Chicago Conference: 2006
Table of Contents
1 Corinthians 10
Reading
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275 Two 75.
Oh, God is life and the way.
The drug runs long.
Our Jesus.
Was captured.
Show.
Forever.
Child.
Oh we may we grow.
This is my last day.
Against our horses.
Dance Dance Turn 1 1St My heart first.
I process.
Made and sweet.
Through.
Vibrate.
Of lost.
Art and begin.
The.
Spring.
Well.
Stop lights more and breathing.
And our souls straight, slow.
When I cry for love free that him we sang made me think of First Corinthians chapter 10, brethren.
I don't know if that might be a suitable portion to read this morning.
Want to read the whole chapter?
Maybe down through verse 23 anyhow.
First Corinthians chapter 10, beginning of verse one.
Moreover, brethren, I would not that you would you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drank the same spiritual drink, For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
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But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples to the intent. We should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication.
As some of them are committed and fell in one day, three and 20,000 neither let us tempt Christ, As some of them also tempt it, and were destroyed of serpents, neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happen unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that he may be able to bear it. Wherefore?
My dearly beloved a flee from idolatry, I.
I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
What shall I then? What say? What say I then? That the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything but. I say the things which the Gentiles sacrifice. They sacrifice to devils, and not to God. I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the devil.
You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the law to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. We have in this chapter what relates to Israel's history.
In the Old Testament and verse.
11 Says clearly now all these things happened and to them.
Or in samples and they are written.
For our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. So these are lessons for us. Old Testament scriptures. We read them.
We are not under law as they were in Old Testament times.
But all scripture is profitable and we read them to.
Understand the lessons, the moral lessons, that do apply to us now and in this chapter we have the question of our fellowship as believers.
In verse 16 it says.
At the Lord's Table we show the fellowship, the communion of the blood of Christ.
And in verse.
The same verse is the communion or the fellowship of the body of Christ.
That is the fellowship of believers that God means us to show. Sometimes you may say, well, are they a real good group of people?
Well, if we look back at the first part of the chapter, we find that God's people had a lot of different problems.
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They were not without some very serious problems and so we can't look at ourselves and say we're any special people.
We've got problems too, but I think there's some real important lessons.
That we can profit from Indiana this chapter, brethren. They came out of Egypt in verse one. They were all baptized.
Unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They took that position outside of Egypt.
But then there was testing, and so we're going through a world where there is a lot of testing as well. It's what impresses me is I travel around.
Some places there's a lot of material comfort.
But there's no place that you won't find real severe testing.
8.
Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse one. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swear unto your father's. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God LED thee these 40 years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart.
Whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no and.
He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know that He might make thee know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
The 1St Corinthians 10 where we read reminds us that the journey of life is really for the believer through a wilderness, just as the children of Israel.
Many of them spent their whole lives, or almost their whole lives in a wilderness before they entered the Promised Land. The Lord Jesus could have saved us and immediately taken us to heaven and provided for those that were not saved a message of the Gospel without us.
But it's not in the ways of God to do so. He sees a purpose for our good.
In giving us the experience of our lives, and as it says in First Corinthians 10 and as it says here in Deuteronomy 8.
Were tested.
We've all or most of us in this room where there were little kids or whether we're very old, have made a profession in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior with the expectation and the promise that the end of our journey is going to end in heaven. And yet we're still here. And as He said, why God allowed the children of Israel to go through the wilderness.
And experience those things that they did. He names three things.
In verse two, he says the first of them to humble thee and everyone of us when we get to the end of the journey are going to look back and recognize the need that we had of being humbled in our lives. Whether we're little, whether we're old, each one of us is going through experience in life that will have the end result of humbling us and we thank God for it. The second thing that he mentions is to prove thee.
You say you belong to the Lord Jesus.
He's going to test that the circumstance of your life is going to be such that you'll be put to the test as to the reality of what you say or what you profess. Is it real or is it not? And so the Lord allowed that the wilderness experience for the children of Israel to test them as to the reality of what they professed. And then he says to know what was in thine heart.
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We little realize, most of us, what's in our own hearts.
And God has to bring it out for us so that we might learn to know how great He is and if you will, how small we are, that we might learn not to trust in ourselves and what we are, but in His heart and what He is. And so the wilderness journey brings those things out. But also we see another thing as we have in First Corinthians 10, where we started and we have here as well, he says.
You look back when it's over and you will see that I perfectly, completely provided everything that you needed to walk with me on that journey. And so it will be for each one of us, whether we live a little short life or we live a long one, every one of us when we get home and the end of the journey, we're going to look back and say he provided absolutely everything that was necessary for me to walk in obedience.
And submission to his will for my life in this world. And so he says in chapter 10, he says don't be ignorant brethren. But all of our fathers, that is the Israelites, they had the provision and they walked together collectively to a certain extent. And so are we here together collectively this morning. But also we have to recognize the tests come individually particularly.
And so not all Israel finished the journey together. And so it may be we won't all finish that journey together either if there's unbelief and not reality with us.
In Buddha on May 8th, which you referred to in verse three, in the middle of the verse, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. How important that we realize that every step we take, every word that we speak, it should be according to His word.
Not according to the opinions of men and whether one thinks this or that, but according to his word. Everything we do and say and think should be formed by the word of God. That's a that's a lesson that takes a lifetime to learn.
In the book of Deuteronomy, I'd like to go back a little bit, perhaps as an encouragement for us to we can go back to the first chapter, the very first verse. I believe there's a lesson in there for us because it speaks of a condition that is very similar to what we have today.
Actually I like to read the 1St 2 verses together. Deuteronomy one, verse one and verse two. These be the words which Moses speak unto all Israel on this side. Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain, over against the Red Sea, between Paran and Toefl and Leben and Hazuraz and Desiab. There are 11 days journey from Hora.
Mount Seir and Turkey Dash Barnier we found often in the beginning of most books, the first few verses tells us a lot about the book itself. Here I'd like to set the stage of this book. Here we see Moses. Moses was speaking to them, reminding them that at the end of the journey. We notice here that it says, oh I'm sorry, I should have read verse three as well.
And it came to pass in the 40th year, in the 11 months, on the first day of the month that Moses spake under the children of Israel, according.
Unto all that the Lord hath given him in commandment unto him. Can you picture this? This standing at the at on this side of Jordan? They're looking back 39 years and 11 months.
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With just one month left to go into this promised land, that long journey almost over. They can see and they can taste that promised land before them. And then they were reminded that that that journey could have been an 11 days journey if they were faithful. But they took them almost 40 years to go here. They have that land before him.
They have as if we have that blessed hope before us, knowing that the Lord has taken us through all this path, all this way to prove us, to humble us as we're reminded to know what's in our heart, whether we would obey His commandments or no. Well, for some of us, the journey is a little bit longer than 11 days. For some of us, the journey perhaps is a little bit longer than the 40 years.
But there is the Lord has that before him so that we can know and see. In fact, let's let's go back to the 8th chapter a little bit too. Not only are we to learn that man shall not live by bread alone, but he tells us to look forward to the heavenly things. Let's go to the 8th chapter, down to the 8th, the 7th and 8th verse. And the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land.
A land of brooks, of water, of fountains and depths and spring out of the valleys and hills. A land of wheat and barley, of and vines and fig trees and pomegranates. A land of oil, olive, and honey. We find that even though they have still, they have not yet entered into the land, but they are so close and that they're reminded of this 7/7.
Heavenly foods as if it were that they do not get in the land of Egypt.
In the book of Numbers, I believe in the 11Th chapter they loathe for those six foods that they mentioned in Egypt, even though the journey is almost over, they were still often wanting to turn back. But here we need to look forward. Do we nod that we have been risen with Christ? That we have to seek those things which are above where Christ is?
Verse 13 is an excellent combination of responsibility and grace. Therefore no temptation has taken you, but such is in common with man, but God is faithful. Will not something be exempted above that you're able here we have responsibility. There's no excuse for sin. You know, we look at each other and say, Oh well, we all have this little problem or that little problem. No, before God in grace, there's no excuse for one of us to sin.
But of course, that needs to be understood within the context also of first John. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us and the grace air. But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just forgive us. Yes, as a people, do we sin? And there's grace given and confession.
But that doesn't relieve our responsibility. We're to walk as a holy people, a people pure, a people holy because there's one holy person. That's where we're coming to next. There's one man that walked on earth without sin, and that man lives in each one of us who have believed Christ in you, the hope of glory, and he's made us a way of escape. Here's where the grace comes in. It may in some sense include circumstances.
But the primary idea here is not outward circumstances, but a person. Our way to escape temptation is in faith in a person, a living relationship with a person who's seated in heavenly places. Our relationship with Him gives us the freedom to walk as we should.
To walk before God as Christ walked on earth, as he is, so are we in this world, Christ in us, the hope of glory. So in responsibility there's no excuse for sin. In grace there's forgiveness of sin if we confess. And in grace, the man of glory lives in each of us to walk in freedom from sin.
There's 3 words that stand out in that verse. 13 Brother Mark.
God is faithful. Isn't that wonderful? Brethren, in spite of all that we are, in spite of all our failure, there is a God that is completely faithful, and He will prove Himself to be faithful to His own precious word. Going back to the first part of the chapter, baptism is mentioned here, and it was the way that the people of God were brought out of Egypt.
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On their way to Canaan, the Red Sea is the body of water that they pass through, and it says they were all baptized. This is not Christian baptism, but it was baptism unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And so that is the way they were disassociated from Egypt and were associated.
As those who recognize the authority of Moses person who says they're a believer but are not baptized.
Have not yet disassociated themselves from this world in which we live. It is through baptism that we publicly identify ourselves as those who recognize the authority of the Lord Jesus.
Before they went across the Red Sea, they were identified as slaves of Egypt. They were still on territory where Pharaoh had authority, but as soon as they were passed through the Red Sea, they looked back and saw the hosts of Pharaoh, Pharaoh and his hosts all dead on the seashore.
They were now identified with Moses, as we are in baptism, in Christian baptism.
Identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an outward thing, Baptism.
But it is the way we disassociate from this world in an outward way and associate ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. Wonderful to realize we are no longer looked at as part of this world system.
We belong to heaven, the Lord Jesus said of his disciples in the 17th of John. They are not of this world, even as I am not of this world. He didn't take them immediately out of this world. They were still there, but they did not form part of the world system. Neither do we, brethren. We are called for heaven, and even though, like Don said, he could take us straight home.
He doesn't do that. He leaves us down here in the wilderness because there are lessons to learn down here that we could never learn up in heaven. That's the wilderness. And in the wilderness there are two major lessons to be learned. 1, the faithfulness of God. And two, the total unreliability of man in the flesh, what we are in the flesh.
You cannot trust in ourselves, not for a moment.
Notice the alls.
Begin the chapter verse one.
All our fathers were under the cloud, Verse one. All pass through the sea, verse 2. All baptized unto Moses, verse 3. All ate the same spiritual meat, verse 4.
All drank the same spiritual drink. But notice the contrast with verse five. But with many, God was not well pleased. We'll see in what follows verse five why God was not well pleased with many. But first to notice the alls God has brought all of us in this room who have professed the Lord Jesus who have been baptized.
Into a common identity of profession, and he has with all of us made common provision.
Just to emphasize a little bit of it, it says all ate the same spiritual meat, all drank the same spiritual drink. And so it is everybody who's in this room this morning is being fed.
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By God with spiritual meat and spiritual drink, there are no exceptions. It's here. The food is being, if you will, from God Himself being presented to every one of us, and we thank God for it.
The emphasis of that food that's brought out here is we need the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the food of our new life.
And if you're sitting here this morning and you're not hungry, it says something about your appetite. Or if you have no interest in the food at all, and, as it were, you push it aside in your soul, it may indicate that you don't have life at all.
The everyone of us was offered, I suppose this morning, or almost all of us had breakfast. We had physical food for our bodies, which is necessary for the physical life that we all presently have.
But man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And so all of us this morning need, as it says, spiritual food, spiritual drink. We are more than flesh and blood. We have souls, we have spirits, and we need food from God.
Or we spiritually starve. And so God has made for all of us that provision, and we're either taking it in and digesting it in our souls and living by it, or we're not. And there are things that come out here very shortly in the chapter why they didn't all benefit.
From the food that was being provided for them. And so it's important whether we're young or old, there's no distinction really. We all need food. We need it every day to be very practical about it.
I hope every single one that was an old enough to read sat down with the word of God this morning and read it. It's your food, it's your breakfast if you will spiritually.
You need it.
You really can't properly live without it, and you won't get through the desert unless you eat.
And yet God has made complete and perfect provision for that. So we're encouraged to.
Take, eat, taste and see the Lord is good.
For our physical bodies, we eat physical food. Our bodies are made from the dust of the earth, so we eat that which comes from the earth to sustain life in our bodies. But our soul and our spirit needs food as well. And if you're not satisfied, if you're not feeding on what God gives, this world has plenty of things.
Supposedly to satisfy, but what impresses me is.
How they do not really satisfy?
Are we reading the scriptures on a daily basis?
You know, you say, well, that's just a religious habit.
It's not just a religious habit, it's a need of the soul. You don't miss your meals generally daily.
You shouldn't miss your meals spiritually as well either. We need it, brethren. We need it daily. The manna was that which fell in the desert, it was called.
Angels food in the book of the Psalms. Beautiful to think about it. It was a small round thing and it fell on the dew that was in the desert, completely pure. It didn't fall directly on the sand, fell on the dew because it's completely pure and it's Christ in his humiliation. That is the manner that will feed our souls.
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In the desert, we get it, especially in the Gospels, brethren, Christ and humiliation, God's beloved Son who came down here solo to right where we were. We can read about it, we can feed on it, and it will strengthen our souls in the wilderness. Oh, it's so important. Young people, are you reading?
The scriptures on a daily basis.
I've mentioned sometimes of a brother, a young brother that I really appreciate in South America.
And I asked him if he was reading the scriptures sometimes, he says.
What do you mean? Sometimes I'm so busy I can't really. I don't really have that much time. It doesn't really take that much time.
And I say, are you free right now? He said yes. I said, come on in, I want to read a chapter with you. And we sat down, read a normal sized chapter. I think it was about 30 verses long. I says I'm going to calculate how much time it takes us to read it. And.
We didn't read fast either. We read through the chapter. It took 6 minutes.
Come on, you spend a lot more time feeding your body every day. Don't you have time to feed your soul as well? That's why we don't prosper spiritually. But I notice those who really give time to serious reading of the scriptures.
Their spiritual growth and prosperity, it's something that has to be done daily.
It's an exercise. They had to get up off their beds and go out into the desert and gather it. They could not eat tomorrow what they had gathered today because it bred worms and stained for the next day. And that's what it has to be on a daily basis, the exercise of getting into the Scriptures and reading them. Brethren, it will be a blessing.
This book is living. It will impart life to you.
If you read it, the more you read it and you say, well it's not that much, 5 minutes.
But it says he that had gathered much had nothing over, and he that had gathered a little had no lack. So even if you just don't have very much time, read a few scriptures before you go out, and God can make that a blessing for your soul during the day.
Think it is so important to form those habits early in our Christian lives?
A couple of more comments on food.
The food of Egypt.
All of it.
Had two things that characterized it, one or the other. It came from the ground.
And it had an odor.
And it was a ground that had been cursed.
And the food of the world.
Bears the curse.
In it, I'm speaking spiritually.
And it has an odor. The second thing is the manna did not touch the ground, and the food of the soul that comes from God, the Lord Jesus Christ is pure.
There is no taint in it. There's no indigestion that can result from it.
And the spiritual drink.
Christ is pure.
Delight to the soul of the new man, but in contrast, and I want to give you a contrast.
The world's drink is like salt water, the more you drink it.
The less it satisfies and the more it's craved. A man gets out in the ocean and he has nothing to drink and he takes, he says, water. Water everywhere.
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And so he drinks it and it's the beginning of the end for that man. It has the effect of making him more thirsty and not satisfying. And that is the food that you're going to get. If you go after the food that this world has to provide, it will make you.
Just like that salt water. And the sad thing is it makes you want it more the more you take it and the more disastrous is the result. And so the children of Israel were taught to flee from certain things. And we'll see in this chapter 2 specific things that.
So corrupt us if we go after them, that God will not be well pleased.
Let's say in verse 4 is really something.
Did all drink the same spiritual drink before they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ Speaking of the living water. And of course in this this whole section just striking the pictures of Christ. Of course, when you begin in Egypt, you just have the Passover lamb and we know the Passover lamb is a picture of Christ dying on the cross for our sins just as small little lamb then you have.
In the wilderness you have the man, which of course is another picture of Christ. Christ said He's the real bride who came down out of heaven. And of course here you have the rock. And so in that light then you understand in Deuteronomy 8 those wonderful verses says, the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land. A land of brooks and water, of fountains and depths of spring that spring out of the valleys and hills. A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey.
And you realize this.
Is also a picture of Christ and all these different aspects, of course, Speaking of our food, right? The wheat, the water.
The the stones for the fighting, all these things represent Christ in our experience. And when you put it in that context, and I think the whole picture becomes clear, a lot of Christians don't understand the real, the meaning of the Christian life. I'm saved, right? My sins are forgiven. Praise the Lord. That happens in Egypt, right? You don't have a lot of.
You don't go through a lot to get saved. You're not running the Christian race to get saved. But the real purpose of the Christian race is to bring us into a fuller experience of Christ. It's one thing to have the experience of Christ as a lamb in Egypt. It's a whole nother thing to enter into the experience of Christ is your good land where you just sense. I'm a person who's in Christ day by day and everything that I'm enjoying is everything that I'm enjoying and experiencing is Christ supplying my spiritual needs. And so this is what Paul is getting at in First Corinthians 10 when he says.
They were strewn along in the wilderness. It's not that you lose your salvation, but in terms of entering into that deeper experience of Christ, many Christians in many different ways are frustrated. They they fall along the way and they never really enter into Christ as their good land.
But Paul, of course, is a picture of one who did run the race, and it's striking to note.
In Philippians, he also speaks of the race, right? He says. I stretch forward to the things that are before. He's still running the raids. He's running in First Corinthians, He's running in Philippians. It's not until he gets to Timothy, Second Timothy.
Right at the very end of his ministry, he finally says, I fought the good fight. I finished my course, I've kept the faith. It might not have the right order, but his whole, he regarded his whole life as a race. You see this in the book of Hebrews as well, pressing forward into the holy of holies. Again, it has to do with our experience of Christ, our real entering into all that God desires us to have in Christ. And that's I think what Paul is bringing out here in First Corinthians to show us using a picture of the Israelites. Our Christian life has a goal and that goal is to bring us really into the experience of Christ in a daily way.
So we become people like Paul who can say, for to me to live is Christ.
We sang in that hymn the manna and the springing well suffice for every knee. We have the man in verse three of our chapter. We have the springing well in verse four. And to speak a little bit of that spiritual drink, actually we have the manna in Exodus chapter 16 and the springing well that it speaks of from the rock in chapter 17 of Exodus.
So as soon as they got out into the desert, God made full provision for them. You can imagine how much water a group of perhaps between 2 and 3 million people would need on a daily basis.
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God sufficient for that? Maybe you have problems, young people. Is God sufficient for your set of problems? You say, Well, nobody has ever passed through exactly what I've gone through. That's probably true.
That is God sufficient for it? Really He is. But you're the one that's going to have to prove that. Nobody else can prove it for you. God is testing each one of us on an individual basis. But it is true there is full provision for the believer as he passes through the wilderness journey. So in verse four of our chapter, we have that spiritual drink.
That came from the rock, that spiritual rock which was Christ, and that rock followed them through the wilderness.
In chapter 17 of Exodus, we don't have time to go there to read it, but it is so beautiful to see that. So that there could be water for the people, Moses was instructed to hit that rock with his rod. His rod was a rod of judgment.
It was the judge, it was the rod that brought the judgments on the land of Egypt, and Christ on the cross was smitten for us.
That our souls would be satisfied. Oh, brethren, young people, there's no satisfaction in the wells of water that this world offered. See, young people going after sports. And I don't have any problem with playing some sports, but if you're going after that as that which will satisfy you, you will not be satisfied. It's like the salt water that Don was talking about.
You just want more and more and more, and it increasingly it does not satisfy you. But there is something that God has provided for you that will satisfy, and it is that which the believer receives when he comes to faith in Christ. It is the living well that dwells within each one of us, the Holy Spirit of God.
Is that living water that flows from the rock?
And so it flowed to satisfy the thirst of those people, the Lord Jesus said to that Samaritan woman.
Those that drink of this water will thirst again, but he that drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst forever, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. In other words, there's a fountain that's springing water. It's flowing water. It's the Spirit of God that God puts into the believer in the Lord Jesus.
To occupy him with Christ in glory.
Oh brethren, it is enough to satisfy these souls of ours.
But you'll find in the wilderness that the people murmured, they complained. And I suppose we have to all confess that we're guilty of that. Brethren, anybody here that's never complained about anything, I don't think anybody of us could, any of us could raise our hands. We'd complained. And that kind of attitude is what quenches the Spirit of God. It tells us definitely in the Scriptures.
Quench not the Holy Spirit of God, so we are.
To not quench it. But when we complain, you're going to find in the Book of Numbers that the people complained and then they got thirsty again. What happened to the rock? Wasn't the rock there? Yes, it was still there. What was Moses instructed to do to get the water flowing again?
He was instructed to take the rod. You notice it carefully.
In Numbers chapter 20 was not to take his rod, but he was to take the high priestly rod, the rod that butted, and to go and speak to the rock. Moses made a mistake. He wasn't obedient. He took his rod and he struck the rock twice.
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God is gracious and he gave water.
But brethren, what do we have to do if because of complaining in our lives, we have quenched the Spirit of God to get the water flowing again?
Oh, brethren, we have a great high priest, and we are to go to the rock, and we are to speak to the rock. If there's sin in our lives, confess it, and the water will flow again.
In your life. Oh how important these principles are. God has given what is sufficient in the wilderness, the manna, the food for our the springing well, the Holy Spirit of God that occupies us with the Lord Jesus.
In our hearts.
Notice there are five reasons.
Why God was not well pleased with the people.
Verse 6.
Reason one.
They lusted after evil things. Verse 7.
Reason two. They became idolaters.
Eight verse Item three. They committed fornication.
Dying.
Verse item four. They tempted Christ.
And verse 10 #5 they murmured.
Those are five reasons why God is not pleased.
With those who profess and who are in relationship to himself, at least outwardly, think for a moment of reason #1.
They lasted after evil things.
Suppose one were to prepare a have a table.
And on the table.
Your father, your mother prepared a very wholesome, delicious, satisfying meal and drink. And suppose at the same table there was salt water to drink, and there was sitting there food.
Which was spoiled.
Garbage relief and the parent puts the child down and says now E and they see two meals and they choose the garbage and the saltwater. Is the parent going to be pleased with them? Is that satisfying after they have made that provision for them to see them make that choice?
God has prepared for you and I His Son as the food of our souls.
And he presents them to us in all the Excellency and flavor and satisfaction, knowing that when we partake of that food, it perfectly meets the need of the soul and satisfies it.
But He also recognizes, and you recognize and I do too, that we have flesh in US, and the flesh lusts after evil things. And consequently, when there is a choice made in my life to satisfy the lusts of my flesh and partake of the food, if you want to call it that, that ministers to that flesh, do you expect God to be pleased with you?
Or God to be pleased with me, if that's the choice I make after God has made at an extreme cost to prepare it for us, His Son and all his virtue.
Both as a man on earth and as glorified in heaven. And then I say no thanks.
I'd rather satisfy my flesh. Is God to be pleased with that? We know the answer absolutely not. And so it is with each of the four that follow it. The same thing can be said. God has made, as he says in the first few verses, I have made complete provision for you, and now I've got to meet every single circumstance you'll see in the journey.
00:55:02
In the wilderness and if I turn from it, then I can only expect a God who righteously says I am not pleased.
Tell us, Don, what were the evil things they lusted after?
I don't know so much for them, Bob, but I know lots for me in this life.
In other words, I, it's maybe you want to elaborate on the children of Israel, but I don't think it's hard to apply it to our present circumstances in the world in which we live and say there are lots of things that are truly in God's sight evil that the world doesn't even allow us to call evil or objects, if we even call it evil. And yet it is that God says it's that.
And we have flesh in us which goes after us.
US.
And it is. And the word lust is a very significant. It's that I go back to the salt water analogy. It's that which the soul craves.
We have ruined flesh because we have sin in it and it craves evil and it'll never change. And so God has to deliver us from it, given us a new life and a new object.
And new desires and food for it. And he says, now please, if I can use that expression for God, please take it and you'll be satisfied. But if I don't take it and I go back to the old, it is only to my loss and to God's displeasure.
In numbers it tells us that they lusted after flesh.
And like you say, you might say, well, what's wrong with them eating flesh?
I don't think it was the fact that it was flesh, but it was that they despised the manna.
Oh brethren, when we think of what the manna speaks to us of.
How is it that we despise the manna? We think, oh, I don't really have an appetite for that. If you were saying Don if on the table.
Before the meal, there's a bowl of chocolates there and the kids are freely helping themselves to the chocolate. When the meal comes, they're not going to be much appetite for the meal and they need those foods, those vegetables. I know some young people don't like vegetables very much, but you really need them.
To have a healthy diet and you say, well, what's wrong with?
A chocolate or two, nothing wrong with that in itself, but when you eat of that kind of diet and leave the other off to one side, you're going to get sick in the long run. You're going to have problems with your health. And in that sense, it's evil. So God puts before us what is good for us. Young people appreciate the scriptures.
That speak to us of Christ in his humiliation. I find brother in such a beautiful thing. Just to go back and meditate on what the manna speaks to us of a little baby born into Bethlehem.
