Carolina Conference: 2010
Table of Contents
Romans 12:1-2
Reading
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And lay the tyrant low.
Let my friend.
Let my friend.
Hear I've all our journey from.
As my presence.
Let my friends.
Here are all our journey.
Waste and.
Tear up the hardest time turning light.
Rendered my presence.
Fearless.
9.
12.
Day you're what I love is time.
Lord of glory.
Lord of glory.
Ever on my household shine.
Father, thou hast said thy word. We have not, because we ask not.
Well, we asked. Like little birds and a nest, we open our mouths wide.
That we might be filled. Our greatest desire is that we would receive from you that which will fulfill our needs.
As hungry and thirsty.
Children.
We trust the.
Lord Jesus, we would have a fresh few of these and when we leave this place.
We would have a renewed sense upgrades.
We have it all the way home, Savior. Indeed. It's all of grace all the way.
Father, we thank thee.
And we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We sing the first stance of Amazing Grace.
Amazing.
Grace, how sweet.
A sound.
Must save.
The Reds like me.
I want.
What's my?
Name.
I'd like to suggest a portion that is intensely practical. I realize that some of us the other night in Asheville took up the 1St 3 or 4 verses of this portion, but I I'd like to suggest that it's on my heart. It's the 12Th chapter of the book of Romans.
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Romans chapter 12. You want the whole chapter read? Yes, I think we can read the whole chapter, Jonathan.
Jonathan, I'm gonna make a suggestion that maybe you read from the 33rd verse of the previous chapter please. Alright. Romans Chapter 11, verse 33.
All the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are his judgments?
And his ways past finding out.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again.
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever.
Amen. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself.
More highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
For as we have many members in one body.
And all members have not the same office. So we being many are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another.
Having them gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Whether prophecy, let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith.
Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering. Or he that teacheth on teaching. Or he that exhorteth on exhortation. He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.
Let love be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good, be kindly affectioned. 1 to another with brotherly love in honor, preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer.
Distributing to the necessity of the Saints given to hospitality.
Bless them which persecute you, Bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
Recompense to no man, evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all men, if it be possible, as much as lieth in you. Live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath.
For it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil.
But overcome evil with good.
Well, as I said, this chapter is intensely practical, and it's often been pointed out, but I think it's good to point these things out again, that when you read the epistles, you find usually two parts to the epistle. It begins with the doctrinal principles laid out, foundation, truth brought before us, and then as you get to the end of the epistle, you have the practical, and it's always in that order.
Because you must have sound doctrine to have sound behavior.
Sound behavior is based on sound doctrine. People talk about practical truth and where the rubber meets the road in our Christian pathway and so on. And that's all very well and good. And I trust we can glean some very practical lessons from this chapter because that's really what's on my heart and suggesting it. But it is important to realize the context of all practical truth at because it goes back to what we have in the beginning of the epistle.
As to that which has been laid down, as to the doctrinal part of it. And in this epistle, as we know, we have the great subject of justification brought before us. And, uh, he takes it up and he brings before us too, that not only has Christ died for us, but we're dead and risen with Christ and that position that we've been brought into. And then as you get to the end of the epistle, you find these very practical things brought out.
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But before we comment on the 12Th chapter, the reason I asked Jonathan to read the last four verses of the previous chapter is because we have the apostle here breaking out in a little doxology of praise and appreciation before he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, because we might say what we have in the end of the 11Th chapter is.
Appreciation because again.
If there's going to be any practical walk in our lives, any expression of the truth in a practical way, moral piety and godliness, it's going to be in the measure in which you and I have an appreciation of the person and work of Christ. And brethren, I believe that we need to have in our souls a deeper appreciation of Christ. Again, we talk about practical truth and following the Lord.
But I believe these things come unconsciously and naturally in our lives, in the measure in which Christ is real and precious to our souls. And if our coming together for meetings like this.
Has the effect of Christ being more real to us as we sing the good scriptural hymns that we've sung together? As we hear that which is expressed in praise and worship, such as in the last meeting? As we enjoy fellowship together and our appreciation of Christ and share together as we have Christ before us in these meetings, brethren, if our hearts go out more to the person of Christ.
Then the practical things that we take up in this chapter are not going to seem hard or difficult, not going to seem forced or sometimes, as the young people say, legal, but they're going to fall into place because our heart is going to go out more to Him and our feet are going to naturally follow in the path of faith and service. So let's seek to have our appreciation of Christ deepened that we might then be able to present ourselves as a living sacrifice.
I'd like to turn to a verse in Isaiah that might seem a bit odd.
But uh.
Uh, no, it's chapter 28.
Isaiah chapter 28.
And there's a little little phrase here in verse 21, and I think it's also somewhere else. But for the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Parism, He shall be rocked as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his strange acts.
Expression there his strange work. You know strange means in scriptures for it. So someone who is a stranger.
Is a foreigner, and it's not, shall we say, the usual case. And God says that he has a work, which is is not the usual case, and it is.
Judgment. Judgment. Well, if that's the unusual case, what is the usual case?
And, uh, actually with the little intro there, I don't think that would be very difficult to figure out what I'm going to say next. But the usual case is Grace.
That is God's way of working, or it has been, always will be.
You know, we get into this chapter, chapter 12 of Romans and we read about mercy and we do read about grace and interestingly, towards the end of the chapter we read that vengeance is mine. That's the Lord. And you know, that is a very important.
Thing it belongs to him. It might be his strange work.
It's not, it's not to be our work at all.
It's it's his strange work. It's not even his normal work. His normal work is great.
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He might pick it up if it's necessary, but we are to function in this world with grace, with mercy, and this chapter reflects that in an astonishing way. And as we live this out and we have an Ezekiel, I don't know the reference, but.
And how, then, should we live?
And uh, God does give principles for how we should live. As you say, it's not a law thing, it's really living out.
What is truly the nature of God that has been imparted to us through salvation, and that is to function in grace and in concern and care for others, and showing forth those mercies that, uh, God himself?
He's the leader in that, in the way that he has showed those things out, which they manifest in our lives.
What I just referred to uh, Romans chapter 8 and umm, it says there in Romans chapter 8 and verse 15.
Well, let's read verse 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For you have not received the spirit of ******* you gain the fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA. Father, the Spirit itself maketh beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us, while this little portion brings the forest, the the fact that we're no longer strangers and foreigners, but we're.
Sons of God, we're heirs of God, we're joint heirs with Christ. And now the portion that we have before us in Romans chapter 12 really brings before us the exhortation, the practical exhortations that the apostle brings forth to the Saints that they might have the right attitude and the right motives of heart as they walk through the Pilgrim scene. And, uh, because they are sons, because they are in relationship with God. You and I are in relationship with God. What ought our, uh, motives to be?
What are our attitudes to be? And the very first attitude that he begins to take up in chapter 12 and verse, uh, verses one down through eight is our attitude towards God himself. And, umm, how we ought to recognize the, the price that was paid to redeem us and the price that, uh, was paid at the cross of Calvary by the Son of God who shed his own precious blood. And, uh, how we ought to have that attitude of praise and Thanksgiving and worship as we think of the price that was paid. And then our attitude that, uh, he paid everything. He spared nothing.
To bring us into such great blessing and to bring us into the relationship that we have with him. And umm, the intelligent response to our hearts is to give him everything that we have to render him unto him everything that we have, not to hold back anything. And so the Lord Jesus, uh, when he went to the cross, he gave everything. There was nothing. He didn't even have a, a tomb. He had to borrow a tomb. He had uh, uh.
Vegas what language? He begs us to offer ourselves a sacrifice, a living sacrifice. Not a dead sacrifice, but a living sacrifice and the life that is yours and mine precious. Only one life that God has created, just like yours, he said. Won't you just offer it to himself?
I'd like to go back to the 6th chapter for a moment as well, in connection with the comments that have been made by both brothers, because I believe that what we have in this chapter is the practical carrying out of what we have in the 6th chapter.
And I'll begin reading at verse 11.
Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.
That ye should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God.
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As those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God for sin, shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. And So what we have in this 12Th chapter is really the practical carrying out of that.
We alluded to it earlier, but we find in Romans that we are dead and risen with Christ. That's our position. But rather than there needs to be that practical reckoning of it from day-to-day in your life and mine, not because of a set of rules like under the laws, Bruce said, but because we're under grace, under the law, it was this due and thou shalt live. And it says who through fear of death were their whole lifetime subject to *******.
Because there were certain boundaries and penalties if he transgressed those boundaries. But that's not the way it's to be in your life and mine. No, Christianity, as we say, is a person. It's a question of the heart. And that's why the apostle Paul at the beginning of this chapter, he doesn't say I command you to do no, he says, I beseech you. He's.
Burst out in this doxology of appreciation.
Christ, now he says, if you have that same appreciation, I don't have to command you, because when the heart is engaged, a request has the power of a command. If someone you lo loves you and you love them, why they just have to breathe the word and you're there. The heart responds. It's not a command, but it has the power of a command or maybe even more than the power of a command. And it's not a hard thing.
So he says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. And brethren, aren't we thankful for those mercies?
We talk about grace, and certainly that's where we're under grace, not law, and we're thankful for the grace of God, but there's mercy as well.
And he's talking about our bodies now. He's talking about practical and temporal things.
And mercies are for the practical and the temporal. It's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. They are new every morning. Great is by faithfulness. And so those mercies are what meet us in the practical and temporal things of life. And brethren, if you and I are willing to respond and to lay ourselves on the altar of sacrifice, then he's going to give everything that's needed.
He's going to provide those mercies day by day so that we can present our bodies a living sacrifice.
Just consider the word justification, which our brother Jim mentioned in his opening remarks. The connection between justification and righteousness is often lost upon us. In English there are two very different words, whereas in the original.
There are related words the same route. And so to be justified is to be declared righteous. We're not made righteous. We're declared righteous judicially in Christ. God sees us as being righteous in Christ, and nothing will change that. Nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. But there are those things that we can allow in our life that are not righteous. There are those things that are defiling. And so in the portion Jim read, it says that we're not to yield.
Ourselves.
As members, as instruments have uh, umm, sorry, neither you do your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members instruments of righteousness unto God. Another thing too that I think that we all struggle with, perhaps more so in our youth is and, and, uh.
But is this reckoning ourselves dead? What does it mean to reckon ourselves dead? Is that by some intense thought? Is that by something that I do? No, I believe it's the sense that, you know, if, uh, someone had been executed for, for whatever reason, and, and you said, I can't believe that person is dead. And you go back to the newspaper and you go, no, there it is. It's written, it is, it's, it's true. It's so. And that's what it means to reckon ourselves dead to account itself. Just go back and see what God has to say.
And we are seen as dead in Christ.
And that's what I'm to remind myself of, because soon as it gets back on me that I'm trying to be dead, it's never going to work. But to reckon myself dead means go back to the Word of God and see what God has to say about me and my old nature.
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Verse 14 in Romans chapter 6 says for sin shall not have dominion over you.
So I remember as a young person saying, but it does.
It's us.
You can't live in Romans 12 until you've been through Romans 6-7 and eight.
And this reckoning that we're talking about, it's the secret.
This is this. The subject, this that we're talking about is the very secret of victory and deliverance.
And reckoning.
Is counting something to be So, as our brother was saying, like reading in the newspaper, it is written, it is declared. But then we have this confusing situation because though we've been declared righteous and we're born again.
We find in ourselves what is described in Roman 7. But sin does seem to have dominion over me. So what's wrong? What's the conflict? Well, one of the things about reckoning is counting on what God has said to be true.
In spite of experience, in spite of the way things may appear. And one of them, I remember the day the light bulb went on when I read.
In Romans Chapter 7.
And uh.
There's two verses here, but uh.
Verse 17.
Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, Speaking of sin.
If I understand that the scripture tells me that as to my position, I am to think of myself as a new creature, a new creation in Christ Jesus. The enemy, as we saw in the song, would have us think all kinds of things about that we are under dominion of sin, that we are just sinners, that we are uh.
You know, less than that we're defeated that we're we're all the bad things that you can think of and even get you to thinking in a false way.
We are nothing, nobody, nowhere if you say that.
In regards to who you are in Christ, that's not true.
If you say those things and you think those things, you need to say it this way in and of myself.
I am nothing. I am nobody.
That's true.
But in Christ.
Oh, that's a different story now. It is no more I that do it, that I is the new creature in Christ Jesus, that eye.
Has no power of itself. It has one desire. That new nature, that new creature that we are, only wants to please Christ. When we are first born again, there is not much intelligence, but its desire is towards this one. Like a baby who looks up with its eyes into its mother's face. That's all it knows. And then as this baby learns, just like we learned as baby Christians, we begin to see the things in the Word of God.
Someone told me years ago that the relationship we have with the Lord Jesus Christ is like a romance. And when the romance.
Is good, then there's no problem with doing those things that we discover are pleasing to the one that we love. I've told many people that, you know, when I was first going to BTP to see my wife, before she was my wife, you know, I had understood that a good thing to do.
When you like a girl is to bring her flowers. And so I brought her roses and she liked them and was happy with them. But later on at some point I overheard her say to somebody that her favorite roses were Peach colored.
Well, what do you think I did when I went and got roses again? I got Peach colored roses because I just heard that she those were her favorite. It was no duty. It was not difficult. It was not hard. There was no rule. It was just, oh, great, I've got something, I've got some inside information.
I think of the David's mighty man who overheard him just simply say that he would love to have some water from a well. And they jumped up and they broke through the enemy's lines, and they got the water and they brought it to him simply because they discovered that something might please this one that they love. Well, if we have these right thoughts, renewed minds about what the Bible says we truly are that we are not In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I am not that thing. And if you are born again.
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You are not that thing. You are not to go around thinking of yourself.
As this old thing that was. And when you reckon that you died with Christ on Calvary's cross, that you were crucified there, it's the absolute truth. God is done with the old you. You and I need to be done with the old you. But guess who likes to dig up the old you from that coffin and bring him out of the ground again? The place of death. It's the enemy. He wants to dig it up and point at it and see how it stinks. Well, guess what? Dead things do stink.
There was an old farmer that said that.
That he learned this lesson one time in a very practical way. They had a horse that they all loved and they had for many years and it died and everybody was very sad and like farmers will do, uh, they would take, they took the carcass out behind the barn in the pasture and they dug a hole and they buried it.
Well, one morning about three days later, he woke up with this terrible smell.
And he said, uh oh, I know the dogs are some animals have dug up the old horse. And sure enough, they go out to the pasture and there's that horse, this beloved animal that they love, bloated and all looking not very MO, very lovely like they had remembered. And so once again they covered it over. And this happened again the next morning. So they dug a very deep hole and put rocks on it to, to put it in there. But he happened to be reading about this matter, this this subject the Lord brought before his heart.
That that old thing?
The old man that has, which has to do with what we were before we came to know the Lord Jesus our Savior. If you dig it up, if you poke a stick at it, if you pay attention to it, if you wrestle with it, whatever you do with it, there will be an odor.
And the enemy loves to get us occupied with that which will make us depressed and dejected and down in the doldrums. But Christ would have us look at him and that new life that we have is hid in him. It's where it is. And when we have a renewing of our romance with our precious Lord Jesus Christ, then when we hear things like, oh, it's a good thing to present my body as a living sacrifice with him, Well then there's no problem. There's no difficulty. It's oh, that's a good thing to do. I will do that.
Whatever we hear and discover from this book.
That we know pleases the one that we love and that we have this fresh romance with. We know He loves us. It's something that we delight to do. We don't even think of it as being a command or a law or an order. It's just something that we delight to do.
Not first verse that were therefore. I beseech you, brethren, therefore.
It says by by the mercies of God, by the by the compassions of God. We have in the 1St 8 chapters of Romans the subject of our justification and the freedom that God puts us in now before him so we can be free to present our bodies, because through our bodies he's going to express himself and have his work done.
But it says by the compassions of God, and we had as we read in the 33rd verse with reference to the other chapters between 8:00 and 12:00, in which God gives us His perspective as to Israel. And he ends up with the 33rd verse, 22nd verse of Chapter 11 where he says that God had closed up Jew and Gentile under disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.
When the Samaritan went by that man who had been, who had fallen before the thieves, he says, it says that his heart was filled with compassion. He had compassion on him. And this I believe is what we have here is by the compassions of God. And my French Bible, God is sharing with us now that he's brought us into a position of comfort and security and love before him. He wants us to be the vessels through which he can express his compassion.
His compassions to Jew and Gentile, his compassions to a lost world, in misery, in suffering and pain, and his compassion to.
Is children the ones that he loves and that belong to him already?
So what a privilege, dear ones, to have this sharing from God's heart of his compassion and to be privileged. If we let him use our bodies and present our bodies as a living sacrifice, to be the expression in our lives and the things that we say that we do and how we behave of the very heart of God, a heart of love and a passion full of grace and mercy. The last thing He wants to do is judge this world. He's going to judge it.
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But he's left us here.
So we could still express to this world that he has compassion and forgiveness for them.
There are three sacrifices that the believer is called on to make in Christianity. You have two of them in the end of Hebrews, where it says first of all.
By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.
That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name, because God delights in the sacrifice of praise. Interesting that it's called the sacrifice. You know, if there is any note of praise from our hearts and on our lips, He implants that all things come of Thee, and of thine own have we given Thee. I create the fruit of the lips, it says. And yet he so values the return of any little praise from our hearts.
That, he says, I counted as a sacrifice.
But then the next verse in that chapter in Hebrews says to do good and communicate. Forget not.
For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. That is his desire is that we would, he, we would take what he has entrusted to us in a temporal way and use it for his glory in sacrifice. You know, a sacrifice is something that should hurt. We should feel it. I, I'm gonna speak very plainly, but you know, my putting a $5.00 bill in the collection plate on Lord's Day morning is not really a sacrifice.
Every man is to give as God has prospered, and we're to feel it.
I just say that on a very practical note, that's only one way to give and but whatever we have, whatever is entrusted to us in a temporal way, be it our home, our car, Oregon, a dollar bill, where to use it, be exercised. It says it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. I'm going to have to give an account of everything that God has entrusted to me in a coming day. But here we have a sacrifice that is a little bit different.
It's not simply giving what has been entrusted to us, it's giving ourselves, It's offering our bodies. Now, brethren, we're not our own. We're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body, uh, and in your, your spirit, which are gods. We're encouraged here or exhorted here to lay down ourselves on the altar of sacrifice. In first John chapter 3 and 16, it says, and this was manifested the love of God.
And that he laid down his life for us. And then it says, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. You know, it's easy sometimes to reach into our pockets and give when we see some need. But it's quite a different matter, isn't it, brethren, to give ourselves?
That takes real energy of faith, it takes real purpose of heart. If we had appreciation in the end of the previous chapter.
We have dedication in the first verse of this chapter and that's what God is really looking for from each one of us.
If you just allow me to say this too. In fact, maybe we better look at the couple of scriptures first of all in Revelation chapter 2.
In connection with laying down our lives says, as we said, we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren, but that doesn't necessarily mean we give our lives physically. There's two ways that believers can lay down their lives. The first one is in Revelation chapter 2.
Two, and in connection with the Saints at Smyrna, in verse 10 it says, Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, and that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation. 10 days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. You know the crowns that are rewards for faithfulness at the judgment seat of Christ.
Are always taken up. In contrast, a crown of righteousness and Timothy is for living righteously in an unrighteous world. A crown of life here is given to one who physically in this context lays down their life.
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For their testimony, there were Saints in the city of Smyrna in the days of John who were suffering to the extent that they were laying down their life as martyrs. We often refer to this crown of life here as the martyr's crown, but perhaps none of us in this room will ever be called on to lay down our lives physically for our testimony. So let's go to the book of James where you have this same expression.
James chapter one.
James chapter one and verse 12.
Blessed is the man who endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Now here's the crown of life promised again, but if you notice the context of this, it's not one who lays down his life physically, but it's one who lays down his life in the sense of what the Lord said himself. He that loses his life for my sake and the gospel shall find it. And in the context of our chapter in the 12Th of Romans were to present our bodies. Notice this expression, a living sacrifice.
We never, may never, be called to give our bodies as a sacrifice in death physically, but we are called upon to give ourselves as a living sacrifice. Is it sacrifice? Yes, it is.
Will it cost us? Yes, it will. But he says, never mind, I'll give you a crown of life. There's a special reward, brethren, for those who give their lives in sacrifice to the Lord and for one another. Here he says, I'll make it up. The world says that person has a lost life. It's a wasted life. The Lord says no, you've used your life for me. You've given yourself. You've been dedicated to myself.
And my service and my people. There's another life, there's another world.
And I'll make it up, the Lord said to Peter. If you give up things down here, I'll give you a hundredfold in the coming day. That's quite a percentage on your return, isn't it? Wouldn't we like to have that kind of a return?
You have that brought out in, uh, First Corinthians chapter 16. In the last chapter, an example of it in connection with, uh, Stephanus, it says in verse 15, uh, First Corinthians 16 and verse 15. I beseech you, brethren.
You know, the House of that it was that it is the first fruits of A and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the Saints or to the service of the Saints. And there you have an example of one named in Scripture who addicted himself to the servant of the Saints. I'd just like to bring out another aspect of the sacrifice and that is that, uh, we offer something that's exceedingly precious to ourselves and it's precious to God, but it's precious to ourselves.
It's valuable and we.
Present it to another. That's what a sacrifice is in that way. And so your life is precious and, uh, it's uh, filled with all kinds of potential. And it can be potential for the blessing of others, the potential for the honor and glory of, uh, the Lord Jesus himself. And, umm, God isn't going to command you to offer that sacrifice as he did in the Old Testament, but because you have relationship with him that you're brought into such a blessing because of the finished work of Christ.
He just, uh, asked for that sacrifice, as it were. Would you take what is so precious to the Lord, precious to yourself, your own life, and live it for Himself, for His glory?
You know the Marine Corps as they're advertising, where they say they want a few good men and only the best.
And they don't hide the fact that it's very difficult. It's going to be hard. Special forces in the military, the same kind of thing. Yet they have no shortage of people willing to volunteer and go because those who look at it and really examine it know that even though it's difficult and hard, it's worth it.
Now they may do it for personal pride and glory, but the Lord Jesus doesn't hide anything either. Following Him and being a Christian, even in America, isn't easy. Living a life for Christ involves sacrifices. It may involve some kinds of persecution. And as our brother said, we may not be called upon to give our lives in death here in this country. But who knows, as things are changing dramatically, there may be more and more persecution that comes up in this country.
But God tells us in his word that it's difficult, that it can be hard, that there will be sacrifice. But then he says it's worth it. And those who have gone that path before us will turn and tell you in a moment.
00:45:15
Was it worth it? Yes, it's worth it. It's worth it now. But we are promised that in glory. God's stock market, if you will, has great returns, and there's nothing that can corrupt that return there. When it's laid up, it's laid up this life. And the older you get, the more you realize it is a blink. It's a blink. It goes by and eternity is a long time. So if we say, you know what?
Uh, this, this kind of sacrifice is just too much. I have other plans. Yes, I know the Lord is my savior and I know I'm going to be in heaven, uh, when I die. But you know, there are other things that I want to do now. And I think that temptation faces everyone. And we say, well, you know, I, I, I don't really want to give those things up, But what we keep for ourselves, we lose for eternity. What we give up, the investment is multiplied a hundredfold.
But there are some qualifications here in offering ourselves as a living sacrifice. You know, in the Old Testament, when the Israelite brought a sacrifice, it couldn't just be any old sacrifice. It had to be a sacrifice that was according to God's standard. It had to be without blemish. When they brought the, uh, Passover lamb, they had to even keep it for a certain number of days.
To make sure that that lamb was going to be acceptable, that it was without, without spot and without blemish. And so he speaks of this sacrifice of holy, because there must be maintained in our lives, brethren, moral purity. And I just want to make an appeal to the young people because this is a day of lowering standards. This is a day when moral purity is looked at very lightly, or perhaps it isn't even considered at all.
You know, I grew up in an immoral society. I'm afraid our young people are growing up in an amoral society. Morals, there's no standard anymore. Morals are thrown out the window. But it says, again, keep thyself pure.
And we're not our own. We're not to let our bodies go the way we want. Man says just follow the lust, and whatever you desire your body desires to do, just let it go and do it. Is that what God wants? No. And young people, there have been many who have not maintained moral purity in their lives. They've fallen into fornication. They've fallen into moral evil. And it's the one sin that leaves a blight.
A mark on the human body for the rest of their life.
You know, it says of moral evil, a wound, not a scar, but a wound and dishonor shall he get. A wound is something that doesn't heal over. David sinned and he sinned grievously in connection with Bathsheba, and he was happily restored to the Lord, and he was used mightily of the Lord subsequent to his sin, but a sword never departed from his house forever. There was that blight that not that wound that never went away.
And many young people have spoiled their testimony and even though they've been happily restored to the Lord.
They may have been used of the Lord in later life, but there's always been a blight there. There's been a hindrance to their, uh, ministry and a lack of moral weight to their, uh, to their service. Oh, I beg of you, keep yourself pure. He wants us to present our bodies holy, acceptable in a way that is acceptable to God. Which is your reasonable, Or if you notice a more accurate translation.
Intelligence service, you know, again, it's not just that we choose whatever we think is going to be acceptable to God and do our service in a way that we think goes along with, uh, the course of the day and so on. No, it must be in a way that is acceptable to him and it tells us and he, Ephesians, he's abounded to us in all wisdom and intelligence. You and I have an intelligence.
Service to render to God.
Now, again, in the Old Testament, they had a service in connection with the sacrifices, but it wasn't necessarily an intelligent service if we had stepped up to the brazen altar in the wilderness and asked the priests or the Levites now.
00:50:11
Why do you have to do things in a certain way? Why do certain sacrifices have to be filleted in a certain way? And when it's the bird, the head has to be pinched off and the crop and the feathers set aside and this and that. They would have said, look, this is the way God has told us to do it. We've seen what happened to Nadab and Abayu when they didn't go by the letter of the law. And we have no choice in this matter. This is the way God has said it's acceptable.
It was acceptable to God, but it wasn't an intelligent service.
But you and I have an intelligent service. But how are we going to serve wholly, acceptably and intelligently? We must peruse this book, brother. We have the guidebook for our service for God and Christ and to His people here in this book. Sometimes I talk to people, young people, and they say I want to serve the Lord and I'd like to know His mind for me and how I can serve Him. But you talk to them and you find they're not reading their Bible.
