Carolina Conference: 2022
Table of Contents
Hymnsing 1
Life
Talk—Shawn Allan
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SAS Lords help.
I got it. And father.
Shall we say it reverently? Wow, that was just.
So uplifting to have him sing like this.
For many of us the first such like in a couple of years. And what a joy to think that Jesus loves me.
We do commit this little talk into like here. We pray that what is said will honor the Lord Jesus and then what is said will be as perhaps needs meets the needs of each are here and all we give thanks that we can be here tonight. We do ask for help in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Well, I just have to say it, that was absolutely out of this world. I just.
I didn't want that him saying to stop.
The subject I have here tonight is life.
And.
That may seem kind of broad, but I was thinking of it in connection with a song that my children sometimes sing and they'll forgive me for quoting a part of it says something like this. A father's love, a brand new life, a mother's prayer, shooting stars, ocean air. These are the times that make us realize life is beautiful.
I did ask that the Lord help me not be emotional in this talk because I have a tendency that way. Try hard to not be.
I just wrapped up what for Lynn and I will be our our last time as a family, just the four children and us, our oldest daughters getting married.
And.
Lots of beautiful moments.
Just walking on the sand.
Seeing some beautiful views today. Enjoying ice cream in Charleston.
And I was thinking, too, of a look back on my own life.
Coffee with my sister.
When I was a teenager.
Beautiful hymn sings like we just had. I'm so glad that our Father in Heaven at the tent work in Stellarton. So many beautiful moments at 1:30 McKay St. Beautiful hymn sings at the Thomas House in New Jersey.
Where we lived when we first started out in life.
And those are beautiful things to remember in life.
There are other times in life that are much more difficult.
And they constitute what you might say life as well.
And what I would really like to bring before you tonight quickly, because I know we don't have a lot of time, is really summed up in a verse in John chapter 17.
About what life really is.
The verse is verse ¬ John 17. This is life eternal that they might know the the only true God.
And Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
This is what life is, life eternal to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this was the prayer of the Lord Jesus right before he went to the cross. It's been the prayer almost daily of mine own for my children over the last number of years.
That they would know the Lord Jesus.
Not intellectually.
But know him as a real person, active in their life, working in constant love and care in the good times and the bad.
And what has really gripped my soul in the last while is to consider John the Apostle, who was a young man.
At the time that the Lord Jesus walked in this earth.
And he was struck by the testimony of the word become flesh. And I really just want to read a few verses that we all are very familiar with with.
That speak of what John saw and heard and touched.
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Experienced.
John chapter one and verse 14. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
I'd like to turn to a verse in John chapter 20.
And verse 30.
Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.
I'd like to turn over to the next chapter, verse 20, chapter 21 and verse 24.
This is the disciple which testified of these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written everyone, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
I'd like to read another verse in John chapter 19 in connection with what John saw.
Verse 34. One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side.
And forthwith came their own blood and water, And he that saw it bear record, And his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
The apostle John wrote down those things and testified those things which he witnessed in his life, and they struck him so powerfully. He was a witness.
To the turning of the water into wine at Cana. He was a witness to the woman.
We don't know. I guess he wrote certainly of the of the experience, and he was there later that day when the Lord met that woman at the well and there told her of the water of life.
He spoke of the storm on the Sea of Galilee and the one who proclaimed peace bestial and caused the storm to come to an end. He wrote of this feeding of the 5000 and that one who could feed the hungry souls.
He wrote of Lazarus.
And of how the Lord Jesus could weep and sorrow with those who were sorrowing, and then raise the dead to life again.
He wrote of the man, the pool of Bethesda, who was helpless and acquired help from the Son of God.
He wrote of the nobleman's son who was sick and was healed. He was witness to the cross and what transpired there, and the soldier taking that spear and piercing the side of the Lord Jesus, and forthwith came their own blood and water, and he proclaimed.
That all the books in the world could not possibly contain the substance of the Word, who was made flesh, and came and dwelt among us, so that we could behold His glory.
He was the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And so I'd like to go over now to the Epistle of John and Justice, read a couple of verses.
First John, chapter one.
And it says.
There verse one, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands, have handled of the word of life. For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. There it is again.
John saying.
I've seen it. I bore witness to it.
I want to show unto you the eternal life which is with the Father and was manifested unto us.
And at the end of the Epistle of John.
It says.
In the last sorry in verse 20 of chapter 5, and I know I'm covering a lot of verses here.
John could write We know that the Son of God is come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true and we are in him that is true even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. This is the true God.
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And eternal life.
In John chapter 20, the gospel, it says these things were written that you may believe, and I trust that each one here there may be some who have not believed. You have believed, and therefore you've come into the good of that John verse. John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever should not believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
But this epistle was written to those.
Have eternal life.
And the point of the epistle is for them to understand and come into the knowledge.
Of what eternal life really is.
We may be possessors of it.
But are we enjoying it?
And the reason that I just want to bring this to you tonight.
Is that it's so important that we come to know.
Who the Lord Jesus is so that we can fully, you might say, enjoy that position that we are in. Our life is in the sun, but how much are we enjoying that life? And I say that to myself.
You know, I spoke earlier of those moments in life that are beautiful, and I believe God gives us these things, you might say, as a shadow.
Of what he wants us to come into in terms of.
The enjoyment and knowledge of all that he is. We have these glimpses these yearnings.
That we find in marriage.
One of the most beautiful moments of my life was the day that I married Lynn, that we enjoyed. When a child is born into the world, there are little glimpses, as it were, of what God intended us to enjoy in himself. Far greater, far greater is to fully come into the knowledge of life in the sun. And you know, there's a man in the in the assembly I grew up in. He stepped into eternity.
Just less than 48 hours ago and he has come into the full realization of the light.
Of the sun.
Can we enjoy a little of that here now? We can, we can, we can enjoy it in the hymn sing. But you know, I would like to also suggest that I spoke of those beautiful moments in life. Many of you have endured many difficult moments in life, especially in the last few years. I've enjoyed a few myself, Moments of loneliness, of pain.
Of perhaps abandonment, perhaps sorrow in the loss of somebody hurt.
From somebody who has wronged you.
In those moments, life, and I believe this, although I struggle sometimes to really grasp it, can be beautiful when we realize that those things have been brought into our lives by the Son of God who is molding us into His image. And He works tenderly and graciously with us in the dark moments as well as in the beautiful moments, as it were, because He loves us.
Because he loves us.
And, you know, I just like to close with a little bit of what John testified in the last book of the Bible in Revelation. We can just read a couple verses there.
It says in verse chapter one and verse two of Revelation who bear record.
John who bear record of the word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ and of all things that he saw. And if we go over to chapter 22.
What did John see?
He showed me in verse one a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
And it says a little bit further down, there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. Verse eight I John saw these things and heard them.
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And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship.
John saw the word of life.
He saw him at the cross, the blood flowing down from his side. He was witness at the end of his life in seclusion on the Isle of Patmos to the Great White Throne, that judgment seat for perhaps someone here who may not yet be in the possession of eternal life. He saw the throne in heaven around which the millions were gathered.
And the one there who was the Lamb, and a greater him sing than we could ever.
Imagine.
He saw these things and he recorded them in Scripture, and this is the substance of life.
This is what life is. I was challenged recently to think about. I was in New York last week, and the throngs of people milling around in that city and to step back for a moment and think beyond what they looked like. And to think that there were souls of men, multitudes of men, each one in this room, a living, eternal soul destined for the glory.
Or possibly for a lost eternity.
Yes, the Word was made flesh, and he lived among us.
And we are going to see him one day.
And we can enjoy His presence in our lives.
This is life.
And that's really what makes life beautiful.
I stand here is one not who is in the proper enjoyment of these things.
But in a world where?
Where Satan is trying to destroy our minds.
Trying to discourage us with a flow and tide of evil that sometimes looks like a tsunami.
We do not need to be hopeless.
Because we have the Lord Jesus by our side, and He is the one who can preserve us in all of that.
And so that is my desire, especially for the young people, it's my desire for my children that not only would you believe and have eternal life, but you would know the one who is eternal life.
And so I just want to say it's wonderful to be here tonight.
Wonderful to have this him sing Mark and Rhoda. It's just great to sing along again here and I just trust that these meetings will be such that would give us a glimpse of the Lord Jesus in all His beauty.
Let's just give thanks.
Our God and our Father.
We little understand.
All that has been determined for us.
In the love that has been shown to us.
We desire that the Lord Jesus might be made more real.
That we would.
Be occupied with His love, that we would walk in the light.
Because he is in the light.
That we would have fellowship one with another as we walk in that light.
We pray for a blessing on these meetings. We pray for our children. We pray for each other.
That we would be preserved. We sometimes sing that song, O Lamb of God still.
Keep us close to thy peers inside. It's only there in safety and peace we can abide.
We ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.
1 John 1
Reading
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Our Lord can give us a dream.
Forehead.
I love our hearts. Let's make them.
In the world.
Will say my father and grace.
Like your devil and glory.
No one gives someone time.
To give me an airline, let's swallow 180.
Oh my, snakes are God.
You sing also that the fifth verse of 260.
Lord Jesus.
God, I am one of those standing in all of our souls.
Make our own words. Shall I write in my life?
It is alive.
Believe a verse that our brother referred to in his prayer.
Psalm 81 in verse 10.
I am the Lord thy God.
Which brought the out of the land of Egypt.
Open thy mouth wide.
And I will fill it.
We ask the Lord's help.
God and our Father.
Several brothers have expressed we're needy people.
We think of how the state of things in the.
Assembly in Laodicea.
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Was such that they were unaware of their condition.
So how would we know?
If we were in that condition.
So we just confess our need.
We look to you to fulfill that need.
Whatever portion we take up today, our God and our Father, we pray that.
Mouths will be open.
According to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
And also if any have questions.
That they would not be afraid to ask.
Off times, questions that one might be afraid to ask father tend to bring out much good truth that is needful.
And pray especially for younger ones.
But even many of us older ones.
Or sometimes.
Embarrassed. Ask a question we pray we would not.
Be controlled by our pride.
But in the interest of learning more, our God and our Father of your truth, that truth which is our very loving Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, we would open our mouths that they might be filled. We commit this time to you and the name of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
Given the talk we had last night, brother and I would like to suggest.
The first two chapters of First John, I think it follows right on with what was presented last night as to eternal life, and I think it is so great to get those things clear as in the Epistle, the Gospel, and the Epistle of John, we have birth into the family of God and what it means.
That eternal life and I just suggest that unless there's something else that is more important.
I would add a hearty Amen to that.
For several months, if not years now, I felt that John's ministry very much needed among us in these days and I believe this would be a wonderful portion to take up.
We have 3 readings, perhaps we can take up chapter one. They're the first reading.
First John, chapter one.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes.
Which we have looked upon and our hands have handled. Of the word of life.
For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us, that which we have seen and heard. Declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, and these things right we unto you.
That your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in US.
Three books of the Bible. Actually, it's four books, but three books.
Start with in the beginning of first. Genesis one is the beginning of creation.
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John's Gospel chapter one.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's perhaps the one that goes back further than any other, because it's eternity and God inhabits eternity.
But here we have another in the beginning, and it's interesting. It's from the beginning, it's a different beginning. It's the beginning of the manifestation of divine life.
In this world, in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Go back to John chapter 8 and you'll see the expression used there when the Lord Jesus.
Was here in this world.
Verse 25. John 825.
Then said they unto him, That's the Lord Jesus.
Who art thou? Jesus saith unto them. Even the same when I said unto you, from the beginning, He was the manifestation of eternal life. There in that person you could see eternal life on display. Beautiful to think about it, brother. And that weekend, know that eternal life, that person.
And so we have in our first verse of this chapter that which was from the beginning, and you'll notice as you read through the Epistle of John, that expression is repeated from the beginning. Notice in chapter 2 and.
Verse seven. Dear brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but that an old commandment which she had from the beginning.
Notice verse 24 of the same chapter. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have had from the beginning. Every time you come across that, you can go back to the first verse of the Epistle.
What's it talking about? What beginning? It's the beginning of the manifestation of eternal life in the person of the Lord Jesus, because he goes on to say in this verse which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon on our hands up handled of the word of life.
What a wonderful thing it is, brother, to know him.
John uses this word beginning eight times in this epistle, and it really denotes a new beginning, doesn't it, the number 8. But he uses it in connection with the Savior, and it was. The epistle is written because it addresses the desire of some to go beyond what God had revealed and to negate the truth that the Lord Jesus was the eternal Son of God.
That he was the Son in the past eternity, but he came into this world and it was God. He was God manifest in the flesh. We read that last night. And so John says there's nothing new. He wrote, he's one of the last writers of the New Testament. And he writes and establishes the fact that what the apostles had been, what had been delivered to the apostles to give to the church, to deliver to the church.
All of the truth had been delivered, and so there was not a new revelation beyond what the apostles had been given. And so we live in a day and age now where people are going beyond the scriptures and some are taking black magic markers and marking out some passage of scripture that they don't like. They say it doesn't exist, and it doesn't exist in their minds. Well, you take a black magic marker and take one line out and it negates the whole.
Of the Bible. And so God jealously guards the divinity of Christ.
And the fact that he is the eternal Son never ever came became the Son of God. He always was the Son of God. And that's Christian revelation. The Jews knew that there was a a God that had was a plural eloquent Elohim, but they didn't know how many persons and they didn't know the distinction of the persons of the Godhead. But you and I know it's revealed to us, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
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They always existed. And so John insists on this. It goes back to the beginning of what the apostles taught and the beginning of the manifestation of Christ in this world, because when they saw the sun, they saw God.
In a court of law, first hand testimony, eyewitness testimony has the greatest values and this is one of the things John is saying, one of the early controversies and false teachings.
Was that Jesus didn't really rise from the dead, it just did in spirit.
John is saying I was there, I touched him, I felt him. Thomas could say I he took my hand and shoved it into his wounds. Peter and the fisherman could say we ate fish with him on the beach. All the different ones he appeared to, including his own family who did not believe in him. He appeared to them and spoke with them and they believed in him. All of these people now remember John is the last apostles.
Living Anyone who had heard doubts or questions could go visit John. And even when he was on the island of Patmos, people did go there. John, is this true? Yes. I was there. I saw him, I touched him, I felt him. I was there at the start of it all. This is the truth.
Eyewitness testimony is powerful, and these are eyewitness documents.
People say I was there, we saw him, we touched him, we felt him, we heard his words. That's powerful. And for your own faith, all of these people that come questioning things, stuff on the Internet or people you may run into trying to tell you stuff. You have eyewitness testimony in this book, not only from the people, but you know also that the Spirit of God guided the very words that are written on these pages.
So this is powerful testimony from the apostle John saying I touched himself and saw him. I was there at the beginning.
He was seen of over 500 brethren at once in resurrection.
I think it is interesting that even aside from the testimony of Scripture, one of the best established historical facts in human history is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. So even if they want to ignore the Scriptures, they have to face their own history. And so it is very important that question of his resurrection. It's interesting in this verse one that we have these little phrases.
We have heard.
We have seen with our eyes.
We have looked upon, our hands have handled.
Now to hear something, it may be at a distance. To see something, it needs to be a little closer.
To look upon it or contemplate it means look with more detention. You have to be closer. Yeah, to handle, you have to be right next there. And the apostle Paul or the apostle John says we have heard him. Oh, brethren, can we say that? We have heard him. We have his word in our hands as this word come home to our souls. It's the living Word of God. And the more I read it, brethren, and see how God uses his living word.
Are you in a listening mode? So often the Lord Jesus said he that hath hears to hear, let him hear. And even in the Book of Revelation when the story is closing the to the churches, the seven churches, it is he that hath an ear to hear, let him hear. Are you listening, young people? Is it getting through or is there some block there that's not letting his voice get through?
We have heard him. Oh, what a wonderful thing to hear him.
But then it goes to see him. Have you seen him?
It says in second, in the second chapter of Hebrews we see Jesus clothed ground with glory and honor. How in the world can we see Him? I don't see Him with my natural eyes, but it is the eye of faith, because faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And so we can see there he is, seated in highest glory at God's right hand. It just thrills my soul to know that there is a living human being.
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In the glory of God at the head of all principality and power and we are united to him. Has that really gotten through to us? Have you seen him and then which our eyes which we have looked upon or contemplated It says in the new translation and that's looking at him more detailed sometimes say to the brethren, Please don't look at me very close because you're going to start seeing.
Faults and everything.
You look at him as close as you want, as detailed as you want, and all you're going to see is complete perfection.
Oh, how wonderful it is to contemplate him.
Famous Simon Greenlee is one of the founders of Harvard Law School. An atheist, his Christian students challenged him.
He wrote the books that are still used today in law school about the rules of legal evidence, what can be used, what cannot be used, what's most powerful. And they challenge you. Why don't you take your intellect? You're brilliant. And there's the rules you've laid down and examined, the life and resurrection of Christ. And he finally did.
Eyewitness testimony was one of the most powerful things that affected him. That man came to know Christ as his Savior. He wrote a book about it. You should buy it and read it. It's very interesting. How does a jury get persuaded when they say it's an open and shut case? How do they say that? Because there's so much direct testimony that there's no reasonable doubt to believe what you're being told? That's us. Now we know we got the Spirit of God working behind the scenes on this, too.
But the information being presented is eyewitness testimony from correct witnesses telling us this is the truth. And when you hear that with your ears are open, even if they're not, you can ask God to open your ears. Any believer, anybody that searches can say God, if I'm blind in some way, open my eyes. If I'm deaf in some way, open my ears. And he will answer that. And then when the information is laid before you.
Spirit of God brings it home, but there it is and people can look at it and even say, you know what, make a persuasive case and they can still say no. Now they're going to answer the gods for that. But that's what John is doing here. I'm an eyewitness testimony. Others were to were telling you the truth. It's not second hand. And when we preach the gospel, when we witness the people, when we talk to people, we can say, OK, I'm telling you what I believe that here's the eyewitness testimony. That's why it's so important.
Deterred in Scripture and show people what the eyewitnesses said. It has a powerful influence on people as the spirit of God then takes that says why this really happened. When Josh McDowell, the famous atheist who decided he was going to get rich and famous because he was going to disprove the resurrection of Christianity. He's going to write a thesis and a book. What does he find out? He says I didn't know there was evidence.
There is evidence brother, there's lots of evidence, clear testimony and John is telling us that he's and eyewitness, it wasn't just in resurrection that he was addressing that Christ had a physical body, but it was in fact Christ himself here in this earth that he wasn't just a spirit. In the the 3rd 4th chapter he says hereby you know the Spirit of God.
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus is come in flesh is of God. The the the error that was being brought in. And it's human nature, isn't it? To want to hear some new thing. That's what they did on Mars Hill. They came together to speak, it says in Acts 17, either to tell or to hear some new thing. We get tired of the old, we get tired of the manna, don't we? And we want to reform it. These people weren't denying the existence of Jesus.
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But they were repackaging him, and history has done that through the centuries. They repackaged him. So either denying his humanity or denied his divinity and Gnosticism denied both, essentially. And it's not just Apostle John that addresses it, though he does it here very late in the Apostolic period. But the Apostle Paul does too. He addresses it in Colossians. They denied that the fullness of the Godhead was present in this individual bodily.
They said he was just an emanation and furthermore, he didn't come in flesh. They taught that if he walked along a beach and it's in their writings that he wouldn't have left footprints behind him. Now you might say, well, I don't believe that, but we have a tendency to want to repackage who the Lord Jesus was. Man certainly has this tendency to make him more palatable, more acceptable to the rational mind or rationalistic mind. Perhaps I should say I think He's perfectly acceptable to the rational mind.
So again, just to emphasize, we live in this very day. It hasn't changed since John's day where people want to repackage who Jesus was and the errors can range from small to large.
Just like to reiterate a comment that was made yesterday evening as our brother brought before us that what we what he had been enjoying about eternal life, and that is that the book of first John is written so that we might understand what eternal life is. I think of how.
The need for the Epistle of First John was to correct.
Air concerning the person of the Lord Jesus, but God took great advantage.
Of what Satan was trying to do, and he gave us an epistle that teaches us what eternal life is. It was manifest in the Lord Jesus, and it was also given to us by one who was nearest to the Lord Jesus, the Apostle John. He leaned on the bosom of the Lord Jesus. He found his delight in being in the enjoyment of Christ.
And so God chose him to teach us what eternal life is. And it's a wonderful book for us to lay hold on because we have eternal life. God has given it to us. We have this life. And it's important for us to understand what this life is and how it responds and, and how it treats one another. And also.
We're going to get how it how we grow in the understanding of it. So as we get into chapter 2, we're going to see that we we actually grow in our understanding of eternal life. And so I just I'm encouraged as we talk about this work, we were talking about one of the reasons why.
The book was written was because Satan was introducing air regarding the Lord Jesus was.
But another reason why this book was written so we would understand the nature of God.
I think it's good, Bill, like you say, to see that John's gospel is eternal life in the person of the Lord Jesus. The epistle of John is that same life now in the life of those who are believers in the Lord Jesus, born into the family of God. It's that very same life that we possess. Isn't that wonderful? Incredibly wonderful.
There's a principle in Scripture and that these things are understood on the principle of faith, not on the principle of sight. It says in Romans, it says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And so it's a principle with a for us to understand that we're not going to learn the things of God by sight or by natural means, but by faith. And might be helpful to notice too that it says we.
Have heard, we have seen with our eyes we have looked upon.
All of the apostles, it's not just John, the Spirit of God uses this term here we to establish the fact that many had witnessed the resurrection. It might be helpful. Bob mentioned or quoted that verse in First Corinthians chapter 15 and let's just read it in First Corinthians 15 verse from verse 3.
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For I have delivered unto you that first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen of Cephas. Then of the 12 After that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep after that.
He was seen of James and then of all the apostles, and last of all he was seen of me also as of one born out of due time, For I am the least of the apostles that have not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God.
And so God has given us witnesses that faithfully by inspiration wrote and by faith we can read their their accounts and we can understand by faith we understand that the world's refrained by the word of God. It's by faith that we enter into the things of God.
What is written? The apostles saw him, they heard him, they contemplated him, they handled him even in resurrection. Remember the Lord Jesus said, handle me and see spirit as not flesh and bones as you see me have. So they handled him wonderful.
When they were going to replace Judas?
One of the requirements was that the one that replaced him.
Eyewitness.
