Carolina Conference: 2005
Table of Contents
1 Corinthians 10:11-22
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Transmitting.
Us through the worst we roam.
The printer.
We are not far from all.
Is the cup of the Lord, and what is the table of the Lord?
I know I've heard these expressions for.
All of my life.
And yet this is the only place in scripture that we have the expression the Lords Table of the Table of the Lord.
And from scripture.
From Stretcher, what do we gather to be the table of the Lord?
I know it is.
Associated with back to 18 were two or three are gathered together. That expression especially gathered together in my name. There am I amidst of them.
Association.
Time little expression we have in Chapter 11.
I can find it here. Yes, verse 20 when you come together, therefore into one place.
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And perhaps there's other associations that are made with the Lords table, but.
I had a little challenge myself recently in.
Allow me to.
To express a rather great weakness. But the Lord has encouraged us, I think this morning to acknowledge our weakness and expect to bless them.
And that is if I were to pick up the Bible and the Bible only.
And to describe what the Lords table is.
I found myself wanting.
And I would like to leave this meeting this morning.
Filled with understanding.
I suggest we read some of the verses surrounding this verse. Bruce.
Perhaps from verse?
13 through 22, would that be suitable?
A question about whether the subject is suitable.
For a congregation this large.
Let me tell you what I was burdened about before we go on.
And the 11Th Psalm, verse three, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
The Foundation.
The foundations are being destroyed.
I was thinking of quite different than Bruce's thoughts.
Genesis 1-2 and three.
The very foundation of our faith.
Is based upon God. Number one is the Creator.
And then as the Redeemer.
And I'm not suggesting we take that up this morning. Maybe this afternoon if the Lord still leads.
But.
There's no part of the Bible that has been attacked more than the 1St 11 Chapters in Genesis.
And if you destroy that?
Destroyed the whole word of God.
If the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do?
And it's so important with evolution being taught as an established scientific fact. And it's a, it's a, it's a lie.
And that we should, we should know from the word of God where we came from, how we got here. I think everyone does know this, but the young people are being flooded with error in their schools and so on over and over again being presented. I remember when I was a young believer, I was afraid to look into the subject of evolution because it was presented as a scientific fact.
And I was afraid that would destroy my faith in the Bible. With being the kind of person that I am, I had to look into it. And when I looked into it, I just gave a great sigh of relief. There was nothing there. It was a lie of the devil.
We've got the Word of God and the Lord Jesus. If the if the first chapters in Genesis aren't true, the Lord Jesus is a liar.
And all the references to that first book in the Bible in the New Testament is false.
So we have to, we have to realize it's not just that one portion, but what does that affect? It affects everything. Anyway, I'm just unburdening my my soul to you as I woke up this morning. That scripture that the foundations be destroyed. What should the righteous do?
I was talking to a young man on the.
The phone and he made some comment he was a Christian about Genesis 1, which I couldn't agree with.
But.
I don't know. I would say that if we do look into what Bruce brings before us, we shouldn't take a lot of time.
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Some things sometimes are better felt than tell, someone said. And So what a what a blessing it is that John was on the Isle of Patmos and he says I was in the spirit on the Lords day. And so on the Lords day, to be assembled and to be at the Lord's Table where the authority of the Lord is owned, and to partake of the Lord's Supper. I think I mentioned one time how that I saw an elderly brother.
Go to give thanks at the table, I thought to myself. Now I wonder if this has become commonplace within how many times and let's say he's 60 years old, Say he broke red 50 times a year and multiply them running these mathematics.
I was contemplating this. He got up and broke the bridge with tears streaming down his face. That's why I thought, well, it doesn't become commonplace.
Every Lord's day that we're there to remember the Lord in his death, it's just as though it was the first time we were over there to remember him in his death.
There are folks that we look upon as having left the Lord's Table and they themselves look at us as if we have left the Lords Table, so I think it's a good subject to take up.
We want to be sure.
Not that I'm doubting.
What portion would you suggest we'd look at to?
See.
It was suggested that we read it from the 11Th verse, First Corinthians 10.
Beginning 11 to 20 seconds.
1St Corinthians 10 of verse 11 Now all these things happened unto them, for example, and they are written for admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth. Take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you.
But such as is common to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.
But will with the temptation also make a way to escape, as you may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body.
For we are all partakers of that one bread.
Behold Israel after the flesh. Are they not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything but? I say that the things with the Gentile sacrifice, they are, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.
He cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?
You have Israel mentioned in verse 18. Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices?
Partakers of the altar.
That is, those that brought the peace offerings and ate part of the peace offerings they were expressing.
A fellowship with the altar. That was Judaism.
The Lord's Table is Christianity in contrast with the tables of demons which are which were the Gentile tables.
The Gentiles in verse two of chapter 12, he says, Ye know that you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as he were led. They were idolaters and there were many tables, there were many Lords and many gods. In Christianity there's one God the Father, 1 Lord Jesus Christ and one spirit.
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Which you have in the 12Th chapter, unfolded over and over again, Spirit of God, the same Spirit, he gave different gifts and so on. So it's a contrast here between Christianity when he speaks of the Lord's Table, and Judaism, which was the altar that the Jews went to. We're not a part of that. And also the tables of demons.
We don't, we don't have the tables of demons in this country. I don't believe there might be. There's some instances, but this is largely a Christian nation in that sense.
So that's that's the second here the Lord's table is that speaks of now the Lord's Supper speaks the bread on the table. Lord's Day morning speaks of his body in which he suffered for our sins.
The bread in First Corinthians 10 speaks of the whole body of Christ of which we are members of.
1St Corinthians 10 gives us the collective truth of the one body. 1St Corinthians 11 speaks of His personal body in which He suffered for our sins. That's the supper, and you eat the supper. You remember the Lord in his death, and you do that. If you're scripturally gathered, you do that.
At this table I just want to add in X20.
Connection with this subject.
X20.
In verse 28 Paul speaks he says take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost that made you overseers to feed the Church of God, which you have purchased with his own blood speaking about to the elders there from that city.
Yes, but I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own self shall men arise, speaking perverse things. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years I cease not.
To warn everyone night and day with tears.
What? Who does he commend them to? He warns them about what was going to happen in the Christian profession. It's happened. We're in the midst of it. What a mess has the enemy created?
Now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. He commends us to God and to His Word. That's our resource. In the midst of the confusion, the enemy comes in, and he scatters the flock also of your own selves. Men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. That wasn't true yet in the early church.
But he looks forward, he looks, he looks into the future as to what would take place and he says that.
In the 11Th chapter of One Corinthians he says verse 18, first of all, when he come together in the assembly, that is in assembly character, I hear there be divisions among you that that's an internal division, divisions among them. It hadn't resulted in an external break yet.
And I partly believe it, for there must be also heresies or sex or outward breaks. And we're surrounded with that many sex, many denominations over 1000 in this country.
There must be also heresies among you, that they which be approved, which are approved may be made manifest among you, that when you come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. That's interesting. The only time the Lord's Supper is mentioned, he says the way you're going on, the way you're carrying on at Corinth, you're not eating the Lord's Supper, you're eating your own supper. They were. Some of them were even drunken.
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Not in a right state of soul.
To really recognize that loaf represents Christ and that cup represents his precious blood.
And to take it without realizing it. And I want to make this comment in the first in the 10th chapter of First Corinthians.
The loaf doesn't speak of his personal body, but of his mystical body, which we're members of.
And if you're a member of that body, if you are a member of that body.
If you're sheltered by that precious blood and you don't break bread, why don't you?
That table, the Lord's Table, is for every believer.
To break bread there, that's God's thought. Then you look at all the divisions.
We were talking at the reading at home in the Old Testament.
They knew where this center was. It was at Jerusalem. It wasn't at Dan or at Bethel, which which had been set up.
It was at Jerusalem.
But you look around in Christendom, where, where, where is it?
Second Timothy 3 says in the last days difficult times shall be there. That's the right translation. Difficult times. It's not easy to find a way. Find a way. I'll tell you how to find it, though, limits all the divisions that exist in Christendom. Follow the man with the pitcher of water. That man is Christ, and the pitcher of water is the word of God. And if he leads you by his word, by the Spirit and me, we'll be together.
That's as far as you can go to say to say I someone said, well, then where should I go? Tell me where is the place? I said, I can't tell you where the place is because I could make a mistake. I'm just a fallible person.
But I can tell you one that never makes a mistake, and that's the Spirit of God. That's the man with the picture of water using the word of God, he'll never mislead you. And if you follow him, and I follow him, and you follow him and you follow him, we'll be together.
I don't know how better to put it. Let's just go for a moment, Brother Chuck, since you bring up Luke 22 and look at some scriptures there in connection with what you've said and just get the setting. Because when you take up a subject in the Word of God, it's always good to go back to the beginning of something. And it's good to go back to the beginning of the OR the occasion where the Lord Jesus instituted the Feast of Remembrance.
That's the beginning of it. In Luke 22 is where the Lord Jesus first took a loaf in a cup and said this. Do in remembrance of me. Before we read this, maybe I'll preface my remarks too by saying that when the Lord Jesus asked his own to commemorate him after he had left them, he didn't leave it to their idea of how they were to commemorate him. If the Lord Jesus had just said, I want you to Remember Me when I go away.
Everyone of us would be left up to our own idea as to how to remember him, to commemorate him. But he didn't leave it up to us. He took a loaf and a cup and he explained very carefully the format and the significance of how he wanted his own to remember Him after he had gone to the cross and returned to the glory. So let's read some scriptures here.
In Luke chapter 22, and I'm going to back up to verse 7. Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread when the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John saying, go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. I might just say before we read further that what the Lord Jesus had in view first of all here was the keeping of the Passover because they were still on Jewish ground. But nevertheless, brethren, the Lord knew that this was going to be the very time and the very place.
Where after the Passover Supper was commemorated, He was going to set that aside and He was going to bring before them how they were now to remember him when after the establishment of Christianity on the day of Pentecost. And so he let's go on here.
Verse nine. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepared? You know, I think that must have brought great delight to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
You know, they understood from the Old Testament Scriptures and the keeping of the Passover that it was never left up to them as to where they were to keep the Passover. God had made it very clear even before they entered the land that they were not to keep it in any place they chose, but that He would choose a place and that they were to come there. And we know that place was Jerusalem. And knowing this, that it was not left up to their choice. They say, where will thou?
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That we prepare. And so when there was this response, then there was very definite instruction given as to where they were to prepare. And rather that's what He wants on our part. If there's really a heartfelt response in connection with where the Lord Jesus would have us remember him, then He wants to lead us to the place. If I don't know the place or I'm not at the place, it's no hindrance on God's part or the part of the Lord Jesus. It's a hindrance on my part.
But let's go on verse 10. And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in, and you shall say unto the good man of the house. The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished. There make ready. And they went and found as he had said unto them.
And they made ready the Passover. Now again, it's the Passover that's in view here. But the principle is the same. And I want to just, I don't want to read into Scripture, brethren, and I don't want to take illustrations too far, but I have enjoyed these instructions of the Lord Jesus because again, his brother Chuck said there was the man during the picture of water. You say, well, why do you say the man is a picture of the Spirit of God? Well, if you trace through Scripture, you'll find that often.
Especially an unnamed man is often a picture of the Spirit of God. I'll just give you a couple of examples.
One is where Abraham sent his servant to fetch a bride for Isaac.
That's a picture of the Spirit of God sent down on the Day of Pentecost to call out a bride for Christ.
In this very book of Luke, we find that there's another example of the man being a picture of the Spirit of God.
He's the innkeeper. When the Samaritan was brought to the inn, the innkeeper was instructed to take care of him. The inn is a picture of the assembly is in the assembly where we can be ministered to by the Spirit of God and our needs met with. Just one other example comes to mind. The servant sent out to compel them to come into the marriage. That's a picture of the Spirit of God because it's only the Spirit of God that can compel souls when its servants. Plural in another gospel.
It's you and me because we can bid them to the marriage. We tell forth the gospel and we bid souls to come to Christ, but it's the Spirit of God that compels them to come in. I just show that because you might say, well, why do you say the man here bearing the picture of water is the Spirit of God? Often I say an unnamed man in Scripture is a picture of that very thing. We know. We see very clearly the Word of God, The water is the word of God, the washing of water by the Word, and so on.
But I want to notice the other instructions. First of all, they were to go into the city. Now a city often in Scripture speaks to us of this world in its confusion. The first mention of a city, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and builded a city. It's this world in confusion going on without God, and we're in this world. We're not of it, but we're physically here in a world of confusion. But then there was something else. They were to go into the house. Now I like, and this is just an application, brethren, but I like to think of this in connection.
For our day, as to what we have in Second Timothy, we have a great house where the House of God has become a mixture of profession and reality. And as Chuck said, these are difficult times. It's hard to discern the mind of the Lord in a state of utter outward confusion. Thank God the Lord knows them that are His, not confusion to Him. But outwardly things are fragmented in confusion. Now let me just say in that connection.
I have wondered this, brethren, if there weren't others in that house on that occasion, perhaps God fearing pious Jews who kept the Passover. But it wasn't just entering into the house. It was a specific room in that house. Because had they chosen any other room in the house that night, they could have kept the Passover, but they would have missed the Lord in their midst. And there was not only the entering into the house.
But a large upper room furnished, shown to them by the men, by the Goodman of the house. And it's upper, It's a place of separation. It's large because the ground is large. And when the hour was come, he sat down. That wasn't true in any other room in that house, or any other house in Jerusalem. There was a place where the Lord had appointed. And when they followed very carefully the instructions of the Lord Jesus.
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They sat down with the Lord Jesus in their midst and as a result, they not only kept the Passover with the Lord Jesus that night, but as I say, after it was done, then he takes a loaf and a cup and he says this do in remembrance of me. I remember being in visiting my daughter Jan in the Denver area and I was just listening to a conversation that was going on between.
Her and a young man that was there and he said to her, after a lot of discussion back and forth, he said, you think you're the only ones that are right.
And I couldn't keep quiet any longer. And I said, would you rather we thought we were wrong?
Is there anything wrong about wanting to be right?
Wanting to be where the Lord would have us to be. There can either be.
No table.
Or one table, but not two or three or four or five or six. It's got to be either one or none.
But what gives conviction to that Chuck is the word of God itself. And I think that's why it's so important that.
That sometimes we might say this is the Lord's table, but I might be mistaken. I've been mistaken before. And if there are young people here and they say, well, brother, so and says that this is the right place, is that going to stand, brother, that will not stand.
What will stand is, like Jack said, I commend you to God and the word of his grace. That's what's going to stand. And that's what faith is based on, the word of God, not what brethren say about the Word of God, but the Word of God itself. And so it's important to be established in what Scripture says. Going back to first Corinthians 10, brethren, it's interesting to see the context.
Beginning of this chapter.
Speaking about the history of Israel.
As well as verse 18, it speaks about Israel.
Because God's principles do not change. Even though we live in a different time, in a different dispensation, still the principles are the same. And when He takes up this question of the Lord's table, what kind of people is He talking about in this chapter? Look at it, brother.
