Address—D. Buchanan
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We open our meeting with him #259.
Ah yes, Lord Jesus.
Thou whose heart?
Still, for thy Saints doth care, we shall behold thee.
As thou art, and thy full image bear, thy love sustains us by the way.
While pilgrims here below the audacity Savior day by day.
Thy suited grace Bestow 259.
Yes, Lord Jesus.
'Cause I always.
Like to read 3 scriptures to introduce the subject I have before me first of all in Genesis chapter 4.
And verse 9.
And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not.
Am I my brothers keeper?
I'll turn to John 17.
John's Gospel, chapter 17.
And verse 12.
The Lord Jesus speaking here.
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of Perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
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And lastly in first Peter 4.
Verse 19.
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God.
Commit the keeping of their souls to Him.
In well doing as unto a faithful Creator.
I would like to bring before our hearts tonight.
Something of the keeping.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The faithful one we can trust.
We live in a world where.
People don't believe in anything.
We have young people that grow up that have never learned to trust anybody.
Thankfully, most of us here have been taught this from a year early.
Childhood.
We have had parents that loved us.
That cared for us and we probably never doubted.
That they loved and cared for us.
And.
Bob was speaking to us about the foundations being destroyed.
This could be a foundation that was destroyed. The Lord speaks about the causing offense to the little ones.
Was worse was worse than anything else in In conclusion, it would be better that a millstone be hanged around their neck and they drowned then to cause that kind of an.
Offense.
To cause a little one to be misdirected.
From knowing.
A faithful God.
In whom we can trust.
We have begun.
With the 1St man or boy born.
King.
Who went down a path? Let's go back to Genesis there and notice a little more.
I'd like to read.
About Cain and Abel.
An interesting notice, something interesting here in verse two of chapter 4 it says.
And she bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper.
Of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
A godly parent who is here suggested to me one time.
That if he had the opportunity to raise a family again.
He would buy them some animals to care for.
And I thought about that.
Abel was a keeper of sheep. You know, animals need care and if you're going to have an animal.
You have to learn how to be faithful and care for that animal or it will die.
How many little animals have died because of little children or sad to say, even older ones who have not cared well?
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For those little creatures.
You see, it's nice to learn some of these lessons.
In the issues of life that are not quite so important.
As the destiny of our souls or things later on that become more major. Now that's just a observation.
We learn these things able.
Was a keeper of sheep. Perhaps it taught him something about.
The creation and their need. Perhaps he learned something of his superiors by that experience, I don't know.
But that wasn't the real problem, though. Cain was a tiller of the ground. We all know the story of what happened, how Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel.
The part I want to call attention to was how he responded afterward.
It was bad enough for him to rise up in jealousy.
Remove the one who was accepted rather than amend his ways and change.
And the Lord God reasoned with him about that.
Sad.
But he makes this statement.
Am I my brother's keeper?
How many of us have fallen?
Into that excuse.
Well my purpose in mentioning about this is.
In contrast to the second man, the Lord Jesus.
Who was faithful?
Not only faithful as to his own life.
He was faithful to everybody around.
Him.
He made everybody who was anywhere close to him.
Like a neighbor.
We have that advertisement we still hear from time to time.
Like a good neighbor.
People understand this concept.
We all come into situations where we need one another, we're not self-sufficient and the whole human race has gone down a course of degradation.
And a course of departure from God. Why did Cain fail in the very beginning?
Doubting the goodness of God.
Unwilling to change?
I think about a story in the New Testament in Luke 10.
Of a doctor of the law who wanted to keep the law.
Who wanted to inherit eternal life? Who wanted to gain eternal life by living through his own works? And he asked the Lord about it.
And the Lord points him to the law.
It says he willing to justify himself, said.
And who is my neighbor?
I look at it this way.
He wanted to draw a little small circle around himself, with no obligation to anybody outside of that circle.
And therefore it would be easier for him and he could have the things that he liked and he wouldn't have to share his wealth with all the poor.
And he wouldn't have to love his neighbor as himself.
All of this stands in contrast to our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
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Who came down to become a neighbor to the human race?
To be a friend, to give his life, to sacrifice himself.
For his own.
The enemy of our souls would seek to blind our eyes today.
To this good neighbor that's available.
The story that follows of the Good Samaritan.
Illustrates not only what the doctor of the law.