That's an Acts chapter one when Paul was arguing.
Defending his apostleship to the Corinthians, he said, I think it was the Corinthians. He said, Have I not seen our Lord Jesus Christ? That was a requirement.
And so we do have the eyewitness testimony handed down to us in the scriptures.
And it's only those you may question, as this one did many times. How can highly intelligent people miss?
What is so obvious?
This all is quite reasonable. I know faith isn't reason, but faith is not unreasonable.
Faith is perfectly reasonable.
So why, you ask yourself, why not such intelligent people believe such nonsense that they do? But there's a simple answer. I won't look up the scripture, but you'll recognize it says the God of this age has blinded their minds.
The God at this age has blinded their minds. They're simply blind.
And if you eyes have been open to the fact that the Lord Jesus is God and that he was raised from the dead.
Your eyes were opened. That was an act of Divine Mercy.
And it's important, I believe, to see that.
The world of today, because what we see around us bears out that fact, as one of our old writers said to us. And it was very good, he said. We talked of common sense.
But he said, man forgets that it is God that gave it to us and God that maintains it to us. And when man gives up the revelation of God in his word, he generally loses common sense.
And that's why, and I say it to my own heart, and I say it to each one here, and especially younger ones.
Don't be surprised if out in the world you encounter the most ridiculous nonsense as to even common sense that you have seen, because your mind and mind would not be any better outside of the work of God and our souls. And I think what if I can refer to it back again? What Nick brought out to us concerning Gnosticism is very important because it started early on.
And it basically is, well, the word comes from the Greek to know, and it literally means knowledge. But it's knowledge that results ultimately from the working of man's mind to obtain some kind of higher knowledge, higher ideas of things outside of divine revelation. I like the expression you use, Nick. They haven't turned in that sense.
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Totally away from Jesus, but they have reinvented it and we hear it all the time today.
John writes to counter that because by the time John wrote, probably close to 30 years after Paul wrote, Gnosticism had really taken hold. And so he brings before them, as we've just all been saying, how that there were those who had seen, had heard, had handled, had every reason to be able to say with clear and definite assurance we know.
The one who is and was the embodiment of eternal life. We saw him as a resurrected man. And yes, Christianity has to be by faith. You and I didn't see it, but we have the the report from those who did a very, very important.
You look at believe what our brother Nick was referring to is mentioned in Second Corinthians Chapter 11.
And there are systems which have done this, there are people who are doing it, and it's even possible for us to do it. I.
Don't mean us corporately, but us as individuals can do this as well.
And our brother said repackage.
But this this verse, Second Corinthians Chapter 11 verse four. If he that cometh preaches another Jesus.
Another Jesus.
And so you go out and there are people that'll meet you on the street and said we want to talk to you about Jesus Christ.
Some of them are.
Bringing to you the Jesus Christ that the Bible reveals. They're bringing to you another Jesus.
And we can repackage him ourselves into something that's more palatable to us.
So that's why what our brothers have been sharing is so highly important that we accept the eyewitness testimony of those who were with him and saw him and even handled him in his resurrection.
Would you repeat that louder please? We're not hearing it down here either. Sorry. It seems the dress that I'm getting on this end of the stage there is that it's mainly his resurrection that this verse is being applied to and yet it's 3 1/2 years of his life. Seeing, hearing, touching doesn't seem to be spoken about very much. It's his resurrection that's the key theme in this verse here. Just curious if I'm missing something.
The passage is not referring to his resurrection. The passage is.
Referring to the fact that He was manifested at the end of verse two really answers your question. I believe was manifested unto us. When was He manifested? He was manifested when He came into this world. He existed for all eternity, but He was manifested. He was revealed. This word manifested maybe for our young.
Sometimes it's a little difficult. If you manifest something, it's like something that's hidden.
And you might have in the Old Testament, they had things that they knew, but they didn't see clearly.
And so you can have a table here and you'd have a couple of dishes under the on the table and then a tablecloth over it. And you would look on the table and you'd say, I think I see a plate under there. I think I see some cutlery. I think I see a glass. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what's under there. And then you take the tablecloth off and you see it clearly. And so in christened, in Christianity, what God has done is fully revealed his Son. And that's what.
John is saying here it wasn't in connection with his resurrection, although we've spoken of his resurrection and that he was a real man. He took a body so that he could die.
He took a real body, spirit, soul and body. He was a man. And so John insists on this, that he was manifested to this world. He was manifested. He was perfectly revealed as the Son.
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Rather, I would say that you can't separate the two. Before he was crucified and after this crucified. There's proof that God accepted that sacrifice is in the resurrection, proof that he wasn't some spirit, proof that he was who he claimed to be. And has all that had been manifested before he died proven afterwards? I'd have loved to have been a family on the wall in that conversation on the road to Emmaus.
But there it was.
That conversation with those two as he spoke of all the Old Testament scriptures and spoke of himself, that it's a resurrected man who is talking to them. And he had to do those 40 days to establish all that he needed to establish with those who had walked with him during that time, you know?
His family saw him. They saw miracles. They saw miracles.
Things going on.
They thought he was not. They say you're beside yourself. After his resurrection, he was fully made known to them. Can you imagine James and Johnny's brother and those conversations and his sisters? Wow, amazing.
Chapter 2 verse 8 is really a key to this book. Chapter 2 verse eight says again, a new commandment. I write unto you, Which thing is true in him?
And in you that is speaking that eternal life, that our brother.
Mentioned earlier with what was the John's gospel was about that life manifest in Him, but that life is now in US. And the point is, if it wasn't true of it Him, then it's not true of us now.
And so this is the the danger of the era that was being introduced. If it wasn't true of him, it's also not true of us.
And that's what he's bringing out.
So I think it's very important that we do see that this being manifest in flesh and being touched and handled and so on covers his entire life. It's important to realize too, that his body and resurrection was a spiritual body, was not a spirit, what we would call a ghost today. But it wasn't the same body. It was a spiritual body, physical, yes, He ate, yes, but it wasn't the same body that he had.
Prior to resurrection.
He says and another person that mentions from the beginning, and he also shall bear witness because he had been with me from the beginning. So it seems to me this this foretelling is connected with what we've been saying. And they have been with him from the beginning, from the point at which they, the disciples had seen his manifestation. But he's also connecting it with the preceding versus government. The comforters come. So it's after he's gone and and we're telling what.
What?
What John will then, as others did in the epistle, held forth of what they had seen and handled.
Interesting in verse two it says that the life was manifested and we have seen it and.
Their witness is showing to you that eternal life. So the Lord Jesus is that eternal life. Wonderful to realize that.
And which was with the Father. So it's like it's been said, He was always with the Father. He's the eternal Son in the bosom of the Father from all eternity.
And was manifested unto us. So that's in time when he came into this world. Then he goes on in verse three to say that which we have seen and heard two of the senses seen and hearing. And it's interesting if you go back just one page to first Peter chapter. I said, I'm sorry. Second Peter chapter one, he uses those two same senses in what he witnessed.
In the amount of transfiguration, notice it says in verse 16, we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. There's the eye, the sea, and then it says verse 17, he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son.
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Whom I'm well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard. So there's the scene and the hearing. And so in verse 3, just to keep the thing moving here, brethren, we have that which we have seen and heard. Declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us. That's the fellowship of the apostles. It's based on the doctrine of the apostles. Remember what it says.
In the early church they continued steadfastly and the apostles doctrine and fellowship the 2GO together.
There we have it, the apostles doctrine, they declared it unto us that we may have fellowship with us. And then he goes on to say, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Now amazingly wonderful brethren, you know, sometimes we go down to verse seven of our chapter. We have fellowship one with another.
Fellowship, one with another is not first. Sometimes I fear we put that first. That's not first, brother. What's first is this fellowship, the apostles, which is fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazingly fellowship, that which is held in common, that I can have fellowship with that eternal God and his Son Jesus Christ?
It's more than my heart could take in, brother, but it's the reality. It's true. Do you enjoy it? We need to cultivate that fellowship. You know, cultivation takes time and it takes energy to get into the Word, to read it, to take time to pray seriously, not just superficially. The Lord help us, brethren, to cultivate that fellowship. This is why it's been given to us, so that we might enjoy.
This fellowship with the Father.
And with his son Jesus Christ.
Psalms 34 and verse 8.
O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. If you turn to Exodus chapter 16.
Exodus 16 and verse 31.
In the House of Israel called the neighbor of mana, and it was like coriander seed light, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
And then Deuteronomy 8 verse 3.
In the humble of thee, and suffer deed to hunger, and fed you with manna, which shall not.
Neither did thy father's know that he might make thee know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. Death man live.
I believe we have a privilege to taste of the Lord when we read His word, but I had a question and if you turn to Exodus 12.
I believe this is the time of the Passover when they were to put blood over their doors.
Exodus 12.
And verse 8.
They shall not eat the flesh, and that night rose with fire.
11 With bread and bitter herbs shall they eat it?
Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but rose with fire, that is, head with his legs, and the pertinence thereof.
And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning. That which remaineth of it in the morning shall you burn the fire. I've heard that this is the.
Symbolizes the Lord and the sufferings. But I was wondering if I asked the question, can we taste?
A little bit of those set will never build the fully comprehend but.
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Can we taste a little bit of those sufferings to the remembrance of the Lord?
I would suggest one thought as to that question. First of all, I don't believe we can ever taste the sufferings in the hours of darkness that was shut out from the eye of man. And I believe God dealt with His beloved Son there in a way that you and I will never be able to understand or participate in. But Scripture does speak, and Paul speaks of it in Philippians.
Chapter 3 The fellowship of his sufferings you and I can appreciate.
The sufferings that the Lord went through from the hands of man. But there is another aspect and we don't have time to develop it in this meeting or we'll get way off our chapter.
But there is such a thing as suffering for Christ.
And suffering with Christ. And suffering for Christ, of course.
We get that in the at the end of Philippians one where it talks about suffering for his sake, and many today in this world and many in the history of the church have suffered for him right to the point of martyrdom. And whether we'll be called upon to do that, we don't know if the Lord leaves us here. But it does tell us in Second Timothy chapter 3 that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus.
Shall suffer persecution, and there is such a thing as suffering with Christ.
Which may not in itself involve physical suffering, but it involves in entering into what he felt in every step of his pathway down here because of his love, because of his appreciation of doing the Father's will in a ruined world. Suffering with Christ in one sense is deeper than suffering for him, even though it may not entail.
Actual physical suffering.
So I just mentioned that is a very perhaps quick answer, maybe others want to add to it, but we can certainly share in his sufferings, but let's be careful what sufferings we're talking about.
I was trying to find a verse that the Apostle Paul said he filled up what was lacking of the sufferings of Christ.
For his body.
So you know that that verse could be could stumble you if you don't understand what he's saying there. There is no lack in his suffering for us to atone for our sin.
Thank you.
Let's look at that verse, Colossians 4, he said.
124.
He says, Fill up that which is behind or lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake. So here the apostle in his body shares in the sufferings of Christ, not for atonement.
But for the sake of his body, and we all can participate in that, to suffer for the sake of the assembly.
It's nice to notice that there are three things that John speaks of in his epistles here or this first epistle particularly that the believer has he has divine life. He has the very life of Christ. It's first John chapter 5 verse 12, He says he that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life while he has natural life, but he doesn't have divine life. And then the other thing that he says is that we have fellowship with divine persons. And I would just perhaps add just one word to what you said, Brother Bob. Perhaps meditation is not which that chewing of the cud. That is right. We'll have fellowship if we rightly to divide the word of truth and we divide the walk with the divided hook.
But we need meditation. We need to have a little portion of Christ for ourselves each day.
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And to meditate upon the person and the work of our Savior. But then it speaks of joy.
Here too, at the end of verse four, these things right we unto you that your joy may be full. So what's the privilege of a believer in the day that we live in is to recognize that he has divine life, the very life of Christ, and he can walk in fellowship with the divine Son of God. We know the Father as well. We're brought into the family of God, but we have fellowship with divine persons.
And is there a greater joy?
We have joy, not a temporal thing, not it's not focused on the natural.
Circumstances that we have or anything like that, but the joy comes from walking in fellowship with the divine Son of God.
In communion with him.
There's joy in just discovering these truths. I have the privilege of sitting down in a Bible study once a week with a bunch of 70 and 80 year olds.
Christians. Simple.
And we've been talking about these movies.
And you should see their eyes.
Widen this very thing here. They didn't know this.
Many of them been saved since they were children.
What?
God and his Son.
I get to be in their fellowship. They have. They want you there. They want me to be part of that. I didn't know that.
We take a lot of things for granted in some ways because we have learned these things maybe from a very young age. But there's even joy in this discovery. Well, when you see that joy in somebody's heart and face as they discover something, well, it brings me to our to enjoy with this new discovery some of these things that they did not know, did not understand.
My brother, who was recently restored the first meeting he ever attended since four years ago, was Jim Hyland's last admin.
Rapid tired, but in that meeting he spoke of how the father loves us with the love the same love he loves his son and my dad. One thing my brother came home with years of his eyes. I never knew that that the father loves me with the same love he loves me son entering into those things. There's a lot of God if we really angry.
True joy cannot be known unless there is that fellowship.
Young people, this is the answer. And sometimes I meet up with young people who seem to be all at Bay. They can't figure out what life's about.
And it's about this, the eternal God has come into this world in the person of a man. He's walked here, He's experienced what we have experienced. We have the record of it in the four gospels. You can go there and look at it, look at it in his all the detail you want to and you're going to find complete perfection. And we are called to walk in fellowship with him, it says.
In First Corinthians chapter one, we are called into the fellowship.
Of Jesus Christ, his Son. Isn't that amazingly wonderful? What if the president of the United States called you and he says, I want you to come and have dinner with me, have some fellowship? Would you feel free to do to refuse that?
We're not talking about the president United States, We're talking about the God of the universe. Oh, young people, cultivate that fellowship. It's gonna make you a happy Christian. Not only that, but if you cultivate that fellowship, and I do too, and we meet up together immediately, we're gonna find, oh, we're in fellowship with one another as well. And that's what we have in verse seven. We walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship.
One with another.
And some have wondered why the end of that verse, We have a verse of a scripture that we use in the gospel a lot. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sins. Why does that come there? He's talking to Christians. It's because, brethren, the basis of our fellowship. Sin always takes away, breaks fellowship. You can lose your fellowship. You cannot lose your salvation.
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But God has provided the means by which that which hinders fellowship can be completely taken out of the way, so that you and I can enjoy that fellowship. So you know what? If you're not enjoying fellowship with the Lord, whose fault is it? The Lords are yours.
It's yours, it's mine, it's my fault. Don't let that happen.
God has provided the means that that which hinders fellowship can be completely taken away.
Thank God.
Connection with that I'd just like to read in the Gospel of John chapter one, verse 18.
John, chapter one, verse 18.
No man has seen God at anytime, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father.
He has declared him. What does that verse mean?
God dwells in the light which no man can approach unto.
But God desired to have fellowship with me.
I'm just the creature, he's the creator.
He desired to have fellowship with me. And how is that to happen?
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And the Lord Jesus was sent into this world to declare who God was. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Who best could declare what fellowship was than the one who was in the bosom of the Father from all eternity?
And he wants me to be in that same fellowship with the father as well.
And that is so beautiful and touching. And just to connect that with what was just said, there's a verse in first John chapter 4.
In verse 12 it says no man. Here it is repeated again has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God dwells in us. There's fellowship that expression. God dwells in US.
And His love is perfected in US.
How is that fellowship broken if we don't walk in the light?
If we do not confess those sins which come upon us day by day.
Those things cause us to.
Quarrel and not love our brethren as we should.
Those things break the fellowship.
And then what happens? We, as a witness as to who God is in this world, lose.
That witness.
The Lord Jesus was the witness of who God was in this world, and when we break fellowship, and I say this to myself with great solemnity, with him.
Then people can't see who God is in this world through us, and that's what it means to have His love perfected in.
Four, I believe perhaps is related to John 1720. We can turn there for a moment.
That.
Prayer of the Lord to the Father, which is.
Just so precious the Lord opens a window, as it were, on His communion with the Father in John 17.
What he says there?
And I believe, brethren.
That verse 20 should have parentheses around it.
Here is where he includes you and me.
In this prayer, because he said, I pray not.
For these alone, that would be those that we've been speaking about.
Those who were with him, who saw him, who heard him, who handled him.
The eyewitnesses, he says. I don't pray for these alone, but for those.
Who for them also which shall so its future?
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Which shall believe on me through their work.
That what that they may be.
All one as thou, Father art in me, and I and thee that they also may be one in US. I believe we're talking about the same thing.
Same thing as you're talking about, Sean. And what's been talked about, this is fellowship, this is communion, this is an intimate relationship and for us it we're brought into it through the word of them that were with him.
So it is a wonderful thing that he says we're declaring this to you, we're telling you this, we that we're with him, we're telling you this to bring you in to this fellowship, to this intimacy with God and with one another.
I think it's helpful to see that verse 68 and 10 each begin with if we say these are three tests that are given, and throughout John's first epistle he has various tests that may be applied to see if one is real or not. These are what our characteristics. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. This is profession.
But when we get to verse seven, we have three things that characterize the Christian position.
If we walk in the light, it doesn't say according to the light. We don't always walk according to the light, but we walk in the light.
We have fellowship one with another. That's the second thing. And the third thing, the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Just it's every time we take up John's epistle and readings, this comes up. And it's important that we understand that John presents truths in a abstract way, black and white. He's not talking about the Christian experience. He rises above the Christian experience. If we look around us and judge Christianity by what we see and experience, we're going to misjudge it.
And the day in which the apostle John was writing things, error was coming in, serious error was coming in. We can't judge things based on our experience. We ultimately have to go back to the word of God. These things right I unto you, if He's written them unto us, it does us absolutely no good if we never read them. But we have to go back and read them and get re established on that which is black and white, that which is foundational.
And then?
The walk will follow, but I think it's helpful to see that there are three tests here that if we says speaks of Christian profession and then in verse 7, three things which characterize the Christian position in contrast to mere profession.
And so in two of these verses we could read the if that is verses 6:00 and 8:00. Not to get into a lesson in English, but English has two ways to use the word if. One is the if of condition, and that's what we get in verses 6:00 and 8:00. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie.
If and, then there's a condition attached to it.
But in verse seven, we could say it's the if of argument, you could read it. But since we walk in the light as he is in the light, every true believer is in the light. And in that sense the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Now does that take away with the application to us of responsibility? No, it doesn't, but.
As Nick has pointed out, John often speaks in the abstract.
You think he looks at things as black and white and if we don't see that, we can misjudge a lot of what he says.
And so it's important to see that. And so every believer, every true believer is in the light and every true believer enjoys or should enjoy the truth that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. We cannot take from this verse that we need a continual repeated application of the blood. That is not the thought. It's rather the assurance that.
With whatever the light reveals.
No matter how bright the light told us in a previous verse, in verse five, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Is that a bit frightening? Indeed it is. But then the brighter the light and the more it reveals, the more we see the value of the blood of Christ in covering it all.
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Want to bring down just because some get bound with this matter of confessing their sins and sometimes worried that I confess all the sins that I did and.
Don't think you're ever going to be able to do that.
It helped me a lot years ago.
When I was a Greek, my Greek teacher.
Told us that the word confess literally means to say the same thing.
So in order to confess, God has to convict you. He has to tell you.
You've done this just as the prophet came to David and David immediately did what he said the same thing he's I have sinned. So don't get caught up trying to think about what you might have done. The Spirit of God reveals to you convicts you just confess if you're not listening. He might have to bring a brother and in fact, he might have to bring someone who's not even saved.
To to tell you.
That you've said, well then you confess. That was a big help to me to learn that, that it means to say the same thing, you have to be convicted in order to confess.
Just want to go back briefly to verse five because this then is the message which we have heard of Him and declaring to you that God is light.
This is what God is. It's not a characteristic of God is what he is. Later on in the epistle it says twice God is love.
What is light? You go back to Ephesians chapter 5. There's a verse that tells us what light is.
Verse 13.
All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.
For whatsoever does make manifest His light, in other words.
If we are in fellowship with God and God is light, there is absolutely nothing that you can hide.
From God. In fact, if you do try to hide something, it will be very evident something's wrong there. He's trying to hide some.
The light will show you that you're hiding something. Oh, how important that is. And it says in him is no darkness at all. In other words, you cannot mix light with darkness. The very first chapter of the Bible, God divided the light from the darkness. Don't try to mix up those two things in the world around. They say, OK, you're a Christian, I understand, but come on, a little bit of this. I know you'll enjoy it.
Don't try to make slight with darkness, it doesn't work. I think that's so important and so in the.
Versus like Nick is brought out in verse seven, we have a test if we say that we've what have fellowship with him.
And walk in darkness. We lie and do not the truth.
Oh, he puts it right on. He doesn't speak.
In application, but he says it as it is abstractly. And then in verse eight, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US. Verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in US.
And I just want to say this to young people. I find that sometimes when people get out of fellowship with the Lord, they don't seem to understand how to get back.
And here is the recipe in these last three verses. Verse eight is if we say that we have not no sin as talking about the nature of sin, it's easy when there's a problem in my life to blame somebody else and to exonerate myself. That's what we tend to do. That's what Adam did the woman. And when the Lord turned to the woman, she said the serpent. And so we tend to do that.
If you want to get back into fellowship with God, that accusing finger has to come back to our own breast if we've.
Lost fellowship with the Lord. I am guilty. Don't try to blame anybody else. Verse 10 is really the act of sin to recognize that too is wrong. Then in verse nine we have what is called confession and what said. It's been very helpful to say exactly what it was that we did.
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Realize that he knows it all and it doesn't say if we ask for forgiveness.
Because we have forgiveness.
But it says if we confess our sins, we recognize and tell them that.
He is faithful and just the rest of the verses his part to forgive.
Our us, our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And I trusted, I won't confuse people. But that is not judicial forgiveness there. It's the forgiveness that the father has in the family.
And his dealings with us. If my son does something that's blatantly disobedient to me, is he still my son? Yes. Is there fellowship with him? No. Why not? Why can't you just overlook it and go on? Because there's something that needs to be addressed.
And if he addresses that, then I accept him back into the circle of fellowship. That's the forgiveness it's talking about. It's not judicial forgiveness. Somebody has said that we received that once for all when we accept the Lord as our Savior. But this is governmental forgiveness. If we confess our sins, that's our part. He is faithful and just.