You'll never know how to serve God acceptably and intelligent intelligently.
Unless you orderly and consistently and prayerfully with exercise read your Bible every day. So I just say that many Christians say, well, I can serve God whatever way I choose and it doesn't matter what I allow in my life otherwise. No, He wants us to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, but it must be holy.
Acceptable under God, and it must be with intelligence, divine intelligence, which comes from the Word.
Just like to speak a little on the subject of holiness, even though many of our comments we've contrasted what we have.
As Christians with what we find under law, but nevertheless there's principles that we find in the Old Testament. They're just as true today as they were then. Though as Brother Jim has pointed out, there is an intelligence in connection with them that Israel did not have. So Leviticus 18.
It says in verse two, Speak unto the children of Israel and saying to them, I am the Lord your God.
Just just remember that statement, I am Jehovah your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do? And after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, ye shall not do.
Neither shall you walk in their ordinances. Well, that's the principle that's applicable today, as it was then. We walk in a well that's very much like Egypt and the Weld will justify.
Anything as you know today that that would justify that they completely destroy the concept of marriage, they destroy the concept of morality, and they'll have very reasonable arguments as to why they should.
Go over to Chapter 19.
It says you shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Sometimes someone may point to you or me and say you think you're better than me. Well, I'm not holy because I'm better than you. I'm called upon to be holy because God is holy. And that is a principle we find in first Peter. It is something that has not changed. Now look through chapter 19 and I'm mocked about one day. I didn't count them specifically and write them down, but it says you shall fear every man, his mother, his father, and keep my Sabbath. I am Jehovah your God.
Verse four, I am Jehovah your God. Verse 10, I am Jehovah your God. Verse 12, I am Jehovah. And so all these things were presented to Israel. Why? Because there was some logical reason for them in man's sight. No, because in God's sight they are holy. And so there are things that you may reason in your mind as to well what can, what harm can there be in that first thing you need to ask yourself.
Is this what Egypt is doing? Is this what the world around me is doing? That's a good reason right there why I shouldn't do it. And what does God have to say about it? I may not understand his reason why.
You know, when, uh, when we're, my children were little, I might say to them, don't do this. They have no reason and no, no way of knowing why, but it's for their own safety and their own good. And one day we'll find out why God has made us the way he has made us and why doing certain things, particularly in connection with moral things in our lives can be so destructive. As Jim said, they can leave a mark and they will leave a mark on this for the rest of our lives. Why they can be so destructive doesn't mean to say that God can't heal us in those things.
00:55:07
You can't deliver us from those things, but nevertheless.
Just, you know, I, I look at spring, it's beautiful. The leaves come out on the trees and they're perfect. But by the time fall comes around, they're scarred and damaged. Well, that's kind of like our bodies and we're gonna be raised and you and have changed bodies, but.
That's that's the sort of things that this world can do to us, can leave us scarred and wounded. There's a reason why God has asked us not to do these things, even if we don't understand, despite the fact that we do have spiritual intelligence.
So he goes on to say, be not conformed to the world. If we were to bring a chameleon in here and put him on this green carpet, he would soon conform to the color of this carpet we have. We, uh, scare him and he climbs up the wall. He soon conforms. He becomes a tan color. He conforms to the color of the wall. They call it camouflage amongst the lower creation. And God has given them that ability to survive and protect themselves.
But brethren, that's not how the Christian survives in this world. We don't survive in this world be by becoming chameleons are conformed to it. A young man went off to college one time and after a year of college he came home and some a brother asked him. He said well how did you survive as a Christian at college? All he says they said they never found out that I was a Christian. That's as being a spiritual chameleon and that is not what God has given us to survive as a Christian.
In this world, but I would like to also say a word in the context of this expression in the second verse, because we have just done it and we often do, and rightly so, apply this expression, be not conformed to the world in connection with many outward things. But I believe in the context here in Romans it appli, it is, uh, brings before us something else, a very important principle. You know, the world, the man of the world draws a circle around himself.
Puts himself in the center of the circle and he does everything for himself.
That's what the world's event is. That's what the bent of a natural man is.
They talk about me first. You know, I grew up in the me first generation. This is the me only generation. But nevertheless, that's the bend of the natural man. But that is not to be the way it is for the believer. The believer now is not to be the center of his life and his world, but it's Christ as the center of his world. And when Christ is the center, when we, we don't.
Conform to the way of the world and the natural man. Then Christ is the center and Christ's interests are taken up as important in our lives. We put Christ and his interests first. We then are able to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice in service to himself and in service.
To, to one another and let's stop. And I, I just stopped and examined my own soul. You know, they, the world says it's all about me and I'm #1 and I have my rights and I owe it to myself and so on. But what about Christ? Is Christ really the center of our thoughts, the center of our world? If he is, then it will be Christ, his interests and then ourselves that's not being conformed to the world.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
Yet not I, but Christ. That should be emblazoned across our foreheads, yet not high, but Christ. It's the opposite of that expression. The Me generation. We ought to be called the Christ generation. Yet not I, but Christ.
Says in verse 2, be transformed by the renewing of your mind and so the outward is transformed by the inward, not the other way around. I mean you can put a nice looking coat and jacket on and a tie, but be a terrible mess on the inside.
And just, uh, perhaps, uh.
In in the very sense that Jim said that being conformed up to the world is used in Romans. But in in first John, it says 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. That's written by John and as we often say, the abstract way that he writes, but.
01:00:03
When it says the love of the Father is not in him as believers have a little note that I wrote my Bible. At some point the Father's love should possess us. You know, if we are trying to possess the Father, we will fall down. If we are trying to put on the outward without the inward, we will fail. But if we understand what God has done on the inward and if we understand the Father's love for us, then.
The the attractions in this world are gonna fade away. Just in connection with some of the very opening comments about wrecking ourselves dead and so on. I just wanna point out to your young people that there will always be that inside of you that will respond to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. How blessed. And Savior did not have a nature that responded to any of those things. Satan could set before him whatever, and there was not.
Anything. Anything in him that would respond to them but you and I.
There is something in us where as a man put in front of us a a picture of a beautiful woman. There is something inside of me and you that's going to respond to that. And it's true as a sister as well. And I could go through whatever and Satan knows how weakness is. It's not gonna go away. It's not gonna be changed. We are simply to recognize that it's done with done with in the sight of God. But.
Sometimes we can so struggle with those things because we keep finding within ourselves that which responds to these lusts that Satan delights to set before us in that struggle that we read about in Romans 7 in particular. But to recognize that God has done away with it, that that we don't have to be under control of it, that's, that's the position that we should find ourselves.
First Corinthians chapter five, he said God sanctify you, Holy Spirit, soul and body. And here we're talking about our bodies and having.
Our, uh, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So the transformation is a result of what occupies our minds. And if the one that's occupying our mind is the Lord Jesus, that's who we're gonna be resembling. That's who we're gonna be transformed like.
We with all the open faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, I transformed into the same image from glory to glory. It's it's a passive thing because of an active thing going on. And the active thing going on is our mind being renewed as we look at the Lord and learn of Him. If we read the scriptures, if we spend time in fellowship with the Lord and one another, that's what's gonna be on our minds and that's gonna be showing up in our lives. If all we read is a newspaper and watch television, that's how we're gonna be transformed. And we're gonna be transformed to look like the world and think like the world and speak like the world.
Being conformed also has the aspect to it that the world brings outward pressures upon us to form us or to press us into a form that, uh, will not touch their consciences. And, umm, so the Lord is working with us to form us, or to press us, as it were, into the very image of Christ, that we might display the glory of God in this scene. Because the only, uh, glimpse of Christ that this world ever sees is in your face and mine.
And in your life and mine. And so as I say, the world is trying to press you into a ma, into a mold. You know, when I was in business, I used to buy injection molds or steel stamping dyes. And, uh, there was a tremendous amount of pressure brought to bear upon molten plastic. Perhaps 60 tons or 100 tons of pressure to press that piece of molten plastic into the image of the mold that was, uh, it was pressed into. And uh, this world brings tremendous influence and pressure.
Into the life of a believer, to try to conform you in your thoughts, in your attitudes, and in your motives, to be conformed to how the world is thinking about politics, by how the world is thinking about being green and all those sorts of things. But then there's also the pressure outwardly to look like the world, to talk like the world and to dress like the world, to, uh, own the cars that the world has and enjoys and, uh, to live in the fancy neighborhoods, all those things.
And the Lord just desires that we would be formed into the image of Christ himself, who was a stranger in a Pilgrim in this scene. And uh, he walked as a stranger and he was a happy man because he would not allow this world to appropriate him in any way.
He was pressed into the form of God. He was God the Son, and God wants you and I to live as the sons of God. I'd like to stress this thought about the mind too, and Michelle brought it up because it's very important. And I believe the great attack of the enemy today is to fill the mind with everything that is not of God and of Christ and with everything that is absolutely filthy and unholy.
01:05:27
Just seems like you can hardly drive down the road anymore without seeing something on a billboard with you can hardly stand at the checkout line at the counter without seeing something to fill your mind. And you almost feel like you need to be a horse, like a horse with blinders. But I'd like to just notice a portion in Colossians that I think is very helpful. Our brother Michelle quoted that portion in Corinthians about, umm, the, uh, to being occupied with Christ and, uh, in the measure in which we're occupied with Christ.
Will be transformed and so on.
It's like Moses, you know when he came down from the mount having been occupied and in the presence of God on the mount. His face shone. There was an unconscious reflection of being in the presence of God. He he wished not that his face Shawn. He didn't try to make it shine. It was just the unconscious reflection. But I want to notice in connection with the mind here in Colossians chapter 3 verse one. If he then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above.
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Now notice this next verse. Set your notice your margin, and Mr. Darby translates it. Not affection, but mind. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hit with Christ in God. Why is it really the mind? Because again, the mind affects us more than we think. What we take in in our mind is eventually going to affect our hearts.
And we need to be careful, brethren, to fill our minds with Christ.
And how are we going to do that? Well, our brethren have alluded to it. It's to read the Word of God. Wherever you read in the Word of God, the subject is always Christ. How are we going to know what's holy and acceptable by the standard of the world? Not for one moment. Their standards are gone. They're out the window. How are we going to know? We're going to know only from this, this book. And we need to set our mind on things above. We need to be occupied with Christ.
Where he is, he's not here in this world. He wasn't of this world. I am not of this world.
They are not of this world, uh, even as I am not of this world and he's gone from this world. He's above now. He's glorified at the right hand of God. Are we occupied with him where he is now? Are we setting our minds on things above? Are we to empty our minds rather never. I I've often given this warning, but I, I'm gonna give it again because it's serious. You know, we send our children and young people off to school and in some school districts.
There is this great movement to have the children empty their minds. It's all done under the guise of relaxation. But there is never a precedent in scripture that would teach us to empty the mind. It really is Eastern meditation. It it has to do with the occult and Eastern religion, and some of us have seen it first hand. And if we empty our minds?
The enemy is gonna have plenty to fill that vacuum. What are we to do with our minds, brethren? We're to bring every thought into captivity under the obedience of Christ. We're to fill our minds with Christ.
David said, Thou anointest my head with oil. The head is the mind, and it's having our thoughts governed from the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, that Christ might fill our minds. Well, that's what's gonna preserve us, brethren. And so it says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not the thoughts of the world, not the way the world thinks, but to have God's thoughts concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then we're going to be able to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You go to the world and their counselors, you're never gonna learn the will of God there. They might have some advice for what courses to take in school or how the job market's swinging or something like that. But you're never going to have, you're never going to know the will of God, the perfect will of God, unless you fill your mind with God's thoughts of Christ from this book.
01:10:08
A simple example.
Of the of a process.
You see some advertising about ice cream.
Well, it was set before your eyes is the person of the Lord Jesus. If you read the scriptures, the results should be.
Not that you make yourself love the Lord more. You're gonna love the Lord back because you're gonna be enjoying His love and you're gonna be wanting to do something for Him. And what distance would you be ready for? To go for an ice cream cone? And I said, what distance would you be ready to go to? Please. That one that fills your heart with His love and that you love back.
I believe this is the secret of our lives. You know, we can be doing a lot of things for the Lord, but what we're doing for the Lord is that the result of my enjoyment of His love and loving Him back. The Lord sees the motives why we do things. We can look good before our brethren because we're doing things for the Lord. Everybody sees that. But the Lord sees in our hearts why we're doing that, and He's looking for responsive love because of His love.
In a practical way, to take your illustration a little further, if you were on a diet and you saw the Dairy Queen and you start thinking the way you're thinking, well, what do you do about that?
We had bringing into captivity.
Or how do you cap I, I? I have a mental image of a cowboy lassoing a horse.
How about girding up the loins of your mind? Suppose a thought process starts and we we Daydream. It's easy to your thoughts just start going well if they've been influenced by something. If you're on a diet and it's ice cream, you don't want to be doing that. Well, what do you do? I'm not going to think about ice cream. I'm not going to think about ice cream. The more you do that, the more you think about ice cream, you know, uh-huh. It it just doesn't work like that, But you can catch when you catch yourself thinking.
Down a pathway.
My wife and I, we call them little rabbit trails.
Are trails that go down to the river of funk or some place when you catch yourself you notice it. My thoughts are going down a road. I don't want to go there. You can refuse it. I don't. I don't want to go that road and right of way if you've been reading the word.
The Spirit of God brings thoughts that balance, that those thoughts out something other than that you recognize it for what it is, that perhaps the enemy has dropped a seed of thought, some of his advertising to get you to think down this pathway. You catch it, you guard against it, you bring it upshore. And then what's the best thing to do? You replace it with another thought. And the Spirit of God is very good at drawing out the word of God.
That will bring a good thought and a right thought, and there's a renewing going on. You know, one of those old blessed farmers from Iowa that I grew up around gave an illustration that when you have a dirty sponge.
And you want to clean it.
You have to put it in clean water and squeeze it.
And then again and again. And each time you do, if you put a sponge in clean water and you ring it out, you see The Dirty going out. But each time you do it, it's cleaner and cleaner and cleaner. But we have that interesting expression about the washing of water by the word. And I think about that, how that when the word of God, just reading it, thinking about it, listening to it, it just goes through and it's like that sponge being squeezed, it just washes away some of those things.
I remember Gordon Hayhoe once in a meeting years ago saying that, you know, one of the things about renewing the mine has to do with bringing our thoughts in line and that the the what the enemy does, he attacks us to have wrong thoughts about ourselves and wrong thoughts about God. And the the world, of course, is that way. The enemy is that way. And when we get our thoughts filled with the word of God, our thoughts about ourselves get corrected and our thoughts about God get corrected.
If we are brought to a place where we begin to doubt the goodness of God because of some circumstances in our lives, what's going to renew that? What's going to bring our thoughts back into line with the truth of this book? It's going to be the words of this book, and the Spirit of God can bring those out. But if you don't read this book, how can you bring it out? If if it isn't put into the well, how can you draw it back out again? Well, he could perform a miracle and bring something to mind. You've never read, I suppose, or never heard.
01:15:21
But he doesn't do that. He draws out what's already been put in there. One day I was a little bit surprised when I read that you could literally read this book from front to back in 72 hours.
If you can read this Bible in 72 hours from Genesis to the Revelation physically, that would be a hard thing to sit down and do directly in line.
Well, what problem do we have with actually getting through this book and reading?
While the enemy has a vested interest in keeping a believer away from this, and if he can do that, then there's plenty of things. There aren't all evil, they're not all.
File. They're not all immoral, but we can get occupied with seemingly good things, interesting things about nature, about industry, about the jobs we do, or just in areas of interest we have. And the enemy is happy with that too. If we can just be filled up with those. There may be a hobby, be filled up too much with that, out of balance with that, instead of a balance of the things that we need from this book that will draw us on and clean our minds, renew our minds, and have Christ be the foremost.
So that we can have a true romance with our Lord Jesus.
Lessons in Paul's Life
Address—Robert Boulard
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#22 in the appendix.
And abroad.
Here's what I don't think about.
Phone number.
For.
1.
Bless us, the Lord's blessing in our meeting, our loving God and our Father. We thank thee for the Lord Jesus, our Savior, not one of whom we've been singing, who has delighted our hearts in some measure. We think of the how the how it's worked, wrought our God by Thy Spirit to give us joy in the Holy Ghost.
To give us joy that might exceed the joy that this world ever experiences.
They're the pleasure of sin for a season. And so we just pray our God, our Father, that the Lord Jesus this afternoon might be exalted and that, uh, our hearts might be taken up with him. And that, uh, the portions of Scripture that are taken up and enjoyed together, that, uh, thou, let's bring out those, uh, thoughts and, uh, bring up those passages that, uh, might be for benefit for us here this afternoon. So we pray and ask you to bless our, thy precious word and our time together and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I'd like to look this afternoon in the book of the Acts and follow a few of the incidents in Paul's life.
In his work of service for the Lord and how he began and there were intervals in his period of service.
For the Lord, there were times where he was at home, as it were, for two or three years. And umm, sometimes perhaps you thought the way I did, that when the apostle Paul was, uh, saved, he immediately began to preach. And he immediately began in his work of service for the Lord. And in some measure there is some truth to that. But really he entered the school of God and every time that he had a little interval, why, there were lessons to learn.
And you and I never, never leave the school of God until we get home to the glory.
And so if you turn to Acts Chapter 9, we'll just read a couple of verses there.
In connection with his conversion, Chapter 9 and umm, verse one, it says, Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shrine round about him, a light from heaven, And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said.
Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest, just to hold your place there, and turn to Acts chapter 26.
And, umm.
Just at the end of verse 14.
00:05:01
It says, there it is hard for thee to kick against the ******. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecute us, but rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose.
To make the administer and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom I now I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith. That is in me. Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
Well, you know, we read about this, uh, little incident. The Lord arrested Paul on the road to Damascus and he has this conversation. We get some detail of the conversation in Acts chapter 26 of what took place between the Lord Jesus, the Son of God who loved Paul, gave himself for him and how he had that conversation. He was going to send them. He was going to be the apostle to the Gentiles. But then you read a little bit further on here in Chapter 9.
And verse 17 perhaps we could read from there, it says, an Ananias went his way and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales, And he received sight forthwith and arose, and most baptized. And when he had received meat he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus, and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogue, that he was the Son of God.
And then in verse 23 it says after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him.
But their lying in wait was known of Saul, and they watched the gate today and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night and let him down by the wall in the basket.
Well, we'll stop right there. You know, the Apostle Paul was there in Umm Damascus for approximately 3 years and this is what it says in verse 23. It says after that many days were fulfilled. So we're going to notice some of those terms that the Spirit of God uses.
And you might say, as I sometimes have thought, you know, in connection with Moses, Moses was, uh, given the Commission of the Lord to lead the children of Israel out of, uh, Egypt. And, uh, it was 40 years that he was in the wilderness, 40 years he was being trained of God. And after those 40 years, he was, umm, introduced to Pharaoh and there was a deliverance for the people of God. But when it comes to the apostle Paul here.
Now called Saul, he was given that earthly name. You know what that name means? It means.
Unrestrained.
Unrestrained. He was a man who was unrestrained, unrestrained by his desires. And it took the work of God himself, Christ, to rest him on the road to Damascus, to be able to save his precious soul and to make him useful and to change his name. A little further on. We find in chapter 13 that God changes one letter to his word, to his name, changes it to Paul. And Paul means restrained. And it's the work of God in your life and mine to restrain us from getting our own way.
To restrain us from walking in the flesh and wasting our lives in this scene, as we've read in uh, Romans chapter 12, how he beseeches us to offer to him our lives, our bodies, a living sacrifice. And so Paul or Saul here was in Damascus and he was there for three years. We find that he did preach in the, in the synagogues in verse 20, but you know, he didn't go immediately out into.
The work of evangelism among the Gentiles. Let's just turn to Philippians Chapter 2.
I want to just suggest that there was a reason why he didn't go out immediately.
Philippians, Chapter 2.
Our chapter 3 I should say.
In verse 4.
Let's just read the last part of verse 3, Philippians 3 and verse three. The last part says have no confidence in the flesh.
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any man otherwise thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
Circumcise the 8th day. The stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, is touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the Church of God, touching righteousness, which is in the law blameless. But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost, 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 done, that I may win Christ.
00:10:30
Well, Paul or Saul was in the school of God for those three years in Damascus. You know, the Lord Jesus was crucified in approximately the year AD 29. And, uh, Paul was saved. Perhaps we'll just refer him to, to Paul. We're so used to calling him Paul. He was saved approximately 8036. So that's about seven years after the Lord Jesus was, uh, crucified, rose again and was.
On high in the glory, seven years later, this man is saved and he spends three years in Damascus and then he had to be let down in a basket, let down the wall in a basket. He was a very proud Jew. He was one that was elevated among the Jews. I'm just going to quote several scriptures here, but in Galatians chapter one and verse 14, you don't need to turn to it, but I'll mention it here. It says that he profited in the Jews religion above many mine equals.
In my own nation, being exceeding more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my father's.
So here was a man who was very energetic and umm, above his equals, his counterparts, his contemporaries in the Jewish religion. And now he was going to be in Damascus, in a place apart, and he was going to learn what it was to be alone with God. And he was going to learn that all that he valued in life, the position that he occupied among the Jews, was worthless. It was dung.
And all that he gloried in, in the flesh. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. There was no Gentile blood in him.
He had everything going for him as a Jew, but he had to learn in the presence of God.
That was worthless.
And this is the lesson, the first lesson that God wants to teach you and I after we're saved, is that the flesh profiteth nothing. You know, the Lord Jesus said those words in John's Gospel, chapter six, I think it's verse 63. He says the flesh.
Profiteth nothing.
I'm glad the Lord said that, you know, Paul says in Romans. I think it's Chapter 7.
He says, I know that in me that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
He had learned some of those lessons and so God desires that, uh, we learn early in life as those that belong to Christ, that the flesh profiteth nothing, that he's not going to use the energy of the flesh to accomplish things in the spiritual realm. Well, then you have another lesson in connection with Paul's life. And just in the latter part of verse Chapter 9 of Acts, it says here.
In verse 26, when Paul was come to Jerusalem, he has saved to join himself to the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and believed not that he was a disciple.
But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto him unto them, how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus, And when he he was with them, coming in and going out at Jerusalem, Then just hold your place there, and turn gain to Galatians chapter.
One and it says umm in verse 17.
This is perhaps the first time that Paul went to Jerusalem. It says neither went I up to Jerusalem. Galatians chapter one verse 17. Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia.
And returned again into Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter.
And abode with him 15 days. And so perhaps he was there for 15 days.
But then he left there and I just want to point out why he left. If you look a little further on in Acts chapter, I think it's umm.
Perhaps chapter 24 knows chapter 22 and verse 17. It came to pass that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. And he I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee. And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.
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And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. While we find that Paul was there in Jerusalem for about two weeks. And the reason perhaps that he left is the Lord told him to leave. It wasn't going to be his work in Jerusalem. And so he came. And they brethren, it says in Chapter 9 of Acts verse 28.
Verse 29 He spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians, but they went about to slay him.
Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.
Then have the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied. Well, we find here in this second period of time that Paul was probably in Tarsus approximately 2 years.
And, umm, we're not told specifically what he was doing, but you know, in chapter 18 of Acts, it says that, uh, he abode with, uh, Aquila, uh, and Priscilla because they were of the same craft. And perhaps he was there and he was, uh, perhaps doing some tent work and uh, he was occupying, but umm, he still wasn't out preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. He was still two years, He was at Tarsus. Why was he there? The Lord had told him that he would be used mightily to go to the Gentiles.
And yet he was there and perhaps may have questioned why.
But you know, I believe he was perhaps studying the word of God. I believe the example here for each one of us is that, umm, we need to be found, uh, studying the word of God, reading the Word of God and, uh, being occupied with the things of God while we wait for the Lord to use us in one way or another. You know, Paul could have got very, very impatient and perhaps some of the impatience came out when he went to Jerusalem, but he wasn't.
Uh, out of that school of God, as it were, perhaps he learned something of what it was of the flesh and that God wasn't going to use the religious flesh to bring blessing to his people. But now he comes to Tarsus, his hometown, and, umm, he's there for a couple of years and he's still in the house in the school of God. And I just bring these couple of portions of scripture out because, you know, beloved brethren and young people particularly, sometimes we find ourselves in a station of life.
Where we're impatient and we want to get going and we feel like there's so much to do and we we're just so impatient. We're sure that we need to be up and about and doing something and in service. But you know, Paul or Saul had learned to be a very good Jew and now he had to unlearn to be a very good Jew. He had to learn what it was to value the person and the work of Christ. He had to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus and the Lord allows you and your youth particularly.
To sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus and to learn His Word while you're young.
I want to ask you this afternoon, are you sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus? Are you in your home assembly characterized by going to all of the home, the assembly meetings, the reading meeting, the prayer meeting, and uh, going to all of the meetings. And are you spending time alone in the presence of God with the word of God and perhaps some written ministry? Why? We find here that Paul, I believe, was being educated by the Lord while he waited three years.
In Damascus, two years in Tarsus, his hometown, and then when he's in Tarsus, there's a call that comes one day and we'll just turn to that. It acts a little bit further on in Acts.
Chapter 11.
And umm, let's read from verse 19.
Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution abroad.
Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Finici and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word to none, but unto Jews only, and some of them which were men.
Some were men of Cyprus and Cyreni, which when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecian, preaching the Lord Jesus, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.
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Then tidings of these things came under the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch, who, when he came and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord, for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. And much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul, And when he had found him, he brought him unto unto Antioch.
And it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church, and taught much people. And the disciples were were called Christians first in Antioch, and in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified the Spirit by the Spirit, that there should be great earth throughout all the world, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief under the brethren.
Which dwelt in Judea, which they also, which also they did and sent it by the to the elders, by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. While this is the third interval in Umm Nepal's ministry in Nepal's life. And he had been quietly waiting in Tarsus. He had been occupied, perhaps in a profitable way, but restrained by the Lord. And, uh, when the time came that, uh, there was work for him to do among the Gentiles.
God saw to it.
That he was sent for, not the grace of God, not the kindness of the Lord. You and I can trust the Lord to sit where we are and to wait until he calls us to do a work for himself until he just, uh, perhaps your work is to just bolster the little home assembly where you are, to strengthen it and to maintain that little testimony of those gathered by the precious name to the precious name of the Lord Jesus where you are. And to bolster, to hold it up to, to defend it and to earnestly contend as was read to us.
Earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the Saints. But here there were some results of sitting in the presence of the Lord, of learning what it was to be nothing. And Saul, it says that Barnabas came, and it says that he found him. He brought him to Antioch, and it came to pass. The whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And his disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
Well, you know, this term Christians is only used three times, I think in the New Testament, and this is one of them. Another time is in connection with Agrippa, when Paul was preaching to Agrippa and uh, he says almost I'll persuade us, me to be a Christian. But then in first Peter, umm, at the, uh, Lord tells us, or Peter tells us by inspiration that umm, umm, we might suffer as being Christians and that we're not to be ashamed if we're suffering as Christians.
But here, you know, the effect of Paul's ministry among those that were in Antioch was such that they lived like Christ, they lived like heavenly citizens. And all ministry in the Spirit will always present Christ as one who is worthy of being the object for our lives and will present, uh, Christ as that heavenly man and present us as heavenly citizens. And these dear ones heard of Christ.
And they wanted to be just like him. Is that how you want to be? You want to be just like Christ? Are you striving by the grace of God to read the Scriptures and to learn what it is to be just like God's man? God wants heaven to be full of those that are just like his Son and every he's going to have his way. But you and I, as we sit in our seats and as we walk to work and and we do our errands in the neighborhood, all those things.
Before this world and in the assembly to why he desires that we would be found characterized as being heavenly people. And so they were heavenly people. They were characterized by that and Paul here is revealed as being a teacher. You'll have 3 gifts that are mentioned in these this little passage. One is Barnabas in connection with how he exhorted them. Umm, all that with purpose of heart they should cleave under the Lord. He was a shepherd. He was a pastor and, uh, he was perhaps there were evangelists that had come in and, and.
Spoke in the gospel a little earlier here in Antioch.
And umm, they were souls saved. Then the pastor and the shepherd comes in. And then the teacher.
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Comes in, teaches truth. How did Paul know the truth? He'd sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus and umm, he had learned the truth of God in connection with Christianity and he was able to teach these ones. And then it says little further on in verse 29, the disciples, then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which were which dwelt in Judea. So those three things characterized those the result of Paul's work.
One is that they were called Christians first in Antioch. What an effect it had on those dear ones. And then they, umm, uh, Paul was a teacher. He taught those people and then here they sent relief. There was practical Christianity. They had a love for their brethren and they showed it in a practical way. They were unselfish. We read in Romans of how, and it spoke of it a little bit in Hebrews perhaps of.
How I'm not going to be able to quote it, so let's just turn to Hebrews chapter 13 and it says in verse 16, Hebrews 13 and verse 16, to do good and to communicate. Forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. And so to do good and to communicate it means to take of the goods that we have and to give them to someone else.
To take something that's valuable to myself and present it to someone else who might need it more than I need it. And so this is what these dear brethren did.
And so this lesson, perhaps, is that Paul learns in this interval of time.
Is that there's a real blessing to the people of God when we wait for God's time.
And I just want to say again, I want to encourage you, dear young people, God doesn't want a lot of activity. He wants your hearts. My son, give me thine heart. He wants your heart. He wants your heart's affections. And if the heart's infections are right and you're willing to wait in his presence, you're willing to sit in the presence of God with the word of God to learn the truth of God. There'll be a time when you're sitting in the presence of the Lord and doing little, uh, meditating perhaps, and the Lord may present something to you as some work of service.
But let's be careful not to, uh, be, umm, active in a place that we ought not to be active. And so this is, uh, a lesson that Paul needed to learn. Well, let's just turn to chapter 12 here a little bit further on and, uh, read in verse 24.
It says the word of God grew and multiplied, and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry.
For their service and took with them John, whose surname was Mark. Now there were in the church that was an Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaean, which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where until I have called them.
And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away, or they let them go, So being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Silusia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. Well, you know, this is an interesting little interval. And Saul's life, he came back from Jerusalem with the after having delivered the offering that the Saints had in Antioch, and he came back to Antioch.
And.
He was there, it says certain days and umm, I thought it was certain days in this passage. Maybe it's not in this particular passage, but he was there for a little while and uh, he was working, uh, doing a little work of service in the local assembly, as it were in verse two. They ministered to the Lord. They serve the Lord. They refreshed the heart of the Lord right where they were and they fasted that is they denied the flesh. They denied the.
Desires of the flesh that you and I have. We always want to gratify the flesh that we're speaking.
Uh, this, after this morning, perhaps that ice cream cone and how we love to have that ice cream cone. Well, you know, those that fast deny themselves that they, those little pleasures, as it were, that they might live for the Lord, for the glory of the Lord. And so Paul was characterized with walking with these different ones of.
Serving the Lord verse 2 fasting and then in verse three prayer means dependence upon the Lord. They were did those three things.
And I would just want to point this out in connection with this little interval of time in Paul's life, is that he had other friends that he was walking with the Lord with.
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Your friends and my friends have a great effect upon us.
And Saul had those that would encourage him in a path of faith.
You know, there was a sister, young sister that was recent, recently visiting at home and she came home from, uh, a trip away from home. She came to see her parents and uh, she still lives at home. She got home, you know, and she said mom and dad.
I've been going to university and I've got friends.
I've been going to the meetings, I've got friends. I've been going to conferences, I've got friends. I'm going to have to make some serious choices. I've got things that I need to sort out. I need to choose who my friends are going to be.
Or her parents rejoice to hear such a exercise of soul. You haven't exercised a soul in that connection. No, these men, these five men were in the presence of God.
In their local assembly, and God was desiring to send the apostle out, Saul and Barnabas, he prepared them in a special way that they might go to the Gentiles. And umm, what a lesson it was that Paul could know that if he was devoted to the Lord, and he was waiting, that the Lord would in his good time order that he would go to the Gentiles.
You and I would get very impatient. He might have said, you know what's been six years now and, uh, I've gone to from, uh, Tarsus to, uh, Antioch and there's been a nice year there. And, and then, umm, he's back in Antioch. And he wondered if, uh, perhaps there was any more work that he would do for the Lord any other place that he could go. But God was working behind the scenes and here Saul was prepared and God was going to send him. And So what a lesson it is for us to to wait, let the Lord have his way and not to be impatient while we wait in our home assembly in our trained by him.
Well, let's just turn chapter 14 and verse 26.
And umm, let's just read from verse 26. Vents sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled. And when they were come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how that he had opened the door of faith under the Gentiles. And there abode they abode long time with the disciples. And a certain man which came down from Judea, certain men which came down from Judea, taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
When, therefore, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other with them, should go up to Jerusalem under the apostles and elders about this question.
Well, I just want to point this out in connection with Paul's life in his work of service here. It says in the end of verse 28 or in verse 28 they there, they abode long time with the disciples. Not nice. You know, we need to be going in, we need to be going out and Paul here.
Was at home in his home assembly and after a bit of a missionary journey, the first missionary journey, he comes back to umm, Antioch gives him a report of all those things that, uh, had taken place and, umm, here we find that, uh, he's just waiting in the presence of the Lord many days and he was in the right place at the right time because you know, the enemy. This was approximately 10 years after the.
Church was formed and the enemy was seeking to destroy the assembly and the Lord by His grace saw to it that Saul or Paul here would be in his home assembly at the right place at the right time when the there was a test that came. And it says that the brethren, they were taught some that were Jews. It says a little bit further on verse five, chapter 15 and verse five, there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believe saying that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
Well, we find that they were of the Pharisees, those that had believed. And the enemy wanted to mix something of Judaism and something of Christianity and mix it and corrupt it. And the enemy of our souls is seeking to corrupt the truth of God, seeking to corrupt the gospel, seeking to add something to the truth of God, Christ and something else, not just Christ. It's got to be Christ and something else.
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No, God's man, Christ Jesus, is the one.
Who God desires to exalt and to glorify. And so Paul here was in Antioch and he was used of God as we find to be able to refute the error that was being taught. Now I would just ask you here this afternoon.
You know what Paul's doctrine is. Do you know if, if I was to ask you this afternoon, what is Paul's doctrine, could you give me perhaps the four basic elements of Paul's doctrine? Could you say something about it? You know, in Hammer Bay we have a little meeting room on a busy road and, uh, a couple of, uh, brethren came in to the gospel meeting, umm, about two years ago and, umm, they were perhaps what you might call open brethren.
And they came in and they sat down and brother and his wife and they stayed for the whole gospel meeting. And then at the end of that gospel meeting, the sister came up to my wife and she said, uh, I'd like to ask you a personal question. And she said, what, what do you have on your heart? And she says, why do you sisters wear head covering? Why you sisters wear head covering? And, uh, so she asked, she turned to 1St Corinthians Chapter 11 and read a few verses of Scripture.
And explain to her that you know it was a place of submission that the woman has.
In God's creation and that there is a display of the glory of the natural glory and beauty of the of the natural man when the hair of the woman is displayed and the glory of the first Adam is never to be displayed in the presence of God. And so in divine things, the head of the sister needs to be covered. It's a picture too, you know, of Christ in the church and how the church is in perfect submission to the.
God to to the Lord Jesus the head in glory. Well, she went over those things and and you know, this sister said, I never heard such things. I never heard. You know, brethren, we need to know why we're doing why we're doing what we're doing. We need to know what we're doing, why we're doing what we're doing. And we need to search out the truth for ourselves and enjoy the truth of God. We need to know that Paul's doctrine takes in the fact that the Lord Jesus is coming.
He's coming back again, and God tells us by Paul's ministry how he's going to come again.
I was visiting with some brethren that at a restaurant and they wanted to know what it was to be gathered to the Lord's name. We spoke a little bit with them and just before we got started gave thanks for the coffee and a couple of pieces of pie and that sort of thing. And I think there were half a dozen of us there. And the brother that had contacted us, he said, I want to ask you one question before we get started. He said, when is the Lord coming?
No one in the Christian circles. Everyone has a different opinion as to when the Lord Jesus is coming.
And umm, I said, well, let's turn to 1St Thessalonians Chapter 4. And we read that. We read.
A few other passages of scripture Matthew chapter 25 and Luke chapter 10 in connection with the two days that.
The innkeeper was given 2 Pence provision for two days and I said it's very obvious that the Lord Jesus is coming. The very next event that the church is looking for is the coming of the Lord and he said correct.
There's a lot of confusion in the Christian testimony in professing Christendom. Do you thank God for the truth of God? Do you thank God you have written ministry that you can read, that you can count on, that is solid?
My heart was burdened and wept when I thought of our South Korean brethren who came to Richmond, BC and umm spent 12/14/16 hours a day over the Word of God pouring over the scriptures.
Reading Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 and going over the picture of the church history.
In that passage of Scripture, reading something of the seven feasts of Jehovah, and having the.
The truth unfolded something of Paul's doctrine, something of what it meant to be gathered to the Lord's name.
On the ground of one body. Not an independency like the open brethren, but on the ground of the one body. Oh, they search the Scriptures diligently. They wanted to know what the truth was. And dear young people, if you don't have that earnestness, that desire right now, ask the Lord for.
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Time is running out. We need to be solid. We need to know what the truth of God is for ourselves. Well, Paul was there, learn that lesson that he needed to be in that place, the right place at the right time. Let's just look a little further on in chapter 15 and it says in verse 30. So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle, which when they had read, they rejoiced for the consolation.
And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them.
And after that they had carried their space, they were let go in peace from the brethren unto the apostles, notwithstanding a police silence to abide there still Paul also, and Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of Lord.
And many others also. And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again, and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.
And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take them with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other. And Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And he went through Syrian silicia, confirming the churches. Then came he to Derby and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Demotheus.
The son of a certain woman which was a Jewess and believed, but his father was a Greek.
Well, here we find Paul and Barnabas again at Antioch and umm, there was a little interval of time that they were there.
And there was a little falling out between Barnabas and Paul.
This was AD 51. They began to work in approximately began to work together approximately 8041. So they had been working together, laboring together among the people of God for 10 years. It was a low point in Paul's life. It was perhaps the lowest point in his Christian life when there were those a dear beloved brother who was a comfort to him, comfort to many of his brethren. And there came a point where Paul.
Had to separate from Barnabas.
And his heart was broken, no doubt. But you know, he learned this lesson at this time that there were a couple of things that he learned. One of them was, you know, that family sometimes interferes in the things of God. And each one of us has to live before God as an individual. And we need to, we find ourselves responsible before the Lord as individuals. You know, Barnabas had a he was, I think John Mark was a cousin to Barnabas.
And so there was family relationship there. And oh, how nice, you know, Paul didn't hold it against John Mark, but I believe there was discernment in Paul's life, in Paul's soul, and he knew that John Mark wasn't ready for this trip. And Barnabas wouldn't agree with them. And we find that Barnabas, even though his name is mentioned perhaps something like 24 times in the New Testament after this, mentioned maybe only once or twice in the epistles.
And so Paul learned a lesson in this interval of time as he was at Antioch, and that is that, uh, family interfere. Sometimes we need to walk with God and uh, as individuals try to encourage one another. But isn't it nice that we can be thankful for those in our family, husband and wise brothers and sisters, sons and daughters that walk with God. Oh, thank God for them. But beloved brethren, Paul had to learn that he couldn't choose who he was going to work with.
God was going to choose and here perhaps we say Paul chose Silas. He was there available, and uh, God honored that choice. Silas, an older man, went with Paul, but God raised up a man, Timothy. Why is it that God mentions Timothy in chapter 16 and verse one? I believe I've enjoyed it in my own soul. That was at the lowest point perhaps in Paul's history as one that was working for the Lord.
And that that very lowest point here, the Lord introduces him to Timothy, a young man. And I look into the faces of some of you, dear brethren who are older in the faith, in the path of faith, and you've walked with God. You sought to strengthen the assembly where you are.
00:45:00
You sought to uphold the truth of God, to minister the truth in the assembly, and you wonder sometimes how the assembly is going to continue on one more generation. You just wonder where the young men are, and you wish they'd sell their boats and their motorcycles and all those things and take up seriously with the things of God. You wonder about the young men. I want to say this, that God is raising up those that are like Timothy in the day that we live in, and we may not see them, but you pray and ask the Lord to raise them up. And you see to it that you read the Scriptures and keep close to Christ yourself and the assembly, Go to the assembly meetings and minister the truth.
Day by day and you'll see that God will raise up those that are Timothy's and God will use them in a coming day.
Well, let's turn over a little bit to chapter 18 and verse seven. Well, let's read from verse five. Chapter 18 of Acts verse five, when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the Spirit and testified unto the Jews that Jesus was Christ.
And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be on your own heads, I am clean. From henceforth I will go on to the Gentiles. And he departed thence, and entered into a certain man's house named Justice, one who worshipped God, and whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his house. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision.
Be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee.
For I have much people in this city. And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. And when Galileo was deputy of the care, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat, saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law.
And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Galileo said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would.
Would that I should hear there with you. But if it be a question of words and names and of your law, looky to it. And I will be no judge of such matters. And he drove them from the judgment seat. Then all the Greeks took sauce, and he's the chief ruler of the synagogue and beat him before this judgment seat. Galileo cared for none of these things. Well, here we find Paul working among the Gentiles in this city of Corinth. He's there for a year and six months, you know.
While he was there, he was staying in the home of Aquila and Priscilla and the beginning of his day.
He wrote the It's believed that he wrote the First Epistle to the Thessalonians and then a year and a half later, perhaps just at the end of this day.
He wrote the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians, but here in this place.
Paul was working, laboring for the Lord and umm, he encountered opposition. That was intense opposition.
Any time that Paul preach, oftentimes that Paul preached, there was a riot.
The enemy was seeking to stamp out the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
It was seeking to have men walk in darkness, but God had told Paul that he was going to use him.
That men might be delivered from darkness and from ignorance, and be brought into the light. And here you find that they oppose themselves in verse 6 and blasphemed. There was intense opposition to the truth of the Word of God.
And yet Paul continued to work. The Lord spoke to him. The Lord appeared to him in a vision and encouraged him. Isn't that nice sometimes, you know?
I've heard of those that have had a hobby class and had kids that were difficult to get along with Sunday school work, those kinds of things. And, uh, the enemy seeks to stir up those little ones to, uh, oppose and to, umm, make a ruckus and to just try to destroy the peace of the presentation of the gospel. But isn't it wonderful to have a sense of the presence of the Lord, you and I, as we take up the word of God and present it to.
Lost Souls God was working with Paul.
And umm, it says here that he wrought by him.
You speak.
The Lord speak to Paul in verse nine in the night vision. Be not afraid, but speak, hold not thy peace. Isn't that nice? He was afraid. That kind of opposition brought fear to his heart, but the Lord was encouraging him. And so we need to remember that perhaps this is a lesson that Paul you learned that his times were in the hands of the Lord. You know the umm, the judge here in this case throughout the case.
00:50:14
And Paul was just about to try to defend himself, and the Lord allowed that the case was thrown out of court. And we need to remember that the Lord is the one who's doing his work, and he's able to, umm, deal with that kind of opposition.
Let's look at uh chapter 19 and uh.
Verse one.
It came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coast.
Came to Ephesus in finding certain disciples. He said unto them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believe? They said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
And he said unto them, What Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, verily, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him what should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about 12. And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the Kingdom of God.
But when the divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of the way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.
And this continued by the space of two years, so that they that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought.
Under the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
Well, you know, God hadn't allowed the Apostle Paul to go into, uh, Asia, into Ephesus and some of those, uh, places and, umm, he had gone into Europe instead and, uh, he'd gone to Philippi and, uh, there he'd been beaten with Silas. And, but there was a little assembly formed in, in Philippi and we find there that, uh, uh, God had, uh, prepared the hearts of one Lydia.
A cellar of purple from Thyatira. And there was a work to do among those that were there in that place. But there came a time when Paul did come into Asia and he was patient. And you may have something on your heart to, uh, do perhaps for the Lord, something that you might have, uh, a burden for, but the door isn't open. And, uh, what a wonderful thing it is for the Lord to direct us. And Paul, you know, waited for the direction of the Spirit of God.
And then he went into Asia. He went Asia means the middle. He went into the heart of enemy territory.
And he went into the this place, Ephesus means amiable and uh, there the Lord Jesus was going to call out some of the Gentiles for his bride. Christ also loved the church and gave himself forth. That's what's written in Ephesians chapter 5.
But here he waited and, uh, you know, As for God, his way is perfect. God's way is perfect. He came to Asia. There was power and he was there for two years and three months, and there were special miracles and there was a little assembly formed there and God was blessing. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is for us to recognize that God's way is perfect. You know, we read in the chapter that we're taking up in the reading meeting this morning about the perfect.
Will of God.
And it's easy for us to say.
And the quote the 18th Psalm, verse 30. As for God, his way is perfect.
But then to act in a way that isn't consistent with what we say. And Paul in grace waited and he came at the right time. As for God, his way is perfect. And so this is a lesson that he learned and that we each need to learn as well. Well, I just want to read I'm we're running out of time. So let's just turn to the last chapter of Acts last few verses, verse 29. It says, umm.
Well, let's read verse 28, Acts chapter 28, verse 28. Be it known, therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasonings among themselves. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, and pre teaching those things concerning the Lord Jesus, and all with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
00:55:09
Well, we know that Paul had wanted to go to Jerusalem, and he did get to Jerusalem.
But the Lord hadn't sent him to Jerusalem any being taken prisoner and he'd been kept in Caesarea for two years. Perhaps it's four years that he was in Caesarea. But there was a couple of years in Paul's life that were fruitless, years last years. But you know, he was disheartened perhaps. And the Lord appeared to him and said to him, fear not, fear not. Lord encouraged them in the night seasons.
And we find at the end of the book of the Acts here we see Paul imprisoned, as it were, in his own house, his own hired house. And he's in the right place at the right time, as it were. He's in Rome. God wanted him in Rome. Paul wanted to be in Jerusalem. God wanted him in Rome. God, God his way. God saw to it that Paul was in Rome. And when Paul was in Rome, things were right. He was working among the Gentiles.
But he was imprisoned, as it were. He wasn't at liberty to leave. He did receive visitors and so on. And God used this time of imprisonment for blessing. It was there that he wrote to the Epistle to the Colossians to fight the Epistle to Philemon, the the, the letter of the Ephesians and to the Philippians. And he submitted, He submitted. And dear brother and sister in Christ, the Lord may have placed you in a place that's hard to be.
Difficult to be and you wish you weren't there. You wish you were somewhere else. You wish the trial would be over.
You wish that he would just take it away.
But often times he leaves us where we are that there might be fruit for himself. And so here we have this lesson that perhaps Paul learned that, uh, he was going to need to submit at the end of his life and to be where God wanted him to be. Well, we don't have time to review all of those little lessons, but I just want to point out in the first one again, our time is up, but Paul's life was useful to the Lord because he allowed himself to be restrained.
The sister this just before the meeting started. Show me some pictures. Some photographs of the flooding in Nashville, TN.
And a river, a river is very useful. There's a lot of energy in the river and you can use that energy when it there's a dam, when it's restrained and there's a reservoir that formed behind the dam and it can be used for recreation. It's a reservoir for water.
For the city, all those sorts of things, and you can use the dam to generate electricity. There's there's benefit. And dear young people, God has created us that we need restraint in our lives, every one of us.
And if there's no restraint in my life, no restraint that the word of God has no authority, if the word of God doesn't have power with me, then there tends to be wasted years, tends to be wasted weeks, wasted days. We need to be thankful to the Lord for the restraint that he's placed in our lives. Let's just commend ourselves. Our loving God and our Father, we thank thee for the Lord Jesus our Savior, well, we thank thee for.
The lessons that we read from the Apostle Paul's life and how he was in that wilderness place in Damascus and then later on in Tarsus, sitting at the feet of the Lord, as it were, hearing His word and how he was being trained. We thank Thee, our God, for these times, different times without us bring into our lives. Help us to appreciate those experiences, to thank Thee for them and give us grace.
As we go on in these last days to learn these lessons and to be thankful for the truth of God that we have to enjoy and to hold and to defend, and so we ask it, we commend ourselves to Thee now for the remainder of these meetings and the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Romans 12:3-11
Reading
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I might just say before we comment on this third verse that what we really have in the first few verses of this chapter is not so much, uh, availability, but availability we're going to take up. He goes on to talk about ability and God does place members in the body and gives ability and he gives gift. But really when we talk about devotion and consecration and so on, which is really what we have in these, particularly these first three verses of this chapter, it's a question of us being available. Are you and I available in the service of God to be used in blessing by him?
I say that because sometimes perhaps we see something that needs to be done or some little encouragement for the people of God, and we say, well, that's not my gift or ability, or I'm not gonna be able to do that. And so we tend to use that as an excuse to leave it to somebody else. But it's not, as I say, so much a question in the first part of the chapter of Ability. But are you and I laying ourselves on the altar of sacrifice and service so that we are available for God to use us?
Because if God has some little function for us to do, some little ministry or service, he's going to supply everything that's needed to carry that out. Maybe it isn't particularly our gift. Maybe it isn't particularly what we feel Our Calling is, but maybe God has us to step in at that moment. Maybe someone else hasn't taken up the way they should and fulfilled their little function. You know, I often think of the words to our tipus in the book of Colossians and say to our kippus, take heed to the ministry that thou has received of the Lord, that thou fulfill it.
There was some little function that our kippus wasn't carrying out that he'd been given to do.
In the assembly at Colossae, and Paul felt that the Saints at Colossi were suffering a lot because of it. So, brethren, are we available today? It doesn't mean we're always active in service, as Robert brought before us in the last meeting. Maybe it is sometimes just waiting on the Lord, but it's being available, ready to be used at the right moment when He has something for us. Now, in our verse where we started, we've talked a lot about being a living sacrifice. We've talked about proving the good and acceptable will of God, and so on.
But now he's gonna take up the spirit and attitude in which it is to be done. It is with the spirit and attitude of humility that we must take up the service of God and present ourselves as a living sacrifice. Everything but may be right. We may do everything right, but the motive and the attitude ought to, uh, needs to be right. And so often in Scripture you have individuals who did the right thing with the wrong motive.
Sometimes you have conversely those who did the wrong thing with the right motive, but.
God wants us to do the right thing with the right motive. He wants us to prove what his will is. And then he wants to carry it out, not thinking that we're better than somebody else because we've been given this little service to do. Not thinking we're above our brethren, but to carry it out in all humility. And as it says in Philippians, each esteeming other better than themselves.
It's about umm, the Lord Jesus as the example of ministry and service. Notice in scripture it never says that he did all that he wanted to do upon earth.
Even though he healed many, and it says that the books if, if we were, if, if it was to be written about all that he had done, but the earth itself could not contain them. Still, it never says that he did all that he could or all that he wanted. I'm sure there was many I'll that he, uh, knew of being God himself, uh, that he wished he could have gotten to in his heart of love. But it says that he did what the Father had set for him to do. And it's wonderful to realize that though hard it is to practice that there will always be time enough to do God's will and the Lord Jesus.
Is that perfect example of that I finished the work that thou gave us me to do.
There will always be time and enough for that.
When we think soberly, we really, umm, exalt the, the man that God desires to exalt Christ Jesus. We don't exalt ourselves. Remember in your home assembly, Albert Hale used to have the little expression that, uh, we're all just a bunch of zeros. Every one of us is about is a zero and that we all remain valueless except for the one out in front. And so it's Christ. And so, uh, the world has a, an unwise and uh, a non sobered, umm, way of looking at things and, uh.
To be conformed to Christ and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind allows us to think.
In the power of the Spirit soberly, because we exalt Christ, we want to exalt him in what we do. And uh, so it's not the name of the brother or the name of the sister that's doing some little work for him that is to be exalted. It's the name of Christ and that lovely.
00:05:08
That's the first, uh, spots here in this chapter is that it seems like some general comments in verse one through 3, but really, it's really what's done in the presence of the Lord and, uh, for example, being a living sacrifice, It's for whose benefits for the Lord, uh, not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think is, I mean, who's really watching that? Well, it's the Lord. And so these things are, are seen and appreciated by.
The Lord. And that's really the first thing of service we then get into versus, uh, maybe 4 through 8. And this is like general service among God's people.
Uh, maybe a lot of that is is.
Often men, often those that labor and so forth, but not necessarily it's just really service that is, that is being of value, uh, collectively among Deloitte's people after that first, uh, nine and on is really more, uh, specific, smaller things that we might do.
