Address—Bruce Conrad
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Good afternoon. Let's begin our meeting this afternoon by singing hymn #46 in the Appendix 46 in the back of the book.
I have on my heart today to speak about Christ as our object.
And this him, I think, at least partially expresses that very beautifully. 46 in the back of a brother could start that, please.
Video downloading download.
You haven't failed.
I won't really.
Play.
A picture of the heart.
Well, when people.
He asked for prayer about going someplace to have a meeting and say, well, I hope you have a good meeting.
I don't really care today.
About having.
A good meeting.
In that sense, because of course there's self and all that.
But it really is my prayer.
That this meeting is good for you.
I hope to traverse over a series of passages, all of which are well known to you to most of you.
To touch on things that I find hard to talk about.
Not because they're awkward or necessarily difficult.
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But there are spiritual things that describe a state of soul.
That we I are not always in.
But we aspire to be in it.
And I remind myself of Indiana, my work life. Many times we have get a bunch of guys together, maybe 8 or a dozen.
That would be charged with.
Planning and soon carrying out a very difficult.
Construction operation.
And there'll be senior guys there, experts, world class experts. And then there would be some, no offense, young guys, but there would be some guys fresh out of school and.
Young engineers and and they'd speak up with what they felt was a really good idea. And we don't want to discourage ideas.
But the older ones would just kind of smile because they've been through this so many times. And we would if I was running the meeting. We just appreciate the input and thank you. And we may or may not explain why that might not work or would be a little too risky. And then we would go on. I feel like that young guy now, tonight, this afternoon, speaking about things that are really, in a certain sense, above me. So I hope you'll bear with that. But the truth itself.
These are necessary.
Precious and needful things for your life and mine.
And the Lord is very engaged that we might lay hold of these things.
That's hopefully we'll we'll walk through. So let's look to the Lord in prayer before we start.
Our gracious God, our Father.
We thank thee.
For that eternal purpose, that love in thy heart that would.
Desire that the children of men.
Would be brought into fellowship with thee and with thy son.
We thank Thee, our God, our Father, for sending the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Lord Jesus, precious saved when we thank Thee.
For laying aside all that was rightly dying.
Selling all that thou just have in a sense to purchase us as thine own.
We now desire to lay hold of that for which we have been extracted from this world, that we might spend our time here in a way that is for Thy glory and for our prophet and blessing. So we ask Thy blessing. Guide us, we pray in that which we take up. We commit the time to Thee. We ask for a blessing for each one, our God, our Father, in the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Let's start in Genesis chapter 13.
You will recall that in Genesis 12 is the first we read about God calling Abram out of his country.
And Abraham eventually gets into the land.
A little bit of a hiccup along the way and then he goes all the way down through the land into Egypt.
And he's.
Encouraged by an unbeliever really, to.
Get out of here.
Too, God had told him get out, and then the leader of Egypt says get out of here too, so he's back in the land.
In Genesis 13, though, we read that.
He paid a little. He paid a price for going to Egypt.
And so it was that his nephew Lot, who had accompanied him all the way from across the river, his his original country.
He got a real taste for prosperous things in this life.
And there's a bit of conflict in the two groups. And Abraham very graciously says, you take your choice, I'll take the other.
And as you know, Lot made the choice, sad choice, to go down into the well watered plains of Sodom.
But it's after this that the Lord speaks to Abram.
In Genesis 13 and he says this in verse 14. And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him.
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Lift up now thine eyes Lot had lifted his up.
Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it into thy seed forever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise and walk through the breath, through the land, in the length of it, and in the breath of it, and I will give it unto thee. Then Abram removed his tent.
And came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is Hebron or Hebron, and.
Built there an altar unto the Lord.
Most all of us as Bible students know that Hebrew Hebron speaks of communion, mammary, of fatness. This isn't the first altar that Abraham had built to worship the Lord. It might have been the 4th, if I remember right. But he's in Hebron now, a place that we read about in the Scriptures for the first time in this chapter, which we'll see in literally and in picture form later on, We trust.
And so it is when we think about Abram and this gracious provision of the Lord.
He did it another time, too.
He took him outside and he said, look now towards heaven, look up, look around. And this is what you and I have been led to do in our Christian lives, many of you, many of us. I was pretty young when I came amongst the Saints.
Have been instructed in divine things. We have been shown things we have seen with our eyes.
Precious things.
