Chicago Conference: 2015
Table of Contents
Abiding in the Lord's Love
Address—B. Prost
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Could we open the meeting with him #169?
169.
Lord, we can see by faith in Thee a prospect bright, unfailing.
Where God shall shine in light, divine in glory, never fading.
169 and perhaps we can sing it to the tune. We're going home tomorrow.
Lord, we can see by faith in the.
Unfailing.
Where God shall shine it like divine glory.
Never fading.
Oh my God.
The holy person.
My son shall mercy.
Glory.
And joy reflections.
Oh.
That way our.
World.
Full glowing.
Surrounded.
No more.
Service.
To fear of our British.
No more Japan.
Like they hold me no more.
In your life, chosen to himself is right.
Lord, pray.
Glory.
Birthday.
What I have on my heart this morning.
I hesitate a little.
To speak about.
And I asked the Lord at least three times if it were his mind to talk about that subject.
And I trust I have his mind in going ahead.
The subject is this in the broadest sense, why is it that we, and I say we? Because I presume, and I think it's true, that we are all guilty, certainly I am, of not walking more in the good of all that we have been given.
Why is it to bring it down, perhaps right to, as we say, where the rubber hits the road?
Why is it that we sometimes, and all too often, do that which we know is expressly contrary to the Word of God?
And to bring it now again down to a practical sense in another way, why is it that sometimes I say we, although I'm thankful that all those who are here.
00:05:08
At least most.
Are here because you are happy to be gathered to the Lord's name.
But why is it that there are those who have been brought to know the precious truth of gathering to the Lord's name, who have spent years under the sound of that truth, who have been where the Spirit of God has His place to lead and guide, where no other name but the name of the Lord Jesus is taken to identify us?
And yet, it seems all of a sudden they're gone.
I remember a few years ago, quite a few years ago now.
I talked to a brother whom I knew well, who once was gathered to the Lord's name, but no longer is now.
And I asked him how he was doing and where he was going.
And he told me.
I said, are you happy?
He said, well, Bill.
I really miss the breaking of bread because they don't do it very often. I miss it, he admitted that.
But then, as we would say, he tipped his hand a little by saying, but you know, Bill, when I get up on Lord's Day morning.
It's so easy and so nice simply to have my breakfast drive down to the little church where I go slide into my seat.
And someone else does all the rest.
It told a story, didn't it?
Remember, another brother once gathered to the Lord's name again, whom I knew very well.
And I remember sitting across the table from him at lunch. And this is many years ago now.
Long after he had left and we had a nice time together.
I said, are you happy where you're going?
He smiled and didn't say anything.
I said, is where you are now according to the word of God.
And again he smiled and said a faint no.
But he didn't want to carry the conversation any further.
I've pondered all those things quite a bit in the last little while.
And I trust searching my own soul too, in light of all of that.
And again, I don't want to confine my remarks simply to the tendency that exists sometimes for those who have known the truth of God to leave it. But in a general sense, why is it that there is not more faithfulness in my life, and maybe in yours too?
I don't have all the answers, but let me go over a few things with the Lord's help that I feel are important.
Turn with me, please, to several verses, the first one in Matthew 24.
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 24.
And verse 12.
And because iniquity shall abound.
The love of many shall wax cold.
Now turn over to John, chapter 15.
John, Chapter 15.
And verse 9.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.
Continue ye.
In my love.
If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love.
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Even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
And one more verse. And I didn't look this up before I got up, so I hope I can put my finger on it, but I think it's Jeremiah 31.
Yes, Jeremiah 31 and verse 3.
The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yeah, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.
Some of us are old enough to remember.
An old brother, long since with the Lord.
I used to say over and over again.
He'd read that scripture in John 15 and 9:00 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. And then he would say, memorize that verse and say it over to yourself every day of your life.
I must confess I haven't done it every day, but I have done it.
I say to you, my beloved brethren, as I say to my own heart.
Let us never, never doubt the Lord's love.
And one of the main signs, one of the main things that causes declension, is when we forget how much the Lord loves us.
Another old brother.
Whom I don't remember. James B Dunlop.
Who lived up in eastern Ontario, Canada, although he traveled a good deal.
Said once in an address over 100 years ago.
He said oh, that the Saints would just sit back more and let the Lord love them.
Maybe you and I say, well, but we do know the Lord's love, we do recognize His love. How can we doubt it? And that is true, it says in Romans 8, He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
And yet we do doubt the Lord's love sometimes.
Isn't it true? Let's be honest with ourselves.
I knew a brother, once a younger brother than I, who was going through some difficulties in his life.
And I knew him well enough to know that at least some of them were difficulties of his own making.
But his comment on the whole situation, not to me but to someone else, was.
The Lord let me down.
The Lord let me down.
Let's never get into that way of thinking.
Can you and I stand there by faith and look at Calvary's cross and then proceed to say the Lord?
Let me down.
And yet our love does wax cold at times, doesn't it? And that's what happened to that dear brother, I am persuaded. And he got discouraged because he was expecting certain things from the Lord, expecting the Lord to do certain things for him. And when it didn't happen, at least not in the way that he wanted, his attitude was the Lord let me down. And even if you and I perhaps would not voice such words out loud, do we sometimes think in our heart?
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How could this happen to me?
If the Lord really loved me.
I was rather encouraged to hear.
What was said and read in the prayer meeting? Because a number of brothers who prayed only supported what I had on my heart, and one of them read First or Second Corinthians 5 and verse 14.
The love of Christ constraineth us.
That word constraineth is a strong word. It has the force of compelling someone to do something. Have you been constrained to do something for someone because of their love for you? I'm sure most here have had that experience where there was something maybe that you did not want to do and yet because of your love to someone, you felt compelled and constrained to do it, even though it was very, very difficult.
The love of Christ constraineth us, and yet sometimes.
You and I perhaps feel that, well, I should reword that we perhaps do not feel the constraining power of the love of Christ. Why is that?
Oh, because we need to get closer to him. And that's why I turn back, please, to John 15 and 9.
Or just to John 15, because it was a couple of other verses there that I wanted to draw our attention to.
If ye keep my commandments, verse 10, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my commandments, and abide in His love.
You and I know that in the New Testament, under this dispensation of grace, we are not under law, but God gives us commandments, not in the sense of saying do this, do this, do this, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. But as the one whose love has drawn us to himself, he tells us what would please him. He tells us what would please him. I've told the story before, but it's a true story about a young man who married a girl.
And.
They managed to scrape together enough money to buy a small home.
They were so pleased and so happy with it and the day came when they were able to move in, put their furniture into the home and.
Start their married life.
But then one of the first things that the wife said to her husband, she said dear.
This kitchen it's a nice kitchen, but I would like it painted white.
The husband hated painting. He could do it, but he hated painting.
But what do you think he did?
He went and bought the color paint she wanted and he painted that kitchen in white.
She looked at it afterwards. She said, dear, that's beautiful.
But you know, you know what, we're just really top it off if you would trim it in yellow.
He not only hated painting, he hated yellow.
What do you think he did?
He went and bought the shade of yellow that she wanted and he painted that.
Kitchen.
And he got his joy out of seeing her joy.
In having that kitchen just the way she wanted, was it worth it? Indeed it was.
You know, the love of Christ constrains you and me, but sometimes we don't enjoy His love, and we get an inkling in Matthew 24 as to why that can happen. Now dispensationally, that verse does not refer to you and me. It refers to Israel in a coming day after you and I have been called home. But the principle remains the same.
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When iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold.
What happens?
What happens is that when iniquity abounds, it becomes difficult for the believer and you and I are in a world where iniquity is abounding and it just seems to be increasing and increasing more and more. And especially it seems to be hitting favoured line, favoured lands like Canada and the United States. And men's hearts are beginning to fail them for fear.
For those things that are coming upon the world. But the devil knows how to make our lives so difficult and so complicated with so many problems.
The iniquity abounds, and when the iniquity abounds, the devil achieves his aim by turning our thoughts inward on ourselves.
We lose that largeness of heart that our blessed Savior had when He was down here.
And you and I know that iniquity abounded in a terrible way when he was here, and he went through every kind of suffering that a sinless man could go through in order to be a merciful and faithful high priest.
But he retained, if I can say it with all reverence, that largeness of heart, that thought first of all of his Father's glory and of the interests of his Father, and then thought of the good and blessing of others. But Satan's efforts are to turn our thoughts in on ourselves, so to occupy us with problems and difficulties and things.
That shall I say it.
The poor ME syndrome starts to take over. What did I do to deserve all this?
Why can't I have an easier path?
Why can't things go a little easier for us?
One thing after another.
As most of you know, we moved into a new home about a month and a half ago. We've been in that home less than a month when a brand new refrigerator just suddenly conked out, and we were expecting company, too.
I must confess.
That the thought did pass through my mind. Lord, did I really need this to happen right now?
And then right on the heels of that.
Just when I was in the middle of an important phone call trying to sort out some of the problems with that refrigerator.
All of our phones suddenly went dead.
And I hastened to say, lest there be any thought of that, that that was all exterior. It had nothing to do with our building contractor.
He didn't make the fridge and he didn't bring the phone service in.
And it was like pulling teeth to get the whole thing straightened out, and then we thought we had it fixed and it conked out again.
And it was a pain.
I thought, well, I thought some of my dear brethren and so-called third world countries would consider this a rather simple pain to have to deal with because they probably don't even have a refrigerator, most of them, and if they have a phone, it's a cell phone in their pocket. But the point is, it was a big nuisance.
And instead of being able to sit down and read the word of God or to do some kind of thing that I felt was more for the Lord.
I had to spend time sorting out those things.
And that we're in danger of having our thoughts turned in on ourselves.
You know what the Lord wants to lift you and me above those things.
And He can and will do it if you and I are willing to sit back and just rest in His love.
And to say, Lord, that love was forever proved at Calvary, and all these things are allowed in order that you and I might get to know Him better, in order that you and I might see His face more. One of our old writers once said, and I enjoyed the comment, he said, what would you rather have, An easy path where everything went along smoothly, or a rough path where the Lord had to show you his face?
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Every step of the way. Which would it rather be?
And when we are enjoying the Lord's love, what is the result? Oh, we want to do His commandments. It's almost like a circle. When we do His commandments, we abide in His love. And when we abide in His love, we want to keep His commandments.
And I say to your heart and mind, let us never be persuaded to do something.
That, we know, is contrary to the Word of God, Whether a step in our personal lives, whether a step in our collective lives, whatever it might be, let us never depart from the wisdom of the Word of God because first of all, it is for the honor and glory of the Lord, and secondly, it is always, always, always for our ultimate good and blessing.
Do you think that there will ever be a situation where you and I will stand before the judgment seat of Christ?
And I say these words hating the very thought.
Would we ever be there? And the Lord say to us, well.
Bill, you know, you were far too careful to.
Walk according to my word. You were far too careful to obey Scripture. You could well afforded, well have afforded to sidestep it a little bit from time to time. And you could have been far more useful to me and had a far happier life and done far more good work for me if you hadn't been so careful to obey my word.
Can you imagine the Lord ever saying that to you and to me? Absolutely not.
Let's abide in His love and to quote another old brother, the same one that I quoted before, if there is not that love in your heart and mind that there ought to be, Let us never try to love the Lord more than we do. Just as we said earlier, relax and enjoy His love and think of how much He loves you.
Let's go on now to another scripture, this time in Second Timothy 3. And we're just kind of going at these. I didn't think of them in any particular order, but let's let's look at Second Timothy chapter 3.
And verse 12.
Yeah, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus.
May suffer persecution.
Did I read that right? No, I didn't.
All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Someone prayed this morning.
About the difficulties and problems some of our brethren are having in foreign lands, and it's true, and many of them are experiencing very rough times and even to the point of giving up their lives for Christ.
You and I relax here in relative peace and quiet and don't have any fear that someone is going to burst in the door with a machine gun.
Or carry us off to prison.
But it says here, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And I say to your heart and mind that if it isn't one kind of persecution, it's going to be another.
And there are going to be challenges to your heart and mind.
As to whether we will walk in the good of what we have known from the Word of God, or whether we will be prepared to give some of it up to make an easier path.
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I will remember reading the story of William Farrell, one of the reformers back in the early 1500s and possibly one of the most outstanding, although not necessarily the best known.
And he and many other preachers of the Gospel were compelled to leave France during his day because of the terrible persecution against them, and they did so.
But then one of the princesses at court was favorable to their cause and interceded with the king in order to have them brought back.
And every preacher of the gospel, it is recorded, was recalled and told that they were free to come back to France and preach the gospel.
Except William Farrell.
And it hurt.
It was rough because he was French by birth, born in the southeast of France, and it hurt very much.
That all these others were invited back and he was quietly left out.
But he knew why, and so did the authorities. What was it?
All those others were invited back with certain conditions placed upon them. You may preach the gospel, but don't touch the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Don't preach the truth, the whole truth of God according to Scripture. Don't say things that will step on people's toes or cause problems. But if you can handle that, then you may preach the gospel and they accept it.
But they knew William Farrow wouldn't compromise and they said we don't want that man.
And you and I are going to find it more and more difficult in this world if we seek to follow the Word of God.
And if we seek to stand firm for what he has given us.
We shall suffer persecution in one way or another.
And it says in verse 13 but evil men and seducers.
Seducing is that which takes place in an insidious and often perhaps poorly perceived way, where people don't realize what's happening to them until it's too late.
Seduces shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But then the next verse. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them. This is the second point I want to make.
Are you and I not merely having learned something, but have we been assured of it?
I shudder, and I've heard it too often when I talk to some who once at least paid lip service to some of the precious truths that I trust everyone here holds dear and have them say in so many words. Well, I used to believe that, but I don't believe that anymore.
And it's relatively easy sometimes to take scripture and twist it around out of context in order to.
Rationalize my way around the truth. And even Shakespeare, who was not a godly man, could say the devil can quote Scripture to his purpose, which of course he did in the case of the Lord Jesus. And so there are attempts to seduce the Saints, to rationalize the truth in such a way that they deny the truth. And none of us are free from those attacks.
It's one thing to learn something. It's another thing to be assured of it. And to be assured of it means that I walk in the good of it. I have to walk in it. It's not enough merely to pay lip service to it. It's not enough merely to say, well, I will follow the Word of God as long as it's convenient, as long as my life goes smoothly, as long as my family goes on well, as long as things work out nicely.
But if things start to get rough and difficult.
Well.
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As the worldly saying goes, I'll have to do what I have to do.
What a precious privilege it is to have the word of God and to have the whole word of God.
And by grace, in much weakness, no doubt, but to give expression to what God has given us in His precious word.
What a privilege that is.
If you look at the Darby translation and I love it the way it's put here in verse 14.
Continue. Thou has the thought of spiritual energy, and we need that.
But the Darby uses a better word, which really, in my judgment, brings it home much more closely to the soul, it says.
Thou, with the emphasis on the vow, abide.
Abide in the things which thou hast learned and been assured of.
Abide.
What does it mean to abide? To abide has the sense of living with something as if it were your own.
What is the expression today 24/7? Is that all right to use that? We all know what that means.
Abide in it, and many times in Scripture we have that word abide.
John uses it a lot in his ministry. Abide in the things which thou hast learned and been assured of.
I speak to my own heart. There is a danger sometimes of my taking the precious things of Christ and putting them on the way I would a coat.
And then there comes a time when I take off that coat and I look totally different.
I have occasionally had people not recognize me.
Because I got used to dressing up most of my life in the kind of work that I did and we were compelled to back in the good old days when I went to university, if I can say it, and I've told a few people this, in medical school we were expected to turn up for classes in full dress, which meant press, trousers, shirts, ties and jackets and that became a way of life.
And I have had people who didn't recognize me once in a while in an old pair of ripped jeans and a dirty T-shirt or something doing something outside. And it was somewhat of a joke. Bill, I don't very often see you looking like this.
But speaking in all seriousness, do we as Christians act like that where we put on our Christianity for certain occasions and then put it off? I say to your heart and mind, and I point the finger back here.
That is fatal. That is fatal to our Christian life. If I think that I can live with one foot in the world and one foot for Christ, the devil will soon see to it that that foot that is for Christ becomes increasingly unsteady until eventually I am persuaded to compromise.
Paul tells Timothy to carry on.
But let's go back to John 15. John 15.
Our time is going here and there are a couple of more points I want to make, but in John 15, what does it say there?
Verse 10 or verse 11 rather, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.
And that your joy might be full.
There have been times in my life, and maybe this has happened to you too, where perhaps I have said to the Lord, Lord, my joy doesn't seem to be as full as it should be.
And sometimes, if I'm not careful, the devil gets me occupied with how much joy I have and is my joyful enough and why can't I have more joy?
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Within the last year, I met a woman like that.
And she was very distraught. And I don't think it hurts to tell this story. I don't think she would mind because she said it publicly. She was very distraught. And for seven years she had been seeking that joy and that peace and that blessing in her life.
That seemed to be so evasive that she couldn't get her hands on it.
She was very upset and she didn't mind saying so.
And she was putting the blame everywhere but on herself. She was blaming the Lord for it, even to the point of saying, why did the Lord create Satan, knowing the mess he would make not of this world, knowing the mess he would make of my life? Why did the Lord do that? Why do I not have the joy and blessing in my soul?
And for seven years she'd been laboring over that, and it showed, even in her attitude and her appearance and all that.
Thank God.
In a matter of a week.
She was able to see.
That Joy did not come from looking within. Joy did not come with being occupied with herself. Joy did not come from looking at all the difficulties. And she had had a hard life, no question about it. And she had been a victim of many different things in her younger years over which she had no control. So it was not all a made-up story. I don't mean to imply that.
But she saw that true joy was outside of herself, that it was in Christ.
And that, yes, God had allowed sin to enter this world, but in order to glorify and honor His beloved Son, and in order that she would be far more blessed than if Satan had never been created and she were living today in the Garden of Eden.
I have to say that the change was nothing short of remarkable. The change was nothing short of remarkable. The joy shone out on her face. She even did her hair differently. There was a spring in her step. Why? Oh, because she was looking outward to Christ, and her joy was full.
I hasten to say.
That there are times in all of our lives, I have no question, when our joy is not as full as it should be.
Reminds me of a verse that is part of that hymn #77 in the appendix. The sands of time are sinking and it's not a verse that is in our hymn book.
Because it could be misunderstood, but it goes like this. But flowers need night's coolness, the darkness and the dew. So God, from one who loved it, his sunshine OFT withdrew.
Then while for cause of absence my troubled soul, I scanned, But glory shadeless shineth in Emmanuel's land.
It's not strictly online with Scripture because I don't believe the Lord ever willingly withdraws His sunshine from you and me. No, it is our problem when we are not living in the good of that sunshine. But the author of that hymn recognized that that sometimes happened in her life.
And she recognized that it was turning to Christ that would make the difference.
Beloved fellow Christian, the Lord wants your joy and mine to be full in these last days. But it's caused not by being occupied with the problems and difficulties of the way, and there are plenty of them. It's not.
Brought about by looking within at ourselves. It's brought about by looking off unto Christ, the one who loves us and who gave Himself for us.
Let's turn to one more Scripture Two now, First Thessalonians 5.
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1St Thessalonians 5.
And this is very important.
This was, if we could say it, written to a young assembly.
And Paul had been, as far as we can tell, in Thessalonica.
Probably for less than a month.
The book of the Acts recording the time he spent there says 3 Sabbath days.
But he packed a lot of gospel and a lot of instruction into those short weeks. And when he left, he left an assembly.
And here he writes to those Thessalonians Saints, and above all he brings before them the Lord's coming in different aspects.
But notice what he says in the last verse of chapter 5, verse 20. Or not the last verse, but rather the 23rd verse of chapter 5.
Verse 23.
And the very God of peace sanctify or set you apart wholly.
And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
Again quoting one of our old what writers, I think this is Mr. Wiggum.
He said, Beloved fellow Christian, rest assured that if there is anything, any desire in your heart to want to go after Christ, God will work it in you.
He will.
Do you have a desire to go after Christ? Do you say I don't know how?
Do you say my love doesn't respond the way it should? Do you feel that as iniquity is abounding, your love is growing cold?
It happens to me too.
And others here would say the same.
There is one who is faithful to preserve your spirit, soul and body under the coming of the Lord, if you want it to be preserved.
But don't sidestep the first part of verse 23.
The very God of peace sanctify you, holy you and I cannot allow worldly things in our lives and then pretend that the Lord is going.
To preserve us, God does not preserve us in pathways of disobedience.
No, don't get me wrong. The Lord is with us and the Lord is faithful and he is gracious.
Remember the two on the way to Emmaus who were expressly disobeying what the Lord had told them to stay in Jerusalem?
Until they were endued with power from on high.
And in their discouragement and thinking it was all over, and forgetting what the Lord had told them about what He had to do, to go to the cross, to suffer and die and then rise again, they were going.
Away from where they should be.
And the Lord, unknown unto them, draws near and walks with them, And he causes their hearts to burn as He unfolds the scriptures to them.
Why? Because deep down in those hearts of theirs, there was a true desire, and the Lord knew it was there. He saw that spark that needed fanning into a flame, and He did it.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
Some of us here are also old enough to remember our late brother Eric Smith.
And he would read these verses.
And then he would make a comment at the time, which as a young fellow I sometimes thought.
I don't know what the expression I could apply to it is. It seemed almost a little too obvious and a little too simple.
00:50:01
He would say.
Lord lives, you know, the Lord lives. And then sometimes even addressing me personally, he'd say, Brother Bill, the Lord lives.
You heard him say that, Bob. Sure have.
And I would think, well, what true believer ever doubts that that the Lord lives?
But as I go on.
And I'm getting older myself. I think I know a little bit why he said it.
Because there are times in our lives when the Lord allows things of such a character.
That Satan can get his wedge in the door and persuade us.
Not that the Lord doesn't live, but that he's not living for me, that he's not here for me anymore. Like that young brother I remarked upon earlier in the meeting who said, quote, the Lord let me down.
Let's never doubt that the Lord lives not only to save, not only to make it possible for you and me to spend a coming eternity with them.
The but to preserve us down here in spirit, soul and body, to walk in the pathway that He has marked out according to His precious word.
One more verse before we close.
Acts Chapter 20.
Acts Chapter 20.
And verse 28.
But we'll read 27 to get the connection.
And there is a connection here.
Acts 20 and verse 27. Four. I that is Paul, have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
And then let's change the wording around a bit in this next verse. Therefore, in other words, based on that, take heed under yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost have made you overseers to feed the Church of God, which he had purchased with his own blood or with the blood of his own.
And then couple that with a verse in Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 12.
Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and to make straight paths for your feet, unless that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed.
I say to each one of us here, we have a responsibility. Paul was addressing the Ephesian elders here in Acts 20. In Hebrews, he talks to those.
Who may, through personal exercise, prayer, diligence in the Word of God.
Diligence in their own lives have been stronger than others.
Are you stronger than some of your fellow believers around you?
Not that you would look up in any degree of pride for that, but do you find yourself stronger than others? Do you look around, perhaps among other believers, particularly in the local assembly where you live?
And see some that are faltering.
We have a responsibility.
We have to take heed to ourselves.
To feed the Church of God, and how precious it is which he hath purchased, and I'm reading it as it is in the Derby, with the blood of his own. And his Son is understood. God has purchased for himself His church with the blood of his own.
They're worth it.
00:55:00
The world as a saying you're worth it.
Change that around. They're worth it. They're worth whatever effort you and I can make in order to be an encouragement and a blessing. Make straight paths for your feet, less that which is lame be turned out of the way.
An old brother used to say, never disturb the peace of the assembly.
Unless the honor and glory of the Lord absolutely demands it.
But the same brother used to say, not too often.
But he said there ought to be enough spiritual power in every local assembly.
To attract every true believer in the neighborhood.
Now, lest you and I should be deceived, it's not going to happen.
It would be unintelligent in the scriptures to expect that God was going to gather together all his people.
Under the umbrella of that precious truth of the one body before he comes.
No, but you and I can give expression to that precious truth, and when there is blessing.
Souls are attracted to it, souls are attracted to it. It's sad that it has to be that way, because we should all be.
Attractors.
We should all be attractors.
We all have a responsibility, but if you and I look around and see that there are those.
Who seem to be faltering, who seem to be having difficulty, who seem to be, as it says in Matthew 24, affected by the tide of iniquity around them or by personal circumstances.
Let's remember they need feeding, they need support, and in particular our pathways should be such that is an encouragement and a blessing to them.
Let's sing just part of another hymn in closing.
That same hymn to which we referred 77 in the appendix.
77 in the appendix, and will sing just the last two verses, verses 4:00 and 5:00.
Oh, I am, my beloved.
I.
Love it.
All morning.
No.
2 Peter 1
Reading
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Can we sing hymn 190?
The stream that from the fountain flows.
The fountain of eternal love.
What's the number 190?
To be profitable rather than to take up second Peter chapter one.
Has a lot of practical things in it, like our brother was.
Bringing out this morning.
Peter, chapter one.
Read the chapter together. Second Peter chapter one.
Simon Peter.
A servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power had given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us, exceeding great and precious promises, that by these He might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, and beside this giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.
00:05:07
And to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance.
And to temperance patients. And to patients godliness. And to godliness brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness charity.
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you, that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind.
And cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his own sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things ye shall never fall. For so an entrance shall be minister until you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom.
Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly.
I must put off this my Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me.
Moreover, I will endeavor, that ye may be able after my disease, to have these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we may know unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but where eyewitnesses of His Majesty, for He received from God the Father.
Honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, that we heard when we were with Him in the Holy Mount, we also We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto.
Ye do well.
That you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.
Until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy man of God, speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
You doubtless had some exercise, Bob, in suggesting this chapter so.
Maybe you could tell us a bit about it?
Well, we certainly, I think all realize that we're getting close to the end of this present age.
The things that are happening all around us.
In this chapter speaks of.
The.
Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's something that should thrill our souls.
We see things getting increasingly confusing and.
Out of control, as far as man's apparent.
Vision of it. We know that there is a purpose that God is working.
Towards and. So it's interesting to me.
A comment that was made some time ago, I don't remember where I heard it, but it was a help to me.
That first Peter, you have the government of God in the House of God.
00:10:00
And the verse that I would give for that is first Peter 4 and 17.
Time has come that judgment must begin at the House of God.
And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
But in Second Peter, we have the government of God in this world and.
So in the third chapter, second Peter, you have.
The day of the Lord brought in, and the day of God.
And it's very interesting how God is working.
But in this first chapter he begins, and at the end of the chapter we have what evidently is what Peter witnessed with other disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration.
What a picture it was, and, brethren.
We think of the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ that millennial day.
That is going to be introduced. It's going to be a complete change of venue for this world.
We have little clue of how much things are going to change.
But Scripture talks a lot about it, especially in the Old Testament, but also in the new.
But there are things that relate to.
Us presently, brethren, And I suppose that's what my desire was in suggesting this.
And I want to learn as well as anyone else I think.
Going to pick up on Bob's last comment. I want to learn as well as anyone else.
And make a remark on how Peter's first epistle begins and his second epistle begins with respect to learning what Peter springs out to us.
He his first letter first Peter begins Peter.
An apostle of Jesus Christ.
This one begins slightly differently, so.
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle. And I'm going to suggest that in the intervening time, Peter was going through the process that Bob talked about of wanting to learn a little more. And hopefully as we learn, we learn more about the heart of God and we learn more about ourselves as well in contrast to that heart.
When Peter writes his first epistle, he uses the name that the Lord had given him.
We learn from Luke's gospel, I think, that the name Peter was given to him by the Lord, but his natural name was Simon.
And we have a little bit when I can I say a more elevated way of referring to himself, Peter, an apostle.
In this particular it begins and I suggest that Peter was going through the learning process that in a different way is reflected in the way that the apostle Paul referred to himself as he went through his own Christian life. We see different ways that he was learning as well as Peter was in that regard. He says Simon Peter. When Peter is converted in Luke chapter 5, the story starts Simon.
That's all just Simon and they go out on a boat and on that boat I believe is when Peter is truly converted and.
In the story it refers to him then as Simon Peter. I'm not sure that the Lord had actually given him the name publicly yet at that point. I don't think he had, but nonetheless he went from being just, you might say, Simon, his natural name, to a name that had been given to him by the Lord and suggests.
His new relationship with the Lord Jesus and.
Here, in the one little sense, Peter refers to himself in a more humble way.
00:15:04
Than even he had in his first epistle, although both are of course divinely given by the Spirit of God. And in simply saying he's an apostle, which is a more elevated title than bondman, he says Simon Peter a servant or a bondman.
Of Jesus Christ. That's a very low way of referring to oneself. I'm a slave.
And yet, brethren, to lay hold of what this chapter brings before us and to enter into it, there's a certain aspect of it in which there's a necessity of coming into that more humble understanding that makes us more ready to receive what the Lord has to say to us.
The Lord Jesus could say, I am among you as he that serveth.
If the Lord of glory could take that position, brethren.
As a servant here in this world.
Where do we stand in relation to that?
What a privilege to be servants, and may the Lord give us to always.
Be exercised in value that place. What can we do to serve others?
I really think a lot of the.
Dissatisfaction you see amongst young people, maybe older ones too, is because they're so focused on themselves.
Let's turn around, brethren, and lookout. There's so much to be done for the Lord, for others.
To be a servant. What a blessing it is.
We're seeing in different ways in the New Testament as to our present position.
In the highest place we're seeing as in Ephesians, as seated in heavenly places in Christ. But what Peter brings before us, we are seeing as Peter was writing as people on earth who have a hope ahead of them, and they're in that path toward that hope that has been assured and promised to them. And so they had to go through daily life.
And the trials and the exercises and temptations and service connected with it for the Lord Jesus. And so he even when he refers to.
The Lord himself, he says, Jesus Christ, our Savior, Jesus Christ. It reminds us of the man who had been here ahead, and Peter had known him in that way.
And Peter recognized that Jesus Christ was now had gone on.