Their mother and the husband come, she's expecting a baby, and there they're born out.
Where the cattle are, no room for them in the end. The Lord of glory coming into this world, no room for Him. There he is. Angels come down the first time they see their Creator.
And they must have wondered, these people that have the scriptures in their hands.
Don't they understand what's taking place here? Don't they understand the marvel that God has come into his own creation? For the first time they observe their Creator. Where's men in the picture? Totally asleep. The angels go off into the countryside to tell the news to some shepherds. Those lowly shepherds were the first ones to come and witness.
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What had taken place? Those people, those religious people that had the Bible in their hands?
They knew to tell where he was to be born. Daniel told of more or less the time frame he was to come into this world totally asleep. I had no clue that the God of creation had come into this world. Oh what a marvel. That little baby laying in the Manger was God manifest in the flesh, the one that had the whole universe.
At his command.
What a marvel. What a thing to feed the soul. Meditate on it, young people. It will feed your soul. As we pass through the wilderness. We need it. It will really satisfy.
I add a little bit more to that, Bob, I totally agree with you when we despise what God has given, but in the book of Numbers 11, we find that they also look back to the food in Egypt. They have that satisfying. They found that satisfying to the heart. You know, we sometimes sing that him art thou weed from Egypt's pleasure. We find that as young people or as younger one, often we know what we need to do.
But it's so easy to fall back into the things of this world, you know? You may say, well, what's wrong with going back?
Is bad because you think about the Red Sea, it was cut off as if it were spiritually they couldn't go back. But they loathe for the things that's why they like. They wanted to taste the fish that they used to eat freely and all those food that as our brother mentioned that was smelly, the onions and garlic and so on. They wanted that they wouldn't give it up. Now I know it's not the thought in this chapter. I also think sometimes some of us from the practical standpoint, we know we can't go back to the world.
We've been raised, we know from scriptures that it is wrong to go back into the world, but sometimes there's a danger too. We'll find there's a land in scripture that mention often is the land of Moab. Some of us know better than that. We won't go into Egypt, but we may go to Moab. And we find often in the book of Ruth, we find they went into the land of Moab. Moab. We will have time to turn to it. You'll find, I believe in the 48th chapter of Jeremiah, it says that Moab.
Has not has been at ease from his youth. Sometimes we'll go to a land like that that was at ease where no one would judge you where there's no rule that laying of the fatherless so we could go to one extreme into the world or we can go to another place where we're at ease and that he was he and that we can do anything without someone judging how sad it is, but what we need is we're reminded is look upon our blessed Savior. We find this verse called repeated often in the word of God, or I should say this principle.
He said my people have committed to evil and I believe that is still true today. What were those two evils that they have committed that they have forsaken me? Isn't that the case that we often find ourselves into? We get so we get so taken up with the cares of this world.
That we're not satisfied with what we have. My people have forsaken me. But then worse than that is that and it says they heal our systems. What do they find in those cisterns? They want to satisfy doing things our way, but they found nothing but broken cistern that holds no water. We've forgotten that fountain of living waters that we were reminded. Brethren, do we how much more so we need to encourage one another to look to our blessed Savior.
The one who can show us, the one who can help us, the one who can direct our pathway with a little time that is left in this world 174.
Strange.
The way I know.
Read a couple verses in Proverbs.
Proverbs 27.
And verse 5.
Open review is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
The full soul loatheth and honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.
1 Corinthians 10
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Think 312.
Be done, almighty Lord.
On to victory, encouraged by thy blessed word. With joy we followed thee.
We don't, almighty.
Lord.
They want to make a holiday by my blessing world.
Where shall we?
Sweet.
Forever.
It was now.
Our Shepherd is still our guardian and guide. Before he before us, he goes to help and to provide 234.
The springs that refresh us from heaven were given.
Our bread is the manna that came down from heaven.
234.
We're not of the world.
I.
Glad.
That we're doing it all the way. All the rest of the granny Grand Slam.
And great for our great flavor greatly.
00:05:13
Heart attacker, I will be the same. I believe you're as well. Strange for 25 treasures.
Glory shall stand.
Our sun.
I suggest we continue on in First Corinthians 10.
Should we begin?
Verse 7.
First Corinthians chapter 10, beginning at verse 7.
Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written. The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and 20,000 Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpent.
Neither murmured ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happen unto them for examples. And they were, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him thus thinketh he standeth. Take heed lest he fall.
There hath no temptation taken you.
But such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee us, flee from idolatry.
I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh.
Not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar.
What say I then? That the idol is anything or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything but? I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God.
And I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me.
But all things edifieth not. Verses which we're about to take up might seem at first glance what we would call negative. And a lot of times we don't like to hear things that are negative. We'd rather hear things that are positive or what we call encouraging. But I think it's important to see the way God presents these warnings to us, He says in verse six. These things are our examples.
00:10:01
I'm giving these things to you as examples so that.
You won't do. I'm warning you ahead of time so that you won't do these things. And God cares enough about us. If we're parents with our children and we care about them, we warn them ahead of time to preserve them from getting into things that will be harmful to them. I will always remember when I was a child in grade school one day the principal of the school.
Called all the children of the school together.
Unannounced, the teachers didn't even know it was coming into the auditorium. And he gave us a very serious.
Warning, if you will.
And I didn't realize at the time being a child, but afterwards I learned that the day before his wife had very tragically, perhaps unnecessarily, died.
And it was so strong in the man that he would come and gather all his school together, that he might warn us in a way that would preserve us from the consequences of certain things, one of which had taken his wife's life. And here we have God who cares about us. And it's because he loves us and because he cares about us that he gives us these very serious.
Matters of really warning to us, lest, as it says, we be tempted to follow.
What happened to these people, the children of Israel? But he says no, this is an object lesson for you.
I want you to learn from it so that you can be preserved from doing the same thing.
And so he to continue on in the chapter, the second of the five things that he brings before us.
Is in the verse 7 where we started. It says neither be ye idolaters.
This is the first commandment. That is, they were to have no other gods before them. This was the very first command from God with his people.
That there was to be nothing, no one, no thing that was to come between himself and themselves and their hearts.
And it's never changed with God. If we want to have a relationship with God, if we want to know our God, if we want to enjoy him, he says the same thing to us. The very last message perhaps written in the Word of God, maybe the last words of the inspired scripture is in 3rd John chapter. Well, only one chapter, but the last verse. Children, keep your cells from idols.
It is the very thing that separates us in heart from God. An idol is anything, anything that takes a hold of my heart that comes between myself and God. It isn't just a figure that some people erect. Although the 2nd commandment was don't do that because that leads to idolatry of heart. People may have a statue or this or that and say, well, I don't, there's no idol to me.
But God is preserving us from anything that will separate us in our relationship with Himself. It's an idol, and God will not be pleased.
He created us for His own purpose and pleasure, and anything that destroys for God the purpose for which He created us is, if I can put it this way, intolerable to Him. He's not pleased with it. And if you allow and if I allow something to come into our lives which in in root takes God's place or is more important in our hearts than God himself.
Then God in graciousness is going to deal with us. We're our own blessing for our own good and for His own hearts sake.
Whatever separates us, God will.
Also ultimately separate us from one another too, and divisions come in among God's people.
There's idolatry there, too.
What's connected with this is interesting.
00:15:04
You look at the last part of the verse. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Anything wrong with sitting down to eat and drink and rising up to play?
You know, I really believe in the country we live in that one of the greatest idols is pleasure.
Want to have a good time. Is there anything wrong with having a good time?
In itself, there's nothing wrong with it.
But brethren, we're not down here in this world to have a good time.
We really understand our place here in this world.
It's for His pleasure. We've been created. Just read that verse in Revelation Four. I think it's so good. It's talking about creation. What's the purpose of creation?
Notice in chapter 4 Revelation the end of the chapter.
It says the four and 20 elders verse 10 fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying.
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure.
Here they are and were created. Are we down here for our pleasure?
I really believe that this is one of one of the great idols of our culture.
Pleasure. Want to have a good time? Want to have it all my way? What is the object of those kind of things? That kind of thinking is myself.
That will not satisfy you and I think we've all proved it. I can remember when I was young and I'm not knocking, playing some sports.
I loved playing football.
We recently had a good time, but I can still remember.
Coming home from a Saturday afternoon football game just feeling totally empty.
And it's because I think I was too focused on that. That's not what's going to satisfy me. It's living for his pleasure. What does he want for me? And, and to me, young people, if you can get that focus on life, it will be a real blessing to you. We're not down here to have a good time down here. The Lord Jesus, did he have a good time when he was here in this world?
Anything but, He groaned. He felt it deeply. The suffering and the sorrow of this world. We should feel it too.
He was down here for his father's will and pleasure and that's what should be our object too. And if we get before us the thought of having a good time, that can be a great idol. Lord Sparris from being self-centered.
I really think that that's one of our problems in this culture. It's why you see so many young people totally dissatisfied with life, some so dissatisfied they can't stand life anymore and they take their own lives. Tragic, But the purpose we're here for, the purpose God made us for, is for his pleasure. Sometimes say there's somebody made this chair up here.
And when he made that chair?
He had a purpose for that chair. Now that chair doesn't determine its purpose to look nice.
Or to be something to be admired. No, it's here for the purpose it was created. We have been created for a purpose as well. Maybe you say I have a defect, a physical defect. Well, thank God if He created you that way. He has a purpose in mind, and it's in understanding His purpose that you're going to find.
Real fulfillment in life. Lord, help us to have Christ before our souls, the living God. How could we replace it with something else? And yet that is the natural tendency of our hearts. I have to say brethren, if I cease to enjoy the living God, there's 1001 other things that want to fill the void in my heart runs after those things naturally.
00:20:21
If they're not satisfied with the living God, that's why it's first John five that you mentioned. Don, I just wanted to thank you. Say it's the last verse of First John 5. Let's just read that because it's so good. It puts it in focus. If you read the verse before that one that Don mentioned.
First John chapter 5 and verse 20. Here's what it says we know.
That the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding.
That we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
Oh, how important that is to have the living God.
We can know God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think you've mentioned Chuck a number of times and I investigated myself a little bit, but the Muslims say God is unknown and unknowable.
Isn't that tragic? They will never know God. Never.
And if you go over to other religions in the Far East, Hindus, I think they say they have 300 million gods.
But here we have the true God, and we.
Have been brought to know him in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Is there something else that can replace him?
In our hearts, that's an idol.
The quotation is from Exodus 32, verse 6.
In the.
6th verse Well.
What we're getting here is the creation of the golden calf.
Molten cap verse four. And Aaron saying towards the end of the verse, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron sought, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They rose up early on tomorrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up.
Play. Or you might notice the new translation says Rose up to sport well.
I wonder in our chapter if really you get a connection between verse 7.
And verse 18.
In verse 19.
It wasn't just that they.
Ate and drank and rose up to play, but the fact was it was in connection with the golden calf.
It it shows that it's puts them in fellowship with that which God could not have fellowship with.
The world has its own glories.
And constantly seeks to pull the Christian into that.
And our own hearts, the fallen nature, would do the same thing.
Pull us into it.
But there was.
Definite heavy consequences from that.
In Israel's history.
Part of the connection is that.
Moses had gone up in the mount to.
Commune with God and receive from him for the people. And the people got tired of waiting.
And they got tired of waiting on God. They got tired of waiting on God's messenger.
God servant Moses.
And so they say to Aaron, make us a cap.
00:25:05
And.
They take and substitute for the true God.
The calf and they then do they have sport, they have that activity which associates them with their idol.
They're going to enjoy something apart from God, God says to Moses. They're a stiff necked people.
And I'm going to well, you said I'm going to annihilate him. He's ready to do judgment with them. And Moses in one way intercedes. But I think it's a lesson for us. We can easily turn to idolatry. That is, we can find something to set our heart on rather than God.
If we get tired of waiting on him and we become rebellious or stiff necked and say, well, if God isn't going to do this for me and that for me, and if I've been, I turn to God and and he hasn't done anything in my life, it's not working, people say. And so they turn to something else. They substitute the true God for something of their own imagination to satisfy the desire of the heart.
And.
They have. There's a consequence to that. And so there is for us. We need to remember, wait on God.
He is in control. He always knows what's best for us. And our danger is that we will get tired of waiting and say, God isn't doing it for me. I prayed about this, I did that, I did the other. And it's not, we say, working. And so we say, all right, God isn't going to help me. I'm going to find my own help. And we then make it the focus and the center of our hearts and our lives and.
It's idolatry.
And it bears its consequence.
But we're all liable to it.
John said God is your father, you belong to his family. He says he will supply everything. Don't turn your back on your father and go in a rebellious way and find your own idol.
That last part of verse seven, they said people sat down to eat and to drink, rose up to play. I remember I was in my early 20s. It hadn't been saved long. I went down to Jamaica with an older brother and they were having an outing and they were.
Looping things up and someone said those children, many children there, don't know who their daddy is.
And what's more, their mother doesn't know who their daddy is.
That's the kind of thing that they fell into and I think that's what's involved here. They sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. They just since they set aside God, that's what they this evil that they've done in verse six. They lusted after evil things. They wanted the things that God forbade. So they set aside God, become idolaters, set up another God that doesn't mind that they do those things.
And then they they get into this.
Evil way of doing things, and it goes on to committing fornication as some of them felt it's. It's just, you might say, a sequence of events that start with setting God aside in your life.
And.
It's very, very common that people today in this so-called Christian country live together, man and wife and they're not married. And that's that's right in this context, isn't it? How far that we can get away from God And those even that are raised in meeting have gone into that kind of thing at times they need to be prayed for.
Need to have the fear of God before them that they're afraid I will not do that evil.
And if they yield to it, there's no way of saying how far they'll go. And we're no better by our nature. Our sin nature is no better, and we have to be careful.
00:30:02
What we allow, because one step leads to another, which leads to another, and so on. That's what you're getting in this chapter, isn't it?
Made the golden calf out of the earrings that they've been wearing, which is.
In a sense, it's not a great thing. I mean, but there's a lesson, which is whatever we use to beautify ourselves, it may or may not be simple in itself, but it can really lead us into things that are quite evil. It's something to be very wary about #1 And then #2 I'm always touching this. A lot of Christians, you know, these, again, these things that Paul says, these are here for our example, right? So we can learn. And a lot of Christians have just do basically exactly what the Israelites do here, which is they set up an idol.
They just get mixed up in the Christian life and they're thinking this is what saved me and this is a practical example to illustrate what I'm talking about. And not to condemn any particular group, but I've run into a lot of behaviors and just get the impression.
That the King James Bible is what saved them. This is very common among fundamentalist Christians today. And for this believe that's that's the only thing there really is And the way they talk about it, it's as though this is what saved them and you get saved by believing in the King James Bible. And of course, there's a lot of other examples too. That's Susan is an illustration.
But the point is, we, these other things that we experience in our Christian life become such a focus to us. It's as though we have our item. We think this is what brought me out of Egypt. And God is saying, no, that's not what brought you out of Egypt. I'm the one who did it right? And instead of ending up with the temple worship where we have the contact with God, you end up with this worthless little idol. But unfortunately, it's a very common tactic of Satan to distract Christians from really.
Putting their trust in their worship in in the right place to get caught with one thing or another could be any manner of things.
It distracts Christians from really focusing on God himself.
I was talking to a girl that was raised a young girl who was raised by a boy that was raised in the meeting know him quite well and.
I said to her when she was going to college, I said what are you taking up? She said psychology and she could see the frown on my face and I wasn't in proving that. And I got to talking to her and.
I asked her. Finally I said, Do you have a Bible?
Well, I think so, she said. Have you ever read it? But I don't read it. I said, well I suggest you read to start with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Are they in the Bible?
That's what she said.
The father was raised in the meeting.
As she said, when she left me, she said, I I'm going to read those first four books in the New Testament. She hardly knew the difference between the New and the Old Testament. You know, if we're that ignorant of what this book says, we are totally vulnerable to the enemy to introduce anything into our lives, anything. We don't have any absolute standard of truth that says don't do that.
That's what we have here.
If we don't have that, then you can do whatever you want and no one can say stop doing that. Who are you?
Just another Sinner. But if it's God that says it, you have to start with him. It's God that says it. That's the absolute standard of truth. The Lord Jesus is the truth. The Spirit of God is the truth. Thy word is truth. Those three things are spoken of as the truth. Without that you have nothing. No true guy. All it's up to you. Terrible. And that's where this country is going.
We need to be sensitive in these things, I really believe.
As to having idols in our hearts, brethren, we can speak to the young people, but we who are older are just as vulnerable to having certain things in our lives that occupy our hearts and are the object of our hearts instead of the living God I think of.
The very first church that's mentioned in Revelation in the seven churches, Ephesus, everything was outwardly in order there. But notice what he says in the second chapter of Revelation and verse four. He says, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
00:35:22
Was nothing outward that the Lord observed. It was something inward that their heart was not towards him as it was before. You know, you and I can look at each other and say, well, it looks like everything's pretty good with that brother, that sister. But the Lord is the one that observes. And I have to challenge myself. I wake up in the morning, go to sleep at night.
What is my heart's occupation? Is it the living God?
That one who formed us for his pleasure, or is there something else?
Is it a car? Is it a personal friend?
It's so easy to let the heart.
Go from the living God to some other object, be what it may. And the Lord knows when that happens. And we need to challenge our hearts to that way. I confess, brethren before you, that my heart goes towards idolatry very easily. There are certain things.
That naturally, I really like and I challenge myself.
In the Lord's presence, there's only one that can fully satisfy.
This wandering heart, and that's the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Of the pleasure of having him before our souls, Lord, keep us.
Verse eight, he says neither. Let us commit fornication.
We've had, and I think quite rightly.
Warning here against physical fornication, and it's been brought out. Our brother Chuck has brought it out. But there is another side to it here too. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel in the wilderness, some of the men rose up and committed fornication with the daughters of Moab. Perhaps that's what's referred to specifically as as an example here.
There's a spiritual aspect here that's important to us.
The children of Israel were in Egypt and they were mixed with the world there and they were God's people. And he said, these are my people and this is not a place for them and this is not a good mixture for them either. I'm going to separate them out as a people for myself and I'm going to take them to a land and they're going to be my people and I'm going to be their God. And that land is to be pure from all the.
Heathen that lived there, that are corrupt and evil, and so they're to be removed and my people are to be kept separate and pure for myself in separation from those around them in their own land.
You and I have been espoused to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been brought into a relationship with Himself.
On the foundation of purity.
Some of us in our wedding vows said, forsaking all others cleave to one another so long as we shall live. And that, in a spiritual sense, is what has happened, or should be the case with us, as having been espoused to be part of the Bride of Christ. We are brought into a relationship with Himself for seeking all others.
And in the enjoyment of himself and his love, as we anticipate and look forward to the wedding that will shortly take place.
And here God doesn't want us to forsake that relationship in our present, walk and turn around and fornicate with the world and what the world has its heart on.
00:40:02
And to go after the same things with it and.
I sometimes use this example at a detention center. I say to the kids.
I don't try to get them to understand the body of Christ truth, but I say I recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as my friend. He has chosen to be a friend to me and we have a companionship together. And I say, suppose I leave this room tonight and I go into the city of Joliet and I rob the 711.
Is the Lord Jesus going to go with me to do it? They all understand, they immediately say. Of course not. They almost occasionally laugh.
But seriously, as it is, we are in relationship to the Lord Jesus, in a relationship that's to be maintained in purity, and he is on his part.
Doing everything to maintain that relationship with us. Are we going to turn around and commit fornication, as it were? Are we going to turn away from his heart, his affections, his desire for our company and say, well, Lord, I need a little of this, of the world, I need a little of that.
I need something else and form a relationship or act in that way with someone else's good, someone else's things, he says. Again, the same message. God is not pleased.
God has chosen us to be the bride for his Son. And if we turn away from our place to other things.
Our God, who has chosen us to be his son's bride, says I'm not pleased. And there's a consequence, as it says in the end of that verse, And there fell one day.
3 and 20,000.
First John chapter First John chapter 2. It sums it up twice nicely about the three things instead of the five that we have before us. Let's turn to that football match. First John chapter 2, verse 16.
And for all that is in the world, the.
Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. We'll find that almost every form of temptation that we face out there would be either all three or one of one of these three categories. The lusts of the eyes. The eyes often cause us to lust into many things, and there are times too, in this society.
We can't avoid them sometimes just going down the highway. We see a lot of things, even on billboards and other things that can turn our hearts away from our blessed Lord.
You see here the lust of the flesh. We talk about fornication a little bit. It's not difficult because our natural heart has a tendency to go toward these things. And I'm glad our brother Bob mentioned that he find it difficult. I hope I'm phrasing it right away at times to see even the older ones to face those problems. And I look around. We see many young people here.
And I know I often look and say, well, it's easy for you older brothers to follow these, but it's so difficult for us because we fail. We know that we often fail because these attractions, these lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and then of course, the pride of life would lead us into these temptations over and over again. Do we give in because we failed? And we'll find that the enemy is constantly working, isn't he, to cause us failing?
These categories let's go back to the verse that we had before us in first John chapter 3.
I'm sorry, first John chapter 5 that lasts second to last verse and I'm addressing the young people here especially, and I suppose it is for us all too. Here we're reminded and we know that the Son of God is calm and have given us an understanding that we might know him. That is that is true.
00:45:09
And we are in him. That is true even in his Son Jesus Christ. And then they go on and say, little children, keep yourselves from idols. How do we keep ourselves from idols? I believe the entry is right here, that He has given us that understanding. Well, do we realize that if we're not closely reading His word, well, we're not closely in communion with our blessed Lord. We won't realize that, do we? And as young people.
Sometimes our faith is still.
Tender. So we need to go into His Word more and more. I like to turn to another verse here in the book of Hosea.
I find that helpful to me because whenever we fail.
We know that it's not because the Lord is not there to help us.
So you lost track of that.
Hosea chapter 2 I believe, chapter 6. I'm sorry. Isaiah chapter 6, verse 3.
Chapter 6, verse 3. Just the beginning part there is that.
Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord? I believe this should be an encouragement to us if we seek to learn more of Him. Every step of that pathway we take, every time we overcome that wicked one.
It was strengthened our faith. I'd like to return to just one more portion there in Galatians chapter 5.
Galatians chapter 5 we will read to Well, we will read just a little bit of that verse 19.
We won't read the whole list there, but just to get the idea. Verse 19 Now the words of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication and cleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, and so on. We find that list in there. I believe we dwell on that list. Then there is not much growth for us, but rather in verse 22, the Word of God want us to dwell on the fact that He said, but the fruit of the Spirit.
Do we reflect that young people, the fruit of the Spirit? Let's dwell on that is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Verse 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying.
One another. We need to dwell on that, don't we, of things that are of God, and walk in the Spirit as we ought to?
Connection with this verse 8, I'd just like to say a further word, Don, you mentioned the spiritual side of the thing, and that is a very important side. I just want to mention the natural side of this sin, which is, as Chuck has said, very common in today's world, young people living together.
Boy and a girl before they get married. It is not God's order. It is to be avoided. We're not to follow the world standards and Scripture is very clear that that is not acceptable. Just read a few verses in connection with it in the New Testament that relate to the physical sexual sin that it is.
First Corinthians, Chapter 7.
And verse one and two now concerning.
The things whereof you wrote unto me, It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. It's not that those intimate relations are prohibited, but they are to be used within the context of marriage. And sometimes I found it helpful to use the illustration of the Mississippi River.
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Very useful river. A lot of shipping goes up and down that river, and it's useful in a lot of other areas too. But a few years ago, when there was too much rain, it got out of its banks and it did tremendous damage. That's human sexuality.
In its context, within its borders, it's something that is extremely.
Wonderful and productive. But when it gets outside of that context, it can be extremely damaging. And so scripture says here it's to avoid fornication and let every man have his own wife, let every woman have her own husband.
Then let's go over to.
Verse.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4.
Marriage is honorable in all, the translation says. Let marriage be honorable in all.
And the bed undefiled means the sexual relationships are to be done without defilement. But ************ and adulterers, God will judge.
The awful scourge of the AIDS epidemic.
In the world is testimony to the fact that man has not done it according to what God has shown us in his word. You can never be wiser than scripture. Another verse in first Timothy. Timothy was a young man. Here is Paul's instruction to him and it's so important in our life and testimony.
Purity.
Someone used that word already but in the 4th chapter it says in verse.
12 Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in Word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Beautiful and it's put there because if you keep yourself pure for that one person, like you mentioned, Don in the marriage vows, it has the effect of being a much more stable relationship when that union is formed. Keep yourself pure for the one and only in your life, dear young brother.
Your young sister. One more verse in chapter five of First Timothy.
Just the last verse, the last phrase of verse 22.
It's talking about laying hands suddenly on no man. But the purpose is, and this is to be what is followed in our lives. Keep thyself pure, the Lord. Help us, dear young people.
What we desire to see for you is to form relationships that will be solid.
And lasting. And this is the principles of God's Word in relation to them.
No provision for the flash to fulfill the loss thereof.
Actually what the older brother and are telling the younger brother, even though you may purpose in your heart and I have no doubt every teenager or person in their 20s here have no desire to fornicate you put yourselves in the wrong positions. That's what you're going to do.
And the same goes for us older people. If we're not careful in the workplace or in the office place, if we're not careful not to let another man's wife and our car alone, etcetera, we're going to follow this temptation. We're in a lust crazed world with our brother saying lust crazed billboards, radio shows, TV shows, movies, can't even watch a football game without a bunch of garbage in front of you.
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We make provision for the flesh. More than likely we will fall. And if we don't make a provision such as young people, never be around your girlfriend unless your parents or their aunt or uncle.
I mean, is there something you're going to want to do away from an aunt and uncle or a parent? Well, you probably shouldn't be doing it. You're making provision.