Those that were brought out of Egypt, what kind of people were they? Verse 6.
They lusted after evil things. Verse 7, idolaters. Verse 8, fornicators. Verse nine. They tempted Christ. Verse 10, murmurs.
You get the picture, brother. You're not going to see the Lord's Table by looking at the people.
And that's what happens so often. We get looking at the people and say those people, how could that be? You're not going to get the picture clear if you look at the people.
We're not any better than they were back then in Israel.
Not a wet feather, brother, but it's not the matter of who we are as people.
It's a matter of the Lord, and His table is the place where His authority is recognized, and He has given His place of authority. That's what I like to think of when I speak of the Lord's table. It's the place where His authority is recognized.
Brother Tom Roach may invite me to.
His house for a meal. I sit down at his table. This is Tom Roach's table. If I don't honor you, brother, you have every right to say, brother, there's the door. You can go out. I hope I won't do that, but that's the truth. You have authority. And when I sit down there, I should recognize this is the place where Tom Roach is an authority. And when we speak of the Lord's Table, it's the place.
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Where the Lord has authority. Is this a mere theological term? A mere doctrinal thing we talk about with no practical reality?
God doesn't give us things like that, brother, when there are things that are taught, it's because there is a place in this world that is called, and here it is called only once. Like it's been said, the Lord's table. And if I submit to His authority properly, you submit to His authority properly. We're not going to be divided in our fellowship together.
We're going to be one because there's only one table. Doesn't say the Lord's tables.
Only the Lord, The Lord's Table. I enjoyed what Brother Dave Hagel mentioned one time, that he liked to view this as a table that was so large its circumference goes all around the world. It's not a bunch of tables of the Lord around the world, the Lord's Table. It's one table.
Last Lord's Day I broke bread in Spain. The Lord's to be foreign Portugal.
Tomorrow we hope to break bread here.
It's just one table, brethren. It's not a bunch of tables.
Sometimes in our expressions we're not real clear, brethren, and we need to challenge ourselves because we give the wrong impression. I want to clarify one other thing that has been said to me many times.
You people think you have the Lord's Table.
I said.
We do not have the Lord's Table.
The Lord has his table.
It's his, not mine.
My desire, my exercise to be there. But brother, let's keep the focus, right? We live in the days when humanism so permeates our thinking that we like to make ourselves the reference point. And that is where we go wrong. And speaking about this precious truth, the Lord is the reference point. It's His table.
I'd like to go on just to simply make this comment brethren. In chapter 10 the Lords table is mentioned. In Chapter 11 The Lord's Supper is mentioned. And like Chuck was mentioning, they weren't doing it the way they should have done it in Chapter 11. So he tells them what he received of the Lord and how it's to be done until he comes.
So it's something we know that will be done until he comes again.
But when we speak of the Lord's Table, it's the place where we show fellowship, the fellowship of the blood of Christ and the fellowship of the body of Christ. When it's the Lords Supper, it's the place where we show his death until he comes. Again, important points of contrast, but I like to put it this way in simplicity.
The Lord's Table is the place of His appointed appointment.
Where we celebrate the Supper, the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Supper is what we celebrate in that place. Now let's just look at 2 verses in First Corinthians 10 connection with what's been said, verse 20.
I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, it should read and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with demons. These Gentiles at currents that that have gotten saved, that are now Christians had come out of that. That worship of demons and false gods, idolatry, they come out of that. So he's contrasting Christianity with what they had come out of in paganism.
Then he says he cannot drink.
The cup of the Lord, verse 20. I'll read that again. I say the things which the Gentiles sacrificed. They sacrificed the devils or demons and not to God. I would not that you should have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of demons. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? He was, He was.
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Refuting he was correcting their error that thought that they had liberty.
To remember the Lord at his table and also to go to the demons table, he says you can't do that, you cannot do that. Those are two completely contradictory systems.
The one speaks of Christ and the other speaks of idolatry and so on. But in Acts 20.
Where it says the enemy would come in from without and do his evil work, and then also of your own self shall then arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Now let's just suppose that no division had taken place and there was the Lords table and nothing else. It wasn't a table of demons. And by the way, don't ever make the denominational tables sex tables the table of demons. It's not the table of demons that's idolatry.
But is it, is it, does it answer to the Lord's table where the Lord has complete authority? All right, they're all breaking bread. And then also of your own cells shall men arise, speaking diverse things to draw away disciples after them. So then they set up another table elsewhere. Is that the same table that they were at the previous week when they break bread there at that other table, Is that the same table? Is that the Lord's table, or is that the table of men?
Now, you don't have the table of men in One Corinthians 10 because it's Christianity versus idolatry and paganism. But in Dax 20 you have the Lords. It's not called the Lords table, but they're breaking bread there. And then some rise up and draw away disciples after them. And that's what Christendom is all about. It's it's everywhere.
Tables of men, Where are you? Are you at a table of man, or are you at that? Which is the Lord's table? It's not our table. It's not brethren's table. It's not ours, it's his. It's not our supper. It's his supper, the Lord's Supper, and the Lord's Table. And we should be careful that we don't make ourselves the center of our thoughts. That's wrong.
He is the 2nd and he's the one that has the authority and we should be exercised. Is where I'm breaking bread where I should be? Is that where I should be in the midst of all this confusion? Well, that's up to to each one of us. We trust that it is. So I trust it. So I bring credit to Warren's table. I think I am. But the question is others think they are and they're not where I'm I'm at. And the Lord knows them that are his thinking of idolatry.
Just who Justice exit. It's an exam. It's like God presents some things to us and show the folly, the foolishness of idolatry.
And I like to turn to Psalm 1:15 to read a few verses there, which the psalmist says to show the very foolishness of this idolatry, that the heathen went on with and had their idols, and Psalm 115.
First three will begin with, but our God is in the heavens. He has done whatsoever He has pleased. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths.
But they speak not eyes have AIDS, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they handle not feet have they? But they walk not neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them. So there's everyone that trusted the folly of idolatry. It's not a question so much of whether.
We're dealing with the tables of idols, demons, tables, or the tables of men. But the principle is here that eating in Scripture is always a sign of fellowship. And so here in Corinth, if a man was in fellowship at the Lord's table, and he went and ate at a table of an altered set up to idols, where something was worshipped to idols, a table of demons, the two tables were now connected. The man might say, well, I don't believe in all that idolatry and so on.
But someone just offered me a good piece of meat and I was hungry. Eating at the alt table of the table of demons and coming back and partaking of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table. The two things were connected. Eating, I say in Scripture, is always a figure of fellowship. The Lord's table speaks of authority. But partaking of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's table denotes fellowship. Fellowship with himself and fellowship with one another.
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And we are They were exhorted not to connect the two things. What fellowship hath light with darkness? Now, brethren, we don't deal, as Chuck said, perhaps in this country, with the table of demons. But the principle is still the same. If a person partakes of the Lords Supper in fellowship with a system that holds doctrine contrary to the person and work of Christ, or in a system that is set up in independence by men, the two things are connected.
And that's why when someone comes and desires to remember the Lord Jesus at the Lord's table, we seek to make it clear that we can't float back and forth between different fellowships that have, as I say, either doctrine that is contrary to the word of God or that have been set up in independence, sometimes in rebellion. And so I think it's helpful to see that the underlying principle here is that eating shows fellowship. I want to just say this too, in connection with the expression that Chuck.
Alluded to in the end of the in First Corinthians 11, after talking about the Lord's Supper, he says, ye do show the Lord's death. I want you to notice this till he come. I want to stress this because I've heard people say, well, you know, these are the last days and perilous times and so on. And there's no discerning where the Lord's table is now. And perhaps it's just wherever Christians meet and wherever we desire to have fellowship. Brethren, he wouldn't have said till he come if he wasn't going to maintain a scriptural ground on which to do it.
The Lord never asks us to do something that he himself isn't going to maintain a scriptural ground on which to do it. And if we find ourselves at the Lords table to partake of the Lords Supper, that is only the grace of God. Is there a difference in being gathered to the Lords name being at the Lords table? Yes.
But is it anything of ourselves? No, brethren, it is only the grace of God. And if we by grace find ourselves at the Lords Table to partake of the Lords Supper, that oughtn't to puff us up. It ought to humble us and make us very thankful. And it ought to make us seek fresh grace because it's grace that brought us there, and it's only grace that's going to preserve us there till He comes. Notice verse 16 of our chapter 10.
The cup of blessing which we bless.
Is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? Notice when the table is before Him, He puts the blood first. Why? Because that's not the way the Lord instituted the Supper. Of the Supper the bread is first, and then the cup, and that's the way we do it. But here the blood is mentioned first. Why? Because this is the foundation for the body.
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? Everyone that is at that table has been washed in that precious blood and has a right to be there. The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? That's not referring to His physical body, that's referring to His mystical body. The next verse proves that. For we being many are one bread, one loaf, one body, but we are all partakers of that one bread.
That is what you have in first Corinthians 10 is the corporate collective truth that's expressed, which is not done in system. I don't know anywhere in system where the truth of the one body is even understood. When they break bread that that I'm breaking bread not only as an individual. That's the 11Th chapter, what I remember the Lord. But when I break bread, according to 1St Corinthians 10, it's a collective thing. I break bread as a member, not as just an individual saved Christian, but as a member of the body of Christ.
Is that is that displayed? Is that understood and recognized in in system? I don't think so. Let's make this very clear. Let let's just think about tomorrow morning. If the Lord leaves us here, there's going to be a loaf on the table, the cup, yes, but there's going to be a loaf.
It's not going to be crackers, it's not going to be 12 loaves like Israel had, but it's going to be one loaf, one bread, as it says here. And brethren, when we look at that loaf tomorrow morning, we need to realize that that loaf not only represents those who are here on this occasion, nor does it just represent those who practically express the truth of the one body in the breaking of bread, but that loaf, as Chuck says, represents every believer alive on the face of the earth.
00:50:17
Everyone on the face of the earth who's washed in the blood of Christ is a member of the body of Christ.
And if we lose sight of that, brethren, we become narrow and sectarian. In our view. The ground that we meet on is the broadest ground possible. That's why, as I said earlier, in Luke 22, it was a large upper room. It didn't need to physically be large on that occasion.
There were only a handful 12 or 13 present on that occasion. It didn't have to be large, but I believe that the Lord Jesus chose a large upper room, and the Spirit of God recorded the description of it to show us as we are. We're saying that the ground on which we meet embraces every blood bought St. every member of the body of Christ. Their place is there whether they're physically there or not, whether they recognize it or understand the truth of it or not.
They are seeing in that loaf, brethren. Let's never forget it. It's an upper room. Yes, many. Go ahead. Doug, I'd like to comment a little bit more about the Lords Table. It's not our pronouncement of it that makes it the Lords Table.
We, we tend to fall back on that a little bit, maybe brethren, rather than the obedience of faith as those that are guided by the Spirit of God to find the place where the Lord establishes his table. The Lord is the Lorde table. He must have necessity be the one who establishes this. It was that way in the Old Testament too. We have an illusion here in our chapter to the tables of demons in contrast to the Lord's, and no doubt that's an illusion to Jeroboam's tables that he set up in Bethel.
At least they degenerated and became that and.
So what is it, brethren, that should characterize us when we speak about this subject? It's not standing boldly and saying we have the Lords Table that makes it the Lords Table. It's our obedience to the Word of God that will prove by our submission to the authority of the Lord and the midst that will give power to any testimony that we may have.
Which is very weak in our days. And so brethren, I think when if we want to emphasize this truth of the Lords Table the the the best way to emphasize that is in the practice that we maintain there recognizing the basis of it, the one body.
Separation from evil becomes a necessity in a time after declension comes in for the honor of the Lord. It's not separation because we're better. It's separation because who we recognize is there and in our in the measure that we do that, I believe it will have power.
To properly portray the Lord, and souls will detect the Lord there.
So going back to what was mentioned in Acts 20 where Paul gives those instructions, there he commends them to God and the word of His grace. That was what the disciples were to cling to as they followed the Aunt Pauls doctrine.
His Word. And so, brethren, when we take up the Word in our obedience to it, I believe that will lead us.
In submission to the Lord and the spirits guiding it will lead us to that table.
Again, the two parts of it, we're Speaking of the Lord's side and our side, the Lord establishes His table. We are the ones who are led and find it regardless of when. When it was even in the Old Testament, it was. So why was Jerusalem the center in the Old Testament? Because God came down in a fire there when Solomon built the temple and previously with the Tabernacle, the same.
It was God's presence that came down that constituted that place where He met with his people.
So what was in the New Testament? The Lord gave the basis of it there when He celebrated the Passover. It's interesting in that 11Th verse of the Luke 22 That it speaks of, they came and they find a place furnished. The disciples didn't have anything to do with that part of it.
00:55:12
The Lord had sent someone and prepared a furnished room, a large upper room.
Then it says there make ready now that was their side of the truth to practice to do and so there's that for us to to do brethren, is to discern there's there's something to do to find the Lords table to be obedient, to be led. When you have those two together, the Lord guiding by spirit, submissive souls lead and obedience to his word, the two will come together.
I thought to make a comment.
He respected the table of Jeroboam. And I noticed in the first Kings 15 there where we had, there was reading from verse 16 and there was war between ASA and Asia, Israel all their days. And Baisha king of Israel went up against Judah and built Rama, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to ASA king of Judah.
Now we know Isa was a good king and he was king of Judah and he was at God's divine center. And so we see it's the work of Satan to.
Divide the people of God to deny Christians the privilege of remembering the Lord Jesus Christ and his death that the Lords table we see the activity there of Satan. God would let all his people gather together in Jerusalem and so we see Barsa said no, I don't want that to happen. I'm going to build drama to stop it happening. And if we just click over the page later on in the in the chapter it said verse 22, then king ASA made a proclamation throughout all Judah. None was exempted.
And they took away the stones of Rama and the timber thereof.
Acer broke armor down. Acer had the Lords mind. He wanted to see all the Lords people gathered together in Jerusalem. But it's Satan that would deny Christians the privilege of so gathering. Now I appreciate, brethren, that he needs the last days. We have responsibilities and we have to be careful. But where there's a sincere desire to remember the Lord Jesus Christ, it is death at the Lord's table. Let's be careful we don't make obstacles.
Because that's what Marsha did. He made an obstacle.
I'd like to say too that.
The in the Old Testament, like you were mentioning Doug, when Solomon built his temple and also earlier in the Tabernacle, there was an outward.
Thing that was seen that showed the presence of the Lord. It was the Shekinah glory cloud that came and filled the holy place. But the time came and because of the declension and.
Israel and Judah that the pillar of cloud lifted and left.
God later gave a restoration to the place of the Lords appointment which was Jerusalem, but he never gave back that glory cloud. How were they to tell them what was the right place they'd like to read in Haggai chapter 2?
This was written at this time when there was a restoration.
Agai Chapter 2.
And.
Verse three. Who is left among you that saw this house in their first glory?
How do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison, as if it has nothing yet? Now be strong Ozer rubble, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua son of Jose, deck the high priest, and be strong, all you people of the land.
