Cuyahoga Falls Conference: 2017
Table of Contents
Stand Part 1
John 10:1-13
Reading
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276.
I just wore thou graciously.
Children through this environment, we are weak.
Oldest bread of heaven it is now.
To 76.
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Zero, 3016.
41 Hello, hello.
And what else is called?
It's hard when you see me.
Absolute results earlier successfully due as we've just done long to look fee as a presence and we just ask for the effect of being together. Uh, and this time together we need to make this long to be there even more come to know the Lord Jesus better and all we wait we would ask for that food that comes from heaven by myself. What we need to come to know me better and to.
Be spiritually strengthened that we do need, and we ask it for Jesus from thy hand, Amen.
Call.
I had thoughts coming to leave him in chapter 10 of John.
Description Desktop, but I'd like to have someone else.
Associated with that too in mind, heart.
That the temple's gone. So so.
I'm done.
Barely, barely on 10, do you need to enter a clock by the door into the sheet pool, but climb with up some other way, the same as the thief and a robber. But he that entered in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the mortar open it, and the sheep hear his voice. And he called us his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he put us forward for those sheep goeth before them, the sheep follow him before they know his voice.
00:05:22
A stranger will then not follow, but will flee from him, so they know not to voice him straight.
Variables make this on them, but I understood not what things they were, which is taken to them and to Jesus unto them again. Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are needed wrong. But the sheep did not hear them. I am the door by me. If any man is for it, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pastors. The thief cometh lost when we steal and kill them to destroy.
Iron pumps they might have life means they might have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. Good Shepherd lived his life for the sheep, but he's in his entire life and not the shepherd who owned the sheep Bar Not fearful more coming and leave us the sheep and flee us. And we'll catch them and scatter at the sheep.
Hiring clear because he isn't hiring Arizona for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and have known of mine as the Father knoweth me Even so.
I know the Father, I know why the Father, and I lay down my life with the sheep. Another sheep I have which are not under the pole, and I'm also I must bring. They shall hear my voice, and there shall be one full and one shepherd. Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No man taking it from me, but I lay it down with myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again.
This command have I received with my father.
So with the business. Therefore again among the Jews were these Saints, and many of them said, He hath a double and is mad. I hear you him. Other says, that these are not the words of him which half the devil and a devil open the eyes of the blind.
And it wasn't Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked from the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews roundabout and and said unto him, How long does thou make us to doubt? Thou be the crisis. Let's claim Jesus sample as I told you. And you believe not works that I do in my Father's name. They bear witness of me, but you believe not, because you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give up them eternal life. They shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave the tea is greater than all, and no man is able to flex about on my Father's hand. I and my Father are one, and the Jews cook up stone again to sodium. Jesus answered us Any good works have I showed you of my Father? For which of those orders?
Thanks and the good work with Stony not but for blasphemy, because that thou being a man make us thyself of God. Jesus answered. That does not written your law.
I said to your God, if he called that God once a week the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken. Let's say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sentenced to the world of blasphemous, because I said, I am the Son of God. If I do not work with my Father, believe me not. If I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, and he may know to leave that the Father of Lindy and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take it that he escaped out of their hands, and one away I can hit the on board to the place where John was first satisfied.
And their devote and many resorted unto him, and said, God did no miracles, but all things that don't think of this man were true, and many believed on him there.
Two, our advise connected with the Good Shepherd.
As in authority, they know his voice.
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Because most of us, I've heard his voice calling us for himself coming to me.
Come.
Found them to be a wonderful checker and a wonderful savior of friends.
When you keep on, restore strengthens and feeds.
Let's see if you compare that with a thought from First Peter chapter 5.
With Peter, chapter 5.
There's one.
We alluded to our monkey wise Lord.
And also a number of witnesses suffering twice and also particularly lowering each other's yields and fees.
Life of God is among you.
Taking the oversight of the strength of what we need.
Lord over God's heritage, but being examples of the floss when the chief shepherds that appeared, we shall receive a prompt for you that faded from.
It's all in my heart. That's, uh.
We heard the voice of the Lord and calling him himself. Surely He is one who draws us.
But if we're given.
The privilege of speaking for him and then Speaking of yours with God.
Give us any measure of.
Ministry of improved to that quarter others.
This is my question to my own part.
When they hear my voice.
On tone of voice, what I'm saying, are they hearing again?
Shepherds.
Call.
Call.
You know, this chapter speaks about the chapters, the sheep and the good chapters and perhaps.
Uh, sometimes it's easier to look at the divisions in there that we reminded that the 1St 5 verses speaks of the, uh, speaks of the good stuff. Think about the shepherd and the sheep and then.
The first thing to 20 or half 21 on.
It helps us to obtain the risk. It's of a good chapter. So they're a shepherd. They're sheep and a Good Shepherd. You know, Bernie already mentioned that she cleared the boys of the chef, don't they? We recognize it. And you can imitate that, you know, because sometimes we'll go through, you know, the shepherd's voice. We do. We see that with children. Some of you have children and many here have grandchildren and, you know, children.
When they see you, if they know you and see you, they come right.
Money to you. When a stranger comes, they won't even smile.
Do they say the same thing? Perhaps, but they know the voice of the one they can trust.
I said in verse five, Strange may not follow.
I was free from him.
They do not listen triggers.
Not following and fleeing different things, aren't they?
Go ahead. The chapter actually begins very differently. This chapter begins by speaking about adore, not the shepherd itself. That was the first thought that it begins with Italy. Verily ICM to you. He that enter not by the door into the sheep hole. The climate of some other way the same is a thief and a rubber.
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So there is only one proper way the Lord recognized this Good Shepherd coming in Good Shepherd come in by the door and have some would even be able to expand what is doing.
Lord Jesus had all the credentials to present himself as a promised Messiah, a legitimate king, and the one who can establish the rule of righteousness and peace and really take care of his flock in Israel. He had all the credentials. He he had all that was necessary to come in and be recognized as the one that legitimately could take up the Kingdom and take care of the clock.
And I, I still corrected and saying that I, I believe the door is just that, isn't it? It's the, it's the Old Testament prophecy concerning about the Messiah is going to come. So that's the dual work for anyone who can show that they can fulfill what the word of God has promised to deliver his people. And that's, that's the door because throughout the Old Testament, we find that they were looking for Messiah. They were looking for.
At deliverance, I can take an hour of the circumstances. We know that they have had different deliveries. We see in the book of Judges they have various deliverers. We see Moses was a deliverer, but there was a greater deliverer that can deliver them from the city and take them away and to be disabled powers. So this one and this is the only one coming through by the board meeting to the Word of God and recognized by the Word of God.
With Sheffield, in fact, if we look at the following verse in verse two, it actually go on and and explain to us that and those two is here, but he that entourage in by the door is the shuttle of the sheep.
And then in verse three, we find another phrase that's not connected to the shepherd immediately. Then we find if the phrase of 1/4. So we have to do it. And now there's a picture of 1/4 and to him the quarter openness and the.
Chief here at his voice.
Borders needs to be a very humble, humble job. We, we perhaps don't see a lot of quarter in today's terms. And some of you if you take the train or the buses or sometimes at the airport or even in some hotel, we have quarters. They are the ones that help you carry the baggage to get you inside.
According to the Old Testament, time two was a very important job for Tempo. They were the one to keep people, they guide people in and to keep certain people out as well. So the quarter, the quarter, I believe there's been some of the Spirit of God.
That's a quarter. The Spirit of God is the one that helps sheep to hear His voice, and that's how we know about His voice.
And so the thought also of seeing John the Baptist as as one had been sent for the way of the Lord, and some of the Lord Jesus comes. There is already a formation of a flock of sheep there of Israel, who have repented and recognized.
They're, they're, they're not, uh, nation is on the condition that is convenient for their Messiah. And so they're repenting. And so they kind of set aside, Lord Jesus comes and he associates with them and John the Baptist submits in my state of instruction of the Lord and associates the Lord with those ones too.
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Oh, the same verse one, there's TS and robbers.
We might think they're equivalent, but I believe you know there is a different meaning in the words in the Greek I.
We'd like to receive more on that, but I believe one has to do with violence, connected with taking it with violence. And so the chief comes in tonight and rob something and he takes it away. Nobody gets hurt but the robber. It will stop at nothing to get a hold of what he wants and so.
There were those who wanted to have that place in Israel and they were reserving either with, uh, taking something that wasn't there or violently taking that. And one of this character would be, uh, an associate with the Lord. He was the rightful heir and there was no violence with him.
There's 5 verses of the chapters, even a lot of different images or they have different examples here. We mentioned some already, but as you reach university, it's a lot more. So we began by talking about the door. We talked briefly about the sheepfold, uh, brother just mentioned about Tea and Robert in verse 2.
Uh, how the shepherd is a shepherd of the sheep coming in through the door. In verse three, we talked about this order. And in verse 3, two, there is is Oshi. And then there's still more examples as we go on as it tells us how the inverse 4 there is that he goes, he goes, he called us.
That's a decision.
Character of the shepherd or Hishibaji goes before them, and the sheep follow his voice.
It's not a commanding person who goes before them. I remember hearing, uh, someone talked about the United States on forces versus the Israeli, is that they're a big differences, he said. And perhaps I hope I'm not speaking, I will turn or do I disrespect some here, but I understand it. That's in the United States when you have your armed forces to attack.
Usually the commanding officer or the leader will tell the followers what to do. They tell to go ahead. This way the officer who's in charge will always be protected. So let the other guy go first because if someone is shooting, let them shoot the little guy first. The leader gets to be protected and Israel may say no. The leader always say follow. And it's a picture of the chapter, isn't it? The shepherd we he does not heard that much into the direction that we wanted to go.
He leads the band that his own sheep will follow. And that's what we're adding in verse 5. There's another phrase or another word, strange user stranger. And those are stranger. The cheap here do not follow strangers and.
It recognized the shocker's voice. It won't recognize the strangers or boys.
One of the wonderful characteristics of this shepherd is is persistent and caring for those that are his own. The Lord Jesus said came unto the zone, and the zone received it not after the first chapter of this book, but he still knows about in the chapters that come before them, that he presented himself to Israel. He does the things that we've been talking about. He comes and he takes 512 and two fishes and he spreads them and he feeds the giant multitude, and he presents himself as that threat that had come down from heaven.
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And he does miracle like Canaan of Galilee. And as we were just talking about, he presented himself with all those characteristics that the Old Testament Scriptures had said in the Bible have It presents itself wonderfully. And not only does he present himself wonderfully with his work, He presents himself wonderfully with his words, what he said to them. And he's rejected. He's rejected over and over and over again in the chapters that come before this. And how many of us will we go to do something for somebody and they don't seem to appreciate it? Maybe we've tried a second time or a third time or a fourth time.
But what we've been rejected off and, uh, we kind of give up and we walk away because it hurts to be rejected. It hurts to be, uh, turned away from. But the Lord Jesus didn't do that. Throughout the preceding chapters, he finds individuals and he presents himself to them and they're attracted to himself. And now he's getting closer to where he's going to go to the cross. And so he comes to this sheepfold Israel and he goes in, he presented himself.
That the Messiah, he's been rejected over and over again, but there are some, as was said, the order of the Spirit of God takes those scriptures. There's some.
That are attracted to the person and they're sprinkled to the chapters that come before this. They were attracted to them. They heard his voice, the spirit took the words they couldn't plant it in their heart and now the chapter takes them out of that people and he's preparing them. They didn't understand it here, but he's preparing them for what would come ahead. Verse six says despair will make Jesus unto them, but they understood not what they were not what things they were, which is fake unto them.
And the chapters that are ahead succeed. The disciples don't really understand what Lord's saying to them, but he tells them anyway.
Because they were going to understand, they were going to receive the Spirit of God in their hearts and it wouldn't make sense to them in the future. And so here He is planting in our hearts truth that would help them to understand the future. We have a wonderful Shepherd and making in our own lives with the resisting His work in our hearts. We've done it over and over and over again. He's still at work and He's still at work in each one of us, and He still wants to draw us up to Himself.
And he's still planting things making this conference and we'll have things planted in our hearts that we don't understand yet. They're strange that don't make sense. But it it's in there, it gets into the head at least and make it right around a little bit apart. It might be something the Lord you said that we a month, a year, but even that persistent shepherd and here at this point, he's going into that sheep hole that is drawing his people out after himself, after the person away from that protective wall that kept them heads in.
And now it is going to be the person to keep them safely that they follow him.
Satisfaction is very good with the net tax for the previous chapter. Umm chapter.
After any really an extension from Chapter 9, it talks about the sheepfold here. I believe this is very Jewish in character. So no Christians at the, uh, in this world as of this point. So if you remember in the previous chapter, there was that blind man that testified from the Lord Jesus for saving him. And because of that, it has him out of that of that he wished she followed as if it were it rejected him.
So the lower now is 384 the Jewish fold as if it were together under the sound of his word through the guiding of the Holy Spirit performance. So that's why later on you'll find in the chapter there in verse verse 16, I believe he talked about that they shall be one whole it it actually before they said, uh, uh, other sheep have high and then they shall be one. Uh, they shall be one.
Old really I believe the proper translation that it will be 1 flock that he is with a brave all Jews and Gentiles.
Later on together at 1:00, isn't it?
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There's going to be a remark that this was a fold and a lot. We could put the fold with the inside of fence and the fold was in the fence. The shepherd might not be there, but the flaw I find the flock, you're going to find it where the shepherd is. So the flock has a center in the shepherd. Well, the fold had a fence, you might say things that he could not do or could do because they were under the law.
As you mentioned verse 16 in the French we have one block, the end of 16.
Go from one fold to a clock.
Could you note too that the phrase using pickling bursts me? He knows his own sheep. The Lord recognized each one of us as individual as well as in that, yes, collectively we we are being recognized too. But He knows us as in individual, each one of our own. He knows who you are.
He knows your heart, He wants you, and He guides and directs you to the Spirit of God that may be into this altogether with Him, that we all may be one as He is, as they are.
The Lord speaks of those that have come before.
That's such a character that we find in Ezekiel 34.
With chapter 3 to listen to.
The Lord's.
We prove, you might say, of the shepherds of Israel.
And it would be a word to our hearts, too, to be careful not to develop.
Any of those characteristics that we find found in them we read in the first Peter 5, not hoarding over the flock of union samples. So Ezekiel 34 we read from verse one and the word of the Lord came unto me saying.
Son of Man, prophecy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophecy and Santa then thus set the Lord God unto the shepherds. Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do peace themselves, which is not the shepherds to the flocks. Eat the fat, and hold you with the wool. You kill them that are fed, but ye feed not the flock the disease, and do not strengthen. Neither have you healed that with mistake, Neither have you bound up that which was broken, neither have you brought again that which was driven away.
Not have you thought that which was lost, but with force and with cruelty.
Have you ruled them? And they were scattered because there is no shepherd, and they became meat to all the beasts of the field. When they were scattered, my sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every eye hill they might flock with scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek.
Oxygen, therefore, you shepherds, you're the word of the Lord as I live, saith, O Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey, my flock became meat to every piece of the field because there was no shepherd. Neither did my thought did my shepherd search for my flock. But the shepherds fed themselves and fed not my flock. Therefore all ye shepherds hear the words of the Lord. I said, the Lord God, behold, I'm against the shepherds, and I would require my flaw at their hand because.
I'd cause them to cease from feeding the pot. Neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore.
I will deliver my flock on their mouth that they may not be meat for them.
You could read the rest of it, but there's enough in there to challenge every one of us to that desire of the Lord for the well-being of the sheep, to feed them, to watch over them, to heal the sick, to encourage the weak, and so on.
So as we mentioned the 1St 5 verses, we saw all these.
Things and connections with the chief, with the dangers, with the problems and difficulties with the protection from the spirit and so on. Now verse six on and perhaps verse 16. Now we'll see how the Good Shepherd actually works to help the sheep and to restore the gold in this way. So it, it begins by saying, uh, about saying that in verse seven, I am the door of the sheep.
00:35:15
To enter into this old, there is only one way, one door.
As the Lord said in another place is that I am adored by me. If any man enters in thee shall be saved. There are no backwards, there are no side doors, although some as we already learned that we try to come in through other ways, but now the Lord Jesus showing us the door in a different picture that he is a duel and anyone else that is included here coming in otherwise and.
Call.
So this shows a wonderful, uh, pattern in the book of John. Throughout the book of John, there's a connection between the word and the person from the very first verses we hear in the beginning was the word and the word with cause the word was God. And we find Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ in verse two, it says, uh, but he doesn't pretend. But the door is a shepherd of the sheep. We were Speaking of that earlier in the Old Testament Scriptures. There is no more being used as a figure of the Scriptures.
But in verse 7, the Lord Jesus said I am the door of sheep. Now he's talking about the way of entrance, as was just mentioned, is a flock of God, but he's the first. He's a person. Is that norm? And so throughout the book, they're blended in. This person, his word and his person are so intimately connected. They're so consistent with one another. That's as though they were one single thing.
And here we get this little figure of it. The door been used twice, once for the scriptures, once for the person.
Which says by me if any man enter.
We shall be safe.
Whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord.
See Trusting the person, Lord Jesus, putting your trust in Him.
As the example of the door you come in, well, all that's in that room and all that's been provided through the entrance there yours, whether you realize it or not. So those that trust in the Lord Jesus might not know the fullness of what He has done, accomplished for them to accept the Good Shepherd given his life for the sheep through his death and resurrection. He has assured that.
Seabless leader of an eternity of bliss with inventory. He has seated him in himself in high places on the basis of a small faith in a great person. I enjoyed that very much because you know, as we read the scriptures we found out more and more about the Lord and your younger brother. He he was out of suffer and he heard different brothers speaking. He said we tonight I really, really got saved.
But I really.
About what he really the hold of was what he had all the time that he didn't know now he wasn't doing it. And so because he had trusted in the Lord, but he didn't know he was he wasn't comforted in the scriptures. I don't know the scriptures do they assure us of what the Lord is, who he is and what he's done and all the results of this aura. Wonderful to just sit and hear what the Spirit of God will teach us considering the person and work of Christ and the result for us once we come in the door.
I was thinking of.
Well known package the the two on the road to Mais.
We know that they were discouraged. It's interesting to know about this, too. They know everything that should be known to us. They they knew they ought not Christ to have suffered. And they didn't believe that they have witnessed it. They knew that some of them saw the resurrection, but Steve Walker was mad they didn't believe it. And I thought I would not like that. And we like to achieve that sort of. Yeah. Well.
00:40:10
Easy for you to say.
It's easy for you. No, it's not, is it? Let's let's turn it on Luke. Chapter 24 is for Arizona. Umm, uh, what's how the Lord encouraged them. Now do you know the stories and we're not gonna read them story. I'm thinking more of how the Lord said to them. Now remember when the Lord walked up to them, they didn't recognize it. In fact, they thought it was a stranger coming uh, into town there. So a first umm.
Verse 25.
So what's up there now? He said. Then he said unto them all fools, and flew apart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. We just mentioned that the door of the Old Testament prophets concerning Christ. So here he's speaking to them the same way, calling them fools.
Is that all the things that you you willingly would have known you didn't? Verse 26.
Are not priced to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory. That's a very fundamental principle, isn't it The suffering comes before the glory. He reminded them that they should know and the whole spoke to them many times that they could have suffered and then morally and when we walk with him we have the same treatment in this world too. How did he encourage them Verse 27 and beginning.
At Moses and all the profits we expanded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Now it's a very short verse there, but I think it's a very limited verse beginning at Moses. So if we perhaps look at it and say the book of Moses perhaps appended to the five books of Moses.
Can you picture the Lord Himself sharing it and showing them how the five books of motion is concerning himself? And then all the profits we go to the profits of the prophets. Didn't it all testament?
And all the scriptures concerning our things concerning himself. So he showed them from his word and then and they do die unto the village and so on. Let's just go down for time sake. Umm and verse the end of 29 and he carried with them and I think that's the best the chef that you know that he's there with them. He said what the.
And he said, and at least with them, the fellowship with them, and here's the result when someone is having the word of God befall them, having the Lord with them going over his word is the result in verse 31. And their eyes were open and they knew him, and then he vanished.
When we go through things about the Lord Jesus, especially concerning Himself and having fellowship with Him.
There their eyes were opened and and they knew him, and they knew too, as you read on the chapter, instead of running away from Jerusalem where they ought to have stayed to the phrase where they ought to.
In verse 45, it's the same chapter and they then open their understanding. They want to understand the scriptures. So we have.
Seeing the Lord ourselves, but He sure has opened our understanding.
In the scriptures, we might see the things concerning themselves. Let's going back to our chapter 4 MO moment and, uh, comparing verse 11 and 12. I am the Good Shepherd.
Good Shepherd giveth his life with a sheep.
But tears were strong. But he that is entirely not the shepherd whose own the sheep are not, see the wolf coming, and leave it to sheep and see it.
And then we'll catch attendance and scattered a sheet.
The Ireland is in there.
Because there's something for him, there's a reward salary.
But when there's a price to pay beyond what he's willing to invest, he just, he just runs away.
00:45:01
What about the Lord they came to get him in the garden and if you seek me fell back there and he said seek me let these go all the all the others will let he would he went forward there and what was there in that for him or the suffering lacrosse and the glory that will follow and that hasn't been manifested in fullness yet, but every month going to confess every knee is going to evolve this world is going to be subject to that wonderful chapter.
Who gave his life and we as believers now, those are his sheep.
We have the privilege and we have the privilege and to give the Lord joy in owning Him and worshiping Him and recognizing what He's done and mentioning to Him and the Father the enjoyment of refining and what He is and what He's done and what has made us to be what's coming for us. That's even tonight, we could say Even so come, Lord Jesus, we're going to see Him face to face. I'll give you with Him and like Him for His joy. He's going to rejoice over Israel with singing, and truly He's not going to rejoice any less over us.
At the higher limit of the scattering fits the wolf, and so Satan if he has an entrance, because we have wrong motives.
Being active among the Lord's people, they continues That and, uh.
Leave the Saints away on the wrong path, be abandoned there to get the mercy of the enemy.
And you know, we, we, we can have hindsight look back at what happened to so many.
Groups of Saints and even among ourselves. And it's not to be to, uh, bring back asphalt, but just to be concerned right now that those things that happen in the past not gonna hold it happen again because of our carelessness.
It's interesting too when you mentioned verse 13 there about the wolves.
We know when a wolf comes in today's turn into a flock, it's not there to scatter. Wove is to come to kill in the East, but they've been killed. So we find here that it says verse.
Verse 12 There says umm the bull coming and deep I'm sorry.
The World Cup and it it scatters the sheep, it doesn't kill. Why?
I don't think it can because here is speaking about the Lord's purse.
Use another way for us to know that we have when we are kids, we have internal lives, so.
As much as the power there is that could come to kill, which is the characteristic of a wolf because all it can do is to stack.
So if there's anyone here perhaps still indulge about eternal life, this chapter is very interesting. It tells us in more more than in different ways that once we receive, we're hit. No man can pluck it out of his hands. No man can pluck it out of his father's hand. So here's an example that when the wolves came, it didn't do any.
Utility deposits scattered.
Time is up, brother.
That's just the first verse I have #40.
#40 verse one only.
Boy, I love, I believe in your life. When I'm glad to hear that, my God, I'm going to.
Uh.
00:50:36
Nsnoise.
Unity
YP Talk—Michael Hapanowicz
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.
All right, well, uh, good evening everyone and thank you for being here. Umm, I've been told that I have 20 minutes to speak and I will try and honor that time frame. I feel that I might have ended up with more content than will properly fit in 20 minutes. So we're not gonna start off with him and then maybe if we have time at the end, uh, we'll go through that. I just wanted to make a comment before we really start in earnest.
In considering what I was going to talk to you today, there were a number of passages that came to mind as I started going through the subject.
Uh, that I have been requested to speak about and it became pretty clear that could do one of two things. I could either stick to a specific single passage and expository more fully, or I could go through a whirlwind tour of a number of passages and then just as we go through those different passages, maybe point out little things.
Draw your attention to to certain items.
So that you at a future time could go back and reflect and meditate on those different versus more fully. And it's that latter approach that I've decided to take. Uh, recognizing realistically, probably no more than 10 to 20% of the people in this room will walk out of the store and ever follow up on the notes they've written to meditate on those verses specifically from this talk more fully. So my challenge to you tonight is will you be among the.
10 to 20% who will consider this topic in these verses more fully following this meeting, and maybe there'll be some opportunities at this camp for that to happen. Let's open in prayer. God and Father, we just thank you for this opportunity to be here. We come before you to express our dependence. We seek your faith and just pray for your guidance in what is said, Lord, that it might touch our hearts, uh, that it would affect our feet, that it would work out on our actions so that you would be honored and glorified.
We ask this in Jesus name.
Amen. I wanna take you back a few years ago. This would be about five years ago to the soft my sophomore year in college and it's finals week. I'm standing outside of my sociology classroom to take the final exam of the semester. 30 minutes away from taking that final exam in an hour and a half away from walking out of that room and leaving behind on the desk of pile of papers.
In my assessment isn't worth anything more.
Than the wood pulp and ink that it's written on this to give you a sense of my thought on the subject of sociology. Umm, it was I had a little bit a little bit of a feeling about how could God possibly bring anything good out of this class. You know what, not 5 feet away from me was a young, tall dark.
Nerdy looking anti Umm. What was the contrarian? No, it's class contrarian. That's the word I was looking for.
And, you know, he had disagreed with the professor throughout the course, not because he really had a different opinion from the liberal ideology, mostly just because he likes to argue. And I don't know how the conversation got started. I'm not exactly sure why the conversation got started. I think I had a Bible that I was reading, which was the case. It's pretty rare for me to have done that publicly in college. But we ended up with a discussion. It really was honestly, discussion was not a debate. We had a discussion about the word of God. He.
Whether it was true, whether it could be trusted or whether it had been corrupted. And of course, I was supporting, uh, that the scripture was in fact the word of God that had been accurately delivered to us, uh, and that we could trust and rely on it. And for a 25 minutes or so, we went back and forth and, umm, I did feel that, you know, I don't think I was changing his mind because that the responses I was able to give, uh, both in internal evidence and external evidence.
Was a solid support.
For the reliability of scripture. But with about 5 minutes to go until the exam, he brought up a challenge to me and it was something along these lines. He said if the Bible is really the word of God, how come Christians have such divergent opinions on what it means, especially since you believe that you have the Holy Spirit teach you what it means and if God is really at work in.
How come there are so many opposing denominations? And, you know, I had to think about that. I gave a response. There's always a response to give, but I felt like the response was fairly hollow. It didn't ring true because it was a very fair critique. It was a fair challenge. Turn with me to John chapter 17. Some of you will. I think all the young people here will recognize this verse, as you might have struggled through writing it earlier. We're gonna start with John 17 and verse 19.
00:05:07
And for their sake I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also, which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one without Father, Art, and me, and I and me, that they also may be one in US, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.
But they may be one, even as we are one, I and them, and Thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that Thou hast sent me and hast loved them as Thou hast loved me. I just want to reiterate the question that he had.
If the Bible is the word of God, how come Christians have so many different and such divergent opinions about it? If God is really at work in this world, why are there so many opposing?
Denominations. Read verse 21 again.
But they also may be one in US, that the world may believe that thou has sent me. Verse 23 that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. The theme for our camp here this year is unity in the Church. And I would suggest for you from the verses that we have here, there's a brother here in our assembly. He has an expression. He'll ask.
Is this important? Of course, you know, in the context of when he's asking the question, everyone will respond, of course it's important and he'll go, no, it's very important. And this subject to the question of unity is very important for us as believers because it's tied to not only our testimony in the world, more specifically, it's tied to the testimony of Christ. Here it says as the world may believe that thou hast sent me. If you go through the Gospels, you'll find repeatedly.
Jesus does miracles, uh, and his teachings are the demonstrations of his deity that he has truly been sent from God, that he is the son of God. But what he says here in this verse for us is that it's the unity, the oneness that is to be in the body of the church that he leaves behind. That is the testimony to the world that Jesus Christ.
Was sent from God. It was that oneness that was an an enduring presence in the world.
That testified to Jesus Christ was. And so you and I, we Live Today in a time in the history of the church where the public testimony is splintered and we all have to admit, we all have to own that we are part of that failed testimony. And so the question that you and I have to ask is where do we go from here? Are we going to be contributors?
To unity in the church? Or are we going to be contributors to that divided testimony ultimately?
This comes down to the glory of Jesus Christ. Let's turn to so, uh, what we have here in John chapter 17 is what I would call the call to unity. Let's turn to 1St Corinthians chapter one.
And you know, we're gonna go through a number of different passages again. Uh, we'll have to move through them pretty quickly. But just one of the things you might wanna pay attention for as we read through these packages is notice how many times, whether it's Paul or we'll mostly be looking at, but other writers as well, how often they mention having the same mind or being of one mind. So let's read here in first Corinthians chapter one, verse 10, it says, now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the House of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you say it. I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I have Christ.
As Christ divided, was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. Plus they should say that I had baptized in my own name. Uh, as I'm sure you're well aware of, there are a number of problems that were going on in the assembly at Corinth, but this was one of them. And it was really the first problem in this is epistle that Paul addresses. And that's the problem that there was divisions among them.
00:10:09
There's umm, a couple of things I'll point out to you. Notice in the end of verse 10 it says that they be of the same.
Judgment.
We're gonna look at some other passages later where the divisions in the assembly are caused from interpersonal conflict in Corinth. It seems from some of the things that are mentioned here that has more to do with perhaps decisions that were being made in the assembly. It says here that they would be at the same judgment. And I know that, umm, for most of you at this age, or maybe even, umm, if you're women, you might feel like you're never really gonna be involved in a brothers meeting where there are decisions being made.
Get an assembly level on what course is gonna be taken. But let me tell you, it can be a big problem when there is division over different ideas of how decisions ought to be made, what decisions need to be made in the assembly. That seems to be the problem here at Corinth. But there's something else here we see, and we noticed it from verses 12 Through UH-15, is that there was a partisanship.
That was developed in Corinth. People were dividing along different factions and they were identifying based on certain persons.
For certain personalities, and it's not too hard to see examples of that today. Umm, a lot of denominations are named after certain individuals, whether it's, uh, Luther or Wesley, umm, identification belongs perhaps different aspects of their teaching here. It has to do with baptism. Who, it seems like who baptized you was an important question for those in Corinth. They were breaking into different groups along who had baptized and it was.
A great problem.
That they were in these different divisions and ultimately what it comes back to is it comes back to Chrysler always comes back to Christ, doesn't it? Because in verse 13 it says is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
You see the problem with partisanship even more than you know, different than sectarianism, partisanship, identifying with certain leaders or certain teachers or certain schools of thought around an individual, is that ultimately.
