Address—Bruce Conrad
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In Nine, 1986, addressed to Christians for Brother Bruce Conrad.
Abstin perhaps to start, we could just turn to a person, Timothy.
First Timothy in chapter one.
And verse 18.
This charge I commit unto thee, Son Timothy.
According to the prophecies which went before on the that thou by them mightest war a good warfare.
I should perhaps explain to you a little bit my exercise for, uh, at least on my part for being up here this afternoon. And it really goes along these lines. I've had it upon my heart for some time to take up the subject if the Lord will of, of service and of ministry and, and of priesthood.
Uh, most of us in this room at least are familiar with the fact that God has made us all priests, and we're also aware that he's made us all his servants.
And when I considered those two aspects of things that just came before me, that perhaps it would be good to back up even a little further. And, uh, then I recall that I had read some years ago from our brother CHM, an expression that, uh, that he mentioned in one of his, uh, books, whereupon he looks upon, uh, all believers as, uh, warriors and as workers and as worshippers. And so perhaps this afternoon, though I, I feel, uh, a little bit overwhelmed by the, uh, this line of things we might just look at.
Ourselves as warriors, as being in a scene of conflict and the different types of warfare that we've experienced, that we will experience and, uh, and that line of things. Firstly, if we turn back to First Samuel 17.
And verse 50.
First Samuel 17 and verse 50. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine and slew him. But there was no sword in the hand of David.
Therefore David ran and stood upon the Fiddlestein, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath arrow, and flew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. And the men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines, until thou come to the valley and to the gates of Ecron. And the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to share them, even under gas, and unto Akron. And the children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines.
And they spoiled their tents. I suppose before we discuss what we might properly call Christian warfare, we should start at the very beginning of things with the fact that the Lord Jesus here, as typified in David, single handedly himself alone accomplished a a mighty victory at the cross of Calvary. The Lord Jesus was sent forth from the very bosom of the Father, and He was sent into a scene to discharge all that stood against us. And He did that on the cross of Calvary in John 19.
We have recorded there what some have terms of victor's cry when he says in our translation, it is finished. And perhaps your indebted as I am to our late brother, Christopher Willis, who, uh, has left us, uh, some, uh, tips on, uh, on the original language. And I think it was he that explained that, that, uh, that in the Greek, that, uh, that word, that pride that the Lord Jesus uttered. I think it was Telestai was really the cry of the victor, the cry that a mighty, uh, conqueror when, when he returned back to his home city.
That they would have a parade up the Main Street and that cry would be given to left eye. It is finished. And so the Lord Jesus there uttered the victor's cry and the and the battle was won. The battle was all over. And so in a certain sense, and hopefully we'll return to this later, the Christian warfare starts after an accomplished victory by the Lord Jesus. And there is an expression that sometimes we hear about the victorious Christian life and this kind of a thing. I've been a little puzzled by that. Not really sure what's meant by that.
00:05:02
But I think we can be very sure if we rest our, our minds upon the word of God and see that every, every believer, everyone who has put their trust in the Lord Jesus is made more than a conqueror through him that loved us. We've been brought into a wonderful victory, not won by us, but won by another, a little flock him book, which is a precious legacy left to us is filled with him, after him. Uh, that, uh, in addition to the scripture, though not inspired, it can help us, uh, to understand and to cause us to dig into the scriptures and learn this precious truth.
And so, as believers, that's where we start, and that's why I read from this passage.
That, you know, though David's brethren said, well, why did you come down to see the battle? There really wasn't much of A battle there at all. There was, uh, an army of Israelites on one side and an army of Philistines on the other and really no battle at all. It was more or less a standoff. But after David, the flu, Goliath, who typifies, uh, Satan, the adversary, then there's a battle. Then the Israelites, uh, take off after the Philistines and they route them. Now, first of all, I'd like to turn back to Romans Chapter 7.
We start with the type of warfare.
Of which I might say.
The Lord Jesus, though He now there at the Father's right hand, can sympathize with us in this type of warfare. He himself did not experience what we have here in Romans 7.
In Romans 7, without reading the whole chapter, we've had this before us recently in the readings in Romans, which for the ones I, I came to where I felt were very profitable. We had before us that there's a struggle in here. And the struggle is based upon the fact that well, if we read verse 23, maybe this verse, but just to pick one would be.
I'll bring it before us, verse 23. I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. If we trace down through this chapter, we see that the person who is uh, who ha is having these experiences in Romans 7A fee is that there are two opposing forces in it. And you would almost, uh, feel that he's being torn by these two opposing forces.
