Chicago Conference: 2000

Table of Contents

1. If Jesus Comes I Won't Go. Why? My Sins Aren't Washed Away

If Jesus Comes I Won't Go. Why? My Sins Aren't Washed Away

Children—L. Ludvicek

DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.

Fun Nice to see all the children up here up front. Did you all have a nice sleep? A good night's sleep?
Sleep real good. That's good. I like to see bright eyed, bushy tailed faces.
Shall we look to the Lord Jesus and ask him for help during this time? And we sing our hymns and we talk about the Lord Jesus.
We always need to need the Lord's help, don't we? So let's look to the Lord in prayer.
Well, I'm going to ask you children, some hymns to sing, but before we do, I'm going to pick one myself, OK? And it's a hymn #8. And I'm going to ask maybe Mr. Mauer, to start the hymns for me because I'm not too good at that.
And when we were brought his coming.
Let's make all his own wrinkles.
Who are they? Let's hear to you.
Such as now love, not here voice.
Yes, will gather at his heart his glorious, his glorious.
Starting.
And restraining time is coming.
On us in the same glorious 1.
When I say rise is coming.
Child is long and worrying. Will you be among the numbers?
When you do him, praises him.
Yes, so now.
His glorious, his glorious.
Calmly, and the rest of the same time of his heart.
Seekers hard and free to all.
In your stainless is gone.
That's all.
Is glorious. It's glorious.
Coming.
Yeah, we're at the same time.
It was in the Saviors.
It's nice to hear your children sing too, and to see you sing.
I like to tell stories about children. I wanted to tell a story about a little girl by name of Abigail. And they were her mom and dad were singing a song about the Lord's coming and a daddy was talking about the Lord's coming and and they were singing and they were being happy. But the little girl's face went down. It was sad. She's only three years old.
Her face got sad and the daddy said what's wrong?

00:05:01

She said if Jesus comes, I won't go.
She said if Jesus comes I won't go and he said why? She says because my sins aren't washed away. She said my sins aren't washed away, she said. He said all you got to do is ask the Lord Jesus and heal, wash your sins away. I also know another little girl and I when she was little she's not little no more, but when she was little and she was a little girl.
She said her dad and mommy told her about the Lord Jesus and she knew her daddy and mommy loved her an awful lot. And they told her about Jesus. And they said, you know what, Jesus loves you more than we do. And she said, oh, I want to save you like that. Who loves me more than even mommy or daddy does. And this was a little girl and we have a lady, she's about my age in our meeting.
And she says, you know I got saved when I was so little. I don't even remember when I got saved. That's her daddy is Mr. Billisalli and it's now it's Shirley Thirst And some of you guys know her. But anyway, she didn't even remember when she got saved because she got saved when she was so little. But she came to know the Lord Jesus. And you know what the most important part is when you.
Somebody says, well, how do you know you're saved if you don't get, if you don't remember? The important part is, is that you know that you are saved and that you have life and that you believe in the Lord Jesus as your savior. And it's very evident that there is life. I heard somebody say a question once. They asked a question like this. They said show me your birth certificate. And while I lost it and if you said I lost, I don't have one. So then I don't believe you're alive. No. How do you tell somebody's alive?
Because they show signs of life. That's how you know. Because there's life and you remember children. I was going to ask you for songs. Does somebody have a hymn they would like to sing?
Do you have one?
What is going on at the hard store?
Open the door I'm glad to hear.
Children, I was going to make a suggestion. There's hymns that are on the back of your hymn sheet that are from 40414243444546 and 47. I was going to suggest that maybe you pick from those. Would somebody have a hymn they would like to sing? Well, we'll ask a boy and then a girl. OK, which one?
46.
And because and because of the girls, and they want some to be a wise truth to keep. Are you asking him?
And I love her since I lost away.
OK, well you had your hand up first, So what which one do you have?
What? What number you want to sing 14?
Facing #14.
Jesus for the cleansing power of a man.

00:10:04

Are you fully trusting in His grace, this heart? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you?
Lost in the blood?
Are you talking baby by the sailor side? Are you wild in the blood of the man?
Who you must be Charming democracy.
Are you lost in the love of the world?
In the soul of cleansing.
Blood. I am a spotless Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the man?
I'm lighting my blood on the land.
And he washed in the blood of land.
Are you in love?
In the soul finding.
One Are you hard and spotless on the Spotless Saturday wine?
No. Are you washed in the mild land?
This is a good question, boys and girls. And I like to tell stories. Is it OK if I tell another story now? I want to tell a story about two boys they like to play. Is there any boys and girls here who like to play? Yeah, we, you know, there's sometimes I, you know, hear children say. Some of my children say I haven't had time to play all day. But that's one thing they want to make time for. And in fact, I told one of my boys the story of Daniel and how they made him.
Work real hard and they.
They made him a eunuch so he could never be a father. And they took him from his father and mother, and he's no doubt his father and mother was killed and they made him work all day and maybe he didn't even have time to play. My son said I would still find time to play. That was his biggest concern in the story that children like to play, but the sometimes things happen when children like to play, want to have fun. We don't think about serious things.
That we don't think about danger and we don't think about things that maybe we should sometimes. Because, you know, little children, when they're little, they don't know better, even some littler than you guys. Like when they want to, they wander off and maybe they'll walk in front of a car, they want to play that they're not thinking about a car coming, are they? No, they don't know better.
Well, there's dangers. There's a question in our sin, a song, It's about sin. It's it wants. It asks, are your sins washed away? Are you saved? I'm going to tell you a story about a brother who wanted his brother to be saved, but it wasn't the consideration from a lost eternity. It was because danger had happened and they were playing. This is a true story. It's about where they dredge rivers and they.
Sometimes they have barges and they want to take the boats through and sometimes there gets to be sandbars or the river runs and it piles up sand and sometimes they have to remove the sand and this was a case where they had to remove.
Sand. So the barges would go through and they'd make these huge piles and they they had some sort of pumps and other things, but sand and water would go out and they'd make huge piles of sand and.
Well, the water would run out of the sand and dry out and the sun would come down and when it was the sand was drying it make a crust. And children often thought it was fun to run up those piles. But the problem was water would disappear and the sand would settle and it the crust would be on top, but there'd be deep holes in the sand. There'd be these real deep holes in the sand and these, But when you looked at it, it looked just smooth on top.

00:15:32

And there was two boys that wanted they were playing and they decided they wanted to go down to those sand piles and they found one of the biggest sand piles they wanted to climb to the top. And so that's what they did and they went.
To climb to the top of the pile. And when they got to a certain point there was one of those deep holes they both fell through. And you know what sand is like. It's loose and it it began to shift and and the sand began to fall in the hole. But I want to tell you, I'll skip forward to further on in the story.
And.
The children were missing.
The mom and dad could not find the two boys and it was getting to be evening and they begin to be worried. So they sent out a search party and they begin to look for the boys and they somebody thought about the sand piles and they went down there and they went looking and somebody spotted one of the boys. He had sand up to his chest, way up almost to his head, only his head was sticking out.
And.
So they went over there and he was turning blue.
Because of the pressure of the sand, he couldn't breathe too good. The sand was pushing on him and he was starting to turn blue.
So they started to he was unconscious, and they were digging the sand from away from the boy.
And finally they got the sand, the pressure off him, and they were getting down to his waist. He had been in there a long time and.
They he woke up and right away they wanted to know where's your brother, he said. I'm standing on his shoulders.
His brother wanted him to be saved, so he put him on his shoulders.
Do you know that that's a sad story, but his brother gave his life?
To save him. You know the Lord Jesus gave his life to save you and the salvation of your souls is a very serious matter. It's even more serious than the story I just told you.
But that was a nice story about a brother who gave a life for his brother. And scripture says that even some men would dare to die. They'll die for a good man. They'll die for their brother. But Jesus Christ died for us. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. That's what the Lord Jesus did for us. Do you have a mom and dad who wants you to get saved? Do you have a brother who wants you to get saved?
Do you have a grandpa and grandma who wants you to get saved? Do you have the older brethren? And did you know before every gospel there are those who go up there and pray, and there are those who pray during the meeting, the gospel meeting, that children would get saved. And there are those who pray during these meetings that you children would get saved Just like that brother who wanted his brother to be saved, There are those who want you to be saved.
OK, we need to sing another hymn. What hymn do you have?
What number?
15.
Bless the gospel, Sonia.
There is room.

00:20:41

We know to save.
All I am feeling, yeah.
All things are ready now.
That is wrong.
Eyes. Everything has done.
Yeah, there is room.
Here and so complete.
Healing for the Mercies.
I want to stay here. You will need.
To grow.
Houses spilling past.
Yeah, there's room.
Some gas will be the last.
Yet there is room.
Salvation Day.
You will pass away.
Then raise our moral things.
Yeah, in his room.
It's still an invitation to all whosoever will may come.
That's children and everyone alike. Sometimes when we talk to children. I remember when, brother.
Umm, Albert Hayhoe was telling a story. He was talking to children just like this and there was a lady who been to many gospel meetings and the Lord opened her heart and she got saved that night or that day Sunday school, She said She never understood the gospel before. It was the first time that it entered into when he was speaking to the children.
You know, children, you need to understand the gospel. You need to know that there's a savior.
Who lives on high in the glory? Who loves you and who died for you? That you might be saved and that he loves you more than mom or dad, or all your brothers and sisters who want you to be saved? The Lord Jesus is asking you to come whosoever will may come. Children, how do we know Jesus loves us? The Bible tells us so. But what did Jesus do that the Bible tells us about?
What did he do?
Jerry.
He died for us. Hereby perceive we the love of God because Christ died for us. Does anybody know what the Sunday School verse is for today?
And that anybody would like to say it?
Any volunteers?
Well, maybe I'll say it, but is this the right one? You guys? Tell me, is it the right one with the picture of the skunk on the front?
Is that the right one?
It says let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
But that which is good.
But no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
Well, let's talk about that. I got another story about a little girl and.
It wasn't necessarily corrupt. Why? Corrupt communications were allowed in her life. But I'm going to think about a story. If you turn to the 7th chapter of Luke, you'll find a story about the Lord Jesus and a woman towards the end of the chapter about a woman.

00:25:16

Who was a Sinner? And she?
Well, I want to say she came to the Lord Jesus and anointed him, and she was washing his feet with her tears and wiping with the hairs of her head and.
There was a man by the name of Simon. I'm going to talk, This says Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
And there's times when we might say something with our mouth, but do you know there's communications in our heart?
It's important to what's in our heart because in that story it says, Simon said in himself, If this man.
Were a prophet, he would have known what manner of woman this is that touches him. And you know what Jesus did?
He answered him. Now Simon could say, Hey, I didn't say anything. He answered the thoughts of his heart. He answered him.
And then if we turn to Ephesians Chapter 5, Our memory verse.
Is in.
Is in the 4th chapter, but in it says speaking to yourselves, making melody in your heart.
Speaking in spiritual songs, making melody in your heart is unto the Lord.
I'm not saying the whole verse, but it kind of goes along that way. But there again, it's talking about speaking to yourself. Now that's not correct communication. That's good communication because it's Speaking of making melody in your heart as unto the Lord. It's singing about the Lord making melody and spiritual songs. Well, I'm going to tell you another story. And this is a story about a little girl and there was a time in her life.
When the Lord was working and she asked the Lord to save her, and that's going to bring up my subject along with what I have to talk about here.
And maybe if we have time, we'll sing some more hymns.
But this little girl, there's was 3 distinct times in her life when she was little that she came to her father and she said.
Daddy, I'm not sure I'm saved.
Daddy, I'm not sure I'm safe. So her daddy would open the Bible and quote John 316 to her. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And then he would read her other verses, and he would pray with her and she would go. She was troubled, He could see it.
And she there was 3 distinct times in her life that this really happened and troubled her.
Well, she grew up to be an older girl and her teenager and her and her dad were talking about when she was this little 3 year old. And these these times happen.
She says, Dad, do you remember those times? And he goes, yeah, I remember. And she says, do you know what happened?
She said. Those times I had questioned my salvation.
She says was the times you had told me not to take candy out of this little jar. They had a little lid on it. Unless I gave you one. And those 3 * I snuck a candy.
She had taken something that she wasn't supposed to take and she had sinned, and every time she did that, she felt guilty and there was communication that went on in her heart.
And she wasn't so sure about her salvation. And she I heard the other night that the soul that is saved should know it.
Well.
She, her and her dad were talking. She said. Why didn't you tell me what happened? The problem was, you know this. He would have maybe then talked in a different way and told her about the blood of Jesus. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

00:30:09

He said, oh when you're saved, but it is important to know if you're saved and you know if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins faithful to Jesus and his finished work.
Well, where should we turn? I was thinking of Romans 8.
There's a verse there that I'd like to turn to.
The story? Well, I'll just read verse 15, Romans 815.
You have not received the Spirit of ******* again to fear, but have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA Father, the Spirit itself bears witness with our Spirit that we are the children of God.
You know, if you know the Lord Jesus, you have a witness, the Spirit of God, and it bears witness with our Spirit and it.
And eight Romans 8-9 says.
And it says in the last part of birth. It says that now if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Those who do not have this witness in themselves that they are the children of God are not His. I know children are growing up and coming to the age of accountability, but there are those who are older, even such as we had before us in the meetings, as Jesus's half brothers, James and Jude, and Scripture attest that they did not believe on him till after his resurrection.
That they did get saved, but they didn't get saved until they were older. They didn't get saved until they were older.
And now there's another verse.
In first John 5.
And verse 13.
If you want to know about you know by myself I really can't tell anything. The Spirit of God may witness with my spirit, but really it's through the word of God, the witness of the Spirit of God. But in first John 513 it says these things. Have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God?
And then turning over to the third chapter of First John.
It says in verse 20. It says for if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things.
Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then we have confidence towards God. There's a verse in Romans chapter is it 3 or is it 4? But it says let God be true and every man a liar. There are evil communications in that. We have to say these communications aren't right. If I have sinned you know there's a verse we often.
Quote with the remembrance of the Lord Jesus. It says let a man examine himself and so let him eat. So that's we need to fess up confess if you know the Lord Jesus.
You need to If there is sin that comes in our life, we have an advocate with the Father. Those are big words.
But it's Jesus Christ the righteous and the blood of Jesus Christ. That blood, that precious blood, is always a comfort to a believer. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin, every sin. There's not one sin that it can't cleanse us from. In fact, you know what happens at work. These are big people. But I'm going to tell you, children, that you have heard more things about the Lord Jesus than these big people have.

00:35:08

They're 20 years old.
And they've never heard Jesus loves me or anything. And they'll say something to me like, you read the Bible, don't you? Yeah, I heard you read the Bible. You're a Christian, aren't you? And then they'll name some sin to me and they'll say, well, that sin keep you out of heaven.
Because what has happened is sin. They have come so used to sin that it doesn't seem like a big deal anymore.
It just doesn't seem like a big deal. And what I try to tell them is this, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're all sinners. And I tell them, you know, there's one thing that will keep you out of heaven, because all of us have sinned and we'd all go to a lost eternity.
But that sin needs to be forgiven. Yes, but.
One thing will keep you out of heaven.
And this is in the end of Revelation. It talks about when they are judged by their works.
And their names? The Lord Jesus looks. Their final condemnation is that their name is not written in the Lamb's book of life. The final condemnation to anyone who goes to a lost eternity, as they did not receive the Lord Jesus as their savior. So instead of focusing on how bad one sin is, bad or worse than the other, I tell them we all have seen and I said only one thing to keep you out of heaven if you don't accept the Lord Jesus as your savior.
You don't accept his pardon.
You need to have your sins washed away.
Everyone of us, a boy and girl now. I want you children as you're growing older and some of you are starting to learn from your right hand, from your left. I've known where children have gotten saved. Pretty young. So young maybe they can't even remember when it happened.
But if the Lord Jesus is working and the Spirit of God is striving, it's called the Day of Visitation.
The Lord visits men and the Spirit of God can visit you and the Lord be visiting your hearts right now. And just like we saying there's a Savior who wants you to be saved, your mom and dad do. Many are praying for you. Children even today are praying that you will be saved. Make sure of your salvation. Why is it important to make sure of your salvation?
Why?
Why not just play and not think about it like those boys who were running up that sand?
What was there was danger, right? What's the danger if we don't know we're safe?
The enemy likes to put us in a place called Neglecting. Is there a verse about that?
It says how shall we escape if we neglect So great a selfish and anybody know that verse? You guys know that verse?
There's a danger of not making sure.
Children, I don't want you to go through this day without making sure that you're saved. You can talk to your daddy or mommy. You can talk to me. I'd be happy to talk to you. But make sure you're saved and that you have. And if your heart doesn't condemn you.
Then you have confidence towards God, and if your heart is condemning you, there might be a problem with sin.
But there also could be the point that if that you have not yet accepted the Lord Jesus as your savior. But whatever the case, you need to have confidence and assurance through the word of God, because the scripture says these things. Have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life? Maybe we could sing a few more hymns.
What number?
I didn't hear 44.

00:40:02

Use our salvation. We carry the heat. Nobody ever has called it to me.
How are you?
Holidays and Story, Rebecca.
Helen can say of the children.
Nobody ever has told me before.
Will you so love me?
A little boy and until we live while hiding.
He does not perish. My heart will be full. Nobody ever read the story as cold.
Time.
Salvation story.
Till one can say of the children of men.
Nobody ever has told me.
And then we caught our last words of his breath.
Salvation story Repeat or end all?
Till none can stay on the children of men.
Nobody ever has told me before.
Well children, there's a verse that says not by power nor by might, but by my spirit sayeth the Lord. And there's another verse that says in I'm trying to think if it's Second Corinthians 4 or is the 1St Corinthians 4. It's probably second, but it says the God of this world has blinded the eyes of them that believe not.
And that's what the enemy is seeking to do. But the Spirit of God does strive with the hearts of children.
And different ones. So, well, let's pray about that power of the Spirit of God. And also we'll pray that the power of the enemy might be bound. So let's pray.

Open Mtg.

Open—D. Nicolet, R. Thonney

DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.

For we're not what the world which faded away.
And out of the night. But children of day, the change that once bound us by Jesus, are riven where strangers on earth, our home is in heaven.
We're not of the world which paid upon.
Children.
My day.
A train drives once found us.
I did not sorrow.
We're strangers.
Our home is in heaven.
Our God is most crowded.
And dangerous.
To.
My track last ways.
Our journey lives true.
God of illness.
Breathe fresh gospel.
While that one working.
Our brave.
Came down from.
My dear school.
I'll read it and turn it on Blood. That's why I got surrounded and Crystal.
Him, Lord.
Our solid man's Lord, and forever and never.
Shall give.
Oh, glory and blessing.
Lord Jesus.
James Four and verse 4.
The adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is empathy with God. Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

00:05:05

Then over to Chapter 2.
Verse 23.
Abraham believed God, it was repeated unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. We just pray.
Three questions. John 21.
Just read these questions.
Part of each of the verse.
John 21, verse 15.
In the middle of the verse, Jesus sayeth.
Lovest thou me more than these?
The 16th verse.
He saith.
Again the second time.
Lovest thou me?
Verse 17.
He saith unto him the third time.
Lovest thou me?
What I have on my heart, brethren, is to consider, with the Lord's help a little bit this afternoon, that question. Now we're aware that this was asked by the Lord Jesus to Simon Peter in relation to the lambs and the sheep.
But I would like to allow us to apply it to our souls this afternoon and this way that each of us sitting here would take those.
Desires.
Dreams. Hopes.
Satisfactions that we find in life.
Our relationships.
Our jobs, whatever it is, I'd like us to in our minds, each one individually, brethren, take each of those things.
And put them into a pile and in our hearts.
Before the Lord Jesus, look at those things.
And then answer that question individually in our hearts to the Lord Jesus.
Do you love me more than these things? Many of those things are good and right. Desires for our families, concerns about a career, concerns about a companion for life, concerns about the assembly, about brethren that we are exercised, about children. We could go on and on, brethren, with that list of good and right and necessary things that occupy our hearts and concern us.
But I would like to this afternoon address some remarks as the Lord helps with this question.
Are those things to me, things that I love more than the Lord Jesus?
It was obvious, I think, to all of our souls today as we meditated and considered that portion in Jude, that in the day in which we live, beloved brethren, it will require eyes and hearts fixed continually on the blessed Lord Jesus Christ if we're to walk through this world.
To His honor and glory, and consequently to our joy and satisfaction. I would like to suggest, beloved young people, that you can't really separate in your life those two things, walking through the honor of the Lord Jesus and real joy.
You might walk a life of supposed joy in this world, but if it's not an honor of life that glorifies and honors the Lord Jesus, you'll not find true joy.
And if you walk with the Lord Jesus as the 1St and initial exercise of your heart about everything that everything you do.
And say every thought of your heart and mind is taken in relation to what the Lord Jesus Christ thinks about it, how it affects his blessed name. Does it grieve his heart? The exercise, the desires that I have, the things I want to do, are they that which gives joy to the Lord's heart, or are they that which might cause grief to his heart? I suggest that if that's the first thing that we.

00:10:02

Gauge our lives and our actions with that. The joy if we say.
The Lord you're 1St that the joy must follow.
The Lord Jesus, I have often said, and I beg your allowing me to say it again, my blessed Savior and yours did not hang on that cross suffering.
Bleeding there to offer up his life, to be forsaken of God for those awful three dark hours that will never understand.
He didn't stand there and allow people to spit in his face, to beat him on the head with a rod, to slap him, to mock him.
So that you would go through this life miserable and unhappy.
He did that, that you might experience the fullness of joy.
And I too.
But that to do that I submit, beloved brethren, we have to answer this question individually and in reality before God. Loveth thou me more than these? May God help us all this afternoon to be able to say in faith looking we see Jesus seated, crowned with glory, seated at the Father's right hand in glory. We see him there. How do we see him there? It's my faith. Do you see him there or is that just a brethren theology?
That's just brethren language, something you hear on Lord's Day morning.
At the breaking of bread. Or is it a daily reality that by faith you and I have a view of the most incredible glory, Unimaginable, indescribable, but its glory because that blessed man is seated there.
And that object, above all objects, the Lord Jesus, His blessed Person, is the thing that guides our every decision in this life. I submit again, beloved young people, you cannot have Him as the object of your heart and not have along with it real, deep, abiding joy and satisfaction.
Now what I'd like to do with that background?
Lovest thou me more than these?
Is I would like to turn to the Old Testament and follow a well known story with four.
Well known figures 5 actually.
To look at.
Those who had the joy and the delight of a relationship with one who is called the man after God's own heart.
But in some of those cases.
There was something before that man that they loved and that got in the way.
And I would like to, I'm talking about the story obviously of David and I would like to follow in one of the chapters in that history.
Some people that had to do with David.
One saw.
One Jonathan. 1 Michael.
And one Samuel.
They would like to follow their histories because.
It's remarkable that in at least two of those instances, it talks about two of those people as loving David.
And yet, though they loved David, the circumstances of the life, the decisions they made, the exercises of their hearts, what was truly important to them, came out, and in those cases, denied them the fellowship of the one that they said they loved.
And did so at great cost to them individually.
And I'd like to look at this this afternoon that we might gain a few principles from the Word of God for our good and our blessing, because, beloved brethren, I believe that today.
It takes more, and it always has, than to just say I love Jesus.
To walk through this world fully satisfied and with real joy, and to walk in a path that keeps one from that horrible shipwreck of life that we see so many ending up in who profess to be Christians. And So what I want is to ask ourselves, do I love him more than these? Is it reality in my heart?