I know somebody sitting beside me thinks that's a little rough, but it's just common sense.
Spiritual common sense, that is.
The last two that are mentioned.
Verses 9 either let us tempt Christ, and verse 10 neither murmur ye as the last two of these five admonitions.
Both of them have to do with our attitude toward God.
We need to cultivate right attitudes with God.
And in this case, the children of Israel, in one case they chided or tempted that the word chide is also there. They chided with Moses and said, give us fetch us water.
In the other case they murmured and they said, God, Moses has brought us out into the wilderness to destroy us. We would have been better off if we just stayed in Egypt.
All of us need to maintain a right attitude between our soul and God.
And it is so easy for us. Job is an example of someone who.
Lost the right attitude with God and he said God isn't treating me right. God isn't dealing with me the way that's fair.
And God had to deal with Moses, and graciously does. And God will graciously deal with us.
One of the little keys or clues that we have that our relationship isn't our attitude isn't what it should be, is in both of these instances. In the Old Testament, they got out their feelings through Moses. That is, they took a servant of God and they complained to him. And very often when my feelings toward God aren't what they should be, I'll find myself telling someone else.
And saying, you know, God is doing this or isn't doing that and I don't know why. And sometimes we we put it in the form of a question, but in reality, it's not always a question with us. Sometimes it's just really a statement of where we are and God.
Doesn't appreciate it. It's important if we're not feeling right, to go directly to him about it. We have to have an honest relationship with Him. And if we're angry, we better tell the Lord we're angry. We ought to be. We ought to not withhold it because it might be a wrong feeling. We need to get it out, but don't run to somebody else.
Go directly to God about your attitude if you recognize that there's something wrong with it, or even if you don't, and let Him speak to you about it.
But God is for us.
And if we lose sight of that in any instance, in any circumstance of our life, that's a form of murmuring.
God did not bring us out into the wilderness to destroy us. He brought us into the wilderness to humble us, to teach us our own hearts, to give us to know His faithfulness and His provision for us. And when we get to the end, every one of us in this room is going to look back and thank God for every wilderness experience we ever went through in our lives when we see His side of it.
There will never be an experience that we go through now that we won't look back and see His hand in it and thank Him. Yes, there may be consequences as there were here for our own unfaithfulness or our own unbelief, our own impatience, whatever it is. But when we see the whole, we'll look back and say thank God for the wilderness.
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It was a most needed and most profitable experience for our blessing for eternity.
Now I'm just reminded of the picture again to go back to the children of Israel, how you had Moses up on the mountain when they were fighting the Malachites, who had the Moses up on the hill, and you had Joshua down in the plane fighting the battle. And you have to wonder, how can I deal with the flesh? How can I deal with the sin in the world? And of course, the Amalekites signify the flesh in the Old Testament because they're so closely related to Israel.
And that it's a picture of.
How this kind of fighting takes place. When God dealt with the Egyptians, He just said stand back, I'm going to do the whole thing. But he doesn't deal with the flesh in that way. In Romans 8, it says if we put it by the Spirit, put to death the works of the flesh, right? I'm not quite that far, right, But He expects us to be exercised in this matter by the Spirit. And the fact that you have Joshua down in the plane fighting the battle and you also have Moses.
Up on the hill, interceding indicates the two aspects of the work of Christ to deal with the flesh, to help us, I should say, deal with the flesh. On the one hand, Christ is in the heavens today. On the other hand, he's also living within us, right? And the way we experience this, indwelling Christ to help us put to death all the works of the flesh is by a lot of prayer. And to really be a person who's dealing with the flesh, it takes that kind of exercise, spiritual exercise before the Lord. And then I was also just reminded of something somebody shared with me.
Once I'll never forget because I was singing about Romans seven and eight and he shared something about those chapters. And in Romans 7, you see somebody who's really struggling a lot with sin, right? And what was me? And the sin dwells in my flesh. He's living in defeat. And but the word spirit in that section of Romans 7, it never mentions the spirit. But of course, when you come to Romans 8, all through the Romans chapter 8, it talks about the spirit. And what that brother shared was that if we're in the realm of am I sinning or not sinning, you're a person who's under the law.
You're living under the law trying. I'm going to be a person who's going to stop sinning and it's not going to work. And eventually the Lord has to expose that. But if we're a person who's living in spirit, we're all together out of that realm. It doesn't mean that we're not conscious of sin, but we by the spirit, we're able in that realm, we're able to put to death the works of the flesh. And that's how we live a holy life. A person who's in communion with Christ and living with Christ day by day is not going to be living a simple life, but they're not always going to be struggling either. You know what was me? I'm a Sinner. He's going to be focused on Christ. And through that kind of experience, they're going to have the living that you see in Romans 8, which is a holy.
Life separate from sin number 76 in the desert God will teach thee what the God that thou hast found patient, gracious, powerful, holy. All his grace shall there abound. Hymn #76.
Rise, my soul, thy God, thy wrath.
Open Mtg. 3
Open—C. Hendricks, D. So
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151.
All their spread whereby.
Yeah.
Gracie.
Our souls.
Unchanged, resting like.
Our severity.
Are followed.
Let's turn to Philippians Chapter 2.
Philippians chapter 2 and verse one.
If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit.
If any bowels and mercies fulfill you, my joy that she be like minded.
Having the same love being of 1 accord of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind. Let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look, not every man on his own things, but every man also.
On the things of others.
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.
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When 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, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus.
Every knee should bow of things in heaven, and 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.
Wherefore, my beloved, as He have always obeyed, not as in My presence only, but now much more in My absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
To all things without murmurings and disputings, that you may be blameless and harmless, The sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. That I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain neither.
Labored in vain, yeah. And if I be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. Will the same cause also do ye joy and rejoice with me.
But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send to Matthias shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort when I know your state. For I have no man like minded who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ, but you know the proof of him.
That has a son with a father. He hath served with me in the Gospel, and therefore I hope to send presently, so soon as it as I shall see how it will go with me.
But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly.
That I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion, and labor, and fellow soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants. For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick, For indeed he was sick nigh unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
I sent him, therefore the more carefully that when you see Him again you may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him, therefore, in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation, because for the work of Christ He was nigh unto death, not regarding His life, to supply your lack of servant service.
Toward me. Not going to comment on this entire chapter.
But I thought I'd read it all.
Very precious. The word sin is not found in this epistle.
It's that which is a normal Christianity. That's what we have in this wonderful epistle.
And I was thinking.
Of that fifth verse.
The blessed Lord, I don't want to set this before you. Let this mind.
Be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
If you don't remember anything that's been said here today, let me exhort you to let the.
This mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, the mind of Christ.
His mind was disposed to relinquish all the glory that he had with the Father and with the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity, and he laid that all aside.
And became a man.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit.
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Scene of angels preached unto the gentiles believed on in the world and.
Received up into glory, that verse has God coming down in the person of a man, and that man going up in the very presence of God. When we think of what puny failures we are as we pass through the scene, we think highly of ourselves. That's just the opposite of Him. That's just the opposite of His mind. Let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus.
He was pleased to take the place of nothing.
That he might, that he might be able to reach us who are nothing.
And bring us home with himself to the glory.
Who being in the form of God.
That's what he was. That was the form that was his from all eternity.
Thought it not robbery to be equal with God. That's a hard verse to understand the way it reads in our King James Bible. I'm going to change it a little bit.
Who being in the form of God, thought it not something to be tenaciously grasped unto, and held unto, and said, Do you know who I am? I'm in the form of God. I am God Himself. I will not consider being anything less.
That wasn't his mind.
His mind was to relinquish all the glory that he had, just for a while, to come down to reach the likes of you and me.
That was the mind when you think, when I think.
High thoughts of myself or yourself, That's not the mind of Christ. He was willing to take the place of nothingness that he might accomplish God's eternal purpose of blessing for you and me.
He was in the form of God, and he did not think it's something to be held on to tenaciously. Mr. Garbage translation says he esteemed it not an object of rapping. I think of a of a, of an army coming into a city and capturing it. And a soldier goes into an into a home and he looks at this wall and he sees a, he sees a vase there that he's always wanted.
And he grasped spit, he holds onto it and he said, I'll never let this go. We've always wanted it. Well, that's what's that's the thought here thought isn't that something to be grasped and held on to tenaciously. But he.
Emptied himself. He made himself of no reputation.
Didn't go through this world as a king.
A mighty, mighty king.
How thou knowest this man letters, having never learned who is he?
We know what they did to him, how they despised him and he with just a word, he could have destroyed the mall.
But no, he wasn't going to hold on to that being in the form of God. He relinquished it, and he assumed instead of the form of God, the form of a servant.
Are you willing to do that? Am I willing to do that? Are we willing to become nothing? A servant that's always doing the will of the one that's over us? And he always did the will of his father.
Therefore dost my father love me because I lay down my life and I might take it again.
Took upon him the form of a servant. Always remember that when you have high thoughts of yourself or I do.
He took the form of a servant. He was in the form of God.
But he emptied himself of that.
Took upon himself the form of a servant.
And then he was made in the likeness of men.
Like one of us.
Poor sinners such as we were, God 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 I will destroy man from the face of the earth. And he took away the whole human population, except for eight souls, Noah's wife, his three sons, their three wives.
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But he came to rescue those that were in such a case.
And bring them with himself into the glory above, where he is now.
Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.
And became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
He humbled himself. First of all. He humbled himself in that he's expressed his willingness to become nothing, to assume the form of a servant.
And then he becomes obedient unto death, and such a death.
The death of the Cross, the most igno nini ignominious, shameful death that man ever invented for one of his fellow men.
They subjected the blessed Son of God to such a death, and he was willing to accept that that he might save you.
And me.
Even the death of the cross, wherefore God hath highly.
Exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
Things in heaven or beings in heaven, beings on earth and beings under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that.
That Jesus Christ is Lord.
To the glory of.
God the Father.
Do you know that person, that person whose mind was to give up that glory for a time in order to come here and to rescue and to save the likes of us, subjecting him to the most ignominious death possible?
Do you know that man?
Do you love him? How can you possibly know him and not love him?
Let this mind.
Be in you, which was also in.
Christ Jesus.
It's a mind that's willing to be nothing.
That others might be blessed. That was his mind.
And now God has given him the highest place.
And soon he's coming, and when he comes, one of the greatest blessings that we will receive is the old nature will be left behind.
There won't be any old sinful nature.
That can cause us to sin or to have high thoughts of ourselves, such as we often do.
When we're down here.
But when we get to home.
We won't be able to sin anymore.
We won't be able to have any high thoughts anymore of ourselves, all our thoughts.
Will be centered in.
Him who has done it all. We had a wonderful time this morning.
Referring back to the journey that the children of Israel had, we had quite a bit of time spent in the book of Deuteronomy to encourage us, to give us examples of how we as individuals ought to walk, and we were encouraged by what we have learned. I'd like to, with the Lord's help, perhaps go back to that book of Deuteronomy.
And see if the Lord have a few more lessons in there for us.
Deuteronomy chapter one.
We commented briefly in previous meeting how?
The stage that they were in.
They were ready to enter into the Promised Land, whether they realized it or not.
It was right in the brink as they sit, and Moses himself was able to go up to the mount and look across, and there he sees the land that they would promise. And I enjoy that very much because I feel this is a lot like us today. We know deep down that we're standing on that brink, knowing that the Lord's coming is so ever near. But yet at the meantime, with a little bit of time they have here, we look back and we know they have only that one month or so.
But yet.
They were given instructions on how they ought to walk with that little bit of time.
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And how much more so with a little bit of time that is left in this world, we too have instructions.
What we ought to do, the encouragement we should have, the care we should have for one toward another. And we find that this book of Deuteronomy is so full of that. We commented on the first couple of verses. I'd like to look at another verse in chapter one there here, verse 22.
Perhaps we started reading.
Verse 21 Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee, go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee, Fear not, neither be discouraged. What's simple and profound statement? They were told that that they're not to fear, but to go on and possess that land. But what do we see in the next verse? Next verse we find Moses saying to his people in verse 22 And he came near unto me, everyone of you, and said, We will send man before us.
And they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again, by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. And the saying, please me well. And I took 12 men of you, one of a tribe.
This verse been puzzling me for a while. We all know this incident well that 12 spies were sent out. We know that that Caleb and Joshua were the two of us said we know we can possess the land. We know that the other ten came back and gave the report of how they see giants in the land. But that wasn't my thought here as I was reading through this verse I thought is are we like the children of Israel of old here Moses look at them and says and ye came near unto me, everyone of you.
Isn't that interesting to think that?
Rather than depended on the direction from our God, rather than taking on the step of faith were there to go in and possess the land. Are we not like them? We want to have to send a spy mission out to see what it's like for ourselves. And Moses here even said he agreed with it. How sad that they have to test. Do we have that faith as we walk in this world?
Their instructions given.
There are there's faith, there's steps of faith that we are to follow the footstep of our Lord. Now turn with me to the we commented briefly on the 8th chapter. So we will just not read that, but comment that very I'm sorry. Let's go to the fifth chapter of this book, Deuteronomy chapter 5. We just read the first verse and Moses called all Israel and said unto them.
Here, O Israel, the statues and judgments, which I speak unto you, unto your ears this day, that ye may learn them and keep them and do them. We notice here there are four very distinct words that we can identify it.
The first word here is in the beginning of this verse. Here, here, O Israel.
Are we hearing what God has for us here? We know that when it comes to the gospel, we often proclaim that here and your soul shall live. But here they are reminded they are to hear what there is from God.
How often have we heard many of these passages? And many of you here probably can proclaim that better than most of the speakers who have stood up in this podium. But here, here, why do we want to hear? Oh, I think it's wonderful that we can come under the sound of the word of God to hear what He has for us. But then hearing is just the beginning of this. In fact, in this book, I believe you'll find hearing mentioned at least 35 times.
Here and then he said that ye may learn them.
Have you learned what you have heard?
How do we learn them?
Oh, we hear, and we have to learn by spending time over His word. Do we nod here?
00:25:01
Learned. And then there's another word after that. These are all actions, words. After you hear the word, after you learn them, then they're told to keep.
To keep there are his statues and commandments that we awed to walk in, do we not? And then hearing it, learning it, keeping it and then one more little word. This word only have two letters is to do how often when we hear we say we know that.
But then when it comes to doing, we fail. And I use the word we do. We not that we fail to do what we ought to do, but here's an encouragement for us. In fact, if you go through this book, I believe you'll find the word do mentioned at least 100 times over because the Lord knows that we don't do what we know that we should do.
So with this little time, they were encouraged to do so in the 8th chapter. Let's go to chapter 8 in the book of Deuteronomy. They were reminded, we commented on earlier on, that man shall not live by bread alone. They were reminded that the Lord brought them through all this time, that He preserved them so that they would know what is in their hearts. And they were given these promises of the land, that land flowing with milk and honey, that good land that they're going to go in and possess of that land.
Now my thought is let's go to chapter 15.
Some of that, as we mentioned, I mentioned earlier, is about what we ought to do.
Chapter 15, I believe now, is talking to us collectively of what we ought to do.
And by the way, as a sycom, and we'll find that in these few chapters from chapter 12 on, you'll find the Word, the place which the Lord your God shall choose, is mentioned over and over again. We won't have time to go into that in any detail, but it's important to realize that for the children of Israel there was a place.
That the Lord has chose for them to be at chapter 15. Let's read just a few verses together. Verse seven. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gate, in thy hand in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shall not harden thine hand, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and thou shalt surely lend him sufficient for his needs.
For sufficient for his need in that which he wanted.
Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart saying, The 10th year, the year of release, is at hand, and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou give us him not. And he cried unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.
Verse 11 For the poor shall never cease out of the land. Therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land.
We find here that they were told that in the land that they will be in, they will be poor, they will be needy.
And from the passage in verse 11 That we read, it says, For the poor shall never cease.
Out of the land, I believe we find that today there are always, always going to be a need. There are always the poor, perhaps not financially in this land, perhaps the poor and needy in spirit perhaps.
Special care is needed to help others and I believe the thought, and perhaps we can take that as an application here, is that.
We are to take care one of another, are we not? We're to help those that are poor. We're to help those that are needy. We're help to help those who are in difficulties. In James, it tells us that we shouldn't withhold if we have something, if it's within our power to help. We can't send our brother away empty when it is within our means to to them. That is practical Christianity, isn't it?
So we as an assembly do have an obligation to help one another.
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Especially those that need help. As we look around us in a conference like this, we see many smiley faces.
But do we know deep down behind those miles, whether our brother or our sister?
Have a special need.
Do you know how sad it is as you reflect back throughout the years that many smiley faces that you have met or talk with from previous years are no longer with us?
And yet we fail to see. We fail to help.
Because of our insensitivities. Do not get me wrong, I am not pointing my fingers at anyone.
I'm just simply stating that as a comment of how insensitive we are to our brothers needs.
Yes, the one that needs help do not raise the hand and wave this big flag saying that I need help. But we are to help, aren't we? To encourage, to care one for another. Let's go to chapter 16.
Chapter 16 Let's read this one verse here in verse 16/16/16 three times in a year shall all thy mails appear be.
The Lord of thy God, in the place which he shall choose.
In the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In the Feast of Weeks.
And in the feast of Tabernacles, and they shall not appear before God, before the Lord.
Empty every man shall give as he is able.
According to the blessing of the Lord thy God, which hath given thee.
Here in this chapter.
They are reminded that as they spend time in that land.
There is a place and a time specified for worship.
Three times a year for the children of Israel, that they're to go to a very specific place, a place which he shall choose.
If you remember the division of the land, each tribe have their own place when they go into the land. Wouldn't it be nice for each one of them to say let's stay within our land instead of traveling a long distance to another land?
I don't believe this is the thought here. 3 * a year there to go to the place is to the nicest place in the land of Israel. No, I didn't say that. Is it the friendliest place? Don't think I read up that here neither. But it's simply a place which he shall choose.
The decision here is by the Lord, is it not? Not of man. And what are they to do for the three times a year? Well, the very first time you said is that in the Feast of Unleavened Bread?
In the book of Leviticus chapter 23 we find the seven feasts of Jehovah mentioned. In there we found that the Feast of the Unleavened Bread is the second feast, the first feast being the Passover feast in the first month. On the 10th day of the month, we found that they were to choose that lamb.
They had to keep it until the 14th day between the evening and there they were to kill or slain that lamb. We know the story, right? And the blood was to be applied at the doorpost.
The next day, the 15th day, is the unleavened bread. For seven days they had to keep that feast.
So we find that the Feast of the Unleavened Bread and the feast the Passover runs together. In fact, when you get to Luke chapter 22, you'll find that it mentioned that as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. But the thought is this. There is the death. A lamb must be slain, blood must be shed.
And the Lord said, when I see the blood, I will Passover. Here we need to be reminded of the death. And then at the 11 bread, the other purge all leaven from the living quarters. For seven days they are to walk in that light. But then immediately after that, on the 17th day, three days later, they have another feast. You'll find the 1St 3 feasts bunched together. The third feast is called the Feast of the First Fruit.
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Picture of resurrection.
The feast of the first fruit. So we find death and resurrection together.
Before we can start any form of worship, we must recognize that there is death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. So there in that feast of Unleavened bread, there to come as the first time of that year. And then the second feast here mentioned is that in the Feast of Weak. If you go on to that book, you'll find that.
The day from the day that they wave that first fruit, they're to count 7 Sabbath and the moral after seven weeks, plus another day fifty days later. They had to have this feast called the Feast of Weeks.
We know that.
50 days from Resurrection Day was a wondrous day to us. Hear the Lord, have His people remember that so they can look forward to the result of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that 50 days from resurrection we have in the book of Acts, the day of Pentecost. The Church was formed there. It speaks of a new era as Israel will be set aside for a short while.
The Church come into being for those who are part of the Church, there will be no more Jews nor Gentiles, but rather be the Church, the Bride of our Lord Jesus Christ. So they were to look forward to that day where there will be that one body, where that one body where all members who are believers being part of that body on earth, what our Lord Jesus Christ as the head of that body.
So these Old Testament sings of all were able to look forward to that day to come, even though they didn't understand fully what this feast of weeks meant to them. They were to have that meal offering, very different type of meal offering. They were to do it with leaven, but they were to bake it. Oh, what a wonderful picture of this church to come which is here today. And then the third feast.
Is the Feast of the Tabernacle. What a reminder that at the Feast of Tabernacle on the 7th month, 2 1/2 months later.
There is that feast on the 1St of that seventh month is the Feast of Trumpet. The Feast of Trumpet is a picture of Israel being reminded as the awakening, as the Lord bring them back to blessings. On the 10th day of that month we have the Day of Atonement. And now there's fees of Tabernacle on the 15 day, a picture as the Lord bring the blessings together in the future day three times a year.
That they are to worship oh blessed God, and they are to go to a place that is very specifically chosen by God Himself.
Let's go over to the next chapter, Chapter 17.
Chapter 17.
Verse eight, We find that as these people are gathering together to do what they ought to, the instruction seems to change a little bit. Verse eight. If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment between blood and blood, between flea and flea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates, then shalt thou arise.
And get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose. And thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire, and they shall show the the sentence of judgment. And thou shalt do according to the sentence which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee.
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And thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee, according to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do. Thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee to the right hand, nor to the left.
We just finished prior to this speaking how we need to take care one of another.
We finished speaking about how there are there is a place that the Lord choose for His worshipper to come.
But then we flip over to this chapter.
The tone changed totally.
The Lord knows that when his feet were together.
Sometimes there are differences in opinions.
Sometimes those differences are so great that it could be between as the way scripture have it worded, between blood and blood.
Have we seen that today?
Between.
Plea and plea, stroke and stroke.
Matters of controversies.
I believe here, brethren, the principle for the Assembly has been established way before in this time.
Back in the day for the Israelites of old, they are told if you can't get together and resolve this, there is a process that the Lord set up for them. You'll find that at the end of Judges, people have lost sight of what the order of things God has set out to do. And then it went on and said that every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And we find how wrong that is and the problems and difficulties that they brought upon to the people of God.
Every man did that which was right in his own eyes because God has his ways that He wants us to follow. So here, when the plead is too great for them to deal with, they are to bring them to the judge or to the Levites.
And then?
Here they are told that they are to do according to the sentence which were given by them. I do not believe anything here that talks about if you don't like what the decision is, then do this.
I believe the words here are very plain.
It tells us that that thou according. It says that according to the judgment which he shall tell thee, thou shalt do.
If you think about this in this land.
We spoil in a way here in this land, if you're not happy with somebody, you can take them to court.
And if the court sent passed upon a sentence that you do not like, then you can challenge it and go to another level, a higher court. But really, if you think about that, even in this land when it gets to the Supreme Court.
That is final, isn't it? If the sentence by the Supreme Court is handed down, there is no more appeal. Whether you like it or not, that is the sentence. But for Israel of old, they are to obey.
Here I believe the proper phrase is that authority was delegated to them. And I believe today, brethren, authority has been delegated to the assembly.
In these passages that we read, I believe the Assembly have a few things that are in common to what they have in the days of old. We found that in the 15th chapter, as in the Assembly, we have the obligation to take care of one another, do we not?
We find that in the 16th chapter, as an assembly, we see the principle here that is not a place or any place we can go. It's not that other places are no good.
Is that not a place which the Lord has chosen, the place where He chose to place His name? It's interesting that a few weeks ago we were at Hammer Bay conference in the Book of Ruth.
Was suggested and it was nice to see in that book Ruth was told not to glean in another man's field. What was wrong with the barley that she could have gleaned from another man's field? It was probably the same Barish. You could have tasted it the same, but she wouldn't have found the blessings that she would have had in Boaz Field. So here in the 16th chapter, I believe the place was chosen by God to be His.
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In the 17th chapter, we have to recognize the fact that authority is given to the assembly.
Let's go over just briefly to Matthew chapter 18.
Let's see if we can draw some parallel in here.
Matthew chapter 18. Let me preface this before I read this.
I remember.
Prior to 1992, some of you may remember there was a big problem in 1992. I was much younger than.
I remember brother came up to me and said, you people.
You people took this one verse. Matthew 1820.
And you made a doctrine out of it. The rest of the chapter had nothing to do with assembly truth.
And you use one. And he left angrily. As a young person, I did not know how they answer that. Not that I know it that much better, but I see a little bit more from the Word of God. Let's take a look at this here. Let's start reading some of the verses beginning at verse 15.
Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee.
Go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee, as in heath, and man and republican.
You may not find that the way the Lord know there could be disputes coming and that we have a order of things that we are to follow. Is not interesting to see that in the 17th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. If you read through that carefully, you find that the principle that God had laid out remain the same.
Let's go on verse 18. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Isn't it interesting? Now whatever is bound on Earth, authority is vested in the assembly to bind on Earth.
You may say but.
These brothers don't know what they're doing.
Well, who is part of that assembly?
It's you and I.
Does the law know that you and I?
And are not very good as judging right from wrong.
But yet.
The authority is delegated.
Do we believe that we are part of the one body, that each one is a member of this one body with the Lord Jesus being the head in heaven?
If a decision was wrong.
Do we have the confident that our blessed Lord being the head of it all?
Will take care of that matter.
Do we need to complain that the judge was wrong? No, we need to have that full faith that He will take care of that, do we not, and learn to submit to His authority? Verse 19. Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father, which is in heaven.
I failed to mention something in the Old Testament time. We mentioned that it was a place for care one for another. But there was also another important things about the assembly. It is a place where prayer.
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To be offered up, let's go to 1St Kings Chapter 8.
When Solomon built that house for God.
There was something interesting that he said.
First Kings chapter 8 verse.
Verse 30.
Phoebe will start at verse 29. That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place at which thou hast said My name shall be there, that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place, and hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray to what this place?
And hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, when thou hearest.
Forgive. Oh, how precious to know that here is a place, a place of prayer, here in Matthew 1819, a place that we can ask.
To know that.
He is the one in charge of all this.
The following comment is not meant to be pointed at anyone, but I find it amusing sometimes that when we have problems in the assembly.
We would like to have a special prayer meeting.
So only until recently that it occurred to my heart that why do we need a special prayer meeting? By the way, I'm not against special prayer meeting, but the question is why do we need a special prayer meeting when there is a regular prayer meeting, assembly, prayer meeting in our home assembly?
I have visited a number of the assemblies.
Not as many as I would like to, but from what I understand.
The common problem is.
The prayer meeting evening.
Do not have very many people coming out.
Some have said.
The prayer meeting is the powerhouse of the Assembly.
Could it be because we need a special prayer meeting? Because, and I say this with shame, brethren.
That we're not there to have our regular prayers. OfferUp.
I leave that with you. Let's go down to verse 20, Matthew 1820.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name.
There am I in the midst of them.
This is not my own thought. I have enjoyed someone printed this out on a pamphlet.
So that written down where? Where?
A divine place.
Two or three.
A divine testimony.
Are gathered.
Divine separation If you are gathered to the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, what other names can you take? What other associations can you have?
Oh, how precious to think of that whose name unto my name, the Lord's name there is the divine authority for us, gathering together.
And because of that we have a divine, divine presence of our Lord Jesus Christ saying, Here am I.
There is the divine center.
In the mist.
Together.
The Divine Oneness.
You know, it's real old had a physical center today. No, we found a woman of the well questioned the Lord, she said she's at Jerusalem is the place we ought to worship.
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And we know the answer from that, do we not? When that time come, he said, you will not be worshipping here.
And that worship the Father should worship him in spirit and in truth. How precious brethren, to think that God has laid out these divine principles for us that we here in the assembly that we have and be able to have the care one for another. A place where where prayers can be offered collectively, a place of worship and above all.
A place where authority was delegated and a place where we know that our blessed Savior is in our midst for 59 five dollars.
It was thirsty like the everlasting son before the 1St who always worked the Asian.
59.
They were laughing.
For the world.
Time in time.
Genesis 1:1
Gospel—R. Thonney
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Let's begin our meeting tonight with #23 on our hem 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.
They hold, they hold.
Oh my God.
He prays for you.
That every time.
I.
Not wrong.
Children.
Take away.
While she's yourself.
Let's sing another song #2 on her hymn sheet. Come tis Jesus gently calling. I don't know, I think maybe it'd be helpful if we all stand up this one.
Come.
On.
You're standing on the sun.
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Till you hang out with me, you're on.
The waning standing waning.
Genesis 1, verse one.
The first.
4 words.
In the beginning.
God.
Something so tremendously majestic about those words.
In the beginning God, the context of this chapter is the beginning of creation.
There's a lot of debate as to when that time actually was.
It's not a matter tonight that I want to take up, but the point is whenever that beginning was.
God was already there.
He is the absolute.
He is described in Scripture as the eternal God. It says in Isaiah chapter 57 that he inhabits eternity.
We live in a realm that we call time. We are constrained by the measurements of time and distance.
God dwells outside of time in eternity.
He is the eternal one. He is the one who never began to be. You know, it's interesting to me to see in the world in which we live how men are losing the concept of who God is. We have had the light of the truth of who God is in the gospel.
The Christian faith.
Rests on who Christ is and what he has done entirely.
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And the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who has revealed who God is.
You know, in the world we live in the knowledge of the true God.
Is being lost. We were speaking today of the culture in which we live and that it is man centered.
Yesterday morning I started out the day in Barcelona, Spain.
It is really interesting to be in Europe.
In the United States, you know, we think of 200 years as being something old. You go to Europe, you're talking more like 2000 years and even more.
But what impresses me of being over in Europe, Lord has given me the privilege of visiting over there these last few years about once a year.
Is the terrible darkness that continent is going into. I was told that approximately half of the Spanish population that is of the country of Spain.
Are atheist. The other half, approximately, are nominal Roman Catholics, but the reason that many of them are nominal Roman Catholic is because the representatives.
Of that religion have such a bad moral history that there is a repulsion.
Towards anything to do with God. God is a dirty word.
In Spain.
Was going down the street.
Not this visit, but.
A few years ago, two or three years ago, and.
Had a wither bound little booklet, gospel booklet and I.
Decided to lay it on the table of a man who was selling lottery tickets.
So I laid it down and I kept on walking.
Here, it wasn't me for long. He is hollering after me. Sir, Sir, here's your booklet. I don't want it. Take it. I was astounded at the anger in his voice. He didn't want it. He could easily thrown it away, but he had to let me know that he had no desire for any such thing.
You know, they've lost the knowledge of the true God. And I ride the metro around the city of Madrid. Madrid is a beautiful city. But what impresses me is that the European population, there's a lot of immigrants from Latin America and from Africa, but the European population, the expressionless look on their faces as they ride.
The Metro to work.
And I mean.
You see some people that are real weirdos, I guess you'd call them.
So one girl with her hair dyed purple so it would match her purple clothes.
Why do people do that kind of stuff?
Because they've lost all sense of the purpose of their existence. They think it is all around them. They've lost the sense of who God is.
You know what, the United States of America is falling following right after Europe. And even though thank God, there is still a lot of the preaching of the gospel in this land. Thank God for it. A lot of Christians around holding forth the light of the gospel. Still things are going in that direction even here in this country.
It is to me such a consolation to be able to read a verse.
Like these first four words in the beginning, God.
You know what you have to do with God. He made you.
And you're going to have to give an account to him one day. People struggle with that idea and they've come up with a theory called evolution. If evolution is true, there is absolutely no God in existence. We all are just the product of blind evolutionary processes. But you know what as well? There is no purpose for your existence if there's no God.
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You're a mistake and that's why kids when they get into trouble.
Put a pistol to their head and end it. What a tragedy.
Thank God, God has made himself known in the person of the Lord Jesus. God has revealed himself in other ways as well. We have the revelation of God.
In a partial way we could say in the Old Testament times before Jesus came, we also have the word of God. We also have creation says in Romans chapter one, the invisible things.
Of God.
Are clearly revealed being.
Known by those things that are made. In other words, the creation that we live in clearly show some of the attributes of God.
I love to study the stars in the universe.
My children got me a book on the universe.
For my last birthday.
I love that book and it's fascinating to me, according to that book.
You know, all books of reading with science are changing, so I don't know how valid it is, but it's interesting.
They can look at through the telescope, the Hubble telescope out there in space.
About 13 billion years, light years into the universe.
Incredible distances. They used to think at the end of this, at the beginning of the 20th century, that the Milky Way Galaxy was all there was to the universe until they got better telescopes and then they began to see that there were other galaxies. Today's thought is scientists say there were approximately 100.
Billion other galaxies besides the Milky Way Galaxy in which we land.
Milky Way, I understand, has approximately 200 billion stars in it.
It just totally blows the mind when you think of the vastness.
Of the God that spoken into existence, He spoke and it was done.
He commanded and it stood fast.
Yes, creation shows the mighty power of God.
Here we are, a little puny specks.
One little part of the Milky Way Galaxy and men boasts himself being the center of his universe. What folly in the beginning, God.
He's there and you have to do with him.
Says in Hebrews chapter 4.
Neither is there anything that is not manifested before Him, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. You can't escape it. Sooner or later you're going to come face to face with your God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you faced that fact?
Dear young people, dear older ones too.
It's too easy to go on with the nominal core.
Allegiance to what we call evangelicalism or the Christian faith without being real with God, you have to do with God.
And sin is a factor you're going to have to face.
It's not a pleasant factor, but it's something you're going to have to face.
With God.
Europe was where the Gospel came from.
I should say it came from Jerusalem. It started from Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus gave the commandment.
After his resurrection, beginning at Jerusalem, the gospel was to be taken.
From Jerusalem and Judea and all the earth.
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And so it went up into Europe.
There was in the times, the Dark Ages.
Things got pretty dark in Europe. Thank God there was. What will you call today? the Reformation.
And the truth, a wonderful truth that.
Through faith in Christ we can find a way to be just with God shone out brightly, the light of the gospel began again, and it went into through all Europe.
Tremendous men that God used in those times. Martin Luther, Zwingli, Farrell and so many others that were used of God in those times.
And the gospel came over to this continent and thankfully it has shone brightly.
But we're going towards a time when the gospel is being given up. You know, what impresses me is that we are not being demanded to give up the truth in doctrine that God is who he is. But the whole way we live in the American culture leaves God out.
Even sometimes we as Christians don't take God into the picture.
Go buy a nice car, you buy the color you like.
You buy the kind of car you like.
That's the way of life here in the United States. Is there anything wrong with it? No, there's nothing wrong with it in yourself. The wrong is you don't take God into the picture. And little by little, God has worked completely out of the picture. Oh, yeah, you're a Christian.
But that's the current of things, and it's serious.
And it concerns me when I see it being given up, not so much in doctrine, but in practice. Practical reality is God who he says He is.
Then he must be taken into account in every facet of our lives.
Now let's go over to John's Gospel chapter one.
Verse one.
Here it says again in the beginning.
Was the word.
And the word was with God.
And the word was God. Now we learn something further.
There is someone that is called the word of God. You know, I have an idea in my mind.
And am I looking at you?
There's no way you're going to be unable to understand what I'm thinking.
Until I use words to express myself, then you can understand what I'm thinking.
God in the fullness of his being.
Is so infinite, so absolute, that there was no way we could understand fully who he was.
Until the word of God came into this world, He is the full expression of all that God is. In the beginning was the Word.
Always was the eternal Son of God.
And the word was with God, and the word was God. So the first phrase is his eternity, the second phrase is his individual.
Personality within the Godhead, because God has revealed Himself to be.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Word is the Son of God. It's not the Spirit, it's not the Father, it's the Son of God, and he's an individual personality in the Godhead, and the Word was God. In other words, he is, in every sense of the Word, God. This is the person we're talking about now, the Word of God.
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The same was in the beginning with God. In other words, there wasn't.
A time which he began began to be the Son of God. He always was the Son of God. He is the eternal Son of God. Verse 3. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. Everything is received its existence through him. You sit there in your seat.
Your existence is because of this one who is called.
The Word of God tremendous to realize.
Just who we are talking about in verse four makes a statement. I love the way John speaks. So tremendously simple.
Notice every single word in verse four is monosyllable. In other words, only one syllable. And yet it has something extremely profound to say to us.
In him was life and the life.
Was the light of men.
Beautiful, the Lord Jesus says in another place I am the light of the world, but here it says in Him was life.
This is the one that has life.
And the life was the light of men.
Still remember?
In Santa Cruz, Bolivia number of years ago. I've probably told this story before, but a man who was a mechanic who I took my Toyota Land Cruiser 2 to tune up.
One day I had gotten through some work that he.
Had to do on my vehicle and I settled the account with him.
And I said, OK, I've settled the account with you, Alfonso.
But don't forget, you and I have an account to settle with God.
He says.
We're pretty good people. I'm a good person. You're a good person, I say. Well, you can talk about yourself. Don't talk about me. You don't know how good or bad I might be. Well, he says. I'm not really that good either.
But in the course of conversation, he invited me over to his house some evening.
Left him a New Testament.
And when I met him another time, he said, I don't understand that book you read.
You left me. I don't understand. Why don't you come over to my house and explain it to me sometimes. So we went over there and we started out with John's gospel here, these same verses.
And we got down to verse 4.
Now he looked at him and said, says in him was life talking about the Lord Jesus, and the life was the light of men.
And I looked him in the eye and I said, what is light?
And he sat there for quite a while.
And just seemed at that moment, the light penetrated his heart.
In him was life.
The life was the light of men, and the light is made.
To make the darkness escape, you can't mix those two factors.
Next time I met him at the mechanic shop, he says, You know that book you gave me? I understand it now. I can understand it now. Why? What? What? What made him understand it? He opened his eyes to the light. And let me tell you, if you open your eyes to who Jesus really is, you're going to see things clearly.
Verse 5 is a rather sad commentary on the state of things when Jesus came into the world. The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not not.
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You know you can shine all the searchlights you want into a face of a blind man and he's not going to see a thing.
Why he is blind?
And it says in Second Corinthians chapter 4, the God of this world is a small G. If you look at it, it's talking about Satan. He's the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine into them.
Have you opened your eyes to see Jesus who he is? Children, young people. I know you've grown up in Christian families. A lot of you. I know you've come to Sunday school. I know you've learned your verse, but have you accepted who Jesus really is? It's scary to think about that. There are those who have been raised in Christian homes.
And never.
Accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in their lives. All in all the answers. You know there's going to be a lot of people in hell that will know by heart. John 316.
They memorized it, but they never accepted it in their own hearts.
Serious, solemn reality.
Now verse six talks about somebody else.
Verse six talks about a man called John the Baptist.
There was a man sent from God. This was just a mere man. It's not the person we're talking about in the 1St 5 verses. This is just a mere man. His name was John. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world.
And the world was made by him.
And the world knew him not How tragic.
The world now, when it says the world knew him not, it's talking about humanity. Because when Jesus came into this world, you know what he called for A donkey to carry him into the city of Jerusalem.
And have you ever tried to get on a donkey's back that has never been ridden by anybody? You know you're not going to stay there very long.
But that donkey knew who that was.
And he let him ride into the city of Jerusalem.
The fish knew who he was. One day he used Peter.
Peter's boat and.
You know the Lord Jesus never had any money in his pocket that is recorded to pay Peter for the use of his boat.
But since he's the owner of the universe, says, OK, Peter, let's go out into the deep. Let down your Nets.
For a haul of fish, Peter thought, Well, Jesus is a Carpenter. I don't know if he knows too much about fishing. I'll let down one mat, Lord.
Let down one net. It didn't really obey what the Lord said. The Lord had said let down your Nets.
And he let one down, and it filled up so full that it all broke. Peter had problems because he didn't obey. We get problems too, because we don't obey. But that was the Lord, and those fish were commanded by him to fill Peter's neck.
Enough fish for two Nets had to get into one net.
And so it broke. But they knew who he was.
But people didn't know who he was. Tragic. You know, sin blinds a person.
And if you don't know who Jesus is, you're blinded. That's what Scripture says.
00:35:02
Verse 11. He came unto his own. That was the Jewish people.
And his own received him not, you know, naturally speaking, our hearts are at enmity with God.
Naturally speaking, the heart that I have is an enemy of God.
So when he presented himself to his own people, he didn't receive him.
Verse 12 But as many as received him, there were some who received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. You know, there's sometimes people who think that everybody in the world is one of God's children.
Not so.
Everybody in this world is one of God's creatures, but you are not one of God's children.
Until you receive Him, how do you receive Him? You have to come up front and make some kind of a public confession. Do you have to pray to receive Him? Nothing wrong with praying, but what does it say here in verse 12 That we have to do to receive Him? Look at it.
Even to them that believe on his name, that's what you got to do.
Trust Him, believe in Him, rest on Him. Then it says in verse 11, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. In other words, we all have been born once.
And the first time we've been born into this world was like it says in verse 13.
Of blood, of the will of the flesh.
Of the will of man.
Our parents wanted to have children and we are the result. It was their will.
And that life is a life that is tainted with sin. Our parents, right back to Adam, are sinful, and so we have inherited a sinful nature. That life that you have from your parents is going to die. It will not last forever if you want to go into God's heaven.
You must be born again. You must be born.
I knew completely new life.
God takes his word and he speaks life to dead souls that have ears to hear. I ask you, are you listening to what God says? It's interesting to me as I preach the gospel as to watch.
If people are really listening, you know, it's kind of hard to listen while you're talking to somebody.
I suppose there's some people that can do it, but I don't think most can do that. Talk and listen at the same time, but.
People are serious, they will listen.
And it says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Remember when I first came back to Chicago area in 1962?
In Oak Park, when their meeting was at that time, there was a woman from the neighborhood.
We used to come into the gospel meeting.
An older woman? No, she.
Quite a respectable woman.
And she sat there, nicely dressed, very respectfully, but it was evident that she was not listening. After the meeting she would say, oh, that sister had a new pair of shoes on, and that one has a new hat.
She was not listening. It's so important to listen not to what I say. I make lots of mistakes.
00:40:06
Listen to what God says.
Your eternal destiny depends on what God says in this book.
Now, verse 14.
And the word, there's that title of the Lord Jesus.
The expression of all God is the word was made.
Flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glories of the only Begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Oh I love that verse. Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Think of it. God came into his own creation in the person of the Lord Jesus. He was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
And his mother had to give birth to him in a stable.
Because there was number room for him in the inn. You know, people measure.
How important a person is, by how they treat him and when.
The.
Prince of Wales was going to have his errors.
And they were going to be born. I'm sure they had the best of attention medical circles could give them when the creator of the universe has come to come into this world.
They said go out there in the barn, you might find a spot out there. No room for Jesus.
What a story. The Word was made flesh.
And dwell among us.
And he grew up relatively unknown.
In fact, later on in this chapter, even John the Baptist says notice what he says.
The inverse 32.
John Bear record and said, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him, and I knew him not.
You know the mother of Jesus, Mary.
And the mother of John were cousins. Didn't they know each other? I think they must have known each other as persons down here in this world. But John never dawned on him who this really was until this time. And he says here.
Verse 33 But he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending.
And remaining on him the same as he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
And I saw and bear record.
That this is the Son of God must have been a wonderful thing when that truth dawned on John who this was. This isn't just my cousin.
This is the Son of God.
Oh, the wonder of it all. Jesus. Who is he? The Son of God? We know he is the Son of man as well. He is very God. He is very man.
But no, let's go back to verse 29. Now the next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him. And Seth, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Here's something else about this person that we learned. Here's the word is the Son of God, but here he is.
The Lamb of God. What meaning does that have?
You know in Old Testament times when a person sinned.
They had to bring an animal sacrifice.
And they would place their hands on the head of that animal, identifying themselves with that, and that animal would die instead of the guilty person.
00:45:05
Now the Lord Jesus is presented as the Lamb of God.
Sin is a serious thing with God, You might say. I haven't done that much bad.
You don't have to do that much bad. You'll be barred from heaven forever.
One little supposedly white lie.
Will keep you out of heaven forever.
God won't let it happen. If He could allow that to enter heaven, it would call in question everything that He is impossible. Question of your sins must be faced and dealt with.
And according to God's own justice, you do not get the privilege of setting the standards. God sets the standards.
And God says the wages of sin is death. He said I didn't do that much bad. Why do you get so upset about it? It's not me getting upset. It's the fact that you will not get into heaven if you've got those sins on you. You've got to get that taken care of. There is no other way about it.
And that's why Jesus was sent.
The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
All that Jesus did in his lifetime, he showed.
Who God was. God is compassionate, God is love, God is light as well and he showed people what they didn't like to see sometimes because people don't like their sins being displayed.
But it came all out into the light in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
But at the end of his life, and I say before I speak about the end of his life, all that Jesus did and said during his life could not save a soul. It was what he did at the end of his life that is so vital to understand. You know, I find when I talk to people that they don't have much understanding of why it's so important. What?
Jesus.
Did they took him? They rejected him?
They falsely accused him. He stood before Pilate as they violently surrounded him and accused him. And he never answered a word. Even Pilate asked him where he was from and he didn't answer. And Pilate says, don't you answer me? Don't you know I have power to crucify you and power to release you?
And Jesus said, you would have no power at all against me, except that we're given thee from above. In other words, Jesus recognized that pilot. Had God-given authority? Did Pilate use that? God-given authority, right? He certainly did not. Did Jesus submit to it? Yes, he did.
Thank God he did because if he hadn't of and he had every right to reject pilots sentence but I would have been condemned in hell forever. So would every other human being.
He submitted to it.
Oh, the awful story of what they did to him.
Crowned him with thorns.
They scourged him with the Roman scourge.
They led him out of the city of Jerusalem. Who is this?
That's carrying his cross out of the city of Jerusalem.
God's beloved Son.
You know, I just marveled.
Sometimes set it this way one more. One day I lookout the window of my house.
And see somebody outside beating up my boy, you think I'm going to stand there and justice watch it happen? No way. I'm going to run out there, say, hey, you beat on me, but don't you beat on my boy.
00:50:04
And God saw it all happening and he didn't intervene. Why not? You know, why not?
God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. They took Jesus out of Jerusalem to Golgotha, and there they stretched out His hands, those hands that had fed the hungry multitudes, those hands that had touched the leper, those hands that had raised the dead.
They stretched them out and they nailed them to a cross.
And there he hung from 9:00 in the morning till he died at 3:00 in the afternoon.
For three hours men did their worst to the Son of God on that cross from 9:00 in the morning till 12 noon.
12 noon. According to the testimony of the Gospels, everything got dark.
And in three hours, those three hours of darkness, God.
Laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. I could not go to heaven with my sins on me.
But Jesus in effect said I will die for him.
And God took my filthy sins. I'm ashamed of some of the things that have happened in my life, and he laid them on Jesus.
Think of the awfulness of it, what it was to Jesus when God laid.
On him, those sins of mine. And then.
The awful storm of God's judgment broke in all its fury on Jesus.
For three hours there was number sound from that center cross.
No complaint.
What was his love?
Safe this Sinner like me.
The end of those three hours, he says.
It is finished.
All the judgment that was rightly against me as a guilty Sinner was exhausted.
On the head of my beloved Savior, the Lord Jesus.
He died.
The soldier took a spear and plunged it into his side.
And flowed out, flowed blood.
Water. There is only one thing that will cleanse.
The sin stains in our souls. It is the blood of a God accepted sacrifice and God accepted what Jesus paid for us sinners.
He showed.
That he was satisfied. The standard of his absolute justice was satisfied because he raised him from the dead the third day, if there was even.
A small doubt as to some of the sins that I had committed. He could not have raised him from the dead, but Jesus paid the price in full on the cross of Calvary with His precious blood.
Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus.
Lives at God's right hand and he sent out the message.
We can know God. God is a God of love, but he is also a God of light.
Those sins that are staining your soul, if you haven't received the Lord Jesus, you can't ignore them. You are going to give an account sooner or later before God if you don't do something about those sins of yours.
One day Jesus is coming back to this world.
00:55:02
God is going to say to.
Mankind, that's enough.
I'm amazed at his patience.
As so much evil is wreaked on this world, so much misery.
So many children that suffer.
Sometimes people say to me, I don't believe in God because look at all that bad stuff that's happened out there. I say, oh, you want him to straighten out that bad stuff out there, right? They say, yeah.
Say, wait a minute. If he starts out, straighten out that bad stuff out there, he's not going to stop there. He's going to come right back to you. Are you ready?
When God begins his work of judgment, it's going to be across the board.
No one is going to escape.
Maybe you say I'll die and I'll get away from them that way. You won't get away from him that way.
Because at the end of time, the dead are going to be raised.
And stand before the great white throne, and on that throne sits a man, the man Christ Jesus.
And it will be shown because the books are going to be opened and it will be shown that you had an opportunity.
On the 21St of October 2006 to receive Christ as your Savior and you refused it.
Is that going to be the story that's written about you, or are you going to accept the Lord Jesus tonight?
And have those sins of yours washed away? I plead with you, along with all the others here who are real believers.
To deal with God about the question of your sins tonight.
Don't wait any longer. The price has been paid. The only thing that is left for you to do is to believe it, to accept it, to receive him.
To those that receive him, to them he gave the right to be the sons of God to them that believe on his name.
Stop Drop Repent and Believe
Children—D. Mackewich
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning and welcome to Sunday school. There's still seats up here in the front and younger children can come up to the front. Going to start by singing #40.
Jesus loves me as I know the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is wrong #40.
One, he is strong.
You know Jesus loves him, yes, He is Not as much maybe.
Yeah.
Jesus loves me.
Why he will watch away my sin. Let your little child come in. Yes, she's a small swimming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, tells me so.
He just loves me to avoid that and he was to make me cry, waste to comedy and give his heart.
It's made safe from every heart. Yes, I can see that's what I'm speaking.
Yes, James must, must be.
Yes, I suppose me, but I don't tell me so.
Jesus loves me, must be still right now I carry the weekend Daniel bronze and shining on my heart. He will watch me where I live.
Yes.
Yes, yes, I just love screaming. Yes, being such love to me. The Bible tells me so.
Jesus loves me, He will stay close, face by me all the way, if I trust you to my God.
He will take me on my mind, yes. She's not supposed to be.
Yes, Jesus must make me. And she comes by screaming. She loves my God tells me so.
46.
46.
Gladys hiding the boys and girls with teenagers and with adults. The best message that we could share with you. We're going to share it today and hope you're ready to listen. Thank you. How about another one?
#10 Can we hear?
Yes. No.
#10.
00:05:05
There is a savior.
And this morning, the Lord Jesus would like you to come. His arms are outstretched.
He says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Oh, it's his joy to save. It's his joy to save boys and girls and teenagers and adults, dads and moms and grandpas and grandmas.
A lot of people in this room have come.
And accepted him. But how about you? Have you done that yet? Let's do it today. How about another one?
#16 #16 and by the way, if there's a song that's not in this hymn book, like Wide Wide is the Ocean or The Wise Man, or one of those ones that you like to sing back home, we can sing those too, OK.
She said #16.
Whosoever.
00:10:48
And what you made to hear the simplest truth in any way, and somewhere will may come.
It's nobody for will is no ever will send the proclamation of reveal and kill. It's a lonely father.
And this message that we're going to share with you this morning right here in the Chicago area, it's good for people all over this world. They need to hear it too. And they might not understand English, but they need to hear it in their own language. Because the gospel goes out to everybody, doesn't it? And it's so exciting that we're living in a time where.
