Burbank Conference: 2018
Table of Contents
2 Peter 1:1-2
2 Peter 1:3-9
Seven Kings, Ran Well but Hindered
Gospel 1
The Water of Life
Crowns
Children—Virgil Redman
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.
All right, here's a little tougher question. Can somebody quote a verse that tells me that Jesus is coming back?
All right, I'll start the verse and see if you can finish it. In my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told yourself, and I go now to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will. What's the rest of it?
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am.
You may be awesome in that wonderful.
Does God keep his promises that the Lord Jesus keep his promises? Can God lie?
Well, I know people lie.
I might have told a lie too, once.
That's right, it's a spirit. But what about the Lord Jesus? Can he lie?
No, absolutely not. So this promise is good, isn't it? He's going to come back because he's promised to come back to take all of his own, all the redeemed he's going to take back in a moment. When's that going to happen? When's he coming back?
Today. Yes. What about tomorrow?
We don't know. So at any moment, right before I'm even done.
He could come back.
And take us all to the heaven, right?
Well, I pray that everyone of you are ready to go. You know in Matthew 25 verse chapter 25 in Matthew it talks about.
Five were wise and five were foolish. Remember that.
Why was the Why was the foolish?
Once foolish and the wise were wise because the wise had oil in their lamps. In other words, they were real.
They were all real. And the foolish ones, They were pretenders. Fake news. They weren't real.
You see, and then the bridegroom came like he's promised here and they that were ready, and we're going to talk about that a little bit later. They that were ready.
The Lord took him home and then the door was shut.
I hope we're all ready. I really do. I hope none of you boys and girls, the older ones will be left behind because the Lord is coming and he's coming very soon and at any moment. That's why it says they that were ready. It's important to be ready. So what else do we have here? Well, it says.
All his Jews, his precious Jews. He says that his bright crown adorned Well, I have. Let's open this box up and see what's in here. So I have some crowns and.
They've got some jewels on them.
In that pretty crown.
If anybody recognizes what these hats look like, well, you'll know what it is. Here's some crowns and they got some jewels here and what else I got? I got this here. Let's put that there. Put this down here. Okay, so here's my crown with the jewels in it. You notice they're all different sizes, different shades, different colors.
So it says here.
It says here that like the stars of the morning, his bright crown adoring, they shall shine in their own beauty. No, it says, they shall shine in his beauty.
Isn't it wonderful that when the Lord Jesus comes back, we'll be the jewels that will be in his crown? And if we have dimmed the lights, you see, they kind of sparkle, don't they? A little bit. But if we turn the lights down, they wouldn't be too bright, would they? But if I hold the light on them and I shine the light all through them, see that They sparkle and they shine.
Well, that's.
The Lord's glory, it says, they shall shine in his beauty. So the Lord is going to use us, His jewels in his crown, to shine for his beauty, for His glory, for all the world to see. Isn't that something we who were once sinners are now going to be part of His crown, His jewels.
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And we're and he's going to shine his his beauty.
His glory and we're going to shine for all the world to see. They're going to say oh, look at that. That's that's and that's the Lorde beauty won't be ours, but if he his so in that new isn't that wonderful? The Lord is going to include us in that and it says here.
Bright gems for his crown. So that is really beautiful so.
What kings? What Jewish king? In the Old Testament we read Brother Brock Meyer talked about king. So I'm going to talk a little bit about king and Queens.
Don't know if you mentioned any Queens, maybe did anyway. What Old Testament king? Real Jewish Old Testament king used to wear a crown that you remember. A real famous Jewish king that wore a crown. Anybody know?
He's going to be a king of kings, that's true. But what Old Testament?
Do we know any kings in the Old Testament?
King Solomon, who was his dad.
David very famous, Yes. All right, here's even a harder question. What Gentile king? What big Gentile king?
His name is real long, it's hard to pronounce, and it's even harder to spell.
He made a golden image and he said everybody's got to bow down to this image.
Of mine and three Jewish.
Young teenagers, they said no, I ain't going to bow down, and they threw them in the furnace. What king was that?
Can you spell that? I can't either. Yes. King Nebuchadnezzar. All right. What about a queen?
We have a queen. What queen?
All right, let's think of that one. Okay, What other queen?
Queen Esther, Absolutely. You're pretty smart.
All right. Do we have any kings and Queens today? You don't have any kings and Queens today.
Does anybody wear a crown today?
You Where do we find a king and queen today?
I can't hear you.
Today, living on Earth, who's who's ruling as a king and a queen today?
Queen of England and her name is.
Elizabeth, yeah, she'd been, she'd been queen for a long time, so.
We have kings and Queens today, so if you saw a man, our woman.
And you saw them put on.
You saw them put on a royal robe.
So we saw you saw a man or a woman.
You put on a royal robe.
And he sat down on his throne.
And he put on his crown.
Oh, I forgot my scepter.
Get that episode OK?
All right, all right. I'm sitting here and I'm the king.
I got the crown sitting on my throne. What does that tell you? What does that speak of?
If you saw a man or a woman sitting on the ground, what would that tell you?
Yeah, but what would what does the King and queen speak that? What does the crown speak of?
Important. That's a real good one. Let me take the crown off. You know, I've been nervous. My wife enough. That's okay.
It's not the first time, so I'll take my royal robe off. So we've got important, we got royalty. What else would that speak up?
Authority. Very good. What else?
OK. Anybody else got that?
What else? Power. Power. That's good one. What else? What else would you give? What would you give a king or queen if you saw them?
You'd give them honor, wouldn't you?
He'd given respect, wouldn't you?
Because he's the king and queen, he has the authority, he's important.
All of those things.
Well, let's read a verse.
Oh, and by the way, I should have mentioned this but I forgot about it.
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But that song we sang when he cometh, when he cometh to make up his jewels, that's in Malachi 317, and I'll read that. I should have read it earlier. I'm sorry.
And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts. And that day when I make up my jewels, I will spare them as a man spirit, his own son that serveth him. So that's where that comes from. Now let's turn to we're going to change things around a little bit right now.
I want to read a verse out of Matthew's Gospel. We read it every Lord's day, or at least we think about it after 27.
Verse 29 and when they had planted.
That means when they make up, they made-up.
A crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a Reed in his right hand. They're talking about Jesus now.
At his trial.
And they bowed the knee before him, and they mocked him, saying, Hell King of the Jews, And they spit upon him. And they took the Reed or a rod, and they hit him over the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took off the robe.
Off of him, and they led him away to crucify him.
Well, I have something here show you now I'm going to I'm going to walk around with this. But please, kids, don't reach out and try and touch it. All right?
Don't try and touch it and see if the needles are sharp because I've been stabbed many times with this trying to make it. It wasn't easy.
But this is my crown of thorns.
Yeah, and they're short.
It's the crown of thorns.
Hey there.
Would you like to wear that for about 6 hours?
Huh. Kind of scary, isn't it? And those are sharp needles.
And I did something kind of foolish when I made it.
And that's another story. They're all together. I had gloves on, but I still got stabbed several times with my thick gloves on. Then I did something foolish. I said, well, I've got to see how this feels.
So with my lesser here brother Caleb.
I put it on my head as gently as I could. Whoa.
That hurt.
They didn't lay it gently on the Lord Jesus, did they? This was his crown. This is how they honored the Lord Jesus.
The Son of God, the creator of you and me and all the universe is that everything was created by Him and for Him and for His good pleasure they were created. What good pleasure what we were reading about that they did to the Son of God, to Jesus. He laid it on his head and they didn't lay it on gently. They slammed it on his head and they hit him over the head with a rod.
This is how they treated God's beloved Son.
Why? Why would God allow his Son to be treated that way?
Who can quote John 316?
Can you wait a minute?
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
That whosoever, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Now, if you really want to make that verse personal, put your name.
In the world and whosoever try that one, for God so loved the world.
And God so loved Virgil that he gave his only begotten Son.
That a Virgil believes in him should not carry. It gets real personal. And that's what salvation is. It's personal. It's one-on-one with God.
God so loved the world, you and me.
It said that he did not spare his son, but he delivered them up for us all.
Gave up his son, the Lord Jesus. What did God think when the his creation man was doing this to his beloved Son? What could God? But that was more than that. They nailed him to the cross after they beat him and beat him and beat him.
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And they nailed him to the cross.
And then the darkness fell over. You couldn't move, you couldn't see anything. I better put this down before I stabbed myself anyway. And those three opposite darkness, God took my sins and he laid them on Jesus, and there he punished Jesus instead of me, so I don't have to be punished. And he and the soldier, after Jesus died, he took the spirits and stabbed his side, and blood came out.
Water and that precious blood God has taken and applied them to my sins.
And my sins are all horse today, and He can do that for everyone of us in this room. God has given us now in this day of grace, the opportunity to come to the Lord Jesus and to take that precious blood.
And apply it to your sins. You know, you might say well.
You know, we all have different values. We estimate something is worth this or something's worth that. Let's say I think this is worth $1000.
You say, well, I wouldn't give you a doll. OK, we all have different opinions than how much something is worth, right? We might think something's worth less or more, but you know when God sees the blood of Jesus Christ.
Is far beyond anything. We can estimate it because it's according to God's value.
And he values it above everything, because that precious blood that Jesus built will never lose its value.
That's how precious it was to a loving God. What about Jesus? Why did the Lord Jesus?
Let men take him and feed him and spit on. Have you ever been spit on? Have you ever been mocked? What does it mean to be mocked?
She got all the answers. Anybody else got answers?
Yeah. Anybody been made fun of? It ain't fun, is it? It's not nice, is it? People can be real cruel. Well, these men were real cruel.
But they mocked him, and they pulled out his hair, off his beard, and then they knelt. Why did Jesus allow that?
Why did Jesus allow men to do that?
You know.
In the beginning of his ministry.
The heavens were opened up. I think we read that verse yesterday. The heavens were opened up and the voice came down from heaven and said, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
And yet God allowed these men to nail His Son to the cross.
To pay for you and my sins.
And then Jesus allowed them to do that through those nails, hold them to the cross.
No, it was love. It was love for you and me. It says the Son of God who loved me.
And gave himself for me. Can you say that boys and girls? Can you say the Lord is my shepherd? Can you get real personal? For God so loved me because that's what it is. It's a personal.
Relationship with the Lord Jesus believing that he put He went to the cross to put your sins away and now God's given you the opportunity to come to the Lord Jesus and have your sin forced away in that marvelous.
And so.
The Lord Jesus.
Suffered all that.
And you know, this isn't wasn't something that was planned at a moment.
The brother mentioned a couple of days ago in our prayer reading meeting.
That in past eternity, before the world was here, before the universe, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit got together and they said.
Let us make man in our own image.
Not something.
So they made man.
There was another let us that's in Isaiah 6.
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit got together before the world was and they said.
Who shall we send?
And who's going to go for us? What were they talking about? Who are we going to send? And who's going to go before us? God knew. The triune God knew.
That man was going to rebel. Man was going to sin Adam.
He turned to Satan.
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They had a choice. He chose Satan. You have a choice, our brother Caleb said. Oh, decide for Christ today. Maybe there are some here who just are pretending fake news.
If you're just kind of pretending, you never really got caught in the presence of God like I did.
And I realized I was lost. I was lost because I'm a Sinner. And because I'm a Sinner, I'm going to be separated from God for all eternity. God can't have sin in his presence. He's a holy, righteous God, but he's a loving, forgiving God.
And He wants you to be saved according to what He has already accomplished. He sent His Son into this world to save sinners. He came into this world as a babe.
Many are going to celebrate, I guess at this time of the year, the little babe in the Manger.
With all the animals around. Oh, that's nice. But he grew up a man.
And the one purpose later on, just before he was going to be crucified, just before this trial came, he said, Now is my soul troubled? And what should I say, Father, save me from this hour? Oh, but he said for this hour, for this, 'cause I came under this hour.
That's why he came. He came to die, he said. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the Angel. You know, we're lower than the Angel. We're not powerful and great.
For the suffering of death he was.
That he might taste death. By the grace of God, he might taste death for everything.
That was the only way to save you and I from a lost eternity is for Jesus to die on the cross and God punished him in our place.
The past eternity.
Who will, Who shall we send? Who will go before us? You know? Jesus said without hesitation. Send me, send me, I'll go.
Did he know what was going to be in front of him? That he knew what was right before him, what he was going to go through, how he was going to be treated and spit upon and wear a crown of thorns and nail through the cross? But then those three hours of darkness, he would be made sin for us who knew no sin. God made him sin. Who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Jesus.
He knew all that, he said. Now is my sole trouble.
And he went to this Garden of Gethsemane. I was there twice. I was right there twice. And he prayed. And oh Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.
It was in such agony.
But he said nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. It was a father's will.
To make him the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world. He was the Lamb of God, God's God's perfect sacrifice. Neither did he take our sins away, but he completely satisfied God, a holy God, a three times holy God. He satisfied God and glorified God as a man on the cross.
And God satisfied. How do I know God satisfied? Because he raised him from the dead. He seated at the right hand of God.
And that blood will ever speak in God's ear.
As making full atonement, because when he sees us as believers, as children of God, He sees the finished work of Christ on the cross. Since I'm satisfied your sins and your iniquities while I remember no more. So we have a time, you have time.
And I pray, kids, that you won't say no to God's salvation.
I pray that you won't say no to the Lord Jesus and what He's accomplished on the cross. I pray that you just will make the right choice. We have choices to make. God wants you to make the right choices. That's why He sends His message, the Word of God. He tells us that we can be saved. We can be happy to know our sins are forgiven. There's no other way to be saved.
Jesus went to the cross to put away our sins.
And that precious blood has power to worship all our sins away. It says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse us from all sin. There's no sin that remains.
If we're the child children of God, and isn't it wonderful?
That when we receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior, He writes our name in that book of life. Well, I'm just waiting to see that book of life.
I hope every boy and girl here.
Has their name written in that book of life?
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What happens if you're not?
You know, there's there's the cast out and the cast in.
He that cometh to me I will no wise cast out.
That's something. What about the cast in We'll read that at the end of the revelation, it says.
Whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast in where?
Yeah, who wants to go to the lake of fire? Not me. We don't have to. We don't have to because it wasn't meant for us. God's not willing that any should purse but come to repentance. We need to repent. We need to take God's side against ourselves. We need to see us from God's point of view. He said all of sin. We're sinners because of our sins, we're lost.
And because we lost, we need to be saved.
We don't have to be lost. We don't have to have our sins on us anymore.
I know my sins are gone. I know I belong to the Lord. I know when he comes back.
I'm going to be one of these little.
Well, there's nothing smaller. Well, I'm going to be a little crown and I'm going to be in his that his beauty will shine forth. Are you going to be in his crown?
You know, there's my time is up.
But your time isn't up yet.
Or do you still want to see Jesus wearing the crown? You know, there's so many people in this world today that's still spitting his face. They don't care about Jesus.
They don't care about God's love. They don't care what Jesus did on the cross. I don't want anything to do with him.
Brother told me the other day he talked to this Jewish woman.
I don't want to hear that name. I hate that name. Don't ever mention that name to me again.
And that's sad. God has provided such a way of salvation.
To bring us home to himself. Don't you want to be a part of the family of God? I'm thankful that I am.
Don't you want to know that your name is written in the book of life?
Well, God has given us the opportunity. Don't say no to God.
Don't say no to what He's provided for us. God loves you and Jesus loves you.