It undermines the foundation of Christianity as being based on Jesus Christ alone and his work alone. You know, umm, there's another part in the, uh, Bible where it talks about those who forsake Paul. And it's often, uh, we bring up the connection of those who would, uh, maybe not hold to Paul's ministry. And that's a very terrible thing. And it's a very sad thing that that happened. But there is another problem here.
And Paul brings out is those that we're identifying with this ministry in a way that was partisan, even though here it seems where it says and, uh, end of verse 12 and eye of Christ.
There were people who were identifying with Christ. That's a tremendous thing, isn't it? But it seemed that they were doing so in a way that was intended to exclude others. And so Paul says, is Christ divided or is Paul crucified for you? There's no possible, there's no teacher who can replace Christ. And in our identification with Christ, we must not exclude other believers who truly are bought and purchased by his blood. So there is partisanship in Corinth, So.
What I would have here is we had in John we had to call the unity.
In First Corinthians one we have the condemnation of division, and so now we're gonna look at a number of passages As for the cause of dissension, one of them was already mentioned earlier today or yesterday by Mr. Hadley. And so that's actually the First Corinthians chapter 3, verse one. It says, And I, brethren, cannot speak unto you as unto spiritual, but is unto carnal, even as debates in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able.
To ferret neither yet now are you able, For ye are yet carnal, whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, or my margin has factions. Are you not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? Who's in as Paul, And who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believe? Even as the Lord gave to every man, I have planted in Apollo's water that God gave the increase. Here again we see in this chapter.
Partisanship here, it's maybe not based on baptism. Maybe it's based on, umm, different evangelists. Here we have Paul and Apollos and it brings out one, watered one, gave the increase. Maybe there were certain ones who were identifying more with the work of evangelism, others perhaps identifying with more the work of, umm, mentoring those who are young Christians. Either way, God or Paul says here, who's a Paulus and who's Paul? There's no one. God is the one who does the work. God is the one who gives.
00:15:03
That's actually not, though, the point of why we're here in First Corinthians 3. It has to do with carnality. It was mentioned that wherever you see division, it's because of carnality. And I don't know if that expression makes sense to anyone. Umm, maybe we're more familiar with the biblical term of the flesh. These Christians here in Corinth, they were walking in the flesh. They were fulfilling their own natural desires.
Umm, they were not walking in the spirit.
The Spirit would not have led to these things. And so Paul says it's a hen, it's a hindrance. I can't teach you the things I want to teach you because if you're just taking up with the flesh and you're not taking up with the Spirit. And one of the evidences that that is the case is because of this partisanship, these factions that you've broken into. We see another example of this in James.
So let's just turn there.
He uses a slightly different word and I'm sure there's distinctions of thought, umm, between the two, but it's a similar idea. And maybe in your meditations you can parse out a little bit of the difference. But here in James chapter 4 and verse one, it says from whence comes wars and fighting among you. Can they not Hence, even if you're lust that war in your members.
A lust and have not he killed and desired to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war ye have not because he asked not. He asked and received not.
Because the ask amidst that you may consume it upon your lust here in James, the problem that was causing infighting amongst the, uh, specific assembly here addressed that perhaps among the Christians that are being talked to is what umm, like I said, that seems to be similar to what was brought out in, uh, first Corinthians about carnality. Umm, But no doubt there are distinctions here and they were.
Even praying that their lust would be fulfilled.
It's a, umm, not too long ago we went through this passage in our Sunday school and it's a very sad thing. It's a very serious thing that we would go to God in prayer requesting that our lusts and not his desires be both fulfilled in this world and in this assembly. So that's at a very broad level of high picture of what causes divisions and that's carnality or our flesh and the trying to fulfill the lust of that flesh. I wanna look.
Specific example of this playing out and that's in Philippians chapter 4.
And in Philippians 4.
It says here verse two, I beseech the odious and I beseech Cynthia, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. And I entreat thee also true yoke, fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the book of life.
Actually, not too long ago I was driving in the car and I happened to be listening on the radio. Someone brought up the verse here and they made a very interesting observation about this word.
Fellow laborers or uh, it's actually, umm, yoke fellow I think is the word I did look up in the strong's, I don't remember. I think it's yoke fellow in verse three. And what they said about that word is in the Roman times in the Colosseum, one of the ways that they would entertain themselves is they would take two prisoners, 2 gladiators, and they would put them out in the arena and they would chain 1 foot of the gladiator to the other foot of the.
Gladiator and then they would give them weapons and they would release animals into the arena. Things like lions or umm, just stick with lions. The two gladiators, their job was not to fight each other. Their job was to work together to fight off and kill the wild beast. Thousand the arena. That's the word. Their yoke fellow. If I treat the also true yoke fellow with those women which labored with me in the gospel, it might be the word fellow. Laborers. I'm sorry.
I don't have that down on have to look it up. Maybe if you have a strong concordance in your own time, you can look up which of those two words it is but one of those words, whether it's your fellow or fellow laborer. It's that idea of being changed to someone as a gladiator to fight off a wild beast. And I just if we go back to verse two, it says I had beseech Yodius and I beseech syndicate that they'd be of the same mind in the Lord. Now we don't know exactly what was the situation between. Apparently this is two women.
It doesn't exactly say, it just says that they be of the same mind. But I want you to consider.
If you were living in the times of the early church and Paul wrote an epistle to your assembly and you've gone through and you've read 3 chapters and now you get to the 4th chapter and all of a sudden your name is being called out. So I'm gonna use my name and Joshua's name. I'm gonna say you're reading through this. Might you know. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved, and long for my joy and crown, so stand fast and the Lord, my dearly beloved, I beseech Michael and I beseech Joshua that they be of the same mind in the Lord.
00:20:15
You wouldn't really want to hear that being read in your assembly, would you? Because you just got called out. You got called on the carpet. There was something that was serious that was going on between these two women. So we don't know exactly what it was, but it says via the same mind. And I want to suggest for you this idea. You know, earlier Ted Allen was speaking about spiritual warfare. We had in Ephesians putting on the armor of God and that we fight against principalities and powers in the role of this world. There's that.
That tells us that there is a roaring lion seeking those whom he may, he may devour. And I want you to consider for just a moment in that arena, those two gladiators who are chained together. What are their chances to fight off the lion that is prowling in that arena if they start fighting each other?
If one gladiator starts picking the chain, maybe using their sword to stab the other gladiator, how long are they going to survive against that animal? Not very long at all, are they? IF?
We as fellow Christians are infighting among ourselves. It greatly weakens our ability to fend off tax on the face from the enemy and that in one sense is ultimately what we saw in John 17, wasn't it And so he says, I see yo Jodi of the same mind in the Lord. There's a answer to what was going on here. I believe with these two women and it's in Philippians chapter 2. It says fulfill ye my joy that you be like minded having the same love being of.
Accord of one mind, but nothing be done through stripe or Vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, like each esteem other better than themselves. What's not every man on his own things, that every man also on the things of others. By this mind being you, which was also in Christ Jesus to being in the form of God, fought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.
And was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a Manny, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death. Even suggests of the cross.
Putting others first.
It talks here about having a lowly mind. Ultimately, what's being described here is humility. I just wanted to think for a second about the kind of pettiness that we can have as Christians in the assembly, and I'm gonna go through an example. I'll use Yodius and Syndicate's names. So you don't think that this is referring to any real person because this situation is hypothetical. But let's say Yodius. She goes down to the women's restroom in her assembly, and she noticed that the soap.
Is almost gone and so as is our custom and years of tradition support, it's her job to focus to replace the soap. So she goes to the store and she gets as is her usual custom, the avocado and mango moisturizing soap from Dove. And she comes back and she noticed as she's going to the sink there that someone.
Has replaced the soap already, and the kind of soap they've replaced it with is Cypress and Wormwood scented soap.
And so she's decided, you know, I'm not gonna make a big deal about this. Whatever. So she puts her avocado and mango moisturizing hand lotion under the sink when she uses the Cypress and Wormwood soap. But she finds that the particular lotion happens to strip her hand of the essential oils and makes them crackle. And so she eventually searches out and finds the person who replaces the soap. And she says, you know, I really appreciate it if you would just let me, you know, use this avocado and mango moisturizing soap because I think.
It's really gonna be so much better for all of us. I know it'll be better for my hands. And this other sister says, well, you know, I really don't think it's appropriate for us to use that because avocados and mangoes are not mentioned in Scripture, but Cypress and warmwood are. So you should get that stuff out of here. And so she goes back to her husband. And her husband is like, you know, honey deer, like this is not, this is not a real big issue. We've got moisturizer here at home. Just just let her have her soap. And she says something along the lines of.
Don't call me honey.
This is not fair. This soap isn't right. I it's robbing people of essential oils. And you know, why do I always have to give it to her? Why do I always have to be the one to take the High Road? And you're my husband. Why are you standing up for her? You should be fighting for me. I don't know if this rings true.
For anyone, maybe that's a bizarre example, so let me use a different one.
00:25:01
This one's maybe a little more personal. I didn't give out a song today in the breaking of bread, so you know, I won't be referring to this day, so I will give that disclaimer. But say you're in the breaking of bread and you give out a song. Umm, it's a nice song. You, you really like this song. It's a common song. We sing it all the time in our assembly. And so of course you don't start tunes. It's not really your Forte. And so someone else starts the tunes.
And there are only a few words into the song when you suddenly realize for some bizarre reason, they have chosen to use an obscure tune that you are not familiar with and you Can't Sing. And so you were really looking forward to enjoying the law, and now you can't even sing it because they've decided to implement diversity and.
You know the remembrance of the Lord here. You are to remember the Lord.
In his depth and you're cranky because you can't belt out your favorite too. You know those problems seem tiny, but they can cause difficulties. They can cause tension in an assembly. And you know when those things are allowed to boil and when we deal with them in passive aggressive ways or aggressive ways, it makes it significantly harder when there are true.
Problems over.
Doctrine or over decisions in assembly to work through those when we have pent up frustration over.
Tunes or Cypress and Wormwood. So, umm, but in those examples, you know, it is it's about carnality, it's about the flesh. And so with the example that Paul calls us to here in Philippians is esteem others better than ourselves. And it sounds easy when you're reading it in Philippians, it sounds hard.
When from the 20th time you have to take the High Road and you have to always be the one who gives in to that other person because you wanna do what's right and you're not gonna make an issue over something that's a little an over penny pen petty to maintain unity in your local assembly. But however hard it is for you and issues big or small, it is certainly not more difficult than it was for the Lord Jesus who didn't think that equality with God was something that he.
Should hold on to, but he made himself a servant, and he became obedient in his obedience to the Father, even to the point of being willing.
To die in whatever little issue it is that you have with your fellow Christian, it's not gonna cause you to have to go through something that's difficult. That's what the Lord Jesus went through. We're gonna, umm, go to one last passage. I'm sorry, I know I've already gone over my time. This is an Ephesians. We'll just go through this quickly in Ephesians chapter 4.
It says, Umm, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord Jesus or of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation we're with. You are called with all loneliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.
Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit. Give us your calls and one hope of your calling. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.
There's just a couple of things I wanna point out for our observation here in this passage. You'll notice in verse two it speaks of loneliness, meekness, long-suffering, and forbearing one another in love. What all those words have in common is there on the topic of humility is what we call in Philippians chapter 2, isn't it? I'm just gonna make this observation. It might sound kind of cutesy, but the word humility and the word unity, in both of those words, the letter U comes before the letter I.
And the word I, the letter I, comes first.
And there's nothing else. So let's have humility putting others first, that there can be unity. There's one other thing, or maybe two things I wanna point out. One is most of the time in Scripture, when the word one is used, it's intended to be exclusive. For instance, think of the verse. There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
That statement is the exclusivity.
That there are not multiple gods, there is only one God, and there is only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. There aren't other mediators, but I want you to notice something about this passage here. When it uses the word one, I suggest to use that it's not using it to emphasize exclusivity, is using it to emphasize inclusivity. Notice how it ended with the verse that we read.
00:30:08
Who is the father of all, Who is above all and through all?
And any wall there is one phase with emphasizing.
Year is the common ground of the believer. So that's what the different passages we've looked at. We've called the call to unity in John 17, We've had the condemnation of division in First Corinthians one. We've had the causes of division in First Corinthians 3 and in James chapter 4. And here we have the common ground of the believer. 1 Lord 1 faith, one baptism, one God, one body, one Spirit I.
Dozen orders I order. I apologize. I just wanna leave it with one practical example of how that works out. This, what I'm referring to is inclusivity. I, I didn't ask him for permission before, but I hopefully my father doesn't mind me sharing this story. He was, umm, raised in a Catholic family and so when he was born at a very young age, he had what is called, umm, infant baptism.
Which in the Catholic Church is potentially you get sprinkled with water from the priests and there are certain theological implications they believe that.
Umm, a young child has been baptized, If they die they can go to heaven, but if the child hasn't been baptized, they don't go to heaven. I'm not sure if I got that exactly right. My dad could maybe set you straight afterwards.
Later, Umm when he got saved, UMM came to a saving face in the Lord Jesus and desired to be Umm, to be gathered in the Lord's name, to break bread and remember him and his death. He brought up the question of baptism.
Do I need to be baptized again?
With the baptism, that's not infant baptism, maybe more of what we would call believers baptism. And there was uh, a brother in the assembly at that time. Umm, I don't know if the name would mean anything to most people here. His name was Don Rule, but.
Umm, he was.
Thanks. Yeah, Donald, Donald rule anyhow. Umm, not umm, And uh, he said he, he turned in his verse and he said there's one baptism and you don't need to get baptized again to be able to break bread. You know, for many Christians, this is a cause of division. Is it infant baptism is a believer's baptism is a household baptism? Was there immersion? Was it just sprinkling?
And what here it says is there is one baptism.
We have created it into a causal division. But here in this passage, baptism is meant to be something that's unifying for the body of Christ. There is, you know, one faith, one baptism. Umm, I just want to leave you with a few practical applications because I know it's easy to go through a meeting like this and just say, yeah, I agree with that. Unity is important, but what are we going to do about it?
One of them is, I believe that we should pray for the whole church.
There's a brother in our assembly who often in the prayer meeting, he'll say just that and pray for the whole church. And there's one sense that's a little sad that he has to specify when he prays for the church that he's praying for the whole church. But it's good for us to do that. It's good for us to pray specifically for persecuted believers in other lands who are going through great difficulties. And I think it's also good for us to pray for the needs of believers of fellow Christians, umm, that we know of. And I think a practical example of how this works out is just what happened at this conference.
Todd Davis and Kim Davis were mentioned for prayer in the Reading meeting. They are Christians. She has cancer. And it didn't matter to us whether she was gonna be there on Sunday breaking bread or not. All that mattered was she was a Christian in need. That's one way that we can be contributors to unity. Oh, I mentioned, mentioned. I'm sorry. I know I'm taking too much time, but they're in.
Umm, where it says endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Verse three, I wanted to point out that it says keep the unity of the spirit. It doesn't say create unity. It doesn't even say foster unity. It says keep the word is literally guard. And the reason that is is because if you were to go to the second chapter.
And I'll let you read through that on your own. You will find that the unity.
The crisis created for every believer. There is no higher level to which we can bring that unity to which Christ has already established. And so our job is not to create unity in the church. Our job isn't even to foster unity in the church. Our job is to guard the unity in the church that Christ has already established. So one of the ways we can do that is pray for, umm, every believer. I give you a reference for that First Timothy.
00:35:14
One the other is to work hand in hand with other believers, specifically in the work of the gospel. Certainly, if there is any area in which we can have common ground for common endeavors, it's in the gospel. I'll give you First Corinthians 3, verse 9. The other is to love every believer and to love them because of who they are to God.
Uh, we don't have time to go into that more fully, but I give to you Colossians 2, verse 2.
And first, John 5 verse one, he's our practical ways, and there are sure many other ways. I'd like to hear from you ideas of how you think that we can in a practical way, guard unity in the body of Christ, both in its universal sense of the church and in its local context in our specific assemblies. Let's just pray.
God and Father, we thank you for the work that you there accomplished on the cross that as I said in Ephesians.
UH-2 you have made both one, we thank you for that foundation that you have established for unity that cannot be risen above. We just pray that Lord would each of us individually contribute to unity and not contribute to division for your glory in Jesus name, Amen.
One on One
Gospel—Stephen Rule
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Good evening welcome.
If someone would start #2 for us, I'd appreciate it.
Any issues?
Full of fraud.
Oh my God.
OK, next one. I am or the name is a lot of the drinks. Uh-huh.
Yeah, it's a lot of.
The rest of the other games, and it's a lot of.
Them.
Uh-huh.
22 weighs in half. Three years from how long?
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Uh.
Umm yeah, I can't find.
My way.
Uh, let me see. That's all I do, uh.
Uh, let me see if there is any experience in my adventures. Because they were.
Dear Lord Jesus, we just ask that each says, each of us, listen to thy word this evening, and we'll be working our hearts to draw each one of us to thyself. And we think especially of one perhaps in the room who may not know Thee, Lord Jesus, as their personal Lord and Savior. And so we ask for them tonight that they would hear thy voice, that they would come to Thee as as Savior and repentance. And so we do ask for thy help and this work this evening, Lord Jesus, and we pray.
00:05:22
In thy name, Amen.
I'd like to go through with you this evening, uh, passage of Scripture and as I was something I'd enjoyed in my personal readings a couple of weeks ago.
And as I was reflecting on it this afternoon, I thought perhaps this is a passage that got taken up.
Maybe it was even last year here, I don't remember, but I believe it's the message that the Lord has for someone here this evening. So we'll go back to the passage and I hope it will be fresh.
You know, I was a teacher for 14 years, and early on in my teaching, I was teaching in the suburbs of Chicago.
And the school did something for the arts and culture and so on, where they had several days where they shut down all classes.
And they invited in, uh, speakers from the community and arts and they had, you could sign up for this, that and the other and teachers were to participate. So I looked down the schedule of classes and I found one that had to do with, uh, speaking on the radio And I, oh, that'd be interesting. I wonder what, what it is. I saw the name on it. It was, uh, best known news anchor in the Chicagoland area. I thought I'd be interested. So I came, he gave his little presentation. There was.
Opening for questions. And when he opened it up for questions, there was silence in the room. And I've been teaching a couple of years, but not very long. And I thought, well, that that looks uncomfortable. I think I'll help him out with the question if I ask the question. And I was shocked by how upset he was with my question.
My question was when you get on the radio and you know there's millions of people in Chicago land and he had a listening audience of probably hundreds of thousands.
How do you talk to maybe hundreds of thousands of people at the same time?
That's the worst question I could have asked.
Because he said to me you'd never talk to 100,000 people at a time.
You always speak as though you were speaking directly across the table with your friend. You talk 1.
One, I never speak into the radio and talk to hundreds of thousands. I think as I reflected on it later, he'd probably been asked that many times by people wanting to get into radio, and he was ready with his answer.
I'd like to turn this evening and read together with you A1 on one conversation.
Between the living Son of God and I trust your own soul. Let's turn to John chapter 4.
I'm going to have one person here time for me. The conversation part. We'll refer to other parts in the in the gospel in the chapter.
What I want you to see that an eternal change in your soul is not a question of your intellect. It's not a question of coming to understand and be able to explain better than the person seated next to you. You may already be able to do that.
The living change in your heart comes from coming to know and learn a person. It comes from coming to know and get to know the man Christ Jesus and so.
The stopwatch ready, I'm going to ask would you help me, Leo? All right, this is start and then stop and I'm going to ask you how long it takes. I'll tell you when to start. Just push the button there and it'll be start when I'll when I tell you and then stop. You tell me how long it takes.
I'm going to read with you the conversation. Most of you, perhaps all of you know the context around it, but the Lord Jesus was on his way to Galilee. He was on his way through Samaria, coming from Judea and Jerusalem. On his way through Samaria, He stops at a well, and we'll go back for a couple of details in a moment, verse 7.
Umm, sorry.
Yes, verse seven. There come with a woman. I'm sorry, Leo, ready start. There come with a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. First disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, ask a string of me which I am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God.
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And who it is that saith, who they give me to drink? Thou should have asked of him, and he would have given thee living.
Water, the woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with.
And the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children, and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw.
Jesus saith unto earth, Go call thy husband, and come hit her.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou as well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast, tis not thy husband. And that said thou truly the woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain.
Nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship. Ye know not what we know, what we worship. For salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh. And now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship. Worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ.
When he has come, he will tell us all things, Jesus saith unto her.
Either speak unto thee and he all right, Leo.
How long was it?
I'm gonna round it up.
3 minutes.
3 minutes.
Conversation by a Samaritan woman and the Son of God.
An amazing thing, isn't it?
You know.
A message isn't just the words, it's the person sent to give it. Let me give you the word of the verse for that. It's not just the words, it's the person sent to give it.
In Hebrews chapter one.
Read it from Mr. Darby's translation, Hebrews chapter one.
And verse two at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son.
He spoke to us in the person of the son. My family and I lived in Ecuador for six years, and while we were living there, the President of the United States never visited the country.
Fact A sitting president of the United States has never visited the country, but while we lived there, the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld at the time came to visit the country.
One of my colleagues was his translator while there. And for a while that's just what she wanted to talk about. She was amazed with the retinue that he brought with him, the the security detail, that their attention to detail, all that they had to do. And she was very impressed with the person of the Secretary of Defense.
What the country wasn't important enough for the United States for the president of the United States to come to Ecuador? I want you to pause and reflect for a moment.
That the one who with his fingers made the stars sat weary.
On a well, talking to one woman.
That man has a message for you this evening. He has a message for you, the individual.
He came to speak to you.
He didn't come to speak to the world this evening.
He came to speak to you.
That person.
Who created everything that you look at out that window and throughout this entire universe?
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That person who's keeping your heart beating at the moment and allowing you to breathe.
Was tired, they sat on a well.
And he said to a woman of Samaria, give me the drink.
That person is he hung on a cross said in the 19th chapter of the book where we read this evening.
I thirst.
That person in Luke chapter 4 it says after he was 40 days in the wilderness without eating.
That he hungered.
That person in the middle of a storm?
Lay down on a boat cushion. In the Bible you probably have in your hands that calls it a pillow. It was the kind of thing that a rower in those boats would have on the feet of wood to keep their rear end from getting sore while they rode hour after hour. It wasn't the cushy, carefully constructed pillow that you may have at your home. He lay down on that in the middle of the storm.
To get some sleep.
That man came to speak to you.
That's the message, and in fact, that's the heart of the message that I want to share with you this evening is who that person is. I believe that most of you, perhaps all of you, know what that person did. But it's the concern, my heart, that there are some, perhaps one here this evening that doesn't know that person. And I'm going to apply this chapter and say that this woman at Sycarswell had three.
Different, I'll say idols.
Mistaken views of God and the first one is in the first exchange.
Because he comes and says give me the drink and the response shows what that expression meant.
She says in verse 9, how is it that thou being a Jew ask us drink of Maine, which I'm a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings.
With the Samaritans.
A little bit later in this gospel.
That Jews say to the Lord Jesus, thou art a Samaritan.
And half the devil. It was an expression when you wanted to insult somebody.
And you were a Jew from Judea and you wanted to really put them down. You said you're a Samaritan.
I don't know. I've tried to think if there's an equivalent and I don't think there is that I could come up with that expresses in our culture today. Perhaps there is. I couldn't come up with it.
That expresses that same level of venom in the prejudice between.
The dew and the Samaritans. Thou art a Samaritan and half the devil.
They put it together. Perhaps that's the closest we can come to understanding.
Is there a person here tonight that looks on God like this Samaritan would have looked at the Jew?
As one that looks down on you.
There are people who in heart are separated.
From the Lord Jesus Christ, because their view of God is.
That is a hard master.
And perhaps an application if you're a believer in Christ tonight, but you're here and you're far from Him. Perhaps the reason is that your heart is slipped back to that view of God. Perhaps He hasn't given you what you asked him for.
Perhaps he's allowed a tragedy in your life. Perhaps he's allowed difficulty, and you look on him the way the Samaritan would look on a Jew as a hard man who's a long way off.
That has no interest in you.
You hold in your hands the true accounts of that person.
Stepping into this world and sitting down on a well and expressing something.
But she could understand, I think, better than our ears could understand when he said, give me to drink.
He never got that drink.
There's no record that he ever received that drink. There's no record that his disciples ever gave it to him.
There's no record that she ever put her water pot down in the well to bring it up. He didn't come to get, He came to give. The Lord Jesus Christ came to give to that woman. And the Lord Jesus Christ has come and his heart is open to give to you. And if your attitude or if your spirit, if your heart toward God has been that somehow this is a God who's come and taken from me what was mine.
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Can you sit with this woman on CYCAR as well and listen to the Lord Jesus?
As he breaks down that wall of prejudice and she begins to see him with new eyes, not as one that came to be at a distance from her, but as one that came to speak to her heart.
Jesus answers in verse 10. It says Jesus answered and said unto her, if thou knowest.
Two things, look at them, the gift of God and who it is that says that they give me the drink now it's a vast of him, and he would have given thee living water.
So in the Old Testament is a figure of more than one thing. He's a figure of the flesh.
And if you look at the picture of what Saul was, he came to take, and Samuel tells the people when Saul is crown king, when they're going to get their king, I should say when they're going to get their king, he tells them he's going to take and he goes through the list. He's going to take the best of your young men. He's going to take the best of your field. He's going to take the best of your all of yards. He's going to take the best of all that you have.
That.
Is what Satan wants you to think of God in the garden when the serpent came to tempt Eve.
He said to her, He planted in her heart the doubt that God was a good in giving God, that there was something that he had withheld from Eve that would make her happy. For when the Son of God comes into this world, a world spoiled by that sin, he comes to make known to this woman, and this evening to make known to you two things.
Who he is personally as an individual to you.
And what he has to bring to you, not what he has to take.
When David, the man after God's own heart, as it's expressed with all his sin recorded in the Old Testament, when he came down to his brothers, he brought with him, He brought it from his Father, but he brought with him and he gave. And that was his character when he acted as a figure of the Lord Jesus. And it's the character of the Lord here, verse 11.
The woman saith unto him, Sir.
There was nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
From whence and hast thou that living water Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children?
And his cattle.
Here's the second thought. Or maybe it's a non thought about God.
About 1700 years before Jacob had put a well down into that earth.
And for approximately 1700 years, the people had come to that well.
And put their water pots and their water skins down into the well, and they brought up water.
And they drank it and they got thirsty and they came back to that well again.
I spend too much time.
Trying to watch what's happening in the world of retail and publishing and so on because of the job I now do.
But I find that's very interesting and I think it's directly related to what we've just read. Everything in that water plot is the refreshment, a legitimate, in this case, refreshment that you can get in this world that comes and it goes.
There's a company that probably many of you have bought from before. Amazon, Amazon.com. Perhaps many of you have bought from them.
And their trend is to do the following, someone that studied them says.
That, in essence, what they try to do. Everything is built on narrowing that gap between.
I want it and I have it.
That's what they're built around, their entire process. Everything is built so that you can bring those two things together. I want it and I have it. And in fact, that same analyst said that the following statement is true. The rest is his projection.
That because now, because of medical things and so on, there are now interfaces between the brain.
00:25:04
And the body and they're working on them for people that have lost limbs, etc. And those interfaces are being made so that.
Something external to the body can speak with and give directions to the body.
Is have fun and have serious statement. This analystaboutamazon.com is that they're going to come out with something called the Amazon IMP, which stands for impulse. It's part of that neural link between the brain and the external. And all you'll need to do is think and if what you want.
Is physical. It'll be delivered to you.
If what you want is a happy feeling, your brain will be stimulated.
And you'll have it.
Now I'm gonna give you one more quote and I wanna go back to this chapter.
The founder.
The one that runs Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos has said the following.
If I've learned one thing in all my years of working with this company, it's this People are never satisfied.
So let's get that gap all the way down South that you just have to think.
Then you have it and that statement remains true.
But the Lord Jesus Christ came not to provide running water.
And a water tank for the woman of Saikar. He didn't come to bring an aqueduct to her home.
He came to put in her heart a well of living.
Water springing up to everlasting. Our eternal life springing up.
And I'll read it so I can get it perfectly correct from the verse where he says it in verse 14.
I shall give him the water that I shall give him shall be in him.
A well of water springing up into ever lasting life. The message of the gospel is not come to Christ.
And your life will be a happier 1.
The life, the message of the Word of God is not. Come to the Lord Jesus and all your relationships will improve.
The message of the gospel has not come to the Lord Jesus Christ and your wealth.
Will increase. Some of those things are legitimate water, legitimate refreshments in this world. There was nothing wrong with the water in the well of sight car. There was nothing wrong in the woman coming to that well. And there's nothing wrong in you sitting down and enjoying a view of the lake after this evening, or enjoying some food and a refreshment, or singing a hymn and enjoying the sound of that music. But that is not the message of the gospel.
The message of the gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have come to give you new life, and that's brought out in the prior chapter.
And in this right here, this message to the woman is not that he's come to give her a better well or a better way of getting water out of it. The message is that he came to bring. And in this case, it's a figure of the Spirit of God to go in our hearts the power to make that new life real to her. And so it says.
I'll read it in full. Her response?
Or perhaps, but the Lord's response, perhaps before I do, I want to point out something to you a little further on that.
She says our father Jacob.
1700 years before. I'm sure there are many in this room that realize that when Jacob came, he wasn't coming to this well right here. He was going to the house where his mother had come from. His mother, Rebecca is going to see his Uncle Laban. And when he went to see his Uncle Laban and he arrived, there were flocks there that had come down to the well and there was a stone over the well.
And he saw his wife to be Rachel, coming with the flock.
And Jacob?
Ran, and he rolled the stone away, and he watered the flock for his future bride. Hundreds of years later, Moses in Exodus chapter two, he comes.
And he sees his future bride.
And she has a flock.
00:30:02
And he waters that flock.
That's what Jacob brought the father of Israel.
That's what Moses brought.
The Lawgiver.
But when Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ comes.
He doesn't bring water out of that well.
I want you to notice a little later in this chapter, I think you'll see from the pronouns used that this woman was about to become after his death and resurrection, part of His bride. He didn't just bring for her water of her freshman on this earth. He brought for her the Spirit of God to live in her heart, to make His thing good to her, to be the power of the new life that He was giving to her.
And as it will say a little later on in this book, in John chapter 14.
He was coming to be there, to be with her forever.
And so.
The first error about God is perhaps that he is a God.
But angry and distant he's not.
