Carolina Conference: 2009
Table of Contents
Philippians 3:1-4
Reading
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Isaiah chapter 57.
And verse 15.
Isaiah, 5715.
For thus saith a high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy.
I dwell in a high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble.
And to revive the heart of the Contrite 1.
Philippians.
In Philippians 2 and verse 8, Christ Jesus.
Being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled himself.
And became obedient unto death.
Even the death of lacrosse.
In first Peter.
Chapter 5 and verse five beginning with the second clause. Yay, all of you be subject.
One to another and be clothed with humility.
For God resisteth the proud.
But giveth grace to the humble one last person. Second Corinthians. Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 9.
And he said unto me.
By Grace.
Is sufficient for the for my strength?
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Is made perfect weakness shall we pray?
Unto God, most loving Father.
We are so grateful and thankful to be here this morning.
We recognize thee are God as the source of all our blessings and the giver of all good.
We thank you that thou does not spare thy son, but thou hast deliver him up for us all. Thou shall be not with him all freely give us all things.
We thank Thee to know that Thou art so ready to bless us.
That we realize too, that blessing can only be obtained from the through deep humility, we thank the blessed Lord Jesus.
That thou didst humble thyself.
And become obedient unto death, and become a man, and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
When we think of who thou art, blessed Lord.
The almighty Creator of the universe.
The God of all overall.
Lasts forever.
To see thee become one of us because of thy great love.
We might well see.
Lord, who must have leave of the soul, thirst the satisfied exhaust. Let's bring the waters free. All other streams are dry.
We thank thee that we have an exhaustless thing.
Uh, stream to draw from this morning.
And we just pray that that was pour out the blessing upon us.
We thank the.
The weekend ask of thee our God, and know with assurance that thou ours past heard us. Now we pray that we may be in a state to receive from ourselves. We ask of the our God as we give thanks and praise in the name of the Lord Jesus name and Amen.
I'd like to suggest for reading the third chapter of the Book of Philippians that.
Christ before us as our object.
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord to write the same things to you, to me indeed as not previous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath, whereof he might trust in the flesh. I more circumcise the 8th day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.
And Hebrew of the Hebrews.
As touching the law, a Pharisee.
Concerning zeal persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me? Those I counted loss for price you ain't doubtless. And I count all things but lost for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and to count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained either, we're already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth under those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
Brethren.
The followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example, for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.
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While it's often been pointed out that in the book of Ephesians.
We are seeing in Christ, and positionally we are seen as seated in heavenly places in Christ. That's our place. Positionally in Colossians. We're still here in this world, but it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. But in Philippians we have what we might say is the wilderness epistle. We're here in this wilderness world amidst the trials and difficulties, and the apostles sets before the Saints.
Christ in various ways as the resource and the object for the pathway through the ups and downs of the believers life. And brethren, we've already been reminded in the things that have been brought forth in the prayer meeting that there are lots of ups and downs in the believers life and we're still here in this world. We're on our way to glory at the end of this chapter brings before us and we need to keep that before our souls. The end of the story is what's going to encourage your heart and mind to press on.
But in the mean time, we have a tremendous resource in the Lord Jesus. We can go on in the joy of the Lord, We can rejoice in him. We can press on in the past and the race that, uh, he brings before us with Christ as the resource. Before we comment on this chapter, I'd just like to take a moment and give a very, very brief outline that's helped me in taking up these four chapters. In the book of Philippians, we often say that wherever we read in the word of God, be it the Old Testament or the New Testament.
The subject is always Christ, and it's I believe we really get the blessing when we take up Scripture in that light. Yes, there's much practical instruction and so on, but the subject is always Christ, Be it the types and shadows in the Old Testament, be it his life in the Gospels, be it the fruition of the truth and the Epistles, be at the end of things in Revelation. Whatever it is, it's always Christ. But Christ is brought before us in four very precious and unique ways.
In these four chapters, and maybe I'll just say this too, that when you take up a chapter or a book or a portion from Scripture, it's helpful to 0 in on a key verse or portion, something that ties the whole chapter or the book together, something that in a sentence or two gives an outline of the, uh, of the context. And let's just notice very quickly 4 Scriptures in these four chapters that give us an outline of the four ways that Christ has brought before us.
In chapter one, perhaps the key verse or a key verse would be verse 21. For to me to live is Christ. And so we might say in this first chapter, we have Christ as the believer's life. You know, the athlete says for me to live is sports. The entrepreneur says for me to live is business. The student says for me to live is study or whatever it might be. But brethren, can we truly say like Paul, for me to live as Christ?
That was Paul's whole desire and energy after he was saved on the Damascus Rd. was to live Christ. And no matter what other aspects of practical life we take up, there are students here, there are business people, there are people who enjoy sports. Nothing wrong with that. But over and above that can we write for me to live is Christ. So we have Christ as the believers life. Then in the second chapter he says in verse 5.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. We might say this chapter brings before us Christ does the believers example because the verses that follow, we often read them on Lord's Day morning and the breaking of bread and rightly so. But in their context, it's let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus and he gives us the perfect example of the Lord Jesus who became a man and humbled himself and so on. It's here as an example for you and for me.
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Now let's just skip over to the 4th chapter and then we'll come back to our chapter, chapter 4 and verse 13. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me here in this chapter. We have Christ as the believers strength. Do we feel weak in the situation brethren? Do we dread going home to certain things that we're going to face next week? If we're left here, we have an unending.
Resource of strength in Christ.
We can't do it on our own. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. Natural strength even of youth isn't enough to meet the problems and difficulties today, but we can in the strength of the Lord. But then come back to our chapter and just to go down to verse 14, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. In this chapter we're going to find.
Christ as the believer's object. And brethren, if we're gonna be encouraged to go on in the wilderness journey, we've got to have an object. And what is the object? What is the prize in the believer's life? The prize or object in the believer's life is always Christ. And that was really my thought in suggesting this chapter. We might get a fresh glimpse of Christ, that our hearts might go out more to that person, that our feet would be hastened on and strengthened in the path of faith.
Rather, I'd like to make one comment on that.
Application is the most important thing in our lives. It's not what we know is how we apply it. Now, uh, saying what we just heard, I'd like to bring before you a number of scriptures. Uh, I think the first one I bring before you is the fact that you shall seek me when you shall search for me with all your heart God wants.
R Attention. He wants our communion, He wants our fellowship. We might well ask the question, How much are we searching for God Now? It tells us without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must first believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. How much are we seeking the Lord? And I believe the application comes in.
With the one little word time.
It takes time and it takes effort. Is Christ everything to us? Now there's a person in Scripture and I believe the 2nd Corinthians. I have not seen nor have you heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him. Now I suppose we've heard many brothers come along and comment. Oh, but you gotta quote the rest of the verse. But uh, uh.
God has revealed them to us, that's true.
But we haven't seen them yet. But what does the rest of the verse say? The rest of the Versa says I I believe that the Spirit searches all things. Yeah, the deep things of God. God has much that he wants to communicate to us. That's why he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's why he established a relationship with us. That's why he set in motion the great plan of salvation, that we could be reconciled and brought into fellowship and communion with himself.
God wants.
Your attention, it wants my attention. He wants us to learn more about him. Now, I think that the scripture that we was read here this morning, Maggie, uh, and I think the scripture was, uh, if I remember correctly, increasing in the knowledge of God. Are we just content? And many Christians, I believe are they're just content that they are saved, that they are not going to go to hell, that heaven is before them and they go on living that, that, that a life that, uh, is more or less catered to the world and to the flesh.
So it's on my heart just to say, are we diligently seeking the board and his great love. This is the one most wonderful thing that we on this side of the cross. When we look back and I remember Brother Smith said this morning, the fact that God became a man, the eternal God and creator of this universe. It's amazing thing that he who could have created billions of Syrians, cherubims any kind of a host, a heavenly host. He has all knowledge, He has all power. Why would he want poor man, sinful man?
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Well, we know he loves us, that's why he did it. But the point is that that we should be dedicated to live our life and enjoy the presence of the Lord and his great and wonderful love. So I, I just thought I'd bring that in, in connection with our brother said that we should diligently seek him and that God has great things for us. And are we growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ or are we the same that we were two years ago or 10 years ago?
If I want a mediocre Christianity or a status quo Christianity.
And I don't wanna read this book, do I?
And I love the language of the Apostle Paul and his desire to apprehend or pursue the things of Christ. And that's a good question for us, isn't it? Do we want to move on? Do we want more of Christ or do we just want a mediocre Christianity? So again, if, if I just want a mediocre Christianity, then I don't want to read this book. I don't want to read the book of Ephesians, but, uh, to read this chapter.
To read the writings of the Apostle Paul, we see a man who pursued reaching forth like in a race and uh, let's face it, this world will drag us down.
And we do need more Christ, don't we? We need to see him in our life. May we be like the apostle Paul pursuing, apprehending it's for all of us that are children of God. We have the Spirit of God indwelling us. We have the power of God and just the language of the apostle Paul in these prison epistles, Ephesians, Philippians, what a man of God he was. And yet what the grace of God, that same grace that can enable you and I to want more of Christ in our life. I don't want to be a mediocre Christian or do I?
The choice is ours.
The Lord, as it were, is not gonna break our arm. He can use things like that. But may we by his grace say, I want more Christ. I wanna be more like Jesus.
That should be our prayer, shouldn't it? So we read this epistle, we read these verses and uh, we see a heavenly minded man. We see a man who said, look, I was a religious man. I can, I can give you my lineage. And he says, what is it? It's nothing but dumb compared to Christ. And that's what this world is.
And all of its allurements. But may we desire, like the apostle Paul, press onward, reaching forth, realizing what we have in Christ, in glory, what a Savior we have.
What we'll make is pursue that object.
Is the apprehension of the supreme value of that object. I'd like to to, uh, compare the apostle Paul here in this chapter to Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon had all that he could wish in any area of life, and he proved it all. And the word that comes out so frequently, I think it's 39 times in different variations.
And that book is Vanity Emptiness.
But the Apostle Paul was caught up to the 3rd heaven. He got a glimpse of Christ and glory, and from that time on he was a ruined man as far as any earthly objective was concerned. And that's what we'll do it, brethren, is the realization.
God has come down in the person of the Lord Jesus has died and risen again and gone back into the glory of God. And at the right hand of God sits a real living man. And that is the object that is set before us. And if we can get a glimpse of the supreme value of that object, it will fill your souls, it will draw you. And I think it is that what really makes us run.
The way we ought to when we realize the supreme value of that object.
In verse one of our chapter we have a commandment and I've often thought about it.
He says Finally my brethren rejoiced in the Lord.
He doesn't say rejoice if you feel like it, rejoice if you can. No, it's a command. Rejoice in the Lord. And that's one of the words that is used so frequently in this epistle. In the next chapter in verse four, he says rejoice in the Lord Alway, did you get that?
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Again I say rejoice.
How can you rejoice? When you're going through a world that is so full of problems and trials and afflictions and trouble and wars? How can you rejoice?
What's the secret?
A worldly pomp and glory. Your charms are spread in vain. An earth sweeter story I found it sure came. That's why that's the answer to that.
Secret is in the last word, Lord.
Everybody in this room is seeking joy tonight, unless there's something really wrong with you. Even naturally speaking, all of us are sitting here this morning with some desires in our hearts that would be of joy to us. And so we all have those things that are before us in our lives that we do, that we occupy ourselves with, with the intent that the result will be joy to us. It doesn't matter whether you're saved or lost. It's the same in that way.
And we see in the history of mankind, going back to Cain's day, that Cain wanted to be happy too, and he did it in the wrong way and he had a miserable life.
But when it tells us here to rejoice in the Lord, we if we're going to be happy, if we're going to find Him the object that this chapter tells us about, we've got to start firmly understanding and appreciating our relationship to Him.
He is Lord. It's so easy for us to say I want God to make me happy and then turn around and seek my own things for my happiness and after I do so say why didn't God make me happy?
Why am I miserable?
Why isn't it working? It must be, well, God's fault.
But God does have a pattern and a plan, for the Lord is the object of our lives. But it starts with that word Lord. He has to be recognized as the one who has supreme authority over my soul.
And if I don't recognize that relationship that I have with himself, I will not find myself happy or rejoicing in the Lord. I will be in conflict because He has his right perhaps, and I have mine. And so I'm miserable when I think He tells me to do A and I want to do B.
And so God says to us, you find your object for your joy and your satisfaction.
In that one whom I have established over you as Lord.
And if we start there, we will, because God knows how to do it. He knows how he designed us. He knows how to make us work right. And he has purposed us that that which will bring us joy and that which we can rejoice in is in the Lord himself. If Solomon had written these words, rejoice in the Lord, you'd say, well, of course, as we've been reminded, he didn't withhold himself from any pleasure. You'd say, I could understand if Solomon had written these words.
But it's Paul who writes these words. Now, if Paul had written all his vanity and vexation of spirit, you'd say, well, I could understand that too, because Paul was writing the this, these words as a Roman prisoner, as a prisoner of the Lord, as a prisoner of the Romans. He didn't have anything. And so you see how it's just the opposite circumstantially to what the world would say would create joy or happiness. Solomon said who had everything. He said it's vanity, it's emptiness. It doesn't, it doesn't fill and satisfy the heart.
The Apostle Paul, who had nothing of this world and had given it up for Christ, he could say, rejoice in the Lord. But I believe too, that these words penned to the Philippians by inspiration through the instrumentality of the Apostle Paul, had great moral weight when it was read in the assembly in Philippi because they had seen it in practice. There had been a time on a previous occasion, as is recorded for us in the 16th chapter of the book of Acts.
When Paul and Silas were cast into prison for preaching the gospel and brethren, I don't know what I would have been doing if I was there. I imagine I might have been grumbling and complaining and saying, Well, Lord, I thought you directed me by a vision to come over here and.
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To help somebody and preach the gospel. And what good am I doing now? My back is bleeding, I'm cold and damp, and my feet are fast in the stalks. But at midnight they prayed and sang praises. They rejoiced. And I've often wondered if they didn't think of that verse in the 119th Psalm that says, at midnight I will arise and sing praises unto thee because of thy righteous judgment. You know, recognizing the lordship of Christ in their lives, and that what the Lord was doing was right.
With that recognition, there was such a joy in submission to their circumstances and an appreciation of Christ in their souls that they couldn't contain themselves. And they sang praises at midnight. And what a testimony there was. But I just say when these words were read in this, from this epistle in the assembly at Philippi, I'm sure those Saints thought, Oh yeah, that has practical, that has moral weight. We know what Paul is talking about.
We've seen this exhibited in the life of Paul when he was here amongst us.
And So what weight it would have carried. And notice it doesn't say rejoice in good times.
Rejoice when things go well. But as Bob reminded us, there's a little further word added in the next chapter. Always. Now, brethren, thus speaks to my soul. I can be happy at a conference like this. I can be happy when my trip goes well. You can be happy when you get your good grade at school, when you get a little promotion or a raise in pay. Things are going well in the family. You close the deal that you were hoping to close.
But, brethren, the real test is when the adversities come and they do come, and the sorrows come. Not that we don't have sorrow, but again, Paul said in the sixth of Second Corinthians, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. He felt sorrow and he felt great sorrows at times, but through it all, with the joy of the Lord, he could rejoice, recognizing that there was one who was Lord of his life and recognizing that whatever happened, it was the very best for him.
I know if I was in a, uh, burning house and the fireman is willing to risk his life to go into that house and bring me out.
And I not burn. I'm safe outside the burning house. Would I not be rejoicing? Would you not be rejoicing? Well, when we stop and think about the fact that each of us was doomed to help the lake of fire, but the Lord Jesus was willing to take up our course. And I believe at the cross of Calvary He bore that which we could not have exhausted in hell. He exhausted the judgment.
On the cross of Calvin. Now if that doesn't cause you and me to rejoice.
I don't know what would, but you know He goes far beyond that. And not only are we saved from hell, but we are saved to enjoy an eternity with the Lord of glory.
With the Creator himself.
His eternal companion is so marvelous to think about.
And I must say other side of these things and I start feeling kind of down maybe, and there are big, big problems that come. But if we get our eyes focused on the Lord, think about what he is, what he's done for us, saved us from and brought us into.
We can't help but rejoice.
I believe we can always rejoice in the world, and I like what you say about His love that I believe has designed all that takes place in our lives for our good. A perfect love casts out fear, and that's the kind of love that the Lord Jesus has for you and for me. It's perfect and even in the bad times.
These things are allowed.
Good, you're good. Bless, because he loves us. How much do you love us? Look at the cross.
The sacrifice he's willing to make. Would anybody question his love as we contemplate the cross?
Well, I think that's why you pass it for, you know, in the circumstances, you could continually speak of the joy that he had in Christ and, uh, and most in that first chapter, there were those that.
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Celsius, we're preaching crisis contention thinking to add to his body.
But it didn't matter to the apostle Paul, because he had Christ as his object. And in 18 he said, notwithstanding everywhere, whether in pretense or in truck fruit, Christ is pre, I daring to rejoice, and I will rejoice.
Lord Jesus was the Man of Sorrows, wasn't he? And.
We passed through this world.
He properly felt all the misery and the depth and the sickness and the ruin there was. He often groan, but at the same time there was that deep flowing joy in his life. I like in Luke chapter 10 what it talks about the Lord Jesus when He was rejected.
By some of those cities had done his mighty work, and he says in verse 21.
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes. Even so, fathers, for so it seemed good in thy sight. So God is so great, brethren, that he can take even the parts of our lives that are seemingly negative.
And turn them for our own advantage. I think that's why it says, uh. I've enjoyed 2 scriptures and other epistles. In First Thessalonians 5 we often quote that verse in everything, give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. In everything, give thanks. But there's a little further detail in Ephesians 5 and verse.
20.
Giving thanks always.
For all things, not only in all things, give thanks, but giving thanks for all things.
Give thanks for an illness, an accident.
Those are hard things to come around to.
I still remember one time in the city of El Rudo in Bolivia, where?
I opened up my Jeep in the main flask of Oredo and found that I'd been robbed. My briefcase and some of those dear brethren and their simplicity have it a little bit over us, I think, sometimes, brother.
He says to me, let's give thanks, you know, exactly think about doing that at that time, but it was a real lesson to me Brevin and the Lord came in in a mighty way tremendous into that day. I had my brief gave back in my hand. I couldn't hardly believe it, but that's her God.
And so it's not really what we are. It's not in the circumstances we rejoice, but it's in the Lord. And how important, like Don brought out, is that we realize that it is only in recognizing His authority and making it real in our lives that there will be that ability to rejoice and to give thanks.
I'd like to just build on that a little bit. It says in the 86th Psalm, and I've enjoyed this recently myself. There's a little progression there.
In the 86 sum and verses 1112 and 13, there's a response to this command. As you say, the Lord commands us by divine inspiration and rejoice in the Lord. And he says in verse 11 of the 86 Psalm, Teach me thy way, O Lord. There needs to be a willingness on our part to learn what He has to say. And then I will walk in my truth, a willingness to know what the truth is. God is always going to tell us the truth.
And then do we have that desire to submit to that will of God into the word of truth? Unite my heart to fear thy name. And so there's a testimony in connection with the name of the Lord and the reproach. And Paul speaks of it here in Philippians in a special way in connection with the sufferings. He mentions his sufferings, I believe, four times in his epistle. And then it says, I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart. I will glorify thy name forever more.
For great is Thy mercy toward me, and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. So there's a progression here. First we need to know Thy way and be willing to walk in it. Thy truth, then Thy name. And then we can experience something of the blessedness of being thankful for the mercies of the Lord. I'll just mention those four things that Paul mentions in connection with suffering. It's a very sweet epistle, this epistle to the Philippians. And the first time I believe he mentions it is in verse 29, chapter one and verse 29.
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He says, For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer.
For his sake, he could rejoice in his sufferings. And then a little further on in chapter 3.
And umm, verse eight, yeah, doubtless. And I count all things lost, but for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and to count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And then in verse ten of our chapter as well, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. And then the last time I believe in chapter 4 and verse 12.
Just at the end of it, it says I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
So we need to remember that it's possible for us to rejoice in the circumstances of our lives and the only time that we will have the only opportunity in this scene to identify ourselves with that blessed man, Christ Jesus, who suffered at the hands of man.
Is right now in this scene, and to identify with his name, to want his way, to want his truth, to want to be identified with him, well, it may allow for some suffering in our lives as some of our brethren in India we've been reminded of.
Or Paul was converted.
The Lord He had knew something of what it was, the DLL hardness to others.
He persecuted the the Saints and the when the Lord spoke to him, he said it is hard for thee to kick against the ******.
Paul was grieved.
When he's writing this first verse, he's not grieved. He's identified with the Lord Jesus.
You think of Paul writing to these Philippians, you know, he had to go to prison before he got, before he saw the first convert, as it were. And uh, he was, he was, uh, was it worth it? Was it worth going through that prison experience to Philippian jailer get converted?
He's telling us the answer is not grieving.
Now he's in another prison. This is later in Rome, and he's writing them a letter.
And he's, uh, enjoying the fellowship of his Lord.
He's rejoicing in the Lord. He had learned that perhaps the first time when he sang that night, it took him a while to sing. He didn't start out singing, but he did at midnight. He went in at 8:00. It took four hours.
Well, it's, uh, takes some of us longer than others, uh, the Lord knows how long. And, uh, it's nice to see the rejoicing going on here.
And I believe it's because it's not just rejoicing and suffering. He was learning to know the man he had persecuted beforehand.
He's learning what it felt like.
That's the beauty of it, knowing the Lord.
And we need to let it show, don't we too, Doug? Because their joy in the Lord there in the prison was what was a testimony to the prisoners. They heard it. The jail keeper, as you say, got saved. Because as another has said, our joy in the Lord is often a testimony to others. The world can rejoice and be happy when things go well. But as we were saying, as soon as you introduce something adverse into their circumstances, that happiness, that is.
Based on circumstances immediately disappears, but when the world looks on and sees a joy in sorrow and suffering and trial, they realize that the believer has something that they don't have. And I'm sure that that was at least part of what the Lord used in the blessing there in the prison in Philippi, which we know spilled beyond the jailer to form this assembly that Paul later writes to. And I've often thought of it. You know, brethren, sometimes we sing that hymn. Happy people.
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Happy, though despised and poor. And I look around the meeting room at my brethren's faces and I think, do we really mean this? Are we really? Does it really show on our faces? And if we walk down on the streets of our community and in the schools and workplaces that we operate every day, and radiated something of the joy of the Lord in our faces and in our demeanor, don't you think it would be a testimony in itself?
That we wouldn't perhaps have to say as much if our lives showed by the joy that radiates from our, just from our, our, the look on our faces. And so, brethren, I know we need to be sober. We don't wanna be giddy Christians. There's always the exhortation to sobriety and so on. But there ought to be that aura of joy that radiates from the heart. Of course, it's, it's gotta start in the heart, as we've been saying. But it ought then to radiate so that others might see it. Our brethren might be encouraged by it. And the unbeliever, it might be a testimony to the unbeliever.
Well, the real thrust of this chapter is we've had brought before us is Christ as our object, isn't it? We might also mention though, that connected with Christ as an object is energy in the Christian life.
The previous chapter, as we've had brought before us, is Christ as our pattern. It's more Christ in manhood. It's more perhaps what we might call the grace, the graciousness of the Christian life, the most necessary thing. But then in this chapter we have an object before, and an object before us gives us energy.
Something most needed today. I say it to my own heart because it seems that one of the whole.
Well, I should let me rephrase that. One of the big efforts of Satan is to demoralize believers in these last days to make them, well, they're here, but not very effective. And as we've just been hearing, yes, I may walk around, but the expression on my face says I'm just plodding along until the Lord comes and takes me home. Well, I don't want to take away from that in the sense that there is a certain amount of plotting and endurance in the wilderness pathway.
But who had the energy to walk that wilderness pathway the most? Referring to Israel's experience. Who was it? Caleb and Joshua. Why? Because they'd seen the land. They'd seen what was ahead of them. And so when Caleb gets to the end of the wilderness pathway.
He might well have looked back and said well.
What a trial that was. What did he say? Oh, he says, Moses, I'm just as strong as the day I started out. Now give me the most challenging piece of the land to conquer because I've had my eye on it for 45 years. That's the energy that God wants to see in you and me. Yes, there are negative things that have to be brought in. There are things that have to be remembered here that Paul had to say. They're a hindrance to that object.
And we get those in the next few verses. But he had an object before him, and that's what kept him. That's what gave him the energy to go on. And it's what will give you and me the energy even in all of the difficulties and problems of these last days.
Yeah, we should have really not a false problem putting on a false front and being happy. But, uh, someone said to me about a meeting one time and they said most, some of these people look like they've lost their last friend. You know, there's a little verse that I've enjoyed. Uh, the faults of the seat that you bear in your heart will not stay inside where it first got to start the sinew and blood or a thin Dale of late what you bear in your heart.
You wear on your face. So we shouldn't cause the, umm, people, uh, the impression that we're.
We just walked out of a morgue or something. I don't think I'm saying make very careful. I understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that we should put on any kind of a false front. If there's true joy in our heart, let it be reflected on our face. The countenance basically is a reflection of what's going on inside.
Just in connection with what our brother Bill has brought before us, let's go back to a little incident at the beginning of the wilderness journey, just for a moment. So I think it's beautiful and certainly bears out what we've just heard in the 16th of Exodus.
00:50:16
We find here that the children of Israel have started the wilderness journey. They've been at Elam, and now the wilderness, it's before them. And umm, already there's been some things come in to discourage. But just notice the ninth verse of Exodus chapter 16. And Moses spake unto Aaron, say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, come near before the Lord, for ye have heard your murmurings. And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel.
That they look toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. You know, they were already murmuring. They were already discouraged. Why? Because they were looking back toward Egypt. You know, thank God they never got back there, Steven says in his address in the 7th of In their hearts they returned into Egypt. And that was the great difficulty. That's why they were often so discouraged and why sin and murmuring and complaining.
