, is it not? But to have the other before us first gives us that contrast to show what grace has done for us, because we stand entirely undressed if we not. The understanding perhaps of Mount Zion is important to see at what point God chose it in Israel's history.
When they were first brought into the land, as we know, the Tabernacle was pitched in Shiloh.
And they possessed the land, shall I say, in a conditional basis. That is, if they were obedient, God would bless them and give them the enjoyment of the land. If they were disobedient, then there was to be judgment. So some were to stand upon 1 mountain and pronounce a blessing for obedience, and on the other pronouncing a curse for disobedience.
So the whole possession of the land when they first entered was a conditional basis.
And on that basis they forfeited it all together. They failed under Joshua, they failed under the prophets, they failed under the priests. Everything broke down. And so after all had failed, even when God gave them a king, why it broke down? Then? It says he chose the Mount Zion that he loved. And then it speaks in the Psalms. This is my rest forever. Here will I dwell.
It's the grace of God that came in to provide a place where he could bless his people, not on the ground of what they deserve to tell, but sovereign grace. And so David pictures to us Christ as the warrior king who comes in judgment, sets everything right, and then Solomon reigns in peace. The Lord Jesus came into this world.
Accomplished the work of redemption by secured.
But it isn't until finally the Lord comes out of heaven and judges evil that that center will be established upon earth, and for 1000 years blessing will go out on the ground of pure grace to this world when a king reigns in righteousness.
00:55:15
Well, he shows us that that is the ground on which we stand. If we possess any of our blessings on a conditional basis, we'd be just like Israel. We'd forfeit everyone. We'd have no good given to us at all. But he brings us to Mount Zion.
And opens up a picture of this glorious day ahead when the grace of God is fully displayed in the blessing that will take place in this earth and also in heaven. It will be a wonderful time. Well, that's where we stand, brethren, and that's what's ahead of us. And it's good for us to be in the good of this. But let me say again, I think it's also very important that we realize this in connection with the dealings of.
God that when the Lord deals with us, if we get occupied with our deservings, or something like that, why, let me quote the verse again. Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no flesh living be justified. He gave any of us what we deserved. It would be judgment, but He deals with this for our good and for.
To draw us nearer to himself may make us appreciate grace more.
And that the character that will be in full display when the Lord takes His rightful place might be seen now in a practical way in our lives. That the life of Jesus would be seen, but less, as it were. Each one realized that this is where we stand on the ground of grace, with a view of coming glory before us.
And the Lord, by His ways with us, is in a practical sense fitting us for that time when we'll be there, and every hindrance will be removed then, because we'll be with Him, like him.
You know, cayenne is really the figure isn't not as you were saying of God's mighty intervention and grace securing it to David at that time. I was thinking there in Zechariah 12, we see how the Lord will intervene in a future day to deliver Israel to deliver.
Jerusalem and the very fact of his wondrous grace and goodness that would deliver that nation.
Will bring them to a national repentance, and a brother brought this to my attention the other day, that that national repentance is on an individual basis. It might be well to take a look at that. And I believe that this sets forth the principle that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.
Here in Zechariah 12 we see this, this deliverance of the people, and then then comes the real repentance. In verse 10 I will pour upon the House of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of what? Of grace. Isn't that lovely? The spirit of grace and of supplication. And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.
They shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only Son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his brethren. And then, as we read on through, we can see how very individual and real the repentance was. Now two or three brethren mentioned the other day that perhaps there ought to be more exercise corporately as to the things that have happened among us, but I believe it will come about corporately more in a.
Way when we as individuals feel it as we should. And you see that there were none exempt, whether it be the Kingly family or the priestly family or the prophetic family or the Levitical family, there were none exempt, even their wives apart, which indicates that it was a very real and a deep work in their souls. And now notice over in.
Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 36. You have the same occasion here.
Where it says in verse 31, Then shall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings?
That were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations, and so forth. What brought this about? Well, if you read in the earlier verses, you can see it was all the goodness of God at work among the people, and how He would intend to bring them into blessing. And mentions all this in verse 30 and so forth. And 29. And that all indicates his great goodness to us and all brethren.
01:00:08
What a kindness and a mercy of God that we can enjoy the fellowship and the measure of peace and quietness and stability. It is indeed the goodness of God, and we ought to be very keen and sensitive to recognize our failures and shortcomings, and to judge those things before him, that there might be that true and individual repentance. It will then reflect corporately on the whole testimony.
Hebrews 12:22
Reading
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.
Hebrews 12, verse 22.
That you are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven. And to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just been made perfect, And to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
See that you refuse not him that speaketh, For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth.
Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven, Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as the things that are made at those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
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.
And also.
The administration of the fullness of times. It's when the Lord Jesus.
Takes over completely.
In administration of all things.
It's after the first resurrection we have a verse in.
Matthew 24.
In the 29th verse.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. The stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
Now that's what we have in this chapter, in this verse that we've read, the first verse.
Where we have the.
Picture of the change that will take place at that time, the innumerable or myriads of angels and.
The generous, that is the General Assembly of angels, the myriads of them, and the Church.
The Lord Jesus is the one who will administer things.
Take control of all things.
And this chapter brings us down.
To the time when everything will be shaken at the end of the chapter.
So that there is a time coming when all the powers in the heavens.
Will be shaken and the administration of them will be put in the hands of the Lord Jesus.
And the church together.
But first of all, we have the Zion mentioned.
Mount Zion, City of Grace.
Then you have an end which changes the subject, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
So there are two distinct things.
The city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And you'll notice that in between each of these expressions there's an and changes the subject.
I believe in other translation you have a semi colon instead of a comma.
Which changes the subject in each case.
Would you tell us, Brother Lundeen?
What is essentially the heavenly Jerusalem?
Well.
This is what?
Was being It was looked for in the 11Th chapter of Hebrews.
Those that say something declared plainly that they seek a city which have foundation, which is building makers. God.
And I believe that that is the.
Ultimate of what they're looking forward to.
It's not the House of the Father's house.
Where the Church will be. But it's the heavenly glory, the heavenly Jerusalem, which the the Old Testament Saints look forward to.
00:05:00
In other words, it is not the earthly scene of the Millennium.
It's the it's the heavenly place of the redeemed. Yeah, there will be a millennial glory to in the earth. But this is heavenly true of the 13th chapter where we have let us go forth in verse 13 unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
That the same city.
Well, yes, the heavenly Jerusalem includes really all who are found in heaven. But there is a special place for the church. I believe it's a Father's house.
Besides, in Revelation 21 and 22, we have the heavenly city in relationship to the earthly, don't we? And I believe in the millennial age, the heavenly city will be over the earthly and there will be that harmony so that we reign over the earth and Israel on the earth. And I think the thought of the city is administration. And so that it's what it is going to take place, there will be perfect administration of.
Government in the earth. And all this is brought before us here as the prospect that's before our souls. God is preparing us for this. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. And so we have the earthly and the heavenly. If you turn to Revelation chapter 21.
And the first part of Revelation chapter 21 we have the eternal state in the 1St 8 verses.
And the second verse says, and I, John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And then when we go to the latter part of this chapter, why notice the.
10th verse. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.
And her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a Jasper stone, clear as crystal. And in the 24th verse. And the city had. And the nations of them that are which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth to bring their glory and honor. It's really unto it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, or there shall be no night there.
And they shall bring the glory and honor of the Nations unto it. There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth neither worketh abomination, or maketh the lie, but they which are written in the Lambs Book of Life.
In Isaiah chapter 65 we have a picture of the earthly Jerusalem and the blessing that will be there.
In the millennial Kingdom. And then we see the relationship of the heavenly city to the earthly, I believe brought before us in the 21St of Revelation from the ninth verse on. That is, in the eternal state there will be perfect harmony between earth and heaven. So it says the Tabernacle of God is with men. So whether it's those who have a heavenly portion or those who have an earthly.
All is in perfect harmony, but in the millennial period there is the reigning.
And there is the administration of government. And so tells us also in Hosea. The heavens shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the lion and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel. Now we might say that heaven and earth are not in harmony. The world is going on, and Satan has taken the place of God and Prince here in this world. And.
We see heaven, so to speak, rejected, but in the millennial age, when?
The dispensation of the fullness of times. Then there will be righteous government administered from heaven and carried out upon the earth through God's earthly people. And so I believe we have the two things here. And then we have, of course, all the ones who will have part in that glorious scene above. That is the Church, the angels in their place.
Not in the same nearness to the throne, but then the.
Spirits of just man made perfect, that is the Old Testament Saints all brought into blessing in this heavenly city. So we have that harmony in. As someone has said, in the Millennium, righteousness reigns. In the eternal state, righteousness dwell.
00:10:03
So that the reigning is carried out. But since there is no raining required when all is in a perfect state, then the 1St 8 verses of the chapter decide bring before us the perfect state. When Paul is in such harmony that you can hardly distinguish between heaven and earth. It says the Tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.
Administration and.
We see this company of angels.
The General Assembly.
The change of administration is from angels to men. Let's notice in the second chapter of Hebrews what speaks of the world to come in the fifth verse. Hebrews 2/5. For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
We are apartment to forget that God is in control of the earth now.
Through Angels, and we have a good deal about that in this book.
Now God uses them, but it appears all through the Old Testament as well. And what is going to be the change of administration is that they are going to be called in. And that's the reason in our chapter it speaks of this company as an innumerable company of angels, the General Assembly. If we go to Revelation 5, we find them in heaven too. In our chapter, they're called up.
And in in Revelation 5, we find the same thing.
Revelation.
Five and verse 10 and 11. Here's the redeemed company, Thou hast made us unto our God, kings and priests, This scene is in heaven. The coming day may not be far wrong. When we're called in there and it says we shall reign on the earth, that definitely tells us who's going to administer the new earth.
Then the next verse says, And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne.
And the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was 10,000 * 10,000.
And thousands of thousands. Where are they in heaven? It's the change of administration.
It's just like in our country when one party loses control of the government and it changes to the other, they pull in all their ambassadors and they put in a new.
Cabinet and so on to administer in the way they want it done.
It's the victory that God is demonstrating.
Through the man Christ Jesus, the 2nd man, the Lord out of heaven, He set the 1St man on the earth and made him Lord of it. And he lost it quickly, that exalted position of dominion. So God in his wisdom has been over ruling, using angels. He's not going to do that in the world to come. It's going to be Christ and the Church.