Many righteous men and many kings have desired to see the things which we see, and have not seen them.
And the Lord could say, blessed are your eyes, for they see.
You young people have learned many incredible things. You've learned differential equations.
You've learned fluid mechanics. You've learned financial stuff.
Some of you maybe are in the health occupation and you learn all kinds of highly technical things about the body and about all of that you're capable of learning many, many impressive things.
But your mind was made by God as Creator.
In the way that no other creatures mind was made to be able to understand the things that are the most important to him.
And those are the things that he wants you to understand and he's fitted you to understand them.
But as.
I was alert during the reading meeting this morning to different brothers making comments that to see or to know or knowledge in itself, I think it came from over here somewhere, is not enough.
It is not enough. It is not enough to see it. It's not enough to know it objectively. It must be walked in, held personally and enjoyed.
We tend to think that joy is an option.
When I was young and my father went to buy a car, he was pretty frugal, said, well, do you want? Do you want, Mr. Conrad? Do you want?
What do they used to call the window? Everybody has it now the roll up, push a button and the window goes up, right? We said roll up the window because that's in the old days. That's the way it was, right? No, no, I don't want that. I don't need that. I don't need to pay for that. Just a regular. I didn't remember how you call them. Crank up window Joy is not that way.
It's in your soul, practically, because I'm speaking about practical things. The foundation of joy is peace, and joy is built on top of that.
And the Christian life, as I've seen it more and more as I've gotten older, cannot be properly walked.
Without joy.
So it's not an option, you say, let me be, let me be, let me just schlep along in the Yiddish expression of things. Let me just schlep along. I go to meeting. I'm not in anything untoward or immoral. Let me just slip along, show up at meeting. You know we'll dot the I cross the T and the normal expected Christian life. No, it won't work.
You'll give up.
You'll give up. Most likely you'll give up.
Say most likely because God is sovereign and he can come in, and so often does in grace.
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But I believe what I say is the truth of Scripture, that the Christian life is meant to be negotiated with joy.
And even the Man of Sorrows rejoiced in spirit.
When Paul wrote to in Second Corinthians.
To the Corinthians.
In chapter six and seven and eight, he showed that they could have joy at the same time they were having sorrow.
Because their sorrows all through this room, in every heart.
Maybe not the smallest, maybe not him, but there's sorrow in every heart, there's disappointments, and some really deal with a heavy dose of things. Physiologically, emotionally, whatever. We don't hardly even know how to talk about it.
But in the midst of that, and even if you have that particular challenge, you could be happy in the Lord. Joy and sorrow can be mixed together.
In one of the chapters, it's joy and tribulation. Another chapter is joy and poverty, and there's a joy that God intends for you to have.
That is independent of circumstances that will enable you to be here.
For His glory and to walk through this world in a way that is fruitful and a blessing to others.
And so his word to Abram Arise walked through the land, and the length of it, and the breath of it, and I will give it to you.
It's like the prayers and this is for those that are older. At the end of Ephesians chapter one, Paul prays to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of glory, that they may see the standing and the and the the riches of the glory that God had wrought for them through Christ, through Christ coming, Christ dying.
Christ being raised and now Christ descended. He wanted them to understand that.
At the end of Ephesians 1.
But at the end of Ephesians 3, it's not about the standing anymore, it's about their state of soul being such that they enjoy and and have Christ in them and experience the joy of the relationship which is which, which determines our state of soul.
As someone said in the reading meeting this morning.
If you prayed for me that my health would be would prosper as my state of soul, would my health go backwards or would it be, would it be a good prayer? That's what we're speaking about here. Your state of soul. You know, the older brothers used to talk about that all the time, communion and the state of soul and if somebody was a little bit.
Wobbly. Oh well, he's not in a good state of soul. When's the last time you ever heard anybody talk about somebody's state of soul?
Kind of like we don't talk about that anymore.
It's very important.
And so to me, in the end of Genesis 14.
The beginning of it is his. The communication of the Lord to him was at the end of Ephesians one, and I know we don't have time to go into this, but then he says walk through the land, the breath of it. I'm going to give it to you and the present enjoyment of heavenly things is what the prayer at the end of Ephesians 3 is about, and you can read it that you at your leisure.
Well, let's turn the clock does not stop. Let's go to the Book of Numbers.
Numbers, Chapter 13.
And we have a man named Caleb.
Who was often spoken about?
And many have taken up Caleb.