Through radio and through the Internet, the gospel is reaching people that it's never reached before, and people all over this world are getting saved.
What about you? Are you saved? Do you know what Jesus as your savior?
Let's sing a couple more.
Yes.
I thought you had your hand, did you?
25.
Life at best is very brief, like the falling of the lake, like the binding of the sheep beaten by bleeding. Days are telling five sides that I will soon be cast and the baby like.
Be in time while the voice of Jesus called you. Be in time if it's in you on your ways. You may find open days and you're crying because you're lazy in time.
There is flowers in the game.
Oh, you have not long to stay.
In time wow we got scared as you consider the longer Rd. the last you steal your home with you.
Being like.
Big thighs.
The voice of Jesus falls to me in time.
Everything. You're on your way to make my own again, and you're probably just lazy.
Is gliding swiftly by death and judging close your life to the arms of Jesus life.
Oh, I pray down the coast there's a fatal line we cross, and here Christ the soul we lost behind.
Being sunny in time.
While the voice of Jesus calls you being in time.
Everything you longer waves you may find your day, and you're crying us to lay beyond.
00:15:10
Sinner, he's a warning voice. May the Lord your happy choice, and I'll have a very choice.
Be mind.
Come from darkness into light, from the way that he went tonight.
Behind.
Big time, big time. Big time, big time.
While the voice of Jesus calls you being done.
If it's singing on your way to, you may find your open gate. I'm gonna cry because you're in time.
I don't have a calendar with me right now, but if I had a calendar and I showed it to you, you could tell me the day in the year that you were born. When were you born?
1997 October 20/9/1997 He's got a birthday coming up. When were you born?
October 17, she just had a birthday.
And you could tell me when you were born, but I think if I gave you a calendar and I said here, does anybody have a calendar?
Here's a calendar right here.
It's good. Thank you. And I were to give you this calendar. I said here, tell me when you're going to die.
Could you give me a date? How about you?
Let's ask one of the older ones. I mean not older ones, but.
You know what? And I couldn't tell you the day that I'm going to die. But you know what? It's good to be prepared, isn't it? Because if I die and I don't know Jesus as my Savior, and if you die and you don't know Jesus as your savior, you will not go to heaven, and you will.
Go to hell.
It's very serious.
We'll sing one more. And by the way, if I walk around, I'm a teacher and I like to keep an eye on my students, so I will walk around.
He's pointing to 24.
Oh, this is a great song. Thank you. We know there's a bride and a glorious.
All the way in the heavens.
Where all the readings shall with Jesus.
Will you be there right?
Will you be there and I?
Where are all the reading challenges?
On my birthday, come to join the trial, all right?
Same word in the last night once, once plain vibrate 5. Brilliant.
Will you be there?
I will you be there and.
Where all of the land that once was saved. But will you be there right now?
If you save my life and save your life When he gathered his own.
That right home.
Thank you.
00:20:24
Will you be there? You know, sometimes you come to a conference and you say, I wonder if so and so is going to be here. I wonder if Jason's going to be here or I wonder if Tim's going to be here.
What about when we get to heaven? Will you be there?
It's good to get to a conference. It's so nice to have you here. Oh, it's so much better to be there in heaven.
Yes, it is.
OK, we're going to say our verses and then we'll ask the Lord's help.
Each week we have a memory verse. Was there anyone here who was able to learn it and who would like to go first?
The entrance of.
Thy words giveth light it giveth.
Understanding unto the simple.
Psalm one 19130. Very good. That was awesome. How about another one?
The entrance of thy word giveth her it giveth understanding into the simple songs 100 and 19130 super another one.
Even with my glasses I still have a hard time seeing sometimes.
That was done so nicely. Now we're going to ask one of these big boys over here to do it.
The entrance is simple songs 100 and 19130.
Your twins, so I will give a slide that give us understanding to the simple. So I'm going to 19130 anybody from the side of the room.
OK, don't worry, it won't bite you.
OK, let's just ask the Lord's help and then we can talk a little bit, OK?
Lord Jesus.
Yesterday we were talking a little bit about.
Who can tell me? We were talking a little bit about Tell me something that you remember from yesterday.
And I'm putting her on the spot. But we're talking a little bit about light and darkness, weren't we? And you know what? This verse that we learned this morning.
It tells us that the entrance of thy word giveth light. And that's why it's so important that we read our Bibles, because as we read it.
The truths that are in this book, they help us to see and they help us to make the right choices in our lives.
Now this morning I want to talk about stock drop.
And repent. You're going to say roll. And that's where I got the idea this week in school. It's been fire prevention week.
It's a good thing to be prepared in case of a fire, isn't it? And what do they teach you again? Stop, Drop in and roll. Yeah. So I wanted to come up with something simple, something that you could remember.
I wouldn't want anybody to be caught in a fire. I wouldn't want anybody to get burned. Would you like to get burned?
No, we like to be prepared. And I know some of the teachers who had their story with Clifford the Big Red Dog and talking about the importance of getting out of a house that's on fire.
The Bible says if you believe, not that I am.
You shall die in your sins, and where I am, you cannot come.
And so I'm going to build upon what you've been learning in school this week or this month.
And I'm going to keep a very simple, we're going to do it three things. Stop, drop, and instead of roll, it's repent and believe. Can we remember that? Stop, drop, repent and believe?
Can we remember that? Stop, drop, repent and believe?
00:25:05
Yeah.
First thing that we need to do.
Is we just need to stop?
You know, we're kind of like the gingerbread man.
Who after was created by his owner, turned his back and ran off.
Didn't he? And he wanted to get as far away from his makers as he could.
And there was a way that seemed right unto that gingerbread man. And he ran, and he ran, and there he went, and there he went. And finally he got tired out, and finally he came to the water. And what happened?
Who was waiting for him?
Yeah, there was a wolf or a fox or something like that. And was that wolf or fox really there to help them, though? He really wasn't. And he listened to that wolf and fox, didn't he? And what did that wolf and fox tell him to do?
Told him to get on, that he was going to help him. Well, you know what? That gingerbread man who was running away from his maker got on the back of that fox and started going out into the water.
And what happened?
I like to use stories that you're familiar with. What happened? He was out in the water and what happened.
He didn't surround, but he did die.
The wolf ate it as he got out into the water. The wolf kind of said you need to come up a little bit closer to the top of the back of my head because the water's getting up to you.
And the long and short of that story is that that wolf or that fox ate that gingerbread man. There's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And that story so illustrates our lives running away from God. And there's Satan ready to help, or so we think. But at the end thereof are the ways of death. And he didn't make it.
By getting back to stop, drop and roll. The first thing we have to do is stop and listen to the message. And the message comes from God's Word, the Bible, the entrance of thy word giveth light.
And yesterday Mr. Tony was telling us about a God who created this world and who loves us, who in the form of his son Jesus, came into this world and died a real death on a cross.
Real nails put in his hands, real spikes put in his feet, a spear put in his side. Suffering there for three hours because he loves you and me. And we sometimes sing in Sunday school. Stop and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me.
Oh, he saved my soul, and it's so exciting to be able to tell you that he wants to save your soul. We need to stop and listen. We need to stop running from God.
Are you running from God this morning? I know you're sitting in your chairs, but are you trying to run from Him?
Can I ask you a question? Has dad or mom been talking to you about the Lord Jesus?
And you've kind of been like, I really don't want to hear that.
Her grandpa and grandma have been trying to tell you a little bit about Jesus.
And you don't want to hear that. That's kind of like we're running from God. What about the young people in the back?
Maybe a Sunday school teacher, maybe a father, a mother, a loved one, and you're trying to get away. You just won't stop and listen to the message. This is a message of good news, the message of hope, a message of deliverance that wants you to be free. So.
Stop and listen.
How wonderful it is just to stop and hear those words. The Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself for me.
Stop. The next one is drop.
That's kind of a hard one to understand because.
What drop really means is we really need to, as a work, come to the foot of the cross.
And valve the knee.
00:30:00
To bow the knee and say that Jesus Christ is Lord and that I need a Savior.
We need to take that low place.
To realize that we're sinners.
To realize that because of the lies and the steelings and the culling of brothers and sisters, names and disobedience to our parents, we're sinners.
And we need a savior.
Because if we try to do it ourselves.
We will not do it, the Bible says.
I'll have sinned and come short, and you will come short.
We need to bow the knee to Jesus. Have you done that?
The Bible says every knee will bow.
And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Have you bowed the knee?
Stop, drop, and repent.
Repent, really, to say that you know what, I've been wrong.
There's been a time in your life where you said, you know what? I am a Sinner.
I was born that way, and so are you. Have you come to the realization that I'm a Sinner?
A helpless Sinner and nothing that I do. Nothing that I do.
Will save me.
And I need someone greater than myself.
To save me.
And then to say, Lord, I believe you died for me.
Please save me. Have you done that?
Have you done that? We're going to keep going, but we're just going to take a minute and I'm going to ask you, if you haven't done so this morning, you can do it right now. You can just bow your head where you're sitting.
And as I pray, you can say the words yourself.
Let's accept Jesus as our Savior this morning. Let's not put it off. Life is short vest is very brief. There's no guarantee that we'll be here tomorrow.
I still have more to say, but let's just close your eyes right now and if you haven't done it, would you do it?
You can say, Lord Jesus, I have sinned.
And I deserve to die for my sins.
But I believe you died for me.
And I accept your gift of salvation.
Amen. You could even say thank you. It's that easy and it's so wonderful.
So wonderful. And if you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're part of the winning team. You're part of the family. So many in this room have done so, and it's wonderful. Mr. Totems was telling me about how his daughter LED someone to the Lord recently. Oh, it's wonderful. She's now part of the family. And that's what we want you to be.
With Fire Prevention week, stop, drop and roll.
They do that because they want you to be safe. And we tell you the gospel because we want you to be safe. But then it doesn't stop there. Once you're part of the family, we want you to go out and tell other people. Let other people know the good news. Let other people know that there is a Savior who's looking down in tender love and who wants to save boys and girls and wants to save teenagers and dads and moms and grandpas and grandmas.
Will you tell someone about the Lord Jesus this week?
Would you maybe give my gospel track?
Or maybe some way at school, maybe let somebody know that you're a Christian.
You know, I had a student this week, she was typing in my computer class and she had drawn a nice picture and they were to type 3 sentences about their picture and she said something to the fact that she likes God's creation. It's very beautiful.
I think she's a Christian.
That's just a simple way that you could let your teacher know. And you know what? I printed that off. I gave it to her teacher and now her teacher gets to see that too. Little ways like that, that you can let the good news that you can tell other people so they can stop, drop, repent and believe.
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I'm going to kind of talk to the older ones too, and I want you to listen to there's so much talent and potential in this room and we all have a role to play in the body of Christ. We all have a role to let them know the good news.
About the Gospel.
And maybe you've had some ideas come to your mind about sharing the gospel.
Maybe in your community or with your friends. And we need to do it. You know, there was a fisherman when they back up, there was a professional boxer and I can't remember his name.
He was running along the waterfront and some of you may have heard the story and he saw a fisherman fishing.
Raise your hand if you'd gone fishing. Even the adults can, OK, some of the kids and the adults gone fishing. And he was running and he saw this man. He was fishing and he was doing better than me. He was catching fish and he was catching big fish and small fish and he was catching them rather quickly. But he noticed something very unusual.
That this man who was catching these big fish and these small fish, he catched the big fish.
And he'd throw the big fish back into the water and he only kept a small fish.
Now that's very unusual, isn't it? Because when you see pictures of people on fish, do they have a picture with them with just the small fish or do they have a picture with themselves with the big fish? And the eye caught a fish that was 21 inches long. We like to show off the big fish, don't we? And this was very unusual. So he went up to the man. He said, Sir, why are you throwing the big fish back into the water and only keeping the small fish? He said, man, I hate you, but the big fish are too big to fit into my small frying pan.
That's the story of us.
Those God-given ideas and talents that come into your mind about doing this or doing that for him. We say, you know what, I couldn't do that.
Go out and tell this person about Jesus or go out and do this. I couldn't do that. That's too big for me. And so we throw that idea away.
And our content for the small things, content to put the Sunday school papers on the chairs can tend to vacuum the floor, and nothing wrong with that. But we settle for the small things.
And those ideas that God gives us, we throw them away.
We put them on the back shelf. I couldn't do that.
But God needs us and wants us to tell the message. Can we do that if we reach out to others and let them know to stop, to stop what they're doing, to stop running from Him?
To stop going their own way, the way that seemeth right unto a man but ends in death, says friend. You've got to stop. You're going the wrong way.
And you have to bow the knee. We have to admit that we're sinners and that we have to repent and put our faith in Jesus Christ. Oh, we need everybody to do that. Not just Mr. Tony and not just Mr. Hendricks and not just Mr. Smith and others. We need everybody to do that because you have friends.
That I'll never meet.
Did you know that? Who's your best friend?
Nicole. I'll never meet Nicole unless she's here. Is she here?
We all have a circle of influence and we all need to let our light shine.
We all need to let our light shine. And maybe you're sitting here and you're older and he says, you know what? I haven't been doing that. You need to get back into the game. You know, sometimes you drive down the road and you see a car that's off on the side of the road and it's just parked there.
Cars are just going right by and here's a car, it's off to the side of the road and it's parked.
And sometimes could you imagine someone coming up to the driver of that car and saying here, I've got some jumper cables, can I give you a hand? And they say no, no.
But so many of us, sometimes we go through life and we just park off on the side of the road.
We don't get into the game like we should be, and I shouldn't say it's a game, it's really a battlefield, but we need every member of the body of Christ participating.
We need every member, including the young boys and girls, to tell the message stop, drop and repent and believe. We need everybody.
We need everybody. We need you to tell the news.
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We want our friends to get saved, don't we?
You want your friends to get saved, don't you? You want them to know Jesus as their savior.
I'll close by telling the story of the starfish. A lot of you have heard it.
But it reminds us that each one of us.
How old are you?
Even five years old can make a difference. The man down, I think it was South America, was walking along the beach and off in the distance he saw this figure of a man and man was moving around and as he walked closer he noticed that this man was bending down and picking something up and throwing it into the water. That caught his attention and as he got closer he noticed that he was still doing the same thing, bending down and picking it up and throwing it into the water.
And when he got close enough, he saw that this man was picking.
Up starfish that had come in.
And he was picking them up and he was throwing them back into the water because you know, what if they were left there on the beach?
They would die.
And I needed to get back into the water. And our friends, if they don't hear the gospel, they will die in their sins and they will go.
To hell and we want them to go to heaven, don't we?
And the man says, what are you doing? Why are you wasting your time? There's millions of these things, lots of them. You're wasting your time.
Why are you spending all this effort with these?
Starfish. The man didn't say anything. He bent down. He picked up another one. He dusted off the sand, and he threw it back into the water.
And he said it made a difference to that one.
I want you to go back to your schools, back to your places of employment.
Stand strong for Jesus.
The one who loved you, the one who gave his life for you. And tell him the message and we can remember it this way. Stop, drop, repent and believe. And if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you need to do that this morning.
OK.
If you want to talk, I'd be happy to talk with you. I know your dad and mom would really love to talk with you too.
Let's do it tonight. There's no greater joy than to hear that you got saved. The last gospel I reached, we did in Roseville. The middle school student came up to me afterwards and he said I accepted Jesus as my savior. It's a wonderful thing.
You tell your parents this morning if you've gotten saved, let's close in prayer.
Open Mtg. 6
Open—R. Thonney, D. Buchanan
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We're pilgrims and.
Transplant.
The Holy Ghost is bleeding.
What are you doing?
Around here is crying.
With fellow pilgrim's knitting hearts. Real friends really wrong.
It's great you can escape together.
We all must watch ourselves.
Hey, Cortana will come back every day. You will not come. We may be alone, certainly from ourselves.
And so on.
Changing the world.
Where?
I can dream.
And scream all the sky.
We sing.
All year must feel the rhythm's weight.
Breathing.
For all day, first of all, I praise.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 10.
For a few minutes. I don't want to take all the time we have this afternoon, but.
What's before my heart, brethren, is the importance of understanding.
Our position before God.
In the work of Christ, the liberty that is ours.
And I don't want to sound like I'm being critical here, but sometimes.
In a prayer meeting at a conference, it's noticeable that there are many brethren.
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That are not taking any part.
When they are really capacitated to take part as much as any other, it comes to the ministry of the Word. Scripture recognizes gift, which is to be used according to the grace that is given to each one. But when it's the prayer meeting and when it's praised, it's not a question of gift. It's a question of.
Our priesthood and sometimes wonder if the reason why.
There doesn't seem to be more liberty.
To express our prayers and praises to God comes from a lack of living in the enjoyment.
Of the place that God has won for us in the work of Christ. And I'd just like to go over at a Brett year.
In chapter 10, because it is really thrilling.
When you consider the place that God has brought us into, we're not going to read the first verses of the chapter, just like to mention.
That he's contrasting the sacrifices of the Old Testament with what we have in Christianity, many sacrifices in Judaism.
There were never done in Christianity. There's one sacrifice.
The Lord Jesus that settled the whole question of our relationship with God once and for all.
And the four general categories.
Of sacrifices that you have in the book of Leviticus in the first four or five chapters are mentioned.
Twice in these first 10 verses, notice in verse five he says sacrifice and offering. Thou wouldst not but a body. Hast thou prepared me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin? Thou hast had no pleasure. You notice carefully you have the four general categories of sacrifices that the book of Leviticus enumerates.
It says in verse 5 sacrifice. That's the sacrifice of peace offerings that you have in Leviticus chapter 3.
And offering, that's the meal offering that you have in Chapter 2 of Leviticus.
Burnt offering. That's what you have presented in chapter one of Leviticus.
And sacrifices for sin, that's chapter 4. And you have of course the trespass offering in chapter 5, which is somewhat related to the sin offering. So you have the four general categories of the offerings of the Old Testament summarized there. And he says that that really wasn't what settled anything at all. It was only.
Foreshadowing.
Of that sacrifice, that mighty sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
He says he repeats those in verse 8, but then he says in verse 9 then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God, this is the Lord Jesus in those eternal councils.
Saying that he was coming to do God's will, He taketh away the 1St that he may establish the second. Then notice verse 10. That's where I really wanted to start.
By the which will the will of God?
We are sanctified by the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Beautiful truth of Christianity. We are sanctified. In other words, sanctified means set apart for God.
Every true believer in the Lord Jesus is set apart from this world system for God.
By the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all that wonderful brethren to realize that that's the price He paid so that you and I could be set aside for His service.
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I know in this world there are lots of demands on our time.
And on our energies. But remember this, because of the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, you have been set aside for God's purpose and pleasure.
Verse 11 And every priest hears the Levitical priesthood again.
Standeth daily ministering and offering off times the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down.
You could be read sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God.
In the Old Testament you look in the instructions given for the Tabernacle and afterwards the temple. Never was there any provision on God's part for a seat in that sanctuary.
God did not provide for it. You'll find that Eli was sitting. He was a priest, but God never really made any provision for a seat in that sanctuary because the work was never done.
Here comes a man bringing his animal sacrifice to be sacrificed for whatever he's done.
Just gets done sacrificing that. Oh, here comes another one. It was never done. It was a constant flow of blood through the Old Testament. But, and this is the beautiful thing that we need to enjoy in our souls, brethren, this man after he had offered one sacrifice.
For sins.
Forever sat down on the right hand of God.
The work is done. He sat down forever. He will never give up to take up the question of sin any longer. It's settled once and for all.
Beautiful to let that sink into our souls, brethren, the enjoyment of the truth that we stand in God's presence in virtue of that sacrifice.
That was made by the Lord Jesus on the cross.
There is one large section of Christendom.
That says that they offer.
A continuing sacrifice.
For sin.
And that denies the.
Virtue, The value of.
The work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said it is finished. Are you saying it's not finished? Something else needs to be done.
Brethren, let's let that be a practical reality I don't think we enjoy sufficiently. I have to say from my own soul the liberty that belongs to us to come into God's own present. He's opened the way. One of the things that happened when Jesus died was that the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. God's own hand ripped.
That veil in two God can come out into the light, and we can go right into the presence of God, not because we've attained some.
Some some priestly.
Level of attainment? No, only because of that, the work of Christ.
Is a finished work. We stand in virtue of that.
Now one more thing. Here it says verse 14 for by.
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One offering he hath perfected forever.
Them that are sanctified.
Who's this pub applied to out here in this group that's here today? Is there some brothers that kind of meet this standard and others just don't quite meet it? No, this is what is true of every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, perfected forever.
You look at me and I may look at you and we say it doesn't look like you're quite perfect yet, brother.
That's true as to our condition, but we're not talking about our condition here. We're talking about our position in Christ perfect forever.
How could we ever dare to lay a question mark on it when God.
Has set that man that died for our sins.
At his own right hand in the glory, impossible can't happen.
And we need to live in the enjoyment of it, brother and sister and the Lord Jesus. This is the place that we occupy. It is not what I am. It's what Christ is and what he has done. That is everything.
And we need to enjoy this in our souls. So when we come as priests to the Lord's Table and the sisters are priests as well as the brothers, because when it comes to offering the spiritual sacrifice of praise to God continually, the sisters are singing just as much as the brothers.
Your priests too, and we need to enjoy this.
And I want to speak specifically to some of our younger brothers.
Be exercised in the prayer meeting and in the breaking of bread meeting to be an instrument.
That the Lord can use in giving out his praise. You know, I don't like, I say, I don't want to appear like I'm criticizing because I enjoy so much the breaking of bread meeting. But sometimes there are kind of long gaps.
And I know we can have profitable times of silence in the Lord's presence.
But sometimes the silence gets to the point where our minds start wandering in other directions.
Dear brethren in Latin America have maybe a different problem.
Kind of on the other side of the.
Way things are done.
They kind of stumble over each other to give out hymns of praise.
And so many places.
1234 brothers get up to praise the Lord before.
Breaking of bread before the loaf has given. Thanks for I must say, brother. And they do need instruction and help to understand that there is such a thing as the Spirit guiding. And since we all have the fleshiness, sometimes the flesh gets into the picture too.
But I must say, we have such a glorious God and Savior, and if we are not exercised in giving Him the praise He deserves, He's going to raise up others to do it. Let's be exercised in praising Him.
Praise Him.
Verse that exercises me is that one that the Lord said when he was coming into the.
City of Jerusalem, remember.
Children were crying, hosanna, hosanna and Pharisees say, tell him to be quiet. Jesus said if these should hold their peace, the stones immediately cry out. You know, brethren, God is glorious and he's going to have praise, and if we are not exercised in His praise, He's going to raise up others.
That will praise him. Lord help us to be exercised, not just a certain few.
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You know what really has been somewhat searching to me, brother? And in the Book of Revelation, it speaks of a class of people known as the Nicolaitans and I think.
You have probably heard. I suppose there's other ways of explaining it, but the word Nicolaitan means those that dominate the laity. It's really has been explained that perhaps it is the beginning of what was known as the clergy.
In one of the early churches it speaks of, I think it's Ephesus of the Deeds of the Nicolaitans.
I think it just happened that they just kind of left the activity in assembly meetings to just one or two or three or four brothers and the rest kind of just sat there and they weren't exercised.
And then what happens a little later it talks about.
The doctrine of the negotiations. So later on they kind of fitted a doctrine that would say now these folks up front here, they're the ones that can take part, but those back in the back, they should be quiet. That's.
Not fall into that. Let's enjoy the truth of God that we are all priests capacitated before God to OfferUp praise and prayer. Let's be exercised when we come into the presence of the living God. I realize that we all have the flesh in US. I've got it just as much as anybody, and I'm sure it must be evident at times to my brethren.
But, brethren, The thing is to be exercised.
The Holy Spirit of God is present, and He's here to guide us.
Into all truth, He's here to guide us in the praises of God's beloved Son. He is here to guide us in prayer. Going down just a little bit further in the chapter, we find in verse 14 then that He has perfected us forever.
In verse 17 it says their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
In this beautiful perhaps if you'd think, if you'd come into God's presence, that he would be thinking about your sins.
You might have reason to be quite fearful.
But we have a definite promise that he's not going to be thinking about that.
He doesn't say he forgets our sins because forgetfulness is a human weakness.
God isn't afflicted with human weakness.
He gives us a definite promise.
I will remember no more.
So he's not going to be thinking about that. Brethren, we all have things in our past that we remember, but God has promised not to remember again. And then he says verse 19 and this is so beautiful having therefore, brethren.
Boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
I love that word boldness. Not sure how to explain it even.
Still remember?
In the time that John F Kennedy was President of the United States.
He had a little son when he was in the White House. I don't know remember how old he was, but I remember he was.
Maybe eight or nine or ten, I don't remember exactly, but there was times when in the Oval Office, President Kennedy was had.
Visits from other important.
Presidents from other parts of the world.
And remember, one report is that sometimes when he was dealing with important matters of state.
The door of the Oval Office would open and in would run a little boy.
That was his father. He had liberty, he had boldness to enter and he used that.
Brethren, we are told that we have boldness to come.
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Let's use that boldness. Let's not be thinking that I don't quite make the grade when the brethren are together in a conference to stand up and pray that is not so.
Your brother and there sitting Barrett farther back have just as much liberty as those who are sitting farther forward, you young brothers.
Be exercised.
It's a real encouragement to those who are older when you understand that doesn't mean that you're going to replace the older brothers.
But we want to see you coming on in your exercise of your priesthood. It's a wonderful way for a young brother to start participating in public meetings. Is in prayer, is in praise.
So it says here in verse.
20 Buy a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. In other words, as we go into the holiest of all brethren, into the very presence of God, we should never forget the cost on one side, and on the other is that rent veil. And we think of what Jesus suffered, what He paid.
To make it all possible. So there's boldness, but it should be.
Holy boldness.
