Cuyahoga Falls Conference: 2014
Table of Contents
Character
YP Talk—Stephen Rule
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Let's pray.
Our godfather, we just give thanks for the huge privilege we have of only as our father and we ask that the little family have a head a few minutes that we would spend our time listening to live voice in front of us. We're here for ourselves and we would enjoy the privilege of hearing that. We're going to continue that for a blessing on every aspect of time together and interaction and half a time talking.
Press my name or Jesus.
Get in front of you a sheet of paper or maybe you're sitting on.
Every year I brought not enough, but I've got 24 pencils and two pens and hopefully you've got some. So raise your hand if you need it. Ready to implement and umm, try to share. I'd like to thank all of these colleagues here for school.
Activity.
Before we get started, before I tell you what.
My heart or what? It's the one that's giving me the cocktail this evening and tomorrow evening I'd like you to do something for me. Uh, let's have a piece of paper and then you're gonna have to write somebody else in the back. Before I tell you what it is, you have to show it to anybody.
You need it when you're done, it's gonna be I just want you to submit the paper for yourself only. Not me, not for anybody else, but by writing it down to kind of force you to really think about.
And then I will hold on tonight. I have a lot of them for billing tomorrow night. Umm, this is not a piece of paper, right? At the top of it is a large number of the door at the same thing. Right? But that's vacation.
And on the back, your reputation on the front. And on the back, I want you to write one big word character.
Take some offside character on the other. Now I'm going to define them the way I want you to think about it, and then I'm not mixing their eyes. Look it up.
Have they been for the purpose of actually tomorrow night for recitation will be the way other people see you know the best that you know your reputation is.
Right, what you think other people see you as. I'll give you an example. Umm, a simple example. Suppose if it's classroom work at school, or academic work or something like that. Other people see you as smart, not so much, and you don't really want to write it down.
Do other people look on you as friendly? Do they look on you as helpful? Do they look at you as kind? That kind of thing. As far as you know, what do you think? Your reputation?
It is right. It's tiny if you want, but do write it down on that piece of paper.
And I'll give you a minute.
OK, that's a reputation how other people see you at least as best as you think it is. Now flip it to the other side. Take character and write down what God sees in you. That is I'm not looking through their blood with noise that look at this in the Bible and you don't know exactly but not look meaning how does God see you as to your umm standing before God in Christ with that bless their words mean something to you, not the way God looks at you because.
Your regime by the precious flow of Christ, but to the best of what you believe the Lord is saying to you at the moment. Maybe he thinks you your little selfish, maybe you thank you. I'm working on you in kindness and your kind yesterday. I'm not asking for an accurate who would grade it anyway, right? This is what God sees you as and I want you to take a moment to reflect. How does God see you at the moment? What does he see? Write it down. We'll give you a minute.
S.
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10 more seconds.
OK.
That's my question for you.
Umm, not what's written on your paper. Which side of that paper was easier? How many of them was easy? But which of those two sides of the piece of paper was easier to fill out? How many say just raise your hand? Let me know if you think the reputation side was a little bit quicker and easier to do.
How many do you think no character side will be easier?
I'd have to have my end up on the first one. I'd have to say honestly that I would be easier for me to fill out the reputation size and the character side. But I'd like to think that today, tomorrow, Lord would help us work to make it a little easier to say. What does God see me have? So tonight we're going to talk about four things we gain when we live in the fear of God. I'll define it in a moment. Tomorrow we'll talk about 5 things we lose.
When we live in the fear of man.
Reputation is the way other people look at it and when we live for our reputation, the leap they're quite along the federal 5 and realize they probably get all of them. So I thought.
Those are at least five things you'll lose if you live for how other people look at you and five, four things and the 40 is the 50 minutes or whatever is scheduled here. 4 things we gain when we live for what God sees enough not sees us, but what we care about is what God thinks is really what I want to get out. So the fear of God, I would define it as a reverence and an awe.
Of God and and.
Concerned to live for what he thinks and in his presence and not worrying about what other people think.
And I need to I need to say clearly.
As umm.
I believe I'm gonna ask who the eldest person in the room is, but I think you can let them. You don't stop learning. Ever. Uh, we are not less than they have learned, but rather things I wish to pass on because I think it's God's truth that's relevant to you. Whether you're 3 and nobody hears 3 all the way on up to the day you go home to be the floor, it's relevant. Wanting to live in the presence of God every single minute of our life is way more important than wanting to make sure that somebody else thinks something.
About so let's hear God first one that you can gain living in the fear of God is found in Genesis 17. We just somebody would read just a few verses.
So give me a moment. Genesis 17.
And the first 8 verses.
Living in the fear of God, the reverence and an awe.
Of God.
The respect and honor for him is the one whose opinion counts.
The fear of God.
Thank you, volunteer of the ground. Wow. We're virtually not quite almost segregated, Male, female.
Umm.
I don't see anybody on the stock. I will read them if one of you gentlemen over here doesn't need them, but I'll give you a second or two to thank you. First eight versus Genesis 17. And when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and we will multiply thine and will multiply the exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face and got talked with him, saying.
As for me, behold my covenant with the and also be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name anymore be called the room, but thy name shall be Abram. For a father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make the exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of being king. So come out of this, and I will establish my cognitive between me and me, and my seed after thee and their generation, for an everlasting covenant to be a Godwin city, and to thy seed after thee.
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And I will give until the until thy feed after the the land we're in our stranger, all the land is came in for an everlasting possession. And I will be their God.
Oh I should tell you something, answers from anyone here and those 8 verses we read.
What's that Abraham say?
Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What did Abraham do?
Thomas 6.
User thread 8 verses and all those 8 verses you've got part of one and verse 3 Abram fell on his face. That's what you read about Abraham. The rest of it is what you read about God, what God says, right?
Go back through and look at the verbs. This is an English class. I've never been an English teacher, but give me the verbs. Give me one more lady through the side. Give me one of the verbs when God is talking verb.
I am, thank you. Verse one, give me a subject verb, and verse two, somebody else on my right, your left, left side of the room.
I will. Thank you verse 4.
Says he says Behold, As for me, behold verse 5.
Do I have? Yeah, first five subject, verb, somebody on the right side of the room. Pardon, I have. And something else in the verse.
5/8 verse six I will, verse seven I will, verse seven I will. Verse eight I will. Verse eight again I will. It's God talking.
Abraham flat on his face.
I just encourage everybody here, all of us, to have some time every single day where we're living like that.
Let me get to the point a little bit slowly. I love to take.
Uh, I want to take photographs about my camera along. Bought a couple of lenses to go on it and I got a new one after saving up for a year and a half. Left September.
So this spring when we're at the garden center or wherever at my camera out and they would do the work of looking for the plants we need for the yard and I would do the work of looking at the flowers through the macro lens. How many of you have ever taken a really good look?
At a flower.
OK. Hey, OK. You don't have to worry about your reputation. Somebody looked at you and said, oh, how can I get all the hands here and all you have here? Nobody here has ever looked at a flower carefully. Wow.
You're missing out.
Umm, I found, you know, there's flowers inside flowers inside flowers, almost like a triple flower. If you look at the semen, there's a little flower on the end of the stamen. And then you look at the, there's, there's some that are almost like a jewel in the middle and a little jewel case. And you don't tend to notice them. You walk by, you see blah blah, horns, blah blah bread, blah blah, blah, right. But if you get up close and you take a picture and you take it with a macro lens and then you blow it up on your screen and you look at it and you say, wow.
There's a lot in there. How many have had the same experience that looking through a microscope?
How many of you have ever tried, honestly tried to do more than oh, started throughout the night, gone where there wasn't a whole lot of light, laid down and looked up and enjoyed the canopy of the heavens?
Good. See if you haven't, maybe I didn't hit your example of looking at the wonder of God's creation. I love looking at birds too. What's the behavior of birds and how they act? They're an awful lot of it. It surrounds you of God as the creator.
Abraham.
How time did Abraham waste reading books?
How much time did he spend? Uh, how much light pollution was there when he walked outside his tent at 1:00 AM and looked up toward the heavens? Ah, there may have been a camp fire or two, I don't know. But when Abraham was living in Israel, Abraham had at least some had the opportunity for some sin of an awe and a reverence of God that put it his neighbors, They had the same opportunities. Abraham lived.
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In the fear of God.
And in this case, when he lived in the fear of God, he got one thing that I think is probably more important than anything else.
To go out and you'll see throughout the book and one of the chance to look at it. Abraham got intimacy with God.
So the first thing that I think that we gain when we live in the fear of God, in the presence of God, in the conscious sense that God sees into the depths of your heart, and the depth of my heart knows exactly what's in there.
And has the power to make it what he wants it to be, loves you, cares for you, and we're living in the presence and constant sense of it. We'll get to it later on. That's all the day long, the whole day begin. Then we gained something that you can't get anywhere else. Nothing, nothing. A true deep intimacy. What does he find out? He finds out the character of God. We don't have time to go through it, but God seeks, he listens and he learns what God will. I will, I will I will mostly future right, but it's also I made I am. He learns about God.
What did Abraham have to hide from God?
Did Adam enjoy intimacy after he had sitting in the garden?
You know, right? But to make sure, what did he go and do?
After he's sitting in the garden, that's the first thing Adam did.
Thank you. He did, absolutely. He went and hit himself among the trees of the garden, and then he may sowed an apron of thickly to cover himself. So he hit again, He hit none, He hid, He put as many layers in there as he could get. And when we sin, we break that intimacy with God. But when we're open and honest in the presence of God in the morning, middle of the day, and throughout the day, we gain an intimacy with God that you cannot replace with anything.
Before my wife and I were married, we uh.
Lived in the same city for 2 1/2 years. I was finishing college. We were.
Publicly engaged for about a year of that, engaged privately for a couple of years. And so we talked every day. I learned a lot that a lot heard a lot.
And without knowing it hit a lot. Follow this because I didn't know it.
About myself, couldn't have said so. It's because I wasn't entirely sure.
How it would be received and?
Umm, it was the reputation side of things, so I didn't say anything.
I enjoy a whole lot more intimacy now, shared common thoughts and communion, but I won't tell you that I always tell my wife everything right away.
Maybe there's certain things. I'm not talking about sin, so maybe there's certain things you just, well, if she asks, I'll definitely tell her.
But I don't think I'll mention by the way, I ran the car into the house there and Joe saw me too, actually, uh, but there's only a little thing about that big on the back frame. I'm not making that up.
See, I don't mind on a detail like that. Most of us don't, right? But there's a whole lot of other things that we would tend to mention. But in God's presence, you're fully known by God. I'm fully known by God.
And we can enjoy that intimacy that Abraham has that I have lost because of sin.
Go to the second one. I think we gained intimacy second one.
Before I do it, I want you to kind of remember the lessons. So I'll give you a lesson 1St and then I'll, uh.
And I'll give you what we gained, and we'll read the verses.
So I hear a can of those in the back, some of those in the front next knot. It's actually a harder than it used to be. You know, I used to buy cans of these for demonstrations to physics glass. It's easy to find one with lots of peanuts, but all the cans at Walmart yesterday bragged how few peanuts they have, but this one is less than 50% peanuts. That's like it did eat a lot of peanuts for this example I have on the top uh.
Somebody in the room please favorite kind of nuts that you get in these cannons. It's a Brazil nut, right. So this is the kind of stuff you don't want other people to see that you're aware of that's in here and I'm going to kind of cut it down underneath the surface. Tell me honestly, how many of you have come to a can of mixed nuts and kind of I want the cash tube or whatever and pull it out and left the peanut all right that's why they say less than 50% peanuts, right? In fact, definitely we often are with our.
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Patient management, right?
Texas up don't want other people to see each other a little down under the surface and get it out of sight and grab the pieces that are nice right, but God has a way of working with us in our life and I'm going to illustrate the verse before we read it. Take this can and if you really want to do that, feel free with, you know, keep up the can of things and you want to give somebody else the peanuts and you really want the almonds and cashews. Here's how to do it conveniently. Just need to shake it up right and as you shake it.
Just basic physics, all the bigger stuff. It's, uh, your center of mass is going to move.
Certain the density of this thing is going to change so all the less dense stuff is going to come to the top that's why things float on ponds and so on and uh here's uh Brazil nut and that was in there umm but the nice big one the other one's here on the side all the peanuts are going down all the almonds and cashews are coming to the top that's why your cereal box when you have Raisin bran, if you want the raisins shake it you'll move them to one side and they'll move the plate to the other but.
That's how I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this for you because I'm patient enough and if there's enough shaking here, if I didn't do this wrong.
That's something else to show you. Boy, all these nice things are coming to the top of the morning. No thanks. Wow anybody else? Uh con common yes no silver sure one more.
OK. Before the CNF, that's fine. If I think it's a little bit more.
I'm almost there, but you can't tell. In fact, you probably didn't.
Now let's read the verse. Oh, what is it?
For those of you who are playing ping pong now before the meal, not a ping pong ball down there, but it's not played after. It's right here. I did watch it with soap and water and all. I hope it. Let's read the verse.
You just illustrated it. We've just illustrated, but I want to turn to it. Is it Luke Chapter 12? If you remember nothing more from the.
I would like you to remember this part.
1St 2:00.
For there is nothing covered. You know that word can be read covered up.
That shall not be revealed, neither hid.
That shall not be known.
Let me illustrate and hopefully it'll make it so you'll remember it.
I have something on this particular one, but the one that's right over here on the other side, I said Brazil, not on top. Didn't want other people to see it. I covered it up. I think that's the meaning of that first word. Covered. It's covered up. I cooked something, I knew it was there and I put it out of your sight.
All right.
And then I shipped it, and I shook it and I shook it. Took a little more than I realized it would. I'm using ones that are more than 50% peanuts. But it worked its way back to the serpent, didn't it? It came back up. There is nothing covered up.
Is not coming back up.
There's nothing you or I have ever done in our lives that doesn't have to come into review at the judgment seat of Christ is going to be the majority of it. There's nothing we've done in our lives. It's not coming up covered up.
That show not when you get it so that I can quote it right covered up.
That shall not be revealed.
You know, there was, uh, Brazil out there, you know, I hit it and it came back to the top.
Honestly, again, how many do one of these right here?
I asked Mark for one earlier, maybe today, I don't know.
Nobody else saw me put it in there, but I know it was in there.
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And with another shaking, it worked its way to the top.
You may not know, and I'll guarantee you that I do not know everything that I can.
If there's a person, the one that you could have intimacy with, that's exactly what's in there. In fact, there's a person that is currently shaking you gently in your life to bring one thing after another surface so you can pick it up and move it out.
Chris likes the peanuts, so we're gonna use that part of the analogy. Suppose what God really wants in your life for the peanuts. What's happening with all the other ones? Shakes. Comes to the surface. Pull it out.
Shake again. You just know that stuff was there. Some of the stuff you annoyed me, it was there. It was his.
It was it from you. It was hit from me, but God revealed it. It's going to come out.
It will come out between your soul and God, not necessarily before other people. We're talking about between your soul and God. Maybe it's going to come out publicly because it needs to. Maybe it only comes out between your soul and God so it could be judged, picked up, and removed. Ping pong ball Gulf belong in cans of nuts. But that's not an important point. The important point is that things that are hidden in our hearts that don't belong because they're not like the Lord, come out and go.
Need to be left behind.
For nothing that's hid.
Accurately.
There's nothing covered or covered up.
That's what we do.
Let's jump off your review. Neither hit that's what's there that you and I don't know.
It's not a negative thing. It's not a negative thing. What delight God is that intimacy.
I'll tell you, there's nothing better than having absolutely no barrier between you and another person.
Not having anything you need to hide, that's living in the fear of God.
Nothing to hide. I don't have to worry about where that person is going to laugh or not. You know, when you're, this is really jumping ahead a little bit tomorrow, but I wanna create a contract so you can see the fear of God in the light of the fear of man. Part of my reputation in 9th grade is that I was a good student and I was definitely a reputation that I carefully managed and polished to the best of my ability.
And in 9th grade English class, there was a Friday and apparently the teacher wrote on the board something about a reading quiz on Monday. And I was just, I guess I was talking, I didn't pay attention. I didn't know. Monday came, we had our reading quiz and I thought, oh.
Five points. Five points in virtually, uh.
Spanish in the grave anyway. And so I didn't care. I did the best I could. I got two out of five creatures, created the papers the next day. You know, I don't know if they still do it this way. We got cotton. Teaching is cool not to do it this way, but this is the way they did it. They come to the front. They would sort them into rows, rub papers right, come to the front of the row and hand us back the path to the back and then the next one's back. What do you do? Does that happen to you in past?
Oh, you shouldn't do that.
So pass back and say sitting in front of me is Joe Vasili. And Joe Vasili, I had six, I'm afraid, English with him, eighth grade English with him. And uh, then I was in 9th grade English with him. In 8th grade English, he got umm.
Moved out to another English class.
And uh, so Joe Basili gets the papers, he pulls out his and the next one is even rule apps two out of five written. I would like to be red ink. I didn't get my paper. Joe Vasilli took that piece of paper. Hey, I'm saving this. Look, what do you got? He made sure that everybody in the room knew exactly what I got on the reading quiz and he was talking. He wouldn't hand it to me and he didn't actually, he hung onto that piece of paper. Here's my point. You can't manage your reputation with other people. I didn't care in that particular case.
A lot of other things that matter to you cannot control your reputation. You try to manage it. You can try to massage it. It's not something you were in control of. Talk about. We talk about the fear of man tomorrow, Lord willing, but the fear of God. That's something that is so much more valuable. It's something that brings intimacy. And here's something, there's lots more in this passage. If you want to read it on your own, you can read the 1St, the last few verses, the prior chapter, all of the 12, the 1St 12 of this chapter.
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Umm, just read one little piece for context and the verse one of chapter 12. Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is.
That outward shell of reputation hiding in inward character that God hates.
It's managing that outward shell. God calls them another place. So white is sepulchre, right? It's all painted whitewash. Looks good on the outside. What did you say is on the inside? Inside are.
Ten men's bones doesn't, I'm saying.
But the pilot, that's what he called the Pharisees. And in this passage, the Lord is getting his disciples ready to go out and preach, to speak. And you're going to be among people that are like this. Don't be like that. You're going to be up there in public. Don't be like that. What is inside will come out.
I live in my presence and don't worry about what they say. Here's the fear of God. That's passage already, the verse.
Verse 5 But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear, Fear Him, which after he has killed his power to cast into hell. Yeah, it sends you fear him. And I think you get the full context of it. I'll read verse 6. Two, are not five sparrows sold for too Farthing? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Like the purpose of verse five, talking to the disciples is not to make them tremble, because God can throw you into hell.
The point of the verse is to remind them that this is the one that has all the power that matters.
The next first, he has all the care, the love and the knowledge that matters.
So facility and I were friendly acquaintances before and after. It was very spontaneous person, so I was completely within character to grab something and wave it and yell at the class.
But what he thought didn't really matter in the long run.
Well, he didn't hold a whole lot of knowledge of who I was.
He cared, he was friendly, he was nice. I asked him to him and.
28 years probably.
Hasn't written to me. I don't know where he is. I don't know if he's living, if he's not living.
But God was watching us. Has the hairs on my head counted? I can careless about a detail like that. The point of that is he knows things about us so we don't know about us or even care about us. You know this is fully he loves us fully who are made of fear. Who are we to have that awe of and concern for what they think?
God.
We'll get to a balancing verse at the end. It's not like we say I don't care what people think, I do what I want. That's not the point versus the end just for violence will come to.
But what I want to emphasize is the fear of God is living in the presence of God all day, every day.
And because what we gain here, you can put it a couple different ways, but we gain courage and gain confidence. There's two different ways you could describe it. Disciples were going out where they were going to be Ma titles were going out where they were going to be rejected. Disciples were going out where the message was not going to be popular. The Lord is preparing them, and as he prepares them, he says consider what really matters.
It's what I got think of you, not what they are going to say about you. That's what counts.
What they are?
It's gonna be revealed. It's gonna come out.
If I could ask you to raise your hand, I am going to ask you to think about this. Have you ever been?
Flanders.
Tell me to tell me about you that wasn't true.
And immediately, what's our reaction?
So I want it, OK, We want to make sure that everybody else knows, but that's not true and there may be reasons to bring out truth to the circumstance.
The main point that I wanna make at the moment is this.
True or not true, what they think about us shouldn't be the central point. What they think about God is the central point. That's what should matter at the end of the day. That's what's most important. What do you think about God? How does it make God look? When the Lord was in front of Herod, he had all kinds of things that were said about him that were false. What did he say to defend himself?
00:35:17
How many words did he speak when he was in front of her?
Didn't answer his questions.
Was enough to manage his reputation. He lived in the presence of God.
So we gained into the sea, Abraham, we gained confidence, or we gained courage. If we live in the fear of God, in the presence of others, being encouraged because in one sense we have nothing to lose. We're not managing our reputation. Let's turn to the next one.
In Proverbs, there's two verses we'll read there.
Robert, Chapter 9.
And verse 10.
One of these gentlemen read Proverbs 910 for me.
Thank you.
Here's the Lord at the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding.
OK.
And one more.
In Proverbs 23 and verse 17.
Slow down on here and hear the words of wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.
Thank you.
Umm.
Prayer, the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom. This may not be the best example of it, but I wanna give you, I'm gonna mention the fact that I'm talking about Abraham.
Here at the Lord, Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It says, I think in the first chapter of this book as well, dear Lord, at the beginning of wisdom.
I want to give a very simple example, maybe not the best one, something that happened a week and a half ago with our family that I think illustrates that.
We were having access 2 weeks ago roughly. We're heading out for family vacation in North Carolina and then going to a wedding. And so before the trip, generally we try to grab track cars, track, something like that on the way out the door. And my wife was something for track. I didn't know it. I had neatly put them in a box over in a corner. I got all painted up a day or two before, you know, getting ready for a trip, make sure everything goes nightly. Leave it so that when you come back, you don't come back to the mask just like you did coming here, right?
I didn't, but not, but I'm trying to learn that. So this is something I was trying to learn and I cleaned up that part of the living room like that could meet me in a box. I put them over in the corner.
And I said something about it while she was busy cooking in the kitchen, but it wasn't the idea of communication. So she came ready to leave. No tracks anywhere. So she thought, well, I want to take something and a stack of gospel CDs by the door where we keep the stuff normally. So she grabbed a little stack of gospel CDs on her way out the door. And I thought.
I mean, take a couple, but.
Take us back.
I mean, those aren't convenient. You can't put them in your pocket. Go to their restaurant, you want to get one or you stop somewhere, you want to see somebody, want to hand them. But.
OK.
We're coming home and, uh, got some Merrillville IN and the sky ahead was a real car. And so it turned on the radio to the weather and the weather said that there was hail at the head that was hailed and there was this guy wasn't green and it was super heavy rain, etcetera. So we thought the report says it should be gone in 1/2 an hour or something like that short period of time. We pulled into, uh, Wendy's.
Parked right in front of the door, ran in and was already dumping green.
And, uh, each pride is on prophecy for half an hour. Let the rain go. Came back out, sat down in the car, turned the key on.
10 Kian, 10 Kiyon, and the thing wouldn't go cool. Umm.
00:40:01
That's fine stop raining, put the hood up, look underneath, do that next to nothing that I know what to do without under the hood of the car. Get back in and try again Doesn't work well, while I had the hood slipped up, there's a feeder Mustang right next to us and uh, the door is literally bashed in this guy there when they rolled down the older wife next to him because the cowboy hat on he's watching me through the window. I get to give uh, you know, worrying about reputation right? I said at the beginning.
Umm.
These are things you learn your whole life long. I'm sitting in front of the car wondering about my reputation with somebody I've never met about dealing with this car and uh since uh can I help you? I don't know I'm gonna try something here first, but thanks for the offer. I appreciate. I may pick you up on it. That's all that's happened to me. Don't worry about it. So get back try it and all that I got the cables out hooked up to my battery hooked up to his battery and uh. He jumped the car came back over to me and pulled the Gables off his battery.
Current circuit across the battery and so the whole thing.
Go up, got to do it again. We're going to do it again. Start the car's outgoing, but when he's pulling out the jumper cables and putting them on his battery, I noticed in the front and he was from Indiana. They don't have to have front license plates. And it says forgiveness begins with the foot of the cross. Oh, that's wonderful. So when we're all done, I, uh, pulled out a track card. I said, I love what you've got on the front of your car here. I, this is where I work and here comes it for you all. He says, I have a ministry to motorcycle games or ministry of motorcycle riders. And oh, we had a nice, very brief conversation.
May 15th pilot of the car and he pulled out the taxi because you know the one that we grabbed was what do I get now and that's the top that Obama had to a motorcycle game listing off all kinds of things perfect at the top of motorcycle gang that might sack like that. They were rejected BTP by the way because of the printing on the label. The quality inside was great but there's a little fading at the bottom. So I think it's that now exactly what that I had to do with planning out that event.
How much credit was given? Zilch. I thought it was kind of done to bring the sack in one or two, right? I didn't plan it.
And I want to suggest that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You know, I could have sat down before the script and made careful, calculated analysis of the population between here and North Carolina and back, and what kind of demographics and trying to take the exact right. What does that mean?
By the way, the Lord has held them up because of the rain as well. So they arrived at security and.
Fear the Lord.
It's not going to come from inside. It's not going to come from clever planning. It's not going to come because we have, uh, the right vital routine in the morning. If you don't read the word of God with the intimacy of communion that Abraham had there falling on his face and listening with Reverend off to God and something missing from your my daily routine.
The beginning of the beginning of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom. There are things that God knows about you and your life and everybody else in it and how it's going to cross and how it's going to connect and exactly what form of shaking he's doing. Just like earlier, it was shaking and shaking and shaking and nothing was coming to the surface and exactly what's going on. This isn't very comfortable. I don't like it. Nothing's happening. Why are you doing that?
Because there's something that he's working on and if we try to rationalize and figure it all out and get the right analysis of the whole thing, we're going to be the losers. I did. It's just a flash through my mind. I didn't say anything or any. I just kind of, that's a little off. Oh well, at least you've got something.
That's my analysis. That's the beginning of wisdom that begins in my heart.
But God has done goes far beyond that, and in the verse we read a second it says, Let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.
You know what we're talking about.
Isn't 6:30 to 7:30 Christianity?
We're not talking about July 2nd through, depending on how long you're staying, maybe July 6th Christianity.
Talking about.
00:45:04
The privilege because his wisdom and his knowledge of everything that's going on in your life is far beyond yours and mine. So what do we gain? We gain intimacy. That was Abraham gained courage. That's what we saw in Luke 12. What do we gain here in Proverbs when we live in the fear of God?
More than one second? Can you check one or two?
But corporate revenue is.
In chapter one I mentioned knowledge and there's another if you want to chatter up to look at it.
You can look at Proverbs 3, verse seven tells you something else that pro the fear of the Lord's death, but we'll cover more of that subject a little in the last one. Turn to Genesis.
Chapter 39.
Genesis chapter 39 and I read the chapter for sure, but I just want to hit a couple of phrases of the.
Just 39 verse one and Joseph was brought down to Egypt in Potiphar, and officer of Pharaoh kept in the guard Egyptian bottom with the hands of the Ishmaelites which had brought him down dessert.
And the Lord was with Joseph.
Yourself in those shoes for a moment.
How many here have siblings?
OK, OK. How many here have at least on one occasion or another, had at least a mild argumental siblings?
How many have had a sibling sell you to a slave trader to send you a different country?
Yeah.
Might have to show of hands because there are parents and children here that show me a hand in your heart. Umm how many here have ever heard or seen or observed a slight at least disagreement or difference of opinion of your parents?
Umm.
You may have had with the parents. I'm not trying to uh, just that you don't. But we all were born with the flesh and it keeps when it comes out, it comes more than the case.
What kind of home does Joseph grow up in?
Many of you have hormones in the house.
All right, good. Umm.
OK, must have been one confused household, right?
Uh, exactly why was Leah?
Rachel and whoops show up the head forgot. Umm and.
Yeah, you'll see my first name.
All right, what's the first name? Zilpah, Leah, Rachel and.
Pardon.
Silhouette, thank you.
So got four in the house and there's reasons for arrival throughout, right? But at least his brothers were a sterling character, right?
And I have to go back a couple chapters to read about his UMM, Simeon and Levi.
Could flip around a little bit and read about Reuben.
All right, let's back to the previous back two chapters and read about.
So here you are, Joseph, and you're arriving and you're standing in a slave market in Egypt.
And there's somebody bidding on you over there, and they buy you and they take you home as their slave. Let's read it again. The next verse says, and the Lord was with.
Chosen.
What did Joseph have that he could point to that proved it?
00:50:02
So did he have to point to? Did somebody else could see that prove that the Lord was with us? Hi Joseph, you grew up in a nice home. Well.
What do your brothers like? Yeah.
So how's your life going? Where do you work? Oh, I'm a slave for Potiphar. He just bought me for X.
And the war with Joseph.
Go down in the chapter just a little bit.
And read umm per seven, can you back up to these things that his pastor's wife cap, I'm sorry, I want to go back one other phrase in verse two. It says and he was a prosperous man. He was a house master and it says in verse.
For six, because that's all that he had in Joseph's hands. Verse 7. And it came to pass after these things, that his master's life cast her eyes upon Joseph. And she said, Lie with me. But he refused said unto his master's life. Behold, my master wadeth not, or doesn't know what is with me in the house. He had committed all that he has to my hand. There is none greater in this house than I. Neither hath He kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art is life. How then can I do this great wickedness?
Ten against God.
What did he have to show for it?
Could he go out and find the beautiful person to marry at that point?
Sir, wait, uh, do we need to burst?
Said that he was.
Umm, and a beautiful face and a beautiful form. I think what that means. He had a beautiful body and a beautiful face.
Go and find the beautiful wife.
This is master Pick somebody for him. I suppose he could have had a while. He couldn't go out and find a wife.
Did he say, well, God gave me some mess of a household, he gave me a mess of a brother, he sold me into Egypt and now at least I can take something I want.
What's his answer?
How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? So what did he get for his honesty?
What does he get for?
His behavior in the circumstance.
He asked for God, and what does he get?
If you're standing there, sitting next to Joseph in prison, you're going to hear him complaining, right?
And at least one or two head shaved fingers. Apparently that's what you're about to us, yeah.
It says.
UMM, goes to jail, she lies. There's some very fascinating parts of this chapter. Umm, just as fast in verse 20. He took him and put it to the prison, verse 21. But the Lord was with Joseph in the verse 20, said he was there in the prison, verse 21, but the Lord was with Joseph, showed him mercy and faith. What happened to Joseph's reputation?
Alice with his master. I am amazed when I read this story. There was a providential hand of God back in there and I can't imagine being any tips in those circumstances that he didn't get executed.
Have you heard that story and said why did he get executed?
I sure have a lot of time. The only answer that I have for it is the Lord with those things.
Jordan made a promise to him about something that was still future and it says in the poem that the word of the Lord tried him. You will experience. You have experience, I can say with confidence, situations in your life where what God is doing seems contrary to what makes sense. I did this for him. Here's what I got. Logic says Joseph could have done it in, but Joseph lived in the fear of God and it says the Lord was with him in prison.
00:55:09
And you know, the end of the story, it's almost nice when we know the end of the story. He receives after Nathan's wife, he's going to have children. He's going to be the the ruler over the whole land after Pharaoh. He's going to be restored to his brother and his father is going to be brought back into a beautiful relationship with the Lord at the end of his life. That's going to end up with that kind of happiness. Joseph's going to be mentioned in Hebrews 11. We're going to read about Joseph's call Knights from here forward, right? Not from here forward, but from the day he comes up out of that prison.
You know the end of the story.
Now.
How many of you here are younger than 30?
The vast majority of 130.
You know how old Joseph was when things started to go right? It was like.
You can read it a couple chapters down when I, I think, go Redmond's life, right? Put the commas on there, put the quotation marks on there when everybody else could see that things were happening in the right direction.
Thousand He turned 30.
His grandpa, when he got the answer to his lifetime awaiting, was.
You don't find them normally outside a nursing home, but if there's one, his grandpa was what, 99100 when Isaac was born?
Coming here under 100. Safe, right?
He didn't see the answer to what God was doing in that area of his life. He was 100. So there's not a single person out of here that can say, well, I've got 45 years, I've got 15 years, I've got 11 years, I've got 70 years, I've got 60 years and it's not been finished up yet. My time to take over. We live in the fear of God all the day long and all the life long. And Joseph answers weren't out yet.
But it says the Lord was with Joseph.
Play games there. And the way that he acts in far more than this, but I wrote down games integrity, his integrity by living before God instead of before man, he had an integrity. Eventually the keeper of the prison saw the integrity. Pharaoh saw the integrity. His brother saw the integrity. His father saw the integrity. The entire land of Egypt benefited. The entire living world benefited from it. But at that particular moment, God saw the integrity. At that particular moment in his life, God saw the character.
And Joseph lived in the presence of God, not the presence of man.
Joseph reasons based on what God has said, not what his circumstances dictated. I only know how the story ended. We just don't know where in our life we're going to see it. Maybe the judgment seat of Christ may not be in this life, but let's live in the fear of God all the day long.
All right, Jesus, we did that so each one of us would grow. It would grow in the privilege it is to live before thy eye. We live with a sense that everything is seen and known. Live with a desire to have our life pleasing to thee and not live in the fear of man. So we die and the immor Jesus, Amen. Amen.
Human Relationships
YP Talk—Greg Smith
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Get started with the Word of prayer.
God and Father, we give thanks for above all, for our Savior, the Lord Jesus. We give thanks that He is the reason we are here, not just in this room at this place to think about Him and to go seek to glorify Him in our lives. But He's the reason why this earth exists at all, the one by whom all things consistent. We just do pray that the words we have now and throughout the rest of our time here at Carrollton would be toward His honor and glory.
Ask for special help for the meeting to follow and again for our, uh, conversations and so on. Uh, we give thanks for your love to us and we pray this now, Father, in the name of your own beloved Son, the Lord Jesus.
Amen.
All right, so, umm, some of you may be wondering, uh, who I am, umm, you know Steven, uh, who had the meeting last uh, night And umm, I would just say that I grew up here in Cuyahoga Falls and grew up coming to Carrollton. Umm, but the last time I was here before this year was 22 years ago. So it's been a little while, uh, for me. Umm, I live in Michigan now, although I still think of myself as, uh, as an Ohioan, but I don't think we need to.
To get into that, uh, at this point, but I also teach, umm, history and I mentioned that now because it may seem like I'm talking like a history teacher a little bit, uh, as we, uh, have the meeting today. And if so, umm, that's, that's just the way it is. It turns out that the subject I have in my heart is a little different maybe from the ones that, uh, that we usually have at conferences and young people. And I really do. The reason I mentioned being a teacher, uh, a history professor actually is that I do want to think of this as a kind of class. Uh, that is in the sense that I, I hope this will be open for questions and answers. In fact, I hope to leave time if not.