And men that reign and have that righteous government in the millennial day.
The last two verses of the 11Th chapter.
To have these all having obtained a good report through faith, the faith chapter, the history of the faith received not the promise. God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
God has so ordered that.
Israel's blessings will follow the Church.
We find in Simon's prayer in Luke that it's reversed It was it was originally that the June 1St and then the Gentile, but in God's ways we find that the church will be brought into blessing first that they without us should not be made perfect Now in the verse that we've read in the.
23rd verse of our chapter.
And to the spirits of justice men made perfect. That is, they now have received their bodies. Glory and resurrection is passed, and they're in that new position. But the Church is there first.
00:15:00
There's another person that is interesting in this connection, and that's in Romans.
The 8th chapter.
The 19 verse.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth.
For the manifestation of the sons of God.
Now the manifestation of the sons of God is when Christ takes his power with His Church to administer all things. And so the whole creation waits for that moment will not be delivered until that moment.
Notice that in the comments that have been made that when it says in that 23rd verse, the General Assembly and Church of the First Born, really the comma should be after assembly there. And it's the new translation. It's associated with what goes before. There's first Mount Zion, then the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem then.
The innumerable company of angels, the universal gathering that should be, instead of General Assembly, then comma and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven.
When the Lord Jesus comes, the Old Testament Saints as well as the New Testament Saints will all be caught up.
All be changed into His likeness. And when we read about the elders, it includes the whole company of the redeemed. And we don't read about them being separated actually until the marriage of the Lamb takes place in heaven. And up to up to that time the elders represent all the redeemed, and they all have one common ground, the blessing. And so in that 5th of revelation they sing together Old Testament Saints and those.
Form the church will all sing together, Thou art worthy, for thou was slain, and has redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation. And in the 7th chapter the elder explains something about that other company that are brought in from the period of tribulation.
But then when we come to the 19th chapter, we see the we never read about the elders after that, because when the marriage of the Lamb takes place, there are those who are the friends of the bridegroom. And in this verse they form a separate company. That is the Church of the first born. And then the spirits of just man made perfect. I say this because if the Lord were to come right now.
All those who died in faith from Abel downward would all be caught up.
And all be there, all joined together in redemption song, having one common ground of blessing.
But there are circles of blessing even in the heavenly sphere, and we see that brought out in this chapter. We see the angels in their place here as those who are now gathered in, and they occupy a place there as we have in the 5th of Revelation. They don't join in redemption song, but they ascribe greatness and power to the Lord because He is the center of the whole scene.
And perhaps the reason it says to God the Judge of all.
Is because now there is not the open intervention of God says in the second chapter of Hebrews. We see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus who has made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor. But in this scene, why man is not going to have the upper hand. God's man and those who are part of that new creation that you were Speaking of all will have part in that glorious.
But God will be the judge of all, there won't be false judgments and all that kind of thing carried out so that we have a picture here, I believe, of everything being set right. Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, because the first covenant as we know with Israel was a conditional 1 and under that they lost everything but.
The New Covenant is founded upon what Christ has done, and it's all because of Him. All the promises of God and him are yay.
And in him Amen to the glory of God by us. So that's why he brings in here about Abel's blood.
Because Abel's blood called for vengeance. When Cain flew Abel, the Lord said, The voice of thy brothers, blood crieth unto me from the ground. And so that blood of Abel called for vengeance upon Cain. But as God looked down and saw the precious blood of his Son shed there, and flowed down by, it calls for blessing.
00:20:03
Calls for judgment upon those who reject him, but as far as the whole heavenly company are concerned, that which was the worst act that man ever did.
To put the Son of God upon a cross and crucify Him, and then after he had done that wonderful work, to do man's last act of evil, to put the spear in his side. But what does it call for? It's the ground of all blessing. And of that whole new creation scene is that blood that speaks better things than Abel. Man's worst act only brought out in great relief the wonders of the heart of God in grace, and he provided a way of blessing.
And so this whole millennial scene is opened up to us here. The Judge of All brings us to the very pinnacle of the.
What we have here and then like an ascending scale.
So that we find now that the beast and the false prophet and all the evil workers agents have been put down and God has taken his place over all, so that in this administration here everything is in order. God himself has intervened.
Then we have the spirits have just been following that brought into their place.
Like that was so nice about table blood. Bringing in the blessing to finish this up when we think of.
Abel and Cain. Cain, the 1St man born into the world. Abel, the 2nd 1St man was born in the world Murders the kills the 2nd man. Well that's what the that's the story of the two races, the first Adam.
And the last atom really? Abel, of course, picturing the 2nd man.
That the very act.
We have Adams race. Putting the Lord Jesus to death has brought the blessing out. It's going to shine out fully in that day, blessing through that blood. I think it's important to see that it's not the blood of Abel's sacrifice that it's talking about here, because the 11Th chapter of Hebrews tells us that he offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
By which he obtained witness that he was righteous. It's not talking about the blood of his sacrifice that laid the basis, so to speak, how God could accept him, pointing out of course to the cross. But it's talking about Abel's own blood shed by Cain, and that blood called for vengeance. I just mentioned that because some might confuse it with the blood of evil sacrifice, but I don't believe that's the point here, but rather.
The naval's own blood.
Contrasted with the blood of the Lord Jesus, that one whose precious blood is the song of the redeemed forever.
So the cup we have is the cup of blessing. It speaks of that precious blood that has brought all this blessing, in contrast to the first murder which brought a curse.
Expression first born here carries the thought with it.
Of Christ as the beginning.
Of the manifestation of the power and the glory of God.
These final things are coming into the picture now.
God's glory is to be seen.
From now on.
And Christ is the beginning of it. That's really the thought of first born, I believe.
Is the beginning of the manifestation of it publicly, Christ is the one who takes over. That's a part of the mystery that a man is going to take over all of these things and he's seen as the first born. Now first born of course suggests title, but it's more than just title. He's he's the one who who takes over and administrating all things.
And.
So that Christ will be the center of it all.
But acting is for God himself.
I think of Christ as a man now.
I think it's important to see that because this verse has been used and others as though the Lord Jesus had a beginning, first born and the beginning of the creation of God. It's not that thought at all. The one who is and ever was from all eternity took his place in this creation and God puts him in the position of first born and he himself is the beginning of an entirely new thing. Everything in the first creation was ruined.
00:25:06
And now God begins all over again, and He begins with the 2nd man. He begins with his own Son, so that the one who is the is from all eternity the one whoever dwelled in the bosom of the Father, comes down and becomes a man and takes his place at the head of new creation. It was in the purpose of God that there should be a creation with a man at the head of it that would give glory to him, and that those would be brought.
Brought in to share and enjoy all that was in the heart of God.
And in their relationship to his son and now the first man failed altogether.
So God sends his own son, He becomes a man, begins all over him again. So in God's account there are only two men, The first one the head of her fallen, ruined race. The second one, the Lord from heaven, is the beginning of a new creation, but is no thought that is.
He had a beginning. It's simply the thought that he took his place as the beginning of that which was altogether new and the beginning of this new creation. And he's the first born, he's honored in that place.
Beloved, isn't this a grand thing for us to contemplate? Because we here today, whose faith is in Christ, will be participators as well as witnesses of these things.
And what joy will fill our hearts and all the redeemed to see.
The one whose blood was shed for us, receiving that acclaim, that place of priority, and all following to him, giving their praise, their Thanksgiving, and he who was the song of the drunkard, given his rightful place, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, supreme.
And this eternal scene coming which we've been speaking and we participators in that.
Sharing with him how wondrous it all is.
You see three things, I think, in connection with the mystery.
Christ of the Church, and the first is union, that is.
Christ and his people are one.
So that.
We sing that little song. Lord Jesus, are we one with thee?
Depth of love.
But then there's more. We find that as man, he administers all things.
But more yet.
He's the one upon which all the glory hangs.
Here's the one that is the center of that glory.
A man. These are God's counsels, and it was a mystery, but now it's made known to us.
And we should enjoy these troops. But first of all, he has his bride and union, Christ in the Church.
Then he goes out to administer all things.
But then all the glory hangs on him.
He's the one who carries it all. I think we have that in Isaiah.
That the glory is taken from Shebna is it? And now we find one upon whom all the glory can be placed. That's Christ.
A few verses in Psalm 89 in connection with this. It's very precious there.
We have, of course, David and his.
Kingly line and the promises made to him. And our New Testament begins with the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, and all the promises made to David.
Will be accomplished in Christ.
They broke down in the old line of his sons, of course, but the prophecy is made and it will be completed, and it's in Jesus who came of that line and will establish them. But the promises of God in the 20th verse he says, I have found David, my servant with my holy oil have I anointed him? He was the man after God's heart that he chose to be the king. There had to be.
00:30:06
A king because.
God was going to exalt his Son as King. Well, notice the.
27th verse. Also I will make him my first born.
Higher than the kings of the earth. Well, this is accomplished in Christ. It's what we're having in our chapter.
But going on down in the 89th Psalm.
Verse 35 Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me, it shall be established forever as the moon. Now notice what it says. And as a faithful witness in heaven, there's the first born there in heaven.
And we are associated with in the Church of the First born.
Which are written in heaven.
That great David's greater son coming and glorifying God in everything in which the kingly line of David failed in, and taking it up and having that throne established before God forever.
We have Oneness brought before us in three different ways, and they'll all be very blessed in that coming day.
We have oneness in the body of Christ by 1 Spirit. Are we all baptized into one body. Christ is the head, and we are members of that one body. Then also we have in John's epistle, John's gospel. We have oneness in the family of God, which is very blessed because being brought into the family of God.
We possess a life and nature by which we can enter into and enjoy the thoughts of God.
So that we're not only brought into a relationship as members of the body of Christ, but we've been given the capacity to enjoy all those things that are in the heart of God. I might be brought into a place in association with somebody and feel greatly honored.
But not able to enter into all their thoughts, because they might be far beyond mine. But God has given us a life and nature so that we're one in the family. How wonderful that is. So that this is what is brought before us in John and possessing eternal life and being one. But then also we have in second chapter of Hebrews, it says he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified are all of one.
For which 'cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. And that is that we are one in kind. And that is the most marvelous thing too, because the one who sits upon that throne is a real man. He's there. He wears our nature on the throne, and there he enters into all that we are as man down here. And when we get there, what a marvelous thing we're going to be associated with. And he's a man, and we are redeemed man brought.
