Chicago Conference: 2017
Table of Contents
The Lord's Work in Us Through Trials
Address—Dave VanHolstyn
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.
Shall we begin?
This meeting by singing #31 in the appendix.
We're going to sing the 1St in the last verses.
Lord, thy love has sought and found us.
Wandering in this desert wide, thou hast thrown thine arms around us.
For us suffered, led and died.
Sing my soul, He loveth thee. Jesus gave himself for me #31 in the appendix.
First and last.
Lord, I love.
My love.
1.
Fly.
So I don't know thy mind around the.
Oh.
My God.
913.
All right.
Shall we look to the Lord for help?
What I have before me I would like to speak about.
Trials and temptations.
I couldn't help but feel lately how many trials that the Saints have been going through.
Even in our prayer meeting that we just had, there was a number of main names mentioned, but there were many that weren't mentioned too. And then in the prayers there were yet more names written.
Norm names spoken.
People who are going through difficulties.
And I know there are many more too, even in this room, who are hurting, going through difficult times.
But what I would like to bring before us is that the Lord, The Lord is working through these trials. I want to turn start with Malachi.
Malachi Chapter 3.
Malachi 3IN verse 3.
Says and he's.
Shall sit as a refiner.
And purifier of silver.
Here the Lord is the refiner. He is the one who's working with us.
So that we might bring forth more the glory of God in.
US Let's look at Isaiah chapter 54.
00:05:05
Isaiah 54 and verse 11.
O thou afflicted, tossed with Tempest, and not comforted.
Behold, I lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
And I will make thy windows of air gate, and thy gates of carbuncles, and of all thy borders of pleasant stones.
We know that this these verses right here refer to the remnant that.
Have just gone through.
Many difficult times through the Tribulation period.
And they could, surely this is their voice. Old thou afflicted and tossed with Tempest.
They felt.
These trials.
Perhaps.
There's those.
Here and abroad that are also feeling the affliction.
But notice it says.
I lay thy stones with fair colors.
He is doing the work, the Lord is doing the work in each one of us, and we're going to look at.
Some more versus.
Some in the old and some in the new.
That shows that the Lord is doing at work in each one of us. You know when you accepted Christ as your Savior? That was just the beginning.
Of the work that he has in US and he is doing the work in US.
So that we might be shined to the glory of God.
Let's just look at a verse in Isaiah chapter 43.
Isaiah 43 and verse 2.
When thou passes through the waters, I will be with thee.
And through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
Oh, here we see again, passing through the waters.
And notice the promise I will be with thee. It's in those difficult times the Lord's presence is felt the most.
You can remember too, my father, Winnie had cancer.
And.
That that time.
There weren't that many survivors, but he had a surgery. But he said I never felt so close to the Lord as when I went through that time.
And I'm sure the same for those.
Think of Shadrach, those that were cast into the fiery furnace. When you see them in glory and you ask them what they wanted, what they valued most in life, and what event took place, I'm sure they would say it's when I was in the fire because I was so close to the Lord at that time.
The Lord promises to be with us in those trials, in those when we're passing through those deep waters.
You know I wanna take a portion up.
In the Old Testament, a story in Second Kings chapter 4.
And what?
00:10:00
Particular free that I desire to bring out is that in this story things were going.
Good things were going good in their life and then all of a sudden.
Tragedy Stu struck their home.
And we'll see the response. Let's look at Second Kings chapter 4.
And verse 8.
Says and it fell on a day that Elisha passed.
To.
Shusam where was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as of as he passed by, he turned in thither, and did eat bread. And she said unto her husband, Behold now I perceive that this is an holy man of God.
Which passes by us continually.
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, and a wall, and let it let us sit for him there a bed and a table, and a stool, and a Candlestick.
This shall be when he cometh to us. He shall turn in thither. And it fell one day that he came thither, and he turned into his chamber and lie there.
That's far enough.
Here we see there was.
This husband and wife.
And.
What a blessing it was to have a wife that not only.
Feared God but had a desire.
To serve God's people.
This woman.
That says she was a great woman.
And we see that she encouraged her husband perhaps and it says let us perhaps she even.
Helped build this little room.
For the man of God, because it says we.
She built this little chamber.
Notice the.
Furniture that he had.
In this room.
A bad place of rest.
I think of that and I think of.
That's what should be in every home, should be a place of rest.
A table.
What do you think of a table as a table Is where we eat there should be food.
A home should be a place of food, not only physical food, but spiritual food.
She had the perception to know that these are important in the home and she had them for the man of God. Every one of us, the man of God, he too needed that spiritual food as well as that physical food. And then it says.
A stool.
What is that? A place, A place to sit and study, to study the word of God? How important it is to have a home?
With a chair or a stool, some place where you can have some quiet time with the Lord and then a candle stick. You need that light.
Perhaps the only time because of the busyness of the day, you need that little time with a stool and a little Candlestick to read the word of God.
No doubt she had that spiritual understanding to bring those things in this room.
Things went well with them.
00:15:04
But let's go to.
Verse 12 It says, And he said unto Gaziai, his servant, call this humanite. And when he had called her, she stood before him. And he said unto him, Say now to her, Behold, thou hast been careful for us.
With all this care, what is to be done?
For thee what is thou have spoken.
For to a king, or to a captain of the host. And she answered, I dwell among my own people.
She was.
Just content to serve.
She didn't ask anything like wanted. Well, I wanted a son, and the Lord never gave me a son. No, it wasn't even an expression on her heart.
And he said, What then is to be done for her? And Gazy I answered, verily, she had no child, and her husband is old. And he said, call her. And when he had called her, she stood at the door. And he and he said about this season according to the time of life.
Thou shalt embrace thy son. And she said, Nay, my Lord.
Thou man of God, does not lie unto my handmaid.
For 17 that says and the woman conceived and bear a son.
At the season that Elijah had said unto her, according to the time of life.
Here, this woman, this great woman.
She got no doubt more than what she even asked.
She got a son. A son would speak of hope.
She got hope in the sun.
Then something happened. Things were going great in their life.
Uh-huh.
It says when verse 18 and when the child was grown it fell on a day that she went out to his father to the Reaper reapers.
And he said unto his father, My head and my head.
And he saith to the lad, Carry him to his mother.
And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother.
He sat on her knees till noon and then died.
All of a sudden, things changed.
And there has been many that things were going great in our lives.
And we often we get a phone call.
Things change. How are we going to react?
When we're passing through trials.
Through.
The waters.
I wanted to bring that song that first, first because I wanted to speak of the Lord's love because He is doing it for His glory and it is in love that He is working with each one of us.
Just as with this woman.
It says, And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out.
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No doubt I can imagine her with her son.
How helpless she felt that she had him on his on her knees.
And watched him.
Pass away.
How helpless. Sometimes when we're going through these times, we feel so helpless.
But like we had in that verse.
The Lord is when we had the verses as we go through, and the Lord is with us, so we're not alone.
We see.
It says in verse 22 when she came to her husband and said, send me, I pray thee, one of the young men and one of the *****.
That I may run to the man of God.
And come again.
And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It is neither new moon.
Or Sabbath. And she said it is, it shall be well.
And she saddled her *** and said to her servant Dr. And go forward slack, not die riding upon me, except I bid thee.
So she went and came.
Unto the man of God in Mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he saith to gaze the eye. Thy servant behold, Yonder is that humanite. Run now, I pray thee.
To meet her, and say unto her, It is well with thee, it is well with thy husband, it is well with thy child.
And she answered it as well.
How could she say such a word?
She was looking beyond the circumstances in which she found herself.
So she could say it is well.
And when she came to the man of God, to the hill.
She caught him by the feet and gaze. I came near to thrust her away.
The man of God said let her alone.
For her soul is vexed within her, and the Lord hath not, hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.
Then she said.
Did I desire a son of my Lord? Did I not say, do not deceive me? Then he said, Gaziai, gird up thy loins, and take thy staff in thy hand, and go.
Thy way, if thou meet any man, salute him not, and if any salute thee, answer him not again.
And lay thy staff upon the child, the face of the child, and the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.
And he arose and followed her.
Oh, he.
She had no means of herself, but she cleaved to the man of God. She knew that only He could help her.
Then it says in the mother.
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Verse 31 And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid his staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing. Wherefore he went again and met him, and told him, saying, The child is not awakened when Elijah, Elijah, Elijah.
Was come into the house. Behold, the child was dead.
And laid upon his bed. And he went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord.
And he went up and laid upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth.
And his eyes upon his eyes, and stretched out his hands upon his hands, and stretched himself upon the child.
And the flesh of the child waxed warm. Then he returned and walked into the house to and fro, and went up and stretched himself upon him. And the child sneezed 7 times. And the child opened his eyes.
And he said and he called Gehazi and said call the Schumannite. So he called her and when she was come into.
In unto him he said, Take thy son.
Now she went in and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son and went out.
Here we see.
This woman.
Son was raised from the dead.
And.
Notice what happened. What was her reaction after she got word that her son was alive? What did she do?
Did she? I can imagine myself. I would just run and give my child a hug.
So happy to see him again, but notice what she did.
It says.
She fell.
At his feet, at the man of God's feet, and bowed herself to the ground.
She gave thanks.
Before she embraced the child. It shows no doubt appreciation.
For what this man of God did for her son. And then he says he took her his her son and went out.
What? What wonders what grace we see in this woman?
You know I wanna look at some verses in the New Testament.
In in first Peter.
First Peter, chapter 2.
OK.
First Peter 2.
First Peter, one verse, umm.
Verse 6.
It says we're in for speeder 16, wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season if needs be. ERN heaviness through manifold temptations that the trial of your faith be in.
Much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
00:30:18
I think.
The key part that I wanna bring out here is that it's at the appearing.
That perhaps during the trial, it's not, we don't value it, but it's precious and it says at the appearing it says that it might be.
Found praise and honor and glory.
At the appearing Jesus Christ.
Let's look at a verse in.
Umm.
Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2.
In verse.
10 you know we we have if if you would go to verse eight, you would speak. It speaks about how we were saved. It says not by for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast our salvation is.
Something that we we received by grace alone, not by works, not by anything that we have done. And then it continues on.
It says for ye have.
For ye are his workmanship created.
In Christ Jesus unto good works. We are his workmanship, our work. We're still work in progress, every one of us.
We could probably put that on us. Work in progress.
The the work the Lord has in US isn't completed yet.
Let's look at also a verse the same thought in in Philippians.
Philippians 2.
Verse 13.
It says, For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
When when we see and feel the Lord's hand, do we see His hand of love and care? He does. You know, when the children of His or when the Lord Jesus was on the earth?
And he saw the people.
When they were hungry, what did he say? It says he had compassion.
On the multitude.
He has a care for each one of us, and it is.
Notice it says.
Of his good pleasure he delights to He wants to work with us and to bring out more of the glory of God and we're going to look.
At.
Averse in Revelation.
Revelation Chapter.
21.
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Remember, we started with that, that we, we, we started that first in Isaiah that spoke about our affliction and that that brings out the.
Glory of Christ in it.
In.
Well, let's just look at this first and maybe we'll go back and turn to that, but in Revelation 21.
And verse 9 to bring this out. This is the bride.
Revelation 21, verse nine, it says. And there came.
Unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come up, and I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
And he carried me away in the Spirit in a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.
Having the glory of God and the light, and her light was like unto a stone, most precious, even like a Jasper stone, clear as crystal.
And then if we go to.
Verse 19.
We have the 12 foundations.
This is in Heaven verse 19.
It says. And the foundations of the walls of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones, and the first foundation was Jasper in the second, sapphire in the third.
Tell send me and the 4th and emerald in the 5th.
Sardinex and the six Sardis, the 7th crystal light and the 8th barrel so forth. Here are these these stones that are in.
In heaven, and they're shining forth.
The glory of Christ in them, and I believe it speaks of those those 12 Stones is the same.
Shining out, you know.
I've collected a number of these stones myself.
And I actually brought them to the conference, but they're at the hotel.
But.
One thing that you'll notice when you look at these stones, if you shine a light in them, the light that reflects that, umm, the prisms of light that come out of them, it's, it's very beautiful.
And.
That's what's going to take place in heaven.
When we are.
Around the Lord.
Those times of difficulty and it just shines out the glory of God, you know?
With those stones, where are the stones found?
Well.
Most of them are found in the earth, they're in the dirt, they're hidden and with the pressures of the earth itself and the right chemicals, 'cause these gems to come forth to produce.
And those gems are under the earth. Nobody can see them. Somebody has to take them.
And take them out of the earth and put them in another place.
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That's like sanctification.
Every one of us are sanctified and sanctification, not only is it means separation, but separation for a purpose.
It's important so those gems that were taken and put into one place so that they might shine forth.
To the glory of God. And that's what He is doing with each one of us now. He is shining forth, and He is in a coming day, He will.
The glory of the Lord will shine and I'm sorry I didn't bring them but.
We see that the Lord is doing a work in each one of us.
And.
He will complete it.
It says He that hath begun a good work in thee will complete it, and He will in each one of our lives, and.
So as we see these.
Circumstances we find ourselves.
Remember the Lord, The Lord is with us and we may not understand all the things that are happening in our lives, but I can assure you if you are His that He is working with you individually.
So that we might bring glory to the Lord.
Wondered if we might.
Sing song.
#100 No 301.
What I really have before me is verse one and four but.
We'll, we'll re, we'll sing the whole thing.
Our rest is in hell.
All right, it's not here.
That my should be trembled.
When thy own bloody hands.
In my sunset in the airplane.
All right, I can come.
By so I'm going to cross around to me, I'm going to.
Uh-huh.
Yes, yes, my God.
It's making power and 11:00.
And umm, can you tell me? Oh yeah, I'm getting $1000.
Oh my God.
Wait for the Lord of the Rings.
I cannot be long.
My thorn and the fish go on a throat. I'm not expecting for the Lord. We need to do what's not my God for me. I'm close to the country to go home.
Without my phone and sun, the Greens can't come on Cortana.
Oh yeah, let me make sure Lord cleared out the full.
I'm trying.
Tomorrow, what can I bring you all?
00:45:03
10-4 point 4:00 I'm going to look at the book and look at them.
May possible.
With on the background.
I got it.
Be my son and stay.
On his mind.
I'm going to make him cry.
And look for a barefoot all the time.
WellCare everyone.
Come.
Well, it it says in this 4th stanza, Let trial endanger our progress, oppress the only, make heaven more sweet at the close. Come joy or come sorrow, whatever.
May be a home with our God will make up for it all well, we know that there's.
Many besides trials, we have opposition.
If you want to please the Lord, you're gonna have to.
Stand perhaps alone.
I know.
In this last time that we were in India, we felt there was much oppression, much umm, difficulties from all angles from the government.
From the community, from even those that were within that left and.
The Lord There's a verse that I wanna close with.
In.
Isaiah.
Umm yeah, Isaiah chapter 59.
I know many of us, we feel the.
The oppression and more and more we're seeing it that.
The Lord is allowing.
As much difficulties, but it says in 40 in Isaiah 59 verse 19.
So shall thy, so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the east, and His glory from the rising of the sun here. Here's the part that I want to bring out. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
The Lord will only allow it to go so far.
He will look, he will watch after us.
And we don't have to be.
Discouraged that, we think. Well, it seems that.
Evil is becoming more rapid and and it seems there's no justice. The Lord sets up a standard. He only allows it to go so far.
The Lord rules.
Shall we pray?
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The Song of Solomon
Open—Don 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.
285.
Oh Lord of mine, all for.
A.
Joyous day alone.
0179.
With me and uh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nsnoise our joy.
Stick.
05.
410 thigh and thumb.
What has changed my love to change?
I cried no more dreams gone and thine thou.
Our pepper.
'S face.
Turn with me to Matthew's Gospel chapter 13.
Matthew chapter 13 and verse 44.
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field.
The witch, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth the field.
Over to Luke's Gospel, chapter 12.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 12.
Rich man in verse 18 in the parable says.
And he said this will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater.
And there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods, and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thy knees, eat, drink, and be merry.
What God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself.
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And is not rich toward God.
Verse 32 Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
Sell that ye have and give alms. Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, but treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approaches, nor moth corrupt us.
Four, where your treasure is.
There will your heart be also.
Let your loins be gird about and your lights burning, and you yourselves like on demand that wait.
For their Lord.
First Peter, chapter 2.
First Peter chapter 2 and verse 6. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay in cyan a chief cornerstone elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore which believe He is precious, or the preciousness. But unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.
Its natural to mankind to treasure things.
Everyone.
Eventually find something that they're gonna use as a treasure or have a treasure.
Sometimes in this world it's such a significant thing that when a man has had a something he's acquired and it's his and it's his treasure and he loses it to himself, he's lost everything and he takes his own life.
The Lord Jesus.
As a treasure.
You're it.
You're it.
The Lord Jesus looks upon you.
As his treasure.
He went sold all that he had to acquire his treasure.
The rich man.
Had a treasure.
And there was a flaw for him.
Because he had it.
Without reference to God.
He had it, but God didn't have any place with him in His treasure.
If you have a treasure, any treasure, no matter what it is, if you have it without God, you're gonna lose it.
Doesn't matter what you've got that you treat as a treasure.
Some possession.
If you have it.
Without God, you're gonna lose it.
Guaranteed.
If you have a treasure that is without God, the point of reference for it will not go beyond this world in your life.
And so.
It'll get lost.
Just as the rich man was called a fool and God said tonight I'm taking your life.
What about his treasure? Could he take it with him?
Could you enjoy it anymore, or was it lost to him That was forever lost?
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Notice the order.
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Sometimes we hear the expression my heart's not in it.
Morally.
We set our mind, our thoughts on treasures, and then our heart follows.
And so each one of us makes choices in life, puts value on certain things that can to us become a treasure.
And.
Our hearts gonna follow.
If you've got some treasure.
In this world.
That you're going to leave behind when you leave the world, then your heart in that degree.
Is in the world.
God's treasure.
This is son.
God has given his to His Son, you to be His treasure.
And has set his heart upon you.
He will not rest as Boaz of this morning, he will not rest.
Until.
His treasure.
And he?
R1.
To put it the opposite direction.
God has presented the Lord Jesus to you to be your treasure.
And if you embrace him fully as your treasure.
Your heart will be there as well.
But I also want to say, and we're going to spend a little bit.
Of time seeing how.
The treasure that might be very small in US gradually grows.
Until he and we are one.
And his heart will not be satisfied until he and we are one.
With us, it's a lifelong learning experience.
And then as we pass through the process of life, we pass through a learning process.
With the objective on his part and God's part that we and he.
Our reciprocal treasure, that is, He is our treasure and can enjoy us as His treasure. If I could put it this way as being on the same page sharing.
What you value, he values.
What you care about, he cares about.
And the opposite, the reverse.
You care.
About what he cares about. You feel things as he feels them. You enter into them according to what's in his heart toward them.
It's a challenging thing because we don't learn it instantly.
I've said it many times, but I remember a conference where there was a whole lot of speaking about love and divine love.
And one brother rather, after lots had been said, made this comment. He said the measure of divine love operative in your soul is the measure of love you bear toward the most cantankerous and cross grained brother within the sphere of your acquaintance.
Many of you have heard that comment many times, but in today's application of it.
Someday, maybe it's not true this afternoon, but someday every one of us is going to love every other member of the body of Christ.
00:15:13
As Christ loves them.
In the same character.
There won't be any more attitude of our soul as to cantankerous and cross grained spirited brothers or sisters or whatever.
With those remarks in mind, turn with me to the Song of Solomon.
I freely acknowledge that.
I'm very conscious.
That I can't give expression.
To what's in my heart.
But at least I can have the comfort in what I'm going to say of the trust that what comes from the heart will go to the heart.
It's a hard matter.
And in the Song of Solomon we see how the relationship between ourselves.
And the Lord Jesus develops and grows.
Over the course of our lives.
We'll just be able to.
Look at a few bits and pieces of it, honestly.
If if it could be the way I would wish it to be.
I'd ask you to.
For the next seven days, each morning get up and read the whole of the Song of Solomon, and then the next morning get up and read the Song of Solomon from the beginning to the end. And then seven days later we'll get together and consider it together.
There's such depth in the practical learning process.
Of two people.
Who love each other and yet they don't fully start out understanding each other. They don't Co either will uh, at least she her love doesn't measure up to the one that loves her.
Just as in the picture here we have the Lord Jesus the Bridegroom, and we have her is the one he loves.
We won't be able to read too much, but I will say as a help when you go through it.
He normally refers to her as love.
She normally refers to him as beloved. I say that because there's a lot of back and forth conversation between them. Sometimes he's speaking and she interrupts with a comment.
Part of the time they're together. Part of the time they're separated from each other, they're not together.
And so it is often in the experiences of our lives. Sometimes we have a very conscious sense of the one who.
Loves us.
Is enjoyed in our souls and sometimes we get separated in our daily lives from the enjoyment of His love to us as it develops in US.
Chapter one just to pick a few points.
Verse two let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.
For thy love is better than wine.
Verse 3 Draw me, we will run after thee.
We all have some measure of love.
00:20:01
As his children for the Lord.
There's not a single person in this room who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, that it couldn't be said that they love Him.
And so there is within each sole a need to be loved.
Man was so created, so designed of God according to God's purpose for man, that he has the need to be loved.
And further than that, only God, through the Lord Jesus himself, can fully satisfy that need.
And from the very beginning of Christian life, there is that sense of need of his love and some measure of appreciation of it.
So draw me.
Verse the end of verse 4 the upright love thee. There's a sense of the it's the right thing.
And if we have a right sense of something, we love them.
We also from the beginning of our relationship in verse five, I'm black but come late.
Verse six. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the Son hath looked upon me, and so on. End of the verse my vineyard have I not kept. There's a certain sense here in her heart that she doesn't deserve.
To be loved even though she wants the love. And so it is with us. There is that need to be loved. But even in the beginning of a Christian, a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Uh, there's a certain sense of coming short.
I'm black. I haven't kept my own vineyard. I should, but I haven't. And so she feels that.
Verse 7 Tell me.
O thou whom my soul loveth.
Where thou feedest.
Where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon.
Verse eight. If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock.
And feed thy kids beside the shepherd's tents.
The heart wants him. The heart has a certain love for him.
But in the practical experiences of life.
Sometimes it's hard to find them.
Scripture says he's always near.
You'll never leave us nor forsake us, but at the same time, in the living of it, out in the experiences of the life, we hear the expression, Lord, where are you when I need you?
I need to feel your presence with me. I need to feel your love. Where are you, Lord?
And that's often.
The experience as life starts out, someone puts their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and for a little while there's, I'll say euphoria, happiness, joy.
Until something comes, not always understood what, but something comes into the life and the Lord seems to be lost.
So that's.
At that point.
He draws her, she said. Draw me, verse 15.
Behold thou art fair, my love, Behold thou art fair.
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Now it's dove size.
You speak sewer.
He's starting to draw to himself.
The Lord does that in the process of our lives.
He, I think, speaks quite a bit more than she does directly to her.
In their conversations of her learning, she in turn tends to speak more about him than to him.
And that tends to be the character of how we grow.
The Lord speaks directly to our hearts.
And when he does, sometimes, when we don't have the same sense of nearness to himself, we tend to speak more about him.
Then consciously to him.
So he says.
Thou art fair, my love, Behold thou art fair.
And.
There's an immediate response.
She plays back. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved.
There's a response in us as we gradually find our treasure in His love.
And so he speaks to us and then?
We.
Often, or at least sometimes.
Respond to it.
And say, as it were in response, Thou art fair, my beloved.
As we respond to his love.
Chapter 2.
Voice of verse 8.
The voice of my beloved. Behold, he cometh.
Well, we'll read verse four to get more context.
Verse 3 Even as the apple among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me into the banqueting house. In his banner over me was love.
His left verse six His left hand is under my head.
And then?
Verse nine, she says, the voice of my beloved, Behold, he cometh.
There's.
A fellowship.
Between the two.
But it's important to recognize that fellowship with the Lord Jesus can be instantly lost.
If we have treasure other than himself.
That attracts us.
It's also important to recognize that he is light, and the moment we introduce anything into our relationship with himself and our personal communion with him that is inconsistent with himself as light, we break communion.
And our lives ultimately, gradually show.
How much we value?
Fellowship.
How important or not?
His companionship and his fellowship is to us.
MMM, so it says in verse 15.
Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.
It's the little things.
Spoil our fellowship with the one that we love. It's the little things, the little foxes. It's not always the big events, the major issues. It's the little everyday things that we experience in life that sometimes spoil.
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The Vine.
In the picture here again, we don't have time except to kind of introduce it a little bit, but.
In a certain way.
She is his garden.
And he is.
Creating her to be fruit for his pleasure.
When life is over and the Lord Jesus.
Enjoys you?
He will enjoy you as the fruit.
Of the travail of his soul, the travail in its most significant first aspect at the cross.
But also the travail of your life's experience in which he has so patiently worked with you to bring you into a full grown love relationship with himself. And so very often he may come into his garden and see that the fox.
ES have been at work to hinder the growth.
Of the fruit.
But at this point, there's progress. And verse 16 of chapter 2, it says my beloved is mine.
And I am his.
Defeat us among the lilies.
It's wonderful here.
She says.
My beloved is mine.
There's a lot of growth to be done yet, but at this point, it's the fact that she has been brought to realize.
He belongs to her.
He's the one that has met her need.
We come first to the realization that the one who loved us and gave himself for us is for us. We like the verse. If God is for us, who can be against us? And we have that sense that.
He's ours.
We also have a sense, but it's secondary.
That we're his.
What comes in as first is the log side, that he's met our need and he's ours and we're his too.
He feed us among the lilies. He is one that comes into the relationship.
And confined some joy in it too.
Lilies were beautiful flowers grown in gardens and valued.
And uh.
Appreciate.
When someone else.
Wants to be in our company.