And was in the glory, but he wasn't. And those he was writing to weren't. And so he writes to them these things to help them along in the present circumstances in which they were, and particularly, as Bob already said, the world in which they were. And to it's the world's messed up and it's a difficult place to live and it's this country is becoming increasingly.
Openly dark in its moral character and in its decision processes and so on. And Peter's giving us things that help to safely get through the journey to the promised end, which is seen in itself Here is salvation.
From Peter's way of looking at it, we're not fully saved until we're saved, spirit, soul and body. And so that he's saying the Lord is going to make sure that what he's promised to bring us into a deliverance, a salvation that has to do with our spirit, our souls and our bodies, then we have to get safely to the end and to the point of the glorified body.
It's not a question of not being eternal, saved in us to our souls, but Peter brings it out in this way.
00:20:15
First Peter 19 where he got speak of the salvation of our soul.
You comment.
Places like you say it looks at it at the end, but it looks like first Peter one and 9 receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul. There he looks at it as a salvation of your soul, but every other place like you say, it's when we get our glorified body.
With this.
I shouldn't be talking by a microphone, but we say that this is the new nature in action.
You know, we are accepted and acceptance can never change. That's based upon the work of Christ. We get that in the in the second verse of the first chapter. But here it's our acceptability that the Spirit of God is seeking to work out in US, not just having the new nature, but have it active in our life so that we don't end up like the ninth verse. But he that lacketh these things is blind.
And cannot see afar off. He only sees the situation around him right now.
And he's forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. There's like the brother was talking about, he met brothers who at one time were enjoying their Christianity, but now?
You couldn't tell them from the world and that we're all susceptible to that. And so this is really the new nature in action.
Is that right, Bob?
I'm sure brother, go ahead.
It's beautiful to see how many precious things Peter talks about in his two epistles. Here we have precious faith in verse one. We have exceeding great and precious promises in verse 4.
Verse one, Peter chapter one is the trial of our faith that is much more precious.
And a goal that perishes.
And then we have the precious blood of Christ. O brethren, we have things that are very precious. First Peter two is unto you therefore which believe he is the preciousness.
Something to be treasured in the soul. And so here in verse one, it's precious faith.
Faith is not the portion of all it tells us in Second Thessalonians chapter 3.
How do you get faith? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
Oh, how important it is, brethren, to cultivate a hearing ear. Sometimes you can tell that people are listening to what you say, but they're not really hearing the message. I'm not a judge of how that is in people, but how important it is.
When God speaks, I can understand if people want to challenge what I say.
But when God speaks.
Let His word penetrate because it's going to bring blessing. That's the way faith comes, and it's precious. It connects us with God. Wonderful, wonderful thing.
New nature we have not to jump ahead, but just answer the question in verse four. We have whereby are given unto a succeeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that's in the world through lust. The thought there is living out the life that we have. It's not about acquiring that life. The word partakers communion as I was walking in communion as it were, or in fellowship consistent with that new nature.
00:25:01
So we have there in the fourth verse.
And in that sense, I would suggest not to keep going over it. But first, Peter one and nine brings before us a similar thought. That is, that, remember, Peter was writing to the Jews and they didn't know what it was to have.
A definite and clear salvation. At the end of the journey, they could believe the promises of God that there was blessing coming in the millennial day.
But when and how that would happen, they didn't know, and they were used to the Lord delivering them from various problems and difficulties in their lives. But now you and I have a clear and definite hope before us. And yes, it is at the end of the journey, but God wants us to live in the good and in the enjoyment of it now. Very, very important.
Like to refer back to a verse in Romans chapter one connection with the last half of verse one of our chapter.
Romans chapter one and verse 17.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written. The just shall live by faith.
And Old Testament saying.
Who put their trust in the Lord Jesus could not, I'm sorry in Jehovah and what had been revealed to them.
Could not have explained.
To anyone.
Why God would be able to accept them in a righteous way.
They could say I'm a Sinner and I've done a lot of bad things and I if I'm a Jew, I've kept the best I could. I've followed the sacrifices that are required when I've sinned. But if you said, well, how can God righteously accept you?
And he would have had to say, I don't know.
I don't know.
Now.
In Christianity and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, as explained to us very carefully in the book of the Romans, we learn how God can act consistent with himself in his own righteousness and be righteous and make us righteous in his presence, so that the faith we have that is in itself a God-given thing.
Is that which is a faith and a righteousness of God.
That blesses.
And we can rejoice in the absolute knowledge and certainty that when God comes to bless us and give us a home with himself in heaven and make us his children and justify us and so on and so on, that it's all according to his own character of holiness and righteousness. And that was perhaps a real joy to Peter that had been born a Jew under the old. And if you said to Peter as a young man, Peter what?
Or Simon what?
How can, how can you really be expected to God to accept you and so on. But here he says, well, that faith that connects me to the righteousness of God is a precious thing. And it's been it was revealed from faith to faith that is a man of the world doesn't understand it has no interest in it doesn't really care about the righteousness of God.
But if we come to know him, we do care, and then through faith we enter into an understanding of that which God has brought us into. And with Peter we can rejoice in our common life. Precious faith.
Both for the Jew and the Old Testament, it was important that they have faith to believe God in his word and no hope without faith. We also have to lay hold of it by faith. It isn't enough to just mentally assent to the truth that the New Testament teaches to be saved. You can know all about the doctrine of the New Testament and be lost in your sins if you don't believe it.
00:30:18
So faith is an important ingredient, and there's a danger of those of us that are brought up in the teaching of these things to know it mentally, but to not lay hold of it by faith and walk in it. Then it's a practical way.
Possible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and there is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him and I think that is really important. Doug. Faith is based on the revelation that we have from God.
And what kind of a revelation do we have of God in the Scriptures? Tremendous to think about it. And it seems to me that that's what's slipping away from us in this culture that we live in. More and more, it's focusing on what we are. People want to be God.
And if they believe in God in an outward way, they want to pray and have God serve them and do what he asked them to do without any recognition that maybe God knows a little bit more than he does.
Oh, if we don't have the proper revelation of God, that's what faith is based on. At least that's the faith of God.
And it's so important that we get God's revelation of himself.
That's what we have in the next verse. I really enjoy this chapter if you think of it as the mathematics chapter.
Because in chapter verse two we have multiplication.
And in verse.
Five, we have addition.
But God's the one that does the multiplication.
We are the ones that are exhorted to do the addition.
Can we do it, brother? Are we doing it?
But what is it that God multiplies to us? Notice this in verse two. It's so beautiful.
Grace and peace.
Be multiplied unto you.
Through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
The more you get to know God and the Lord Jesus.
The more grace and peace are going to be multiplied to you. Beautiful. Beautiful for troubled hearts. For people that are worried to think about this, it's the knowledge of God. What kind of a God do you have anyhow?
And so if we look into the Word of God, and yet God's revelation of himself.
What it does is multiply grace and peace, and it's interesting how much in this chapter it speaks about the knowledge of God. Notice in verse three as well.
According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain into life and knowledge.
And godliness through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue.
Verse 8. These things be in you and abound. They make you that ye should be neither.
Barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think there are others too. But brethren, it is amazing to think that we have been brought into the knowledge of God.
And our Savior Jesus Christ often mentioned it. But to me it is so wonderful where we are in Christianity because.
The Muslims say that God is unknown and unknowable.
You tell me you know God, Brother Don.
Isn't that wonderful?
Amazingly wonderful.
That there's not a glimmer of light and the inky darkness of eternity.
00:35:05
Except in this book, the book that you hold in your lap is the word of God.
Where we get the knowledge of God. What a wonderful thing to have this book.
And we might mention in connection with that.
To a mere, shall we say, literal knowledge of what is in the word of God is not what is before us here, is it? Men down through the ages have read the word of God simply to be able to talk intelligently, simply to be able to mouth good moral platitudes and to be able to say, well, the Bible says this and.
These.
Other religions, they have their sacred books and they say this and so on.
But what characterizes, and I think it was well brought out what you said, Bob, what characterizes Christianity is the knowledge of God and of his beloved Son. And when we have that, as it says in verse three, we have all things that pertain until life and godliness. There isn't one problem, there isn't one question, there isn't one difficulty that you and I will face.
In the pathway of pleasing the Lord, for which we don't find an answer. In the knowledge of God through His Word.
But it takes the knowledge of God to walk with him, as one of our old writers said.
We need more than right principles. We need God Himself. And that is so true because Christianity brings us into a relationship. It's not simply going to a right place to worship, although very important. It's not simply adherence to certain principles, even if they're scriptural. It's all of that and much more. It is having fellowship with God through his beloved Son and knowing God.
In that sense, that could never have been known before God revealed himself in Christ.
And what a, what a precious privilege that is, and especially in the midst of a world that is going on to judgment, which is what is brought before us in this book. Peter is showing, as Bob mentioned earlier, that the world is under judgment and showing how that his purposes through that judgment would be carried out. But then he says to you and me, and now I'm going to show you how you can walk through that kind of a world and make your way in it.
And as it says further down in verse 10, not fall.
God created man. He made himself known to man by the spirit. Man is a special part of God's creation, unlike animals, because he has a body, soul and spirit. And his spirit makes him God conscious, and he knows God in that way. And when he looks at the creation and sees a flower, he sees a fellow human being. God has so made us that we don't need to go to school to learn it.
But we recognize we have a God, a God who is, and we also know something of his power, the tremendousness of his power in comparison to ourselves and beyond that, their God is by given to us. They made us that we know we have to do with them, that we are morally responsible to him for our behavior. And so man has a sense of good and bad in connection with God.
But all those things said.
Man naturally doesn't know God in the way that these verses are describing it. They go beyond that. If I were to place an Ant on this table in the the center here.
And say, does anybody in the room understand that aunt? I suggest there's not a single person in this room could say, yes, I understand that aunt. I know just how it feels. I know just what it thinks. And I have good fellowship with that aunt.
No, we don't share a common nature and as such we do not know that Ant in that way we need it. The Ant may know us in its limited little way that.
00:40:05
It doesn't feel responsible to us. It doesn't have a moral nature, but it it can know we're a little bit bigger than it is and it's afraid of us and so on. But if you ask the aunt, do you know that thing called human? And it would say, no, I don't know. I don't have any real knowledge of it except this, that and the other.
But in what's Peter's bringing out, when the when God decided in his perfect time to reveal himself to us in his heart, he sent the Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus is the revelation that man previously did not have of the fullness of what's in the heart of God toward him. But without faith, it wasn't a benefit to him, and he didn't really enter into it. We have a precious faith.
That has enabled us to recognize that, in some measure at least, that God loves us.
But, brethren, it's better than that because.
If someone said to you, do you know how God feels?
Do you know what God thinks about this or that?
We should be able to say, yes, I know how God feels and I know what he thinks about this or that because because he is imparted to us the divine nature and the nature that he has imparted to us is brought out in verse four is the nature which loves as he loves, which feels as he feels, which sees things morally consistent with himself as to what is good and bad and so.
As the Lord Jesus said in John 17, this is life eternal.
That they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. And so God has brought us into a relationship with himself, that we know Him in a way that we had not known him before. And we know his Son, the Lord Jesus. This is life eternal. That they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou is sent. And so.
Thus, there's the flesh in us. There's imperfection. We're not divine in our beings as God is, but when we're with the Lord Jesus and we look at each other, we'll feel toward each other in the same character of love that He has, and we are to do it now as well. We're to live out, as has already been said, that divine nature. And it's a humbling thing. It's not a proud thing.
When we realize that we don't practice it or live it out in its fullness.
Could just emphasize just one point that's already been made.
In verse two we have the multiplying of grace and peace and then verse.
Verse five, we have the adding these things. We're going to be getting to the adding of these things, but what we're Speaking of right now is, is the the importance of grace and peace.
The soul being established.
In really who God is, who God is for his own glory, and who God is for us, the place of acceptance we've been brought into.
How God values and sees the the work of Christ and how it satisfied his demands, how it's glorified him and it says.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you.
Other places it speaks of being established.
In in grace that the heart be established in grace.
And if that work doesn't take place first in the soul of.
Young Believers.
Then there will not be.
A. There will not be.
The the blessing to follow in the adding of the things that we have.
In the last part of the other, the further down in this chapter.
00:45:06
So I just bring out the importance of the grace and peace being multiplied.
In the soul, through the knowledge of God, grace and peace can only.
Come, come into the soul through the knowledge of who God is and what the work of Christ has done to satisfy him. How can a soul have peace if he doesn't understand how satisfied he is with the work of Calvary and what his Son has done for meeting the need of man sins?
Should be on God, shouldn't it?
Who God is and getting to know Him more. You hear about people trying to figure out who they are and trying to figure out their identity.
You can't know yourself unless you know him first of all. To know him properly. Then you have the basis of all other relationships, who you are, who your family members are, what it means to be married to.
An individual, what it means to have children, all that has meaning in the measure that we know.
God Himself to me it is so precious, brethren, to see that right from the very first chapter of the Bible.
We have God presented right in the very first verse of the Bible.
Yellow in plural. And in that chapter let us make man in our image after our likeness, who's talking God in the fullness of a being, His being, the different members of the Godhead speaking together. God is a communicating God, and that's the way He's made us as well.
And I find that people that isolate themselves lack that. We are made as social creatures. We need to cultivate.
Relationships, but it's only in the measure that you know God properly that those relationships will be in their proper place.
What they found in God.
You might say.
Some of us maybe that are younger, we don't know God very well. We'd like to know him better. Help us.
You have ours, brother Steve to talk about it.
Even that wouldn't be a start. So wonderful to think of all the attributes of God.
Wonderful.
Two of them, or one of them? One of the, as Bob said, many, many. But in verses 3 and 4, something wonderful to know about God. He's a giver.
He's a giver, God is the great giver and everything. A lot of times people who.
Not very satisfied with their thoughts of God are I wanted this and God didn't give it to me.
And don't understand what's really valuable in what God has given. But in verse three he says has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. That's God. He's given absolutely all things having to do with life and godliness. And then in the next verse he says, has given unto us great and precious promises.
And so part of coming to our knowledge of God is to appreciate.
God is a great giver.
God so loved the world that He gave his.
His only begotten Son.
There's nothing in man that compares with the greatness of God as a giver.
And.
We do well to recognize.
00:50:03
And enjoy and appreciate those things that Scripture brings out to us of our God and how he gives and in fact in the ads that come later here have to do with some of the things that are carried out the divine nature practically in our lives.
But is this very characteristic of God? He first tells us what he's given us.
And then he tells us how to live consistent with what he's given in the Old Testament and the way it once was. God says you do this, this, and this, and I'll give you that, or I'll let you have that.
As a result of it. And so the giving was conditional upon the doing. But in Christianity it's turned around and God is free to act in his own righteousness now.
That the work has been done. Now he can come out and reveal his heart as a giver and a greater fullness and say I'm going to give you. And then based on what I've given you, I'm going to tell you and exhort you to live consistent with it so that you and I can have communion together in that which I have given.
I would also suggest that the end of verse three in that sense is part of it.
Read it at the end of verse three, as I believe it is in the Darby translation. He has called us to glory and virtue. That's true, but more accurately it should read by glory and virtue.
It's God's glory that we are called to. We are called by his glory because God.
Is going to glorify his beloved Son as head over all things and there's going to be a glory displayed in that day.
That this world has never seen anything like before, and you and I are going to share that glory.
And Brother Steve, I believe that's one thing we learn as we get to know God is we learn more of all that He is going to share with us in that coming glory.
But then He calls us by glory and virtue and virtue, I suppose, simply stated, we could stay instead of that word, moral courage. Moral courage, and that is needed in a world of today. Moral courage to stand up for what we know would please the Lord moral Kurds not to succumb to the ways of the world around us needed more than ever.
But whose moral courage is before us here, the Lords?
Who displayed that moral courage above anyone else? The Lord Jesus in his pathway through this world? Who went through this world suffering every kind of.
Insult and sin from without, from every direction, and yet maintained that moral courage in grace in every possible situation, the Lord Jesus. And so He has given that to us, and it will be ours.
In the knowledge of Him, in the knowledge of God our Savior Jesus Christ. And then of course, there are promises, as we have in the fourth verse. But God has given us all those things. And the more we walk with the Lord, the more we know Him, the more those things become a present, living reality in our lives.
I enjoy thinking of Peter as an example to us of a person who and whom God worked these things. When you think of how Peter behaved when they was here with the Lord on earth and he failed in so many, so many ways, even though he won the argument, maybe I suppose, of who was the greatest and and there's a lot of moral things that you you admirable about Peter, but.
What a different man. You see him here as he ministers on these things. He talks about the amount of transfiguration in this, in this chapter in a total different way than he did when he was there. He really spoiled it when he was there by what he spoke unadvisedly asking to make 3 tabernacles. But now he's, he's walking in the power of this new life and he's obedient and he is a man that's a humble as a servant of Jesus Christ. Instead of boasting who's the greatest, he's just the opposite. He's a servant.
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And so he's a beautiful example to us of these things that we're talking about. He is the human author that God gave us to reveal what we're talking about, about knowing God. It's beautiful to see it coming out of a Peter.
And all he was before and now what he is, how he bold he was on Pentecost and standing up for the Lord.
That moral courage that he lacked on the day of the Lord's crucifixion, later on he independence and as a follower of Jesus Christ, what moral courage he had and so on. And so we can't ask one another how to how to know God. We got to go to him ourselves and find it out. And Peter is one of the witnesses that.
Tells us these things that we have part of our New Testament by, and so it's good to see how God gave us what kind of author he gave us to write this book about these things.
Can we say?
Asking this is a question, but when it says according to the divine power.
Given us all things that pertain unto life, that is eternal life and godliness. What does these things? Is it the Holy Spirit that dwells within us? Is it at this moment that the Lord Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father praying for me that I do not stumble? Is it is it that when I do stumble, He's the advocate? Are all are these the things that pertain unto life and godliness that He has given to us?
Keep on.
The old brother used to say that.
One of those verses you should say that we have all the virtues of Christ undeveloped, but we so we do have these different things that God has given us to that we might be able to live like one brother said, live the life that we have. We have a life that nothing can take away from it. I remember Chuck Kendrick saying we have a life that we cannot even sin away.
But this is talking about practically living that life that we have and so God has given us.
Weapons or supplies that we might. So we have the very a divine being living within us. The Lord is up there praying for us that you've got great high priest. And as I say, he's there for the advocate. If we fail, he's there to restore us. So no excuses.
I don't can add to that.
2 words I think are a good explanation. God gave us no reason to fail. He's provided everything, and if there's a failure, it's never God's fault. I think Bill emphasized that in the last meeting too. God has given us everything we need to walk the Christian path. Wonderful to hear Peter saying that.
And I believe it includes, Brother Vern, those things that you mentioned, the Holy Spirit come down and Christ in his high priestly character and advocate. But I would suggest too, that what we have here goes beyond that in the beyond it in one sense, that it brings it right down to the problems and difficulties and situations of everyday life in God's Word and through the knowledge of our Lord.
God and Savior Jesus Christ, there is the wisdom of God for every kind of difficulty and situation that you and I will face down here in the modern world. Sad to say, and we don't want to point the finger because we can all be guilty of it, but Christianity in some cases has embraced the wisdom of man, has embraced things that have to do with psychology and all the rest of it.
To try and figure out how to live a happy, fulfilled Christian life.
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And as her brother used to remark many years ago, the wisdom of man is.
Or no, he used to say it in another way. He said the wisdom of God is not merely an improvement on the wisdom of man. It is the exact opposite of man's wisdom. And so when we when we look to man's wisdom, unless that wisdom is founded on what we have in God's Word, it will always lead us in the wrong direction.
And there is a lot of so-called wisdom circulating around out there today that, sad to say, many believers are being caught up in. And it's disastrous because it's contrary to what God gives in His Word. But I would suggest that it's not only those major things you might say that undergird at all that we've already mentioned, but it's the wisdom of God in not merely reading His Word, although it comes through His Word.
But in the knowledge of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, and then we find there isn't one single situation, one single problem, one single difficulty that you and I can ever face. But what we don't have wisdom from God to don't know how to act in it for his glory.
I've enjoyed this week meditating on the verse where the Lord said to Peter, Peter, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fell not.
Who, who better, who more would be want to pray for us at anytime except the Lord Himself? We enjoy the prayers of our brethren, certainly, but to have God Himself.
Pray for us that our faith fell not in one sense, it's almost impossible for us that our faith would fail when you think where that power is coming from and not from us. But I really enjoyed that this week.
Make this comment as well on the 1St 4 verses of the chapter and that is it starts with.
Our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
And.
We see the Lord Jesus as a man here on earth having all things that pertain to life and godliness and He lived out a perfect life here on this earth with all the resources as a man.
Of that which depends upon God and in His own.
Divine nature as a man, and now because it's the purpose of God that each one of us is. I love what Doug's dad used to say. God is so pleased with his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he wants heaven filled with people that are just like him. And in that sense, even before we get to heaven, God wants the same character of life in US going through the same difficulties.
If you will of life, that the Lord Jesus lived out as a man here on earth, and so he has given to us.
In giving us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, He's given us that life, that divine nature.
That as the Lord Jesus lived in the power of the Spirit in his own life, we have in Romans 8 and chapter one the same thing with respect to ourselves, that we are to walk in the same character. And so as our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, we have been given all those things that characterize the life of the Lord Jesus.
That we too might go through life with the same resources to the same destiny. And these first four verses are bringing out particularly that side of it, you might say, preparing us to do the actual living out that the subsequent exhortations.
Emphasize, but I think the 1St 4 verses are more particularly the preparation of a God and Savior saying OK I know what's ahead of you.
And I know your destiny and I'm giving these things to you and it's a perfect provision for you.
4 verses are what God brings to us, and from 5 on through 7 is what we bring to God.
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Is that right?
Because if those things are not.
Cultivated in our life, then it tells us that we'll like these things will be blind and cannot see a far off myopia is just seeing what's around us. The woman in the 13th of Luke, what did she do? She was bent over. What could she see? She could just see herself and she could just see that which was right around her. The circumstances were around her. She couldn't see a far off so the Lord healed her and what did you see? The first thing she saw was a was a face of the Lord.
Wasn't it? Now she's right. And I think that's what's here. We often pray for five or four or five brothers that we've broken bread with, that we've prayed with.
Hours. Where are they today?
One is in the Greek Orthodox Church, the other one is on his third wife.
The other one has.
Gone off and feels like he can never come back because he's left his wife and he's married.
You know and.
He's they've lost their view of what's ahead of them and that's what Peter is putting before us.
Were called to glory, or by glory and virtue.
So it can happen to anyone of us. I, I'm, I, I believe that we're not home yet. So any of us can fall into this category, can't we?
Oh, come thou stricken.
The Lord.
In my mercy.
Do I die?
Every day.
Goodbye.
For.
All About me.
Thy glory.
2 Peter 1
Reading
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18 in the back of the book.
And is this all?
Shall be the life thy son.
To him, there's some greatest way before me. I swallowed for.
It.
No.
Complete.
Everywhere.
Is it the mind of the Lord to go on with the reading then?
I think he'd be nice to everybody I think is anticipating what's going to come about in the fifth verse and going on further.
Second Peter, chapter one.
Did you say the fifth word verse, Bill? I was just suggesting maybe if anyone has a thought on the fourth verse that we didn't cover, we could go back to it. But we kind of rounded off the last meeting with the end of the fourth verse. So I think it might be nice to go on with the 5th.
Peter, I'm sorry, Second Peter, chapter one, beginning of verse 5.
And beside this giving all diligence add to your faith virtue, and to virtual knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.
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For if these things be in you and abound.
They make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and have forgotten that he was purged from his own sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.
For if ye do these things, ye shall never fail. For so an entrance shall be minister unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established.
In the present truth, yay, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me. Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my disease, to have these things always.
In remembrance, For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we may know unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but what eyewitnesses of His Majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto ye do well, that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy man of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
I like to make a comment on in verse four of the.
Exceeding great and precious promises.
Wonderful adjectives to that word Promises.
And isn't it wonderful, brethren, in the Scriptures, to lay hold on the promises of God? Take God at his word. He said it, He means it, and he is glorified when we take God at his word.
It's wonderful to think of them. The book is full of promises, and this is what faith does. It lays hold of the promises. We're work walking through a world that is.
Troubled, and even we get troubled at times, brethren, and we need to be encouraged to lay hold on these promises.
Just mention a couple that to me are exceedingly precious. One is I will never leave the nor forsake thee. He's with us. And you know, sometimes Brother Bill mentioned it this morning, but we get into circumstances that it appears that things are going against us.
Remember a young sister saying to me one time the Lord's left me? I said, How do you know that?
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She says, well, I don't feel like he's with me anymore.
I say, do your feelings ever change? Yeah.
Does the Word of God ever change? No.
Which is the better thing, to trust the word of God or your feelings? Well, I guess we better trust the Word of God. I agree, I say, because it does not change. Feelings are very real thing, brother. And then we can't ignore it. Exactly. But our faith should not be in our feelings. Our faith should be in something steadier than that.
Exceeding great and precious promises.
One of the other promises that is so precious to our hearts as believers.
Simple words, I will come again, the Lord Jesus said.
As he comes since that time.
No, that is a promise. He's coming again, and we need to live in the light of that promise. He's coming again, brethren. And so these are promises, and there's so many more promises in Scripture that when we pass through the trials of life, they're there for us to lay hold of and to claim them with our God.
Lord, help us brethren, to be exercised in that now in verse five as we go into the question of our faith.
And the exhortations about it, it says, let add to your faith virtue.
But notice what it says at the beginning of verse 5 giving.
All diligence. What is that word?
Brother and I suggest that there's some energy involved in diligence.
Notice it's mentioned in verse 10 as well as well. Wherefore the rather brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall never fall. Diligence, Lord help us brother. And these are important things. They're not just things that OK, if you like OK.
If you don't like, OK, that's not it.
We need to be serious about it. These are important diligence giving all diligence. Add to your faith, virtue. And then there's several other more to be added.
I take it that virtue and maybe other brethren can add to this, but it's what James says in his epistle in chapter 2 That faith without works is dead. In other words, he's saying you say you have faith. Let me see it by works.
Have that moral courage put it into action.
That's what he's saying here.
Add to your faith virtue.
So it takes effort, doesn't it, to enjoy the Lord and to live the Christian life.
God didn't save us in order simply to let us float along in this world and expect everything to go well for us. And we would continually learn more. Why is that? Oh, because we value something more if there's effort involved in getting it.
I think most parents here understand that. And if a child wants something, it's not unusual for the parent to say, well, if you can save a certain amount, I'll help you out with it. But simply to hand it out to them without any effort on their part causes them not to value it in the way that they should. And so in spiritual things, God has placed them there. They are ours in Christ, no question but.
Effort is needed on our part. Diligence is needed because there are enemies in this world. There are those that would take away from us what we have. And diligence is needed in every step of the way. And so I couldn't emphasize more what Bob has been saying.
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Giving all diligence, let's live out what we have. Faith is before God, but the moral courage to live it out in this world.
Is something that we all need and it brings it home to our souls in a real way when it has its practical effect in our lives.
I wonder if we could just back up just a little bit and finish. I think, I think we have skipped a little bit of verse four, the end of verse four, and it has to do with the effect.
Of the.
Let me get back there. And the great says in Darby, through which he has given to us the greatest and precious.
Promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through loss. This seems to be a a progression.
Of the effect of the great and precious promises that the Lord has given to us, that the effect of those promises on the sole realized by faith will produce in the divine nature.
An ability to escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. It seems to me that that's a process.
That we enter into and is to our advantage.
That we don't have to experience the corruption that is in the world through through lust. I'd like to just liken that verse to 1St John chapter 3.
Here's Here's kind of one of the promises that the believer has to enjoy.
Verse two of first John three says, Beloved, now are we the sons of God? And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when we when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. So that's a prospect, a promise that the believer has to look forward to, and the result of that promise on the soul. That prospect is in every man that hath this hope in him.
Purifies himself even has he is pure. So that prospect of appearing with him and being like him has a purifying effect in our practical life. And I think that I bear to be corrected that in our the end of our verse in first Peter chapter.
One. One verse.
Verse 3. Verse 4.
I'm just going to read the whole verse and then we can go on.
Whereby are you given, are are given unto a succeeding, great and precious promises, that by these you may be partakers of the divine nature. And I think that has to do with the effect of the divine nature.
Inactivity.
Will having escaped the corruption that is in the world through loss, so the effect of the divine nature and activity will actually cause us to be able to escape the corruption that is in the world through lust? Is there Is that is that thought correct?
I think it is.
That if you.
Were to have the right and capacity to go out on the street here in Addison and meet somebody who was not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you said to them.
Next week.
You're going to die and go to heaven.
You think they'd be happy?
I don't.
And if you took them to heaven and they were there as they are in their present state on the street, they would say, can I go back to earth?
They would find nothing there that satisfied their nature and the thought of leaving what they do know on earth to go somewhere they don't know and can I say, really have no attraction to their natural heart. That promise of next week you're going to heaven with. Of course, the idea you're going to die here would not be an attractive promise. That person would say no.
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Yes, if you said when you lot, when you when you leave this world.
Do you want to go to heaven or hell? You'll typically get an answer if person cares to say they believe in such things as well. Yes, of course I want to go to heaven, but as a present.
Thing that has any effect on how daily life is lived, it's that that's down the road somewhere. I'm not interested in that. I got a bill to pay. I've got to get to the dentist. I want to go to the Cubs game or whatever that is on their present agenda and interest and they value.
God has given us certain things and promised them to us in a way that if they're laid hold of, and only if in faith they're laid hold of, does the world become a wilderness to the soul.
We say we're pilgrims in the wilderness, but if we don't lay hold of what's been before us this morning.
In truth, in activity, we don't act that way. We say, I want to find as much enjoyment as I can out of life now, and when it's over, I want to go to heaven. Yes, Jesus saved me and I'm looking forward to heaven, but as something that presently effects everyday life?
What's the relevance? What's the importance of it? But what's presented here is.
If these things really are entered into in the heart, these great and precious promises are laid hold of, then it affects the everyday life. And there is a character to everyday life that is.
