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193.
We're righteous, we're feeble, wretched as I am my house and glory in my name I'll cleanse in my most precious blood, And made the righteousness of God. All that thou hast, thou hast for me on my first finger hit. Indeed I live, while I suspect by nothing and at all for death. I was wondering if it might be profitable for us to look at the 2nd chapter of Colossians.
Washington, Chapter 2.
For I would that you knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.
To the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.
In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
Although I'd be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, enjoying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ, as you have therefore received in Christ Jesus the Lord.
So walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as he had been taught, abounding therein with Thanksgiving.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bottling, and you are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power.
In whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the flesh, on the sins of the body, of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.
Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead, and you being dead in your sins.
And in the uncircumcision of your flesh hath He quickened it, together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross. And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly.
Triumphing over them in it.
Let no man, therefore judge you in me, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which you have not seen, mainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head, from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases with the increase of God.
Wherefore.
If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why is the living in the world? Are you subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not handle not, which all are to perish with using after the commandments and doctrines of men.
Which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will, worship and humility and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
Mm-hmm.
I believe that, uh, hauling right into the squash is really offers the remedy a number of years before for the state of things that we find the latest deal when we read the third chapter of the Book of Revelation.
It's remarkable that, uh, you mentioned the latest. See it here. But the condition of things which became full blown and laid accused so that the Lord had to say the latest, He behold Hispanic door and knocked.
He was outside of the assembly that, uh, they all saw this certain condition of things developing a number of years before in these assemblies and he wrote in Colossians and we really have the answer and the remedy for that. We've often spoken of the fact that related team and state and I really believe that if this was Washington is the remedy and the anxious that pay the things that are.
All right. So it's very helpful.
We see the apostles heart come out here too because it caused a great conflict in his own heart. These two assemblies were perhaps about 10 or 15 miles apart from each other, but they were characterized by the same type of thing and that was that they were giving up really the the headship of Christ and laid his team and lay. The key as we know is after the traditions or the customs of the lay people and it is typical of our day generally, not just in the assembly but in the world.
Man looks to man.
Rather than to Christ and across the end of the first man and God delighted to honor a man that the world despises. But we're gathered for the name of that precious one. And so in the assembly, the girl that it gets into the our hearts and into the assemblies and man becomes the object rather than Christ. Man's rules, man's ways, man's habits, man's person's president Christ. And so the fear of God will deliver us from that.
And really turn our hearts to Christ.
The beers that fall had never been to Milwaukee working laying the sand just that by the part of this first verse, but that didn't hinder him from uh, having great conflict or combat for them. How did Paul combat for those things over there in philosophy and lay the seal. She never saw him or her.
The lot of friends will be praying for it, don't we? Because we've never met before.
In other parts of this world, and certainly have hold them before the throne of grace and prayer, and amend them to the Lord, that they be established in the truth of God.
And the other way this call was going to help them was to show them something that they had never seen. They had never seen Paul's face, but Paul has seen something that they had never seen and he had been caught up into the 3rd heaven and he had seen Christ and glory. And so that's really what he's bringing before them here because that really answers all of this confusion looking in that because he wants their hearts to be knit together in law. But he's going to show us. He's going to expose to us the first of Christ and whom are hit all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Well, if you know someone like that, why are you going to turn to a man and why are you going to look to a man and be confused by that? And so that's really what Paul is doing. So that's the way we can be a help to one another too, is to minister the things of Christ is that it was great conflict and it's all for them. And so he was going to give them what he had and that was priced.
00:10:08
Alright, well, you know too that the lotions.
Brings before us, as we find at the end in the 27th verse of the previous chapter, to whom God would make known on what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, Christ in you, the hope of glory in Ephesians. We're in Christ seen in the heavenly places. And so, as you were pointing out, we need this excitation. We need to be delivered from all that surrounds us. That is ritualism, rationalism, whatever it may be.
Because as he says, Christ is in you the hope of glory. It's the hope of glory because we're not there yet. We're down here, aren't we? And we need the exhortation of the word of God. So how precious it is to see that God uses that is the Lord uses Paul here in in that connection, because he says that in verse two that our heart that their hearts might be comforted being knit together. What do we see around us?