The next is perhaps, and I didn't spell it out clearly, but it's implicit in what we've been talking about. The next is that perhaps God is indifferent that everything that goes on, goes on here underneath the sun, as in the SUN, as in the sun that shines in the sky. And everything that happens happens. And it's what you can see here on earth. Because when this woman is speaking with the Lord, she's speaking about a physical water and she's speaking about what?
Can see and what she can perceive and not about this.
Does living well, springing up in my heart, that's something outside.
The physical world.
Perhaps not in Word, but perhaps in practice.
You're an atheist.
Everything that matters exists where you can see it, where you can touch it, where you can feel it. Everything exists in things like water from a well in this earth.
I'm going to ask you to run through and not answer me, but run through in your mind.
Something like this?
When you get in the car and you're alone in that car.
You have to turn on sound.
I have nothing. Let me be clear, I'm not telling you. Don't turn on sound in your car.
My question is not that. My question is do you have to turn on sound in your car?
Because the silence.
Would allow.
Loneliness to pour in.
When you mow the lawn, When you do the dishes.
You have to flip something on.
So that it flows in and entertains you.
For males in the United States.
The vast majority of them on a survey.
Can't go into the bathroom.
Without taking something with them, generally an electronic device that doesn't have to be electronic, so I have to take something to fill that gap.
Because in the silence of one minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever it is.
Loneliness would flood in unless there was some external stimulus to fill it.
This woman was given.
A well of living water to connect her to the living Son of God.
And she had a refreshment that she didn't have to reach out herself to get. Reach outside herself to turn on, reach herself outside herself to pick up.
Let me ask you another question.
When those feelings come flooding in, there are many, many people.
00:35:01
Who will go to the refrigerator and they'll open it and they'll find something there?
That'll create a patch that patches over that feeling. But that's something outside the person and I'm not. Again, I want to be clear. You need to go to the refrigerator and you need to take some food out. You need to eat.
And there's nothing wrong with eating, so disciples have gone to buy bread. The Lord is having this conversation while he waits for them to come back.
With their bread. My point is not to say anything against eating. My point is simply to say is the satisfaction of your heart and what fills it. What fills up and patches over those moments? Is that what comes from outside of you?
Or is it that living connection with a living man in the glory, that's what he came to give? Something that didn't need some external source to keep it going in this world?
Verse 15.
The woman saith unto her, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not.
Neither come hit her to draw.
Something that attracted her heart, She responds to him. I need that.
And perhaps where you're sitting tonight, you have a sense I need that.
I need that.
And she came to the only person that could show her teacher where it was going to come from.
And so we come to the third, I'll call it misconception about God, false God, idol. The first again was that God is an angry God. The next that he's distant, that what exists is just what exists in this world. And it's a practical, at least if it's not a professed atheism. This is going to give us the third.
Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband.
I'm going to read it wrong and put a period there.
Go call, I hope period.
That's not what it says.
It doesn't say go call thy husband because the Lord was not there.
To bring shame on this woman. The Lord was not there to create guilty feelings. That wasn't the end of the road. The Lord said go call thy husband and come hit her.
Come to me.
And if you're a Sinner, and God's created in your heart a fence that you're a Sinner, be before a holy God.
The message does not end with you are a Sinner before a holy God.
The message ends with at least in this sentence and come hit her.
For God that came into this world and became a man.
To bring salvation to your soul came with a message that includes.
The fact that you're a Sinner.
It includes the conviction of that, the sense of that in your heart and in your soul. But it doesn't end with that message. It ends with the message, And I want you in my presence forever. And so he says to her. Go call my husband and come hit her.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus saith unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband.
For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.
And that said so truly.
Her answer shows how she understood it. You know the answer I perceive, Sir, and maybe I should read it before I go on. Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
I'm gonna ask you some questions to answer, not in my presence, but in the presence of the living God.
Have you ever?
Hid.
Your history.
From your mom, your dad, your husband, your wife, your siblings.
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Have you ever deleted it?
You ever used a private something so that there wouldn't be one in the first place?
And that goes for non electronic devices. Have you been in the presence of another person and hid the history of what you were doing?
Have you ever been thankful that the person sitting next to you couldn't see or hear what was in your mind at that moment?
Oh, I'm so glad they don't know what I'm thinking.
This woman came to a well to get water.
She met a man who put her whole life, as she expresses it later, on the screen before her eyes.
And then said, come into my presence and be with me forever.
You can't do that.
The first next to you in the same way to some degree perhaps.
But there's a person to whom your entire history? Everything.
Is completely on display at this moment.
And this message to you tonight because of what he did later in this book.
I guess I'm taking for granted that you already know what he did to carry it out this book. I'm sorry, this chapter is about a person.
And that's the burden on my heart tonight was that you'll come to know that person. His work is later in the book.
He went to the cross, I believe everyone here knows that. And on the cross he shed his blood.
In the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
It's not that your history doesn't matter to him, that he's done something about it.
It's that he took in three hours of darkness on the Cross of Calvary.
The wrath of God, a holy God against sin, to be able to put.
That away forever from His presence to be able to invite you into His presence.
But now we're ready for the third. I would call it misconception or misunderstanding about God.
The woman says, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Verse 20 Our father's worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Perhaps all of you know. I suspect some don't.
Where the while of cycar sits.
If you were to sit on the well of Sycar approximately 1 mile one way.
It's about a small mountain by the standards of the American or Canadian West.
For the 3000 foot peak called Mount Ebo.
One mile in the other direction, approximately, is another peak roughly 3000 feet above sea level.
Mount Gerizim.
Perhaps those names don't mean a whole lot to you, but in the book of Joshua and in the book of Deuteronomy, you can read about them in Joshua chapter 8, after they'd entered the land, after some difficulties at AI, Joshua must have gone back at least in the thoughts to the book of Deuteronomy. Well, not to the to the book the words of Deuteronomy, where the instructions were that when they entered the land.
They were to go to those two mountains. Six of the tribes on Mount Gerizim were going to read the blessings out of the law. Six of the tribes on Mount Ebal we're going to read the cursings out of the law, and the people would hear it. When they crossed the river at Jericho, they went straight from Jericho toward AI.
And a consent that Jericho had led the defeat. There's judgment. There's self judgment. They deal with it. And then immediately it's as though Joshua says we need to rest our feet on this book.
If we're going to take this land, we need to rest our feet on this book. So he goes straight up, way out of his way up towards the middle of Israel.
Six of the tribes stood on Mount Gerizim, the mountain of blessing, 6 on the mountain of cursing, and they read out of the book of the Law.
Now at this point.
Very roughly 14115 hundred years later, there was a woman sitting there.
00:45:02
And she says our fathers worshipped in this mountain. I have little doubts she was pointing to Mount Gerizim.
And on that mountain was a Samaritan temple.
The Samaritans were a people. 2 Kings 17 gives the history when the king of Assyria came.
And carried off the people, the tribes from the north of land. The others were settled there, and they were having trouble with lions.
And they decided that they didn't know the gods of the place, and so they brought back some of the children of Israel that knew.
The truth of God, or something of it, to teach the people of the place what the gods of the place were like.
And that religion had passed down. There was a temple sitting there.
Where did they plant that temple on Mount Ebel?
The mountain of cursing, No.
They suck that temple on Mount Gerizim.
The mountain of blessing.
But as you'll see, as we're starting to run slow on time, you'll see that the Lord doesn't.
Let her get away with that little remark. And he gently pushes it aside when he says salvation is of the Jews.
But it goes on to what's more important.
And that's what I think of Indiana. One of two ways. God is not a vending machine God.
And God is not a stereotypical grandpa God. I want to explain what I mean.
If you go to a vending machine, you drop in however many quarters or however many dollars, bills or whatever, and you punch E4 or the button in front of the thing and something tumbles out of the bottom and you pick it up and walk away. Do you give it something? It gives you something. It gives you the blessing that you're looking for. It gives you that little bit of water that you're going to thirst again for.
Many people like the Samaritan religion.
Want to camp out in the religious territory with a vending machine God?
They want to be able to offer up a little bit of good works.
Maybe a little bit of money, maybe a little bit of their time and get a little bit of blessing back. God is not a vending machine God. And God is not a stereotypical grandpa either.
Is what I mean. There are many different kinds of grandfathers, so some of you here may not be like this at all, but there are many that are grandfathers that come to the end of raising their children and all the difficult decisions that are in it.
And then along come the grandchildren, and they might see them just a few days out of the year, or maybe just a week out of the year, and the little 4 year old comes up and throws their arms around them and gives Grandpa a kiss and is so glad to see him. Grandpa's got four days and Grandpa got a big hug. Grandpa got a nice kiss and it's time to go. Well, as long as the parents don't object. Down and we'll get an ice cream cone.
And then we'll go out and play for a little while and as long as there's a happy relationship.
As long as there's a giving of love from the child, there's all the spoiling that I say the stereotypical grandpa would give. And some people want a God like that. They're going to God. That'll come in and Passover all of the sin, ignore it all and bring in blessing. God's too good to send anybody to hell.
God, somebody that will allow any road into his presence.
As long as someone sincere, as long as they really care.
As long as they're seriously interested, that's good enough.
And maybe if there's a little bit of intense in front of the idol.
That'll help.
God doesn't Passover sin that way. God doesn't ignore sin that way. God isn't fooled by camping out on the mountain of blessing and pretending that what's deserved isn't the mountain of cursing. Was that woman said on that? Well, the only thing that the book of Deuteronomy would have offered her from the part of Mount Evil and Mount Gerizim was the cursing of the broken law.
That's the only thing that she'd earned.
00:50:01
It's the only thing that she deserved.
That's the only thing you've earned. It's the only thing I've earned. It's the only thing I deserve.
And that's why the God of love and blessing became a man and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, so they could sit there on that well and offer to her a way of blessing. It was going to come through the cross that lay ahead, but it was in his heart toward her not to pass over sin as though it were nothing.
To stamp it out of his presence, to take it away, to have it paid in full.
Forever at the end of this book of John in chapter 19 are recorded those words.
It is finished.
There's a place in central Egypt a number of years ago where they recovered a whole bunch of.
Papyrus documents about if I remember correctly in the early 70s they require they recovered a whole bunch of papyrus documents.
Preserved in the heat of the desert from the 1St century, from the time that the Lord was there on earth.
And they had tax documents and they had business documents and a whole bunch of other stuff in there.
And in particular on many of the I'll give you the name of the cast of documents, but it's a great big long word. I can't even something like Oxyrhynchus or something like that. Maybe that'll be enough for you to find it and check my words.
But stamped on any of those tax documents?
That word translated, it is finished.
A sense of paid in full.
The tax document is what the government demanded. It's what the authority of the country demanded.
And their satisfaction that the tax had been paid was paid in full. And when the Son of God.
Hung on that cross, the Lord Jesus as Son of man. Lord Jesus is a man hanging there.
And when the payment in full was made to the holy God, it called out that word before.
He delivered up his spirit, he said, finished. It's paid in full. I've taken care of that debt so that I can sit here with you this evening and express to you my love.
Two more things.
And our time is gone.
One thing I want you to notice the end of verse 23, it says the Father.
Seeketh such to worship him.
Talking about worshippers and spirit and in truth there's wonderful things in the chapter, many wonderful things that will not come to, but it says the Father.
Seeketh.
Lord Jesus was here, especially in this book, to do his Father's will, and he says, My Father wants you in his presence.
It says later in the book my father's house is open to you.
There's an abode there and it's open to you, he says. My father wants you.
We know that the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which is lost from the book of Luke, Luke chapter 19. So here he wanted to express all that he had in a relationship with his Father in a past eternity that he wanted to share with you for a full on into the forever of eternity.
This woman wanted what he had.
Her heart is expressed in a response. She says, verse 25 I know that Messiah is cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, and he.
For so long set of arguments.
I've taken far longer tonight than the Lord did at the well, layout time. Me reading that section at 2 minutes and 45 seconds. I don't know exactly how long it took.
But we'll call it 3 minutes. And in 3 minutes, this woman met a man that knew everything about her, that loved her, that came to give, not to take, that came to expose what was there so that he could take it out of the way, so that he could have a relationship with her.
00:55:04
There were five husbands that she'd had.
There was a 6th.
But she was with.
He just met the 7th.
There's no word about anymore. There's nothing else that she was going to ever need. She got to the 7th person.
Looking for satisfaction. And there aren't going to be anymore. There didn't need to be anymore for this woman.
But what about for you? But you take what you've heard tonight and say well.
Yeah, not interested.
Or will you respond to the person that's speaking to your heart at the moment?
Before I pray, I want to add one thing for those of you that share the gospel with others. I think it's precious. It's wonderful in this chapter. You know, when you share the gospel with others, sometimes it can be.
Hard. Sometimes you share the gospel and there's a wonderful response and it's extremely encouraging. Sometimes you share and you share and you share and you share and perhaps you never see fruit in that particular life.
I want to just give you a thought to encourage. I hope you as you give out the gospel.
It comes a little later in the chapter. The Lord is speaking to his disciples. We'll have to skip over a lot of the details.
But he says in verse.
Umm.
Verse 38.
He's speaking to his disciples now. I sent you to read that were on ye bestowed no labor. Other men labored near entered into their laborers.
Isaiah labored.
600 years before Isaiah labored at a time when the people that he was dealing with were carried off.
And the captivity.
Zechariah labored. Zechariah labored when the people were feeble.
You know Isaiah and Zechariah and others of the prophets.
Presented this Messiah.
The woman had just said when the Messiah cometh, how did she know that?
How did all these others that believed here come to believe so quickly In two days? Many of them believe.
Because work that had been done 600 years before, 500 years before approximately in the case of Zechariah and the other prophets, however long it had been.
Was recorded in a perfect register and when these souls were harvested.
Lord put the credit where credit was due, due in this grace. I have to have to say, doing this grace, the Lord hadn't forgotten. And it may be that you sow and don't reap, but the record of your sowing is being kept.
And when there's a harvest, a record of that harvest, the one that knows it perfectly will record it for your encouragement.
Let's pray.
Dear Lord Jesus, we just do ask that if there is one person here this evening, Lord, that doesn't know they personally, that in some corner of their heart has the wrong thought of thee, is the heart God.
Is an indifferent God.
Is a God that would wink its in Lord Jesus.
Just asked that they would come to know Thee as thou art this evening, turn from their sin and repentance, and come to Thee, Lord Jesus as their Savior. We'd ask it in thy name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Giants and Slayers
YP Talk—Michel Payette
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.
Megan could work and keep you guys busy. Now I really encourage yesterday when for the meeting because.
I've had thoughts on my heart connected with Ephesians chapter 6 also, and uh, I'm gonna get to that in a minute, but I'd like for us to sing again #312.
I'm a copycat, but we'll see the second standard with a different word in it, if you don't mind. It says there we follow the our guide and we'll sing who does.
Celebration. Be true, be just as true.
We could also say we follow the our guide who will salvation break? 3 aspects of salvation. One connected with the past as the work of ****** from lacrosse who died for you. If you believe in him, you're safe. One connected with the future salvation final salvation when it comes from heaven.
And one salvation connected with this life to have a safe life.
The first one and the last one you get by faith of the Lord Jesus. You believe in Him. Now. When you come, you're going to have final salvation guaranteed. But what about your life?
That's the salvation God wants you to participate in so you can do something with you and your life. And so let's say #312 and when we sing the second standard, we'll sing it in the present tense, if you will. Who does salvation break?
Someone raised the tune for me, please.
We are almighty.
War laid on to victory.
And.
Curry my livelihood.
With joy.
We followed him.
We didn't follow the art of God could the dark celebration and grace reading all those things tremendously information.
That's why.
Fraud and Jesus and all.
We're ready.
To.
Cry from the sun.
We live in front of the world.
And all those may thy color bright.
Ah, Dirty School show.
Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we thank you once again for a beautiful day with a nice setting here, for the time available, for the activities, for the friendships, for the instruction and identification too, for our young people.
We would thank you again, Father, for your love to us, for the gift of life, Son, our Lord Jesus, as we wait for him from heaven, that, uh, we have occasions to, to live for him. And uh, we thank you for what we heard yesterday. And uh, it says of having overcome all. And uh, we do pray that all the young people here would be overcomers, not to be overcome by anything, but with thy strength and I might to overcome all. And so we pray as we have.
Moments this afternoon and tomorrow to alert willings. I'll leave us here that we'll be strengthened in our faith and, uh, encourage the long and, uh, challenged and, uh, having a renewed desire to look into thy word. It's a no more of the Lord Jesus. So we pray for blessing now and we just count on my health as we turn to thy word. In the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray, Amen.
So let's go back to Ephesians chapter 6.
And we're not going to go over anything our brother mentioned yesterday.
00:05:00
We kind of just skipped over that which I was gonna bring up, so I was thankful for that.
Brother once told you was worried we, we're at the conference, uh, some meetings and he was worried I was gonna take up the same subject he did. And I did, you know, but we talked about it differently, you know, And so I think the Lord gives us, that was happening two years ago 2 here when they asked me to take some meetings for young people. The other brother that was speaking with Josh Stewart, I believe, and Josh had thought that we were just in line with the Lord had given me. And that's from the Lord himself because I think he has a special concern for each.
And so he gives us things that should be a help to you. And I trust you're attentive to what he's bringing before us because I think it's from him. And so Ephesians chapter 6, verse UH-10. Finally, my brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now, as a kid, I wasn't brought up in the meeting I used to watch.
Cartoons and, uh, one of them was mighty mouse. That's pretty yeah he was a mouse, but boy, he could do things, you know, Mighty Mouse and then, uh.
Later on, Asheville's comic books Superman and he was a superhuman, you know, he just, uh, did all sorts of things. And you know, the actor that played in one of the movies for Superman, he had a, a writing accident. He was riding a horse and he became, uh, paraplegic. Uh, what you call it paraplegic, uh, paraplegic, OK. He couldn't move his hands and speak. He's just using a wheelchair.
I thought it was really a word from the Lord, you know what I'm saying?
Superman.
Well, here's one who has might the power of his might. What is mightier than his mightier?
Anything mightier than his might. Nothing. Nothing. So it's good for us to realize that. And it says to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Not my might, not your might, not our might, His might.
And so it goes on to say, put on the armor of God, that we may be able to expand against the Wiles of the devil. Verse 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but four things, against principalities and powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Against.
Against spiritual wickedness in high places.
OK, my strength, my my, my support.
We wrestle against these guys. I mean, it powers them. I'm no match for them. Neither are you. Neither is anyone among us a match for that. But here's my He can make us overcomers over any of that with his mind and to be strong in the Lord, get his strength in our life and his wife offered it in our life. He's gonna do that.
So these four enemies is what I wanted to talk about.
And, uh, I have a portion in the Old Testament that I need to turn to. I'm not going to exhaust what these powerful enemies represent, but we'd just like to talk a little bit about that to help us identify some of the things that come our way and that are sent from the enemy of your soul and mind to destroy our life.
You know, sometimes we think somebody has a lost life because he went into, uh, drugs and alcohol and immorality and he lost his life.
But if you and I sit around.
There are large counts.
We're gonna lose our life. He didn't not leave us here. He didn't let her come. You didn't do that. He's left us here for a purpose. He has a purpose for every one of us. And I know what he has has a purpose for your life. But he does have a purpose for your life.
So we're gonna go to, uh, Second Samuel 21.
And we're gonna meet up with four giants.
Might compare those to those enemies we just read about that we wrestle against.
Second Samuel 21.
It says see we him there. It says the last time is up until we were no more. It's a time when there will be no more war, will be a perfect peaceful war.
When we wrestle, it's kind of never over. You know, you wrestle and he gets up again and you wrestle some more and he gets up again, he wrestles some more. It's a constant battle. And God has provided for us the necessary provisions for us to be victors every day of our life, you know, it says of the Bereans.
00:10:23
That they receive the word of God gladly.
And they searched the scriptures daily, every day, every day they went into the what they had available. They didn't have a New Testament. They had the Old Testament. And maybe they had got a lot of trouble to check that because it wasn't as available as we have it today. We're much more privileged than they are. We have the whole word of God. We have it in written form. Some of you have it on your telephone, you have it on your computer. You can go and check every time.
My brother says something. You can let it go in one year, out the other.
But you can keep it in there. So I'm gonna check that out, make sure that what the brother said, what the brother wrote, what's being published is in conformity with the Word of God and that the Spirit of God is using what's being said or written in conformity with the Word of God to edify me, to comfort me. I trust you're gonna do that with what I say. I said something at the meeting there on Saturday, open meeting. And.
I wanna make sure that what I say.
I got up a few in the morning. I went on my computer. I had this. My texts are French, English, Spanish, whatever, all the versions there. I looked up the Greek and the Hebrew there. It was simple. It's a simple thought, but it's not generally published among us. But.
The word of God is wonderful. You know, sometimes this is beautiful translation. Sometimes there are words in here that happens that they're not in the original and sometimes there are words in the original that are not in here. And that's what just about every version. So it's nice for us to say, I'm going to check that out and when we check it out, we'll find out that this book is wonderful. So these four enemies, we're going to read up of a second simultaneous 21 from verse 15. These were the.
Of Goliath. Remember Goliath? Well, he was he was a Superman. He was superhuman. He was taller than everybody else. Wouldn't go through the door. He had to go down like that. You know, he talked to him like that. Get a neck ache like your brother had this morning. Yes, Sir, you know.
David was a young man, you know, maybe your age. He flew that giant. How could that be? Whoa, the power of God in David's life. Slug of my beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus who vanquished Satan on the cross. You know, you know though, I said to David verse Samuel 17. He says you're coming to me with sticks. It's nice. It's in the plural.
Usually Shepherd just had one stick now, but he said now cometh to me with six. He had at least two sticks, you know.
When the Lord went up to meet Satan, he went with the cross. Two pieces of wood to bankership to be made a curse for you and me. Goliath curse David and vice Gods and horses was cursed on the cross. Beautiful pictures First Samuel 17. Read that, enjoy it because the Spirit of God has written these things for us to see the beauty of inspiration and to show us the person of the Lord and all these beautiful pictures.
But when we get this second annual 21, let's read from verse 15.
Moreover, the Phyllis Science had yet war again with Israel, and David went down and his servants with him and fought against the Philistines and David Wax Faint and Ishpe Benab, which was of the sons of the giant. The first of the sons mentioned. All four of them are sons of the giant. The way to boost peers.
Weighed those peers weighed 300 shekels of brass and weight, keeping girly with a new sword taught to have slain Davidson, David, but epishai.
The cinnamon Soraya sacred him, and smoked the Philistine, and killed him. Gentlemen of David, swear unto him, saying, Thou shalt grow no more out with us to battle that thou quench not the light of Israel.
This is the first one. One thing I noticed is what David went down and his servants with him. Remember the story David, He had a terrible failure in his life and it happened when his men went to war and he stayed home. He was their leader and he didn't lead them to battle. He stayed home and he was led into sin.
And terrible thing. And he hadn't had one of his better soldiers, had one of his strong men. He had a murder to cover his sins.
00:15:08
That's the David of the Old Testament, the true David, the Lord Jesus. Oh.
Here we have him. He went down and his servants with him. He's the leader.
We follow him lead on Almighty Lord, we sang about that and you know, we all have different personalities. Some of you, that's the way we are, are more followers and that's our person. We like, you know, we like to go forward, but some of your leaders, you know.
Peterson, I go efficient and the other side, we gotta go with you.
I go a great meeting. I go partying. I'm living with you. I go a preaching.
I go attractive shooting. I go witnessing. Go ahead. You're a leader. Make sure you set a good example for others. And what you'll find in very little times, people are going to follow you and say no, you're setting a good example. And you know who has that kind of power? I don't have that kind of power.
Neither do you. Does the Lord have that kind of power? Of course He has. He can give you a kind of power if you get it from Him. And you know he used his personality. Peter was a leader.
Others were more followers. They're all godly men and wanting to please the Lord. We have different ways of acting, but if you have a leader's character, you'd be like the Lord Jesus. You'd be a good leader. Be careful where you go. Be careful what example you set.
Be careful with the things that you allow in your life because others are gonna imitate what you're doing. Be a Berean. And why did you read this morning? You know, and you don't say it like that because people should feel judged. Say hi. This morning I read this. Share something that you enjoyed in the word of God that you really enjoyed. And then I said, yeah, I never saw that. That's nice. Yeah. And maybe he didn't read his Bible, but he got something from the word of God through you.
And it's quite something, you know, when somebody your own age and the same peer group.
Does something like that doesn't make you feel awkward, it just gives you a little nugget there. Well.
Now David wax faith and you know my uh, savior, he never watched his faith. He's he's mighty, he was mighty, he's mighty. We'll be mighty, but his strength is made perfect and weakness.
So you can use the weakest one in this room to manifest its power and strength.
So even if you're the weakest one, you say, well I have available the the greatest power from the Lord. The weaker I am, the stronger it can be in my life. Well, let's go on. What's about this giant Ishpevenab? I think his name means seated on high.
HP Phenob, which was in the Sons of the Giant, the whit of whose spear weighed 300 shekels, you know.
Philistines, I believe, represent to us enemies in the land.
And your Satan, he, he wants to be active. He's got the whole world in darkness. I mean, you know, that doesn't take much energy for him. You know, natural man goes after the less of the flesh, less of the eyes and the part of life is going on their systems out there. He's got all these panels by the highway, you know.
So he's got to work especially hard.
Among believers, to distract them, to destroy what God is building. That's what he wants to do. He's attacking here the people of God and what he wants to get to Ishpeban Nob, he wants to get to David.
That's always you want to get because David killed his father, you know, he's after David and that's why it says here that, uh, taught to have slain David.
What about this giant? Well, one thing I remark about this giant that he was sitting on high and from what I read he carried a lot of weight.
Some believers.
Carry a lot of weight. I would rather Catholic.
And I tell you, the pulp carries a lot of weeks.
You can say things and everybody else has to say that it's gotta be true. The Pope said it. But I know the Pope says things that countries are worried about. I brought a Catholic and they took a little while for the Spirit of God to give me liberty ship. The Pope's a man. He carries a lot of weight, but not with me anymore.
And I say this with respect, brothers, that we should respect our older brothers and we should benefit from what the Lord has given them. But the danger with the natural man and myself and everyone in this room is if you get a little bit of a position, a little bit of a name.
00:20:15
We had that in First Peter 5, Lording, being Lords over the **** carrying excessive weight, too much weight. The Lord is leading this way. But I have my thoughts about it. That's a very serious thing. And you know, we are a small gathering. We are small gatherings. We're not, we're not big groups, we're small groups.
And there's much weakness, but you know, uh, as weakness has made perfect is Frank has made perfect in weakness. And there's opportunity we have is so small that we can enjoy the Lord, you know, and you can come in and, and manifest himself and give us common thought. How come I have the same thoughts with my brother there? I didn't phone Teddy didn't phone me. He just goes, I want these young people to be encouraged and I'm going to give them to whoever uses thoughts has come from him and we get to be the mouthpieces and it's a real privilege.
He went after David, you know, the enemy of our souls. He, uh, wants to attack the person of the Lord and this is the first thing you need to be established in the Lord Jesus really is.
Authorities is God manifested in the flesh? He is absolutely God. He was always absolutely God. He never became God. He was always God, but he was always a man. He became a man when he was born into the world. And here's one whose name is Jesus. God manifest in flesh.
He's a man.
A former how do you become a manager worker born of a woman? He's born of a woman, a virgin, married to working of the Holy Spirit, doesn't have an earthly father, doesn't have an earthly a fallen nature, but he's perfectly a man still God.
But a man and as you read the Scriptures and you see the Lord as the obedient servant, you will find verses where he speaks of his Father greater than him. He's not comparing himself as God. He took that position of a servant and he gives glory to his God and Father. And so he does that as a man. Now when we talk about the Lord Jesus as a person in the Old Testament, there was a time when the art was brought to a certain place and they wanted to look in the ark and when they looked into.
The Lord slew them and I, I think 70 men died. Other versions say more than that, but seventy men died right there. Because God doesn't want you to look into the ark, which is the reality of who the person of the Lord is. You cannot dissect him as to his manhood or his godhood. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's perfectly God and he's perfectly man. And when we get beyond that, we might get into trouble because we're attacking, talking about this person, perhaps in a way.
That is not uh.
Commonly, I should say, Jehovah's Witnesses.
Adrian Ace that the Lord Jesus Christ is God manifest in flesh. They would say he's a creature. That in the Old Testament he was the Archangel Michael, which is absolutely false. He does not have a beginning as God.
Another sect that is still going around, as far as I know, is by a man who is an American called William Branham. I need seduced a lot of Christians because he had a very, very biblical discourse on prophecy. Many of the things he said were just right on. And if you were listening to him today, the older brothers here with no brothers say wow, when he speaks of the seven churches in Revelation, why he's right on.
What William Branham taught was that.
God is one. There's no such thing as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
They would read first John and say the Father became the Son to be the savior of the world. They would never deny that deity of Christ.
What they deny is the personality of the Son. They get rid of the Son. Who's that from jail with witnesses? They deny his deity.
William Branham denies his personality. Oh, Satan is so subtle, you know, he uses this book. Jehovah's Witnesses are going around with Bibles, you know.
Not this one though, and not the French one that I have. They have their own version where they change things because the attack is on the Lord Jesus.
That's pretty clear to you and me, I'm sure. But uh, I just want to mention there are other attacks on the person of the Lord Jesus.
It's presenting him, not according to his character.
00:25:04
A legal Jesus. A Pharisee called Jesus.
A liberal Jesus.
These are thoughts of men.
Maybe somebody else putting that in their hearts to say things about the Lord which are not true. Believe also Paul says that I may know him. He knew him already. Throwing grace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus. Forget to know him more. He's a wonderful person and May God grant us as we speak of him. We speak of him as who He really is. God, gracious, loving, absolutely holy.
Understandable. A shepherd caring well.
I just wanna go back to, uh, uh, before we go to the other three there, I wanna go back to a portion in the book of judges.
In the book of Judges.
I wanna go to Lord there in the book of Judges, his name is Adonai Bezek. We spoke about him yesterday at the dinner table. I think, uh, Judges Chapter 7. You know, in the book of Judges, Moses isn't there anymore and Joshua wasn't there anymore. And so they're kind of, you'd say they were left to themselves. They weren't gonna be left to themselves. But and to us, you know, the, the Lord is gone and the apostles are gone and are we left to ourselves? No, God-given us his.
And his Spirit and he has given us sufficient resources for us to be living the Christian life. Nothing lacking on part of his provisions or lacking is on our part. But it was a Danai Bezek.
And they catch him, uh, verse, uh, six. And by then Ibiza fled and they pursued and that's Judah and Simeon. And you know, I, I enjoy the thought that Judah helped Simeon, You know, Judy says, you're going to come with me. I'm going to go and fight over there. And he went up with him and he didn't have nice to give others a hand. You know, sometimes it's not really our exercise, but there's a, a help. I can be, I can be a help. I'm fine. I'm, I'm doing something for the Lord. And that's what the Lord wants me to do. He wants me to be a help.