And fault finding came in, because in their hearts they returned unto Egypt. Thank God, positionally, they never got back there. And you and I will never be part of this world again. We've been delivered from that. But in our hearts we can return into Egypt. But what was the answer here? Well, they were told to turn around. They were looking in the wrong direction. And when they turned around to look out over the wilderness, what were they to see? All the hindrances in the many miles that were between them and the promised land?
There were many miles. There were many hindrances. I've been through a good part of the Sinai Peninsula. It's not a place where I would want to be wandering on foot from day-to-day and year to year. It's just a vast expanse of sand and rock with a big hot sun and a cloudless sky blaring down, and cool nights on the desert when the sun does go down, and so on. And many dangers. But that's not what occupied with them they were occupied with. No, they saw the glory of the Lord in the cloud.
In some way, the Lord was pleased to reveal Himself to them.
And with that object, with that glimpse, they were given fresh energy and courage to press on in the wilderness journey. And brotherness has already been brought before us. That's what's going to give us fresh energy. That's what's going to give us the courage to go on and the joy to press on in the wilderness journey with Christ before our souls, with the end before our souls, with glory before us.
Again, Paul, he didn't just have a vision of what was ahead. He'd been caught up there. He saw it.
He knew what was ahead, and with that, before his soul, he could press on the children of Israel. Sad to say, they often lost sight of what had been revealed to them here in the 16th chapter, and they were often discouraged and wanted to turn back. But brethren, there is that energy given to us, but it's only in the measure in which you and I have Christ before our souls, and in the measure in which He is real and precious to us. We can be lifted above the circumstances.
To run with endurance the race that is set before us. God is not a God of mixtures. We go through the word of God. It presents itself over and over again. God separates things that differ and he keeps them separate and he doesn't mix them and one of the difficulties is seen in the verses here right after they rejoiced in the Lord Alway and the thought of setting our hearts upon the Lord Jesus is the object of our life is the danger of mixture.
We're all here this morning and we're enjoying kind of being a part in a nice setting to enjoy the Lord, to enjoy one another. And so it's not difficult for us to have in, in that way the Lord before our hearts as an object that we enjoy. But the test is Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, because there will be then be those things which draw upon the soul seeking to make it an object.
And as such, it creates in US a tendency to mix. We want the Lord on Lord's day. We want the Lord when we have a problem. We like the Lord to make us happy, but at the same time we often go after something else as well. And so we have this conflict within us.
00:55:00
The conflict God puts there because he's not satisfied with that, It's not of himself.
It's not that which is going to produce the result that we think that will produce. And so we say, well, I want the Lord to make me happy. I wanna have the Lord as the object of my life. And, and that's the problem. We put an Ant in there and.
I'm going to enjoy this and I'm going to enjoy that and I'm going to enjoy the other and also and think it will work. So as he puts here before them, there were things they had to be aware of they had there was a danger put before them. One of them is a concision and it was a mixture of things that was not of God that had part of the law in it and part of man in it and so on. But then he says in the end of verse three, I want to make one more comment about mixture have no confidence.
In the flesh, we tend to wanna have confidence in God.
What we wanna add to it? Confidence in our flesh. There's a tendency in every one of us to think that I can do it, I can do it, I can follow the Lord, I can this, I can that. But the eye is an eye of flesh in US, generally speaking, that is saying it.
It's not I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. That is, if He truly is the source of the power, there will be power. But the moment we mix something with it, we weaken it. And the Lord, what does the Lord do? Well, he loves us, and so he loves us. And he said, well, you think you can do it? I'll let you try. And the result is we fall on our face, and if we do it again, He lets us sometimes do it again.
And we try and we fail, and we're miserable. Well, the answer is hard to come by, really, but it's simple, as it says here. And Paul had learned it, having no confidence in the flesh, having no confidence in the natural man and what it can do. And he had turned away from that. And in that, later in this chapter, we see his practical comments about death. Confidence in God is the other side of death. Confidence in God is the other side of death.
Everything that we are has to have the stamp of death on it or will never be happy. And we have to enjoy what's on the other side of natural life in the flesh before we really start to make progress. And one of the things that young or old, we've got to keep be uphold. Every conference. I think he says to to say it, to say it again and again is not bad. It's safe. Have no confidence in the flesh. Hmm.
So we see that the hindrances to what the chapter is bringing before us are brought in at the beginning here, aren't they? We see the same thing in the previous chapter.
The hindrances to having Christ as our pattern. The hindrances to having graciousness in the Christian life.
Are doing things through strife and vain glory and seeking some kind of a position for myself.
But then the hindrances to having Christ as an object is another aspect of the same root, a Judaizing influence that brings Christianity down to the level of this world and ultimately, as Dawn has brought out, makes an admixture of Christ as an object but confidence in the flesh. It won't work. And it has been the vein of the Church's existence all down through the ages because it started right here at the beginning. Where?
Many, sad to say, sought to bring Christianity down to the level of the world, to take away from its heavenly calling, to give some confidence in the flesh, to say to man, yes, you have to do your part as well as God doing his part.
Can't live the Christian life like that. It must be Christ now which one of us does it perfectly? Who would stand up and say, yes, I'm there? Oh no, we wouldn't want to do that. But at the same time, Paul warns them here about.
Those Judaizing influences that dogged his footsteps and destroyed the ultimate truth that Paul was trying to bring out.
Someone is well said. You tell me what kind of books you read, what kind of music you listen to, who your friends are and how you spend your time. And I can have a handle on just about who you are. I don't know what measure we can do that, but I think that's a really what I was mentioning before, what I mentioned the two words time and application. Uh, we have to take time, make time, establish that as a priority.
01:00:13
The Lord should come first.
And we, we've heard, we've heard that saying, I suppose the board first, uh, my wife second, other people, myself last or something. But the board has to come first.
Those two words, uh, in the end of verse two and the beginning of verse verse 3.
Concision and circumcision, I think it's helpful to understand and I like to think of it in a simple way that concision is.
Cutting at the flesh, circumcision is cutting off the flesh. Circumcision means all the way around. You don't leave any place for it, uh, like it says at the end of the verse, having no confidence in the flesh. But if you put rules and regulations, you are in effect, uh, recognizing the flesh as a place and therefore you need to control it with these rules and regulations.
No, we're to beware of the concision. We are the circumcision. This is real Christian ground.
Dead, buried and written with Christ. Death is behind us. What place does the flesh have? It's it's back behind it's it's gone as far as God is concerned. And we need to think with not giving a place to the flesh. It's.
Always there, but we should not give it a place. I'd like to hear some thoughts too about dogs. What is he talking about dogs? Do you wear dogs?
I noticed a little, uh, reference in my Bible to Galatians 5 and 15. I think perhaps there's something there to be learned. He says that the Galatians, if you bite and devour one another, take he that ye be, not consume one of another.
Brendan, I think there's a real lesson for us here to be careful how we talk about each other.
Are we fighting?
And devouring one another. It's so easy to speak negative about other people.
And I don't know brother and I think it's something we really need to be exercised about. Don't give place to that kind of activity. Sometimes it may be necessary to speak about something that is negative in seeking to be a help and some brother.
That I like to think of.
Moses when Miriam and Aaron speak against him.
And the Lord.
Was displeased and smoked Miriam with leprosy. I don't know why he didn't smite Aaron. I suppose it might have been Miriam that started the bad talk, who knows, But whatever it was.
What did Moses do? He prayed for him. And brethren, if it's necessary to say or speak anything negative, let's try to pray with an honest desire.
For the good and blessing of that person, Let's not be dogs. Let's not give place to dogs. Somebody comes and starts talking, bad mouthing some brother or sister. Let's not give place to that kind of thing. Seek to cut it off. It's not the place of a believer. If there is some real need of help in a particular area, let's go in all humility of mind and seek to be a help to them.
But just talking for talking sake, we need to be aware of dogs. I suggest that I don't know, there might be other thoughts. I believe the Lord here brings before us the boldness of the flesh and the subtlety of the flesh. So here you have the boldness of dogs. It's really, uh, perhaps someone has said shameless evil. It's a shameless, uh, and uh, there's umm, a boldness in that shame.
And going forward and and Wicca and wickedness, and so beware of dogs and then beware of evil workers. So there are those that would do a work that is not according to the mind of God. Be aware of that work that's not according to the truth of God and the Word of God. And then the subtlety of the flesh is concision. It's subtle. So the flesh is bold, but it's also subtle. And so he says beware, beware and beware. In the French translation, it says it means to set a guard.
01:05:16
Set a guard.
Against dogs, set a guard against evil workers and set a guard against the concision. That's really the thought of self seeking too, isn't there? Because that's what the flesh does. The flesh seeks only for itself. I say that because if you go back to a reference to dogs in the book of Isaiah, I think you have it borne out in Isaiah chapter 56.
I'll start reading at verse 9. Isaiah 56 and 9. All ye beasts of the field come to devour. Yeah, all ye beasts in the forest. His Watchmen are blind. They are all ignorant. They are all dumb dogs. They cannot bark. Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yeah, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough. They are shepherds that cannot understand. They look to their own way. Everyone for his gain from his quarter.
And so we find here that a dog and a dog, I know we can train dogs and they can be wonderful, uh, companions and faithful to their masters. But the really underneath the nature of a dog is he looks out for himself. He's self seeking. And so these Watchmen that should have been caring for God's walk in the Old Testament, they were doing it, but only for, to get something for themselves. And we know in the days of the Lord Jesus.
He rebuked them because they were looking for the praise of man, Some pat on the back, some gain, even a monetary gain for themselves, and they were dumb dogs seeking for themselves. And brethren, we need to be careful of that too. Appreciate what Brother Bob said about biting and devouring, and that's certainly a part of it. But we can fight. And why do we bite and devour? Well, it's really to put ourselves up, isn't it? It's really to put the flesh forward. If I can put someone else down and get you to think that that person isn't really what they are and get you to think bad by what I say about them, well, that puts myself in a better light.
Oh brethren, we need to be very careful of these things. And brethren, do we really seek the good of others? What are you and I seeking to today? Is it the good and blessing of the flock of God and of our brethren?
Or is it really something for the flesh? We need to be aware of those dogs and they can be in everyone of our lives.
And the Psalms concerning the Lord at the cross and the dogs compassing him, it was a Gentile that was in view. And the Gentiles were those that had no relationship to God. And there's a character that has just been described to us about the the accurately, I believe, describes the working of the flesh in man who does not have a relationship with God.
And it has a tremendous tendency to pull on us when we go to school.
And when we work because we're constantly being exposed to those things which man in the flesh goes after and in the business world even uses expression dog eat dog. It's that tendency that I want for myself what I'm going to have. And so it we're told be aware of it because it affects us even as the Lord's people. But I'd like to go on to the other side of it, which is seen and saw Per or Paul personally.
When and the verses which follow, when he says, Well, have no confidence in the flesh, but look at me. And then he describes himself and says, if anybody ought to have the chance to have confidence in the flesh, it's me. And he tells us about himself.
But the point of it is.
It's religious manifestation of the flesh, and in the Old Testament we have Saul.
And in the New Testament we have Saul, this Saul who has now become Paul, and both of them are set before us by God to show us that when the flesh manifests itself in relationship to God, it takes man farther from God than any other activity. Consequently, it is true that Saul was the chief of sinners, and he was the chief of sinners precisely because his flesh took him farther from God and yet in outward relationship to God.
01:10:02
Than any other man in the whole of the Bible. And we see in him the grace of God which took the worst. That's the worst Sinner. It's not the man that's committed murder, it's not the man that's committed adultery and so on. That's as bad as they are to our eyes, but to God's eyes. It is that which takes the man farthest from himself. And that was Saul. And in the Old Testament we have the example of Saul. He was everything that man amount among men looking for.
It was the exaltation of man in the flesh. He stood head and shoulders above his fellow man. He had courage. He went out to war just like Paul. We see a natural zeal in Paul that to the natural flesh is admirable.
And we would have looked at Paul as in a religious sense and said nobody's like him, nobody was. And that's precisely what made him the worst center that God had to say. This is the chief of sinners. And so, brethren, to the tiniest degree in which the flesh is given place in us, it'll manifest itself like the dog or it'll manifest itself like salt. And in either case, it totally takes us away from.
Having Christ.
As a pure object before the heart.
So just as you cannot mix boiled water.
Cannot mix confidence in the flesh with confidence in God.
Either one or the other, but the world promotes, uh, self-image.
And.
There was a popular evangelist that found fault with suggesting that a person is a Sinner, but to pray Sinner because he says this is destructive to a person's ego and oneself image supposed to be an evangelist preaching the gospel to God. But you know when I look in the word of God, I see that those who God used he brought them to a sense of their.
Littlest and their weaknesses, uh, joke, you know he was, uh.
A righteous man, but he comes to the point where he says people I invite and now my ICC he's got. He says I for myself.
And repent and dust and gnashes.
Joke got a real blessing in his soul when you come to that point. Gideon was another one. The word wants to use Gideon, but he says, you know, my family is so poor and I'm the least in my father's family. Isn't that very good self-image there, you know, but God used it.
And there's other examples, even Solomon comes.
And of course, it comes to the New Testament. We have Paul here, and he speaks to himself, you know, it's the least of his brethren. And uh, of course he's referring to himself as the chief of sinners when he was committing those deeds.
Persecuting the church. I'm sure he thought he was a great person, he had great self-image, but really it comes to the point where he finds against God.
And he says, he says I'm the chief of sinners.
Alright, it's quite a thing to say when Paul.
Could speak of all these things that naturally speaking were promoting him in this world, but that's where God would bring us, I believe, before he uses us for his work, His blessing to others.
The time is about up. Maybe we could send 309?
Jesus, before by phase two fall our Lord, our life, our hope, our all. For we have nowhere else to believe, no sanctuaries. Or let's see, 309.
We introduced her blah blah blah umm.
So.
I'm sorry.
And ourselves, our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus. We thank thee for that object, bright and fair to fill and to satisfy our hearts in this scene while we wait for the blessed Savior to come. We thank you that thou art our sanctuary in this scene as well. What rest we find in my presence as we have thy word open and we think of how we've had this portion before us. We thank Thee that uh, for the exhortations that we have when we know that Thou does delight to have a happy people.
And we know that there are hindrances.
And the flesh will hinder, and the flesh is bold in each one of us, and ignorant. And we just ask thee, our God, for grace to judge the flesh unsparingly, that, uh, we might be characterized as those that are of the circumcision.
Then it might all be cut off. And uh, so we just asked you for thy blessing upon my precious word as it's been ministered here this morning. We pray that there might be fruit in our lives and just before we see the blessed Savior, just before we're called home.
To see the that we might have our highs, our eyes set heavenward and gazing upon Thee in glory as we just about to see the blessed Savior. We thank Thee for that blessed hope and we look to Thee for Thy blessing now on the fellowship, after the meal and during the meal. We thank Thee for this occasion together and we pray for Thy blessing upon it in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
God is Speaking to You
Address—Don Rule
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Let's begin this afternoon by singing again a hymn that we've already sung #153 Whom have we, Lord, but the soul thirst to satisfy 153.
We'll need a starter.
Screaming.
Let's pray.
MMM Our God and Father, we thank you this afternoon that we can speak to Thee.
Knowing that our listening.
And that it is the good pleasure of Thy will to see us, each one happy and blessed. And so, our God and Father, we commit this time into Thy hands to direct the thoughts and the heart and the conscience of the speaker and of the hearers alike, that what we have may come from Thyself and be suited to the need of our souls. That it might be with profit and blessing, we ask our God for Thy glory and the name of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
00:05:02
Few minutes ago I was outside of the store here and I was watching a couple of men in a boat.
And I didn't think they were too smart.
Because as I look up into the sky, it was getting darker and I was starting to hear a little bit of Thunder.
And so I watched them and I thought to myself.
They're not smart, they're not doing what they ought to do.
So the first few raindrops start to come and.
They both of them very commonly put on raincoats.
Continued with their business. I vary not so calmly fled and came inside.
The point I want to make of it is that.
We so easily are occupied with.
Person next to us or across the room or somewhere else and don't always want to apply what we hear to ourselves. So I say to myself, and I say to you this afternoon, at the very beginning of this hour, listen up. God wants to speak to you and he wants you to listen and he wants to bless you.
I also find it's not very comfortable to me in one sense to wanna speak one to many because so often I find in the word of God that he speaks very individually. And we're gonna look, I trust, uh, at a, an example of this later.
What I'd really like to do, I don't wanna say. And the burden, particularly on my heart this afternoon as those of you in the room that qualify to be called young people.
It's not real safe for me to know what group that how where that range is, but we'll see. However, I'd like to be real specific.
I'd like to speak to you by name.
I'd like to say, Jonathan, I'm talking to you.
Or Megan, I'm talking to you or Joy, I'm talking to you. But no matter if I do and then the next set of remarks, you'll all be thinking about Jonathan or Megan or Joy and maybe not applying it to yourself as well. But please, if we have to use the more generic term most of the time, dear young people or something like that, don't tune out. Listen, God wants to speak. He does speak.
That's just want to God does speak. Problem is never with God and speaking. If there's a problem, it's in the hearing, it's in the listening. So open up your ears.
I'd like you to turn with me first to Romans Chapter 11.
Next I want to read verse Romans Chapter 11 and verse 36.
For of him and through him and to Him, or we can say for Him are all things.
This is God. For of God, and through God and for God are all things.
To whom be glory forever. Amen.
They have a little problem not knowing where the young people stand. Umm.
Occasion quite often use this first and speak to a group that I can always say 20 years ago none of you existed in this room as a young person. I'll just say I'll define it and say 40 years ago none of you existed.
You didn't exist 40 years ago.
You weren't.
Pretty interesting and significant to me. I look at you and here you are.
But if I had been here in this room 40 years ago, you wouldn't have been. In fact, you wouldn't have been anywhere you didn't exist.
But the question is, how long? Now that you do, how long are you going to exist?
The kids I often ask this question to, I know immediately. Their mind says nobody knows because we don't know how long we're going to live. That's the very point of making the question is it's a wrong answer.
You exist, young people.
00:10:03
Now that you exist forever.
That makes you important.
You are going to exist forever because.
You are important.
Sometimes I hear this comment. Nobody cares.
God does.
God does.
God cares so much.
That he brought you into existence.
For his own purpose and pleasure.
And if you wanna get In Sync with God.
Start at the beginning and recognize that God is over you as your creator, as your God.
And everything that you are and ever will be.
As important has to do with you and God and you are going to be.
Eternally happy.
Or eternally said eternally.
Well, it's too painful in some sense to put words around.
Of God.
You are of him. You came into existence through him. You exist for him.
And he tells us in the end of this little verse that in his ways, he's going to do everything he does for his own glory.
It's not about you, it's about God.
It's about God.
And God's purposes with respect to you.
For his own purpose, his own pleasure, his own glory.
Now turn over with me to 1St John.
Chapter 3.
First John, chapter 3.
And verse 4.
Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth also the law. Going to read the new translation for the end of the verse for sin.
Is lawlessness.
For lawlessness is sin.
There's two things about you.
Young person.
It's well for you to learn from God if you haven't already.
1St is.
Now that you exist, you are and always will be a dependent creature.
God is your sustainer now and always will be.
Secondly.
God has created you to be an obedient creature.
To be dependent.
And obedient.
And your happiness this afternoon and tomorrow and into eternity depends on your recognition of that fact that you are dependent or to be dependent and you are to be obedient.
And you will be so forever, or you will never be in God's presence when you leave this world, except to be judged.
But even in heaven.
You will be a dependent.
And an obedient.
Member of God's creation.
When it says sin is lawlessness, what it means is the very principle of sin is not being under the control of God.
The very first sin that came into God's creation after he created people like us, Adam and Eve.
Came from first of all I believe.
In the heart of God.
But that unbelief in the heart of God led to an act of independence and an act of disobedience.
00:15:07
And ever since that moment, God has been working to the end that creatures who he loves might be restored to him, might be reconciled to Him, to return to a relationship of faith.
And with it dependence and obedience.
Every.
Send that's occurred by any person in this room this week or in your lifetime.
Starts in the heart.
With a mistrust of God that leads you to say I have a better way.
An independent way, A way of.
Satisfying my craving for happiness.
And to be like God, perhaps?
As Satan's lie said to Eve, he shall be as gods. That is, you'll be like him. You'll be independent of him.
And so.
Again, man's course. And so it continues. There's nothing new under the sun, really. The outside world's changed. Communications, part of the world's changed dramatically, at least in my lifetime. But fundamentally, young people, you're not facing anything different than Adam's children.
You're dealing with the same issues. We could have gone back to Adams Children's Day and talked to his children and you would find that whether they had the same words for it or not, the truth of the matter is comes right down to its basic issues.
As it still is today.
Turn back.
To the first chapter of the same epistle for a verse.
First John chapter one and verse 5.
This is the message.
Which we have heard of him, and declare unto you.
That God is light.
And in him is no darkness at all.
If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie.
And do not the truth.
God is light.
We have to do with God, who is light.
And those were, as short as they may be, I believe are extremely important and extremely what man would call profound words.
Young person.
Everything you have to do with God.
Is totally completely open.
To God.
You said in your chair this afternoon, dressed nicely and.
Everyone knows you to some or not everyone. Some people don't know you at all. I don't know all of you at all. But somebody in here knows you somewhat, but nobody knows you fully. There's not a single person in this room that is fully known to anyone else in the room.
It's just the way it is.
There is the part of you that others know, and there's the part of you that others don't.
And that you don't tell.
You know, I was thinking this morning as I was thinking about these things, umm, several thoughts came to my mind that I might want to share with you that I will say learned in my life.
And then I thought, yeah, and if I tell you, I'll probably be proud about it.
Even though that's wrong, I also thought of some other things that.
I wouldn't share with you.
I'm too ashamed of them.
So I might choose the good ones and not tell the bad ones. That's just the nature of it.
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God is light.
Your relationship with God depends on.
Uh, having a understanding that.
Everything is open between you and God, on God's part, at least now. Sometimes we we.
For whatever reasons.
Uh, we don't even tell God the way it is, but there's something in us that has the recognition that He does know. It's never been different from the beginning of mankind.
Adam and Eve live happy for a while in the Garden of Eden.
And then they disobeyed and they said, and as soon as they sinned.
They tried to hide.
They didn't want to be seen.
It says before they send they were naked.
That says it for an important reason, because as soon as they had sinned, they had something to hide. They had some to cover.
And so they tried to cover themselves. Why? Because they wanted to. Not God, not to see them as they were.
As disobedient, and so they made some clothes for themselves.
And, uh, God comes.
Visit to deal with the matter of their sin, and as soon as they hear him coming, they go hide in the trees a further effort and act on their part to to hide from God what had taken place.
So I asked the first question, where are you?
What about you? God asked you this afternoon. Where are you?
Are you hiding?
We're trying to hide.
You have something that you're not comfortable with between you and God, and as a consequence, you're in the trees somewhere.
Or you're trying to do something that will counteract what you've done and, as it were, put some clothes on.
They have to come out and deal with it.
God calls them out.
Well, what have you done?
Well, he said, I hid myself. It's interesting, Mr. Darby's translation, because I am naked.
Gotten to the right acknowledgement. He didn't say I was, but he says I am. And so he, he was trying to he, he made some progress in his soul because he acknowledged I am naked. You see it? That's the way it is.
I love the fact that.
Goddess Light.
Because he's also love.
I don't know what you'd think if you God chose to write my life. Here is it is.
I don't think I'd be in the room very long, but.
Important point is with God, He sees it all.
Totally, absolutely, completely everything that I've ever done and the motive for it.
And he says, Donald.
I love you.
I love you.
It's wonderful to do with the God that knows everything.
There'll never be anything come up that he would say to me. Oh, if I'd only known that we'd have to deal differently.
No, he'll never do that.
He knows it all and he is light and the, the difficulty or the need is on my part to admit it and deal with it with God so that we can have a relationship. The next words he says, uh, that we, if we say we have fellowship with him.
Well, let's put it this way.
The only kind of fellowship you can have with God is according to light.
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If you do one tiny little thing that's not according to God's light, he has no fellowship with you in it.
It's important.
Do you wanna have fellowship with God?
Then it has to be in the light. And if you say I have fellowship with God, I walk with God in my life, but God who tries, your heart knows that it isn't. It's like lying.
It it's saying something that God says isn't true, so we really call God a liar if we go down that road.
OK.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 2 and.
Uh, versus.
Umm, verse 14, chapter 2, verse 14, middle of the verse I have written unto you young men, because you're strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father.
But is of the world.
And, uh, go over to chapter 5.
And verse 4.
And five and whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is a victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Well, it says to we often refer to young people as like we'd like to think of young men spiritually. It isn't exactly what it's meant, but.
We we like to grow. Everybody wants to grow and.
We'd like to be young men in our lives, uh, as having gotten past the baby stage of childhood. And so here he says something that's kind of hard. You're strong.
Whoa.
You're gonna say this afternoon about a young person wanna stand up and say I'm strong in this sense, in the spiritual sense, I doubt it.
But I don't know if there's been any old, older ones that do it either. So you've got company.
What is it though, later that he comments on the strength?
It was their faith.
True strength.
Is not in yourself.
We hopefully look at a verse later. We've had several times and already in this conference, in the morning prayer meeting and so on about strength and weakness.
When I am weak, then I am strong. My strength is made perfect in weakness.
But there is something important that does bring strength.
And that is?
Adam and Eve were strong when they believed God.
Their weakness came through unbelief.
In person, you wanna be strong.
Believe God.
Take him at his word.
You know, we live in a society that that's hard to do.
I say to you.
Do you believe every word I say?
You believe every word I say. Should you believe every word I say?
The answer is no, for two reasons.
One is I don't know everything.
And consequently I have made statements that I was totally confident we're correct and true and accurate and later on found out I was wrong.
Second reason is.
I've lied.