We see dispersion, we see division.
All right, what is the desire of the Spirit of God?
Being knit together as as we find in Philippians, having one mind striving together, not against one another, but together for the truth of God, for the gospel of God, for the faith of God.
See Christ and one another as instruct frequently in the 116th song. It seems that it's a very low spot to spare, because she said in the 116th Psalm, the 11Th 1St.
My in my haste, I said. In my haste, all men are liars.
So what's he gonna do? Run away at Hive or save your brother? Lift into the eyes of everybody. In his face he said everyone of them is a liar. What does it say? What shall I render unto the Lord for his benefits toward me? We'll take a cup of salvation. I will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows under the Lord in the presence of all his people.
And so it really turns the eyes from the brethren, and it sees Christ and the brethren himself. It does see. It was a hasty thing that he said, that all men aren't liars.
And, uh, it really drew him to the place, the great congregation where he was going to pay his vows before the Lord. And so the call upon the name of the Lord. And so as you pointed out there, it's Christ to you, which is the hope of the Lord.
In the second verse, I think of the word, uh, riches that, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and onto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ. And if you look over in Revelations 3 and uh.
Uh, verse 17.
Revelation 3, verse 17.
Because I'll say it, I am rich and increase with goods and have need of nothing and knows not as our wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. How how the the two contrasts together. The riches of this world is nothing compared to the riches what what you have in Christ. You know, each one of us would like to try and make a little bit more money. If I only made a little more money, I'd be more happier. I have the things I want then I I would be happy but.
If you get a little bit more, it just seems to go as fast as faster than it went. It can go and but the dedriches that you have here in the second verse, they'll never, never disappear. The rich is forever.
00:15:17
Even the apostle falls herself.
Uh, when he was, he called the elders of, uh, Ephesus together, uh, on the shore, uh, when he was passing through, and he spoke of the dark days that would come and.
And then he said that, that they would see his face no more. And, uh, they weren't listening. They weren't listening to what he was saying really, because he wasn't, he was talking about the darkness of the days. Uh, that would be ahead after his departure. We just moved to enter in amongst the thought, not sparing the flock and so on your own selves and would rise. And then they're all weeping and crying.
And they cried, most of all because he had said, I don't see my face anymore.
They were missing the client. And so here Paul says you haven't seen my face, but you rejoiced in the Lord. You get your eye on the Lord and it's it's so important, isn't it not attract attention to ourselves, but it should always and ever be to exalt Christ in what we say and how we live.
You like Johnny Baptist? I'm only a voice. I'm only a voice.
But he added a real serious.
Conflict. Why? Because Satan was trying to occupy them with two things. One is the philosophy. Because these were Gentiles and they were exposed to the brewery thinking of the of educated people. And so they were having a tendency to look towards the mind. So that was a big fault. And today, what are we finding? New Age movement. That's the very same thing.
And that is towards the people to raise them up.
One of the fellow said me one time.
As the mind of man gets bigger, so God gets bigger. That is what reasoning does. Now. That was one of the faults of the Colossians. The other one was that they were going back to the Jewish customs and the Old Testament things and, uh, touch not a face not, handle not, and so on. They were slipping back to that. Now we have those two dangers today because we may just be hosting along on.
Coming to the meetings, sitting down singing and brave and.
Not hearing that which would touch the conscience and to lift our heart is right. That's a danger.
That faces each one of us. And so we these things were allowed to happen in the days of the Colossians assembly by the known by the Spirit of God that even in the last day we would be facing the same thing.
It takes real energy of faith to cast down reasoning.
Call to the friends and casting out imaginations for reasoning and everything thing that resolves itself against God. And so a sister was telling us some of that on the way up she was girls were asking her at school but why she did what she did in meeting real believers description. They said well, that's the pretzel of that. Will God speak, you know, and it's his word. It just shows what a vein and an empty thing it is when God speaks to man.
Praises his reasonings, however.