00:15:02

To have this object so before my soul that I can truly walk in fellowship and communion and joy with him.
Let's turn, please.
To First Samuel.
Chapter 19.
And we will go through this. We won't perhaps dwell a long time on it. I don't know, brethren, whether what I have on my heart this afternoon answers to an address or part of an open meeting. But you just trust above all that it's of the Lord.
Let's start with verse one.
And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they.
Should kill David.
So rather strange, isn't it?
Here's a man who saw his people, his armies, delivered from a foe that he was trembling to stand in the in front of.
Here's a man who reaped the spoils of this victory that he could do nothing about and had nothing to do with.
Here's a man who, in every step of his pathway since Goliath, was slain by David.
Has benefited and only benefited from David's courage and love for Jehovah and faith.
He's only been a receiver of good and what does it say about him?
It says that he speaks to his son and to his servants that they should kill David, get rid of the one and only source of true blessing that existed in his life. Now, I'm just going to make applications this afternoon, but I want to tell you in one application, beloved brethren, beloved young people especially.
The world through which you and I pass is a world that has indeed, especially the Western nations that we're part of.
The Christ of Calvary.
There is no one in this room who would willingly say I will give up my American citizenship.
And move to Malawi to live there the rest of my life in the conditions.
That exists there. There is no one here that would say I will willingly, unless called of God of course.
I will willingly give up my rights, my citizenship, that which I enjoy in this land and move to.
You can fill in 100 other places.
We live in a place that has been supremely blessed.
By God.
Christianity and the blessings that Christianity gives.
But you know, there's something that characterizes everyone of us, whether we're saved or not, we have something called the flesh.
The flesh which will never, ever bow and submit.
To the Lord Jesus Christ, so awful, so helpless, so worthless, so wicked.
That God could only do, I say reverently, one thing with it, and that's put it to death at the cross.
I know that in me that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
And that's all. I'd like to look at Saul that way, the flesh which is going to rise up and say I'm going to re ruling in my life, I'm going to be the king. I will not give up that authority and lordship to another.
And I will kill the one.
Who seeks and rightfully ought to have that place of lordship in my life.
Pretty harsh language. Is it possible Christians can talk that way? I believe it is.
That we can every day get up with a decision to make either the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was shed on the cross to wash my sins away, who loved me so much that He came down into this world and walked in a world He had made and grieved over. A world that he had made, ruined by sin, and went to the cross. That he might have me with him forever.
That I get up every morning to make a decision that I will either practically and willingly walk with that one as the object of my heart.
As my Lord submitting to his thoughts and his ways, or I will in effect say, I'm going to put that out of my life, and I say reverently, in effect, I say, I'm going to stamp out the exercises and the desires and the rights of that one.

00:20:19

To rule in my life today that I love something else more than him.
And so Jonathan was presented with a very, very solemn decision. What are you going to do, Jonathan? Remember, Jonathan was the one after he saw what David did, it said he loved David as he loved his own soul. And he stripped himself of all that he had and he gave it to David as if to say, David, there's nothing about me that compares to you. You're worthy of my all. I give it all. I lay it all at your feet. Everything I have. That's a wonderful. That was a wonderful start. That was a start of one who truly loved David. I trust it so that each one in this room this afternoon.
Can say I truly do love the Lord Jesus and he is worthy of all.
But I say each day you and I get up and we have a decision to make.
Will we listen to Saul? That is the flesh saying kill David, put him out, don't allow him that place of authority and headship.
Or are we going to follow? What did Jonathan do about it well?
Let's look.
Jonathan, Saul's son.
Delighted much in David.
And Jonathan told David.
You know, that's a good thing to do. That's a very precious thing to do, to run to the one each day that has died to save me and to say, Lord, I know that there's something today that's going to come into my life to seek to displace thee and thy rights. But you see what Jonathan did, His faith wavered because he says.
I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a secret place and hide thyself. Is that what you want, beloved young people?
Dear brethren, is that what we want to say? I'm glad that the Lord loves me. I'm glad He died on the cross for me.
But I want him to stay in a secret place until the morning. He's going to come very soon. There's going to be a wonderful and bright morning. We're going to be caught home to be with him forever, and that's soon enough for me to be connected with his glory in the morning. But for now, David, go and hide and stay hidden in a secret place.
Or.
Do we say Lord Jesus?
I want you to shine out of my life today. I want you to be the Lord in my life. I want to love you more than these, and I want to walk with your glory displayed in some measure in my life today. And so he goes on and he says.
In verse 4 I'm going to skip on Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father.
And he goes on there and he explains to Saul, he says all of those wonderful things that David has done, how Saul has benefited from them. David was rather Jonathan in his love for David, was reasoning and arguing and trying to set his father straight, beloved brethren.
In my application, may I say you and I are wasting our time if we try to bring that which is at enmity.
With God into agreement with him, That is, if I try to make my flesh religious.
If I try to somehow bring it in subjection that which hated Christ.
That which has no standing before Christ, that which had to be put to death in his death on the cross.
If I try to bring that into subjection and we see those efforts going on all around us in Christianity Today.
Some sort of Christianity, some sort of theology that says we're going to take.
That which has already been accounted as unchangeably, unhelpfully bad.
There's no good thing in it. It's fit only for death. But we're going to work in the name of Christ and we're going to improve it.
We're going to do something to make it better. No, it's got to be done with. Christ is the object, not the flesh, and so he talks to his Father.
And he tells him about all that he did. He said, he says in verse five he put his life in his hand and slew the Philistine.
And the Lord brought a great salvation for all Israel, and thou sawest it, and didst rejoice. Wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood to slay David?
Without a cause. This is most interesting, this next verse. And Saul hearkened onto the voice of Jonathan. And Saul swear as the Lord liveth, he shall not be slain. And so verse 7, Jonathan called David, and Jonathan showed him all these things. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence. As in the time passes in times past. Well, it seems like those efforts worked. It seems like there was, after all, something that could be done.

00:25:29

That could be worked on with Saul that could improve the situation.
And so Saul, even for a time, agrees with what Jonathan says. Yes, you're right, he did save us. Yes, you're right, He did me good. He slew the giant that I couldn't slay.
And so he says, I swear to you, I won't kill him. He can come back in my presence. But you know, if we were to read in Galatians, we read that about how that the flesh and the spirit are in a constant, a battle as it were, there's not going to be peace between them. And we'll see that's going to happen very soon here because it says there was war again, verse 8. And David went out and fought with the Philistines and slew them with a great slaughter.
And they fled from him.
Now wouldn't you think that would cause joy, that Saul would see that? And he would, his heart would just open up with joy and love and thankfulness to this one who caused such a great slaughter of the enemy.
But it says in the evil spirit from the Lord was upon so all as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand. You know, I'm not clear that I fully understand this, beloved brethren, but I'm going to suggest something for you at least to consider.
You have in the Word of God, various weapons mentioned. You have a javelin or a spear. You have a sword. You have a bow and arrow, a shield. I'm going to suggest at least a possible application for you to consider.
That John, that Saul sat there with an ability and a desire.
Even though he had sworn that he was going to be at peace with David and that David could come back into his presence.
And that he would sit there and allow David to be there in his presence. He still had in his hand a javelin. He still had the means and the desire.
To kill David. You know we learned early in the Word of God that Amalek, which is a picture of Satan acting on the flesh.
We learn early in the Word of God that there's going to be a constant battle between Amalek and the people of God.
And it's going to go on from generation to generation. They'll never not be in this world. A time where in the flesh.
Is lusting and fighting and contending against the Spirit. Even if theology or Christianity, professingly so, is used to somehow try to bring peace, it won't work because the flesh, ever, you might say, sits there with that javelin in its hand and that hateful spirit toward Christ, the rightful Lord, the rightful ruler. And so Saul has that javelin.
And it says.
In Saul, it says David played with his hand.
Think of it, you know they're in Psalms. It talks about the one who says.
I am for peace.
There for war, but when I am for peace, there for war. Here was David. What was he doing with his hand? Oh, he was playing with a heart, bringing comfort and joy into that company. What was Saul doing? He was sitting there with a javelin, trying to decide how and when he could kill David. Why am I saying this? Lovest thou me more than these? There are those things, beloved young people, beloved brethren, that rightfully have a place in our hearts and lives, but all.
That we might be ever so watchful of those things, and that we might be really before the Lord in judging and leaving the flesh where it belongs, is that which will ever and always be an enmity with David. Always have a javelin seeking to smite David.
It says it's all sought to smite David, even to the wall with the javelin, and David fled and escaped that night.
Well, there was the efforts of one who loved David, but he didn't love him enough.
Had he loved him enough, he would have fled with him. He would have gone out, he would have quit trying to get David to be comfortable and safe in Sauls presence, but he would have gone out with him until David was allowed by God to come into that place that he had rightfully the king over Israel.
But instead, instead, David has to flee. He has to leave. Jonathan, that's sad. You know, beloved brethren, if you and I daily seek in the flesh to live for Christ and seek by the means of the flesh and satisfying it or using it, whatever way that we're going to live and seek to follow the Lord and allow him and put him in that rightful place as Lord of our life, I say we're going to miss the joy of his company. He had to flee.

00:30:19

And Jonathan didn't go with him. Jonathan lost the joy.
Of the conscious presence of David, the one whom he loved because he tried to get David.
And Saul to be at peace, and there is no peace between them. But now we come to another one. If we would read later, it says of Michael Saws, Saul's young daughter, younger daughter. It says of Michael that she loved David. He comes back from the battle, from the victory. And the women are singing. Saul has slain his thousands and David his 10 thousands. And Saul gets angry because he says they've ascribed more to David than they have to me. And so the flesh rises up in pride and it's going to get rid of David because it can't stand to have anything more important, anything more of more value than itself.
Well, then Michael comes along and Saul's realizes that Michael loves David. What kind of a love was it? I will suggest to you that this is the second kind of thing.
Lovest thou these more that lovest thou these more than me that this love was a love?
That was willing to identify with David while David was being feeded as a glorious warrior. That as long as David was looked up to and adored and made an object of adulation and glory, Michael was quite willing to be in connection and relationship with him. And she loved him. But what she really loved was his glory, the honor that would be hers as being connected with him. And so he flees.
And it says here.
In verse 11, Saul also sent messengers on to David's house to watch him.
And to slay him in the morning. And Michael, David's wife told him, if thou save not thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain.
You know, I'm amazed as I look at this story, beloved brethren.
To see how in both cases, those who love David.
Are encouraging him to hide himself or to disappear in the night.
Now I'm again, I'm saying I'm repeating, I'm making applications here. But you know, we couldn't, as we heard this morning, be in a more dark day than the day we live in right now. It's morally as much of A night as it can ever possibly be.
This is not a time to tell the Lord Jesus, as it were, to flee. This is a time to walk with the Lord Jesus at that light of testimony might shine brightly at a time when it so desperately needed.
Michael loved David, but she loved the David who was honored and glorified, not a David who was chaste.
And ridiculed. Which Lord, may I say, reverently beloved young people?
Do you love? Do you love a popular Jesus that's quite acceptable to the world?
And looked up to and respected as a mighty man, as a great teacher, as a leader of a huge following, as a political activist, or on and on and on all the different ways that he's acceptably looked at in the world.
Is that the one that you love? That's not the true Christ.
Is the one that is the true Christ? Are you saying to him, flee away?
Flee away tonight. I don't want to be connected with you. You've got to get away.
Because the true Christ is one that it says, when we shall see him, there is no beauty.
That we should desire him.
The true Christ is one that the world hated. The true Christ was the one who when Pilate brought him forth and said, Behold the man, they said, crucify him. And when he brought him forth again and he said, Behold your king, they said, we have no king but Caesar.
The true Christ, the true glory, the true Person seated in glory today.
As we go through this awful memorial night in this world is not a popular Jesus.
It's not a Jesus that if you connect yourself with and you're going to find honor and glory.
It's a Jesus, I say reverently, who's despised, and if he were to walk back into this world today, men would just as happily today, spit in his face.

00:35:02

As they did 2000 years ago when he was here.
That's the Jesus.
That you have to decide whether or not you're going to flee with and be in relation with, or whether you're going to say you flee away. But that's not all Michael did.
We find that after David fled.
It says in verse 13, Michael took an image and laid it in the bed and put a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster and covered it with a cloth.
And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said he is sick.
And Saul sent the messengers again to see David, saying, Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may slay him. And when the messengers were coming, behold.
There was an image in the bed with a pillow of gold's hair for his bolster. And Saul said unto Michael, Why hast thou deceived me so, and sent away my enemy, that he has escaped? And Michael answered Saul. He said unto me, Think of this, beloved brethren. Here's one who supposedly loved David, and now here's what she's saying about David.
He said unto me, Let me go. Why should I kill thee?
She's saying like father to Saul. She's saying my father. If, if, if he said to me, if I don't let him go, he's going to kill me.
She was quite satisfied to have what appeared to be David.
In her house, I'm just going to make that as a simple application. She put that tariff in the bed. She covered it. She made it look like David was in the bed.
She made it appear that he was there, but he wasn't. He was gone. There was Number glory that she was interested in and so she made excuses. She said the reason he's there is because he's sick.
Is that how you look at your savior today? That you want to outwardly have it look like you have a relationship with Him?
But in fact, you look at him, as I say, very reverently sick and unable to really help you.
And walk with you and unworthy of your walking with him. Michael said she loved David.
And that she lied about him.
And she used the excuse that he was going to harm her, David.
Who slew the enemies of the people of God, and wouldn't lay his hand on his most inveterate enemy? Saul, but said, Let the let the Lord take care of him.
He becomes the object of the lives of one who said she loved him. All beloved young people, beloved brethren, love us style these more than me. I want to suggest that there are those things in our life that we can get so taken up with that it causes us to live.
A lie to live as though we have Christ and are in relationship to Him.
When in fact we have, we want nothing to do with the despised and rejected and dishonored Christ.
May God help us in this dark day to lay hold of him and say, David, if you're going to flee, I'm going with you.
Wherever you go, that's what Iti the Gittite said, he said. David, wherever you go, in life or death, I'm going to be with you.
His heart had been truly won by David and we see other beautiful pictures of that throughout the word of God. Those who said I won't leave, I'm going to go with you in real love. They stayed with the object of their affection. Or may it be that we don't just simply stay with an outward form.
But that in reality we find ourselves with David. So David flees from one that loved him, flees away from his presence because he won't live the leave the presence of Saul. Now he flees from another who says that she loves him. Now he flees away. And now we come to the third and the last one. And this is interesting because this is where he goes.
So David verse 18 fled and escaped and came to Samuel.
To Rama.
Now I'm going to bring this to a close, beloved brethren, and leave time perhaps for someone else, but I would like to suggest this a very interesting thing. As far as I know, and I will be corrected on this because I don't know absolutely for sure, but as far as I know I have. I have not read in the Word of God ever that Samuel loved David. Those words I read that Jonathan loved David. I read that Michael loved David.
I don't read that Samuel loved David, but his actions speak louder than his words.
And you know, I just want to make this little practical application.

00:40:03

It doesn't really mean a whole lot. It's not really in one way too important what you and I say today in this Dark World. But what we do is very, very important because as it's often been said in the gospel meetings and other times, it may be that the only gospel message your unsaved neighbor gets is the way you live your life.
And if you and I do not live our lives for the glory and the honor of the Lord Jesus, not a whole lot that we say is going to make much difference.
Samuel lived as one who, you might say, could enjoy happy fellowship with David, and it was to such a one that David, when everybody else had rejected him, fled.
He flees to Samuel, Samuel, who as a little boy grew up in that temple, who learned at an early age to say, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.
Who, it became evident to all in Israel, was set up by God.
As a prophet of the people of God.
And Samuel walked with his God.
Faithfully, with a very stumbling, backsliding, confused, divided people. The day that Samuel walked, in many ways is like the day you and I are walking. A very dark, confused day where the people of God are at odds with each other, divided over many things, which king is going to reign, and on and on and on. What sadness?
But Samuel walked with God and it was clear by his walk that he had been set up as a very special vessel of God in walking in faithfulness with the Lord. Can you and I do that, beloved brethren, to get up each day, not to be some mighty giant of, of, of Christianity, but to simply do what Enoch did to each day of our lives. Wake up in the morning and pray before the Lord, and then get up and to walk with the Lord that day.
Well, David flees to Samuel and we'll just.
Notice what happens? Saul sends messengers.
They come into Samuel's presence, and in that presence they end up changed in their character. Instead of coming to slay the One, the man after God's own heart, they become a mouthpiece for God's mind. What a tremendous blessing, what a tremendous power and force, a life lived for Christ with Him as the object of the life and a heart can be.
And so twice that happens. The messengers are sent in, twice into Samuel's presence, they come and their whole character is changed and they prophecy. And then even Saul himself comes to seek to slay David. And I won't go into this any further other than to say that in Samuel's presence where David was, where David, you might say, found safety in the presence of this man.
Who sought to follow and serve the Lord, whatever costs it was that Saul is stripped of all that he was characterized by in his power and glory, as you know.
Wonderful if you and I could say that in our lives and in our ways.
When the Lord Jesus says to us, as it were, do you love me more than these? He's not saying, I say that we should look down or disregard those natural responsibilities and cares of our life, but all that we might so live that David, you might say in this world which has rejected him, can find a place where fellowship can be enjoyed and can flee. When those who say they love him and then fail and he has to flee away.
That there can be a place where his presence can be known. May we be like Samuel, May we be able to say, yes, Lord Jesus, in some little measure I can say in my heart, Thou art more precious than all of these other things. And in some little measure, as Peter said, Lord, thou knowest, thou knowest all things, Thou knowest I love thee. But to be able to say, Lord Jesus, you know my heart. And if I don't, if I have some other object besides thee.

00:45:00

This afternoon, if I have some other object, tomorrow morning, if the Lord leaves us here and I get up, Lord Jesus, I want that object to be put in second place. I want thee to be first, that thou needest not flee away, but find a place of refuge and fellowship. May the Lord help us, beloved brethren, to see Him in glory, to be filled with the glory of His person, and to say, yes, Lord Jesus, I love thee more.
Than these.
They will always be alone.
When I hear.
My heart.
Can sleep.
Which one die first?
In my life.

00:50:34

We have found a friend in Jesus. Know how He loves. This is great. You'd like to bless us. Know how He loves, how our hearts be like to hear Him fit us well in safety near Him. Why should we distrust or fear Him? Oh how He loves.
Explorer.
Where?
He lost.
Oh God, we are.
Joy.
And Jesus to the Lord.
Oh.
Through his name.
We are for heaven.
Oh, how we love.
Where is the child our goals? It's a breadth and bread and.

00:55:48

So we have a few more minutes, brethren, until 3:15. I'd like to read in connection.
With what our brother has given us in the end of the book of Ephesians.
Chapter 6 and verse 24.
The Scripture says here Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.
In One Corinthians chapter 16.
And verse 22.
If any man.
Love not.
The Lord Jesus Christ, let him be.
Anathema Maranatha.
I cursed at his coming.
Just those two verses stand out as to.
A real believer in the Lord Jesus.
Loves the Lord Jesus.
There is no question about it, he loves the Lord Jesus.
And if anyone loved not our Lord Jesus.
Let him be a curse at his at his coming.
It shows, dear brethren, that there is no neutral ground in this question.
Do you love the Lord Jesus?
Those that love him in sincerity are.
Truly his people.
Now remember how it challenged me as a younger person years ago?
Born and raised in Walla Walla and the brethren used to go down to the street corner to preach on Sunday afternoon.
On 4th and Main St.
And I was in high school at the time.
And I remember some of my school companions riding up and down the street.
Where they were preaching and they look over and look at me.
I can remember.
The reproach of being identified with that group that was announcing the name of the Lord Jesus.
But I thought about a future day.
And it encouraged me when the Lord Jesus will come in power and glory from heaven.
Am I going to be ashamed of Jesus then?
Absolutely impossible and that encouraged me.
To stand.
Even though it was in feebleness and a lot of failure on my part I'm sure.
Identified with that which was connected with the name.
Of the Lord Jesus. If you are a real believer in the Lord Jesus, you love him.
I'd like to go to two verses in John chapter 14.
In connection with this matter of loving the Lord Jesus.
It is a response to his love, says in First Epistle of John. We love because he first loved us, in other words.
Our love is a love of response to him because he loved us so much.

01:00:02

But there is a proper response now on our part if we have learned to enjoy.
The Lord's love in John 14 and verse 15 If ye love me.
Jesus says.
Keep my commandments.
Yes, dear young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus. Dear older ones too. We have commandments in the New Testament, things that are specifically said to do and other things not to do.
He has said, Be not ye unequally yoked with unbelievers. It's of command.
He doesn't leave it to our discretion to decide if we want to or not. He says don't do it. And then he says if ye love me, keep my commandments.
And then down further in this chapter. Notice.
In verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him, This is Judas, not Iscariot.
If a man love me, he will keep.
My words and my father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.
So it's more than even keeping his commandments, it's keeping his.
Words.
And I like to think as the words, as the full expression of his thoughts.
There's a lot in the New Testament that is not exactly commands, but it is his words, it is the expression of his thoughts. And if you really love him, you're not going to only keep his commandments, you're going to keep his word.
And we don't have a whole lot of time this afternoon, but I'd like to.
Briefly, in connection with this, referred to three of David's mighty men.
Who are an illustration of this that I've enjoyed so much? Let's go back to.
The list of David's mighty men in Second Samuel.
Chapter.
23.
And verse.
15.
And David longed Davidson The Cave of Adulam.
In verse 13 it tells us and David longed and said.
All that one would give me drink of the water.
Of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.
Is this a command?
Don't think so.
It is simply an expression of a desire that he has.
He was brought up in Bethlehem.
He evidently had drunk at that well a lot of times. He knew how good that water was, and here he's trapped in this.
Desolate cave with these men and he has a desire. Oh, wouldn't it be good to have a drink of that water right now?
Verse 16 and three and the three mighty men break.
Through the host of the philistines, and drew water out of the well of.

Open Mtg.

Open—C. Hendricks, B. Schoen, J. Kaiser

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.

In my heart.
Strings of blood screams no worries feeling.
All my sleep last night.
Sleeping by the sun.
When I pray for.
My heart of heaven.
I I always.
Are to believe.
Thank you.
Turn with me to Philippians.
Philippians one and verse 27.
Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.
That whether I come and see you or else be absent.
I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit.
With one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel.
Philippians has been oftentimes referred to as normal Christianity.
And the mind that's spoken of in the first chapter is the gospel mind.
That is the desire to reach out with the good news, the glad tidings reached the lost, and bring them into blessing.

00:05:00

That certainly ought to be the first desire of anyone that comes to know the Lord. They want others to know Him too.
And that's what we have in this first chapter I just want to touch upon.
As certain parts of Philippians not take all the time.
The gospel mind reaching out.
The proclaiming the good news to others.
And I especially want to dwell more on the second chapter, verse 5.
Let this mind be in you, which was also.
In Christ Jesus.
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus.
Every knee should bow of things in heaven, things in earth, and things under the earth.
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
I think the most important part of this passage is where it begins.
It begins with the mind that is in Christ Jesus. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
It's often spoken of that this is the lowly mind, and that's so true.
The lonely mind, the mind that makes nothing of itself and everything of him.
The mind that was in Christ He. We read that passage in Matthew.
Today the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
And to give his life a ransom for many. He came to serve. He came to give himself.
He came to present the Father to us and it cost him everything.
The mind that was in Christ. Just the opposite to what you have presented to us in schools nowadays.
When you're supposed to.
Promote yourself and exalt yourself and.
But Christians have bought into that and it's called self esteem. Think well of yourself. The very opposite to what the Bible teaches.
The Bible teaches, and the best example that God could bring before us in the Old Testament was Job.
Hast thou considered my servant Job a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and his cheweth evil?
And he was put through very, very, very severe tests.
In the middle of the book he says all that I might have an audience with God, that I would present my cause before him, and he would listen to me and he would justify me and I would come forth as gold. That's what he said.
That's what he said.
He had very high thoughts and very high opinion of himself, and you might say rightly so, because he was, as he was, a real example of, of humanity. And the Lord points him out to Satan.
And Satan throughout you just, you put a fence around him. You shielded him from all mishaps. Just take away those, those things, those blessings that you have and, and see what he'll do. He'll curse you to the face. Well, God says you can do that. Only you can only go so far. You're not to touch him, but to touch him. And so he took away his properties, He took away his flocks, he took away his possessions, even took away his sons and daughters.
And the job he said, the Lord hath given.
The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord in all this. Job sin not with his lips. And then Satan came again, and he said, he said, let me touch him, let me touch his health, let me take away his health. And the Lord said, all right, you may do that, but you can't take his life. And he smoked Job with the boils from the head to the foot, and he scraped himself, and he sat down, and he was miserable.

