Chicago Conference: 2016
Table of Contents
Eternal Life
Address—R. Thonney
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Let's begin our meeting with #278.
You'll notice this This hymn is really a prayer.
And so let's challenge ourselves as we sing it.
That we sing it in sincerity to the Lord as a prayer. Savior, we long to follow Thee daily, Thy cross to bear it. Count all elsewhere ere it be unworthy of our care. Notice the last verse.
Oh, teach us, soul, the power to know of risen life with Thee not we may live while here below, but Christ.
Our life may be.
278.
Savior we long to follow.
Thee.
I miss stuck it brethren, somebody else help me.
And.
What were they all the art?
We are.
I love you, my love.
Sunshine.
Oh God.
My strength and grace.
Let's pray.
00:05:00
Like to start out with well known gospel verse in John 5.
In verse 24.
And read verse 24 and 25.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me.
Hath eternal life, everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but his past from death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming.
And now is when the dead shall hear.
The voice of the Son of God, and they that hear.
Shall live.
Want to speak on this subject of eternal life?
Where does it start? And here in both verses 24 and 25, you have a verse, a word that's repeated. It's hearing.
Starts in verse 24. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me. It's often been mentioned that that's our part in this verse.
God's part in the remaining three things it says, Has everlasting life shall not come into condemnation, and his past from death unto life.
But it comes through hearing. Now notice verse 25. The hour is coming and now is that's this present time in which we live when the dead, these are not the physically dead, but the spiritually dead. The person has not accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior. They are looked at as dead.
In trespasses and sins, no.
Life movement towards God.
Spiritually.
And it says, the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. This is a miracle. How do dead people hear?
You know, we might have stood outside the grave of Lazarus.
He'd been buried and was in the grave for four days.
And if we would have stood outside there, we could have hollered all we wanted and he would have never heard anything we said.
But there was one who came to that grave. He was the Son of God. And when the Son of God speaks the dead here, and he said Lazarus come forth. And Lazarus, even though he is all wound up with those grave clothes, the way they used to bury people, he came out.
Why? Because the Son of God, the One who created the whole universe, had spoken and said, come forth.
He had to come out and he did. And to me it is a most wonderful thing to see God communicating this new life, this eternal life or everlasting life. You want to put it that way? It's the really same word in the original.
Eternal life.
By his word.
You know, we're all born into this world through the natural processes and through the seed of a man. We have been born by a woman and we have natural life.
You and I didn't decide to be born, that was our parents choice.
I want to say to you something else. If you are born again, you did not decide to be born again either. You may at certain time have made a decision to accept Christ as your Savior. That's great, and that's important.
But even spiritual birth is because of the will, not of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. And so God sends forth his word, and so often in the Scriptures it says he that has an ear, let him hear. Oh, if there's anything, I want to encourage you.
00:10:13
This afternoon is to open the ears of your heart.
Listen to what God has to say. I don't care if you don't particularly like my form of speaking and you want to ignore what I say, but listen to what God says because it's going to make an eternal difference. Listen.
Hear what he has to say, because when he speaks, even the dead here. And so begins a life.
Eternal life, What is eternal life? You know, I find that lots of people have the idea that eternal life, and it's not wrong idea is a life that never ends. That is true.
But so much more than that because I find that people think, well, I accept Jesus as my savior and I have eternal life now I'm going to live forever.
Yes, that's true, but it's far more than just living forever, and I'd like to look at a few portions of scripture that give us to understand what eternal life really is.
We're in John's Gospel, so let's turn over to the 10th chapter and the Lord Jesus is speaking here in the 10th chapter and we're going to read.
Verse 10.
The thief cometh not but for to steal.
And to kill and to destroy. Now this part.
I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
Your translation leaves more out.
That they might have life abundantly. Eternal life is life in abundance. It's not so much the duration of the life, it's the quality of the life. There are people that are living in prison and misery.
Would you call that abundant life? No, not exactly. They're living, but eternal life is life in abundance.
Let's look at the 17th chapter already read in this chapter this today, but in the 17th chapter, I want you to.
Read with me verse 3.
This is life eternal that they might know.
The the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. So eternal life. What is it? It is the life of knowing God and Jesus Christ whom he sent to me. It is the most wonderful thing to be able to say.
That eternal God that never had a beginning.
I know him.
Can you really say that? If you know the Lord Jesus, you can say that?
That's what eternal life is. It's not what I am, it's what He is. There's the focus on Him, not on us.
Oh, it's wonderful, brethren, to think about it. You and I can know God in the fullest sense of the word because of what the Lord Jesus did, because He came to reveal to us the Father.
And so annoying him, we are brought into the knowledge of God.
In all his fullness.
Often have mentioned that the Muslim religion says God is.
Unknown and unknowable.
Poor people, over a billion people in this world today pledge allegiance to a God that they don't know and that they cannot know.
And you say you know God.
That is eternal life.
00:15:02
The knowledge of the true God.
In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Another verse I want to read in First Timothy chapter 6. Actually 2 verses here.
Verse 12.
Paul is addressing Timothy here and he says fight the good fight of faith.
Lay hold on eternal life, where unto thou art also called, and has professed a good profession before many witnesses.
Notice verse 19.
Laying up in the store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life. If you look at the new translation, it says lay hold on that which is really life. You know, people think that doing their own thing in this world is living it up.
I'm going to tell you it is not living it up.
If you want to really know what living is.
Lay hold on that which is eternal life. In other words, there is a necessity of you and me to exercise our faith, to lay hold of something. And this is the exercise I have, brethren, is that I see young people.
They're doing so often their own thing and they're not satisfied, they're not happy.
Sometimes I say I'm bored.
Why? Because they don't know that.
They're not living the right life, the eternal life that God has set before us. They think that just living down here in this world and spending money and then doing things that they like to do, and this is life. That is not it. That's not what we're talking about.
And oh, brethren, I'd like to speak a little bit more about this life that we're talking about because there are some characteristic things that are very distinctive than the life, the natural life that we have here in this world.
When we're born, we're born with a sin nature.
And sin.
Is that which separates from God, because God is naturally is holy.
He is intrinsically holy. In other words, His Holiness is something that cannot be compromised.
And so if you and I are going to have fellowship with God, if we're going to know him, it's got to be on a basis.
Where sin has been addressed and the Lord Jesus came into the world with that purpose in mind to address that sin question, and he did it.
On the cross and this is the mystery of mysteries, the.
Eternal Son of God, the Creator of the universe.
Hung on a cross of wooden outside of Jerusalem.
Not only rejected by man, but in three hours of darkness.
God laid on him the iniquity of us all, and the storm of divine judgment fell on him in all its fury. For three hours the waves and billows Divine judgment broke over him.
Never understand it.
The eternal Son of God addressed that question. He settled it because before he died, he said it is finished. The work of redemption is done. God has been satisfied with what Jesus did, and then he died. He laid down his life.
Didn't stay dead.
Buried in the third day, he rose from the dead by the power of God.
And he is living now.
And now, because of what He has done on that grass, He offers eternal life to all those who will simply believe in Him.
But we have to understand this life, this eternal life.
00:20:05
Where is it? And I'd like to go back to Romans chapter 6 to speak about it a bit because it's important that we understand the position that God sees us in. If we are believers in the Lord Jesus, I know that there may be those who are newer in their faith.
In the Lord Jesus. But I want to say to you, this is true of you just as.
Much it is as the one who has been in the Lord for many years. This is true of you. So I want you to be able to understand the way God views you, your position before him. Now if you have believed in the Lord Jesus, notice the end of the 5th chapter and verse 20 it says.
Moreover, the law entered that.
The fence might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
For God's grace you cannot limit it. And if God is going to be gracious, he has to have a basis to do it on, and he does.
Because of what Jesus did on the cross. But now notice in chapter 6 and verse one.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? If we just keep on sinning, then grace will abound more and more. Is that the Christian position? Verse two. God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
Know ye not that so many of us as we're baptized?
Into Jesus Christ we are baptized into his death, therefore we are buried with him by baptism and to death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also should walk in newness of life.
So he says.
In Christ we are looked at as dead to sin.
Does a dead man sin? Have you ever seen a dead man sinning?
Might have been a person who is a drunkard all his life.
Always grabbing the bottle.
He died.
Now offer him a drink, will you? Is he going to stick out his hand to take it?
No, what happened? He died. And you and I, when we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior, God looks at us as dead indeed unto sin.
What do you do with dead people?
Why you bury him? And so it says, we are buried with him.
By baptism into death.
So when a person is accepts the Lord as a savior and they're baptized.
That is.
Figure of burial.
Once the person is buried, do you go out and check in the cemetery and see how they're doing, open up the casket and see how they're doing once in a while?
No, you don't do that.
Why not? It's going to get worse every time you open that casket.
And I see young people, they start looking back at themselves and.
And they get terribly discouraged.
And they get depressed.
I want to say to you.
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, God looks at you as dead and buried.
Leave it where it has been put. It's not something that you and I do. It's something that God has done for us. We are dead and buried and it doesn't end there because it says at the end of verse four that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also may walk in newness of life so we are identified with the Lord Jesus.
In his resurrection as well. In other words, the life that we're talking about, that eternal life, is a life that is beyond death.
00:25:05
I like to think of it this way sometimes, the life that I naturally possess.
In this world we live, and then the final is we die.
But in the life that we're talking about, this eternal life, death comes first, and then we have a life that will never, ever die. Not wonderful to think about. That life can never be touched.
Death may touch this body because it's connected with the first creation.
But it can never touch the life that I possess in the Lord Jesus. Wonderful realities. I know we understand these things to explain them, but what exercises me, brethren, is that it doesn't seem worth living the life that we have been given.
And I want to challenge you to live it.
So if you go down a little bit further in this chapter, notice verse 11.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.
But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your.
Members as instruments of righteousness unto God for sin.
Shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.
So here it says, Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed, and to sin.
Reckon simply as an old word we don't use too much today that means think this way.
Reckon ye yourselves think that you are really dead to sin and alive to God.
You know what my reaction was when I was younger? I don't feel very dead to sin. When their sins temptation around. I feel like doing it. There's something inside of me that says do it.
Yes, that's the sin nature that's there. But we are to think that we are dead to sin. And is there temptation for a dead man? As we've already mentioned, there's no temptation for a dead man. It's for a person that's living that there's temptation and we are dead indeed. And so when temptation comes.
We need to think this way.
Remember, when it presents itself, there may be inside you a impulse on the part of the flesh, because the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these things are contrary to one another, so that you might not do the things that you ought to, but.
It's that we need to think God's thoughts about this.
Don't go by your feelings, merely go by God's word. Feelings vary. Feelings change. You can't trust them. Feelings are very real. I'm not going to say that they're not real. They are real. But don't trust your feelings. Trust the Word of God. Reckon ye yourselves to be dead, indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.
Remember when I was younger the struggle I went through?
In this issue.
Of things that I felt in my life were grieving to the Lord, and I would confess it to the Lord and say I'm sorry and I'd get up with more determination not to do it again.
And before I realized I was doing it again.
It was the struggle that sometimes I think we all go through it in a more or less in different phases of it depending on our particular personality, but.
It was a struggle and I finally came to myself and said what is the problem here? What am I not getting that I keep on doing this?
00:30:08
And then the Lord showed me the simplicity of His word.
You're dead indeed to sin. The next time the temptation came up, I said to myself, I'm dead to that, and there was no struggle at all.
It was just simply to think God's thoughts about it. And so I just want to express these things because if you're going to live eternal life, if you're going to lay hold of it, then I want to say it's on the other side of death in resurrection territory. That's where God sees us.
In chapter 6, we are dead to sin.
In Chapter 7, we're dead to something else. Look at.
Verse 4.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. So we're not only dead to sin, we're dead to the law.
There's a dead man laying out on the floor there. Would you feel free to come up here and and give him the commandments of the law? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy might, and with all thy strength, and with all thy soul.
Has no effect on him. He's dead.
That's our position too. You know what? If I was living, that law would be a stimulus to my fleshly nature. It provokes the flesh.
When God says to this sinful nature, don't do that, I want to do it. When he says do that, I don't want to do it because the flesh is contrary to God. Always is, always has been, always will be, never can be. Any change in that. That's why God has given us a completely.
New life in Christ eternal life, and so the sin, the the law is the.
Power of sin. In other words, it provokes sin into action. But since now I'm dead, I'm not only dead to sin, I'm dead to the law.
If there was a man that was condemned to die in the Cook County jail, I don't know how they do it here in Illinois.
Or they have capital punishment. I don't even know that. But if he was condemned to die tomorrow morning at 8:00.
That was the sentence of the law.
And tomorrow at 7:30, the jailer goes in to take him out so that he can be executed.
But he finds when he gets in there that the guy has died during the night.
What are they going to do with them now? Are they going to execute him?
No, why not?
He's dead. The law does not apply to dead people, it applies to people that are alive.
And so these are points to think about.
Then further down in this chapter, you're going to find that the person that's speaking here.
Is really struggling just notice it verse 14 for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I do, I allow not for what I would that do I not, but what I hate that I do. You see the struggle that's going on inside them, pretty violent struggle. If then I do that which I would not, I can send into the law that it is good. There's no problem with the law. Problem is with me.
Verse 17.
Now then, it is no more I that doeth, but sin that dwelleth in me.
There is a positive step. He's learned something. What is it that it's not I that do it, but sin that dwells in him? There are two natures there that are battling it out, and that's why he's struggling. So. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing, for to Will is present with me. But how to perform that which is good, I find not.
00:35:13
You know, we're taught.
Especially in this country to have healthy self esteem.
I'm not sure what they would say about this verse 18. I know that in me.
That is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And I think sometimes the reason there is such a struggle is that we do have a high esteem for what we are.
We have to realize that before God, there is nothing there that God can appreciate. Absolutely nothing.
Verse 19 For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do. Verse 20 Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me again I say he's.
Realizing now that there's two principles inside of him that are battling it out. One is that sin, nature, and then those of us who have been born of God.
There's the new nature and they are contrary to one another. And so there is this struggle, and it goes on to the end of the chapter when he says in verse 24, Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
I understand that in Roman times, one of the punishments inflicted on for certain crimes was to chain a dead body to a person, and he had have to live with that dead body strapped to him until it completely rotted off of him. That's the figure of speech that is given here.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.
And the answer is in verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.
The answer is in the Lord Jesus.
We are now looked at as dead with Christ buried and risen again. Now notice in chapter 8 there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. What is your position in Christ Jesus? Isn't this wonderful?
You know, it's not looking at what we are, it's looking at who he is.
In the Old Testament, Noah built an ark and he and his household went into that ark, and God shut the door after he was in that ark. You might have asked, where is Noah? Don't see him around anymore. He's in the ark. And so they looked in that direction. All they could see was that ark with all its strength.
To save them from the judgment that was going to fall.
On this world we are in Christ Jesus, and worse, Christ Jesus.
He is there in the glory of God, in our position as in Him.
Is there any possibility that condemnation could fall on the Lord Jesus? Absolutely impossible.
And we are in Christ Jesus, no condemnation. But now notice verse 2. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. There's two laws, you might say, two principles of life.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That's what's characteristic of Christianity. But then there's the law of the sin of sin and death that prevails in this world. And it's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus that makes us free from the law of sin and death. Somebody has used the illustration of the law of gravity. If I let loose of this pen, what's going to happen? It's going to fall to the ground.
Are you sure this is going to happen every time? Yeah, it's going to always fall to the ground. You sure that sometime I let it loose, it might not go up and touch the ceiling? Yeah, I'm sure. Why? Because there's the law of gravity. It always is true.
00:40:02
What? We're going to introduce a different principle here. We're going to take a helium balloon and we're going to tie it to this pen, and now I'm going to let it loose. What happens? It goes up. Hey, what happened to the law of gravity? I thought you said everything always goes down. Yes, but you introduced a different principle, and that's what we're talking about here. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
To me, it is a wonderful thing to realize we have been made free.
From the law of sin and death. Now notice verse 3 for what the law could not do. Now it's if the context is the law of Moses here.
In that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Notice how carefully it guards the Lord's.
Holy humanity and the likeness of sinful flesh. Not in sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. You know what? God Forgives our sins. But that sin nature that produces those sins God never forgives. He has condemned it once and for all.
When the Lord Jesus came, there was perfect goodness in him. And what happened to him?
They gave him the worst treatment possible. They nailed him to a cross.
They let him die there. God says the test is over. There's nothing good in man, in the flesh, absolutely it's condemned. And you know, sometimes we don't accept that. We think, oh, there might be something good yet in me. No, I know Paul said in Chapter 7 that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth.
No good thing, And so it's condemned.
That notice verse 4. The righteousness of the law doesn't say that the law might be fulfilled.
But the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Because the characteristic of a real believer is walking after the Spirit, not after the flesh. The flesh is still in us, but we are not in the flesh, we are in the Spirit, it says. And it's important to realize those things and to lay hold of them if you're going to understand what we've been talking about of laying hold of eternal life. Notice verse 5. For they that are after the flesh to mind the things of the flesh, but they that are.
The Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
What kind of things do you mind?
If I would go to your house.
I would go to your room.
Where you have the Internet.
And where you're looking at things on the Internet.
Would it be evident that you are living according to the flesh?
Or according to the Spirit, there are things that get ahold of people. *********** has been one that has been a terrible problem even amongst those that say they're Christians. And I want to challenge you. If you are a real believer in the Lord Jesus, are you living your eternal life? Or are you just kind of hold that off on the corner and say.
I'll take care of that sometime, but I want to do some of this other stuff too.
You are robbing yourself of the enjoyment of what God means you to have in eternal life.
Verse six For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life.
And peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh, notice that cannot please God.
Pretty dramatic statement. They that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Notice verse 9. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. So Christian position is in the Spirit. So the flesh may impulse you to react in a certain way.
00:45:03
Don't give place to it.
Don't give your members as instruments of unrighteousness. You get up in the morning, commend yourself to God, and as you do so.
Present yourself to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness.
Oh, it's wonderful when we can simply live this out in our lives. Dear brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, I just like to.
Read a few more verses that talk about this because I find it so challenging in the world that we live in.
Brethren, the life that we have is not a life of self pleasing.
The last Christian that came out was.
A pamphlet that said Self.
And that is the American way of life.
Have it your way.
You deserve it.
All the focus is on what we are. That is not Christianity.
Even Christ pleased not Himself.
The life that we have in the Lord Jesus is a life of self sacrifice.
Let's look at some verses before we get to the end of our time here in Galatians chapter two, well known verse, verse 20.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. To me that's beautiful.
What kind of life is it? He says. I'm crucified with Christ. Would you find it particularly nice to be crucified?
I'd find it pretty excruciating and sometimes to say no to that flesh of ours. We're not going to find it that pleasant.
But he says the life that I now live in the flesh, it's not I, but it is Christ.
And he says I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's a giving.
God is a giving God and He wants His people to be giving people. Brethren, we're living in such a tremendous world of need. I see the pictures of down in Haiti.
Just Lemoyne sent me the other day an article.
Of areas of Haiti, 90% of the dwellings have been totally destroyed.
Does that say anything to your heart? Mind?
Are we going to just say, well that's interesting and pass on?
Rather than that's not the life that we've been given, it's a life of giving. I don't know how the Lord may touch you to be exercised. There's not only Haiti, there's so many other parts of this world.
But to live in this life and just to live it up for ourselves as is the American Dream is not the answer. That is not laying hold of eternal life. And I must say I have found those who have given up their lives to serve others with sacrifice and let me tell you, it is the most rewarding thing there is.
That's the way we brought up in this land.
And I must say, to visit other countries to see poverty has been a challenge to me. Don't think I'm trying to point the finger at anybody here. I have to point the finger right at myself. I know that naturally speaking, I like to have things comfortable the way I like them to be.
That is not eternal life. Eternal life is to live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Go over to Colossians.
Colossians Chapter 2 we have what we've already mentioned.
Just going to point it out.
Verse 13, it says you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, we're dead. Notice verse 12, buried with him in baptism. There's the second thing, we're buried.
00:50:19
We're in also. Ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
So we're dead bearing and risen again. Now go to chapter 3, verse one. If then ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection or your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for ye are dead.
And your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Oh, this is wonderful.
We are if you are a real believer, you are risen with Christ.
And the exhortation is set your mind on things above, not on things on this earth.
Let me tell you, that speaks to my own heart a lot.
So often I come to the end of the day and say, how much time have I given to thinking of those things that are above? I'm afraid it is mighty small the amount I've been thinking about things about. But brethren, we are called not to earthly glory. There's going to be earthly glory in this world.
We're called to eternal glory, heavenly glory.
And are we not going to be thinking a little bit about it before we go?
That's what it's talking to us about here, the importance of setting our mind on things. Above says you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. In other words, the world around is not going to understand us because our life is hidden. What in the world those Christians live, they defy and they deny themselves as so many things I don't understand they might say.
Yeah, that's true, because our life is hid.
Verse four says, When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Now, this is the appearing, This is not the rapture that it's speaking about, but you know the.
Teaching of Scripture that at the end of that great tribulation period.
Is going to be what is called the glorious appearing or the appearing of the glory of the great God in our Savior Jesus Christ?
I think it will be the vastest display of glory that there will ever be in this world is when God introduces His Son into this world. At the end of that tribulation period, heaven is going to open.
And that man that hung dead on the cross is going to come.
With the myriads of heaven, all his Saints, and.
Also the hosts of the mighty angels.
You and I are going to be there. We are going to witness it first hand. We need to live in view of that day, that glory, that eternal glory.
Oh, brethren.
Are we just living, trying to get by down here in this world, just struggling, just kind of messed up in our thinking? Are we trying to please ourselves in some way? You know, when I see the Lord Jesus and his life down here, the simplicity of his life, He didn't have hardly anything.
He could say.
The birds of the air have nests, the foxes have holes. The Son of man has not where to lay his head. The glorious eternal Son of God, the Creator of the universe, did not have a place to lay his head. He probably spent a lot of the nights out into the stars.
You never have any record of him having a piece of money in his pocket.
When it was the need of others, he always had with what the wherewithal to supply it, but he did not do anything for his own pleasure. He had miraculous power to do miracles, to heal, to raise the dead, but he never did any miracles for his own benefit. That was not his life. That's not our life either.
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To do things for our own benefit? Yes, a father is responsible to provide.
For his children and provide covering and food that is very clear in Scripture, but to be more simple in our living habits, brethren, the Lord help us to do that because we're getting down to the end when everything is going to.
Be left behind at a moment's notice.
O brethren, the Lord grant us that we could live in view of that coming day. Do you want to go back again to?
First Timothy 6.
To just read again that verse we read at the beginning.
Verse 12. Paul's injunction to Timothy.
Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life.
Or if I can paraphrase it, what it is in the 17th verse or in the 19th verse lay hold on that which is really life. Are you hearing me? Young people, older ones too? Are you hearing what God says?
Lay hold on that which is really life.
Let's pray.
2 Corinthians 3
Reading
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244 That bright and blessed mourn is near.
We have learned to love Glad Sample.
Is raised.
I'm waiting for our singer here.
Quickly.
Come back again.
Oh, may our hearts look.
Let's read a few verses in Psalm 27.
Absalom of David.
The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I feel?
The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
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Verse 4.
One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
And verse 8.
When thou didst, When thou said or did say.
Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee. Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
I suggest we take up Second Corinthians chapters 3:00 and 4:00.
2nd Corinthians chapters 3 and four present the gospel to us as the gospel of the glory.
And the Gospel of the glory is that gospel which takes us right out of the world into that place of stability and permanence in the presence of the glory of God. We live in a world this afternoon as it was brought before us in the beginning of these meetings.
Which is very unstable and we are thankful for the liberties we have in this country at the present moment, but we don't know that they'll be here that long for us as they are not in other countries. But by contrast, God sits in the glory on a throne.
In perfect peace and perfect stability. And nothing that's happening in the world this day changes the rest and peace.
Of his throne, and he wants to associate our hearts with the Lord Jesus who's there in that place of stability. And if you will take our hearts right out of this world completely. We have that in Second Corinthians 3:00 and 4:00.
Just first chapter I suppose today.
Let's move Second Corinthians chapter 3 beginning at verse one.
Do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we, as some others, epistles of accommodation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our Epistle, written in our heart, known and read of all men. For as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the Epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with.
But with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust halfway through Christ to God Word. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also have made us able ministers of the New Testament.
Not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the administration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away.
How shall not administration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the administration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of glory that excel if, for if that which is done away was glorious.
Much more that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remain of the same veil.
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And taken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we are with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Chapter Contrast Two things.
Really, Judaism and what it was in Christianity and what it is.
Moses was given of God to introduce the laws of what we call Judaism, the first covenant with man.
And it was a perfect set of commandments.
And an agreement between God and man for how man was to live on the earth.
In relationship to God.
It was perfect and what God required of us as man to live on this earth.
But while the commandment was perfect and it was from God, it was really God showing to us that there's absolutely no capacity in sinful man.
To live in relationship with God by his own power, He can't do it.
We had that this morning in the address. The reasons why man doesn't and can't live properly with God.
But Christianity introduces something completely new, as it introduces right in the beginning in verse three, the Spirit of the living God.
Is introduced to us in that which God has established something completely new, something completely different and wonderful for us. It's no longer connected with the earth either.
It's connected with the glory of God and heaven.
And there's new power introduced that there, it's not what man can do anymore in relationship to God, but it's a day of God's grace in which God is saying, this is what I can do for you.
And when I do for you, I do it. If I could put it this way, first class.
And in fact, it's my desire that what I do for you is connected with where I live, which is heaven. And so it's the gospel connected with the display of God as he is in his glory, as the next chapter refers to it as the gospel of glory. That was a message of the apostle Paul.
Paul is a pattern heavenly man for us. He's a patterned St. of God in this dispensation. And God took a man who was of the 1St order. All the best of the Jewish order of things.
He was the best of men and he was the worst of men. But in that regard he said I'm going to take him and I'm going to make him a man of heaven and then I'm going to put him. I'll take him right up there to see, but I'm also going to place him on earth with him a ministry, a message.
A job to tell the rest of you God's message for you, which is that message in contrast to the message of Moses.
And what Moses introduced to us. And so we have something that gives us our destiny here, gives us where we can find stability for our hearts in an unchanging, very constantly changing world into a place that is stable and permanent and forever. What Moses had is gone. The present, what's introduced to us will last forever.
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Verse 3.
I don't think we need to take up the chapter verse by verse, in the beginning of it at least, but there's a very interesting statement that to me connects with what was given by the Spirit of God to us this morning in verse three. It refers to the living God.
We don't, we say God's always alive, isn't he?
He's never been dead, so why does God refer to himself here as the living God?
Seems to me a little unusual to think of that expression, but I believe it's connected with the very first verses that were read this morning in John chapter 5 where man is presented before God as dead.
And.
He's dead because life has to do with relationship that can be shared and enjoyed. That's what brings sorrow in death. Bob laid out a person multiple times on figuratively speaking on the floor here and said you can't talk to them, they're dead and that's what death brings separation. The soul without the spirit is dead is James definition of death itself and so man.
In his sins.
Has no relationship with God. He's dead, but God isn't.
God is living and under the law man couldn't have because of what man is truly a living relationship with a living God. Man was dead, but in contrast God was living. And so as it was this morning, the Spirit of God in John 5 that was referenced quickened or brought to life dead souls and gave them eternal life.
The very life that the Lord Jesus has had from all eternity we've been brought to share in that life and now we're alive. So there's living people with a living God in that which has been given to us in. By contrast, under what man used to have, he was there was a living God, but there was a dead man and no relationship but by the Spirit.
Of the living God we now have true life and life with God.
Sometimes I find it helpful to look at the division of the chapter to understand it as our brother already mentioned how this is really the contrast of the old and the new covenant that was there. So this chapter have only 18 verses. It's basically divided into 4 sections and if we look at the four sections then it I I believe it's easier to understand the 1St 3 verses we already talked a little bit about.
Is about how it is in concerning to the Epistle of Christ and that's why there is mentioned that we are his epistle. So the first section 123 is about the Epistle of Christ Verse 4-5 and six it talked about sufficiency and it actually tell us what the true sufficiency is. And then from verse seven to eleven there we find the old and the new ministry being contrast.
So we find the differences like letter versus the Spirit, the law versus the gospel, the ministry of death versus the ministry of spiritual life and so on. And then the last section will be verse 12 to 18. There is speaks about glory, glory in the face of Moses and glory in the face of Christ.
I find it helpful to see and Mr. Darby's translation the.
Verse seven through verse 16 are a parenthesis.
And it goes along with what you said, Brother David, but it is the contrast between the ministration that Moses was given of the law, which was glorious in itself, to the administration or the ministry that we have now in the Spirit. And so in verse seven, it calls it the ministration of death. And in verse 9.
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It says it's the ministration of condemnation, so the administration of death and condemnation.