Well developed they are the phase just simply rests on the word of God. I think that that was the deliverance for the psalmist there because in that song we read because further he comes to the 119th song before the Psalm agreed and the first is both the word of God and so he settled in his soul and the word of God and he said Paul says to the Romans, let God be true in every man a liar from that faith believes there.
00:20:08
But we need to be comforted because there are people all around us who will and will.
The shaking of the face and that's really what prophecy is that believes that, uh, chapter in Isaiah was written at the darkest time and pathetic and Gabriel's history that comfort she comfort she might be cold the people of God.
The word of God is true and it's a buffer. Trust the Lord and just the looks of the Lord because there will be many great weakness and feedback. And so you may well ask yourself, well, for everything exterior is gone. They see Paul's face no more. When everything is gone, what will be left? And so there really needs to be that confidence and comfort to trust the Lord and to trust in His word.
And Ross desire is to bless his people, isn't it? And though we, uh, man looks at things as a great mystery, yet God has revealed to you and to me a marvelous, glorious mystery. Christ in you, a poor Sinner saved by Christ, saved by grace, the person of Christ dwelling in me. Yes, that is true. And also in the assembly, of course, but I was just thinking here too and again when the verse 2.
Uh, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding. This assurance of understanding is connected with the mystery, the mystery. It's a mystery to man, isn't it? To think that here's a soul that went on in his sins and now he's, he's, his whole view is changed because it's Christ in that individual that has been changed, not connected with any kind of, uh, ritualism or rationalism that we see all around us. That's not the point. The point is.
That the center of our whole being is Christ. If that isn't so, we've missed the mind of God. I believe here we read, we, we, uh, there's a little different reading here. To the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God. I think the rest of it is Mr. Garvey leaves out in his translation to the mystique of God. God has desires to reveal this mystery. And where is that mystery to be found?
Not only in the word of God, but notice verse 3IN not in whom, but it says in which the mystery there in which are his all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that brings us before the person of Christ too, doesn't it, the Lord Jesus Christ. So God's desire is this great mystery has been revealed to you and to me. It may be a mystery to your to your neighbor. It may even be a mystery to some professed Christian.
A Christian who professes But it's not a mystery to you, and should not be a mystery to you or me, because God has sought to reveal it. And it says in which are His all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Where do I find it? Where to go personally? Christ, that's where it is.
What you're saying found in the 1St Corinthians 2.
So 9 and 10, yes, but as it's written, I have noxine or you're heard neither. It's entered into the heart of man. The things which got us prepared for them that log in, but God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit.
So they're not yet they're revealed.
Lovely too there, and that you call attention to that in First Corinthians chapter 2. Just notice the last verse for who has made, who has known the minds of the world, that he may instruct him.
Who is known as but we have a mind of Christ not boasting this, but let's rely on God to reveal this to us and plead to His word with the purpose of heart.
We need to help it, but it's probably undergoing persecution.
What they needed to be reminded too about this love and verse two being mixed together in love because someone was, uh, from clouding their thoughts.
I'm bringing, uh, doubts into their minds. You know, they were intruding into those things that they had not seen. Well, you know, you're reminded of Philadelphia. It means brotherly love. In fact, you find this very same expression in connection with Samuel says you're a lit with love of.
00:25:13
Uh, first MLA team rather the first verse, it says when David had made an end of speaking on this call, the soul of Jonathan was Nick and soul of David and Johnson loved him as his own soul. Absolutely. Picture isn't it rather than that when Christ is manifested to his earthly people, which Jonathan is a type of the remnant originally remnant will love Christ as their own soul. Uh, so here it says that your heart says that you live together in laws. That's very important. That's what keeps.
Uh, I believe what's going on together in spite of our differences, you know, love from one another and, uh.
All these hours that would be increased.
Would you say, Mr. Little, is this, uh, wisdom and knowledge? You only get it by fear.
The the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, so that's the place you can get it from.
Not to be afraid.
Work here.
Afraid of something that is to have a a respect.
A willingness to listen rather than to talk back or defend ourselves. So it's to have, we're to have that for our earthly fathers and mothers.
Not to be afraid like to hold them in respect. And so here is a a secret this is.
How we we get the communication from the Lord?