Place of association. So perhaps that could be spoken of as one in kind. How could I share one in kind with an Angel? But there's a man who is the bridegroom of the Church, and we possess his life and nature, and we have bodies of glory fashioned like unto his glorious body. What a scene is ahead of us, brethren, Surely when we think of this, to me it enlightens the whole first part of the chapter.
Because if we realize this, wouldn't we be looking under Jesus? Wouldn't we be running with endurance the race that set before us?
And if He sees something in us that needs to be corrected, I'd be glad that he's doing this, because he's waiting for that day when all this glorious scene will burst upon us and all that God has purposed will be in full display while He's working out now through those necessary chastisements of the Way.
That which is, shall I say, fitting us in our hearts for that glorious scene that's ahead.
What is the meaning of sprinkling? I think it would be helpful if you mentioned a little about it. Well, we know it was always the sprinkling of the blood that had to do with the putting away of sin. That is, the children of Israel had to sprinkle the blood on the lentil and the two side posts. Also, we know that the blood had to be sprinkled on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat, and when the leper was cleansed, the blood was sprinkled.
Upon him. It's really to me the thought of the blood applied. We know the blood has been shed, but the blood has to be applied. I've often heard those who preach the gospel say it isn't enough. The blood is in the basin. The blood had to be sprinkled. And so thank God it has been sprinkled on the mercy seat and in that sense also upon us putting away our sins, making us fit to be there.
00:35:25
Long glory of God will be manifested.
Through the Lord Jesus, but the church will be found as the ones through whom this will be seen by all created intelligence. That's the last verse of the third chapter of Ephesians. But through Christ Jesus, he is the first born, and he's the one that will manifest all the power and the glory of God, because when God.
Broke through the silence of the first chapter of.
Genesis. His purpose was to prepare a scene or sphere where he might be seen in all his power and glory and his love.
But the Lord Jesus is the one who publicly and through the Church manifests all this.
Marvelous truth that we are associated with Him in it. All the power and glory of God, He's the one that manifests it.
In John 18 or 17 it says, and the glory which thou gave us, me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one in verse 22. And so we see that the church viewed there in Revelation 21 reflects that glory. The Lamb is the light thereof, but it reflects through the foundation and through the walls of that city, reflecting His glory, the glory of God having.
The glory of God. That's marvelous, isn't it? To consider His grace in bringing us into association with Himself in that way?
To be broken so the light can shine, because we have this treasure in earthen vessels. So we already possess the very life of Christ. But there's a big hindrance now. And it's often been commented that there are two things now that are a hindrance that will not be when we get home. That is, we still have the flesh within us, and much of the energy of the Spirit now is to help us to keep the flesh in its proper place.
The place of death.
Then to the Spirit helps our infirmities. Well, that won't be necessary in heaven either. So the Spirit of God will not have to help our infirmities. The full energy of the Spirit will be to bring all the glories of Christ and there be no hindrance to the outshining of them. As I say, if you have a vessel that's made of earthenware, well a light won't shine through it. So you have to break the vessel so a light can shine like Gideon's men.
And God has to pass us through all these things that we're reading of in this chapter. So that's the breaking down South the light will shine, but up there there will be no necessity for that because there will be no hindrance that I won't have a body that has an old nature in it, and I won't have a body with aches and pains. So the Spirit of God can fully fill our hearts with Christ and all his glory and no hindrance to the outshining of that. And it shines out to the whole world. They see as.
Puts it so nicely, Thou shalt to wandering worlds display that we with thee are one.
That verse in Revelation.
The 21St chapter where it speaks of the.
Of the various stones.
We have in efficiency expression the manifold wisdom of God. I understand that in in a certain language it's translated the multi colored wisdom of God.
Now color represents glory.
And in those 12 Stones of revelation, we get 12, which is administration.
But it represents all the Saints.
There will be varied colors.
And those colors are formed down here as the believer passes through various trials and testings. God is preparing each soul for that day when these colors will be seen. It's all a work of God and what has been produced, what is seen up there will have been produced by the Spirit down here.
00:40:13
He's the one that is working today.
And each one and so that as the as the Holy Spirit works in each believer, unless we're intelligent from the Scriptures, we don't understand that all this has to do with the coming glory of God.
So that as we have in Isaiah.
O thou afflicted, tossed with The Tempest, and not comforted, Behold, I will set thyself.
Stones and fair colors. All life foundations shall be sapphire.
So that he will set those colors in. And we know that these stones are formed in the lower parts of the earth. And so the believer is seen down here now passing through the trials and the testings of the way according to a plan. And God's plan is on time everything that he does.
Has a purpose and it's love behind them. And so as we pass through these trials and testings.
Some to form a very, very special deep color and some a little different. Some go through trials and testings all their life in a special way.
Some just sudden trial, severe trial.
And so on, but each one is forming a different color which will.
In the picture form.
Set forth what's going to take place when God's glory will be seen by all created intelligence through the church in that coming day. That's the last verse of Ephesians 3.
I think this 25th verse is really very important for us to see that you refuse not him that speaketh, or if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heavens? We'll never get hold of these wonderful things that are being set forth here.
Unless we hear the voice of a glorified Christ speaking from heaven.
That is, Christianity began with the Lord Jesus up there in glory, and the Holy Spirit of God sent down, and Paul was caught up to the 3rd heaven and received those wonderful revelations that really ought to fill our hearts. And the enemy, if he can't keep us from knowing Christ as Savior, He's going to try and keep us from the enjoyment of heavenly things. And how many?
There are, but don't go any farther than just the accomplished redemption. They come to Calvary, they see what the Lord Jesus has done there. But as far as Pauls ministry and the glorious place into which we have been brought, what it is to be a member of the body of Christ accepted in the beloved.
The blessed hope of the Lord's return. These things, brethren, are being lost in Christendom because they're not receiving Pauls ministry. And that's why Paul speaks so much of my gospel and in another place, Pauls gospel. He suffered in the bringing out of this heavenly side of truth. And I think it's most important for us.
That's one of the things in connection with what is often spoken of as the Red Letter Bible.
That they have the words of Christ spoken on earth in red, but they don't realize that it's equally the voice of Christ speaking from heaven and what Paul received from Christ in glory, he tells us that he received it from the Lord. He says that they're the commandments of the Lord.
Those things that were given by the Apostle Paul are just the voice of a glorified Christ speaking from heaven. And here is the warning that we're not to stop short of knowing all of His hours. It's the same thought in the 6th chapter where he speaks about leaving the word of the beginning of Christ to go on to perfection, because when the Lord Jesus was here upon earth, He didn't bring out the truth of the Church.
The body of Christ, the real development of the Lord's coming, the truth of so many things that we have now in Christianity and the believers standing in Christ justified from all things. All these come from the voice of a glorified Christ speaking from heaven. And how blessed it is that we can enter into and enjoy these things. But as I say.
00:45:18
When the impression is given that the words of Christ spoken on earth.
Are especially important. They are no more important than the words that he spoke from heaven through the apostles Paul, which lead us into the full blessing of the result of that glorious work that he accomplished, enjoyed by the Holy Ghost, come down from heaven.
I have many things to say on you, but you cannot bear them now that the thought.
And so he ministered them through the apostle Paul.
It's a more serious thing then, is it not, to reject the gospel of the grace of God than it is to reject the testimony of Moses.
Because we have the testimony, not only the testimony of the Lord Jesus when he was here, but now we have added to it the testimony from heaven. That's what makes it so serious.
And in the Hebrews one we find that God is speaking in his Son.
And he's in the position of exaltation at that time in heaven.
Well, we would never know the truth of justification or that were accepted in the Beloved and all these wonderful things if we don't hear that voice that speaks from heaven, and how many dear Christians there are who don't. And that's why we find the tendency to settle down as though we were here to improve the world. The Jews had an earthly hope and through in another day God is going to use them for the setting things right here upon earth.
But it's very important that we realize that we are a heavenly people, that we belong there. We have nothing to do. Even the question of healing that perplexes so many is because they don't understand the heavenly side of things. It's true. When the Kingdom is set up on the earth, it says the inhabitant shall not say, in that day I am sick. People that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity who forgiveth all thine iniquities who?
Diseases that will be true and the Lord sets up his Kingdom and reigns in righteousness and blessing will come in a practical way to the earth. But where do you and I look for deliverance from all these groans. Well it says in the eighth of Romans. We who have the first fruits of the spirit grown within ourselves waiting for what the Millennium to come or a healer to come along. No waiting for the adoption to with the.
Of our bodies and so our position is heavenly. Now I don't mean that God doesn't answer prayer, He certainly does, but we don't look for deliverance from the effects of this groaning creation until the Lord comes. Israel can look for it on the earth when the Lord has his rightful place here. Well, the understanding of so many of these things is the result of understanding our heavenly calling where a heavenly people and waiting for God.
Son from heaven.
Peter frankly admitted that Paul wrote things, some things that were hard to understand. Well, we noticed in the Hebrews here that the apostle uses some fairly strong language in that 5th chapter that they had need of milk and rather than meat and this was a a sign of immaturity. And this should be a searching thing to our own hearts because the Spirit of God certainly wants to occupy us.
The meat, the precious things of God and the deep things, the things that are connected with our heavenly and our holy calling. But if we're so taken up with earthly things, then it keeps us in an immature state. Isn't that right, brother? Don't we have to frankly admit to that?
I was thinking how these thoughts on our 25th verse are somewhat parallel to what we have in the second chapter, aren't they? How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first was spoken by the Lord and.
And conveyed by the apostles.
Usually we think of that verse in connection with the Gospel, and rightly so. It's surely a solemn word for those who neglect the salvation that it offered them. But I believe too, it's a solemn word for us believers, as has been expressed, if we neglect the salvation into which we have been brought, we are great losers. And we.
00:50:14
It's already been emphasized how God has raised up the Apostle Paul and the other apostles.
Who have written to us in the Word, as well as the teachers of more recent days and the liberty of the Word today. What a tendency there is for believers today to just rest upon the fact. Well, I'm saved, I'm on the way to heaven, and yes, I attend meetings, but oh, we are guilty, aren't we, everyone, of neglecting.
The great salvation that has been given to us.
And it's been mentioned already how our hearts and our minds can be greatly enlarged and invigorated by searching into these things, not neglecting them, but pursuing them to our prophet into the honor of our Lord. Desiring the milk of the word is newborn babes is in a good sense, but I believe there's at least the two places in a bad sense where they're considered as babes, and one is as a result.