And then it says in verse 21 and having in high priest over the House of God.
Because you know a high priest, it says. I think it is in chapter 5.
Is for the weaknesses and infirmities of our flesh.
We got weaknesses and infirmities, everyone of us do sometimes.
We say things in prayer to God that are not quite correct.
I was somewhere not too long ago.
And.
I heard someone pray, he said. Thank you, God our Father, for.
Having died on the cross for us. Well, that's not exactly correct, is it? Wasn't God the Father that died? I think the Lord looks down and he sees the gratitude of the heart and that is acceptable to him. But for that purpose, he is a great high priest. We have a great high priest. So maybe your young brother is saying, well, I don't take part because I'm afraid I'm going to mess up. I'm going to make a mistake in my expressions.
We all make mistakes, don't let that impede you expressing your gratitude to God.
Oh, God wants that to be understood and little by little will understand those things and will correct them. But don't let that hinder you expressing your gratitude to God.
Say hymn that says to all our prayers and praises Christ, adds his sweet perfume and love. The sensor raises those orders to consume. In other words, He takes the expressions that we give to him that we offer Him. He corrects them, and He presents to God what is proper and pleasing to Him for that purpose.
We have a great high priest over the House of God and.
Comes the exhortation in verse 22. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
And our bodies washed with Pure water. There's the blood and there's the water.
So we have boldness, we are told to draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Sometimes put the illustration.
To the brethren in the South, supposing.
That the president.
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The United States invites us to a dinner and we say, well, I don't have very good clothes to come to such an occasion, he said. Well, I'm going to provide you with a whole outfit so you can be there at my table.
And so here comes the outfit and it's delivered to my house, and I put it all on and I go to be at the president's table at the time he indicates. What would the president think if I'd pick up my chair and drag it over into a corner and say, I'm just going to sit back here?
Say, what is wrong with you? Why are you doing such a thing? I've provided everything so you could sit down at my table. Why are you doing that?
Dear young people, some of you have not taken your place at the Lord's table. It's not a matter of meeting a certain standard, it's simply accepting what God has done for us.
In Christ to enjoy it in your soul. Oh, to realize that my acceptance before God.
In nothing does it depend on who I am or what I have done?
In everything, it depends on who he is, on what he has done.
May the Lord encourage us, brethren, that when we come together we would offer our bodies as living sacrifices, that we would be ready to be used. He puts on your heart a hymn of praise.
The Spirit of God is here and He will use those.
Who are ready to be used. It's not a matter I say again, a gift when it's prayers and praises. It's a matter of priesthood. Let this sink into your souls. These two verses verse 19 having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
Verse 22 Let us draw near with.
A true heart in full assurance of faith. Like to read a few verses in the second chapter of Romans. Share a few thoughts that Lord laid on my heart two days ago.
In connection with.
Being gathered to the Lord's name and going through many times of decision.
The difficulties of the path that come along and test us in our faith as a people who would seek to honor the Lord by gathering to his name alone, I have a full conviction in my own soul of.
Answering to that desire of the Lord that He is there.
But that path of testing, of being gathered to the Lords name?
Forces us to make decisions and judgment calls. We have to decide things that the Lord in His wisdom puts before us to test us. He loves us too much to let us go on unchecked when He sees needs in our pathway.
In the second chapter of Romans, and we're going to just read just a few verses there at the beginning.
I would like to take some of these verses and make an Application for us in our time.
It's well understood that these verses apply.
To Israel in a past time.
The first chapter being a God, setting aside as it were.
The people before the call of Abraham, because of their wickedness, they honored not God. Then God called the people to be in relationship with Him, and they had a name of and of being near the Lord and His representatives.
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And as we read these first few verses, what I want to call attention to is what was the criteria?
Or the judgment, the reason for the judgment of God.
Upon the Jews as his people.
It wasn't just that they made.
Bad choices. It wasn't that they decided wrong.
But.
They pretended to a place.
And did not make a fair assessment of others. They had a double standard. They judged other people for their ungodliness. And they didn't use the same rule, the same measure, the same judgment when it applied to themselves.
And this is what the Lord has laid on my heart, to seek to help ourselves to be honorable to the Lord.
As his people to not fall into this danger, let's just read a few verses here. Romans 2.
Therefore thou art inexcusable. Oh man, whosoever thou art that judges for wherein thou judgest another, they'll condemn us thyself. For that thou judge judges. Thou that judges do us the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
And thinkest thou this, O man, that judges them, which do such things?
And do us the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God, or despise this thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasure a step unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds.
Deeds to them who by patient continuance in well doing.
Seek for glory, honor and immortality. Eternal life.
But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of men that doeth evil, unto the Jew 1St and also unto the Gentile.
But glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good.
To the Jew 1St, and also to the Gentile, for there is no respect of persons with God.
I trust that reading these verses, we don't make an association with the people of God today in a way of comparing ourselves with them whom God set aside. My simple desire is to notice the criteria which God used to measure these people. The criteria being that.
They made a judgment call upon another people after they made that judgment call.
Then the issue was at stake. What about their own life?
You know, having passed through difficulties, sometimes the thought can come to our minds that, well, we've been through a time of difficulty and we made the right choices. By the grace of God, now we're good. Now we're fine.
I don't think that thought is right. And in connection with what we've had, yes, it is important to make the right judgment call, the right decisions.
It's difficult sometimes to know that we're told in Matthew, Judge not that you be not judged, but we're told in Corinthians that the Saints are going to judge the world. And how is it that they can't make a judgment in the littlest matter?
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This prophets to speak, and the others are to judge.
Well, from Matthew I would glean that.
If it's necessary to make a judgment call, we cannot do it in a sense of superiority as better. We cannot do it without first reflecting on ourselves and letting the Word of God cast out the beam in our own eye. We have one. Then we are conceived plainly to make a judgment.
And so sometimes it's difficult to know what to do in these decisions.
How to make the right decision? The Lord is able to give that.
But the burden of my heart is to.
Is.
Our attitude and our conduct. Our works.
After we've made the decision.
In this case, in Romans, we see very plainly that what God helped charge them with was they had, as it were, the wisdom to make a judgment call about other people, and they could denounce the evil that was in the world before them.
And testify against it. But then when it came to the practical walk afterwards and walking with God, there was a downfall. The works did not follow.
The obedience did not carry through, and they didn't see it.
They missed it.
May God keep us from that. Now I'd like to go back and quickly look at a story in the Old Testament. Before I do so, I want to tell a little domestic story that happened in a family.
That, I think might illustrate this point. There was a Christian family that was eating a meal together. And you know how sometimes the younger members of the family can.
Not show the right etiquette and respect and eating their food with their mouth open and talking while they're eating. And this family was eating their supper and the father turned to one of the daughters and said.
You're making too much noise chewing.
Well.
You can understand what happened immediately after that. There was a dead silence for a little while. Everybody stopped. You could hear a pin drop.
As that silence grew on a little longer, the father who had made the comment picks up his fork, took a bite of the salad, and started to chew on it. Brunch crunch.
Crunch.
And everybody burst out laughing.
When you make a judgment call.
You are at a vital point of importance. There's no time more important than that.
To be right.
Not just what you say, but what you practice.
This is the time. It isn't just to be able to make right decisions.
Brethren, when we have made the right decisions, it's so important.
That the works follow the obedience accompany.
If it does not accompany it.
It becomes more than ever noticeable.
Now let's go back to First Kings chapter 20.
We're just going to have time to briefly go over this story, not read it all.
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In First Kings chapter 20 we have a case.
Where Ahab, the king in wickedness, had gained a victory over the enemy Ben Haddad, the Lord had given him a great victory, and when he should have dedicated that wicked king to destruction.
When the king called him his brother.
He saved him alive when God would have had him destroyed. And so a prophet comes along to speak God's mind. And this is the part I want to read. God sent a man to testify against the king.
But before the prophet would speak against the king.
He manifested in his ways that he would be a one who was willing to take the judgment himself before pronouncing judgment on anybody else.
And so he asked his neighbor, his friend, to smite him. The first one refused and was was was judged by God because of refusing to obey the word of the Lord. The 2nd man did smite him as he was commanded to do, and then the prophet can go and fulfill his ministry.
Let's read just that part.
Verse 37 First Kings Chapter 20. Verse 37. Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, so that he in smiting he wounded him. So the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way, and disguised himself with ashes upon his face. And as the king passed by, he cried into the king, and said, And he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle. And behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man.
If by any means he'd be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay the talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king. Now notice this, the King's judgment. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be. Thou hast decided it.
And he the prophet, hastened and took the ashes away from his face. And the king of Israel discerned him, that he was the prophet of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people. And the King of Israel went to his house, heavy and displeased, and came to Samaria.
I believe we have here in this, in this picture of the of the prophet, the picture of the Lord Jesus, the one who was willing to be smitten, to take the judgment, to take the blame before he would go out and pronounce a judgment on anybody else or on this case, on the king.
But then when he put the same proposition before the king, he puts the scenario as he was, as if he were a man who had been in the battle. Maybe he had been.
And he was somebody was entrusted into his hands. And when he was careless, the man got away. Now he's asking the king for mercy. He's asking the king, will the king let this go? It was a test. The king had let one man go. He had made one judgment call because it was in his favor. But then when it came to somebody else, he made a judgment call and he let, he said the judgment would have to stand.
Double standard.
Displease God. And because he had failed at that point, he was set aside from being king. The point being brother.
When we are tested afterwards.
It is important that the works follow.
May the Lord help us to see this. This has been impressed on my soul just this week that.
We, those who seek to go on for the Lord, make the right decisions. It's important to make the right decisions, but there must be the works that go along with it, the confirmation of what we profess to be as the Lord's people here.
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The Lord looks down, and here we have some examples of how He decides on this, on these matters 256.
Especially thinking of verse four will sing the whole hymn. Keep us, Lord, oh, keep us cleaving to thyself, and still believing through the honor of our receiving promised joys with Thee.
Praise the Savior.
Jesus is our name that shines out.
You are all their kids and lives of snow dangerous and nothing harms us.
Why they trust me in you?
Oh Lord, is he, Ronald is your way to win.
We shall be praying for you.
Let me.
Submit your life, we should.
Open Mtg. 7
Open—D. Rule, L. Smith
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.
We sing #170.
Thy heavenly bright and spirit Jesus Lord, that Biddy come all the glory to inherit and to take thy people home. All creation travails grooms, so thou shalt come, 170.
Hello, He comes from heaven, descending for the.
Labor Sinner, slave.
Something big swollen cry. All of this dream.
All the rude.
Hallelujah, Jesus.
Come to reign.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
He was called and comes to rain.
Be the same.
Fear and the Saints by man rejected.
All the time.
Foolishness.
I can do it.
I will do.
I asleep.
It is thy heavenly brightness spirit.
Jesus, Lord, that dearly come.
On the glory to the parents.
When to play my people home?
All creation of all creatures and all creation.
All creates and all creates and progress grows. Till now shall come.
Yeah.
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Jesus converted.
Uncles uncor Jesus.
Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 35.
Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience.
That after ye have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come.
And will not tarry now. The just shall live by faith.
But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
But we are not of them who draw back under perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.
Chapter 11, Verse 7 By faith, Noah being warned of God, of things not yet seen, not seen as yet, moved with faith, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house.
Or say by faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he.
Should after receive.
Verse 9. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same prophet Promise.
Verse 11 Through faith also Sarah herself received strength.
Verse.
13 These all died in faith.
Verse 23. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw that he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the King's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was cometh of years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Verse 27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him.
Who is invisible?
Verse 29 By faith they pass through the Red Sea as by dry land.
Which the Egyptians are saying to do. Were drowned.
It's on my heart to.
In one sense, wrap up a little bit.
Of what we had in the Reading meetings yesterday.
Brethren, we live.
At I'm convinced, and I think you are too.
Near the end of the wilderness journey.
We sang this afternoon with joy. I trust the expectation of our Lord's return.
Not only for us, but to set things right in this world.
There's one thing that is extremely important for each one of us as we leave this room, perhaps for the last time in our lives. Who knows today?
As we live the rest of the little journey until the Lord comes.
We must live it by faith.
There's no other way.
The Children of Israel left in company together from the land of Egypt.
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And.
Of the male men over 20.
While there were hundreds of thousands of them that left Egypt, there were two only.
That landed all the way through the journey into the Promised Land. That doesn't mean there won't be many thousands of them in glory. But as to the walk of faith?
Only a handful really finished it. Well, there were many who.
Were born in the wilderness and also entered into the land. But in the Word of God, faith is largely looked at as a very individual thing. And the reason I read the verses in Hebrews 11 is not to take them up, but just to notice one point about them. Noah had his personal faith.
And he had it for himself and it was beneficial as well to his household.
Abraham had his individual faith.
And we see his son and his grandson mentioned in connection with it.
Even his wife, Sarah, needed to have her own individual faith.
I think the only occasion in the 11Th chapter where it's mentioned in a collective way is where we read in.
A verse.
29 It says by faith they passed through the Red Sea.
That was the beginning of the wilderness journey for that great company of people we know. The Red Sea speaks of the the work of Christ on the cross for us.
And its benefit to us. And in that way, perhaps we can embrace ourselves collectively as a company of faith. They all pass through. And in that sense, we've all we trust, we hope, pass through the Red Sea together in faith, and are on the journey to the Promised land for us.
But it's not easy, in fact.
It can be very discouraging and the difficulties of the way overtime tend to drag down the soul. And so I just like to look again at the verses where we started and as a way of exhortation from the Lord to us. He says in chapter 10, verse 35. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence.
I think that's a special verse in my wife's family because I think it was the last verse that Grace's father, on his hospital bed before he died, spoke to his wife.
Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense or reward. It's an important verse, and it's an important thought. Let's not, brethren, in the last little bit of the journey, castaway our confidence.
But notice verse 36, it says we have need of patience.
And it's a difficult thing to wait.
Especially when there's a tendency in waiting to be discouraged. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And that's a tendency for us if our hope that it is to have its place in our souls is not a living daily reality to us.
But there's a promise, isn't there verse 37 yet? A little while. He that shall come will come and will not tarry. We need to have confidence in God, in his promises that.
He really means what he says and that he will come.
And that he will not tarry. Verse 38. The just shall live by faith.
But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
We noticed yesterday in the reading meeting the tendency of some He was warning them, giving us an Object lesson of things that might cause us to draw back, or things that the Lord would not be pleased with us if we did. And here's can I say one more Don't draw back. Don't give up the path of faith.
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God is honored.
When he sees a soul in humbleness and humility going on with him, counting upon what he says.
So, he says, the just shall live by faith.
That's brought in here because it's really the introduction to the 11Th chapter. All these people in this 11Th chapter were people who lived, and that's the word you might put in bold in this connection, people who lived by faith. This verse is quoted three times in the New Testament. It's quoted in Romans chapter one. And the emphasis in Romans is being just.
And the emphasis and the use of the verse by the Spirit of God is the just.
Shall live by faith. It's also quoted. I think it's the third chapter of Galatians, where there was those who were believers, but they wanted to go back under the law and so there was the.
Contrast being made in Galatians between works.
And faith, and the emphasis in that place is faith.
The just shall live by faith, but here the emphasis is on living.
And we need that emphasis this afternoon. We need it for the rest of our days until the little while is up and the Lord calls us to Himself. The just shall live by faith. I want to go back with you. Some here have heard at least part of these remarks recently. But I want to go back with you to Habakkuk, where this verse comes from, and briefly look at that little short.
Book and apply it to ourselves this afternoon in connection with our wilderness.
Journey, you'll turn with me to the little book of Habakkuk, Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk.
Abacus is a prophet.
He lived and prophesied.
After the 10 tribes had been taken away out of the land because of the government of God on their unfaithfulness.
And he also came just a modest number of years before the two tribes were carried away by the Chaldeans into Babylon.
And so the day in which Habakkuk was called to live was right near the end of Israeli history, before God's government fell upon them to carry them away captive. And this little book is primarily a conversation between the Lord and Habakkuk.
It's this one servant of God who is interacting with his Lord and reflecting on the condition of things that his eyes saw and how he felt about them and how the Lord responded to him.
And so it begins in verse one of chapter one, the burden of Habakkuk the prophet did see Oh Lord. In other words, he looked around in what he saw caused him to turn to the Lord, and he starts to speak to the Lord and he says, oh Lord, before I go any farther, I just want to notice the middle of the book. We'll turn to chapter 2 and you'll notice in chapter 2.
Verse four, it says, Behold, his soul, which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith. There's one extra word given here that's worth noting and that is in the New Testament it says the just shall live by faith. But here in this little conversation between the Lord and Habakkuk, he says the just shall live by his.
It adds the word, his faith. Again, faith is a very individual exercise of confidence between the soul and God. I can't live by your faith and you can't live by mine. We each have to live by our own faith with our God. And so it is, you know, you can run with the crowd, you can do things together, but with God ultimately.
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You must have a personal.
Individual relationship with God.
That you live by your faith, not by the person next to you, not by the crowd of young people or older people or the gathering where you live.
But even if you are a husband, even if you are a wife, even if you are a young child, ultimately God and you must have an individual relationship.
Between you.
That involves faith.
Man's The beginning of all the history of failure in the world began when man lost his confidence, absolute faith in his God, and that led him into disobedience, into sin. It's the root cause of all failure, and it's the root cause of the failure of anybody in this room. St. you may be, but if you fail, it's a failure in your own relationship with God.
Having to do with faith.
And so.
Habakkuk starts to talk to the Lord, and he says, Lord, verse two, How long shall I cry? And wilt thou not hear, even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save. Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there are that raise up strife and contention.
Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment does not doth ever go forth, for the wicked doth compass about the righteous. Therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.
This Avox says Lord, I look around and.
It's sad, but I see.
He said. I see.
Iniquity.
Doug in the last meeting, and I'm going to add some things to what he said that the Lord is, I believe, said to me in the last few days.
He looks out and he says.
I see violence.
I see spoiling.
I don't see righteousness having its right place. I see strife and contention.
I'm really struck by this because.
Suppose Habakkuk could come to you for such a conversation.
Suppose between these meetings Habakkuk could come in the context of today, in which we live, and he started a little conversation with you.
And he says it's really a sad day in which we live and this is what I see and I'm discouraged by it.
I suppose the knee jerk reaction is what can I say to this brother to encourage him?
He needs encouragement. He's discouraged. He's cast down by what he sees around him.
Habakkuk says the law slacked. He says you've given us the law, but it's not doing the job.
It doesn't seem to change the people.
We we know what's right, we have the law, but we don't seem to live by it and so it doesn't seem to get good conclusions, Doug said. We have to make judgments sometimes and we do.
Avac here, he says.
Wrong judgment proceedeth.
Sometimes it seems like the wrong has the ascendancy or is corrupted by action and this is how he felt and I think he was right in how his judgments were right as far as it goes.
And so.
The Lord answers.
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Verse 5.
Behold ye among the heathen in regard and wonder marvelously, for I work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.
For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall March through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves, and so on.
Verse nine. They shall come all for violence.
One of the things that I have come to admire in my God in recent times is His honesty.
God deals with situations honestly, and if we go to God and we inquire of Him, we must be willing to listen to an honest answer. God's answer to Habakkuk was Habakkuk. Things are going to get worse.
Not exactly the answer we like to hear, but that's what we got in his honesty, says to Habakkuk, who comes to him burdened about what he sees. And he says, Habakkuk, things are going to get worse, not better.
There is going, he said. You might not believe it. That is, it was hard for Habakkuk to accept and God knew it. But he says Habakkuk, there's coming a people into this land that are just going to run right over it.
They're wicked, they're powerful. And you say you see violence and you say, why don't I do something?
We use the expression in the world when somebody is going to tell us something and they say do you want the good news first or the bad news? Well in this case, gods, you might say delivering to have a **** the bad news I am going to.
Bring my hand upon this land.
It was God's governmental hand.
And we don't like God's governmental hand. That is, naturally speaking, we don't.
We would like to find some other explanation for things that happen that avoid a recognition that the hand upon us is one of government, whether it's individually in our family, in the gathering among the Saints, or in the church at large.
Now, I'm not going to take the time. I would commend it to you as a personal meditation. There are some very profitable thoughts connected with the Chaldean who comes into the land.
It says.
After he came, he was an instrument of God's judgment upon the people. But after he got there.
He made an idol out of his own power.
So often is the case the coming Assyrian in the day of the tribulation will be the same. He comes and he's the instrument of God's hand. But he's raised up in his own pride and and he gets proud about his power. In fact, here he says he makes an idol of his own power. So it is with man in the flesh. God allows him to do something, allows him to.
Excel in something and the next thing you know it's his own idol that he has made.
Don't tune out.
For what I'm going to say next.
If it doesn't apply to you.
Then don't wear the shoe.
But if it does, I trust it will be a benefit to your soul.
Chapter 2, verse one.
I will stand upon my watch.
And set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me.
And what I shall answer when I am reproved.
Abbott had spoken to the Lord about what he saw.
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The Lord had responded to him.
Habakkuk had spoken again to the Lord. We didn't read the verses in the end of chapter one.
But after he does so, he stops and he says, as it were, now I'm going to stop.
And see what the Lord is going to say to me.
How he will, he says, reprove me.
I was talking to the Lord the other night.
Along this line of things.
And I'm going to share with you.
The Lord's reproof.
Again, I say if it doesn't apply to you, let it pass.
But take it seriously and see if your conscience is affected.
Maya the Lord brought. I believe it is of the Lord.
Some verses to me.
In Luke's Gospel.
Chapter 18.
When I spoke to the Lord.
And I trust was listening for his answer.
This is what came before my soul.
Luke, chapter 18.
To find the verse here.
Verse 10.
Two men went up into the temple to pray.
1A Pharisee and the other Republican.
They went to the right place.
They both addressed the right person.
Although it does tell us one of them prayed with himself.
I'm going to paraphrase it as the Lord applied it to my soul.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.
God.
I thank thee.
That I am not as other men are.
God, I thank Thee that we are not, as other Christians are in the camp.
Republican verse 13 standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God.
Be merciful to us, the sinners.
I didn't like that too much.
But when the Lord puts His hand in government upon his people.
There is a need to make right judgments.
There's also the need to make right self judgments.
And here's 2 judgments.
These two men make about themselves in God's temple.
The first one says, I thank thee that I'm not as other men are.
The second says God be merciful.
To me, the Sinner.
I was in the car during this conversation and I thought, well, what was the purpose?
I know this is applied in the gospel and so on, but why did this parable? Why was it given?
Back up. So when I got home I looked it up.
Verse 9.
He spake this parable unto certain, which trusted in themselves that they were righteous.
And despised others.
When I read Mr. Darby's translation, he spoke to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and made nothing at all of all of the rest of men.
Paraphrase in Christendom.
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He spoke to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, they were in the right.
They trusted in that.
They were confident in that.
And they made nothing at all of the rest of men.
I leave it to your conscience. Turn back with me to Habakkuk.
Chapter 2.
Verse two and the Lord answered me and said.
Write the vision and make it plain upon the tables that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is not yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry. Wait for it, because it shall surely come, it will not tarry.
Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him.
But the just shall live by his faith.
The Lord in answering Habakkuk.
Makes him look on beyond the present. But he also says, Habakkuk, you're going to have to wait for it. You're not going to have it now. You're not going to see it now. You must live by faith.
And he also reminds him in the same verse he says, the one whose soul is lifted up in him.
Verse 4 is not upright.
To humble thee.
To prove thee to see.
See what is in thine heart when the Lord puts his hand upon his people.
He humbles them and if the response is to separate and soul from others.
In heart from others with a sense of rightness or self rightness.
The Lord said to Habakkuk, his soul is not upright in him.
Solemn.
But the just shall live by his faith. He didn't say have a **** forget it, give it up, it's not worth it. It's not precious. Yes, it was precious to have a ****. He loved the people of God. He loved to be where the Lord's blessing was.
He valued it. That's why he had this conversation with the Lord.
But the Lord gives him an honest answer about it, to put him in his right place before the Lord, so that they could go on together in the circumstances in which He had allowed him to be, and in view of the Lord's government upon His people.
I'm not going to.
Go through the details when I leave time for others, but what follows in the next part of this chapter is the Lord then lets him see or gives him a right judgment about the oppressors.
So that he could look at them and have a right sense of them.
And what his ultimate judgment would be with respect to him. He pronounces certain woes that could be and were properly applied to those who were going to oppress the people. But I believe in those woes there was also.
A warning or Habakkuk to apply to his own soul in his own life in those circumstances. And so it is for us. One of them that he says to Habakkuk had to do with idolatry. We had that yesterday.
Danger for us in the journey of turning aside to idols. And we turn aside sometimes to idols when we get discouraged, when we don't think the Lord is doing for us what we want him to do for us and he doesn't seem to be prospering us in some way and so we get.
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Out of sorts and we say I've got to turn to something else. I have to be happy, I have to be satisfied, I've got to have something and we what it can turn out to be is a hearts are taken with an idol that takes us away.
Chapter 3, verse one.
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. So Habakkuk proceeds in his time with the Lord, and he turns to prayer. Good lesson, isn't it? Something we all need that when the matter gets.
To that point, we talk about it, we think about it, we speak to others about it, but ultimately, if we're like Habakkuk, we've got to get right along with the Lord about it in prayer. And that's what he does. And Habakkuk says to the Lord, Oh Lord, I've heard thy speech.
He listened what the Lord was saying to him, and he said I was afraid.
Pretty strong, isn't it? You talk to the Lord.
About what's a burden to you and the Lord answers you and the result makes you afraid. That's what it did with have a car. This is honest conversation, brethren. This isn't give me a nice word that will lift me up until tomorrow and then the circumstances back and I'm just as cast down as ever. The only way that we get through these things is really getting with God.