I always go longer than I mean to. So if not in this meeting, then in the second meeting at at least at the end or maybe at other times throughout the day. Uh, I'm really am interested in questions that you may have, uh, questions and answers and more, uh, open discussion of some of the very important issues that the Lord has laid on my heart today. Well, Speaking of the issues, uh, I want to begin with First Samuel 18.
The beginning and the end of one of the most beautiful relationships in the Bible.
For Samuel 18, this is the beginning chapter.
18 and verse one. We'll read the first few verses here.
And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul, And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And we could go on. The next verse is important to Jonathan stripped himself of the road that was upon him, and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.
The end of the relationship, uh, I hope I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Uh, Jonathan and his father die in battle at the end of first Samuel, uh, in a sad story, but umm, also very sad, uh, and moving is second Samuel chapter one, David's song of mourning, uh, and celebration, if you like, of Saul and Jonathan. So David says this at the end of second Samuel chapter one.
He says, can people hear me? By the way, I'm not sure if this is working. Uh, I can talk more loudly. No, it's not working. Very loud back there. Speak up. OK, I will.
Umm.
Second Samuel 123 This is David speaking. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death. They were not divided. They were swifter than Eagles, they were stronger than lion. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet with other delights? Who put it on ornaments of gold upon your apparel? How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? And here's the part I was really thinking about. Oh, Jonathan said, David, thou was slain in thine high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan.
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy love to me was wonderful. Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished?
150 years ago. Umm this.
Story would have been read, I think a little bit differently or maybe a lot differently than it's read today, even by Christians, because I suspect, uh, that some people are wondering why are we reading about this and maybe even squirming a little bit. I can tell you, even if it's not true of you, that Christians, some Christians at least read these verses now and think, wait a minute here we have two men and their souls are knit together and love and they made a covenant. And at the end, David says this thing, uh, about Jonathan that your love was to me.
00:05:16
Even more than the love of women.
Even when I was growing up 20 years ago, things were different, but I remember thinking, well, that's, that's kind of strange. I'm not sure exactly what to, what to think of that. But here we know about Dave and Jonathan, two godly men. Umm, nowadays, I suspect, and I can't put myself into your position exactly, but I suspect there's a little bit of squirming going on. This seems a little strange, uh, nowadays. Well, that's because of something that happened in the 19th century. I told you I'm a history teacher, Umm, and I may go into some things that happened starting in the 1860s with the way we think about relationships between.
Human beings between men and women, between women and women, men and men and so on. But also especially, I don't think it's any secret that in the last really 10 years, five years, things have massively changed in this country about in the way we think of human relationships and especially, uh, human sexuality, physical intimacy between human beings. Uh, I don't think there's ever been a change so fast. Uh, the pollsters tell us there's never been a change in public opinion on a major issue in America as fast as the recent, uh, trends in what's called marriage equality, gay marriage, and so on. So I have the subject on my heart not to get to the bottom of it and to just provide us all with a lot of good arguments so that we can go out.
And, and, and fight the fight, umm, I do hope to talk about the scriptures, uh, that the, that we have in the Bible that tell us exactly, umm, what, how God sees these things, how we ought to react to them. But I think even more importantly, umm, there are some ways in which we Christians have accidentally absorbed some of the ways the world has, uh, been thinking about, umm, relationships, human relationships and especially intimate ones, physically intimate ones, uh, and marriage and so on. Umm, and I think it's important for us to see things in terms of God's categories and not in terms of the world. So even if we're still, umm, fighting the good fight, if we have the right biblical answers about what is sinful and what is not, and I suspect most people here do, although we're going to talk about just why we.
Where those answers are in the scripture, Umm, I think it's also possible for us to absorb ways of thinking from the world that are not right. And that, umm, maybe have distorted the way we think about, uh, we think about human relationships. So that's my subject. I told you it's going to be a little different, uh, from ones, perhaps you hear in most, uh, young people's meetings. Umm, that's why I want to think of this in a, in a little different way from a, from a typical meeting and more of, as a class where we talk about, we look about some verses, kind of wrestle with them together, uh, and, and have some, some time for questions and answers.
That's because.
Things have changed for you guys compared to when I was a kid, and I think they're going to be even more different from your children if the Lord leaves us here. When I grew up, when my parents grew up, we could take a lot of things for granted that we shared with the world. We shared with the world. Umm, basically the idea that, umm, same sex relationships were kind of just sort of icky. That's what it was. I'm going to call this the icky factor. In fact, growing up in, in school, umm, everybody, it didn't matter if you were a Christian or not. We just thought that was kind of strange.
Right, So, umm, people who are involved in a relationship with somebody of the same sex were either secret about it, you know, in the closet, as we say, or they lived out in really strange places like San Francisco, uh, or Provincetown on the, so that's the left coast, San Francisco and then on the East Coast province and some strange places. And, and they were weird, right? And on purpose, right to, to, you know, proud and, and all these other kinds of things, things, as you know, have changed greatly, but we could take things for granted in those days.
Umm, that we shared or thought we shared with the world that everybody felt a kind of natural distaste except for a few strange people. Uh, and I think to some extent we relied on those feelings. I never would have thought I'd have to have or that we'd have a meeting, uh, on something like this because things have changed radically even in the last 1015 years, right? The Defense of Marriage Act was passed when was in 1997. I think, uh, that's now basically been been overturned. So, uh, one of the reasons for having a meeting like this is because things are changing quickly in.
Our world, but again, I don't want this meeting to be just a, a, you know, where you get loaded up with a lot of ammunition so that we can go, uh, fight against the current fight. So that, that are out there. I want this to be a meeting where we look at the Bible, where we see what Jesus, uh, what God has to say in the scripture about these things and how that should guide our responses.
So I have, I think it's fair to say, umm, three goals and I'll get to those in a moment. But first I just want to stress the point I just made 20 years ago when I was growing up, as I said, we could rely on feelings, or at least it seemed like we could, that everybody just felt a sort of natural distaste for these. I want to say that's the wrong move. Yes, we do have consciences. Yes, I think there is a certain natural, uh, distaste for lots of sins. Many of the, many of us feel that for some obvious sins, murder and, and the big ones, umm.
00:10:19
And even people in the world share our distaste for things, umm, when it comes to the sorts of things I'm talking about today and you know, uh, minor children or lots of, there are lots of things where everybody in the world just feels, uh, a natural distaste. But let's not rely on that. We are all broken. Even we Christians, we have God's word to guide us. Uh, we have the Spirit of God to guide us, but our feelings will mislead us. If there's anything the last 10 years have taught us, it's that because it turns out that, uh, these feelings that seem like natural, umm, distaste or revulsion, they are determined by culture to some extent, they can be explained away. You guys are the subjects of an intense campaign to make sure you don't feel.
Revulsion and discussed about sinful things, right? Umm, some of us were just talking at breakfast about the latest, uh, big Disney movie, uh, Frozen, where one of the big songs for two minutes or so is just preaching this message of acceptance and tolerance. Umm, And this makes it an important issue for Christians, right? If not for you, even if you're clear about it, perhaps for your children if the Lord leaves us here.
One more reason for talking about this subject is this. I think it's a matter of, uh, very important for Christians when it comes to apologetics. And you know what apologetics means, just means defending, defending our faith. We have verses that say, umm, always be ready to give an answer, uh, for the hope that is in you, right? So we need to be ready to defend, not that we're going out there necessarily to debate people and so on, umm, but we need to be ready with answers. So it's a matter of apologetics and also of evangelism because the kinds of questions that are coming up now that I didn't hear when I was a kid, but now I'm hearing are things like, umm.
Why does God hate gay people?
Now there are answers for this by the way, umm, God does not hate gay people in case, uh, the meeting ends Now for some reason, umm, I want you to that, that that's a take away point. That is not the case at all. And we're going to look at the scriptures that show that to be the case. But this is how the world is presenting the world as you know, even better than I've been presenting this as, as, as a matter almost of civil rights. So that it's almost like racism was in the 60s or the 19th century and slavery and so on. And this makes it hard if we accept the way the world has framed this question.
This makes it hard to defend. Just imagine for a moment, umm, what I call in my history class is a counterfactual. That is, this is something that's not true, but it helps us to think with it. What if the Bible preached or there were some verses that supported white supremacy and it was in the Bible and it said white people are better and smarter and just inherently superior to any other people in the world, to people of color.
That would be kind of awkward. It would be hard, wouldn't, given what we know and so on. I don't want to go too far with this counterfactual because it's a horrible thing to think about and it's, of course it's not in there. Racism is not in the Bible. In fact, completely the contrary. The New Testament says in Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free, uh, male nor female, Jew nor Greek. I mean, it erases those kinds of definitions.
The people who, umm, campaigned against modern slavery were Christians above all. It was evangelicals who, uh, you know, who ended the slave trade first in England, uh, and then in America. So this is not the case. But imagine if it did. Because now that the world has cast this current debate we're having about sexuality and same sex relationships as something kind of like black people and white people or white supremacy. And so all these issues of racism, umm, it makes it hard to defend what the Bible really does say because unlike the issue of race, umm, which is really not even much of A category in the Bible, umm.
Sexual sin very much appears in the Bible, right? This is a very important issue and also not just sexual sin, but the right place of, uh, physical intimacy between human beings. This is an issue that's in the Bible. And so we need to see all the ways in which this is not like civil rights. That's one way to think about it. OK, So in order if your kids have questions, if you guys have questions, I think we need to have answers that are from scripture, uh, about this, both in terms of defending our faith to the world, but also for new Christians or for Christians who are young, who are growing up and seeing.
You know, I see that couple and yes, it's that my, you know, a kid in my class has two daddies, but they seem to be a happy family. Umm, I thought, you know, they were all supposed to be unhappy and horrible. And actually they seem a lot like us. There are people for whom this is now a challenge to their face because it seems like relying on our feelings and now seems like they're happy and they're just like us. Well, what we have to do to untangle this whole mess, and I'll stop introducing this in a minute, is to look at what the scripture actually says about these issues.
00:15:10
OK. All right.
Let's move on. If, uh, you're wondering, I, I have more notes than I usually would, uh, in a meeting like this. Umm, but that's because it's a kind of a hard topic and I want to make sure it's delicate. I want to make sure we get to, uh, a lot of the key points, umm, and I, and also to leave some time for, for questions. But above all, I do want to look at the scriptures, uh, and what the Bible actually says about this.
I think as I've said, we need to think in God's categories, not the world. So are there 2?
Outcomes that I hope, uh, result from this meeting in the next is going to kind of spill into the next meeting. One is practical help and advice, right? What are the scriptures that talk about this issue? Uh, and, and we'll get them. There are five, basically two in the Old Testament and three in the new that explicitly addressed this. And so you can write those down, memorize them if you like. Umm, but then also the practical questions to what happens if I have a friend at school who confides in me and says, you know, umm, uh, they're gay or something like that? Or what if, when you get older and you're, umm, at work and so on, What if you get invited to a wedding?
Right. And it's not the kind of traditional wedding that we're used to. There are lots of practical questions that I hope we might talk about and have answers to. At least the verses that we read and the things we talked about will help you have answers too. Umm, but then also there's this kind of broader, what I might call. So that's the practical side, but also the principles. And I think the principles are the most important because the practical issues are going to change. When I was growing up, there were different practical issues. There were people just living together, men and women mostly who were openly living together. And we had to learn how to wrestle and talk about that.
Now we have gay marriage is the big issue of the day. That's probably going to change. You can already see that it's changing toward we're hearing lots about other, you know, problems in the world. And so this is not a. My point is not to catalog all of the sins in the world and give us answers to them, but to see what the Bible says in terms of bedrock principles that we can use that will continue being true no matter what Satan brings up next. Yeah. And I think that's the, one of the most important things, uh, reasons why the Lord laid this on my heart.
All right.
The organization of what I want to talk about then is briefly this and most of this first meeting. Umm, so my bigger subject is actually physical intimacy, human relationships as a whole and especially intimate ones, but not just physically intimate ones, right? In other words, not just ones that involves sex. Umm, I want to talk about this problem of same sex relationships because it's out there, as I've mentioned, but also our view of marriage and God's view of marriage and the right place for all of this and how it works into the world in which we live now.
Uh, that would probably be the set of the, the, the, umm, subject of the second meeting of the Lord leaves us here. But then a third topic I think is just as important. And I hope it's going to be kind of interwoven in both of these. Umm, So first sort of same sex, uh, issues. Next, the way it should be marriage and God's idea, but also just as important singleness.
Being single, therefore being celibate is.
A valid option in the Bible, right? I think we all know that Paul talked about this in first Corinthians. Umm, it's OK. In fact, he says, I wish everybody were like I am and Paul was single. Umm, but I think this is thing something we don't talk enough about nowadays. Umm, possibly. Well, there are lots of reasons for this, but I want to talk about, umm, the, the possibility of having a fulfilled human life in relationship with God first and then with everybody else on earth. Umm, even if you're not married, right? Even if you never experience the kinds of, of things that we're going to be talking about, the Bible says not only is that OK.
It may in some cases even be better and you can have every bit as fulfilling a life, uh, on this earth and in anticipation of the next life as people who are married have children and so on. Singleness and celibacy, a very important theme in the New Testament, uh, not in the Old Testament so much, by the way, there really isn't much place for it. The reason that it's now, uh, if we like, not only a valid option, but when, uh, something that, that, uh, the Spirit of God speaking through Paul says is fine, if you're not married, don't get married. He says that we're going to read that in first Corinthians 7. Umm, he says if you are married, stay married. The reason is we have a New Hope.
We have a hope that the Jews didn't really know about. They've glimpse it dimly, you know, so Abraham looked for a city and so on. We have a hope and that is the hope of, uh, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ for us and also, uh, above all the time when God is going to make everything right. So we are living our lives in light of a hope, not in light of this world and it's passing joys and sorrows as we know, but in light of the next. And that changes everything. OK, so 3 subjects, but let's start now with.
00:20:11
What the Bible says.
Are you ready? 5 passages. These really are. Now, some of you may be able to find some more passages, uh, that aren't in my list, but I think these really are the five passages in the Bible that explicitly address the problem of same sex relationships, especially physical, physically intimate ones. And by the way, I meant to say it's about David and Jonathan. We don't need to squirm. It is in fact, one of the most beautiful relationships in the Bible. There's no hint that there's anything, uh, uh, uh, unseemly going on. It may, it seems like I saw Jonathan's father thought so, but he was just swinging insults. And we all know that Saul is not a very reliable person.
Uh, for this, uh, for this, in fact, uh, if you know, if it weren't for the last 150 years or so, I think we'd much be able, umm, much better to appreciate the beauty of this relationship between two godly men. It's possible, right? For the souls of two men who love the Lord, first of all, for their souls to be knit, knit together and not to have any of these sort of, you know, the world now assumes that anything like that has to involve, uh, you know, physical intimacy and other things. It's not true.
And the only reason that we think it's true, umm, is because of what some people have said in the last, you know, 100 years or so. And I fear that even some Christians have slipped into thinking that the only, truly the only way to have a truly close and intimate relationship with a person is also for it to, you know, be, be consummated in physical intimacy. Not the case at all. The Bible shows us that. So we're going to come back, I hope, to David and Jonathan at the very end. OK, so all the verses, Leviticus 18.
Is the 1St and then Leviticus 20 and I'm just going to look at these very quickly and then say something about all 5.
All right.
Leviticus 18. And really, if we were going to read, uh, the context is important and I don't want to read the whole thing, but it starts in verse six and starts to talk about, umm, the kinds of people it's, uh, and it talks a lot about not uncovering another's nakedness. In other words, this is referring to, as I think we all know, physical intimacy, umm, in short, sex. But if we go down, there's a whole list of things we could keep. Uh, you could keep reading from verse 6, go on and on. And we're still in verse 17 and we're not done yet. We're, uh, verse 18.
Verse 1920, there's your neighbor's wife adultery, Is there Verse 21, a little bit different. You're not supposed to sacrifice your children to, uh, Molech, a very, uh, common sin among the Canaanites. Finally, verse 22, here's the first reference in the Bible, Thou shalt lot, thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is abomination. So if you hear Christians, uh, and they're out there, even sometimes well meaning Christians saying, oh really, it's OK is just to kind of, as long as people love each other, it's OK.
It is abomination. Thou shalt not all right, we have a thou shalt not hear. And it's very, very clear. Let's look at the next example, Leviticus 20.
A similar, slightly different list.
Again, we have a long list starting with verse 10, a man that committeth adultery and so on with another man's wife, his neighbor's wife. The penalty, by the way, for this is death. Then we have, uh, uh, relative and what's commonly known as incest and so on, uh, a number of, umm, a number of prohibitions. And finally, uh, if we keep on moving, we have, let's see, verse 21.
Umm sorry, now I've missed the the actual umm.
13 Thank you guys. Umm if a man also lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Other things are listed here umm, as well. I wanted you to notice one thing it doesn't say in Leviticus or in the Old Testament, or indeed the whole Bible. It does not say.
Don't be gay. I'm going to have to be really careful about this because I'm not saying being gay is OK. What I'm saying is the Bible doesn't even think in those categories. The Bible says don't do this thing. Actresses don't do a lot of things, right? Umm, and this is a long list. That's one of the points. It does not say don't be gay. And I'm going to come back to that because you couldn't even say that in English or indeed in any other modern language until the 1860s. People didn't even have a concept of being gay or being a homosexual. And I'll come back to that. And it's very important. We Christians should not have that concept either. I don't think It's not in the Bible. It was invented in the 1860s, Uh, and it's only been strengthened since.
00:25:07
So keep your finger on that, umm, and, and I hope, uh, the recording doesn't accidentally stop now because I could be in trouble. Umm, you know, telling people that the Bible doesn't say that. But let's see what the Bible actually does say first. Umm, does anybody know, umm, what Jesus had to say about homosexuality?
Good answer, perfect.
Said that he talked about adultery a number of times as we know, and fornication. And fornication, by the way, is the Bible's word, especially in the New Testament for all sins of this nature outside of marriage. It's a general catch all word. It doesn't just mean, you know, before marriage, it means outside. OK, Umm, Jesus didn't say anything about it, which umm.
Just something I want to to stress at this point because he does talk about, uh, other problems in other sense. But where we do get it next is Romans chapter one, perhaps the single most important place in the Bible, umm, to talk about this. And I'll just mention it briefly. And then what I want to do is.
Look at it quickly and then we're going to come back because that really is the subject. That's, that's the passage I want to close on and look more closely, uh, at today.
Romans 1.
Says verse 26 for this cause, and we'll come back to what the cause was later. God gave them up into vile affections for even their women did change their natural use into that which is against nature. By the way, that's the only reference in the Bible to this kind of sin among women. Umm, but it's there. So that's, uh, that there's, there's no exception.
Uh, even though it talks more about men and likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their last one toward another men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat.
Now, this isn't part of a list in quite the same way as it is in Leviticus, just a kind of laundry list of, and I don't mean to make it flippant laundry. That's much more important than a laundry list. It's a very important list. This isn't part of a list right here. But if you look on, umm, to verse 29, we see that actually it is. It begins a list. And this is a very important passage that shows what happens to people when they stop worshipping God as God. These are all consequences of idolatry, all right. These are consequences of what I think we could call original sin, the fundamental human failure to recognize.
Who God is, even though we all have an idea of it in our hearts. What happens? A whole bunch of things. First he lists the sins, umm, in verse 26 and 27, which I've just stated. But then we have unrighteousness in verse 29. Fornication. There's that catch all word again, umm, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, debate, deceit and so on and so on. So there's a list here too. It's just part of the list. Next one, First Corinthians. So, umm, you're keeping these Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Romans 1.
1St Corinthians 6 and we're almost done with the list.
1St Corinthians 6 And by the way, when I talk about this list, and I say there are only 5, what I mean is our direct and obvious references to this thing. There are implications, many of you know, about Sodom and Gomorrah and what the men of Sodom, you know, they said bring out the men that we may know them and so on. So they're pretty obvious allusions to other things going on. But these are actual direct and explicit references in Scripture in which it's clearly listed as a sin and prohibited by God. That's what I mean by this list. There are other, umm, kind of implied ones in the Scripture that we won't get to today, although they're there. First Corinthians 6.
Verse 9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God. So, umm, I don't think I have to tell you what the words are there. The two words effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind both refer to.
Uh, uh, same sex relations between men. OK. And actually, what they much more accurately reflect are the divisions that the ancient world made. Nowadays, we make a division between, umm, what's usually called homosexuals and heterosexuals, gay and straight. You know these words, umm, we hear them almost every day. Umm, a laugh. There is no such categorization in the ancient world, whether in the Old Testament. I know more about the Greeks and the Romans because I study them. And even though the Greeks and the Romans were famous for these kinds of sins, they did not divide.
Uh, they did not say that person is gay and that person is not. They divided the world in this way into active and passive. All right. Umm, and that's what these two words mean. The first one just means passive and the next one means active. Umm, I won't go into all the details of what that means. The point is this, these categories are shifting and fluid. Umm, I think Satan has introduced all kinds of categories throughout history. Now we have a new set of categories. Uh, that's multiplying by the way. Umm, there are lots of initials you have to keep track of LGBTQ and it seems like you just keep adding.
00:30:22
Uh, to them, these are not God's categories, all right? Even though they're, uh, mentioned here. Umm, Paul just wants to state the basic problem, so he refers, uh, again, though, this is part of the list of things that are not, umm, associated with those who will inherit the Kingdom of God. OK, last one, First Timothy.
I have my.
Uh, second Timothy is where I was, right? OK. Umm, first Timothy verse eight, chapter one, verse eight. We know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. This is a really important passage because there's a, there's a sense in which it, it highlights, umm, those parts of the Old Testament law, maybe even the 10 commandments that are, uh, important and still, uh, have forced, I mean, all of them have force in a certain sense. Uh, but in a way, I think this looks back to the law, uh, and tells us some important things that remain important in God's eyes.
Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man players, for ************ for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men, stealers, for liars, for perjured persons. And if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. So here's the other thing. The department that depiled themselves with mankind. That's it. 5 references in the Bible that show clearly, unambiguously, you don't need to have debates about this. Uh, it's in the Bible that this is not part of God's order in fact, and in short, it's a sin.
OK, umm.
I want you to notice though, something about these verses, these verses all refer to actions. A sin is an action. A sin is not, umm, a temptation. A sin is not an orientation. You know, that's a word we hear a lot nowadays. What is your orientation? We don't discriminate on the basis of, of race, gender, religion, uh, and then now sexual orientation. The Bible does not condemn anyone as being sinful, uh, because of their initial.
Inclinations, OK, just like the Bible doesn't say you're a liar if you're tempted to lie, does it, Uh, if you're tempted to lie, uh, and you don't, are you a liar? No, of course not. You're a liar if you lie. It's very simple. But, but because of the way we now think of the category of, of, of homosexual and gay is, is referring to, uh, the tendency, regardless of what, of any actions that are taken, I think we've lost sight of it. It's exactly the same.
With the kinds of sins that we're talking about here, Umm.
God, sin is a matter of action. Now what the New Testament shows us that was newly revealed, I think especially to Paul that's different from the Old Testament, is that sins actually do emerge from a deeper part of us. It emerges from our inherent sinfulness. We sin, as I always used to hear when I was a kid and sometimes I got annoyed at this, but it's a great thing and true. Umm, we are not sinners because we send. We send because we're sinners. You ever heard that before? People still say that, right? Umm, what that means is we have an inherent sin nature that causes us.
Uh, to sin and the New Testament is what brings that out. Uh, you know, if we didn't have Romans, I think we wouldn't really know this, uh, very clearly. And I don't know that it was known very clearly in the Old Testament as well, although there's a sense of it. I think David had a pretty clear sense of this, Umm, and, and they knew about the depravity of their own hearts, but sin does emerge from the depravity of our own hearts. Still, these five passages all referred to actions, not to states of being right, not to identities.
That may not make much sense yet, but let's carry on and we'll try and explain, uh, explain it a little better.
The other thing I want to say about these five passages is that same sex relationships, and especially sinful and physically intimate ones appear in each case as part of a much broader list of of sexual and and often other sins, not just exclusively these kinds of sins. Homosexuality, as we call it, is not actually singled out, umm, as the single worst one of them all or worthy of special condemnation. Yes, it's an abomination and called unnatural and so on.
00:35:18
But it's also unnatural to hate your parents or to even dislike your parents or to tell a lie, remember, and beings and murdered wickednesses. There are, uh, lots of other sins in these lists and those are all unnatural in the sense that they are not what we were created for. If you think about, uh, what we were created for, to enjoy fellowship and communion with God before the fall, we were not created for sin of any kind. James says if, if we, uh, if you offend in any part of the law, you're guilty of all, OK.
So these sins are parts of a list. Now, Romans one might seem to be an exception because it really does seem to single out both men and women, uh, as a special consequence of what happens when people turn away from God. And that's why I want to end with Romans one. I think it's the key, uh, for understanding the principles here that we need. Uh, but we'll come back to that in a moment. For now, just note that the Bible that, that homosexual sins are part of a broader category of sins. They're, they appear in the midst of a list.
Always in the context of other sins too, so it's not the only one.
And by the way, the other sexual sins that are noted, and there are a lot more of them noted. If you, if you looked at Leviticus 18, there all the verses, one tiny little verse about this and a whole bunch about sins that we would call heterosexual, right? That we would call sins of quote UN quote straight people. So, umm, we are all sinners. This is the perhaps the single one of the most important points of this meeting and of the Scripture. We are all broken. So let's not use the categorizations of the world.
Which I think to some extent, uh, I don't know if this is true among the gathered Saints, umm, but I know certainly among evangelical Christians recently as a whole have sort of taken on the mantle of, of heterosexuality is right and homosexuality is wrong.
Well, you can see a sense in which they that that might be true, but actually there are lots of problems with all of us. What did Jesus say? We're going to turn to this, umm, he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, have committed adultery with her in his heart. We're all broken. All right. I think that's the first should be the first response of our hearts in very practical matters. If you're confronted, if somebody asks you a question, what do you think about this gay marriage thing or, or are you judging my lifestyle? All the sorts of questions that might come up. Remember first whether or not you say it to the person.
We are all broken. God be merciful to me, a Sinner. That's the response that Jesus praises. Remember what the other guy said, the Pharisee. So Republicans said God be merciful to me, a Sinner. That's the right answer. Remember what the wrong answer was.
Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men, right? Umm, which one do you think has been the more default position of many Christians recently, including maybe me and all of us? Lord, we thank thee we're not as other men. Those ones that live in San Francisco. Uh, no, that's not the Bible's response. The Bible's response is God be merciful to me, a Sinner. Yeah. Very important to keep in mind or else we are going to have a problem with our witness. We are going to seem like, uh, we're just condemning one whole class of people, umm, for their temptation or for or for everything else? No, we.
The Bible condemns all of us and then it offers all of us salvation. All right, you know this already, but this is an issue. I think it's easy to lose sight of, uh, in this, in this particular subject.
So actions, not types.
As I said, and I, I would love to do a little more of this history because I'm just interested in the way that, uh, in the way ideas like this developed. You'll have to take my word for it and I can talk more about this, uh, question and answer some other time. The word homosexual was invented in the 1860s. Nobody, uh, had ever used such a word before. And you may wonder, well, wait a minute. Umm, we know there were sins like this before the 1860s. After all, they're in the Bible and we know the Greeks and the Romans were famous or infamous for them And, and umm, yeah, there were sins for it, but you know, the words that people used only referred to the actions.
This is true even in the laws that were passed in this country, uh, against these, these kinds of activities. They just said you're not allowed to do this. And the people who did, just like somebody who lies is called a liar or somebody who murders is called a murder. People who did these kinds of actions, uh, were called after, uh, after their actions. The usual word using the biblical word was, was sodomite. But don't worry about that. The point is nobody said. And there's a key difference between that and the invention of the word homosexual because homosexual, gay, all of these words refer to.
00:40:05
Uh, kind of fundamental aspect of identity. That's what the world wants you to think that this is core to who you are. It's just as important as whether or not you're male or female. Of course, they don't even want you to think that you're male or female. Umm, but they want this to be a core aspect of human identity. Nobody had ever thought like that until the 1860s. I think it's one of the greatest, umm, victories that Satan ever made is to turn this into an issue of core identity that doesn't just affect this one aspect of your life. A temptation to which you can assent or say no.
Which is how other temptations are for all of us. Umm, but actually says something about who you are and effects every single part of your, of your existence. Christians, I'm afraid, at least in some cases, have bought into this. And those of us who aren't subject to this temptation have thought, well, umm, at least I, I thank the Lord that I am not as other men. It's a temptation. I think something we need to tell our kids, to tell each other, uh, and to remind ourselves the 1St place we belong is what we started in the meeting with.
Last night on our face before God let him do the talking. Yeah. Umm. So.
The result of the invention of this term. And then there's one other major thing that happened in the 19th century, which I just have to mention because it's important. Some of you will have heard of Sigmund Freud. In fact, I think everybody has heard of Freud and Freudian. And another thing that the 19th and early 20th century did is make everything in the world about sex, right. It's, it's what you might call the, the sexualization of everything. Umm, you know, it's one of the reasons we can't read David and Jonathan, the beautiful story of David and Jonathan anymore without kind of squirming or thinking there must be something else going on. People didn't used to think like this. And actually, most people even in the world have discounted it. Freud and thought, you know, he's the one who invented, you know, issues in neuroses. And he also said that most of these things happen, you know, when you're a child or a baby and that, you know, everything we do for the rest of our life is somehow related to these, you know, twisted experiences we have when our kids.
He had no good basis for this, by the way. He just made it up, and most people in the world actually recognized this too. But these categories are still with us. That's why the world thinks we're being naive to read the story of David and Jonathan and not see what the real truth of it is. But that's a lie, guys. This is not the, uh, the highest and most important aspect of human existence. The Bible doesn't present it that way. In fact, quite the contrary. OK, so those are the two really big things that we as Christians, I think, have to be at least aware of. You don't have to go study Freud. In fact, I'd advise you don't.
Nor do you have to go study the history of the invention of the concept of homosexuality to know this. But we should know that these are categories that the world has invented and that we don't need to adopt. OK, Umm, they're not in the Bible.
All right.
So let me just, I've already stated, uh, kind of the basic position, umm, against the category why Christians should reject this binary category of gay and straight, homosexual and heterosexual on either side. Let me just be a little more systematic about the reasons, uh, why we should reject this category. First, it's not in the Bible.
Alright, that, that's, that's very important for us. This category of dividing the world into two, uh, between gay and straight according to the object of your orientation or your primary desires is not in the Bible. That's really enough. But there are some other reasons I think why we need to be careful of this into rejection. Uh, in fact, and this is number 2, it actually distorts the real biblical categories. The real binary on this issue of physical intimacy in the Bible is between people who are married.
A man and a woman who are married, let's say an unrelated man and woman who are married because the Bible, uh, well, uh, the Bible talks about that too. Umm, and everybody else, right? Those are the two kinds of sin there. There's uh, uh, sexual activity inside of marriage, which is fine. Good. The Bible calls it good. Umm, and then there's everything else. That's the biblical category. All right, keep that in mind. It's not between the way the world wants to divide things.
And within that, everything else, the Bible actually recognizes multiple sins, multiple distortions and perversions, uh, you know, and, and they're in there because we are broken people.
#3 The third reason we should reject this, I think, is that it actually simplifies a much more complicated reality. So it's not just that it simplifies the way the Bible presents it or the biblical rules, but actually it's true. And we know, umm, that people and their desires change all the time. I mean, even the world has started to recognize this, that actually this division of the world into two kind of black and white binary division, this doesn't work either. So this is another reason why we get a multiplication of, uh, letters, why it isn't just.
00:45:14
L&L&G anymore, but LGBTQ and so on. Umm.
You know, this, this is a, this is a fact of human existence. We are all broken in various ways. It's also known that people change over time. Umm, you know, adolescents experience things in a certain way and it may change later in life and so on. So this actually distorts the way people really are.
It's increasingly recognized by the world, uh, just as an example. In fact, some of you may may know that the, uh, current wife of the mayor of New York, the progressive kind of left wing mayor of New York, umm, used to be, uh, in a relationship with a woman, right? Umm, so things change. These are not categories. These categories that the world has, at least until recently, asked us to adopt are not real.
4th If we use this these categories of the world, I think we end up with a distorted emphasis on impulse and temptation instead of actions, on temptation instead of sin. Remember this, the Bible says Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin, it is not a sin to be tempted.
Right now, James gives us a very clear, umm, account of how temptation turns into sin. All right. In fact, maybe we should look at that in the first chapter of James.
Uh.
James one verse 13 says, let no man say when he attempted, I intended of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil. Uh, neither tempt to see any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. So there's clearly a process here. We are all broken people who have been redeemed. I hope if you've trusted in the Lord Jesus.
Uh, we're in the process of being sanctified. That is God is making us clean and whole, uh, again, but we still live in bodies of death. Umm, we are looking forward to, uh, a bright future, but we are all still tempted. The Bible says we are not, uh, you know that even none of us are without sin even now. So we are all still tempted, but there is deliverance, all right. So, uh, the sin happens when temptation has, uh, borne fruit, has conceived. There is a moment there when we can be delivered. And this is true of all sins, not just the sin that I'm talking about today.
OK, there is deliverance. The Bible teaches that very clearly. He has made a way of escape, as in Corinthians as well.
Do we call everyone, as I've said before, who's tempted to steal a thief regardless of whether or not, uh, he or she does? No, of course not. That's not what the Bible says. In fact, what Jesus said to the woman taking an adultery, remember what he said? Uh, neither do I condemn the condemnation there refers to a legal contact, I think, but he said go and send no more.
OK, umm, go and send no more now. Umm, he also then made it possible for us. He gave us the Spirit and then to the sacrifice of himself gave us the Spirit, a new life that makes it possible for us to overcome sin. It's not really, it's not possible for those who don't have the life giving power of the Spirit working in their own hearts, uh, in the same way to, uh, overcome these sins. And remember this other thing to, uh, even the plowing of the wicked is sin.
All right, so the, the, the, uh, people, even if they seem to overcome, uh, sins, even if non Christians do, if they're not doing it in faith and in relation to the God who created them.
Uh, even that is simple, so let's just keep this in perspective.
Another reason, and I really will finish this up and then we'll get to Romans one and we'll be done. Another reason for rejecting, uh, the binary is one that I've said, and that's the temptation to pride to thinking that, oh, just because I don't suffer from this temptation. I mean, there are a number of temptations that through no fault or glory of my own, I just am not tempted by, right? Umm, I am really not tempted by olives, all right. And I'm not sure how many people in the world are sinfully tempted by olives, but, umm, my wife might be one of them. She really likes olives, OK, but it's no glory for me that I don't actually like olives. Umm.
00:50:03
Uh, and so on, Some people have other temptations, uh, whether it's, uh, addictions, alcohol, any number of things. People are constitutionally, you know, umm, umm, tempted by them in ways that I may not be. I'm not tempted by gambling either, right? Or, umm, other things. I don't, I don't, I don't have the gene, but that doesn't mean that I'm better. I have, believe me, plenty. And in fact, as we heard last night, and I'm very glad that this point was brought out so, so well by Stephen in the meeting last night.