To forgive us our sins.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that's important because see so many people, they think I got to clean up my ACT 1St and then I'll get back to God. That's not what it says. You tell him everything that happened and he will do the clean up job. How important that is.
I have a question, I'm sorry.
I was just going to ask about the term we. John uses the term we throughout this book.
And what it means is dependent on the context.
The we.
Inverse 1.
That's not the same as the we, for example in verse 8.
It has to be seen in the context the we in verse one is referring to a specific and very small group of people.
And sometimes we and John refers to man in general, not referring to believers. And you can misunderstand John's writings if you don't understand what we means in the verse that you're reading.
The we as contextual.
Just want to point that out. I wonder if other brothers would confirm or argue with that.
Well, verse 9 completely includes all believers, doesn't it?
That is applies to all believers wouldn't you say? Would it apply to to man? Because I know Mr. Darby with this first nine he gave 2 notions and he didn't seem to decide which it was. He said if the we here is referring to believers then it is teaching what our brother Bob has told us and so it applies to us as believers in that way. If the we here is referring to man then this is talking about.
Judicial forgiveness that comes when a man confesses his sins.
To God, then, he is.
Right, that's what. I can't remember Darby's exact teaching on that, but he said it could mean that because it's referring to man in general. Depends on what the we means there.
Been excellent, brother. Yeah, I, I don't know, I, I maybe someone else knows that if he ever spoke of it in that way in judicial forgiveness, but I might just say with judicial forgiveness.
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What took place at the cross of Calvary and the blood of the Lord Jesus being shed God on a righteous basis can forgive the Sinner if he receives Christ as Savior. That forgiveness means that God looks at you and says you're no longer guilty. Someone else paid the price, you're no longer guilty. What John I believe is speaking here is here is when we sin.
We may sin, and it may require the governmental.
Discipline of God.
Would just give an example in connection with David and Bathsheba while his life was spared the law said he should die but he was governmentally forgiveness forgiven. He was restored but he had to bear the consequences of what that sin had done had brought into his life. But he never lost divine life he was a child of God, but.
Here it's really Speaking of the.
Desire of the Lord that we would maintain.
Communion, I believe.
The word that I've spoken to you the Washington water by the word and then John is the family of God we're talking about restoration within the family of God in verse nine our brother this is not salvation here the 70s confessed with power for Jesus and believe in this heart. Your God is raised with the dead you'll be saved. The possession of the righteousness is in the family of God. The restoration of community members all seems we're mixing a few things that differ here. Well it's very true I think that's excellent brother Bill because.
In simple terms, just to make it clear.
Confessing my sins entails governmental forgiveness.
Being cleansed from unrighteousness means, in simple terms, that I don't turn around and do it again.
It's the it's the water brought in. But I would also say.
If an unbeliever read this verse, he could be saved through it. Let's not leave that out. Although I don't believe it's the primary meaning, but I believe if an unbeliever read verse 9 and appropriated it to himself, I believe he could be saved through it. But I don't believe it's really what, as Bill says, we we need to be careful what we're what we're mixing up.
But.
Do we sing number 69 in the back of the book? 69 in the appendix?
Peace with God, the blood in heaven speaks his heart, and now to me.
Peace with God the Lord is risen. Righteousness now counts me free. 69 and the appendix.
Praise the Lord's name in the world. We need the Lord.
And stop God.
No morning today and someone.
We are going fast, straight in the Lord.
'S green cloud behind us before.
Very cursed and contemplation.
How fair has been I stand?
Straight our sound.
And they are grandson and heaven.
Oh, because.
It is really great since I'm feeling love and brightness. Light stripes have been easily I love.
Reddit red frontier of praise, oh Lord God and glory. Thank God.
1 John 2:1-12
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For thy love of God's grace, Lord.
And.
We can be straight from God.
'S dream life, children.
Home.
Oh my God.
The slave storm.
Frustrated.
Now on the beginning of God.
When you dream, bring it in your dream.
When we see our hands, greatest place.
No, we need to know.
The painting.
In the soul of ours, so most great joy.
And it's broader and I can't wait. Anything to change.
You shall.
Hear.
Welcome to boys.
It is joy.
To Lord.
And.
Sailing.
Light brown.
To say the hurts of life every time. And I love her smile on the floor.
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Oh, I stranded.
On the rainbow.
Grace swells. It's like.
Matthew.
4.
Matthew 418 And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, For they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me.
I was thinking of Peter. Follow me early in Peter's career.
Now John 21. John 21.
At the end of Peter's career.
Verse 19.
The end of the verse.
When he has spoken this, he saith unto him, Peter, follow me.
21 Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord, And what shall this man do? Jesus said unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, What is that to thee? Follow me. That's right, are not under our Father.
We delight to think of having fellowship with the thief on the cross.
Who repented? We don't know his name, but we believe he's a born again Christian.
We thank you that we will fellowship with Bartimaeus, at one time a blind man. We will fellowship with Mary.
Just like all the rest of us believers, a St.
And we will fellowship with her. We thank the Father for that wonderful privilege of calling the Father. And if there's one here in our presence this afternoon who might just be hearing the encouragement, follow me. We pray that they would begin that journey. It's nothing special.
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At the end of our life, either.
It is again to follow me. We pray for encouragement as we open Thy word again our God. We give thanks for our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His name we pray. Amen.
First John chapter 2, verse one.
My little children, these things right I write unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby do we do know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him and keepeth not His commandments as a liar, and the truth is not in Him.
But whoso keepeth his word, in him, verily is the love of God perfectly.
Hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith He abideth in Him, ought Himself also so to walk, even as He walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which He had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you.
Because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.
He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness, even until now.
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him, but he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whether he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him, that is, from the beginning.
I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.
I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you Father's.
Because ye have known him, that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
Is not of the Father, but is of the world, and the world passeth away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Little children, it is the last time, and as you have heard, that Antichrist shall come. Even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that the IT is the last time they went out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out, that they might be made manifest, that they were not all of us. But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written unto you, because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth, Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus.
Is the Christ, He is Antichrist, but denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but He acknowledges the Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the sun.
And in the Father, and this is the promise that he hath promised us even eternal life.
These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which you have received of Him abideth in you. And you need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is the truth, and is no lie. And even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in Him. And now little children, abide in Him that.
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When he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
If ye know that he is righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.
There's one starts with little children, my little children.
You look at the new translation. I think it's helpful to see how.
The diminutive occurs in this chapter. Just like to point out that in a new translation verse one is just children.
It's repeated in verse 12, I write unto you, children. And it's repeated again in verse 28. And now children abide in Him.
It's addressing the whole family of God without distinction of growth. But when you come down to verse 13, then you have the different measures of growth in the family of godfathers, young men, and there it is properly little children and those are repeated twice the second time.
The little children are addressed is in verse 18 and there it is properly little children. So it's helpful to see that. So just to clarify, verse one, verse 12 and verse 28.
Are children addressing the whole family of God? Then in the other verses we have the Father.
Father's young men.
And little children properly used as to the different measures of growth in the family of God.
And what is most interesting to me, Brother Bob, is that the Spirit of God has the least to say to the fathers and the most to say to the little children or new believers. Very, very instructive force. And so there is instruction here for those that are fathers. There is instruction for those that are young men or young women to young people, and there's instruction for those that are new believers.
Of course, a new believer doesn't necessarily mean someone that's very young in age.
Belief can occur. We thank God at any age, and sometimes a new believer can be old as far as years are concerned, but the Lord through his Spirit has a lot to say to those new believers. So that's very, very helpful for us to see and very helpful to see to how that the Spirit of God centers out young people and speaks directly to you about the very things that you are facing in the world.
And the very things you have to be on guard about.
Verse one says children.
My children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not.
Sin is not characteristic of a believer.
Do we sin? At the end of the last chapter, it's very clear that we can't ever say we've met, we haven't sinned, we can't say that, but it's not characteristic of a believer. And so he says that you sin not.
Then he immediately goes on to say, if any man sin.
And so when it does happen, what about them? We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Isn't that wonderful, brethren, that you read in the Book of Revelation, that Satan is the accuser of the brethren? He accuses them day and night.
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Lord help us, brethren, that we're not.
Helping Satan's minions to accuse God's people if there is a fault amongst them, let's pray, but not accuse. But we have an advocate with the Father. Isn't that wonderful to realize that when sometimes when we do?
Sin. Satan takes that flaw and he flies into the presence of God to accuse us.
This person that says he's a Christian, look how he's acting.
And it's true.
But there at God's right hand is one who is our advocate. And he stands up with those pierced hands and he says, yes, it's true. But Satan, you cannot touch him. He belongs to me. I will take his case into hand.
He's our advocate. It's interesting that it is the same word as you have in John 14 in relation to the.
Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, the one who takes our case, and.
Represents us before God.
You know that is also our great high priest. He is our great high priest to help us to not sin, but when we do sin, then he is our advocate to restore us to fellowship.
Might be good to turn to that passage you refer to in Revelation chapter 12.
It's chapter 12 and verse 10 Revelation.
Just at the end now is salvation and strength. Now it's come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And so we not only have an advocate, we have a great high priest on high interceding for us in our weakness. And if we sin, you and I have a life and a nature that cannot sin, and it will never sin.
And so, as you say, our character.
Our moral character and our what we should express to this world and to one another is the fact that we cannot sin, we don't sin, that nature doesn't sin, that life does not sin. But if we step out of character and we allow the flesh to act, then we sin. And if we step out of character, then God has made the provision that we would be restored.
We might just say that this word fellowship is mentioned 16 times in the New Testament and only the apostle Paul and John mention it that use it in the Scriptures. And so it's the same word communion and fellowship, and it's used interchangeably in the King James. So his desire is that we would be maintained in communion and if something comes in, nothing changed on God's part. But if something comes in on our part.
His desires that we would be restored. And so the work begins with Him. He advocates and so we're restored because of His advocacy. And our sin is brought before us and He's made full provision for us as a result.
Maybe we can be a bit practical with this because it's one of those cases in translating from one language to another where we have no English word that in one word corresponds. And I'm no Greek scholar, don't get the wrong idea, but anybody can look this up. There is no one English word that completely encompasses the Greek word, which is Paraclete.
For this word comforter or advocate, I noticed the Darby translation uses patron, which is about as close as you can get. But the thought is one who takes charge of and looks after all of your affairs. Isn't that beautiful? And as has been mentioned, we have the high priesthood of Christ if we use him as our high priest and go to that throne of grace.
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To keep us from sin.
But sometimes we don't do that. I speak for my own heart, but do I need to go? As I would go to a lawyer down here and say I'm in trouble and I need your services. I need some help. You know, when I get away from the Lord and I sin, I'm not in the right state of soul to go and ask for help. Sometimes I think I'm doing OK. Sometimes I don't really realize how bad I've acted. Sometimes I don't realize where I am in my estrangement.
Maybe that's not a good word, but getting away from the Lord.
What happens? What does the Lord do? He goes to work for me.
Without my having to ask them. And he starts working in order that I might be restored. Now, sometimes that may take a while, but the Lord goes to work for me as one who is taking charge of and looking after all of my affairs. It's a little bit as if I were running a business and I wasn't paying attention to the finances. And then all of a sudden it starts to worry me. Well, I think I'm overspending, or I think things aren't going too well.
And eventually I have to go and this time it doesn't suit. But I go to my accountant and I say how are things going? I'm a little worried.
Oh, he says. Bill. They're a lot worse than you realize. They're a lot worse than you realize. But don't worry. I saw it coming. I saw it coming.
And I've already taken steps so that we can put things back together now. It's not going to be easy.
But we can do it. And he goes to bat for me, as we've had, you know. Would you agree with that, brother Bob? Is that the right thought?
We have an example of it in the new patrol in Luke's Gospel, chapter 22. It's Luke 22, verse 31.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as weak. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And so the advocacy of Christ was before.
Peter's confession was before Peter even really realized that he was on this course of departure. And so the Lord.
Interceded. He was before the Father, and he prayed for Peter.
That his faith would not fail. And so conversion here. In this sense, Peter was already a believer, but he needed to have his heart turned back towards the Lord. He was thinking of himself and how good of a disciple he was. He needed to be turned back to the Lord.
So the Lord was looking after Peters affairs, you might say, before Peter even knew that there was a failure. And brethren, none of us would ever be restored to the Lord except for the advocacy of Christ. First we sin. If we sin, none of us would return to the Lord except Christ was advocating and bringing scriptures to bear upon our consciences as we.
Have sometimes noticed brethren will bring a passage of Scripture or speak to us. He may bring something into our lives.
Governmentally to exercise us but it's the work begins with Christ are so blessed this passage of Scripture.
Just is so blessed to our souls that should comfort our hearts to think that doesn't matter what happens in our lives in connection with sin, Christ always advocates for us. Interesting there Robert in verse 31. Notice the Lord said to Simon.
Said Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you. That's plural. He wanted all those disciples, he asked to have them, to sift them. But it says, But I have prayed for thee. That is singular because he knew how Peter would fail. And I think that's wonderful. I've often given another illustration. Perhaps it helps the young people to understand the difference between the high priestly service.
To help us not to fail and the advocates advocacy that helps us when we have failed and supposing there's a very muddy St. out in front of this building and there's an old man take making his way across that muddy street just barely making it just about to fall into the mud and just before he falls a young man comes alongside and.
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Gets a hold of his arm and helps him across. That's the Lord Jesus in his high priestly service to supply our needs so that we don't fall. That's why our Christian is more responsible when he falls than an unbeliever. But supposing before that young man gets them, he's down in the mud. Oh dear. What are you going to do now? Leave him there? No, he needs more help than ever.
The young man gets there and he helps to get him up and helps to take him across and clean up again. That's Christ in his advocacy. Once we have failed in both senses, He is interceding for us and I think that is so amazing. The wonderful. Remember when Joshua, when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, Joshua was told by Moses to go down and to fight with Amalek, which is a figure of the flesh in the believer.
And Moses would lift up his hands, and as he lifted up his hands, Joshua prevailed in the plains below in his fight with Amalek. But when his hands got tired and he came down, why Amalek started winning the battle. And so there were two men.
Her and Aaron that stood on either side of Moses to hold his hands up.
So that the Joshua could win the war.
Her is of the royal tribe. He's the picture of the Lord Jesus as our advocate. And of course, Aaron was a picture of the Lord Jesus is our great high priest. Thank God we're going to get through it, but all the way we get through it sometimes is pretty, pretty hard. Lord help us that we can go on.
Young people, listen to me, you can get through it. Don't give in to the sin. People think that oh, I was just weak and the temptation was so strong and I just had to give in. Whatever happened to the Lord Jesus and his intercession? Wasn't that enough for you? Oh brethren, may the Lord help us to go on.
I would just add this in connection with the advocacy.
If I get a speeding ticket.
Might go to my lawyer and just say please take care of it We mustn't think that the advocacy of Christ works like that We don't invoke it we don't invoke him as a lawyer as it were to say please take care of it No, it's a work that he accomplishes with us and a little bit further in that chapter where you read there in Luke, you know the.
In verse 61, we're beginning. In verse 60, Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest.
Immediately why he gets fake. The crew. And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him before the **** crow, Thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. That's an example of the advocacy of Christ working in our lives.
It it it, it brings us to self judgment. It affects us. Another example could be given is John 13 which is the foot washing chapter.
So often in Christendom this chapters presented, this chapter is teaching humility and people always look shocked when I say no, this chapter is not preteaching humility. Peter understood exactly what humility meant and he knew what the Lord was doing and how humiliating it was. He knew that, but he what he didn't recognize was what the Lord was actually doing. And it's really an example of advocacy. It begins with Jesus knowing that his hours come, that he should depart.
Out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own, which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. And then He gives this example of His advocacy. And as has already been expressed, the Lord may use others in our lives to do that foot washing, to bring before us those necessary scriptures to convict us, to do that work in our hearts.
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And I just add, this advocacy is in connection with the Father is to restore us back into the good of that relationship. John speaks of the family of God.
So it says at the end of verse one, Jesus Christ the righteous. In other words, just because he's going to advocate doesn't mean that he accepts our sinful problems. No, he is Jesus Christ the righteous. And then verse two comes in right on the heels of that to explain how is he righteous in taking up our case when we have sinned?
He is the propitiation for our sins.
And not for ours only, but also for the whole world. In other words, He is the propitiation. He has dealt with God. As to the question of sin. Sin had called into question God's holy character.
These creatures, they're sinners and you created them. But when the Lord Jesus went to the cross, he normally not only answered for our sins to God, he answered to God's glory that was tainted by that sin. He vindicated God's holy character as to the whole question of sin. I think that is so amazingly wonderful to see that part of the work of Christ.
He is the propitiation for the whole world.
It never says that he is the substitution for the whole world.
No, He is the substitution, for He is the substitute for our sins. He paid for our sins, for the sins of many, it says, because God would not be righteous if he put somebody into the lake of fire, if Christ had paid for his sins. And that is a thing that is not distinguished in Christian circles many times.
They say Christ died for the sins of the whole world.
Not as a substitute.
Whereas for appreciation, yes, for the sins of the whole world, but As for a substitute for the sins of many, how would that be righteous? If Christ had paid for the the sin of an unbeliever and then God puts him into the lake of fire, that wouldn't be righteous. And so it's important to see the distinction between propitiation and substitution. Let me just put the illustration that we have in Leviticus 16. In the great day of Atonement, there were two goats taken.
The first goat was for the Lord. The second goat was the scapegoat. First goat was slain and his blood was caught and taken into the holiest of all, and that blood was sprinkled on the holy place. That's propitiation. God's holy character was vindicated completely as to the sins of the whole world. But when it comes to substitution, Aaron came out and he takes that second goat, this scapegoat.
And puts his hands on the head of that goat and confesses the sins of the children of Israel in that goat. And then a man takes that out into the wilderness and lets it go. That's Christ as our substitute. So it's important to see the distinction between those two parts of the work of Christ. Very important. I hope somebody else can enlarge on that, because it's very important.
Might be good just to read in the first Peter chapter 2 of substitution there verse 24. We don't learn of substitution really until we're saved. We don't find out about it really. If properly the gospel. If the gospel is properly preached, it's Christ is preached as the Savior for sinners, and propitiation is brought before the Sinner he made.
Propitiation, Christ.
Died for our sins, but he died so that the world would be savable. All every individual in the world could come and have their sins forgiven. That's propitiation. But when it's substitution, it's individual. And it's in first Peter chapter 2 verse 24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins, should live under righteousness, by whose stripes he were healed.
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So we learn after we're saved. He died for me, He took my place. And so we become worshippers as a result.
You'll notice in the King James translation, Brother Bob quoted it this way in verse two at the end, but also and you'll see the sins of and you just put brackets around it. It really shouldn't be in there. It should say that he died. It says but also for the whole world that that is propitiation is made so that the whole world, the gospel can be presented to the whole world because the work of Christ.
Is sufficient to cleanse the sins of any who will come. And so this is not the truth that for the sins of the whole world, he didn't die to that for all of the sins of the world, he died for the sins of those who would receive him. And those Old Testament Saints that were of faith, they didn't know how their sins would be dealt with, but they their sins have been dealt with at the cross as well.
So we don't preach just to those who are elect, do we? The Lord Jesus is very specific when he sent out his disciples. Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The propitiation is for the whole world. And so we are to go to the whole world to preach the gospel. Wonderful.
Is the province 8. Speaking of the efficacy of Christ, the Romans 833 and 34.
Who shall lay anything with the charge of God's elections? God that justifies Lewis heathen, nevertheless Christ that died. Is this referring to the high priestly advocacy work of Christ more?
I would suggest that it is referred to here, although not developed enrollments.
It's referred to here merely by that word at the end of verse 34, who also maketh intercession for us. But this particular truth of priesthood and intercession, Romans, is, if we can say it, basic in its outlook and in its description of the gospel. And so it's mainly, I believe, presenting us here with the full results of the finished work of Christ.
Yes, intercession is necessary and it's alluded to, but the full development of it may we get of course in in other scriptures such as our chapter.
In verse 33, he's Speaking of the elect, isn't he? So who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Once we believe the Lord Jesus, we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior. We know that we're elect. We know that we were those that were chosen among those that were chosen. This word election has to do with individuals, and it's the same word in the Greek. I'm not a Greek scholar, but it's the same word as chosen.
So chosen or elect and God chooses individuals. There was a time in the past eternity that God chose you for himself. And you didn't know when you were born into this world. You didn't know for some time that you were one of those. But after you receive Christ as your Savior and He began to communicate with you, He communicated that to you that you were one of those that He chose for Himself.
And so this passage in Romans brings before us the fact that he has.
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His high Priestly work, his intercession in verse 34, is on behalf of those that have been chosen.
But intercession, I think, includes both those aspects in the high priestly and the advocacy, both high priestly to keep us from sinning, the advocacy to restore us when we have sinned, both our intercession.
Well, verse three, I believe really brings before us something extremely important.
And hereby we do know that we know Him. If we keep His commandments, we might find that language rather difficult to understand, but the sense of it is not hard. The conscious enjoyment of the relationship that you and I have with Christ is on the basis of obedience.
An old brother long since with the Lord that you have to be in my age bracket to remember.
Used to emphasize to us obedience and happiness go together. And he used to say, not very often, but he used to say, suppose I get to the judgment seat of Christ. Do you think that the Lord is going to say to me now you were far too careful in walking according to my word. You were far too careful in being obedient.
You should have sidestepped it a little and you could have been far more used to me. You could have reached more souls, you could have done more work for me as the Lord. Ever going to say that? Absolutely not. No. And so here it's the conscious enjoyment. It's what our brother was bringing before us last night.
In the talk after the signing, are we really enjoying that eternal life which God has given us? If we want to enjoy it, we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not in the same class as the law in the Old Testament. It doesn't mean a set of do's and don'ts. It's rather observing what God has told us as believers in His Word.
Will please him.
Those things that will please him.
I remember your brother AC Brown saying, think of the commandments of the Old Testament and the commandments of the New Testament in this way.
Commandments of the Old Testament were Do this and you shall live.
The commandments of the New Testament are live and you will do this. That has been a big help to me to understand. First, in the New Testament He gives us life, Then He gives us the commandments as the guidelines to the new life that we have. And so the New Testament is full of commandments.
Rejoice evermore, Brother Bill, do you keep that commandment?
But it's a commandment, isn't it?