Of envy and strife, that kept them in a carnal state, and as babes. But the apostle says, I have fed you with milk. He did not give up feeding the Saints of God, even though he had to feed them with milk. But it was a terribly immature state of things as a result of envy and strife. Here with the Hebrew believers. It was a question of dullness, because they were attached to the earthly things, and it kept.
Dull of hearing and immature in that way.
Really the warnings too, of them turning back to Judaism and the ordinances that go with that earthly worship that had to do with the nation of Israel. And so in the book of Hebrews we have a great deal brought before us in the light of turning to those earthly ceremonies which were lifted out of altogether.
And brought into the special place in favor.
Of coming into the very presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, having access to the throne of grace, and having access into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. And all of these things are presented to us as well in the book of Hebrews. And so it's such a sad thing to turn back to them once one is delivered from them.
And I fear that unless we get hold of the.
Ministry that is given to us by those who have searched it out by the Spirit of God. We are going to lose out as well on the special liberties and privileges that belong to the children of God as we are journeying through this life there is.
A A future bright and fair. And there is.
The onward look to the coming day of glory which has been presented to us.
And we look for a city. There is that vision that we have, and the apostle speaks of it in Second Timothy. That is those who are anticipating or looking on to the reign of Christ, to that reign of glory. And there's a crown of righteousness connected with it.
But we're following one who now.
Has been rejected. One we look up into the heavens and see Him exalted and glorified, but we follow one who has been rejected. And it isn't the day for raining, but it is the grace, the day for following one who has been rejected, as we notice in the 13th verse of the 13th chapter.
Let us go forth therefore unto him.
Separation is from, but it isn't true separation, unless it's unto Him and going forth and to Him without the camp, and that is the religious camp, I believe. And in that separation we are brought to feel reproach, but as we feel that reproach, it is only to look on with anticipation.
00:55:10
Do that coming day which is presented for here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. But we must learn that we need to live in the good of what we have at this present time, through sovereign grace as to the truth that is ours we should value.
It and we have it given to us by the Spirit of God.
How important then, for us to realize the importance and the value what God in grace has been pleased to give us, rather than to turn back to the beggarly things that were thus?
Hours before we were brought into, through sovereign grace, the position that's ours as the children have gone.
Hebrews was written by the Curry because.
The Jews.
Were inclined to turn back to the ordinances.
And that would really be apostasy because they were rejecting the Savior. But not only the Jews. Almost everyone here has had some religious background, and if we don't receive Christ as Savior, we'll probably revert to some set of religious ordinances.
Or we'll go out into the world one of the two. And so that's the warning here in the book of Hebrews.
All the way through.
That if you reject Christ, you're going back into the ordinances.
Whether it be the Jew or ourselves, or we'll go out and open sin, one of the two because there's only one thing to control man, and that's the Spirit of God and the one who receives Christ.
One person, I should say, that's the Spirit of God and the one who receives Christ as Savior. He has the Holy Spirit within him and he has the control then which he would not have otherwise.
We are responsible according to the revelation that God has given, and we see that constantly in all God's ways with man. And so when the law was given, they were responsible because God had made himself known in that way at Sinai to despise Moses. Law brought down judgment, and now what he is really bringing out, is it not that God has made himself known in a much fuller and more blessed way in Christianity to reject that?
Was really to set aside this what God had made known of himself? Because, brethren, all we know about God is what God has made known to us in Revelation. And God was patient with these Jews because they had a religion that was given of God.
That whole order of Judaism was given of God, but now God had, as it were, rent the veil, and He had provided a way of approach into His presence. To despise that manifestation of His grace was more serious than to despise the law that God gave.
And I believe it's a very solemn morning for us today, that if God has made known these things to us, then it's our privilege to lock in the enjoyment of them. But it's a serious thing. And that's why just anticipating for a minute that the chapter closes with our God is a consuming fire. There is perhaps a tendency to think that because God has been revealed in grace in this present time, that there is a slackening of His Holiness and of His.
Glory demands, but not so. God has never changed as to His holy character and the judgment of sin, but the only reason that you and I can have this holy liberty and this blessed approach into His presence and this wonderful enjoyment.
Because God himself has taken up and settled the question of sin. But there is a danger today, it seems to forget the holy character of God. But it's, as I say, it's the same holy God that thundered the law at Mount Sinai, who has now revealed himself in grace. And that's because all the claims of Sinai and all the claims of His Holiness were fully met at the cross. And so immediately it goes on and introduces.
Grace that now has been made known and in which we can walk. And that's a blessed thing for us to know and enjoy How many there are who don't enjoy the blessed liberty that belongs to them. God is patient while we learn, but it's a serious thing to reject it when we know it.
01:00:17
Often thought of the privilege that's given to the child of God.
Now.
We count it as a privilege.
And that's really what it is. And the privilege of being gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus is the greatest privilege, perhaps that we could have at this time. We think of it very lightly because we're such a feeble and fragile company, but it is.
That blessed and privilege of being in the very presence of the Son of God.
And on Lord's Day, we speak of going to meeting.
And that's true, but do we stop and think of being in the presence of the Lord Jesus? And at prayer meeting, do we consider that a great privilege just to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus? That's where the Spirit of God is bringing us to enjoy his presence. Well, we say it's a privilege, and a privilege is something we can lose if we're not careful.
I have a driver's license.
And so I have the privilege of driving an automobile on a public highway, but that is a privilege that I can lose if I don't use care in how I behave myself when I'm driving the car. And so it is, I believe, for us to think of this blessed privilege.
It is ours through grace. It's such a immense blessing not only to be there for the remembrance of the Lord Jesus, but to be there where there is room for the truth of God.
So blessed it is that there is room for the truth of God. It might be feebly given out, but there's room for it.
And the Spirit of God can bring it before us, but it's only in that place that the Lord Jesus has chosen His name.
To the end, when everything will be shaken, and heaven and earth, and so that.
It really closes the millennial day and ushers in the eternal state.
You know, the questions arise in minds about these things about be men on the earth when the earth and the heavens burn. But you know God answers everything. All you have to do is look back at those three men in the fiery furnace and you see how God can take care of any anything that happens.
There the fire didn't touch their their clothes or anything. So God answers all these questions that men raise.
I think what he's really saying here is that everything that is not founded upon the person and work of Christ is finally going to be destroyed. The whole scene and all the blessing of it and all that we've been talking about is all founded upon that. And so he says that everything that can be shaken will be shaken, but we have something that can be shaken, and it doesn't depend on anything in us at all. The law made blessing conditional, but now everything.
Upon this glorious person, this glorious work that He has accomplished, and then the exhortation, let us have grace to serve Him. He's done so much, and all this is secured to us through His work. Now let's be in the enjoyment of it and serve Him in the full light and liberty of the place where Grace, Grace has brought us.
As with reverence and godly fear, we see in the book of Malachi a condition of a deteriorated remnant, and they're calling everything in question. And one thing that certainly marks the book of Malachi is ear reverence. No, brethren, how we need to be careful and exercise in our hearts as to irreverent things coming in among us just as a little sample changes.
Expressions. So we need to be exercised about these things and recognize whose presence we're in.
01:05:05
Wonder if we might just read a few verses at the close of the book.
The 13th chapter.
In concluding our.
Searching these out verse 20 of chapter 13.
Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation.
God's Path for Blessing
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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.
I wonder if we could turn first of all to the First Epistle of John and the third chapter. First Epistle of John and the third chapter.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved now, are we the sons of God.
And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear.
We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure.
Could we also turn to Hebrews Chapter 11, Hebrews Chapter 11, and verse 5?
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. And one other passage in Second Corinthians chapter 5.
And verse 9.
Wherefore we labor that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
Well, I think this meeting was specially planned for those who were young. And so the Lord's help I would address myself particularly to them. But I believe all of us can receive edification as we think of our position in Christ. And I believe it's very beautiful. And I hope everyone here can accept this message in first John chapter 3 for yourself and say, yes, I know I am.
Child of God, oh how wonderful this expression. Behold what manner of love.
The Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.
You know, before we were saved, before we were brought to know the Lord Jesus, we were born into this world with sinful fallen natures, with hearts that enmity with God, with selfish hearts, to the thought of ourselves first. But you know, when the Lord met us in His grace, when He revealed to us what we were in His holy presence and showed us that we were sinners, guilty before Him.
Walking according to the course of this world.
He also made known to us what he had done for us in His grace, and it tells us in Colossians chapter one that He's translated us from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. What a marvelous thing this is. What a blessed thing to sit.
In these seats this afternoon here in Algonquin College and to know that you're in the family of God. We weren't born into it by our natural birth, but we were brought into it by new birth, brought into this wonderful and blessed position that we have, shall I say, a dignity without pride, a dignity that ought to take possession of us, that we go through this world as heavens representatives.
Those who have been brought into the family of God by new birth and now have the unspeakable privilege of living in this world, as those who have passed from death unto life, who belong to heaven, who represent heaven here upon this earth. And as it tells us in Second Corinthians chapter 4, that God's purpose is that the life of Jesus.
Would be seen in our bodies.
People would see that we were different, different because we have been brought into the family of God.
Notice it says here in this passage, it says now are we the sons of God? But it does not yet appear what we shall be. We don't look any different. We look like children of Adam, but we really are children of God. Someday, brethren, we're going to look like what we really are. We're going to have bodies of glory like Christ, and not only that, but we're going to be perfectly.
Him morally, so that only the life of Jesus will be seen in those glorified bodies.
Oh, that's a wonderful thing to look forward to. I love to think of it because I'm very conscious of my own shortcomings and weakness. But I love to look forward to the time when I'll be displayed for just what I am, a child of God. But it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we can display the likeness of Christ. Morally, we still have, as we were reminded this morning, these bodies.
00:05:24
Of weakness, these bodies of humiliation. There are those sitting in these seats who have aches and pains and bodily afflictions, but still they're children of God. They still have the treasure in the earthen vessel, but they're waiting for the time when it will be displayed that they truly are the children of God, with bodies of glory like Christ.
But no matter what our physical affliction may be, no matter what age we are.
It is possible by the power of the Spirit of God that the life of Jesus should be seen in US. And that's why he goes on in that passage to say, It does not yet appear what it what we shall be, but it says, it says every man that hath this hope in him that is in Christ.
Purifieth Himself even as He is pure. That is, if I'm truly looking forward to the time when I am going to be like Christ, morally and physically in perfection.