Saith the Lord and work for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. Notice this part verse five according to the word that I covenant with you when you came out of the out of Egypt. So my spirit remaineth among you hear ye not so brethren, what is going to lead us is the Spirit of God by the word of God, you look around.
01:00:01
That brethren in general, you're not going to see the place that way. Yes, you'll see a lot of nice brethren. You might see some brethren with problems too. That is not going to guide you. Look at the Word of God. That is what is going to make it clear to you. I I notice it so often, brethren start looking at brethren and their problems and the whole picture gets fuzzy and hazy.
Where in the world are we? No wonder.
Turn a different direction, young brother and sister. Look at the Scriptures, look at the Lord Jesus and you'll find that the picture gets clear. That's what I want to point you to. I don't want you going home and saying those brethren said this is the right place, No.
Look into the scriptures. Be grounded on what God says here.
You're going to find that it will, it will stand in the times that are perilous, difficult times that we live in.
Like to go back to the 10th chapter of First Corinthians again because.
So important this point in verse 16, brethren.
Already been mentioned, but I think it's good to go over it. So we get it, brethren.
What we show is the fellowship, first of all, the blood of Christ. Blood of Christ is our only title to be there. No other title can we show that I have a certain amount of knowledge you might have, you might not have, but what gives you titles to sit down at the Lord's table is that precious blood of Christ. It's the fellowship of all those.
Who are washed in that precious blood, and therefore.
Also the fellowship of the body of Christ. The bread which we break is the fellowship of the body of Christ.
Now all believers are in the body of Christ, but all believers do not show the fellowship of the body of grace. There's the difference.
I sometimes give the illustration supposing there's a father and mother and they have ten children.
And so when the table is set, there's twelve places set at the table, father and mother and the 10 children. When the time comes for the meal, only five children are there with their father and mother.
Aren't those other five that didn't come? Are they still members of the body or of the family? Yes, they are still members of the family. Nothing has changed there. But what are they missing? They're missing the fellowship of their father's table. That's what they're missing. And so that bread on the table speaks of every single member of the body of Christ around this world. What a precious thing.
To enjoy brethren. No sectarianism in that thought at all. It excludes no believer in the Lord Jesus.
But when that loaf is broken and it is passed, it comes to me and I break off a piece and I eat it. I am expressing in that simple way that God has showed us that I am a member in part of one body. And so if you are out there, you say you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, I want to say to you, you have a place at the Lord's table too. If you do not partake of that loaf, you are not expressing.
That to which you have a privilege.
Not so much a right, brethren, because He has the rights. When we talk about the Lord's table, it's he that has the rights, not we. It's our privilege to be there.
There might be one of the sons in the family that's under some discipline, and the father doesn't exclude a plate being sent to him in his room. He's not there at the table where the father is, but he's he. He's eating the father's supper, same as those that are at the table and those in system are eating the Lord's Supper. They're not maybe at the table, but they're eating the Lords. They're remembering the Lord in his death. That's what the supper is.
And they do it as individuals. But the collective thought is the one body which most Christians don't understand. They don't understand that and see it. They're not exercised about it because they haven't. They haven't been exposed to that truth.
01:05:14
It's very important to see that, that there are many who partake of the Lord's Supper. A son may even be at father's table, and there may be some controversy, and he may decide on his own to take his plate and to go up to his room or to go in the other room and eat. Now he's not at the father's table anymore, but he's still eating the same supper that the others are eating, even though he's eating it, having separated himself.
From his his siblings and from his parents.
I just want to say this too, while we're talking about the Lord's Supper, that in the verse we read earlier in the 11Th chapter, it's not just till He comes, but it's as often and isn't it interesting as you trace through the Acts and the early history of the brethren, that it very quickly after the institution of the Supper and the dissent of the Spirit of God on the day of Pentecost, it very quickly became the exercise and the joy.
Of the early believers to partake of the Lord's Supper every first day of the week.
And so in Acts 20, it says on the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread. It's interesting that when they came together there, that was their first and foremost motive for meeting. It wasn't just to enjoy a happy time together, although they did. It wasn't to listen to the ministry of the apostle Paul, although they also had that privilege on that particular Lord's Day as Paul was visiting and others with him. But the Spirit of God expressly tells us why they came together on the first day of the week.
To break bread. And so the apostle Paul, in reiterating what the Lord instituted in Luke 22, he says as often because the Lord Jesus, when he instituted the feast himself, he knew not only what the hearts of the disciples on that occasion were like, but he anticipated what my heart would be like. And he knew that I was going to need a reminder and that I was going to need it often. I think it's one of the most precious things about being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus.
And that is that we have this privilege of breaking bread, not just on a special occasion, not just once a month or twice a year or something like that, but we have this privilege and we have it often. Brethren, we need that reminder. We need our hearts recalled to Calvary. W was already said. We look at that cup, it pictures to us this precious blood. When we break the lobe, it pictures figures to us His body given in death for us. Don't we need that reminder? And don't we need it often?
It's not that it becomes just something familiar because we do it so much. No, we ought to sit down every Lord's Day with fresh exercise and joy to realize that we have once again, the privilege of remembering Him and the privilege of breaking bread. The privilege of partaking of the Lord's Supper at the Lord's Table is something that's only given to us for this life. We're not going to need it when we leave this world. We're going to see those wounds in his hands and his feet and in his side, and they will be a fresh reminder for all eternity.
Of what he accomplished at Calvary. We're not going to need a loaf and a cup on the table when we see him face to face but isn't that a challenge brethren, how much longer are we going to be left here? How many more Lord's days are there going to be before the Lord Jesus comes? Are we going to be found amongst those who buy his grace have sought to break bread. Remember him until he comes. I'd like her Jim. You know I think that portion you referred to an axe. They are a is emphasizing the first day of the week because Paul was there throw us for seven days.
He didn't happen to be there on the first day of the week. He was there for seven days, but they chose to break bread on the first day of the week, which seems to focus on that just exactly what you said and I like to think just before Chuck makes this. I like to think of it this way. Why did Paul remain there so long in troas so that they one reason was so that they would have the privilege of remembering the Lord Jesus with those gathered to the Lord's name intro as and so they remained a whole week so they could have that privilege and brethren.
When we travel or whatever our lifestyle, is there an exercise to be where we can remember the Lord at the Lord's table on the first day of the week and the Lord's Supper consists, and we have no right to change it, of eating the bread and drinking the cup. If you eliminate either one of those, it's not the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is eating the bread and drinking the cup. Now I want to read in Acts 2IN connection with your comments, Jim.
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In X2 verse 40 and with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, this is Peter, save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized.
And the same day that they were added unto them about 3000 souls and they continued steadfastly. Now this is, I believe this is a beautiful picture of, of the functioning of a true assembly. They continued in the apostles doctrine, the geoteaching of the apostles and fellowship. You can't sit at home and do this. You have to be with your brethren. Apostles doctrine and fellowship. Yes, you can read the ministry of the brethren and you can read that get the apostles doctrine and by yourself in your living room or wherever.
Not going to have this fellowship, the apostles doctrine, the fellowship, and in breaking of bread and prayers. Now if there's not the breaking of bread, it's it's not really a proper assembly carrying out what it should do. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles, And all that believed were together, and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. Now notice.
And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house. They didn't evidently break bread in the temple. This was a time of transition. But they they continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. Daily they broke breath. But in Acts 20 that you referred to.
That finally became a habit among the church, to break bread on the first day of the week. Beautiful because that's the resurrection day. That's the day of his victory, and that's when we remember him and his death. But initially they did it every day. And I think the brethren when they came together.
And the truth was being recovered. It's like going back to the early chapter of Acts. They broke bread every day before they, they, they opened the scriptures because they wanted to have his death, what he suffered for them before them. They wanted to be in the right state of souls so that when they looked at the Word, they could get the teaching of the Spirit of God. So they broke bread every day for a while anyway.
And that's the way the early Christians did it, but it settled down to on the first day of the week and I and that verse in First Corinthians 11 as often so many in systems should read that as seldom as you break bread. Remember the Lord. It's a privilege. Tomorrow we'll have that privilege. There's no higher privilege that we have, beloved, than to remember Him and his death. We do it on the day of his victory over the power of death. And there's something physical that he has asked us to do.
He's asked us to eat and he's asked us to drink. Amen. And I say that because I've heard people say, well, the Lord knows what is in my heart, and I can remember the Lord in my heart. Well, brethren, I trust we do remember the Lord in our hearts every day that there is some remembrance of what the Lord Jesus suffered for us on Calvary's cross. But he has asked us to eat and to drink. And tomorrow morning when the loaf and the cup are passed here, are there going to be those who truly know the Lord Jesus are washed in the blood of Christ, Love the Lord Jesus.
And you're not going to eat and drink. I sometimes wish the word eat and drink in the 26th verse of the next chapter, the 11Th chapter, we're in capital letters. As often as you eat, as often as you drink. It is something physical He has asked us to do so that we can show forth his death till he come. It says this do.
Yeah, in remembrance of me, and I was thinking that X 242 again, that those four things mentioned there are really like the assembly, aren't they? And the doctrine defines the fellowship, doesn't it? And the breaking of bread expresses the fellowship.
And the prayer maintains. The fellowship tries to think of it that way. It's nice. Could we sing the second and third verses of #22?
2nd and 3rd versions of 21. I'm sorry, 21.
01:15:04
One size Friday.
In our world.
Maybe read a verse in closing.
Psalm 137.
Verse 6.
If I do not remember these.
Let my tongue.
Cleave to the roof of my mouth.
If I prefer not Jerusalem.
Above my chief joy, if I prefer not Jerusalem, about my chief of joy, shall we defend ourselves?
Aggressius Garden Father, we do thankfully that we can take these questions.
And open up the Word, and we thank you for the power by Holy Spirit.
Can reveal these things to us.
When we think of Daniel that we're reminded of this morning, he purposed in his heart.
And he sought to understand.
We do pride our gracious God and Father. It's that we make purpose in our heart and seek to understand by Thy Holy Spirit.
Don't give us.
By tape. We do pray that the enormity of this privilege in these the last days of the church's history.
Of being able.
Through thy grace.
To be found gathered at our table. We do pray that this should have a place in our heart.
Should be our chief joy.
As we wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to come to plague us to be with himself. And so we do pray that the things that we've heard this morning.
This ministry from thy word in the power of the Holy Spirit, maybe that which will guide our pathway and take our feet Lords day by Lords day under the power of my Holy Spirit.
To that place by table, that we may honor and glorify thee, Lord Jesus, in the remembrance of thyself. And so we ask these things now, as we were just a bit silly and gifty. Thanks in the most worthy and precious name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Genesis 1
Reading
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Yeah.
Whatever I bring my heart who have been All in all, it was the last year I created the love of God.
Quite well.
Could we look at Genesis 1?
Do you want to read to?
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the permanent heaven in the evening and the morning for the second day. And God said, Let the waters unto heaven be gathered together unto one place.
00:05:12
And let the dry land appear, And it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called that he sees. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind.
And the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights.
The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good, and the evenings and the mornings were the 4th day. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and foul that may fly above the earth.
In the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every wing foul after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply.
And fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the 5th day.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind cattle.
And creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them.
Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is a which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you. It shall be for meat, and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air.
And to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given Evergreen herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the 6th day.
Where Trinity?
Does not occur in the word of God as far as I know. I haven't found it yet, but we see the Trinity in verse one. You say how?
Well, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Now God is Elohim.
And so there's a.
In the beginning, God.
It's singular, dull or plural. The word lovie is plural in the beginning, God in the plural, more than one. But in order to preserve the unity of the Godhead that they work as one. The word created is Barra Bara, and it's he created. So in the beginning, God in the plural, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For there was a consultation even in the Godhead over over man, Let us.
Make man in our image after our likeness. Who's the US? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
00:10:06
In English the plural is 2 or more, but in the Hebrew the plural is three or more. They have a dual form, 2 ears, two eyes, two hands, 2 feet. That's the dual form, only two. But elohim is in the plural. That means three or more, not two or more. But three or more can't be one, and it can't be two, so it's at least three. And the seraphim in Isaiah 6 cry wholly.
Holy holy Lord God Almighty 2 Times you get the Trinity holy, holy, holy and then Lord God Almighty again, again you get it repeated. The three persons, then there's one God. And that's that's not taught in the the Old Testament as such like it is in the new. I remember talking to a Jehovah's Witness. I was staying at the meeting at the meeting room there in Fleetwood.
One time and a couple women came to the door and they were Jehovah's Witnesses. And this one woman said to me, the Trinity's not in the Bible. And I said, why? The very names of the three persons of the Trinity are in the baptismal formula, Matthew 28, baptizing them in the name, not names. The name there's one God of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And you say it's not in the Bible, it's all over the Scriptures.
A little bit later in this very chapter, it's the persons of the Godhead conferring among themselves when they said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and so on. And then it says, and then he the singular. So it goes back and forth between the plural, the US and the singular, because God is one and composed of three persons. That truth is embodied in the Old Testament.
But it's only, it's really revealed to us in the new and there are many just simple passages in the New Testament where the whole Trinity is found. And it's, it's, it's wonderful to, to see that. Now in order to reject the Trinity, I can say I'm going to call Christianity a religion. I don't like to call it that because it's a real person. But let's consider it one of the religions of the world. It's the only one.
That believes in the Trinity. The Jews don't because in order to believe in the Trinity, the Father must be God, the Son must be God, and the Spirit must be God. Now that Jehovah's Witness reject that the Son is God, and they reject that the spirit is God, so they don't believe in the Trinity. The Jews don't believe in the Trinity because they reject that Jesus is God. You have to believe that all three persons are God to believe in the Trinity, and the only ones that believe that are Christians.
The Muslim religion rejects that. And so it's, I was talking to a young man once and he was talking about a friend of his. He said he's a nice Christian, he just doesn't believe in the Trinity. I said he's no Christian if he doesn't believe in the Trinity. He's not a crow. Yeah, he's a Christian. No, he's not.
That's the fundamental we talk about fundamental truth. That's fundamental truth. If you don't believe that, you're not a Christian.
And the Ecclesiastes chapter 12, I understand there that the word Creator is also a plural word. You find it in the Darby footnote. Remember now by Creator the days of thy youth. That confirms what Brother Dawn was saying about Genesis 11.
Also in one of the songs and I just can't find it. I haven't marched my old Bible tonight.
If you have a new translation, I'm holding Miss Darby's translation. The second verse says and the earth was waste and empty. King James says without form, and then he has a very helpful note under waist.
Note B. And he says see Isaiah 3411 and 4518 and I want to turn to those.
Isaiah 3411 Did I say yes?
Where you have and it's not, If you look at it in your King James, you'll notice it's a little different. You wouldn't see it there. 3411 I read it in the Darby. And the Pelican and the bitter and shall possess it, and the great owl and the Ravens shall dwell in it, and he shall stretch out upon it the line of waste and the plummets of emptiness.
00:15:20
The earth was waste and empty. There you have those two words, the same two Hebrew words that are found in Genesis 1-2. And then the other place is Isaiah 4518.