I don't even know my own heart. My heart is so broken and desperately wicked. You know, it says in the Scripture, who can know it? And the answer isn't only me and God. I think the answer is only God. We don't even know the depths of, uh, the temptations in, uh, in our own hearts. So God is the one who provides a way of escaping. So let's not go around being proud and just condemning all those.
Uh, uh, homosexuals. Think first. God been merciful to me, a Sinner, OK?
There's one other thing that I've mentioned, and that's the temptation to elevate even, umm, physical intimacy within marriage. Way to make it more important than I believe it really is. But I'm going to save that for the next, uh, for the next meeting. When we look at First Corinthians six and seven in God's view of the real place of physical intimacy and marriage with his within his overall scheme. So I'll just leave that one for, uh, for the moment. Now, let me just make a few caveats and I want to say first, in other words, things that, uh, I hope you don't take away from what I'm saying here.
1St, I'm not denying the Bible does not deny, I think that same sex desires are real. These are real temptations for people. Umm, and you know, I know there's been a tendency among Christians to to, you know, find easy answers and say it's only just people whose, you know, don't have a father in the home or whose father it's, it's probably not the case. All right, just like many of us are subject to many sins. Umm, these are real for some people. And it's also not true, by the way, that people choose these.
I know this is something that a lot of Christians say people choose to be, uh, homosexual. It's actually, when you think about it, it's, it's not a very logical choice. Uh, even nowadays it condemns you to, umm, you know, a life of, you know, some, some pain, umm, even as we're growing so more accepting and so on. It's not, it's not a happy way to be, umm, you know, you're limiting the pool of available partners actually pretty significantly. Umm, so these are real. I'm also not denying that these are very hard things to struggle against, even though I've never struggled against it personally and perhaps nobody here.
Actually have umm, but the most reliable numbers out there done by uh, uh, Christians and others suggest that in the case of men, perhaps 3234 percent of uh, of men report exclusively desires for other men. We're all broken, all right? There are, there are other problems to which many of us are subject to about the same numbers for women. So they seem to hold true across cultural, umm, and other kinds of umm, umm, other kinds of categories. So.
These things are real, and they're real among Christians, too. That's not pretend.
That they aren't all right, just like when you become a Christian, you don't instantly stop, uh, if you're an alcoholic, you don't instantly stop desiring drink, right? You don't instantly quit lying. Uh, or if you're a Christian and you've struggled with lust of the more traditional kind that doesn't instantly go away either. No, we are all subject to these problems. So this is a very, it's a real temptation. Uh, and I believe they're also hard to deal with like any number of others.
I'm also not denying that the Bible condemns these, and I hope that's been clear. The Bible clearly condemns these, uh, these sins in a very clear way. But what I want to say above all is that the Bible's categories are quite simple. I've already said that there's marriage and what's allowable in marriage, and then there's everything else that's just on the categorization of, of sexual sin and what's allowed and so on. But you know what the more important category is in the Bible? It's between sinners.
And one person, there's only one man, whoever lived who is not a Sinner, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus came to this earth as the new Adam, as the second Adam, he redefined what it means to be human.
OK, and he living after his example of perfection, even in the face of being attempted at all points like because we are yet without sin, he provides the example for us. But the Bible's category is basically Jesus and everyone else, and we are all sinners. Now within that big category of sinners, there are two more important categories. There are those who have been redeemed and justified and are in the process of being sanctified, of being made ready for, umm, our new bodies, for the Kingdom of God and for being with.
00:55:07
Christ as part of his bride. And then there's the world, those who are not yet saved. Those are the important categories, guys, not US versus them in terms of whatever the sin of the day is, right? Umm, that's what we, that's the message we should continually be preaching. We don't go out to the world and try and hound them to stop doing, you know, stop drinking and gambling or, and, uh, even lying and all those things. We tell them what we know ourselves and we begin with ourselves. We're all sinners.
All right, umm, that's the basic, uh, message of the Scripture. So to look at the big picture, let's just close with Romans chapter one, turn back to Romans.
Romans one, starting with verse 18 is the story of salvation, and we aren't going to have time to get into all the details. Perhaps we'll pick up, uh, with this in the next meeting, but I want to get started. It says the wrath of God in verse 18 of Romans one is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and unrighteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse. And here's when we get to the story. It's almost like.
Umm, this is a, how should I say, it's almost like a theological picture of the fall of man. It's not the sort of historical story that we get in Genesis, but this explains the kind of fall of the human heart. And, and, and in some ways the, it's, it's a way of thinking about, I think the original, uh, the original sin because that when they knew God, that's people, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
And change the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible man and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things. In other words, they started worshipping idols instead of the God whom they knew to be, uh, the one true God. And then that's when.
We got broken, uh, or, or, uh, we can see the, the results of that. Wherefore God also verse 24 also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves who changed the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen For this 'cause God gave them up unto vile affection for even their women, uh, and so on. And then the men in the next, uh, verse. But then it doesn't stop there. Even though this kind of thing same sex scene was viewed by the Jews, uh, and would have been viewed by Paul is sort of the.
Paradigm sin of the Gentiles, right? Umm, this is what they when they thought about Greeks and Romans, and for pretty good reason, to be honest. This is the one they thought of because it was sort of like the headline Marquis and but what?
God, the Spirit of God is saying here, and what Paul is saying is not that this is the worst thing there is and all the rest of the things are OK. Umm, no. He goes on to specify all of the things that occur as a result of this fall. Uh, all unrighteousness starting in verse 29, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, uh, maliciousness, and so on. We get down to whispers back, fighters just being proud. All of these things are the result of the phone. If we were to continue reading in Romans here in this first chapter, I think Paul's really zeroing in on Gentile sins or what are stereotypically Gentile sins.
Then he gets to the Jews, and he's just as hard on the Jews too, right? Abraham what? What does Abraham learn? And we all know what the climax of these first three chapters are. Romans 323 someone.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, fortunately, that's not the end. Fortunately, Romans also says this if we turn ahead to uh, chapter 6.
Actually, let's go to Chapter 8 because we're, we'll be, we'll be done. Uh, now, umm.
Well, no, I'm, I'm sorry. We'll get to that next time. Romans 7, chapter 24. O wretched man that I am, says Paul, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. It's hard guys. Umm, it was hard even for Paul. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Chapter 8. Therefore there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And I think we all know the rest of that verse, to the rest of the verse doesn't belong there. There is therefore now no condemnation.
Whether or not this is a sin that you struggle with, that your friends struggle with, that you know other Christians that struggle with you are not your sin.
01:00:06
You are not your temptation. Don't let the world turn this into anti identity. It's a problem. There are many problems. It is not an identity that shapes everything else about you and who you are. If you don't suffer from this, then umm, but you suffer from another. You shouldn't be identified with that either. We are in Christ now. The struggle of making that real in our lives is a real one. And we get lots of practical instruction in the rest of scripture about how to live like the justified people that we are. And I hope to talk a little bit more about that, uh, in the next meeting when we'll also turn to, umm, God's view of marriage. This has been kind of negative, perhaps, umm.
But that's how the Bible is. It tears us down first because that we need to be on our face if we're going to learn anything, uh, from the God who speaks like he spoke to Abraham. That's right.
Our God and Father, we give thanks for clear instruction for, umm, your word, which gives us truth that ring true and are still just as true now, uh, 2000. And in many cases, well more than that years later, uh, than they were written. We just give thanks that they can speak to our hearts. And we pray for the young people in this new, uh, difficult world in which they're living, in which evil seems to be ever more apparent. We just pray that you give them, uh, wisdom, uh, strength and understanding from your word, uh.
And we just ask for a blessing upon your word as it goes forth and has gone forth this morning. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
Reputation
YP Talk—Stephen Rule
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I'll jump the gun for something a little bit later while the last few were coming in. Anyone doesn't have a writing implement? Mind raising your hand and I'll try to get you a one to borrow.
OK, let's begin with, uh, speaking to the Lord.
Dear Lord Jesus, we just give thanks for the tremendous privilege we have of speaking with thee and listening to. We ask that each of us would gain, uh, gain in our hearts, gain in our lives, and take with us. We'll bring more glory and honor to thee. This basket, Lord Jesus, in thy name, Amen.
Uh, before we get going, for the benefit of our memories or for those that weren't here yesterday, I wanted to review real quickly what we did last night. We talked about the fear of God and character. Character, at least for the definition I gave for the purposes of last night and tonight, is how God sees us. That's our character. So God sees us. There are things that we gain when God is at the center of our thoughts and we're in the fear of God.
All the day long, there are four things that we gain. There's lots more than that. Before we talked about last night, Help me out Wisdom was one of them.
With, umm, courage.
Intimacy.
One more when we squeeze in at the end integrity.
And we looked at examples from God's Word on those.
So I will look at the other side of things. Thank you very much. We'll look at the other side of things, the fear of man. The fear of man has to do with our reputations. At least that's the aspect of it we'll talk about. When we are putting other people, not God, at the center of our thoughts, what they have to think about us is our reputation. What God has to think about us is our character. So tonight we're going to look at the other side, What other people?
Have to think about us if we put that and really it's putting man and his thoughts in the middle. If we put that in the middle, we are going to end up with loss and look at four or five things that we may lose when we put other people's thoughts of us at the center.
And then there'll be a little caveat, little disclaimer at the end so that we don't get the idea that doesn't matter what anybody thinks about me, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. That's not the point. The point of it is having God at the center and all that we truly gain and bring for His glory versus having man's thoughts at the center of our thinking.
Umm, let me just say that I said yesterday, I want to say it again too, though. This is, this is something that it's subject having a fear of man, at least for myself and I truly believe for probably everybody in the room. It's just so sneaky. It's everywhere. It's it, it just seeps into our thinking so naturally that it's something that we need to be aware of, not to look at the negative side of things, but just to be aware of, to allow the Lord to work on, to work it out on us. Let me give you an example.
I left, uh, earlier this afternoon and, umm, went to grab these poster boards in Carrollton and as I was driving there on the way, I saw a, uh, beautiful little covered bridge. Uh, that'd be nice to take a picture of. I have a camera on the back seat. When I'm coming back, I'll take a picture of it. So I get coming back to the picture of I'd even looked ahead of time. Let's see, is there a good place to park there? Looks like there's a good place to park. So gotta pull into the parking space and I looked ahead carefully. I glanced around. Doesn't say no parking, doesn't look like it's somebody's driveway. Looks like a nice little public parking strip. I pull in. There's a guy on a motorcycle shop.
He's up the hill looking down, trying to figure out what's the first thought that probably went through my head. Of course, I don't have the fear of man, right? So I immediately going through the checklist making sure, am I, am I OK? What's he thinking? Is this all right? Am I, am I allowed to be here? The first thought is it's, it's good to be thoughtful of others, right? In a positive sense, it's good to be thoughtful of others for the Lord's sake, for his glory and so on. But I was worried what he thought of me.
So that's the kind of thing it just seeps into our thinking so, so easily, umm, that it's not to become introspective. We'll look at examples in the word of God of how we lose out, but how we can grow and how God works on us and helping us to grow in those areas. One more thing on reputation before we get going.
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Can anybody here give me a verse in the word of God that proves conclusively beyond the shadow of it out that no matter what you do?
No matter how perfectly you act, you can lose your good reputation, you can lose what man thinks of you.
OK, I'm gonna come. That's how we're gonna finish with that verse. That's Proverbs 2925 ish. Uh, that it shows that the fear of man is completely wrong. In fact, I'll put it down here. Proverbs I think I've ever written down over there. Helped my memory. 2925. Yeah, 2925. I'll add it to the bottom.
This is different when I was thinking of.
Turn to Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 53.
Oh, first four, surely, first four, surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Who's the verse talking about?
Jesus Christ.
These people, in the proper context, are Jews that are waking up to the fact that they crucified their Messiah and they're reflecting back on it and saying.
We thought he was.
We didn't seem him stricken, smitten of God. Let's see, where did it go? I'm sorry again, we did a theme him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. We thought that all those troubles he had was because God wasn't happy with him. Nothing could have been farther from the truth, right but his reputation among the ungodly Jews at the time.
Was of somebody that was under God's judgment because look what's happening to him.
So trying to keep our reputation isn't something we ought to do with man. If we live before the eye of God, we may have a good reputation.
But trying to manage and and massage and and work it out so that people think nicely about us is it's a losing cost. Let me give you a little story to illustrate it.
How many people here, I think there's one or two, ever met a brother from Bolivia called Avellino Chavez? He's with the Lord now. Just got two of us. All right. Got two of us. And then Avelina Chavez. Avelina Chavez was a brother that had the only, well, not the only. There's a gift called the Discerner of Spirit. And of all the people I've ever met, he had a greater measure of that gift than anyone I've ever met. That means just he'd sit down with you, chat with you for 15 minutes, and he knew exactly where you were.
Spiritually, because he had that gift and he would travel around in Bolivia with the different assemblies, he would get to know people. And uh, he came back home one time and he saw a whole bunch of little chickens, a couple dozen little baby chickens in the side yard of his house.
And so he said to his wife, he knew his wife very well, obviously.
Said his wife. Uh, whose chickens are those?
Oh, she said, they're they're my chickens. I bought them. I'm gonna raise them up. We're gonna get eggs and we're gonna get meat. And said, are Are you sure those are your chickens? Oh, yeah, those are my chickens. Yep, they're my chickens. And he said, oh, well, that's fine then You take good care of your chickens. Now, if those were God's chickens, he'd take care of his chickens. But those are your chickens. You take good care of those chickens.
And within about a week, a couple of them drowned. They had heavy rains there. It was the, I think it was the city of Montero. It was in the jungle area. Uh, but they had heavy rains and a couple of chickens drowned. Predator came under the fence and grabbed a couple more of the little ones. Some of them left under the fence themselves. And in less than two months, she had no chickens. They were gone. She was busy taking care of her chickens and they were gone. Her husband said that if there are God's chickens, he'd take care of them.
Uh, it's the same with reputation. You're busy, say, if I'm busy taking care of my reputation, I'm gonna lose it because my focus is on somebody else's thoughts. But if we're busy taking care of God's reputation among others, what they say about them representing Him, we're acting for him, He's at the center of our thoughts and our plans, then he's perfectly well able to take care of all the rest of it. So it's a question of what's in our focus.
Let's look at the first example in Genesis chapter 32.
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I am so glad, so thankful.
That's the story of this man is in the Bible. In fact, I noticed recently in reading through, uh, the book of Genesis that his story spans a longer range of chapters than anybody else in the book. Every wonderful things about Abraham. There's lots about Abraham, but Genesis 32 Covers the story of.
Jacob.
Part of the story of Jacob and Jacob starts, if you go from the first chapter, the last chapter is mentioned. There is a bigger range of chapters about Jacob, and I didn't count verses and all that to describe his life and just about anybody else. I'm afraid for some of us, at least, our lives match a little more carefully, a little more closely with Jacobs than with some of the others in the book, like Abraham or Joseph. But I want to notice some things and some of the things that Joseph, I'm sorry, Jacob lost.
We'll just read a few verses here.
Uh, maybe you need a little context, Jacob.
Why did he leave home?
We'll spend more on this example than any of the others. Why did Jacob leave home?
Favor's brother.
He uh.
Told a lie, acted a lie, lived a lie, participated with mom and a lie, Got what he was looking for and made his brother angry, right? And so he left home, and on his way out the door, the Lord spoke to him.
In the book of Genesis, when's the next time he gets spoken to by the Lord, you know?
20 years later when it's time to come home.
20 years later as the next time God speaks to Jacob as recorded in the book, and he's ready to come home and he's coming home and he's obviously thinking about his brother. And so verse three, Genesis 32, verse 3, Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau's brother unto the land of Seer, the country of Edom. And the messengers come back in verse six, return to Jacob saying, we came to thy brother. He saw and also.
He cometh to meet thee, and 400 men with him.
Take a pad is I'll call them four wives, wives and concubines. Here there's four wives. He had 11 Kids.
What's the oldest of his kids at most?
Yep, Ruben's the oldest. Any idea how old Reuben was?
This is this is simple math. I I like to do this when I'm looking at. I like to be able to see in the context of scripture who these people were, how old they were, and put them in their relation. It just helps to.
Recognize these are real people. It's been there 20 years. How long did it take before his first wife, Leah? 7? So how? The oldest of his eleven kids.
OK, 12 because she got married after seven. If she waited nine months, we'll say they're 12:00-ish. He's got eleven of them. Phantom is not born yet, so he has a 12 year old. If you're going to put one per year, he's got a 12 year old, 11 year old, 10 year old, 9 year old, 8 year old, 7 year old, 6 year old. He's got a little family, right?
His oldest is 12. There's eleven of them, four wives, some servants and all kinds of cattle.
His brother's coming with what we just read it. 400 men. You know how many men Abraham took when he went to against Cheddar, Leomer and the other 3 kings that were with him? Same book grandpa Abraham took.
318 real close, 318 men, and I don't know, there were some neighbors. Those 318 raised in his own household may have been a little bit bigger, but Jacob lived in tents with Abraham and Isaac says so in Hebrews 11. So here comes my brother Esau. He's a hunter. He's a man of war. I've been afraid of him. I ran away from him and he's coming with 400 men. That's more than my grandpa took to defeat 4 kings. I'll just send my sons out against them all. Let's see, the 12 year old will put him in. No, it's not going to work very well, right?
The circumstances, to the eye look pretty bad. Let's look at two other verses. Turn back to Genesis, the beginning of the story of Jacob. Genesis is at 20.
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27.
No, I'm gonna go back a little bit earlier. Uh, Genesis 25.
Genesis 25 Before Jacob is born, listen to what God says. Verse 23 And the Lord said unto her, that is, to his mother Rebecca, two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy mouth, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. And other days to be delivered were fulfilled, and so on.
Before Jacob was born, what did God say?
Was Esau going to get to kill him?
No, the older is going to serve the younger. Has it happened yet? No. When he meets these 400 men, God says there's no way you're going to die.
He's going to serve you.
Now, how fresh do you think that promise would be in his heart and mind when he hears about these 400 men coming? I'm very fresh, right? But that's what God said. Let's back up just a chapter from Genesis 32. So go back. I think it's Genesis 31. This is when he gets called back and.
Umm.
Verse Genesis 31 Verse.
13.
I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointed the pillar, That's when he was leaving the land the first time, and he received a promise from God directly. And where thou vowest avow unto me, now arise, get thee out from this land and return unto the land of thy kindred when he was leaving. I guess we need to back up to that promise too. Give the full context. When he was leaving the land, Umm, God says to him verse 15 of chapter 28, and this is 28, verse 15.
Or even more Umm, we'll read from verse 13.
And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, the God of Isaac, the land whereon thou lieth to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. And thy seed shall be at the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad, to the West and the east, into the north and to the South, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee. We'll pause right there.
That's what God said to Jacob 20 years before. Now he just finished saying go back. So before he's born, God says your older brother will serve you 20 years before God says, I will be with thee and give them this huge and beautiful promise and we won't have time. There was nothing in it that depended on Jacob. Jacob immediately made a covenant with God afterwards, but God's promise was God's promise. Now God says go back. So put yourself there.
The promise before you're born, Promise 20 years ago and fresh instruction from God to go back.
But in front of you, there's a message. Your brother's coming with 400 men of war. Who do you listen to?
OK. So we haven't been physically in that circumstance.
Umm, jumping and going back to last this morning when Greg was speaking, somebody comes to you and says, so what's wrong with my lifestyle?
OK, the appropriate response will get, I'm sure, much more on tomorrow. But all I'm saying is in that circumstance, there's a right way to respond, there's a right spirit to respond and so on. But I can sit there and think what you can think of me if I say this, What's he going to think of me if I say that? Or I can say, what would God want me to say?
Do I have God's word on it? Can I say it in God's way? There's a simple practical circumstance where we're often caught in between. What's he gonna think of me and what does God think of the matter?
So here's what Esau does. Tell me if you recognize this behavior. Here's what Esau does.
00:20:03
He Chapter 32.
For seven then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, and two bands, and said, If he thought, come to the one company and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape.
Come to the next chapter, we're gonna jump back to chapter 32, but move forward briefly to no, it's further down in this chapter. Sorry. Further down in chapter 32 it says verse 13. Any logs there that same night and took of that which came to his hand, a present for Esau, his brother. 200 she goats and 20 he goats, 200 ewes and 20 Rams, 30 milk camels with their Colts, 40 kind and 10 bowls, 20 shiases and 10 foals. And they delivered them into the hand of his servants. Every drove by themselves and said unto his servants, Passover before me and put a space betwixt drove and drove and gives careful instructions to his herders.
So what's he do?
Do you think somebody is mad at you?
You figure out how to deal with the situation, right? So Jacob does it up, right? He has one huge gift, send somebody up front with that huge gift. Then he sends another huge gift so that Esau can see the first one and be impressed, right? And then he can receive the second one and be impressed, and the third one and the 4th one and the fifth one.
How many people have ever done something like that?
Wow.
Only a few of us.
Umm.
I think that just simply means I haven't explained it well enough yet.
Because if I explain it properly, I think we'd be at least at 80% here. Umm.
OK.
So you think your mom or your dad are not very happy with you and you would like to change that circumstance, not because they have a legitimate reason, etcetera, etcetera. It's just because it's a little uncomfortable for you on those circumstances. So maybe for the first time ever on after for the first time in a month on ask you get busy doing the dishes.
How many have done something on that order? Uh, OK, I've explained it a little better. Uh, that's what Esau is doing on a grand scale because Esau has gotten his brain. I'm sorry, that's what Jacob is doing on a grand scale because he, he, Jacob has in his brain Esau, his brother. And all he can see is Esau and what Esau can do and what he saw is like, and what he saw has. So he's going to take what he has and make sure that it comes out OK for him.
Oh, in between.
He did this in between, umm, that night.
Let's see.
Oh yes, in between verse 9, Jacob said, Oh God, and my father Abraham and God and my father Isaac the Lord, which saith unto me, return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee. I'm not worthy at least of all the mercies and of all the truth which thou showed unto thy servant. For with my staff I Passover this Jordan, and now I become two bands. Well, you know what, I'm thankful, Jacob prayed. And no matter what we are and where we are in this spectrum of fearing what people think or what God thinks.
Jacob prayed.
And then Jacob got real creative and got real busy and was very anxious, says it said it in verse 7, Greatly afraid and distressed.
Ever been greatly afraid and distressed about people things?
How many have been greatly afraid and distressed about people things? Yeah.
I sure have.
In it is a sense of our inability to meet the circumstances, and probably not a very good sense of God's ability to meet them.
That's Jacob at this moment.
But I want to show you something here that I think is Absolutely Fabulous. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I was reading in this last week. At the end of this chapter 32, it says Jacob wrestles with the Angel, right? I'm gonna assume we all know the story. You know, it's time to go through it. And so we're just going to read the conclusion.
He wrestles with the Angel and verse 25 and when he saw that he prevailed not against them. That is, the Angel prevailed not against him, meaning Jacob. He, the Angel touched the hollow of his Jacob's thigh. The hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. Here's what I enjoyed with that.
00:25:20
Angel represents God. He's wrestling with Jacob, says the Angel wrestled with Jacob, right? Wasn't Jacob wrestling with the Angel in the prior verse? God wrestles with him and God's working with you and God's working with me in our life, and we're just not getting it. Or maybe we get a little bit because Jacob prayed, right?
One touch of the angel's finger and what happened with Jacob?
Just.
If I went out of joint, I think the thigh muscle, the thought is if you're going to lift the heavy weight and I can use your tongue and I can do an arm curl, you're not going to do a bench press. The heaviest weight to lift with your legs, right? The thigh muscle is your biggest leg muscle, right? Are the muscles in the thigh together. Taken together, they're the most powerful natural strength you have. One touch of the power of God can take it away like that.
When God was wrestling with Jacob, it wasn't that Jacob was a very fit herdsman and he could handle this Angel. That's not the thought at all. The thought is God wasn't using his power to squash him.
He was working with him in grace.
And God doesn't use his power to squash us when we're not getting his lesson. And we're slow to learn to not look to other people to decide about whether this is right or not, but to look to God. He doesn't.
See that you're feeling was sitting down on a rock or outside during your quiet meditation time? How many of you had a little bug start to wander across your page or your leg or your OK, I won't ask you what you did, but if you took your power and took to your finger and you went like that and launched it, that was it for the bug, right?
If God were to take his power because you or I weren't getting the lesson He's trying to teach and they were used as power, that ours would be gone like that. But God wrestles with us in grace.
To produce the end that He wants. And if the Lord is working with you in your life, as He is with me in my life on any of these things, let's be thankful to Him that His power is there to give us maybe just enough shake up, just enough trouble to bring out the lesson He wants to bring out, but not to destroy us.
If they are to wrestle with us in grace, well, the first thing that we lose, and there's so much more in the life of Jacob, I would love to keep going.
Umm, but I want to move on here. The first thing we lose is you could look at a lot of different ways, but I'll read one more verse, maybe to make the point in the next chapter. Verse three, Genesis 33, verse 3, This is Jacob. He passed over before them and vowed himself to the ground seven times until he came near to his brother.
I will say the first thing we lose, although you could look at a lot of different things.
Check was.
A man who had a promise from God.
And his grandpa Abraham, we read last night. What did his grandpa Abraham do?
Remember where he was last night when we read that verse in Genesis 17, Genesis 17, three. He was on his face before God, listening to what God had to say.
Jacob's on his face seven times. You can imagine there's Esau by the door. I don't think I'll go through the full routine. Here comes.
Uh, Jacob toward Esau at the door, and he's down on his face. Oh, giving Esau the honor that he can do. And he moves forward a few steps and he does it again, and he does it again and does it again. If you're standing there watching, who's the one ruling over who?
God says Jacob's going to rule over Esau. Jacob says I'm going to be able to survive this particular moment. I gotta get this done right. And he's seven times on his face approaching Esau. Why? Because he's on his face before man. Abraham was on his face before God, and that's the difference. He lost the dignity that he had in God. Or we would say for ourselves as Christians, what we have in Christ is something that goes far above and beyond.
00:30:09
Uh, what we can get from man, but we lose it in a practical appreciation sense when we get on our face before man.
There's 1000 ways in which we can do that. I want you to pause for a moment.
And write down on a piece of paper you have.
Jacob had promised it got strengthened and he was told to go home. So I had three words from God.
Write down what promises, or just a couple of them, you have from God.
There's tons of them in the Word of God. What has God promised to you? And we'll write a few of them down. What does God promised to you?
OK, we can't possibly get an exhaustive list, but why don't you just call out a few of the things that God has promised?
I saw lots of things written down, so don't be shy.
Eternal life, Can you lose it?
God gives eternal life in His Son. It's not even something that He hands to us to put in our pocket and hang on to. We can't hang on to the stuff that's ours, but He gives it to us in Christ. It's ours. We can't lose. It comes from God. We might fear losing our life, physical life from man, but even that really is ultimately in God's hands. OK, something else.
He'll never leave us. Never been afraid of losing a friend if you said or did something that was honoring to the Lord but according to our mental calculations was likely to offend a friend.
I've certainly had that fear. Maybe nobody else here has. I've certainly had the fear of wanting to hide looking a certain way. And you know what, let me just pop in with this one because I think I can't give you a verse for this. I was trying to think one this afternoon, uh, for a little bit. Maybe somebody can give me a verse after so that I take this with a grain of salt. Look it up in the word of God. This is my observation.
Very, very often. I won't say always, when God wants to encourage a child, He makes it really easy on him.
And if you're taking your first step of faith or the second step of faith, I'd say it's pretty likely the Lord is going to be very easy on you. Let me give you a very brief, uh, example from our recent trip. We're on our way. We stopped at a Super 8 on our way to North Carolina, got up in the morning, Paul and I went down to the breakfast room area and, umm, got some food and they was back in the room. It was time to give thanks for the food. So I was standing, I was going to go back, pick something up.
Just held Paul's hand asked him if you want to give thanks He said yes and so he did. He gave thanks. There's a man that was standing across the breakfast room who heard Paul giving thanks for the food and he immediately comes hustling over with this man going to say Charleston, WV never been here before. What I like, I don't know what's he going to say at much time to think about it. The plot goes through my mind like that. He comes over. Oh, that's so good to see. Uh, well, you know, it's it's nice to talk to. Oh no, I'm talking about children that are speaking to the to the Lord. That's so important that he jumped into Ezekiel 36 and he took off and I didn't have to say a whole lot more.
He was delighted with some tiny little representation or something that showed to him someone who had a certain fear of God. You know those first little steps for a child? If you're going to teach a kid how to do hurdles, are you going to set them at the whatever the Olympic height is never going to do that. When you play basketball the first time you set the hoop at 10 feet for a 5 year old, No way. You think God sets the hoop at the 10 footer for the.
1St grade student. I can't give you a verse for it. I suspect there's a principle in there. But in my observation, very, very often the Lord helps, puts training wheels on the bike as we walk this road, as we walk that path. So I will never leave the universe for safety. We might have the fear of it, but if we act in the fear of God, we could lose the friend.
But we can't lose our heavenly friend. How about a couple more?
Absolutely no question about it. And when we recognize it, we're willing to take His plan and not our own twisting of that one more.
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Hope for the future absolutely we have uh, help me quote the verse uh, we are currently remember the end of it. We are of all men most miserable. Paul says it in first Corinthians 15 right First part of the verse says.
Uh, pardon.
So our hope goes beyond this world and it's certain. And Chris, I think.
OK, problem solved. Spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We have an inheritance and so on. We have promises that if we're enjoying.
We're not going to be nearly as concerned. I have something here I can't possibly lose, and it's far better than what I'm offered over here. All right, we'll go quickly through maybe three other examples. Those are what Jacob the main one on my mind. Let's turn to another one before we do.
Let me illustrate this next one that uh.
Fear has its proper uses.
Umm, you're driving on the two lane roads out here, they twist and they curve and you go around 1 curve and you see somebody coming towards you in your lane. Uh, it's nice to be afraid and the, the effect of that fear to swerve and break and pull off if you can on the shoulder and whatever may help to avoid an accident. We're talking about different kind of fear that we're going to turn to. And I just want to say that most fear is irrational. I hope you remember that this is a true story as I understand it.
Uh, there was a man driving a pickup truck.
In Spain.
And he had a coffin in the back end of his pickup. It was a farmer by the side of the road. And I don't know on the part of the story whether the guy slowed down for a stop sign, the farmer hopped in, or whether he let the guy get in. I know in South America, if you've got to pick up and somebody's on the side of the road, it's a revenue opportunity. The same way in Malawi, yes, No, Certainly true in Ecuador and in Peru and so on. If you have a pick up and you're going somewhere, you can pay for your gas by slowing down for anybody on the side of the roads. I don't know how it came to be.
Farmer hops in the back end and they continue on down the road. And this, by the way, the story long predated the Internet. I didn't get it from there. I do trust it. He's driving down. Not OK. That was not properly balanced statement, but I think you know what I mean. UMM continued on down the road and started to rain.
Farmer looked at the coffin. Didn't wanna get wet, opened the lid, got in the coffin.
It comes from a very legitimate source.
Continues on down the road.
There are two more people on the side of the road.
They got OK, you've already figured out how this is going to end. They got in the pick up. They continue on down the road. The sound of the plink plink clink on the top of the coffin stops. So the farmer decides to open the lid and see if it has stopped raining. Opens the lid and both of the others exited the pickup.
One of them died, was killed.
The point is, in that split second, Fear very irrationally told them this is not a normal circumstance, couldn't possibly be a good thing, and I'm out of here.
And one of them died.
Let me just say that if you're not talking about a car coming to you at a high rate of speed, almost all that kind of fear, at least in the context of spiritual things, can be irrational. Fear is not something that should be running the show. But let me give you an example of what happens when we look at other people. Exodus, Perhaps there's a better one, Exodus chapter.
UH-1.
Sorry, Exodus chapter 2.
We'll read from verse 11.
So this chapter 2 and verse 11.
You can't have asked in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens, and he spied an Egyptian spying in Hebrew one of his brethren, and look this way and that way.
You've probably heard the comment on the verse, but he didn't.
No.
He looked this way and he looked that way, but he didn't thank you. OK, this is the right answer. I was getting a little hands. He didn't look up. He didn't bring God into the circumstance.
00:40:06
Moses's motives, as far as I know, we're right. He had a love and a care for his people, and we can have the right motive in a matter, but we're only looking horizontally at what other people are doing. In this case, is anybody else looking? And he takes his action and here's what it leads to. And.
When he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together. And he said to him, That did the wrong Wherefore smidest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a Prince, and a judge over us, intended thou to kill me as I'll kill it. The Egyptian And Moses feared and said, Surely this thing is known. Next verse, Those who's fled from the face of Pharaoh.
Who was he afraid of?
First of all, he's looking around them to see who's watching. Then he's afraid of Pharaoh, because The thing is known. If we've done what's wrong, if we're acting for the eye of man and our reputation, we lose.
These are all lost, right?
This is our piece.
There's a constant fear. When am I going to get caught?
It's gone.
If it's God, we don't have to have that fear. He knows all about it all along. If I'm living before His eye, I don't have to have that fear at all. But if I'm living before the eye of man, if I'm acting that way, if I've sinned and think that I can cover it, I'm going to lose that piece.
And perhaps, I don't know, in the case of Moses is a long time before he got it back. Egypt had a long reach at that time. He fled in the land, the Midian, but Egypt had their spies. They went up prior to this. They were going all the way up into modern day Syria, maybe beyond, and certainly up through the land of Israel. He fled in the land of Midian, but Egypt had their agents. Uh, life hasn't changed a whole lot.
There was a man not that long ago I read about, don't remember the details of the story exactly, but he committed a murder somewhere on the East Coast. 30 years had passed. He was living in California. And sometime within the last year or two, there was a knock at the door. And, uh, he opened the door and there were the police there or the law enforcement of some kind. And they asked him if he was so and so. And he was just flabbergasted. Uh, he was so and so he was caught. He was brought in. I don't even know how the trial went.
But this is the important point, he said, some point in his questioning that he had lived virtually every day wondering when that knock was going to come at the door.
He lived 30 years free, but he lived just about every day of his life waiting for the knock at the door. And I don't know about Moses in the land of Midian. God doesn't say. But when he acted in the fear of man, he lost his peace. And Moses, like Jacob, was restored. God was working in him. Moses had a fabulous and fruitful life. It was all part of God's plan for him. But he was waiting for the knock on the door. When we live in the fear of man, that's the way we're going to live without that peace.
Let's move to the next one and turn the judges 16.
In the interest of time, I'm not going to go through the whole story. Very well known one.
Sampson and Delilah just wanna show you a process right here because this is very important when we live in the fear of man to notice this process and it happens. Umm.