I'd lied.
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So my word isn't always good.
Whatever is in me, I will tend to think is in you too.
So I don't trust every word you say.
For the same reasons.
And that's why it's hard sometimes for us to believe God because that mindset, that way of thinking infects us so that we treat God like we treat each other. But the truth of the matter is God knows everything and God never lies.
Trust him absolutely, completely, 100% in whatever he says, no matter what.
He always tells the truth and he knows absolutely everything. He is light. He didn't learn anything today. He won't learn anything tomorrow or the next day. He already knows it all.
You'll never learn anything ever. God isn't like us. He's all knowing from eternity.
So we can trust him absolutely.
Because he always tells the truth.
And so we ought to believe God. And it's important to God that we do because it it glorifies him, it honors him.
It is what separated man in the beginning from God.
Was unbelief in his heart and so God to be restored to God. To have a relationship with God on any level, there must be faith so that God is honored as He was initially, and Adam and Eve until they dishonored him by their unbelief.
So there's victory in that.
A victory for God and a practical victory as well.
In our lives.
But also says something else to young people. Young men is love not the world.
There's two sources, and only two sources for everything.
Everything flows from one of two sources.
It either flows from God.
Workflows from Satan.
Manipulating.
Man.
That's why the Lord had to say even to one of his own.
And to others you said in one case, get you behind me, Satan, Another case, you're of your father the devil. Here in John's first epistle he says the whole world lies in the wicked one. Chapter 5.
The world is Satan's work.
And it doesn't flow from God.
It flows from Satan.
And if you choose to love it or follow the lusts that it produces.
To track you.
You lose your fellowship with God. You can't have fellowship in the light.
And participate in the world.
Love not the world.
Where it's not of God.
Here I'm gonna say.
Listen to God, don't look around.
Because if you look around, you'll find somebody else in the room that is willing to participate with you in something that is of the world.
I recently said to several young people together.
With respect to the use of computers.
And I'm going to say it to all of you.
Don't.
Go to see anything.
Or do anything.
That you wouldn't do with the Lord Jesus.
Don't.
Don't.
Do anything. Don't go anywhere. Whether it's in on a computer or not, don't go anywhere.
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Don't participate in any game.
Unless you would be willing with a good conscience to say, Lord Jesus, would you do this with me?
It's not of God.
And it's gonna pass away and the lust of it as well, because it'll never satisfy and it doesn't glorify God and produces no fruit, nothing that.
Is according to the purposes of God. Turn with me over to chapter 4 verse John 4.
First John four and verse two. Hereby we know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
And uh.
Verse 15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he and God, and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect.
God created you and me.
Because he wanted creatures with whom he could share.
His enjoyment of his son.
And in doing so, glorify himself.
Your whole happiness, now and forever, depends upon a common enjoyment with God of Jesus Christ, His Son.
And if you have any other pleasure that leaves him out.
That can't include him.
You can't have fellowship with God in it because everything that God does and everything that's important to him ultimately concerns his Son.
And you in connection with him.
Don't give up.
A true appreciation for who he is.
The world doesn't want him.
And man in the flesh doesn't want to acknowledge who he is. He is God, His beloved Son will come in the flesh.
And anything less. Every single false religion in the world denies that truth.
Satan's efforts 100% deny the truth.
There is no other way to God but by truth, and there is no truth apart from the recognition that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
But I also want to.
Make the connection here in what we read.
Whosoever confesseth Jesus Christ is the Son of God. God dwelleth in him, and he and God, and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
Do you doubt Dodd's glove? Is there something in you that I don't know if God loves me or not?
I don't know if he cares.
What difference does it make what I do or don't do?
God's proof to you of His love for you.
Is in his son.
The Lord Jesus Christ, scent of God, is God's proof to you of the measure of His love for you.
He that spared, not his own son.
We don't. I don't believe we can fully lay hold of that.
You can't go there ourselves.
And God has never asked us to and never will.
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In the way that he did.
Lord Jesus didn't just die, suffered.
Suffered.
Because God loves you.
And so the connection between your heart and God is wrapped up in the Lord Jesus.
And the demonstration of God's love to you.
In himself.
Get to know him.
It's a Noam. You wanna be happy to know the Lord Jesus?
There's a satisfaction in getting to know him.
Thrills the soul.
And all I can say is taste it. I can't. I can't communicate it to you.
I can say I've tasted of it. It's a joy beyond words, but you have to have it for yourself.
And there's no words that can adequately describe it to you.
Taste him for yourself.
See How can I do that?
Tell you one way.
That, I'm afraid, is being given up too much today.
What's prayer?
Talking to God.
What's reading the Bible? It's God talking to us.
What's God talk to us about?
His son.
It's as simple as that.
Do you wanna get to know the Lord Jesus?
Let God talk to you about Him.
Every day.
You have things you want to know from God and that you want to say to God. Speak to Him.
Every day.
Whenever.
It's your privilege. It's God's joy.
He loves to tell you about his son.
And if there's anything in you that's hindering it, he'll tell you that too, so that that can be taken care of, so that it won't be a hindrance to God's enjoyment with you of His Son.
Don't.
The Bible is a living book.
She isn't like the books on the shelf.
Think about Genesis one, God spoke.
And it was so.
God spoke, There's just as much power in the words here as there were when God said, let there be light, let the earth bring forth. God has the same power to speak to us in these words that he had when he spoke this world into existence. And he tells us that the same Spirit of God takes those words with the same power.
To work in the soul. It's not just a book, it's the living word of God.
I'd like to turn back to First Samuel chapter 2.
Young people, it's your turn to.
As it were.
Be free for a few minutes from me speaking directly to you, because I'm gonna speak to your mother and father.
For a few minutes.
First Samuel.
When I get there.
First Samuel chapter 2 and verse one.
And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord. Mine horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like unto our God. Talk no more to so exceeding proudly. Let not arrogance see come out of your mouth.
For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength. They that were full have hired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry ceased. So that the Baron hath borne, 7. And she that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth and maketh alive. He bringeth down to the grave. And.
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Bring us up the Lord, make us poor and make us rich. He bringeth low and lifteth up. He hath raised up the poor out of the dust, and lifted up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among Princess, to make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the Lords, and He has set the world upon them. He that will keep the feet of his Saints and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength.
Shall no man prevail? The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces out of heaven shall he Thunder upon them, and the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and he will give strength unto his King, and exalt the horn of his anointed.
Young people, you're great teachers.
You you're in the process of teaching your mom and dad a lot.
I realized that.
About the only people that ultimately have much confidence in just how to raise kids are those that have never had any.
It's a little amusing to say, but it's there's a lot of truth in it, brethren.
I believe most every parent, if not every parent in this room is either has or is in the process of learning humility.
For your children.
And Hannah, I encourage you to read these words for yourself. Quietly, we ran. We're rushing through them, in a sense.
But the Lord knew that the heart of Hannah.
She wanted a child.
Didn't have one.
Others had them and seemed to have lots of them, but her life was barren. Her husband loved her. He gave her the double portion, but he couldn't understand the depths of what was in her.
And.
Here we find the answer the Lord had given her through her experience.
In her prayer, and it's well worth reading in that light to see how the Lord had.
Taught her some things that she needed.
And, uh, one of them was.
Don't be lofty.
Don't grow about your kids.
In the wrong way anyways.
There is in her she learned that about strength, or by strength shall no man prevail.
No parent prevails by strength.
Prevailing.
Function guard.
And she lived year by year by year.
In her weakness, who made her week, the Lord shut up her womb.
The Lord shut up her womb. The Lord is the very one that put this trial in her life to teach her something that God would use to pass on to us who have young people and children. And so she says, he raises up the poor.
The Lord killeth and so on.
But it says in verse three talk no more, exceedingly proudly. I suppose she was referring to her rival.
Uh, Elkanah's other wife. But there's that sense there's always a rival.
There's always a rival.
And.
She said don't. I'm not gonna talk about that.
Feverish loan? Turn it aside.
We don't have really, uh, too much time, but let's go to the next chapter for a negative lesson. But negative lessons are needed as well. Umm.
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Verse 20. Umm.
Verse 29. Chapter 2. Verse 29.
Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and mine offering.
Which I have commanded in my habitation, and onerous thy sons above me to make yourselves fat with the cheapest of all the offerings of Israel my people. Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed, that thy house and the House of thy Father shall walk before me forever. But now the Lord saith, be it far from me. For them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.
There's a lesson here as well.
For we who are parents.
Eli's sons were disobedient to God.
We're living improper lives.
And even spiritually.
And Eli knew it, and he told them so. He rebuked his sons. He didn't restrain them in any way, but at least he spoke to them. And he told them they wouldn't get a blessing about what they were doing.
One of the things those sons were doing was.
Improperly taking of the fat of the offering for themselves.
And the Lord says to Eli he knew it.
But he said to Eli there in verse 29, Thou honorst thy sons above me.
It takes a work of the grace of God.
That God be honored, supreme #1 because it's very natural to us to see the flesh at work in our children, and perhaps the honors that the world can give to them, or success that they can have among men. And we feed on it a little bit.
Even while we know that their life is not what it should be, with God we take that which is of the flesh, and we feed on it, and we can get fat by it. And Eli died a blind old fat man.
And that wasn't just physically. He died spiritually blind. He was blinded through his children and by partaking in that in their lives, which came from what was not of God but was actually the result of disobedience. May the Lord help us to remember that.
Turn over to Chapter 3.
We're going to close on these verses.
Chapter 3 and verse one And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was precious or rare in those days. That is, God didn't very often speak in those days.
Because of the condition of the people. And he chose not to. And it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes were began to wax dim, that he could not see. And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, And Samuel was laid down to sleep. And the Lord called Samuel, and he said, and he answered, Here am I. This is back for you young people.
The Lord's called you, he says to you.
Where are you?
I wanna talk to you.
Have you answered?
Samuel says, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I, thou callest me. And he said, I called not lie down again. And he went and lay down. And the Lord called yet again Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I without his, call me. And he answered, I called not my son, lie down again. And Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him.
And the Lord called to Samuel again the third time, and he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I, for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go lie down, and it shall be, if thou, if he called thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak for thy servant heareth.
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And the Lord said unto Samuel.
Just a few simple things to note here.
Lord speaks four times.
And the first time, it just records. He spoke to Samuel.
The second time it records, he said Samuel.
The third time Samuel and the 4th time he repeats the word Samuel Samuel.
Lord is very gracious.
Lord speaking to you.
And I'll be so I wanna just drive a point home. Jonathan George speaking to you.
Megan, the Lord is speaking to you. Joy, the Lord is speaking to you.
Mary, Mary or John, John or whoever else in this room, Faith, faith, the Lord is speaking to you.
Answer him.
Answer him.
You know, Eli perceived who was speaking in spite of his near blindness. And here's what he said. He said. You answer. Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.
He doesn't quite get it all out because Samuel didn't yet know the Lord, so he just says, Speak for thy servant, heareth.
There was within Samuel a submission, a willingness to hear, even though he really didn't know the Lord at that point in his life. He was a servant of the Lord, or he served in the in the Tabernacle before the Lord, it says, and so it may be with you.
At least answer.
Speak. Be willing.
For thy servant heareth.
Blindness, and I was saying this somebody the other night. Blindness in the Word of God has to do with faith and unbelief. People who see are people of faith, and people who don't see in the Bible are blind. And often when you see the word blindness connected in your soul with it and look at the picture of the story and you will find that connection. But when it's hearing, it's the will.
It's the will.
And if you want to be blessed of God, be willing to hear.
It's easy to tune it out.
You you could tune out everything that was said this afternoon.
Get your mind 1000 miles away or what you're gonna do as soon as the last day men is said and so on. Be willing to listen.
Say speak.
Lord, in other words, the Lord was speaking to him and and Eli's counsel was good, he said. You respond, speak.
Lord wants you to have a response in you, to listen to what he wants to say to you, because He wants you to be happy. He wants your affection. He wants you to be.
Enjoy life with him, He wants to be everything to your heart. Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming into this world to give your everything.
For us, we thank thee, Lord Jesus, that this afternoon our laboring for us before God.
And that by the Spirit would speak to our hearts. And we just desire our God, that by Thy grace every one of us in this room would respond to thy voice, Lord Jesus, to our hearts, to our lives, that we might say, speak, Lord.
For Thy servant here at, and that we might find in Thee as we've had rejoice in the Lord.
So we seek thy blessing our God on thy word to our souls benefit we ask for it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Philippians 3:7-14
Reading
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156.
Praise God.
Look to the Lord gracious God our Father, we thank Thee for giving us such an object to have before our souls, Lord Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, and to think of the wonderful testimony we have of Him in Thy Word, our God, and every single one of them.
Speaks well.
A witness to the perfection that there was.
Even those who crucified him.
Said this man hath done nothing amiss.
And Latvia, our God and Father also has found thy delight in him. We have this recorded to we pray, Lord, that a sense of these things may get a hold of our souls and that as we continue our meditation this afternoon, that that would direct and help us, Lord, to have Christ before us. And then this wonderful book of Philippians for our Pilgrim, our wilderness pathway. Lord, we need this.
To be able to rejoice in something when all around is contrary. We thank you for giving Him, and we look up and ask in His worthy name. Amen.
We're going to suggest we start at verse 7.
Things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ, Yeah, doubtless. And I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And do count them but dumb, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.
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If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus, brethren.
I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded, and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.
Whose end is destruction, Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame? Who mind earthly things? For our conversation is in heaven, From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.
MMM. Well, the things that were gained to Paul are the things that are listed in the previous verses, those things that he once placed great value and importance on. But it wasn't that it was difficult in a sense for Paul to give those things up. And you say, why wasn't it difficult for Paul to give those things up and to count them as lost because he found something better? This may seem like a very oversimplified and mundane illustration.
But if a child, if one of our children, when they're very little, is holding on to something that we don't want them to have and that we feel down the the road will be a detriment to them, what do you do to get to get them to lose their grip on that thing? Why you offer them something better. If a child's holding onto a knife, you might struggle with that child to get it out of its hand and you or the child may get cut with the knife. But if you offer the child an ice cream cone or some candy.
Why they immediately drop the knife? They don't place any importance on holding onto the knife anymore.
Because what you've offered and what they found in their hand now is something that's far better. And that was the way it was with the apostle Paul. What he found in Christ with so much better than the things he once put stock in the once he, the things that he once thought were merits in his favor. Why, he could cast them off as nothing. They had been important to him, but now he had found something far, far superior in Christ. And brethren, I believe the more our hearts get to know him.
The more we walk in His company, the more we're occupied with himself, the more we go over in our souls His glories and His beauties. Why the things that we think or thought were important at one time?
Those things are just going to drop off and it's not going to be a difficult thing. We're going to say we have something far better now.
It's important to see, I believe, that what Paul counted but done here was not the natural God-given ability that he had. It was not the mind, the body, the particular abilities in certain lines that God has given each one of us that Paul counted, but dung, No God wants us to use those, but to use them for him and to use them for the right motive rather than the wrong one.
But what Paul counted lost for Christ was everything that he had in this world that at least in some measure, accredited him and gave him stature before the world. And I do agree wholeheartedly with what Jim has brought out, that when God presents something better to us, it isn't difficult to let go.
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Of that which by comparison has no value.
But I would point out then, why don't we let go more easily? Why is it such a problem? Why did Paul have to write this chapter in this way?
I just suggest that there's a key to it. Toward the end of the chapter where he talks about those that are enemies not of Christ, he says enemies of the cross of Christ.
It's referring ultimately to an unbeliever because he says whose end is destruction.
But sometimes God uses, shall we say, an illustration concerning an unbeliever, because it has a voice to you and me as believers.
And to follow a rejected Christ, to follow a man who's rejected and cast out in this world, to follow one who was hung on a cross and counted nothing more than a common criminal, which is what the world's estimate of him was, was not an easy thing in Paul's day, and it's not an easy thing today. And so Paul suffered the loss of all things. And while that is not hard for the new man.
Very hard.
On what we are as creatures by nature, isn't it? And so we need to remember that that when Paul gave these things up, he could count them but dumb because he said I want to win Christ, but the cross of Christ is a difficult thing to bear. I believe ultimately that was the reason Paul had to say in second Timothy, all they which are in Asia be turned away from me. What was the problem?
They hadn't turned away in that sense from Christianity, but they didn't want, shall we say, the cross that Paul was willing to bear. And I just suggest we don't need to elaborate too much on it, but it's a voice.
To all of us in this day and age. Because ultimately, that I believe is at the root of why we don't let things go the way we should and why Christ isn't more of an object before us we all want.
Did someone mention this morning to have all that there is in Christ? But there's a Christ to be paid for it, isn't there?
Also important to realize here that he doesn't refer to it as sacrifice. Hmm, it's not the thought.
Sometimes you talk to a person and they say, well, I wanna be a Christian, but and then the body is what am I gonna have to give up?
And they look upon it as sacrificing something that is presently in their life that they want. And, and they balance what they're going to have to give up against what they're going to gain. What what Paul is saying here is, I used to think those things were gained. Now I realize they were really a loss. MMM. What they were was something that was keeping me from God and from his Son.
And so he had a the things didn't change, but his evaluation of them was totally different. After he was illuminated and met the Lord on the road to Damascus. Then he looked back and he said that wasn't any good at all. I remember one of my family members one time of a different generation saying to me looking back on his days in college, he said, I look back on them now as the years that the locust.
In other words, when he went through them, he thought they were fun years and they were gain years and blessing, uh, as far as the natural sense of it. But his perspective of the same events of his life, looking back on them later from a different perspective, he said that was lost. Those years were lost to me. And it's nice to notice as well that in verse seven, it's past tense. I counted.
And so there is that point in our lives when we may get saved and we may look backwards and we may say, oh, how have I spent my life so far? It's all been a loss. And then but Paul goes on and puts it in the present tense in verse 8. And I think that's particularly what Bill is just brought before us. Why don't we want to give up? It's sometimes because we haven't presently come to a proper evaluation of what is gained and what is lost for our souls. And so we find it hard to give up something because.
00:15:12
For example, the, uh, the matter of a crucified, rejected Christ.
We don't want to identify. Our natural man doesn't want to identify with the dishonor of being rejected, and so we would like to present him. But at the same time we don't want anybody to think less of us, and so it's hard to count it as dumb.
I I would take it that this is not necessarily, as we might define a bad thing that are necessarily being set aside.
Just things that are.
He was.
We said this morning, God doesn't like mixtures, and sometimes mixtures aren't always the bad. But with Paul, there was a pattern established for us. He's the pattern believer. He's the pattern Christian. He is the heavenly man and he is the New Testament.
Pattern to our lives. And he's telling us God is telling us through Him that I want Jesus Christ to be everything.
To your soul, and it isn't just bad things, but it's I want him to be number one, number two, number three and all the rest.
Brother made a comment, Bruce, in our written ministry that searched my own heart quite a few years ago. He said it is not so much for the believer the bad things that are a snare, although they certainly can be. But he said the better something is, the more it is is likely to be a snare because I don't realize how subtle the snare really is.
We have those things listed in versus, uh.
Five and six, don't we? And there's nothing to be despised. The fact that he was touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless was certainly something to be desired in a natural way.
Uh, he does say in Romans that one of the commandments got him, though. Thou shalt not covet, but as to anything outwardly.
He could say I'm blameless. That's pretty good qualifying, uh, record he had there. But the point is when he got a glimpse of the fact in verse nine, he says to be found in him not having my own righteousness. That's what he had in verse six, but which is by the of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness.
Which is of God by faith.
There's nothing to compare with that. And so it was not only lost, it was done. What do you do with dumb? You keep it around, you get rid of it. You get it out of your sight. You get it as far as you can from you. You don't want to have any more to do with it. It's not lost. It's something that you like, uh, done says it's not sacrificed to give it up. There's something so much more supremely better.
Before he speaks about that righteousness which is so beautiful, he speaks about something that is even more precious. Brethren, in verse 8, the Excellency isn't that beautiful the way he talks about it, the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.
My Lord.
O brethren, nothing can compare with knowing him.
Life is not about having a bunch of things, and I think it's so important for young people to get a hold of. I must say it's been a lesson to me since the first time I went into Latin America, to some of the poorer countries to see that people in general are happier than Americans that have so many things. I think that makes them happy. A lie, an outright lie.
God has made us for relationship and that's why even we have families, family structure, we're made to relate to one another. God made us in his own image and God is 3 in one. And when it came down to the creation of mankind, he said let us make man in our image. There was communication amongst the different.
00:20:25
Persons of the Godhead in connection with the creation of man.
And so we're creatures of relationship, and this is the ultimate relationship, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's eternal Son, and nothing makes sense until you get it straight with him, young people.
You don't have it straight with him. Nothing makes sense. And it's getting evident in the world we live because we have lived in such a humanistic Society of being centered on man, of our desires, our wants.
People are lost in this country. They're lost because they've lost sight of what life is really about, knowing God in the person of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. What a beautiful expression. I'd like to hear more about it. The Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
All traded the Excellency in verse five and six, the Excellency of all that the flesh could boast in for the Excellency that was in Christ and the Lord Jesus himself, uh, spoke in, umm, uh, I think it's, uh, Luke chapter 14. I'd just like to refer to it because, umm, sometimes, uh, we think that we can keep a part of what the flesh would glory in and maybe get away with it and hold back just a little bit. But he says in, uh, Luke 14.
In verse 33, so likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple. And so it was all that the flesh would glory in, in this world. The Lord said you have to give it up all, all of it, otherwise there won't be that enjoyment of the excellencies of Christ. How wonderful it is. What a position of blessing we have. We're giving up the worst that this scene has for the best that God has.
I think thank you Lord Jesus, uh, he spoke about loss and gain and this is one.
Referenced over in Matthew chapter 16.
We have another reference I believe would tie in with what we're speaking about here in verse.
24 Matthews 16 and 24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life, for my sake shall find it.
But when he refers to.
Savings.
One's life.
Set not in connection with.
Slipping herself.
And for this world.
And the end result is we're gonna lose everything.
However, whosoever will lose his life if we're willing to give up.
It tells us here for my sake he's going to find life. Well, this is the true meaning of life, to enjoy Christ in our souls.
Because he is the life.
Now in Psalm 17, I believe it tells us that.
The men of this world, they have their portion in this world.
But not the next slide.
And who's out, you know? And Lord goes on here. For what is the man profited? She'll gain the whole world and lose his own soul. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
I think the Lord speaks in these terms about six different places, doesn't He?
Uses a term in John's Gospel that same.
Verse that he says whosoever shall hate his life in this world. That's a pretty strong word. But I really think if we get a glimpse of what is set before us, let's say what in the world do I have that around for any longer? He's get out of here just hindering me from what is real.
00:25:12
An excellent.
I think what Robert said is very helpful too, because the things that were gained to him were things that he felt in a natural and fleshly way merited him favor and gave him a position amongst men.
Those things he, he really thought that keeping the law and what those things that he did, uh, before he was saved, those things were going to merit him favor before God even persecuting the church.
He thought verily, within himself, that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Christ. He did it even with a good conscience, I suppose, And then those things that he felt, it gave him a position amongst men. We know what the Pharisees were like in the days of the Lord Jesus. They wanted the praise of men, and they made long speeches in the marketplace, and so on. It gave them a position and exalted the flesh in that way.
But when Paul got into the presence of the Lord, and as he learned more and more of the glories of Christ.
What happened? Why Paul just faded away? Paul just faded away. It wasn't that he tried to disappear. It wasn't that he tried to become humble. It wasn't that he tried to fade into the background. It was just the natural result of getting into the presence of the Lord. It was the natural result of getting to know the excellencies and the glories of this person. And brethren, that's the way it's going to be in your life and mine too.
The more you and I are occupied with Christ and his glories.
The more the things that we thought were going to merit us favor the things that we thought were good in the flesh, those things are just gonna, we're gonna forget about them. They're gonna pale.
They're just going to be behind us. We're not even going to think about them.
But Christ is what is going to be seen in your life and mine and brethren thought S really the key is occupation with Christ then is what we need so that Christ will will be seen by others in our lives. Maybe we see something in that, in that word. No there that I may know him. Uh, if you're going to be a serious student of the word, you're going to find out that there's two words that are translated No.
And, and our King James Version and this word here is the one word no actually means something you can gain by information, something academically that you can learn. The other no is something that brings in the emotion and the experience of the individual soul. So this word here that I may know him is the word that brings in the fact that it's, it's an experimental.
Emotional knowing I know a lot about George Bush. I have a number of books and I know a little bit about him, but I think it's, Barbara knows him better. And I think that, uh, his, his wife probably even knows him better than that. And his doctor knows him pretty good. But I don't have never met him personally, See, but I can have an academic, I can have an informational of information all about George Bush. But you see, the, The thing is that I must know him if I'm gonna know him this way, I must know him personally.
And a very, uh, a one to one basis. And that's really the key, I think that we're talking about this occupation with Christ results and talking with him on a daily, not a daily basis, but even an hourly basis. The more you talk to the Lord, the more you wanna know the Lord, the more you pray to him. And that's the key of knowing more about Christ, relating, uh, you know, uh, presenting back to God.
Come to God, we present to him that beloved one, the one who made it all possible for us to have a relationship, to be reconciled, to be brought into an intimate, uh, relationship with God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:30:06
That connection, just one more comment about following a rejected Christ. It's noteworthy that the reference to the cross of Christ and being an enemy of the cross, the reference to giving up all of these things that naturally would have accredited Paul in the eyes of the world, is not found in the second chapter. It's found in this chapter.
I'd suggest one reason for that is the order of things that.
No, I've gone back to John's Gospel here for a minute, but it's the order of things. I think it's in that 8th, 9th verse.
It says the 10th verse that I may know him. Our brothers just referred to that. What comes first? The power of his resurrection, then the fellowship of his sufferings. Paul could say in uh, First Corinthians 15.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
If we, if I say it reverently, if all we're doing is following one who hung on Calvary's cross and then was put into a grave, we are of all men most miserable because the world says, well, what's what's the value in that? What? What have you got to hope for? He's not in the grave. He's risen. He's glorified. We have an object not to look back only on one who suffered and died on Calvary's cross.