We're glorious, but it's in contrast with what it gives us here in verse 8. The administration of the Spirit in verse nine is the administration of righteousness. So that's what we have now. And then when you go on to the next chapter, which Lord willing will perhaps get to, it says, therefore, seeing we have this ministry, it's the ministration of the Spirit that we have today.
Kind of an overview that helps to get the picture here. And it is a wonderful thing like Don was bringing out in verse three, that the Spirit of God is writing the epistle of Christ not on tables of stone, but on fleshly tables of the heart.
He is manifesting His glory, and it's a glory that is beyond anything we have here.
It's the glory of our God. It's heavenly glory. The Lord help us to understand it.
When I was a kid.
On the Main Street, there was a real estate office, Clintonville Realty.
But the tagline or the line that was directly below the name of the company, Clintonville Realty, said these words, which I've never forgotten them, your home.
Is where your heart is.
Those are true words.
Your home is where your heart is. And these two chapters.
Are to help us properly lay hold of home.
And have our heart there.
Is your heart in the world?
Where's your heart and glory where your Lord is?
That's.
Very significant in this way.
We don't live.
By what's in our mind.
We live according to what's in our hearts.
And our minds, we think we make all the choices that well, it's easy to think anyways, that the choices that were made in life are governed by what's in our minds.
Scripture doesn't present that to us. That's some thought of man, but that's not of the truth of God. And so the truth of God is the understanding. What does it say of the mind? No, the understanding of the heart.
The truth of God resides in its proper home in the heart and there can be many things that we can sit here this weekend and get in our mind and enjoy in our mind and go home and be just the same as we came.
And not really affect our lives at all, but if the truth of God.
Migrates, if you will, from the mind, by the way of the conscience generally into the heart.
Then our lives will be different and we'll go home a different way. And so the wonderful work of God. They had tables of stone.
They could look at him, they could absorb what they mean. Undoubtedly the children learned all 10 commandments and could recite them if they were asked to, and the adults as well. It wasn't very long. It wasn't very difficult, but it only sadly condemned them when they lived.
Because having them, knowing them.
Didn't change the heart and so in fact the disobedience to them condemned them and brought death into their lives. But by wonderful contrast, God says I know what you are and so I'm going to act by my spirit to write.
Christ on your heart.
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And when you have Christ written on your heart, then your heart has what it needs, and it will attach you to where He is.
In His present place in glory. And may the Spirit of God be at liberty with each one of us this weekend to write Christ on her heart and we not resist.
That work of God for our blessing.
I appreciated the comment that was made one time that the gospel gospel can be looked at in two ways. We have the gospel of the grace of God and we have the gospel of the glory of God. And it was stated that the gospel of the grace of God is what saved us. For by grace are you saved through faith. And the gospel of the glory of God separates us and it separates us from this world. And as you said, brother Don, it attaches us to our Savior, the Lord Jesus and glory and.
Those that were seeking to undermine the apostle even in the beginning of this this chapter that we took up. And I think it's sad, isn't it if we get away from the gospel of the grace of God was particularly committed to to Paul as the instrument to bring that or the gospel of the glory of God to bring that forth. And if we get away from Paul's doctrine, we're going to we're going to get away from this thought of being separated.
And so I think it's, I think this is so helpful that we're taking this up because I believe that we hear a lot about the gospel of the grace of God, but we don't hear as much about the gospel of the glory of God. And perhaps others can, can expand on why that is, but I, I know that there's something about being separated that we don't like.
Why don't we like it?
Maybe because we're too occupied with things down here.
I think also too man is man is too much in the focus. This chapter began with Paul having to correct a very common problem that the Corinthians were guilty of and that is not seeing past not seeing beyond the 1St man they were questioning.
His his authority and.
And His usefulness as a servant of the Lord, they were actually occupied with Him. Their occupation was with Him. But we we have Him telling them that.
They are beyond that, that the Gospel has brought them beyond the 1St man completely brought them into association with the Lord Jesus, and now they are living epistles of him.
The first man having completely been set aside, and the identification that has changed from Adam to Christ, and they were manifestly.
Living Epistles of Christ, and yet in.
In their appreciation of that, it was not really so. They didn't really realize what the work of Christ had done in a practical sense and identifying them with Christ.
They still and if we if we look through the the the instruction given to the Corinthians, it seems as though Paul was always dealing with this flaw that.
They were they were occupied with with man, and the Apostle Paul's ministry was to take them beyond that occupation, to see the end of that connection and to unite them.
In in.
In the new position that the cross had brought them into and that's the reason why the the 1St.
The the the administration that was first given in the law was was no longer sufficient because that first administration or the first covenant that was given to man was given to the first man and that had been completely set aside because God had set the 1St man aside.
And the new relationship now is identification with Christ.
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And that identification with Christ brings us into a completely new realm in which the Spirit of God has.
Has his working in and through us. And so he was trying to encourage them to be to come into the realization that they had this this new administration.
This new identification and what a difference that would make.
I think it might be helpful.
In talking about this chapter, go back to Exodus to what happened that is referred to in this chapter in the giving of the law.
Quite a long story and be something to read in our own time perhaps, but just to go over it and breathe the end of Exodus.
31 it says, verse 18 He gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communion with him upon Mount Sinai. 2 Tables of testimony tables.
Of stone written with the finger of God that's directly referred to in our chapter.
But then when you come to Chapter 32, the people.
Not seeing Moses and wondering if he was gone for good.
Ask Aaron to make them a God to go before them and they fall into idolatry.
Terrible sin. And so when Moses comes back down from the mount with the tables of stone, if he would have brought those tables of stone into the camp of Israel when they were going on with idolatry, it would have meant immediate death for all of them. So he takes the tables of stone and throws them down and breaks them.
And then it's interesting in chapter 34, the Lord tells him to hew 2 tables of stone like unto the 1St, and I will write upon these tables the words which were in the first tables which thou breakest. And he goes back up to the mountain, and notice as he is there verse five it says this is chapter 34, verse five. And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him.
Therein proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord.
The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear. The guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the children's children, and to the third and the 4th generation. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
And then notice toward the end of that chapter.
Verse 29.
3429 And it came to pass when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai.
With the two tables of testimony in Moses's hand when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come night to him. And Moses called unto them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him.
And Moses talked with them, and afterwards all the children of Israel came nigh.
And he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai, until Moses had done speaking with him. He put a veil on his face. And when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face shone.
And Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
So when he was speaking to the people, he had to put a veil on his face. And that's what's it helps us to understand our chapter if we focus on that a bit. It was tremendously glorious. But man could not stand before God on the basis of pure law. And that's why when he goes up the second time, the Lord proclaims the name of the Lord to Moses, the Lord merciful and gracious.
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Our brethren, we could never stand before God on the basis of pure law, and those people could not survive on the basis of pure law.
But it was because God is gracious, and so He gives them a means of sacrifice by which they could be in His presence in the camp of Israel. They were encamped around about the Tabernacle. The presence of the Lord was there, but what Moses saw at that time made his face shine. So that's the contrast now, the what the Spirit of God is writing on the fleshly tables of our hearts, brother.
Far supersedes that glory that Moses saw. We have a man, the very Son of God, who came down into this world, who accomplished redemption, and as a man, a risen, glorified man, has gone back into the glory of God.
But a tremendous.
Truth to lay hold of brethren, there is one of the human race at the pinnacle of glory in heaven now.
It's to him we are united.
You know, brethren, to lay hold of it better. It will transform us if we get a hold of it.
In our souls.
We use the word glory.
All the time. And since we use it all the time, it's almost as soon we know what it means.
But.
Glory is the display of excellence.
It's the majesty of something that is excellent.
God dwells in a state.
Of majesty and excellence.
That no man has ever seen or ever will see. First Timothy chapter 6 tells us that dwelling in light which no man has seen, or can see, or ever will see.
God in his essential greatness.
Is beyond the creature to enter in.
To it in its fullness.
But in the Old Testament.
Uniformly.
Man was so afraid of God displaying Himself in any measure in that excellent glory of holiness and light.
That if you ask him, would you like to see God today, he'd say no thank you.
I would not. I don't want to die.
There was a fear connected with it that I believe modern man has lost that sense of the majesty of God in his soul. He's blinded to it by Satan, lest he see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as the next chapter tells us.
So man is he doesn't see the glory of God because he's blind, blinded by Satan. But in the Old Testament people.
We're afraid.
Of God in that way, to display himself that way and so.
They didn't want to, and in fact, it sets Moses apart.
It was if you say an incredibly unusual person who had actually talked with God face to face.
He didn't get to see all the glory of God. He got to see his backside, if you will, but he did get to talk with God face to face and in the top of the mount alone with God. Some of that glory was displayed to Moses in a way that when he came down off the mountain.
The people couldn't stand in his presence just because his face gave some reflection of where he had been and who he had been with, and they were afraid. And so when Moses was among the people, he had to put a veil over his face to hide that reflected display of what he had seen.
We in Christianity.
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God has chosen to display that glory.
In the person and through the person of a man that we can see.
This essential glory no man has seen nor can see, but the Son of God, and becoming a man becomes the vessel of God to display himself in his glory.
In a way that we can see, we can enter into, and we can enjoy, and part of the teaching of this chapter for us to see it is the people of old under the covenant of the law.
They couldn't even look at the glory of Moses without wanting him to put a veil over his face to cover the glory.
But the contrast to us is.
The ministry of this wonderful message of the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's the essence of the ministry, the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's the essence of the gospel of glory.
We can see it.
Without avail.
Because of the work of what's been done for us and brethren, we're going to see that glory face to face forever.
And the absolutely odd and thrilled of eternal worship when we see it. But God saying to us, and what's in these chapters, you don't need to wait.
You don't need to wait. By faith, you can be totally enraptured with that person and see him presently. By faith we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor. That's some of his official glory. But here it says.
Verse 18 We all with open face, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed.
Incredible that to be occupied with that person in His glory changes us to be like Him.
If you see them, if I see them this weekend.
You'll leave this place more like him than when you came.
Like to look at.
Of what went before the portion that our brother Bob brought before us.
In the book of Exodus.
In Exodus.
Exodus 24.
In in Exodus 24 at the end of the chapter in the 18th verse, it says Moses went up into them midst of the cloud and got him up into the mouth, and Moses was in the mount 40 days and 40 nights. So Bob brings us to his portion several chapters later when Moses comes down.
The thing that's incredible to me is Moses went up with a message.
He had a message from the people and this is the message. This is this is the hearts of the people. This is what they struggled with. This is what the Corinthians struggled with, and it's what we struggle with. So earlier in the chapter in Exodus 24, in verse 3, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments and all the people answered with one voice and said all the words of the Lord has said. We will do really, really.
So let's go down now. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and wrote up early in the morning, and built out an altar under the hill and so on. We get down to the 7th verse. And he took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of the people, and they said all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. Are you kidding me? That's what they said, and that's what they struggled with. And this is what the message was that Moses took up with him. So is it any wonder when he comes down from the mountains?
That they're not at all fitted.
To be able to behold Moses glory. But you know, it was number different with the Corinthians. It was absolutely no different with the Corinthians. The the apostle, he he struggled with the Corinthians. He desired to to give them a little bit of meat, but he couldn't. He said I've got to give you some milk. That's all, all you can take. And if they're going to be in the same spirit as the people of God in Exodus who said, yeah, sure. It just whatever you say, we're going to do it. That's just fine with us.
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You know, that's what you're bringing before us earlier Dawn, the concept of the mind it it couldn't say and do wonderful things that the body really can't follow. And it has to do with, you know, it's interesting.
Listening to this discourse here this morning, the very first address I heard our brother Bob take, I was in my teens, I'm in Montreal. It was a hot day in the summer. And it was before you were married, Bob.
And.
The message was down in the basement of the meeting room in Montreal, if you can remember. But you stood up there and you said, you know, I want to take up a subject that affects us all. I want to take up the concept of heart trouble.
You know, really, it was years and years ago, but it really spoke to me and it was really what the people of God were struggling with.
In Exodus, before Moses went up in the mountain, because they could say sure, whatever whatever Lord says.
We're up to, we're up to it and we think, you know, that's preposterous and we think, think the same with the Corinthians. But you know, it's, it's no different with us either. And we, we can the apostles trying to relate to the Corinthians that, you know, basically the same thing is what our brother Bob bought before in the address, that there are things that are really life that you can enjoy now. And he wanted the Corinthians to do that. And yet their heart wasn't affected. They couldn't enjoy one bit of it whatsoever.
Don has been mentioned in verse 18 of the Beholding. Really it is with unveiled face. There is no veil now between US and the glory of the Lord. There's nothing to hinder our enjoyment of all that our God is for us. And so in the verses in that parentheses that I mentioned from verse 7 to verse 16.
Inclusive.
It contrasts, as we were talking about before, the two covenants.
The covenant of the law and then what we have.
In grace, the ministration of the Spirit and the ministration of righteousness. That's mentioned in verse 8:00 and 9:00.
And it says in verse 10, even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth. In other words, he's talking about the glory of that Moses got a glimpse of Don was mentioning. And it's in that same portion we were looking at in Exodus that Moses asked to see God's glory. And God said, you cannot see my face and live.
But I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will pass by and.
I will take my hand off and you will see my back parts. And what he saw was so glorious.
That's what he made his face shine when he came off that mountain.
But now, what is that glory in comparison with the glory that excelleth verse ten of our chapter?
It has no glory in contrast with the glory that excelleth. Brethren, why is it that we get so easily distracted by things down here?
Man and what he does and what he boasts of his own glory. Is there something that compares with this? Isn't it time we took to?
Isn't it, isn't it proper that we take time to be occupied with the glory?
That excelleth the glory that is visible now in the unveiled face of the Lord Jesus there at God's right hand. That's what's going to transform us. And so that's what's referred to in verse 10, verse 11. If that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
The covenant of law was done away. Now we have what remains and will remain forever the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's what is our privilege to enjoy, to be occupied with. That's what will transform us, brethren. It's not looking at each other under the microscope and criticizing. We all have defects. No problem.
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That's admitted, but what's going to transform us is to be occupied with the glory of the person of God's beloved Son.
I was thinking how Moses could have no, he had his face shining, perhaps someone called him, perhaps he looked on the surface of the water. And I think we we could make a parallel between the Corinthians and other examples in the Bible. The Corinthians were they were occupied.
About shining Christ's glory in them, but doing that they were looking to themselves.
And trying to be something that would be according to God's will. So they were looking to their gifts. They were looking all the their work and all everything they had. But then we have other other kind of people in the Bible. We have, for instance, Mary, who was not looking to Martin or even to herself, but to Jesus. And that called attention, Lord's attention. And the Lord called the martyrs attention.
About what Maria was doing, Mary was doing, and then we have those in Acts 4. We can go there.
** 4/13.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearning them, ignorant ma'am, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. So this is something other Will Will notes, not myself. Because if I I know it's myself, I will think I have something that others don't have. And I will, I will.
Take my eyes from Jesus to look to myself to all the things I have done, all my, my obedience, all my spirit, all ways of doing things. But I think we being occupied with the Lord, we, we will not be occupied, occupied with our own glory or with the, the glory of the Lord shining upon us. We will be occupied with him and we, we even will not know about that.
We won't see the shining on our faces because we were not looking. Is there any mirror here? I can see if there is glory shining in my face, We will not be occupied with that. Perhaps another example of that is that woman from First Peter.
That is preaching to her husband without words. First picture, first Peter 3, three. Yeah, she's preaching, but she's not occupied preaching. She's just leaving her life in Christ.
And her husband can see that.
That's why Brother Mario, not to jump over the other verses, but in verse 18 where it says as in a glass that really should be not be there because Paul is not asking them to look in a glass to be changed. He's telling them to look to the Lord, to behold the Lord and that's going to change them. Just a point of what you said. That's right.
So it says in verse 17 where the spirit of the Lord is.
There's liberty.
There's liberty.
You want *******? Think about yourself.
Think about yourself and you'll be brought into *******.
The Spirit of God.
Delights to occupy the mind, the heart, the life with something worthwhile. So he doesn't occupy us with ourselves, He occupies us with the Lord Jesus in his glory. And that is an object of the heart, the mind that is perfectly, completely satisfying to the new man.
God is so happy.
00:55:01
To be thinking about His Son, the Lord Jesus, that he wants us to share the same happiness He has.
He's delighted to think about his son and be occupied with his son. And so his heart, his desire for you and I, is to have the same joy to be occupied with his son.
And the Spirit of God.
Works in us to that objective.
To occupy us with the Lord Jesus Christ unless we're disobedient or wayward and so on. And then the Spirit of God will occupy us with ourselves to judge that which hinders the enjoyment that He wants for us. And so when the Spirit of God is introduced here, it's to bring us by his work into that place.
Where the heart finds its liberty.
In contrast to self, as Bob had this morning in his address, and is the remarks just made by Mario, The more you start thinking about yourself and whether you're doing it right or messed it up or whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. It leads to misery and conflict.
And struggle and the flesh all mix themselves in with it. And so the Spirit of God says, well, no, we don't want that, let's. And so his delight, his work is to take our thoughts off ourselves. I appreciate a comment along this line happened to be made by Mr. Darby, but the comment was humility.
Is not.
I'm not sure I can quote exactly, but the thought is.
Humility is neither having high thoughts of yourself or low thoughts of yourself. It's not thinking about yourself at all.
The person who starts to think about, oh, I'm very humble has just lost any sense of humility.
True humility doesn't think of self at all because it has something we're thinking about, which is the Lord Jesus.
We have another example of a person that was filled with the Spirit of God in the book of the Acts and Stephen.
In the 6th chapter of the Acts it says it multiple times. He was full of the spirit and wisdom.
And at the end, the power of his testimony was such.
That they could not controvert it and they sought for false witnesses to negate his testimony. But notice what it says at the end of chapter 6. All that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an Angel. I don't know that Steven was aware of that, but it was the Spirit of God that occupies with Christ.
So in the next chapter, it's interesting, he's charged with some very serious charges, but it's beautiful to see, brethren, that he doesn't take any time to answer those charges against him. He starts in by ministering to those people the truth of the Word of God from the Old Testament. And it's a beautiful resume that he gives. And then at the end of the chapter.
Seven. He looks up verse 55, being full of the Holy Ghost.
Person full of the Holy Ghost is not talking about himself. He's not talking about the Spirit of God either.
He's talking about Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God and said, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.
And so they kill him, they stone him to death, but that is a testimony of the person.
Of a person that's so fully occupied with the Lord Jesus and it's what is referred to in our chapter verse 17.
Where the Lord is now, the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Spirit of the Lord is to occupy us with Him. The more we're occupied with Him, the more it transforms us. We are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. That's the work of the Spirit of God in each one of us Writing.
01:00:18
Based on these hearts of flesh.
A practical example, some of us, in fact I'm sure all of us have been on a nice beach and a nice hot summer day. And you know that you don't need to tell anybody you on the beach for the day because when you come back your face will show that if you were on the beach. So when we're full of priced, we don't need to tell. There will be evidence from our actions that others can become a testimony to the world and to our brethren.
Just want to share a real familiar verse in Galatians 2 to I believe it goes along with what we've been saying, saying here about occupation with Christ and the Spirit of God that will be his his work. I don't know if it's necessary to read the first part of this Galatians 220, but the last part bears this out and it says in the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith.
Of the Son of God.
Who loved me and gave himself for me. There is subjective truth in the beginning of this verse, which we're not talking about in this meeting, but the the last part of the verse. I've enjoyed it this way. Anyway, the last part of the verse is objective truth. The Spirit of God doesn't leave us with the subjective truth. He leaves us with the objective truth and that is the enjoyment of the Lord Jesus who loved me and gave himself for me. I think as we've been speaking.
We we do need to distinguish that God has given us some subjective truth, truth that we need to learn about the work of Christ, which has changed our standing of position before God. But he doesn't leave us occupied with ourselves. He gives us that understanding, but then he directs our focus to where our hearts can be absorbed.
With the love of the Lord Jesus, so it says, I live by the by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
296.
Joyful and my full salvation.
For young Lord and more.
Today.
Change from God.
Turn glory to hungry, take our place and to worship.
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And my glory.
Lasted wonder.
Love.
Just one word about this little him.
Joy of Heaven.
To earth come down.
God and his Son Jesus had a perfect, wonderful, happy relationship in the glory from the beginning of time.
But that had to be interrupted.
Because man sin. But I was just thinking all heaven.
Rejoiced and admired this one. The angels, everyone.
In perfect harmony with this man.
Open Mtg. 3
Open—L. Smith, D Rule
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.
206.
Change.
To worship in my ear.
And let my grades fall every word.
That is my holy year.
As my blood.
May sinners meet.
And I do come.
And worship.
US.
In all.
Only turn off wrong.
My precious.
Name is all we show.
Our only passport, Lord.
Is now we know.
Oh Lord, asleep, it's all I know.
It's good.
Praise.
And shameful.
Life alone.
Loving Lord. Cancer.
Turn with me, please, to Acts Chapter 8.
I.
I was thinking of the joy.
In the Lord's heart.
As he is there in the glory.
By the Father's side.
His.
Joy and desire to impart to you and I.
All that he is for us.
That our hearts would grasp.
The magnitude.
It will never come to the end of so fast.
Here in Acts chapter 8.
We find.
Let's see first.
Let's go to Acts chapter 6.
It's interesting that in the early church.
We get this wonder of.
The risen Lord and.
A murmuring that arose.
In verse one, chapter 6.
Against the Grecians, well.
It wouldn't be a very good thing to continue with, but out of that comes.
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Different ones that are chosen to minister to the widows of.
Basically the Gentiles.
And of those, verse five says?
They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip.
And Procurus, and Nicanor, and Time, and Parmenus, and Nicholas, proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they prayed, they laid their hands on them, and the word of God increased.
In chapter 8.
We get.
Inverse.
12.
When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ.
So we know what his message was. Later we find him in the book of Acts. He has four daughters that prophesied in the house. So here's a man who has a godly family.
And he has fruit from his preaching of the gospel.
Verse five says he went down to city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them.
And.
The result was.
In verse.
Well.
And missing it I guess there.
Oh yes, verse eight. There was great joy in that city.
The gospel had reached their hearts and changed them, the Lord of glory.
Had wrought in souls.
But while he's prosperous there.
The.
Spirit of God.
Says to him in verse 26.
The Angel of the Lord spake unto Philip.
So here's a man.
Laid out.
Chosen.
The apostles had prayed over him. He has the gift of an evangelist. There's fruit from his work. There's joy from his work. There's joy in those that heard it.
It's interesting, the Lord's directing him, the Spirit of God saying no, you leave this happy work, I got something else for you to do.
Wonderful, isn't it?
And I was thinking to the Lord.
In the glory.
If we look back in time, go way back to King Solomon.
Solomon wanted wisdom.
He said I am but a child. I don't know how to go out or come in. Give me wisdom Lord, to judge this thy people.
We know the Lord gave him more than he asked for.
But let's look at a verse in First Kings chapter 8.
We get Solomon's prayer and it's quite lengthy. We won't touch upon all of it, but.
In verse.
There 41.
As he's praying for Israel.
His heart reaches out according to the heart of God.
Moreover, concerning a stranger that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for Thy namesake. For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm, when he shall come and pray towards this house. Hear thou in the heaven, thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for.
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That all people of the earth may know thy name to fear thee, as do thy people Israel.
And that though that they may know that this house which I have builded is called by thy name.
So if we go back to Acts chapter 8.
I couldn't help but thinking.
We've had some.
Wonderful thoughts before us as to the chapter we read.
And we think of the Lord in the glory and all that's his by right and his desire to give.
To the souls of men.
What was it like?
For the resurrected Lord in the glory to look down, and he sees this guy right in his chariot.
Maybe for weeks.
To go up to Jerusalem to worship.
He's got the knowledge that the true God is with Israel.
Perhaps he's even a proselyte.
We know that centuries before, the Queen of Sheba came and listened to Solomon's wisdom.
And her heart was really taken.
We've read something of Solomon's prayer about the stranger.
And here comes this man with his chariot.
And he comes to Jerusalem.
It's after Jesus has been has lived out his life.
He's been crucified.
Buried, risen again, ascended to the Father's right hand.
The Spirit of God has been given.
What was the Ethiopian eunuch given?
We know at least this. He's been given a portion for sure of the prophet Isaiah.
And the Lord says, by the Spirit, Philip.
Got another job for you?
Are you available for that one?
Would you go down?
Done between Jerusalem and Gaza and join yourself. I got a job down there for you. It's desert. You just go there. I know you're having a wonderful time over here. This great joy in this city, the results of the gospel.
But there's a Lord in the glory wanting to impart we've been speaking about.
This wondrous treasure written.
In the heart.
And that Lord and glory, says Philip, I want to use you.
So here we get this verse 27. He arose and went, and behold a man of Ethiopia, and a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, and was returning and sitting in his chariot reading Isaias the Prophet.
Then the spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.
Philip ran further to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? He said, how can I except some man should guide me? And he desired Phillip that he would come up and sit with him.
Must have been sort of a rest stop in the man's journey.
He'd been to what was.
Once the place.
Where you would expect.
To find.
The Lord.
But it was, it had become that which the Lord of Jesus said.
Your house is left unto you desolate.
That didn't change the fact that there's this wondrous truth.
Centuries before, Solomon's prayer had gone up for the stranger. Now a stranger's come, and the Lord of Glory says, I cannot let this charioteer, this chariot writer, go back without the treasure inside.
So.
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Verse 32. The place of the scripture which he read was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before her, his shearers so opened he not his mouth.
In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. And who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth?
And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this of himself or some other man?
Here's a very important man.
He's in charge of the Queen's treasure.
But inside his soul.
He wants to know.
Who is he talking about?
When the Lord of glory, he's looking down, I'm sure with wonder at what's happening in this precious soul.
And he knows what he wants to impart to him.
Verse 35. Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
Isn't that wonderful?
Go ye into all the world.
And preach.
Let's look at it Matthew 28.
The last couple verses.
Verse 19. Well, there's a better to get. Verse 18.
And Jesus coming up, spoke to them, saying, All power has been given me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things, whatever whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Amen.
What's behind us, dear brother? All power.
The problem is not the power.
If there's a problem, it's the belief or the unbelief.
We're supposed to teach something. I would believe that Philip was teaching this from the rest of this chapter.
X8.
He preached unto him Jesus, and as they went on their way, they came to a certain water in the eunuch said, see, here's water, what doth hinder me to be baptized? So he must have said something to him about baptism.
That we've had a little bit of in ministry today.
Its significance?
The Deliverance.
But here.
Philip said, If thou believers with all thine heart, thou may us. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Wow, isn't this wonderful?
He commanded the chariot to stand still.
There must have been others driving the chariot.
And they went both down, both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, And he baptized him.
So.
As far as what it says, there's not a lot of other witnesses.
They're still up in the eunuch, but it implies.
Someone was commanded to halt the chariot.
And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away. Philip.
See, the message was delivered, and as far as the messenger is concerned, he was at the Lord's disposal.
He could go down to the desert.
He could deliver the message and the Lord could say, OK, you're needed somewhere else.
Dear young person, are you available?
For the Lord to use.
Do you know Jesus as your Savior?
You have a treasure inside.
00:20:00
God.
The Lord wants to impart that treasure to others.
How we feel at this.
So then, it says, the unit saw him no more.
You see, the vessel was so out of the way, he's not occupied with the vessel that delivered the message.
What happens? He went on his way, rejoicing. Philip had gone to a city, and he caused joy there.
And now here goes the eunuch.
And I just love thinking the Lord's looking down from the glory.
And he's so happy.
He's indwelling that man.
He's got the treasure inside.
And he's going home, back to Ethiopia.
With a wonderful message.
He's not any longer attached merely to a shadow of things that you find in the temple.
But he's got the person of the Lord inside.
But Philip was founded as Otis, and passing through, he preached in all the cities.
Till they came to Caesarea.
Well, perhaps someone else.
Has a little word and May God bless His word to our hearts.
Turn with me to John's Gospel, Chapter 13.
John's Gospel, chapter 13.
And verse one. And now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God.
He rose earth from supper, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded himself, and after he had poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples feet, and to wipe them with the towel, wherewith he was girded. Verse 12. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them.
Know ye what I have done unto you.
You call me Master and Lord, and you say, well, for so I am.
If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet.
He also ought to wash one another speed.
For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done unto you.
Verily, verily, I say to you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that has sent him. If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them.
As I look at your faces.
I can look at you in different ways.
I can view you this afternoon.
As a room and I address you as fellow believers.
As a room full of saved sinners.
I can also look at you.
As the hymn that we sang referred to you.
Saints of God.
00:25:07
I can also.
As we will do.
Look at you as a room full of servants.
And in the scriptural sense of servants.
The character that the Word of God calls bondservants.
Or more commonly, slaves.
It's rather interesting here in Addison.
To have a room full of slaves gathered together in one place.
But in truth, I'm looking at you as a room full of slaves.
That's not a very elevated word, in this world at least.