You know the story of Samsung Delilah, who can give me the, uh, 62nd version? Refresh our memories for the one or two that may be a little bit rusty.
Samsung and Delilah in 60 seconds. Thank you.
No.
Thank you, Joanne.
Fantastic.
I'll take a little longer. So for those of you that she said Samson had a secret, Delilah said tell me, tell me, tell me. So he did. That's exactly what happened. Samson went down the woman valley of Sorak, I think it says, and here's what happens. He umm, she's offered money and so on. So in verse 9, Judges 16, verse 9.
Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber.
00:45:02
So she's going to get money from the Philistines right for betraying Sampson and she said unto him, the Philistines be upon thee Samson. They break the width as a thread of toes broken when it touches the fire. So his strength was not known. The clue he given was in verse 8. Uh that umm brought up to her. I'm sorry inclusion verse seven if they bind me with seven green with that were never dry.
He didn't tell the whole truth, right?
I want you to notice this. He gave up a piece, 1 little piece of his secret. Samson was a Riddle teller, right? Samson told riddles. He told a Riddle earlier at a wedding and it got him in all kinds of trouble because the person at that earlier wedding had, uh, oh, wait, history is repeating itself, isn't it? But he told the Riddle at that wedding and they figured it out and it caused them all kinds of trouble and it caused the Philistines all kinds of trouble. And it was a real mess for the family that was involved. Now we're back in the same situation. He's telling a Riddle. He's with a person he shouldn't be with.
And he gives up a piece of his Riddle. Maybe he knows that. Maybe you didn't. Let's go to the next part. The next one.
And it says verse 11. And he said unto her, If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak and be as another man telling her at all is giving up the second clue. He's stepping closer to the abyss that he's heading for. Fact, he's been heading for it his whole life. You could read the 1St 3 verses of this chapter. He's a long term problem.
But he's giving up the second piece of the Riddle.
Come to the third.
And uh, verse 13 The lighter said in the Sampson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me and told me lies. Tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. He said unto her, If thou weaveest the seven locks in my head with the web, she fastened it with a pen. And so on. He gives up a third piece of his secret, and then he tells the whole thing.
You see the three pieces he's given up.
Give her the number 7.
Gave her the clue that it was unused. He gave her the clue that it was just something to do with his hair, And finally.
Umm.
Verse 15. And she said unto him, How can't thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? Thus mock me these three times, and have not told me where in nice great strength lieth. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death. They told her All was hard said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head, for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb. If I be shaved, and my strength will go from me.
And I shall become weak and be like any other man. It's seven locks of unused hair.
And now he's told her, You take those from me, I'm going to be like anyone else.
But the part of it that I want to notice tonight is it was a process. It was a process in his life that led to his ruin. And thankfully his hair grew back. We don't have time for the full story, but what he lost slowly, bit by bit was his discernment until he gives up his full circle secret. He had seven unused locks of hair that represented his dependence on God. They gave up that dependence on God.
In exchange for a person who saw vexed him every single day to make money so that he could have his eyes put out and be put in chains.
When we put allow God to be the center of our life that He is, when we allow Him to take that role as Lord, we do gain in every possible way. Not in the immediate instance, maybe not for that minute, maybe not for that hour, that week, that month, that year. But in the long haul, we will fully, absolutely reap the benefit of the fear of God when we live in the fear of man, when we live for what Delilah can give us fit by bit.
By bit we give up more and more and more the secret dependence on God, and we end up, like Samson, losing our eyesight, which is a symbol of our discernment and you know when.
00:50:00
We give that up.
I think there was a hint of that this morning. Really.
When we marinate in the world's culture, when we allow its thoughts to fill our minds bit by bit by bit, we give up God's definitions of things. We give up God's, uh, view of things because we're not being bit by bit filled with God in his view. It's not at the center. It's man in his view that's at the center. A little bit by little bit, we give up the CERN. And we got a brief history lesson on what's happened over the last 150 years as views shift, shift, shift, shift. That didn't happen overnight, did it?
The latest change is rapid, but it didn't happen overnight. It's bit by bit by bit giving up discernment as man and his thoughts get dragged to the center and God and his Word gets shoved to the side.
One more.
Umm in First Samuel 15.
Umm, just try to hit a couple of the highlights very quickly. Very profitable. Read the whole story and meditate on it.
But this is Saul and Samuel, and again, I'll assume that the story is pretty well known, Saul and Samuel. Saul doesn't carry out the instructions that the Lord gave him to do. Samuel comes and finds that they haven't been carried out. Any rebukes saw and they have the conversation recorded in this chapter.
Uh, he's rebuked by Samuel in verse 20. And Saul said unto Samuel, Yeah, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought a gag. The king of the of Amalek and of utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, the sacrifice in the Lord thy God. And Gilgal Samuel answers with the famous verses 22 and 23 and tells Saul that he's rejected verse 24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned.
If I have to transgress the command of the Lord and thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore I pray thee, pardon my sin, turn again with me.
A little bit further down and it says.
Uh, Samuel speaking to him verse 29 and also the strength of Israel will not lie or repent for he is not a man that he should repent. Then he said, meaning Saul, I have sinned yet honor me now, I pray thee before the elders of my people.
How do you seen these verses?
Who? Saul's.
Umm, who's false heart and vision was set on the God of the people.
People, wasn't it? And these verses, how is that clear?
What did we just read?
I fear the people obey their voice. That's what he said. And then when he says I have sinned yet, honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people.
You know, you use words that involve repentance, but Saul used words. I've sinned. Honor me now before the people.
Really, there was one set of opinions he wanted. He wanted honor before the people. Last chapter of this book, just a couple verses before the end of the chapter, at the end of the book, where is Saul?
His body is hanging on the wall of Bethchan.
We live in the fear of man.
We're not going to be able to maintain that honor either. It's gone. He loses it. David also.
Send.
David also sinned.
Let's read what he wrote. Psalm 51, just the first verse.
00:55:06
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions.
Beautiful about this. David's not talking about the people. David's not even putting himself first. He's not even putting his sin at the top of the verse. What's he putting at the top of the verse?
What's he put there first?
God's mercy and.
Loving kindness.
What David counted on was it that he got the wording right to his confession.
What they've had counted on or looked for was not honor me now before the elders of my people. What David counted on was the heart and mercy of God. David had back clearly in his sights what he had lost when he sinned with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. He had back clearly in his sights. God at the center, God's heart, God's purposes for him. God's mercy is back, clearly at the center and doesn't hide A sin.
He confesses his sin, but he has God in God's heart first.
And foremost, and there's not a word about what the people think.
So we'll finish with that verse we have at the bottom, Proverbs 2925. I think it summarizes it nicely. Uh, there's more to the verse.
Than we've quoted Proverbs 2925.
The fear of man bringeth a snare.
But.
Whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Really my desire has been with these yesterday and today isn't to really teach you anything brand new, but to encourage you and give some examples from the word of God. And really as much as anything, for my own sake, to be reminded that when God is at the center of our thoughts, we never do anything again may not look that way immediately. And we've tried to look at a lot of examples where Saul.
Between his sin and hanging his body on the walls of Becham, there's a lot of ears in there.
There's a lot of years when he's throwing a javelin at David, when he's sitting at the royal banquet table and David's in The Cave.
It's not necessarily going to look like it's working perfectly if God's at the center. I'm not saying that put God at the center in your life will be simple and easy, and that is not what the scriptural examples show.
But God at the center brings gain absolutely in the long haul, and putting man in his thoughts in the center brings destruction every single time. In the long haul, the fear of man bringeth a snare. It's a snare because it's not easy to see it first. It looks like the right thing to do.
But but.
It says whoso puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe.
Who ended his days on the throne, it was David. Who ended his days on the wall of Beth Shan, it was Saul. Let's ask the Lord for his help. Dear Lordissa, we just asked for each one of us that we would learn of thee that daily habit, and we would have the faith to walk in it, to have thee at the center of our thoughts. And I love thy mercies, Thy goodness, my purposes for us. And that we wouldn't allow the the thought of man.
And the fear of the man, too.
Dominate our life, just ask for Thy help in in this matter and pray in Thy name or Jesus.
Saved By Hope
James 1:1-5
Reading
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100 and 80 We are but strangers here. Heaven is our home, 180.
Uh-huh.
We thank the Godfather that we can hear here. Be together.
00:05:00
Yet left in this world.
May the Lord Jesus was.
And he is now.
In his home.
We're looking forward to be with him someday.
At his choosing.
And for the time being that we are here, we would ask you to help us to please thyself, Lord Jesus.
Good things which?
Are proper according to divert.
We are looking forward.
To also consider some.
That we're living at the time when I was here on this earth.
What their testimony was.
Exactly that we are.
Have a testimony.
Whether we say much or less or even nothing.
If we are safe, we leave here a testimony for the Lord Jesus, and we thank thee that this is so.
It is a great honor to know the Lord Jesus, to thank Him for the salvation that we have.
Through him for his great work on the cross, for his care for us. So we would actually do have this afternoon to be occupied with the things.
Of heaven, whatever thou would have us to say or do, to pray, all in the precious name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
I understand that this reading meeting.
We have to do some travel Saturday.
If it is all right.
Here I would suggest that that we read the 1St chapter of the Epistle of James.
OK. Plus, uh.
Young man yet half brother of Lorides.
He has a lot of sex today.
James chapter one.
James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. Greeting my brethren, counted all joy when you fall into divers temptations. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith, work with patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that she may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that give us to all men liberally and upbraideth not.
And it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind, and toss. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice, and that he is exalted but the rich, and that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
For the sun is no sooner risen with the burning heat, but it should, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth.
And the grace of the fashion of it perish it. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of light which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil. Neither tempt to see any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. And when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not earn, my beloved brethren, every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above.
00:10:25
And cometh down from the Father of light, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.
And receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word, and not hearers, only deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding in his natural face in a glass.
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continue it therein, he being not a forgetful here, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain, pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father. Is this to visit the fatherless and widows.
In their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
I'd like to give a short introduction about the person of James.
He was, as I said, the half brother of Lord Jesus. There were four of them.
Two of them.
Rod. Epistles.
Jane sent you.
There were two more.
Joseph Simon.
And they all grew up with the Lord Jesus.
I often smile, but.
How's that?
Was going to workout.
How does this workout? He calls himself a servant of the Lord.
So we understand that at some time we did get saved, and because his half brother, the Lord, he has become his Lord.
In full recognition.
That the Lord was rejected.
And it's it's like no means they would.
Also we rejected.
He was rejected by the majority of.
Paper the juice.
And during the temporal life of the Lord Jesus, he was not yet a disciple, which we get from John 75 after the resurrection of the Lord.
The Lord met with him and his brothers we gather from.
Who is currently in 57 and X 114?
Most likely they found by that experience the faith to the crucified, and James was then counted to his disciples.
Not only the family connection to the Lord Jesus made him an intellectual courtesy along with Jewish Christians, but because he was honest and righteous.
He enjoyed much respect among the pious Jews, which we gather from Acts 1513.
00:15:00
He was at least 20 years at the helm of the Assembly of Jerusalem.
Now that the Assembly of Jerusalem was the only one that was not driven out.
When the first conditions started.
He is a shining example of how to love the law.
Without being a jealous fighter for it.
How to have authority without setting the fellow elders aside? And how to endure tremendous pressure without injuring love or giving up. What's calling?
We gather at 1519.
Thousands of Jewish believers.
I'm the Lord Jesus had in him.
Shepherd.
To prove.
The Lord, the love.
Of the Lord through his Jewish and not Jewish fellow believers.
And to resolve people every day.
His deep humility.
His right diligence and prayer, his hearty brotherliness, His practical way.
Make him to this day an excellent example for all believers.
Paula Cost, James Theater and John Philosophy Assembly.
We gather from Galatians 29.
The Book of James is the oldest Pope of the New Testament.
Written about 45 AG.
James is a material and 6280.
And James's intention was to point out the lack of honesty and consistency in the world after the Lord.
And he was promising against it.
So we see there was much to be.
Commanded.
About this.
It's.
This is not to put the Lord.
To painting or anything like this but.
It teaches us in many things.
What he said and what he did.
He starts out James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the beginning points that we have to take up each one of us in our lives is.
To learn our proper relationship to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ. James had learned that his own relationship to God and Lord Jesus. And it's really a starting point in every one of our lives that we need, if you will, to put God in his place.
Right place before us, and then to learn what our place is with respect to Him.
And the book of Proverbs.
Begins in about verse seven of the book.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That is, the Lord is being given in Proverbs His right place. With respect to ourselves there is to be a respect.
And honor that is due to him. And if God is given his right place, then we will be put in our right place as well, and it will be for our blessing and our good.
00:20:12
And so with the Lord Jesus, we.
Come as a starting point to know the Lord Jesus as Savior.
And without knowing Him as Savior, no other relationship is going to be meaningful between US and the Lord. But if the Lord is brought into our lives and He is our Savior, then we learn other aspects or other ways in which we have a relationship with the Lord Jesus. We learn Him as a shepherd, most significantly in his title here, the Lord.
And so we come to recognize that he is Lord of our lives and he's being in that way, given his right place. And as a consequence, it brings us into our right place with Him and.
And so on. And of course, with the Lord Jesus, there are many, many different ways in which we're brought into relationship with him. But we have to get a right starting point, otherwise our lives will not go on in a way that is a benefit to God or to us. And James had learned that.
He hadn't progressed, if you will, in his own life. He hadn't been given the revelations that Paul does has been given. His epistle doesn't take us to the same extent that some of the other New Testament epistles do, but he had a good start and uh, as well for us to get make sure that the start is at the right place.
Life starts at Calgary in a real sense of the word. Until we come to the cross, life hasn't really started in a Christian sense for us. But I think we can get that from James in this very first verse to benefit to our souls to do so.
I understand that in many of the early Greek manuscripts James follows act.
Which should be perhaps a more natural order, because you see that here it's addressed to the 12 tribes which were scattered abroad and with chains. A lot of what he is speaking about here is that behavior that would be proper to the outworking of faith and the Christian life. And so it's the expression of what is proper to our faith before man in the world, which is somewhat different in Christianity.
In fact, a lot different in Christianity from Judaism and so it would be very important for the Jews to know this early on that Judaism there may be respect given to someone who is is rich. It's at the beginning of the second chapter and maybe a lot of different things having to do with advantage in the world where James talked about persecution. If we've had prominently here in our first Test.
That belonged to.
What these Christians were going through, who were primarily Jews, the ones that James was among, and so it's helpful for them to know that this was natural to the outworking of their faith in the world. And James takes up that issue. Like you say, it's not really the deep doctrine, is it? That's more brought out through the apostle Paul. Although when you go through this, you find because this is inspired by the Spirit of God here, it's not the slightest conflict with anything brought out later.
James talked about the new birth.
In verse 18 of His own well begat, yet by the word of truth this is begotten of thought.
He talked about many things as he goes through here, just completely consistent without going to the doctrine of them, but.
James is, I could say, taking it out with those things that would prove our faith in an outward way and.
He takes up quite a few of these. There's at least three of them in the first chapter. First of all, there's the trials that come in from without to prove our faith.
Text us to see if we're real and how we, umm, endure into this trial.
00:25:01
Shows in an outward way that we are real. And of course he brings in more than that. He shows that God uses them to to work in our lives as Christians. And then there's the testing from within brought up next. And then there's the way that we handle the word of God at the end of the chapter that shows whether or not our faith is real. So these are all were external things that are work out before God.
But before mad as well. And so that would be it, a mark of James, and perhaps one that would show more of where this epistle is coming from.
It's not joy.
To fall into diverse temptation that we read here.
That'd be awesome. I know that God does not tempt anybody.
So we know it is the devil who is always will find.
Something in US?
Where he can get a starting point. He tried to bring us all.
But then we also read What is the outworking of that?
The trying of your faith work is patient. It tries our faith.
And it teaches us patience.
And that can only be done.
To a time as time goes on, we are always.
Put two tests.
When things get rough.
And only with faith, as we have in the Lord Jesus.
You can prevail.
Some of you, uh, have a.
Like a daily devotional that you read, uh, every day.
And, uh, I hope this is right to say this, uh, I have found it very helpful to think of the book of James a little bit like.
Uh, in that way, like a, like a devotional, like a daily devotional, I mean that, uh, try to explain myself here. Uh, like, for example, the book of Proverbs, similar to the book of Proverbs, you can pick a chapter out of the book of Proverbs or even just a section of a chapter and read it.
And get a lot of benefit from it. Maybe one of the verses doesn't really speak to you that day, but another one that you never noticed before really kind of hits home.
Umm.
This, the book to me is helpful to think of it not so much like, like for example, Romans or some of the other books that Paul where Paul kind of goes through things methodically and, and, and explain things from different points of view and kind of build the, uh, support for this, this truth that he's trying to explain. It's not so much like that, although there are things that are repeated throughout the book, but it's kind of divided, or I think of it this way. It's divided up into little sections.
That are that, uh, can stand on their own. There are certain things that repeat over and over through the book and they sort of build through the book. And I would be glad to hear people kind of connect those together. But, uh, each little section of, you know, 3456 or seven verses.
Uh, can be read and it kind of stands on its own. And so you'll find as you read through the book of James, you might be going along and all of a sudden there's a section that.
Really kind of hits home maybe based on some current events in your life or, uh, something that you, the Lord through through these verses shows you something that maybe is lacking or in your, in your life. And in that way it, uh, uh, it's in that way that I, I like to think of it as kind of a daily devotional. I find that helpful because sometimes you go through the book and you, uh, or at least I do, I go through the book and I think, well, how does this fit with that?
00:30:21
Uh, and sometimes there are connections, but it's.
Uh, it is, I, I find it helpful and I would suggest that if you're reading through it to, to think of each one and say, OK, well, in this little section, what is the Lord trying to tell me? And maybe one time you read through the book, it, it, that particular section, you don't think about it too much, But the next time you read through the book, if the Lord makes it real to you in, in a way, I hope that's been helpful to me. It's, it's a little bit laid out a little bit differently. It sounds a little bit different, uh, as you read through it and some of the other books in the New Testament.
And uh, uh, for me, that's been a help thinking of it that way.
Have a relationship with God.
Requires pay.
The foundation? It's, uh, essential.
Speaking when we sang to him that we started with.
Saying over and over again, Heaven is our home.
You know, it's kind of challenging to think thinking about something is yours and you've never seen it.
Never been there.
In fact, that is in reality, he's saying each other. Seven is our home. We're strangers here.
But what we're saying about not one of us has ever seen it.
Not one of us could describe it in any detail and say, oh, the home I have. And and then to go describe it in any physical way, we could not. We can say a lot about it this wonderful for us, but at the same time there's a lot that we don't know as well. And yeah.
Faith says Heaven is our home.
And if faith says heaven is our home, then we live by that.
James had been brought up a certain way in his life and he got to a certain point in life and you might say the Lord Jesus came into the life at that point.
And.
He found in the Lord Jesus the person that he trusted.
And now he's writing at a time when he hadn't couldn't see the Lord Jesus anymore.
He wasn't there for his natural eyes. He had walked with him, then with him.
And was writing to people who had, like himself, embraced the Lord Jesus Christ.
As their life, as the one that they were going to follow.
But they're gonna have to do it now. By faith, he wasn't gonna be there. And as a consequence of identification with the Lord Jesus and a life of faith, there were things that were going to test it.
There were things that were going to come in and.
When there was failure, there was failure to be dealt with, but the life was that life and James is seeking to help and encourage them to go in and live that life and even face the things that were difficult in it with joy, knowing that God had a purpose of love and good in them for their blessing.
And so part of the life of faith says, as it were, God is for me.
And whatever he brings into my life, he has purpose of good in it. Never evil, never bad. And.
What would you have said to Joe?
God's the one that said that you considered my servant Joe.
And, uh, there were points in which Job said his comments are sort of like, I wish God had left me alone.
I wish you hadn't brought this into my life.
00:35:00
Why didn't he leave me, as he said, in my nest? You know, a nice comfortable little spot to be in.
Umm, if God had said Job, I'm going to put you through some tests. Umm, face it with joy, I don't think he would have. He, he, he wouldn't have been able to see it in that way, but nonetheless.
He went through it and uh, he failed in it. He sinned in the test.
But in the end, Lord doubly blessed him, and he received the end, and so a blessing for his soul. And so it is with us.
The trial or the testing of the faith is for our good.
It has a purpose behind it of God for good, and it's good for us to accept it that way and to embrace it and say whatever God has is for good and He will bring blessing in the end. But He must, we must recognize that it's a relationship of faith that is laying hold of that which we do not see.
And that which our natural eyes have not seen, perhaps, but still it's a trust in the God who is and who loves.
I could just add a little bit more to what you're saying there. Or they're not that faith is always based upon the word of God. And we in this chapter here we, we find that God is telling us that there's a purpose in our trials.
But he is, he is, he is doing something for our blessing and for his glory in the difficult things and the pain and the sorrow that he allows in our lives, that he has a purpose in it. And we, we see here that if, uh, if they're told to count it all joy when they fall into different temptations or trials, the next verse tells them why they should count it all joy.
It says knowing this, that the trying of your faith, working patience. Well, God has promised us that there is going to be blessing in the trial that He is calling us to go through.
Umm, we might say, well, what's what's so important about patients? Why, why, why do I have to suffer like this?
So that the outcome can be that I learned patience.
Well, that's one of the.
Characteristics of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus became a man.
And.
He he learned things he learned.
To be subject by the things that he suffered.
He he took that place as a man and in in that one sense he became a learner.
By the things that he suffered.
You and I are learning to be.
Submissive.
Gone through the trials and the difficulties that we go through.
Patience is a a wonderful thing because it makes us more like Christ and it reflects the glories of God. Patience is based upon the fact that we are submissive to the will of God, that we're submissive to his timing, that we're willing to let him have control of our lives and do what he sees as best. And it's just some patients is just simply.
Waiting upon God because we know.
That he's doing something for his own glory and for our blessings and so.
The pain and the suffering that we go through, we go through because we believe what God has said. We faith is believing God and God has told us that there's blessing through suffering and the blessing is going to result in that. We learn patience and as we learn patience, we will reflect the glories of the Lord Jesus more and more. We will become more like Him and there will be more for God's glory here on earth.
00:40:12
Because our lives will be created more into his image. I would just like to confirm this by turning to Romans 5.
Romans 5 verse three says And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also.
Knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience, experience and experience hope. Word of God tells us that there is a process God is bringing us through to develop us as the children of God.
It's in this instance he begins with tribulation. Tribulation works patience.
Patience works, experience, you know when we've gone through a trial.
And we've learned to submit to the Lord's hand in our lives that that we've, we've, we've allowed him as it were, to say, OK, you've chosen this for me and I accept it.
We threw it. Not only do we get gain the patience.
But it also works experience.
Where we learn God's ways and we trust Him more.
Experience. We might be able to be used to pass that along to others.
So I just bring this process out, that this is the process of Christian development, making us more into the image of Christ.
You take for instance.
OK uh, in the scriptures, the prophet Jeremiah, he was the.
And he knew how the people where he didn't want to draw that God was going to give him.
And on the other hand, we also, uh, notice that he did grow up with the greatest team there ever was for God.
In Josiah.
With all the idols away and.
Who were destroyed, that what was not pleasing to God and he did a great job.
So we can understand that, Jeremiah.
Must have a wonderful time sometimes watching this godly thing.
But he had a long life, and when this king died, when this king passed away.
Then his prior wheel started.
So God put him to.
Very different circumstances.
And we can learn from that very much. It can start with a very nice.
And and as a great trial, the greatest ever.
That Jeremiah has.
But yet in all these things, God is in it.
It says here, if you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.
Now he understood that Jesus was God.
And that always last resort or the first resort I would say to go to go to God and we don't know what to do.
You ran into a a problem. We don't know how to approach it how to.
Deal with it.
And what to do about things?
We need the wisdom that we can ask of God.
00:45:04
Like to turn to Psalm chapter 4.
Psalm chapter 4.
Support sum.
First verse Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness.
Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.
Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer.
Going to read it again in the new translation. When I call, answer me, oh God, of my righteousness and pressure. Thou has enlarged me.
And pressure thou has enlarged me.
And spiritual things. Many times in order to grow, it's necessary for us to be put under pressure.
Often times when circumstances are easy, faith is not really tested and it doesn't grow. It doesn't develop, it doesn't mature, but in the school of God.
Uh, he uses pressure often to.
In his ways of helping us to grow.
And so we see people who were placed under pressure.
Take a young man as an example. Joseph.
Joseph when he was.
Still quite young, had a dream.
And he dreamed that his brothers would bow down before him, and so his parents.
And then what happened?
He went through years and years of pressure.
He's sold as a slave, his brothers hate him, he's faithful in his circumstances and things only get worse and he goes for something like 13 years.
Not seeing his family under constant pressure.
And it tells us in I think it's Psalm 104 or thereabouts, it says the word of the Lord tried him.
In other words, for all those years, what did he have to hang on to?
One thing.
The Lord had sent.
His life wasn't over it, it wasn't going to remain as it was, but as year by year passed, this young man, this teenager goes through and we would say the best, some of the best years of his life from that time until he's 30 years old, the word, the pressure of God was on his life.
But what was God doing? He was preparing a vessel to use it for blessing of souls, and so he was a great blessing in his life. We like to read of the tail end of it, but God has His ways to develop in each soul that which is pleasing to himself, and very often the way, the necessary way of God is pressure to bring it about.
And James recognized that and he could say be thankful, be happy that God is doing the work.
That will satisfy him and.
In the end, we'll satisfy the one that he's working in.
I think verse four seems to indicate that we can't be perfect and entire and wanting nothing without it.
We we need this in our lives or we're going to be very lacking as Christians and that is really the point of recognizing this process of their brother called it tribulation work to patients and patients hope and hope. It's not a shame and so forth In Romans 5 or here as it says that patients have a perfect work. And so it's that work of God in our lives that we need so much and I know for myself when a trial comes into my life.
My first thought is generally, how can I get out of it?
But what we have here is that shouldn't be our first thought, or my first thought. It should be.
00:50:03
What does God want me to get out of it?
And there's something that God has in it for blessing and and.
They're recognizing that. I think it's the the first thing.
We get that from these first verses, just to know that whatever other things were involved, it was if it was Satan, they could look and say, well, here, drove it there. I'm sorry. If it was Job, you could say look, thinking it's something to do with my trial, but he didn't do it. He looked beyond it and eventually at least he got to the point of it. It was thought God didn't 'cause it, but God allowed it. And so Job had to do with God and so do we, and we need to go back to God and say what is he doing?
In my life.
And the first point though, we could recognize that God allowed it. That's where the joy comes in. He cares enough about me to be doing something in my life, even if it's hard. He hasn't left me alone. He cares.
And I can see that this is something that a God who loves me is allowing. Then there should be real joy in that.
But that doesn't solve the problem.
I get to that point and I'm thankful that the Lord is doing something, but what is it? And maybe I still don't know. So that's the reason for the verse five. If any of you lack wisdom, let a master God.
And I know for myself, I may often get into a situation of difficulty, and perhaps I do get to the point where I'm thinking the right thought about it, that the Lord allowed it, but I still need to know what it is that He's doing. And so the next thing is I need to be down on my knees before and find out what that is so that I can realize what His point is in the trial and difficulty and gain the blessing.
I can make a brief example to Moses.
So it's 120 years.
1St 40 years It's often been commented his life was divided into 3 periods of 40 years.
And the first 40 years of his life, he had a a really good life by man's standards. Yeah, the ultimate opportunities.
To be raised in the palace of the king and so on, and learned the good life.
And he spent 40 years in the desert alone, a lot of the time with the pocket sheets or whatever he cared for.
And then he served God, having been so prepared of God for the 1St 2/3 of his life. He served God for 40 years.
But God is patient.
It is perfect work.
He's patient in it and actually it appears that it's a year 118.
That he misspoke.
In his life and as a consequence personally was not allowed into the land.
Lived 118 years.
Life is almost finished.
And yet he still had something that was for his blessing is going to teach him. And he did and.
How is this when we meet him will be profoundly thankful that God was patient.
Awfully she's work that the end result of Moses life was that which pleased God and will make Moses forever satisfied. So it is in our lives. It's not attract me. It's an endurance race.
And uh, you have that in chapter Hebrews, chapter 12. Let us run with patience or endurance, the same word that you have here, endurance. And so it is it, it doesn't stop until the goal line and the goal line is not until we enter glory.
We've seen #74.
God and Father, we give thanks for this, these thoughts that we've had about the trials of faith. We just give thanks that we know that we're not the only ones who may have our individual struggles and challenges of faith, but there's many others also.
Father, we just ask for help and understanding and wisdom as we go through these, and we will learn from these that we might be able to give the Lord his glory and that we may become more likely to give thanks for this time together in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Believe in Something
Gospel—Tim Ruga
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Good evening and welcome to the Gospel meeting. So we all sing on our hymn sheets. Hymn #35.
Oh, what a Savior that he died for me from condemnation. He hath made me free. He that believeth on the sun saith he hath everlasting life #35.
Oh.
Oh my, Merry Christmas and I will not die.
All I can't have come happy.
And.
I'm like grinding the sun.
00:05:08
OK, now we're going to pray and ask the Lord's help, but before we do, I just want to say a few words.
Something that came to my mind earlier today when we were traveling here. My wife was reading in the car and something that she read caused me to think about something else related that I had never really thought much about before.
And just to say that in terms of what may happen tonight, there is something.
That might happen tonight. That has never been true in the history of the world before, and that is tonight, this very night. It could be possible.
That there will not be one believer in the Lord Jesus Christ on earth.
Not one.
You probably figured out pretty quick if you've been hearing things that are said in groups like this along what I'm talking about. The Lord Jesus is coming and he may come at any moment, and when He does, the ones who are left here.
Well, not be believers in him, he will take all the believers home and so for a short time at least.
There will be no believers on Earth. That has never happened before.
But that's not the important thing.
The important thing is this, that it's possible that there may be one person or another in this room that would be among that group of no believers on earth.
Now after that time, we don't know how long after.
Some will believe.
Many will believe, but if you happen to be one of those ones, you will not be one of those, I believe.
That is believed savingly because I don't mean to say by this that you don't believe in anything. We all believe in something.
And that's one of the problems that we face in a meeting like this. Everybody believes in something. I was talking to a man not long ago and a brother and the Lord and we were talking about.
This fact that everybody believes in something. And I said, well, what about the atheists, the materialists, the humanists in this world?
He said, oh, they have the greatest faith of all.
So what do you mean?
He said they believe in death.
They believe in death.
They are counting, they are taking everything on this idea that when they die, it's over. There is no God, they don't have to give account, and when they die they go into nothingness and they don't have to answer for their sins.
We're going to pray, but first let's turn to Hebrews Chapter 9, verse 27, and we're going to see what God has to say about this.
And quite frankly, tonight.
If you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, you do indeed believe in something.
But it doesn't matter what you believe.
Because the only thing that matters is what's true.
And tonight I'm going to be speaking to you. I don't know who you are.
You know, God knows.
The vast majority here, I believe, are the Lords. They're on their way to heaven.
But if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior, I am speaking to you. Hebrews 927 as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment, we will stop there because that's what I want to start out with.
This is what God has said.
Yes, there's death, and after death there's judgment. I don't know what you believe in. I don't know what your faith is. But even if you have a faith like that, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what is true.
Let's pray.
Their God and their Father, we come before thee for this hour.
00:10:05
And we bring this burden to thee.
For any person in this room who may yet be in their sins, having not believed in thy Son the Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray our God and our Father that thou would work by thy spirit.
In their hearts and minds that that would bring thy word home with power into the heart of that one they've caused them to see.
Their awful peril and caused them to understand their need of a Savior and that they would this very evening come to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. We pray for help as we continue on to open Thy word. We pray that I would make it plain here tonight and above all, that the love of a Savior would come out.
We pray and ask it in His name, Amen.
Some time ago I read a story that impressed me.
So much that I put it away, kept it for time like this, and I just want to read it today. The story, a true story from history.
And it has to do with what is on my heart to speak on tonight.
The story goes like this.
In 75 BC.
25 year old Roman nobleman was captured by Sicilian pirates who infested the Mediterranean Sea.
The Romans had never sent a Navy against these pirates because they offered the Roman senators slaves.
And they needed these slaves for their plantations in Italy, so they cooperated with the pirates. And because of this, piracy was very common there.
But here was the problem, these pirates had no idea that the man that they captured was none other than the future Lord of the Mediterranean, Julius Caesar.
1St when the pirates demanded a ransom of 20 talents.
Julius Caesar burst out laughing. He said. You don't even know who it is that you've captured. He volunteered to pay 50 talents.
So then he sent his followers out to various cities cities to raise his money.
And when they left, he was there with just one friend and two servants among these Sicilian pirates who were known to be some of the most bloodthirsty and ruthless men that existed at that time.
And when he was alone or pretty near alone with them, Julius Caesar treated them so high handedly that whenever he wanted to sleep, he was sent to them and tell them to stop talking.
For 38 days, completely unconcerned, Caesar was with him. He joins in all their games and exercises, just as if he was their leader instead of their prisoner. He also wrote poems and speeches, and he read them aloud to them. He entertained them. And if they failed to admire what he wrote?
He would call them to their face illiterate savages.
And he would often laughingly threaten to have them all hang.
They were very much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character, or a boyish a boyish playfulness.
However, the ransom arrived from Melita, and as soon as he had paid it and then set free, immediately manned some ships and set sail from the harbor of Melitus against the pirates. He found them still where they had been lying at anchor just off the island, and he captured nearly all of them.
He took their property as spoils of war, and put the men themselves into the prison at Pergamon. He then went in person to Marquez Junius, the governor of Asia, thinking of property, that he, his praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners.
Julius, however, and cast a longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case, So Cesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamon, took the pirates out of prison and crucified a lot of them, just as he had often told them they would do when he was on the island, and they just thought that he was joking.
00:15:28
So we know Julius Caesar, but I don't know if you knew that story. I hadn't before I read this.
And this has to do with what I want to talk tonight, this idea of a ransom.
Julius Caesar.
Was a prisoner. However he may have acted among those pirates. He was a prisoner and he needed a ransom.
A ransom is a price that is paid.
To secure a release or a pardon.
And Julius Caesar was able to pay for that.
He paid the ransom and he went free.
And so this is where I want to start tonight because the fact of the matter is.
Without Christ.
You are a prisoner, and not only you are, are you a prisoner?
But before God, you owe a great debt that you cannot pay.
And then ransom needs to be paid so that you can be set free. Again, As I said before, it doesn't really matter if you don't believe that. The only thing that matters tonight is whether or not it's true. And we're going to look at the word of God. It's God's Word, It's not my word. And we're going to see what God has to say about this. And if you walk away from this meeting and say, I don't care, I'm going to keep going my own way and I'm just going to do my own thing.
Then you do it at the peril of your eternal.
Life that you've been warned.
Let's turn to start with the Psalm, chapter 49.
