Address—P.S. Jacobsen
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Three classes of Christians this afternoon, according to First John, the second chapter.
Divides believers into those that are fathers, those that are young men, and those that are children.
And so how can we be more inclusive? Not exclusive, but how can we be more inclusive than that? Let's turn to the 16th chapter of the book of Acts.
What I have in my heart is to use.
An individual by the name of Timothy. As a help, as an encouragement, like I say, to three classes or divisions of believers, fathers, young men and children, let's read the first 3 verses of Acts 16. Then came he to Derby and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus the son.
Certain woman which was a Jewish and believed, but his father was a Greek which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium him. Would Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew all that his father was a Greek. Now for further enlightenment as to his family connection, let's turn to Second Timothy.
The first chapter.
A dear brother by the name of Ruskin Gill used to say that it would be nice if all of the the verses concerning sanctification were in one book and 1 Chapter. Well, they're not. And so The thing is concerning Timothy are not all in the book of Acts.
And so here we find in Second Timothy the 1St chapter and the fifth verse.
A very significant further help to us in connection with the family life that Timothy had when I called to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice. And I am persuaded that in the also wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on.
My hands without turning back to the 16th of Acts. The previous chapter ended with a confrontation between Paul and Barnabas, and so Paul took Silas and they started on their second missionary journey. Whether Paul knew Timothy in the first missionary journey, I haven't looked up carefully enough in the last few days to be able to say, but at least on his second missionary journey.
He wanted Timothy to go with him.
And it appears that further, let's turn to the third chapter of Second Timothy and we find something more about the background, if you will, the home life of Timothy.
I maybe said the 15th 1St, but let's start with the 14th. This is Second Timothy, the 3rd chapter in the 14th verse. Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hath been assured of knowing, of whom thou hast learned them, and that word for whom is plural.
And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. We're going to continue on with the last two verses in just a moment. But what have we found? We found that Timothy had a mother who was a Jewish and his father was a Greek, which suggests, without further enlightenment from Scripture, that he was not a believer.
Or at least that's the implication.
But he had a godly grandmother and he had a godly mother and it appears very obviously from Scripture that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures. So that means that he had the opportunity in home life. I'm not sure at all what it what is mentioned about assembly life.
Very important, but not the present scope that we can find concerning Timothy.
But his home life was such that he had a grandmother that exerted a great deal of influence in his life. She didn't have the book of Ephesians, the book of Colossians, First and 2nd Thessalonians, obviously First and Second Timothy, which would be written to her grandson in some years hence. But she had Old Testament scriptures, and she must have poured through them for herself, and then she gave them.
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To her grandson Timothy, and she had a daughter.
Which we take to be the grandmother's mother, daughter and thy mother Eunice. And he was persuaded that in the also.
My, my exercise is this. It tells me in the 14th verse of the 3rd chapter to continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them. Most of us, or many of us here, were raised such that in Christian environment, Christian home, we had a father. We had a father and a mother.
There was a funeral recently, Don Bilasali's funeral, and one of the boys brought out. Both boys brought out the legacy.
That they had from their father, one of their cousins, came up to them later and said.
I never had that kind of legacy of having a father. And so it's important, isn't it, for fathers and mothers that are here today to lend spiritual guidance and spiritual environment? Most of us, I would like to say all of us that have been raised in a Christian home or used to having a Bible reading. Years ago I was in the city of Hoquiam as a young person.
And I'd gone up to bed to the bedroom area assigned to me in the Harris House. Some of us know that area quite well. And I was going to read the word a little bit. And I heard footsteps come up and a young man that was in the assembly in Portland, the same as I was, came to the the bedroom across and then he came over to where I was.
And as this statement that he made, that rings in my ears since some of you know him.
Very, very well.
And a little different slant, but we'll leave that alone, he said. Stanley, I'd like to share with you in the reading of Scripture this evening because in my home we've never had a Bible reading. His father was uncommitted, let's just put it that way. Uncommitted as to the things of of God, as to the things of Christ.
His mother was in fellowship, happily, thankfully, but he never had the opportunity for a father and mother to sit down with the children. And he had a brother. Don't want to be too definitive, but it's no secret. But still, it's not a question of exposure. It's a question of bringing out. A very important point is that Timothy had.
Home environment that had a profound influence on him.
And I want to tread this a little carefully.
Coming from the state of Iowa, you go into Nebraska Interstate 80.
And if you want to go down to Denver, you take Interstate 76 and at the very end you can watch the mileposts.