Cares to be with us because of shared affection and relationship. We feel it when there isn't that, when something hinders that.
Chapter 3 Verse one by night on my bed I saw him.
Whom I soul loveth, I sought him.
But I found him not.
She's lost him.
We're not talking about salvation here, I'm sure you understand. But in the personal relationship, she lost them.
How was she seeking him?
On her bed.
Place of rest and ease.
Do we get up?
Have a quick little time with the Lord, rush off to the daily affairs, go through the life for the day, and sometimes when things don't go right, turn to the Lord and say, Lord help me, I need some help here, Things aren't going right today. And then when the day is done and we're ready to relax, we've got a little time.
00:35:14
For him.
She lost them that way.
You didn't have first place. He kind of had the end of the day place with her.
She recognized she loved them. That's never lost in the book or in the experience. And so she seeks him.
But he's not to be found sometimes.
We have to seek the Lord, and we may find is not to be found in the way we seek Him.
You know.
You have to value something.
Really value something to be sure you keep it.
She hadn't learned to really value him yet.
So she goes after she goes out and starts looking. I will seek him, she says in verse two. And in verse 3, the Watchmen go about the city found me.
And, uh, I said, have you seen him whom I sold out of?
Verse four. It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found them. She had to go out looking. Sometimes we have to, as it were, go out looking.
Give it a first place.
To find him.
We'll pass on in the interest of time.
Not sure what to skip but.
First, we'll start in verse chapter 5. Now. Well, we'll go go to No. We're gonna pick up a verse at the end of chapter 4 Awake.
O North wind, and come thou S blow upon my garden.
That's the spices thereof may flow out.
Let my beloved come into his garden and eat.
His pleasant fruits.
Hold your finger here.
For a moment, turn over to Romans chapter 5.
Romans, chapter 5.
And verse 2.
By whom also we have access, by faith into this grace wherein we stand.
In our reading meeting and rejoice in hope.
Of the glory of God.
Something we look forward to. We rejoice then.
We give thanks for.
Verse three. And not only so.
But we glory in tribulations.
Also.
Knowing that tribulation worketh patience, patience, experience, experience hope. Hope maketh not ashamed.
By those tribulations, verse five, what's one of the results through those trials of life, through those experiences of unfinished products that we are?
Because the love of God.
Is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
If we all made a list of the 10 first things we think of to thank the Lord for for His goodness to us.
Would Romans 5 three be on the list?
Tribulations.
If we had a better sense.
Of the full value of it, it'd be on our top ten list.
In the relationship back to Song of Solomon.
Where it says that Waco north wind and blow.
There was a realization.
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That the Tribulation.
Was doing its work.
That the times when she was separated from himself were being used to deepen.
Our sense of need of him and a sense of his value to her soul, to her being.
Chapter 5.
Verse 3.
He comes.
Umm, verse two. I'm sleep. My heart's awake. I hear the voice of my beloved knocking open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
She says I put off my coat.
How can I put it on?
I've washed my feet.
How shall I defile them?
My beloved put his hand by the hole of the door. Verse 5I rose up to open.
Verse six I opened.
But my beloved had withdrawn himself.
We have to experience that in our relationship of growth with the Lord Jesus.
Oh Lord, I'm kind of busy right now.
I, I, I, I, I've got certain things that and I'm in home and, and, you know, I'm kinda tired and I've taken my coat off and he's knocking at the heart's door, but I'm not really don't have time right then. Could you call me back later? We sometimes say when someone calls us on the phone. I'm busy right now.
But he calls his love for never changes.
And ultimately triumphs. And so she opens.
She has to go through the same process we just read in the previous chapter. In verse seven, she goes out looking for him. The Watchmen that went about the city found me.
They did this time they smoked me.
The learning is a little more severe and a little more painful because.
The Watchmen, uh, as it says here, uh, they smite me, wound me.
Sometimes.
Trials, there are trials to develop a relationship between ourselves and Lord get in more intensified if we don't respond to them and we have to have them repeated. And we all tend to have to have them repeated. And she had to have them repeated, but it was more painful and it was more costly to her.
Umm.
She does.
Yet you might say restored to him.
She finds in chapter 6 and verse two, my beloved has gone down into his garden to the beds of spices to feed, to gather lilies and at this point her relationship has grown and she says.
In verse uh, three, I, my beloved.
And my beloved is mine.
That is, he's first.
She takes the second place.
It's not her need now so much as.
Her sense of who she belongs to, that's growth. When we gradually start to appreciate he's first in the relationship and what he feels and cares is what we should ask to feel and care.
Lord, you enter into how I feel. Comfort me, help me.
And gradually in the relationship, it turns around and we can say, Lord, how do you think about this? How do you feel about this? What's your thought about this matter?
And he gets in that way. We start to care about his thoughts first before our own.
He says to her, as he constantly does, as the Lord does to us in verse 4, Thou art beautiful, O my love, that there is for him a growing enjoyment.
Of her responses to himself. And those responses came in some cases through trial, through the difficult, painful experiences of life that gave her to respond in a way that increased his own joy and his own pleasure.
00:45:21
Well, I think it's time to give place to another, so I'm just gonna make a couple of more remarks and stop.
Verse Chapter 6. Verse 10.
She stops talking about her love. She grows one more step here, she says. I'm my beloved and his desire.
Is toward me.
But verse 11 is wonderful.
Fantastic.
Where this relationship has gotten to?
You might say he's brought her on to the same page with himself to such an extent that he is now the full treasure of her heart, as she was the full treasure of his heart from the beginning of the relationship. And so in verse 11, it says she says.
Come.
My beloved, and let us go forth.
We looked to the Lord and we say, Lord, what do you want me to do?
What's your thought? What's your thought? What's your feeling? What's your heart in the matter?
She's now entered into such a relationship with himself of commonness, of feeling and heart that she says to him, Come, let us. She initiates the very thought of doing something.
I think most of us wouldn't say we've completely arrived. Or if I could put it this way, when is the last time you said to the Lord?
Lord, come, let us.
Through thus himself.
In other words, there's such a commonness of joy and heart, understanding and relationship that she's not afraid to say to him, let's do this.
Their hearts 1 treasure.
Who's the most satisfied when it gets there? Can you imagine the heart of him when she said that to him?
Can you imagine the heart of the Lord when you say to him, Come, let us?
The World is not Enough
Open—Brian Schoen
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I'd just like to share something. I think I've got about 12 minutes.
Umm, but I do I I wanna say something because I think it helps us Orient ourselves. We've been listening so much to the wonderful love of the Lord. We had the hope that we talked about in the reading meeting and the hope of being with the Lord. And the Lord loves us so incredibly. But I wanna say something because it might help us Orient ourselves. And that is.
This world has everything we need.
And this is all there is.
And now I'm sure, as you said, as you hear those words, immediately you've got a ping in your gut and you say, oh.
That's that's not right at all. And we know that's not right, but yet sometimes we wonder what's going on in our lives and.
The Lord says I know the thoughts, I think towards you, saith the Lord, Thoughts of peace and not of evil, that I might give you an expected end, and yet without a doubt.
As we journey on in this scene, we are having trials and tribulation. We know that the Lord said that what happened to us. I'll say one other thing. Those that go on and Don talked about this with the rich man, those that go on without the Lord certainly seem to do fine and end up happy and effective in their life. And you see.
Headlines and everything that this world is spinning out of control because we know without a doubt these are the last days.
And yet sometimes in our heart we do settle down, we do forget to walk with the Lord. Matthew 1128 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 from me. And so as Don talked about the that exchange there being yoked up with the Lord.
Walking with the Lord. Certainly when I made those statements that you knew that were wrong.
Hopefully when you look at the inverse of that, which is yoking up with the Lord and walking with Him through the scene, that is the path of life and happiness for us. And we know that this is our life is but a vapor that appears for a while. So we're here for a short time, but the Lord has left us here. He tells us in John chapter 17.
He said, he said, Father, I pray not that thou wouldst take him out of the world.
But that thou would keep him from evil. So we are here for a reason. Why are we here? So that we might become more like the Lord. So let's just look at umm, a few verses. First, Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter 2.
Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse 26 For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight, wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the Sinner he give us travail together and to heap up that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of the Spirit. And so in our lives, how many times have we spent time on a pathway where we've not been close to the Lord and you felt.
Leanness to your soul and you've just carried on. Anyhow, we have all done it. But as you hear those erroneous statements I made in the beginning, might they speak to your heart to say this is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it. This is a new beginning for all of us. As you've come to this conference and made this effort to be here, I would encourage you to.
Take a different step in your life from this day forward.
And to always have your eyes focused on the Lord. Umm, turn with me to Genesis.
I think it's 42.
Genesis 42, verse 36.
And Jacob their father said unto them, Me, have you breathed of my children? Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me. And I know our life can feel like that sometimes. It does press upon us. We do have challenges, we do have disappointments, we do have heartaches. We are left in this scene, but the Lord is someone that we can join up with and walk with and get.
00:05:10
The strength and the wisdom and the knowledge to be different and not be conformed to this world and have different homes and different relationships and different friendships. And it tells us in Colossians chapter 3 that we should do everything heartily is on to the Lord. So if you're a single brother in the meeting here.
Do it heartily is unto the Lord. Be the best single brother that you can be. If you're a single sister in the meeting, do it heartily is unto the Lord. Be the best sister you can be. If you're a husband. Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. We are so tremendously blessed in the Lord. He loves us so much He's given us. It tells us in Peter everything that pertains to life and godliness.
The question is, do we believe that somehow we let our hearts and minds get blinded in this scene, but instead.
Let's be transformed, and let's be the best husband we can be. If you're the wife, be the best wife you can be. If you're the grandparent, if you're a parent, raise up your children in the way that they should go. And when they're old, they will not depart from it. Do not lose heart. Take courage. Stay on the path of faith. Don't let the enemy deceive you. Jacob looked at these things. He said. All these things are against me.
You start getting under your circumstances.
And we start looking horizontally instead of looking vertically. We have the hope to be forever with the Lord, and God cannot lie. His promises are sure, and we can count on them. So Jacob had the wrong perspective here. Turn with me to Jeremiah, please.
You say well, but the these things are against me. Well, let's look at Jeremiah chapter 24.
Jeremiah chapter 24, verse 5. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel like these good figs, so I will acknowledge them, which are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. And so when we experience challenges in our life and we're left here, we're left here because God has a purpose for us and he's trying to transform our lives to be more like His Son. So these things go on.
It's not like Jacob. All these things are against me. These things are for our good. And why verse seven? And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord and they are my people.
And I will be their God, for they shall return unto me with their whole heart. And so whatever place you are at in your life, God is the God of new beginnings. And you know that because when you look at the people that the Lord has used in Scripture.
The end of their life was was different than the beginning. You look at Peter. Peter denied the Lord with those with oaths and cursings, and yet he was used mightily of the Lord.
Joseph went through some trials, he was mightily used of the Lord. David went through some trials, he was mightily used to the Lord. So I encourage each of you to remember that the Lord is working things together for your good, that you might be conformed to the image of a son. Umm, please turn with me to first Peter.
And before we do that, umm Philippians chapter 3, verse 13.
Philippians, chapter 3, verse 13. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.
For the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And so whatever has happened in the past, don't focus on it yesterday as poured concrete. It is not gonna be changed. But we need to press on towards the mark. We need to run the race that is set before us. We need to look on to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was joy.
00:10:03
Joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. First Peter. Chapter one.
First Peter chapter one, verse three blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his.
Abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope. By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we have a risen Savior in heaven who is waiting for us. That where I am, there ye may be also. We had those verses earlier in John chapter 14, the end of verse 3.
To an inheritance, incorruptible, non defile, which freighteth not away reserved. We have a reservation in heaven for us by a God who is unchanging. This is permanent. We can count on it reserved in heaven for you who are kept guarded by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season if need be. You are in heaviness through manifold testings.
For that the proving of your faith, being much more precious than of gold, which perishes though it be tried by fire, might be found unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. So do not lose heart. The Lord loves you, and He's working things together for good. Your life and your experiences in life are ordered of God, and love to do you good at your latter end.
Harry Hale used to say all our failures, whether sinners or Saints, spring from unbelief of the goodness that's in the heart of God towards us. So remember.
To do what's right and do your best and keep your eye on the Lord Jesus Christ who loves you more than we will ever comprehend. And lastly, just turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6.
Deuteronomy chapter 6.
Verse five. Well, let's we'll start with verse 40 here. O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
And then verse 18 And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with thee, and that thou may goest in and possess the good land which the Lord swear unto thy fathers. While we are pressing towards the mark of heaven, we have that place reserved for us. We have.
Salvation that cannot be taken away. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit. God has given us this earnest, this down payment.
For what is reserved for us. But as we journey on in this scene, I encourage you to keep the love of the Lord before your heart. And another thing that Harry Hale said, I remember listening to a tape and I backed it up like five times because I thought I misheard him. He said, never try to love the Lord any more than you do. And I heard that and I was like, oh, this isn't right. I must have not heard that. So that's in the old days of cassette. So I'm hitting reverse, back it up, play it again, set it over and over. Finally I let it play through.
I didn't listen, I let it play through. Finally, just sit down and think about how much the Lord loves you. The Lord sold and gave everything so that we could be with Him where He is in that coming day. And so don't lose heart. Do what's right, do your best, do what hardly is unto the Lord, and you will receive a blessing. It may be well with you and I. Again, I don't mean it's easy because we've been talking.
About the manifold testings and trials. But we know this world is a wilderness and a desert so don't be blinded or try not to be. I know we will all mess up, I've messed up more than too many times, but keep your eyes on the Lord.
And we sing #46 in the back of the book #46 in the appendix.
00:15:46
And I thought my heart will pressure.
Continuously.
I'm on my mind progress.
To her.
Umm.
In my travelling to my.
I want, I say.
Oregon.
Umm.
It'll strike with me.
You'll fall asleep.
For me.
Christ Stands Alone
Gospel—Mark Hapanowicz
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Already, uh, welcome to everyone. So we'll do that again. This is gospel meeting. Gospel is good news, and everybody needs some good news right now. But the good news is intimately and inseparably connected to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's who we're going to be talking about today. But uh, first let's open our meeting with, uh #19.
O Christ, in thee, my soul, have all now.
Come on.
I'll give some time. I'm glad till now I'm going to go.
No, no. Black Project Cancer. Goodbye. No, no, no.
Nsnoise.
Let's pray.
In the last few millenniums, the Natural men have wrestled with certain questions. Questions like, where did we come from?
Who am I? What does it mean to be human? What happens after death? What is right and wrong? All these kinds of questions, Various ones have sought to give answers to these questions.
00:05:14
Prophets, philosophers, Teachers.
Religions of different sorts all seek to provide answers to these things.
But there is one who stands apart from all the others in that respect.
One who is separate from all the others. And that one is the Lord Jesus Christ. And So what we would like to do tonight is to look at him and how he stands apart from every other creed, every other religion, every other person, every other.
Profit. And so he stands apart, first of all, in terms of the prediction of his birth and the circumstances of it. Christ stands alone in terms of his personal integrity and his life. He stands alone in terms of the character of his ministry and the claims that he made.
He stands alone. Christ stands alone in terms of his death. Christ stands alone.
In terms of his resurrection, Christ stands alone. In terms of being the Savior, the only Savior, Christ stands alone. And as in regards to the one who can fill and satisfy the heart, Christ stands alone. And so turn with me, please, to Matthew chapter one.
The first point we'd like to take up is how he, his birth was predicted and how different his birth was than any other. Long ago in the book of Isaiah, his, uh, birth was predicted and in other places as well, but in that, uh, uh.
Uh, Isaiah, there where that account is given is, uh, Isaiah Chapter 7. There was a king named Ahaz and God told Ahaz asked me for a sign and Ah has said, no, I don't want to ask you for a sign. So God said, I'll give you a sign.
And that sign that God gave to Ahaz on that day is is basically repeated here in Matthew chapter one where we're gonna start. And that sign was that they're a virgin would conceive and bring forth a son. You would call his name Emmanuel. And that's what we have here in Matthew chapter one and verse 23.
It's the fulfillment of that very prophecy that was made of Christ hundreds of years before his death.
And so it says in verse 22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us.
And so Christ's birth was predicted ahead of time. And it's not just any birth, it's a birth by a virgin, which of course.
Can't happen except by the power of God.
And so Christ stands alone in this. You can think of any other person.
And none of them can make such a claim as that Christ stands alone.
And so Christ was born. It says that he would be called Emmanuel, which is God with us. And think of those words for a moment.
God with us. You know, of all the gods that you can imagine in this world, be they Muslim or Hindu or Pagan or any sort, where has there ever been a God who came down to be with us?
And Christ stands alone and this he came to be with us. You know, he's a God that showed up. Someone mentioned all the tragedies that have happened recently in terms of the hurricane.
Irma and Harvey and Maria, and it has done terrible devastation, hasn't it? And you know, we live in a world that's full of sorrows and God has never intended to shelter us from those from pain.
00:10:01
And yet he showed up. He's the God that shows up.
Where's any other God when these things hit? And yet the Lord Jesus was here. He was with us.
It says also in Isaiah chapter 53, Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
When he was here, he took those things on himself.
He felt them. He was here among us. He walks with us. He's the only God that promises to walk with us. And so he stands alone, God with us.
He stands alone in the fact that he's wise men came to visit. That's in the second chapter we turn over, we find that these men came saying.
Where is he that is born the king of the Jews? For we have seen a star in the east, and have come to worship him. These men came from a long way away, presumably. We don't know exactly where they were from or how they got there. If you were to go directly from the east of Jerusalem, you wouldn't find much but desert. Presumably they came from Iraq or somewhere along there. It would have been a journey of hundreds of miles. What was the king of the Jews to them? And yet they came for what purpose?
They came to worship him.
And we might interview them and ask them how many other kings have you gone to take gifts to when they were born? And they would probably say none.
Christ stands alone, so they come. They bring those gifts, Gold, frankincense, myrrh, gifts fit for a king. How did they know that who this person was? Why did they come to him instead of anyone else?
Because he stands alone.
God warned them in a dream to return a different way. Presumably God had showed them about Christ. How they ever came to realize that the King of the Jews was born, I don't know, but they did. But Christ stands alone. We could turn over to Luke chapter 2 to look at further circumstances of His birth. We would see there the angels appearing at the birth of Christ.
Verse 8 says they were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the, uh, the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. This was the actual night when Christ was born. The Angel said unto those shepherds, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior.
Which is Christ the Lord? Is there any other prophet? Is there any other person? Is there any other in history who had such a visit as this?
No, Christ stands alone. This was the first time those angels had ever seen their Creator. It was one Angel to begin with, and yet it says, then suddenly there was with the Angel multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest.
And on earth, peace to man of goodwill, goodwill to men.
Was there ever such a message by any other person that you can think of?
No, the answer is simply no. Christ stands alone. God manifests in the flesh. Christ stands alone.
Again, this is the first time these angels have been given to see. I wondered sometimes why only these these shepherds, but I really think it was more for the angels than it was for the shepherds. Again, it's the first time they had ever seen their creator. And those shepherds went and they told their news to people around and people wondered and marveled. This is the all Jerusalem had wondered when those wise men showed up.
And so we have.
In Christ, the uniqueness of his birth that was foretold and when he came, you have all these, uh, other things pointing out, differentiating Christ from the crowd. And we, even though there was a stir at his birth and there was a stir when the wise men came, which probably was about two years later or something approaching that.
Yet in time all that stir settled down.
12 years later, roughly 10 to 12 years later, we find a boy in the temple in Jerusalem.
00:15:00
Let's turn over. It's still in chapter 2 here and.
Verse 41 we'll read the story now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover and when he was 12 years old they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast and when he had they had fulfilled the days as they returned the child Jesus tariated behind in Jerusalem and Joseph and his mother knew not of it but supposing him to have been in the company when today's journey and they sought him among their kins folk and when they found him not they turned again to Jerusalem seeking him and it came to pass that after three days they.
Him sitting in the temple in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And so here's a 12 year old. What's he doing sitting in the temple?
He's hearing the doctors of the law, He's asking them questions. Do you have any 12 year olds in the audience here tonight?
I don't see any hands, so we'll have to go to the parents.
Parents in the audience. We have parents here in the audience. Did you ever have a 12 year old come to you and say, didn't you know, I had to be about my father's business? Raise your hand if your child ever said that to you. Now the answer is no. You know, there's only a couple. I don't know, 100 people, a couple, 100 people here, you know, but if we had a million people in this auditorium.
The answer would be the same. There never was such a one besides him. So in his youth, he's here, he's walking in perfection.
The rest of his, uh.
Life before is public ministry we know very little about, and so we're going to turn over to Matthew chapter 3.
When that time of his public ministry is coming to an end.
And we're going to read from verse 13.
Uh, let me give you a little background just to get the connection. John the Baptist is preaching. John has been sent by God. He had a message for the children of Israel at that time. That message was repent and be baptized because you've turned your back on me and you need to be baptized. And John had that message. He was sent by God to take that message.
And John was in the wilderness and those that that heard and uh.
Wanna do what's right inside of God? They came out to be baptized by John, and so Jesus came out to be baptized. And so we start in verse 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized.
John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and cometh thou to me.
So John sees Jesus. John didn't know who the one he was preaching about was. His message was there's one coming after me who is mightier than I I'm not even worthy to untie his shoes to lose his shoes from off his feet and he but he didn't know who it was. He tells us this in in in John's gospel. I didn't know except the one who sent me to preach.
Told me. And so he sees Jesus and he recognizes him. God tells him this is the one who you've been telling people about.
And so he says to Jesus.
I can't baptize you. You should be baptizing me. Why did he say that? Because through those years, those 30 years as a man, behind the scenes, the Lord Jesus was leading a perfect life.
A righteous holy life. He was the one Son of God. And John says you should be baptizing me. And So what does Jesus say?
Verse 15 Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffereth to be so for now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill our righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lining upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
So Jesus goes to the baptism of John. He goes under the water. He comes out of the water God.
Opens the heavens. God sends a message to this earth. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased because he had lived those 30 years as a perfect man and spotless purity in the in the sight of a holy God. And so God opened the heavens. Who else had the heavens open to them for any purpose? Who else heard the voice?
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From God saying this is my beloved son.
Or even that I wouldn't know. Well pleased with them. Is there any other person in history, Moses or Mohammed, a Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi, anyone?
Where such a thing happened, the answer is no. Christ stands alone.
But what about this was John Wright? I should have been baptized by you. And why was this right? Well, the answer to that question comes from Luke Chapter 7, if you want to turn over there for just a second.
We'll see what was really happening. I believe it's uh.
29.
This is what was happening. It says all the people that heard him, that is John the Baptist and the publicans, justified God being baptized with the baptism of John.
What the Lord Jesus was saying to what? What the Lord Jesus was doing there.
Since he didn't have any sins to wash away, he didn't have any need to be baptized. But those who submitted to John's baptism were justifying God. They were doing the right things in the sight of God. They were doing the only right thing in the sight of God For those people at that time. If you were going to do what was right in the sight of God at that time when John was preaching, you need to submit to the baptism of John.
And so Jesus, even though he was sinless, does exactly that. He goes.
To be baptized with the baptism of John and that's how he fulfilled all righteousness, because those people were the ones that were justifying God. They were the ones that saying God is right, we need to repent.
And so they did that by submitting to the baptism of John. And that's why Jesus, I believe, was baptized of John at that point.
The Lord Jesus grace brought him to the place where their sins had brought them.
Make a note of that, because it's not the last time we'll see that he and Grace comes to the place where the sins of the people had brought them to the baptism of John.
And so his 30 years of life, his birth, he's separate from any other person on the face of the earth, he stands alone.
His life before his public ministry flawless such that God could open the heavens and say, this is my beloved Son and whom I will please. He stands alone in that.
And so he begins his public ministry.
And what things do we see from Christ in his public ministry?
He preaches the Kingdom of God. If we were to say in Matthew's gospel, we would see the Sermon on the Mount where the Kingdom of God is, is laid out. We see him, uh, doing miracles. In fact, uh, let's turn to the.
Uh, 9th chapter I believe.
No 8th chapter.
Chapter uh Verse one Chapter 8 When he came down from the mountain, and the great multitude, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
So this is, umm, a miracle very early. And it is a public ministry. The slepper comes. Of course, leprosy was incurable. If you or anyone else in Israel, you'd be chasing that leper out.
And that leper comes. Whatever he's seen to this point would be hard for me to say, but he says this. I know that you can make me clean. He says, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. What I don't know is, are you willing to do it?
Are you good enough to do it? Good in the sense of morally good enough? I believe you have the power, but I'm not sure if you care. That's what that leper is saying.
Do we do right when when we think that God doesn't care what a mistake that is what is his Christ's answer? He says I will be thou clean and he reaches out and he touched him. You know this leper wasn't the only one who.
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Wondered whether God cared or not His disciples, uh, were in a boat and uh, Mark chapter 4, verse 11.
Nope, not Mark chapter 4 verse 11.
How about 41? Well, let's read that passage.
Yes, 35 The same day when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over to the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and they were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of the wind and waves, and 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 they said unto him, Master, cares thou not that we perish? We're going to die. Don't you care?
What does he do? He wakes up.
Tells the wind and the waves to stop.
Problem solved.
And they look at him they feared. Verse 41 They feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this?
That even the winds and the seas obey him.
And so they wondered, don't you care?
The answer to that problem, uh, question is, was obvious. Of course he cared. He cared about the leper. He cared about these men in the ship. There's, uh, Martha, you know her story.
Carousel. Not that my sister has left me to serve alone.
Of course he does. In first Peter, we read. He careth for you. We have a God who cares, you know there. We know people, we know them.
You know them, they're there who think, yeah, there's a God, but you know he doesn't care about me. He can't be bothered with little old me. He couldn't possibly be concerned with me. Is that true?
Their God isn't big enough to.