00:10:01

His wife said to him, curse God and die, commit suicide. He was such a picture of misery. And he says, I'll speak as one of the foolish women speak. Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil and all this job sin not with his lips. He was quite a man. I don't measure up to it. I don't even come close.
I wonder if any of you do come close to that man. So God picked the.
He picked the best man he could find, and you'll have to say as you listen to his defense of himself, he was indeed.
A remarkable man.
But he really didn't know God.
As he should.
He had one thing, one defect, that it's not a thing like lying and stealing and.
And murdering and adultery. It's not something like that. It's.
It's something that you can't see.
It's called pride.
And it's something that affects all of us, infects all of us. We we're all proud in one way or another. And the man that that is, is the job of the Old Testament. The man that was just like that in the New Testament was Saul of Tarsus.
He was.
He was a model Pharisee religious man.
He kept the law, he says, touching the righteousness which isn't the law. Blameless he was.
Real role model if you can consider it. So just like job.
And when Joe got into the presence of the Lord, he said, I've heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in destination.
Saul said that he was the chief of sinners, less than the least of All Saints, not fit to be called an apostle because he persecuted the Church of God. He considered himself after he'd gotten saved and come to know the Lord Jesus, that that righteousness which he had, the law keeping righteousness, he said, accounted for nothing. That I might have Christ as my righteousness. Well, we'll see that in the next chapter.
But I I want to dwell a little upon the mind that was in Christ. He's a.
In order to understand that expression, let's read on verse six, Who being in the form of God.
Thought it not robbery to be equal with God? That's a little hard to grasp what is meant there.
Thought it not an object of robbery or rap in an object that one sees. I think of an invading army comes into a city and the soldier goes into a house and he sees something that that he wants and he grasps it, he grabs it and he says this is mine, I've always wanted this and that's that's an object of robbery. He comes in and he grabs that and makes it his own.
He didn't esteem the Lord, didn't esteem his being in the form of God.
Like that he didn't say I am God and I will never consider being anything less than God.
He didn't esteem it something to be grasped and tenaciously held onto. Now it was just the opposite of Satan. Satan saw that there was one above him and he aspired after that and he wanted to be like God. And here was God the Son in the form of God. And he, he said, I'm going down.
I'm going to take the low place. I'm going to give up the surrender the form of God and take the form of a servant.
That's the that's an infinite descent from the form of God to the form of a servant, from being in the position where he always obeyed. He was the sovereign of the universe, where no one obeyed, that He never had to obey anyone else. Everyone obeyed him. He told the angels what to do, and they did it, and now he comes into his own creation.
As a man, as a servant.
He was willing to do that in order to reach you and me.
In order to come to where we were because He couldn't have saved us had he remained in the form of God.
The distance was too great. He had to assume the form of a servant and he had to be a man.
And that's exactly where he came. That was the mind that was in Christ Jesus.
That's the mind that Paul says to you and to me. Let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus, the willingness to be nothing.

00:15:03

The willingness to take the very lowest place.
It says in our King James translation.
It says he made himself of no reputation. That's a paraphrase.
Pretty much gets at the thought. Literally it's he emptied himself.
Now what did he empty himself of the form of God?
By taking the form of a servant.
That was the greatest step down that we have in this portion. The next step down is when he was found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself still further, didn't go through this, this world as a Prince or a king.
Or the King's son. But he went through it in lowly circumstances.
He humbled himself and became obedient. He'd never obeyed before.
When He was in the form of God, everyone obeyed him, but now He comes into the place of obedience.
Place of obedience.
The place where he doesn't do his own will, always the will of his father.
I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
Wonderful.
When we think of who He is, who he was from all eternity, He was in the form of God and nothing else.
And he assumed the form of the servant by emptying himself of the form of God.
And we followers of this one.
How is there any room for you, for me, for any of us to have a particle of pride?
When we were nothing, he was everything and he became nothing.
Satan was below him and he aspired after that.
Higher position. That was the first temptation that he presented to Eve. He said to eat of that fruit and you will be as God, knowing good and evil.
And you'll notice that all the false religions that are promoted in Christendom present that to us.
I met a couple of Mormons when I was in Nova Scotia some years back and I knew who they were and I stopped them.
When I engage them in a conversation, offered them some gospel tracts and I said you teach in that book, the Book of Mormon.
That as God is, so we shall be, and as we are, He once was.
And I said that's utter blasphemy.
I said show me that in this book and I held out my Bible to him.
And they said, oh, it's not in that book, but it's in this book. And they started to pull out the Book of Mormons.
And I said, put that away. That's of the devil.
And I pleaded with them, and I urged them, and that they repent of their evil.
Religion.
They teach that God was once a man like we are.
And one day, we'll be like God.
Well, that's the lie of Satan, and it's amazing how that feeds the pride of man.
He likes to hear that. He doesn't like it when the word of God says.
And God looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek Him, and he saw.
What did he see? They're all together become corrupt. There's none that doeth good. No, not one.
He saw the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And repented him that he'd man on the earth. He made man on the earth. And it grieved him at his heart, and he destroyed.
The human race, except for eight souls, Noah's wife, their three sons, and their three wives.
God is the God of judgment.
And yet he wanted to save us.
He wanted to have a family in heaven just like his son. And so his son said, I do, I do want that and I would go down. I will become one of them. I will be just like them. Sin apart, of course.

00:20:00

And I'll win them. I'll die for their sins. Had he remained in the form of God, he couldn't have died for our sins. God cannot die.
And he became a man.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. This descent downward begins with the mind that He had the willingness that He who was the greatest in the universe had to take the lowest place in order to win you and me.
He was made in the likeness of men.
Took upon him the form of a servant, became a man, and then.
He went down further. He humbled himself and became obedient.
Unto death.
Even. And we had it last night in the Gospels, portrayed before us so vividly.
The death of the Cross.
Cross of ignominy and shame and reproach and dishonor. The greatest sin that man has ever committed.
Was when he nailed the Son of God to a cross of ignominy and shame?
It tells out the heart of man, It tells out the heart of God, that He would give His beloved Son to such treatment in order to win hearts such as ours.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
The gospel mind is to go out to the lost and to bring them in to the blessing that God has in store for everyone that receives the gospel. The lonely mind, the mind of Christ, the willingness to become nothing, a servant.
In order to save us and to win us.
In the third chapter, we have the perfect mind.
We have Christ in glory.
The calling on high.
Verse 15 it says, let us therefore as many as be perfect.
Be thus minded.
If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Christ in the third chapter is our object.
The second chapter he is our.
Example.
Of loneliness.
And in the first chapter, he is our life.
For me to live as Christ, Paul says.
In this third chapter he gives a catalogue of the things that that he had attained to as a man, as a Pharisee, as a religious man.
He says in verse four of chapter 3. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh.
If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
He wasn't a Skid Row bum. He wasn't a Galilean fisherman.
He was a very intellectual, trained, educated man sitting at the feet of Gamaliel.
And he was a Pharisee and he was looked up to just like Job was.
Verse four he says that I might have confidence in the flesh.
If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
And then he lists his credentials. He says circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel.
Of the tribe of Benjamin in Hebrew. Of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee.
Concerning Zeal, now these are pluses as a Pharisee, as a religious Jew, these are all pluses concerning Zeal persecuting the Church. He was so zealous he was going to get rid of that new religion of the Nazarene whom he had thought was false, a false Messiah.
Persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. That was Job.
Blameless man, and yet he had to come into the presence of God.
And when he came into the presence of God, he said, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear.
But now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself.
And repent in dust and ashes.
And saw.
What does he say of himself?
He says mercy was shown to me.
I want to read it so I don't mistake it. Make a mistake on it first Timothy one.

00:25:06

Verse 12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful.
Putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor, and injurious in the new translation that reads in an insolent, overbearing man.
But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief.
As Saul the Pharisee, he thought very, very highly of himself as Paul the Apostle.
He thought nothing of himself.
He'd come to realize that he was a wretched Sinner.
The Lord had said in John 16, he said the time cometh when he that killeth, you will think that he doeth God's service. And when Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the Christians even to death, he thought he was doing God's service, that it was a good conscience.
He says I verily thought within myself to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus and his followers, but he was wrong.
He was wrong.
When Job got into the presence of God, he found out how wrong he was. He said, oh, if I only had an audience with him, he would listen to me, he would justify me, I would come forth as gold. But when he got that audience with God, he laid his hands upon his mouth and he said, I'm vile.
And vile.
Now that I see thee, I've horn myself.
Repent and dust and ashes. And that's what happened to Saul of Tarsus. He came into the presence.
Of the Lord Jesus, who art thou? Lord, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
What wilt thou have me to do?
Lined for three days, three nights, Ananias finally came to him and he said brother Saul.
The Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way, has sent me, and he's going to make you.
A servant.
It's going to make you. It's going to use you marvelously.
But what happened to that man's soul in those three days of darkness?
When he was going over in his mind all that I was doing, all my religious energies, all that I was so proud of as a religious Pharisee.
Was for nothing. I was dead wrong.
I was deceived.
By my own self importance. And that was true repentance. The word repentance isn't found with Saul, but it was true repentance.
When he judged himself in the light of the holiness of God.
And so he goes on to say.
What things verse 7?
Were gained to me.
Those I counted lost for Christ. That's the past tense accounted them lost.
Ye doubtless, and I count. I continue to count, present tense, all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I doubt that any of us in this room this afternoon can say that. I certainly can't. You haven't suffered the loss of all things. You haven't suffered the loss of parents, children.
But he did.
Saul lost everything.
For him.
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dumb.
That I may win Christ, or that I may have Christ as my gain, He had found in Christ again, so infinitely superior to anything that he had down here in earthly things.
He might have Christ as his game.
And be found in him not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law.
He had just said, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, He had kept it as perfectly as you can.
But now he had found a righteousness which was infinitely better.
And he tells us in Romans 7 that he was guilty of the sin of covetousness, as we all are.
That last commandment thou shalt not covet kills every single one of us.
And the word of God says that he that keepeth the whole law, and yet offendeth in one point he's guilty.
Of all so the law can only condemn us because we're not perfect.

00:30:02

Paul and Job were as near perfect as you could get to show how bad man is. He doesn't take the Skid Row bum to show it, he takes a job.
And the Saul of Tarsus.
And he turns them into Saints of God. But what did he say to Ananias? He said I will show him.
What great things you must suffer for my name's sake.
Paul was given a thorn in the flesh.
He pleaded with God to take it away three times and the Lord said no, no, no, you need it, Paul.
You need that thorn in the flesh. The more natural qualities of excellence that we have, the more we need the thorn in the flesh.
Keep us low before him. He's going to use us.
We have to be nothing in our own eyes and then He can use us for His glory.
To be found in him, verse 9 Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law.
But that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
That I may know him.
Didn't he know him? Oh yes, he'd come to know him. But he all, he wanted to know him in every, every detail of his life.
And the power of his resurrection, that's a power which lifts us.
In resurrection, power out of this scene into a new world.
The power of His resurrection and when the Lord in John 20, he breathed into his disciples the breath of his resurrection life.
And said receive the Holy Spirit and Paul wanted to have more of that.
The power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.
He knew he was going to have to suffer and I don't believe there's anyone in the history of the church that suffered.
Like Paul the Apostle.
The fellowship of his sufferings, he says in the first chapter in connection with suffering, he says.
Verse 29.
Verse 28 in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition.
But to you of salvation and that of God, For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which he saw in me, and now here to me to be in me.
Yes, he suffered and he didn't. He didn't try to avoid it.
And I may know him in the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.
Conformable unto his death.
The most ignominious kind of death that man has ever devised for one of his fellows.
The cross if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection.
Of the dead that should read the out Resurrection from among the dead.
That's the Christian resurrection. It's not the general thought of a general resurrection, but it's the resurrection of those who are who who died in faith. He'll they'll raise, He'll raise us out from among the dead and will be with him.
Not as though I had already attained either. We're already perfect, but I follow after.
If that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ, Jesus Christ had laid hold on Saul, and changed him into Paul, a little one.
And used him mightily in the establishing of the church.
Saul of Tarsus.
Becomes Paul the Apostle.
He says, Brethren, I count on myself to have apprehended those that would say that they have arrived, they have achieved the highest pinnacle of holiness. They're not telling the truth. He hadn't and he doesn't claim it. Brethren, I count on myself to have apprehended.
But there's one thing I do.
For getting those things which are behind.
All his attainments, whatever they might have been.
The bad things as well as the good things.
And reaching forth unto those things which are before oppressed towards the mark for the prize of the calling on high.
Of God in Christ Jesus.
He had an object now, Christ in glory, and that was all absorbing to him. He didn't take his eye off of that.

00:35:01

That one object he is going to be with him and that was what was before him.
The going out of the gospel, chapter one. The going down with Christ to the very lowest place.
Chapter 2. The Mind that was in Christ. Chapter 3.
The perfect mind, Christ in glory, is the object before our souls. And then in the 4th chapter we have Christ as our strength.
And I just want to close with.
His final word in this epistle.
Chapter 4, verse eight. Finally, brethren, he says.
Whatsoever things are true.
Whatsoever things are honest.
Whatsoever things are just.
Whatsoever things are pure.
Whatsoever things are of good report.
Whatsoever things.
Are lovely, I miss that.
And then good report.
If there be any virtue, if there be any praise.
Think on these things.
Commit that verse to memory, beloved, and the repeated over and over.
Whatsoever things are true.
There's so much untruth today.
In the political arena, the social arena.
The most common sin I encountered when I was in the workforce was lying.
What sort of things are true? He was the true one.
He was and is the truth.
Honest.
Honest, venerable, esteemed of high moral character.
Wonderful thing that when you meet someone, you can take his word for what he says. You know that he's going to hold fast to it and you don't have to have it written down. We don't live in that kind of a society because the spoken word means nothing in a court of law. It has to be written. Nice to find someone that is of an honest character that will say what he means and mean what he says.
That's the way it ought to be with us.
What sort of things are just righteous?
Do the right thing.
No matter what the cost.
Do the right thing.
What sort of things are pure?
The young men When you look upon a young lady, may it be with all purity, The same with the young ladies to the young men.
Pure.
Timothy was told to do that with all purity.
Whatsoever things are lovely, wonderful to be occupied with that as we think of our brethren, as we think of.
I know one of the most lovely things in our little assembly in Lawrenceville are all the little children.
They're lovely, beautiful, beautiful to see little children so, so innocent.
So precious.
And how we ought to pray always for the parents.
To raise them for the Lord, shield them from the world.
So many lovely things, lovely features in our brethren that we can dwell on. Not the ugly ones. It doesn't take any spirituality to see the flesh in another, but to see Christ, that which is lovely.
And whatsoever things are of good report.
So often we get together and all we talk about is bad things.
And that doesn't edify and it doesn't make you feel good. It makes you feel pretty poor.
Good report, good report, someone said to Mr. Darby once. Oh, what will become of us?
And he said, I know of no end for the Christian but glory.
Glory, The glory seen above.
Be occupied with that which is ours, which is eternal, and shall never be taken from us.
If there be any virtue, virtue is moral courage, the ability to take a stand for the Lord in the midst of an evil and corrupt generation.
Virtue.
Peter says add to your faith, virtue to virtue, knowledge, and so on. Moral.
Courage.

00:40:00

If there be any praise.
We have so much to praise the Lord for.
Someone was really down and a Christian came to him and he said, why are you so down? He said, oh, and he enumerated all of the things that were bothering him, and he said, he said to him, are your sins forgiven? Yes. Do you have eternal life? Yes. Are you sure of heaven? Yes. Does the Holy Spirit still dwell in you? Yes. Is Christ still your Savior? Yes.
Is God still your Father? Yes.
When at dwell on those things.
Those things that are ours, that never can be taken from us.
Those eternal realities that we have in Christ. Are you redeemed? Yes.
Are you reconciled to God? Yes. Are you justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses? Yes. And the person started to rejoice and praise God for all that he had in Christ.
Think on these things.
Turn with me, if you will, to sink in, Peter.
Second Peter, chapter one.
And verse 2.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you.
Through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power.
Hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life.
And godliness.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you.
I was reading something and there's a little phrase in there where they were asking this person who's been in contact with a lot of people, what do you think characterizes society today?
And the person said trouble.
Everywhere you turn people are troubled and bothered, but we have such a privilege.
That we can have peace in our hearts and we can have peace in our hearts.
Through communing with the Lord, our dear brother Benji as he read those verses and prayed really called us to be close to the Lord and have the Lord before us as our object and Lyle talked about.
How we can maybe let things creep in among us from the world and I would look.
Out here at each of you and would encourage you that you can have peace.
I've been saved for almost 20 years and yet the Lord has taken 20 years to teach me some very basic things.
And I'd like to share a few things with you and ask you do you respond by what you know and believe?
And respond by faith, or do you not?
Let's look at Mark Chapter 9.
Mark's Gospel, Chapter 9.
And we'll begin with verse 20.
And they brought him unto him. And when he saw him, straightway the spirit tear him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since his child? I'm sorry, since this came unto him. And he said of a child. And oftentimes to cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. But if Falcons do anything, have compassion on us and help us.
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.
And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears.
Lord, I believe.
Help thou mine on belief. Do we really respond with faith?
And trust to the Lord.
And I'm thinking of some things that we know, but do we respond like we know them?
I'll say something here. Let's turn to the scripture that says the Lord makes mistakes.
Nobody even begins to turn the page right. Nobody thinks about that the Lord would ever make a mistake in our life.

00:45:01

Turn to Psalm chapter 18.
Psalm chapter 18 and verse 30.
As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried, and he is a buckler to all them, all those that trust in him. For who is God, Save the Lord. For who is a rock, save our God. I think it's just such a wonderful, wonderful thing that we belong to the Lord Jesus and that we have such a loving, wonderful God. But speaking to my own heart.
Do I really respond that way in my life? Do I really have the confidence in the Lord that I should?
And perhaps, like for me, it's been 20 years and I'm still learning and will learn as long as the Lord leads from here. Perhaps some of you.
Have been thinking about this as well. Do you respond the right way in the Lord to the things that the Lord brings in your life?
As for God, His way is perfect.
Let's turn to the verse that says the Lord surprised by what happens in our life.
Nobody thinks about Turn it There first because there's no verse like that.
The Lord is never surprised by anything that happens in our life. Our whole life history is ordered of God in love to do us good. Turn with me to Isaiah 46.
Doesn't exist.
We know how much the Lord loves us, says in John 15/9 The.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.
Continue ye and my love, what a wonderful, wonderful position we have.
So now we have this. We know God doesn't make any mistakes. We know God knows the end from the beginning.
And we know that he loves us. Yet let's look in John's Gospel, chapter 14.
John's Gospel, chapter 14.
And verse one, I'm particularly encouraged by this. And there are so many places in the Word where the Lord encourages us to not be troubled or to have peace.
He says let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also on me.
In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. What a wonderful portion that is. The Lord says, let not your heart be troubled, and the best is yet to come. I was talking to her brother between meetings, who was encouraging me to look up to glory, for that's what's before us.
That's really where our life is. But yet, even while we're left here, the Scripture tells us God has given us all things.
That pertain unto life and godliness. And so He helps us and gives us very practical messages here, so that unlike people who are troubled and concerned on every side, we have the opportunity to be at peace. Let not your heart be troubled.
Let's go to verse 27.
Same chapter Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.
Not as the world giveth, give unto you, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Well, how do we avail ourselves of this? There's only one way to do it, and it says our brother Benji was mentioning being in the word and communing with the Lord. Now if you take a look.
With me at First Thessalonians chapter 5.
First Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 16.
Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing in everything.

00:50:03

Give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
I really love verses that have things like everything or nothing in there because it's pretty easy.
To decide when those verses apply.
In everything, give thanks.
For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Turn with me, if you will, to Philippians Chapter 4.
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 4.
Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say, rejoice, let your moderation be known unto all men.
The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known unto God, and the result and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Be careful for nothing.
Beloved, this really speaks to my heart. People who know me know I worry about everything.
I don't sleep. I'm learning this as I said for 20 years and still trying to learn more.
I have found these verses to be a real encouragement to my heart and to think about those three things, that God doesn't make mistakes.
That God knows everything, he's not surprised by anything, and that he loves us with an infinite love. And so we can bring these things, bring our situation, bring our concerns, bring our questions, bring our decisions. Whatever it is, you can take it to the Lord. And if you really cast it before the Lord, the peace of God, which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Turn with me to.
First, Peter.
First Peter, chapter 5.
And verse 7.
Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Once again, that theme, you've got to bring it to the Lord. And lastly, in closing, it says he cares for you. Let's take a look at a few verses. First in Ephesians.
Ephesians chapter 3.
Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 16 that he would grant you.
According to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.
According to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church.
By Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without.
And Amen.
We've had some wonderful ministry.
I'd like to conclude with a testimonial.
Not my testimonial because I've got a better one.
But I happened to notice, just struck me, and I should have struck me years ago.
The just listening to a radio commercial the last week. How much?
How effective a testimonial is.
Some.
Car dealer can get on the microphone and tell you the virtues of his vehicle and it's just another car salesman. So then he gets an athlete on there and the athlete just simply says, well, I drive this car and everybody thinks it's the greatest.

00:55:05

And our brother Chuck took us through the book of Philippians.
And we've been back there again with brother Brian.
Year and let's go back there again because the Book of Philippians has six statements.
Of testimonial where the apostle Paul.
Tells what effect the truth he's been ministering and the truth that he's been taught has had on himself.
They're very simple statements.
But I've enjoyed them, and I trust they'll bring us each something lasting to take home with us. So let's look. Look back again at the Book of Philippians.
Just six simple statements.
The first is found in Philippians chapter one, verse 17. We'll go back to verse 15 to get the context. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. Just those 3 words there in the middle of verse 17.
I am set.
Now, the Apostle Paul had been arrested on the road to the Damascus. He'd gone through a number of a lot of different experiences in his life.
He had the revelation of God's truth.
And each of us, in a measure I trust, have had that experience.
Maybe you haven't. And if you're not saved, if you don't belong to Christ, you can't enter into what the apostle Paul expresses here. You're outside it. But the apostle Paul said, I am set. I'm committed.
We are in a world which doesn't know the meaning of commitment.
It used to be that people took peace treaties seriously. It used to be that people took contracts seriously. It used to be that the word of a gentleman meant something other than something nice.
The apostle Paul said I am set, he was committed. He said I am set for the defense of the gospel.
I trust each of us who are the Lords here this afternoon? The.
Will say in our hearts, I am set for the defense of the gospel.
It's one thing to know it. It's another thing to stand for it, to preach it, to proclaim it as we have opportunity.
And to defend it because it is under attack.
The Apostle Paul said I am set.
That's his test for his first testimony. I am set. He found something worth living and dying for.
And he was committed to it.
Verse 21 For me to live as Christ and to die as gain, but if I live in the flesh.
This is the fruit of my labor, yet what I shall choose I want not, for I am in a straight betwixt 2 having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, he said. I am in a straight, I'm in a tight spot.
What tight spot was he in? Well, to him, the issue was whether he would.
Depart and go to be with Christ.
And have Christ all for himself, or to stay with the Saints and share Christ with them.
We know what it is to be in tight spots. Everyone of us from time to time is in a tight spot.
Apostle Paul was in a unique tight spot. Here I am.
In a Strait betwixt 2.
It's a challenge for us. Is that the tight spot that occupies our hearts and thoughts this afternoon?
The opportunity, a choice between the opportunity of staying here and witnessing for Christ or being called home. Those are the two things.
That Paul, shall we say?
Was looking at those are the two things that made his tight spot. What is our focus?
Being with Christ, sharing the gospel, the good truth, the good news of the gospel with others.

01:00:10

Then on to Chapter 3.
Verse 12.
Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Paul said. I'm caught.
He wasn't just committed, he wasn't just in a wonderful straight he was caught.
Are each of us here caught?
Are we caught by Christ?
The Apostle Paul can say and 2nd Corinthians 5 The love of Christ constrains us. It grips us. The Apostle Paul felt himself caught by Christ, caught for a purpose.
And that purpose was not fully yet accomplished in his life. It wasn't fully achieved.
He said, Brethren, I have not.
I count on myself to apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those swings which are behind.
And pressing and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press.
Toward the mark, Sometimes we get pretty occupied with our circumstances, our failures.
And we hesitate, perhaps as we've been exhorted to do, to exhort one another. The apostle Paul didn't exhort from an ivory tower. He admitted he had not yet attained that for which Christ had caught him. But he said, I pressed toward the mark. And we can all do that and encourage one another along the way.
Chapter 4.
Verse 10 But I rejoice in the Lord greatly, that now at the last, your care of Maine.
Has flourished again, wherein you were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I am content.
There's one thing I shouldn't say one thing, but one outstanding thing that characterizes this society. It's a lack of contentment.
Man is restless and merchants and politicians.
Capitalize on man's discontent, they say. Have this, you'll be happy. Elect me.
And I'll make you happy.
The Apostle Paul was writing this from a prison cell.
He didn't say comfortable, he didn't say I'm comfortable, he said I'm content.
He had heartrest. He was where he knew the Lord meant him to be.
He was doing what he knew the Lord meant him to do. His future was secure, his present was secure in the Lords hands and he says I'm content.
How do you get that way?
Said I have learned.
In whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
We can learn it. We need to learn it. Possibly the biggest lesson in life is to learn to be content.
Learn to accept the circumstances the Lord gives us gratefully.
As our brother Brian mentioned, and we all echo in our own hearts, we're still learning.
It's a wonderful testimonial, though.
Verse 12 I know both how to be abased. I know how to abound.
Everywhere and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need I am instructed.
Well, we say the Apostle Paul certainly was instructed. No one knew as much as he.
Yes, but he was instructed in a practical way, and that's where the instruction really counts.
Isaiah 50.