But we're going to look at you that way here, the Lord Jesus.
Was the perfect servant.
The one and only perfect servant.
When he came into this world, he came into this world to be God's servant.
Taking his place as a man, he took the place of absolute.
Unconditional obedience to the will of another.
We're not talking this afternoon about service for the Lord in the sense that.
Well.
I've got Lords Day afternoon and I've got a couple of hours available. Lord, do you have anything you'd like me to do this afternoon?
I got some time, maybe there's something I can do for you.
No, that's not the character here.
The Lord Jesus is addressing and what we've just read some service.
And in addressing those servants, He's not looking at them simply as Savior. He doesn't use that word. Every one of us I trust as I address you on His behalf.
Know him as Savior.
But in truth, your place of service to Him is not in that character as Savior.
He says just to notice.
Verse 13 Ye call me Master and Lord.
Master here means teacher.
And you'll see that in the new translation. So they had a certain way of looking at him.
They looked at him and they said maybe you've come here this weekend to be taught and that's valid and that's good and he's a teacher and he can use whosoever he will to teach you.
And the tendency of them, they had to learn something through his life because they tended to look at him. Would they say Jesus was Lord? Yes. Would you? Yes. But in the practicalities of the matter, it's pretty easy to say teacher and Lord in that order.
But it doesn't make for a good servant.
It doesn't really make for a good servant. If you see yourself and the Lord Jesus in the relationship of Savior or Teacher, you're not really putting yourself in your proper place as a slave or a servant of him. And so as it says here, when they say you call me Master or teacher and Lord, you say, well, I am that.
But notice the next word.
If I then be your what?
Lord and Teacher.
One of the very first things about service and being a servant is to get a right understanding of our relationship to the one we serve.
00:30:09
We serve him as Lord.
We serve him as supreme.
In authority, in every detail of service.
Philip, we have just looked at was an excellent example of one who understood.
He didn't choose where he preached. He didn't choose how long he was there. He didn't choose according to the apparent success of where he was and the joy he didn't say to his Master as Lord.
Boy, we're having a good time here. There's lots of joy in this town. The people have responded very well. I think I'll stay here a couple more weeks.
No, he understood.
When he was told to go, he went.
So he says here.
I have given you an example.
Do you want an example of the what it is to fulfill your responsibility and your calling as a servant? You have one, the Lord Jesus.
He is your perfect example of the service that you are to render to him as he, as a servant rendered it to God.
No standard any less than that is suitable or proper.
I have given you an example. So we have one. We say, well, you know, it's kind of hard to know how to do it and how am I going to manage this. And we always like examples to go by to help us to understand and do things. You have one with a lot of examples of it in this one who is called you.
To service.
Just notice his last words that we read, verse 17, he says.
Do it.
You'll be happy.
You want to know how to have a happy life?
Here it is.
Take your place as given of God.
Take the role that's given to you as a servant.
And you will find happiness. You know, I don't know of any examples where it ever in scripture calls a master happy.
As a master.
We kind of like, you know, to be in the in charge role, choose what we're going to do and when we're going to do it, kind of like the master role.
We like the freedom of choice in such roles, but I don't know anywhere in the Word of God in that aspect of things that God ever refers to that as a person in that responsibility is happy, but the servant, yes.
If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them.
We won't take the time, but right here we have a living example when we say, as I have shown you, here is a servant who's serving.
And so he takes off his being served robes. You know, he's at a meal and you sit down and you enjoy fellowship and you have interact and you sit at the meal table and everything's fine. And he's going to give some an object lesson and and character of service. And the first one he gives to them is he takes off all those nice things and he gets down on the floor.
And he does what servants do.
In those days when you went into a house, they normally traveled on dusty streets and they had their sandals on, and when you got into a house, you had dusty feet.
And so at the door, you took your sandals off and the servant came and he washed your feet. I know there's a much more elevated spiritual application here, but we're going to confine it to its essence and service and so.
00:35:03
The Lord Jesus was doing that. You know, He went to a household and he was sat at a table with a man and a woman came in and she got at his feet.
And started to do something. And later on, he says to the man, You know, when I came, you didn't have your servants do that to me.
Perhaps a little indication to us that service requires getting down pretty low little level.
To properly fulfill it. OK, let's go on to chapter 15.
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, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is my commandment. That she loved one another. Greater love hath no man than this. That a man lay down his life for his friends. You're my friends if you do.
What assoever I command you henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what is Lord doeth. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
Beginning of the chapter is having a fruitful life.
The Lord Jesus wanted his disciples to be fruitful.
We just had the example of Phillip and.
Lemoyne commented on the fruitfulness of what he was doing.
The Lord Jesus here is speaking to some servants of His, and He wanted their lives to be fruitful.
One who is a master.
Has servants for purpose and they work that there be fruit.
So having presented himself in that way to them here.
He says.
If you love me.
Keep my commandments.
This is a prime number one order instruction to you as a servant in this room.
And I'm going to say you, but of course I'm in the same position, but I want to apply it to all of us and it's more directed if I say you.
Obedience.
Obedience.
Sometimes it's easy.
Comparatively speaking, to do what we think the Lord wants us to do, and sometimes it's difficult.
It doesn't matter in the servants place obedience.
Is essential.
You're called to be an obedient servant.
For God, for the Lord Jesus in this world.
Again, verse 11, he refers to the consequence that my joy might remain in you, and your joy will be full.
So let us in this room have children.
We know what it is to say do this.
And sometimes it's easy. We say go to the store and buy ice cream cones.
And boy, most kids are ready to go. They like that command and they off they are to do it.
Sometimes we say take the trash out. Oh, I got homework little later.
00:40:05
And we're not quite so ready too. All day.
Because basically we don't want to.
But it's very important for us to understand in our responsibility that we have to be obedient. And a consequence of obedience, just like in the last case, is joy.
His heart gets joy, and when we obey, so do we.
You want to be unhappy.
Be disobedient.
It's a guaranteed path for the servant to be an unhappy person.
So if you like being unhappy, well, you can be unhappy. We're going to look at a man that got a little bit unhappy for being a disobedient servant.
Or we can give joy to our master, and he says, I'll give joy to you in it if there is obedience.
Something that is also introduced here.
We're told greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
That's as far as you can go.
If someone is your friend.
For such, some would even dare to die.
And get down there.
So the Lord Jesus here says to his servants, and he says to you as his servant.
You're not only going to be my servant.
But I'm going to bring you into an additional relationship with myself as my friend, and that will help motivate you to give everything.
In the service. And so we have the joy of being brought into not just servants, but servants who also know our master as our friend. It doesn't put aside our servant responsibility at all.
But it adds to it that dimension that helps to encourage and motivate us.
By that relationship of friendship and love that we will be obedient even if it causes takes us to the point of death.
He says.
Verse 16 Ye have not chosen me.
But I have chosen you.
And ordained you that you should go.
In this relationship.
There is not a single person of us in this room who chooses our service.
You do not choose.
To be a servant even.
This person, your Lord.
Has chosen you for that responsibility to himself. You are a chosen servant.
And the one who chooses you is the one who chooses what you do.
I well remember a very down to earth but helpful illustration in this regard.
My first Sunday School teacher, known to some in this room who probably had her as their first Sunday School teacher, was a woman that we called Miss Patrick or Catherine Patridge. I think I went into her class when I was probably three or four years of age.
And I well remember this little lesson she gave to us more than once. She said, you know, and I was young. I said to the Lord, Lord, what's my gift?
The only answer I could get from the Lord was children.
But she said no. Lord, what's my gift?
And the response that she got was children.
Here's the point.
00:45:04
Her work, her service with children.
And the Lord gave her what was necessary to fulfill her service.
You don't need to know what your gift is really. You may need to know after you know what your service is, the limitation of your gift because we have different measures of capacity.
But the real question is, Lord, what will thou have me to do?
I will say by the side of the way, that woman.
Was the most gifted evangelist gifted evangelist to children I have ever known in my life.
Absolutely incredibly gifted.
But that's not what the Lord said to her. That's not what the Lord wanted to be occupied with.
It was children, and she devoted herself to children, even choosing to be remain single to fulfill fully.
The calling of her service turn with me to numbers.
Chapter 4.
Numbers, Chapter 4.
And verse four, this shall be the servant service of the sons of Kohath in the Tabernacle of the congregation about the most holy things. And then the services that the Coethites were to do is described in detail, and then we come to verse.
19 But thus do unto them, that they may live and not die, when they approach unto the most holy things. Aaron and his son should go in and appoint them everyone to his service and to his burden.
Going to notice four things in this 19 verse.
One we've already seen and that is.
Shall appoint them.
You don't choose your service.
Your Lord chooses it for you.
2nd.
Everyone.
There's not a single believer in this room who is not a servant.
Every single one of us, whether we're young, in the faith or whether we're older, it's everyone. No exemptions.
And #3 shall appoint them to his service.
And to his burden.
There's not only the service.
There is also the burden that goes with the service.
Sometimes we like the service.
As long as we can do it without the burden.
And that causes difficulties.
We're going to look at two people.
First, our object lessons to us about this matter of service and the calling to it. Turn with me to the prophet Jonah.
Look at Jonah is about a prophet who went to a place called Nineveh, as you know, to prophecy. But the matter of what he prophesied in history and in the grand plan of God's things is is rather small really. We don't find Nineveh mentioned in coming days of prophecy and all those things as to having a future.
It's more.
If I could put it this way.
The dealings of God with a servant.
The lessons of God were the servant, and some lessons are hard to learn.
And being a true servant is not an easy.
Knowing Savior.
Well, once we get that, it's wonderful. And so on.
00:50:01
But sometimes the matter of Lord is a more difficult task to come to a practical realization of it. And I think in recognition of that fact, as far as I know this is the only book in the whole Bible that ends with question mark. May comment on that a little later. As far as I know I haven't checked it out completely, but.
I think it's the only book in the whole of the Bible that ends the book with a question mark.
Question.
OK, Jonah, Chapter one.
We got a servant. Verse one. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amity. I sing Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come before me. But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
Problem here, right?
Here's a servant. He's just been given a job to do.
He's just been told what he's to do.
And very obviously.
He doesn't want to do it.
He's supposed to go West. No, he's supposed to go E to Nineveh. So immediately he starts West.
He goes down.
In disobedience.
We talked about what's Lord's over his servants, and he knows how to deal with us if we're going to be disobedient servants. And so we're going to see some dealings with a servant who's at this moment a bit disobedient. And so he goes down, he gets a ticket, he gets in a ship, he goes down, he gets in the bottom of the ship, and he goes to sleep.
Conscience doesn't apparently bother him very much here.
He's asleep, Storm comes up, doesn't wake him up. Everybody else is concerned but.
He's he's OK. It's possible, you know, it's a lesson.
Is it possible we've got some disobedient Jonas sitting here this afternoon? You say why my conscience is OK?
That really, you're asleep.
Well, Jonah keeps as the story goes, he keeps going down.
So.
The Lord, working with him, says you're going down, Jonah. Let's go down a little farther.
So he takes him down to the bottom of the sea, in the belly of a whale.
You know, if we don't serve as we should, it's a downward path and sometimes the Lord will take us farther than we wanted to go.
Down that road.
The prodigal son is another example of someone who didn't really want to stay at home and serve his father's interests.
So he says give me.
And he receives from his father, and off he goes, and he goes down.
That's really that story is a picture of God and you and I, if we are prodigal sons who say to God, give me my time, give me my talent, give me my health, give me my money.
And then we turn our back and go down into the far country, but we go down until we spent all.
And then God can get our attention.
When we're in one, well, Jonah's in want here when he's in the belly of the whale and he learned something, He learns that you know what he probably already knew Salvation is of the Lord in chapter 2. And so in chapter 3, the word of the Lord comes to Jonah the second time saying arise, going to Nineveh, that great city. So he arises and he goes.
He's learned something about obedience.
But he hasn't gotten to the root of the problem.
Sometimes the Lord has to teach us a little bit at a time, and sometimes we learn a lesson, but we haven't really learned the whole lesson. And Jonah is an example to us of the learning process. He's learned I better obey. So he goes and he obeys.
Is he a happy servant? No, he's not. But he's at least obedient, and that's something.
00:55:05
So he goes to Nineveh and he does his preaching.
Verse 10 of the next chapter, the Lord God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do, and He did them not, but Jonah was just, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Now we're getting to the root of the problem.
Jonah.
Did not share.
In the heart of his master.
All service ultimately can only be performed properly if the servant reflects and displays the heart of the master.
That's a universal in the word of God.
You and I are part of the Christian testimony in the world today, and collectively we have a collective responsibility to all our fellow man in this world.
The first calling of the master of his servants, as it's described to us in Revelation 2 and three, was with respect to the assembly in Ephesus.
The Church is here to display the heart of God in love and light.
And to Ephesus, he said, Thou hast left thy first love, and if you don't repent, I'm going to remove you from that service.
Because if you're not walking in the law, my love, you cannot.
Present my love to your fellow man.
And the church will be removed as a Candlestick in this world in the end, and that's the root of it and everything else that will flow from it.
Here, Jonah, he's, he's angry.
Our time is getting along, so we'll try to keep this part brief.
Jonah and God didn't share a common heart toward Nineveh.
God's heart toward Minerva was one of mercy and grace if there was repentance.
Jonah's heart was about himself. I'm the servant.
And I, the servant, should be honored.
My honor is more important than Nineveh.
If I preach, they're going to be destroyed and they're not destroyed, what's going to happen to me? What do people think of me?
We may not.
Be quite Jonah like we think, but in principle and in route. Very often when there's a unwillingness to do the work of the Lord, of some service rendered to it, it's because we're thinking about ourselves and perhaps our pride, our reputation, our place in that service.
God gives him a quick, I say quick, quick this afternoon object lesson. He says, OK, Jonah.
Let's try this lesson a little differently.
Here's a gourd.
And the Lord brings the gourd up.
And it shelters Jonah. And he's exceedingly glad.
And then God does to the gourd. Think of Gorda. The gourd is a lesson like Nineveh. God wanted to be merciful to Nineveh and Job didn't. I mean, Jonah didn't. So God takes a gourd and puts it kind of in the same position as Nineveh was in, and then he brings it along and.
Jonah loves that gourd for the benefit to himself, but then God treats the gourd like Jonah wanted Nineveh treated.
He sends a worm. Worm eats the gourd, the gourd dies, the tree over his head dies, and he faints and he.
01:00:09
Is exceedingly angry and Lord, says Jonah, do you have any reasons to be angry because the gourd isn't?
I mean, let's look at it, Jonah, like you looked at Nineveh.
You didn't have any problem with this city with all these people being destroyed. You didn't do anything for the gourd. You didn't invest anything like I did in Nineveh for the benefit of the gourd. So what are you angry for the gourd for?
Because I didn't show at mercy. Because that mercy benefited you.
Well, our times along. So we'll leave Jonah with his question mark and ponder it. There's more to it. Turn with me quickly over to Luke's Gospel chapter 10.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 10.
The end of the chapter.
Verse 38 Now it came to pass, as they entered into a certain village, a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, which sat at Jesus feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about with much serving, and came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister had left me to serve alone? Bitter therefore that she helped me, Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.
Has chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her. Just a few quick remarks here.
Martha is an example of a servant who is doesn't care to share or not share isn't really the right word. Bear the load of the burden that isn't given to her in her service.
We can be like that. The Lord can put something upon us in service to himself, and we can in our hearts say, Lord, I wouldn't have written the story this way.
I probably would have written this story and not gotten to the root of the story and said.
Come on, I'm Martha. Come on, Mary, get up and help. There's work to be done and I need help. Why aren't you getting up and helping me? I'm tired and I've got too much to do here. You should share with me in this work.
Lord doesn't address that. What's the route?
Mary says it to the Lord. I mean, Martha, she says, Lord, dost thou not care?
Dost thou not care?
If we are given a heavy burden.
And every work has its burden. There is a tendency of the human heart to say relief, please.
Relief, please.
And at the root of it.
We are really dealing with the one who gave it to us. Don't you care, Lord?
If you really cared, would you put me in this situation? Why can't you give me some help?
That's the root of it. It's a lesson here.
If you go on to Chapter 12 of John, you see the same people in the same house.
Is Mary helping Martha?
Has things changed? No, they have not. Martha is doing the same service, carrying the same burden. Mary is at this chapter in Jesus feet and you go to the 12Th of John and she's at Jesus faith. They're still in the same relative positions and service. Yes, Mary had a service too.
And in chapter 12, she's anointing the Lord's feet from her place at his feet.
But stick with Martha.
Get the lesson with Martha. Lord, dost thou not care?
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Well, I'll say this about Martha. I appreciate Martha this way. If that's how you feel, there's a person to go to.
Go to the Lord.
Go to the Lord. If you feel like some burden you have is too much in your service that's given to you, the Lord, then go to the one that gave it to you. Don't try to.
Get a Mary in there, go to the Lord and obviously not all explain to us, but Martha learned and we don't have any murmuring or any problems in John 12. She's learned her lesson and I'll say this for Jonah, he learned his lesson too because.
We the book ends with his lesson doesn't show us that he fully gotten it yet, and he hadn't.
Well, we know he learned the lesson 'cause he wrote the book.
Let's pray.
Gospel 4
Gospel—M. Persona
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#10.
Hymn #10.
There is a savior.
Shall be thine.
Until I can save.
Your hands and the glory.
Let's just world.
00:05:26
Let's pray.
Well, I hope my accent will won't be a problem. I am a Brazilian and of course I don't speak Shakespeare's language in the right way. But I promise be brief. Not not not 3 minutes, but brief enough to to deliver this message that.
Is so, so precious to the souls of those who already know the Savior.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a verse in Romans that says.
Let God be true, but every man a liar.
Is there any liar here? Please, anyone who is a liar in this room. Oh, there are a bunch of liars here.
Oh wow, and we are not even in a political meeting.
Because every man is a liar. Yeah, every man is a liar. This is the the Bible says soul. The God's word says soul. I am a liar. I am a liar. You are a liar.
Everyone is a liar and I would like to show something that I discovered recently. I am converted since 1978, but only recently I discovered something that I I live with a liar. There's someone who lies to me all the time and I live together with him.
And.
Everything other or prominence started with a lie.
Usually we think about the Garden of Eden as being the initial point of all the problems that happens in the universe, but it goes behind that that was before that that everything really begun and begun with a lie in in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel.
Chapter 28. Verse 14.
The Bible says, Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee soul. This is God speaking. Thou hast upon the holy mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
And verse 15 says Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee. In thee what inequity this is talking about an Angel, a Caribbean.
A very high Angel in God's creation. And what kind of iniquity?
Appeared in him, was formed in him, was found in him. Isaiah chapter 14 answers this question.
Verse 13.
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will send above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Who was that saying this? This Angel, we know him by Satan.
To whom was he saying this?
Nobody but himself.
He was lying to himself.
Isn't that crazy? He was lying to himself. He was saying that he would be like God, like the the, the, the Most High. He was lying to me, he said. And the worst part of it, He believed it.
He believed in his own life and that was when everything started.
00:10:04
With a lie not told in public, not told to other people, not told to fool somebody else. Usually lies are we? We lie to somebody else because we weren't a fool. We don't want to pay or something. No, he lied to himself and that was his ruin.
And later we see what happens when he lies to Eve in the Garden of Eden. There comes another lion in Genesis chapter 3.
Verse One Now the serpent was more suited than any beast of the of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto woman, Yeah, hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? This is a kind of light too, because he knew what God said, but he just.
Twisted what God said you can lie. Just twisting the truth.
To make your point, the way it helps you helps your your.
Your your aunts and he twisted the truth and and asked the question to you. And then what happened? What if does if lies?
If it lies also Genesis 3 verse two. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but.
Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. God didn't say, don't touch it.
Easily you can lie also, putting something else in in the truth, adding something to a truth, then you'll create a lie.
More long lie, more lengthy lie, but a lie.
And then comes Satan again with his lies, and he says in verse, in Genesis 3 verse four, he says, and the serpent said unto the woman, the serpent here is Satan. He appeared as a serpent to eat.
And the serpent 7 unto unto the woman you shall not surely die. And God said she would die. But you know you, you will not die. I forgot that. Know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
Here comes a lie, and here comes a promise, and this promise is also a lie. Because they would know Adam and Eve. They would know.
Good and evil, but they wouldn't have no power to do good nor to avoid evil.
So a lie, a lie, a lie a lie, a lie. Satan tells a lie, he believes in his own lie. If he tells a lie, she believes in her own lie. And this is the way the world goes since then. And we are lying all the time and we are believing our own lives. Because every time you say to yourself something that's not true.
You are trying to fool yourself.
We like to be fooled. We like because OK, I I want something. I I convinced myself first of that thing. I lied to myself. I believe it. And then I go and I do what I shouldn't.
Take, for instance, a drug addict.
How did his addiction began? With a lie? OK, the, the the.
The guy who sold the drug said he would feel good, you know that that was not a lie. That was true. He would feel good. He would feel wonderful. He would feel Superman. But The Who lied to him himself, he said to himself.
I heard this thing is not good for me. It may may cause trouble, I may get sick or something but.
I will just try just once and then he goes.
And then later.
What, what? How bad could be? Try again.
00:15:03
Just one more time and then I will stop. And he believes in himself, and he does.
And now he is in the rehab because he cannot leave the drug anymore. And who will he blame? All the society? The guy who sells drugs? No, he is the the guilty one. He is to be blamed because he lied to himself that he would do that just one time. And he lied and he believed his lie.
He is the one who will be blamed for that. We live in a society that we like to blame everyone, Everyone else, you know, oh, there is crime. Oh, that's the government. Oh, that's the police.
No one likes to point the finger to his own chest and say I am the wrong one. I am the one who did wrong. I am the one. I am the guilty one.
We always point the fingers to somebody else.
Satan in John chapter. The Lord Jesus talking about Satan and John chapter 8 verse 44.
He said to the to the religious people in Israel.
You are of your father, the devil.
John 844 And the lessons of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and the both not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. He's talking about Satan. Talking to whom? Oh, criminals.
Oh, drug dealers. Oh, bad people. No, he's talking to religious people.
Because the most the greatest liars are religious people. Because they like themselves that if they do this and this and this, they will be a bad person and they will go to heaven or they go to the to paradise or they go wherever they want to go. They lie to themselves that they can get get salvation or whatever they call that.
Just doing this and doing that and being being better than the other person.
They like that this is religion. Religion is full of lies because.
Puts all the the the way of salvation upon man at that salient and the one who invented the lie was Satan in the largest thing. The Lord Jesus is saying this to religious guys and religious people. Not to any evil person but religious people. One of the worst thing I I've been preaching the gospel over the Internet.
And the greatest opposition I get is not from infidels or.
Robbers or criminals is from religious religious. A religious person sent me an e-mail and say and prophetized, you know prophesied like this.
I I prophesize that.
Illness will enter your house.
This is a this is a person that goes to a church.
Because he didn't like the gospel of grace, the grace of God.
He is so he likes so much that that religion that he thinks that anyone who goes against it must be evil, an evil person. So he he prophesized evil to me or anyone who who is in his way. Perhaps you say I never lie, but I I found out in the beginning that every I have an audience of liars. But perhaps someone here says I never lie. OK.
What about all the software in your computer? Are they all original?
Any pirates anyone is just you got with a friend and perhaps you bought in the black market or don't have to answer please.
Better not. But then, then you will lie again. You lie again, you know, You do that and you lie against it. Everybody does that.
Who doesn't?
Have you ever parked your car?
Where you should not. And then you lied to yourself saying it's just one minute.
00:20:06
Did you steal anything from the company you work for? Although that not no, no, you'll never do that. No, not even a pen.
That distilling paper.
All those copies you took because you didn't want to buy the book for the the school, the the and then you went when no one was looking in the company. You put the book there thick like this, a big book and copy, copy, copy, copy, copy, put everything in your in your backpack and went home. That is stealing.
Have you ever made your boss think you were working?
You're doing nothing and then the boss passes in front of you just like.
Move the papers on your table. That's lying.
Who do you think you're fooling that's lying?
Do you text while you drive?
I don't know in the United States that does not allow, I think that's against the law to to drive and and text in your cell phone. OK, Did you do you do you do that? That's lying. You're lying to yourself. That will not happen an accident, you'll say no, that won't happen to me because bad things happen to the neighbor.
Not to myself. You are lying to yourself. Have you ever told the beggar?
In the street. Oh, sorry, I don't have money.
That's a lie, isn't it?
Because you told yourself he should work. Why? He's a strong person. Why?
That's a lie. So there's no way someone can say I don't lie. And if you lie, you're in trouble. If you lie in a judgement, I don't know how is the law in the United States, but I know in Brazil you are in the judgment. You are. You come as a witness, and then you promise to tell the truth on the truth, not nothing else but the truth. And then you lie to the judge.
In Brazil, you go out from the.
The the court, Court, you say, with handcuffs.
And you did nothing wrong, nothing wrong with the whole life. You were a very good person. But for some reason you liked the judge and the judge knew or lying to him, you go to jail, you go straight to jail. And there is one judge that is God.
There is one judge that that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, who will judge all men.
And he is the son of his quality. This is his name, is this title, the Son of man. It's very interesting because it's not a God that lives in heaven that doesn't, that knows nothing about what is being a human being that will judge sinners, though he's a man.
A man who is also God, the Son of God, who will judge men. Men will be judged by a man.
Because a man knows what man's feel, how the way men do them, the way men behave. That is why everywhere in the Bible when judgment is talking about.
Christ is called the Son of Man.
God won't be unfair with men. He will send a man.
To judge men.
So there's a pattern in our in our mind. We lie, we believe in our lie, and then we lie again. And this is this brings sin to our life. Some peoples don't know what's sin. Well, sin is the lack of.
How can I explain the lack of of?
I wouldn't say law, but anything that drives you like you are you are a car with no driver that is a sinful car that's called so you know it will hit this tree and go across this street and fall in the the from this the this is this is basically a very bad but.
00:25:06
Idea of what sin is, What a Sinner is.
Is like a driver that a car that does whatever it wants to do you know one one thing that I I work with marketing and I work with.
Human behaviour and it's a very interesting, interesting field to work with because when the the business started, the the.
B2C.
E-commerce the Internet business started, many companies just closed down, just could not go on.
One of those that was a British company, they were The Pioneers, selling dresses for women.
On the web. And you know why they they lost lots of money because women lie.
And if you if you a woman buys a dress in the Internet, even when they they put that little.
Figure with all the, the, the measurements and everything, you have to just fill the blanks. Okay? My, my body is this and this and my legs is like this. What they found out is that women always put a little bit less. And when the the dress would have arrived to her home, she would say, oh, they sent me the wrong dress. This is not the one I bought.
And they would send back to the store. So they had to raise the prices to cover that. Because women like I, I ask you when you go to the doctor, I don't know if usually when we go to a doctor in Brazil, first comes a nurse and said, OK, step on that scale. Let's see.
But before she does that, she asks you how much do you wait?
Does anyone here tells the truth in that moment?
She would probably say, how much would you like to wait? Because when you step there, she said, oh, hey, Sir. No, that's perhaps because I yesterday I ate a little bit more.
Not that much, but.
There's a book, There's an author. He, he studies human behavior. He's a Israeli author. I, I, I wrote the name of the book here. The honest truth. The Honest truth.
About the dishonesty.
Hi we how we lie to everyone, especially ourselves and this is a very interesting thing he shows in this book because he did much many research. His name is Dan Ariely. I think this is the way we spell. We say he found out that when they put a vending machine in a university.
With other vending machines and that one.
They prepare it to give the money back. You know what happened? That was the best selling machine. The university, every student would sell by would buy from that selling machine and would never tell the school what was going on. They would tell all the other students, hey, go to that machine because this is the way human people human.
Humans behave. They did another test.
They saw that if you if you a person can work in a store, for instance, she would never steal $1.00 or a dime or a penny.
From the cashier register, but she would take the pen home or perhaps some paper or perhaps something because if there is no money.
Value.
Engraved on the object. If there is no price tag, people don't think that is stealing.
Isn't it funny you don't. You don't take a penny in your work, but you take a pen that costs perhaps $0.50 on dollar. I don't know this is the way because we don't see there is a value attached to it. Another thing he did was that he put students in a classroom and they should fill a test.
00:30:04
Fill in a test with many questions. At the end of the the the test they would give the students.
The answers, so they could look at their, they could check their own test and see how many they did right, how many did wrong. And they would give themselves the note for that test. Like there was 10 questions, okay, I got six right or five right. And then they would say, OK, people, we are not going to check your tests.
Now you walk.
Here and put your test in that shredding machine shredding machine and everybody brought their tests they knew now that the the the note and they put.
And then they could walk.
To the table and there was a box with money with one $1.00 bill.
Money. So they would take how many notes as the the note he got in the test. OK, I got six, right? I get $6. What they found out is everyone cheated.
Because they thought.
No one would see the test but the machine was false.