I think it is beautiful to see it and it's something that our new nature wants to do. It's natural for it to do. That's his commandments.
There's another word here that's used in verse.
Five, that I think is interesting. Whoso keepeth his word, in him, verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him.
It's the difference between keeping his commandments and keeping his word.
Brother Phil, what would you tell me about that?
His word would be that would be unspoken, but because we know that it's hard as well, we.
Word is not so much a definite do this or don't do this. It's more of an expression of his thoughts, isn't it? And it's keeping that that is.
Especially commended sometimes think of perhaps a father has two boys. One is always obedient when his father commands him to do something, but he's not very close to his father. Not communing with his father, the other boy.
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Likes to be with his father. He likes to talk things over with his father. He knows how his father thinks about different things. Which of those two boys are going to have more confidence to ask their father for something? You know, it's that second one. Because he not only keeps his commandments, he keeps his word. And oh brethren, it is the reading the Word of God and understanding the thoughts.
In the heart of our God.
And to live in the enjoyment of it, not only merely doing what we should do as believers, but it's cultivating that fellowship that we were talking about this morning.
Verse three is also evidence that we do have divine life, isn't it? It says, hereby do we? We do know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. So obedience to the Word of God, obedience to the will of God as we know it to be, is evidence of divine life.
As mentioned earlier that John and the Apostle Paul in various of his epistles to has to address this rising novelty known as Gnosticism. It was also mentioned this morning that that word Gnosticism derives from the Greek word to no. And John uses that Greek word to know, I think around 20 times in this epistle. And so these Gnostics were saying, well, if you follow us, we have secret knowledge that you know no one else knows and we love that sort of thing.
Esoteric knowledge, it really draws away our hearts, our intellect, and I'm afraid brethren, even got waylaid by this certain.
Not to go into details of it, but Raven is and so on got waylaid by by this sort of thinking. But both the apostle Paul and the apostle John, as it were, he uses the words of Gnosticism right back to them. And and Paul uses the word fullness, which was a a word that the Gnostics use in a particular sense. And so Apostle Paul uses that word right back at them and says.
In.
Maybe help me build a Colossians thank you in hymns relative all the fullness of the Godhead bodily uses that word right back to them and John in this epistle the same thing. He uses that word no right back to them and he says if you really want to know, it's not going to be by some secret knowledge or something that's going to draw you away in your fancies and puff you up in your intellect is going to be by keeping his commandments.
That's not the sort of thing we like to hear.
And another word that we'll find a little later in this chapter that's repeated over and over again. And John loves this wood. It's the word abide and remain and continue. And he wants us to continue in the things that we have heard and not be swept away by some novelty. And this hasn't didn't end in John's era. It continues to this day. Satan wants to seduce us with this teaching, that teaching, whatever our weakness might be.
It varies with us individually, doesn't it?
I'd like to share a thought that's been helpful to me on this word, Keith.
It's a very common word. You use it all the time. We keep things all the time. We're all by nature. We're great keepers. We're collectors. We keep things in our pockets, in our glove compartments and on our shelves, in our closets and keep things.
But we keep things in differently.
And when we read scripture, we need to keep in mind not to interpret the word of God based on our experience, but remember that God chose these words and God does not keep anything indifferently.
So I like to use when I come across the word keep in scripture. I find it helpful to substitute the word treasure.
God keeps us.
He's he's totally involved in that and that's how we are to keep his commandments.
00:55:01
That's also a sign of divine light, isn't it in verse five that whoso keepeth His word or treasures his word?
In him, verily, is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. And so it's a sign, it's evidence of divine life. If we have the word of God and we treasure it, and a word from himself. So obedience and the word, we treasure that word.
And there seems to be.
An added.
Added reward to keeping His Word says in Him, verily, is the love of God perfected. He's watching us, brethren. He knows your heart. And if it's not merely doing what the Lord tells us to do in His Word, but keeping His word, seeking to be in fellowship with Him about it, there's a special place for that. It's in John 14 as well. I just want to point it out briefly.
You turn back there to John 14 and verse 21 it says.
He that hath my commandments, there's that first word, and keepeth them. He it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be loved to my Father, and I will love him, will manifest myself to him. But notice verse 23. Now Jesus answered and said unto him, This is Judas, not a scariot. If a man loved me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him.
And we will come unto Him and make our abode with Him. There's a special reward for not only keeping His commandments, but keeping His word. I find that special.
In the fourth chapter of First John, we have perfect love mentioned again.
Just turn over to the 4th chapter in verse 817.
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.
Because as he is, so are we. In this world. There is No Fear in love.
But perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment.
He that fears is not made perfect in love and I've enjoyed this because.
What is it so often that keeps us from keeping the commandments of the Lord?
Or keeping His word in our life.
So often it's fear. Fear of what other people may think. Fear that it's going to cost me something. Something I struggle with a lot.
But what we often fail to understand is that sin which is to do what I want, versus keeping his commandments, which is to do what God wants.
Has to do with the fact that he knows perfectly what is best for me because he loves me. I'm his child and you know I don't. I'm a father and I have children and I don't just give them everything they want all the time because I know that if I did, I would destroy their life. Sometimes things are held back. Sometimes there's things that you put in place as a father because you know what's best. Sometimes they don't keep those things because they may doubt.
My motives or why do those things? But we have a father who loves us, and his commandments are because he loves us and he knows what's best.
And we're afraid of that sometimes. And I think what happens, this little expression is so beautiful, to be made perfect in love.
Is that we come into the conscious realization of how much we are loved.
When we keep His commandments, there may be a cost, but we learn over our life there's nothing to fear. He loves me, He loves me, that's why He asked me to do it. And His love is perfected in US, and I've enjoyed In first Corinthians 13 it says when that which is perfect is common, that which is in part shall be done away. We have an imperfect understanding down here because there's sin in this world.
But there is coming a day when we'll know.
As we perhaps cannot know in this world just now.
01:00:08
When it comes to keeping his commandments, isn't it reasonable to say that you should start with the top commandments when you think about what his commandments are that you should?
Start with the top commandments.
A lot of times for this one, you know, thinking of commandments, as Bob said, do this, don't do that or.
But really, his top commandment.
Was that she loved one another.
And even in the Old Testament, the top commandment was love you, the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your souls, all your mind, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And everything hangs on that.
Do I do it? I'm not going to answer that. Neither do I.
But how do you do that?
It's right there.
We love him because he first loved us. Everybody that's had a little baby in their family, I haven't had that privilege. Spiritual babies did not.
Physical behavior. I hear what they say. I hear what Daddy's saying when they hold that little baby in their arms. How they never knew they could love like that.
But how does that baby learn love? Little babies come into this world. They're most hateful, despicable, angry little creatures that ever came. And if they were big, they'd wreak havoc on the earth. That's why God brings them in small. But how do they learn to love?
That sweet little mother and father that kisses that face and wraps them in their arms and puts her on her bosom and does that. That child absorbs that and learns to love. I had somebody ask you once, well, how do I love God more? Because I look at that and love God with all my heart runs. I don't do that. I don't know anybody that does. Do they seek after that? Do you do that? How do you do that? You look at His love for you. You focus on that. You learn that you dealt the depths of it and the love that grows in your heart.
Comes automatic. It can't be any other way. Then when you hear that he says do this. There is no rule keeping in mind at all.
Brother Phil likes to remind us of this a lot. It's not rule keeping. It's not the principle of rule keeping. I'm going to tell you a story some of you have heard from me before.
When I started dating my wife, who was working at BTP before I stole her away, I knew what do you do when you're interested in a girl? You bring in flowers, right? Supposed to do that. So I brought her red roses. She liked them. But one day I was falling in love with this girl.
At first, she said when she knew that I liked her, she said no way, farm boy. But that changed.
I loved her. Lord was building that in me and he was changing her too. But one day I heard this, she was talking to somebody else and she said my favorite color of roses are Peach colored.
What do you think I did next time I bought roses that I think I was keeping a new rule? Did she give me a rule? I want Peach colored roses. No, I heard that this please this person that I loved.
And it was easy to go by the road.
That lesson for me was that if I am absorbed, invested, totally taken up with His love for me, and I focus on that, and my love for Him grows out of that, then when I hear the faintest whisper of what He wants from me, there is no rule keeping. I jump to do it. I run to do it. If we're in that state of soul, the Christian life is as easy as falling off the wall.
Because the motivation is all in that love. We love Him because He first loved us. Want to learn to love Him more? Focus, study, look at, enjoy. Dig into everything that it says about His love for us. Every time we do that, when we do it, when we remember the Lord and the verses that are read, if you're paying attention, you start, you get astonished, you get tears in your eyes sometimes because it is an amazing thing.
01:05:25
That the creator of the universe didn't just love this world. The end of Galatians 220, says The Son of God who loved me.
And gave himself for me. That's you, that's individual, that's personal. That tells me that if you or me were the only person on this planet, he would have come for you. He loved you.
Individually. Now, is that amazing? What does that bring out of your heart when you think about that? That this God?
Love me individually and came for me and said his son for me. How can you not get tears in your eyes sometimes? How can you not just sing? Overwhelmed with that love you get into that mindset.
There is no problem with rule keeping and all this list I got to do. Does your wife put a list on the refrigerator? All the rules she demands. If you love her, it might happen. But no, when I bought those roses for my wife, she said, oh, these are my favorite. Yeah, I found out because I was listening. Well, we should have our lives be like that all the time.
That we are so filled and occupied with His love for us. That is easy. The loving back greater and more every day.
It's good to remember that these buses are characteristic. I think we got to always keep that in mind, and it really does fit with what Sam was just saying. It's not saying here we should be keeping his commandments so his love is perfected in us, but rather it is what's characteristic of the believer. You know, whoso keepeth his word. Sorry, I said commandment just now, but whoso keepeth his word.
Broader as we've been talking then commandment is in him. Verily is the love of God perfected. It's what characterizes the believer. It was what is characteristic of the new nature. I didn't mean to imply when I spoke earlier on that word know that we get to know him by keeping his commandments, but it's hereby hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandment again, his characteristic of that life that we have within us. Now it's Paul Apostle John is not giving us here a recipe to achieve something.
Rather, he's giving those things that's characteristic of the believer and should be manifest in the life of the believer.
Verse six is another characteristic of a believer. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked or Jesus is our example and so we look to him. I think that is so important to to just see that that is characteristic. You're going to see what is characteristic of the Lord Jesus reflected in the life of the believer. And then verses 7 and eight, brethren like to touch these before we get to the end of our time here.
We have in verse 7 the old commandment.
Verse 8A new commandment and I found it very helpful.
Notice in John's Gospel chapter 12.
And the last verse of chapter 12.
Verse 50 I know that his commandment is life everlasting, your life eternal, whatsoever I speak. Therefore even as the Father said unto me, so I speak His commandment is life eternal. Been talking about this eternal life in our meetings. So in verse seven he says, I write no new commandment unto you.
But an old commandment which she had from the beginning, there is that expression from the beginning that refers us right back to the first verse of the Epistle.
The old commandment is the word which she have heard from the beginning.
01:10:07
Somebody has said this old commandment is eternal life in the person of the Lord Jesus that you get in John's Gospel. Now there's a new commandment in verse eight again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him, that same eternal life that was in him.
And in you now that life eternal is in us, because the darkness is should be passing every time a new believer comes in.
The darkness is passing and the true light now shineth, and so this is what we have in First John is eternal life in the believer. I found that so helpful to see that.
The old commandment is that eternal life in the Lord Jesus, because he was that eternal life that was manifested from the beginning. And then we have the new commandment, that same eternal life in the believer in the Lord Jesus.
A lot of Christians think that while we get to live forever, that's what it's talking about. No, it's not. It's his life. It's the very life of Christ himself.
And we've been brought into that. It's not that we get to live forever. That's, that's just an idea. No, we have something and we possess it now.
But it will last forever, brother, of course.
But that's a different idea when a Christian gets ahold of that.
They get astonished, and it's a happy thing to learn.
And it's a wonderful thing to realize in the light of that word there where it says, because the darkness is passing.
Does it look as if the darkness is passing today if we lookout on the world?
No, it doesn't. It looks as if the darkness is winning.
It's not going to win, is it? No, the darkness is passing as Bob has brought out every new believer that comes to Christ.
Eliminate some of that darkness, and God, as we know, is working mightily in this world today. That's why we're still here.
I still remember my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe, who many here will remember, and I still remember his writing The Date the Year We Were married, 1970, and shaking his head.
Said I can't believe it. I can't believe it that we're still here. I don't know what he'd say today. But the point is, God is not willing that any should perish.
And despite the fact that it looks as if the darkness is overtaking this world, in one sense it is because we know that eventually, when every true believer is called away, that darkness will be terrible. But nevertheless.
The light is going to wind, and eventually that darkness will be passed completely when the Lord takes care of everything. Yes, it'll have to come through judgment, but that darkness will be passed completely. And so I know that's not perhaps the primary meaning here, but at the same time, it's good to be able to look ahead and say we know where it's all going to end. We look around us today. We see what's happening in the world. We see what's going on in the Ukraine.
We see the world frightened that somehow some nuclear war is going to start and so on.
The darkness is still passing and the true light now shining.
2nd Corinthians chapter Second Corinthians 4 verse six, it says for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And then if you turn to Matthew, Matthew chapter 5.
Matthew 5 verse 14 Ye are the light of the world, the city that's sound and heal cannot be had #16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. I believe like you said, the darkness is going darker but.
01:15:11
I believe there's not been a time like this ever before when we can sign bright the darkness.
Is in deep contrast to the the light is a deep contrast to the dark right now. So it's a you can be bright and shiny testimony for the Lord, especially now.
I believe in our first series really Speaking of Christianity itself and the teaching of Christ as the light of the world. If we looked at Second Timothy chapter one, we find there what Paul speaks of as the.
Light that's coming in verse chapter one of Second Timothy.
Verse nine. Who has saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to the his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but now is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who had abolished death or an old death, and have brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
And so the darkness of hedonism.
The darkness even of the lack of knowledge and Judaism, all those things.
Are have been dispelled to a large degree by the teaching of Christ and the commandments that he speaks of. The new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth, and so God has given a perfect revelation of the light.
Of Christianity, of his Son, and it has been a great, the greatest light that has ever shone in this world.
Person of Christ and so they sought to extinguish the light as soon as it shone, but God has seen to it as has already been said, every believer that's added to the church. The light is growing as it were said. The light of the darkness is dispelled because there's another believer might just turn back to verse six. I don't want to go backward, but it says he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. Now how did he walk?
He didn't please himself.
Who pleased not himself, He pleased his Father. And so if we abide in him, it's the end of the paragraph, really in chapter 2, verse six of our chapter, and it's in a sense a conclusion.
That testimony, if we live for the Lord's evidence of our love for Him, evidence of divine life, obedience, and keeping of His word, then we'll walk to please Him. We'll walk to please our Father. We won't walk to please ourselves. And the light will shine.
In Matthew chapter 4.
We have that verse. The people which sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region in shadow of death, light is sprung up. That's us Gentiles. Most of us here in this room are probably Gentiles. Aren't you glad that this light sprung up and someone brought it to the land of our ancestors?
Mine in Scotland and Czechoslovakia and it came there, then came over here to America.
And someone preached the gospel in the ears.
Our parents and maybe then us about this great light. It's still shining and as our brother said, the darkness keeps is encroaching all around, but that light hasn't been put out.
Darkness is the absence of light, and darkness cannot overcome light. You can't put out light by trying to add darkness, that just doesn't work. But light dispels darkness.
My son told me that in complete darkness, when there is complete darkness, just one kitchen match, if you light it, it could be seen 50 miles away.
01:20:00
Just one match 50 miles away in complete darkness. So the darker it gets, the brighter the smallest act of faith, which is what obedience to God is. It's acting in faith.
The smallest act of faith will shine very brightly the darker that the world gets.
He takes up profession in verse 9, doesn't he? There are those that say they have light and those that were Gnostics that they said they had.
Light.
A new light, whatever it was, but he that saith he is in the light.
And hateth his brother is in darkness, even until now he that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. So it's evidence. By their fruits you shall know them. And so there's evidence when someone says they walk in the light, they say that they are Christian.
And maybe you've had that experience before, but you asked someone, you get talking with them and then something doesn't quite ring right. And you say, well, what's your ecclesiastical connection? And sometimes they'll say, well, I'm Jehovah's Witness or something like that. And you know that there is a different Christ there. There's a difference. And I have often said to those that I've run into of that.
Order of things that they are not Christian. They claim to be Christian, but that's not Christian. They're not a part of Christianity. They profess Christ, they profess to be a part of Christianity, but really they're not. And so here they're he that saith. He is in the light, and hateth his brother. There's evidence, there ought to be evidence that I am in the light.
Is in darkness even until now.
And there is a practical side to this, isn't there? As we've had brought out, our brother Nick brought it out very well that John most of the time writes in the abstract. That means he views things as being either black or white because he writes about what is characteristic. And so he doesn't always deal with, as we might say, the if ands butts or maybes.
He simply says what is characteristic, but if.
This is characteristic of the believer in verse 10. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling it.
I may well ask myself.
Am I really acting up to what the position is into which I have been brought? Very searching sometimes, isn't it? Because very all too frequently. And I appreciate what Brother Robert said about meeting those who claim to be believers and who on careful examination, prove themselves to have a different Christ and a different salvation.
And a different way of thinking that isn't according to the word of God, but how sad it is I speak to my own heart when perhaps I am a true Christian and I know the Lord, and yet my testimony is not in accordance with it. And of course, there's a little more of that as we get on down further in the chapter where it brings in perhaps some of the more practical things about not loving the world and so on.
But it's very searching, isn't it? I knew of at least two individuals in my lifetime.
And there were those out in the world who actually said, well, if that man is a believer, if that man's a Christian, I don't want to be one. What an awful testimony. And sad to say, there was. I knew both of those individuals quite well. And I knew very well that there was a very good reason for the world to talk that way. And so it's very searching, isn't it? And for each one of us at any age.
To remember that that, as was brought out earlier, John often speaks of testimony.
In his gospel and in his epistles and speaks of our what we appear like to the world.
It's very searching for us to think about, isn't it?
These are some of the tests. Chapter one we were noticing in verse six if we say verse eight, if we say verse 10, if we say here in chapter 2, Now in verse four, he that said it's easy to talk.
01:25:13
Verse nine, he that saith, Yeah, that's what they're saying.
But he hates his brother. He's in darkness. Until now.
Pretty solemn to think about and then verse 10 the contrast he that loves his brother abideth in the light and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. I think that's beautiful.
There's a verse in Psalm 119 I like to refer to in this connection.
Verse 165 It says, Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.
I hear sometimes people say I got offended, that's why I don't go to meetings anymore.
How do you?
See that in relation to this verse.
Oh, brethren, love that we're talking about.
Is divine love Is that love that loves not because of the object, but because of the source?
And it was mentioned here just in this meeting we love because he first loved us.
When the Lord Jesus was mistreated, when they spit in his face, when they crowned him to with thorns, when they nailed him to that cross, did he say this is too much? I'm not going to stand it any longer, Never, ever. That's not the characteristic of the love of God, love of God.
Continues to love because of who he is. God is love, and that's that same love that we have if we are real with God.
Oh how important that is. He that loves his brother abides in the light. There is none occasion of stumbling in him.
You know, sometimes it might seem pretty easy to love a nice.
Congenial brother.
But I remember, I think it was.
John R Gill, wasn't it, Brother Bill? Maybe you remember what he said. The amount of divine love that is. You remember that quote?
The amount of divine, I can't say it like Rustin Gill, he had a unique way of talking, but.
He said The degree of divine love operative it within your soul and mind is evidenced by the love that I bear to the most cantankerous and objectionable brother within the sphere of my acquaintance.
Wow.
There was a lot of talk about divine love in a conference meeting like this, and then he lowered the boom on us and it was very effective.
Well, I think Bob, though, you're right, because it's easy to talk and it's easy to be a Christian when we're here at a conference like this. But I can still, I don't want to tell too many stories, but I remember again, my late father-in-law telling me how that he was visiting in an assembly and I have no idea which one it was. And he was to have lunch with a certain brother and he was to meet him at his office and then go out to a local restaurant for lunch.
And when he got there, his secretary, that is the brother secretary, said, well, he's busy with a client in his office and so just have a seat. He'll be out in 5 or 10 minutes.
Well, the office wasn't very soundproof, and he could hear the interchange between that brother and this business. I don't know what business they were up to or what it was all about, but anyway, there were evidently some.
Pretty high words on both sides. And then the brother came out and realized that Albert had heard the whole exchange and was mightily embarrassed and finally covered up the whole thing by saying, well brother, you know, Christianity is one thing, but business is business, isn't it?
Ouch.
No, we love. As Brother Bob has pointed out, the hymn shouldn't be there. We have the capacity for divine love. Now, does that mean we don't reach someone's conscience? Yes. No, it doesn't. We do if necessary. But reaching someone's conscience and being very difficult or they're two different things, aren't they?
01:30:16
Somebody think might wonder what this word darkness is really referring to. And often times when we speak of light, that speaks of holiness. God is holy, He's perfect in light. But darkness often times when it's spoken of in John's ministry here, I believe refers to ignorance of God.
So if we walk in, he that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness. Or you might just substitute his brother, John Kaiser was saying, with another word. Word and treasure.
He is in ignorance of God even until now, and so the world walks in ignorance of God and His principles, His Word. But you and I walk in the light of the truth of the revelation of God.
In the person of his son, it's a real privilege to walk in the light.
Talking about loving people that are hard to love.
Doesn't say you have to like them.
Ask any parent if they always like their children.
They'll say no.
But they love it.
There are things about people and conduct and that are hard.
And that you don't want. Maybe it's something that isn't very likable.
But that doesn't get you off the hook for loving.
And that may be hard to do.
That when the scripture tells us that the love of God is shed abroad in our heart.
All you're doing is blocking up the floor. Let it flow.
Does Christ find it hard to love the unlovable?
No.
That's part of it is our will gets in the way, is love flowing through us. It's how we love people that aren't that are hard to love.
So I'd like to ask the question then why does the Spirit of God bring that in here?
Right at the end of all these exhortations and talk about divine love and about eternal life and what's.
Characteristic and so on. Why does he end up And as Bob Tony has already pointed out, the word there is children, not little children. It encompasses all the family of God.