For their entire.
50 minutes or 60 minutes and I don't intend to do that.
But just to point out.
The state of soul in a Caleb.
Which not only sustained him for 40 years as he went through the wilderness.
With the other.
Israelites, but the state of soul which made him make a good judgment in the first place.
In numbers 13 we see that.
The Lord says to Moses, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel, of every tribe of their father. Shall ye send a man?
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Everyone a ruler among them.
Verse six of the tribe of Judah. Caleb, the son of Jefuna.
Of the tribe of Ephraim Oshiya, or Joshua the son of Nun.
And the other ten are listed there.
You know the story.
It wasn't the Lord's idea.
It did not originate with him, if I could put it that way, that they send 12 spies out into the land. If you read, if you were to flip ahead in Deuteronomy one, you'll see that it was good to the Lord because all the children of Israel came to the Lord and they said to Moses and said, we really need to, you know, we really need to plan this out.
They were what?
Weeks, months away out of Egypt. We really need to plan this out. I know you want us to go. I know you're leading us up in there, but we need to know which what's the right route and what this what kind of people are there and that we need the whole understand all this and.
Is it says? I think it's in the Darby translation. It was good to the Lord, OK.
Because he knew the character of the state of the people.
He knows the end from the beginning and he allowed this unhappy venture to pro ceed and for 40 days the best and brightest of Israel traversed that land.
I know they're just names to us, they're just names to me, but there are 600,000 armed men, armed Hebrews men. Men are able to fight war. So 60 / 12 is 5 S 50,000. I've never been in charge of 50,000 men.
I don't know anybody, maybe some of you have.
That's a quite a responsibility of leadership and there's 50,000 people to to sort through to see who's the one that's going to. These are these these men were not nobody's.
And yet you know the story and I don't want to take time to read it all.
And they all go to the same place as far as we know, and they all saw the same thing.
But two of them came back and said, wow, what a great land, let's go.
And ten of them said.
It's got giants, it's got high walls. It eats the people up. I don't know how that would be, but it's it's it's.
This isn't going to work.
And so in verse towards the end of Numbers 13.
They see the sons of the Giants, the sons of Attic. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, as you know.
And verse 14, chapter 14, verse one. The people wept that night.
And then in verse four of chapter 14, let us make us a captive, and let us return into Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jefuna, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes.
And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land.
If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, and so on.
The tipping point, as it seems to me.
With Joshua and Caleb was that they said this will work.
Despite the.
Height of the walls and the size of the people and any other problem. If the Lord delighted us, that's the whole thing.
They speak of tipping. That's the tipping point.
Does it sound familiar to you?
Does it sound familiar to what we read in the first couple chapters of Genesis?
If if the Lord delighted us.
And in the heart of the first man, in the heart of the first woman, was unbelief.
That the Lord had for them what was the very best.
And so they're thinking and then their actions followed that train of thought. But here with Caleb and Joshua, you have a difference. You have it's all up to him. If he wants it to happen, it's going to happen. And they felt like we have a word from the Lord. He brought us out of Egypt. How does that make any sense?
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How does it make any sense for a whole nation of people to let these people go when they're you're, when they're your servants? It makes no sense.
And then they spoiled the Egyptians on the way out here. Here have our precious things, have our jewels, and go out with your children and your her and your flocks and it what a entourage went out.
Does that make any sense? How does it make any sense to come across a Red Sea? How does it many? Have you ever looked and seen what it's like in Sinai, in the desert? How did that make any sense to sustain the people there?
Made no sense and it makes no sense for them to say let's make us a captain and let's go back.
This is too hard. This is too hard. This can't be done.
This can't be done.
And if I or any other older Christian tells you young people that you can't live the Christian life, that it's too hard and it can't be done, ignore us. Please ignore us.
Because God is not asking you to do something that can't be done. He's asking you to do something that you can't do in yourself with your own strength. But He's not asking you to do something that can't be done. As a matter of fact, He's asking you to do something that He just is waiting to give you the strength and every resource needed to do it, and He wants you to do it.
Old times sake.
Sitting in the Woodbridge Fellowship meeting on the second floor of that building that they used to have, Was that the Christensen store or something?
And so you could get there in the afternoon, you could break bread in Glenside, maybe in Dorothy, I don't remember in Chatham, in Brooklyn.