The the page would go to another compartment and the the shredded paper was a different one.
So the resurgence, they could, they could then compare, OK, this guy, he got five and he took $10.
So he found people and then he did more, more tests.
To to understand this kind of human behavior. For instance, if somebody had to write her or his name at the end of a page where he should tell the truth.
In all the questions about himself, if he would sign at the end of the page.
He would like more than if he signed on the top of the page.
Because the signing on the top of the page gave him some responsibility that he should write only the truth. But when it was in the end.
He answered all the lies he couldn't name. OK, but I can't go back now and so other.
There there is one one other test they did that was to to give them a test with many questions and before doing the test they should put their hands on it on a Bible and promised they would tell only the truth.
The the number of lies came down were less even in a class of atheists.
Because when you give a person a moral code or a moral responsibility, the person behaves better. Not perfectly, but better. This is religion. This is what religion does to a person, makes gives her some parameters so she can behave better, but doesn't work because there is sin.
We are human beings, we are sinners, and we don't need the assets to know that we are sinners. The Bible says, the word of God says.
All have sinned, all have sinned, and if we believe the word of God, we know we are sinners. What the the religions?
Didn't know and the Lord told them was that the sins were not things that would come from outside.
There are many who say OK, my son is now a criminal because he walked with bad company.
No, He had the seed inside him. Perhaps somebody helped to order it, but he had to sit inside him. The Lord said in Matthew chapter 15, verse 19. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are things which defile a man. They come from inside.
Now how can I get rid of this terrible monster that lives inside me?
I can't by myself.
I can do perhaps what the Pharisees, the religious people did.
00:35:01
There are two I'm going to teach you now two ways of lying.
And show the people that you were a perfect person, because the Pharisees did that first technique. Matthew 2327.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, for you are like unto the supporters, which indeed appear beautiful towards, but are within full of dead man's bonds and all of all uncleanness.
This is one way you embellish the outside.
To look like you are a perfect person. Do you do that?
Is that?
The real colour of your hair.
Is that are you tall like that you appear to be?
Are you thin?
Or something inside you just.
Making you look like.
Perhaps we are always trying to show what we are not. This is the embellishing of the the support.
The outside now exterior way to make us look like good person Religion does that religion does that you know I have my my 3 minutes gospel and videos on YouTube and I receive an e-mail a comment a comment from somebody and he said how come this guy is how come you you are you are preaching the gospel. You don't even have a Bible in your hand and.
Are wearing a T-shirt.
What?
In his mind, someone to preach the gospel must look like a pastor or a preacher with tie and a vibe in the hand doing like this. But this is not the gospel. The gospel is the message. The gospel is is God's word inviting the Sinner to trust the Lord Jesus to be saved. This is the gospel, not the kind of religion. So one one way of you to to to.
Hidden to hide what you really are is embellishing embellishing your exterior the other way.
The furnaces did the same. Lucky, 1144.
Woe unto you is scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, for you are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. This is the second way you can make others think you are a good person. You hide because the, the the the first were were built outside.
The ground painted the beautiful colors and so on. That is the exterior.
Way of hiding Daughter was a person that was birthed and then they planted some grass on the top of it. No one knows there are bones under that grass so people walk on it. This is the other way we hide our sins from other people. One way we embellish our exterior, the other we hide from but not from God. God knows exactly how we are. God knows exactly what.
We do so.
A question that cannot be answered by any man in the world is in Jeremiah 1323.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the little part his spots? Then may you also do good that you are accustomed to do evil.
So this question is impossible. The Ethiopians change the colour of his skin, the leopard changed his spots. Impossible. So it's impossible by yourself to change the sinful nature we have inside us that keeps telling lies, that keeps deceiving people, even ourselves.
Remember this every time we we tell a lie to ourselves. Oh, nobody will know.
In Brazil we had the government that was involved in lots of corruption and then the thing came out. You know, today is is very hard to to hide everything. So now we have many ministers.
The government came down, many ministers in jail, many politicians in jail, the CEOs of the largest construction companies in Brazil.
00:40:10
The ones that build highways.
Like like all the airports and everything, they're in jail. The owners, the CEOs, the directors are in jail. We never saw that in our country and how they got there. They lied to themselves. They said, OK, I can bribe or I can get bribe. I can be bribed. No one will know. We we just make.
An agreement.
That will be OK. They thought they lighted and they believed the lie. Let's look at first, John.
Chapter One.
Verse 8.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not seen it, we make Him a liar.
And his word is not.
Yes, every time.
You consider yourself honest. You're telling God is a liar.
Yes, because if I if I am the true one, God is the wrong one. Because I am the pattern. I am the the example of honesty, of truth, truthfulness.
No, but if God is true, every man is a liar. That was the first verse I I spoke in the beginning the verse in chapter in Romans Chapter 7.
There is only one way to get out from this condition that every, every person is, is to say, oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. Brother Bobby talked about this body of death.
This morning.
Who will deliver me?
The answer thanks God is in the following verse. I think I thank God through Jesus Christ.
Our Lord.
But sometimes we take a time to believe that we are a liar, that we are Sinner, that we are going to the lake of fire for our sins. It it might take a time.
Some people just realize like this, but other people kind of have to walk in denying his his sin, denying his bad heart, denying everything.
But if he trusts the Lord, he will get there like David.
It's something very, very, very amazing how they understood.
This bad nature of his.
If you go to Psalm Chapter 7, verse three, you don't have to open there because I'm going to read.
Yes, if you if you like, you just can just listen.
In Psalm 7, verse three, he wrote, Oh Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, this is this is the man you know, if he's not recognizing anything, he's just if if I've seen it, if I've done done, I've done anything wrong. This is the first step. David was he was not convicted.
But then the second step comes in Psalm chapter 19, verse 12. Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse cleans thou me from secret faults. OK, he admits now that there might be some faults but I've never seen. I don't know. I cannot admit, but if if there is, please cleanse me.
He is not fully convicted again, but then he will see. He will go another step. Psalm 25, verse 7.
Remember not the sins of my youth.
00:45:00
Oh, very, very.
Very.
He does not admit, but he admits that perhaps back there.
We sometimes say this, we say, oh, when I was in my youth, when I was a teenager, who I did so many wrong things. But I'm not, not now. Now I am, I am a serious person. But then back there I was every, everyone did, you know, all my friends did. I should also like that.
Remember not the sins of my youth.
He is not convicted yet.
He is giving his his blaming his youth.
He's not blaming his actual state.
His moment now is blame, blaming his past, and then comes again another step. Psalm 32 five I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid, Oh, what a moment this when you open your heart before God and say God.
There's him, Amazing Grace. You know their words better than I. What a song.
Save the.
A ratchet like me, this is when you recognize you are totally lost.
And you cannot do anything for yourself to get rid of your sin. And then he goes in another step in Psalm 38, verse four. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me.
OK, now I am not able to deal to deal with my sin. It's too much.
For myself, David is saying this. Have you ever felt or recognized that your sin is too much for yourself? Oh, Mario. But if I do, he recognize this I go to hell. Yes, you go to hell. Unless you.
Unless you recognize that there was one who on the cross of Calvary took your sins away. He was made sin in your your place, in your as if you were there receiving the the righteous judgment from God because of sin.
And then but but to get there you must understand that the sins are over your head are too much for you. And in Psalm 51 verse one, he then completes his his path. When is the Psalm of David? When Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone in to bath. Sheba Bathsheba, have mercy upon me, oh God, according to thy lovingness.
According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. How God can do that? Because Christ shed His blood on the cross to blot out any transgression, any sin of those who trust Him as a Savior. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me truthfully, truthfully from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Cleans me from my sin.
God can do that, Christ can do that to end to the worst Sinner since he comes to this knowledge.
Acknowledgement of his sin recognizes his sin, recognize his burden that will take him to the condemnation against thee. They only have I seen it and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Now he.
He owns his sin.
He does not point fingers. I did that because my mother, my father, my friend, my wife, my husband, no.
I.
I am guilty. I am guilty in Romans chapter 3.
Just a few other verses for us to finish.
Romans 3, verse nine. What then are we better than they? No in no wise, For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin as it is written. There is none writers, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none of that seeketh after God.
00:50:24
They are all gone out of the way. They are together.
Become unprofitable. There is none that the good. No, not one.
Christ paid the price. Are you ready to accept the price that Christ paid? Have you, have you walked in the steps of King David?
In which? In which step are you? I hope in the last one, when you recognize fully you're guilty. Perhaps you have been gathered because your parents brought you to the meetings. Perhaps for years you have been coming to the meetings. But I ask you, are do you, Are you sure of your salvation?
Just remember 10 years ago in a meeting like this is anyone that was there and is not here anymore and his life is anything but a Christian life.
So if you, if you don't, if you are not sure of your salvation, if you are not sure that the Lord Jesus carried your your sins, paid for your sins on the cross, this is the moment now to make it right with God, to confess your sins to him and to trust the Lord as your Savior. We can pray.
Trees and Their Roots
Children—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.
Good morning.
How are you this morning?
We're going to have Sunday school this morning, aren't we?
And I'm wondering if one of the boys and girls has a song they would like to sing this morning. Here's a hand.
#44 That's on the back of the hymn sheet and I believe that most of the Sunday school songs are on the last page of the hymn sheet, so we will sing together #44.
Into a tent where a gypsy boy lay dying alone at the close of the.
Salvation. We carries her need. Nobody ever has to be.
Wherever I am.
Wherever I am.
Salvation, sorry, reaping your ground.
Salvation story reaping Lord and Lord.
No one can say all the children of men. Nobody.
Ever has told me before.
Bending, we caught the last words of his breath just as he entered the valley of death. God sent his son, whosoever said he.
And I am sure that he sent him for me.
Tell him I.
Salvation story Reaping, Orlando.
Till no one can say of the children of men.
Nobody.
Ever has told me before.
Now this song talks about salvations story. What is salvations story? What is that?
What is salvation story?
Who is that about?
Yes.
Who is it about salvation story? Do you know? Do you know who is it about? It's about Jesus, isn't it? That's wonderful. And it says tell it again, tell it again. How many of us have already once before or more heard about Jesus?
And the song says tell it again, tell it again.
There was a man I was visiting with one time and.
I tried to help him understand how important salvation story was and he said to me, he said I read my Bible and he told me he started in Genesis and he read clear to the end of Revelation and that was good enough. One time he read his Bible and he thought that was good enough for all his life he read it. He did what he thought would.
Be good for him. And then he didn't believe it, and he didn't believe.
Salvation story. He read it, but he didn't believe it. And this morning?
00:05:01
It's important to believe it, and that's why we're here again, and that's why we tell it again and tell it again because it's so important that every boy and girl hears and knows about the Lord Jesus and His love for us and how He came to save us. OK, who else has a song this morning? OK.
#23.
Let's sing the first verse of #23.
Behold. Behold.
For us he shall his precious.
Blood.
On the ground.
Call nearer and see us say we're done.
And that is so important, isn't it, that we understand what this song was saying for us. For us, He shed his precious blood.
You know, if it wasn't for the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, we wouldn't have a savior. And then it says he drinks for you.
The bitter cup in verse three, He drinks for you and he drinks for me. That's what the Lord Jesus did on Calvary's cross. He drinks that bitter cup. What does that mean? That means that what was due to me, what really I should have had for my sins, and what you should have had for your sins. The Lord Jesus took that on himself on Calvary's cross because He loved us and He wanted to be.
Our substitute.
Because God is holy, God cannot have any sin in his presence, and we are sinners. Last night we heard in the gospel meeting that we all are sinners. We all need a Savior, every one of us. And the Lord Jesus is that Savior. Have you accepted Him?
OK, who else has a song? Yes.
55678910 OK. 12345678910 OK Ready 123-4567 God has made a way to heaven.
10654321 Through the blood of his dear son.
2345678.
I may enter Heaven's Gate 8765432.
By His grace, and so may you.
3456789.
I may make a Save your mind 9876543.
He has said, Come unto me.
45678910 Jesus died for sinful man.
10987654 tell the story or and or.
Well, it's a good thing we're here again this morning, because that song again says tell it over and over.
Typical typos. I'm sorry. Where's your where's your dad? He can help us. Tim. Was he?
00:10:04
12 disciples. OK, thank you.
I'm sorry, Luke. Sorry.
12 disciples There were 12 disciples Jesus called to help him join Peter, Andrew, James this other, John, Philip, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of alchemist, Daddy Assignment, Judas and Bartholomew Bartholomew.
He has called us to. He has called us to. We are his disciples. I am. What are you?
He has called us to. He has called us to.
If we're his disciples, we, his work must do.
OK.
Thank you very much. That's a nice reminder, isn't it, that we must do his work if we're his disciple. He's called us to help him in his work. And that's why we're here this morning, isn't it? Thank you. OK, who else has one?
Yes.
#17.
Let's sing the first verse in the chorus of #17.
Have you any room for Jesus?
For a lot of sin.
I've seen not since it's a mission.
Center, Will you like to have him?
Room for Jesus, Lord of the Lord.
And say now is when obey.
OK, we've sung some nice songs about the Lord Jesus that would remind us of his love to us, what He's done for us in shedding His blood to save us. And we've sung some songs too about coming to Him and opening our hearts door while we may. So with that, let's bow our heads and close our eyes and we're going to ask the Lord for his help this morning, OK?
OK, now some of the kids.
May have learned a verse, maybe you didn't learn the verse in the Sunday school paper and that's okay. You can say whatever verse that you have learned and I will help you with it if you need some help. But who would?
You help me with that, Luke.
I.
Was that the verse?
OK, thank you so much. That's a nice verse. OK, you want.
Willing that I took pairs, but I'll come to repentance plus that computer 39. Thank you very much. That is so good. OK, go ahead.
1/16.
A friend love us at all times, but a brother is born for an adversary. Proverbs, 1717. Thank you. OK, who else has one?
What first would you like to say? The Lord is that the one. The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Second Peter 39. Very good. Who else has one? OK.
The Lord is not wearing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Second Peter 29. Very good. OK who else has one? Anybody.
00:15:03
All right, somebody else back further maybe?
OK, second Peter 39 was what was in the Sunday school verse Maybe. Does this girl have one? Do you have one you want to say?
Oh my God, I shaked and knew the 12Th times. 18 two very good psalms. 18 two. The Lord is my rock and my fortress. That's a wonderful thing, isn't it, that we have that in the Lord. OK, now I have some candy up here and you can have three choices, OK, if you want some candy, if it's all right with your mom and dad.
You can come up here and get three pieces of candy, OK?
If you would like, and thank you for saying the verse and if it's your birthday today, you can come and get a piece of candy. OK? Do you like that? Do you have any takers? You guys said your verse, would you like some candy? OK, go ahead and get some candy.
And even if you didn't say your verse and you would like a piece of candy, it's OK, You can come. You can. Because I know that sometimes it's difficult for kids to get some candy. Would you guys like some candy?
No. So would you guys like some candy?
Yeah, those are really good, aren't they? Yeah. Is it? Maybe it's your birthday today. If it's your birthday today, you can come up and get some candy too.
Would you like some candy?
OK, OK.
Well, we had lots of candy takers today.
That's that's pretty nice. Candy's good, isn't it?
And the verse says that.
The Lord is not willing that any should perish. What does perish mean? Who knows what parish means? Yes.
Dying. Yes, dying. That's one.
Word that would describe what parish means.
You know, I know I've handed out some candy, but some of the kids didn't take some candy and maybe they are still hungry. I don't know. I have a snack. I don't know, maybe you would want to enjoy this snack with me. Couple nights ago we went to right over here as a Mexican restaurant across the intersection and it was really good. We had a fajita.
And there's and so I saved some of some of that fajita and some chips and some salsa in here. And one of the girls I think is Michaela. She was coloring. She's got a color crayon in here. There's A and you know what a stone go is in the bottom floor of your van.
I've been saving it in there for Sunday school so we could have a snack and last night I had part of an apple.
And if somebody would like to share that with me, I'd be willing to, but here's a.
Anybody.
What's the matter?
We don't want this.
Why?
Nobody. Nobody seems to want to enjoy this. Would we enjoy eating this?
No, we wouldn't. It it goes in the trash and after we're done here, that's where it's going to go. It's going to go Why? Because it's perished. It's not good anymore. It hasn't been refrigerated. It hasn't been kept nice. It's done. It would probably make.
You sick if you ate it, we don't want to eat that. That candy is much better, isn't it? But you know what, if we don't know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we have nothing to save us, nothing to preserve us, and we are perished. It's just like the old food. We don't want it. It needs to go away. And you know, our sins need to go away. What we have done in our life, the way we were born in sin, it has to go away and the Lord Jesus.
00:20:01
Has made a way to help us with that. Who read the Sunday school paper? Who read the Sunday school? Do you know what the story is? In the Sunday school paper? There was a man who was somebody's going to help me. I know there was a man who was driving down the road and it was raining.
It was raining and a car went around him and then the car disappeared. Why did the car disappear?
Yes, a bridge was out.
And it went right down into the Canyon. That's sad, isn't it? And so the man, he stops and he gets out of his car and he starts waving his arm saying stop, stop. And people thought this man is, he's in my way. And they just honk their horn and went on around him and right over the bridge into the Canyon below.
Sad, isn't it? And so we present the gospel this morning, because.
As we heard last night, we're all sinners. Not one of us falls into a description other than Sinner. We're all sinners by nature and by practice. And we all need a Savior, and that Savior is found in the Lord Jesus.
Now let's we like to look at one verse that.
Brother Mario read in that chapter of Romans chapter 3.
Last night I'd like to look at one verse there and I think.
The reason I'm wanting to look at this verse is because I'm wondering if some of you kids haven't already learned this as a memory verse once before. It's verse 23 and I'm going to start it and we'll see if one of the kids can finish it. OK, it says.
For all have sinned and.
Yes, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's right.
That's what God says about us. We've all sinned. And there's there's another verse that's in Galatians chapter 3.
Galatians chapter 3 and verse 22 it says.
The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, so God has told us in his Word the whole matter.
Has any? And we're all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given.
To them that believe, you know, that's what we are. That's what we're asked to do. We're asked to believe the gospel.
And you know, faith would do that. Faith would trust in the Lord Jesus and believe the gospel. That's wonderful, isn't it? It's a promise. If you put your trust in the Lord Jesus and believe it's a promise, you'll have that salvation that we were talking about this morning from our sins. I would like to look at also at first, John.
Chapter One.
In verse.
The end of verse seven says the blood of Jesus Christ.
His son cleanseth us from all what?
Yes. Have you guys had that as a memory verse before?
I think so. That's a nice verse, isn't it? Now I know some of you have had these as memory verses, but have you believed them? Have you believed them in your heart? And last night we had these next verses before us too. But I would like to speak of them and a little bit this morning in verse eight, it says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US.
And verse 10 says.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar.
What is the difference between if we say we have no sin?
And if we say we have not sinned, well, I would like to try and help explain that this morning.
Do you guys know what a tree is? You do you know what a tree is? OK.
00:25:04
How many of you have a dog or a cat?
When you get up in the morning, is that dog in the same place or that cat in the same place every morning?
It never moves, it's always there.
Maybe it's a stuffed dog.
How many of you have a tree in your yard?
Yeah. Now when you get up in the morning, one morning it's on this side of your house, the next morning it's across over by the sidewalk, and the next morning it's in the backyard. Is that how it works?
Over the tree? No. Why? Why? OK? Why Michaela?
Because it doesn't even walk. It doesn't even walk. That's right now.
Have any of you ever tried to push a live tree over?
Do you ever push and push and push on a tree? Did it? Did it fall over? Why?
There's something underneath in the ground. What is it?
Roots. That's right. It's holding it there and you know there are roots. This verse says if we say we have no sin, that's the roots. If we say we don't have the roots.
We're lying.
The next verse, verse 10 says if we say we have not sinned now what's that?
That's what's up above. That's what grows on the top. That's the fruit. That's like what you see growing up above.
And so not only is where all the resources come from the roots bad, but also the fruit is bad. That's the way we are by nature and God sees us is that.
It makes us think of a verse in Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Deuteronomy chapter 32.
Why? Because just like it's said in the Sunday school paper, this man was warning those people not to drive over that bridge. And they would keep on going. Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse 29. Oh, that we were wise, that we would, that they would understand, that they would consider their latter end.
The latter end, what is the end of?
Having the roots in the fruit of sin. I have this stick up here. If you look on this stick, it doesn't have any bark on it. But if you look, there's lots and lots of little lines around that stick. Do you see those little lines going around that stick? There's no bark on that stick, but there's little lines all around that stick. You know what that is?
Those little lines are, you're right, it's what bugs made. What bugs made. A bug found little hole in the bark and it ate in there and they ate around that branch and they cut off the nutrient.
For that branch to go and that branch died. And you know what? We have bugs.
Bugs of sin, don't we? And if they're not taken care of, we die. It's like this branch. The bug will find a spot, a weak spot in the bark and eat into there. You know, that's what sin does. It knows our weakness, and it eats in there. And then that little beetle, it lays beetle eggs in there, and the larvae comes out of those little eggs and they start eating around.
And getting their nutrition.
From something that is supposed to be the source of life for the branch and the branch dies. Well, we need to consider our latter end. It was a man that was doing some work across the street for and I knew this man and his wife was dying of cancer.
And his name is Larry. I said, Larry, does your wife know the Lord Jesus Christ?
As her savior, you know what he said? He said he said.
00:30:01
I'm mad at God and I'm OK with that. And he did not want to talk about because he was angry because his wife was not feeling well and he was angry and he didn't want to talk about that. It's important that we talk about that because it has to do with our latter end. We need to be saved. We need to have our sins.
Taken care of, now who knows the 1St.
Words that are the first word that the Lord Jesus said when He started His ministry here on this earth.
That's recorded.
And I know that probably none of you kids.
But Matthew chapter 4.
Matthew chapter 4. But this is impressive to me because we think of, you know, we know that the Lord Jesus, when he came, he came to show love, He came to show grace, He came to show mercy. But it was so urgent that like our first said, He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Matthew chapter 4 and verse 18.
And Jesus walking by the sea of I'm sorry, verse 17.
From that time Jesus began to preach and to say repent.
Isn't that something first word and the Lord Jesus brings forward his repent. Now what does it mean to repent? Our verse says that he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. What does it mean? It means to be.
You need to be, yes, it means you need to be saved. But this branch here reminds me of repentance. Why? Because it was going this way and then it turned around and went that way. And, you know, that's what we need to do. We need to turn around and go the other way and, you know, something that's unique.
That's not natural of this kind of a tree.
This is a Maple tree. If you want to see a Maple tree, you walk out the sidewalk out here and just to the left there's a great big tree and then a little tree and a fire hydrant and then a Maple tree. You won't see this on that tree, but this came from one of those kind of trees. And you know, it's not natural for us to want to repent.
But the Lord says repent, turn around and go the other way. That's so important, isn't it? That we be like that branch and turn around and go the other way? Because if we don't, judgement is ahead, isn't it? So let's talk about that a little bit. Let's look at Luke chapter 13.
Luke chapter 13 There was a lady there.
And she was like this.
This branch right here. Have you ever seen a branch like that? You know this is off of Maple too, and it's supposed to be straight.
But this branch, if you look at it, there's a lot of twists and turns and there's a lot of scars and Marks and different things all over this thing. And this branch had a lot of trouble. And I know kind of the situation this branch was in that made it go like this. And you know, it reminds us of things in our life when we want to go our own way. And this branch is all crooked and twisted up. And if you stretch this wrench out.
It's really about 43 inches long.
But this is what it is here. And this reminds us of this, this lady in this chapter of Luke chapter 13, there was this lady in verse.
11 It says, Behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity 18 years, and was bowed together and could not lift herself. Have you ever seen anybody bowed together that could not lift himself?
I'm looking for a volunteer, somebody who can do this pretty well for me.
Bernie, come on up here.
This woman was bowed together and she could not lift herself.
00:35:06
Oh, Bernie, stand up.
I would like to you would like to stand up Bernie, are you able?
For 18 years. Is there anybody here that's 18 years old? Yeah, there's.
18 years like this, the Lord Jesus says Thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And what did he do? He laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.
Praise the Lord.
18 years, Thank you, Lord. That's what that Lady did. Thank you, Vernie, for sharing that with us. And she was made straight. This isn't exactly straight, but this is about what you're going to get for straight off the same tree that this came off of.
But that's what the Lord wants to do to us off the same tree.
Isn't that amazing? The Lord wants to do that for us, but there has to be something more than just than just that. So I would like to look at a verse in Job chapter 14.
OK, now I have a bag with something in it and I would like to give you a piece of what's in this bag.
Here, would you like one?
Would you like a piece of what's in this bag here as I'll give you a couple of pieces. Would you like one? What is that? Look at there, What is that?
What is that?
Would you like some?
Well, they'll clean up pretty easily. You want some of this. What is that?
You know what that is?
You want some.
You can look at that.
You want a piece.
What is that?
Shredded wood. You see how wide it is? You see how wide that little piece of wood is like that. You think of a great big tree and just a little sliver out of that tree. OK, That's how you cut down a tree. You take out those things one at a time, OK, And the whole tree will come down. OK. Those little things I gave you, if you pull those out of the tree one at a time, that tree will fall down.
Yeah.
But we see here in Job chapter 14.
And verse seven it says there is hope of a tree if it be cut down.
That it will sprout again in the tender branch thereof will not cease. This verse reminds us of repentance. And you know, you may feel your load of sins, you may not know all the sins that you have done. They are heaps upon heaps, the sins that we have done, but we may know a few of them. And you know, if we confess to the Lord, that we're a Sinner, and we know just one little sliver.
Of what we've done and what we can remember, and we confess that to the Lord.
Say Lord, I am a Sinner. Here's the proof. You don't have to name off all your sins.
But you may know that there's a slice of your life that shows that to the core. We are sinners and we come to the Lord. Jesus says it's there's hope if the trees cut down that it will sprout again. The Lord wants to give us a new nature and a new life. And so I would like to look at a verse in a couple of verses in Acts chapter.
13 that talk about this.
Acts chapter 13 there's a few verses there. In verse 23 it says that God.
He's he's made a promise to us. He's given us something He's giving us. He's given us a savior, Jesus. God has provided a savior.
In the Lord Jesus is that verse is telling us and then in verse 26 it says to you the end of the verse to you the word of this salvation is sent. That's why we're here this morning because each of the boys and girls need to know the Lord Jesus as their savior. This salvation is sent to us, isn't it?
00:40:19
In verse 28 it.
Speaks of what the Lord Jesus did and though.
They found no cause of death in him. There was number cause of death in the Lord Jesus. It was our sins. He didn't do anything wrong, but He was willing to be our substitute on Calvary's cross.
And it says yet desired they pilot that he should be slain, and they wanted to kill the Lord Jesus. But you know, God had a plan.
It was for our sakes, and verse 29. It says they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulchre. Verse 30.
It says that God raised him from the dead. Isn't that wonderful? The Lord Jesus is raised from the dead.
And in verse 32 it says, And we declare unto you glad tidings, that's happy news, that boys and girls and men and women have a savior in the Lord Jesus who can save them from their sins.
In verse 33 it says that Jesus was raised again.
And in verse 44, it talks about him being raised again. It's so important, isn't it, that we're reminded these times that the Lord Jesus was raised again. Why? Because he's alive and he's real and he's reaching out to you this morning if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. And he's saying, come, come to me.
Verse 38 Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. We can have our sins forgiven this morning through the Lord Jesus. Isn't that wonderful?
How does that work? Let's look at Ephesians chapter one.
Ephesians, chapter one.
And verse seven, in whom? Who is that in whom?
The verse right before talks, it says the beloved, it's the beloved Lord Jesus that loved us so much that what did he do? It says we have redemption through his blood. He went to the cross and shed his blood that we might be saved. He paid the price for our sins.
Have you trusted him? Have you accepted Him as your Savior? Have you said Lord Jesus?
I am a Sinner. Maybe you don't use these words both the root and the fruit.
But if you just say Lord Jesus, I am a Sinner and I need you to be my Savior, tell him you're a Sinner. Tell Him that you need him to be your Savior, that you want him to wash your sins away in His precious blood. He will do that. You know the Lord Jesus is coming soon, and we don't want any of the boys and girls to be left behind.
This morning before it is too late.
We trust that you will come to the Lord Jesus and be saved. You know if you don't, if you're not saved, the Lord knows the heart of each one. If you've not yet, put your faith and trust in Him.
This morning, think about that.
You're a Sinner and you need the Savior. And this morning we're here to tell you that if you reject the Lord Jesus.
There's what the verse called this morning.
Perish. That is so sad to think of one of these dear children to perish, but the Lord wants us to come to repentance, that is, to turn around, take God's thoughts about our place that we really are, and ask the Lord Jesus to be our Savior. Now we're going to pray. And then when we're done, if you would like some more candy, you may have some more candy if it's OK with your mom and dad.
00:45:03
OK.
Address 7
Address—B. Roossinck
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good afternoon, everybody.