He finds within him a desire after the things of God and you can trace them down. Uh, he, uh, he desires, uh, uh, he delights in the law of God after the inward man. He has right desires and right motives and right, you might say sensitivities in a spiritual way, but he doesn't find him in himself anyway to accomplish, uh, the good. But he finds also as well this force working in him, which just tends to leave him captive. And so at the end of the chapter, he comes to this conclusion. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?
From the body of this death. Now, this is a type of warfare which I would say at the start is not typical Christian warfare. This should not be, uh, that, that is, that which we have in this chapter should not be characteristic of you and I as believers in our daily life. We may feel things at times whereby we might feel difficulty, uh, with a particular trial or a personal problem. We might sense a little bit of a frustration or helplessness, but that off, we ought to realize that's a far different thing.
From the helplessness and the, and the ******* the wretchedness that we have in this chapter now with many souls or brought to know the Lord Jesus and Savior. They go through sometimes a period of many years really of agony, a period of years whereby they have life, uh, given from God as we had before us in our reading in Acts with Lydia as she worshiped God and there was stirring in her soul a response to what light she had been brought into worshipping the true God.
We've read of Cornelius in the same book and how that he was uh, uh, uh, godly, a pious soul who sought after God and many others too. And perhaps in your own soul's experience, you can look back to a time even before you knew the Lord Jesus before you. It it it come to your knowledge that Jesus was God indeed, the Son of God, that you had these stirrings after the good that you felt hopelessly enslaved in always doing the thing that you chose not. This is a warfare that takes place in a soul before they know what we might call deliverance. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
And so in verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then with the mind, I myself serve all gone, but with the flesh of the law of sin. And then in the chapter 8 and verse 3, for what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. We might say in Romans 7 that what we have is a description of what we would call the new nature. We don't read that term in Scripture.
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What we would call the new nature and the old nature. And so sometimes we might mistakenly say, well, you know, the new nature and the old nature they wore together, and perhaps we know what we mean, but it's not really quite right to say that what we have is proper. Christian warfare is over in Galatians chapter 5.
And verse 16.
Galatians 5 and verse 16 This I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do, or that really it should be rendered so that you might not do the things that you would. In other words, the tendency of this warfare is that it's possible that you might not do the things that you would, not that you can.
But its tendency is that you might not. Now we experience this on a daily basis, don't we? We experience this in an hourly basis perhaps. And here we have proper Christian warfare, the type of warfare that goes in right inside these parts, these souls fires. You know, I was thinking in, uh, considering this whole subject recently that a Nehemiah 4, you have the, uh, the case there where because of the enemy as they were built, rebuilding the wall.
Because of the enemy and their need to be watchful, they were building with, uh, trials in one hand and sword in the other. And yet it also says there that they had uh, uh, uh, bowls and Spears and halogens. And in meditating upon that, I thought to myself, at least suggested it to me that there's different kinds of warfare. There's the Habridge and there's the real near close, what uh, people might call hand to hand combat, very intimate, very near. And so we have trials in our own particular inward life where we have that which would seek to enslave us or to hold us down or to hold us back or rob us from displaying Christ here. And we have these tendencies and it's, it's an inner warfare that we desire daily to walk in the spirit and not to fulfill flesh. Uh, flesh is lost. Then there are things which are more outward.
Which would be like the sphere. And finally, the things which are more at a distance and more public, which is the character of warfare that that we should get to shortly. But I might just say here that Scripture is very precise in its language. And that, you know, there are the expressions that the old man, we re. We read the expression the old man in the New Testament, I believe in three places. And you can trace this at your leisure. But I believe whenever the Scripture uses the expression old man, it's always in the past tense.
And always in connection with that part of us connected with the first atom that God sees forever as put away. We should we should just fine. I think Romans 6 has one of those, yes, Romans 6 and verse six. And there's another in Colossians and another infusions.
Romans 6 and verse 6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him at the body of sin, might be destroyed or rendered powerless, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
And so in this passage as well as in the other two, if we look at them sometime, we'll see that the old man, that which we were is children of Adam by birth. God sees us now as put away the death of the Lord Jesus as seen before. God has availed that he now sees you and I as put away before his sight in that connection forever. If any man be in, in Christ, there is a new creation where new creatures in Christ. He sees us now, uh, all of us as under the, the, uh, second man, the last atom. He sees us in that condition now.
Uh, in a new condition entirely the old man. So if we were to say, well, it's my old man again, we don't wanna make one another offenders for a word. But Scripture seems to reserve that term for that which we were and which we aren't any longer. But we say, but there is that in me, which still seems to seems to work. Scripture calls that the flesh. And so the flesh, you might say, is that energy, that which we might call in our own language, which is perfectly fine. The old nature, the flesh is that in us which.