Then it makes me want to be like him. Morally down here. I can't change the physical position very much, but we can have something to do with whether we display that life that God has given to us. We are risen with Christ.
Christ Himself is the believer's life, and So what a very blessed thing this is.
We read there in Hebrews Chapter 11 about Enoch. Enoch was living in a very difficult time.
It was before the flood when, as our brother mentioned shortly ago, the earth was filled with violence and corruption. And the Lord Jesus said that the last days before the Lord comes would be the very similar kind of thing in the earth. And I don't think any of us need to be told that this is getting very true today, violence and corruption.
People are almost afraid because of all the violence that is taking place so publicly.
And then to the corruption of all that has been set up and instituted of God for man's good in the earth. As our brother reminded us, God has set up certain things for man's good. Man has failed in these things and spoiled them. Well, Enoch lived in a time like that.
Was he trying to please the crowd? Was that his ambition? Oh no.
It says before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. I don't know a great deal of what.
Kind of a message Enoch brought. It tells us in one place he warned of judgment, but there isn't very much told about what he did or what he said. Someone wrote a little poem, It said he walked with God. Could grander words be written? Not much of what he did or said is told.
Not where or what he wrought. Rot is even mentioned. He walked with God. Brief words of faithless gold, and everybody knew that they knew him. Perhaps he appeared before others in similar clothes, but as he looked at him, they said he's a different kind of a person. And he was. He walked with God. He displayed in his life that he wanted to please God.
And does this speak to your heart and mind?
I know if you're a Christian you do underneath all the rubbish that comes in our lives and sometimes especially when we're young.
If you are a true child of God, I have no question whatever that underneath all the things that you are doing and saying, you do have a desire to please God that only needs to be stirred up and awakened. It's just like a well. You know that the pump is not working and it doesn't need, it doesn't need to have more water put in the well. It just needs to have the pump primed. And I can remember when I was a boy, I was at a farmhouse and.
Working away, trying to get some water out of the pump and the lady came running out with a dipper and she said here, pour this in. And when I poured a little bit of water in and I got far more than what I poured in, I got abundance of water. The only trouble was the pump was out of order. And maybe that's the way it is with you, dear young person. Maybe the pumps out of order, maybe you're not giving the Lord Jesus.
00:10:10
His rightful place and our hope is that through these meetings some water will be poured in and that there will be more.
Come out as the result. Well, it's nice to see about Enoch, that he had the testimony that he pleased, that he pleased God. And then we come to the apostle Paul. He lived in a very difficult time. He experienced what it was to be stoned, shipwrecked, beaten. He had thrown into prison. All kinds of things happened to him. Who did he want to please?
It says we labor that, whether present or absent.
We may be accepted of him. His great desire in his life was at the end of each day.
And that he had tried to live it in a way that was acceptable to God. It may not have met with the favor of many of his fellow men, but nevertheless, it was a testimony in this world of a man who, like Enoch in his day, they wanted to please God. And so it tells us, you know, the two great commandments of the law were.
Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
And thy neighbor as thyself, and that is God first, and others next.
And that is the that was the law. But the law didn't give life. And man being what he is, his mind rose in rebellion against God. The selfishness of his nature caused him not to consider his neighbor, but to think of himself. But what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, the law couldn't change man, because the change had to take place inside.
But dear young person, if you're a child of God.
The change has taken place within you do possess the life of Jesus.
You will not have a different new life even when you get home to glory you already possess.
The very life that you will have in heaven. In fact, I love to think.
That if the Lord were to come right now in this assembled company.
And to catch us up to be with the Lord. Every Christian who has been enjoying this little time of fellowship over the Word, the moment we entered those courts of glory would say, at last we're home. We just relax. We'd say this is home. If an unbeliever got there, he wouldn't enjoy it at all. He doesn't have a life suited to that place. But you do if you're a child of God.
Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.
Well, may this thought produce something in our hearts and in our minds so that there will be a deepening desire to live to please the Lord Jesus. Because really the time is very short that is left to us. We haven't got much time here.
And know how blessed to do as the apostle did. It says here we labor that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. That is, he was absent at that time. He wasn't in the Savior's presence. He was here in a hostile world. But he felt that it was possible for him to live each day with a desire to please God.
Just like Enoch, he desired too, that when his life passed into review.
And it's a serious thought, isn't it, that our lives are going to pass into review.
Your life and mine is going to pass into review at the judgment seat of Christ.
For condemnation, but for manifestation and reward. And as he thought of that time when his life would pass into review.
He said, oh, I want my life to be acceptable to the Lord. If I could illustrate it something like this. Supposing you have a friend that you love very much. You think a great deal of them, and so you want to get a gift for them. You go to the store and maybe the clerk shows you a lot of different things, but they don't appeal to you because you say no. I don't think my friend would really like that.
And different things come before you. What are you thinking about?
You're thinking of pleasing your friend, aren't you? You're thinking of what you can get that would be pleasing to him or her. And so at last you settle on something. Maybe you've heard your friends speak about his likes or her likes and dislikes. And so at last you settle on something. You don't mind what it costs, because the more you love the person, the more willing you are to pay anything to get something pleasing. And at last the time comes that you.
00:15:21
Give this package to your friend. You watch their face. What are you waiting for?
Or you just want to see that they are pleased with the package that you got for them.
Brethren, do we think of our lives like that? The package of your life and mine?
Is someday going to be opened at the judgment seat of Christ? Do we care? Are we concerned that it might be pleasing to the Lord? Well, surely, when we think of earthly friends, and there are some dear earthly friends who have done much for us. But here's a friend who never deceives us, a friend who is faithful through everything.
We'll never find out anything about us that will change his love, because He knew all about us in the first place.
And it says, having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
Can any of us sit in the seat this afternoon and say, I don't care? As long as I'm going to be there, that's all that matters to me. You wouldn't talk that way about your friend. You wouldn't say I don't care whether he likes it or not. It's me that he likes, and I don't care whether he likes the package. Oh no, you do care. And your satisfaction, your joy is that that person is pleased.
Well, it tells us about Enoch. He plead, he, he had this testimony that he pleased God.
Tells us too about tells us too about the Apostle Paul and that he'd labored that whether present or absent, he might be accepted of him. Now I know that we may be much misunderstood in this world in which we live, but our our thing or what really counts to us is that we should be pleasing to the Lord.
And I'd like to speak of this in a little detail in connection with different points. You'll turn to 1St Corinthians chapter 2.
First Corinthians chapter 2. I'll begin at the fourth verse.
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom.
But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect or full grown, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the Princess of this world that come to not. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the Princess of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Here, perhaps we could just say a few brief words about.
Salvation. You know, I think there is something very instructive here in connection with the Apostle Pauls approach to the message that he was bringing. He tells us earlier that he was determined to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Now you might have said, well, surely if Paul was going to visit such a learned city as Corinth, he better study up a little bit on philosophy so that he could argue with them and answer some of their philosophies. But he didn't. He had a person to present to them. He didn't speak against their philosophies or for them. He came to bring a revelation from God.
Did you ever notice that when Paul was summoned up to Mars Hill?
And had to stand there before those Epicurean and Stoic philosophers of his day. He didn't argue with them one bit about their philosophies. He told them two things that they would never discover apart from revelation. He told them about creation.
And he told them about Jesus and the resurrection. And I just want to say, and there are many young people here, if you want to win souls for Christ, it doesn't do very much good to argue about people's philosophies. It's only naturally would have philosophies. If they don't know the Lord, they've got to have something to try and have some kind of guide for their life. But when you and I know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, then we have one.
Our guide, one who is the captain of our salvation, one as we had who is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. And so I say Paul, in talking to these people, he brought before them God is a creator God, because that brought before them their responsibility. You and I are here in this earth as responsible creatures before God. There's absolutely no way of getting.
00:20:27
From that responsibility, as income tax period comes around, there's no use throwing your papers in the waste paper basket and say I'm not interested in income tax because whether you're interested or not, you have a responsibility and you have a far greater responsibility to your Creator. And he commands you to repent. He puts you here in this world.
It tells us that when he created this world, his delights were with the sons of men.
When man failed, he still had delight in him. And so when Jesus came into this world.
The angels announced glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace, goodwill to man.
God still wanted to bless man, He wanted to bless him, and he wants to bless anyone here that's not saved. But I see again, and there's no use talking to them about their philosophies and things like that, but you and I have a message that's well worthwhile to bring before them. We have a living Savior. We have one who created all things and who came down into this world and died for sinners like me. And.
By his wondrous death and by his atoning blood.
He has opened up blessing for you and for me. That's the message Paul preached. Christ crucified.
He said none of the Princess of this world knew. He said had they known that, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Isn't it lovely? I think it's very beautiful here that Paul looks upon them as being ignorant. He said the only reason they don't accept the Lord is because Satan keeps them from knowing what they would have if they received him. That's what he does.
He he tries to keep man in ignorance so that he won't come to Christ, because he knows that if he did, he would be satisfied. He would find that which would feel and satisfy the longing of his heart.
So he sets everything else before him. And that's why man have philosophies and pleasures. That's why the woman in the fourth of John was living the way she was. She didn't know the Lord, so she was trying to satisfy her desires in her own way. Oh, how wonderful. When you and I then present the gospel, isn't it blessed that we have a person to present the One who made all things, who uphold things, all things by the word of His power?
And who came down in wondrous grace into this world and died for you and for me on the cross. And what thrills my heart is that He didn't only die to save my soul from hell, but He died because He really wanted my company. Oh, that's what really touches your hearts. That's what the meaning of that verse is. The joy of the Lord is your strength. It isn't our joy in Him, but His joy in US. If you had.
And they had asked you to come to an evening together, and it turned out to be a very stormy evening. You might hesitate and say, well.
I don't know whether we can go tonight, but if you get a phone call from the person saying, oh, please come. We planned the whole evening and we'll, we're really looking forward to having you. We want you. You get an extra shot of strength, don't you? You say we must go, we must go. They really want us. Oh, oh, brethren, isn't it wonderful? The Lord really wants us from the last soul is saved. He's going to come in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Can't wait. He's so anxious.
There that the world doesn't know. So if you present the gospel, as dear Mr. Derby said in his time, preach facts, tell men about the one that they're responsible to their Creator who upholds all things, but who sent his Son into this world in love because he had pleasure in man and he wanted to bless him.