54321 Pretty soon Interstate 76 is going to come to a conclusion, come to an end. But it's what I call seamless because you don't realize that your end of 76 and you've come into Interstate 70 W very, very smooth. You hardly can tell that you've come to an end.
Now my point is this each one of us that have had the opportunity.
For a home life.
There comes a time when that particular Interstate, as it were, is going to of necessity come to an end. And it means this that you're no longer going to be at home because you've gone to college, you you've moved out to A to a rented apartment, you've gotten married, and now you're on another set of circumstances in which.
What you have learned and has been assured of.
This verse comes before you continued vow in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of. And so each one of us during the time of being raised in a Christian atmosphere. And obviously I intend that to mean, though we can't find it from Scripture in connection with Timothy for each of us in case with the assembly not to be set aside, not to be minimized.
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Maximized if you want to, but.
The effect that the Spirit of God has had in each of your lives, mine included, is going to come to a test. Now let's follow Interstate A70 on through Colorado.
This is actual and into the state of Utah, and if any of you have ever been there, you find that it absolutely comes to an abrupt end, not like Interstate 76 where it smooths in and you hardly know when you've left one and joined the other.
You come Interstate 70 and you come to an abrupt end, it says so and of Interstate 70 W So you have to make a decision whether you want to go north on Interstate 15 and go see the Saints in in Aberdeen, not exactly Interstate 15 all the way, but in that general direction or if you want to go to Southern California and go Interstate 15. So my point is this.
There are, at times in our lives, seamless changes.
That by the grace of God, the Word of God has had such an effect in your life that when you do go to college, you do get married or you do get an apartment with the the desire and blessing of your parents. It's seamless. You go on with no longer a family reading, which you go on with a private reading and desire for the Word of God.
Now.
It may be at the end of Interstate 70, it comes to an end and there are abrupt changes in life and we have to make a decision whether we want to go north or South. Like I've indicated, N is just as good as S, but if you want to go to California, you don't turn right and go up to Idaho. And so in connection with our lives, there comes a time, like I say, to repeat it. It may be seamless by the grace of God.
When you get married, you you have those same desires.
And you know what you say, by the grace of God, I had parents that I didn't always think as they did. I didn't always want to go to meeting, but I went.
I don't know how to thread this in, but to me it's been it's been significant thought.
In the last couple months there was a brother that said to me and he's very happy in the things of the Lord and and very thankful for young people, he said. I believe that 95% of the young people in the assembly have a desire to live for the Lord.
I'm not really sure to be honest with you that I would have put the figure that high.
But let's define. He didn't define it, but let me define in his absence.
For my own perspective, what it means to live to please the Lord.
First of all, it means that if you're on your own or even at home, regardless of family Bible readings, you have your own private time for quiet. And let me say this, and I don't mean it to be directed towards anyone or anyone, but activity in the things of God is no substitute.
For quiet time.
On your own with the Lord.
It would be better to have more quiet time and less activity than the reverse. There is no blessing in souls, yourself or anyone else if activity in the things of the Lord exceeds, as it were, the the inward building up that comes from having the Word of God.
And that time that you know that you have fresh.
We buy the wine press. I'm thankful for what my brethren have said here and in years past. Mr. Lundeen for me was a brother.
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He was an expositor, I would suppose, or teacher we could say, but for me he was one that opened a door of a certain truth. He may not, at least my recollection may not be, that he opened up everything that was available, but he opened the door of of opportunity, and it was.
Then my responsibility and privilege to go in that door of opportunity and search out.
The treasures that were there.
See, from a child that was known the Holy Scriptures, there comes a time when the knowledge of scripture.
Has to turn into a reality of action and of desire on our own. And that's that's the encouragement that I would suggest. Now let's go back not very far, but let's go back to the first chapter of Second Timothy. And I don't want to lose the thread.
Of what I have.
On my heart.
To the 13th verse of Second Timothy 1.
He this is Paul speaking to Timothy in such a way that we're hearing it.
It's written down. It's hard copy in the language of today.
Wonderful coffee Divine record, Second Timothy the 1St chapter 13th verse hold fast the form of sound words.
Which words I might add, which words thou hast heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus?
Each one of us.
Know from home experience with that babies are spoon fed, there comes a time when they disdain being spoon fed and they have their own little bottle and, and it, it may have a certain design, but that they can, they can use it themselves and, and the mess they make when they start with a spoon and a fork and so on. But we understand that.
But there comes a time the Apostle Paul was really saying, I haven't given you an outline.
I've given you words and I want you to take those words and make an outline.