Is not going to ever get any better, which has been the same. And uh, you might say it's incorrigible. It's an old brother put it before us once in Palmyra. He said, you know, the flesh is just like garbage. You, uh, you put it in the garbage can because it's no good to you. You take it out back and you put a lid on it. They said you can come back a day later, it's still garbage. You come back three days later, it's garbage. You come back 30 years later, it's garbage, etcetera. And this brother was quite aged and he said, you know.
00:15:31
The flash doesn't get any better, no matter how long it's there, no matter how many years you walk with the Lord, That which is born of flesh is flesh and it's not, cannot be improved upon, but that which is one of the spirit of spirit. And so we have this type of warfare in us. This is proper Christian warfare. It's that in US younger folks here. I, I hope this is this. You have this warfare and you too, if you know the Lord Jesus, you have in you a nature. Our, our son calls with a little bad man and uh, he has in him and you have in, in you too, if you're a believer.
You have these two natures in you, these two forces the moment you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Why? Uh, God did something wonderful. He sent the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit to take up his residence in your body, just the way, uh, you live inside of a house or you sit inside of a car. Uh, God has sent the Holy Spirit to indwell your body and that Holy Spirit exists in there and he is the energy for you to walk, uh, in the new life. And so this warfare takes place and you have what, uh, what we, what scripture calls the flesh or.
Let's say my, we, uh, seeking to instruct our children in these things that there is that in them which will always lead them astray. If a mom or dad says, uh, uh, John, I want you, please, if you want to, uh, to take your books to your room, Well, if there's that within you, which says, I just don't feel like taking my books to my room, I feel like doing this. Well, uh, you just say to yourself as a, as a young Christian warrior, you say, if I'm gonna please the Lord, if I'm not gonna just be, uh, a tool of, of Satan, if I'm gonna please the Lord, I'm gonna realize that that hoist that just wants to do my own wills, the flesh.
And that'll never make me or anybody else happy. And so you'll find that if you just stop and think about it a minute, God will bring a verse before your mind or even just the sense that it's best just to please the Lord. And, uh, a again, as we're kind of thinking simple terms with young children, I like that, him that, uh, that we sing if we trust and obey, uh, there's no other way to be happy with Jesus but to trust and obey. And so whether it's the youngest child of, uh.
Of seven or even three or four, who knows the Lord Jesus as their savior. They have this warfare going on in them, just as the oldest St. in this room has the same warfare. Some have likened this type of warfare to the warfare that the children of Israel experience with Amalek as they were just coming out of the land. And Scripture says that there is going to be war with Amalek from generation to generation to generation. It's not going to go away. And so when the Lord Jesus comes and takes us up, uh, that type of warfare will cease.
We turn over to Ephesians 6.
Perhaps it would be.
Good to read part of this passage that is very well known.
Ephesians 6 and verse 10.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord.
And in the power of His might put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand an evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore having your loins gird about with truth.
And having on the breastplate of righteousness in your feet, shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation in the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
Now here we're fully on the ground of Christian warfare.
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And perhaps we should back up, and I've asked myself this question, and perhaps it's occurred to you, why? Why are we talking warfare?
Is this just something just the apostle chose to use this type of analogy or or what? Is there really a conflict now?
If we hold our place there in Ephesians and turn over to Timothy again.
We will notice that when Paul wrote to Timothy and his two epistles, he uses several references to warfare. We read first Timothy one and verse 18.
Wherein Paul and joined him Timothy.
Thou thou by them might a score a good warfare. I think also in the 6th chapter of this, uh, same epistle.
And verse 12 fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life.
Others translate that verse lay hold on that which is really life.
Where unto thou art also called, and has professed a good profession before many witnesses.
In the second epistle to From uh to Timothy.
And uh, chapter 2.
Verse 3. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier, and so on. And then over in verse in chapter 4. In verse 7.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. There are numerous other references to warfare.
This is a call in the New Testament and so on. So we might say, well, what is the battle about? We started out by referring to the fact that the Lord Jesus accomplished a victory on the cross of Calvary and nothing can be added to that victory, nothing ever taken away, uh, from it. Uh, that which, uh, God does is done forever. And So what, what is the battle? What is trying to be gained and by whom? And what is lost? Let's, let's turn back to Joshua.
Bear with me if we jump around a lot here.
So our late brother Adrian Roach said God never wrote the Bible to make us lazy.
Joshua 24.
And verse 12.