Psalm 49, verse 7.
None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God.
A ransom for him?
For the redemption of their souls is precious, and it ceaseth forever.
This verse speaks about a ransom that God requires.
It says nobody can give that ransom.
It's not possible, but this is where we start tonight.
Our story was about pirates.
We're not talking about pirates now.
We're not talking about some unfortunate incident where you've come into bad times. We're talking about your actual situation as a person in this world and the fact that there is a God.
A God with whom you have to do. A God that you will personally answer to.
And this verse tells us that there is no one who can give a ransom for his brother.
You can't give it to God.
It says further here, the redemption of their souls is precious. It's costly. In this word, souls means life. We're talking about your life tonight.
You have a life, you can hear what I'm saying, and as long as you have that life, you have a chance.
You have a chance. You're here.
As soon as that life is gone, as we read in Hebrews Chapter 9, then that appointment from God has come.
That appointment with death and after that, there's only one thing that happens. That is judgment. God will judge you.
He will judge everyone who has not believed in his son.
Let's go and see another verse, Micah chapter 6 about this ransom.
00:20:02
Say, what can I do?
Before God.
Maybe you haven't said that.
If you haven't, I hope before this meeting is over you'll come to that point.
We're gonna see why it's so important.
But we'll start right now with what this ransom is.
Verse seven. Micah 6. Verse seven. Will the Lord be pleased?
With thousands of Rams, or with 10,000 rivers of oil, shall I give the first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin?
Of my soul.
Now we're talking about why there's even a problem.
The redemption of their souls is costly.
Why? Because of sin. And the question is here, what can I do? Can I give anything to God for the sin of my soul?
Have you thought about that? Is there anything I can do to come to God?
And because of the offense that I have done to him.
Will the Lord be pleased with that?
Maybe you think yes. Many people think yes. It's another faith in this world.
They say I don't know about all those things, but I'm hoping in the end God will think that I've been good enough.
Good enough. So many people say that. Believe me my friend, good enough. It's far less than what this question is. This is someone going far further than just trying to do well enough in my life. He's saying 10,000 for thousands of Rams or 10,000 rivers of oil giving. Someone that's very precious to me, my own child, to God, for the scent of my soul. Can I do it?
It's a rhetorical question. That means the question just asked to illustrate a point. The obvious answer is no, it can't be done.
And what is the problem?
Julius Caesar laughs at the pirates.
So what do you think? 20 talents. Look at how valuable this prisoner is that you captured. I'll pay you 50 myself.
You think you can come to God that way?
You really think that you can come and give something to God?
The problem is there's no value in the object.
You have nothing to give to God.
In fact, the actual case is completely the other way around.
Your offense before God is so awful.
That you've got nothing but a debt and an awful debt that your brother can't pay. That you can give nothing for it to pay besides yourself? Forget it.
The word of God says.
That from the head top of the head of the sole to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness in it but bruises and wounds and putrefying sores. That's how God sees us as sinners, and we have nothing before him but an awful offense. That's the debt that we owe. That's the offense of our souls, the sin of our souls.
What can you give for?
Your soul we know you have is the sin of your soul to offer.
There's nothing, nothing at all that you can bring before God.
And until you come to this point where you see that yes, indeed, I am guilty before God and I've got nothing to offer, then you're still going to stay playing around with fire, with danger. You're still going to go on maybe with your friends who love the Lord Jesus pretending.
Getting other people to think that you're a Christian while inside you know you're not.
And you're gonna play that foolish, foolish game.
Because.
You haven't faced up to reality. You have some sort of a faith in something else.
00:25:00
And then, in the end, it's all foolishness.
Maybe you're afraid. Maybe you're afraid of what some of your friends or other acquaintances will say.
Well, fear this. The Lord Jesus said you fear Him, that it's got the power when he's killed to put your soul and your body into hell. And when you get to hell, this is what you're going to find there. Revelation 21 tells us about the ones who are there, and it tells us.
What characterizes them? You know what the first thing is on the list.
But the fearful.
You're afraid? OK, You'll be in a place filled with people who are afraid. Is it worth it?
To go to an awful place to face that judgment just because you are afraid of what somebody might say on earth, what an awful decision to make. Second thing is unbelieving.
Abominable and so on. They'll all be there.
That's where you are.
Can you face that tonight and accept what God has said?
The Lord Jesus said about people of his day, He said, you know you, you've heard about that tower over there in Siloam and you heard about the people who were there.
And do you think, really, do you think that those people, we're centers above all men, they're worse than you and me? Well, Jesus couldn't say me, but I can't. You think those people are worse?
He said no, but I tell you, except you repent, you will all likewise perish. There are people going out of the world every day right now, today, people have died and gone to a lost eternity. And except you repent, you will likewise perish. And so this is the starting point in this meeting where we have come to preach good news of the gospel is to see first of all the bad news. And the bad news is that you and I have nothing.
Nothing to offer, nothing to bring, and that we are completely guilty and condemned before God.
And when you come to that point, then it is you're in the place where God is able to help you. Until then, you're not even listening.
Let's go to Job 33.
Get on to the good news.
Job 33, verse 24.
Then his gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit I have found.
A ransom.
Who could do that? If nobody could ever give a ransom to God, then who is this the founder ransom?
It could only be God.
This is the good news of the gospel, God has said. I'm going to be gracious to them.
Deliver.
Him from going down to the pit, I found it Ransom.
God has found the ransom.
And there was nothing that you could do. There was nothing anyone could do for you. But God can. Julius Caesar could go out and raise his own ransom, but you can't.
And now we're going to talk about someone who is remarkably different from Julius Caesar.
Julius Caesar paid the ransom.
God paid the ransom, but he did it and the person of one man.
We're going to speak about him.
Matthew, Chapter 20.
Verse 28.
The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
00:30:01
Now here's a wonderful thing.
Here's someone who actually could give his life a ransom. You say, how can that be? Well, here was one who was ordained of God. God the Son came in person as a man to this earth, perfect and holy and spotless, for the express purpose of becoming the Lamb of God and going to the cross of Calvary so that he might die for sinners. He said he came to give his life a ransom for many.
And so tonight in the gospel, this is what we are proclaiming, and I'm sure you've heard it before. As I look around and I see the faces who are here, so many are, who have been to meetings like this before.
But if you have never heard it, or if you've heard it before and said I don't care, listen to it tonight as if it's your first time. Because God looked down and he saw that everyone on earth was helpless and lost in sin. And knowing that left alone that way, he would have to put everyone in hell because there was no one that could pay the debt for their sin. He sent his own son to be the ransom.
And the Lord Jesus Christ.
God the Son, whoever lived in eternity with the Father.
In perfect love.
Left the Father who sent the Son into this world, and he came down here and he humbled himself. He took on him the form of a servant so that he might walk here in this world and become that perfect sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary.
And the Lord Jesus Christ.
Having accomplished everything that his father gave him to do.
As a man on earth and went and did that one last thing and he went up to the cross.
And there on the cross of Calvary.
He allowed men that were exactly like me.
With wicked hearts exactly like mine.
And yours?
Who drives nails into his hand?
And put him on that cross and then hang him up there.
Where they mocked him and they did their absolute worst to him.
But that was not the ransom.
That did nothing to save you.
Who would you pay for the debt of yours then? Or mine?
No, there came a time there on that cross where God had to take the sun and say now it's time to stop shining.
And he drew a veil of darkness across what happened there.
And shut out the view of every single person.
And then God.
Reached out and punished Jesus Christ.
And he put all the debt.
Of my sins upon his blessed head.
He paid for me and he paid for so many who are here.
He paid that debt for everyone who will trust in him.
So that God could, say, deliver his soul from going down to the pit, For I have found a ransom.
God could not say that lightly. He couldn't just forgive it. His nature was too pure to let you just go the way you were on to the end of your life and then say, OK, forget it, come to heaven anyway.
God can't have sin in his presence, and so it all had to be paid for and put away. And the only way he could do that?
Was to cause his Son to come into this world and Jesus Christ and his love for your soul willingly get it.
He paid all the debt.
Well, where are we today?
That's the story.
God meant for us to tell it.
Let's see that again. First Timothy, chapter 2.
00:35:03
First Timothy, chapter 2.
And 1St.
Three, the end of the verse is God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man and man the man Christ Jesus.
Who gave himself a ransom for all?
To be testified in due time, we're unto I am appointed a preacher.
I was asked to preach to you tonight.
And so we have this privilege of doing what God has ordained.
To be testified in due time. Due time is now. The Lord Jesus has come and he's done it and there's still time. You're alive. And so this is that due time. And we preach the Savior.
We preach one who gave himself.
A ransom here, as it says for all. Why does it say that?
Because this message is going out freely to every single one who can hear it. It is not limited.
If you can hear what I'm saying, you can accept it.
Why did the Lord Jesus say that He came to give his life a ransom for many?
Why?
Think about it.
God offers you this freely tonight. You can receive it at no cost to yourself.
Why did the Lord Jesus say He came to be a ransom for many?
We'll answer that question in a minute.
But right now, we're preaching.
That he gave himself a ransom for all.
And so if you can hear what I'm saying, you can accept this. It says in John chapter one and verse 12.
As many as received Him, to them gave he the power, or the right, or the authority to become the children of God.
Will you receive him?
Simply by faith tonight. If you do, then He gives you that right to become his child.
Many has received the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself said, John 316 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Whoever believeth in him is that simple. You could never pay that ransom.
Think about it my friend.
Julius Caesar, who is a mighty powerful man. He laughed at the small ransom that was being asked for him, and he paid a much greater one. You have nothing to offer.
But what is our story about?
One who is infinitely greater.
Saint Julius Caesar.
Came down into this world.
And became that ransom for you.
Oh, there couldn't be a greater difference in these stories.
The story we're telling tonight is the greatest story ever told, or everywhere ever will be told. You walk away from it. It will haunt you also for eternity. You accept it. It will be your joy for eternity.
Men enjoy trivialities. That's stories that we told was interesting, but compared to this story that we're telling here, it's triviality. There's nothing to it.
Unless you take care of this question, you're wasting your time.
And so we find that the Lord Jesus Christ gave up everything to pay your ransom.
And we preach that tonight. One further thing I wanna say before we discuss again that difference between many and all.
Let's go and see something else the Lord Jesus said in John chapter 8.
John, Chapter 8.
00:40:00
Verse 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
If you haven't believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not free, Then you have no possibility of being free except by this one means. And that is the truth of the Gospel which we have preached tonight. It's your only chance.
There is no other way.
Verse 36.
If the Son therefore shall make you free.
You shall be free indeed.
You accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
By believing in him tonight.
Turning in faith and repentance to him and saying there's nothing I can do Lord Jesus, I simply accept that work that you did for me on Calvary's cross and I believe in you.
You come to him just that way, right now, while you're sitting in your seat.
And the Sun will set you free. And if he sets you free, you are free, indeed completely free right now.
I have No Fear before God and I know the vast majority in this room have No Fear before God. We have been set free.
By the authority of God's Word, he cannot deny himself.
We are perfectly free and you can be tonight as well. Now let's go to Job Chapter 36 for one.
Final first.
Verse 18.
We'll end this meeting where we began it.
Because there is wrath. Beware, lest he take thee away with his stroke.
Then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.
Solemn words.
God also has the power over your life.
He decides how long you have.
And he is not cruel, he's a loving God.
But in his patience, he knows when time is time enough.
And he has given you enough time to hear these words tonight.
Beware.
Because there is wrath. Beware unless he takes thee away. The wrath of God is real. Hell is real, the judgment is real. The Lord Jesus spoke about that torment that would be in hell, and he spoke about it as being never ending.
Where the worms dieth not and the fire is not quenched. I can't speak of anything more awful. There are people who say you shouldn't get up and speak in front of people like this because you can't scare people into having. And that's true, we can't.
But if I could, I would be muddy tempted to do it.
The apostle Paul said, Therefore, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade man.
It's an awful thing.
Hell is real. There is wrath.
Says beware, let's see, take thee away with this stroke. And when God does that, the opportunity is over.
He says then a great ransom cannot deliver thee, it's over. God himself can't help you. Then he too is found by his word. He will not go back on it.
Your time is now. It isn't even later tonight. It's right now.
Don't even let this meeting end before you've taken care of this problem. The problem of your soul and what you're going to give to God is a ransom for it.
And just confess that there's nothing that you can and accept the ransom that God has provided.
Will you do it?
If so, the sun will set you free, and you will be free indeed. Let's close by singing #36.
00:45:03
Oh, do not let the word depart.
Why not tonight? That would be saved. Why not tonight?
Hold.
Bloomington, IL.
This is prayer, our God and our Father. We just commit this message to the.
And we would just close this meeting and ask thee again to bring it home with force and power to any who are still lost.
We just pray above all that the Lord Jesus would have received glory here tonight and that others would be brought into blessing. We thank Thee so much for thy love and for the love of the Savior as we commit this time to Thee in His most precious and worthy name. Amen.
James 1:6-12
Put on Christ
Daniel 1
James 1:13-18
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
I think that in 32 and the appendix.
In weakness and trials thought we may believe.
Oh man, no.
I can't dance out in the past and now.
So good at everything here.
But everything is on.
Your father's health here.
All right, so may be sanctioned in time.
Ah, by 10 minutes, right?
Ah, I'll be able to play anything and diagnose them. You have a different time and ah.
Right.
To get.
And then I'm just saying.
Right, God and their Father was.
Thank you that whatever maybe the difficulty that faces us yet we can come to the.
And we can bring our request before thee.
And we thank you that that would always answer it according to.
To what is the very best? Maybe not what we asked for, but.
That thing that is needed. And so we just thank you that we could sing this hymn together.
And the confidence of what it expresses, according to thy word, to know that thou were to God, who is for us.
And that that is not fair, thine own son without us to deliver him up for us all.
And therefore, our God and our Father, how shalt thou knock?
With him also freely give us all things.
So we rejoice in that, and we'd love to be further now to open Thy word and pray that Thou would give us more of that wisdom from its pages. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen. Amen.
Maybe we could continue our Bible reading.
When he has one reading.
More in this conference one a day.
00:05:02
Is this a suggestion?
James chapter one.
13.
James chapter one will begin at verse 13.
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil. Neither tempt to see any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lost hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not earn, my beloved brethren, every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above.
And cometh down from the Father of light.
With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning of His own, will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, that every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness and engrafted the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man, beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not for forgetful here, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed, if any man among you seem to be religious.
And bridaleth not his tone, but deceiveth his own heart. This man's religion is vain, pure religion, and undefiled before God the Father, and before God and the Father. Is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world?
Back up How was man first tempted?
God created man's perfect.
And everything he created was very good.
But then the tempter came.
He certainly was none other but the devil.
And he is still at work today.
This was just about with everyone.
Whenever he can find.
A way to get into his.
Person, his mind, his heart, his conscience. Whatever he can attack, he will.
So we have to be on guard constantly.
Some people think because God does everything.
He brings about everything.
He also is in some somehow in the business have demand. But this is a bad thought. God has nothing to do with it.
00:10:08
It is when men.
Whoever it may be gives in to Satan. That's when he is tempted in whatever it may be.
Cross between temptation and testing.
Because we go to Genesis 22 and the King James it says God did temp.
Abraham.
It's not a good translation of the verse really. A better is God did test or try Abraham.
Uh, station.
Draws men away by the lust that of the sinful nature that is in US. And so Satan works to tempt.
Or even without them, Satan were tempted by in inward loss in our Adam nature.
But God never does that. He never ever. He cannot do that.
Because of what He is, is God, and He's perfect in His Holiness and so he has no evil motive possible in him.
But God does test.
A test profession.
In part, James's epistle was to encourage the Saints to walk in the reality of their faith. But, And at times the word of God is used to speak to us in a way that tests us as to whether we're real or not, as to something. And so God will, according to his perfect wisdom and purpose, if we profess something, to be something.
Or believe something God will sometimes put that profession to the test. Is it real or is it not this person pretending? Maybe they're sincere and deceiving themselves. It isn't that there's necessarily an attempt to deceive on their part my part, but there can be with unconscious to us.
Not having really laid hold of something and so God puts it to the chest, He does allow in the test that He brings into our lives, He does allow and make use of.
Satan or sinful man?
Uh, to bring the test about, as in the case of Job.
God said God had a purpose in Job's life for to bless him, but he was being hindered from his purpose of blessing Joe because he saw something in Job that needed to be taken care of before God could bring the blessing that he wanted in his life. And so when Satan prepares before him, he says, hast thou considered my servant Joe?
And as it were, Job responds yes, but you won't let me touch them. So what can I do? Satan had the desire to bring out make jumps in and God did permit. He said, all right, I will allow you to go this far. And he went that far. And as a consequence of the first step, the result was it says Job sin not with his lips.
Doesn't mean he didn't send, but the words didn't come out. He wasn't fully exposed to himself or to others by the 1St measure that God allowed Satan to go, but then God allowed him to go farther, allowed him to touch his body and his health and uh, then he.
Went on and had blessing after he judged himself and so God does try or test we had the other day in the case of Joseph, God said to Joseph, your family, your father and mother are going to bow down to you and it says later the word of the Lord tried them. So he passed through years of testing as to did he really believe God.
00:15:10
In spite of all the circumstances through which he was passing and uh, God used him as a great vessel of blessing because you might say pass the test, he was real. And so it is in our lives is it says in this verse, let no man say when he's tempted, I'm tempted to God. That is God never, ever put something before us with the intent that we will disobey.
If we profess something.
Then He may put something before us that'll see whether we will obey or not, but it's never in the nature of what we call it, or what should be called a temptation, as it says in this verse.
We are active blame God in some way in trial, aren't we? We get into trouble and it happened in the very first ten that was mentioned.
And the Lord talked to Adam. Adam said the woman this house gave us to me to be with me. She gave me an IED. She blames her. But he also implies that there's some fault on the part of God because God gave her to him. And so we are apartment to turn around and blame God in some way. So this is a very needed expectation.
They don't do it. It's just something that God never can do.
This earth is also very blessed for defending the deity of our earthy the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is God.
And so Satan came to him. He could be tempted in all the ways that we had earlier in our chapter. That is, he went through testing, He went through great testing. They would come there and put things before him. But he couldn't be tested in this way. He couldn't be tested this way because there was nothing from within that would respond to it.
So Satan comes and he completely fails. Later on, Satan would come again at the end of the Lord's ministry, and the Lord would say the Prince of this world comes and he has nothing.
In me there was nothing inside the Lord that could correspond to that. There is enough, and so we need that. But the Lord didn't have that sin nature.
So it says in Hebrews chapter 4 that he was an all points tempted like as we are, and yet without sin or sin apart he couldn't be tempted that way. So it's important to see that.
And defend who he was in this person.
I say that because a lot of people today, a lot of Christians today say that the Lord Jesus could have been, but he didn't. So he's the great overcomer and we look to him as the one, the great example as to how to overcome that actually is a slur in this person and.
From what I understand, perhaps the majority of Christians today would hold that teaching. We need to be aware of it. That's really a very bad teaching with respect to the person of the Lord.
Where is that thought? A little step farther as well.
Very very important point to learn.
Never, ever, ever judge God by what we are.
I say that again, it's a tremendously important thing. Never, ever judge God by what we are.
What we are is this.
If you've lied.
Con one of the consequences is you will believe that you could be lied to.
You see that in Cain he committed murder.
And when he committed murder, he was afraid he would be murdered.
If you cheated.
You will think people will cheat.
In return, if you've ever stolen, you will think you may have someone steal from you. It's the way we are, and it's important to recognize what we are and why we act, if you will, that we do.
00:20:04
But the mistake is so easily made is we try to apply those same things to God.
If I deceive.
If I haven't been righteous, I may say, well, maybe God doesn't always do things just quite the right way.
And so on.
And the importance of it is is.
That we recognize that our God is what he says he is.
I do not lie.
Pretty obvious. I do not cheat, I do not steal, I do not deceive, I do not attempt.
We tempted somebody. There's a certain something in US and it says right here, God doesn't tempt because he never ever acts inconsistent with himself, which is not like us.
And as a consequence.
We we must learn to trust. We've been talking about faith in the last day. We've got to learn to trust God and not according to the character of what we are.
Or we will, in certain circumstances, not trust him.
We will misrepresent him.
Because we're judging him according to what we are in ourselves. And that's part of what Joe had to learn. Uh, he had to change his perspective to see things from God's perspective.
And always look at it from, well, what is God said of himself and how is he going to act consistent with his own character? He said, I can't deny myself. I promised this to you. I'm going to deliver on my promises regardless in that sense of us. And just one final thought about it.
If we look at things from God's perspective, you can find in tremendous encouragement in spite of what we are.
In spite of what we are, uh, just a little example out of this chapter, it says.
God cannot be tempted with evil either. Tempteth he any man.
God says.
I've made you my child.
I've given you the life of the family, the nature of the family.
And when the transition that Phil spoke about is done and it gets to the end of what God has purposed, he says you'll never tempt anybody.
You'll never lost.
You'll never fail to love.
To participate in the essential deity of God.
But as his children, we've received the divine nature and we will be morally like the Lord Jesus Christ when God's work is done and so.
Even it's not to diminish or to weaken the exhortation here, but at the same time it's a it's a wonderful thing to say. God says I can't tempt anybody. Won't it be nice when his work is done and we never, ever have a desire to tempt anyone.
Deceive anyone, lie to anyone, steal from anyone, and so on.
It's, uh, it's an encouragement if we stop and allow God to show us what he's doing and his perspective on what he's doing. But again, I say never ever judge God by what we are.
It's helpful, On the contrary, to judge ourselves by what God is.
00:25:04
There's, there's all kinds of temptations around us and we're prone to yield to them and to make excuses. And perhaps one of the commonest these days is and the Christians endorse this, My Christians endorse, they say it's all right to lie once in a while if you do it for a good purpose.
Does God ever lie?
God never lies that it's always wrong.
That doesn't mean we always have to tell everything we know. God doesn't tell us everything he knows. But God never lies. It's never right to lie. It's it's a it's a truth, a simple truth that.
Is not commonly recognized in society these days.
Originally God, uh, made us in his image.
After we fell, we made God in our image.
And you look around at the Greeks and all their funny gods and uh, they all have these human characteristics. They all have an evil connected with them. Look at other societies in these ugly, angry looking slots, idols and stuff. That's just a representation of what's in my heart. So.
We we now make God an art image.
But uh, certain settings, not the way it is there. There is that symmetry there.
Brother already mentioned about the.
The fact that we have enemies, really the just one is mentioned here and that is the flash that's within.
And uh.
It's really important to see that.
That is taken up by itself because we may even try to blame other enemies that we have. The devil made me do it or something like that. But the fact is there's enough that's wrong right inside of us and we need to be guard on guard again. Satan really doesn't have to do much work. Maybe with regard to me, sometimes I get into plenty enough trouble by not judging myself and keeping my flesh the place of death and so that it's taken off all by itself later on.
James goes and takes up the other enemies in order in chapter 4. You'll find there that it's first he takes up the the flesh and the first part of that.
The the lost again. He thinks up in verse three and then he goes on to the world. Friendship with the world is enmity with God in verse 4.
And uh.
And then he goes to the end of verse seven there resist the devil. He will flee from you until he takes up the three enemies as a believer has. And that's all true and important. And the word of God speaks much about all three. But as I understand it, the flesh is the one that is dealt with the most is there we fail the most. And so when we look at this and see that there are these suggestions that come from within.
And they're called lots and it doesn't say lost is sent here. I think the word is actually desire.
Translated that in other places when it's used in a good way, like the Lord Jesus said with the desire of I desire Jesus Passover with you. It's the same word, but it's a suggestion, a desire that comes from the old nature and that's what's wrong with it. And if we listen to it, if we get place to it.
And don't immediately judge that is where it came from and it's rude. Then it says there's a progression to it and it goes on to +10 which then goes on to what is called here death and.
00:30:13
The warning here isn't to explore what happens down that road, but to stop right at the beginning of it. Recognize where the thought is coming from.
And be done with it. Judge it.
Own that God is good and submit to him and go on.
The first part is to do with you all the enough.
Versus just described.
The verses which follow give the very opposite side of it too. It says do not earn my blood rather than because then it brings out good.
Well, as to the evil?
We give excuse.
As to our sin in doing it.
Only three main excuses given in Genesis are God's fault, Satan's fault, or somebody else's fault. Those are the three that are given in the excuse.
Alright, equally subtle in US.
Is if we see something that we perceive to be good.
We want the credit.
We we want to think that's me.
That was the root of Joe's problem. Gone and made him a righteous man.
And the keyword is God had made.
But Joe's problem was he was proud of what he was and he wanted the credit for it.
And so God had to work with Joe to help him to discover what he thought of himself.
And what was wrong with his conclusion about it? Because no flash is going to glory in the presence of God.
When we look at things that way, then we judge God again. I've done good.
Why am I not receiving from God the just recompense of my goodness?
Why isn't God doing this for me? So and so does that and nothing seems to happen to him. But I'm I'm not doing it. I'm doing it right now. Why isn't my life getting good?
Our hearts say I deserve.
And so, he says, every good and every perfect gift is from a glove.
The source of all goodness is in the heart of God.
It's not in our doing, it's not in our not doing. It's in the heart of God.
Did God want Job to be a righteous man? Yes, He did. Does He want you and I to be righteous people? Yes, He does.
But whose? To whose credit is it?
It's gone.
It's God's credit, but if the natural man is given his chance, if Adam is given his chance, he's going to say I deserve, I'm good.
And he's going to judge his fellow for not being so good. Father, I thank thee that I'm not, as other men are.
And then he looks at the public and, and as his prayer and uh, so as such is, is the confidence that man has in his own goodness.
That we are.
We are in that, and so we're taught to say don't hurt that way. Every man, every blood, every perfect gift comes from God.
And he is the one that is to receive the credit for it.
00:35:02
And he's unchanging. He's unfailing. It is good.
You'll never, ever, ever give us something that is not from His unchanging heart of good.
Yes. Why did we begin ourselves?
Oh, by his own will.
That he us by the word of truth.
On his own with.
There is less.
Bringing up in every man, even children.
They are lasting after something, after new toys, after something that the other one might have and they don't have it.
They try to get it, maybe take it away.
There's many ways.
I wish men can be drawn, it says he had drawn.
Into some kind of loss.
Maybe getting a new car when they are older can't afford it.
Lasting after a house after.
People are married.
It looks very good but they can't afford it.
And and no is something happened that they don't?
Calculate into their lives.
It's robust. It'll go wrong.
That's why God says don't.
Money. Don't borrow anything.
Only.
Get that which you can't afford.
He has promised us to take care of us.
If we live a godly life according to His ways, He has promised to take care of us in whatever circumstances we are.
And again, patiently wait for the time where we can have what we need.
We've seen Gorbachev that this country down to their knees by doing this.
Well, it would have been a good thing if everybody had prayed when it happened.
Because with these mortgages so-called.
They got people to take high mortgages, big money, and then they couldn't pay it and they went into bankruptcy.
Well, that's one way that God, that God would like to have us to watch against. On the other hand, that's one way where how Satan got in.
And got a lot of help.
Hard things to happen to many, many families and through the whole country.
Lasting after something.
Question is for someone to answer. Some of them perhaps is in this situation, if my old nature is dead, why do I have this conflict? So could you expand a little on that reckoning? It would be a dead brother.
00:40:07
Well, I'm sure you can, but I'll give it a try.
The Word of God teaches us and.
We take some time to go through it, but in in Romans 6, it brings out very plainly how we have this, umm, old nature that's within us.
That, uh, we are to keep the hold in that place of, of death. Other scriptures as well, and it's always there.
The scripture talks about it as being alive.
Umm, it speaks about the old man that we have too. We often read about that. I just mentioned it briefly that that, uh, that is actually crucified and seen as dead. But the scripture talks about this old nature. We find that it is there and, and it can work if we allow it to.
And so this is one of those places where you find that lost is working. It's it's suggesting and and if we give it place, it will go on and progress now in Galatians Chapter 5.
We read something about the the secret of the power over it. So if I could just make the whole discussion short and go there.
It says in verse 16 this I say then walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Now, as believers, we were born again. We just read that.
And having been born again, we have divine life from God. It's a perfect life, and that life only does what is natural to it.
However you go through and you read in the book of Romans, you find that there's a struggle between that life and and the the flash. We may say the new nature and the old nature. And in Romans we see that there's a a complete difficulty to you come to chapter 8. But here we find really the answer of it is the Holy Spirit, which also comes out in Romans 8, so.
Just to say that briefer, we've got a new nature and an old nature. The new nature wants to do what is right. The old nature doesn't want to do what is right. That old nature that we have cannot be improved. It's desperately wicked. There's nothing that can be done. It tells us that it's it can be improved, but it lies.
The new nature can't be improved either. It's perfect.
And we have to live in one of the other and the only chance we have to live according to the new nature is to walk in the Spirit. And we can do that because God has given us his spirit. We're in dwelled by the Holy Spirit. So that is what is taken up in Galatians chapter five. He says in verse 16 this I say then walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
So how do we do that? Well, the flash lost against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are the contrary ones to the others, so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you're a lad of the Spirit, you're not into the law. Now the worst of the flesh and manifest, which are these and so on it goes through them, and then it brings out the fruit of the Spirit. And it says in verse 24 days that our Christ have crucified the flesh with the affection.
And the loss her brother was talking about that a little bit in his meeting, if you remember, said you could have put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we've got the putting off these works of the flesh. And here we find that keeping the flesh and the type of in the place of death, it's broken up here is having crucified the flesh with the affections and the loss.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. And that's the secret.
We have the Spirit of God.
And we take up with the Spirit of God in our life. We give no place to the flesh, but instead we walk according to the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God will lead us in the ways of God. And that begins with so much of what we've had in this world in in these meetings. The word of God is an integral part of that. He's going to lead us on in his word. We get that later on in James one here. And we walk according to that way. It's called in Romans 8.
00:45:16
Umm, living after the Spirit, we're living in the realm of the Spirit, doing those things that the Spirit of God within us wants us to do and gives us the power to do. And when we do that, there is the power over the old nature that we have and we won't sin. Peter says if you do these things, you won't fail. And so that's the power and there is no secret or shortcut to it, but.
Taking up with living that life in the Spirit of God and by the Word of God.
I'm sure someone else can better.
US.
Lost his UMM desiring something to have something that God is not giving us. And umm, it's it's beautiful to see the answer to UMM trying to take something God has not given us.
He isn't giving it to us because it's not for our best interest. It's not for our blessing. But what He has to give us is every good gift and every perfect gift. And so, you know, we do umm, you know, just because we do have a new nature and we can put on Christ doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to, umm, not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Well, the end of lust.
We have here in our chapters death, Death.
Why would we want that to be the end result of the activity of our life that God would have to?
Just condemn it as something that's not worthy of life.
Whereas.
God promises us that His every good gift and His every perfect gift is is there waiting for us. Often times He may test us to see whether.
Umm, we're we're willing to wait.
And to see whether we will give in to temptation. He, he doesn't tempt us with evil, as we've been saying, but oftentimes faith is tested, obedience is tested. And he, he's so good to show us exactly what's going to happen if we give in to lust. The end result. But then it's not very.
It's not very far down the chapter that he brings in the positive and the blessing and the good things that he has to to give us if if we take things from his hand instead of taking things that he that aren't from his hand.
Without the pace, we haven't really leased the thought of faith still. So we have to look at this and say because of faith, this is what happened. So verse 16 begins by saying do not error. We were to use today's language, let's say don't make any mistake about there's no mistake about this. Don't even think twice about it. Do not error. My beloved president, every Christian and perfect give us from above. Faith tells us that we're not to question any of it.
It is the results that we now know that we have the faith from God and then we can see and apply that to every situation that I mentioned here to the end of the after it would tell us even things like in verse 19. It tells us it says every man the swift to hear slow to speak slow draft. Well, what does they have to do with that? Well, almost everything because.
00:50:20
It requires faith to understand this to be able to.
Hear. Hearing is to hear what God have to say to us. Do we have to say that belief that God is speaking to us? So here we are told that we be swift to hear our our ears too, to hear what God has. Are we ready to accept the message from God himself? Swift to hear from his word? Well then, what's to do with slow to speak?
And I don't think it's speaking in the term of talking past or talking slow, but rather I believe here the speaking is the expressions of how we express God's thoughts. We have to be careful. We have to express it as it is from God himself that it will speak and be an article of God. We have to be slow to swift to hear and then slow to deliver necklace that he may be clear and concise.
And not only that, as a service of God, it is true faith that we learn not to strive. We learn not to be, not to, uh, to be slow with rock as well. And you can look through the rest of the examples here. The rest of the example throughout, uh, to the end of the chapter is really because of faith is the result of faith that we're able to follow the word of God.
Nice to take these verses and quiet to the 1St Corinthians 7.
Uh, and she is a good guest and she is every perfect yes. And if I view my wife as a gift from loving hearing God that I indeed going to be as we communicate.
To allow these things practically.
To her you don't hear about the Lord Jesus screaming, yelling at his bride. You know, here's the bride screaming and yelling at Christ. Every marriage we go to is a picture of marriage of Christ and his rise. And so often we don't function that way for, you know, take time to listen. We don't hear properly we get.
That out of shape we go domestic.
There's conflict.
I believe it's simply because of these things here.
Every good gift, every perfect gift.
Proper gift.
God has given her to me and.
Value her to see her in that light, then we can go out together if you want.
That was the Lord's desire, that we would go out together as one. But it was nice to see that with whom there is no variable that neither shadow is turning. There's no Gray areas with God, brother. There's any Gray areas in our life with regards to spiritual things. We've created them. There's no variable that's neither shadow turning with God. It's all black.
That takes space.
00:55:05
We all know that the book of Genesis is the book of beginnings. So we see the beginnings of things, but out of Genesis in.
How does the book of Genesis end?
Joseph died.
Joseph died.
Uh, Genesis is a great beginning, but it ends in death.
And if you continue to trace it on to the end of Malachi?
Speaks in the very end of Malachi of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And uh, less I come and smite the earth and the curse doesn't have a very happy ending.
Because the Old Testament is what man is.
It's the history of man and what he is.
But by contrast to that, the New Testament, and it's great intent, is what God is.
That's what God is. And uh, so we have in, in the book of John, right? And truth came by Jesus Christ.
God brings his fullness to man in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, and it's what God is and what God brings. It's the great giver bringing his gifts and, uh, demonstrating what he is for man. And so in our chapter.
We were begot by the word of truth. It is that truth that came by Jesus Christ that has brought us into the relationship of God, which as children and uh, God is a God of grace. And so the New Testament ends the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And James is helping the brethren, if you will, to get on the same page with God.
And the practice of the practical carrying out of that which God has brought.
And wants us to live out as we await the final result of what he is doing and so we're the first fruits of his creatures were were those that he has is working with to bring about the end result that everything will be of God and nothing will be of the original creation. Even the physical creation is good to be replaced because it's been spoiled by sin and so it's important for us to be.