And God has provided a way of escape. Let's just look for the Lord.
Christ the Resource for Our Path Now
Address—Jim Hyland
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.
Like to start the meeting this afternoon with 264 thou sitstone high eternal word, as son of man, as sovereign Lord, And now by faith on thee, we rest till all thy title have confessed. 264 Perhaps would be helpful if we stood up to sing this, and if someone would please start it.
I see.
I'll stop.
For us.
All right.
Let's ask God's help and blessing. By way of introduction to what is on my heart this afternoon I'd like to read first of all in the book of Romans, chapter 5.
And verse 9 much more than being now justified by his blood.
We shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And then I want to read a verse in Hebrews chapter 2.
Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should tight taste death for every man. We're not going to spend a lot of time on these two portions we've read. As I say, I've read them by way of introduction to what I have on my heart this afternoon. Because what I have on my heart, brethren, is that we would get by faith this afternoon.
A fresh glimpse of our precious Savior where he is now at the right hand of God, and to take up particularly those offices that He is fulfilling for us now in living to make intercession for us. This morning we had the blessed privilege of looking back to Calvary and remembering the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread. Wonderful precious privilege. I trust that it will be real to our souls until we need it no longer.
00:05:26
And were caught away to be with the Lord Jesus for all eternity. And then we sang at the end of that hymn of that time when the Lord Jesus is going to come. And I trust as we sang that together that it was the true response of your heart and mind as we look forward to a future day of being with the Lord Jesus. And we're not going to need exhortations in that day. We're not going to need to be stirred up in that day. We're not going to have the physical limitations that we have.
At meetings like this, and governed by clocks. But we're going to be with the Lord Jesus, there, with bodies of glory like unto his body of glory, perfectly suited to that sphere of things, never to be tired or weary again, and there to be occupied with himself in one way or another for all eternity. But what about in the meantime? As I say, we look back to Calvary. We rejoice at that finished work, we look ahead to a future day of glory, and we rejoice at the nearness and the promise.
His coming. But what about the present? You know, I've been impressed as I have gone through the word of God to realize that God always gives a present portion for his people. Yes, as we said in one of the reading meetings, he always gives an eye to the future because where no vision is, the people perish. And so he always gives an eye to the future. Paul was pressing toward the mark. He had Christ in glory before his soul.
But He always gives a present portion for us, just like His people in the Old Testament. We find that He redeemed them by the blood of the Passover lamb. He delivered them by a mighty hand from the Egyptians and from Egypt, and He set the land of promise before them.
But in those years that intervened, he provided everything that was needed. And brethren, as we've had in these meetings, the supply and resources that you and I have in Christ today are the same limitless resources that have always been available to the people of God. And as I say, we're going to speak of a couple of those resources. Our brother Vern mentioned them to us in one of the readings, and that is the office of the Lord Jesus living for us, first of all as our high priest.
And secondly, as our advocate, and so I read here in Romans, because we're saved from the judgment to come on the basis of the death and the shedding of blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we've been brought in, as these first few chapters of Romans tell us, we've been brought into the good and blessing of not just the forgiveness of sins, but justification. And as I say, it's based on the blood of the Lord Jesus.
We're justified by His blood, but then we find something else. Where we read here, we find that we're saved by His life. Now when we take up the scriptures, we always want to keep things in their proper context. And I know we, you've heard us stress this time and time again, But I believe it's very important because what I have found, brethren, is that sometimes we assume because we have a word or a phrase in one place.
That it's always going to mean that in every other place in Scripture, but that isn't necessarily true. You have to take things up in their context. And so I'll mention very briefly in passing that salvation is taken up in the book of Romans in three different ways. There's the fact, as we've been saying, that we're saved from the judgment to come and we're saved for heaven. We're on our way there. And that is what we have said is based on the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
And doesn't it rejoice our hearts, brethren, some of us look back over many years, some of you over a few years or a short time. But doesn't it rejoice our hearts to think of that time when we came to know the Lord Jesus as our Savior and we were saved? There's a future salvation you get later on in Romans, it says now is our salvation nearer than when we believe. You see, I thought we had our salvation. Oh yes, we have our the salvation of our souls.
00:10:04
As far as the forgiveness of our sins and justification and being saved from coming judgment and so on, but there is a salvation that's yet future and that's when we get our changed bodies at the rapture we're going to have bodies of glory like unto his body of glory and we're going to be delivered from the power and presence of sin and be caught away to be with the Lord Jesus. But I believe the salvation that we have noticed here in the 10th verse of Romans 5.
Saved by His life is something different, and again, it's something for our present preservation. We're saved by His life. That is, we are preserved in the path of faith and service for the Lords glory by His present intercessory life for us. We're saved from judgment by His death, but we're preserved or saved in the pathway by His present life.
And so we want to be occupied this afternoon of with Christ where He is now. And that's simply why I read the verse in Hebrews, because Hebrews opens up to us, the heavens, in a very remarkable way. It opens up to us, the heavens, not so much that heaven can look down, but so that you and I can look up and be occupied with Christ where He is now. I remember at a Bible conference some years ago.
That someone raised the question, what is Christianity? And someone else said Christianity can be summed up in one word, Christ. But that needs explanation, because it's not Christ as he was as a man walking here in this world. It's not Christ as he was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. It's Christ, yes, but it's Christ where he is now. Christianity associates us with a risen, ascended, glorified Christ.
At the right hand of God. That's Christianity. And Hebrews brings before us not where the Lord Jesus was, but where he is. In Hebrews, it's not so much the work, it is the work, but not so much the work as the results of that work.
Because the resurrection, the ascension, and the glorification of Christ are God's. Amen to the work of Calvary. Do you want proof that God has been glorified and satisfied in what His Son accomplished here in this world? Just look up and see where he is now at the right hand of God. You know, when the Lord Jesus was here as a man in this world, heaven opened up on more than one occasion.
And heaven opened up to be occupied with that perfect object walking here in this world. But heaven is open to you and to me this afternoon to look up by faith, because that object is now at the right hand of God, and he's the one that God would always occupy his people with. And before we go on, brethren, I would just say that in the measure in which you and I get a fresh glimpse of the man in the glory, in that measure we're going to avail ourselves of the resources that are ours in him.
And in that measure, we're going to be encouraged to press on in the path of faith and service. But why is it so often I get discouraged? Why do I get cast down? Because I've lost sight of Christ where He is, and I am not availing myself of the resources that I have in him.
We've had in these meetings stressed, and I trust it's been helpful to us. We have all things that pertain unto life and godliness and brethren, when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and I look into his lovely face, and there's been failure in my life and it's all going to be brought out there, thank God. It's going to be burned up and gone, but it's all going to be brought out. And when he says, why did you give up? Why did you get discouraged? Why did you do this and that? What excuse am I going to offer the Lord Jesus in that day?
I'm going to realize that all the resources were there and that there's no need for failure and sin in our lives. We're going to see later on. There's provision for it. Thank God There is provision for it. But there's no excuse, brethren. We have all the power. We have all the resources we need.
Don't be discouraged. I know the day is dark. I know things are bad, and I realize that the moral and spiritual darkness is deepening over the Western world every hour. But we have all the resources we need. In fact, if the day ever gets so dark that we can't live for God's glory in this world, then he's going to take us out. And so, as I say, I want to take up this subject and show how the Lord is interceding for us, praying for us every hour of every day.
00:15:23
At God's right hand, before we turn to some verses, I'll just say this. It's been a great comfort to my soul to realize this because, you know, prayer is a wonderful resource that we have for the path of faith. You'll just pardon a little parentheses in our talk, but I never understood, till I went through some recent circumstances, the power of intercessory prayer, the power of praying for one another.
It's wonderful to pray for ourselves, but I believe the power of intercessory prayer is a power that is tremendous. Maybe you go to your little prayer meeting, or you pray in your home and you mentioned some things and you wonder if it really has effect. It has effect. Intercessory prayer is a great resource, wonderful to be able to pray for one another. But you know, sometimes I forget to pray for others. I forget my own needs. Sometimes I'm not even aware of them.
But I'm thankful that there's one praying for me every hour of every day. He knows my frame, He knows my down sittings and my uprisings. He knows my thoughts are far off and he knows every need. And he doesn't forget one of those needs.
But before we speak of the high priestly work in that aspect, I would like to go to Hebrews chapter 8.
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse one.
Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true Tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices.
Wherefore it is of necessity that this man has somewhat also to offer, for if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law. As I mentioned earlier, Hebrews opens up to us the heavens in a very remarkable way, and perhaps I'll just mention something that's been mentioned many times, but we find that four times in the book of Hebrews we have the Lord Jesus seated at the right hand of God.
In the first chapter he seated having made the purification for sin.
In the 10th chapter he seated, having offered himself as that great sacrifice, and by one offering he had perfected forever them that are sanctified. In the 12Th chapter he's set before us at the right hand of God as the object for faith, which has already been brought out in these meetings, because there is only one who is the object for faith, and he's the one who began and completed the path of faith and perfection.
And he's the only one that did. But here we find him seated as our high priest. Now when it says of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum he's referring back to the previous chapters. And in a few moments we're going to go back to some of those verses and we're going to get, I trust, a little outline of the high priestly work of the Lord Jesus in that regard. But I suggest here that we have the aspect of his priestly work in a little different way.
And that is his high priestly work in offering our prayers and praises to God. Because we don't often think, at least I don't always think, of the Lord Jesus in that way. We find here that he's He needed to have something to offer.
Well, we the Lord Jesus didn't need to offer a sacrifice for himself. And the offering here is not himself. You get that in the 10th chapter and other places. What is He offering here? Well, it's like the high priest in the Old Testament who took that fire, and with the incense he put it on the golden altar, the altar of worship. We sometimes sing a hymn that sums it up to all our prayers and praises. Christ adds his sweet perfume.
And love the sensor raises these orders to consume. This morning we had the privilege of collectively pouring out our hearts in praise and Thanksgiving. This morning we didn't come to get. We came to give. We came to give the sacrifice of praise. And the Lord Jesus, as our high priest, took that sacrifice and he presented it to the ear and to the heart of God. I find tremendous comfort in that.
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Now notice where he is as a high priest. He's not on earth. It tells us here that he did not function as a priest on earth. Why? Because it would have been very wrong for the Lord to, say, have gone into the temple and offered a sacrifice because the Lord Jesus was not from the priestly tribe of Levi, he was from the kingly tribe of Judah. And it would have been very out of character as a man on earth to operate in a priestly function.
But now in heaven, at the right hand of God, he is there as our high priest. And so he's offering our taking, our praise and prayers, our our worship, our Thanksgiving at giving, and he's offering it as our high priest to God. I say I find comfort in that. And if we were to go back to the 28th chapter, I believe it is of Exodus. We won't do it. You can look it up sometime, but there we find that Aaron, who is a type of the high priest.
Of the Lord Jesus as the high priest, one of the things that Aaron was to wear or was the miter, and it says very specifically of Aaron, when he put on the mitre, it was to bear the iniquity. I want you to notice this of the holy things of the children of Israel, because you know, even in our holy things, even in our praise and worship, there's iniquity there. It's checkered with self, There's pride sometimes comes in.
It's not always perfect or what it should be, but by the time it reaches the ear of God, my high priest who wears the miter, he has filtered all that out, and he presents it perfectly. And I want to encourage you in that regard. Perhaps just a little word to particularly to the young brothers, or to any of the brothers who are a little shy or reticent sometimes, to take part publicly in the breaking of bread or other meetings.
You know, we want to pray intelligently. We want to praise intelligently. We need to sing with the understanding, pray with the understanding, as First Corinthians chapter 14 tells us. But you know, sometimes we may not always express things in quite the right way. But isn't it a comfort to know that by the time it reaches the ear of God, it has been taken and it is perfect and it's sweet to his to his heart?
Encourage you in that. In that regard. And young brothers, I was encouraged this morning. But you know, the first time you stand up and pray in the assembly, the first time. Maybe you give out to him or read a scripture. Maybe it doesn't quite fit. Perhaps, but you know you'll learn the spirit of God can teach you. I was saddened to know.
Fellowship
2 Kings 4
Gospel 2
Gospel—Bob Thonney
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Good evening.
I'd like to begin this gospel meeting by quoting a verse from God's Word.
Spoken by the Lord Jesus Himself.
He said I am the way, the truth.
And the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.
Let's pray.
Blessed God our Father, we're so thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thy beloved Son, that one who came into this world to seek and to save the lost, Pray thy blessing on the message of the Gospel this evening that it would be clear.
And understandable. And we do pray that thy spirit may have liberty to strive.
With those who are not ready to meet Thee, our God and Father.
We ask for blessing in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Let's sing number six on our hymn sheet.
God in mercy sent his Son to a world by sin and done. Jesus Christ was crucified, was for sinners, Jesus died.
God in mercy.
The Grace Shrine.
Last evening we heard.
The story of the Lord Jesus meeting up with a blind man in John Chapter 9. I would like to go back to John's gospel again because you have so many stories of him meeting up with different individuals and perhaps we can touch on the life of two individuals more that he touched in his lifetime.
The Lord Jesus says I quoted that verse.
Is the truth and when we speak about the truth, we are talking about it in its absolute sense you know, in today's world, people talk about my truth and your truth, thinking that everyone has a right to decide what's true for them. I want to suggest.
That that is not what we have presented in the Word of God.
God has an absolute standard. Every one of us are relative in our position here in this world, in our relations, one with another.
And so we make statements at times, but there are always relative statements.
I sometimes use this illustration for the young people to understand what I'm talking about. I can make a statement tonight and I can say this direction is up and you can prove me wrong because this direction on the other side of the world is down. It's because I'm reasoning from myself.
And when you reason from yourself, when you think you have the right.
To determine what is truth, I just want to say.
You don't have the right reference point, Jesus said. I am the way.
The truth and the light. And when he said that it's in his absolute sense. To me it is most wonderful that it is in the philosophy that is difficult to comprehend.
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No, it is a person, the person of God's beloved Son, the Lord Jesus also said in John 17.
Thy word is truth.
And that's in its absolute sense as well. And so we hold in our hands.
A standard of absolute truth. And so we are not going to talk about.
The way it appears to me or to you tonight we're going to talk about what God says, and that's wonderful. As the Lord Jesus came into this world, it says about him, he was full of grace and truth, not merely truth, but grace and truth.
Because he loves you, He wants you to come into.
Fullness of blessing. But if it's going to happen, it has to happen on his standard, not yours. You know, in the beginning of this world's history, Adam and Eve, the first living human beings in this world, were placed in the Garden of Eden.
And God said in that garden you can eat of all the trees of the garden.
But there is one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Don't eat it. That was the one Prohibition had all the others to enjoy.
Satan came into that wonderful paradise.
And he tempted Eve and he said you shall not surely die. He told an outright lie. And Eve started to play with that lie in her mind.
And she started looking at that tree.
Yes, it was good for food. It was pleasant to the eyes.
It was a tree to be desired to make one wise. Satan had said you will be as gods knowing good and evil, and Satan is still working that same way today. You can decide for yourself what is right. Don't we live in the United States of America? Don't we have liberty to decide what we want?
You know, I thank God for the liberty we have in this country.
But it's fast eroding because people think that they can establish their own standards. That is a lie of Satan. And so Eve took of that fruit and ate of it and gave to Adam who was right there.
Near her, Adam didn't say one word to Eve as she reached out to take that fruit.