And I sent the Hornet before you which strayed them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites, but not with Eyesord, nor with Thibault. And I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which ye built not, And you dwell in them of the vineyards and olive yards which he planted not.
To Ye.
In the first chapter of Joshua.
Joshua one and verse 3.
Well, perhaps we should read from the first verse. Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of man, Moses minister, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise go over this Jordan vow, and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel, every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon.
That have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
Now this would seem to be a paradox, a seeming contradiction.
Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
In other words, to paraphrase, we might say that Josh was saying or that it said to us as believers, if you don't put your foot in it, if you don't stand in it. And remember in Ephesians 6, there was a reference having done all to stand. If we don't walk in, and as we say, if we don't stand in it, it's not ours. We don't have it. Can't say that it's ours. We haven't possessed it. And we'll go into hopefully what what this is that we're seeking to possess.
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But yet if it is possessed.
And if there is, as says in in other place, good success in the spiritual warfare, then we don't say, oh, I won this by my valor. Now we realize that have I given you a vineyard that I drank, that I didn't dig, didn't plant a well, that I didn't dig in a house that didn't build? And yet we need to possess it. What is the kind of warfare? This is true and proper Christian warfare. And basically we might say that we're in a scene, we're left here in this wilderness. And after all, God could have taken us out one by one the day we got saved, but he left us here in this scene.
Specifically.
Among other things that we might learn warfare.
There's a passage in uh, in Judges chapter one. Excuse me, Judges chapter 3.
Some years later.
Judges 3 and verse one. Now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan, only that the generations of the children of Israel might know to teach them war at the least, such as before knew nothing thereof. Verse four. And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken under the commandments of the Lord, and etcetera.
Again, it's a later time, but it says specifically that the Lord allowed an enemy to remain in the land.
So that those who were too young to have known all the wars of Canaan, they would learn warfare this way. He would leave the enemy on purpose because warfare had to be learned. What is Christian warfare? It's learning to possess in a practical way. What's laid before us in Scripture is our portion. It's given to us. We sometimes speak about Paul's doctrine or we speak about John's ministry and these kinds of things. And I sometimes have to hang my head in shame that we're, we're, we're much more conversant with these things as doctrine, which is a real blessing.
That we are familiar with them practically. And again, if we aren't standing or walking in these things. And I say this to my own soul.
Sometimes wonder after a meeting like this, as I drive away home, if if I feel more convicted about what was said than anyone else. But again, the possession of these things is where the warfare comes in.
And so getting back to Galatians 5 again without turning to it an intimate warfare.
And our own persons as now, not the new nature warring against the old, because after all, what did the new nature avail for the man in Romans 7? Nothing. All it was was, you might say, frustrated. It had right desires and right motives, but he just felt that at the end of it all that he was wretched. And what's more wretched than desiring something that you can never have? Like when you're stuck in, uh, in snow or mud and you spin and spin and you just go deeper and deeper. What a wretched experience.
And if you if you've gone through this in your days before you knew the Lord Jesus Savior, you, you know what this means intimately.
But now we have not the new nature itself warring, but we have the Spirit of God-given to us. The Lord Jesus having been raised by the glory of the Father, He sent the Comforter down. He sent the Spirit of Christ down to reproduce in US. Already we possess life to reproduce in us through His power, the very life of Christ in a believer. And this is something altogether different. This is where we burst out of Roman 7 and we come into the liberties expressed in Romans 8. Romans 8 is full of references to the Spirit. And so now we don't just have the desire.
But we have the ability to bring it out into a practical fruition, to bring these desires into fruition, how the new nature is going to be and, uh, and put the old nature down. No, that'll never happen. But through dependence and through the Spirit of God, there can be victory in the personal, you might say, uh, intimate warfare that goes on with us. And if there's not that kind of success, there's never gonna, we're never gonna have to worry too much about the kind of warfare we read about in Joshua or in Ephesians 6 or some other place. Let's face it.
If you and I are succumbing to the flesh in our daily life, whether it's a, a tendency towards anger or towards a critical spirit or some other indulgence or some other fleshly difficulty, we might as well not worry too much about the warfare and Ephesians 6, because Satan will leave us all alone because he knows we'll have no power. The two are connected, the inward and the outward. And This is why I believe the apostle Paul, who was certainly in the 6th of, uh, this type of warfare.
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While he constantly, when he wrote to his dear son in the faith Timothy, he would always enjoin him in a double way. Take heed unto thyself and the doctrine.
Two types of warfare.