Care.
Oh, God is, Jesus is.
Our God is great enough.
To be interested in everything that happens to you. Our God is interested enough in you to know how many hairs are on your head. Not only how many, but which one just fell off.
Because they're all numbered. They're all numbered.
I don't know how many hairs are on my head. I've looked in the mirror and wondered, you know, why they were going so fast sometimes. But you know, I haven't really lost any sleep over how many hairs I had on my head. I don't care that much, but he does. He cares for you.
Here's a man. What manner of man is this? This isn't his public ministry. He cares. He does miracles like this. He heals the leper. When the leper thought he Maybe he didn't care. He.
You know, they can wonder what kind of a man. He wasn't just a man, was he? And was there anyone else, anyone else in history who could stand there and command the wind in the waves? Is there anyone else in history who could touch the leper and make him clean? Is there anyone in history who could touch the leper who wouldn't have contracted leprosy himself or wouldn't have been afraid to touch him because of at least the fear of it?
Christ stands alone in these things, and this is just scratching the surface.
Is there anyone else in history who could take 5 loaves of fish, UH-5 loaves of bread and and fishes and break them and feed 5000 people with them? Anyone. Could Mohammed do that?
Is there any of the the Hindu people? Could they have done that? No, Christ stands alone.
Is there anyone who could open the eyes of the blind? Anyone could unstop the ears of the deaf? Anyone who even pretended that they could do these things? No, Christ stands alone.
Let's turn to Mark 7.
I'm sorry, John 7.
00:30:00
Here's a case where.
The Pharisees had sent uh some people to take the Lord Jesus.
And, uh, let's see.
Well, anyway, I'm off the place here.
Yes, thank you. The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him in the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him. And these officers go they come where Jesus is, they start listening to what he has to say. And did they take him? Did they do their job? No, they come back. And so in verse 45, the officers and the chief priests and the Pharisees. And then why have you not brought him?
And the offer said officer said never man speak.
Like this man, there's another one of the distinctives of Christ. Never man spake like this man. No man.
He had the words of eternal life. He was God manifest in the flesh. He was here, John says in grace and truth we beheld his glory. John says the glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and everything that Christ did, manifested that grace and truth.
And.
Everything he did manifested that grace and truth, and so Christ in that ministry. And what about some of his other claims?
We're here in John 7. Let's flip back to John chapter 6 and verse.
35 Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. I want you to step back a minute and think about this. Here's a man, the Lord Jesus. He's there. He's talking to this group of people. Put yourself in that crowd.
And Jesus says I am the bread of life.
I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger.
And he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And you're standing there, and you're watching, and you hear him say this.
What kind of a man can make a statement like that?
I am the bread of life.
What kind of a man can make a statement like that?
Only one of Lord Jesus, God manifest in the flesh has anyone else in this world. Could anyone else say such a thing as that?
The answer is no.
Christ stands alone. Turn over to the 8th chapter.
Verse 12.
I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
Can you imagine?
Standing there in front of a person who said those words to you, what kind of a man could make a statement like that? I'm the light of the world. You follow me and you won't walk in darkness.
Yet Jesus said them, and he could back them up. He could back it up. He's alone in his claims. He's alone in his grace. He's alone in his superiority over nature. He's alone.
In the message that he brought, he stands alone in all of these things. There isn't anyone who can compare. There are any others who make such claims because they can't, and he can.
Christ stands alone.
Umm, let's turn to Luke.
Chapter 9.
And at Luke Chapter 9, we are in a point in the Gospels where Christ begins to turn to head to the cross. He had been here doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. He had done all of these miracles that we've talked about. He made these claims they talked about that we've talked about.
Umm, there's one more I wanna look at before we, uh, come to 9. So let's go back to, uh, John 8 for a second and then we'll come back tonight. Luke 9. So you might as well keep your finger there because we'll be back there in a minute.
00:35:14
But it's it's this one.
In John 8 here.
It's on 829. Brother referred to that this verse this morning. Umm.
Christ had already claimed here to essentially be God when they.
Well, it's actually a little bit after this where he says before Abraham was I am.
Which is essentially a claim to be the one that appeared to Moses on the mountain.
But here Jesus.
Says these words.
He that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him. And so then in verse 30, as He spake these words, many believed on Him. He spake these words, many believed on Him. Why? What is it about those words that 'cause people to believe in Him? There have been a lot of other words.
What was about these words that caused him to believe in him?
I'll tell you what I think about that.
When they heard those words, at this point in his life, they had all They had seen the miracles, they'd heard the teaching. They knew who he was and what he was about.
But they could reflect on those words, I do always those things, and please the Father, and they could recall all the things that they had seen him do and all the things that they had heard him say.
And they could realize the truth of it. Here was a man who had the power over the wind and the wave. Here was a man who could feed multitudes with little. Here was a man who could give sight to the the blind and open the ears of the deaf.
Here was a man who had all this power and that, yet they had never ever seen him do a single thing for his own personal gain.
And so when he said those words, I do always the things that pleased the father, it resonated with them. It had to because they knew it was true.
Never did Christ do anything except that will of the Father He stands alone in.
And so let's go back to loop. Now I know this is the transfiguration.
Jesus goes up on the mount with Peter and James and John and.
Uh, let's.
Start with verse 29. As he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistening. And behold their talk with him, two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. So this will take us into our next subject. And Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were awake, they saw his glory. Now there's a lesson for you.
They were asleep.
But when they were awake, they saw His glory. Are we awake?
When they were awake, they saw his glory, and they saw the two men that were with him. And it came to pass as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, is good for us to be here. Let us make free tabernacles, one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias, not knowing what he said. And while he thus spake, there came a cloud and overshadowed them, and they feared as they entered the cloud, and there came a voice out of the clouds saying, This is my beloved son.
Hear him.
There's a couple things here.
Again we have the voice from heaven proclaiming the perfection of Christ now, not in the 1St 30 years, but in the three, the additional 3. His life was perfect all the way through and that voice comes again.
It also comes at a time when.
His disciples.
Didn't see it well enough that he stood alone and so they put him on par with two others and God says no, Christ stands alone.
And so he blotted out that scene, causing the fall on their knees. And the next thing they see Jesus. Only Christ stands alone.
00:40:11
Perfect.
In his life. Perfect in his private life.
Perfect in his public life.
Who else? Where's the rival?
Who else can make such claims? You know we're not talking about this with any other person on the face of the earth.
What system is good enough to supersede this one?
You know, Pilot had to answer a question and we're in a certain sense everyone has to answer that question. That questions is what shall I do with Jesus, which is called the Christ? What are you going to do with him? He said. He has no rivals, he has no peers.
This is God's man. What are you going to do with him? Are you going to bow the knee to him, or are you going to own him as your Savior and Lord?
That's what you need to do. God says you're a Sinner. I just like UMM with John the Baptist. Those people needed to repent. You know, if you don't know the Lord Jesus, that's what you need to do.
But he's there to save, He's there in grace, and so he's going to head to this cross. Before we go there, I'd like to look at verse 51. It says it came to pass. When the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.
He steadfastly set his face. Did you go to Jerusalem? The time came when he should have been received up. What does that mean?
Primarily, I think it refers to the fact that he should have been received up as the king of Israel. But you know, there's another sense we could look at it, and I think it would be true of that sense as well. Christ after, at this point in his life, having lived the perfect life, could have gone straight to heaven. He could have been received up straight into heaven.
But he doesn't go there. He sets his face to go to the cross. If he had gone to heaven right from here, he would have been there alone. He stands alone, but he would have been in heaven alone.
He wants others to be there with him. Christ, bringing many sons to glory, suffered. And so if he doesn't go to the cross from here, he remains alone by himself, the only perfect man. You know his His people talk about his being a great moral teacher. You know his perfect life didn't do anything except condemn us because here was a man.
That was what every man should have been, but none of us were.
And so mankind would have been forever condemned because of his perfection. And so he goes to the cross to say.
He stands alone in these things.
He would have stood alone for eternity if he hadn't gone to that cross, but he went there in love to our souls. Now the character of Christ's death, you know, Romans tells us.
We'll have to read it because I'm going to fail to quota right? Romans 5.
Verse six. When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for our righteous man will one die. That for adventure, for a good man, some would even dare to die. You know there are times in this life when ordinary men will die for people that they love.
That does happen.
Uh, people are not generally willing to give up their own life even for a righteous man, but for a good man that says some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Christ's death was no ordinary death. It wasn't an ordinary death of somebody who loved somebody else and gave up their life so that they could live a natural life. His death was more than that.
If we had looked a little further in John chapter 6.
We would have seen that, he says. I give my flesh for the life of the world.
His death was more than an ordinary death, you know. Where are all the profits of the other religions? Where are all the philosophers?
They're all in the grave.
They're all in the grave.
Christ goes to the grave, but he doesn't stay there. Christ died, but not just because he died. He died for us. Christ died for our sins.
00:45:16
He stands alone in this. He's the only one that can. The only reason he can do that is because he was a perfect man who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot.
God, let's turn to Matthew 27.
Verse 45 Now from the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land unto the 9th hour and about the 9th hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani tis to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Here is Christ alone in a different sense.
Here is Christ alone as the sin bearer.
Here is Christ bearing the sins. From the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land until the 9th hour.
And in those three dark hours, a holy God put upon the head of the Lord Jesus Christ the sins of all who would believe. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
And so he's alone here, forsaken of God. He was forsaken for us. He stood alone on that cross as the sin bearer. He stands alone on the cross as the one who brings redemption and salvation. He paid the price. The wages of sin is death.
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
In those three dark hours.
He was forsaken of God. He takes a place.
What should have been our place? Remember how when he was baptized, His Grace brought him to that place where their sins had brought them?
This cross is the same. This is our place. This is where we should have been on the cross, and yet Christ is here taking our place. His grace brought Him to the place that our sins would have taken us.
And so he dies on that cross.
He stands alone on that cross. He bears those sins.
And he pays the price.
But if we would go to the 28th chapter.
We would see.
Verse 5.
The angels came, or excuse me, not the angels, but the women came. Let's start at verse one. And the end of the Sabbath it began to dawn toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake. And the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance was like right lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became his dead men.
And the Angel answered and said unto the woman, Fear not.
For I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here, he is risen.
Christ rose from the dead. He perfectly bore those sins on the cross. He paid the price of every last one of them, and so he rose from the dead. Death had no more hold on him. It says an axe was not possible that he should be held of it.
Because he had perfectly borne those sins, He finished the work.
So he stood alone on that cross, and he stood alone in his death, a death that could be our salvation, as it says in John. Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world is not just any death. It's a death for redemption. It's a death like no other death. It's the means by which you and I can be saved.
Is there anyone in this room tonight who doesn't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
You can be saved tonight because God in love to your soul has sent Christ, who stands alone as the only one who could offer that kind of a redemptive death. Who did it?
00:50:13
Neither is there salvation in any other. It tells us in umm, the book of the Acts. For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Again, where are the peers? Is there anyone else who can make such claims as Christ makes? Is there anyone else that can make the claims of of being God? Who can make the claims of being the light of the world? Who can make the claims of being the one that can satisfy your heart?
Being the bread of life, there's no such person ever, anywhere. You can't think of 1.
Christ stands alone.
He stands alone again as the Savior, as we mentioned here. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
You know the scriptures tell us.
That, uh, God is the one who can satisfy our hearts. Is there anyone in the room tonight who has this longing in their heart? You know, we all kind of have, as long as we started off with the questions early on, you know, because there's this emptiness in the heart of man and the souls of men.
That's looking for something, and that something is the relationship with God. You know, there's no among all the religions of the world, there's only one God of love. Did you know that?
And there's really only one place to get forgiveness of sins. Muslims don't have forgiveness of sins. You can ask them. They'll tell you, you know, they come to the point of, of death and they, they, they hope it'll go good, that they've done enough good work.
To make it, they don't have forgiveness of sins. The Bible tells us through This man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. He stands alone in that This man has preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
The Hindus, they don't have forgiveness of sins either. They've got a karma that.
Brings them back and brings them back and brings them back and brings them back until they get it right. It's an endless cycle.
Sidharth Malhotra.
Couldn't deal with the pain in the world.
And and came up with detachment philosophy. That's essentially what it is.
The pain comes from because we care, because we're attached to something, because we care. So don't care about anything. You won't have pain and then you can have peace.
We have a God who cares. He cares for you. He knows your name. You may not realize He knows your name. You might think, how can this God?
Know me, care about me. But he does. He knows your name.
He knows who you are, He cares for you.
You know, after Jesus rose from the dead.
Umm, He appeared to the disciples who came through walls to come and be where they were.
He knows who you are, He knows where you are, He loves you. You can be saved tonight. He's the only savior that there is.
You need to be saved and he's the one that you need and so believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You know God offers the salvation freely to all Christ is there. He said him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. You need not fear about being turned away any more than that leper needed to fear. He says I know you can. I believe you got the power. I don't know if you're willing to do it.
You know, he wasn't turned away. None of those that came to Christ for healing were turned away.
You wouldn't be turned away either, and he is the one that can fill and satisfy the heart.
Let's sing #10.
And.
Somebody can start that please. My voice isn't is going.
Nightlife.
Drum and fall, everything I can fall.
In all.
The green beans and climbing face.
In the heart.
You know, when Jesus met the woman at the well, and this is a woman who had had five husbands and the one who she had now wasn't her husband, he said to that woman, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that saith to you, give me to drink.
Thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given you living water.
If you knew the gift of God, you would have asked. That's what He told her. If you know the gift of God, if you knew the gift of God, you would ask to you would ask God for it. And what else do you have said? He would have given it. It's available to you today.
You'd be no different than that woman at all. You ask. He's got it for you. And he said that water would be in you.
Well of water springing up into everlasting life. Christ stands alone in the ability to do this. He's the one that you need spray.
YP Sing With Open Mic
Second Timothy
Children—Michael Hapanowicz
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.
All right, well, I guess it's close enough to time that we can get started with the Sunday school. Does anyone have a song that they want us to sing this morning?
Yes.
Jesus loves me this I know. OK.
That's number 40 on the back of our sheet.
If someone could start the songs for us I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.
Umm, yeah.
She's done a lot with me.
Yeah, Jesus, God loves me.
Yeah, I love you.
Bye bye, don't be so.
He's not above me.
In real time.
Nsnoise.
Bridge on.
Just because I love me.
Yes, she must not be.
Happy.
That I won't help me so.
391313930.
9 every week and yell from his shining.
On high, he will watch me where I live. Yeah, she's unplugged me.
Yeah. Do you love me? Yeah, She's not like me.
I don't tell me so.
2000 plus community in Wellspan close to grace by me all the way.
MI shot and should I die he will Take Me Home on my.
Yahoo.
Yes, he's a must be.
Yeah, he's a lot of money.
The Bible tells me so.
I come from Cago Falls, and in the assembly that I go to when we sing the chorus of this song, yes, Jesus loves me. We like to do it along with American Sign Language. So that's what I was doing a minute ago. This means, yes, Jesus is pointing to the nails in his hands. That means Jesus loves me. And you know what's really cool about doing American Sign Language when you're going through that course? That means that you get to say twice as many times.
As someone who doesn't do the sign language, you can say twice as many times that Jesus loves me. And that's such an important thing for us to know and it's such an important thing for us to hear. But you know what?
I have a question because if this this is important for us to know, it's important for us to know how we know this. How do we know that Jesus loves us?
Just one of the kids can answer yes. What's the answer?
00:05:01
That is a perfect answer, but how do we know that he died on the cross for our sins?
Yes.
Because the Bible tells us so exactly. That was in the first verse of our song. We know that Jesus loves us. We know that he died for us, which is how he showed he loves us. We know that because the Bible tells us so. And so a little bit later, we're going to talk about the Bible and we're going to talk about the importance of going to the Bible for what we know to be true. This is the source that we go to so that we know what things are true. So thank you for those answers.
Does someone else have another song they'd like us to sing?
Out what?
45 OK.
Actually, what that says is it says it's not a song in this book.
Is do you? Do you know the name of the song you want to sing?
If not, maybe we'll have someone else pick a number, OK, I think, umm, over here we had a hand lifted up what was in the red dress and then we'll get you next, OK?
46 OK.
IDIATMITERINGOCODIJPITERT bump you have taken to me and because that he falls off to me and I are alpha.
And do you want all the mail I have to do?
I do I see him and have all this and how much the way Well, this is a selling song and there are a couple words to how to spell out how to spell out the word tidings the word bring the word Jesus, the word save the word girl, boys and trust.
And later in a little bit after we say our verse, we're going to talk about a little boy who loved to spell, but we're not there yet. So you had a song you wanted us to sing. What number is that? Hmm.
Number six, OK, I love this song. Thank you for giving it out.
Nsnoise.
00:10:29
The Lord will come again.
He do not verify that will bring.
Every time that lies alone, he thought, crying implore alone.
All the glory.
Of the Grand.
Shady and stranger praying.
How many prayers?
From afar.
Well, this little song has the story of the gospel in it, doesn't it? Because in the first verse it tells us how Jesus died, and he died for sinners. He had to die for our sins so that otherwise we'd have to die for them ourselves. But then it tells us something in verse two, it says Jesus died and he lives again.
So yesterday someone was telling us if you were you were paying attention. He said, you know, it's we talk about how Jesus died for us is so important that we know that he rose again from the dead because the tomb that Jesus was in is empty. I think that was Mr. So who said that I might be wrong. And then this verse, this, this song says, it actually talks about things that happened in the past, things that happened 2000 years ago. And then it tells us about something that hasn't happened yet.
It says Christ the Lord will come again. So this this song covers over 2000 years of history and it does it all in four verses. Isn't that incredible? OK, well, we have time for maybe just one more short one. And I think you had had your hand up before. So we'll, we'll do your song as the last 142.
All right, perfect. This is like the right length. Exactly. OK, can someone start that for us?
Nsnoise.
Did you know that because this song is true, that's why we're having a Sunday school this morning, because it's possible for little children to get saved. Then it's important for us to tell them about how to do that. Isn't that OK? Well, we're going to start with our verse, but I want to pray before we say our verses and then we can go around and see what you guys have memorized. OK, God and Father, we just thank you for this opportunity to to stop for a little bit and to think about the things that you have.
In your word, the Bible, we just pray that we would have ears to listen and hearts that are open to receive the truth, that we would obey it for your glory in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, well, the verse paper that we got in Cago Falls said that today's verse was going to be in John chapter 8, verse 32. So I'm just going to read that and maybe it will help some of you remember it a little bit better. It says, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
So if you got a different paper, you're memorizing a different verse than your Sunday school, that's OK. You can say the verse that you memorized, but umm, otherwise I think it will be John 832. So does anyone memorize the verse today? All right, over in the corner. Can you say it for us?
Perfect, now I have a big bag of candy. How many pieces do you think are in there?
00:15:04
A lot. There are 115 pieces in there. Can I count 12345678910 kids that are on the front rows? How many pieces do you think each kitchen get?
Just one. They shouldn't get 11.5.
I'm going to say that you can pick out two pieces.
All right, so anyone now you had your hand up, all right.
Very good. You can take out two pieces.
All right, does anyone else OK over here?
Truth and the truth shall make you free. John 832. Very good. Thank you for standing up.
All right. Does anyone else memorize the verse? Yes.
John.
Very good and you can have two pieces.
All right. Do you want to say the verse? OK.
John.
832.
Very good.
Alright, it looks like the watermelon suckers are popular. Does anyone else wanna say the verse Yes?
Very good.
No, OK. Did we have office alright.
Very good. You can have two pieces.
OK.
All right, is there anyone else who wants to say it?
Maybe over here?
I've got some candy.
All right.
Very good. You knew that perfectly.
Alright, anyone else?
OK, well maybe maybe when we're done then you can come say it to me and then you won't have to say it in front of everyone else. Now, I'm actually not going to talk about the verse that we memorized today because there's something different I want to talk about. But before we get into that, I'm going to tell you a lot of the little boy. Remember I said that there was someone who really liked to spell. And you see every week in Cago Falls, some of us will on Lord's Day evening will go into a big van and we'll drive into the heart of inner city Akron and we'll.
Pick up little kids to come hear the gospel, the good news that Jesus died for them. And we do that every single Sunday. And there is a little boy he started to come and his name was Jakari. And he was just about this tall, not very old. And he would love to spell. He would get into the car and he would he referred to me as Mr. Michael. And my sister was there and he would refer to her as Miss Megan. And he would say, Mr. Michael, give me a word to spell. I would say, OK, Takari, spell car. You say that's too easy.
Give me a harder word, say OK Jakari spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and he would say that's too hard. Give me a medium word and say OK, spell, spell milkshake to Curry and he would start he go MI. So that was what? And we would do that every single Sunday. But you know what? Eventually we got some sad news.
We got news. You see, Jakari lived in a home where his dad wasn't there and it was just his mom taking care of him and she didn't have very much money.
And so eventually, she decided she had to move to North Dakota to live with her grandmother. And so Jakari was going away. And we didn't know if we were ever going to see Jakari again. And so the last week that Jakari was there, he got in the van. And I asked him, Jakari, have you ever accepted?
Said, yes, I've done that. And he said it was a smile on his face. And you know what? And when the other people in the car heard that, that put a smile on our face too, because we were so glad to hear that Zakhari hadn't just been coming to the gospel meeting. He had accepted it for himself. And so one of the Sunday school teachers decided that they were going to write Zakary a letter. And they were. They might never see Jakari ever again. And so they wanted to remind Jakari of all the most important.
00:20:27
Things that he should, that he should remember. And so they wrote this letter and my, I actually got a copy of the letter because my name was put on the end of it as being someone who sent it to him. But in the original letter, I didn't write a single word of it. But I've got a copy today. And this is a little bit shorter than the original. I'm just going to read this letter to you guys that we wrote to Jakari to remind him because we were never going to see him again of the most important things we wanted him to remember. And this is what it said.
Said dear Jakari.
First of all, I know this is a lot to read, but if you don't want to read it all now, you can save it and read it another day. Jakari, we're so glad we've gotten to know you. We love spending time with you, spelling with you, and learning about God with you. You care about God. You remember what you learned and you apply it. You are kind and funny, a great kid. But most importantly, if you have believed in Jesus.
That he came, died for your sins, and rose again.
Accepted Him as your Savior. Savior, then you are a beloved child of God. Never forget that you have great potential to lead and influence others. Always use it in a positive way, teaching others about Christ and helping them do the right thing. Never let others lead you to do something wrong. You know the importance of reading your Bible and praying every day. Keep doing that just like you promised. Learn what it says and compare what you hear to the Bible, knowing that the Bible is the word of God.
And it's true.
Sometimes people may try and tell you something about the Bible or about God and it may not be right.
Always compare what you hear to the word of God, the Bible, to see if they are true. Ask questions, it's great, but when you come in questions in this life, make sure you find the right answer. You can find it in the Bible. Don't forget that God is good and that he loves you. Sometimes bad things might happen and it might seem like God has forgotten about you, but he hasn't. Remember we know for those who love God, all things work together for good. Romans tells us that.
You might not see it in that moment, but you can trust God. He loves you so much He sent His Son.
To die for you so he cares about your life. Remember, it's the things that are most difficult that make us strong. They make us better, and they grow us if we trust God instead of giving up hope. It's like a block of wood that is turned into a beautiful carving. The wood probably doesn't like getting cut, but when it's over, there's something amazing. It's now different from every other block of wood and uniquely beautiful. Zakari, I don't know if you'll be back in a few months or if we'll never see you again, but no matter what happens, know that we are.
For you and thinking about you, we love and miss you. So that was a letter that was written for Zakari so that he could remember the most important things that he would learn. And you know what I want to read to you guys today from a different letter. And this letter was written by the Apostle Paul. And it was written under different circumstances, but it actually had a very similar motive for why he wrote this letter compared to the letter I just read to you that was from Jakari. You see, the Apostle Paul.
Letter in second Timothy.
He was or he was under arrest. This was the second time that Paul had been arrested. The first time that Paul was arrested, he had stayed in a house. He was guarded, but he was in a home and he addressed the people and they could come, they could send him letters and they would know where to visit him. But this time was different. This time when the Apostle Paul got arrested, they put him in the mamertime prison.
A dungeon so nasty that only the rats that had fallen on hard times were desperate enough.
To crawl beneath the streets of Rome and nibble on the toes of men condemned to die. So that was where Paul was. And so we're going to read this letter. And so, you know, no one stayed in that dungeon for very long. It wasn't the Roman way to keep people locked up for a long time. Instead, they would either say you're innocent, you can go free, or they would say you're guilty and we are going to separate your head from your body.
And so Paul knew that the time he had left.
Was very short and what did Paul want to do with that time that he had left?
The last thing he wanted to do before he died was to write a letter to a man named Timothy. Now why would Paul want to write a letter to Timothy?
00:25:00
He wanted to write a letter to Timothy because he cared about Timothy. He wanted to write a letter to Timothy to remind Timothy of the most important things that Timothy needed to remember. Because Paul cared about Timothy. Paul had poured his life into Timothy. He was a teacher to Timothy. When Timothy was sad, Paul would make him cheer up. When Timothy was afraid, Paul would Timothy when Timothy was going to stand by idly while people in Ephesus were going to teach wrong.
Things and do bad things. And Paul said no, you confront them. And when Timothy was sad and when Timothy cried, Paul felt his pain. And so the last thing he wanted to do before he died was to write this letter to Timothy. And he loved Timothy so much that when he thought about Timothy, it warmed his heart. The thought that Timothy might come to visit me gave him hope that he would have a day that was filled with joy.
And warm thoughts were all Paul had.
Because his body was cold, winter was coming, he had no coat, and the chill of fall could already be felt on the winds that blew through the stone of the prison. And so the old white haired Apostle Paul took a pen in his shivering, shackled hands and he started to write this letter to Timothy. I wish we could read the whole thing with you guys, that would be awesome.