01:05:04

Verse 4.
The Lord has given me the tongue of the learned or the instructed that I should know how to speak.
A word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning. By morning he awakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned or the instructed. The person who is instructed is receptive.
The Apostle Paul was receptive. You and I have heard a lot in the last couple of days that can do us a lot of good.
I need it. You need it. The Lord knew just what we needed.
Are we receptive? If we're receptive, we'll be instructed.
And verse.
15 Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as to concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.
For even in Thessalonica he sent once and again unto my necessity, not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. For I but I have all and abound. I am full, having received Epaphroditus, the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable while pleasing to God.
I am.
Are you and I full? We ought to be. The Apostle Paul didn't say he was well fed, but he was full. I don't suppose that you and I would have any interest in the kind of diet he had in that prison.
We've gotten up from the table full probably most of the time in our lives.
How about from these meetings?
Have we been taking in what we've been given? Are we full?
The Apostle Paul was for what? What filled the Apostle Paul? He was refreshed by the Saints.
He had received from Epaphroditus, of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odorous, sweet smell of sacrifice, acceptable, well pleasing to God. He had enjoyed the fellowship expressed by his brethren. His He was full. It's God's desire that every one of us should go home from these meetings full.
And if you're sitting in your seat this afternoon and you said I'm not full yet, it's not too late, the apostle Paul here says in verse 19.
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
You can get full awfully fast, you know, if you pull the stopper out of the bottle what you can put under the faucet.
A lot of times there's something in our lives, something in our hearts that's that we know is a hindrance.
When that hindrance gets out of the way, the Lord can fill us very quickly.
So these are the testimonies, the Apostle Paul in the book of Philippians. If you want more food for your soul, look at the Apostle Paul's testimonial in Second Timothy. There's a number of IMS in Second Timothy that are equally precious. We don't have time for them now.
Lord, thou hast run.
To me.
Never forever.
My brothers and strands are comfortably.
Rise now by the whole the heart swallowed in his heart.
Our presence is a lot more dear. No more sin has gone dear.

01:10:12

Our grandson's day.
Your life, Lord, is Lord sin and our families.
Couple verses.
Move.
Chapter 2.
I'm sorry, Luke, Chapter one.
Luke, chapter one.
Verse 53.
He.
Asked filled the hungry with good things.
The rich he have sent away empty.
And then in Genesis?
Chapter 40.
5.
Genesis chapter 45.
Verse 15.
Moreover, he that's Joseph. Moreover he kissed all his brethren and wept upon them, and after that his brethren talked.
With him.
And then a little further down.

01:15:02

In the middle of verse 21, Joseph gave them wagons.
According to the commandment of Pharaoh and gave them provision for the way to all of them.
He gave each man changes of Raymond.
Verse 24.
So he sent his brethren away.
The end of that verse he said unto them, See.
That she fall not out, by the way.
Let's commend ourselves.

Gospel

Gospel—C. Roossinck

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Wonder if we could begin tonight by saying hymn #13 on the hymn sheet #13, Man of sorrows. What a name for the Son of God who came ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah. What a savior.
Bearing shame and scoffing, Rude in my place, condemned, he stood.
Seal my pardon with his blood.
Hallelujah. What a savior.
That's what the gospel is about, dear friend. It's about that wonderful savior.
Called the man of sorrows, the Son of God who came.
To save ruined sinners like myself and like you tonight.
Let's sing this hymn together.
Man of sorrow.
Before we open up his precious word, let's just bow our heads and ask his help.
So look at the room tonight. I realize that a lot of our friends have.
Already gone home from these meetings, I see quite a few empty chairs.
And perhaps you're here tonight and you're some of your friends have already gone back.
And you're feeling a little lonely.
But.
To you, the word of God said is the word of this salvation sent. So I'd like to ask you tonight to never mind the person next to you, never mind your friends that you've enjoyed this weekend with above everything else.
I hope that you personally, in spite of who may be next to you or across the room, that you.
Are looking at.
Oh, may the word of God speak to you tonight, to you. And I'm so thankful for those that are here, you know in the other room up here before this meeting started, we had a little prayer meeting and oh many of the of the brothers were praying, praying for you tonight. And I was noticing as we were there, we were hearing a lots of happy sounding voices, boys and girls, laughing and and playing young people.
And I was glad it sounded good to me because.
I knew there was some real people there to hear the word of God tonight and so.
I pray that those voices that we heard laughing, enjoying one another's company.
I thought to myself, Each one of those that we hear.
Have a soul that will live on for eternity and, I thought to myself, I wonder, I wonder what's ahead for each one of those cheery sounding voices.

00:05:00

I'd like to read a scripture from the 13th of Acts.
Acts, Chapter 13.
It's one of my favorite gospel chapters.
13th of Acts.
I'd like to start with reading a verse.
Just part of verse 26.
It says this men, are you men here tonight? That's the opening of this verse, men.
Is there a man here tonight who knows not the Savior, whose heart is not at rest, who doesn't have peace with God? God is addressing you tonight, whoever you might be. Men, That doesn't stop there, brethren.
Brethren and.
Children.
That's Umm.
Verse 26.
Men and Brethren Children.
I'm going to skip down to the last part of this verse. There's lots of children here tonight. I'm so glad that you're here, children, because the gospel is for all, for whosoever will. And praise God, if you get saved when you're young, may save you years of sorrow.
Whether you are young or old tonight, the end of this verse says.
Unto you is the word of this salvation sent unto you. Make it personal. God is speaking to you tonight. It's a personal message from the creator of this universe, A personal message to you personally tonight. No matter.
Who's next to you, no matter who you are?
Man, woman or child?
God has a message and it's personally to you. Well, I'm so glad you're here tonight to hear the message God has for you.
It's encouraging to see so many faces at the gospel. I was telling someone that the at the supper beside at the dinner table, I guess it was. I remember announcing a gospel meeting on a little at a little town on the South Coast of the island where we live, Newfoundland. And it's a little place that you can only reach by boat and a couple hours down the coast or maybe 2 1/2.
From the closest road and the people there.
A little shy. You know, I don't see too many visitors. Many of the boys and girls that live in that town have never seen an automobile or a red light or a street. We can't imagine that here in Chicago, can we? But they're they're a little shy as strangers.
As well to be shy of strangers.
But as I went from door to door in that town.
Inviting them to Open air Gospel Meeting at 7:30 and I told them it would be at the at the school. I would stand on the steps of the school.
I thought there would be a nice crowd, would come out something different in town, but you know, when 730 came along, I stood on the stairs, the schoolhouse.
And you know, all day long when I was there, there was people going up and down. I was going to say the streets, but they're really paths. All day long there was folks going up and down. 730 came along and there wasn't a soul on the streets. Everything was silent.
Afraid. They were afraid.
Nobody was dashing down the street here. There seems like all the doors were shut.
Nobody came to hear the gospel.
Oh, my heart sank. I felt, oh, nobody wants to hear the good news.
However, I begin to sing a hymn and two little children came from behind the house. They were hiding behind a house.
And they came, and they were. They listened.
I begin to preach the gospel and finally one of them put up his hand and I thought, oh, isn't this good? He's got a question. He's really interested in listening.
So I said to him, son, I said, you have a question. Yeah, He said, can we go now?
Well, my heart kind of sank, you know.
So, I said. If you wish.

00:10:02

Went on, preached the gospel. You know, it wasn't law. And I saw a door over here opening a little crack. I saw some movement behind the curtains in a window and different places. You could see there was a little activity. Well, they were afraid to come out and hear the gospel, but I trust that many of them heard through a crack in the door or through a little open window or from behind.
The fishing shed wherever they were hidden.
God had an eye. God knew where they were. God knows where you are tonight and the gospel.
Is God's wonderful good news. And so we read here to you, is the word of this salvation sent.
To you what a wonderful message God has sent.
The word of this salvation. Oh, it's not a religion we're talking about.
We're not interested in getting you to join a Church Oregon, an organization.
Or even to get you to come up forward so we can jot you down on statistical lists to say how many people raised their hand or came forward. Or we want you to meet the Savior of sinners tonight, the Lord Jesus Christ who came from heaven's glory down into this poor sad world filled with sin filled with sorrow.
He came to save. He came to save the man who was worthy to be exalted by all, the man, the one who made this world, and it says the world was made by him.
The world knew him, not. Do you know him? Do you know him? You can know him tonight. Oh, he wants to make your acquaintance tonight. The savior of sinners.
Unto you is this message brought.
I remember.
A couple of years ago, a little place called the.
Preaching the gospel And there was a little girl name was Erica.
And Erica listened closely to the gospel she seemed to pay.
A lot of attention and after the meeting she had a number of questions.
A number of questions and Erica.
Seemed to take it quite seriously.
And we were leaving the next day and we said to her, oh.
The Bible says Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
It's that simple to receive Christ as your Savior. He did all the work on Calvary's cross to put away our sins.
You just need to receive them. You just need to call on him. You know, I don't think I ever preached the gospel without quoting that wonderful verse. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. God put it in the Bible at least three times because he wanted you to take heed. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be.
Saved.
Like Peter, you know, when he was out there in that stormy water, he began to sink. What did he do? He called on the Lord. He said, Lord, save me.
Did the Lord tell Peter if he would?
Be a better man. He'd probably make it. He told me how to do some good works and all. He reached out immediately and saved him. And he'll do that for you tonight. Well, Erica, we were leaving the next morning and the boat lasted about 8:00 and we were down on the war with all our luggage and things. And Eric, he got up early, came down to the war, and she said.
I call on the Lord. I asked the Lord to save me last night after I went home. What a thrill it was. What a joy. But what about you? To you, my friend, tonight is the word this salvation sent. Have you ever called on the name of the Lord? You know you don't get to be a Christian by coming to the meetings. You don't get to be a Christian by coming to Sunday school. It's good to come.
No, you don't get to be a Christian by joining a church.
But it's through the blood of Christ, the finished work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary's cross, the only way.

00:15:01

The Lord Jesus said I am the way, I am the way.
The truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Oh, dear friend, you might know about the Lord Jesus, but do you know him? Have you come believing? Do you realize tonight your need?
Of him who died for you.
A brother said to me this afternoon.
You have a subject on your heart for the gospel tonight.
Well, I said. Yeah, but.
I think the Lord had different subjects afternoon, the wonderful truths that we had at the meetings.
This afternoon.
Made me change my mind and I trust.
I haven't. I haven't my my heart, a portion that's not usually taken up in the gospel. But you know the the Lord can use His word. It tells us faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And this wonderful book has a message that has power to change your life, Not only your life, but to change your eternity, your eternity.
So let's turn. We might come back to the 13th of Acts because there are some wonderful verses in there. I'd still like to look at if we have time, but let's turn over to.
Exodus Chapter 21.
Exodus Chapter 21.
Everything God has put in His word, he has put there for our learning.
Not just there, a bunch of statistics people have told me All the Old Testament is just a whole lot of stories and a lot of statistics that are so boring that we don't bother with them. But oh, God has given us. Every word of God is pure and he's given them given it to us.
For lessons, for examples, for illustrations.
No, he could tell all kinds of stories, but the illustrations that come from God's precious word.
Are the by far the best illustrations, so here's a story.
That's very interesting. We're just going to read a little at a time.
Exodus 21 Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
This is the Lord talking to Moses.
If thou buy and Hebrew servant, 6 years shall he serve thee.
In the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
Talking about here? Well, I'd like to talk to you about the perfect servant. You know, this servant that speaks of here?
Moses told the Israelites.
That if they bought a Hebrew servant.
He would serve them for six years and then.
He would go free Now I'd like to say this about it.
If an Israelite bought a Hebrew servant, there was only one reason they would buy a Hebrew servant. That was because.
That servant had got into debt or got into trouble. They weren't to make servants of one another. But if a man got into debt and he couldn't get out of it, he got himself over his head in debt. Then he could sell himself as a slave. A servant in the Old Testament, often as a slave it says bond, servants, A hired person. But if it just says servant, usually it means a slave.
This would be one who would become enslaved.
What would build up a debt that he could not pay?
And so he would then be a slave. Ah, there's many slaves. Slaves to sin.
Servants of sin.
But you know, the one we want to talk about tonight?
Was one who had no one who was perfect in all his ways, but he became a servant because I was indebted, because I was indebted, because my sins were marked against me, and because, dear friend, you were indebted.
Every sin is against God, and the word of God tells me tonight and tells you.

00:20:07

That you have sinned. It tells that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And if you think tonight.
You haven't sinned. Well, there's just another one counted up because God tells you that there's no difference for all of sinned and come short of the glory of God. Oh, what a debt. If you realize the debt we owe to God, the debt of our sins that must be paid.
You realize what a slave you are tonight? A slave of sin.
Great debt.
Well, this servant that speaks of here, he had his own debt.
But the one we want to speak of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came in this world and became a servant.
And we read about that, didn't we, this afternoon in the book of Philippians, the one who came from glory, the Creator of everything, the Lord of glory.
Left that glory behind, came into this world.
Not for his own death, but because I was indebted in sin to God, and I could not pay the debt. I couldn't in no wise free myself. I could in no wise pay the debt. I owe the debt of sin to a whole in a righteous God. And neither can you, my friend. But all we can tell you, there's a friend that is willing and he's able to pay that debt.
I enjoyed reading a story years ago when the czars were.
Ruling in Russia, there was a soldier in the Russian army.
And he, through gambling, had built up.
A debt.
One debt after another.
And he was the He was the paymaster.
And he had.
Taken to pay his debt, he had borrowed to pay his debt.
His gambling debts from the funds of the army.
And you know, he thought someday he was going to make big on this gambling business like so many.
Waste what they have in gambling. One day, he thought, I'm going to get rich, but you know the debt just added up and added up and added up.
Until he realized that he was so far in debt.
That he could not pay it back and he sat down one night.
And he wrote down every debt, one after another.
And to his.
Sorrow and shock, the debt was enormously more.
Than he could ever repay.
What was he going to do?
He would, sure.
He would sure be caught. It would catch up with him.
Didn't know what to do.
As he had this list of deaths before him.
He wrote. On the bottom of it, who can pay so great a debt?
Who can pay so great a debt?
And my friends, the dead of sin.
That we built up.
The dead of sin.
Is so great.
You could not pay for an eternity. You couldn't pay for one sin against a whole in a righteous God.
Bankrupt. Bankrupt. You. Bankrupt tonight. I want to tell you I don't care how much money you got in the bank if you're not saved, if you don't have your sins forgiven, if they're not, Those debts are not cancelled and washed in the blood of Christ.
You're bankrupt before a hole in a righteous God. Not able to pay. Not able to pay.
It's one thing to be bankrupt in this world. There's plenty of bankruptcies, but far worse to be bankrupt before a holy God.

00:25:03

To stand in your sins one day before.
God condemned.
With a debt of sin unpaid.
Well, as this young man thought of that daddy old.
Took out a revolver.
Loaded it.
Look at that.
Wept over, he said. I just have to end it all.
And he was so troubled.
As he looked at that death, that he was exhausted. He hadn't slept for a long time, that that was bothering him.
And I hope tonight, if you have a debt of sins, that it's bothering you, I don't want you to be miserable.
But I hope tonight, if you're yet in your sins, that God will make you miserable. To realize that great debt and the awfulness of it, Well, he was so exhausted over thinking and trying to figure how he could pay this debt that he.
He fell asleep, intending in the middle of the night.
To put a bullet through his head and end it all.
But he dozed off.
And his exhaustion.
And.
The Tsar at that time, I don't know which Tsar it was. I can't remember.
But once in a while he'd go into the army barracks and have a look around. This night, for some reason, he decided to take a walk down through where his soldiers were.
And as he came through, it was late at night. Lights were all supposed to be out at, I suppose, 11:00 or whatever. There was a light coming under the door, the pay masters office.
Strange, he thought.
So he opened the door very quietly.
And he saw this young man, and he looked.
At the paper that was lying beside him, he saw the loaded revolver.
The hammer pulled.
And he knew.
As he looked at those lists of debts.
He knew that this young man.
Who should have been court martialed and probably taken out and hung? They were severe in those days.
He saw that great debt when his heart was moved.
His heart was moved.
So he picked up the pen and he wrote underneath.
Where the man had written Who can pay so great a debt he rode underneath?
Tsar Nicholas. That was his name. Czar Nicholas.
And he went on.
Lying by the young man woke up.
Thing is all over for me now. I'm going to take my life.
And as he was anticipating and preparing to do so, he looked down at that debt once more and he saw on the bottom ridden.
Tsar Nicholas.
What?
He recognized the signature.
That it was indeed.
The only one he knew who could pay such a debt?
And he had signed. Tsar Nicholas could pay such a debt. All my friends. There's only one that can pay the debt of sin.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ.
What did it cost him to pay the debt of sin that I owed? Oh, dear friend, it cost him his life.
He took the judgment that I deserved. He took that judgment on Calvary's cross.
He suffered from my sins.
He wants to pay that debt for you tonight.
Did the man believe it or he put down his gun?
He could hardly believe such a message.
He believed it.
And by and by.
Lazar sent to the office by the hand of another great bundles of money.
That cover the full debt and the debt was paid.
Why the chief man of the country?
But the Lord of Glory wants to pay your debt tonight.

00:30:03

Well, getting back to this.
The story of this servant and this one who had become indebted and became a servant.
It's a little picture to my heart. The one who came to pay my debt, he became a servant.
That he left the glory. He humbled himself and became a servant. He became a man, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became a servant. Being found in fashionism as a man, he became a servant. Why?
Because he was indebted? No, Because I was indebted. Because you're indebted.
Because of that load of sin that was bearing you down to eternal hell, my friend, young or old, it only takes one sin to be in debt to God and to be bankrupt before God. You couldn't pay it. Impossible.
The soul that Sinner that shall die, the word of God tells us, and it tells us that it's appointed under man wants to die. And after this the judgment solemn isn't it Your debt paid, your debt paid? Or there's one that's standing and waiting to pay your debt. Will you let him pay it? Have you called on him? Have you called for help? Have you realized that that debt is such?
That you could not pay it. Your mother can't pay it. Your father can't pay it. Some debts in this world, you know that. Maybe you could talk that into paying her mom.
But the dead of sin, God, can only be paid by the precious blood of Christ.
Proceed, I remember as a small boy at the meeting.
That we went to in Grand Rapids, MI. Sometimes we take a walk after meeting. There was a neighbor who had some beautiful Peacocks in his yard and he had a very nice yard and we used to like to go over and look at the Peacocks.
And I remember going there after a meeting one time, and I was just young, didn't have any money, anything like that. And he had in his yard a a a stand with a beautiful globe of some kind on it that was very, very shiny and very, very pretty.
Looked like it was very expensive too. As I went over the look of the Peacocks I bumped into this thing and it fell on the ground and smashed to pieces.
Well, believe me, he was out there in an instant and I was trembling in fear.
And he said, young man, you've got to pay for that. Why no money?
I was indebted. I couldn't pay it.
And I was trembling. I could hardly get my voice. I was afraid, and the tears were coming to my eyes.
And I said.
I'll have to get my father. I'll have to get my father. I knew there was one that could pay that debt. I couldn't pay it. I had no money.
So I had to go back and trembling, I got my father to come down. I think it was $5.
He wanted for her, but I didn't have it. I couldn't pay it. Bankrupt. Helpless.
And the man demanded it was paid for.
What could I do? I found one that could pay my debt and my father paid the $5. I'm so thankful.
But your father could never pay for your sins.
Or if he could, he would.
But he can't do it. You must come to the Lord Jesus. He's the one that can pay the debt. Well, this this servant, now he's become a servant. And it told us as we read, if he served for six years and then?
It was over. He could go free.
Thinking of this as the Lord Jesus who came from heaven.
And became a servant one. We were saying about Man of Sorrows. What a name.
Son of God who came ruined, sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah. What a savior.
He lived his life in this world.
Imperfection.

00:35:01

The only one that ever walked through this world.
Without sin, holy, harmless, and undefiled, without sin.
Perfect. You know, God the Father looked down from heaven when the Lord Jesus came into this world.
And he said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
The Spirit of God descended from heaven on him as a dove.
Why? Because he found rest. There was one in this world, and only one.
On whom the Spirit of God could come down in perfect peace. You know, we often see people drawing, making pictures of the Spirit of God coming down like a dove on people. But we don't ever find that in the scripture. Only on the Son of God could the Spirit of God come down like a dove. He needs to do a work in your heart and mind. But God as he looked down in the Old Testament before Jesus came, he had to say.
God looked to see if there was any that did good, if there was any righteous, and he found none.
There is none, no, not one but oh, when that blessed man from heaven was here.
The Lord of glory, He was perfect in all his ways.
The only one that God could find delight in as a man.
How wonderful. But you know.
His years in this world were coming to an end to a close. His life of all perfection, Oh, he showed out the heart of God and love. He healed the sick.
Raise the dead, open the eyes of the blind. He showed out the wonderful love of God.
He ever pleased God the Father.
He had no debt of his own, but he came.
You know when his life.
Was finished. When it was time for him to leave this world, he could have gone back to heaven.
He could have gone there by himself, having lived a perfect life in this world, having shown a man what man should be, a perfect example, a perfect man. Without sin, God become flesh.
But he couldn't have been my savior. His perfect life had condemned me.
So he could have gone back, you know, I think of that verse in John's Gospel, chapter 12.
12Th chapter of John's Gospel.
There were some that wanted to see Jesus. They heard of all his miracles, they heard of the wonderful things he did, and they'd like to have a look at this man.
And so they came to Philip and Philip and Andrew told the Lord, and here's what Jesus answered. And verse 23 of John chapter 12. And Jesus answered them, saying the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Well, maybe some of my brother-in-law has some different thoughts on this. Tell me after. But I'd like to. I've thought of this. The hours come. He'd lived before God and before man in all perfection.
Without one sin.
Kept every commandment of God and.
The hour was come. Whereas a perfect man he should have been set free.
And gone back to where he came from. Gone back to heaven.
He was the only one that could have gone to heaven.
All the rest of us are sins would keep us out of heaven for eternity forever and ever. The hour was come. This was that right toward the end of his pathway here in this world, his pathway of perfection, his pathway of love and grace to man. But you know, he says, the hours come when the Son of man should be glorified. But he doesn't stop there. He says, Verily, verily, it's truly, truly, I say unto you.
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground at a bite of alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He could have gone back to heaven alone. But you know, dear friends, he wanted to take you with him. He wanted to take me with him.

00:40:02

He came to die. He came to give his life a ransom for many.
Are you one of those? Have you put your trust in him as savior? He came to die. Well, you know this servant we've been reading about back in Exodus.
When his six years were completed and he could have gone free, having served well, his master could have been set free.
Oh, there was a There was something else.
Just we'll just go down to.
Verse four. And if his master have given him a wife, and she had borne him sons and daughters?
The wife and her children shall be your masters, but he shall go out by himself by himself.
Oh my precious savior.
He wouldn't go out by himself. He wouldn't go back to heaven.
Without taking me with him.
He wouldn't go back to heaven without his redeemed, so he must go into death.
He must pay the price.
The Lord said in Leviticus 17 without shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins.
He came to give his life.
He came to die, and so when he could have been set free from this world and gone back to heaven because there was no sin in him, he chose.
Not to do his own will, not to glorify himself. But if you skip down the verse a few verses later, he says, Father, glorify thy name. Glorify thy name. Oh God wanted children in heaven. He wanted you in heaven. He wanted to pay that debt that I owe, that you owe. And so the Lord Jesus wouldn't go free. He was like that corn of wheat.
He said of it if it didn't fall to the ground and die to bite alone.
You know, another said. Many years ago, I remember.
Brother said that God is sufficient unto himself and everything except his love. He wants objects to show his wondrous love. And dear friend, tonight he wants to show his heart of love to you. He wants to show his love. Boys and girls, do you know his love?
Do you know that he died for you? Have you ever said yes, Lord Jesus, I believe you died for my sins to set me free.
Trust him tonight.
I will not go out free that servant.
If verse 5 if the servant shall.
Plainly say I love my master.
I love my wife and my children. I will not go out free.
Aren't those tender words? Can't you just picture boys and girls yourself?
In this family, in this household and your father.
Having served.
Those six years.
Now he has the opportunity to go out by himself. You're still a slave.
He has the opportunity to go free to do what he pleases.
And you're still there, in that house, a slave.
And you think, oh, I'll never get free? My, I don't have a chance.
But then.
Daddy says, oh, I love my children, I love you, my dear girl, my dear boy, I love my wife.
Oh, I want her to be my companion forever.
So I will not go out free. Oh, that's the Lord Jesus you know, as a perfect man.
He ever did the Father's will. It was the will of God that He would.
Die for you that he would give his life a ransom. Hebrew says by the which will we are sanctified. The will of God was that Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, Would pay the debt I owed. Would pay the debt you owed all I can see. That little girl, that family, that little boy.