And so he says, we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery that is they don't understand because.
They are still blind, but God can open their eyes. God can cause them.
Like he did when he was here on Earth, He opened physical eyes and he has opened many spiritual eyes.
And many in this room can say he is the chiefest among 10,000 Yay. He is altogether lovely. So I believe this passage would particularly bring before us well how we can speak to others as messengers here in this world. We can speak to others and present the gospel to them living in this world as his representatives and to please him.
00:25:20
Let's turn over to Matthew chapter 18.
Matthew, Chapter 18.
And verse 24 where two or three are gathered together.
In my name, there am I, in the midst of them. You're speaking about bringing salvation before them.
We present a glorious person. God come down in the person of his Son.
That sinners might be saved. I think this is very beautiful too, in connection with the way we gather. I can remember when I went to school and people asked me, well, what church do you go to? It took an awful lot of courage to say, well, we're Christians gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus to mention that all together. Worthy name.
But, dear young people, no one will ever desire.
To be there unless they see the Lord there. The reason the disciples had the energy to seek out that place in the 28th chapter of Matthew was not because we're told. We're not told. I mean, that it was an attractive mountain. God doesn't even tell us about it because men would have made a great deal out of the place. But he tells us about the person who said he would meet them there and every one of the 11 disciples.
They stirred themselves and went there.
And if you had met them on the way and said why are you going there? I don't think any of them would have said well.
It's a beautiful spot. We just like to go out there for the day. I don't think they would have said, well, there's an organization out there we'd like to be identified with and there is a couple of good preachers. No, I think if you'd asked any of them, they would have said, well, the reason I'm going there is because I want to meet the Lord Jesus.
I don't want to see him and he's going to be there. He said that he was going to be there and he has the nail prints in his hands, the marks in his feet, and I just want to see him. And so when they got there, it says when they saw him, they worshipped him. And may I just say this in presenting the truth to others, we can deal in a great deal, a great many technicalities, but I believe we can be very.
In this we can be very simple in presenting the fact that it's a person around whom we meet, one who has said that when we are gathered according to His word that He was going to be there. They listened to the Lord's instructions and they went out there and they weren't disappointed. It wasn't the perfect company.
Because it says some doubted, and I'm sure that you'll never find the perfect company of Christians.
But you will find a perfect savior, one who has given us this wonderful.
Encouragement while we're here. It's a person who saves them. It's a person to whom we gather. And I know it does take courage. Men will recognize anything they have organized themselves. There's almost anything that man has organized can be accepted because it is something that man has done. But every one of us know that it takes real courage just to say the.
Person who is my Lord and Savior is the same person to whom I am gathered. And so I believe this answers in a very simple way this blessed question as to as to our gathering center, shall I say it's a person.
I know there are many things that can be said in connection with gathering as members of His body, but that's only following His word. Separation from evil, Yes, that's following His word. The disciples had to listen while the Lord told them where, how to get to that mountain. And then when they followed the instructions. But the important thing was the person. You'll find much instruction in the Word, but I'll say this, your heart will never be satisfied unless you see the Lord.
Kids and if you lose sight of him, you're going to be discouraged. I've been discouraged many young people and I'm looking into your faces this afternoon. I know you're discouraged because you have seen things perhaps among us that have cast you down, but the Lord Jesus is the same. Their hearts be occupied with him. He's the gathering center. Now let's turn to another verse in first Corinthians chapter 10.
00:30:12
And verse 31.
Whether therefore you eat, or a drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God, Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they might be saved.
Well, we can see here that the Christian has a different motive in his life. The motive in the heart of the natural man is self.
You could just draw, take a little point like that and draw a circle around it. And that's the natural man. Everything that concerns his own interest, his pleasure, his education, his possession, his everything that concerns himself is very important to him. And he draws that little circle and he watches everything that has to do with his own interest.
But isn't it lovely that you and I have been set free from self?
A little poem. It was found in Mr. Darby's Bible. Read like this. Free from myself, Lord Jesus, free from the thoughts of men. Chains of thought that had bound me, never shall bind again. It's wonderful. I think the most miserable person that I can be occupied with is myself. I'm never happy when I'm occupied with myself. But you can be occupied with the Lord Jesus.
You can seek to do what you do for the glory of God.
And for the blessing of others, as I said before, those were the two great commandments of the law.
Loving the Lord with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. But man couldn't fulfill those things because he had a nature that was at enmity with God and a nature that put self first. But God gives you new life. Now are we the sons of God? We're children, we're in the family. We have the life of Jesus. He never did one miracle for his own comfort. He did many miracles for the comfort of others. He.
Did what he did for the glory of God His Father, but He lived through this world as a pattern for us.
In his blessed pathway through this scene. Oh how lovely to trace that pathway.
Well, eating, drinking, anything we do we can ask ourselves as simple and important question, am I doing it to the glory of God?
And the second thing is, as my conduct stumbles, somebody else or hinder somebody else, Paul said I seek the prophet of many that they might be saved. He didn't want to hinder anyone from coming to Christ and he didn't want to cast a stumbling block in his brothers way. Oh how beautiful to see this, the life of Jesus seen first of all in regard to salvation. It's all of Christ.
Whether it's a gathering center, it's a person to whom we gather.
As to the motivations of our life, what are they?
The relatives of the Lord Jesus said, if thou do these things, show thyself to the world, for there's no man that doeth anything in secret, but himself desires to be known openly. They couldn't understand any motives beyond the natural man. And so they say, well, show yourself to the world and become famous, but all the precious Savior.
Was in this world he came not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him.
How you say that's hard, But brethren, we have the life of Jesus. We have it and we're directing ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So here we find a new motivation altogether for our life. And we can ask yourself, and I can ask myself, and what I am doing? Am I doing it to the glory of God? It affects everything.
My brother talked about even clothes. It's going to affect everything in our lives.
Would really want to please our precious savior. We have a new motivation for our conduct.
Now let's turn over to Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 10. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience. Well, I just mentioned this because it produces as we were saying, the motive is the glory of God and the blessing of others.
00:35:00
But it produces a manner of life, knowing what it is to be a child of God.
Knowing what it is to be a representative of heaven here upon earth, why it produces a manner of life that we should have. As someone has said, the manners of heaven. And so if our motives are right, our manners will be right and that is we will seek to do as the apostle said. The apostles doctrine produced a certain manner of life with the apostle. He was here in this world.
Seeking the glory of God.
Went into heathen cities, as he says he was led in triumph from city to city.
Because he was announcing such a glad message that his heart was overflowing, and he called it a March of triumph as he went to these different cities. So we can see here that this was his whole manner of life. The Lord had, so to speak, given him a new motive for his life, and it's seen in the way that he lived. Let's turn to just another passage in Mark's gospel.
The 6th chapter I think it is.
Mark chapter 6 and verse 27. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought. And he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in the charger, and gave it to the damsel. And the damsel gave it to her mother. And when his disciples heard it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb. And the disciples gathered themselves, Son together unto Jesus.
And told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. Well, I think this is lovely too. We have catastrophes come in our lives. We have terrible disappointments and trials, difficulties that we can't understand. You and I have been living in this day. We would have said, with all the power the Lord Jesus had, why didn't he?
Deliver John the Baptist. Well, when this came, what did the disciples do?
Why isn't this beautiful? Oh, they just says they gathered themselves together and told Jesus.
Maybe there's a young person here and you've had a big disappointment, You've had a big sorrow. Satan is saying to you right now, it's no use. The Lord hasn't helped you out. You've had a lot of problems and the Lord hasn't helped you out of them. He may help other people, but He's let you down. He tells you that. What did the disciples do? We're different from others. They don't have any resource, as we were saying there's.
Thousands of suicides because young people have nothing to support them in trouble.
You and I have. The disciples came and told Jesus, as this lovely Lord Jesus said, as it were. I know the pressure you're under. Let's just step aside in my company for a little while. What a lovely relief. People talk about a relief valve. I mean, there are troubles, but oh, how wonderful. They gathered, they told Jesus and he cared.
He called him apart from their service and said you need a little rest in my presence.
And they gathered themselves, and there spent that little time in the company of Jesus.
Maybe there's some young person who's just in that spot. The devil is whispering in your ear, all give up, it's no use. And the Lord is saying come and tell me. He invites you to trust in him at all times, to pour out your heart before him. He knows the disappointments of life as someone has written that little poem disappointment his appointment.
Change one letter and I see that the thwarting of my purpose.
Was his better choice for me. I'm sure you got the thought J The 1St letter of disappointment is D and if you change it to H why it just changes the whole thing. Disappointment, his appointment, change one letter. Well, that's what the disciples, they gathered together in this terrible moment of disappointment and grief and they told Jesus and he cared and he cares about you. He's living.
Our great High Priest.
Well, just one more passage before we close Matthew chapter 25.
Matthew chapter 25 and verse 21.
His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Oh, how lovely this is, Says here at the end, when the day of reckoning comes, what's really going to count, dear young people? Is it going to count how well we got along in this world? Is it going to count how much?
00:40:13
Of the support and favor of our fellow man, or of the world we had.
What's really going to count? Oh, it'll just be wonderful.
It'll be superlative, shall I say, just to hear that the Lord appreciated any of our feeble efforts. I think it's so marvelous when He did so much for us that He should value any little effort on our part. And so here was the one sought to use what He had for the Lord. And I'm sure those two words compensated for any sacrifice or anything. Just to hear well done, as I say when you.
For a friend and the friend says well done, I really appreciate it. You feel really repaid for all your effort. But oh, just to hear that from the Savior. I'm not saying that I will hear it, but I say that that's what we should live for brethren. That's what really counts. That's the only thing that makes life worthwhile. You can have it from this world, but it's just a bubble. But if you have it from the Lord Jesus in that.
Day, you will say, how will recompense his smile, the sufferings of this little while.
God Speaking To Man
Similitudes of the Kingdom
Address—P.B. Geveden
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.
Seems to me a quite different world, different to Kentucky.
But my Bible reads the same here as it does back home.
And we thank God for His grace. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.
Having confessed the name of Christ.
69 years ago.
And following on to that which became.
A blessing to the soul.
By God's grace, it is my privilege to be your speaker here this afternoon.
And as an introduction.
You recall these words?
Why legit? 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 sat the compass upon the face of the depth, 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.
Than I was by him.
As one brought up with him.
And I was daily his delight.
Rejoicing always before him.
Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. And my delights were with the sons of men.