Why does he bring it in here about our sins being forgiven all of a sudden? That that's pretty fundamental, isn't it? Don't we know that already?
Why does he suddenly bring that in at the end of all this that we've had before us?
Have you got? No, that's a question. I asked the question.
He says, I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. It's on that basis that he can address them as children, on that basis that he writes to them.
Because it embraces the whole family of Godfather's young men and children. I notice in Mr. Darby's translation it's a separate paragraph. I I just suggest that I don't know for sure. Right? So I'll be there.
Could it be because it's for his namesake?
In John 13 and verse, Well, you know. You know that by quoting you'll know a new commandment. I give unto you that you love one another. By this shall all men know.
That you are my disciples.
By this if you have love for one another, so I wonder if it's for his namesake.
If that's the connection.
To what we've been reading.
But I believe that that's all very true and I thank you for that. I like the verse too that my brother Thomas read over here because when it talks about our sins being forgiven us for his namesake, and when the Lord said rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. I just add a thought to that very briefly.
What have the disciples done in that particular chapter? They had gone out of the Lord's command. They had done directly what He told them to do. They had done it with His power, and they had been very successful. That was, if we could say it in modern language, that was all good, but what was the danger that they would start thinking about themselves? I did something right. Look at that and our natural.
01:35:28
Old sinful self wants to take some credit. Well, I did every. I did some things and I did it right and.
Worked, and there was blessing.
What about our names being written in heaven? What about our sins being forgiven? What part did you and I have in that? Nothing. I can't take any credit for that, can I? I can't start feeling proud about that.
The more my heart goes back to Calvary's cross, the more I realize that it makes nothing of man, everything of Christ.
If we sing the last three verses of 209.
Our time, sorry.
And I have dreams of the entrepreneurs.
And everybody's prayers. I've been hearing the nearest.
Hey, Cortana.
No more time.
And please spread the question.
Bearing.
For us to start.
Outstanding.
The way.
I'm glad we're.
Glad.
Romans 1
Hymnsing 2
Priorities
Talk—Bill Brockmeier
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We will be brief. Let's ask God's blessing and help our God and our Father. We thank thee. We can speak to one another in psalms and spiritual songs, and we trust that indeed we've made melody in our hearts to thee, blessed Lord, singing with a sense of grace for all that love and grace and goodness to us from the Thanksgiving or God, what can we say for all the bounty of joy and blessing that has granted us now? And yet, even in the midst of our joy, our hearts are heavy, I think, for your sister Rhodes.
Relative Christian, our God, may they all come in yet late hour cooking this dear soul.
And think of many loved ones that we have without the Savior, and those that are away from me at this time. Our God, for Thy sovereign working. Now I have just a few minutes. Our God, how we need Thy help, that we might have something that would be helpful, especially to the young. As we open Thy precious word for just a few moments we seek Thy help, Thy blessing our God and Father. Hearts should be drawn to the Lord Jesus in His precious name, Amen.
I've been whittling down what I had to say.
Significantly. So we're going to add 3 topics. I'm going to pin it down to one, and that's the subject of priorities. Matthew 2323.
And as you're turning to this verse and perhaps is an unusual verse to start with, I will say this may sound a little bit strange that what I have to say is not the most important thing you've heard tonight. And I just love to hear a gospel meeting. It's been a long time when I wanted to get saved all over again. You know, that's the most important thing to know your sins are forgiven and that you're on the way to see the Lord Jesus in heaven. You know, I had an Uncle George and Gordon and Faith had gone to see him. My grandpa Jimmy Smith was saved. He became from.
Unsaved home and he had a younger brother who passed 80 years old who had refused Christ for many years.
And the neighbor lady came and she led him to the Lord passed past 80 years of age. So we went to see him and had some lovely business with him towards the very end. And when we went to see him there in in in the convalescent home, civil Uncle George coming singing him for you. And he said yes. And he said, I said, what song he said sing Jesus loves me. And so I had a brief word of prayer with with him and they said, would you like to pray Uncle George?
Yes, he said he would pray and he he.
He said dear God.
Thank you for these folks that came to see a Sinner like me. And you know, he was filled with a sense of the grace of God and the wonder. And he came at 80 years of age. His only regret was it took him that long before he came to know the Lord. And you know, it's a wonderful thing. As I said, the importance of the gospel. Many of you, dear children, you've come to know the Lord early in your days. Now you have the life is before you, however short it might be to live for the Lord. It's not been given to live for yourself. It's been given to the one who loved you and gave himself for you.
Turn to Matthew 2323 and you say. This is certainly an odd scripture to read, but it makes the point.
The Lord said woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin and have emitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith. These ought you'd have done and not to leave the other undone. You know, there's interesting things in Scripture and I just see if I could encourage you to this. It is such a thrill when you're when you when you get to the point where you read the word of God and you can't wait to open and find it. And So what am I going to find in this book? What am I going to find?
Chapter so a lot of things you notice along the way and you say I don't know what to make of that but I have noticed it so we read this word whoa you know you go to Revelation you'll find 3 woes you go to Isaiah chapter 6 and you're going to find Isaiah 5 you find 6 woes and then you go to Habakkuk and two and you or I get 2 rather you find 4 woes well in this chapter we have 7 woes. Now what do you do with that? I don't know but there's a lot of different subjects that you can take up this is one of seven woes. Now what's the point the Lord is.
Bringing woes on the scribes and Pharisees that had an outward righteousness to be seen of men. And earlier in the gospel he said, you have your you have your award and that's the praise of men. You got what you're looking for. You got the praise of man. And he said, but now in this chapter, he zeroes it down.
And it's my application. I'd like to bring it before each of us tonight, he says. You pay tithe of mint and anis and coming. Good thing. No, he said. These ought have done.
But he said ye have omitted the weightier matters of the law, and he brings out what they are.
Judgment, mercy and faith and so I guess distilling what is the burden I'd like to share with you tonight is right priorities they had did in an outward way things and there was nothing wrong with their ties under the order that they were doing. But he says you've missed the way to your matters. You've missed the more important matters mercy and judgment and faith. Those things you've avoided you've been you've been focusing on other things that are not really that important and that's why I say the very most.
00:05:24
Important thing is the gospel and knowing where you're going to spend eternity that without a shadow of doubt you can rest on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You've yielded yourself to him and you're waiting for him to come. Now we may not have long here. In fact, we don't have long here and you'll pardon me for just speaking personally. I don't know you very well, but you know I like baseball and I sometimes say so where are you in your curb really you got about retire said no, I'm rounding third heading home.
And that's true of my life, too. Work the math. And that's where you are. Some of you are just running on your way to first base, some of your coasting in the second around the third. It's the last lap. It's it's the end.
And so.
If the Lord leaves us here, there's there are things that are before you, there's decisions that you have to make and there are weightier things. There are important things and you want to make the right priorities. You make want to make the right decisions. And so I'm not going to turn to the rest of scriptures. We'll just call. We'll just quote a few along the way. I'll turn to him if I have to. Matthew 633, what is it? Seek ye first.
The Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Seek ye first.
The Kingdom of God, that's the number one priority, God and his righteousness. You know, the Pharisees were concerned about their righteous, but he's the sake, the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, what is important to him? And that's a very important point. As you start off your Christian life, what do you seek first? Seek first the Kingdom of God, the rights of God and what is for His glory, for what is his pleasure. He says all these things will be added unto you. He doesn't say seek the things of God first and then seek your things.
He says, seek those things, and those things will be added unto you.
Put the claims of the Lord first in your life. You know it says in Colossians, see whatsoever you do, do it heartily is unto the Lord and not in the men. And whatever we may be called to do, we can do it as unto the Lord. So that's very important. Proverbs 1817 says he that is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh and searcheth them out or cometh searcheth them. You know, there's a couple of translations, his neighbor.
Cross examines him. I don't like that quite as well. I don't like the thought of cross examining my friends. But I give you a little illustration of that verse. When I grew up, it was a Fullerton assembly was in Buena Park was a large assembly and there was a vibrant afternoon Sunday school work. And I, I went, perhaps I was more in the way than I was held, but it was it was a it was an engaging work. It was a good work and there was different things that one could do. And anyway, I don't remember the exact specifics of it.
But I said to my mom on some point. I said, well, that's just not my exercise.
She says people just say that when they don't want to do something.
You know that stick with me for all these years because we've become very crafty. What's the principle of self will? Lawlessness is self will. The principle of sin is self will. But I, I fear and I don't need to point fingers at anybody, but right here we have, we have migrated in our, in our life and our Christianity to the point sometimes where I fear we, we sanction ourselves will with a cloak of Christianity.
That sounds good, doesn't it? That's not my exercise. People say that when they don't want, they don't want to do.
You can't very well argue with your mother on that. It says he that is first in his own cause seems just. I can give you 100 and why reasons why this is the right thing for me to do. But who am I really looking after my own 'cause the neighbor cometh and searcheth him out. Your friends know you and and and and say is that really what is motivating you? So we have to judge our own hearts because right? Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know them?
I, the Lord know the heart, I try the reins. He knows the motivations behind us. We can give ourselves a clean bill of health and check it out. But the reality is the Lord knows where we're at. So seek He first the Kingdom of God.
And his righteousness, that's number one. And then he that is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh and searcheth them. You know, I love that. I love the thought of Secundus and Scripture as a travel companion of Poly means. Second, he was willing to be second. Tertius, who wrote the Emanuensis for the Epistle of Romans, is named Turses. He was willing to be third. And I loved Cortis. I think there's a Cortis here. I'd love to meet your brother. I love it. Cortez a brother.
00:10:00
That's all you want? Cordless a brother.
A brother, but there's no Primo in Scripture. Why? Because in all things he must have the preeminence. And what is that? He must have the 1St place. That's the first thing. The 1St place belongs to the Lord Jesus. And you know diatrophies and assembly there in 3rd John says he loves to have the preeminence. He loved to have the 1St place, but there's no place for man is the first place in the assembly that's reserved for the Lord Jesus. So seek first the Kingdom of God. That's his priority. What is for his glory, not for mine. It's not to be seeking a first of my own 'cause I may seem just, but.
Reality is, it's not right but the Lord Jesus to give him that first place in our life.
Just one other comment as our time is gone and I want to two more things I'd like to share and I don't I don't know how I can tie them in there. But in terms of prioritization, I remember brother saying to me says when, when did you go to a Bible conference that somebody didn't exhort young people and all of us by extension, read your read your Bible and pray, right? But you know, you can't get any better advice in doing it's implementing that. It's the execution of that right In Corinth, they said Paul said you had a you, you did well. It was a great desire now.
Let there be a performing of it.
Let's get with it. Let's execute. Let's act upon what we know to be right.
Let's act upon what we know to be right and so reading the word of God and ministry is important. Pardon a personal illustration, but at the top of our stairs at home, we had us we had this bookcase and that had collected writings, the old volumes of GN Darby and I think Mr. Darby was the brother of of of choice to quote in meetings. Whether he said what he was attributed to saying or not, I don't know, but I I, I one day I grabbed up this dismissed Darby must be good and I pulled a collected writings off just at random. I don't almost 1012 years old.
And I looked at this and my eyes kind of glazed over, and I didn't pick up another book of ministry for a long time. I couldn't understand it. I don't know what he was saying. No, I should have asked my dad or I should have asked somebody for a little bit of help. I wish someone would have said, you know, like Brother Lindeen said many years later, He just said, yeah, Boston Books. I said, when parents have a copy, I asked you if you had a set of those books. I said no. I said, we'll take them. The set of Wollstone's books is good for you. Doctor Doug Walter Thomas, Perdo Walston. Great ministry and invigorated to give me a taste for ministry.
Now let's say in Ezekiel chapter I'm keeping my on the clock. I have to be done by 9 Ezekiel 1414 the.
I'll just reference it. The judgment is coming upon Jerusalem and.
The Lord steal the prophet, Ezekiel says. Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in this city, they'd only be spared for their righteousness, not the city.
I heard a thought many years ago, I didn't know the brother. I only met him one time as a young boy. His name is Clifford Brown. He spoke on that. You probably could hear it on on, you know, one of the websites that are very helpful to us. But he made this comment that stuck with me all these years. Ezekiel. He references Noah, that was way back and Job, which was perhaps further back, and Daniel.
Ezekiel and Daniel were peers. They lived at the same time. And think of the compliment that Ezekiel paid Daniel. He's putting with some pretty prestigious company with with with Noah and Joel.
And he speaks of Daniel's righteousness.
That's that's a quick buffer up to the point I'm going to make. I love the old writings, but you know, there are writings in this generation. They'll be very helpful to you. I'll give you 3 of them.
The Christian monthly periodical out of Bible Truth Publishers. Our brother Bill writes a lot of articles in it. Very helpful subjects. You can read one a month for a course a year. You can have 12 subjects that are very well covered. Very helpful. You can read a page and 1/2.
I'm not a reader. What you may not be a reader, but that's you can read that. The second thing is.
Bruce Anstey's books on the epistles, they're short and concise and to the point. They're very helpful. And now a brother Nick Simon's book, the entrusted his series on the entrusted deposit series. He's taken up tough subjects. As I told our dear brother, they are jam packed with truth. And I say those three things, current brethren, that are continuing on giving the truth that we've enjoyed.
Take advantage of those. We have weak assemblies.
It's not wrong to do a little homework, do your diligence. Are there a lot of other writings Yes, but you can avail yourselves of those even of brethren that you know personally take advantage of that. So that is so that not only the the matter of reading the Bible and the word of God, but also ministry. And the last point I want to make.
00:15:01
When I was in high school, I started playing, started playing some dentists. And this is, oh, my dad says, so you're playing some tennis. Sorry, I said, yeah, I said, won't want to play.
My dad played tennis, you see, let's go out to the high school and we went out there and my my dad was tall and lanky, but he's a very powerful man. So I thought we'll see how it goes. And he is first, Sir, blew me away. Paul went right past me and that I don't think we played tennis more than twice. He he he did just overpowered me with with his with his servant. And he could, you know, jump to one side of the the court another and hit it back.
He said when he started playing tennis.
That he said they had chalk lines on clay and after a while when the the ball would hit the chalk line, it would, it would cover over to mess up the line. He said, you know, sometimes you, you just don't know if it's in or out because it's all blurred there. He said, son, there's a within and without in the assembly and sometimes the chalk line gets blurry, blurred. You don't know if it's someone's within and someone's without.
OK, that was interesting. That's interesting. No, but I lead it to make a point.
So there was one issue, you know, there's always some type of issue among the Saints where there's differences of opinion on. That's all right, Honest opinions are all right. But I thought this was OK. I got to hear what my dad's going to say about this and.
Right or wrong, up or down, left or right, Which way is it? And he said, son, you know, it's not always noon. It's not always midnight. There is such a thing as dawn and there is such a thing as dust.
Now I'm going to leave you with that because.
There are things in the Word of God, chapter and verse, gospel verses you should all know. We should all memorize John 316 X 1631, Second Corinthians 8-9, Second Corinthians 915, Galatians 220. I can give you the reference and I rattle them off you and most of you could quote all those verses I quoted. You need to have those gospel verses down and you see someone. You got that elevator speech. You give time for one verse. You better have at the tip of your tongue. That's what the Scripture says.
There's other scriptures just as pointed and directed flee fornication. You can't 2 words, very powerful words, but there's a lot of things in scripture that are open for principles and you have to weigh principles. It's done. It's it may be dusk, it may be dawn. We want to get this chapter and verse down and say the Lord wants to bring us into communion and in fellowship with himself that we have is no mind because if I say on I'm not talking about these plain statements of Scripture.
If I say I have to have chapter and verse, I'm manifesting the state of soul that I wouldn't do it even if you gave me chapter and verse.
And how can I say that Exodus chapter 20 when they came down from the mount, they broke in the first commandment?
So I just say that in in terms of as you go on in your Christian life, avail yourselves of the ministry, memorize the word of God and those things that are specific and direct, but then understood there's many things.
That you're not going to be able to argue out and reason out. You have to be, I have to be in the Lord's presence with the word of God, open with principles to weigh them in his presence as to say, Lord, what would you have us to do? Everything is not cut and dry, especially when we come to heavy duty decisions. We don't want to be overly simplistic. And so I just say that to you, some things that were helpful to me and I hope there might be some help to you. I'm sorry for going over. I didn't think I would, but let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we thank thee for thy precious word. We thank thee for the privilege of fellowship with our brethren and singing hymns. We thank thee for the privilege of having Bibles in our land, in this land when so many are suffering for thee, Lord Jesus, even now, and grant our God to take advantage of this opportunities. We pray for our dear young brothers and sisters, especially our God, in these last days, these last moments of the Church's history on earth. Inspire them, encourage them.
Motivate them to get into Thy word, to reach out in the Gospel, to build up one another in our most holy faith, and preserve them from being sidetracked and and chasing down trails of no profit. We just earnestly commended Thee for blessing, thanking them for this time together, Father. And if should there be refreshments here, we thank You for them too. Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
He Gave Everything
Children—Mark Gorgas
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning.
Thank you for coming to the Sunday school. We're going to start by singing some children's hymns. So if you have the children's sheet here, see we have a few more seats up here. Anybody else want to come up to the front row?
Anybody faith there's room up here?
I might have something to give out, and I can't reach you from up here. What do you think, Silas? All right. You have one that you'd like to sing? Yeah. What's your name? 15. What is your name? OK. Dean, you would like #15?
123-4567.
8.
654321.
Is dear son.
To 34567850 7 6.
345678 998.
9876543.
Didn't answer. Come on to me.
415678910.
Jesus died for sinful man.
That night, 87654 tell the story.
And a Lord.
OK, we only have about 45 minutes. I'd like to get a good amount of singing in, and then I'd like to hear your verses. And then we're going to talk a little bit too. So before we go any further, we're going to stop. We're going to ask the Lord for help because I need help.
Father, thank you so much for what we've enjoyed. Just being together in a room this weekend. Think of how you know so particularly what each one of us needs and we had.
Maybe different reasons for showing up at this conference for coming. And then we're reminded, just like when you called us as sinners, that you had your own plan to and you saw.
The big picture you saw the big need. And so we felt our hearts warmed in places where we didn't even realize we were cold. They pray that again this morning as we try to speak.
Especially to the children that you would help us and that they would be able to understand.
A little bit of what we've had before us this weekend. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.
OK, yes. What would you like?
#10.
Jesus loves me.
Well, I've been smiling. Oh my God.
00:05:05
Nearer wants me to wear my life.
And let us Jesus comes with.
Now streaks of smile swimming. You have a string because I swallowed Smith the Bible.
Make me no one night.
Yeah, I'm just getting some swamps with me.
Let's see, that's why I'm sleeping.
You guys drinking some swamps? Cleaning. My Bible tells me so.
OK, another one.
Yes.
Trust and obey, OK?
When we walk with the Lord.
We do advance.
Our hearts and fell with his heart and speak, trust and go away.
We never.
Did I saw his love when it runs on the South? Pleads me. Please. Strange.
For the favorites and.
Joy.
Hard for the most of the world. Trust and no way.
But to trust and go away?
ASA.
#8.
I am so glad that.
Jesus loves me.
I am so glad that he's a substance Jesus sustained.
Jesus was me. Jesus was me.
You did just response to me and I know I love him. I'm driving down my poor soul generating.
00:10:00
Yes, it was something in Die on the Train.
Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me.
I am so glad that Jesus wants me. Jesus continue.
Last night I was talking to a little boy.
And maybe a few little boys and little girl. And then I said, do you love the Lord Jesus?
You know what? The boy said.
What did he say, ASA?
He said yes, all right.
And I said, why do you love the Lord Jesus?
And he said.
Because.
He saved the whole world.
Did the Lord Jesus save the whole world?
We were just singing. We want you to understand that Jesus loves you.
And we want you to understand that Jesus died for you. And we want you to understand.
That Jesus.
Wants to save you and that he can.
Save the whole world. He's not willing that anyone would leave this world unsaved.
But he did not save.
The whole world.
There's responsibility that you have. You've heard that the Lord Jesus loves you and that he died for you and that he wants to save you.
But you have to say yes to him. Every little boy and every little girl has to say yes to the Lord Jesus in order to be saved. That's really important to understand. And maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that, but let's let's have another song.
Yes, freedom.
#5.
Around the throne.
OK, one more. For now, let's go over here.
#9.
Into a template.
00:15:05
Nobody ever hustled into me.
Somewhere again, somewhere again salvation. Sorry reaping your unprovoked.
No, I can't ever cry. So many people.
Our parents have to be.
That I am sure that he sent him for me.
Again.
Tell me again.
So I love patience and sorry.
Can say I don't know about children, about the band.
Nobody ever has told me before.
I'd like to sing all morning, but I think we better go on. Who didn't get a candy that would would have liked to have gotten one?
Are you good at sharing, Betsy?
OK, we're going to find out. I'm going to give that to you and you do what you want with it after Sunday school.
OK, so who learned the verse?
In Romans chapter 8.
OK, a few.
Hope someone's going to help us out with it in a little bit. OK, so the verses in Romans chapter 8, but we're going to turn to Matthew chapter 27 first.
So we can understand a little bit about what this verse is about.
So if you have a Bible, if you'd open it up to Matthew.
Chapter 27 right near the end of Matthew. I'm just going to read part of a verse there.
In verse 46 it says.
My God.
My God.
Why have you forsaken me?
Does anybody know?
Who said those words?
My God, My God.
Jesus, the Lord Jesus said, why have you?
Forsaken me.
I think you know enough about the Lord Jesus to know that he was God's Son.
And I think you know enough to understand.
That fathers love their sons.
One of their dearest possessions, right son?
Father, it's a relationship I see even in this room right now, some fathers with their arms around their sons.
They treasure them, the Lord Jesus, Son of God.
Loved his father and his father loved him.
Always.
00:20:01
But man was found to be.
Sinful, right? We're bad. It's like who we are inside. So we're bad and then we do bad things.
And God also loved you and loved me.
And he didn't want us to go to hell.
Where he's going to send Satan?
But he saw that we were sinners, and so he said, I love you, Jack.
I love you Avery, and I'm going to send my son. He's at my side right now, but I'm going to send him to Earth.
To this place where we live. I'm going to send him as a little baby.
And I'm going to let him grow up.
And he's going to be perfect because he is perfect.
He's never going to sin. He's going to walk on the face of this earth until he's a grown man.