Takes on its character, its value, its importance in view of what's ahead. And so it says in in this list of things that brings before us the, you might say what it's looking on to is.
Found in verse, the calling is given, and then in verse 11 it says, for thus shall an entrance into the everlasting Kingdom. That's what's looked on toward, and these divine life, character features of everyday life are seen as a person. If I could put it this way, that's spoiled for the world.
Truly, a Pilgrim in character looks at the things of the world as a danger to it, as something to distract it or defile it from being.
Like its object, the Lord Jesus which is promised in first John chapter 3 and verse three that was read. He that hath this hope in him and Peter's giving us something of the hope, at least he refers to it, he doesn't explain it. And if I have this hope in me, then I want to be like him now.
And God says I've given you every provision.
By imparting to you the same life and nature of the Lord Jesus and the same Spirit of God that was active in his life, that you can go through this dangerous path that he went through and you need in practice to add these things in in a practical everyday.
Moral way that you have the nature for.
But you have to live it out in its character and its practice. And it's sometimes very difficult lessons that have to be learned to grow in that which is given to us. And Peter is saying you, you in view of these things, therefore add in view of what I've just said to you, then here's the things you want to do to live it out.
Two, he said here in 11Th verse that you just read for so a entrance shall be ministered under you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom. That's not the Father's house. The Lord Jesus, when he went away and had lived with the disciples for those three years and they had learned to love him, to trust him, and then he said, I'm going to go away. So they were very lonely.
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But he said, I'm going to go to my father's house. But don't worry, there's not just room for me there, there's room for all of you there. And I'm going to come back and I'm going to get you and I'm going to take you to my father's house and I'm never going to leave you again. You will be with me when I come out and I reign in the Kingdom. You'll be with me when I the new earth and the new heaven are set up, never going to leave you again. But the Kingdom is different. And so there's reward.
In the Kingdom, and so one has and you probably heard this illustration it's it's like 2 ships out on the sea and one gets into the storm and that's the captain is kind of poorly trained and the sales get tore up and The thing is all the rigging is hanging around and he just cripples into pork. But the other one, this captain he's.
Paid attention.
To how to sail through a storm and he comes in full sail into the harbor. They both come in, but one comes in in glory and the other one comes in crippling, as we might say if that's.
A right term for ships, but you get the picture. So the Kingdom is different. We can have an abundant interest into the Kingdom. Everyone is going to be in the Father's house, right? Is that?
If that's not right, tell me.
And we'll all be in the Kingdom too. But like you say, there will be an abundant entrance to encourage us in these things. I'd like to just mention here, brother. And then the verses that follow, verses 5-6 and seven where we have 7 things to be added to faith.
It mentions in the following verses these things five times. Notice verse eight if these things be in you.
Verse nine. He that lacketh these things.
Verse 10 at the end, for if you do these things, you shall never fall, and verse 12.
Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things.
Then verse 15, moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my deceased to have these things always in remembrance. So when you come across that expression, these things, it refers back to those seven things that are to be added to faith. Very interesting and important to keep this before us. It's a progression perhaps, and I see.
That these things that are to be added to faith, each compliment the previous in a special way, beautiful. So faith is first of all.
To be added as virtue that moral courage. Do you really believe God what he, when he says something, put it into action?
Go ahead. That's the moral courage. And then that's not the only thing. Knowledge, knowledge is important. Knowledge isn't everything either, but it is important. And so there are people that have, they say moral courage, but it's not according to knowledge. We need knowledge too.
And then to knowledge to add temperance self-control.
And then to temperance, patience or endurance.
These are important things in our faith, brethren.
And then to patience, godliness.
Be so patient. Sometimes you're patient with stuff that isn't to be patient with brother, and we need to add godliness to that.
And then you can be so godly you don't show any brotherly kindness. Add some brotherly kindness.
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And then the last is love. Charity. That's divine love. That's the agape love.
And I think it's so beautiful to see these things and I hope my brethren will help out in explaining these things too, because it's such a beautiful progression and it each one complements the other.
Philippians chapter 3 the Lord Jesus, I'm Lord Jesus. The apostle Paul, expressing his desire to the Philippian Saints, said that I may know him.
He had that intense personal desire of his soul above anything else to know the Lord Jesus better than he did. And he said concerning that, he said if passing through death and experiencing death and resurrection.
Helps me to know Him better because he passed through death and resurrection. I'm for it. He counted it an opportunity as another way in which he could know the Lord Jesus better by having gone through a shared experience and what we have here in these things. It says so that she be neither barren in verse 8 nor unfruitful in the what?
The knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so was He temperate.
Was the Lord Jesus temperate?
Then the exhortation is you be diligent in that divine nature which has been given to you to learn to be temperate, and if so, you will share that with the Lord Jesus and you will know Him better.
Was he patient?
That divine nature, does it have the capacity to be patient? Yes, it does. It's perfectly patient nature. And so if that nature is in activity such that there is that temperance seen in life, then you will know Him better. And each one of these things that are brought out before us are things in which when they are carried out and learn to be lived out in life.
The result is to be fruitful in that which we want to be, which is to know him, to know him better, to know him as well as we can possibly know him.
And.
It's important as well to see that.
Some of these things have to be learned now.
And you're not going to learn them as you can now in heaven. If we are not diligent in the learning of these things now, we're missing out on a very important opportunity in our lives to know the Lord Jesus in heaven in a way that we will not experience. What do I mean by that?
Is there going to be a single thing in heaven to try your patience?
Anything. The answer is no. You'll not have a single situation in heaven that will have any reason to try your patience.
Was the Lord Jesus as a man on earth, was that character of his life such that he had to exercise patience? Yes, it was. We see it repeatedly in his life. And the circumstances of life on earth were that which tested patients. And so we wanted, we want to know it, we want to be fruitful. Then there are some of these things that it's it's important right here and now.
To add them in a way that we get to know our Lord Jesus better and experience Him in that way as a shared knowledge even when we get to glory.
So these things aren't just kind of practical, well, yes or no's, they're extremely important if our hearts value the knowledge, personal knowledge, of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ in a individual and intimate way.
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Does that take sacrifice then for ourselves?
All said, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
But the life, but the life that he lived, I live.
By the flesh, by this, by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. And also in Romans 12. It tells us ibcg therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
We we don't, we don't get these virtues.
Unless we sacrifice ourselves our our carnality.
I I know what you experience my canard.
Stops me from knowing the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it takes, it takes a sacrifice, giving myself to him, letting the Lord Jesus live inside me that that he might be able to display all these virtues that we're talking about. And even even even when it comes to the fruit of the spirit, it has to be sacrificed. That's the spiritual part of us. We can, we cannot allow our flesh to control us. If we do and it will, then we, we won't learn anything. I mean, a, a cardinal, a carnal man.
Will only know the milk of the word. He'll never know that the deep knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ not not like a spiritual man that that that a carnal man is just almost like a like like the natural man, except he's he's renewed spiritually. But it takes it takes us spiritually a spiritual man to really know that the the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why in verse nine I think it's the referring to what's just been said. It here it brings out as the word.
Blind and short sighted in other words, to live according to the lusts of Adam's nature that we have in US is to be blind and short sighted because in that we don't get to know the Lord Jesus. In fact we're hindered from it. It stops us from entering into a fellowship with himself and the knowledge of himself. And so Peter saying, if you don't add these things which are.
Expressions of the life of Christ, the new nature. Well then it's to be blind and short sighted. It's it's not to see and not to enter in or value the promises that would make us as Peter expresses it here, or as we've already had in John. He that hath this hope in himself purifies himself as he is pure, that is, goes through the exercise to learn to value and live out.
That which is of the Newman, and to reckon as dead, that which is of the old or otherwise, were blind and short sighted.
I would suggest that we are short sighted in just the very way Don that you explained a few minutes ago, and that is there is a dimension of the knowledge of Christ that we can learn only down here. Our patience, as you pointed out, will never be tried in heaven. We will never go through difficult circumstances and see what the Lord can do in bringing us through.
In heaven, we will never go through trials down there and see how the Lord can meet us in those trials.
And have the chance to go through them with him up there. We learn that down here. But what we learn down here in that way?
Is not merely for this life. We have it for all eternity now. I would just suggest a thought that's related to that if you turn to Revelation chapter 2.
Now there are other thoughts that are connected with this, but Revelation 2 and verse 17.
We find here, and we won't go into the details of this particular assembly which is addressed here pergamos, but the overcomer, it says in verse 17, the middle of the verse to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manner.
What was the hidden manner? It was the manner that was laid up in the bowl and hidden, as it were in the Ark of the Covenant, as a reminder and memory of what they had experienced in the wilderness. Once they entered the land, there was no more manna, the eight of the old corn of the land, and the manna ceased. It says, And in that sense, when you and I get to the glory, the opportunity to learn more of Christ in manhood, of which the manna speaks.
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Is not going to be there, but we have it down here. But up there.
Having been faithful to him down here, here and learn more of Him, we will be able to eat of that hidden manner up there. That is the enjoyment with Christ of all that we have learned in walking through circumstances, in fellowship with him and through which he walked in his pathway and so.
It's a very blessed thing when we think of it, and an opportunity that, as we've been reminded, we shouldn't miss out on. We shouldn't necessarily try to evade the difficulties down here because it will be worth far more in the coming day than if we had the smoothest path there could be. But the one who wants to evade that, why is he blind and cannot see it far off? Because his sights are on time.
And on the life down here, rather than looking at eternity.
Connection with that in in verse 11 as it says.
An entrance ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Part of the aspect of that Kingdom, not all of it, but part of it is. It's a Kingdom.
In which absolutely everything is morally consistent with what God is.
As we have in Romans.
The Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom that we are destined for, that we are called to, is a Kingdom that is morally like God in His own nature, and everything in the Kingdom will be consistent with Himself.
He's wanting us to enter into that Kingdom. Can I put it this way? Fully grown?
Fully grown, with a full measure of intelligence as to his moral character. And yet we recognize you take a little child and it has all the capacity of its parents, but they're undeveloped in it. They are. The little child doesn't feel the same way as his father and mother. It doesn't think the same way as its father and mother, even though it has the same nature.
And it has the same capacity to do that. But little by little the child grows. And as it grows and matures and develops it, the parents can have more and more fellowship with it in those things which are common to their nature. And if you will, the Lord Jesus every day would like to have a little more fellowship with us. But that fellowship has to be, as John says, in the light.
Consistent with the nature of God.
He can't have fellowship with us in the flesh and the activities of the flesh. There's no fellowship there and there's no knowledge there. There's no growth there. But in the living out of that which is given to us in the living of it out, there's growth.
And that growth brings us into the enjoyment more and more of our destiny. And you might say we want to get home fully grown and having entered into, but any other goal or motive or whatever in US, and sadly most of us can say too much of life has been governed by something else, is a hindrance to that growth.
And a loss to our souls. And if I can put it this way.
It's a loss to the Lord Jesus too.
And that ought to make us feel it, that the Lord more than we misses when these things are not present in us. He misses the fellowship, He misses the communion that his soul desires to have with us. And even that ought to motivate us to say, please Lord, let's get together and be on the same track.
00:45:19
He not walked with God.
And he was not, but God took me.
Yeah, there's testimony that he please God.
Marvelous.
The pleasure of God is to have fellowship with us and he had fellowship with Enoch and, and he wants to have no, he doesn't want to wait till we get to heaven. He wants that fellowship with us today and tomorrow in Matthew Chapter 11.
Verse.
28 We often use it in the gospel.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in part, and you should find rest under your souls, for My yoke is easy, My burden is light.
The Lord Jesus never had to add.
These things we get in Peter, they didn't have to grow in him.
He was a marvelous object for the heart.
Unmatchable, John says. Which our eyes.
Have looked upon our ears, Have heard our hands, Have handled looking on eternal life.
Marvelous, that blessed person.
But this man as he walked here.
What was his yoke?
He was under.
I should say within the Father's booze.
As he looked upon the needs of the lane, the flying.
The the dead.
Marvelous.
Is that bosom communicated with the sun?
Son, we're going to raise this widow's son.
Son, we're going to heal this blind man.
Son, tell that man to stretch forth his withered hand.
What a yoke was his.
When we look upon him, the pure object transforms us.
It's not.
Laws that transform us.
Not rules the Transformers.
But there's someone to observe now. We've had read to us in John 15.
There.
Verse 7 If you abide in me, yes, we didn't read that verse, and my words abide in you. You shall ask what you will, and it should be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.
So shall you be my disciples.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
You know as as we.
Failing.
What it is to abide in His love.
To learn of his yoke.
And I think we see some of that paralleled here in this chat.
Just the abundant privilege we have. But he says that your joy might be full.
Well.
00:50:00
We had remarks about someone worried about their joy. Wasn't very full this morning.
To to look upon him though, That's what transforms us.
The person of the Lord Jesus, that eternal life John looked upon.
Marvelous.
And the.
Simple words there in Matthew.
About my yoke and learn at me for a meek and lowly of heart, and then some.
Chapter 8.
Psalm, chapter 8. Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings, verse 2.
Hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and The Avengers?
The new translation.
Breeds out of the mouths of babes and sufferings. Hast thou established praise?
Because of thine adversaries.
To still the enemy and the Avenger.
What do you tell us in Matthew 18?
Check your intent.
And become as little children.
What a blessed person we have.
To view and learn from.
And this verse says.
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou established praise because of thine adversaries. The word adversaries there is. You'll notice in the.
New Translation.
Footnote I believe.
The oppressor.
Of the remnant from within.
Judas was one of those.
But it's out of the mouths of Bates and sucklings that you get that strength.
Against the enemy's power.
When we look at some of our brethren in the middle.
Those having the most difficulty probably are those from.
They call Muslim background believers.
According to their religion.
They're the Muslims have to kill them.
Unless they repay.
But to see their simple.
Faith, Christ has laid hold of their souls.
And they're ready to go.
Unto death.
Because they have that peace, that joy, that forgiveness.
Marvelous.
The light of the Gospel.
Shines in the face of those dear Saints.
Laying down their lives for Christ.
The Millennium, then this.
Is this millennial Kingdom or is there a different Kingdom?
I would suggest Vern, at least the way I've looked at it is it is the millennial Kingdom and Bob was referring to it earlier. But we know that as far as the actual outward display of the Kingdom, it has a finite time frame attached to it of 1000 years. But as Dawn was bringing out, the moral side of the Kingdom of God is an everlasting Kingdom. And in that sense that endures forever. That's everlasting.
And you and I for all eternity, if we could say it will display the full character of God, and that is.
To me anyway, the meaning of the expression the everlasting Kingdom. Eventually, as we find later on in this epistle, there's going to be an eternal state when everything, everything in heaven and on earth will be absolutely and totally and eternally.
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According to God's mind, and that's what God is working toward. But you and I can have that abundant entrance into it now. And this would have been a very special interest to those to whom Peter was writing, because the epistle does have a Jewish flavor to it. And they had in many cases been very disappointed because the earthly Kingdom which they were expecting did not materialize.
And suddenly, you might say their thinking was having to be totally changed and look forward to a heavenly Kingdom. But God assures them it's going to be an everlasting Kingdom. And in that sense, of course there is.
The heavenly side of the Kingdom, but it says here of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So I would suggest that it is the moral side that's perhaps.
In view connected with the word everlasting, is that how you would see it done? Yes, I agree with them.
But in the transfiguration that we have.
Is really what he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration at the end of the chapter, but.
That's good. Thank you. And they in that transfiguration scene you see?
Two figures that are heavenly, that is Moses and Elijah. And you see three figures that are earthly. So it includes the both, doesn't it? The Kingdom has the sense of rule, doesn't it? And it's necessary in the millennial day because sin will still be in the earth. But like you say, in the eternal state, righteousness does not rule.
Righteousness dwells, but in the millennial day, righteousness will reign.
But eternal state? It's the permanent character.
Too in the transfiguration on the mount, that brings out a little aspect of this as well. And that is what was Peter and James and John reaction when they saw that Kingdom. It was fear.
Was fear. Well, they didn't say whoa, this is wonderful. This is what we're going to this is our destiny. This is.
Can't wait. No, it was not that.
They had a reaction of fear.
They saw the moral.
Excellency of light on display, and they had a very conscious sense in themselves of not being totally consistent with that.
And the consequence was fear.
One of the things that we tend to lack, naturally speaking, because we live in a world that the very often the Old Testament people had a much better sense than we do.
Many of them at least, and that was to them to see God was a fearful thing, and they were afraid to see God, and they thought if they did they would die. And the reason is, is because they had a certain sense of.
The character of God in His Holiness. We live in such an ungodly world that we don't naturally enter in very well into the holy character of God. And yet Peter and James and John, where you might say from a godly Jewish background, and they had that Old Testament sense and when the majesty of the holiness of God was displayed before their eyes.
In a physical way, they had fear as a consequence of it.
But.
The intent for us is the revelation of that light has been now given to us in Christianity, so that instead of approaching it with fear, there would be that reverential desire to be more suited to it every day that we would enter in. That the Lord could, if I could put it in a practical way.
Could embrace us coming into the the Kingdom and its public character and say and and we not have to have a a lifestyle change.
01:00:10
That the moral character of our lives wouldn't need any change.
Our bodies will need changing when we get to glory. But does our moral character in? Is there so much flesh and activity in us? Then it hinders the knowledge. But the desire of the entrance would be that to the fullest measure possible. Go again to the same verse. He that hath this hope in Him purifies self, even as He is pure. For we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And so when we see the Lord Jesus in that perfect full character of light and love will be like him. But we want to be as much as possible like him at the moment we enter into that state and Peter, Peter and seeing the more earthly public display of yet was also as which was more Jewish still. It was the same desire that.
The people that you might say would see us would say, well, that's the way they live their life. Their life is just now consistent with the way things now are in contrast to the way they once were.
Could we sing together hymn #76 in the appendix?
Thine Jesus, thine no more this heart of mine, so she shall seek its joys apart from me. The world is crucified to me, and I am thine. 76 in the appendix.
They tried my soul.
For us.
So.
I shall come.
And give you my home.
Forever.
Free from us.
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Converse in.
The 22nd chapter of Revelation.
The little hymn certainly brought this out.
Revelation 22.
And.
Verse 20 and 21.
He which is God, which testifieth these things, saith.
Surely I come quickly. Amen.
Even so, come Lord Jesus, that's our cry.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Amen. But the focus was Even so.
Lord Jesus.
Gospel 4
Gospel—R. Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Sorrows. What a name.
For the Son of God who came ruined sinners to reclaim Hallelujah, what had Savior.
Man of Sorrows.
Bearing shame and swapping wood.
In my place, condemnation.
Seal my heart.
With this blood.
On the Sandy girls.
Let's pray.
I'd like to sing another song, but it's not on the hymn sheet. I think we all know it well enough to sing it. It's how great thou art.
I trust you can, and if you don't know it that well, why you can follow along.
Oh Lord my God, when I.
Consider all the words Thy hands are made.
I see the signs. I hear I.
Like to love God universe this way?
And change my soul.
Oh great God, oh great Lord.
The man changed my soul, my savior, God to me.
I'll pray for our grace.
Gentle breeze.
My soul I savior God to me.
I'll break the water, I'll break the heart. Let you, sings my soul, I say goodbye to thee.
Oh great.
God, oh great.
And when I'm not sparing.
Second to God, I stare, standing.
The light of the cross.
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Oh break the out, I'll break the word and change my soul, my savior laughing.
A great thought.
Oh great God.
When he crying out.
And Take Me Home.
Why joy shall be all my heart.
Then I shall die when I'm glad.
And they're probably.
My God, I'll breakdown.
Sings my soul, my Savior unto thee.
Oh great.
I grate our.
And change my soul, my Savior God, to thee.
Thank you.
First time I heard that song was in my junior high school and.
Walla Walla WA.
Had an all school assembly and they had.
A popular.
Singer come to sing popular songs.
At the end of his program, he got up and he said the microphone. I've asked your principal if I could sing my favorite song, and he said I could. So he got up the microphone and he sang that song. First time I heard it. I never forget the thrill to listen to those words. We have a great God. It is an understatement. We have a tremendously great God.
Let's go to Genesis chapter one, verse one.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
Verse.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he can.
Male and female created he them.
So we have the story of creation in chapter one and what a majestic verse this verse one is. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
He spoke it into existence, according to Psalm.
Forget exactly the number of the Psalm, but it says he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Can you imagine the tremendous power involved in speaking the whole world, the whole universe into existence?
You know, I enjoy creation, and I think it's important that we do enjoy it because it is a display of the power and wisdom of God. What kind of a God do we know? A God who is infinite in his power, in his wisdom, in his knowledge, in his presence. You cannot put a measuring stick on God. He is beyond it all.
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Is eternal and that is something that just blows my mind.
God never began to be. He always was. Everything we know in creation has a beginning, has an ending. But here is a being who never began to be, always was. Wonderful, wonderful truth. I enjoy going to South America.
And sometimes I get to take a trip down across the Andes mountains. And in Bolivia, as in Peru, you have two ranges of the Andes mountains, the inner Andes and the outer Andes. In between those two ranges you have what is called the Altiplano, which is at 12,000 feet altitude.
Few years ago I was with one of the brothers who loaned us his pickups so we could go into this particular area of the Alta plan. When we were coming across the new highway they had built from Potosi to Uyuni is situated right on the high alteplano and as we were coming along to the edge of where it dropped off to the 12,000 feet level.
We stopped just to take a look and I tell you it just does something to me to see the grandeur of it all out in the distance, 150 to 200 miles. In the distance you see the outer Andes on the edge of South America stretching way up above the 12,000 feet level.
And I just revel in it. Honestly, it does something to me, makes me realize how great our God is. But what is the Earth in relation to the rest of the universe? I'm sure you've heard information. I enjoy studying the stars in the universe. You and I know that we are in a Galaxy, a group of stars in the universe.
That is called the Milky Way Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy.
I was talking to a group of young people out in Los Angeles one time and I mentioned that the Milky Way Galaxy has around 100 billion stars. I was approached by a young man after the meeting and he said it's really closer to 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy alone, of which our sun is one star.
It's totally, completely blows your mind to try to to imagine it all. And then a book that I got as a present for my family some time ago to tells that they are now saying that there is probably about 250 billion other galaxies as big as ours or maybe bigger.
This is our God. This is the God you and I have to deal with.
Hey, we're not going to be bargaining with God. He's God, and you have to do with God. I have to do with God, and I don't set the terms of His righteousness. No, He sets it all, and you and I have to deal with Him for the good of your soul. I plead with you, if you're not straight with God to get straight tonight. You cannot play with God in our country. More and more we're turning from the revelation of the true God.
And we are being occupied with ourselves, our own desires, our wants. What I like, my rights.
And if it is a question of just you and me in the universe, I agree your your idea is probably just as good as mine.
But we're not talking about ideas here tonight. We're talking about the revelation of the true God, and He's the one that sets the standards.
Oh, what a tremendous thing it is to deal with God. So here in the past, what Scripture says in the beginning.
God created the heaven and the earth.
00:15:01
Now let's go over to John's Gospel chapter one.
In the beginning.
Was the word.
And the word was with God.
And the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
Here we have the Lord Jesus introduced as the Word of God. He is the full expression of all that God is. You want to know God?
You have to get to know the word of God. If I stand here and don't say anything.
You're going to look at me and say, what in the world is he thinking? But as I open my mouth and use words I express to you my thoughts, then you know what I'm thinking. God is so infinite in His being, there is no way that little specks of humankind here can ever know Him. Except He reveals Himself, and that is exactly what He has done.
In the person of the Lord Jesus, the Word of God, who is this? The Word of God in the beginning was the Word, His eternity, and the Word was with God, His distinct personality in the Godhead, because God has been revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Father is not the Word, it's the Son who's the Word. And then it says.
The word was God, his divinity. He is in every sense of the word, God, the person of the Lord Jesus. The same was in the beginning with God. There wasn't a time when he began to be God, because God is eternal.
All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
There are false denominations that say that God created Jesus to begin with and then Jesus created everything else. This verse directly contradicts that idea. Without Him was nothing made that was made. He is the creator of everything necessarily. He is not a creature, He is the Creator.
In him was life.
And the life was the light of men.
I love that verse 4, you look at it, it only has monosyllable words in it. Talk about simplicity, but talk about depth at the same time. In Him was life and the life.
Was the light of men. We have life.
And we have light.
What is the light for?
The light is what makes us see everything properly.
Everybody. Somebody switched off the lights in here. I could hear some people rustling papers over there. I could make a guess. It seems like there's people in this room. Somebody flips on the light immediately. I know.
Adults. There's women, there's men, there's children here. Everything is visible. Everything is evident.
In the presence of the light and in the presence of the Lord Jesus, everything.
Was made manifest. You cannot hide anything in the light. You know there's people who try to hide things in the light.
I tell you, you just making yourself a fool by trying to hide things in a light. Don't do it, it doesn't work.
There was a woman who came to encounter the Lord Jesus in this same Gospel of John.
She was a woman.
Who didn't want others evidently to see her because she came when nobody else was around. And as she approached the well, there was somebody sitting there. She didn't know who he was. And so she goes to on to fill her bucket with water. And the Lord Jesus it was who was sitting there said give me to drink. And she starts reasoning with him instead of giving him a drink of water.
00:20:18
She just starts reasoning with him and she talks to him and he talks to her about living water, a well of springing water, and she says, give me that water. And so he says to her, go call your husband and come here.
Is she thinking to just cover over the story of her life? She says I don't have a husband.
And Jesus responded to her, You said it right when you said, I don't have a husband because you've had five husbands and the one you have now isn't your husband that you said, right?
Immediately she realized she was in the presence of somebody who knew all her life.
But you know what, it amazes me when you are not afraid of the light, when you are willing to get it all out there, all the messy stuff in your life, it sets you free. That woman went right back into the city and talked to those men of the city and said, come see a man that told me everything I ever did. Did Jesus tell her everything she'd ever done? No. Told her a little bit about her.
Marital life, that's all.
But she realized she was in the presence of someone she could hide nothing from. And that's the way it is with you. Whether you believe it or not, that is the way it is. And I say to you, if you got stuff you're trying to cover up in your life, sometimes young people don't like to tell their parents or don't like to tell their brethren what they're involved in. I say if you're involved in stuff like that, get it out into the light. Confess it.
Because he that covers his sin shall not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes it shall have mercy. Well, the Lord Jesus was the light of men.
The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
Man was in such darkness, morally speaking, that he could not see the light shining there. So what does God do? There was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now this is John the Baptist. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe He was not that light. John the Baptist wasn't the light, but he was sent to bear witness of that light.
Sometimes say, what would you think if I go downtown Addison and all the people I meet on the street, I say, hey, the sun shining. Look, the sun shining. You say this crazy guy, get him off the streets. Everybody can tell that the sun shining. But when Jesus came, people were so blind that God had to send a man ahead of him to say, here it is, here's the true light.
That came into the world. That's how blind people were. And so it says verse 9 about the Lord Jesus. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Even a blind man, the light shines on him.
And if you are here without the knowledge of the true God, you are blind spiritually, but the light is shining on you. Open your eyes. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. And that tragic the darkness in which man was found is tragic. You know the animals recognize Jesus.
But not man.
The fish obeyed him, but not man.
He was not known. He came unto His own, verse 11, and His own received him not.
That was the Jewish people. They had the scriptures in their hands. They could answer the questions that they were asked. Where is the Christ to be born? They got out their Bibles and they did in Bethlehem of Judea.
00:25:03
But they didn't know he was there. They were blind as well.
Verse 12 We have an exception, as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
In this wonderful here's an exception. There are some who received him.
Now how do you receive Jesus?
I remember being asked that by a young man in Cochabamba, Bolivia one time. He was a law student at the university.
And he said, I asked the brethren what I needed to do to repent, and they didn't seem to know what I have to do. What do I have to do? He was earnest.
I said well let's read verse John 112 and I want you to read it and he read it. As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. I said look at that verse, you know what it is to be a student? What does that say you have to do to receive him?
He looked at it and he said believe on his name. Exactly. I said if you want to pray that's fine. I don't say you don't have to. But remember it's not through praying that you receive him. It's true believing on his name. Confidence in that person is the secret to bringing blessing to your soul. And then notice it goes on.
Which were born.
Not a blood, nor of the will of them flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
You know, we're born into this world through our parents.
And the first phrases of that, verse 13, describe how it is we are born of blood, of the will, of the flesh, of the will of man. That's the way we're born the first time. But you know what? When we're born the first time, we're born with a sinful nature. Everybody has it. Some people are worse sinners than others.
But everybody has it, and God is not going to allow, not even one little white lie in his heaven. Not going to happen.
No lie will ever enter there.
If you want to see the Kingdom of God, you must be born again.
And how then are we born again? It says here they are born of God in chapter 3. We don't time to go to it right now, but there it says the Lord Jesus when he was.
Interviewed by Nicodemus said accept a man be born of water and of the Spirit. He cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Water is the word of God.
Is it very clearly in first Peter chapter one, we are born not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever?
Says all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass, the flower.
Fadeth and the grass withereth, but the word of our God endureth forever. Sure. Good to see a lot of young people here.
Nice looking group of young people.
How long do you think those nice looks are going to last?
Just give you some years. I don't hardly can imagine that the years have crept up on me so fast as they have.
And I'm 71 now, but.
What is that?
I sometimes say two years ago I could say I was exactly 900 years less than Methuselah when I died, when he died. So am IA young man or an old man.
It's comparative, that's all it is. And so you cannot say that everything is relative, but you might be a beautiful woman, you might be a strong, handsome young man. Great, but how long is that going to last? Add another 50 years and how are you going to look? That'll be a different story. There's one thing that never, ever grows old. It is the living.
00:30:28
Abiding.
Word of God So how important it is to be born again into God's family? God wants children. I sometimes say to people, did you decide to be born the first time?
No, that was your parents decision. They wanted children and as a result of their will we were born.