Blessed be his name, He did so in order that you and I might be saved. But now he's risen and glorified.
And I must have that object before me up there in order to be able to take up the cross down here. And that's why this chapter is so needed. If I don't have that object, I will find the cross very difficult. But Faith says the one that hung on Calvary's cross is seated far above all things, far above all principality and might and dominion and every name that is named, and so on and one day.
He's going to be displayed as head over all things to us. He already is, but He's going to be displayed in the coming day. If that really lays hold of me, then, then I can share the fellowship of His sufferings. Then I can bear the cross that we've been talking about. Then I can give up what naturally credits me in the eyes of the world, if it'll give me to learn more of Christ.
When we talk about knowing somebody.
I know you. You know me.
My wife knows me better than anybody else in this room.
You really know a person.
You could ask, somebody could ask you, well, how do they, what do they think about this? How do they feel about that? And you'd be able to tell them if you don't know a person, you don't know how they think, you don't know how they're going to act in a given situation. You can't really say, well, I know what's in their heart.
But the apostle Paul and his relationship with the Lord Jesus was getting to know him in such a way that he did know his heart, he did know his thoughts, he did know his feelings. And he said that's an excellent see that you can't compare it to anything else. And it was not all learned all at once. We don't learn it all instantly. We don't learn to know each other instantly, but we get to know each other gradually and here.
He was passing on, if you will, to us. He's saying get to know him. It's an excellent thing. It satisfies your heart in the way that nothing else will as you get to know him. And here he speaks of himself and he's really saying, you know.
If I actually died and passed through death and was raised from the dead, that's an experience that the Lord Jesus went through that I haven't. But if it would allow me, if it would enable me to know Him better because we had shared a common experience, I think I would like to die and be raised from the dead so that it will enable me to know Him one way more better than I do now. And just one more comment about it.
We know him no more after the flesh.
That is.
00:35:02
He is on the other side of death.
And he lives in the power of a new life, as far as we're concerned. New, not to him new, but.
The relationship which we are to have with the Lord Jesus is the other side of death, and if we try to get to know Him in nature and in the flesh, we won't know him because he's not in that relationship to us anymore. And so Paul recognized that everything connected with the flesh and man in the flesh was useless.
And Price wasn't there. He was the man of that God had raised from the dead. And so God says, yes, I want you to know him. So I'll give you a life that you can. And he gives us a life that has the capacity to know God. Man in the flesh cannot know God.
Doesn't know what he thinks, doesn't know what he feels, doesn't have any true knowledge of God because the flesh is dead. As far as God is concerned. Man in the flesh has no life, God word, so he has no relationship. You have to share the nature if you're to understand one another. If you put an Ant on one of these chairs and I said you do you know the Ant? You have to say no, I don't know the Ant. I know about him, but I don't know the aunt.
I, I don't know what's in its heart. I don't share a common nature with it and consequently I don't have a capacity to enter into what it thinks or what it feels, uh, except in a solely sense a little bit.
But not fully. But God says to us, my purpose for you is that we enjoy one another. So the only way you can fully know me and enjoy me is if I make you one of my children and give you the life of my family. And so we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now that we're part of God's family, then we can grow just like your children, my children and their little kids, they have the capacity to know us. They don't really know us very well, but we hope as they grow and mature and develop, they become in a sense.
I know my father and my father knows me.
And we know them long before you might say they know us. We'll accept that they're in relationship to us as children, but as an adult they don't fully enter into it. God says, well, you're my children and I want you to grow and I want to develop your knowledge, true knowledge of myself and my son, so that we can spend eternity enjoying it together. Hmm. That's why I think, Don that the Lord said to Mary Magdalene.
Uh, in his resurrection he was the 1St.
She was the 1St to see him touch me not, for I have not yet ascended into my Father, your Father, and to my God and to your God. She wanted him back as she had known him in the flesh down here and he basically was saying no Mary, you're going to know me in a completely new and much better relationship in resurrection than you had ever known me in this life. I think that helps to understand why he says that to her because they actually touched him in resurrection.
But she wanted him back, as she had known him in the flesh.
When we think someone should know us and we find out they misunderstood this, it kind of hurts, doesn't it? They, they don't follow along with our thinking pattern or, and there was somebody that is close to us that we feel that when we think they really should have known us better than that. I wonder, somehow I have that feeling that I do that to my God. I just don't know him very well. Uh.
Paul here wanted to get to know him very well, so he wouldn't do that well, not just for that reason, but for the Excellency of knowing him. This is not salvation. This is, uh, this is intimate relationship to know and have common thoughts together. And it seems to me like these verses here too, like that I may win Christ and, and, and so on.
It, it, it isn't just the thought that we live our life now in the following a rejected Christ. And then at the end of our life, the Lord is going to take us home and we're going to be with him happy and everything is going to be well asked from that point on. That's not that's true, but that's not what he's talking about here, is it? He's talking about getting to know him right now in this life and that present enjoyment of it right now.
00:40:17
And that's what enabled him to count all those things that lost, even the good things that were gained to him naturally as a man. And so it's a great secret to we as Christians now. We're not talking about what's going to be in glory. We're talking about what Paul enjoyed in this present life. And that gave him that energy to pursue on with the same enthusiasm or the same zeal.
That he had before he was saved.
In persecuting the believers, he was doing it now for Christ and that his own soul might lay hold of that purpose that God had laid hold of him and made him one of his children and, uh, given him that, that minisphere service that he had. And we can be thankful that Paul was.
Quite faithful in what was committed to him and.
God didn't need to raise up very many other apostles or prophets to give us the New Testament because he did a good job of what God called him to. Hmm.
This is an ongoing thing, isn't it, in our lives, getting to know the Lord. I say that because we might say, well, didn't the Apostle Paul, a Saul of Tarsus, get to know the Lord on the Damascus Rd. Well, it's true. He said, who art thou Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. And so he got to know the Lord there. And we can look back in our lives, some here over many years, others over a few years.
To that time when we came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
And what a wonderful time it was in our lives. But Paul wasn't content with that, was he?
He wasn't just content to know that his sins were forgiven and that he had met the Lord on the Damascus Road and turned to him by the grace of God as his Savior. Know, the whole desire of Paul's life was to deepen that acquaintance with the Lord. He wanted every day to walk in company with the Lord and to get to know Him better. Just go to a verse in Hosea. I'm going to take it a little bit out of its context because I know it has a prophetic character here.
In its context in Hosea chapter 6. But I just want to I think there's something very practical to consider in relationship to what has been said.
Hosea chapter 6 and verse 3. Then shall we know?
If we follow on to know the Lord, how are we going to get to know the Lord better? How is our acquaintance with himself going to deepen? It's to follow on. It's to walk with him. Don spoke about how his wife is the one that knows him the best in this room. But you know, when I married my wife 24 years ago, she perhaps thought she knew something about me. But she's learned a lot more about me in 24 years.
Of our being together than she knew back then, What she knew back then and what she knows now is a lot different and a lot more. And that's the way it is, isn't it? In our Christian lives, what we know about the Lord Jesus, what we've enjoyed of Him is a lot different. It ought to be a lot deeper than when we came to know the Lord Jesus as our Savior. But how is that going to happen? It's to follow Him. It's to walk in His company.
I'd like to just repeat a little illustration that's been often used, but it perhaps might be helpful. Again, you know, I grew up in Canada and we, in those days at least, learned in school a great deal about the British royal family.
And I could even to this day, rattle off a lot of facts about Queen Elizabeth the Second, who sits on the throne of England. I know a lot about the Queen of England, but I don't know the Queen of England personally. I can tell you a lot about her. But we'll suppose for the sake of illustration that I get an invitation in the mail and everything provided to come to London and enter the gates of Buckingham Palace.
And to sit down with the Queen of England every day for a month Now when I leave Buckingham Palace, I don't just know about the Queen of England. I can honestly say that I know the Queen of England. We've communed together, we've sat together, we've walked in the royal garden together. I say I know the Queen of England. I thought I knew a lot about her. But I know her now. I know what makes her tick. I know what how she thinks.
00:45:23
But let's suppose, for the sake of the illustration, that from that point on, every year I get an invitation to come and spend a month at Buckingham Palace. Now after I've done that several years, I say, well, I thought after the first visit I knew the Queen of England pretty well, but I sure know her a lot better than I knew her back after that first visit. Now, brethren, that's the way it ought to be in our Christian life. And that, I say, was Paul's.
Whole, bent and desire.
In his life was to get to know the Lord Jesus better.
Is that really your desire? Do we get up in the morning rather with a real desire to say today I want to follow the Lord, I want to walk with the Lord so I get to know him better, so that I get a fresh glimpse of his glories, that I have a fresh appreciation of the Excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ? You'll only get that, yes, from reading the Word, but you'll only get it, brethren, from walking side by side.
In the company of this glorious person.
Disciples didn't.
No, the power of it.
Well, when the Lord Jesus was faced with death.
They could say as from truly from their hearts and sincerity, we go with thee. When he was going down to meet Lazarus, uh, who had been put to death and there was, uh, a matter of maybe they were going to suffer before Jesus went. He might be put to death. Their hearts were with him in it. They hadn't learned their own flesh. They had not at that point learned the power of the spirit in them to work and so on.
But they had been with him.
And we see a, a progression in them. We see that development in that souls of those that at least in desire at that point, Well, if the Lord's gonna die, I'm gonna go with them. Uh, I wanna be there. Peter had it in the same sense. He said, Lord, I'll go with you, I'll die with you. And yes, he had a lesson to learn, but he did learn the lesson and he did get later the privilege.
Of suffering with them and through going through death. And so it is with us that it doesn't start day one. It requires that walk with the Lord that then draws out the heart and develops in us the true knowledge of God that He puts there, and then we can act in fellowship with Him and even suffering.
So it's after the knowledge of death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus that.
Really we are as Saints able to follow that pathway. There was a call to do that before the versus have been read about the Gospels taking up the cross and following him and so on. But nobody ever could do that or follow the Lord in that way. But now that the Lord Jesus has died and risen, then that we and we have this new life now the power to walk in that path.
And then now it's possible for for us to go to follow the Lord in that you get a little picture of that just in the Old Testament when they.
Took the, uh, arc and they across the river Jordan, uh, they first of all, it was necessary that the priest stepped down into those waters that were overflowing with the ark and that caused the waters to recede and then the children of Israel could follow on after. And so that's a picture of the Lord Jesus going down into death and, and rising again and we follow him in that path then.
If you pardon the illustration, the, uh, the difference between the two words of no, uh, to pardon the illustration now, uh, I was talking with a brother and then trying to point out to him, there's a big difference between knowing something, uh, informationally wise and knowing it experimentally, experimentally. And I've been saying, well, I said, brother, I said, uh, have you been baptized? Oh, yeah, I said, do you remember it?
00:50:07
No, you'll remember I said, well, you know, if somebody told you, I said I know it because I was there when it happened. So I say, pardon the illustration, but that's the difference between the these two words that are used in the New Testament. And I've got great blessing out of making the scene. That distinction, in fact in John 17, three, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
That's the same basic, uh, word that we have here, you say. And so I say, pardon the illustration, but there is a, a way that you can know all about something informationally without making a, a vital part of yourself now. And I, I just use that illustration. So you can, uh, and I would just say this, if you're gonna be a good student of the word of God, you should, you should take, uh, knowledge of, uh, the difference, uh, between these two words. There's a number of words in the New Testament.
That actually have two different meanings that come from two different basic words and they, they reflect two different meanings. So, uh, I would just say it's very profitable to know these. I mean, uh, there's another word, uh, that we have a little word, but, and one of them is a very weak, is adversative and one, one is a very strong. So I have gotten great, uh, help and, and pleasure out of making the distinction and looking up which word is used when you see the word, but in the, in the New Testament.
The Apostle Paul had this energy of faith.
Because he had seen Christ and he had a view of that man and the glory. And so it was by faith that he had the energy to pursue Christ in the knowledge of Christ. It wasn't by the energy of the flesh and he gloried in the flesh. And it says just refer to John's Gospel chapter one, verse 13. It says which were born of which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man.
But of God and so God had in his grace, umm in the person of Christ appeared to Paul and he'd seen a light that was above the brightness of the sun. And now he had an object before his soul and it wasn't going to be pursued in the energy of the flesh. It was going to be pursued in the energy of faith. And so This is why he says here in verse 12 I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
And so there was progress in his life. There was diligence in pursuing Christ.
And it's not just going to happen, umm, just, uh, going to happen. We're not going to wake up in a few years and say, wow, I, I was pursuing Christ and I didn't even know it. It needs to be a conscious decision. And Paul had made a conscious decision by faith.
To set aside what the flesh gloried in and by faith, he could forsake Egypt in all that it had. You know, Moses, it says that he first took Egypt and it means that he abandoned every prospect that Egypt could, uh, give him and could provide him and abandoned everything that Egypt could possibly provide him. And he laid hold on Christ himself. And so that's how you and I need to pursue Christ by faith and we need to recognize, and I'm thankful that the Lord Jesus said it. He said the flesh profiteth nothing.
Met the grace of God to allow his Son to say that.
The flesh profiteth nothing, and so it's the energy of faith that sees Christ as the object and then pursues those things with energy.
I was thinking how? Excuse me?
I say everything will be evaluated according to if it helps us to win that object or not. I there's so many things in life that are pressed upon us and they're not wrong in themselves, but they don't help you win.
When we lived in Bolivia, the Lord brought me into contact with some race car drivers. One was a mechanic that I took my vehicle to and I remember after he got saved.
He, uh, said to me and he, I never told him he shouldn't be racing, but he's in the sense that I wasn't in agreement with him. And one day he says, well, what in the world is wrong with racing? It's a good clean sport.
00:55:05
I said, uh, well, I don't see anything wrong with it either personally, but let me ask you a question. I said, supposing I get into a race car and I'm racing from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba.
Because they race over the highways down there and, uh, I say, would it be all right for me to stop and take some pictures along the way? Oh, no, no, no, you don't do that. I said what, what, what's wrong with taking pictures? Is there something wrong with it?
Oh, no, no, there's nothing wrong with it. But you don't do that when you're in a race. You got it, I said. And there's so many things in life you really come down to evaluate. Is this really helping me get down to the goal? And that's the picture we have of the apostle here. It's he's in a race. He's pursuing that goal that's before him of supreme value.
Brethren, why don't we run better as Christians? I really believe it's because we haven't got a glimpse of the value of the goal that's before us. Christ in glory, you get a glimpse of it. Everything here will fade in relation to that supreme goal.
It will you will evaluate things. Is this really helping me? And that's the way it was with the apostle Paul.
In fact, I remember, uh, I think it was Mr. Chapter Brown.
Used to give an alternate translation to verse 14. He says I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He says it's a picture of a man in a race getting down towards the goal and putting every ounce of energy into winning the prize.
Down to the goal I press, nothing else interested him because that was the thing that was before his soul.
So it's illustrated in another place where the apostle says that we're to lay aside every weight, not just sin, that's true, but every weight. And let's use another illustration. Suppose an Olympic athlete goes out to run in a race, and he shows up on the race track with the other 10 or 15 racers, and he's got a backpack with something in it on his back. And the they hold the race for a few moments and the official goes out and talks to this runner.
And he says, you shouldn't be running a race with a backpack full of stuff on your back. And the runner might turn to the official and say, well, I've searched the rule books, and there's nothing in the rule books, in the guide books that forbids me to run this race with this backpack full of stuff on my back. What would the official say to him? Why? He said, well, that's true, but don't you realize that this is going to hinder you in your progress in running or winning this race?
You're not going to be able to run properly. You're not going to be able to make the goal properly. Even though there might be nothing in the official rules or guidebook that says you can't do this, well, we see the folly of that very quickly.
But brethren, isn't it true in our Christian lives has been brought before us, there are many encumbrances, many things that we get involved in and take on, and they hinder us in running the race. And how often have you heard it said when something's brought before somebody? Well, what's wrong with this, or what's wrong with that, or that's just legality or whatever. But perhaps it would be better instead of questioning it like that to say.
Is this hindering me in running the race for Christ? Is this holding me back in my Christian pathway? Is this a detriment in my winning or gaining Christ? And if it is, brethren, then we're exhorted to lay it aside, to put it down. And so the athlete, he sees the folly of having that backpack. What does he do? Why he takes the backpack off and he throws it on the on the turf at the side, and he gets ready to run the race.
Without that weight, without that encumbrance, brethren, are you and I in running the race, seeking to lay aside those things that are going to hinder us from gaining Christ?
01:00:06
Paul was obsessed, wasn't he? As an unbeliever, he was obsessed with persecuting the church and obliterating the name of Christ, But then when he was saved by the marvelous grace and divine intervention of the Lord Jesus.
Why he was obsessed with gaining the goal and nothing could turn him back. And so he says here in verse 15 that if anything, let's let us therefore as many as be perfect for mature, be thus minded. And if anything in anything you be otherwise minded. God shall reveal even this unto you and that the love of our Savior, he's going to reveal it to us. If we're carrying the backpack and we don't even know it. Sometimes we just, uh, have those things that are being a hindrance to us.
And we can just, by the grace of God, he will point them out in faithfulness. And we need to have the ear heard. I just want to, umm, relay a little illustration that I don't want to take up the time of stories, but, uh, I went to visit my, uh, stepfather several times before he recently went home to be with the Lord. And, umm, you know, he, uh, said that there was, uh, an older gentleman, uh, by the name of Harold St. John that he met, uh, when he was a young man. And he told him that, uh.
He said, umm, if you want to really study the Scriptures, you really want to get serious about studying a portion of scripture. He says read it 20 times and then begin to read perhaps some ministry on it and so on. But he says you won't know what God's trying to say if you don't read it and you don't understand it yourself, what he's saying. And I thought that was very good advice. The next time I went to see him, he asked me if I'd read anything 20 times, and I had to confess that I hadn't read a portion of Scripture 20 times.
But it's good for us to realize and to appreciate the fact that God values diligence and He will reward diligence. Paul was rewarded abundantly, and he could say with a clear conscience that he had fought the good fight and he was ready to depart to be with Christ. And he was ended his pathway with joy. And you and I, if we take our Christianity seriously, why we're going to be rewarded in that path of faith, The Lord will see to it.
13th verse because I count. We've already noticed before. In verse 70, I counted past tense.
And then umm, shortly after that I count in verse 8. Now he says in verse 13, I count not myself.
Nice to see that Paul recognized that progress had been made. But he said, I'm where I am now and what I do is I forget everything is behind. I don't look back and I don't say, wow, it come quite a nice little distance here. And knowing Christ compared to you or somebody else, he doesn't have that attitude. This is a race for all of us. There's no winners. Uh, no one is restricted. They're no loo. There doesn't have to be any losers, let's put it that way.
We are all.
Uh, can be in the same. So in that sense, it's not a competitive race, but there is that sense in which we have to recognize we haven't arrived until we've arrived. And Paul realized that he would not arrive until he was with Christ physically, spiritually, that at the end of his life was the end of the road for him. And so he stops here and he says, I, I, I don't claim that I arrived, if you will, that there's no more progress. In fact, it only made him that much more diligent in saying.
As it where I see the goal ahead and that's where I want to go. And the verses which follow carry on in that same sense. Umm, we've all made some progress and there are things we bear with each other because none of us know it all. None of us have learned it all. And there may be something in this in which you and I have enjoyed together and we walk together and the fullness of it is having learned it from God.
But there may be something else in which you've learned it and I haven't. And as a consequence, as it were, the the spirit here is you're to be patient with me because God is if I'm not.
Umm, working against His will. There is one truth and uh, be patient with me. The Lord will work with me if I don't resist Him, so that there will come a time when we can together enjoy that truth and walk in it.
01:05:04
But it's always in the sense that none of us can say we know it all, or that we've experienced it all, and that we're now some standard for the rest. We're all still growing, we're all still learning, and the process won't stop until we're in glory.
Like to mention here in the end of verse 12 as well.
The beautiful thought I follow after, if that I may apprehend or lay hold of that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus, and to think that in every believer has been laid hold of.
By Christ Jesus.
Why did he lay hold of you?
Not for some earthly objective. And in our day of humanism, everybody is encouraged to form their goals.
Oh, how important it is to realize that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, he laid hold of you. Why? So that you might lay hold of this object before us, uh, Christ in glory. That's the real reason of our being believers in the Lord Jesus, that we might be why we might seek. And that's the pursuing that you speak of, Robert is.
Take follow on and in verse 13, he says this one thing I do, brethren, it's not too hard to forget. It's not too easy, uh, to forget one thing. It's easy to forget a whole bunch of things. But we get our lives so cluttered and we need to think of in single hearted simplicity this is.
One thing is one thing I do. You had that before His soul. May the Lord help us to be that way.
We don't want to forget in going over these verses, and I know we're moving quickly and we need to, that there was suffering involved for the Apostle Paul as well, and it wasn't easy, was it? We've spoken of the joy of following the Lord and how when we have Christ before us, it's not hard to give up the things that we once counted, gain and so on.
But we don't want to give the impression that it's easy either. And Paul speaks of suffering here in these verses. He suffered the loss of all things, and he speaks of the fellowship of his sufferings. It's interesting that when you go to 2nd Corinthians Chapter 11, at the end of that chapter, he gives a list forced by inspiration because of the treatment he was receiving from the Corinthians and the questions they had in his mind, their minds as to his apostleship and ministry.
He's forced by inspiration to give a list of the things that he suffered from day-to-day and year to year in the path of faith and service for Christ. And it's a tremendous list. It's a list of things that I, and I suppose most in this room, have never been called on to suffer in the path of faith and service. But you, you come to the end of the list and you say, how could he do it?
One who had had originally the world at his feet, one who was revered in religious circles, so to speak, one who had everything going for him. And you say, how could he do it? He felt those things. You know, brethren, Paul wasn't callous or indifferent to the things he he suffered. He felt them and he felt them very keenly. But the very next chapter tells us, and we've already alluded to it, he didn't just have a vision of the coming glory. He'd been up there.
He'd seen what was the head, and with that, before his soul, he could suffer and give up things down here. Not that he didn't feel them, He did feel them and he felt them keenly. But he had something better. Before his soul, he had the glory. He'd seen Christ in glory. He'd heard unspeakable words that it was not lawful for a man to water. And so I just say that because we don't want to give the impression.
That if we follow the Lord and we seek to be occupied with Himself and know him better, that it's all going to be a path of sunshine and roses, that it's all going to be smooth sailing. No, there's the fellowship of his sufferings. In fact, Paul, it was given to Paul to fill up the sufferings of Christ. And who suffered more as a servant of God than the apostle Paul? But brethren, we are given two to have fellowship in his sufferings, in the sufferings of Christ as well.
01:10:27
And we will in the measure in which we follow Christ. And there is a reflection of Christ in your life and mine.
It's interesting that in Acts 9, when Paul was converted, and the 16th verse, uh, speaking through Ananias says to Paul, I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.
The Lord specifically, of course, told him this, but of course it was in reference to what he had, the suffering he had caused the Saints. He had been persecuting them and Christ felt it. He had persecuted Christ. And now the Lord is gonna say, now I'm gonna turn around and give you the favor of learning what I went through and that's learning to know Christ. It's beautiful. We've been speaking about knowing I knowing him. Here you have the Lord saying now, Paul, I want to tell you how you're gonna.
I'm gonna tell you how you can learn to know me by suffering for my name's sake. Now in our chapter, Paul's saying, now I wanna learn to know by suffering my savior. Isn't that beautiful? But this is these two. These two are one mind. The Lord is saying it and Paul is wanting it too. Uh, the same mind that is to know one another. That's beautiful for us.
It's so easy us for us to pray that the Lord would keep us from those kind of things. And it's not that we go out and seek suffering.
There used to be, it's not so common today, but I was reading in the history of the, uh, nearly 1000 years ago in the, the Saints of God and how they, would, they would cause affliction on their bodies, uh, do penitence and, uh, torture themselves and, and, and flog their body because of the sinfulness they saw in it, as if those kind of things would make them more holy. That's useless.
And some of them learned that it was useless, but we're not talking about that. We're talking here about what the Lord would put in a pathway, uh, up in the way of suffering. And it's, uh, it's, uh, to learn to know the Lord Jesus.
I would. I'm just gonna relate a little story that that that helps me understand knowing one another.
When, uh, after being married and raising a family.
A number of our young people got together and put on a supper of appreciation for their parents to come together. And the, the children wanted to do something to show their appreciation. And this is one of this is a very happy evening that we enjoyed together when a group of young people in our assembly, uh, did this. But during the course of the evening, they did something that wasn't exactly easy to, to go through and that is.
They took the husbands and the wives apart and asked them the same question, one of the other.
What's your favorite food and what's this? And then they asked the spouse the same question. And of course, the couple who thought most alike won the prize. Well, that's a that's a it's a little bit scary to go through that kind of an experience, but it illustrates to me learning to know one another. How much does my spouse, my wife know me and how much do I know her?
Actually, I think I don't know very much about her.
Uh, and I, the more, the more you realize of these things in life, they're really, we don't know each other very well. At least that's the way I feel. And I feel that way about the Lord too.
What percent do we know about our savior? What percent? I could ask the same thing about husbands and wives. I'm not gonna ask any, any questions. Some, uh, some of us didn't score very high that night.
Others did, umm, how well you know each other. It showed it up. And this shows to me what the Lord Paul is talking about here, about knowing one another.
01:15:15
What would you say, Doug? And this is maybe a tough question, but it's a practical one. If there isn't the desire in a believer, as there should be, to know Christ if there isn't.
That energy that Paul had here to press down toward the mark. And let's be honest, we see that sometimes in ourselves. What, what is the problem? Why, why isn't there more of that energy to know Christ and to, uh, lay aside those things that are hindrance that we've been talking about. We mentioned a few things earlier, but, uh, you've kind of brought it to a head. What?
