Address—David Newby
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Look to the Lord together.
Our Father, we thank Thee for this opportunity to be together over Thy word.
Thank you for the privilege of having so many in the room today.
To take up these things many who want to be here and learn more.
Of this one whom thou hast exalted.
So as we open thy word, we pray for a word of edification.
We pray for help for each one here. Let us know the needs of each one.
We just commit this hour to the end. Thank Thee for Thy faithfulness to us and pray that in all things our Lord Jesus would be honored.
We give thee our thanks and commit us each to thee in his worthy and precious name. Amen.
I was thinking this morning during the reading.
Of what a privilege it is that here in the day in which we live.
That 3 or 400 people, or however many there are in the room here can come together.
And talk about the man, the man Christ Jesus, who is the center of all of the Council of God.
As I was driving here this morning amidst all the traffic and, and however many hundreds of thousands or million people that there are going to work this morning, just to realize that in some place and in the hearts of some, this man of God's counsel could be spoken of and could be exalted and the truth concerning this person could be defended.
The church has a long history now. There's a lot of water over the dam and some of the things that we touched on this morning that touched the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go back and you look in the early history of the church, we have what's been referred to as the Christological controversies.
I have several large volumes that are full of those things.
Where, in the early days of the church's history, men fought the battle.
About the doctrine, some of the things we spoke about this morning, the deity of Christ.
His sinless humanity.
Whatever it was that came up, that became an issue in the early church and a lot of the reasons behind that are because.
Many of the people who wrote and were prominent in the early church were Pagan philosophers who embraced Christianity, and many of those men brought a lot of baggage with them.
And some of those things had to be hashed out over the period of three, four, 500 years where they had many of the ecumenical councils, most of which we don't know that much about today. But there were a lot of battles that were fought and here 2000 years down the road.
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We have the writings of many men who were on the tail end of that, if I can put it that way, who have written some very fine ministry that defends the very things that we're talking about today.
Why do we do that?
Why are there men?
Who take up the word of God and do that kind of thing. It says, we said this morning, and I want to emphasize this because God has purposed that all of the blessing of man, and that means you and me, every one of us as individuals prior to the collective within the church as a whole, God has purposed that our blessing would be in that man.
And only that man.
There was a paper that was written years ago about the true Christ of God, the center of union. We talk about union, We talk about unity, the unity of the body. Who is it that is at the center of that unity? It's that man that we were talking about. It's not some other Jesus.
There are many Jesuses in the world today. There's the Jesus of this group and the Jesus of that group.
But what we want is the true Christ of God, because He is the one that is at the center of the Christian fellowship.
The things that we took up this morning fit in so nicely. I was very thankful with, uh, what I've had on my heart since I got a call a little while ago about this conference. Please turn with me to Proverbs chapter 29.
Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 18.
Verse familiar to us.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
That he that keepeth a law, happy as he.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
In the new translation that says the people cast off restraint where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.
I like the Franz de Leche translation in his commentary where he says where there is no revelation.
The people become ungovernable.
Now that's quite a thought.
Think about the world around us today.
Do we see ungovernable people?
Where there seems to be a thorough casting off of restraint.
Let me put it this way where there seems to be a lack of that discipline.
That God would have enacted in the life of a person every man, woman and child. And I say man, woman and child because where does discipline begin?
Discipline begins from day one of a person's life.
In many ways, think with me for just a moment. How many things can you think of in your life?
Right back to the beginning where you had absolutely no control.
No one consulted you?
The decision was made for you.
You know Job, I was looking at the book of Job chapter three, Job after these things happened to Job, Job cursed his day, the day in which he was born and the night in which it was said a man child is born.
Job had no choice about being born into this world.
Somebody else had a choice about him being born into this world, but he didn't.
And I think something along that line was brought out this morning where there is no revelation.
We have to be careful with the word vision because you know, people have a lot of visions and dreams and so forth. We've heard about a lot of, uh, teachings and so forth that have erupted into this world because someone had a vision or a dream or something like that. But think of it in terms of a revelation. We talked about 3 areas of revelation this morning. And for our dear young people, for those who are young in the faith.
This is a very, very important subject for you to think about.
God has made a revelation.
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He has revealed himself in the world of nature. Romans chapter one.
He has revealed Himself to us in the written Word, the Bible, which we now have together canonized in these 66 books that you hold in front of you.