And then he's going to everything he's going to ever do is going to please me as his father. He's going to be the first one whoever walked on this earth, who's going to, who's going to make me happy, God the Father.
The Lord Jesus grows up and he's a kind man and he has a loving heart and he pours out His love on this earth and He's healing as everywhere he goes, right?
And he's comforting and he's raising from the dead. He's doing all these wonderful things and man can't stand him, right? Because like I said, we're, we're bad inside. It's who we are. And then we do bad things. We're sinners. And so when man sees this perfect man, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God walking around on this earth, that makes him angry inside. And he says, what can I do with this? This man who I don't like, I don't want to see him anymore. How could I get rid of him? And so they come up with a plan.
To to crucify him. So they take this perfect man who's the Son of God. He's a real son.
Someone loves him entirely, and they take.
That sun and they bring him into a courtroom.
They decide.
That they don't care if he's guilty or not, he's going to the cross.
And they send them there.
And he submits himself to what man wants to do to him.
The Lord Jesus allows himself to be nailed to a cross, but not just the Lord Jesus allowing its God the Father.
God the Father allows the Lord Jesus to be nailed to the cross and then.
Somewhere on the other side of.
Three hours of darkness. The Lord Jesus cries out.
And his cry.
Is my God? My God, Why?
Have you forsaken me? Does anyone know what it means to forsake something?
Does anyone know? I know these boys back here know.
What does it mean to forsake something?
Paul.
To leave it and never think about it again.
I think that's pretty good.
Can you imagine?
Has anybody ever been lost, Jack? You've been lost.
You haven't.
What if? What if? Where were you when you found your mom or your dad, Jack?
Now remember, does anybody remember being found?
You do. Where were you when you were found?
Your finest or you probably. Did your mom see you or you saw her?
Yeah, and what did she do when she saw you?
Was she happy to see you?
Can you imagine?
I think everyone knows what that feeling of being lost is like, right? Like everything inside is stirring, like there's a big storm in there, right? And, and it's building, it's building, it's building, and it's getting darker and darker and darker inside, right? And so everyone in this room appears to have been found every time they were lost.
Can you imagine if you were lost and?
00:25:00
You went to the spot where you're supposed to meet your mom and.
Maybe you saw her, but all you saw was her back.
Can you imagine if when you saw your mom, you saw her back?
And she was just walking away.
You would run to her and if what if she kept walking? The Lord Jesus when he was left on the cross, he was forsaken.
It wasn't that God.
Didn't want to run to his son.
But he left him there.
On the cross.
I want you to think about that when we're going to do the verse now, so.
We're going to use the microphone. If you would like, you could say the verse. I'm going to use this one over here.
Who thinks that they would like to say the verse into the microphone?
OK, do you need help getting started? OK, you can hold that.
Romans 832, Yes.
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans 832 That's perfect. Would you like to say it?
Would you like to say the verse? It's OK if you if you would rather not, here you go.
Thanks, Dean Avery.
Jack ASA OK he that spirit, not his own son, but delivered him up for us all by.
How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans 832.
Anyone else down here?
How do you say it again? Romans 832 he that he that spare not his own son, but.
But delivered him up for us all. How shall we not freely give us all things? Romans 832 Very good. Here you go.
Would you like to? I can help you.
Anybody over here?
No.
Let's say the verse.
You're kind of shy. So am I, so I'll help you. That spared knot. He's a spare knot.
He's a spanner.
Own son, his own son, but delivered him up.
For us all.
How? How Shelly not?
With him.
Also freely also. Let's see, give us all things.
Very good. Thank you.
Anyone else who's shy that would like to?
He that spare not his own son, but delivered upwards also, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans 832 Very good.
Luke Sure.
Sam.
Sam Shy.
He that spelled not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him?
And also freely.
Give, give us, give us all things.
Romans 832. Very good.
You like the microphone? Yeah, you're pretty good with it.
Anybody else Tory?
Romans 832.
He that he that spare not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not?
00:30:02
With him, with him also freely give us all things.
Romans 832. Very good.
Robots 842 he that spin. But his old son threw him off from us all. How shall he give us freely give us all figs? Well, it's 842 Very good. I like how you added that freely back in there. Very good.
Yep, here you go.
Romans.
832.
He he that.
Not delivered, he that spared, not see that spare, not his own son.
But delivered. Delivered.
Look for us all.
Romans 832. Very good.
Down here.
OK, and I know there was someone over here.
There you go.
Romans.
88 And forget what's else, He he that he not spared, not his own son.
Delivered for SO.
How? How shall you not really give us all things Roman? Should be verse 32. Very good. Thank you. Here you go.
Anyone else that didn't get to go?
OK.
How shall he not live us also?
But there never came up with us all. I'm sorry he not was also.
Romans 842. Very good.
Anyone else?
There you go, he that spare, not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans 832. Thank you. OK.
We're going to go on from the memory work, and if you'd like to come say it to me afterwards, you can.
Who didn't get a lollipop that would like one?
That's pretty good at sharing.
Anybody.
I think I can trust you to share.
OK.
I want to talk about this verse a little bit.
You know, when you give something, there's usually an end to it.
OK, when you're giving away candy, there's always a bottom of the bag, right? I just gave away all my candy, so I can't give anything.
Else. But what if you give from something that's alive?
You think that's a little different? Can anyone think of something that gives that's alive?
Has anybody ever had an apple?
You think? Have you ever seen Where do apples grow?
On a tree. OK, So what happens if you come along in the fall and you pick all the apples?
There are no more apples left on the tree. So then you cut the tree down and you make it into firewood, right?
No.
It could grow more next year. Why?
Is it alive? Does it have life inside the tree and more apples come out of it? Yeah. That's different than me giving you candy from a bag, Right? So I thought of a term that's used in different ways.
And I want you to think about it. It goes something like this.
I gave it everything I had.
00:35:02
You ever hear anyone say anything like that? Or someone might say to someone else?
Ernie, you got a big hockey game coming up.
We lost the last one to these guys. I need you to give it everything you have, OK? Ever hear that term? Give it everything you have.
Does anybody know a special holiday that's today?
Mother's Day.
OK.
I thought about mothers in this way.
Do you think mothers are more like a bag of candy or like an apple tree and how they give?
More like an apple tree because they're full of life. OK, so raise your hand if you were ever born.
OK, so it looks like we're including everyone in the audience today.
Raise your hand if you ever had a child.
Well, you participated guys can raise.
OK, so.
Let's see.
Betsy, how old are you?
You're 7.
About eight years ago.
Your mom probably went and told your dad that she was pregnant and that they're going to have a baby.
And from that moment on.
Everything in your mom's mind changed. She had had one before, so it was even more so the first time. But from that moment on, everything, I'm sure every time she woke up, especially for the first three months, she thought about you.
And everything about the day and about the coming weeks and about the coming months was about you and getting ready for you at the end of nine months.
There was a baby that was fully grown inside her.
And before she woke up the next day and went to the hospital.
She might have thought, and I think rightfully so, I've given this baby.
Everything that I have.
That's what a mother does when the baby is growing inside her. She gives the baby everything that she has.
But was that the end of the story?
No, that wasn't. That was just the beginning, right? So the next day and I went to the hospital.
And every mother who's gone through childbirth.
Share the same experience.
OK, so labour is a very intensive thing. So now if you're a father and you've ever held the hand of a mother who just gave birth to a child, raise your hand.
Wes, what can you tell me about that? What do you in a few words, what do you feel when you hold the hand of a mother who just gave birth to a child?
Because you get a little sense that maybe she just gave everything that she had.
Again, after nine months of giving everything that she had, a mother gives. Over the course of hours, she gives everything that she had.
To deliver a baby.
So what if the next day or three days later?
The mom and dad, they get in the car and they drive home and they leave the baby at the hospital.
Would that make sense?
They get in the car. The mother already gave everything that she had.
That doesn't make sense, right?
Because even though she gave everything that she had.
Now, when she saw Betsy's beautiful little face for the first time, she was even more in love than when she first found out. She's going to have a baby. Because twice she had given everything that she had, and even though she gave everything that she had to have that baby.
There was no way that she was leaving that hospital without her baby.
00:40:03
She gave everything she had, but she had more to give.
OK, who's?
Three years old.
Anybody 3.
You're 3.
OK, well I hate to pick on the same family again, Ben.
You ever had a day where you got to the end and you felt that you gave everything that you had? Yes, I think I've seen part of it.
It was our reading meeting.
You as your baby grows and becomes a toddler and a young child, there are days as a parent where you love that child so much and you see something that needs to be corrected or you see the baby in trouble. You see that baby hungry, you see all these things. And so you get to the end of the day and you say, I gave that baby everything that I had.
And it would make no sense if tomorrow, when Ben and Anne are at home, Julia gets the car keys, packs up her things, and heads out of the house. Because now both her mom and her dad have given everything that they had.
Right. It would make no sense because there's more to give. And Ben would say I have more and I have more and I have more. I want to give and I want to give. I love this child, OK? When you get to be thirteen, you might feel pretty independent and you might feel like you have things pretty well figured out.
And Levi's sitting next to his dad over there. He's not very far from 13.
And if Levi got his own, he's a working man. I know. And so he saved up enough that he got his own four Wheeler and he got his keys and he packed things up and when he turned 13, he left the house. Would that feel right?
No, because I'm pretty sure that Joe and Joanna, your parents, even though they've given everything that they have, they have more to give, right? OK, even all up to time when?
A child is fully grown.
The parents giving everything that they have a father, at some point he may walk his daughter down the aisle and he gives his daughter away in marriage. And you might say at that moment he's given everything that he had for his daughter and he would do it all again.
But.
You'd accept a call from Christy Dad at any time, right?
Because a father.
Will always give everything that he has.
We in the verse and in the story in Matthew 27, there in the cross, the Lord Jesus, he cried out. Why have you left me, Father?
We heard about how God gave everything.
That he had.
So why does it say, How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Now I hope that you're saved. I hope that you know the Lord Jesus as your own Savior, that you're washed in his blood, and that your sins are not seen by God. That is so important.
But now I have another burden on my heart.
And that might be that at 34567 years old, you accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior. And then somehow, somewhere along the way you become convinced that that was it. And that's you've reached the peak of your Christian life. You and you walk off saved and you go enjoy the rest of your life on your own.
But that's just the very, very, very beginning. And my fear is not just that someone might go into eternity unsaved, lost in their sins.
My fear is that someone might miss out.
On understanding.
That when God the Father gave.
All.
That he had.
That was just the beginning of what he wanted to give to you.
Hey, what if?
You're just kind of stalled right now in your Christian path. You're saved and you know it.
00:45:00
And there's no energy going back into the Christian life and you're 910111216 years old and you're just kind of treading water and Lord Jesus comes.
And you find that you missed out on.
Walking with him What if you missed out on walking with the Lord Jesus? What if you missed out on we've been reading from first John in the reading meetings. What if you missed out on understanding what the love of a father is? Not just the love of a Savior God, but the love of a Father? Then you will have missed out on understanding that He wanted to freely give you.
All.
Things a mother, her work has just begun when she's given all things, given all of herself to her little baby, she now she, the baby comes home into the house and she, she wants to show the mother and the father want to show this little baby what it means to be part of the family. And so they're just going to start to grow up into the family and they're going to start to learn a little bit, little bit. You don't learn at all when you're two or three. You learn a little bit more and a little bit more.
And all through your growing up years, you learn.
What it means to be part of your family. You become a child of God. It's some maybe some early age in your life and you just have to understand that that's just the beginning. Now you're part of the family and now you're going to come in and you're going to grow up inside the family and you're going to learn so much more than on the day you were saved. OK, here's a question my kids ask me sometime. I finished reading this book of the Bible. What should I.
What should I read next? What should I read next? And it's hard to understand as a as a younger child, what should I read next?
Think about this when you go to your Bible.
What are you going there for? When you, I hope you opened up your Bible this morning and you read from it, I hope you will today. But when you go to your Bible, what are you going for? Are you going in faith?
That you're going to get something from a God who is gracious and is not just gracious in salvation, but is gracious and giving all the way through the Christian path. Are you going to your Bible that way so that you may be established in grace, that you may grow in grace, that you may be in grace? Is that where you're going to your Bibles for so you can understand? Are you going to just read another random Psalm in the morning? Are you, are you just going through Proverbs over and over again, or are you?
Going to the Word of God and you're going to the epistles or you're going to the Gospels, are you going?
Throughout the whole scripture, looking to see what is it that God wants to establish me in today? What does He want me to grow in? What does He want me to understand in all things? What does He want to continue to show me as a Father who's already given all that He had?
I think we're out of time, so we're going to stop there and we're just going to pray.
Father.
We are at such a loss of words when we think of what it must have meant for you to.
Spare the Lord Jesus from your very side there in heaven and to send me down here. And we cannot imagine the agony that both you and He were in in different ways.
During those hours of darkness on the cross, we thank you for.
Not sparing.
The Lord Jesus.
But for freely giving him up. And we just pray for each believer, young and old alike here, that we might come to you as our Heavenly Father who loves us with a deep understanding and a yearning in our hearts. That we might come to know you more, and that we might be able to drink more deeply and deeply each time. Pray that you would encourage us along in our Christian path until the Lord Jesus comes to take us home. We give thanks for this time in his name, Amen.
Lay Hold on Eternal Life
Open—Bob Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Like to read in First Timothy chapter 6?
Something that has come home to my heart.
Very strongly in connection with the theme of our meetings, eternal life.
And we have had it very clearly that.
That eternal life is to know.
The only true God and his Son Jesus Christ. Incredible.
Wonderful privilege that belongs to us.
And the Lord Jesus. But this is the practical.
Reflection that comes home to my own heart. Paul's talking to Timothy.
A young man.
And notice what he says.
In verse we'll read from verse 11. But thou, O man of God.
Flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Here's the expression I want to focus on.
Lay hold on eternal life.
Where unto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession.
Among the four many witnesses now a little later on in this chapter.
Verse 17 charged them that are rich in this world.
That they do not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches.
But in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.
That they may do good. That they may be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.
Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come. Here it is again that they may lay hold on eternal life.
What does it mean to lay hold on eternal life?
Didn't Timothy have eternal life?
Why does Paul say?
In verse.
12 Lay hold on eternal life.
Why does he charge those that are rich in this world and.
You might say.
Who are those that are rich in this world?
You know, we always tend to look at another direction than ourselves and.
So it must be those that have a lot of wealth.
Remember it came up in a reading meeting one time and the question was who are the rich in this world?
The reference was given back to verse.
8 where it says having food and raiment.
LED us therewith be content.
And the explanation was simply given, If you have more than food and raiment than you, then will you qualify to be the rich of this world? And I think it pretty much includes everyone of us that are present. Brethren, what does it mean to lay hold on eternal life? Don't we have eternal life?
The way it has come home to my own soul, brethren, is yes.
The gift of God as eternal life. And so if you have believed in the Lord Jesus, you have that gift.
But in our culture, it does seem that we are so occupied.
With material things that oftentimes that dominates our life and we need to have this admonition lay hold of eternal life. You have it, live it.
And comes home so strong to my own soul, brethren, to live that eternal life we have been given.
And I'd like to go over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 to a portion. I've spoken on this before, but I must say I do believe this kind of gives us what that means to lay hold on eternal life.
Chapter 4 and verse we will read from verse 6.
00:05:06
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give.
The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure. What's the treasure?
The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Treasure.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
Our bodies, our earthen vessels.
That the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
Now wonderful.
And the illustration has often been given in this verse to get in.
And his men as they met the Midianites. Remember when Gideon blew the trumpet, 32,000 men followed him. The Lord says I can't give the victory to Israel. They'll say that it's because of their own.
Power that they have gained the victory can't do it. Tell all those that are afraid to go home. And so he did, and 22,000 went home.
That's reducing your army quite a bit. But there are still 10,000 left and the Lord said that's still too much, can't do it, can't give you the victory that way. And so he gave him a test to bring him down to the waters. And after the test there remained 400 men.
Oh, seems ridiculous. But brethren, we have to come to realize the Excellency of the power is not of us, it's of God. And that was the lesson He had to learn. And so they took out when they went out to the Midianites, two things. In one hand they had a trumpet.
In the other hand they had an earthen vessel with a lighted torch inside, and they stood around the camp of the Midianites, and at a given signal from Gideon they broke that earthen vessel, and the light shone, and he blew the trumpet, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, And the Lord gave them the victory, tremendous victory over.
Midian, the Excellency of the Power.
Is of God and not of us. What a tremendous lesson to learn in our lives.
And how does that apply to us now? Brethren? Here's our earth and vessels.
And they start to break. So many of us have real physical difficulties in one way or another.
And so God sees fit to break the earthen vessel. What's his purpose? Why does He allow the earthen vessel to break? It is that the light might shine out. And it's through that light shining that God gives the victory. It has been such a tremendous privilege of mine to see those who were severely afflicted.
In some physical difficulty.
And how the light shone out of their lives for blessing for others.
This is what we have, but notice how he goes on here. We are troubled on every side.
Anybody here like to be troubled?
Yet not distressed. We are perplexed. You like to be perplexed.
But not in despair. Persecuted. We don't know much about persecution.
Like they do in other countries, but not forsaken cast down.
Anybody here cast down? You ever have that experience? Yeah, I think we all can say there's moments when we feel cast down.
But not destroyed.
Then notice verses 10 and 11 to me are the key to what it means to lay hold on eternal life always.
Verse 10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest.
In our body.
That's something that should be the norm of the Christian life always.
00:10:06
Brethren, is it so?
I have to confess, yes, it should be, but oftentimes it's not the norm.
So the Lord has another way He works. Notice verse 11.
We which live are always delivered unto death. Here is a circumstance outside of our control. We're delivered to it.
Why that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest?
And here it says, in our mortal flesh.
Is this flesh of mine mortal? Yes, it is.
And sometimes that's what happens. Doesn't necessarily mean that you might lose your life.
But oh, brethren.
It says in verse 12 Paul to the Corinthians, so that death worketh in us, but life in you.
You know, in life, here, in this world, we live and at the end we die.
But if you'll notice carefully in verses 10 and 11.
Death comes first and life afterwards, because the life we have in the Lord Jesus, that eternal life, begins with resurrection.
Death precedes it.
We have died with Christ. We are raised together with Him.
And so it exhorts us in Colossians chapter 3 and verse one.
If then ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God.
So the center of direction in resurrection is not in things down here. Yes, we all have to have a job, perhaps to support our families. Scripture is pretty clear about that. If you don't provide for your own, you're worse than an infidel and denied the faith. So we we need to attend to that.
That's not the objective. That's not the priority.
How important it is to know?
Know our priorities.
Rather than I do believe that these times that we've passed through the covet and all that has tested our priorities, what's number one important thing in our lives.
Is it our health?
Is it our own well-being? I don't mean that we shouldn't take care. We shouldn't take precautions. Yes, we should, but that's not number one priority. There's something beyond that and it's the life of Jesus shining out of these vessels. And if we don't let them shine out.
Of these bodies, then, we may be delivered to something, so that the life will shine out when the vessel is broken.
I have to say brother and I have been challenged in my own life.
By those that have been a tremendous.
Blessing to me. I've mentioned before dear brother Eric Smith with some of you knew there are others too.
And men who laid down their lives.
Or the gospel.
I've mentioned thou Eric Smith when he decided to go.
To Bolivia as a missionary. His father was not a believer.
And he wanted all his boys, he had a number of boys to get a good education in New Zealand and make good in this world. Come on, you got to get up, you got to get going and prosper.
When Eric Smith told his father, I've decided to go to Bolivia to preach the gospel.
He told him. He says if that's your decision, son, get out of my house. You have no more place here in this house.
And he had to get out and make his own way.
00:15:02
Well, I didn't know Eric Smith until later in his life.
I must say rather than on time with their with.
Glenn Buchanan and Doug Buchanan and Ramon Alarcon. We were going from Potosi in a truck.
Ramon Alarcon and Eric Smith were sitting up in the cab up front with the with the driver.
And Buchanan and Doug and I were out in the back with a bunch of other brethren. It was an all day trip and was a little bit exhausting, but that's all right. When we got there, we found a group of brethren standing around in a semi circle waiting to receive us some of the fruit of Eric Smith's work. And.
They were singing hymns and so the brother, as he drove up there, he just turned off the engine and rolled to a stop.
And I looked through the little window into the cab where Eric Smith was sitting. His head was down. The tears are streaming down his face. He saw the fruit of his laborers. Was it in vain that he gave up the opportunities he could have had in New Zealand?
I got to see Eric Smith shortly before.
You want to be with the Lord in Montreal. He was in a nursing home.
He died two days short of being 103 years old.
And I went in and he could no longer speak, he sitting in his wheelchair. His little black eyes looked at me penetratingly, and I greeted him in Quechua Indian language. He had learned to give the gospel to the.
Bolivian Indians there, you might not response was a little nod of the head. He understood what I said, but he didn't say anything. Wasn't too long after he left this world.
I just thought about the tremendous joy of going into the presence of the Lord.
And all those that will be waiting for him there that have learned the gospel through his sacrifice.
I said, brethren, I said to the Lord, Please, Lord, please help me down to get under the influence of present material things and lose sight of what I'm really called to that eternal life. Let me lay hold of it.
And that's my challenge to each one of you, especially those who are younger, but each one of us, to know what it means to lay hold on that life that will last forever.
And I think of those who prosper in this world, and they're not saying that it's wrong, but there are those who prosper in this world, but they give their life completely to it.
Brethren, we're not called to that.
We are called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ our Lord, and so that there might be blessing for those Corinthian believers, death had to work in the apostles. You like to die.
No, that's not naturally what we like.
But if there's going to be life, there has to be death first.
Lord Jesus said in John chapter 12. Perhaps we can just read it.
So you can get it right there because there's where there were some Greeks that came up to the feast and they wanted to see Jesus.
Never says if they did get to see Jesus or not. I would guess that he did. They did.
But the Lord Jesus responds in a way that's interesting.
Verse 23 Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come when the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die to bite it alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
So he is the corn of wheat.
And if I have a corn of wheat up here on this podium, I'm going to say I'm going to keep this really nice and safe. Don't let anything attack it. Don't let anything corrupt it.
00:20:09
How much fruit is there going to be? You know, no fruit at all.
What I'm going to do at this corner, wheat, grain of wheat, I'm going to put it into the ground.