Here in the personified way, we have the record of the rejoicing of our blessed Lord and Savior as He anticipated the journey that He would take into this world of ours.
To accomplish the work of salvation, whereby we would be brought into blessing.
And become his companions forever.
He was rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, those places where our houses could be built or where our tents could be pitched, those parts of the earth that were suitable for the habitation of mankind.
He looked forward to that day because.
He knew that he would be coming, and isn't it wonderful that everyone of us have come into a world where the precious blood of Christ has already been shed with remission of sin?
Is a wonderful fact. This is what we have in Christianity.
God's Son sent into this world.
To die for and recover sinners, and make them Saints and the members of the body of Christ, and to open up to them a heavenly destiny.
For we are on a journey here. We have the earnest of the spirit, the enjoyment of that portion that is to come.
We are also sealed by the Spirit, made secure, and we know that all is certain and well with our souls.
And at our destiny, our arrival there.
Will be.
On time.
And positive and absolutely sure.
There was a request that this address be oriented toward.
The young people.
Many years ago.
An outline was given to me as a young man.
Which proved to be very profitable in my lifetime.
It is the outline of the Kingdom in the form that it would take because of the rejection of Christ.
You'll find it in Matthew's Gospel.
00:05:05
There are 10 similitudes of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Others have suggested that there could be more.
But there are at least these 10.
In uniform style.
Carrying out a message and outline that is suitable for the encouragement of those who are younger.
And these similitudes begin in chapter 13.
To which you will please turn.
And the last one is found in chapter 25.
There is a difference between a parable and a similitude.
And maybe it's not very readily defined, but.
This has been observed.
In the library of a brother that was taken home to visit with the Lord, a volume was found.
That was written by scholar from one of the principal theological seminaries that are founded.
In this country.
And the title on this book was The Kingdom.
Gospel.
And the author dealt very well with the subject of the parables, but there was number notice whatsoever of the similitudes.
He missed on that point.
Matthew opens with the Foundation parable. The oldest Thor went forth to soul.
And.
You recall?
That some seed fell, but the waste side, some seed fell on stone, the ground.
And other seeds fell among thorns. And finally some seeds fell on good ground.
And brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some 60 fold and some 30 fold.
We are in a world where 2 powers work.
There is the power of the Spirit of God, the working.
In the lives of mankind to those who respond to the Word of God.
Bring them in and lead them along and give them that which.
Is the satisfaction to their souls, and their feet are found on that journey that leads heavenward.
But his opposition to that, and that's the reason we have the different measures of fruitage a hundredfold, 60 fold and 30 fold. Some feedback seeds were plucked up by the wayside. Valves of the air came, plucked the seed away and that which fell on stone. The ground sprouted immediately there was warmth and grew up in Withers didn't last.
And other seed fell among thorns, was choked with the cares of this life.
But aren't we glad that seed does fall on the good ground? The Spirit of God works and it brings blessing to our souls. But this is not a similitude.
You find the first one beginning with verse 24.
And another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The Kingdom of heaven is legged into a man that soweth good seed in this field.
But while men slip, his enemy came and sow tears among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit that appeared, then appeared the tears also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, it's thou not so good seed, and I feel, From whence then hath it tears? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then there we go and gather them up. But he said, Nay.
This while you gather up the tears, you root up also the wheat with them.
00:10:01
Let both grow together unto the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers.
He'll be together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather wheat into my barn.
Now we've had the parable of the sore.
Here we have something special.
And we'll find out later.
That the soar.
Is named.
Very specifically.
In the beginning parable.
There was a lack of specificness.
A sore went forth to soul.
Which indicates that a new beginning was necessary.
And there was a new beginning.
When the teachings of the Christian faith were being introduced.
But we come to the explanation of this similitude a little later on in this chapter.
And.
We'll find the name.
Of the soul.
What was that name?
We'll move ahead a little if you please.
Verse 36 Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house, and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare thus the parable of the tares of the field.
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is.
The Son of Man.
And.
He goes on to say the field is the world, the good seed of the children of the Kingdom, the tares of the children of the Wicked One, the enemy that sowed them as the Devil, the harvesters, the end of the world, our age, and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in fire in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this.
World or age?
And so on. Now why do we get?
This differentness about who the sore was.
He's not named in the beginning of a chapter, it's just simply behold a sore when forth the soul.
But here he is named. The sore is the Son of Man.
And what do we get in that similitude of the wheat and tares? We get a mixture of things.
And also we have the recommendation that the tears are to be left alone and not to be pulled out.
What would that teach us that would teach us?
That we are to expect a mixture of things in the Christian profession.
Here in this world where we are.
There will be the true and the false, the right and the wrong, the good and the bad.
And.
That.
Similitude also teaches us.
That we are not obligated.
To correct the ills of the world.
They were not to pull up the tares, lest they disturbed the wheat.
Let it go, let it run on, and when the harvest time arrives, the angels are sent, the tares will be gathered together in bundles to be burned, and the wheat will be gathered safely into the garn.
And if that has been an encouragement to me because?
You can't expect.
Reality in every case, because the Gospel has a mighty effect even on the natural man.
For there were those in Kentucky in 19114 who trembled under the Word and never did confess Christ. They were affected by it.
00:15:08
But we can thank God for those who really believe and prove this soul.
To present himself.
As the Son of Man.
Is to say.
That had you received me.
You would not have been burdened with these tears.
Because my Kingdom and power would control that element of opposition.
It wouldn't be that way.
And it will not be that way when our Lord comes to reign in power to establish His Kingdom here in this world for 1000 years.
The tears will be removed, the wicked will be slain each morning.
And will not be bothered with a mixture of things that give us.
Our headaches and our problems and our difficulties.
Now just remember.
That's the son of man that sold the good wheat seed. There's nothing wrong with the seed.
An enemy.
Came in to do damage.
We have the same intimate today. He liked to do his harm.
And that's the reason that we all no more need to cling closely, to cleave closely to our Lord and Savior, and to follow in the pathway that He so carefully marked in His Word.
Now in verse 30.
One another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The Kingdom of heaven is like their grain of mustard seed, to which a man took and sold in his field.
Which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh the tree, so that the birds of the air come enlarged in the branches there off.
The Christian faith has a very small beginning.
There were only 12 disciples, one of them was false, and the number of the names together in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost where about 120.
The mustard seed was very small.
But it did surprisingly well. It germinated, it grew, and it became a tree and was the largest among the herbs.
Saw that it was big enough, large enough, inviting enough, for the fountains of the air to come and lodge in the branches thereof.
The fellows were there, as we learned elsewhere, were the agents of the.
Evil 1.
So in the development of the Christian faith.
The tree, the branches of the tree, the wonder of this great thing that has developed in the world has been favorable to those that want to take protection from it.
So we find in the Word of God not only true servants, but wicked servants.
Now they further parable verse 33. The Kingdom of heaven is likened to live in which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the hole was leavened.
There's a woman.
She doesn't have the place of public responsibility.
As to teaching the word.
And here she is presented.
As introducing 11 into 3 measures of meal until the whole was leavened.
Now if the.
Similitude of the wheat and tears would bring to our attention the very.
00:20:03
Early beginnings of the Christian faith.
And the mustard seed would also tell us of the early beginnings, how it was a small.
Sort of thing. A propagation of.
Growth that was not very prolific or large.
But yet it has become a tree with branches, so it's inviting and.
Many take protection from it, even those that do not. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who only know Him in the way of profession.
But you come to that third case or the 3rd similitude of the Kingdom of heaven.
Is likened to living with a woman introduced into three measures of meal until the whole became leavened.
There is an order of religion in the world today that proclaims very loudly the truth of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Perhaps you could read that or associate that with the three measures of meal and the woman. That is never to teach yet.
That great power takes the position of being teacher in the world.
And in the Book of Revelation, at the end, we are warned about those that add to the Bible.
Add to the Holy Scriptures.
And that's a way of adding because.
Many are told that you must listen to us because the Bible is insufficient as a guide for you and you might misunderstand it. We'll have to tell you what it means.
Much more popular today, and there's a loosening on that point.
We do need the Holy Scriptures, but all this, 1111 and all, speaks of a corrupted principle. That's what the housewife puts into the bread when she begins to prepare for the weekend or some other suitable time. And the yeast works and the bread rises and so on, and it's down again and up again. And if it's left alone, turns blue and turns sour, begins to rot, and it's done a great damage.
Well, the leaven, you know, has been introduced and it has worked so thoroughly through that it's difficult today, you know, to find a suitable, clean place in the Christian profession where you can keep his words and not deny his name. Well, that brings us up through the Middle Ages. This is an outline.
Of the similitudes of the Kingdom. Where is the Kingdom? Well, it suffers violence now. It's not established in power.
And that's the reason we have to have these mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven.
So that we shall be in the secret of the Kingdom as it is known today.
And.
Your speaker would venture to say.
That everyone present here today is in the Kingdom of heaven.
You're in the sphere of favor and the blessing in this world.
Where this book has been introduced, where the seed has been sown, you have been favored. With what has happened, you might not be in the good of it entirely.
The report was told of a man that came into this country from a heathen world, from paganism, and he got off the plane in Boston. New Yorker, LA.
And the illustrator said to Ellie, came from heathen darkness and landed in the Kingdom of heaven.
He looks around and he sees things like this sticking up and he says, oh, those people are going there. What about me maybe?
That should be where I should go. And he goes there and he sees what takes place and he's impressed with what is going on and he decides that he would take a part in it and so he gets identified with it.
And he becomes.
A part of the House of God, where God dwells by his Holy Spirit.
00:25:06
But there is something lacking yet.
It's not.
Fully understood. He hasn't come.
Into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel.
He knows the privileges that come to God's people in this world. He knows something of that which is connected with the Kingdom. Of course, the Kingdom is in mystery form now.
That's the reason for these similitudes. You know. The first mention of Jesus as the Son of Man is in the 8th chapter.
The birds of the air have nests and the foxes have holes.
But the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.
We are to follow. We are called upon to follow.
A rejected Christ.
Wanted.
And the legal system of the Pharisees. Religion in its best form.
Was the greatest instrument in his rejection.
Of course, as we sung this morning.
He was alone in that dark hour. Our sins and all their terror was there.
Goes Roth and Satan's power.
But he triumphed through his old he's risen.
A life ever more, blessed Lord.
Precious Savior.
A true hearted evangelist is heard. Thank God for those who proclaim the gospel.
