Chicago Conference: 1999
Table of Contents
The God With Whom We Have to Do
Gospel—R. Thonney
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With number six on our hymn sheet.
God in mercy sent his Son to a world by sin and done.
Jesus Christ was crucified. It was for sinners.
Jesus died, O the glory of the grace.
Shining in the Savior's face, telling sinners from above, God is light and God is love.
Number six, God in mercy, said his son.
Oh great.
Your heart is gone.
Let's sing one more hymn #34 under hymn sheet.
Precious, precious blood of Jesus, shed on Calvary, shed for rebels and for sinners.
Shed for me.
Precious, precious blood of Jesus.
And Calvary.
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Cares, for example that forced.
Me.
Precious blood that are pretty love.
Red by a Crimson.
Naked star, let go.
He's our precious.
What can make him?
Fight.
On.
Breath God. Breath God.
One of Jesus.
Every.
Saving.
Care for thee.
Shall we pray? Blessed God our Father, we're thankful.
The Book of Hebrews, the 4th chapter.
Beginning with verse 12.
Hebrews.
4/12.
For the word.
God is quick and powerful.
And sharper than any two edged sword.
Piercing even to the dividing.
Asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and Morrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature.
That is not manifest in His sight.
But all things are naked and opened.
Unto the eyes of him with whom?
We have to do.
The word of God.
Is the basis of our preaching here tonight.
We do not have in our hands a book that is outdated for 1995. It says the word of God is quick. It means it's an old English word that means living.
And powerful this book lives. You can kick against it. You can deny it.
It changes not the fact that it is the living.
The powerful Word of God. You can disagree with me and my thinking.
No problem.
But this book?
Is the truth.
And.
You best receive it as it is the living, the abiding Word of God.
It says it is not only able to Pierce to the dividing of soul and spirit.
But it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. I can look at you.
And I might think you're thinking certain things. I may try to judge your motives, which is the wrong thing to do.
I cannot do that, but this book, The Word of God, is a discerner of the thoughts.
And intents of your heart. The story is told of a missionary in China.
Who stood up to preach the gospel 1 evening and in the congregation?
There sat one of the.
Respected.
Educated businessmen of that city.
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Listening as the preaching progressed in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, the 1St chapter, in which he tells of the descent of the Gentile world into idolatry and the sexual perversion that characterizes.
Adopting idolatry.
The well educated gentleman got redder and redder in the face.
He stamped out at the end and was heard to say, how dare that man read in public the list of my private sins.
That preacher didn't know anything about that man or his private life. It was the Word of God that he was kicking against. And I say again, you can disagree with what I have to say, but I ask you for the good of your own soul to seriously consider what God has told us in His Word. This book is living and operative.
In 1995.
But there is something else that particularly.
Was laid on my conscience last night.
So verse 13 neither is there any creature.
Which is not manifest in his sight and God's sight.
But all things are naked and opened.
And to the eyes of him with whom?
We have to do basically that last phrase.
The eyes of him with whom?
We have to do, I say to you, friend, tonight, you don't have to do with me.
You have to do with a God that loves you.
And you cannot escape that responsibility.
No way there are people who deny the fact that they are going to be called to an account that changes nothing. Remember standing outside of town in the mountains of southern Peru?
We were preaching the gospel from city to city, and as we were outside the town these two men came along and we got talking to them. Over Yonder there was a cemetery, and he said We decided when I was in university that the grave ends at all.
I said, who gave you the authority to decide such matters? You can decide those things on your own, but that doesn't change the fact that you are accountable. There is a God with whom you have to do, and I'm extremely concerned.
For those that are present here tonight.
Who perhaps in an outward way, have made a profession of faith in Christ.
Perhaps you have pulled the wool of your parents eyes. Perhaps you have everybody else.
Pretty well fooled that year. A true believer.
But in your own heart, you know you never have made it real in your soul.
You know all the answers. Maybe you can tell just as well as I can.
The story of the grace of God, if you come up here and stand to tell it out, but you know in your own soul you have never made it real. There was such an one amongst the very apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. He preached. He went out with the other 11 and preached. He did miracles as far as we know.
He cast out demons. He did works of power.
Not one of the other 11.
Knew that Judas Iscariot was not real.
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When Jesus spoke that one of you shall betray me.
They all looked around and they said, Is it I, Lord? Is it I? No one seemed to know. He had the rest of the disciples pretty well fooled.
I don't know where you stand. I don't know the case of your heart. I can only look on the outside.
But I say, you stand tonight in the presence of a God with whom you have to do.
And all things are naked and open before his eyes.
I'm not here to entertain you tonight.
To tell you a bunch of interesting stories. My purpose here is to bring you.
Into the presence of the God with whom you have to do.
It's a serious matter.
No more important question.
Can you ever settle in this life? No more important question.
I plead with you to be real with God. There are too many that I've grown up with in my other Sunday school where I was brought up, sat on the front rows of the sunny school, could memorize the verses and could tell the way of salvation. They could answer the questions from the Sunday school teacher.
That their lives today.
Show that there was.
Not a depth of heart in their belief. It was own way. Perhaps the head. God knows, the Lord knows them that are his I cannot tell.
But the Lord said, by your fruit you shall know them, and by all good intents, right now I do not know that they are saved.
Perhaps you are baptized. Perhaps you break bread. You are at the Lord's Table.
Those are outward things that mean absolutely nothing.
If you have not made it real with God, again, I say you don't have to do with me tonight. God forbid you have to do with the one before whom all things are open and naked and you stand before a God tonight that knows every single detail of your life. I don't know it.
And I'm glad you don't know the details of my life and their entirety.
But I say we stand in the presence of a God before whom all things are naked and open. Please, I plead with you to be real. Don't goof around with these things we're talking about. Be real with God tonight.
Oh, what a kind of a God we have to do with. What kind of a God is he?
Is he a hard God that wants to take away all your joy, all your good times? That's the way a lot of people have him depicted in their minds.
No, I want to tell your friend that God we're talking about is a God.
That is our giving God. We've been talking about that today in the meetings we've had.
Oh, what a giving God he is. People have the idea that God is just interested in all that he can get out of you.
I tell you, that's not the God of the Bible. That may be some other identity that people think they've defined, but that's not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is a God who delights in giving. He's rich in mercy. That's the kind of God we're talking about.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting light. That's the kind of a God we're talking about, a God who loves and loves so much that he gives, and he gives everything he has to give.
Remember one time trying to make this.
Understood down in the state of Durango in Mexico.
It's a place where.
They still sling their pistols.
In that particular River Valley, some of us have gone there to preach the gospel.
And this evening?
A little place called La Sedra.
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Up on the side of the hill, there is a man in that town that has killed a number of people with his pistol. He was sitting there.
And he had his little boy sitting beside him, about 8 years old.
Said Sir, would you be willing to take that little boy of yours?
And let him die for your enemies.
No way, I said. That's how much God.
Loved you. He loved you so much he took his only son.
And gave him.
And he knew the way Jesus was going to be treated when he came into this world.
The Lord Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.
He came.
To pay the price of our redemption.
He came to pay the ransom for all, the scripture tells us.
He paid it.
The end of his 33 1/2 years of life.
Men could not stand him any longer. It was basically the religious that rose up.
Against them, because I say, friend, we're not talking religion tonight. Religion is one of the greatest enemies against God.
If you are religious.
But not how you don't have Christ, I say, my friend, you are not.
Right with God.
Religion does not save anybody.
Doesn't matter whether it's Catholic, evangelical, Protestant, or whatever way you want to call it.
Christ is the Savior. He's the one that saves.
That the Lord Jesus was taken by those religious men, the scribes and Pharisees. Who knew?
The scriptures very well.
And he was led to the.
First of all, to their high priest and condemned unjustly.
And then he was taken to Pilate, the Roman governor in those days, and Pilot knew that he was innocent. Pilot tried to free him, but the people were going to have their way.
You know, sometimes the statement is the voice of the people, the voice of God.
It certainly wasn't in this case. The voice of the people was against God.
And after Pilate wrangled with those Pharisees and scribes for quite a while.
He condemns Jesus to the death of the cross, the worst death he could give him.
Pilate is not innocent, even though for a while he tried to free him.
He pronounced that he found no guilt in that man, and yet he took him out.
And whipped him with that Roman whip.
According to what I have read in certain books, the Roman whip was called a living death.
They whipped those persons until they were just about to go unconscious, and they throw water on them to revive them and continue. Just to not let them go unconscious, but just to give them as bad a time of suffering as possible. That's what they did to the Christ of God, the one who didn't have any sin of his own.
The soldiers, he delivered them him to the soldiers, and the soldiers took a crown of thorns.
They took those thorns. Have you ever taken thorns and tried to weave them into a crown?
It's pretty hard work, you get stuck pretty bad at doing them, but nothing was too much.
To mock the blessed Son of God. And they laid that crown of thorns on Jesus head, and they took sticks, and they hit him over the head. They used his fists, their fists on his blessed face, until his face was so marred more than any man's.
And then they led him outside of that guilty city of Jerusalem.
To the hill of Golgotha, and there they stretched out his hands.
And nailed them to the cross, his feet as well, and they lifted him up to hang on those.
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Nails through his hands and his feet. I try to imagine the terrible.
Agony it must have been to have nails pounded through your hands and feet.
I can't imagine it, not even that suffering. And there he was, hanging.
And those Jewish leaders, religious leaders, passed in front of him to mock him. Generally, when a person is suffering bad people leave him alone to suffer in quietness and peace. They didn't leave him alone. They mocked him. They cast into his teeth jeers, mockery.
12 noon Something changed. The Lord Jesus, according to the way we understand Scripture, was crucified.
At 9:00 AM in the morning, at 12 noon something took place. It says the scripture does that. There was a darkness over the all the land until the 9th hour. 9th hour was 3:00 in the afternoon. For three hours there was darkness on Calvary.
Nobody could see what was transpiring in those three hours, but according to.
The prophet Isaiah. It was in those three hours that God took.
The sins of this guilty Sinner that stands here tonight.
And laid them on Jesus head. Somebody had to pay for my sins.
If I was going to be saved, God is too holy to pass lightly over sin.
Somebody had to pay the price.
And God laid my sins on Jesus.
The scripture says Christ died for our sins.
According to the scriptures, he was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
The Lord Jesus suffered the just penalty of all my sins on that cross.
Before those hours were ended, he said.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God, in all the holiness of His character, was punishing His own beloved Son for my sins.
Oh, my friend, it says in Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.
At the end of those three hours of darkness, he said, it is finished.
All the judgment of God, that was against me, and rightly so.
As a Sinner was completely finished in the work of Christ.
There remains no judgment against the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has accepted the payment in full that Jesus paid.
On that cross.
And then he delivered up his spirit.
To God, the Roman soldier came up that.
Kill some time later, and with his spear took it and plunged it into the side of Jesus.
And out came blood and water, the testimony.
That the price had been paid in full. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission or forgiveness of sins. Absolutely there cannot be any forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. Jesus shed His precious blood for me. Through that sacrifice. I now can know that there is full and free.
Forgiveness for me, for as much as I am a vile Sinner.
Before him.
Jesus rose again the third day.
It was God's Amen to Christ's sacrifice.
God said I accept what Jesus paid.
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In full and now a free and full salvation is offered.
To the worst Sinner upon the face of this earth, and don't try to think that you are different from the rest.
Maybe you have been brought up in a Christian home. Maybe you think I have never gotten out into the messy side of this world.
But I say you're lost, my friend. Until you know Jesus, really know him, you're lost.
Jesus sits at God's right hand right now, a mighty Savior, mighty to save.
But my friend, I want to deal now a little bit with you and your condition before God. How do you stand? I don't know the state of your heart, but I have a book that is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart, so you can come in to the full joy and blessing of the salvation He has for every one of us who will accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Like to go back to the book of Daniel to see a man that God dealt with, dealt with pretty severely, to bring him to the end of himself. This man.
His testimony is one of my favorites in the Word of God. It is found in Daniel chapter 4.
We're talking about one of the mightiest men in the history of the world.
His name was Nebuchadnezzar.
He was.
You want to call it a real death spot? He was a military dictator, not very popular in our democratic way of thinking in these days. We think that Saddam Hussein was kind of a bad fella. I would think that Nebuchadnezzar was probably more of a despot than Saddam Hussein, but I like to read his testimony. To me, it thrills me to see how God dealt with that man, to bring him down to the point.
Where are we done with himself and turn to God to save him?
Let's read his testimony in Daniel chapter 4.
Nebuchadnezzar.
The King unto all people.
Nations and languages that dwell in all the earth. Peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to show the signs and wonders that the High God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs, and how mighty are his wonders. His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation.
I Nebuchadnezzar was at rest in mine house and flourishing in my palace.
I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts of my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. Therefore made IA decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me the interpretation of the dream. Then came in all the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers, and I told the dream before them, but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof.
But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was Belteshazzer, according to the name of my God, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. And before him I told the dream sane, O Balti Shazzer, master of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troublethe tell me the visions of my dream that I have seen, and of the interpretation thereof.
Thus were the visions of mine head in my bed I saw and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great, and the tree was grew and was strong in the height thereof reached into the heavens, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth. The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all. The beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heavens of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.
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I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven. And he cried aloud, and said Thus hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit. Let the beast get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches. Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron.
And brass in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast heart be given unto him, and let seven times pass over him. This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones to the intent.
That the living may know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdom of men.
And giveth it to whomsoever he will, and sitteth up over it the basest of men. This dream I, Nebuchadnezzar, have seen. Now thou, O Belt de Shazer, declare the interpretation thereof. For as much as all the wise men of my Kingdom are not able to make it, make known unto me the interpretation that thou art able. For the spirit of the holy Gods is in thee.
Then Daniel, whose name was Belti Shazer, was Astani for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. The king spake and said, Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation thereof trouble thee. Belteshazzer answered and said, My Lord, the dream be to them that hate thee in the interpretation there after thee thine enemies, the tree that thou sawest, which groon was strong, whose height reached into thee heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth.
Whose leaves were fair in the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and upon whose branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation. It is thou, O King, that are grown and become strong, For thy greatness is grown and reached into heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth. And whereas the king saw a watcher, an unholy 1 Coming down from heaven, and saying.
Hew the tree down and destroy it, yet leave the stump of the roots thereof in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times Passover him. This is the interpretation, O King, and this is the decree of the Most High which has come upon my Lord the King, that they shall.
Dr. Thee from men and thy dwellings shall be with the beasts of the field.
And they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall Passover thee.
Till thou know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
And whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots.
Thy Kingdom shall be sure unto thee. After that, thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.
Wherefore, O King, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness.
In thine iniquities, by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be.
A lengthening of thy tranquility.
All this came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar.
The end of 12 months he walked in the palace of the Kingdom of Babylon. The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the House of the Kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?
While the word was in the King's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O King Nebuchadnezzar.
To thee it is spoken, the Kingdom is departed from thee, and they shall Dr. thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make thee to eat grasses, oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the Kingdom of men.
And giveth it to whomsoever he will.
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The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar.
He was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen.
And his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his feather, his hairs were grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like birds claws.
And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes into heaven.
And mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever.
Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his Kingdom from generation to generation in all the inhabitants of the earth.
Are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven.
And among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? At the same time my reason returned unto me. And for the glory of my Kingdom, mine honor and brightness returned unto me. And my counselors and my Lord sought unto me. And I was established in my Kingdom. An excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise.
And extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth.
And his ways, judgment, and those that walk in pride, he is able to obey. What a story this is. I really revel in reading the testimony of Nebuchadnezzar. I hope to meet Nebuchadnezzar one day in the in glory, in heaven. I really do.
But here was a man who had the whole known world under his control at that time. The first of the world kingdoms, the Gentile world kingdoms, was the Babylonian World Empire. And not only did he have control over the nations, he had control over the beasts of the field as well. He had special powers given to him. Interesting, this man, Nebuchadnezzar.
No one there was number Court of Appeals beyond him in this world.
But Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that there was a God with whom he had to do.
And there was number way to escape it.
He probably thought.
That there was number one that he had to give an account to.
Maybe you think that tonight, friend, but I want to.
Change your thinking tonight.
There is someone you will give an account. You can deny it, but you will give an account to God. All things are naked and open into the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. No getting around that my friend. Sooner or later you must come face to face with Jesus.
Like it or not, believe it or not, that doesn't change the matter. You will come face to face with Jesus.
You can come face to face with Him tonight by faith. Receive him as your Lord and Savior.
Or in a coming day of judgment, you will stand before him.
At a great white throne where he will preside and pronounce your final destiny in the lake of fire. God doesn't want that to happen. No wonder God has blocked the road to hell with the cross of Christ. He doesn't want you to go one step further in that direction. He said to you stop.
And if necessary, he uses drastic means. He had to use pretty drastic means with Nebuchadnezzar because of his position. Perhaps he thought there was no one he had to give an account to, and so God had to talk to him pretty severely.
God sent a warning a year before it all happened.
And God warns, and no doubt you have received warnings.
Just solemnly think that God is warning the United States of America.
All these hurricanes, the disasters that are taking place.
People might mention God for a little bit, then it soon passes and they're just thinking about their own things and doing their own thing. God is warning this world is not going to continue like it's going forever. No, God is going to call you to account.
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And so Nebuchadnezzar has this dream one day. None of his wise men could interpret the dream. Daniel, the Prince of the magicians. Isn't this something? Isn't this tremendous? There was a man who sought God, who purposed in his heart to please God.
And he's called the Master of the Magicians.
God had spoken to Nebuchadnezzar before this. There were marvelous things that had taken place.
In chapter two, he had had a dream.
And he required his wise men not only to interpret the dream, but to tell him the dream.
That was something that they weren't used to. Those wise men were used to people having.
Their dreams told to them and then they would tell the interpretation. But he said no, you tell me the dream and the interpretation, so I'll know that you have the right word from God.
And Daniel and his three friends made it a matter of prayer, and God revealed it to Daniel. Tremendous what God did.
And he's impressed for a little bit, but then he goes right back to his own way of living.
In the third chapter another thing happened in Nebuchadnezzar had raised up a big idol in the praying plains of Babylon, and he had demanded that all his realm bow down to that idol. And when the command was given and the sound of the musical instruments were played, everyone bowed down -3.
Daniels, three friends stuck up like sore thumbs in that multitude, and they were denounced in Nebuchadnezzar and brought to him.
How dare you, he said. Resist my command. He was not used to being disobedient.
But they were obeying a higher power. They were not rebelling against his authority. It's important to see they were. They were obeying a higher power.
And they were thrown into a fiery furnace.
And God overruled the power of the flames, and those men got up in that fiery furnace and were walking around in that fiery furnace.
With the Son of God, because Nebuchadnezzar looked in and saw not three but four walking around. Nebuchadnezzar comes to the mouth of that furnace, and he calls.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come forth and come hit her.
And they were obedient. They came out.
Was a marvelous.
Occasion of God's intervening power, and Nebuchadnezzar again is impressed.
Maybe God has spoken to you and you have been impressed.
But you really haven't settled anything, and that's the case of Nebuchadnezzar here. But oh, the God we have is the God that doesn't give up very easy.
You can fool me. You can fool around with us too, every anyone of us. You cannot fool around with God. You have to do with him. Sooner or later you're going to be brought face to face with your God. No way of avoiding it. And so this time, Nebuchadnezzar is warned again in a dream.
Daniels brought in. He stole the dream. Can you see?
Daniel's consternation as he realizes what the dream means.
He stands there in Nebuchadnezzar's presence for a whole hour, doesn't say a thing.
Till Nebuchadnezzar says, don't let the dream trouble yours interpretation.
And Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel tells him the dream that that great tree that was cut down was Nebuchadnezzar. God was giving him a further warning. And oh, God doesn't want you to have to be brought low. He doesn't want you to have to have a terrible accident.
To start thinking seriously about these matters we're talking about tonight, the day I was in.
Michigan at the pleasure of meeting a man who has been diagnosed of terminal cancer. I think it's in his throat and his ear and in his lung. It's been given 6 to 8 months to live.
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Through the testimony of some of the Lord's people, He has found the Lord. God doesn't want to have to give you cancer before you start listening, but if you don't listen, He may have to do something drastic to you. And I plead with you, don't fool around anymore. God's not that kind of a God, but He does say return you children of men. He brings men to destruction and says return.
And so if it takes that to bring you back, he may allow something drastic.
Will Nebuchadnezzar after the interpretation of the dream?
Was another 12 months in his palace in the Kingdom of Babylon.
I don't know if anybody hears read the dimensions of the city of Babylon. It's fantastic. It had a double wall around it. I remember right. The outer wall was something like.
100 feet high.
And it was for 88 kilometers around that city, about 55 miles if I remember, if I got the figures right. It was incredible the size of that city.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the wonders of the world.
And so here in verse 30 the king speaks and notice he has eye trouble.
Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the House of the Kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty? That's kind of day we're living in, where man exalts himself.
And sometimes we're swept away with the influence of that kind of thinking.
Man's dead is.
And that's what happened in Nebuchadnezzar. And as soon as he said it, as soon as the words were in his mouth, he lost the Kingdom. And he was driven from out, out from him in evidently he lost his reason. And there he is in the grass, this mighty monarch of Babylon. There he's eating grass like an ox. Can you think of a more humiliating thing?
But God wants you to turn friend, and He may allow something drastic to happen so you'll listen.
Again, I say he doesn't want to do that, but if you refuse to listen when he speaks, he may allow something drastic to happen. Please listen to him tonight. We're reading his word.
It says here.
That his.
Body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like Eagles feathers and his nails like birds cloth.
And be a very pleasant person to meet up with in the countryside.
That kind of a man, there he was like a beast, and man that doesn't listen to God turns in that direction. I plead with you to listen to God tonight. Let His precious word penetrate right down into the depths of your heart.
Don't shut your ears against his voice. You can shut your ears to my voice, but not against his. Please, I ask you to listen.
Verse 34 At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes into heaven.
Here is a change.
He is done with himself.
He lifts up his eyes to heaven. He realizes he is accountable to somebody.
There is a God with whom I have to do.
And immediately God gives them back his reason. His understanding returned unto him. And what does he do? No longer singing his own praises, singing the praises of the Most High God.
And it says in the end of verse 36 that excellent majesty was added unto him. Has there ever been a story like this?
In the history of the world, I don't think so. This is tremendous story. A man who was crazy like an animal living out in the woods and now coming right back into the glory of his Kingdom and excellent majesty added unto him. Tremendous story. And Oh my friend, I tell you, God does not want to ruin you. God has your good in view. God wants to bring you into blessing far greater than you have.
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The ability to comprehend, that's the kind of God we're talking about. That's the kind of God with whom we have to do.
And then he says in verse 37 Now I Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, all whose works are truth in his ways, judgment, and those that walk in pride, he is able to abase. What a tremendous ending to the story of Nebuchadnezzar.
But one word more before I close.
That if you continue, my friend, to refuse.
God speaking to you, you still will meet up with your God. One day the cemeteries of this world are going to be all emptied, completely empty, and the dead are going to stand before God naked.
And whosoever is not found written in the book of life is going to be cast into the lake of fire. You cannot avoid this God with whom?
You have to do. I plead with you with all my heart to tonight. Stop. Listen to His voice speaking to you. Don't go a step further in the wrong direction. Turn around. He wants to save you. He wants to bring you into everlasting blessing tonight.
All those who are real believers in here, we plead with you, don't wait a minute longer. Be reconciled to God tonight. Let's just pray. Gracious Father, we thank Thee for Thy precious Word and how it probes.
The depths of our hearts, we ask Thy blessing upon it, as it's gone out tonight wherever it has gone out and here tonight too. Father, we don't know the state of those that have heard it. We pray that Thou it's blessed Thy word in their hearts they might be brought to saving faith in the Lord Jesus. We ask in His most worthy and blessed name, Amen.
Revelation 3:6 Philadelphia & Laodicea
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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.
Yeah.