It's like when somebody gives you directions from your directions to a place you've never been before, maybe a little complicated to get there that you're very attentive to every detail, not to miss one detail because if you know to get way off in the wrong direction.
Remember when I was a young man to allow a story? I was a large city of 14 million people and I had directions.
Uh, I've lost them and, uh, arrived at the city and I was in the area, talked about the taxi driver said how do I get to touch and touch a place? He said I'm gonna give you an exact direction to follow him. He said you take your first lap and then you turn right and so on. And you gave me the directions. Well, I came to the first left and sort of spurred off and I said, well, surely he doesn't need that one. He means the next one and he could see me from where he was. And, uh, I got lost. I came back 20 minutes later. I said I'm looking, I'll pay you a cab fare to take me to this place. He says I wouldn't take $200.00 from you if you won't listen to what I say.
And that's really, you know, we get into trouble and we ought to have that fear to depart from the word of God with that earlier the pathway of safety to spare the Lord. And it's the beginning of wisdom. And when we get into our own thoughts and we, uh, we need to fear to, to depart from the Lord in that way.
So fear is not pleasing the Lord, isn't it? Brethren, we shall always have that figure of the Lord. I'll save you some verses over in 111Th Psalm, and also in some even seven, I believe it is, Or 80.
The umm.
89 and Psalm 111. Very interesting verse nine. He sent redemption under his people.
He hath commanded his covenant forever, wholly and reverent is His name. Now we know this. This has been cast about, but reverence means holding in all someone who is far greater than we. It's a it has an awesome thought, doesn't it? Reverence is his name. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as our brother has said. A good understanding have all they that do His commandments, His praise endureth forever.
And notice in Psalm 89 and verse verse 7, now we see it in connection with the assembly. I, I, I apply this.
Uh, Psalm 189 and verse seven, God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints, but we see it as two individuals. If I as an individual see the awesome and I have that certain fear of God and I bring this, this thought with me, then I, when I come into the assembly, it says.
00:30:17
God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints, and to add in reverence of all them that are about you. Doesn't that have an effect upon it? It should have really. And I I think of it again, but our brother said that about the fear of the Lord.
You notice there two circles there really there is. God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the Saints.
Speaking now on the assemblies, very important to realize that that.
It's for us.
It's a very blessed, precious privilege to be gathered to the name of the Lord, but then there's a another circle outside and to be had in reverence of all them that are above him, that embraces, that takes in all everyone who might be the Lords, but not the privilege of being at this assembled. So there's a special.
Word to us to have that holy reverence, or at least a holy fear of the Lord in the assembly.
So that's the final authority on this earth.
There's no recourse beyond the assembly.
But uh, those who don't have that privilege, there is needs for them to be a reverence for him.
A piece of joint beholding their orders.
And there can be all the love in the world in a home, but if there's no order, the love can't even enjoy.
That's quicker. We reverse it that way off and say, well, faith is we put it first.
The Spirit of God, but the other person.
Whether it's the assembly or whether it's in the family, family, that where there's disorder, there's unhappiness for the children and no lack and no sense of security.
Six verse is very important and always related to Luke 818. Take heed how are you here to him that has shall more be given if I'm walking in the truth that I have learned, even though other young people here. If you are walking in the truth that you know.
Or have her, then the rest of her says in the half shall more be given.
The pass of tennis, it's going to be given to us. What, how, when? If we are walking in what we know, then the verse, the thought of the rest of the verse says, and he that has not. If I know the truth and I'm not walking in, what does it say? It says shall be taken away from him that which he seemeth to have.
Oh, I can appear to have the truth, but unless I'm walking in it, he's going to take it away from me and I'm going to lose my discernment there.
Very important for us to see that in connection with this first.
Walk in.
I guess prior to that and versus the four and five, he speaks about the the umm.
The, uh, this I say, unless any man should beguile you with enticing words, you know, words can have a very convincing effect upon us, can't they? We, uh, we sometimes hear words that are very flagrant and we reject them immediately. But there are other are other words that are very enticing that Satan's method, isn't it? And he was, he used uses net.
00:35:04
He is.