How can we be born into God's family? Is that our will? No, that's God's will. And I look at you and I say God wants you in his family. That's his desire, that all men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Oh yes, I made a decision to receive the Lord, but it was because he wanted children in his family, and I am one of his children.
Now verse 14, notice and the word, there's that title again was made flesh. That's the only reference in John's Gospel to his birth. You know, in Matthews Gospel we have the Lord Jesus and we have his genealogy.
Because he's presented there as the King of Israel and as necessarily that king has to show that he's of the royal lineage.
And in Luke's gospel, where the Lord Jesus has presented us the Son of man.
His lineages traced right back to Adam, the 1St man. Yes, he is a real man he is.
But why is there no genealogy in John's Gospel?
Because he never had a beginning. He always was. There was a point in time in which he came into this world and was born of the Virgin Mary. Wonderful, wonderful story. God has come into his own creation.
In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to seek and to save that which is lost.
So He was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Isn't that beautiful?
You know, all of us are kind of lopsided in our character. Sometimes we are very gracious, but we forget about the side of truth. Sometimes we're very on the side of truth, but we forget to be gracious. But here's a man who was perfectly balanced in his relations with everyone he came in contact with, full of grace and truth, it says.
In verse 15 John bear witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.
Yes.
The Lord Jesus was born approximately 6 months after John the Baptist. He came after John the Baptist, but it says He was preferred before me, before He was before me. How can that be that He came after and that He was before? Because He is God and He is man at the same time. This is the wonderful story of this person. There is nobody else in all human history like this one. He is unique.
For a God fully man. Wonderful, wonderful story.
Well, let's keep on reading here a bit. And of his fullness of all we received, and grace for grace for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.
Oh this is beautiful. Brother Don was mentioning today there would be a little Ant on that table.
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And we go up and say, hey aunt, listen to me.
There's too much distance between humankind and an Ant, no way of communication.
If it would be possible for me being a man.
To become an aunt at the same time, I could go to that aunt and ants have their way of putting their heads together and they communicate. Then I could find out what that aunt was thinking and what he was doing and if I could help him some way. And that's exactly what God has done in the person of the Lord Jesus.
The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. He has come as a man into this world. As a man He can speak to us so that now we can understand in the fullest sense of the Word who our God is.
Well, let's go on a little bit further down. I'd like to get down to verse 29. 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 we have another title of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God. Why the Lamb of God?
And on the Old Testament times when sin came into the picture, there was need to sacrifice an animal and sometimes it was a lamb to satisfy God's righteous claims about the sin question. The wages of sin is death. Nobody can.
Put that to one side.
You've got to face it, if you've sinned, your sin demands death. But here we find that there is a substitute that God himself has provided a lamb, the Lamb of God. You know, for 4000 years God was looking over the human race to see if there was one.
Who had not corrupted his way? And he said they've all gone astray.
There's no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
But then one day the Lord Jesus appears, and John the Baptist says, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And you know when God created the universe, all he had to do was speak it into existence.
And it was made by the word of his power.
But when it came to the question of sin, your sin, my sin.
It was more than just speaking a word. There had to be a sacrifice, and it turned out to be God's own beloved Son, the Word of God, the Son of God, the Lamb of God.
You know the story how they took Jesus outside the city of Jerusalem and they nailed him to a cross?
There he hung from 9:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon.
Six hours. The first three hours, people passed in front of him and spit on him.
Mocked him, Jeered at him.
And.
At 12 noon, everything got dark.
If God is going to forgive your sin, if God is going to forgive my sin, somebody has to pay the price. And who was it that was going to pay the price? This is the tremendous story.
Of the gospel. It was God Himself who paid the price to redeem us, and His own Son was hanging on that grass.
God laid on him the iniquity of us all, and God's holy judgment fell in three hours of darkness. All the waves and billows of God's judgment rolled over him. There was not one complaint from that center cross in those hours of darkness.
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At the end.
There was a cry. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, you know.
He never said in all his life, my God, he'd always said my Father, he was his God.
But at this time he says, my God.
It was because it wasn't as Father that he was dealing with the Lord Jesus. It was as God and all the holiness of His character. He had to be satisfied. His righteous character had to be vindicated so that He could extend free and full salvation to you and me.
What a story.
That's why He's the Lamb of God.
Let's go a little bit further down.
Verse 30.
This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me, for he was before me, and I knew him not.
An interesting.
John the Baptist mother and the Lord's mother evidently were cousins. Did they not know each other?
You know what I think? I think they probably knew each other, but it never dawned on him who this person really was. And I'm afraid that there might be somebody here tonight. You've been brought up in a Christian home. You know all the answers about Jesus, but it's never really dawned on you who this person really is.
So he says, I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore in my coming come baptizing with water. John Bear record saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him, and I knew him not. 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. There's another of his titles, Son of God.
Now go down to the end of the chapter.
The Lord Jesus is speaking to Nathaniel, and Nathaniel also makes that confession in verse 49. Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw the end of the fig tree, believe us, thou shalt see greater things than these. And he said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open.
And the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Here's another of his titles.
Son of Man, Son of God, we're speaking about his divinity. Son of man, we're speaking about his humanity. In every sense of the word, Jesus is fully God and at the same time fully human. He is a real man made like.
US, except for sin, He was wholly humanity. Wonderful truth. As to his person, I'd like to, in the remaining moments, speak a little bit about this.
Son of God, Son of man, to me, it is beautiful to see how they're brought together in the scriptures. And let's go to.
Chapter 5 To see one place where those two titles are brought together, Son of God and Son of Man.
John 5 verse 24 Verily, verily, I send to you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent Me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life. Wonderful, wonderful gospel verse. Verily, verily I send to you, The hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God.
00:45:01
And they that here shall live. If a person doesn't know the Lord Jesus as their savior, they are dead in trespasses and sins. Did you get a dead man to listen to you? I could holler I want to a dead man. He's not going to listen to me.
But how does it say here that a dead shall hear? You know why they hear? It's because the Son of God is speaking, and when he speaks, even the dead here.
It's a wonderful thing to see the Word of God penetrating into the hearts and souls of lost people, children, older people too.
When they hear they live. Wonderful to experience that taking place but now notice a little further down.
Verse 27 and well, let's read verse 26 to and as.
The Father hath light in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.
And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. There's the other title, Son of Man. What does he do as Son of Man? He executes judgment. Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice, and shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life.
And they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.
As Son of God, he imparts new life to those that listen.
And as son of man, he executes judgment. You know, in the history of this world, we're getting down to the point where people are turning away from God.
It is such a terrible sorrow to see the United States of America turning away from God, thumbing their noses at God's Word. They don't respect it.
The Lord Jesus.
Is the Son of man, and he has something to say to this world.
Before we get to the end of the chapter, I'd like to the end of our time. I'd like to go to Luke's gospel chapter 17, where we have the Lord Jesus and it speaks about the coming of the Son of Man. You know, the Lord Jesus is coming back to this world not only to get all the believers out of it, but he's coming back to judge this world in righteousness.
And I'd like to read what it says here. Luke chapter.
17.
In verse 26.
As it was in the days of Noah.
So shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Likewise also as it was in the days of lot, they did eat, they drank.
They bought, they sold, they planted, they build it.
No record of marrying or giving in marriage that was left behind at that time. But the same day that lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed that day he that is upon the housetop and his stuff in the house.
Let him not come down to take it away. He that is in the field, let him not return. Likewise not return back, remember.
Lot's life. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it. Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
There we have the day of the when the Son of Man is going to be revealed. The Lord Jesus is coming back to this world and we were talking about it today. The Kingdom, the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He's coming back to impose his lordship in this world. You know, the time we live in is called the times of the Gentiles.
00:50:20
It's the times of Gentile domination, and from Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire to this day, it's the times of the Gentiles.
But in the succession of nations in the times of the Gentiles, remember it was the Babylonian Empire, then it was the Medo Persian Empire, and then it was the Grecian Empire, and then it was the Roman Empire.
When the Lord Jesus came the first time, it was the Roman Empire that was in power.
And it was one of the agents of the Roman Empire. Herod had tried to kill him when he was a baby.
And then it was another agent of the Roman Empire, Pontius Pilate, that gave the order to crucify him.
You know what?
The Roman Empire is rising again what we know to be the European Union.
But it is that same instrument that Satan is going to try to use when Jesus comes again from heaven with his Saints, with his mighty angels, the beast and all his armies are going to go against him to battle, to war.
And He, as the Son of Man, is going to do judgment.
Terrible, awful thing, you know, it talks about Noah here.
And Noah built the ark, and the and the animals went in two by two, and the clean animals by sevens. And then the time came when God said, Come thou and all thy house into the ark, and no one in and his wife, and his three sons and their wives.
And then God shut the door.
You know, the windows of heaven were opened and all the fountains of the great deep were broken up. The water came from both sides, from up above in Torrance. They came down. The waters came down. You know, people think that people went up to the ark and said Noah let me in. I don't think they had a chance to live in or didn't even knock at the ark. The torrents of water that came when God does judgment.
Because people will not.
Obey Him in believing the Gospel. When that time comes, it's going to be awful, awful judgment.
Have you stopped to realize how awful the judgment is? That's just ahead. The Lord Jesus said that there will be no time like it afterward, nor was there before it as this time of judgment. That's just ahead. This world is a completely asleep. So many of God's people are asleep too. Do you and I realize how close we're getting?
Oh, may the Lord awaken us as to where we are.
The other case that it speaks about is a lot and you remember the story of Lot.
Remember Mr. Lundeen speaking about this story and he titled it?
Sodom's last night, nobody realized what was happening, but at the gate of the city in comes these two strangers. They happen to be angels dispatched by God to destroy that city. But what were they doing in that city? There was a righteous man there, and he went to be, and they went and stayed at this righteous man.
Lot's house, you know, I wouldn't know that he was a righteous man by reading the account of what he did. It's shameful, absolutely shameful what he did that night.
But Scripture tells us in the New Testament that he was a righteous man, and so he must have had faith because.
00:55:01
Our righteousness is on the grounds of faith.
And in the next day, when they wanted to get Lot and his family out, they said, who do you have in this city Get them out for? We're going to destroy this place.
And he talked to his sons in laws and they thought he was joking.
They didn't believe it.
And finally came to the point where the angels had to grab hold of Lot and his wife and his two daughters and they drug him them out of the city and said run to the mountains.
Don't stop. Don't look back.
Isn't that awful? He had to drag him out of the city.
They were so connected with things in that city, that awful, wicked city.
That's.
Sodom, Gomorrah, Adman, Zibon, 4 cities that were to be destroyed.
The first one is what describes a sin that has been legitimized in the United States of America.
God is watching it. God is not mocked.
Awful to think about it, but as they were going out of the city, they were running toward the mountain.
Lot's wife turned around to look.
Her heart was back in Sodom. She had been drug out physically, but her heart was back there.
Sometimes I see Christians, but I can see that their heart is in this world. What is it in this world that is so attracting you that you want to look back?
Scripture says remember.
Lots, wife, how solemn she was struck there by the judgment of God.
Oh, may the Lord help us to understand the reality of these things we're not talking about.
Cleverly devised fables. When we're talking about these, we're talking about reality. These things are going to happen. These things are written in Gods infallible word, and they're going to happen.
If there's anybody that still hasn't got the accounts straight.
I'll be sitting up here after the meeting if you want to come and talk.
Be glad to try to help you.
We just pray that if there's somebody that hasn't gotten it straight that they will tonight before it's too late.
Let's pray.
Peculiar People, Fitted
Children—D. So
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Well, good morning.
Wow, this is nice to see children of all ages. You know I thought a Sunday school. Well am I addressing to five year old?
15 year old, 50 year old, I think we're our children, aren't we? I don't know how many who are over 50 things. They're still like a little kid. So we can oh, I see hands up there. So let's, let's have this.
For all, isn't it? The gospel of God's grace is for all ages, whether you're young or old. We all need a Savior, so let's begin our Sunday school with Him. Anyone would like to start off by giving away Him?
No one. No. Favorite hymns, Yes.
Jesus loves me. That's hymn #40I like that one. Jesus loves me. So can we sing just the 1St and the last verse? Then we can sing more Him. Is that OK? All right, we'll sing the first verse and the last verse of hymn #40 on our hymn sheet.
Jesus loves me, this I know.
All the Bible tells me so let go on stirring.
They are. They are weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, streams. I love stream.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so. The last verse.
Gears of silence, he will say, close beside me. All the way.
If I trust him, should I die, he will Take Me Home.
Online.
Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so last night. Anyone else have another hymn? Oh, I see hands popping up OK.
Why? Why is the ocean is that in here?
Well, I suppose we know that, Ken. Let's sing that, eh? Why? Why As the ocean high, as I happens above.
Sea is my Savior's love.
I go, so I work.
Still have my child of his hair.
For His Word teaches me that His love reaches me.
Everywhere.
Let's have another one, OK?
Hymn #41 OK, let's sing the first and last verse of this as well.
I ran the throne of God in heaven will many children.
Save children, sins are all forgiven. Will have the end of spring singing glory.
Glory, glory.
To God.
Because the Savior shaved his blood to the blood to push away from push away the sins.
Now washed in that most precious blood, behold them clean singing glory, glory.
Glory be to God.
On high.
Now let's close our eyes for a minute. We'll bow in prayer. We'll ask the Lord Jesus to help us.
Blessed God in our loving Father, we give thanks once again this morning for the Sunday school. We thank Thee that I was set aside this little time for us to tell forth the story of thy love, the story that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And truly many of us here can say he came into the world to save me this morning. We look to thee if there be any boys, girls, teenage, teenagers, older ones too, who are still laws in sin.
00:05:28
We do pray that I would exercise the heart and conscience that Thou would help them to repent.
While there's still time, so we look to thee now, we commit this time into thine hand, looking for help, looking for blessings for us too, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I saw many hands up so let's I will presume you want to give our ham right? What number would you like?
Hymn #16 OK.
Oh, that's a nice one too.
Whosoever hearer shout out the sound, send the blessed tidings all the world around, spread the joyful news wherever man is found, whosoever will make up, whosoever will, whosoever will send the proclamation over their head.
It's a lovely father cause the one travel.
Whosoever will make come?
Whosoever come must stop, delay now the door is sold, and enter while you may. Jesus is the truth. They're only living way, whosoever will.
May come.
Whosoever will, whosoever will.
Send the proclamation over there.
Whosoever will become.
Now I'm going to stop singing just for a minute. I know some of you have spent all week learning the verses. How many learned the verses?
Wow, you know, I share a Sunday school at the last conference, I told people, you know, I used to be so afraid to stand up to say the verses. I would sit there and go, Oh no, there are three more than it's my turn. I need you to shake. I hate to feel. Oh, I worries. I was so afraid to so I can feel if you don't want to say it, so don't feel you have to, but you can say that to your mom and dad, can't you? But for those that I know some of you would love to burst it out.
And just like we sang, whosoever will shout, shout that sound, that blessed gospel news, that's what the verses are. So now before we say the verses, I want to tell you a little story behind that verse. Let me read the verse first. I hope I'm right at John chapter 737. Am I correct in saying that? OK, now it says in the last day. By the way, I'm doing this. So for those who haven't learned it, I know some of you can learn very quickly as we're doing this right.
In the last day, the Gray day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, Here's the verse, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
And some of you learned the latter part. If any man thirst, come, let him come unto me and drink. You know, it's very interesting. And perhaps this part I'm addressing to some of the older one as well.
You know, it's just the last day of the feast.
Why is it the last day there was a feast going on and you know, the word of God always tells us stories and we just don't read it carefully at times. Why was it the last day? Because the feast went on that that that week. And if you read the beginning of the chapter in chap in verse two, it said the Jews feast. It says of the fees of the tabernacles. We know that was about the feast of the Tabernacle.
00:10:02
We know that from Leviticus there were seven feasts of Jehovah and this is the one that on the on the 10th day of that month of that seventh month, on the 10th day, they had to have a feast of the Tabernacle. Now the reason to tell you that is is very interesting that the word of God tells us that because the fees of the Tabernacle is a picture of the Lord Jesus, he's going to come and reign, isn't it?
In that Gray day, so we find in that same book in verse 14, this is now about the midst of the feast. Jesus went up into the temple and taught, wait a minute, did Jesus go to that feast?
No, he didn't go to the feast. Why is that? Because he is the true feast of Tabernacle they were looking forward to. He didn't go until the middle of the feast. Now here's something even interesting. And some of you may know the Jewish custom better than I do. Those seven days of celebration. Each day they read a different Psalm on the 4th day. Now some of you have your Bible there can turn with me to Psalm 94.
This is what they were to read for that day.
Every day a Psalm, Psalm 105, Psalm 29, Psalm 2050 and on the 4th day they would have to they, they ought to read Psalm 94. I won't read the whole Psalm, but this is how the Psalm begins, oh Lord God.
To whom?
Wow, isn't that interesting? The Lord didn't go in the middle. He taught them because that's when they were to read. The God is going to seek vengeance on his people. Then he says on the last day of the feast, He went on the last day they were to read Psalm 82. Now let's see what Psalm 82 have to say. The 82nd Psalm.
82nd Psalm says God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, he judges among the gods. Now can you picture this? Here is the middle of the in the toward the end of the feast. Oh, by the way, their feces, they do a lot of things right at the last day of the feast. They, they have a special celebration. They, they have people break into three companies. So as if we were saying we're three groups of people will do three different things.
So one group, the priest will go down to the altar to get preparation, and then another group will go down and cut down palm trees, Willow and Myrtle, and they use it to carry them right. Actually, they have to do it just right. They have to carry the palm in the right hand, am I right? And on the left hand, goodly fruit, a fruit from the goodly trees. And then the third party is interesting. They go down with the priest to the Pool of Siloam with a picture.
Go down to the picture, the site, the pool, they fill the picture up, they come back to the altar and there one priest on the east side would pour a glass of wine on the east side of the altar. The other one would take the water from the pool of Siloam and pour it through the West side of the altar. That's the Jewish tradition. They were chant and then they would be quiet for just a moment. Now, can you picture this? They were waving these palms. They were chanting.
And then there was quiet. And then we hear this. In the great day of Jesus, stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. Oh, isn't that solemn? For the Israelite of all to realize that their God and Savior was standing in front of them, the feast of Tabernacle that they're celebrating.
Is truly before them, but yet they want to reject this Savior. OK now it's easy to learn the verse isn't it? So Jesus stood and spoke to them and he said let me read that verse again. He said if any man thirst, let him come, let him come unto me and drink. Who would like to say that verse for us? I'm going to start back here. See his hand go up first. Oh just a minute now.
I hope I broaden up of these. I've got a whole bunch of stuff. I don't know if this is right down here, the United States, you folks have stuff called dumb dumb. You get dumb dumbs for reward by saying it. You know it's funny. At the last conference afterwards, someone brought me stuff he got is called smarties. He said that's a lot better than Dum Dums. But I don't have any smarties with me. So if you would like you can have a dumb dumb, go ahead.
00:15:25
Don't come unto me and drink.
John 737. Very good.
Would you like a dumb dumb? Can you be my helper? Carry this and give it to whoever say the verse next.
Go ahead. You did have your hand up, right, OK.
Hey, man.
Don't let him.
OK, you can read it, look at it.
If any man there's, let him come unto me and drink. John 737. Very good. Are you going to say it too? OK.
That's close. John 7.
3737 that's very good. Now I miss. I'll come back around this way.
Anyone else here would like to say the verse?
If any man thirst.
He shall come unto me and drink. That's pretty close. OK? Are you going to say it too? OK.
1St 1St.
John Good, Very good.
OK.
You have to say the whole part.
If any man thirst, let him.
Come on to me and drink. OK, John, very good. If any man thirst, let him come on to me and drink with John 737 and Betty man there's let him come into me and John 737. Would you like to say it?
If any man.
John 7 and 737. Very good. I know you've been having your hands up many times.
If if anyone thirsts but I don't come into me and drink John 737.
If anyone seriously come on to me and drink, John said 37. Very good. Did I miss anyone? Oh, I miss.
OK.
Come and drink and 37. OK, are you going to say it now? OK, well, thank you.
That's a nice verse to learn, isn't it? Any man thirst.
All right, let's have another hymn.
Then perhaps we'll tell some story after that on hand. OK, Emma.
The foolish man.
Umm, the wise man, Is that in here?
I'm not sure if that's in this one here. OK, we'll just sing the first dancer. Or maybe, I guess we can sing both. The wise men built his house upon the world.
Wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock. And the rain came tumbling down. The rain came down and the floods came up. The rains came down as the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. And the house on the rocks didn't turn.
His house upon the sun.
Built his house upon the sand. The foolish hand built his house upon the sand. And the rain came tumbling down. The rays came down, and the bus came up. The rains came down, and the floods came up.
00:20:28
Is the rock. So if you build on Christ, who is the Rock, you'll be saved when the judgement comes. You will be safe when the judgment comes. You will be safe when the judgment comes. You will be safe when the judgment comes if you build on Christ the Rock.
OK.
I want to share with your story. You know, yesterday we were reminded how sometimes.
We're afraid to tell people we're Christians. Sometimes we walk differently.
Right, depending on where we are and a verse came to me. Actually this been on my heart for a few weeks now. Let's turn with me to Titus. How many of you can find the book Titus?
Is right after Timothy, Timothy, First Timothy, Second Timothy, and then Titus. We're just going to read couple verses.
Verse 13 and verse 14.
Looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself.
A peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Now that's a long verse. There's so much in here to tell us to look forward to that blessed hope. We as redeem one have that blessed hope before us, don't we? Now my thought this this morning is rather the latter part of the verse. Another can perhaps speak on the rest later on with you. We do know that the Lord Jesus gave himself for us. He died that we may live. He shed his blood on the cross. That's the gospel, isn't it?
And that by believing we are saved. But here, here's the portion that I find sometimes, perhaps I don't think of it much. It says Who gave himself for us, that he may redeem us from all iniquity of a more lawlessness, and purify unto himself. Here's what I was thinking of a peculiar people.
Do you know anybody that's peculiar? Look to the person to your left of you. Does he look peculiar? She, he or she look peculiar. Now look at the person to the right of you. Does that person look peculiar to you?
I think we are because God said we are peculiar people to him. Would you like to be peculiar? Why is it that we say someone's peculiar? You know, we we come to a conference like this and I know many.
Will go buy new dresses, get their hair done so that they look nice, but you don't find them. They want to stand out, but yet you don't find them dressed differently so that they'll stand out. We want to be different, but yet the same. That's not peculiar, is it?
How many of you and some of you have seen this last few weeks ago will come to a conference and go, you know, I don't know about that. I think I'm going to wear a helmet instead of a hat now. Do I look any peculiar than the rest of you?
Am I our place now?
And what if this is still not enough? I want to be more peculiar. So I took the liberty to wear something different. I'm going to take my shirt off so you can see that I dress. By the way, remember Mr. Bremen did that a few years ago. Remember that? He took his off and we saw his T-shirt. So I thought, no, I'm not going to wear AT shirt. I want to look more peculiar, so I have a different thing. I have a bicycle jersey on.
So how would you like to see? Whoops, I think I'm caught here. Me coming into a conference. What a bicycle jersey? Now, do I look peculiar?
But you know what's interesting about peculiar?
00:25:03
There's always a reason for being peculiar. It's OK, I didn't bring my shorts so not to be too concerned about that.
You think of John the Baptist. Was he peculiar?
He was. He lives out in the desert. He eats locusts and honey. He wear camels hair. He was peculiar because he stood out.
The Lord want us to stand out for Him. But there is another reason for being peculiar. I am dressed right now as a cyclist. Why do you think cyclists dress the way they dress? Is it just so they look different?
No, now I'm going to turn to one more verse. Second Timothy, chapter 3.
Second Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16.
And verse 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God.
May be perfect thoroughly furnish unto good works.
Now here is a furnace to be perfect. I like Mr. Darby translated a little bit differently, he said, so that you can be complete. And then they use the word fitted. And I thought, wow, that's how if someone who rides a bike who's in a race, he wants to be fitted so he can win the race or he can ride better.
How do you get fitted? Why do you fit yourself accordingly? So how many of you ride bikes? You want to be noticed on the road, don't you? So you want to put on something fitted to be more peculiar. This way people can see you from a long distance. Do we let people know that we fitted with the Word of God? Because we want to be complete in God's sight and we want to be able to proclaim the gospel of His grace.
Now here's something interesting about being fitted. We don't dress like everyone else. You worry and a few weeks ago we were. We went for a bike ride and I dressed in this outfit along with my shorts and we thought we stopped for lunch 1St and my wife said are you going to change and go? No I said they're going to serve us.
They know we're cyclists, right? So you need to be fitted, in our case, the Word of God. Now if you were to ride your bike, you get to be fitted with many things, not only other clothes, right? Some of you may put on a light so that people can tell you are coming, right? So you're fitting yourself and blinding some people, I guess. And, and we are reminded too that we are the light of this world. Are we, are we to be fitted with a light?
Now sometimes we fit it with the wrong light. So some Have you noticed I have a red light on this helmet. Can you see that? What does that light mean?
What does it mean?
Yeah, you say, hey, I'm here. Back off. Don't hit me. I don't want you to come close.
Oh, do we do that? So we have to be careful of how, what are we fitting ourselves with? Is it something that we can tell others of who we are and what we do for the word of God? Now I'll share with you something else. It's interesting. Now, I hope they're not other cyclists here because I don't really know a whole lot about this and I'm going to share with you a little bit. I know now you'll find a lot of cyclists do this. They buy bicycles, shoes.
And I know many of you go, I don't wear bicycle shoes. I just jump on with my running shoes, Right? Nothing wrong with that, but you're not fit it for efficiency. Now take a look at this shoe. What do you notice? Notice anything different?
Is it different? Is it a pair of running shoes?
What did you? What do you notice different?
Oh, how many of you could put metal piece on your shoes?
I know somebody who would like to at a conference, they can tap and people would notice it, right? So he noticed there's a metal piece on the bottom of the shoes. Did you notice anything else?
00:30:14
Nice color, isn't it?
I know some of us buy shoes for the colors. Now I'll show you something that's interesting. See, this shoe doesn't flex.
You buy shoes that don't flex, It's not very comfortable, is it?
It doesn't flex, right? You try flexing it. Does it flex? The soul is as stiff as it can be. That's because a cyclist want to be fitted for riding and not for walking. Can you imagine walking with a piece of metal on the bottom and whatever place you go, you hear it go tap, tap, tap. It's not nice, but yet when you're pedaling, you don't want your feet to be flexing up and down, so you want it to be stiff. Oh, and you mentioned there's a piece of metal down here.
Now this is interesting. You know that this piece of metal is called SPD.
As a company negotiate man or this, it's called Shimano paddling dynamics. There, I just told you. What does that mean, right? What it means is it locked your feet to the pedal. Can you imagine your feet locked to the pedal? Now you have more efficiency, you don't lose by slipping. It's fitted for that. Now let me tell you something interesting too. When you fit it for special thing.
How many of you have ride your bike, come to your stops, stick your foot out and stop and that's OK? How many have fallen off a bike?
Now can you picture this? I strapped your feet to the paddle. Now you come to a stop. You can't get your feet off the paddle. What happened?
You fall over. That's right. So here people will go. You're fitted for speed, for efficiency, but if you don't learn it properly, the first time you come to a stop, you go, oh, I can't get my feet out. And it's the funniest thing for anyone else watching that you stop. And I'll tell you, this is the funniest for you too, because your fall becomes the slowest motion because you can remember every bit of it as you're leaning over and there is nothing you can do as you fall.
But that's OK because we find when we learn and study from the word of God, we try to be fitted for his work. And sometimes we fall and we fail, don't we? We go tell someone the gospel of God's grace and he come back with a question that we go, oh, I don't know how to answer that. It's OK, isn't it? Sometimes we need to to fall a few times and then we learned.
We learn. I'll tell you, the first week I fell three times on the bike and I remember my wife said to me, aren't you going to stop using it?
No, and then when you get better at it then you don't fall as often and then you get better and better at it. So the Word of God says here that had where to be fitted so that we can be complete.
To do good works. So the two words, I want you to remember that we just talked about two words. Let's see if we can remember it. The first word is that, or maybe the first one is 2 words by itself. We are peculiar people.
The second word is we are fitted. Now if you would like to use the King James translation, which is very good, is furnished, but I like fitted because then you can picture your outfitting yourself, that you do things. So that is specifically for that purpose. Here. Let me show you something else too. See any pockets here? Where are your pockets? You know where my pockets are.
I don't have it. Here's my pocket.
It's in the back because when you're riding a bike, you don't want things on your side because you're leaning over. So this is fitted just for that. Isn't that interesting? So we need to be fitted. What are the two words that we want to be reminded of? Okay, I'm picking favor here.
Peculiar what?
We're peculiar.
People And what's the second one?
Fitted. Yeah, we dress accordingly and not to be afraid. You know, it's funny, I spoke on this and I used this example a few weeks ago in Monroe's conference and her brother came to me. He said, he said I just came back from Amsterdam. He said if you were there with his outfit, you will look normal.
00:35:05
They are cycle over there. So we among ourselves as Christians, when we come to a conference, what do we do? We talk like we're Christians. We act like we're Christians. We put on fitting ourselves like we are Christians. And then in a day or two, we go home, we go back to work, we go back to school. What do we do? We quickly take our outfit off so nobody knows. Am I right in saying that?
And you know.
The most difficult and perhaps your children are still young and I see some older one, perhaps they'll agree with me. The most difficult way to live is to live 2 lives. You will have conflict within yourselves.
Do you want to be known as a Christian, as one who loved the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of God said by the fruit ye shall know him? Or do you want to live 2 lives that when you come to a conference you look so nice, you're able to quote scriptures and talk like you're holy?
The Lord knows the hearts. So remember children and older children too, that we are peculiar people before God. Why are we peculiar? In the book of Peter? I think Mr. Darby changed that word where people of possession, we are his. Now let's go back to read that same verse again. As a reminder, let's go back to Titus chapter 3.