But we don't have time for that, so I'm just going to read a couple of verses from it.
So this is in Two Timothy.
I'm going to turn there.
And we're going to read from Second Timothy, chapter one.
That's First Timothy.
So this is Second Timothy chapter one, and I'm going to start with verse 3 just so we can hear some of the verses. But the verse I want you to pay attention to is verse 5. This is what it says. I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with a pure conscience, that without remembrance of thee and my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see Thee, being mindful of my tears.
That I may be filled with joy when I called her remembrance. And this is the verse I want you guys to pay attention to.
When I call to remember same face that is in me, which dwell first, and my grandmother Lois, and my mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in me also. OK, so here's that verse when I called a remembrance, the unfeigned faith that is in me.
It's such a good verse, but you know the most important word in that verse, the keyword in that verse. It's kind of a hard word to understand. It's the word unseigned. So I want a show of hands from the kids on the front row here. How many of you have ever heard of the word unfeigned before and think you know what it means? Does anyone know what unfeigned means?
I don't see any hands. So I'll tell you what, I haven't heard the word I'm saying used very much in in my life. But there's a couple times I've heard the word fame used before the fame and usually I hear it used like this. He's feigning an injury.
So how? What, what that might? What's that? Does that mean? Well, it's kind of like this. Someone goes.
Oh, oh, oh, don't worry about me. I'm only in agony, but I'll probably survive.
Say, oh Michael, please you, you just stubbed your toe. It's not that bad. And so to feign an injury is to pretend that you got hurt really, really bad, but you didn't get hurt very bad. And so has the idea of something to fame is something that's fake. And you put the little 2 letters in front of it on and then it means the opposite. So it means you aren't faking it.
Now, that's kind of how we use it in the English, but did you know that when the Bible was written?
It wasn't originally written in English. It was written in a different language. And the language that Second Timothy was written in was written in Greek. And so that Greek word has a very specific meaning. And so, umm, I want to help us illustrate what that word means. So I need a volunteer. I need someone who is a good actor. We have a good actor here, all right, and raise.
And what's your name? Emma. OK, I should have remembered that. Emma.
I I want you to give us to pretend you're sad.
We need to see your face. Can we see a sad face?
You are a really good actor, but I think we can take this to the next level. Can you put this mask on?
00:30:05
Oh man, now she looks really sad. Now you can see the tears that are coming down her face. OK, you can take the mask off.
Thank you, Emma.
When Paul wrote this, you could go to a theater and there would be actors and actresses and instead of trying to make their face look sad, if they wanted to pretend to be someone who was sad, or instead of making their like face look happy, if they wanted to pretend to be someone who was happy, they instead they would put these masks on a mask kind of like this.
And it would have tears coming down it and they would say, oh, look at me, I'm an actor pretending to be sad. And so that word for putting a mask on to hide what's really happened.
That's the word that we have in the Greek that's translated, feigned. And so it's the idea of you're just acting, you're just pretending. And so when Paul says Timothy, your face is unseigned, he puts that little 2 letters in. In English, it's 2 letters. In Greek it's just one letter, the letter A. He puts that letter in front of it and he says your face is unseen. He's saying Timothy.
You aren't acting like you're you aren't pretending to be a Christian. It's not an act.
That you're a Christian. You aren't faking having faith, Timothy. Your faith is real. I want to tell you a story about a girl. I don't think she would mind if I told you this story. You see, she grew up for a long time in a Christian family, and she went to the gospel meeting in the Sunday school every single week. And so there are 52 weeks in a year, I think. And so by the time she was 10, she had gone to 520 gospel meetings.
And another 520 Sunday schools. And you know what, everybody thought that she was a Christian and we were having an outreach. And I remember she was sitting down with another girl in a chair. They were beside each other and she was telling that other girl, this is how you can get saved. Well, a couple weeks later, I heard that this this girl I've been telling you about, the one that grew up in the Christian family, she said.
Guess what? I got saved, I thought.
You got saved. I thought you were already saved, She said no the whole time been pretending, but now I really got saved. She had even told other people how to get saved, but she herself wasn't. And so she had a faint face. She had a face that was just a mask, but the real thing she was had a ma, a Christian mask on, but underneath that Christian mask.
Was someone who wasn't a Christian and so but Paul is talking about here is he's talking to Timothy and he says Timothy.
You didn't have a mask on when you said you were a Christian. That was real. I am persuaded about it. And Timothy, your mother was a Christian and your grandmother was a Christian. And so we call that having a Christian heritage. But I'm going to tell you something, and this might sound a little funny, but there are no grandchildren in the family of God.
There are only children and so if your mother or father are a Christian and your grandmother or your grandfather are a Christian.
That doesn't make you a Christian. You don't have real faith if you haven't made it your own. And so you personally have to accept Jesus as your Savior, that he died and that he rose again for you. And then you can be like Timothy, who Paul says you have real faith. OK, now we're going to go through two more verses. And so the one is in, the next one is in Second Timothy, and we're just going to go through this one really quickly.
And this is verse 19 and this is Second Timothy 2, verse 19. It says, nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his. And let everyone that nameeth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. If you're someone who, like Timothy, has a real faith in Jesus Christ and you're not pretending to be a Christian, that means that you've taken Christ's name. If you're called a Christian, you've taken the name of Christ.
And so Paul says in this verse to Timothy, he says, Timothy, I want you to remember this, this is important. If you've taken the name of Christ, you need to depart from iniquity. And what he's saying is, Timothy, there were things that you used to do before you were saved and that needs to stop now. There are ways that you used to treat your brother and sister. Those need to stop. There are ways you might have answered back to your mom and dad that needs to stop.
There are thoughts that you might have had, Timothy. Those thoughts need to stop because it's not right for a Christian.
To do those things or to think those things. And so Paul tells Timothy, remember this, if you've taken Christ's name, if you say you're a Christian, there are certain things that you should not do. Well, that's the verse that he says in in Second Timothy 2. But so he tells Timothy to stop doing something. But in the next chapter he tells Timothy, keep doing something. And so we're going to read that in Second Timothy chapter 3.
00:35:24
It says.
Umm, in verse 14 it says, But continue thou and the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. So in the second chapter he tells Timothy, there are things that you need to stop doing because you're a Christian. But now in the third chapter he says, Timothy, there are things that you need to keep on doing.
It says continue. That's what it means is keep on doing this, but continue in the things that you have learned. So Timothy had a mother and Timothy had a grandmother who taught him things about the Bible. And Paul is telling to Timothy, you need to keep on doing that. Now I'm going to tell you something about Timothy. I think that it might help us understand a little bit about what he went through. You see, Timothy's father was a Greek.
And his mother was Jewish, and we don't know exactly what Timothy's father believed.
But never in the Bible do we read of anywhere where Timothy's father was a positive influence on his Christian faith. But we know that his mother was a positive influence on his Christian faith. And so I wonder if Timothy's father, who is a Greek, believes all the things that the Greeks believed. And so maybe this happened to Timothy when he was young. His father would come up to him and his father would say, Timothy, I want to tell you about all the Greek gods and goddesses. There are many gods in this world. They've got names like.
Zeus.
And Neptune. And epaphrodites.
And umm, Kronos, these are the Greek gods. And then Timothy's mother would come up to Timothy. And Timothy's mother would say, Timothy, I want to tell you about the one true God. There's only one God, and his name is Elohim, Jehovah, the one who delivered the children of Israel from ******* in Egypt. And then Timothy's father would come up to Timothy. And Timothy's father would say, Timothy, I want to tell you about Helen of Troy. Her face was so beautiful. It launched 1000.
Filled with men who were ready to die, to win her back. And then Timothy's mother would come to Timothy. And Timothy's mother would say.
Timothy, I want to tell you about Esther. She had a beautiful face, too. She won a beauty contest and so she became queen. But she has the courage to lay her life down for her people. And then Timothy's father would come and he would say, Timothy, I want to tell you about, sorry, just a minute. I want to tell you about Hercules. He was 50% God and 50% man. And so he did big things of strength. And then Timothy's mother would come to him and say, I want to tell you about Samson.
Who, by the power of God, delivered the children of Israel? And so they would go back and forth.
And his his father would say one thing, and his mother would say another.
What was Timothy going to believe?
Who could he trust?
He could trust the Bible and so Paul says you learn these things from your mother and your grandmother. But I'm going to tell you about some place that you can go that has even more authority than your mother. And when you don't know what to believe, when you don't know what to believe your mother or your father, you can believe the Bible. And so he says in verse umm 15 that from a child that has known the holy Scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation. And so you might come from a Christian family where your mother.
Your father are saying the same thing.
But you eventually are gonna go into a world where in school or in work, you're gonna hear all kinds of different ideas. And you might say one some someone's telling me this thing about what's true, and another person's telling me this thing about what's true. What do I believe? You can always go to the Bible as the source of truth, because it's the very word of God.
Well, we have one last verse I wanted to read and this isn't really a lesson to Timothy, but it's something that the set of Paul and then it's in chapter 4.
See if I can find the verse. This is what it says in verse six. For now I am ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand.
Well I'm not sure if it's the verse I I was thinking of, but.
Paul there is. He says that he's ready for his life to be poured out like water from a glass.
00:40:00
As an act of worship.
To the gods that loved him and it's OK. The executioner can come and he can sever the head of of Paul. That's fine because he's ready. He's lived his life for Jesus. He's he's just got a few more sentences left in the book to write Timothy, the book that tells Timothy the most important things he wants him to remember. And Paul says, I'm ready to go.
And so I just want you to remember.
The slow context of the book.
Of how it was written, where Paul was, when he wrote it, and why he wrote it. He was he had been forsaken by a whole lot of people. It says in the first chapter there was someone who wanted to find the apostle Paul and he went to Rome and none of the local Roman Christians could even tell him where Paul was. Paul had written a letter to the Romans that gave him a clear understanding of the gospel, and now they have that truth because of Paul and now they didn't even care about him.
But Timothy cared, and so this letter was written to him to remind him of those things he wanted to know because Paul wasn't going to be around anymore to tell him. And all of us today benefited from this letter that Paul wrote to Timothy.
The last thing he did before he died reminding him of the important things he needed to know. So just to help us remember what those things were, it was the importance of having faith that is real.
Of if you are a Christian, there are sins that you need to stop doing, and there, if you are a Christian, there are any things you need to keep doing. And that is to keep doing the things that Christian parents have taught you that the word of God has taught you. So those are the important lessons that Paul gave to Timothy. Well, we've gone a long time and we have. Does someone want to give out a final song before we close?
I wonder if there's a boy on the front row who has a song because I think we've had only girls give out a song.
Is there any voice? Yes.
Hmm. Behold, I stand at the door and knock or what? Behold.
OK, someone who know that song can start it. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
You did. That's perfect. Then you both get the song you want, OK?
Nsnoise.
Alright, well that's a good song for us to end with because we've been talking about someone who is a Christian, someone who has real faith. But maybe you've never come to that point where you open the door to Jesus who's knocking and he wants to. He says, I want you to be like a Timothy, I want you to have real faith. I want you to take my name and to be a Christian. And if you haven't done that, I hope that you do it this morning.
So let's just close in prayer.
Christian Liberty
Address—Phil Jennings
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I wonder if we could sing together hymn number.
Umm 1/21/32 1:32.
3331.
319, 10-4, 10-4, 10-4 10, 10-4 0100000000.
Our.
Life is hidden.
Gone.
In life.
Flutter.
If we could also turn to the hymn we sang yesterday #285.
I'd like to just sing the last verse.
OK, I'm glad you're doing it. Hard drive translator.
And.
From.
Ask the Lord's blessing.
It's been a little bit interesting as.
Been sitting in the meetings and the Lord has kind of unfolded things. I I've always had a desire that if I were going to speak at a time like this, that in some ways the thoughts in my heart would some be somewhat be related to the thoughts of this, that the Spirit of God is expressed through others.
My message today, what the Lord has laid on my heart isn't exactly what others have had.
But it sounds like there have been three brothers. Now as I begin my talk, well at least speak from the same verse, we're going to turn to John chapter 8.
It was also a Sunday school verse, which I was completely oblivious to. I'm kind of a focused character. I don't see much around me or observe what's going on. I'm pretty well single minded and what it what's ever going on inside this head of mine. So I didn't realize the verse was actually going to be very pertinent as well. The Sunday school verse to the subject the Lord has put on my heart.
So let's read uh John chapter 8, uh, eight and verse 29.
And He sent, and He, and he that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do it always, those things that please Him.
And it's been my desire for some time to be able to share with the Lord's people the subject of Christian liberty. It's a subject that.
00:05:07
I've enjoyed.
Through my own experience in the Christian life, it's not a subject that I've always understood and that's not a subject that I've always been able to enter into, but as the Spirit of God has opened it to my soul.
It's meant so much, it's changed.
My whole focus in the Christian life.
Let's go on.
As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him. If you continue in my word, then you are are ye my disciples Indeed, I want to encourage everyone here.
I'm not going to ask you are you continuing in His Word because I believe the reason why you came to this conference is because you wanted to continue in His Word. I believe the Lord Jesus values that. I believe you are going to receive a blessing because of the value you place and I place.
On the Word of God and I want you to just continue to do what the Spirit of God is doing in your life.
Drawing you to the word of God so that you can behold the Lord Jesus in his glory. He goes on to say in verse 32, And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You know one time, several years ago.
I had been.
Brought into the enjoyment, a measure of enjoyment of Christian liberty. And it was my desire to share that with others. And I shared it one time and I guess I shared it thinking, well, this is my desire for you, that you might be able to enjoy the liberty of, of, of being in Christ, Christian liberty.
But I didn't realize that at the time. This afternoon, we're going to we're going to share this.
Truth of Christian liberty, not because it's my desire for you to enter into it, although it is, but it's the Lord's desire. It's his desire. This is what he wants for us. He wants us to be able to walk in the in the Christian life, in the liberty.
That has come.
Through his work on the cross.
You know, there's several of you that know me pretty well, and the joke is I'd like for my first grandchild to be named Roman.
Well, my, my kids know that pretty well. And that's a joke, OK, But the truth of Romans have meant so much to me that that's kind of how they look at things. We're not going to spend a lot of time in Romans, but what we are going to do is we're going to take up a few of the principles that.
Are based upon the cross of Christ.
Which are foundational principles which God has set in His Word as part of His plan of deliverance and setting the believer free. You know, as we are.
Saved you can put the people in the category of this section of this of the Lord setting us free as those that were believers because it says they believed on him.
The second, the next section, they needed the sun in order to be set free, but they didn't believe on Him. They rejected his testimony and they were called You are the servants of sin. You are the servants of sin. They were servants of sin because they didn't believe on the Son and they didn't have the Son but you and I.
Don't fall into that category. We are not servants.
To send.
We may experience the ******* associated with not knowing the deliverance that is found in the work of Christ. There's no question if you look back into my life during my late teens, 20s and possibly my 30s, there wasn't much liberty.
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God was working in my soul and he was doing, I trust, a fairly deep work and it wasn't very pleasant. It was a struggle.
But I looked back this week as I thought about that and as I thought about this subject that I'm taking up, and I believe what the Lord was doing was he was building a bridge.
Maybe there's somebody here. You don't feel very free. You don't feel free from the power of sin. Maybe you don't feel free from the ******* of law. But in your soul you have a desire to know the liberty that comes from the truth setting you free. God doesn't just show us that overnight. He allows us to go through.
Experiences. Sometimes those experiences last longer than we would desire, but he's in the process of putting the pillars down.
Deep so that there can be a structure built on which you can pass.
Through the.
Throughs of deliverance and set be set free and you can be instrumental.
And others using that same bridge of understanding, light, enlightenment of the Spirit of God, so that maybe they will not have to go through the same agonizing experiences.
Struggling with the power of sin, struggling with with being delivered from law, God may be building a bridge. Let Him do that because others will be able to enjoy the liberty that possibly for some years in your life you have not been able to enjoy. So I want to encourage you, just hang in there with the Lord.
He's going to teach you, he says.
In this verse he says, you shall know the truth.
And the truth shall set you free. Our liberty, our Christian liberty, is dependent upon the.
Degree in which the truth of God sets us free. We're going to go through some of those truths. We're going to turn to Romans. We're going to start in Romans chapter 5 because I don't need it. I don't think any of us need to really spend a lot of time on the truth of justification, the truths of being delivered set free.
From the penalty of our sins, I think we understand that truth pretty well.
It's just as true. It's one of the pillars, you might say, of Christian liberty, having peace before God, that we know as a holy God, in spite of the fact that we don't measure up to His Holiness, yet He has provided a remedy in the cross of Christ. My desire is for us to turn to Romans chapter 5 because.
God sets forth a principle before he He actually sets.
Forth the cross, God sets forth a principle. It's really his purpose. It's really his purpose. It's God's purpose.
Romans, chapter 5.
And verse 14.
He's already established the fact that by one Manson death by one man, sin and death came into the world and we've all passed. Let's just read it. Wherefore is by one man senator than the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all that all have sinned. He sets forth very quickly the history of Adam. He sinned.
And the result was him being that the umm, head of a race that everyone under his headship would encounter the same condition that he found himself in. And so he said, what did he pass? He passed death.
He, he, he, he.
Placed man under an incur in it with in an incurable situation where he had a nature that was fallen, and every child of Adam finds himself with this fallen condition. That was the result.
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Of the 1St man.
You and I don't have to think very hard about what that's like, do we? You and I know perfectly well what it is to be a child of Adam. What we're learning, what we're learning is what it's like to be under.
The leadership of a new.
Race.
Let's go on and read verse 14. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned. After the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come? Now I believe there's a a key here, a key to understand what the last half of Romans 5 is about.
This verse is telling us that Adam was just a figure.
God never intended that the blessing that would come from God would flow through the either the nature or the person, the headship of Adam.
God used Adam to show us what we were.
And God is through with Adam.
Hey, Adam. Adam, you might say, performed his, his purposes and God's purposes.
But what they did was they just brought us into condemnation. They just brought us under judgment.
And it's not God's purposes for, for his blessings to flow through Adam anymore. You and I will not receive any of God's blessing through Adam. This, that's, that is, that is what the last half of this chapter is really about. God gives us a comparison between Adam and Christ.
Adam was just a figure of him that was to come.
And that's Christ. Christ has been set up as the head of a new race.
And he has been proven.
He has been proven to be the one whom God.
Can.
Bring His blessing through.
You know, before we get the the truths of deliverance that are found in these following chapters, God wants us to clearly understand that we are not going to get.
Deliverance. We're not going to get liberty.
In and through the 1St man.
Just Simply put, because as we get into the next chapter, we're going to find what God does with the 1St man.
We're gonna find out what the cross actually means to Adam.
And how God finally.
And completely sets him aside.
These are truths.
There aren't. It's not just doctrines. It's not just teaching. I was thrilled to my soul couple weeks ago when I heard the gospel message of a young man in our assembly.
Who stated these things are not just truth?
They're realities, they're realities. Spirit of God been doing a work and this young brother's soul to teach him that atoms existence not just in the eyes of God because we have faith and we can see as God sees.
Adam's existence.
Has been, you might say.
Set aside.
And so we in chapter, if I'm not gonna spend any more time in chapter 5, it's it's rather a confusing. If I did it, I might find myself rather tangled up. If I had Darby's translation, it might be a little easier, but it's a comparison of.
The first man and the 2nd man the blessing that the curse the the the judgment and the curse that came from the first man compared to the blessing and the ability of God to show grace through the 2nd man.
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It's a beautiful chapter, but it sets.
The the table to understand where the source of God's blessing is going to come from, where the source of Christian liberty will come from. Let's go on. Let's go on to chapter 6. Chapter 6, Basics basically sets the cross before us as the answer.
To the question of.
What do we do with our old sinful nature?
That which we received from Adam, that which we have absolutely no way, no ability to change.
Its character, its nature, what it is and how it expresses itself.
Bless to ourselves, we are in *******. We we know no liberty.
Forgot to I forgot to mention what I would like to define as Christian liberty.
I read verse 29 of John 8. Verse 29 says I do always those things which please the Father. I do always those things which please the Father. And that is the definition of Christian liberty, being 100% unhindered to do the will of God.
That is Christian liberty.
And the Lord Jesus said in a few verses later.
You shall know the truth.
And the truth shall set you free.
Well, as we get into chapter Romans chapter 6, we find that God associates us.
With the cross.
God associates us with the death.
And the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Baptism is a figure of it.
We go down into the waters of judgment.
We leave our old identity behind.
God introduced the new de identity in Romans chapter 5. In Romans chapter 6 we see how God dealt with what we were in Adam. We die at the cross. My connection with Adam is severed.
At the cross, God couldn't. He couldn't he? There were no other answers for my sinful nature. There were no other answers for what I am and Adam but condemnation and death. That's what happened in God's eyes at the cross. This isn't just truth about our standing.
This isn't just positional truth.
This is truth. That is a reality that you and I are going to enter into liberty to have the ability to be unhinderedly able to go through this world.
Doing the will of God.
These are the this is the truth and the reality. We have to go by way of the cross because the cross is the end of me in my identity and Adam. But that's not all. The cross is the beginning of my identity in Christ.
You know, brother and I.
I don't see this as.
Is my standing.
I see this as a reality.
I see this. This is the only way.
For me to live in the kind of liberty that the Lord Jesus lived in, always doing the will of his Father.
And so.
I'm not gonna spend much time in Romans 6 either, but when it comes to the power of sin in our life, do you know how you become free from it?
Making a lot of changes.
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By making a lot of de determined changes.
That's not what.
It's not what the true set tells us and it's not what will set us free. I know that's our experience. That's that's what because we always, always turn to ourselves for the answer in the natural man won't turn to the cross because it humiliates him.
But God says.
I'm using the cross to put an end to what you were.
In Atom I'm using the cross.
And it's resurrection.
To put you in Christ.
And it is with the realization.
It by faith of what God has done.
That there will be power and liberty.
Over the power of sin in our life, yes.
We may slog through this process.
We may have to go through very.
Deep experiences where God has to show us things that we really don't like to see.
But remember, it's his desire.
To use the truth to set us free.
Truth of the cross is the kingpin, you might say, the very most important.
Part of God's design for bringing liberty Christian This is Christian liberty into our lives.
That takes care of Romans 6.
You notice Romans 6 is on a single page in my Bible? Sorry, but it's just been my experience.
Romans 7.
Well, to be honest with you, Roman sixes on one side, Roman 7 is on the other.
I didn't tear it out, I wore it out.
Romans 7.
I'm not sure how well we understand it. I don't know how I will I understand it.
But Romans 7. If you want to know what it's about, read the first verse.
It says, Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to thou that know the law, and that's all you need to know.
That's all you need to know. What is Romans 7 about?
It's the influence of the law.
As it affects our sinful nature.
It's the influence of the law that affects our sinful nature, Some have said. Well, it's the experience of a soul who is.
Who is quickened but not delivered? That may be the truth of someone in that condition, but that's not what this verse says.
This first says I speak to them that know the law as a matter of personal experience.
I can say I'm one of them.
I have had my encounter with the law.
And it took me years to get out from under its *******. I don't blame anyone.
It's been a wonderful experience to it to some degree.
Find the liberty of the truth that sets us free. Do I know that completely? In all of these truths that I'm bringing out, I probably only know a fraction.
Of the truth that is found in these verses, these hearts of ours.
The flesh will always use the law.
To produce righteousness.
Anytime the flesh in me, even though we're going to get on in Chapter 8 and we're going to find out that there's liberty from the flesh too.
But anytime.
Flush is active in me. It will turn to the law because that's what the flesh does. It's trying to produce righteousness.
Well, let me show you the key that I have found in Romans 7.
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It's found in verse 4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that she should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Here's the key.
So that you and I can become detached.
From the law, its effects If you want to know the effects of the law, read the rest of the chapter.
It's pretty graphic. You know who's experienced? I think it is.
You know whose experience I think Romans 7 is? I think it's the Apostle Paul's experience. I won't be dogmatic about that.
But who knew The Who knew the law better than the Apostle Paul?
He says I speak to them who know the law. In other words, you personally expect the experience, the effects of law.
It's not a very pleasant experience because if you read the rest of the chapter, it's all about what how sin takes us and turns us inside out, The power of sin, the law is weak and that it was dealing with the flesh. Anytime we take it up, Anytime we take it up.
You're gonna experience, you know, I've, I've, I've said before that if you want to get yourself under law, you first, you gotta get a shovel.
And you gotta start digging and you gotta unbury first, man.
And you, you get the 1St man up and on his feet and you say, hey, let's try again, let's try again.
We've tried this before and it hasn't worked, but it's worth another try. That's really kind of the truth of the whole thing.
We're dead to the law, the man that the law was presented to, God condemned at the cross.
He's done with it.
The law was a you might say, can I say it a legislative tool?
To try to produce righteousness from Adam.
It didn't work. Now because there was something wrong with the law, because it was God's revelation of righteousness, there's something a whole lot better.
Let's go on. Let's go on to chapters chapter 8. I my time is running out and I don't want to spend this whole hour in Romans.
Let's go on to verse nine of chapter 89 is a beautiful chapter because nine sets sets forth the energy of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God as the energy for our new life. It's a beautiful chapter in which God tells us now I'm no longer looking for anything from the flesh anymore.
As far as what how you're going to bear fruit for me?
I'm I'm putting you in contact with the Spirit of God.
He is going to be the power for your new life. If you want to know that you turn to verse two and it says for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. The governing principle of the of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the governing principle of sin and death.
So the Spirit of God is the energy.
In which the new life is operative.
The Spirit of God is the energy in which our new life is operative.
But I wanna touch now on verse nine that you know not, 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.
I wanna comment make 2 Comments on this verse. They may seem a little unrelated. What God is telling us is because of the cross.
Because of the principle, the reality of death and resurrection, Death to Adam and resurrection in Christ.
Ye are not in the flesh.