And that man.
Became convicted of sin.
And that's the reason the Holy Spirit was sent down to convict the world of its sin of rejecting Christ.
And also.
To.
Bring forward.
The subject of righteousness.
Because he went up into heaven.
Righteous. This, you know, is in John's gospel chapter.
16 perhaps, if I may turn a moment to that.
And you'll excuse me for the delay, These pages are a little difficult.
Is it it is expedient for you that I go away? For if I go another way, the comforter will not come unto you.
But if I depart, I will send him unto you. When he's come, he will reprove the world of sin.
And of righteousness.
And of judgment.
Of sin because they believed not on me.
Will not have this man, they said.
Crucify, Crucify.
Our righteousness because I go to my Father.
And you see me no more.
Our judgment, because the Prince of this world is judged, and the day of judgment will come.
That's the office and the work of the Holy Spirit.
But we've started with an outline of the similitudes of the Kingdom.
And we have mentioned, but we have started with an outline of the similitudes of the Kingdom.
Mentioned briefly the basic parable of the sore, which is introductory.
And the first similitude of the Wheaton name tears.
Of the small mustard seed that turned into a tree.
And of the three measures of meal.
Into which a woman introduced 11 and it was spoiled.
Now a little further over, in the same chapter, there are three more stability of the Kingdom.
Verse 44.
00:30:02
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field.
The witch, when a man has found the highest, and for joy thereof, goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buys that field.
Now, perhaps his thought was a little flimsy.
As to that individual, that.
Came to.
Favorite land?
And got into the House of God.
By baptism.
And then he really got saved.
Repentant he was, and believing also.
And the Spirit of God sealed him.
And he found out that in the gospel message of the day, the blessing is so wonderful that he.
Was a member of the body of Christ.
And we see something of.
That suggested here, although.
The truth of the oneness of the Body of Christ.
Was left a while until the apostle.
That started himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, was converted and given his special responsibility of the administration of the truth of Christ in the Church.
You know.
And.
You can question me about this.
Because.
There is the responsibility of speaking, and there's also the responsibility of those who listen.
The others who judge.
It seems to me that the.
Feast of Remembrance was given twice.
From the presence of a rejected Savior and Lord on the earth. From the upper room, shall we say.
And then later on Paul could say, I've received of the Lord.
The exalted Christ.
So that remembrance must be very important, having been instituted on the earth and also given to us the second time from the Lord in heaven.
It was more individual at the beginning and there were only the favored people of Israel that were partaking perhaps.
But when the gospel came out to us in the fullness of the Gentiles had begun to come in, then Paul.
Establishes further truth as to the meaningfulness of the remembrance of the Lord, as He teaches in First Corinthians 10.
And then we find it in Chapter 11 for his openness. Ye eat this bird and drink this cup. Ye do show the Lord's death till he come.
So we have a responsibility as well as enjoying a privilege when we announce the Lord's death, discerning his body.
If my temper runs high through the week, I'm not very careful in discernment of the Lord's body.
The price that he paid, the offering that he made on calvers cross for my sin.
But here's a treasure hidden field.
There's some question about this.
As to whether it could be Apple applied to Israel or properly?
Connected with the value of the church, however that may be.
We do know that God has a treasure in his people.
And he bought the field in order to have this treasure.
00:35:04
And 45 The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a merchant man seeking goodly peril, a Pearl City head.
And aboard it.
Well, the Pearl is a very suitable emblem of the church.
Has developed.
By growth and the church is a living Organism.
Growth unto a whole into a holy temple in the Lord.
And in that little oyster shell.
Grain of sand sharp. Fix that thin membrane.
And there's a nose of the flow of life.
And the development there, that turns into a beautiful Pearl. And they're so valuable that men prize them greatly.
And it grows down at the bottom.
And those who?
I gather them must go down.
And our blessed Lord came all the way down from heaven's eyesight. He thought that no robbery to be equal with God, but he made himself of no repetition, and took upon him the form of the servant.
Only a divine one can do that.
And was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
Therefore God is highly exalted Him and given Him a place.
Above all others.
So we bowed that name already, and others will have to later on if they are not willing to bow the head to bow the knee now to respond to the message of the Gospel when we have this.
Pearl of great price.
Jim of Beauty.
And the church, you know, was seen in that way. It's seen as the body of Christ.
And as a Pearl.
And as the wife of Christ.
And so on.
And this is a display, an indication of what has come about.
And this time?
When the Kingdom of heaven is running on.
In a state of.
Umm, run, shall we say. At least there's.
Violence against it.
There's contention, there's difficulties, there's opposition, but God still works.
He's worked for us.
Through the gift of his son and his work on Calvary's cross.
And raising him from the dead.
And in the other case in Ephesians, he is working in us now.
By the spirit of gold. And so we ought to be thankful for the work of God, that this forest connected with our state and our standing, and His work in us, that is connected with our state of soul. Well, these are 6 similitudes of the Kingdom.
And now we'll go to the last one. In the 25th chapter we shall omit.
The other three.
Chapter 25 then.
Shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened unto 10 virgins?
Which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil and their vessels with their lamps.
While the bridegroom carried, the old slumbered and slipped.
And at midnight there was a cry made behold, at the bridegroom, going out to meet him.
00:40:08
And all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
The foolish said unto the wise, Give us a few oil, for our lamps are going out.
But the wise answered, saying Not so, lest there be not enough for us in you, but go you rather to them, and sell and buy for yourselves.
While they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage.
And the door shut afterward came out. So the other virgin saying, Lord, Lord open to us.
He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch therefore.
For, you know, neither the day nor the hour.
Well, this is quite a description of how things have come.
To us in our day.
Much profession is empty.
Conversions, all with lamps of profession.
But five wise with oil in their vessels.
Others foolish.
Having not obtained the oil, which is absolutely necessary.
For we must have a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There must be a work of the Spirit of God in our souls, and He wants to do that work.
God has made everything possible for your fullest blessing. The finished work of Christ is all sufficient for every need that you have as a Sinner.
And Christ has gone up into heaven and righteousness, and in this time of our God is saving souls, grace is reigning through righteousness unto eternal life.
And this is by grace, this Romans 5 at the end of the chapter. Grace is reigning through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
God has a righteous way to save a Sinner, to bless him in his soul, and that's the character of our day. But here we have these 10 virgins.
All as much empty profession today.
We find it almost among ourselves, and we are no better than anybody else. Not a bit, because the grace of God has acted in our lives. And that's the reason we're together here this afternoon under the sound of this precious word.
And there are no doubt what has been said.
Is short.
But we are thankful to God and for that blessed one.
That deserves.
Our praise, our respect.
And honor that it's due him rightly.
Now we have here that they all slumbered and slept. Are you asleep?
They all slumbered and slipped. The church lost the hope of the Lord's coming, but it was revived.
At midnight the cry was made. Behold the bridegroom.
And there was a rustle, a hurried preparation.
Some found that their lamps were going out.
And they wanted to share those that were real from them. But that wasn't the source. Each one has to go to the source for himself.
All those that went into the Ark, you know that gangplank went up those gangplanks in their own steam.
As individuals.
But there was Noah and his household.
So we can thank God for the Gospel message, and here is how it goes. And someone has suggested that there are 10 similitudes of the Kingdom in Matthew, and we're in the very bottom half of the last one. We're up close to the Lord's coming.
There are 7 stages of the Church's prophetic history on the earth as given in chapters 2 and three of Revelation.
00:45:02
And we've come down to the very last one.
And there's also a mention of the fact that the mystery of iniquity does already work. So we're face to face with crime today more than ever before.
And there's also the reference made.
To the fact that Israel is in the land.
And that religion is climbing swiftly into the saddle to take control of things.
And how do we?
Consider our wish.
To be.
Are you satisfied with the teaching that is found in general in the religious world today that we struggle on and that eventually good is going to overcome evil and that the Church will have to go through the tribulation and to come out on the other side? And finally, by the faithfulness of God's people and the workings of the Church, the Kingdom of heaven will be.
That's man's theology.
His teaching.
Isn't it better to value the truth that has been taught and given to us into the word by the word?
That there are different dispensations of where there was a time under law, there's a time under grace, and there's a time under the kingship of Christ.
And all we can entertain the thought of something very special that Christ is coming.
Before he comes in judgment of this world, he's coming in a way of relief.
As we find in First Thessalonians 4.
He comes with that shout, the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God and the dead in Christ. Rise 1St, and we with your alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Not in the smog.
To meet the Lord as we leave this dreary planet.
To be forever like and with himself. And what is your attitude about this? Would you take the attitude of that?
Wicked services that said, my Lord delayed this coming.
He began to smite his fellow servants. That's what goes on in the religious world today.
Smiting others, putting them down South, that we can be advanced ourselves all the way up is down to the bottom. That's where we need to be.
How would you take that attitude of the reasoner, the rationalists that you read about in Peter second epistle, who is the promise of His coming by everything? Just like it was like it has been this way all time, it's going to be this way forever. That's the reasoner. Where is the promise of His coming? Well, we don't want to take the position of the Lord delaying his coming.
That's a religious man.
The man of profession. Nor should we take that position of the reasoner.
The scientific mind that questions the Lord's coming.
Nothing to it, but what should we take? What would be your attitude?
You know, there was a man of communion.
The one that leaned on the bosom of Jesus.
And in Revelation?
The statement was made.
Behold, I come quickly.
Three times in that 22nd chapter.
Here is a man of communion there, John the Apostle.
Behold, I come quickly, the Lord says. What was his response?
Amen. Amen. As Even so, come Lord Jesus.
So may we entertain that thought of the Lord's coming and our deliverance from this present evil world, where He gave Himself for us, that we might be delivered from our sins and the wrath to come.
00:50:07
And all what a favorite people we are. And shall we sing 124.
Great and glory.
You may be wondering.
What are the other three similitudes of the Kingdom?
You will find the other three in chapters 1820.
And 22.
Their parenthetical, that is become in between.
And are descriptive.
Of those earthly people.
For they were in need of great grace because of their great obligation, for they had been favored.
They owe 10,000 talents.
Grace was needed.
And sovereign Grace was offered in chapter 20.
Some went out early and got a penny.
Others without mid morning, noon, mid afternoon and the 11Th hour and go to Penny Sovereign Greece in chapter 2.
00:55:11
It is refused.
They made the excuse.
Shall fail in the blessing.
Now we recommend.