It says in scripture that Eve was deceived, but Adam was not deceived.
That's why he's the responsible head of a fallen race.
Oh, what a story it is, the ruin that came into this world because of sin.
You know how old Adam lived? A 930 years of age.
That's pretty impressive. That was the human race in its prime, and as time went on after the flood, the age started reducing because sin degrades people.
And so today the average is about 70 I suppose.
What a terrible degradation has happened, but into this world came.
God's beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who said I am the truth and he started interacting with people as he met them. We heard about how he met that blind man in John Chapter 9 last night.
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And let's go to chapter 3 this tonight, we're going to talk about a man who was religious.
And he had a position amongst the Jewish people. He was a ruler of the Jews.
John chapter 3 verse one. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, A rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher, come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.
Nice religious talk, isn't it?
Sounded pretty impressive.
What does Jesus say? Jesus answered and said unto him, Remember, this is the truth.
Verily, verily, I say unto thee.
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. That was kind of a jolt to Nicodemus and he says.
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?
He wanted to reason it out on the natural level.
And I suppose you can understand how he couldn't understand. But Jesus answered verse 5. Verily, verily, I sent to thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit.
His spirit, marvel not that I say unto thee.
Must be born again. So the Lord Jesus was talking about a spiritual birth.
And when he says the water and the spirit, you notice that spirit is capitalized because it's the Holy Spirit of God.
Who is present here tonight?
And the water is not baptism, as some groups religious groups teach.
The water here is the word of God, Peter says in his epistle, being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God that lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The.
Grass Withers, the flower fades away, but he that is born of God endures forever.
Oh how wonderful it is. I was born the first time some 74 years ago and you can see that my hair is all gone white.
I have not the energy I used to have as a young man Why? Because I was born of corruptible seed and in that life that we are born of, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
If we're going to enter the Kingdom of God, we must be born again. It's not.
An option. It is a must. Where are you?
Maybe you were born into a Christian home like I was.
That is not going to cut it in itself. Thank God for a Christian home. Thank God for where you hear the word of God.
Read and explained, but you yourself must be born again. Sometimes I use an illustration in preaching the gospel in the countryside of South America, I say.
If we go out into the countryside and there's an animal wallowing around in the mud.
What kind of an animal is that? And of course, they all say it's a pig.
OK, well, let's take that pig out of the mud, let's clean them up real well, let's give them a good bath, and besides that, we're going to tie them up in here so he can't get back into the mud. Have we changed him?
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Well, on the outside, yes, we've changed him. But what happens when that pig gets loose?
Right, back to the mud. Why? Because that's his nature. And that's the same with people. They can dress up, they can do the clean up act, they can dress up and pretend that they're nice and religious.
But if they haven't been born again, they will never be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Oh, what an important thing it is. This is the Lord Jesus. He's telling you the truth. You might be a religious person. You might have everybody hoodwink you. They think, oh, yeah, that person's a Christian.
Is the change on the outside or is it on the inside?
If you're not born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. How important it is then that you?
Listen to what the Lord Jesus says. He's showing the truth to Nicodemus. But notice as we go down in the chapter, we come down to verse 14 and here He speaks about Moses.
In the wilderness.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even.
So must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever, if have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
So he goes to the Old Testament for a story that we have in the book of Numbers, in this place in numbers. The people of Israel have been complaining.
You know complaining is a sin.
And it didn't please God. And so he sent little poisonous snakes all through the congregation. And you know those little snakes, they can sneak up on you from behind. And they started biting the people and they started to die.
It's like sin. The wages of sin is death.
You sin, you die. That's what Scripture tells us.
Are there exceptions to that? Have you ever known of anybody that has escaped death?
Never in your life there are people who live up. We know of some who have lived over 100 years old. But all the time the moment comes when they die, because the wages of sin is death.
Well, the people recognized and they cried to Moses to help them. And you know God didn't take the snakes away.
But he told Moses to make a bronze serpent and to raise it up on a pole in the middle of the camp of Israel, and the message went out throughout the whole camp of Israel. Whoever is bitten and dying, tell them to look at that serpent.
Of bronze there on that pole.
And if they simply believed the message and looked.
They were healed. They did not die.
And.
John's Gospel tells us here that that is a figure. The Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, must be lifted up as well. And where was Jesus lifted up? I'm sure you've heard the story.
But it was at the end of his 33 1/2 years.
Of life.
The truth.
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Every place he went, he showed grace and truth. But at the end of those 33 1/2 years, the religious people were the ones that stirred up the multitudes and said away with him. We will not have this man. And they took him first to their religious rulers.
The chief priests and they condemned him.
Even though he was the truth.
And then, since they did not have the power to execute at that time, they took him to Pattius Pilot, the Roman governor, and their pilot declared again and again. I find no fault in this man.
Let's look at it in John's Gospel chapter.
18.
Where?
The Lord Jesus is before Pilate.
Verse 35.
Pilate answered, Am IA Jew thine own nation, and the chief praise have delivered thee unto me.
What hast thou done? What had he done? Jesus answered. My Kingdom is not of this world.
If my Kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews? But now is my Kingdom not from hence? Pilot therefore said unto him, Art thou a king? Then Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king.
To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness.
Unto the truth, everyone that is of the truth.
Here is my voice.
Did you hear that?
Friend, everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Are you listening?
You want to ignore what I say this evening, all right.
But please don't ignore what Jesus says. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Notice what? Notice what Pilot says verse 38. Pilot Seth unto him, what is truth?
He had no clue, even though he was a judge and supposed to know the difference between what is true and false.
He says what is truth?
And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, saith unto them, I find no fault at all in him, no fault at all.
He didn't wait to accept the truth. He went out.
Are you at the end of the meeting?
Going to just go out.
And not listen to the truth that is presented to you, the person of the Lord Jesus.
Notice what Pilate does in chapter 19 and verse one. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus.
And scourged him.
Just a minute here, he had just said. I find in him no fault at all.
Why is he scourging him?
Is there any truth in the way this man is acting?
That's what happens when we don't accept truth.
When it's presented to us, how solemn it is to see how blind people become.
Romans scourging was one of the most awful things. If you read in history books about how it went, it is awful and many times malefactors are condemned. Criminals did not survive.
Scourging. They died as they were being scourged.
So he scourged Jesus, and the soldiers planted a crown of thorns. We heard about that.
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This morning as well, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe and said Hail King of the Jews, and they smote him with their hands.
Pilate notice this again. Therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. What kind of justice?
Is this? He declares again and again. I find no fault at all in him.
And yet he treats Jesus this way.
You think you can sit there and not accept?
The truth? Let me tell you, if you do that, there are some pretty heavy consequences on the way for you.
I warn you, please do not do such a thing.
Well, in the course of time, they say in verse.
12 of chapter 19 Thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. He wanted to release Jesus. But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
They were good politicians.
They knew how He would react to such a plea. God that therefore heard that saying. He brought Jesus forth, sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement. But in the Hebrew Gabathan it was the preparation of the Passover and about the 6th hour.
Saith unto the Jews, Behold your king, they cried out, Away with him, away with him, and crucify him, Pilate Seth, unto them shall I crucify your king. The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar Then delivered he and him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus.
And led him away.
He, burying his cross, went forth into a place that is called.
Place of the skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.
Where they crucified him to other, with him on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
Crucifixion one of the most awful forms of.
Capital punishment ever practiced in human history. They stretched out those wonderful hands that had done such acts of grace.
And truth. And they nailed them to that cross, and they lifted him up outside the city of Jerusalem.
Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross and the writing was Jesus.
Of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This title then read many of the Jews, For the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city.
And it was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin.
The whole world was represented in this Hebrew, the religious Greek, the education world, educational world, and Latin, the political world were all represented in the rejection of the Lord Jesus.
You know, we were mentioning that in John chapter 3.
That it says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
Why the figure of a serpent?
Why? How does that relate to the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ? The serpent was the one who had deceived Eve, and upon whom had fallen a curse.
Why that figure?
You know why?
00:30:00
Because when he came to die, he came to pay the price of our redemption.
Sins penalty had to be paid in full. Every single sin that you and I have committed has to be paid according to God's holy standard.
You might Passover things in your life, but not God.
Every single sin will receive from the hand of God, its just penalty.
And when the Lord Jesus was hanging on that cross, we know the story, how the first three hours the people passed in front of him, mocking and jeering him, He suffered terribly physically.
We can't hardly imagine the suffering, the physical suffering and the suffering of his soul.
Reproach broke his heart, they said. He said he is the Son of God.
If he is the Son of God, let God deliver him.
Did God deliver him?
No. Didn't God love his son?
Yes he did, but you know what? He loved you and me as well and the only way for you and me to be saved was for someone to pay our sin debt.
And so at 12 noon, when Jesus was hanging on that cross, everything got dark.
For three hours, from 12:00 to 3:00 in the afternoon, nobody could see what was taking place on that cross.
But it wasn't those three hours that God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, and God poured out his judgment on his own.
Beloved son.
For three hours.
There's no complaint, no cry. He suffered because he loved us.
Only at the end of those three hours.
There's an awful cry. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Did God forsake his son? Yes. Why did he forsake his son? So he wouldn't have to forsake you in the lake of fire forever. That's why he forsook his son.
This is the God of truth. This is the God of grace and truth. No sin went unpunished in those three hours of darkness.
And then?
Verse 28 we see he says something else.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, the scripture might be fulfilled, saith I thirst.
There was set a vessel full of vinegar, and they filled the sponge with vinegar, put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished.
He bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
I like the way it reads in the Spanish consumer S. It is consumed the whole judgment that was against us, and rightly so. It's gone. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Oh what a wonderful salvation. It is finished.
And he bowed his head and gave up.
A ghost.
The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath was in high day, besought Pilate, that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Then came the soldiers break the legs of the 1St and of the other, which was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs.
00:35:06
One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water, and he that saw it bear record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true that ye might believe. What are you doing?
With the presentation of the truth tonight, are you sitting there thinking?
That you do not have an obligation to believe it.
To me it is extremely solemn to think of what is going to happen to those.
Who do not receive the truth. We are living on the very edge of a time of the history of this world where there's going to be the most awful judgment that this world has ever seen. It's just ahead for this world I'd like to go over to.
2nd Thessalonians chapter 2. Just to read a few more verses.
In connection with the truth.
2nd Thessalonians, Chapter 2.
And this is talking.
About something that is starting to develop today.
Verse three. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day, the day of the Lord, shall not come, except there come a falling away. 1St And that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped so that he as God?
Sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
He is talking about a man that we know as Antichrist, and other scripture refers him to Antichrist, a man who is probably living today.
Verse five Remember ye not what I.
When I was yet with you, I told you these things, and now you know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now letteth or hindereth will hinder until he be taken out of the way, and then shall that wicket be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His.
Shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, even him.
Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power.
And signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish. Notice this part, please, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
What are you doing with the truth?
We presented it very, I trust clearly tonight. Are you sitting there thinking that you didn't have any obligation to this? I ask you to think seriously, verse 11 for this.
'Cause God shall send them strong delusion, delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure.
In unrighteousness.
You know what's going to happen. You sit there and you think you can decide another day.
You have understood the message. You have heard the truth.
About the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Himself the truth.
And you think you have your options and you decide not to.
00:40:05
It says you are going to be deceived. God is going to send strong delusion that they might all be damned.
Does God want anybody condemned? No.
His willing is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
But if you do not believe the truth.
Then you are setting yourself up to believing a lie because the mystery of iniquity is already working in this world and those that do not receive the love of the truth.
Will be deceived.
That they might be condemned because they did not receive the truth.
I ask you, along with all the other believers in this room.
To seriously.
Think it through tonight to repent of your sins, to come to that One who is himself the truth, the one.
That said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father.
Bless thy word.
If there's somebody out there.
In this audience.
Listening and still hasn't made a decision for Christ.
We pray that they might be convicted, they might not have any rest.
Oh, the awfulness, our God and Father of a soul that goes out into eternal darkness.
Don't let it happen. Our God and our Father, we plead that Thy Spirit would strive with anybody who still hasn't made it personal and real. We pray. Give thanks for thy precious word in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Our Brother's Keeper
2 Peter 1:10-21
2 Peter 3
Life Wisdom from Proverbs
Address—Robert Boulard
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's turn in our hymn books to 294.
I'd like to sing it to the Tomb of Justice as I am.
Oh, come thou stricken.
For us.
Oh my God.
Shall we ask the Lords blessing?
I have it on my heart just to take up just a few instructions written to us by the wisest man that was ever that ever lived. I want to look at the book of Proverbs a little bit. But before I do that, you know this man was a king. And we'll read his beginning in first Second Samuel chapter 12. We'll just read a couple of verses there.
I want to read those verses and comment a little bit very briefly on them.
And then we'll read some of the things that King Solomon wrote by divine inspiration.
And then we may, if the Lord permits, and we have a few moments, just look a little bit. At the end of his life, he didn't take note of the instructions that he gave to others, and he took no heed to the instructions that the Lord gave to him and as he sought to correct him.
But you know, it's a wonderful comfort to my heart when it says in the.
Corinthians, the apostle Paul could say, at the judgment seat of Christ, then shall every man have praise of God. So you and I are going to see King Solomon in a future day. He'll have a reward. He wrote the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and he was used mightily of God. But here's the beginning of Solomon in chapter 12, Second Samuel.
It says in verse 24 And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her, and she bare a son. And he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him. And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and he called his name Jedediah because of the Lord. Well here Solomon was born at a time circumstances in the palace perhaps hadn't been really pristine. There had been.
Moral failure and his father David, and you know, Solomon didn't ask to come into this world. You didn't ask to come into this world. But God, you know, is interested in every one of you, every one of us in this room individually. And he took great care to form the circumstances of life and to have us born into particular situation. He knew all about it.
And he knew Solomon's beginning. And here David has Father gives him this name. Solomon means peace or great peace.
As Solomon, I believe David yearn for peace, yearn for peace among God's people, yearn for peace in his own family life. But he knew that it was going to be a rough road ahead, and so life didn't turn out the way that he thought it would. But Solomon has brought into this world, and the point is that the Lord loved him.
Everyone of you here, young people are individually called of God, elect, chosen of God. That's what election means. Chosen. God doesn't choose a group, a group of people. He chooses individuals, your elect.
And he has a great interest. He took a great interest in the day that you were born, and he still has a great interest in you right now. And he longs for your blessing. He longs for you to live a long, useful life, long useful life for his glory. And so he calls.
The Lord gave Solomon a name. Jedediah means the beloved of the Lord. Oh, isn't that wonderful? Your beloved of the Lord and on the authority of God's word, I can tell you that this afternoon. Well, let's turn to Proverbs. We'll look at.
Some of the instructions that God gave to Solomon, I'm not going to go over a little outline. Proverbs chapter 22 right at the end, we'll read the last verse and then a few verses in and I would like to have the time to read the whole chapter, but I don't believe we have the time.
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You know, this book is written 31 Chapters, so you got one chapter for every day and yesterday was the 23rd and I was reading this chapter. I made it a habit in my business life when I stayed in a hotel that I would take out the Bible that was in the drawer and I would read the chapter, whatever day it was of the month that I would read that chapter.
And I would read it in my own Bible as well, but you know.
God has given us a book of instruction specifically for young people, and the wisest man that ever lived is the one that gives us really heavenly wisdom for this earthly pathway. And the reason it's given to us is because when man sinned in the garden, he lost his eyesight, he lost his spiritual eyesight, he lost his ability to think the way God thinks.