Lord, that our love, thy name is so famous, with so much our affections to move.
And all this might kill us with grief, with shame so much.
And so little so.
Forward, my Lord.
Our practices to grow all of your wool grushes for my feelings for God. We have great grounds when I understand.
2nd Book of Samuel.
And the.
16th chapter.
Second Samuel 16.
And verse 5.
When King David came to the Hiram, behold thence came out a man of the family of the House of Saul, whose name was Shimiyai, the son of Gira. He came forth and cursed still as he came, and he cast stones at David.
And at all the servants of King David.
And all the people and all the mighty men on his right hand.
And on his left, now down in verse.
13.
And as David and his men went by the way shimmy, I went along on the hillside over against him, and cursed as he went, and threw stones at him and cast dust.
And the king and all the people that were with him came weary and refreshed themselves there now a little further in Second Samuel.
And the 17th chapter.
And we'll look at.
27.
And it came to pass, when David was come to Manhattan, that Shelby, the son of Nehash of Rabba, of the children of Ammon, and Maker, the son of Amiel of Lotibar in Brazil. AI, the Gileadite of Rogelium, brought beds and basins and earthen vessels and wheat and barley and flour and parched corn and beans and lentils, and parched pulse and honey and butter and sheep and cheese of kind.
For David.
And for the people that were with him to eat. For they said the people is hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.
One last passage well known Luke 24.
Luke 24.
Just reading one verse. Luke 24 verse 32.
And they said, one to another, did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us, by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? Let's pray, brother, our blessed God and our loving Father. We have been reminded even this morning of this beautiful day and this happy occasion.
That we surely are in a wilderness.
A wilderness of suffering and difficulty and trial.
A wilderness Lord Jesus, where thou art his be the Lord's mind that we consider the last two assemblies. Revelation 3.
Of Philadelphia and Laodicea have those two assemblies before us with the.
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Saw in my heart that.
They may not be identified outwardly, at least with.
What? The Spirit of God.
Depicts in Philadelphia but.
Thinking of the last assembly, Laodicea is that which.
In a certain way, overcomes and marks the Saints at the close, so that.
The exercises of what's found in Laodicea might be identified by each one of us, that there might be repentance and.
Restoration where it's needed to a condition that seemed to have the spirit of God's approval in Philadelphia.
But I I just in fear, even suggest that possibility.
What we first start with verse 6, verse seven, chapter 3.
Revelation Chapter 3.
Verse six. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches to the Angel of the church in Philadelphia. Right. These things say, if he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openness, and no man shut it, and shut us, and no man open it. I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it. So thou has the little strength, and has not, and has kept my word, and has not denied my name.
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not. But do I. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee, because thou has kept the word of my patience. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly. Hold that fast. Thou hast that no man take thy crown him that overcometh.
Will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God. And I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, and unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans. Right these things say at the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
I know thy works, that thou art neither hot or not, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would if thou art cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth, because I'll say, as I'm rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and know it's not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor and blind and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich.
And white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness did not appear, and anoint thine eyes with thyself, that thou mayest see as many as I love, I refuse to chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into him, and will suck with him, and be with me To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.
Even as I also overcame and have sat down with my father in his throne, either half an ear, let him hear what the Spirit say it onto the churches.
On the introduction of this portion dealing with the seven churches.
The spirit of God through John speaks about the mystery of the seven stars and the seven candlesticks and says that it's a mystery. And so that shows us that there.
There's something before the Lord other than the actual existence of seven churches in Asia at that time.
And I would like it if we could consider them not so much as something positional that you could point to and stand in this or that, but rather the state of soul that they depict. So once we do that and look at them at as states of soul, I I think we would all acknowledge that.
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There's plenty to exercise our hearts as to.
That which would be pleasing to the Lord in each one of us.
There are only two of the seven churches that the Lord finds no fault with, and they are the second from the beginning and the second from the end. Smyrna and Philadelphia.
It's interesting that in both of those churches, there's a group that's mentioned, those that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. They're mentioned in both of those assemblies as being the work of the enemy to nullify and take away the distinctive truth that at the beginning, Smyrna at the beginning was to take away.
The.
Truth at the beginning of the history of the church in Philadelphia. To take away the recovered truth. Actually, I'm speaking to a company of people here that no more truth than the church has ever known, ever known, including the 1St century. Not more than the Apostle Paul knew. No, but the church.
Has never known the extent, the fullness of the recovered truth from the last century that you and I are the spirit you and I are the spiritual heirs of. So he has committed to us the the highest and the most blessed truth. Philadelphia represents a remnant in the midst of.
Of the church, which is represented by Thyatira, the Romi system and Sardis, the Protestant system. And Philadelphia is something that is really a spiritual and a moral state of things that you have in Philadelphia. And the same thing is true of Laodicea. You can't point to a section of crystal and say that's that's what answers to Laodicea.
There's.
There's the laodicean tendency in each one of us, and there's a trust, the Philadelphian tendency, in each one of us. And what we want to do, I think. I think that's the burden of your heart, Henry, is that we want to see is what are the moral characteristics of Philadelphia? And what are the moral characteristics of Laodicea. We want to emulate the moral characteristics of Philadelphia, and we want to judge.
The moral characteristics of Laodicea? They are hateful to Christ. Laodicea. He has nothing good to say about Laodicea. He has nothing bad to say about Philadelphia.
You're calling our attention to the Synagogue of Satan.
Could that suggest to us turning?
The work of the Spirit of God.
In reality, into an outward form that takes then the character of Judaism, which dealt with simply outward forms and.
I think that that it could suggest that that would be the threat of this.
Turning the truth we have into just an outward form and not and it just becomes a lifeless thing rather than a living reality.
Is it true that Philadelphia?
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Brings before us the thought of brotherly love.
The name.
The reason I asked that is the departure of the assembly. It we can go around and even talk with people in the world or with Christians. And when you bring up the name of God, often you get accepted and people will go along with you. It's you'll see that you'll hear that Christians even use that. Well, I think that's the God's will. And you know that the Muslim will go along with you. They won't say anything. Now bring up the name of Christ. Bring up the name and be able to dare and say.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm sure you'll find reproach when you bring the name of Jesus here. Then you'll have the purpose in this heart. What do we have to do? We have to the purpose in our heart when God has given us provisions for that. I like to just.
Liberty to go a little bit further into the second chapter of Daniel.
Daniel was asked to interpret the dream. We won't have time to go through this and I'm sure we all know the story well. Look at what Daniel did. He didn't went to the king and was able to interpret or told the king that he could interpret the dream. Let's go down to second chapter, verse 16. Then Daniel went in the desire of the king that he would give him time and that he would show the king the interpretation. He asked for time. Why does he need time? Let's look at the next verse, see if we can get an answer there. Then Daniel went to his house.
And made the saying known to Ananiah, Michelle and Azariah, his companions, that they would desire mercies of the God of Heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise man of Babylon.
Why He needed his brethren, didn't he? He went to his brethren. And he knows you that he needed support from them, but above all they needed wisdom from the God of heaven, the God that he trusted, the God that he knows that they will be delivered from all this. So look at Daniel circumstances when you whenever you are in difficulties and think the Lord did not put us here, Try to separate us from the rest of the world. Try to isolate us from the rest of the world.
We need to separate ourselves. The purpose of heart, then you couldn't get out of that. And I'd like to turn to one more passage from Jeremiah, the book of Jeremiah This is after.
The 29th chapter.
This is after Daniel already gone captive. Jeremiah is still on the land. This is around 600 BC. Daniel was gone up from six to seven years before that. This is what Jeremiah would have to tell the people that are still remaining in the land.
This is just before the 2nd captivity, Jeremiah, chapter 29. Jeremiah been telling them submit to Nebuchadnezzar. Well, what a terrible thing to think that this barbaric king would come in and they have to submit to him. Not only that, in verse four says thus saith the Lord opposed the God of Israel unto all that I carry away captives who might have carried, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem until Babylon.
Notice here the Lord is the one that put up those circumstances, even though it looks terrible. And we'll read to you. When you read through Jeremiah, you'll hear them crying to the Lord about their circumstances. But these are the circumstances that the Lord allowed to teach them lessons. And here's what Jeremiah from the word of God wanted them to do in the land of Babylon, verse 5. Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat fruit of them.
Taking your wives, and begets sons and daughters, And take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may hear, that they may bear sons and daughters, that ye may be increased there and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city. Whether I have caused you to be carry away captives, and pray unto the Lord, for in the peace thereof shall he have peace. What a great advice, but how difficult it is to take.
To be subjecting to this barbaric thing and Nebuchadnezzar.
And yet in that land, if they're going to carry on with life, to build houses, to go on, but be a part, to be not part of that land will be apart from it. And the secret here is to them that that they be praying unto the Lord forward. And the Lord has given us a lot of provisions today. He has given us His word, He has given us his spirit. He had to help us. We don't need to worry, in a sense, about what's around us. We need to look forward as the verse we had before us this morning.
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Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, think of that proof of the joy that was set before him and due of the grass, despising the shame. And we have him today to help him guide us along.
Most experiences of Daniel, it's parallel to what we have in verse eight of our portion. I have set before the an open door. The word point was made before, I think by our brother Henry that the Lord never gives us something to do unless it is achievable by us. He doesn't give us ideals that are beyond our powers or beyond his powers.
And so here it's indicated by the 1St or by the saying. I've said before thee an open door, and Daniel made use of that open door, didn't he?
The downfall and failure of the Protestant Reformation was for the leaders to seek protection from the tyranny of Rome, Thyatira, by going to the civil leaders of the countries in which they lived. And those, those civil leaders, they were pretty much fed up with the oppression of Rome, so some of them gave them protection.
But the Philadelphia doesn't do that.
The Lord presents himself to Philadelphia, he that hath the key of David.
He that openeth, and no man shutteth and shutteth, and no man openeth Philadelphia, and relies upon the Lord.
To open the door and to close when he sees fit, but not going to the arm of the flesh to protect them. Philadelphia is one that was like his master, like his Lord, holy and true. And he also relied upon the Lord himself to open the door for the precious truths that were to be brought out. The key of David, David had amassed a great wealth for the building of the temple. He wasn't allowed to build the temple, but he.
He prepared for it.
And.
The time came in the history of the Church when the the key was to be used to open the door, to bring out those precious truths. And that was in the last century, and we're the spiritual heirs of this.
But it was the Lord that did it.
It wasn't Darby or Kelly or Macintosh or any of these earthly names. It was the Spirit of God using them, yes, but it was the Spirit of God that did it. It's a movement of the Spirit of God, and the Lord was the one that brought these truths out.
And the Philadelphia is the one that relies on him instead of going to man for protection against the enemy. That's quite a lesson to learn, isn't it, For all of us.
Part of verse 7, which really relates to what you say, Chuck.
He that is holy, we commented on. He that is true, we have.
An absolute standard of truth. And today in the world we are passing through and brethren, I think we need to admit that we are affected by it, not try to deny that we're not, but to recognize it so that we can judge ourselves. But truth and what is false is mixed together constantly, so much so. And I see OFT times younger ones, sometimes older ones too.
That don't seem to distinguish any longer between what's true and what's false, and when you let go of an absolute standard in relativism that infects our society that we're living in today.
It's the result that we don't distinguish. And if somebody says, well, what about this scripture is, oh, that's just your idea. That's not really what I think at all.
But, brethren, there is an absolute standard. How wonderful. How settling to the soul to realize that we do have a standard, and we as brethren, are not the standard.
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Were exercised to be looking to the standard. The Lord Jesus is the one who is the truth. His precious word is the truth. The assembly is to be the pillar and ground of the truth. That is what upholds it. That's what God's thought is for the assembly. But the truth is not the assembly. The truth is the glorious person of the Lord Jesus.
And oh, to have him livingly before the soul. You won't get truth in its absolute sense in any other sector, but there in his glorious person, he that is true. Isn't that wonderful to have before our souls? And even though in schools you're going to have people teach you relativism and that one person's idea is the same as another, remember?
There is a an absolute standard and you can count on God to be true. Completely true.
Scriptures about the key of David in Isaiah. I'd like to just read them and comment briefly on them. I I believe it connects beautifully with our chapter where it's quoted in Isaiah 22.
Let's just read those verses.
Verse 20.
And it shall come to pass in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle. And I will commit thy government into his hand, and he shall be a father.
To the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the House of Judah, and the key of the House of David will I lay upon his shoulder.
So he shall open and none shall shut. He shall shut and none shall open.
And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place, and he shall be for a glorious throne to his Father's house.
Wonderful to think about this key of David. David was the one who had the desire.
To prepare for the temple. To bring the ark of the Lord up to Jerusalem and have a center where God could be with his people there. But he didn't do that. He only prepared. He was told he couldn't build the house. His son was to do it. Well, Solomon did it in picture, but only in picture. The Lord is the real true son who was going to build. He's the one that has the key that's going to do it.
And so this promise here in Isaiah is given as a prophecy of a future time after the captivity, after the time of breaking up of Israel. And this promise is given the the key of the House of David. And I believe that relates then to our New Testament equally that after the failure of Christendom came in and it's all broken up just like the same history of Israel.
The key of David is promised. What is that? It's the fact that the Lord is over all and will and can is able to gather a people to himself according to his mind. If we give him his place, he will do that. He will direct, He will open, He will direct as to that, and he's also will close. He will tell who not to receive and so on. It's the Lord's authority that's owned here.
That the Lord gives as a recognition of what He approves of, instead of thinking about ourselves like Laodicea, where they talk about what their their state of condition is, whether they're rich, and so on.
Philadelphia owns the Lord and his authority. The key there is with the Lord. And so the saying that go to the Church of your choice is a direct denial of this, the principle of this he of David.
He is the one that has the key, the right, and is able and kin open and close.
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I would like to build on that to grow the Doug in connection with what our brother Chuck has brought before us. Because prior to those verses that we've had brought before us in Isaiah, it speaks about Israel or Judah, particularly their effort to preserve that. We can call it because Scripture calls it that.
The gathering center Jerusalem.
By their own wisdom and in verse 8 of Isaiah 22.
He discovered the covering of Judah, and without its looking that day to the armor of the House of the forest, you have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many. And he gathered together the waters of the lower pool. And then we see an account of their activity to preserve Jerusalem, and it all came to nod, and it was carried away. Later we meet.
But then if we connect out with what our brother Chuck brought about the activity and Sardis, the truth of the church was never recovered. And what I would like us to learn from this is that we may see breaches today in the gathering and we look to our own wisdom. How are we going to preserve the assembly? We're not going to preserve the assembly. We need to look as Brother Dog brought before us.
To he who is in the midst because it is He who has the keys of David and oh, just to turn to him and count upon him. And it would connect itself with keeping His word and looking to the word of God for direction from Himself that this privilege place that we've been brought into, it's an administrative place that most believers do not enjoy.
That it might be preserved to us. It's not going to be preserved to us.
In our wisdom.
#22 in the appendix.
Thank you.
Revelation 3:9 Philadelphia
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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.
Being we didn't get very far.
Revelation 3 verse 9.
Revelation 3 beginning at verse 9.
Behold, I will make them at the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, But do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee, because thou hast kept the word of my patience. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the earth, all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly. Hold fast, hold that fast.
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Which thou hast, that no man take thy crown? Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God. That will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches, and unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans rite these things say at the Amen.
The faithful and the true witness the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, as thou art neither hot, neither cold nor hot. I would if I were cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold or hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth, because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and be miserable.
Poor and blind and naked.
I counsel thee tobiath me gold tried in the fire, But thou mayest be rich and white, Raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eye cells. Without me, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. He's Ellis, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him.
And will suffer with him, and be with me to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne. And even as I also overcame, and I'm sat down with my father in his throne, See that half an ear. Let him hear what the Spirit sayeth unto the churches.
Look at the ninth verse. I'd like to make a few more comments on verse eight. I know thy works and every other instance where that occurs. Something follows that. He adds to that, but not here. All he says to the Philadelphian is I know thy works, and that is sufficient for the Philadelphian. He He takes his joy in the fact that he knows the works of the Philadelphia. He doesn't have to have it elaborated on or expanded upon, but just the.
The assurance that he knows.
The Philadelphians works. They may be maligned, they may be spoken against by the the systems of men that are represented in Sardis and Thyatira. But the fact that he knows is the comfort of the Philadelphia. He knows their works. And he says, I sat before thee an open door. No man can shut it all the power of Rome couldn't shut that door.
Or any other power. All the power of Satan. He is the one that has the power to open the door for that testimony. That Philadelphian testimony to go forth and a recovery of truth never known before in the history of the Church, took place in the last century. If you don't see that, if you don't understand that, you don't understand Philadelphia. You don't understand this epistle to Philadelphia now. It's the little strength. It wasn't something that men could look at and admire some great.
Thing that man had built up some mighty edifice. Nothing like that, just a little strain. Something that man would think of no account of. But he encourages them with that word. Something like where he says little flock, It is your father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom little clock, and here it's little strength.
What was it that was so beautiful that he valued so highly? Thou hast kept my word in a day when the masses, the multitudes, are not keeping it, he says to them to the Philadelphians. Can you say that to you? Can he say that to me? Thou hast kept my word, and not denied my name, that approbation from him.
And his knowing our works, The works of the Philadelphia, I should say.
Is enough to encourage the Philadelphians. There were the enemies there. There were those that spoke I'll of this little puny testimony as far as the eyes of man were concerned. And that's where we started this afternoon, verse nine, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which they say they are Jews and are not. But to lie, I will make them to come and to do homage. It's the thought, it's not not worship, literally, it's to do homage.
Before thy feet, and what to know that I have loved thee, the ones that have been so spoken against. This Philadelphian testimony reminds me of that the 53rd of Isaiah. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. The Philadelphia by the the church at large despises this testimony.
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They were despised. And so that they're going to come, those that have done that and bow before the feet of the Philadelphia and to know that he has loved them. That's a wonderful thing, isn't it? To just have his approbation, not man's. Man's is just the opposite. Now who are you trying to please? Who are we trying to please, man or the Lord? Philadelphia pleases the Lord.
Stumbling blocks the younger believers when they see so much of A lack of power seemingly.
In the various local gatherings, it's been a help to me to this expression in verse 8, where he says thou hast a little strength to compare it with what we have in the book of the Acts, Acts, Chapter 4 and verse 33 at the beginning of the Church's history down here.
It says, and with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
The word power in verse 33 is the same word as we have in verse eight of our chapter strength. It's the same word.
In Acts, it's great power. In Philadelphia it's little, but it's the same power, and it's the power of the Spirit of God. And I think that's a help to see. We're living in days where the testimony is outwardly in ruins. Church of God and the mind of God is ever the same. It's perfect.
It's not divided, but we're talking now about the Lord Jesus walking in the outward.
Visible testimony down here. That's what the Candlestick is. And so he's judging what is visible down here. And so you may not see a lot of outward visible power. Still, the spirit of God that indwells us not only indwells us individually, but inhabits the house in a collective way is still here, brethren, and we can take consolation that that has never changed.
That is the same. Even though there may not be much outward evidence of power, still the power is the same. It is the Spirit of God. You remember in the Old Testament, when the Tabernacle and then the temple and the land were built, God sent a great visible sign of his presence in the Shekinah glory, that cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that stood over.
The Tabernacle, and then the temple, and was the visible evidence of the presence of God in the midst of his people. The time came when that cloud departed because of the sin that was allowed, And God allowed after time for these people to be carried away captive. And then he allowed a restoration, And after the restoration he never gave again the outward visible sign of his presence. It was something that could only be appreciated.
By faith in the word of God. And I think that's so important for us to get not to be controlled by what we see outwardly merely, but be to be controlled by what we find in the precious word of God. It hasn't changed, brethren. Spirit of God hasn't changed.
But faith is not controlled by what is outward and visible. Faith is always going simply by what God has written in His own precious word, and the Philadelphian is one who keeps that word.
When they returned back to the land, maybe we can turn to Haggai, because that's the similar conditions that they were in in the book of Haggai.
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In the book of Hegei, they have been turned. In the book of Azariah, they returned. I mean Azariah, they returned and they build. They build a foundation for the temple. They build the altar. And then they left it. There was about 536 BC. Here, the book of Haggai, about 520 BC, people had forgotten. There's no outward display of God's testimony. The only two chapters in this book, Aggie, I have to come in from the Lord telling them to consider their ways. And then?
He has to say to them, Let's turn to Haggai.
Verse 2 Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, These people say the time is not come, the time that the Lord house should be built. They're denying that they have not seen anything, and the Lord has to tell them yet that it's time, it's time to build a house for the Lord. In verse five it says consider your ways. In verse six it warns them, It says Ye have so ye have so much and bring in little.
You eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. He clothed you, but there is none warm that he has earned wages, earned wages to put it in a bag with holes. So they were struggling trying to make ants meat. They were trying to do things their way. They are forgotten about God. And then I have to say, thus saith the Lord your host, consider your way, go up, go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house.
Now we know that Hegeii came in. He had to stir up the people. Two months later, we see a man like Zechariah would continue on. We see there's a rubber bull, and so on, and four years after that the temple was finished. But in this book it raised three questions as well that we should consider in the second chapter. And I'll read the questions and I'm not going to give answers to it there. One of the ways he encouraged them is in verse three of the second chapter.
He raised 3 questions.
First question is who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? Who is left among you that sold this house in her first glory? And we're looking back and compare what it was like before.
Is that what we're doing? Second question. How do ye see it now? How do ye see it now? To think the Lord is speaking to our hearts. You know, we've just gone through a problem with separation and scattering. Well, the question which you raise now is how do ye see it now? Why are you there? Why are you here? And who are you gathered to? How do you see it now?
The third question is, is it not in your eyes?
In comparison of it as nothing, three questions the Lord raised and I'll take the liberty to give something a three comforts we also give with them to encourage them as I believe it's the same thing that we can have today in verse 4 partway through that verse.
Says, saith the Lord, he says. For I am with you, for I am with you.
Verse five According to the word. According to the word a lot of part of verse 5 So my spirit remaineth among you. Fear not, 3 Comforts that the Lord lived with us. I am with you. His word is with us and spirit. And back to our chapter. There we are told to keep his word and not deny his name. We can't do anything. I enjoy our brother's comment early on Tuesday.
We can't keep it. It's not us. The Lord keep that testimony and we can see in haggy eyes day. It looked like there was nothing but the Lord. The Lord has to wait for His time. When it's the right time. Then that temple was raised. Four years later. Four years later, at about 516 BC, the temple was completed according to God's plan in God's time.
Thou hast not denied my name.
I'd like to hear some comments on that. I was kept my word. You were referring Brother David to Haggai and the Remnant that returned. And they went back to the Word, didn't they? And that's what they did over 100 years ago, went back to the Word. So much had entered into Christendom that was not according to the Word. It was introduced by men. The opinions of men, The order of man is he established it. We see it all around us.
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But they went back to the word it's not denied my name.
There are certainly some nice applications we can make of that we refuse. One of them would be we refuse to call ourselves by any other name than his name. We belong to him. We don't call ourselves Methodists or Baptists or Episcopalians or on and on and on, but we call ourselves Christians, those who are his. But there's more to it than not denying his name.
Rewards to the overcomer.
It seems to me is helpful in considering Philadelphia in general. In verse 12. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God. My brother David spoke about the temple. He shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God.
Which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, I will write upon him my new name. Well, that's the assembly and an administrative character, and I believe that's the assembly is found in Matthew 18. And for that assembly to exist, they had to be gathered together unto the name, unto the Lord's name. And I was thinking of those.
Who came back in Nehemiah's day, not so much in view of the house, but in view of establishing the walls that described what pertained to the city of God. And another question is asked then What do these feeble Jews It was his brother Chuck, brought out, marked by feebleness, and despised they were, they were held in disdain, but.
Those feeble Jews valued what pertained to the city of God, to Jerusalem, and said it had the exercise not to make new foundations, but that those foundations would be recovered in a wall built to identify this city. Well, that took place in the early 1800s. What pertained to the assembly had pretty much been lost, and God recovered it.