And what's the advantage of an outline? Well, any of us that have gone to even high school or college understand that oftentimes a thesis prerequisite is to have an outline. You submit that to the teacher and the teacher says, I don't know what how you came up with that. Let me help you or yes, that's that's pretty good. And so an outline is to help you so that when you see something that's contrary to the mind of God.
Favorable, you can go to your outline and you can say there it is, I can fit it in. Now we're not going to be specific about some of the Christian, so-called Christian groups, but we could talk about some of the cults. Important thing is I asked John Kaiser about a certain book that I saw just been published and he said the man that published it was very consistent.
In connection with the person and work of Christ.
That rang very, very well. And so if you have an outline, you hear something, you see something and you have this outline that the that Paul is given in scripture, but you know you've taken the words and you've developed an outline. Marvelous. A brother in our meeting young brother wanted some help in case with the ground of gathering.
I made him an outline and I started. I had 7 divisions.
Starting with the most obviously incorrect as far as Scripture was concerned and worked down to division number 7. And I didn't put Plymouth brethren #5 as the ultimate conclusion. I put this group and that group, this group and that group. I remember a brother at the Walla Walla conference making this statement. He said some of you may not agree with me.
And I wondered, well, why would we disagree? But he said, I'm not going to tell you as someone that's seeking the truth to come where I am, but I'm going to tell you this, that you look into the word of God and have the Spirit of God guide you and you will be guided to the same place where I am. Now there's a difference. And I, I want each one of these young people.
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I heave aside because I understand some of your feelings because I remember transferring to the University of Washington back in.
1952 Went to the little meeting room that was on the side of the hill overlooking the Olympic Mountains. And I remember saying to myself, though I was at the Lords table, I don't know why I'm here rather than someplace else in the city of Seattle. And if someone had asked me, I would have hemmed and hawed and said, well, my father, my grandfather, you know, and soon after marriage I could have said on my wife's side as well.
But you know, I couldn't have answered.
Straightforwardly from Scripture. Now, I'm not wanting to corner anybody, get you up against the wall and say you give me exactly why you're here. I'm not. I'm not desiring that. But I am saying that an outline of the Word of God from the words that Paul has given will include why you're gathered as you are.
But now something else.
Which is very revealing.
The 15th verse Well, we might read the 14th, That good thing which was committed unto the keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in US.
Brother mentioned to me this morning about a certain expression in the 1St 9 chapters of First Kings, and I'd never noticed it, so I didn't have too much to say as to why. But you know, you go through First and Second Timothy. Just just skim through it and look for the urgency with which the apostle Paul is speaking to Timothy. And that is the urgency with which the Spirit of God wants you and wants me, whether I'm a father, a young man, or a child.
Is the urgency with which the spirit of God wants you and wants me to take the things of God and make them real and.
So that I will have an opportunity to give to others.
Now to go on.
The 15th verse This Thou knowest that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me, of whom are fine, jealous, and homogeneous.
That word for knowledge.
I see a hymn sheet on that table and you say, well, brother, I can see it too. Well, that's general knowledge. That's the knowledge of experience, if you will, pretty obvious. But this kind of knowledge that the apostle Paul is attributing to Timothy is a knowledge that it seemed that they perceived they had the spiritual.
Discernment to know that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me.
And you know, going on in the things of God doesn't make you a unique individual so that you know more than your brethren. I don't take that from this verse, but I take it that spiritual discernment comes from understanding Pauls doctrine. And we're not going to go into that. It would be very happy to because what characterizes the dispensation which we live?
Is Paul's doctrine.
The Lord's coming, the heavenly position of the believer being gathered on the truth of the one body, the one body. And so I haven't given them an order, but that's a semblance of it. And so it leads you into spiritual discernment. You know, you don't have to see disaster before you have a knowledge. That's that kind of knowledge.
We can perceive something.
And, you know, we maybe can perceive in our own hearts that the world has taken on.
Something.
Don't know that I should mention this. I don't want it to hit too close to home.
But there was a comment made in the concluding meeting in Des Moines about it was noise that Jesus was in the house. And the comment was made that sometimes it's noise that's in the house and maybe it's rock'n'roll. Well, as this brother that told me.
As he left the meeting room and went out to his car, there were some young people and he assumed that they had been in that meeting, had their windows open and they had rock'n'roll going.
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Remember this?
As far as the Apostle Paul is concerned, and this was brought up at the Des Moines conference.
That the apostle Paul lived so close and so transparently before God that he really wasn't waiting to the judgment seat of Christ for some analysis of how he walked. That's an amazing statement. The more I read it, I say.