00:45:07

Oh, they would be rejoicing. They would say. Thank you, Daddy.
For staying with us and not going away. For paying.
That price for all the rest of your life. But the Lord paid his very life that I'd be set free. Isn't that a wonderful story?
He says I will not go free. No, the Lord Jesus went on to Calvary cross.
He died not for his own sin. He died for me. He died for you.
Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again.
Triumphant savior? Is he your savior?
Your sins forgiven? Are you washed in the blood of Christ? That's what the Gospel Meeting is all about.
To invite you, God is inviting you unto you. Is the word of this salvation sent unto you personally tonight. Take it personally, God means it personally. For you. Unto you is the word of this salvation sent.
This man had to go. Then he said I won't go out free because I love my children. I want my children with me, I want my wife with me. And so I'm not going to go out free. I'm going to be a servant forever. Our savior became a man and he's a man in heaven tonight. He became a man forever that he might enjoy and we might enjoy his company in the glory. I love that verse in Hebrews.
Chapter 4. I think it is where you see the Lord entering into the Father's house.
Not and, say the Father's house, but that's what it is, he says. Behold, I and the children which God hath given me.
Oh, he's going to enter in. He's gone into the glory back to the father now. But he's he's stepping out and calling those who's he who he's redeemed, those whose sins are washed in the blood of Christ, those that are saved and belong to him. He's going to call us up to meet him in the air. Yes, he's arisen Savior in the glory and he's coming back to call us there and oh, what joy I can just hardly imagine.
I can hardly picture my heart, the delight of his heart and the delight of our hearts.
As he enters into the Father's house with us, and he says, Behold, I and the children which God have given me, You going to be one of those, will you enter there with him forever, into the Father's house, into that blessed home above?
You won't enter there with one sin left.
Let's turn back to that 13th chapter of Acts for a moment.
Not a sin can enter into that wonderful home. Nothing that defiles will enter there tells us.
But oh, here's the wonderful news.
Verse 38 Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins. Oh, that's good news to a Sinner, isn't it? If you're not a Sinner tonight, you don't need the forgiveness of sins. And the only people that are going to be in heaven in glory are going to be those that can sing. Thou has redeemed us.
By thy blood out of every kindred and tongue, and nation and people.
You know, you may be young and what people would say innocent child.
But it only takes one sin to keep you out of heaven. There will not one thing that defiles enter there.
But all through the Lord Jesus.
The forgiveness of sins Are your sins forgiven?
You know what, I, before this meeting started when I heard that the children playing and laughing and the young people.
I thought to myself.
None of them know what a day will bring forth.
Every one of them.
Is facing.
Eternity either with Christ in glory or a lost eternity in their sins. But here is the forgiveness of sins offered by God.

00:50:01

You know, as a dear young lady.
Niece of mine, my wife's niece.
And she was a very vibrant young woman.
And I'm thankful to tell you that she had put her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
She was a believer and she wasn't ashamed to say it. She knew the Lord. She was a happy girl. She was full of life and vim and vigor seemed like she had everything going for you know, She had her education finished now. She had gotten her engineers degree. She was really going places.
She had her own car just start her first job.
On the way to work on August morning.
Suddenly.
In eternity.
On Hwy. 7, somewhere between Guelph and Kitchener.
Driving to work, all kinds of plans for the day, probably thinking about what she was going to do at work that day.
Instantly cut off instantly in eternity all those purposes and plans that she had.
All that she expected to be and to do.
She had a nice boyfriend too, expecting to be married before long, but cut off in a moment in eternity. And I thought, you know of her when I heard the laughing voices and the the the fun and enjoyment. And I'm happy for that, that I heard in the room here before the meeting started. But I thought to myself, how soon?
That cheerful voice could be stopped. How soon Eternity.
Could be your portion. Eternity where it floats on the air. Eternity. Eternity where? Where will it be, my friend?
In heaven, with Christ in glory or sins forgiven, or will it be?
Eternity in your sins and the blackness of darkness forever. It's real, my friend.
That cheerful laughing voice of yours.
Maybe stop tomorrow, maybe stop tonight.
Where will you spend eternity?
That's important question, isn't it?
At the end of the road, what will it be?
Heaven or Hell?
One or the other God has made every provision that your sins might be forgiven.
He can pay the mighty debt. Are you going to let him? Are you going to say no thanks or sometime later, you know you can't put off salvation and get saved in your own time? That's a lie of the devil. That's getting more and more popular in the so-called Christian world, where you can read in books, books that, I'm sorry to say, on the top selling list of the so-called Christian books. And they'll tell you that.
That if you don't get saved and Jesus comes here, here's how to get saved after. Well, you might as well forget it and wait and see if it's true then.
My friend, if you leave this world or if the Lord Jesus comes.
And you're not saved. God asked this question. How shall we escape if we neglect?
So great salvation if you're going to put it off and say I will get saved in my own time, and if I miss the Lord's coming here is what to do after and to work your way and get saved and get to heaven. It is impossible. God asked you the question, How are you going to be saved if you neglect so great salvation? God never gave an answer to that question. There is no answer if you neglect salvation.
There's no second chance. There's no other way of salvation.
Don't believe the lie of the enemy.
These books are written by men who I thought were Christians. I thought they were fellow believers, but how could they be spreading?
A lie like that?
To make you think everything is going to be OK. If I don't get saved, I'll be a little tough. But here's what to do, and I'll get to heaven in the end. That's a lie of the devil.
That's the devil's work. It's all over the.
Christian bookstores. I'd be willing to say that if you went to almost any Christian bookstore except Bible Truth Publishers.

00:55:06

In this area, I hope there's nothing there.
Almost any Christian, so-called Christian bookstore you'd find these books.
And.
It's a solemn thing.
Know the devil's clever. You probably wouldn't go to the book to a bookstore and buy some book you knew was.
Filled with the devil's tricks and all kinds of things like that, you wouldn't think of it. But, you know, if you go into a Christian bookstore, you probably think, well, what's here on the shelf is good, exciting, good reading, good clean. But beware, the devil likes to hide on the Christian bookshelf.
We have bookstore in Cornbrook and I find it's hard to keep the devil off the Christian bookshelf. Beware, Be careful.
The devil would like to deceive you into thinking you can put it off, you can wait and you can see if it's true. And then if the Lord comes and the Christians disappear, you got a book to look at. Find just what to do and get to heaven. Never.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? God says behold, now is the day of salvation. Behold, now is the accepted time. He doesn't give you tomorrow.
All the wondrous love of Christ.
Are you going to say no? Thanks, I'll put it off. I'll wait. I don't care. I'm going to have fun 1St. I'm going to do my own thing.
Let's the voice of the enemy.
Give God a speaking to you tonight.
Call in.
Tell him yes, I'm a Sinner. I want to be saved, he'll hear. He'll answer, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord.
Shall be saved. Oh, what a savior that he died for me.
Oh, I hope you dear ones. And I'm thinking again of those that I heard so happily playing and laughing and talking before this meeting.
Those eyes of yours going to meet the savior as your savior?
When he comes.
Or will you be left behind? If you're left behind, it'll be left behind.
Not for another chance, but for judgment. Judgment. My dear friends, Are you ready to meet the Lord, that one who loved you, that one who became a man?
That you might be saved to pay the debt you owed.
Let's sing that hymn #35. Oh, what a savior.
That he died for me would just sing the first verse in course. Well, we'll sing the second verse as well.
As it says there, though poor and needy, I can trust my Lord. Though weak and sinful, I believe His word.
Oh, blessed message, every child of God had everlasting life.
OK, verse #35, verse 2 verses in course. Oh what a savior that he died for me.
From condemnation.
Him on the side that day, I'd rather last day quietly.

01:00:11

There's everlasting life.

Jude 1-10

Reading

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7/2.
Oh, teach us more.
I just waves.
Our Holy Land.
And their sandwiches?
In thy is and.
Jews, the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and calls mercy unto you, and peace and love in all life. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that he could earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered under the strange.
There are certain men crept in unawares, the Word before of old ordained to this condemnation, Ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you want to do this all, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believe not, and the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He has reserved and everlasting chains under darkness under the judgement of the great Day.
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah in the cities about them in life, man are giving themselves over to fornication.

00:05:01

And going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire likewise also leaves filthy dreamers. He file the flesh despised dominion and speak evil of dignity.
Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses.
Durst not reign against him a railing accusation, But said, the Lord, review thee. But these speak evil. Those things which they don't, I but what they know naturally as brute bees, and those things they corrupt themselves.
Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam will reward and perish in the game, saying of Core.
These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, while they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit witherer without fruit, twice dead, plushed up by the roots, raging waves of the sea falling out their own chain.
Wandering stars to whom is reserved and blackness of darkness forever.
And Enoch also the 7th from Adam ratified of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his Saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all their ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds would save ungodly committed. And of all their hard speeches with John godly sinners have spoken against them. These are murmurs.
Complainers, walking after their own losses and having, and their mouths speak of great swelling words, having men's persons and admiration because of advantage. But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All that they told you there should be lockers in the last time.
Who should walk after their own ungodly loss?
These be they separate themselves sensual, having not the Spirit, but ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, pray in the holy gold, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life and.
Of some have compassion, making a difference.
And others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flag.
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
Amen.
This epistle looks at the darkest day, the very day in which we're living.
And four times, three times in our King James, four in the Derby translation, the word word BELOVED occurs.
Verse 3 Beloved.
Verse 17 but beloved.
Verse 20. But he beloved, and I'll read the first verse in the new translation. Jude Bondman of Jesus Christ and brother of James to the called ones, beloved in God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. It's beautiful to see how that he he distinguishes those that he can class as beloved. We're surrounded by.

00:10:15

Those who are the beloved of God, it's wonderful to contemplate that that you are, if you're his, your beloved of God. But there's tremendous evil that has come into the Christian profession, and this is what Jude looks at.
Evil that has.
Set man up, man up in the flesh, the first man, and denied the Lord.
Peter speaks of this in his second epistle, very much similar to Jude. Peter speaks of those that have sinned, whereas Jude speaks of apostasy, those that have fallen away from what God has established in his grace.
Jude was 1/2 brother of the Lord.
And he was with him when he was here.
Of course, heard all that he said and did didn't come to faith in him as well as James. The author of James didn't come to faith in him until after the resurrection.
When he was here below they it says. Neither did his brethren believe in him.
But after the resurrection they came to faith in him.
And came to realize who he is.
Tremendous To know who he is, no bit of knowledge that man possesses beloved, is more important than to know who he is.
The apostasy that John speaks of in his first epistle is of those who have gone out from us, he says, abandoning the profession of Christianity. The apostasy that Jude speaks of comes from those who are within the Christian profession, but their apostates and more damage has been done to the truth of Christianity by apostates from within.
Than from without.
You expect it from those that have left and adopted another religion, going to be gone back to Judaism or whatever, but those that still profess to be Christians who are really apostates. And that's what Jude looks at. Apostasy from within.
Introducing things that are totally contrary to the teachings of the Bible.
In such a condition of things that's very wonderful and very precious and very important to not only recognize we're beloved of God the Father, but our preservation are being preserved in such a day as we live as in Jesus Christ.
She brought out the person, how important it is to be occupied and and walking with him, because that's how we are preserved. We're not preserved in our own strength or our own abilities, our own knowledge, but in the very dark and confusing day, from the youngest to the oldest, we're going to be preserved in Christ. And then it goes on. And I think it's very lovely to see the three things that are brought out here, His desire for them. Mercy to you. I'm reading from the new translation.
Mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied. Well, we could understand in a day of that's very dark and very confusing, where these wicked men are creeping in and have crept into the testimony and are seeking to defile it and to promote themselves and to dishonor Christ. We certainly see that it's a day that we all need much God's mercy, But look at this, brother.

00:15:02

Peace. You think when we're in a dark day, that's the time to stand up and fight and and to seek to really go out and go against the enemy. Well, I don't say that it's not a day of conflict, but it's lovely to see that in a day of darkness and confusion is something that the apostle desires. And beloved brethren, we need to walk together as brethren in peace. We need to make seek for those things that make for peace.
We need to learn morally how to be peacemakers. It's very easy to get at odds and become fighters and get at odds with one another. But in this day that we live, that's destructive. And so he says peace and then finally and love be multiplied, speaking the truth and love. We never for the sake of love, give up the truth. But you know those those words are words that we might not consider.
Initially as words that would characterize us in a dark day of.
Of apostasy at Brother Chuck, as you've been bringing out. But isn't it lovely to see those are the desires of the apostle? That there might be mercy. That they might walk in peace in that dark day and they might know the love of Christ, divine love, that it might be multiplied. That's what is going to keep us. We need those characters today.
In that third verse we have the conflict mentioned right away. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, he would rather have done that. But he says it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints. Then the next verse tells about the enemies that had crept in unaware.
Amongst them certain men who calls them, but they were really enemies. They turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. They were ungodly men ordained to this condemnation, he says in verse 4. Certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.
That is using grace as a license for sin. Well, it can save my grace. Then you can do whatever you want, not the teaching of Scripture at all. Not to understand grace at all is to take that position. Let us do evil that could may come is the attitude of those that pervert grace. And really the perversion of grace is to establish license for the flesh, to do as it wishes.
That's the first stage. And then denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. I'll read that in the new translation.
Denying our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. And this is by men that profess to be Christians. He's not talking about the outside world here. He's talking about what is is Christmas, that the grave vast system of things that.
That harbors all kinds of birds, clean and unclean. And that's what Christendom has become. We have to be aware.
Especially today, when you can listen to just about any preacher, either on the radio or on television, you can. You can do it today without being in their church and on the Internet. Also, you can get into conversations in writing.
With others that share their sometimes apostate views, that's very defiling. And so it's it's very important that we be aware that the enemy is out there sowing his seed of of false doctrine and false principles and setting aside the very truths of Scripture, sometimes even using scripture to deny scripture. That's what Satan did with the Lord.
He tried to get the Lord to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple.
For he said, it is written, He quotes Scripture, He should give his angels charge over thee to keep thee from harm. And he left out a little statement to keep thee in all thy waves. It wasn't one of his ways to tempt the Lord. And so the Lord refutes him by quoting Scripture, He said, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. So the enemy will quote Scripture, and he can do that.

00:20:13

He's turned into an Angel of light, his ministers, the ministers of righteousness. And you have to be aware, I had a young person say to me once, I always thought that if it was in print, if it was in writing, it must be true. Now that's to be very naive, very naive indeed. But that's what that young lady thought, that it was worthwhile printing. It must be true.
No, that's not to be aware of the enemy.
And what he has done, and he's selling all kinds of evil and through the pulpit and through printed matters well. So we have to be aware of what the enemy is doing. How do we test it? We test it by the book. I'm holding in my hands. You're holding in your hands the word of God.
Nation hasn't changed his way doing things. From the very beginning, we find that even at the Garden with with ease, he used the same tactic to deny we can turn to Genesis chapter 3. We'll see that the condition was exactly the same. The way he beguiled Eve was that he he omitted certain things, just like Google quoting.
What he had did to the Lord, he said to them about a tree that thou should freely eat. He will omit things, or he would add something to it, or he would just totally misquote. And we find that Satan is the same today.
Easily in the same page, in this quote, just to do anything to distract us from from Christ. And what we need to do is we need to know our position first. That's why we would permit me to go back to the first verse and we've gone down a bit. Often we don't have peace in our hardness. We do not know what the word of God has assured us of the three words of the King. To my mind, the word in verse one is sanctified.
Sanctified by God the Father preserved, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.
Do we take that As for assurance from God that we have been sanctified, set apart from the rest of this world? Preserved, We've been preserved. No one can take us out from the Father's hands. We didn't preserve. We have been called according to His purpose, in fact.
Let's go to Romans. Chapter 8 is a well known portion there that we often quote and they use similar words in there with a few more added to it. Women have to eat.
Start with verse 28. This is the verse that we often see in many homes, and we know that all things work together for good.
Do we not see that in many homes texts of this life? In many homes all things work together for good? Well, often we too perhaps omit the whole verse. Well, first of all it says here for we know, Do we know, Do we really know what full assurance or we know with confidence saying this verse. For we know that all things work together for good to them the love God.
Did we forget that part sometimes?
And then it go on his *** to them who are called. Interesting how the first came back up to get caught according to his purpose, for whom he did for no, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.
That he might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover, who he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and who he justified them he also glorified more words in here For no.
He knew that he planted way before the foundation of this world predestinated. You have that assurance to know that we happen to be destinated to what? To be conformed to the image of his son. It doesn't matter what you're like today, doesn't matter what you think or what you do. It will not be long. We shall be like him, conforming to his image, conforming in all manners of thoughts, acts.

00:25:04

And so on to be just like our blessed Lord. And then they go on and set that we've been called, we are justified, and then we shall be glorified if we do not have this assurance in our own hearts. And Satan can come in and whisper in our ears and try to distract us and take that peace away from us.
I was thinking as you were speaking, Brother David, that when you turned us back to Genesis it says there now Satan was more subtle or more crafty. And I was thinking of that where it says crepting unawares, that's crept in unnoticed. You know, if we think about the Garden of Eden, how is it possible that Eve did not somehow become frightened or concerned?
About this one who's called the Serpent? Well, he was crafty and he, I I doubt not, presented himself as an Angel of light. Very beautiful and very appealing and very harmless looking. And I say that because where it says they crept in unnoticed. How does that happen?
The error comes in in this day in which we live looking very beautiful. It looks very appealing. It comes in through those who outwardly look very, very good and very perhaps even living what outwardly appears to be a very godly life. And we never want to forget that. The enemy that's bringing this in and the day in which we live not only is the roaring lion, but he's adept at being crafty, an Angel of light. These things come in on notice because they look so good outwardly and so just a word for all of our hearts.
That we might, as our brother Chuck said, test everything, especially in this day by the word of God, as the Bereans did. They searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things be so. And we need that today, because that's the only way we're going to find out if what looks so good, even in Christianity, and far more subtle and dangerous, because it does come across as being Christian, being upright and being morally right to see if indeed it is the truth, or if it's simply something that's being brought in in a crafty way that looks good.
But in fact is a lie and is false.
Does the serpent mean the shining one? I've heard that I was wondering. After all these wonderful truths have been brought before us about being preserved and called and and all these wonderful things that are so blessedly true not to get pushed ahead of the chapters, why does it say that down towards the end of the chapter? Keep yourself in the love of God?
Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The day is so dark it's easy to get occupied with the evil and the darkness. And so he writes to his beloved. Keep yourselves in the love of God in the sense it is love and the sunshine of his love though the the day is evil and dark and there's no darker picture that we get in the word of God than the epistle of Jude.
But we are to to keep ourselves in the sunshine and slow, knowing that those four things that you referred to yourselves read from verse 20. But she beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith. That's what we're doing this morning. We're sitting together and having a reading over His Word and being built up in our most holy faith. You uses expressions in this epistle that aren't used anywhere else in the scripture. This is one of them, your most holy faith.
That's an expression that Jude uses.
The important thing is that that he's, he's referring them back to the standard of holiness, which is the word of God. And because evil has come in and there's been so much departure and decline, that does not lower the standard, and that's the important thing to see. So the first thing he says, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, praying in the Holy Spirit, and you really do that in the evil day that we're living in. Yes, you can.
The Spirit of God is here. He makes him grieved and quenched in many cases. But we can still pray in the spirit of God and then keep yourselves in the love of God. Can we do that? Yes, we can. We have to rise above the evil and not be occupied with it, Paul says. Enrollment is at 16, he says.
Be wise as to that which is good and simple and certain evil, and not to be overly occupied with with the evil and then looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. I notice in the prayers this morning there was very little said about the Lord's coming. We should always have that before us. That's our hope. That's the next event that we're looking for that's going to take us out of this miserable scene.

00:30:24

To be with himself in the glory, looking for the blessed hope well.
I don't want to get occupied with a lot of details going elsewhere. We've only gotten one hour. We've only got 20 minutes left of this reading, and we I'd like to get through the Epistle of Jude if we possibly could. That means we're going to have to discipline ourselves to stay in June and not go elsewhere.
In verse three it was mentions the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints and when it speaks in that way of talking about the whole body.
Of revealed truth that we have in the Word of God, revealed especially in Christianity, in the coming of the Lord Jesus and consequent upon his death and resurrection, ascension to God's right hand What has been revealed in the epistles as well.
The faith that was once delivered to the Saints. And it's important to seek the measure that we can to lay hold of the whole truth of God. It's so important because you find believers that do have a knowledge of something, of the truth of God, and we can thank God for that. But what a wonderful thing to have the whole truth of God before us and how important to contend for it.
It's not contending in a carnal way, but it is contending spiritually. These are important points, you might say. What's so important about doctrine? I've heard sometimes say doctrine divides and love unites.
Well, if doctrine is presented properly, it forms the basis for true unity, and that's important to hold on to. The enemy wants to get us off of that basis, that foundation work of the Christian faith, which is the faith once delivered to the Saints. And I think it's so subtle the way he does it in verse 4.
With those men that have crept in, but it is really attacking the lordship of Christ. It's mentioned in the new translation the word Lord God is master, one who holds supreme authority in our lives. And it seems like the subtle undercurrent of the culture in which we live is please yourself. You're the center of your world.
Do what you like to do. And what we don't realize is that in that is a subtle undercurrent against God and against his Christ, and against any authority that the Lord Jesus necessarily should have.
In every life of every true believer.
These two things that you're just referring to in that fourth verse, turning the grace of God into licentiousness, that is, using grace to do whatever you want. Liberty for the flesh, license for the flesh. It goes along with denying the only Sovereign Ruler, the Master, and our Lord Jesus Christ. You do not own His authority over you, so you can do what you please, and you turn grace into an excuse for doing that.
Those two things go together, don't they?
Using Grace as an excuse for doing anything you want and denying His authority over us. How solemn that that's what keeps us and preserves us is grace and submitting and bowing to Him.

00:35:09

Then in these next three verses, 5-6 and seven, we have apostasy portrayed. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, now these were this was the saved people, you know, we often think, well, you can't be saved and lost again. There's a sense in scripture in which you can be saved and lost again. And that's what Jude speaks of. He saved the people out of the land of Egypt.
Everyone of those Israelites that cross the Red Sea were saved positionally. But what happened to them afterward? He destroyed them that believed not. They didn't have faith, and so they were destroyed, though they were in a saved position. Everyone that's baptized is brought by baptism onto Christian ground. In that sense, they're saved. But you have to understand what you mean when you say saved. You mean that they've been born again and have eternal life. Well, they can never lose that, but they might be in a safe position. Everyone that is a Christian.
Is in that safe position, but by profession. But they may not be real. And so they were destroyed. They were apostates. And then he goes to the angelic world, the angels, which kept not their first estate, That is, they apostatized from their first estate, but left their own habitation. He hath reserved an everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
So there you have apostasy in the angelic world. I think you have a picture of that in Genesis chapter 6, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair and they came down as men and took these daughters of men, and it was apostasy. And that whole generation was destroyed by the flood, by the flood. And then the next it says even as Solomon Gomorrah.
I'm going to read that in the new translation, the.
And verse six I read it in Angels who had not kept their own original state, but had abandoned their own dwelling. He keeps an eternal chains under gloomy darkness to the judgment of the great day, as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them. I put them all together, Sodom and Gomorrah and these other cities dwelling in the plain there in like manner with them. Now what's the antecedent of them? You don't see that in the in the King James. What's the antecedent of them? The angels that had sinned.
The angels had kept not their first estate in like manner with them and going after other flesh, other flesh that is they they enter into a domain and a sphere that was not theirs lie as an example undergoing the judgment of eternal fire. So he gives 3 examples of apostasy. Those that left Egypt that were a safe people positionally and they didn't make it because they didn't have faith.
And then the angels that sinned and Sodom and Gomorrah, they they they apostatize from what they were called to as as natural, and they did it through the intrusion of angelic beings. Well, these these are Jude sites. Here are examples of apostasy.
Homosexuality is apostasy. It is intruding into a relationship which is an abomination to God. God gave man and woman to cohabit, not men and men and women and women. That's apostasy. In departing from the order God has established in creation, that's apostasy, and it's wickedness and these things that this country.
That was once known as a Christian nation.
Sanctions.
That will be the greatest lot in the history books on this nation. And we criticize Adolf Hitler for murdering all those Jews. What about the United States of America by Supreme Court decision? Murdering healthless babies? Murdering them?
That's they can't retaliate. They can't defend themselves. We know, thank God, those children who go to be with the Lord.