To them we might call it collective truth, as in.
Sardis, you have salvation in the name that thou liveth brought out it was more the individual thought of the individual salvation. But the work wasn't perfect. Well, here, beloved brethren, it's a very real thing. Do we value the truth relating to the assembly here on earth is gathered to the precious name of Christ?
Enough to suffer the reproach of being identified as feeble Jews, or having little strength and being held in disdain and contempt because of I don't even really know what the word means, but because of an ecclesiastical.
Association, that is, people looking at us collectively and just shaking their head. Why do you even go along this way?
Well, I trust we could respond in our hearts because we believe it's according to the word of God. And we believe that in truth we have been gathered to the precious name of our Lord Jesus. And whatever we are, whatever we are, does not take away from the preciousness of the word and the preciousness of that name. And sometimes we get ourselves confused with that preciousness and our feebleness, and it's a stumbling to us.
Oh, Brother Dog, our brother Chuck.
Something wonderful. Scratch your eye, pondered it, and I can't say that I've come up with too much other than the mere expression. The name contains great power right in the section in which we are if you go back to chapter 2 at the end of verse 17.
But this is in the message to Pergamos, but it says.
Him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna will give him a whitestone, and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. Now that's not the name of the Lord, but that shows the power in the sight of God about a name. And we know that no one can take the name of the Lord idly without a record being made. We have that very plainly.
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Now in the portion of which we are right now, if we go ahead a few verses.
In verse 12 in the middle, speaking about the overcomer, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem. So in the sight of God the name, there is none other name under heaven given amongst men, whereby we must be saved, no other name. It's not no other work, or no other person, but it's no other name.
So to God, who speaks truth, the expression of that name has tremendous power. I don't think I can articulate much more than that, except by the way it's used in Scripture that it's the name and it's all important to our God. And so when we have any references to that name, if there are references of slight or disparagement, oh, that must hurt our God.
I mean, that must be totally significant. Think about it when you hear the name of the Lord Jesus used idly.
In the workplace or in the neighborhood, people use that name. Why is that? It's because of Satan, that name. You don't hear people taking the name of Buddha or some of these other Pagan deities that we've heard about. Why is it Satan chooses that name to disparage? The only point I'd make, probably very weakly though, is the thought of the name is all important to God.
Finished that 16th verse, **** 12Th verse. I will write upon him my new name.
You can read that.
That's important and in the 22nd chapter of our book it says verse four. They shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads.
Hey, what?
Councillor which we take greatest delight in. But how can we express that this, this to me is deep water because it's the thoughts of God expressed here that it's hard for us to fully take in.
His name is the expression of all that He is, and I think we can deny His name not merely in words, brethren, but it's how we live and how we act. We can actually, if He is the holy, the true my walk down here, how does it correspond? Do I take his name? And everyone who has been baptized has his name in a public sense upon him? And how do you?
Where that name before the world? It's not merely what we say, it's our whole life that's involved here in denying his name, isn't it?
Chapter of numbers. I want to read it.
#622 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and unto his son, saying, On this wise he shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them well.
We're baptized through his name.
To his name, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. And that's a tremendous privilege, The name people of the name.
We're going to uphold that name, aren't we? In everything?
Jesus, with regard to his people in these seven churches, I think more strongly than anywhere else in the whole of the Word, the Lord Jesus identifies himself personally with those to whom he speaks, and over and over again He says, I know and I will, And here he introduces a number of times those things which are His own, my word.
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My name.
And he gives emphasis to them. And I think it's well for us to recognize that when the Lord addresses us, it's not.
As it were a matter of doctrine. It's a matter of personal address. If the Lord Jesus were standing this afternoon at the podium addressing us with these words, would we take them more personally than sometimes we do? Because we read them, we listen to them, we examine them. But I think it's important for us to recognize that the Lord Jesus is speaking to us as he spoke to them, and he speaks to us with personal statements. I know.
And I will. And it's my word, and it's my name, and it ought to affect our hearts. I was rather struck. I'd never noticed it before today. But when in these addresses to the seven churches, he speaks a couple of times about their love. When he addresses the seven, but it's only in the last two that he mentions his own love.
Because he is speaking with a real girded loins, you might say, to say what he sees and what he knows. And it's a very solemn thing to have the Lord speak to us in that way. But to me it's also an encouraging and instructive thing to do that he says to those in Philadelphia. Those who have that character and that spirit, he says, I think to them.
You know I love you.
You know I love you, and the others are going to know. And it's sometime too. And that's a word of encouragement. If if others may look at your life, or may look at you collectively and have a certain feeling about you and not regard you as very much. Are you not encouraged if you can walk with the sense in your own heart? But the Lord loves me, and the Lord says I know you do, and the day's coming when I'm going to show it.
Right now, you may not be publicly acknowledged, but I see it. I know it. You ought to know it, and I'm going to tell you.
And when we get to Laodicea, which perhaps has more application to us in our present day than Philadelphia does.
How does the Lord show us when he says I love you?
He personally is the only one that he acts in love and says it in all the seven he says, Yes, I love you.
I'm going to rebuke you and I'm going to chasten you, and that's the evidence of my love. Do we feel that today? I think in some measure some of us do. And it's an evidence of the personal relationship we now have with the Lord Jesus, that when he, the only time his love is seen in action in all seven, it's in chastening and rebuking.
Name. My brother Bob mentioned that his name's characterized who he is and what he is, and I found a few verses in chapter 19 of Revelation which I think are interesting because it refers to name.
And verse 12 This is, of course Speaking of when the Lord returns in judgment to this earth, will start at verse 11 of chapter 19. And I saw heaven open, and behold, a White Horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he doth judge, and make war. And his eyes were as a flame of fire, And on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself.
But a name written.
And he was clothed with a fester dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God, which we take great delight in. And then going down, verse 15 out of his mouth go with the sharp sword, and that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he credits the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written.
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I just submit those as a few more examples of the importance of name in the eyes of our God. It really is one of these things that we read the words so frequently. I'll speak for myself and take these things without thinking much about it, but if you isolate the thought of name, it plays a tremendous role in this book.
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I think we ought to consider the fact.
That we are going to be kept out of the hour of temptation. We are not going to go through the tribulation, as many in Christendom attest to. But here is a promise from the Lord Jesus himself that he will keep us out of the hour of temptation. So in First Thessalonians 4, when that shout comes, we'll be taken to glory before that hour of tribulation.
Comes upon this earth.
It's about synagogue of Satan at the beginning of verse 9.
I don't know that we have that expression elsewhere, but the synagogue of Satan?
Of chapter 3.
All right, verse nine of chapter 2.
I know thy works, and tribulation and poverty, but thou art rich, and I know the blasphemy of them, which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
In both of those epistles, yes.
That gets reversed the orders reversed. It's smearing and and Philadelphia.
Well, to me what I'd like to hear about is why is it the synagogue of Satan? Which of those that say they are Jews? Does that speak to the present day in which we are?
I think this refers to legalists.
Doesn't necessarily mean they are Jews. They say they're Jews by the way they're acting, and what they're connected with is really a synagogue of Satan, not the Church of God. They're promoting what is of the enemy. They're promoting the very antithesis, the very opposite of Christianity.
Salvation by Works.
All versus Grace.
There's a natural tendency to go back to that always has been in the history of the Church.
The idea of having a clergy, where does that come from? Comes from the Old Testament, where one tribe of Israel was chosen to do the service of God. And of that one tribe, only one family could go into the presence of God. The idea of having music in Christian worship is another Judaizing principle. It's it's a tendency where does the idea of having a large.
Fancy building come into Christianity. We are the building now, it's not an exterior building, but in so many ways it's gone back to that. And although those that sometimes go in that direction and I think we need to recognize that, that we need to be exercised to walk in the truth of God because we have tendencies naturally to go in that direction too if we're not exercise brethren and we're stocking some time ago to some young people and asking.
They understood why we don't use music in our public meetings in one very frankly said whoa, I don't know. I've always thought might be nice if we did.
He didn't realize. We need to realize why. Is it because the New Testament prohibits that. I don't think you see that it prohibits it, but it's not the character of Christian worship. And to bring that in is going back to a system of religion.
That God ordained in the Old Testament, that was of God at that time for man in the flesh, that that test that God gave to man in the flesh at that time ended with Christ on the cross. They refused the Christ of God. And now that system is no longer what is characteristic of God's people today. It's completely the opposite, like it's been said. And there's a tendency toward that always.
Has been and will, and it's a very subtle thing that we need to walk in the enjoyment of the truth of God, that we won't go in that direction.
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As a man on earth, he frequented it, these synagogues and even.
James he speaks about one come into your assembly or your synagogue, that there was a period of time and occupying the beginning of the Acts where Christians intermingled with the Jewish Christians. I'll identify them that way intermingled with their Jewish brethren and.
Identified some major with them in the synagogue, but God has.
Dealt with that, has dealt with it, and now in those days they were called your synagogues or synagogue of the Jews.
But now it has been completely judged by God and that system that those synagogues, I don't really know where they originated at, or the purpose of them, but the Lord owned them anyway. But they were synagogues of Jews. But now they would represent the work of Satan to stifle that which is of the spirit of God and a new dispensation completely, and to identify that synagogue. Now it couldn't be called a synagogue of the Jews.
Those who were who said they were Jews were going there, but the true character now before God is that they are synagogues of Satan.
Opposite, opposing the precious truth that belonged to the assembly and it is an advancement, I think an expression that denotes an advancement. It's no longer simply a synagogue of the Jews, it's a synagogue of Satan because it's an attack on the liberty that.
Christians should enjoy.
Just similar to what you just said, I'll add that the false church is no longer the Bride of Christ, but she's a harlot.
Revelation 17. I want to read a verse in Acts 4 connection with this and it's very helpful. And verse 27 for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed. Now notice both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together. Now there's a gathering together. There is a synagogue. That's what the word synagogue means, a gathering together.
So you could translate that if you basically transliterated it when they translate synagogue of Satan, you could translate it a gathering together of Satan. That is, it's not always good to be gathered together. It depends on who your fellows are. And that that's mentioned there. In Acts four, it was a gathering together against the Lord Jesus. So our privilege is as gathered together to his name to be on his side. And that's a tremendous and immense privilege, is it not? We were once on the other side.
The historic account of what our brothers have been saying about the Synagogue of Satan.
We could look in Acts chapter 18. It's really quite solemn in view of what's been said because Paul, as we read through Acts often as the blessed Lord Jesus himself did, we can read where he went into a synagogue, as his manner was, and he took the scriptures and read. And then in Acts chapter 18, while Paul does this as he goes on his missionary journeys, we see in verse four and he the Apostle Paul, he reasoned in the synagogue.
Every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. So at that point there was, as you say, Brother Chuck, a gathering together there, because at that point before Paul came with the gospel, that was the only place known where the truth of God, such as it could be known, was, was read, and was taught. So here you have both the Jews and the Greeks gathering. But then it goes on. And when they oppose themselves in blasphemy, he shook his raiment, and said, Your blood be upon your own heads, I am clean.
From henceforth I will go on to the Gentiles and he departed thence and entered into a man's house which was next to her hard by the synagogue. I just say historically that's really what happened as we've been talking about that that here it's rejected. They they hear the truth in the place where the truth of God had at one point been known. And Paul comes there with the truth and they blasphemy it. And he leaves and he shakes his reign at a sign of a very solemn sign, it seems to me and it's Jewish character of.
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Of a judgment that's enacted, and he leaves that and leaves that whole thing, and he goes to the Gentiles. Now he enters into a house, and there the truth of God is known. I don't. I wouldn't go so far as to say it, but perhaps that's historically a little bit of a picture of how we get to this in our passage before us, where it's now referred to as the synagogue of his work, instead of the truth being brought and embraced and appreciated and loved and learned.
They blasphemy the truth.
We say that today, some 2000 years, roughly since the Lord was here and the truth of Christianity became known in this world, that those that go on today with so-called synagogues are really the synagogue of Satan because they've rejected the word all these years.
And the fact that they go on in the face sometimes of what is so amazingly clear, for example.
We're probably all quite familiar with that little cracked Hebrew search for the blood of atonement, but the very fact of that little tract is where is the blood? Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. This is in the Old Testament, and yet they've gone on for 2000 years. What is the power that keeps them going?
Must be the power of Satan.
Choose to that synagogue of Satan in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in the last chapter where it says, Let us go forth therefore unto him outside the camp during his reproach. That's really what answers to the synagogue of Satan, isn't it? It's a camp. It's and there's so much Judaizing in the camp. There's such a mixture of things. It's a Babble of confusion. This whole principle, I think you mentioned it, Henry, the principal go to the Church of your choice is a profoundly wicked.
Principle.
I was reflecting once on my bed at night. I couldn't sleep, so I was meditating and meditating upon the the principle that the American democracy that we live in boasts of so much that everyone has a right to his own religion.
You worship God according to your own conscience. That is a profoundly wicked principle.
I don't have the right to choose whether I'm going to worship the true God or Baal.
Or other gods, false gods, or many gods. I don't have that right. I have to worship God according to the revelation that he has given us. He has told us how to approach him.
We dare not approach him or any other way that is self destruction. Isn't it So the principle and I know that the founding Fathers never dreamed that the interpretations that are being placed today upon religious liberty would be diverted by Satan into such a wicked way they were promoting freedom of.
Conscience to worship God according to the word of God. That's really what they meant. But.
That's been twisted. Everything that man gets a hold of, he twists and turns and and turns it into evil. But if you were a Jew in the Old Testament, like it says in Deuteronomy 12, is it or 13? If you hear say that one has gone, there's a city that's gone and worshipped other gods. What were they to do? They were to check it out. If the thing we're sure and certain they were to they were to level that city, destroy them all. They were not to tolerate the worship of another God.
And what are we tolerating in Christendom? All kinds of things.
Go to the Church of your choice.
That's a wicked principle we are to meet according to this book and nothing else.
We have no choice in it. We are to obey God.
That's what a Philadelphian does, isn't it?
We had a special character to it too, in verse 10, because thou hast kept the word of my patience or endurance. And I remember years ago, as a young man heard of Paul Wilson, had an address at this conference and.
I spoke about the end times being when the Saints are the most high, spoke on Daniel wearing out the Saints of the most high. I think the thought could be the most High place as well.
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In our profession of being heavenly citizens down here on earth.
Everything is wearing us down, and we need the word of his patience. We need this endurance not to give up and succumb to all of the influences that we would read about in the next assembly. And I I did want to comment that we've heard that there was nothing.
Negative said about the Assembly in Philadelphia. Yet there was an overcomer.
And notice where he is brought in in verse 11. Behold, I come quickly. Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh, I think perhaps the main feature of our overcoming, besides those of the synagogue of Satan, is simply holding fast what has been given to us. Oh, it hurts. And you know, I I feel it in my own soul.
Sometimes weeping. And you read some of our older brethren writings, and I've read some of those early readings. They weren't of this character, but we aren't even intelligent enough. We're acquainted enough with the word of God to ask some of the questions that were asked in those readings, and I think for my own heart, it's an indication that I haven't held fast what was recovered.
And what has been made available to us, so we do want to overcome and hold back that which thou hast.
It isn't adding to it, just holding it fast.
Just one of the many. Oh you may say, you really affirmations we find in scripture supporting other truths that we treasure so much.
In verse, let's see.
You know verse 10.
Just a few lines down, I also will keep the from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. But that's telling us clearly in another way of the coming of the Savior to call us out of this scene will not be here for that time of trial which is has all the different names. But here it is, is one of the reaffirmed promises, if you will.
To those that are Philadelphia. But isn't it nice to have that constant reassurance and see the harmony of the word of keeping these things?
It's going to come upon all the world, it says.
But it says to try them that dwell upon the earth, that expression.
Then that dwell upon the earth is occurs very many times in the Book of Revelation. It's a moral class. It's that class that has been offered heaven during this day of grace and says no, I don't want it, I want earth and there are earth dwellers. There are more there. They're Christian apostates, that's who. That's who's meant by that expression. Then they dwell upon the earth and the tribulation is to upon all the world.
But it's to try them to dwell upon the earth. You read of them numbers of times. One of the times is a horrible time. In Revelation 13 it says those that receive the mark of the beast are those that dwell on the earth.
That's what's going to happen to apostate Christians.
Like to connect the word of my patience. So it's what we get in Second Thessalonians chapter 3, where Paul says the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. That's verse 5 and into the.
Patient waiting for Christ. The marginal reading is the patience of Christ.
Why is he waiting, brethren? He's waiting. And he has a purpose and is waiting and to have our hearts to keep the patience, the word of his patience, and to be alert at any moment for that coming again. Because he says right in the next verse. Behold, I come quickly, you know, I've thought about it, Paul told the Thessalonians.
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To wait for the sun from heaven. Was he mistaken in teaching them that?
When Jesus didn't come back during their lifetime, nor in Paul's lifetime and for many centuries since.
Has he come quickly? I really believe brethren, when we get home to glory, we're going to understand, as we don't now, that he really did come quickly. One day is with the Lord is 1000 years and 1000 years is 1 day and His coming is quickly. But why is he waiting? One of the reasons is that there's more to be saved out of this poor world and we need to keep the word of His patience. If that's so, the Lord stir us to go out with the gospel to the lost brethren.
Oh, this is certainly part of his, the word of his patience. And we need to keep the word of his patience.
It surely will be quickly wounded.
I mean, you mentioned 1000 years as a day, but when we think of eternity, if we can really time will be nothing.
Patience, isn't it? He's the one that's waiting and he's waiting more for us to have us with him and we are longing for to be with him.
I just want to read you a few verses in the 13th of Revelation connection with this expression them that dwell upon the earth.
The beast is in view here, they say in verse 4 The end of the verse who is like unto the beast, who is able to make war with him? This is the Roman Empire revived and the head of it And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue 42 months. And he opened his mouth, and blasphemy against God to blasphemy his name and his Tabernacle, and then the dwell in heaven that will be us.
The heavenly Saints.
And it was given unto him to make war with the Saints, and to overcome them.
Power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations, and notice in all that dwell upon the earth, shall worship him whose names were not, are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So everyone that does not receive the light, the truth, the way, the person of Christ today, in this day will in the in the Roman world, in the Christian world I'm talking about.
3rd The 3rd is the third expression. The third refer to the Roman earth. They will worship the beast.
In contrast with setting our minds on things about and being heavenly minded in all of these the proper calling of the assembly as a heavenly body, all of these things have been recovered to us, but we see in the next church that it was given up and it is a very epitome of first dwelling.
To call and it's what we.
Really have to overcome to especially in our land where everything is so attractive to the flesh and there's everything here to take our minds away from heavenly things, that it it really does require endurance and patience to to overcome all of these niceties. You know, if we were persecuted, Earth wouldn't be such a nice place.
But we have another obstacle to overcome now. It's it's bidding our hearts presenting itself as something attractive to be desired. And it's been far more effective in turning us aside. And persecution ever would have been or could have been even.
We might suggest along with that.
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Just this thought. It's a very simple thought but.
While Earth dwellers in Spirit to enter into that, we make these things in this present time the object of our heart, and we we can do that as believers. Morally we can, though we never would be what you brought out, Brother Chuck, in terms of the actual thing, because the Church will be gone. But morally now that spirit can overtake us and we can get our objects and our affections all caught up with this present time.
But on the other hand, that doesn't mean that we are not to walk in this life.
As providing for things honest I might say I was thinking as we were talking, Abraham was called out of the Ur of the Chaldees, and he walked through a land that he never.
Had that he never possessed, he walked by faith, but he also, in the large majority of his life, walked as one that was pleased.
God in faith, so he dwell in his hand. He had flocks, He had herds. He did what was necessary to walk through that world without, you might say, belonging to it and becoming part of it in spirit. And so for those that are here that are perhaps younger. And you if the Lord leaves us here, we would hope He would come today, and we expect that, and we ought to expect that. But there is that aspect of.
Living and walking through this world in a way that's pleasing to God.
Morally, not having our affection set here, but still we have to.
Work. We have to earn a living. We have to provide for our families. We have all of those things. And I just say that it's very simple, but I just say that we don't want to think that that kind of thing is becoming an earth dweller. An earth dweller is one in spirit who looks at this world. And that's the limit of their horizon. That's all they have for their heart's affection. But a believer's heart's affection is set on Christ, set on the things in glory. And yet we're responsible to walk through this world in a way that's pleasing to the Lord. And so we provide.
For our own and all of those things, I won't go into it, but I just say that that we not lose that thought that we can walk as heavenly citizens and still walk responsibly through this world, providing and doing what we ought and bringing glory to God, glory to the name of Christ, while we walk through this world as heavenly citizens.
Minding earthly things. And that is really important, Doug, to have our sights set above. If we could only catch a glimpse of heavenly glory, it would free us from the attractions of things here. You're young people. If you see me running after things down here, you say, well, there's one person that hasn't seen heavenly glory.
Once you catch a glimpse of it, and Paul was raptured into the 3rd heaven, he caught a glimpse of it. He saw that glory and he came back. He wasn't fit for life down here, and I'm sure it would be the same thing. Now we have that same vision of things, but it's set before us to lay hold up by faith, and I think we need to get the sense in our souls that it's so far supreme, so far beyond anything of earthly glory.
Good till Hebrews 11 That will set us free from being earth dwellers.
Speaking about Abraham we've been talking about.
Verse 13 just to read a few verses. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. Truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country, that is, and heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed.
To be called their God, for he is prepared for them a city. Think of it. Abraham back there, the God of Glory appeared to him, and he must have caught a vision of that city.
And he never forgot it. And even though, like you said, Dougie was a wealthy man down here, he never lived anything that we know of but attend.
He was a Pilgrim and a stranger, he says. My home is beyond. I'm looking for a city that I haven't found yet.
01:05:05
And the revelation he got was pretty small in comparison to what we have been given, brethren. We have the full revelation of all that God is in Christ now, the tremendous display of heavenly glory that is open to our souls and the epistles.
Of the New Testament, our hearts drawn after that. Or is there something down here that compares with it? Abraham said. No, there's something better than anything I've seen down here.
And if we can catch a glimpse of it, that will set us free. It's not something that's forced on you. It's something that you go after because your heart has been drawn after it. I think that's so important. It's not a horse thing. If you get the idea that you've got to go the pathway you're walking in simply because your dad or your mom or somebody else, some brothers are standing over you watching. You don't get out of line. You haven't caught what the spirit of Christianity is.
It's an object that draws us, and draws us powerfully from Earth's puny glory for the glory of that eternal day.
Brother Bob and he was speaking. We remember we won't turn to it forsake of time, but I was. We remember when God called Abraham and he said lift up thine eyes and and look. And he wanted him to look at the heavens, the stars. Well, Abrahams shows where his heart was. He didn't lift his eyes up as far as his flocks and his herds were. The God gave him those things. He was a faithful man and he used those things. But what was that in comparison with lifting up his eyes and looking what God wanted him to look at? That's what the Lord wants us to do today, beloved young people, all of us. He wants us to lift our eyes up and see what He has for us.
What we have here we want to use for his glory, but he's saying to us just like he did to Abraham. Lift your eyes up. You've got a better object than what this world is setting their hearts on.
Very, very young ones here. If someone asks you why do you come, it's perfectly good. If you say because mommy and daddy brought me, that's fine.
He'll grow.
212 Fall from above and heavily men by verse, who once were the citizens of earth. As pilgrims here we seek a heavenly home, our portion in the ages yet to come 212.
Open my heart out, baby.
Come on later, she is here.
No.
Glory.
And thy life.
Revelation 3:14 Laodicea
Reading
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We have nothing to seek or to choose.
This world is a world.
Where and where did I start and?
All the little version of the whole gardening.
Stay.
Meeting on the passage before us.
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It's good.
What verse should we start with the address to Laodicea?
We can get starting. We can always go back.
Revelation Chapter 3.
And we'll start with verse 14.
And unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans rite these things saith the Amen, the faithful, and true witness the beginning of the creation of God. And I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.
I would thou Wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth, because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich and white, Raiment, that thou mayest be clothed with the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.
Anoint thine eyes with eye cells that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chase, and be zealous therefore, and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him, and will Sup with him, and he with me.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Interesting comment, pass it on to you.
I think it was Brother Patterson and one of the monthlies.
He said that.
Morally.
The overcomer in each assembly morally is a Philadelphian.
And I enjoyed that.
Because that's really what this characteristic of Philadelphia is. He he keeps his word, and that's really what the overcomer does in each one of the assemblies, although they may not have the light that the Philadelphia has.
Dispensationally, if you want to look at it that way.
Philadelphia And there was, there was a there was a movement that had that character.
In the last century, but I like that thought.
That morally, the overcomer in each assembly is a Philadelphian principle.
You say then Chuck that in Thyatira, Stardust, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. We all have the ending he that overcometh. Would you put them all in that class?
And so it was. I was asked, between the meetings.
What about the people in Laodicea? When the Lord comes, are they going to?
Have the blessing of the 10th verse.
Well, yes, Thyatira Sardis.
Philadelphia, when that shout comes in.
1St Thessalonians 4 All Christians are going to go.
All Christians are going to be caught up. All are going to be taken up into glory and be.
Reserved. Free from that trial that is going to try those that are upon the earth.
So all four of them we have, don't we, The he that overcometh.
A blessing for he that overcometh.
Not the characteristic of faith, isn't it is that principle which overcomes the world, our faith. And so a real believer is an overcomer. Even though he may have ups and downs, he is an overcomer. That's the characteristic of it. I think that's good to get a hold of that.
I'd like to say something on this little expression we get that the towards the end of every church, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
To me, this shows that the moral application of every church should be taken for each one of ourselves. Brethren, you might say, well, I'm not part of the Church of Philadelphia or Laodicea or any of the others. I don't live in any of those cities. But still, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. It applies to us morally. We need to apply each one of these churches as a message.
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To us, and we need to take it. And there's the blessedness in applying the truth of the Scriptures to us in that moral way. I know there's a dispensational teaching, which is very good too, but I think this shows that what we have in these seven churches applies to every one of us, if we have an ear to hear.
Moral sense, you mean? That's right, Yeah.
And I'm not curious about all the covers and look up what it said in the new and Concise dictionary and I think it relates to what we've just had before us. I'll just read it to you. It's very brief. Overcomer is one who has faith to surmount the special danger that exists in his day.
And So what one may have to overcome may not always be the same, but they have the faith to proceed and overcome what faces them. And I think that's an encouragement to us too, because we can't exactly identify with each one of these churches, but we surely can look to the Lord to be an overcomer.
Might add just one other little thought before we go on about that with the overcomer. It doesn't say to those that are overcomers, though. Indeed, in each case, no doubt there are those who collectively would answer to that. But it's an individual thing, isn't it? And that's something that we need to recognize for each of us that to overcome now in this that we're taking up in the day in which we live. It's faith, and it's an individual thing. Individual faith is needed.
That doesn't set aside at all The thoughts of the collective testimony is gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if I could just say it this way, I can't go on as an overcomer. Because if I may say it this way, the brethren go on. I have to individually, in faith, go on as an overcomer. And so these are directed, these things are these thoughts are directed to each one of us, personally and individually.
To what David said at the beginning of the meeting, there is a teaching that only those who are.
Faithful Philadelphians will be raptured when the Lord comes, and then 3 1/2 years later the rest of Christinom will be raptured. Or something like that.
That's making a fundamental mistake between his, the first aspect of his second coming and the 2nd aspect.
The second stage of his second coming, the 1St, is all grace to take his own home to glory. That's all. Grace. Rewards are not connected with that. That's a secret rapture. The world won't see that and he'll call his own home because they have faith and the reason he calls them all home, whether they they fit being in Philadelphia or some. Maybe they're in Sardis, or maybe they're in Thyatira. Even if they have faith, they'll be raptured. And because it's grace, it's all grace.
Rapture is all grace. It does not depend on our faithfulness. It depends upon Christ and his work. But his The second stage of his second coming is appearing, the appearing of his glory. That has to do with rewards. And then there will be a difference between those that went on faithfully for him and those that didn't. And those that didn't will will lose something, but they won't lose their salvation. So what is strictly grace?
There's no difference. We're all going to go.
And what is connected with our faithfulness and rewards are connected with that, and that those will be dispensed when he comes back and sets up his Kingdom. But I think it's important to make that distinction, because that's a fundamentally wrong principle to say that only certain part of the church will be raptured at 1St, and those that weren't as faithful, they'll come later. That makes the rapture dependent on our faithfulness and not on the work of Christ.
And that's bad.
Isn't it interesting that in the case of Thyatira, excuse me, in the case of Laetacia, the Lord Jesus says, even as I also overcame?
He doesn't say that to the other six churches.
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But he was the faithful one and as was said earlier in the meeting this morning.
What he puts before them is what will touch their conscience in regard to their state. And so here Laodicea, who had lost sight of the person of Christ, they had been more occupied with themselves. And so then he sets before them, even as I have overcome. And so we go back to the cross. We go back to the scene of what he overcame and what a scene that was. And so that's what he presents to.
Laodicea to turn their heart back to himself.
He presents himself to Philadelphia. These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David. And those were the holiness and truth are connected with what he was morally down here, and then with his authority to open and shut as he sees fit. And this, this last epistle is also connected with his character. Now the the Philadelphian answers to that character of holiness and truth, and they're commended for that. They answer to that.
The way he presents himself to Laodicea, which means the people's rights. Laodicea, the people's rights. Laos is the people.
They don't answer to any of the characters that are presented here of the Lord. He was the Amen. He was the confirmation of God's Word, God's truth. He was the faithful and true witness, No more faithful and true witness than he was. He was the beginning as the risen Christ. He was the beginning of the creation of God refers to him as the head of a new creation, The beginning of a new creation.
Now the assembly at Laodicea was not a confirmation of the word of God. She was not a faithful and true witness. She did not give expression to the new creation at all. He was living basically in the old creation. And so all of those 3 characteristics that He presents himself as being to this assembly was to rebuke them, to show them that they were just the opposite to what He was when he was here with Philadelphia.
It was consistency with what he was here in Laodicea. It's just the opposite, isn't it?
One of the writers that I read, I think it's Hamilton Smith. Usually his writings are excellent. I'm quite sure I recall this right. He makes the beginning of the creation of God relate to the original creation. I don't think that's right. It it relates to the new creation. Christ risen becomes the head of a new creation.
Probably refers to the Second Corinthians 517.
You are a new creation. Behold, all things are new. All things are passed away.
And that's what every Christian is, a new creation. We're no longer found in that old condition.
Well, this is related to to Colossians one. I'll read it Colossians 1.
Verse 18.
He is the head of the body, the church. Now when did He become that? After He died. He was not that when He was here on earth. After he rose from the dead, after he ascended to heaven and sent down the Holy Spirit. Then He became the head of the body, the Church. Who was the beginning? When did He become the beginning? Well, in resurrection He became the beginning of this new creation. These things, these expressions in this verse, the first born from the dead, He was the one that was raised.
That in all things he might have the preeminence. So now earlier in Colossians 1.
It says in verse 15, who is the image of the invisible God? The first born of every creature or first born of all creation. That refers to him as being the preeminent one over all creation. Not a creature, but he is the first one, the preeminent one connection with the creation that he brought into being, but as the.
The beginning of the creation of God. That's the new creation.
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You could not have a Laodicea following upon Sardis.
Or Thyatira, you could not have a Laodicea. You'd have to have first of Philadelphia. You have to have first the full recovery and expression of what the church is according to the mind of God. That's Philadelphia.
And that has come out now that's been expressed.
And what follows?
Laodicea What follows after the best has been presented. This artist isn't the best. It was a recovery of some truth, but they came far short of the full recovery of it. But Philadelphia was a recovery of it. Of it all. What follows that? A complete breakdown, a complete denial and breakdown in Laodicea.
From Christ being everything to self being everything, That's Laodicean.
Saturday.
What is the significance of the expression unto the Angel of the Church of Laodiceans? And it's true for the other six churches, but why is it unto the Angel?
I believe the Angel represents the responsible element in the assembly.
The light bearers, it says in Revelation one, the angels, the stars of the angels of the seven churches, starved in the darkness of the night, is to give light and those that are responsible for the moral state of the assembly. Actually we're all responsible, yes, but there are the leaders. There are those that take the lead and and.
Form the.
The state, so to speak, of the assembly. The apostle Paul and John say that if you don't go on, well, it's to my shame, he says, And John says the same.
They were his children in the faith and he was their father, Paul was. And so those that are in the in the place of leadership, those who are teachers and leaders and shepherds in the assembly.
Are really?
Responsible for the state of the assembly.
They're held accountable.
But I'd like to say, too, that I think we all need to feel our responsibility as to the ongoing testimony. And as the Lord walks through the midst of the candlesticks, he observes. And sometimes I've seen those who are younger saying, well, I'm not a responsible person. I know things, yeah, but the older brothers are responsible if you know something, young person that needs to be addressed.
You are responsible. And I think it's good to realize we're all responsible. Some much more than others, like you were saying, but we're all responsible.
I'd like to suggest another consideration as to the angels. We notice whether in the beginning, when seven of them are mentioned, they're in the plural, but when it comes to each assembly, it's singular. It isn't the angels of the Church of Laodicea, but it's singular and characteristically of an Angel.
Is that he depicts?
A representation. So you have the thought of the Angel of the Lord he was in. Whenever they had that capacity, or they had the reflection of the mind of the Lord that they would be sent, an Angel of the Lord would come, and he would reflect the Lord's attitude at that time as the Lord's representative.
And so I would like to suggest that the Angel depicts a true representation of the assembly that it's spoken of as being the Angel of. And so the Angel of the church at Laodicea depicts the true condition of Laodicea as seen by. God might not have had that representation as seen by men.
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But as an Angel, he gives a very true, accurate representation of the assembly. And what I'm saying is, is that you look at the assembly at Addison and what does God see it?
How does he see it? How is it represented to God? Well, if it's a bad representation as this Angel to Laodicea, it depicts Laodicea, then the overcomer in that assembly must overcome that condition so that that Angel doesn't represent his state of soul. But I would like to suggest that it might possibly be.
Representing.
These true state.
Of each assembly as seen by God, not necessarily as seen by men, but as seen by God.
For the Lord in the midst of the seven churches.
How does that fit in with the fact that he holds the seven stars in his right hand? He has the seven stars in the first chapter.
Verse 16 He had in his right hand seven stars. In the 20th verse, Mystery of the Seven Stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.
Verse one of chapter 2 These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand.
The chapter 3 verse one these things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
I I still feel that they refer to the figurative representation of those held accountable in the Assembly for its state.
Now you're saying say that again.
I just was looking at them as representing the true state of each assembly.
But you're connecting it with responsible brothers and I I'm just connecting it with the assembly as a responsible light. They're giving this character instead of a true representation, but I submit.
That I think that's right too.
There's probably more to it than either one of us understands so.
I hope so.
We often make the raise the question when there is an assembly difficulty. Is the Lampstand still burning in that assembly? In other words, is the Lord in the midst? And it's interesting to me here that it says that.
In verse 20 of chapter one that you referred to the seven stars which thou source in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks, and that immediately brought to mind the thought was Laodicea, what we would call today a viable assembly if we think of it in that sense where the Lord was in the midst.
Well, I think you're.
Mixing the Lord in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, which is the Church testimony in this present period from the Apostolic days to the Rapture.
You're mixing that with being gathered to the Lord's name, according to Matthew 1820, and I don't think they're the same thing.
It's an interesting thing, that responsibility.
Lies with those that are responsible.
I'd like to read a scripture from the book of Judges, the second chapter of Judges.
The seventh verse and the people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua.
And all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel.
And Joshua the son of Nun died now the tenth verse. And there arose a generation which gathered under her father's narrows, another generation after them which knew not the Lord. Why?
Why? Because the generation of Joshua's time and the generation that followed, they walked with the Lord, but they did not walk in front of their children in such a way to cause them to walk with the Lord. They did not teach their children. So we may say, yes, everyone is responsible, and I believe that is true.
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But each and everyone of us that's older and has in some sense walked with the Lord. What have we done? How have we raised our children? How have we walked before the Saints in the assembly? How have we brought the truth of God before those that we are with that we're responsible for? You know, it's a serious thing to think that in the third generation after Joshua, they knew not the Lord. And so when we look at the Book of Revelation and.
The third chapter in Philadelphia.
And Laodicea.
You know, we have to think and hang our heads.
To think that that has been the result of unfaithfulness, later see as a result of unfaithfulness nothing else.
It's a rejection of the distinctive truths recovered at Philadelphia.
But like you say, Jackets. An extension of what?
After Philadelphia comes Laodicea, and it was such a remarkable movement of the Spirit of God in the last century. To simply open up those truths that were always there in the Scriptures were not new, but they had been lost to the enjoyment of God's people. And then they were recovered again. And it was such a remarkable move that the tendency was that all Christendom started noticing.
This group of people and associated thinking of associating with them, or their lack of association with them, and they became the object of attention instead of the Lord. And little by little we tend to be occupied with ourselves, what we are, what is our testimony, and it degenerates into Laodicea occupation with ourselves.
Brethren, it's the testimony of the Lord, not our testimony.
It's the Lord's table, not our table, And I think it's so important to keep that focus, right? That's the reference point, not us. And so often it seems like we go in cycles like the people of God in the book of Judges, where you have them stirred up in faith to lay hold of the inheritance that God had given them and remarkable deliverances.
And then they settled down into the enjoyment of what God had given them. Little by little, they settled down to the point where the enemy starts encroaching again until they're totally at the mercy of the enemy. Then again, God raises up those who, in faith, act before God and delivers the people of God. It's a cycle. It's a continual cycle. And we need to be exercised to walk in the truth of God. Otherwise we're going to lose it again, and that's what.
Why Leticia follows Philadelphia, and I really believe, brethren, if we can realize that if we become occupied with something that is merely outward with ourselves, with those that before were associated with those that were connected with Philadelphia, we will become Laodicea. And that certainly is most characteristic of the Christian testimony today, is Laodicea. Heartlessness is to Christ.
Indifference and lukewarmness. The Lord help us to be occupied with Christ and not with ourselves.
Like to suggest a simple thought. And why this has come to me is because I notice as I have read these passages, that every time I read verse 15 I read I know thy works, that thou art neither hot nor cold, and I had to catch myself and realize that's not the way it's stated. There are three conditions and I just want to say this simply. There's cold and there's hot and there's lukewarm and I would like to.
Certainly hear from our beloved brethren their thoughts, but at least this for our hearts. Beloved brethren, when we think of cold, we can sometimes, and rightfully so, associate lack of life with that. I don't want to be unseemly, but.
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A dead body is cold. We have weather coming, though. It doesn't seem like it, perhaps today, but there's going to be weather in these parts of the country that are going that's going to be very cold.
When it gets very cold, things don't grow. The grass is dead, The trees are dormant, They look dead. Things don't grow in the cold. There's no life.
Well, it's not hot or cold, but it's cold or hot, because if it's cold, there's no life. I want to just say that God, I want to be very careful with this, but that's a condition that he can work with, that he can bring life into that condition. That's what he's done with each one of us. We were dead in trespasses and in sins. And by his spirit he worked in marvelous grace, and he brought life.
And I would suggest in the application I'm making that that would be hot. There's life. Lukewarm. Well, beloved brother for my soul that's saying, as you mentioned the word, it's saying I don't care.
It's, if I can say it in this way very carefully, it's the world saying as it thinks about Christ, it's Christians, those who bear the name of Christ, those who ought to be walking with him in joy and in a display of life, not a display of death. Saying it's no big deal. It's indifference. And that's what this world as a Christian world says. And beloved young people, beloved brethren. That's what happens when I don't walk by faith, when I don't walk in a present sense and consciousness.
Of my beloved Savior who died on the cross for me, who gave everything for me.
And I begin to walk in that spirit of I don't care. It doesn't mean anything.
That's lukewarm, and it's such a solemn thing. Think of the Lord Jesus as saying I'd rather.
That it be cold. That there be no evidence of life at all.
Or hot, but it is nauseous to him. He spews it out of his mouth.
That condition of lukewarmness all beloved brethren, may we seek in grace.
The face of our blessed Lord Jesus to be stirred up, that we never allow morally in our walk and in our ways the attitude or the spirit of saying, I don't care.
We've seen it. We've seen an illustration of that in the political arena when the impeachment of President Clinton was in process. We've seen that the lukewarm, nauseous condition that the Lord says he'll spew out of his mouth is what characterized the majority of American people. They don't care. So what if he did these things?
So what? That was their attitude and.
What a state this country is in. Well, this isn't talking about the political arena. This is talking about the Church of God. And it's worse there, isn't it, When there's that kind of an attitude, Far worse when Christians have that kind of an attitude?
The focus in these seven churches that it is the candlesticks. It's the public testimony down here that the Lord Jesus is walking in the midst of and viewing and judging, and there are those in these connected with these.
Seven churches that are not really saved at all and will go on into the Tribulation.
Believe it's right to say in chapter in connection with Philadelphia verse 10 that all true believers will go on the Rapture. But I remember Brother Lundin speaking about.
Sardis and it talks about the coming and he talks about coming as a thief that is at the end of the tribulation and he made the comment Sardis will go on till the end of the tribulation.
Because he comes as a thief there another one in Thyatira, he says. I will throw those who commit fornication with Jezebel into great tribulation. They're going to go into tribulation. And then there's this spewing out of his mouth. When does that happen? It's the public disowning of what is not according to his mind after the rapture.
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Of what remains of the false church is going to disown it publicly. That's the spewing out. Is that right?
Just said that leads people. I agree with what you just said. That leads people to say that at the Rapture, only certain ones that are really Philadelphians will go, and then the ones that are just Sardis, they'll come, they'll go at the end and so on. You're talking about the system that that has a real and unreal there, all who are real. No matter which one of the churches they're in, they'll go at the Rapture, they'll be taken to heaven. That's what we were explaining before you agree with that and you're talking about after the Rapture. Christians, Christians, nominal Christians will still go to church on Sunday.
There'll still be sermons preached and so on. How long that will go on, we don't know. But Christianity won't be overthrown instantly. But it won't take very long because all the true believers will be gone, so there won't be anything here to hold them there. The Spirit of God will be gone as the Constitutor of the Christian testimony, so that will be given up pretty fast. And that's called the apostasy.
Rather than to consider the way lukewarmness or is manifested in our day. And that is through saying that everybody is right, Nobody's wrong.
In the differences that have come in in Christendom, what that does in principle is it leaves the Lord out because the Lord is the head of the Church. And when if we agree to disagree and say everybody's right or that we agree, we won't.
Face certain issues that leaves the Lord outside because he's head of the church.
And what do we have without him? And so it's an indirect way, or maybe not so indirect, but it leaves the Lord outside, and that's why it's nauseous to him. I just call that the tension, because I think we're being attacked on that front today in agreeing to disagree about fundamental principles, which in essence leaves the Lord outside.
They always say. But you bigoted Christians?
You're not right. They won't have us as being right.
That's exactly where you find the Lord Jesus in these churches. Verse 20 is outside a closed door.
In the first six assemblies addressed by the Lord, they listen, but they don't answer.
The 7th and land to see us. They answer back. They tell the Lord, but they are.
There's a tremendous lesson, isn't there, in that when the Lord speaks to us, our place is to listen and to hear what he says. And can I say keep our mouth shut. It's a very dangerous thing to hear us individually or collectively, speak about what we are practically, practically before God. It's one thing to speak about what the Lord has done, but when we start speaking about ourselves, collectively or individually?
We need to be careful. The Lord speaks here to them and they respond. They say, oh, I'm rich, and I'm this and I'm that. And there's a tremendous lesson for us in that. I believe that Laodicea is morally the same picture that is seen in Malachi.
And in Malachi there is an insensitivity to what the Lord has to say.
There's even an incapacity to listen and understand it. They speak about themselves and what they were and what they thought about themselves, to the point where they were not even did not even have a hearing ear when the Lord spoke to them. And so they would say to them, well, we're in Hast thou loved us when the Lord spoke to them? There was no response from the heart as to what the Lord was having to say to them. And I think this lukewarmness is characterized by that insensitivity.
Which is in my own soul at least connected again with what we said in First Second Corinthians 5 about new creation. That's this chapter in which the words of the Lord are the love of Christ constraineth us, and those words are given in connection with new creation, or the beginning of the creation of God, which is seen here. And there can be a state into which we enter that produces in us a lukewarmness toward the Lord when we are no longer walking in fellowship with Him in such a way.
00:45:10
That we are constrained by His love, and consequently we are not drawn.
Were cold or lukewarm to himself and his that attractive power which is in himself toward us. And so he has to turn around and use that love that no longer constrains us to rebuke and chastise us.
Would you suggest to go on to verse 18 and tell us your thoughts on these things? The Lord counsels them to buy of Him.
Not indicate if they had to buy this of him that they didn't have it. And if they didn't have those three things, does that not indicate they were lost? Would you?
No, I just did. I just did. But I want to hear your thoughts. What you just said was so excellent. Well, Chuck came beyond the very beginning of the 18th verse. When he says, I counsel thee to me, it's the insensitivity to the Lord that he has to get to the point where he can, only as it were at first. When he spoke to them, they listened. At least they didn't respond. We assume they listen. But finally it comes to this final condition of soul and of the collective testimony.
That characterizes Christendom today, and I hope we don't take ourselves out of it. I'll make this comment. It's not an answer to what Chuck says, but it's very strong in my soul. Malachi represents a later stage of soul of the Saints, which were gathered back to Jerusalem. They were, if I could use a parallel expression.
The Saints and Malachi were the gathered Saints of that day, and their Philadelphia seen in Ezra and Nehemiah had become Laodicean in Malachi. And consequently, I believe when the Lord speaks to us this afternoon, he wants us to listen and not respond but rather say if he says to us, I counsel you, then let's take the Council.
But you go ahead and explain the point.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire. Gold is divine righteousness. If you don't have that, you're lost.
That thou mayest be rich and white raiment. That thou mayest be clothed. The white raiment is the righteousnesses of the Saints that's produced by a divine life that one has. And if they don't have that righteousness produced in their life, they don't have a life.
And I said that should read to anoint thine eyes that thou mayest see The eye, sav, is the Holy Spirit. It's a little bit obscured in our King James. It says anoint thine eyes with ice. And it really is. I counseled either by of me gold white raiment, and I salve to anoint thine eyes that Almeis see. Well, if one doesn't have the Holy Spirit, he's not saved. Now is there a legitimate? My question is this is there a legitimate application?
Of the gold, the white raiment, and the ISAF to true believers who are in this Laodicean state. And I ask that because the next verse he says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chase it. That indicates to me that there were those there who were real, though they were in Laodicea. The zealots, therefore in repent. Now he's calling upon Saints. I would take it from that verse to repent of the state they were in.
In other words, verse 18.
In Edward Dennett's exposition of this passage, he makes Laodicea to be modernism.
And it certainly fits. But.
I don't, I don't know. So that's the proper interpretation. It's it's probably one that's legitimate. But what Don just said certainly is commendable that.
Malachi, the same group that returned the days of Ezra Nehemiah, and that's the state they fell into. So by analogy I would say.
The state that you see depicted in Laodicea was once Philadelphia.
That's why I mentioned before Jack and I I don't know. It's helped me a bit to understand. It's not the body of Christ that is addressed in these seven churches. It's not what is inward and vital, it's what is outward and connects itself with the testimony. And he looks at them and he says, what I see, I don't see the marks of reality. And if it is so that you haven't reality in your souls before God.
00:50:23
You need to buy that gold. You need to have that. I salve to anoint your eyes with, but a Christian can get so.