And having it out together. And that's where Habakkuk was. He wasn't going to stop. He was going to have it out to the end until there was a result between his soul and God.
Lord. So he says. Oh Lord, I've heard thy speech and I was afraid.
And his 1St result, desire is, O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of thy year, of the years in the midst of the years. Make it known she wanted a revival.
She wanted the Lord to come back in and do what He had.
Purposed in the beginning, he says, Lord, revive us, give us something back.
That's understandable.
I was reflecting.
On something that surprised me when I reflected on it.
Bob spoke yesterday about.
Recent things, recent, anything in the last 200 years is new in this country or old in this country, but new to other countries. And he spoke about Spain and so on.
I was young once.
I went to England one time when I was a young man.
And I visited among the Lord's gathered Saints there.
I think I was there three weeks with my wife and we didn't have all her kids yet.
And in that short span of time, we visited.
Half 2/3 of all the assemblies.
Saints gathered to the Lord's name with us in that country.
One of the last places we visited was a little town down on the Atlantic Ocean, a fishing harbor named St. Ives.
There's a little gathering there, man. I got to know a brother, William Stevens.
Man, I from that point to the end of his days, we corresponded. He really touched my heart and my soul.
And in my youth and in my.
Youthful enthusiasm or ignorance too.
I said, Brother Stevens, you know, we've been in England here a couple of weeks and I've looked around and boy, this country.
Some of the way the people dress, some of the lack of interest in spiritual things on the street in London and elsewhere.
And boy, there are not very many assemblies either.
He patiently listened till I had my say.
And he said Donald.
00:45:00
The Lord brought the truth here.
Before he brought it to your land.
We've had it longer.
And you see what's happened.
He said. You're just running behind us.
A few years.
Well, like the Lord said to Habakkuk, believe it or not.
Yeah, he was true.
Wouldn't have known it then, my youth.
You know there's.
Something that.
It's worth reflecting on.
I've lived and been associated with those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For over 25%.
Of the history of such.
There are some in this room. I would guess we have done so for over a third of the whole history.
And any.
Can I say mature reflection on it?
Will bring a conviction to the soul.
I believe that says God be merciful.
To us the sinners.
And Habakkuk in his prayer had to get to that with the Lord.
As the Lord wasn't going to change the direction things were going, Abbott Cook wanted a revival. It isn't that God doesn't give revivals, but we have to listen to what He does say to us.
And.
He goes on.
With the Lord and as he prays, the Lord, I believe, works in Habakkuk's heart to produce a result. That is my desire for all of us here this afternoon.
Tremendously important result after going through this whole exercise with the Lord instead of, you might say, ending it in discouragement. Let's see how it ends.
Verse 16.
When I heard, my belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice, rottenness entered my bones, and I trembled in myself that I might have rest in the day of trouble.
When he cometh up into the under the people and he will invade them with his troops.
She trembled.
He was in agony before the Lord.
But he said, Lord, if it's coming, how can I have rest in the day of trouble?
How can I go on in peace in my soul?
In a day of trouble.
We can apply this by applying it particularly to the Assembly, but it can be applied to us in our individual personal experiences of life or in the circumstances of our families.
As well as the assembly. And sometimes the Lord allows in His ways the day of trouble.
To come.
And Havoc says to the Lord, how can I have peace and rest in my soul?
And I believe he did. There wasn't. Many years later, I assume he was still living. I don't know that they were invaded, that they were cast out of the land, that the government of God had its way with them. And if he was there, I have no doubt that Hezekiah, at least as an individual, went through it with rest.
In his soul.
The secret is found in the last three verses, he says.
Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall the fruit be in the vines. The labor of the olive shall fail, and the flock shall yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Oh, he says. I don't know how to use anything but today's slang. If everything goes to pot, if it all falls apart and there's no fruit for God in it, as it were.
00:50:10
He says I'm not going to trust him that that is not going to be the criteria that I'm going to live by. He says verse 18 Yet in spite of all that, I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will joy in the God of my salvation. God says if you lay hold of me by faith, you will find a joy that nothing.
Nothing can separate between you, brethren. God wants us.
To have a relationship with himself that no matter what happens, no matter how his government falls or doesn't.
That we can look to him and say, I will joy in my God.
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
The Lord is my strength.
Notice that parable in Luke 18 trusted in themselves.
Trusted in their own rightness and righteousness.
And I'm going to say no peace.
In the soul.
But here this dear man of God had looked through the whole matter and turned from everything, if you will.
Yes, he starts, discouraged.
Things are even worse when God's honest with him and he sees what God has to say about the matter.
But he goes through it, he prays, he gets into the presence of the Lord, and the Lord says to him.
He says in the end, the Lord is my strength. He will make my feet like Heinz feet.
What are Heinz feet? I don't know if you saw my grandson, somebody probably did over in the gym. He's got Hinds feet. He dances around with joy as he goes along playing. That's just his nature. I thank God for it, dancing around as it were on Hinds feet. Oh brethren, you and I can go from this room and go on in that little while and patient waiting for the Lord with hindspeed.
No matter what.
If our relationship with the Lord is honest and true, that we.
As he says, he make, he will make. I can't do it for myself. He has to do it. But he will. He will make my feet like Heinz feet. He will make me walk upon high places.
And he ends, you know it, it's enough, he says to the chief singer on my stringed instruments. It, you might say, it takes him right into the place when you're really happy. If any man's happy, let him sing and he ends up in that state of joy.
That produces Thanksgiving and praise.
And I trust worship, and so can it be with us.
If we follow Hezekiah's path, brethren, I wonder if we could sing together 135. I don't want to cut off a brother, give opportunity to further word, but I'd like to sing this together before and rise and sing 135.
So sorry.
00:55:36
#8.
Jesus Grace.
We are straight from his face.
I will bring our first.
Psalm 45.
We've had in First Corinthians 10.
Some of those testings in the wilderness.
And as we read in Deuteronomy about.
Him leading.
Across the wilderness, suffering them to hunger.
We couldn't help but think of our Lord Jesus Christ in the temptation in the wilderness.
We know it well.
Where?
It says after 40 days.
He was in hunger.
And Satan came and.
Tried to get him to step out of the place of being a dependent man.
We've mentioned, I think in the meetings, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, and we know those things are.
Obvious in the temptation in the wilderness that our blessed Lord Jesus.
Went through.
This made me think of this song.
We don't have time for the whole Psalm. We'll turn to verse two. Thou art fairer.
Than the children of men.
We've had something of them in the testing of those.
Whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?
There some of the children of men.
Habakkuk was one of the children of men.
What a refuge.
The Lord Himself.
But thou art fairer than the children of men, Grace.
Is poured into thy lips.
Therefore God hath blessed thee forever.
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, almost mighty with thy glory and thy majesty, and in thy majesty ride prosperously.
Because of truth.
And meekness.
And righteousness.
01:00:02
And thy right hand shall teach the terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee.
Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of thy Kingdom is the right scepter.
Now love of righteousness and heedest wickedness. Therefore God, thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness.
Above thy fellows.
Each one of us that sit here this afternoon who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we're his fellows. Isn't that wonderful?
And there is this wonderful person, this outstanding man.
Who knew full well what it was to be in the wilderness?
And to be hungry.
And yet remain a dependent man.
In thy majesty, verse four, write prosperously. Think of these reasons because.
Of truth.
And meekness.
And righteousness.
The world.
Really despises those things.
Someone said honesty because it's good policy is not true honesty.
But the Lord Jesus.
Who wants to be all to your heart and mind?
He said in all of its power, I am the way, the truth and the life.
What a man to fill our hearts.
We've had before us Philippians 2.
His taking the servant's place.
Coming in the likeness of men.
Becoming subject to death.
The death of the Cross.
Satan had held out in the wilderness that temptation. Look at all the kingdoms of the world.
All this will I give thee of falling down. Thou worship me.
It is written.
Think of the contentment Habakkuk's heart as he thought of what the Lord told him.
He had something for his soul.
That went beyond.
The present.
And you and I.
Have the Lord Himself.
To go beyond the present.
To see that which is invisible.
To find deliverance.
From the things that are seen.
Jesus.
Went to the very bottom.
Who confessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate?
What a sight is that lovely man.
I couldn't help but think with this.
Him we've sung and what our brother Ruhl mentioned. Psalm 43.
Psalm 43 and verse 4.
Says God.
My exceeding joy.
Romans 5 and verse 11 is it that says.
We joy in God.
Will never go higher in eternity.
01:05:00
And we can have it now. We do have it now.
It's one thing to enjoy about what he can do, what he's created.
Or what have you, but enjoy himself. We joy in God.
Let's go back to First Corinthians 10.
Well, the time is gone, but I would like to refer and maybe it was mentioned Romans chapter 12.
We've had before us in Hebrews 10.
A body has thou prepared me.
Could we apply it?
That's true of Maine.
I have a body. He prepared me.
It's not as young as a lot of yours.
But each one of us has that body. He prepared us.
And here it says, I beseech you therefore, brethren.
You know, the preceding part of Hebrews shows how you're delivered from your guilt, you're delivered from sin, the root. You're brought to walk in the Spirit what he's going to do with Israel. He's not going to negate any of his promises to his earthly people.
And then he says therefore.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God or the compassions of God.
That you present.
Your body that he's prepared you.
A living.
Sacrifice.
Holy.
Acceptable unto God.
What am I listening to?
What am I seeing?
Is it acceptable unto God?
Which is your reasonable or intelligent service?
Jesus has left us.
Supreme example as well as.
Peerless object.
Our hearts, we have great reason to joy in our God #23.
How good is the God we adore?
Oh goodness.
#247 two 4/7 rather short before we go. That's my word. We can't be smoking right And peace on all we stole and we join the world again. May our hearts for three remain. Will direct this and protect.
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People want no more 247.
Gospel
Gospel—C. Hendricks
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Starting the Gospel Meeting, let's sing #32.
What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
So that not one spot remains nothing but the blood of Jesus. So precious is the flow. It makes me white as snow, no other fountain. I know nothing but the blood of Jesus #32 What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
So that not one spot remains nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh precious is before.
That makes me white and small.
No other.
Times I know.
My cleansing this, my plea. Nothing like the Bloody Jesus.
Oh gracious.
That makes me quiet at all.
No longer.
I know.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
No mother found by No, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
It is a sense of my own grandparents, nothing but the blood.
Jesus spread all my righteousness.
Nothing like the bloody silence.
Oh, Christmas.
That makes me wind up.
Laughter outside. No, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I have asked maybe some of you have done the same to different persons and say.
How can you get to heaven?
Now usually the answer is by keeping the 10 commandments.
And then I would say to, you know, them.
And very few know them. I wonder if you all know them, but I'm going to read them just to show how virtually impossible it is for us to keep the 10 commandments. There's been a lot of ado in our country over the 10 commandments being taken down in certain places.
For myself, I would, rather than the 10 commandments being put up, John 316 being put up.
That for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, That's the gospel, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. But the 10 commandments is not good news.
Unless you keep it perfectly.
And God spake all these words. I'm reading Exodus 20 if you want to look it up. Verse one God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of *******. Now here's the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me that will that would out, that would rule out.
00:05:24
The large majority of the people who who planet Earth.
They have other gods. They worship in India and in Muslim lands and that they have other gods. But this one who says me, he's the true God, he's the one that gave this to Moses and he will not tolerate, He will not stand.
Any that worship another God but himself, for he alone is the true God.
That's the first commandment.
And then he says in verse two. In verse 4 the 2nd commandment, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the 3rd and 4th generation of them that hate me.
And showing mercy under thousands of them that love me and keep my.
Commandments. There are 1,000,000 on planet earth that have false gods.
Some churches, quite a few of them, have images that they have made and they break the second commandment.
Bow down to an image that's made by human hands. You cannot make an image of the true God.
Verse 7 gives us the third commandment. I wonder if there's anyone in this room that hasn't violated this commandment. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Have you ever done that? I have done that many times before I was saved.
And maybe even sometimes after, I don't know. But the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. First three commandments condemns us all.
And then the 4th commandment remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work, but the 7th day is the Sabbath. That's Saturday.
And the Lord and thy God in it Thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor any stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord may heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, And rest of the 7th day, Therefore the Lord bless that day the Sabbath day in hell who did.
4th commandment is keep the Sabbath.
How many Americans have kept the Sabbath?
Very few have you. You kept the Sabbath. Have you refrained from doing any work on Saturday?
I can't. I can't say I've kept that, but because I'm not under the law. But I just want to show you the folly of saying that you're going to get to heaven by keeping the 10 commandments. These first four have all been broken. How about the fifth one? Honor thy father and thy mother. That thy days may be long upon the earth. It's the only commandment that has a promise to it. If you honor your father and the mother, you'll have long days. You'll live long.
That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. That's the 5th commandment.
How many have done that? Anyone here can raise your hand if you've always honored your father and mother.
You know you haven't. I know I haven't.
And then the 6th Commandment, Thou shalt not kill I I can raise my hand on that. I haven't killed anyone. So you've passed one of the six.
And then thou shalt not commit adultery.
I hope there isn't anyone in this room that has done that. It's possible you might be guilty of that.
How about this one? Thou shalt not steal. I'll never forget when I was a boy, not raised as a Christian at all. I wasn't saved till I was 19 in college.
And but I had a conscience, and I remember there was a toy on the.
On the shelf in the gift shop. And I wanted that so much. I took it. I stole it.
00:10:06
Should not steal, but it bothered me so much that I brought it back. It only cost me 1/4 back then. That might have been several dollars today, but it bothered me how many of you have never stolen.
Be honest about it. You've never stolen anything.
All right.
Now how about this one? The next command is thou shalt not bear false witness. That means you're not to lie. You ever lie.
Ask you maybe have just lied when you said I never stole anything.
I would have.
Shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor, and the last one slays us all, no question about it. Thou shalt not covet.
What does that mean? Desire something that is not yours? You. You're at home and you see this boy come up with a brand new bicycle or the neighbor come up with a brand new car. Oh, I'd love to have that. That's coveting.
That's coveting.
I shall not covet thy neighbor's house, a neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox or his *** or anything that is thy neighbors. 10 commandments. I wouldn't want to post that one out, and as though I kept it 10 commandments.
No, but this is the law. This is the law, and it slays every single one of us.
Doesn't matter what religion one is of or what part of the world one lives in, but it condemns us all.
But we were singing about something that puts our sins away. The Precious Blood of Jesus now turn to Galatians chapter one.
Galatians chapter one.
Wonderful epistle.
Because the answer that I'm often given most of the time how do you get to heaven? By keeping the law. I just read you the law.
They don't even know what the law is. But I just read it to you. Now you know what it is. You want to check it up. Exodus 20.
But the Epistle to the Galatians is an epistle that was written to show the serious error of putting early Christians under law.
Very serious.
The reason why people like the law, I've just read them, is because it gives us something to do which if I do it, I obey it, then I I have that to put put to my account and that will help me get into heaven.
But what if I don't obey it and we saw that we don't?
And it's really impossible for the natural man to keep those commands as good as they were. Nothing wrong with the law. The law is perfect, just the holy. But man is sinful.
He's not capable of keeping that holy law, so God sent his son.
Into a world of sin. Before I go into that, I want to quote again.
The scripture that reads just before the flood came, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.
And that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And God said, I will destroy man from off the face of the earth. And he did it with the exception of seven souls. Noah, his wife to death, his three sons and their three wives, 7 souls. He built an ark by the command of God and that was that which rescued them. Just think this whole planet earth was reduced. It started out with two people, Adam and Eve, man and woman. And then?
They had children and so on, and people the earth. But then at the time of Noah things had gotten so bad, man was so wicked, God looked down from heaven to sea. I'm quoting the Psalm 14. God would run from heaven to see if there were any that understood that did walk after God keep his commandments, and he said there was none.
Not one so on the ground of keeping the law. Remember talking to my Catholic instructor in college and we got into this discussion. I was explaining to him grace. Grace is the goodness of God forgiving man when he accepts the provision that God has made to put his sins away. And that's the descending of his beloved Son who shed his precious blood to put all our sins away.
00:15:24
That's grace. Wonderful grace, But it doesn't give us a thing to do, simply something to believe. And I explained grace to him, and he said, I don't like that I want to do my part. And that's why people don't like grace, because it gives them nothing to do except to own that they're sinners, and it's impossible for them to gain the favor of God based upon their works.
The law is works. The law is the opposite of grace, and works is the opposite of faith. Grace and faith go together, and works and law go together. You can't have both. Works in law condemn us.
Grace and faith save us when we believe that simple gospel.
God has put man under the test for 4000 years and then he sent his son.
And now it's been almost 6000. The last two has been the day of grace.
When God is spreading forth the wonderful gospel good news it means.
That he has made provision for man House, no matter how sinful he was.
If I had read a little bit farther in Exodus 20, I would have read the people were terrified when they heard the law and there was Thunder and lightnings and God was in thick darkness. And that's what see God had not revealed himself then the law doesn't reveal God. The law tells man what he ought to do or not do if he's going to get to heaven by works.
But he doesn't pass that test. Not even close.
I think of 10. I read. Maybe one of them I shall not kill. You can say I never kill anyone. He might pass that. That's about the only one.
But on that ground, we're condemned. Everyone of us.
Is there all the false religions that don't have Jesus and his shed blood on the cross?
The provision that the true and living God has made by sending his beloved Son into this world? They don't have him. They won't even speak of him. He's condemned and cast out. Their religion denies him. They're all lost.
They have a kind of a law, something that they do in their religious activities.
But it's not grace.
Galatians is grace, not law.
And the only way we can be saved is by accepting God's way. There's two ways to get to heaven. One is by keeping the law, and we all fail. We can't get there that way, the others by grace.
Now let's read the Epistle to the Galatians chapter one, Paul an apostle.
Excuse me?
Paul, an apostle not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.
And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia I should mention this. I think just about everyone in this room knows this, that Paul was the greatest opponent to Christianity ever.
He was Saul of Tarsus and the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. He.
He revealed himself through Saul.
And he became the greatest defender of the faith. He become a became an apostle not of man, neither by man. Man had nothing to do with Paul's apostleship that came directly from the Lord Jesus. He was an apostle by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.
And all the brethren which are with me under the churches of Galatia, grace be to you. Oh, that's a wonderful word, if you understand it. Grace is God good, God's goodness, flowing out to us when we deserve none of it. We haven't done anything to earn it. We can't earn it by our own works.
The proof of it is the 10 commandments. That's the perfect measure that man has to follow and to to obey in order to gain God's favor.
00:20:05
And we saw that that condemns us all. So the only alternative to that is Greece.
And there's not a religion in the world outside of Christianity that knows what grace is.
They're all under some kind of a law.
I was raised in Wilmette. The Bahai Temple is there in the harbor, and there's nine sides to it. They all, they reproduce. Nine sides represent all the religions of the world. One of them is Christianity, one of them is Judaism. One of them is Islam and and by high and all these different religions.
But Christianity is not a religion. Really, Christianity is the revelation of a person.
Not something to do. Religion is something to do.
Christianity is something that has been done by another who is perfect, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He shed His precious blood to cleanse our sins away and make us fit for heaven.
Grace has done that for you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.
That we, through his poverty, might be made rich. He took our place on that cross.
And paid what we could never pay.
Be to you and peace from God the Father, the only way you can give peace before God the eternal God, that first God in the first commandment said, Thou shalt have no other gods but me. He's a jealous God. He won't tolerate any rivals.
And he's the one that sent his son.
The True God.
Grace be to you in peace from God the Father.
And from our Lord Jesus Christ, Father and the Son who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Now that's the introduction to this epistle. And notice the change in verse six, he says. I marvel.
That ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.
Which is not another.
But there would be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Another gospel, another gospel, is something for man to do. It denies the true character of man, denies his sinfulness proven by the law.
He said. I marvel that you are so soon removed. You see, these legalizers had come amongst them. These were Gentiles and the and the legalizers were the Jews, and they came amongst them and tried to put these Gentile believers under law.
There, the Jews who were under law in the Old Testament, I just read the law to you. They had to realize that.
That will only kill condemned me.
And they were trying to.
Put the Gentiles under law. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that calls you into the grace of Christ.
Unto another gospel which is not another or not a different one.
A different gospel, but there would be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
That's what the legalizers, the Jews, and this floods Christendom today.
Principle of law, Principle of works. Principle of doing something in order to gain God's favor. That's the principle of law.
But though we now listen how strongly the apostle Paul condemns it, I can't use words stronger than these to condemn what they had fallen into, by allowing these legalizers to put them under law and take them off the ground of grace, though we he says. Or an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, that we as the apostles let him be accursed.
Read that again. Though we are an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let it be a curse. So anyone who preaches a so-called gospel, which is a different thing, not the real gospel, There is no real gospel outside of the grace of God.
He says let him be accursed. What does that mean? Let him be damned.
00:25:06
To put it in stronger words, let him go to hell.
You can't read stronger words. Let him be a curse, then he says. Even an Angel from heaven.
Come and preach a different gospel than he had preached to them, by which they had gotten saved.
And now they're listening to this other voice, and that other voice says, you have to do something, you have to get circumcised, you have to keep the law in some way.
As we said before, so say I Now again, if any man preach under, preach any other gospel unto you, then that ye have received, let him be accursed. He had preached to them, and they'd listened to it, and they heard it. And the way they got to be Christians was they received it by faith. They received that gospel that he had preached. He says, I'm AI marvel that you're so soon removed from that false different.
Gospel. It's not a gospel at all.
For I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of Maine is not after man. He did not receive that gospel. In fact, he was the one that was the most opposed to the gospel of the grace of God before he got saved on the road to Damascus.
He was the greatest opponent.
To the true gospel. But he got saved. I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me, the good news, that's what gospel means. The glad tidings, the good news, the news that God and his goodness has provided a way for man and his sinfulness to get rid of all his sins and be cleansed of them and to be saved. And then he's in a state by which I will bring him to heaven.
I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. He didn't hear it from any man. He didn't hear it from another apostle. Who did he hear it from? For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it. He didn't go to some theological seminary and get taught that they would never teach that truth. They would always teach that you have to do something in order to merit heaven.
Neither was I taught it. But how did he get it? By the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus revealed to the to Saul of Tarsus, who was the greatest opponent and destroyer of the gospel message, that that that could be found. He received a revelation from God and that's how he got saved. He got it from the Lord Jesus, the one who bore his sins on the cross and put them away.
I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
For you have heard of my conversation, my manner of life and time passed in the Jews religion. That's what he was. He was a Jew and he was an Abbot defender of Judaism and the law of the 10 commandments. How that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it. It was his purpose to destroy this new religion.
So they called it and I profit in the in profited in the Jews religion above many my equals.
In my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my father's.
He was the greatest opponent and destroyer of the gospel of God's grace of any.
But when it pleased God.
Who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace.
To reveal his son in me.
That I might preach him among the heathen.
Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.
Neither went I up to Jerusalem. To them which were apostles before me. He didn't get this message from any man on earth.
But I went into Arabia and returned again into Damascus, and after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him 15 days. He was an apostle. But other of the apostles saw I none save James, the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold before God I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Celestia, and was unknown by face under the churches of Judea, which were in Christ.
But they had heard only that he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.
00:30:03
And they glorified God in me, the greatest destroyer of Christianity was the greatest defender of it after he'd gotten converted when he went from law to grace. And he's the one that says, I marvel that you heard my gospel, God's gospel, and believed it and became Christians because of it. Now you've turned your ear to a different gospel, another gospel.
One which even an Angel from heaven, if he proclaimed it, let him be accursed, he says, And that which you believed, let the one that caused you to believe a false gospel be a curse.
Then 14 years after, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me. Also just quickly let me go over Paul's conversion a little. Acts 9.
He was on his way to Damascus with letters from the priest, to bind all that called upon the name of Jesus, and destroy them, or to jail them whatever, And on the way a light brighter than the noonday sunshine, and a voice from heaven. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Who art thou, Lord? I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.
Think of what it took. Think of the change that took place in Saul's soul when he realized I've been fighting against the true God.
God revealed himself to Saul of Tarsus. He revealed himself to me as a freshman in college.
He revealed himself to you someplace, sometime in your life. He reveals himself to us to know that he's the God of all grace, the God who provided a Savior in his beloved Son.
Well, Saul of Tarsus was blind for three days, and they had to lead him the boat.
And then skills fell off and he was used vitally of God.
You can read the account in Acts 20 acts earlier than that.
Not 20.
Verse 20 verse two, chapter 2 I went up by Revelation.
And I communicated unto them that got the gospel which I preached among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, which by any means should I run, or had run in vain.
Those that later became his friends were.
Very much questioning.
This it seemed to them different gospel. Gospel of grace, not law.
But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. When Paul went to Jerusalem, he had Titus, but he didn't make him circumcised. They were trying to get these Gentiles circumcised.
So that that would raise them to their level. They thought that the Jewish level was higher than that of the Gentiles.
And actually, the Jewish religion was the greatest opponent to the truth.
Still is.
It still is. They have not repented.
The Jew has not repented of what it did to God's son.
Neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, and that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus. Isn't it wonderful? The gospel of God's grace is a gospel of liberty, sets us free from our sins, makes us acceptable to God without any works of our own, but only by the work of Christ and the cross.
And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spout our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into ******* by putting us under law, the Gentiles under law.
To whom we gave place by subjection? No, not for an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
But of these, Paul says, who seem to be somewhat those that were high up in the ladder of Judaism. Whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me. God accepteth no man's person. He was one of them before, but now he'd been delivered from that. For they, who seemed to be somewhat in conference, added nothing to me.
00:35:09
But contrary wise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter.
For he that wrought effectually impeded to the apostleship of the Circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.