Now we have a tendency to take this and I don't know how far to take this.
I'm far too capable of saying something wrong.
We have a tendency to take this truth and say, well, this is part of this.
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Standing. This is part of this position that we have.
Not really something that we can.
Conduct ourselves in the power of every day. This is just how God sees us.
Hmm. No, it's not just how God sees us. It is how God sees us. But it's not just how God sees us. He wants us to see us that way too.
You're not in the flush.
But you're in the spirit.
The flesh. I see it in a very simple way. I know there's more to it, but the flesh is the energy of my atom nature.
The spirit is the energy.
Of my new life.
And God says.
You're not operating.
In the energy of your old man.
You're operating in the energy.
Of the new.
Can we say this? This is always our experience.
It will be the experience.
Of the Christian life who walks?
In faith.
Under the influence.
Of the truth, because it is the truth that sets us free. As long as the believer is under the influence of the truth of death and resurrection in Christ, he can say.
I am not in the flesh that I am in the Spirit.
We know.
Sometimes our standing isn't that.
But I can't have a standing, that is, unless I understand that this is how it is. This is how it is. I'm not in the flesh.
I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus.
Through the cross, God says old things are passed away. All things are becoming new.
In other words.
There is liberty.
On the authority of God's Word.
By virtue of the cross of Christ.
For you and I to know the liberty of living.
Apart from the power and the influence and the activity of the flesh.
But if this is just our standing.
And we have to kind of pedal as fast as we can in order to live up to it.
We won't know.
The liberty of the Cross.
And so is this young brother found out.
These truths.
They're not just doctrine.
They're a reality. Now. You might ask me fulfill. I know you pretty well.
And I've seen the flesh in you and even since the Lord has shown you some of these truths maybe, and given you a little light and understanding of these things. And I say, yeah, that's true. I wasn't, I wasn't in the I wasn't operating in the realm of faith.
Faith takes the truth of God and makes it a reality.
It believes what God has said.
And it lives in the power of it.
That completes my thoughts in Romans. Now I want to I believe some of these truths can be reinforced from Second Corinthians. And I'm going to be quite honest, this is a chapter that I'm just beginning.
To enter into, and I think that what if I present something to this afternoon, It's just going to be the spirit of the chapter.
It's not going to be.
The.
Final interpretation.
That's not for me to offer.
What I desire to do is I I desire to offer the spirit of the truth that's found in this chapter.
The Corinthians had.
A problem.
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There was the activity of the Spirit of God in their midst that was producing fruit, and there was an element of liberty.
Of the life of Christ that was being evidenced. What happens then?
What happens?
When there's progress.
In the life of Christ begins to be manifest in the Saints of God. What happens? Often times the enemy uses something. I believe he was using it here.
Ye verse 2.
Says ye, are our epistle written in our heart? 2nd Corinthians 3, verse 2.
Ye are our Epistle in our hearts, known and read of all men, for as much as ye are manifestly declared the epistles of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart.
The Apostle Paul is saying here.
Because let me do a little bit of background.
What the problem was, was there were, I believe, Judaizers, Judaizing teachers that had come in who were trying to burst to to rob the Corinthians of the liberty.
Of their life in Christ.
And this is how the enemy works. If he sees progress and the life of Christ is being produced in our lives, he'll do everything he can to veil the glory of Christ in.
And this is a tactic that will be used by the enemy.
From now until the Lord comes.
We often do this, brethren, I think I know I have been an instrument.
Where the enemy has seen the progress.
Of Christ being formed in the lives of others, and he has used my influence.
In introducing a principle that has been set aside.
The principle of righteousness being brought forth from man under.
Something other than the life of Christ and the power of the Spirit of God producing it.
We don't want to be that instrument.
I have been it.
And as we go through this chapter, we're going to see the consequences of what happens when the influence of the law begins to affect the Lord's people.
The Spirit of God had taken.
The Word of God, the Spirit of Christ.
The nature of God. He'd written it on the hearts of these brethren.
In other words, they were producing righteousness because of the life of Christ that had been given them.
It was on not tables of stone and flexible.
You know what I mean. Inflexible.
But he'd written it on fleshly tables of the heart.
They were his.
They were they were the epistles. They were, they were the they were the the the manifestation of who Christ was because the Spirit of God had done a work.
And Satan didn't like it. Here the apostle Paul isn't really concerned about himself. He's concerned that the enemy is introducing something that will do what these the next verses tell us we'll do.
Says.
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Verse six says, Who also has made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
For the letter killeth.
The letter killeth, but the Spirit gives. Life doesn't tell us right here.
Who's the spirit is this? Even a small SI looked in Darby and it's not capitalized there either. I don't believe, but later on it will tell us who the spirit is.
But he uses language here that's pretty telling for us to understand.
He says.
Not of the letter.
But of the spirit, what characterizes the letter, He's speaking here of the law.
What characterizes what effect? What effect does the letter have?
Kills.
What man is the letter?
Directed to.
The new the new man the the new man that has the Spirit of God revealing the the glories of Christ to him.
No.
The letter killeth because the letter is always directed to the first man.
And the first man is weak.
The first man, as it goes on to say he has to put a veil over his face because he can't.
Endure the glory of God that is associated with the law.
Has to put a veil over his face.
Because the law has such a tremendous penetrating power.
That it will condemn him.
What happens when we use law?
First of all, we have to direct it.
To the first man.
That doesn't seem right, does it?
Well, if we understand the truth of the cross, he's dead. You know, sometimes when brethren come to me and I sense that there's something wrong and they're trying to encourage me to direct my actions in a certain way.
I don't. I don't have a very good feeling. In fact, I look at them.
I don't see anything.
I don't know what to say.
I don't know for sure.
The spirit in which they come is the spirit of law, but there's just not a reaction within me and I kind of looked at them.
I think it might be.
Because their person, they're they're addressing.
Zed.
Person they're addressing is dead. Is that scriptural?
I don't know for sure. Might be the Spirit of God seeking to reach my conscience. So I need to be careful to say, well, there's no value, there's no benefit to what you bring to me. I won't do that. I will go to the Lord later and say, Lord, what's this all about? What spirit is this that's being brought to me?
Is there a purpose in what has been brought to me to bring me into liberty, Christian liberty? Or is the purpose really the work of the enemy to rob me?
Of a spirit filled Christ occupied life.
I believe we can take that on a personal level.
I believe there's also something that we need to do collectively.
We need to really be on guard, brethren.
That the spirit of law does not creep in.
To the way.
We deal with one another in the assembly.
The law has many principles.
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Some of them might be helpful.
Which we're just as dead to the law in the assembly as we are individually. I don't know how far to take that comment.
Because God has told us that what was written before time beforehand was written for our learning.
And so we don't close.
Our understanding to the Old Testament.
But sometimes I wonder why so few souls are restored.
Why does it take years for someone who came in repentance?
Confess their sin, acknowledged it.
Or.
Why is it that?
When there are difficulties in our assemblies, and I can say I know that pretty well, I put my hands up.
In total guilt of having.
Come from an assembly that's had its difficulties and its problems.
But as I've acknowledged that I've been a part of some of those difficulties, I've also recognized that some of the problems that took place in our assembly were a result.
Of the introduction of law.
You know we're.
Kind of that way naturally we really need to be on guard because as it says in Galatians, it says ye Devi you, you bite and devour one another.
Be what? Careful that you are not consumed.
You know, sometimes we have to back up.
And say.
What influence of the law has there been as the root problem for where we are now?
Because that is.
The letter kills.
The letter kills.
But the Spirit.
Gives life.
As I share these thoughts.
I recognize that the reason why they're coming from my mouth.
Is because it's experience of my own.
But there's more to this chapter.
There is the effect that law has and we go through the next few verses, which I'm not going to read. They have to do with how there's a again, God likes to contrast things and he contrasts the glory of the first covenant, the the administration of the law.
And he contrasts that with that which excels in glory.
And that is that which is spiritual. Did you know? And I think I'm right, that the law is not spiritual.
Did you know the law is not spiritual? It's directed to natural man.
You know, sometimes we have found ourselves under law with the idea that it'll make a spiritual. I don't believe that's what this chapter is telling us. Because it's the glory that excelleth. That is spirit. It does not say.
That that which was glorious was spiritual. Rather than let's, let's think about that.
That the law doesn't make us spiritual.
The revelation of the Spirit of God revealing Christ's righteous God's righteousness through Christ is that which makes us spiritual. We recognize that God has found his righteousness.
00:55:00
It says later on in this chapter it says in verse.
17 I believe it says now the Lord is that spirit. If you go back up to verse six it says for the Spirit.
Giveth life the Spirit giveth life.
Verse 17 it says in the Lord is that spirit.
So the Lord Jesus is the source.
Of our life.
The Spirit of God.
Is the energy that communicates the glories of the Lord Jesus to us.
And in the end we're almost done. In the end, verse 18 says that we all with open face, beholding as 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. Here it is the Spirit of the Lord. You know, I've pondered that thinking, why are we?
Why are we mixing this? Did it in Romans 8/2.
Also verse nine it mixes, it says the Spirit of Christ, you know re you know the reason.
Because the Spirit, as he works in our souls, will always.
Bring about.
The effect of producing Christ in.
So in Romans 8 is this, he that hath the Spirit of Christ. The effect of the Spirit of God is to produce the glories of Christ in us. Here it is the Spirit of the Lord.
The Spirit of the Lord and I believe that's the same effect. The the purpose of the Spirit of God is to present and and.
And umm, create.
The glories of Christ and us. Now I would like to close it. Before I close the meeting, I would like to connect the last verses with the first verses. So in this last verse we have the effect that the Spirit of God. This is so different than the effect of the law. The Spirit of God is changing us into the image of Christ. That's His purpose. That's God's design.
God's not satisfied with any other man that's ever walked the face of this earth. He he wants every aspect of your life and mine to be.
According to the image of Christ.
That's his only desire.
So let's go back to Romans chapter 8.
Verse 29.
The last part for I do always those things, but please the Father.
The truth that we've taken up this afternoon.
Maybe have been poorly covered, but the effect of them will bring about liberty in our souls.
So that the Spirit of God can bring Christ before us, and in the process of us beholding Him, can change us into the image of Christ for the purpose of doing the Father's will. I do always those things which please the Father. You might say how?
Could that ever be possible for someone with all of the challenges?
As a child of Adam that I face.
How is it possible?
We've just talked about how it's possible. We've talked about God's design to bring us to that point.
Where there can be a likeness of Christ in such a manner.
That God creates in us nothing.
01:00:00
The desire to do the will of the Father.
Uh, trust.
These words can be useful. There's nothing more I like to talk about.
Than Christian liberty.
There's nothing more.
I'd I'd rather defend.
I've had experiences sitting down with those.
We have not known it because of the influences that they have been under.
And those influences has they have been found in the Assembly and I'm not saying that anyone's guilty or anything.
But there's a danger of us not recognizing that the enemy infiltrates us to rob us of our liberty. We don't have liberty. We cannot.
Walk like the Lord Jesus did, doing always those things which please the Father. Let's pray.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-8
Reading
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166 one 6/6.
Lord, thou hast drawn us after thee. Now let us run and never tire in 166.
But thou hast drawn up early.
Now that must come.
My present? Come on 13.
I shall follow Art.
Lord and.
God will follow you.
Our sunlight.
When hearts were strong.
Oh my goodness.
Our granddad's name.
Our grandfather.
I love you. I'm from our restraints.
I'm sick of.
I'm going to be home before.
Nsnoise our earth. Sleep time, I please must hear.
Nsnoise.
So this thing also 280.
Oh, joyful day, Oh Gloria.
00:05:04
'S not on the grave.
In all his birthday all the way.
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Zero Eight, 2018.
Nsnoise.
9539 and what my spirit said first of all.
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98 persons not in the brain.
For a refreshing girl long story.
When she passed 100000.
I suggest we go on to 1St Thessalonians 5 verse one, and if there's a need for another comment or two behind that, that'd be perfectly fine, obviously.
First Corinthians chapter 5. I'm sorry, First Thessalonians chapter 5, beginning at verse one. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you, for yourselves. Know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
Before when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light and the children of the dead. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober, for they that sleep, sleep in the night.
And they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.
00:10:02
That whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly.
In love for their work sake and be a tease among yourselves.
Now we exalt you, brethren. Warn them that are unruly. Comfort the feeble minded, supports the weak. Be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing in everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesizing, prove all things, hold fast that which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace. Sanctify you holy and I pray God.
Your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved flameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
Nsnoise.
Unlike the end of the last chapter where the Thessalonians Saints were being taught something they hadn't heard before that they didn't understand, which was that they.
Uh, those that had already physically died that were asleep in Jesus were going to be caught up out of the grave to go up together with those that were still alive at the time of the Lord's coming. That was a great comfort to them that they weren't going to be separated from the brethren that they come to know and love that they were part of the same body with. Here in this chapter, it begins with truth that they already knew that was already revealed in the Old Testament says that at the times and the seasons brethren.
You have no need that I write unto you for yourselves know perfectly. And then he begins to speak of the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is spoken of many, many, many, many times in the Old Testament. It's that time that we often refer to. I think we did yesterday as the the time of the appearing when the Lord comes back from heaven with his Saints in order to reign and rule and put everything under the his authority as Lord, the Lord of all. And so this was something that they were already familiar with.
But after that brief introduction in the first few verses is going to go on to lay out for them its present effect in their lives. And so, uh, as was referenced some several times in the address that we've just had, this wasn't doctrine to put on the shelf and store as a, a set of thoughts and ideas and facts and then to walk away from, but rather here in this portion, he's, he's refreshing the memory a little bit.
As to what the appearing was that they'd already been exposed to and knew about. And then he's going on to lay out for them the practical, uh, result of that truth in their life.
00:15:04
Times and seasons, that usually is related to things that happen on this earth, not in the future day. But sometimes we may get confused with times. There were times mentioned. So we find perhaps in a place where it says that in the folders of time. Well, that's a little bit different, isn't it? So when we see that verse, is that in the fullness of time He sent forth his son born of a woman. So that's God's time that he sent a Savior in the world.
And we find that phrase in the fullness of time. And then we find perhaps an efficient, we find that it's just that in the dispensation of the fullness of times without the different reference, again, isn't it that referred to the millennial day, There are different phrases that we let the, uh, Scripture use in regard to that. Uh, we find that Millennium is mentioned in Revelation chapter 20. Then we find perhaps even the, the phrase, the times of refreshing.
Well, that referred to the same time when the Lord Jesus will reign, that in Acts we find that we find perhaps a phrase of restitution of all things that refer to that time or the regeneration or the, the, uh, the Reformation. And there are various phrase like that describing different things as compared to here where it referred to things that are gonna happen on earth. And then also, as our brother mentioned that he talks about the day of the Lord.
We'll see here, choose other language start to change a little bit when it talks about the rapture or is coming for us. We found the word we or ye is mentioned often. So as we read those next few verses about the day of the Lord, we find the word they are being mentioned. So we see the distinguisher in there. So let's look at verse 3/4 when they shall say that's not us.
The reason is not us is as we deem one. We learn from the previous chapter that we have already been taken out of the scene. Those earth dwellers, those who are left behind, the unbelievers are left the face. The day of the Lord, when the Lord this is Speaking of the Lord's coming to execute judgment, is this day.
When God created the heavens and the earth.
Created time.
Time didn't exist in past what we call past eternity.
But when God created time and he had a purpose in creating things, so he created the earth.
And the heavens. And he placed different parts of his creation on the earth, Most importantly, man.
And at that point God in his own purposes decided or decided in his own councils, that he would work with time and man in different ways.
And so he divided up the period of what would be time until it goes on to the future when these things will be done. And there will be a future eternity in which there will no longer be time. But Scripture because of that and the way the fact that God deals in different ways at different points in the history of man on earth.
Uh refers to times and seasons.
He also makes use of the difference between night and day and the fact that we can think about certain things that we do and we don't do at night and other things we do and don't do in the daytime. And so some of the periods and that God has established for His ways with man have involved and used in Scripture the times, the seasons, and so on.
That are referred to here and I find it rather interesting that these.
Quite young believers had already been given some understanding of that, perhaps being introduced to the Old Testament and getting some instruction from it with respect to this way that God is dealing. But I don't think it would be profitable to go too far in that direction as to the various sometimes people have used the word dispensations as to dividing up these different periods of time.
00:20:15
But uh, I would like to make particular reference to one, and that is at the present moment, God views this world in a period of night.
God sees it, and the Scripture sees the time in which we are in a period of night.
Yeah, well.
The day will come when the Lord Jesus returns, and then it will be the day.
So the Lord as with respect to ourselves and our walk, we've been called to walk during a period in the history of God's ways. Let's look at as night time. Peter comments on it in his first epistle and he talks about it and he says the daystar arise in your heart. That is, we are those who are supposed to be enjoying and looking for.
The signs that the morning is coming, that the day is coming and have the enjoyment of the the Daystar which appears in the sky. I don't know that I've ever seen it in the Northern hemisphere, but in the Southern hemisphere it comes just before the break of day. And Peter said get that star, that enjoyment of what's coming in your hearts. But here in connection with our chapter.
Uh, we weren't created for night.
You know, everything's different at night, right? But we all normally speaking, we like the day and, uh, what the day brings. And so he's saying to the brethren, well, the Lord, as it said in Luke 12 That we had yesterday and in Matthew 24 yesterday, umm, the person is not looking for the Lord. He's refers to the watches of the night and the in those watches of the night, he.
He's, he's not looking, he's not watching and uh, he's asleep to it. But those who wait for their Lord during the period of the night ought to be, if you will, awake and watching spiritually awake and watching for their Lord to come.
These and so when he comes, so he says here in connection with that, uh, verse four, ye brethren, are not of the darkness.
Yeah, you're the that's a day should overtake you as a thief. No, he said. What are you, verse five? You're children of light, Your children of day. We've been brought into light.
Through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, what were we before Romans? One says.
Oh, I should say John One says, When the Lord came, it says He came as light.
And the darkness.
Didn't perceive, didn't comprehend the light, because man is not only in the dark, but in his sense he's darkness itself.
We are of the light and we enjoy the light, the light of God, the perfections of His person and His Holiness and His character. We've been brought to enjoy that. But an unbeliever.
Is characterized as a person of darkness. Why? Because his deeds are evil, morally speaking. He prefers moral darkness because it can hide the character of his life and he doesn't want life. That's why he works better, if you will. He hopes, like the thief, to get away with what he's doing in a moral darkness. But the contrast is for these dear believers in Thessalonica and us here.
His brethren, we're not darkness anymore, we're light. We're not children of the night like the Worldling is. We're children of the day. And so our proper environment, we're waiting for it. We're not in the nice setting that's coming because we're children of day and yet we're going through a period of darkness. And so we look on and hope.
00:25:18
To the the day that's coming when everything is consistent with the life and character that, uh, the life and person that God has given to us, the Son of righteousness.
SUN of Righteousness.
Sometimes with a light is in contrast to darkness, or light is the opposite of darkness, which is not true because darkness cannot overcome light. You cannot bring darkness into light, but you can bring light Into Darkness because light would dispel darkness.
As more of a light, there is still dispelled darkness.
I remember years ago, I, I can't remember what we passed through as we head out West. There was a, a cave that they advertised you can go for a tour. So with young children, we went in for the tour. They took us into this big cavern and then the man told us to blow the candles out and we were in total darkness. You could put your fingers in front of your eyeballs and you couldn't see it. And then all of a sudden he struck a match. That's all he did, just a match. The light from the match lit up the whole room.
It wasn't bright like this, but it was enough to dispel the darkness in this in that room.
So we find light is not that light would dispel darkness totally. And we are, we are, as we've been reminded, children of light. We are different than the world. And there is one more thought about light and darkness. God looked at time differently than we do. We have a problem that we look at everything from our perspective. Everything is about me is how we look at it. And we even find in this country, you look at a map, North America, North North America is always in the center of a map. That's how important we think we are.
But dear God, look at things and we have to see His view to.
God, it's an evening and then the morning it's a day. It's not interesting for us. We say what a day and a night. We make up the day. But Scripture always look at the evening. The darkness comes first and then come as we're reminded to see that they dawn, the morning star arise. So men love darkness rather than light. But it's going to be exposed when the Son of Man who will come and give us that true life.
1St to mention about him coming as a thief as we deem one we have a look at and waiting for our Lord to come as a thief. So here's another distinction there. This is the Lord's coming for this world because he's going to come as the world not expecting him to come. And the world thinks that as he used to the the language he appears and safety, well, how much peace and safety did this world have?
But here Word of God tells us that then sudden destruction cometh upon them. God has given this world a taste. We find that Adam and Eve, when they disobey, it was quite sudden, they were sent out.
Of that garden, NOAA in Noaa's day, God show man that God must punish sin. And there we too find judgment was executed. Would you know God is a God of patient? We find that in the book of Jude, he he said about Noah, but rather his great grandfather Enoch, who was a preacher of righteousness, who forewarned this world of the ungodly deeds and the ungodly acts.
God gave men ample time, but then we know the story when it comes that day, that moment when that door and the arc was shut, the judgment fell upon this world. So already once before, only eight souls were saved, Noah, his three sons and the wives and execute judgment was executed. And now we're perhaps in the brink of another judgment, ready to fall upon this world. And the God, our God is so gracious that we've been reminded we're going to be taken out of this scene.
00:30:06
Rapture out, ****** your weight in the air to be with the Lord.
Whatever with the Lord, what a blessed, blessed hope that we have to dwell where it is.
Does the peace and safety.
Umm, we can see other people who say that in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 23.
At verse 17.
They say still unto them, that despite thee, the Lord has said, he shall have peace.
They say unto everyone that walketh after their imagination of his own heart, no evil shall come upon you.
These are the false prophets just before the destruction of Jerusalem, umm, and the captivity in Babylon. And as our brethren were saying that in, in the darkness, umm, they'll avoid the light. But we can see that the character of the darkness, not only to avoid the light, but to declare the darkness to be light and to attack anyone that would, uh, bring true light into the darkness. This is something we can see through the whole history of the Bible and.
We should expect that character today, and we compete in our modern Society of declaring good evil and evil good.
So Satan presents himself as an Angel of light, but he's really the great deceiver.
Was just remarked on in that way.
Uh, the thief is the one that takes from somebody something that they consider their possession.
When the Lord Jesus was here.
As perfect light to man.
He said man said we don't want him.
We don't, as it were, want him to take from us what we want.
They were convicted and convinced in spite of themselves by the conscience God had given to them, that what was being presented to them was truth and light from God. But what do you do when?
If you will, if you had the power to do it. When you don't want something, you get rid of it.
And that was man's wish and will with respect to perfect light of the Lord Jesus. And so in this period of the world's darkness, umm, the world, Satan would seek to deceive man not to recognize that the Lord of all will come, as might be said, like the thief in the night, like the one who comes at a time unexpected to do something that's unwanted.
And, uh, he will come unexpected and do what's unwanted. But the contrast is for us in verse 7, verse six, what do you do at night? What's the typical natural thing? Most everyone in this room, if you have a typical night, you're going to go to bed, you're going to sleep.
And uh, that's the normal activity during a period of, of night. But in the picture that's being presented to us here in verse five and six and seven and so on, it says, well, your children of the dead of the light, verse six. So don't sleep.
Don't go to sleep.
Be watchful as those that wait for their Lord to come during the night hours.
That is with respect to the world, the night time. It's very practical and our lives need to be characterized by it and not settle down and rest if you will.
Indifferent to the condition of the world and what kind of people we are in contrast to that world. So he's telling these young believers, he said, let's not sleep.
Our place right now is to watch. Watch for the Lord to come and be sober. Be careful to recognize that.
Lots of bad things happen at night.
00:35:03
Umm, lots of bad things happen at life just because it's dark. Most robberies take place at night because people tend to do at night what they may not do in the day. And morally we're susceptible to the same things. And so he says watch and be sober, be careful. And it gives us some armor later to help us to be careful.
And not get into this pattern that my Lord delays is coming and, uh, which has been so much before them in the previous chapter. And that as was said to the dear Saints, he turned to God from idols. You turn from the things of the world, the idols that characterize man's night time to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven. And so.
Where to watch as we wait and be sober.
The Lord's coming and His glorious appearing, which is in contrast to the thief in the night. Ours is the blessed hope. I was just talking to Steven there earlier. Umm it was a mega church in Rockford where we live. I challenge the man one day. My niece goes there and they have what they call an article of faith they posted on their website. There was nothing in there pertaining to the rapture.
At all. So I challenge him on it and I thought, what do you do with that? You know your scriptures right here first. That's only before he said it was too controversial amongst his, uh, group there like 10,000 people there. And I just thought about Paul and his dealings with controversy, but I saw too controversial. What is your blessed hope that he didn't have no answer for that?
But they gave that up and it's scary really amongst the Christian community how many people, Christians have given up this blessed truth. And Paul writes this, he got a direct revelation from the Lord, verse 15 for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord in verse 18 he says, wherefore this is important. He says comfort one another with these words. These are words of comfort for the believer.
And to think of how many have given that up.
How sad that is though, who is, who is behind that? Well, I think we know who's behind that. That would cause believers to give up that blessed hope. The Lord's coming and uh, this young Christians here don't give that up. Hang on to that type and they're going to try to rob you of that in the community of Christians today. They want to ride you in the enjoyment of our blessed home. If we look for the Lord to come today to take us home to the Lord.
This is something that the church as a whole have forgotten or given up, but it is very important for us to understand the sequence of events that happens in Scripture. Understand.
The difference between the rapture and the Lord's coming. Because among Christendom some have given up, but some are just.