So we are peculiar because of this. We have something no one else have. I look peculiar to you right now because I have a helmet that you don't have. I have a helmet that even blink with a flashing light that you don't have. But what do we have as Christians? Titus chapter 2, verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
You go to school and you talk to your friends. How many of them can say they have a blessed hope?
This world, the word of God said like we at once were without God, without hope. We have a blessed hope, and we are waiting for his appearing. And then he said, Who gave himself for us? You know that, don't you, That Jesus died for you and he gave himself for you. Why did he do that? He did it because this tells us to redeem us.
Unto himself.
To redeem us from all inequities, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good work. Oh, that's what he wants you and I to be. And he did finish the work already. And that we are his, and we're going to be complete before God. OK, we have a few more minutes that we can say. Couple more hymns.
Who has another hymn that they would like to sing? OK.
Hymn #44 OK, can we sing the first and last verse as well? Is that OK? All right? Hymn #44 Into a tent where? Gypsy boy.
I am alone at the close of the day, news of salvation we, Perry said He. Nobody ever has told it to me.
Till we are here, till we are again.
Salvation story re Ignore and go.
No one can say all the children of men. Nobody ever has told me before.
The last words of his friends just as he entered the valley of God closeted some do so every said he, and I am sure that he sent him for his.
Salvation Story.
00:40:05
Of the children of men, nobody ever has told me before.
Let's have another one. You know you gave an already, OK.
46 ah spelling him and I saw a hand that you can pick the next one OK.
Gladi Idi.
And he wants all to be always to to you. Are you rusty in him? And I've all their sins how washed away.
You had a number.
What is it? I'm sorry.
Number.
#18 OK.
Perhaps we're seeing the first verse due to time here. Number 18. Perhaps someone can raise the tune please.
I will.
Say.
Or cancel off the world. And he gave his only son that whosoever believeth in him.
Should not perish, should not have ridden.
We talked about two words. How many remember where they were?
Hold on a second, what were the two words? Peculiar people and fitted?
And fit a very good somebody's listening. I'm glad. Oh, you want to say it? You have your hand up. OK, hold on.
Peculiar, peculiar and fitted. Very good. So now we can go out there and let people know we are peculiar people because he loved us and we belong not to this world, but the world to come. Let's close our eyes and we'll give thanks.
Spiritual Descendants
Address—Doug Buchanan
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Could we begin with hymn #47?
Grace, daughter wandering.
Around and do some like for women.
I want nothing.
We praise great praise, inspire.
Our souls to strengthen mind.
May.
He serves the praise.
Look to the Lord.
I would like to speak on this, one of my favorite subjects of grace, our chapter in Second Peter.
In the second verse that we began with says Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and our and of Jesus.
Our Lord.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye might be made rich.
It's a wonderful thing that God has opened up this new kind of an Ave.
New in the sense that it's not readily understood by our natural hearts. It's a subject that we do not tend to like because it does not, I believe, give credit to ourselves. Man has always liked to be independent. God created us to be dependent on him. He had no thought that we would live in independence of Him.
Indeed, God has made the best plan possible for mankind.
It's interesting that.
There are so many.
Books written on subjects, even this subject of grace or how to raise a family.
And I I would I would I like to put it this way.
Which would you rather look to as a guidance to raise your family or as a guidance to lay hold of any subject in the Bible, the best philosopher and the most experienced man and all the studies that he could ever come up with? Or would you rather depend on the the your creator God who made you and had a original plan that was perfect if to look at in his book?
Which book would you rather look to for guidance?
00:05:04
Where oftentimes we're like, and I commit this all the time and buy a new product and I open it up and I'm enthralled with the new product and I start putting it together. And then after a halfway through, I realize I don't know how to put it together. And then I go back to the instruction manual and that sometimes have to undo what I did started out doing it would have been better to look at the manual to beginning.
This is the way. This is true in life history as well.
I want to tell you why I chose this subject day before yesterday.
When we were preparing to come up here, I said to my wife, Barbara said, by the way, Barbara, we're going through Indiana and we're going to pick up less some who was up Purdue University. She was here yesterday. If you all didn't meet her nice young lady from Lima, Peru. She came up here on a two week course at Purdue University. She won being at the top of her class and she left last night to go back.
And I said to Barbara, well, we're going, we're going to go right through up central IN, we're going to pass right through a town where is buried the man who gave the gospel to your grandma that led to her being saved and coming into the knowledge of the truth.
Nobody knew where this man was buried until a few weeks ago or months ago. And we discovered he was buried in Central IN. And I said, would you like to go by and look at, let's look up and see if we can find the grave. So she said, of course, yes. So we did. We we stopped in Crawfordsville, IN where this man was buried. His name was Frank Glover.
He died 109 years ago.
And.
Before.
He died, but let me back up a little bit.
When we arrived at the graveyard.
We had asked, I had inquired where the grave might be by phone and the lady wasn't going to be there. So she gave me a map and it drew on the lines. It's about 100 acres cemetery, at least originally it was, and so there are hundreds and thousands of graves there. She gave us a map and left it pinned to the door where this man's grave was. So we pulled the map off the the door of the.
Office building and easily found the site. We had a limited amount of time because we had to pick up last SEM and then we are.
Our plan was to come here to the conference from there another three hours. So we pulled up and walk out into the cemetery. And I want to describe it to you a little bit. There's a there was an area about as big as a square of this center of this room.
And a huge monument in the middle, probably.
Half again, bigger than that table and about 6 feet high. A huge monument had one word written on it. Bond. That was the family name. In the four corners of this lot. There were 6 graves, that's all.
Rest was vacant.
And among them were the parents, two daughters, and the husband of one of the daughters.
And the mother of Frank and Frank, I don't know where the father is buried. He had died at an early age.
And so we're looking at these. I walk up to the once gravestone.
Has the name Lucy.
And her last name as the date of her birth.
1855.
On the other side, where it was supposed to be put the date of her death, it was blank.
No date.
Has been put.
No children in that family.
00:10:00
No remembrance.
That's how many years ago.
Long time she had to have died. Next time I go back I'm going to find out.
Remembrance.
Remember those who have spoken unto you.
Let me read it. Hebrews 13.
Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God.
Whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation.
It made me glad that I went by there to remember that family.
I don't know anything about that particular family. I do know something about the other person I want to talk about, and that is Frank Glover.
He was the one that we went to remember.
He was the one who in the early 1900s.
Going to the University of Rose Polly Technique in Terre Haute IN was studying probably engineering, and he came became acquainted with a young lady whose name was Helen Rosenberg.
And those two became attached to each other and were falling in love.
God had a different plan.
Frank was a believer.
I'm not sure what church he went, whether he was a Methodist or a Presbyterian, and I know he was a Protestant and I know he believed in the Lord Jesus as his Savior, and he preached the gospel to his girlfriend, Helen.
Who was a Roman Catholic?
And.
Helen became interested.
Had not much light.
A very well educated person herself and.
The Lord Loud Frank to be taken away in death.
After a few months.
19/8.
Before he died, he said to his best friend, whose name was Walter. Walter.
Would you take care of my Helen for me?
The Lord is going to Take Me Home. I don't know what he said, but in essence he said that.
Walter after he he died. Frank died in 19619 eight. Walter ended up marrying Helen Rosenberg.
Who laid hold of that faith?
There are six people in this room who are descendants.
Of that couple.
And many more that follow the face.
That Frank sewed in the heart of Helen.
In early 1900s.
No one had been there of this of the family to see that grave until the day before yesterday.
As we bowed.
There to think.
Of the preciousness of the gospel message that that young man gave to that young woman.
And attracted her heart to the Lord. I don't know exactly when she was saved.
She ended up, through the usefulness of others, being gathered to the Lord's name, and it was became a real woman of faith.
My purpose this afternoon is to talk about faith that lays hold of the grace of God.
00:15:02
We have a similar story in the Old Testament.
I'm thinking of the people that were mentioned in.
The lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Particular two women. There are more than two mentioned there, but there are two special ones that are mentioned there in the lineage of the Lord Jesus.
For a special reason.
Because I believe.
Those women were women of faith.
And those women and men too, in the list.
Passed on.
That face.
By giving good witness to it and believing in it. The first one is called Rahab.
And in the New Testament, every time she's mentioned except in the lineage, she's called Rehab the Harlot.
That is the grace of God that would take such a woman.
From a condemnation and Jericho and give her deliverance.
Because she showed trust in the God of Israel, Jehovah.
And hosted and saved the two men that were sent to her, to that city. You know the story. We're not going to go back and read the whole story in the Old Testament.
That faith was passed on to the next generation, too.
He had a son.
His name was.
Boaz and Boaz became also.
A believer in the God of Israel.
And as we all know, he took in another Gentile woman and married her and raised up seed to a family that was destitute.
This is what faith does. Nothing is too impossible for God in this way.
In in Hebrews Chapter 11 we have Rahab mentioned.
Hebrews, Chapter 11.
And says verse 31.
By faith Rahab the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believe not.
Sorry.
When she had received the spies with peace.
Wonderful that this woman.
Who lived in a city that I believe is.
In the pretty much the same situation as where we live in right now in the United States of America.
We're living in a country that is doomed to judgment.
The day of the Lord is drawn near.
Her perception and realization of that.
Was real.
Is that how we lookout on life around us today in this world?
How is it that we are going to get through life?
And not fall under the judgment and condemnation. How is it that our families are going to be preserved?
You know, let's go back to the Old Testament and read what it says there in in in Joshua chapter 2.
I want to read just a few of the verses there and.
00:20:06
Joshua, chapter 2.
And verse 9.
And she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, that your tears fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you, For we have heard how the Lord, that's Jehovah.
Dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did unto the two kings of the Amorites that were on the other side of Jordan, Sion and Ogg, whom he utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above.
And in earth beneath. Now therefore I pray you swear unto me by the Lord, since I have showed you kindness, that you will also show kindness unto my Father's house. And give me a token that ye will save a life, my family and my mother, my father and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that I have.
And deliver our lives from death. And the men answered her, Our life for yours. If ye utter not this our business, it shall be when the Lord has given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Then she let them down by a cord through the window, for her house was upon the wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said under them.
Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you, and hide yourselves there. Three days until the pursuers beach return, and afterward may you go your way.
And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine oath which thou hast made us swear.
Behold, we will come into the land, and thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window.
Which thou dost let us down by, and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and thy father's house home unto thee. And it shall be that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head. We will be guiltless. Whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him. And so on. What a what a wonderful provision here.
We see in here that Rahab believed in Jehovah, the God of Israel.
She had a faith in that and she believed it was real and she.
Laid hold of it.
James tells us she was justified by works because her faith went into action.
And so I believe it's a little like our our, our chapter and second Peter there where we have the things that are to be added.
And I believe she added those things and her faith was real.
So many of us have seen this in our in our own lives, and many of us have.
A sought to.
Practice this faith in God as to our families.
And we have found that God does honor faith. And so it was very simple.
Whoever was within the doors of her house.
Would be preserved. They had to go in the house when that day of judgment came, and they did, and they were saved.
Well, we all know the story.
She was interested in preserving.
Her family.
Never mentions her having any children. Most likely she did not. Later on she did.
Because she married Salman.
Who? Also it's interesting.
I want to trace down the generations now.
00:25:00
Going on all the way to David.
David was a wonderful man of faith, but I don't believe the story of David began with David. It began much earlier. The story that I told you here didn't begin 109 years ago.
And today we're here, the benefactors.
Of the faith of those who live before us. They bought the truth, they laid hold of it, and they made it theirs. And their children saw it was real, and they laid hold of it.
And now as I look back here, I see the 4th generation.
Sitting in some of these chairs, there's actually a fifth generation that was just born. Those of you who know the family know who it is five generations.
From the faith that started with one man, with a woman, that God did not even allow him to take her as his bride, He took him away.
In death.
I'm looking forward to the day of seeing that man. I'm not a descendant of that man, but I have seen the results of the faith of that man in the history that I have seen in families that have sought to walk in the face of their ancestors.
Who followed the face of their ancestors? Of their ancestors?
And God knows where it started. It's all possible because of Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of faith. The Lord Jesus has opened up to us a wealth of blessing to lay hold of.
By faith and to walk in.
I want to encourage our families.
To walk in this faith that you see, it's not just doing what your parents or your grandparents did, it's whose faith follow, not their steps.
We all make failures and there's failures in everyone in the Old Testament, but you can see the faith. We're going to go on and and notice the story of Ruth. And Ruth saw the faith of her mother-in-law.
After her, their parent of their husbands were all gone. The Lord had taken them all away.
And they were left alone, without descendants.
And there was something that Ruth saw in her mother-in-law in spite of the hand of the Lord being hard on that family. I look back at Frank Glover and I don't know why God was hard on that man, why he took him away, but I see blessing as a result of it.
A special woman must impressed by the faith of that man, and she changed her religion. She became a follower of the Lord Jesus.
What he started and others carried on.
So, Rahab.
Sought to save her family. What did God do in turn? Yes, he saved her family. When they when the walls of Jericho fell down, the two men that had lodged there went in. They took the the the father and the mother and the sisters it says expressly. And all those that were in there doesn't tell how many they were all taken safely out and they lived with the children of Israel afterwards.
Salman don't know whether he was one of those spies that went in or not. Doesn't say. Could have been he was.
Anyway, you know, I looked in the Bible and we don't have any much about Salman. We have something about his father. His father was nation. Nation was the Prince of Israel.
You know, this is just, this is just something that came across my mind. You know, I wondered if Salman could have had laboring brother and children to syndrome problems.
00:30:01
Anyone I'm talking about.
It's hard to be a child of a laboring brother or a Prince in Israel. It's it's hard to be a descendant of somebody who's very prominent and you do feel like you do not have those qualities to be what your dad or what your mother or what your grandparents were. That's a little bit of a hard wrote follow. Maybe, maybe Solomon was that kind of a man. I don't know. But what I do know, he was a man of faith.
And he married a woman because she was a woman of faith.
And they had a son.
And his name was Boaz, and Boaz must have seen some of it because when Ruth comes along in his life and when Ruth throws out the invitation that there's a need of one of his relatives to raise up a seed to a family, that was cut off.
The family of the Bond family and Frank Glover has been cut off.
No descendants left, except there are six of them here by faith.
Descendants by faith, and many others of us can claim that too.
So it's not just a literal descendants, there's the literal descendant and it's nice when they're both together, but sometimes it is not. So when God does not give children, there is such a thing as spiritual children and we can have spiritual children. Frank Glover has spiritual children today, many of them. There's probably in the 20s of those that are gathered to the Lord's name that I don't think Frank ever even knew that such a people existed.
But he sowed the seeds of faith that led to families being followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege it is to be a parent to have children or to be a Sunday school and have children and teach them the ways of God. And so in their hearts, faith that they see is real.
I believe.
Saw that we often talk about Boaz as a picture of the Lord Jesus and they rightly so. I think it's very noble picture of the Lord Jesus raising up as the Lord Jesus did exactly that. He came and he saw the human race that was destitute, doomed to hell and needing a deliverer, and he lay down his life in death in order to give the families of earth hope and life that never dies.
And even the physical resurrection of the body and even the nation of Israel, He's going to raise up as from the dead, as described in the book of Ezekiel, the valley of dry bones. The Lord Jesus is going to gather a nation for God's glory on earth. But our part is a heavenly part.
And we're children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. When we're born again, Wonderful thing to participate in that family. Wonderful thing when both of these things go together.
So the second person was Salman and their son Boaz. Boaz, Let's go turn over now to the book of Ruth and notice a few things there. Know the next lineage.
Booker Ruse.
Chapter 2 and verse 2.
And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him, in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go my daughters, my daughter. And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and her hat or her chance was to light.
00:35:00
Her land on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech.
Now we know the story of Ruth. How she.
Clung to her mother-in-law when her mother-in-law decided to go back from Moab to the land of Israel, which was the land that God had promised to bless them in.
It's a sad thing when a family leaves the ground of blessing that God establishes to bless us in.
You know, God has special blessings for each of each family. We're all different.
And there are, I believe that it was a mistake for Elimelech and to leave in the time of famine.
We understand the significance of this. Some of us have been in an assemblies where in families where there have been problems and things fall apart, there's a breakup in families and and so on that can happen in assemblies. These are hard things to do, to go through and.
But the one thing that we want to be careful that we never do.
Is that is we give up the ground.
Blessing that God has established to bless us on. I think that's what the limaclec did when he went down into the land of Moab. Moab was the land where the children of Moab were to be blessed.
The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. And so this poor family, after the hand of God was hard upon them, they realized the mother and the daughter-in-law realize they must go back.
Where God had blessed them in the beginning, and they do. That was probably the hardest thing for Naomi to do.
But she did it.
Why did she do it?
She still trusted in God.
And now she has her daughter-in-law, Ruth.
And Ruth has become a believer in Jehovah as well.
And she decides to go out and experiment with Grace.
That's what gleaning is going out.
Who will be kind enough to allow me to find some food in their field to live on?
So she throws it out open.
Where am I going to find such a person? Where such a field?
Jehovah was guiding that dear soul. We know it. He was guiding her to the right field, you see, where there's a willingness on our part to be submissive and obedient.
We could go, I could go back and let me go back and refer for a moment to the story about the Lord Jesus in the Gospel when the young man came to him and said.
Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord answered him by giving the part of the commandments of the 10 commandments that applied to men love to not commit adultery and so on. And he ends up saying, and honor thy father and mother.
And he, and then the Lord the man answers. These have I done from my youth up. But the Lord points out one thing that he had not done.
Well, I should go back and say before that the Lord answered him, He said, Why call us thou me good?
There is none good. The Lord disqualified himself as a man from living a life of independence of God and assuming any goodness for himself apart from his God as a man. The Lord Jesus was a perfect man, independence always on God. That was what the young man had not done. He had not given God the supreme place in his life to to to direct and guide him in the right path.
He was trying to find it out on his own apart from God, and that was a mistake from the beginning. From the very beginning the Lord Jesus was the perfect dependent, obedient, 1 as a man, and so He would not assume any goodness if in Himself we know He was God too, but as man He was dependent. He gave us the perfect example of how grace of God can be multiplied in our lives.
00:40:29
By dependence on God and this poor woman, Ruth is brought then to this circumstances where she's forced to take this step.
God doesn't want to.
Force us to this point by circumstances, but sometimes that's the only way he gets it out of us, it seems like.
And so Ruth is.
Brought to she has to go and see who will be gracious to her, favorable to her. She goes out and God, we know the story and Boaz was the man that had a sense of appreciation of these things.
Had he learned that from his mother?
I can't help but think so. You can ask him when he gets in, when you get in glory and find out for sure. But I'm relatively convinced that that the reason Boaz was kind to this woman as he remembered what kindness had been shown to him, his family by his mother who had been brought into acceptance into Israel. And it's interesting that the nearer kinsman when the day of redemption came.
To be.
Realized there was a near there was somebody who had a first right of redemption that was closer to the family than to eliminate than Boaz was. And so it was right to give that person the right of redeeming them. And that person wanted to do it until it came a question of taking in a Moabite and raising up seed for that family. And then he said, no, I, I am mar my own inheritance if I do that.
You know, that's the way the world in its own, That's the way the selfish heart of man is me first.
And others next.
With Boaz, it was not that way. With our Lord Jesus Christ, it was not that way.
He laid down his life.
For us, so that blessing could come to our families. When a sense of that gets into our souls, it should change us. It should make us humble. It should make us kind to those that have need around us. And when those around us see that.
It's going to have an effect.
And if they realize that this is real.
And it is real.
When they realize it's real.
It guided Ruth to a better husband than she could have ever found. Going to any other way, any other means you want to come up with to find a good husband.
She got the best man.
He was not a young man.
I calculated that there are five generations between.
Nation and David, and there's 366 years. That means an average of 73 years between each generation.
Were there other generations that are not mentioned there? I do not know. I don't think so.
So that that if you just take the law of averages, that would put Boaz of 73 years of age.
When he married Ruth. So anyway, that just to by the way, comment.
When when something comes to us is the grace of God, it is the best.
Whether it appears to our own hearts, desires and natural inclamations.
To be so or not, it is the best so she got the best husband in a very unusual way. It's not the normal way to get a husband, but it was an extreme way in which God was able to preserve that family that had faith so that nothing was impossible. And so Ruth then is becomes the channel of blessing and it we we could turn over.
00:45:08
There's there's a couple other comments I want to look at at Ruth before we get to the end of the book.
Down in the same chapter.
Notice in.
Notice in verse verse 10 and 11 of chapter 2 and Ruth.
Well, the subject starts in verse 8. Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Herest thou not my daughter, go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens. Let thine eyes be on the field, that they do reap, and go thou after them. Have not I charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? And when she and when thou art a thirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.
Then this is the verse I wanted to call attention. Then she fell on her face and bowed herself to the ground.
And said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And Boaz answered and said unto her, It has fully been shown, showed me all that thou hast done unto thy mother-in-law since the death of thine husband, and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity.
And are come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore, the Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given.
Thee of the the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou are come to trust. Then she said, Let me find favor in thy sight, my Lord, for thou hast comforted me, and for thou hast spoken friendly unto thy handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thy handmaidens.
Beautiful the appreciation that these two souls have of grace, both of them.
Boaz delighted to show grace to this woman. She was content to cast herself totally on the good graces, the favor of a man like that when our souls get a hold of what the grace of God is like.
We cast our lives upon it, we cast our children upon it, we cast our work and problems, and we cast the assembly. Everything.
We can rely on that the grace of God, it's sufficient the.
Strange ways that God works.
He delights to pick up a one like Ruth or one like Rahab and exalt them into blessing. And is that not why our Lord Jesus Christ chose to have those kind of people in his lineage and mentioned by name, not covered over? And that's why I think it mentions Rahab the harlot. She didn't continue a harlot all her life. It's a sinful life. That kind of a life is accepted out in the world today.
They, but they abhorred it. Afterwards they turned from it, but.
It wasn't that they were a better person afterwards, they were still the same old sinful self, but the grace of God did everything to make the change. And so it is with us. And that's why grace is give such glory to God. What a noble thing here for Boaz to do to a family. What a noble thing that Frank did in preaching the gospel to that young woman.
So she would get saved and so on.
This story, I know in every other family there, this story is repeated over and over. Heaven is going to be filled with stories of recounting how God had worked in grace and how the different generations have followed on in it or in cases where they do not follow, then of course, it's the sad part. And so Boaz and Ruth.
They have a child. His name is Obed.
And Obed is the father of Jesse.
00:50:03
I want, I'm just going to pass on to make a couple comments about David.
Let me see if I can find the verses here.
I hope I marked these down.
First Samuel. First Samuel. Chapter.
25 Want to notice something here about David and Jesse? About Jesse?
And contrasting it with Nabal.
This happened during the time when King David was had been anointed king.
This is many years later, after Boaz and Ruth and Obed and Jesse now are the line of faith in the lineage of King David, in the lineage of our Savior.
And Jess And David is rejected. David had done favors to a man called Nabel, who I believe the brethren can correct me on this, but I believe that Nabel was a descendant of Caleb.
That had been a favored Prince and a favorite man in the history of that tribe.
Or that family of Caleb.
But Nabal was a fool.
And Nabal was a proud man. And he didn't.
Have an appreciation for Grace and so when David showed some kindness to him.
And the young men went to see and ask for some food so they could sustain these young men that have protected his flocks. Notice what it says.
In verse nine of first Samuel 25 And when David's young men came, they speak to Nabel, according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased enable answered David's servants, and said.
Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away from every man, from his masters. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shears, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be?
We have a contrast here of a proud man, a man that was wealthy.
A man that had acquired much by his strength and his prudence, and so on, and but no mention of the Lord Jehovah. A blessing. He was an independent man.
And no appreciation of mercy and grace to someone in me. Well, God looked down on that scene.
Thankfully, his wife was a noble woman. Abigail. She was different and she interceded and it was good that she did because David.
Being a little bit out of patience with the Lord, having endured a long time of suffering, was about to take vengeance on that family. That's sad when that kind of thing happens. Thankfully, Abigail.
Interceded and it never happened.
God allowed it. He allowed it for David's sake too, as Abigail put it.
That later on.
He would.
Repent of one of a deed, of a wicked deed that he had done in a time of extremity. These kind of things happened to us. Our faith gets tested, you see.
Thankfully, God sometimes steps in and intervenes to keep us from taking things into our own hands and doing something that would we would feel bad about. In this case anyway. God did. He doesn't always do that, but He did hear.
So we'll see here the contrast.
David was not that kind of a person. Jesse is referred to here as Who is Jesse and you read the story. I think he was a humble person.
That he must have been a man of faith. We don't have much about him. He's mentioned several times.
00:55:04
I believe the faith of those those five generations, David, who was the youngest son of that family of Jesse when he was born, his father was an old man that says.
But David laid hold of that faith and he understood what grace means, and he became an instrument in Israel that would ordain a new, many new things in Israel and become the the king according to God's heart, and who would properly represent the grace of God to the people of Israel in his day. Of course we know grace.
Couldn't come out in the fullness like it does in the New Testament.
The truth came by Jesus Christ, but God has always been a God of grace. And so you have these pictures in the Old Testament. Well, I trust that these few comments will be an encouragement to us as families to.
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
The grace of God.
That bring us salvation hath appeared unto all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts.
We should. I can't quote the whole verse.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness, worldliness, we should live soberly, righteously.
And godly in this present world, and our brother already read the next verse, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. I believe we're living at the close, at the end of this time before the judgments of God are introduced. And I believe the best thing that we as Christians can do is to magnify.
And and the grace of God and our trust in God.
And show it out in our lives, in our families and our friends and world, the people in the world around us. God wants His grace to be made known. Souls need it. And when it's properly understood.
It is a wonderful blessing to us.
There was a hymn.
#247 I asked our brother John Kaiser if he would help us with this. It's a little shorthand. Our time is up here, but maybe we could sing this. This hymn expresses the token here that Rahab spoke about. This is a hymn that we don't sing very often, and I didn't know the tune for it. 247 let's sing it.
Of I love some.
Gracious, so can praise all the Lord.
Before we are.
It's great.
2 Peter 1
Reading
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.
170.
No, he comes from heaven.
Descending.
Serious. Seriously.
1000 thousand seems certainly.
Swallowed dry among his dreams.
Hallelujah.
I.
I.
Knowing so I'm born again.
And the same thy man return to worship.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Sing a song for you.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Crystal love God here.
Is.
The brightness Spirit, Jesus, Lord, that goodly come.
On the glory to inherit.
And to take my deep home.
All creatures and all creation.
Froggles froze.
On creation.
All creation.
Travels from the house shall come.
Yeah.
All the boys came all along.
Chrome Savior, take the power and glory.
Thy home.
Who unfortunate?
00:05:26
Lord Jesus, we think of the first time that Thou didst come, the most momentous occasion in the history of this world, and when thou dost come again, as we have read, to set up Thy Kingdom in this world again, nothing like it have been seen in this world's history. And we thank Thee that thou has a plan for this world, many plans, that we are part of it, to be caught up, to be with the at thy side when thou does reign over this world. We thank Thee for that time coming when that will be honored.
Recognized by Thy earthly people, we thank before the hope that is before us, and that being soon to be caught up to be with the and for Thyself to have us to be with Thyself. We ask Him out for help as we purpose to be over Thy precious word, without guide and bless that Thou should be glorified to help us now. We pray in Thy most worthy and precious name. Amen. Amen.
Where do you suggest we start, Brother Bob?
Verse 11 Perhaps?
For a little bit since this it's the really the heart of what we're what we're having these verses that were not much was said about them and I think there's young people here who would profit by it and all of us would profit if we define these words and from 5 through 7.
Kind of camp on those verses for just a little bit and.
It really hurts, so maybe we should go back to there and read from there.
Second Peter chapter one, beginning at verse 5.
And beside this giving all diligence add to your faith virtual.
And virtual knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience godliness, And to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his own sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. For if ye do these things, ye shall never, never fall, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you.
Abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom.
Of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. Yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this Tabernacle.
Even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me, moreover.
I will endeavor, that ye may be able after my disease to be these things always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunning devised fables, when we may know unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but where eyewitnesses of His Majesty, For He received from God the Father honor and glory.
When there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with Him in the Holy Mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.
00:10:08
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy man of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
That previous meeting, I think I mentioned briefly those seven things that are to be added to faith.
And it seemed like we skipped right on, so I would too would like to hear.
More help on those seven things to be added. Brother Vern, I think you had some thoughts there.
Well, I would, I would just like to hear a definition of them and some illustration of them because it seems that this is the way that we'll have a successful Christian life. So maybe I would be happy just to hear, I've heard Bill speak on these things, so.
Well, I have enjoyed these things this way, that, and I've also enjoyed the way that the passage reads in the Darby translation. I appreciated Bob's comment about multiplication of grace and then addition on our part. But Mr. Darby puts it this way. Have in your faith, virtue.
And in your virtue knowledge, that is, all of these things should characterize the believer at all times. But there is an order here that I believe Scripture brings before us. We know, of course, that faith is paramount because it was the beginning of our Christian pathway to put our faith in the work of Christ. But faith is necessary all through the Christian pathway.
Not merely faith as to salvation, but faith as to our path down here.
But then is what was brought out yesterday we need virtue or moral courage? Because it's a pathway that is swimming constantly against the current, isn't it, in this world? And the moral courage has often, shall I say, been failing, been lacking in believers who wanted to be more acceptable and perhaps have an easier path through this world. And so they're very necessary.
That's, I believe, why virtue is mentioned at the end of verse three and the most important thing in the Christian pathway.
But then we need knowledge.
But it is not merely head knowledge. I believe that is in view here.
It's knowledge that comes from having heard something and lived and walked in the good of it. Because Paul could say to the Corinthians, knowledge puffeth up and it does. And so if it's merely head knowledge and an intellectual understanding of the Word of God, then we will find that that does not do us any good in the Christian life. In fact, knowledge by itself is probably a more sure way of missing the path than a lack of knowledge.
So my father used to remind me, he said if I took a gun.
With the sites that were off.
And I gave it to a poor marksman. And then I gave it to an expert marksman. Which one would be more likely to miss the target?