Take heed unto thyself and the doctrine. There was always care exercise towards one's own personal inward struggle, if we would call it that, that there would be good success in the spiritual warfare. And Joshua, you remember that times of failure, what did they have to do? They had to get back to Gilgal. They had to get back to that. For them, what was a geographical place where they would remember the very basis of their position in the land, where they would remember that place where there was where circumcision took place.
Which pictures to us the setting aside of the flesh where they would remember how they were brought across Jordan dry Shaw and how they are, uh, was brought. And as soon as the priest feet came into the water, the water stopped and all those kinds of things. And so for you and I sometimes, uh, the Lord allows us to be called short. And what do we have to do? We realize without too much thought that, uh, we've just, we've lacked watchfulness. We've been a little careless and the enemy has just seemed to got us a preoccupied and forgetting that we are a heavenly citizens in heavenly men and that we serve the Lord Christ. We go back in our own soul to Gilgal and we judge ourselves and we say, I've been allowing this in my life that is robbing me of power and joy.
And so on. And so the two types of warfare are connected.
If we turn now to, uh, Second Kings Chapter 2, I'd like to dwell a little bit on, uh, I think that was.
A place where Elisha sees Elijah taken up. Yeah, Second Kings chapter 2.
Because I think this is very important.
I think it's very important to see that the difference between the frustration, if I would call it that, enrollment 7 and the and the good and normal and likely prospect of success.
That the Spirit of God holds before us in the other parts of the New Testament. The difference is the indwelling of the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God is the energy which energizes that new nature.
And through dependence provides power in Second Kings chapter 2.
You remember Elijah was going to be caught up.
And Elijah is following him because in verse 9.
Well, I'll read the verse Second Kings 2:00 and 9:00. And it came to pass when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elijah, Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee. And Elijah said, I pray thee, little double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked the hard thing, nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee.
It shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire.
Imparted them both asunder, And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elijah saw, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them into pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back and stood by the Bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smoked the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
And when he also had spit in the waters, they parted, hit her, and thither anyway she went over.
Down in verse 19.
Elijah goes to Jericho.
And the men of the city said unto Elijah, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord seeth, but the water is not in the ground barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruise, and put salt there in. And they brought it to him. And he went forth onto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters, There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.
Someone has said that you can see wonderful pictures and types of Paul's doctrine in the ministry of Elijah, and I feel that's very true. Precious, precious times. God knows how we learn. And uh, so graciously he has given us in the New Testament explicit teachings versus which say such and such and such and such. And then marvelously he has given us these inspired histories, personal histories, national histories and all these things because he knows that we learn by pictures and types.
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Now here I would just suggest that Elisha is a picture of a believer, and his power comes not merely from having company with Elijah, but seeing him when he's taken up.
And so we would say that like it, like we have in Second Corinthians chapter 3, uh, verse 18 for we all open or unveiled face, the veil taken away, beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into these same image, even from glory to glory next to the last verse of 2nd Corinthians 3. And so someone has said that that verse is really a key, uh, to successful or happy Christian life beholding with a veil taken off the face.
Beholding the glory of the Lord, Not just the Lord, but His glory wherever He is at the Father's right hand.
Where he has positioned himself.
To be our great high Priest.
He's positioned himself there to to be, you might say, the one to help us along in this warfare.
And so Elijah sees him there and what does he do? He rents his own garment. He throws it away. You might say he picked up Elijah's mantle and he goes back. Did Elijah tell him that he had instructions after he had seen me taken up? You just ripped your clothes. Take him here and then take mine and go back and, and start and 1St go to. I don't think he had any of that, but I think there was something working in his soul. Something happened to Elijah at that point. He realized that when he saw Elijah taken up that he had what he had desired.
He had a double portion of that spirit. He had a power now, source of power. And what does he do? He begins to imitate Elijah. He takes up Elijah's mantle. He's, you know, Elijah had done that on the way over. He does it on the way back, smites the waters. They go across and Elisha goes across.
And begins a wonderful ministry of gracious healing, for the most part, ministry, a ministry of blessings. And this is a wonderful portion that's left to us here as believers that God would, has, has given us the privilege, uh, to be, uh, with him dispensers of rich blessing. But what's the key? Seeing him where he is, You say, I have no power in myself and neither do none of us do. But as we look up, uh, to the throne of God and we see the Lord Jesus there at the right hand of the majesty on high. And we read such passages if you hold your finger there.
As we have in Colossians 1.
Colossians 1.
I wanna read from the middle of verse 9.
Someone had this part of the verse above their fireplace once it.
Has always helped me to remember it.
Desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you might be smart. You know that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all, pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. This is the verse I was thinking of. Strengthen with all might, according to His glorious power onto all patients, and long-suffering with joyfulness.