Hardy came down from Boston, Connecticut, all brethren came for an afternoon meeting and I remember where I was sitting and I remember Ezra Eustace in his well tailored suit and his shaved head before that was popular standing up at the at the end of the meeting room in an open meeting. And all I remember is him saying, quoting that verse in John chapter 2 where the Lords where Mary spoke to the Lord.
Because she didn't understand, I don't think what the Lord said.
And so she says, whatever he says to you, do it.
And I can remember Ezra, it's been 50 years maybe. I can remember seeing him stand there and saying that whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
That was a real word to my heart from the Lord.
Well, we know the story. And the sad thing is, those ten men, those 10 noble, competent men, they all lost their lives.
The wages of sin is death.
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You say, well, that's a gospel verse, is it? Is it?
Look again. Is it?
Brother Wally was speaking in the reading meeting.
About being halfway down in the ditch, or halfway out. Scripture, our old teachers used to tell us, defines an action by its tendency. Is the tendency down, or is the tendency?
And the tendency to say it can't be done is down.
In Caleb and Joshua said let's go. The Lord does delight in us. He'll bring us into this land, and after all, what else are they going to do?
Go back into Egypt. Really think about that for a minute.
Is the Lord going to open the Red Sea again the other direction?
Is Egypt, Egypt just going to open their arms to you? How are you going to get back?
It's totally untenable.
And it's the same for you as a believer.
You've accepted Christ as your Savior, and when you did so, hopefully you got good teaching. That said, you know what the Lord said to you. You felt like you chose me two weeks ago, and you did.
But I chose you long before you had a thought towards me.
And what a thought that is when it comes to our mind.
Because the Lord could say and found of them that sought me not.
And we realize He chose us and we're on our way and there's no turning back.
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Even if you decide in your heart.
That you want to turn back.
You can't go back. It's impossible. You can't be unborn. You're born from above. You're born again.
You're committed. He's committed you. You're going with him. The question is, how's it going to be along the way?
There are happy and humbled Christians.
There are dependent Christians.
And there are miserable Christians. There are miserably unhappy believers.
An older brother who I won't name, that's from this area.
He said to me, it's better to meet an unbeliever.
Sometimes in business or in a dark alley than a Christian in a bad state of soul.
Christian in a bad state of soul.
Is in a place God never intended to be.
And that's not where any of us want to be.
We want to not only know the truth, we want to be in the enjoyment of it. So it is the power and joy of our life.
And that is the that is the that is the way that God intends us to go through this wilderness world.
I won't take time to read all of anymore of numbers, but let's turn to Joshua 14.
And we pick up again with our.
Friend Caleb and Joshua.
Caleb, as most of you know.
The name Caleb means dog.
In the western world of those of us that are older, we we marvel at how people deal with.
The place that dogs have now. I mean, they got like doctors for dogs and psychiatrists, psychologists for dogs and everything for dogs.
Play dates for dogs. Dogs have been elevated in the Western world. People say, well, we're not sure we want to have children, but we're going to go get a dog.
In other parts of the world, not like that, the dog is really a dog, and I won't say any more about that.
But Caleb's name means dog, and I like to think it's because he was so dogged.
Because he was 40 years old when he went on that, on that search, search trip, that spy trip, it's really a search trip.
None of them had been through there before. It was the first time for everyone of them.
Says, well, his experience was different. No, Was it?
His experience was the same as theirs. He came out of Egypt.
He had never been there before either, but he came to different conclusions because of his state of soul.
And it is said of him, even early on, he's wholly followed the Lord.
I appreciate what my brother said at the end of our reading to the to the younger people especially that you can be like Enoch.
Enoch had this testimony. It doesn't say who rendered it.
Or who formed it. We know that God did that. He pleased God. And so Caleb pleased God as a 40 year old. So the question was, how's it going to be over the 40? Is he going to grumble? I'm not sure that we read anything about Caleb in those 40 to 45 years because in in Joshua 14.
We'll read it here.
Joshua 14 and verse.
7.
40 years old was I when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnier.
To spy out the land. And I brought him word again, as it was in mine heart.
Nevertheless, my brethren, then I went up with me, made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swear on that day, saying, Surely the land were on thy feet of trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses.
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While the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day four score and five years old. That's 85 years old. There are very few people in this room that are 85 years old. Very few.
As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then, Even so is my strength now. For war both to go out and to come in now, therefore give me this mountain.