Far down in its testimony at times that it's almost you can't distinguish him, and only we can say the Lord knows them that are His. But what he's addressing is what is outwardly representing him here in this world, and this is what he sees in Laodicea.
So it's not so much a matter of inward vitality, it's a matter of outward testimony. That's the way I see it and seem to fit more in that picture. Bob is to support that in every church. He says, I know thy works. He's not talking about their heart, but the way they are proceeding through this scene. So I think that substantiates your thought fully.
Well, I guess there's an example, isn't there?
In the Old Testament, who would have ever looked at Lot and said he was a righteous man? But in Peter it says he vexed his righteous soul from day-to-day. Outwardly he looked like anyone else in Sodom, but before the Lord, the Lord knew his heart, so he records it. And that's true of you and me and but I believe the whole emphasis here is let us demonstrate the fact that we are a Christian.
Let's not go on like Laodicean and be questioned as to whether we know the Lord or not.
I think it's interesting that we demonstrate a fact that we are a Christian.
Don't we have a similarity to this? In the 25th of Matthew, the Lord of the next attendance virgins were five wise 5 fools. They all have the lamps of profession. They all look to like for what they do. They were small, sleeping well. There were five that had soils in their land and had the spirit of God, and they were ready. Others were not. But the five without the oil were lost. They were. They didn't. They didn't go in.
They were lost and that's really my question.
If you I think what Mr. Dennett says.
Is is is not the way we should interpret it? Because that would lead me to say, well, Laodicea is modernism. I'm not a modernist, I'm not a Laodicea, so I'm off the hook.
Family which says, Because thou has kept the word of my people, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation. The only one who will enjoy that statement is one who is at walking in fellowship with the Lord.
And you take what the Spirit of God is, taking the force of the word of God and applying it to the soul and conscience.
And if I am insensitive to it, I will not get the benefit from it. It's not a doctrinal statement of who's going to be taken or not taken at the rapture.
We have verses in 1St and 2nd Thessalonians that give us really the doctrine that we call the Rapture.
But here it is addressed to people to try the state in which they are or to tell them that. And the one that responds to it and says, I'm not going to go through the tribulation, is the one who is in fellowship with the Lord. There may be and there will be. There are many true believers today who think they are going through the tribulation. That is the state in which they are in their understanding or in their walk, that they do not enjoy this verse and its application to themselves.
And I think in Laodicea it's a similar thing. There are many places in scripture where the Spirit of God addresses us in our moral state at that point and intends us to feel the voice of the Spirit to our own conscience. And we in turn try to make sometimes doctrine out of things and say this is believers or this is unbelievers. And consequently we look at Scripture and we're really trying to say, well, this applied to us or no, this is applied to somebody else.
When in fact, the Spirit of God is seeking to reach our own conscience where we are morally.
00:55:01
At that point, and I believe in the sense of what you're saying, Chuck, that verse 18 is not really intended for us to try to separate between believers and unbelievers, but it is the spirit of God addressing us.
To our state. And there will be a response in the soul that answers to that. And if we are lukewarm, the Lord says, I counsel you to cause me gold tried in the fire, because we can lose the complete understanding, or more seriously, the appreciation in the soul, the effect in the soul of truth, that we may hold doctrinally.
Very good. Excellent question.
The application of the court.
In the reference to the goal that he counsels them to buy and what it really means.
Would we say?
God, I'm reading from the new translation, Mr. Darby's translation.
Would we say God's divine righteousness was purified by fire?
I think not.
I think the Spirit of God is careful, you know.
He'll have this hope in him, purifies himself not as he is purified, but as he is pure. My my point being, divine righteousness, I wouldn't need to be purified by fire, but.
There is an aspect of our faith that is tried by fire and.
Dross is eliminated in our lives and what I would like to suggest.
There is a riches that God has for his own, in contrast to what they thought they had. They said I'm growing rich. Well, the Lord said, if you really want to be rich, you'll have to buy of me gold that's purified by fire.
Their goal? That they had enriched themselves with so far from being.
Something that God was interested in purifying.
It caused them to settle down in their riches in absolute ease. Their condition is what every one of us here is natural men would desire to have. The whole world is been on.
What they call Social Security. And having no need in this world, we do everything we can to provide for all of our own riches for our security. But the Lord has a true riches that.
When he sees our desire and our movement to buy it, he purifies it, and he takes an interest in it. And then he goes on, and he chases those whom he loves for the purpose of enriching them even greater with gold that he purifies in our lives. I I ask that in a question, or as more as a consideration.
But I don't think divine righteousness is purified.
Seems to me that in light of what you say, Henry, that it puts a special.
Light on us who live in prosperous lands, we can say that there is perhaps not been a civilization that has been prospered economically like we have been.
And it tends to make us complacent and indifferent. And I think we need to realize, brethren, that the majority of Christians in this world live in difficult circumstances. Many parts of the world, Christians are persecuted severely, some put to death. Believers put to death every day according to what is reported and.
In other lands where there's poverty, it's a real discipline struggle. Life is a struggle. From the first moment of birth on, it's a struggle. And we have plenty in this land and we feel in a major complacency, and it's a special voice to me. Does that mean the Lord can't get through to us brethren? It seems like younger and younger brethren are being afflicted with cancer.
01:00:10
Is that no voice to us? Is it not he that's standing there saying please wake up, listen.
I I really feel that there's a voice the Lord has something to say to us, and He wants us to be awakened as never before. We're right on the edge of the moment. We're going to be called into eternal glory. And I just believe, brethren, that it's going to be like it was in the days of.
Of Malachi, that state of things, that indifference seemed to permeate those people until the Lord actually came. And when the Lord actually came, there were just a few that were alert enough, awake enough to recognize him. We have the names of six of them, and we know there are a few others, but the majority of that nation had no idea that the Messiah had come.
Absolutely asleep. And will it be the same for his second coming? Or is it the Lord speaking to us in a very distinct way by the trials He's allowing amongst us? He's rebuking, He's chastening because he loves us. The Lord give us brethren ears to hear.
It's nice to connect.
What I have suggested with the assembly at Smyrna, that's the other assembly that the Lord doesn't find fault with. And it's such a vivid contrast to Laodicea, he says invert and again I'm reading from Mr. Darby's translation in verse nine. I know thy poverty, but thou art rich. Then he goes down and says.
The devil is about to cast a view into prison that ye may be tried.
And ye shall have tribulation 10 days, but be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of light.
That where there is the movement in our hearts to what is of God.
Accompanying that is not going to be eased. You know, the great sweeping and Christian profession is that Christianity and following Christ should be the equivalent of being prosperous. That's the legacy of that's how the Church ends its days characterized by prosperity, and they are promoting it. If you're faithful to the Lord, you should be able to make millions. Well, it's such a contradiction to the ways of God.
So if we pursue.
What God values his goal, He's going to try it, and not for the purpose of discouraging us, but to enrich us and further enrich us in divine things and values.
Would like to say too, I don't know whether I should say it is interpretation or application of it, but we can look at the word rich here in a totally different perspective than materially Rich.
There is such a thing as saying I am spiritually rich and be very poor. When the state of the heart doesn't answer to the truth professed, it very often leaves the soul miserable.
As he goes on to describe their state, he says, Thou art wretched and miserable, and poor and blind and naked. And when we are exposed to the greatest truths of God, perhaps passed on from our forefathers to us, and we know them in our minds and intellectually embrace them, but they are not the reality of our everyday life. It very often produces in the soul misery.
And so we may say, as we look, can I say intellectually at some other believer.
And look at ourselves in comparison to that person and we say I'm rich, I've got everything.
I have the sense of where the Lord is in the midst. I have this. I have that. I know about the Rapture.
01:05:00
I know that I'm eternally safe and we start to enumerate doctrines that we know.
But if they are not, the present reality lived out in the soul, can I say if the love of Christ is not?
Day by day, constraining our hearts practically. If we are truly lukewarm, then our lives, often inside, are miserable.
Even though we say I am rich. And so it's a tremendous counseling of the Lord that we might have in reality, in our souls in an everyday sense, the gold, the white raiment that characterizes a life lived in fellowship with the Lord, in holiness and in separation from evil. But if those things are not a present reality with us, then we must stop and listen to the Lord.
And recognize that maybe why some of us don't choose to go on in the things of the Lord in reality is because of this very state of heart that we have the state of our souls, because we're not really walking in the present enjoyment of the effect that doctrine, the truth should have practically upon my soul.
If we don't walk practically, and what we doctrinely profess to walk in, then the self justification has to take place to to to to justify our position of why we do walk the way we do. And instead of our position being what the Lord has made us, what do we have in Christianity, brethren, it's only what we have from the Lord. And if we don't walk in that, then we lose the sense practically of the Lord.
Justifying and giving us that gold and then we start to justify ourselves that we got the gold.
And the Lord gets left outside and it's a very sad predicament. And I think that's why I really appreciate the comment, Chuck, that you made about how Laodicea must follow Philadelphia testimony. You got to you have to have that that position that Philadelphia would bring you in before you you claim it for your own and and walk but without the real practical walk and brethren if we don't walk in the truth that we.
We profess we really don't have it, we don't have it and we've only got it intellectually. If we don't walk in it, we're not enjoying it.
And therefore the justifying Well, the Lord is so wonderful to tell us where to go back to, to get the gold. Go back to him. He's got it. He wants to give it.
What number?
Leprosy
Children—T. Roach
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Learn who want to come up towards the front. You're more than welcome. There's chairs here.
Does anybody have a song they like to start out singing this morning? Oh, what would you say, the wise man?
What number is the wise man?
I don't know if it's in here, but we can sing it anyway. The wise man built his house.
The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock. And the rain came tumbling down. The rain came down, and the flood came up. The rains came down, and the floods came up. The rain came down and the flood came up, and the house on the.
Rust stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand so we can build his house upon his hands. The golden sand fell in his house apart from the sand. And the rain came from the police and down. The rain came down and the flood came up. The rain came down as the floods came up, the rain came down and the bus came up.
And the house on the van thrilled.
Your eyes upon the water against the rise, against the gods.
Of times around for the victims of rock and the flesh, things were just from God.
You will be safe. When you judgment comes, you will be saved when the judgment comes, When it comes, you will be saved.
The child has been if you fail.
A couple different.
Ways to sing that last verse. So I think we did pretty good. Someone else have a song we'd like to sing this young boy.
Jesus loves me first and last. Jesus loves me. This I know.
Yes, she's transplanted. Yes, she is my classmate.
Yeah.
It is I practice being sure that I believe will take me all my time.
Yeah, I speak by the life of me.
Yeah.
I'm proud to make it so.
Boys, no a girl have a song they'd like to sing.
And here's a little girl #9.
OK, we'll sing the first verse in the chorus of #9.
Come.
On.
00:05:01
We like to sing.
I'm sorry.
What song do you like?
Do you know what the number is in the other book?
When he comes #47.
When?
Like the stars of the morning.
It is bright.
Does anybody have a song, boy or girl?
Kyle.
#25
OK, we'll sing the first verse of #25.
Life.
#41
OK, we'll sing the first and last of #41.
00:10:10
Kids are doing very good singing up here this morning.
Anybody else have a song? No. Here's one right down here, 2434.
Precious. Precious.
Already speak to me.
And for one or two more.
This young man, 3939.
You'll sing the first and last of #39.
Thank God in prayer.
Thank you.
Girl over here had a song.
#5
OK, we'll see the first and last of #5.
Oh, happy.
Now rest my heart.
00:15:00
Based on that.
Northern Ireland, thy Lord be father, who answered my breath of dreamers of death.
Our God and Father, we just give thanks that we can come here this morning and sing these hymns and praises to and about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank the Lord Jesus for coming into this world and dying on the cross, making it possible for us to enter into the presence of God.
We just ask for each of the children here this morning who have heard the gospel many times.
Perhaps this morning someone would realize their need of a savior.
We just commit this time, and so thy hand, Lord Jesus, and thy name we pray. Amen.
I want to read a story this morning in Matthew chapter 5. It's a short little story.
And it's a man that was a leper.
I'm sorry, Matthew, Chapter 8.
Matthew chapter 8 and verse one.
When he was come down, this is the Lord Jesus they're speaking about. When the Lord Jesus, when he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him, and behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean, And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
And Jesus saith unto him.
See that Tell no man but go thy way, and show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them.
The first first we read talks about the Lord Jesus when he was come down from the mountain here. This little Lord Jesus came down from the mountain to see a man who is in need.
And that reminds me of the Lord Jesus who came down from heaven. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And each of these boys and girls I see sitting here on the front row and this front row, and the ones in the middle and the ones in the back, Everybody's a Sinner. And the Lord Jesus came down from heaven all the way from heaven into this world because he loves you.
Lord Jesus came down.
He went down South low. He became obedient unto death.
Even the death of the cross, the Lord Jesus was willing to hang there on the cross.
Because he loved you.
Then it says about the leper here, says behold there came a leper and worship the Lord.
Saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
Leprosy.
Is a disease, a disease that eats away at your flesh and your flesh start, your hands and fingers start to rot.
And eventually they'll fall off.
And it'll keep eating away at your arm until your arm falls off and leprosy.
Will eat away at you until it kills you, and it's a picture of sin.
That's kind of hard to understand, that a leprosy is a picture of sin.
What does it mean when we say it's a picture of something? If I if I had a picture of a house with some trees?
And green grass and a lake behind it. You'd be able to see it's a picture. It's not really a house, it's not really a lake.
But it's a picture of a lake, a picture of a house. Well, this is kind of a word picture of what sin is. Leprosy. Sin eats away at us. When I when I work, sometimes I clean carpets and sometimes we get a stain that won't come out. Doesn't matter what we try. So I have some chemicals that I can mix. I pour a little bit into a container from this bottle and a little bit into a container from this bottle, and it makes a.
00:20:21
Another kind of chemical and you pour it on the stain.
And you leave it there for about a whole day, 24 hours, and it starts eating away at the stain.
And sooner and after about 24 hours the stain disappears. But you know if you get some of that. I had a lady working for me and she got some on her fingers and about 5 minutes later she comes to me and says look at my fingers and they were all bubbled and and blistered and they're starting to melt. That chemical would eat away. She went and washed her hands so it wouldn't wouldn't make her fingers rot anymore.
They healed up OK, but if you stuck your hand in that chemical for too long, it would eat your hand away.
And that's what sin does. It eats away at your heart and boys and girls when you're little.
We sorry when when you're little.
Little things like disobeying your mom and dad, maybe telling a lie. These things are dirty things and they're sin and they eat away at us. And the next time it's easier for you to tell a bigger lie or another lie, or or disobey your mom again and again. So sin is something that's dirty. Leprosy makes us dirty. Sin makes us dirty in the presence of God.
We're told that all our good things that we do, all our righteousness is Who here does good things for their mom or dad? For friends at school? Anybody ever do something good for a friend at school?
Yeah, or we help our mom with the dishes. Or we help them fold the laundry. That's a good thing. But if you're not a Christian, if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, all the good things that you do could be sin.
All our righteousnesses are filthy rags. We can't get to heaven. We can't please the Lord.
Just by the things we do, the Lord Jesus wants our hearts and the Lord and the Lord Jesus says here in verse, let's read verse two. There was a leper that said, Lord, if thou wilt, thou can make me clean.
Now this leprosy. If I were to touch somebody who is a leper, I would get leprosy. I would start to get sick and I would my my hands would start to rot and I would. That's how sin is. If one boy or girl does something naughty and another boy or girl sees him do that and that if you get away with it, then other kids are going to try to do the same thing and sin effects everybody.
And so leprosy the Lord Jesus.
Who is walking by? And this man asked the Lord if he would. If you want to, you can make me clean.
But if the Lord touched him, he would be contaminated. He would get dirty too, and this man knew that, so he didn't think the Lord would touch him.
Have you boys, You boys and girls, your mom and dad like to touch you and hold you on their knee, put their arm around you, maybe hold your hand when you go for a walk. People like to be touched and felt, and it makes us feel like we're cared for. Well, this man, he had leprosy and nobody was able to touch him. He had to go out.
Many times back in in the Old Testament when they had leprosy, they had to go out and away from everybody and say unclean, unclean. When anybody came near, they had to say they were, they were dirty and they weren't allowed to touch anybody. I had a when we were in school, you know how kids sometimes make fun of people? But we had this one girl in our school in about third grade and she was a different nationality. So because of that.
People made fun of her and they called her Knob and he could touch them. If she touched you or you bumped into her, then you. They thought they were dirty. So in order to get rid of it, you touch somebody else and say knob germs and they cross their fingers and so they couldn't get it back. That was cruel. That was cruel. That girl, she felt sad because nobody cared for her.
00:25:09
And that's what sin is like. It makes us dirty. And we can't come into God's presence in our sin. You boys and girls, you like to go to heaven. You like to be with the Lord Jesus. Your mom and dad are going to go to heaven, and you want to be there with them. But if your sin, if you have sinned, if you've never repented.
You're dirty and you can't come into God's presence because God is holy, and I know you've learned that verse.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God is holy and he has glory and you have come. You can't measure, you can't reach up to God's holiness. You can't be good enough for God.
So the Lord Jesus came down into the world to save.
Sinners.
And my grandfather told me this story about when he lived in Hawaii the the Hawaiian government tried to.
Get rid of the word leprosy. And they called it Hansen's disease. So they put it in the newspaper and they would say Hansen's disease when they talked about the disease. But next to it they put in brackets, they put leprosy. So it didn't matter how hard they tried to get away from leprosy.
Leprosy was still leprosy, and it still got people dirty.
Well, boys and girls, sin is sin and it doesn't matter what. Sometimes people say. Oh, he that that wasn't sin. He did that because he has a disease. Maybe he he has mental or emotional problems. We can fix that. That wasn't Stan. But it doesn't matter what man calls sin.
We're still sinners before God.
So this man was a leper and didn't matter what he did, but the Lord Jesus reached forth and he touched the man, and that man felt like he was being cared for.
And when you when you when you boys and girls sin, the Lord Jesus wants to reach out and touch you and heal you and make you clean.
Sometimes boys and girls like to disobey their mom. Or if we're busy reading a book or busy playing a game and our mom or dad asked us come here and we pretend like we don't hear them, that's disobedience. I was in a store the other day and the little boy was with his dad and they were going to buy some hockey, hockey equipment. And the little boy was looking at the equipment and the father said, come here son, let me try this, these shoulder pads on you.
And little boy says no, they're too small. I'm not coming, the father said. Come here son, we're going to try it on and see if it fits, The little boy said. No, I'm not coming. It's too small.
By this time, everybody in the store was looking at them.
And when the boy wouldn't come, I could see the father wanted to spank that son right there. But he looked around to see if anybody was looking and everybody was looking. And the little boy.
Went to one side of the store. He wasn't going to try it on and the father was very upset. So he put down the equipment and walked to the other side of the store to try to cool down. So I went up into that boy and I said to that boy, if you were my son, you would never play hockey again. And that boy, he got scared like maybe he wouldn't be able to play hockey.
Pep Boy was disobedient and maybe you think, oh, I'm not that bad, I wouldn't do that.
But when you But when you ignore your mom or dad, when they say to come here, or they say to don't do that and you do it anyway, that's sin. And you're just as bad as that little boy who wouldn't do what his dad told him to do.
Sin is very dirty.
When we disobey God.
In verse four it says.
Well, the end of verse three says that immediately when the Lord Jesus touched that man, his leprosy was cleansed. And when the Lord Jesus touches you when you come to him and repent for of your sins, when you tell the Lord Jesus I'm a Sinner and I deserve to go to hell.
In the Lord Jesus.
He will take you into his arms, he says. Come unto me, I love you.
00:30:03
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. The Lord Jesus wants to save you.
And he says, Here, see, thou tell no man, but go thy way, and show thyself to the priest.
See if we tell the Lord Jesus told this man, don't tell any man they can't help you but go to the priest. And that's what it is like for for you as a boy or a girl. When you when you sin, you don't go tell your mom or your dad about the bad things you do, although they would like to hear too. But that doesn't get you to heaven. If you want to be saved, you have to tell the Lord Jesus that you're a Sinner. The Lord Jesus is our high priest and we can go to him and tell him about what we do.
You boys and girls have heard the gospel lots of times. I remember when I was in when I was about your age. I lived up in Nova Scotia and my dad and Mr. Berry. They had a Gospel 10 and I heard the gospel probably 40 times a week. Bible readings after breakfast, Bible readings after lunch, Bible readings at night before we went to bed.
They had We had gospel meetings for the children in the morning and Gospel meeting in the afternoon for the young people in a gospel meeting at night.
And I heard the gospel about 40 times a week, every day, all summer long, for about 8 weeks.
So I heard the gospel many, many times.
So I knew how to get saved. I knew all the memory verses I knew the answers to all the questions.
But I wasn't saved. I didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior. But I knew how to live like a Christian. I knew how to act. I knew the things to say. And I'm sure you, you boys and girls, I see a lot of you. You're pretty good kids, and you know how to act and do what your mom and dad tell you to.
But are you saved?
I know, I know one story about one little boy. He used to disobey his mom and dad. His name was Teddy and he disobeyed his mommy and daddy a lot. And he started looking at some bad magazines and found things in them and he started doing some of those bad things that he saw in those magazines. And he disobeyed the the law and he did bad things. And he captured people. He kidnapped them.
And he took them away, and he hurt them, And then he killed them and Teddy.
He grew up in a Christian home, just like you. He grew up in a Christian home and he knew the verses and he knew how to get saved.
But he he rejected it. He he went and he killed many, I don't know, 20-30 people.
And finally, they caught Teddy one day.
And they put him in jail and they made a special chair for Teddy.
And they sat him down in this chair and they hooked up a bunch of wires to the chair and all of a sudden Teddy was dead. It was an electric chair. And they shot Teddy till he died because they didn't want him going out killing any more people.
We're told in Hebrews 9 and 27.
He said it is appointed unto man or boys and girls once to die. Everybody's going to die once if the Lord Jesus doesn't come first to take us home to be with him, but after death, the judgment. Some people think that when they die, that's the end. But it's not the end. That's only the beginning of judgment. Just like Teddy, he he got judged for what he did and now Teddy's dead. And I don't know, I hope Teddy got saved before he died.
But I don't know. And I'm afraid that somebody here, one of you boys or girls, I see you sitting, looking, maybe thinking, when is this going to be over?
But I'm afraid there might be somebody here that's grown up in a Christian home.
And doesn't know the Lord Jesus as your savior. Just like Teddy, you grew up.
And we as Christian parents, we sometimes assume, oh, they look so nice. You act so nice, you must be a Christian.
I urge you, don't don't play with your life like that. The Lord Jesus, he wants you to come to him. He loves you. He died for you so you don't have to experience the judgment and punishment.
00:35:12
Of hell.
There was a there was a man many years ago and he heard that there was gold in Australia. So this man, he went and got on a big boat and went over to Australia and he went in the gold fields and he found lots and lots of gold. And after a couple years he was very rich. He had lots of gold, but he was going to then get on the ship and go back home. But he couldn't carry all this gold. He had so much of it.
So he went and bought a very large diamond. Now diamonds cost a lot, a lot of money. It cost him a lot of gold to get this one diamond. And this was a beautiful diamond. And when he held it up in the air, the sun shone on it and colors and it reflected things very beautifully. And he would like to throw it up in the air and catch it and watch the sun reflect off this diamond.
And he was on the ship one day and some of the passengers saw him doing this, and he said, you shouldn't do that, you're going to lose that overboard one day, she said. Oh no, I'll never drop that. But one day he threw it up in the air and was admiring all the pretty colors and boom, a wave hit the side of the ship and that.
Diamond fell overboard, went down to the bottom of the ocean. He lost it.
And you say, Oh my, that man, he was foolish to do that, foolish to juggle that diamond in the air, and he lost it. He lost his whole life savings by one moment of foolishness. And I agree with you, he was foolish. But is he any more foolish than you, boys and girls, if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your savior, any more foolish than you when you sit in in the Sunday school every week at home and you hear the gospel?
