Address—Bruce Conrad
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Vestal, NY, April 13, 1986 Address to Christians by Brother Bruce Conrad. I'd like to turn first to a passage in, uh, Colossians.
Blossoms, chapter one.
Colossians one and verse 25.
Where have I made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill or fill out the word of God? Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His Saints, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles? Which is Christ in you? The hope of glory whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in our wisdom, that we may present every man perfect.
In Christ Jesus.
Whereunto I also labor striving according to his working, which worketh in mid mightily. The reason I read that passage to start with, uh, this afternoon was the phrase at the end of verse 28, the apostle Paul and his labor and in a conscious sense of his stewardship, uh, committed to this, uh, this mystery. He looked upon every man as not just someone who, yes, might be saved and brought into the Church of God, might have their sins forgiven.
But that he might warn every man, teach every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
Last the time we were together in this series of meetings, we took up the subject of service or ministry more particularly, and the exercise of gift, and how the Lord Jesus, having ascended up on high, gave gifts unto men. And the purpose of those gifts was not just that they could be exercised as an end in themselves, but as we read there in Ephesians, so that you and I, all of us, might have the benefit of helps, divine helps, divinely given and divinely empowered helps.
That each one of us might grow up onto him as we read there in Ephesians chapter 4. And so if a brother comes through and he preaches or he teaches, are coming together to experience or to hear, that teaching is not an end of its SE in itself, but it's a function that is, that the Lord has ordered to take place amongst his own. And the end result is that there would be more glory brought back to him as that teaching or that exhortation or that comfort or that encouragement, or whatever it would be.
Is experienced and taken into the lives of his people and there's more a display of what Christ is down here. We need to keep in mind the Christ object God's object in the in the exercise of ministry in the church and here just to to kind of continue for a few moments with that line of things. The apostle Paul is very mindful of this. If I were an evangelist and I and my my sphere of service to the Lord would more properly be out where the out where the sinners are. I shouldn't rest just by saying oh that was wonderful a one or two got saved tonight or three or four or however many.
But the evangelists who, who, whose major work that's his thrust out there in the regions beyond, he should look upon each of those, uh, folds as they sit there and they listen, they ponder, uh, these, uh, solemn words he should say, oh, in his own mind that not only does he want to see that person get saved, but he wants to see them come into a knowledge of the truth, wants to see them presented perfect as it says here, presented every man perfect in Christ Jesus. And so the evangelizing, as you might say, the, the initial work and he's brought into the, uh, if things are happy and normal, he's brought in where others have already been brought in.
Have run into the assembly. And there are those who, uh, who uh, according to their measure, the sisters, the brothers, the old and the young, each one performing his function, would seek to encourage and to instruct and to pasture and to help. And the new convert would be brought on and brought up. And day by day, week by week, there would be brought in the life of that convert more and more of a conformance to Christ. Evangelizing is not an end in itself. Teaching is not an end in itself. And we ought to look at what God's purpose is in this.
I can remember years ago as a little boy growing up in a, down in a city some, some way South of here, before the days when everyone had air conditioning, difficult to sleep on hot, humid nights. And, uh, uh, done any little ones follow this? But I, I had this habit of climbing out the window up onto the roof, uh, when I couldn't sleep. And I just look around the, uh, it was like a, a housing development, little brick bungalows.
And you can see all these other little houses, you know, just like the one I was sitting on top of on a flat portion of the roof. And I can remember a lot of it were yesterday. I don't know how old I was, remember, like it was yesterday pondering that question, why am I here? Uh, looking at across the, you know, the suburbs as they were being built up outside of that city, just pondering, why am I here? That never left me. And by the grace of God, uh, he followed me and he brought me in. And it was perhaps, uh, 1516 years later when I finally started to have an idea.
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As to what God had in purpose for my existence, we read in Revelation chapter four, another passage before we get going on another line of things here.
Last verse in Revelation chapter 4.
Verse 11 Revelation 4 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things.
And for thy pleasure they are and were created.
I think it was back in the book of Job, which was centuries and centuries ago, when, uh, when one of the speakers says, wherefore hast thou brought me forth from the womb? And Sarah is a believer. Now We can ask the same questions that a convicted Sinner might ask. Only we can have light. We can have light and we can enter in, uh, through the purposes of God as told out of the Scriptures. Just what is God's desire for me?
Why did he bring me forth from the womb? Well, it's for his pleasure. And so we, we, I want to take up this afternoon with the Lord's help, a line of things which we might just generally call priesthood, the Christian priesthood. And and we might just see there as we as if the Lord helps us and we get through a few of the different aspects of what it means to be a priest now in this present age. We might just see that there are things which are are most exalted privilege and the most important thing in our lives.
Is is a certain aspect of things included in that and I wanted to make a careful mention last time we were together and took up the subject of ministry. I wanted to make careful mention that we all remember that ministry and service and the exercise of gifts as we each of us have gifts from the offended Christ. Those things are secondary to what we're going to have before us today. You know, sometimes when you when you speak about the subject of Christian ministry or gift and people come away with the wrong thought, they come away feeling that while you're narrowing things up for me.