Whereof the Lord spake in that day. For thou heardest in that day how the Anakins were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me. Then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jefuna Hebron, for an inheritance.
Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jefuna the Keenazite unto this day.
Because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel, and the name of Hebron before was Kirjak Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakins, and the land had rest for more.
Naturally speaking, it would be impossible.
Improbable for any of us to be at 85 like we are at 40.
God sustained Caleb and Joshua in a remarkable way. I believe as a picture for you and me that our spiritual energy can be unabated as we get older.
I heard a brother speak recently at a car. I was listening when I take my walks, I listen to ministry and I felt like wow, he's he's like ready to like write us all off like we're old tottering.
A humans like he wanted to pat us on the head and say it's it's OK, it's OK. No, that's not it at all.
In Second Corinthians chapter 4.
There's a verse that says.
I can picture it, let me see if I could start it.
Let me cut her into it.
2nd Corinthians 4.
And the brother's word was not.
Was fine, I just being older I took a little exception.
2nd Corinthians 416 for which 'cause we faint not.
But though our outward men perish, and indeed it does.
Yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
The inward man in the believer is renewed day by day.
And you think you're doing a kindness to an old person by visiting the 90 year old in the in the nursing home. And you are. It's nice to do that, but you're going to get a blessing when you realize that the inward man and that believe that brother or that sister has been renewed that day and will be renewed the next day if they're still alive.
Because that's the way spiritual things work.
And with Caleb, it's beautiful to see He had the same exercise. He almost, I would say, had it more.
It's remarkable and I didn't point it out on our way through.
There are many mountains in Israel I would assume. I've never been there.
But it keeps saying go up and take that mountain or the mountain, and it keeps using the singular for it, the mountain. I think that's very interesting. And 45 years later in this account we read in Joshua 14.
Caleb says now, therefore, give me this mountain.
He'd been waiting for it for 45 years.
Beautiful, beautiful.
For 40 / 40 years they wandered in the wilderness.
40 years.
And Caleb with them.
And finally, they're in the land.
And he says, you know, 45 years ago, I knew I could go up and take that mountain, give it to me.
And they did. They took the mountain.
Why do you want that old city anyway? It's an old city. It's they're all one of the oldest, if not the oldest city in the world, as it says in the account seven years before Zoar. And besides, there's a lot of dead people there.
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I read you how Abram built an altar there, but we could have read how Abram.
His wife Sarah dies in that place and he doesn't have a place to bury her.
And he goes to the men, the sons of half interest. Give me, she says I am a he rose up from his dead. He says I'm a stranger in the earth. Give me a bearing place.
That I might bury my dead out of my sight.
They said to him, Thou art a mighty Prince among us.
Thou art a mighty Prince among us.
What a testimony. But in his own heart, he said. I'm just a stranger in the earth.
I have an inheritance ahead of me.
I'll have it someday.
In meantime, I'm a stranger, I'm a Pilgrim.
Sarah died there.
Abram was buried there. Isaac, Rebecca.
Jacob.
Leah, maybe I'm skipping some.
What do you want that place for?
Just where they bury people. A place of death.
But it's one of the mysteries of faith.
It's one of the mysteries of faith that God reveals to man, that blessing for man comes on the other side of death, and death is the door to something that I appreciate more and more as I get older. The wonderful truth, the great mystery of the gospel of resurrection. Resurrection on the other side of death. Death in the rearview mirrors, we would say.
It's gone for me.
It becomes the place of communion and fatness.
It's the place where Joseph left from to go out and see how his brethren fared.
It's the brave place where David.
First was glorified to be made king in Hebrew.
Sometimes we might think that Canaan is heaven.
We cross Jordan, we go through death, and now we're in heaven.
And there's many beautiful spiritual songs from early America amongst African slaves that were brought over and enslaved. Beautiful hymnology in American culture.
That speak of Canaan in that way, but that's not the truth of God is to Canaan for you and me.
Canaan is enjoying heaven before we get there, and that's why there's conflict.
When we get home to heaven, there's no conflict. You say, Well, yeah, we're going to ride with the Lord out of heaven.
The armies of God are going to ride out of heaven, yes.
But the Lord is the one who's going to do all the battle.
And you're going to be dressed in your, what are the military people called? Your, your, your dress uniform. You're going to be in white garments. White. You don't go to a battle in white garments. I know that I've never been a soldier, but you don't go to a battle where you're going to have to do anything it clothes like that.