But you see.
I must be OK.
I'm doing OK. I always, every night when I when I was a boy, about your age.
I would pray at night, I said. Lord Jesus, if I'm not saved, save me.
But I never realized that I had to repent and turn away from my sins. And we're told that many will say to the Lord Jesus, Lord, Lord, but the Lord Jesus won't hear him. He won't hear you if you don't know him as your Lord and Savior, if you come and repent to him.
Then the Lord Jesus.
Will hear you. Well, when I finally did get saved, I had been telling people for so long that I was saved, that I was embarrassed to tell somebody that I would, that I had just gotten saved. But about a week after that, my oldest sister, she asked me, are you saved? And I said yes. I just got saved a week ago.
And that gave me such relief. I was so glad that I was able to tell somebody. And the Lord Jesus wants you to tell somebody that you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. And it will give you a peace. And it will help you realize that I am saved. I do know the Lord Jesus as my savior.
There's a verse in Romans 10 and 9 says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
And shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Thou shalt be saved. There's no question you will be saved if you believe. Now I want to. I want to ask for five volunteers to come up and and quote that verse for us. We're not going to say the the memory verse. I'm not sure what it is, but if I can have five people come up and stand up together so you're not all by yourself.
Umm, if I can have five volunteers to come and quote that verse if you know it, who? Who knows? Romans 10/9.
This young man. OK, you can come up. Can I have four more people? OK. This girl.
You can come up. Anybody else know? Romans 10 and nine? OK, this girl.
And if you don't think you know it, I'll help you a little bit too. OK, we got four. We need one more person. How about another boy?
00:40:01
How about another girl?
OK, you want to say the verse 2, OK.
If you can come, if you can come up here, you want to you say the verse? If so shall consensus. I'm also Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be seized. Romans 10/9 Very good.
May not you I'll tell you what it is shall confess this with thy mouth that is a mouth the Lord Jesus.
And shall believe in thine heart based on your heart God hath raised.
From the dead?
Social.
Say Romans.
9.
Sasha, please send her if that should confess.
With thy mouth the Lord Jesus, the God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved from the sin. 9 If thou shalt believe in my heart that if thou shalt confess with my thou north or Jesus, and believe in thy heart, that God is saying from the dead, that shall be saved from the South, shall believe in their heart and.
Confessed to them.
Believe in that heart and believe in my heart that God has to reach him from the dead.
Don't shall be saved tonight. Very good. Thank. Thank you very much. Look at that. It was kind of nervous and hard to talk up in front of people. I know how you feel.
I but you boys and girls, know, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Confess, believe and repent. If you tell the Lord Jesus someone that you know the Lord is your savior if you ask the Lord Jesus to.
Wash you from your sins. You shall be saved. You can never lose your salvation. There's another verse in John 316. How much time do I have? Okay. Almost done.
I'll quote this one rather than get more people to say it, 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. Everlasting life is something that never ends. If the if you get saved and you have it, you will never lose your salvation. Sometimes people think we can lose our salvation if we do bad things. But the Lord Jesus he says you shall never perish. There's a one verse I want to turn to in John 10:00 and 9:00.
That in verse 26 or verse 27 and it talks about.
Considers us as sheep when we know the Lord Jesus. My sheep hear my voice and I know them.
And they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hands.
The Lord Jesus, we are so safe in the Lord Jesus hands.
That we cannot be lost. I have a 50 Cent piece right in my hand here. It's called a half dollar and if I hold that in my hand, do you think you could get that out of my hand?
Does anybody want to try?
You want to try.
OK, how about you get somebody else to help you?
Anybody else want to help them?
You better get two or three at once to help. Come on, you better help too.
Come on, you can help too. OK, try harder.
You better get a couple more people up here.
Look, they can't. They can't get it out.
It's safe in my hand.
So they're trying hard too. OK, you can sit down now.
Look at that, they They gave up. They didn't keep trying.
And that's just like the Lord Jesus. When you're saved and you're in the hands of the Father, and you're in the hands of the Lord Jesus, no one can get you out of his hands. And nobody in this room can get it out of my hand unless they're stronger than me. And the Lord Jesus has you in his hands. The Father has you in his hands.
00:45:12
And there are no stronger hands in the universe. No one can take you out of the Father's hands, even your own self. You can't do anything to lose your eternal life. Eternal life is something that continues on forever. It doesn't stop and start and stop and start.
We're out of time, so.
Let's let's just ask Lords our.
Overcomer, Fasting
Open—R. Thonney, M. Vedder
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 go back to.
Revelation 3, where we kind of left off in our readings to tie two thoughts together that I.
Are very important for our day.
We got down, I think, to verse 19 of chapter 3.
I'd like to read the rest of the chapter. Verse 20 on Behold I stand at the door.
And knock if any man.
Hear my voice and open the door. I will come in to him and will Sup with him and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my father.
In his throne he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
What was brought out in the meetings, I thought was especially.
Something that we need to consider, brethren, overcoming is an individual thing.
And so the word to the overcomer is a word that we, each one of us, need to take to ourselves. Don't point the finger in any other direction. Let the word search our own hearts. And when you get to verse 20, as was mentioned yesterday, the Lord Jesus is on the outside of a closed door. What a sad state of affairs.
In this assembly of Laodicea and he's knocking. What grace to wait. You know, if somebody would put me out of their house and close the door.
I don't know if I'd wait there and keep on knocking, but here he is, still knocking.
And the word is if any man hear my voice and they just want to call attention to the fact that it is individual, He doesn't say if you all inside there can hear my voice. No, he says if any man individual hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him individual and will Sup with him individual and he.
00:05:22
Individual with me. So it's a matter of a call to you and I individually to go on in these last days that Christian testimony here in this world is a matter where we must understand that it is individual faith exercised in a living God. Our God hasn't changed. Everything down here is a pretty bleak picture, but our God hasn't changed, brethren.
And faith in Him is the same.
Oh, how important to cultivate fellowship, personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus. And I don't mean to go into verse 20 too much in detail, simply to speak of what overcoming is.
And I want to connect it with something that was spoken about yesterday in Philadelphia in verse 8 of this same chapter.
He says thou hast a little strength and hast kept my word and has not denied my name. Cultivating fellowship with the Lord Jesus that's stepping with him and He with us. What is that? It is letting His word have a real place in our lives and I just want to challenge each heart.
Here this afternoon.
Do you have time to let the word of God?
Have a real place in your life.
You know it says Peter, Paul says to Timothy, Till I come.
Give attendance to reading. Perhaps that's public reading, what it speaks about there, but it's important to read the scriptures. But it's not merely reading the scriptures that it speaks of here. It's keeping His word. In other words, it's something that's valued. That's what it is. It's something that's valued. You know, there's a lot of different ways that it's expressed in different parts of the New Testament.
In Colossians it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. I love that.
It's not just read the word. Let the word of Christ dwell.
In you richly with all wisdom, brethren, I'm more and more convinced.
That the reading, the meditating on this precious book has tremendously positive consequences. Dear young brother and the Lord, and young sister especially, I want to dress you. Do you have time just to read the scripture and let it soak into your souls? Read it slowly, let it sink in. It's not merely getting a grasp of it with your mind.
But letting it sink down into the heart and the soul. It's what you have in your heart that you treasure. And it's important. Oh, the preciousness, the livingness of the Word of God keeping His Word in. And I'd like to go over to 1St John chapter 2 because there it speaks about this same thing.
It's interesting.
One John chapter 2 and you'll read from verse 3 hereby we do know that we know Him if we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him and keepeth not His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoso keepeth his word, there we have that same expression.
In him, verily, is the love of God perfected.
Hereby know we that we are in him.
00:10:01
Now a little later down, he addresses the different categories in the family of God, the fathers, the young men and the little children. And I'd like to draw attention what he says to the young men, verse 14.
Especially does address them in verse 13 as well. Maybe I should read that.
In verse 13 I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. He doesn't say how they have overcome them.
But they have now. Verse 14 tells how I have written unto you young men.
Because.
Ye are strong and the word of God.
Abideth in you, and you 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 light is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust there are, but he that doeth the will of God.
Bite it forever.
Oh, how precious this portion is, young men.
Young men are characterized for their strength. The glory of young men is their strength, it says in the book of Proverbs. And it's not.
Along when you're around young men that you notice that they like to show their strength. Sometimes it's their glory. It's natural. But what is it that gives real strength to young men? It is letting the word of God.
Abide in them. It's not merely reading the Word, but letting it be the abiding portion of your heart. You might have a chance to read a few verses in the morning. That's fine. That's a very good practice to establish. But it's not merely that. But as you go out to your work, to be able to carry with you something, it's abiding there. It's your strength. It's your portion. You meditate on it.
You chew the cud and that's what gives you strength to overcome, to be an overcomer. It's important to.
Understand that that if you're going to overcome, it's not just merely because you're in the midst of a bunch of people that love the Lord and that want to please Him. No, that won't work in the day and age.
We live in thank God for Christian fellowship. Don't want to make a little of it in any way It's a great encouragement but the tests of faith are such today that you and I are going to be tested individually and we need to get our.
Our feet set down on the ground of the principles of the precious Word of God. There is no other way. You and I are going to be able to go on.
In the day we live in, if we don't make the Word of God our abiding portion, the Word of God abideth in you. But going back to those first verses we read in this chapter, want to differentiate what He speaks of His commandments in verses three and four and His Word in verses 5. You'll notice in verse 5.
You'll notice in John chapter 14 those two words are used as well. It's interesting for your own meditation you can think about it, but what is the difference between the commandments and the word? I like to think of it in this way. We have commands, very definite commands in scripture.
We have that new commandment that the Lord gave, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Oh, an important thing. He doesn't say. Do it if you feel like it or if you would like to. No, it's a command. It's important that we do it, and he says it for our own good, to love one another as I have loved you.
And if we are truly members of the family of God, as we have presented in the book of.
00:15:03
First, John, you and I are going to show it by our love one to another, keeping those commandments. There's other commands too. One of them is in Second Corinthians chapter.
4.
Chapter 6 and it says.
The be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, it's telling us very direct. There's no way to wiggle around that.
Command. It's not the will of God to form yokes with those who are not believers.
It's very clear. But what is His Word? In contrast, I like to think of His Word as something that is the general expression of His mind. And that's what you get from reading the Scriptures. And when you read the scriptures, you understand what the mind of God is about, things upon which perhaps he's given no specific command.
But you understand his desires, his thoughts, his mind, and it's the one in whom the love of God is perfected that keeps his word. You know, we have an illustration in the Old Testament, and I don't want to lengthen this too much, but maybe we should turn to it. Let's turn to it. I, I really enjoy this.
In Second Samuel chapter 23, I think it is.
It's in the list of Davids Mighty men.
And verse 13, Two Samuel 23 and verse 13.
Three of the 30 chief went down and came to David in the harvest time unto The Cave of a dolem. And the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Raphael, And David was then in an hold, And the Garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed and said.
Oh, that one would give me drink of the water.
Of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate, and the three.
Mighty men breakthrough the host of the Philistines.
And drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out into the Lord. He said, Far be it, far from me, O Lord, that I should do this. It's not this, the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives. Therefore he would not drink it. These things did, these three mighty men.
You might have thought the mighty men were the ones that did tremendous onslaughts and battle, that killed and some were pretty fearful men. Of these mighty men of David, I think 1 Killed 801 Time tremendously mighty men. But what did these three do that they get their names put in the record of Holy Scripture here for us to read so long after?
David had a desire. It was not uttered as a command. It was only a desire.
David had been born and raised in Bethlehem and he knew about that well by the gate, but sad to say, because of the condition in Israel.
Bethlehem was in the power of the Philistines, the enemy of the people of God. And so David gives an utterance to his desire. And there were three of his mighty men, evidently close enough to David.
To hear this desire that he expresses, oh, that one would give me drink of the well of Bethlehem, that is by the gate. These three heard it no command. But these three evidently had a love for the person of David. Oh, this is what it is, the love of God perfected. And they in jeopardy of their lives, went and broke through the hosts of the Philistines.
00:20:02
You can imagine this, the lines of the Philistines guarding that city.
And perhaps two of them fought off the Philistines, while a third drew some water out of that well. And after they had the water secured, they had to break back through the lines of the Philistines to bring the water to David. Is that some tremendous military feat? No, it was just three that understood David's desire, the expression.
Of His desire in His Word. And they made that everything to them. I think that's so extremely beautiful and they are written here. Dear young brother, in the Lord Jesus. Are you into the Word so that you understand God's desire for His people? Are you willing as those three were?
To make his word more important than your own life.
They were, they basically said in effect.
It's not so important that we have our lives. What's important is that David's word is fulfilled and they did it all I think is this extremely beautiful. This is keeping his word. Oh the Lord stir our hearts to do to do just this. I think it is so important and I'd like to speak about yesterday Daniel was spoken about. I'd like to speak about Daniel because Daniel was in.
A real overcomer in the days when there wasn't much to encourage.
In Israel, he was a real overcomer. Let's go back to the book of Daniel.
And I'd like to go to the 9th chapter just to show the way. Daniel was an overcomer.
Verse one in the first year of Darius, the son of a Hazurus, is this Daniel Chapter 9. Verse one of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans in the first year of his reign. I Daniel understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolation.
Of Jerusalem.
Here we have somebody has said appropriately not so much Daniel the prophet, but Daniel the student of prophecy and Daniel had a book written by Jeremiah the prophet in Jeremiah had given a prophecy 70 years previous that and I suppose Daniel was quite an older, quite an old man at this time because he was a young man when he was taken captive, but that God would allow their.
To be 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. So Daniel is meditating on the word of God, and to me this is really precious. You might have said, well man, things are in such outward ruin, what way can there ever be any restoration for God?
But he you know faith is and that's the principle that overcomes faith goes not by outward externals. Faith goes by what God says because however.
Impossible it may appear outwardly to us. Faith says I believe God because God has said this in his word and God through his prophet, Jeremiah said.
There's going to be 70 years in the Desolations of Jerusalem. Daniel was reading that portion and thinking about it, and he started making his calculations of the years, and he says those years are accomplished and he understood. I don't know where Daniel's three friends are here, since he was an older man. Perhaps they had passed on by that time.
We don't really know.
00:25:00
Daniel, as far as we know, was the only one that understood this. He was a lone man in Babylon, far away from Jerusalem. Still, he was meditating the word of God. And what does he do? And I think this is so beautiful. I set my face unto the Lord God. Isn't this beautiful? Oh, brethren, it doesn't matter how great the ruin may be.
You and I have that privilege to set our faces toward the Lord. I sometimes think that we so often have our faces in other directions. We're looking maybe at brethren. Maybe we think their brethren should act this way, or the brethren should correct this problem.
We're looking in the wrong direction. That's what happened to John in the first Book of Revelation.
1St chapter of Revelation. He was looking in a certain direction and he hears a voice behind him and he has to turn around.
If we're looking at brethren, brethren, we're not looking in the right direction. We need to turn around and look at the Lord. John had to turn around, and when he turned around, he saw the Lord. I think that's so important.
He set his face toward the Lord God. Have you done that? What is your face towards right now?
Brethren, God is dealing with this. We've spoken about that in these meetings.
It's evident in these last days he's allowing trial in tremendous ways, not only here in the United States and Canada, in other parts, to real trial, real problems.
He's speaking to us, he has something to say to us. You'll often notice when a parent speaks to the child, the child doesn't want to hear. He's looking in another direction.
Turn around, set your face to the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication. Oh, how important to pray, brother.
And what does this word supplication? To me? It's something more intense. It's not merely asking for something. It's getting into the presence of God and pleading. That's what supplication is. Do we know what it means to plead for the people of God, plead for souls? He sought the Lord God by prayer and supplication with.
Fasting.
And sackcloth and ashes. What's fasting?
It's self denial.
Maybe food. It may be a number of other things.
Things that are not wrong in themselves, but when there is this desire to seek the face of the Lord.
Food isn't really that important, and we're willing to leave it off. The Lord help us brethren, to know what it means to fast to deny ourselves. Seems that takes off the edge of our Christian testimony when we spend so much time making ourselves comfortable in this world. Nothing wrong with comfort in itself.
But you remember when the Lord Jesus and those 3 disciples that were with him came off the Mount of Transfiguration?
Tremendous experience that they'd had up there to see the Lord Jesus in his official glory. And they came down and there was a boy that had was possessed by an unclean spirit, grievously tormented. And the disciples couldn't seem to handle the problem. They just didn't seem to have the touch.
And the Lord comes up, and he casts out that spirit and heals that poor boy.
And the disciples come up to him later and say, why couldn't we cast him out? The Lord had given them power over unclean spirits, why couldn't we do it? This kind comes forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. The Lord help us that our lives might be characterized by self denial. That is not the culture we live in.
00:30:23
But is certainly what is going to have to be if we're going to follow the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus said, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross.
And follow me and then it says in sack lot and ashes.
I just like to think that sackcloth is something that was not very comfortable to wear.
And ashes is where the fire had done its work. Everything down here, brethren, is under judgment. The fire is going to burn it all in short order.
That's the way Daniel viewed everything. He was in the midst of tremendous glory in Babylon, but it didn't attract him. It was all ashes as far as he is concerned. And then he prays. And to me, we're not going to take time to read. I want to leave time for somebody else. But it's so beautiful here in his prayer, how he doesn't isolate himself from God's rebellious people.
In his confession, he identifies with them. And I think this is so important, so easy to say, well, those people out there, they don't do it right.
They haven't followed the scriptures in the right way.
Perhaps true.
That, brethren, can we take our position?
Right there with them and confess the departure.
That has taken place as our departure. Notice how he says here verse 3, verse four. And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession and said, Oh Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him to them that keep his commandments. We have sinned any idea that he separate himself out as a faithful witness.
No, he identifies himself with those.
That had sinned. I don't suppose there are many in scripture that live such an exemplar life as Daniel did.
And yet he doesn't separate himself out as a faithful one.
He takes his place with those guilty people and confesses the sin as his own notice further down in.
Verse 20 and whiles I was speaking and praying and confessing.
My sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplications before the Lord my God.
Daniel was a real overcomer to me. It's extremely precious.
And the Lord help us, brethren, we're living in the last days. Confusion in every side. It grieves the heart to hear of continued splitting up of God's people wherever it happens, because you know that the enemy is at work trying to discourage and derail people.
Tremendous.
Confusion in the great House of Christendom, of which we are apart.
Can we separate ourselves out and say we're the faithful ones?
I think we have had plenty said in these meetings that that is the spirit perhaps of Laodicea. No, brethren, it is bowing and recognizing.
My sin and the sin of my people, Israel. That's the way Daniel became an overcomer, one of the thing.
That I noticed in this chapter I'd like to draw attention to that I think is so important. Verse seven, He says, Oh Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces as at this day. In other words, he justified God in all that had taken place in amongst the people of Israel, that tremendous ruin.
00:35:28
He justifies God and sometimes, you know when division or problems come in amongst the people of God.
We have a tendency of saying, well, you know the way it really is, that person or that group of people were really at fault.
Brethren were short sighted. When we look at brethren, it's God that has a controversy with His people. It's He that sees a need amongst His people and allows problems. Have you ever noticed in the book of Leviticus in connection with leprosy in the house? It definitely says when I put the plague of leprosy.
In a house.
That's pretty strong language, He puts it there. Why? Because he wants us. He sees a need for us to be exercised in one way or another. God is always right in what He allows amongst His people.
Some time ago, perhaps I've mentioned this before, but it's so important in my own soul, brethren.
I was talking to a young brother, not in this country, but he felt he wasn't treated properly.
By those in his own home needing he hadn't gotten the right treatment.
And I simply said to him.
I don't know. I don't pretend to judge the situation you're in, whether you've been treated right or wrong. I only want to say one thing to you, that your brethren, they may have been right or they may have been wrong, but God was never wrong in allowing you to be treated that way.
He has a purpose in mind and once you get it sorted out with him.
He is fully able to turn the whole situation around.
Do you have that confidence in our God?
The more I travel around in South America and see the Lord working amongst those people. Brethren, we have a God we can trust in. You can trust Him. He's fully faithful. And the brethren may have making mistakes or they may not have. We can leave that with God.
But to allow the thing to rest in his hands.
To get things straight between US and God is so vital for going to go on. That's what overcoming is.
To keep his word, to know what it means to pray, to supplicate, to confess. I often think of the Lord Jesus. Oh, what an example we have in him, brethren.
And when he was going to start into his public ministry, what did he do?
He came to John the Baptist.
And John the Baptist was baptizing with the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, and Jesus comes to be baptized of him.
And John the Baptist finds it totally.
Out of order, here comes the Son of God. Does he have any sins to repent of? Absolutely not.
Why does he want to be baptized? He says to John, Suffer it to be so, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. What was he doing and being baptized? He was identifying himself with those people who had repented. Isn't that beautiful? The holy, spotless, sinless Son of God identifies.
00:40:08
Himself with those people.
That had sinned and had repented of their sins.
Then I think of the Lord Jesus at the cross and one of the prophetic.
Expressions that we have in the 69th Psalm is Thou knowest my sin, and my iniquity is not hid from thee so.
So that He could be the sacrifice for our sins, He confessed our sins as if they were His own.
Brethren, at least before God, I'm not saying that we compromise.
With what is unprincipled behavior? No, I'm not saying that at all. At all.
We must be separate for the Lord's glory, but I'm talking about presenting ourselves as Daniel did before God.
He identified himself fully with these that had sinned in this way, and in that way becomes a real overcomer. The Lord help us, dear brethren, we are living right down close to the end. But to me it is extremely encouraging, as was mentioned in the meeting yesterday, that there is an overcomer even in this.
Assembly of Laodicea, where things were so terribly sad. The situation, the insensibility, the indifference. There was a word to the overcomer, but it's something that's individual.
I'd like to just if I can find it. It's in the book of.
Kings first Kings. I think it is chapter 8.
And.
I just want to point it out before.
I give place to somebody else. First Kings chapter 8 and verse 38. This is Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, and he gives some beautiful expressions that I really believe that Daniel had in mind when he prayed that prayer that we read part of in First Daniel Chapter 9. But notice verse 38.
Solomon says in his prayer. What prayer and supplication?
So ever be made.
By any man.
Or by all thy people, Israel.
Which shall know every man the plague of his own heart.
And spread forth his hands toward this house.
Isn't this beautiful?
Notice the two qualifications there by any man or by all thy people issue. Daniel didn't fold his arms and say, well, this little pier that there's very many other people who really feel things in the right way. I think I'll just have to wait until God does some stirring amongst his people before I can really confess. No, there was one individual man and he had scripture for it. That's what Daniel or what Solomon put in his prayer.
By any man, and I like to think of the restoration that came was in part because of Daniels prayer in this chapter, chapter nine of the book of Daniel. At any rate, he got into the current of God's thoughts about his people, so much so that God could give him then in the end of that 9th chapter, the prophecy of the 70 weeks, which perhaps is one of the greatest keys to understanding the prophetic picture.
In the word of God tremendous. How did he get that from just kind of waiting around No by prayer and humiliation and confession and self denial. That's way Daniel got that precious revelation of the 70 weeks. The Lord help us dear brother in just a few thoughts that I wanted to leave before we ended these meetings. I want to leave some room for somebody else to.
My brother talked about fasting. I've had fasting on my mind for on my heart for a long time.
00:45:02
I wish we could turn to Isaiah 58.
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the House of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily in delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinances of their God, they ask of me the ordinances of justice. They take delight in the house.
When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that they'll hide not thyself from thine own flesh.
Our normal conception of fasting is a self denial as our brother was saying. And this is true. It's not what we it has nothing to do with ourselves, but it's more than that.
It's a giving of ourselves. It's not when I fast. If we fast, we don't just.
Not eat. It should be taking the food that you're not using and giving it out. It's taking what you're not using, what you're denying yourself and giving to others.
We think of our Lord when he came to the well and sat down as he was.