You're taking away a liberty from me that I thought I had, I thought we could all do this and that I thought we could all take part in meeting. And I now I feel like I'm put in some sort of a constraint that I didn't know I had. Well, it's just the opposite. There is a ministry given to each one of us, a stewardship, a work for each one of us personally responsible to the Lord and administrative as, as we thought to, uh, to say last time. And in ministry, each one of us is unique and different. Each one of us has been placed differently in the body as it has pleased him.
We possess different abilities and we're given GIF different gifts and we function differently in the body of Christ. But in priesthood, there is that which is characteristic of all of us. And that's the higher thing We said last time how Levitical services were always, uh, up ranged below, uh, the priests, the Levites were given to the priests and we're all priests. Let's, let's turn now to first Peter 2.
Familiar passages.
Just to, uh, a place to start from so we understand what, what we mean when we say that each of us that knows the Lord Jesus is his or her savior, that we are priests.
First Peter 2 verse five, Ye also as living stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And then further on in verse 9, but Jiara chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation of peculiar people, that you should show forth appraises of him who have called you out of darkness.
Into his marvellous light.
It was God's purpose to have a people brought out from ******* brought out from from Pharaoh's dominion, as it was in the days of the book of Exodus, there we read in the chapter 5. I'll turn back there a moment.
Hold your finger in First Peter 2.
You would.
Let's say that the Lord God of Israel let my people grow, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. Exodus 5.
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Not that they may go serve me, but that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And there are many questions raised further on in Exodus. I think it's the 19th chapter.
Verse 4 You have seen what I did under the Egyptians and how I bear you on Eagles wings and brought you onto my cell.
Verse six. And ye shall be unto me a Kingdom of priests and an holy nation. These are the words which which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
It didn't happen then for other purposes. Not all of those redeemed Israelites became priests. The nation itself, in a way, didn't become a nation of priests. But just like, uh, we might quote in John two, thou has kept a good one until now. In this present age, all of the redeemed, every boy and every girl, no matter how young, how recently saved, how old, male or female we are, we have all been made priests unto God. In the Old Testament, a person couldn't become a priest by volunteering.
You couldn't go to a school when you got to be, uh, out of high school or 16 or 17 and say, I'd like to become a priest. You couldn't do that. You had to be born into a certain family. You had to be right in the lineage of Aaron to be a priest. You had to be one by birth. No one could volunteer. And so it is similarly in the priesthood today. You can't just volunteer and say, I wanna be a priest. Maybe, you know, as you get older, you'll see people that you go to school with and you're gonna say that are you going to go to college or go back to work when you go to a school? And some will say, well, I'm gonna go into the ministry. I'm gonna go be a priest.
Well, it doesn't work that way. It really does it, because just as you had to be born into Aaron's family to be a priest in the Old Testament, you have to be born into God's family to be a priest now. And if you've accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior, and as you read his word, you will see that he has made you a priest. He has given you all those priestly privileges of access into his presence, and that you can worship Him and understand divine things and have all those other privileges and responsibilities.
That a priest is known to have and so here in first Peter two we see first of all in verse five in holy priesthood, a spiritual house to offer up a spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
And we might say, I suppose at the very start that the the most predominant I, I, I feel that in my own soul of the most predominant privilege or activity of a priest is worship. It's the offering up.
Of spiritual sacrifices now.
I feel a little bit, you know, how do you put it, small, standing here and starting to talk about a subject like this. I feel like a little child standing at the bottom of the Empire State Building or something and looking up at something so vast and so eternal and so intimate and sacred is this. So I trust my comments won't be esteemed to be.
Presumptuous or anything like that. We realize we're talking about something extremely precious to God and personal intimate and all the rest. And I don't wanna feel as if anyone to feel as if you can put numbers to it or give a formula or anything like that. But I think we should, we should at least start by understanding that what God is looking for from us is our worship. Remember our late brother Albert Hagel saying, I was going to say many, but at least several times.
As He would stand there, a devoted servant as he was. And so the Lord can do without my service, but He doesn't want to do without my affections. He can do without my service and my work because He can do His work himself. He doesn't need you or me to go and leave someone to Christ. He can do that himself, but He doesn't want to do without our affections. He wants us to be worshippers. And in John 4, when the woman at the well of Sycar met there, that's a heavenly stranger.
Met the Lord Jesus himself. Little did she know who she was speaking to, but he said to her in that passage, Woman, the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Let me read the next verse after that. John 4.
Further on in that same passage. For the Father seeketh such to worship him.
And so in a certain sense, we would say that it's God's, God's purpose in this present age, not just to call out people to to forgive their sins, not just to make a servants or even members of the body of Christ, as wonderful as those things are, but to make us worship worshippers, to put us into a place and to give us even now the enjoyment and the delight and the intelligence is something that's eternal. The Father seeks worshippers.