That are often more personal. Uh, you show hospitality to a person or to a few people, for example.
Uh, you know, you can't minister to the whole whole body price. That's hospitality. It's just not physically possible. So we do have these little categories, the Lord first, just, uh, being of use among God's people 2nd and doing those individual and perhaps more private things as well.
And we all have something to do, don't we? There's nobody here that can get out of this because he's going to go on in these verses now to tell us that everyone has a function. And so in verse four, he says, for us, we have many members in one body and all the members have not the same office or the thrust of this word is really function. And we understand this in a natural body, don't we? You know, if we lose a hand or a foot, the other one can take over and we can get through life, but not as well as with two. You have a, a sore thumb at a cut my thumb when I was in France a few weeks ago and, uh, I realized how useful that thumb is.
And you try to do things without that thumb. You, you can get along. The other four fingers can take over, but not as well as with all five, uh, with the four fingers and the thumb. And so in a body, every member has a function. And boys and girls here this afternoon who know the Lord Jesus as their savior, they have a function. They have something if you're available to the, uh, to the Lord, he's got some little ministry for you to do. You know, it says of Samuel.
He ministered to the Lord not when he was an old man. It's true he did when he was an old man, but that was as a boy brought by his mother up to the temple. Now what did he do in ministering to the Lord? Well, we know one thing he did was he helped open the doors of the temple at the right time. Eli was an old man. The priest was an old man, found it may be hard to get those doors open at the right time so the people could come up and bring their sacrifices during the day. He perhaps helped keep the lamp lit and so on and maybe help bring the wood in for the office. We don't know, but.
Whatever those little tasks were that he carried out.
In the perhaps a very mundane, uh, fashion, they were ministry to the Lord. We've spoken of availability, and I've often thought about the lad in the Gospels who had the loaves and the fishes. You know, if he had been out on the fringes of the crowd somewhere, the disciples would have never noticed this young lad with his lunch. But here was a lad who was up at the front of the crowd, close to the Lord, if I can put it that way, and being close to the Lord and available.
Why the Lord takes his lunch and feeds all those thousands of people. There's a lad that carried out a little function that day, a little ministry that the Lord had for the blessing of thousands of people. And if you're available, who knows what a blessing you can be in some way. And so, as I say, it's gonna go on now and talk about the function of each one of us, the ministry that we've been given. And He does give gift and ability, and He's given everyone of us a gift and ability to use in His service that no one else can use quite as well as you.
Whatever he's given you to do, I can't do quite as well as you. Maybe another can step in and take over if you're not doing it, but not as well as with you. And I suggest that there are many little assemblies today who are suffering.
A lock in one way or another because there are those who are younger and sad to say, maybe those who are of us who are not so young, who are carrying out the little function and ministry that God has given us in the assembly. Uh, that where he has placed us or amongst the Christians in our community or whatever it might be. And we're not exercised to carry it out. And not only does he feel it, but the body suffers a lot as well.
00:10:14
Versus four and five. It makes me think of, uh, unity in diversity. And as Jim was pointing out, there are different gifts.
Because of different abilities and.
Uh, someone once said we're we all have one thing in common, we're all different.
And so in the body.
We don't have a bunch of members doing the same thing where the body wouldn't function well. And as Jim said, one part may suffer and the other have to pick up the slack, but it's not as efficient when everything is working as we want to. So the diversity or the unity and diversity.
As we have many members, that's diversity.
One body that's unity and all members have not the same office, that's diversity. So we being many diversity are one body unity and everyone members one of another.
Perfections chapter 12 in verse umm 18 says, umm, that now hath God set the members, every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him. Mr. Darby has a little note in that, uh, verse umm, and it could be read this way. But now has God set for himself the members? Every one of them in the body has, has pleased him. And uh, so the purpose is not to glorify ourselves, but to glorify him and it's for himself. It's very, very humbling to think that the Lord has placed you and I.
As members of the body of Christ and wherever we are, whatever function that he's given us to.
Undertake for his glory, for the blessing of his people and, umm, he's done it for himself, for his glory. And uh, so his, his desire is that that function should be, uh, umm, as you mentioned, Archipus, that it should be undertaken and, uh, with a sense of responsibility and a sense of humility.
In first Peter I I think it was already mentioned this morning in chapter 4, it says every man has to receive a gift, Even so minutes to the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the articles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified. And it just reminds me of a person Matthew 5 that says.
Let your light so shine before men that ye may, that they may see your good works, and glorify who, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. The word for good works could be translated beautiful works, but I just wanna comment briefly on the difference between a difference between ability and gift. And I know there's probably many young people wondering if I have received a gift, what is my gift?
And I think it's a mistake to to dwell on that. And I think certainly that God can show you what that gift is if you prayerfully desire that he will. But I think it's in a book by Pollock that he says that, umm, gift is an expression of impression. I think you're hot will tell you what your gift is if it's guided by the Spirit of God, because it's going to feel a need. It's going to see a need and you're going to want to fulfill it. You're not going to be asked to fulfill it. You're not going to fill a burden to fulfill. It is just going to be this need laid upon your heart.
The impression that God placed us there by the Spirit of God, and it will be expressed through you as a gift to, to, to help in whatever measure you can. But as to ability, you may have an excellent ability in your right arm to throw a football, but that does not mean that you have a gift from God to use that as has so often been used in in this world to glorify God. Now, if God should choose to use a quarterback for his glory, umm, and he has no doubt, then I leave that with him. But that's not what God desires. That's not what he's talking about here when it speaks in Speaking of ability, but he does fit ability to give.
And so.
Umm, I I can't necessarily come up with an example, but a very shy person, for example, God may not suit for the work of the evangelist who has to go out and be forward. That doesn't mean to say that he's not ready to give an account of the hope that he has that lies within him. But God may not use a very shy person as an evangelist. But perhaps a shy person is better suited as a pastor, as a shepherd, or even as a teacher. And so God does fit the ability to give. But don't confuse.
Your natural abilities with the gifts that God might have given you. Because what happens in the case with the footballers? He ends up glorifying himself, He really does.
We may have ability and today and note and lose that ability tomorrow, but when it comes to spiritual gifts, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. If God gives us a gift, that gift is to be used as long as we are here in this world functioning as members of the body of Christ. But I just want to echo what uh, brother Nick has said because God does link gift and ability. God isn't going to call you to the mission field if you have a weak stomach if you can't sit with your with.
00:15:23
Uh, those in some, uh, place where the food isn't what, uh, we're normally used to or whatever. And I'm not saying you won't have a little problem now and then, but God is going to give a person a good stamina if he calls them to, to the mission field again, with an evangelist. God isn't going to link stuttering and evangel an evangelist with an evangelist.
No, he's probably gonna give him a good voice and a voice that's sharp and that carries well and so on. And so God links the two. However, God may give a gift and he may withhold some ability to because he sees that there's a need to keep the person independent in exercising that gift. Paul had tremendous gift. Perhaps he's the most, was the most gifted servant of God ever raised up in the Church of God, but God saw a need to give him a thorn in the flesh.
We don't know exactly what it is. He also said on another occasion, or the Corinthians said of him, that his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. It seems from his writing to the book of Galatians that he had some eye trouble as well. God allowed certain things and withheld perhaps certain ability from Paul to keep him from glorying in the flesh or natural ability. So I think it's good, as Brother Nick said, to keep all these things in perspective.
But I want to just say this, and again, we don't want to always zero in on our young people, but we desire the best for our young people and we desire you to be exercised while you're younger. And uh, I do believe that. Well, we don't dwell on it. We do need to be exercised as to what our gift is. Timothy was to stir up the gift that was in him. If he didn't know what was that gift was, how could he stir it up? He had to be exercised as to what that gift was and then he had to be exercised to use that gift.
And I believe too, for the Church of God, it is important to recognize in others that gift and let that gift function. Don't put a man on the podium to preach the gospel. If there's an evangelist in the audience, the man might be do very well in certain situations. But if there's an evangelist and we don't let the gift function, don't put a man up to present some line of truth when there's a teacher sitting there. That brother might be very good in his home assembly. And as I say, he might be able to present nice things, but we always want to recognize.
Gift and brethren, it's not that we have a hierarchy or an unofficial clergy or things we've often been accused of, but what we want to be exercised to do.
Is to let a gift function in the absence of gift? Yes, we can. Others can take over and thank God. The local assembly, its function and administration doesn't depend on gift. It depends on the presence of the Lord and the Spirit of God. But when there is gift, we need to recognize that a man's gift maketh room for him.
Being aware of our desire to stay with our chapter umm, I was wondering if you could have a word on the last verse of First Corinthians 12. Umm, where we reading for 31 but covered earnestly the best gifts?
Well, it's not so much coveting them for ourselves, is it? But it's coveting them for the Church of God so that they will be built up and edified. Because what we find in this portion in Corinthians is that all ministry in the assembly is to be for the first of all, for the edification, the building up of the Saints, the exhortation of the St. and the comfort and or encouragement of the Saints and brethren, we ought to covet those gifts for the Church of God.
Not so much that we covet something for ourselves. We all have something to contribute in some little way, as we've been saying. But do you and I ever get into our closet and really pray to the Lord that He'll raise up evangelists, pastors and teachers to minister to us? He's promised to do it till he comes. We get that in Ephesians. But we need to pray and earnestly covet that there would be those raised up of God and those who would be given the courage and faith to exercise their gift because.
It's public gift there, I believe that he's referring to. It's not so much little smaller gift.
After those hidden ministries, but it's the public gifts for the edification of the church.
And are you do you, and I really covet that for the blessing of the people of God. I really believe that's the sense, don't you rather whim of what he's saying there.
How do we covet the the best gifts in that chapter 12 of First Corinthians and at the same time do what it also says there, which is.
00:20:08
Uh, verse 23 and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable upon these we bestow more abundant honor. Verse 24 for our calmly parts of no need, but God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which left that there should be no schism in the body. How do we, umm, hold those two things and.
Intention. Well, I believe we have to recognize that there are not just those public gifts for the edification of the people of God and the building up of the Saints, but behind the scenes there has to be the function of those other things. You know, my mouth is speaking this afternoon, but there's a lot of members of my body that are functioning at the same time that you don't see or hear and that I'm not even aware in my own body are functioning. But suppose those members broke down this afternoon. I wouldn't last here in that this chair very long.
There are members that seem less honorable, but they're helping to keep my body together so that I can function in the proper way. And so it is in a natural body. There are ligaments, there are joints, there are internal organs, all those little things that. And as I say, when all the body functions together, then there's a healthy, happy body. And Paul's desire for the Corinthian Saints was that each one of them would be exercised as to what their gift and ministry was because there was a problem at Corinth.
Everyone had a Psalm, everyone had a doctrine. They all wanted a public place, but all the members of the body can't have a public place. If all the members of the body have the same gift, then the body wouldn't function very well. If you're if every member of your body tried to do what your hand did, your body wouldn't function very well. No, he says to the brethren, remember, every member of the body, every believer has a certain gift, a certain function. You may not even be aware of it, But he says be thankful for those little functions that are going on.
Maybe I can tell a little story that will help to illustrate what I'm trying to say in answer to Jonathan's question. Those who knew my father best knew that he was a man who never took a public part. In fact, I think probably he took the gospel in his home assembly twice in his whole lifetime, and he lived to be 79. But my father, when he passed away, has to this very day been well missed in the Smith Falls assembly because nobody realized the little things that he did behind the scenes.
I've sometimes told this story. My father's funeral, I think was on a Monday at or on a Wednesday, and Thursday night is our regular meeting night. And I remember rounding the corner in our vehicle on Thursday night about 10 minutes before meeting and finding several brethren standing outside on the street, unable to get into the hall. And it really struck me be and it was commented that this had never happened in 40 years.
Because my father always made sure he got to the meeting room half an hour before meeting, made sure the door was open, that the heat was on if need be. If there was a speaker, he made sure there was a glass of water for the speaker. He made sure that if it was Sunday night, the Echoes of Grace hymn books were out for the gospel meeting, that the two chairs were turned in the proper way. He did that, I'm guessing, for 40 years. And when he passed away, though, nobody realized all the little things he was doing behind the scenes.
His function as a member of the body of Christ was done here on earth, and he's been missed ever since. Thank God others have stepped in and taken his place. But there was a brother who didn't take the public part, but he was a very honorable member of the body of Christ, very useful and necessary behind the scenes. Now what about sisters?
What did Paul say and help those women which labored with me in the gospel? You know, the gospel work couldn't go on without sisters. If we didn't have sisters laboring behind the scenes, we couldn't do what we do in the Caribbean. There are sisters who spend hours and hours in various ways behind the scenes helping to prepare material and other things. They're sisters who have traveled with me and I've been able to eat and have some creature comforts along the way because of those sisters.
Those are honorable members, and that's why I said earlier, we need to esteem each other better than ourselves. We need to realize how honorable and useful those members are. And one member can't say to the other, I have no need of thee. But in the end, we need also to covet those best gifts for the public edification and the collective building up of the Saints. Could you perhaps, Jim, further extend that thought with a word or two on Ephesians 4 and beginning of verse 12?
00:25:08
Well, let me just read it. We've alluded to this, but let me go back to verse 10. He that descended is the same also that ascended up, far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.
And gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of the fullness of Christ. Now again, we don't want to wander from our chapter, brethren, because this is not the subject in our chapter. In the chapter chapter, the subject is that we all have a function, we all have a gift, and we all have a ministry.
What he's saying here in Ephesians is that there are specific public gifts given, as Wim has pointed out, for the edification of the body of Christ as a whole at large. And those public gifts are listed here. You'd say, but we don't have apostles and prophets. We don't have them living, but we have the writings. The foundation is the apostles and prophets. We get that earlier in Ephesians, the foundation truth that they laid, and we never want to digress from it, but we still have.
Evangelists.
Those who can preach the gospel present the truth to the lost. We have the pastors or shepherds who shepherd the sheep, and we have the teachers who present the truth clearly and lay out the doctrinal principles for us. And all of these five gifts, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, we are going to have preserved to us until we come in the full unity of the Body. And when will that be? When the Body is completed and raptured home to glory, and not till then.
And until then, for the building up of the Saints, we have these gifts, the writings of the apostles and prophets, and the evangelists, pastors and teachers.
And that work will go on until the the Lord comes. But rather than to get back to our chapter here, that's not really what he's talking about here. We're thankful for those public gifts preserved to us, but we want to be exercised, each one of us. Because you say I'm not an evangelist, I'm not a pastor, I'm not a teacher. That may be true, but you have a function as a member of the body of Christ.
It's beautiful to see in these epistles, in the New Testament, the subject of each, and I'm not saying this to correct anything, but I think it's helpful.
Particularly for the young here.
To to have an outline of soundworlds to to see what each book is about. As we mentioned this morning, Romans is about justification fact justification before God begins with Paul 7 of Jesus Christ according to called to be an apostle separated under the gospel of God. In fact, you don't have a mention of the church in the book of Romans until the last chapter. That's where the word church occurs. And then you say that we have it here. We have the body and that's true, we have the body here, but it's really the exercise of individual gifts.
There's not so much in the in the thought, as we had Jim just said, as we have an Ephesians of of in the context of edifying of the church, though it is for the church, as we've, as we've already mentioned. But you get to the book of Corinthians, you young people, you wanna find church truth and go on to the next book, the book of Corinthians, and there we have the church and its practice and so on.
Thank you. That's very helpful.
Verse 7 here speaks of ministry. I don't mean to jump over verse 6, and perhaps some could speak on prophecy, but ministry.
I don't know for sure, but usually the word ministry.
And, uh, the New Testament is a translation of a Greek word that is connected with a paid servant and is connected with the thought of a Deacon, which is what we have in, in, uh, Paul's epistle to Timothy. And the churches have made a Deacon into a office that exalts man. You can wear a little lapel pin that says you're the Deacon of the month, but.
The Deacon was actually someone, uh, was really just, it's just an untranslated Greek word. And you were a paid servant. We, uh, my wife and I have never been to this part of the country before. And we got to go to the Biltmore yesterday and they had lots of paid servants and we got to see the rooms at the paid servants slept in and they didn't look anything like the room that Mister Vanderbilt slept in. And so when we think of ministry, don't think of some exalted position that's beyond you. Ministry can be sweeping the floor of the meeting room. That can be the service. I know that ministry in the New Testament can be used in a little different way as well.
But don't think of it as some exhaustive position. Make yourself useful.
This word in Mr. Darby's translation is is, uh, translated service or service? Let us wait on our service.
00:30:05
So it's, uh, not, as you say, an over glorified thing. And so it's in connection with the proportion of faith that we have. We're not to go beyond that faith. So the Lord may give you the faith to have a little Sunday school and to be a useful, uh, servant of the Lord, as it were in that Sunday school and to, uh, be a help to the children and so on. But don't go beyond that, uh, proportion of faith and get big ideas. And I think this is really, uh, in a practical way, what he's saying here in these, first, uh, 8 verses. Remember, it's to the glory of God where our attitudes and our motives, God word, need to be right if our attitudes and motives are going to be right towards our fellow brethren. And that's between versus 9 and UH-14, I think it is, or 9 and 13. And then from verse 14 down to verse 21 is our attitudes and motives towards those that are in the world, but the attitudes and the motives towards the Lord first.
And so our service needs to be in the proportion of faith that he gives us. And it's going to be right. And I'll just add in connection with the, uh, an example is, uh, I think some of you have heard me say this in connection with my wife. She worked in the hospital, uh, before we were married and, umm, she worked in a small hospital and had something like 9 doctors. And there were three or four doctors that were really good doctors. They had a good diagnosis. Uh, they love to come to work. Their charts were filled out. Uh, they had, uh, uh, just a, a lovely, uh, testimony in that hospital. But then there were the other.
Doctors, the other, uh, five or six, and they were in it for the money and they didn't have much of A gift and it was a drudgery all day long. It was hard for them and they're misdiagnosis and they had charts that weren't filled out. They just struggled. And so God doesn't give us gift and place us in the members as members of the body with the function to provide for our brethren to his glory.
That we don't enjoy using. I believe he gives us a joy and as we, uh, fulfill the purposes that he has for us, then we're going to be suited to do that work.
So let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. And I believe there's a great deal of difficulty sometimes amongst Christians in coveting another's work, in desiring to do somebody else's work.
Looking at another and saying I wish I was doing that. And the illustration has often been used, but I'll repeat it because I heard it growing up of the Levites in the Old Testament. Everyone had a service and everyone had a burden. And when those Levites went around and carried out the little service that God had for them, then the Tabernacle was erected properly, it functioned properly. It was taken down and carried through the wilderness to the next location properly. And so one Levite wasn't to look at another. Maybe some of the Levites had to go around and roll up the cords and keep them from tangling.
Pick up the pins, make sure all the pots and pans were gathered together. While he might have looked at the one who was handling the boards and said, oh, he's doing a great work, I wish I'd been given that work. No, it was doing what he had been given to do and doing it before the Lord and unto the Lord. So we want to have rejoicing in our own work to be exercised what the Lord has called us to do, not what another has been called to do.
They think too, there's a balance on the other side of it and it goes back to what's been mentioned from First Corinthians 12, and that is to, umm, esteeming those members that are less honorable that we need to.
You know, it's we, we take for granted, don't we? Those people that set the chairs we take for granted, those people that clean up the kitchen, we take for granted, You know, they, they're deserving of respect. They're deserving of thanks and appreciation. They're not to be belittled or looked down upon. That's, that's, that's just so important.
You have that in connection with Timothy in, uh, Acts chapter 16. It says there that, uh, he was well reported out by the brethren that we're at Lystra and Iconium now. What was he doing in Lystra and Iconium? We're not told. It was very quiet work, but uh, here was a young person that had a knowledge of the truth of God and, uh, was desiring to please the Lord and in some small way. And, uh, we don't know what he was doing, but he was well reported by the brethren and at the right time.
The Lord introduces Paul to this young man. And so we need to just, uh, remember that there is a quiet work and as you say, perhaps to encourage those that are doing that quiet work in some way. But often times there are those like our brother Highland and brother in Hammer Bay, you perhaps know who it is. And the light bulbs get changed when no one's around, the light bulb gets changed. The, uh, door is unlocked, the, uh, heat is on. But the Lord values that kind of service. And don't ever think that those that are doing a public work are going to get a bigger reward than those that are doing that quiet work. I believe brother Highland that did that private work that no man saw.
00:35:19
Irreducible complexity.
And the idea is that, you know, we all hang together now in biology. It's not we, but it's little parts and pieces of what makes things run in, uh, this world around us in the biological world.
And you know, we need to appreciate that, that the whole thing has to be together and it works together and it does function.
And whether we're looking at Romans or Corinthians or Ephesians, we need to have two views of that. One is we have a broadview of the whole thing that works.
And it works under the guidance of the Spirit of God, of course, but we also need to have a finer view as well, kind of a small level or a lower level view. And that's more what we're talking about here. And that is also of the Spirit of God. The whole thing is an irreducible complexity, and it all hangs together. And we're very thankful for this body, Christ, in this world.
On the way up here, we were listening to the radio and there was an interesting interview somebody was making with the famous basketball player LeBron James. And the interviewer was interested in him as a youth. You know, he was one of the youngest NBA players ever to be drafted in the NBA, but in high school and junior high. And there was talent and gift in this young man to play basketball. But what she was interested in is that he had three friends, and these three friends played with him as well. They're not famous in playing in the NBA today.
But they were very, very close friends. And she asked this man about how that worked. And they went to school together and they hung out together. But.
He said their ability on the court working together was almost without thought. They knew where each one was going to be. And they said that their ability to function in the game had a lot to do with how they functioned as friends away from the game. And I was thinking about that in connection with what we've been talking about, how the the relationships that are developed between brethren outside of the assembly.
And, and, you know, we think of maybe gift being mostly demonstrated, uh, when God's people are together, but a lot of those quiet things that you've been talking about and the stories that have been related are done often away from that. And there may be things that no one knows about except the individual that has been helped. So you can have a very young person that's like sweeping the floor or, or setting the chairs up for a meeting room. But what happens if someone, maybe a sister?
Maybe one of the mothers in the assembly comes alongside a young person who's found doing something like that and says, I appreciate what you do, watch what you do, you do a good job. Well, that's an encouragement. You know, if you're doing something that's kind of dreary and someone comes alongside and says, you know, I appreciate what you've been doing there. Well, what if a young person or, or somebody finds out that there's a, an older one in the assembly or somebody whose house needs painting or needs, uh.
Their yard needs help and they're getting too old to do things like that, and they show up.
And they began to do something like that. Well, those kinds of things may not be known by anybody else except the person that benefited from them. And, uh, those kind of things will be noticed by the Lord though, and they'll be noticed by the person. And we can say to someone, I notice what you did.
And I appreciate what you do and we can encourage one another in that way.
On the other hand, don't set out to do something to be rewarded for it, because you'll only be disappointed.
These seven things the Lord did himself and uh, he is always the, uh, example for us, isn't he prophecy? There was a message from God himself, from his Son. And then in connection with service, there is none that served like he did in perfection. And then there was a teacher. He was a teacher. He could teach perfectly. Who teacheth like him. Then he exhorted, encouraged his people, those that were downcast, downhearted. Then, uh, he gave, Who gave like He gives?
He gave everything that he had and then he ruled he that rules why he those that lean he took the lead, he led those that uh, were his disciples. He delights to lead his people and then he showed mercy with cheerfulness and those of the Lord Jesus is perfect example through the the gospels as we read these things, we can find little examples of his work in this way were to imitate that work.
00:40:02
But then there's the great motivator, isn't there? And that's love. And so he takes that up. Then in the in verse nine, let love be without the simulation or really its deceit. That is, we're to love one another, genuinely love one another.
Not, not just to pretend, because we might function in the little ministry that the Lord has given us. We might on the outside, look like we're doing it for the Lord and for his people. But really, the motive may not be right. And as someone has said, if the motive is not right, nothing's right. I know that maybe it's a little bit of a stretch when it comes to the context in which we're speaking, because God does honor the act too. Sometimes the motive isn't right, but what God really desires is that there would be service to Himself and for one another.
Out of out of love, we're to love from a pure heart. And so if we really love our brethren, then we're going to want to serve them. You know, the flesh likes to be served. That's what the flesh desires. The natural man likes to be served, but the new man, when it's motivated by love, it delights to serve and not as someone has just said, for a reward or a pat on the back, but for the glory of God. And we find examples of many who serve the Lord in the Scripture and they either.
Weren't recognized for it or they were criticized for it, but they left it with the Lord the other night in Asheville we mentioned.
Mary of Bethany, you know, when she poured out her ointment at the feet of the Lord, not only did Judah speak out against her, but in one gospel it says all the disciples spoke against her. They all criticized what Mary did, but what did she do? She left it with the Lord. And so are you and I willing to just serve, serve in that way. The apostle Paul tried to serve here. He served the Corinthian brethren. What did he have to say? The more I love you, the less I be loved. He said you've made me the off scouring of the earth. But he said that's OK.
We labor that, whether president or absent, we may be accepted of him. We're doing this for the Lord's approval.
We're doing it for the Lord's glory, for and for your blessing. And, uh, if you don't appreciate it, that's OK. I'm gonna continue on because I love you. Well, he goes off then he, as I say, says let love be without deceit. And then of course, support that which is evil and so on. But love is always to be the great motivator for our service, for Christ and for one another.
If there's truly love, none of us would ever have a an attitude of uh, uh, wanting to look good.
Because that, that doesn't really fill the bill, does it? Umm, and we, we do have the problem of wanting to look good and it probably comes in two forms of probably more than that. But anyway, the one is to try to be competitive to, uh, you know, kind of step ahead and that that makes us look good, feel good. The other is to put down someone else and that's kinda makes us look good and feel good too.
But neither of those are any show of love. It really is of God. It's to the advantage of the whole thing. And God wants us to have the large picture and, uh, and to see that, uh, blessing is for, you know, the people of God and that's that.
It can be love, but hypocrisy can be mixed in there.
And that's because we have.
An old nature that kind of squirms itself into even the love of the Lord that we have for others and for Him. So let love be without hypocrisy. Same in first Peter, it says that brotherly lovely without hypocrisy.
So they can be brotherly love. Yes, it can be some hypocrisy in there that creeps in. And the one thing as to what our brother was saying about making us feel good. If there is hypocrisy and either our service of love or brotherly love, the Spirit of God is not gonna make you feel good.