And he thinks directly opposite to the way God thinks.
And God gave us this book especially for you young people. And I am an older man, and I read that book too. Let's read chapter 22. Just at the end, verse 29, it says, see us, thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men, when thou sittest to eat with a ruler, considered diligently what or who is before.
And put a knife that I throat, if I'll be a man given to appetite, be not desirous of his dainties.
For they are deceitful meat. Labor not to be rich. Cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings. They fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Well, we'll stop there, and well, let's read one couple more verses. Here it says, Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.
This afternoon I'd just like to look at 7:00.
Times that the heart is mentioned in this series of proverbs.
But I'm also exercised to point out that at the beginning of the series of these proverbs, the Spirit of God uses.
King Solomon to point out that the enemy has four tactics that he uses proven tactics to destroy your life, to ruin it. And make no mistake of it, we have an enemy and a very determined enemy and he will never give up trying to destroy your life. And so isn't that nice? The Spirit of God just unfolds what his tactics are very, very effective tactics. And you and I, without knowing it, are.
Victims or we're targets, we don't need to be victims, but we're targets of the enemy and particularly when we're young and inexperienced in the path of faith. And so he says here, see us, thou man diligent in his business. He shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean men or obscure men. And so one of the tactics that the enemy has in connection with young people particularly.
Is that we might be diligent in our business.
We all have perhaps aspirations to make a good living, to have a job, to have something that is worthwhile and something that perhaps challenges us in connection with making a living and we might say a career. And so he says the Spirit of God records here that if you are a diligent man, diligent sister.
The enemy has those that are in business.
Are going to notice you and they're going to notice you and they're going to push you. They're going to advance you in this world. You're going to stand before those that make the decisions in this world.
You know, oftentimes there's decisions that have to be made as to how you're going to use your time and whether you're taking an advancement in business.
I know of a young brother who went to university and he's made the decision at the beginning of his time at university that he would go to all of the assembly meetings.
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And came time that in one of the course courses that he had to take, it was only available on Wednesday night. And that was the night when they had reading and prayer meeting in the city that he went to to the meeting in. So his home assembly the meetings on Wednesday night and.
This course was offered. He couldn't graduate unless he had this course, and he went to see the professor. The professor says no, that's the only day I can teach this course, He said well.
I'm not going to miss the meeting, the home assembly meeting, reading a prayer meeting, he says. Can I write the exam if I take the material? If I study the material will just provide me with the material in another way and electronically or other students, can I take the studies? And then if I write the exam, will you pass me? He said. Young man, if you can write the exam.
I'll pass you. Well, you know, I just give you this. He never went to the course. Not not once did he see the professor and know all those lectures.
And then he wrote those exams and passed the course and graduated after four or five years of study and he was in the top class, top of his class. I don't know, five or six, top five or six. Never missed an assembly meeting.
And dear young people, the enemy seeks to make their cause your 'cause they want your their cause, the cause of a good career, the cause of high education, to be the highest priority in your life.
But oh, isn't it wonderful to be able to give the Lord his place in your life in all things, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Now, I remember hearing of Ch Brown. He said that he was a teacher, and he said when he went to university, he went to all the assembly meetings. He never missed.
And as a young man, he doesn't know whether he got 87 in a course or 77. And he might have liked to get 97, but it didn't matter. He was in the presence of the Lord. Well, you know, this world is going to try. One of the things that they're going to try to do is to use up your time.
And to push you forward, advance you in this world so that you use all of your time to build the pyramids and the treasure cities of Pharaoh and they're all going to pass away. And so this is the first tactic that is mentioned here. Verse 20th chapter 23 verse one, it says when thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what or who is before thee. Put a knife to thy throat. If thou be a man given to appetite, be not desirous of his dainties for they.
Deceitful meat.
Well, now we have another tactic and it is this that an appetite for power and position.
You know the knife speaks to us of self judgment.
You have an appetite for what this world has. Do you have an appetite to sit down? You know it says.
Consider diligently who is before thee. There are those that are building the world system. There is a system of things in this world that is opposed to Christ.
The business system is opposed to Christ. The banking system is opposed to Christ. The manufacturing system is opposed to Christ. I say that because the enemy has raised up. These systems love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for all that is in the world is.
I'm not quoting it right, but let's turn to it.
Is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world passes away in the lust thereof.
Well, that's in first John chapter two, I think it is.
So here we have this.
Appetite and the world.
Will say come sit with us and.
The Spirit of God records says if you have an appetite for power and position in this world, put a knife to thy throat. It means to use exercise self judgment in these things.
And so we have this warning given, the second warning to have an appetite for power and authority. And it says in verse four, labor not to be rich ceased from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For richest certainly make themselves wings. They fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
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So we have this first tactic is really to push you forward, to advance you. You don't even have to ask and the people of this world are going to advance you and to try to take up all of your time, make their priorities your priority. Then the second tactic is to advance you, to put you in a place of position and responsibility where you don't have time for the things of God. Now you may be able to risk.
Those things.
But you know, the enemy says it's all right to be rich. Make money your object. Make sure you can have a good retirement. And there's nothing wrong with making lots of money. Make money, make that your object.
But you know, money comes and money goes. Money is not something it says. One of the things in connection with money in Egypt, it says money failed. In Joseph's day, money failed. And how we're reminded of Venezuela and a million percent inflation, money failed. But there are men in this world that make it an object to be wealthy and to be well off in this scene.
And so the Spirit of God says that it's a snare to have this tactic, to have this desire, this appetite for wealth cease from thine own wisdom. It's a part of the natural wisdom of man to say I want money so that I can live independent, independent of God. I can do what I need to do without prayer. What a wonderful to be.
Those that belong to the Lord Jesus Christ and pray to Him independence for what we need.
Well, we have another tactic here. It says in verse six, Eat not thou the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meat, For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he eaten. Drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words. Well, this tactic is to have worldly companions to eat and to sit, and to enjoy the.
Fellowship of worldly companions, companions that have no love for the Savior and so.
He says he exposes this thought that they have. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee. So what we learn from this little passage of Scripture is that the heart of the unbeliever and those that are unbelieving friends, their hearts are not really for you. You know, I have sometimes thought in connection with this verse of a man that I was working for. His name is Ralph Gaddy.
I think maybe brother Phil.
I met him, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago or something like that, real believer Ralph Gaddy and his partner Aiden Miller, and they ran in a little truck cap company called ARE and they started a plant in Fernley, NV. So they wanted to, they had built up the business, very successful business right up to the Mississippi River and now they wanted to.
Hit the West and doubled their business, so to speak. And so they put up a plant in Fernley, NV, staffed it and got all the tooling in place and so on. Hired the people. But, you know, there were entrenched competitors across the Mississippi and they wouldn't give an inch. And so we had to fight for every sale. It was hard slugging. And the company was running red ink. And he was advised by his executive.
Perhaps cut bait Just.
Let it go, drop it after a year. After two years became a serious situation and it became evident that he needed funding or else he would have to declare bankruptcy. But he kept going, press, persevering. Then he got an offer from venture capitalists to buy a stake in his business, and so some spoke to him of the unequal yoke.
Let's read this passage of Scripture in Second Corinthians.
Chapter 6. This is one of the passages that was quoted at that time.
2nd Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers? For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
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Free ye are the temple of the living, gone as gods have said. I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them. Be separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Well, the scriptures have the wisdom of God, and man by wisdom knew not God and dear brother Gaddy reason things out and he decided to sell a part of that business to those that venture capital company, and he entered into an unequal yoke.
He signed the documents and.
11 months.
Almost a year later, they removed him from being CEO of that company and they seized the control of that company and he had a little office in the basement sort of thing, was really relegated to a very menial job. And then he eventually left the company even though he owned.
I think 49 percent or something of a significant percent of that company. The reason I tell you this story is this. The word of God is clear. Do not enter into an unequal yoke. And so there might be nice speeches at the dinner table, there may be in the conference rooms, all kinds of things the synergies that might be involved in making.
A big operation, bigger and better, and we can help you.
But his heart is not with thee, O dear Saints of God, you young people.
The world's heart is not for you. And never, never go out with an unbeliever. You know, there's a quote, Brother Ch Brown again. He used to have this little expression. He say, I'll tell you one way to make sure that you never, ever marry an unbeliever. Don't go out with an unbeliever.
The first time, don't do it. You'll be disobeying God and the consequences are serious.
The consequences sometimes in the governmental ways of God you'll live with for the rest of your life. And so I warn you faithfully and plead with you, never go out with an unbeliever. Never marry an unbeliever. You'll be doing it in disobedience to God. How much better it is being let go. They went unto their own company owner. Wonderful to come into the company of those that love the Lord Jesus. And you know what's not said here?
His heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words. There's not going to be nourishment for your soul in an unequal yoke. And so.
What's not said here is that the heart of the Lord Jesus is 100% for you.
Dear young people, the world is not on your side.
The business world is not on your side. Those that are unbelievers are not on God's side. And we need to work and live in the world around us and we need to be a testimony to those that are around us. But we need to be clear as to the character of those that are in the world. They're enemies of God. And so isn't that nice for us to recognize that the Lord Jesus, you know, I think of this.
Having loved his own, which were in the world.
He loved them under the end, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And so he gives us these tactics in connection with the enemy and his desire to destroy life and to ruin the fruitfulness of a young life. These four tactics. Now we have another heart in verse 12. Let's read verse 12. It says, apply thine heart unto instruction.
And thine ears to the words of knowledge.
Well, you know, we were speaking a little bit about appetite earlier.
And I wonder if you have an appetite for the instructions that God gives.
You have an appetite for the word of God if you don't have an appetite for the word of God, cry to the Lord for help to develop an appetite for the Lord and for the Lord's things and develop an appetite for reading the word of God, sitting in the presence of the Lord and reading his word. You and I need instructions and we need to apply our hearts to the instructions that are given You know the hearts speaks of the.
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And you, not you and I, need to have affections, right? Affection to love for the instructions that are given to us of God. Oh, what a loving savior we have. We were walking blind. We were serving an enemy, a master before we were saved, a master that was seeking to destroy us. It's a little picture, you know, of Pharaoh and how he caused the children of Israel to serve with rigor and with cruelty.
He he sought to have them.
And bowed down between by their burdens, and he sought to just destroy them in this way. But you and I have been purchased with the precious blood of Christ. And we being set at liberty in his presence were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, were set at liberty. We can read the instructions of the word of God.
You know, I'll give you a little illustration of this again in the truck cap company where I was working.
The we had trucks that were very trucks, used to be, you know, four wheels and a buckboard gas tank and not much to them.
And probably our brother Gordon remembers that age of vehicle. But you know, in the day that we live in pickup trucks or luxury vehicles, 4 door and people want to have tonal covers on the back end of the the truck pick up trucks so that it's just like a trunk, all fabric lined and lights when you lift the tunnel cover and all those sorts of things.
And so the company went a great deal of expense to photograph the installation procedure of all these trucks so that everyone could install the installers that bought these and sold them, distributed them, could install them correctly because there's a wiring bundle that's different with every vehicle and sequence of wiring that is necessary to get it right.
And so we went to great deal of expense, color photographs, went on the Internet and everything.
And every day the customer service reps got phone calls and there would be a dealer and he's halfway through an installation. He says this tunnel cover doesn't work and it won't go up or down and things like this. And so we trained the customer service reps to ask one question.
Sir, where are you at the what process or what sequence, what location are you on this instruction sheet? This what instruction sheet? Well, the one that's in with the touch up bottle and the keys and it's at the back of the tunnel cover and they go and get it and then open it up and, and the CSRS could walk them through it.
But you know, dear Saints, dear young people.
There were men that had ruined. There was a man that put a tonal cover on and he did the wiring wrong out of his head and he blew the computer on a Nissan Titan, which cost $7000 to fix it.
There was all kind one man. He hit the the key fob and the sunroof opened instead of the tunnel cover and all kinds of things went on because they didn't read the instructions.
And dear young people, God went to a great deal of expense.
God went to a great deal of effort to write you a book of instructions to get life right the first time so that you didn't go through life and make a mess of it broken and have to try to fix it up and patch it up. Some of those trucks were never the right same. After a dealer had butchered the wiring and then tried to put it all back together, the truck was never the same.
And your life will never be the same if you don't read the instructions of a loving father.
A God who loves you, who gave his Son to save you and now is working, interceding on high.
To save your life, that your life, your soul might be saved, but that your life might be saved. Do you have any affection for the instructions given in the Word of God? Oh, May God give us that desire and that affection for His Word.
Well, it says here in verse 15, the third heart, he says my son.
If thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine.
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Yeah, my reign shall rejoice when thy lips speak right things.
When there's a lovely expression, my son.
You know it's used in the book of Proverbs 24 times, my son.
I think Solomon perhaps was writing. We're not told for sure, but perhaps he had one son, you know?
Rehoboam, that's all. The only son that we're told of, perhaps his only son. We know he had two or three daughters, I can't remember how many, but they're told to us in the lineage and they.
Genealogy, I think it's in First Chronicles, but he had one son. He's writing to his son and he wanted his life to turn out right. And in this character of the, the expression, it's used to as one that honors the family name. You have a name, you're named with the name of Christ. I trust that you're gathered by the Spirit of God under the precious name of the Lord.
Jesus. But if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you have the name of Christ. If you've been baptized, you have the name of Christ on you. Let's read that in Galatians. I think it's chapter 3.
If you were baptized.
The Apostle Paul speaks of it in several different ways. I'm not going to go into the all the detail, but.
Yes, chapter 3, verse 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, or should say unto Christ have put on Christ, or you disassociated yourself from this wicked world.
And you associated yourself with Christ when you were baptized.
You know, when I was a young man, I loved hockey. I had an appetite for hockey, a bad appetite.
And I came home from school one day and I said to my father, I said, dad, the boys at school want me to join the hockey team here, the school hockey team. What do you think? He says, son, were you baptized? I'm scratching my head and thinking, well, what does this have to do with baptism? I I said, yeah, I was baptized. He said, well, don't you know when you were baptized that the name of Christ was put on your back?
He says that you wouldn't want to cover up the name of Christ with the name of a hockey jersey, now would you?
Would you want to cover up the name of Christ with the name of a football team or the a soccer team or the name of a hockey team? Would you want to? I didn't answer him and I never asked again to join the hockey team because you know, you bear the name of Christ and the testimony of being one that belongs to him 24 hours a day. Oh, what a privilege it is. And so he speaks of my son. If thine heart be wise, my heart.
Shall rejoice even mine you know wisdom the world by wisdom knew not God.
And the wisdom of God, as our brother Harry Hale used to say many years ago, is directly opposite to the wisdom of man. The wisdom of God is not an improvement on the wisdom of man, it's directly opposite to the wisdom of man.
And the wisdom of God is the power of God connected with Christ himself.
And God is looking down to see you as a son, as a daughter. We read in Second Corinthians chapter 6. So I think we have liberty to say those that are sisters in this room, young sisters, you're a daughter.
You're a son. Oh, what is your deportment like in this scene?
Is your deportment like a son? Like a daughter?
Are you dressing and speaking and living like one who is a son, a Prince, a Princess, one who is in relationship with God and addresses God as Father? What a place, what a position of favor and blessing before God. We mentioned, you know, Solomon himself could never address God as Father, and he will, not even in the future, but you will.