It's one of the gifts one of the members of the body are helps you know so.
They pursued him after him, and caught him and cut off his thumbs and great toes, and here's what Adonai Bizzak says. And I don't. Bezek said. Three score and 10 kings, having her thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. As I have done so. God hath requited me, requited me, and they brought him to do something there. He died other night. Bedzek, he's the Lord, I deny his Lord.
Some translation said he has. He's a lot of dispersion, but he was the Lord and he had a table.
Yeah, as a Lord he had a table, but he had all these 70 kings he got off their thumbs and their great toes, and he had them feed on what fell from his table on the ground.
And I like to have a volunteer. I need a volunteer.
You wanna be my volunteer? Thank you, Sir. If you come right here, I have a volunteer I'm gonna have. I have five quarters here.
I want to speak to pick up these five quarters, but before you do.
Before you do, I'm gonna have to limit the use of your phone. If you don't mind. I want to play the role. That's a nice.
Two to three months of that.
It's too much fun, this one. I played it very much so you don't get your time.
I.
Don't wanna sign in? Go ahead. Oh, he's pretty good boy. He's got good fingernails. Listen, you're putting me to shame.
OK, let me see this way.
I can bring my $0.10. Well, I'll tell you what, you're doing everything too good.
Stay there, stay there. We're going to try this toast now.
This is a piece of work. Do you want to hold that for me, Sir? I have these little cutters here.
I want to show you that.
Cool. Look at that. OK, so which leg we go? I'll be there.
Well, it didn't work the way I wanted because I couldn't take my hands last night, you know? Uh-huh.
00:30:05
I couldn't pick them up. I said I'll get somebody to introduce Marcus.
If you want to be Superman, I'd vote for you.
But Can you imagine? Can you imagine?
Being on the floor, not being able to use your tongue, trying to get whatever you could get, you know?
He didn't pick 70 peasants.
70 people from you know the market with 70 king.
People who had opportunity kingdoms, you know, rules and things they could have done, implemented where they were, and he made them as slaves under the table.
It reminds me of that Canada night woman and she, uh, she called on the Lord Jesus in Magic 15 and she says, uh, son of David, have mercy on me. Your daughter was tormented with an evil spirit. And he said, I'm only consent to the lost sheep of Israel. I says Lord, you know, she called him Lord and he says not proper to take the bread of the children to give it to the dog, you know, and she says even the dogs, they get the crumbs under the table.
And the Lord was surprised. Wow, great faith.
So it should be done as as she wanted. She went home and started with him. She was delivered, you know.
The Lord Jesus doesn't want you to eat the crunch under his table.
You want you at this table and join him in fellowship with him and eating the same thing, these eating and enjoying the Father too. What a difference, you know.
Now can you show me your account if you can please?
Have we got it on you? Thumbs up. You wanna go somewhere you don't have a car?
They're pretty handy.
Well, I think the enemy of our souls is able to cut off our thumbs spiritually.
Edit.
Dharam.
What happened to you?
Listen, I have a new tenant, my wife and I, we have a property in Montreal with my in-laws and we have moved in and doing welfare and she was a nurse where we went. She said it's like mother stuff and we just take empty her car residents. So they moved in and I went there this week to do something. In fact, that's where I have this tool. I brought it to clean up some branches and the White House was invented. It smells like cat, uh, computer called English.
Put it back.
OK, anyway it was.
So I just, uh, said, uh, no, you got a lot of boxes now, you know, so, uh, and then maybe you haven't noticed with that, you know, I do you're here all the time. You might not notice what it says. It smells a lot like absolutely Nope, didn't make a that didn't make it. Plus I just mentioned I'm having to fix the back door and everything so.
I'm on the way here. She sends me an epistle. 2 1/2 pages.
She must have been like that.
Not one mistake, not one spelling mistake. I do it on my keyboard. I have to correct myself.
I was really upset. I have to settle that when I get back. But you know, the enemy of our souls, maybe he cannot touch your thumbs up.
I can keep your thumbs busy.
Try holding your Bible without your tongues.
Try try and find the page in your Bible without using your thumb. You're fine. You're gonna drop your Bible. You're gonna have a hard time.
Terms are essential.
Some people have accidents and you can you can be.
Umm, how practical it is. How'd you get ahold of things with just your fingers? So I've given them back.
This little, uh, gadget here.
If you look at it properly, it has five fingers on each side.
And that's what gives it, the engineer who designed it multiplied the power of these fingers. So I can just set the two inch branch. That's pretty good. That's a 2 inch branch. Greenwood there you can go in the in the woods and you can get, if you can get that branch in it, you can just cut like that. I've used it many times. They're not told, but I have used it and it works.
00:35:15
Hasten multiplies.
His device is to use devices to promote devices. He multiplied *********** and he multiplied filthiness and he multiplied and he multiplied and it's available everywhere.
I'm still with you.
They don't. It's a wonderful tool. I enjoy being able to talk to my wife and you know, but then I.
It's a tool. You use a tool in a proper way. It's it's good. Use it in a wrong way. It's better. I had a son when I said he's older now. When he was younger boy, he picked up a hammer. Please get out of the way. He just knocked on everything.
It wasn't made for that. It was hit nails, you know, but he just banged here. So make sure make sure this is a new year of Catholic. This is all new things he had there. He had a new IT doesn't. It says I think it's a new let's see what it says verse.
1821 verse 15. He had a new, new sword that's in italics. He has a new sphere. There's been a new something. It was new, bringing something new in.
What's the purpose? Attacking David, Attacking those that belong to David. And that's who these things were. They were kings picking up crumbs from the floor.
Your sons and daughters of the King, you have great privileges. Don't let Satan have you pick up crunch on the floor. You can be sitting at the Lord's table. He's made you fit for that by His work on the cross, not looking for anything from you to make you fit. He's made you fit and you can stay fit for that. Just behave, you know. Well, let's go back to our little little portion there in the second Samuel 15.
So this appetite fluent.
And the man of David, swear to him, thou shalt go nowhere out with us, verse 17, to battle that thou quench not the light of Israel. You know, I think it's a good, uh, parallel to be very attentive as believers to what's being said about our Lord and his work.
I often go to Cuba and meet up with Levers and I tell them about, uh, about the Lord and salvation. How's it going, Mr. Believers? Luciano?
I'm.
I'm wrestling.
They're wrestling to keep their salvation, Luchando. Because if you don't luchando, you might go to the Perdido, you know?
But God wants you to rest and then finish work with the Lord Jesus. First step, who he is, and then what He's done. And right there is worship.
And he's made us worshipers. He delights in having our service. You know, he's a life for you to live for him. He wants you to live for him. He's gonna help you to live for him, but has nothing to do with what he's done for you because he loves you. And if you one day, he said, Lord Jesus, I want you to be my Savior. You trusted him in your heart. You're gonna be in glory, everyone of us, we're gonna be in glory. And I wanna be sorry for wasting my time down here for wasting my life for dishonouring his name.
Now you have more of a life to live than I have. If the Lord doesn't come, you know.
As years go by, you know we all, we all lead this team. Many dear brothers who helped us along, If they're gone and there's new generations coming along, and when the new generations come along, the devil has new ways.
Of tripping them up, distracting them, keeping them from being what they're supposed to be. And you know, it's surprising that I go to Cuba. I meet up with more believers in Cuba than in North America percentage wise. Everybody who talks about God, I go to Africa. I speak about some more employees. People have receptive rather go to India. Doors open in India and then Angola and you know, America.
It's getting all the time.
Why is that?
With secular, we've given up.
Politically, you might say publicly as we're given up on Arsenal power as might hasn't changed and you can sustain you in this day and age to live for him. Well, what's the next one? Here we have verse 18.
00:40:07
And it came to pass after this that there was again a battle with the Philistines at God. Then Civic Kaiser Husati flew Sath, which was of the sons of the joint. I'm sure there's more in that verse, but all I got in that verse was the name of Saks. It means extended, you know, get more, brother said on Saturday. You know, just I want much, much more. I just want.
More.
What I have now is not enough.
God has give you this word, gotta give you this spirit, gotta give you brothers and sisters, gotta give you perhaps a place to intend to be and to enjoy the Lord together. But, uh, it's not an I show up more young people. I wanna go over there and, uh, charismatic teacher, I wanna go where, you know, So scripture says we should be content. A content spirit is something wonderful.
And if the Lord asked you tonight, for this afternoon, if you're the Lord, if he asks you, if he sat beside you and he put his restaurant around, he said, am I, am I enough for you?
How much efficient? What am I not the size is satisfied again a missing company. I'm not in love with you.
We've probably seen a little while. They're sufficient. My natural life might say I would like to catch a big potential. They can go play sports, I think, but it's a lot sufficient. A lot is sufficient. And then all the other things he adds on. So thank you Lord for the nice day. Thank you for the fellowship, thank you for the activities, thank you for sports, thank you for the quality of life that we have. It's enough. You give me more, thank you, Lord.
But I have enough.
But move me ahead. I have brought on my heart and I want to give him something and I gave him something and he gave it back. So I have enough. You know, you could have more.
Well, this one says you don't have enough.
Some people said this book isn't enough, you need to read the other gospels. It's not this book at all. And there are other writings that that didn't include. They're just, they're very good. So you, you, you can't just rely on on this book.
And you know you just can't sit in your room and pray and read simply.
And learn that way you need to reach also you need more, you don't need more. We have more and we can benefit by anymore, but we don't need more. God is sufficient to supply all our needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Scripture says speak to my own heart to learn to be satisfied. What's the next one?
And there again was battle in Gob with the Philistines.
Where El Hannon, the son of Jerry, Oregon.
Wonder why they called her kids that way. Bethlehem might slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spirit was like a weaver's bee.
That suggests to me, you know, Weaver's been. I think they made garments with that.
And it suggests to me that one of the, uh, scenarios of Date of the Devil is to propose to you acquisition a nice garment, a nice place in the world where you're recognized and valued by society.
But you're important, you know, personally, I feel that you know, you, you have talent, God that's giving you natural talents and abilities and you he's left you in the world. And you should go ahead with those that you've given you and complete your studies and get a job and provide for your family. And that's fine.
But last thing after position is a snare for the natural man. It happens in the world, wanting to get the next promotion, the boss's job. And it happens in among the Saints too, wanting to be like brother so and so, wanting that position, wanting that reputation, you might say. And Satan is very able to put before us. He weaves things together.
To propose to you things that are going to appeal to the natural man, well, you know you can't get a better garment.
Than the government that those orders provided for you we're gonna be glory with garments white, not a spot on them. Sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. There's not one position in this world.
That comes up to the Hemel. We're sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. There's nobody in this world that can offer you that. Mister Trump, I don't know if he's a son of God or not. He's the president of the United States, Mr. Putin.
00:45:08
Saint John, you know, the God of the North Koreans.
We're higher than that.
Sons of God who faith in Jesus Christ can't be better than us. And if I'm the Son of God, I don't need all these additional garments. If God gives them to me, give them to me. I gotta function there and the ability, you know?
Telling your brother here I was reading last week and it came to my heart. So I was sitting down and said, you know.
I read about this brother here, this brother there, I'm talking about the cat there. And so I said, well, they have so much access to this and that, and they published this and published and I'm, you know, and I said to myself, you know, I'm so insignificant and useless, you know.
And the thought came to me, I think it was sort of a little bit of Michel, you stay insignificant. It might be useful.
Especially being significant and useful.
Little boy came to Samsung and he showed them where the columns were and that was great victory that day. That's a little boy. Insignificant little boy. He was really useful. You know, the boy brought his five loaves and two fishes and this significant.
And he blessed 5000 people with his with his lunch. You know, insignificant but useful.
Hey, God help us, dear ones, to be a significant and useful when you're a young person, you know, you're, you're going from the state of childhood to manhood and there's all sorts of possibility development in your body, you know, and things that you look forward to and, and these pulses in your in your body too. And there's many things there to attract you, to distract you.
But if you stay close to the Lord, he has power. His mind is able to keep you from yourself and from the world and make you useful. 12131415161718 Doesn't matter how old you are, as Mike is able at every stage of your life. It depends on you. There's no fault on his part. And the last one here.
And that was a battle in gas where a man of great stature has positioned, you know.
I'm sorry, it's power I should say. And that on every hand, 6 fingers and on every foot, six toes, 4 and 20 in number. And also was born to the giant.
Now these keys, they only had four four fingers, 4 toes cut them off. This man yes he has six. He cut one off. He still had five. You know as I mentioned yesterday at the uh the dog that bit off the little pinky, you know?
I wonder what he had. He had the 6th 1:00. Well, he had two thumbs or two indexes. No, I don't know.
Interesting you know of your hand.
My hand teaches me the gospel.
Repentance towards God, oh the fat thing to do.
Faith in the Lord Jesus there is.
All the bad things have been covered by the work of the Lord Jesus, you know.
And I like I tell you what I tell you, if you hold your fist on this here, any other new guys here, you try and pull it from the other guy, you're fine. Boy, do you have that grip, repentance towards God, all those things that you've done, you might have six figures, 7 fingers more than that covered by the Lord Jesus.
What about this figure here? Don't worry, I'm not gonna use one of my fingers alone.
What about this figure here? Remember what I was writing along?
Accusing people.
How about pointing people to the Lord Jesus? Can you do that?
OK, try this. This is a challenge. And you watch each other. OK, You ready? We're gonna point the clock. All right.
I take a 123 call .5 Max Wonderful.
How about pointing someone to the loyalty?
We can do that. You can point to the fund that's worthless clock maybe just a battery worth a few dollars. 20 lbs on the Lord Jesus my hey.
Carl, finger eggs this center one here. I'm gonna present it this way. You know, this center one has been used by the devil so much to bring filthy clothes in the minds of men. And I'm not going to use it by myself because but you know, this is the center figure.
And it's the highest, and to me it speaks of the Lord Jesus, the highest.
In the center of it all, that's my hand. This one is where you put your wedding ring on.
00:50:05
I tell you, that's the way it is. God, it's giving us abilities.
Small or great, we can point, we can hold the Lord hold on to His word. Now this man.
He had more than you and I.
He could do any better.
He's probably run faster, stand better, hold stronger. I have to say sometimes I've heard discourses and spiritual matters.
And when it's finished, I'm so disturbed.
I'm really.
That and I'm so you know, I go away discouraged. I pick up a book and I read it.
I get the skirts. You know, the Spirit of God is not a discouragement. He's an encourager. He'll find something to encourage you about your life. I'm sure if you have used your life today, that's good. That's really, really good.
Could be better. We could improve. Of course we could all improve and be better based on encouraging. And so sometimes in great spirituality you can assess what it's doing to you. You feel encouraged to go on for the Lord. You feel so I'm never gonna. That's noise. I'm never gonna be like that. I get discouraged. Who's that from?
This is one of Goliath's son. He had six fingers on every hand. He had six fills on every foot. Do everything better than anybody else.
Don't even try. But he wasn't.
The Son of God, your Son of God, he doesn't have the power of his might. You have the power of his might. Just five fingers.
And I didn't put your toe off. You got 5 tones, you know?
We're able with the strength of the Lord to do that, and He's given us hands and feet to do that. Let's go finally to a verse. I think it's Psalm 144, a few more minutes.
Psalm 144.
First one.
Blessed be the Lord, my strength.
Which teach it my hands to war.
And my fingers.
Blessed be the Lord, my strength.
The power has his mind, his strength.
You know, I'm gonna be 7 years old, 70 years old in a while, and I am, I am really, really thankful to the Lord for every measure of health and strength it gives you. But my eyesight is Laurie and my hearing is lowering and my strength is lowering. I'm very thankful for the measure that I have, but I know as time goes on, my natural ability and strength is gonna go down.
But his in my life is not going to go down. He doesn't need my energy, he doesn't need my sweat. He doesn't need that.
You can use you, you can use me whatever way you want. You know, I started public speaking and my uh.
Phone company? No, I can say that. Here we go.
And the phone company where I work, you're not getting a point to that anyway.
I, I was talking to businessmen, you know, and I got in the habit of public speaking. And so it doesn't, uh, I, I, I still worry and pray and, you know, but, uh, it doesn't affect me as badly as others. And, uh, so I asked the Lord, you know, I said, Lord, I'm, I'm a Rascal. You open doors for me for, uh, for the gospel today. He opened doors always funerals, you know, it's OK, it works out. How do people die? Because I wanna bribe, I wanna preach, but he opened the door for me and, uh, and in therapy houses and.
Uh, some nights I have 20, sometimes 30, sometimes 40 guys and they come back and, uh, it's just, I said small groups, some people get audiences of thousands of people, but I've been doing that since 2003 and that's, uh, 14 years ago. And, uh, I haven't counted how many Bibles I've given up, but it's in the thousands, you know, just a little bit of here, a little bit there. And so it's just the way the Lord works.
00:55:06
Over a long period of time and there it is, you know, there it is, you know, a tree. It grows a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and then it gets big in itself. That's what he does in our life. You have more growth potential than I have.
I would say when I was 27, anybody here 27 except the old folks in the back, uh, anybody here, you know what? You've, you've, you've got, you've got a lot of more of the Lord than I had when I was 27. And so if you just search the scriptures daily, go to the Lord, pray, learn, listen, you're going to grow and you're going to strengthen you to get your strength from him and he's going to save.
Your life, you're not going to waste your life you're going to be, you're not going to be miserable. You're going to be useful. And that's what we want for you young people to be blessed, to be saved if you're not.
If you're safe to have a safe life and when he comes, he says, well done, good and faithful servant, let's pray.
Our God and our Father, how we thank thee for these beautiful pictures in my word of the victory that was over those sons of the giant. We think of David who had five stones in his, uh, in his little pouch there, and he used one on Goliath and there's four left. And these four giants were slain to by each of thy servants. And we just thanked you for this and we pray you might be simple in our faith and just to be able to recognize.
These Wilds of the devil, how he wants to distract us and occupy us and keep us from laying hold of those things which are of real value. And so we are not to pick up the crumbs under the table. Lord Jesus, we're invited to come and to remember you at that table, to enjoy thy fellowship with the Father. What a privilege, what a, what a wonder. And we thank thee for thy precious word. And we pray for blessing on the young people here. Give them a happy time.
A profitable time spiritually too, unless the other meetings, if they're coming, if he doesn't come, Lord Jesus and so.
We thank you for all and and for Thy Spirit and Thy word. In the name of our Lord Jesus we pray and thank you. Amen.
John 10:14-30
Reading
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Simplify in the back of the book and #5 in the appendix.
G does not mean when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger.
Interpose this precious blood and give #5 in the bottom.
Umm.
81 days and she's a guy and I'll come back and I'll have to go on.
All right.
Thank you.
Kim thinks that so many of us have been.
Found but I saw the shepherd and wheat uh, do we look forward now with being fed by me as well? The asking for the appropriate food for each one in the room, the freedom to die spirit for work in each of our hearts and for each one of us to come to know the better as a result of the next hour together. We just ask it my name or she said.
We continue in John 10.
Should we start?
10, 14.
I have a new separate and know my sheep, and am known of mine as the Father knoweth me. Even so know thy Father. And I lay down my life with the sheep, another sheep. I have to turn out of this fold, and also I must bring the faith. We shall, may, shall hear my voice. There shall be one cold and one shepherd. Therefore doesn't my Father love me because I lay down my life, and then I might take it again?
00:05:24
And I'm taking it from me, but I'll add that to myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.
Commandment have I received with my father. It was a division, therefore, among the Jews for these things. Many of them said the affidavil is bad. Well, I hear you then. Others said these are not the words of him, that half the devil and the devil open the eyes of the blind.
And it was a Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him.
How long does thou make us in doubt? Thou be the Christ. Tell us plainly. Jesus answered them. I told you, and you believe not the work that I do in my Father's name. They bear witness of Me, and ye believe not, because you're not of my keys, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My father, which gave them meat, is greater than all.
And no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hands. I and my father are one.
Then once you look up stones again to stone him, Jesus answered them. Any good works have I showed you from my Father, Or which of those works do you sow me? Jesus answered him, saying, for a good work We suddenly knocked, but for blasphemy. Because thou being a man, maketh thyself God, Jesus, Amen. Is it not written in your law? I said, You are God. He called them gods, with whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken.
Say, E of M whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, not blasphemous, because I said, I am the Son of God.
If I do not work for my father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the words that you may know, and believe that the Father is in me, behind him.
Therefore they sought again to take him.
He escaped out of their hands and run away again the on board into the place where John at first baptized, and there he abode. And many resorted unto him, and said John did no miracle, all things that John's pick of this man were true, and many believed on him there.
Deaths with benefits that those that were here yesterday. We just have a quick summary of what we talked about Chapter 10. We talked about how the 1St 5 verses of this chapter speaks about sheep and there were many characteristics, words that we talked about in this chapter. I'll just mention it briefly without going into details. Verse one there we spoke about the door, we spoke about the sheep pole, we spoke about the thief and proper in verse 2.
Uh, how only the, the chakra machine coming in through the door. Verse three, the Porter, uh, how the sheep hear his voice and he lead them and not hurting them and, and how does she follow his voice? Verse 5 where strangers and so on. So that's the curturistic about the sheepfold. And then from verse six on to perhaps verse 16, which part of it we will go over.
In in regard to the Good Shepherd, so we know the Good Shepherd is the one who look after the sheep and talk. We talk about the seeds that come up, we talk about the wool and we brought out the characteristics that the world in this case comes by. They only scatter the sheep. It does not kill, which is not character or wolves. They normally kill the sheep. So here is through that that the Lord is Speaking of his own, because he told them that he give unto them to turn on light. They shall never perish. So eternal life is assured.
Though in that a wolf can come in and only scatter.
So now we're on to verse 14, where we are the Lord in the South Bend. I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and am know of mine.
00:10:03
Beautiful parallel in the 14th and 15th 1St.
I know mine sheep. There's a metallic I know mine.
None of mine. And the Father knows me, and I know the Father.
We are brought into a relationship with the Father now as our Father, our God, and our Father through the Lord Jesus. So you have a parallel between the knowledge of the Lord of his own and his no knowing Him, the Father knowing him, and he knowing the Father. And now he's brought us to know the Father ourselves, and being known of the Father, of course.
There's a story from the late 1800s in Syria where our traveler was going along and he observed, uh, huge sheepfold. It was kind of at a crossing of the way. It's a lot of shepherds were passing through and they keep their sheep there for the night. And he estimated there were over 10,000 sheep in that fold. And the person he was traveling with was the shepherd. And in the morning, there's just a sea and confusion of sheep voices and the fold and other shepherds that were there. And he wondered how in the world this man was going to get his under her. So sheep out of that giant sheepfold.
And he did exactly what you might expect. He called each one by name and they came out. They could hear his voice somehow. Whate I don't know if he called them with a a word name or whether he had a special call for each one. But however he did it, he extracted those hundred seats and they went off in their own direction. There's a cacophony of voices in the world today. There's all kinds of ideas and thoughts of men about God, but the Good Shepherd has come down.
And he speaks individually to each one to take them out, to follow after himself.
And we have that privilege of knowing him in that personal way and being known just as was.
Pointed out the parallel between that and the 15th verse. Just as that beautiful relationship of the Son and the Father that the Son came to reveal, He brings us into that same kind of relationship. Not a cold, distant, unknown God, but rather a personal one. Come close with an individual name and voice for each one with His own.
Interesting to see. If you want to know someone, you should know their name.
Often we struggle with that, don't worry. We think we know some alignment. We look at someone and say, I can't remember your name, really, we don't know that what? I'll do it. We know them well. We know them by being so we find the Lord that you know the sheep by name. Interesting enough in this world when things get complicated. So if you're dealing with a large corporation, you'll find that they don't know you by name, your customer numbers, such and such. That's how the world look at you.
They can look at you as a number, the Lord look at you.
As a person, that's the one he loved, which he mentioned earlier on that he knows his own. He knows you as an individual, he loves you as an individual, and he care for you.
A Diversion. Psalm 147.
Connection with that brother. Psalm 147.
Lucas, 3:00 and 4:00.
We heal it a broken in heart.
And binded up their wounds.
We tell it the number of the stars and call it them all by their names, like that parallel of the shipping called by name and the stars being called by name. And you know everyone that's the sheep of the Lord, He's gonna be in glory and have a body of glory like the stars. And we find from 2nd Corinthians 4 that there is a measure of glory connected with the suffering down here. And so these two verses kind of make that in parallel. He heals the broken in heart and binding up their wounds.
We tell it the number of stars, they call it them all by their names. And it's good for us to remember that if they're suffering and trials down here, there's an internal answer and glory to that. And that's for their sheep, his sheep that he calls by name. And so when he made the stars, I believe that when God made the universe, he had eternity in, in mind and he made the universe such a way to resemble and to give pictures of that which is eternal and connected with the word, uh, the work of his Son.
And the following glory.
00:15:04
The Lord Jesus knew all his followers by name.
And this whole chapter speaks about it, and there was a long time.
And that he was among them.
And yet.
They they made one big mistake.
They did not ask him where they would meet him after his resurrection.
And that came right out.
Ask, say he was raised from among the dead because they went out to the supper girl and they were looking for him in the suburger. Now they would have asked him, Lord, where should we meet the after your resurrection? They wouldn't have gone to the supper and look, look for him in the supper curve where they laid him and take, uh, the staff and, and, and ointment with him and, and, and.
Made all these extra work. He knew them, but they they.
Seemed like they forgot.
Where he they were gonna look for him? Not in the supper, though he had told him many times during his life as a man, this earth, that he was gonna be raised from among the dead.
And there was a great privilege that he did that, that he stayed 40 days after his resurrection. And he showed himself to many, sometimes to a a great number of them, like 500, but most of the time, most more intimately, he showed himself to them.
Whom he had been with the most.
For David remarked yesterday on the 16th verse.
The word has changed at the end there. It does say in the contained one fold, but it is one flock, another sheep I have which are not of this fold. It's a Jewish fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and they shall be one lock and one shepherd.
And so we mentioned at the fold, you can have the fold in French, it's, it's really the place where the sheets are kept. And it's either a, a barn or a place where it's fenced in. And so the fence is what keeps the sheep together. But in the fold, as our brother Steven mentioned, they, they hear the shepherd's voice, that's where they go. And there's a flock over there or it's over there, it's over there, depending where the shepherd is and where he's calling them. So in the Jewish system, there was restrictions, there were laws that would keep them abiding together and going here and going there.
But here it's a person, and following that person will have you be with the flaw.
So in the previous verse that really tied our 60 to it is that the Lord tells us that he's a Good Shepherd. Well, how do we know he's a Good Shepherd? What does a Good Shepherd really do for the sheep? Well, he said his in verse 15, he said I lay down my life for the sheep. And that's a very important fact, isn't it? And that he laid down his life. So now John is building this fact here of why he lay down his life, how he laid down his life and why he laid down his life. And then he goes on and gives us a little hint of it where the whole that we spoke of earlier on is a Jewish world.
Now he said he has other foes that he wants to bring them all into as one flock. That's why he lay down his life for all. So the Jewish vote as if it were, and the Gentile vote is just for lack of better word, we all will be brought in at that one clock. That's why he's going to lay down his life. We find in Scripture that Israel is the heart and object of the Lord right through the Old Testament.
Up until the cross, but yet we find actually that we as Gentiles are hinted at throughout the history of the word of God is not something that all of a sudden we Gentile appears in his thoughts. We were thought of so in other places. We finally said we were predestinated. We were elected to be his even though we are Gentiles. So we go through the Old Testament, we find that too. We find that we know of the story of Ruth. She was a Gentile, wasn't she?
00:20:29
Brought into the blessing of the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ. We, we have Ruth, we have, and we even have the 12 tribes of the two tribes. We have, uh, a Manasseh, an Ephraim who are half Gentiles. So we see that throughout the word of God, we've been thought of. So now he said he's gonna lay down his life. This is the only way. There is no other way. That's why he said he is the door. There is only.
We can only be saved. So in verse nine we go back to it says I am the door by me.
If any man enter in, he shall be saved no other way but that way. Now for him to do the door is that you will have to lay down his life. He's a Good Shepherd.
In this chapter we have the relationship of the shepherd from the sheep. And I was thinking as they were reading the verses from chapter 14 to the end, and everyone here in this room is here because of a relationship. In many cases it's a relationship of children or friends or spouses, or maybe there's a relative that's here that you wouldn't see maybe once a year except at a Bible conference there's a relationship. And a brother many years ago said the root of all of our failures and unbelief is unbelief in the goodness that is in the heart of God.
Towards us there is much unbelief of the goodness that is in the heart of God towards us. So as we read these verses, verse 14, it says I know my sheep and have known of mine. Verse 15, I lay down my life for the sheep and others also on the spring they shall hear my voice. So there's a relationship established, a shepherd and the sheep. I'm sure some of this will be repetition, but we know that in the Gospels we have a revelation of Christ in Matthew as the king and Mark as the servants, and Luke as the Son of hands, and John is the Son of God.
And so for a very quick recap of leading up to chapter 10, we have Jesus as the Son of God. God the Baptist spoken chapter one and verse 16 and others fullness have all received in grace for grace. But grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared him. So Jesus declared the heart.
Of God to his people. So in this gospel of John that relationship is established. God is declaring through Jesus his heart. So in chapter one we have Jesus speaking to Peter and to Nathaniel. In chapter 2 it says the way in. In Jesus speaks in chapter 3 it's Nicodemus in chapter 4. In the Gospel last night we had the woman at the well in chapter 5 who speaks to the Jews. In chapter six he speaks to his disciples.
In Chapter 7 he has more teaching and in chapter 8, umm, he speaks to the woman who is caught adultery. Chapter 9 to the man who is blind from birth. Jesus as a man, as the Son of God, reveals you the heart of God. And if those who are here, someone who brought you, brought you maybe in a comfortable car and brought some food along and maybe had something to keep you entertained or occupied on the trip. There was communication, there was a relationship.
There was something which made the trip happier, pleasant, because some came three, four, 500 miles to be here in this room today. And so Jesus is the Good Shepherd and the Good Shepherd giveth his life to the sheep. If someone gave their life, put their life on the line for you, there would be a respect, there would be an appreciation. That relationship would be strengthened as time went on and the more we see.
The character of God revealed through the person of Jesus speaking in here in chapter 10. It should warm our hearts, should touch us in that unbelief which might turn us away. We can see the goodness of God. And if you know someone loves you, who cares about you when you do anything to protect you, what would be our response? Are we gonna straight from the fold and get near the edge of the Cliff? No, we're gonna stay in the pool.