So the battle really is for you and me.
To use spiritual energy.
To be able to enjoy heavenly blessings now before we get there.
The Jewish blessing was typically ahead of him.
The promises to the patriarchs were all ahead of them.
They had them out in front of them.
And yes, had they had up, they had had opportunity to have gone back. But their blessings were ahead, and their faith is rewarded for that, pressing on and enduring, as we read in Hebrews 11. But your blessings, except for one, are not that way.
The whole array of blessing that you have, because he's blessed you with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. You have them now, I have them now.
We were chosen.
We were predestinated to be in a certain place before God.
We were called. We were justified.
And the final thing? And God looks upon it as if it were already done. Glorified. You're not glorified yet.
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You're not like Christ's spirit, soul and body yet.
That's the last thing that's not. That's not a present possession, but all the rest. You have eternal life now.
You have a divine person in dwelling you. You have a relationship with divine persons.
Remarkable. And so Canaan is the struggle, the spiritual warfare, to be able to enjoy these precious heavenly things before we get there.
Let's turn to.
To John.
Let's turn to Mark Chapter 10.
As pleasant as it would be to linger on Caleb's.
Spiritual success.
Because he did get the land.
You did get it.
In Mark 10.
Verse 15 for context, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child.
He shall not enter therein.
And he took them up in his arms, and put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running.
That's good. And kneeled to him. That's good.
And asked him. And that's good.
Good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
He must have heard some things.
He thought it was something worth having.
He thought he wanted it.
In verses 18 and 19, the Lord puts him back upon the law.
In verse 20 he answered and said unto him, Master, all these things have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him.
That's beautiful.
I think that's a detail you only get in Mark. If I remember right, he looked upon him and he loved him.
I often think of this passage.
And he said unto him, One thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. And come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that same, and went away grieved.
For he had great possessions. And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God? And the disciples were astonished at his words.
This, if I could say it, godly young man, upright young man, sincere young man, enthusiastic young man, comes to the very door of eternity.
He comes to the very door.
But when it's a matter of let me take my stuff, let me take my me.
And I'm not saying that we all need to get rid of all our resources. The Lord.
Gives different ones of us resources, and we're expected to use them properly in a way that is for God's glory.
I'm not saying that every believer is supposed to take a vow of poverty.
But for him, it was what he was all about. It was that one thing he couldn't let go.
The Lord said get rid of it.
Take up your cross step across the other side and follow me.
And he was sad at that, saying it went away, grieved.
Think he would have been delighted he's found the true door?
In the early chapters of John, when the disciples realized who Jesus was, what is it? Andrew ran and told his brother We found him, we found him who was the Messiah.
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Come.
Like the woman at the will come see a man.
He goes away grieved.
John, Chapter 12.
The Lord Jesus here explains.
Very clearly.
What would have been for eternal blessing for that rich man?
That rich young man in John chapter 12.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. Verse 24. John 12.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abideth alone.
He was referring to himself as a man here.
He was alone.
That eternal life which existed throughout all eternity in heavenly glory, the Father with the Son.
He came down and took manhood to himself.
But as such, he was alone.
But if it die, there's that door again. If it die.
It bringeth forth much fruit. You say death. Death came in. It was God's sentence against sin and rebellion.
Thou shalt surely die. How could something like that be a door to anything good?
But as we know, He's made the wrath of man even to praise him.
And God has taken every weapon of the enemy.
And grabbed it and brought it to himself. And so he could say to the Corinthians, like he says to you and me, all things are yours. Life, death, all these things are yours. They're mine. So they're yours. And now death is his way to separate us from these bodies of humiliation if he chooses to do so. And you know, less than a twinkling of an eye, we're absent from the body present with the Lord.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If a man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be him.
If any man serve me, him will my father honor.
This is the divine instruction.
That that rich young ruler, we don't know his eternal destiny.
But these words spoken by the Lord Jesus would have brought him into eternal blessing.
Let's turn in closing to Philippians Chapter 3.
We have had a man in type 2, men in type Abram.
And.
Caleb.
A man who missed his opportunity, as far as we know.
On a man who didn't miss it in the Apostle Paul.
Caleb got a glimpse.
Of Hebron.
No doubt while he was on that mission for those 40 days.
And it burned in them for 45 years.
Saul of Tarsus was on the way to Damascus.
And he got a vision.
Of the man Christ Jesus.
In somewhat of his glory.