You're a son.
You're brought into a blessing, a place of blessing and privilege that exceeds anything.
That any of the Saints ever had before the church period and even after the Church period. In fact, you have the very best place in heaven.
As a part of the bride of Christ, a member of the body of Christ in that glorious scene, to be at his right hand, just displayed before this world and all of his glory, and you there at his side, the angels in another sphere.
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And those Old Testament Saints too, as those that are the friends of the bridegroom. But you are a son. You are a member of the body of Christ. Well, he says he desires us that we would apply our hearts to wisdom and to be wise. That's not what characterizes this world. It's foolishness. The wisdom of this world is foolishness. They're going on with foolishness.
You know there was.
I sometimes have given this little illustration in connection with this wisdom of the world.
In the 1930s, you know, in the 1929, there was a stock market crash in this country and the financial world collapsed and influenced the economic situation in the whole world.
And so men were out of work and there was a great catastrophe economically in this country and all across Western Christian world. And everybody had a new idea and different ideas to how to elevate the situation and rectify the situation. So the educators said, well, everybody should have a university education and we'll just get everybody, they'll get the society to come up and.
The manufacturing, they said, well, we need to manufacture products that people will want to buy and it'll just drive the economy.
The car business that I was working in, they said, well, we need to design cars that people will want to buy. And so as you remember, in the 1920s there were cars that had fenders and they had flat windshields and so on. And so they decided that they would design Airstream cars, streamlined cars. And so they designed streamlined cars, very nice rounded fenders and put the lights inside the fenders and nice V.
Grills and they put the the windshield down at a little bit of an angle and they call them streamlined cars and but really they weren't that streamlined they looked streamlined and when the wind tunnels came into operation when the aircraft were being developed up until World War Two, while they put some of these cars in the wind tunnels and they found out that the.
Cars were more aerodynamic going backwards than they were going forwards.
Well, that's the wisdom of man.
That's foolishness. How could he sell a product that was it was false advertising, but they didn't know. And dear young people trust the wisdom of God. It says here, my son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice even mine. And so you can rejoice the heart of God as you go on in wisdom. Well, there's something that we shouldn't do in verse 17. Let not thine heart and be sinners.
But be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. You know, this term, the fear of the Lord, is used, I think 28 times in the book of Proverbs. I'll have to look it up. But it's used a lot. And it doesn't mean to be afraid of God. It means to be afraid to displease Him. It means to be afraid to displease someone that you love.
That's what it means. Brother Gordon Hale used to remind us that it's a love. It's a fear begotten of love.
And so we're afraid to displease the Lord. Isn't it nice? It says let not.
Heard that. Let not thine heart envy sinners. There are some things we need to prevent ourselves from doing. Let's just look at turn back. Hold your place there. I think it's chapter 4 of Proverbs.
Verse 23.
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
I'll read it in the new translation. This is what it says. I hope you have a new translation, a Darby translation. It says this. Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded.
For out of it are the issues of life.
Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded.
You lock your computer. You have a password. You lock your car. I think the cars are locked out here. You lock your house.
You lock things because you know that the world is dishonest. In Brazil they put 8 foot walls of concrete all around the house and then barbed wire and sometimes high voltage wire in there too.
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I showed pictures of our house in Hammer Bay, and the brethren were aghast. They said no wall. I said no, we don't have a wall. Aren't you afraid of somebody stealing your garbage can? I said no, I'm not afraid of that.
But you know, we have this.
This instruction given to us, let not thine heart envy sinners, and the sinners of this world are going after the things of this world, and we might envy the way that sinners are living.
Is that true? We might envy this, the cars that the sinners are driving.
We might envy the houses that the sinners are living in.
We might envy the toys that the sinners are playing with.
We might envy the fact that the sinners don't use the Lord's day for the Lord, but they use it for themselves. We might envy sinners, but you know the Spirit of God says don't envy the sinners, don't envy how they live. Don't envy them for driving little red sports cars and and while you drive a little sedan.
Envy them because they're going to come under judgment. For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And we read this afternoon of how these things, the Lord is going to burn up, utterly consume everything in this scene, not only all the works of men, but he's going to utterly consume this world itself and the heavens.
Not the uncreated dwelling heart, the place of God, though that 3rd heaven. Well he says in verse 19.
Hear thou, my son, and be wise and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among wine bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty and drowsiness Shall Cloud clothe a man with rags. Hearken under thy father that begat thee. Despise not thy mother when she is old. Well, here this expression is used to gain my son. And this time, the fifth time the heart is mentioned, he says Guide thine heart.
In the way guide it.
So we're not only to guard our hearts.
Let not thine heart envy. Sinners were to guard our hearts, lock our hearts, prevent our hearts from being deceived by this world.
We are to guide our hearts into the things of God.
To guide ourselves to be found in a state of soul that would allow the Spirit of God to guide us into the path of truth and obedience to the word of God. You know what Christian life is something that doesn't just happen. It doesn't. You don't wake up at 50 years old, say, oh.
I guess I followed the Lord for 50 years. No, that's not how it is there. The enemy is very, very diligent to put all kinds of.
Ruses in front of you. He's trying to deceive your heart. He's trying to distract your heart. He's trying everything possible.
To ruin your life and he begins the day you're born. We know that the Lord Jesus was born into this scene and the day that he was born why the enemy was seeking to destroy him. Well he says guide thine heart in the way we need to guide our hearts affections in the things of God, the way of truth and not be found among those that are seeking the pleasure of this world not be not among wine bivers among.
Eaters of flesh.
You know, there was a man that got saved. I'm going to tell you his name, I think was Al McKinnon and.
He worked for Ian Hurlbut up in Hammer Bay.
And do it in the same business that Jonathan now owns and runs, the little construction business. And 1N day he took this little flat bottom steel boat out of the Bay, loaded up with tools and little lumber, lumber and that kind of thing. It was a fast boat, flat steel. And he took off with this boat and it was very fast boat. The men liked to be able to go out. They were going out on the job.
On company time and then they were coming back on their own time at 5:00.
So I'd like to get back quick. So he took this boat out and Hammer Bay has a couple of islands at the front of the Bay at the opening of the Bay. And he took this little steel boat out and went racing down the Bay. And then he got just beyond the islands and there were big waves on that lake and he hit the waves and up he went.
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And the boat went up in the air, the tools went to the bottom of the lake, and the little boat motor, the outboard motor kept running because it was on. And you know what happens? It just goes around and around in a circle, just goes around and around in a circle until it runs out of gas or the wind blows it to the shore. And so Al McKinnon swam out to that boat. It was terribly cold, wasn't there, wasn't ice on the Bay, But it was very cold in November.
And so he got into that boat, he grabbed the side, he got himself into that boat and.
He took off, it's a mile into the Bay, and by the time he got back to the dock, his clothes were frozen on him and he cried for help. At the bottom of that hill. He yelled and he called for help. They came down and they cut his clothes off with scissors and they were able to save his life.
And he got saved as a result of that experience. He took Christ as his Savior. And if you come to Hammer Bay, I'll point out where he used to live. But you know, the point is that before Al McKinnon got saved, he was trying bungee jumping. He was trying. He tried everything. He went to all the new movies, had to have new, new cars, all kinds of things. He was just trying to satisfy his heart in those things.
I want to ask you this afternoon, young people, are you making progress in the things of God?
Are you studying the Scriptures and justice, making progress, getting a little outline of the epistles, and just reading and enjoying and savoring the things of God that have been revealed to us? Are you making progress? Are you going around in circles just trying this and trying that? You'll never have a satisfied heart.
You'll never. It'll never satisfy you, you'll never be content, and you'll never make progress.
And so it's natural to have growth, we may grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and it will be a hindrance if we go with bad company. Now it says here in verse 23 by the truth and sell it, not also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
Well, you'll notice it doesn't have the heart in that particular verse, but I'll tell you this, that when I was a young man, I didn't have a a concordance. I didn't have my own library. My dad had some books on a shelf and he had the synopsis and so on. I own those books now. Thank God for them.
But I didn't have a concordance and so I was looking for this verse by the truth and sell it not. And I'd heard the brethren that used to sit in the front row say, you know, the Epistle to the Ephesians has the highest truth given to the church, and they would spout off different verses of Scripture. And so I thought to myself, I'm looking for this verse. I'm going to find it in the Epistle of the Ephesians, right. So I read the Epistle to the Ephesians.
Oh, I wasn't there. Well, maybe I missed it. I read it again.
And it wasn't there. Well, I said, well, maybe I'm mistaken, maybe it's Colossians. So I read Colossians and well, it wasn't there either. I can't remember how I found it, but here it is in Proverbs 23 by the truth.
Sell it not, you know, in the French it says 911 point. There's a couple of different words we could use in the French we could say.
Means don't sell a little bit of it. Don't sell a little bit of it.
Behind the truth, don't sell a bit of it. Why? It costs God his Son to bring you into the knowledge of the truth, to give you the truth, to give you something that was worth living, to bring you into the position of being a son, an heir of God, joint heir with Christ. It cost God his Son to tell you the truth of all that. And her brother spoke of the truth. Pilate was very mocking. He said what is truth? You know what the truth is.
Dear young people, it costs something to walk in the truth and to buy the truth.
Have you paid anything for it?
I'm going to tell you a little story of I could tell you some brethren in Brazil. I'll tell you something of Brother Ian Hurlbut in Hammer Bay.
His grandfather was Percy. Percy Hurlbut or Clinton Hurlbut. And then, yes, his great grandfather was Clinton. His grandfather was Percy. And then his father was Clayton. And dear brother Ian Hurlbut. He might be 16 years old, 17 years old. He was at a conference leaning on a hall at the hallway and it kind of shy. And brother Harry Hale walked by. Says young man. What's your name?
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He says oh, I'm me and her. But he says oh, that means.
Clayton or Clinton was your great grandfather and Percy is your grandfather and your Clayton's son. He says not many 4th generation go on in the truth of God. The 1St generation buys the truth, the second generation enjoys the truth, and the third generation sometimes squanders the truth of God.
He says not many 4th generation go on.
Ian said, you know, I thought I asked him, well, how did Percy come into or Clinton Hurlbut come into fellowship at the Lord's Table? He said, well you know, he was walking down the street and he saw a door open and there was a a reading going on in a little town called Myrtle, Ontario. And he decided that he would go in there and he sat down among those that were having a reading meeting.
And he heard something of the truth of God ministered in that little assembly.
And it attracted his heart to Christ and he wanted to be where the Lord was in the midst. And so he went, you know, to the he was a member of the Methodist Church, the biggest church in Myrtle, Ontario. And he went to the minister there. He says, I'm going to leave the fellowship here. I'm going to be gathered to the Lords name in such and such a place. And they tried to talk him out of it. No, he says, I, I just want to go to be gathered to the Lord's name.
And so the minister in that pulpit the next couple of Lords days said, you know, Clinton is no longer a member of this congregation, Don't go to his business. Don't have anything to do with this man. It was a little town. You know, he was a leather worker and shoe repair and all those sorts of things. And they starved him out of business. And so he lost his business. He lost his home and he ended up in in the Toronto area.
That's where Clayton and the others grew and went up, went to meeting. Now I just say this, young people, find out where you came from. Find out some of the stories of what the price was paid, why you're here. Why are you gathered to the Lord's name? I trust you are gathered to the Lord's name. You know, there's two things that are ordinary that are normal for Christianity, and that is that when we're saved, we're gathered to the Lord's name. We remember him in his death.
Were baptized and then we're remember him in his death. This normal Christianity and when you're gathered to the Lord's name.
You only take the name of Christ as normal Christianity. God intended that all Christians would be gathered to the Lords name and it's normal Christianity. Well he says here in verse 26, the 6th heart, he says my son give me thine heart.
What a profound statement.
You know, God isn't going to barter with you. I used to think when I was younger, I would say to the Lord, I'm ashamed to think of it now, but Lord, if you give me this, I'll do this for you. Lord, if you would give me this, if you, if you make this situation just turn out just right, why, I'll, I'll do something for you. I'll go to the meetings.
Not the human heart. I'm ashamed of it now. But you know, dear Saints, dear young people, God doesn't want to barter with you.
He gave the best of heaven, He gave his own son. He proved his love at Calvary. He couldn't give anymore and now his heart is 100% for you, right where you sit. He wants the very best for you. He's given the very best and he has reserved in heaven the very best.
The very best place. His heart is 100% for you. And all he desires is that you would voluntarily give him the affections of your heart. And if he doesn't have the affections of your heart, he doesn't have what he would desire. He doesn't have what he wants. He doesn't need your money.
He doesn't want your service and all those things. I shouldn't say it quite that way. He doesn't need it. He might desire it if you were, if the heart was right. But what he really wants is your heart's affections. Then we have the last heart here in verse 33. We don't have time to read the verses up and down, up and above it and below it. But it says, thy eye shall behold strange women. Thine heart shall utter perverse things.
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Yeah, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, Or is he that lieth upon the top of mast? They have stricken me.
Shalt thou say and I was not sick. They have beaten me, and I felt it not.
When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. You know, I just give the dangers here of drink. Let's face it, we live in a day where we walk, drive down the street and we see vineyards everywhere and free tasting at the vineyards and.
It's a good life. It's Jericho. A constant pleasant odor to the flesh. That's what the name means, a constant pleasant odor.
But it's a city of the curse, and this world wants you to live the good life. Eat, drink and be merry.
They don't have the courage to put that right on the sign, but eat, drink and be merry. And so he says here it's a warning. If you take up with drink, if you take up with the good life, leave Christ out of your life, you'll have the heart of a fool. And at the end of life, utter perverse things. And so we have those four tactics. Forgive me, I'll just outline real quick and we'll close. So let's say the first tactic is in verse.
Nine, and that is the advancement. The enemy has that tactic to advance you to take your time. And then the other is to give you an appetite from verse 1-2 and three, an appetite for power and position, verse 4-5, an appetite for earthly riches. And then we have in verses 6-7 and eight.
The worldly companions and appetite for worldly companions.
And then we have these a heart here is the seven hearts. The heart of the world is not for you, but the Lords heart is and then to apply the heart verse 12 and instructed heart and verse 15 a heart, he says a wise heart. Verse 17, a heart that doesn't envy sinners. And then.
In verse 19, a guided heart and then in verse 26.
A yielded heart and submission to the Lord. And then the last one, verse 33, is a heart that is perverse and utters perverse things at the end of life because it did not appreciate God. Well, that's really how Solomon ended up. He sought to kill Jeroboam. He sought to escape the judgment of God in connection with what he had done, marrying.
Unbelieving women, let's commend ourselves.
Our living God and our Father be thank thee for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for thy heart of love, our God.
I am the Lord, I change not. Oh, we thank thee for the unchangeable love that thou dost have for us, and we thank Thee that thou has taken a great interest in our lives from the day that we're born until we see thee face to face, blessed Saviour. And so we pray that these verses of Scripture that be have been read and these comments made that might, might have an effect upon our young, upon each one of us.
That we might be aware of the tactics of our the enemy.
And that we might yield our hearts to Thee, blessed Savior, in these very few days that are remaining few hours, perhaps in the day of grace, we ask Thy blessing and give thanks in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Gospel 3
Gospel—Ted Sester
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Welcome to the Gospel meeting tonight. I'd like to start by reading a verse out of John chapter 10. You don't need to open your Bibles. John chapter 10 and verse 10 part of the verse.