00:40:05

Grace always triumphs over sin, doesn't it? Where sin abounded, grace did much more about it.
But that grace does not undo the awful judgment that will fall on corrupt Christendom. And there are those who take that position spousing that cause, that openly say that they are Christian and want recognition as such.
This this worse, directly complies and it's extremely solid. Brethren, we need to feel that we live in a country.
Where that is the case.
Need to feel as God feels it, someone has said. It's extremely solemn to think about that. If God does not judge the United States for the position they have taken in connection with that awful sin of ****** homosexuality, he will have to apologize in a future day to Sodom and Gomorrah for having destroyed them. And it was awful the way they were destroyed. It was so severe.
By fire and brimstone. Brimstone means sulfur and sulfur is flammable and.
Evidently, they say that there's not even a vestige of those that excavate.
And look for ruins of civilizations. There's not even a vestige of these cities in the plains of Jericho today.
They were just totally wiped out from before the face of God, and so God will judge it. It is not a matter of death, but he will. It's just a matter of time.
Likewise verse 8. Also these dreamers.
Who filed the pledge? Despised Dominion. Speak evil of dignities they won't submit to authority and.
He gives an example. Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses.
There's not bring against him a railing accusation, But said, the Lord rebuked thee.
But these?
These men that crept in unawares turned the grace of God into lasciviousness and deny the only sovereign ruler, the Lord Jesus Christ. These speak evil of those things which they know not. What they know, naturally is brute beasts.
In those things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them.
And he mentioned three things.
Woe to them.
We would want to keep our hearts very tender, wouldn't we, brethren? We we've heard of these solemn, awful, filthy things that ones heart shudders to hear, and we know they go on. But perhaps we overlook the tendency that we all have to, at least in spirit. I don't say we do it in the sense it's presented here, but it talks about a speaking a despising dominion and speaking evil of Dignity's.
I suppose what marks more than anything else, the current political contest that's about to come to its conclusion in the United States is that whole spirit of one side finding everything it can to speak evil disparagingly of the other side, of the persons on the other side. And we get into that, and we think, well, sometimes the government perhaps acts in a way that you can't hardly think anything else but those thoughts.
But what about the dignities as simple as the policeman and the teachers and every area of authority in our life? There's a tendency, brethren, and we have to admit it, The day in which we live, the spirit of the day is to cause us to demand our rights and to demand that we're going to stand up and.
And have our rights. And I think that's in the new translation where it talks about a despising lordship. Lordship is submitting to the rights of others. And then it goes on and it says not only despising lordship but speak railingly against dignity. Have I ever said something unkind and in a in a rough way about a policeman that gave me a traffic ticket? Well Brendan, I don't want to get off. As our brother Chuck said, we don't have much time, but we need to allow our hearts to be tender about this.

00:45:24

This is the spirit of this whole age in which we live, and it can take us over as believers in very little, almost insignificant ways. And it's in those subtle ways that it takes us over that we end up getting caught up in the spirit of this thing. And we can become not necessarily certainly the apostates that it's speaking about, but certainly caught up and affected by the spirit of this day. I think what we have here in Michael the Archangel.
Is a helpful example of how we react to evils that we do see.
And sometimes people say, well, if you don't say anything while you're going along with it, but how did Moses or how did Michael the Archangel react to the devil when Moses, Moses died? This is something that is interesting that is not recorded in the Old Testament.
This contention of the devil with Michael the Archangel, but we have it here only in the in the Old Testament, only says that the Lord buried Moses and no man knows of his grave. But there was a real spirit battle that went on at the time of Moses death, and it doesn't tell us exactly what the reason was for that battle, but here it tells us that it was about the body of Moses.
And some have suggested perhaps the devil had in mind of using.
That the body of that great man to make a shrine of some sort, And the devil wanted to take him and bury him. But it was Michael that was deputed to make sure he was buried where no man knew it. And instead of rebuking openly the devil himself, he only said the Lord rebuked thee. And I think that is where we can.
Learn is that when there is evil that is allowed or practiced by those in authority, we don't speak evil of the dignitaries, but we can see clearly from scripture that it is a wrong thing that is done and we can simply say God in his word does not allow that and just leave it there. It's beautiful. In the New Testament or in the new translation, Brother Bob, it says that Michael reasoned.
With the devil, that is, he knew. And he certainly, you might say, express God's thoughts about that situation. But it says these three words did not dare to bring railing accusation. I think that's very, very powerful. He knew exactly what God's mind was, you might say and and he reasoned and set that forth with this arch enemy. But he did not dare bring a railing accusation.
All that we might be more in that spirit, even as a testimony. Think of the testimony.
That we could render, brethren. We talked about preaching the gospel and evangelizing. Think of the testimony that we could render daily to those around us if we had that spirit that we did not dare to speak evil of authority.
The.
Do forget to pray for them often, don't we, authorities?
Somebody says something.
About one of the authorities in our land. We could just ask them as we pray for them lately.
And by praying Cecil, we have far more.
Influence in what happens in those high government circles than by getting involved in any political agenda.
Were absorbed directly in the scripture to pray for them that we often forget remember in our.
Infirmary in Corner Book A few years ago, a man came in and he prayed. Apparently we never met him before, but Christian had give me a bookstore first became fairly he prayed for.
A Prime Minister of Canada. Canadian of course, and every one of the premiers and all their cabinet members by name. Very long prayer, but in Northwest Territories, Yukon included. But it was kind of good stir us up to realize how neglectful we were when the scripture says hopefully.

00:50:15

But that's what we should do regarding cars, bravely.
We forget so easily. We have in the 10th verse that phrase which is a very chilling phrase, as brute beasts, as brute beasts, and just want to say this without enlarging on it. Beloved young people. Much that passes today in the world that you live in that passes as romance and love is nothing more than the degenerate, degraded action of human beings acting as brute beasts.
And it is, in fact, a measure, a sign of the very late day in which we live. And it says the love of many shall wax cold. We know that principle, and I just want to just leave it there. But beloved young people don't be taken in by the world's thoughts about romance and love and all of that kind of thing, because it's a world, a so-called Christian world, but a world which is in oftentimes acting one toward another.
Just as simple beasts, animals act.
New translation says irrational animals.
And that's what man has come to, he says. You're just another animal.
You're an animal evolution.
And he takes the.
That's that's where we came from, according to the evolutionary theory. It's the most degrading theory that you can think of. Contrasted with Genesis, God created man with the dust to the ground, breathed into his nostrils. Breath of life then became a living cell. He came right from the hand of God, which degrades man more, the irrational animal.
Or the image and likeness of God.
Why don't they take that? Because they don't want to be responsible to the God that created us. They want to get out from under that. So they invent this wicked, wicked teaching which doesn't have a shred of scientific evidence. Young people don't believe the lies of the scientists. If they tell you that evolution is scientific, it is not.
It is absolutely unscientific and irrational, just like an irrational.
So we don't gospel the animals because I can plan character, life of the deep and keep in mind the.
The compassion of the Lord was not always.
Believers, but also young.
I was thinking too, we talked earlier about this awful thing that this country and I I, I suspect really what we would call the Western world, the Christianized Western world, this, this awful issue of abortion. And you think of the horror, the the gross irrationality. I'll use that word of men who.
Promote and legalize the murder of unborn infants, while at the same time they form groups to protect and give ethical treatment to animals.
This is this is the irrationality of man's morals, morals that have not been formed according to the Word of God and submission to the Word of God.
A brute beast is controlled by his natural instincts instead of reason, and that's what it is.
And is.
#208.
208.
And hope we live.
In our morning sorrow.

00:55:04

My love.
Whoever will die.
May be more of a smile.
Or 10 Magnificently beginning.
To see his face in life.

Jude 11-

Reading

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7.
The festival of Jews.
Do the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved indeed of Christ, and calls mercy unto you, and peace and love in all life you love it. When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that he should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered under the strains.
There are certain men crept in unawares. The Word before of old ordained this condemnation on godly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this all, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not, and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left with their own habitation, He has reserved and everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgement of the great day, even as Sodom and Gomorrah in the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication.

00:05:01

And going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering, the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also the filthy dreamers you file the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignity.
Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not reign against him a railing accusation, but said the Lord reviewed thee. But these speak evil, those things which they know and I but what they know naturally as brute being, and those things they corrupt themselves.
Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward, and perished in the game, saying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, while they are without water, carried about a wind.
Trees whose fruit witherer without fruit twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea falling out, their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved blackness of darkness forever.
And Enoch also the 7th from Adam ratified of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his Saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches with ungodly sinners have spoken against them. These are murmurs.
Complainers walking after their own losses, and having and their mouths speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons and admiration because of advantage. But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All that they told you there should be lockers in the last time.
Who should walk after their own ungodly loss?
These be they who separate themselves sensual, having not the Spirit, but ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life and of some Have compassion, making a difference.
And others say with fear.
Pulling them out of the fire and heating even the garments spotted by the flat.
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
This epistle looks at the darkest day, the very day in which we're living and.
4 * 3 times in our King James four in the Derby translation, the word word beloved occurs.
Verse 3 Beloved.
Verse 17 but beloved.
Verse 20. But he beloved, and I'll read the first verse in the new translation. Jude Bondsman of Jesus Christ and brother of James to the called ones, beloved in God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. It's beautiful to see how that he he distinguishes those that he can class as beloved. We're surrounded by.

00:10:15

Those who are the beloved of God, it's wonderful to contemplate that that you are, if you're his, your beloved of God.
But there's tremendous evil that has come into the Christian profession, and this is what Jude looks at, evil that has.
Set man up, man up in the flesh, the first man, and denied the Lord.
Peter speaks of this in his second epistle, very much similar to Jude. Peter speaks of those that have sinned, whereas Jude speaks of apostasy, those that have fallen away from what God has established in his grace.
Jude was 1/2 brother of the Lord.
And he was with him when he was here.
Of course, heard all that he said and did didn't come to faith in him as well as James. The author of James didn't come to faith in him until after the resurrection.
When he was here below they it says. Neither did his brethren believe in him, but after the resurrection they came to faith in Him.
And.
Came to realize who he is.
Tremendous To know who he is, no bit of knowledge that man possesses beloved, is more important than to know who he is.
The apostasy that John speaks of in his first epistle.
Is of those who have gone out from us, he says, abandoning the profession of Christianity. The apostasy that Jude speaks of comes from those who are within the Christian profession, but they're apostates.
And more damage has been done to the truth of Christianity by apostates from within than from without.
You expect it from those that have left and adopted another religion, going to be gone back to Judaism or whatever, but those that still profess to be Christians who are really apostates. And that's what Jude looks at. Apostasy from within.
Introducing things that are totally contrary to the teachings of the Bible.
In such a condition of things, that's.
Very wonderful and very precious and very important to not only recognize we're beloved of God the Father, but our preservation are being preserved in such a day as we live, as in Jesus Christ. He brought out the person what? How important it is to be occupied and and walking with him because that's how we are preserved. We're not preserved in our own strength or our own abilities, our own knowledge.
But in the very dark and confusing day, from the youngest to the oldest, we're going to be preserved in Christ. And then it goes on. And I think it's very lovely to see the three things that are brought out here, His desire for them. Mercy to you. I'm reading from the new translation. Mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied. Well, we could understand in a day if it's very dark and very confusing, where these wicked men are creeping in and have crept into the testimony and are seeking to defile it and to.
Promote themselves and to dishonor Christ.
We certainly see that it's a day that we all need much God's mercy. But look at this brethren peace. You think when we're in a dark day, that's the time to stand up and fight and and to seek to really go out and go against the enemy? Well, I don't say that it's not a day of conflict, but it's lovely to see that in a day of darkness and confusion. Peace is something that the apostle desires. And beloved brethren, we need to walk together as brethren in peace. We need to make.

00:15:31

Seek for those things that make for peace.
We need to learn more how to be peacemakers. It's very easy to get at odds and become fighters and get at odds with one another. But in this day that we live, that's destructive. And so he says peace and then finally and love be multiplied.
Speaking the truth and love. We never for the sake of love, give up the truth. But you know those those words are words that we might not consider.
Initially as words that would characterize us in a dark day of of apostasy, of Brother Chuck, as you've been bringing out. But isn't it lovely to see those are the desires of the apostle, that there might be mercy, that they might walk in peace in that dark day and they might know the love of Christ, divine love, that it might be multiplied. That's what is going to keep us. We need those characteristics today.
In that third verse we have a conflict mentioned right away. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, he would rather have done that. But he says it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you, that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered.
Unto the Saints.
And then the next verse tells about the enemies that had crept in unawares amongst certain men who calls them. But they were released enemies. They turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. They were ungodly men ordained to this condemnation, he says in verse 4 certain men crept in unawares who were before of old or deemed to this condemnation ungodly men.
Turning the grace of God into the lasciviousness that is using grace as a license for sin. Well, if you saved my grace, then you can do whatever you want, not the teaching of Scripture at all. Not to understand grace at all is to take that position. Let us do evil that could make come is the attitude of those that pervert grace and read the perversion of grace is to establish license for the flesh to do as it wishes.
That's the first stage and then denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ believe that in the new translation.
Denying our only master and Lord Jesus Christ, and this is by men that profess to be Christians. He's not talking about the outside world here. He's talking about what is is Christendom, that the great vast system of things that that harbors all kinds of birds, clean and unclean.
And that's what Christendom has become. We have to be aware.
Especially today, when you can listen to just about any preacher, either on the radio or on television, you can. You can do it today without being in their church and on the Internet. Also, you can get into conversations in writing with others that share their sometimes apostate views.
That's very defiling. And so it's it's very important that we be aware that the enemy is out there sowing his seed of of false doctrine and false principles and setting aside the very truths of Scripture, sometimes even using scripture to deny scripture. That's what Satan did with the Lord.
He tried to get the Lord to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple.
For he said, it is written, He quotes Scripture, He should give his angels charge over thee to keep thee from harm. And he left out a little statement to keep thee in all thy waves. It wasn't one of his ways to tempt the Lord. And so the Lord refutes him by quoting Scripture, He said, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. So the enemy will quote Scripture, and he can do that.

00:20:13

Is turned into an Angel of light, his ministers, the ministers of righteousness. And you have to be aware, I had a young person say to me once, I always thought that if it was in print, if it was in writing, it must be true. Now that's to be very naive, very naive indeed. But that's what that young lady thought, that it was worthwhile printing. It must be true. No, that's not to be aware of the enemy.
And what he has done, and he's sewing all kinds of evil and through the pulpit and through printed matters well. So we have to be aware of what the enemy is doing. How do we test it? We test it by the book. I'm holding in my hands. You're holding in your hands the word of God.
Nation hasn't changed his way of doing things. From the very beginning we find that even at the garden with with ease, he used the same tactic that he died. We can turn to Genesis Chapter 3. We'll see that the condition was exactly the same. The way he beguiled Eve was that he he omit certain things just like we were quoting, yet did to the Lord. He said to them about a tree that thou should freely eat. He will omit things.
Or he would add something to it. Or he would just totally misquote and we find us. Satan is the same today, easily do the same thing in this quote, just to do anything to distract us from from Christ. And what we need to do is we need to know our position first. That's why you would permit me to go back to the first verse. And we've gone down a bit. Often we don't have peace in our heart as we do not know what the word of God.
Has assured us of.
Do 3 words of our brother read that that came to my mind? The word in verse one is sanctified, sanctified by God the Father, preserved, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.
Do we take that As for assurance from God that we have been sanctified, set apart from the rest of this world, and preserved? We've been preserved. No one can take us out from the Father's hand.
We didn't preserve. We have been called according to his purpose. In fact, let's go to Romans. Chapter 8 is a well known portion there that we often quote and they use similar words in there with a few more added to it. Woman stop to age.
Start with verse 28. This is the verse that we often see in many homes, and we know that all things work together for good. We not see that in many homes text of this life. In many homes all things work together for good. Well, often we too perhaps omit the whole verse. Well, first of all it says here for we know.
Do we know?
Do we really know what all assurance or we know with confidence saying this verse? For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Did we forget that part sometimes?
And then it go on his *** to them who are called. Interesting how the first came back up. We get called according to his purpose, for whom he did for no he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.
That he might be the first born among many brothers. When, moreover, who he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
More words in here for knowing he knew that he planted way before the foundation of this world.
Predestined Me. You have that assurance to know that we have to be designated to what? To be conformed to the image of his son. It doesn't matter what you're like today. Doesn't matter what you think or what you do. It will not be long. We shall be like him, conforming to his image.

00:25:00

In all manners of thoughts, acts, and so on, to be just like our blessed Lord. And then they go on and set that we've been called, we have been justified, and then we shall be glorified. If we do not have this assurance in our own hearts, and safety can come in and whisper in our ears and try to distract us and take that peace away from us.
I was thinking as you were speaking, Brother David, that when you turned us back to Genesis, it says there now Satan was more subtle or more crafty. And I was thinking of that where it says crepting unawares, that's crept in unnoticed. You know, if we think about the Garden of Eden, how is it possible that Eve did not somehow become frightened or concerned about this?
One who's called the Serpent.
Well, he was crafty and he, I doubt not, presented himself as an Angel of light, very beautiful and very appealing and very harmless looking. And I say that because where it says they crept in unnoticed. How does that happen? The error comes in, in this day in which we live looking very beautiful. It looks very appealing. It comes in through those who outwardly look very, very good and very perhaps even living what outwardly appears to be a very godly life.
And we never want to forget that the enemy that's bringing this in and the day in which we live, not only is the roaring lion, but he's adept at being crafty, an Angel of light. And these things come in on notice because they look so good outwardly. And so just a word for all of our hearts that we might, as our brother Chuck said, test everything, especially in this day, by the word of God, as the Bereans did. They searched the scriptures daily to see whether these things be so. And we need that today, because that's the only way we're going to find out if what looks so good.
Even in Christianity, and far more subtle and dangerous because it does come across as being Christian, being upright, and being morally right to see if indeed it is the truth, or if it's simply something that's being brought in in a crafty way that looks good but in fact is a lie and is false.
Does the serpent mean the shining one? I've heard that I was wondering, after all these wonderful truths have been brought before about being preserved.
Called and all these wonderful things are so blessedly true not to get pushed ahead of the chapter. Why does it say that down towards the end of the chapter? Keep yourself and the love of God?
Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The day is so dark, it's easy to get occupied with the evil and the darkness. And so he writes to his beloved. Keep yourselves in the love of God in the sense of his love and the sunshine of his love though the the day is evil and dark, and there's no darker picture that we get in the word of God than the epistle of Jude.
But we are to to keep ourselves in the sunshine as well, knowing that those four things that you referred to yourselves read from verse 20. But she beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, That's what we're doing this morning. We're sitting together, having a reading over His Word and being built up in our most holy faith. You uses expressions in this epistle that aren't used anywhere else in the Scripture.
This is one of them, your most holy faith. That's an expression that Jude uses.
The the important thing is that that he's, he's referring them back to the standard of holiness, which is the word of God. And because evil has come in and there's been so much departure to decline, that does not lower the standard and that's the important thing to see. So the first thing he says, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.
Praying in the Holy Spirit. Can you really do that in the evil day that we're living in? Yes you can. The Spirit of God is here. He makes him grieved and quenched in many cases. But we can still pray in the Spirit of God and then keep yourselves in the love of God. Can we do that? Yes we can. We have to rise above the evil and not be occupied with it. Paul says in Romans. Is it 16? He says be wise as to that which is good and simple.
And certain evil.

00:30:00

And not to be overly occupied with with the evil and then looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And notice in the prayers this morning there was very little said about the Lords coming. We should always have that before us. That's our hope. That's the next event that we're looking for, that's going to take us out of this miserable scene. To be with himself in the glory, looking for the blessed hope.
Well.
I don't want to get occupied with a lot of details going elsewhere. We've only got one hour. We've only got 20 minutes left of this reading and we'd like to get through the Epistle of Jude if we possibly could. That means we're going to have to discipline ourselves to stay in June and not go elsewhere.
In verse three it was mentions the faith which was once delivered as of the Saints. And when it speaks in that way of talking about the whole body of revealed truth that we have in the word of God, revealed especially in Christianity, in the coming of the Lord Jesus and consequent upon his death and resurrection, ascension to God's right hand, what has been revealed in the epistles as well.
That was once delivered to the Saints, and it's important to seek.
The major that we can to lay hold of the whole truth of God. It's important because.
You find believers that do have a knowledge of something, of the truth of God, and we can thank God for that. But what a wonderful thing to have the whole truth of God before us, and how important to contend for it. It's not contending in a carnal way, but it is contending spiritually. These are important points, you might say. What's so important about doctrine?
I've heard sometimes say doctrine divides and love unites.
Well, if doctrine is presented properly, it forms the basis for true unity, and that's important to hold on to. The enemy wants to get us off of that basis, that foundation work of the Christian faith, which is the faith once delivered to the Saints. And I think it's so subtle the way he does it in verse 4.
With those men that have crept in, but it is really attacking the lordship of Christ mentioned in the new translation, the word Lord God is master one who holds supreme authority in our lives, and it seems like the subtle undercurrent of the culture in which we live is please yourself. You're the center of your world.
Do what you like to do. What we don't realize is that in that is a subtle undercurrent against God and against his Christ and against any authority that the Lord Jesus necessarily should have in every life of every true believer.
These two things that you're just referring to in that fourth verse, turning the grace of God into licentiousness, that is, using grace to do whatever you want. Liberty for the flesh, license for the flesh. It goes along with denying the only Sovereign Ruler, the Master, and our Lord Jesus Christ. You do not own His authority over you, so you can do what you please, and you turn grace into an excuse for doing that.
Those two things go together, don't they?
Using Grace as an excuse for doing anything you want and denying His authority over us. How solemn that that's what keeps us and preserves us is grace and submitting and bowing to Him.
Then in these next three verses, 5-6 and seven, we have apostasy portrayed. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, now these were this was the saved people, you know, we often think, well, you can't be saved and lost again. There's a sense in scripture in which you can be saved and lost again. And that's what Jude speaks of. He saved the people out of the land of Egypt.

00:35:05

Everyone of those Israelites that cross the Red Sea were saved positionally. But what happened to them afterward? He destroyed them that believed not. They didn't have faith, and so they were destroyed, though they were in a saved position. Everyone that's baptized is brought by baptism onto Christian ground. In that sense, they're saved. But you have to understand what you mean when you say saved. You mean that they've been born again and have eternal life. Well, they can never lose that.
But they might be in a safe position, and everyone that is a Christian is in that safe position, but by profession. But they may not be real. And so they were destroyed. They were apostates. And then he goes to the angelic world, the angels which kept not their first estate, that is, they apostatized from their first estate, but left their own habitation. He hath reserved an everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. So there you have apostasy in the angelic world.
I think you have a picture of that in Genesis chapter 6, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair and they came down as men and took these daughters of men and it was apostasy. And that whole generation was destroyed by the flood, by the flood. And then the next it says even as Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm going to read that.
In the new translation.
And verse six I read it in Angels who had not kept their own original state, but had abandoned their own dwelling. He keeps an eternal chains under gloomy darkness to the judgment of the great day as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them. Now he puts them all together, Sodom and Gomorrah and these other cities dwelling in the plain there in like manner with them. Now what's the antecedent of them? You don't see that in the in the King James. What's the antecedent of them? The the angels that had sinned.
The angels had kept not their first estate in like manner with them and going after other flesh.
Other flesh that is they they enter into a domain and a sphere that was not theirs lies an example undergoing the judgment of eternal fire. So he gives 3 examples of apostasy, those that left Egypt that were a saved people positionally and they didn't make it because they didn't have faith. And then the angels that sinned and the Sodom and Gomorrah they.
They they apostatize from what they were called to as as natural, and they did it through the intrusion of angelic beings. Well, these these are Jude sites. Here are examples of apostasy.
Homosexuality is apostasy. It is intruding into a relationship which is an abomination to God.
God gave man and woman to cohabit, not men and men and women and women. That's apostasy. In departing from the order God has established in creation, that's apostasy, and it's wickedness and these things that this country.
That was once known as a Christian nation sanctions.
That would be the greatest lot in the history books on this nation. And we criticize Adolf Hitler for murdering all those Jews. What about the United States of America by Supreme Court decision? Murdering helpless babies? Murdering them?
That's they can't retaliate. They can't defend themselves. We know, thank God, those children can go to be with the Lord.
Grace always triumphs over sin, doesn't it? Where sin abounded, grace did much more about it.
But that grace does not undo the awful judgment that will fall on corrupt Christendom. And there are those who take that position espousing that cause, that openly say that they are Christian.