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You know, in Luke 17 where the 10 lepers were healed and uh, as they went, they were told to show themselves to the priest and they went on. And uh, one of them when he realized that he was cleanse, he turned back and he, it says there he glorified God, He gave thanks. He turned back to the Lord Jesus to give him thanks. And it says there that he glorified God. And the Lord Jesus there said whether or not ten lepers.
Where are the 9 now? In A? In a? In a parallel type passage? Also in UH over in John's Gospel where?
Where where he says lift up your eyes and so on and look in the connection with service. He says that the laborers are few, but you don't seem to get, at least I don't get the impression that there's aid, that there's seven, that there's 75 or any specific number that are missing.
And that that's the reason why there are so few laborers or servants.
But here it's a specific number, each one, each one. Where are the 9? Not where is the majority, where are the other four? Where are most of you? But where are the 9? We are dealing with something that is essential, something that's essential to the heart of God, that we were created for His pleasure to be worshippers.
So here in first Peter 2A spiritual house and Holy priesthood.
Now again, what is worship do?
We, there's a sign out there on the, on the outside of the building, uh, listing some of the times of the meetings. Do we put up a, a sign saying Lord's Day, 11:00 AM worship meeting.
Oh, you don't see that out there?
Because I think that would be presumptuous to put that out there. We can come together every large day at 11:00 AM and we can put up on the sign that, Lord willing, there will be the breaking of bread. And we can.
The Lord willing, uh, with the liberties we enjoy in this land, as our brother mentioned this morning, we can set the table and put a list there in the cup. And by faith, just as Moses, it says, by faith, he kept the Passover. By faith, we can come into this room and we can show forth the Lord's death one more time, but we can't say we're going to come here to worship. We hope we would come here to worship, but worship, what is it?
Is it giving thanks? I suppose it would be included in that. Is it reading passages scripture? Is it singing hymns?
I don't really know what to say.
But we know that worship is, and we experience it.
If we pray in the prayer meeting, we have needs and we pray about those needs, and out of our own feeling of need and of emptiness and of and of insufficiency, we look to the Lord for help.
But in worship, it's something of a different kind altogether, because we're not there addressing our God our Father, or the Lord Jesus himself in a sense of need, but out of a sense of fullness. He's made us so rich and so full, and as he's occupied us with himself.
We just wanna share with the very heart of God. We wanna look up to the Father, and like little children, we just wanna say that we agree. We just wanna say that we agree. I enjoy the comments someone wrote once. And all of all of God's thoughts of the heart of Christ are fully formed in His Word.
He knows what he thinks of Christ. He's found all his delight in him.
He knows all about him.
But what do we say about that experience that He and Grace brings us into when in our the experience of our own hearts and minds and our own souls, we find ourselves entering in.
And and in a practical way, understanding in our measure, He informed us, we in our measure a Father's delight in the Son. And this is worship. It's not a sense of need and true worship. You know, we might forget all about ourselves.
Like in that precious hymn, the bride eyes not her garment, but her dear bridegroom's face. We're thankful for the fact that we've had our sins put from us as far as yeast is from the West. We're thankful that that, uh, the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us from all sin. We're thankful for all of those blessings. But you know, the work of Christ has done something powerful and eternal, and I experienced it in my conscience. I have peace and I rest.
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But it's the person of Christ that I need ongoingly to satisfy my heart. And so there's a difference, I would just submit, between thankfulness and between worship, in that worship has more to do with our own thoughts and feelings and the overflow in our own hearts affections for the person of Christ who it is that have done this.
It's a sensitive thing, isn't it? And you know, you say, I don't know.
You know, have I experienced am IA worshipper? Really.
Isn't it something I know brother?
Being taped, I shouldn't be so free with the use of names, but brother that used to come through Palmyra a lot. He used to speak about Communion being like a being like a bubble. You know how the children get those little.
Soap containers with a little thing in it with a round disc on the end, and they blow those little bubbles. You said Communion. Communion is like that. It's like one of those bubbles, easily made, but easily broken. Can you sit down and say I'm going to worship the Lord? No, you can't.
We can't do that. You can read and you can pray and you can fast all week and say I'm going to worship the Lord.
There's something about it that it just doesn't work that way, does it? And sometimes, you know, I've sat down and just so weary with all the earthly things and responsibilities and the weariness of this poor tired world and just to sit down and, uh, you can't really just turn it on like that and say, oh, I'm going to sit down and have a lovely time in the word. But I think whenever we sit down, we can put the Lord before us.
And like some have used in the analogy of John 2 with those, we can fill those pots with water and we can trust him to fill them, turn them into wine. And if you've had this experience, you know what I mean. Sometimes you sit down because you just wanna, you just wanna bask a little bit in his love and to and to just open your Bible and the Gospels and just trace them a little ways as he walked here or there.
And you start to read and all of a sudden you, your thought gets your mind gets to wandering and you start to think about something you said or did earlier in the day. That's funny. Should I think about that? And you dismiss it from your mind. And you go on and you're still reading and all of a sudden you start to think about something that's just a piece of unfinished business, you know, like a letter that you didn't answer or a phone call you were supposed to make or, or something that you know, you just should really have done. You didn't put that in your mind. You go on.