I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. That we could start tonight by singing #4 #4 reads. Christ is the Savior of sinners. Christ is the Savior for me. Long I was chained, and since darkness. Now by His grace I am free.
Verse two Now I can say I am pardoned, happy and justified, free, saved by my blessed Redeemer. This is the Savior for me. Can you call him your Savior tonight?
#4 let's sing #4 Christ is the Savior.
For me.
Come on, I was strange things to install.
Now, by his grace, by hand free.
Praying save your slightly.
Shake your blood work.
This is the savior for me.
I don't like to say I am Father.
Happy and justified creation.
And my, my blessing being Jesus.
For me.
Save usage.
Like for my grandson, this is the savior for me.
What we're here to talk about tonight is really important.
I use my phone a lot.
I get a lot of emails, I send a lot of text.
Been known to send them out in this room.
Tonight I'm going to ask you to take your phones and put them in a spot where you're not going to use them for about 45 minutes.
There's nothing more important than what we're going to talk about. Not because of it being me.
In preparation for the gospel.
It was more of preparing me, wasn't preparing to prepare for the gospel. The things we're talking about tonight is life. It's life or death.
I haven't.
I'm not here because I have a perfect walk with the Lord.
I'm here because I love to tell about the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a lot of people that need to hear about the Lord Jesus.
Satan does not want the gospel to go forth.
And he wants to discourage it from going forth.
And he'll do anything to distract you.
A friend texting you? The friend beside you? Someone else.
Maybe the speaker not knowing how to make a good delivery. You might think it's boring, but tonight I want you to listen to God's word. Not because it's me, but because it's God's word.
So let's ask the Lord for help.
We're going to sing another song.
Their song is number 19. It says, O Christ, in thee my soul hath found, and found in thee alone the peace, the joy I sought so long, the bliss till now unknown, now none but Christ can satisfy none other name for me there's love and life and lasting joy. Lord Jesus.
Found in thee.
Oh Christ and thee.
My soul.
Is my joy and I saw.
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My Christ starts this life and the life of my life. I don't think it's the beginning of the beginning of life.
There's a verse in the Bible.
I believe it's Matthew. It says what think ye of Christ?
That's a question I have for you tonight. What thinking of Christ? What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Maybe you've heard the gospel many times. Probably most people in this room have heard the gospel many times.
Is it just another gospel?
I actually had a man tell me that he liked hearing the gospel and he wasn't saved.
Maybe you like hearing what you call a good gospel and you still aren't saved. That is really scary.
My burden tonight is for somebody who has sat here over and over again. They sat through the gospel meeting last night.
And they sat through the gospel meeting the night before, and there still aren't saved.
We refer to you as Gospel hardened.
And the Word of God would like to break that rock in pieces.
You know, it says the word of God is quick, it's alive, it's powerful, and it's sharper than A2 edged sword.
It cuts the sender and it cuts the here.
It did some cutting on me this afternoon.
You know, the word of God is truth we heard last night. It tells the truth about you, and it tells the truth about me, and it tells us about our condition, and it tells us that we are dead.
In trespasses and sins, that is not a positive thing you say. Well, I came to the gospel meeting and I heard that gospel means good news.
The good news of the Gospel.
Is that there's life available tonight?
Tonight you can have life, but tonight everyone in this room is dying tonight.
If the Lord Jesus does not come in 100 years, there's not one person in this room that will still be alive.
The Lord Jesus coming very quickly.
We look forward to him to come.
But naturally, everyone in this room is dying.
Why?
Because as we heard last night.
Adam.
Fell and it says that death entered into the world by one man. Death entered in the world. But you know, tonight the good news of the gospel is that life has come into this world because of one man, and that man is the Lord Jesus Christ. And tonight you don't have to stay in your sins. Tonight you don't have to stay dead in trespassing sins.
People spend a lot of time thinking about dying.
They spent a lot of time. They worry about it.
There are studies that show that people are just subconsciously thinking about dying all the time.
Are you scared to die tonight?
I'd be scared to die if I was in my sins. You better be scared to die if you're in your sins tonight.
Death is a real thing.
You know, death is an enemy. God didn't intend for death to come in this world. It wasn't his intention.
Was not his attention.
But you know.
God has provided the Savior. God has provided life. God has provided that life could be, could come tonight.
Tonight, 2018.
December 24.
It still could be a gospel mean. We still can tell you that you can have life.
And tonight, it's not just.
You know.
Just a way to escape hell. That's not what God wants for you. Yes, you will escape hell if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ your Savior, but God wants to give you life. We read that verse in John 10 and I want to read a couple more verses there.
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In John chapter 10 and verse 10, you don't need to read read it. I can read it for you. It says the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly.
I'm the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Tonight, the shepherd has died for his sheep.
Are you one of his sheep tonight?
Are you one of his sheep tonight?
I'm one of his sheep.
He gave his life.
A ransom for all?
Have you accepted that ransom? Have you taken the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
I think everyone in this room may know what that means, but I'm going to explain that a little bit. Let's turn to John chapter 4.
In John chapter 4 it is my.
Favorite story to tell in the gospel about the woman at the well?
But on the other side of that page in John three, I'm going to read the same verse that was read last night. It says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
God does not want you to die in your sins.
God wants you to accept His love gift. He wants you to take eternal life. He wants to offer you tonight eternal life.
What made that possible?
God is holy.
God is holy and God cannot overlook your sin.
I don't think if I ask for a show of hands that there would be anybody in this room that would raise their hand and say that they haven't.
Did something wrong?
Sin.
You know, I got an e-mail this afternoon. This morning there was a spam.
And it said I have hacked your e-mail account.
It's very clever spam.
And it said that I know everything about you. I know every place you've ever visited, every website you've ever been to.
And I'm going to send an e-mail out to everyone in your contact list and show them every place you've ever been on the Internet.
And if you pay me $756 in the next 72 hours?
I won't do it.
And it went around my office this afternoon.
And I emailed the IT person. Please tell everyone that spam don't pay the $756.
If every single thing that you had ever thought you'd ever looked at on your phone, your computer.
Everything you'd ever done. Can you imagine? And it was right up here on the wall, right here.
If it was me.
Be really embarrassing.
But I have a God who knows every single thing about me and he still loves me.
You have sinned, the Bible says you have sinned. All have sinned and come short of the of the glory of God. You have fallen short. You have sinned against the holy God and someone has to pay for that sin. God is holy. He's going to demand payment for that sin.
And if you don't accept God's gift tonight, you're going to have to pay for your sins, and you will never be able to pay for your sins.
You forever.
Will be as separated from God in hell.
My sins were paid for by godson, it says right here.
God so loved the world, that's the people world that he gave his Son. God gave his Son for me so he could bear my sins and his own body on the tree, the cross.
The God punished Jesus his Son for my sins.
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All those bad thoughts I've ever had, all those bad things I've ever done.
God punished Jesus for my sins.
I can stand here and I can be clean.
And all my sins washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you say that tonight? Do you have peace with God? It says peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you have that peace tonight or are you still thirsty for that peace? Are you still looking for that piece?
Are you still looking for that next thing that's going to make you happy? What's the next thing that you think is going to make you happy?
You know the wisest man.
In all the Earth.
Solomon, he said all.
This vexation spur.
He had anything he wanted.
No, don't make her happy.
You can talk to people that have everything materialistically and some of them are the most miserable people you've ever met.
I kind of like flying Southwest down here, Southwest Airlines, because there's no first class. You know, some of those people are the most miserable people in the world. Every once in a while get to sit next to one of them.
It was just kind of fun, you know, it's like everybody's the same tonight. Everybody's same here. We're all, all have sinned, all have come short of the glory of God.
Now you know, tonight, if you've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior, he doesn't remind you that you're a Sinner. You're not a Sinner anymore. You're a St. you're a cold one. You're chosen, you're adopted in the family. He wants you. He wants to have a relationship with you. See, God wants to have a relationship with you tonight. He wants to have communion with you. He wants to have fellowship with you. That's what he that's what he wanted from Adam and Eve.
He was walking with them in the cool of the day.
Can you imagine? Can you imagine walking with God now? They cool today. The Garden of Eden. Incredible.
Then there was a man by the name of Enoch, and it says he walked with God. That's what God wants to do with you right now. He wants to walk with you.
He wants to have fellowship with you.
That's what he wants, but fellowship has been broken because of sin.
You have sinned against the Holy God.
And you are. You have a desire, you have a thirst that the only thing that can satisfy that thirst is the Lord Jesus Christ. You can try everything.
I talk to a lot of people and they are trying a lot of different things and they come up empty every time.
We're going to read a few verses in John chapter 4. John chapter 4, if you don't have a Bible, it's okay, but it's about a woman that the Lord Jesus meets at a well in Samaria. And there's a verse in chapter 4 starting with verse four, it says and he, the Lord Jesus must needs go through Samaria, the Lord Jesus.
I say reverently must.
Have the Holy Spirit in this room tonight, working with souls he must.
Be in the summary is a picture of this world tonight. He's in this room, in this world, searching for souls. He wants you to be saved.
He has gone at great lengths. The gospel is going forth through way far out places, hard to get places. And tonight, right here in Southern California, he's made it very easy for you to come. You're comfortable in your chair. How are you going to say no?
You have to actually say no.
It's that easy. The gospel is being handed to you. It couldn't be made more simple the last two nights.
You have been rejecting the gospel. You've been saying no to God's Christ. You've been saying no, I want my own way. It says there's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ways thereof are the ways of death.
You're on your way to hell tonight. If you don't have Christ, all you have to look forward to is death.
And I'm not just talking about your death of your body.
You will be put.
And do what scripture called hell.
It'd be one thing, you know, men want to think that you just die like a dog.
When your body's done, but there's a resurrection.
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From the dead and the one that's called from among the dead.
That second death.
Is when you'll be raised to go to the Great White Throne and be judged for your sins.
And God will.
Have to put you in hell.
There's no decision that needs to be made at that time. You your decision is being made right now.
You know, you say, well, I'm not really decided.
The Gospel of John.
Says you're condemned already.
That's what God says. You are condemned already.
Do you have a thirst inside tonight?
Do you want happiness? Do you want?
Satisfaction.
Or what are you numbing that with? Are you still thinking that this world will give you the next?
Fun time.
Let's read about this woman here.
In chapter 4 verse seven of John, it says there cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water.
Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
It makes sense. There's a well, there's a lady there. She's pulling water out of the well. The Lord Jesus is there.
Let's skip down to verse 9. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, ask a drink of me which I'm a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The Samaritans were despise people, but the Lord Jesus, he knew this, and he was there for a purpose.
And he was there for more than just a natural drink of water likes in his bottle.
Verse 10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our Father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
What's the answer to that question? Is the Lord Jesus greater? Yes, he was greater.
This woman was standing in front of the Creator of the universe.
Do you know tonight that the Creator of the universe came down?
As a baby into this world.
Human flesh.
To go to the cross of Calvary.
The creator of the universe.
Came down and took a body.
And that man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is standing here at this well in Samaria.
He's the same man that went to the cross.
And died for my sins. And he is talking to this woman.
It's not a crowd, you know, tonight people don't get saved in crowds. This is one-on-one. This is you and the creator of the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to be satisfied, and he wants to give you a drink of water so that you never thirst again.
And the only way you can come.
Is to have your sins washed away, and you got to come to the cross and you got to leave your sins.
At the cross.
We're going to see that.
Verse 13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him.
Shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come thither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus saith unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband.
We just read something.
The Lord Jesus knows everything about you. Thou God sees me.
Verse in the Bible he knew everything about this woman he knew all of her past and he knew exactly what was going on tonight. You have to have repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. You can't just say well you know I just want to get saved. I just want to accept.
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That's it. You have to be sorry for your sins, repentance towards God. You have sinned against the holy God and your sins will take you to hell.
And you're on the way to destruction.
Death is before you, and there's nothing you can do except for come to the.
Besides coming to the Savior, this the Savior here, the Lord Jesus.
Says here.
I think we can relate with this tonight. This world is in a very low moral state. Very low.
What does he say here?
Go call thy husband. Do you think the Lord Jesus didn't know she didn't have a husband? She'd have a husband.
Thou hast had five husbands.
And he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband this woman.
As not only living in immorality.
But she's looking for love. Are you looking for love tonight?
You're not going to fight in this world, you're not going to find it and the best relationships of this world, you will not find a satisfaction like you can find if the Lord Jesus Christ, he will satisfy the longing heart.
Tonight the Lord Jesus is the only thing He created you, and He is the only one that can satisfy that heart that He created.
Tonight do you have a thirst, a longing and a void, and you don't know what that is? It's an emptiness.
This woman had that.
What does she do?
Verse 19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Religion is not going to help this out situation.
I have heard more excuses going to the nursing homes when I was young with my dad and my grandpa.
My grandmother was a Sunday school teacher. What does a grandmother being a Sunday school teacher have to do with anything? This is personal.
I've heard so many excuses. I played in the choir.
I was a pastor at this church.
It doesn't do any good for you. This is serious business right here. Where? If you die tonight, where will you spend eternity?
You need to think about the excuses that you give other people.
If you put your head on your pill tonight and you don't wake up, where are you going to go?
This woman right here.
She had some excuses, but let's see what happens. Verse 21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship. You know not what we know, what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
You mean the father seeks a Sinner? A woman who's had five husbands and living in sin?
That's what my Father does. My Father is seeking sinners.
That's what it is. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.
Those that are wholly not a physician. If you're not sick tonight, you don't need what I have for you.
That's what Scripture says.
But Scripture also says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Is there someone in this room?
Just trying to wow can't use my cell phone without anybody seeing.
Got 7 more minutes like those bears through it and it just won't be till next year. Maybe you only come to conference once a year. You only come to the gospel once a year. I don't know. Maybe you avoid gospel meetings.
This is important. Last night in a prayer for the Gospel, I was quite touched. There's a man in this room right now. He was saved at this conference when he was eight years old. It was a long time ago.
00:30:00
I always say that the gospel mean there could be someone in this room that's not saved right now. I can't tell. But God knows exactly inside your heart if you're saved or not. It's a scary thing to be lost. It's scary.
God wants to have a relationship with you.
It says he's seeking worshippers.
Verse 24 we learn more about God. It says God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him.
In spirit and in truth.
You know, people say, well, can you prove to me there's a God?
I can't prove to you there's a God.
Why is that? It says God is a spirit.
God can be everywhere.
He can be on in this area, he can be somewhere else.
Don't try to put your reasoning around God. My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways.
That's what it says in Isaiah 55.
Let me read read that verse.
Believe it says that the heavens.
Started with verse six. Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found, Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts, Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
You know, we have in scripture that phrase, I thought.
Leave your thoughts. If your thoughts are not thoughts from the Word of God, your thoughts are wrong.
Leave your thoughts.
The Lord Jesus tonight wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to have fellowship with you.
The Lord Jesus loves you.
Verse 28 says the woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and said to the men, come see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?
This woman.
Found the answer.
Do you want to come clean tonight? You don't have to come clean to me. You can just bow your head right where you're at and you can tell the Lord Jesus I'm a Sinner. I have sinned against you.
And I accept your gift of your death on the cross.
Your blood to wash away my sins.
The load was off. This woman, she's telling the men.
And the city?
A different story than she used to tell them.
She's saying here's the Messiah, here's the sent one from God, here's.
A man that knows everything about me and still loves me.