What? What is the antidote to what we might call?
Spiritual laziness or a lack of wanting to pursue in the way that, as you say, you've read about those in the past, and I've read about them too. Who knew, in terms of doctrine, very little compared to what most in this room would know. And yet the heart, the love, the appreciation of Christ was there in a way that I at least covered what? What's the problem?
Oh no.
Would you say the bottom line is the love?
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all my mind. God loves us with an eternal love. He wants us to love him. Now you know in numbers I think it's six or the the Israel is instructed the love of the Lord thy God with all my heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. What was the basis that they had to love him. They didn't have a cross to look back to. They didn't have the fullness of God's love and grace demonstrated.
Uh, they experienced the fact that, uh, he was mighty for them, that he did great wondrous works for them.
He did miracles for them, but I think they had in their soul, not only, uh, they had in their souls an appreciation of who God was. Uh, the Old Testament Saints did not have the basis that we have to respond to God, but they, they saw God as a great creator, a moral governor of the universe who blesses those who walk with him and punishes those who disobey him and walk away from him.
But now that in this particular, uh, era that we live in, we look back and we see the fullness of God's wondrous love. They could not look to a cross on Gospel Hill. They could not see that blessed man who hung up on that cross. Oh, and they had to love God. Yes, they did. But you know, we mentioned Apostle Paul now the Apostle Paul once he heard.
That heavenly voice from heaven, he was gung ho vehemently dedicated to exterminate and wipe out the name of that Nazarene. And when Paul realized, and this is a blessed to my soul, that that man who was crucified on that cross was the Lord of glory.
It changed his life and let me tell you, it should change our lives too. But I think the more we know him.
But the more we should love him. God wants us to love him and he tells us that I shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. And you know, we each have different capacities. Everybody in this room, uh, has different levels of understanding and different levels of temperament, different levels of education. But one thing for certain is that we can all put everything we have into the fact that God is worthy of all of our love, our attention.
And the more we know him, the more we will love him. And my prayer, and I believe what our prayer should be. Lord, give me greater capacity.
A lovely orphanage.
Where did you in the answer to your question, Bill? Excuse me. I, I, I.
Said I didn't have an answer and then I'm answering, but my answer is the opposite. Uh, it's the faithfulness of God, It seems to me it's when it's his governmental dealings with this, that's where God introduces his governmental dealings with us to produce in us that appetite and desire to learn to know and appreciate him and to love him and read his word and pray and, and so on. And it's.
01:20:25
Comforting to know that we have a faithful God even when we are unfaithful and that his governmental dealings with us will work with us to produce that in US. Not that God enjoys governmental, uh, dealing with this, but it's necessary to remove certain things to get us to the point where we want to love him or want to follow him. And that's my, uh, that's the way I look at the.
My part in the this well, I think that's very good and.
I don't know, somebody was trying to see something right next to me here. OK, well, just just if I can follow up on that. I've wondered, and again, I don't mean to answer my own question, but I've wondered if, especially in the Western world, the sense of entitlement that has pervaded our society has spilled over into spiritual things. And it's an awful thing to think about, but sometimes we need to face it, that it.
Comes right down to the fact that I take for granted what Christ has done for me and I take for granted the fact that He suffered on Calvary's cross, and I take for granted all that God has done in His purposes in Christ and associating me with Him.
This chapter, while it is definitely about your enjoyment in mind of Christ, yet ultimately He is the object. It's to learn more of Him. Why? So that I will have a good life and a warm feeling in my soul and all that. That'll all be produced. But ultimately it's He that needs to be the object because He is worthy and as Dawn was mentioning a while ago.
If I really get to that point, it takes me right out of myself. I don't have to be concerned about, well, what am I going to get out of it, or is it going to produce this for me? If I see Christ's interest and seek to know Him, He'll take care of my happiness and He'll take care of everything else, won't he? Sorry, Wally, go ahead.
I was just thinking that, uh, David could say the Lord restoreth my soul and when we get away from the Lord.
We know that there is a way back, and we often sing that little hymn. Though I forget him and wander away, Still He loves me back to his dear loving arms. Would I flee when I remember that Jesus loves me and there's nothing that can warm the heart as much as the love of the Lord Jesus for you and for me, in spite of ourselves and perhaps how far we've gone from Him.
Give us that I believe, sweet sense of His love in our souls, and we wanna get back to Him. And to know Him as our brother points out is really to love Him. The word of joke is acquaint. Now thyself with Him, and be at peace, and thereby good shall come unto thee.
Wonderful thing about the Lord is.
The more we get to know him.
The more we find out just how lovely he really is. So all together lovely.
Sometimes we meet somebody and.
Because this is quite an impressive person, but maybe after we get to know them, we find out that there are faults and we're not quite as impressed as we might be. And I'm sure that's so in folks oneself. But, you know, when it comes to the Lord, the more we examine him, the more beautiful he is, and there's no fault in him. It's a wonderful thing, you know, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.
And with respect to suffering, I believe the Lord always gives us.
As has been pointed out that I wanna labor the point but.
Of your glory and the recompense for this suffering. And if we suffer with him, we're gonna reign with him.
We're speaking about the disciples, you know they're called to.
Denied himself and take up the cross and to follow the Lord and it seemed like a very bleak outlook for them. But you know, the Lord presented himself to those disciples on that mountain of transfiguration and his face that shone like the sun is raiment was white. There's no fooler on earth to make it and what a sight they had of the Lord. It's a little I believe uh.
01:25:23
Preview, you know, of the Lord and His coming glory when He would reign. And so they had that to think about. And we've had Paul too, on the road to Damascus. Well, here's this light that shines down upon him. It's above the new, the brightness of the noonday sun. Well, I'm sure Paul didn't forget about that, you know, as he was experiencing the difficulties of the weight suffering and of course he was caught up to the 3rd heaven too.
And he saw things that it wasn't lawful for him to speak. I mean, there's no words in that human language to describe the beauty of what he saw.
But all of this, I believe, was in the mind of the pastor, you know, as he went through his suffering, of which we've been speaking. It's just, uh, wonderful to realize that you and I, we have a.
Savior is glory. He's a man with flesh and bone. He sits there, He intercedes on our behalf and he's coming again. I believe he's about ready to step out of heaven and come back. No, we hear about these men in the International Space Station and it's a quite a feat to be there in that space station and great importance placed upon this, upon these men and so on. But we have somebody in the 3rd heaven.
The Prince in the stadium is an extended man flashing phone. There he is in the glory. And as we are here in this world, we suffer. As we have been pointing out, we think about him and our association with him and he's coming back. He could be today. So we have so much to rejoice. Our hearts as we, you know, go through this world and experiences issues. Any measures that we suffer is.
Not too much in this part of the world, but I don't know. I reading the stories about our brethren over in China and in Muslim countries that suffer and over in India perhaps.
There is a fellowship.
With the Lord in that, that I don't think can be replaced with anything. And if you had asked them, I've heard that the brethren in China will say, don't pray that our persecution cease. It only makes our testimony the brighter they recognize it. And I've been thought of Daniel's three friends when they were thrown into the fiery furnace.
There they.
Walked in company with the Son of God. I've often wondered if they knew about Isaiah's prophecy. When thou passes through the fire, I will be with thee. There they were in the presence of the Son of God. You had asked coming day, what was special about your life? You, they would say. I'm sure one of the highlights of their life was the fiery furnace.
Because there we walked with the Son of God.
I'd like to just say this before we pass on to in connection with Bill's question and some of the comments that Doug made, and that is has been alluded to. It is a matter of the heart, but I think it's illustrated, brethren, so very beautifully. In the awakening of the bride in the Song of Solomon, she was asleep and indifferent as to the love.
And the attentions of her bridegroom. But as she is awakened, what is it that awakens her and stirs her affections? Its occupation with himself. It's not occupation with herself and her poor feeble response and the condition that she had been in. But as she goes over the and enumerates the qualities and glories of the bridegroom as she realizes that he's right there.
Seeking to have her walk with him and reaching out to her and so on, why her affections are awakened, she eventually says he's altogether lovely. She wants more and desires more of his company.
And someone has said that purpose of heart is really a desire where the affections are motivated by an object. We've been talking about an object. And why is it sometimes, brethren, there is that lack of energy of faith in our Christian pathway? Well, it's because there might be a desire, but there aren't the affection stirred to put that desire into operation. There must be energy of faith.
01:30:30
Just go to a verse in Psalm 27 that sums up David's desire.
Psalm 27.
And verse four, one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord.
And to inquire in his temple. Well, we see a number of things here. And it begins with a desire, you know, we say about a certain, perhaps young person. Well, that young person has a nice desire. And I love to see a desire. And I like when I hear a commendation about another believer, that they have a nice desire to follow the Lord. But brethren, that is not enough. You know, after this meeting concludes, we might all have a desire.
To go over to the dining room and have dinner. But if we don't do something about it, we'll sit on these seats till gospel meeting and go pretty hungry. You say what? We all had a desire to go over and eat, but there wasn't the energy put forth to get up off those these seats, leave this building, cross the road, and go up to the dining room. No, it began begins with a desire. But the sluggard desireth and hath nothing. And so David speaks of this desire, but he doesn't stop there.
He says that will I seek after brethren, That's energy of faith. And what is it that's going to give us that energy of faith to follow our desire? It's a heart that's attracted to himself. It's that purpose of heart. Barnabas went down and exhorted the early believers in his day that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Not just purpose, but purpose of heart.
And so if there's going to be that energy of faith in following the Lord.
There must be that purpose of heart, because where the heart is, then the feet will follow. And it's not going to be a difficult thing if the heart is engaged, the if a man loved me, he will keep my commandments. Where there's love involved and a heart goes attracted to the object, then the feet are going to follow very quickly and very directly. And I believe that so often the reason we don't see in our own lives that energy that there ought to be.
Is because our hearts have become cold and indifferent and there isn't that purpose of heart to follow the Lord.
Couple of additional comments. It's subject in itself, but just a couple of points on what's before us. The 1St and 1St John chapters, John's first epistle in chapter 2.
And verse 5.
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him.
God himself is the one that puts his own love in us. We don't generate it in ourselves.
Umm, it's not possible for us to really love God more than we do by any effort with that is within us. But God himself is the one that puts Christ and himself before our hearts and is the actually it's the work of God to put his own love in US to and the enjoyment of it.
But here is something that hinders it and it's disobedience. And if there's disobedience in my life, then I'm not going to enjoy.
Uh, fellowship with the Lord Jesus and that disobedience, and consequently he ceases practically at that point to be an enjoyable object to my soul through my disobedience. And so it's important for us to recognize there are serious hindrances.
To really enjoying Christ as an object for the soul, I'd like to point out another one in John's Gospel, chapter 6.
01:35:12
John's Gospel chapter 6 and verse 33. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst the food of Egypt.
That is, that which the world presents to us as food for our souls spoils our appetite for the Lord Jesus.
And so when we don't recognize that we are dead and risen with Christ, but our hearts are still attached to Egypt, we spoil the appetite and we may say, well, what's in it? I don't enjoy thinking of the Lord Jesus as an object of my life.
Because we have spoiled ourselves by on Egypt's food. But the contrast to that, another important side of it is this.
We all expect when we leave this room, or at least most of us expect when we leave this room, to go to the dining room and eat because we recognize even if we're not particularly hungry, and some of us will be and some of us not so much, but we all recognize that food is important to our bodies and that we need it, and we need it on a regular basis. And so whether we're particularly hungry or not, most of us will go and eat.
It's important to realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is the food of the new man.
The life that we have in Christ, He is the food of that life and we need to feed on Him.
And we'll do so for eternity. When we get to heaven, we're not gonna have a different diet. We will have more of the same. It will be the Lord Jesus Christ is actually that which feeds the soul.
And we need to take the food whether or not we feel at that moment an appetite for it.
It's a medical. I don't know. I'm not gonna call on doctors here to confirm it, but.
It's a well known fact that people who are starving after a while often cease to have any appetite for food.
And if there is no appetite for an extended period of time in your life because of disobedience, because of feeding on the world and so or whatever other hindrance as it has in our chapter, there's three more reasons given, uh, why we don't feed on Christ because we have the things that are the our belly is our God and so on, as it says in a couple of verses later.
And, uh, we feed on or we occupy ourselves with.
Something other than Christ. But rather it's important to realize that even if you're you may be starving and you're not aware of it.
You can starve and not know it and have no appetite for Christ at all. But listen if the Lord speaks to you or someone speaks to you on the Lord's behalf for that lack of sense or desire for this, for the food. And Christ is an object because it's an unhealthy state and it can be a state that is brought on by starvation.
If I could take the analogy one step farther, dawn in connection with appetite and eating is what gives us a good appetite is a little exercise or or more exercise a lot and I believe in I believe that's a principle in this chapter two. That is not only do we have our a crisis, an object and feed on him, but we put it into practice. We walk in it. Paul is speaking about this here a lot in the chapter.
Uh, in the previous chapter sales, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Put it into practice, is what he's saying. Make your Christianity a practical daily part of your life. You know, that really makes you a happy Christian when you put into practice, not just know it in your head or not just enjoy it in your heart, but enjoying it in your daily life. That is what really makes it real to you and you don't forget it.
01:40:30
And it becomes a part of you when you live it that way. And I believe that's what Paul is infi emphasizing here in these verses about, uh, his, uh, knowing Christ and and so on. It's, it's, it's not just in the head, but it's through the daily experience.
More of Jesus would I know more of his grace to others show. That's the bottom line.
Can we sing 46 in the appendix please? 46 in the appendix.
So we look to the Lord.
Our God and Father, we look up to the the end of.
This reading.
And surely we are humbled as we consider what thou hast brought before us, when you think of that one thine own beloved son, that one whom thou hast set before thee.
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His head over all things, The one who in the fullness of times thou wilt give to be head over all things, whether in heaven or in earth.
And we thank our God that those picked us up.
Not merely associated us with Him to look forward to that coming glory, blessed though it is, but that Thou hast given us, as we have had before us, the capacity to know Him.
Or a God to think that there could even be a thought in our hearts.
That we did not care.
That all of this meant little or nothing to us, and that somehow the pursuit of interest down here.
To have something in this world could displace the desire to know more of the Lord Jesus and along with it, the fellowship of Daiso.
We have sung together.
Prayer.
Fidelity object, bright and fair to fill and satisfy the heart.
And we may undistracted be to follow, serve, and wait for thee.
We pray that it may be more so in whatever time may be left to us here, and that what we have had before us may not simply be.
Rhetoric and talk within the confines of all the comforts that we have sitting down here together, but that it may be a present living reality in our lives, for we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And I am.
The Coming of the Lord
Gospel—Bob Thonney
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Let's start our meeting tonight with #22 on our hem sheet.
The Heavenly Bridegroom soon will come to claim His bride and take her home to dwell with Him on high. Trim your lambs and be ready.
The Heavenly.
Is brought up and waver on everyone with him, my mom.
Uh, let me tell you later for me with a little test of the day.
After being.
Promised you're going to have anything to do with your hands on the pylons. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't think about that. You have to do it as long as you're allergic.
The rise of the sandwiches full of our heavens and the heavens.
And so on with your advocate and your dialogue is going to be the organization for both products and growth.
Uh, you're right. You're done. So I want to do it right on your knees. We're going to feel like we're going to see.
If you're going to run, so it's very likely for one broadband.
Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we're so thankful for another opportunity to open my precious Word.
And to speak with a special emphasis toward those who may be here and yet not ready. Father, we really believe the coming of our Lord Jesus to be near, and we do pray that Thy Spirit would convict anybody who is not ready. We pray, Father, for help in the opening of Thy precious Word, and speaking from it, that it may be clear, and that it may go to the conscience and heart.
Of those who need it. We pray, Father, for awakening. Because we are really close. We really do believe, Father. We pray for blessing wherever the message goes out. In the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
That's thing #8 as well. Shall we gather at his coming?
Shall we gather right?
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We hear the danger of.
Time.
You don't get rid of God and glory of the glory of the glory of God.
730 Joy.
Has been to be him Thundercloud.
You're going to wake up, get off the ground.
Across Memphis and falling up and fall because of me.
No, we didn't call in the same time.
We need to have our country resolved.
Need to offer. Thank you. Don't say anything.
I don't come in her eyes and come on.
His father is his glory out from me. Now you're with the day of his coming there when you find some Sandy government blah blah blah blah blah.
Well, I suppose you know by the two hymns we sang what I wanna talk about tonight.
The Lord is coming.
It is impressive to me to see the things that we are witnessing in our world.
And at the same time, it's impressive to me to see how the Prince and God of this world seems to be casting a stupor and most people have no clue as to what is just ahead for this world.
The one of the actually, according to the words of our Lord Jesus, the most awful judgment that planet Earth will ever see is just ahead.
And most people are thinking, oh, we're going through a crisis now, let things look at better. You just watch and see, Well, maybe God will grant a little reprieve, But there are so many evident things going on that should make us awaken as never before. We who are real believers in the Lord Jesus. And that's what really concerns me too. So often, even those who profess faith in the Lord Jesus don't seem to have a clue as to where we are.
We're getting close, we're getting down to the wire, we're getting down to the end of this present age. Things are going to change dramatically for this world.
Are you ready? And that's another thing that really concerns me as we address this subject.
It's too easy.
For so many of us who have been brought up in Christian homes to just kind of slide along as a Christian.
Never really making it real in our own souls. What is your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ?
We heard about Samuel today. Samuel had a very good upbringing, according to what we can tell in Scripture, godly parents, and that taught him the fear of the Lord. There he was in the presence of Eli the priest, in the very temple of the Lord, and yet Samuel did not know the Lord.
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I'm looking around this room tonight. I can see some that don't seem to be paying attention. Maybe you are listening to me. Do you know the Lord like we were talking about today? Or is it just something that they've told you that you've never made it real in your soul?
Oh, to me, it's going to be an awful, awful tragedy from one moment to the next. If the Lord comes and there's a few still sitting in this room. They weren't ready.
And even amongst the Lord Jesus 12 apostles, one was fake.
Where's the fakes out here?
I can't tell because I can't look down into your heart, but the eye of God is on you, and if you're faking it, you're fooling yourself worse than anybody else. It's time to get serious with God. We're living in serious times.
Jesus is going to come back to this planet. He's going to set his feet back down on this world.
Scripture is very clear about it.
But before I take off the second coming of the Lord Jesus, I want to deal briefly with his first coming. If you'll turn with me to one verse in first Timothy chapter one and verse 15, a well known gospel verse that deals with his first coming. What was the purposes purpose of Jesus?
First coming into this world.
First Timothy 115 Listen, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.
So his purpose in coming the first time was to save.
And to save it meant that the sin question had to be addressed. Yes, you and I are sinners before a holy God, and God cannot Passover, not even one little white lie of yours.
Every single sin that has been committed on planet earth must receive its just penalty from the hand of God Himself. God would Passover just a few little white lines. It would call in question His holy character. Absolutely impossible.
Everyone of your sins is going to receive. It's just punishment from the hand of God. But God is not only a just God. God is a God of infinite love. And so God sent his Son into this world with that specific purpose in mind, to save lost sinners. Thank God.
For that news. But you know one thing about God is that he's living.
He's immortal, God cannot die, and so if he was going to address the question of sin.
If he was going to be a substitute, he must die.
Therefore, Jesus became Incarnate. He took the form of a man so that he could die. He could pay that penalty. You might say that every one of us have been born into this world to live, but there was one who was born into this world to die. He came to die and in the midst of His days, when he was 33 1/2 years old.
After having lived a life of complete perfection before, God is Father.
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They took him, they condemned him to death, complete fake the trial, but they got their way and they had him crucified.
And they took him outside the city of Jerusalem, and they nailed his hands and his feet to a cross. His head was crowned with thorns. His face was battered.
With the mistreatment of the Romans and running with the spittle of the soldiers. Think of that. That's the way they treated the very Son of God.
There he hung from 9:00 in the morning till 3:00 in the afternoon.
Six hours he hung there. The first three hours he hung, people passed in front of him and mocked him and cursed him.
And then God at 12 noon covered the earth with darkness, and for three hours everything was dark on Mount Calvary. We wouldn't know what happened in those three hours, but we do have a verse in the prophet Isaiah that tells us what took place in those three hours.
Prophet Isaiah says he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes.
We are healed all we like. Sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone.
To his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Yes, God is a holy God. Yes, God cannot Passover sin lightly. And in those three hours of darkness, God took that load of sin, those awful sins that I am ashamed of, those sins that I had committed, and laid them on the head of his own beloved Son. And in those three hours, God lifted.
His rod of judgment.
And the full fury of divine judgment broke on Jesus head.
You know, it's very exhausted divine wrath against me.
A guilty Sinner, that's how much she loves.
Sometimes, say in the Old Testament, the fire on the altar consumed the sacrifices.
Hundreds of thousands of sacrifices were consumed by the fire, but in the case of Jesus on that cross, the sacrifice consumed the fire. There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. Thank God there is now salvation. God has a just way to say I forgive you.
If there is repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to speak a little bit about this matter of repentance because I think it's very important.
I was brought up in a Christian home, too. I was brought up in the meeting and I remember as I was growing up listening to what the Brolder brothers said. Sometimes I didn't understand too much. Sometimes I understood a little bit.
But little by little, things started clicking.
But you know what? I had the wrong idea that since I was brought up in a Christian home, I really wasn't as bad as those people out there that never knew anything about the Lord. Those people in the prison, I'm not quite as bad as them. You know what I had?
To repent. And I fear that there are many here tonight who have sat in those seats listening to the Word of God and have never truly repented. What does repent mean?
It comes from that little word pen in Latin. It's the same in Spanish pensar. It's to think repent means to rethink. It means to have a change of thinking. You know, there's way too many people today who say, Oh yeah, I'll receive Jesus as my savior.
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And I'm saved, got it all taken care of. But then they go back to their same way of living, very evident that they've never repented. And Jesus said very clearly in the Gospels, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Young people, older people too.
What are you allowing in your life? You know there's things in your life, you know they're wrong. You never really taking God's viewpoint of them. You keep on doing it.
Maybe nobody else knows about it.
But you know about it, and the eye of God is on you.
Have you repented? You can fool us. Lots of people have.
You can't fool God. He looks straight through you and he knows what is the story of your life. I plead with you tonight, whoever you are, because I can't tell who you are. But if one of Jesus's 12 apostles was faked, how many fakes are there here tonight? I hope nobody, but I'm not sure about that.
And that's why we want to speak plainly.
It takes repentance towards God, but repentance in itself will not save you.
What saves is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
By grace ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. How does a person get faith anyhow?
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Oh, how important it is when we're talking about God's Word, to listen, to hear what He has to say. I don't care if you want to ignore what I say tonight, but please, for your own eternal welfare, listen to what God says. It's vital.
It's eternally vital.
So Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. After those three hours of darkness, Jesus died. A soldier pierced his side, and out flowed blood and water.
And then they took him down from that cross, and they buried him. And the third day Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is alive today. And before he went back to heaven, he told his disciples, If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. Jesus has not fulfilled that promise yet.
Every single promise he has made will be fulfilled. He is coming back to this world again. And now I'd like to talk the rest of our time about his second coming because it is so important that we are aware of where we are and what's ahead, what's just ahead.
His second coming has two parts. I'd like to put it that way. I hope I can make myself clear. The first part is what we call the Rapture. The scripture uses the word in the English language caught up and that's the word for rapture.
And it's in First Thessalonians chapter 4 where we have it. The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God.
And the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
For the Rapture.
Friend.
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There is no sign that indicates its nearness.
No, it could happen at any moment.
Once was talking to a young man down in Bolivia.
And I said to him, he wasn't living like he should live as a Christian. I said, supposing the Lord gave a 5 minute notice, I'm gonna come in 5 minutes. What would you do?
You thought a little bit and he said I've had I, I'd have some repenting to do, I guess. I said, you know what he's not gonna give and giving you one minute.
One moment to the next, there's going to take place one of the most tremendous, momentous things that has ever happened on this planet. I sometimes say it's so tremendous I can't hardly get my mind around it. And if it wasn't written clearly in this book, I might have questions about it, but it's too clear to be mistaken about.
It's going to happen. The Lord himself will descend from heaven.
With a shout, With the voice of the Archangel, With the trump of God.
I don't know. We're gonna hear three things. I think it's just gonna hear one thing, but it's just telling us about it in three different ways.
At any rate, I understand that that Voi, that word, the shout, the figure of speeches, a military commander coming out of his barracks and giving a shout, and the soldiers jumping to attention. And so the Lord's gonna come out of heaven.
With that shout of power and all the dead in Christ from the beginning of time.
The first who died with faith in God was able.
Where are his bones now? Nobody has any clue. God knows where they are.
And all the dead in Christ are going to rise first.
It's interesting in that Scripture it says first and then it says then there's a sequence. I don't really think it's going to be a matter of a whole lot of time, but there is a sequence that Scripture speaks about. Then we which are alive and remain, that is those who are believers in the Lord Jesus, will be caught up together.
1St Corinthians 15.
It gives another detail that this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality, in other words.
Even you and I who are believers can't go up to heaven in the body we have on right now.
I'm not gonna go with Gray hairs on my head, no.
We're gonna have to have changed bodies, and it says the apostle Paul in First Corinthians 15. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. That means we're not looking forward to dying. But we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
At the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. That's going to take place in a moment of time. And the twinkling of an eye. How long does it take your eye to twinkle?
Not too long. That's how long it's gonna be. All takes place in a moment of time and then we'll be.
We'll be caught up to meet the Lord in the air in that part of his second coming. He doesn't come to planet Earth, He comes to the air and we're raptured up to meet Him.
Dear friend, young person.
Are you ready for that moment? It's going to take place without any previous notice for the second part of the Lord's Second Coming. There are multitudes of signs connected with it.
For the first part of the Lord's Second Coming, there are no signs.