Should have done, but illustrates to us in the story of the Good Samaritan.
What the Lord Jesus did.
And coming down where the man fell among thieves, coming to where he was.
Binding up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, taking him to the end.
And promising to care for him.
This is the keeper of our souls.
There's no one like him.
Have you entrusted your soul to him?
You know, from week to week we go to a prison and sometimes to a youth village.
It is indeed sad to see, especially among the young people or young children even.
Those who have been turned off on life.
And have gone a course of self will.
And doubt of goodness in anyone.
This happens in our country.
Now at the end, I hope to touch on a verse for mothers.
Or the the wives along this line. But for now.
Let's just think of the welfare of our souls.
And those around us.
The Lord Jesus came from heaven.
Down to where we were, he took our place.
And he offers us his place.
That's the keeper.
Of our souls that can be trusted.
And I believe one of the challenges of the Christian pathway is to convey.
This message to those around us with failing lies.
We do that with all our good intents.
And not just among the little children, but those around us.
The keeper of our souls.
So we read in John 17.
The Lord Jesus.
Near the end of his life, having lived it, serving the people of God, especially the people of Israel.
And now he's about to depart out of the world and do another work.
Not just of life, of compassion and tenderness and mercy.
And helping the needs in this present life, in this present world.
He was about to do another work.
And.
He speaks about those that the father had given him.
Let's just read a few more verses there in John 17.
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Verse one it says these words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father the hours come glorify thy son, that thy Son may also glorify thee.
Verse four. I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do.
Verse 8. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me. They have received them, and have known surely, that I came from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
Verse 11.
And now I am no more of the world.
But these are of the world, and I come to thee, Holy Father, keep.
Through thine own name, those whom thou hast given me.
That they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I have kept. And none of them is lost, but the Son of perdition, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. And then he goes on and speaks about how they are to be kept and sanctified through the word of God.
While the Lord Jesus was here on earth, he was entrusted to some people.
God entrusted to him the care of a people that were around him.
And he did it faithfully.
Now he was about to leave. He would no longer be present.
And so he had to commit them to someone else's care.
He was going to do another work. He was going to go to another place. He was going to open up a new sphere of blessing, a new place in heaven for a people to be received there because God's thoughts were rising higher. And it wasn't just God's thoughts to bless the people here on earth and to keep them from the evil and make a paradise here on earth for man to dwell.
That had been spoiled.
He would have done that if they had received him. He would have. He could have and would have set up a Kingdom of peace like Solomon did, even more glorious.
And there would have been no enemies to come in and Mar.
He showed all the attributes and qualities to be able to do that.
They didn't want it.
And so God's thoughts rise higher.
Now I would like to compare this to an Old Testament story, well known story of another servant who did a similar thing. Let's go back to First Samuel chapter 17.
Because I believe this is an illustration to us.
Of the Lord Jesus.
In John 17.
We're just going to notice a few high points.
In the story of David.
When he was called.
When he was sent by his father.
To the armies of Israel.
When he delivered the people of Israel.
From the champion Goliath.
Who is a picture of Satan?
And his domination over mankind.
First Samuel 17, verse 17.
And Jesse said unto David, his son, Take now for thy brethren an ether of this parched corn, and these 10 loaves, and run to the camp to thy brethren, and carry these 10 cheeses.
Unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare.
And take their pledge.
Now Saul and they that all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines. And David arose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with the keeper, and took and went as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the trench as the host was going forth to the fight, and shouted for the battle for Israel. And the Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army. And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper.
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Of the carriage, and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.
Now let's just drop down to verse 28 to abbreviate and a lie of his eldest brother.
Heard when he spake unto the men, and Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, Why can't thou down hit her? And with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know the pride, thy pride, and the naughtiness of thy heart, For thou art come down, that thou mightest see the battle. David said, What have I now done? Is there not A cause?
Verse 32 And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail, because of him thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against the Philistine to fight with him, for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock.
And I went out after him and smote him and delivered him it out of.
His mouth, And when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him.
Thy servants slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine.
Shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.
I think we're familiar with the rest of the story to know how it developed.
Here we have a boy sent by his father.
To see the welfare of his brethren that are in the battle, and I would like to liken it to God our Father sending his Son down into this world to see how the people of Israel are weathering the battle, how they're getting along in their resistance to the enemies.