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So as we read these, as we meditate, as we speak of these verses, maybe reflect on that relationship between God and man, that relationship between the shepherd and the sheep. He laid down his life for us.
I'm thinking of the 23rd song, you know?
It says there the Lord is my shepherd, the Old Testament.
You know the reality of the Good Shepherd.
And some might say the Lord is the Good Shepherd.
My Good Shepherd, that's when we receive what he has done for ourselves and he becomes our shepherd. And then in the Psalm we find that the shepherd takes care of the sheep. He leads them and he takes care of them. He brings them by still waters and green pastures. But then also in the end of verse 4, Psalm 23, it says, Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. It's one of the things that the shepherd does as he watches over his sheep sometimes.
Some sheep are stubborn as we are. And, uh, somebody was recalling the history of a, of a shepherd. I'm not sure it was in Scotland or whatever, the details aren't important, but where this little sheep was going astray all the time. And, uh, one of the times that the Shepard founded in a thicket and he was, uh, you know, whatever. And, uh, he picked him up and he used his stick and he broke one of the sheep's legs.
A woman saw that and she said, this is cruelty to animals and I have to report you and then this and that, you know, they don't treat animals like that. And after she simmered down a bit, he, uh, he told her, uh, listen, uh, lady, that, uh, this little sheep now, uh, he has a broken leg as I broke his leg, but he can't go to water. I have to go and water him myself. And I, he can't go for food. I have to bring him food myself. When we move around, he can't walk. I have to carry him myself. And this is really, you see, the heart of a Good Shepherd.
Normally does he give his life for us and brings us into good pastures you might say, and still waters. He still takes care of us in our wayward ways and it's good for us to have a concern for others that we would take our example on the Lord Jesus, how he cares especially in a special way. I could say not cares anymore, but cares in a special way to the failing ones and those that have fallen by the side have gotten into trouble.
We can have a very uh.
What we find godly attitude towards uh, those that have fallen into sin and rejecting them. But I think if we are really serious with ourselves, we should realize that we could be the one that has fallen by the way ourselves and be ready to receive of the Lord direction to help in the restoration of such an one.
I know for from experience, but there are occasions where just the opposite happens, where one needs really special care for restoration. We add to His burden by not being shepherd like with them and being judgmental. And so may the Lord help us to take the model that He gives us the example that He gives us. Normally they give His life for the sheep, but He cares for them and goes out of His way to help them along.
That protein Earth there that.
I'll never forget that.
I had a practical.
Meeting there one with one of our relatives.
Uh, they, they were in the Lutheran Church. That's where they belong to.
And he came right out and he said that 14th verse, I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. Who are these people? He said. I said, that's really we belong to him, we know him, He said, Oh no, no, I, no, no, not me. I belong to such and such a a surge in Toronto, Canada.
That's where I belong to. I said, yeah, but we belong to the Lord Jesus.
That was the end of our conversation. He just left with his wife to grow his to Florida where he was gonna go and enjoy himself.
But.
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This is a very wonderful verse, this 14th verse.
First of all, he knows his sheep.
And his sheep know him. That says it all.
The most important thing is that He got to know us out of His grace and love and compassion, and we know Him because we accept Him as our Savior.
That says it all.
Beautiful verses there after verse 60, verse 17. Therefore, that my father loved me.
Additional reason.
For the Father to love the Son, there's perfect love there, but there's additional reason given by the Son of the Father's love that he would lay down his life so the Father could have children, so the name of God would be glorified. All the aspects connected with the fact that He came to be a man and to lay down in his life. Take it up again, an additional motive.
For the Father's love. Then he goes on in verse 18, No man take it from me, but I lay it down of myself.
I have power to lay it down and have power to take it up again. Here's the Lord Jesus. He wasn't mortal. If I could do that word, nobody could take his life. But he became a man so he could give his life. He partook of flesh and blood so he could die. And he says he has power to lay his life down and to take it up again.
And then the end of the verse says it doesn't say this power have I received that my father? He says this commandment have I received of my father so beautiful because this is the son of God, God himself in person, a person of the Son has all power. He's God. There's there's fullness of deity there. There's no there's no restriction, but he's become a man and he has come in the position of a servant and before he does anything.
We had the commandment from the Father. He has the power to lay down and take it up again, but he's not going to do it in any way unless He has a commandment from the Father. Just a beautiful meditation for us. The glory of the Lord Jesus in the fullness of who He is and what He made himself to be is becoming a man, obedient man. You know, many use the Scriptures and they use verses to lower the person of the Son of God. No, it's the Son of God in manhood. He took that position to be here and to appear as a man and to behave as a man in obedience and give us an example. So this commandment.
Of our receiver. My father has power to do it. He's only going to do it.
Under the instruction of this father.
This is evidence with the father and the son would close it together. Isn't it Father and the Son so he which is the verse 17 begins by saying therefore that my father loved me. This is the work of the of the of the Father along with the Son. The death and the resurrection is to prove of the love the father have for the Son. Therefore that my father love you because I lay down my life.
That I might take it again, we know the Lord Jesus himself is in full control, but he also knew what has to be done. So we find another passage is that he was obedient, obedient unto death, even the death of the frost. We know Scripture have foretold us about the cross through and through we find and even in the New Testament we're reminded of how the Old Testament reminded us of the cross. So perhaps even what we learned John 316 well known verse. But if we were to go back a verse or two.
There we find it that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of man be lifted up. So God has this plan, and the only way is that the Son of God must die. So here the Father loves him. We as men have no power. So we find that throughout the gospel we'll find the Word, the phrase, the hour is not yet come, and then just becau before the cross, then he said, the hour has come.
So we know that he was in control. Man did not put him to death. They were just instrument through the hands of God. Man would claim responsibility or deny responsibility, but it's still of God. I remember there was a Jewish girl that worked with us one year and she said to me, we as you didn't put him to death. It was the Romans that did it. Well, we can pass that on. We as men, we can we are really truly have one accord.
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We set away with Him, crucified him.
But then at the end here we knew that it's a Lord himself who laid down his life. But then we know too, He can take it up again. And surely He did He take it up again. And he tells us that our brother explained the commandment, or in the new translation, the authority he has is of his father.
Versus 17 and 18 give that wonderful uniqueness of the shepherd, the wonderful uniqueness of the person of the Lord Jesus, and just one aspect of it. God is love. And so when he flows out love to any Sinner, there's not a motive in that. There's not a reason in that center that causes God to love them. When you and I were lost in our sins, there was nothing in US that created, if you could say it that way, the love and God part. It was God as love flowing out toward us.
But verse 17 is different, Speaking of Father.
But it says, therefore, as is already emphasized, just my Father loved me in the Lord Jesus, as was already mentioned, but just to emphasize it, in contrast with love Florida in the Lord Jesus, there was something that would draw out the love of the Father. And so there's the uniqueness of his person in that sense in verse 17. And then in verse 18, there's a uniqueness of his life and of his power over it.
And so it says, as was already mentioned, I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. That's not something that any mere human can do or has the right to do. Some people, as the expression goes, take their own life, but not in this sense. They don't have even there, they don't really have the power to lay it down and certainly don't have the power to take it again. Only if God and His sovereignty allows it to be. And then as was already mentioned at the end of verse 18.
This commandment, if I received in my father, or was this perfect dependence as the sun here on the earth to do everything in full communion with the Father. So verses 17 and 18 established the absolute uniqueness of this person who is our shepherd. And it's very clear from the verses that follow that the Jews understood what he was saying. He wasn't just presenting himself as a shepherd, He was presenting himself as a unique one. That was the shepherd.
The Foundation. The Good Shepherd.
That gave his life for the seed.
And one more thing on it just extends beyond this chapter. This chapter is the foundation of that relationship, but we've already hinted at it. It's a Good Shepherd is the foundation in Hebrews 13. He's the great shepherd to continue with us once we become his chief all the way until we get the glory and then arriving home and delivering us the areas the chief shepherd in first Peter 5. So he's the shepherd from beginning to end doesn't abandoned the sheep part way through. So it's a strong contrast with the hireling that we had yesterday in the portion.
Just word on on power and authority.
You can delegate authority. You can't delegate power. Somebody has that the power to lift 300 kilograms. You know, you can say you go ahead, Michelle, I'll give you the authority to do it. I'm in trouble. Let me tell you so power. You can't delegate power. And a verse here says I have power. You didn't receive the power. He has the power. Beautiful to see.
I want to raise this.
To the younger ones, when they say younger, all right, that term is quite relative. So I'll let you define what I meant by that. So we are only 18 or 22. I think you're still under that category. Sometimes a meeting like this is difficult to follow through. And I don't blame you because I have trouble following Q2 for the hour and a half. But sometimes it's nice to memorize some verses and I would say these two verses that we have before our first 17 and 18.
It's very nice verse to remember. So even if you're 18 or 20 or perhaps only six or seven, see if we can memorize these two verses. Let's be practical about it. And in fact, if you want to, come see me afterward and tell me you learned it.
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That 15th word is also very precious.
When he says as the father knows me, if so know I is the father.
That opens for us the way to heaven.
Because the Father is in heaven, and the Lord Jesus came from heaven, and no says that he knows the Father and the Father knows me.
So the next thing would be to ask somebody who says.
He is safe to ask. And do you go to heaven?
And TH that leaves a question open for them to answer.
Either I go to heaven or, I don't know, go to heaven. If I know the Father as the Lord Jesus knows the Father, I will also go to heaven.
That is a very simple conclusion and we should never forget to ask that question because as many people they say, well, I don't know yet, I'm gonna find out when I get there. I hear that sometimes said in connection with where? How are we connected to God's Father?
Well, there, there was only a few people that could see the Lord Jesus with their eyes in, in the flesh. He was actually there another 40 days where they could see him and, and could answer all their questions. And, and they did where the two, uh, disciples that went with him to Emeril's, they heard it all.
From the beginning.
Of creation to the very end. He explained what the scriptures said about him and that included the whole scripture. So it's good for us if we know the scriptures.
If somebody asks us a question and we have a good answer from the scripture.
That is sufficient.
That's the word of God. You don't need, uh, make many explanations and, and, and histories and what have you. We just say we know the Father as the Lord. Jesus knows the Father and that puts us into heaven because he came from heaven and he went back to heaven. So he knew that.
There's more words I'd like to note here in this chapter 10. It all starts with the same letter, the letter S, and I think they apply to every one of us here in this room. There's the word follow, the word flee or flea, the word fold, and the word father. And every one of us in our choices, every day in our home, at work, in our community, we choose what to follow, what to observe.
What to imitate we choose What to flee from?
Says in Timothy flee youthful luck here it says the hireling flea is because he is the hireling focused on money, not people. And there's a full and the fold was the where they were safe, where they were protected, where they were connected with those who are in the same relationship and there's the cost Jesus received.
The command from his father.
If I may say this, there's one of my daughters who told me once, when I'm in a good relationship with you, I usually choose much better boys than when I'm in a bad relationship with you. And I was kind of struck by that comment. I never thought of it that way. But each one of us, when we're in a good relationship with our Heavenly Father, we make better choices. We choose every day. What are we following?
What are we obsessed with? What are we focused on? What do we lead? What re makes us recoil? What is our goal? When you it's been said, you learn what a man is by what he does in his free time. All of us. We have school, we have jobs, we have obligations. It says in the book of Acts, being let go, they went unto their own company, they were sent out of prison and they proclaimed the name of Jesus, the name which is above every name at which every knee will bow.
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Precious name of Jesus, we choose to follow, we choose to flee, we choose the fold, and we have a relationship with our heavenly Father, our Good Shepherd. And it's a it's a solid thing, but it's an encouraging thing because God has given us instruction to help us in everything that we face in our daily lives.
It's precious to realize that William is we really don't have a a well in the well. We do have a will, but where it is and we're under his guidance. I was thinking of our brother's comment on verse 15 that he was commenting on that. I was thinking how verse 14 that we began this reading portion with tied together will reversed 15. In fact, if you look at the new translation, you'll find verse 14 ends with a comma, whereas in the King James it ends with a period and then in verse 14.
We have the the word saying and know my sheep, and if you look at the word sheep, it's an italic. So italic often means the word it's maybe we should be able to take it out. It would just put into emphasize the thought. So in the new translation, let me read that it's interesting. He says I am the Good Shepherd and I know those not mine. I think that put in a much stronger emphasis into it. The Lord said we are is he can say that they are fine.
And am known of those that are mine. They didn't use the word sheep in there because we are his. Then you go on. And as our brother already talked about verse 15, how you know us. He wants us and he's willing to die in order to bring us into that one fold.
Versus 19 verse 21 gives us a slightly different thought.
Is the division.
When crisis presented, we O often will get a diverse of opinion depending on who you're with you need you will get a different opinion and we need to understand scriptures. We need to learn to divide the word of God properly in order to know whose opinion is correct. Because on the surface often the argument sounds right, but is it according to the word of God?
And then we qualify that to not just opinions from a worldly that stands and you find opinions whether concerning Christ even among Christendom.
Something similar to the act, you know, the opinions of men that they think would be Apostle Paul and other servant there where they, they saw what was done. I think he was casting out an evil spirit. They wanted to offer sacrifices to them and they would make them gods. And a few verses later they want to stone them. Their opinions just change, you know, because it's not fate of the heart. It's what we think in our minds. And so this was what they were thinking in their minds of the Lord. And maybe you're thinking things in your mind about the Lord and it needs to get down in your heart.
And we'll get that later on because he says to them, you believe not. That's why they were not his sheep. They believe not.
That was 17.
That goes right together with.
Romans 10, verse 9.
That's our confession of faith, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine.
House that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt he saved.
That's pretty simple and and it's right off on the point. For with the heart man believers, and to righteousness, and with a mouse, confession is made unto salvation.
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That's very clear and simple.
And that's when the Lord Jesus says in verse 17, Therefore, thus my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
These two portions fit very well together.
Death and resurrection always go together. So some Christians might say, well, we believe that Jesus died. Well, if that's all you believe is only half the truth. So here the verse of brother quoted about believing in him is thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart. What, that Jesus died for your sins. Well, that's good. That's a good start.
But here it reminds us that God has raised him from the dead. Do you believe in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ? Death and resurrection goes together. Here's the thought that God is satisfied with the work that the Lord Jesus has done is finished. It's done once and once for all. So because he has a power to lay it down, and now he has the power to take it up again, that's the proof that God loves his Son.
That's proof that work is finished.
So you may run into some Christian group that we're Christian, but we really believe we should go back and follow the Sabbath. Well then by saying so they have just denied that the work on the cross was completed. I don't pass it. I don't consider that consider that to be Christian at all because they deny the finished work on the cross. And you'll find a lot of people or a lot of so-called Christian group, they do not follow all of the word of God.
Death and resurrection goes together.
Verse 24 Our time is running out. We have a lot more to consider. And then came to Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? Hold us in suspense. It says in the margin, which is really the thought there, If thou be to Christ, tell us plainly.
We we wanna know. No, they don't wanna know. They had him. They heard him. They saw the miracles and he held them. I am the Christ, but they will not believe. He will not come unto me. The obstacle there is active will. The Lord says come unto me. Active will says no. Submissive will say you call me so I'm coming. And so this is what they were doing. They were charging him to tell us. You know we're ready to believe they were not, but they were saying that with their mom. Just answer them. I told you.
Well, I told you it that I was, and he believed not.
The prior two gestures they had already clearly rejected him fully in chapter 8 he had presented himself and toward the end of the chapter and kept John 8 verse 43, he says, why do you not understand my speech? Even because you cannot hear my word And then a little further down he says, umm, verse 47 he that is of God heareth God's word. He therefore hear them not.
Because you're not of God. So in the 8th chapter, they refuse to hear what he had to say. And at the end of this chapter, uh, the verse 59, they took up stones to cast at him. So in the 9th chapter, he goes and he shows his power and he heals the man that was blind. And then toward the end of that chapter, after the man who's blind and received his sight and he's beginning to see clearly spiritually as well, in verse 30, it says the man answered and said unto them.
Why herein is a marvelous thing that you know not from whence he is, and yet he has opened mine eyes. So he's referring to the work that the Lord had done and he said, how is it that you don't understand what's going on here? And verse 33. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, notice that these are the religious leaders that had studied the law, etcetera. And here's their great answer to that. Thou was altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. And so they rejected the works of the Lord Jesus in this chapter and.
The prior chapter they take up stones to cast at the Lord and here they cast the man out that would follow the Lord. And so in this chapter they repeat that that error when they come down and they say this was just read in the 24th verse. If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly, the difficulty was not the plainness of his speech. The difficulty was not the plainness of his actions. The difficulty was the unbelief of the heart and that same pattern reveals itself even for believers today. Each one of us, I think to admit, if if we were to pause and think about it, that there are things that the Lord shown to us.
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That we claim that are confusing, and they're confusing because buried underneath is not the lack of an intellectual ability to understand the words. There's a lack of belief and a willingness to obey. And that's really what blocks the hearing of the voice of God or the seeing of the hand of God.
Go back to those 22. Sometimes you skip things. Sometimes it's important, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's of an interest. Here just little thing is verse 22 I talk about.
It was at Jerusalem, the Feast of dedication, and it was winter.
The first itself doesn't seem to be very significant.
Feast this.
Feast is not the feast. We often read off the Feast of Jehovah, especially the seven feasts. If you go through that, you'll find this is not one of the feasts.
There's no feast in winter and it was quite specific about that and it's kind of interesting that the Word of God will put this in there. Now you'll find options. The feast is mentioned and then sometimes it says this is the feast of the Jews. They have their own feast too, just like men have religious system that we come up with. Before I explain that, let me just go back to the 7th chapter. If you look at John 7 verse 37, he speaks of the feasts again. And by the way, I'm saying it, if anything, I would encourage you to study the Word of God.
Because sometimes when something sounds so similar but not all true, that's when we can easily get this this way or get a a misled. So John 737 in the last day, the Gray day of the feast.
Why? Here's another feast. If we see quite a few feasts mentioned here, this is This is a real feast. I believe this is the Feast of the Tabernacle.
I won't spend the time on it. And here we find Jesus would cry that would allow voice saying, give any man serve when we come down and to me and drink. Well, we can spend another half hour on why he says so and the meaning of that. But the point is this the feast that Jehovah has appointed them in, it was a seven day cease. That's why I can say the last day of the feast. Now let's go back to our chapter here, uh, in verse 22.
This piece.
This is what they call the heat of that dedication and and it makes it very interesting because it lets you go through the the word of God to sort of tie things in together during the 400 silent year. And I don't claim to know the history that well. There is this ruler, NNTO Antiochus. He came in and as you know, the Jews were under persecution by them and he he.
Made a mess of the holy place. We took Pete's blood and his father inside the temple to make it, uh, to these, uh, uh, uh, sanctify the place. So when Judas McAfee, the McAfee time, they rededicated the tempo. So this is their fees that they think because they were able to replenish the damn tempo and rededicated that. And it was in the winter months in the Mount Chesley.
Now you'll find a scripture that month is mentioned numerous times. You go to Nehemiah one, you go to Zachariah, I think 7th and 8th after that month is mentioned again, you, you can look into it. I, I say this to challenge you into reading the word of God. In fact, if you were to go back to Daniel chapters, in fact, let's turn to that and I will be very brief. I would rather have you study that. I think it's in the 8th chapter of Daniel that defilement was mentioned.
From way, way back from roughly 500 years before that.
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Umm.
Verse 11 Yee magnified himself even to the Prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was passed down, and and hose was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practiced and processed and prospered.
So.
It was for it was prophesied from way back in fact. Digress against 8th chapter of Daniel. You will want to learn more about those. Those, uh, silent years go through the 8th chapter of Daniel where a lot of people think it wasn't original because it was too accurate telling what's to come. So here it was the fees of the disease. So I thought I'll add that in the sidebar, especially for the younger ones.
We have some comforting verses there in the.
Sheep have its own 7th and 8th on my sheep and my voice, and I don't know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands. I and my father are one. And the Jews look up stones again to stone him. The words of the Lord that he found very provoking.
He being one with the father, but it is certainly something we enjoy as.
Those that are we are the Lord see he gives us eternal life. We shall never perish, neither will we ever be plucked out of his hands. Some people say, what about if you jump out yourself? Well, you're part of the ones that cannot like out of the Lord's hand. And then he adds a beautiful verse 29, you know, you have two hands. God has two hands. He has a father's hand and a son's hand. And who can go against that power and security where the Lord has placed his sheep now in the hands of God the Father and the Son.
That is a great assurance, isn't it, that we'll never perish. No one can pluck us out from the fathers on his end or from the Father's end. That's an assurance. We have the word of God.
I some of you may have heard of this example. I used the Sunday school one time like if you remember I took out one of these remote what do you call it the car fork when you use it to lock the car doors and often if you watch people especially someone older like us.
You see them walk away from the car, a few feet away and they click it a year ago. Beep.
They'll take now watch your parents, they'll take another five more steps and they'll push the button again as if we need to lock it again to make sure it's locked properly. So we beep it again. And sometimes you see them do two or three times until they walk far enough away that it doesn't beep anymore. And if they're like me, sometimes I'll walk back a few feet to make sure it still works well. How much better loss is that car from the first piece? Does it lock any better once it's locked?
Isn't it? And that's like our salvation. Once we have it, we will never lose it. Now here's what we may lose. We may lose the enjoyment, the communion we have with the Lord when we turn our back away from it. But the Lord will never turn His back from us. As it was cool that someone asked one time, what if I turn my back in the sunshine of His love? Well then the sunshine of His love will be on your back.
One aspect of internal security, you know.
We often look at ourselves and.
Consider how we don't feel saved or we don't feel like that, but the re reflection is with the shepherd, isn't it? If the father is TR entrusted sheep to his shepherd, the Good Shepherd, and he comes back to the fold and he's missing his sheet, are you gonna blame the shepherd or the sheep? Sheep are very, uh, if I could use the word stupid creatures. They get lost and they get sidetracked. They're busy with other things and so you're gonna blame the shepherd. And if one of the Lord's sheep could ever be lost again, it'd be.
Something that would attack the glory of the shepherd as the Good Shepherd. He's not going to lose any, any of his sheep. And it's the parable of the lost sheep. There. He seek it out until he finds it. It's not a question he's going to give up. When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders in the plural. He's going to govern the world with one shoulder, but the sheep are in his shoulders. There's perfect security with the shepherd.
01:05:37
Brother mentioned the relationship between the father and the daughter or the son, and it's good to emphasize that because when we take our eyes away from the shepherd, away from our father, that's more difficult than after. The world knows that the cycle Cyc. I I remember years ago in psychology class, they tell you this when someone is in trouble, you'll find that the eyes are looking downwards.
Why is that? I think from our standpoint, it's our eyes should always be phasing upward.
The Father's house I do we. I really believe in the fact that we walk as strangers and pilgrims in this world, and that our home is from above. And we waited for the Lord's return and we're told to keep those thoughts within us, don't we? And in the meantime, we can sing in hymns and psalms and making melodies in our heart and be reminded of His love constantly.
Can we see him? 277 Surely they sleep, And wondrous love shall measure all our days thy.
Outer home above where dwells eternal praise in 277.
Umm.
33, 3597, 4-5.
01:10:35
Yes.
Oh my God.
Dear Lord Jesus, we we thank you for this portion you considered and we hear thy words coming to us. Learn of me by meek and lonely in heart. And so as we considered thee as a wonderful shepherd, the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, we just thank thee for the security we find ourselves in that we can rejoice in what that has made us to be before thyself and thy Father and thy Father, all that prospect that's before us of glory with Thyself, and none of this we merit.
But it's all ours, we pray, as we reflect on a character that we might be more like thyself with one another and take care of one another, watch out for one another. So we pray and we thank you, Father, for this time. In the name of our Lord Jesus, our great Shepherd, Amen.
Stand Part 2
Seeing Him
David's Mighty Men
YP Talk—Michel Payette
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That was one of the.
Five of 100. I didn't die right there.
'S one.
Swear it's time now.
Thy glory.
To give, I work and I love my hair.
We are living now, but I never saw him.
In the eyes.
That fast, the Lord's blessing.
Our God and our Father, we thank you now for this last meeting and, uh, and this special event here.
In, uh, Carrollton and we just, uh, we thank you for that mercies and, uh, keeping us safe and giving us a happy time for all our provision. We thank you for putting that desire in the hearts of our brethren to put on such an event. Thank you for all the energy and, uh, investment made to make thy people comfortable and to allow for a blessing. And we pray for blessing this morning as we have a few moments again to turn to thy word.
We thank you for this hymn and we pray as we open our word this morning that Thy spirit would be free to.
And direct our thoughts. We often feel after we've spoken that so many things different we could have said and bet better. We just pray that Dyspirit would assist us and, uh, assist the hearers too, to bring to their hearts those thoughts that come from the. And so we open my words with confidence this morning, Father, thanking thee for that provision for us, Thy word and thy Spirit to teach us and to direct our hearts.
To that one without it's not spare and give for us all. We cannot measure that.
That love, infinite love that led you to give by some for us. But we would thank you this morning for all those of us who know him. And we pray as we consider a time with young people that, uh, many lives here would be affected by what we've heard over the last few days and the experiences we've had and the fellowships that we threw a lot. And so we pray and ask for a blessing. Father, we count on thy help and ask it all for the glory in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I told Ted yesterday, uh, he was about 1/4 to.
The hour before you finished and he went into, uh, a mighty men of David. And I said, hope that you're there. That's where I wanna go. I wanna speak up. Those mighty men of David, Second Samuel 23. And so the Lord has given us Ted and I, you know, parallel thoughts, connected thoughts and connection with those meetings. And I, I trust you take that from the Lord that he's, he's directed us to talk about these things because he wants you to hear them, obviously, and that they would encourage you and affect you.
00:05:12
The second Samuel 23, we were chapter 21 yesterday and we had those giants, you know that, uh, David's men slew, the servants slew. I think I mentioned in my prayer that David had five stones in his little bag there and he used one on Goliath and there was 4 left. And the four of his servants, they threw the other four giants. And I said that picture that there was provision left, uh, David's provision for those giants, He got it given us.
Provision to be victors, and there's no reason why you and I couldn't be victors.
And when we, we, we second Samuel 23 and what we're going to read about David's mighty men, What I'd like to draw attention on is the feats that were accomplished by these men and the fact that they're brought out as David's mighty men. I like the picture of and the future day when the Lord reviews like David could go over challenges this one, this, this and this one is, uh, this was done for me and in the future day at the judgment seat of Christ.
But we're gonna give his appreciation of how you live for him.
You know, the judgment seat of price, sometimes we, it, it's a fearful thing if you're going on badly, you know, but if you're going to the Olympics, uh, you know, the judges are evaluating the good, not the bad. And the judgment seat of Christ are always going to satisfy it. All of that. He's going to bring out everything that he valued in our lives. That was a pleasure again. And I'd like to just consider that in connection with the mighty men of David and just make some parallel.
For us to enjoy. So a second Samuel 23.
There are seven seats that were done and we'll look at this, uh, verse 8. These be the names of the mighty men whom David.
The Tacoma night that sat in the seat, chief among the captains the same was Adino de Esmec. He looked up his spear against 800, whom he slew at one time.
Wanna draw your attention? I'm glad he was seating. He was seated.
And he was, he had a one time vehicle.
How do you put these stocks together?
Who had a one time victory?
The greatest victory in the universe.
That was the victory of the Lord Jesus on the cross. There's no greater victory. There will not be any greater victory. Armageddon cannot be a victory, but the work of lacrosse is a greater victory.
And through that victory He has made you and me to be seated in Him in heavenly places.
The work of the Lord Keisha on the cross has given us perfect eternal rest and security.
And if you go down, I'm gonna sit right there.
And I'm going to enjoy the fact that I have a Savior who did it all. I think in the coming days, I was so pleased when you sat down and found rest and what I did for you.
Very simple.
Doesn't take much energy.
I gotta sit down because the Lord finished the work for me. And the Lord, I think he's gonna say, I, I appreciate your sin. I, I made that chair ready for you. It's all ready. Please sit up.
And in the coming day, he's gonna say, oh, you're one of the ones who realize in a measure what I did as a result for you. And you sat down. And if I'm seated in the heavenlies in Christ, and momentarily I'm gonna be seated with him up there has nothing to do with me. It's all his work. And my little faith has given me this beautiful seat.
To rest.
You know when the Lord just went up to heaven, He sat down at the right hand of God.
When the priest went into the holy place in the Old Testament, one thing you didn't find in the holy place was a seat. There was no place to sit down.
Because the work wasn't finished, had to offer sacrifices, sacrifices and sacrifices. But they looked with me in Hebrews chapter 10.
Hebrews, chapter 10.
And verse 10.
00:10:02
By the which will ask the will of God, Hebrews 10 and 10, we are sanctified to the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
One sacrifice, one offering sacrifice we are no will be we are sanctified. Verse 14 for by one offering. That's the offering of himself of the body of Jesus Christ on the by one offering he had perfected forever.
Them that are sanctified.
Remember we had the figure there on the gospel you wrote on the ground, the finger that points others to Christ. Well, this finger is number 11, offering one sacrifice, not 2, not 2, just one. And it's over. It's settled forever. You're not going to sit down. And when your soul finds rest in Christ the Lord.
It gives me joy because it cost me a lot to provide that seat for you. Please sit down.
I hope you boys and girls, I'm sorry.
Boys, young men, young women.
When I get stoned here.
Young men, young women that you've sat down, if you haven't yet, you just go ahead. He's provided it for you. You haven't accepted the Lord. Oh, don't put it off. He came to save you. He wants you to sit down and rest, and when you do, He's happy.
And enjoy it, you know, that's the, during the holidays, we bought our, some of our regrets. We don't buy big gifts because we have a lot of grandchildren anyway, we just bought, but we, I found these little, it's like these, uh, what do you call these things that fly around? Everybody's got their control, you know, uh, OK, drones, drones, very, really cheap little drones, but they got all sorts of nice presents from their parents.
My wife, the guy we got from these rechargeable little drones, they cost barely anything, you know, and they were very nice. You know, they could, they could get them up and move them around.
They were so excited that those gifts, you know, was a cheap gift. It wasn't worth much. But just to see that they appreciate it, you know, that we got that seeing them appreciate it gave us joy. And the Lord that he sees you appreciate the gift. I mean, it's not a drone. It's eternal life to faith in Him. Do any appreciation, any measure of appreciation you have?
Gives him joy and I think in the coming days we say.
Thank you, Mr. ETA you say thank you ****. I just sat down. You did a thank you.
For sitting down and finding a rest and what I did for you. Let's go to the next one, Second Samuel 23.
And after him, verse nine, was Eliezer, the son of Dodo the Aoheit, one of three mighty men with David when they defied the Philistine and that were there together, gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away.