But I believe what's happening in your soul is that.
It's the Spirit of God, like the oil in those lanterns, that is really the source of that enjoyment in Christ. And He's the Holy Spirit. And we can't just sever our practical life from any other part of our spiritual life. My own conclusion, I suppose you can draw your own, but my own conclusion when those things happen is that, you know, that's the Spirit of God bringing things to my conscience that He wants me to judge, that I might be in communion with him.
Little things, little carelessness, we speak about self judgment, but I wonder if we don't forget sometimes what we're really talking about, all of us. And so that we might be in danger of passing on to the younger ones of things that are empty platitudes instead of things that we really feel and experience on a weekly basis. We need to judge ourselves and not to get ourselves into some morbid, uh, introspection or anything like that, but as a brother who's with the Lord now, I used to say, I've heard to keep short accounts with God, to keep short accounts.
To always take His side, even against yourself, and to judge those things as they come up and to acknowledge them that you can be maintained in communion with Him. And so some have said that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, that one who indwells each one of us, has two functions. Primarily, the major primary function is to occupy us with Christ, to be the one who just keeps bubbling up different aspects of His glory. His glory is the Son of man or is the eternals Son of God.
That's the perfect servant. Like you have him in Mark or or any any of these other aspects. That's his primary function.
But then he also performs the blessed function, and it is a blessed thing to convict us when we need. There are things in our lives that come up that we need to judge, that we might be able to judge those things and forsake them, to take God's fight about them. And then we can go on with the more normal and happy work. And so when we speak of worship, I, I think this is perhaps what we should be thinking of, A heart that is occupied, overflowing.
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With a person of Christ as well as the glories of the Spanish world.
Now, again, if we were to put up a sign, we don't know. You know, someone said that there's no shortcut. How did that go? There's no shortcut from, from Egypt to Shiloh, no shortcut from a, from a, a, an occupation during the week with worldly things.
All of a sudden to come into this room as we had before from the reading this morning, there's nothing magical about buildings, not even this one.
And then we had in, in my short time here, have had many happy, refreshing times so that I associate this place with blessing and happiness. Still, there's nothing magical about the place that when I walk in, merely by walking in, I'm going to sit down and be right in the enjoyment of heavenly and divine things. Now, there's no shortcut because if we've been occupied with things that are really not-for-profit, we've got to judge the fact that we've been occupied with things that have been not-for-profit before we can get on occupying being occupied with things that offer profit.
And I know when I was first saved and, and uh, we used to just live from meeting to meeting. We live from Wednesday night to Lord's Day morning, from Lord's Day night to Wednesday afternoon to when the prayer meeting started.
And how it all just seemed, uh, that everything revolved around the meetings when life was simpler than. And, uh, how you just felt that anything that came in that would detract in any way from your enjoyment of Christ, whether at night or in the morning, in your own home or in the meetings, wasn't worth it, no matter what it was.
And how I sometimes, uh, feel convicted in my own soul as I look back upon earlier years.
If anything, we should be growing in these things, and I sometimes feel that.
That, uh, there's been a, a, a slipping in my own soul need to be exercised about this. And so getting back to worship, why can we be occupied with worldly things and expect to come here Lord's Day morning and to be able to just bask and be delighted in the heavenly realm where everything is Christ? We can't and we know that we can. And perhaps we go on when we give out favorite hymns and after hymns are given out, you know, we're, we're, we know what goes with what.
And a brother might give out a hymn that has a certain line of thought in it, and I might just say, well, that goes with Hebrews 10, and I'll read the passage in Hebrews 10.
And we know what the loaf means and what the cup means.
But brethren, we know when we are in the real enjoyment, the fresh enjoyment of the love of Christ, and when we're not. Now, I don't mean to in any way make light or make put things in a profane manner. It's good to go on with good things. It's good to have habits. The Lord Jesus had habits. It was just custom to go into the synagogue.
And sometimes younger folks say, well, you know, they see failure in the older folks and haven't seen themselves yet, and they say there's failure there. And I mean, I'm not going to go on all of that. I don't mean in the slightest to add anything to any of that. The Lord Jesus had good habits. It was just custom to go to the synagogue. We read in Scripture what the character of that synagogue was as far as hypocrisy and as far as wickedness, as far as evil. But it was his custom, and it's a good custom to go to the meetings of the assembly.
And to be there and to be with the Lord's people, and it's good.
But brethren, we don't want to just feel that Christianity consists of going to meetings and and that kind of thing and lose sight of the fact, as I sometimes thought, at the end of the meeting, as we're sitting there wondering that someone is going to give us a word or if someone is going to give out another him or whatever.
Uh, maybe I mentioned before, but sometimes that passage kind of strikes my conscience. That gave us me no kiss. It really convicts me sometimes. We sang hymns, we read passages from Scripture, we gave thanks for the love from the cup, and we did show forth the Lord's death. We announced his death. We remember the Lord and his death. But that's kind of touching to me. Thou gave us me no kiss. Where our affections there for Christ, the way he would like to have them be.
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I remember once in a general meetings in New Brunswick, my brother was there and after the breaking of bread in the room.