It's.
What a privilege it is to be together.
And to raise up the Lord Jesus as.
Lord.
And I look at all of your faces and.
It's just it warms my soul to see such.
Potential.
And I look at you, dear young people, and.
How my heart goes out to you, and I hope what the Lord's help that we can.
Honor the Lord Jesus together this afternoon.
We have a tremendous savior.
And so I would like to start by singing hymn #151.
It's hard to know what him to use in a meeting like this. There's so many that are honoring to the Lord Jesus. And we I had on my heart earlier #150 and we sang that this morning. And it's such a beautiful hymn, isn't it?
There was a rat of a prolific hymn writer that set up #150 I would trade all of the hymns I wrote for that one. That's a tremendous thing. Both sing #151 Lord Jesus.
When we think of thee.
Of all thy love and grace our spirits long and fain would see thy beauty.
Face to face.
Verse four. Our Lord, our life, our rest, our shield, our rock, our food, our light, each thought of Thee, the constant yield, unchanging fresh delight.
Let's say #151.
Lord Jesus went away. Think of me.
Of all thy love and grace.
Our experience.
Was.
Face.
Our souls while Lord.
Did for some grace.
Our Lord, our life.
Our rest, our shield.
Our God.
Our life.
Is.
Our deal unchanged, unchanging, pristine light.
You must stay here in the heart and spirit, say.
Before we open God's Word, let's ask for His help.
00:05:06
Let's turn.
First of all, to Colossians chapter one.
The.
Brother that asked me to speak this afternoon told me that there would be a lot of young people here and I have to tell you young people. I hope that's OK if I address you specifically, but anything that I say is certainly not limited to the young people.
The Lord Jesus is sufficient for everybody.
And I have a real.
Joy for you young people. It's a difficult world that we're living in.
There are serious challenges and.
As I pondered what to speak about.
I got on my knees. I asked the Lord, what shall I say?
I really feel inadequate to stand before you today. You know, there are people in this room that I used to write on their shoulders.
I I still feel like I'm a young person.
And the Lord said to me, Speak about me.
Share the Lord Jesus with them. And that's what I'd like to do. So let's read from Colossians 1.
And this is what our heart is for you young people. Colossians one verse 9 For this 'cause we also, since the day we heard it, did not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with a knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spirits will understanding.
That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.
Being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power.
To all patients, and the long-suffering with joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light.
Who have delivered us from the power of darkness, and it translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son.
To stop right there.
Our hearts have been occupied so far in this conference with the Lord Jesus.
God's beloved Son.
Think of who this person is.
God's beloved Son, I want to speak to you about the Lord Jesus and his wife.
Down here from the book of John.
Before I do that though, I just want us to think a little bit about who the the place that the Lord Jesus has right now.
Think about.
What Joseph said to his brothers Joseph is a picture of the Lord Jesus.
God has made me Lord of all.
That's the place that the Lord Jesus has.
Hasty and tell my Father of all my glory.
A little more in Colossians 1 here. I just want to read some before we start turning to the book of John about the place that the Lord Jesus has.
Verse 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature?
For by him were all things created.
That are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for Him.
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
And he is the head of the Body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead.
That in all things he might have the preeminence.
00:10:01
For it please the Father, that in Him should all fullness dwell.
The Lord Jesus.
Is the head God has given him a position of total?
Majesty.
The Lord Jesus was there in a past eternity, we read in Proverbs 8. Before he formed the mountains, I was there.
I can't quote it exactly. Maybe we should turn to that quickly in Proverbs 8, Speaking of the Lord as as the as wisdom.
I'm sorry to be nervous brother and I this is not my.
Normal audience.
In Proverbs 8 it says.
I was set up from Everland from the beginning, wherever the earth was when there were no depths.
I was brought forth when there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills. Was I brought forth well as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there.
When he set a compass upon the face of the deep. When he established the clouds above. When he strengthened the fountains of the deep.
When he gave to the sea his decree that the water should not pass his commandment.
When He appointed the fountains of the earth, then was I by Him as one brought up with him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.
Rejoicing in the habitable part of this earth, and my delights were with the sons of men.
The Lord Jesus was there with his Father in a past eternity and his He was thinking about you, and He was thinking about me. Even before the earth was formed, before you were conceived and brought in this world, the Lord knew who you were.
I think it's in Jeremiah where it says.
When you were still in the womb, I knew you. Before you were in the womb, I knew you. The Lord is the Lord Jesus.
Gave up that place that he had with his father, and he came down into this world to die on Calvary's cross, so that your sins could be washed away in his precious blood.
And he has risen.
Victorious and God has given him the highest place in heaven. And I want to ask your heart, brethren, what is the Lord Jesus to you?
I look across your faces, young people, and I know that many of you know and love the Lord Jesus.
Is he the number one person in your life?
He needs to be.
That speaks to my own heart and see #1.
Yesterday Dunn shared a verse with us in Hebrews 13. Jesus Christ. The same yesterday, today, and forever.
The perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus was tremendous, marvelous, but his heart was the same then as it is now, as it will be in the future. The Lord doesn't change.
In the book of John we find in chapter 8.
When the Lord claimed to be the Son of God, they were arguing with him. Says you have. Have you known our father Abraham?
He says your father Abraham rejoiced. We should read that together before Abraham was I am. What a tremendous claim.
John, Chapter 8.
Let's read verse 54, Jesus answered. If I honor myself, my honor is nothing.
It is my father that honoreth me, of whom he say that he is your God. Yeah, you have not known him, but I know him, and if I should say I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you.
00:15:10
But I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.
How's that possible? Because he was there. You know, we read this morning and and Genesis 22 of Abraham and Isaac going there and my father, behold the fire in the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And what's the answer?
God will provide himself a lamb. And so they went.
One unwillingly and the other one willingly. Is that what it says? No, they went both of them together.
Isn't that beautiful? Here's the father and the son going along together.
And the Lord Jesus could say here, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it.
Let's look at verse 58. Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was I am that incredible, I am, that's what when God appeared to Moses, that's what he said too at the burning Bush. You remember Moses said, well, who shall I tell him you are? He says I am, have sent you that I was.
Not I'm going to be someday.
Yes, I am. I am from a past eternity to a future eternity. I am. And that's who the Lord Jesus is.
I am.
What I would like to do?
Let's take up some things in John that the Lord Jesus said I am.
And many of these can be all of these, perhaps.
The gospel could be preached from any one of these things, but I would like to just try to encourage you rather in these things.
And I want you to think about when the Lord Jesus said I am.
He was I am when he claimed to be something. He was all that.
You know, I could say I'm a fast runner, which I'm not.
Sorry Mario, I lied.
When the Lord Jesus made a claim he was totally that thing and so I would like to try to encourage us from some things in the Gospel of John and I just wanted to start by by reading there in Colossians about the place that God has brought him into. He is the head and all things he should have the preeminence and so young people.
In your lives, when the Lord says, I am this to you.
And we'll get into some of these things. Take that to heart. The Lord says I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, I am the door. I am the Good Shepherd. We'll get into some of these things and what it means to your life. Think of it.
The man in the glory, right this moment, at the highest pinnacle.
Nobody higher.
Is something for you and for me.
A tremendous thing to ponder.
So let's turn to John Chapter 6, by the way.
Some of you younger kids in here that maybe you are not in the habit of reading regularly yet. That's a great habit to cultivate and the Gospel of John would be a good place to start doing that. And if you're older and you do not have that habit developed.
He'll never be. How do I say this? Today would be the day to start. That you're never going to be younger than you are right this moment. Take up the word of God and read it.
Start in the Gospel of John. It's a tremendous book.
OK John chapter 6 and verse 35.
Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger.
He that believeth on me shall never thirst.
00:20:01
I am the bread of life.
Ever find in your soul that you're hungry?
I have found that in my life.
Hear the Lord Jesus says I am the bread of life. You know, young people, there are so many things that you can feed on in this world that have no value whatsoever.
Turn over to Isaiah 55. It's one of my favorite chapters in Isaiah.
You see a 55.
We'll just read the 1St 2 verses here. Oh everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. He that hath no money come ye buy and eat. They come by wine and milk, without money and without price. Now listen to this question. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread?
And your labor for that would satisfy it not Hearken diligently unto me.
And eat ye of that which is good, and let your soul delight in fatness.
Oh, there are so many things, brethren, that that strive for our our attention and our time. And I have to ask myself, what am I feeding on? Am I spending money or time or resources?
And bread that there are things that don't satisfy.
Oh, young people, turn to the Lord for that hunger in your soul. God has put eternity in your heart. If you know and love the Lord Jesus, there's a desire to be filled with his knowledge, with the with his ways, with his thoughts.
And yet how often we find that we're spending capital, both time and money and interest, and that was just not bread.
And here the Lord could say, I am the bread of life. Are you hungry in your soul?
You know, you could walk out these doors tonight and and go to endless places in this city to try to find satisfaction for your soul. You're not going to find it there. You're going to find it in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am the bread of life.
You know it's a.
In John chapter 8, when the Lord said that there were many people offended by that, they didn't understand what He meant.
How could he be the bread of life? And the Lord says who?
I can find this again here.
John chapter 6. I'm sorry.
Verse 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.
And the bread that I give him is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.
And there the Lord Jesus was talking about eating to obtain life, eternal life.
And once you have eternal life, then there is a lifetime of feeding on the bread of life to maintain it. You know, if I ask some of you young people to to just, we had that meal right there, right? And that was excellent.
And now to go until next Lord's Day with nothing to eat, not a drop. Would you do that? Like, no, I wouldn't do that. I want to have a snack since this meeting is over, as you can see, right?
But how often spiritually do we say, no, I'm not going to eat of the living bread? You know, I gave the Lord an hour last Sunday. They ought to be happy with that. No, that's there's so much more to be had. Get into the word of God, open it up, read it. Let the Lord Jesus pour into your soul.
I am the bread of life. You're not going to find nourishment anywhere else.
Think about the manna that the Lord gave the children of Israel in the wilderness, right?
We don't have time to develop this, so I just want to give you a few points and just whet your appetite for this. Go look this up.
00:25:04
Small.
White, sweet, nourishing. It was on the dew and not on the ground. All of those things remind us of who? The Lord Jesus, right?
Think about what it says in Philippians 2 about humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. There's these little white pieces of manna like coriander seed, it says in Exodus 16. And they picked it up and oh, it tasted like wafers and honey. That's who the Lord Jesus is to us young people.
He has how to express this well to you.
Feed on him.
OK, let's move on for the sake of time.
Go to John chapter 8 now.
Turn 8.
Verse 12 Then spake Jesus unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Says in first John chapter one.
This, then, is the message that we have heard of him.
That God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. And that's who the Lord Jesus is. No darkness at all.
There can be no sin.
In heaven.
And we could preach the gospel from this person, spend perhaps a whole week of meetings on the light. But I would like to ask you, I would like to speak to you, those of you that know and love the Lord Jesus from this.
You're looking for clarity in your life.
It's a Dark World out there, young people.
You when I leave here tonight after supper, Lord willing, I'm going to drive back to Grant MI.
I would like for my headlights to be able to show me all the way there. I'm the kind of a person that likes to have a plan.
But you know, it doesn't work that way, does it?
Turn those headlights on.
You're only going to see a couple 100 feet.
And then we have to pro ceed in that light that we've got. And as you go along that path, the light shines out further and further right. And eventually, if the Lord will, I'll get home to my house in Grant MI. And those headlights are only have sewn just a little ways ahead of me. But you know where we're going through a Dark World, young people, and the Lord Jesus is the light of the world.
Trust him.
Trust him.
I am the light of the world.
You want clarity in your life? Get into the Word of God and find out who the Lord Jesus is.
You want direction in your life? Ask Him. This is the person that is on high in the glory right now. Say, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
He wants to show you that, to open it up. You know, sometimes we find ourselves groping around in the dark, trying our own way, right? And how the Lord would like to say.
This is the way. Walk in it.
I think it's in someone 19 where it says, thy word has a lamp unto my feet, light unto my path. I was glad when you read this morning.
Of the Word coming into the world capital W the Lord Jesus is the Word.
This is the word of God, young people.
Fill your hearts and your soul with the Lord Jesus and He will guide you and direct you.
So important and so totally reliable. You know, I could grope around. So we have a saying at our office, by the way, we have this giant computer database that seems like it's the catch all for every file that possible in agriculture. And so somebody would say, well, you have the you know, the crop removal file for cotton. Yeah, it's on drop boxers and this file server, whatever it's like, well. It's.
00:30:04
In there, it's like going into Walmart with the lights off.
Right. You're looking for the plastic forks. You know they're in there someplace, right? But where? It's not the way the Christian life should be.
Walk in the light, the Lord Jesus says. I am the light of the world.
You can't find them more reliable source of light than that.
So I just want to encourage you, young people don't.
Waste valuable time and resources groping around in your own strength. The Lord says, Look unto me.
I'll give you the light. I am the light. You want light? It's me. I'm the light.
What a beautiful thing to be able to turn to the Lord. You know, all of us have been in places, probably many of you this week, where you're like, Lord, what do, what shall I do? What do I do? There's a fork in the road. There's a, a choice to be made. There's an unexpected circumstance that's come up that has been an illness.
Joseph asked you to have an address.
Sorry Joseph, with the Lord's strength I will try to encourage the Lord's people, but you get on your knees and grope around, say well, I got this now get on your knees. Say Lord, I need your light, please give me and he will.
OK, let's move on. John Chapter 10.
And I'm just scratching the surface on these things, young people, because we could have a whole conference on any one of these things. But I hope that I'm wetting your appetite for this. John. Chapter 10.
There's a couple of IMS in this chapter and they're beautiful.
Let's read verse 9.
The Lord says I am the door.
By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
Well, in the gospel sense, this is Speaking of entering, of opening your heart's door to the Lord, and he is the entrance into salvation. But now I want to speak to you young people, from a Christian living point of view. It's my understanding.
In biblical times that.
There were two kinds of sheep bolts.
One of them would be a large enclosure that might have a number of flocks in it, and perhaps there be a herdsmen of some kind, the hireling.
To put the sheep in, keep them in there all night, and then the next morning the shepherd would call his own out. It's like.
You know, come Bernie sheep and Bob sheep or whatever and they would go out. But then there was another kind of fold and it was a much smaller one that would be an individual flock perhaps out in the wilderness, a little circle of stones perhaps. And then the shepherd was at night. They count the sheep as they went in. Maybe there was 15 sheep or whatever.
1230 Good. There's none missing. And then evening would come on, and then that shepherd would lay down in the door in the space, and he was the door.
And so if there would come a some wild beast or a robber to steal a, a lamb perhaps, or whatever he had to deal with that shepherd laying there in the space, I am the doer.
That's what the Lord Jesus is for us. I am the door. Think of the protection in that.
Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 8.
This was read to us yesterday and I found it to be very encouraging.
Isaiah chapter 8.
Just read 13 and 14.
Sanctify That means to set apart.
Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself.
Verse 14 And he shall be for a sanctuary.
Oh, young people.
00:35:01
A sanctuary.
I know that you have felt this. I have. All of us have. Sometimes you just need a place of refuge, a place of safety.
You know the enemy of your soul is like to pound away all the time, right? It's chipping away, chipping away, and there needs to be a place of safety here. The Lord says I am the door.
Anybody that comes after you when you're under my protection will have to deal with me. He's basically what he's saying.
What could be safer than the Lord Jesus himself saying I have you?
And yet, what's our tendency to go? Well, Lord, you can have Sunday for a couple hours and I might give you Wednesday night once in a while, and that's all you get the rest of the time. I got this myself. Oh, it's the wrong choice, brethren.
Here the Lord says, I am the doer, be in my care.
What protection, what safety and how often we we just don't take that for for what? He says. I'm the doer.
Somebody wants to come in and 'cause you problems has to be.
If you're safely in that fold and the Lord Jesus is there as your protection.
You never get more better protection than that. Now I know that sometimes the Lord allows things in your life. He allowed things in the life of Job. But the Satan could not do anything to Job without God's expressed permission to do that.
That's the kind of protection that we're talking about, that Satan himself has to go get, if you will, a permission slip from God to do anything to you.
I am the door. You believe that? Practically, do we believe that?
Let's go down to John 10, verse 11.
And get back to John 10 here a minute.
Could really spend a lot of time on this. The the Shepherd and the scripture is a tremendous topic.
John 10 verse 11 I am the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Is to ask you.
Again, do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
He gave his life for you.
He gave his life for you if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
He is your Shepherd.
I was really struck.
Who with the verse in Mark that says when the Lord Jesus saw the multitudes, he had compassion on them?
Because they were as sheep, having no shepherd.
Think of the heart of the Lord Jesus. I've spoken on this before, but it just moved me. The Lord is standing over the city of Jerusalem, right?
And it says he wept over it.
How often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her checks under my wings? And you would not?
What a what a heart that the Lord Jesus has that heart.
Is for you.
And now let's speak about it in terms of our Christian walk. Turn to Ezekiel 34.
This chapter deals with shepherds, and you could spend a lot of time on this. This is addressing the the shepherds of Israel, and it's given in a negative way because they were not doing a good job of it, but it shows us what shepherds do.
And I just want to point some of these things out that the Lord Jesus wants to do young people for you as the Good Shepherd, Verse three, the end of verse 3.
Feeding the flock.
00:40:02
I hope it's OK if I change the negative to positive here.
The disease that be not strengthened. The Lord Jesus wants to strengthen you. You know we suffer problems, don't we brethren? We do the Lord we're living in a in a fallen world. I was just talking with Bruce Limbo at lunchtime about the Zika virus and mosquitoes.
Many of you know that I work in agriculture and.
I told Bruce that my job is to fight the curse.
That's what I'm doing. They're constantly battling weeds, insects, disease.
Every When you open a bag of seed corn, where's Barry at? So Barry, when you start planting corn next March or April?
Everything that happens, it goes down, down, down, doesn't it? And when you get to the harvest, oh, there's a little bit left.
The disease that you're not strengthened. Well, the Lord wants to strengthen us, brethren, what's the next thing? Healing that which is sick.
You know.
We all feel this, don't we? I I'm not that old, but my hands hurt.
Byphones have arthritis in them right here. My knees are not that good.
You know, I've shared this with some of you this summer.
I'm watching my dad in his final years.
And it's difficult.
And yet think of the heart of the Lord.
To heal that which was sick.
You know, I think about what the Lord said when Lazarus died.
Or what he did when Lazarus died and the word goes out, He whom thou lobbest is sick. The Lord feel that he did, and he says come, let's go.
And he and he acts. But you know, I'm not saying that that the Lord is going to take away all of your problems, but I am saying as the Good Shepherd here, the Lord cares and the Lord wants to heal. Maybe your need healing emotionally.
So Lord care about that.
He does.
You're hurting inside.
The good separate cares about that.
Bound up that which is broken.
Ever feel broken, young people? I have. The Lord wants to bind that up. I am the Good Shepherd.
I don't let him work in your life.
Brought again that which was driven away.
Oh brethren, we need this in our assemblies.
It hurts when you see other young people that you were going along with and suddenly they're gone. It hurts. Does the Lord care about that? Yes, He does. I am the Good Shepherd.
Sought that which was lost.
We could spend a lot of time on this, brethren, but here the Lord says I am all of those things.
Isn't that encouraging? I find that very encouraging.
OK, we're running out of time. John 15.
This one is near and dear to my heart.
John 15, five.
I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him the same, bringeth forth much fruit, for without me can do nothing.
Here the Lord says, I am the vine, you are the branches. What are those branches supposed to do?
Bring forth fruit, right?
Think about the what it says in Galatians 5 about the fruits of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.
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Long-suffering.
Now I got to look it up. Gentleness. Goodness.
They better look it up. It's the word of good. Let's get it right. Galatians 5/22.
The fruit of the Spirit. By the way, I used to read this as fruits. It doesn't say fruits.
This is a one thing. Think about it like an orange young people. It's a fruit with sections. That makes sense. Here they are.
Lovejoy, Peace. Those three are Godward.
Long-suffering. We need that, brethren. We do, don't we?
Long-suffering. That's how **** Orgas used to say it when he, when I was a young person in the East, he would say a law suffering. I mean, you remember him say that.
Gentleness and goodness, those are toward our brethren. Faith, meekness, self-control, temperance, those are individual. That's the fruit of the spirit. Brethren, you want to be fruitful and useful in your life.
Abide in the vine. The Lord says I am the vine. Abide in Him. Spend your time with Him.
Grow in him.
Love him, serve him, it's worth it.
The marvelous thing. And then this fruit comes out.
Reminds me of the.
The priestly garments in the Old Testament, and I can't remember where this is found, but I'll explain it to you. At the bottom of the garment there was a little golden bell, and then a little golden pomegranate, and a bell and a pomegranate all the way around. And what does it speak of?
Testimony and fruit in balance abide in the vine. You know, you go to your workplace, you go to your office, you go to school.
Let there be a balance of testimony and fruit in your life.
Put up your flag early.
When I was a kid, we were always taught to staple the colors to the mast, and that's a sailing analogy. It means put up the flag so everybody can see it on the mast of the ship early.
Don't be afraid, kids, to say I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's my Lord, He's my Savior, and there will be fruit and testimony in your life. The Lord was a perfect example of that. And as the vine, He's the source of all of that fruit.
And you can utter a minute.
John, 1125.
This is the story of the raising of Lazarus. The beautiful story. By the way, John 1125. Jesus said unto her missus Martha.
I am the resurrection and the life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Believer style this.
I am the resurrection and the life.
You know, this morning we remembered the Lord Jesus in his death. And as we broke that bread, I thought of this. The Lord Jesus died. He came into this world the Son of God, the perfect, spotless Lamb of God, no blemish, no spot, and he went to the cross and he died.
And they put him in the tomb.
And from a natural standpoint, you could say, well, that was that.
He's dead.
What happened on the first day?
The awesome thing?
He's not here.
He's risen.
Why seek ye, the living among the dead?
The Lord Jesus is the first born from the dead. You know, Lazarus was raised back to life, but he wasn't the first born from the dead. Why? Because he died again. The Lord Jesus would never die again. Right this moment, the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of his Father, alive.
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Humanity, a perfect man and your savior.
Young people, get ahold of that in your heart.
Your savior.
Alive.
Interceding on your behalf.
Protecting you, Loving you.
What an awesome thing. What a victory, right?
I am the resurrection and the life.
Colossians 3. We mentioned this yesterday, but I just want to touch on it again.
If he then be risen with Christ.
Live as much as you can for yourself and give him a couple hours a week. Is that what it says?
No.
If ye then be risen with Christ, and that if is a statement of fact, not a you might be, it means since you are risen with Christ, If you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, this is you since you're risen with Christ. Seek those things which are above where Christ said it at the right hand of God sets your affection or your mind on things above.
Not on things on the Earth.
For your dead and your life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory, all young people.
Set your affection on things above. Yeah, there's so much, as we said before, that once your time and your affection, set it on the Lord Jesus. It's the one object of devotion and affection that is worthy.
I am the resurrection and the life. He's alive for you right now.
John 14. This is the last one.
Jesus said unto him, I am John 14 six. I am the way that you.
Truth and the Life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
You know, State would want to say, well, he might be one of the ways maybe.
But he's that's not right. The Lord Jesus says I am the way. There's no other way to God.
The truth and the life.
Particularly here in the United States, people would say, oh, that's not very politically correct.
Doesn't matter, the Lord could say with total authority, I am the way, the way, the truth and the life. Young people, you want direction, You want clarity in your life.
Follow him.
He is the way you know, there are a lot of verses we could turn to you. I think if Psalm 16 that thou will show me the path of life. Does the Lord care about individual circumstances in your life? I'm thinking of the way now.
Not in a gospel sense, but in a practical, living sense. Lord, what way shall I go? What shall I study in school? Who should I marry? Should I take this job, this place or that place?
They get on your knees, ask the Lord and it says that I will show me the path of life. He will do that.
In Psalm 107 it says he will lead them forth by the right way. You want to be on the right way, I do.
And we're not going to find the right way in our own strength. They're just flipping a rolling the dice or, you know, drawing straws. Get on your knees and ask the Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Lord I, I have to decide. Show me the way.
Is Isaiah 55 again where the Lord says a beautiful chapter by the way young people study that chapter. The Lord says my ways are not your ways.
My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are higher than your ways.
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My thoughts are higher than yours. You know, let's just turn to that. Is there something there that's that's very restoring? Isaiah 55 again.
You know, I think all of us can think of times, perhaps in the last day even, where we have not done it right.
So listen to what the Lord says.
At the end of this chapter, let's read the.
13 they have 5513 instead of the thorn shall come forth the fir tree.
Instead of the briar, she'll come up the Myrtle tree.
And this shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off, you know.
In our own strength here in this book, in a chapter in Isaiah, they were the Lord says, why are you spending money for that which isn't bread? Why are you thinking your own thoughts? Think my thoughts and we're guilty of that, aren't we, young people, but here the Lord could say.
In regard to his word and his heart for you, instead of the thorn, the fur tree will grow.
Instead of the briar, she'll come up the Myrtle tree. You know, the Lord can take the mess that we have made in our lives and make it into something valuable and useful. I can't remember where the verse is, but it says I will restore it to you. The years that the locust had eaten.
So it's not too late to.
Take these things that the Lord is.
And say, Lord, I have blown it in the past, but I want to walk now with you. Do that today.
He loves you, He wants to be these things in your life. He is these things whether you accept it or not. And the Lord can restore the years that the locusts had eaten and bring up these things that are useful and nice instead of these thorns and thistles that we that's what we get in our own strength problems.
Well, I hope that I have whet your appetite young people for these things I.
We love you guys.
Trust in what's trustworthy. The Lord Jesus is trustworthy. He's at the highest place of anything and person in this universe. He says, 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. It's beautiful, isn't it? That's what the Lord says to you, to me.
So I hope these things have been helpful.
Let's close by singing.
174 I think it is Jesus. Thou art enough the mind and heart to fill.
Yes #174.
All patience.
Jesus.
Our king of.
Oh my God.
The light days of the time.
I long is your desktop.
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So, Holy Lord.
Will find you.
Till you die.
We are.
We're not.
Busy.
Let's close with prayer.
2 Corinthians 4
Reading
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#166.
Saturday.
And never.
Time thy present.
Shall the heart of the be?
Thy whole our soul.
Desire.
Our.
Nor sing and come and fall.
Again.
Our presence.
In our wild horns.
Nor sin can come in.
Our trade, love, life when our strength from our one to two, our bread.
To the same.
Our strength, our should. Our strength of all our bowling for the world.
Unchangeable, thy gracious.
There you are being.
Art to love lie tender mercy still earns.
Philippians chapter 3 connection to him that we just signed.
Philippians chapter 3 and verse 13.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do for getting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press for the mark, for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus landed. We just give thanks.
To continue where we left off yesterday, I would suggest we start with chapter 4, verse one.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 4.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4, beginning at verse one.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we feigned not, but have we renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commanding ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
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But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.
And ourselves, your servants for Jesus.
Sake for God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, have shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.
We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus.
Might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We have the same spirit of faith according as it is written. I believe, and therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore speak.
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus.
Shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, redone to the glory of God, For which 'cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us.
A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
When the apostle Paul accepted the Lord Jesus as Savior.
The very first words out of his mouth were Lord.
Pretty good first Lord Lord, He had immediately acknowledged the place that he now had in relationship to the Lord Jesus. And the next words were, What wilt thou have me to do?
And.
The Lord told him and gave him what is referred. He refers to here as a ministry, this ministry.
He was given a job to do, He was given instructions, He was had revealed to him things to share with us with all the House of God and so.
I'm going to.
Tread on Bernie's ground here when he first got up pretty early in his remarks, he said. I'm nervous.
The apostle Paul, like most servants of the Lord, experienced a sense of being inadequate in themselves to fulfill the responsibility of the message given to them. And yet, as he says in the first verse, I've received mercy, and because of it I haven't fainted. But he was able to go on and fulfill.
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The responsibility that was given to him. And then in the second verse he talks about the manner in which he did it.
He had words to say, to communicate a message to those that he spoke to directly and now by the word of God to us. But he recognized the incredible importance of if those words were going to have their intended use by God on the audience.
Paul's life had to be the living expression.
Of what he preached.
His life needed to express in practice what his words were communicating. And so when we speak to someone else, quite often we hear the expression, what you are speak so loudly I can't hear what you say. And that's sometimes the case. What we are hinders the communication of the message that has been given to us.
And but, he says, by manifestation of the truth, that is, by living out the truth.
We commend it to every man's intellect, no.
To every man's conscience, and the truth of God is that which needs to reach the conscience in order for the blessing to come to the one to whom it's communicated. And so it's whatever ark station and calling in life may be. Every one of us is to be a living testimony.
To the truth that has been given to us and that we have received.
And it's to be seen in our lives in a way that it commends itself to the conscience of each one that we are around as we live out our daily lives.