It's perhaps out in First Corinthians, which we've alluded to, but in First Corinthians 12 you have the function of the members of the body of Christ. We have the body, or I should say we have the body brought before us in the 14th chapter. We have the members functioning together in the assembly collectively for the edification and building up of the Saints of God. But it's interesting that you have the 13th chapter in between. So if I can put it this way, in the 12Th chapter we have the machinery.
00:45:02
In the 14th chapter we have the machinery in operation, but in the 13th chapter we have the oil that keeps the machinery from grating. We have the love, we call it the love chapter, and it is, but it's the practical carrying out of expression of that love one to another that's going to keep the machinery from grading up. Why is it so? Often, brethren, we come to problems in the assembly, We come to brothers meetings where we take up these matters. So we come to the assembly meetings and the machinery seizes up. We grate on one another. We end up the perhaps divisions take place and individuals leave and so, so on. Why is that?
Well, one reason at least is because we haven't exercised the 13th chapter between the 12Th and the 14th. I say again, you have the machinery in the 12Th chapter, you have the machinery functioning in the 14th chapter, but in between, in the 13th chapter, you have the oil that keeps it from seizing.
That same line of thought in connection with service and teaching if you look at Acts chapter one.
The perfect model of the Lord Jesus.
You know we are hearers of the Word and we can be teachers of the Word, but the Lord wants us to be hearers of the Word, to be doers of the Word, and the better doers we are, the better teachers will be. In Acts chapter one it speaks of the Lord Jesus, of the things which he votes started to do and to teach.
So the Lord Jesus, he was absolutely what he thought. He taught the truth, but he was the truth and the expression of it and all that he did. But the Spirit of God said all that he did and taught.
And then, then you go to Second Timothy, you have the apostle Paul.
And we'd be more like him.
In second Timothy chapter 3 when he speaks to Timothy chapter 3 verse 10 but that was fully.
Understood my doctrine or teaching and my manner of life or my conduct. So there was teaching there and behavior in the case of the apostle. But it's what he taught 1St and his behavior. And I'm sure we have to confess each one that we know more than we do. But it's nice that there's this relationship between what we hear and then what we teach, that there's a lot of it that we, with God's help, carry out and do and behave in such a way.
The last part is, uh, verse nine really is a definition perhaps of holiness, isn't it? Because, uh, holiness is, uh, being, uh, walking in separation from evil and having a delight in that which is good. So we're to abhor that which is evil. And this world doesn't abhor what is evil, but the believer knows what is righteous. And, uh, if we read the word of God and we appreciate the person of Christ, why we, uh, umm, those things that we see as you've been mentioning, as mentioned earlier, like posters and the billboards along the road, all those things that are so we evil.
Recognize them for what they are and we'll abhor them. And so we're told to be actively, umm, engaged in the spiritual warfare, as it were, in abhorrent that which is evil and to cleave to that which is good. In First Thessalonians chapter five, I think it is, it says, uh, prove that which is good. Hold fast the good. And so we need to be active in holding fast the good and testing what we see and, umm, those things that are brought before us, the principles that this world acts upon and so on.
We need to test them by the word of God and then test them to see what is good and hold fast to good.
It's not good enough. The word of God tells us to say that it's, it's, that's not good. That's not, we don't, that's, that doesn't look good, doesn't sound good. Whatever. We're to abhor that which is evil. If it's evil, we're to abhor it, not go near it because that's what makes us fit for service. How can we carry out our ministry if we aren't, uh, if we aren't walking in moral purity? And what fit the vessel in Second Timothy for service was not so much what it was made out of or what its capacity was.
But whether it was clean or not, was it a sanctified vessel? And so earlier in the chapter he told us not to be conformed to the world. We, we need to walk in separation from the world. We need to abhor that which is evil. We need to put evil out of our lives, put leaven out of our homes and so on. All those illustrations and scriptures that we so often quote because we are not going to be able to carry out our ministry, be it a public ministry or a hidden service.
With real power and fruit and blessing, unless we are clean, be it clean that they're the vessels of the Lord. So practical holiness, cleanliness in our Christian life is very, very important to our service. And I believe that's why He brings it in here.
I'm gonna clean up my room, or in particular my desk, which could be a real problem.
00:50:05
There really needs to be a trash can nearby.
You're just not going to accomplish your task unless there's a trash can.
But I wanna stress too, before we pass on from this verse, that we'll never know what is evil and we'll never know what is good. If we look to the world's standards, that is not what Go is going to tell us. Don't go to school and expect them to teach you the difference between good and evil or right and wrong. The last days are characterized by those who who call evil good and good evil. But if you want to know God's standard and what is evil in the sight of God and what is good in the sight of God?
You must go to the standard book, to the guide book, you must go to the word of God. It's the only standard that is left in this world. And David said, take not the spirit of holiness from me. That's really the way that verse I just quoted should read.
Take not the spirit of holiness from me. In other words, he said, Lord, don't let me get used to sin.
And I believe the great work of the enemy today through, and I'm going to be very frank, through television, through Internet, through advertising, through magazines and all those things. The great work of the enemy is to to desensitize us as to evil, to he it. Those things have been introduced so slowly and insidiously over time that we don't realize how bad it really is if you were to pick up something that was published.
50 years ago and something that's published today that's in the same vein of things, secularly speaking, you'd be appalled at the difference, but if you were to read through those things that had been published as they had been published.
It's like the frog being boiled slowly. You don't even realize how bad it is. That's the work of the enemy. How are we going to keep a sense of holiness? How are we going to keep from from getting used to sin? We've got to go to this book. Keep in the presence of the Lord. Keep in the in in this book. That's what's going to give you your standard. Otherwise you're not going to discern between right and wrong.
Maybe I'll just not to prolong it, but just to say in that regard, in fact, turn to it because I think it goes right along with what we have in this verse in Titus.
Because maybe I hear someone say, well, that's alright for you to say, Brother Jim, but it's a lot different day at school and university or in the workplace than when you were there. Well, maybe it is. I have no doubt it is a darker and more difficult day to live for God's glory and abhor evil and cling to the good than the day in which I operated at school or in the work in the workplace. But just notice something that's very exercising in Titus chapter 2.
Verse 11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, when, brethren, in this present world.
Or this present age, or we could say at this present time. I say that because the tendency of our hearts is to look back and say, well, things were easier back in our Father's Day, or our grandfather's day, or the days of the early brethren, or the days of the apostle Paul, or the days of Titus. No, brethren were not to do that. We can live soberly, righteously, godly, having a poor evil put away evil from our lives. We can live in this way when right here where we are.
There'll never be such a thing as saying the day is so dark and so difficult that we can't carry this out in a practical way in our lives. If the day ever gets that dark, the Lord will take us out. But until that time, we have all the resources we need. Let me read it again.
To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and then to live soberly, righteously and godly right here in 2010.
The day in which the apostle wrote was a very moral day too. You might think that you have a, we have it hard today. I think the big difference is not the nature of the immorality because everything that man does today he did back then. It's the accessibility to the immorality and young people, It's piped right into each of our homes through the Internet. And it's, uh, any of you that go to school will realize that you have to have such a connection, but you don't have to, uh, go places you should not go.
I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're.
00:55:02
The day in which the apostle was writing was a very, very evil day. They didn't even have Sundays off.
We often don't think about it. It was a Pagan world in which they lived and well we live in today still claim that. This country still claims in some respects to be Christian fast heading to be a Pagan country too.
You have little pictures of this in the Old Testament as well, and one of them that's very graphic is in Exodus chapter 2 in connection with Moses. And he was placed in the river of, uh, Egypt. But uh, it was not in the same way as, uh, those that were before him, as it were. So it's the first three, Chapter 2 of Exodus. When she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child there in, and she laid it in the plants by river's bank.
And so this river of Egypt really speaks of the pleasure system of this world. And umm, our children are being, uh, fast immersed into this river of Egypt, uh, the pleasure system of this world. The king of this world, the, uh, God and the Prince of it, Satan would desire to immerse our children into the pleasure system of this world. Well, we need to have the arc of safety. It's really, umm, Christ himself. And it wasn't very attractive, uh, from the outward side, pitched within and without, with, uh, slime.
But, umm, for the believer, it's a safety. And so we need to have Christ before, put Christ before our children as the source of blessing, the one who we want to live for and to, umm, preserve them from the river of Egypt. We have these little illustrations and, umm, it's, uh, really a warning perhaps to us in connection with the practicality of this chapter, that it's possible for us to allow something to come into the home that would be a harm to our children. And May God give us the grace to judge those things.
And to remove them from our homes.
Living the Christian life has always been impossible.
It's a supernatural act. It was.
In the 1St century it is now. If you walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Whatever temptations, whatever distractions there are, if the enemy can bring something in and turn us aside, the ability to resist that is no different than it was.
In the 1St century, the same power, the same Spirit of God that is able to enable us to walk, enable the 1St century Christians. And yes, we have all these things that have changed and these different things. I mean, those of us who, I'm in my 50s, I've seen such a dramatic change in what schools were like when I was going to school. Uh, and what the schools are like now. You know, someone did a poll here recently amongst evangelicals, people who claim to be born again and ask them if they believed.
That there was such a thing, uh, as, uh, absolute truth.
Uh, this young people, I'm saying, uh, young people from teenage to college age. And there was something like, uh, uh, I'm not sure the exact number, but around 80% who said no.
Well, these are people that are supposed to have been raised in Christian homes.
What? What happened? What happened to the their way of thinking, their process of thinking, and their understanding of what truth is? Now they claim to be born again. They claim to know something about the word of God and claim to be Christians. But if that's true.
You know what? What about amongst the gathered chains? What about a amongst the more fundamental groups? Are the schools and the education and the system around us having an effect Where? Because if you don't believe there's such a thing as objective truth, what effect does this have on you?
So there, there is an important side of this that we need to understand that this book is the most important thing. We have to give us understanding because when we believe what it says, then by faith we can act on it and it can be carried out. The Spirit of God uses it to bring before us truth if we believe there's such a thing, but what if we don't believe there's such a thing?
We need to see that the same ability to walk and live the Christian life is the same. Now, I've often said to people the same ability that Peter had to walk on the water. It's the same ability we have to live the Christian life and live the victorious Christian life. Eyes on the Lord, Peter walked on the water, eyes off the Lord, Peter sank into the water. It's the same for us.
Well, then there's the practical manifestation of this, isn't there? And so I might say I love you. Person might say he loves you. But we want to see it practically manifest. And so in verse nine, our love is to be unfeigned or without deceit. It's to be unpretent, pretentious. But then he says in verse 10, be kindly affectionate 1 to another with brotherly love. This is a practical expression of it, isn't it?
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It's carrying it out. A person comes to meeting and uh, maybe they can say a lot of nice things about loving your brethren and they can minister the word. But if there isn't the practical carrying of it out in the our relationships together, then what we say isn't going to have any effect. Again, a person says they love you, You say I don't see it manifested. They don't act like they love me. And if a person says they love you and they don't show it, then that person is no help to you. How can that person be a help to you? Say what they say has no moral weight.
They, what they do really doesn't mean anything to me. And so that's why I said in suggesting this chapter that this chapter is intensely practical.
Brethren, we talk about loving one another, but do we really show that love in a practical way? And if you get up in the morning with an exercise to show brotherly kindness to your brothers and sisters that you come in contact with during the day, you'll find no shortage of opportunities. There's no shortage of opportunities to minister and show love in little ways, maybe big ways too, but little ways to your brothers and sisters. There might be a shortage of diligence and energy and exercise on my part.
But there's no shortage of opportunities if we're looking for them. And the Lord Jesus said to the disciples before he left them. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. How? By your good teaching, By the fact that you carry out certain things.
No, if you love one another, he, they, he said the world is gonna look on in my absence. And they're gonna know that you're followers of me when they see practically manifested amongst yourselves that look, not when they hear it, because they wouldn't hear it. The world doesn't always hear what we say. The world doesn't listen in. Today we're having a reading meeting. We're taking up this chapter. The world's not listening, but they're gonna see When we leave this building, when we go out of here on the weekend, the world's gonna look on. How are they gonna know? We're Christians. We're followers of the Lord.
If they see love manifested 1 towards another.
In a practical, outward way.
The word kindness.
It's a manifestation of love. You know. If children are afraid of you, you might wanna take a look in the mirror and see how kind you are manifesting yourself. One of the reasons children weren't afraid of the Lord Jesus is because He was coming.
And if you think of that when you were growing up or even now of somebody in your assembly that is known for being kind.
There's something there and when children aren't afraid of that person and when you think of them, you know, that's a kind woman, that's a kind man, you know, kindness, there's a shortage of it in this world. And sad to say, maybe there's a shortage, you know, amongst us too. But boy, that's one way you can manifest is so have an opportunity to show kindness towards one another and that's a practical some act of kindness is a practical manifestation of.
Really loving somebody.
Just wanted to remind you whether we're going to 5:15 just in case someone thought it was fine.
This is one of the instances in Scripture that has one to another in it. And uh, so it brings before us the individual responsibility, as you said a little earlier, that none of us are exempt when it comes to these things. And so there's individual responsibility, a kindly affection. 1 to another with brother, brotherly love. I think in the French translation in, uh, Hebrews, uh, chapter 13 verse one, I think it says live in love of the brother, not a nice expression, live in love with the brother.
They should just characterize my life to characterize your life that we live in love of our brethren. The world, uh, looks on and sees that kind of affection.
Love is a choice, you know, we have the world's expressions about love that all it just happens to you when they talk about romantic love, it's just something that comes out of the air and drops down and it disappears as fast. Love is an action word and when it speaks of it in this book, uh, my brother mentioned the love chapter and it uses the word charity in the King James. I did a word study once on that and it has the same route that the word cherish does and the idea that the King James translators had when they chose that word.
Was the kind of love expressed? There is a love that prizes the object, cherishes it, that has a little different thought to it. So we think of the kind of love that that cherishes. Well, do I cherish you?
Do I prize you?
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Do we prize one another, cherish one another? Do we see value there?
Well, it may be harder to love some people than others, but we have these instructions and we're told to love one another and we can choose to do it. We can say, Lord, this brother or this sister is hard to love, but you've shed your love abroad. In my heart, the source of love is there because you put it in me. I want to love that person. And it may be that it's a chore or a job to do, but we can literally choose to do it. Get with the Lord and find a way to show kindness or love towards somebody who.
To us may be very difficult.
To do, maybe there's been some conflict between us or our personalities aren't quite in mesh or whatever, but we can choose to do something about it. We don't have to allow.
Circumstances are the enemy's thoughts that may arise in our hearts towards our brethren.
To, uh, dictate to us. We can choose to love that person and do something about it.
In honor of preferring one another.
Doesn't mean to have favorites.
But uh, I believe it suggests a thought that we should be the first to give honor to someone else. So something that's reciprocal, you're the first one to act in there and give you be the first to give honor to the others. Don't wait for the on the others to give you honor or be respectful. You start that process. You're the first one to be given honor to others.
First, Peter 38 mentioned a few things that might be helpful. Finally, be all of one mind having compassion one of another.
Love as brethren, pitiful.
It says be courteous.
This can take a discipline, but it's important.
These are the things that, uh, whereby we just don't respond in passion to what might stimulus stimulate us to, uh, to harsh words or harsh actions. And with some of this, this is more of a challenge than others. Uh, and I have to speak to myself on that. But we can always be courteous and not render evil for evil or railing for railing.
But this doesn't say to be uh.
Uh, double minded.
It doesn't say to excuse evil, but it's the behavior that is involved here that is fitting to a believer.
And, uh, expresses character. It's a high order. I certainly don't say that I'm there, but it's a challenge.
And, uh, the Lord gives us tools for the accomplishment of these things to catch ourselves to, to, uh, put on the brakes to halt.
Passionate responses that really don't belong.
Courteousness courtesy.
Compassion.
Pitiful, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing.
And now most of us older brethren have been in the care meeting. This is a good set of rules for a care meeting.
In Romans chapter 14 and verse 17, you have a definition really of what we're going over here. It says, uh, in Romans 14 and 17, the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved man. And so we're talking about practical Christianity here. It's not an outward show, not with dissimulation or deceit, but it's practical Christianity.
That's being brought before us. And so he goes on and says here.
That we're not to be slothful in business, that the believer when he goes into his workplace or he, uh, does work for another person, he's not to be slothful. He's not to be, uh, uh, running out the clock as it were. And uh, just umm, umm, doing his work in a lack of nasal way. I was on in business for many years and umm, it was always, uh, a very, umm, challenging thing to find workers that would not be slothful. You always had the 30 day wonder after the, uh, 30 day review, why he, uh.
He just got into his old ways and cruising and basically had a job and we, you'd have a difficult time getting him out. But, uh, when we did the interview process, uh, uh, we had a set of, uh, interview questions and, uh, that's a very end of the interview questions about 20 questions that we would ask. And then there was one for the, umm, the interviewers. And that is how fast did this person walk? And we would walk, we would, uh, watch the person walk to the vehicle to see whether it was with purpose and whether he was doing it, uh, umm, with, uh, a real stride to get to his vehicle and to drive off and he had some purpose and what he was doing.
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Or did he just kind of saunter out into the parking lot and pick a few pebbles on the pavement and then just kind of get into his car and, and, uh, wander away? While we would oftentimes look for those that walk to their vehicle, they didn't, They had a purpose in their stride. And so I believe that this is partly what's being brought before us is to have purpose and not to be slothful or lazy in what we do, but to do our work is unto the Lord, not as unto men. And it ought to characterize our lives. There ought to be a difference between a Christian working in the office and an unbeliever walk working in the in the office.
And it's true of every aspect of our life. I just want to read it in Mr. Darby's translation because it gives a very broad thought here. It says as to diligent zealousness, not slothful, because I don't believe God encourages laziness in any aspect of our lives. It starts first of all, in our personal lives.
A person who's diligent in their personal lives, be it their hygiene or keeping the room clean or their apartment need or whatever it might be that's going to spill into their business life. A man or a woman who's slothful at the office. If you visit their home, you'll probably see their careless in their personal life as well.
And a brother or sister who's slothful in their home life for their personal life and their business life, that's going to carry over into the assembly. And so I say again, God doesn't encourage laziness in any aspect of life, whether it's our secular life or whether it's our spiritual life. And I believe that's why those who take office in the assembly as bishops or deacons, they were to be diligent and orderly in their personal life. If they didn't know how to be diligent and orderly in their personal and family life, how could they rule in the House of God?
There wasn't going to be that diligence and order in taking lead, whether it was for the spiritual well-being or the temporal matters in the assembly. And I want to just say in that connection, I wanted to say it earlier, but it's come up again.
That with ministry for Christ.
It starts with the little things. If you keep your desk neat, then that's going to, as I say, carry over in your life into many other things. If you're willing to stay behind after the fellowship lunch and help wash up the knives, knives and forks when nobody, everybody's gone home and nobody knows you're doing it, that's the young person that God is going to use in a greater way later on. You were in business, Robert, and I was too, and we never hired anybody at the top. We proved somebody. And sometimes you hire somebody and you put them on probation for six months because you want to prove them in the little things. And when you prove somebody in the little things.
Henry Ford never hired a person without taking them out for dinner and giving them a test. They didn't know it was a test, but he gave them a test. If they salt and pepper their food without tasting it, he never hired them. He said there was a person who was careless in their eating habits, didn't taste their food before they spiced it. They were going to be careless in their business habits or putting a car together or whatever it was. They weren't. They didn't prove it before they they took out.
Well, we smile at that, but men in secular business understand the need for testing and proving and starting people at the top. A corporation starts people at the bottom and they work them up as they prove themselves. And I often say, does God run something more careless than humans? No, he proves us in the little things. If we're diligent in our personal life, if we're diligent in the little things of service, uh, when we're younger, the, those are the kind of people that God can entrust more to. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.
I've got a question for you.
I've worked in sales and for companies in the past in sales, and I discovered that the best salesman always had messy desks.
There, there. It wasn't that there was total chaos, but it almost always worked out that way because there was a focus in their life that was different than other people. And it happened to be that the focus that they had, uh, their ability is to do the job of interpersonal and sales maybe left. They didn't put as much time in the other and they had messy desks, but it almost always was that way. I could go, I could walk into a sales office anywhere and let me see everybody's office here and I'll show you the top salesman.
That's why they called it organized confusion.
Engineers should have organized desks.
Well, there, it may have something then to do. We're chuckling about it, but the kind of gift and the ability that one has. I just remember this story that struck me. Uh, this, this man went to Bible school with some fellows and they, I think it was booty and, and then they were all headed into the Lord's work of some kind from their background. And this brother was talking about this man who was unkempt. He.
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Picked his nose, he just didn't take baths like he should his hair and he just, he just, he says, I just fired this guy and I didn't like sitting next to him in class because there might be an odor or whatever. But years later, uh, he had the opportunity to go to South America or some place where this brother was laboring and he was laboring with savages and people who were very uncontent that, and they loved him and he wanted them to Christ and LED them on. And he said, I changed my thoughts about him when I saw him in the environment he was in.
And what you said about having a stomach that was prepared for it, this man was there and lived a little bit like the natives and it was exactly the kind of person that was needed for that environment in those circumstances. And uh, you know, we are, we are not all formed perfectly and maybe because of some of our backgrounds are where we come from.
There are, there are some things that could use some attention maybe, but even those folks, we might say, if we're not one of those folks, or even me, maybe I can say God can use and has a place, even if I am flawed. And, uh, you know, you, you mentioned how brother, uh, Gordon used to talk about we're a bunch of zeros in the assembly where I grew up. There was a brother there that used to say we're all a bunch of crooked sticks that, uh, when we were traveling in the Southwest a few years ago.
They, they make these fences down there out of crooked sticks. And I was noticing this one fence where there was a lot of Labor put in so that the, the bend that went this way fit in the bend that went that way. And the next stick and whoever put them together, it was a marvelous way that they actually made this fence work. And I thought about that and I said, boy, that old brother used to talk about that, but God knows how to put crooked sticks together and make them make something that works. And don't we, we are none of us think that we are crooked sticks because we are but that oil.
That oil?
That God provides by His Spirit the love of God that shed abroad in our hearts can certainly make some crooked sticks work together or put a one in front of a zero and give it some value. Well, that's the diversity that Brother Steve was talking about, I think in the previous meeting. But I do believe that as it says, whatever thy hand findeth to do, do with all thy might. And God, as I say again, I believe this is really the overriding principle that we have in this verse. The principle is God never encourages laziness in our Christian life, whether it's in practical things or whether it's in spiritual things.
Diligence and energy of faith is what is to be exhibited at all times. We're not here, brethren, just to drift along through life. That is not what we are here for. You know the Lord said to the disciples, come yourselves apart and rest awhile. And sometimes we quote that verse without taking it up in its context. Do you realize that in the next couple of verses He lifted up his eyes and the multitude came, and the next thing you read, 12 men are distributing food to several thousand people. Wasn't much of A rest, was it?
You know the Lord said or the Lord gave many reasons why He healed on the Sabbath day, but the most outstanding reason was my father worketh hitherto and I work. The Lord was not here for a rest. The only time you read of him sleeping was for a few moments of rest on a boiled pillow in a boral boat. And it wasn't much of A rest because there was more work to do. He was not here for a rest. He was here to carry out the work that his Father had given him to do. And brethren, that remaineth the rest to the people of God. And in the meantime, we need to exercise energy and diligence in whatever God has said before. Yes, we're all unique. Yes, we're all called to different things.
But I believe the overriding principle of this verse is there needs to be diligence in our lives.
Need to identify priorities also, don't we? We had that before as to discerning what is the will of God. And so it's it's good to have orderly lives with we have priorities from the word of God as to what is important to the Lord. And perhaps you've been visiting someone or answered the phone to someone in distress, spending time with the soul and maybe your desk is upset and your your room hasn't been cleaned. So and that might happen before the Lord comes. So we need to have a discernment in our souls AS2 priorities and be diligent in those things that the Lord sets before us.
Be Prepared
Gospel—Jim Hyland
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Let's begin the gospel meeting this evening with hymn #15 on the gospel hymn sheet O blessed gospel sound. Yet there is room. It tells to all around, Yet there is room the guilty may draw near, though vile they need not fear with joy they now may hear. Yet there is room. That's particularly thinking of this expression at the beginning of the third verse.
All things are ready. Come yet. There is room hymn #15. Let's stand up to sing this and if someone will please start it.
Oh, blessed God.
And.
Help. And it's all over your house. Yeah. So I had a camera. That's what I was doing.
God must have been crying, sweetheart.
And could not be.
Yes, I have recommended.
Hello. And they followed me to catch anything. Well, when you're proud of the newspaper.
Oh, good Granny handsome man. Yeah, yeah, I've been thrown through.
Call things directly from.
The battery's running.
Right, Saturday Night Sun. Yes, there's a good friend.
Oh, there, I guess. Smiles across the place. Many important nursing things.
Oh, thank you. Are you well-being?
Yes, everyone.
Yes, Sir. I'll make it Sunday.
I'm doing well, that's my way.
So far, well, thank.
Yes, I've never been through.
Let's ask God's help and blessing our blessed God and Father how thankful we are this evening for that glorious gospel. That's good news that is being sounded out around this planet this evening. We thank thee that Christ is still the Savior of sinners. We thank thee that there is still salvation being offered to the lost, and how thankful we are that yet there is room.
We thank before our precious Savior and that mighty work of Calvary. And now, as we're about to open my Word and present the glorious gospel here in this room, our God, we pray that it might go forth clearly, simply, and in the power of the Spirit, that Christ might be presented in all His loveliness, and that Thy Word might have its desired effect, that as the sword of the Spirit, it might Pierce tonight the heart and conscience, and that souls might be turned from darkness to light.
We ask thy help and blessing. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Amen.
Like to connect a number of portions at the beginning of the Gospel Meeting this evening. The first one is in Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 4.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice, and offering thou wouldest not.
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But a body hast thou prepared me? And then in John's Gospel, chapter 14.
John's Gospel, chapter 14 and verse two. In my father's house. There are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25.
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 25 and verse 41. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, and one more portion for now back in the 22nd chapter of this same book, Matthew's Gospel, chapter 22.
And verse 2 The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made us a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding.
And they would not come again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden.
Behold, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed. Well, at first glance these might seem like strange scriptures to to read and consider at the beginning of a gospel meeting like this, but I have it on my heart this evening in presenting the good news, the glad tidings to speak a little bit from some scriptures that bring before us the subject of preparation.