Quoting it from a very different standpoint, I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago sitting next to a youth pastor from some Baker church. And he said to me, he said, we didn't give that up. He said, the Lord has come already. I said, the Lord has come already. Oh yes, he come in different installments. Well, I think those freights are borrowed from us because we used that phrase yesterday. While the two installments, the first one is you come to take us out of the scene. And 2nd, when it comes as as the, as the, uh, the judge, well, his version of different installment was, well, he's just come gradually taking some home a little bit at a time. I don't believe scripture tells us that. I said, what do you read? If it came that the dead in Christ shall rise first. Have we seen that? He couldn't answer that. But then he even went on and say, he said, well, you know, we, we, we place Israel.
So whatever you read of Israel blessing your powers now, so we find that the, the Christendom as a whole, they, they don't, uh, divide the word of God properly. They will quote from certain places.
I remember years ago I was doing a business with a client and he, he threw the conversation, recognized I'm a Christian. You know, as Christian, we are like, we don't need to say we are. They often can tell from the way you talk, from the way you behave. And then they said to me, he said, are you pre or post? I said the dumbfounded, I have no idea what he meant at that time. Are you pre opposed? Because there are some Christian felt, uh, believe that.
00:40:24
There is so-called pre mole, uh, pre rupture and after. Some believe that you will be raptured out, but some believe that you will believe you will be leaving behind to do the Lord's work and continue on presenting the gospel of God's grace, which is false teaching. So we need to understand this, study it by ourselves, young people, older ones too. There is so much in there that would encourage our heart. As our brother mentioned here, we can use this to comfort one another with these words.
Let me make another comment. Often I find when I'm in trouble, when I feel down.
Often is the time when I have forgotten or not enjoying the coming, the soon return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Think that for yourself. If you feel down and feel forsaken, think about those moments. Did you remember that your Lord, my Lord, is going to take us out of the sea?
There are some moral features in Bible teaching pertaining to prophecy in the Lord's coming, and of course all of scriptures for our heart and conscience, not just for intellectual exercise, but these things that are true are supposed to have a positive impact on us. When we have false teachings such as we were talking about here, Satan's counterfeits, they are also for the effect that he wants upon us. Now, one of the teachings of our Lord's coming being installment, very common amongst, uh, mainline Christendom of the Dark ages.
Was that the coming of the Holy Spirit is the Lord's coming. Well, people who believe that they aren't really going to be walking truly in the Holy Spirit because you know, the Holy Spirit himself would not seek such a teaching. So there are these counterfeit spirits out there that Satan would have us follow after in place of the Holy Spirit. And you mentioned post millennial. This was the common teaching for most of Christian, uh, era, including by the wonderful Protestant reformers. That was basically.
The idea that we, uh, either are living in the Millennium now or that we should create a Millennium by Christianizing the world. Well, obviously we know this is totally untrue, but it would give us to have an earthly hope, an earthly perspective, cause us to be citizens of this world and not citizens and ambassadors for heaven. And, and that's a real, real danger, isn't it? Because we look at the bad influence it's been so much when Christians have been politically involved and, and had really given up the gospel.
Thinking that they're doing it in good and to help the world. So again, there's a reason why Staton has these errors for us. There's there's little things where we may not agree with every little position on prophecy, but but you look at these big errors. It's there for a reason. It's it's there for the bad influence that he wants to have on our souls to get us tangled up in this world instead of looking to heaven and truly being in this scene as ambassadors for Christ.
Purify the effect is, I believe in first John chapter 3 that you mentioned, uh verse one. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.
Therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is. And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. So it has a purifying effect.
That our soul, I believe right now as we go through this scene, to have that object before our hearts and the Lord's coming.
That's true.
Should, and if submitted to, always has a positive moral effect upon our lives. Umm.
One brother said the only truth you really have is the truth you walk in.
And.
I'd like to just emphasize that and the connection here in verse.
00:45:05
6/7.
Umm, well, no. Let verse six let us not sleep.
Verse seven they that sleep sleep in the night have already commented on that the importance, the practical effect upon the hope that we have of our Lord coming for us and he will during this period of night. Uh, the practice full effect upon our lives and the measure in which we truly live it out and don't just accept it as a doctrine is seen in.
Whether we are awake or whether we are asleep. The second effect given here there are others in other places is verse six says let us watch and be sober. The contrast of is in verse seven they that be drunken that's in contrast to being sober. They that be drunken are drunken in the night and if.
The truth of what we profess is not a reality in our.
Daily life, we will get drunk. I don't mean that we will go out and have to be arrested by the police for intoxication, but it's the moral effect upon our lives of not being sober. We will indulge ourselves.
In that which takes away our moral capacity to discern good and evil.
We will take off with things that are a pleasure to us to access.
The scriptures didn't forbid you might say in fact, in another way use the word joy in connection with wine in a natural world and it Georgia, it was a symbol of of that which gave joy. But if taken to its excess, the person became drunken by it and it will it's not it might, but the moral instruction to us here is.
If we are not practically watching, we will get drunk.
In a moral sense we will take up and indulge ourselves to excess in that which is part of the world system of things that is no different than our neighbor or somebody else, and just as a moral force of it, brethren.
Were not exempt because we might say we're not part of Christendom. We have exactly the same hearts and the results will be the same with us regardless of what we profess our doctrine to be. You can have correct doctrine and bad practice, and having correct doctrine does not is essential, but it is not in and of itself.
That which will keep from bad practice and so these expectations are given.
To us sitting in this room to live out what we profess and watch and be sober.
So in verse eight there are several indications of what real Christian life involves. It says, but let us who are of the day be sober. We've just been Speaking of and then it says putting on the breastplate of faith and love and friend helmet, the hope of salvation. There are those three things, faith, love and hope. They were referred to yesterday as we started in Thessalonians. We went back to the first chapter and faith, love and hope are referred to.
Actually, in the epistles, that trilogy appears, I believe, at least eight times.
It occurs four times, and it occurs in First Corinthians. It occurs in Galatians, it occurs in Hebrews and occurs in Romans with the order of faith, hope, and love in those four places. Its faith, hope, and love twice here in First Thessalonians, also in Ephesians, also in Colossians. It appears in the order we have here, faith, love, and hope. All eight of these times are in the Epistles because they're the.
00:50:12
Maybe this isn't the best analogy, perhaps someone has a better one, but it's kind of like the green on indicator of the Christian life and a believer. If there's a believer where there's life, there's going to be these three things, faith and then the order that we have them here, faith, love and hope. And if those things, the indicator lights getting a little bit dim, it's an indication if our faith is weakening. Really that comes first and all 8 occurrences. It's what connects us to God and to truth.
Faith is that living link that we receive from God himself as a gift that connects him, connects ourselves to him. And so any of the 8 occurrences in the epistles, it comes first. It's essential. And if that's flickering, if it's weak in us, there's an indication that the there's the creeping darkness of the world is having a practical effect in our life. If love, love to our brother, as we'll see later in this chapter.
Love, uh, in a sense of the Lord's love to us, just the love that we have as believers. If that starts to dwindle, if I have favorites in the family of God and I like this one better than that one and so on. And it's, it's sunken from the divine love to a brother in love with my natural favorite. That's an indicator that there's something of the darkness Speaking of an immoral practical way that's creeping into my life.
And the hope, the hope that we've been enjoying is a practical, daily fresh living thing, an eager expectation of a person, if that.
I wake up one morning and you, you know, it's been a week, it's been a month, It's been, wow, how long has it been since I got up in the morning and thought.
I am absolutely looking forward today to being with my Lord. Perhaps I'll be with him practically morally here and in life, but but maybe I'll see him today face to face, if that hope is when we have to stop and we have to think that. When was it that I last really woke up in the morning or put my head on the pillow at night enjoying it?
Then there's something that's sneaking in, that's grabbing a hold of my heart, that's coming from the darkness that's around. And it's not the children of light. And so it's a, it's an indicator that there's a need to go back to the beginning, the the face link to the word of God and to be refreshed. And so they're presented here as armor. It's a breastplate of faith and love and a helmet of hope. So what keeps us from that moral darkness that we are surrounded by?
Out of these three, we find faith with the foundation as if it were because we learned even when we're a child without pay, it is impossible to please God. So faith has to come in. And then we even find in the book of Romans is that whatsoever is not a faith is sin. So faith is the basis because without faith and we would have no hope and we don't have the holes. We can exhibit the love the the love that God would have us exhibit to the world.
We can show passion and we sometimes call that hope, I mean love, but it's not the same love, is it?
Another little example of this truth. Just to go back to refresh ourselves before turning to another place, to the first chapter.
These young Saints in Thessalonica.
Paul having been with them and is praying for them, he says in connection with his prayer for them in chapter one and giving thanks for them. He gives thanks remembering and verse 3.
Your work of faith, labor of love and patience of hope.
Work of faith, labor of love and patience and hope is just mentioned that.
Those same three things are recorded in Ephesians as characteristic of the Christian life. Now turn over to Revelation chapter 2.
00:55:01
In Revelation chapter 2.
We have the beginning of the Lord's assessment.
Before his coming.
Of seven specific assemblies.
That had been formed during the lives of Paul and John and so forth.
And uh, we are thankful for the letter that was written to the Saints in Ephesus. Now these Saints are again addressed by the Lord himself in connection with their walk, their practical walk as they waited for his coming. And so he says in chapter 2, verse one unto the Angel of the Church of Ephesus, right?
And then in verse two, notice.
I know thy works.
And thy labor and thy patience.
And how thou canst not bear them which are evil?
Says thy works.
What's left out?
Motivating connection with God Himself. The activity was there. There was work there in Ephesus with the faith could not be reported as active.
He then says Thy labor.
For the Thessalonians, Saints, and.
Activity of first love. What did it say? Labor of love. The activity is there, but the motivating power of that activity was lost. The love wasn't there.
The third.
By patience.
The patience was in them.
But the patience of hope Hope is not mentioned. It was no longer an active.
Ingredient in their daily lives.
The next item is equally to my own conscience, important.
How thou canst not bear them that are evil? There was a holding on to correct doctrine.
They hadn't given up some doctrine they couldn't bear evil as it were. They were going to walk in proper doctrine.
And so is everything OK?
What's the Lord's statement to them?
Umm, he says, and to them first the end of verse 5.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent.
And do the 1St works, weren't they doing the 1St works? Wasn't their faith? I mean, wasn't their labor and patience and work this there was what was it the 1St works? No, it wasn't because the thing that had was had to be in it in order to be acceptable to God was the faith, the hope and the love that motivated and activated them to those those activities. And so he says or else I will come quickly.
And remove the Candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. In other words, they're seen here as a light for God in the world. Ephesus was to be a light for God in Ephesus and the surrounding area.
They were gods, the Lord, when he was here, he said, I'm the light of the world. He's he went home to heaven. How are they addressed in Ephesus in the epistle he says to them, Ye are the light of the world.
You're the light of the world now. I'm not here, but you're here, and I put you here as a candle. Stick to bear the light.
But just to take one of those 3.
Expressions of the eternal life that's given to us. The love God is love.
You can have all the labor you want.
But if it does not properly express what God is as love, then you're not a testimony for God.
01:00:00
You might be a testimony to your own glory for your own labor and how much activity you can be involved in, but it's not a Candlestick for God. That is, it isn't fulfilling the purpose for which you were placed in the darkness of the world to be light to the world in its dark period of darkness. And so he, he says, I'm going to put you aside.
As not.
Being of use to me as a Candlestick unless you repent and go back and do the 1St works.
You have to go back to the labor of love and then you will manifest me. Otherwise I will remove the Candlestick.
Solemn words, but it is the expression of what happens if we don't have on that breastplate that protects the heart.
Since we have in our chapter.
The vision just says where the breastplate of righteousness, doesn't it?
Or put on the breast later.
Particularly because the enemy and Ephesians, where the breastplate of righteousness in the 6th chapter is given. The enemy there is Satan, and if we give up the breastplate of righteousness.
Were made a coward to the influence and work of Satan to keep us from being light because Satan could say you're not righteous.
And, uh, he uses that. And so the most subtle of our enemies, our enemies of the world, the flesh and the devil and Ephesians, the one that's brought out in the last chapter is Satan is the enemy and he wants.
Bring us into unrighteous behavior that then robs us of power and it makes a coward out of us. Because if one is not righteous, one tries to protect the exposure of what they are.
The end of verse 8 speaks to the hope of salvation, using salvation in the sense not of eternal salvation and forgiveness of sins, but in the salvation, if you will, of the body. It's the salvation of the whole being that is so worthy of God in this tremendous work. He's redeemed us. We've had the words, their spirit, soul, and body, and uh, I believe they were referenced yesterday a little further down.
But there's the spirit, soul and body, all of them belong to God. And so here they were concerned again, these Thessalonians Saints, concerned about their brethren that had died that were asleep in Jesus. And that was touched on in the last chapter. It's brought up back again in verse 10 when it says whether we wake or sleep, that sleep is the sleep or death of the body. It's in contrast with, it's a different sense of use of the word than the sleep that we've been talking of so far in this reading meeting, which was a moral sleep.
Because there's many English words, we use them and they're context defines them. Uh, just so with these words here. And so in verses 8-9 and ten, it's talking about the hope of salvation when our spirit, soul, body are all together with him. And so it refers to it in that way. And that's what we look forward to in these verses. And so in verse nine, it makes it very clear God if not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who died for us? He's the one that's introduced here as the one that's going to be the comfort because of his death for us. There are some parallels here between this chapter and the prior one. Umm, in verse 10 is who died for us that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves in the prior chapter, it was he died for us. And then it introduces the fact that those that were awake or asleep, uh, were going to be caught up together to be with him.
01:05:07
And so the the two chapters of a lot of parallels, but it's found it founded on the death of Christ. It's founded on the person and being attracted to him. It's his power that keeps us in the chapter end of chapter 4. It's his power that snatches us out of this world and puts us in his presence in this chapter. It's his power that keeps us from that day of wrath that's being spoken of.
Just want to re emphasize the point just made. It's.
Can be very confusing if it's not clear in the soul, in the reading of the New Testament, and that is.
The perspective given of the word salvation is not the same in every place and I want to use one example of it and it's just been referred to here in the same way with the same meaning.
In First Peter, the Saints of God had been largely saved out of Judaism and were very familiar with the journey of the children of Israel.
In leaving Egypt and the Lord taking him through the wilderness to Canaan, the promised land, it was a very dangerous journey.
And there was not food for them. God was going to have to sustain them in the wilderness. They were going to face enemies, not the least of which was themselves. Umm, and, uh, they.
The point was, could the Lord take them all the way to the promised land? And that was the place, you might say, of where they their hope was. Peter takes up that way of looking at it with these brethren that had a Jewish.
Way and says you're on a journey, it's a dangerous one and you have the hope that set before you, but the salvation was seen as that which they would enter into at the end of the journey and it's important for us to recognize that otherwise we only look at the word salvation in the context of believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
And that's the most first and a fundamental way in which to look at the word and that when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus were cleansed by his precious blood and were eternally saved. But the word salvation doesn't always have that sense. And as it's given in this chapter in first Peter and elsewhere, it's the thought of you're on a journey and you're not safe home yet. And so their exhortation.
To not to be careful.
There's danger.
Uh, we're at in a night time, We've got to be sober and not have a falling out, if you will, by the way. And uh, so it's given that way here. So the purpose of God in verse nine is God hasn't appointed us to self wrath, but to obtain salvation. And so God's purpose is to take us all the way home safely, but he also gives us exhortation.
To live out in reality and be careful not to come as we see the all the things that happened to the children of Israel on their journey.
And it says, bosses, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. He's not talking about the salvation of the soul, is he?
It's our present salvation that we need to work out. He would soon be gone from them. Another example of it can be confusing like you say, if you don't understand the word salvation.
This comment on verse 8 two The breastplate protects the heart. The helmet protects the mind.
Put on the head and I just want to say.
Some of the remarks that have already been made about.
People redefining terms and changing what things mean and so on. It's often a work of Satan to play with the mind if you can. And so very important for us to go back and stand on the Word of God in its completeness and recognize that Satan will even take the Word of God if he can and misuse it in a way that plays with our minds and introduces doubt and so on.
01:10:26
But don't give up the word of God because.
Of Satan doing that. The Lord Jesus was tempted by Satan as he started his public ministry and Satan tried three different ways to get him to give up.
Some truth and Satan quoted the scriptures too when he was tempting the Lord Jesus.
But in spite of that, the Lord's answers all three times for Scripture.
He answered him with the word of God, and so it's, if you will, very important for us to fill our minds with the word of God. Be careful of where you get your thoughts.
The world's full of man's spots. Books are full of man's thoughts. The Internet's full of man's thoughts.
Sometimes we unguardedly absorb those thoughts because that's where we've gone to gain something, knowledge or understanding or something else, and we take in unguardedly thoughts which are not in accordance with the Word of God.
We need to be careful where we learn things. What's the source that was said to the children in Sunday school? The source, Uh.
Needs to be if we want the certainty of the truth of something. Be sure that the source of your thought is the word of God and not something you've absorbed from unconsciously absorbed because it's the thought of man.
The number 212 #212 stands as one and seven.
9000.
831934.
Nine and three days time to come.
Umm.
We need 100 bucks for anything.
All right.
Gave me my my friend.
I.
Went from here.
I felt far treasure and I'm brighter.
238 the last verse.
Nsnoise.
Just now falling asleep.
01:15:05
On.
Breathing.
Right.
Gospel 2
Gospel—LeMoine Smith
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Could we start our meeting tonight with number six?
We'll use a.
Spanish tune for that.
God in mercy sent his Son to a world by sin and done Jesus Christ was crucified.
What was energy on time? Oh, the glory of the great shining in the Savior's face.
Ellington.
Above, God is light and God is love.
Sin and death no more shall reign. Jesus died and live again.
In the glorious highest I speak in God, the green daylight.
Oh, the glory, all the grace shining in the Savior's face.
Telling dinners from above, God is light and God is love.
All who in can believe?
Everlasting life receive.
Mourn of all this Jesus now.
Every nature him I found.
All the glory of the grace shining in the Savior's face.
Only sinners from above. God is light and God is love.
Christ the Lord will come again.
It will suffer at once will reign.
Every song at last will home. Jesus Christ is Lord alone.
Over glory on the grace shining in Las Vegas space, coming there from above.
Not his life like God in love.
Let's look to God.
Let's turn first, please, to.
First Corinthians, chapter one.
First Corinthians, chapter one.
In verse 18.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
Are you sitting here tonight?
Thinking it's a bit foolish.
Where are you in your soul tonight?
Do you think the message is foolish?
The preaching of the cross. What does the cross do?
We've had words today.
About the 1St man Adam and his race.
We get it in Romans chapter 5.
The cross was the end to the first man.
The Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Has he put your sins away?
Are you sitting there fooling yourself? Just because you do religious things, you're going to be acceptable to God?
He has a focal point, and that focal point is the center of two eternities.
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Eternity before the Cross and eternity after the Cross.
And God is done with the 1St man.
Let's turn to Leviticus 17.
Verse 11.
I'll just use that one verse. You don't need to turn there if you don't want, but it says this for the life of the flesh is in the blood.
And I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul.
Some religious people.
Makes fun of those who speak.
Of the importance of the blood of Christ to put your sins away. How is it with you?
Can you say I know my sins are covered because Jesus blood was shed for me?
It's the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Who was that man on the cross?
Just another man.
Paul said the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Is that how you talk? Is that how your soul speaks tonight?
The Son of God.
Jesus died on the cross as your soul said. Say he died for me and I know my sins are gone.
He made atonement.
For my sins.
What a wonderful thing if you can say that.
What danger you're in if you cannot?
The consequences of living in sin before God and never repenting.
Are an eternal.
Punishment that never ends.
In the Lake of Fire.
People say, well, let's just figurative language.
It's not a figure of comfort.
Hell is not a comfortable place.
It doesn't speak of their being company down there even.
It speaks of it as being the blackness of darkness forever and suffering.
Where the worm dies, Not in the fires, not quenched. That's pretty awful.
Let's turn.
To 2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 4.
If we were to read in Romans 1:16, we'd read it that the the gospel.
Is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes?
Isn't that wonderful?
But no, though you were a Sinner.
God's message to you.
Is his power unto salvation, if you believe.
Here in 2nd Corinthians 4 we read well. If we went to chapter 3, we would read about the law and the glory of it.
When the law was given, it was a glorious scene.
But the children of Israel.
When Moses came down from the mountain, his face shined and he didn't even know it shone. They said, oh, put something over your face we can't stand.
So they had a veil over him whenever he spoke to the people. When he went back to speak with God, he took it off.
But in chapter three of Second Corinthians.
It says verse 13.
00:10:08
Paul is saying verse 12. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.
Not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, let the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds.
We're blinded. Here's the law and it's glory, and they can't stand the glory. And the problem is the mind is blinded. Is your mind blinded tonight?
Or do you believe the gospel of God?
Verse 14.
Their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament. Which veil is done away in Christ? Have you met Christ, the Christ of God?
What a wonderful thing that this person.
Brings the total revelation.
Marvelous.
Verse 15. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Oh, there's a problem.
The heart.
Has a veil over it.
Verse 16. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
So there's a veil we're finding in chapter 3 and then in chapter 4 and verse three it says but if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost.
These two times it says hid could be translated, but if our gospel be veiled, it is veiled to them that are lost.
Is it veiled to your heart tonight?
God wants to take away that veil.
It says in verse four in whom the God of this world has 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. You see, the problem is, we have an enemy.
Satan is a real enemy. He is here in this verse called the God of this world.
Is your mind blinded you? And I live in a country where the culture is going more and more away from God. No prayer in school, no Bible in school.
You know, 150 years ago that was a major textbook in our schools.
Men love darkness rather than light.
The God of this world had blinded the mind. So what we get in democracy where we live?
Is we get an effort of man to put together things that don't go together.
You try to Christianize the nation.
Amend and religion. Some that are Christian and some that don't know God at all and don't want them and it doesn't mix very well.
It doesn't change the gospel, does it?
It does not change the gospel.
But the God of this world has blinded the mind. Let's turn to.
Acts Chapter 26.
In this chapter.
The Apostle Paul is brought as a prisoner before King Agrippa.
The religious world.
As seen to it that he's.
Become a captive.
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The only religion in the world that represented the true God, Judaism.
In John chapter 4, the Lord Jesus Christ says salvation is of the Jews.
Amazing, isn't it?
God hasn't changed that.
There's one nation on earth that represented him, and by the time the Lord Jesus came into this world.
Things had become so contrary to God.
Man so hopelessly lost in sin that God says.
Salvation is so important, I can't trust you with a single thing.
I'm gonna bring you what you need.
In the person of my son, I'm gonna have him be obedient.
All through his life.
A perfect example.
And he goes to the cross to die for you. Have you trusted him?
Awfully important here Paul stands before Agrippa in verse two. He says, I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all things whereof I am accused of the Jews, especially because I know thee to be an expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews. Wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.
So Agrippa is well acquainted with this.
And so Paul begins to tell his story how he was.
On his way to Damascus, with authority from the chief priests, he was thinking he's keeping things in the fear of God.
But then in verse 13 and 14 at Middlesex king, I saw away in the way of light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining round about me, and them that journeyed with me. And when we were fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, Why persecutor saw me? It's hard for thee to kick against the ******. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said.
I am Jesus who not persecute us.
Isn't this amazing?
The preaching of the cross is to them that perish.
Foolishness. This man who had been on the cross is now in the glory.
And he looks on that man's soul of Tarsus, and he says, I love that man so much, I'm going to reveal myself to his heart.
And he's trying to persecute my church. He's doing that. He's delivering some up to prison and beating and death.
I'm gonna change it. I'm gonna use it. Isn't that amazing?
God can change you too.
He can use you for His glory no matter how much you've proposed, if you just believe.
Tonight we look across our world and we see a man named Kim, a terrible dictator in northern Korea.
Do you believe God could change that man?
I believe it could. I pray to that end. He showed me mercy.
He could show that man mercy.
Has he done horrible things? Horrible things?
Korea was once known as a land of Bibles. Amazing.
South Korea sends out.
The second to the United States in sending out missionaries.
Missionaries per capita.
The greatest from Norway isn't that amazing?
Why? Because there's a man who gave his life on the cross and his offering himself unto God as a substitute for my sins.
So glorify God that the grave couldn't hold him, and he's risen from the dead, and he's at the Father's right hand.
And he's looking down the night.
As it says in early Acts that the Lord added daily to the Church, such as should be saved.
We don't know how many thousands were added today.
Thousands upon thousands.
China is over a billion people.
00:20:02
Some say maybe 20,000 a day. Turn to Christ.
India is a huge population too.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Here he is. He's before Agrippa, and he's not alone.
The Lord tells him, after he says, I'm Jesus, whom thou persecute us. Verse 16 But arise, stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister, and witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee that should have been good news to this Gentile king.
To do what? To open their eyes.
Then we read the God of this world that blinded the minds of them believe not to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light. We had a little bit today about darkness and light.
I remember being out on the sea as a sailor.
And they said if you light a candle.
You know, you can see that out on the dark night on the sea for miles and miles. I've forgotten how exactly what that was, 11 miles or 14 miles.
A candle.
Astonishing, isn't it? Can't see further than that because of the curvature of the Earth.
Unless you're up on an eye mask, you might.
To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light. From the power of Satan unto God. You see there's conflict here, God and Satan.
Satan wants to take every soul he can to eternal destruction where he's a going.
And God has a bigger claim on your heart. Aren't you glad? They say, Oh God, receive me as I am of the Sinner.
He is willing to receive you now as ever. Isn't that marvelous? Marvelous.
That they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them, which are sanctified by faith. That is, in me you're not only going to get in your sins forgiven, but you're going to be.
Included in the inheritance. Wow.
Aren't you glad?
Verse 19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
But showed first unto them at Damascus, and at Jerusalem, throughout all the costs of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent.
And turn to God and do works meet for repentance. I think should repent. Have you repented?
That's an important part.
There's people today that want to be religious, they want to go to church, they want to have traditions, they want to have holidays.