You know, it's something to be part of a group when there's energy and you know, you kind of we're carried by each other, you know. But whenever everybody else leaves, you know, my brother mentioned yesterday going on alone, standing alone, that's what it says here. You know, initially all were gone away.
What do you do? I better go myself. No, it says they're heroes.
A time to sit down, and it's time to rise up. He arose and smoked the Philistine until his hand was weary, and his hand clayed unto the sword. And the Lord gave Rock a great victory, and that day and the people returned after him.
The sport.
Now remember yesterday we talked with Thomas.
Can I have a thumb? I mean, it'd be hard to hold on to a sword. Just moving it. It probably tends to slip out of your hand. Like what you had a time you could have a good grip on that sort. And that man, he took up the sword and he was weary, weary. When I read that first time I saw his hand, the sword left with his hand. I just think he just held on to that sword. Never, never gave it a bit.
And, you know, as time goes by and science gets so smart, they tend to say, come on, you know, you don't. Don't tell me you believe this book.
Well, I'll tell you I'm not very smart because I believe this book. I believe every word of God is pure.
And man without God is absolutely blind.
00:15:00
And you cannot argue about color with a blind man. This is red. This is it's all black to him because he's blind. And morally blind man wants to explain the origin of the universe without 3 letter word God.
In the beginning.
No, no, no.
You know, if you don't allow for God to be there in the beginning, that man, maybe he has partial blindness, but it can develop into complete blindness.
There was an explosion in the beginning.
Uh, what? Exploded. Nothing. OK, you you go to talk to somebody else.
I'm very simple, you know, Nothing exploded. Thank you. Yeah.
I'll see you later. I'll come back.
Madness, science and, you know, madness, intelligence. I mean, we, we're Mar. I'm marvel. I've got the smartphone and it's not turn left, turn right. It brought me here, you know.
Not one false turn and fresh.
I'm in the US, They're talking to me in French. It's just wonderful.
Man does wonderful things. We, we, we, we benefit from this intelligence and all sorts of things. But man with all this technology and intelligence, if you put all these computers and minds together, could not produce.
Out of nothing, one greater than.
It's never happened and it's never gonna happen. If they produce something, it's from something else.
Only God can produce something out of nothing. In the beginning God created and you can be five years old, 20 years old, 50 years old. You know the answer to the question, where does it all come from? God made the world. He formed the world by His word. Hebrews Chapter 11. This is a wonderful book.
He's got answers for us. Tell us about the past and the future and the present.
It describes this world morally right now. Second Timothy.
And that's where it's going, unless you're blind. But if you read this book, correspondence in nature, correspondence in all things are shaping up for the future. Correspondence and moral conformity to what God tells us going to happen. It's right there.
I mean, you're not seeing that. I gotta be blind.
And only to receive your slightest proposal, like to put that mud on your eyes and say that's your sins, my friend, and you need to have them washed away. And the only one to wash away your sins, the Lord Jesus, not blind man, he went and he washed and he came seeing. May God open our eyes, everyone, that we would see the beauty that we have in this word.
And so that man, he held on.
Your science professor, great persons in the world, they say things that challenge the word of God. You just hold on to it. I believe this is the word of God from cover to cover. And there's many things I don't understand because this is the word of God. I'm I'm a human. It's normal to run into. I wonder, I don't know.
But faith allows this book to be perfect. God watched over and he said, ah, you know, translations and you know, somebody might have had something. And is God powerful enough if he can produce things out of nothing? Is he powerful enough to watch over his word that he was put in your hands, good documents that you could put your trust in? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
Did you hear God speaking to you? Some people hear God speaking to them and sometimes you have to go to the hospital because.
Do you hear all sorts of things that are not in the Word of God? But God speaks to us right in here, right in this book?
And so this is what this man did. This man, he held on to the sword. And what happened?
He had a great victory and all these people that had left.
They came back and they enjoyed the spoil. They came into the blessing that this man allowed to happen because yield onto the sword. And the Lord gave him a great victory, you know?
And you know, if you're going to hold on to this book, hold on to the word of God, hold on to the Lord Jesus, you might stand alone for a while, but the Lord is going to maybe send someone like that. What's that book you're eating? Why are you so confident? How come you're not trouble? How come you don't swear? How come? And then they come and they come and they're brought into the enjoyment.
00:20:05
Of all those wonderful things that are in this book, you know, I mentioned this yesterday. I was 27 years old when I when I got saved, I read the New Testament in school, which is very, you know, in the church I was in, it was scripture. You weren't allowed to read it until the priest would tell you what it means. And so don't believe what I say what it means. You read it for yourself and let the Spirit of God use the word of God and say, I, I got this from here, you know, and the Lord has.
Special indications communications for you personally from the pages of this book.
This doctrine is putting it together and, and the way it fits together and it does have say the truth is, is all connected to one another. But you know, from experience, I know the Lord told me, uh, through the pages of this book, uh, to go ahead and buy a car. He told me through the patience book to go ahead and have my furniture. Come on, Michelle. Hey, no, I mean it. I was in a situation with my family and, uh, my heating bill was terrible. We had a very old furniture, used to be cold furnace.
Change it to an oil furnace and the government has, you know, plans of subsidies, the hydro company, uh, or the oil company and, or the gas company and the government has subsidies that change over to gas, natural gas, which would be cheaper and more efficient and get another furnace. And so I had a submission from a, a plumber there and he said it costs so much. So it ha had this subsidy and that subsidy, but I'm still missing quite an amount there. And I said I didn't have enough, you know, and winter was coming.
And he said, you know you don't buy a car by safe. You know, you buy a car with money.
Uh, so you don't buy a furnace by faith, You buy it with money. I don't have the money, but I have a need. And I said to Lord, I, I don't wanna go ahead and you know, uh, unless you don't supply it. But if you want me to go ahead, you need that. Give me a push, you know, and I read and the Lord gave me a verse and had the word furnace in there and it gave me peace.
And I said, go ahead, I know what happened when the bill came in.
I had the money.
He does that. Now this is just between you and him. He, I don't know if you need a new furnace, probably not, but you might need something in your life and you really exercised about it and you know you, you, you, you want to have the word of the Lord for it. And also the words you hear Spirit God can use and bring to you and give you a piece about it.
If my mind is set in doing something I can find in the scriptures versus to encourage me to do what I want, I can justify what I'm doing. I did that once. It didn't turn out too well. So I've had both experiences, you know, and I know if I have my mindset on something, then I can find justification to do it in the Word of God. But if I'm really dependent on the Lord and I'm willing to do whatever He wants to wait to go ahead, whatever He says, I have that attitude before the Lord. He's gonna come in.
And give you an answer, yes, no, maybe later, whatever the circumstances. And you're gonna enjoy this dynamic relationship with the Lord that he does speak to us specifically on all sorts of issues in our lives if we're simple and we seek his face in the word of God. Well, so much for, uh, this laser son of Dodo and he hold held on with his hand to the sword.
And I'm sure he had his thumb. Verse 11.
After this was Shama, the son of Aege the heroite and the Philistines. We got it to get into a troop where there where was a piece of ground full of lentils, and the people fled from the Philistines, but he stood in the midst of the ground and defended it and slew the Philistine, and the Lord wrought a great victory.
Now, Shama, I suppose he had both his toes.
Because he stood his ground.
He stood his ground and he stood in the midst of a fortune. But it was a field of dentals. You know what Esau did?
He sold his birthright for some lentils. He exchanged the inheritance of his as the first point for lentils. And we said, that's no lentils. I mean, you know, you can despise lentils, say, I mean, it wasn't worth it, you know, just, uh, and sometimes we could consider some of the portions that God has given us as I'm not that important.
What part of the portion that God has given us should we give over to the enemy?
Zero work. It belongs to us. The Lord has given it to us. And So what this man did, he stood in the midst of the portion and defended it. In other words, we had an Ephesians. Having overcome all the snacks, I'm going to stand with the word of God in my hand, and I'm going to stand in what the Word of God has given me as my portion. I am. Doesn't look like it, but I am a son of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
00:25:11
I'm going to have a new body without wrinkles, perfect everywhere. I'm going to heaven.
I'm satisfied right now here, set apart for the Lord. I have all these things that belong to me. I have eternal life, I have His Holy Spirit. I have a wonderful portion.
And how did he save that portion? He said he stood in the midst of the ground and defended it. This belongs to me. Somebody has a piece of land.
Therefore, the river there, a nice piece of land there. That's mine. That's nice. What are all these people there camping there with their trailers and stuff and fireworks and stuff? Well, I don't know. They're just using it. It's yours.
To enjoy.
You know, the seal of lentils is something that's not valued. So just that, you know, maybe it was, it was a gold mine. They would have said, hey, let's get together and defend it because it's really precious. But it wasn't precious to them.
And you know, this is gonna read a bit later on right now in chapter 24, because it was a little spot in the land of Israel.
That's David. I did bother to say hold up.
And he was victorious over all his enemies. And he said to Joab.
Uh, a number of people, how strong we are. Yeah. How many are in our meeting? How many are there? How many of us are together? So you shouldn't do that. You know, I'm saying, well, he goes adding numbers of people and God is very displeased with that. And he proposes to David 3 chastisements and he picks one, which is the Lord for three days of bringing pestilence in the land. So the Angel of the Lord comes and there's precedence in the land. Let's read his second Samuel chapter 24.
Verse 15 So the Lord said the pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed, and their guided people from then even to Beersheba 70,000 men. That's a lot of people. When the Angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the Angel that destroyed the people, that's enough.
Stay in all thy hand. And Angel of the Lord was by the threshing place of Arona the Jebusite. And David speak unto the Lord, when he saw the Angel that smoked the people, and said, Lo, have sinned, and have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray, pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house. And God. God came that day to David, and said unto him, Go up rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Arona the Jebusite.
And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded, and he buys it, and he has an altar there. He offers a sacrifice to the Lord. There was a still portion of the land.
That David hadn't bothered to stay hold of. It's called the threshing floor of Arona, the genuine. If you remember in the Old Testament when Joshua came into the land, the Jebusites were enemies and were to destroy them.
Here's the Jebus. I'm not. Yeah, she she was submitting to the government there. But he had had this little piece of land that was his.
The dressing floor threshing floor is a place of testing, you know.
Separate the chat from the wheat from the grain treasury floor of Verona de Jebusite.
Coincidence. You know what that place is.
That's exactly where Solomon is going to build a temple. That's right there.
The Treasury floor of Aroma. The Jetty site.
And you know what?
That's exactly where in Genesis 22 on Mount Moriah that Abraham was called to give his son.
The Father's gift of the Son is where the temple is built. Everything is built upon.
The Father sending the Son into the world.
I sitting there in this beautiful book, you know, and I'm sure David didn't understand that, but he hadn't bothered with this little piece of land. I was like, I feel the lentils to him, you know, you just let him have that. But when the pestilence comes, where does the Angel of the Lord stop? Where is the Angel of the Lord bringing attention to?
00:30:06
The dressing floor of our own executive side. God had that place in view which nobody else had bothered to take hold of.
And I think of that as the, uh.
The desire of the Lord to gather His people.
Around the Lord Jesus, the gathering center, not a physical place.
But a physical person?
There am I and I miss you there.
Well, you know, I have people coming to our house and they come for a little Bible reading on Wednesday from different groups and stuff and so, so.
They say, well, we were together and so and so, so we prayed together with three and three of us and you know, the way two and three are guys together, my name, their mind and they reverse all the time. I, I haven't challenged them on that. One of the brothers came to me and asked me and I, I've ministered to him on that. But you know, it's not where we gather. So we're gonna, we're gonna have it over here. We're gonna have it over. No, the Lord says, I want it here. It was a treashing floor of our own as a Jebusite because it was where the father offered the son.
And God would have us be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus.
On the ground, there's one body.
Pretty simple, but to many it's a field. Eventals, you know, we've got our church, we've got our group, we've got all these missions going and stuff.
Well.
Shama, when he saw that portion was there, he stood in the midst of it. And this belongs to us.
Who does the Lord wants to be around himself?
You, everyone.
We'd like to have you with himself in heaven, and he'd like to have you around him on earth.
You can't see him physically, but he promises his presence there. There am I in the midst of them? Not there is my authority. I'm for, I'm sorry to say that, but that sometimes we think there's, there's my authority, you know? No, there are my. And if he's there, you know, there's a character associated with the Lord's presence. You know, there's respect, there's, there's harmony, there's, uh, humility, there's dependence, there's, there's worship, there's reverence, there's the Lord is there? Wow.
You know I've been in a mud Hut in Africa.
With African farmers.
And my kids, the room maybe 1/4 of the size here, 60 people in there.
Little table in the center there.
Every comes quiet.
I better give him to him, and I never gives a him, but I read the verse and solemnly fellowship with the Spirit. Same Lord, same God. Peasants in Africa, you know.
Wonderful.
To be experienced.
There's so much simplicity there, independence that it's it's manifest and should exercise us older ones too. Is that where we are that that that's manifest to that, you know, our knowledge doesn't take over that we're really in the presence of the Lord enjoying us leading of the spirit. Well, anyway, I just wanted to mention this that day. Or is that portion a field of mental that people didn't esteem? And I compared that to the threshing floor of Verona, the Jebusite, where the Lord had his eye on that place and he brought attention to it and it did.
As a sacrifice offer, then I was a temple where it was built and as a place where Laurie wants us to worship, He wants us to worship in unity around himself as you gather to his name. Let's go to verse 13.
And three of the 30 chiefs went down and came to David in the harvest time onto The Cave of Adilan and the Jupiter. Phyllis Times pitched in the Valley of Refrain. That's, uh, second Samuel 2313. And David was then in an hold in the Garrison of the Philistine was then in Bethlehem. And David long and said, who that one would give me the drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.
And the three mighty men breakthrough the host of the Philistines, and through water out of the well of Bethlehem.
I was by the gate and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless, he would not drink thereof, but poured it on him to the Lord, and said, And he said, Be as far from you, O Lord, that I should do This is not just the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives. Therefore he would not drink it. These things that these trees, mighty men. This is the longest account of any of the feats that were done.
It's the center 1. They're Saturn. This is the 4th, 1:00.
00:35:04
And I don't know.
I don't know who these men were. The names aren't mentioned.
And I enjoyed this very much.
David draws attention to memories.
Of his birth. He was from Bethlehem and perhaps, as AUT often was, was thirsty. And, uh, he'd go to that well by the gate and be refreshed with that water.
Boy would I like to have that water again. And.
Lizman said. David would like to have that. Let's get him some water.
And so it's like, come on, we can get water from the brook over there. It's cool. He's never known, but that's rich. It's gotta be water. I mean, you know.
These men didn't think like that.
They had such affection for David.
As the fought victories with him, they said that's what he wants.
What is that? There were enemies in the land. I mean, there's every reason I come on, let's go to stands over there. We'll get you water from the other place there. You know, it was harvest time. I've got all this sweet to to to get my, my, my harvest and I got my equipment to repair it. I have all sorts of other things that need to be done. I have all sorts of things that would prevent me from even considering going there. All I have.
I'm gonna use the word that I I don't really mean, but a capricious desire of David.
For that kind of water. And what did they do? They went at the peril of their lives and they got water from the well in Bethlehem. That's why they gate and they brought it today.
What did it mean to David?
You did that for me, I just said.
I'd like, really like I, I always like to drink some of that water. He didn't say, you go get me some water. He didn't say that. He just expressed a desire. How wondrous I desire of the Lord.
List 2. Not the place of his birth.
Place of this desk.
And where? Oh how deep.
I can't find them, it was by the gate.
You enter in a little bit, you know who can measure? I can't measure. I can't enter into it all. But one thing I can do, I can get water from that well.
And say for Jesus.
I don't know what it meant for you. Thank you.
Thank you for your thought given it for me.
Thank you for your bloodshed. For me. That's the desire of his heart. For you and me, this is central. Why? Why would it be so important?
Those men, I don't know who they are. I don't know, but they didn't know who they were.
And the Lord Jesus knows.
You and how busy you are and all the obstacles to overcome and all those things are repulsive, perhaps.
Philistines in the land opposition things that provoke you.
And if you're looking for objections, the enemy will suggest to you many, many objections. You have every reason in the world not to be there doing that.
But they're all worldly reasons. They're reasons in the world.
And if your heart and my heart loves him, is that what he wants?
He says it's too much for me, but not in what she was betrayed.
And he gave it back to the apostle Paul.
He wasn't there. The apostle Paul and the Lord instituted the peace of remembrance. He got it from the Lord in heaven.
Let's, uh, I, I want them to do that.
Now.
In my little heart.
I say, oh, I'm going to do what the Lord asked me to do. I'm doing it.
You're not remembering the Lord over there. They're not remembering the Lord over there, but I'm remembering the Lord. Hey, Lord, I'm remembering you. Uh.
I hope my heart is not like that.
I remember him. I don't remember what I'm doing for him. I'm remembering what he's done for me.
And I can tell you frankly, I've been doing this for 42 years, I think every week I missed on vacation. But I can tell you that if there's fresh affection produced in my heart by the Spirit of God towards him as I just stop and think of who He is, what he stopped.
00:40:18
For me, for us, of course, for me.
Such for me and then for us. Well, this is what I get from this little portion here. And I, I, I think it's really precious. You should meditate on it.
There's little contrast with David's desire, David Longen said. Oh, that one.
Would give me drink of the water of the relevant.
You know you can't do it by yourself.
He wants one to do it, but it's only done collectively. So three of them. And they did that. They brought water to David. And so we can't remember the Lord by ourselves.
But we can do it with others.
Whether who wants us to, as we saw with the treashing floor of Arona the Jebusite, Well, let's go on. And he's, uh, verse, uh, 18.
And Bishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zoroia, was chief among three, and he lifted up his spear against 300, and slew them, and had the name among three. Was he not most honored, honorable of trees? Therefore he was their captain obviously not unto.
The first three.
You know Joab. If you read it in the Old Testament, you'll find Joab is a is a.
A character that is named from the Boston is quite active there in in Bible history, but he's not mentioned in David's mighty men so but I decided his brother.
And if you remember yesterday, I know if you recall, but Abhishek was one of the ones that slew one of those giants, the first one.
It was Abhishek, the son of Tiraiya.
But when he recalls the feats that he did, he doesn't say he slew that giant and wanted to kill David. He doesn't. He doesn't bring that up.
And if you read these verses and I asked you, umm, what do you notice in these verses?
Well, I'll tell you, I'm not gonna leave you in suspense too long. It's the number three. It says UMM was chief among three electrophysiary against 300. He slew them. He had anyone in three, was not most honored of the three. Therefore he was the captain of 18. Not until the first three. If I get to #3 I get this, my little mind here. Just hey, 33333, you know, United Fruit of the spirit.
Three to the Cube 3 * 3.
Galatians, those things that are valued by the Lord.
Some of the threes I like to speak about.
Because he brought brings attention there to that things that the Lord is going to value that he values in your life. 1St Corinthians 13. Let's go there.
13 and 13 first contains 1313 and now by the Fake Hope charity. These three, hey, we got three right there.
But the greatest of these is charity compared to what we had in Second Samuel there he says, what do you what you didn't attain The first three there was he was greater among them and so.
There's faith, hope and love, but the greatest is love. So the Lord looks down in our lives and He values.
What's in your life of hope, faith and love?
We perhaps don't realize that, but every time you let his life in you back in faith and hope and love, he values that. And in the coming day, I think he's gonna bring out those things in your life and mind. No matter who we are, how old we were, those things that were in our life that were connected with faith, hope and love.
These three things abide. They they remain when the Lord comes. No more faith, no more hope, just love forever.
You know, in Corinth they had a lot of difficulties among themselves. They were very occupied with gifts, ability, you know, what they could do and the power God has given them. And the apostle Paul has to write this epistle to them to correct much. And he brings now attention to the essentials. And there's three there, faith, hope and love. Faith and hope are really close together, you know, but hope is always connected with the future.
00:45:08
Faith can look back and in the present in the future too, but hope is always connected with the future and what hope does.
Hope brings into the present what's in the future. I'll give you an example. I hope I have enough time here to go through with you. I give you an example of a boy. He ha, he goes to school in the morning and uh, he walks to school and all his buddies are going by with their bicycles, you know?
He goes to school. That's nice bike he got there. We don't have a bicycle. So, uh, he goes home and he looks sad, but he says, you know, it's a long walk to school. All the boys have bicycles, you know, why can't I have a bicycle? Well, you know, Daddy's been having a rough time, but I just got a, a, a raise and A and a in a week's time, I'm gonna have, uh, a nice paycheck and we're gonna go together to the store. We go to Canadian Tire, but you don't know if you go in the state, you go to the American tires, but.
I'm going to buy a bike for you.
Yeah, Dad. Yeah, yeah, I got a bike for you. So next morning he's going to school.
Yeah, oh boy, I gotta get a new bike.
Does he have a new bike? He doesn't have a new bike. How come? He's happy. He's got the hope. I'm gonna do bike. Oh, he's really happy he doesn't have a bike.
That's what hope does, is bring future blessings right in and out. You know my body's decay. You smell my breath in the morning. You know how bad it is.
I'm going to have a brand new body.
No, no, no. March, nothing. Nothing wrong with it. I gotta have a perfect body. I'm gonna see the Lord face to face. Wow. Wow. That's what hope does. Faith sustains you in the present and hope to bring the future into the presence to kind of combine with that. They rejoicing in hope. I'm happy. I'm rejoicing in the Lord. I gotta get a new bike on Saturday. You know, you heard the Father might make.
Promises like that and he might break a leg and not be able to deliver on the Saturday he promised.
Will God deliver? Of course he will. You can rejoice in hope. Three beautiful things here. First, contest 14.
Three more things. Verse three. He had prophesied speaking unto men to edification, exhortation, and comfort.
That can be you. Doesn't matter. You can say things that are edifying, exhorting, and comforting. It's not limited to somebody special with special gifts. You can tell somebody something that's gonna help them.
XRN, maybe, you know, maybe we shouldn't do that. You know, I said why don't we do that instead? You know, that should be better be pleasing for the Lord, you know. Hey, listen, this is what the Lord wants us to. Let's do that too. Yeah, I'm sorry. I had a failure there. That's that. That's don't get. Let's pray about that.
Yeah, we can all do that.
And then the coming needles. You pleased me so much when you came along, that brother, that sister, that friend of yours, and exhorted them. You comforted them, you edified them.
I'm so happy that you rested your faith in me and you enjoyed those things that were coming for you already, even though they hadn't come yet, and that you expressed to others the love that I filled you with. I was so happy with it. You're one of my strong men. The power of his might. They were David's mighty men. They got their might from the Lord, and so do you, and so do I. Three more enemies.
The flesh a world Satan.
Every time you say no to the best choice, that makes me happy. Every time you resist the influence of the world.
That's my boy.
And every time you recognize the voice of the whisperer, little sink serpent. Oh, no, no, no. I know who that's and that's not the voice of my shepherd. I'm gonna not gonna go there and I'm not gonna do this.
How these know that? You say he's gonna say, oh, I was so pleased. I can imagine a father watching his son being influenced by others he doesn't know. His father's watching and he takes a stand for the Lord.
Makes you so happy. Imagine how the Lord is happy when you stand your ground and you resist those enemies coming about. It's all noted in heaven, you know? Let's go back to the Second Samuel times running out.
And Benaya the son of Jehoiada verse 20, the son of a valiant man of Ketzel who had done many acts, he slew 2 limelight men of Mohapp.
00:50:08
That's his father. His father had slain 2 limelight men of Mohammed, 2 lions of Mohawk. Now Mohab suggests to me there was a Mohabbikes come from the Moabites. They come to sad story from lost daughter. After they left the city of southern Gomorrah, uh, they thought that there was no more men around and that they wouldn't have any children and stuff. So they had their father drink.
And while he was.
I thought he could have been but anyway and they slept with him and they both got pregnant and they bare Ammon and mohab. So Mohabb is the fruit of incest.
Terrible immorality.
You know.
Man is a sexual creature. God has made him that way.
And when you become young persons, it's something that develops in your body and it's, it's, it's a normal thing. Sexuality is a normal thing to have desires and experiencing that developing in your body. But immorality is going beyond what the Lord has given us to exercise sexuality. And then that is the bond of marriage.
So we need to keep ourselves Pure until marriage, and I just want to encourage anyone who hasn't been that way.
Personally, in our personal life or they've had experiences with others that, you know, the prodigal son, he got, he got hugged and kissed and he was coming back home. And, and that's how the Lord treats us when we judge, judge ourselves when we come back to him, He doesn't, he knows how weak we are. He knows the influences of the world and, and so, but you know, uh, two line like men of Mohab.
I have a fallen nature that is propitious to immorality and opt a sad thing in the world. It's just encouraged so I have.
Immoral thoughts coming up, immoral desires. And the world is not that legitimate. You know 2 lions, one inside.
Who wants to express itself? And one outside who said express yourself?
Why don't you look at that? Why don't you go there? Why don't you go with that person there? 2 lions, you know, one inside, one outside. But this fellow's father, he slew them. I tell young people, there's not a time in your life where it's not. It's stronger than when you're developing, you know?
But I'm 69 years old and I tell you.
I have that inside of me, and perhaps other brothers would say I have it too, you know, and in each, you know, that was slain on the cross and you just need to keep that individual. No powerful word. No. Very short. And no, you know, no, you're not gonna do go there. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna entertain these thoughts. They've come. I haven't solicited them. I'm putting them away.
And if they keep after you, I keep you recipe, you get on your knees.
On that chair at home, by your bed, by yourself, say, Lord, these thoughts are haunting me, Give me deliverance, give me other thoughts. You stand on your knees till the Costco they come again. Get back in the enemy of your soul. Say, I better leave that person alone.
Because the more I'm bugging them, the closer they get to the Lord.
I got to leave them alone so they get relaxed and careless. I think the recipe works. You try it. Well, that's what his father did. And then he, the son, he could go ahead and do other things. And so if we're struggling with that, we're going to be impaired, like not having any thoughts on any big toes. You know, we're, we're struggling with those things. And even if you are, there's deliverance from the Lord. Just get on your knees, confess.
Get rid of it. Comes back. Get back on your knees. The Lord is mighty. He's mightier than any sexual pulsion you might have. Or solicitation from the word He's. Why do you know that?
And this world is going down like this. It's it's incredibly fast. Never seen it go down so fast. It's gonna crash shortly. When the Lord comes, it's gonna be given over completely. Well, let's go to see what this man did. This man is the only one that did two things. All the other feats are singles. And after that center one, there's one we've just read about, Abhishek. And this one, Vinaya, he does two and that makes it 7.
00:55:05
His father did two. He slew those two lineman of Mohabbat. But here's what he does. The end of verse 20. He went down also.
In mind if I go four or five minutes extra, he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow.
Sometimes we, we I think had an expression, I'm in the pitch, I'm, I'm discouraged. It's dark and I look around, all I see is mud, you know, it's just.
A day of snow. It was cold.
No brotherly warmth or love to help me online all by myself. I'm cold, it's dark, it's death, it smells bad, it's. And the lion comes.
To discourage you in those times in your life when you're low, when you're down, when you're in the pit.
And he did. He slew the lion in the pit, and time saw.
So when those times come in our lives of depression.
I think of Benaya, and if I was like Benaya, what's where's the victory? Let's look up. It might be in a pit, but there's light up there. The Lord knows you're down there and how you're gonna behave in those times that are darkened. There's real problems. You know, there are difficulties that come our way that discourage us. They're real. How do we deal with these difficulties? Trust the Lord.
The Lord is gonna say, oh, you honored me.
You didn't give up. You cried. You were discouraged. It showed in your face.
But you trusted me. Oh.
You honored me.
And the pit and the day of snow. When the line came, it suggested to you that I was like this, I'm like that. And I'd forgotten about you. And I was gonna You trusted me still.
Is what this mighty man, he does what he did and the last one he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man, an Egyptian experience. And he went down to him with his staff and plucked the spear out of the Egyptians and and slew him with his own spear. Egypt speaks of the world, you know, like this verse from Paul. He says I am crucified to the world and the Crus, the world crucified unto me. He took his staff there and he went against the Egyptian with his staff and he slew him with his own spear, you know.
The cross of our Lord Jesus gives us eternal security, and the cross of our Lord Jesus gives us victory.
Over this world, whatever they present to us, He was a goodly man, a man of great stature. The world has many things to offer you. It will not deliver happiness. The world will want to make you great, so you won't be great for the Lord. You can be mighty in the world. You're not going to be one of David's mighty men. You're small and weak. You're young. You can be one of these mighty men.
If depending how you live your life, the Lord our time is up, let's just pray.
I got my father. We thank you for this portion.
We thank you for these thoughts we crossed from my Spirit and how they would speak to us of our Lord Jesus, the one who's so worthy of every aspect of service and devotion in our life. And we thank that He's the Object of faith and hope and love. We thank you for these words. We pray for these dear young people here. We're going back to their homes and activities and school and work and facing up.
Giants, as we've been speaking about, we thank you for the armor of God that has provided for us. We need to put it on. We thank you for reminding us of those things that you value, Lord Jesus, and that we might in simplicity.
The smallest and weakest among us take these things to heart and glorify you in our lives. We know that we are coming soon, and it's all gonna be like you said it was going to be. We know it's gonna happen that way. And we strengthen our dear young people here, and we pay you. Bless them and keep them. And we thank Thee, Father, for this special time here at the conference of Carlton. In the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray and thank Thee. Amen.
Treasures
1 Corinthians 11:26
Idols
Be in Time
Gospel—Michel Payette
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.
#25 We'll start with #25 three more here. Life, at best, is very brief.
Like the falling of belief, like the binding of a sheep, be in time, eating days are telling fast that the dye will soon be cast.
And the fatal line be passed.
Be in time, be in time, be in time while the voice of Jesus calls you Be in time. If in sin you longer wait, you may find no open gate and your cry be just too late. Be in time. Someone that raised a tune for us please.
And respond to everything here and see if your eyes go away. Oh, you have no cost. You'll never give me yourself.
Uh, we're not together at six PM 69 per month. We're going to get the 30/01, 2:34.
Let me see if it's here. We're going to be on the phone tonight together. Now you're going to see anything. Do you have anything? I can't do anything. I can't. I don't know if I'm going to have anything to do.
Very nice.
Very important.
ING up with this, I'm proud of you to begin and cry.
We have to stand you on the right way. You're going to make A52, 10-4 Christian Airways.
I'm going to try and do that everything.
And, umm.
Uh-huh.
And you're proud, that's all. You're up leaving him. Umm.
Uh-huh.
00:05:06
Oh my God, I see my heart.
And time.
During the time.
Clearance and the water and the world's a lot of stuff to be in the following you're seeing here.