And he has revealed himself in the man of his counsel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Living Word.
The living, the personal revelation of God in this world.
Now.
In the book of Proverbs we have words that are used. You'll find the words instruction.
Discipline, correction. There are many instances where those are the same word, and you'll find that that word might be rendered differently in the Authorized Version than it is in the New Translation or whatever translation of the Bible you might read. You find that word rendered maybe in different ways.
But I want to think in terms of this Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 18 where there is no vision or no revelation.
The claim that God has upon us because he has spoken to us, and how that claim?
Provides the context for discipline in our lives. Now, every one of us, we mentioned the discipline that we begin with in our lives.
And we begin in our parents home, don't we, with our parents?
I can well remember that, and I wanna say right now that when we talk about this being an address to young Christians, that doesn't exclude anyone in this room.
Doesn't exclude anyone.
Because I was sitting in your seat years ago when I was a young person.
I attended young people's meetings when I was your age.
Your parents might have attended young people's meetings. You know, the difference between an older person and a young person is, is, uh, I and these older people here, we just have more experience. We have a longer experience being young than you do, you see, because we remember it. We have had lots of time to meditate on the days of our youth and to allow the Lord through his discipline.
To bring things to us.
For the purpose of what?
Conforming us to the image of that man that we've been talking about, Romans. I was thinking this morning Romans chapter 8 and verse 29.
His purpose is to conform us that we would be conformed to the image of His son.
Now in Romans we have.
The heads of two races we have Adam and Christ.
Born into this world as natural men, you might say we are conformed to the image of the first man. But it's God's thought that we would be conformed to the image.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
So please turn to the book of Hebrews.
And I was very thankful for some things that were.
Touched on this morning.
Because they they fit in so well with this thought.
Of the context.
Of our discipline at the hands of the Father.
God is love and God is light.
The light would drive man away from God, but the love would draw him to God. The light reveals what he is.
But the love would draw him to God so that we can learn in his presence what he is for us, a brother recently said. And I think it, I think it bears repeating it. It bears learning within each one of us. God has two things for us to learn.
He wants us to learn the heart of man.
And he wants us to learn the heart of God and the discipline that God brings into our lives, the instruction, the correction.
Is meant to open our understanding to these two things. He wants you to know yourself, but He wants you to know yourself within the context of His word, the revelation that He has given.
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And when I think of the scripture in Proverbs 29.
Where there is no vision, where there is no revelation, I think about how you can have a multitude of thoughts about what humanity is and what man is. You can go to the library, you can go to a bookstore, and you can go to the psychology section. You can go to the anthropology section, and you can find this theory and you can find that theory. But to know the heart of man and to understand what the real need is.
Why do I need the Lord Jesus Christ? I need to learn that from the Word of God.
I don't need to learn that from the opinions of men. Their opinions may be right, they may be wrong, or it may be a mix of the two.
But we need to first and foremost learn that from the Word of God.
And that helps to set the context of the discipline that the Father has for us. You know, every one of us, and we're going to look at some verses here in Hebrews chapter 12. Every one of us is surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse one, Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Now let's talk about those witnesses. First of all, this is not a courtroom, nor are these spectators up there watching what's going on with our lives. These are those who bear testimony to the path of faith they serve.
As examples of the path of faith for us.
And when we go back to Chapter 11, he's talking about that cloud of witnesses we are compassed about with this great cloud of witnesses. Let me say this first.
In your Christian life.
Here, in this world, in this late day in which we live, you are not alone.
You are not alone. None of us are really alone. Do you ever have days when you feel like you're alone and absolutely no one understands? Someone does, I guarantee you.
Because we all walk on the same dirt and we all breathe the same air. And in the final analysis.
One way or another, we all live our lives and die by the same principles, and that's not something that anyone has a choice about.
We were born into God's world and he is the administrator, He is the dispenser. He is the one who is in charge of everything that goes on in this world as well as in your life.
Think about the great cloud of witnesses that you have around you. If you go back to the previous chapter, you can see an Abel, you see Enoch, you see Noah, you see Abraham. How much time does he spend on Abraham?
And when I think about Abraham's life.
We have, I think, 7 appearings of the Lord to Abraham over a relatively long period of time.
What was Abraham doing in between those appearings of God?
Do we have any idea?
Tending his flocks.
Going in and out of the tent.