The way I am.
Do you think?
That there be anybody that could stand behind this pulpit.
Based on their good works and telling everybody just to do a better job and.
If it wasn't for the cleansing blood of Christ, no one would have a right to ever stand here and say anything. There would be nothing to say.
Be nothing to say it's not of works, lest any man should boast. That's what scripture says.
And in Ephesians it says, let's turn it. Ephesians, chapter 2.
It says for by grace in verse eight, are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. And then that verse not of works, lest any man should boast tonight. Maybe you don't have faith. You say I don't have faith.
I agree with you. You probably don't have faith, but he's willing to give you the gift of faith. Just ask him for the faith to believe.
God.
Had to punish.
The Lord Jesus for my sins.
The Lord Jesus.
Suffered on the cross of Calvary for my sins.
Can you say he's my savior? There's a verse that we started with says.
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What thinking of Christ?
There's another verse that says, Is it nothing to you? All ye that pass by? Is it nothing to you? Is this gospel mean nothing to you? Just mean nothing.
Is your heart still hardened if you hear the word of God? Does it mean nothing to you? Are you not affected?
Do you feel the weight of your sins? Do you feel the knocking?
The Spirit of God in your heart.
You know, there's a verse in Genesis that says my Spirit shall not always strive with man. What if you've gone to hundreds of gospel meetings?
And tonight you say no in the spirit of God stops knocking on your door. If he stops knocking on your door, you won't be able to get saved.
My spirit will not always strive with man. I didn't write the verse, it's the word of God.
Tonight, take the Word of God serious.
Are you going to accept Christ?
As your savior.
Tonight is this decision is easy. It's Christ or tell.
Let's commend ourselves.
Our Father.
We thank thee for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for sending him to this world, this poor, wicked world, men like ourselves, women like ourselves that would take the Son of God.
Treat him so cruelly.
On that cross. But we think of those three dark hours where he suffered and was made sin for us, the one who knew no sin.
That we could be set free tonight. We pray that if there's a center in this room that has not accepted thee as their Savior, that they would come tonight. We pray that they would take this very seriously. Our Father, we just ask this in my precious name, Amen.
The Life of the Lord Jesus Christ
Open Mtg. 8
Open—R. Thonney, R. Boulard
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You brother, select speakers.
So I'm going to answer that question publicly to some degree, but I'll tell you, the brothers got together in a care meeting. We started with prayer, asking for the Lord's help. We selected speakers.
It wasn't a simple process, but.
We did it. We selected a couple backups, a couple alternates, because you never know. You need to be prepared for contingencies. And we ended the meeting in Word of prayer, asking that the Lord.
Would help those brothers that we selected.
I believe he's answered our prayers.
Let's talk a little bit about the reading meeting. You know that's I need to say. First of all, the plan now is to have an open meeting this afternoon as the Lord may lead. It's similar to the.
Reading meaning, does it not? When we gather together on the Monday morning many of you are here, but it just it it, it just had an impression upon me. So I'd like to replay it, if you will, from my perspective. But we sat down in the reading meeting and sent a hymn with some brother prayed.
And there is a silence.
I believe it was the time of waiting on the Lord and I don't know if it was 2 minutes or.
Six or eight seemed like a fairly.
Lengthy and appropriate point of time.
One brother said, well, he'd like to recommend the.
1St chapter of Second Peter.
I thought, well, that's a good chapter. You know, a lot of good principles, grace, peace, virtue, temperance, et cetera. Not laws, but principles. And I was waiting for Bill Brockmeier to jump up and read the chapter. Well, before Bill had a chance to read the chapter, there was another brother, he said. That's exactly the portion I had on my heart.
It didn't end there. There was a third brother.
I had the same thought.
My thinking is the Lord ordered that.
And our prayer is that he'll.
Be over the next meeting as well. Having said that, please turn to some familiar verses with me. These are from the Word of God.
First Peter, chapter 4, verse 11.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praised and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Another familiar portion in First Corinthians chapter 14.
One Corinthians chapter 14, verse 29. Let the prophet speak two or three, and let the other judge if anything be revealed to another that sitteth by. Let the first hold his peace.
We may all prophecy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.
Let's pray.
Our God and our Father.
We just commit this meeting into thy hands.
And thy name we pray. Amen.
Like to go back to first John, one that our brother Jim read a few verses from this last meeting.
I have.
Truly enjoyed this first chapter of John's epistle. Like we mentioned the other day, John.
Deals with the family of God.
And a word occurs four times in this chapter, that is.
Characteristic of family life.
It's the word fellowship.
And I have found it very helpful. Jim mentioned it in his meeting. Salvation is something that cannot be lost.
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But fellowship is something that can be lost very easily.
And so to go over these verses in brief, I don't want to take a whole lot of time. I'd like to leave time for others as well, but I'm going to read this chapter.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard.
Which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands of handled.
Of the word of life, for the life was manifested, and we have seen it.
And their witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
And these things right we unto you, that your joy may be full.
This then is the message that we have heard of him and declaring to you that God.
Is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness.
We lie and do not the truth, but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sins.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in US, we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in US.
So this chapter begins.
With a beginning.
We have a beginning that in Genesis one that was read this morning. We have a beginning in John One.
But this is different than the beginning in Genesis One and the beginning in John one.
This is the beginning of the manifestation of eternal life in the person of the Lord Jesus. When He came into this world for the first time you could see displayed what eternal life was.
And so this is the beginning of the manifestation of eternal life.
In the person of the Lord Jesus. And it's interesting.
To connect this, I like to connect it with a verse in John chapter 8.
If you want to go back there and verse 25.
The Lord Jesus is speaking here.
To the Pharisees.
Of his time and he says.
Oh, they ask him, verse 25. They said unto him.
Who art thou?
And Jesus said unto them.
Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning, there's the very same expression that you have in verse one of our chapter, that which was from the beginning. And the apostle John, of course, is the one who is writing this here.
But he includes the other witnesses as as well, because he says that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have, which we have heard first of all, which we have seen with our eyes, we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life. To me it is so amazingly wonderful, brethren, that we can know God.
In the person of the Lord Jesus. Amazingly wonderful, this puny little creature on planet earth.
Can know the eternal God of the universe.
Is that possible? Yes, that is possible. How in the world is that possible? Because he came into the world as a man. And man to man we speak and we make each other understand, and so he came as a man.
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We heard him.
We saw him with our eyes.
We looked upon him and he came so close.
That the apostle John could say our hands have handled. We know we're not talking.
Cleverly devised fables. When we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. That's what we are going to have in the chapter tomorrow.
Oh, brethren, these things are historical realities. He came into this world so that we could know him. And I love these little phrases in verse one. What's the difference between seeing and looking on?
Seeing as perhaps just a glance, I saw that person on the street this morning. OK, but it may have been just a glance. Looking on is more detained.
Somebody has said it this way. One look to Jesus saves the soul.
Every after look is the power of Christian living, and the more you look at him, the more you're going to see complete, absolute perfection. Oh, how wonderful it is to go through the Gospels and not only see him.
But look on him.
Sometimes say to my brethren in Latin America, don't look at me too close because you're going to see quite a bit of imperfection, but you can look at the Lord Jesus all you want. You can magnify Him. You know, in the printing industry, I noticed that those that run printing presses have a magnifying glass and they look at what they printed and when you magnify it, you see the defects in it.
Put the magnifying glass to the Lord Jesus. All you're going to see is complete perfection every single time. So that's what it means to look upon him. Don't only just see him, look upon him and then he says our hands have handled of the word of life for the life was manifested and we have seen it.
And bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life.
Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto him, unto us. So the Lord Jesus is that eternal life that was with the Father in His manifested unto us.
And then verse three, that which we have seen and heard declare we.
Unto you.
You know, in Acts chapter 2 we have a verse that we often quote. They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread and in prayers.
Beautiful outline of Christian practice for us today.
They continued steadfastly in the apostles, Doctrine and fellowship. Apostles modifies both doctrine and fellowship. It's the doctrine of the apostles. It's the fellowship of the apostles. And so that's what you have here in this verse, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. There's the apostles.
Doctrine, and upon that doctrine is based our fellowship.
We can't just get together and say now what can we be in agreement on here? We're going to establish a new group of believers and what can we be in agreement with it? No, it's already established. It's for us to read it and to learn. And that's what we do in reading meetings when the Spirit of God is given liberty to open the Scriptures. So it's the apostles fellowship. But it doesn't end there. He goes on.
Say and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Brethren, it has been such a privilege and a joy to my own soul to realize that God is a personal God. He's a God that wants fellowship with His creature, and it seems evident when he made Adam and Eve. In the beginning he came down in the cool of the day and evidently was his practice to walk.
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Alongside his creature Adam.
Adam, the creature God the Creator, walks side by side.
In fellowship, That's the way God wants fellowship with his creature.
But we know the story, how that sin came into the world and that fellowship was broken.
And God, when he restores something, never restores it exactly the way it was before.
No, now we can have fellowship with God, but not as Creator creature merely, but now as Father and children in His family. And so that's what we have. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Brethren, that's where real enjoyment lies. You young people get a hold of it. It's not having a bunch of stuff in this world.
That's going to satisfy your soul. It's walking in fellowship with the Lord Jesus with God as Father. That's what's going to be that satisfies your soul. So he says in verse four, these things right we unto you that your joy may be.
Half full? Does it say no full?
What Father here wants his children just to be half happy or joyful?
No, we want our children to enjoy things in life and our father is no different. Here is the recipe.
Walk in fellowship with your God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the way of true happiness and joy in life.
And what we have mentioned in the reading meetings, I want to mention again.
Fellowship is.
He talks with us.
And we talk with him that way there's an interchange.
And you cannot neglect the reading of the precious Word of God and enjoy fellowship.
Oh, how important it is to enjoy fellowship.
If you come back to Lawrenceville and stay in our house with us.
I think you'd find it strange if you'd see that my wife talks to me every once in a while, but I never pay any attention, nor do I answer her. You say something's wrong here.
And that would be right. Thankfully, it's not that way. It's an interchange and every once in a while we're talking together. That's normal in family life and so much so more so in the family life and God's family. Do you take time to read the scriptures? You know, it's been a joy to me to see some.
Who of young people who have really gotten into the reading of the scriptures?
And it's just not reading maybe 5 minutes a day because like we mentioned the other day, you can read a chapter.
Easily, quite easily in 5 minutes.
But I've seen some they're they're half an hour, sometimes even more an hour.
Reading the scriptures, meditating, maybe reading some ministry on it. That's part of it. Listening to His voice speak to us. And then prayer. Do you take prayer seriously?
I think Jay mentioned it that long prayers.
Or for the closet, when you say that, brother, and I agree with that. I remember Clem Buchanan, who was a spiritual father to me. He said short prayers for the prayer meeting, long prayers for the closet. I think that's a pretty good principle to think about. Not that we want to make rules, but.
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Do you take time to pray? I mean really pray. Take time to speak to the Lord, to pour out your heart. You know, when we pray, we're not trying to convince God of doing something that we know He already wants to do. But what I find is that in prayer we get into fellowship. We get into the line of His.
Thinking, and that's important.
How much time do you take to pray?
You know, Martin Luther, I understand, made this statement and it was impressive to me, he said.
I have so much to do every day.
I can't take any less than three hours to pray.
No wonder that man was used of God the way he was in his time frame.
Brethren, it's important, the reading of the Word and prayer. That's the way we cultivate fellowship. I find prayer not easy. I find it's labor.
And.
It's valuable labor exercise. You know, when you exercise, you grow important things to keep in mind.
But now verse 5.
This then is the message we have heard of him, and declare unto you that.
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
I love how John is so simple in his statements. God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
What is light? We have the definition of what light is in Ephesians chapter 5. I'm not going to turn to it now, but light is that which manifests everything.
In the light, you can't hide anything. If you try to hide in the light, you're going to make yourself that much more evident. Hey, you're trying to hide something. What is it?
You can't do it.
Besides that.
In Him is no darkness at all. You know, in the very first chapter of the Bible, God divided the light from the darkness, and you can't mix those two things. They don't mix. They're mutually exclusive. Don't try to mix them up.
That's the way the enemy of our souls constantly tries to do. Yeah, I know you're a Christian, but come on, don't be so rigid.
You can't mix them, it doesn't work.
And so that's an important thing to realize. Those two things don't mix light and darkness.
Then verse six. Notice.
If we say.
Notice the first words of verse eight if we say.
Notice the first words of verse 10. If we say.
It's easy to talk.
But God puts the task to us, if we savor 6 that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. You know John speaks in black and white.
He doesn't have any shades of Gray.
And if we say that we have fellowship with him and.
There's some darkness in there.
You're lying. He puts it right out there.
In the open.
Doesn't work. You can't do that.
Verse 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light.
We have fellowship one with another.
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This is beautiful, brother.
You're walking in the light.
And I'm walking in the light.
We meet up together and what do we find?
There's fellowship between US, and that's normal Christianity.
Yes, sometimes children in a family may fight, but that's not normal.
Normal is to have fellowship and so we have fellowship namesa that we're walking in the light with one another. Just want to point out to the fact that in verse three we have fellowship of the apostles mentioned 1St and then it says that that fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. That's first.
Brethren, fellowship with our brethren isn't first.
I want to encourage you to cultivate fellowship with the Lord, first of all on the ground of what we have in Scripture, the apostles doctrine.
And then what is the result is fellowship one with another. And it's a beautiful thing wherever you go in this world to meet up with believers who have that same eternal life because they have accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior. They're born into God's family. They have the very life and nature of God.
Eternal life and you enjoy fellowship.
Sometimes I see brethren that can't even.
Converse together because they don't know each other's languages, but they sit down together and maybe they use their Bibles to point out certain verses. Man, it's so amazing to see the fellowship that there is there. It's a reality. It's in the measure that we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son, that there's fellowship with one another.
Notice the end of verse 7 is a verse we use in the gospel a lot of times. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin.
It's the blood that can cleanse from sin, and sin is what impedes fellowship.
Just want to make this statement that the cleansing of the blood of Christ is once for all when we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior. Do we need cleansing after that? Yes we do. But it's not the cleansing of the blood then, it's the cleansing of the washing of water by the word. And that's why.
In the Tabernacle, as the priest went in to do the service, there was the labor.
To wash their hands and feet.
So that's important too. But when it says the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin is simply making a statement of what the blood of Christ does, it is powerful to take away that question that impedes fellowship. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Jim mentioned those last three verses and I just want to briefly.
Mention them again because I see in those last three verses.
The way of restoration when fellowship is lost. And I notice that OFT times young people, maybe older ones too, who get out of fellowship with the Lord. Maybe it's not anything that serious, maybe a little lie. Here I am walking with my Lord.
During the day and I tell a lie.
Is there fellowship now?
It wasn't that bad of a lie. Maybe I could say there was a little white lie.
Is there fellowship?
Sorry, no fellowship.
Yes, I still have that life, but fellowship has been broken.
How am I going to deal with it? And I find so many times people don't understand how to deal with sin in their lives as believers. And if you read verse 8 and verse 10, I want to draw attention to it. You'll notice there are two verses are somewhat similar.
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But there's a difference, and I think it's important to notice the difference. Verse eight, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US. Verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in US.
If you notice, verse eight is talking about sin, that root principle that's in every one of us that's in nature. Verse 10 speaks of the act of sin. We say that we have not sinned, it's the act. So you have the root in verse eight and the ACT in verse 10. And it's important when we sin not only to recognize and judge the act that we've done.