To be strengthened with Almighty according to his glorious power, the measure of the might, the measure of the resource that we have now in this wilderness scene is the measure of His glorious power. And we can read in other passages that the that the same grace and that glory which raised the Lord Jesus from the ver, from the dead and seated him at the Father's right hand in glory is the same power that avails for you and I to go through our lives day by day. How little we avail ourselves of it. But this is what's available to us, not the frustration of Romans 7.
All I desire to do good, but I always do the wrong, not that kind of a thing at all, but a resource on high in the Lord Jesus that we might be strengthened according to his glorious mind. And so beholding, looking up, seeing the Lord Jesus there as our resource will give us strength. Being occupied with him and with his glory will give us the strength and the resource. And so Elijah goes back, he imitates Elijah and then in verse 19, bring me a new cruise and put salt there, and they brought it to him.
There was, you might say, there is in Romans 7, you might say a spring that is just the cursive spring. He, he, he finds within him just a, a source of things that is just, it is of no value and of no health. And So what does Elisha do?
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Bring me a new cruise. And who was that? And put salt there. And what was that? The devotedness, the very when God sent the Lord Jesus down into this scene. Why, there was there was a man for the first time ever on the earth that God could delight in a man who walked according to a totally different motive.
A man who walked in his, uh, his every, his every fall and his every impulse was something that God could delight in. This was a new cruise and there was fault in it. There was that salt, as we read in other places, was never to be lacking in any offering. And you say, well, what does salt mean? And I've pondered that for some couple of years now and I'm beginning to get the impression that salt is just something that gives a sort of an inward dogged.
Devoted determination.
To do the will of God. There was that in the Lord Jesus as typified in the, uh, in the coverings of the Tabernacle. There was the badger skins, There was the ram skins dyed red. And there was that in the Lord Jesus whereby he would set his face as a Flint to go to Jerusalem. Whereby he would look past and go beyond and overcome all the shame in the spinning and all the, uh, senseless arguments and the false accusations and go on. Not just to Calgary.
But to go down into death, 3 hours of darkness and anything that was before him, because he was going to do the will of his Father. And so this was a vessel of a totally different kind. It was a new cruise, and there was a vault therein. And now the Lord Jesus had in common done the Father's will. And having been raised up to his own right hand, the Spirit of God is now active. And you and I to reproduce in you and I.
See, in spite of what we were by nature as under the first atom, but to reproduce now and you and I the same life, to have the same motive, to be energized by that same power and to have an effect upon this world that was similar to his. Peter tells us to walk in his steps and I I like to I always remember that analogy. Someone said that a young boy following his father across and crusty snow. The father takes big long steps.
And the sun can't match them, but he walks in his steps, walks along behind, and this is what we're called to do. So I think this is a lovely thing to remember in ourselves. We're still as hopeless and helpless as the man in Romans 7. But now having experienced deliverance and having the Spirit of God within us, uh, we can have a good success in our spiritual warfare.
Now let's turn for a minute. Our time is, uh, just evaporating back to First Samuel.
The same area, I think it was chapter 17.
David comes down to see how his brethren fare, not because he was curious or just to see some battle as a curious child as his brethren accused him of, but because his father sent him down.
It's a lovely answer in verse 28, Why came as thou down hit her, and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? And verse 29 and David said, what have I now done? Is there not A cause another translation renders that has it not been laid upon me? And so it's a wonderful consolation to us and the difficulties in the pathway, when we remember that in the difficulties we get into as we walk, seek to walk to please the Lord.
As we seek to welcome the Spirit so as not to fulfill flesh's flesh's lost at the difficulties we encounter then are not difficulties that we've taken upon ourselves. The Lord said to Gideon, go, and this thy might have not I sent thee. And so having the sense that whatever whether it's our service or whether it's these aspects of Christian warfare, but it's something the Lord has laid upon us all we can say, Oh, that's that's all I need to go on. The Lord has laid it upon me and we can say after all, who goeth to warfare at his own charges.
If the Lord has asked me to walk those six steps in that direction, He'll give me the strength to do it. And there's a reason, even if I don't understand that there's a reason I should go in that direction or say this thing or go and speak to that person or deny this request or whatever it might be. But that's a lovely thing. Has it not been laid upon me? But the reason I turn back to chapter 17 was.
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In regard to looking upon David now, not as a type of the Lord Jesus, but as a type of you and I as believers.
In our own warfare, you know, there are aspects of things occasionally that we have to get involved in that are very public and we can all can say, well, those are conflicts. And it's good to remember that we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. You and I may have difficulties together as brethren, but we're not wrestling against each other and it's good to remember that. And whenever there's difficulties amongst brethren, it's good to remember that that's simply what they are, difficulties amongst brethren. And I think in we can't always change one another's minds.