There the moisture will make it swell, and the microorganisms in the soil will attack it and will make it die. But in its death it gives place to a plant, and there will be much.
Fruit. Very interesting.
Notice what the Lord says the next verse.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
He that hateth his light in this world shall keep it until life eternal.
You love your life.
Or you hate it.
This is a difficult verse, perhaps, to think about.
It's repeated in the four gospels in varying ways. There's a different a little difference in wording 6 times. It's twice in Matthew's Gospel, once in Mark, twice in Luke, and here it is in John's Gospel.
He that hateth, he that loveth his life shall lose it. He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
Oh, this is such a challenge to me because it is exactly the opposite of the American dream that teaches us to prosper, to push yourself forward, to go for it.
The Lord help us, brethren.
I have to say.
And I've mentioned this before, but I really am challenged by it as I've been traveling to Latin America.
A lot in my years in South America since 1967. My first visit to South America.
Then and I stopped to think, Why is it that it seems like the Christian testimony is diminishing in the United States?
And in Latin America it is dramatically increasing.
First time I went to South America there were assemblies in Peru and Bolivia.
Now there are assemblies in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela.
What? What is? Why? Why is that happening?
Why is it diminishing here?
I have to come to the conclusion, this is the conclusion I've come to brother, and I hope you don't take it as any condemnation of anybody because I feel that I'm affected by this. We have succumbed to the principle of self pleasing. This is killing us. It's killing our testimony. Please yourself. That is not Christianity. The Lord Jesus said if any man will come after me, let him.
Himself take up his cross and follow me.
Rather, it's a strong current in the American way of life. Please yourself. You've got rights. Come on, stand up for yourself. Push yourself forward.
That is not Christianity.
And that is killing our Christian testimony.
If you don't die, you can't know what resurrection life is, because resurrection comes after death. And so those two verses.
Just before we go back there, just let me read verse 26 here in this 12Th chapter of John. Excuse me, any man, serve me, let him follow me.
Where I am, there shall also my servant be any man serve me.
Him will my father honor.
What a privilege to serve the Lord in any measure. And I lookout over you, dear brethren, and I say we're all servants of the Lord. Don't go putting your finger at certain brethren who travel around and say they're the servants of the Lord. We're all servants of the Lord. Paul even addresses those that were slaves in Colossians chapter 3. You know what he says to them? He serve the Lord Christ. They were servants of the Lord even though they didn't have liberty to do anything.
00:25:23
On their own time. And so, brethren, we are all servants of the Lord.
And so to serve him, what a privilege in any measure to do what you do.
Where you are, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men.
But it is in connection with this verse 25 he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. Like I say, it's a strong current of self pleasing in this country. Everything is kind of related to it. And I as I reflect, I have to say brethren, I'm as guilty as anybody.
Have been under the influence of the current of self pleasing.
In our culture.
Lord, help us to judge it, to recognize it, to confess it to the Lord and let him deal with it. Remember.
That verse we took up yesterday in the morning.
John 19 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You can't do the cleansing. It's He that does it when you confess it to the Lord. And that's what I found in my own life, that I can't do the clean up job. Just recognize the problem.
Confess it to the Lord, and the Lord will do His operation as He sees fit in each one of us.
How important these things are. But just to go back now to Second Corinthians.
Chapter 4 and I want to.
End with this to me it is so amazingly wonderful always verse 10 bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. The life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our body.
Always.
If I do this, brethren, if I say no to my own desires.
And focus on His desires for me. Then people will see the life of Jesus in this body. But if I give place to my desires, do what I want to do. Brethren, you should respect me. I have my rights.
You're not going to see the life of Jesus in me.
Oh, brethren, it comes to this, and sometimes we don't do it.
Like it says always. And so the Lord in his wisdom comes in and he delivers us to death for Jesus sake, because that treasure that God has put in your heart is far too worthwhile to let it just molt there inside without shining out. And so God delivers us to circumstances sometimes that are.
Difficult. Why does he do that?
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
Dear brethren.
You're young people, older ones too.
Here's the challenge.
Lay hold on eternal life.
Everyone You Meet Is Bearing a Heavy Load of Some Kind
Open—Sam Ludvicek
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I want to reread something that Bob read in chapter 4.
Verse 8-9.
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.
There's a famous quote from long ago. I'm sure many have repeated it. It goes something like this. They said. Be kind to people you meet, because everyone you meet is bearing a heavy load of some kind.
I heard a man recently say, you're driving down the highway and you see a man go past you in a Lamborghini and you go, wow, what a beautiful car. How privileged he is, how wonderful it is to be able to afford such a car. This is you don't know that he might be thinking about which tree is going to run into down the road because his life has reached that point.
But I'm thinking mostly of believers.
That can be, in these kinds of situations, troubled, distressed.
Perplexed, even in despair.
Persecuted.
And feeling forsaken, cast down.
Even feeling all but destroyed.
I want to read something to you.
And if you want to close your eyes, and as I read this, you'll see it in your mind's eye.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strongman stumbles.
Or where the doer of deeds could have done them better, the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood? Who strives valiantly? Who heirs? Who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming? But who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions? Who spends himself in a worthy cause? Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement? And who at the worst?
He fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Some of you may know who wrote them. That was written by a Christian.
His name was Teddy Roosevelt.
At the age of 14, he wrote in his journal. His father died and two other relatives in a short period of time, and he wrote in his journal. I would have never made it without faith in Jesus Christ.
But that's often been applied to the business world.
Than it is, but I'm thinking of, I asked John Kaiser.
I asked John Kaiser today. Wasn't there a track that BTP has?
That's called the Advocate and the accuser. I vaguely remember that. And he said, yes, there is. And I vaguely remember the message. So turn with me to Revelation chapter 12. We had this read earlier.
Revelation chapter 12 and verse 10.
And I heard a loud voice saying, In heaven now has come salvation and strength in the Kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God.
Day and night.
And we also had read before us.
In one John.
Chapter 2.
Someone help me the advocate first. Is it the first part? Yes, the first verse.
My little children, these things write unto you, that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.
Jesus Christ the righteous. We spoke about that earlier today and.
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And then turn with me to the Acts of the Apostles.
Chapter 4.
In verse 36.
And Josie, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, which is being interpreted the son of Consolation.
Which side?
Do you want to be on?
The outside of an advocate or the side of an accuser.
I jokingly sometimes tell a brother, a Christian brother of mine back home because he sometimes gets an attitude and I said stop being the get off my lawn guy.
It says that guy in a neighborhood ends up the kids rolled her eyes and they just run across his lawn all the more. That kind of attitude and manner doesn't succeed at anything. In fact, it'll get your house toilet paper and eggs and everything else. That attitude doesn't help anybody. It doesn't turn anybody. It doesn't change anybody's mind or heart or anything. Yet you know what?
Some Christians act that way.
There that get off my lawn guy.
There's no help in that. There's no comfort in that.
I'll tell you a little thing that happened. I had the privilege of preaching the gospel and been sins.
And the pulpit there is a square thing that's like a box.
And at the beginning I was moving my arms and I knocked my bottle of water over and it went right on my Bible. I grabbed it and shipped it off. I just kept going and took some paper and brushed it off. Two things happened.
A little bit time went by. I'm holding my Bible up.
Two kind brothers, one came up, put a chair here and put a new bottle of water there. Brother Bill Weiss came and he got a towel and he came up and it was like a little dam. I had a little lake there and he stopped it all up, cleaned it up, did all this nice, made it clean so I could set my Bible back down, and I just kept going. Well, after the meetings, little story came around to me.
Somebody decided that they would say that, well, he should stop moving his arms around like that and he wouldn't knock over a bottle of water.
Somebody is a critic.
Did that help me in any way, shape or form?
Can I help that I have movements in my arms and I express myself that way.
I'd be hard to stop.
Two kind brothers came up and helped and did something, didn't say a word. And justice. It was kind and it helped me and I was helped and I was touched by it too. But an advocate or an accuser?
In that story, that quote that I read, there are those who sit on the sidelines and you hear from them. You could have done it differently, you could have done this a little different. You could all, you could do that better. I often look at some of those people and go, you're not doing anything. You're sitting on the bench, you're not even in the game.
My message is to those of you young and old, I don't care who you are, children, if you're seeking to do something, as our brother said, for the Lord.
And you hear the critic saying something like that.
Don't listen to him.
Talk to the Lord about it.
Brother Dan Spence told me once that he heard all kinds of criticisms and he decided that one day.
He would just take it from the Lord and he would tell whoever came he was just a little guy so people will criticize him to his face.
I hear about it because maybe if some of these people are coward.
They pretty much are. It won't come and tell you to your face, you just hear about it behind them. But they would come to Dan and tell him this or that and he would say, well, brother or sister, I'm going to take that to the Lord and I'm going to pray about it.
So I've sought to do that myself.
I hear something even around the back way. OK, Lord, is there something in this? Am I doing something that I need to pay attention to? And especially if somebody's kind enough to come and face me face to face and say, dear brother, I want to be a help to you. I want to tell you or warn you about something. I love that those brothers and sisters are being faithful to me.
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They're they're going to help me, that's going to help me to notice something.
That I can't see or haven't seen. And then maybe I can pray about it and change something so that I can be a better servant for my Savior.
So when somebody, I don't care how young you are, how small you are, I don't care if you're a little girl, a little boy, if you're doing something for the Lord.
And you hear a critic saying something and chirping from the background. Go to the Lord about it.
Ignore that.
It's not helpful.
Now, if you come to somebody and you do this, you do this from their face.
Well, how much different it is if that same guy comes over, puts his arm around your shoulder and walks with you and talks with you and shares with you. Which one do you see better?
One is being an advocate. They're showing love for me. They're showing kindness for me and seeking to be a real help to me. And even if I think they're wrong, I appreciate that they're doing that. The guy who's doing this.
How much help have you ever received from anybody doing that in your face?
Has that ever helped you? Now, maybe sometimes moms and dads do that.
And maybe they need to do it and we're wrong and we need to hear from them. And maybe it's followed by a spanking, and maybe we need that.
You know, I used to think I got spanked too much. As I got older, I realized I got away with a whole lot more and probably needed it more.
And when my dad used to say I'm doing it because I love you and he even it hurts me more than it hurts you, I said, I don't know if I believe that one.
But if a brother or sister loves you and comes to you.
In a manner that you can tell this is an advocate there for me because if there's something wrong, if there's something I'm doing, something I'm blind to or I'm not hearing and I need help, if that person comes to me and is my advocate, they're trying to really help me.
And then I can be helped, I can receive it much easier. But these guys.
Like I read about these critics that sit on the sidelines and snipe these armchair quarterbacks. Even in business. Ask any successful businessman, by the way, in adding to what Bob had said, if you're making a good living and you're successful, get the book Jay Letournell, mover of Men and Mountains, and read that.
Wouldn't you say it's a good book, Brother, That man made lots of money. He got very wealthy. He used it to get free to serve God. And he was a banker for the Lord, to use that for the Lord. But he used it to free himself up, to be able to serve the Lord more and more and more. And he gained good employees that could help him run his business where he could be free to go to South America and places.
The gospel and give vacations to people that work for him so they could go preach the gospel.
Things like that.
Well, there are those who are very good at being successful in business and they can use it for the furtherance of God's Kingdom. They can use it to free up themselves to be more effective and to do themselves work in the gospel work for the Lord. They can use it to help others do that as well. There is a way that God has designed to do that and that it can be very effective. But like our brother.
Saying if we get all about listening to the world, that you've got to be ambitious, you've got to go forward, you've got to just be successful and do all of that. At the conference in Kentucky, it came up and I had a question for people about a father and a son, and the son was still living at home. He was working, I don't know, IHOP or someplace, and he was a Christian.
And his dad was kind of trying to urge him onward to do something more.
And he said I'm content.
I'm supposed to be content with such things as I have, right? Well, how do you answer that? Well, nobody gave a real clear answer. There were some good things until after one meeting and Brother John Kaiser said to me.
00:15:09
Complacency.
That's what's wrong with that complacency. Complacency is not biblical, and that's what's wrong with somebody like that. The Father is, how do I get this kid out of my house? He's going to be here forever. He's not even pursuing getting married or anything. Well, complacency is not biblical. It's not following the Lord. There's a balance with those things. You need to provide for yourself, you need to be able to earn a living and so forth. But I don't care.
How old you are if your heart is being drawn towards serving the Lord in some way.
In the Gospel name.
I don't care how young you are, if that's really happening and you're listening to it and it's really from the Lord, then don't ignore that.
How much better if somebody in their 20s decided to go to South America?
Or some other part of the world and begin to give the gospel to those that are lost in such places, or go to some other place where God leads them.
You know the story of Eric Liddell, the famous runner from Scotland.
There was a book written about him and a movie made to called Chariots of Fire. Does that ring any bells?
His parents were missionaries to China.
And he was destined for China. He wanted to be a missionary to China. His sister was very close with him and wanted him to do that. But this man happened to be very fast on his feet. And in Scotland he had entered some games to run and he win, he'd win. And as the Olympics approached and his life, he was running.
And all of England took notice that this Scotsman could represent.
England in the Olympic Games that were going to be held in France.
And he began to be famous in the newspapers. Now his sister.
Had a warning for him, much like Bob gave from here a few moments ago. She was worried that her brother was getting caught up in the sports world and in the tension he was getting and so forth. But this young man would go to these events and he always required that he could speak to the crowd. And you know what he said to the crowd? He preached Christ.
People wanted autographs of this and that, but first he preached the gospel.
Well, his sister is still concerned and she took him aside and they went for a walk and they had a very deep conversation about it. And she said to him, you know, I'm so concerned. You're going to get distracted. You know, God is calling you to China. You need to go there. Don't, don't be distracted by all this. Oh, dear sister, I haven't forgotten while I'm here. And these Olympic Games, it's coming up to that and these events, I'm going to run in them. The Lord is giving me freedom to preach the gospel.
I'm going to keep doing that.
But here is something he said that just touched my heart, he says. But God made me.
Now he was known for running in a kind of a gangly way, and he would be with his face in the sky, smiling. And people often wonder what in the world guys gooty or something. You know why he was looking up smiling. He says, When I run, I feel God's pleasure.
Because he may be fat.
He was talking about a physical activity of being able to run, that God had made him fast, that he could go and compete, and it gave him a chance to preach the gospel. There are things that are natural gifts that we've been given and built. You are unique. God made you exactly how He made you to serve him in a way that no one else can. I mean no one else. There are unique things about you that cannot be duplicated by anyone else. Circumstances and events will come to pass that.
Only you can do if you're listening now. The fact is.
God will use someone else if you're not available, but there are things that only you have been made to do, and it has to do with natural things.
I was watching a young man behind me sketching. He's an artist there. I showed him some pictures of my wife. One of the natural gifts my wife has is an artist. She's one of the best in the world. If you've ever seen it, you know I'm not making that up. That's out of billions of people. God gave her that gift. It's a natural gift, but it's a gift and you can use it for whatever, but you can use it for the Lord.
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And my wife had a chance. She's very shy. God has used her to win souls to Christ. One here, one there.
One at a time. She has a terrible time speaking in front of a Crowder group. But you know what?
One of the awards they give in her world of children's books is something called the Crystal Kait Award. She wasn't even entered into it. She found out about it because she was supposed to put your name forward after her book was published.
And they said it's too late. The deadline has passed, as you call this little Jewish lady that was the original founder of an organ of the organization that holds it, who loves my wife. She called her and said, I didn't even know you're supposed to put your name in. And they're telling me it's too late. The little Jewish lady says, we'll see about that.
So her name wasn't supposed to be in.
This little Jewish lady got her name in.
And guess what? She won.
He that honors me, I will honor.
Now she had a chance to talk, a little talk, and in it she gave credit to the Lord Jesus Christ for being the one that helped her and motivated her for what she does. Now she's got to give a speech in front of a huge crowd at the acceptance of an award dinner called the Crystal Kite Award. She was terrified.
But she thought about it. She meditated on it. What am I going to say? And she kept telling me, I'm so afraid.
I'm afraid I won't be able to say the Lord Jesus name. I'm afraid I'll give in to fear.
And we prayed together about it.
I took her to Miami. I left her there. It was a three day weekend. I drove all the way home. I got home, she called me and she's crying and she's upset.
My dear wife is terrified and she said I can't do it. Will you come get me?
I said OK, four hours or it just went four hours there, 4 hours back, another 4 hours OK. But we continue to talk and we prayed on the phone and she calmed down and she said no, no don't, don't do it.
I'm going to. I'm going to go ahead.
So she did.
And she stood up in front of those people.
Shaky.
She prayed and she began to speak, and suddenly peace came over.
And she gave this speech.
And in it.
Talked about the Lord Jesus being her savior and how the Lord Jesus and her faith in Christ was what sustained her in the long hours and all the hard work it takes to produce something like that. And it does years the dedication and work to do that. And she honored the Lord Jesus and she was terrified and scared to do it.
But she did it. And out of that huge crowd, there were many who said.
She got a standing ovation, but there were many who came and said how courageous she was. And guess who? A small group out of that crowd who did come to see her. They were Christians who said, I, I'm so happy to hear somebody brave enough to do that. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
She was fragile, she was afraid, but she trusted Christ and she went ahead and did that.
One little thing out of that too, she met a Christian girl that she's kept in touch with, who she counsels and talks to on the phone and through the Internet, and that it has been a big help to She went through crisis after crisis, she lost her father and so forth, all because she was faithful to Christ.
Now.
There were some there who thought well.
You shouldn't bring religion into stuff like this.
That we're a little negative about it, but who cares about them?
She was faithful and the Lord honored her and He will honor you too. When the critics come and the critics point the finger and they say you should do it different. You're not cookie cutter enough. You remember Heinz Brinkman, some of you.
Heinz Brickman and I got to be good friends.
00:25:01
But Heinz Brinkmann used to say to me.
Brother Sam, you're an enigma to me.
I can't figure you out.
And I said, what do you mean by that? He said, well, you're just an enigma to me.
And that was at the time. This is 50 years ago. There are a bunch of people getting saved. A bunch of people got gathered. By the way, what brother is talking about in South America can happen right here, too. That little assembly in Iowa City went from six people to 150 people in less than two years because some people there believe God, who took him at his word. Never you mind that it can't happen. It can.
But he said you're an enigma to me.
And he says you just don't quite fit the Brethren mold.
I said, well, I don't know what mold that is. I don't even know how to, what do I need to push in or push out or change to do that? I said, brother, when the Lord restored me, he restored me in a factory with rough, tough men, big guys, guys my size, rough. I was threatened to be shot.
I had people threatened to fight me and at the time.
I was 240 in the best shape of my life. I wasn't afraid anybody, but I have people standing face to face screaming at me, ready to throw down.
More than once you think being a Christian and doing Christian work isn't fun or interesting, or at least exciting. It is. Have somebody standing here screaming at you about what's going on.
In that story, this is an Indian. He's my size and if he'd have thrown down it would have hurt.
He said to me you're the goody 2 shoes. You're one of those guys. You believe in that? Loving your enemies garbage. You. You think you're supposed to turn the other cheek? Yeah. You think you're better than everybody else. And I screamed right back. And I'm not better than you or anybody else. I'm as wicked as you are. I'm a Sinner like you are. I need a savior like you are. I just care about you.
And there's fifty people watching us and they're thinking, boy, they're going to see a good fight.
And then he says, yeah, you just believe in turning that other cheek stuff. And I said I believe the Lord gave it to me. I said I got four cheeks after I turned the 4th one. I promise you nothing, buddy. And he's paused for a second.
And he just roared laughter.
And it broke the ice. It was all over. The confrontation was done. And after that?
He respected me. I don't know that he got saved there, but by the end of that time it harnessed figured during that period of time in my life.
Finally, Jimmy Carter, very much like our president. President.
It closed down the factories. Everybody was laid off, everybody was broke, and it was done. But I counted 70 young men and some older men that had gotten saved in that factory during that period of time. And those young men, nobody told them. No critic came up to him and said you can't do that. You don't know anything. You got to get training first. You got to learn a little more than that. Nobody said anything like that.
They just went and started winning souls to Christ.
One brother, he has a Bible in the back. He's got some notes I wrote in his Bible.
Jehovah's Witness, here's some verses for death. Catholics, here's a verse for them. Mormon, Here's some verses for them. The Romans wrote, Here's some verses for that. Start with John 316. He went to another shift. He'd been saved a few weeks. He goes to another shift. What does he do?
He buys Bibles, writes the same notes in the back, starts witnessing the people, and when they say, well, there's contradictions in the Bible, well, here's mud.
Winning them to Christ, giving them violence. Nobody told him not to. Nobody criticized him either. Nobody said, hey, you don't know enough, you don't know anything. How can you preach the gospel? Well, you can tell what happened to you. And I'll say that to every young kid and anybody here. If you know the Lord, you know enough to tell your story. You can at least tell somebody how the Lord saved you.
And there might be some little boy or little girl that that's exactly what they need to hear.
The first person that I had the privilege to lead to Christ, I wasn't even trying. It was a friend of mine. I didn't have many friends because I was bullied and beat up and I was a little. I was a little guy when I was younger, but he was 16 at the time.
00:30:04
And I was talking to him late into the night one night, and he trusted Christ through Savior. I was never surprised as anything in my life.
I've reconnected with that brother. He lives in Oklahoma now.
He's my age and he's going on for the Lord, but for a lot of years he laughed at lost track of him. And he did. But he called me to thank me for leading him to Christ.
When brother Bill is, Bob is talking about Eric Smith going there and meeting people, wouldn't you like to have a couple people up there that you would meet someday that you led to Christ? Wouldn't that be kind of cool? Wouldn't that be kind of exciting to look forward to that, that there's people there because you led them to Christ?
Yeah, that'd be pretty cool with it.
The second guy looked like a Hells Angel, weighed 350 to 400 lbs, screamed and yelled at me, accused me, hammered me, was abusive to me, and I had just been restored.
Somebody sent a helper down to help him.
And he was right next to me, and this helper was a Christian. He's just a little guy.
And this abusive Hell's Angel looking guy just abused him, cursed him. I thought he was going to smack him. He threatened him. I'm listening to this.
Now I've been away from the Lord. I got away from the Lord as a teenager.
And I'm listening to this and I'm saying to myself, this kid is not doing very well. I could do better sharing the gospel. And then my heart burned within me and I said to myself, I'm not doing anything. This kids trying. And boy, is he courageous in the face of this abusive big guy.