Interacting with the people that lived around him.
Raising his boys.
That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
That sounds familiar to all of us, doesn't it?
During the days of Jacob's life, what was he doing? Oh, that's a whole different story.
We know all kinds of things about Jacob and his machinations and what he was up to here and there. But you know, Abraham and Jacob, they were very, very different people, but it was the same God.
That took up each one of those men from the time that he was young and had a purpose for him to conform him to some.
The purpose of God, whatever it was that He had for him, and the Lord, acts by these principles.
These enduring.
Faithful principles in dealing with the lives of each of those men.
Think of a Joseph.
Think of some of these different ones that we read of in this chapter. Now think about your own life.
Compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. You can think of a lot of people that you know, I'm sure.
Who have borne testimony in their life to you.
And what do we see in some of those people? The same things that the Lord would see in you, taking up the Word of God, prayer, finding yourself in company with those who are of like precious faith, whatever it might be. Even though our personalities, our character is different, the path of faith is the same for all.
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In most of its principles.
You know, the destructive critics of the Bible, one of the things that they really have liked to say is that, you know, back in the Old Testament times and even in the New Testament times, the things that we read there, that their lives were so different, their thought forms were so different.
That we just can't really even understand what that is, so we have to try to get behind the language of Scripture and find out what God is really telling us. No, that is not true. Do you mean to tell me that when I read about Jacob, I don't see myself?
When I read about a Joab or a King Saul or a Laban Assyrian or somebody like that, that I don't see people that are of the same kind of principles that we deal with in our lives today. Why? Because there is a unity of humanity and a unity of history and God has written that out for us in His word so that we can lay hold of the principles and.
Dear young Christian.
Of whatever age that you might be.
Think seriously about taking up these things, taking up the Word of God. I remember a time when I was young where I felt the necessity to take up the Word of God. I felt a necessity. I felt a need within myself. There was something wrong within me. Plain and simple. There was something wrong.
To be brought to the point where you can look at yourself, you can look in your own eyes, in the mirror and say there is something wrong with you.
For those of you raised in a Christian home, you know, if you have an experience like that, you know an older brother, he said to me one time. He said the Spirit of God is producing a need within you.
And you know what he wants to do. He wants you to respond to the need.
Life is a series of forks in the road. Every time you come to a fork in the road, you have a choice.
Many of us in the room, many of us who are older, can tell you the times when we took the raw and.
And you know, there are times when God, by His grace, He allows us to get back on the right Rd.
We have opportunity to launch ourselves into this first thing every morning by taking up the Word of God. And I encourage you, as we have in this first verse here, think about the great cloud of witnesses, those around you who serve as examples.
And can be an encouragement to you to walk in the path of faith.
And not to isolate ourselves.
The tendency when self will take when we get taken up with a self willed path, oh how some of us know that is we tend to isolate ourselves.
Instead of going to the place where we can get some help. Now, by the grace of God, I've always been somewhat of a questioner. I like to go to people. If I think somebody knows something, I like to go to them and I like to ask them a question. But you know, a lot of times, and I know this, that young Christians are raised in a situation where they're afraid to ask questions because there are assumptions that you know this thing or, or you ought to know this.
Don't be afraid to ask questions.
You know what happens after a period of time? It's just like anything else. You practice and you get better at it. You learn to ask more and more intelligent questions. You gain a little bit of insight.
By spending some time with somebody who's part of that cloud of witnesses, that Portrait Gallery of those that can help you. You know, I have a Portrait Gallery at my home. I mean, mentally.
I have my wall lined up with the pictures of those that I constantly find myself going to. Most of them are no longer living. I'm talking about their writings. And I say, you know, I want to, I want to just listen to this brother talk now about this particular subject. So I go pull one of my favorites off the shelf and I get myself a little bit reacquainted with what was brought out on that particular portion of Scripture or whatever it might be. That's my Portrait Gallery. And you know, I have.
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I have some books that I've really enjoyed, but I have found as I've gotten older that in this particular book on my shelf or this particular book, there is one paragraph.
Something about that paragraph I just keep coming back to because it goes right into my soul and teaches me something. I can tell you about all kinds of things like that. Why is that? Because the person who wrote that paragraph.
He was walking the same path of faith that I'm walking, and he found that the Lord dealt with him.