Here personally is that in that sense that he uses men to entice with with different words that is be enticed or turned away with enticing words. Uh, you know, knowledge popeth up, but uh, we could have a lot of knowledge, but what is in the heart means more to God and this is what will affect our walk. One is mother Barry. I was thinking again, that's just not too, uh, just going back to verse five, although I'd be absent in the flesh and fall was he was in prison. He was in change and it was in irons.
He wasn't in a happy POSI condition at all.
In writing to these Colossians and he says, umm, although I'd be absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit. How marvelous that is to think that the apostle was there in spirit with those Colossians believers, even though they were being deluged with deluge, I guess you would say, with all kinds of doctrines and and philosophy. You know, philosophy is just man looking for more knowledge. That's why he wants to know more. So it's not a question of great knowledge, is it? It's a question of who we know, not what we know.
So I think of this Paul, as Paul says, join and behold in your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ, in Christ. That's the key. The key to any great joy or knowledge is to be in Christ. This is this is his whole point. And I've, I've said it many times and I repeat it, that God's desire from, from the from Genesis to Revelation is to present his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to our hearts.
That he might be the object, not something else, whatever it may be.
So I think it's so beautiful and as you pointed out by the very as you have received, therefore received crises with the Lord Now what is he saying? Listen to him talk about him says walk ye in him that puts it where it belongs. It enters the mind and into the into the heart and puts it in our feet. How are we walking? What are we enjoying? Where are our feet going?
So searching question, isn't it so lofty? And him, This is a good word for the young people. They're saying, where are you walking?
Are you walking with the world? Well, you have to walk in the world, that's true. But are your is your companionship with the world, or is it with Christ? So it says, so walk ye in him.
Hmm. It was there that they have received right by faith. So there was law in the loss by faith.
But even I face that, uh, as it says in, uh, Galatians 220, in the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, not my faith, by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself on it. That is the sustaining power of the blessed Lord Jesus living for us on high.
Romans, I think it was three, says much more. Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved by His.
Life is living on not high this morning forest and heaven, and then by that faith we are sustained. I I realized that there has to be a correspondence and that is walking in the.
Doctor, what is the contrast to all that?
The that went back to that, uh.
End of the fourth verse with enticing words.
Were exposed to dear young people. You're exposed to entitled words. What's that in today's language, culture. Culture?
I don't want to be funny, but it may help you to understand. Culture is the embalming fluid that keeps the old man from stinking, and that is what the world does.
To substitute for Christ in this world.
To have a nice, elegant life and so on. That's what Egypt is a picture of in the Old Testament. In Egypt there are amazing things, and the riches of that land must have been beyond our imagination. And it's a picture of the culture of it wasn't great military power in the Old Testament days.
00:40:13
But it was the attraction of and the intelligence and the enticing words and the maintenance, maintenance of, of life here. But that is a great danger for us today, our culture, education, whatever it might be. I don't top down education for a minute, but let's realize that that's what will happen. The word says we will be.
It's right there.
And.
The word I'm looking for.
Beguile, that will be the beguile will be pulled, Yeah.
That'll be cool. Or if we're not feeding and walking.
In price, we will be cool with everyone of us.
Worldwide proofs of Christianity without a crisis. Yeah. And uh, that's really was why the children of Israel were in Egypt for so long was because the iniquity of the amorite was not yet full. But there was what Christians are going about in the world, trying to make the world a better place. And really the effect of it is, is just the pumpkin bomb included into the corpses spoke of. And so we want Christ wants reality.
And he may actually cause us to feel our seableness. And that's what Lay the Seal was insensitive to was her poverty.
May cause us to feel our poverty because the thing that God met us to enjoy, He may remove to us to cause us to really turn to Christ again. It may be actually fellowship with the brethren that may keep us from Christ if we're not careful to be with the brethren. Many good things. And so This is why concise things and reference was made to Paul at speaking to the elders at Ephesus. But they were there. They were elders and they were to warn people about these enticing words.