He was tired, he was thirsty, he was hungry and he asked for some drink of this woman and she comes up and and.
She's she's like, well, what are you asking me for? You know, I, I'm well, you don't deal with me and I'm a woman. I'm a Samaritan. And he's like, well, if you would ask, have asked of me, I would have given you of the living water.
Even in that short amount of time, he had living water to give to her by.
By his his fasting. Let's read on.
Verse 8.
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and the righteous, thy righteousness, shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer. Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou shalt take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity, if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity.
And thy darkness be as the noonday.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy drought soul, and drought, and make fat thy bones. And thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose water waters fail not.
We put yokes on ourselves, on our brethren a lot of times.
We have a concept of how we should we each other's Christianity should be run. You know, you, you should wear a tie if you sit in the front row or you know, something something mild like that. And we we afflict each other with these all the time.
And it's, I am as guilty of it as anyone. And it's not a, I'm not trying to point the finger, but I'm just saying this is, this is a thing that we do. This is a, it's a, we are in a Laodicean state. We must admit that. We must, we must start there. We can't say.
Yes, the Laodicean exists and it's all about us and, and we, but it's a good thing we are the Philadelphia because no, no, we are, we are in each of our hearts have to battle with the Laodicean element that makes us want to rise up and and be proud of our Christianity. But we have no pride. We we have no room for pride.
Is it not to deal with thy bread to the hungry?
When we speak in meeting, do do we speak to help each other? Do we do we talk to to do? Are we feeding the people? Are we being shepherds when we speak?
Are we talking amongst the shepherds? Are the shepherds talking to each other? How do we, how do we go about about what we do?
00:50:02
And this is not just among among us and the assembly, this is also deals how our dealings is with the entire world.
Dealing your bread to the hungry. There's many, you know the other other all the denominations and splits and everything that have gone on throughout all of Christendom.
Are.
You know are affecting the heart of God, they they hurt him.
And those people that are not as close to the truth as we hope that we are.
Are hungry.
And we can feed them.
We don't despise them.
We don't cast them out.
Those of our own house.
Who have in recent years departed and gone a separate path.
As her brother was saying, we want to bring them back, we want to restore them, we want to bring them back into our house. Those that are cast out, bring them back.
When thou seest the naked that they'll cover him.
What is the nakedness? The nakedness is.
Going on without knowing that you're not righteous. You're doing things unrighteously without knowing it is love that covers a multitude of sins. We can. We can love our brethren.
And cover them we can, we can.
Close them.
We can forgive them.
That thou hide thyself not from thine own flesh.
I'm a Sinner.
I'm saved by grace, but I am. I am as easily LED away as anyone that I know.
You. You.
Our own flesh is is, you know, you can't judge your brother. You can't say.
You know you, this is what keeps us, keeps the brethren from from keeps us from, from accepting our brothers back in from going out to get them is that we judge them and we're like they've done something that that I would never do. We, we don't do that here. But no, no, given the right opportunity, we would do that in a second. We, we're just weak sheep.
We can't hide from our own flesh. We can't. We can't pretend it doesn't exist. It's there.
In verse 6.
To loose the bands of wickedness. I think of the Lord there with that woman, saying, No, thou hast had five husbands.
And the relief that she feels when he says that it's, you know, she had been wicked and she'd been hiding it for all that time. She had bound herself in with all this wickedness. And he says, he points at it. He's just like, no, you have had five husbands. And it releases her. It's like the he's taking the bands off by just exposing them.
If we fast in verse 8, this is the greatest, then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall bring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee.
Our righteousness, God provides us righteousness and.
As as we're walking, it's like we keep running in to to already being righteous. It's like a.
It's like the things of our life has been provided for us already.
If you're fasting, if you're giving yourself to other people, to your brothers and your.
Following the heart of God.
You know he provides your righteousness. It's like him putting the skins of clothing on on Adam and Eve. It's you you you can't provide your own righteousness, but it it goes before you and the glory of the Lord behind you. It's like anywhere you're looked at you, you are are righteous but.
00:55:22
It's a.
Does that make us proud? No, we need to be to be humble.
And humbleness is not thinking.
Is is is not not thinking about ourselves, it's thinking.
About others, and that keeps us humble.
If you try to keep yourself humble, you'll be proud of how humble you are.
Verse 12.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places.
Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations.
And thou shalt be called repairer of the breach.
The restorer of paths to dwell in.
Is this possible? Is is this possible that that we can repair the breaches that have come among us back since since 20 years after the light it was reestablished with Darby?
That we've been splitting up and splitting up and splitting up.
And I haven't seen any getting back together. That's not possible, is it?
Don't lose hope.
If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath.
From doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight. The holy of the Lord honorable and shall honor him, not doing things my own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure.
Nor speaking thine own words.
What is the Sabbath to us?
It is our rest.
And what is our rest? It is the finished work of Christ. Christ has done everything for us. We have nothing left to do.
For our salvation, and we can rest in that.
If you try to do your own works to sell it, to save yourself, you're going to start getting proud again. You know, it's like I'm, I'm saving myself, but no.
Christ has done everything for you.
This is our rest.
Then shalt thou delight thyself and the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
That's a good thing.
To know the Lord.
Where mine does my heart.
Frustrating.
Lazarus.
Clears my fire laundry.
Mind.
Matthew 8:1-18, 1 Peter 2
Open—C. Hendricks, D. Imbeau
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So I want to start right away. Matthew 18 Lord has laid this upon my heart.
Matthew 18.
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the Kingdom of heaven, and whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offenses come.
But woe to that man by whom the offence cometh. Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee. It is better for thee to enter into life halter maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into Hellfire. Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. For I say unto you that in heaven they're angels. Do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
Helsinki, if a man have 100 sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the 90 and 9 And goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which has gone astray? And if so be that he find it. Verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the 90 and 9 which went not astray. Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, Thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established, And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee is an heathen man and republican.
00:05:07
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth is touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how OFT shall my brother sin against me?
And I forgive him till seven times. Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times.
But until 70 * 7?
Therefore is the Kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him 10,000 talents. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had in payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him 100 pence. And he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.
And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Hath patience with me, and I will pay thee all? And he would not but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord, after he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me, shouldst not thou also have had compassion?
And my fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee, and his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors.
Till he should pay all that was due unto him, so likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you.
If ye from your hearts, forgive not everyone his brother.
Their trespasses.
In reflecting on this recently, I.
I thought that this chapter ought to have the word grace written over it.
The teaching of grace to us.
We speak of it so often we seem to know so little about it.
We are the products, the recipients of Grace.
Fullness of grace.
They come to him who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven, His disciples.
Thoughts of greatness, thoughts of being someone or something prominent looked up to, recognized these are all the natural, the natural things that man aspires after.
Fame, power, riches, pleasure. Those are the four things that animate, keeps the world turning, so to speak.
Fame, riches, power, and pleasure. Solomon had it all. He had all those four, and his book of Ecclesiastes says that it was all vanity and vexation of spirit.
And yet man continues to aspire after it, something that can never satisfy, never fulfill the desires and longings of the human heart.
Only Christ can do that. Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven? The very question betrays the condition of soul of the one who asks it.
It's as much as saying I want to be great. Teach me how to be great.
And so the Lord teaches the disciples.
Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them. Now he doesn't answer that question directly. Immediately he answers what had to precede the answer to that question, how to get in to the Kingdom of heaven, he said. Verily, I stand to you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
Become as one that knows nothing is nothing, is esteemed as nothing. One who's not accomplished anything in this world yet hasn't made his marks here yet. Just a little chat.
That's what one needs to enter the Kingdom of heaven. He has to take the very lowest place, the place of knowing nothing.
And of being nothing, Little child hasn't accomplished anything. He is not known for his exploits or his accomplishments. That's how you get in. And then he answers the question. Wherefore whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same as greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. Now that's not the answer. They were looking. They were looking for. They were looking for the Lord to tell them some.
00:10:28
Great thing that they could do to be great in the Kingdom of heaven. So he uses the little child as an example. 1St to get into it we have to become like one and then to be great in it we have to take the low place. Now the only the only principle in scripture that teaches us that is grace. Grace makes nothing of us, nothing of us. And that's why man doesn't like grace. It makes everything of God, everything of God.
The law principle makes something of man, something for man to do this do, and thou shalt live, And man likes that principle. He likes to show what he can do.
I was noticing that quote up there. Whatever you set your mind to, you will be able to accomplish that self accomplishment. That's the principle of this world.
It's not the principle of God.
Humble yourself as this little child, same as greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.
So that's the beginning of this chapter on grace.
We have to become as a little child, become as nothing, and then once we're in that position of the Kingdom, to take the low place in it.
You remember how James and John mothers Ebony's children went to the Lord and asked that her two sons would sit, one on the right hand, one on the left, in the Kingdom. She aspired something for them, Put position of greatness, a position of recognition.
We can manifest that spirit in our own souls when that's what we want for our children. We want them a place of greatness in this world.
Sometimes our questions betray our state.
What we're looking at.
And whoso verse five shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
To receive one that is of no account as far as the world is concerned is to receive Christ.
That was their estimate of him. And they despised him and rejected him and cast him out. We will not have this man to reign over us, so to receive a little child, one that has not made his mark in this world and achieved anything. To receive him in his name, to receive him.
Because one belongs to him.
You can learn a lot of lessons, can't we, from children, little children?
And then the sixth verse, very solemn verse, but whoso shall offend cause to stumble.
One of these little ones which believe in me.
It were better for him than a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he would drown in the depth of the sea.
Woe unto the world because of offenses we expect that from the world we don't expect.
To be stumbled by our brethren.
How many of us have stumbled? Some little one.
That isn't as far along as you are that we are and.
Stumbled them, turned them out of the way. Maybe by what we've said. Maybe by how we've lived, whatever it might be.
Stumbled on very serious thing. You expect it from the world, he says. Woe unto the world because of the fences, causes of stumbling where it must needs be, that offense has come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. I think of the school teacher that said to the parent of a Christian child, and the teacher said to the parent, I'll do everything I can to destroy faith in your child.
Parent wisely pulled the child out of that class, not to subject him to that kind of thing. Yes, that's the that's the intended purpose of the world is to turn them, the little ones that have been entrusted to us, to turn them away from the path of righteousness.
For his namesake, They do it because they hate Christ.
00:15:01
Well, it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.
Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, what you are doing, how you are walking, if that's causing?
Offense. If that's causing others to stumble, cut them off. Cast them from thee. It were better for thee to enter into life, halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
And if thine eye offend thee, what you read, what you look at, the pictures that you set before your eyes, and other things that the eye can take in.
Your thin eye causes others to stumble. Pluck it out, cast it from the IT were better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into Hellfire.
And then he issues a warning again. Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. So easy to despise one. That's.
Poor.
Not rich in this world. The acquisition of riches make people to bow to you and to give you adulation and places prominence. Sit here. Do the poor sit down here.
You're guilty of evil thoughts being judges, and they're not realizing that the highest of all took the lowest place, came to the lowest place.
See that you take heed that you despise not one of these little ones.
I say unto you, that in heaven.
Their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
In heaven, they have a representative there, one that represents them. They're not of no account to God. They might be to me or to you, maybe because of the color of their skin.
I remember asking a sister once.
Would you rather have?
Your daughter Mary A.
A black saved man or a white unsaved man?
Without flinching, she said. A white, unsaved man.
Then I change the question. I said, would you rather live next to a black saved family or a white unsaved family? And she said a black saved family.
When it came to her daughter marrying 1.
Claims of nature was too strong for her.
We can despise.
Those that are not up to us.
Up to our place in society.
Color of our skin, or the language we speak, or the education we've had, or whatever it might be.
We can despise them. Take heed that you despise that one of these little ones that he's talking about children. But that's very an example to us. There are, there are a picture to us of those that are of little account in the eyes of this world, but they have the representative in heaven, and they're not of no account to the Father.
And then he says for the son of man has come to save that which is lost. Doesn't say seek here as it does in Luke because here it's referring as specifically right in this passage to a little child and he's come to save them. I think this is 1 scripture that we can use to show that when a little child dies before they reach the age of accountability, they'll go to heaven go to be with the Lord he died to save such.
How Thank you. This is a very searching verse.
If a man have 100 sheep and one of them be gone astray now he's not talking about the sheep that is lost. Luke 15 talks about the sheep which is lost and he says there's joy in heaven. Having retrieved that lost sheep and brought him back, he says a joy in heaven over 1 Sinner that repented more than over 99. Just persons that need no repentance. There in Luke 15 it's a picture of a lost Sinner, but here it's a picture of a straying St.
Not a lost Sinner. A straying St. gets away, gets away from the flock for whatever reason.
Will they ever find their way back? Sheep don't find their way back. That's not the characteristic of sheep. They're dumb, stupid creatures, and they need they need a shepherd to guide them. A real shepherd.
00:20:00
I heard a brother say the sheep don't know how to be shepherded. What an awful statement.
Does the shepherd know how to shepherd?
The steep. The sheep. That's the real steep.
Read Jeremiah 23 When you get home. Read Ezekiel 34. See what Jehovah God says about the shepherds of Israel.
Fed yourselves and not the flock, you haven't bound up the wounded, you haven't sought them.
You've left them out there in the cold, dark night.
Perish.
Where is grace?
How much do we know about grace?
The man having 100 sheep, verse 12 and one of them may gone astray, doth he not leave the 90 and 9 and goeth into the mountains in Luke. 15 He goes into the desert to find the lost sheep that was lost, that was a Sinner.
But here it's a strange sheep. He goes into the mountains a St. and seeketh that which has gone astray.
We've developed a doctrine that when one is out of fellowship, no one should ever seek them. No one should ever visit them.
I don't agree with that at all.
They won't find their way back. They need to be sought. I don't mean for fellowship. I don't mean to make them feel everything is all right, but to be like the doctor that comes in and stands at the outside of the room and says how you feeling today? Well, no, no, that's good. We're maybe OK And Doctor goes up and puts his hand on their forehead.
You've got a fever. Still, I think that's what we need to do. Sometimes we have to go and visit.
Those that are away find out that they still have a fever.
There's something still wrong. Do they need a shepherd's care? Shepherd's love?
If God dealt with me, as some of us deal with others, where would I be?
If so be that he finded, he, I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the 99 which went not astray. There isn't anything I don't. I think it rejoices my heart every bit as much to find out that someone who has been away from the Lord has been restored to me, that rejoices me just as much as to learn that soul's been saved.
It's hard to compare those two because they're both matters of rejoicing.
A straying sheep needs a true shepherd.
That will seek the sheep and go after it, bring it home.
Verse 14 Even so, it is not the will of your Father, which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. If there's not a shepherd to go out after them, they're going to perish there. They'll perish outside. We've we've been told, and it's true, that from the parable of the Good Samaritan who brings the the one that was wounded half dead by the side of the road to the to the end, The end is a picture of the assembly where the person can be cared for, nurtured said.
And loved.
And it's not the world that's the assembly, That's the sheltered place from the world. And to leave these strange sheep out there.
Unsought.
It's something that we shepherds if I don't consider myself much of A shepherd but.
Those of you who are shepherds will have to answer for.
It is not the will of your Father, which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
Now verse 15, we don't usually quote the whole passage, we quote what we like of it.
Let's quote the whole passage. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee. Thou hast gained thy brother. That shows the overture of grace. The previous portion was the shepherd going out after the strained sheep. Here you have the one offended against going out after the offender and seeking to gain them.
That's Grace telling him his fault. Brother, this is what you said. It embarrassed me terribly. It was a cruel, it was an unkind statement. And he said I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Please forgive me that it's ended.
That never has to go to anyone else, just stops right there. That's beautiful if that's the way it works. But sometimes that's not enough. But if he will not hear the take with the one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established.
00:25:13
Still the overture of grace, still trying to win them, still taking the very the least thing maybe they may have said or or done as.
A little ray of hope that they might be restored.
Person might be restored.
The restoration, we've been told hundreds of times. I've heard it, You've heard it. Discipline is never to get rid of someone, but to restore them.
I know of too many cases, too many cases of those that are out.
And they've been out for years.
They'd never been sought.
Come to a meeting. Where's brother so and so? Well, he's out of fellowship.
Has he ever been visited?
No.
Never been visited where the shepherds.
I don't mean to commend his wrong path. I don't mean that at all.
I'm not in favor of those that ignore the discipline. If it was necessary, sympathize with the failing one as though it wasn't was of no account, but do not seek the restoration of that soul.
That's the duty of a shepherd, isn't it? That's the way he's dealt with me and you.
Praise his name.
Thou must gain thy brother. How wonderful.
And if that fails, one or two more are taken. If that fails, verse 17, if he shall neglect to hear them all these overtures of grace, seeking to win his heart and to draw him back, and so that there's the the opportunity of extending forgiveness to that person.
If he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the church, that's the local assembly where these brothers are or sisters.
Where they go, if you neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee is an heathen man, and the public and.
The Church is the final Court of Appeal here.
But it's the last resort, not the first.
And it's when all else all the entreaties of grace have failed, then the assembly may have to deal with the matter.
We've been also told that when someone has to be put away from the table or from amongst us, it says in 2nd Corinthians 5, First Corinthians 5, put away from among yourselves that wicked person. It's because there's been failure all along the way. Prior to that. That is the real discipline that should have been carried out by brotherly visits or sisterly visits. Seeing one is deviating from the past. Seeing when someone is, there's something wrong in their life, they're not happy. They're missing meetings. They're doing this or that to visit them and to seek to win them. I know there were some brothers that are real, true shepherds.
Very valuable, Very valuable to have a true shepherd.
Well, this says if he doesn't hear the church.
Let him be unto these in heathen man and republican.
Now notice verse 18. We usually quote just the first part of it. Barely, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
I said that to one brother, he quoted that verse to me, and I said, read the rest of the verse, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
I gather from this verse that for every binding there ought to be a losing.
But sad to say, that's not the way it is.
There's many have been bound and they're out. They're unsought.
Where is the losing?
The seeking.
The lost sheep, the straying sheep, I should say.
Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything, that they shall ask there's prayer. There's a united, harmonious prayer on behalf of the one that is out.
Are under discipline.
It says it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
Sitting back, waiting for so and so to return when they're at home weeping.
Visited a brother recently.
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That has been out for a long time.
He was broken.
He was really broken. No one saw her.
No one cared. That's the that's the impression we give.
When we don't?
Now this promise is a wonderful promise. If two of you shall agree on earth is touching anything that they shall ask, there's nothing more precious to ask for than the restoration of an erring soul.
Shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. Your Father does not want any to perish. They continually behold the face of my Father which is in heaven, those that are in that kind of a condition, whether the little children are young ones in the assembly or whatever.
There's the activity of grace, which is so lacking.
In my life, maybe in yours.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there are mine in the midst of them.
We boast that verse so often when when it really condemns us.
He's there, The God of all grace is there.
The one that came to seek and to save that which was lost.
The true shepherd of the sheep. He's there, we're gathered to his name.
He wants to see in us a ready response to what he is, who he is.
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times he thought seven would be.
A long time.
Jesus said unto him, I say down unto thee, until seven times. But until 70 * 7, there's no limit to grace. There's no limit to grace. That's what he's teaching us.
No limit.
To reach out.
The real problem is I think I'm a little bit better than so and so.
And it's beneath my dignity to do this. No, I don't have any dignity.
Just another lost Sinner saved by matchless grace.
Then the last part of the chapter.
Verse 23 Therefore is the Kingdom of heaven like and unto a certain king, where we know the account. I won't read it again.
The one that was forgiven 10,000 talents. That's you and me. We've been forgiven 10,000 talents more than we could ever pay, and he frankly forgave them.
And then one comes to him, owing him a paltry amount and he wouldn't forgive.
He wouldn't forgive.
We say we're saved by grace.
We say we're standing in grace.
Justified by grace.
We know the God of all grace.
We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. We know this and we won't extend forgiveness grace.
To another.
That has offended against us in such a trivial way in comparison with the way we've offended against God.
What does that make us? Verse 32 Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, that's what it makes us, a wicked servant. I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me. Shouldst not thou also have had compassion on my fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
Dispensationally, that's a picture of Israel the Jew not wanting any grace to go to the Gentile.
It might be a picture of us.
Of Maine.
Of you.
That's serious. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if he from your hearts.
Forgive not everyone, his brother, their trespasses.
If you harbor bitterness and unforgiving spirit, if I harbor that.
No matter how much evil that person has done to you or to me.
We put ourselves in the position of a wicked servant.
I who have been forgiven 10,000 talents. I can't forgive this insignificant amount.
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How is it with us?
To really understand Grace.
Do we understand that to get into the Kingdom we have to become as little children, and then, once there, to humble ourselves as a little child, to take the place of nothingness? Not to stumble another not to offend them, not to turn them aside, not to despise them because they're of no account?
To seek them when they've gone astray.
Seek them as a true shepherd if you get offended against to go to the offender and to seek to gain them.
In grace.
There are recourses there the Lord has given in this chapter.
The authority to the assembly to deal with evil when it comes up. Otherwise the assembly would be just a hotbed of evil, unjudged.
But to emphasize that and miss the whole intent of the chapter, he's missed the point.
May God help us the walk in grace.
By what our brother brought before us to refer to a portion that's been on my heart, but I just wondered about bringing it before.
An assemblage like this, and it's a well known portion in First Peter Chapter 2.
And it's the portion that begins.
About walking in the steps of our Savior. So first Peter chapter 2. I'll start reading in verse 20 to get a little sense of the portion.
For what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Hoodoo did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again.
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When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, who his own self bear our sins, and his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. By whose stripes ye were healed, for ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
Well, there's a great deal in this portion, and I don't know that I feel at least that equal to even begin, but the part that really has been on my heart was verse 23 Speaking of our Lord Jesus.
When He was reviled, reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not, but committed himself to him, the Judgeth, righteously. I feel that this verse would save us much sorrow as we go along, as a company of those who seek to walk in the light of the truth, as believers, walking with one another, walking before the Lord, members of the one body of our Savior.
We wonderfully are all individuals. We all have distinctive personalities. We all have feelings. We feel sometimes things that are said to us, and no doubt we say things that later, if we really understood how it was heard or received, we would regret saying such things. Scripture makes that plain. We all at some point offend and we have to be patient with one another and understand that. And so here is a more.
A striking case when he was reviled, reviled not again. Well, we know something of the Lord Jesus path. But he was a wonderful human being, fully God, but fully man. He was a man of dependence, a man of prayer. He ever sought the Father's will as he went through this scene.
And of course he had divine power. He could have called upon 12 legions of angels when he was to be crucified, but he was obedient, obedient to death. So it's struck me, and some of the things that have happened amongst the Saints in recent years, that if those who would feel that they're being charged improperly with some bit of conduct or matter of discipline in the assembly.
If they would only follow this verse to leave it with the Lord.
Just think of that. The Lord has all power. He can work through the hearts of the Saints. He can work through the hearts of those in an assembly where there may be a difficulty.
It's a path of faith.
To commit to him that judgeth righteously.
And I think this would save us so much sorrow. We talk about pride, we talk about self will.
You know, a human being is a fearful thing. I say that in this sense that if a person makes up their mind, you know, it's almost as if they're stone. The personality is so strong. That became apparent to me many years ago in the Maritimes. We went to visit a sister who had been a school teacher.
She was a very petite woman, but now she was bedridden, quite an age. But in speaking to her, and I think I wasn't sure because I didn't see her standing, but I think she was a short woman. But you could feel the force, the strength of her personality. And I could picture her as a teacher, you know, a short teacher with some 6 foot farm boy right there. And she would say sit down and he'd quake in his shoes and sit down because he had that power of personality.
And we all know that because if we go to a funeral and see the remains of someone in the casket, there's no power there. But there's power there as long as that person is alive. So each one of us have that. And as we deal with one another, there may be things of where there's a difference of opinion.
Feel felt strongly, oftentimes referring to Scripture about. I feel that strongly. This is what scripture is teaching.