Large room there in the on the coast there some you've been there and the brother stood up and he.
He started to speak and you know, I must confess. My first thought was this doesn't sound right at all. You know, it almost sounds almost blasphemous. I, I, I, I must confess. I started to think this way. Didn't know the brother very well, but he, he started out by saying, uh, has God had a drink?
Have we given him a drink this morning in our worship?
And he went on speaking about different things, and it it took a while for it to dawn on me. John 4.
Give me the drink. And then I was greatly relieved, you know, and I was perhaps was just not used to his manner of speaking, but I was greatly relieved and I started to take deeper interest in what he was saying. And he turned to a passage in in, uh, I think it's second Samuel. Maybe we could turn back there.
OK.
Yes, Second Samuel 23.
The recounting or the catalog of David's mighty man in his last words.
Verse 14.
Verse 13 and through the 30 chief went down and came to David in the harvest time onto The Cave of Adela.
And the truth of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Riff AM, and David was then in hold, and the Garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David manned and said all that one would give me drink the water of the well Bethlehem, which is by The Cave. Pretty specific place he wanted it from.
Pretty specific place you wanted it from. And the three mighty men breakthrough the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink thereon, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from the O Lord, that I should do this. Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it. These things did, these three mighty men.
As this brother began to speak, and it began to really speak to my own heart and conscience, give me the drink. And that is the Father's delight, to have the satisfaction of hearts. Think of it. Think of the miracle. Men speak of miracles, and in some phases of Christendom there's much made of miracles. What an awesome miracle.
That God could not only he can change outward things, but the fact that God can go in and change an attitude, change our heart, that God can go in and not only has he done a mighty work for us, but He's gonna work within us to give us a totally different point of view than what we had when we were unsaved, unregenerate.
What a mighty work that is.
To go in and just change things completely. And so that we're new creatures in Christ, new desires, new delights, and a new capacity to understand things we could never have even understood before, never would have wanted to. Because after all, someone said he might have forgiven us our sins and not given us the capacity or a desire to enter into divine things. He could have given us access and we would not have had the desire to even go in. But he's given us access and given us that, that new nature as we speak of it, that delight thing and wants to enter into the presence of God.
And we're comfortable there. That's another awesome thing. And so it was here.
Give me the drink here. David is a type of Christ. He longs the refreshment that he knows there in Bethlehem and God looks for it. There's a passage that says the Lord's portion is and so forth. The last portion is his people. And you think of all the the the wickedness and the stench from the mere existence of of men and women and boys and girls all over this country, all over this world who go on in a way.
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That is an abomination to God. God is angry with the wicked every day. And you think of that mall, uh, stench. If, if I would use that word, it's a pretty strong one, but I think it would be suitable that constantly wafts up, you might say, towards the holy God day in and day out, throughout the day, throughout the 24 hour period, year in and year out. What must it be to him when some soul having been wrought upon by the mighty Spirit of God?
As a thought of worship, as a thought that God can say Amen to, He's all together lovely, as we might say in quoting Scripture, and God will say Amen, a lovely thing. He looks for that, the Lord's portion in his people. But here in the Philistines, you know where the real impediment to this kind of blessing taking place.
And this brother said, you know, the Philistine isn't somebody from without, it's somebody from within.
The Philistine was the enemy within the land. Typically. He was there, always there, always sort of a nemesis. But he was in the land, didn't didn't invade from without. He was there in the land.
And the finest time he suggested, and it commends itself to me. It's not something that comes in from outside the assembly. It's just that old carnal mind that exists in you and I exists in a still. The carnal mind is enmity with God. And the first time he wanted to be in the land. He didn't want to be anywhere else, but he had no thought and no care for the God of the land, Jehovah, the true God of that land. And so he was there and he always had to be dealt with. And it's an interesting subject to trace the Philistine.
And how we kept, you know, even from early days, he, uh, he would fill up the wells of water that had to be digged again. The Philistine was the, the name literally means water. And the Philistine got into the land. You can trace back in the earliest chapters of Genesis and see that he's a, a descendant of the Egyptian, The Philistine is the worldly element. And uh, but he gets into the land, but he doesn't go across the Red Sea and across the Jordan again.
Doesn't go in through the right way. He takes the shortcut and goes right up through the coast.
So you don't need to look around. We don't need to look around and say, I wonder who the Philistine is in, in, in this place. No, it's you and I. It's that enough. It's that carnal element. It's that in us which just wants to go on with things in a dull manner. No, I don't want to leave the Lord's Table. Don't want to leave the meeting. No, we don't. But you know, even that kind of a, of a desire to just be there even in a cold state or the kind of desire to just go on with a monotonous line of things.
Wherein we weary one another, if not God. Why? That is something that we each of us need to resist to get before the Lord on our on our faces and proud of the Lord that that which we take up in the assembly and together, whether we are in this room or out of it together and in our homes and families that it would be fresh and real. Because each of us does have that divine nature that is just totally delighted in all the divine things purposes of Christ.