Isaiah 4518 says, and again I'm using Mr. Darby's translation for Thus saith Jehovah, who created the heavens, God himself, who formed the earth and made it. He who established it not as waste did he create it. He formed it to be inhabited. He didn't create it as waste. So.
It says in Genesis 1/2 The earth was waste.
And empty. That second verse does not describe the earth as originally created, but as having.
Gone through some judgment. I I take it that it was the fall of Satan. I don't know what else it could be. It's because only we know from Job that when the earth was created, all the sons of God shouted for joy. Sons of God are angelic beings. So the angels were created 1St and then the earth.
And when it was created, it was created perfect. I was talking to a person. See, there's the creation scientists. They say that day one begins in verse one. That's wrong. Day one begins in verse 3. Verses one and two go back. We don't know how far. I don't think it was a long time ago, not billions of years like the evolutionists say. I don't know. No one knows how far. But it wasn't created in the condition described in verse 2.
Was created perfect. God, who was light did not create a world.
Enveloped in darkness and chaotic, this earth has been covered by water two times. Genesis 1-2 Completely covered by water and at the flood.
The flood again, and at the flood everyone knows that was judgment, don't we? And it was judgment here. So as a result of judgment, the earth was reduced to this chaotic, darkened state of things, probably the fall of Satan. And then God reformed it. And it's very interesting that of the Trinity, the three persons of the Godhead, the Spirit of God is the first one mentioned in verse two in the Bible. And it says, and the Spirit of God was hovering.
The face of the waters. So we often think of the Spirit of God as the last one that we mentioned in the Trinity, but he's the first one in the Bible. And when the Lord died on the cross, he offered himself without spot to God by the eternal Spirit.
Actually, everything that God does is in Trinity because that's who God is, who is God. He's the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so everything that He does, whether it's the creation.
Or the salvation of the lost, You get that in Luke 15. You have the the shepherd, that's the Lord Jesus going after the lost sheep. You have the woman, a picture of the Spirit of God looking for the lost coin. And then you have the Father receiving the returning prodigal, Everything that that's a picture of salvation, isn't it? And you can go over and over again and show how the Trinity is found in Scripture. And when you do that, it's a beautiful study.
We know the baptismal formula, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But that's not the order in which it's found in many passages. Sometimes the Spirit is first, then the Son, then the Father, sometimes the Son, and then the Spirit, then the Father. It it, it mixes it. Why does it do that? Because all three persons are Co equal.
They're all, it's not the Father is above the Son, who's above the Spirit. That's wrong. So it mixes it up intentionally so that when we talk about the Trinity, we're talking about the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You could say Son, Spirit, Father, whatever you say, it's the whole Trinity. And the only ones that believe that truth are Christians. And if, if, if you're in this room and don't believe that.
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You're not a Christian. That's characteristic of Christianity, isn't it? The Spirit is brought in here, the beginning, because the Spirit of God is the energy in which God has always moved, whether it's creation or whether it's many of the things that Chuck has mentioned. The energy in which God moves is the Spirit of God. That's why the whole life and work of the Lord Jesus, from his incarnation to his resurrection and his ascension back to glory.
Was one in the power of the Spirit, that holy thing that shall be conceived of the begotten of the Holy Ghost.
And all through his life, not only with his death, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, but what about the resurrection put to death in the flesh, quickened by the Spirit. And so the energy, the Spirit of God is the energy in which God has always moved. I would like to just say this before we pass on in connection with these verses that bring before us the account of creation and the count, the account now of God reforming things and making it, making it.
The earth habitable for life and for man.
And that is that God doesn't answer all our curious questions as to how things took place. And why doesn't God answer all our curious questions? Well, let let's read it. I could quote it, but let's read it in Hebrews 11.
Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse 3.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Now I accept the Genesis account of creation not because science upholds it or not because it answers all my curious questions. Now true science and the Bible always go together. True science will never contradict the word of God, and it is interesting to see how.
The two go together in science, science and the scriptures. But I accept the Genesis account of creation because through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. God has told us enough here in Genesis one and other places so that by faith, not because we understand it all or know it all. If we did, it wouldn't be faith. God wants us to accept it by faith, and so he's told us enough here so that.
When we.
When faith is in operation, then we believe what? That God is the creator of the world and of the universe. So people will tell you, well, don't accept something unless you can reason it all out and you can put it into a nice neat little formula and package. No, when it comes to being the creator and forming the world, creating the world, we accept it by faith.
Not because our minds can grasp at all. I want to add to one more passage in Jeremiah 4IN connection with these two words waste and empty without form and void. And it occurs in different ways in the in the King James, but it's always waste and empty and Darby and Jeremiah 4 verse 23. It sounds like Genesis 1-2 and I beheld the earth verse 23.
And lo, it was waste and empty, and the heavens and they had no light. Sounds just like the second verse of Genesis one. I beheld the mountains and though they trembled. Jeremiah is not talking about Genesis 1-2, but he's using the same 2 words to describe a chaotic situation as a result of judgment. And it's used three times. These two words are together, and whenever they're together, it's always judgment.
So the second verse of Genesis one is the result of judgment, and that's very important because day one doesn't start at verse one. It starts at verse three, when, as Jim said, he's reforming the earth for man. And I think that makes a huge difference.
This brother that was talking to me, he said on the phone, we had a real nice conversation until this point and he said.
You're not still holding to the gap theory area. And I knew what he meant that there's.
That there's a big gap between the verses one and two. Well, there's a gap all right, but I don't know how long it is and I don't believe it. So as long as some others have said. But what I believe on that doesn't mean it mean a thing because I don't know and none of us does but.
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The two words, when used together, referred to judgment. So the earth wasn't created as described in verse two of Genesis one. It fell into that state.
As a result of some judgment, which I think was the fall of Satan and then he reformed the earth. Verse three of Genesis one God said let there be light and there was light. All he had to do was speak the world into existence. He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. He said let there be and there was sometimes people talk about Christians even talk about the the creation is God created the world out of nothing.
There was never nothing. There was always God. He spoke and He created it. He created the material universe. Now just just ponder that for a few moments of being so, so, so powerful that He could just speak. The world's into existence in a moment. He doesn't take. He doesn't need millions of years to do it. He just speaks and there it is.
And I can't even fathom that. None of us can't. We don't have to be able to understand it and fathom it. We have to believe it because it's the word of God. And that's young people. You're going to be told lies about evolution and that it's that's nothing but the lie of Satan. You have to just go through Genesis one and just ask yourself, just say, I want to just rip my mind of all these other thoughts I've had to see what God said.
Now he doesn't answer every little question. He doesn't have to. He's just told us enough that he did it. There's one expression I just want to remark on this before I'm quiet, and that after it's kind. You'll notice all that formula. After it's kind, after it's kind, after it's kind. That refutes evolution right there. Everything is after it's kind of dogs, mate, and they get dogs. They don't get kittens, they don't get rabbits, they get dogs and the same thing a cat gets a cat.
And so on and so on. Humans get humans. We didn't come from Loki's.
Some of us may act like monkeys, but we don't come from monkeys. And it's just wonderful. We got it all in the very first chapter of our Bible.
Just the thought of what Brother Jim was bringing out, we could turn to John 20.
Says the 30th verse.
It just shows that God doesn't tell us every detail and fill out our curiosity of the things that we'd like to know. But John 20 verse 30 says many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing He might have life through His name, He has told us enough that we can know Him and we can be saved through believing what He has told us.
But is an awful lot more we're going to learn an eternity because it says in Ephesians 2 seven that he ages to come. He might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, but he hasn't told us all yet. We're we've got a lot to look forward to. Faith accepts God at his word without reasoning it. You might tell me something and I might go and question four or five other people and I come back to you and I say, well, I've questioned these four or five other people.
And now I believe that what you told me was the truth. You say, well, you didn't have faith in me. You had faith in the other people who confirmed my word. She didn't have faith in me. And so with God, we take God at his word again, not because science upholds the Bible, not because archaeological digs confirm what we have in Scripture. I'm not saying those things aren't interesting, but we accept it. Faith accepts God at his word without reason. Just in connection with what Chuck said a minute ago, I want to just read a couple of verses.
In One Corinthians 15, which just from scripture confirms what Chuck was saying about you get kittens from from cats and pups from dogs and so on. And again, this is a complete it completely refutes evolution.
First Corinthians, chapter 15.
I'll read from verse 39, but God giveth it well. Verse 37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be.
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But their grain it may chants of wheat, or of some other grain, but God give us it a body as it has pleased him.
To every seed his own body, all flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars.
For a one star different from another star in glory. Now this shows how can we refute this? This shows so very clearly that everything didn't develop from a single cell or some Big Bang back in the back in history before time. No, this shows that when God created, he created everything in order and everything after its kind. Everybody ever see a Caterpillar?
A Caterpillar has nine nerve sections in its back.
And somebody somewhere along the line taught the wasp that he had such a thing of that Caterpillar. So the wasp, he has to lay his young. He comes along and he stings like a surgeon, that Caterpillar in nine sections, and it becomes immobile. He lays the things on the tail. Smart fella.
And he eats compartment by compartment. And when he gets to the head, of course, he dies. But by then the young have gotten enough strength, they've matured, and they fly away. Now, you know, evolution is a great thing. Pretty smart. He's pretty smart.
David Campbell, The camel, too, or the giraffe? I'm sorry, the giraffe. That big tall fella like that. Why is that? He spreads his legs when he goes down. Get a drink. Well, 'cause otherwise the blood would rush to his head and he'd have a cerebral hemorrhage.
So God told him, spread your legs when you go over and I'll put a safety valve on your heart. And when you lean over like that, it will control that surge and you'll be able to live a little longer. Evolution is wonderful.
It's a wonderful thing that we have this account of creation given to us in this first chapter of Genesis, and it's a wonderful thing to read.
The end of Revelation chapter 4. But Revelation chapter 5 certainly takes us a step further, doesn't it? And doesn't necessarily appeal to our intellects. But our hearts are engaged, aren't we, as we read?
Revelation chapter 5. I was thinking of Job and the 28th chapter of Joel.
We know that Job was acquainted with many of the marvels and wonders. He speaks about the vein for the silver, a place for the gold. He knew that the Topaz was found in Ethiopia. He knew that.
A myth in verse 28 it says to make the weight for the winds, and he weighed the waters by measure.
And in verse nine, it says he put forth his hand upon the rock, He overturneth the mountains by the roots, He cutteth out rivers among the rocks, his eye sia, every precious thing. And no doubt some of these things that were mentioned, the Topaz, the gold, the silver, naturally speaking, they're valued in this world, aren't they? We think, or we use the word precious metals.
And in first Peter, we're reminded that we're not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. And in Genesis chapter 24, we read of that servant who brought forth jewels of silver and gold. And what a wonderful thing to see that is. I takes note of everything is it says his eye seeth every precious thing.
No, mankind has to delve down below the surface of the Earth.
To uncover some of those veins of gold and silver, about six or seven years ago I had a chance to visit a few of their brethren from Mozambique that work in the mines in South Africa.
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And they have to go nearly three miles down into the surface of the earth in order to reach some of those difficult veins. Well, the Lord sees them. The Lord knows they're there even before.
Mankind has even attempted to discover them, and I just can't help but think of the Lord's commendation given at the end of the book of Malachi.
Says And they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it in a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and thought upon his name, That's something the Lord's eye beholds too.
He sees those hidden veins of silver and gold. But here's something else. The Lord is looking.
On and another verse in Mark chapter.
Three, the Lord is assembled with his own, and it says in verse 34. And he looked round about on them, which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren. So here the Lord I was on something else very precious. And I don't mean to diminish what we've been talking about concerning this creation.
And it's certainly a wonderful creation. We're reminded that we're fearfully and wonderfully made and that Creator God is ours, isn't he? But we also can see those wonders of redemption and how it thrills our hearts to behold that those are Bruce. I've often enjoyed that Malachi 316 when it says those that thought upon his name. You know, we enjoy coming to a conference because we can speak one to another.
As the first part of that verse says. But suppose you're alone.
Washing the dishes or whatever.
You can think upon His name and it's written down to your credit will be a reward for it. Isn't it marvelous? A thought upon his name isn't even uttered aloud. How do you get that? Perhaps foreshadowed in the second verse where it says the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. As Chuck mentioned, the Spirit of God is the first of the of the Trinity to be mentioned.
And I've often wondered why.
And.
I think we've perhaps I don't know if this is an answer and maybe my brother income correct if it's incorrect, but now we know the Spirit of God as the self effacing member of the Trinity and his function is to operate in our hearts that is the redeemed to bring praise and honor and glory to God and the person of the Lord Jesus.
The Spirit of God looked upon that earth that was void and empty and he didn't see anything so that God could be glorified in. And so we find the Spirit of God is the first one there and I think we get a second picture which is exactly the same when Noor sent out that dog.
It was God's strange work and the Spirit of God in the picture of that dog went out and looked on the waters and saw nothing. That was to the honor and glory of God and the person of Christ. Now that same Holy Spirit through not only creation, but as we've also been told, redemption can operate in our hearts that so that we honour and glory to God and to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When didn't the Spirit justify the Lord Jesus at his baptism coming down in a bodily form?
Visible form he found something that he could take delighted that is precious, but.
At that time, as in the state as Chuck has described it, there was nothing that the Holy Spirit could take pleasure in, could bring forth from glory and honor to God and to the Person of Christ. There's a very interesting passage in 2nd Corinthians 4. I'd like you to turn to it again. I'm reading from Mr. Darby's translation, but I don't think you'll notice much difference. 2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 6.
I think this confirms the fact that the condition described in verse two of Genesis one was not the original state. Verse six says because it is the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine. That's Genesis 1/3.
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Who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? Was man created in darkness?
No, He was created perfect, without sin, in a state of innocence. He fell into this darkened condition as a result of disobedience.
So here's a passage from the New Testament showing what God did with man is the same thing he did with this world.
I think that.
I think that's very beautiful, Brother Hendricks. But in this chapter one of Genesis, we're not only reading the history of this world, we're reading the history of God's work with a Sinner.
In the beginning God created Adam and Eve, perfect in every way. But what happened? What happened? They disobeyed God and sin came into this world and man fell Into Darkness like you said. But then the time came when as it says here.
The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. There was a time in my life when the Spirit of God moved and he God said, let there be lights and there was light. And I think every one of us here as Christians can look back at the time when our eyes were opened and we saw that for the first time that we were sinners and the Lord Jesus died for us on the cross. So what we're reading here is not just one thing, it's several things that God is bringing before us.
One other thing I wanted to mention, you mentioned that God acts in Trinity.
And in connection with creation, I've enjoyed this, that there are three parts to time, past, present, and future. There's only three places that you can be in this world, on the earth, in the sea, or in the sky. There's only three kinds of matter. You might say a mineral, vegetable, animus, or animal. There's a minimum of three points on which something can stand. It can't stand on two points. That has to be a minimum of three.
One other thing I've enjoyed is that color.