But isn't it wonderful that we can commit it to him that judgeth righteously? Well, this portion which is spoken to my heart through the years, really came very clearly before me recently in the case of David and if we turn back to Second Samuel.
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In Chapter 16, we come to the portion well known to us, but we'll read it where Absalom was.
Seeking to take over the Kingdom from his father and David had a flea.
From Jerusalem. And as he did, Chimei went along and threw rocks and dirt at this entourage of those who were faithful to David and going with him away from Jerusalem. And we'll read that verse.
Verse 5.
Of.
Second Samuel 16 And when King David came to Bashuram, behold thence came out a man of the family of the House of Saul.
Whose name was Shimmy? I, the son of Gira? He came forth and cursed still as he came, And he cast stones at David, and that all the servants of King David, and all the people, and all the mighty men that were on his right hand and on his left. And thus said Shimei, when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, And thou man of Belial the Lord, hath returned upon thee all the blood of the House of Saul.
In whose stead thou hast reigned, And the Lord hath delivered the Kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son. And behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. Well, I was a pretty strong words, aren't they? David was surrounded by his mighty men, even as he left, and here he was being reviled, just as we read in Peter, And David as a king had great power.
But what did he do? I think it's a wonderful example for us.
So verse 9 then said Abishai the son of Zeruaya unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.
Now that's how the flesh would react, wouldn't it?
That's purely resentment, and David could have had a lot of things to say in self Justification.
But what did he say? And I think there's quite a lesson for us in it, the king said.
What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zerawaia? So let them curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, cursed David, Who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so? And David said to Obiti, and unto all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels seeketh my life. How much more? Now may this benjamite do it? Let him alone, and let him curse.
For the Lord hath bitten him. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction, and that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day. And as David and his men went by the way shimmy, I went along on the hillside over against him, and cursed as he went, and threw stones at him, and did cast dust. Well, I just used that as an example of leaving it with him when we're reviled.
That we revile not again that we leave it with the Lord. And David rightly rightfully recognized that Jimmy, I wouldn't have done that unless the Lord allowed it. And think of the verses we know. If God before us, who can be against us.
I remember learning from Brother Gordon Hayhoe, known to most of us here some years ago, something that always stayed with me and I I remember hearing it at one of the fall meetings up at Otter Lake for the married men and what he said, and I'm sure many have heard it, but I think it bears repeating.
He said if you're ever accused by one of your brethren about something in which you know they're wrong, they're making false accusation or an inaccurate one, your natural reaction would be to say just a minute, let me straighten you out so you understand, or so on, he said. That should not be your first reaction. Your first reaction should be to raise with yourself the question Why has the Lord allowed this?
What is the Lord bringing before me? Even if it's a false accusation, don't we see that here with shimmy eye? David recognized that a lot of what he said was true, that David was a bloody man. David also recognized that the Lord had stirred Jimmy Eye to do that. But David also recognized that the Lord could requite David in his own time. So I go back to the verse that we read in Peter to walk in his steps when he was reviled. He reviled Not again.
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I don't think that we have to do that. What we need is a tender conscience, short accounts with the Lord that if there is something in our lives, we ask the Lords help to judge it, that we might walk for him and not seek to enter into controversy with our brethren. The Lord Jesus is our advocate. Do we need more? Can't we leave it with Him? Scripture tells us do the things that make for peace, seek to edify one another.
Not to look for things of contention. God has given us, I think a wonderful example. It's just that we happened in our home reading to be reading about David and then putting that together with that verse just struck me as David as a type of the Lord Jesus showing such a wonderful example. And we know other things about David. When he could have slain Saul, who unjustly was pursuing him in the wilderness, he was living in caves. Why the Lord allowed him to come out with.
Saul sleeping at his feet. But what was his reaction? He would not.
Take action against the Lord's anointed. Well, that's the equivalent of the Lord allowing it. And what happened with David? He did become king. He didn't have to take things into his own hands. So let us be that way. If we're reviled, let us not revile again, but leave it with him, but do it righteously.
This is Jesus!
Gospel—D. Imbeau
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22.
I'm sorry. Let's go back to #20. Behold the Savior at the door. He gently knocks, has knocked before, has waited long, is waiting still.
You use no other friend, so I'll open the door. He'll enter in and Sup with you and you with him. Someone start it, please.
Ask the Lord for his guidance and blessing. Bill #30.
33 Nothing, either great or small, Nothing Sinner. No, Jesus did it, Did it all.
Long, long ago it is finished. Yes, indeed. Finished every jot Sinner. This is all you need. Tell me, is it not someone started please.
You're making as loud as that and we fame. You're doing hands and time.
To every friend, it's just me. Then your name is shattered on the free flow.
Say everything. All you need now is and not.
Can't your daddy do without?
Sleeping.
At the desk and dance and dance alone. What else did we complete?
It together and maybe.
And we shall have great thoughts.
Over the past two days.
Each and everyone in this room has heard the gospel of God's grace many times, many times in the three readings it was brought out last night.
Very faithfully given this morning, Sunday school this afternoon, no, God doesn't leave the center with any doubts.
He tells him exactly what he is, and he tells him exactly what the provision is for him.
In the 4th chapter of Amos, in the 12Th verse, it says prepare to meet thy God. Prepare to meet thy God. How do you do that? Well, to him we just sang. God prepared the way.
God sent his Son into this world.
To die for sinners.
This morning we sang a hymn that 213. The last two verses, the 4th verses, the gates of heaven are opened wide.
The gates of heaven.
Are open wide.
Because the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and died. That's why. Let's turn to the 21St chapter of Matthew's Gospel and.
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See if we can follow some things in regard to the Lord Jesus.
There's some of, there's some amazing things in this word of God.
There are many subjects in this word of God, but there's one crowning subject.
And that is the person of the Lord Jesus. I believe that if you were to turn through the Bible and search it carefully, that from the very first page of Genesis to the very last page of Revelation, that on every page you will find in some sense, in some way.
The mention of the Lord Jesus? No, I won't say that.
But in some way there's an indication of it. I trust a few of them I can touch tonight.
Let's look a little bit at this one. In the 21St chapter of Matthew, Matthew 21, we'll read from the first verse. And when they drew an eye unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethpage unto the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus 2 disciples saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an *** tied and a coat with her. Loose them and bring them to me.
And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, the Lord hath need of them.
And straightway he will send them All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying.
Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold thy king cometh unto thee meek, and sitting upon an *** and a colt, the full of an ***. And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the *** and the colt, and put on them their clothes. And they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way. Others cut down branches from the trees, and strayed them in the way.
And the multitudes that went before and that followed cried, saying Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest. And when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?
And the multitude said, This is Jesus.
The portion was red this morning.
At his birth, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.
For he shall save his people from their sins.
How was that to be?
This is a picture and I trust we can find some pictures in the Old Testament of this very thing.
There's a picture of his triumphal ride into Jerusalem as the King of Kings.
And Lord of Lords.
Tell the daughter of Jerusalem that thy king cometh.
Thy king cometh notice meek, and sitting upon an *** and a colt, the phone of an *** he did come, and meekness.
He did come in loneliness.
When he was born into this scene, he was not born in a palace.
Who was he?
The Lord of glory.
It says that they came to Bethlehem at the time when he should be born, and there was no room for them, Joseph and Mary in the inn.
And it says that the Lord Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a Manger. Amazing.
The King of Glory.
Born in a stable?
And laid the Manger.
The Lord Jesus, when he went through this scene, owned nothing.
Nothing. You know what I'm saying?
They came to him and they said, Should we give a tribute unto Caesar or no?
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And so he reached in his pocket, and he pulled out a coin. Didn't have one.
He said show me a pen and they showed him and he said who's superscription is it?
He said. Well, Caesars, he said. Render unto Caesar the thing that.
Our Caesars, and unto God the things that are gone.
He was not a man of wealth.
And yet he owned the world. And yet he owned everything. All was his. He created it all.
But like this verse says, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, meek.
He came for the express purpose to go to Calvary Cross.
Especially in the 12Th chapter of John's Gospel, he says. Now is my soul troubled.
And what shall I say, Father? Save me from this hour?
But for this cause came I under this hour, he came for the express purpose of going to Calvary's cross. That's amazing. The only man really, that was ever born in this world, that was born to go into death. Really the only one.
When Adam was created and Eve was made, they were not made to die.
No, they were not.
Death came in because of sin.
Death came in because of sin, and today there's evidence in every city that you go into of the effects of sin graveyards. When you drive down the highway, you pass them graveyards because of sin.
Let's turn to Genesis.
About the 40.
40.
41St chapter of Genesis. We'll see a picture there.
Remember the expression They said who is this? And they said this is Jesus.
Have you ever thought of going through the Old Testament and seeing how many times you could find?
This is Jesus.
You'd be amazed at how many times you'd find him.
Here's one of them. A picture. Of course, the 41St chapter of Genesis will go through the portion.
That fits Matthew 2140 second verse.
This is Joseph in front of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh took off the ring from his hand and put it upon Joseph's hand in a radium, investors of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck. And he made him to ride in the second chariot, which he had, and they cried before him bow the knee.
And he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt 45th, 1St.
And Pharaoh called Joseph names ask Nath Pania. And he gave him to wife Asana, the daughter of Potiphar, priest of On. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt. Two things here that I want to bring out. I didn't read the first part, which corresponds to the person of the Lord Jesus. Joseph was rejected of his brethren. Joseph was cast into a pit.
Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver.
Joseph was a slave in Egypt.
But he was raised out of that position.
And he was made ruler over all of Egypt.
And it's a profitable thing to read the life of Joseph and see how it compares with what we know of the Lord Jesus and what is going to take take place, which is partially given to us in the 21St of Matthew.
00:20:03
But one very important point.
In the 45th 1St.
He was given a bride.
Before.
He went out over all the land of Egypt.
Each and everyone of us in this room tonight that knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior will be part of the bride of the Savior, the Lord Jesus, before he goes up over all the land of Egypt, before he comes back as the ruler of this world, before he comes back and judges this world, before he comes back and sets up His Kingdom. Each one in this room tonight that knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior will be His bride.
A picture. A beautiful picture.
Overcoming scene of Glory.
Will you?
Be part of it.
There's another scene totally 180° from this, and her brother last night very faithfully brought it before us.
The rejection of the offer of God's grace.
Brings judgment. There's a scripture in the second chapter of the Second Thessalonians which says.
Because they believe, not the love of the truth.
If you reject.
God's love.
There's nothing left but judgment. Judgment.
God's offered this world love.
John 316 says for God.
So loved.
Reject that and what is left? Judgment. Judgment. Nothing else.
Another picture.
Look at the first second Samuel.
Second Samuel and the 5th chapter, and we certainly don't have time to go through the.
History of David.
But David is another picture of the Lord Jesus.
David suffered.
Really untold suffering.
He had been anointed king.
Rejected.
Wandered through the wilderness of Judah for years, but not only just wondered, but was pursued by his enemy.
Saul.
But then, finally, that comes to an end. The Lord Jesus has been rejected in this scene. He was He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But there's a marvelous verse that says But unto them that received him, gave he the right or the power to become the sons of God.
Everyone that received him, my brother mentioned that in Romans 10 it says if thou wilt confess with thy mouth.
Jesus as Lord and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved if thou shalt confess with thy mouth. Jesus as Lord. Oh how simple, how simple. But he's the rejected one in this world today, this night, this world rejects him. But there's going to come a day when that rejection is going to end and he's going to rule in righteousness.
And so in chapter five of two Samuel then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold, we are that by bone, and thy flesh also In time past when Saul was king over us, thou went in and out, and let Egypt LED Israel.
And the Lord said to thee, thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebrew on. And King David made a league with them to Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. David was 30 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 40 years in Hebrew, and he reigned over Judas 7 years and six months. And Jerusalem, he reigned 30 and three years over all Israel and Judith.
00:25:21
A picture of the Lord in his righteousness coming down.
And taking this world and taking his Kingdom. David is a picture of a warrior king. Now let's go to kings and we'll see a picture of another king.
First Kings?
King Solomon.
The 6th chapter First Kings chapter 6.
And came to pass in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel. In the month sift, which is the second month that he began to build the House of the Lord and he built the House of the Lord. And Solomon reigned for 40 years as a king of peace.
A picture of the Lord Jesus when he reigns in this scene as.
The benefactor of this world, the King of Peace.
Our time is going by, so let's turn quickly now to the book of Esther.
For another picture.
Of the Lord Jesus.
The very last chapter.
And King A has your laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the Isles of the sea.
And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, whereas to the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicle of the kings of Media in Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was next unto Kingeris, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace.
To all is see.
We don't have time to go through the story, but at your leisure read the book of Esther. It's marvelous. Now the second Psalm, Psalm 2.
And in everyone of these cases, we could put the title.
This is Jesus.
Psalm 2, verse 6. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son this day have I begotten thee, Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth. For thy position thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a Potter's vessel.
Be wise now. Therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth, Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled. But a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
A future day of glory, 32nd of Isaiah.
Isaiah 32 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and Princess shall rule in judgment, and a man shall be as in hiding place from the wind, and a covert from The Tempest, as rivers of water, in a dry place, as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land, This is.
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Jesus, what a marvelous thing.
When he comes back to reign. But you know something had to happen before that took place.
Something had to happen before any of these scriptures. God looking forward in Hebrews 10, it's in the fourth verse. It says for it is not possible that the blood of bulls are of goats should ever take away sin. Not possible. And this morning we remembered the Lord and his death and a scripture was read.
The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it unto you upon the altar to make an atonement for your soul. For it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul, and that was accomplished, that was fulfilled on Calvary's cross.
Not in the wilderness.
Not in all the offerings of the Old Testament, Not when Solomon offered 120,000 sheep. 1000 Oxford No.
That verse was fulfilled.
Montcalm.
Turn to the 9th chapter of Luke.
For one Scripture, before we turn back to the Old Testament and pick up the other side.
Well, I'll quote it. I must have picked up the wrong. I must have the wrong reference in my thoughts, however, on the Mount of Transfiguration when the Lord Jesus took.
It's in four Gospels. He took the three disciples with him up on the mount of Transfiguration, and it says that his raiment was changed and became white and blistering. And it says that two men also talked with him, Moses and Elias, and they spake.
To him of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem, the amount of transfiguration is a picture of the glory of the Lord Jesus in that scene of glory when he comes back and sets up his Kingdom. But what were they occupied with? Not with that scene of glory?
But with the deceased that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. So in Matthew 21, when he rode in Jerusalem as the king, something had to take place.
Before that could ever happen.
And that's the other side of the picture of this is Jesus. There's only one other place in scripture that that expression is used, and that's in the 27th chapter of Matthew and the 37th verse. And we'll come to that later. This is Jesus.
And that was the inscription that was put over his cross.
This.
Is Jesus. Let's go back now to the 22nd chapter of Genesis.
In the 24th chapter of Luke's Gospel, the Lord Jesus.
There were two on the way to Emmaus.
And the Lord Jesus, it says. And Jesus himself drew near and went with them.
And it says that he in talking to them, he.
Opened the scriptures to them of all the places in the Moses and the prophets, and all the scriptures concerning Himself.
Let's look at one of them in the 22nd of Genesis.
And the Lord said unto Abraham, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offering therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell the other. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his *** and took two of his young men with him. And Isaac his son enclave the wood for the bird offering, and rose up and went under the place of which God had told him.
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Verse 7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, my father, And he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together.
A picture of the cross of Calvary in Mark's Gospel it says having yet one son.
His well beloved he sent him blast unto them.
Having yet one son is well beloved, he sent him last under them.
Something had to take place before.
Matthew 21 Could ever come into effect. Something had to take place before there ever was any blessing to man.
For it's not possible that the blood of bulls or of goats should ever take away sin. There had to be an offering that was acceptable to God to take away sin. And we had it last night.
John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus coming, said, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. You know he did not stop there, he went on. And in the 36th verse of that same chapter he looks at Jesus again and he says, behold the Lamb of God.
It's true, He was offered as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. But after we know him as Savior, then we look at Him. If adoring eyes behold the Lamb of God.
No longer taking away our sin, but our Savior of glory.
And so Abraham takes his son a picture of the Lord Jesus.
22nd of Genesis of Excuse Me, A Book of Psalms, 22nd chapter.
Again, we had this this morning too.
And we can write right across it.
This.
Is Jesus.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?
From the words of my roaring, Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent.
But thou art holy. That's the answer. That is the answer.
God for shook his son because he's holy, because he cannot look upon sin.
And consider that verse. I cry in the daytime and in the night season am not silent.
They put him on the cross at 9:00 in the morning.
The.
Till 12 noon.
Man did everything he could.
To belittle him.
Mocked him.
But then at 12:00 the lights went out.
You know, in Egypt it says that the darkness that was there was so bad that it could be felt.
I believe that the darkness.
At the cross.
Was of the same character.
No one moved.
From noon until 3:00 in the afternoon it was dark.
I and in the night season, I am not silent.
At the end.
Of that darkness, that's when the Lord cried.
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His cry of abandonment.
We sing off times.
The depths of all thy sufferings, no heart.
Could air conceive that is true? That is absolutely true.
There is no conception of what took place in those.
Three dark hours? None.
Let me tell you something.
If you eject.
The love of God.
In the gift of his son, you will understand what it was.
For those three dark hours, you will sustain the righteous wrath of a just God against sin. For him eternity.
For eternity.
Terrible.
Terrible.
There's a song that goes.
That.
Can't thou sustain the impenitence doom?
No, I can't.
What an awful thing.
To be offered a gift from a holy, righteous God.
Who gave his son?
To put away sin, to put away your sin, and to say no.
What an awful thing.
Let's go to Matthew 27.
And we'll see. The other part of this is Jesus.
And we'll read first the 37th verse.
And set up over his head.
His accusation written This is Jesus. Can you imagine?
The Lord had he made seven full comments while he was on the cross.
He made three of them.
Before the three dark hours.
He made one of them in the middle at the end of the three dark hours.
And then he made three of them.
After, let's read our call.
Study them. They're marvelous. The first three are grace and mercy toward man.
The center one is that cry of abandonment, and we only find that in Matthew and Mark. We don't find it in Luke and we don't find it in John.
And the last three have nothing to do with man. It's between himself and God.
One of them is I thirst had nothing to do with man.
The next one is, it is finished.
A finished work.
And the last one was Father. Into thy hands I commend my spirit.
And to think.
The Lord Jesus.
It's been brought before us these last two days.
In perfection, he walked through this scene.
He never did one single wrong thing. He never made one single mistake.
He healed the sick.
He gave sight to the blind. He raised the dead. He fed the poor.
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And then he says to the two disciples that John sent him, and the gospel is preached to the poor.
3 1/2 years he walked through this scene.
And when that time came to an end, to prove what man really was.
They said we don't want him.
We don't want this man crucify him, will not have this man to reign over us.
They didn't want God's man and they said give us Barabbas, you know, Do you wonder why this world is in such a horrible state?
Do you wonder why there are murders and theft?
Wars.
Why? Because man said give us a robber. We don't want God's man. We want a robber. And that's what they got and that's what they have.
Why?
Why did the Lord Jesus allow this to happen to him again, I repeat.
John 12.
Now is my sole troubled, And what shall I say, Father? Deliver me from this hour. But for this cause came my unto this hour. Without the cross of Calvary, not one of us would be in this room tonight. Not one of us would be on our way to glory. We'd all be on our way to hell, every last one of us.
Solemn, isn't it?
So and why? Because God cannot have sin in his presence and that's why there was 3 hours of darkness. Because God could not look upon his Son when he was the sin bearer.
But also it brought before us in first Peter 2.
Who bore our sins in his own body.
On the tree.
We can't understand that.
We can't understand how thankful we are that is true. How thankful we are that the Lord Jesus did bear our sins. Not not one of them, not two of them, but all of them.
And throughout eternity.
There will never be an indication that any of us ever sinned. No indication from God. Never. No look.
Oh, we'll see in his hands the results of it.
We.
Know but we had been made perfect. Hebrews 10 perfected forever them that are sanctified marvelous. That's our standing. That's where we stand tonight. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ and Savior. But if you don't, If you don't.
There's the other side of the coin.
They were cast into outer darkness. What a terrible thing. What a sad answer.
To God's marvelous, gracious call to the Lord Jesus's call, come unto me all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you that.
What are you waiting for tonight? What is each and everyone of us in this room looking forward to for tonight?
Let's turn to the first chapter of Action Closing.
I'm not going to touch on this as to its doctrinal character.
Let's start with verse 9, Acts one. And when he has spoken these things, that's the Lord Jesus. He had taken them out as far as the Bethany in another gospel. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold 2 men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, the men of Galilee, Why stand ye here, gazing up into heaven?
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This.
Same Jesus, this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.
Is that what you're waiting for?
Oh, I know the doctrinal teaching here is a little different to what I'm presenting.
But is this what you're waiting for? In the 1St Thessalonians 4 we read The Lord Himself shall descend and we could put in their Jesus himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
And we which are alive and remain.
Only those that know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
None others, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up with them.
To meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
It's about 7:25, 7/23. Depends what watch you're wearing.
On the 30th day of October.
In 1999.
How many of you here are guaranteed that you'll be here at midnight?
How many in this room are guaranteed that they will see the year 2000, the one that everybody saw it nervous about?
Not one.
Not one.
Not one. There isn't a single person that knows the Lord Jesus Christ and Savior would dare to say I'm going to be here tomorrow, Oh no, Oh no.
And if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, you don't don't dare say that either. If you're honest with yourself, you could walk out of this room tonight.
You could drop dead.
It's happened to many people.
Go in a graveyard and take a look at the graves.
They're all sizes. Take a look at the gravestones and you find all ages.
But if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as savior.
You'll be ushered from this scene into his very presence. Think of Steven.
When he was stoned, it says that he looked steadfastly up in heaven and he saw Jesus standing.
And they they they were so angry when he said that that they rushed upon him and stoned him to death.
He went right from this world.
Into the Lord's bread if the Lord Jesus were to come right now.
How many seats in this room would be occupied?
How many?
So.
Many years ago I heard a man preach and he's well known to many of us in this room and he said that the ones in this world who will know what happened will be the children of the Saints.
When the Saints disappear, they'll know what happened.
Again, I just repeat how simple. How simple.
To just accept God at His word, to believe what he says.
And be saved. How simple. For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
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Thou shalt be saved. There's there's no equivocation about it. There's nothing to argue about. God just simply says, you just do that and you'll be saved. And he means what he says.
And thousands and millions have proved it. And there's many in this room tonight that can tell you it's true.
Believe you know the Philippian Jailer?
There's a scripture that tells us about the sower that went forth to sow, and the seed fell in several different places and some of it fell on good ground. I'll tell you that Philippian jailer had a plowed soul that night.
And when that.
Jail shook and the doors flew open and all the prisoners bands fell off and he realized that his life was worthless.
He said. Sir, is what much did I do to be saved.
He knew why they were put in there. He knew about the story of the Lord Jesus.
And there was number hesitation on his part after what happened.
When Paul and Silas said unto him, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thine house, and it says, the same hour he took him out to his home, and washed their wounds, and was saved, was saved. It was that simple. Now does God have to shake you out of a jail, or out of a car, or out of a tree, or whatever it might be?
You know he can. He can.
God speaketh once, ye twice, and perceiveth it not.
Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Not tomorrow, not 8:00, not midnight. Behold, now God is true. God is faithful.
And he does exactly what he says. Again, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You know the Philippian, excuse me, the Ethiopian eunuch on his way down home after coming to Jerusalem from Ethiopia and finding nothing to satisfy his hungry soul, He was reading in the book of Isaiah. And he was reading about.
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter.
After he got through, Philip joined him in the chariot, and he says to Philip, who is this man speaking about himself or another man? And Philip it says Philip commencing.
At Jesus preached unto him Jesus. That's all this tonight. This is Jesus. Do you want him? You can have him.
Accepting and be saved our God our Father, we thank Thee.
Putting Away of Sin
Gospel