We ought to listen when we're warned all warned people don't want and we ought to listen and we don't heed that warning if we the foolish go on and are punished. And so he had set these elders at Ephesus and there's two things that could happen. We could advocate our responsibility. The elders could have rather could that advocate the responsibility to warn people and then those that are warned to fail to heed the warning impulsive to the clause and quit. You like man and a man wasn't to shave off the hair between the eyebrows.
For the dad, that is, he was not to remove the natural fierceness. And we make travel and evil and want to think the world is a great, big, nice place where everybody's nice and don't say anything about anybody unless you have something good to say. So we're not to shave off the hair between our eyebrows. There's a brother I specifically think of, and he's got very pronounced hair between his eyebrows. And I heard two children speaking about them. They said, are you afraid of so and so? And the other child says no. And he couldn't understand why he wasn't afraid of missing natural fierceness. But in spiritual things, there has to be that, too.
And we're not to round the corners of our viewers. That means that we're not always, I believe, trying to be well balanced in what we say. There's a time to speak the truth and believe it with God. And there are those warnings. There were the elders at Ephesus. So they may advocate that responsibility, but the pathway of the Lord's servant is a lonely one. And so there has to be. The Lord was the most approachable of all men, but he was lonely. But not to shrink from that and love for these things. Paul would warn them about that.
Then on the other hand, I can't go through life ignoring the provision that God has made in the assembly and for me to protect me from these things. I can't ignore all those warnings. And then I expect to be preserved. So there's the two sides of the soul for those of us who are younger and those that are older. So there's, uh, but he's warning them not to be beguiled by enticing words. And so, and this may sound rather obvious to say this, but they wouldn't be enticing unless they sounded true.
And so the devil will transform himself into an Angel of light and, uh, he that he appears as a counterfeit to the truth. And the better the counterfeit you said is, is, uh, better the counter, but the more dangerous it is. Bad counterpart school is nobody, but a good counterfeit fuels many people. And so we need to be careful about that.
00:45:03
They're connected with the walk.
We know the 1St 7 rooted and built up in him. He's looking over at a verse over in Jeremiah chapter 17. Very interesting verse. There are verses.
Uh, we know that the trials come, the difficulties come, uh, for the child of God, but just notice the Jeremiah 17 and verse, uh, seven. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord.
And whose hope the Lord is? What is our hope? Colossians tells us, Christ in you the hope of glory. So what is our hope? But notice then what he said. This man who is blessed to God, blessed in the Lord, and the Lord of his hope, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters. Oh what a what a refreshing thing, a tree planted by the waters. I thought of it in connection with our verse, rooted and built up in him.
Rooted means.
Gone in there, there's a root there, there's something there that is holding that tree together. If somebody has said there are many, there's many roofs under a tree as there are branches above. So we need that balance and we need to be rooted as Paul says here. But notice what he says in verse eight of that Jeremiah 17. He shall be as a pre planted by the waters that spreadeth out her roots by the river and shall not see when he comes. All the heat is coming, the trials come, the difficulties come, but he won't see when the heat comes.
But her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drop, neither shall cease from yielding fruit, and so on. Very interesting little, uh, thoughts there in connection with that. The tree planted by the waters, The water is the word of God is what we have before us, don't we? And the person of Christ has been brought before us, so it says, rooted and built up in him.
Established in the faith as you've been taught.
Abounding therein with Thanksgiving.
You put all there's a lot of there's a minor wealth in this little worse, isn't there? Rooted in him, build up in him, established in the faith, uh, taught of him a bonding in that same faith with Thanksgiving, giving thanks for all that he's done for us. I would like to I want to verse 10.
I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the conscience.
No, that's something he's doing at this very moment. So this is a wonderful portion for us.
He had it sounds like so you and me right now that he did through Paul for.
Alaska and and the first part I mean.
Wait, let us say it. But one is completely vanished.
The The thing is, if he's testing the conscience, am I really trying to hear his voice to me personally right now, that's the way I was just to consider.
It's important to see the order of it the routing in other words.
I'm not, I'm not sure established. And this is where the meetings like we're having now, this is so important for us to be listening and that's driving the roots down. Don't be afraid to.
Listen, in the meeting, you're very young on much of my heart.