So they says in verse one having received mercy, we faint not. Later on in the chapter he says in verse 16, For which 'cause we faint not, that though our outward man perish, at the inward man is renewed day by day.
It almost appears that the Christian cause is a losing cause in this world.
And I've often thought about.
When the Lord Jesus died, he had in his ministry. He had ten. He had 12 disciples. One of the 12 turned out to be a traitor. The other 11 Completely forsook him and fled, and he died.
As a criminal on a cross in this life, he was never vindicated.
God's answer is in resurrection, and so often.
The way the gospel is presented, it almost looks like a losing cause, but it isn't, brethren. And that's why he says in verse 15 that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, read down to the glory of God. God is a God of abundant grace and we need to be encouraged not to faint. So often you meet with those that just feel like giving up.
Don't give up. God's answer is not in this life. God's answer is in resurrection and so he says we faint not. I think that's beautiful to get that picture before us. And then how important what Don was bringing out in verse two that there are things in our Christian testimony that are very negative as to the gospel.
I must say brother, and having lived in South America a number of years and traveling around in Latin America.
It is almost a negative.
When a person says I'm a preacher or I'm a missionary.
I prefer not to say that anymore.
I prefer to say that I export books from the United States.
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Because there is so much negativity as to preachers who are after money.
And what is mentioned here? Dishonesty, Craftiness. Handling the word of God deceitfully.
What it's known for, and I find that a person who lives.
A normal life. Many of the brethren in Bolivia are bricklayers, they're builders, and if they do a good job, I find that people will listen to a person that does a good job because they're honest and they will listen.
It's too bad, but that's the way it is. But it's important that there be complete integrity in our message because we appeal, like Don was mentioning, to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Remember what conscience is. Conscience is what Adam obtained when he ate of the forbidden fruit.
Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that's what conscience is. It is the knowledge of good and evil.
And every single human being has that knowledge, has conscience. A man sometimes.
In his mind he is atheist. He says no God, but his conscience never turns atheist.
In his conscience he knows.
That there is a God, and the conscience of man when you preach the gospel is.
On your side and gives testimony to the truth of what you are saying.
So just simply give the truth for as much as they don't believe it. Give the simple truth of God and you will find that the conscience of men will give testimony to the truth of what you're saying. To me it's been an encouragement to to realize that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, and He also gives testimony to the truth of what's being said.
So make sure your messages the word of God as closely as possible, because it's God's word that God uses to quicken dead souls. And doesn't matter if they say I don't believe it, just go ahead and quote it anyhow because their conscience will tell you that it is the truth. It's been a help to me, a comment that appeared a long time ago and I forget what.
Whether it was the Christian truth or years ago.
One of the magazines that came out and it said.
The pathway to the heart is through the conscience. The truth enters through the ears and through the mind. But the proper home of the truth of God is the heart. But to get to the heart it has to go through the conscience, and that's an important thing to think. So sometimes persons are.
Enamored with the presentation in a mental way in their minds with what is the truth. But it's only when it gets to the conscience that it can get down into the heart. Where is the proper home of the truth of God? That is a really important thing, and that's why we need meditation. When we meditate the Word of God, it gives time for that to sink into the conscience to have its moral implications on our lives.
And through that means it gets down into the heart, where it is treasured and where it is kept. Let me say this that I don't believe we can say that we truly have the truth of God until it gets into the into the heart. Sometimes people have a knowledge of the truth in their minds, and they might be able to even explain it quite explicitly. But until it gets into the conscience.
And has its moral implication in their life. And then it will get into the soul or the heart. And that's where it is treasured. And then you do have it. It's been impressive to me that in Bolivia, where a lot of our dear brethren don't have a lot of.
Natural education, that sometimes I have seen them attacked by persons who do not hold the truth.
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And the dear brethren don't know how to explain or even how to defend themselves, but I notice it does not shake them, because the truth is in their heart. And to me it is a wonderful.
Truth that that's the proper home of the truth of God, the heart.
Why would Paul talk about preaching the gospel?
To the Corinthians if they were already saved.
I think it's because here it's talking about his ministry and when one thing that happens is that everything begins with Christ. When we listen the gospel of grace, of the grace of God, and we are saved. But the ministry of the minister, like Paul, is still Christ. That doesn't change the same Christ that comes as the first subject in the preaching.
Will be the same Christ that will go on in the preaching. Now he talks about the gospel of the glory.
The glorious gospel of Christ, verse four, whose image God should shine unto them, we we get when we are saved we get occupied with Christ, but mostly with ourselves because we will ponder how much we are getting from.
From trusting the Lord or sins that were forgiven and so on. But then we we learned and the minister of the the gospel here or the word of God that Paul is presenting himself as a minister. And then we go home, leaving behind all the experience of being saved.
And start contemplating Christ and the one who ministers takes the eyes of those who are believers and directors to Christ, like the one who preaches the gospel. What he does takes the eyes of the OR the heart or the conscience, as the brother said, and take to Christ. So Christ is always the subject of the evangelist, of the teacher, of the pastor, the shepherd.
Is Christ always Christ the subject? If you go to a deology ecology, you will learn archaeology, sociology, geography, history, lots of things, and you will learn how to minister those things to your audience in your church or somewhere. But that's not Christ. That's not Christ that will not feel the soul, perhaps feels the mind and the intelligence.
But not if the soul.
And this is, this is and always will be the, the 1St and the last subject for for anybody. Christ begins with Christ. I could not say that it ends with Christ because you never end after we got in touch with his person. It will never end or occupation with Christ.
In verse three it says if our gospel be hid.
But it's better to understand that word is is the same word in the previous chapter Vail.
And then the the thought that's given here is easier to understand. So if our gospel be veiled, it is veiled to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world have blinded the minds of them which believe lot, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. That is, he had as we had yesterday when Moses went into the glory on the mount to see something of the glory of God.
When the Lord spoke to him.
It was, it affected him, it affected the way he looked. And so when he came down and his face was shining as the effect of being in the presence of that glory, he had to put a veil between him. The people asked him to Moses put a veil on. We don't want to look, we're afraid to, to look at you. And so he put the veil on.
Then we had that.
We in Christianity through the preaching of the Gospel.
Are able to see the glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the man Christ Jesus. We can behold the glory of God in him without a veil. Nothing to keep us from looking directly upon the object.
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Of our hearts, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here we see something else is presented to us, and that is.
Does Satan want us? Does Satan want a man to see him? Does he want that message of the glory of Christ presented to men? He hates it.
And So what he does, what he attempts and somewhat successfully to, is to put a veil on the face of the person that to whom the message has been given.
So that they don't see the glory, they don't see the light, they don't enjoy it. And so it says the God of this world has veiled the minds of whom, well, it tells us.
The minds of them which believe not. And so if there's unbelief in a person, Satan has what they need to work with, to put a veil on their face so that they will not see the wonderful glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he recognized Paul quite clearly in his.
Ministry recognized what John also brings out very forcefully.
There's 2 powers in this world.
God and Satan and the conflict between God and Satan is concerning Jesus Christ because Satan wants that place.
The whole object of Satan is to have the place that God has given to his Son.
And there's a constant conflict going on in this world between God and Satan and Satan's effort to take man's heart and thoughts and will and way from coming to have what we enjoy, what has been given to us, what we had in the last meeting.
Of having Christ our all and all that He is to us. And Satan's total effort is to rob mankind of that. And so his mechanism, one of the ways he's doing it, is described to us here in this fourth verse, very serious.
Conflict. I want to make an added comment in connection with what Bob said earlier in his remarks.
About there may be an apparent lack of success.
What's happening?
In the world today is that some time ago God began to work.
When the Lord Jesus Christ had finished His work on the cross, it opened to God the fullness of His heart to act in grace. It had been restrained for him until the work necessary to loosen for God the fullness of His capacities to work in grace with mankind had been established by the work of Christ and since that time.
Since the Lord Jesus Christ returned to heaven, we call it the day of grace because God is working in grace in this world to produce a result for Himself in man.
No matter what you see going on in the world today, no matter how dark things may be, trust Him. God is successfully working in His grace to produce the result that He wants in this period of time. And when He has finished that work, this day will end. It's not going to end when things get too bad. It's not going to end when man decides what's tomorrow going to hold.
In fact, the truth of the matter is, when the day ends, it's only going to get worse. In this world, what's coming after this day ends and we think it's bad. Scripture makes it very clear that what comes after is far worse than what we see. Anything we'll see now. But God, I just want to say this, God is very successfully producing an eternal result for himself.
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To the honor of His Son in taking out of this world a heavenly people to be with Christ in glory, and they will shine in his presence forever, and that will be a very successful work.
The wonder of it all is that God wants to use man.
And to to accomplish his plans. And he didn't need to. He could do everything like the Lord when he when he multiplied bread and fish.
He could do that without bread and fish, but he wanted to use those that someone had had bought there.
And then he could just make the bread and fish appear to each person.
Where they were, they were sitting around, but no, again, he did that in the basket. So, so the disciples he gave to the disciples and the disciples gave to the people. He could have done that, but he did. He enjoyed using people and in this chapter we see the way he uses someone like earthly vessels. This reminds me that that.
Chapter in the Old Testament when they have to break the vessels. I don't remember where it is. Perhaps somebody can help me. Judge, Judges.
It's a beautiful.
Picture.
Judges 7 starting at verse 16 maybe?
Judges 7 verse.
16 Yeah. And he divided the 300 men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pictures and lamps within the pictures. And he said unto them, Look, look on me, and do likewise. And behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that as I do, so shall you do. When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow you.
The trumpets also on every side of all the camp and say the sword of the Lord.
And of Gibeon Gideon. And so Gideon and the 100 man that were with him came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch, and they had put, they had but newly sat the watch, and they blew the trumpets and break the pictures.
That were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets and break the pictures, and held the lamps in their left hands and trumpets in their right hands to blow with hull. And they cried the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And they stood every man in his place around about the camp. And all the hosts ran and cried and fled and.
So this that light was inside and there was no way to.
To show it without breaking those phases, those they call here, what's yours vessels, vessels, those vessels, they had to be broken. And here when you go back to our chapter in in Second Corinthians.
We see that.
In verse.
Verse 5. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants, for Jesus sake. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shining in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen, earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. So this is the way God uses people, but broken people.
I think here.
Men have been broken, I believe I think many of us have been broken once and by being broken we we understood how was powerful this love of God, the the light of Christ, the way he took care of us. And Paul is going to say I think later in this chapter or some other that with the the consolation they were.
Treated or.
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They could help brothers or something like that. I don't remember their verse now. But anyway, God uses people and God uses broken people because God used his broken sin to save us. Was not his whole son his perfect shape and and health? And no he was the one who went to the cross to be.
Broken there for for us and that that was the the way Satan lost the battle.
Not through a mighty warrior, but through a man nailed it to a cross.
And this will all be the way God will deal in this world with us and in this battle we are constantly in.
That is a very good point. I agree 100% but I think there's another truth being taught that doesn't doesn't discount what you're saying about Gideons vessels. Looking at the Old Testament, just like in the previous chapter, there was a a contrast between God's dealing with them under law are dealing now. One thing is that in the old economy in that most holy place, there was that veil that only the high priest could go into once a year and there was no natural light inside it. There was a lamp in the holy place.
But there's no natural light in that most holy place where no one could enter. And now we see the wonderful contrast that that veil is rent, not from bottom to top, but from top to bottom. And God brings us in, we come in that veil. As the writer of of Hebrews says, that was just shocking and incredible for believers under the law to say that you could go into the most holy place. But but the writer of Hebrews even says with boldness in Hebrews 10/19, we go into that rent veil and they're instead of darkness.
We have the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ and here is a wonderful contrast. Moses wanted to see the face of God and God said, no, you can't, but only see his back. And later on in Isaiah, Isaiah it was he was just overwhelmed by seeing just God's train, the train following him. He could barely bear that glory. But now here saved by grace were brought in this relationship where he actually had this wonderful light there in the most holy place were brought into it and there we actually see the glory of God.
Not in the back of God, but the very face of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I think this wonderful thought has brought out also that we have this relationship now and, and, and this ability to enjoy the presence of God beyond what the greatest Saints of the Old Testament did. We have a blessing here through the Holy Spirit and through the finished work of Christ that that all the great Saints of the Old Testament, we think of Daniel and Moses and and Isaiah and all of them, and yet the weakest believer filled with the Holy Spirit and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Has a place beyond them to enjoy the face of God and the presence of God.
It's good to see that in verse four that.
The God, the small G.
OD of this world that Satan has blinded the minds. It's not the heart, it's nor the conscience, it's the minds. It is significant that I still remember a number of years ago it did come out in in scientific circles that the theory of evolution was not a viable theory at all, but some.
Made the comment but there is no other explanation.
To the origin of the species. So that's what we'll have to continue to teach.
And they can, they just willfully. And that's what it is. It's the will that's involved in turning its back on the light of the truth of God. And it's because of that men are blinded in their minds. It's a question of the will they will not believe. Notice in Second Peter chapter 3 and verse.
Five, it says for this they willingly are ignorant of. It's the well involved. It's not that they cannot see, it's that they will not see and that that is an important point to keep in mind. And then just to notice in verse four as well, the way it puts it in the new translation. It's so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ who is the image of God should not shine forth to them.
So it is the glory of Christ that is manifested in the gospel. Isn't that wonderful, brother, in the tremendous glory that Bernie was talking about in the last meeting? And how can we ever exhaust the themes of all his glory? And that's what's going to attract people, and that's what Satan does not want people to see. And so through their wills.
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They are blinded how important it is that when we present the gospel, just to present it simply.
And let the light shine penetrate the darkness, because it's.
The verses that are used here are very interesting, he says. Verse five of Mario's commenting on it. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake. It's not a matter of who we are.
It's a matter of who he is. We preach Christ Jesus the Lord and then he says for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. And it's a reference to Genesis chapter one, when darkness enveloped the whole world, the whole creation, and God said let there be light in the light penetrated the darkness. So it seems when you preach the gospel sometimes to people that are lost that it seems a hopeless cause.
Preach simply the truth of God, and God can give that command to make the light penetrate the darkness.
And to me it is amazingly wonderful thing to see how often God gives that command and the light penetrates the darkness.
And people say, I see it now I understand what you're talking about. It makes so much difference when the light penetrates the darkness. What a wonderful thing it is, brethren, that we have this wonderful message of the gospel.
Like to comment because I think it's the essence of these two chapters and the central point of the two chapters, the expression in verse four, the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ. The glad tidings of the glory of the Christ.
In Psalm 8 we have the question raised, What is man that thou art mindful of him?
We look at the record of mankind.
And we see one who was created in the image and likeness of God in Adam.
Be a terrible dishonor to God, his Creator.
And so man in his sinful condition is looked at. What's man? God could righteously, justly have destroyed the human race without any work of redemption. He couldn't fulfill the demands of his own love and do that. But as far as righteousness is concerned, man.
Had dishonored God in what He was. He was placed over this creation to be God's overseer. He had been made in the very image and likeness of God as a triune person.
In three parts of his being and so on. As God is triune, he God is over all things. And so he had placed, created a world, and he says and created things on that world, and then he places man over it all.
For himself.
And man.
This man.
He ruins it.
He rises up in the disobedience of unbelief.
God chose.
To display what man?
Should be.
To His honor and to His glory.
By having his own son.
Become a man.
And.
He comes down into the condition for Him, the lowly condition of the very creatures that He created.
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An incredible.
Uncomprehensible really act that God would choose choose to take his own son, and the Son would say, here am I send me.
To come into the place of manhood.
And brethren, it's maybe we'll speak a little of it a little later, but.
When he did it, when he became a man.
He took man's place as a servant forever.
He's the Hebrew servant.
Who doesn't go out free? And He will serve you and I as a man for eternity. He comes down among mankind in that lowly place that He had taken.
Becoming obedient as man should be, even unto death.
And in that he glorifies God.
On the Earth.
And the majesty, the glory of God demands of God that he do absolutely everything to give that man the supreme place over all creation and beyond this world, over the angels, over all the spheres that God has ever created, that man is elevated to a place of honor and glory and majesty and power.
A man. It's the gospel, the glorious gospel, not of the Son, but of Christ.
Christ the Man, He is the Son, of course, but it's his place as man that's in view in these two chapters, and he's placed there in that supreme place.
And.
To the renewed heart of the believer without a veil on his face, when he sees the and he set free from himself, Why did the Pharisees and the Sadducees say crucify him?
Did they not know he was good and perfect man? Yes, they did. They couldn't find fault in him. They recognized. They envied him because of his perfection and the display of the perfection of the man. But sinful heart says me first. But the gospel of the glory and that which has been before us is to enter into it is to be completely set free from what we are.
As men.
To see truly what a man is in the person of the Son, and to be so filled with the pleasure of the greatness of that man that everything else has no place, is set aside, and the true liberty of the children of God is to be totally set free of themselves, to become so enraptured with the man in His glory.
And so God has.
As it says in Philippians 2 highly exalted him and given him a name which is about every name.
That everyone's going to bow to it, but here is for our hearts to see Him in that glory.
But before I stop, rather than I, I want to give a contrast.
It's very, very touching in my own heart this morning in the breaking of the bread.
And it's the very opposite of what we've just said.
It was an incredibly humbling thing for Jesus to.
To become a man.
And take a body.
When he took a body.
That is, He took humanity and all that humanity is as deity, as part of the Godhead He. He went down into something so lowly compared to the truth of His eternal person.
Here's the creator of all the universe, and then it's he says of it. I created myself a body, no.
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He says in the Psalm which was read and repeated in Romans, I mean Hebrews chapter 10, A body hast thou prepared me?
And so he comes down here, and he takes the servant's place in a body.
A body which he will carry for eternity now, which means he's going to stay in that lowly place.
This, these two chapters and Ephesians chapter one and chapter 2, when He's highly exalted and brought into His place of glory, what does he do? He takes you and I up with Him to share in it because of His love for us. And so we are brought out of our condition to be participators and identification with Him in this glory.
But to me it is very touching this morning to look at the emblems of which he says of himself. About these emblems he says this is my body which is given for you.
It wasn't even his choice, having taken the place as a man to do the will of his father, to do the will of God and perfection. He doesn't even say it as if I did it. He says this is my body, this is the place I have taken to be obedient even to death. And the one that to whom I do and live, He's chosen this. And this is my body which has been given for you.
This is my blood, my life, which has been shed for you.
Brethren, you and I had an immense privilege this morning.
As the days coming when we will be associated with Him in His glory.
This morning we had the privilege given of himself to be associated with him in his humility.
It's one of the greatest privileges you'll ever have in this world is the privilege of being associated as you were this morning and participating of those emblems.
That He desired that you take, and when you did, when you receive them in your heart from His hand, He was giving you the privilege of being associated with Him in in his humility, in His humbleness, and I would say as well as the glory, that humbleness will be His forever.
Tremendous thing.
That it's going into that death that makes the message such a glorious message.
We heard in Colossians that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead.
And in chapter 2 it says in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
It's just something that we accept scripture for what it says, but to comprehend that in a human body dwelled all the fullness of the Godhead.
And he stood before those chief priests, and they spit in his face.
The Roman soldiers took their fists and slammed them into his face.
As you said, Don, God would have been righteous and completely annihilating the human race. But that man was the image of the invisible God, and God is love. And if he would have annihilated the human race, it would not have been known that God is loved. It would have been known that God is righteous, yes, but now we know in a way that is unmistakable.
That God.
Is love. He stood there. He took it all. He took the most awful injustice of the condemnation of the death of the cross so that there could be salvation and blessing for us forever.
So much is said today to Christians, even stand up for your rights. You have rights as a Christian. Oh, brethren, here was the only one who truly had rights, and he did not insist on them. He took the injustice. And it's because of that that he is, that there is such a glory that has been manifested in the gospel and the preaching of the gospel.
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Displayed his glory in the Old Testament.
In creation.
Psalms tell us God has spoken to all mankind everywhere in creation, and he's displayed himself in a in glory, in majesty, in the immensity of the creation.
When I not when I before my day, but my grandparents day, the world, the whole universe was thought to be the Milky Way.
And it had its billions of stars. Now today they know there are billions of Milky Way sized parts of the universe. And who knows? Man will never reach the finite end of it. It'll keep expanding as his knowledge of it grows. So God has created it, presented himself to mankind with tremendous glory.
But it's an inadequate display. If I could say this about God, it's perfect in its character, but it sure doesn't.
Display the glory of His love. You can look at all the creation you want. You know, I can look at this microphone and say it's quite an invention of man, but it tells me absolutely nothing about the moral character, the people that designed it. For all I know, they're bad. For all I know they're good. I can't discern that from what I see. So it is with the creation.
God displayed further Himself in His relationship with Israel, in His Holiness, in His Majesty and His moral character.
But that's not a complete display of anything.
God has done something to fully display Himself.
In a way that's incomprehensible really, he's saying I have displayed the full character of what I am in a person, a man.
And my son.
All my majesty, all my glory.
As love and light is now to be seen in a person, a man.
It's an incredible thing that God has chosen to do, and he says I've done it.
Then he takes.
Dark hearts this room. Everyone in this room once had a dark heart.
Just like he spoke when this darkness was upon the face of the deep in Genesis One, He says let there be light and there was light. And in a way in the power of God to speak and make things be and happen.
God has so spoken concerning his Son that if I could put it this way, he said.
Let there be light in Bob's heart.
And so he shined the light into Bob's heart.
And then he placed into that heart the light of the knowledge of the glory of this person.
In that human vessel.
That's the treasure in this chapter.
Everyone of us, this is a room full of.
Treasure.
This is a room full of treasure, from God's perspective anyways. The richest people on the face of the earth are sitting in this room.
I've said it, probably people are tired of it, but it it stuck with me and I think God allowed it to me. I have spoken more than once to the richest man in the United States, Bill Gates.
And yet I would not trade one moment of what I have with what I can discern he has or doesn't have. And I don't know his heart. I know something, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not going to risk it. I wouldn't trade a moment of time for the treasure that I have, for the treasure that that man is perceived to have by his fellow man.
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In US is the treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in a man, Jesus Christ, and that treasure residing in the heart, fills that heart to worship forever and perfect satisfaction.
Let's live it.
Makes me think of one brother in Pakistan.
If he's still with us.
Called himself a suicide evangelist.
Because he goes in the mosque.
He tells them about Jesus.
There are many that are valuing the treasure.
Way above the vessel.
Thank God the vessels are earthen weak vessels.
You don't realize you're weak. May God help you to see it.
Because when you the vessel is seen and is weak, then the proper glory is given to God and not the vessel.
And that's what we want.
If our lives have the character that we want them to have, we want the glory to be the glory of God, not the glory of self. And when the treasure is in a weak earthen vessel that has to be sustained by the power of God, then God is given the glory, and that's what our hearts truly want.
The Apostle Paul was given an affliction. His vessel was weakened, and three times he said, Lord, please take it away.
And then the Lord answered him, My strength is made perfect in weakness. And then he was satisfied.
He recognized in the acceptance of it that the honor and the strength and the glory belong to the one that sustained him and used him in spite of his what he looked like or act whatever his affliction fully was but the consequence was glory to God and in that every one of us if we recognize were weak say thank you Lord.
So the vessel is expendable, but the treasure inside is the important thing. And so sometimes God breaks vessels so that the light can shine out. Just like to mention and what Don was mentioned in verse four of the light of the Gospel of the glory of the Christ.
And it's shining.
I think brethren never did the truth.
That God is light and God is love shine out so vividly.
As in the darkness of those three hours of darkness, when the Lord Jesus.
Cried my God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? And we need to stand there?
And to meditate on the implication of the.
Awfulness of that awful moment that was necessary for eternal redemption to be accomplished. But it was from that darkness that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ shines out.
Comment our times really, I guess about it up, but it says verse 10 always a bearing about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
We've talked about the treasure in us, but there's something else in his brethren that's brought out in this chapter, and that is Christ is our life.
And that life is himself. Our life is in US.
And because that life is in US, and because redemption has redeemed the body as well as the soul.
That we have a life in us that can never be lost. The outward vessel is expendable, but in God's sight we're not. He has placed his Son in us as our life. And that's important to him to the point where he says, and I'm going to have the spirit and the soul and the body change to be a perfect, eternal vessel of that life. And so you might have seen somebody in a casket. We saw some of us here, Brother Fred Gandras.
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Few weeks ago, lying his body in his casket. But when we see him again, because he has this life that's in this chapter, the life of Christ, when we see him again, we're going to see him in a state of a perfect spirit and soul and body and life. And the vessel will be that changed vessel of glory suited.
To the treasure that's in it.
To bear it forever, that's your destiny and that's mine.
36 In the back of the book hymn #36 in the appendix, we go to meet the Savior.
His glorious face to see hymn #36 in the appendix.
We go to meet the Savior.
Is for me as face to see.
What?
I'm done with this whole life.
They are.
Day today.
Of the Lord.
We pray.
Happy song.
And may I love bright soul.
Not say oh man, send them.
Gloria.
People are so scared.
Good joy.
And favor.
To the sinners and his time.
I fall.
Now Kings went blindness us from the ball to race and change our grief and sadness.
To song of joy and grace.
Gospel 9
Gospel—J. Bilisoly
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Good evening.
I wonder if we could begin the gospel meeting this evening by singing together #37 in our hem sheet.
#37.
The Gospel of my grace.
One or not some of the world.
He may feel so many songs.
That was so everywhere.
Good life and healing. So Jesus, I saw my cross.
Once I die in my dream.
For those of everywhere we live.
Everlasting life receiving some light.
Breathing.
The soul that's in the eyes.
Light upholding.
I heard I was.
Forever lost.
But for my gracious word.
If I grow so well in the world.
It shine our lives in my free sea shall have.
Sorrows came.
By God will my heart.
Salvation.
Through the same.
Right now the image shall well.
I see life receives out and.
We're going to ask God now for his help in this little time together.
Want to welcome everyone here tonight?
Maybe some of you are here because you received an invitation to the Gospel meeting, if that. If so, thank you for coming. I hope that you hear something and receive Christ tonight.
That is our desire. That is our prayer. A number of us were prior to this meeting were next door, on our knees looking to God our Father for mercy and grace to be extended to someone here in this room that might be in their sins. That is God's heart, what we have to tell you tonight.
Is not new. It's the old, old story of Jesus and his love. We believe that.
Man is a Sinner by nature and by practice. Each of us receive that sinful nature from Adam, and we also have practice sin. It says that there is none that doeth good, no, not one. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
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That doesn't exempt anyone in this room, but we also believe that God saw us in our condition.
And because of his love, he devised a plan.
In which he could take a poor Sinner like myself, and he could save us and make us fit for his presence, because God is holy and he cannot have sin in his presence. And he sent his Son the Lord Jesus to die on the cross. And the Lord Jesus took my sins upon himself, and he paid the penalty.
At the hands of a holy and a righteous God for each of my sins.
If you know Him as your Savior, you can say he died for me. He paid the price for my sins. It's our desire and our hope that if you haven't come to that point yet that we you would do so by the end of this meeting. Do do so now. Just call out quietly in your heart to God, say I'm a Sinner and I want your salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved for all eternity.
That's the gospel in a nutshell.
Now if you have a Bible, turn with me to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews Chapter 9. And I want to read just a part of a verse here. What I have on my heart, dear friend, tonight is to speak.
From the word once, just that simple word ONCE, and how it's used in Scripture. Sometimes it just means one time only. Other times it's used to give the sense that it was something that happened in the past. But I just want to look at some scriptures tonight together and see what God has to say to us.
Hebrews, Chapter 9.
And verse 27, I'm just going to read just a tiny.
Little segment of this verse, we're going to come back to Hebrews. So if you have something to mark your Bible at this point, that would be good.
It is appointed unto man once to die. I want to stop right there. It is appointed unto man wants to die.
I think we're all familiar with appointments. We make appointments, we try and keep appointments. Sometimes we have to change appointments, sometimes we have to cancel them altogether. But I want to tell you, dear friend tonight that this is an appointment that you cannot change.
You cannot alter this. You cannot say, well, I'm going to put this off to a more convenient time.
It is appointed unto man once to die. That's the result of sin that came into this world through Adam and Eve's fall that plunged the whole human race into sin. And because as I said, each of us have sinned God's, it says the wages of sin is death.
And it says in Ezekiel the soul that sinneth.
It shall die. And here's again we have the testimony of God's Word.
It is appointed unto men once to die.
You know, that is the the natural course of our lives. Now I mentioned earlier that we believe that the Lord Jesus is coming again.
To call those that are his out of this world, and that is our desire and that is our hope. The apostle Paul could speak of that event in the book of Titus as a blessed hope, and it is a tremendous thought to think that perhaps.
Before this hour is up, we're going to be ushered into the presence of the Lord Jesus. Those of us that have been washed, our sins have been washed away in His precious blood. What about you tonight? That is the question that I want to put before you.