Ready to listen?
Don't bring the old man into it. Don't bring the old man's thoughts into it, don't bring the flesh into it. We do it naturally, but it only hinders us. And the old ends in death, which in its root death means separation.
And when a man dies, in a physical sense, he separated from that which characterizes his life. It's the separation of his fallen spirit from his body, and he no longer can function because those there's been that separation.
But in Adam all died.
And the death is more than the physical death. It is the separation from God that makes it so terribly serious. And when a man is separated from God.
His life is totally wrong. It's totally messed up. And yeah, God's work with us is to separate us from that which separated us from God and to bring us into the enjoyment and that of that which connects us with God, which is life.
And uh, we, we make God's work pretty hard. God has to work pretty hard on us because we make it difficult for him to accomplish his purpose. But we thank God, he reminds, he remains faithful and he will get to the end of his agenda, his program in the day of grace, which is conformity of creation.
And it's in us to that which is purposed by grace and truth. I just want to again state how important the Word is. The Word is terribly important because we're begotten by the word of truth or begotten through the Word. God uses the Spirit, using the Word in us to bring us into life. And having brought us into life, He gives us a word that we might live.
01:00:20
In accordance with the light that he's given that he might make us wise as to his character that we might become, if I could use it carefully, more God like in practice.
And, uh, he wants us to be like himself. And so he does that work that it might result in that. And he, in grace and love to us, brings us into that, which would cause us to judge whatever it is that's hindering his work in the positive side of it.
Four days will be a picture of men's 4000 years history. Isn't it 4000 years. It proves that result is that simple. You think it by now and think about this verse we have before us verse 22 Be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. Back in Genesis, in the garden name was told one simple commandment is not to eat of the fruit of that tree.
And Satan came.
Couldn't he? He couldn't remember exactly what was said. What you Satan say? Yeah. Have God said?
How often do we leave a conference like this and say that was nice, but nothing changed our lives here. We exalted not to be a hearer of the word only.
Not a doer. The word do you find is interesting is in order to God the smallest 'cause you say the shortest word 2 letters.
Co. You can look it up. It's in scripture more than once. Do do.
And so here it says, so we're not going to deceive ourselves. Knowledge sometimes can be dangerous without a guidance from this period. Uh.
Verse 16 We have another exhortation. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
It is so easy to erase certain things which we do if we don't do them with the Lord.
Then he says every good gift, every perfect gift comes from about 4000. Give us bad gifts.
Lord Jesus says she wouldn't give your.
Son who asked for an egg? A serpent?
So all the gifts that God gives, which we need, are good gifts.
And they are also perfect if if they're properly used.
He talked in here about marriage. It's a gift of God.
It has to be understood how to walk.
In marriage with all that belongs to it.
And it all comes from the Father of Lights.
God is light. He has a flashlight that's right now to shine into everybody's life and brings out what is bad.
And exhort us to straighten it out and to confess it.
With him is no variableness. He doesn't risk things around. He won't let us twist things away. Uh, we want to see it, or if we did something wrong, to twist it in such a way that it looks good.
If it doesn't, uh, stand to test of scripture.
Not good.
Has been twisted.
01:05:01
And he turns.
Things.
In the right light.
He takes things out of the shadow.
And he shines his light on it, neither shadow of turning. If I have shady things done, he brings it up.
By shining his light on.
So we come back to the same thing again. We have to test everything by scripture.
All the guests, I love these clothes. Thou give them all good. Heaven itself enrich your nose.
Before they now hear at the end of this meeting and thank you for the word which Provo was provided for us, Thank you for.
Knowledge that it is a good gift and a perfect gift. We thank you for each one of these gifts which thou has given to us.
And most of all, for that.
That's perfect. Yeah. It's a gift of thigh. Well, beloved son, which was given for us, we thank thee for not sparing him, but offering him up for a call. We look forward to that soon coming day. We'll be able to see him and be with him for all eternity. His most precious and Marthy. Namely Price.
Believe (Romans)
Gospel—Josh Stewart
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Welcome to the Gospel meeting tonight.
And we could begin by singing the 1St 2 verses of #26.
There is life and a look at the crucified One. There is life at this moment for thee. Then look center. Look unto Him, and be saved unto Him who was nailed to the tree. Someone could raise the tune 1St 2 verses of #26.
Nsnoise.
There is a light.
Wind where I am flying Pakistan's mum and one of the beginnings.
851556 one man according to the beginning.
Well, there's time. We'll send the last three verses of this him at the close of the meeting, if we're still left here.
Before we pray, I'd just like to read one verse that's been on my heart. God's Gospel chapter 6.
The short verse but.
Part of my burden tonight, John's Gospel, chapter 6.
The end of the chapter, verse 64.
It reads, but there are some of you that believe not.
I'll read it again, but there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not.
Tonight, uh, the exercise of the local brethren here in Cuyahoga Falls and my exercise and the exercise of many others here tonight is that the gospel would go forth one more time, clearly and simply.
And I don't know who here does not believe, but Jesus knew from the beginning those who stood there that did not believe. And there might be someone sitting here tonight that does not believe. And if if you're that person.
Beg you to just, umm, we beg you to listen carefully and consider what's presented tonight in the Gospel. Well, that's for the Lord's help before we begin.
Loving God and our Father, we thank Thee this evening for the privilege that we have to present the gospel one more time.
In this dark day that we're living in, the gospel has been preached for almost 2000 years now and we thank the our God and Father for extending the time that we have to preach this wonderful gospel. We just pray again that there's someone here that is not yet accepted that gospel and believed in their heart and been saved that they would do so tonight. We just pray for liberty of the Spirit to to just give our souls what what's required for those of us who are already saved to warm our hearts.
But most of all, that one person that's sitting here that does not believe that they would turn to the Lord Jesus today. We ask this in the worthy and precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
00:05:03
I said, uh, purposes to just present a simple gospel message like was presented last night. It's the same same old story that you've heard so many times before, but I'm very happy to be able to tell it to you tonight. And I'd like to turn to the book of Romans. And a lot was mentioned today from the book of Romans and, uh, very happy to hear that. And I love the book of Romans. So such a foundational book.
And as her brother mentioned.
Awards subject that he presents in this wonderful epistle as the gospel. And so I'd like to read a few verses from the book of Romans tonight and make a few comments. And I don't plan to speak for very long, but let's start with verse one of the first chapter of the book of Romans.
Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated under the Gospel of God which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
Paul was saying here that he was separated under the Gospel of God, and it's Paul's burden in this epistle to present the Gospel of God, and that's our burden tonight.
And it's God's good news and we're just so happy to be able to present that one more time. God's good news. But it says in verse 3 concerning his Son, Jesus Christ and the gospel is concerning his Son. And you know, I could try to persuade you intellectually, logically, I could try to give you examples, tell you about how I was saved, tell you about how many others were saved and use that as a reason and use that as a basis for.
The Gospel. But the gospel is concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and his Son was.
Made of the seed of David according to the flesh he was a man, he was 100% a human being sent a part, but he was 100% human just like everyone in this room. But it says also verse four and declared to be the son of God with power.
He was not just a man, He was God and he was the Son of God. You know, he was declared to be the Son of God with power. We could look at the Lord's life and I'll read a verse that John summarizes what he writes in his book, the last verse of his 20th chapter. Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing he might have life through his name.
And throughout the Lord's life as he lived here.
Through the miracles that he did, the words that he spoke and the things that God said and speaking from heaven and other signs, it was declared that he was the Son of God. But more than that, later in the verse it says by the resurrection from the dead and the Lord Jesus Christ, he died and then he rose from the dead. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But you know, the Lord Jesus when he died, he said it is finished. He's talking about.
Umm, his work and redemptions work on Calvary, which is the basis of the gospel. You know, when God raised him from the dead, it was God saying it is finished. And that's what we need to hear tonight is that God is satisfied with the work of Calvary.
Well, let's drop down to verse 16.
Romans one verse 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew 1St and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, that just shall live by faith.
And tonight I can say that here now, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
And it's not always true. I have to hang my head. But I can I can say to your local brother here in Cuyahoga Falls are not ashamed. You know why? It's the power of God.
That's how I was saved. Power of God.
Through the gospel, you know, the world would look at what we're doing here tonight and say it's foolishness, but God is pleased by the foolishness of preaching, by the foolishness of preaching to save us, and it's the power of God.
00:10:12
It says also that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith on the principle of faith to faith. And tonight you need faith from God to understand this. You need faith to believe the gospel. You know something?
Faith comes from God. It's a gift of God, Ephesians chapter 2 tells us. And we trust the Lord will give you that faith tonight to believe His word.
Well, in the first three chapters of the book of Romans.
Umm, God establishes that all are guilty, and that's the first thing. As mentioned last night, I'll mention it again now, we need to understand that we're all guilty. And you know, maybe you're here tonight and you're saying, yeah, I've heard that before. I've heard that before. But think about it as we read these verses. We're all guilty. We all need salvation.
In Romans chapter one now verse 18, he begins his treatise. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth and unrighteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.
Even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Well, these verses are saying that to every person born into this world, every man.
There's enough evidence in the creation. The things that are made, that's the creation. There's enough evidence by looking out these windows and seeing these trees, the lake, the animal creation, and seeing all that, you know in your heart of hearts that there is a God. Not just that, there is a God. It says his eternal power. And God, you know he's a God and you know he's a powerful God.
And so everyone is responsible. And as Paul moves through these chapters, he narrows in closer and closer on those who are more and more responsible. So then in chapter 2 and verse one you can say, therefore thou are inexcusable. Oh man, whom whosoever thou art that judges. So we find another group of people that that are those who judge. For wherein thou judge just another, thou condemn us by self.
For thou that judge us, do us the same things.
And this is a class of people he goes on to speak about.
Who are educated and they know a lot. And we're living in a world that's full of North America, that's full of educated people. We are remarking at one of the meals today that it's almost expected now that you have some sort of college education. And more and more people are going through higher and higher levels of education. And there's something called philosophy, and we're taught this.
You know, it may not be a philosophy class, but you're taught it. I was taught it when I went to school. And you know, man sees the condition of the world. He sees the growing creation. He sees the condition of man. And rather than taking God at his word, he comes up with reasons why it is and what we need to do to fix it.
And he would point at those in this world that live in an immorality and say, well, here's the reason why and here's the problem with that. But the truth is it's in their hearts as well. It's in all of our hearts. And we are inexcusable. Those who judge, we do the same things. We are all responsible.
You know, the more knowledge we have, the more responsible we are and.
And that's a principle in these first few chapters of the book of Romans and, umm, if you've been brought up in a Christian home, we're going to get to that next. You're the most responsible.
But it's so interesting, this week I was, umm, doing a little bit of research on a man umm.
Who's who's alive in the world today? His name is Richard Dawkins and he's an atheist and I'm sure many of you have heard of him and he's, umm, a great orator and he spoken many times on behalf of what he believes. And in my research and looking at, uh, looking at this man, I, I came across another individual who was very inspirational to Richard Dawkins. So I'm sure many of you heard of.
00:15:10
And this man's name was umm, Christopher Hitchens. And Christopher Hitchens is dead now. But uh, he, he was not an atheist. He was, he was an anti theist and umm.
For those of you who don't know and agnostic is someone who doesn't know if there's a God, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe there's a God, but an anti theist says there's not a God and I'm glad there's not a God.
And he was very vocal and UMM influenced many, many people, thousands of people. So listen to him speak.
I thought.
It's not about how much you know. It's not about how smart you are. It's not about how intellectual you are. It's not about what degrees you have, whether you've spoken to Oxford and Cambridge and Yale. It doesn't matter. Here's a man who's heard the gospel probably more times than I have throughout his life.
And he could stare death in the face and say I don't believe is a God and I don't want to believe there's a God. He, he got cancer. Umm, he died I think 3, three years ago or so. And he was, umm, about to attend a conference of others who believe the same way he believes. And he said.
He couldn't go, so he wrote a letter. At the end of his letter, he signed the letter and umm.
He he mocked the Apostle Paul, where Paul says I have kept the faith, he said don't keep the faith. And that was the last thing he wrote. And umm, think of that man with all that education, one of the most brilliant men that have lived in our time and yet he could.
He could take what he knows from what God has shown him and he could walk straight down the plank into hell. As far as we know and just realized it's not the wise man, it's not the mighty, it's not the noble that are called the Lord Jesus said I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good and I sight and it's wonderful tonight because you don't need a degree to accept the gospel.
You only need to believe it's so simple.
And I'm so glad that that's the way it is. Umm.
But then we come to another group of people, and I believe we fall into this category in in verse 17 of Romans 2. Behold our call the Jew. Now we're not Jews, but bear with me here and rest us in the law and make us by boast of God and knowest his will and approve us The things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law, and are confident that thou thyself are the guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness.
And in structure of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which has the form of knowledge and of the truth and the law. Thou therefore which teaches another, teachest thou not thyself?
You know, there was one of these debates. This man was that and.
And uh, Richard Dawkins, a man I mentioned earlier, was debating the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, and a man asked the question of them both.
An atheist and an Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church and the man asked this question. He said I'm an atheist. When I die, what will happen to me?
Well, Richard Dawkins, what he said.
Was it depends on if you're buried or cremated. But if you're buried, your body will go into the ground. Your brain, which is the part that thinks of your body, that thinks will rot and that will be the end of you.
It's terrible, but listen to what the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church said.
He said well you have a never dying soul, that's true.
He said that when you die, your spirit and your soul will leave your body. That's true. Then the man spoke up again. He said, will I go to hell? And he said no, you will not go to hell.
And here we are. We're living in a day.
And in a land that has had the word of God.
And those who have the most light, they have this book. Infallible word of God have taken this book.
And they have denied what God has said. They have taken what they had from God, his revelation to us, and they have changed it and said an atheist would not go to hell when he died. And I just thought for a minute, you know, really who's more responsible?
00:20:23
Is it the the man who judges who, uh, goes to college and gets a college education? Or is it the man who says I'm a teacher of the word and then teaches that kind of error?
You know, and I'm not here to point fingers, but just to make this point by the word of God.
That we are all guilty, all of us, every one of us is guilty. And you may never have done something like that, like stand up there and say something wrong like that or or commit a terrible crime, but we're all guilty. And we're going to read that in the third chapter of Romans.
And verse 9.
Romans 3 version.
Verse 9.
What then? Are we better than they? That's the great question, isn't it?
You say, yeah, I'm bad, but I'm not as bad as him. I'm not as bad as her. I'm not as bad as that person over there. Are we better than they? No.
And no wise, in no way are you better. In no way are you better. We're all guilty.
For we have before approved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.
And so this written, there is none righteous. No, not, no, not one. There's none that understand this. There's none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of the way. They're all together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one.
Verse 19.
Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and that all the world may become guilty before God. And tonight I can tell you on the authority of the word of God, that the whole world has become guilty before God. Every single person in this world is guilty before God.
You need to see that because you're part, you're part of that. I'm part of that. We are guilty before God.
But you know, this is the good news, and that's what we're getting to, so let's read on.
Verse 21 but now.
But now.
And.
When he received the gospel.
It's a wonderful thing. You suddenly see that something is different. You read the be from the beginning of the Bible. You come to a chapter like Genesis chapter 5, and you read and he died and he died and he died.
And, umm, if you listen to an audiobook version of the Bible, you sort of hear things a little bit differently because you're reading through it much quicker. That's one of the things that stuck out to me was, and he died and he died and he died, and that's going to be true of everyone in this room if the Lord doesn't come and he died and he died.
But for those who are saved, we have a hope. We're exempt from death, and that's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
And umm, now the righteousness of God, this is something the gospel is bringing without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe.
For there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Here it is, All have sinned, all have sinned and come short. Doesn't matter how short you come, you've come short. If you're jumping from A10 story building rooftop to another ten story building rooftop and you come short in your jump, does it matter if you were a foot short or 10 feet short? It doesn't matter. You fell short and all of us have fallen short of the glory of God.
But it's unto all, and the gospel goes unto all, but it's only upon all them that believe. And so tonight what we're trying to make sure is that everyone in this room is a part of quote, all them that believe. And I hope that I can say that all those in this room tonight believe the gospel.
Well, it says in verse 24.
00:25:01
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, freely by his grace. And the gospel tonight is free. There's not a price.
You can come and drink at the waters that that that are flowing tonight. You can come and you can drink freely. There's not a price. There's nothing to pay. We're not here trying to sell indulgences. We're not here trying to ex exact a certain code of conduct from you or get you to follow or or join a church or anything like that. It's free. You can just come and take it. It's free.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, how can God save a Sinner? How can God save a Sinner? Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, a mercy seat through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
You know.
It's very important to understand that when God saves a Sinner.
He doesn't bend the rules to say the center very important that you understand that maybe there's someone here, a young person that's heard the gospel for and they thought about it and they said that doesn't really make sense. You know, how can you know? How can that work? Umm.
Yeah, you need to understand that when God saves a Sinner, he's not bending the rules.
When God saves a Sinner, he maintain He maintains his own righteousness. He may. He remains consistent. That's what righteousness means, consistency.
And, umm.
You know, if you are playing the game of Monopoly and you, you, uh, have all your properties mortgaged and you land on someone's hotel on Boardwalk or Park Place.
You know you could, when no one's looking, swipe a couple bills from the bank and pay the debt that way. But is that righteous? No, we know that that's cheating to take money from the bank.
Let me ask you this did God?
Act inconsistently when he saved me, when he saved the thief that died beside him on that cross, did he? No, he did not. It says that God might be just and a justifier of him that believe it in Jesus. He's both he's just and he's just and he is the justifier. What does it mean to justify someone? Well, if any of you have have, uh, interlinear Bible, you can look and see it's the same word as righteousness just.
It just means instead of righteousness, it seems it means to be made righteous. That's what it means. God has made me righteous. I'm not righteous to myself, but he has looked at me and he said Josh and he's he looked in his book and he put a check mark next to my name and he said I'm righteous. Now I haven't told you how or why he did that, but he did. And in order to do that.
He gave his son to die.
That's what it costs him to be able to do that, you know, and that's what you need tonight because you need to be justified. We're going to see that in the next chapter.
And we'll turn there now. Romans chapter 4.
How can a man be just with God?
Well, there was a man named Abraham, and it says if you read your Bible in the Old Testament, it says.
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
And Paul, by the Spirit of God, takes this example and unfolds beautifully in this chapter how and why God took my name and checked righteous. Why did he do it? Well, we'll turn right to the end of the chapter for time's sake.
Verse 20 He staggered. Abraham staggered not at the promise of God. Romans 4. Verse 20 He staggered not the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith. You mentioned that today the two opposites, unbelief and faith. He was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness, that is, his belief in what God had promised, that that faith was imputed to him for righteousness.
00:30:06
Now God made a promise to Abraham and Abraham believed it. And what are we to believe? What? What are we to believe? So that God will say he has faith, So he will just, He will say to you that you have faith to the next verse.
Now it was not written for his sake alone, not just for Abraham, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him.
What that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. That's the story of the gospel right there. Delivered for our offenses, raised for our justification.
And umm, and then the first verse of the next chapter gives us that precious, precious truth. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. You want peace with God. You want to be able to stand before God without any doubt or fear in your heart. You need to be justified by faith.
He was delivered for our offences. You know, it says, I'm just going to turn. You can turn if you'd like to. Isaiah 53.
To read a few verses about our precious Savior.
Verse five. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed all. We, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
He has brought us a lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before her shears is dumb. So he opened openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living, and for the transgression of my people was He stricken.
You know the Lord Jesus.
It cost him so much.
To be delivered for our offenses.
To bear the transgressions that we had compiled before God, all the things that we have done, if you're saved tonight, the Lord Jesus has bore those things.
You know, Lord Jesus came into this world, we said before he was a man, but he was the Son of God. He was in a place in heaven where.
He was always treated just the way that he deserved to be treated.
And I mean to speak reverently when I say that, but he came into this world and there was no room for him at the end.
And that just characterizes his whole life down here, you know?
You know, they should have, uh, his people should have just received and been so happy to see him. You know, Jesus is Jehovah of the Old Testament. Do you know that, that, that Jehovah, the Old Testament, the one who gave them the manna, the one who, you know, bore with them as they murmured in the Old Testament?
Jesus is that same person. He came to his own people.
I, I guess when I think of that, it just touches my heart because here he came. Don't you know me? Don't you know me? But they didn't know him. They didn't know him and they rejected him.
He's despised and rejected of men and he he walked through this world perfectly before God, all the things that he suffered.
We will never understand. Perhaps in some of the aspects of the suffering we can understand a little bit, but.
Misunderstood by everyone around him, he was umm, denied by one of his own disciples. Forsaken by all of his disciples.
One of his own, Judas, betrayed him.
He said if it was an enemy, I could have borne it, He said. You know, if it was one of my enemies that had betrayed me.
In a sense, he would have been. It would have been OK. But it wasn't. It was his own familiar friend, the one that sat at his table, that ate of his bread, that walked with him in sweet counsel to the House of God. It was his own.
00:35:08
And uh, you know it says in Zechariah.
If you think good, give me my price. So they counted to me 30 pieces of silver.
And 30 pieces of silver was the price of a good slave. You know, this world took the Lord Jesus and they said, you know what he's worth the price of a good slave. And that was how they treated our blessed Lord.
You know, he was taken, says, from prison and from judgment. And he was taken from Pilot to Herod, back to Pilot. Earlier. He was led from the hall of the high priest, the Pilot. The Jews would have killed him then if they could have, they would have stoned him. But they didn't have authority, so they had to get Pilot to sign off.
I'll examine him. I find no fault in this man.
Uh, the Lord Jesus, there was no fault in him, and yet what a death he suffered. He was crucified. A death reserve for the worst of criminals. Roman citizens will be exempt from that death. It was so terrible.
You know, but he hung there.
After those soldiers drove those nails into his hands and stood that cross up into the hole that stood in and.
He would watch as the soldiers would gamble for his clothes.
You know that touches my heart because.
You know, clothes are what Marcus is being human. You don't see animals wearing clothes.
But our blessed Lord, they took even that from Him.
All those things he suffered. But you know, it wasn't the Roman scourge, it wasn't the mocking of the Sanhedrin, it wasn't any of those things that took my sins away. It was those three hours of darkness where he was delivered for our offenses.
And, uh, as her brother brought out last night, he hung there in those three hours.
And uh.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21 is a verse that is.
Unparalleled in the Word of God.
What's this, Rita?
First Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Will never understand what it meant for the Lord Jesus.
There one who did no sin. There was no sin in him. He knew no sin.
Always in the bosom of the Father.
To be made.
The expression of what we are sin to be made the thing that God hates sin. You cannot have one sin in His presence. One sin will keep you from heaven. One sin will send you to hell.
The Lord Jesus was made sin and judged for it on Calvary's cross.
He was forsaken of God in that time.
And, uh, that kind of suffering.
Is uh, like no other suffering Nothing will ever understand.
You said our fathers trusted in me, and now this delivered them. This is Psalm 22. Our fathers trusted.
And now let's deliver them. But me?
My God, my God, thou hast forsaken me and he was forsaken and umm.
It's nothing like that, but that's what it took.
To save your soul, to save my soul. And that is the work that he has accomplished for you. If you're not saved tonight, just need to accept it. We read it there in, uh, Romans chapter 4. Believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification.
If you just believe it, it'll be true of you, it'll be true of you and and you can stand before God. Righteous, righteous, you need that. You need that tonight.
You know, our brother Umm was bringing out a little bit today in the book of Romans, and I love the book of Romans because, you know, salvation doesn't end with being saved from hell, you know, and you know.
00:40:09
I won't go into it because we'd be here for eternity. Speaking of all the wonders of what God has done, all his blessings. But you know, he's even broken the power of Satan. You don't have to sin anymore. Maybe you're hearing you're saying I just can't stop. I try and I try and I can't stop. Not true. If you're saved, the work has been done. Satan's power is broken. You can look like the children of Israel back on the.
On the shores of the Red Sea and you can see those enemies dead. Dead. Power has been broken. You have Deliverance. Or maybe you're an older one here tonight and you're having trouble walking up the steps.
You look at your body and you say it's true of all of us. We're all dying and you say.
This poor world, this body that I have.
Not even that, not even that escapes God's great salvation. And he turned to the book of return to Romans chapter 8, and you see how even our bodies have been saved. And this is what's waiting for you tonight, your body, the redemption of your body, even if you'll just accept this wonderful, wonderful salvation.
I'd like to, uh, close now.
And uh, before I do, read and make a few comments on some verses in Matthew chapter 5.
What we had before us tonight.
Has been the love of God.
And sending his son to die in Calvary's cross.
What we've had tonight is this great heart of love.
Toward you and toward me, when we were enemies. We could have read that in Romans chapter 5.
For a good man, some would even dare to die.
Umm, you could lay down your life for your friend.
Umm, but when we were enemies.
God gave His Son to die for us, but we spoke another love of God, and it's His love that enables us to be here tonight and hear this message one more time. I feel compelled to read a portion that would speak of the urgency, the urgency that you would receive the Gospel. Romans chapter 5 and verse 25. Sorry, Matthew chapter 5 and verse 25.
It says agree with an adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him.
Lest at anytime the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and they'll be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by number means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing.
This might seem like a strange portion to read in connection with the gospel. It's really speaking about, umm, offenses and seeking the forgiveness of others and talking about someone who comes to the temple to offer a sacrifice and they know they've offended someone and the Lord tells them here, don't make, don't offer your sacrifice. Drop it. Go tell that brother. I know I did something to offend you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Go back, pick up your.
Your sacrifice and and offer it and and God will be pleased.
But I'd like to apply these these verses that we read to the gospel.
It says in two places.
And it's a quotation from the Old Testament. So that would be three in the Scripture. And perhaps there's others that God sets his sets himself against the proud. He gives grace to the humble, but he sets himself against the pro, against the proud. You know, there's a sense tonight if you're not saved.
That God is your adversary, He's a righteous judge, and you will be judged for your sins if you do not. What that what, what what the Lord Jesus did be true of you?
You will be judged. And the exhortation here is time. Time is running out here. This man is and there's, he is an adversary that he is wronged and uh, he's not acting quickly and he's just saying, well, I'll get around to, I'll apologize to him. I'll make it right with that person.
00:45:10
The Lord says do it quickly and tonight.
I've been pleasing with you about the love of God, but.
I would beg you to do it quickly, to receive the gospel quickly, because what could happen?
Your adversary could find you, that could take you at any moment.
That does not respect persons, old, young, rich, poor, that could take you at any moment.
What will happen?
Well, he'll deliver you to the judge.
And every, every one of us, every man is going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. For me, I'm not worried about that day. I'm kind of looking forward to that day actually. But for you, it's actually going to be a different place. It's going to be a great white throne and heaven and earth will flee away and you'll stand there.
The judge will deliver the to the officer and now be cast in the prison. The sentence will be completed. The sentence will be fulfilled.
Thou shalt by no means come out thence to thou hast paid the uttermost Farthing.
I think of this and the thought that comes to mind is a plea bargain. Raise your hand if you know what a plea bargain is.
OK, well I'll explain it.
To the best of my knowledge, a plea bargain is similar to what we have in this these verses.
It's when you've been convicted, you sorry, you've been accused of a crime and you've been imprisoned and you've had a hearing maybe or you're about to have a hearing.
Up until the trial.
Umm, oftentimes in a trial by jury, the prosecuting team will evaluate their case and they'll say, let's say it's murder and you've committed murder and you're guilty of it. You know it in your heart, but you're pleading not guilty. Why? Let's say you live in Texas where they use the death penalty. You know that if you're found guilty.
Lethal injection for you. You're gone. So you plead not guilty. Your only hope, but then.
There's always, there's always uncertainty in a trial by jury. Always.
And the prosecuting team will say, you know, well, these people might have biases this way and that way, and the evidence here is only circumstantial, so.
We might lose. And if they lose, then you'll be acquitted. So rather than have you acquitted, they'll go to you and say before you go into those into that courtroom and say, listen, change your plea to guilty. Change your plea to guilty and we'll give you life in prison instead of death.
And, you know, many criminals have taken that bargain, many criminals. But there have been some who have thought life in prison can't do that.
And uh.
You know, if you were standing outside those doors.
And the prosecuting team came to you and said there's a plea bargain on the table.
Change your plea.
Agree with an adversary quickly. Waldauer in the way.
What would you do? Because you know something, once you walk through those doors and the jury is there and the judge is there, there's no more opportunity. The bargain is gone. No more chance.
I have to tell you something about the corpse scene that you're gonna see.
If you reject the gospel, when you go into there, into that room, there's gonna be no jury of your peers. It's gonna be the Lord Jesus. And you look to where the judge sits and who will be, It'll be the Lord Jesus, the one that you rejected, and he'll be sitting there. And I can tell you with that judge and that jury, there is no uncertainty. There is no uncertainty. The verdict will be guilty.
And death will be the sentence.
Not them that kill the body, but then that kill the soul, and the Lord Jesus will have to say, depart from you. Workers of iniquity. I never knew you. You'll be cast into the lake of fire. A lake is a body of water that has an inlet but no outlet, and you'll never escape. It says you will not come out thanks until you have paid the uttermost sparthing. How many years will it take to pay off your Lotus?
Forever, forever. So I would beg you tonight, agree quickly with an adversary while thou art in the way.
00:50:12
Lest he deliberately to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and I'll be cast into prison.
And one more thought.
The bargain that God offers is not.
Life in prison versus the death penalty. I'll tell you, it's much better than that. It's, uh, eternity in heaven. It's, uh.
It's membership in the body of Christ for you. It's uh.
Spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.
Perhaps greatest of all, it's.
Being a Son of God as your Father.
And, umm.
You know, on one side you have a great, a very great thing to worry about.
Carroll Van Nation on the other side, you have blessing.
Set before you this day, life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life. Let's sing the rest of our hymn.
Versus 3-4 and five number 26.
Someone could raise the tune again.
Air and supply. Air supply, There's no man, according to me.
And what, what are you gonna do? Is just gonna have, uh, whatever you need to do, uh.
I swear. And it's like in my life I thought you're gonna lose me like 1.
Umm.
851 There is five classes long and importantly.
It's closing prayer.
Loving God and our Father, we thank Thee for this privilege again to have the gospel presented. We pray that again, if there's that one that's standing here that believes not, that they would have that saving look.
To Christ crucified, hanging on the tree, bearing their sins.
It would have that believing look and be saved. We pray that we would not doubt our welcome since God has declared there remaineth no more to be done.
00:55:08
We thank you that we know our God. Thy very character of righteousness assures us that we can never be sent to a lost eternity.
We just pray if there's one here that is not yet avail themselves of that wonderful, wonderful good news that they would tonight.
We ask this and we pray for your blessing on my word. Pray that souls will be saved tonight. We ask this in the worthy and precious name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Paul's First Journey
Children—Mark Allan
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Into the Sunday school this morning. Maybe we can start by singing a few children's hymns. The children's hymns are on the back of the hymn sheet #40 to 47. But if there's one that you think everybody might know, or another one, you're welcome to give it out.
Does somebody have a song I'd like to start with? What would you like to sing?
20 What's 20, you know? Are you thinking of come to Jesus in the other one, or are you thinking of 20 in this one?
20 in this one OK.
Behold.
The.
Wedding.
Glad you came to the end of the day. You have to hear it's not all about.
Uh.
00:05:03
That's a very nice song. You know, I, I think we all enjoy spending time together. One of the nice things about being here is to spend time together. And this song in the course is open the door. He'll enter in and Sup with you and you with him. You know, it's nice when we can spend time with the Lord, you know, while we're down here.
In this world, it's nice if we can make a little bit of time to spend with the Lord. He delights in US doing that if we know him as our Savior and you know, we'll be able to spend all eternity with him. I had a, my great aunt Ruth talk to me about this verse a few years ago before she went home to be with the Lord. And it's had special meaning to me ever since. But it's nice. And maybe you should ask yourself the question, did you spend time with the Lord this morning? It's nice when we can spend time with the Lord. OK, somebody else have a Sunday school song.
Go ahead, man, 46, OK.
Cod tidings. You can sing this back when.
I was young and actually at the tent too. I think when Mr. Roach, Tim's father, used to come to the town where I live, we used to sing a song and the girls would sing the line with the girls and the boys would sing with the boys. So maybe we can do that this morning.
But.
I don't know why I'm welcome. Umm, and then I'm really busy with.
Let's see.
What would you like to?
Number for Jesus loves me. OK, Well, I know that that was on here and it is number 40, yes, OK.
Jesus.
So that's all I'm gonna have to be alive.
Umm.
It's not bad.
Umm, 12/30.
Yeah, it's not a lot of things.
You have a frustration coming close to it.
God, why don't you know?
Give us a lovely way of life and I can hear you Grace, doing something and getting up.
And, umm.
Everyone.
Yeah.
Do you have something?
Yahoo.
Umm, well, you know, uh, uh, tell me some.
Excuse me, I'm glad we're going to have a quiet time in the weather application when you're looking at my hotel, Roger, and my name's crying with the sun and the sun.
00700900.
Uh, yeah.
So I'm saying, yeah, I'm getting a lot of things, you know?
It's not one day the whole time I was in the House of the uh.
That was very nice. Maybe we can just pray before we have final story.
Our God and Father, we just thank you for these wonderful songs that we can sing, the simplicity of them. Our Father, we just thank you for the Lord Jesus who loves us and died for us. And Lord, just pray that these things would be real, not just in our heads, but in our hearts. Lord, praise it as we open thy word and read another story, Lord, and talk about another story that it would sink into our hearts and it would have meaning in our lives, Lord.
And that we all realize how great Thy love is for us. Lord, pray for the boys and girls here.
No, the enemy would like to get their hearts. Lord, just pray that they would.
Hear and understand these stories and they think into their hearts. We just ask this in the name of Lord Jesus, Amen.
Well, I'm going to be honest, I wasn't very sure what I was going to talk about this morning.
Umm, But you know, I've been thinking about a story that we had in our Sunday school last week, actually last few weeks in Acts, you know, I always like.
Stories from the Bible. You know, when I was, when my oldest daughter was a little bit younger, she used to ask me to tell her stories that and actually my son did the same thing, stories that he never heard before. And I try and tell stories and you know, sometimes I ran out of ones that they could say they never heard.
And I always felt guilty when that happened because I knew there were lots in there that I needed to dig out and share with them. The story I want to talk about today, I'll be honest, I knew this story for a long time, but I didn't know the details of it very well. And I'm going to ask you guys questions about it and.
Because it was a little bit last minute, I only have I have some Canadian quarters, loonies and toonies.
So if you answer questions.
Umm, you can have, have, uh, one of those. So, umm, what I'd like to do, umm, actually what made me think of this story? You know, we were talking in our care meeting about what verses put up in the wall and one of the verses that was on the wall in the meeting room where I went when I was young was.