Put my hands in my pocket and I say I can't say that. But you know, I believe that God wants us to. He wants us to be transparent before him. Now, it's important to be transparent before your brethren. It's important to be transparent before your parents.
Transparency is a marvelous thing. The opposite of it is having a facade A2 story front with a miserable one story behind, which is typical in the West. And so to have no facade but to be transparent and to have that desire. And I'll come to a conclusion in just a few moments.
But let me summarize what's on my heart.
To have the word of God that presents Christ from one end of the book to the other, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. And if we were to go through the Gospels, and let's go through them very quickly.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Matthew has a genealogy the Angel appears to.
Joseph Mark, There's no genealogy because it's a servant. Luke has a genealogy, but the Angel appears to marry. So we can't put them together, can we? We can't. We can't have a A.
A combination of them. And so we come to the Gospel of John.
There's no genealogy, there's no birth. Starts out in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The point is to to feast on the Gospels as if the Spirit of God and in reality is presenting to you, not the doctrine.
For instance, Matthew 10 is a mission to the apostles that I think.
According to that chapter was never fulfilled. It's looking forward to a millennial or the time of the tribulation and then we find in the first Matthew 11 That.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
For all the very first verse of Matthew, the gospel of.
Slips me, I'll turn to it. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
The son of David, the son of Abraham. There is the key to the whole book of Matthew. It mentions David first because Christ came as the Messiah and the son of Abraham. We find it introduced maybe not first, but certainly and significantly in Matthew 11 and we could go through each of the Gospels beautiful the the distinctions and and the way in which the person of Christ.
And his walk in his ways is presented.
So in conclusion, let's go back. I have to turn back to Second Timothy, the 3rd chapter and I just want to read.
The last two verses of that chapter.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable.
What is the first thing that scripture is profitable for? It says Doctrine and let me make this comment.
For your walk and ways and mine. There can be no proper Christian conduct without Christian doctrine.
I trust with all my heart that we understand the scriptural basis and doctrine whereby tomorrow we're going to remember the Lord in his death on the truth of the one body, but without doctrine. I remember working with a believer, Indeed he was, and I pressed the point of eternal security. He got angry.
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He got absolutely angry.
And I said, well, it's the doctrine of Scripture, he says doctrine is separated Christians.
And you know, I want to say this tenderly, almost with emotion.
Indeed it has.
Indeed it has, but its doctrine that the word of God is the first thing. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. We don't want to.
Not agree and agree to disagree. We want that which is doctrinally correct.
For them. And then it goes on reproof for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. Now my final plea, as it were, and I want it to be for myself.
Continue, thou, in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them. Let's continue with a desire, personally, individually, to read the Word, and if we need some help from our brethren, so much the better, or from some book.
But let it be that.
That book.
That will lead me into the truth and not away from it. And so.
In summary, again, maybe the third time, the reading of the Word of God for ourselves individually, the quietness of time with the Lord so that I might be LED into some activity for the Lord.
You various ones can tell concerning some activity that the Lord has LED them into and I would suggest young people and don't take my way of saying things, looking at things, but if you were to go to some rest home. I know some of you here go and I think it's lovely, but why don't you try it on your own.
Go down the hallway with permission and go to this lady.
Oh, what book do you have there? That's a good way to enter into a room, isn't it? Well, it's pretty obvious if it's a Bible that there's a desire. And if there isn't a Bible, then you start the conversation some other way. And you know, old people like young people. And so I take myself in that category because I'm not of an age at the present time to be in a rest home and so.
You go down the aisle, you go down the other aisle, you go down the other aisle, you go down the other aisle. There's hundreds of people in rest homes. My brother was telling me that he's gone and and he wonders if these people ever get a visitor and you know that that they love to have you come and talk to them, get them to talk about themselves. Maybe they'll tell you how they went to Sunday school and.
They need encouragement.
Some are in the 7th of Romans. You can help them out.
Maybe, maybe they'll never accept it because they're so old, but at least you can give them the 8th chapter.
As we've had it, if the 7th is in ******* what have we found in the 8th chapter?
And maybe you can help some dear soul. So in conclusion, the emphasis on the power and effect of the Word of God in your life and mine. And make sure you don't have to come to an abrupt end of Interstate 70 and decide which way to go. One way or the other you have to go because it doesn't continue or like Interstate 76 comes in and is.
It effortlessly, seamlessly ends and goes on to Interstate 70. And so for your life, may it be that the things that you have been learned and have been assured of, that you have a desire by the grace of God, regardless of the resistance, regardless of no longer being under the influence of your parents or even the influence of your brethren, that you have a desire.
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To continue.