And first of all, we're going to begin with what God has prepared for the blessing of man. Because, you know, it all goes back to what God has prepared for the blessing of man. Because apart from God bringing in something tonight.
On the grounds of grace and what he can do, we have no good news to tell, because there's not a man on the earth that sin that doeth good and sinneth not. And the Bible plainly declares all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and there is none good. No, not one. And not only are we sinners when we're born into this world, not only are we sinners.
But let's be very clear that there is nothing that we can do to better our position before God. There's nothing we can do to get rid of one sin. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves fit for the presence of God or His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But thank God. The good news is tonight that God has made every provision for the Sinner. What good news we have to tell.
And even the boys and girls here, I think, understand what it means to prepare, what preparation really is. You know, a little while ago, we left this room and we went up to the dining room and we sat down to a wonderful meal. But do you realize that that meal just didn't happen? That meal just didn't put itself on the table for us to help ourselves? No. There was a great deal of preparation.
Went into that meal to have these meetings this weekend. These meetings didn't just happen. No, there was preparation. Went into the planning of these meetings and those of us who have parents understand what it is to prepare our children for different stages of life in the natural and secular realm. When we have little ones, we send them off to school to prepare them.
To get an education and to learn, we send them to elementary school to prepare them for high school.
When elementary school is done, we send them off to high school to prepare them for college.
Or a vocation in life or university. A young person studies hard, gets through his course or his training so that he can get a job. Once we he gets a job, then he begins to put a little aside to prepare, maybe to get married and buy a home or get a car. We get a little older. We start thinking of a retirement fund and putting a little away so we can prepare for the day when we can retire, or at least not have to work so hard.
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But you know, we spend our whole life preparing for things down here, preparing for what we call the next stage of life.
But tonight we want to talk about preparation in light of eternity. And first of all, we find here.
In Hebrews chapter 10 The Lord Jesus brought before us a body Hast Thou prepared me?
Now in these chapters in Hebrews we have a contrast. Vofton said that God teaches by contrast because God has made the way of salvation very, very plain.
It tells us that the way of righteousness is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein. We're not going to speculate tonight on how to be saved. We're not going to speculate tonight on who the Savior is. No, God has made it very plain, spelled it out very clearly in His word. There's a lot of difficult things in life, isn't there? And sometimes our young people, they sign up for a course at school.
And they decide after a few weeks. Oh, that's too difficult. I'll never be able to grasp those concepts that they're trying to teach me.
You get a job and you say it's just more than I can handle. It's so difficult. Maybe you've made lots of good preparation. It's so or so it seems, but it just seems so difficult. But tonight we want to present a way of blessing, a way of salvation that is not difficult. We may complicate it in our presentation of it, but in itself it is not difficult. That's why we're going to, as the spirit of God gives liberty, bring before you the word of God.
We complicate the word of God sometimes with our explanations, but the word of God itself is very, very simple. And so here we find a contrast in these chapters, a contrast between the bodies of the sacrifices in the Old Testament and the Lord Jesus taking human form and coming into this world to go to Calvary's cross and to offer himself.
To die at the cross as that supreme sacrifice. If we were to read these chapters, we would find that the bodies of those beasts that were slain and burnt from day-to-day and year to year in the Old Testament, they never put away sin. It tells us later on in the next chapter every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices that could never take away sins.
And those priests and Levites and the children of Israel in the Old Testament.
They understood very clearly that as they brought those sacrifices from day-to-day and year to year.
That those sacrifices only atone for that one sin, and then they had to bring another, and another and another.
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever, sat down on the right hand of God.
The sacrifices accomplished to God's glory, to God's satisfaction, because the Lord Jesus came in bodily form.
A body hast thou prepared me? We call it incarnation.
And if you were to look up in the dictionary the word incarnation, it would vary slightly in its wording from one dictionary to another.
But Webster's dictionary declares incarnation Christ come in human form. I was thrilled when I first read that. And then I thought, what else could it be? No one else has ever come in the way the Lord Jesus came into this world. The Lord Jesus came, sent of God the Father, the eternal Son, and He took on him human form and it was predetermined in the past eternity.
That in the fullness of time he would come forth born of a woman.
You know it tells us in the book of Isaiah unto us a child is born.
Unto us the Son is given. You know those two statements are remarkable and vital in themselves. First of all, it says unto us, a child is born. That's his manhood. The Lord Jesus came born of a woman into this world. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, but Mary was the instrument used to bring him into this world. But it doesn't say unto us the Son is born.
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Unto us a child is born. That's his manhood. But as to his deity and the eternity of his person, unto us the Son is given. He was the eternal Son given by God. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Does that touch your heart tonight? I don't have any sons, but I do have two daughters, one of which is sitting in the audience here this evening.
And I would never send those daughters out of my home if I knew they were going to face some difficult situation or some situation that was going to cost them their their life. No, I would have kept them home that day if I know, if I knew there was some danger facing them. But God sent his son into this world, knowing that his son would go to Calvary's cross. The Lord Jesus said, Lo, I am come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy will of O God, did he know what that will would mean. Indeed he did.
When Jacob or Israel sent Joseph to check on his brethren back in the book of Genesis.
Did either Jacob or Joseph know what was going to happen that day?
Did either the father or the son have any idea of the circumstances that we are going to unfold as the result of the sun being sent to see how it was going with his brethren? Indeed they did not. If Jacob had had any idea on that occasion what was going to happen to Joseph, and that he wouldn't see the son he loved so well for so many years, and that he was going to consider him dead for so many years.
I daresay he would have kept him home within the veil of Hebron had Joseph known how his brethren were going to treat him.
And that he would be taken down into Egypt and that eventually he would be in prison for.
Uh, FA being falsely accused? Would Joseph have been so willing to go on that occasion? I have often wondered.
When Jesse sent David to the camp to see how the battle was going and to take some provisions to his older brothers.
Did Jesse have any idea what was going to happen that David was going to go down with just five stones in his shepherd's bag and a sling in his hand and meet the champion of the Philistines? I doubt he had any idea or he would have kept him home feeding those few sheep in the wilderness. Did David know that as a result of his obedience that day, that after slaying the giant he was going to flee for his life, he was going to live in The Cave of Adalam, flee as a verge of the mountain? Feel rejection from his best friend Jonathan?
I daresay he may not have been so willing to go on that occasion, and even initially to be misunderstood and judged by his brothers.
For coming down at their Father's bidding. But God the Father knew, the Lord Jesus knew.
And yet he came in obedience and love. Obedience to his Father and love to us, because he knew there was no other way that a Savior could be provided. He knew there was no other way that God could offer blessing and salvation apart from him coming in human form, taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men, because it tells us further, and being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Oh, what a glorious gospel we have to present tonight. What a glorious man we have. The man Christ, Jesus Christ. Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He came as a man.
He was the most accessible man that ever walked the face of the earth.
He walked on the one hand in separation, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.
And yet, I say, he was the most accessible man that ever walked the face of this earth. So Leper could come to him. The blind man could plead his cause. The children could sit on his knee and receive blessing.
People could come to him at any time of the day or night. A woman at the well could find a savior on that occasion when he sat there weary with his journey. Oh, I say we have a man to present the man, Christ Jesus, the one who was made. I say again in the likeness of men. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior tonight? Is he your Savior?
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Because it took more than just the Lord Jesus coming in incarnation. It took more than just that perfect life and that blessed example that he left in his footsteps. Oh, it took him going to the cross.
He had to lay down his life, and that precious body was nailed to a cross after it had been abused beyond what any of us can ever imagine. And yet those physical sufferings never atoned for one sin, awful as they were. But after they had abused him, they laid hands on him once again, and they led, let him out to be crucified. They took that precious body, those kind hands that had dispensed blessing, those feet that had trod wearily up and down the dusty streets of Palestine.
And they nailed that precious body to the cross of Calvary. Does that mean something to your soul tonight?
If that means nothing to your soul tonight, I wonder what goes on within your heart. But oh, there the Lord Jesus hung, and there they heaped more abuse on him. There they mocked the Lord Jesus. There there were some who sat down at that crossroads where he hung as a spectacle for men and angels. And they.
Continued to deride him, there were others who passed by and wagged their heads.
There were the thieves who both at first gnashed on him with their teeth. One did repent in the end. Thank God.
But there he hung, a crown of thorns on his head. They gave him vinegar to drink when he said, I thirst.
But you know, there came a moment, There came a moment in the history of this world when God said, that's enough. You've abused the body of my son Nina. And he shrouded this world in darkness. At high noon the sun was blackened and there was darkness over all the land for three hours. And in those three hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus bore my sins. Listen to this.
In his own body, on the tree, a body hast thou prepared me, And in that very body that was prepared for him, the Lord Jesus bore my sins. Did he bear your sins? Can you say that he died for you, that he bore your sins in his own body? On the tree, after those hours of darkness, the Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice, and said, It is finished.
He cried again, and said, Father into thy hands. I commend my spirit.
He bowed his blessed head, and he gave up his life.
Nobody, ever, it wasn't suicide. Nobody ever has been able to give up their life in this way. Only the one who came in Incarnation could say I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father.
And a little later on they came to the Lord Jesus, and a soldier with a spear pierced his side.
And forthwith came there out blood and water.
I want to stress that for a moment, because the cure for sin tonight.
Is none other than the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I was touched by reading a little story recently about two children in a family, a brother and a sister. For our purposes tonight, I'm going to call them John and Mary. It'll be easier that way. I'm not sure what their names really were, but a true story.
John had had a very serious disease and he had had the stamina by the mercies of the Lord to fight that disease and to recover.
But shortly thereafter, his sister was taken by the same disease.
She was younger and did not have the stamina the doctors knew to survive the ordeal without a blood transfusion. But there were two problems standing in the way. She needed a blood transfusion from someone who had the same blood type, and she had a very rare blood type, and she needed blood from someone who had had the same disease.
Well, her brother's blood type matched her blood type and of course he had had the same disease.
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And so they went and talked to this young boy, and the doctor explained the seriousness of his sister's situation.
And that unlike him, unless she had this transfusion, she was going to die. And he asked John if he was willing to give blood so that his sister could have the needed transfusion.
He hesitated. His lip quivered. He looked into the eyes of the Doctor.
He looked into the faces of his parents standing by, and finally he nodded and he said yes.
I'm willing to give my blood for my sister.
It wasn't long until they were wheeled into the operating room.
John looked very, very serious, but he looked into his sister's face. He saw her weakened condition, and he smiled.
As the doctor inserted the needle and began to draw the blood into that tube.
For the transfusion, John watched this for a while, and then he turned to the doctor. And all the innocency of childhood, he said to the doctor, Doctor, when do I die?
Only then did the Doctor understand why there had been some hesitation on the part of John.
When he was asked if he would give blood for his sister's transfusion, he had mistakenly thought that in giving his blood he was going to have to lay down his life.
And yet he was willing to do it for his sister. Of course, John didn't have to give his life, and his sister did eventually get well. And how thankful those children were that they were able to grow up together. And they never forgot that day when John gave his blood to save his sister's life. But John didn't have to give his life to give his blood. But all the story of the Gospel goes far beyond a story like that.
The story of the gospel is that the Lord Jesus had to lay down his life. He had to shed his blood so that sinners could be saved, so that we can, quote a verse like we often, quote forgot the blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanseth us from all sin. And I know there's just many in this room who rejoiced to look up and with the Apostle Peter speak of that precious blood of Christ that has redeemed us. And we look forward to that day when the eternal song will burst forth unto him that loved us and washed us in his blood and that he's washed us.
And redeemed us out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. And so before we pass on, I want to question each soul here. And I wish I had time to go up and down the rows, but I don't. But the question each one in your soul, Are you washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus? There's no gospel hymn. I've sung from the very early days of my youth. Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? Are you walking daily by the Savior's side?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb tonight?
Has the blood of Jesus Christ taken away every sin and made you fit for the presence of God?
In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness.
Of sin.
But then I read in John's Gospel chapter 14 as well, because here we have the Lord Jesus speaking.
And he says, I go to prepare a place for you.
Where was the Lord Jesus going? He was going back to heaven. He was going back to the Father.
It tells us he had come from God and he must return to God. And he knew that the hour was come, that he was going to return.
Not without going to the cross, of course, but he was going to return. And he tells the disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. And I believe that the minute the Lord Jesus returned to the Father returned to heaven, to the right hand of God, the minute that happened, the place was prepared. It's spoken of here in the future tense, because the work of Calvary hadn't been yet accomplished.
The Lord Jesus had not yet died, the blood had not yet been been shed, So Lord Jesus had not yet risen from the dead, and I want to stress that in a moment, nor had he returned to heaven.
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You know after they took the Lord Jesus down from the cross, they laid him in a tomb. But you know it says he died, he was buried and he rose again the 3rd day according to the scriptures.
You know, some of us in this room have visited in countries where they worship and pray to someone who's in the tomb. You know, Mohammed is in the tomb tonight. Maybe you've never heard people wail out their cries at the hour of prayer, but it is a desperate thing if you ever hear it. Maybe you've never seen people bow down to idols of wood and stone, but it's a very, very sad thing.
But tonight we have a tomb too, in Christianity. But it is a tomb with the words over it. He is not here. He is risen. Come see the place where the Lord lay. What is unique to Christianity?
And the gospel is that the tomb is empty and we proclaim a living savior. And not just a savior who's living, but a savior who's in glory, who's in heaven. There is a savior on high in the glory, a savior who suffered on Calvary's tree. A savior is willing to save. Now as ever, his arm is almighty, his love great and free. And the invitation is, oh come now to Jesus.
That dear loving Savior receive him this moment, and peace shall be thine and the place here that the Lord Jesus spoke of going to prepare. It's all been prepared the moment He entered there with the marks of atonement in his body, those wounds in his hands and in his feet and his side. The moment he entered there, the place was prepared for the people. What prepares the people for the place is the work of Calvary. Have you availed yourself of the work?
Are you prepared for the place? The place is prepared for you. Heaven is a place beyond telling, beyond description. Paul was caught up there for a little while. He said it was so wonderful. He didn't know whether he was in the body or out of the body. He said it was so wonderful, he heard unspeakable words that it was not lawful for a man to utter. In fact, it was so wonderful. And so I'm going to use the word awesome.
That he didn't even talk about it for 14 years. And he never talked about it till he was forced by inspiration to talk about it in recording it into the in the second Epistle to the Corinthians. And that's something, you know, when I have a great experience, I can't wait to tell everybody. I want an opportunity to talk about somewhere. I've been some wonderful experience, but it was so tremendous to be caught up for a few minutes to heaven.
That Paul wouldn't even talk about it until the Lord said I want you to tell those Corinthians.
What happened 14 years ago? But oh, that's the place I'm on my way to. Oh, you say, Jim, that's presumptuous. It would be, except to know from the word of God that having availed myself of the work of Calvary being washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus, my sins are gone. And God has promised me at that heaven that his Son has prepared. And if God were to refuse me entrance there now, he'd have to refuse his own Son. And that is absolutely impossible.
Unequivocally impossible. He cannot. And so everyone who knows the Lord Jesus, everyone who receives him as Savior, can know for assurance that that place that has been prepared.
Is going to be their final home at the end of the journey. But you know, there's something else that God has prepared too. And we read about it and it is very solemn and very serious. And that's hell. And we read in Matthew 25 that hell has been prepared for the devil and his angels. You know, heaven was never prepared for man. Heaven, I'm sorry. Hell was never prepared for man.
Nor was hell pre prepared for the Sinner. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels when Satan LED a rebellion against God and lifted up himself in pride, and he had a host, a legion, who followed legions who followed him in his rebellion. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels, and Satan will be eventually cast into the bottomless pit with those fallen angels, and he will never be released again.
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But the solemn thing is that while it's true that hell was never prepared for man or prepared for sinners.
Yet those who refuse God's offer of salvation, those who refuse his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has no choice but to send them to the lake of fire. And if we were to take the time and go to other scriptures, we would see this so solemnly and seriously brought out. And we read in Revelation of the Dead, small and great, in the coming day, standing before a great white throne with the Lord Jesus as the judge on that throne. And they're judged from the books, and they're judged in their for their sins, and they're taken and cast into outer darkness.
They're cast into the lake of fire. How solemn it will be, because it's a place where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. The story is told of a preacher of the gospel who lived in a village where there was a glass factory, and one day he was passing that glass factory and he noticed, as he passed the open door that just inside the great furnace had the doors of it open as well.
The Stoker had been stocking the fire, the man who tends the fire, and he had gone for some more wood, and he left the door of the furnace open and the preacher stopped and he gazed as if mesmerized into the flames of that that fire. And as he gazed into those seething flames out loud, he said what must hell be like. He didn't realize that just around the corner the Stoker was listening.
The Stoker was an ungodly man, but those words burned into his soul. And a few days later there was a knock on the door of the preacher. And there stood the man. And he said, Sir, I can't get out of my mind what you said a few days ago, the preacher said. What do you mean? Oh, he said, you don't realize. But when you stood in the doorway of the factory a few days ago and you said, what must hell be like, he said, those words have never left me. He said, I don't want to go there. I want to be saved.
The evangelist invited him into his home, and before he left, he had come to know the Lord Jesus as his savior. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels, and God does not want to send you to hell tonight.
No, He wants to save your soul. The Lord Jesus has prepared that wonderful place called heaven.
Are you on your way to heaven? Do you have that security?
Recently from an in flight magazine in one of the airplanes I was flying on, I tore out a an insert. It's a advertisement for MetLife and I was. What struck me about this was the caption lower down on the page. First of all it says life, it belongs to you. You know God is offering you eternal life tonight. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It's there for the taking. It's offered free at great cost, yes, but it's offered free if you will take it. But what really caught my eye was this statement. Replace today's uncertainties with guarantees. You know, man is always trying to do that, isn't he? And maybe this ad caused the number of people to take out life insurance and as they thought, replace today's uncertainties.
With tomorrow's guarantees, let me tell you another little story. I was impressed about Reed in reading about the Last King of Siam. Siam is called Thailand today, but back in the early 1900s it was still called Siam and I won't try to pronounce his Uh Siamese name, but he was known when he came to the throne as Rama the 7th and he took the throne of Siam on November 26th.
1925, and he reigned for something just short of 10 years.
History tells us that he was a very unlikely candidate for the throne. He was a very reserved, retiring man. He was did not have a personality that really suited him to reign over a country and subjects and he was forced to abdicate on March the 2nd 1935 and he went to England in exile. But you know, it's interesting because shortly after he took the throne.
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He must have realized what was brewing and that he was not a suitable monarch and he took out life insurance against his throne. He's the only king in history that it recorded history that took out a not a life insurance policy. I'm sorry, an unemployment policy. An unemployment policy is the only king that ever did that. The only monarch that ever reigned that we know of that took out unemployment insurance against his throne.
But you know, as a result, he took it out with a British and a French, uh, company. And as a result he lived very comfortably in exile in Britain for many, many years until the day of his death. There was a man who had foresight, there was a man who was looking to the future. And yet men will be so careful in these things they'll take out life insurance to try to guarantee some security for their heirs when they leave.
A man will take out unemployment insurance even against his own throne. But what about eternity? Are you prepared for eternity? And again we find another preparation that God has made. We read about it in the 22nd of Matthew, the story of the King's Son, the parable that illustrates the gospel and God's preparation and provision so beautifully. Here. This king had made us supper. Everything was prepared as he said. My fatling and my oxen are prepared.
And he sends out an invitation to come. That's why I decided we would sing that hymn at the beginning of the Gospel Meeting.
All things are ready. Come. God's house is filling fast. Some guests will be the last. But, oh, tonight there's room. There's room. Tonight the invitation is still going forth, and through the work of God's son, the Lord Jesus, a banquet has been prepared. Not a banquet like we enjoyed over in the dining room this evening, but a banquet in heaven, referred to as the marriage supper.
Of the lamb. Are you going to be at the marriage supper of the lamb? You know, we enjoy getting an invitation to a wedding, don't we? It's such a happy occasion, especially if there's real love and a wedding in the a marriage in the Lord and so on. We enjoy that. And we love to be a guest at a wedding. John the Baptist said he would rejoice. He rejoiced at the sound of the bridegroom's voice. But oh, there's a marriage supper of the lamb to which God is inviting every Sinner.
Who will come and receive his salvation? Again, there's nothing that you can do to prepare. You know. It's interesting when you visit other cultures and societies, and especially ancient cultures and societies, to see how many of those societies spent their whole life preparing for the next life. They may have had a very misconstrued idea of how to do it, but they were very sincere.
I've stood at the Great Pyramids on more than one occasion. Those pyramids are tremendous edifices.
But they're the tombs of the kings that were buried there and they spent their whole life preparing for the next life. In fact, the biggest of those 3 pyramids, the king who was buried in there. He made such meticulous preparation that not only did he have that pyramid built with much of his wealth secured inside for what he thought he would need in the next life, but when they excavated some years ago on the outside of that pyramid.
They found buried there, the boat that he had used to traverse the Nile, buried there so that he would have that vote to convey him in the next life. And they've taken that boat up and they built a building over the pavilion, over it. And you can walk through that pavilion and up different levels and look at that boat. But it was very dare as preparation for the next life. But oh, tonight, the preparation for the next life has been made by God.
God has provided everything, but there is responsibility. And I want to, in the closing moments of this gospel, read some further scriptures that bring before us your responsibility in making preparation. God has done everything he can. Now there's a responsibility side. I'm going to read first of all in the book of Amos.
It's in the Old Testament.
Amos, Chapter 4.
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Amos, Chapter 4 and just a little expression near the end of verse 12.
Prepare to meet thy God. And then I want to read a verse or two in the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs, chapter 30.
Proverbs chapter 30 and verse 24.
There be 4 things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer. First of all we read Prepare to meet thy God, you say? I thought you said everything was ready. Everything was prepared. Yes, as far as God's part, everything is ready.
And everything is prepared. The only thing that is wanting in your life is that you need to come and have your sins taken care of by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to receive the Lord Jesus as your savior. I'm going to try to explain how very simple it is, because tonight we're not going to tell you you need to make some pilgrimage to some distant city. We're not going to tell you that you have to do Pennsylvania penance.
That you have to abuse your body in some way, That you have to climb some mountain, That you have to live in a certain region of the world all alone and that kind of thing. No, that's not what we're going to tell you. But it is this simple. This is how you can prepare to meet God. You can bow your head right where you are now. Don't wait till the end of the meeting. It might be too late. But bow your head right now and you can speak to the Lord Jesus in your heart.
He hears what you say, whether you utter one word aloud or not. And you can speak to God or to the Lord Jesus right in your heart and confess that you're a Sinner. But tell him that you receive his salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's as simple as believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And what does it say? And he believed rejoicing with all his health. That was so simple for that jailer who heard that gospel from the lips of Paul and Silas.
That's how simple salvation is. But don't wait till the end of this meeting, because the Lord Jesus is coming and the door of mercy is going to be closed at any moment. And when once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door, they're going to knock and say, Lord, Lord open unto us, but he's going to say from the other side of that closed door, depart from me. I never knew you. And so we turn to the ants, this beautiful illustration.
That Solomon uses back here in the book of Proverbs, and it says that the antis is small, but it's wise. Why is the Ant wise? Because it makes preparation and it prepares. In the summer. You boys and girls have watched the ants I did when I was a boy. Watch those ants as they're scurrying in and out of the Ant hill, and they've got crumbs on their back that are twice their size. And maybe they're struggling, but they know they've got to get that food down into the earth.
That the storms of winter are coming and that they'll perish if they don't prepare. While the weather is nice and the food is available. And there is a storm of judgment coming on this world. Yes, we've heard about some terrible storms in the last few years, But there is a storm of judgment coming on this world, unlike any storm that has ever passed this planet heretofore. Are you ready? Are you prepared? Now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
If the Ant waits too long, it's going to perish. But you know, the interesting thing is the lower creation. Follow the instincts of the Creator. Sometimes better than we intelligent, uh, people will follow the instructions of our Maker. The one who breathed into man's nostrils, the breath of life. And man became a living soul. The Ant will hurry and scurry to get its food in by winter, and yet man will linger.
Man, God beseeching.
Man refusing to be made forever glad Come for Angel hosts are musing, or this sight so strangely sad, man lingering. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? Oh, have you made preparation for what's coming on this earth? Are you ready? Are you saved? Do you know the Lord Jesus as your savior? Before we close this gospel meeting, I want to read another scripture.
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And I want to read this as an encouragement to any parents in this room or grandparents or anyone who is praying for a loved one. Maybe there's a parent here. 2 parents were talking together before a meeting just like this. And they said, well, we've waited a long time for our son to be saved. And there's another opportunity. Maybe tonight's the night.
And there are parents I know praying for the salvation.
Of their children here in this room tonight. And their young people, maybe grandparents, other loved ones, an aunt, an uncle praying for you especially that you'll get saved tonight. I want to read this portion. As a special encouragement to you, let's go to Hebrews Chapter 11.
Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse 7.
By faith, Noah, being warned of God, of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared. There's our word again prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. I think this is a tremendous encouragement, you know, Noah.
Worked on that ark and preached righteousness for about 120 years. You know he only had eight converts. Wasn't a very good record by today's standards. They'd say we don't want him as a preacher, but you know, the 8 converts were all his family and that tremendous to think about. Not an encouragement to those who are praying for their boys and girls for another loved one. God delights to work in households.
And I just want to encourage you, don't give up praying. It's God's will that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
You don't have to pray and say if it's God's will, will you save my loved one? It is his will.
Pray in faith, Noah preached. I am sure he prayed too. And when it was all said and done after 120 years.
Of faithfully working on the ark, preparing this ark to the saving of his household. He had the tremendous joy of going into that arc with his three sons and their wives. And eight souls were saved as that storm came down, the deluge, the flood that came up, and every other living creature on the face of the earth drowned. But you know, there's a solemn verse that says of this incident and the flood came.
And took them all away. You know, there must have been children living on the earth. There were young people living on the earth. There were middle-aged people inhabiting the earth. There were old people at that time. And the flood didn't discriminate. It came. And I think this is one of the most solemn statements of scripture and took them all away. And you know when the door of mercy is closed, when the Lord Jesus comes and the gospel no longer goes forth and the judgment falls.
It is not going to.
Discriminate.