You know the story.
They were not getting along.
Very well.
There was number one who showed confidence in the God of Israel to rise up in faith and stand up and fight.
This giant.
That defied They didn't even try.
They weren't able in their own strength. This is the environment.
That our Lord Jesus came into when he came into the world.
But our subject is about keepers.
David was a keeper of sheep.
And he was a faithful one. He learned with sheep, and God gave him a place of prominence among the people of Israel.
May the Lord help us to be faithful in the little things.
Then God can entrust us greater things.
Will the Lord Jesus came down?
And he was faithful to the people.
Around him there was not a man that went away from his presence with a problem.
And faith in the Lord. But what He didn't heal them?
And meet the need in every way, and not just the power to cure.
But a sympathizing heart to be near and to care.
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Like that Good Samaritan who came where he was. And I would like to suggest that why the Lord has recorded to us so much of the life of the Lord Jesus here on earth is for that very purpose, to teach us His loving care. He is a keeper.
I want to tell a little story.
Many of you will have heard of this.
This was told me by brother Eric Smith when I was a little boy, so I don't remember the details very well. Bob can maybe help me out later if I didn't get it quite right.
Back in the early years when Eric Smith was down in the Red Belt tribe of the Indians before.
The government of Bolivia had consolidated all the Indian tribes.
They still had a certain amount of autonomy or self-control in the individual villages and tribes, but it was the custom of the Indians at least once a year to take up a gift. Whether it was a gift or a taxation, I'm not sure. To the government, to the official government of the Bolivia. And there was always a man.
Chosen to carry this.
Offering or this gift of money, silver I believe it was.
To the government of Bolivia, to the president. And so there was no transportation in those days, and so they had to carry it on foot. Any of you who have traveled in Bolivia will know why the roads in those places oftentimes go down.
The riverbed, because that's the only place level enough where you can walk.
And get from one place to another. But in those river breads, occasionally there are.
Flash floods. And so this day, this man had been chosen.
To take the from the Red Belt, that's they're called the Pookachum piece, that's the Inca name for them. And many of our brethren down there came from that the Red Belt tribe. The Lord has done a marvelous work with them. My first visit there, we saw the man who was called the Kasichi, that means the chief, and he was a believer gathered to the Lord's name. There were two of them there.
Was one of them and they had a staff of their authority.
Represented their position as chief and the chief would take this money and give it to a responsible person.
To carry it was a long ways.
This man had been chosen. He set out on his journey.
And a flash flood came.
Washed him away.
But he was a faithful man.
He died when they found his corpse. They found in his hand, closely held tight, the money still intact in his grip.
Now that was a faithful man unto death.
A few years ago when I was down in Bolivia.
I mean, I heard the story of another man who was traveling along one of those riverbeds. Bob and I have traveled up and down there, and Bob told me this part of the story, too. A man was traveling one of these roads and he had a flat tire.
And as he was changing his tire, he saw something shiny down there in the bottom of the riverbed.
You know what it was?
It was silver.
Someone had lost it.
I don't know how or what.
But somebody had not been faithful.
It was lost.
Many, many years, I don't know how long that silver lay buried in the riverbed and some unknown person comes along and finds it.
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Now, brethren, God has entrusted things to us.
Is there faithfulness with us?
Do we keep what's entrusted to us? Did the Lord Jesus keep what was entrusted to Him?
Yes, he did.
His whole life not one of his disciples perished.
Remember, John the Baptist was not one of his disciples, He was a forerunner. But of the disciples who were given to Him, not one of them perished, nor will they ever perish. The Lord Jesus, as he was getting near the end of his his pathway, He had been entrusted to a people to care for them, and he had been faithful.
Now I liken that to David.
His father called him to a mission and it says.
There in Samuel in verse.
20 He left the sheep.
With the keeper, he didn't abandoned them.
Later on, Eli challenges him, chides him about this very thing.
That those words of Eliab speak.
To me.
Very much.
They speak a very typical comment of an oldest brother.
You know, when we're the oldest in the family.
We think we know more.
We think we understand people more than the younger siblings.
I don't think I need to say anymore.
David had a 'cause there was a cause.
What kind of a heart did the lion speak out of when he said I know the.
Thy pride in the haughtiness of thine heart.
He learned the doubt of his own heart.