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Oh, how it should reflect on us who are believers as well.
It's going to take place. Sometimes we're not careful what we say and what we do. I sometimes think, you know how you get busy and then you get a little bit upset and then you let fly some words that you probably would think better about telling.
And at that moment, the Lord should call us into His presence. How are you going to look into the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ? It's going to happen, and I really think it's going to surprise us. I really do.
Any moment now. Are you ready?
And that we could say to those who are believers as to the as to those who are unbelievers.
Please think seriously about it. God cannot lie. That's one thing he cannot do.
And he has told us very clearly that this is going to take place.
I'd like to go the rest of our time over to the 24th chapter of Matthew because.
There the Lord speaks about a time.
Of great tribulation that is going to take place after.
The Lord's people are going to be raptured.
Let me say this, and it was kind of a shock when I first heard it.
Remember our brother Chuck Hendricks one time said this. He said somebody asked him will the church go through the tribulation?
And he said yes and no.
What did he mean? He explained.
The false church will go through the tribulation.
The true Church will not go through the tribulation.
And if you look clearly at the seven churches, you'll see.
That that conclusion is validated by Scripture.
He speaks to the Church of Sardis and he says.
Behold, I come as a thief.
The Lord is coming, as a thief is not the rapture.
It is coming at the end of the Tribulation to judge this world in righteousness.
Why is he telling that to the Church of Sardis? Because there's some of those people who say they're Christians, but they're not in reality, and they're gonna go through the tribulation right to the end and meet the Lord as a thief. Why a thief?
You don't want the thief to come to your house. You don't wait for him.
And that's the way it's going to be for the world around us. They don't want Jesus to come and they don't wait for him. They want to do their partying.
They want to have their good times.
They don't want him to come.
Do you really want Jesus to come?
Do you wait for him?
Then he won't come for you as a thief, no.
We're not in darkness that that day should overtake us as a thief.
But in this 24th chapter of Matthew, I'm going to read quite a bit of it.
We're talking about a period of time that we believe to be in the future. Just like to say that the 1St 2 verses of this chapter when the Lord spoke them were still future, but they are now history.
As far as where we live in the time frame of this world, notice verse one and two. And Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.
Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.
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That was still future when the Lord spoke that, but this was fulfilled in AD 70 when the Roman army came to destroy the city of Jerusalem and the general Titus.
Gave the orders not to touch the temple because it was such a beautiful building.
But according to history, someone threw in a lighted torch through one of the windows and it started burning, and the burning was so hot that the gold on the stones melted and went down into the cracks between the stones. And so the soldiers afterwards looting the city, fulfilled exactly to the word what the Lord Jesus had said.
Did not leave one stone upon another to get that gold.
And if the Lord's words in that part of prophecy were completely fulfilled, just take in mind then that what we read afterwards is going to be fulfilled exactly as the Lord says it will. Verse three. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying.
Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world? They should be the end of the age we're getting down to the end of this present age of grace.
Sometimes called the times of the Gentiles.
What is the signs? And so the Lord Jesus speaks of the signs. And you're going to notice as we read down through these signs that many of the things that he speaks about we see in our world today.
I think they're gonna be far worse after the rapture, after the Spirit of God is taken out of this world.
Because the Spirit of God is as.
A uh, the, uh, something that detains the progress of evil in this world.
You know what? I often often thought that I think one of the most awful places to have to live after the Rapture is gonna be the United States of America.
Because people are pretty well armed here. Take out all the Christians, all the true Christians, and when people start getting hungry, what's gonna happen in this country? You can just imagine the awful things that will take place. I'm not expecting to be here at that time, but I've often thought about that time. I'd rather be living in the jungles of South America than living in this country.
Just that is what's waiting for you if you're not ready, and I plead with you to get ready if you're not ready yet.
The end of the age we're getting down to the end of this age of grace. God has been so gracious, so kind to this world for almost 2000 years. The gospel has been going out.
But it's not going to continue that way. People think that democracy is the greatest and we're thankful for the liberty we enjoy. But you know, democracy is not figure as to the government of the coming age. It's going to be theocracy. God is going to reign, and as he reigns, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to establish his Kingdom.
Nobody is gonna be able to fool him. He's gonna reign with a rod of iron.
Anybody that steps out of line?
One day to the next, they're gonna be gone. That's it. No trials, no appeals, nothing. They're gone. That's it.
We live in the day of grace. We don't understand that kind of living.
Living down in South America in the military rule was kind of revealing at times.
When people got in the way of government.
Many times they just plain disappeared. Nothing more was heard.
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And that's what's gonna be in the millennial day. People think they can get away with stuff. Oh, God is gracious, and he'll forgive me if I keep on sinning. That's what you're thinking. You'd better get serious about things. That's not going to cut it with God.
Well, let's read a little bit about this now. Verse 4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name and say, saying, I am Christ and shall deceive many.
That is taking place in our world. I'm sure you're aware of some of the cases that have come up. What impresses me is how gullible people are. Can't believe that they follow by the thousands.
By the 10s of thousands, these guys who say I am Christ.
Remember when David Koresh had his day down in Waco, TX?
And.
Remember the comment of a radio recorder who said it didn't impress me that much that David Koresh said he was Christ would impress me? He said. Was how many people called over, called in from all over the United States saying he can't be Christ because I'm Christ?
In the United States, isn't this an educated country?
What in the world? What happens to people you know? What, if you're not reading this book, you too are going to be deceived.
Get this book open and read it.
There's the mystery of iniquity. All ready works.
Verse five or verse 6, and you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. That certainly is true of today. See that you be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass. The end is not yet, and nations shall rise against nation, and Kingdom against Kingdom, and there shall be famines.
And pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Believe that's what's gonna take place in the first half of that seven-year period that we call the Great Tribulation. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. He's talking to the Jewish disciples because there will be in the Great Tribulation period, Jewish people who will fear the Lord.
And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Many false prophets shall arise, shall deceive many, because iniquity shall abound. The love of many shall be wax cold.
He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Remember that verse is sometimes applied to Christians today. The true Christian will really persevere to the end. But this does not apply to Christians here. This is talking about people in the great Tribulation period who will have an awful time living down here if they fear God.
If they endure to the end, they will be saved in the sense that they will go into the millennial day on the earth under the reign of Christ.
Verse 14 And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come. So through that great tribulation period, there's going to be a gospel preached, the gospel of the Kingdom. It's basically the gospel that the Lord Jesus preached and John the Baptist preached at the beginning of the Lord's ministry on this earth, basically.
Straighten out your ways. The king is coming and he's not going to allow you to be sinning. They axe is laid to the root of the trees.
That's the gospel of the Kingdom we preach the gospel of the grace of God. We've already explained that.
Just one word of warning. Some people think, well, maybe I'll just wait and see and in the great tribulation I can accept the gospel of the Kingdom.
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Scripture is very clear that if you.
Hear the gospel of the grace of God and decide, no, not yet, maybe later.
You will not have another chance.
God will send strong delusion.
That they might believe a lie, those that did not receive the love of the truth.
Get serious young person, older person too.
Verse 15.
When he therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place. Whoso readeth, let him understand. We don't have time to go back to Daniel's prophecy in the 9th chapter of Daniel, right at the end. You can read it yourself, but there is where it is. And this takes place in the second-half of the tribulation week after the 1St 3 1/2 years.
Are over, then this is what's going to take place, he says, verse 16 Then let them which be in judeafully into the mountains, let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house.
Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes, and woe to them that are with child and to those that give suck in those days.
That pray ye, that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day, stocking the Jewish people here.
For notice verse 21 Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time no, nor ever shall be. In other words, very clearly just ahead is the most awful judgment this world will ever see.
People think they've seen times of awful slaughter, Second World War, and it was awful.
They have seen nothing in comparison with what's just ahead, and you're heading straight there if you're not straight with God.
Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved, but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any shall say unto you, lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not, For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets shall show great signs and wonders. Be careful about those people that talk about signs and wonders.
That's in the picture.
For those that deceive.
Insomuch that if it were possible that they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I've told you before. Wherefore if they send to you, behold, he is in the desert, Go not forth. Behold, he is in the secret chamber. Believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even into the West, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the Eagles be gathered together.
You know, it's not pleasant to.
Speak of judgment, but it's reality, and I hope we can be awakened as to where we are in relation to the history of this world. We're getting down to the end. And here the Lord refers to Jerusalem. He says when you see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, get out of there. It'll be a cauldron. It'll be the worst place to be.
And when all those at that time who have read this scripture are gotten out of there, what will be left? What will be left is a lifeless body of Jewish people. I understand I don't. I read this some time ago, but maybe about 1/3 of the Jewish people over there in the land of Israel now are atheists. They do not believe in God. That isn't in the picture.
And so those that fear the Lord in the Tribulation period are going to get out of Jerusalem. What's left will be a lifeless body, a corpse.
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Carcass there will the Eagles be gathered together. All nations will trouble themselves with Jerusalem.
It will be a stumbling block to all nations. Why do they care so much about that little piece of real estate when there's plenty of other places that are beautiful to live in this world?
It's because that was the place that the Son of God came. There he was hung on a cross.
And there he will come back to take his Kingdom again.
I should say to take his Kingdom in power and glory. Verse 29. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven in the powers of heaven.
The heavens shall be shaken.
This is the system of earthly authorities that we have now, the Sun, a supreme authority like the president we have in the United States.
Moon is a derived power like the Vice President, and the stars are other powers. The whole system of government is coming down because the Lord Jesus is going to put his government in the earth.
Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn.
And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Last time this world saw Jesus, He was hanging dead, a battered body on a cross. The next time they see Him, He will be coming with power and great glory, accompanied with His Saints.
And all the tribes of the earth will mourn.
We as real believers are going to rejoice at His coming, but they're going to mourn. It says the same in Revelation chapter one. Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him. Yes, every single human being that has ever lived on this planet is going to come face to face with Jesus. You cannot avoid Him. You will.
Medium today there is still salvation. If you repent, then trust in Him.
But if you do not, you are still going to meet with Jesus.
Oh, I plead with you to get it straight. There's any doubt in your mind. Please talk to somebody. Plenty of brothers here. I'd be glad to talk to you too after the meeting. But don't fool around with this matter. It's far, far too important.
He shall send His angels with the sound of a trumpet. Great sound of a trumpet. This is at the end of the tribulation. This is not the rapture of the Church. This is getting gathering His earthly people, Israel, from the four corners that have been scattered. They shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven into another. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When His branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So like yo as ye, when ye see all these things.
Know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you.
This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
What's the fig tree?
It's the symbol of Israel nationally. For close to 2000 years there was not a nation of Israel in existence in this world.
In eight in 1948.
The nation of Israel was reborn, and if there is no other sign that we are in the last days, this is one of the most notable signs there are we are in the last days. We are close.
The fig tree.
Is now 60 years old. It was last year it was 60 years old. The fig tree has budded. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. Just want to go over to the 25th chapter briefly before we finish out our our.
00:55:13
And the 31St verse, because here it deals with how the Lord is going to judge the living at His coming. Verse 31, When the Son of man shall come, He always takes that title in connection with judgment, Son of man.
Shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him. Then shall he sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations.
And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.
And he shall set the sheep on the right hand, but the goats on the left.
There's the Lord Jesus on the throne of his glory, and since he knows the intimate thoughts of your heart, He will set ones on his right hand and others on his left. Who are those on His right hand? They are those during the tribulation period who heard the gospel of the Kingdom and who treated.
Uh, his messengers.
In a good way. And they will go into the millennial day under the reign of Christ on this earth, says in verse, uh, 34 Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Who are those on his left hand? The goats? They are those who perhaps tonight are sitting in this room and are saying not yet. I'll take my chances.
You understand the message, you know that there's salvation. You know that God says today you will hear his voice harden, not your hearts.
Did you say I'm gonna wait?
And the Lord comes and you're gonna go through that tribulation period. Gonna be awful disasters in that time, awful plagues. If you happen to survive to the end, you're gonna stand before him. You'll be one of the goats.
And what does he say to them?
Verse 41 Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. God didn't prepare everlasting fire for mankind. He didn't want anyone going there. And if you go there, you go there against the will of God. God wants you saved.
The only thing that stands between you and your salvation is your stubborn will.
Give in to Christ tonight. Accept Him as your Lord and Savior. Notice the very last verse.
These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
These things are real. Our time is up.
I just want to plead with anyone here really burdens me to think that there might be somebody here.
That is still not ready.
If you have your doubts again, I say we'll be glad to talk to you, clarify them to make it maybe a little clearer than the way we spoken tonight. But please don't put it off. The Lord is coming at any moment, and the door of salvation is going to be shut. That will be it for you. You've heard and rejected the gospel.
Let's just pray.
Father, we're thankful for Thy precious Word and how clearly it speaks to us of these times that are coming on this world. Oh, Father, we pray that souls might be awakened wherever the message goes out. We who are believers too, that we might be awakened as to the awfulness of the days ahead for this poor world. We pray for blessing in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Can We Go Where God Can't See What We're Doing?
Children—Wally Dear
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I see it's about one minute before 9:00. The Sunday school is supposed to start at 9:00. I wonder how many boys and girls could we get coming to the front in a minute.
Can we do any uh.
Movement here in a hurry.
Not talking about uh.
10 yard dashes exactly. But uh, anybody that would like to come to the front, we really appreciate that because oh, here comes some boys. Thank you boys great. Anybody else? I see some oh, here comes a boy. That's great.
You know, it'd be kind of nice.
If we fill up these chairs right here because I like to make use of the table here, if you don't mind, and these, these chairs here, OK, great.
OK, there's still seating in the front.
Front row seats.
Can I ask for anything better?
Alright.
Let's start our Sunday school, as we usually do, with singing. I hope everybody wants to sing because I want to sing for a little while. You're the boy. He's got his hands up. Which number would you like?
46 All right, let's start in with #46.
Last year and him and I thought there's not much come away.
Let's see that once more. This time we're going to ask the girls to sing their part. You see the line that says any calls, any calls, all the GIRLSI would like to ask only the girls to sing that line. The next line has BOYS in it. That line is for the boys only. And we all join in on the rest of the song. So let's try it one more time and we're going to sing it in part. All right. Hope everybody knows their part.
I'm Illinois. I'm an Illinois.
You want the big alliance to do.
Today I can rest in him and I'm all empty now. What's your name?
Beautiful. Anybody else have a number? Yes.
47 Next Song 47.
When is it going to be a little break? It's rough driven. You're doing one all this year. No one's righteous. Still on the water. Thrilled one's back together long.
Till my crown on the door.
I jumped for him.
He broke out after he looked out and saw her head getting dumped. All of the same ones, all the pride once there's blood. Thailand and gone.
00:05:46
Now the last two were boys.
Do I have a girl that has a choice? And yes.
42 I think I heard a number.
Jesus loves all the children of the world. All right, well, let's sing 42.
And in that one, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. You like that one, All right. Now, I don't see that on this hymn sheet, but I'm sure we all know it. So we'll see that next. But first of all, 42.
Is there anybody here that's seven?
OK, can you stand up while we sing this, please? Anybody else in the room that's seven years old?
Like all the seven-year olds to stand up, please. All right, how about 3? Anybody that's three?
Four. Are you 3?
Here for could you stand up please while we sing this? All right.
All right, let's see.
Thank you very much. You can be seated. I thought it would just be really nice to see.
How?
Lord Jesus wants to save.
The little children as well as the older ones. And we can be saved when we're only 3-4 or seven and all the ages in between and before and beyond too. So anybody can be saved. Now let's think Jesus loves the little children. I don't believe it's on this hymn, sheep, but we know it.
Jesus loves us.
Black and white, all are bright. Should be in his sight. It is above the lake of children of the world.
He must die for a little chill of all friends.
All the children of the world.
Right. OK, yeah, but I can write our friendship in his life. She's the side for all the children of the world.
Jesus died for all the children, but he's not on the cross today.
Where is Jesus today? Can somebody tell me? Yes, can you tell me?
He. He what?
He rose. That's right, He rose again on the third day after he had died. So we want to sing Jesus lives for little children too.
Jesus.
Black and white, all our friendship and his sights and insights, Jesus lives were all the children of the world.
Anybody else have a number? I think we have time for maybe a couple more yes #40.
#40.
00:10:01
Five. He is strong. Yes. She needs some lumps. Big. Yeah, she's not slumped. Maybe. Yeah, she's done. Plus majority.
Come in. Yeah, it's not slightly. Yeah, it's a lot, maybe.
Yeah, maybe, but not really. So just the girls to sing verse 3.
And then we'll ask the poise to sing verse 4.
Alright, so we're gonna sing this in parts too, but we'll all join in on the chorus. OK girls, can you sing verse 3?
From every heart. Yeah. Yeah, It's not. It's not too many. Yeah, it's not like me.
Umm umm, I won't tell me so.
She does not love me about me, and I better be in the way of God now. From His shining home on my mind, He will watch me where I live.
In our life, she's not blood sleeping, Yeah.
Sun plus me, but I don't tell me so.
On the last verse and the chorus, we're all gonna sing all the words except for one word.
Would anybody know what we're talking about? There's one word I don't want you to sing.
It's a little 2 letter word. Me me.
Instead of singing, I want everybody just to point to themselves. OK, so don't sing the word me, just point. That's on the last verse now, and the chorus.
Of the will say, must be the sight of God land, and I trust him shall I die, He will take me on my eyes together.
Uh, umm yeah, She's uh.
She's not one.
Thumb eyeful tells me uh.
Yeah, I think we did pretty good on that. Really usually catch some on that last knee.
I think it's so wonderful. A little song is about two people, Jesus and.
It's beautiful and we just sing it over and over and over. I never get tired of singing it because, you know, the love of Jesus. It just seems to get sweeter and sweeter and sweeter as the days go by. That's the way it works. And it's a wonderful little song. Well, let's sing one more. OK, Yes.
16 All right, this is perhaps all will take time for it on the hymn sheet 16.
Whosoever.
00:15:06
Well, that's an approximation of the way of Hill is the lonely father of the wonderful.
With all of the world may come.
No, no, not too bad, $1000 and there's a lot of pain. She gave us a business, that's true. There was a big question. We still have a little night on the Rd.
Who is the last program and the proclamation of her brother's bill? Is the loving Father also on your home?
MMM, so I'm a little late home.
Well, let's just hit set these him sheets aside.
And let's pray. Let's ask God for some help. So could we just close our eyes and bow our heads while we pray?
Father, in loving God, we thank Thee this morning.
That's our extending.
A warm invitation to whosoever will to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for each one in this hall who has come and accepted Jesus as their Lord and their Savior. But we know that there perhaps are those that.
Are not saved who have never come.
Who say no?
Or neglect the invitation. Now we earnestly pray that they might this very day.
Come to Jesus, we thank you that He is willing and able to save. We thank thee for thy love, Lord Jesus, of which we have been singing.
We thank You for dying on the cross in order to open wide heaven's gate, so that whosoever will may come in. And so we ask Thy blessing on Thy word wherever it's going forth this day, not only here in Lake Junaluska, but around the world. We know Thy desire is that the boys and girls should be saved, and the older ones too. And so we seek Thy help as we present Thy word, that it might be simple.
Each and everyone might be able to understand.
Thy love and the way of salvation and in need of it. Now we just ask these things now and give thanks and the precious most worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Often at Sunday schools we have Memory verses. I don't know if anybody has a Memory verse they would like to say today, uh.
We're not gonna pick on anybody in particular, but.
If anybody has a verse they learned today and would like to say it, we'd be happy to hear it. All right, Would you like to come up and.
Maybe you could?
I don't have to be the only one talking to this.
Proverbs 15 one A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. Proverbs 15 One Thank you very much, beautiful. Anybody else?
Anybody else wanna say first?
There's a way that semeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the waste of death.
4 Powers 1412. Thank you very good.
All right, that's good. Anybody else? It's not easy to talk into this, I know, but would you like to stand up and say it too?
There is a man which seemed right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs, 1412.
Very good. Thank you very much. Anybody else?
OK, good.
That is a wig which seemed right unto a man, but the end thereof are a way of the proverbs. 1412 beautiful. This is excellent.
00:20:01
In fact, I think your boys are enjoying talking into this.
Maybe it's not so hard after all. Anybody else?
All right.
I brought it forward here. I'd like to show you something on this board hopefully won't run out of time.
But here we have God's Word.
This is the Bible.
We sang in that little song about Jesus.
And you and me, the Bible.
Is about Jesus and you and me. It's about God. In fact, Jesus is God.
And it's a wonderful thing to think that God has written a book just for boys and girls, and for older ones too, to read because He wants to tell you and me what's on his heart.
You know God has a heart. He has a loving heart.
And he loves boys and girls.
But there's a big problem, and the problem is sin.
You know sin has separated us from God, but God in his Word tells us how this separation.
Can be taken away so we can enjoy companionship with God.
With the Lord Jesus Christ.
And as the gospel, it's the way of salvation. Well, I love this book. And I know as I look around this hall here today.
That most, and I would hope everyone loves this book.
I don't know though, maybe you don't find this book very interesting.
But I want to tell you, if you start reading this book, you develop an appetite for it. And the more you read it, the more you want to read it because you find out it's just like a gold mine, you know, and a gold mine, they go way down into the ground and they're looking for gold.
And they spend a lot of money building big machines to get gold out of the ground. But this book that we have in our hands, it's the word of God. It's more to be desired than gold, even much fine gold.
Yeah, you know, there are people that find fault with the Bible.
Oh, that's terrible.
You see bad things about the Bible.
I hope there's nobody like that here today.
I'm reminded.
I heard one time about.
A young man.
And this is kind of a little bit humorous, but.
It was a story put into a poem.
And it was about a young man that went to the Barber shop.
And there in the barbershop.
The Barber, He had all these birds sitting on shelves around his shop. They were.
Birds that had been stuffed by a taxidermist.
Well, this young man, he goes to the Barber and he thought he knew a lot about birds.
And in fact, I think maybe he was studying Ornithology.
But as he sat in the chair getting his hair cut, he looked at one of the birds and he began to tell the Barber.
Some things about the bird that he didn't think were right.
He said, you know, those wings, they don't seem to be set quite right. And and that, that that owl there is what it was an owl that he was looking at. He's got kind of a strange angle to his head and he was going on about this particular bird.
Finding fault with the bird, and really finding fault too with the taxidermist.
00:25:06
That had stuffed all these other birds.
All of a sudden, the owl.
It turned his head and he blinked his eyes.
And now you know who felt kind of owlish?
He really felt foolish. That was a living bird amongst all those dead birds he shouldn't been talking like that about.
That owl. And yet, you know, we have in our hands today a living book. And there's a lot of books out there. They're dead books.
But this book that we have in our hands, it's the Word of God. It's living and it's powerful.
And yet there are people today and educated people who find fault with the Word of God.
Oh, how sad that is. But I hope nobody like that here today. Well.
There is a portion of scripture that I'd like to turn to. It's found in the Psalms, so if you have a Bible you could look this up. It's found in Psalm 139 and this Psalm tells me that God is.
Great.
God is great.
We read through this Psalm. I'm not going to read it all, but it tells us boys and girls.
That there is nothing that God does not know.
It tells me.
That there is no place.
Where God is not present. And it also tells me there is nothing that God cannot do.
So this is a wonderful Psalm here, and it starts out with these words, Oh Lord, how has searched me and known me? Thou knowest my down sitting my uprising. Thou understandest my thought of far off.
Our compass is my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways, for there is not a word in my tongue. But lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and lay thine hand upon me, and so on. And then it goes on to say that.
Where can we go to get away from God? Can we go up into heaven?
Up into the sky, can we fly away?
On a jet airplane to a distant part of the earth in order to get away from God? No, we can't do that. Can we Go down into the ground, maybe into a gold mine?
Way down down deep and get away from God. No, that's right. We cannot get away from God because.
He is everywhere. So we learned in these verses that He knows everything and He is everywhere. And then when we read on, we find out that He has power and He has skill.
Now this is also beautiful.
I wonder maybe somebody could read a verse here for me.
This is, uh, interesting verse about, uh, light.
And darkness.
Some people think that they can hide in the darkness and that God won't see them.
Is that true? No Could. Could you read a verse for me?
No, this verse here tells us about the fact that God can see in the dark.
OK, can you read it over?
If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be a light about me.
Yeah, the darkness hided not hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Thank you. Very good. Isn't that amazing? You know, sometimes we do things in the day because we cannot see at night. Maybe we want to mow the grass and we say, oh, it's getting dark. We got to get this mowing done before.
00:30:08
It gets dark before we can't see, or maybe we're doing something outside, changing the oil on the car or something like that. And we say, well, we gotta get this done before it gets dark because, you know, we cannot see in the dark. But God is different, and it tells us here as he just read.
The night is light and.
Tonight, shyness as the day and the darkness and the light are both alike to God. Isn't it amazing? Well, this God is a wonderful God. He's a great God.
He knows that to us.
He knows what this boy is thinking right here.
And this boy here?
And these girls over here, God knows what you're thinking right now.
Everyone in this hall.
God knows.
And God is here.
God is everywhere.
There was a man.
If you want to hear about God.
So sad.
And in fact.
He had a little daughter.
And the daughter was going to Sunday school and there's some Bible meetings, would come home and want to talk to her dad about the Lord, about God. And he said I don't want to hear about him. I don't believe in God.
Well, you know, she felt so sad about that.
And then one day the man said, I want you.
To make a sign for me.
And the Father said, I want you to say on the sign, God is nowhere.
And just what he said to the little girl.
And she felt so bad.
And he said, I want you to take that sign, and you put that on the wall right at the foot of my bed. So when I go to bed at night, I can see this, what the sign says. And when I wake up in the morning, I can see what the sign says. God is nowhere. Well, a little girl.
Made the sign.
And that's one reason I brought this board here today.
To show you the sign that she made.
Alright, now can somebody tell me what was it?
That the father wanted.
His little girl to write on the sign.
God is nowhere now. Can you tell me how to spell that?