It's, it's bad, you know all those kind of arthritis, you know the right side together.
Look, to the Lord our God and our Father, we thank you for this hymn.
Reminds us of the Lord Jesus still calling us this evening. And we do pray that this evening none will put it off. This beautiful opportunity coming from the lips of Thy Son our Lord Jesus and from His heart to come to Him. And we pray none would be late and none would cross a fatal line and be too late. And we pray for blessing and help us as we open my word and speak to each of our hearts this evening. We pray and thank.
Nasty Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
By singing his hymns reminded me of.
Thing that happened to my wife and I on one of our trips to Cuba. We were leaving in November and, uh, our flight was 10:00. We have about an hour's drive to get to the airport and, uh, we left home about 6:00 in the morning. And they say you should be at the airport, you know, at least two hours, 3 hours before the flight starts. But so we had four hours and, uh, so we left at 6:00 in the morning.
But what happened was there was some ice on the road that night and some snow.
And most of the Quebec drivers who put their snow tires on hadn't put them on at that time. And the traffic was a mess. And it took us 3 hours to get to the airport. We were there just a bit after nine. The flight hadn't left, but they had closed the office. There's nobody at the counter there. And we, we missed our flight. We thought we were on time and we planned to be on time.
But we were late and we missed our flight. We had to book another flight. Finally we got there, but still.
You know, if they told me, their company said we're going to come over to your home.
With the bus, we're going to pick you up and that plane is not leaving until the bus arrives. That'd be perfect. So we didn't worry about the weather, worry about what time you leave. You just get on that bus and whenever it leaves, the flight is going to leave with the people on that bus. And I like to think of the gospel that way.
Tonight you can have full salvation before you leave this room.
You can be on time.
And not miss the Lord's coming.
Now perhaps you're gonna put it off as some people do.
I can't guarantee you that you're not going to miss the coming of the Lord.
But I can guarantee you tonight that if you accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior, if you haven't done it before.
You do this very evening. You can be on time. That's absolutely short.
By getting on that bus, I'm going to take you to the airport and that flight is not going to leave until the people on the bus get on the plane.
Well, let's look at some scriptures this evening, because.
We have the word of God before us, John chapter 8. Our brother yesterday spoke from John chapter 4.
About a woman who had five husbands and was living with a man. It wasn't her husband. We have a similar situation, you might say, of a moral character in John chapter 8.
And we read from verse one.
Gospel of John chapter 8, verse one. Jesus went into the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning he came again into the temple. And all the people came unto him. And he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had said her in the midst, they said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in a very act.
00:10:00
Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned.
I would say style.
This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. That's an italics, so you could skip that finger wrote on the ground, verse 7. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them.
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground, and they would heard it being convicted.
By their own conscience went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man that condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go.
And sin no more.
You know.
This woman.
She didn't come to the Lord by herself, she was brought there by the Pharisees.
For an evil purpose.
But I expect to see that woman in heaven.
They wanted to put a trap before the Lord because Moses told us to stone her. What are you saying?
You know, they were very partial because she had been caught in the very act and what she did you can't do by yourself. There had to be two there and the other guilty party.
They didn't bother to bring him to the Lord.
You know, I've enjoyed the details in Scripture of the Spirit of God giving us.
Mimics with miracles, sometimes the Lord putting his hands over the eyes or fingers in the ears and.
And what does he do here?
East Toothstown and he writes on the ground with his finger.
Now, if I was gonna write on the ground, maybe you've written on the sand here on the beach. I don't know. If you're gonna read right on the ground, you're probably gonna use this finger here. You're gonna start writing, you know, pretend it's a pencil and you're gonna, you know.
And the Lord stooped down and I think he used his finger. He started writing on the ground. Doesn't tell us what he wrote, you know.
But it tells us in this chapter that he wrote twice on the ground because after he spoke to them, he stooped down again and he wrote again on the ground with his finger. The word ground here, same word for earth, you know, in the Old Testament.
God had written twice on the earth with his finger.
In the New Testament, here's God manifest in flesh.
Riding twice on the ground with his finger.
Deuteronomy Chapter 9.
Deuteronomy 9.
And verse 10.
And the Lord delivered unto me, This is Moses speaking. And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written.
With the finger of God and on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spake with you in the mount. Utter the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
If you know a bit of the Old Testament history, when Moses came down from the mountain with the two tables of law written by the finger of God, he came into the camp.
And they were already disobeying the first commandment, not having another God before them. They had a golden calf.
That Aaron had.
Prepared for them.
So Moses takes the tables of the Lord. He didn't drop them, he threw them on the ground and he broke them because the law was broken already.
As soon as it's been given, it was broken. It was a broken law.
And if God, if Moses brings a broken law in the people that were supposed to keep it, they would have had to die and be condemned for breaking God's laws.
So Moses has to go back on the mount and God writes the same tables again with his finger.
On two other tables of stone that Moses brought.
00:15:02
And when Moses brings those down, he puts them in an ark of wood.
I'd like to see a parallel here with the Lord.
I think he was writing the commandments. I can't affirm that, but I enjoy it that way. He was writing the commandments. I wonder what he's writing there.
I think I better go, he said. Those of you that are without sin cast the first stone. I'm going to go home.
From the eldest to the youngest, you know, sometimes we're young and we say, well, you know, I'm improving.
Getting better all the time, you know.
What's the last commandment?
The last commandment says Thou shalt not covet.
Somebody can be sitting at meeting and having his Bible open, having his hands like this.
And he looks like he's meditating and thinking about the Lord.
But he's thinking about his friend since 15 speed bike he'd like to have for himself. He's coveting. Doesn't look like it.
But he's coming and something in his heart that God sees and says you're not allowed to do that. The law says thou shall not covet.
Let's say specifically your friend's bicycle, but that's what it means.
And so as they look down after he said, those are our reception cast the first stone, they started leaving.
And if you had been there, if I had been there and I was looking at what the Lord was saying.
And if he was writing the commandments, I'd have to say, well, I can't cast a stone at that woman. Was there a person there that could cast a stone at that woman?
There was one, one that was without sin, the Lord Jesus himself.
We didn't pick up a stone to cast a stone at her. He didn't come to judge and condemn.
He came to save and what did he say to her? He says.
Woman, where are those dying accusers that no man condemned thee?
You know if you read a bit earlier on and John's Gospel chapter 5.
And verse 45.
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuses you, even Moses.
In whom you trust.
You know most is given the law.
And they brought that woman to the Lord Jesus and said, what did Moses say about her? Moses would accuse her.
She did this.
And the Lord didn't say, but you did this.
He wrote on the ground. He didn't come to accuse.
He came to save and so he's writing on the ground there. So he's not pointing the finger at it, at that woman or anyone else. And tonight, the Lord Jesus, not pointing a finger.
With having you consider if you stand before him.
He's going to have to bring in judgment.
Those things that you've done, read John chapter 3.
John 318. We read verse 1617 quite often. I'm sure you know John 316.
He that believeth on him is not condemned.
But.
He that believeth not is condemned already.
Because he had not believed on a name in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
So, you know, if you stood before God on the basis of the law of Moses.
She would be condemned, they would be condemned, I would be condemned, we would all be condemned.
But if you my friend tonight, young person.
You stand before the Lord Jesus.
God is going to ask you.
Why you did not believe on the name of the Son of God?
He that believeth on him is not condemned.
But he that believeth not is condemned already. And why is he condemned? Because he's a Sinner.
00:20:04
Moses condemns people that are sinners.
They're condemned because they believe not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. That's what brings.
Their condemnation?
Read John chapter 12.
John 12, verse 48.
He that rejected me and receiveth not my words.
Had one that judgeth him, the word that I have spoken the same shall judge him.
In the last day.
The words of Moses.
The words of the Lord Jesus.
We're not living in Old Testament times. In the Old Testament times, they had sacrifices and God had provided for them in His mercy. I wait for forgiveness because the sins that He forgave were laid on the account of the Lord Jesus. When He came, He had all that had been forgiven or laid aside in the Old Testament by the Lord.
Sins committed before were not punished, they were to be put on the Lord Jesus on the cross.
And the ones that we committed after to be put on him on the cross, and yours have been committed after.
The Old Testament, they had sacrifices to put it on the Lord's account.
In the New Testament, there are no sacrifices to put it on the Lord's account.
It's believing in the name of the Son of God. It's receiving the Lord Jesus your Savior.
Turn with me now to Revelation Chapter 21, Chapter 20, rather Revelation Chapter 20.
Revelation 20 and verse 11.
And I saw a great white throne.
And him.
That sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.
You know Scripture tells us that all judgment is given unto the Son.
And he's the one sitting on that throne. Great White Throne speaks of holiness and him that sat on it.
The Lord Jesus Himself.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.
And the books were opened.
And another book was opened, which is the book of life, And the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works.
I don't know how many books there were.
But it's books in the plural.
God had the Old Testament written.
Young man comes to the Lord in Matthew 18. He said, what must I do to inherit it? Everlasting life?
Just keep the law.
Somebody keeps the law. There's a promise of life in the law.
The Lord isn't teaching us that now in the New Testament, but He was answering this man, this man's question, this Jewish young man's question.
Keep the law. If you do these things, you'll live by them. It was a promise connected with not sinning.
Nobody could inherit the promise, because nobody did not sit except the Lord Jesus. So if we own the book of the Old Testament.
And we reviewed your life and my life and the life of every human being since Adam till the end of time.
And read from the books of the Old Testament.
Would be condemned.
Moses would accuse us.
He would accuse you.
According to your works, not somebody else's works, your works, how you live, how you behave. Take out the Book of Moses and say guilty.
None justified by the works of the law? Impossible.
Let's try another book.
00:25:01
Let's try the New Testament. That's another book.
And in the New Testament, the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.
And God offers forgiveness for sin.
Eternal life, eternity in heaven with Christ, beautiful promises and inheritance. Our brother was reading about this afternoon. Kept for us in heaven.
Sets it before you.
And what he asks of you?
Is believing, that's all.
You believe it's yours, the Old Testament. You do. It's yours. You can't get it from doing. You're disqualified. So God says I'm offering it to you by believing because I have someone who is paid for your sins.
It costs God so much I cannot measure what it cost him to save my soul.
And to save yours. And to fill heaven with children, His children.
He forsook the Lord Jesus on the cross, and he cried the Son of God.
Hanging between heaven and earth, rejected by the earth, a heaven close to him. And he says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
God didn't answer him.
And it's not that he felt forsaken, I'm sure he did, but he was forsaken.
So you and me, forsaken.
So God put your name in the book of life, because when the books were opened and everybody was judged according to their works.
None were found.
Eligible.
To enter into heaven.
Accept.
Those of whose name?
Within the book of life.
So I ask you tonight I'm gonna point you with the finger. I'm pointing all you guys, women, young children. I'm pointing you. Not gonna do it personally because I don't want you to be uncomfortable. So I'm gonna point at me. So what about you, Michelle? Oh, if you open the books of the Old Testament, say I'm guilty.
We opened the books of New Testament. Oh.
I was 27 and I realized I was a Sinner and I accepted the Lord Jesus my Savior. I put my trust in Him.
Oh, you put my name in the book of life, and you know I have many other scriptures that tell me I'm not going to be standing there before the wicked white throne.
But you know.
Some people say that nobody was found written in the book of life there, but it doesn't say that.
Read with me verse 15.
14 and 15 and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
You know, if somebody dies.
Temporary conditions Death is a temporary condition a human being.
Separated from his body is a temporary condition.
Believers, when they're absent from the body, they're present with the Lord. That's a temporary condition. When the Lord comes, the bodies are going to be resurrected. Now living are going to be changed. They're going to have a body for eternity.
And the unbelievers, they can be brought back from death to be in their bodies, and to stand before God before that great white throne. And death is cast into the lake of fire. No more possible to be in that intermediate state. This is eternity now.
And it says in verse 15.
And whosoever was not found written in the Book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That's hell. That's the that's the final you get in that lake of fire never coming out.
It's a terrible faith.
FATE.
Because you didn't have faith, fait.
Which is it gonna be for you, Faith?
Or faked.
Why are they casting the litigate fire? Because they're sinners. No, that's not what it says.
They're cast into the Lake of Fire because their name is not.
In the book of life.
Some of you have bibles with, uh, I think it's some indexes, perhaps you call them.
00:30:04
Sometimes they just, you know.
Carved into the pages, or sometimes they're sticking out and you go with your fingers, you know?
What's your name?
Roger. What's the family name?
I'll look again.
It's not there.
Peter, what's your family name?
How come your name is not in there?
Weren't you in Carlton?
The year before, the year after, or this year?
Didn't you hear?
That you should be in time.
And what'd you do?
He rolled on the ground.
And he's going to look in the book.
Who name isn't there?
How come your name isn't there?
I have a pencil here.
I could write your name tonight.
But it wouldn't matter. I write a piece of paper and whatever, it's not going to matter if I write your name down.
But if the Lord Jesus tonight writes your name down in his book of life.
Wow, you're not going to stand there. You're not going to be there, but.
I can't affirm that all those that are going to stand before the Great White Throne are going to be cast in the Lake of Fire. That's not what it says.
They've got in this prerogative as written names.
I can't say you can't do that. God can do what he wants.
But John 318 says.
Condemned already because he believed not.
So which part describes you? John 318? Let's see here.
John 318 He and I believed on him is not condemned. He that believeth not is condemned.
Already only two options.
Somebody here doesn't understand English.
I think I said put your hands up because you understand what I said. But I think everybody understands English. You know, if you didn't, we could speak another language. We can explain it to you before you leave the room.
But there's a danger if you leave this room tonight and you're not saved, no matter how old you are.
You might be just too late.
Fellows running to the train station in the morning, you know I need boy.
He's all blue.
You know, he was only one second late. Uh, but he was late.
The train left without him.
It doesn't matter how close you were to getting saved.
You were locked. I almost am persuaded that's the hymn we sing.
I'm almost saved. I'm almost believing that that's not good enough.
He only writes the names of those that believe.
Tonight, my friend, young person, you might have heard it many times. Maybe this is the first time you hear it, but there's a Savior who came into the world.
And he went to the cross, and he accepted to offer himself for your sins and mine.
And God, our Father proposes to you the greatest gift ever offered to a man, eternal life.
Through faith in Christ Jesus, it can be yours tonight, if it's not yours already. It's not based on how much faith you have.
It's based on the person in whom you have faith.
The smallest possible faith in the greatest person ever.
Will save your soul forever.
Some people speak of having great faith, and when you speak with them about the greatness of their faith, you find they have a small savior.
A statement that says what You believe in me. But you know if you don't keep trusting me, I might just let you go and drown anyway. Well, that's not in my Bible. I have an all the way home Savior. He did all that was required to bring everyone here in this room, everyone in the state of Ohio and everyone in the United States or anyone on the face of this planet. God has given His Son and he's sufficient to save the whole of mankind.
But he only saves those that believe. And we are very privileged in North America. We're very privileged to have the liberty to speak of these things here. Countries in the world. You can't go in the country with a Bible. They won't let you in with your scripture.
00:35:09
Here, not only we have Bibles we can preach freely, so we have the privilege of hearing.
And once we've heard, we've become responsible.
And I wouldn't want the Lord to ask you. Weren't you listening?
Why your name is not in there?
I'm ready to put your name down in my book of life. I paid for you on the cross of Calvary. I want you in heaven. Will you trust me?
Will you receive me in your heart tonight as your savior? Young boy, Young girl, you might have heard it many times.
Our Lord is looking for for you to say, Lord Jesus, save me and he will.
Sometimes you hear children say to their father, Daddy, Daddy, you know, Daddy, Daddy you know.
Daddy busy with something else. The Lord is never busy with anything else. He's listening for your cry to say for Jesus. Save me. He's listening tonight.
Why don't you do it now? If you've never done it, do it tonight. You're not gonna be late for sure.
And if you don't do it tonight, you've never done it.
You might be late, the fatal line might be passed, and you're going to live through.
This terrible scene where nobody speaks. There's no ground to stand on there in the midst of nothing. God is holding them there before the throne by his power, and he's looking in the books.
Going over their deeds to compare with what's in the books.
And if the name isn't found in the book of life, cast into the lake of fire and my friend, what they are going to suffer for eternity, my Savior, the Lord Jesus suffered for me.
He suffered for you.
And so don't put it off. Perhaps you put it off before we think of these men. They brought this woman and she was fearful she might have gotten stoned that very day. She was a guilty person. She wasn't stoned. The Lord didn't condemn her. She says go and sin no more.
I'll have this little passage in Luke's Gospel, at times almost up, where it says the Lord Jesus was removed from the disciples, a stone cast. They wanted to cast stones on this woman. And here's the Lord Jesus withdrew from them by a stone cat. He's taking her place in picture. He's taking our place and picture in the crosshair. He's being punished for your sins and for my sins. It's a wonderful savior and it'd be a terrible thing to hear about him.
And not believe.
Let's pray.
A God and our Father, we thank thee for loving us so much for the gift of thy Son. And we think of these, these wicked men who were as guilty as that woman hypocrites, and we'd all be guilty of that. And we thank thee for thy mercy. We thank thee for the Son of God, the Lord Jesus writing with his finger on the earth. And we just thank you for these thoughts that thou did have to write the law twice because we'd broken it and.
We thank you for your mercy. We thank you for the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ.
We thank you for these precious verses. You'd have to believe it is not condemned but either believe it not is condemned already and we pray to be none in this room young or old that are condemned already that their faith has been determined already because they believe not that they would have faith if aith trusting in the Lord Jesus tonight and we pray to ever call upon thy name. They would this evening even before they leave this room. Lord Jesus, save me we thank thee thy near is bending to hear these cries and to write.
They have been written already in the book of life. We thank Thee, Father, for these pictures, for these verses, for Thy word and nice spirit, but above all for that blessed One, our Lord Jesus, the wonderful Savior we haven't known. And we pray with that of everyone here, and thy name, Lord Jesus, we pray, Amen.
Remember Lot's Wife
Children—David So
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T I C I A L M K A L I N G A L A D A T A L A T A L A T A L A T A R A R I A I D A T I J A T K O N G A R T O N G T E N T A N A M A T M O T E R T A L T O NOTT ONDONGADDDDDDDDBDDDDD DBG.
And because we have been on the call of the day, I lost our head.
And you want to be all I have to do?
Is give you all right? I have to end him and I'll talk to him and come on, stop away.
All right, let's look to the Lord for help.
Bless our God and our loving Father. We would give thanks again this morning for thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee. We can sing, uh, hymns like this of glad tidings, knowing that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. More particularly, he came into the world to save.
Me and now we look today we ask for help for this little time together. We think of the purpose of this meeting and particularly for children, we do pray that thou would help each children in this room, younger or older too, that, uh, we would learn more about Jesus And if there be anyone in this room who are still lost in their sins, that I would help them to repent.
While there's still time. So we ask for help and commit this meeting into thine hand once more in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
That was a good hymn to start. Glad tidings. I know a Sunday school, but in Gospel we often say the good news of salvation. Well, Sunday school is really no different, isn't it? That whether you're young or old, we need to hear this glass tidings that Jesus has come to say who to say, me to save you.
And he's calling for all the boys, all the girls to trust in him.
And have their sins wash away. Anyone else have another one?
I know there are only 47 hymns to choose for. Oh go ahead.
42420 I like this one. This is one of my favorite. Now some of you know I changed the rule with this him a little bit. So let me explain my rules. When we sing this, we will sing this around the the way it is the first time. The second time around, we're gonna change some of the words so slightly because in this room we have children.
That are a little bit older than six or seven. So the second time around we think a little children of 70 is that OK? Yeah and it says or even 34 because I think as I look around the someday here that are 34 and I talked with someone yesterday in fact I talked with at least two.
Older ones that says they were 69, so they're pretty close to 70. So a little child of 70 or even 34. So we're seeing it the way it is first and then we're seeing it around the second time that way, uh.
And there's been a lot of.
To give you over 500 minutes, OK, so you're going to be out of 10 seconds and we'll follow up with you.
Oh my God, she's got a lot of practice with me and she's pretty good.
Umm and crying. Stop, stop, stop.
And then just hold on for a few years. Please continue to make your turn. That's one of the greatest, uh, we're going to have a.
Mm-hmm.
00:05:21
All right.
You're still talking to me.
That's not possible right here. Umm, we're going to go to the next event for a while. I'm going to run.
That was nice. So I hope by singing this hymn, we know that everyone in this room is included, not just the little one in front of us in the front row. Even though you'd be 70 or 34 or seven or three or four, it means we all need to come to Christ, to that open door of our Lord Jesus by believing that he died for our sins.
Now before we sing the next film.
I need some help for the rest of you. I just wanna share something and I hope you don't get offended. Often when we sing in a large group like this, we don't listen to the other people's singing. We sing the way we sing at home. And the problem is?
You sort of wait for the sound to come through from one end to the other. So if someone sing really slow and by the time you hear the other end, you go slower. And we have about 3 different speeds going on here, let alone the pitch and tone and so on. But we've got three different speeds. And then it sounds, if you're standing up front, you can feel that it's some kind of different. I, I know one sister told me one time, she said get used to it. That's the echo of grace.
But but.
But really we should, and perhaps perhaps we should just get our our comfort zone a little bit and think a little bit faster, listen to the other persons just so we don't drag it on. Now I know I'm just as bad on it, but I really feel that everybody should follow how I do it right then. Well, I'll be in one accord. No, I'm just kidding on that. But let's make it lively. Do we sing? What a joyful voice and a joyful.
Do we sing as if well, this morning I'm still not awake, so we should really say, make this joyful noise unto the Lord, shouldn't we? Are you happy that you are saved? And perhaps there is someone and you we always think of the little one. Perhaps there's an adult in this room who have.
Never heard of the gospel message before?
What testimony would that be? Oh, perhaps there's another person who have had heard of the gospel.
We see them at every meeting, every conference.
But they are not saved. And could it be possible that they go into the mind and say, man, there they go again, a bunch of deadbeats? No, we're not, are we? We are happy Christians. We have, as we were reminded yesterday, that blessed hope. Do you realize that we have a place. We have a hope that no one else have. We have eternal life.
This world.
Have no hope. They call things happiness. What's happiness? Oh, they got drunk. They were so happy. They got drunk. They were partying, they were happy. But then hours later they paid the price. Is that happiness? So that's enough said. Let's have another him and prove that we can sing.
From the from our heart. Anyone else have another him for us?
No.
Oh, thank you, 47.
Oh, this is a nice one too. When he comes, are we waiting for the Lord to come?
Home.
Let us go to the Royce. And it's a surprise for how long now? I'm not gonna be staying. Thank you so much again. It's good for me. Fried salmon on a wonderful day. And umm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:10:40
Exercise.
In the big Friday, that's why I get the ground.
And I'm gonna take it out so we can do that. Don't stay on the ground every day and see her product That's, you know, practice material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm gonna take that into the phone.
Exercise around the morning, standing right around the barking.
Wow, I know you're still sitting where you are, but from up here that sounded nice. Could you hear the difference yourself?
Now, just so you'll remember this, we should do this for the rest of the Sunday school. Would that be OK?
Perhaps let's extend that, because shortly after this we have the privilege of remembering our Lord in his death for us. Can we remember that too?
Not shouting, but singing from our hearts because the character for that meeting will be a little bit different. We are there to remember him and his death for us.
But we are told, too, to be reminded of a soon return. So as a brother, he reminded us yesterday. In one end we see death, the other end we reminded of his return.
And thus we're here to remember him. So we should sing from our heart. Let's prove we can do this by singing one more hymn. You were going to put it. No. I guess I pointed to you. OK, that wasn't fair. What about some older boys or girls? Someone who is under 70?
#5.
He has to prove that he's under 70.
#5.
Oh, OK.
00:15:06
That's my wife.
That's that's everywhere. No more. I have a bad problem. No, I want to get my heart to extend my background. That's not really good. It's one of the bad nights.
I didn't know that.
See, we can do it, can we? That was nice. Just one slight word of caution. I, I know I said we should sing a little bit faster, but sometimes we get carried away. So we find that something a little bit faster than the faster one. So we have to still listen and have to be able to sing in one accord, right?
Now Fibo versus time, how many have you learned your verses? OK, I won't ask you to show of hands. You know why I used to I used to get so scared and I I don't like doing Bible verses in front of a crowd. No one feel like that. I remember I used to sit there and go.
There are three more people. Then it's my turn.
And I used to get so scared and then when it comes to my turn, I didn't know what to say. I was so scared. So I don't like doing it.
So here's what I want you to do.
I want you to go say that to your mom and dad. I know they taught you and make you say it, so how many of you actually learned it?
OK, let me change the question. How many of you gonna go back and say it to your mom and dad just to prove that? OK, so if you're gonna say it to your mom and dad, you can come up and claim one of these.
I guess it's not good here. You guys call this Dum Dums. So don't don't think I'm telling you that you are this, but you're if you're gonna say this verse afterwards your mom and dad are to another adult, that's fine too. Please come up and claim one of these unless you don't like Dum Dums.
Now make sure you made a promise that you're going to say that verse.
I think they're all the same, even the wrappers is different.
The boys don't want any.
Well, you learn it and say to mom after that, how's that? Unless you're not going to do it.
You're not gonna. Oh.
Any other children who would like to complain one of these because you know you're gonna say the verse, Joanne, come on up. You're gonna promise you say the verse to your dad.
At least to your mom.
Anyone else?
I'll sit it right here just in case if you're afraid of me Now, there's a reason for this. Part of the reason is we don't have enough time to say the verses. Not that it's bad. It's good to memorize verses because another brother reminded me this morning saying we're getting older, that we can't remember things. So it's good to learn that while you can because they stay in you.
Now I'll like you to turn for those of you who have your Bible with you.
I'd like you to turn to Luke's Gospel.
I believe the 17th chapter.
I want to share with you a complicated story. This is good for children because people think children can understand.
But yet they seem to hear what parents and friends talk about in private, that they hear things and they understand more than they think. So let's see if we can understand a complicated story. Now. I want you to learn a verse with me first. Then we'll go back to the story. Is it OK? Because once you learn that this is what I want you to do. Every now and then as we go through the story, I want you to repeat this verse because I want you children to.
00:20:22
Now the gospel story is that OK Now it's a very difficult verse to remember. I know you know, do you remember you mom say choose a version to memorize and we choose something short like Jesus wept. Remember doing that. It was easy right with I learned the whole verse. Now this time I chose a verse with three words that's more than the two.
Do you think you can handle that? It sounds really funny. So Luke's Gospel, chapter 17, verse 32.
Now, some of you don't have your Bible in front of you, or maybe you can read that. So you say it with me. I'm going to say it first, OK? Is that remember?
Lot's wife.
That's a tough one, right? Can you say it with me?
Remember.
Lot's wife.
Is that a gospel message?
Well, we can make that a gospel message because I believe that's a gospel message. That's just a look down at Suzanne. I remember speaking with on this verse probably 10 years ago. And you told me a nice story about your children, which we'll share that again. Well, not here. We'll. I haven't used this story in a long time. I just remember as I looked down. But remember Lot's wife.
Let's see if children up front can you say this by yourself? Ready.
We.
Remember large Why? Why do we want to remember somebody's wife?
Well, there's a story to this. The story is complicated. If you read the verses before that, they talk about two people.
Well, depending on how technical you want to be, I guess it's more than two but two main characters. And then it's just remember Lot's wife. So let me read this just to get the connections here.
Verse 26.
As it is in the days of NO or NOAA, NOAA.
So shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they merry wives they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. How many of you heard of the story of Noah?
Oh good. OK, some still haven't, but it's still nice.
Noah That's a interesting story, and it's a story that you'll find a world doesn't want to share very much of, because I'll tell you why. This is my opinion.
Noah speaks of judgment, not just judgment, judgment that was executed. God actually did pronounce it, and he went ahead with it.
And you know, the whole world except eight people were saved. Terrible story, isn't it? But it shows that God is serious, that he must punish sin. Oh, Noah is interesting too.
I was reading the Chinese history, some of it, a little bit of it, not the whole history. And the Chinese, did you believe, do you realize that they set the forefather? The very first Chinese was Noah.
How dare do they claim that?
You think they're right?
The Chinese are right. NOAA was a great, great, great, great, great. I don't know how many great grandfather from about 4000 years ago. I can stand here and say my great, great, great, great grandfather. I know for sure, especially from the word of God.
Was Noah.
How many of you can say that?
How many of you are Chinese?
But.
Aw, all, all, all descendants, all men on this earth are descendant of Noah, isn't it is in fact, Noah's story is very interesting. You go through his sons. You know, this is for the older one. If you want to play with the number 70, there were seventy nations coming out from Noah's descendants according to the tribes, uh, uh, from the Lord of Jacob, who were 70. You, you, you go through that. It's very interesting. Actually, you have 71 descendants, 1 have no children. So there are 70 that's spread on.
00:25:05
And that #70 so Noah, they said it was interesting in Noah's day, people were having a good time.
They they eat, they drink. Did you eat? Did you guys eat? No, I do. I like to eat.
While the drinking here I think is a little bit different, I think they drank, they get drunk. I don't like that.
They marry wives. Do we do that today? In fact, there's a wedding coming up this Saturday. Again, this seems to be the year of weddings. We have numerous weddings this year of the past year or so. And is that? And they did all this SF and today we use the phrase life goes on.
Until Noah went into the ark and God shut the door. So there was Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. So how many people would that be?
How many?
Hey, that's right.
Egg Souls, that was it.
And the rest of the world? Millions perish in the flood. Sad story, isn't it?
And then, well, we haven't got to what was that verse, what we're supposed to say? Remind me that remember something?
Say, say it together, what is it?
Well, Noah really doesn't love, doesn't have much to do. What? No, a lot was not even born yet.
But God used these two stories because there are similarities in there. So we have to remember a lot twice. So next portion, verse 28 is that likewise also as it was it as it was in the days of Lot.
They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. Wow, life goes on too. A little bit different. They were doing more stuff, right? They sound very much American here, I think, right? They, they build, they they bought, they sold, they planted. Wow, business goes on now. You know, what's interesting is there's no mention of marriage.
I wonder more and more people were living and seeing and, you know, young people, we're in a society that we're told to be careful what we say. You gotta conform to what the world does.
No, you need to conform to what the Word of God wants you to conform to. To the image of His Son. There's a lot of wickedness that they don't want you to agree with.
Marriage, the Word of God said, is honorable or should be held in honor. They didn't do that. There was a lot of sins going on. And God, God, the world still says, but he's a God of love. How can he punish people?
Is God a God of love?
Yes he is but do you remember learning that short verses God is something and then God. God is love and and God is.
What is it?
There are two character to God. God is love. And do you remember?
Yeah, what does it mean? He's very bright.