But to recognize the root of it, you know, sometimes people recognize I know what I did was wrong, but really I'm not guilty. That other guy, he provoked me and he's guilty.
You'll never get restored if you talk that way. That accusing finger has to come back to your own breast. Just what happened in the Garden of Eden? When the Lord asked? Adam said the woman, and the woman wasn't any better. She says the serpent.
Let's learn if we have sinned, to put that finger right here and recognize I sinned because I let my old nature act and that's why fellowship was broken. So it's important not only to recognize and confess the act that we did, but the reason why we did that.
Was because of our sin nature here and if we'll do that, then there can be restoration. And Jim was mentioning it in verse nine and I think that is so important and I just want to reinforce what he said. Confession is not asking for forgiveness.
Confession is telling him exactly what you did. Don't beat around the Bush. He already knows what you did. Tell him that's important. That's confession. I sometimes say Jim and I were walking together and we were having good fellowship, but maybe I get annoyed at him.
And.
I tell him off.
Well, that's sin.
Fellowships broken.
If I say forgive me, Jim, I'm not thinking about what I did that was wrong. I'm thinking about he's probably kind of put off at me and I'd rather he wouldn't be that way. So I'm going to say forgive me. That's not what we need to do. Just like Jim said, we don't need to ask for forgiveness. We have forgiveness, says in Chapter 2. We have it. It's a present possession.
But what we need to do is confess.
And when I confess, I have to recognize the bad thing I did and say, so that's confession. And that's so important to do when we get out of sorts, when we lose fellowship with the Lord, confess. And so it says, if we confess our sins in verse nine, he is faithful and just.
To forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
I just wanted to mention that the forgiveness that it mentions there is not judicial forgiveness, it's governmental forgiveness. It's the forgiveness that God has as a father in his family. And if there's not that we don't get restored like God wants us to walk in fellowship with him rather than these are simple principles and especially for you, dear young people.
I just want to encourage you to walk in fellowship with the Lord.
These are principles to think about, to put into practice. We need to judge ourselves constantly and to walk with a tender conscience. Don't ignore the voice of conscience, Paul said. Herein do I exercise myself to have always?
A conscience void of offence toward God.
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And toward men.
Let's be exercised, dear young people, to walk in fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, and as a result, in fellowship with one another.
Turn with me if you would, to 2nd Kings Chapter 4.
We've been Speaking of fellowship, and I had this little passage on my heart.
And just meditating upon a few statements of it.
During the last few days, so perhaps the Lord has.
Leading this way. So chapter 4, verse one.
Now their cry to certain women of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elijah, saying, Thy servant, my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, and the creditor has come to take him unto him, my two sons, to be bondsman. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house?
And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil.
Then he said, Go borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out unto into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went in, and went from him, and shut the door upon her.
And upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her.
And she poured out, and came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her, Son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.
Then she came and told the man of God, and he then and he said, Go sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest. And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to shoot him, where was a great woman.
And she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as OFT as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold now I perceive that this is a holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall, and let us set for him there a bed and a table.
And a stool.
And a Candlestick, and it shall be when he cometh to us that he shall turn in thither. And it fell on a day that he came in thither, and turned into the chamber, and lay there. Well, that's all we'll read. But you know our brother was Speaking of fellowship.
And how the Saints and the old at the beginning of the Church period they were characterized by continuing steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and in prayers.
And fellowship, you know, doesn't happen, just happen, does it?
There needs to be preparation in our hearts for fellowship to occur. God has made every provision that you and I could be in fellowship with him, in communion with our thoughts, with his thoughts. You know that word, fellowship or communion is translated that way. It's the same word, root word in the Greek and it's translated, I think it's used 16 times in the New Testament, fellowship or communion. And so that's why.
You know God has done a work.
To bring us into communion with himself. What did it cost him to bring us into communion with himself?
It says in connection with Paul's doctrine in chapter 10 in First Corinthians, he says that this cup, we give thanks for that cup. It's the, I'm not going to quote it correctly, I'm going to turn to it, but it's a cup of blessing, a cup of fellowship.
First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 16. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion or the fellowship of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion or the fellowship of the body of Christ? For we, being one that many, are one bread or one loaf and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.
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Well, you know, Christianity brings us into fellowship with divine persons, but the price that was paid to bring us into fellowship?
Was the blood of Christ?
We were as far from God as we could ever be, and yet He wanted us in fellowship. Shall we have this little picture given to us in the Old Testament of preparation of one who made preparation that there might be fellowship with that man of God? And Elijah, we know, is a little type of Christ. And so there was a day of ruin and weakness in Israel, a day that's similar to ours. And so that was a woman in weakness and one of the wives of the sons of the prophets.
And here is one that was in poverty in the land of Israel, the land that was flowing with milk and honey.
The best land in all of the earth. God had allowed famine and He had allowed things to come into ruin because of sin. And we know, as has been just pointed out, there has been a restoration of the truth of God during the 1800s. We know that the truth was recovered. All of it was recovered and were brought into the blessing of it, and we know that.
And it's not in the full power of what was at the beginning in Acts chapter 2 in the power of the Spirit. But you know this woman, she was asked this question in verse 2. Tell me what thou hast in the house. In the house she says a pot of oil. So we live in a day of weakness. Let's not despise the day of weakness, a day of small things.
It's the pot of oil speaks of being indwelled with the Spirit of God.
She was indwelled with the Spirit of God and maybe a small assembly that you come from, maybe a day of weakness. Perhaps we have a little relief from it in a sense, when we come to a conference this size. But we know that there's weakness among us, spiritual weakness, because there hasn't been made preparation for fellowship with the man of God. And we have a little example here, as I say, in this woman. She was given this instruction to take these pots.
Empty vessels.
Empty vessels. What does emptiness speak of? An empty vessel speaks of a humble vessel.
Let's read in first Peter chapter 5, that little verse, a couple of verses of Scripture that are sometimes partially quoted, and we might do better to quote the whole passage when we're thinking of it. First Peter chapter 5.
And.
Let's read just part way through verse five. First Peter 5, verse 5. For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. I believe the Lord is refreshed in his soul, refreshed in his heart, when He hears us call unto Him and express our needs and our weakness, and to tell him how weak we are, tell him how.
Needy we are.
But in humility we know that as Iah went into the temple and he went in in a prideful fashion and he came out a leper. But no, we can come into the presence of the Lord. We come into humility. We're nothing. You know, Brother Albert Hale used to say, had a little expression, perhaps Jim and others remember it. He used to say the brethren are all just a bunch of zeros.
Every one of us is just a zero, and except for the number one out in front, we'd all be zeros forever. So we have the Lord before us.
But she brought these vessels, empty vessels, and the oil was poured in. But you'll notice in verse four it says, when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee, and upon the sons, thy sons, and thou shalt pour out into all those vessels. Thou shalt set aside that which is full. Well, you know the shut door speaks of us.
Walking in separation and shutting the world out. Shutting the things of this world out.
That we might have fellowship and that we might go on in the power of the Spirit of God in our lives.
In some measure. And the reason perhaps for some of the weakness that we have and the lack of a sense of fellowship with the divine persons and the lack of fellowship with one another perhaps is because the door to the world is not shut and the fellowship doesn't flow forth as it ought to flow. And there's something that hinders that fellowship. And so those things that hinder, we need to keep the door shut from this world.
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Of separation, you know. She went in from him. There was obedience. Verse five, she shut the door.
Upon her and her sons.
And who brought the vessels to her and she poured out? You know God isn't going to.
Command that you come into his presence and humility as an empty vessel he's not going to demand it he's.
This woman took these empty vessels that were brought, and she filled them with oil.
There's not going to be a full oil. There's not going to be that full power of the Spirit and the manifestation of what the Lord is doing in blessing among His people, except we do follow this principle to shut the door and then to have that oil poured out. We know that the oil stayed. She was able to pay her debts and then live on the rest and so God.
Gives and he gives, and he gives an abundance. It's the Lord's desire that you and I would be filled.
With a joy and fellowship with divine persons, and in our lives characterized by the energy of the Spirit of God. Well, it says in verse seven that she came and she told the man of God.
Not nice to be able to tell the Lord those things that we do.
That in humility and our desire for communion with himself, that there might be that fruit for himself and enjoyment in our own souls of His presence.
So she he said, go sell the oil, pay thy debt, live thou and thy children of the rest. And so there's a separation. If there is a desire to keep the world out and to walk in fellowship with the Lord, there's going to be.
Results in the family, there's going to be results. And it says in the book of Romans, no man liveth unto himself, no man dies unto himself. You're going to have an effect upon others. So this woman had an effect upon her children, the generation, the next generation coming up. It says then in verse eight that it fell on a day that Elisha passed to shoot him.
Where was a great woman? She constrained him to eat bread. So here's another woman, a great woman, wealthy. She had means in connection with this world. And perhaps she was great in spiritual things. She was a woman that had a desire for spiritual things. You know, sometimes it's a shame perhaps to say it this way, but sometimes the sisters.
Are more spiritually minded than the brothers.
Sometimes a husband is not as spiritually minded as his wife.
And I've been very thankful to see and from one place to another, different sisters that read a little bit of ministry that come to the meetings faithfully and seek to raise their families for the Lord and so on. But they're spiritually minded.
They're actively engaged in spiritual things and there's blessing as a result. Her husband doesn't seem to have been of the same character. Perhaps he was a believer, but it says really that this man of God, Elijah, passed by and she constrained him to eat bread.
You know the Lord delights to have fellowship with his Saints.
And he delights to just have this desire that you might express or my might express from time to time to get a little to come in and to have fellowship with us. You ever when you're reading the scriptures, sometimes just ask the Lord for a little treasure, a little portion for yourself, just a little portion that it might be refreshing for yourself.
That's a wonderful thing to get, a little refreshment from the Lord, a little treasure, a little something.
A special treasure, but you know the Lord Jesus desires that you come and sit into his presence, that he might be refreshed himself.
That he might enjoy your company, that he might enjoy something and be refreshed. It says that he passed by and turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passes by us continually. Let us make.
A little chamber. She didn't step out of place in connection with her position as a woman. And she worked alongside her husband. I believe she deferred to him in this matter. She says let us, she encouraged him, make a chamber for thee upon the wall. And so I think it's Mr. Darby's translation. It says that it's a little chamber. I pray the width walls.
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And then again, it speaks of separation.
From this world, a little chamber with walls, you know, it's the little chamber perhaps might speak of the heart. A little chamber, a heart, the heart, a little place in the heart reserve for the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.
He says in Proverbs chapter 23 verse 23, it says my son give me thine heart. My son, give me thine heart. Well, this woman she prepared along with her husband, I believe a little chamber and then it was their preparation made that the man of God would have fellowship there in that home. And she says it was on the wall or with walls.
Let us set for him there a bed, a place of rest and refreshment.
You know, she knew what was characteristic, what would be the Lord would appreciate that He might have fellowship in that place. And you know, and I know as we read the New Testament, even the Old Testament, we know what's suitable for what the Lord would desire to have fellowship with us in our homes and in our lives.
She knew a little bed, a bed, a table. The table speaks of fellowship.
She wanted fellowship with the Son of God. She wanted with this man of God a picture of the Lord Jesus. She provided a table and a stool to sit at His feet. We have mentioned in these meetings the need for reading of the Scriptures.
I know it says in Acts chapter 17 that they searched the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so searching the scriptures is necessary. Reading the scriptures is necessary as well. You notice in Luke's Luke's Gospel chapter 10 that Mary of Bethany, she sat at the Lord's feet.
There was intelligence in connection with her course afterwards. There were all kinds of people came to the sepulchre after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but Mary and Bethany wasn't there. She believed what He had told her. She had sat in His presence and she had heard His words, and she believed there was something of communion with Mary and her Savior.
And so this little table, this table was provided a stool to sit.
In his presence. And then a Candlestick really might speak of his word to shed light on different aspects of things. And so she had those things.
Prepared it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.
Well, have you made preparation that the Lord might have fellowship with you? The man of God desires that he would have fellowship with you.
The characteristic that we have the of eternal life, the fact is that we're sons. Our brother Bob just brought before us, we're sons.
Does God have fellowship with the angels?
The angels are servants. They're servants forever. You wouldn't want to be an Angel. Angels are ministering servant spirits sent forth in service to those that shall be heirs of eternal life.
The Old Testament Saints. Abraham was sitting in the tent at the cool of the day, in the heat of the day. There he was.
The Lord came, had fellowship with Abraham. There was a place, a man that was in communion with God, and he spent time there, the Lord Jesus there with Abraham. But you and I were sons.
Let's read Ephesians chapter one, just a couple of verses.
Verse 4.
Ephesians one and verse four. According as He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, or should say sonship by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.
So in the past eternity, God looked down as he planned the whole of the creation.
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And he desired that there would be fellowship with his creature man, and there was fellowship in the Old Testament days with his people of Israel. And there were happy times during those years in Judaism when they walked in obedience to the Word of God.
But now in connection with the Christian testimony, you and I are sons, and God had predestinated us to be sons and to be in fellowship with Him during this age just before he he comes for us. He desired that we would enjoy His fellowship as those that are part of the family of God. But there's going to be preparation. I believe that's necessary. And this is what it speaks of in Second Kings chapter 4.
That preparation making let us make a little chamber. It wasn't mandated, was voluntary. I pray the upon the wall with walls separated from this world, a place of isolate, not isolation, but a place of.
Separation from all of the defilements of this world. A place suitable to enjoy fellowship with divine persons. A bed of refreshment. A table of fellowship. A stool habitual sitting at the feet of the Lord.
And a Candlestick having his word before us. But what a privilege to be able to enjoy fellowship with the Lord Jesus as a son, with the Father. Abraham could never call God as his father, but you call God as your father.
And you can pray to God the Lord. The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5 verse 20, he says, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do you thank the Lord for the privilege of being able to enjoy fellowship?
With him the Son of God, the Creator. Imagine the Son in the dignity of the position of a son, the favor of a son or a daughter.
Having fellowship with God himself.
Well, May God give us the desire to make preparation and keep ourselves in a prepared state to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus and to give Him refreshment to His own heart.
Can we sing #2 In the appendix, oh Lord, thy loves and founded, so sweet, so full, so free. My soul is all transported whenever I think. On the number two in the appendix, oh Lord, thy loves unbounded, so sweet.
My soul.
With.
No.
It is my laundry, laundry, laundry.
And I lost. I'd like to change training every time.
Yes.
My soul still considered.
My life was for God.
Of your illness, right?
And.
01:00:06
Much better.
So.
I will.
Towards me.
Jesus.
While I.
Celebrate.
And feeling I want to see.
Sooner than two.
Please.
All my grace.
To my soul.
And I can burns in this eyes. You love this.
My.
Surrender cells.
Our blessed Father, our God, it's been a privilege to be into the sound of this meeting, the open meeting where we've been edified and to take in these things, Our Father and our God, our blessed Lord Jesus, and the pathway that we have that we should continue to walk here.
And these blessed truths as they unfold, may they be put down into our shoe leather as we move forward. We're thankful for this time over Thy word these couple days thus far. And so as we wrap up the day, going into the meal, then going into the gospel meeting, we just do pray for continued blessing for the remaining part of this day. We love the Lord Jesus and we wait for Thy coming. In thy name we pray, Amen.
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