And you could list a whole bunch of them that are even some called Christian holidays. Many don't even have authority in the Word of God to practice.
But they consider them Christian.
Repentance.
From the past.
Gonna be religious and go on just the way you did before.
I think God will be pleased with that.
I don't believe so.
Turn to God and do works. Meet for repentance. Years ago there was a brother whom I knew. He sold tools.
For.
One of those fancy tool wagons that goes around with a nice Chrome tools.
You know, he sold a lot of tools, but he had three prices. This is a brother. He had three prices. The market bore it. He got at the higher price.
You know what this verse got to him.
Works meet for repentance.
He realized there was something unjust in that.
And his works began to.
00:25:01
We meet with his repentance.
Verse 21 For these causes, the Jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me.
And he therefore obtained help of God. I continue unto this day, witnessing both the small and great thing. None other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come, let's Christ should suffer. He suffered for you.
He suffered for me.
Will you have him? The Word of God tells us He gave himself a ransom for all. The work is great enough to redeem all of mankind.
That doesn't mean all of mankind will trust Him.
Have you trusted him? That's the question tonight. Is he personally the one you've put your confidence in?
That Christ should suffer verse 23 and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead.
You know the suffering.
Was something you and I cannot measure.
From the 6th hour into the 9th hour there was darkness over all the land as he was judged.
Percent.
That he should suffer be the first that should rise from the dead.
How acceptable is that sacrifice, that blood that was shed to a tone?
So acceptable.
That the grave couldn't hold him. He's put in a grave and he rises out from among the dead.
Marvelous, isn't it? This victorious man says to your soul tonight I gave myself for you. I paid the price. I want your soul with me in heaven.
How can you measure such love?
They should rise from the dead, and should show light under the people and to the Gentiles. Isn't that marvelous? And as he thus spake for himself, Festus with a loud voice said Paul there beside thyself. Much learning doth make thee mad.
Is she remember that verse?
Be right in 2nd Corinthians 4IN whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. Here's Festus with a blinded mind.
Verse 25 But he said, I am not mad most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these things before whom also I speak freely. For I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, For this thing was not done in a corner.
King Agrippa, believe us, thou the prophets, I know that thou believe us. So he can look back as we had in that earlier verse. He's an expert in the customs and questions among the Jews. He believes the prophets which touch upon the law.
What do you say?
Verse 78 when Agrippa said unto Paul almost persuaded me to be a Christian. He's making fun, really.
God of this world that blinded the minds of them that believe not. Here's two men.
In authority in their land.
And they've got.
God's messenger in front of him them.
Are they really capable of judging them? Him?
Judging Paul, Judging the message.
The God of this world that blinded the mind, all precious soul tonight. If your mind is blinded by the enemy and you don't want to hear another word of God's gospel, you're in trouble and you're facing an eternity in the lake of fire.
Let's go back to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4.
00:30:06
See the enemy's purpose again in verse four, In whom the God of this world.
Are you taking up?
With getting ahead.
Making Ameri great, America great again.
Is that the preoccupation of your heart?
Or our eternal things penetrating this veil, this thing that hides the gospel.
This veil that hides the gospel as something going to penetrate that.
The minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ to his image of God should shine unto them the glorious gospel of Christ. Why does Paul call it that? There he is on the way to Damascus, and suddenly he tells us, as we've read in Acts 26, there's a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun.
Light shines into his darkness, and if you sit here tonight in darkness in your soul.
Let me tell you God once to shine light in there.
This wondrous message.
To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Paul says, Who art thou, Lord?
The Lord reveals himself. I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest, but rise up.
I got something for you to do.
Marvelous, isn't it? The grace of God?
So it says here.
Verse seven, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Do you know the Lord Jesus tonight as your savior? Are you a believer here tonight? You got a treasure inside?
If you haven't believed yet, believe now and you have a treasure insight.
Himself we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
The treasure is not expendable.
The vessel is.
Wasn't many years ago some of us watched.
Internet.
I don't remember how many men it was brothers in orange uniforms on the edge of the Mediterranean as they lopped off their heads.
As they confessed Christ.
The treasure was not expendable.
The vessel was.
They've been in peace and joy of the Lord's presence ever since.
Marvelous, isn't it, what the power of the gospel does? Absolutely marvelous. Praise God. There's thousands of Muslims turning to Christ yet today, some by dreams and visions, the Lord appearing unto them, speaking to them, and they check it out a little further. Some fight it for a few years even, but it keeps coming across.
Because he can reveal himself where you and I can't even go.
He's a living savior in the glory, and he loves souls.
Praise God for that.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels. That's the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
Marvelous.
Wonderful place back to.
1St Corinthians 1.
Verse 18 Again, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.
You sit here tonight as a believer.
Aren't you glad for that power?
That rot in your soul to make the change.
To get life from God, to give you eternal life.
00:35:03
When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you get a life.
That never began.
And will never end. Isn't that marvelous?
And the vessel is expendable.
Sometimes we go to the grave of a loved one.
As we're putting their remains away.
And oh, what joy it is when we are so assured.
That they had the treasure inside and their width Christ, which is far better.
Verse 21.
For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew.
Not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching. It should read the thing preached to save them. Believe. What's that?
Pilate looked at Jesus and he said, Art thou the King of the Jews?
Jesus answers, thou sayest.
That blessed man.
In those hours.
He's LED as a lamb to the slaughter, and as his sheep before her shears his dumb, so he opened not his mouth.
Because he loves you and he loves me, and he has something to accomplish his decease at Jerusalem.
Marvellous man.
Presently living men.
God's not asking you to keep the law.
He's asking you to receive Jesus Christ because you can't keep the law.
Because you're incapable of it.
The natural man, fallen man.
Is not capable of keeping the law. That doesn't change the law. It's good. It's just, it's holy.
The Lord Jesus.
In the glory as the resurrected man is my righteousness.
You believe her. That's the only one that you get righteousness for your righteousness.
Marvelous.
We're 23. Well verse 22 for the Jews require a sign. Isn't that amazing because as he ministered here on the earth.
There was sign after sign after sign and they still would say show us a sign.
Early in the week.
As he comes into Jerusalem for a triumphal entry, they say Ozana.
They spread palm branches.
Hosena means save now.
Just a few days, they're hollering. Crucify him.
Let's turn to Psalm 102.
Psalm 102.
Verse 8 Mine enemies reproach me all the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me, for I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.
Because of thine indignation and thy wrath.
When thou has lifted me up.
And cast me down a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Oh, it's lifted me up.
The Crucifixion.
The judgment of God on that blessed holy man.
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Cast me down.
What it mean?
Verse 23.
This man was 33 years old.
He had done nothing but good.
But he is a man, He is God. He loves you.
And he felt it to be a man. Verse 23 says he weakened my strength in the way.
He shortened.
My days.
All this wonderful man.
Hanging there in the cross.
Verse 24 I said, Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. He feels it to be man.
A righteous man.
But there's an answer.
In the rest of that verse.
Thy years are throughout all generations.
Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth. You know the Apostles Creed does not attribute creation to the Lord Jesus Christ, but God does.
Of all that thou laid, the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of thy hands, they shall perish.
But thou shalt endure.
What a comfort.
To the God Man on Calvary's cross.
Wherever this is.
In the garden, I don't know where it really was, but here we have it prophetically.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. A All of them shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shall thou change them, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same. Thy years shall have no end. Oh, what a glorious person has gone to the cross to redeem you to God by His blood.
Trust him tonight.
Take him as your saviour, believe in him.
One of the great proofs of Christianity.
Is how the apostles lives ended.
They never wavered.
In faithfulness.
To the man Christ Jesus, who gave all to redeem them.
Trust him now if you haven't.
Jesus is coming again from the glory.
But he's coming.
To call the church up to himself.
The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of Archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
And we, the living which remain, shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.
Is that going to be true of you?
See, that's my hope.
I know Christ died for me. I know my sacrifice that was made by Him.
Is acceptable to God because God raised him from the dead. God says. I'm going to base your faith on my facts.
My son came to bring you life.
Trust him now.
Verse eight chapter. I mean song #8 on their hymn sheet.
The third verse says now.
It's an important word before the Savior is coming.
Seek his pardon free to know.
Be your stains of sinus scarlet, even if you were Mr. Kim of North Korea.
He will make you white as snow.
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Shall we gather at his?
Grace.
Now we hear the sage of all of us giving him a long day on the God.
Yes, we'll come right down again. It's Warrior's glory on.
In the glory of the glory of God.
In the way to say.
It lands by the fingers of the.
Now we ignore the sacred tongue.
In his heart increasingly awkward in your same birthday and Scarlett evil dangerous why I have no.
Doubt discoveries come in.
His glory of the glory of God is never Wednesday. That is gone.
M15 dangerous uh.
YP Sing With Open Mic
1 Thessalonians 5:9-28
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.
It saved him 180.
Arkansas Grammar.
Here's our home.
And I swallowed grill and trip life.
And tell me overnight.
We shall pray to my God.
Without any color in mind.
And his powerful.
Home.
10-4.
Please. Oh yeah, stronger made yourself.
1St Thessalonians 5, verse 9.
Suggest is for us to read First Thessalonians chapter 5 beginning at verse 9.
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also you do. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake.
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And be at peace among yourself.
Now we exalt you, brethren. Warn them that unruly comfort the feeble minded, support the weak. Be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing in everything. Give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesizing. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good.
Abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.
And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved, blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
It's a wonderful thing that.
God, the Creator of all things, sustainer of all things that he's created.
As satisfied his own or is satisfying his own heart of love?
By having creatures to love that He can bless and bring into an eternal relationship with Himself. And so we sit in this room. I speak to us as believers, as those who are part of the family of God.
God purposed us for blessing before He ever created anything in His own heart. He didn't bring us into existence with the purpose of wrath.
But rather, His purpose for us was one of eternal blessing and joy with Himself in His own presence and having so.
Purpose.
He never does anything halfway, and so He will finish that which is purposes began where necessary. He had to send His Son to take our place and endure the wrath that we justly deserved, so that He wouldn't have to bring us under that wrath of His righteous holiness. But having done so, as He says, and it's an encouragement should be to our hearts.
We tend to worry about tomorrow and the next day, but if we can get a little bigger view of tomorrow and the next day, we would say, well, I have nothing to worry about. It's all ultimately in the hands of a God who has loved me from a past eternity and will, as it were, we've had before with not rest until He has accomplished that which His own heart has said about to do with respect to us.
And so, as he says in the verse, we started with not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Let's say mighty power of his purposes is evident in verse 10 as well, because it says who died for us that whether we wake or sleep, referring to the condition of the body, whether we're watching and waiting with our body alive or asleep in Jesus, we shall live together with him. So the physical death of the body.
Is absolutely no obstacle whatever to that, uh, living together with him. It's a wonderful thing, his power in carrying out his purposes.
Is completely unhindered by the most powerful force known to man, death that's completely conquered at the cross and through his death.
Sometimes when we look at a book or a chapter, even though we're short, there are different thoughts in the chapter and it's nice to look at the division in the chapter to help us understand. So here the 1St 11 verses of this chapter that we have just sort of taken up between last meeting and this meeting because 11 Cha, 11 verses speaks of the day of the Lord. And then we'll find the subject we start to change.
From the, uh, twelve verse on for the following 10 verses, we'll see that he's speaking now of exaltation to encourage us and how we ought to walk, how we ought to walk, uh, talk, uh, with each other. And then toward the end of the chapter, the last five verses are So from verse 23 on, we see the character change again. There is as if it was he put in a little conclusion that his farewell as if it were. So we, we began our meeting with.
The Lord's coming and as a reminder there were two portions and many have pointed out and then he he talked about how we are to be taken out of the scene rapture out caught up is the word they used in the King James there and then he speaks about the day of the Lord. Now not to confuse that with the Lord's day yesterday we referred to that day is the Lord's day. The day of the Lord is very different. That's when he come.
And he's gonna execute judgment. He actually will come back into this world, physically come back. Uh, perhaps, uh, if you don't mind, I just wanna go back very briefly to the book of Zechariah.
I believe it's important to understand that the Lord come the rapture of the when we are caught up. He didn't come. He said it was in the air, it was in the clouds were caught up in the clouds. He did not touch.
Is Fee in the 14th chapter of Zechariah again reading the book of Joel two that they talked about that day, but he was quite specific in Zachariah chapter 14, it reminds us it says behold the day of the Lord. It tells us clearly that the day of the Lord cometh and I'm just so for time's sake, I'm going to go down to verse 4 is that and his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives.
So it tells us He will physically come into this world. He stands on that mount called Mount of Olives, that we lead up often in Scripture, which is before Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst of towards the east and toward the West, and there shall be a great valley in half. The mountain shall be moved removed towards the north.
And half of it toward the South. And they see this many dramatic changes in there.
This is the Lord, the day of the Lord that he come, and we will read more of it if you were to go into it and see how judgment will be executed, how the date would turn dark and so on. So we are warned, not warned, but we are comforted that we will not be part of that scene. And as a reminder, because Christians don't get it all mixed up. So we have to be clear in our own mind and as you read through these chapters on your own.
Just be very careful and noticing those words we so we read we which are alive and remain That's us as we deem one and then when they talk about came as a thief, it says they they that are not it will see him as a thief in the night as a judge that face that the Lord the day of the Lord, we will be caught up. We will be looking down from above with him because after we're caught up, we can truly say forever with the Lord.
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Of olives when we read of our Lord leading this world.
In Acts chapter one, according to verse 12 of that chapter, they had been at the Mount of Olives. And so it's very logical that, uh, uh, in verse six, when they therefore were come together, they were at, they asked of him saying, Lord will file at this time, restore again the Kingdom to Israel. Uh, I hope this is not conjecture, speculation, but possibly they're saying, Lord, here we're at the Mount of Olives, you have.
Dyed, risen again, you're the Messiah. Hey, isn't it time for the Kingdom? But then what a surprise he left them. Just a total surprise. He left them because there is now an interruption. Not an interruption, but a parenthesis in God's program with Israel that that is for the MO for the moment being, umm, laid aside. Not broken, not canceled, but laid aside to bring in the church, the body of Christ. And so it's so important to realize this is the program we're part of.
Not Israel's program, we're not a replacement of Israel. We're not Israel made over reformed redone. We're something totally new as we read in Paul's writing, a new body where there's neither Jew nor Gentile. We're a heavenly people too, not an earthly. And, uh, we read of the apostles that, uh, one was gone. They had to replace him and they were looking for somebody who knew this Lord on the earth. But then there was a need for an apostle for this dispensation. And with Paul, who as far as we know did not know him in this world, who knew him from heaven.
And that's where we are a heavenly people. Our gaze has to be on heaven. That's where our life, our righteousness, our hope is we're here in this world as strangers, pilgrims and ambassadors. If we don't realize that, we'll get into this thing of, of thinking we're Israelites and we've got a, uh, reform the world, civilized the world, Christianize the world. They tried that before and it was called the dark ages. So we don't want to be doing that all over again. We've got, we've got to stay on God's program.
So as we come to the end of this opening section with, uh, chapter 5 in verse umm 11 with the division or just given of the chapter, it says wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also you do at the end of the prior chapter ended with Wherefore comfort one another with these words. Wanna make this application of the way those two sections, the section that dealt with the rapture ended and the section that ends with the.
Uh, about the appearing end and that is the truth that they were going to be caught up together with those that were had already fallen asleep in Jesus was something new to them. It was a word from the of the Lord in verse 15 of chapter 4 that had been given to them. So it was fresh understanding and so there to take it and apply it. Comfort one another with these words here in the section we've just completed in verse 11, it says comfort yourself together and that if I want another.
Even as also you do. So the apostle is encouraging them and really he's saying keep on, continue on and what you already knew, and I'm giving you some practical application of it, but continue on with it and what you've taken up that's new, take it and apply it in your life. And so for each one of us here, perhaps there are things at this conference and after things in our regular daily life that the Lord brings before us as we're reading his word.
And it's something we already know. The exhortation is to edify one another, even as also you do. Continue, keep on. And then there are things that are fresh to our souls. Perhaps there's something that we newly come into and understand, and the encouragement there is to take it and practically apply it as well. So continue on with what's known and take and apply what's new.
And before he gets into the.
Exhortations that are given in the last verses.
He says in verse 11.
Edify one another even as also you do like to make this general comment about all of them. Almost every single one of these exhortations have to do with you caring for someone else outside of you.
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Why is that? We tend to think and we read so often or man would say what's in it for me?
Oh, what? What comfort, what help, what encouragement is there that I I am going to receive?
But these exhortations are based on this basis.
God has given me the life of Christ. Did he spend his day saying what's in it for me? What am I going to get out of today?
Uh, who's going to encourage me today?
Did he appreciate encouragement from others? The last day of his life, The last night of his life, he said, Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations to his disciples. Yes, he was sensitive and yes, he appreciated.
The fact that they had been with him, but it did not characterize his life, his daily life, rather the divine life, which is love, was always occupied with the good and well-being of others.
And this, these exhortations are based on living out the life given and the encouragement to live it out rather than to go on as had previously been the character of life.
Man essentially is selfishly occupied. That is man Adam and his race.
Which as we had yesterday, we've left living that life and that being part of that race to being part of the family of God. And the very nature of the family that we've been brought into is the life of Christ, which is a giving, loving for others life rather than oh, I need some help, I need some comfort. Nobody cares about me type of life that is characteristic of.
This world, and so he says, as he does here in the very first comment, edify one another.
That is, think about your brother 1St and be occupied with his need. In turn, the Lord will use it to your own encouragement and help. But the basis of these things are thinking about your brethren. And so John, who brings it out in a little different way, he says we know that we have passed from death.
Unto life, because we love the brethren.
Because we love the brethren. That is a direct statement of evidence of the nature that's been given to us. You can't have new life without loving your brethren.
You have the life you love, your brethren, because it's the very nature of your life. And so live it out in a practical way as being encouraged upon these Saints and Thessalonica, even though perhaps doctrinally they didn't even know it yet. But Paul knew they had the life, and so he encourages to live it, perhaps even before they had learned the doctrinal side of it.
It's interesting now to see he's going to exalt us on how we ought to walk and to behave. He begins by using the word. We beseech you, brethren, the new translation. Use a stronger word, He says. I beg you, brethren. But what does he want us to be? See, John? Well, the first thing here is to notice those who labor among us. What a contrast if you go to the end of the book of Romans.
You'll find that it was very different. It says mark them who caused divisions among you or the new translation that says consider. Well, we have to think about these things, don't we you in in the enrollments tell us to consider those who caused problems and divisions. But here now in a different note, we have to consider our those who labor among you now in in the.
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King James there.
He says NRNR over you in the Lord I, I have difficulty with that until I was able to look in the new translation, which I believe express it in a much better way than you said. Those that take the lead among you. I like that. So we find sometimes, perhaps even in a small conference like this, you'll find that perhaps we all have different personalities. Some would rather sit back and enjoy.
Some would participate, some would participate more, and of course some would take the lead. And then of course in our lives too, some would take the lead in many ways to labor among the things or labor for God. So we find here that God noticed those who labor for himself, and further down that it tells us and reminded us to give them that higher portion of honors.
Versus 1213 and 14 go together in a beautifully balanced way that begins as we've just heard about the ones that were to recognize that take a lead among not ruling over and it says and admonish you.
The flesh doesn't like to be admonished and the flesh gets excited when it receives an admonishment. And so in the next verse it says and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. It may be that when we're admonished, it's not done in a fully Christ like way. Maybe that the message is an important message for our soul, but there's something of the written sandpaper of the flash mixed in with it and.
So it might be a little abrasive. And so what's encouragement in the next verse is and esteem them very highly in love for their work sake. Recognize that the work that's being carried out is a necessary one. It's a job that the Lord has given them to do and recognize it even if it's not carried out perfectly. And then the additional, if you will guard against saying, well, they said that to me and they were yelling and filling their arms and.
I don't need to listen to that.
It says at the end of the verse and be at peace among yourselves. We're encouraged in that we read a little.
Volume with our morning family reading and uh, happened to re read a section this morning at at breakfast because it was extra good. I thought it was a brother and the Lord who was teaching and uh, he received a very nasty letter apparently and it was delivered anonymously to his door and umm, he read it. He waited before the Lord and the next time he got up to.
Praise, She said. I received this letter and this brother who obviously knows me very well, recognizes and he went on in very careful language to basically state everything that they said in their letter is what I'm completely capable of and so on in my flesh. And I would love to talk to the brother and, and went on with it, but it was very clear from what they said that they hadn't been guilty of any of the individual things that they've been accused of.
The point was that they received this letter as coming in this case, not directly an application of this verse. They didn't even know who it had come from and the contents of it were untrue, but they received it in a proper fumble spirit and it really more fruit in their life. Well, here there's something that may be said more closely to the Spirit of Christ, but with a little of the flesh and so it's recognized and then just quickly on verse 14. It says now we exhort you brethren, warn them that are unruly.
Now it's addressing not those that take the lead that are doing admonishing, but all of us. And so it may be that we would rather leave that work of admonishing to somebody else. We take verse 12 and say, ah, yeah, not a not a very enjoyable work. That person can do it. They take the lead. That's that's not my role. No, verse 14 doesn't let us escape out the back door on that one. It says exhort, warn, and then at the end of the verse, be patient toward all.
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There's the implication that it may not go that well, and then in fact it may not take effect immediately.
And so for all of us, there's the privileges guided by the Lord to carry out this task and not just wash our hands of it, because those that take the lead have that role only.
Say this there are practical lessons for us either way so if we were the one who received that that letter, how do we how would we react or respond to it It's much easier to say well that brother did the right thing or did the wrong thing What if it's you? What if it's you? What if it's me? Because we have to know that nothing happened by chance, even if.
Let's assume the letter was written in anger or our malice or whatever the case may be. When we receive that, we still have to receive that as it is from the Lord, don't we? There are lessons in there for us that the Lord is speaking to us on, whether it's by a good hand that deliver it or a bad end. But then on the other hand, as we have been reminded that, uh, we have to speak to those that are unruly. Well.
Would I be the one just as sharp as the other brother who wrote that letter or is there a better way to approach that? Because often I find that we among ourselves that we are all very well learned in many ways from scripture and we are very quick at pointing out another person's mistake. But is now it is right because especially in location like this, we're told that two or three speak especially in open meeting and.
What are the rest to do the other to judge? And that's according to the word of God. But then how do we approach a brother if something is sort of slightly out of line? Let me exaggerate. Maybe he mispronounced a word. Maybe he misused a word. Or often we find someone say the wrong chapter and the wrong book, even though we know what they meant. Well, OK, perhaps that's an exaggeration. Do we jump and say you said the wrong thing?
So we have to look at it from both sides of it and say we are responsible both ways before the Lord, aren't we? Like can we say and the way that the Lord would have us to do.
Umm, whether the Lord some time ago to do a little word study on that word unruly to kind of fine tune what it means. And according to vines, umm, lexicon, it is really a military term for soldiers walking out of step or being insubordinate to orders. And, uh, it reminded me of a saying that I had previously appreciated by Mr. Kelly. He had once said something to the effect that the Church of God is compared in scriptures to a family.
Not to an army marching in lockstep. Well, then I realized Mr. Kelly wasn't totally, 100% correct. Because there is a place for submitting to one another and walking in unison and in harmony. So yes, love is the important thing. Being brethren, being in harmony is all important. But it's also important to submit to one another, not to create unnecessary dissension. There are brothers here and there who sometimes, uh, like to get a little unruly and they say, oh, we don't want to put the leaders on a pedestal.
That's wrong to put leading men on a pedestal. But if I'm the kind of person that argues over every little thing and finds fault with everything the Assembly does, aren't I putting myself in my own opinion on the pedestal? And isn't that every bit is wrong and it's fleshly? So there is that point, yes, that we're brethren, we love one another, we're a family, we're not an army. But there's also a point here where we have to submit and to walk together, even at times when we don't totally agree 100% with what the Assembly might be doing.
Let me bring out the thought here regarding, umm, those that labor among you and are over you and the Lord. And I just, umm, think of the, the need for there to be admonishment, umm, and the need to be able to receive admonishment. And I've just, uh, I, I, I, I just think of how, umm.
00:35:09
Admi admonishment is received. Umm.
Uh uh, so uh umm, so much easier when it comes from 1:00 to.
Uh, deals with uh, the responsibility of oversight and leadership in the spirit of a father, uh, rather than umm, one who just feels the responsibility for the Lord to do the work. Umm, I the, the, the tone of a father is always going to be umm, with, with love, umm, and care and concern for.
The one that is meeting the instruction is meeting the guidance.
UMM is needing the support and the health and umm there is a a a UMM.
With the Father, umm, there is, there is a sense of, of, of great concern for the blessing of that individual and umm, so I, I just.
Bring out that thought that, uh, we need to know, as it were, our children in state. Uh, I, I've been in circumstances where I've, I've seen a need in one of the Lord's, uh, children and I felt the need to go and address it, but I really didn't understand where the individual was and what they were going through. I was, I was, I was just really kind of dealing with the.
The the, the outward.
Things that were wrong and I didn't really understand the cause, underlying cause and what that individual is going through. And as a father, I had to listen.
To why this child of God was going through the difficulty they were and maybe why they weren't attending the meetings that I felt like they they were, they were missing and it would be for their blessing. And and so they're, they're there needed to be a, a listening and a a coming to understand them. And I think that that's that's helpful too. That that that, that we deal with.
Umm these children umm in the in the spirit of the product.
When the Lord Jesus was here.
He did these things for His disciples. He manifested His own heart of love toward them.
And when the end of his life was coming to its close and he recognized he would no longer be here to fulfill the needs of those who companion with him, his disciples.
He made provision.
For their that need which they each one had when he would be absent from them. And so we have the teaching of John's Gospel chapter 13, in which he washes the disciples fate and then in turn teaches them to wash one another's feet. And that's the character of what we have here, that every one of us.