And of course the answer is, the expert marksman would miss it all the time because he would line everything up perfectly, but because the sights are off, he would always miss the target. The poor marksman might hit it by accident sometimes. And so the believer who knows the most, if he isn't walking with the Lord, can lose the path perhaps more quickly than one who is simpler in the things of God. But at the same time, God wants us to have knowledge, because he wants us to know not only the things that are given to us in the Word, but the person who gave us the Word.
And then of course, temperance is self-control, isn't it? And we need that self-control, self-control, not only in the matter of our old sinful self, because there's always the sin that besets us, but self-control and spiritual things. The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, aren't they?
00:15:01
And patience, I think Don commented on that yesterday and how we need patience because everything doesn't happen the way we want it to, and the Lord sometimes allows difficulties in our lives that exercise our patience. So we need that patience to wait for the Lord to work rather than taking matters into our own hands and expecting to do something without His leading and guidance.
And then godliness.
Believe the Darby uses piety. What is that? Godliness, I would suggest, is the constant daily living out of that new life that is within us in every situation in which we or which we encounter in our lives down here. Godliness, someone said of Mr. Wigram brother back in the 1800s. They said every time I see that man.
I am reminded of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Godly brother in the Toronto meeting whom I never knew, but I knew his daughter and his name was Mr. Gosby. And when he lay in his casket in the Funeral Home, his next door neighbor who was standing around in the room said to some of those that were in the funeral parlor, he said, you know, that man never sinned.
It wasn't true, but it was a good testimony, wasn't it? From the world around him. And so godliness is that which shows itself in every aspect of our everyday life. None of us do it perfectly, but it's a necessary addition.
And then brotherly love.
And it's interesting, the order that's given here, because the brotherly love is put first. If I had been writing it, I would have put charity or love first, which is divine love, but it puts brotherly love first.
A most necessary thing among believers and an important thing to remember, because sometimes our zeal and energy for the Lord can overtake that brotherly love that should be shown, and how important that is.
If you've got a minute, I'll tell you a story that really struck home to me. I can remember my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe and our late brother Clarence Lundeen at a Bible conference quite a few years ago. Now, obviously because my late father-in-law has been gone almost 35 years and Clarence Lundin a good many as well.
And it wasn't characteristic of them. But at a Bible conference, Albert took issue with something Clarence Lundin said and adjusted it somewhat.
And I saw Clarence open his mouth about to enter into the controversy with Albert, and then they locked and made eye contact across the room.
Nothing more was said, Clarence said. Well, going on to the next verse.
Why did he do that?
Brotherly love. He wasn't going to hold several 100 people hostage to a discussion on a minor point that wasn't that important. They could work it out afterward among themselves. It was brotherly love there.
And so that needs to be shown. But then divine love tempers that, doesn't it? Because brotherly love, if we're not careful, can carry us beyond.
Where true love would not go and might make me forego a necessary.
Rebuke, or a necessary word of warning or something that I might hesitate otherwise to do because of brotherly love. And so I'm to have that divine love with it. But all these things ought to grow together in the believer, shouldn't they? They should be all tempered.
Together with one another in our lives. And as our brother Vern has pointed out, they do result if they're exercised in our lives. A very, very happy Christian pathway. And I believe it's true for all of us to remember.
You pointed out that these things, these are things that were swear to have in our faith.
Not something we go looking for or working at a.
Are striving for in this in the natural sense these are things that are available to us and.
It's not interesting, Bob, brother Bob when he last time we were in this.
Brother Bob pointed out that the word diligence appears at the beginning and at the end, just to draw attention to that.
00:20:00
A verse five and beside this giving all diligence and then I.
Verse 10 Wherefore the rather brother give diligence.
I discovered and speaking to young people, the diligence is a word that is not in the modern vocabulary.
And diligence means giving attention and effort to something.
And it's contrasted by a helpful version, Proverbs 19, Proverbs 19, you get the word slothful. Verse 24, That's the opposite of diligence, slothful. And I read this verse many times in my life and never quite understood it until I read it in Darby's translation. The King James says a slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.
And I couldn't figure why a slothful man would hide his hand in his bosom.
But the Darby translation and other translations as well. I checked others as well. Say a slothful man hideth his hand in the dish.
What's that mean? Well, the Oriental custom was for the people ate together. They put a big bowl, a big dish out in the middle and everybody would help themselves. It was commonly, it was material. It was commonly available. It was right there in abundance. And the man would bury the his hand in the dish and not bring it to his mouth. And you know, it's so easy in meetings like this to enjoy the truth. We can, so to speak, bury our hand on the dish. We need to make sure we bring it to our mouth.
These things that were exhorted to do are available to us. God doesn't make it hard.
Virtue here that self-control is that in here.
Skip over that.
It's like flying off the handle, right? But the way the road says, it's flying off the handle.
No, you didn't mention that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. Maybe just, I mean, if you understand what it means, it's, it's rather obvious, but perhaps it's not so obvious to everyone. Well, I didn't enlarge on it, so go ahead. And Nick, how would you explain it? self-control.
And I did mention that, yeah, I did say self-control, but I didn't say very much about it. And it might have seemed as if I glossed over it, but self-control is very important in every in every facet of our lives. We, of course, with the old sinful self.
We're to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. So it's it's not a matter of seeking to control the old nature by human energy. That isn't the thought.
But self-control is to recognize under the leading of the Spirit of God.
What the right thing is to do for that particular occasion and so you find, for example that.
The man who was healed, who was the demoniac in the tombs?
When it it says he was healed, it says he found himself at the feet of Jesus, clothed and seated and in his right mind. It was a mind that was under the control now of the Lord, instead of being under the control of the devil. It was his whole being that was under the control of another, so that he would do that which was proper and appropriate to one who was a child of God.
I've known those who claim to be under the control of the Spirit of God who have done very inappropriate things. And when they were questioned about it, they said, well, the Spirit of God told me to do it. God told me to do it. And that's all that it seemed to be in their minds that they needed to say when it was very questionable that the Spirit of God had anything to do with it because it was certainly not suitable to what would be the mind of the Lord.
So there needs to be self-control in every area of our lives.
Does this have anything to do with our habits in life? There's many things that if we allow our habits to control us, then we it becomes an addiction and.
We no longer are able just to do the will of God as we might say in everything it can be. I'm not going to name things because I don't want to touch my own conscience or others. But you know, it's, there's many things that we allow in our lives that if it becomes an addiction, it it controls us. Is that is that a part of it? I believe so.
00:25:07
And it's a fact and some of us feel it a little as we get older that the tendencies in our hearts that we don't judge and deal with before the Lord when we're young to as we get older, they tend to, in the words of the 19th Psalm, David could say, let them not have dominion over me. They tend to have dominion over us because when we're younger, we can perhaps control them a little more with human energy. But when that human energy.
Starts to fail. The sin takes a measure of precedence over us and.
It's a frightening thing, isn't it? And so we need to remember that.
Eric Smith one time this is a perhaps be. I mean, I think it's humorous. But we were, we were eating a meal after the breaking of bread and the dessert came around. It was cherry cheesecake. And he'd had a piece. And I said, brother, would you like another piece? He said, brother, I don't want to be brought under the power of it, you know, but we can be brought under the power even as simple things, can't we? And they control our lives.
If one can speak for others.
Virtue is moral courage, like you said, Bill, it is important thing. It's to show in our faith virtue and it's so easy that and it's interesting to me to see there's three epistles written to the Jewish believers.
We have James, we have first Peter and 1St and second Peter here, and we have the pistol to the Hebrews. And in each one it's there's different ways in which this question of faith is addressed, and there's a tendency to.
In an outward way, give allegiance to what we believe, but it needs to be put into action. Isn't that what you think about it, brother Bill? It's to live it out. Don't just talk about it. Live it out. And so our faith rather than is going to be put into action when we go home from these meetings in our everyday lives. Not that we don't do it here, but it's important that we.
Make it a practical reality.
It's like to mention too, and these last two items that you mentioned, Bill, that are important, brotherly kindness or brotherly love, That's filial love.
And as you said, charity is agape a lot. And it's interesting to me to see in a number of places in the New Testament where the two are brought together and it's important.
You gave an illustration of that, Brother Bill, that I think it is important to see that both have a very real place in the Christian life.
It says in Hebrews chapter 13, Let brotherly love continue.
It's an important thing, that cultivation of mutual appreciation, and I think that's what it really means, brotherly love.
There are brothers here that I have learned to appreciate mutually.
It's something we've cultivated over the years. I've known you for a long time, Brother Don. I appreciate you. Maybe you appreciate me. And it's something that is mutual.
But sometimes there's strains on that and in that case, what are we going to do?
What?
Keep going.
I didn't hear you.
Would you want me to have Yuka Yucca?
For those that don't know, that's a a dish they serve in South America that I happen to like a lot and he doesn't. I think Doug feels the same way about it. But the point is, is that there comes times when there is stress on brotherly love. What are we going to do then? And I think it's so helpful to understand what divine love is, brethren. It's love that loves because.
Of the source of love, not because of the object. And we need at times to.
Add to brotherly love, divine love, and as I say, it's love that loves because of the Source. God so loved the world. Why did he love the world so much? Was there anything there that was?
00:30:21
Attractive to him? No, we were all enemies by wicked works. Why did he love us?
Because God is love, that's who he is in his own being. Wonderful to realize that. And he looks at you and he loves you. And so we are to add this kind of love because now that we have been born into God's family.
You have a nature that is able to love in that way. Wonderful. So we add to our brotherly love. We add love. Remember a sister in South America that was having problems with some other sister in the meeting in that particular place, and she made the statement in her anger. I hate that sister.
And a brother that was standing by, I thought answered quite well, he said. Sister, if you have been born into God's family, you have a nature that can love that sister.
If you haven't been born into God's family, maybe it is true that you have just hate for her. Well, I think it was a good reflection for her, but it shows that brethren, we have that nature and sometimes there's stress amongst brethren. What are we going to do in those cases?
Add to brotherly love. Love. Let me give you one other scripture in the New Testament, because there's multiple ones that put the two together. I think it is.
Helpful First Thessalonians, chapter 4.
First Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 9.
Speaking about the moral characteristics of believers who are waiting for the Lord to come.
Says here, but as touching brotherly love, there it is the filial love ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. There's the agape word. So it's put together and and I think it is helpful to understand distinction. Brotherly love is the mutual appreciation that we gain over maybe years.
Of relationship, but then we need at times to add agape love, love that loves because of the source and not because of the object.
A little while ago.
I don't know what you're trying to say, but habits is something that we have to watch too.
There's habits that we on.
Man knowingly or I don't know how to say that.
Do that's carried over from the world?
I just mentioned one you guys.
Well, why would they call us all the time, you guys? It's not. I don't know what you mean by that.
It's better to leave it off. Don't say it.
But that's a carryover of the world, because in the world you hear it all the time, you guys and them guys and they guys. But what are those guys actually?
It's a habit and that's a carryover from the world.
There's once another one that is not so obvious that people say as it were.
Well, I found that I think once in the Bible that it's used once in the Bible.
But we got to know what we are saying when we use these habitual expressions. What we mean by that is a meaning in it. I say nothing in it that.
We just use it as a carryover from the world.
I heard Paul Wilkins one time speak on that verse, you know, brotherly love continue. And he said we know so much about each other among the gathered Saints that were in danger of not letting brotherly love continue. And I think that's true, you know, because we know everyone's foibles. So it affects us or we've heard about everybody's foibles. So when we meet them, it affects our love for them.
00:35:28
This.
Is that conferences like this? We sit in meetings quite a few of the hours of a conference, but there's a lot of time that we spend in enjoying each other's company and asking about each other's welfare. That is all part of brotherly love, don't you think, Brother Bear?
Someone else perhaps to do shattered, but we were thinking yesterday about how in heaven we will not have to learn patience, for example. There's so many of these things that we have to learn here in this wilderness. But we take that knowledge and we'll take it with us into heaven to be glad that we learned it in this scene. And one of those is the need to forgive one another and to prepare with one another. And if you can learn that now, we will be so happy. Because that was one of our Lord's request, wasn't it? To love one another as He loves us. To forgive one another as He's forgiven us.
And there's a saying I maybe you've heard me quoted before.
To dwell above with the Saints we love, oh, that will be glory. But to live below with those we know, well, that's a different story. And yet it's here in this life where God is honored that we love one another, forgive one another as He has, and, and not just have the brotherly kindness, but to have that true agape. And so it's difficult in trying as it may be, that's what the Lord has for us to learn here.
Interesting comment perhaps, And that is this is as this list starts with the word faith.
Have in your faith these things.
In the faith chapter is commonly called Hebrews 11.
In general, the examples of faith are the faith in its outward activity.
That is, it begins with Abel. By faith, Abel did something he offered.
In the case of Noah.
He prepared an ark. In the case of Abraham, he obeyed.
And left his country and did something. That's one line of the result of the work of faith in the soul. It's seen in its activity as it was in each of those cases mentioned here. It's more the character of the person.
That is the result of the activity of faith.
These are moral characteristics of a person, in contrast to the things that the person does.
Yes, if there is brotherly love, it'll be seen in action. If there's love, it'll be seen in action. But the actions themselves are not what's given emphasis here too, but rather.
What the person is.
The Lord Jesus.
Work.
Was totally based on who he was.
It was his person that sustained his work.
And it is the moral character of a person that is to characterize their activity, their outward action.
And so if we're to be fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to be acquainted with himself and we get to know himself.
By these characteristics that were perfect in him.
But have to be learned practically in our own lives. And so someone once says, well, I, I don't have much self-control. How do I get it? I'm not very patient. How do I learn to be patient? We would like to be characterized by these moral virtues, by these character traits, but sometimes our difficulty in putting them in practice.
Is that that very thing? We would say, I want to be patient, I want to be temperate, I want to have self-control and so on. But we don't. And we're very conscious at times of our own faults and our own failings and one or more of these things. And so we say, well, how do I, how do I learn?
00:40:22
And I think the learning process is in some way more simple than we realize, and in other ways it's more difficult. But it tells us that we are to be occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ, to get to know him in such a way that the Spirit of God produces in us these characteristics. It's not that I can say, well, tomorrow I'm going to leave this conference and tomorrow I'm going to show more self-control.
Tomorrow I'm going to be more temperate, tomorrow I'm going to love my brother a little better when he says something I don't like, and so on.
I want to say to just say that is almost a recipe for failing in it. It it doesn't really work that way. But what's presented to us is to be occupied with the Lord Jesus, to be occupied with if those things which are good in themselves and virtuous in themselves. And in doing so the Spirit of God does his work.
The fruit of the spirit is love. It's in this list, joy, peace, long-suffering. That's one of the characteristics not named in that way here, but it has something to do with the the temperance side of it. And in fact, in that list of the fruit of the spirit is self-control. And so the Spirit of God is the one that will produce these things in US.
And I'm going to suggest two practical things that bring it about. One is occupation with that which is good and in its perfection in the Lord Jesus, and contrast to being occupied with evil and that which is bad.
You know, there'd be a whole lot. I'll be get right down to the rubber on the road.
There would be a lot more benefit if tomorrow or the next day or whenever we're back into our normal environments, if there were less minutes spent on the Internet and what's found there and more the same minutes spent in the things that produce these virtues. We would all be, or at least some of us would be benefited by it in a very practical way. But the, the, the other aspect of it is, is there is the need of.
The self judgment in those things which hinder the work of the Spirit.
From presenting and giving us the enjoyment of that which is good and wholesome, and that which is virtuous, but the Lord Jesus.
Exhibited these perfect characteristics in his own life.
In every interaction of his activity. Just a suggestion on our.
Personal meditation. Compare these qualities and observe the Lord in John 21.
At the sea of.
Tiberius and going the fishing was.
Just in your personal meditation, compare these things.
See them in him.
How does that ask us a question? How does what you just said fit in with used diligence? I mean, what is it? What? How are we to be occupied with the Lord Jesus? It takes a lot of self. It takes a purpose of heart to take time of life every single day to have personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus. It doesn't just happen because we say we want it to happen.
If it takes a diligence to every single day.
Listen to God through His Word.
And to talk to God.
And it's not a matter of law, but it.
Time in the presence of God to listen, and when we talk to him, we're talking to Him. When when we read the Word, it's so he can talk to us.
How much time today did I allow God to speak to me personally, privately? I'm referring to it in that sense here. We have special opportunity on the weekend, but everyday life is different and it has quite different patterns and quite different characteristics. And yet.
00:45:17
These things are not just the point I want to make. I guess burn in it is.
The diligence.
Isn't in the activity of doing things.
It's not going around here. It's in Hebrews 11. It's the doing, but here it's the moral character of the person, that is, the person in whom the divine life.
Is active in the right way and if.
I'll put it to you in a personal way. If someone comes up to you after this meeting and says a very nasty thing to you, we'll see how active these characters are in you, right? Or if someone, to me, it's the exact same thing. I'm just using you and I as examples and and yet it's to have them.
Is to not directly saying I'm going to the diligence isn't simply saying I'm going to be more temperate today.
That's my sort of point out of it.
Maybe it was there already, simply what we have in verse 8.
Which says for if these things be in you, not on us, as if we're putting them on. That was brought out. John wrote that out.
And abound they make you that you should be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mr. Davis, the number of footnotes on this word knowledge that in many of the cases in this first chapter is full knowledge. I think that would bring out a contrast for the Jew in regards to the knowledge that he had before. And again, just to bring things together, it's not a legal thing.
And, and although I appreciate the word add, it can be confusing because it's the thought, well, I'm going to work on this one. And when I'm done with that, I'm going to work on the next one, which misses the entire chapter because as again, I excuse the reference, but Mr. Dobby puts in his translator notes, it's really the thought, not only this, but also that, and not only this but also that. And so it's not an adding and compounding as it were, but a melding of these things together, even though the order as it's being brought out.
There's a development in order here, but it's not us working on something and then adding the next thing to it, but rather this is to be a manifestation of that you like, which is within we, we, I cannot.
Love you more by my own effort. It's really an expression of that new nature that's within as are all of these all of these things. And so it's just being brought out in verse 8 and that these things, having these things in US an abounding who you shall be neither barren nor fruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's that full knowledge of what has been revealed in him that should now characterize our lives.
You said that virtue is spiritual energy, and I know, I know a person who is the head of.
A Christian.
Anti abortion, when she speaks, you know, the politicians listen and she's the most energetic person I've ever seen in the things of the Lord. She's puts our whole energy into that. She feels like she's doing something for the Lord, but it's not according to knowledge. If she had knowledge, if she would not be doing that, she'd be putting her spiritual energy into other things. So I thought of knowledge like that and I thought of a self-control is a, is a more simple thing.
You know not, Paul said he would not be brought under the power of any, and we can be brought under the power of many things. So I thought of it as a simple way like that.
And we do have that new nature. It's those first verses shows what God has brought to us so that we have the capacity and then these things to use diligence that they be worked out in our life. I just look at it in that simple way.
In fact, all of us, someone would say, oh, this is their personality.
Generally, personality is connected with some character trait that stands out in contrast to other character traits. So that someone might say that person is very patient, they're a patient person. That's that's what's characterizes them. Someone else might be looked at and said and said they're very kind. They're a kind person, and that's what characterizes that person.
00:50:21
That very often, however, though, the one trait or several traits that characterize a person at times come at the someone else isn't too happy or doesn't because something else is missing in that person's life. And so yes, they have this nice trait and then there's that word, but and then some not so nice traits are expressed.
I say it because, in contrast, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some said he has no personality. I don't really like that way of saying it. I would rather say it was a perfect one because every single trait was perfectly in balance with every other.
And his life was, as Scripture uses expression, a fine flower. There were no lumps in it, There were no exaggerated parts of it. He was absolutely in his nature, manifested nature, perfect in every characteristic, in every situation, he reacted to it.
In perfection and his character, and I think in part what we would desire is to be learned to be more like him, so that each of these things, not just two of them out of seven or three out of seven, but that all of them would have their proper place. And sometimes one has to be balanced with the other.
And.
Particularly, as was already brought out between brotherly love and love, sometimes someone is known for their brotherly love and someone else would say yes they are, but at the sacrifice of their divine love.
I remember, well, I don't know that I want to say it, but there there was a situation which her brother came to me at a conference like this 30 years ago or something and he basically said to me, Donald, I fear for you that. And then he named one thing will take you where light would not go.
In other words, that there was that he saw in me that would tend to go down a certain way to emphasize.
One aspect of Christian behavior, but at the expense of light.
And so I think that that being fruitful and abounding in Part 2 is that all of these things not we just be satisfied. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm temperate or I'm this or I'm that, I'm patient or I'm something else and at the expense sometimes of the rest.
Written to exercises, aren't they? And we need to live in view of them constantly. Brethren, notice verse eight. It is if these things be in you and abound they make you, that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. That will be fruitfulness in our life. And verse nine is the negative side. The lack of them makes you blind, short sighted, forgetting.
And then in verse.
Ten It's the recipe to never fall.
And then he says in verse 12, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them and be established in the present truth. In other words, we never get to a point where we can say I've arrived.
Never brethren, we need always to walk and exercise of faith. So may the Lord help us in reflecting on these things to take it to heart to walk in exercise in view of those things. Not only does he say that, but he mentions in verse 15, I will endeavor that you may be able after my deceased to have these things always in remembrance.
Oh, brother, And that's what we're going over him today for.
It's after Peter's decease and here we are going over them again. They are important, but may the Lord help us never to come to the place where we think we've got them all in place now. No, we always need to walk and exercise in view of these things.
00:55:22
Connection with the rather brethren give diligence is another use of the word to make your cooling and election sure. It's not a question of losing these things. In fact, even to put the word losing in the same sentence as election is not to understand what election is in the 1St place. It's not before God is before man and it's helpful to see this and I know I didn't get this for myself, but in Thessalonians, first Thessalonians, we have an example of making your election sure. In the first chapter of the fourth verse it says, knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God. Well, how did he know their election of God?
For our gospel came not unto you in Word only, but also in power, in the Holy Ghost, in much assurance, as you know what manner of men.
We were among you, for we were among you for your sakes, and you became follows us up of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction and with joy of the Holy Ghost. Their election was very evident in their walk. And that's what we have here. It's before man, not before God.
And then the fall at the end here is again, this verse is obviously being used by those that would suggest that we can lose our salvation. It's more the thought of stumbling. It's it's literally falling like we had a off the bike this morning. It's not in the sense of.
Of anything more permanent.
Trying to measure ourselves by this list? It's not the right idea. It's an encouragement to remember the instrument the Lord chose to give us.
These lists when he speaks of virtue, moral current, the Lord chose to use a man who denied him three times to write that for our instruction and talks about patience. The Lord chose to use a man that picked up a sword and jumped the gun by a minimum of 2000 years and bringing in the Kingdom. When he speaks of the temperance, the Lord chooses a man to write those words for us that didn't know how to keep his mouth shut and exalted Elijah and Moses the level of the Lord at the Mount of Transfiguration.
When he speaks again, thinking of moral courage, it wasn't just before the cross that Peter failed in that. It was after the cross when he decided he would back off and not eat with the Gentiles for the sake of trying to fit in nicely with the Jews. And then we come to that verse just mentioned. If you do these things, you shall never fall or stumble. That's written to us by Peter. And so for measuring ourselves by where we're at at the moment, it's the wrong measuring stick. But if we remember that, the same Lord who could bring Peter down the road to write these things to us.
Then He can bring us to that point where He will.
Bring us to as we had yesterday and 1St John, there's a day coming when we'll be identical to the Lord and morally and how wonderful if he brings us to that point in whatever measure while we're still on this earth. We only have 10 minutes left of this meeting and but we do have a reading tomorrow morning. But I would like to focus in brethren on what is mentioned in verse 11, the ever.
Lasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the end of the chapter kind of goes into that and it is a wonderful thing to think about. The verse has been quoted today looking for that blessed hope which we know to be the rapture. But it doesn't stop there. The glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
It's going to be, I really believe, brethren, the most glorious event ever in human history, when that man that the world lost, last saw hanging dead on the cross, is going to come in power and glory with his Saints, with his mighty angels, and introduces that Kingdom brings to an end the times of the Gentiles.
And takes the reins of government to.
Reign supreme here in this world, and we need to live in view of that day. I'd like to ask you, Don, to quote again. What?
01:00:07
Brother Harry Hajos said that you you said it a couple Times Now and I I just enjoyed it so much and I think it is so appropriate.
I was.
Teenager and I think it was the first time in my life I was allowed to go to a conference on my own and went out to a conference in Des Moines area.
And it was early in the days of the television era.
And brother Harry Hayhoe commented on television. It was fairly new phenomena. I don't even know if they didn't matter introduce color TV yet or not, that kind of thing. But he he commented on it because there was one in his hotel room.
And he said, you know, and he referred to the, I don't know how he referred to the machine, but he said if you knew.
What vision I have in my soul.
Of the coming glory.
You would understand why that machine has no attraction to me.
The word television and he used the word vision. If you knew what vision I have in my soul of the coming glory, you would understand why that machine has no attraction to my soul.
Well, such things are a lot more, but it would have been the most reminding comment ever made to me on such things.
And that's what will form us want it if we.
Brethren, the way of life that we have known in the Western civilization.
Is coming to an end.
It's coming to an end. It's not going to be that way much longer. Can't set dates, but things are going to change majorly.
At any moment now.
We're gonna hear the voice of our Savior.
We're going to hear the trumpet.
We cannot leave everything at a moment's notice and go into our Savior's presence. Sometimes try to think of what it's going to be that moment.
When they meet him.
Everything down here that has been so important to us.
Your young people for us who are older too.
It's not going to be important anymore.
Leave it here, all of it. We're going into that glory.
May that coming glory have its effect on us now.
The Everlasting Kingdom Are you interested in having an abundant entrance?
Or are you just interested in squeezing in the door?
I must say in the mesh.
That I get a view of that coming glory.
I'm interested in having an abundant entrance.
I know that there will be many that will have a more abundant entrance than me, but I'm interested. I can see it's worth putting diligence into.
Lord help us that it would have its effect on our lives here and now.
At the end of verse 19, right?
For the day.
Bass star of Rise in Your Heart.
One more comment too, that I have appreciated along those same lines, and that is that here it brings before us the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We might wonder why the coming of the Lord for us, and all that we will enjoy with Him is not brought before us more vividly here. But Paul could say in Second Timothy 4, speaking about the crown that was awaiting him, a crown of righteousness, And he could say, And not to me only, but unto all them also that love, what is appearing.
Is appearing.
Because when it's His appearing that is in view, when it is the everlasting Kingdom of that One who is our Lord and Savior, it's His glory that is primarily in view. We can be occupied with ourselves, perhaps even in a way that we would think is a right way. And I'll use an example without turning to it, but it's in Luke's gospel.
01:05:27
Where the 70 who were sent out by the Lord.
To go out and preach and given power to work miracles and heal the sick and so on.
Came back to the Lord, and they said, Lord, even the devils or demons are subject unto us through thy name.
Were they out in the work of the Lord? Yes, they were. Were they there by His express command? Yes, they were.
Were they doing it by his power? Yes, they were, and the Lord shared in that joy, so that he said, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, referring of course to a coming day when Satan will be cast out.
But then he gives them a gentle reminder. He says, rejoice not that the demons or devils are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
Why would he say that?
Ah, because he gently takes the focus off of them and puts them on himself.
He says in so many words, Don't rejoice so much in what you have done.
Even in a right way and at my express command.
Rather rejoice in what I have done.
And what does that do? That humbles assessment, because what did we have to do with our names being written in heaven?
Nothing but our sins, nothing but loss, guilty sinners. It was all a work of God. And so the exaltation here is, as it were, putting the spotlight on the Lord Jesus Himself, isn't it? Yes, we are to be diligent. Yes, it will result in a happy life. Yes, it will result that we will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. All very, very important. But He seeks to minister to you, to us, that abundant entrance.
In order that He and all his glory might be primarily before us. I say that because, and I say it kindly, but there is an effort in much of Christendom today, and we're part of Christendom. There's an emphasis in an effort to make God as it were.
Shall I say at the philanthropist, through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to provide everything that we need and to minister to our needs? And I say that that focus is really wrong. God wants to honor and glorify his beloved Son and bring you and me into blessing with Him. And then, as we've often said, God is far more glorified and we are far more blessed when that order is clear before us.
It says fresh to the heart of God.
As if the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified this very day, as it was the actual day in which the Lord Jesus was crucified. And as God looks at this world this afternoon, he sees it morally and as if he had put to death his Son because his Son was cast out and rejected from this world. And it doesn't diminish in his being one tiniest bit from day-to-day.
And God sees the measure in which each one of us.
Identify with our Savior as the one who was rejected in the world, so that the heart is attracted to himself with a longing. The loving His appearing is, Oh Lord, I look forward to the day when you will have your rightful place in this world that crucified you. And yet our lives practically give expression to whether that is really active in our souls.
Do we really look upon things not as if Jesus Christ, he did of course, historically died 2000 years ago almost, but in our hearts is it? Do we look upon the world as if he had been crucified in this world today? If this today's news was Jesus Christ was crucified this day, How would we think about the world and being involved with it if it was today? Well, in God's heart, it's his as if it was today. And if we love his appearing, it's, it's an attachment.
01:10:05
To his person.
In a sense of look at longing for him to have his place and feeling his rejection in this world as it is today.
I might just make one quick comment.
I was thinking about the prodigal son and his father.
In regards to this.
This has been said before, but the prodigal son's father.
Was out there every day looking up down that road per SE, looking for his son to come home.
He had faith to believe that the boy would get tired of that and he would come.
But the point is, he was looking every day and expecting his boy. He wasn't just lounging around the house and going on with life just normally because he loved him.
And the Lord Jesus is the same way. God is the same way.
I just say to myself 1St and everyone, we need to be watching for our Lord and not just waiting.
Am I right? We need to expect him any moment and live in the goodness of that.
All right, Yeah.
330 If 330 what raised the wondrous thought, Or who did it suggest that we the Church to glory brought, should with the Sun be blessed? 330.