Is there are three primary colors, yellow, blue and red and I understand that yellow is really the only color that we see when we see the light. And so the only one of the Godhead we've ever seen is the Lord Jesus Christ. The blue I understand is the life sustaining rate. Without it everything would die and it's been likened to the Spirit of God. The red is the heat giving ray.
Which is likened to the Father, the sustainer of all things. And so it's beautiful to see that creation has.
Stamped very remarkably on it in many different ways, especially men, spirit, soul and body. The Trinity from the Trinity also in the New Testament. The Lord what one place is my father work at hitherto and I work well actually it was the Old Testament that God the Father wrote in the Gospels. The Lord Jesus wrought, and in the Spirit of God came down on the day of Pentecost. And this is the era now the Spirit of God for the Spirit.
I have another gem I'd like to pass on concerning the Trinity that I've enjoyed, and that's Isaiah 4816.
Goes along with what our brother Heinz we just said. Brother Chuck Isaiah 4816.
Coming near unto me, hear you this I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the time that it was there am I, and now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me.
Of the Trinity connection with what our brother Stan Allen just mentioned in connection with the spirit of God working with man in connection with this chapter, a story comes to mind that was written about.
A German missionary some years ago. His name was Samuel Hebeck, and some of us are perhaps familiar with the little pamphlet Hebex Tub but Samuel Hebeck worked for.
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With the Basel Mission, I believe over in India.
And he never really acquired any of the Indian languages but.
He was instrumental in the blessing and salvation of a lot of the British soldiers that were.
Stationed there, and I think it was in northern India, and there was one particular Colonel that kind of had a fear of this German missionary because Samuel Hebeck was a man that told it like it was and he had a bad conscience.
And usually during the afternoon in that part of India, it got very hot and most of the officers retired to their tents and.
One of the servants of this officer indicated on one afternoon that Samuel Hebeck was approaching the tent. And this officer vowed, well, I'm not going to let him inside this tent and.
Epic approached the flap of the tent, put his head in, and he said I'm going to come in. Well, the man was speechless.
And he pointed to a shelf that the officer had in the tent, and there was a Bible there. And Hebex said, get the book. Well, the man knew what the book was.
And Hebeck said in the very.
Rough German accent.
Read Genesis One and Two.
And the officer got the book. He read the two verses.
And.
Heep, except close the book.
And he left, didn't say another word two days later.
He became back. Get the book.
And he said read Genesis One and two.
Verses one and two. This went on for nearly a week.
And.
Finally, light came into the soul of that individual and that officer was saved and.
Darkness certainly was dispelled in that case. It was such an encouraging account to read.
I don't think the word light is ever called created.
It says God said let there be light. It says He forms the light in Isaiah and creates darkness, but it doesn't say he creates. He is light, God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all. All he has to do is speak it and it's there.
There's another in the beginning in the Gospel of John. You need to turn to it. I just mentioned it, but we had in the beginning. So here was in the beginning was the Word. We dropped down to verse 14 it says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So in the beginning was Christ. Go back to that beginning of beginning. Well, however, before you go back into eternity, the Lord Jesus Christ was there in the bosom of the Father bringing infinite joy and delight to the heart of God.
And in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. There's distinct personalities in the Godhead. God the Father did not die on the cross for me. The Lord Jesus did. And so there's distinctions in the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. There's his essential deity, the same, and we change. He changes. Not one of the qualities of Godhead, unchanging. And then creatorship in verse 3. All things were made by Him.
And without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Lord Jesus Christ has life intrinsically, so to speak. We have it derivatively. We get life, eternal life, but we never possessed it before. It's when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that we have everlasting or eternal life. That expression without Him was not anything made that was made. Why is that there? It just said that He created everything.
So that we don't get the idea the Father did some things, created some things and the Son some things and the spirit some things. All three persons were involved in everything that God did and does. And so without him nothing was created. That was created in the Jehovah's Witness new translation that I have a copy of it, it, it records that second verse in the I'm going to read it in the Darby translation. It's almost identical.
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To the.
Jehovah's Witness translation.
I'll read it. All things received being through him, that's the Lord Jesus, and without Him not one thing received being which has received being.
They teach that he was the first created being and then he created everything else that verse says without him was not anything created or anything made or brought into being that was brought into being. So there and their their translation reads that way. I know the first verse they say the word was a God but forget that and go to the next verse and it refutes totally their doctrine.
It might be helpful to say at this juncture too, that God is not only the creator of the universe, but he's the sustainer of it as well, and it's important to see that. Let's just notice a couple of scriptures. First of all, in Hebrews 1.
Hebrews chapter one, and I'm going to begin at verse one, just to get the connection. Hebrews one and verse one. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time passed under the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world. That's the first thing, and we've spoken at great length about that.
But then notice this, who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Now just hold your finger here and go for a verse in Colossians chapter one.
Colossians chapter one and verse 17, and he is before all things and by Him all things. It's not simply consist, but if you notice Mr. Darby's translation, it's subsist. And I'll speak of that in a moment because the subsist is more than is something different than just consists. But it's interesting, isn't it, that in Hebrews chapter one, where the sun is brought before us, He's brought before us not only as the Creator, He was with him as one brought up. He was by him as one brought up with him. He was there when he laid the found, when the foundations of the world were laid.
But He is now the Sustainer too. Every breath we take so unconsciously is given to us by God. He gives to all life and breath and all things. He's the preserver of all men. In Him we move and live and have our being. And not only so, but the whole creation operates under the direction of this one. And so it says, He's upholding all things by the word of His power.
Think of it, brethren, when the Lord Jesus was a babe in Bethlehem's Manger, He was upholding all things by the word of His power in that tremendous to think about. Do I understand it? No, but it's true. When He walked here as the humble man, He was upholding all things by the word of His power. When he asked a woman for a drink, He was upholding all things by the word of His power. When they spit in his blessed faces. We had earlier this afternoon.
He gave them the very breath and the very spittle to spit in His face when they lifted and hid their hands against Him. He gave them the very strength to do it when they lifted the hammer and pounded the nails into His blessed hands and feet. He was upholding all things by the word of His power. And He hung on that cross as a spectacle for men and angels. He was upholding all things by the word of His power. They took Him down and laid Him in a grave. He was upholding all things by the word of His power. Just think of it. He's not only the Creator, but the Sustainer. And so we find in Colossians 1 by Him all things subsist.
Not just consist, but to subsist is to work together under the direction of someone. If I can illustrate it this way, they've got chairs here in this room. Here's a chair in front of me, and this chair consists of some metal, some hardware, some upholstery, some foam. But to subsist is more than to consist.
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Every planet is held in its orbit by the word of his power. It all works under his direction.
Rotational pull of the earth is maintained because it's working under His direction. He's upholding it by the word of His power. All things by Him subsist. Everything works in perfect order in the universe. Nothing is haphazard or by chance. It's all subsisting. If God drew His breath back to Himself, all flesh would perish again in Him. We move and live and have our being. So I say again, not just the Creator. He didn't just create it and then leave it to function on its own.
Man doesn't. Man might create a machine, but then that machine needs to work under his direction.
He is there to make sure everything is working in order. They are. The Godhead is taking up this creation and causing it to work in perfect harmony under the Word, by the word of His power.
I'd like you to say a little bit about the purpose of God and the creation. We could turn to Ephesians 3.
And beginning with verse 9, Speaking of Christ.
To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God.
Who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the attempt, that now unto the principalities and power in the heavenly places, might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is a tremendous loss.
In looking into creation without looking at the purpose of God in creating things.
God has chosen to tell us why and His purposes of doing these things. This only comes out in the New Testament, and if we study creation without this, we lose one of the greatest things that God has chosen to reveal to us. God chose to tell us very little about how He created it, but He told us a lot about His purposes in doing it. They have been developed to us.
And they those purposes are only learned in fellowship with the Creator God who did that, and he has chosen to come out and form a relationship with us through the Lord Jesus Christ to give us understanding of what the wise he did these things.
And they are beautiful brethren, but they are only enjoyed in fellowship with him.
Faith in what he has revealed and I want to tell another story. I know Brother Chuck says doesn't like too many stories, but.
At a graduation of my daughter's, when a prominent evangelist gave a word and gave a nice word, and he told this story of visiting in a prison, and that he had made this part of his work in going to prison, and on this occasion he went to a very.
Secure prison, one of the most renowned in the state of Louisiana, and he looked up there, one of the most notable awful criminals in the USA who was on death row, and he chose particularly to go and talk to this man. So he went and he got access and he visited this man and he asked him this question.
Because he had committed awful, awful crimes, he said to him.
What was it in your life that led you?
To depart and to do these awful things, and the man was very frank, he said.
When I came to realize there was number God, no purpose, nothing mattered anymore.
That's when I degenerated into the state and did those things.
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Brethren, when you take away the purpose of life that God gave us.
What do you have left? What matters anymore?
These things all just become pawns or things to talk about or thanks to discard and use and whoever gets the best is the only winner in the in the in this kind of a game.
God has a purpose and He has revealed that purpose to us. And so when we take up this subject of creation.
Yes, there are these beautiful wonders of it that are that are marvelous that indicate a God made it and and it the this purpose comes out in the council of the three Elohim. There it is in a nutshell, God taking counsel with himself in these in these acts of creation.
Well, brethren, how wonderful not just to look at the creation, but now.
Through the New Testament to see why he did some of these things and the relationship he wants to have with us.
As a created being.
I hope there's another half of that story someday, Doug. That man. Which would tie in with powder in First Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 46.
It says.
That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. And then in Second Corinthians is it 5.
Where it I think it's there. We have the verse 17.
2nd Corinthians 517 Therefore, if any man be in Christ.
He is a new creature or new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. It took just as much a work of the of God to save us our souls, and I would say far more to save our souls as it did for Him to make the whole universe.
And and so we have that here, that it's a new creation.
And the Spirit of God working in the soul is something, brethren, that we have no part of.
We can't. The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters there back in Genesis. And you know, one thinks of it as you or I may have an opportunity to speak to somebody about Christ.
We can't do anything or say it say anything to save a soul.
And you know, we've all read some of these books about people, about self conversions. And I love to hear stories of conversions. And and you, you know, you ask somebody when did you get saved? And then they start 20 years before the day that they got saved. Why? Because the Spirit of God went to work in their soul 20 years before moved on the face of the waters.
And brought them to the moment when the light came in and they were saved. And so it seems to me that if you we have opportunity from time to time to speak to souls, to seek guidance from the Lord, that we don't interfere with the work of the Spirit of God in the soul. I think we get that even in this first chapter of Genesis.
I resonated with our brother Doug talked about God's purpose, and I've always enjoyed the 1St chapter of Ephesians because there we see in the opening verses of it the sovereignty of God doing things at His own pleasure. But the wonder of it is that those things that He did for our blessing, that shows what a wonderful God we have. But you read the opening verses of the first chapter of Ephesians and you get a very clear picture.
Of what motivated God?
To give his Son in order to redeem us, to create us.
It all was to the good pleasure of His own will, and we even read that in the first chapter of Genesis. He looked at His creation and He was pleased. And I often like the thought of the fact that He made man in His own image and likeness, and has already been brought out. Immediately after the creation of man, sin came in.
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And that's what pervaded this world up until the time of Christ. And Christ did that redeeming work. And I like to think too, it is not just that I might be saved and delivered from the punishment of hell, but his work on Calvary dealt with sin and the whole creation. The whole matter of sin was in those three dark hours there on the cross. And So what we've had before us today is really wonderful. But I couldn't help but think when Doug talked about.
God's purpose.
I'll just read a few of these words.
If you turn to Ephesians 1.
Verse five says, Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, what according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood for the forgiveness of sins, what according to the riches of His grace?
I'll just stop there. But it just gives a little picture of the sovereignty of God, and I think it's very humbling. No man can boast of anything.
If we get saved, it's because God wanted us to be saved. Good pleasure of his will.
And I think that's just wonderful. It's just a little picture that we might understand of the greatness of our God. And now I have to say a quote, a verse that getting a little along in life pathway that I often think of and it's in the Corinthians. First Corinthians I have not seen nor hear heard neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God.
Has.
Prepared. Prepared for them that love him.
I know an expert says, but he's revealed it to us by a spirit. But even there, I often think that's something that God cannot do. He cannot make it understandable by us in our present human state on this earth, the things he's prepared for us. And I think that's just marvelous because in fact, one thought I had at the beginning of this meeting was.
When scripture says in the beginning, in the beginning, what characterized in the beginning?
I think the one thing that was characterized by the beginning was the establishment of time.
And when we get in the glory, we're going to be in an eternal state and we're in writers talk about us singing hymns of praise of him as a beginning and an ending. That's time. We cannot conceive what it will be to be in the the state in his presence without time. But it's all according to the good pleasure of his will. And that gives me such peace and joy to know that that in getting saved, which is an unspeakable.
Blessing that I enjoy and we all enjoy, but it's all according to His will. Another thing about that eternal thing, Brother **** we won't forget.
I mean, if anyone of us were asked to give a resume of this meeting, I hope I get 10%. But you know what? We're just going to hear these things and have not hear but show. He's going to show them to us and we'll never have. He'll never have to repeat it because we know. We'll know it and we'll remember it. Isn't that marvelous? When we see him, we shall be like him. Isn't that vulnerable? Yes, we'll know as we are known.
Does anyone have a thought?
Why on the second day and the first day it says it was good, but on the second day it doesn't say that, but on the third day it says it twice, and then every other day after it says it once, and then after man is created, he said it was very good. Now what that tells us is that the original creation recorded in Genesis one was very good. There was no evil there. There was no stain of sin. It was very good.
And sin doesn't come in until the 3rd chapter, but and that second day.
It doesn't say. It says well let's just pass that over again the 4th day I want to make a comment on it because time is running out. It says he made verse 16.
Now OK, the third day is verse 13, evening in the morning with the third day. Now verse 14, God said let there be lights.
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In the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for science, and for seasons, and for days and years.
We know what those lights are, the sun, moon and the stars. Let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, doesn't say He created them here on the 4th day. It says He made them to perform a function which up to this point in the days He was performing, God was performing it. Now he assigns that function to the sun, the moon, and the stars. Notice.
Let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven, to give light upon the earth. And it was so. God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also, And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good evening. In the morning were the 4th day. Well, who did that? Up to this fourth day, it says.
In verse four, God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.
But now he gives that function to the sun and the moon and the stars.
They then performed what he had been doing in the first three days.
He didn't create the sun and the moon and the stars on the 4th day. That was created in verse one. From the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, that's the whole universe. But he he set them in relationship to earth. How he did this?
It's nothing for him, he just did it and he gives the son to do something, ruling the day and the moon at night, stars.
And.
God saw that it was good evening in the morning were the 4th day. Now if I was writing this, I would never have put the sun and the moon, the stars in the fourth day. It just doesn't seem to fit according to our intelligence. And that that should have been in the first day. But they didn't perform that function on the first day of the second day of the third day. God did. And then the sun and the moon, the stars, he assigns it to them. How did he do that? I don't know.
We don't have to know, but God tells us what He did. He doesn't tell us how He did it. All He has to do is speak and it's done. It's just that simple. We don't have to try to figure these things out because they're beyond us. We weren't there. And He's told us just enough so that we know this is what was done, not just how He did it and why He did it this way. It has to be done the way He did it.