We're gonna start with uh.
OK, G.
Oh.
D Good, got the first word. All right, then what?
I then what?
Yes.
OK, God is all right. What's next?
In OK.
OK.
Nowhere. What's next?
OK, what next?
No, it's not a.
It sounds like, I mean, you could say where we are, but it's the other one.
You know if you say.
Like where is he? You know how to spell the word where if you say where is he?
What do you think?
WE Oh, you think an E2?
OK, I know eight. OK, so now what do we got NOWH?
00:35:02
H.
OK, good, good. OK, you got that right.
OK.
Having a hard time doing this up here.
OK, so she wrote this down. She put it up.
At the bottom of the bed and this is what it said.
Can somebody read what it says? Yes.
Say it again.
Good.
God is now here.
The man woke up in the morning. He saw that on the wall. It was like it was hit by a bullet. Really, it's just like an arrow to his conscience.
And God spoke to that man, to that sign that little girl put there and you know, he come to realize that he was on the wrong track. He needed to repent. He needed to.
Change his thinking like we heard about last night. And he did. And you know, he comes to know the Lord, and he comes to be thankful for that little girl whose testimony was so bright and so fresh and so real, and he got saved.
And oh, how happy he was. And the little girl was so happy too. But you know who was happiest of all? Who do you think?
God. That's right. There's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one Sinner that repents.
Now, would you be willing to make God happy here today? If there's somebody who so far has said no to Jesus, would you be willing to take sides with God against yourself and say yes, Lord, I know I'm a Sinner, I need salvation. I believe your word. Would you be willing to do that?
And accept the Lord Jesus Christ, Say Lord Jesus, I want to be saved.
I want to be saved now from my sins, you know. Whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So that brings joy to the heart of God. Well.
There was another part that is some.
Now we learned how that God knows everything and God is everywhere, but then it tells us about his power. Remember I said there's nothing that God cannot do.
And so we find here that David.
Shows us just how powerful God is because he made you and me.
And he speaks of it here, he says.
In verse.
14 I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Fearfully and wonderfully made.
When my first daughter was born in the hospital there came into the room one of the social people there and social workers some sort and.
They were asking us about what we thought of this little girl that had been born now into our family.
And this is the verse that came to mind. It came to mind. And so we recorded this first.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made. And then David speaks about how that God knew us even before we were born and so on, and it's a wonderful thing to contemplate what happens.
Baby comes into being.
You know.
Get my board here again.
I put a little dot right there.
00:40:02
I don't know if you can see it or not.
But that's how big you were at one point in time.
Did you know that?
And at that point in time in that little dot.
There was the plan for how you were to.
B. As far as the color of your hair.
Shape of your nose.
Color of your eyes resolve there in that little dot.
To sell. Then it began to divide and divide and divide. More sells and more sells, and this little one starts.
To form arms, legs, head and so on, it's amazing, It's a miracle. And then the ones born into this world continues to grow.
And you know.
I'm not a doctor.
And I probably should have asked for confirmation on this before I got up here, but I've been told that there's there's trillions and trillions of cells. This one little cell went from one to trillions. And that's what we're made-up of, trillions of cells. And we've got nerves running through our bodies. And somebody told me that maybe 60,000 miles of nerve fibers all the way through our bodies. And we got these blood vessels that are carrying blood through our bodies maybe 100,000 miles.
I'm not sure I got the figures right, maybe it was reversed, but in any case.
Think about it, how could all this happen just because God is great?
God, He made you and me. Now wouldn't you like to know God? Wouldn't you like to be on good terms with God? Wouldn't you like to enjoy his companionship? Wouldn't you like to learn more from Him about what his plans are? And so on and so forth. It's all in the Bible.
God is so good, God is so great. He made the trees, He made the seas, He made the lakes, He made the elephants like we sing in the sun. He made everything. It tells us that without him was not anything made that was made, and that's Jesus. Jesus is the Creator. Well boys and girls, we need the Creator, but because we've done bad, we need salvation. And the Lord Jesus came into this world, the Creator himself.
Goes to the cross of Calvary, and there he was willing to suffer on that cruel cross of Calvary for you and for me, that that terrible sin that separates us from a holy God might be forever taken away. He shed his precious blood and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son. He cleanses us from all sins so that we can enjoy.
Happy fellowship, companionship with the God of the universe. Well, it's a wonderful thing to be able to speak about the Lord and to speak about you and me and how that we can enjoy this salvation and this fellowship with God. Well, the Lord Jesus suffered for our sin, just for the unjust.
That he might bring us to God. God sent his Son to be the Savior. Think about it. God wants you. We sang a little word, come, COME, come. A little girl says that means he wants me, and that's true. He wants you. He's saying come unto me. The question is, have you come? The worst thing that you could do is not come. That's the worst sin that could be committed in this whole world is to reject God's dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. People don't realize that, but that's, I believe, the worst sin.
And people are going to go to hell because of that, rejecting the Savior, God's dear Son, well.
I see a time that's almost gone. We sing a little song and it tells us about God's power and how God, he makes the fish to swim. Can everybody do that? Maybe you've done this before. The fish swim and he makes the flowers to bloom and the birds to fly. And then we're going to sing how he made both you and I, and we're going to end up with how he sent his son to die and we make it cross just like this. All right, so let's everybody.
Try to make a fish swim who didn't make something fish that swim?
00:45:24
563753984.
700.
You are not you and I are you and I who forgive me.
Without the pitches that swim flower, and blooms and bursts have thy rudeness of you and I God in heaven upon who did send his Son together in his Son to God unto thou through the 17th. 70 thou why it has not fall.
5.
Uh, boys and girls, we wanna close with prayer.
But if there's anybody sitting in your seat here and you wanna be saved, you wanna.
Be close to the Lord, close to God. You want to enjoy Him.
You have to.
Think about the fact that if you're not saved, sin, the bad things in your life are separating you from God and from the Lord Jesus. But if, as we pray, you ask Him to save you.
Like David, he said, wash me, I shall be whiter than snow. It'll happen to you too, because you can be saved this morning and have those sins all washed away and you can know for sure without a shadow of a doubt, you're on your way to heaven. You're going to be with Jesus.
Just call upon Him. He wants you. He died to redeem you. Only believe His word, accept it. Let's pray. Father, we thank thee for the wonderful message of the gospel, for boys and girls, and for older ones too. We thank You that Thou art so great.
We bow.
In adoration, in awe.
At thy feet as we contemplate how great thou art.
To think that doubt is know everything, and that thou art in every place, and that there is nothing too hard for D.
Is so marvelous we think of how the Taoists give thy son.
No doubt it was difficult to give up thy dear Son, the one in whom thou didst find thy delight to go to the cross. And there we think of how blessed God thou was punished thy son.
For the sins of all who would trust in Him. We marvel at Thy grace and Thy love, and we praise thee. We thank Thee for it today. If there's one here who is still in their sins, we do pray that they might turn to the Lord Jesus and call upon Him for salvation that they might be happy praising.
That they might know with assurance that when thou has come, they will go.
To be with D or if they die, they will go to B with D. So we ask these things now as we commit to the word into thy hands, and do pray for thy.
Message of the Gospel, wherever it's going out this day we ask thy richest blessing and the precious worthy name, the Lord Jesus, Amen.
The Lord's Coming
Honoring Christ in His Absence
Gospel 2
Gospel—Jim Hyland
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
334.
Hip hips.
Don't bring us Christian Christmas.
All the day around ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.
So I can't get anything for another day for us and sorrow.
Oh.
My heart.
Let's pray our blessed God and Father how thankful we are for that which we've enjoyed in these readings together. We thank Thee for that joy that we have in that blessed One. We thank Thee for that hope before us. But now we're solemnized, as a few moments have been set aside at the end of these meetings for another gospel were solemnized. To think that there may be those in this room who've never tasted of Thy love do not know that joy in their souls, and do not have that wonderful hope before them.
And so we pray that as thy word is opened once again that the gospel might be preached simply and clearly in the power of the Spirit. We pray if there's anybody here who's lost and in their sins, that before they leave their seat they might know with assurance that they are saved. So we ask thy help and blessing. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Amen. I'd like to read a verse that was read to us at least twice this morning.
During the remembrance meeting. It's in John's Gospel Chapter 3.
John's Gospel chapter 3 and verse 16.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I'm going to read it again, because it's the living word of God.
00:05:03
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I suppose this is a gospel verse that has often been read at the beginning of a meeting like this. You couldn't prove it by me, but my father sometimes kept copious notes on certain things, and he was very interested in statistics. And near the end of his life he told me.
That he had kept notes as to gospel meetings, that he had sat in during his life, a certain period of his life, and kept notes as to the verse that was read or quoted at the beginning.
Of gospel meetings and he told me from his statistics.
That this verse was the verse that was most quoted or read at the beginning of a gospel meeting, and I suppose that only eternity will reveal the fruit that there's been from the reading and quoting of this gospel verse. God so loved the world. Isn't it wonderful that we can at the end of these meetings once again proclaim, as has often been proclaimed, for God so loved the world?
You know, it doesn't just say God loved the world. If it said God loved the world, we'd rejoice. And we would, with the joy of God in our souls, present that love to the world, to lost souls. But no, there's some other little words that seem so insignificant at 1St and yet I believe are so very precious. This verse begins with the word for because the word for gives thrust to what follows, it draws our attention to it.
For God.
Not just love the world, but so loved the world. Doesn't that give intensity to it?
Oh, I wish this afternoon we could tell you how much God loves you. But you know the love of God. It passes knowledge, it passes telling. But I know the desire of just so many in this room today is that you would get one little taste of the love of God. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Because if you could just get one little inkling 1 little taste of the love of God, I dare say you would want more and more and more.
My girls are older now, but when my girls were younger, we often had a problem at the dinner table, especially if there was some dish presented by my wife that we hadn't had before, or maybe something that was green and leafy. And sometimes when that dish was passed, the initial reaction was, oh yuck. Or I don't like that. And I would often say to my girls, but how do you know you don't like it? You haven't even tried it.
We passed something by without even trying it, sometimes assuming that it we aren't going to like it. But oh, today God is commending or recommending His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so just like that dishes it was passed, we would recommend it. We would commend it to the girls, and sometimes with some persuasion, we could convince them to try it.
And I would say when we were able to do that, that more often than not they would take some more and they learn to like it and enjoy it. But God so loved the world, all the sources. God himself and nothing else is going to satisfy your soul today.
Edgerton Young was a missionary to the Nelson River District of British Columbia years and years ago, and he took the gospel message.
The love of God and the glad tidings to the native Indians who had never heard it before.
And when he got there, there was some skepticism amongst the natives.
As to this man who had come with a different message, they were used to the religion of the Great Spirit and the beat of the TomTom drum and all that went with their dark Pagan religion.
But a certain date was set for Egerton Young to present his message to those who would be gathered there, and as he describes it himself in his own journal, there was a large company assembled to hear what he had to say, And there were several of the chiefs and leaders of the Indians in that area assembled there with great pomp.
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And Egerton Young stood up, and he read this verse.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And as he told in his own words for four hours he spoke from this precious verse. And he told those natives of the love of God, the love of the Creator, in sending his Son, the Lord Jesus into this world, to go to Calvary's cross there, to give his life there to shed His precious blood. He told of the resurrection from the dead and when he was done.
He wondered how his message would be received.
And as he stepped aside and sat down with a great deal of ceremony, one of those chiefs who seemed to be the principal chief amongst them, he slowly rose and faced.
The others.
And he said, for some time I haven't believed in the Great Spirit. I haven't put any stock in the beat of the TomTom drum and the rituals that go with it. I've had an empty aching in my heart for a long, long time.
But he said. Mr. Young, you have brought us a message today that has filled my heart and given me peace.
Stay as long as you want and tell us more. And they say there was a great.
Wave of blessing through those natives, many came to know the love of God.
Many came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
God so loved the world. How do you believe that? Have you tasted of that love? Because you know the solemn side of it is you are responsible to God.
There was a man named King Belshazzar in the Old Testament, and Daniel stood before that king, and he rebuked him with these words.
The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways.
Hast thou not glorified? It tells us in the book of the Acts He giveth to all life and breath and all things. It tells us in another portion, that he's the preserver of all men. God holds your breath. He gave you the very strength and health to be here this weekend and this afternoon. You are responsible to him.
But are you going your own way? Are you rejecting his offer of mercy? Are you rejecting his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you going to go out of this room once again? And I'm going to say it in very plain language, in rebellion against God.
That's what it is. If you go out of this room this afternoon rejecting God's beloved Son and refusing to recognize your responsibility to God, you are acting in rebellion. Rebellion that will have eternal consequences and wind you in the lake of fire in the end. You know the age is characterized by rebellion, isn't it? I was driven purposely.
Buy a place an establishment in Regina, SK the last time I was there, because the person who drove me by that establishment wanted me to see what that establishment was called.
It was a body and tattooing parlor, and over the door was a large sign that said House of custom rebellion. Isn't that solemn, a House of custom rebellion. But you know, that sums up the age in which we live. That sums up the heart of man. And that sums up your heart and response if you go out of this room unsaved and lost in your sins.
When this meeting concludes, but all the wonderful messages that God so loved the world.
That he gave, you know, that's the heart of God. God is a giving God. You know, Satan is not your friend today. Satan wants you simply for what he can get out of you. You know Pharaoh, who is a very graphic picture of Satan in the Old Testament. He only wanted the children of Israel for what he could get out of them. As long as he could use them as slaves, as long as they could make his brick and build his cities. He wanted them for what he could get out of them.
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But there is one today who wants you for what he can give you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
But oh, he's giving on the basis of that gift, the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Because every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Light, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Have you received God's wonderful gift? But oh, I say, it's all based on that unspeakable gift. Have you responded like the Apostle Paul?
In Second Corinthians, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Have you ever thanked God for giving his Son the Lord Jesus Christ? Because of all the gifts that God has given, the best and most unspeakable gift is the gift of his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I say, Have you thanked God for that wonderful gift? God so loved the world that he gave.
And what did he give his only begotten son? I don't have any sons, but I do have two daughters.
And I don't think I would have ever given them in the way that God gave his beloved Son. Because it was more than just God sending Jesus. It was more than just God giving Jesus to die on the cross. No, first John chapter 4 tells us the Father sent the Son. Isn't that more? Isn't that deeper when we consider the relationship and not only the relationship of the Father and the Son?
But to consider that here was one of whom it could be said, I was daily his delight.
A son that never, from a past eternity, grieved his father.
Any of us who have children can't honestly say that our children have never grieved us. It's not that we love them any less, but there are days when they grieve us. But here was a son who never grieved his father.
Never did one thing to displease his father and then when he came in incarnation.
He could say I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
Oh, this is the one that God sent. And when God sent him, God knew.
What it would cost God knew the end of the story. I've often said with both Israel and Jesse, when they sent Joseph and David their sons that they loved very much. When they sent them to see how things were going with their brethren, Joseph's brethren feeding the sheep, David's brethren fighting a battle with the Philistines, neither Israel or Jesse knew what was going to transpire.
On those occasions, if Israel had known the treatment that his other sons were going to give.
Uh, Joseph. The son that he loved and had marked with favor, with a coat of many colors, and known that he wouldn't see his son for many years and assume him dead. Would he have sent him on that occasion? I doubt it very much if Jesse had known that David was going to be misunderstood by his brethren for coming down and then go and fight the champion of the Philistines with just a sling and a few stones in his bag.
And then have to flee for his life from King Saul for many years. Would he have sent him on that occasion?
I dare say he would have kept him home feeding those few sheep in the wilderness.
Israel didn't know, Jesse didn't know. But God the Father knew exactly.
What would happen? I've often wondered, too, if Joseph had known what was going to happen, Would he have been so willing to go? If David had known that his brethren would charge him with naughtiness in his heart? Would he have been so willing to go on that occasion? Perhaps not. But the Lord Jesus knew, the eternal Son knew what was going. It was going to cost to say, here am I send me. He knew what it was going to cost.
To accomplish the will of God the Father. But he came, and so God so loved the world that he gave.
00:20:07
His only begotten son, That whosoever, That's a big word with a simple meaning. Because as often been said, whosoever means you and me and everyone else. There's no exclusions when it comes to the gospel. There's no exclusions when it comes to the love of God and the love of the Lord Jesus. You're not excluded. You ever been excluded from something. You ever feel real bad because you weren't let in on some secret?
You weren't part of some excursion. You weren't part of the group. You just felt awful. Maybe there's somebody and you're gonna go home from this conference and say, you know, I just didn't fit in like I wish I did. And my peers kind of left me out and I just didn't feel, like, accepted. But, oh, there's one who wants to accept you on the basis of what his son accomplished at Calvary's Cross. He wants to wash your sins away and make you accepted. He wants you to have peace with himself through the blood.
Of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, because it is the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanseth us from all sin. And there are so many of us here that rejoice, because we can say in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And so whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved nobody left out.
No exclusions. And so that whosoever believeth is that difficult. There was a man in Acts 16. We referred to him often as the Philippian jailer, and he was in earnest. He realized that he was a Sinner. He realized that he had a need. He realized that he needed to be saved. Would the souls today would realize that they have a need and they need to be saved. And he came in, and he asked 2 servants of the Lord.
What must I do to be saved? And the immediate response was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved because its repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you believed the message? Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? And so whosoever believeth in him, you see it's a person.
We're not teaching preaching reformation. We're not telling you to turn over a new leaf. You can't. The leaf is dead. We're dead in trespasses and sins. You don't need to turn over a dead old leaf. No, you need a new life. You need to come to the Lord Jesus. You need to be saved. And so.
Believeth in him, should not perish, you know. Again, there's a very solemn side to all this.
There is a Savior today. There is a way of salvation, but for those who reject God's way of salvation.
There's a consequence and it is a serious consequence. It is a dire consequence. It is an irreversible consequence.
Perish. You know what Webster's dictionary says? The word perish means to die spiritually. You know what scripture calls it? The second death. It's eternal separation from God in the lake of fire.
The story is told of one of the marshals in Napoleon's army.
Who had been mortally wounded and taken to his tent, and he realized he was dying.
And you know, he had been very brave in the face of the enemy.
But in the face of the King of Terrors, he was absolutely afraid.
He was terrified of death, and so he called for Napoleon to come.
Thinking that there was something Napoleon could do to help him in his situation.
And Napoleon was summoned, summoned to his tent. And Napoleon came, and there he looked into the face of one of his marshals. And it was one of his favorite marshals, too, a man who had served him well. And this Marshall was lying there in agony, not just from his wound, but in agony of soul and spirit. And he said, Napoleon, Napoleon, save me.
00:25:02
Save me.
And Napoleon, that conqueror of the world, that one who again could face, and the enemy with a bravery perhaps second to none. All he could do was look with pity.
On the rethink form of his Marshall as he passed from this life into eternity, there was nothing Napoleon could do to save this man in his dying moments.
And he went out into eternity.
Oh, it's solemn. It's serious. To perish is a very real and a very final thing.
But God doesn't want you to perish. Should not perish.
Should not perish. He does not want you to perish in your sins, and that's why I believe he has allowed you to come to the end of these meetings and to hear one more time a verse read and quoted from his living word.
Because, you know, as we end this meeting, it's not our ability to present the word that brings about fruit and blessing, but it is the living word in all its power.
Should not perish but have.
Everlasting life. Again, the gift of God is eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, I'm going to tell one more little incident in closing in connection with God using this verse in blessing to a soul. I have had over the years on a number of occasions to visit a number of the famous battlefields of Europe and you know it is soul stirring to stand at Passchendaele, to stand at the men in gate.
Just to stand at various places in Europe where battles were fought and to in your mind's eye, envision something of what the scene must have been like in those days.
That I am reminded of a battle. I believe it was during the First World War, when it was man to man combat in the trenches.
And there was a man in his line in the trench, and they were facing the enemy, and he was hit.
And he dropped back into the onto the floor of the trench.
And his comrade beside him, realizing what had happened, jumped down beside him, and very quickly realized that he was mortally wounded and that his life was ebbing fast. And so he took his jacket and put it under his comrade's head to try to make him a little more comfortable in what he knew were his dying moments. And as he was doing this, his friend opened his eyes, and he looked into his face and he said, can you tell me the way to heaven?
His friend looked at him and shook his head and said no, I can't.
You know, I suppose if it had been peacetime and they'd been back in their home, perhaps his friend would have had all kinds of speculations. But those things just seemed to pale in the face of death and gunfire overhead. Can you tell me the way to heaven? He said no, but I'll try to find out. And so he went back to his post and he said to his comrade beside him, Can you tell me the way to heaven? His friend shook his head, but he turned to the next one and he said, Can you tell me the way to heaven?
And from that point on, the question went down 15 men. Can you imagine?
15 men facing the barrels of the enemy's guns, and they didn't know the way to heaven.
Finally it came to the 16th man and the question was asked, Can you tell me the way to heaven?
And the man reached into his pocket and he pulled out a New Testament and he opened it to this precious verse that we have been considering.
And he put his finger on it, and he showed his comrade, and he put his finger on it. And they passed that New Testament down that line of men with their finger on John 316.
And finally it came back to the first man. And with his finger on this verse he jumped down beside his friend. And he wasn't even sure that his friend could hear him. His life was going very fast. But he bent over his friend, and he read these life giving words, and he read them again, and he read them again, and he read them again. And the man finally opened his eyes and he drank in those words.
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He received them, he said to his friend. Thank you, I believe. And he went from the trench of a battlefield in Europe to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. I'm going to see that man another day and oh, what value he's going to place on that verse for all eternity. I'll quote it one more time before I pray. Oh, I plead with you to drink in it's life giving words, receive its message, and you can go out of this room.
Knowing that you are saved and on your way to heaven, and if the Lord Jesus were to come in the next few moments, or you were to leave this life and death, you would go to be with him for all eternity. For God so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Our God and Father, how thankful we are for this precious message. We pray that by thy Spirit thou take it and apply it to the heart and conscious conscience of anyone here.
Who is still lost and in their sins, and our God for those of us who have known thee for many years.
Known Christ as our Savior. May these words thrill our souls once again as we leave this place. So we ask Thy blessing. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for His glory. Amen.
Philippians 3:15-21
Open Mtg. 6
Open—R. Boulard, R. Klassen
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Shall we sing 169.
169.
Lord we.
Live in a process that I don't have to continue.
Whenever God shall drive native life.
Glory everywhere.
Uh-huh.
And there to go.
Where I.
Surrounded.
No, I've never met her.
Always from all the years.
No more. I feel great.
By the world one slaying all the way. He didn't want to be troubled.
No more, just go on and get.
It right in my gun.
And so God our father, we're thankful reminder of his hand that, uh, we have truly a very bright prospect before our souls, not just glory, not just heaven, but thyself, Lord Jesus, uh, to be with, never to leave thy side again, thy bride and bridegroom together forever. So we thank thee that it's a purifying hope, one that encourages our hearts amidst, uh, ever darkening scene. And, uh, so we thank you for that, uh, hope before our souls and, and, uh, we just trusted and might cheer our hearts, uh, to realize that the best is yet to come and that they remain at the rest for the people of God. But now we are still in the scene and we need thy help and encouragement and, and the food for our souls and, uh, instruction for the past. And so there's many, uh, needs in this room tonight.
And so we just pray that thou would guide and direct, but I spirit to give us that which would, uh, encourage our hearts and, and uh, to be a help for each one here. So we would be in much dependence and much waiting upon myself as we would, uh, look to thee for guidance and help now. And that much glory might be God to thyself, Lord Jesus, and much blessing for thy people. So we ask this as we pray in thy worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Just like to turn to a few scriptures in connection with the coming of the Lord.
In First Thessalonians chapter 4, we'll read that first. I just want to, uh, perhaps expand a little bit on something that our brother Bob Tony took up last night. He took up the coming of the Lord, but in connection perhaps more with judgment. But, you know, the times of the Lord's coming that are mentioned in the Word of God in the New Testament, uh, are particularly designed by the Lord himself to stir our affections and to stir us up.
00:05:26
Into some sort of response in our hearts.
And the very first, uh, scripture that usually comes to our minds when we think of the coming of the Lord is this one in First, uh, Thessalonians chapter 4. And I'll read it and then we'll just make a few comments on it. And, uh, perhaps, uh, we'll look at some of the Old Testament Scriptures too, that might correspond and might give us a little picture of some of these things. And so it says in, umm, First Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 13. I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren.
Concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow, Nah, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, Even so them also which sleep in Jesus God will bring with him.
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel.
And with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Well, the very first response of our hearts should be in connection with this scripture that we've read here is that the Lord Jesus has told us that He will come again.
And, uh, he's given us details, the apostle Paul was used to give us details of how that coming is going to take place. And we were, some of us were speaking a little bit about the coming of the Lord just after lunch. And, umm, just to mentioning of how it is that, umm, the calendar is not, uh, very clear as to what exactly the year is that we're in. Perhaps, umm, you know, the Lord is allowed that the calendar isn't accurate because he wanted us to be found watching and waiting for him.
When He came. But the very first response here is that our hearts are comforted as we think that the Lord Jesus is just about to come for us and we long to see Him face to face. We long to be where He is and to be safely home in the glory. And umm, there were Saints here that umm, at the beginning of the Christian era. And some of their relatives, some of those that they knew that were of faith, had gone home to be with the Lord and they didn't know what would take place afterwards. And the Lord delights to have his people brought into the intelligence of his thoughts.
And hear the response of our hearts would be that they would be comforted as we go through a scene of trial, of sorrow that's a day of tragedy. And as we experience something of what sin has brought into God's creation. And there's a separation for a time. And God allows the separation. And he tells us that there's going to be a reunion very shortly with those of light, precious faith that we've known and that are safe at home with the Lord, absent from the body. And they're present with the Lord. And yet our feelings are still.