In contacts, the defilement of a dirty world and uh, our feet need washing as in the picture in John 13. And so he's, he begs them to build each other up.
And it's very easy, it's already been before us to be rather selective about it. Umm, and yet I'd just like to notice, for us to notice, it's not all the admonish or the disorderly side that's given in verse 14. The needs extend, it says comfort the faint hearted, sustain the weak, be patient towards all. And so whatever that need might be, there is a need for in each one of us.
And the Lord has so chosen that our brother.
Help us.
We need help and sometimes we're the last ones to see our own need and, uh, recognize the need and yet another may see it. And may the Lord help us to. I'm going to put it this way.
00:40:04
Love our brother enough.
To admonish if needed.
To comfort, not just take one side of it or the other, but to, as it says here, sustain the weak.
May we love our brothers and sisters enough to fulfill these things. We need it too, and our brother and sister would give it to us. It's not, uh, I'll just make a little, I hope, helpful remark with respect to the what's shown here, you might say is among those who are alike.
Particularly except he says no those which.
Uh, the Lord has given to besides yourselves, if you will, uh, among you, the Lord is given, the Lord has raised up some to particular service and but the important thing in that is always recognize the source from which something comes.
If I only see my brother, I may very often stop short of seeing the source. In this case it's the Lord that is the true source that has given that brother that responsibility. They may carry it out well or poorly but were helped if we can recognize it's the Lord that is behind it. And further one other comment as well about the father.
A little difference, particularly in connection with the father, is in the father's child relationship.
There's an express and known authority and so the child has to submit as under authority to someone.
The disciples, when they washed one another's feet, were not being put into the position of authority, and so to carry it out properly they had to get down on their knees.
And they had to do it in a very humble really.
The job of washing feet was, naturally speaking in that day, given to servants, not given the Lord's, not given the masters, and in a certain way not given the fathers either. But it was given to the servant, and to help one another. The heart has to get into the servant character of the relationship to carry it out in the right way.
There's another aspect that's not here either, but it sometimes gets connected with it in our thoughts, and that is the work of the what Scripture calls the pastor.
The gift, it's a gift, it's a specific gift. And, uh, it is one that has characteristics like these. And sometimes the Lord raises up a pastor who is able to, if you will, in one way go beyond what's given here because, uh, as I've mentioned many times, but it's helped me immensely to understand it. Brother Darby, I'll use modern words, but this thought was.
The gift of the pastor is rare. The pastor is like a doctor. He has to be able to diagnose. But that's only half of it. Sometimes we can see difficulties in another. We can diagnose, if you will. We have no idea.
What to do to help? But he said the pastor not only can diagnose, but the pastor is like the doctor, he knows the correct medicine that is needed.
For what is diagnosed, and may the Lord raise up those who can do that. But even if we don't have that gift, what's given to us here is for all of us, and it's in the character of John 13. If you love one another, and that's the character of the life that's expressed here, then you will work to help one another.
If you see somebody physically fall down as they're walking to the.
Meal table This today I would say without a second thought you would go and help them get back up. Well, we need that same character toward one another.
00:45:14
The, uh, loving each other enough.
To admonish. Not sure what you're exactly right, but that was the idea I remember very very clearly as.
A young person, umm, feeling like.
There wasn't, Uh.
At least some of my.
My group of peers there wasn't that, at least amongst ourselves and I remember very specifically.
At times.
Doing things that I knew I should be admonished for with the thought. Let's see if anyone has the nerve or cares enough to say something about it. I acknowledge that I was in Brock, but I was also conscious that I was testing to see if anyone cared enough.
Spiritual fortitude, whatever to say something about it, and I remember very clearly.
3 instances.
Where someone did One was an older brother that I respected. Another one was one of my closest friends. Another one was a a younger young person that I knew hooked up but cared enough. All three of them.
When we were alone.
I refer to a specific circumstance where I had belittled someone or taken part in something that shouldn't have said. You need to go back. You need to apologize. You need to.
Do such and such and it's meant so much.
That they cared enough to do that.
Almost at the end of the chapter, with a few minutes left, we can probably sum it up quickly. There's a number of things to encourage us. We need not to look at all the problems and difficulties. All the time as we walk, we're reminded here, uh, to rejoice. Well, rejoicing is not only when there's happy situation. We can rejoice even under circumstances, can we? And how often do we rejoice? Evermore so.
In summary, that tells us rejoice evermore. Oh, here's another thing that we ought to do and we often forget is to pray. We only pray when there is major situation happen to our lives. Well, what about to give thanks? What about there are many part of prayers that perhaps someone could get into, uh, to talk to us about, but we're told to pray without ceasing not just one prayer, not just two, but a continual.
Prayers, will they be Thanksgiving, supplication or asking for help before God and then it reminds us in everything. Give thanks that means good or bad or otherwise, and talk to quench the Spirit despise not prophesizing. I know this is going too quickly. I'm looking at our clock here with approve all things all fast, all things well. How do you approve all things well? You have to know it first to prove it. How do you hold fast to something that you don't know?
We're told to hold that fast. What that thou hast? Well, what do you have that you have to hold fast? There are many truths from the Word of God and many assembly truth. And the Word of God tells us that we have to buy the truth, then we will sell it not. And then the last but not least is to abstain not just from evil, but even from the appearance of evil.
One little thought. I don't think I'm too far off here, if I am at all. I think that verse 21 is almost a counterbalance to verse 20, despite not prophesying. But does that mean that in open meetings and Bible readings, a brother has the right to just say what he wants? And, well, it's an open meeting to say no. In other words, uh, now it is the assembly's place to prove all things and hold fast that which is good. As we read in First Corinthians 14, let the prophet speak one by one, but let the assembly judge. And so there's a point to tell a brother that, hey, it's not correct. It's not.
00:50:27
A, a, uh, open forum to say whatever it's, it's, it's the, the body itself that each of us is a part of, to be edified and not for any one brother to be going against the whole body. And so, uh, subjection to the Lord and to one another.
I think the new translation helps to understand that verse. I'm going to read the 19th and 20th in the new translation. Quench not the spirit that is. Do not hinder.
My failure to follow the leading of the Spirit.
Umm, we can do that not.
I remember comment about a brother in the Chicago at now Addison Assembly. He said there was a long, long, long, long pause when it was time to break the bread and one wise older brother turned around and looked straight at another brother.
Uh, the other brother was convicted. He had quenched the Spirit. The Lord really wanted him to get up and break the bread, and he hadn't. That's quenching the Spirit. The Spirit's leading and not doing it. And it should be of the Spirit. Let the prophet speak two or three and let the rest judge the next one. It helps, I think, to see the new translation. It says do not lightly esteem prophecies. That is, there can be a tendency with us to not take seriously.
What God has used a servant to give to us. And if the Lord is given something to a brother, even a prophecy, there's a potential in us not to recognize the importance of it, but to lightly esteem it and give it less than it it really means.
I'd I'd like to make is our time is almost up. Umm comment particularly as A to me, a wonderful ending in some ways.
And that's on verse 23. The very God of peace sanctify you wholly. To give what that I believe verse means to us, go to Philippians chapter 4.
Philippians, Chapter 4.
Get the same we have rejoice always in verse 4 Philippians 4 where he's talking to another set of believers, but he's giving some of the same exhortation. He says in verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice so on, but the verse I want to comment on.
Is first starting in verse six. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. We have trial, we have temptation, we have trouble, we have need. We have an encouragement here.
If we take it to the Lord in prayer.
With Thanksgiving that He has allowed it and brought it into our lives.
Then we can receive from the Lord as a result of doing that, a piece from God that passes our own understanding as to how God worked in us to bring that peace in the circumstances in which we were. And so it's given to us as an exhortation and encouragement to do it.
That our hearts and minds, because as we had yesterday, our hearts are attacked and so are our minds, can be kept through Christ Jesus. But then notice the next two verses and we'll get to the our chapter of the God of peace.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, and so on verse 9, those things which you have both heard, learned and received and heard and seen in May, and the keyword is due.
00:55:10
It's not taking a request to the Lord in prayer here. It's not asking for something with Thanksgiving to so that the peace of God can come into our souls and those that need, but it's something that if we do it.
Then it says the God of peace shall be with you. And that's the same sense in which our chapter is giving it. In every place in the New Testament where you have the God of peace mentioned, it's in that same character.
And that is, if we carry out the things that we've just been considering to gather this morning that are given to us, if they are actively a part of our everyday life, then we will enjoy our God, a God of peace.
Walking with us in those things, if we don't, we won't have that enjoyment.
But if we do, if we, as in Philippians, the things that are pure and just and honest and so on, we do, then the God of peace will, as it were, give the sense and of our own hearts and souls. We're walking through this together. And it's a God of peace that is the one that presently in as we walk through to the end of the journey.
Walks with us in these things.
209 Just the 1St 3 verses of 209.
Verses 1-2 and three offer 200 and 9th. Our times are in the end.
Order everywhere.
Somewhere.
All right, our souls are all living.
Our eyes are in my hands.
OK, right. I love.
You doing?
Our eyes are in my hands.
Why the language of our hands?
And thou, honey.
Last year.
Worries
Address—David So
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Let's look to the Lord in prayer first.
It's rather difficult.
To know what to say when one was asked to come up with words of encouragement as our closing remarks, as if it were.
I was just thinking of this hymn as we began. It's a wonderful hymn.
Perhaps even there's a prayer, because many of us know that it's easy to encourage someone else. It's easy to tell others that there are miracles.
But when circumstances of life comes to us, then we will say we believe in miracles. But I'm not sure what happened to me, you know? Have you ever gone through those ceilings?
Satan knows how to discourage our heart. We, we spoke of the faint hearted and in the Hebrews chapter 12, you remember the phrases about after faith. It sets, uh, uh, let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. What do we have his mind or in Hebrews there they talk about how, uh, they faint in the minds and often find that, you know, when someone has a.
Problem. We see someone coming up with crutches. As our brother mentioned, some you should catch someone falling. Well, we know what you do. That's easy in a sense, although there's nothing we really can do, but yet.
When someone is fainting in the mind.
We don't recognize that, at least. Perhaps I shouldn't use the word we so carefully. I don't recognize it. We come to a conference like this. Everyone dressed well. They smile. We ask how are you? The answer is we are well.
And we often miss that, don't we? And it does take special help from the Lord to recognize that.
Some of us perhaps come with heavy burdens and we need help. We're calling for help, but yet, well, we really don't want anyone to know that we need help. It's a difficult situation, isn't it? So this film is kind of nice. We we sang this our times in thine hand. In fact, time is short, so I just mentioned it briefly. If you if you look back at him 209, you'll find that the first Enza.
Really, look at the words. It speaks of dependence.
That's not the word we use much today. We're in a country that we're told you should be #1 you should look after yourself first. We don't need to depend on anyone. Well, him writer said, Father, we wish them there. What do we wish into the Lord's hand? We independence of Him, our life, our soul, our all we have.
Entirely to thy care. Do we really believe in that? Now remember you saying this him and I trust that you mean what you read. Now before I go on the second Stan, Sir, I'll scare you. Let's look at the last stanza that wouldn't even sing. I'm afraid of saying that because I don't know if I can sing that truly from my heart. Our times are in thine hand we.
Always trusting thee? Oh, I have difficulty with that, do I really? Can I truly say I always trust in Him?
Let's go back to the second stanza.
Some. In other words, we don't use often. I believe that word is called submission.
Well I see many husbands here. We learn a word, we may look at our wives and say you should be submissive. Well we forget the other part, the duties that the husband should perform, but here we need to be submissive to our Lord. We can say our times in thine hand, whatever they may be. Do we really believe in that? Pleasing or painful, dark or bright?
As best may seem to be, do we really believe we should submit ourselves in our Lord? Now, it's not my thought to go through this hymn, but I would encourage you to encourage you to read through that. The third stanza really speaks of confidence in the Lord.
The 4th stanza speaks of protection we seek from the Lord and the 5th stands that we find we we found sympathy from our Lord and the last dancer. Really when we sing it is we have the faith that we have in the Lord.
With a few minutes left now, I trust that we weigh about 6-7 minutes behind. I'm not sure what does that mean. I lost 6-7 minutes Or do we take the liberty to have 6-7 minutes longer? I'm not sure. Umm, I don't have a speech written now so I have to go what the loan may lead. I hope you would excuse me if I did go over a couple of minutes.
00:05:13
I was on my heart when I came and I was so glad.
Phil made a comment that a lot of things that we took up is something he had on his heart, and I felt that of course we exercised lately differently than each other.
I have that on my heart. The word is not a scriptural word, but the word we face worries.
I don't know how many of you can relate with me without worries. We worry about a lot of things. I'm not going to ask a show of hand. I can already see the expressions on the faces, either eyes drop face down or various so-called body language tells me that.
Many in this room have worries.
I know his husband, who often get accused and you don't worry about anything. Well, we have worries, don't we? So I came. I was thinking about certainties.
Worries and certainties. Neither one are from the scripture but principles we find in scriptures.
In business, they tell you you need to be in control. How do you take control? Well, you list all the problems, things that you expect to happen.
And you make sure you take care of things ahead of time because as they say, there will be many unexpected events to happen during the course of whatever the plan is. And if we can take care of the and of the expected, then obviously the unexpected is easier to taken care of. So we find in our lives we worries about things, but yet there are many things to me.
As a redeemed 1 uncertainties before God.
And I know that's somebody's word. Now let me begin with one.
We know this first, and we use it in gospel a lot. You can turn to it if you want, but I'm sure you know it as I say it as it is written. I'm sorry. As it is appointed unto man once to die there, though it's not a gospel meeting. But what does that say?
I see Brother Lomoyne Smith here. I say, brother, you're going to die.
I just don't know when.
We know that. So here's one end of the spectrum. From the time we're born into this world, it is appointed unto men once to die. It's a fact, isn't it? It's a certainty.
When you go to the far spectrum in First Corinthians chapter 15, there's one very short verse. In fact, let's turn to that because when we turn to it and see it, we remember it more. Now we read this chapter a lot, and I'm not sure.
How many?
Notice this word First Corinthians chapter 15. Oh yes, verse 20.
4.
Than the end.
It's like watching a short movie, isn't it? It is a pointer and a man wants to die. Then by the way, I skip the word cometh. If you notice, that's in italic. So really it emphasized the thought even more than come at the end. These are two certainties we have, don't we? So we know that once we are born, it is a point and demand wants to die then at the end.
Now, we're not going to spend time on this. I know many of you know what is the end means this is not the end of life.
This is the beginning of God's time, isn't it? The end of time, the end of man, when Christ was to do all things and he handed back to God the Father, and then we go into the eternal state. But that two bookends as if it were so. What are your worries?
What do we worry about?
Well about death, I think many of us do. What have I died tomorrow? What if I got sick and died? Well, he's a verse even Umm, we know. Well, I'm just going to quote them for property of time there in Ephesians. We know the verse is that even when we were dead in sins had quickened us together by Christ.
Oh, we cheat the death as if it were We have been redeemed. That's a certainty, isn't it?
00:10:01
Do you believe that you have overcome the power of death, not death itself? So what you worry here is another certainty that we have. We know it is by grace that we are saved is nothing to do with you. It is through faith and not of yourselves. Oh, so we have nothing to do with salvation, is there?
That's a certainty. There are many things we really can't do or control.
A look around. I have children, I have grandchildren and I look at myself and they said.
My grandchildren didn't choose to be my grandchildren, did they? They didn't choose to have that Lady to be your mother.
We couldn't choose our parents could we should be 1 less thing to worry about because there are many things that we couldn't choose is beyond our control. Can you choose to be saved? We just talk about is by grace that we are saying you couldn't even choose how to get Pennsylvania past the power of death. Can you choose what you will spend eternity.
No.
We don't even know what eternity looks like, but we're reminded that is where He is. That's good enough for us, isn't it? And this world talk about going to heaven. Well, how come the Word of God doesn't talk much about what heaven is like?
Oh, it's not just a place. It's where he is. It's where he is. We want to be forever with the Lord and.
Did you choose to be the bride of Christ? Did you have a choice? No, He told you certainties. Do you believe that in your heart? Those are the certainties. So we find these two bookends with lots of things that could happen in between and then we'll often quote, and I believe this verse was mentioned before and we know that. Do we know this? Now keep in mind we say this and we know that all things work together.
For good to them that love God. Do you believe that? That's a certainty, isn't it? It should be in our lives we know. For we know that all things work together for good to them of God, to them who are called according to His purpose. Romans 828, where the book of Romans before was quite a bit yesterday.
Another certainties in between these bookends. So what's your worries?
He he was by theory, and I know it's not good to speculate a man's theory. This is what I have learned. As we get to a certain age, if we sometimes use the phrase, we've been around the block a few times and some of us are fast learners, some of us are slow learners, and we have to run around the block a number of times to learn something. Here's what I'm beginning to learn.
None of you matters in my mind.
It's me. Do you ever find that?
What do we pray for? Oh, I'm sorry, we know how to pray carefully, use the right word, but deep down I will really say, Lord, what about me?
I'm sick. I need help fix me. Oh no, no, I'm not that selfish. My children, my family, my friends, do we find that sometimes. We're so me centric.
How often do we have in the prayer that we can say, Lord is not my will, but thine be done?
We have children.
How often do we sell? Our children say to us, we want this and in their mind it's the right thing to have and as a parent we will say no, this is not good for you. Do we try to understand the father's heart?
Sometimes we think it's for the Lord. Look, look how dark this world is around us. Look. Look how the Christian churches have degraded. Look at the other religions all coming in.
Do we think that the Lord perhaps is blessing other country more? Do we look and say look at how brethren in Brazil, not only are the word of God being spread quickly and widely and those many are gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do we only think of our own backyard. I I leave that with you as a question because.
00:15:05
We should believe that all things.
Whether we get what it is for me, whether what it is for you. God has a bigger picture and bigger purpose behind it. I was thinking about brother, He's not here now that gone into Second Kings with the Shulamite woman.
Not quite the way he was expressing it. I was thinking more in this country we feel we have two major issues.
To sum it up with I call it health.
And wealth.
Uh, we had before us, we didn't have time to go through it. How we asked the Lord to bless our spirit, soul and body. We're in a country that knows the opposite is the body, soul and spirit. My body has to come first. Look, I need to exercise. By the way, I don't we say we need to exercise and build a body, spend hours in the gym.
Eat the right thing because the body has to come first because as they say, without the health, you can enjoy the wealth. Those who worry about wealth have to work the extra time.
At the end of the day, either way, do we have the Lord before us who provides?
The wealth who provide the health.
We don't have time. Look in the Book of Haggai, it's interesting. They had it good and then the Lord said it's time to build the Lord's house.
And Haggy, I had to remind them, you're so busy working. You live in good houses, but it's not good enough. You're so busy working, you put money in a bag and didn't even realize there's a hole in the bag. The more you put in the bag, the more it comes out. If we ever find that with our lives, that may not be a certainty, but we do know and believe that the Lord.
Will provide do we believe that in this country we're too occupied is back to the Mee syndrome?
The health and the wealth.
Another problem. We want more time to talk about all these problems, but these are just some. Perhaps I'm saying it to encourage you.
As Americans, and I know it's Canadians too.
One of the problem we complain is we pay way too much taxes.
Don't we? And the government we have is no good. You know, it's funny. I caught my brother, my father, a while ago when you folks were having your trouble with your President Trump. And my father said to me, oh, I don't like that man. I he was caught up with it. And I remember saying to him, I said, dad, there's nothing you can do. What do you mean? I said, you're not American.
You can't even vote. Not that he would, because oh.
He said, did you pray for him? Oh, he's a terrible man. Did you pray for him? I would. And then he, he knew.
I enjoyed this thought and again, we don't have time to turn through it and I know you can find these verses. A brother expressed this in the conference not long ago. He said it's very simple, Don't let that bother you. There are three things when it comes to government or taxes, He said very simple. We pay, we pray and we obey.
Could you keep that in your own mind, in your own heart?
We're not of this world that fadeth away. We have nothing to do. This is from the word of God. We pay too much taxes. That's a good problem. You made too much money.
You pay.
We pray for the authorities, you find their first and first Timothy too, that we can have a peaceable life and we obey. Now of course we'll always quantify that we rather obey God than man, but those 3 principles are laid out for us from the Word of God.
Now we still have a couple of minutes, I'd like to turn to Jeremiah. Now here's another thing, and you may say you can chalk it off and say this is your opinion.
I'd like to share with you another thing we worry about our children. Let me share this with you before I go into the verse.
I remember when the children were younger and here to encourage many of the young parents. I remember the day that the crying doesn't seem to stop.
00:20:02
And I remember someone older would say enjoy them now. They will be gone before you know it. In between those cries and tantrum is like, yeah sure.
Today we look back. We have an empty house.
Those problems looking back didn't seem so bad, so bad, but back then?
Trust me on that. It was big. I remember going home that my wife was saying here he's yours and walk away.
How big are problems? How do we and I hear somebody say don't even raise children in this evil world? I just want to encourage parents. Jeremiah chapter 29.
Now, Jeremiah, this portion is talking about submissions to the Word of God is a very interesting book to go through. And I think a brother back there yesterday mentioned the earlier portion of that. They were told that this terrible man named Nebuchadnezzar is going to come in, is going to overtake them and going to take them into captivity, not for a year or two, but for 70 years. They will be captive.
And they are told beforehand what they are to do.
In that land of captivity, which to me I believe we can take that as an example for us in this land that is not ours, as we're ready to go to our Father's land. I just read a few verses. Verse 5. Now you should really read a few chapters before and after to get a full connections for yourself. Verse 5. Build your houses and dwell in them, and plan gardens and eat the fruit of them.
Take your eyes and bigot sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons.
And daughters that you may be increased there and not diminished. Wow. But they're going into a land of captivity. They're going to be slaves. God said. Trust me, you need to continue on with life.
You have to carry on with raising families.
But I left the verse out. Oh, I shouldn't say that. I didn't read the next verse. And I believe this verse is what we have to take to heart.
Verse 7.
Seek and seek the peace of the city, whether I have caused you to be carry away captives. And here's the portion of my heart, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
Uh, we like the captives in a land that is not like ours. I I believe we are.
Are we to shy away from what God has set us here in this land?
No, there's a reason why the children of Israel were sending the captivities and there are blessings that will come out from it afterwards. But while the in captivity they are told to stay obey. In fact there is a couple of other passages in there tell them don't run away. We see example of the false prophet to tell them to to run away and they were told you flee because of sword. You're going to be killed by the sword if you have flea because of.
Famine, you'll be killed by famine. And those came true and you can see that in history. And now remember, it's a side comment a a family very close to us.
20 some odd years ago when we had that one of the major division, they said we know this is the right place to stay, but because of our children there are very few left with children. We're going because of our children. Well, I don't want to say too much on that set result afterwards. So we are told these are certainties that God has given us.
Do we believe in that? Now I won't have time to comment what the other thing that was on my heart. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 2.
And I will have to run over a couple of minutes here and I won't have much comments on it. The book of Ephesians is interesting. Sometimes if you read from front to back, you don't always understand it. Sometimes it's good to go back a bit. We quoted from the 2nd chapter for by Grace, are you saved? Well, I'm gonna go backwards as if it were now as many of you know that verse 10 as many. So that's the key. That's the key to the whole Bible.
So let me start with the key 1St. It's a start in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him. Oh, that's going to happen. That's a certainty that God of the Lord himself and the dispensation of the fullness of time in that millennial time. He's going to gather about all and then verse 11. It says in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according.
00:25:26
To the purpose of him who worketh all things after the council of his own will, that we should be to the praise of the glory who first trusted in God. Oh, that's a certainty. They're saying we should be the praise of his glory. But wait a minute, that's not us.
It says we the Apostle Paul used the word we referring to we the Jews, the Jewish nation. The Jews will be to the praise of his glory, who trusted in God.
That's a certainty. They're not forgotten, as we mentioned. But hold on, where are we next verse in whom ye you guys? Well, I should say we because I'm not a Jew neither in whom ye also trusted after ye heard of the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Uh, in whom after that ye believe you were sealed with the Holy Spirit? The promise?
I'd go to umm wherefore which? Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase, possession unto the praise of His glory. We don't have time to go through that, but we too as a certainty to be the praise of His glory.
You still need to worry.
Now I'm going to spend just a couple of minutes. I'll start. Then he have his first prayer. We know that in the following verses, verse seven and part of the prayer have a few questions in that There's a lot more someone can comment on this, but I'm gonna, umm, read verse 18. This is part of the apostles prayer. The eyes of your understanding being in enlightened that you may know what is the hope of uh, I'm sorry.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened as you stop there. Well, what is it? Oh, I do want you, brethren, to be enlightened as God would want you to be, and many of you know that. And then think of this as three questions afterward, that you may know what is the whole of His calling.
What is his hope of his calling? Second question or remark? What's the richest of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints?
And the third thing.
And what is the exceeding grayness of his power to Oswald who believed?
Is it not more certainty that we have, in fact, our time is gone? I'll just tell you that there. He told us that already. We know. Want to know about the hope of Our Calling? Read through it. He already told us in verses 8 to 18, and you'll see that in those previous chat and in those previous verses, He told us, oh, all this thing that He has for us, that we didn't do anything. We didn't have a choice.
He set those certainties out for us, that we were chosen before the foundation of this world, predestinated to sonship, to share His glory, to be His bride, and to be forever with the Lord. What more do we need? I just want to sing that finished singing about Him. 209 Let's just sing the last three verses.
Verse four as we sing it, remember it talks about protection we have from the Lord.
Verse five, he's a sympathizing savior. Verse six, the faith.
Our times are in thy hand.
00:30:14
Nsnoise June, 34 hours is on Wednesday.
Continuing on With the Lord
Loosing Freshness of Relationship - Don't Be a Fool