And when James, Cephas, and John, three of the chief apostles, who seemed to be somewhat perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave to me in Barnabas it was his fellow worker, the right hands of fellowship, that we should go to the heathen to the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision to the Jews. Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to do. Now notice this verse 11 But when Peter was come to Antioch.
I was stood into the face.
Now let me back up a minute to Acts Chapter 15.
To show that Peter should have known better in Acts chapter 15.
Peter says.
When there had been much disputing, 15 Seven Peter rose up, and said unto their men and brethren, you see these Judaizers, we're trying to put the Gentiles under law. And he rose up and said unto their men and brethren, We know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth that was back in the second chapter of Acts, should hear the word of the gospel and believe, And God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost.
Even as he did unto us a tremendous gift, God the Holy Ghost takes up his abode in every one of us who believe the gospel. It's a He's in every one of us dwells in your body.
Think of that. How often do we think of that as we go through the day that the Spirit of God dwells within me?
God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, us Jews in Acts 2.
And these Gentiles in Acts 10.
Now therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? They could never keep the law that was a that was a ******* but we believe. Now notice how he puts it. No Jew would put it this way, but he's speaking as a Gentile, as as a Christian. Here we believe, we Christians believe, that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. We Jews shall be saved, even as they.
As a Jew, he never would have said it that way. He would have said they shall be saved even as weak because they always put the Jews on top.
Of the latter of importance in religion, but he says.
We do shall be saved, even as they amazing the Gentiles were saved simply by keeping by not keeping anything, but by believing the Gospel. Now let's go back to Galatians 2.
Verse 12 Before that certain came from James.
He did eat with the Gentiles.
Peter.
Ate with the Gentiles, but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself.
Fearing them, which were of the circumcision, that's the Jews. His Jews came up from Jerusalem.
To that place where Peter was, and up to that point Peter it with the Gentiles.
Now he would never do that as a Jew, but as a Christian, yes, and the other Jews dissembled, likewise with him.
No, no, let me go back to verse 12. He did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come, that is, these Judaizers from Jerusalem, these lawkeepers, he withdrew and separated himself. Peter did.
Fearing them which were of the circumcision, the fear of man bringeth A snare, and the fear of man brought Peter to separate himself from these Gentiles that he was eating with, and just to go back to the Jewish table.
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas, even Barnabas also who was carried away, was with their dissimulation.
But when I saw that they walked out uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter, Here you have one apostle, the apostle Paul, rebuking publicly the apostle Peter public rebuke.
00:40:00
I said to Peter before the mall public, not a private thing. If thou, being a Jew, littest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compel us, thou the Gentiles, to let us do the Jews? You see, by him leaving the Gentile table and going to the kosher table, the Jewish table, he was, he was saying that this is, this is a table of a higher character, And if they want to be on that ground, these Gentiles have to come over here.
Totally denying. But what he was doing, the truth of the gospel of God's grace.
Whether you're Jew or a Gentile doesn't make you one whit. Better Gentiles aren't better than the Jews. The Jews aren't better than the Gentiles.
When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before the Mall, If thou, being a Jew, move a step to the manner of Gentiles, and not, as do the Jews, why compel us now the Gentiles who live, as do the Jews, we who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law?
But by the faith of Jesus Christ, you know it justified, made righteous by doing anything, keeping the law. The law is perfect. Nothing wrong with it. But that's not the way you get justified, because you don't keep it any way you break it.
But how do you get justified by the faith of Jesus Christ? Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we that we Jews have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law.
For by the works of the law shall no flesh be testified. So any any religious group, even today that says in any way that you have to keep the law.
Does not justify you, condemns you because that puts the the onus of responsibility on you. You have to do something. As by college confessors, Professor said, when I explained Grace, you don't do anything. God does it all, he said. I don't like that I want to do my part. And why does he want to do his part? Because of the greatest sin that man commits, and that's pride.
Pride is the greatest thing we'll ever commit, because that makes something of us.
As though we're better.
By works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Verse 17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, that's these Jews. We ourselves also are found sinners. If they put sinners, they put themselves under law, they'll come out as a Sinner.
One or many of those laws they break.
That brands them as sinners, as lust is therefore Christ the minister of sin? Are you going to put law keeping and Christ together as though he is the one that is ministering this, that condemns you? No.
God forbid.
If I build again the things which I destroy and make myself a transgressor.
For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
Verse 20 is such a precious verse. Many of us know it by heart. I am crucified with Christ.
All that I was, and all my sins and wretchedness, I am crucified with Him when he was crucified, when he went to the cross, when he bare my sins and and and and got the punishment that my sins deserved.
He says I'm crucified with Christ. The end of Maine is ended.
Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, so every Christian has Christ living in him.
He's not come into God's favor by keeping the law.
And the life which I now live in the flesh.
I live by the faith of the Son of God, the faith which rests upon him.
The Son of God.
The faith which has the Son of God is its object. Nothing for me to do.
For you to do simply to believe I'm the Son of God.
That faith which unites you with him.
The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Can you look away from wretched self if you've been trying to do something to climb some ladder?
We had before us this afternoon The just shall live by faith. I'm not positive that this story is is a fully true one, but I think it is. Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic priest and he was under law as that system puts everyone under law, and he was climbing a ladder.
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Trying to get to heaven. He's doing it on his sleeve. Climbing some stairs, doing it on his knees. So that was some works you got to do, some works got to do something in order to make yourself acceptable to God.
And as he was claiming it, the Spirit of God said to him, the justice shall live by faith.
And the Spirit of God brought that truth home to his soul.
And he was a changed man. He got up off his knees, walked down, and he was a saved man. The just shall live by faith, not by works, not by law keeping, but by faith.
The grace of God comes in and saves us when we do nothing but accept him. The hardest thing for man to do is to admit that he's lost, that he's wretched, undone. God looked down from heaven upon man to see if there were any that that obeyed him. Not one, not one.
Man doesn't like to admit that.
Pride is the last thing to die in, man.
Pride is something that is filled with self.
When we come to the end of ourselves and Christ is there.
To pick up what's ever left of that poor wretched man and make a new creature out of him, forgive him all his sins and set him on the way to heaven. That's grace.
And you get you get a hold of that by faith.
The just shall live by faith.
Romans It's the just the one that's counted righteous before God lives by faith in the Galatians 3.
Verse 11 But that no man is justified by the law, on the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall live by.
Faith, faith in contrast with works. So in Galatians it's faith that should be emphasized. In Romans it was a just now faith. And then we saw in Hebrews it's the life of faith just shall live.
By faith we get saved by faith, and then we live by faith.
Everything that we do is faith, is relating everything to the one that saved us.
What is Thy will? The Blessed Lord would be the greatest example of a life of faith. He did everything in dependence and in obedience too, as the perfect servant to his father.
My meat, he said, is to do the will of him that sent me to finish his work. Perfect obedience. He's the only man that ever did that. He's the only man that ever always obeyed.
Now he wants us to be like him. He wants us to receive that new life. That's why, Paul says, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ to a different gospel, another gospel which is not a different one.
Wicked gospel work. Gospel of works. That's not the gospel. That's not good news. Terrible ******* which can only condemn us.
I'm going to read that again, verse 20, So beautiful I'm crucified with Christ. That is all the evil that I was.
In all my wretchedness, nevertheless I live crucified with Christ.
Yet not I, but Christ live within me.
The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith.
Of the Son of God faith, which which has the Son of God as its object. I have a new faith now, a new object before my soul.
Son of God, who loved me.
He gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God.
For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. He didn't have to die. If you can do it on your own, by your own, by your own works, if you can make yourself fit for heaven, Christ didn't have to come. He didn't have to die. He didn't have to suffer. His precious blood didn't have to be applied to you. You did it yourself. That's impossible. We went through the 10 commandments and saw how impossible it was for men on that ground.
To become acceptable to God. Well, these Judaizers say all they wanted to do was to get the Gentiles to get circumcised. That would that would make them as as good as the Jews they looked upon themselves as a notch above.
00:50:03
If you look at the 5th chapter for a moment, turn to the fifth chapter if you have your Bible open.
We asked the question, he says.
In verse 19 he says, chapter 4, Excuse me, chapter 419, My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. I desire to be present with you now and to change my mind, for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, he the desire to be under the law. Do you not hear the law? For it is written to Abraham had two sons, one by a bond made, the other by a free woman, and so on.
But that's not what I wanted to read. I wanted to read in the 5th chapter, Verse 12, chapter 5. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, that's the Judaizers. They constrain you, you Gentiles, to be circumcised. All they wanted them to do. Just get circumcised that will, and you'll have something you can boast up. You're different from your other Gentiles. You're circumcised Gentile.
As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
The Jews persecuted the Christians mercilessly because they were not circumcised, as the Jews were, who were above them, so to speak.
For neither they themselves, who are circumcised, keep the law. We had our brother Speaking of that, who applies something to others and condemns them for it, and they're condemned by the very thing that they're using to condemn the others.
They neither they themselves who are circumcised, that's the Jew keep the law. They didn't keep the law any better than the Gentiles. They ignored that, but it condemned them, didn't condemn the Gentiles because they weren't under it. Gentiles were never put under the law. But now these Judaizers are trying to put the early Christians under law because they figured that their religion, Judaism, which was a system of works.
Under law was the right thing. It wasn't.
Neither. They themselves, who are circumcised, keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised. Why, that they make glory in your flesh. You have that circumcision mark in your body. Now you're like us. Now you're cut above the rest. You're better than the rest. You're like us. That's making something that man does, that he can boast in. But God forbid that I should glory. Paul says he was one that was just like that.
Saul of Tarsus, before he got saved, he was a avid supporter of Judaism. But God forbid he says that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, whether you are circumcised or not.
Nor uncircumcision, but a new creation, new creation, renew, creates creatures in Christ.
Wonderful. Are you a new creature in Christ? Have you given up trying to make yourself acceptable to God?
So many do that you ask them where they where they are, and I used to do that. I used to go to the County Hospital in Chicago every week.
As young men had just gotten saved.
And brought the gospel to these patients.
And so many were under law. So many were under law. So many in Christendom are under law. They still think they have to do something they don't understand. Grace. They're free. Wonderful, bountiful grace of God. He did it all when he cried out. It is finished on the cross.
All the work was done.
The only way you'll ever get to heaven is by receiving him not do anything to yourself.
One of the.
Dreadful things. I see it on more and more young people. Is is tattoo. These tattoo marks. The Bible says thou shalt not do that.
Positive, forbidding.
To do that to your body.
The way that God has made you, made you. You should be thankful for that.
That's all that's got, all the law principle behind it, something I've done for myself, makes me look different, makes me look better and jump ahead of others and so on. That's that's the principle of law.
00:55:04
But the principle of grace is to come just as you are.
Just as you are. And he'll receive you. He knows what you are. He knows all about you. You can't fool him. You can fool your fellows. You make and make them think that you're better.
The Jews have been going on that way for years.
I still haven't repented of the awful.
Thing they did to the Lord.
But they're going to be changed just as he's changed us.
Just as he's changed us.
He changed this poor, wretched sinners.
Into a Saint of God. He can do the same for you. I think he's done it with most of you. I don't know you all.
I think I mentioned this in the conference. I mentioned it again. I talk at the wedding. I talked to a young, young girl.
And she was taking up in college psychology, and we got talking, I said. That's the religion of man.
God has his truth in the Bible, the Word of God.
What's the Bible? What?
Do you have one? Oh, I think I might.
When I said to her, I tell you what, when you get home, be sure you have one and if not, buy one and read the first four books in the Old Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There's many others I could have recommended but didn't know where to start exactly. She knew nothing. She said. What are they?
Matthew, Mark, Luke and Chuck. She didn't know. I don't know. There might be someone that ignorant in this audience. I don't know.
You don't know.
What God has stored up in this book?
I was not a reader when I was in school. I was not a reader, Didn't like to do a lot of reading until I got saved, when I got saved in college as a freshman.
Then I had something to read that was worthwhile reading, and I just read it and read it and read it and read it, read it. When you're young, people read it, read it, read it, make it your own. Make it form your life. Make it such that you know exactly God's thoughts about this or that or the other thing, and you can act in accordance with that.
By the Word of God.
By the precious word of God.
Time is up.
May God bless his word #35. Oh, what a savior.
That he died for me. From condemnation he has made me free. He that believeth on the Son sayeth he hath everlasting life. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rejoice if you, if you haven't had it up to this time, you can have eternal life, everlasting life, by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ 35.
Oh, what a savior that he died for me from.
College.
I say unto you.
Family.
Message every new.
Sound is true.
Oh, my iniquities on him. We're in, we're laying.
01:00:27
I say unto you.
Verily, verily.
Message ever new.
He like believe it on my son is true.
I love everyone staying alive.
Trust Him and Love Out of a Pure Heart
YP Sing Address—T. Totems
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Herod is searching for something. I wonder if you've found it. I'm going to give you a little history lesson first. There are actually four members of the Herod family that are mentioned in New Testament. King Herod was the first one. He was called Herod the Great in history. I don't know why he was called Herod the Great. He was a suspicious man and a very deadly despot. He had 10 wives and seven sons.
He killed one of his wives. He killed three of his sons because of, well, I'll tell you a little bit about him. He came from the line of Idomia, the Idomian line, which is Edom, which is Esau. He was an enemy of the Jews, though he had a, an Israeli background. He, he exterminated the last of the Maccabees. That's that time period between the Old Testament and the New Testament. You've heard of John Hyrcanus and Simon and Judas and these different ones. In that line, Herod the Great killed the last of those people.
But he married the beautiful daughter Maryam Mari, AM NE Maryanne, who was of the line of the Maccabees. So he had that going for him, The Jewish people, though, he was appointed by Rome over that troubled country of Israel. And you all know even today what a thorn in the flesh Israel is to the world back then.
Herod the Great had a little popularity with the Jews because of OK, He he had Mary Ann as one of his wives, this Maccabee beautiful woman. Now Can you imagine the problems of a great ruler? He wasn't the world ruler. Caesar was the world ruler from Rome. There was Augustus Caesar, Tiberius Caesar, several other Caesars and they would delegate leadership amongst different men. And King Herod was in the land of Palestine, OK.
He he is the one who had the infants killed in Bethlehem. He died about four AD, so he reigned from 37 BC to 480. Jesus was born possibly BC11BC2 BC somewhere in there. That's the Herod who killed those infants. His son, Herod Antipas is the one who. Oh, I didn't tell you about. OK, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go through all the four. Herod his son. He had his first three sons killed. The next one in line was Herod Antipas, and he's the one who.
Coveted his brother's wife and had her come over to his side and he married Philip's wife, Herodias. This same haired Antipas is the one who met Jesus at the crucifixion. The third Herod is Herod Agrippa one. In Acts, when Peter was put into prison and had that miraculous deliverance from the Angel, that was Herod Agrippa one. He is a son of Herod Antipas. And then Herod Agrippa 2. He's the one before Paul or who Paul was before in Acts 26. But they're all the first three are called Herod. The last one is just called Agrippa. The first three, it says that they sought for something. And I just want to challenge you young people tonight. You know, God, each generation has a confrontation.
With God, each of these herods had a confrontation with God and each one missed it. Some of them were so close, so close to receiving a blessing and they missed it. And I do want to challenge each of you tonight as God is seeking to enter your life, are you aware of the ways that God is seeking to enter your life? OK, I was going to say, how can Can you imagine how difficult it is for a ruler with a beautiful wife who does not have the advantages of e-mail?
Internet, cell phone technology. OK, he's living in Jerusalem and there are problems, so he has to go to Rome. And when he goes to Rome, he's concerned about his followers that they're going to.
Someone else is going to rise up and take over his Kingdom, and in the process, they might steal his wife. So he gives commands to a trusted friend that this is Herod the Great. When he leaves, he said, if I don't come back alive, I want you to kill Mary Ann. He leaves and comes back. But when he gets back, he finds out that his trusted servant revealed this secret to Mary Ann, and so she is infuriated. Is this love or is this power struggle that you have that you want to keep me closed up? Herod was suspicious of so many things.
King upon king would try to rival this one. This son would poison that dad and that the brother would poison that brother. And there was suspicion rampant. It's just amazing. Herod took his second two boys to Rome to have them schooled in Rome. When they came back, he saw that they were fine upstarts of young men. And the people were very pleased with these two new young men. And these two young men's older brother started to pass around suspicions that these two wanted to take over the Kingdom. So King Herod the Great eventually had those two strangled. And then Herod the Great herd that his first son was trying to poison him, and so he had him killed.
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A brother-in-law, also a fine specimen of young men, came into popularity, and Herod saw how wonderfully the people were taking to him. So on a convenient day when they were hot and they were swimming, Herod gave instructions that they should have little extra rough play in the water. And this young man was drowned accidentally, you know, kind of like upon Herod's orders. Just one thing after another, Herod. When he came to the end of his years, Herod the Great, he ordered many influential men to be taken hostage and put into a building he had built called the Hippodrome. So that when he died, his commands were that these people were supposed to be killed also, so that instead of joy taking place at his death, there would be sadness.
Because all these other people were killed at the same time as Herod died. Can you imagine the warped sense of, I don't know, He's the one who built the temple that Jesus went to. He built many cities. Like I say, I don't know why he was called Herod the Great. But first in line is haired the great in history. Then Herod Antipas, who was in the time of the Lord's life, Herod Agrippa one and Herod Agrippa two. OK, let's see what Herod, Herod the Great was searching for. Matthew chapter two. I think most of you know these stories and just the stories in themselves.
Have some amazing, amazing things in them. I'm just going to touch on the words about their searching. Matthew 2 and verse 8. Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the young child. And when you have found him, bring me word again that I may come and worship Him also. Go and search diligently for the young child. Bethlehem was about 7 miles away from Jerusalem. You could easily walk there in a day we had earlier today in our meetings.
That these people in Jerusalem, the scribes and the Pharisees, the chief priests, even the priests were officials officially placed there by Rome. Such a corrupt scene. And Herod says, go and search, that I may come and worship him also. Herod could have followed the Magi, the wise men. He could have killed that young boy in God's ways. He saw that Herod stayed in his palace. This was a rival to Herod, even though he was an old man now.
Almost nearing the end of his monarchy, this young boy would pose no threat really for several years and yet Herod could not stand the idea of someone else taking over his position. I thought of a number of P's that these men are characterized haired, the great. Of course they all have pride, tremendous amount of pride, but power seems to be Herod the greats 1 Theme just trying to suppress all the different young men who come up and take his place.
Power, I know I'm talking to many precious young people who I don't see you having a power struggle, but you know these things come upon us and I'm just impressed how close these men came to having God enter their life and they stopped short. The next one is Luke chapter 23 and verse 8. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad for he was desirous to see him of a long season because he had heard many things of him and he hoped to have seen some miracle.
Done by him. This is Herod Antipas Now. Herod had heard many things about Jesus, wanted to see some miracle. Jesus does not respond to people in a sensational, curious way. If there's somebody here this evening who has heard about Jesus, you've maybe heard about some miracles that he has done in peoples lives. Please don't expect a miracle to be shown to you before you accept him as your Savior. We all must come to Jesus on the same level platform at the cross.
Blessed are they that have believed and have not seen. You must believe first. He does do miracles. I have had some in my life, precious ones that I love to share. Some that are some I don't like to share. They tell too much of my pride and myself will. But I can see some miracles of God in my life. But I believe in a God of miracles. But do not accept, do not expect miracles first before you accept Him as your Savior. Jesus will not respond to you in a sensational way.
You must come to him by faith. This man saw Jesus. I don't know how close you are. God speaks to you through his word. He speaks to you through your friends. He speaks to you through circumstances. He speaks to you through possibly a dream. I don't even know in my own family how God is speaking to my members of the family. And I don't know what he's saying to you young people, But how is God seeking to make himself aware to you, my oldest son?
00:10:07
Several years ago.
Uh, was involved in a little bit of road rage and he ended up having his.
Honda Carroll three times down the median of the highway and came out with seat belt bruise.
Only he should have been a quadriplegic, if not killed. I'm not assessing a judgment on what God was saying to him, but that was a circumstance that I hope he took notice of. That poor man was so close. While I think of it, I'd like to say that OK, I like to think of him as popularity and position. Pilot also had a position of popularity. History states that Herod Antipas was deposed from his Kingdom. This wife Herodias who came over to him, she was given permission to.
Not have to go with him into exile. But she volunteered to go with him into exile. So Herod Antipas ended his life in exile from popularity. Pilate also understand who wavered. What shall I do with Jesus? The people said if you let him go, you won't be a friend of Caesar. And so Pilate vacillated back and forth. He too was deposed from his position. Dear young people, I beg you, when a crucial question comes to you of right and wrong.
Of these tough core issues, I encourage you to stand for God because he will in the long run. It's safe. It pays to serve Jesus. It pays. Acts chapter 13. This is another Herod. I would put the word pleasure with this Herod. I'm sorry, Acts 12, Acts chapter 12 and verse 9. Just look at verse three. It says because he saw it pleased the Jews. He proceeded further to take Peter.
So he had taken James and killed James, and the Jews were happy about that. So alright, let's take some more Christians. So he grabs Peter and throws him into prison. A wonderful story of Peter walking out of the prison, not realizing that he was truly escaped. Acts chapter 12 and verse 19. And when Herod had sought for him and found him not, he examined the keepers. This was a very marked miracle that happened. Probably 16 soldiers that says there were four quaternions of soldiers.
Keeping Peter, that might have been four at a shift, I'm not sure. Anyway, these men were killed because in Roman days, if a prisoner escaped, the soldiers took their place in death. So I don't know if it was four men that were killed or two or 16. But Herod had him killed, thought nothing more of this brushing with God that he had. How about you? What kind of a brushing have you had with God? What is, what is God saying to you? Pleasure.
Pride. Let's go to the last last one, Acts 26, and I've chosen verses 27 and 28.
Acts 262728. This one is just called Agrippa. Paul says, King Agrippa, believeth thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost Thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Actually I wanted to read verse 29 also. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. Something had happened in Paul's life.
He had a brushing with the Almighty. I don't know why God didn't send a light from heaven and blinded haired the great or haired Antipas. I don't know why God didn't do that. But you don't choose the way God speaks to you. God chooses the way he speaks to you. Are you listening? This man Paul had a blinding light that knocked him down and he was obedient to it. And he says, I wish everybody else was just like me. And I got I was thinking what's what's so great about Paul? He's in prison and he's been a great missionary and he's all bound up and.
He has love, joy. You know, I'm just pausing. Think about him. Peace.
Oh my, He does not have these suspicions of people trying to usurp his Kingdom and having to put this person down and poison that one and being worried about this beautiful wife. Or he has peace of joy, peace. He's a he's a gentle, he's long-suffering. He's gentle. Dear old Paul, a gentle, gentle missionary Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, gentle good goodness.
Goodness, he says, though, though the more I love you, the less I beloved. I would encourage you young people to give whenever you can give good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. Give whatever you have. Whenever you can give. It will return to you in abundant measure. Couple years ago our family was returning from lasting on a hot day going across Nevada and in the summer we like to fill up at a gas station, fill up cups with these small chips of ice.
00:15:24
I took the cups from my smallest children so they wouldn't spill them in the car. So I had this quantity of ice up front and the little kids had maybe an inch and a half, two inches in their cups. As we're traveling along, I began to hear, hey, you've got more than I have. You're eating yours too fast. Can I have some of yours? No. You know what I'm looking for? The daddy, the father, the guide of this family. I'm looking for someone to say, hey, you don't have very much. I have more. You want some of mine. Thank you.
Oh, that's OK. I'm looking for generosity in my children. When that one has emptied his cup, pasture cup up here. I got some more for you, and I put some more in their cup. Dear young people, give, give, give not, not just money. A song has no tune till you sing it. A bell has no tune till you ring it. So love in the heart was not put there to stay. Love is no love till it's given away. Give, give what you have, the Lord will give you more.
Paul, dear old Paul here, he wishes that everybody was like him.
Except for these bonds, I believe that I have found the baby, the King of Kings.
I've accepted him as a lowly rejected one. I believe that I have found the crucified Jesus. He comes with no popularity, no pomp. I have accepted him as my savior. I believe I have found some miracles in my life. I don't ask enough for little miracles from him, big miracles. I have to say I'm I haven't found what Paul has here. I feel that I have a ways to go to be such as Paul was. What I mean is.
Filled with the spirit my days are not filled with the spirit, but I would encourage you dear young people, God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power power. Did you catch that power herd the great power, a different kind of power he's given you the spirit of power and of love. Is it first Timothy or second Timothy that says I join you to stay at Ephesus in the end of the commandment is love love out of a three I love to think of a a river flowing in our life called love, but it comes from three.
Artesian wells, young people, as much as you can, try not to stop up any of those artesian wells. Love out of a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned. I'm not totally sure how to define a pure heart unless it's the the day by day desire to just seek to walk in the light that God gives you, to walk as honestly as you can before Him. You know what a good conscience is, right as you spend time in prayer and God.
Just gives you a little nudging in your mind.
You spoke to someone harshly yesterday. You might have hurt their feelings. OK, I want to go and apologize to him. Lord, you spoke to me. I want to have a good conscience. I don't want to have anything on my conscience. Oh, what a delight. The Lord can open up treasures in His Word. And if you young people get married, I want to tell you there's no greater joy in the physical realm, the emotional soul realm or the spiritual realm. But to have a clear conscience between you and your mate, don't have anything between you. You won't enjoy the height of bliss that God.
Plans for marriage. And that's why premarital sex is so damning. Damning.
Because you have a bad conscience and a bad conscience just eats at you and it just ruins it ruins the IT ruins many things. Love out of a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned. Sometimes God will lead you into areas, into frontiers that nobody has gone before. And he's challenging you to use faith to go into an area. He says trust me.
Meditation
Deuteronomy 1
Trial of Your Faith
Our Walk by Faith
Our Position before God