00:40:00

And wants recognition as such. This this worse, directly complies and it's extremely solid. Brethren. We need to feel that we live in a country where that is the case. We need to feel as God feels it. Someone has said it's extremely solemn to think about that if God does not judge the United States for the position.
They have taken in connection with that awful sin of ******.
Homosexuality. He will have to apologize in a future day to Sodom and Gomorrah.
For having destroyed them, and it was awful the way they were destroyed, it was so severe.
By fire and brimstone. Brimstone means sulfur and sulfur is flammable and.
Evidently they say that there's not even a vestige of those that excavate and look for ruins of civilizations. There's not even a vestige of these cities in the plains of Jericho today. They were just totally wiped out from before the face of God, and so God will judge it. It is not a matter of if.
But he will just a matter of time.
Likewise verse 8. Also, these Dreamers who file the pledge despise Dominion, speak evil of dignities they won't submit to authority and.
He gives an example. Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses.
There's not bring against him a railing accusation, But said, the Lord rebuked thee.
But these, these men that crept in unawares, turned the grace of God into lasciviousness and deny the only sovereign Ruler, the Lord Jesus Christ. These speak evil of those things which they know not.
What they know, naturally, is brute beasts.
In those things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them.
And he mentioned three things.
Woe to them.
We would want to keep our hearts very tender, wouldn't we, brethren? We we've heard of these solemn, awful, filthy things that ones heart shudders to hear, and we know they go on. But perhaps we overlook the tendency that we all have to, at least in spirit. I don't say we do it in the sense it's presented here, but it talks about speaking a despising dominion and speaking evil of Dignity's.
I suppose what marks more than anything else, the current political contest that's about to come to its conclusion in the United States is that whole spirit of one side finding everything it can to speak evil disparagingly of the other side, of the persons on the other side. When we get into that, and we think, well, sometimes the government perhaps acts in a way that you can't hardly think anything else but those thoughts.
But what about the dignities as simple as the policemen and the teachers and every area of authority in our life? There's a tendency, brethren, and we have to admit it, The the day in which we live, the spirit of the day, is to cause us to demand our rights and to demand that we're going to stand up and and and have our rights. And I think that's in the new translation, where it talks about a despising lordship. Lordship is submitting to the rights of others. And then it goes on and it says.
Not only despising Lordship, but speak railingly against dignity. Have I ever said something unkind and in in a rough way of about a policeman that gave me a traffic ticket? Well, Brendan, I don't want to get off. As our brother Chuck said, we don't have much time, but we need to allow our hearts to be tender about this. This is the spirit of this whole age in which we live and it can take us over as believers in very little, almost insignificant ways. And it's been those subtle ways.

00:45:03

That it takes us over, that we end up getting caught up in the spirit of this thing and we can become not necessarily certainly the apostates that it's speaking about, but certainly caught up and affected by the spirit of this day. I think what we have here in Michael the Archangel is a helpful example of how we react to evils that we do see. And sometimes people say, well, if you don't say anything while you're going along with it, but.
How did Moses or how did Michael the Archangel react to the devil when Moses Moses died? This is something that is interesting that is not recorded in the Old Testament, This contention of the devil with Michael the Archangel, but we have it here only in the in the Old Testament only says that the Lord buried Moses and no man knows of his grave, but there was a real spirit battle that went on.
At the time of Moses's death, and it doesn't tell us exactly what the reason was for that battle. But here that tells us that it was about the body of Moses. And some have suggested perhaps the devil had in mind of using that the body of that great man to make a shrine of some sort, and the devil wanted to take him and bury him. But it was Michael that was.
Deputed to make sure he was buried where no man knew it.
And instead of rebuking openly the devil himself, he only said the Lord rebuked thee. And I think that is where we can learn is that when there is evil that is allowed or practiced by those in authority, we don't speak evil of the dignitaries, but we can see clearly from scripture that it is a wrong thing that is done.
And we can simply say God in his word, does not allow that and just leave it there. It's beautiful. In the New Testament or in the new translation, Brother Bob, it says that Michael reasoned with the devil, that is, he knew and he certainly you might say, express God's thoughts about that situation. But it says these three words did not dare to bring railing accusation.
And it gets very, very powerful. He knew exactly what God's mind was, you might say and and he reasoned and set that forth with this arch enemy. But he did not dare bring a railing accusation all that. We might be more in that spirit, even as a testimony. Think of the testimony that we could render, brethren. We talk about preaching the gospel and evangelizing. Think of the testimony that we could render daily to those around us, if we had that spirit that we did not dare.
To speak evil of authority.
We do forget to pray for them often, don't we, Authorities?
Somebody says something.
About one of the authorities in our land, we we could just ask them if we pray for them lately.
And by praying Cecil, we have far more.
Influence in what happens in those high government circles than by getting involved in any political agenda.
Were absorbed directly in the scripture to pray for and where we often forget. Remember in our Infirmary in corner book a few years ago, a man came in.
And he prayed. Apparently we never met him before, but Christian bookstores came fairly he prayed for.
A Prime Minister of Canada. Canadian of course, and every one of the premiers and all their cabinet members by name. Very long prayer, but in Northwest Territories, Yukon included. It was kind of good stir us up to realize how neglectful we were when the scripture says hopefully.
But that's what we should do regarding.
We have in the 10th verse that phrase which is a very chilling phrase, as brute beasts, as brute beasts, and just want to say this without enlarging on it, beloved young people. Much that passes today in the world that you live in that passes as romance and love is nothing more than the degenerate, degraded action of human beings acting as brute beasts.

00:50:17

And it is in fact a measure, a sign of the very.
Late day in which we live, and it says the love of many shall wax cold. We know that principle.
And I just want to just leave it there. But beloved young people don't be taken in by the world's thoughts about romance and love and all of that kind of thing. Because it's a world, a so-called Christian world, but a world which is oftentimes acting one toward another just as simple beasts, animals act.
New translation says irrational animals.
And that's what man has come to, he says. You're just another animal.
You're an animal evolution.
And he takes the that's that's where we came from, according to the evolutionary theory. It's the most degrading theory that you can think of. Contrasted with Genesis. God created man, put dust to the ground, breathed into his nostrils, breath of life, and became a living cell. He came right from the hand of God, which degrades man more.
The irrational animal or the image and likeness of God.
Why don't they take that? Because they don't want to be responsible to the God that created us. They want to get out from under that. So they invent this wicked, wicked teachable which doesn't have a shred of scientific evidence. Young people don't believe the lies of the scientists if they tell you that evolution is scientific.
It is not. It is absolutely unscientific and irrational.
Just like in your rational.
But we don't stop the enemy, the right to plan, characterize the people.
The compassion of the world is not always believers, but also young.
I was thinking too, we talked earlier about this awful thing that this country and I I, I suspect really what we would call the Western world, the Christianized Western world, this, this awful issue of abortion. And you think of the horror, the the gross irrationality. I'll use that word of men who.
Promote and legalize the murder of unborn infants while at the same time they form groups to protect.
And give ethical treatment to animals.
This is this is the irrationality of man's morals.
Morals that have not been formed according to the word of God in submission to the Word of God.
A brute beast is controlled by his natural instincts instead of reason, and that's what it is.
Anna's up.
#208.
208.
And hope we live.
In.
The morning.
Oh my God.
Who else will I be?
Missed.
Computers last year and that's why I'm looking for a groundstanding.
Was not necessarily.
Side.

Open Mtg.

Open—D. Brinkmeyer, L. Ludvicek

DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.

28 I am a draw down. Thou art seated high upon thy father's throne. All thy gracious work completed, all thy mighty victory won. Every knee in heaven is bending to the Lamb for Sinner slain, Every voice and heart is swelling worthy is the Lamb to reign, #28.
All my.
Everyone.
Hurry in heaven, do all I'm forced in her spring.
Every voice and heart is light.
What are you?
All thy all right glory.
Till I thought as I started.
Watching the environment something.
Till thy grace.
Our hearts are here.
The water started.
Her life's being is my love.
All my surplus preferred in our father's house.
A full.
Promise step in the whole life, quickly come.
And our hearts do I respond and write our Lord and make us home.
Oh, our capture that always.
Life will make me feel.

00:05:24

He held out where we are in vain.
Our God that we see, we merge our pain, I wins, I suggest in our spirit. That's right.
It answers all questions.
Word of his grace shall come for us through.
No Fear anymore without him, and I fall outside.
You may feel high.
Or will roll hard.
Learn to make days ago secure Chapter 3.
When we started our meetings yesterday.
Expression that just mentioned the word.
That connected is something that I have.
Many times been.
Enjoying and considering.
Let's in chapter 3 we'll take a few verses there and the fifth verse we'll start with.
And Moses barely was faithful in all his house as a servant.
For a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after.
Then we go down to the 10th verse.
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said they do always air in their heart.
They have not known my ways, so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest.
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
And here's the verse.
But to exhort one another daily.
Exhort on them mother daily.
Why it is called today?
Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
For we are partakers of Christ.
I feel beloved that.

00:10:02

The need to exhort one another daily.
Is essential and vital.
And that is not.
We sometimes think in our own meeting that.
Labor is coming through, which we always welcome.
And he'll come and insert us.
Well, that's good.
But you dear sister, you dear brother.
Young people.
Exhort one another tape.
It's essential. It's needed.
There are so few left.
The testimony is shrinking.
We haven't exhorted one another, apparently.
Or else there's not been a response.
Exhort one another daily.
Let's turn to Timothy 2 Timothy.
Third verse. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
No man at war.
Entangle himself with the affairs this life.
That he may please him who had chosen him to be.
A soldier.
One was thinking about this and hesitated very much about.
Coming up here, but I believe it's.
I have a sense that it's essential.
And it crossed my mind about the soldier.
I was thinking come to mind that I was mercifully spared of having been in service, but I know some who had and were in infantry.
And in their training.
In certain times of their training, they had to crawl under barbed wire.
With live ammunition flying over their heads.
Beloved, I think that's a good example for us as soldiers.
You can't get any lower than crawling on your stomach to stay away from the ammunition of the enemy.
I think that's where we belong as a good soldier.
Keeping.
We can avoid the attacks of the enemy.
And not only saw.
But.
You don't get involved with the affairs entanglement. That's a wonderful word. You know, think about it. What does entanglement mean?
It means that it hinders your movement. It hinders your operation.
Entanglement, beloved.
We've been exhorted time and again by others. Don't get entangled with the affairs of this life.
You got something more important to attend to?
You've got the King's work.
This world that you get involved in, you're going to leave it behind.
The best you can do is help it for a time, but you know, I was thinking of it in this way.
Especially those who have families. And that's not excluding those who are single or whatever, but.
You think of being a father. What are your responsibilities?
You have a family.
If you own your home or rent it even, it needs maintenance.
There are the mundane things that you have to do.
And then you have your job.
And cares the children, cares of your partner.
And then you have the assembly running.
To have the things of Christ we had there in Hebrews with your Christ.
You don't have time for the things of this. The moral?

00:15:05

And several matters.
Your time ought to be occupied with the things that are truly necessary. You're going to leave this world, and whatever good you're civil or moral involvements are concerned will be left.
And if you failed, or if I failed in the ministry or exhortation of one another?
It's too late.
And I want to say a word in regard to this.
And it's rightly what has been brought before us, especially in a reading the moral condition of this country of humanity.
It's not good.
But just a word of caution.
If, where is the assembly?
Get involved.
With the moral.
And civil and social matters of this life.
I can go to the camp and find that.
They'll do that. They take care of those things generally. I'm generalizing now. There are exceptions.
But if I want Christ.
I'll have to stay outside the camp.
Beloved, we don't realize blessing.
And the privileges we have in the position we're in.
We have that verse, you know, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.
All these things will be added on to you.
That has to be true. It's God's word.
If I and you seek the King of God.
You don't have to worry about the moral and spiritual things of this life.
In the assembly, it's going to take care of itself if you are properly and if I am properly occupied with the one in whom is God's delight.
You don't. They don't get involved, beloved.
And when you and I do, it's going to be an entanglement. You cannot argue the point. It's going to be an entanglement.
Well.
What I wanted to turn to for just a minute is Deuteronomy 26.
This is Moses business.
So to speak.
Just a few verses that I take out of there.
And it shall be when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
For an inheritance and possess it. And to our Australian.
That thou shalt take the first roots first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring in thine hand, that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall put it in a basket.
And go into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there.
Young brothers and sisters and older ones.
We had that verse before us and Matthew this morning. It's true.
There is a place.
How do you want to be there? He wants you there.
And dear young believer, young boys, young sisters and meeting here.
Are you at the large table?
If not, why not?
There's a place there for you.
He has brought us into the land.
He's taken us out of Egypt, 11 out of the world.
But you know what the children of Israel did?
They were looking back, looking back and looking back.
And what did they do? When they looked back, they ended up murmuring.
We have no business murmuring. We have a blessing before us that.
No one can compare.
If the things that are brought before us here in these meetings.

00:20:02

The truths that we've been enjoying.
If they are true.
We have no business looking back.
You know the little scripture says when a man putteth hand of the plough and look at the bath, he's not worthy of the Kingdom.
It's interesting one can identify with that because on the farm.
In the fall.
My dad taught me to look for the what we call the dead furrow. In other words, that was the furrow that was preceding the established in that ground when the ground was plowed one way in the spring of the previous year. And so you look for that spot and then you mark it out, and then you go to the other end and you put a mark at the other end of the field.
But you start out, but you know, sometimes the ground may not been worked up too good and you would end up looking back to see if things were feeding through the plow.
And then you turn around and say, where's my mark?
Where's my mark? The neighbors are going to drive by and see my first line through the field, and it isn't going to be very straight and they love it. The world is going to look at us.
Has our line been very straight? Have we been looking back?
And we look back in on it.
It doesn't work. We have to have our eye. We have to have an object before us. Beloved. It's Christ.
It's our object. It can't be anything else.
Well, you know there is a place.
It was Jerusalem.
And I like that expression and we had were referred to that in Peter this.
Morning.
Who they gave us an example that we should follow his steps.
He did leave us an example.
But Jerusalem?
Was laid waste.
They made a House of merchandise.
Christianity is becoming a House of merchandise.
And so that place was.
Laid waste to the foundation.
Well, we're identified with something beloved that cannot be. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
We're identified something with something that cannot be laid waste.
And may the Lord keep us, you know, I was thinking that.
When my wife.
Would take me down to Des Moines and we'd go to some of the meetings there and.
I know I was young and I'd make.
Statements that would seem perhaps?
Perhaps thoughtlessly or so or whatever, but I remember saying that when we'd be going home, I'd say to her.
I can't believe that anyone would leave a place like this.
Can't believe anyone would leave it.
It's tying the way on. I found out it can happen.
I found out and I realized that it could happen to me.
It can happen to you.
Just to give you a couple of examples, what I was going to say in our Hebrews has a peculiar attachment to myself.
Because I would tell some brethren that say, well, you know, I think Hebrews has more bearing upon some of us who've been taken out of the system, but to the Lord's table, to his place outside the camp.
But.
That's not.
A fair statement.
But I I do think sometimes there is an element there that those who have been in the system.
For a period of time, and by the grace of God brought to the truth.
That.
You appreciate it. You can understand Hebrews a little better. But that's not necessarily true, because I certainly am not very intelligent in there older brethren here that have been raised in the truth and much more knowledgeable and been going on faithfully.

00:25:09

But just to give an example of the danger that there is in leaving it.
A few years back was visiting in a home.
Dear couple I love very much.
Know very well and.
The lady of the house we're visiting in their room, in the living room and.
They asked me about the position and so forth.
And she says, you know, I don't believe the things that I.
Believed once years back.
Says I don't. I don't believe that. Don't hold it as dear as I did.
The only thing one could say is that my dear sister.
I don't know.
But I know that there is one place.
I know there's one place.
And her husband.
I'm not sure it was the time element. A little bit before or after visiting with him and he had his Bible open and he was. He just told me he says I'm looking in here.
To see where there's another place.
Have been tempted to ask him afterwards if he had found it.
Verify inappropriate. But then another illustration I want to give you is.
Another young brother was brought into the assembly.
And there is trouble. There always is, you know.
If you think it's going to go smooth in the assembly, you're kidding yourself because.
It's a difficult path. There's not opposition.
And the enemy is very tenacious.
And you and I are not up to it.
If we don't have our eye on Christ.
He's going to get us.
But this young man, there's difficulty in the assembly and he had come out from the system.
And if I have the story straight, and I presume I do, he made the statement, he says. Well, he don't bother me to go back into the system, he says. I missed it. I was raised there.
Do you think the Lord's table was very?
Uppermost in his mind? I think not.
But I want to get back to something that was touched upon here in our reading. I mentioned earlier and I got away from it, but I think it's important rather than.
That.
If I want to be involved with moral things, I can find that in the system.
But if I want to be occupied with Christ.
You'll find that in the assembly.
For the most part I won't be dogmatic, but.
It's true, dear old brother used to say. We see these.
Very beautifully constructed buildings around.
And he would say the impure it is on the inside, the more glorious it's going to be on the outside.
The anchored is on the inside. The fan shears. The stones are going to be that they put on the building outside.
Well, beloved, we have.
Called upon to bring the first fruits in the basket.
We were privileged to do that this morning.
Christ, the first fruits.
If you and I had him in our hearts.
That's who he brought to the table this morning.
That's the one that God divides in Christ the first fruits.
And you know, we bring the basket full of first fruits. In other words, that's.
Sacrifice of praise from her lips, giving thanks to his name.
Christ the Firstfruits.
Christ takes the basket.

00:30:00

Christ presents it to God.
God is delighted.
And there is joy.
Nothing of itself.
All up here.
I won't take any more time that I just feel delivered.
It's so important.
I don't have the strength in myself.
God graciously has preserved one through the past trial. There's another one coming if we're left here.
Dear brothers and sisters.
You're going to have to be a good soldier.
To meet the Wiles of the enemy.
He's going to tempt us. And you know, the next time it's going to be even more difficult because the lines are going to be so close together that only by the Spirit of God will we discern the path that we should be in.
We better be attuned to it. We better have our eye on the right object.
There will be caught.
And Saul Belavan, I just leave you with that exhort one another.
We need it, sisters. You're an exhort visiting with a brother.
Brother exhort the sisters, children exhort one another.
We need exhortation, we need encouragement. The soldier at the front, he needs someone next to him to say let's go forward.
Just keep the banner. Let's hold forth the one to whom we are called.
May the Lord keep us.
I would like to turn to First Peter 5.
We had earlier in the conference the time when it was told to Peter what he should do about feeding the sheep and feeding the lambs, and here's Peter.
And first Peter 5 And I'm thinking about exhortation and that we would exhort one another. And I also think of Philippians, the book of Philippians.
But here in this first Peter 5 and verse one, it says, the elders which are among you I exhort, who who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither being Lords over God's heritage.
But being examples to the flock, and when the chief shepherd shall appear.
Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise ye younger, submit yourself to the elder, Yeah, all of you be subject 1 to another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him.
For a carrot. For you be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
Well, I'll stop there. There isn't much time left.
I was thinking of the word submission. I was thinking of the word exhortation. I was thinking of Yodius and Syntheke in the 4th chapter of Philippians and the second chapter let it where it says there look not man, every man on his own things, but on the are the qualities of others. And the thought of looking at one another and getting along and the thought of submitting one to another.
We often talk about love and the glue that would hold or that would hold ones together. Love would work. We can see what love will do in First Corinthians 13. It suffers long and it's patient and is kind. But the word I'm thinking of is submission.

00:35:18

And to submit to where the Lord has placed us. I even think of that to the older ones. It says that they are to take the oversight. And in Matthew it talks about when the Lord Jesus talks about.
Who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God? I think it's Matthew 20. I can look.
What?
18 What did you say? What's the verse, Matthew?
Yeah, that's not the portion I'm thinking of, but it is a similar to where they're asking who would be the greatest and this is where he sets a little child in the midst of them.
And whosoever shall receive a little one in my name, but the thought is given out here in Matthew 18. But the part that I am thinking of it, where it says amongst the Gentiles, exercise dominion over you, and amongst you it shall not be so.
And.
What?
On.
Matthew 2025. OK. That's probably the one I was thinking of. Thank you.
Yes, it says. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, You know that the Princess of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister servant. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.
In the thought of taking the place or even when I think of a family and the head of a house, and some I've even had heard it said that this scripture applies, but in a marriage it doesn't apply that they see the head of the house as some sort of dictatorship. But I see in the Lord Jesus from John 13, a servant leader, he's going to wash their feet. He's going to exhort them and he says what you do, you know not, but afterwards you're going to know.
What I am doing and you think about I think about it in marriage and not who I am and who the Lord made me to be and.
Someone person might be in the assembly a strong personality, another one might be a weak personality, and husbands and wives are. There's that sort of thing too. And sometimes they would say.
Like I am a milder personality.
And someone might say to me that, well, I wish God would have made you a stronger personality. Well, really, if I am mild and I am who I am, and God has made me that way, and you don't like the way God made me. Your argument is not with me, but with God. I am his creature, and we may think that others should do things the way we think they ought to do them. They, everybody should be like me. That's not true.
Yodiath and Synthiki some. I heard it said you ought to do this and soon. Touchy well.
Giving the opposite of who people are in the assembly, we need to lay a lot of things lay ourselves aside and the thought of submission, submission to roles that we should play. Someone who would take the leadership we like to see someone who takes the leadership but if their God gives somebody a leadership role then it is for us to submit in that role and if some you know and to work out.
Our own salvation. Thinking of an assembly. I think of our own assembly where I am back home and the things we need to workout. There are problems that arise and there are things. There's trouble in every assembly and the enemy is busy at work and there needs to be a course that is taken, that is marked out in the word for handling problems. And there's love, yes. There's submission, yes. And there needs to be. And who is it ultimately to?

00:40:18

It's that to the headship of Christ.
It's to the headship of Christ. And I often when I talk about these things, I often go back and attribute it to like a household. Because in Timothy says, if you know not to rule in your own house, how shall you rule in the Church of God? And when it's talking about an elder and those, So I think of husbands and wives and how they get along and their roles and the wife's role to submit to the husband and the children.
To their parents and yet in it all.
What I see is that they are all equal in value. There's different places.
And in America, in a democratic society, I think a lot of things are getting all mixed up. And the assembly.
The gathered Saints often.
Are being so effective. I know I am. I get affected by it. Are we're getting affected by our society around us and it's getting hard for those to take a lead in the assembly. There are those that should that should take a lead and it's getting hard to know what that is. Should they be dictators in the assembly? No, they should by example. They should by serving but their word.
If they are an older brother, we best be careful. Tells us about elders. What does it say about them against elder? Receive not an accusation except by two or three witnesses. Be careful how you treat your older brother and where you know.
There used to be this. Yes, ma'am. Yes, Sir. And when we were in school and when we were younger, you were to call the teacher by her last name. A lot of those things are being given up. There was respect to older ones and rebuked not. An elder sharply didn't say not to rebuke him. If somebody is old, you best not yell.
At an older brother. If you're a younger brother, you best be careful. There's a lot of distinctions in roles put in the word of God.
And how you treat one another. There are things that are for our safeguard, and it's not for legality's sake.
What are we going to get to if some things, almost. If you just let everything go and there is no authority in the assembly, I know the Lord is the ultimate authority. What do you get? You get anarchy.
You could get anarchy in a home. You can get anarchy in an assembly too.
Because there's not the proper bounds or the exhortation and given in scripture to those who are older to take the lead, those who are younger to submit, and just to have a clear path. Sometimes it's nice to see where it is carried out. I'm not saying it's not always, but when there is a problem, what happens? Like for me, I can be passive if I am.
In my home is a head of a house. I know it drives my wild, my wife nuts.
If I don't take a proper leadership, it drives my wife nuts and she's waiting for me. But I can't use my headship. Say, hey, I'm a head, I'm the head of my house and I'm passive. So I'm not going to. I'm going to just put all this off on you. No, it comes back to me. I'm to take the lead. Well, I could be a dictator and say go the totally opposite way. I need to get my direction from the word of God and.
When I see a lot of problems and I want to learn, this is speaking to me in our assembly back in Cedar Rapids, where I come from.
When the Lord when those asked the Lord, they asked the Lord Jesus how to be great. He didn't tell him not to be great, he told him how to.
How to be great, Be servant of all, he said. I would want you young brothers and sisters to be great, not for yourselves, but to the Lord. I tell you how, be servant of all and in to be able to take that leadership role. It's not spirituality to be able to blend into the wall or the wallpaper sometimes. That's what we've gotten. I don't know. I think we've gotten some wrong ideas and what is right?