Tell me when I need to sit down, brother.
This guy. This guy.
Then leaves and it's like a Friday and then Monday comes in between that day and Monday.
Between Friday and Monday.
An interesting thing took place.
The Lord restored my soul.
He broke me down because I said he's doing something and I'm not.
What am I doing? I know the gospel. I was raised in a Christian home and I'm not living a life for Christ at all. I'm not laying hold of eternal life. I'm not doing anything.
I wasted it all.
But then that Monday, I started witnessing to this guy. Same thing. Ah, you're fool. You're this, you're that, you're this, you're that. There's contradictions in the Bible. Show me one. That's a good way to talk to people that say that, because most of them can't. I don't have a Bible. I bought him a Bible. Here's a Bible.
What about this? What about that? He looked stuff up. He went to the library. One day he comes in and he says.
Hey, Sam, guess what happened? And I'm thinking I'm gonna hear some terrible story about his drunken weekend. I don't wanna hear it. Don't tell me. Stay away from me, he says. No, you're gonna hear this. I said what he says. I got saved last night. Now I'm wide awake. I'm listening.
I said, what happened? He said. You know that movie. But Charlton Heston and MO, he plays Moses and he's holding his arms up in the water parts.
Now this is where God gives faith. This fits that verse in Ephesians.
He says to me.
It's all true that happened. I know this is a movie, but that happened and everything Sam's telling me happened. I'm going to hell. I'm a Sinner. I'm lost. Jesus died for me on the cross. He spun around off that couch, got down on his knees and cried out to Christ and he got saved.
He ended up going to 2nd shift a few weeks later. He's the one I mentioned earlier and guess what?
I don't know how many he led to Christ.
But it didn't stop until he died and went home to be with the Lord about five years ago. He'll be waiting. That's a face. I'll see you after I get done looking into the Savior's face. I'll see that face. I hope you get to see many faces as well.
Spending Time with the Lord
Open—Robert Boulard
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Just have a heaven on my heart to read a couple of verses of scripture.
Let's turn to John's Gospel, chapter 17.
Verse 3.
Perhaps we could read John 316 first.
For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life or eternal life. And then in chapter 17, verse 3, this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
You know, eternal life has been spoken of in these meetings and it really has to do with our relationship with our blessed Savior.
And our relationship with divine persons, you have a relationship if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you have divine life, you are given divine life, and you're indwelled with the Spirit of God. And you not only have the indwelling in the Spirit, but you can with every right address God as your Father.
You have been brought into that relationship to the internal relationship, and you also have trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior. You know Him as your Savior.
How do you develop that relationship? How do you?
Nurture that relationship. How do you expand your capacity to enjoy divine things?
To spend time in the presence of the Lord, Let me just read a couple of verses of Scripture in the last of Deuteronomy. The last chapter of Deuteronomy.
Chapter 34.
Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of his gun, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Nap to lie, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea and the South, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees.
And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it.
Until thy seed I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes.
But thou shalt not go over thither.
Well, you know, it's.
You and I are saved by the grace of God, and it's the sovereignty of God that we're saved because we were quickened by the Spirit of God so that we could hear His voice. And when he quickened us, He gave us faith to believe. It says for by faith, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. So He gives us the faith to believe when He speaks to us. But then you know, beloved brethren.
He is the one.
Personally.
That involves himself.
In his relationship with you, and he personally desires to teach you and to show you all that he has won for the glory of God and for your own blessing. He personally desires to show it to you. Just think of how Moses was on that Mount Pisgah and he looked. He was there on that mountain with the Lord Jesus, with Jehovah.
Says.
I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes.
And so the Lord desires to show you the truth that He has.
Acquired the blessings that he has desired that you and I would enter into and enjoy because it says we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. And he wants us to know those blessings. He wants to study of those blessings. He wants us to enjoy those blessings now.
What a wonderful to sit in the presence of the Lord and have them just lay some of these things out to you. Can you just?
I have thought of this, of Moses being on this mountain and the Lord showing him perhaps Jerusalem in that area where the temple would be built and some of those streams and rivers, and just showing him how the land would be laid out and.
00:05:09
Figuratively speaking, he's Speaking of laying things out for us so that we would enjoy them. Now there was something that was in the way.
And that was the city of Jericho, the first enemy that the people of God would have to conquer to be able to enter into the land.
Would be Jericho, and Jericho is a picture of the good life, the city of palm trees, it says in verse 3.
And that stood in the way.
And the enemy has made it so in this world, that prosperity and the good life will keep us away from devoting ourselves to the cause of Christ and sitting in our in quiet with the Lord one-on-one, like Moses was with the Lord, and him showing us those things that are eternal.
Those things that matter.
My brother Bob brought the forest this little expression in First Timothy chapter 6 and it's to lay hold on eternal life in the new translation that second time that it's used.
Our brother Darby and his translation says let him lay hold of the what is really life? Let lay hold of what is really life.
And so Moses had that experience with the Lord. The Lord personally showed him these things.
Well, we need to recognize that the enemy has designs to make sure.
That you do not have time to be with the Lord alone so that you can enter into that enjoyment and enter into the identification of what those things are. And so I just would desire to bring that before. So I was hoping that we would have time to perhaps look at First Kings or Second Kings chapter.
Four. Maybe I'll just read it and you can meditate upon it yourself.
But in Second Kings chapter 4, it says it speaks of a woman. They're great women. And she made a place with walls, a place where she could spend the man of God, a type of Christ could come and be in her presence. And she provided a stool to be able to sit in His presence and so on to hear His word. Let's read from verse eight. Second Kings 4, verse eight. It fell on a day that Elisha passed to shoot him.
Means peaceful.
Where was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was that as OFT as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold now I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall or with walls, and let us set for him there a bed.
A place of refreshment and resting.
A table, a table, fellowship, communion. She wanted to have with that man a stool to sit in his presence, to hear His word. And Candlestick, that light of testimony, that light that his word would bring before her soul. Candlestick. And it shall be when he cometh to us that he shall turn either in thither.
Well, brethren, we need to make that time, that wall, that little chamber in our hearts.
For the Lord set a time aside and make he's not going to force himself upon us at all. But isn't it wonderful to recognize and the responsibility that we have to go beyond Jericho and it's going to be the enemy is going to seek to have those things brought into our lives. The pleasantness of life, you might say in the prosperity of life to keep us from entering into personal.
Relationship with the Lord and to really lay hold of what eternal life is. Well let's be exercised about laying those things aside that are weights that so easily to set us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
1 John 2:13-29
Hymnsing 3
Three Misconceptions About Prophecy
Talk—Nick Simon
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Well, I must admit I admire the enthusiasm of your singing, especially the children.
And I just want you to remember that in about 10 years, Lord leaves us here, and I really don't think he will when you've turned into a sulky teenager.
You remember the enthusiasm of this night, but more importantly, children remember what you were singing about. Don't ever forget what those songs are really about.
They're precious. Let's give thanks and just look for His blood's help. Our God and Father, we thank Thee for what we've enjoyed, the meetings and the singing that we've had and the enthusiasm and the joy of it, and pray that we would take it away. Something of that with us from this conference. And now we just look to Thee for Thy help as we open Thy word.
Pray for.
Each in the room that whatever the various needs are, there might be something.
For perhaps everyone, just pray for help. For the speaker, just pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
So I have 20 minutes and.
I have notes on my phone.
Which I tried to set so it won't turn off, but I just see that it already has but.
Gonna jump right in. I'm going to talk about three things that the world will Christendom typically confounds when it comes to prophecy. And each of these three things I've only gotten about 5 minutes to talk on, and then I want to talk a little bit at the end. Why? Why it matters what it means to us. So the first thing is there will be no one world order.
That is something we hear very often in Christendom, what we call evangelical Christendom I.
I'm on Facebook, I enjoy Facebook. I enjoy sharing pictures with my family who have brothers and sisters in Australia and my dad is there and it's a great way to share pictures, but there's also a lot of stuff on Facebook too that.
Varying quality, but Revelation, we will be turned to Revelation. We don't have to turn to these. Actually, our time is short, but I'm going to turn to Revelation Chapter 11, and there is a verse there, verse 15.
Says And the 7th Angel sounded and there was a great There were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world have become.
The kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. That is the first time we're going to see one world order when Christ establishes His reign in this earth.
Prior to that, let's just turn quickly back again. You don't have to, but I'm going to turn to Daniel Chapter 2.
And we have there the story of Nebuchadnezzar's image that he dreamed of. And we know that I had a head of gold, which was the Babylonian Empire. It had a chest of silver, which is the Medes and Persians. It had a belly, insides of brass, which was the Grecians. And it had legs of iron, and they ended in 10 toes. And there was a stone that came that was cut out without hands and smashed that image.
To smithereens, and then that stone grew to be a mountain.
That filled the earth. None of those kingdoms that I mentioned was ever or will ever be a one world order, including the legs and toes, 10 toes, the legs of iron and 10 toes. We read about this again in the 7th chapter of Daniel where it's presented as four beasts and that last beast is a beast. I'll just read what it says is a dreadful and terrible and strong, exceedingly and great iron teeth that devoured with the feet of it and.
Diverse from all the beasts that were before and had ten horns. Without going into details because you don't have time, we know that the the last of those beasts, the legs of iron with the Roman Empire and it will revive and it will revive in a form of a 10 nation or 10 headed confederacy or 10 horned. I'd be better put 10 horned confederacy. Again, it only encompasses that which was historically connected with the Roman Empire, plus or minus.
But primarily Western Europe. Perhaps it takes in the United States, perhaps it doesn't only because these this country was populated largely by the nations of Western Europe.
But again, it's not a one world order. That 10 nation confederacy is very limited. There will be other confederacies as well in this world at the time. So we could turn to Ezekiel 38 and we find that there is another confederacy which is of particular interest to this in this day.
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Ezekiel 38 It says in verse two, Son of Man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief Prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophecy against it. I probably should have read it from the new translation, JD's translation that speaks the Prince of Rush. These names that I mentioned here are not mysteries to us. They speak of a Slavic unity, a Russian unity, a Russian confederacy.
And we see right now an I'll qualify what I say, Russia.
Doing somewhat mysterious things, but establishing its dominance.
What has historically been a Slavic world? It's not, I believe, a fulfillment of prophecy that we find in Scripture. There will not be a direct fulfillment of prophecy in Scripture as long as you and I are here.
We'll be caught up at the rapture, but again, I've got to have to keep this really short notice. Verse five. It speaks of Persia, Ethiopia and Libya being.
In union with this Russian confederacy, and I believe as Russia and the West become increasingly antagonistic towards each other and isolated, Russia will turn and form unities with those nations to the South of it. Persia is Iran, for example. But there's another confederacy, and we have that in Psalm 83.
And Psalm 83.
It says in verse five they have consulted together with one consent. They confederate against thee and.
This is a confederacy of Eastern nations that Tabernacles of Edom, the Ishmaelites of Mob and the Hagarians, Gibel and Ammon, Amalek, Phyllis Knight, and so on. They may derive some of their power from Russian support, but they will be a separate and independent confederacy. So my point is simply this. There will not be a one world order until Christ comes and establishes his throne in this world. There will be these.
Confederacies.
My phone's not going to cooperate with me.
Second thing that we often perhaps read over, perhaps you've heard of.
We are not presently in the beginning of Sorrows. What do I mean by that? Well, let's turn to Matthew 24.
The revived Roman Empire we know is a 10 nation confederacy, and it's going to be in power for essentially 7 years. We know quite explicitly from scripture in the middle of those seven years, after 3 1/2 years, one of those horns, one of those heads, is going to rise to power and become a dictator and become former dictatorial power. He's an individual called the Beast.
Another common.
Universal.
Confusion in Christendom is between the Beast and the Antichrist, but I won't go there. The Beast is the political head of this Western confederacy. He will rise to power and take dictatorial control in the middle of those seven years, and he will reign for 3 1/2 years. It's referred to as time times and a half a time, 42 months, 12160 days.
But that seven-year period is divided in two. The beast arises to power in the middle of it. The first half of that seven-year period is called the Beginning of Sorrows and the Beginning, and we have it described here in Matthew 24, and it uses that expression.
In verse eight of Matthew 24, all these are the beginning of sorrows. And what is the beginning of sorrows?
Well, it says in verse five, Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ and shall deceive many.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that ye be not troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. And for nations shall rise against nation, Kingdom against Kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. And then we find the beast rises to power, and it switches in verse 21. For then shall be great tribulation. There's other things that happen in the middle of that week too, but the beginning of sorrows.
To what we have in Revelation chapter 6.
But Revelation chapters 2 and well, let's read a verse in Revelation chapter one.
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John is given to see a vision or visions, and he it says in verse 19 of chapter one, write the things which thou hast seen. He had already seen some things, the things which are that's chapters two and three, and the things which shall be hereafter beginning with chapter 4.
Did I just make that up? No, you turn to chapter 4 and it very explicitly says in verse one, I will show thee things which must be hereafter. At this point, John is code up. Hit her. He's called up to heaven. And although the rapture is not explicitly mentioned in Revelation, I believe in type. John represents the family of God, both Old and New Testament Saints, and we are caught up to heaven and they're represented in chapters.
4:00 and 5:00.
As the four and 20 elders and you just need to read what the four and 20 elders say and the intelligence which with which they worship and the new song which they sing in the 5th chapter to know that it's not an angelic host. It is the Saints of the present time dispensation and also the Old Testament Saints too. They will not be left behind. That's another point that is commonly misunderstood when it comes to prophecy.
And it's not till we get to Chapter 6 when we have the opening of the seals. And what are those seals correspond to? Well.
The first of the so-called four horses of the apocalypse and the first horse is a White Horse, and we find that he goes forth to conquer. So we have in the the White Horse.
Nation rising against nation and then we have a a red horse and it says power was given to him that sat there on to take peace from the earth, that they should kill one another. I think this is social upheaval and violence, something which we are and have seen in this country.
But it's not the beginning of sorrows, because I'm still here. I will not be here when the beginning of sorrows begins. I will not be here when the first seal is broken. I will be in heaven. I will be.
Counted amongst the number, they are represented by the four and 20 elders. And then the third horse is a Black Horse, and it says to him.
A measure of wheat for a penny, 3 measures of Bali for a penny, and so on. And so with the social upheaval, the political conquest, there will be famine.
And then the last horse is a pale horse and a hymn that Satan was death and hell. So it will be followed by pandemics. Again. What we have witnessed with COVID is a mere shadow of what is going to happen.
Third Point. Third thing that is commonly misunderstood or misrepresented when it comes to prophecy, we need not fear the mark of the beast.
The beast, as I pointed out before, will not rise to power until the middle of those seven years at the beginning of the great tribulation. And we have described in detail all that in the 13th chapter, well, 12Th and 13th and the 17th chapter, and but in the 13th chapter we read of this individual.
Well, just reading in verse one, I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise out of the sea, having seven heads and 10 horns.
There's those 10 horns again.
And it says in verse 5 quite clearly he should continue 40 in two months. That's 3 1/2 years.
Keep in mind these are Jewish years and hence 12160 days is exactly 3 1/2 years.
But there's another individual also that this chapter speaks of, another beast coming out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spake as a dragon. This is the Antichrist. The Antichrist is a religious head, not a political head in the sense of the beast. He will be a political head in that he will usurp the role of the true Messiah and present himself as a king in Israel, and he will be received by the apostate.
Jewish nation at that point.
The elect will not receive him, but he is a religious figure. He will be Jewish. The Lord himself said when he was on earth another would come in his name and that they would receive him. Matthew 24 again.
I'll just return back to it. The Lord warns his disciples who are represented of the Jewish remnant. He says there in verse five, many shall come in my name, saying I am the Christ. The Antichrist is a usurpa. He takes that place as the Messiah, the promised Messiah, the promised Prince in Israel.
00:15:03
But the nation of Israel, under the leadership of the Antichrist will look to the beast for protection, and they will form a covenant with the beast. But in the middle of the week the the the revived Roman Empire, when the when the the individual called the beast rises to power, he'll break that covenant with Israel and the Antichrist will then.
As it says in this chapter.
In verse 12, Revelation 13, verse 12, he that he exercises all the power, the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly's wound was healed. And then finally in this chapter we read.
In verse 17 or verse 16 I'll read, He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads, that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that understandeth count the number of the beast, for it's the number of men. His number is 603, score and six.
You know, so much of the confusion that comes with prophecy is to place the church at the center of prophecy. The church is not the center of prophecy.
Is not even the subject of prophecy. Prophecy is really occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ, but especially in connection with this earth. And when it comes to this earth, Israel is at the center of God's thoughts and purposes.
So we we need not fear the mark of the beast. I can remember as a teenager reading a little booklet and it proposed that Henry Kissinger was the Antichrist.
Now as I said in Christendom the beast and the Antichrist are totally confused and made to be the same individual. So to be more correct, Henry Kissinger was made out to be the beast slash Antichrist.
And then I remember some years reading another little pamphlet. I remember a vivid picture of Mikhail Gorbachev, and he had a mock, a birth defect on his face, and he was the mock. He was the beast.
Well, he's in Russia. He's not even a part of the the revised, not even from the West. Whether revived Roman Empire is going to to have its control.
Another little story.
In you know we well.
In the 1970s, well actually the 1960s, credit cards made the leap from the wealthy to the common man. In the 1970s, I believe it was, there was a card introduced in Australia called the bank Card B for bank and the picture on that, on the card, it had a bee that was three colors embedded in each other. So you have three BS. Guess what that looks like.
666 So suddenly, oh, anyone that uses the bank card, that's the mark of the beast.
Well, guess what? Who here amongst the adults don't have a credit card in their pocket?
You know, every time that we have this false speculation in the public arena, all it does is further Satan's goals.
He will use each of these misconceptions to lull people.
In the coming day that oh, you don't have to worry about that. You remember all those things that people said and they're all turned out to be false. You know, when the disciples asked the Lord in the beginning of chapter four, let me turn to it. I should have left a bookmark in chapter 24 of Matthew, but.
They ask the Lord, as I mean the disciples asked the Lord there, tell us what, when, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of the coming and of the end of the world? And it says the disciples went and asked him privately.
And I believe the Lord answered him privately. These things are not for speculation in the public arena. This world loves sensationalism.
And that's what we see.
Unfortunately, when it comes to prophecy.
Sadly, within Christendom sensationalization of prophecy, it's not for public consumption.
Now certainly, well, let me just my closing remarks. I have about 5 minutes left I think.
What is it? Why am I telling you all this anyway? Is it to tell you? Oh, everything is fine? You. We're not in the beginning of Sorrows. We don't have to worry about a one world order. You don't have to fear the mark of the Beast. Everything's fine. You know, that's not why I'm telling you this.
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I'm telling you this because these things, as I said, are used to sensationalize prophecy.
They're used to, I fear, to.
Cause a certain amount of fear.
It says in Second Timothy that God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind. I know that in the context it's probably more correctly to translate that word fear is timidity or cowardice, but it actually derives from the word dread. God doesn't want us to dread things. He doesn't want us to fear things. And I can remember as a child hearing things about prophecy.
And it made me fear that's not what God wants us to do. He wants us to have a reverence for Him. He wants us to be concerned for judgment to come. Paul preached of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come. Yes.
It's certainly fine to preach those things, but we live in a day where the testimony of Jesus is grace.
The Spirit of Prophecy is the testimony of Jesus, and if we take our prophecy in any other way.
Than to present the testimony of Jesus, then I think we're really misusing it.
No, we live. We know that throughout the history of Christendom, throughout last 2000 years, very bad things have happened to Christians.
I was going through a packet of letters that my uncle gave me their photocopies. Not originals unfortunately, but I had AI came across a ladder. I knew it existed in this packet, but I was looking for it. That was written in 1942. Who in this room under the age of 16 wants to tell me what was happening in 1942?
World War Two thank you. This letter was written by JT Mawson whom some of you will recognize the name to my either my grandfather or great grandfather, I'm not sure which. And here he marked of how he had heard of Harold Barker. Some of you would know who he is too. He wrote a book that BTP no doubt carries John what's the title of it? It's.
Yeah, so he was at the time, in 1942 or 41, he was in Portugal and he was doing the Lord's work there. And he sent, I don't want to get my facts wrong, but.
I know I wrote it down somewhere. Now I don't see it. He sent his, I believe it was his whole family, wife, daughter, grandchildren, back to England by ship and the ship was torpedoed and I believe he lost his wife, his daughter, his daughter-in-law and 10 grandchildren drowned on that ship.
So God, we've sung it tonight in the hymns. God does not promise us.
A life without trials here.
No, the trials are pot and possible of our portion as long as we are in this world.
But we don't need to dread these things that people like to sensationalize.
We don't need to fear the mock of the beast. We don't even need to fear or speculate what technology that might be.
I don't know what it will be. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't exist. I don't have to fear it. It's not going to happen to at least three years after the Rapture.
The Antichrist is not going to be revealed until after the rapture. He might be alive today. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. There's no profit in speculating over these things. As I said, the as it says in Revelation 19, the Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus, and that's what we should be focusing on today. And the testimony of Jesus in this present day is grace.
Grace reigns in this present day. After the church is taken out, the gospel of the grace of God will no longer be preached.
You'll have the everlasting gospel preached to the nations, and you'll have the gospel of the Kingdom preached in particular to the to the Jewish people.
But in this day in which we live, just remember we are ambassadors for Christ.
We don't make trade of the word of God. We don't go around fear mongering. Yes, preacher of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come.
But Paul said that he was an ambassador for Christ. The love of Christ constrained him that Second Corinthians 5.
Let's just close in prayer.
Our God and Father, we thank thee. We have such assurances from thy word of God that we will not be here.
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During that trial, which is going to try all those that dwell upon this earth, the inhabitable earth, we have the promise that will be taken out of here. Before then, we have the promise that we're going to be kept from the wrath to come. On the other hand, we take it very seriously that if any in this room have not received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, they stand in very great danger of judgment to come.
And so we would.
Certainly pray that if there's any wavering, if there's any that have any doubts in their hearts, that they might receive the Lord Jesus Christ tonight and not make wait another minute longer.
We just thank thee for this time that we've enjoyed together. We give you thanks for these refreshments. We thank Thee for the hands that have been, that have prepared it. We certainly thank all our local brethren here in the Carolinas for the work and time that they put into putting together this conference. We just thank Thee in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.