I was six years ago visiting and Nova Scotia and home to home and I was not, you know, wood stuff on the way back in the country. And one of the men that had been saved at 70 years of age took me up to the back of his house up on the High Hill and he said this is where my grandfather.
Built his house and I said, why would he ever build up on the top of it? Why not down in the in the valley? And he looked at me and he said, oh, up on the top of the hills are where the trees are exposed to the wind and the rain and the rain, the wind blows the trees over and opens up a space and then the rain comes and it goes down, down and the roots and the roots go right down.
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So that's where the hardwood is.
Down in the valley, it's not well, that's what you and I need. We need to be rooted down and then what's the other side? Build up, building up ourselves, our most holy faith, Paul said. They tend to be left eye progress being seen and known to others. Are we seeing progress in eoderium, ones that are here from year to year? Or it's so important to be rooted and grounded and then.
Built up doesn't say build up, but build up. He will build us up if we root ourselves in the truth.
You said it with a tree that more extends the wind and the rain and all the terrible things the deeper the roof scroll and how I, I've been thinking of it in each one of our lives that, uh, we, we don't make trouble. We don't like trials. We just don't like them. Well, I should say that it's OK for the other person because we know what they did wrong and it's OK if you get, you can do it because you deserved it. But me.
I don't think I should have to stand for the in the trials that I'm getting. I think it's a little unfair, but that's where we too, where we really dig our roots in. And some of the trials are very, very hard. I'm not misunderstanding that away from them, but when you come through them and look back at them, you wouldn't have missed them for anything that that's that's one way too, where the roots go down deeper and deeper.
All right, it's interesting that the roof roof of the tree hadn't succeeded by.
Anyone else around and, uh, the routing process that should be going on in our lives, uh, gathering that water from the word of God.
Isn't something that we uh.
That other people can see.
It's something that has to go on quietly between.
Each one of us in the world not to be, not to be seen by by having the other thing, the fruit, the branches, the fruit if there is the rooting underneath. But if if we try to build up the branches and show off the fruit and the roots aren't there, if the whole thing is just the sound and it will fall down.
It has to be that quiet, unseen, uh, speed. It's underneath. Isn't that beautiful to think?
Here is is 1 little verse 7 Here, uh, we we see the principal that God has given to us first establishes us in the truth. That is, it's supposed to be supposed to be rooted and and grounded.
Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with Thanksgiving. Now it comes out.
What is my heart, Uh, what am I rejoicing in? Am I rejoicing in my circumstances or am I rejoicing in the war? I think that that that we we see here. It says rooter then build up in him established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with Thanksgiving abounding that is not abounding in the circumstances again, but abounding in faith. It says talk about invariant with Thanksgiving, thanking God for every phase of our lives.
Whatever it may be.
But it just it just seems to me that God brings these things before us and they're not I I know it's not contrary to reason. You know, we don't reason Scripture, but we we believe it. But faith is not contrary to reading either. And so we see that the faces here is the being rooted. And then as it comes up, then we see the results. We see that so thanking God for all that he has in Christ and his results there, there's a proof there isn't that isn't it? Isn't it by that says by their fruit, the Lord Jesus could say by their fruit. Shall he know that.
Uh, you know, we don't, we don't know what's in the heart of man, but we can see the results of it coming out, can't we?
In the first script it says the remnant of the escape and the escapes of the House of Judah shall yet again take root downward and bear fruit upwards. The Lord get them to work in their heart before they can ever produce fruit for God.
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The second King's 20.
The taste for like the type of covering on the vessel, that there was a vessel and a leopard's house that even if it had a tight covering on it, it wouldn't be the file until we seven first fulfill ourselves and our children with the truth. That error just seems ridiculous. And the reason we're beguiled is because.
We don't know the truth and we've often heard a stick. I've heard it from various sources with the Chinese businessman would let his child play with real money and when he knew the real that he quickly detected the fall. And that's really what the progression here is. If we're grounded in Christ and we're not going to be swept away by every wind of doctrine. We wonder why the young people are so easily fooled or others or why we fooled ourselves as well if we were killed with the truth and Sierra just seems like foolishness and so.