And so we need to overcome this tendency in each one of us, the tendency to just go on with things, to just give out to him because we know it, uh, to just read a passage or just to fill up the time. Better to sit in silence. Better to just wait on the Lord, no matter what our state that the Lord would lead us, whether it's in little or much. That would be real impression. All kind of a digression here, but we might turn now. I see the time, as always, is fleeting to Malachi, please.
Aspirin in the Old Testament.
Mm-hmm. You know, we have such an effect upon one another.
We who are not that terribly old or affected by those of you who are older in the past.
We watch one another, we affect one another.
Where I was first saved and gathered, I understood very early on.
That a certain form of, I don't know how to exactly put this, but you just got the impression early on that the thing to be above all is to be a worshipper. I don't know. No one ever came out so much and said that though they would minister on passages like we just read, but you would just hear it. Sometimes an older brother would speak about some other older brother or sister or some Saints and all that. That brother is really a worshipper, really a worshiper.
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Well, you know, that made an impression upon me, and I could see from Scripture that it was God's desire, you know.
And we would be worshippers. And I sometimes wonder if we have the same sense amongst us today that all the other things in our lives are ordered around that.
You know, if something comes in and it takes away from my liberty to worship the Lord, we ought to really be exercising, not doing something about that thing. And sometimes I get the impression that we have a subtle way and.
Are feeling like how much of the world can I have and still worship now how much of the world can I have and still be in the meeting it it almost sounds profane to say that but.
That almost gets the impression sometimes that that someone is well thought of.
They're able to make, uh, a lot of money or to be successful in that worldly sense and to still be able to make it to the meetings and things like that and to go on in the assembly. I just shudder to speak so plainly, but I felt this and not, not hear so much, but I just feel that there is this kind of a thing that, that, uh, in my generation that we need to come back.
Because, uh, that kind of a a simple approach to having so-called the best of both worlds is obnoxious to God. And we're deceiving ourselves, aren't we?
Judaism was an enclosure, and I suppose a Jew could say how far out can I get would still be inside that enclosure. But Christianity is not an enclosure. The sheep in John 10, when they were called out, they weren't called out from 1 enclosure and put in another. They're out in wide open spaces. And there's an attractive power in that shepherd and he doesn't need an enclosure, doesn't want one. It's just him and he's the attractive power.
And so the question, what's wrong with this? What's wrong with that? All those kinds of things.
How far can I go and still keep up a semblance of religious life?
Those are questions that have no intelligence when we understand what the Lord has done and what his purpose is. But I, as I say, this is something in his exercise me and I hope as we go on together, those of us especially that if the Lord carries will be left here naturally speaking much longer that we, that we stand up against this tendency, uh, to seek to, uh, just make ourselves comfortable down here.
And faithfulness to the Lord is sacrificed. But I'd like to read in Malachi to bring out another aspect of things in regard to priesthood than what we've taken up. Malachi chapter 2.
Malachi 2 and verse seven. For the priests lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
We've spoken a little bit about worship.
And there's another responsibility, another privilege that goes with priesthood, and that is the responsibility that we service. Intimated about a little bit in First Peter Two, that there is not only access but intelligence. The priest's lips should keep knowledge. And so in contrast to what we had before us last time in regard to ministry, not at all. All of us are fitted to beyond some platform to be taking a public role in teaching or preaching or anything like that.
Not all of us are fitted that way, and it's not God's purpose that all of us are fitted that way. But you say, does that mean that I'm, you know, that I.
Don't teach at all. No, it doesn't mean that.
You have children, you're a mother, you're a teacher. Your grandmother, you're still a teacher. You have a family, you're a teacher.
You're a little fellow in school and there are unsafe ones around you. You're a teacher.
In this kind of a sense, because we're priests and uh, though we don't have a special garment or a special card or some special emblem of this privilege while we have it and God sees it and we've been instructed in divine things. Even the youngest babe in Christ has an unction from the Holy One and he knows all things. We know the Father, the Lord Jesus has gone down to death and been raised from the dead. And it was his desires expressed almost immediately.
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That he might declare.
The Father's name to us.
Central to his thought when He raised from the dead that I would declare unto them volume eight, We know the Father's name. And so there is an aspect that all of us are to be intelligent in divine things. Now sometimes when we get into difficult passages, I know some time ago when I first arrived, we were reading in the Book of Revelation and it gets a bit difficult and there needs to be a a high level of interest and an exercise to understand things.
As we come into meetings like that, but we ought not to degenerate into a thing of saying, well, I'm not an older brother, I'm not a teacher. So I'm, you know, this is kind of really not what I need rather than that's not right, that's not right.
Again, our, our late brother Albert Heyho, you saw, I've heard him say it several times and uh, he would say Scripture speaks clearly about a gift in giving out the truth, but nowhere in scripture does it ever speak about a gift to take in the truth. Let him say that several times. It struck me each time. No such thing as a gift to take in the truth.
My to say, well, I really don't have, you know, it's really not. I don't have git. No, it's not a question of gifts.
Gift and ministry and those kind of things are over here.