It's there's not that he had a choice to do it one of two or three ways. No, it had to be done just the way he did it.
For it to function and work properly, and that's another thing that refutes evolution. Everything has to be created in its complete functional form for it to work. Anything that's going to take millions of years to get to that point would never work because everything is dependent upon everything else. It has to be a complete thing, and God did it.
And the more you think of it, the more you just stand utter awe.
At the immensity of God, our God and our God came into this world, became a man to save the likes of us. Tremendous.
Well, I thought there were three. I think so about the atmosphere above us. And then you pass the planets and then start this and then what? The 3rd heaven?
Paul says he was caught up in paradise, the 3rd heaven, at the very presence of God, wherever that might be, the Father's house. I'm just going to say something here I don't have. You know, we think that heaven is a long way off.
I believe it's just another dimension that we can't see.
He's not a long way from us right there. He's right there. He's right here in the room. He knows everything we're saying and what we do and so on. He's right here. We just don't see him. There's one passage in the Old Testament where the prophet says open his eyes and they saw that the mountain was just filled with Chariots of fire and so on. The angels in that, we didn't see it. There's so much we don't know. We don't have to know those things. We just have to believe this book.
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There's something else that's been helpful to me too in this first chapter, and that is that you've been mentioning the sun, the moon, and the stars.
When you go to the last book in the Bible, Revelation, I'll just read a verse, you don't have to turn to it. The sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth. Now when you read that, some people take that literally and they think that the sun is going to be darkened and the moon is going to be turned to blood and so on. But I remember reading an article one time that stated that the Book of Revelation is a book of symbols.
And that the key to the symbols of revelation are found throughout the word of God.
And I've enjoyed seeing that in this particular first chapter, it says the sun was made to rule the day, the moon to rule the night. He made the stars also. So it seems as if the sun, the moon and the stars are symbolic of governmental authorities in this world.
Higher authorities, lesser authorities and individuals that have been placed in their position by God.
When judgment comes on this world, they're going to fall from that position. Government is going to be brought into chaos. And that's really the thought in Revelation. I only say that because you find the key perhaps to the meaning of the sun, moon, and the stars in this first chapter of Genesis. And let me add to that in Revelation 21, verse 22. And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it. And the Lamb is the light thereof. Days 1-2 and three, the sun and the moon and the stars were set in place, Yet God was the light. And it's going to be that way in eternity. God is the light. He doesn't need the sun, doesn't need the moon and the stars. He's the light. And well, we've got enough in scriptures that we can just rest upon and compare these precious things.
Even though we may not understand them, I have a question.
Always struck me that since we're talking about Revelation and just at the start of the eternal state, we don't have the Trinity there. We have God and we have the Lamb, but there's nothing said about the Spirit. I've always wondered about that. That may be too big a question to raise it this late in this meeting, but I think that's just an interesting thing to consider because in those last few chapters of Revelation we have God and the Lamb.
Very prominent. No mention of the Spirit who awaits. We get home and find out. I'd like to just say this at the end of the meeting. I know our time is gone, but at the last part of this chapter we have man brought before us. And man was made in a different way than the rest of the creation in the next chapter, just to sum it up in chapter 2 and verse seven. And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
And man, you and us today, we're different than the lower creation, and that is that we are responsible to our Maker. Man was created a tripart being spirit, soul and body. The animals have a body. The body is the physical. They have a soul too, in the sense that the soul is the seed of the emotions and affections, but they don't have a spirit. And you and I are responsible to God.
And that's why when man was placed in the garden and given to enjoy all the fruit of the garden at the hand of God, God said there's one thing you're not to do. And that one thing which was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was to be the recognition that Adam was enjoying all this as responsible to God, that he was responsible to his Maker. But in reaching out and eating of the forbidden fruit and disobeying God, Adam failed to recognize his responsibility to God.
And that's what man does today. He doesn't want to recognize his responsibility toward God. That's why the evolutionist will come along and tell us, well, it all just happened out of a single cell. And when man dies, he's going to die like the lower creation. If man can convince himself of that, then he has no responsibility to his Maker. But God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Doesn't say that about the lower creation.
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And so when they die, it's all over. But when you and I pass off this scene, when a man or woman draws their last breath, it's not all over. The Lord drew the curtain aside in Luke's Gospel chapter 16 to show that it's not all over When man leaves this world, as far as his biographer is concerned, it is over. But as far as God is concerned, it's not. And I just say at the end of these readings, if there's someone here and you haven't received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and not recognize that you're responsible to your Creator.
I want to beseech you to do it now. Time is short and God in His grace is giving you another few moments opportunity. And so it's important when we die, when we leave this world, there's something beyond because man was not created like the lower creation. I want to add to that.
Some people talk to their plants. A plant has life, but no soul, no spirit. An animal. I can talk to my animal. I can talk to my honey bear because he has a soul. But he doesn't have a living soul. That means a never dying soul. Only man has a never dying soul. When the animal dies, his soul dies. Not true of man. We have never dying soul. We have a spirit.
And that's what makes it so solemn. Where are you going to spend eternity? A never dying soul, Either with him or in the lake of fire. Terrible to think of those that will go to hell. Perhaps we could sing the last verse of hymn #4.
Actually 2 hymns in our Little Flock hymn book that specifically have a reference made to the 8th chapter of Proverbs. One is the 59th M.
Which speaks about wisdom, Jehovah's first delight, and brings before us creation. In that first verse and in the third verse we see he adorned the ark of heaven.
But then in verse six it says, Jesus, from everlasting days thy thoughts upon us ran. Herson was known air Adams Duff was fashioned into man. And likewise the 1St 2 verses of hymn #4 bring before us that marvelous creation.
But then we're reminded of.
The Lord's delight with each one of us.
Where we worthy of it? No, but it's God's grace alone, isn't it? Verse #3 of #4?
And could thou be lighted?
For his lighted and healthy to our dream.
I follow.
Indeed eternal.
Counselor before the world was made.
Made.
Foundation.
Nothing else were laid.
God breakfast us for last.
He would laugh, his body to die upon.
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Me.
Will soon complete the story.
And come again, and we come.
And when increasing.
Our ceaseless pray shall flow.
Gospel
Gospel—A. Coleman
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Now can we open our gospel meeting by singing hymn #47 in the appendix and the Little Flock hymn book? Very well known gospel hymn. God in mercy sent his Son to a world by sin and done. Jesus Christ was crucified twice for sinners. Jesus died. Oh the glory of the grace shining in a Savior's face, telling sinners from above. God is light and God is love.
47 in the.
In the appendix.
Style.
Every time.
All of the grave shining.
One day you're saying yourself and we say it's.
Shall we pray? Loving Father, we're so thankful to be here tonight. We're so thankful, loving Father, to be able to preach this wonderful news of salvation to whosoever will. Loving Father, we thank Thee that Thou art a God that is rich in mercy for Thy great love. We're with those loved us even when we were dead and trespasses and sins.
And we thank thee, our God and Father, that doubt is sin, Thy beloved Son.
The Lord Jesus Christ into this world to be the sin bearer on Calvary's cross for our sins.
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And we thank the Lord Jesus for thy obedience to the Father and willingly going to that cross and dying in our stead. And Lord Jesus, we do thank Thee that thou hast made salvation full and free to whosoever will, because of thy precious work on Calvary's cross. And thine arms are outstretched to this world tonight. And now we're seeking lost ones to come to thee tonight in all their sinned, and be saved and save for all eternity and have the assurance of it. We just thank Thee.
For Thy precious word that we can have open before us tonight, and we ask thy blessing as we open eyed word. We can't do this without the loving Father, and we need Thee for this hour. And so we do pray that this wonderful news of salvation will be told once more. Tell it again.
Tell it again, salvation story. Repeat or and or till none can say. I've never heard it before. Lord Jesus, we ask thee for this in thy precious and worthy name. Amen.
You know, I'm so very thankful for the prayers of the Saints in this last week or so. And we really felt that when we were in Mongolia and we were into many prisons in Mongolia and preached the gospel. And it wasn't a case of preparing a head ahead of time as to what I was going to speak on.
It, it just seemed like the prayers of the Saints just helped us and we just went in and I opened my mouth and the gospel came out and I want to share with you some of the verses that are wonderful God gave me when we were in the prisons there and preaching to these dear ones in the prison. And the first one is a very incredible, precious, precious person. When I first heard it, I it just.
Thrilled my soul to very bone and I hope it thrills your soul to.
And it goes in Job 3414.
Job 34, verse 14. If he set his heart upon man, if he gathered unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall return again to the dust.
I'm going to read it in Darby, and this is precious. I want you to really take note of this.
Hippie only thought of himself.
If he only thought of himself, and gathered unto him.
His spirit in his breath, all flesh would expire together.
And man would return to the dust.
Beautiful, isn't it? Think of it, if he only thought of himself as God, this wonderful God that we have to proclaim tonight, that if he only thought of himself, where would you and I be? We be.
In the dust, condemned forever, lost forever. But the wonderful muse of the gospel is this, that he didn't think of himself. No, he did. This wonderful, loving God never thought of himself. No, He thought about you and I. He thought about each one of us here. He thought about you. And what did he do?
The verse.
That goes with this verse is this God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Isn't that beautiful? This wonderful verse that has been proclaimed all over this world for 2000 years and it's been a means of many precious souls fighting the Lord Jesus as their own personal Savior. How many souls have been saved through that verse?
God so loved the world.
Think of it. He didn't think of himself. No, He thought about you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Think of that. How wonderful that this wonderful, loving God thought about you and I. And he sent his Son. He sent his Son into this world. I will send my son. Wonderful, isn't it? What a wonderful God.
Or, you know, it's, it's it's such a wonderful thing to be a child of God, to know this wonderful God that has saved me.
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And this wonderful God that I'm going to spend an eternity with in that coming scene of glory. And, you know, think of it that maybe this very night will be in that.
Hear that wonderful shout that will take us out of this scene and into his very presence. You know, there's some young boys, young girls here in this room tonight. And what about it? You're sitting beside your mother and father and your mother and father can't, can't save your soul.
It's got to be an individual effort between between you and God. And what about it? Have you come as a guilty, lost Sinner? What about it? You know, you're sitting beside your mother and father and everything, anything that you want from your father, you ask him and things like that. And you've got a home to go to and all the comforts of your home.
But you know, when I was in Mongolia, I went into an orphanage and there were children there that had been abandoned by their brother.
Or their mother had died and they didn't have any mother.
No mother at all.
No father, no family, nothing. 200 kids living in an orphanage.
That you've got a mother, you've got a father, and you've got a Christian home and you've got the word of God read in your home. You've got it. And you know you're more responsible than those children in Mongolia that didn't have a mother and father.
And you've heard the gospel over and over again many Lord's days, just as it is tonight.
And what about it? Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior? Have you done it? You know tomorrow may be too late. He says, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Think of it, that the Lord Jesus is offering you salvation full and free tonight, without money, without price.
It's all been done at Calvary's cross. The Lord Jesus could say on Calvary's credit is finished and he bowed his head and gave up the coast. There was nothing left for you and I to do but just come to the Lord Jesus tonight. Nothing left for us to do, nothing left for us to do. It's all been done. Everything's been done. The Lord Jesus went to that cross and died there on that cross where he was alone, forsaken of a holy, righteous, sinning sin heating God. Think of it, what the Lord Jesus suffered there on Calvary's cross for your sins and mine.
Whose own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, yes.
Here one tonight he bore my sin in his own body on the tree, and yet his arms are outstretched to you tonight. And he said to you, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Oh what a wonderful loving Savior that we have to proclaim tonight. Think of it that 2000 years the gospel has been preached and God is long-suffering and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
And is lengthened out the day of grace so that you may come tonight.
And he says, Behold, now is accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And he says, Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
It's time to come to Christ. Don't put it off. Don't wait for another day.
Come now, come tonight before it's forever too late. I'm going to go to a man that in the Old Testament, later on in in this gospel, and I'm going to tell you about this man that he was given every opportunity to repent to the God of Israel and he didn't.
And you know, you're given every opportunity and you're responsible tonight. And you know, if there's someone here tonight that has never heard the gospel before, you know there's a wonderful God that loves you, a wonderful God that loves you, a God that sent his Son into this world to die for you. And you know, dear one, tonight that you've sinned against the holy God, a thrice holy God. I want to say that. A holy, holy, holy God.
Who cannot have sin in his presence, But you know he's provided a way through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. I want to tell you that you'll never get to heaven without the blood of Christ. You'll never get to heaven without the work of Christ in Calvary's cross. It's all been done for you. Everything we can say it is finished, just indeed finished. Every jaunt.
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Sinner, this is all you need. Tell me, is it not? Is there any other way? No, he said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me there's only one savior for this world. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when we were in in Mongolia, it was Buddha. It was Buddha. But you know Buddha can save you.
Muhammad can't save you. Confucius can't save you.
All these false gods can can save you. There's only one savior for this world that says.
Neither is there salvation than any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It is only the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that name which is about every name. The Gospel tract that we gave out was this, Who is Jesus? And I want to ask you this one question tonight. Dear young ones here tonight and older ones here tonight, who is Jesus? Can you answer that question?
Or you say, well, he's God's son, but is he your savior? Is he your savior? Can you say that he is my savior? Ah, they would, as I would give out the Gospel tract, Who is Jesus? All they would say, Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, you know, one dear, one dear man that when I gave him out the Gospel tract to his Jesus. So he took that and he put it up to his chest. He couldn't speak a word of English and I couldn't speak a word of Mongolian, but it was precious, that name to him.
Is it precious to you? The name of Jesus? Is it precious to you?
That name which is above every name you know. At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. If you don't bow the knee to the name of the Lord Jesus tonight, you'll bow the knee to the Lord Jesus in the coming day as your judge, as your judge.
You know God doesn't want to send a man to hell. No, he says. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
But that the wicked turned from his evil way and live. And then he says, turn, ye turn. Yay for why will he die? God is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish. And that's a wonderful thing in the gospel, that here he is our loving Savior with his arms outstretched. And to you tonight here in this room, are you a stranger to the Lord Jesus? Oh, come to him tonight before it's forever too late.
Turn with me to Matthew 27.
Matthew 27.
Verse 22.
Pilate said unto him, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the Christ?
And this was the other verse that the Lord gave me in those prisons, and that was this, what shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the Christ? And that is a question for you tonight, dear one. We want to remind you that you're in a very solemn gospel meeting and you're responsible for what you're hearing tonight. And it's just as if Pilot is here in this room tonight and he's saying to you.
What shall I do with Jesus, which is called the Christ? And God is asking you that question tonight, just as Pilot asked that question 2000 years ago. What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the Christ? And what are you going to do about it?
What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about Jesus? Are you going to receive Him as your Savior?
Or are you going to be like Pilot and Washington? Your hands are going to have nothing to do with it?
I'm going to remain neutral. You know you can't. It is impossible to remain neutral. It is impossible before a holy righteous, sin hating God. Turn with me and I'll show you the that in John chapter 3.