If your appointment with death were to happen before this hour was up, where would you be?
Where would you be?
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Not everyone exits this world.
After a long illness or a long life?
We only have to walk in any cemetery and look at the dates of birth and death to see that this.
Thing this curse, you might say, that has come as a result of sin, stalks every man, and man cannot.
Escape it.
It is appointed unto men once to die.
You know, I was reading recently about a man that his name will be familiar to many of you.
Steve Jobs He was the co-founder of the Apple computer company, which he and a friend whose name was also Steve. They started this company in 1976 in the garage of Steve Jobs parents.
They called it and then a year later in 1977, they created a, what have some, some have said was the first personal computer, commercial available computer that you could buy and they called it Apple two.
And what was interesting to me in this little.
Report I was reading about this is.
They sold this computer.
For $666.66.
Now, I don't know what comes to your mind, but what comes to my mind is what we have in Revelation 13.
When the apostle John is describing to us a man that is going to arise in a coming day after the rapture of the Lord, coming and snatching out of this world those that are his that have been redeemed by His precious blood, there's going to be a man that is going to arise on this scene eventually.
And he is sometimes called the Antichrist, and it describes him, and this is what it says.
About that number Revelation 1318. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast.
He's also called the religious beast. Sometimes we refer to him that way for it is the number of a man and his number is 603 score which would be 66166. The number of the man. This is the the number of the beast. This man that's called the Antichrist.
Well, I don't know. I can't judge exactly what their intent was, but that's what they sold their first computers for.
A number of years later, in 2004, Mr. Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. The tumor was found on his pancreas.
And at the time he was told that it was incurable.
But when they actually went in and did a biopsy and were able to get a few cells and look at them, they found that it was a curable form of cancer. And of course, Mr. Jobs was under sedation when they were doing all of that, but his wife told him later who was in the room, she said when the doctor, the pathologist, looked at.
Your cells under the microscope. He started to cry.
Because he discovered that this was a treatable form of cancer and so he went through this treatment.
And he got better.
A year later, he was giving a commencement speech to the students at Stanford University. And this is a quote that he said, Remember, we read it is appointed unto men once to die.
This is his quote. No one wants to die and yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. UN quote.
Well, you know, he, he, he arrived at a true conclusion. No one has escaped this. It's the the lot of man that is a Sinner because the wages God is faithful, the wages of sin is death. He's told us that in his word.
00:15:08
Well, he lived for a while, for six more years.
And then at the age of 56.
In 2011, he died.
I don't know where he is tonight. His soul and his spirit, I don't know.
But.
You can know. You can know with assurance where you are headed if you should have to meet that appointment with death.
I'll mention another man.
Perhaps many will remember the astronaut Neil Armstrong.
This man was one of few that.
Have the responsibility, the mission of going to the moon.
239,000 miles away from Earth, they traveled in Apollo 2 to get to the moon.
And he was the first one to step out of the spacecraft and to put his imprint onto the surface of the moon.
And this is what NASA said. They said he was the first human to set foot on a celestial body beyond Earth.
But what I found interesting in the little article was what he said about it. Just think of all the millions of dollars, perhaps in the billions, I don't know, that were spent to accomplish this feat of putting men on the moon.
And after it was all over, this is what the astronaut Neil Armstrong said about it.
Of this accomplishment of reaching the moon.
And stepping onto it.
He said it was an interesting place to be and I recommend it.
That was his comment. An interesting place to be and I recommend it.
Well, dear ones, tonight you know there's a lot of places I would like to go.
But the moon is not on my list.
I don't know about you tonight, but I cannot think of a a more dismal place to go.
And what did they find? They found nothing to sustain life.
Oh, I can only imagine how relieved they must have been to have gotten back to this sphere that we call Earth and had to have set foot on this Earth.
And I just bring this up because here is 2 men, one who you might say had everything going for him. He had riches, he had fame.
He had a company that he had founded. He introduced tools that you and I used today, computer tools.
But I don't know where he is.
This other man, Neil Armstrong.
He's also famous for the statement that he made as he stepped onto the moon, he said. That's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.
But you know what has it done?
Traveling 239,000 miles into space to get to the moon. Has it brought man any closer today to God and to dealing with this question of it is appointed unto men wants to die? I don't believe so.
I think it's made man more arrogant, more independent.
Feeling that he can do without God.
How foolish.
Mr. Armstrong lived to be pretty old. He lived to be 82 years, but then he died.
He died at the age of 82 and in 2012 and then he was cremated.
I don't know where he's at.
All he could say of his accomplishment was an interesting place to be, and I recommend it.
00:20:05
Well, and now I hear there's even some doubts as to whether we went to the moon. I, I don't know. I'm not going to get into that. There's all kinds of conspiracy theories.
About that. But anyway, the point that I want to make is that it doesn't matter what station you are in life.
You cannot avoid this appointment and accept the coming of the Lord comes and intervenes before eventually you're going to be making this appointment with death. Now let's read the rest of the verse.
I'll read it again. It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. That's serious. But after this the judgment. Death is not the end of things. Dear. 1:00 tonight.
If you have been led to believe that death is the end of everything, you're wrong. The Word of God is clear.
It's appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.
And what is so solemn to me is that the very one who right now is standing without stretched arms, as it were, saying, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. That same one is going to be your judge. If you do not receive him as your Savior, then you will see him.
As your judge, it says in John's Gospel chapter 5.
That the Father judgeth no man, Speaking of God the Father, but hath committed all judgment.
Unto the sun.
And then it says also in Acts chapter 17, when Paul is speaking to those on Mars Hill, the Athenians that were in that area, he's up on Mars Hill and he's speaking to them, he's preaching, and he says this.
Verse 31 He God, hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness.
By that man whom he hath ordained, Speaking of the Lord Jesus, dear 1:00 tonight.
Whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
God has committed all judgment to the Son, and you either accept Him as your Savior or you see Him in a coming day as your judge. And if you die before you accept Him as your Savior, there's going to be an event that takes place in which he this very one.
Who hung on Calvary's cross is going to be seated on a great white throne.
And you are going to stand before him. He won't be there as a savior.
With arms outstretched, saying, Come unto me, He will look at the record of your life, and if your name is not written in the Lamb's book of life, you will be cast into a place of outer darkness, separation eternally from God, from everything that you might think of in this life as pleasant, you will be separated.
From everything.
For all eternity, I cannot think of a more awful fate.
Oh, we plead with you tonight, do not put it off. You don't know how long you have. Each of our days are numbered, and we're told to, because our days are numbered, to apply our hearts unto wisdom. Wouldn't it be wise to see your condition before a holy and a righteous God is a Sinner and simply trust God at His Word?
To believe that the Lord Jesus died on Calvary's cross.
And that you can have salvation through his work, though I trust that you will. That will be your decision tonight.
Now let's turn to first Peter.
Chapter 3.
First Peter chapter 3 and verse 18 tells us For Christ also hath once suffered for sins.
00:25:03
The just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.
Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust dear ones.
The Lord Jesus has completed the work.
After the work was done in those hours of darkness, as he hung upon Calvary's cross, and a holy and a righteous God poured out his wrath upon that blessed One who was sinless, who had done no sin.
But bore our sins, God poured his wrath upon him. And when that was finished.
He could say triumphantly, It is finished, the work was done. And then it tells us that he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. He dismissed his spirit. He had power to lay down his life. He told us in John's Gospel, The work was finished. Christ hath once suffered for sins.
He's only done this work once, it's never going to be.
Performed again, the work that the Lord Jesus did is sufficient.
Every person in this world to be saved. Just think of that. What a mighty work. The work that he did is sufficient for you tonight if you're still in your sins.
There's room still for you.
Once suffered for sins.
If you won't accept.
What God has done through his Son. What God has offered.
If you cannot accept this.
If this isn't good enough for you.
This work that Christ has done, I don't know what else can be offered to you. There is nothing else.
This is God's offer to you, that Christ, his Son hath suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.
That he might bring us to God. Do you want to be in the presence of God? Do you want to be when you leave this scene, whether the Lord comes or in death, do you want to be ushered into his presence?
It's only through the work of Calvary Cross that that can happen.
Christ hath once suffered for sense the work has been done.
We have a lot in scripture that compares.
That which God's earthly people, Israel, were under and what we have in Christianity. And I don't want to spend a lot of time, but I just want to touch on a verse or two in Hebrews concerning that.
So Hebrews Chapter 7.
And it tells us here.
Concerning the Lord Jesus.
It says.
Wherefore in verse 25 he is able also to save them to the uttermost.
That come unto God by him.
Seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
For such an high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.
And now here's our our word that we're looking for in verse 27. Who needeth not daily as those high priests. He's comparing the writer here is comparing what happened under when Israel was on this earth and as God's earthly people, they still are. But when when God was dealing with them, they had a system of priests and sacrifices and so on.
Which as was mentioned earlier today.
It didn't please God, these sacrifices, but it appeased him. We might say didn't please him, but it appeased him. It was a pointing to a future time when the Lord would come and he would lay down his life. God could wait for that time. So these sacrifices were used to temporarily as it were, cover them.
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Until the Lord Jesus came and did that work on Calvary's cross, who needed not daily as those high priests, to OfferUp sacrifice.
First for his own sins and then for the peoples. For this He did once when he offered up himself. The Lord Jesus only offered himself up once.
He's not going to.
Become an offering for sin again. The work has been completed and God is eternally satisfied. He's delighted in His Son and He's satisfied with the work that He has done.
Turn over a few chapters to the 9th chapter of Hebrews where we began this meeting.
And we're told.
That Christ in verse 24 is not entered into holy places made with hands.
Which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.
Though yet that he should offer himself often as a high priest in Earth, into the holy place every year with the blood of others.
For then must he often.
Have suffered since the foundation of the world. Now here's our word again. But now once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And then that verse that we read, And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, 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.
The work is done, dear one. That's the point.
Don't think that there's anything else. There is nothing else that God will accept. God will only accept the work that his Son has done on your behalf. And you must come God's way if you're going to come at all. Though I hope, I hope you won't leave this room thinking that you can make it on your own. You can do something to.
Appease God. You can do something to satisfy a holy and righteous God. No, you must accept God it God's way.
Are you trying to? Is there anyone here that would be trying to establish their own righteousness?
To try to make yourself fit for God, you can't do it.
You can't do it.
You know, it's kind of like.
Washing a car. We have a van and like any other car, our car gets dirty.
And I kind of like to go out and wash it when it gets dirty. I don't know, it's just something I find kind of therapeutic. But I, I'll wash the car and get it looking nice. But you know what? It doesn't last that long. And sometimes my wife Carmen will say to me, well, Hon, I, I just hate to see you spend so much time on it because it's going to look dirty again pretty quick.
And she's right, it does.
Well, you know, if you're trying to workout something, your own righteousness before God to make yourself fit, you're just like that car.
You go through whatever you go through and you say, OK, now I'm I'm ready, I'm fit for God. But no, you get dirty again.
It's not going to work.
There's nothing that you can do to make yourself fit for God. All the works been done for you, you just need to accept what God has provided.
Doesn't matter how many times I clean that car, eventually it gets dirty again.
It doesn't matter how many times you try to clean up your life, you're going to get dirty again because you have a nature within.
That is a sinful nature.
When you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, that doesn't mean that you never sin again, because unfortunately, as long as we're in this world, we still have that sinful nature within us. But when you believe the Lord Jesus and accept Him as your Savior, when you believe God's gospel of His grace, you have a new life imparted to you and you now have a nature.
That delights to please God. That's the difference.
And with his help, you can walk in a way and live in a way that's honoring and pleasing to him. What a wonderful provision he has made.
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You know it says in Jeremiah chapter 2, for though thou wash thee with neither.
And take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord.
God, you know you can scrub yourself up, get all clean, but it doesn't last for long, does it? Pretty soon you have to repeat it.
And what this verse is saying is that it doesn't matter how thoroughly you scrub and Polish.
And look nice.
Yet thine iniquity is marked before me.
The Apostle Peter put it this way.
In the end of the.
In in Second Peter chapter two he says it this way.
He's talking about those that were coming in among the believers that were false. They weren't real. They were false teachers, he calls them, and they were bringing in things that were undermined and taking away the the hope and the joy of the Saints there these believers. And he says of these that were doing that, he says, but it happened unto them. The last verse, verse 22, according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to.
Vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. I think we can understand the picture that Peter is painting here.
You know, a dog vomits up something food and then it, what does it do? And I've seen it, you probably have too. It turns and eats it again and say, oh, that's awful. That's how bad this sinful nature is that we have. You take a pig or a sow, it's called here, and you scrub it all up and you set it out in the pig pen. What does it do?
It has a nature that wants to go right back to that wallowing in the mud, because that's what a pig loves to do.
And so you can clean the mall up, set them up out. Are they going to stay away from that mud? No, they're going to get right back into it.
So Peter uses these two examples. You might say the vomit coming out of the dog is that filthiness, that uncleanness within. You may look good on the outside. You might look respectable tonight, and I think you do. As I look around the room, I don't see anyone that looks dressed despicably. Everyone looks nice and clean. But on the inside, there's that uncleanness if you don't have the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
And the pig that's wallowing in the mire.
That might speak of the uncleanness on the outside, doing those things that the old nature, that awful nature, that sinful nature within us loves to do, just like the pig loves the mud. By nature we love to do things that are dishonouring to God, things that we call sin, that God calls sin. We have that uncleanness within.
And that uncleanness without.
Like the dog and the pig.
You know, Job was a man that labored to show that he was righteous, to establish his own righteousness. God had already said at the beginning of that book of Job that he was a righteous man. But Job's problem was that when things began to happen to him that were not nice things.
He began to question God as to why these things would be allowed, being allowed, and he began to try and establish that he was righteous and his friends that thought that they were helping him, they only aggravated him and made him angry and Job lashes out at them. Let's just look at a verse in Job chapter 33 because you know you go through all of this.
There's a number of chapters in the book of Job and you read.
About how these friends kept bringing before him his faults and so on. And Job was getting angry and he would come back and he would try and say you're, you're not right. You're, you're not being fair. I'm a righteous person basically is what Joe was saying. Finally, the Lord raises up a man who was younger. So he waited. He was younger than the others that were speaking to Job. And his name was Elihu.
And he says this, he said, why does thou strive against him? He's talking to Job, and he says, why are you striving against God?
For he giveth not account of any of his matters.
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You know, God does not owe an explanation to anyone of us for anything he does in our lives. God is a sovereign God and God in his infinite wisdom and his sovereignty allows what he allows in our lives. And who are we to say or to question why he's allowing that? That was that's what Job was doing. And so Elihu is very direct and says, why dost thou strive against him? For he giveth not account of any of his matters.
And then he says this. Here's our word again, for God speaketh once.
Do you feel like God might be speaking to you tonight?
God speaketh once. I don't know how many times God will have to speak to you.
If you're in your sins tonight.
He may in his mercy speak again. It says in this verse God speaketh once. Yeah, twice.
Yet man perceiveth it not.
Sometimes he speaks in a dream, It goes on to say in a dream, in a vision of the night, when sleep falleth upon man and slumberings upon his bed. Then he opened up the ears of man, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw a man from his purpose and hide pride from him.
What a merciful God. He speaks once, He often in his mercy, speaks twice.
I don't know how many times he will speak in your case, far better it would be.
For you this very night to accept God's plan of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Job finally comes to the point.
After the Lord begins speaking directly to Him.
Joe comes to the point in the 40th chapter where he says.
In verse 3 then Job answered the Lord and said, Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer. Yeah, twice.
But I will proceed no further.
Dear 1:00 tonight.
I hope you will come to the point like Job, instead of trying to establish your own righteousness, you will acknowledge before God that you are a Sinner and that you need His salvation.
Through the Lord Jesus Christ, do not try and reason with God concerning this matter.
Do like job say I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. I will proceed no further.
Well, our time is about.
But I just wanted to end tonight with a warning.
And let's go back to Hebrews chapter 6.
You know God's patience does and can run out.
God is so long-suffering, not willing that any should perish.
But there comes a time when a line can be crossed.
And God will no longer.
Speak.
So it says in this chapter, which is a very serious thing. Here it says in verse 4, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened.
You know, each time you hear the Gospel, dear one, tonight you are more responsible than before before a holy and a righteous God.
And this verse tells me that these were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they should fall away, to renew them again unto repentance. Some of us that were here this morning.
Heard a message concerning repentance.
And the brother that was speaking to us had a twisted piece of a tree that should have been straight if it was growing right, but the branch had twisted. And he said that's like a picture of repentance. And that's what repentance is. It's a turning around from the course that you are on if you are in your sins tonight and you feel that you are good enough.
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We would plead with you tonight. You need to repent. You need to turn again from the course that you are on. Believe God.
And turn and come to the Lord Jesus.
Receive salvation from him.
It is impossible for those who are once enlightened.
And have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.
And have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away to renew them again. I don't know if you have crossed the line tonight.
But I do know that you are sitting here under the sound of the gospel and God.
Its invitation is going forth. Whosoever will may come.
I want to close with a verse or two in the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 13.
Luke, chapter 13.
It says in verse 24.
Strive to enter in at the straight gate for many I send to you will seek to enter in and shall not be able.
Verse 25 is very solemn to me. Listen carefully.
Here's the word once again.
When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye began to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not. When she are then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunken thy presence, and thou hast taught in and hast, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I know, I tell you.
I know you not. When she are depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A very solemn portion of the Word of God.
God is offering you a way of salvation tonight through the Lord Jesus.
The door, he could say, I am the door.
And he wants you to come through him for salvation, to enter into God's salvation through the door.
But there is a time coming.
When the door is going to be shut. What a solemn moment that will be. Don't wait. Don't put it off. Another moment. You might be too late. You might have to make that appointment. It is appointed unto men wants to die. Or you may not get another opportunity. Don't put it off, dear friend.
The door is open right now. The Lord Jesus is standing there waiting to receive you.
You come to him and all your sins will be completely washed away, your past sins.
Anything in the future will have been dealt with. He has, he knows.
And he promises to wash our sins away. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. It says in first John one verse 7.
My wife and I have had the privilege of visiting a brother in the Lord in the prison system in Colorado.
And I will remember the first time we went there and how they had us go into a room with other people that were going to visit some of the inmates there in the prison system and this huge door behind us.
Shut electric door behind us shut. And then they opened another door and let us in there. And then that door shut. And I thought to myself, you know, we are trapped in here. We cannot get out unless they let us out. There is no way we can get out of this confinement that we are in. And I could have gone and pounded on those doors. I could have grabbed a hold of them and tried to force them open and it would have been.
Worthless. Futile. Impossible.
They were big, massive.
Doors and when they were shut, they were shut.
You know, I'll have to admit that when the time came to walk out of those doors into the open air again.
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I felt this relief come over me. I'm out. I'm out from that enclosure. Well, dear ones, that's a feeble illustration of the awfulness of that door of salvation being forever closed to you. God wants you to come his way. You must come his way.
For salvation.
I'm going to pray and then I would like for us to stand and sing a hymn together. But let's first close the meeting with prayer.
I'd like to have a stand and sing number six together.
Hymn number six on the front of our hymn sheets.
Someone could raise the tune.
In.
To.
Jesus Christ was Gracie.
Was.
Forcing his heart.
Boring.
Grace.
Shining of Savior saves Holy Spirit.
God is light and God is love.
This is him and down.
Supreme delight.
Glory.
Of our grace.
Shining in love savers.
From Allah.
God is.
And God is love.
Ly.
Our lives seem like racing. Oh, Christians.
Every need to help us out.
In our grace.
United.
Space.
Totally savers.
And God is love.
Come again?
He will suffer once will reign.
Every time.
At last.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Glory.
Of grace.
Shining.
A savior says.
Toys.
And God is.
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On.
2 Corinthians 4
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.
33.
Heart, the choirs of angels crying.
Tribute to the Savior's name.
Before who gets like my sibling?
Higher things to you.
Long way, then hear the joy of heaven.
Crazy heaven.
Love sing song.
Do you love God?
Praise the sky.
He'll be Los Angeles.
So to be above.
Sweet love, free salvation.
Fruit of heaven lasting.
Power and blessing.
Before.
Ever to the land.
That's great.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4 suggests we begin with.
Verse 7.
2nd Corinthians chapter 4, beginning at verse 7.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
That the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us, We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We have the same spirit of faith according as it is written. I believed, and therefore have I spoken.
We also believe, and therefore speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many, redone to the glory of God.
For which 'cause we feigned not, but though our outward man perish.
Yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us, are far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal.
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But the things which are not seen are eternal.
In the first address of the conference Saturday morning.
First Timothy 6.
Was read.
In two different places where the apostle Paul was encouraging and exhorting Timothy to lay hold.
On eternal life.
To practically enter in in Timothy's life to what it means to live out a life that had been given to him already, eternal life. What we have in the end of this chapter is the Apostle Paul personally expressing what it is that he was experiencing.
In laying hold of eternal life, he speaks of it in connection with His ministry given of the Lord to him. And yet what it presents to us is a picture of a person who truly is laid hold, of what it means to lay hold of eternal life right here and now as we live.
And so he speaks of a treasure as we started in an earthen vessel, but then he speaks of the power of his life. And where is the power? It's the power of God.
In the life that he speaks of later on, which is eternal life, the life of Christ in him. And so what's the power to lay hold of eternal life and live it out?
It's not my power, it's not your power. It's the power of God by the Spirit. And so in it it's not.
The vessel.
Naturally speaking, some vessels are strong and some are weak, but in the sense that's brought out in this chapter, everyone's got a weak vessel. There aren't any exceptions to that. There are no strong vessels in this room.
There are just weak vessels when we come to carrying the treasure and living out the life of Christ, which is in us. So he recognizes the ministry that he had created difficulties for him. He didn't try to have a little Millennium on earth while he waited for the Lord to come and bring him into even better circumstances. But as a Christian, it's not hard to do that, to kind of try to surround ourselves with all the comforts that we can.
And get through life with his least difficulty as we can, but as much happiness and quietness and peace as we can while we wait for something better. But that wasn't Pauls calling, and it's not yours and mine either. But to fulfill the place that God has given us, we are going to get into situations for the Lord and in natural life which are difficult.
So then he goes on and says we're troubled on every side.
But not distressed. Why wasn't he distressed?
Because God was with him.
That's part of their life. That's part of the realization of the life. Yes, there was this trouble, but the vessel had power. It had God with it, he says. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Some things were difficult to figure out how to deal with. They were hard problems that he had to deal with and all the circumstances through which he passed in his life.
But he said we're not in despair. How can you be in despair with God, with you? And he had that conscious sense that God was with him. He says we're persecuted.
But was he forsaken? No. God was with him, and so he had God with him. That's pretty good answer to being persecuted, he said. We're cast down, but we're not destroyed. Well, why wasn't he destroyed? Because all the power of God was on his side to sustain him.
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And what God had for him to do and tell his work was completed.
And so it is the laying hold of eternal life is to practically enter into the truth in everyday life, in everyday circumstances, and in the persecution that comes for all that live godly in Christ Jesus is to say, God's with me.
So versus 8:00 and 9:00, we might say are the breaking of the earthen vessel so that it will be evident that the powers of God and not of us.
Yesterday our brother referred to Gideon and Gideon blew the trumpet and he had an army of 32,000 men and God said I cannot give Israel the victory with 32,000. They will boast that they did it.
And that's our problem, brother, And there's a tendency on our part to think that we did it.
So he told all those that were afraid to go home.
22,000 went home, that's reducing your army quite a dramatically. But he still had 10,000 and the Lord says I still can't use 10,000. You're still going to boast.
Bring them down to the water, that I approve. I might prove them. And when the test was over, only 300 men remained. And it seemed folly because it was the myriads of the Midianites. He was going to go against 300 people, against the myriads of the Midianites. Midianites, brethren, that's the lesson we have to learn, the Excellency of the power.
Is of God and not of us, and I must say in observing.
The Lord working in different countries that I've traveled to, it is amazing to me to see this principle worked out. God uses vessels often times that are broken in one way or another, impaired. Why does He do that? So that we might realize the Excellency of the power is of God and not of us. Oh, what a tremendous lesson to learn.
Just like to mention here in our chapter 2 I'm sure.
We probably got it yesterday in the reading, but.
The treasure that's mentioned in verse 7 is what we have in verse six. Notice it. Just to put it out in front there. What is the treasure that we have in these earthen vessels? It is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face.
Of Jesus Christ.
O brethren, we know God.
In all the infiniteness of his being.
We don't know that much, but we do know God. And the full revelation of all that God has been, that all that God is, has been given to us in the person of the Lord Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God. Oh, what a tremendous thing to meditate on, that God has made himself known.
And now we.
Have been brought into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
I don't know brother Don, if you would mind commenting on why it says in the face of Jesus Christ?
I don't have a specific bug.
I don't know that I do either, brethren, but maybe someone else does.
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Only this that it was that face that was more marred than any mass.
It was that face that was spat into by the high priest.
Was that face?
That was.
Hit by those Roman soldiers.
In that face shines all the glory of God.
Oh brethren, what a thing, What a wonderful thing to realize that we've been brought into the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Beings the.
Part of us that reflects what we are is seen in our face, particularly in our eyes.
We when we look upon each other, that which most expresses what's there is seen in the face, and when we see the Lord Jesus, and as Bob says, even in his body, the marks that are there, it is that which.
Expresses to our hearts, more than anything else, the person and.
It's not the same point, but it's it's worth remembering when you and I get to heaven and we look at each other and.
Both our whole body. There will be absolutely nothing to be seen that would ever remind us that sin ever existed, and in the end, the creation itself. There will be nothing in the new creation on heaven and earth that will give any evidence that there ever had been such a thing as sin.
Except one.
The Lord Jesus will bear forever in his side, in his hands and his feet.
The marks of the cross. And that will be the one and only memory that we will ever have, that there was ever creation. But it will be a memory which is not exactly a memory. Then it will be forever fresh in our souls what he did.
Connecting the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ with the Revelation, chapter 20.
I.
Revelation chapter 20.
And a verse 11.
Said I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it.
From whose face the earth?
And the heaven?
Fled away the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And that connection? Exodus chapter 33.
And verse 20.
And contrast our portion with what God said to Moses.
Exodus 33 verse 20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.
We occupy a position before God better than Moses.
There's also another aspect of seeing his face that is throughout Scripture, and that is this.
In the Word of God, sometimes you have instances in the Old Testament particularly.
Where two people did not have a proper happy relationship with each other and so there was the time when Samuel and Saul parted not to see one another's face again.
There was a time when one of David's sons was in a position which, if you will, he could not see his father's face. That is, seeing a face was a statement of acceptance.
00:20:11
And favor. And if a person was not allowed to see another face to face, it showed some reason for the separation and the displeasure. And yet for us in chapter 20 of Revelation was read, and I'll just read it without our turning to it in chapter 22. And the contrast to the fleeing away in judgment.
From his face in 22 four, it says, and they shall see his face. It's an expression of eternal acceptance and favor in the presence of a person. And that's our joy. That's our anticipation. We we will see him face to face, not only to rejoice in what we see, but it's an expression of being in his favor forever.
Same person the thought too of.
Intimacy and approach. When you're speaking with someone face to face, you're in close proximity to one another. And you and I are not going to just be lost in a throng of other believers, But we're going to have each one of us, that personal approach to the Lord Jesus, and we're going to see the radiance of love towards us from His face.
Verse ten of our chapter.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
This is not atonement.
This is not specifically, as in Romans 6, dying with Christ. It's not exactly the thought here, but it is.
The Lord Jesus.
As a man here on earth, in his body.
In his life, as in manhood, we can view him dying.
We can see that in the his path of life here he it ended in death.
And we trace that.
But then we recognize that.
As far as this world for him as as in that life.
It's over. There will never be repeated. That life will not. That life that he came into this world with, He lived here, He died here in that life, and that life will never be seen again. It's done.
But on the third day, he rose from the dead.
In a new relationship with us, and in fact the chapter after this one that we won't get to speaks about. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.
And brings us into the life relationship that when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he rose in the power of eternal never lose lost life.
And so he lives to die no more, and he is part of a new race, a new creation, and that's the life that he wants our lives to show. So he says that Christ might be manifest in our body. The life of Christ that is. It's the life and resurrection that he now has that he has imparted to us.
That or that I should really say, we share with him. There's really only one eternal life, every one of us in natural lives. There's as many natural lives as there are people in this room, but in truth, there's only one eternal life.
00:25:00
And you and I participate in, we share in that life, the life that we have in this room in Christ never had a beginning.
It was imparted to us to share in it when we accepted, when we were born again, but that wasn't the beginning of that life that we got that life.
We participate in eternity, really in the life that we have, because it is the life of Christ. Turn over to a Colossians chapter 3.
And this is the life where to display in our mortal flesh.
Colossians, chapter 3.
Verse 3 for your dad that is we're like dead to the old Adam life.
And your life is hid with Christ, in God, when Christ, who is our life?
The very life of Christ is in US.