And the kinds of things we're talking about this afternoon are over here, things in which we all enjoy together, all of us holy priesthood, each one of us displaying Christ, displaying him uniquely according to who we are, but displaying Christ the same privileges, the same responsibilities. And here when we speak of a responsibility, keeping knowledge, they should seek the law at his mouth. And this is a responsibility that we have, and we have it collectively.
And the apostles that develop it in the epistles, where it speaks in several ways of us collectively united together as the assembly or the House of God being the pillar in ground of the truth. That is, it's not just that this brother over here or this brother here, or that brother there are responsible to maintain sound doctrine for the Assembly of God in this place, but the Assembly of God in this place and on that ground, manifestly so.
We're together responsible to hold the truth.
That's a collective responsibility, the brothers and the sisters that we all are accountable for.
Now, perhaps you felt frustrated at times when you've been speaking with someone, maybe someone at school or someone you've met another Christian or something and you got into something and you say, well, I know that's not right, but I just, I just can't explain it. Well, that's all right. It's all right. I've had that experience many, many times myself. And sometimes walking away a little frustrated, you know, and going home back when I was single, I lay down and open my Bible and the Lord would open the whole thing right out. Boom. Didn't trust me with it, really, you see.
Didn't trust me with it then, but he wanted me to know.
Got a loan? He let me know. We wanna take in the truth. We wanna hold the truth. There's a difference in our ability to put it out to others, but we should not let that difference in ability or that lack of ability to put it out to others.
Uh, hold us back in any way from having a sincere and diligent desire to take in, to hold, and to enjoy the truth.
Perhaps a little digression, but if we could hold our finger and Malachi and go back to, uh, Nehemiah 8.
Mm-hmm.
Sorry, I think it's Ezra 8.
Ezra 8.
Going back to the land, going back to Jerusalem, going back to the divine center here, Ezra 8.
Verse 24. Then I separated 12 of the chief of the priests, Sharabaya Hasharbaya, and ten of their brethren with them. And the way you'd underline the silver and the gold and the vessels, even the offering of the House of our God, which the king and his counselors, and his Lords, and all Israel their present had offered. I even wait under their hands 650 towns of silver and silver vessels, and 100 talents, and of gold and 100 talents also 20 basins of gold of 1000 grams, and two vessels with fine copper, precious as gold.
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And I said unto them, You are holy unto the Lord. The vessels are holy also, and the silver and the gold are free will, offering unto the Lord God of your fathers, Watch she and keep them until you wave them before the chief of the priests and the Levites, and chief of the fathers of Israel at Jerusalem, in the chambers of the House of the Lord.
12 Chief priests a representative member of Responsible Persons.
The precious holy things were weighed out. It was fully known what was committed. The responsibility was not to gain, to increase by trading, to add anything, but to take those holy and precious things and to take them across that wilderness journey where they would be weighed again at the end of that journey and they would be weighed.
Before the chief of the priests we know who that is.
And so I think it's a lovely picture or a lovely figure of our responsibilities, each one of us as individual believers. We've been committed precious, precious treasures, each one of us. And we're responsible as stewards to hold these things. That good deposit, Paul said to Timothy. Keep by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in US. It's a good deposit. It's committed to us.
It's the mystery.
It's the most majestic and glorious thing that a human mind has ever been able to understand or human lips will ever speak. It's been committed to us, weighed out. God knows what He's committed to us, and we're responsible to carry it with us intact until it's weighed out again in His own presence and glory.
We are holy, the vessels are holy, also holy brethren, a holy priesthood, and that's what each one of us together are.
And so back in Malachi, we have this responsibility. Not only is there the privilege, enhance the responsibility that we will be worshippers.
But in order to worship, there's, there has to be the intelligence of things. And we are brought into this too. He's Carlos, his friends, and he brings us into his councils. He commits unto us these secret things, these truths, these awful mysteries that are unknown to the world but known in the Church of God.
We're responsible to hold them, to understand them and there's growth in this, but not gift and to enjoy them.
Back in Leviticus 10.
Leviticus 10.
Verse 8 The Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine, nor strong drink thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go in to the Tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. And that you may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean, and that you may teach, and so on.
The intelligence of divine things in a way that God calls holiness.
To make a difference between that which is holy and that which is not.
And what we might call discernment, something each one of us needs, you say, well, maybe there are those who are spoken of as having a special gift, discerner of spirits, Yes. And faith is spoken of as a gift too, because there are those who have it in a special way, in a unique way that you and I don't. Just as there are those who are teachers in a way that you and I are not. But still, there is an aspect where teaching is common to all of God's holy priests. And faith is certainly.
And discernment is now as priests, we need discernment. And in order to maintain, to be maintained as we go across that wilderness with those holy treasures and to maintain that collective holy fellowship into which we are called, we need to discern them. We need discernment because there is holy and there is unholy and there is clean and there is unclean, and we need discernment. This is another privilege, another responsibility.
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That we all have as being priests.
When there are difficulties in the assembly.
There are some kinds of things which those who would be in the place of exercising oversight would handle.
But oftentimes, you know, there are things which come into the assembly.