In some particular way on this particular thing. And I find that how many times maybe some of you have had this experience, I know some of you probably have, where you will read something like that. And you say to yourself, how did that writer know me?
How did this person know me?
Well, they didn't, but they knew humanity. You know, there's a sense in which there are no strangers in the world.
Because humanity is the same wherever you go.
Adam, Pseudomnia, Semper, my favorite Latin expression. Everything is always the same.
The lives of men, the same principles human universals. There are things that have been found that are universal to every society on earth that has ever been studied.
Why does the gospel of Christ? Why does the word of God? Why does this revelation?
That helps us to be governable people. The Lord wants a people of order, a people of faith.
Why does it meet our needs? Because who knows humanity like God does.
And as we spoke of in the reading this morning.
Now we see humanity.
In perfection in the person.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ in absolute perfection in Him.
He knows my down sitting, mine up rising. He knows my thoughts before they ever come into my mind. If you look at the 139th Psalm, don't you see something there of the sovereignty of God?
Gods.
Omniscience. He knows all things.
His omnipresence. He is everywhere. There is nowhere that a man can hide from God.
And his omnipotence. He is all powerful.
Man may be allowed to have his day. Today is man's day one. Corinthians, chapter 4.
But the triumphing of the wicked is short.
And man's day is going to come to its end. And when man's day comes to its end.
As the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 6, we want to find ourselves standing.
With him having done all to stand.
So the discipline, the context of discipline in our lives as we have it here in Hebrews chapter 12.
Has to do with the working of the father with his child.
The first thing that he says here we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
We are not alone. There are many of those who have walked the path of faith.
Before you or I have walked that path of faith.
And we can receive comfort and encouragement from that fact.
Secondly, he encourages us to lay aside every weight and the sin which dost so easily beset us.
That's rather inclusive language. Let us lay aside every weight. I'm sure we've all heard the illustration before when a runner is going to run a race.
He doesn't wear a coat of armor.
He doesn't have anything on other than the bare minimum, nothing that's going to hinder him from running that race. And you know, the, the scripture, the apostle Paul, he uses the illustration of an athlete and a soldier and a husbandman and in second Timothy. And each of those serves as an illustration of someone who has to labor in some kind of an endeavor.
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And there are things that help us in those endeavors.
And there are things that hinder us in those endeavors. And when the writer here says laying aside, let us lay aside every weight.
He wants us in the path of discipline to think in terms of those things which may serve as a weight to us.
Solomon in his prayer.
He talks about the plague of every man's heart. Now, each of us individually, there may be something that is a plague to your heart that is not a plague to mine.
Never been a temptation to me. I don't have any interest in it.
If I was to get out of communion with God, I wouldn't turn to that, but I can tell you that there is something I might turn to.
And that might be very, very different for you.
And that's why in all of these things, it's very important that we maintain communion with God, be in the Scriptures, be in prayer.
Be in fellowship with God. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
In such a way that we would want to lay aside those weights so that we might go on with him. And then he says, and the sin which doth so easily be set us. Now within the context of Hebrews, you might say that is unbelief, or it's rendered in the new translation not hearkening to the word. And let me say this something that contributes to not hearkening to the word. We have this thought.
Of the heart in chapter 3 of this epistle.
The heart.
Where does it end If you have a heart that is, uh, airing.
It may become hardened.
And in the end it may become an evil heart of unbelief. And of course, if you take that all the way, as far as the writer is telling us here in Hebrews you see the word apostasy.
Keep thy heart above all that is kept.
You know, those older children in the room here, those children in their 70s and 80s and 90s, whatever they can tell you that about keeping your heart and dear young person, dear child in in this room.
Keep your heart.
From the time that you're young, cultivate a tender heart towards the Word of God.
Now go back to that, to that translation of Proverbs 2918.
The people become ungovernable, but they don't have a revelation left to themselves.
It was mentioned this morning about the the secular society that we live in.
Where every vestige of God is taken away from man.
And, uh, they believe in some form of evolution or the, or evolution origins or something like that.
We What a way to feel alone in a cold, dark universe.
I remember an atheist saying one time it was quite a it was quite a revelation to him when he came to the point when he realized that he could look up to the sky and say, you know, there's no one there. I realized that there's no one there.
And I thought to myself, there really is a God, because in order for him to know that there's no one there, he would have to be God.
To say there's no one there and justice. As an aside, you do realize that evolution is just another creation myth?