And.
It displays itself in the measure in which that old life is put in the place of death.
So that we don't try to live 2 lives in that way. And so he's saying, and this is laying hold of eternal life. This is the practical laying hold of eternal life in that.
When I look at you this morning and you look at me this morning.
Do I see in you the life of Christ on display?
If the apostle Paul had been in this room this morning and we looked at Paul and the character of what he said and how he acted and what motivated him here this morning, we would be seeing the life of Christ.
Displayed to us. He laid hold of it.
That's what Paul wants. That's what the Lord Jesus wants us to lay hold of as well.
So it's life and resurrection, and as was mentioned before.
Death is behind us.
And the life we have is the life that cannot ever die. It is life in resurrection. And that's why in both verses 10 and 11 you will find that dying comes first and then living, or the life comes afterwards. That's the order in new creation.
Out of death has come resurrection, of course, the Lord Jesus, but ourselves as well. And it's interesting, if you look closely at verses 10 and 11, they're quite similar. Going to read them just together. So you notice it, brethren, that there is a difference.
Verse 10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest.
In our body verse 11 For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest. And here it says in our mortal flesh.
So it seems to be, brethren, that verse 10 is the norm of Christian life.
That we should always bear about in our bodies the dying.
Of the Lord Jesus, like our brother said, it is recognizing that we are dead to sin. If I give in my life opportunity to my members to live in a fleshly way, are you going to see in me that life of Christ? No, you say that's fleshly.
It's only in the measure that I bear about in my body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that you are going to see the life of Jesus.
00:30:04
Manifests in me. But sometimes, brethren, we don't put it into practical effect like our brother is saying, we don't lay hold of eternal life. And so verse 11 is a little different. It seems to be something that is outside of our control. It says we which live are always delivered unto death.
We hear about people that have cancer. Did they go looking for that cancer? No, they were delivered to it. Why does God allow that?
Why does he allow sickness and sorrow and problems?
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. There it adds that word mortal, because this flesh is mortal. But oh brethren, God's purpose is that that treasure would shine out in this Dark World. And so if we don't put into effect this what we have in verse 10.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies.
Then God may, in his ways with us, allow us to be delivered to circumstances.
That we did not want, we did not look for, were delivered to it. What's the purpose? That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in this mortal flesh.
I would ask if we met Paul today, would we?
See Jesus in him.
Perhaps we would.
And I say that because in one in this chapter we see that there is a kind of.
It talks much about dying the the verse verse seven talks about earthen vessels and then.
Versus 10 always bearing about in the body of the dying of the Lord Jesus.
Verse 11 For we which leave are always delivered into death.
Where Jesus say and then talks about our mortal flesh in verse 11 at the end of the of verse 11 and then.
12 death worked in US and then.
I think is.
I I.
There's some some other verse here that talks about death too and can't find now. But anyway this is all talking about Paul ministry. The chapter 3 and chapter 4 are talking about his ministry and we we see how radical it comes when we go to to chapter 5, the first verse in chapter 5, it does not say only about dying.
It talks about the solving.
Verse one For we know that if our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and a House of not made with hands eternal in the heavens. This will be future future. But what was going on with Paul? Would we see or not Christ in him?
There is a verse I think Galatians.
Chapter 4.
1St.
12.
Brethren, I beseech, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as you are. You have not injured me at all. You know how through infirmity of the flesh, I preach in the gospel unto you at the 1St. And my temptation, which was in my flesh, you despise not nor rejected, but received me as an Angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
The way He talks here, it seems that would be some that would reject him for His appearance, His countenance. And then in verse 15 he says something that can perhaps give us a hint of what was going on with Him. Where is then the blessedness you speak of? For I bear your record that if it had been possible, you would have plotted out your own eyes.
00:35:26
And have given them to me.
Another verse he says, see how great letters I write to you or something. So some some suggest that Paul had an infirmity that appeared like repulsive to anyone who would look at him, perhaps something in his eyes and that could be connected with the the the foreign in his flesh that made him perhaps.
Just thinking about this, that made him someone not very pleasant to look at.
But for those who were looking for Christ in him, they would see.
Pricing him, they would not stop just looking at his countenance, his appearance, his exterior appearance, and would see Christ in him and in some way God also breaks the vessel, cracks the vessel.
Gives a thorn in the flesh does something that can take us from the way when we ministry.
Christ to someone if I want to introduce.
Bob to a friend. I would come to this friend and would come to Bob. Hey Bob, come see somebody I want you to know. And then when we get close, I would step away, step aside so Bob could be in front of that person. And this is ministry. We take people to Christ and we step aside.
And we have nothing that could call attention upon us but put the person front to before Christ, looking at Christ, and we stepping aside. Sometimes God has to do something in us to make us bad looking, let's say, so people will not.
Have anything He knows that that's pleasant and we'll look at Christ that everything begins with that. Even in this ministry, in our ministry, when we go to Galatians, even in this book of Galatians, this ladder of Galatians, we see that the crucified word appears, I think 5 * 4 or five times and starts with Christ being crucified.
Then I am crucified with Christ.
And then my flesh, I think, is crucified, where I am crucified for my friend.
Flesh. And then I am crucified to the world. The world is crucified to me. So in all, in all, in every aspect of the Christian life and testimony and ministry, there is death. It begins in that. But then one day our body will be dissolved.
And then we will have the reality that now is just hidden by this and that in our lives. But then we will have the reality that will be the Chapter 5 we are not going through now.
It's interesting, brother, and it's not a pleasant thing to have the vessel broken.
And God only knows, because everyone's different, how much that has to happen. But the purpose, if we can only catch this, the purpose is that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ can shine out.
Through the cracks or through the broken vessel, just like Gideon, he had to break the vessel so that the light would shine out, and it was through. That means that there was a tremendous victory gained not by his own power, but by the power of God, because as we have here the Excellency of the powers of God and not of us.
I appreciate the.
I comments that this was the apostles ministry but to me it is interesting brethren that the apostle is the example and all through these two chapters we have him saying we notice the end of.
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Chapter 3 we all with unveiled face and verse five of our chapter we preach not ourselves.
And verse seven, we have this treasure in earthen vessel, that the Excellency of the power might be of God and not of us. And verse 11.
We which live in verse 13, we having the same spirit of faith, so he includes.
Other believers with him. This is the norm in Christian life.
Figure to kind of capture a couple ideas in our mind, what's in this chapter and a comparison with First Corinthians using a vacuum cleaner. You bring a vacuum cleaner along. It's got a little beater bar on it and wax the carpet and it knocks up what's there. If there's dust in the carpet, it a little suction brings it all up in the vacuum cleaner bag and then you take the bag and you throw it away. That's First Corinthians. Along came the apostle Paul. There are things that were wrong.
Trial comes along. There are weak and sickly among them. That's the beater bar, getting rid of the junk and throwing it away. But that's not where it stops. Here in this chapter. You take the canister out of the vacuum cleaner, and now there's the fragrance of Christ in the vessel. Along comes the beater bar. It's still there. It whacks the carpet, but this time it knocks loose the fragrance. The canister's gone and it can flow out for testimony to those around.
I think that's a little the sense of what these martyr sufferings of the Lord in verse 10 of the breaking down of the vessel was four in this chapter. It's so that the fragrance of Christ, the glory of the treasure shines out to those around because in the first book the same types of circumstances that helped to remove the junk and now the glory of Christ can shine out maybe a little bit of the the beater bar is is detailed in the 11Th chapter of this book when the apostle Paul goes through.
When he's finally forced to it and talks about himself, some of the things that he had gone through in this life that were extremely difficult circumstances, but the effect of those circumstances is here in this chapter brings out the fragrance and the glory of the Lord. And one more thing. We'll get to it in a moment. But when we're going through that beating process, getting beaten up and broken down, it could become a discouragement if we're looking at the at the beating up. But he goes on even a little bit further and says this isn't the end.
There's a man in the glory. He's gone through it all, and if need be, we're going to go through that same process of death and resurrection. But this life doesn't end at the grave. That goes all the way on to the glory. This process of getting beaten up doesn't end here. We end with Christ in glory.
Verse 11 it says we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus sake.
And then verse 12 So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
Remember in the Old Testament when the children of Israel wanted a king?
They wanted a man that would be over them.
And God knew what they wanted, and he gave him the very man that they wanted.
He appointed to them. Samuel was the one that identified him, but he was the People's Choice. In his character. He stood head and shoulders above everybody else.
We find in his life he was a very courageous man in battle and so on.
His natural life, a life in the flesh completely, but his natural life was the best that you could see in a man.
And as such, people could see that life and say, boy, that's what we want over us. That's the one we want to lead us.
But could he truly that man be of any lasting benefit or blessing to the people? No, he could not.
00:45:08
And he was not.
There's nothing in any man of the race of Adam.
No matter how good he is in his natural flesh.
That can produce lasting blessing for people or for God. Nobody can. Nobody has.
And so those natural things.
Are actually a hindrance in many ways to accomplishing the work of God.
So when Paul was delivered unto death, he was delivered unto death for Jesus sake, that he might serve him in a way that produced through God's power, life and others.
And so that's the intent of the 12Th verse. Death worketh in us. We've been beaten up, if you will, so that all that's of the flesh, all that's attractive to nature in us.
Can be put aside.
So that the life of Christ.
Which does bring life to others, can be used of the Lord for that purpose. And so for Paul it meant that everything he was.
Pretty painful process that he was going through was all had to be put aside and out of sight so that God could use the life of Christ in him as part of that which brought life.
To the Saints in Corinth or in any generation in life and live. And so consequently, not only is it so that for our own benefit, if you will, that sometimes these things have to be. The Lord has to put his hand on our lives for that purpose, but it's also so that we can be used as a vessel for him for bringing the that life and the benefits and power of it to others.
So that the things that would hinder that work are put out of sight, and that Christ himself in his life is that which is seen.
So in a certain sense we might introduce something buddy to the Lord, but sometimes we got to be out of sight pretty quick so that the life of Christ might be seen.
Directly, without our hindrance.
In John chapter 12 The Lord Jesus says, and I think it directly relates to this verse 12 That we have in our chapter, Death worketh in us, but life in you, the Lord Jesus says in reference to himself.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit, and we all know that.
The corn of wheat, we don't want anything to affect that. We want to keep it real safe. We don't want anything to make it rot, so we keep it in a very dry spot. How much fruit is there going to be from that corn of wheat, that grain of wheat? Nothing.
Take it and put it into the ground. What happens? The microorganisms and the moisture begin to work on it, and that grain of wheat dies. It rots, it's gone, but it's in that death that it gives.
Life to a new plant by which there is much fruit, and the Lord Jesus is referring that to Himself.
That verse 24 of chapter 12 and the next verse is something that really challenges me, brethren, because this is what it means sometimes to lay hold on eternal life. It is seems rather drastic, but this verse 25 of chapter 12 of John is repeated in the four gospels 6 different times in varying in varying ways, but it's basically the same message.
He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it until life eternal.
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It's pretty strong verse, but it's something to meditate on.
It's contrary to what we're taught generally. Preserve yourself, keep yourself and.
What the Lord Jesus is showing us here that it is through death working in us that there will be life in others.
Same spirit in the verses which follow.
He says.
Verse 13 Having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe therefore I have spoken.
This refers back to the 116th Psalm, and in 116th Psalm we have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ brought before us, and the Lord Jesus expended absolutely everything.
That he had and was for the blessing of man, and that expenditure cost him his life. He went all the way to death, and he was the corn of wheat which died. And so he, Paul, has embraced in laying hold of eternal life, and being a vessel of service to the Lord, he embraces that same spirit, and he says no matter what, even if.
Presenting the Lord Jesus cost me my life. That's all right, as long as His purposes for blessing are realized. And so he says in verse 15.
Well, if I verse 14, if I die, well Jesus died and he was raised. If I die, I'll be raised if I go all the way into death as he did, not in atonement sense, but in the sacrificial sense of life.
Not laying hold of it and keeping it, but giving it. He says that's all right, I will be raised up so I'll be present with you. And then in verse 15 and he says all these things are for your sakes. That is, there was a love in his heart as there was a love in the Lord Jesus for those he loved to give everything for them, even though it cost him his life to do so.
I know her, thank you.
Is over, just would like to bring a verse we have been.
Thought how how to to what could help to make people see Christ in US. And sometimes we just forget one thing that's very important. What are we looking for? Like are we looking really for Christ in others or are we looking for something else? And it reminds me a verse in Matthew Chapter 11.
When the Lord says about the blind that received their sight, and the lame walk, the leper cleansing. Verse five. And if here the death, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them, and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.
And as they depart, that Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went you out into the wilderness to see a rich shake, and with the wind? But what went you out for to see a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, the day they that wear soft clothing are in King's house. But what went you out to far to see a prophet? Yeah, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.
So we could ask ourselves what I'm looking for.
Am I looking for Christ Because.
Much of what we have been saying that how people could see Christ in US and how I would die for all my things and so I can show Christ forth to other people. But many times we are not looking for Christ in many aspects of our life because we are looking for other things. So we have seen many, many brothers and sisters who left the assembly in Brazil, perhaps here too.
00:55:03
Who are looking for something else?
But Christ, because.
We have just Christ. I remember. I'm going to tell you story now. I remember.
When Bob was in Brazil many years ago, I don't know if he knows his story and.
A young girl who just got saved invited him, she and her friend to her house, I think, or her friend's house, and Bob went there.
To preach them. And he didn't know there was also an Adventist pastor.
Who was invited and when he got there, I don't know if he remembered that when he got there, this sister tells this story. When he got there, there was this guy with his wife, all well dressed and tie and everything. And then he starts talking about his church, his his denomination. We have so and so many churches and we have so many, many temples. We have hospitals, we have schools, universities around the world. And we have a boat in the Amazon River that has a hospital in it and so on so and so.
And then he looked at the brother and asked, And you, what do you have? And the answer was, we have Christ. That was all.
Yeah.
Address 12
Address—D. Mearns
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I had something else in my heart, but it seemed it would be a bit of a jolt to dislodge from what we've had, so I think we're just going to carry on.
Going to need special grace to do that though.
You know.
The Apostle.
He didn't come equipped.
Knowing these things, that's not how he was saved.
And you know, as I look over this audience.
I'm not sure, Don, if you were enjoying these things 40 years ago.
So there, there's some here that are perhaps quite a bit older and maybe there's someone here saying, you know, I just don't get it.
And maybe a read a verse like like what we have here in the eighth verse that says, and maybe you read it this way. You say, you know, I'm troubled on every side and I am distressed.
Says here we are perplexed but not disparate. You say, well, I am in despair. I persecuted and I feel forsaken. I'm cast down and I feel destroyed. Maybe that's that's, that's your portion. Maybe that's the way you feel. You know, I'm sure the apostle felt that way sometime too.
And we know that.
Because he writes to the Philippians and he says.
I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. He learned it. He didn't come equipped with it.
He didn't come equipped with already having laid hold on eternal life, and we don't either.
That's not something that we come equipped with. It's something that takes a laying hold of as our brother Bob has been trying to, to tell us in his address. It's, I'm not sure, Bob, 40 years ago if you would have given exactly the same address as you gave here a couple days ago and.
Sometimes we struggle with these things.
And so when it says here.
That the excellence of the of the power may be of God and not of us. You know, I was I've been enjoying a little bit. I'm in job in my personal personal readings, but I I was thinking a little bit of a statement. Let's turn to it in in second Timothy.
Second Timothy.
Chapter Chapter 4.
Second Timothy chapter 4 and verse 11 and justice a statement here.
That's this statement. Only Luke is with me.
Only Luke is with me.
Now turn to.
Turn to the book of the Acts.
Acts 27.
We had a portion brought before us.
Acts 27 We have a portion brought before us in the in the open meeting with regards to regards to Martha.
And how?
You didn't turn to a portion, but in in Luke's gospel, she's cumbered about much service and her.
Her specific difficulty.
Was not so much that her sister wasn't helping her. That wasn't her. Yeah, that was bothering her, but that wasn't the specific difficulty. And that's not what she mentions first. The first thing she mentions is, Lord, don't you care? Don't you care? That's first and foremost. You know, she's not unique. She's not unique because if we were to turn to.
To Mark's gospel. In fact, let's do it. Hold your finger here in Acts 27 and let's look at Mark's gospel.
The 4th chapter I believe it is.
Mark's Gospel chapter.
4.
We have a similar scenario in in verse 37.
There arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full, and he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him, and say unto him, Now notice what's first and foremost. They don't say, we're going to perish. Water's coming in First and foremost is Lord, don't you care?
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That's what it says here, Karis, that we seen a little hymn. Karis, thou not that we perish? How can thou lie asleep? We sing that.
Lord, don't you care?
So let's go to Acts 27 now.
Acts 27.
I enjoyed them.
I never put this connection before that.
Martha being cumbered with much service.
And you move from Luke's Gospel to to John 12 where?
Where there's the same scenario, exactly the same. I hadn't put that together that it's exactly the same scenario. You have Mary, she's doing the same thing. You have Lazarus, he's sitting at the at the at the table with the Lord. And you have Martha servant, exactly the same thing, but a much different spirit. And, and often our, our, our, our viewpoint is, is.
Really effects our outlook. It does. I'll just use an example.
A month ago.
I went to visit my, my daughter and son-in-law live in Saint Louis. Of course, they've at that time, they've been married two months now. At that time they were married one month. We get it for breakfast and we're sitting down for breakfast and my, and my daughter who's been married a month, she says, you know, back when we were first married.
And I thought, I thought, are you kidding me? Back when we were first married and they've been married for four weeks. And I'm thinking and yet dead serious, absolutely serious. And, and you know, we, we have a tendency to, to present things as if everybody sees things from our viewpoint. We have that tendency.
And because of that, sometimes we can present things and they go right clean over somebody's head. But I was just appreciating so much that.
Martha's outlook was so different because her viewpoint was different at that in in John chapter 12 as opposed to what we find in Luke's Gospel. So look at let's look now at Acts 27.
So we have.
We've got a storm here and you know the enemy, perhaps there's some here even today that the enemy is blowing with his hurricane force winds on your soul. I think many of us have experienced. Some of us are experiencing it now. It's very, very real. Well, there's a storm here.
And we pick up verse 14, and not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Eurocloudin.
When the ship was caught.
Could not bear up into the wind. We let her drive.
Running under a certain island is called Plata. We have much work to come by the boat.
Which when they had taken up, they used, helps undergirding the ship, fearing the shape should fall into the quicksand strike sail. And so we're driven, and we being exceedingly tossed with a Tempest. The next day they lighten the ship. The third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship.
Neither sun nor stars, many days, and so on. Let's go on down to.
27 And when the 14th night was come, as we were driven up and down, and Adria about midnight, the ship and Dean that we drew near to some country and sounded and found the 20 fathoms.
When they gone a little further further, they sounded again, and found that 15 fathoms. Then, fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast out four anchors out of the stern and wish for the day. And as the shipment were about to flee out of the ship, when they let down the boat into the sea under a color as though they would have cast anchors out of the four ship. Paul said into the centurion and to the soldiers. Except these abide in the ship, you cannot be saved when the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off.
And.
Let's go on to.
Let's go to 39. And when it was day they knew not the land, and but they discovered a certain Creek with a shore into which they were mined, if it was possible to thrust the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves under the sea, and loosed the the rudder bands, and hoisted the main sail to the wind, and made towards shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground.
00:10:18
The four boats post stuck fast and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.
And the soldiers counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose, and commanded that they would which could swim should cast themselves first into the sea and get to land, and the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. Now why do I read that?
I preface this with only Luke is with me.
You know, it's interesting.
I live in an assembly and there's.
There's 8 widows.
There's also ten men, 10 gentlemen with their wives that are in their late 80s or early 90s.
They are perfect gentlemen.
Just.
You're speaking about an order of sweetness, Steve. If ever there was an odor of sweetness, it's from these ones that are elderly in our assembly, these widows, these elderly gentlemen with their wives.
I daresay it wasn't always so.
And why?
The vessels are broken.
They've been broken.
It didn't happen overnight.
But through tremendous pressure over a long period of life.
Vessels are just sweet, sweet vessels.
You know the, the psalmist in the 4th Psalm, he says in pressure, I am enlarged. We, we like the enlargement, but we, we don't, we don't particularly like the pressure. I know there's, there's those here that have struggled with, with health issues. There are those here who have struggled with, with members of your family. There's perhaps those here struggling financially their, their struggles that the Lord puts us in that.
It is part of the breaking of the vessel, and as I look at these older ones in our assembly, I realize.
Wow, I just love that sweetness.
But what about going through what they went through for that sweetness to come?
You know, as the apostle wrote to the Corinthians, and I dare say the Corinthians themselves perhaps didn't quite enter into these things. Yes, I appreciate, Steve, what you're bringing out. And yet when you think of him writing in the first epistle, he writes to them. He said, you know, I wish I could give you a little bit of meat, but all I can give you is milk. And less than a year later, he's writing this epistle. And as you look at the end of the epistle, you realize perhaps they weren't exactly enjoying the same things that we were enjoying today.
With the struggles that they were passing through.
Well, let's back up now in this chapter and read two statements. One is this verse 20.
All hope that we, as the end of verse 20, all hope that we should be saved was taken away.
That's a statement. Now let's read another statement, verse 25.
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God. You look at those two statements, one Luke makes it, and the other Apostle Paul makes it. And you look at these two statements and say, Are they in the same boat?
Yeah, they're on the same boat. They're on the same boat, but a little different viewpoint and a little different outlook. And Luke is saying it's hopeless there. There's no use, absolutely no use whatsoever. Sometimes we feel that. Sometimes we feel what we've been taking up in in First Corinthians where there where there's there's tremendous pressure and we we don't quite.
Enter into the the fact that as it says.
In.
In our in our eighth verse, troubled on every side, yet not distressed. And we think, well, yeah, we're troubled on every side, but we're stressed. And so, so what's the difference? So, so the the the Luke, he makes this this comment and he just looks at the situation situation. He says it's absolutely hopeless. Any, any, any, any speck of hope whatsoever that there was there, it's gone. It's totally gone. It's not there.
00:15:11
And the apostle Paul, it's not like he's even on the same boat. He just says, be of good cheer. I believe God and he goes through and he says, let's have a good meal. And you think this, this boat, you know, and it's not like with the, the, the apostles in the 4th chapter of Mark where they're starting to take a little bit of water on this boat was being smashed to bits.
And Paul says be of good cheer.
You know, that's what it is. That's what it is. That's what it means in the seventh verse when it says that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. It's got nothing to do with us and it's got nothing to do with the circumstance that we're in, but it's the viewpoint and it's the outlook, you know, in my personal reading.
Let's look at it in in job. Job makes this statement.
That's interesting.
He makes this statement in verse chapter 28.
Chapter 28 of Job and verse 11, the end of the verse, it says the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.
I turn over to the 34th chapter.
Very similar. Very similar statement.
Chapter 34.
And verse 32.
Job 34 verse 32 That which I see not teach.
Thou me, you know, often there are things in my life that I don't see that really need attention. It's interesting all my brother can see it, but I can't see it. We we have this this it's interesting. We have this conception that that we're walking on the pathway and we're right in the middle of the road and some of our brethren are off on the right hand side and some of them are off on the left and but we're right down the center. Every one of us have that concept. And yeah, maybe I need a little bit of.
Here, a little bit of adjustment there, but pretty much I'm right down the center of the road and not realizing, you know, that there are some things that need attention, as Job says here, he says. You know the thing, things that I can't see.
And the Lord knows how to bring those those things to our attention. But but notice what what what we have at the end of the book in Job chapter chapter 42.
Because I've enjoyed this in connection with, you know, you can look at many people in their lives in the word of God that had their vessel broken. You know, you think of a person like Nebuchadnezzar and you think of this man had the world by the tail.
And the Lord broke him down to the point where he says the Most High Ruth.
He recognized it was not him. You know, we have a similar situation with Job. You look at the earlier chapters of Job, you see, You see.
A life as pipes up and he has his comments that job and job responds and you have you have Bill dad does the same thing and job responds. You have so far says the same thing and job responds and it's getting worse and and it's it's less than good and you see the spirit that's in job and it's it's as the Lord seeks to work with them. You know it's interesting because in the early earlier chapters you have.
Satan comes in and all his force, and then he disappears. It's gone for the rest of the book.
As the Lord deals with them.
And as the Lord deals with us.
As he seeks to break the vessel, why as we've had before us and the vessels broken, then the light shines beautiful to see that. But what does Job say at the end in in chapter 42? It's just like Job says. Then Job answered the Lord and said on a paraphrase. He just says I get it, I get it. He says Job answered the Lord and said, I know that thou canst do.
Everything.
And that no thought can be withholding.
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From thee you know we shrink, don't we? From the vessel being broken.
We don't like it, we shrink from it.
We like what we see in others.
What happens when the vessel is broken?
But we don't like the vessel to be broken.
We really shrink from that.
But it's the only way.
It's the only way, as the Lord seeks to bring us into conformity with Himself to that moment when.
When the vessel is completely broken and as I remember a brother, brother Armistead Barry taking up not the, not the 4th and the 5th chapter, we took up the 5th and the 6th chapter. And so he said the 5th chapter is the is the breaking of the vessel and the 6th chapter is the dissolution of the vessel. That's what you're bringing before us, Mario, the thought of the dissolution. And why is it, you know, I was appreciating a verse that you didn't turn to yesterday.
In Second Corinthians chapter 2.
You were thinking in Portuguese.
And you were trying to spit this out and it didn't quite come out. So we haven't Second Corinthians chapter one.
Correct me if this is not the verse, but we have in the third verse that says blessed be the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforted us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them that are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. Wasn't that diversity we're trying to. I thought it was that you were it didn't come out quick that way and I wouldn't have been able to quote it either, but the Lord puts us through things and it isn't something when.
The Lord puts us through something and you know there was a time that.
I held two babies in my arms. One of them is here. The doctor told me I had cancer, said I had two cell types, one treatable, the other not. I am holding these two babies. I'm saying, Lord, really?
The ones that were a real comfort.
Were those that had cancer.
They were the ones that could be a real can, a real help.
The Lord gave us 2 little twins, my wife and I, and he took them home after lived for just a short while.
It was a tough time, but the ones that drew alongside him, my wife and I at that time were the ones that had lost the Lords. And so the Lord puts us through things just like it says here, in such a way.
In his perfect way.
So the vesicle can be broken, the light can shine. You know, I had a we speak about how do we.
Had a man come to me just this spring. He called up. I hadn't preached this man. He said, Dave, I have no peace. I want your peace. I want your peace. Said I had two aunts that passed away and they had peace. I have no peace. I want your peace.
Came over the house and we spoke about these things we.
I asked him how real it was. Yeah, it's real. I said, is it real enough to talk to God about it right now? Yeah, it was real. And just to hear him pour his heart out to God, it was really sweet as he went over his life and just poured his heart out as to what a Wretch he'd been. And thank the Lord for dying for him and for saving his soul.
You know.
We struggle sometimes.
In our.
Seeking to manifest.
What the Lord would have us and I had I had occasion just a short while ago. I wanted to present to this this man.
The need to spend some time in the Word and how it was very needful. And I'd been in turn to Luke's gospel because I was enjoying the parable of the sower, not from Matthew, not from Mark, but I was enjoying it from Luke's gospel.
Turn to it in the.
The 8th chapter of.
Of.
Of Luke. Luke chapter 8.
So I was reading in my personal reading in the sixth verse, it says, and some fell upon rock. And as soon as it was sprung up, it withered because it lacked moisture. It's different in, in Matthew, it says there was no, there was no deepness of earth. But in, in Luke, it's, it's, it lacked moisture. And so it withered. And I wanted to present to this man that because he told me he, he, he'd read everything, but he was having a hard time reading the word.
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So I get in my truck and I'm, I'm driving over and I'm thinking, you know, how can I, how can I present this to him in a way that he's going to be able to receive it?
That his, his soul is going to be just ripe, that he'll be able to take this and it'd be real for him. And I, I get halfway over and I pull off to the side of the road and I just cry to the Lord that as I present this to him, he'd be able to, he'd be able to receive it. And I, I drive into his driveway just as he's taking a sprinkler and putting it on some fresh grass that was just up this high.
You know.
You couldn't orchestrate that. You couldn't. And it's not different in our own lives as the Lord seeks to orchestrate things in our lives. They're just perfect. We don't see them as perfect. We see them sometimes as disastrous, but they're absolutely perfect. Oh, that we might, as we've had before us, seek to.
Recognize as we have here.
In the very chapter that we've been reading.
That the Excellency of the power may be of God.
And not.
Of us, I wonder if we could just.
Finish by singing 311.
311.
Till an everlasting union we attain our resting place.
To several positive.
We are.
Pilgrimage person.
May are shall birds safely hiding still be kept in constant view?
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah scom.
Soul and breast.
Till then, however, lasting union, we obtain a rusting place, we commend ourselves.