Nor can we do it immediately. And it's good to conduct ourselves with dignity and with sobriety and with courtesy and with all those other things that aren't supposed to be dropped by the way because of some new difficulty that we tend to get all engrossed in. So I think this is good for all of us in the present time with difficulties to remember all the truths and John's ministry and in Paul's.
Are very, very important, and no difficulty is so great that we should be encouraged to be careless in our courtesies and with the simple truths of the ministry, especially of the Apostle John. Little children loved one among them, and those kinds of things.
We might say those are the ABC's and brother and I have sometimes felt, and I guess this is the digression that we're sometimes so busy trying to get into the XYZ, which is right and proper to seek to, uh, in the sense of Joshua to gain ground that we forget the ABC's. And you know, young Christians as they might, uh, come amongst us or, or someone gets saved. You know, that's what they look at, don't they? They look at the ABC's. They say these brethren seem to be, uh.
I'm talking about all these things that I don't quite understand yet. It all sounds very wonderful.
What they see is the ABC's. They see the little things that are mentioned so simply and yet so powerfully in John's, uh, epistles, for example. Little children, let us love one another, love us with God. Little children, keep yourselves from idols and all these kinds of things. You know, there was a time in the history of Israel in the days of the Judges, when one of the tribes, I think it was the tribe of Dan was up on the mountain. And, uh, the enemy was so, so successful that, uh, they had this wonderful mountain that they had possessed. And you and I may, may, uh, be on our knees and, and, uh, and, uh, beg and dig.
And seek to understand, uh, that which has been committed to us in regard to the deep mysteries of God. But how terrible if in that pursuit and the possession of those higher truths, uh, the enemy takes hold of the valley. And after all, the valley is the place where daily life is experienced. The valley is a place where commerce, where roads are built, where things are shipped along the rivers, where fields are, where things are plowed, where people build houses. That's the day-to-day things. And how terrible.
And I, I say this especially to myself and others of us having the privilege of being gathered to the Lord's name, how careful we need to be that we don't become a lopsided in that way and lose sight of these practical things here with David.
David is, has it laid upon him that he is going out into a very public type of warfare and David is, uh, is indignant as having a, a sentiment that's right towards Jehovah that this, uh, this uncircumcised Philistine is not just defying.
The Hebrews, as he called them, but defined the living God.
But you notice in verse.
Uh verse uh, 34.
David said unto Saul, thy serve, and 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 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. And then verse 38.
And Saul armed David with his armor, and he put a helmet of brass upon his head. Also he armed him with a coat of mail.
And David girded his sword upon his armor, and he is saved to go, for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not proved them. David put them off him, and he took his staff in his hand, and chose them five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag, and so on.
To my knowledge, Scripture doesn't record these previous instances when David slew both the lion and the bear.
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Seems to me as having read through that this is the first time you ever hear about something that took place back in Davis personal life, but whatever it was.
Whenever it was, it happened, and it gave David confidence in the Lord that he was able, with the Lord's health, to overcome something that came his way in the pursuit of his rather mundane duties. He was taking care of his father's sheep. It was so mundane that when Samuel came out to anoint one of Jesse's, uh, other seven sons, they didn't even bother to call David. He was out taking, uh, doing a very mundane task. But that's where David met the lion and the bear. And David had success with the Lord's help, you might say, in that type of warfare.
Before he ever came forth and was used to the Lord in something more public. And again, this hails back to the aspect of things in Galatians 5. All of us has a lion and the bear that we have to tangle with, all of us has to fight the, uh, uh, Satan's attacks upon us, as, uh, as some have said, as a lion in our day. He's the lion that is a lion of discouragement. And the bear would speak of those entanglements which are so, so treacherous for all of us as believers.
David had good success in that warfare, and you and I have to too.
Have have have I slain the lion and the bear in my personal life? Did I slay a lion in a bear a couple of years ago? But I've got a whole other set of them this year. It's quite possible. Whatever it is in your life and in my life, this is where our attention needs to be. We need to, we need to look to the Lord that will have success in these kinds of personal things. You know, we read in Second Timothy 2.
About the no man that worth entangled himself in the affairs of this life. And what a solemn picture we have in Samson and with the Israelites in connection with Gibeon. Another example is all through the inspired history of entanglements. What a disastrous effect it can have upon us if the Lord lays upon me some, some form of, of, uh, adversely, uh, occupation. So that's one thing. If I feel clear, that's what the Lord has for me. That's one thing.