I want you to think about that there's no discrimination when God sends His judgment, and in the end you will be sent to that place prepared for the devil and his angels.
One more little story.
Governor George K Nash was governor of Ohio from 1900 to 1904, and one day an elderly, white haired woman came to his office in real earnest and she said the Governor Nash, I have come to plead for my son.
Not for his sake, not for my sake, but on the grounds of mercy, I have come to plead for my son, who is on death row and about to be executed in a few days.
Governor Nash listened to her and promised her that he would do what he could for her.
A few days later he went to the prison where the sun was being held on death row.
And he went to the cell of that young man. And when the young man saw Governor Nash, he thought he was probably a preacher, come to offer him some scriptures in his last days. And he said to Governor Nash, I don't want to see you get out of here, go. He cursed him to his face. Governor Nash said, I've come to help you. I think I can be of some assistance to you in your situation.
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He said get out of here, I don't want you. He called for the guard and he had Governor Nash sent on his way.
After Governor Nash was gone, the warden came back and he said to this young man.
How did you and Governor Nash get on? The young man said what? That was the governor, and he threw himself down on the floor. And he said, I have cursed and sent away the only man that could help me, not solemn. And history tells us that that young man shortly thereafter was led out to the electric chair, and he died because he had refused, the only one who could offer him a pardon and save him.
From that sentence of death.
We shake our heads at a story like that, We say, how foolish of that young man. And yet this meeting is over.
Yes, this meeting is over, but I wonder how many people are going to get up out of their seats tonight.
And say I don't want it or I'm going to put it off or I'll wait. I'll make preparation later. God has made full preparation. Now it's up to you to prepare for eternity by receiving God's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
I plead with you not to leave this room tonight if you're not saved, if you don't have the assurance of your salvation tonight.
I plead with you. I beg you not to leave this room tonight. There are just so many who would be happy to talk to you. But oh, tonight I want to say again in closing, It's this simple. Whosoever shall call upon the Lord, the name of the Lord shall be saved. Prepare tonight by receiving Jesus being washed in His precious blood. Let's pray.
Our God and Father, our souls have are stirred as we realize that Thou has brought us through another gospel meeting.
And our souls are stirred to think that there may be those who are going to in a moment or two.
Get off these chairs still lost and in their sins. O our God, we pray, if there are such, that by thy spirit thou will restrain them to stay until they have settled the question and made that necessary, that vital preparation for eternity by receiving the Lord Jesus. We ask thy blessing. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Amen.
Safe
Choices - Learning From Wrong Choices
Learning in the Ups and Downs of Life
Romans 12:12-21
Reading
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Romans chapter 12 and verse 12.
Rejoicing in hope, patience and tribulation.
Continuing instant in prayer.
Distributing to the necessity of Saints given to hospitality.
Bless them which persecute you, Bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Be of the same mind, one toward another.
Mind not hide things, but condescend to men of low estate.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Recompense to no man, evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore a fine enemy hunger feed him.
If you thirst, give him a drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Well, we have some short, shall I say, pithy statements that the, uh, in these verses that we read in the last part of this chapter, but I believe they're full of, as we've been saying, very, very practical instruction for us.
They're simple statements, not hard to understand, but rather the question is, do we really take these statements to heart and make them good in our own souls? And so he begins here where we began. Here the verse begins by saying rejoicing in hope, or regarding hope, rejoice.
Isn't it wonderful, brethren, that we have hope, a hope beyond anything that this world can ever enjoy and appreciate? You say, how can we rejoice when things are difficult if you just back up in the same book to the 8th chapter? Let's get a little key here.
Let me just say before I read a portion in the 8th chapter that when we speak about hope in regards to the believer, it's in contrast really to the hope connected with this life and connected with the first man. Because hope connected with this life and the first man is uncertainty at that, but hope connected with the new man and hope connected with Christ.
Is in no way uncertainty.
It is only hope IN the sense that we're not in the full good of it yet. Let me just read these verses and then we'll maybe we'll give a little illustration that might help.
Verse 24 of Romans 8 For we are saved by hope, But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man ha seeth, why does he hope for? But if we hope for that we see not.
Then do we with patients wait for it Now? If we were to back up a few verses, we would find our presence, our present state is contrasted with what is yet future for the believer. He makes a contrast here and we're still in a groaning creation. We still have the trials and exercises.
Draw the curtain.
We still have the trials and difficulties. We still have bodies that feel pain in this Tabernacle we've grown and so on. But he ends this section really by bringing before us the thought of hope. And, uh, he says we are saved by hope. What does that really mean? Well, if you're going through a difficult situation, maybe you're going through some pain, some real trial in your life, you can get through today because there's always hope that things tomorrow will be better.
We live for hope, we're saved by hope. But again, hope connected with this life is uncertainty at best.
How many times have we hoped to do something and it's never come to fruition? We sit here in these seats this afternoon and wouldn't it be presumptuous of any of us to say that beyond a shadow of a doubt we are going to reach our homes later this today or later this week, depending where we're living and how we're traveling. You'd say that's presumptuous. We hope at a set time to get back to our homes, but something may come in to frustrate either the timetable.
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Or even the getting back to our homes, the Lord might come, for instance, other things might happen, but we live for hope and it says what a man hath, why does he get hope for? And so if I if I can use a simple illustration, a child desires something on their birthday and mom or dad say to that child.
We've secured that gift for you, it's put away in a safe place and when your birthday comes.
It's going to be taken out and given to you, but until the birthday, until the moment it's given to the child, that child lives in hope or anticipation of getting that gift, even though they know that it's been secured for them. There's hope or anticipation, but when the gift is brought out and put in their hand, they're not hoping for it any longer. They're not anticipating it any longer. What a man has, why does he have hope for?
And maybe this helps us to understand rather, and how we can rejoice regarding hope, because our hope is not uncertainty, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. Can you say that about any hope in this life? But you and I are hoping for the Lord's coming. We're looking forward to that day of glory when things are going to unfold, we're going to be with them. And like Him then His purposes in connection with this earth are going to unfold as we come back.
What a wonderful hope we have.
Deferred certainty.
Hope has an object, doesn't it?
As rejoicing in hope, the example you gave to the little boy, he's expecting a gift. He's hoping for the gift, but maybe he's not gonna get what he's expecting and he's gonna be disappointed. But if he knows what he's getting, if he's gonna get a bicycle or something, but he's rejoicing ahead of time. He doesn't have the the gift, but he has it in his heart and he's rejoicing over that. So God has given us an object for our hope. It's not just a vague hope. It's gonna be better tomorrow. It's the Lord Jesus coming for us. We, we, we have frail bodies and we're sick and our bodies are decaying.
Slowly we have a new body. It's gonna be just like the body of the Lord Jesus, an eternal body. These are the hopes that are set before us and the Word of God. We can rejoice, and it's hope that gives us the joy of those future things we're going to have with the Lord Jesus.
In that regard, I'd like to turn also to a portion in the Book of Peter, because it brings out exactly what our brother Michelle is saying. We won't read it all, but just a portion in first Peter chapter one and before I read a verse or two.
We find in the beginning of this chapter he brings before these Jewish believers their hope, and he says it's a living hope, and it's a hope that is, they have an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that fades not away, reserved in heaven for them.
Their hope as far as this earth as a godly Jew that had faded. They've been scattered from the promised land. What was their inheritance? If they had been faithful, and they might have wondered. We're going through fiery trials. We've lost everything. What? What is there left? Well, he brings before them a living hope based on the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
And a hope that has secured something that they can never lose.
And then just notice, I'm going to read the last two words of verse 7. Jesus Christ, whom not having seen ye loved, and whom, though now ye see, him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable.
And full of glory. How could Peter tell them to rejoice, encourage them to rejoice at such a time? Was it that the trial wasn't real? No, the trial was real. Did they feel it? They certainly did feel it, and rightly so. But he says you have Jesus Christ now. You have that object that Michelle has just brought before us. You have something laid up in heaven, treasure laid up in heaven, and it's secured for you.
Now, he says, even in the midst of these fiery trials.
With Christ as the object, you can rejoice, because, brethren, I believe we can rejoice in hope, in the not in the measure in which our circumstances are good, but in the measure in which Christ is our object, and in the measure in which Christ is real and precious to the soul. We can rejoice in hope, and it's a joy unspeakable and full of glory.
00:10:17
The Lord Jesus is an example of that in endurance. That's, uh, Hebrews chapter 12 Says there in verse two, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And so the Lord Jesus himself endured impatience. Really. This is uh, what it says in the second part of that verse, verse 12, patient and tribulation or enduring in tribulation. And so it's possible for me to go through a trial.
And to experience something that the Lord knows has to be placed in my life. And there's a testing time and there's, it hurts. There's a testing. And it's possible for me to go through it impatiently and to just wish it was all over and to get over with this and to try to buy my way out of it, whatever it might be, and to go through it impatiently. But the Lord Jesus endured patiently the sufferings that he endured on the cross as he he was made sin for us.
And he endured patiently the suffering and the, umm, harassment of those that were in opposition to him all throughout this scene. He could speak faithfully. He could say, woe unto you Pharisees. He could speak faithfully, He could warn, but he endured patiently. And umm, you know, this is one of the testimonies that we can bear before the world of being like Christ is if we bear patiently the testimony, the, uh, tribulation. I just say, uh, as an illustration, my dear father-in-law when he was, uh.
Maybe not quite 90. He was out on a snowshoes when he got home from Florida and uh, he was out doing something and umm, he fell backwards. He had uh, replacement knees and his knees locked up and he was on his back in the snow for about an hour and a half and an excruciating pain and he was hollering down the lake to try to get somebody to come. They came up and finally got him, but he said as I lay down in the snow on my back and endured that suffering.
He thought, this is nothing but what the Lord ever endured for me, nothing but what the Lord endured at the hand of man. And so we have this example of the Lord Jesus as enduring impatience. We need to be very patient when we endure the tribulations that the Lord passes us through.
Second Chronicles, there's a verse that speaks of being in a situation maybe where you're perplexed and you don't know what to do.
Umm.
Second Chronicles, chapter 20.
In the first 12.
I want to read it like this.
For we have no might against this.
That cometh against us.
Neither know we want to do.
But our eyes are upon thee.
We may be perplexed and confused, we may not even be reacting as patiently or as correctly as we should in a situation, but when it's a person?
God, there's an assured expectation, which is another definition for that hope we've been talking about. There's an assured expectation that God will show up.
So even when everything around looks like there's nothing there.
But our eyes are upon thee.
I was thinking about the Apostle Paul who is on the ship, the shipwreck, and he had been told.
That if they all stayed with the ship, they would all make it.
And there's a expression that Paul says has become one of my favorites. I believe God that it shall be, even as it was told unto me. That's a hope and a short expectation that when God has said something.
He will do it and I can rest on that.
Some would help us believe that once you become a Christian, everything is fine, you're going to prosper and everything, you're going to be healthy and there'll be no problems. But this first tells us that the scriptures are for us because we're going to go through times of tribulation and testing and we need patience and comfort. And our brother was referring to the Lord Jesus, the perfect example of 1 enduring and many other other witnesses.
00:15:27
In the scriptures that went through difficult times and we saw the end of Job in the book of James, uh, earlier on there. So the God of patience and consolation, he's the one that answers to these times of tribulation. But through the Scriptures, we might have hope. We have set before us the end of the Lord that he gave to Job and how he answered the others in the Old Testament and with the Lord Jesus resurrection, everything is passed now and the position that we have in him.
So this is hope is set before us through the scriptures.
And it is a path of endurance too. We've often said that the Christian race is not the 100 yard dash. It's the path of in, uh, the race of endurance. It's the marathon. And it was mentioned already earlier today in a previous meeting, how sometimes I think those who are younger look at us who are older and they think, well, they've arrived and they don't have all the trials and difficulties, all the temptations and so on.
They don't know what we're facing and so on. But you know, every stage of life has its unique temptations, its unique burdens, its unique trials. And it doesn't get any easier as you get older. And I want to impress that on those who are younger here. It's not gonna get any easier. Don't wish your life away and wish you were at the stage of some of the rest of us because you think it's going to get easier. It's not going to get any easier. But there it it you can.
Endure with the resources that God has given to us. There is a pathway where we can go through every stage of life.
And we can overcome. We sometimes sing a hymn through every period of my life. Thy goodness I'll pursue whether you're a child here, whether you're a young person, whether you're facing college or university, whether it's in connection with a job, whether it's raising our families, whether it's those of us who have young people, whether it's a little further along in the path of faith. The resources that we have are sufficient. He's given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
So that we can endure. It's not going to get easier. But what's the next element that is thrown in the equation, if I can put it that way, it's prayer. And if you notice, it says continuing instant in prayer or Mr. Darby's translation, persevering in prayer. You know, prayer is the powerhouse for our lives. You say, how can I rejoice when things are going so bad? How can I endure? You say, Brother Jim, you don't know what I'm going through. You've never been through.
What I've gone going through and you, you, you're not in the workplace and you're not in the school system and you just don't understand. Well, perhaps I don't understand, but I do understand this, that you can rejoice in trials, you can run with endurance your race, and there is a powerhouse that is sufficient to carry you through. And what is that powerhouse? It's prayer. But I really believe that the difficulty with prayer so often.
In least in my life, I better just point the finger at myself.
But in my life, the difficulty with prayer is I don't persevere in prayer.
This isn't just casual prayer, this is persevering. You know, it says on more than one occasion we're to continue in prayer. You and I know what it is to continue in prayer. You know, sometimes we pray about something and then we move on. But I suggest sometimes we don't see the answers or the power that we ought to because we aren't, we don't persevere. Interesting with the pet, the story the Lord Jesus told in Luke's Gospel.
You remember the man that came to his friend at midnight and he kept knocking and finally his friend rose and gave him what he wanted. You know, I never understood the import of that story until I visited in Egypt in the Middle East. You know, it had. If you understand the culture over there, you understand the real import of that story.
In the Middle East and in Egypt, life starts at 10 in the morning. Breakfast is at 10, lunch at 5, and dinner at 11. And then you often go out visiting until 3:00 in the morning. And in Middle Eastern culture, if someone comes to your door, you must give them something to eat or drink. In fact, sometimes in the middle of the night, I think if I have to drink one more Turkish coffee or cup of tea, I will scream. But you dare not refuse it, and they dare not, uh, refuse to offer you something. And so even if you stop in for 10 minutes.
00:20:26
Even if I have to go out and borrow it from my neighbor.
I must serve you something to eat or drink. And so the man came to his friend at midnight.
Someone had come. If you came to my house at midnight, I'd give you a glass of water and show you the bed and tell you there'd be breakfast in the morning. But you dare not do that over in that culture.
And so the man came in the middle of the night when life is really getting going, and he went to his friends because it would be a cultural insult not to give his friends something to eat.
And that's why he wouldn't give up. His friend wouldn't give him at first, but he wouldn't give up because he knew it was going to be a cultural insult, almost the worst insult you could give a friend.
To go back to his own house next door empty handed without something to eat. Now do we come to the Lord like that? Now I don't mean we beg the Lord for things that are not according to his will, but when it is for the good and blessing of ourselves and those under our roof. When it's those 3 loaves so to speak, are we going to continually ask until He gives for his opportunity or his constant knocking the his the fact that he wouldn't give up?
His friend finally wrote and gave him something that was for the blessing of himself and those under his roof.
That's continuing in prayer, that's persevering in prayer, and if you want to have rejoicing in your pathway, if you want to endure in your pathway, you must avail yourself of the powerhouse of the Christian life, and that is prayer. There is no other way.
And persevere in prayer. The Lord can change things.
He can change the one that's praying and he can give us thoughts of things we can do that we haven't thought about. But persevering is pre and prayer is always a blessing.
I want to connect it with the bra, the verse that Brother Nick brought before us in the previous meeting in the Song of Solomon, verse 60 of chapter 4. Verse 16 says Awake, O north wind, and come thou S blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.
Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits. Well, we don't often see what the, uh, Lord is doing as he allows some tribulation in our lives. And so here there is, uh, this order of things that were to rejoice and hope to be patient or endurance tribulation. A spirit, our spirit ought to be a spirit of submission in it. And then he does desire that we would continue instant in prayer and that is that we wouldn't give up that we wouldn't, uh.
As the north wind blows upon his garden, as some of you know, in Hammer Bay that there's a, umm, a Grapevine that, uh, great grandpa Fred Hammer planted, uh, right by the Model T shed and, uh, still there. And, umm, in the fall, the grapes grow on that right by the roadway as we go down to the house and it'll drop just below freezing, uh, during the night and you'll go up and the wind is just blowing off of the rock and the.
Savor the smell that comes off of that rock is something it's just so.
Pleasant, enjoyable, and that's really what the Lord is doing in your life and mine as He produces.
The fruit for himself. He wants to hear those prayers. There is an odor that, uh, is locked in heavenward and he doesn't want us to cease from it.
Blind, blind Bartimaeus.
He's a blind man sitting along the road and hears A commotion and a crowd go by.
What's this? What's going on? What's the tell me?
While Jesus is passing by. Hey, Jesus, Jesus, he yells. He hollers.
Yells and he hollers.
Thou son of David, they tell him to shut up and be still. You know the enemy comes. What are you praying about that for? Somebody else may say, well.
00:25:03
Influences of other people, something you read can interfere with that. That is brother Jim was saying if it's something that has to do with the blessing of the of those on your roof or the Lord's people, something that as much as you can tell is biblical until the Lord definitely says no, keep yelling because in the end when the Lord talks to him, he says thy faith.
So that whole business about him yelling and keeping yelling even though people are rebuking him.
Was faith.
And yes, the Lord sometimes allows us some time to go by. Will you keep tolerating? Will you keep yelling? Will you keep coming? It wasn't, it wasn't. There wasn't a lot of decorum here.
You know, the world doesn't care about that, You know, uh, at, uh, at John Leben's camp three years ago, we were talking about, well, how do you pray? What's the matter with your praying? Uh, one brother was talking about that. Sometimes he goes off in the woods or down a path and he's where arms are waving in the air and he's looking at the sky and he's marching up and down. I do that, go on the beach or wherever and have a real serious talk with the Lord about things and something's troubling you. It doesn't have to be perfectly with the, with the pointed hands in front of you and your elbows cleanly on the edge of your bed or something.
Just get with the Lord and shout it out until you hear the answer. Now there's times where it's very difficult. This guy is blind. He's been blind his whole life, and he hears that somebody coming by who knows what all he heard, but here's a man that he'd heard can heal him.
And he's going to holler and he's going to yell and he's going to cry out until he gets an answer.
And God, the Lord Jesus, commends him for his faith, and because of his faith, his persistent crying out to the Lord Jesus, he received what he asked for.
Look where Jim referred to in his 11Th chapter. And after it says, yeah, because of his opportunity, he will rise and give him as he may give him as many as he needed. And the 9th, 1St to the 11Th chapter, it says, I send to you us, and it shall be given you seek and you shall find knock, and it should be opened unto you. There's an increasing intensity there.
Ask, seek and knock. And the other thing to note is that oftentimes we see prayer as being a one way street where we order God around.
And, uh, if you.
Look at God is presented in the popular media. He's something of a a genie in a bottle.
People want a Disney God, but if you look in Ephesians the last chapter, you find that prayer completes the armor of God and every good soldier needs direction from his captain.
And so I don't ever consider prayer as a one way street where you order God around us. And I think we treat prayer like ordering pizza. We call up the the pizza place and we tell them what we want. We have no relationship with the person at the other end.
And then we hang up and the pizza doesn't come in the time that we expected. So we call up and we've used the person at the other end or get shot with them. Where's where's my order?
And when it comes, we don't think so, you know, is that the way we treat God in prayer? But if you look at there at the end of Ephesians, it says, uh, Ephesians 5 verse 18. I just read it, the new translation.
Rang at all seasons. You know when things are going bad, Sure, we fall down on our knees. What about when things are going well? We still need to pray.
With all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching unto this very thing, with all perseverance and supplication for all the Saints, our prayers tend to be very selfish, don't they? Very self-centered.
But we are reminded here to pray for all the Saints.
As long as they in our chapter providing or distributing to the necessities of the Saints. Somebody comes to you and says I need 3 loaves or you don't say I'm gonna pray about that.
We find that sometimes we're so spiritual when there are needs, obvious needs, we'll pray about that. Well, it doesn't say pray about, it says distributing to the necessities of the Saints. So their needs there and the Lord puts them before us. So it says here distributing to the necessity.
Sometimes use this illustration. A sister doesn't get up in the morning and pray about whether she should get breakfast for her husband and her children. No, she gets up and gets breakfast for her husband and her children because there's a necessity. There's a need. Her first whole need to be fed.
00:30:01
And so they're, as you say, and I think it's very helpful, there are certain things we really don't need to pray about. We might have pray about wisdom in how to meet the need. Maybe it isn't so much a question of money. Maybe it's a question of something else that we have in our hands. Or maybe it's just a question of taking some time and helping that brother with whatever needs to be done around his property. So it takes wisdom and prayer as to how to meet the need, but.
It doesn't take prayer as to whether the need needs to be met when we have a direct.
Command from Scripture. A statute from Scripture. The happy thing is to obey it. It's a little out of context, but should a person pray about whether they need to remember the Lord or not?
They might pray about where they should be as far as where the Lord's table is and the Christians they, uh, seek fellowship with. But as far as partaking of the Lord's Supper, a believer doesn't need to pray about that because the Lord has asked us if we're washed in the blood of Christ. That's our title. That's out of context, but I'm just using that to illustrate our brother Michelle's point. But in distributing to the necessity of the Saints, God loves the cheerful giver.
And we're to do it with a the same heart that the Lord Jesus did it. The Lord Jesus dispensed blessing in one way or another on every hand, and he did it with a cheerful spirit. And what an example for us. Sometimes we do give out of necessity and grudgingly, but that's not the way God wants us. We talked about making sacrifices.
In a previous meeting and one of those sacrifices is using what God has placed in our hand in a temporal way or our time or our energy.
But he wants us to make those sacrifices in a way that reflects the way he did it. He wants us to do it in a way that reflects his character. And you know, when you help someone out in a situation, that person consents whether you're doing it because you feel you have to or whether you're really doing it from the heart. And let's learn, brethren, we're in a very selfish society. I, I speak for myself.
I get caught up in the spirit of the age. We are in a very selfish society where our children and young people are taught to look out for #1 and to provide for #1.
Uh, and certainly with those of us who have families, if a man doesn't provide for his own, he's worse than an infidel. And we don't want to be helping others at the expense of our own and so on. It takes real wisdom and diligence. But let's, as we were saying before, not draw this circle and have ourselves in the center of the circle as the, the, uh, and have everything rotate around ourselves. Let's have Christ and his interests at the center and then we'll be willing to make those sacrifices for one another. And if all of us.
We're willing to do that. There would be no needs amongst the people of God.
The thought of hospitality too goes on with that, applying ourselves to hospitality, so not not only providing for the necessities of the Saints, but having our homes open to receive those things, each shelter and be the place to sleep or stay and given to hospitality.
One has to do with the goods flowing forth from the home, blessing flowing forth from the home, and the other has to do with how we use our homes. And umm, the Lord desires that we would use our homes for himself and for His people. And you see here that it's really Speaking of the Saints distributing to the necessity of Saints.
Given to hospitality, not that we don't have strangers that come and stay in our home from time to time, but we ought to have a particular affection for the Saints and to have our homes open. How we're going to know the needs of those that, uh, are the Saints, those that are our dear brethren in Christ. If we don't have them in our home, we need to have them in our homes. And it's, uh, really a picture here of the generosity, not only in connection with our goods, but in our service.
Because hospitality. Hospitality has to do with service, a service to our brethren. We lay ourselves out for our brethren and serve them in our own homes.
The Lord is going to come forth and serve in a future day.
It'll help us too, if we have our brethren in our homes regularly. It will help us to to be exercised about what is in the home. We ought to be anyway. But if, if we on a regular basis, it's the habit of our life to have the Saints in our home. We're very careful what what we have. I I'd like to just stress this for a moment and I'd like to hear what others have to say because I've been saddened, brethren, to realize.
00:35:22
That in the fast-paced society in which we live, hospitality and the ability and opportunity to visit with our brethren in the home is really being lost. Hospitality is becoming a lost art, You know, and I visited in, uh, areas and especially in metropolitan areas, it's very difficult to visit in the homes of, of my brethren because what's happened? And brethren, I'm not saying.
There's a whole lot we can do about.
The treadmill of society and so on that we're on. But what seems to have happened as another generation comes on in the assembly is that they have moved out to the suburbs and beyond to get affordable housing. Now the problem is, not only is everybody an hour from meeting, everybody is an hour from one another. Our young people, they fight rush hour traffic twice a day. It's sometimes difficult to even be at weeknight meeting because of those circumstances.
And, and I'm, I'm not, I'm not criticizing, I, I know it's difficult out there, but I believe we need to be extra exercised that we plan our lives around the Lord, around the assembly and around fellowship with our brethren. It's an interesting comment that Paul makes near the end of his ministry. Just let's read it. Uh, I could quote it, but it's in Acts chapter 20.
Acts chapter 20 and verse 20.
And how I kept nothing that was profitable. And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you. But I've showed you and have taught you. Now notice this publicly and from house to house. I believe that in Paul's ministry there were two elements that he counted equally as important. One was ministering publicly, like he did in troas after the breaking of bread. He ministered to them publicly.
In the incident with uh, Utica's is just a little earlier on in this in this chapter.
And but there was also something else that he felt was vital and important to the Saints, and that was ministering to them at their kitchen table, that was sitting down with them at their table or in their home and sharing the things of Christ together.
Because you never really know somebody until you visit in their home and you never really know the needs of the sheep until you're in their home. But rather than sometimes we don't have the opportunity, sometimes because of the work a day world in which we find ourselves.
It's very difficult and I just want to say this to the younger sisters, you know, I appreciate just a few minutes in someone's home. I'm not looking for a meal. I'm not looking for a fancy pastry or a piece of pie, just a glass of water and a little fellowship. I'm not looking for your home to be impeccable. I'm not looking for every toy to be picked up and every towel hung straight. I'm just looking for a little fellowship with you and your husband and your family.
Don't worry about if everything's in order or not. I'm speaking very plainly and you'll find, and I'm thankful that I grew up in a home where our local brethren.