What grace the one trust?
Love you our person. Glory all children.
Are something.
Shine.
See you later.
The Holy Ghost.
We try.
01:15:02
My wondrous.
Heart.
Has been our most glory.
Gospel 8
Gospel—M. Breman
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I'd like to welcome each one to the Gospel meeting this evening.
The word gospel means good news, and indeed, we have good news this evening.
And saying that, I would say it behooves us to listen to the word of God. The Bible that we hold in our hands is a living word of God. It behooves us to listen and to obey the word of God.
Says things more than once in his word. We should pay attention. Let's turn to Isaiah.
Chapter 45.
Isaiah chapter 45.
In the middle of verse 23.
Says Every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. Romans, chapter 14.
Romans chapter 14 in the middle of verse 11.
Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. Philippians, chapter 2.
Philippians chapter 2 and verse 10.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, verse 11, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Believe everyone in this room here this evening has knees. Believe everyone in this room this evening has a tongue. Your knees according to the word of God, one day shall bow your your tongue one day shall confess. This is why it's so important to have a gospel meeting because.
If you don't bow now. If you don't, confess now.
Someday.
When you stand before him as your judge, then those knees will bow, then that tongue will confess. But the gospel meeting is that God has made a way of escape from judgment, because the Lord Jesus in his love.
Bore our judgment on Calvary's cross and took our place there.
That we might be saved.
From that judgment.
Let's begin this evening with singing hymn #18 on the hymn sheet.
And #18.
God loved the world so tenderly.
Only son he gave me. It's one of the same.
What I call so love the world.
The greatest souls.
That were soiled every day.
And feel, and only he can show.
Inside and.
Explain that breath nor and nor and no.
Or God so of the world.
I hear is the sword.
00:05:22
Like every standing nervous ones, I slightly thy gracious.
All why turn from nervous words from like eternal life to all?
Or God, so on the Word.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. Bow in prayer.
It's also turned in our hem sheet.
To him #26.
And let's sing the 1St and the last verse of #26.
There is life in the life.
Unto him and be saved, unto him who was him to scream.
Love, love.
Today with rejoice shame from King once and once.
The way you realize.
There is light.
Like that? Privacy by 1.
There is sliding like this morning.
John's Gospel chapter 5 and verse 39. The Lord Jesus says these words.
Search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.
Point in time when the Lord Jesus said this, only the Old Testament was written.
So we're going to go back to the book of Ezekiel this evening with the Lord's help.
Ezekiel, chapter 33.
We're going to draw, with the Lord's help from this chapter.
Pictures, examples, little things that remind us of the gospel.
Things that remind us of the Lord Jesus and what He's done.
Things that remind us of what our condition is without Him and how He can give us eternal life.
00:10:07
You know, if you walk out here in the parking lot.
There's arrows on the ground.
Also.
Over in this parking lot, you'll see a sign that says do not enter by a roadway.
Then if you go down this direction you will see another sign by Rd. it says do not enter.
Why?
What would happen if you enter there? What could happen?
Those signs are placed there for a reason.
Therefore, public safety.
God says what He says in His word for a reason. It's for your eternal safety.
Let's look at Ezekiel chapter 33.
Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon the land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their Watchmen.
Those who have hosted this conference.
Have set a watchman because they know there is a need.
They have asked that someone would stand up here and speak because they know that there is a need, and yet for the one who stands up to speak, there is a responsibility.
These things are not to be taken lightly.
Verse 3.
If when he see the sword come.
Upon the land.
He blow the trumpet and warn the people.
When whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
In application this evening.
We can turn to scriptures that will warn us of the judgment to come.
If you do not take heed, the issue is between you and God.
He has no other choice if you reject him, as we sang Perish.
That song.
To think.
That someone.
A loved one of yours.
Maybe you will perish.
By God's grace, listen to the message of God's word that you not perish.
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 3.
Yeah.
Matthews Gospel chapter 3, the last part of verse seven. Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Who? It's a question. Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Your Sunday school teacher?
Your parents, maybe someone in a reading meeting, maybe a friend at school.
Has God sent someone across your pathway to warn you to flee from the wrath to come?
And yet you said here tonight again in another gospel meeting.
Have you listened?
Revelation chapter one.
Revelation chapter one in the first part of verse 5.
Jesus Christ.
Who is the faithful witness?
You know the Lord Jesus Christ has warned you to flee from the wrath to come.
Have you turned a deaf ear to him as well?
Think.
Let's go back to Ezekiel 33.
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Ezekiel 33, verse 4.
Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning.
How many times have you sat in the gospel meeting? How many times have you been in a Sunday school and taken not warning? So I look around the room this evening. I see those who have sat in gospel meetings and in Sunday schools.
Could it be that you have yet not taken warning?
Matthew's Gospel.
Chapter 11.
Matthew 11 and verse 17.
We have piped unto you, and you have not danced. We have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented.
You've heard the gospel preached in many ways. Maybe you've heard it piped. That's the joyful side. God loves the world. He loves you. You've heard of the joy of having your sins forgiven and knowing what it means to have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And you have not danced.
You've been mourned too.
Perhaps.
It's been brought before your conscience that you're a Sinner and that you need the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You've been told of judgment to come.
You've not lamented.
Could that be?
Think.
Let's go back to Ezekiel 33.
Ezekiel 33 and verse 5.
He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning. His blood shall be upon him, but he that taketh mourning shall deliver his soul.
Solemn We have two things here, one who does not take warning and one who does.
First of all, let's talk about the one who does not take warning.
What are warnings for? We talked about the warning signs out in the parking lot.
Sometimes warning signs are a little more serious than just.
Bumper collisions Little.
Automobile accidents or things like that.
There was a man who worked on the paint line in the factory.
And he went to safety meetings and he was warned and there were warning signs in his work area.
All paint equipment must have the ground cable hooked up.
Why?
Because static electricity can make a spark.
And paint fumes are explosive.
For many years he worked in that factory.
One day.
He didn't think it was necessary to hook up the ground cable to his equipment.
I remember that morning.
The paint was turned into a bomb.
He was inside.
They life flighted him to a nearby University Hospital to the burn center.
They told him he only had two hours to live, he better bring his family.
His family came, they called his family, they came, they said their goodbyes and that men passed into eternity.
Another young man I knew very well the age of some of these young men over here.
Very bright young man. He was an engineering tech.
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He was warned, he was told.
If you're working under something that's a load, even if it's a hydraulic cylinder, always put up a support because you don't know if the cylinder will fail or a hose will break.
Something might happen with a pin that holds the cylinder in place, you never know.
He was working on a modification project for the engineering department on a very large underground boring machine.
And his body was between.
Two pieces of equipment that should have been supported.
Something happened.
Lauren Ludington was crushed.
But I want to tell you something else about Lauren Ludington.
Lauren Ludington was a young man that grew up in a Sunday school like you.
Lauren Ludington was a man.
Who heard the Gospel?
His I know, his father.
Bright believer in the Lord Jesus.
Lauren Lettington decided that he would not listen to the gospel.
Lauren went his own way in his life.
Until that navigator crushed him.
Now, today, Lauren Ludington is happy in the Lord, restored in his soul.
But he'll spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
But you know, tonight we're not talking about industrial accidents, we're not talking about Rd. signs. We're talking about your soul.
We're talking about eternal issues. Where will you spend eternity if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
John's Gospel, chapter 19.
John's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 35.
And he that saw it bear record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true for this reason that ye might believe. What did he see? What did he hear? There's a lot in the book of John that led up to this chapter.
The Word became flesh.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
Came down into this world to be a man.
He was the light of the world.
He came to give life.
That we might have it more abundantly.
He said I am the door. I am the way, the truth and the life.
I am the bread that came down from heaven.
He told all who he was.
Man rejected him.
Took him out to Calvary.
Said away with this man, we will not have him to reign over us, and they nailed him to a cross of wood in rejection.
And as we heard last night.
For three dark hours.
God poured out his wrath.
And his judgment for your sins and mine upon that blessed man.
He bore the judgment in our place.
Along comes a soldier with a spear.
And pierces his side, And forthwith comes her out. Blood and water, my friend, that was for you, that was for me.
That was for our redemption.
Can you walk away tonight?
And turn from such love.
And say no, I'd rather perish.
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That's what you're saying If you reject the Lord Jesus tonight, you're saying no.
I'd rather perish.
Think of it.
Let's go back to Ezekiel chapter 33.
Ezekiel chapter 33 brought before us some other responsibility of and type of the one who would stand up and speak for six. But if the Watchmen see the sword, come and blow, not the trumpet.
And I would just say this to those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Let's blow the trumpet.
In our lives, every day those we come into contact with.
Let your light so shine before men.
Blow the trumpet, say a word when needed.
If you blow not the trumpet and the people, be not warned. That's why we're having a gospel meeting this evening, so that you're warned.
If the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, and his blood will be required at the watchman's hand.
It's solemn.
To have before us the issues of life and death and your souls eternal destiny.
Let's turn to John's Gospel, Chapter 8.
John's Gospel chapter 8 and verse 24. I said, Who said the Lord Jesus said?
Let's listen.
Therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins. For if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins, ye shall.
If you believe not that I am he.
Ye shall die in your sins.
Now one who is the great I am from an eternity past.
Says to you, I am.
Do you believe that he is?
On the authority of His word if you don't.
You're gonna die in your sins.
So you shrug your shoulders.
What does it mean to die in your sins?
Don't say I'll take that chance.
Revelation chapter 20.
Revelation chapter 20 and verse 11 and.
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were open. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.
And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life.
Was cast into the lake of fire. Definition of what it means to die in your sins.
Is that you tonight?
Born and raised in a Christian family.
Set all the Sunday School verses.
Sat good in the gospel meetings.
And yet you don't believe the Lord Jesus said, if you believe not that I am he.
Let your conscience tell you what the answer is. Ye shall what?
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Listen to it.
Die in your sins.
Dreadful.
Dreadful.
No, that's not what Jesus wants for you.
That's why he went to the cross. That's not what we want for you.
We've come to know Christ as our Savior, and we want you to have that joy too.
Hebrews, Chapter 9.
Hebrews Chapter 9 and verse 27 says it is appointed.
Unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
We are all people in here, we are part of the human race, we are part of mankind, and we all have an appointment with death.
Remember at the beginning of the Gospel meeting.
We spoke of three verses.
That said, every knee shall bow.
You have.
And every tongue shall confess you have one.
You can bow now. You can confess now.
The Lord Jesus did something for you that you might be spared from judgment.
Verse 28 so.
This is the reason why Jesus Christ came. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation. Are you looking for the Lord Jesus?
Are you looking for his return or does it scare you?
This morning at the motel we were done eating breakfast and my youngest son and I walked to the elevator and we were headed up to the room.
And the elevator door was just about to close and there was a couple in there.
So we jumped on in.
And as the door shut.
He was kind of mockingly saying to the lady that was with him.
Shall we go to the Bible Conference?
We've been invited.
I thought I would join this conversation and I said please come, please do come.
Then he named some other activity and said or we could go do and he named something else.
And the lady that was with him just kind of sneered.
The door open. My son and I got off. The door closed.
I don't know if I'll ever see that couple again.
But I trust they rethink their choices.
When it comes to the solemnity of where the soul spins, eternity.
Some of you have heard this story. I suppose you don't mind me repeating again. It's it's worth repeating again. Brother at this conference reminded me of it.
Not far from the town square in Pella, Iowa, it's a Funeral Home. Van **** Dubin.
Some of you have been there for funerals.
Those in the assembly.
Back.
In the 60s, Van **** Nuvan was in operation then as well. It's been there many years servicing the community.
Someone from the gathering there in Pella had no one to be with the Lord.
The funeral is being held.
Up on the front row of that Funeral Home during that service sat three young couples.
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And as the message was being presented.
They laughed.
Quietly.
Past notes quietly.
Made gestures back and forth.
Not paying any attention, the one who was speaking noticed that there was no or very little lack of interest with those three couples.
And turn directly to them.
And faithfully presented the Word of God, the way of salvation.
To those three couples.
They left the Funeral Home.
They had a party to go to that night.
Just.
Few miles east of Pella is what they used to call the light and turn off.
At the intersection of the light and turn off.
Those three couples were in a car accident.
All six of their bodies were corpses back at Van **** Duvan Funeral Home that night.
What if that was you?
What if you think this message is funny?
What if you don't take it seriously?
May God spare you. May His grace work in his heart, in your heart.
May you feel His love and grace.
Now that he went to the cross to bear your load of sins, that you don't have to perish.
Back to Ezekiel 33.
The Ezekiel 33 and verse 8 and when I say into the wicked.
A wicked man thou shalt surely die. You say, Well, I'm not wicked.
I'm not wicked.
Let's turn to Revelation chapter 21.
Revelation 21 and.
And let's look at a list in verse 8.
But the fearful and unbelieving and abominable.
And murderers and ************ and sorcerers and idolaters, and all liars, which have their part in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
Shall have their part.
Unbelieving.
The Lord Jesus said if he believed not that I am he.
You shall what?
Think of it.
Die in your sins.
Back to our chapter.
Verse 9 Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked.
Of his way to turn from it if he do not turn from his way, Matthew 22.
Matthew 22 and verse 11.
And when the king came in, he saw guests.
He saw guests. It was the king that saw.
The king came in to see the guests he saw.
Can the King see you tonight? Yes, indeed he can.
There was a man which had not on a wedding garment.
And he said unto him, Friend, how comest thou in hit her?
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But let me say this, it's no mistake that you're here tonight.
Don't let this man be you.
Having a wedding garment and he was speechless.
Verse 13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, and there shall be weeping and wailing.
Or weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Who said those words?
Those were spoken by Jesus Christ, the faithful witness.
Don't let it be you.
Don't be that man.
Let's go to verse 11.
Say unto them.
As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
We sang about John 316.
For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Why would he send his well beloved Son on our behalf if he did?
He loves us, He doesn't want us to perish.
The rest of the verse.
But that the wicked.
Turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye.
From your evil ways.
For why will ye die? Turn ye, turn ye.
Matthew 11.
And verse 28.
Come unto me, words of the Lord Jesus again, all ye that labor.
And our heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls. Does that sound like he delights in the death of the wicked?
Come, he says. Come.
He knows your burdens.
He knows your trials. He knows your troubles. He knows your troubled heart. Come.
Verse 12.
Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people.
The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression.
We're all sinners.
Titus, chapter 3.
Titus, chapter 3.
And verse four. But after that, the kind, the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared.
In the person of Jesus.
Isn't that wonderful?
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us.
By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
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Can you see the blessing that God wants to bring to you?
Don't say no. I'd rather perish.
Verse 13 the middle of the verse.
If he trusted to his own righteousness and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered.
Isaiah 64.
And verse six well known verse, but we.
Are all as an unclean thing.
And all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we all do fade as a leaf. And our inequities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Do you see clearly what distances you from God?
Our iniquities have taken us away.
But the Lord Jesus Christ in his love.
Paid the price on Calvary's cross.
That we might be set free. You know, this time of year you can lookout on the trees.
And their changing color.
They're going to fall off the tree.
We fade like a leaf.
Now the remark was made.
Last night.
Young people.
Just give it 50 years.
Give it 50 years, see what you look like.
But we're not guaranteed 50 years.
If you only have the rest of the evening, still your righteousness is not enough.
Verse 14.
The middle of the verse.
If ye turn from your sins.
Turn to who? To Christ?
Isaiah 45 again.
And verse 22.
Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Look unto me and be saved. God wants to save you tonight, and it's through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that He paid the price of redemption on Calvary's cross that you might be saved.
Look.
It's that simple. Look, look, look and live we sang.
Maybe you thought that you were just singing it along with us.
Those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ of our as our Savior, we're singing it to you as a plea.
How many of us who knew the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior as those words exited our lips?
Did we have a pain in our heart for someone in this room who may not yet know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior?
It was for you, my friend.
Back to our chapter.
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I look to Christ, the end of verse 15. He shall surely live.
He shall not die. That's wonderful, isn't it? I am calm that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly. The Lord Jesus Christ wants to give you life tonight.
He stood in the gap that you might be saved.
Verse 16.
None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him, Acts, chapter 13.
Yeah.
Acts Chapter 13.
And verse 38.
Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man.
Who? The Lord Jesus Christ through this man.
Is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians chapter one.
Ephesians chapter one and verse seven. In whom a person? Who is it?
Verse six tells us it's the Beloved.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
God's well beloved Son in whom we have present possession. Do you? We have redemption through His blood. Can you say that tonight?
Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?
The forgiveness of sins according to the riches.
Of his grace, how rich is His grace?
You can't measure it.
Exceedingly abundant beyond what we can measure.
That's how much he loves you.
You fill something up.
And it overflows. So you get a bigger container and you fill it up some more in that overflows and you never can stop filling. That's His grace. That's his love.
Romans, chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5 and verse one. Therefore, being justified by faith, you have to believe it. If you if you believe not that I am he, he shall die in your sins.
It's by faith, we believe.
Being justified by faith, we have present possession again.
Do you have it?
We have what?
Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
How about you?
Is there still a question in your heart?
If you go out this door and draw your last breath, would you perish according to the definition that we read in God's Word?
Would you be left behind for judgment?
Where the words of the Lord Jesus spoke of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Think. Let's go back to Ezekiel.
33.
Yeah.
Ezekiel 33.
The meaning is coming to a close, so we're going to go to the end of the chapter.
Verse 32.
And lo, thou art unto them.
As a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice.
And can play well on an instrument, for they hear thy words.
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But they do them not.
Don't come up to me afterwards and say, hey Mark, that was a nice meeting.
Don't say those were lovely words.
That's not what I'm interested in.
I'm concerned about your soul.
And there are others in this room as well that are concerned that you not perish.
Verse 33.
And when this cometh to pass lo it will come.
All these things that we are speaking have been speaking about this evening.
On the authority of God's Word, all these things will come to pass.
Then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them, if the Lord Jesus were to come tonight.
In the next moment and you be left behind and the seats around you empty, you will know.
We don't want that for you.
Second Peter, chapter 3.
Second Peter chapter 3 and verse 9.
For the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us word not willing that any should perish, but that all that means you.
Should come to repentance.
Come.
Come just as you are.
To the Lord Jesus.
Receive him as your savior. Accept his finished work on Calvary's cross.
As the substitute for your punishment, that you might not perish and have everlasting life come.
Let's sing together #12.
Just as I am.
Worship for me.
2 Peter 1
Reading
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Romans, chapter 13.
The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Shall we sing hymn #168?
And the days.
And no.
Sign to be able to.
Start in the sky.
Rejoice and.
What's in this world?
Come back to that day.
To the Lord.
For our son and our shield.
I believe is a friend with someone.
Oh oh.
Sweet dreams and will change.
So much to be love.
And Soul Man told you all.
Was found in my people.
And.
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To swords were on fire.
One way to the pain.
Behold.
Yesterday afternoon we went back I think instead of forwards, so maybe we can read from verse 11 again.
Is that all right, Brother Bill?
Yes, I would just mention that in view of the shortness of this meeting and the fact that it's the last meeting, we might remember that we still have a.
Bit of the chapter to go through and there are some very important things here, so be mindful of that and not get bogged down in too many details.
Second Peter chapter one, beginning at verse 11.
Second Peter, chapter one, beginning of verse 11.
For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth. Yeah, I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle.
To stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must put off this Tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shown me. Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my disease, to have these things always in remembrance, before we have not follow cunning devised fables, when we may known unto you the power.
And coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But with eyewitnesses of His Majesty, For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard when we were with Him in the Holy Mount we have also.
A more sure word of prophecy. Where unto ye do well, that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, For the prophecy came not in old time, by the will of man.
But holy man of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Your instruction, just for a moment I was thinking of the verse that the brother, that the brother just read, and the next verse, you know, this is the worst he read. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Do we need that instruction of that next verse? Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting.
Drunkenness.
Chambering wanton us, strife and envy. Well, I suggest that that's exactly what our scripture, our our our chapters taking up. It's not some esoteric spiritual thing that we put on these virtues. It's that we might escape the corruption that's in this world through lust.
And we have a nature, brother, we have a nature that answers to those things unless we put these things on.
We will all divert back to that. The old nature is there and it answers to all those wicked things. We have a nature that's higher than an Angel, one that's lower than a snake. And I remember Mr. Darby said, he said, well, you couldn't do that, huh? You are a Pharisee. So I, I just, and it looks like in the second chapter, it's wickedness. It's not apostasy.
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But it's wickedness and religious things, so it's how we might walk.
In a day that we are living in, I just give one example. There was two brothers who attended the reception desk of a motel.
And they had a convention there. It was a convention of ministers.
These two brothers that give you their I can give you their name. I won't give you now after you ask me next and you can go check this story out.
They had more.
Of buying.
Pornographic.
Movies from that group than they had from any other convention. I can give you their name. I mean, there is the corruption that's in this world through lust. And if we allow ourselves to be taken in with it, it seems that that's what's being spoken of. But we might avoid the corruption that's in this world through lust. And Jim Pilon made a good.
He made a nice statement.
He said television brings the world into your house. The Internet takes you out to the world.
The whole world.
Young people are exposed to this on the phone and in the in the computer. OK, let's we can go on, but.
This is the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And we do need those exhortations, Brother Vernon, or not discounting that, but.
I think it is such a wonderful thing, and that's why I suggest we start, we're eating with verse 11, just to focus in on that expression, the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You know that every four years in the United States there's an election. And so there are changes in government all the time.
You imagine 1000 years, one king over the earth.
Peace based on righteousness. The effect of righteousness shall be peace. In an amazingly wonderful day that's just ahead, but it's going to be introduced through the most awful judgments that this world has ever seen.
I don't think this world has a clue, nor do we understand properly the awfulness of the times of bloodshed that are just ahead. People turn away from gruesome things. But let's face it, brother, and it's right ahead for this world. The Lord Jesus is coming back and His Kingdom will be established in righteousness. Righteousness.
Will reign. And so in the end of this chapter in verse 16/17/18.
We have the apostle Peter speaking about the experience he and two others had on the amount of transfiguration, which is it was a preview of the coming Kingdom, and to get that into focus is so important. We're just here for a brief moment. We're going to get involved in political.
Processes to clean up the corruption that there is in this world.
Brother and I think it is humbling. There are those Muslim people, they despise homosexuality and we look at their the slaughter of the children of these believers over in Iraq and we're shocked. Are we not shocked what is going on in our country?
It's awful to think about it. Is God ignorant as to it? Not at all.
The present situation of our country is appalling, is appalling.
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Psalm 94.
In verse 20.
Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee?
Frame it mischief into or by a law.
Mr. Darby says, Shall the throne of wickedness be united to thee, which frameth mischief into a law?
What a condition we have in our country.
I was thinking of Enoch.
Did he have an abundant entrance?
When he was raptured to the glory. If we look at Jude.
It says in verse 14 an Enoch also the 7th from Adam.
Prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his Saints.
Even before Christianity, you could say there was a day star arose in his heart and he was taken to the glory.
Verse 11 That the Lord is going to reign as king in the eternal state and we'll have a Kingdom then.
Not. Not in the sense of the millennial reign, at least.
Turn to Revelation.
Chapter 21 where you have a one of the few verses that refers to the eternal state.
Revelation chapter 21.
And if I can find the verse.
Where is it says dwell with then?
Verse 3 Thank you. Revelation 21 Three. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God, or the dwelling of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God, and so on.
Reigning.
Exist in a world that has to have order.
In the eternal state, there will be no need to reign because everything will be totally, perfectly consistent with God. And when the Lord Jesus reigns in the millennial Kingdom, he has to reign over that which will require judgment at times, because sin will still exist, but when the Lord Jesus has finished his work.
As we have in First Corinthians 15, he presents it as a finished work to God, and that is all sin and all the effects of sin have been removed from God's sight, and that doesn't take place until what we have in the third chapter. Here in in second Peter's epistle, the Day of God is introduced.
When at the end of the day of the Lord, where the Lord reigns and controls things as Lord, then he can present all to God, and God can dwell with men and enter into a permanent eternal rest without the need of any kind of rain. And in that way the the sense in here in Peter is there will be nothing in the eternal sense or the.
Forever sense of it is similar that you have in the Old Testament.
Nothing comes after it, It is the end, and it is permanent. When the Lord Jesus reigns, there will be nothing after him to reign. He will be the final, if you will, ruler, and the result of his reign will be eternal in its character. But when you introduce the sense of reigning, that's not necessary in the coming eternity, God will simply be able to dwell with.
Us in heaven and man on earth in perfect rest and perfect peace without anything that would require government or any sense of ruling over that will all be passed.
00:20:09
Government. It wasn't until Noah's day, and so yet that's the only covenant that's made for all people.
That's why in second Peter 3 and it says in verse 13 about the day of God that dawn has been speaking about, it says wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Righteousness reigns in the millennial day. Righteousness dwells.
In eternity, in that eternal day, the day of God.
Connection with respect to what?
Peter is telling his brethren and they're looking forward to and so on, and these characteristics that we had yesterday before us in view of the the Kingdom is.
It's righteousness. It's a Kingdom which is characterized by righteousness. And as a consequence of that righteousness, as Bob said a couple minutes ago, the consequence of that is peace. And the further consequence of righteousness and peace is joy. And so the millennial Kingdom will be characterized by righteousness and peace which comes as a result of that righteousness and also joy.
That will characterize the Kingdom and what's were exhorted. We who are sitting in this room in view of that it says the crown of righteousness. What's it connected with those that look forward to the appearing that is this Kingdom and if there is a proper sense in my own soul of living righteously now with God.
Then that is a character that is suited to this Kingdom.
And one who truly is living today righteously before God, and if it's righteous before God, it will be righteous before men, then that character of life, there's going to be a reward for it in the Kingdom, the crown of righteousness. And the way I often say it to myself in the exercise of it is, would my moral life have to change on the day of the beginning of this wonderful Kingdom?
Or will there be a lifestyle change required to be consistent with that which is coming? And the exhortations that are we have are in view of that, that we live in view of the Kingdom, that character of righteousness which will reign in the everlasting or unchanging Kingdom.
It is interesting how it speaks here in verse 16 how Peter speaks. He says we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. Notice then verse 18.
This voice which came from heaven, we heard. It's interesting. Those two means by which he got what he's communicating here through the eyes and through the ears are the same thing as mentioned in John's John's epistle chapter one. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.
You also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
So here we have eyewitnesses who saw His Majesty, and of course it's referring to the amount of transfiguration. Maybe we can go back rather than just to read it in Matthew's Gospel.
And the end of chapter 16, the Lord Jesus says in verse 28, Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom. And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother.
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Interesting. After six days, it's been about 6000 years of man's history.
After six days he takes these three, Peter, James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart and was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun. It's the same as you have in Revelation chapter one. His countenance was as the sun shineth in its strength, supreme power, which characterizes the day.
The day of the Lord in which everything will be manifest.
In his presence and his raiment was white as the light. And behold there appeared unto them.
Moses and Elias talking with him. Interesting. As we were mentioning the other day, here's the heavenly side of the Kingdom. Those that were already passed to be with the Lord. Moses, Elias. Elias didn't die, as we know. He was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind.
And so there are those that will be in the heavenly side that have not died.
There will be others who have died in our resurrected, but they're talking with him.
And you know, brethren, it's been interesting to me to notice.
That it doesn't seem that Moses and Elias were conscious.
Of the presence of Peter, James and John, there is no in the record we have here and in Luke's gospel to.
There's no consciousness evidently on their part, and I asked the brother, why is that?
And the answer I got was they were talking with Jesus. Is there anything that will compare with that? And I really believe that's the truth of the matter. Peter, James and John are representative of the earthly side of the Kingdom. There will be the earthly side of the Kingdom, but they get distracted with Moses and Elias.
And it will be wonderful to see those dear, faithful men from Old Testament.
In that glory. But oh brethren, how does that compare with being with Jesus and seeing his glory? There's nothing that compares with it. But this is what happens. Peter, as was mentioned yesterday, I think by brother Doug, he starts speaking before he knew what he was saying and.
He suggests something that puts the Lord Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elias.
And immediately Moses and Elias are lost from vision, and it's Jesus alone. And that's the way it's going to be in that coming Kingdom. It's going to be the Lord alone, exalted in that day. Oh, what a day it's going to be, brethren. So we have a preview in the Mount of Transfiguration, and this is what is being referred to in verse.
1617 and 18 of our chapter.
Earlier in this chapter we're exhorted to use diligence. We had that back in verse five, but now Peter is going to use diligence and in verse 12 we have it, though not in the King James the the new translation says, wherefore I will use diligence to put you always in remembrance Verse 13 by putting you in remembrance verse 15. Moreover, I will use diligence that may be after my deceased have these things always in remembrance as an urgency to Peter's tone here.
By the way, I was curious about that word diligence and I looked it up in the Greek and the Greek word happens to be spude, where we get the word speed from. So again, it emphasizes an urgency on the part of Peter. And surely we live in a day where there should be a sense of urgency on our on our part. And what was it that Peter wanted to use diligence three times He uses that word remembrance. What what was it that he wanted to put them into remembrance of the certainty of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ that he was a.
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Witness of that glory and that he never forgot that and that's what was before him. But you know, we live in a day where.
We certainly need the exhortation, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables. You know, it pays it. It does as well to pause and consider for a moment that the things that we're talking about, the things that we're reading about, these are these are real. These things are real. When we prayed this morning in the prayer meeting, those prayers wasn't a support group here.
We were praying not to each other. We were praying to a living God who hears.
And I think sometimes we get so busy in our daily lives that we forget the reality of these things. That's what's real. That's what's real. Not the things that consume us for most of our days, but these things that Peter never forgot and that he wanted to use diligence that they too would not forget.
Kingdom is in Psalms 101 That a public lie will cost you your life. A public lie will cost you your life. 101 verse seven. He that worketh the seat shall not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. I will early or every morning destroy all the wicked of the land.
That I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord.
Because a lie is not righteous and it will not be allowed. Satan is the author of it.
That'll be a really righteous case.