00:45:01

And the Lord knows that there needs to be some distinction from the word of God in the assembly, in the home are things get messed up. And they are, they get real messed up. And sometimes I got to go against what my character is, and sometimes I just need to do that. And by the grace of God just ask for his help and to say, well, this isn't, this is and the Lord can come in.
And bless. And my wife can be blessed. My family can be blessed. But now I need to carry it a step farther if I can be exercised for my home. How about the assembly? That's my next. I haven't taken much lead in the assembly, haven't taken much care in the assembly. My home, yes, but not there. And I've been looking in scripture. How do you do that in the assembly?
There's people.
Who are at odds with me in this assembly? How do I care for them? There are people who don't like me that much in this assembly. How do I care for them? And Philippians. The book of Philippians has been a real encouragement to me. A real encouragement. I think we could go over that book more And the Lord Jesus and all it says about the Lord Jesus and and.
About him being rich and becoming poor, but the second chapter and what he how he condescends.
And how far he comes down, how far, though he thought it not robbery to be made equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant. And being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death. That's close, but not quite. But the idea is we see what the Lord Jesus did. And you call me Lord and master, and you say, well, that's what the Lord Jesus said. And if?
Dear Lord and master, wash his feet and does all these things and how he cares.
If I have a brother in the meeting who doesn't like me, I should still care for him. I had a brother that tell me that once, he says. I just don't like you.
Nice. Well I like you but that's OK and but he he still loved me that don't get me wrong he still loved me. He just didn't like the way I was he still loved me and but anyways I need to care for that brother and he needs to care for me sometimes you can be honest like that you can be honest and share things and but we need to get on together what's what's going to help us get on together. There's sometimes a racial boundaries.
There sometimes are cultural boundaries. You know, there's some people that they dress nice. I mean, they dress nice, and there's some people who don't dress so nice. You know, there's different things that separate people. How are we going to cross all these things? Believe a lot of instruction again, is in Philippians don't have time to go into that. But that's all I have to say.
And the fathers boundless love, but the Holy Spirit's favor rest upon us from above. Thus may we abide in union with each other in the world, and possessed in sweet communion, joys mature.
I am with each other and the Lord.
And possibly.
Thrice Witcher and hair out for?

Gospel

Gospel—R. Thonney

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Let's start our meeting this evening with #23 on the hymn sheet.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God on the cross.
For us, he shed his precious blood on the cross. Oh, here the overwhelming cry.
Eli Lama Sabachthani, draw near and see the Savior die on the cross.
Let's sing #23.
Holding all the Lamb of God.
On the cross. On the cross.
Over us, it says.
On my cross.
On the ground.
Who is here? He goes.
I heart like Brown.
I'm not proud.
On the ground.
Explorer. You will have to bear that.
To rain, but all of them's way what I'm doing is what the.
M #21 on our hem sheets.
Decide for Christ today and God's salvation. See.
Yield soul and body, heart and well.
To him who died for thee, Christ alone can say, Break the power of sin.
Christ that fully satisfy the heart that cleaves to Him.
Maybe we can stand up and sing #21.
Today I must always come to you.

00:05:12

And who would apply for the game?
Like to turn to begin with to a verse in Matthew chapter 27.
That contains a question.
Matthew, Chapter 27.
And verse 22.
Pilate saith unto them.
What?
Shall I do then with Jesus?
Which is called Christ.
Just that question.
Want to press home as we start this meeting tonight?
It's a matter of decision for Christ, this matter of salvation. It has all to do with what you do with Jesus.
In three days there's going to be elections in this country.
Choice is going to be made.
And I suppose looking around, it's been impressive to me at how fickle the heart of man is, how easily he swayed one way or another. Another thing impresses me is how little ability there is on the part of people at large to.
Make a decision based on truth.
That doesn't seem to enter into people's mind any longer at all. It's a matter of how it will affect me.
And that is the reference point in connection with choices that are made.
Tonight's not my purpose to dwell on the elections to take place in this country.
I want to talk about Election Day in Jerusalem.
A number of centuries ago.
When there were two.
That were to be chosen.
At least there were two.
And they had to choose one to live and the other one.

00:10:03

To die and I'd like to read a good portion of this chapter.
So that you will have the picture of those that were involved.
In this election, let's start with verse one, when the morning was come.
All the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against.
Jesus to put him to death, and when they had bound him.
They led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.
Now let's drop down to verse 11.
And Jesus stood before the governor.
And the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the Jews?
And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered.
Nothing.
Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? And he answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled greatly. Now at that feast the governor was one till release unto the people a prisoner whom they would, And they had then a notable prisoner called Barabbas.
Pause here. In other gospels it tells us that Barabbas was a prisoner and he was thrown into prison for a rebellion he was leading in which he had committed murder. It also tells us in another gospel that he was a robber, so he was not the best kind of a person.
Verse 17 Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate saith unto them.
Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas?
Or Jesus, which is called Christ, for he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent it to him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that? Just man.
For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas.
And destroy Jesus.
The governor answered, and said unto them, Whither of the twain will ye that I release unto you?
They said Barabbas didn't seem to be any question in their mind.
As to the person they wanted, Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?
They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.
And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done?
But they cried out the more, saying let him be crucified.
When Pilate saw that he could prevail, nothing but that rather a tumult was made.
He took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying I am innocent.
Of the blood of this just person see you to it. Then answered all the people and said his blood.
Beyond us and on our children. Then release T Barabbas unto them.
And when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him.
To be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall.
And gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers, and they stripped him.
And put on him a scarlet robe, and when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it on his head.
And a Reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him.
Saying, Hail King of the Jews, and they spit upon him.
And took the Reed and smote him on the head. After that they had mocked him. They took off the robe from him.
And put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out, they found a man of sirens, Simon by name.
Him they compelled to bear his cross when they were come.
Unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar.
To drink minkled with gall. And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Prophet. They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.

00:15:20

And sitting down, they watched him there and set up over his head, his accusation written.
This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.
Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand and another on the left?
And they passed. They that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple.
And Bill listed in three days. Save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
Likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said.
He saved others, himself he cannot save.
If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.
He trusted in God, let him deliver him now if he will have him, for he said I am the Son of God.
The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.
Now from the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour.
And about the 9th hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani.
That is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken?
Me some of them that heard that stood there when they heard that, said This man calleth free lias, and straightway one of them ran.
Took a sponge and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a Reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, Let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. Behold, the veil of the temple was rent entwined from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks ran, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the Saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city.
And appeared unto many now, when the centurion, and they that were with him watching.
Jesus.
Saw the earthquake and those things that were done.
They feared greatly, saying truly this was.
The Son of God.
It was impressive to me this morning.
For I think it was this afternoon, the two verses that.
Mike read before the meeting or at the beginning of the meeting. It's.
Speaking in James about Abraham the friend of God and then reading that other verse that talks about.
He that is a friend of the world constitutes himself an enemy of God, and it really accentuates the fact that there is no neutrality in the question of your relationship with Jesus Christ. People want it to be thought today that you can be a Christian, you can be a believer in Jesus and still embrace the world system that we see around.
That is impossible. There has to be decision. There is no way to avoid making a decision on this matter. Some people want to just kind of float through life without making any decisions at all. And I say to you, if that's the way you think about life, if that's your philosophy of living, I say you're going to go the wrong direction.
Because the way of least resistance is always down.
Don't take that route, I ask you. Here we see in Jerusalem this night was election time.
One of the persons that was there was Jesus.
Who was this person? We know from other parts of the Word of God that he is the eternal Son of God. He is the creator of the universe.
That we know. And when I look at the universe and see the extension of it, it gives me in some small measure an understanding of how great, how wise, how powerful is the God of the universe that made it all. But it is the same person that we're talking about tonight that became a man and came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. He veiled himself.

00:20:16

So that men, when they looked at him, did not see anything else but a normal, ordinary man. They said this is the Carpenter. We know him, we know his Father and his mother, we know his brethren. They're with us today. They didn't see anything more than that. But he was the eternal God made flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He had come to save. He had come to show to mankind.
That God is love. Oh, how God loves. 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.
Sin is an awful thing before the eyes of God, and in today's world it is played upon for enjoyment, for entertainment.
We've been speaking about some of the tendencies of our culture today.
Extremely serious tendencies, tendencies that are leading this country downhill to destruction and judgment. There is no way that there's going to be any way to avoid it unless there is repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This world system is condemned. It's under judgment, but God is holding forth the word of life to you tonight in the gospel.
So that you as an individual can repent and believe the gospel and be saved from the judgment. That is unavoidable for this world. It's going straight in that direction, and there is no reason to believe that this world is going to change course.
It is determined it made its decision basically this day in Jerusalem. Here on the one side was Jesus, the eternal Son of God. His presence here in this world was always a blessing.
He dispensed food to the hungry. He healed the sick.
He raised the dead. He gave sight to the blind everywhere he went.
It was blessing, and that's why I say how fickle man's heart really is.
They loved it, they came to be fed. They wanted their sick ones healed.
That here in a moment, the whole picture changes under the influence of these religious leaders. They changed completely and are crying for him to be given the worst kind of death known in the history of this world, crucifixion.
Who was the other person? We already mentioned it. He was a dangerous criminal, a murderer, one who fomented sedition, rebellion.
And he was a thief. He took what did not belong to him. Those were the two choices that were before this world that night in Jerusalem. And Pilate said, what shall I do with Jesus?
Their response was immediate. Let him be crucified. There was no question in their mind what they wanted.
Says in Lukes Gospel pilot gave in. He delivered Jesus to their will. What was their will for Jesus?
Crucifixion. What was their will for Barabbas? Barabbas, come, you're the man we want. Can anybody blame God for the situation this world is in tonight?
The awful warfare, the killing, the terrorism that goes on in this world.
Sometimes I hear people say, why does God allow it? God gave man his choice there in Jerusalem that night. He could choose Jesus or he could choose Barabbas. And their choice was clear. It was Barabbas. That's the one they chose. No wonder the world is in the situation that we find it in tonight.

00:25:14

And so Pilate here in this chapter, it says he washed his hands before the multitude in verse 24. You don't wash away guilt of condemning an innocent man by washing your hands in water. And Pilate may have done that to try to relieve some of the guilt that was on his own soul, but it will never, never relieve the guilt that he has.
I'm looking forward to a day when it will be Jesus on the judgment seat and Pilate will appear before Jesus. What a difference. What terror, Because you cannot avoid Jesus, you must meet him. Like it or not, believe it or not, it makes no difference.
You must meet with Jesus. It's unavoidable. You may say I don't want to have anything, that I don't want to think about it even now.
I've got too much to live for. OK, that's your choice. But I say you will meet Jesus today. You can repent and be saved and have a glorious future in front of you.
But if you avoid the issue, you must meet him because the question of your sins.
Is something that is unavoidable. You must deal with the question of your sins and if you.
Choose not to deal with them now. You will appear before Jesus as He sits as a judge.
In that coming day to cast those who do not accept His offer of salvation into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. That's the option that is reserved in all these nearly 2000 years since Jesus was crucified. The gospel message goes out and whosoever believes can have salvation from that coming judgment.
The question of sin has been addressed by God himself through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came not to live, He came to die.
And we have the story here. Notice verse 26.
When they had said his blood be on us and on our children.
They said then it says He released Barabbas unto them and when he had scourged Jesus he delivered him to be crucified. Notice in verse 24 he says the blood of this just person and then he takes them out and scourges him. What kind of justice is this? Say this is a just person and then take him to scourge in the Romans scourging.
I understand, I've read accounts of what it involved but they tied the person to a stake.
And they used the Roman whip and it cut deep gouges in his back.
It was called by some the living death. It was awful and they stood by to watch, to make sure.
That the victim did not faint and if a fainted they.
Tried to revive them by throwing water over them.
Then he took them and gave them to the soldiers. Notice verse 28. They stripped him. Think of it. They stripped the Son of God, and verse 29 they plaited a crown of thorns.
Those thorns were awful.
I've had to deal with those thorns when we lived in Bolivia.
They have thorn trees in abundance down there and sometimes.
They have gone into the tires of my vehicle and they're as bad as nails. They go straight in, they do not break. They crowned Him with thorns. They took that stick and they beat that crown of thorns into His face, into His head. They spit in His face and then they let Him out to crucify him and notice.

00:30:03

In verse 34, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall. It was something that they gave convicts that were going to be crucified to lessen the pain of crucifixion when he had tasted thereof, not drink it, no, he was going to feel the awfulness of crucifixion. And then it says in verse 35 and they crucified him.
Think of it, the glorious Son of God that was this world's response to Jesus. They stretched out his hands, they nailed him to a cross, they lifted him up between heaven and earth, and then they sat down to make fun of him. He says in the book of the Psalms, Reproach has broken my heart and I'm full of heaviness and I look for some to take pity.
And there were none. And for comforters. But I found none. Not only did he suffer those intense physical pains.
But he suffered as well that awful reproach that broke his heart.
Then something else took place on Mount Calvary. It was those hours of darkness. Verse 45. From the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour. In about the 9th hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice. Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
In three awful hours of darkness from what we would calculate to be 12 noon to 3:00 PM.
Nobody could see what was happening on that cross, but from other scriptures we know that it was in those three hours that God took the load of judgment.
That was on us, those sins that we had committed and laid it on Jesus.
And Jesus bore the punishment for our sins. Somebody had to pay it if I was to be forgiven. If you were to be forgiven, somebody had to pay the price. And Jesus paid the price in full. There at Calvary, at the end of those three hours, he cried with a loud voice that says, here it tells us what he cried in John's gospel.
It is finished. All the judgment that was against me as a lost Sinner was gone. Thank God there's salvation now for sinners through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then after a soldier came up that hill and pierced his side and out flowed blood and water. That's the blood that can cover.
And remove sin from the eyes of God.
God can see everything, but he does not see the sin that has been washed away with the blood of Jesus. Jesus paid it all on that Christ, and God was so satisfied with the payment that he made that Jesus made, that God raised him from the dead. Tonight we have the news, the good news that Jesus is a living Savior, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead.
Is one of the most well established facts in human history even.
Apart from the testimony of the Word of God, Jesus lives. He ascended up on high.
And he's sitting a real man of flesh and bones at God's right hand tonight, powerful to save to the uttermost all that coming to God by him.
That's the story of the cross. That's the story of that Election Day in Jerusalem.
But I want to speak of the importance of decision.
You know, we were speaking about Sodom and Gomorrah today because the chapter we were studying.
Speaks about it.
That city.
By which a certain lifestyle today is designated. It's called ******.
Homosexuality.
And God showed what he thought. God gave an example of how He's going to treat people that engage in that kind of sin. I'm not saying that there's not salvation for those kind of people when they repent and believe the gospel.

00:35:14

But this is God's estimation of that awful sin.
And if we would read the Old Testament account, it is a solemn account how God came to Abraham as he dwelt out on the mountain, and he had with him 2 angels. And then as he left there the Lord stayed with Abraham, while Abraham plead for those he knew in Sodom that were living there. He had.
A nephew in Sodom called Lot, and Lot was a righteous man, it tells us.
In the New Testament, he was a man that believed and that night as the day was declining.
Two men enter Sodom. Nobody realized it was Sodoms last night of existence. Nobody realized these two men were those two angels, and Lot had the discernment to recognize that these were no ordinary men.
And he gets up because he's sitting in the gate of Sodom. He had taken a place of preeminence there in that city.
And he gets up and he invites them into his home.
They didn't want to come at first, but they finally were persuaded to come into his house.
And the story of what happened is rather awful. The men of that city.
Be set around that house and they called the lot to bring out the two men.
That it entered into his house and lot, even though he was a righteous man, the Scripture tells us.
Had become so affected by the living of that city that he actually offers to the men of the city his own daughters.
To use as they would want to.
How awful a Christian can get to that point.
Yes, that may happen. It did in the cases of a lot awful what Lot did that night. The Lord was merciful to Lot and He was outside trying to reason with those men that were beastly in their instincts and they pulled him back into the house and blinded those men out there. People are blinded as to their end.
Today and they said to Lot, who do you have in this city?
Sons, daughters, sons in law, tell them that we have come to destroy this city.
Something had to be done, a decision had to be made to get out of that city.
But Lot went to talk to his sons in law and they thought he was joking.
Isn't that awful?
You don't know what kind of conversation he must have had with him.
Before, but they thought he was joking.
And so the next day dawns and it says the Lord was merciful to lie. And the Lord laid hold on one or the angels, took a hold of Lot and his wife, 1 Angel and another Angel, his two daughters, and drugged them out of that city, pulled them out of that city and said there's the mountain, flee to the mountain, don't look back.
Yes, it was necessary. Decision was necessary, and they fled. But I want to go over to Luke's Gospel, Chapter 17. I believe it is.
For a few verses.
Verse 26.
And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man.
They did eat, they drank, They married wives.
They were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark.
And the flood came and destroyed the mall.

00:40:01

The majority is often wrong.
In Noah's day, it was the case.
Eight were right by believing God and getting into the ark. The rest were wrong.
Verse 28 when we come to a different person likewise also as it was in the days of Lot.
They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted.
They build that notice it doesn't say anything about marrying and giving in marriage.
That was given up, as it is in our country today, it's given up.
But the same day that lot went out of Sodom, it reigned.
Fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed the mall.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man.
Is revealed in that day he which he shall be on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away. He that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Verse 32 remember.
Lot's wife What happened to Lot's wife, the story in the Old Testament tells us.
There were those four. They were told to go as fast as possible.
Be overtaken with the destruction of that city, and not to look back. And as they were going, the Lord reigned fire and brimstone.
Mentioned it today in the reading Brimstone is sulfur.
In Spanish, that's the word. It uses fire and sulfur. Over on the Chilean border with Bolivia there is big sulfur mines, and it's interesting that that stuff is very flammable.
So when the Lord reigned fire and brimstone out of heaven, it was big chunks of fire, sulfur on fire that came on and stuck to people as he reigned and destroyed that city. And so here's Lot, his wife and his two daughters, and they're going. And all of a sudden Lot's wife, whose heart was in Sodom, all that she lived for.
All that she wanted was going up in smoke, and she turns around to look.
She was not decided.
And she turns into a pillar of salt, the Scripture tells us.
Remember.
Lot's wife, what is it that keeps you from decision for Christ? What is it that makes you want to continue to embrace part of this world system when God has declared it's under judgment?
Remember Lot's wife, there was not decision. She was going out in body, but her heart was back there in Sodom.
Oh, how important it is to make a decision. There is no way to avoid the matter of the question of your sins either. You deal with it now.
By repenting and believing the gospel or you will have to face Jesus in that coming judgment day when he sits on the throne. There is no way to avoid it. Jesus died.
So that we can offer to all free and full salvation.
But my friend, if you do not accept him as your savior.
If you refuse to accept that offer of salvation that has been offered now for almost 2000 years.
The time will come when you will face Jesus.
You must face him face to face with Jesus on that throne of judgment.
It's called a great white throne. Jesus will sit.
And the souls are called to present themselves before him. There they stand, the small, the great, the mighty men, all the ones that have died without faith in God from the beginning of time. There will stand Cain that went out of the presence of the Lord. It's been a long time since Cain died.

00:45:17

But he too will be called to stand before Jesus.
On that judgment throne and their books are opened God.
Is a good record keeper and all the story of our lives, every sin we've ever committed.
In fact, in Word, in deed is all recorded there. Sometimes people remind me of things I've done years ago, totally forgotten about Him, don't remember a bit of what they tell me. I suppose they're right. But the Lord has got it all recorded above.
And you're not going to escape giving account for everything you have ever done.
We plead in the name of the Lord Jesus if there is somebody who has not.
Made that decision. You cannot remain neutral as to this.
It's always been, it always will be a matter that you must decide with God.
You know, in the Old Testament there was.
A rival?
God, that was called Baal. Baal.
Is a word in Hebrew that means Master or Lord and there's many people.
Today that have other masters in life.
And they recognize them, and they serve them well.
And there was a time when there was a prophet called Elijah who came to Israel.
And he said, how long halt ye between two opinions?
If Jehovah be God, follow him. If Baal.
Follow him. You can't remain neutral. You must decide. And so.
There Elijah proposed a contest. It was on a mountain called Carmel, there in Israel, in the northern Kingdom. And there on that mountain there were two altars set, one for bail. There was 450 prophets of bail, and they killed an animal and put it on the altar.
And they called all day for Baal to answer them.
And there was number answer.
That is the false gods that this world wants to embrace.
They will not save you in your hour of need.
Then, at the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah built the broken down altar of the Lord.
And put the wood on it and put the ox that he had killed on top of the altar. And then he told them to bring 4 barrels of water and pour it on there. And they poured 4 barrels of water on that sacrifice 3 times.
And then he prayed, and the Lord answered with fire, and that fire came down.
And consumed the sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the water. There was nothing left.
And the people seeing the dramatic way that God had answered Elijah.
Said the Lord. He is God, The Lord he is God.
And Elijah immediately said, take all those prophets of Baal, immediately take him down and he had them executed because of their crime of leading those people in the wrong direction. You can't be neutral. There is no way of being neutral. He could not deal lightly with those men. They were all.
Executed. And I say, young people, if you own Jesus as Lord.
There's things in this light, in the culture in which we live that cannot exist with him being Lord in your life. There's music, there's certain kinds of lifestyles that absolutely cannot be embraced.
If you own Jesus at lower as Lord, those things must be cut out of your life.
That's what repentance means. It means a change in your mind as to those things.

00:50:05

But you know, in the story of Israel, and I want to carry this through if you go on a few chapters further.
In the story of Israel, there was another king that came along after.
Wicked King Ahab, his name was Jehu. And it's interesting, even though Elijah had made such a clean sweep of the prophets of Baal at that time and had executed 450 prophets.
Why the religion of Baal had come again to the people of Israel, and Jehu tricked the people.
Insane.
If Ahab served Baal little, all serve him much, and he announced a great feast for the people, for the God Baal.
And those people had seen that dramatic way that God had answered.
God answers prayer. He does. It's evident.
And they had seen it, how dramatic it was, the answer that the Lord had given.
And still those people were not decided, because they went back to that religion of Baal again, but this time there was no mercy for them. This time there was no sacrifice from an Elijah to take the place of the judgment that had to fall. And when they were in this House of bail, all the followers of bail.
Jehu had his armed forces surround the place and completely kill absolutely every person that was in there.
God is offering mercy to you tonight, but if you do not decide for Christ, there is only one thing ahead for you.
And it is the most awful judgment that this world has ever seen.
It must have been awful when God destroyed this world with a flood.
As people were, as the waters rose, those people, as they scrambled to get the highest point and they were all taken away, absolutely every one of them that was not in the ark.
It must have been awful when God judged the city of Sodom and Gomorrah.
That awful day when he rained fire and brimstone out of heaven. But the Lord Jesus has said about the judgment that is getting close for this world system to day says there was there. This time will be a time of tribulation that this world has never seen before or will ever see after. That's the judgment that's reserved and the awful, awful desperation.
Of people when they realize that the door of salvation is shut forever.
And that there's no more salvation.
Oh, how we plead. Dear young people, dear children, if you can understand what I'm talking about tonight.
Dear older folks too, you know who you are if you have not truly made.
This matter of Jesus a personal matter. Tonight with all those that truly believe in this room, we want to plead with you to accept the Lord Jesus.
I present the question as Pilate presented it. What shall I do then with Jesus? What are you going to do with Jesus? Remember, you cannot embrace Jesus and embrace this world at the same time. Impossible. It is Jesus or this world. What is your decision? Oh, you say I have my rights. Yes, you may have your rights.
In this world that we live in, in this country that we live in.
But be careful that having your own rights lets you.
Choose the wrong thing, and it be the loss of your soul for all eternity. God commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day in the which you will judge this world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained in giving faith to, having given faith to all men, in having raised him from the dead.

00:55:07

What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?
I ask you to consider it seriously. In the presence of God, accept Him.
Believe the Gospel, for if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.