And the brethren that visited and came through were always invited to the home. Sometimes they stayed in our home. Sometimes it was just a little afternoon visit. Sometimes my mother was able to provide a meal. But, you know, as I look back, even as a child, those times were a real blessing. You know, I knew a side of Mr. London that many of the children and young people growing up in my day didn't know. He was a lot of fun to have in the home. He had a lot of tricks that he would teach us children.
I appreciated those times that he.
Got on the floor with me and played with my little matchbox cars and so on and many others that were in our home. And those times of fellowship and ministry in the home were a blessing as we were growing up as young people. And so let's be exercised, brethren, to show hospitality. And hospitality doesn't necessarily mean you provide a gourmet meal. It just means inviting the brethren into your home, be they local or visitors.
00:40:03
Just to sit down.
Have a cup of tea or coffee, have a glass of juice, and enjoy something of Christ one with another. You'll find it'll be a tremendous blessing and it will open your ears to their public ministry more too. When you get to know that person, if he is a person that ministers publicly, you'll find you'll get more out of his public ministry knowing him personally from the home.
But the necessities could be too. That's very nice to have people that visit and then they leave, you know. But part of the necessity sometimes people not being able to have a place to stay for a long period of time because of a loss of job or fire in the home or whatever. So I think that's to be considered that that might be also part of the necessities we're called to provide.
Umm, practice makes perfect.
And.
You know a lot of these things we're talking about, whether it's praying.
Or whether it's showing hospitality or some of the other things in this list here, you know, you really have to try it.
I think we've lost some of the art of doing these things because we've just planned, everybody backed off from it. And then we don't have an example from our parents and then we don't there's, you know, no one else seems to do it and I'm not gonna do it. I mean, you know, this is pretty nerve racking stuff. And, uh, but here it is in scripture and the Lord wants us to do it, you know, try it.
But it does take sacrifice too, doesn't it it? It is a sacrifice and it goes back to the beginning of the chapter. We've got to present ourselves a living sacrifice. Dear Lady, dear Christian Lady was telling a story of how the Lord taught her about hospitality.
And, uh, nobody has mentioned being hospitable towards the unbeliever.
But uh, something happened in the community where she lived with all the power was out and uh, I think they had a generator or something. But anyway.
Uh, they were outside talking and all the neighbors were gathering around talking about what had happened. And she just said, why don't you all come over and, uh, we'll, we'll have a meal, a dinner at our house, we'll have dinner tonight. Would you like to do that? And everybody kinda nervously thought, OK, and they all showed up. So all these houses that were around there and none of them knew the Lord.
And they came in and they had this supper and they saw things in their house and the subject came up that they were Christians. But it started something. It ended up that there was a Bible study and those folks all got saved. And she said that was the beginning of her, uh, the Lord teaching her about hospitality. And then, uh, she was talking about how that being hospitable to the Lord's people and, and just being willing to have them over. And she said, you know, she learned.
Well, the houses can't always be perfect, like you were saying.
You know, if you did waited for that, you might not have people come over. And she said that, you know, if you, everything doesn't have to be perfect and in line, you don't have to serve, uh, a gourmet dinner. You know, it could be, uh, lasagna, frozen lasagna that's in the fridge. It could be a cup of coffee in it and, and a bagel or something. But she said the Lord started with that where there was this emergency and she invited people in and LED to a Bible study. People got saved and then she became exercised about using her home for the Lord and.
And really that's something that if, if the wife or the woman of the house isn't engaged in that it's, it's the hospitality in the home has to come mostly from there. And yes, the husband and there, there are children in the house. Uh, they can be involved with that too. You have somebody coming to stay at your house there. There needs to be others that will be engaged in what she said was.
Being hospitable and learning how to do it became a real blessing to her, her husband, her children, and they all benefited from it and saw that, you know, it wasn't just a sacrifice even though.
There is a sacrifice involved.
She said in commenting about this. I thought it was so good they received more than they gave.
Let me say a word to the husbands too, in that regard, because we've picked on the wives a little bit. You know, it says of Priscilla and Aquila. They addicted themselves to the ministry of the Saints and the household of Onessa Forest. For he OFT refreshed me. It's interesting, isn't it, that it was the household, the whole household, involved in the hospitality of the Saints and the refreshment of Paul on the occasions he was there. And I appreciate when I go into a home where the whole household.
00:45:17
The husband, the wife, the children are young people. They all have a little part in the.
Ministry of Hospitality and I would just say this to the husbands because when I was in business.
I would like to come home at night or on a Friday night and just shut the door and just have my wife and children. I was sometimes mentally and physically weary from the daily grind of weekly business, but I am thankful for a wife who pressed me to open our home for hospitality and, you know, to work together. Husbands with your wife.
Maybe you're not a cook, but you can help peel the potatoes. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're not a housekeeper, but it doesn't take much to run a vacuum. It doesn't take much to help set up chairs around the dining room table or whatever it whatever it is. And so I just want to encourage couples to work together. And as I look back on when we were first married and our children were young, it was tough. Sometimes I would have rather just had myself and my family alone, but I am.
Thankful for a wife who has always been exercised. I, I'm gonna tell this little, little incident, you know, I got home this winter from a trip. I had a very intense schedule. I got home by the time I got home from the airport that night. It was 2:00 AM on Sunday morning. And Faye had called me where I was in the island where I was. And she said, Jim, I feel very pressed. I know you don't like company when you get home on Lord's Day, when you get home on a Saturday night.
But she said I I am pressed to invite Heinz and Brigetta Brinkman to dinner tomorrow, Lord's Day. I said Faye, what can I say?
They were with us on Lord's Day for dinner. We had a happy visit on Thursday. He was with the Lord.
I'm thankful for a wife who pressed that and that memory I will savor for the rest of my of my life. Now you want memories, happy memories of the brethren in your home and those times of fellowship. You know we didn't talk about anything real deep from scripture. No, we just enjoyed one another's company around the dinner table for a couple of hours between breaking of bread and Sunday school. But little did we realize it was going to be our last opportunity to be together with a brother who served the Lord for many years.
Well, I just say that as an encouragement and an exercise, but to move along because our time is just is passing. You know, not everybody is friendly. And so the next verse says bless those that persecute you. You know, you ever felt persecuted. Now, I realize we don't know anything about physical persecution in a land like this or on a continent like this. You know, the windows are open, the doors are open, the ducks came in. But we're not afraid of we're not afraid of someone coming in and shooting us or arresting some of us because we're having a Bible meeting here.
At Lake John, Alaska. No, We sit here in perfect liberty. You know, when I go to Egypt in the summer, I have a meeting in Cairo in the evening. I'm invited to the brother's home. Over a two or three hour period, whoever's gonna come kind of trickles in as inconspicuously as possible. When it's time for the meeting, the doors are shuttered and the windows are shuttered and the doors are barred. We don't usually sing, and I'm asked to keep my voice down so we don't raise attention.
They understand what it is.
To meet circumspectly and in fear of persecution. I'm always asked never to evangelize on the street because I'll be let go as a Canadian. But they're left behind as the targets for persecution. But you know, there is another kind of persecution that we suffer in this country. It's not physical persecution, but it's a reproach. You know, it says all day that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And you say, Jim, you just explained, we don't suffer persecution here. No, we don't suffer physically. But there are two kinds of persecution. There's physical persecution like many of our brethren are suffering today in other corners of the world. And there is persecution in the form of a reproach. And in the measure in which you and I seek to be faithful to the Lord, and in the measure in which we reflect something of Christ in our life and in our walk, we will suffer.
Our reproach in that way, there will be those who in that sense persecute us. What are we to do? We're to bless them. And in case we didn't get the message the first time, it's interesting, It's the only statement here that he repeats. He doesn't repeat about endurance and prayer and so on. But bless them which persecute you. And then in case you didn't get it, bless and curse not, brethren, we are never to rise up and curse those who persecute us. What are we to do? We're to pray for them, pray for their salvation, pray that they will see the truth and beauty in Christ. And if we would do that, then there perhaps would be more blessing in the lives.
00:50:28
Of those who ridicule us for our testimony, there can be person persecution physical in this country in this sense.
And going to school all the way through school growing up, I was an average sized child.
But it started at a very young age where this weird kid who went to church three times a week and belonged to some kind of holy roller church that didn't have a name.
Well.
There are people who make fun of that and when you become a kid in schools and there's probably maybe somebody here that's been through, uh, the abuse that goes on. I, I know why sometimes people shoot other people in schools when they've been abused for that.
And if I hadn't been a Christian, I might have done something like that. It was that bad. But when you day in and day out are abused, beat up, smacked around, knocked around.
I had a kid slam my head into the bus window so hard it broke.
Things like that that went on, not understanding why even knowing why those kind of things go on, even at times being angry with the Lord. Why do you allow all this to go on?
But something happened at in high school and 12Th grade.
There was a party that one of the farm kids I went to school with had in a in a field where all the kids from school went.
And I went there.
And one of the guys who was on the football team, on the basketball team, and he was, uh, bigger than I.
Up until about that time, we were about the same size. He came up to me and he shook my hand and he said, you know, Sam.
His name is Roger Chabeta. I'll never forget it, he said. All these years I used to give you help because I really don't know why, because you're really a pretty good kid.
I'm sorry.
But right then the Lord spoke to my heart and said it's because you belong to me. And I wasn't being very over. I wasn't witnessing to everybody or doing anything like that. But the devil knew that I belong to the Lord Jesus. And even things that people said, even though they were wrong, that we were holy rollers and that we rolled around on the floor, things that that people made-up and made fun of. But all of that time, some of that physical abuse and verbal abuse.
Was because I belong to the Lord Jesus. Now kids go through that stuff. I know of, of other kids in Christian homes that have gone through that kind of stuff and they're going through it in school and you know, it's, it's not, they're not killing, killing somebody. But when you go through that, it's very difficult. Now if you're older and in a job. Uh, my brother Lyle told me a story. I worked for a short time in a manafrigeration, but when the company I worked for laid me off.
And he said he found out later from a guy who got saved.
Who worked where I worked for a short time. He said they did everything to sabotage you and your, what you were doing. And I said, man, I can't believe that I can barely keep up. You know, I've, I've worked in a factory and I can do all these things. I, I can barely keep up. And my brother told me, he says this guy that got saved told him that they, they all concentrated. They knew you were my brother, you were Christian too. And they were gonna sabotage everything you were doing to make sure that you couldn't do your job correctly or barely keep up. I went away from there exhausted because they made everything more difficult than I never saw.
That's persecution. The job you're at, the school you're at, whatever you may be doing, there may be things going on, people interfering so you don't get a promotion, that you don't get a position, maybe somebody else does because.
They know that you belong to the Lord Jesus. Well, God has a way of rewarding and He has a way of using those things to shape you. I will tell you this, if you go through those kinds of things, one of the things that God will shape within you is a compassionate heart.
For others who are suffering and going through it, but instead of your curse not it really is in connection with the spirit with our the Lord, uh, desires that we would bless them which persecute you, but we could do it not really with a good spirit. And so he does desire the attitude to be right in blessing that we bless and curse not. I'm sorry, brother.
00:55:03
I'm just gonna say, as to having sympathy and compassion, that's verse 15 and 16. As to rejoicing with those that rejoice and weeping with those that weep.
And having one towards another, the same sentiment.
A fellowship here in in the spirit with what others are going through and it's genuine, isn't it?
And really, it's easier to weep with those that weep than rejoice with those that rejoice. Because to weep with those that weep, they've usually lost something or they're going through something that perhaps we're not experiencing. And it's somewhat easy to do that sympathize with the person. But to rejoice with someone that's rejoicing usually means they have got something that you didn't get. And that's, that's real Christianity when I see you get something or there's some blessing in your life.
That I feel maybe I deserved her, that I didn't get her I missed out on. Am I willing in the spirit of of Christ, in the Christian spirit?
Can I really rejoice with you? That's really true Christianity. Yes, I can weep with you. You go through some trial, you lose your job. I might not understand, but I weep with you. But you get some blessing that I didn't get, some mercy that I didn't get. That's the real test of the Spirit of Christ.
I might say that starts in the family, doesn't it, Jim? I think as parents, we need to be careful with rivalries. And it, it, it, if they, if they're made from a very young age to share and to rejoice in those things, then it, it, they learn that and, and goes on to adulthood. But it starts in the home where they're, when you have multiple kids to, to help them rejoice. And birthdays were always a challenge, which one's getting gifts and the others are not.
When they're very young, it's quite comical, but they're teachable moments and, uh, not to be lost.
The quickest way to remove an enemy is to make them your friend. Then he's not an enemy, is he at all? It's hard to do. I saw an example in the factory I worked at, this man named Kenny Cuddleson. He looked like a Hells Angel. He weighed over £300, he had a beard down to his waist. But he got saved and the first thing he did was go out and win souls. He started winning souls to Christ.
And we may not act perfectly. This guy was cursing him. This guy was threatening him. And he stood in front of him. And he says, you know, the Bible tells me to turn the other cheek.
Oh, I forgot the guy smacked him, Slapped him, he says. The Bible tells me to turn the other cheek, so go ahead and hit the other side.
And the guy who was in front of a bunch of people and it embarrassed him.
And he was ashamed of himself and he slunk away because this man stood up. And I don't think he was in in any particular spirit of love when he did that. But he says the Bible says to turn the other cheek, go ahead and hit me on the other side. He didn't hit him back. And it had an effect on this man. He later got saved.
Well, we don't always act perfectly in these things, but if we know what the Word of God says and we seek to obey it, the Spirit of God can come in and fill in a lot of gaps, and the results can be blessing.
Verse 16 really tells us of, uh, gives us instruction as to our conduct in connection with all of our brethren and all of those that are in the world that we ought not to have respect, uh, of O one that has well offered, perhaps one that is well addressed. Might be good to look at that. And James, uh, I think it's chapter one. Uh, no, it's chapter 2, James chapter 2, umm, and verse one, my brethren have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord of glory with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring and goodly apparel, they're coming also a poor man in vile arraignment, and you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing. And say to him, Sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor.
Stand out there or sit here under my footstool. Are you not then partial in yourselves and become judges of evil thoughts?
And so it's a lovely thing to see those that are brethren in different stations of life, those that are, uh, workmen, those that are, uh, perhaps more educated and walking together in the things of God and enjoying the person of Christ together. But those things, uh, can creep in to, uh, our pathway perhaps unnoticed at times. And we, uh, might, uh, uh, have partiality and play favorites, as it were. But the Lord loves each one that's bought with his precious blood. He desires that we would not show partiality in that way.
01:00:02
Has to do with things too, doesn't it? It's the, uh, mind, not hide things and, uh, associating yourself to Humboldt's. It really is PE people are things. It's nice to be exercised too. And, and the things that we have in our lives that they would be in the character of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus was an example of that as well. The highly educated ones were in Jerusalem. They're very well off. Jews were in Jerusalem. Those that, uh, had the best station in life.
The poor fisherman, the manufacturing, the working class, as, as if you will, they lived in Galilee. That blessed man Christ Jesus spent most of his time in Galilee among the poor. And so the poor are rich in faith. We ought not to, uh, have a view to the outward look and the homes of those that are perhaps a little poorer. And, uh, this instruction is needed even in a day that we live in and even with hospitality. Sometimes the tendency is to have someone over because you know, they can have you back and they've got a nice home and they'll be able to provide a nice leg of lamb and a good gourmet dinner. But the scripture warns US against that. That's having respect of, uh.
Of persons. But I often think of that verse which is the great leveler and qualifier, and that is, the rich and poor meet together. The Lord is the Maker of them all.
You know, perhaps the sense of that verse is lost somewhat in our North American and Western society because we have amongst the Lord's people and even at the Lord's table, the rich and poor. But then there's the average, what we call the middle class.
That are the buffer zone in between. And so we kind of lose that sense. But I have have had and have opportunity to visit in countries where perhaps extreme socialism is the order of the day and extreme socialism eliminates the middle class. And so you only have the very rich and the very poor. And I have been touched beyond words on a number of occasions in sitting down at the Lord's table and mingling amongst my brethren. Gather to the Lord's name.
The rich and poor going on together without the middle class BU buffer zone and yet finding that money and station doesn't talk in the assembly. It's a beautiful thing. Again, I, I don't think there's anybody here from Egypt, but when I go to Egypt in the summer, you find that there are the wealthy, there are wealthy brothers in the assembly. And when I say wealthy by our standards, they are wealthy there. And then there are the, the those who, uh.
Struggle from day-to-day. There's no middle class in Egypt. It's the rich and the poor. But it's beautiful when you come to the assembly to see the fu, the assembly function and how those who minister in the assembly, it's not whether they have any station in this life or any means in this life, uh, and to see them work together. And brethren, we need to keep this in view because while it may not be as distinct in our society, it can creep in the world measures things by how many?
Garage is a person has on the end of their house and whether they have a boat or how many cars they have or a late model or whatever it might be. That's the way the world gauges things. But we don't want to gauge things in the assembly and amongst the Lord's people that way. But let me just say this too, I think it can apply to something else other than material things. And that is sometimes I think there can be the tendency amongst the Lord's people to look for one, to look down on another who perhaps isn't as well taught in the things of God.
Others tend to look down on them as second class citizens. They haven't quite arrived yet. You know, the Lord never did that in his interaction with his own. And he was very patient, even with the disciples. There were times the disciples should have known certain things and some of them perhaps ask questions that they really should have known the answer to. The Lord treated every disciple the same.
Every disciple he treated the same. In fact, he treated them so the same.
01:05:07
Well, brother, these things are very practical, but if we can just keep low thoughts of self which are befitting and, as we said earlier, esteeming each better than ourselves.
Well, he speaks of living peaceably, doesn't he? And so he says, uh, recompense to no man, evil for evil. Pretty self-explanatory statement. The Lord who when he was reviled, reviled not again when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him. That judgeth righteously. But then he says, uh.
Uh, proof, proof, uh, provide things honest in the sight of all men. We understand that. And then he says, if it be, if it be possible, as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men. You say, why does it say if it be possible and as much as lieth in you? Sometimes it's not possible to live peaceably with all men. We never want to live compromise the truth for the sake of peace.
Would you encourage someone who's suffering persecution?
In another country, physical persecution to renounce their faith so that they could live peaceably under that administration, while we see the folly of that immediately.
No, maybe they, maybe they can't live peaceably under those circumstances. And uh, so there are circumstances we don't never want to compromise the truth, even in the assembly. We don't want to compromise the truth for the sake of peace. Timothy was told in the last days to follow righteousness.
Faith, peace, love. If I was writing that I would have put peace and love 1St and then put righteousness and peace, but that a righteousness and faith. But that's not what it says. Righteousness and faith are Righteousness and truth must be maintained at all costs. Then there is.
Uh, peace and love. So I think that's, I believe that's at least one reason why it says as much as lieth in you. Sometimes it isn't possible, but if it is, we're not to purposely stir up, stir strife and contention.
Type of uh, David, when he was pursued by Saul and Saul was set to slay David and David found him in The Cave and they spared him.
And Saul woke up and realized what was going on, and by that time David was out of Spear's range.
And they had a conversation, and Saul was.
Uh, commending David for the mercies and all.
And after that, I think it says Saul returned to his house or castle, whatever it was, and David returned to the hold. He couldn't follow Saul back to the palace. He couldn't commit himself to Saul.
But he was always in respect.
Of of the king, uh, of this man, hidden rail against him.
But he had to return to the hold as much as was possible. What an example David was of that 17th verse.
I think too in the new translation, it says as far as depends on you. And so you know, when there is strife, particularly between brethren, but it says with all men, so it applies at work as well. We're very apartment to find fault with the other person and uh, it becomes their responsibility. It can happen in the home between husband and wife. So the Lord says as as far as depends on you, the responsibility.
There's a responsibility on my part to live peaceably. Now, the other person may not want to. The other person may choose to take a different course. We leave them with the Lord. But what falls to my responsibility? That's what I'm called upon.
To take care of and that may not lead to peace if the other person doesn't desire it, but I am to deal with myself.
Goes on to speak of enemies, so the character there can be quite serious and would call us to. Perhaps we have thoughts of vengeance.
Because of the the wrong being done. That's just persecution, but being wrong in very serious ways. And the Lord says not to avenge ourselves.
But to let give uh place unto Roth, I believe it says. So the Lord is the one to vindicate our case and to take it up. And so he did with David, didn't he? And uh in, in time Saul was taken away, and David got the drone, and it was the Lord's doing. There was no reproach in David as to acting in a way that was uh, disapproved by God. So same for us. We leave it all with the Lords, that mine is the vengeance, and I will repay, saith the Lord.
01:10:18
We have it right here in the Word of God so we can have confidence.
He sees and he knows everyone that touches us and what's said against us, what's done against us, and we leave it all with him. A lot of times we think that repaying is was gonna repay the other person for what? The way he's treated us. But I don't think it means that. I think it means the Lord's gonna repay us for the loss that we suffer. So we need to be careful about, oh, well, he's gonna get it. That's not that's not the spirit of the chapter.
This word mine.
Dealing with spot one and giving to us so it tells us how to behave with the one that's wrong us. If your enemy is is hungry, you give them to eat. If he's thirsty, they give him to drink because it says they're doing so. Your heat coals the fire upon his head pulls the fire here is not judgment upon his head. It really is supplying him with what he needs so he can cook his food and heat his his tent or whatever. I'm giving him what he needs. So I'm supplying his food. His neat is a drink and coals a fire.
And that's what he needs. And then when he sees that, he says, well, why am I being so mean with with this person? The Lord can work in people's hearts.
If we're kind with them, so we overcome evil with good, we're doing good to our enemies, and the Lord can use that.
Cherry hello, good smile.
There's really very few times in our lives that we cannot extend those.
It really should be the norm.
Should really be something that should characterize us.
What are we known for?
You know, frown. I hope not.
Should be a smile. First of all, we're believers.
And.
Or even point out that this context is not necessarily always among believers here, but, uh, certainly among believers. There shouldn't be any issue where we can't give a hello, smile, handshake.
So simple.
And such a solution.
All to a lot.
I have a question then about the burning coals. I'd understood that to be.
Like chagrin or a burning conscience?
Of your kindness in in opposition from their meanness has an effect on that person. I don't believe that's what it means. I believe it's just what was said that and you have to understand the culture again in countries like that. And even today when I travel in 3rd world countries and perhaps brother Tim who's just back from Africa can confirm this, but there's still often a sharing of Kohl's.
People have, and you've been there, uh, Michelle, these people, they have their little pot of coals and maybe by the side of the road or by their side of their house and they're, they use it to cook their bread, fruit and their piece of goat and whatever. And, uh, sometimes there's a need with the neighbors. They run out of coals And so they come and they share their coals and those coals start some other coals and maybe they just need a few coals to get their coal pot going and so on.
Really the heaping of coals in the culture in which this was written.
Was an act of kindness and love for the blessing and sustainment of the person in their household because they couldn't eat if they didn't have their pot of coals and weren't able to start it. And I really believe in the context of the chapter that that's what he's telling us here. You reach out as it's like, it's a little bit akin to the Beatitudes, isn't it, where a person was to love their enemy and to help their enemy. And if he asked, person asked for a coat, uh.
Give him, give him, give him, give him the coat, and and over and beyond.
And uh, even if there isn't an appreciation of it, we're not to look for an appreciation by the person we give it to, whether it's a believer or unbeliever, but look for the Lord's approval. Did you show the spirit of Christ? Did you give him some quote, quote, you say, oh, he deserves that. His cold pot went out. Now he'll be hungry and he'll, he'll be sorry. Oh, no, that's not what the word of God says. He said you give him some calls. Let him see how you show the spirit of Christ to him.
01:15:19
And maybe in showing the spirit of Christ to him, then that will exercise his soul, don't you think, Michelle? That's really the context here. It's overcoming evil with good. So it's all doing good. So that's what you're doing. You're doing good to them all you can.
I don't even know if the similitude of a blacksmith applies here, but when I noticed that uh, sometimes the welding shop they put the iron in the heat and take it out and then bend it.
The iron becomes bendable because of the heat, and so the warmth of this kindness is really what is heaped upon this person's head or mind to turn them or maybe bring them to repentance, the warmth of the sun.
We'll make a man shed his coat quicker than the blast of the wind. And I, I think there's might help to understand that same principle. Our time is gone, brethren. I'd just like to sum things up. We've had, uh, some very, very practical instruction based really on the exhortation at the beginning of this chapter to, uh, give ourselves as a living sacrifice. And really everything that's has followed in this chapter is based on that.
But brethren, we've discussed these very practical things. We've compared Scripture with Scripture, but it will do us no good if we go home the same way we came. And I'm not talking about the route map that we came with either. But I'm just saying if we don't go home with a fresh exercise and desire to carry these things out practically in our Christian lives, then we've really lost in coming here this weekend. But if we really take these exhortations to heart.
And seek by the grace of God, and it's only by the grace of God. But to seek by the grace of God, then to practically exhibit that which really was the Spirit of Christ as He walked here as a man, then there's going to be a blessing. And it won't be just a blessing in our own souls, but it will be a blessing to others as well. Do good unto all men, and especially those of the household of faith you want to be. Have a blessing in your own soul.
Seek by grace to walk in these practical instructions that we've had. You want to be a blessing to your family? Seek to carry these things out. You wanna be a blessing to your brethren? Seek to carry these things out. You wanna be a blessing to the world and in the neighborhood in which you live, at work or school or wherever it is, seek by the grace of God to present your body a living sacrifice. These things are not easy. Brother. I we've talked about these things. It's easy to talk about them.
They're not easy. You go back, there's gonna be challenges.
In seeking to carry these things out, but let's be very clear, as we've already said in these meetings that there is every resource, all things that pertain unto life and godliness. You have divine life, you have the Spirit of God, You have the Lord Jesus as the captain of your salvation. You have him living for you as a resource at the right hand of God. You have a hope before you. You have an object, you have a goal, you have everything you need to carry these things out. And if you do that.
Then you're going to be an overcomer, not be overcome.
The last words that Brother Eric Smith said to me when I visited him, he was well over 100. He could hardly talk, but I had and I, but I got my ear right up to his ear and he said, Jim, remember one thing, no matter how difficult, we can still be overcomers, not be overcome. And that has stuck with me and we can Sometimes I'm overcome, sometimes I'm overwhelmed, but it's not because there's a lock on God's part.
It's because I am not trusting in the resources and utilizing the resources that I have, and it's because I'm not seeking to present my body as a living sacrifice and live for God's glory.
Open Mtg. 6