So the Lord would have these things to be an encouragement to us, wouldn't he? We've been reminded this morning about atrocities in some parts of the world committed against believers. We're reminded of the.
Moral decadence in North America and in Western Europe. And it's a very real thing. And if we're honest with ourselves, we must be reminded that all these things have an effect on us too.
And there is a difficulty in walking through this world and in resisting all of that. And that's why we need to be reminded over and over again of that everlasting Kingdom because as we mentioned earlier in these meetings, I believe it's the moral side of things that is in view here. The Kingdom of God is a moral thing. And the Lord Jesus says Vern has just brought out is going to insist.
On the outward at least display of that in the millennial Kingdom, open sin will be instantly judged. No smart lawyers to get you off the hook, no ways of evading it by bribing people or anything like that. The Lord Himself will carry out that judgment.
But you and I, we know that ahead of time, don't we? We know what is going to come. And Peter says, as it were, I saw it, I heard it. It's real.
It's coming. And remember, this was written to a Jewish audience who perhaps in many cases were a little discouraged, a little cast down that the Kingdom hadn't appeared when they thought it would. Some expected that the Lord would set up the Kingdom, and so, of course, would he have done it had the nation accepted him. But now they were a bit discouraged. And Peter says, don't worry, it's coming. I saw it.
But you have something even better now. You have something even better now. He speaks of, as it says in the end of verse 19, the day star or the morning star arising in your hearts. And so you and I can be encouraged even when we see things going downhill in this world, that God is going to have the victory in the end. He's going to establish His Kingdom.
But you and I.
We know it's all going to happen ahead of time, don't we? We know exactly where it's all going to end so that we don't have to be cast down and wringing our hands and saying what are we going to do to save America or save Canada or save the situation in this world?
00:35:02
Righteousness does exalt a nation and sin is a reproach to any people. We see that happening today. But you and I can recognize that God has told us it's going to get like this. It's going to get worse and worse, but then the Lord's going to come, as Bob has said, and.
Through that most awful judgment the world has ever seen.
He's going to establish that which will last forever.
Brother Bill.
You in Canada recognize the Queen of England and she is addressed as Your Majesty. What does that word majesty mean? It's used in the end of verse 16.
Can you give us an understanding? We were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.
Well, it says, as many words are, they're not difficult to understand, but hard to define. But I suppose Majesty is a display of all of the glory that resides, you might say, in that person. And so the Queen is addressed as Her Majesty, and she still recognized in Canada and throughout most of what is known as the British Commonwealth.
Because as the.
Head of state in England, and ultimately she is, although many people would raise questions about it, but she is still the head of state in Canada. Not the head of government, but the head of state, and as such there is.
A shall we say certain glory that attaches to that position which is recognized and attacks us to her person?
But what a difference it'll be when the Lord Jesus displays himself in all his glory as the inheritor of all created things, and when, as we get in Ephesians one and 10.
He takes his place as head over all things in heaven and on earth. It will be a display of glory, as you said, Bob, that this world has never seen before, has it?
Getting back to the heads of states or chief estates of the world's nations, people trouble at their presence, correct? Am I wrong? When they're before near in your courts, they tremble when we have a picture of Christ.
Actually, this Christ in Psalms 97, it could turn to Psalms 97.
The last part of four.
The earth sees and trembles, the mountains melt like wax at the present of the Lord.
The earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax at the present.
Of the Lord, that's our Jesus Christ.
And Nelson, that's where the analogy between.
The Queen of England and the Lord Jesus breaks down because gradually over the years, the Queen has become a figurehead, and if she were to attempt to exercise her power the way some of her predecessors did, she would very quickly find out that times have changed.
But there was a time, and quite properly, when people trembled and quaked before the power of the King or Queen of England, because they held the power of life and death and the Lord Jesus.
He holds that power, doesn't he? Sorry, Bob, I think you were gonna say something.
Well I see that same word used in Isaiah 2 and it is beautiful to go back through the Old Testament prophets to see something of the glory of that coming Kingdom. Just to read a few verses in Isaiah 2 verse 10, it says enter into the rock and hide thee in the dust.
For fear of the Lord and for the glory of His.
Majesty, we don't get the picture real well. But when He comes out of heaven to reign, the glory is going to be tremendous. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down. And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, and upon everyone that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low.
00:40:26
And upon all the Cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of bation.
But all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced walls, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures, the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, the haughtiness of men shall be made low, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Oh, Dayton, brethren, what a tremendous day it's going to be.
Amen.
Will be reigning with him. The Lord went away, he said. I'm coming back and I'm going to get you, and you will never be separated from me again. When I come out of my Kingdom, you will reign with me. You will be with me.
Peter says we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. You and I are going to be eyewitnesses of His Majesty, brethren, when he comes to establish his Kingdom.
People sometimes ask me if I've been to the Holy Land. I have to say, no, I haven't. But I have plans to go, and I'm going to be eyewitnesses of the most glorious manifestation of power that there ever has been. God is going to be vindicated. The Lord Jesus is going to be vindicated. He died as a malefactor. The last time they saw him, He was hanging dead on a cross.
The next time he will be coming out of heaven with power and glory.
In majesty to reign supreme.
We have something even better, Bill.
17.
First part of the verse.
For he received from God the Father.
Honor and majesty.
Something very.
Precious.
In those that expression.
The Lord Jesus Christ took his place among us as a man and humbled Himself.
And he humbled himself in becoming a servant.
Even to the point of obedience to death.
But he takes nothing.
As a man for himself.
He simply takes the place of the obedient servant, and it's God that gives him everything.
And so here is it says he received from God the Father honor and glory. Turn over to the second Psalm to see a little bit of it and it's prophetic character.
But we also have it in the epistles in Ephesians.
It's we're seeing as he dies and then God raises his from the dead. God sets him at his own right hand. It's an act of God for this man in Philippians. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
It's not an honor, it's not a place that he gives in that way to himself. And it's a, it's something of the majesty really in my heart, majesty of the greatness of his person as a man, that he is so unlike all others that aspire to power and honor and glory among men. And so here in the second Psalm.
In verse two, at the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. All mankind says are all the rulers among men and all their majesty and power and glory that they aspire to. They say we aren't going to have this competition. We're not going to allow someone to have a greater place than our own. The rulers of Israel when he was here, even not taking that place.
00:45:14
They envied him, and they were afraid of him in that way. Herod was afraid of him, and that's why he tried to kill him even at birth, because it had been said what his place was to be, but not a place that he himself took for himself, as men do. And so they say, let us break their bands asunder and castaway their cords.
Well, what is it it down in verse?
8 Jehovah says, Thou art or seven. Thou art my son.
Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. But what does the sun do?
He waits patiently, waits for that which is the Father's will and the Father's time. And the Father will say to the Son, Son, the time has come. And he what does he do then, rather than, you might say, aspire to this place of honor and majesty, of glory? No, He goes on with the work that had been given him to do, and that is to bring all creation.
In subjection to the God of glory, and in doing so God highly exalts him and gives him that supreme place over all things. He gives him the glory of the inheritance and, and it's his and he takes it. But it's to me to see the person of the Lord Jesus in the way in which these things are going to come to pass.
As unlike man, other men anyways that aspire to the place of honor and glory. It's so natural.
As one brother said, even in spiritual things he said, I before I was saved, I wanted to have a place in the world, and then after I got saved I wanted to have a place in the Church of God.
And was commenting on how he had to learn that was wrong and and yet the Lord Jesus, the perfect one that before our eyes. To me he magnifies his own dignity by the very fact that he aspires not in the way that man aspires to this place that God has chosen him to have to God's glory and to his glory as the worthy 1.
When it's given to him, we say, thou art worthy, and we bow before that worthiness, but we do so in the recognition that it is God that has given him this place.
1St Corinthians 2, verse 8.
Explain how that fits in with what you said.
Which verse? Verse 8.
I'm appreciate I'm going to repeat and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but I appreciate what my brother Bill has previously said on this verse and I believe it's the meaning of the verse which none of the Princess of this world knew for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. What the verse means is if the world actually recognized.
Who he was.
Those who hated him would not have crucified him in order to keep him from accomplishing that which God had intended him to do. It's almost the very opposite of what we might think when we first read the verse. But if they had realized that his death and his crucifixion, they were actually accomplishing the purposes of God for man's blessing.
They would not have done it. That's how sad and evil is the heart of man that if he had realized that he was doing God's greater will in that crucifixion in order that you and I might be eternally blessed.
Man so evil in his self that he would have said Oh well then let's not crucify him.
00:50:05
Solemn. It's a very solemn verse when you see it in that way.
Maybe we can get on to further toward the end of this chapter, brethren.
Verse 19 he says we have a more sure word of prophecy. I like the way the new translation reads there and I'll read it. It says we have the prophetic word made sure. In other words, the transfiguration was a confirmation.
Of the prophetic word of the Old Testament, it confirmed it, she says. We have a the prophetic word made sure.
Whereunto ye do well, that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn. Now the day is the day of the Lord. It dawns at the end of the great Tribulation period.
When the Lord Jesus comes back as the Son of righteousness with healing in his wings.
And the day star arises in our hearts now. That's what's happened already.
We say in a certain way.
The Morning Star has already arisen in our hearts. We're waiting for the Lord Jesus to come from heaven before the day dawns.
Is that the way this is to be understood?
Yes, I believe so. And to me it's significant that you and I, at least I would have, I would have said until the morning star arrives in your hearts and until the day dawn, because that is, you might say the chronological order in which those things will happen, but God puts it in reverse because.
What we are to take heed to is the word of prophecy.
Peter had it made more sure, and John and James that were with him, and we too in the record they've given. But we're to pay attention to prophecy because it's a light that shines in a dark place. But prophecy is for the earth, and prophecy tells us about events that will take place after the Lord comes.
But as we see God setting the stage for all of those things to take place, then I believe you might say the morning star arises in our hearts because we know that the Lord's coming for us is before that all takes place. So prophecy is for the earth and doesn't concern in that same sense the church period. But when we see what prophecy says.
We can look around us and say we know what's going to happen, we know how it's all going to end and when we see God using events to shape things up toward all of that, then we can the morning stars that were arises in our hearts. Is that the thought Bob, would you agree with that? Yes, that's what I understand it.
I mean day for the Jewish remnant.
In one sense I would say Martin, but not in the sense of the Morning Star arising in their hearts, because the Morning Star will have already appeared. And in that sense they won't have the same hope we have. But in understanding prophecy, they will be able to say very definitely when the Antichrist appears. They will know exactly how long it's going to be until the Lord.
Comes back in power and glory to deliver them.
So in that sense they will be able, I believe, to understand the prophetic scriptures.
Is that, is that right, Don? Would you agree with that? Gradually they'll have to go through a process, even the godly remnant. And there's a lot in Joel and elsewhere that shows that for them it will be a gradual process of understanding, not an instant process. And they'll go through the tribulation with a significant amount of darkness and yet a certain sense of the prophecy that you said that they will understand, but not in the way that we do.
00:55:13
It there will.
They they they, they have to go through the process of what are these wounds in the that I've been wounded in the House of my friends. They they have to come to know the Lord Jesus during the tribulation in a way they won't know him at the beginning. I think our times really up, but I just want to make one emphasis on the last three words in verse 19 in your hearts.
Brethren, you can have all the knowledge of the world about prophecy and not have it change one iota of daily life unless it's in the heart.
It's essential. It's not what we know and could delineate and explain and show on a chart and all the rest is wonderful. I'm not putting those things down at all. But it is the attraction of the heart to the daystar that makes these things affect our real lives tomorrow.
As as we go back to you might say, the normal patterns of life that each one of us go through and it's that so important that we each.
Are attracted and attached to the Lord Jesus and His honor.
As it is not given to Him in the world today, and look forward to it as it will be given in these verses, and then it will have its proper effect upon the way we live.
That.
We wait for thee, thou Son of God.
And long for thine.
Bearing.
The wild of God, thy waiting.
Good of shame.
Was my son said we live again.
And joyful.
Expectation.
For now will bring self relation. Let's sing the other two.
And that one obviously isn't well known.
We wait for.
The Constitution.
Stays on trial.
So me without the crosses where horses and reproach.
In.
The God of shame and sorrow.
Until the promised.
Marvel.
We wait for the for the year.
That's what our hearts love you.
In spirit still weigh Hindi.
Our soulless and project.
01:00:02
There shall.
Be.
We wait for.
They will arise.
Whatsoever watches.
Giving.
Or not.
Surprise.
Show me our years of weaving.
For horse being.
A longest night.
Hands are pilgrims.
Story.
If I eternal born.
We'll consider that the end of the meeting if we intelligently just performed it. We just finished a prayer to the Lord.
In 400 and.
In the 4th century, Augustine of Hippo wrote singing well is praying twice.
So he just looked to the Lord.
Let Us Go On
Address—N. Simon
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Given the brevity of time, I would like to.
Turn straight to the word, and Lord willing, if we have a little time at the annual close with a hymn, I want to look at 3 expressions in the book of Hebrews.
The first one is found in Hebrews chapter 6, and each of these expression contains a common word in English, though in the original they the first one is different than the last two, but I will be. My word is in Hebrews 6, but I want to begin in Hebrews 5.
Beginning at verse 11 of Hebrews, five of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered. Seeing yeh dull of hearing. For when, for, for when, for the time he ought to be teachers. You have need that one teacher again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and not become as such a need of meat, milk, and a knot of strong meat. For everyone that uses milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even though who by reason of use have their senses exercised, discern both good and evil.
And therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works in the faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptism, of the laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permit, for it is impossible. For those who were once enlightened have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God under the powers of the Word and the powers of the world to come.
If they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance, and skipping down to verse 9. But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you.
And things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak for God is not unrighteous to forego your.
To forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward His name and he have ministered to the Saints and to minister. And we desire that everyone of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope and to the end that you be not slothful, but follows of them who through faith, patience inherit the promises. Well, I read a lot. I'm not going to cover all of that. The one expression that I have from this portion is in verse one of chapter 6. And it is go on. And that's my excitation to you this afternoon is to go.
On you know, the book of Hebrews is one of the.
Say this carefully. Easier books to follow.
There are some portions in it that have caused some confusion this chapter, the 6th chapter being one of them. But if you put yourself in the place of a Jew that perhaps identified with John the Baptist and submitted to the baptism of repentance and owned the guiltiness of that nation, and then the Messiah comes and you witness the mighty things that he does, and you, you believe in him, or at least believe on him.
And there are many that believed, we have find at the end of John chapter 2, though the Lord knew what was in their hearts, but there were many that believed. And as time went on, you realize that the leaders didn't want to have anything to do with him and things weren't turning out quite the way you'd expected. And then worse than that, he's crucified. And then shockingly, he rises again. And and you're trying to make sense of all this. After all, you look for the redemption of Israel.
And then you hear Peter preach and you go along with it and you're looking for those times of refreshing, but instead Steven gets stoned.
And there's persecution. And this is all contrary to your way of thinking.
And so we have this epistle to the Hebrews.
The author of it. This book is unknown, but for simplicity I'll accept that Paul is the author. I have no difficulty with accepting that Paul is the author of this epistle, but.
There's a good reason why the author is not explicitly mentioned. It's because the Lord Jesus Christ himself is especially the apostle of this epistle. It's apostles. It's an epistle, as it were, that He wrote from his heart to his people and the writer.
Has a concern for them that there were some amongst them that were getting discouraged and might give up. And this chapter speaks of apostasy. And I'm going and and certainly my concern is a concern of mine is that there might be those that have enjoyed the meetings that have grown up in the assembly that have gone along with things. And as we have in the fourth verse of the 6th chapter, it says we're enlightened that have been in the light.
00:05:05
Have tasted of the heavenly gift.
We made partakers of the Holy Ghost. That one usually causes people problems. But the word particular here means an external sharing in and certainly in the day in which this epistle was written, there are those that in the the days of the apostles that witnessed amazing things, the power of the Holy Spirit, you might say in a present day. Well, I've never witnessed anything amazing. Well, you know, we've had our minds and thinking distorted.
By thoughts that have been to be found in Christendom. That the Spirit is manifest in things like the Speaking of tongues and in healing and we forget.
That.
As it says in First Corinthians that rather we're to to desire a gift, we're to desire their gift of prophecy. And if you look in Galatians chapter 5, I believe we find there the fruit of the Spirit. These are all evidence of the Spirit. And whether you recognize it or not, if you've grown up in the assembly, you have been a partaker of the Holy Spirit.
One reason I started back in chapter 5 is because it says let us go on unto perfection, and that's caused some confusion too. But the word perfection is the same word used back in verse 14 where it speaks of being full age. It talks of going on to maturity, to Christian maturity. The 1St 3 verses of this chapter speak of those things which are very Jewish in character, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ. Again, that's something that's been confusing to people. But if we recognize that Christ simply means anointed, which is what Messiah means, which is what we have in the second Psalm, we understand leaving those fundamental principles.
Concerning the Messiah that every Jew had a hope for or a godly Jew did, leaving those things and going on to full growth, recognizing what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ and this epistle, there's I believe 13 references to the word better. There are better things that the a Jew that had believed to the saving of his soul could look forward to and yet the Jew had a tendency to look back and the nature of our flesh too is to to look back to earthly things to to turn back to.
Things that we can handle, things that we can sense with our five senses.
And so the writer of this epistle urges him to go on and they said that the word go is the keyword in the three phrases that I'm going to give you and the word go. And this is different than the other two in the original, but here has a sense of carrying a burden. No one says these things are easy. We've talked about diligence in this chapter mentions diligence. You know, in verse 11, the writer says, for we desire that every one of you you see, there was a there was a concern there that maybe not every one of them.
This hope, the things that we have been Speaking of in the last meeting, but.
We can, even if we are truly the Lords and we cannot apostasize, I don't want to give that a suggestion, but we can still lose the enjoyment of that hope. And, you know, when things don't work out the way that we expect, we get discouraged. I get discouraged. And you look at the assemblies and they're shrinking in sizes. You don't have to be a statistician to make that observation. And if you're a young person growing up, that can be troublesome. If you're an older person, that can be troublesome.
And so when things don't workout the way that we think they should workout, we can get discouraged. And like these Hebrew believers, we can turn back to those things that satisfy the cravings of the flesh. And they may be spiritual cravings, as we'll see as we go on.
Well let's in fact go on because we don't. We only have this meetings only 1/2 an hour.
But the next one is in Hebrews Chapter 11. So the first expression is go.
On We need to be encouraged to go on and it's going to take diligence, it's going to take effort. It's not going to be easy.
And then the next one is Hebrews 11 and verse 8. By faith. Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place where he should after received for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing whether he went by faith, his Sergeant in the land of promises, in a strange country dwelling in a Tabernacle, dwelling in tabernacles or tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which had half foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
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The emphasis on this one is I want is the thought of going out. And again, it's in some ways an artifact of the English translation because I think.
Maybe the original sense is to go forth, but anyway, the emphasis is coming out of something. Let me read another verse while we're in this portion.
And it's verse 15, it says. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. You know, when we study ancient history in school and you study Mesopotamia, we have this idea that they were sort of third world and uncivilized. And that didn't cost Abraham a whole lot to leave that all behind. After all, they all probably lived in tents anyway, which I think is a very false view of things. But so much of our thinking that we have today has been subtly influenced by evolution.
And the whole idea that man is progressing, actually man is rapidly regressing. The social changes that we're witnessing in this country today is taking us back to Roman times, into times, owning that we're regressing, we're not progressing. And so I want to suggest you that life in Mesopotamia was actually pretty awesome.
You know.
You probably younger ones probably wonder how my generation and I probably wonder how the older, the generation older than me ever got along without smartphones, without tablets, without the Internet. I even comment about at work. I'm a software engineer and used to be when you had a question on how to do solve some particular problem, you'd have to try to hunt for a book that gave you the answer. Well, now I just Google it and it's the answer's there like that. And it's made my life much easier. And you might wonder how do we ever get along without these things? But you forget.
Before they existed, they were never in our thoughts that they didn't affect our lives I never I never thought of carrying a phone in my pocket. In fact, when they.
First put a phone into one of these things that was like, why did they do that? And then of course, it clicked and became obvious as to the benefits of such things. But, you know, if you don't have something, you don't miss it, do you? So I don't imagine because Abraham didn't have all the the modern amenities that we enjoy that he somehow missed them. He didn't. Mesopotamia we have.
A lot of information about the civilization back then, you can read the Epic of Gilgamesh to get some idea. And it was as a licentious and there was as much entertainment as the day in which we live. It just might not have been delivered the same way. And all of this Abraham left behind. He went out. And so the exhortation to us too is to go out. And as I said, if he had been mindful of those things, if he had dwelt on those things, if he had thought on those things, that would have been gestures the same.
It is with me an attraction to go back into them again. And so again, we are called to go on, and we're also called to go out out of this world. Now, we can't physically get out of this world. And we could look at some verses in John 17 and so on. We're in this world, but we're not a part of this world. And we're to use the things of this world without abusing them. We're not to come under the power of the things that this world has to offer.
So let's look at the last one, which I'll spend a little more time on.
Hebrews 13.
Hebrews 13 and.
We'll start reading verse 10.
We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which served the Tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come by Him. Therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
But to do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. So we exhorted to go on. We're exhorted to go out. But if God is going to ask us to come out of something, it's not going to be without putting something before us which is infinitely better. And so we're going, we're exhorted in this portion to go forth, therefore.
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Unto him without the camp.
And I want to talk a little bit about the camp.
So what is the camp?
You know, I believe this is a topic that stirs emotions as well.
I think we make a great mistake if we ask the question who is the camp? You know, if we understand the principle that's given here, I'll walk. Should be clear. And that's what's important.
Keep in mind that when the writer wrote this epistle, there was number camp. Let's be clear about that. There was number camp. There was no Tabernacle.
They didn't. It didn't exist.
I mean that it ended if I'm right.
Hundreds. I don't know my timeline that well.
1000 years before.
So the writer, in writing to the Hebrews, knew that the the recipients of this letter would have to interpret these things spiritually, not literally.
And so if you object to a spiritual interpretation of the camp in the day in which we live.
Then you also object to the interpretation that the author intended.
So what did the author intend? Well, if you turn back to Leviticus 4, I believe we find the principle behind going out the camp.
In in Leviticus 4 we have the sin offering before us.
And a connection and then the sin offering addresses 4 cases. We have when the high priest sins, we have when the people sin, we have when a rule of sins and we have when the common people sinned. And the first one is concerns the high priest. It says in verse three of Leviticus 4 if the priest that is anointed to sin according to the sin of the people, then let him bring and it goes into the sin offering.
But you notice what it says.
For example, verse six, the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle of that blood seven times before the Lord.
Before the veil of the sanctuary, so the blood was taken in to the Tabernacle. But in verse 12 we find even the whole bullet shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place where the ashes are poured out, and burned him on the wood with fire, where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt. So the blood was taken into the sanctuary, but the Bullock itself was taken without the camp, and burnt without.
The camp and then in the next case in verse, umm.
13 It says, if the whole congregation of Israel sinned through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes, and again it goes in to the sin offering, and once again we find that the blood was to be.
In verse 17, the priest shall dip his finger in the sum of the blood and sprinkle 7 times before the Lord, even before the veil. But in verse 20, once again we find that the Bullock.
Verse 21 Rather, he shall carry forth the bullet without the camp and burn him, as he burned the first Bullock. And so once again we find the bullet taken without the camp and burned without the camp. Now why was it taken without the camp? Now if you look at the other two incidents, the the case of a ruler and the case of a common person sinning, the bullet wasn't taken out of the camp. So why was it in the first two instances but not the second two? Well, because defilement had come into the camp. In the case of the high priest in particular, communion with God had been broken.
As incidentally, that first case with the high priest is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the very picture we find there in Hebrews 13. But.
It's not for his sin that he suffered without the camp. In the case of the high priest, it was if he sinned. But in the case of the Lord Jesus, the picture we have, it wasn't his sin, but for the sin that he took upon himself. But in the case of when all the people, the congregation sinned, defilement had come into the camp and it was the Bullock was required to be taken out. I see how time is slipping by really fast.
We find a couple of incidents in the in Exodus where the Tabernacle was taken outside the camp. In Exodus 33 we have an incident of it.
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In Exodus 33, verse seven, it says Moses took the Tabernacle and pitched it without the camp. Why did he do that? Well, that was after the golden calf. Again, defilement had come in to that congregation where God was seen as dwelling in the midst of His people. Defilement had come in and the Tabernacle where God was seen as dwelling, though at this point it was.
Precursor to the Tabernacle, it had to be taken out the camp and then numbers 11 after the people fell a lusting for a flesh. Once again we find the Tabernacle taken without the camp because defilement had come in amongst the people of God. So what's the spiritual application to us today?
Well, certainly all that pertains to Judaism has no place within Christianity. Christ suffered outside the camp.
But that's exactly what Christianity has done. Christendom has taken everything, well, many things pertaining to Judaism and has brought it in to its system of things. One thing that characterized the the camp, one thing that characterized Judaism was the fact there was a mixed multitude, both of those that were faithful and those that were infidels. They were a people by natural birth and we are not a people by natural birth.
In John chapter one it says born. I'll read it because I.
Not good at quoting scripture without misquoting, but in John chapter one and verse 13 says which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. We're a people that are not born of the flesh.
Born of God and not of blood.
The other thing is everything connection with Jewish worship was that which satisfied the man in the flesh. There were ceremonies. Well, that's been brought into Christendom. There was musical instruments and music, and when David ordered those things, it was according to God. I was trying to find that verse the other day and I couldn't find it, but it's somewhere there where it says that he did it.
And the implication is, according to the Spirit or according to God, He didn't just invent it, but musical instruments has been brought into Christendom.
We find in, you know, I've had the privilege, the blessing of communicating with a brother in prison whom Don introduced me to for about a year.
And this was a man, I don't know much about his life before he entered prison. He ended as a young man.
And he was, but he was saved in prison, and the only thing he knows of Christianity is what he's learned in prison through the Scriptures.
Through ministry, through his cellmate who happens to be a believer and no doubt other sources as well. But the one thing that irks him most about where his parents go, which is a large mega church in Colorado Springs, is that it's a mixed congregation of saved and unsaved.
And there's there is no distinction. And yet that's what characterizes Christianity. And so we are to go forth, but it's unto him. It's not simply that we're asked to go outside the camp. And by the way, we can't get out of Christendom. That's not the point. But we don't have to identify with these things.
And we were called to go outside the camp unto Him. It's not simply good enough to separate from those things which many over the centuries have done, but it's unto Him we are gathered together unto His name. And as I said, when we start getting our eyes on them and us and who is who, we start going astray in our thinking. The thought is, is that if we understand the principles of the camp, we won't want to be identified with those things.
That Christendom has brought in from Judaism and from paganism. We won't want to be identified with them, but as the day gets weaker.
And as there is a lack of reality, our natural tendency is to fill it.
With those things that are counterfeit. So as an example, Ephesians 4. And this may seem like a very strong example, and it is strong.
In Ephesians four and five, sorry Ephesians 5, it says in verse 18 be not drunk with wine, where is excess, but filled with the Spirit. Why are these two things put together? Why is being drunk with wine and being filled with the Spirit put together? Because one office a counterfeit of the other.
You know, a young brother the other day I remarked that he went to a Christian concert and how amazing it was to hear 5000 people sing. And I'm sure if I was there I would have felt the same elation as well. But I'm afraid it's a counterfeit of being filled with the spirit. If if you want to fill up lifted, sure, you can go along with this music and this flashing lights and.
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And and keep in mind, I'm not criticizing.
The the people there, but the system of things, it's wrong. But you can go along to something like that and you will feel uplifted. You will leave with a smile on your face. And perhaps you say I come on Thursday morning and I don't ever leave with a smile on my face. Well, you can substitute something and that will bring a smile on your face.
But we are to go forth unto Him. Everything in Christian today seems to be turning on ourselves, and my time has passed.
But I read the next few verses after the one that says there in Hebrews 13 to go on to him. By the way, there's a reproach if you turn to Psalm 69 again. Let me quickly turn to it. You don't need to.
Some 69 concerning speaking prophetically concerning the Lord, it says.
I become a stranger until verse seven, because for thy sake have borne reproach, shame with covered my face.
Become a stranger to my brethren, alien to my mother's children. There is a reproach being associated with going without the camp. You will be immediately accused of judging those that identify with those things. But you and I have to do that which is right according to Scripture. We're to go on, we're to go out, we're to go forth unto him without the camp. And there is a reproach. And it may even consent our own families, that reproach. I started saying something about Christian Christianity. So much is turning in on itself.
You know, I read a couple of years back a definition of worship by a relatively well known preacher, an author again, a minister in a large mega church who described worship as anything that brings pleasure to God.
That is false.
It was brought to my attention after our conference in Denver, we took up Romans 12 That the English standard version, which is not a particularly bad version so, but even that English standard ESV translates Romans 12 instead of ending it as ours does, which is your intelligent or reasonable service, it says.
I haven't written down so I won't misquote, which is your spiritual worship.
And that's exactly what that definition of worship does. It turns service into worship service worshippers towards God, services that which we do towards man in the chapter that we had before us that speaks of the sacrifice of praise, that which is God would. And then it follows that which to to let me quote it. But to do good and to communicate, forget not, you know, if the Father seeketh worshippers, You know, if I do the dishes for my wife, she's pleased.
But if that's the only way that it ever showed affection to my wife, she would be very disappointed and I might suggest that husbands have this problem.
But once in a while, she likes me to hear, likes to hear me say that I love her. That's worship. It's adoration. Not because of what we've been delivered out of.
Not to be occupied with what we've been delivered out of, but because we've been delivered out of it. We worship God and we lift up before Him and exalt the sun. Anyway. Our time has passed. Perhaps we can disclose by singing 2 verses from 2:56.
256 praise the Savior, ye who know him, just to sing verse one and verse four, if someone could start that.
Raise the.
Sailor.
Give us women.
To myself and still believe me till the oil.
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Are receiving.
Promise joins with the closing prayer.