John chapter 3. You cannot remain neutral. You must decide.
00:20:01
Choose you this day whom He will serve.
John 3, verse 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.
And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Now I ask you, do you see anything in the middle of that verse that that can suggest to you that you can remain neutral? No, it's only one way or the other.
Either you accept Christ or you reject him, and the wrath of God of fighting on you favor. What a solemn thing you think of it that if there's one here tonight.
Is still in their sins that the wrath of God is abiding on you. Oh, I plead with you to come to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, please, from the wrath to come before it is forever too late.
Would you turn with me now to Jeremiah?
You know, brethren, that.
I love Jeremiah. I love him. He is a tremendous, tremendous inspiration to me. You know, God told him in the first chapter, I'll just go a little bit through the earth. God told Jeremiah in the first chapter, he says, I want you to go and tell the nation of Israel. I want you to tell them, what do you tell them here?
Let's start with verse 7.
Ever 6.
No. Verse five Sorry. Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou came as forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordered thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Oh Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child, you know.
It's interesting.
A few months ago brother Reuben phoned me up and he said Ali said how would you like to go to Mongolia?
Reuben, Mongolia.
And then and then I thought and then I started praying about it. I really, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go. And I just feel a little bit like Jeremiah here, you know, I can't do that. I can't do that.
First, per SE, be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Prehole, I have put my words in thy mouth. See I have I have this day set thee over the nations, over the Kingdom, to root out, to pull down and destroy and throw down, and to build and to plant all. And so the time went along, and I prayed about it. And should I go to Mongolia with brother Reuben? And, and then finally one day I said.
Before the Lord's uncle.
You know, brother.
Two days later.
I got a letter in the mail.
And it covered.
The full amount of our trip to Mongolia.
You know, he's a wonderful car, a wonderful guy.
A wonderful God and yet man would say, hey, you know, being a Christian, that must be an awful, dull, dull life, Boring. And you're in you're in meetings like this and you're over the word of God and you go to places in North Carolina and all over the place. And that must be a dull life. No, no, it's a wonderful life and I wouldn't trade it for all the world. What a God we have. What a wonderful God we have. And so he's talking to Jeremiah and he says, I want you to go.
And tell the nation of Israel.
He says verse 15, Lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north of the Lord.
And they shall come, and they shall set everyone on His throne at the entering in of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the world walls. They're all roundabout, and against all the cities of Judah. And I will utter my judgments against them, touching all their witness who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worship the works of their own hands. Now you know I said that Jeremiah is an inspiration to me. And you know what he did? He told the nation of Judah.
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He told them, he said, you know, judgment is coming, judgment is coming. Nebuchadnezzar's army is going to come and overtake this land, and you're all going to be carried away captive. And that's what Jeremiah did. And if you go all the way through the book of Jeremiah over and over again, he's warning the nation of Judah, he said that judgment is coming.
And you know, it's just like the day of Greece today, that judgment is coming on this world and someday will be too late. Think of it, it says too late. Too late will be the cry. Jesus of Nazareth has passed by and you'll never have a gospel meeting. You'll never have an opportunity to come to Christ, obey and all. There are some that will say today, are you going to get a second chance?
No you won't. God will send you a strong delusion that you'll believe alive.
But yet till today, the gospel going forward and here is Jeremiah and he's proclaiming this news, proclaiming this solemn judgment on the nation of Judah and he's warning them. And you know, God is warning this world tonight. It says in in Ezekiel chapter 33 twice over, it says, warn them from me, warn this world.
And you know, the gospel brings a warning. Tonight, the gospel brings a very solemn warning. God doesn't want to send a little boy, a little girl to hell. But you know, if you reject this wonderful offer of salvation, he's got no other course than to send you to a lost eternity. Think of that. How solemn. But tonight you have an opportunity to be saved.
All did. Did Jeremiah suffer? Sure he did.
Yeah, they put them, they put them in a prison. They put them down in a pit. Well, they'll go to that place there where they put them down in the pit. It's Jeremiah chapter.
Chapter 38.
Jeremiah chapter 38 and verse 6.
They then they then took the Jeremiah and cast them into a dungeon.
Of Malachi, the son of Hamlet that was in the court.
Of the person. And they let down Jeremiah with cords, and in the dungeon there was no water but Meyer. So Jeremiah sank in the mire. Think of that. Here he was preaching, He was warning the nation of Judah of coming judgment, and they put him down in that. In that pit they said, Jeremiah, be quiet.
Be quiet. And you know there are many that well today will say the same thing. Be quiet. Don't tell us anymore about that.
But yet we need to do it. You know the song that we sing in Sunday school? Tell it again, tell it again. Salvation story. Repeat or and or till none can say. I've never heard it before. You know you've heard it before. I know everyone here tonight, I believe in this room has heard this wonderful gospel before and you're responsible. But they put Jeremiah down in that, in that pit and it says he sank in the fire.
Go to just.
Go to Psalm 69.
Psalm 69.
Say me, O God, for the waters are coming to my soul. I think indeed mire, where there is no standing. I am coming to deep waters where the floods overflow me. I am weary, am I crying? My throat is dried, my eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy me, being my enemies, wrongfully or mighty. Then I restore not that which I took not away.
Save me, O God, for the waters of come into my soul. I think indeed my earth, where there is no standing. Think of that. What is this? It's our blessed Lord on Calvary Cross, there suffering the untold judgments of God because of your sins and mine.
00:30:05
I think indeed mire, but all beloved tonight. Oh, what is it in the Psalm 40 it says he lifted me up also out of an horrible pitch and out of the mirey clay and he set my feet on a rock and he established my going and he put a new song even praise unto my God. Oh, this your case. Can you say that tonight that he's lifted me up out of a horrible pit and that is.
Year 1 tonight.
Horrible pit. A horrible pit. You know, if you could.
Here, the history of the man that is standing before you tonight, You would say it's only the grace of God. It's only the grace of God.
He lifted me up out of a horrible pit. Hey, wait a minute, you said, didn't you? Weren't you raised in a Christian home? Yeah, I was. But he lifted me up out of a horrible pit.
You know, it says there in the March and he says a pit of noise, a pit of noise. And you know, that's just the God of this world noise. Make a noise. Make a noise, Make a noise, Make a noise. Don't think about your salvation. Don't think about eternity. Make a noise.
We've been redeemed from all that in that wonderful what a God we have.
Turn with me to Chapter 52.
So Jeremiah preached. He told it. He told it over and over again.
Zedekiah took him aside in one of the chapters and he says.
Is there a message from God for me? You know, Jeremiah had just come out of the prison and he, he comes to Jeremiah and he and he says to him secretly he didn't want anybody to know about this little meeting with Jeremiah.
And he says, is there a message from God for me? And you think, oh, Jeremiah, he'd just come out of the prison, Maybe he might have changed his tune. No, it was the same thing. It's the same thing. Judge Mendez coming.
Judgment is coming.
Did it come? Yes, it did.
Chapter 52.
Zedekiah.
Was one and 20 years old when he began to reign. What did that tell you? Well, right now, today, in today's standards, you're 21.
You are a man. You're a full grown. You're an adult.
You're responsible. You're responsible. Zeddy Kaya was 2121 years old when he ascended the throne.
Three spots. He had heard it. It had been told him over and over again.
And Zedekiah had 11 years of his reign.
To repent and come to the God of Israel. He had 11 years. You know, you might not have 11 years.
You might not have even one day.
You might not even have one hour.
If the Lord Jesus were to come at 9:00, where would you be?
Sitting in your seat, lost forever and in your sins. And so there's an urgency in the Gospel. You know, the Lord Jesus could say in John 737, he says in that last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, if any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. And you know, there are so many that tonight are so thirsty. You know, this world cannot satisfy your thirst.
It's only the Lord Jesus Christ, he says. He satisfies the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with fatness. Oh, how wonderful it is to be a child of God.
Was one in 20 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hammett, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. All you know, here it is, he did that which was evil in the sight of the world of the Lord. And you know Romans 323 says this.
00:35:09
All have sinned.
Come short of the glory of God. Those sins, dear one, have separated you from a holy righteous sin hitting God, a God that cannot have sin in His presence. I remember so many years ago when we were in Newfoundland, we had the opportunity of presenting the gospel in one of the villages near our and we were we. We went through the gospel meeting and the hobby class with the children.
And at the end some of the peers came to us and were just really mean. And how dare you come to this building and and tell those children about the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you know, there was one thing that those children heard, and I told them this.
It only takes one sin to set you to shut you out of heaven forever. And I heard that after some of the children that had told their parents that it only takes one sin to shut you out of heaven forever. Think about it that Adam sinned only once or did he?
And God shut him out of the Garden of Eden forever.
God cannot have sin in his presence. Thus set the high and mighty one that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy.
He did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Jehovah had done. For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the 10th month and the 10th day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came he and all his army against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it roundabout. So the city was besieged unto the 11Th year. Now here he's got a year and a half, the armies are around Jerusalem, he's got a year and a half to repent.
Did he? No, he didn't. No, he didn't. And you know, God has given you an opportunity to be saved tonight. Another opportunity to be saved.
Are you going to lay hold of that wonderful opportunity tonight?
These longings that you might be saved tonight God has not long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. You know, dear one, tonight God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day into which he will judge this world in righteousness by that man whom Healeth ordained whereof he gave assurance, and that he raised him from the debt. Beautiful, isn't it, all, these gods of this world, But we have arisen, Savior, on high in the glory.
A living man in the glory beautiful. Oh what a savior. Surely we can say Hallelujah, what a savior. Oh God that opens doors that God that.
Allows us to go into prisons and preach the gospel, you know?
It was this wonderful, loving God and His long-suffering mercy that opened those prison doors.
You know, Baggy too, we were trying to get into the big penitentiary in the middle of the desert out there miles from nowhere, a cow trail to get there. And we came to the entrance and we went into the into the office and, and, and Baggy too was talking to them in Mongolian and telling them what we wanted and we wanted to come in and preach the gospel to them. And all of a sudden he come flying out to us and he says Hallelujah, Jesus.
That's all he knew. In English he says Hallelujah, Jesus. And we went in and there was 500 souls had heard the particle sun, 500 souls have heard the story of the prodigal son. Why did God do that? Because you're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The gospel go what a loving God, God, what a loving God.
I'm Dedicaya had a chance to repent and he didn't.
Citizens South.
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Verse 7. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by way of the gate between the two walls, which was the King's garden.
Now the Chaldeans were by the city roundabout, and they went by the way of the plane. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his armies were stuttered from him.
Oh, here it is. He's trying to escape. All you know, there is no escape. It says what shall the end be of those that obey not the gospel of Christ. What a solemn thing to go out of this room tonight still lost and in your sin. Oh, I pray that there's not one here tonight that will go out of this room still a lost guilty Sinner. God is offering. He's inviting you to come tonight. Just won't you come tonight as a guilty Sinner before a holy righteous sin hitting God.
You know, it says in Romans 10 and nine, we've had it before us in these meetings, it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. I want to repeat this story again. Probably you've heard it, heard me tell this story before. But up there in New World Island in Newfoundland, there were two little boys that came into the Gospel tent and they heard the story of the Lord Jesus Christ and they heard that.
That verse Romans 10 and nine. And those two little boys accepted Christ as their Savior. And the next day they came to us and they were, and we were talking to them about it and we were talking about Romans 10:00 and 9:00. And that little boy said, yes, he said, but you have to sense what you mean. You have to sense what you mean. All that little boy meant it. How about you? Do you mean it?
Do you mean it? Is it coming from your heart? Look what it says. It says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, you have a mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath reason from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. It has to come from the heart that you have to meet it.
You have to mean it. I'm a guilty lost Sinner.
On the guilty law Sinner, I need to be saved.
The prodigal son came to his father and he said, Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in thy sight I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Oh, think of it, dear one. Tonight, dear young people, tonight mothers and fathers are praying for you. My mother is 100 years old. She's going to be 100 in next month, my dear mother.
Sweet soul, I was so blessed having such wonderful parents but the sorrow I brought on my parents when I was young but thanks to their precious prayers interceding.
To holy God for me to save my precious soul. Oh, you know.
Don't follow the course of this world, dear young people, Don't follow this world.
It'll never satisfy you. I tried it, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.
There's only one that can satisfy the Lord Jesus Trace.
Dedekaya tried to escape, and there'll be no escape for those that obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn back with me now to that. I think it was chapter 30.
3038.
So they put Jeremiah down in that pit.
And Jeremiah think in that, in that pit there, but you know, there was a man.
This is so wonderful, this is so beautiful, this story. There was a man by the name of Ibed Malik, the Ethiopian. He was a black man. He was a black man. And you know, God loves to save the black man. And always I was looking at all those children in that orphanage there in Mongolia. I was thinking of that song that we sing in Sunday school. Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, all our precious in this site. The Lord Jesus loves those black children down there in Ghana and in Nigeria.
00:45:09
And he loves those children over there in Mongolia.
And he died for those children, and he loves them so very much.
Wants them with him in that wonderful home in heaven that he's prepared for little children that put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus.
For those children, even though they were in an orphanage, they didn't have any mother or father, but they were precious to the Lord Jesus. It was a wonderful that that orphanage, a Christian woman ran that orphanage.
Not beautiful and we had the privilege of giving.
A stack of laminated texts that high and bookmarks and pencils and everything else that we could carry in our bags to those children. And I dare say that every one of those laminated texts are hanging up in every one of the rooms. Mongolian Bible verses. I say praise the Lord, His word will never return unto him voice there they are hanging up in the walls. Maybe those those texts are hanging up in the walls, a silent witness to the grace of God and the love of God. And God wants to save those precious souls.
But not only does he want to save precious souls in Mongolia and Ghana and wherever all over this world, but he wants to save your precious soul tonight if you're still in your sin.
Wonderful God, wonderful God. And here's Ebid and I like the Ethiopian. All he thinks, all he thinks of Jeremiah down in that pit. Oh, you know, he wanted to be identified with that man that went down into the pit. Oh dear one tonight, do you want to be identified with that blessed band, the Lord Jesus Christ, who went down into death for you, who sunk a deep mire there at Calvary's cross?
That wonderful, wonderful Savior that suffered on Calvary's cross for you, do you know him personally as your Lord and Savior? What did they do? Oh, Yvette Maliki, take some old class clothes and rotten rags and take Jeremiah up out of that pit. And that says they lifted Jeremiah up out of that pit by those cords. You know, again, I'm going to say this Psalm 40, He lifted me up also. I've been horrible pit and out of the miry clay.
And set my feet upon a rock, and establish my going. And put a new song in my mouth. Even praised unto my God. Wonderful.
Yeah, now go to think it's chapter 39.
Chapter 39.
Verse 15.
Now the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, while he was shot up in the court of the prison, saying, Go and speak to Yved Malik, the Ethiopian, saying thus, that the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, giddy, giddy God in his.
God is going to bring this world into an awful judgment. You know, when the church is taken home, this world is going to come under the solemn judgment of God. I believe that this world is going to be decimated of its population.