But to go out and to take things up and then tangle myself in this present world, after all, as a soldier.
Uh, World War Two, picture any example you want to take a, a, a Canadian soldier over in, uh, World War Two is going through France. Is it gonna stop and join the, the Rotarians or something like that? It's just an absurd thought, like he's fighting a war. And how about you and I?
Are we succumbing to the uh?
Bear hug of this world, especially perhaps those of us who are brothers who are out in this world on a daily basis. It's thoughts, it's attitudes and all that it says that we have to accomplish in order to be successful or in order to, uh, to, to, uh, get all these wonderful things that they say. And we need security, whatever that is, all these other things while we face these in our lives. And even if you've, uh, laid aside your earthly as a lot of the brethren here, it's no longer.
A work in that sense, why there are still these, uh, these trials and this type of warfare for you too, as I'm sure you'll be the first to admit. And so David had the success. He went out and with the Lord's help, he was used in a public way. But again.
Saul's armor. Is that going to do now? It's, it's the new source of waters. It's the new cruise with the salt they're in. It's the, it's the, uh, that which he approved in his personal victories with the lion and the bear that he's going to use with Goliath. After all, if God has been so displeased with the 1St man.
That he sent his beloved son to put that man to put Adam out of his sight forever. Is he going to want to see us going around, as it were and, and uh, digging out certain attributes of him and say, oh, those tools and we'll, we're going to salvage that, uh, that sword or that spear or something. As, as the men who win a battle, they go across the, the battlefield with the dead and the dying and they say, oh, I want this and I want that. Is that what you and I know Paul said? The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down.
Of strongholds.
Just to close with reversing Isaiah, our time is gone.
Isaiah chapter 2.
Verse 4.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their Spears into pruning hooks. A nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
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We read in the CLA Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything, season for everything under the sun, a time of war and a time of peace. So it's a wonderful thought to comfort our hearts that there will be a time when we can lay aside all the warfare of Galatians. 5 Perhaps this afternoon, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the last, uh, second of that type of warfare will be forever behind us.
And we're caught up to be with in life, the Lord Jesus, but still, you know, the Lord Jesus is going to come into the scene and the world is going to see him, see him in a different character. I know, uh, one of the brothers here uses an expression that he quotes from a brother who's with the Lord now, gentle Jesus, meek and mind. I never heard that before I came here. But whenever that expression is used, I think of Revelation, uh, chapter 19, I believe it is.
I think of the Lord Jesus coming out of heaven. And after all, we may know the Lord Jesus in that way. As one who would be kind and gracious enough to turn in the midst of a public event and turn. And to hear our cry as a blind Bartimaeus, or to pick us up on his lap if we were a child. Or to comfort us in our sickness or our mother-in-law. Like this world is going to see him in a character that they had no idea of. When I was a young boy, I remember going to a large place where they.
I must have been quite small. I remember being put up on the fuse. They always stood when they sang and I was put up on a few to be able to see and I thought it was the so inspiring when they sang that song. How does that go onward? Christian soldiers, you know, I I didn't take in much.
But I thought that was a wonderful thing. I didn't know what, what kind of war they were talking about. Didn't know for many, many years. But the Lord Jesus is going to come in. The character, like David is a man of war, and he's going to establish everything on this earth which is essential. It was this earth where his blood was shed. It was this earth where he was cast out. And it's this earth, you might say that it's essential that God sent him back, as it were, again, and he established his rightful rule on this earth. No, as a brother has put it before me some years ago.
It's not good enough. We might say that he's given his rightful place in heaven and that he has all the redeemed around them there. It's essential to the majesty of God that he give him his rightful place here where the outrage took place. And that same, same political entity which, uh, which enforced, which uh, you might say empowered that spear into the side will be faced again when the Lord Jesus comes out of heaven as a man of war. His name is called the Word of God, and he has a vesture dipped in blood.
And so.
There will be continued for a time a state of of warfare, of a state wherein we will learn in a fuller and deeper way than we do now what holiness is, and the fact that God is glorified in judgment as well as glorified in his grace. But after that, there will be a time when all of this will be laid aside. And how wonderful to just be able to ungird. In Ephesians 6, which we read and didn't get into much, we read about being good about with the truth that which I need to apply to myself.
And the breastplate of righteousness, which has to do with that which I am outwardly with others.
Uh, we can ungird ourselves without fear of defilement, then, without fear of ambush, without fear of always being overtaken by the flesh or by the enemy, will be fully in possession of those things that the Lord Jesus has accomplished as a victor on the cross of Calvary. Well, perhaps we should look to the Lord.