The Lord Jesus would never speak in that kind of a way.
He was compassionate, didn't judge a matter before.
It was time.
With whom?
Hast thou left those few sheep?
Derogatory.
As if David had lost some of them along the way or whatever.
You know, the Lord Jesus didn't have a lot of sheep. There were 12 disciples.
There were others besides that, but it wasn't a great congregation when he lived on earth. And yet he was faithful.
Faithfulness.
Counts.
He could lift up his eyes to the father and say, Father, I've kept.
But he was going to go on and do something more. He was going to fight the giant. He was going to enter into the realm of the strongman.
To deliver our souls.
From a greater enemy yet.
The enemy that would drag us to hell.
Pictured to us in Goliath.
So David, just as David, left the sheep.
With the Keeper, the Lord Jesus prays and gives commends back to the Father to take care.
Of those sheep, that was the ones living right there. We know from later on down in the chapter that we are included too, because we've believed on their word, the word, through their testimony.
But it was especially those that were there living at that time. Not one was lost. You think I see another expression of a similar way when the Lord Jesus was on the cross?
And He commends the care of his dear mother to the disciple that leaned on his breast, to whom he was had entered in to share his love the closest.
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And he commends her care to that disciple John.
So the Lord looked after the sheep.
The lost sheep of Israel, the sheep that he had called by name.
It says in our chapter in chapter 17 he also left the carriage or I believe that could be translated the baggage.
In verse 22 with another keeper.
I'd like to suggest that we have in that a picture of the Lord Jesus.
Entrusting to the Spirit of God the care of his disciples after he was gone, and that Spirit of God is with us to this day.
The Lord Jesus has not left us alone, even though he's gone back to heaven.
He's still caring for us through the Holy Spirit.
You get that in John 16 and 15.
About the care about the comforter coming, and he shall be with you, shall teach you of the things of me, and so on, show you things to come. It's called a comforter. It's called another comforter because the Lord Jesus was the first one, and this Holy Spirit was the second one.
And so that's a picture to us of the care that our Savior has for us, and that's the part of the care that has gone on to this day that so many people out there don't believe in or haven't learned to confide in.
Nobody cares for our souls like the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God whom He has set down.
Then when it comes time for David to go up and fight.
The Giant.
And he has to give a testimony to his ability to.
Before King Saul that he would be able to go and fight this giant, David goes back and refers to the the experiences he had had with the sheep.
And he tells King Saul, thy servant kept his father's sheep.
Is that the man you're trusting in? Is that the kind of man you're trusting in?
Are you trusting in your own ability to keep yourself?
You know, we think we're self-sufficient. Not only are we self-centered like.
King just thinking about ourselves and forgetting about everybody.
Maybe that's why we misjudge God.
We're like Eli of this judge out of our own hearts.
We need to look in to see how God's heart is. We need to see how a Good Shepherd is.
Get our thoughts adjusted to right and true principles, the foundation truths of Christianity.
Somebody cares for you. It's such a privilege, you know young people and I would like to encourage you in outreach in the gospel to.
To seek these souls especially who haven't learned to trust in anybody.
You know, I had an experience with a man who grew up.
Never knowing his father and mother.
My children remember him too, and they do not have very good memories of this brother, and they could tell you his name. You'll have to ask them if you want to know. But this man was converted to the Lord in later life, but he had never learned to trust anybody.
And even when he was older, the brethren would plead with him.
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And somehow, or rather it just couldn't get the concept.
And he had to interject his own ways, always.
Distrust.
Those who are in education tell us that that's one of the first things a child learns.
If it doesn't learn it in the first few months, it may not learn it.
Trust.
That's why we talk about the little animals.
You have a pet boy, little boy or girl.
Teach that animal what God is like by how you treat it.
Are you a shepherd?
More so.
I grew up on a farm and I look back with sadness.
When I think of how I treated the animals.
That my dad put in my trust. We had a dairy farm.
I have a cousin here, Jerry, who helped with the melking.
And I was supposed to help Jerry milk the cows.
But it wasn't always helpful. My help.
I remember being with an old brother who was a farmer who told me this, he said, you know.
My cows knew the day I got saved.
Why he treated him different?
It wasn't just because he wanted to turn over a new life.