Faith, great big letters, umm bills all you payment said, be it known unto you, therefore men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from the which he could not be justified by the law of Moses. Big long verse. You know, I used to sit in meeting and sometimes I wasn't as interested as I could be. And I look up at the wall and they were huge. And so I'd read those verses and ask myself, why would they pick that first?
And, you know, I, I, I like that verse because it tells us that we can be justified from we can never do anything too bad to keep this sort of heaven. And it also tells us that anybody can get into heaven. But, you know, the story behind that is a really neat story. And that's the story that we've been taking up in our Sunday school. We've going through the book of Acts. And so I want to talk a little bit about that story.
00:15:00
And it is in Acts chapter 13.
Now here's the first question.
After Jesus died on the cross, the gospel, the good news about Jesus, just went to one group of people. Who was it?
And you know, the Lord used Peter to show that the good news of the gospel wasn't just supposed to go to the Jews, it was supposed to go to the whole world. Matter of fact, that had been umm, the Lord had said that himself before he went back to heaven and umm, And so we read about a man named Cornelius who got saved and umm, then we read a bunch of people in a city called Antioch to cut safe and the Lord raised up. Well, they became.
This Holy Spirit worked and said, we want you to send two men, or he says to separate two men for the gospel. Who are the two men? Can somebody tell me who the two men were that were supposed to vote and preach the gospel to not just the Jews, but to the whole world? Can somebody tell me who the two men were? Yeah, that's a hard question. I'll give a ***** for this one.
Who?
Not quite. That's a very good guess.
1 of them is Paul. That's right. Who was the other one?
There's AB very good, very good, following Barnabas, it says in Acts chapter 13, and we'll just read the verse very quickly, says in the first verse.
Actually in the second verse and the Lord and as a minister to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate me, Barnabas and Saul.
For the work were unto I've called them when they had passed and prayed, they laid their hands on going away. So they were going to go. We were We know his name was changed, of course, of Paul. He went on three big trips to spread the gospel.
And the one that we're gonna talk about today was his first trip. And you know, it's nice when the gospel goes out into the whole world and, uh, we can share it, you know, so I'm not very good at sharing, but you know, I, it's been encouraging for me to see other people to who wrote and share the gospel with others. You know, I'm very encouraged last night when we were talking back at our cabin, we're talking about how the gospel is going out so wonderfully in Cago falls to everyone.
Which is very applicable to this story. Well, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas, they're going on their first missionary journey. And can anybody tell me if they started their journey by in a boat or on land? That's a hard question.
Then oh, very good, very good.
They started out in a boat and they saw sailed to an island. What was the name of the island? That's a very hard question. I'll tell you. It was Cypress and umm, they went to a town on one side of the island called Salamis, and they preached the gospel there. They when they went to places, they would start out by going to where they knew the Bible was going to be read, which was a synagogue. That's where the Jews met.
And they would read the Bible and even though they didn't live in Israel, they still had these, these synagogues where they went and met and read the Bible and they went to this town, Salamis. And then I'm not going to, this isn't the story particularly that I wanted to talk about. Then they go to the other side of the island. I think they must have crossed the island. And we read there about, umm, a man named Sergius Paulus and Elias. And matter of fact, I think that man may have even had his picture.
On a coin back in that time, his brother in our meeting was mentioned that several times the Lord umm brought him to the Lord. You know, it's a wonderful story and then.
Actually, there's three of them on the trip. There was another man named John Mark. They got in a boat again and they sailed to age Minor Asia. And they start walking in land to a town to preach the gospel, the first missionary journey of of fall. And, you know, just before they went there, this young man.
John Marquis.
There was a little bit of persecution on the island of Cypress, and so I don't know whether that was the reason or not, but he laughed and was a little bit sad. And Paul and Barnabas go to this town, and when they get to this town, they're going to start preaching the gospel. Where do you think they were going to go to preach the gospel?
Anybody tell me it's the same as on the island of Cyprus? You tell me.
Does anything go very good you went to the synagogue and they I probably should read this just to make sure that it's.
00:20:04
Clear.
This is in Acts 13, verse 14, when they departed from Purga and came to Antioch and Presidio, and went into the synagogue in the Sabbath day, and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Amen. And brethren, if you have any word of exhortation to the people, say on. So they sat down, and they waited while the Bible was being read. Did they have the whole Bible then? Jordan? No. What part of the Bible do they have?
I'll give you a quarter, for instance, the first part of the question. Can you tell me more?
Old Testament. That's right. Very good.
And they read that part of the Bible and Paul and Barnabas listen at the end of it, the men or they said to these men, they said, do you have something to share with us? Do you think Paul had something to share with them?
He did. He had a wonderful story. So he he stands up and he says he beckons with his hand in acts there. You can read it as I go through it. Umm.
And he he starts telling them a story and you know, I like thinking about the big picture of story and he goes back and he he starts talking about their history. There was two groups of people in the room. There was a whole bunch of Jews who were from the land of Israel be like if the Canadians, Americans in this room, I don't know exactly how many Jews versus Gentiles were in the room. There were those who who were Jews and and valued the word of God and whether heritage and there were those who are Gentiles who fear God in the synagogue.
And uh, Paul starts speaking to them, and who he's speaking to primarily at first is the Jews. And he says.
You uh, and I'm going to paraphrase a little bit and forgive me, but he, he goes back and he starts recalling what, what has happened to him. He says, do you remember how God promised your ancestors, your relatives way, way back things, umm, wonderful things.
What book would that be in the Bible? Somebody tell me.
OK.
Very good guess. It is an excellent book before access.
It was the promises to Abraham and Isaac and to Jacob. OK, Genesis, very good.
He, he reminds about that and then he says after that, he says, he reminds him of the story of, of, uh, the promises. We'll just read it here says the God of this people, Israel chose our fathers. And then he said.
Umm and exalted the people with exalted changes in the land of Egypt. He said, Oh, you remember how they went down into Egypt after Joseph and the Lord? They turned from a very small group into probably over a million people, and the Lord made them very special. Remember that story. This is what he was saying to the Jews and the Gentiles. What book of the Bible is that in?
Where they were in Egypt.
Excellent, excellent.
Very good.
Is an exodus and he tells him about that story. He says oh, do you remember after that how umm with a high army brought them out of that land of Egypt? That story is also in Exodus too, isn't it? And then he says he says, do you remember how for 40 years God put up with them in the wilderness? You know I was talking to someone yesterday and they were talking about how it's a wilderness journey down here and the Lord tests us and you know.
Sometimes you don't like those tests. I know. I don't like them at all. Umm, but he does it to make us stronger. He tested them in the wilderness. It says that he, he, uh.
It says after 40 years, he suffered their manners in the wilderness. Then he said, you remember too, he said how, how God drove out seven nations out of the land of Israel. And he said then he, he took that land and he divided up into parts and he, he gave it to the land of Israel. And I think, I think all the Jews in that room that were listening said, yeah, yeah, we know that story. That's umm, that's that story is in umm, Joshua. And the other stories were in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, in Deuteronomy.
And, uh, then he says, you will, you remember after that he says the story of the, the judges, how after they were in the land, they didn't know the king, but the Lord gave them judges for, and he talks about a period of 450 years right up until Samuel. That's in the book of judges. I'm sure they knew that story as well. And umm, he, he reminds them of all these things. And then he says afterwards they wanted a king. And he, of course it wasn't a very good thing for him to want a king. Who was the first king? You know who the, who is the first king of Israel?
So that's right.
He was the first king of Israel. It says afterward they desired a king, and God gave unto them Saul the son of Sith, a man of the tribe of Benjamin by the space of 40 years. So it didn't turn out to be the greatest thing. It says when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony. I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, which shall fulfill all my words. So there's something special.
00:25:24
About David, he was a king who was chosen by God and in his heart he wanted to follow the Lord. And you know, the Lord used David to write some Psalms and through the writings of David, you know these people who are in the synagogue, they knew the writings of David and I think they knew that God had made a promise to Israel. And and the apostle Paul refers to that promise in verse 23. He says of this man's seed.
Have thought according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Savior Jesus. So he said, umm.
God had made this promise to a, to to David that he was going to have a savior come. Now, these people would have known all of those stories up to that point, but they wouldn't have known necessarily who Jesus was. You have to remember they had gone from Israel taking this big boat ride and they were in the middle of of Asia, which is now Turkey in a place where the gospel probably hadn't gone before. And he gets to this point. He tells him all the story and they know all that story. And then he gets to this. He says there's a.
You're supposed to be looking for somebody who's going to be a savior.
And he says that Savior is Jesus.
And he says, I just wanna give you a little bit more of the story. And this is where it's such a wonderful story because they knew all of that up to that point. Maybe you heard about this guy, guy over in Israel named John the Baptist. You know, I think a lot of people must have heard about John the Baptist because he was a very well known prophet. And the Apostle Paul said, well, you know what, it's not, it's not him. He said there was somebody coming after him who shoe lots that he wasn't worthy to want to lose.
And then he started telling me Jesus. And there's a couple things about Jesus that are extremely special. One is that he's alive today and, uh, wonderful right through from this part down to that special gospel verse he talked about. We'll just read what it says. It says in verse 27 for they that dwell at Jerusalem and the rulers because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets, which read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him and though they found no cause of death in him.
Yet desired a pilot, that he should be slain. And when they have fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But him God raised from the dead, and He was seen many days of them, which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God, have fulfilled the same unto us their children.
And that he has raised up Jesus again. So he says it wasn't this man John the Baptist who you heard about, it was there was this man Jesus who who fulfilled everything that was said about him. And you know what they did to him? He said they crucified hung up on a tree.
But did he stay dead? Jordan, No. What happened?
He rose from the dead. That's right. He rose from the dead. And you know, that's a central part of the gospel. He rose from that. They must have been thinking, we never heard of that before. He said, well, remember, you go back and read what David wrote, and he referred this to several verses that David had wrote in the Psalms. Umm, my son, the day of I begotten thee. And umm, not suffer as wholly when they see corruption. You know, I think they must have known a little bit maybe about those verses. And he explained that, you know what those verses talked about. Somebody was going to come. And when he died yesterday.
In the gospel, Josh had talked with the atheist who said What's going to happen when you go on the ground in Iraq?
But when Jesus went in the ground, did he, did he rot? Did he? No, he absolutely did not. And you know, umm, he didn't see corruption is what it says in this chapter. And and the apostle Paul said this is amazing. He was not only did he, he did he not did God raise him up again? But there's witnesses, a whole bunch of people have seen him. And then he gets to the gospel verse and that's what you know, he goes through all this story, he gets to the gospel verse and you know, really makes me a appreciate this gospel verse more he says.
Be it known unto you men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses. He said, you know what, before only this one group, the Jews, could be saved, but now everybody in this room can come to the Lord. He said before when you said, you know what you have to do all these sacrifices and there's all these things I have to do, but now anything can be forgiven by Jesus. Is that a good, a good story? That's an amazing message, you know.
00:30:24
It is an incredible story that here we have have the gospel now, not just going to the Jews, but it's going to the whole world.
And, uh, you know, that's a tremendous thing. You know, it's nice when I hear these stories of, of people coming in the gospel's entire falls. And, you know, maybe things are a little bit chaotic, but you know, the gospel is going into every single person in this world. It doesn't matter who it is, doesn't matter how bad they've been, doesn't matter if they shot somebody, doesn't matter if they've done drugs. The gospel is going into everyone, you know, wonderful news. And this is a beautiful gospel verse. It's a wonderful gospel verse to remember.
But you know, the apostle Paul, I think he realized that there's pride in her, you know, there's pride in my heart. So a lot of pride in my heart. And he says, God, he says, and he said, just beware. He says, beware. He says, it's easy not to listen to this the way you should. You're reading in verse, umm 41. He says, behold, ye despisers and wonder and perish. For I work, I work in your days, I work with you. So you know, wise believe though I mean declare it unto you know, it's sad when the gospel is preached.
And people don't, you know, maybe there's somebody in this room who has heard this story their entire life and they've rejected it. I hope that's not true. I really, really hope that's not true. You know, it's a sad, a sad situation there in this story. Umm, there's these two groups of people, the Jews and the Gent, the, the, the people who fear God. And, you know, I think they understood how important the message this was. But you know, the Jews who were a little bit on the proud side, they leave.
You know, Gentiles are really excited about this and they stayed afterwards. You read that in the next verses.
And it says the Gentiles, the people who they said, please, please, please come back next week. We want to hear about this again. You know, it's nice when there's a thirst to hear the word of God. These Gentiles wanted to hear the story of the word of God. And, uh, you know who comes next week? The whole city.
You don't hear that quite something if the whole city of Akron came to hear the gospel, wouldn't it?
You know, those Jews, and this is very much in my own heart, they were proud and, umm, they didn't like the fact that they weren't quite so special anymore. And, uh, it's sad. They started to stir up trouble and you know, it's nice. In the end of verse 43, Paul encourages those who really believe to follow in the grace of God. No longer was it a set of rules. It was undeserved kindness from God that they were to continue.
Beautiful to see how they were to follow an undeserved kindness from God. You know, I hope there's not pride in our hearts that keep us from doing things that we should do. You know, I speak this very much to my own heart. Well, the gospel goes to the Gentiles and umm, there's a little bit of trouble that stirred up here. But you know, it says in verse 48, and I like this verse, it says there. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad.
And they glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were deemed to eternal life believed.
And then the next verse is very nice. It says the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. You know, I didn't really notice that verse before. And I'm telling this story because I probably couldn't have told you this story in very much detail even two or three weeks ago. But you know, the gospel went out into that whole region.
There's some So this is part way into his first missionary journey. He goes to a couple more places. He gets stoned on this, umm mission, but the gospel went out to that whole area. You know, that's wonderful to hear. You know, it is a wonderful story that we have You know, the stories in this book are amazing stories we need to think about. You know, we can just gloss through them and maybe we've read them 10 times, you know, I.
When I was stressing a little bit about talking this morning and I, they said yesterday, I had trouble getting up in the morning this morning. And I, I knew if I don't read this story more, it's going to be hard for me to share in the way that it should be shared and, and just ask the Lord for some treasures in it. You know, there are wonderful things. This is a wonderful message that is unparalleled. And you know, I was just thinking that whole area, you know, in Revelation, we read at the seven churches.
00:35:04
And they were all, I guess they were a little bit to the West of this area, but the gospel went to that whole area. You know, this is a wonderful message. If it wasn't for this message. I don't think there's any Jews in this room that I know of. Maybe there is.
But none of us would be here, you know? I just say that because this is a little gospel story, the story in the Bible, you know?
My dad taught me in history in grade 10 policy, missionary journeys. You know, I've read this through the New Testament. I don't know how many times, didn't necessarily understand the story in as much detail as I should, but it's beautiful how the Lord goes through pointing this out to them. You know, I hope that as you think about that verse, maybe you've never memorized it because it's a great big verse and it's not actually an easy verse to put up on the wall because it's so huge. But just think about what a special verse it is. Be it known unto human and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him.
All that believe are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law. Well, that's all I I had this morning. You know, that's just a little Bible story. And I just encourage you children to ask your dad Bible stories and read them yourself. And sometimes you have to read them and reread them and reread them more to get some real appreciation of them. But you know this message that we have, the message that was given last night.
Is an incredible message that has changed the whole world. And you know, I hope not, nobody here is like those Jews who, even though it was a fantastic message, just sort of pushed it off.
And their pride got in the way and, uh, there was, they just caused trouble. They didn't even help. But I hope that our hearts are like the Gentiles who were there, who feared God and I believe and, and spread it to the area. No, it's, it's a wonderful message. Well, maybe we could just, umm, maybe we could just pray.
Our God and Father.
We thank thee for thy word and, uh, the wonderful stories that are in it, Father, how little we appreciate them the way that we should pray that we get them into our hearts. Lord, we just think of how the Apostle Paul risked his life here with Barnabas and shared this message and how the gospel could go to that whole area and bring such, such blessing. And, uh, Father, how wonderful to know that we can sit here today and realize that, uh, it's not just the Jews who can be saved, but everyone in this room can be saved.
And uh, Lord, that not just from small sins, but from every sin, Lord, we just thank thee. And as we go into this next meeting, Lord, and remember how thou does die on the cross so that we could be saved. It would really have meaning in our hearts, Lord, and that, uh, we would be able to bring glory to thee. Just ask us, pray that these things will be imprinted on the hearts of the children and on the adults. And we just ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Nehemiah
Knowing the Lord's Will
Open Mtg. 8
Open—P. Jennings, M. Allan
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36 in the back of the book and #36 in the Atlantic.
We go to meet the Savior, His glorious face, to see what manner of behavior does with this corporate dream in the 36 in the attendance.
Of all right now.
Why?
Umm.
Uh.
Dial 0.
931 Three.
I have to admit to everyone that when I sat down in my chair for this meeting.
I had no intention or thought of getting up to speak umm, but the Lord has brought some thoughts to my heart and He's also caused me to realize that there's a need, umm.
Uh, with us, Umm, And I trust that what he has placed upon my heart will be, uh, a blessing. I'd like to start with the verse that we had.
In our reading in James.
Averse.
That I did not understand at 10:00 this morning.
Umm, but the Lord has given me a little bit of light through the health of the ministry that was in the meeting and umm, so I want to read this verse first. Umm James chapter one and verse 12.
00:05:06
Blessed is the man that endures temptation.
For when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him.
I begin my talk this afternoon by saying a couple hours ago, I didn't, I didn't understand what that verse meant. I did not know what the crown of life meant. And uh, through the help of ministry here, the Lord kind of turned a light on in my soul and I came to realize that it's the benefit of the new life, the new nature, our life in Christ Jesus.
That the desires which that life generates in the soul that creates.
A umm, a barrier or.
Umm, it creates new desires which don't give in to the temptations that lust and sin in the flesh present to us.
And as we enjoy the life that God has given us, the new, the new nature in the power of the Spirit of God as it is enlightened by the word of God, there's a change that is brought about.
In our life, and this crown of life is.
The the extreme benefit that we have of having that new nature, it's the reward that it brings us in a practical way of of enjoying the benefits of the life which we possess in Christ.
So we'll talk a little bit this afternoon about that life that we have in Christ.
And that life is always in contrast to the life that we had in Adam.
And so.
It's very helpful for us to realize, you know, the young people that were here, this isn't a new topic to you at all. Because the brother that spoke, umm, brother Greg that spoke he to us, uh, during the young people's time, he, he, he put it in a way that I've never considered it, but he spoke of the old age and the new age.
The old age was the Adam age, and the new age is the Christ age.
And he also told us that there's a little overlap. The Christ age is going to take us on into eternity, into the heavenlies, and there is not going to be anything, not a scrap or a remnant of what exists, what existed in the old age, which was.
Which was?
Umm, that which was dominated by Adam and sin and death and, and he said there's a, there's an overlap now where where we have remnants of both ages. We are, we are umm, in umm by birth, naturally, we still have what is connected with the old age in the sense that you know.
You know, you have natural relationships you have you enjoy the intimacy that they that they spoke about.
And in the new age, we have the new life, we have our life in Christ and we have the desires and the righteousness of God and we possess those things. And so there is, there is an overlap. And uh, so the, the verse that came home to my soul in the reading meeting this morning has to do with the new age has the has to do with the life that we possess in Christ in connection.
With temptation.
And so somewhat of as we're speaking here, we, we still have the overlap, don't we? We have that which is still working in us, the desires of the flesh to create sin, and that which is now in us in a new man in Christ, which is, has the desires that are after God and in righteousness.
00:10:19
And so I would just like to share a verse, another verse in Romans chapter 14.
This verse is a verse I've been thinking a lot about and, uh, I've come to realize.
Just this afternoon we were having a conversation. This is often how it works in in my in I'm I'm seeing how the Lord works. Sometimes the Lord sees a real need.
In our midst, He knows that there is a need in in the hearts and souls and prophecy.
Is that which is given of God to meet that specific need. And that's what this meeting is. This meeting is this meeting is not for a brother, including myself, to stand up and speak about his favorite topics.
It's a meeting that addresses a specific need at the present time that God sees His children need, and I trust that the Spirit is in control and that He is providing answers to specific needs. And so let's just go on over to Romans chapter 13. I'm sorry, Romans 13.
This has to do really with the verse, the verses that we're going into in our reading, meeting, the question of the temptations that we face in life. And it says verse 14 of Romans 13, it says, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill.
The lusts thereof. Now I will say without any reservation, that if we obey this verse, by the grace of God, in the power of the Spirit of God that He has given us, will wear the crown of life.
Over the crown of life, because we will endure temptation.
But let's talk about what this verse. Sometimes we can read a verse, but we ask we don't have much understanding as to what it means and we don't understand how it is applied in our daily life. And so this verse tells us to do something, but how can I do it if I don't understand anything about what it's telling me to do?
This is a spiritual application. It could be nothing more than a spiritual application.
Put ye, put ye, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I will just give a false definition of this so that we understand what it doesn't mean. Put you on the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that would mean that we come to all the meetings and that we read our Bibles and that we do the very best we can and be good Christians and we won't fulfill the loss of the flesh.
That is not a good definition or a a good way to to explain what this verse means. We all know from our own practical experience. Most likely we've already tried that.
And we've already tried as we have in our use, and I don't speak necessarily of age, but in our Christian development we have.
Sought in our own strength to curb the appetite and the desires of the flesh.
We've really tried to change the circumstances that exist.
In us, we have a nature that always will do its own will and seek its own pleasure. That nature will never, ever, ever change. And so if we're going to get rid of it, often times we first try in our own strength to curb its appetite.
00:15:25
To make no provision for it.
We noticed the order of this verse. Let's read it again.
But put you on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.
Now I'm going to read it backwards.
And make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Reading it backwards would probably be more of the experience of most of us who have been saved and maybe gathered to the Lord's name as well, because that is our natural and inclination to think that the flesh is something that can be handled by, you know, our wills and our determination.
But that's not the truth of this verse at all.
That's not God's instruction to us at all. God does not tell us to put off the Lord Jesus Christ or to put off the flesh or don't make provision for the flesh and then put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells us first of all put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know, it's, it's umm, it's something that I wish I could say, you know.
I'm just gonna explain this verse to you and then you can go home and do it and you'll have great success.
But if I told you that was possible, I would be lying to you, because that's not been my experience. I have not known what it was like from the beginning of my desire to follow the Lord. I have not known what it was to put on the Lord Jesus Christ in such a way that it hindered the power of the flesh to work within me.
Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is something that I believe.
Takes learning at the Lord Jesus feet regarding what took place at Calgary at the cross.
You know you noticed the order of where Romans 14 is towards the end of the book.
And Romans 123456789 Ten come first.
And really this verse is saying.
You have an identification.
With the Lord Jesus Christ positionally before God.
You no longer are seen in the first man before God because that the cross. God dealt with Adam and settled that score. He dealt with the powers and he he dealt with the law at the cross and that's what Romans want 4567 deals with.
That's where God gives us the understanding of what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's not my desire to spend a lot of time going over those that teaching today because I I, I just feel like the Lord has given me just something specific.
And then that'll give room for someone else who might have something specific to share with you too.
But.
It will be necessary.
If we want to wear the crown of life.
To understand what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And.
What is beautiful is.
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We have the truths that come before in this book.
Which help help us to become established and what it means to put him on.
What it means that we are now in Christ Jesus.
God sees us that way. He no longer sees us connected with the old age and he sees us in connection with the new age. So this this, this is specifically, I would say those that had the ministry brought before them this week would would, would would have more insight into that expression than the others. But this verse put put put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has to do with the new, has to do with God's answer in man, and that is the Lord Jesus has become the man that God has set up for us now to find our identification.
And and so maybe maybe I haven't given you in this little short.
Umm, as I share this verse, it has come to mean something to me today. I haven't necessarily given you all of the the answers, but I trust that I what what did your appetite? Because there is a reward.
When our lives are lived in such a way that we endure temptation, and believe me, we're not going to endure temptation under any.
Any, umm, stretch of the imagination. We're not going to endure temptation.
In the first name.
But in Christ there is wonderful provision.
And that new life which we possess and the power that's been given to us in the Spirit of God, and all of this, all of these truths are found in the beginning of Romans.
You know, when Paul wrote to Romans, he wrote and his heart was specifically for one reason.
That they might be established in the gospel.
He wanted to establish them in the gospel, and when a soul is established in the gospel, they know what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then it doesn't say you won't make provision. Doesn't We don't have a guarantee that we won't have to put forth energy in the Christian life to resist the temptations that we're going to find in the pathway and also to deal with what still exists in that old nature that we have. I just want to share with you just some more truth from Romans so that it will give you hope to realize there is an answer.
There is actually.
There is comfort and encouragement that there can be deliverance from this evil nature that I have in Romans 8. It tells us ye are not in the flesh.
And that's a pretty amazing thing to hear God say.
Ye are not in the flesh.
Well, I can't say that I live in the constant enjoyment of how God sees me and in the power of being able to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
But.
This is what God tells me to do, and if He tells me to do it, He's given provision and He's given the instruction for me to learn what it means and how it's applied in my everyday life.
None of these things that God gives the believer are unattainable.
Because God's not going to give us something that we can't enjoy living in the good of.
Will it only be through having the light of these truths brought home to our soul by the Spirit of God?
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Yes, we will learn nothing except it be as the Spirit of God instructs us.
But there might be some here that say I have such a deep serious.
Agonizing. Troubling.
Weakness.
That I know there's no power, there's no ability to overcome it.
And according to the word of God, that's a lie.
Let's see.
Is it true that in my personal practical experience, I may have to stumble, I may have to get up again, I may have to learn, I may have to see how failing I am before I understand the power of new life?
It's not. It's not not, it's not. There's not a question as to whether that's that's true. That is true.
That God will bring us into these things and we will have to learn through experience and we will find ourselves on our faces, but the truth of God. And I wanna quote a verse that I rather quoted last night. Actually I want to quote the other verse he quoted. The sun shall set you free.
And I want to quote the truth shall set you free.
And you know, I just want, I'm going to stop now by going back to the verse and I realize I've gone all over the place and that's just fine. Umm want to go back to the verse that we that God brought light home to my soul.
To encourage your heart.
That God is offering us this.
Blessed is the man verse 12 of James chapter one.
Plus, it is the man that endureth temptation.
For when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life.
There's a crown of life.
We're going to wear it.
I don't know it's right to say I've said things that weren't quite right before.
So it's something we're going to enjoy in eternity. We may not always be wearing it now because we may choose not to use the tools God has given us.
To endure temptation. But those tools are there, and God has given us all that we need in order to.
Be able to enjoy the life and all of its fruit.
That God has chosen to bless us with.
I'd like to just, uh, share a few thoughts from Daniel chapter one.
This chapter was recommended a few weeks ago.
In real Ferry for the reading meeting and uh, you know, I've heard it spoken on many times as a young person. I'm sure probably everyone here in this room.
Has umm as well, particularly the verse that Daniel purposed in his heart that he wouldn't defile himself with a portion of the King's meat and the umm wine which he drank and I just as we were going through it this time.
There were some things in it that really struck my heart. Recognizing in my own life. Umm.
My own failings and the Lord's dealing with me as a believer, umm, actually before it was mentioned in the meeting, I had been overseas for work and I was on my own and just pondering on my mind how can I be a testimony for the Lord in a situation where I'm.
Around people who have no care for God at all. And I went through the book a little bit more, the first part, not the last part. And I know there's tremendous amount in all of it, but it really struck home. And so I'd like to just read through. I know we don't have umm, a lot of time and just share a few thoughts of things that I enjoyed. So in Daniel chapter one.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand with the part of the vessels of the House of God, which he carried into the land of Shiner to the House of his God. And he brought the vessels into the treasure House of his God. And the king spake the Espana's master of the eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the King's seed, and of the Princess children, in whom was no blemish, but well favored and skillful.
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In all wisdom and cunning and knowledge and understanding science.
And such as had ability in them to stand in the King's palace.
And whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed unto them a daily provision of the King's meat, and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years, that at the end they're off, they might stand before the king. Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, unto whom the Prince of the eunuchs gave names. For he gave unto Daniel the name Belteshazzar, and to Hananiah of Shadrach and Michel.
Of Meshach and Azariah Abednego. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the King's meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the Prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
Now God had brought Daniel into favor, and tender love with the Prince of the eunuchs, And the Prince of the eunuch said to Daniel, I fear the Lord King, who hath appointed your meat and your drink, For why should he see your faces? Worse likely.
Liking than the children which are of your sort, then shall you make me and Daniel endanger my head to the king. Then Daniel Then said Daniel to Malzahr, whom the Prince of the eunuchs had said over Daniel, Hananiah, Michel, and Azariah, prove thy servants, I beseech thee 10 days, and let them give us pulse to eat and water to drink. They're not our accountants, is the looked upon before the and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the King's meat. And as I'll see us deal with thy servants, so he consented to them.
In this matter improve them 10 days, and at the end of the 10 days their accountances appeared fairer and fatter and flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the King's meat. Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat and the wine that they should drink, and gave them pulse. As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding and all visions and dreams.
Now at the end of the day the king had said that he should bring them in. Then the Prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar, and the king communed with them, and among them all was found none like Daniel and Hananiah and Michel and Azariah. Therefore stood they before the king, and in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired of them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and astrologers.
That were in all his realm, and Daniel continued even under the first year of King Cyrus.
Well, I just umm, one of the things that I.
Enjoy about this chapter is putting it in its context you know this was a time in Israel's history where they had been taken captive and if you were to back up this chapter talks about the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim and I was trying to.
Put in my mind, how much did Daniel know or not know previous to being taken captive? And you know, we live in a day when we have to acknowledge the Lord's coming is very near and this nation has rejected God and we're suffering the consequences of it. This was a time in Israel's history. And although, umm, in a different administration, umm, Israel had rejected God and just as he said he would, they were going to be taking captive. And I don't know exactly.
Umm, what? Daniel knew or didn't know when he was taking captive, but he seemed it. It mentions here specifically that it was in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim. And you know, there's a lot around us that could get us discouraged. A lot. You know, it's very easy to sit in the meetings.
And I say this for myself and I hear it from my children and I hear it from other people in the assembly, and they don't come away with a lot from the meetings. And you know, part, most of it is probably our own fault for not spending enough time feeding on the word of God.
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But, you know, if we recognize that the Lord wants to bring blessing in all circumstances, it's amazing. You know, I was thinking Jeremiah, he prophesied, interestingly enough. I just like to turn back to this quickly and Jeremiah 20.
6:00 So I was trying to put this book in its context.
Daniel probably had. I don't know who he would have remembered, whether he would have remembered Jeremiah.
Or not. He refers to him later in the book. He certainly studied what he had written and, uh.
I was just thinking he would have had every reason to be discouraged here. He's ripped from his own land. He's taken into Babylon. We don't know exactly what happened to him. You know, I pondered on whether he was made a unit or not or what doesn't say that it would seem like he was, but what a brutal circumstance to be brought in. You know, he obviously was a very talented individual or it it seems like that was who had been selected to be taken captive. And, you know, from all intents and purposes it would have been.
Just horrible to be in a situation. But you know, maybe he looked back and saw Jeremiah, who was a man who preached he believed God. I was destruct this morning when we were eating in James. You know what a tremendously important thing it is to have faith and we can have it in the weakest of times to just believe the Lord and what he says and take it as truth. You know, it's such a simple thing. We can say things, but do we really, you know, our our actions give evidence to the fact of whether we actually believe it or not.
You know, in the first part of, of, uh, Jeremiah 26, I'm not gonna read it because of time, but you see, umm, in the beginning of the reign of Joy and the son of Josiah, king of Judah came this, this word from the Lord. And he goes. And just down in verse seven, it says, so the priest and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the House of the Lord. It says all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words. Here's a man and please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.
Dates who preached for our 40 years or so that Israel was going to be taking half of, and nobody hardly believed them.
And just after this, we see, umm, what Jeremiah had priests come through. And maybe I don't know whether Daniel learned about it before or after, but he saw a man who trusted God and maybe that played a little bit into how he acted in the chapter that we had in, in Daniel. Well, I just going on in Daniel chapter one, think about that context because it's amazing. You know, it's so nice if we can look at a few people who have, we can see in their life that they trusted the Lord and the Lord did exact, he kept his promises. You know, this world, there is almost no absolutes anymore. Everything has become.
Relative, but with the Word of God, it is perfectly solid. We can stand on its promises. And you know, one of the things that umm is sad, but the Bible is being neglected. You know, I've had the opportunity to meet with an older brother who's 15 years my senior and a younger brother, umm, who's umm.
20 years my junior, every other week over the past year and a half, and you know, it's been searching for the three of us to just be together.
And recognize that if we.
Put the Lord first in our life, how he brings blessing, but the second that he, he becomes second. Umm, we tend to struggle and you know, I'm not saying that we're to.
Umm, try and follow a set of rules because we can't do it in the flesh. I appreciate what was said previously. You know, we have to recognize that positionally we're in price. I think Daniel must have recognized positionally that even if Israel had sinned, he could still turn towards Jerusalem and fall on his face and cry to the Lord, and the Lord would bring them back there again. You know, I think he recognized that positionally. He certainly grappled with that and the Lord gave just tremendous, tremendous.
Understanding of things during this time well, this is the context of the book here we have Daniel he's in an impossibly difficult situation. He has been given a new name. He's in another and they're trying to educate him to become to and I I just want to mention this specifically verse five. The king appointed them daily proportion provision of the King's meet and of the wine which you drank so that so nourishing them at the end they're off they might stand before the king. He wanted to have them.
00:40:05
To teach these so that they could stand before the king.
The difference is, and I had a brother mention this to me last week, he said that she, the Prince of the Unix, was scared of the king. But Daniel looked at everything in terms of standing before God and the king. In order to, umm, have them ready to stand before me takes three years. And he said he lays out in front of them this plan of how he's going to get them trained up to stand in his presence. And he offers them this umm.
Wine.
And meat and, uh, all of this training and they were gonna stand before him. And, you know, Daniel recognized that.
It wasn't gonna be good enough. You know, this look good and it probably smells good and I'm sure it tasted good and it was probably the best of of what they had for people in that situation. And, you know, I was thinking.
The God of this world is trying to lay before, particularly the young people and even the older ones, things that look good, that taste good, that are enticing to us. You know, all of the advances of technology around us look so good. They and yet within them very often. And I'm not making any rules here, but there's defilement. And you know, I was thinking how that's what this world thinks you need maybe to have a good job or maybe to be in a position of.
Of being able to make a difference in this world, but Daniel recognized that the filement that was associated with that.
Would be far worse and if he had on what the Lord on food that didn't file him he would be in a far better position to stand before the king and you know sometimes we.
Maybe we look at the word of God as being a little bit boring. And I, I say that carefully, you know.
How many have you have read cover to cover, adults included? You know, it's, it gets neglected so quickly. And I say that for myself. You know, when I was in high school, I felt very convicted by reading a book that the Lord wanted me to get up and read my Bible every day. And it's something I've tried at 6:00 in the morning. And it's something I've tried to do. You know, I've battled with it even as it as late as this week, getting up at 6:00, my alarm goes off and I get out of bed in the fog. And, you know, some weeks I do a little bit exercise first and a little more clear. And other weeks I'm not as clear. And sometimes I get stuff from it I don't. But this.