And it changed him for the rest of his life, however long that was.
It formed his whole life.
The Epistle to the Philippians is a prison epistle.
I happen to think in later years now in in my own later years, that perhaps the apostle Paul was let out of prison for a few years and was able to resume service for the Lord. And we can talk some other time about why I think that or why you think that.
But at this point in his life, he feels that he's about to be offered in his life is about over. And he felt that as a brother was saying this this morning in Acts 20, when he's on the way back to Jerusalem, he feels like it's over. My ministry is done, I'm going back to Jerusalem. It may not go well, but I feel that's what I have to do. And back he went.
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With all due respect to one who's who's.
Shoelaces I don't come up to. It was a mistake.
Believe the Spirit of God in the Scriptures shows us it was a mistake, but God ordered it for Paul's blessing and he ends up a couple years later in prison and he writes to the Philippians. And the epistle to the Philippians in our Bibles is wedged between Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, is wedged between these two epistles that came from the apostle Paul in prison. The highest truths, the truth. I should never speak of the truth in plural.
Not just like the mountain.
The highest truth ever communicated, I believe, from God to man in that respect.
Came out of that man's pen in that prison.
And in between Ephesians and Colossians, those two mountain peaks you have. And I realized that people put the Bible together, could have put it in all different ways, but in our Bible, it's in between.
And it's been said that the Philippian experience, it's not the experience of an apostle, it's the experience of a believer. It's Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, just like you are. This is Christian experience that he's writing. It's the experience of somebody that's taken in Ephesians and Colossians, and you've done that to greater or lesser extent.
And now this is your experience.
This is the state of soul that is consistent with the.
Divine revelation of truth we have in Ephesians, in Colossians. You say I don't live up to that. I say I don't live up to that.
That's why I prefaced my comments with the comments that I made about the workplace, because I don't live up to that and Paul didn't live up to it.
And he knew it. But what characterized him in the third chapter of Philippians is that he was pressing for it. He was. He had seen Christ.
In heavenly glory. And he wanted his entire life and being to be consistent and identified with that man in that condition, that character.
And Paul knew it had been revealed to him.
Well, you're seated in heavenly places in Christ. Paul, he's the one who wrote that by the Spirit of God, you're seated in heavenly places in Christ. You have all things. You have this wonderful standing. Yes, Paul knew all that. He wrote it as the as the instrument of the Spirit of God, but it wasn't enough for him. He wanted his state of soul to be consistent with the place.
That God's.
Anointed man had been rewarded with in resurrection glory.
Philippians 3.
In verse eight, we have little time to do anything but read it.
I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
You may have learned a lot of things in your life.
I guarantee you there's been nothing you've learned or that you know that is more excellent than this. The Excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord.
I lived in a small gathering once and every I think it was Thursday night or Tuesday night. We would get down on our knees in prayer and almost every week one of the brothers in his initial prayer would make would make reference to the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I often think of him when I read this passage.
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things. But do count them. But really should be filth. Dung has a commercial value, as any farmer knows.
Filth, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings.
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Being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain.
Unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, Neither were already perfect. But I follow after I pursue.
I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 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. Same word is in verse 12. Follow after I press.
Toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.
And so on.
Are you perfect?
In the way we use the in the way we use the word.
No, nobody's perfect. We say that nobody's perfect when we make a mistake. Nobody's perfect. We know what that the way. We use the English word that way.
There's another sense in which Scripture uses it to be perfected is when we're home, we're glorified, we're with, we're like Christ in every possible way. But perfection in the sense of being a mature Christian for being like a journeyman no longer an apprentice, is to realize that just as God has rewarded Christ with a new place as man, a risen man on the other side of death.
That's my place, that's the way I walk through this world.
That's my Hebron.
And I don't have to wait 40-5 years and neither do you.
That's what Paul wanted. I want to apprehend that for which I am apprehended.
You say, Paul, you got all this, You got this wonderful standing. Yeah, but I want my state to be as close to it as it could possibly be. And when the Lord raises me up out of the dead, whoosh, I'm going to be fully in it, and that forever.
To apprehend that for which we have apprehended. May the Lord give all of us, young and old, to be perfect in this way. To be mature Christians, to walk through this world realizing that we have a new character of life that man never had before. The Lord Jesus was raised from the dead. It's the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the one who has been raised from the dead.
Well, our time is gone. Let's just commend ourselves to the Lord.