Terrible times are coming upon this world, and Oh dear one, tonight we say this.
Flee from the coming wrath to come.
I will and and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But verse 17 I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord. And thou shalt not be given unto the hand of the men whom thou art afraid for I will surely deliver thee. And thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey entity. Now look at this.
Look at this as a sentence coming up, because thou hast put thy trust in the Lord.
I was put thy trust in thee, Sir, the Lord. Isn't that a sweet thing? Isn't that so beautiful? Because thou hast put thy trust in me, said the Lord. I remember so many years ago. I suppose it's probably over 50 years now that.
I came to the Lord Jesus Christ as a guilty, lost Sinner. Oh.
00:50:01
I got so tired of the glitter and glamour. Enough.
Awfulness of this world.
And I came to Christ and accepted Him as my own personal Savior.
And I remember the song.
It says it only says a simple thing. Believe and live, Dolly, and live. You know, God doesn't ask you to do something complicated to be to be saved. You don't have to climb a big staircase. You don't have to go on an excursion to Mongolia or Africa or anything like that, No.
All he wants you to do is come, I figured.
His long-suffering burst, and there he is tonight our blessed Lord Jesus. He's saying to you, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He says in John 637 him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. He won't say to you, oh you're too bad, you're too bad. No, you can come in perfect confidence and know that he'll receive you this man.
Received a sinner's sinners, and eateth with them.
The just read it.
First John, chapter 5.
First John, chapter 5.
Verse 13.
These things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
How wonderful these things that are written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that he may know, that ye may know. You don't want to guess at your salvation. Maybe I'm saved, maybe I'm on my way to heaven. No, I know.
By the authority of this precious book that I have opened before tonight.
Oh, I urge you tonight here in this wonderful book that God has given us our words of life. Oh, if only man would open this wonderful book and read it.
He'd find a wonderful savior, said Delight to save.
The lights to play.
This wonderful God, Dear one, tonight, do you know this wonderful God?
If I asked you the question tonight, who is Jesus? Would you be able to say you're my Savior, My Savior?
By the grace of God, tonight I can say He is my Savior, my Jesus.
The one I'm going to spend an eternity with.
Hallelujah, praise ye the Lord, what a savior.
Thank the Lord together.
Loving Father, we're so thankful that we've had the privilege once more of preaching the gospel, even though it's been so feeble. Loving Father, we just ask thy rich blessing. We ask thee that as thy word went forth tonight, that it may be bear fruit for thy glory, Blessed Lord. And we do pray that if there's any here tonight, there's still strangers to Thee, that behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Tomorrow, maybe too late. Oh.
We do urge anyone here tonight that are still in their sins, that tomorrow may be too late. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. To know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, to have the assurance of it. Oh Lord, we just thank thee for our day together. A little taste of the home to which we're going to very shortly, we thank thee for Lord Jesus.
And I precious and really name Amen.
Genesis 1
Reading
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Genesis .1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.
Scarlet Open Mtg Conf
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Lourdes laid on my heart to say a few words about scarlet. It is a very bright color. It is. It was the color of the cord that Rahab was instructed to hang from her window that identified her and her household with the people of Israel.
I believe it was the royal color.
Of Israel.
John 3:16
Gospel—A. Coleman
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You know, I'm so very thankful for the prayers of the Saints in this last week or so. And we really felt that when we were in Mandolia and we were into many prisons in Mongolia and preach the gospel. And it wasn't a case of preparing ahead of ahead of time as to what I was going to speak on it. It just seemed like the prayers of the Saints just helped us. And we just went in and I opened my mouth and the gospel came out. And I want to share with you some of.
Verses that our wonderful God gave me when we were in the prisons there and preaching to these dear ones in the prison. And the first one is a very incredible, precious, precious person. When I first heard it, it just thrilled my soul to the very boom. And I hope it thrills your soul too. And it goes in Job 3414.
Job 34, verse 14. If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together.
And man shall return again to the dust.
I'm going to read it in Darby, and this is precious. I want you to really take note of this.
If he only thought of himself.
If he only thought of himself, and gathered unto him.
His spirit in his breath, all flesh would expire together.
And man would return to the dust.
Beautiful, isn't it? Think of it, if he only fought of himself as God, this wonderful God that we have to proclaim tonight, that if he only thought of himself, where would you and I be? We be.
In the dust condemned, forever lost.
Forever. But the wonderful news of the gospel is this, that he didn't think of himself.
No, He did this wonderful, loving God never thought of Himself.
No, He thought about you and I. He thought about each one of us here.
He thought about you, and what did he do?
Verse that goes with this verse is this. God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish that have.
Everlasting life Isn't that beautiful? This wonderful verse that has been proclaimed all over this world for 2000 years.
And has been a means of many precious souls finding the Lord Jesus as their own personal savior. How many souls have been saved through that verse?
God so loved the world. Think of it. He didn't think of himself. No, He thought about you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Look at that. How wonderful that this wonderful, loving God thought about you and I. And he sent his Son. He sent his Son into this world. I will send my son.
Wonderful, isn't it? What a wonderful dog.
Well, you know, it's, it's it's such a wonderful thing to be a child of God, to know this wonderful God that has saved me and this wonderful God that I'm going to spend an eternity with in that coming scene of glory. And, you know, think of it that maybe this very night will be in that in that hear that wonderful show that will take us out of this scene and into his very present. But you think of it.
Hey, listen, you know, there's some young boys, young girls here in this room tonight.
And what about it? You're sitting beside your mother and father and your mother and father can't, can't save your soul. It's got to be an individual effort between between you and God. And what about it? Have you come as a guilty, lost Sinner? What about it? You know, you're sitting beside your mother and father and everything, anything that you want from your father, you ask him and things like that, and you've got a home to go to.
And all the comforts of your home.
But you know, when I was in Mongolia, I went into an orphanage and there were children there that had been abandoned by their brother.
Or their mother had died and they didn't have any mother, no mother at all.
No father, no family, nothing. 200 kids living in in an orphanage. If you've got a mother, you've got a father and you've got a Christian home and you've got the word of God read in your home, you've got it. And you know you're more responsible than those children in Mongolia that didn't have a mother and father.
00:05:18
And you've heard the gospel over and over again many Lord's days, just as it is tonight.
And what about it? Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior? Have you done it? You know tomorrow may be too late. He says, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Think of it, that the Lord Jesus is offering you salvation full and free tonight, without money, without Christ.
It's all been done at Calvary's cross. The Lord Jesus could say on Calvary's crowd it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the coast. There's nothing left for you and I to do but just come to the Lord Jesus tonight. Nothing left for us to do, nothing left for us to do. It's all been done. Everything's been done. The Lord Jesus went to that cross and died there on that cross where he was alone, forsaken of a holy.
It's in eating God. Think of it what the Lord Jesus suffered there on Calvary's cross for your sin and mine who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Yes, here one tonight He bore my sin in his own body on the tree, and yet his arms are outstretched to you tonight and he's saying to you, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you a rest. Oh what?
Loving Savior that we have to proclaim tonight, think of it, that 2000 years the gospel has been preached and God is long-suffering and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And he's lengthened out the day of grace so that you may come tonight. And he says, behold, now is accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And he says, remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
It's time to come to Christ.
Don't put it off. Don't wait for another day.
Come now, come tonight before is forever too late. I'm going to go to a man that in the Old Testament later on in this gospel, and I'm going to tell you about this man that he was given every opportunity to repent to the God of Israel and he didn't. And you know, you're given every opportunity and you're responsible tonight. And you know, if there's someone here tonight that has never heard the gospel before.
You know there's a wonderful God that loves you, a wonderful God that loves you, a God that sent his Son into this world to die for you. And you know, dear one, tonight that you've sinned against the holy God, a thrice holy God. I want to say that a holy, holy, holy God who cannot have sin in his presence. But you know, he's provided a way through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says the blood of Jesus Christ God.
Cleanses us from all sin. I want to tell you that you'll never get to heaven without the blood of Christ. You'll never get to heaven without the work of Christ and Calvary's cross. It's all been done for you. Everything we can say. It is finished. Just indeed finished. Every. John Sinner. This is all you need. Tell me, is it not? Is there any other way? No, He said I am the way. The truth and the life no man cometh.
Father, but by me there's only one savior for this world. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when we were in, in Mongolia, it was Buddha, it was Buddha. But you know, Buddha can't save you, Muhammad can't save you, Confucius can't save you. All these false gods can, can save you. There's only one savior for this world that says neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men.
We must be saved. It's only the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that name which is about every name. The gospel tract that we gave out was this Who is Jesus? And I want to ask you this one question tonight, dear young ones here tonight and older ones here tonight, who is Jesus? Can you answer that question?
Or you say, well, he's God's son, but is he your savior? Is he your savior? Can you say?
That he is my savior. Ah, they would as I would give out the Gospel tract, who is Jesus, or they would say, Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, you know, one dear, one, dear man that when I gave him out the Gospel tract to his Jesus. So he took that and he put it up to his jet. He couldn't speak a word of English and I couldn't speak a word of Mongolian, but it was precious, that name to him.
00:10:18
Is it precious to you? The name of Jesus? Is it precious to you?
That name which is above every name you know at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. If you don't bow the knee to the name of the Lord Jesus tonight, you'll bow the knee to the the Lord Jesus in the coming day as your judge, as your judge. You know God doesn't want to send a man to hell. No, he says, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his evil way and live. And then he says, turn, ye turn. Yay.
Will he die? God is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish. And that's a wonderful thing in the gospel, that here he is, our loving Savior, with his arms outstretched. And to you tonight here in this room, are you a stranger to the Lord Jesus? Oh, come to him tonight before it's forever too late.
Turn with me to Matthew 27. Matthew 27.
Verse 22 Pilot says unto him, What shall I do then?
With Jesus, which is called the Christ.
This was the other verse that the Lord give me in those prisons, and that was this. What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the Christ? And that is a question for you tonight, dear one. We want to remind you that you're in a very solemn gospel meeting and you're responsible for what you're hearing tonight. And it's just as if Violet is here in this room.
Tonight. And he say unto you, What shall I do with Jesus, which is called the Christ? And God is asking you that question tonight, just as Pilot asked that question 2000 years ago. What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the Christ? And what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about Jesus? Are you going to receive him as your Savior?
Or are you going to be like Pilate and Washington? Your hands are going to have nothing to do with it. I'm going to remain neutral. You know you can. It is impossible to remain neutral. It is impossible before a holy, righteous, sin hating God. Turn with me and I'll show you that in John chapter 3.
John chapter 3. You cannot remain neutral. You must decide. Choose you this day whom he will serve.
John 3 verse 36 He that believeth on the Son.
Half everlasting life, and he that believeth not the son.
Shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Now I asked you, do you see anything in the middle of that verse that that can suggest to you that you can remain neutral? No, it's only one way or the other.
Either you accept Christ or you reject Him, and the wrath of God of fighting on you. Sava, what a solemn thing you think of it, that if there's one here tonight.
Is still in their sins that the wrath of God is abiding on you. Oh, I plead with you to come to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, please, from the wrath to come before it is forever too late.
Would you turn with me now to Jeremiah? You know, brethren, I love Jeremiah. I love him. He is a tremendous, tremendous inspiration to me. You know, God told him in the first chapter. I'll just go a little bit through here. God told Jeremiah in the first chapter. He says, I want you to go and tell the nation of Israel. I want you to tell him. What do you tell him here?
So let's start with verse seven and verse six. No verse five, sorry. Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou came as forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I are during the prophet unto the nations. Thence that I oh Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.
You know.
00:15:01
It's interesting.
A few months ago brother Reuben phoned me up and he said Ali said how would you like to go to Mongolia?
Ruben, Mongolia.
And then, and then I thought, and then I started praying about it. I really, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go. And I just feel a little bit like Jeremiah here, You know, I can't do that. I can't do that first per SE. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand and touch my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
CI of this I have this sent thee over the nations, over the kingdoms, to root out, to pull down and destroy and throw down and to build and to plant all. And so the time went along and I prayed about it. And should I go to Mongolia with brother Ruben? And and then finally one day I said before the Lord, I'll go, I'll go.
You know, brother, two days later.
I got to.
A letter in the mail and it covered.
The full amount of our trip to Mongolia, you know, he's a wonderful God, a wonderful God.
A wonderful God. And yet man would say, hey, you know, being a Christian, that must be an awful, dull, dull life, Boring. And you're in, you're in meetings like this and you're over the word of God and you go to places in North Carolina and all over the place. And that must be a dull life. No, you know, it's a wonderful life and I wouldn't trade it for all the world.
What a God we have. What a wonderful God we have. And so he's talking to Jeremiah and he says.
I want you to go and tell the nation of Israel.
He says, verse 15 Lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, that the Lord and they shall come, and they shall set everyone on his throne at the entering in of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the world walls, that they're all roundabout against all the cities of Judah. And I will utter my judgments against them, touching all their witness who have forsaken me and have burnt incense unto other gods.
And worship the works of their own hands. Now, you know, I said that Jeremiah is an inspiration to me. And you know what he did? He told the nation of Judah. He told them, he said, you know, judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. Nebuchadnezzar's army is going to come and overtake this land. And you're all going to be carried away captive. And that's what Jeremiah did. And if you go all the way through the book of Jeremiah over and over again.
He's warning the nation of Judah, he said.
That judgment is coming, and you know, it's just like the day of grace today.
That judgment is coming on this world and someday will be too late.
Think of it, it says to leave too late will be the cry of Jesus of Nazareth.
Has passed by and you'll never have a gospel meeting. You'll never have an opportunity to come to Christ.
Of it, you know, there are some that will say today or are you going to get a second chance? No, you won't. God will send you a strong delusion that you'll believe a lie. But yet still today the gospel going forth and here's Jeremiah and he's proclaiming this news, proclaiming this solemn judgment on the nation of Judah, and he's warning them and you know.
God is warning this world tonight.
It says in in Ezekiel chapter 33 twice over, it says, warn them from me, warn this world. And you know, the gospel brings a warning tonight. The gospel brings a very solemn warning. God doesn't want to send a little boy, a little girl to hell. But you know, if you reject this wonderful offer of salvation, he's got no other course than to send you to a lost eternity. Think of that. How solemn. But tonight.
You have an opportunity to be saved.
All did. Did Jeremiah suffer? Sure he did.
Yeah, they put him. They put him in a prison. They put him down in a pit or go to that place there where they put him down in a pit. It's Jeremiah chapter.
Chapter 38, Jeremiah chapter 38 and verse six they then they then took the Jeremiah and cast him into a dungeon of Malachi the son of Hamilton that was in the court of the prison. And they let down Jeremiah with cords and in the dungeon there was no water but mire so Jeremiah say.
00:20:16
Meyer, think of that here he was preaching, he was warning the nation of Judah upcoming judgment and they put him down in that pit. They said, Jeremiah, be quiet, be quiet. And you know there are many that will today will say the same thing. Be quiet. Don't tell us anymore about that.
1 Corinthians 10-11
Reading
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Is the Cup of the Lord and what is?
Live unto Him Conf
Address—R. Thonney
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