Umm, you know, my father went home to be with the Lord about six years ago and umm, I still have feelings. I still sometimes think about some of the things that he said. I still think about some of the things in the scriptures that he read to me when I was a boy. I still think of some of his mannerisms. And it comforts my heart to think of this scripture that, uh, there's going to be a reunion with those that have gone on before. Or aren't you thankful that the Lord gave us this light, gives us this little opening in the scriptures that tells us what comes afterwards?
Well, that's our side of it, if I could put it that way. If we turn to John's Gospel chapter 14, we'll read the Savior's side.
It says there in John 14 and verse one, Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Well, you know these disciples had accompanied with the Lord Jesus for those 3 1/2 years. They had known Him well, and we know that there was a pretender among them that company with the Lord for those 3 1/2 years. He was not real, and his heart was never attracted to that Blessed One.
00:10:20
And he went out and he's in lost eternity tonight or this afternoon. But you know, those disciples, the Lord Jesus was going to go away and they were going to feel it. It wasn't going to be the same when He was in the glory. And they were going to have to walk by faith. And the Lord Jesus, as he was about to leave them, wanted to tell them that there was going to be a reunion. They would be reunited with him. They would be reunited.
And while they didn't see him physically, and they would have to walk by faith in a world that had crucified him, and they would have to, as it were, huddling that upper room after the crucifixion and on the resurrection day, the first day of the weekend, for fear of the Jews. Why, they could have something in the comfort of these words after the church was formed on the day of Pentecost. No doubt they thought of his words in this way that they would be very soon reunited with the Lord.
And you and I have known something, perhaps by faith, of what it is to walk with the Lord Jesus and to experience something of the rejection of this world into that says, uh, let us go forth therefore unto him.
Without the camp bearing his reproach, we understand something of that by grace, and we feel the absence of the Lord while we walk through the scene. But we're very soon going to be reunited with Him. But he's going to be reunited.
There's going to be a union in the glory. There's going to be a wedding reception in the glory. There's going to be a reception. The bride of Christ is going to be received and she's going to receive a reception that no bride has ever received before, nor has any bride will ever receive ever again. She's going to be received into that glorious scene and there provided for by the Savior. Now let's turn to umm Philippians.
Chapter 3 where we've been reading.
Just at the end of the chapter there it says.
In umm verse 20.
Chapter 3 of Philippians verse 20.
For our conversation, for our associations in life are in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, for the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, or our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved, and longed for my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord.
My dearly beloved, I beseech Yodius and beseech Santiki that they be of the same mind.
Well, we have the coming of the Lord here brought before us in this last part of, uh, Philippians chapter 3. And we know that we're going to have changed bodies. The very same body that you have is going to be changed and it's going to be changed into a glorious fashion just like the Lord Jesus. And you will be morally and physically like the Lord. You'll have the body that's changed, very same body. And it says in 110 Psalm that she, he shall be in the dew of his youth. You're going to have.
A youthful body. Some of you are youth here and you look young and strong and umm, some of us are a little older. Some of us don't have hair, some of us have Gray hair. But umm, in very shortly we're going to see one another in the presence of the Lord. You're going to look young. You're going to look as handsome or as pretty as you were as a young person in this scene. But without the body of sin, without the body of humiliation, it's not going to be a body of humiliation there. It's going to be a body of glory because it's going to be changed like his.
But He tells us this and He gives us a motivation here in chapter 4. It tells us to stand fast, dearly beloved and umm, the Lord just desires us just to stand for himself in a scene that would desire us to sit down to rest or to lie down, to fall asleep, to be asleep to the fact that he's coming again and that He has a claim over this world and that He has a claim over us. The enemy would desire to have to sit down under the yokes of this world, or perhaps lie down and just rest a little while and let down our guard and to forget that we are in the enemy's land.
00:15:02
We are in the enemy's land. You and I in this country realize that a little more now with this new administration and government, we realize a little more that we are in the enemy's land. And don't forget, I look at you, dear young people. The world looks like a wonderful place, but we live in the enemy's land. He's the God and the Prince of it, and he's a destroyer who seeks to destroy life. But here he desires us to stand fast. And then we find that there's.
Two sisters that were not getting along with together. I beseech Yodius and beseech Sintiki that they be of the same mind in the Lord. And so he just tells us here. I believe as a motivation for us to help us to get along together is to connect. Just to remember in the view of the fact that the Lord Jesus is coming again, that all those little petty differences make no difference at all. Let's set those things aside. Let's judge our spirits in connection with how we think of one another and how we get along together. And umm.
Just in view of the fact that the Lord Jesus is coming, let's desire to set those stripes aside and to desire to go on together, to stand fast together. And there was a beseeching here of the apostle Paul as he reminded them that the Lord was coming. Won't you get along well now? Won't you get along together? Won't you just set aside those differences? I'd just like to look at an Old Testament Scripture in that connection in umm.
I think it's, uh, Second Samuel chapter 17.
That's chapter a little earlier than that. No, it's a little later. I'm sorry.
Chapter 19.
Second Samuel chapter 19 and verse 24.
In Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day that the king departed until the day he came again in peace. And it came to pass, when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore went hast thou not thou with me, Mephibosheth? And he answered, My Lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For thy servant said, I will saddle me, and ask that I may ride thereon and go to the king, because thy servant is lame.
And he has slandered thy servant unto my Lord the King. But my Lord the King is as an Angel of God. Do therefore what is good in thine eyes. For all my father's house were but dead men before my Lord the King. Yet didst thou set? Didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table? What right therefore have I yet to cry anymore under the King? And the King said unto him, Why speakest thou anymore of thy matters? I have said thou inside, but divine the land.
And Mephibosheth said unto the king, Yeah, let him take all.
For as much as my Lord the king has come again in peace unto his own house, you know, this man, Mephibosheth, really did love David. And he's been picked up out of the ditches, sin as it were, in a situation that was hopeless. And, uh, among the relatives of Saul and, umm, he had come to sit at David's table and he'd come to value the fellowship at David's table. He'd come to know the heart of David. He'd come to know.
What it was to sit with David and enjoy the fellowship that was sweet of that man that had a heart after God's own heart, and that's what he really valued. And, uh, you know, when he came into the King's presence the first time, the King David gave them all the inheritance of his father Saul. And Zaiba was a servant and was to till the property and to produce the fruit. And that, uh, Mephibosheth and his servants might have something of the provision and the wealth of that land.
And, uh, we find that, uh, he was slandered. Things were said about Mitsubishi that weren't true. And umm, David had, uh, made an arrangement for Zyba to take over that property. And, uh, so there's a couple of lessons here. One lesson is this, and it's for the fathers. And that is that, umm, Methodist father Jonathan did not follow his David in his rejection.
He didn't follow David in his rejection. And so when Mephibosheth grew, as it were, he wasn't capable of following David in his rejection. We need to follow David in his rejection. We need to walk in a path of separation and obedience to the Word of God that our children might go on in a path of faithfulness to David. Well, that's one lesson, but the other lesson here is this, that Mephibosheth, his heart had been won by David. And you know, David had.
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To come back again. He, Mephibosheth had been looking for David to come back. What effect did it have on his heart?
You know what the effect it had on Mitsubishi's heart is? The things that he had, the house that he had, the things that he had were of no value to him whatsoever. He didn't want any of it. He just wanted David. He wanted the person of days. Isn't that a lovely picture for us in connection with how the Lord weans us from this world? We're just about to hear His voice and be caught up out of this scene of filth and sin, rebellion and disobedience to Him. And, uh, all of those things that we have, all the cars, the possessions that we have are valueless.
That's how Mephibosheth took these things up. He didn't care about those things at all. He wanted the person of David. And so that's the effect that this, uh, coming of the Lord should have upon us in this way in connection with Sintiki and, and, uh, Yodius and Sintiki, all those differences and all the things that come in, in between the stripes and difficulties, why we should have our eyes upon Christ and that object bright and fair to fill and to satisfy our hearts.
Well, let's turn back to the New Testament, to Luke's Gospel, chapter 12.
We'll find here, in connection with the coming of the Lord, something else.
It says umm, let's read in Luke 12 and verse 34.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let your loins be girded about in your lights burning, and ye yourselves, like in the man, wait as that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding.
So when he cometh and knock us, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meet.
And we'll come forth and serve them, and if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch and find them, so blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the good men of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken through. He therefore ready also for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when you think not. No one take this up, particularly in connection with the coming of the Lord for His own. We know that.
In Luke's gospel, perhaps even in this portion, the Son of Man is, uh, in connection with his coming at umm, and is appearing, but you know, in connection with the coming of the Lord Jesus for his own, the rapture. There's two things I want to point out here and that is that we're to wait and we're to watch. And I would have thought, you know, in the word of God that there would be two men. There be a lot of other scriptures that would be have those two words waiting and watching, but there are not very many scriptures.
That we have those two words very closely connected, but it's in verse 36 that we're to wait. And it says in verse 37, blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh, shall find watching. Well, this I believe is particularly in connection with our service that were to be found and watching and waiting for the Lord Jesus and occupying till he comes. And umm, it motivates us as we think if we're awake and we're watching and we're waiting.
It motivates us to do a little service for himself. It ought to motivate us to do something for His glory. In this scene, are you doing something for himself? Has the Lord's coming attracted you? Has it attracted your heart?
To think that the Lord Jesus is about to come, and what have I done for Him? He's done so much for me. What have I done for him? Am I occupied in something that would be pleasing to Him when He comes? If he were to come this afternoon, would I have been found occupying in some small work in the vineyard because I was attracted to him? Well, if we turn back to the Old Testament again in Second Samuel.
Chapter 17.
We'll look there in verse 27.
It says it came to pass when David was come to mayhem that showed why the son of Nehash a Raba, of the children of Ammon and Makeir of the son, the son of Amule of Lotobar and Barzillai, the Gileadite of Rogelium, brought beds and basins and earthen vessels and wheat and barley and flour and parched corn and beans and lentils and parched pulse and honey and butter and sheep and cheese of kind for David and for the people that were with him to eat for, they said.
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The people is hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness. And then just turn over again to chapter 19 and verse 31.
David had come back again here in verse 31, and it says, Bars lay I the Gileadite came down from Rogelium and went over to Jordan with the king to conduct him over Jordan. Now Varsley I was a very aged man, even fourscore years old, and he had provided the king with of sustenance while he lay at me and am for he was a very great man. And the king said unto Barzilay, I, come thou over with me.
And I will feed thee with me in Jerusalem while I just point this out in connection with this Old Testament picture that we have these, uh, three men in chapter 17, uh, joined forces, if you will, three men that love David. And, uh, one of them was, uh, the, of the children of Ammon. And one of them was, umm, uh, from, uh, the, uh.
From Lotabar and Barzillai was a Gileadite from Rogelim. And so here you have these men that, uh, lived on the other side, Jordan in the place where Gad and Ruben and the half tribe of Manasseh lived. And umm, these men came to David and they rendered a service to him in his rejection when he was rejected. But they knew that David would come back again into the land. They had faith that the God would raise him back again. And uh, they recognized David as the rightful heir and king.
You and I, as we wait for the Lord to come, we can recognize the Lord Jesus as the rightful heir of all and the proper anointed king over all heaven and earth. Two spheres that God has desired to glorify his Son in, one in heaven and one in the earth. That those two spheres, God is going to be the God. The Lord Jesus is going to be the King over all. He's going to be the King over the entire universe. He's going to rule over all and these men identified with.
Uh, King David and I like this list here. We don't have time to comment on this whole list, but I just want to say this, that in their service to the Lord, the Lord mentioned what they brought. And you and I, if we had ever written, if we had to write this portion of Scripture, I don't want to speak irreverently, but if we had to write this portion of Scripture, we probably would have said that these three men brought a lot of stuff to David.
But you know, the Lord Jesus valued everything that was done.
And he gives a list, I don't think there's anything missing here of what these men brought to David. And David's heart was touched, it was affected. And so he lists these things, the Spirit of God. And then there was a reward, a time of reward and varsity. I met David at the time that he crossed Jordan was going to come over into the land and be take the Kingdom again. And you know, the Lord Jesus is going to delight to have us.
Recognize with him by his side as he comes in the glory, in glory and great honour into this world and was mentioned this morning that he left this world with shame and dishonor and was treated like a criminal by those that he came to love.
And came to save, but the Lord Jesus is going to come again and, umm, when he comes, he's going to receive his own into the glory. And then after the tribulation, after, uh, that, uh, period of time, there's going to be the appearing of Christ and he's going to come with those that love him. It says you shall come with 10 thousands of the Saints. Not one of them is going to be missing. Those that identified with him in the time of his rejection will come and will be identified with him.
In that time, well, I just want to turn to two more scriptures, one in Luke and, uh, Revelation chapter 22.
And we'll just read a couple of verses, verse 7.
Revelation chapter 22, Verse 7. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. And in verse 12, Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to give every man, according as his work shall be. And then verse 17. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely. And then verse 20.
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He which testify at these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Well, I just want to say this, that in connection with this particular passage in Revelation chapter 22, there's an effect as we think about the Lord's coming and it stirs the bridle affections in your heart and mind. We're going to see the bridegroom. And it just stirs our hearts to think that, uh, we're going to be reunited. We're going to be united with that blessed man in the glory. And, uh, he gives us this, uh, uh, assurance. I come quickly.
I come quickly and then there's that response, the Spirit and the bride say come, let him that heareth say come, let him that is athirst come whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely. So we have the gospel of the grace of God being brought forth to this world and the bride is the one in this day and age, those that are part of the church system, the not the system, but the church are those that are saved and members of the body of Christ are currently calling out to this world and.
Using the gospel of the grace of God to call others, whosoever will into the fold and to begin to look for the coming of the Lord. Well, you know, I just thought we could just look at these particular passages of Scripture. They coming of the Lord is not something that is to be taken up as a factual event by the believers. It is a fact. It's going to occur. But God here desired us to remember and to have our affection stirred for our Savior as we remember the coming of the Lord. The first one that we read in First Thessalonians chapter 4 has to do.
With our remembering that we can be comforted. We're going to be reunited with those that have gone on before. And then in John's Gospel chapter 14, we're going to see the Lord Jesus. He's going to be reunited as it were. There's going to be a reunion and the Lord Jesus is going to have those that company with him in this scene. And then in connection with our service, we need to remember that we need to have the Lord Jesus and his coming in view that we might desire to serve him.
In the little time that's left to us here, and then to have the forest to the importance of seeing only Christ as of any value in this world. And umm, you, uh, Yodius and Santiki were desired, that Paul desired them to get along, that there might be a proper testimony while the Lord Jesus was waiting and, uh, while he wasn't here, but when he would come that there would be affections for him.
In that there would be a getting along and so they were would be a setting aside of those differences. And so we have that little picture in the Old Testament of how Mitsubishi just wanted David.
That's all he wanted. And dear, beloved brethren, that's all we're gonna leave this scene with. That's all we're gonna leave with. For we brought nothing into this world is certain we can carry nothing out. The only thing that you and I are going to carry out of this scene is that which we have Christ. Well, it's a wonderful thing that there's nothing of sin going to be in that glorious scene above. Are we keeping His coming before us all? We need to keep it before us.
We can improve on what has been before us, but perhaps Robert won't mind if we add a little bit to that.
Uh, yesterday.
He had the third chapter of Philippians and brought before us how that book of Philippians speaks of joy and rejoicing. Uh, the rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.
And one brother, uh, brought before us, uh, the formula for happiness. And that is that, uh, it's uh, JOY. Joy, right?
Jesus first, others next, yourselves last.
We know that the Lord Jesus Christ was.
The ex Umm.
The the.
Unique and, uh, total example of that.
Not that we're, he would say, well, Jesus first, that that's not what we're talking about. He wouldn't say that Jesus first, but he could come into this world and, and say, uh, I do always those things that please my father.
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It was his Father. He came to do the will of God the Father, and he was he came to accomplish that work. That was the work that the Lord Jesus came to accomplish and he accomplished it fully to the glory of God.
And then?
He thought of you and me.
Isn't that precious?
When he was nailed through that cross, the very first utterance out of his mouth.
Was Father forgive them?
For they know not what they do.
When he was hanging on that cross and extreme suffering there.
He took time out to think about his mother.
There she was, watching him suffer.
Her own beloved son that she had brought up in this world.
Even.
Hanging upon a cross.
Suffering.
He commits his mother to John.
John.
Texas mother home with him.
There were others there standing upon by the cross of the Lord Jesus.
And I believe there is a special blessing that's connected with standing by the cross of Jesus.
When we think of John.
And Mary, the mother of Jesus.
What unique communications they would have.
Mary could tell John of those first 30 years of his life, no different things that she remembered.
That would be so interesting and so heartwarming to hear about the Lord Jesus. What? How from Mary's side of it.
On the other hand, we see that John could communicate with Mary those things that took place in those last 3 1/2 years of the Lord Jesus life.
Tremendous communication.
In Luke 24 we read there were two on the way to Emmaus, and we know that, uh, the wife of Cleophus was standing by the cross of the Lord Jesus.
Was there a blessing when the Lord Jesus went along and walked with those two on the road to Emmaus?
We know there was there. He came along and became one of them, one of their company and he.
Made as though he didn't know what happened the last three days.
What things he could say to them?
To why we had thought that this was uh, uh, Jesus of Nazareth. We thought that this was he who would redeem Israel.
But now if he's dead.
Well, he went along and expounded the scriptures to them.
All the Old Testament scriptures.
Uh, the Moses and Psalms and prophets and, and, uh, he opened up the scriptures too. Wasn't that a, wasn't that a wonderful thing to hear that an exposition of the scriptures by the Lord Jesus himself? I just, it thrills me to think about it.
And then, uh.
Uh, he made himself known unto them. In that same hour they went back to Jerusalem. Was there a blessing in that? Oh, there was. Then there was Mary Magdalene, that she stood by the cross of the Lord Jesus.
And you know the Lord Jesus gave her.
The greatest message that was ever delivered to mankind, I believe.
Mary's heart was so taken up with the Lord Jesus.
She wanted to.
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Be where the Lord Jesus was. She was so sorrowful to think that he was now dead when Jesus reveals himself onto her.
And she says, she tells him, tell me, are you, uh, she thought he was the gardener. And she said, well tell me if you are where, where did you lay him? And I will take him and carry him away. But she couldn't do that.
But he says I am he.
And he says to her.
Uh, don't touch me. We touched on that yesterday, but she wanted this, this the, the, the Jesus that she had known.
Uh, up until that point. But now he was alive and resurrected a man without any blood. His blood was shed and he was a man of flesh and bones.
And, uh, so the message that, uh.
He gave to Mary, he says, but you go to my brethren and tell them, I ascend unto my father and to your father to my God and your God. Isn't that nice? Just that now we can be identified in the same position that the Lord Jesus is. We can share the same things with him. Isn't that a grandest message that you ever heard? Well, uh, I had it on my heart and I wanted to.
Enlarge a little bit about it, but uh.
Sometimes we learn by examples in the scriptures better than just, uh, simply talking about.
But I was thinking of of three different men that uh, uh.
Looking at David as the picture of the Lord Jesus.
Uh, we see that there was three different men.
One was.
Our father, our uh, uh, a grandfather, a father and a father and A and a son.
Well, uh, let's turn now to uh.
First Samuel 16.
Uh, and it's right after.
Uh, Samuel had anointed David as the king of Israel.
And uh.
In verse 14 it says, But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servant said unto him, Behold now an evil spirit from God troubles him out, troubles thee. Let our Lord now command thy servant, which our servants which are before thee, to seek out a man who is.
A cunning player on the harp. And it shall come to pass that the evil spirit from the Lord, when the evil spirit is from the God, is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto his servant, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son, a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is coming and playing.
And a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, imprudent in matters, then comely and comely person. And the Lord said unto him, Wherefore uh, Saul sent messengers on to Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep. And uh, this dropped down for the sake of time here. And David uh verse 21. And David came to solve, and stood before him, and he loved him greatly.
And he became his armor bearer.
Here was a man that uh.
Just really was attracted to David and uh, and he loved him greatly.
But you know, what I see here is the fact that, uh, sometimes, uh, the Lord Jesus, people are attracted to the Lord Jesus, but uh, they, they want to have that first place. They, it's all right. If he can be your armor bearer, you can love him as long as he takes that place as a helper, but you're not going to let him have first place.
Well, we know the end of the story is that, uh, David slays Goliath a giant and, uh.
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It doesn't seem like Saul even knows who he is. He says to Abner, he says, go find out who this stripling is. And they found out it was, was David. Well, uh, so, uh, really was not all that impressed, I don't think. But, uh, the daughters of Jerusalem were impressed and, and, and, uh, Jonathan was impressed, uh, but, uh.
So.
Says to uh.
Uh, when the daughters of Israel sang Saul has killed his, uh, thousands that David have killed his 10,000, Saul was really angry. He said, well, they only described thousand to me, but 10,000 to David, That's not right.
Well, if he was honest with himself, he'd have to admit that that was right. But he didn't. And then he sought to, uh, uh, slay others.
And, uh, uh, our uh, uh, display David to kill him and to get him out of the way because David was getting more attention than him. He was very self-centered. So, and you know, uh, earlier we read about him that in, uh, when he would, did not obey the Lord, uh, of the God in destroying all the, the, the Amalekites.
Uh, a a gag and all as she, as he was told to do, he, he says, uh, uh, Samuel comes to him and and he says the Lord has removed thee from being king.
Well, you know what he said, He said, honor me this once in front of the people, to all the people who at least not look down on well that he shows his self centeredness, but he didn't know how to spell joy. Uh, it's uh, uh, myself first.
Others next and David last.
Well, the next one is Jonathan.
And we see how that in the 18th chapter, we won't take time to read it because most of you know the story, you don't read it. And, uh, uh, when David had come back from the slaying of the giant, uh, the heart of Jonathan was knit with a heart of David. He was so impressed with David and he loved him as his own soul. And he stripped himself of everything.
I think that's beautiful.
We see how that, uh, Jonathan being, uh, the next in line to be king would stripped himself of everything and give it to David.
Well, uh, to make a Long story short, uh, we see that, uh, David, I mean, Jonathan didn't know how to spell, uh, joy either.
Uh, he put, uh, David first, myself next, and others last.
Well, the reason we know that is because, uh, Jonathan says to David. Since I know that the Kingdom is yours, but I'm going to be next to you.
But, uh, then we see that, uh, uh.
Both Saul and Jonathan died on Mount Gilboa. They lost their lives for not putting David 1St and getting that formula for happiness right.
But I love the way Robert pointed out to us. And with a fibbage, Yes, and let's just turn to that once more.
In uh 19th chapter, second Samuel.
We won't have to enlarge on it because it's already been talked to us about how that, uh, uh.
David was returning because he was fleeing from.
Uh, Absalom his son, but now he was returning back to uh, take the throne. And uh, he says, uh, wherefore when is thou not with Mephibosheth? And uh.
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You will remember that beforehand the zyde told a lie and he said, uh, today, uh, he, he said the message it today he, he said that, uh, House of Israel is going to return the throne to, uh, my father's house to the House of all. Well, that was the furthest thing from, from a fibre chef's heart, wasn't it?
Here he, as Robert pointed out, he was so attracted to the person that David that he didn't shave or change his clothes or anything, which was approved. How he missed David.
And when David says, uh, uh, you and Zyber divide the land, uh, you know, when looking at it from a natural standpoint, uh, it kind of makes you a little upset with David, doesn't it? It, It always did me. Why didn't he look into it and, and be fair about it? But the point is we're not looking at David per SE, uh, but we're looking at Mephibosheth now.
It's what was Shiva Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth thought of David.
Do you remember when, uh, the David asked, uh, if there was any of left of the household of, uh, Saul that he could show kindness, the kindness of God, uh, for Jonathan's sake. And he said, well, there's one man, he's, he's lame on both his feet. Bring him here. He said, that's just the kind of man I want. And there he sat with his feet under the table eating.
From David's bounty, was he gonna lack anything as long as he was at the King's table? Why, He wouldn't like a single thing, would he?
He would. He would have more than enough.
And so these things that, uh, uh.
That were given to him of the household assault were only uh.
Uh, weights and, and, uh, unnecessary things, as far as he was concerned, he didn't need them as long as he was eating that at David's table. Forget about those. I can just be occupied with David and appreciate David. That's the way he thought. Well, I'm, I want to tell you something, uh, my fibrous chef was, it wasn't in a position to go out and kill 800 enemy at one time.
He couldn't kill a lion in a on a snowy day.
And uh, uh, he couldn't do any of these things, but he could sit at David's table, couldn't he?
You know, beloved, that's one thing we can do.
And it really honors the Lord Jesus to sit at his table.
And we'd be totally blessed just to appreciate and value the fact.
Here we are, poor, lame, insignificant.
Worms of a destined mind, you.
But uh-huh, we were sinners worthy to die, we and that the Mephibosheth took that place, and he he didn't know it was in the heart of David when he was called.
Uh, to go to David, but most you could think of was most of the kings when they get on the throne and they just kill everybody of the last dynasty or whatever, because that's the last thing you thought that they was going to show kindness.
And the kindness of God. But he did. And we see in the what Robert wrote to us there in the 19th chapter how he appreciated David and he made it known.
There and right now that that's a position that I believe that you and I can take. Uh, we're waiting for our David to take his rightful place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Meanwhile, while we're here, we can sit at this table and enjoy this company, and I think he values that more than anything else I can think of.
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286.
286.
Thanks.
Lord Jesus, we would truly desire to find our joy.
Or what?
Gives joy to thy own heart.
And we truly rejoice with Thee, Lord Jesus.
That it is the joy of thine heart.
To have us with myself.
And so we do look forward with anticipation to the moment when thy heart will find its satisfaction.
Having us with the and we thank thee, Lord Jesus, as we await that moment that.
It is the express desire and joy of thine own heart to have us around Thyself here, and so we thank Thee Thou hast made provision that this too we may sit at my table, and to give Thee the joy of looking upon those that Thou hast redeemed with faith.
We give thanks, my precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Amen.
Philippians 4