But philosophy, I took a course in philosophy and they taught it based on if then statement. And that's how the reasoning of the human mind. If this is so, then this is true. But in that song he says, I believe, therefore I have to focus and that's faith. We begin with we believe what God has said and therefore we proceed from that and the reasoning advances. Well, if this is true, then that is true and you construct like children, builders, bricks, you construct a a whole reasoned argument out of it. But faith as I believe, therefore I'm so.
And uh.
Rudiments of the world, you know, everywhere you go, we were in the hospital and there had a little value statement there. And everywhere you go, companies are making these value statements and they're really the rudiments of the principles on which the world operates. And so the children are taught these things. You know, they say, well, they don't want them to get into drugs. So they say, uh, you've got to love yourself. So that's the rudiments of the world.
You, uh, you've got to respect yourself. You've got to know yourself. Well, these are all the rudiments of the world. But what we learn in Scripture is really quite something else is that I want God to know me. And the time will come and I'll be known even as I'll know, even as I know. And I want God to search my heart. I don't want to search my own. So take in that sense, but it's, uh, search me. Oh, God and the rudiment of the world. And they're training these things from school from the youngest age and are assaulted with these constantly.
And they seem to write in many ways, if we're not grounded in the truth, you know, and, uh, the world doesn't understand what submission is, you know, stand up for yourself. That's one of the rudiments of the world. Stand up for your right. Civil disobedience, submission of the Lord to Pilate and to others. It was something that was unknown in the world. And so we're not clear as to these things. And we adopt these principles and ways of thinking when we get into the assembly and into the home and when we go to work and.
Uh, we operate on exactly the same principles as the world. The boss asked us to do something that he has no right to ask us to do. And we say, well, I've got my right and we're operating in the rudiments of the world, you know?
It's very difficult because the boss will call you in and he'll ask you for your opinion and he wants to make sure you're in agreement with everything before you do it. He just doesn't know what it is that somebody come in and say, I'll do what you tell me to do because it's absolutely foreign, this system of this world. And so we're we're deceived by all of this. The type of appearance, right? And a, an attraction too obvious, trying to deceive ourselves and thinking it's not an attraction. It is.
I like to use the illustration of a person that is well off and they gave a very lovely gift to a child.
And they had wrapped it up nicely and given it to the child. So after a little while, they wondered, well, I wonder how much the child is enjoying the gift of the hip code around to the room. And I saw the kids on the floor. Instead of enjoying this expensive gift, he was fooling around with the spring that was the parcel was wrapped up in. That's what the rudiments of the world are.
Philosophy.
Is the natural law for wisdom. That's what philosophy is and man.
Two weeks and, uh, I think it's one of the powers that, uh, therefore get wisdom, get understanding. I still remember our brother, umm, umm, William Martin was in, he went to the West Coast and California and over one of the colleges there, I've never been there, but over one of those great universities inscribed in the, in the over the headstone was wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom.
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And he just brought out the fact that.
I didn't read what was working the wisdom, the wisdom of God isn't that God was given and that's different altogether different contrary to.
It.
That's what we had what we had already and and the third version, right. And whom are you all the presence of this and all.
Or in inhabitants.
1St chapter Second, Peter says giving diligence to make your election your calling and the election. Sure, give villages. That means be serious about it. For if he do these things, if he do these things, he shall never fall, never fall. There's the assurance that every one of us can happen.
Not if we know them, but if we do them.
1St chapter of second here.
All props needed about whether Rush is going to go tomorrow with this country or that country. People get all taken up with those things. It's the testimony of a person and the details as to that is right and God's overturning. What is eternal life? It's not a thing. The first thing is when we stand up and we preach the gospel, we're not preaching about life insurance policy. We're speaking about a person. You have to somehow have life. So what is listening now?
Is him and when we try to have these things apart from him.
And we spoil the entire thing.
131.
Christ is my witness.
Right.
Problems. Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom and then it turns right into the person.
296.
I'll be running all three to seven. Joy of heaven to earth come down. Bless us with thy rich indwelling all I merge all thy thankful mercy found. Savior thee we shall be blessed.
We hear none of our crazy hair figure without the glory in thy dialogue 296.