There's lots of creation myths and evolution is just another creation myth. That's why we want to come to the Word of God and find out the truth about creation. We talked about that one in John. It was mentioned in John's Gospel chapter one this morning.
In the beginning was the word.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God and it tells us there something about the creation. All things were made by Him. There is not anything that was made that was not made by Him. Revelation chapter 4 and verse 11.
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He created all things.
And for His pleasure, they were and have been created.
Do we not see in book after book after book of the Bible that this man, the man Christ Jesus, is the center of all of the counsel of God?
There is no greater and no other than he.
And he is the one.
Who desires to have fellowship with you?
So setting aside these things, let us run with patience the race.
That is set before us.
It is in the intimacy of the councils and the grace of God.
That man fortifies himself for the warfare.
From which he cannot escape. I think that's it. That's a quote that's from the synopsis on.
On the panoply of God.
Ephesians chapter 6.
Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 8.
There is a war from which there is no discharge.
You know when a man serves in the military?
When the Father has us under his perfect hand of discipline, we want to respond to the discipline.
As he goes on to say later in the chapter, we have all had fathers of our flesh who disciplined us for a time.
But he disciplines us for profit, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Why is that? Because God is holy and he wants us to have fellowship with Him.
Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Now do you imagine?
That any of the individuals in this room who were in the military.
Would say to the drill Sergeant, you hurt my feelings when you yelled at me, I'm gonna quit. You think they'd say that? I don't think so.
We live in a Society of whiners.
Anybody that wants to whine about something, they can get the media, the cameras will be on them and they can talk about how they were offended and all that.
You know when that drill Sergeant has a word for you.
Submit.
I've never been in the military, but I've had some drill sergeants.
And I'll tell you something, when I was 28 years old.
I got chewed shreds by a man one day.
I hold that moment in the highest regard in my life.
Was an unsaved man.
And I saw that he had some feelings about me.
So I asked him.
I said don't hold anything back.
He said OK and he let me have it.
Absolutely everything he said was 100% on target.
That's one of the most valuable moments in my life.
We are under the discipline of the Father.
In the book of Proverbs very important book shows us.
That we.
Have our happiness.
Peace, even health.
You look at that in the book of Proverbs. Even elements of our health in submitting to the discipline of God.
For the moment, it's not pleasurable.
But afterwards it yields something to us.
Do you really think that your chemistry textbook cares about how you're feeling about yourself today?
Not a bit.
Or your.
Whatever it might be, whatever course of study it is, it is what it is.
Regardless of your feelings about yourself.
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And really, you know, in most ways that's how life is. It's all of the things we run up against that we don't have any control over. And God uses them to bring us to an understanding of ourselves and an understanding of His heart.
And that is vital for us in our lives today.
Having set the stage in verse one, he says in verse two, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, or the leader and completer of faith.
When we want to know about the path of faith and perfection, we look first and foremost at this one right here, the man that we've been talking about this morning.
The Son of God Incarnate.
The one who did no sin.
Knew no sin and in him was number sin. This is the one that God the Father would have us look to. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Now the cloud of witnesses that we are surrounded by.
How thankful we can be for that cloud of witnesses, but He doesn't tell us to look unto them.
He tells us to look unto Jesus the Leader, and completer the one who.
Sets the thing going and the one who completes the whole thing.
And then he tells us some things about this one, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now that verse, there are a number of verses that I have found in the New Testament.
Very instructive that just within a few short words, sentences or maybe just one verse give us the entire history of Christ. And here is one of these verses which really for the most part.
Does that for us. Think about the Lord Jesus, that when he was here He set his face like a Flint to go to Jerusalem because he had a departure that he was to accomplish there?
In Jerusalem.
The Son of Man must be lifted up. That is divine necessity. If redemption is to be accomplished. He must be lifted up. But he had a joy before Him. You know, He's been referred to as the Man of Sorrows.
But the Man of Sorrows had a joy that lay before him.
And that was the joy. He expresses something of that in his.
In his prayer in John chapter 17.
Where he says, Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.
Brethren, will that prayer go unanswered?
Will the Father respond to that prayer?
We already see places in scripture where there is that great throng that is gathered around the lamp.
That prayer will not go unanswered.
But in the meantime, while we're here, the Father would bring us into a deeper conformity to His beloved Son. He wants us to consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself.
Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. And this is a place where we can emphasize a point, You know, the writer here says consider him. We're living in a day and age where you're taught to consider yourself.
As though by looking inside of yourself you can find the solution to your problems.
It's not that way.
It's not that way at all.
If we want to find the solution to our problems, we have to go to the Word of God, the written revelation of God, which reveals to us the living, personal revelation of God. And there we see, to use Daniel's expression, dissolving of doubts. There we see every doubt dissolved in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we want to get to know Him, to know Him.
His sufferings and His glory. What a privilege it is to be brought to know Him. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. He said that even to those who were enduring persecution, confiscating of their goods.
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Whatever, there are indications in the book of Hebrews of certain things that these different ones were going through. But he says you have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, who strove against sin like the Lord Jesus did.
No one.
We don't strive against sin like he did.
We have the privilege of being, of having fellowship in his sufferings in some measure.
Not his atoning sufferings.
But in his sufferings at the hands of man.
But no one endured the contradiction of sinners.
In the way that he did.
What a blessed thing it is to have fellowship with him. Well, the writer goes on to bring many different exhortations. And just to point out a few things here, verse 7.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you, as with sons.
For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
You know some of those doctrines that are afloat in the Christian profession.
We'll teach you that you could lose your salvation.
And so if things aren't going well in my life, maybe I tend to take that as an indication that I'm not saved.
But you know, when we go through the trials and the temptations of life, we have the privilege of being able to say.
I am saved because the father is using these things to Polish the stone.
He's taken that stone and he's gonna grind it down and he's gonna Polish that stone because he wants us to bring us to a deeper appreciation of his beloved son.
No greater privilege than that, than to know that work of God in our hearts. He scourges every son, Verse six. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Whom he loveth, he chastens.
How many times have we noticed that there's been a child that seems to be without discipline?
And one of the things that we naturally would consider would be does the parent not have enough care about the way that that child is going to exercise a little bit of discipline in their life?
Well, the Lord loves us, and therefore he chastens us.
We know something of His chastening, don't we? Whatever it might be, in natural things, periods of waiting, in spiritual things in our souls that we go through, where the Lord uses those things to bring us to a deeper understanding of ourselves, to draw us into His word. Respond to the needs. It's very important that when the Lord produces a need within you, when there's something going on and you know that things are not all right.
That you respond to the need and turn to the Lord, not away from the Lord.
I encourage you in all of these things to turn to the Lord.
And then he says, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Now I have read some interesting things.
Where some say that maybe for some, maybe not for all.
Maybe, depending upon the character of of the person the Lord sees fit, that they go through what's been referred to as a scourging A1 Time thing where the Lord finally takes care of that particular issue.
That has been hindering you from going on.
We don't know what that might be, but I can tell you this. There are probably many Saints that would say that there has been something like that in their lives where the Lord took them up and like one brother said a number of years ago, he holds you out and shakes you over hell.
I've known times where the Lord has laid a St. low.
Maybe for some period of time, and when they came out of it, there was something different. There was a deeper appreciation of Christ, a deeper desire to walk closely to him and thank God for that.
Well, may the Lord help us in all of these things. There's a lot that we could take up here.
I'm very thankful to be able to talk about this blessed One who's at the center of all of the council and purpose of God, and to emphasize the fact that he wants us to be in communion and fellowship with him.
Let's pray.
00:50:02
Father, we thank Thee for Thy loving kindness and Thy goodness to us.
We thank Thee for Thy word that reveals to us our Lord Jesus and all of Thy ways.
With thy people.
And how that was to take each one of us and draw us near to thee, although its desire that each one of us would enjoy that fellowship with thee and with thy son.
We thank, we have the privilege of taking up Thy word. We thank Thee that we live in a land where we can do this unhindered. We thank Thee for the liberty that we have here, and we pray for the powers that be. We pray, Father, for each one in the room here that we might look out those ways in which Thou art working in our lives and that we might happily submit to those things even though we pass through difficulties in times of trial.
The fellow to answer the needs of the heart, and bring thy beloved son before each one.
In the appropriate way, we thank Thee for Thy Spirit that would minister these things to us. And now, as we continue to take up Thy word, we just ask the Father to bring continued blessing and help and encouragement to each one of us. We ask it for the glory of our Lord Jesus, and in His worthy name, Amen.