And how, how is it handled? You know, you just can't write down or it's almost difficult to describe the mechanics as to how an assembly arrives collectively a decision. It's just, uh, one of those things that just can't be written down or fully understood while the brothers get together and they talk and then they talk over here and you know, how does it happen? I've never been anywhere yet where there was a really distinct pattern. And I'm not saying there should be, but somehow or other.
What God looks for when there is questions of holiness, questions of maintaining, uh, the assembly as a clean place. There needs to be and there should be, and there has to be to be able to be maintained in this clean, this holy state. There has to be the exercise of the consciences of all those gathers in the Lord's name in that place. Now, true, we get help. We get help from those from the Lord has raised up who have wisdom.
Who have knowledge, who have perhaps a special way of discernment that the rest of us don't have. As someone once said, it takes a good engineer to design A role. But every, every Carter, this was written a long time ago. Every Carter in the country knows a good road from a bad one. And so I used to live. There was some older sisters who of course never came to the brothers meetings, and most of the responsible brothers were quite young, naturally speaking.
While we would have brothers meetings, as I felt was and I'm sure you would agree would be right and proper. But you know, without really saying so much. We used to kind of make it a habit to make a few visits have a cup of coffee a year older widow sister especially, whose judgment we valued. We wouldn't go over there and and spread it out. You know, I I know brother Charles is smiling here. He probably knows who I mean I wouldn't go over there and say we have this problem. What do you think? But we go over and have a cup of coffee and we talk a little while and things would come up as they have a way of doing and we would just.
It would just sort of happen that we would get her thought, her input into this question. You know, if we're sensitive about these kinds of things, we can learn what the thoughts are and what the conscience is of the Saints are exercised to what they are. This has to happen in the assembly. The brothers don't really make decisions. And you know, even if they did or a few, two or three, did you notice they're in First Corinthians 5? Let's see, our time is up.
Well, perhaps I should turn really to 2nd Corinthians.
In Chapter 7, Second Corinthians 7.
For the apostle is writing in regard to the wicked person in first Corinthians 5 that he enjoined them that they should be exercised about putting such a one out as a wicked person, which they did, which manifested the fact that yes, he was put out as a wicked person. But you know, he really was a brother. He really was a brother because there was a work that took place in him, namely he repented.
And so here in Chapter 7.
See if I can pick you up quickly, uh.
Well, verse 10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of or never to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world work is death. For behold this felt same thing that you sorrowed after a godly sword.
What carefulness it wrought in you.
Yeah, what clearing of yourselves? Yeah, what indignation? Yeah, what fear? Yeah, what vehement desire. Yeah, what zeal. Yeah, what revenge. In all things you have approved yourselves to be clear, or approved yourselves to be pure in this matter, and so on.
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When evil is manifested in the assembly, it needs to be discerned.
And we need to be exercised, each one of us, that we have God's thought about what we see. If it's evil, we ought to be exercised that we agree that it's evil.
If there's a difference in judgment between brethren, we need to be exercised about that.
Because if you and I differ about something of this kind of a nature.
Either both of us are wrong, or at least one of us is, and we need to be exercised and humbled about that. And I should be just as humbled if it's you that's wrong as me, and vice versa.
We're members one of another, so we need to have discernment. We need to discern things and see them the way God does when evil is manifested in the assembly. It's not enough if just a few brothers.
Though that it's proper that they take the lead. There's such a thing as a quarter, you know, in the House of God, a doorkeeper, a Porter. And there was a time in Israel when I can't think of the passage, it's in Chronicles. There was a certain number of singers and a certain number of quarters and I think the number was identical. Perhaps we can look it up afterwards.
Identical number of porters as singers. What does that bear on our subject today? We're speaking about worship. We're speaking about the ability to come here collectively and delight ourselves in the precious holy things of God. Singers, lovely. But in order for that environment to be there and for us to enjoy such an environment like that, there has to be holiness. There has to be discernment about when things come in that are not suitable to that environment. There has to first of all be the discernment of it and the exercise before the Lord to deal with it in a way that God can approve of.
And so it's not just enough. Again, the porters, the singers, same number. And God would say to us, if you want to have this singing, you want to have this enjoyment of holy and divine things.
You have to be in a practical way, holy brethren, there has to be the maintenance of holiness in a practical way in our personal lives, our family and the assembly. It's right and proper that some take the lead in these things as far as dealing with them gently, firmly, in a way that is commendable to God. But all of the brethren, the brothers, the sisters, all of us, each one of us in our conscience, need to take a stand in regard to these situations, need to have discernment, because what God looks for is not just the putting out of the wicked person.
Or of a wicked attitude.
Or of a wrong doctrine or something like that. But he looks for as he says here, yeah, what clearing of yourselves in all things. You have approved yourselves to be clear or pure in this manner. And so I say not just enough for two or three brothers to handle a thing. Quote, right, UN quote. Now all of us in our conscience need to understand the divine issues, need to act in a way that evidence is wholly and divine discernment so that not only is the wickedness put out.
But God looks for the maintenance of his own glory for.