The Bible.
Is the foundation that we can stand on We had a little bit of that this afternoon, but the asking God for wisdom. You know what you won't get wisdom if we don't know we don't understand we don't dig into this book and you know it's I just I, I, I say that because sometimes it appears as something that umm we don't we might not think we look up as both perhaps and I and I, I, I know it's not maybe the direct application here, but I just.
Mention that. But you know, the remarkable part of this story is that did that pulse?
It prepared them to stand before the king in a absolutely, phenomenally better way than the the, the wine that the king had in the meat, the meat that he had. You know, Daniel could go and stand before Nebuchadnezzar and say you're going to be a lunatic and eating grass.
Which is almost incomprehensible. We live in a world where you say the wrong thing and you get fired from your job. And, you know, he was given phenomenal confidence to stand before the king when nobody else in the greatest Kingdom of the entire world at that time could stand before, uh, it could stand before the king. Unbelievable confidence. You know, talk about believing God this morning. Daniel was so convinced.
That if he got rid of this defilement, he, he said, just put me on test for 10 days and the end of it. I'm gonna look better than the others. I it's not even enough time. It it it's not even comparable. But you know, he trusted the Lord that much. What a beautiful thing to see his confidence in in the Lord. And you know, I'm not going to go into the detail of this. Our time is almost up. But I just encourage you to look at this chapter in this context, you know, Daniel.
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The Lord, one of the things I've appreciated with Daniel is he established hobbits in his life that the Lord used. He he prayed three times a day. And later on in Chapter 9, we find that he studied what Jeremiah had written. He had, he came to understand the 70 years captivity and, and, and far beyond that. He he's given us an, umm outline that stretches far beyond the scope of that time period.
And you know, the Lord used and yet probably every day he had things that he battled with. You know, he had ups and downs. When this book was re mentioned in our in the assembly. The reason it was mentioned is because Daniel here you have a steady person throughout the whole book in a time when it was like this, it was up and down unbelievable. There are certain certain periods of time where you don't hear about Daniel at all. There's others periods of time when the Lord uses them mightily and yet.
You know, if we can establish those periods of thought every day in our life, put the Lord first, spend a little bit of time reading, spend a little bit of time praying, umm, really trust the Lord for what he says. The results of that can be phenomenal. You know, we don't even, it's interesting that in the context of this chapter, at the end of it, I know this has been mentioned 100 times before. This is Daniel continued under the first year of King Cyrus.
There's an aspect of the return after the 70 years that Daniel probably knew or influenced her and I don't know, I'd be interested in hearing others people's thoughts on it, but that are just staggering to comprehend. The Lord used him in this extremely difficult time to bring tremendous blessing to the Lord's people, tremendous blessings to the Lord's people. And I say that because you know America.
Canada.
Are giving up God at an incredibly rapid rate. The family is falling apart. This world is changing very rapidly. The Lord's return is just around the corner. And you know, we can get so caught up with the busyness of everyday life, our jobs, our family, umm.
That the Lord doesn't get the place that He should. And you know, if we can put on the Lord, we recognize our position because it's not a matter of what we do, but if we recognize our position as believers.
The Lord, it is a tremendous, tremendous thing. And the Lord can bring blessing in the darkest, deepest circumstances and, and he can bring such blessing, such streams in the desert. You know, there may be things in our life and there are things in my own life that I don't have answers for. And you know, I pray with them for a long time and I've asked myself a question. I don't have the answers for them. There are situations with the young people that I don't fully comprehend, but I do know.
That this book is true, and when I've leaned on it, I could trust it. You know, I hope that everyone here in this room, myself included, because.
I'll go back to work a week from now and my alarm will go off at 6:00 in the morning and.
There's a question as to how much do I value that time with the Lord? Do I really spend time reading and praying or do I get my snooze, you know?
It's amazing to me and one of the reasons that I wanted to just get up and say these few words this afternoon is in talking and looking at my own life and talking to this other young person and an older brother that I'm meeting with.
You know, I'll look at my day at work on the days when I ignored that, and I'll look at this, umm, younger brother's day when he's ignored it, but maybe not just ignored it, but hasn't put it in the preempt the Lord in the preeminent place and the impact of that and, and how much easier it is for Satan to and then to, umm.
To cause trouble in our lives. Well, I just, I, I mentioned these things not, not because this is new, because I know this is a chapter that's been brought up many, many, many times, but just to encourage, to dig into this a little bit, to think about how the Lord can work in incredible ways when we trust them. And you know, you can look at a situation. And I've been impressed with this just in the last week and from a natural perspective.
It looks absolutely impossible to change, but the Word of God says that with God all things are possible.
You know.
00:50:02
We need to be like children and just trust them more. And He can bring such blessing from that, you know, even.
This coming week, and I just share this, just to let you know my own, we're going to, umm, share the gospel of West Virginia where Bruce and Bonnie have been going for a while. And I'm nervous about it because my last week and 1/2 has been insanely busy. And I'm not naturally a person who, who can knock on doors. And, uh, it's tremendous encouragement to see those who, who do. But you know, when we trust the Lord. And I see this every day in my own life. If I go to work and there's a problem there, I've been keeping a bit of a prayer journal at work.
I can take a big problem and I'll write down, and I've been trying to ask the Lord things that I can watch and see Him work on. It is phenomenal to see what the Lord can do. If we take a little problem and lay it at His feet. He may not answer it the way that we expect. He may not.
It may not be what we think, but we can look back and say, wow, look what the Lord had done. And you know, I look back in my life and I see that, you know, I'll be honest, I'm petrified. Reason my children. And you'll probably look over to our governor and say there's chaos there. But you know, but you know what, We can trust the Lord and, uh, his word. And I hope that each one here develops an appetite for reading the word of God and tries not to be critical of the Lord's people. You know, there is.
Tons of reasons to be critical, but umm, you know what? The Lord is faithful. Lord is faithful.
312.
Oh my God.
On the Father this afternoon we thank Thee for thy word.
Pray that we might be encouraged by it. Go on with Thy glory for practical victory in our lives here.
You think of Daniel, who purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself.
We ask that same purpose of heart for each one here.
We know it's our purpose to fill and satisfy our hearts. We ask that we might not be satisfied with less than myself.
Asking Jesus name Amen.
Open Mtg. 12
Open—D. So, C. Buchanan
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I have no problem.
And uh there, can't let her go out while I'll see if it's lost in the end.
Yeah, I'll tell her what I'm going to do and then I'll go to the house. But then I've had some kind of inflammation in the dark. Now I'd like to drive it to the cell. Yeah, I'm going to go together by him. And why there's a very fast breaking in the ground.
Well, we are in my life.
Where some of our hands are crying somewhere else without my heart.
Oh my goodness, delivered the time and no money. My father's life.
And it's gone to God.
Jesus our head and the Father's good pleasure laid up store plentiful treasure to give to the poor. So there is much food in the tillage of the poor and we thank you for what that was brought before us thus far this weekend and the ministry of thy precious word and pray for a refreshment a little refreshing now again in the presence of the Lord to help us on their anything that a sale the life of a Christian and.
The believers pathway and it's just fraught with those pitfalls, pitfalls and trials and temptations. And so we thank you that you can trust by protection.
We do pray for those that are departing house and journey mercies for them and thank you for the facility here, the use of of, uh, this meeting room. We pray now as we we have that word brought before us and whatever measure and manner that's all blessed the time this afternoon and we asked these things and confidence and independence and the worthy and precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen, Amen.
It's good to see many young people here.
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Eight, I have a little portion of my heart here, and some might have heard you speak on.
A little bit on Nehemiah. I'm thinking here, I'm trusting the Lord that this may be a portion for the young people. Perhaps I shouldn't just say young people for us all. I know it's not a portion that we normally turn to, but.
But I've really been enjoying the MIN. For those who have perhaps heard me speak on that before, please bear with me on it. I'd like to turn to the first chapter of the book of Nehemiah.
If you haven't read EMI in a while, I would encourage you to. It's a wonderful book. There's so many instructive lessons in there.
Nehemiah chapter one. Let's just read a few verses together and perhaps we'll just spend some time on the 1St chapter. Nehemiah chapter one, beginning of verse one. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakalaya and the king to pass in the month of Cheslue in the 20th year, as I was in Shushan, the palace, and handing up and Hannah and I, one of my brethren came, he and certain men of Judah.
And I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The war of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And they came to pass when I heard these words.
That I sat down and wept, and more on certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, and said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, the cheapest covenant and mercy, for them to love them and observe his commandments. Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant.
Which I pray before thee now day and night for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Both I and my father's house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor statues, nor the judgments which thou commendest thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations.
But if You turn unto me and keep My commandments, and do them as though they're aware of your, of you cast out of the uttermost part of the heaven, yet well, I gather them from fans and will bring them into the place that I have chosen to set my name. There, now these are the servants and Thy people, whom Thou has redeemed by Thy Gray power and by Thy strong hand. Oh Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear, be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant.
And to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name and prosper, I pray thee, thy servants this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the King's cup bearer. It was a rather long chapter to read, but it's nice to introduce that.
The opening of this book is interesting. It opened with a time frame just like our brother had before us in Daniel chapter one.
And we find that often it's interesting when God put so such a specific time. If you remember Daniel chapter one, as our brother had before us yesterday and he said it was the 3rd year, isn't it? The reason for that is so we can establish a certain time frame. In Daniel's case it was the year 606 BC, the year that Nebuchadnezzar began to reign. That was the beginning of the so-called Gentile power.
Israel was given up, Gentile come in. If you remember, there were the four images that Abu Kanez saw, the four kingdoms. That was the beginning of the Kingdom, the head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar.
In this portion here, this is afterwards they have some have returned back to the land. When Nebuchadnezzar first came to take these people captive, there was 606 BC. And some of you look at your Bible, you may see a little time stamp on there. It's not exactly the most accurate, but it give us a bit of reference. This is 446 BC. Now, just in case some of you are doing mathematics in your head, this is as if you're subtracting the two numbers. You don't, OK.
00:10:34
66106 is a lot longer time before 446 because you're now counting toward 0 BC and there is no zero BC. So this is 100 and a long time 150 a 160 years later.
Nehemiah begins with this. Now you notice that it came to pass in the month Chess Blue. Well, you know, often when we read our actions use the word we. I know for me, when I read the words that I don't understand, I just gloss over it. It's easier that way. The words that I can't pronounce, well, I'll say it quickly so I don't have to worry about saying it right?
But each word as you know in the word of God, there are no idle words in there and we should pay attention to every word, isn't it so why would this the the word of God put so specific of a time the month chess lewd in the 12 year.
As he was insured and a palace. Well if you look up the Jewish calendar, the Manchester is the 9th month.
Now the reason for you to know, for us to know that is if you notice the 2nd chapter also begins with a time frame. So if you understand when it was in the first chapter and when in the second chapter, it tell us roughly how long the two chapters is. So we find it the 2nd chapter is that and it came to pass. So it's we know that it was sometime later that it came to pass that in the month.
This SEM, the month, this SEM, or what is another word they use for that month? A month, a bit of abib or abib that month. Abeib is somewhat equivalent to the first month. So as if it was that chess Lewis the 9th month. So if we translate it to our language, it's not accurate, but just for a point of reference. So as if it was September when we read the 1St chapter and it's January.
When we read the 2nd chapter.
By knowing that we know there is a bit of time frame, isn't there? So if you're not good with months like I am, then you take your fingers out and you start going, OK, September, October, November, December, maybe January. So there is roughly 4 months, maybe five months because we're not told what day of the month, but still we know it's roughly four to five months. But why is that important?
I enjoy that because we find here that Nehemiah.
Had a burden, you know, Let me backtrack a little bit. I, I'm not that well versed with this book, but I always thought Nehemiah was a man with a mission and he was out to accomplish his mission. Have you ever thought that he was able to withstand the enemy? He went and he built, he rebuilt the wars, he rebuilt the gates because he knew that.
The path of separation from the enemy was very important, so we find in the following chapters that was his mission. So I always looked at this man as the one who had a mission and no one and nothing can stop this man from his mission. But yet if we read chapter one carefully, I do not see Nehemiah with any idea of what he has to do in chapter one.
We don't learn about his mission until Chapter 2 when the opportunity arrives. So that's why I thought of this perhaps is very instructive for all of us. I don't know about you, young people. For many years and perhaps even until now, I often wondered what is my mission? Have you ever wondered that? What's my gift? What am I to do for the Lord?
Do I want to work for the Lord?
Here, Nehemiah, you look at him, Nehemiah. There's another thing interesting about Nehemiah. He's not a prophet, he's not a royalty, he's not even a priest.
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He said in the end of the chapter, he said I was the King's Cup bearer. He has a job to do, just like many of us.
Can we relate now a little bit more with Nehemiah? He doesn't have a mission. No, he has a very high pressure job. Have you heard those phrases before? I got a high pressure job. If I don't do it right, I'm gonna lose my job. Well, the little one note about cup bearers in those days, I think that's a very high pressure job. Because if he doesn't do his job properly, if his boss doesn't like him, not only will he lose his job.
He would literally lose his head.
So if you think you have a high pressure job, think of Nehemiah.
There is no room for him to make mistakes with his job.
So what did he do? We find that he has a real heart for the people of God.
Isn't that interesting here? Not STV, said. Lord, I know what I'm gonna do for you.
I do not read up that in the first chapter.
He has a heart, so we find here He has a heart. He talked to those who returned back to Jerusalem and he heard reports from them how great the condition is. It was sad. Verse 3 is that the remnants that have left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction.
And reproach, oh condition was poor. Now, as some of you may know your scripture, there has been a few revivals since the time they left captivity. So we knew that they were taken captive. And yesterday we were reminded that 70 years they were to be in captivity. In fact, the book of Daniel tell you that right? Daniels will remind that he read about Jeremiah the prophet. That's there was 70 years that they have to pay. In fact, in the first chapter of Daniel.
If you read of it, if you remember, you talk about the third year and then the chapter end by saying to the.
Till the Umm, till the rain of Cyrus.
The first Kingdom we mentioned, Nebuchadnezzar, was 606 BC, by the way. That's an interesting number to keep in mind, 606, You learned a lot about scriptures. We can remember that. That helped me tremendously. If you look through history, you'll find Cyrus Reign in 538 BC.
530-8537 You'll find some of these numbers are often off by a year or two. Don't be discouraged on that. It's all from the point of reference because often we use our calendar. Sometimes you should be using the Jewish calendar and they don't start at the same time as ours. So depending on what part of the month, you'll find that you're off by half a year or a year. So don't be discouraged. And when you learn to look at date, often you have to add a year to it. And I'll show you a simple example.
If it's 606 BC.
To six O 1 BC How many years would that be? Will you go? Well, 606 -, 601 That's five, right? But wait a minute, let's use our fingers. Six O 6 is 16O5IS26O3 is 36O4 is 4/6 O I'm sorry, I think you got the wrong way. Right. 6O16O5. I'm sorry. Six O 660-5604, 603-602-6010 Six years.
Because you have to count the year that you're in as well. So don't get discouraged with the numbers when it's off by one or two years. So there were 70 years that they were in captivity. Let's get back to this year. So DMIA, his heart was right with the people they were, although they were different revivals, which is interesting to know. You'll find God's word is always true and this time frame table is always good. We do you remember in the book of Ezra there was a revival.
They left in the day of Azura. They left. It was a feeble revival. There were only a handful of people came back. There were 42,000 people came back from the captivity. If you remember, when hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions were taken into captivity, but they came back. What did they do? They were able to rebuild the foundation. They were able to set up the burned the tape the the altar burned offering. So that wasn't bad.
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But then.
Things got deteriorated. They were happy to see that and it didn't go far. And now?
Nehemiah, they have the KS to come back. There were others too. In between there were Ezra. There was a rubber ball, I should say, that came back. And then there was Haggy Eye, if you remember. Now we can tie the time frames together. Hegei along with Zechariah, they came back. They walked the people up to build a house for the Lord. And then we're finding Azure as the priest came back and they cleaned the house. Now we find Nehemiah. Nehemiah had a burden for the people.
Pull that one back to serve the Lord to the place where they ought to be. They were despised. They were rejected.
What was the MIS course of action? What would you do? What would I do? I think I would feel so outraged that I think I'll go and fix the problem. Do we feel that at times? Look at the difficulties. I gotta go there and straighten it out. Let's help them build those walls. Well, let's take a look and see some scripture.
In verse four it tells us what Nehemiah did. He said and it came to pass when I heard these words.
He did a few things here, three things I think in particular, he said, and I sat down.
And wept. That's the first thing he did. It's interesting if you think about this, you know, sometimes we have to hear bad news and we, we cry.
Have you ever say to someone and say?
Look, before I tell you the news, you better sit down.
What does that mean? If you have to sit down first before you take the bad news, it must be terrible news. So I took it in this case, to Nehemiah. It was so terrible that he has to sit down and he wept.
Not only did he weep then, he said, and mourn certain days.
He wept. You know I don't know about you. I've never cried for more than a few minutes, if at all, right. Most of us are raised up. Men don't cry, boys don't cry, let alone hear. Wept sitting down. And he mourned for certain days. Can you see the burden that the Mia has held for God's people?
Is that it? No.
And fasted, you know, sometimes you read through a verse because one verse and we forget there's so much in there. He sat down and he wept. He mourned certain days. He fasted.
Oh boy, and prayed before the God of heaven. What action?
Is the action to go out and fix the problems? No. To me this is full dependence on the Lord, leaving it in the hands of His God and we can say our God.
He prayed, he fasted. What else?
We read through his prayers.
And I believe if you compare that with Daniel's prayer, you'll find that.
Daniel Niemeyer.
They acknowledge the fault of the people as their own. Have we read of any mistake, any terrible things that Daniel have done? I don't know of it in Scripture. It doesn't mean he's a perfect man, but I don't know of any problems recorded. I don't know of any in regard to Nehemiah. But we find that he prayed and he used the phrase we have sinned against thee. This is for a lot of part of verse 6. And I and my father's house have sinned.
He acknowledged the failure along with his people.
That must take a large.
We're so useless. She's used to learning to blame someone else, don't we? He or he acknowledged that.
He acknowledged the fact that the conditions they're in, the difficulties they're in is because they have been corrupt. They haven't followed what the word of God has told them to do. He knew God said, if you forsake me, I will scatter you. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 8. You'll find that they were told. In fact, there's so much instruction given that they are even told when they are being carried away into captivity, they are to still continue to pray to what? Jerusalem?
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And Daniel knew that. So we find here he took and he acknowledged.
What mission does he have at this point?
Nothing. What plans does he have?
You know, I hope you don't mind me say this. Some of you would remember we were down here a few months ago and someone graduation. I will look in the right way so you don't see who I'm speaking with. And I'm just gonna call one of one of the one of the speaker to what the aunt spoke on to the young to the graduate, saying how you must strive for the best of yourself. You must do a thing. Despite what other people say, I suppose this is the true American way. You can do anything you want to do, anything you want to be.
But I believe this is contrary to the word of God.
We find here Nehemiah didn't say that he committed everything to God and he have full confidence that his God will take care of all the problems. So he used those words saying how he's a great and terrible God. By the way, for young people, you may not I know I find often the old English words are hard to comprehend and we I think I believe we changed the word of the meaning of the word terrible to what's terrible means it's.
It's really bad, isn't it? Well, here I believe the word terrible means he was an awesome God. That's the proper interpretation. I believe of that word that he is an awesome God. He will take care of his people. So let's go down to verse 10. Because now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou has redeemed. Oh, he intercede for his people.
Verse 10 Oh Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy, of thy servants who desire to fear thy name. What a prayer that is, that he can pray for the people, He can pray for himself and the people of God.
Nehemiah has a burden. He started off with a burden of his heart, young people.
Do you feel any burden? Not the work out there. The harvest is ready and the laborers are feel a few but.
Do you have a burden that the Lord said in your hearts? Older ones too. We shouldn't look at just the young people. Do we have a burden for the Lord's people?
The book of Nehemiah, as I said earlier, is very interesting. You talk about the following section, rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to many applications where we won't have time to go into the wall. Speaks, speaks off separation from evil.
The enemy was able to come and go as they please, Die learned that he has to separate the enemies from them. And you'll find that they will rebuild the wars. And then they put doors or gates so that those who are enemies cannot come in, and those who belong to the inside can come and go. And not only that, there are lessons in there that you'll find.
In the 10 gates that I mentioned in the in the following chapters, except the sheep gate, every gate there were bars and locks set up on the door for protections and to ensure the separation between God's people and the enemies and those who pretend to be the enemy of God. We find here Nehemiah was indeed sincere prayer.
He spent, but he must have spent at least four, maybe five months before the Lord.
That's the reason we know what we introduced, that he started in the month of chess.
And they go on to the month of Netsand. And then the opportunity arise when the king asked him, we know the story there. When the king asked him why his countenance is sad, he took advantage. In fact, let's just look at one verse here, verse 5, verse four, chapter 2. And the king said unto me, For what does thou make request?
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The Mia was always before God and he learned that his resource is no one else but his God. So we find it the end of verse 4. So I pray to the God of heaven. Oh, he had a quick prayer meeting immediately he prayed and asked God for help and directions and he knows that he can do all things and we can say that too. We can do all things to Christ who strengthen us us, so we find.
From there on the the Lord used this opportunity even though is at the hand of outsider as if it were provisions were given to rebuild because separation is very important. Provision was to be given to rebuild the walls. Provisions given oppositions will also be given and you'll find as you read throughout the book of Nehemiah how he would depend on the Lord to dispel all those oppositions.
But at the meantime, he was a man that we can look, as Scripture said, whose faith follow.
We can follow His faith of the four dependents, of how we can leave it all before the Lord, start with a burden exercise of hearts, and wait for His directions and for His guidance.
To introduce my brief topic, I would like to turn back to James chapter one.
One verse.
Verse 5.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God and give it to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
And the first reading meeting yesterday, we commented on this verse and there were some comments made about.
Knowing the Lord's will for our lives. And I enjoyed what was said and I would like to expand on that just a little bit.
I would like to use this kind of as a starting point and talk about 5 different.
Aspects, I guess I don't know what word to say. I was going to say steps, but I don't. I don't. That's not right. I don't want this to sound whenever the subject of knowing the Lord's will comes up, sometimes my own heart. I would like to know a process or a procedure that I can go through so that when I get to the end, I'm guaranteed to know an answer so I know how to choose my actions.
As most of us, I believe, have experienced in our life, it doesn't always work like that.
Uh, and yet that's kind of what we want. So when I say steps, I don't want this to sound like a procedure that you punch the right buttons in the right order, like a vending machine, and you get the right thing out.
Because it's not like that. And I think as we go through this, you'll see, but I am gonna talk about 5 different aspects. And I think they are progressive. So I will say steps, uh, and, and knowing the Lord's will for our lives. I am not suggesting that these are exclusive of other things. And I'm, and I'm, I'm not going to, uh, suggest that this is the only way to know the Lord's will at all. But these are some things the Lord has shown me in my life.
And I trust that they will be a help. Some of these things are very practical. I'm going to ask some questions that, uh, I don't know the answer to. Only, you know the answer to those, umm.
But the first step was one that was mentioned in the reading meeting the other day, and that is having a submissive heart. And I'm calling these steps just if you want to take notes, umm, willing.
Asking.
Uh, knowing, doing and growing. And we'll go through those real quickly here, but let's start out with willing. Let's turn to Matthew, Chapter 6.
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It's a lot of different verses I could turn to, but I think I'm gonna try to choose some that kind of summarize, uh, each of these different, uh, aspects of learning to do God's will. Matthew chapter 6, verse 33. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. This verse is specifically talking about the needs that we have. But what he's saying, what the Lord is saying in this verse is there are certain things that come first. There are priorities.
In our life, a lot of times when we have a question, especially if it's a big question, that is the priority because that's occupying most of our, most of our brain cycles when we're not doing something else. You have a question about, uh, uh, a course of action, uh, whether or not you should move your family to a different state. I'll tell you, it takes a lot of time and, and energy, mental energy, thinking through all the ramifications.
Of that question. And so that seems to be the first thing, the highest priority I've got to get this figured out, but I think one of the things is having a submissive heart says Lord in all things you come first.
Seek you first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. I think the verse was quoted more than once. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, beginning of knowledge, beginning of wisdom. So willing is having a submissive heart saying to the Lord. And I guess this is my first question. It's not so much about specific things, but first of all, my question to you is, do you want?
To do God's will.
There might be a number of different answers. One answer might be yes, I do want to know or do God's will. And I say do rather than know. And we'll get into that in a little bit. Do you want to do God's will in your life? Maybe there's part of you inside that's kind of like, well, I'm kind of afraid.
If I go out there and I say Lord, whatever you want, I'm afraid of what he might ask me to do.
That's an honest answer or maybe maybe depending on your phase of life, you haven't really thought about it too much, but sooner or later you will face this question. Do you want to do God's will and I can't answer that for you. You can answer that before the Lord. And Speaking of doing turnover versus I think was also quoted John 7.
Verse 17.
If any man, this is John 7 verse 17, if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. The Lord Jesus again is speaking and He's answering.
Uh, a question about where his doctrine came from, and he doesn't answer the question. He says if any man will do, there's a willingness to do.
Then the knowledge will be there. So I just suggest that that is having a submissive heart before the Lord.
OK, I'll ask another question. What is that thing that you want to know about God's will, about your life?
Maybe there is, and I believe for many of you there is a one, maybe two very specific questions, you know, uh, may have something to do with uh.
Uh, college or uh.
Course of study, what to study it uh, it, uh, it could be a number of different things, but you have something very specific.
And then that's question two. Question three is have you asked?
The Lord about.
Maybe you have a couple times, maybe you have spent a lot of time in prayer, I don't know.
Asking, opening and I say asking not just in prayer, but asking as an opening our heart to the Lord, and turn with me to we. We read in James one, but also turn with me to Psalm 139.
00:40:16
And and.
If you really want to know about opening your heart up to the Lord, I suggest you read the whole Psalm. But I'm going to just read the last two verses.
Psalm 139 verse 23 search me, oh God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting This Psalm we have a prayer, David opening his heart up to the Lord as he goes through the Psalm and there is a in these verses. I believe it comes out there is an openness and there is an honesty.
In his conversation, in his prayer with God.
When, uh, when you pray to the Lord on your own.
I hope that there is that openness and that honesty between you and the Lord. Like we read in this song. Sometimes there's things we.
Really don't want to say to the Lord because we see things in our heart that maybe we're afraid to even admit that they're there.
But David, in not just this Psalm, but in some of the Psalms, he opens his heart. He says, this is what I'm feeling or this is what I'm thinking. Lord, it's one of the wonderful things to see as you go through the book of Psalms and I.
Encourage you to I, I, I hope that you have the courage because it it does take courage sometimes and those things that maybe you're afraid of the things that I'm afraid to ask God about this, tell him that you're afraid about this and open your heart up to the Lord.
So we've talked about willing that's having a submissive heart and asking, not just making a prayer, but really asking in the sense of opening our hearts up to the Lord. Now step three is knowing or and when I when I suggest is listening to whatever he tells us. I'm going to ask you another question.
What is something that you think the Lord wants you to do right now?
This may not have anything to do with that one thing that you're that you really want to know the Lord's will about, but maybe there is something in your life that you feel like the Lord wants you to do.
And, uh, maybe it's something that you're not doing that you feel like the Lord wants you to do. Or maybe it's something that you are doing in your life that you feel like the Lord wants you to stop.
Uh, listening, knowing or listening to what the Lord tells us. Now turn with me for an example.
First Chronicles.
Chapter 14.
Umm, there's, I'll just read a section in the middle here, starting with verse 10, First Chronicles 14, verse 10. And David inquired of God, saying, Shall I go up against the Philistines, and will thou deliver them into my hand? And the Lord said unto him, Go up, for I will deliver them into thy hand.
Verse 14 Therefore David inquired again of God, and God said unto him, uh, uh.
Yeah. And therefore David inquired again of God, And God said unto him, Go not up after them, turn away from them and come over, come upon them, over against the Mulberry tree. I skipped through that. And you can read the story that the Philistines come. And he says, Shall I go up? Will thou deliver them into my hands? And the Lord said, Go up. And then he went out, and the Lord gave him a victory. And then it happens again. The Philistines come, and he says, shall I go up? And Lord says, no, do it a different way this time.
And he gave him instructions, and the Lord again.
Gave him a victory in that case, even though he followed different instructions both times it was from the Lord and the reason I read these verses is is not so much that there's a a a direct application to our lives, but it shows in the life of David. He was making decisions all day long that about the children of Israel. He had to resolve squabbles between people. He had to fight against the Philistines. He had he had people asked him questions about all these things all the time and he when I take from these this story here is that he made it a habit.
00:45:21
Of his life to get before the Lord and said, what shall I do here? And when the Lord gave him an answer, he did it. We, uh, we were read the story and uh, as I believe it was Ezekiel about the children of Israel who had, they came and they said they were ready to ask the Lord what his will was. But the Lord says to them, you have an idol set up in your heart. You're not really willing. And in Jeremiah, we also read where the children of the, the children, the remnant that were left there come up to Jeremiah and they say whatever the Lord says.
We're willing to do it. That's in, uh, Jeremiah Leighton, Jeremiah, uh.
I can't remember the chapter, but anyway, they say, whatever the Lord says, we're willing to do. It sounds great. But then when Jeremiah speaks to them, he says, well, the will of the Lord is that you stay here, that you do not go to Egypt. But then the Lord says, but I know you're going to go to Egypt anyway. And they did because they said a lot of good sounding words. They said, yeah, we're willing to do whatever the Lord says. But then when it came right down to it, they didn't.
They had already decided in their hearts what they were going to do. And so knowing, listening in, whether it's little things, whatever it is, maybe that that those little things that that we feel like the Lord maybe after a conference like this, that we've had some encouragement about spending time in the Word of God. And maybe you feel like that's something you should do. You should spend some more time and you make an effort, set your alarm a little earlier or whatever. Don't just ignore those burdens.
Do it.
Listen to whatever he says. And that brings us to #4 which is doing or pursuing, uh, whatever he asks you to do. Let's turn to Matthew 21. Just a quick example.
Umm, and I'll go briefly for this because I think this was pretty self-explanatory. Matthew 21, a little parable here, verse 28.
What Thinkie? A certain man had two sons, and he came to the 1St and said, Son go work today in my vineyard. And he answered and said, I will not. But afterward he repented and went, And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, Sir, and went not. And then it goes on from there.
Seems very clear, very obvious which one did the father's will. It wasn't what he said, it was what happened, the actual actions that took place in his life. So it's not just knowing, it's not just words that we say, Lord, I'm willing to do this. It's what is evident in our lives, in our actions and finally growing and turn with me to Colossians chapter one.
And to me, this this one was I.
Was.
Was very helpful, I suppose was, uh, in, in learning because, you know, for, for a long time I felt like the most important thing is to do the right thing, learn, do this, actually, whatever this specific action is to make the right choice about this. And if I don't, you know, I'm, uh, you know, I'm gonna get it all wrong and, uh, you know, and the Lord's gonna bring trouble in my life and all these things. And I was very concerned about the actual outcome of.
Certain actions, and I'm going to read chapter or, uh, just a couple verses here. This is a prayer that Paul makes.
Questions one.
Verse 9 For this 'cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
What is the whole point of all of this? And I, I, sometimes the young people, uh, back in Lawrenceville will, will remember, I asked them, OK, if you, if you could go to the, the, the iTunes store and download an app that would give you a yes or no answer for any question you ask and it was going to be the will of God. Would you use that app? What would you think about that? You could ask, type in a question and it would give you.
00:50:13
The will of God, of course, this doesn't exist. It would not exist. But if you have that, that's kind of what we, we sort of want, isn't it? I mean, we want something like David. And shall I go up and the answer comes back, yes. Will you defeat the Philistines for me? And the answer comes back, yes, That's kind of what we we think we want. But the Lord hasn't given us that. Why? If, if you really, if the most important thing was a certain set of actions, you would think that he might make it a little easier.
At least for me, I I thought that in these verses he starts by asking that they would be filled with the knowledge of his will. Why that they might walk worthy of the Lord being fruitful in every good work we talked about that that's the doing and increasing in the knowledge of God. That's why I call this growing or increasing. It's it's.
Learning to know God.
Through our lives, through our actions, through the decisions, through this process of prayer and and as the Lord gives answers, maybe in little ways about, you know, from step to step, day-to-day, learning to listen to him and look to him. Independence is a process of growing that teaches us about our own hearts, but it also teaches us about our God, about our Savior, about the Lord Jesus. And there's a relationship that builds something that you know an app on your on your phone.
Could will never give you it might give you an accurate answer, but it doesn't reveal to you the heart of God. And as we go through this process and sometimes it's very difficult and there's there's periods of time we we read about the Nehemiah. It was four to five months that he was praying and there was no clear answer as to what his course of action should be, but.
I don't think when it was all said and done, I don't think when he gets to heaven, Nehemiah will say, well that was a waste of time.
And, you know, in our lives, sometimes there's months, sometimes there's years that we spend praying about a certain issue and asking for guidance and asking for wisdom about a certain issue.
But I believe that when our hearts are before the Lord, when we get to heaven, regardless of what the outcome is, we'll say, yeah, that time was, was, was beneficial. I learned about my God, I learned about my Savior in that time. And I was growing through that time maybe in ways that I didn't even realize. And so I just present those things as a way, things to think about, uh, willing, first of all, having, having a submissive, having a heart that is willing to do God's will and then asking him.
Spending time in prayer and not just saying words to God, but really opening up your heart to the Lord, knowing or listening, uh, maybe I should say listening to what he has, what he tells you. Maybe you know, sometimes.
We are thinking about this one thing and and the Lord is saying actually what I'm trying to get your attention on is this other thing over here is that, yeah, but this is this is the first thing on my mind. Yeah, I know. But this is what I'm trying to get your attention on over here on this other side. So listening, seeing what is the Lord trying to tell me and then doing and then through all of it, learning to grow, learning to know our God, learning to know our Savior better.
Only indeed hiding. We feel ourselves secure, only indeed abiding.
Were 318.
00:55:05
Umm. What was the answer to your name? Uh-huh.
Nsnoise.
Seattle, WA, Ohio. I mean, it's it's, it's whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Whoa, their.
Laundry.
Blouse blinked by our grand furniture.
Uh.
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A godfather, thank you for this time that you could have this weekend.
Hi precious word thank you for all the things that we heard the many challenges for our souls that we heard about where these things like think deep in our hearts that we leave different in the way we came that way. We challenged with how we live as we wait for the student telling the Lord Jesus Christ we pray for journey mercy. Thank you for the local brothers and sisters that it's always work here to set up this conference blessing for them in the name of Jesus Christ to commit these forms Amen.