He had a new Object to live, He had a new image to bear to represent his creator God, because he was a man created in the likeness and image of God to represent God to that those animals, those cows.
May our friends and neighbors know.
What our God is like by how we treat them.
The Lord Jesus did that.
Just like David and David said to King Saul. Saul.
Thy servant kept his father sheep. They weren't his sheep, they were his father's sheep. And that's what we've noticed about in John 17. The Lord praying the Father had entrusted him to him for keeping, and then he.
Commended them back to his father because he was about to go down into death and give his life.
I would like to just make a little suggestion here about the lion.
Than the bear haven't thought about this much before this meeting.
I would just like to suggest that the Lion represents Satan, the enemy of our souls.
That would destroy the people of God, and I would like to suggest that perhaps the bear could represent nature when it gets out of control, destroying.
The Lord's people.
For example.
When Elijah came back.
To.
The town where the temple was. What was it the she bears?
No, it was.
And they cursed.
Elisha.
And then the She Bears came out.
And destroyed Tear 40 of the children that was.
A. A judgment that God had said would happen if the children of Israel did not possess the land.
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Of Canaan, as they should. It said that the wild beasts would come out and destroy them.
Our loss of power and control of this earth through sin and man's disobedience causes nature to get out of whack.
And it comes out and it destroys us.
It's not just enough, brethren, to go out and live good moral lives here on earth. As far as the nature of things on earth and try to put it back in order, we can't do that.
Nature.
In itself and man's lack of power because of sin and waywardness.
Consumes him when he gets out of order. That's the bear. Satan does too.
We have a man, David, here, who went out and fought through faith and confidence in the Lord.
Esteemed those sheep of his father of more value than his own life.
And risked his life to give them deliverance and God.
Answered that trust.
An act of faith.
And delivered though the lion and the bear. And that was the confidence, the testimony that David could give that he would be able to fight the Goliath too.
The Lord Jesus did a similar thing here on earth.
While he was here.
Never did Satan get a word in edgewise that would lead him astray and get him off course.
Neither the things of this earth are of nature.
Power. All power.
All ability.
They told him one time, get the go, hide thyself, Herod will destroy thee.
Did it change his course?
Right on go tell that fox. I do miracles today and tomorrow, on the third day, I shall be perfected.
No deviation from the path of obedience and faith.
No accommodation to Fit a different circumstance. Obedience. Keeping the Father's sheep.
When all that was finished.
That's the setting.
We have in John 17 when he makes this prayer.
Father, I have kept them.
Now this is the man who is the keeper of our souls now.
He's gone and done the greater work. He has gone down into death, rob death of a sting, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel. We can preach it. We can preach deliverance. We can preach forgiveness.
All because of one man.
Everyone of us here today.
All we have to that one man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The keeper of our souls.
Now in closing.
Back into I, Peter.
Chapter 4.
Verse 17. For the time has come, that judgment must begin at the House of God.
And if it be first at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the Sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
Paul could say, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him.
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Against that day and then he goes on and charges Timothy.
That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep.
By the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in US.
So the Lord Jesus is the great keeper of our souls, but he wants us to.
Convey the message.
Now I said in the closing, we would read a verse for the sisters.
Hope I have it here.
Titus, chapter 2.
I just enjoyed thinking of this verse along with our subject.
And my heart, my desire isn't just for the sisters, but.
Especially, I think it is a.
A verse given for them. This verse has been misunderstood so much.
In Titus chapter 2, we'll read verses 3.
And four and five the aged women likewise that they.
Be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands. That the word of God be not blasphemy. I would like to suggest that this.
This second part here where it said keepers.
At home, it isn't just the thought that they stay home all day long, it's the thought that they keep the home.
That's a sphere that God gave the sisters, the mothers.
Especially if the little children don't learn.
Trust in that sphere. It's doubtful they will ever learn it.
Keepers at home.
A wonderful thing to have that heritage of learning to know.
What confidence is God is through having a person who proved it to us, at least in measure here someone.
Who kept us?
The best of their abilities. Keepers at home.
We have a precious commodity not just at home, but in all our neighborhood, all our neighbors. The limit, it's unlimited who our neighbor is. The Lord Jesus made everybody his neighbor.
We're incapable of doing that, but in the measure that we do have neighbors and those around us.
May the Lord help us to prove who the keeper of our souls is.
Let's thank him together.