Well, He is, but light means there's no sin tolerated in His presence. So there is that balance. He loves us, but he cannot. He is holy and God must punish sin. So in last day there were a lot of immoralities going on. They disobey God. Now you would think we as men would go. We learn from history.
No, we don't.
If we learn from history, we will be super super good by now.
We don't, and I can prove that too. I see smile on someone's face. Your mom and dad tell you that, don't they? They say don't do that. And really what they're saying is don't do it because I've done it before and it wasn't happy.
We learned from that. No, we need to find out. We need to know what does Mom and Dad know? So that's our nature, isn't it? We don't learn from history. So not long before that, the world was destroyed by the flood.
Man didn't learn when it comes to lodge time. They were so bad, but there was something different. So let's read verse 29. But the same day that lot went out of Sodom.
00:30:08
It rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
How many of you saw heavy rain before it rained so hard?
Well, sometimes we say rain cats and dogs. Have you ever seen cats and dogs coming down from the sky?
No, but it just seems that way. But here it was heavy, heavy rain. But it's different what came down from heaven.
I don't think we ever seen that.
Fire and brimstone, and it burned and it destroyed everything in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Men say this is a myth. I know some folks just went to Israel not long ago and some have been there previously.
In the land they have discovered the land of Sodom.
So that land is totally desolate, am I right? I don't know. It's not exactly a tourist destination because men do not want to be reminded.
That God executed judgment.
That land, nothing grows. And he said what is the desert? Well, no, it's all ashes. Why was why is it all ashes? Because it was bur.
Fire. That's right, it was burned up by fire and brimstone. What are brimstones?
I don't think we ever played with brimstone, do we? Yeah. I'm not sure what it is neither, but I think it's something to do with like sulfur, hot molten sulfur. But interesting enough, if you ever get to go to that land, they say you brush off the ashes and you see golf ball size of pure sulphur. Man has never mind sulfur as pure as that.
There is still evidence of that. And because it's all ashes, nothing can grow. It's not just a desert. So here.
We talk about two judgments, that God destroyed the world by flood, and the second time to cities in that region by fire. Verse 30 And even thus shall we be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
Now I know your children this uncomplicated, I'll share with you in that the phrase, how many of you heard of the phrase the Son of God?
Who is the Son of God?
Jesus is the Son of God.
What do you mean we just read? Did they say the Son of God?
What did we just read? Look at verse 30 again. Does it say the Son of God is going to come and execute judgment?
How many we noticed that phrase in there.
What does it say the son?
The Son of man isn't that interesting. Now the sun with a big capital S don't be confused with the sun's small S of man. That's us. We're the sons of man, but this is the Son of God.
Now you can tell your parents if they forget because they will forget. You said whenever you see the Son of man, not Son of God, whenever you see the Son of Man, it means two things. He's the one, a man of sorrows and reject.
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He's the one that came and suffered for us. That's always that picture.
Then there's a second character of the Son of Man. That is, he's the one that's gonna come and execute judgment on this world. Interesting. Hey, so the Son of Man now Lot, that gets to the real story. Now, how it was Lot saved. If the fire and brimstone came coming down from heaven into them, how did he get preserved?
He went away.
Yeah, that's sort of right. He went away. How did he go away?
Anyone else? No.
How he laughed at him. He left the city. He did. That's right.
00:35:02
But it's interesting that, you know, there's something about lot is that.
Lot. Just Lot. He vexed his righteous soul. He loved that city of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And there's a picture for us now. You're still younger and we have some who are younger and a little bit older that how many of you love the cities you're in? There's so much going on. How many you say? My hometown is so small. I like the bigger place. There's attractions of all sorts.
Well, lot loved it.
At first it pitches tent towards Sodom and before we know it he he lived in a house in Sodom. Oh, it's nice lot. I believe he didn't want to leave his treasure is there where your treasure? Your treasure is there is your heart Maybe also, but God sent his angels.
They said and he came and he took hold of him. It's like you need to come home with me. He's going, no, I took all of him. I dragged him and take him home with me. And that's what the Lord did, along with his wife and his two daughters.
Isn't it nice of God? That's the grace of God, isn't it?
And they were told do not look back.
It's like how many times mom and dad say to you don't go there. You sort of go, OK, I won't, but we keep looking back and say, but ah.
We know that, right? They were told. Don't look back.
Say that verse again. What was that verse? Say it loudly, remember?
Louder.
Louder.
Help them louder.
That's the gospel message. What are you? What are we to remember Lot's wife on?
She looked back. Then what happened?
He turned into that pillar of salt. Oh, she was so close to be saved. As if I can picture this if you take a giant step.
She would have been saved. She was so close. God took hold of her and took her out of that dreadful place called Sodom. Drag her out.
But her heart was still in Sodom, and she looked back.
Disobeyed the word of God and she was turned into a pillar of salt. So what are we told? What was that verse again?
Let's help them.
Yes, when we disobey, we have to remember God is gracious, He's willing that nobody should be, should perish.
But you know, it's our heart. We said, God, I don't need you.
And we perish by our own works. So remember Lord's wife, remember that God will punish sin twice. It happens. And he tells us that he's going to come again and this world would be totally destroyed. You know, as such, as someone jokingly the other day they said about global warming, I said I believe that. How many of you believe in global warming?
Yeah, it's gonna happen because I said to the the word of God said so is the whole earth is gonna melt in furth and heat.
What do you call that? I think it's global. Maybe it's more than global warming. It's more global toasting. That's everything is gonna melt. God must punish sin and children, young people.
The word of God said for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But he also said, he loved you, that he sent his Son to die for you. So we read from his word, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Then a question often asked, What must I do to be saved? You know the answer, don't you? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And yesterday our brother reminded us. Romans 9 and 10 If thou shalt confess, Oh, oh, I forgot, how does it go? If thou shall confess, Someone help me.
Inside mouth. Oh, that's right, word thy mouth. How can I forget that? If thou shalt confess with thy mouth? What?
00:40:05
The Sinner that's good, but the verse is that thou shall confess with thy mouth.
Something about someone?
The Lord Jesus. Yeah. So confession with your mouth. We tell people that he's my Lord. He's Jesus. Jesus. His name shall be called Jesus. That's right. For he shall save his people from their sins. And then what else? There's something else in that verse.
If thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
And.
And.
The the AH.
I know Canadian will say AAAA but in this case it's B something.
And wow.
Believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, and thou shalt be saved.
Let's see that verse once more. What was that verse you were helping me with? Remember what?
Remember a Lot's wife. OK, we have time for one more hint.
You gave one hour already. This is someone else. I don't want people to think I play safer.
Yes #40.
Oh this is nice #40.
8 strong yeah. It's not a club space. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
I'm seeing.
Yeah, maybe it's not a problem today. I'll buy some calcium. Umm.
Please don't tell me anything brilliant. I don't have time. If you're going to follow, I have to find out why you gave me the right one.
All right, so now we need to buy.
065981 1005 A lot of straight inside all the way, and thy constant shall I light.
Oh my God, it's almost me. I'm going to.
Let's commit ourselves. Bless our God and our loving Father. We give thanks this morning for Thy word before us. We thank Thee for the children who are able to come and listen and hear Thy word. So we look today and we pray for each one here. We know the story perhaps may be a little bit complicated, but we do know it is Thy word. So we do pray that that would help them to.
Remember to remember the story of Lot's wife, to remember that judgment that thou has executed judgment, and there is judgment to come, and to remember to obey and to heed thy word. So we give thanks this morning, and we do pray once more if there be any loss. So in this room we ask for.
Thy help that thou would bring them and draw them to thyself. Help them to repent while there is still time.
And we'll look through the two for the gospel message as they go forward in various places. Today we pray and ask for blessing. And now we commit ourselves into thine hand. We think of shortly after we shall have the privilege of remembering our Lord Jesus Christ in his death for us. And we do thank Thee for what we think of how the hymn writer would express those words. Till thou shall come.
00:45:19
In glory and call us hands away. Thus we can be reminded, for as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do show the Lord's death till he comes. So we give thanks once more this morning in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
Now before your children go away, let's start off. Thank you for helping me and for anyone else who felt they were a help in saying that verse. Feel free to reward yourself with one of these so you're free to take another one. I will leave it out here and anyone out in the background as well. Thank you.
Root
Comfort Zone
1 Corinthians 11:26, Idols
Open—M. Payette, P. Hadley
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.
Let me see number 78 in appendix.
And now I ways, Lord, be right by praise Lord for breath for the day there thy coming again.
In 78.
In colonoscopy.
Uh-huh.
So, uh, you know, I'll check if I, I, I, I, I don't know.
50.
Three.
Dollars.
Uh.
OK.
OK.
If you continue to send that around, OK, so I don't understand your voice. It's, it's a little bit more like it's, it's been a day for about 5 days for a minute. A lot of everybody's everything. So a little bit.
Uh-huh, I appreciate it, I replied. And.
I saw my name and all your parents.
Uh-huh.
Turn with me, please, to 1St Corinthians 11.
1St Corinthians 11.
Verse 26.
Verse often read Lord's Day morning for as often as he eat this bread.
00:05:00
And drink this cup.
He do show the Lord's death.
Till he come.
Beautiful hymn that we sang.
I'm waiting for the Lord.
Can we say?
Will we say if we're left here tomorrow morning, I'm waiting for the Lord, and while I'm waiting for the Lord, I'm remembering the Lord.
Beautiful house Spirit of God just puts the death of the Lord before us on the coming of the Lord for us just together in this verse. You know the death of the Lord till he comes.
I'd like to suggest to you some thoughts from the scriptures that I have enjoyed.
And I'd like to say this in connection with that that.
I I enjoy reading ministry very much and I do get much profit and light from being ministry. And I suggest to you that if you never read ministry, you're depriving yourself of a rich source of enjoyment of the things of the Lord and the Lord Himself.
However.
As much as I profit by ministry, I have enjoyed thoughts in the Word of God that are different.
From the one suggested to me in the ministry that I've read.
And I have no no problem with was was suggested in the ministry books.
But I suggest to you that the Spirit of God is able to give you fresh thoughts from this wonderful book if we just read the words that are there.
I want you to turn first of all to 2nd Corinthians chapter 12.
Beautiful chapter of a man in Christ.
2nd Corinthians Second Corinthians 12 and two I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago. Whether in the body I cannot tell, but without of the body I cannot tell. I got to know it. God know it such in one cut up to the 3rd heaven. And you said to man whether in the body or other body I cannot tell God know it and.
How that he was caught up into paradise.
And heard unspeakable words, which is not lawful for a man to utter.
Is the Apostle Paul? Read the chapters very clear. The Apostle Paul Speaking of himself.
A man in Christ taken up into the 3rd heaven.
Didn't know if it was in his body. Out of the body you couldn't tell.
But we can say and we can affirm that a man in Christ is going to be taken up.
Into the 3rd heaven with his body.
Particular revelation given to the Apostle Paul, First Thessalonians, chapter four, First Corinthians 15. If you're a man in Christ, just like the apostle Paul, if the Lord Jesus your Savior, you're a man in Christ and you're going to be taken up into the 3rd heaven with your body change, incorruptible and immortal.
The fourth verse.
Someone I know had a Bible with umm, the notes from John Mccarter well known.
Minister in Christian circles and he had a little note on verse 4.
And he said, uh, in the note there that Paul heard things that he was not allowed to repeat.
And I don't think that's what the verse says.
And because John MacArthur said it.
It provoked me to check out.
I think he's, I think he's off. I don't want to suggest that my other brethren who have suggested that Paul heard things he could not repeat are off.
And I'll leave you with that thought.
When I read this verse, what this verse says?
It says here that he was taken up into paradise.
And he heard.
What did he hear?
He heard words.
That is not lawful for a man to express.
00:10:01
But there were words expressed.
The word here, it says unspeakable. If you look up the word in there, it's different than what you have in Romans 8.
By growing things, we cannot be uttered. They can't. There's no sounds coming out. That word there means unspoken.
These were words that were never spoken before.
Because they were heard.
And the apostle Paul.
Heard them.
I believe.
That's what happened. Not challenging any other thought.
So either Paul is walking around with a secret and revelations that he has.
But I'm not allowed to share those with you.
And to me.
And my simple mind, I wouldn't know why God would tell Paul, not tell you and I, when the Spirit of God wants to lead us into all truth and he's got this little secret by himself. But it's all right.
But if he heard things from the Lord himself.
The revelations that he heard from the Lord Himself is what He transmits to us.
It connects a bit with the fact that he had to be taken up into heaven.
And to hear these words from the Lord himself, not from another man, not from a prophet, not from Agabus or anybody else.
Fruit from heaven.
Words he heard from the Lord himself. I enjoy that.
And I connect that now with First Corinthians Chapter 11.
1St Corinthians 11.
Verse 23.
Now the apostle Paul.
He had many revelations from the Lord. He wrote fourteen of the 27 books in the New Testament.
He has much and much and much to communicate.
But here the Spirit of God singles out this expression.
I have received of the Lord.
That which also I delivered unto you, I could stop there and say all the epistles of Paul, he received that from the Lord, and he delivered that unto us. And I, you probably wouldn't object to that, would you?
But the Spirit of God has reserved that expression.
And connected it specifically with the remembrance of the Lord.
I have received with the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed.
But bread?
And he instituted the Feast of Remembrance, the Lord's Supper.
And he did not say this. Due in remembrance of what I've done for you.
He says this do and remembrance of me.
I'm waiting for the coming of the Lord. That's beautiful. Without him is even nicer. I'm waiting for the Lord. We're not looking forward to an event, looking forward to a person.
Tomorrow morning we're going to show an event.
But we're gonna be remembering a person.
And the difference is events are up here.
And persons are down here.
And I believe worship is the overflow of the appreciation of the person and all that he is and all that he's done, Such as these thoughts to you. And I don't want to provoke anybody. I just enjoyed these Acts Chapter 20.
I wanna go over that shortly and, uh, leave room for another.
Acts, chapters 20.
There again beautiful ministry I've read.
But a thought came to me that I never read. In fact, I read something different.
00:15:04
But I believe the Spirit of God brings to us these thoughts so we could appreciate.
The Revelation has given us now in connection with the person of the Lord Jesus and what you are to Him, what we are to Him, and what He should be to us right now.
Acts Chapter 20.
Verse four. They accompanied him as Paul and Asia, Sulfater of Berea of the Thessalonians, Iris, Tarkas, Segundus and Gaius of Derby and Timotheus and Hystericius, Central FEMA and either seven there.
And with Paul going before tarry for us at ROAS and they waited for them verse six, five days and they're both there seven days and verse 7.
And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to bring bread.
All preached unto them, ready to depart on the Morrow and continue this speech until midnight.
Were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together, and they're sat in the window. A certain young man named Eudicus being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft, was taken up dead. And Paul went down and fell on him. And embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till Daybreak.
Till break of day. So he departed and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted.
I've enjoyed looking at this portion here.
In connection with the ministry of the Apostle Paul.
To whom God committed the revelation of the truth of the Church, that we might know.
Any of budgets roll out there for seven days, and on the first day of the week the disciples would come together.
Not to pray, not for ministry.
To break bread.
And there was ministry, The Apostle Paul, He spoke.
Until midnight.
All has much to say.
We wrote more than half the books in the Old in the New Testament.
But the speech was interrupted during the night.
It starts again in the morning and when it starts again in the morning.
He broke bread.
98.
Starts with the bringing of bread and ministry.
It's interrupted.
And in the morning, it starts with the breaking of bread.
And there's ministry.
Two breaking of bread.
One at the beginning of the ministry, the apostle Paul.
And one at the restoration of the ministry of the apostle Paul in history of time. And that's why tomorrow morning we're gonna be here.
Breaking bread like they did in throw us because the Lord and His grace and goodness He has restored to us this wonderful truth.
Now when it's interrupted there, there's a young man sitting by the window and there's much to be learned from that, that he was perhaps distracted by things outside and he fell down and he was lifted up dead. And the Apostle Paul goes over him, verse 10, embracing him and said.
Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him.
Here's the Apostle Paul gave me your words of consolation.
And if you read the epistles to the Thessalonians, First Thessalonians chapter 4, which says, comfort yourselves one another with these words.
The Apostle Paul gives words of comfort when we consider some that have gone before.
He doesn't say right there that he picked him up and brought him up, that he was alive again. Doesn't say that.
It says at the end of Daybreak after Paul left verse 12 and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted.
And when the morning comes, when the Lord Jesus comes.
00:20:03
All the debt in price are gonna rise and we will not only have the words of comfort, we will have the result of the work of the Lord Jesus for those that have gone before.
And we're not gonna be a little comforted.
We are going to see these beloved ones.
In fullness of joy and glory, like the Lord Jesus above all that we're going to see the Lord Jesus face to face and all these blessings that we're going to enjoy, all the results of his work on lacrosse, all that will come up in the twinkling of an eye. In a moment, the manifestation of what He merited for us on the cross of Calvary manifested and we're going to be there in the presence of the One.
That you're waiting for.
That I'm working for, that we're waiting for. I trust you're waiting for him.
And I trust tomorrow morning.
Any of you remember him?
You know, I met up, I was working in a bookstore and I met up with some Christians. They come in, buy books, and sometimes we strike up a conversation and, uh.
One brother came up and uh, started talking and I asked him about his group and what was particular about his group.
Well, he said. Our group, we, we just, we just follow the word of God a bit better than anybody else.
Well, good for you.
But I trust that's not what we're thinking about ourselves.
That we think that we are the ones that are keeping the truth.
Isn't it the truth that is keeping us?
Isn't it the truth of God's Word that we cannot do different than what God has given us in this book? We're simply doing what He says He wants us to do, and if we simply obey Him and submit to Him?
We're gonna be kept.
And he's going to keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
In the truth, but He is the truth. You separate the truth from the person.
Dangerous.
Fills the mind, cools a heart.
We need to have him before us. So I've enjoyed these thoughts here once and in Acts chapter 20, breaking your bread at the beginning of the ministry of the apostle Paul and the restoration of the breaking of bread when he goes up again in the upper room. And I believe is what God has done through the restoration of the truth and putting in our hands now the epistles of the apostle Paul and good ministry, of course.
I'm not challenging that at all, but I'm suggesting to you these thoughts that I've enjoyed, that the apostle Paulie heard things from the Lord himself.
And so the apostle Paul says, this is what I heard from the Lord. He wants you to remember him.
He wants us to remember Him together. He wants us to show in the breaking of one bread that there's only one body for which he died. And I'm sure that if we're doing that in the spirit of the Lord, occupied with Him and concerned about what He appreciates and what He desires, it's going to help us with one another and with others outside. To have the proper spirit, proper grace, and proper mercy to help our brothers and sisters to have our eyes.
Fixed on him and if not restored.
To fix on him.
We think just one stanza of 245.
Verse five, one standard while we're waiting.
Then a 35 Till thou shall come in glory, and call us in the way to rest in all the brightness of that unclouded day, we should digest Lord Jesus. And here we seem to be.
More to thy death conformance, whilst we remember the standard 5 of 245.
You, thou know, come again to our water in the end of all the water, and now it's all the way back because we're going to do that.
Right now, and I'll go ahead and say I'm going to have to make it.
00:25:49
It seems like we have been.
Pointed.
Just thinking about the Lord.
Seeing him.
And he thought of his.
That we shall see him.
And.
I'd like to.
Before I get to.
Back to First Corinthians that we've just considered.
To some extent.
I want to point out one verse that we have often thought of in connection with the breaking of bread, and it's concerning those two that were on the road to Emmaus.
And how it says that?
And verse 30 of uh, Luke 24.
And it came to pass with as he sat at me with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and break and gave to them, and their eyes were opened.
And they?
And they knew him.
And he vanished out of their sight.
At least I've gone to another. Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us, by the way, while He opened to us the Scriptures?
Then if we skip down after they went to Jerusalem, they told the disciples what things were is in verse 35 what things were done in the way and how he was known of them and breaking of bread.
I've often heard it said that.
No doubt they saw the.
Nail prints in his hand.
But you know it doesn't say that here.
In fact, it says elsewhere that he appeared to them in a different form, so.
They wouldn't have recognized him.
What is said of them? There is something that you and I have.
You know if he came.
To us today and held up his.
Hands is nail pierced hands. We would see him and recognize those.
Those wounds in his hands.
Just as these two would have.
But that's not what happened, I don't believe.
It was that he was made known to them and the breaking of bread. And so we have enjoyed thinking today, this afternoon.
Uh, I've seen him.
And it's not so much that we'll recognize them.
By the nails, nail prints in his hands, perhaps we'll get the privilege.
I'm seeing those nail prints someday.
So.
But that's not the point. The point is that they saw him.
And recognized him in the breaking of bread.
Now we've just considered some verses in.
First Corinthians Isn't it strange? Is it ever struck you how strange it is that in First Corinthians you have?
00:30:09
The subject of breaking of bread in chapter 10, and then you have a subject of breaking bread again in Chapter 11. Why not take up the subject and get it?
You know, taken care of, we might say it. Isn't it strange that in the book of first Corinthians in chapter.
Eight we have the subject of.
Things offered to idols.
And then in chapter 10, you have a subject brought up again. Why not get it all taken care of, we might say, and all at once?
What's going on?
In the book of First Corinthians that you should have these things taken up at different times and rather than.
All at once and get it done.
You know, it seems that in First Corinthians we have certain issues brought up that were a real problem, the fact that there were divisions amongst them.
Terrible thing about divisions.
It says in First Corinthians 3 even that.
The kernel. Whenever you hear that there are divisions someplace, you can be sure there's carnality. It says in First Corinthians 33.
Uh, year yet Carnal.
For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not cardinal and walk as men?
So I sometimes wondered if ever we heard that there was a division happening.
Should we not?
Bring before.
Those who would want to have that division, that they're being carnal.
And.
Those who are being carnal.
Are perhaps isolated ought to be that's not what I'm here to talk about. I want to get back to the subject so we we have in the first few chapters the the fact that there were divisions and then we have.
The issue of immorality brought up.
In Chapter 5, but then in the beginning of Chapter 7.
Umm says concerning things, where you wrote unto me. It seems that the Corinthians had written a letter to the apostle and asked him about certain things, and so he begins to take up a question or two.
Or perhaps more, uh, that they had brought up. And So what about these things, uh.
Is it appropriate for a person to get married? Uh, because the Lord's coming any day. Uh, they were, they were looking for the large immediate return. Is it appropriate to get married? Uh, and so they brought up these questions. We don't have exactly what the question is. We have the answer and then we have to try to figure out what the question probably was.
Uh, but obviously it has something to do with marriage.
That it takes up and, uh.
Then he continues to answer another question in Chapter 8.
Now as touching things offered unto idols.
What do we do about that? That was a real problem for them. It's not so much a problem for us.
I guess I.
From time to time in a cemetery or some other place. See.
Idols and little fruits there or something like that.
Uh, less in front of the idol.
I used to when I was a young person. I used to think it was nice decoration. You see these little Buddhists?
Then when I got to the dormitories and and college I realized that.
That was not a decoration for somebody else. That was an idol. Well, so in chapter 8 of of First Corinthians.
00:35:10
We have the apostle saying, you know that fruit there, that's or whatever that is, that's offered idols, That's just fruit.
If somebody took that thing, let's say it's an apple in front of a Buddha. Uh, if somebody took that thing and gave it to me and I ate it.
I'm not defiled. I had no idea what that was. It's not like.
You know, not like in the old days where, uh, you speak of.
Like you were reading about Haggai certain things.
If they were, if they touched another thing, they got defiled whether they knew it or not.
But if somebody took a piece of fruit or apple, let's say, and gave it to me, that had been offered to an idol.
That's nothing.
I would say, well, I didn't, I didn't realize it and so I'm not defiled.
And he brings that out in Chapter 8.
Not that I'm gonna go and flop that liberty.
Then uh.
It goes on and it seems that he gets off the subject, but I wanna suggest to you he's not off the subject.
Because he brings out in Chapter 8 that these things that do do not defile us, and we have liberty.
But then he goes on in Chapter 9.
To speak of his liberty. How that?
He could get married.
So as in uh.
Verse 5.
Have we not powered to lead about a sister or wife as well as other apostles? Other apostles are getting married. He could do it too. He had liberty, he could do that.
And uh, verse 6.
Or I only and Barnes have have not we power to for bear working. He could have He could have done that. He had liberty to work or not to work. He could have depended on the support of other Christians.
He's bringing out in this chapter.
The, uh, what is getting that? Well, what he will be getting out, I should say in verse in chapter 10.
He's bringing out that.
That there is such a thing as liberty.
But it's not to be abused.
And so.
He goes on and he speaks of how he has liberty and the gospel.
Uh, in verse 20, to become like a Jew, in other words.
He could.
He could, uh, be very careful to observe the law so that he doesn't offend a Jewish person. In fact, he did that.
He criticized. He condemned.
Umm.
Christians who were trying to.
Insist on circumcision.
And he condemns it very severely.
And then you find out he turns around and has in Acts chapter 16 he has Timotheus circumcised.
Point is and 1:00.
They were hindering the gospel.
That is why I teach that.
Everybody has to be circumcised to fulfill the law. I'm I'm condemning, I'm hindering the gospel.
And the other when he had Timotheus circumcised.
He was promoting the gospel. He was enabling Timotheus to be a testimony. So it all had to do with what?
The purpose was and so there was liberty.
Uh, and then he goes on and.
00:40:05
Speaks of.
Umm, in chapter 10 of of Things. And if I had known I was going to speak on this, I would have.
Prepared myself better, but uh, uh, you can see how that what he's leading up to is what he gets into.
Toward the end of chapter 10.
Or the latter third of chapter 10, all things are lawful for me verse 23, but all things are not ex expedient. So he's he hasn't taken up the subject of eating things that are offered idols twice.
It's all in his long, roundabout way to getting to what he wants to say.
It's lawful. You can go eat that piece of fruit, but don't do it because.
Not unless, I mean, it's not that you're gonna be defiled by doing it.
But it's not expedient.
If somebody and he goes on to.
Say how that?
And verse 28.
If they say unto you that it's offered idols, then you know, don't do it. Because for for the other person's sake, it's not that you're gonna get defiled.
It's for the gospel sake that you do things and for the gospel sake that you don't do things.
So there's liberty.
Yeah.
So we have in chapter 10 this little section that has to do with the breaking of bread.
And it's a wonderful thing. And so we read off in verse 16 the cup of blessing which we bless. Is it not the communion of the body?
Of the of the blood of Christ, the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
Communion of the Body and the Blood of Christ. The fellowship of Believers.
We're all one.
Bread and one body says in verse 17.
We're all particulars of that one.
Bread.
This passage.
It might say.
Is the passage of scripture that would teach us that?
That which we often refer to as the divine ground of gathering.
The one body of Christ.
Hasten to add that.
All believers. Almost all believers, everywhere.
Recognize that there is one body.
What our early brethren?
Dead.
Is break bread on that ground that is recognizing that all believers.
Had a place at the table of the Lord.
And so it's not the believing that there's one body that.
Is the divine ground of gathering.
The receiving.
On that ground, that is the direct divine ground of gathering.
Sending us on to.
00:45:03
The subject that he's after, what I'm bringing out here, is that what he is saying in these chapters all leading up to his answer.
To that question that they asked, Is it all right to eat?
Of these things that were sacrificed to idols.
And so, back to our chapter.
What say I?
Verse 18 Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I then, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered and sacrificed to Ados? Is anything when I say the things which is the Gentiles offers, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils.
There was a time.
Long ago.
You can read about it in Mr. Darby's letters, when there were those teaching that other fellowships of believers were tables of de devils.
He came down very hard on that thought. It's just not so, not a fellowship of devils. They're fellowship of Christians. They may not be gathered on the ground of one body. They're not. They may be gathered on, uh, the ground of whether levers should be baptized or they may be gathered on the ground of nationalities. And so we still have.
To stay there, Chinese Christian Church and so on, they may be gathered on the ground.
Of how church government should go, whether it should be congregational or Presbyterian, uh, or or whatever else. There's all different kinds of grounds, but they, they're not tables with devils, devils. They're tables of Christians, perhaps on.
Not gathering on the ground of the one body.
So I'm bringing out here that.
You can't drink of the cup of the Lord, and a cup of devils can't be protected. Take care of the Lord's table and a table of devils. That was what the apostles bringing out here if.
Going to go and eat that stuff that's been offered to idols intentionally.
You're partaking of a table of the devil, and those two things just can't go together.
So then it gets on to.
In the book of First Corinthians we have, uh, so we have these questions that the Corinthians had written to them and asked about whether we ought to get married married or not, or whether we ought to eat these things. And it was a real problem for them.
But it seems that it gets on to something else.
Church government and so.
In Chapter 11 Through.
Uh, well, towards the end even.
It takes up different matters of church, government, uh, or order in the assembly, we might say. And so.
He takes up this issue that.
Had to do with the women's place that we often speak of and, uh, whether they, there should be a head coverings and so on. And.
Then he takes up another issue that there is a problem with.
You know, it's a wonderful thing to have fellowship teams and many of the assemblies do they have a lot of time together and and get together and eat a nice meal.
It seems that sometimes in those days, in those early days, the breaking of bread.
Was kind of confused with that, and there were those that were.
They were kind of dividing apart. They were maybe eating their own food and, uh.
They were not sharing with others.
00:50:01
And furthermore, they were calling that the Lord's Supper.
Apostle says this is not the Lord. This is not to eat the Lord's Supper in verse 20.
Just because you're coming together in one place, we all have a meal together, that's not the Lord's Supper.
And so he's bringing back.
Bringing into this problem that he's dealing with where they were not.
Uh, where? Where they were confusing a fellowship meal, we might say, with the Lord's Supper.
He brings in.
With along his with his correction, the truth that we've just enjoyed hearing a little bit about.
The remembrance of the Lord. I've enjoyed a similar thought that her brother Michelle just brought out.
But it says.
Remembrance of me.
That's so much more than just the remembrance of his death.
Remembrance of me.
And so we sometimes think of his life, sometimes we think of his death.
Sometimes we think of his exaltation, Sometimes we think of seeing his face.
And.
We trust that every time we do gather together, we are like those two who at Emmaus who uh, uh, were he was revealed to them.
And the breaking of bread.
And so.
There's much more that he goes on to.
Instruct them about.
The order and the assembly.
And we could enjoy those things.
But.
They say we've tried, especially thinking of seeing his face today.
And we've heard about remembrance of him and how important it is.
And may it be.
That is not by the nail prints in his hands, but in the breaking of bread that he is revealed to us.
Call.
Thing #61 How wondrous the glories it meet in Jesus and from his face shine. His love is eternal and sweet. His human is also divine #61.
How wondrous the glory.
And.
Broadband for the last week.
Uh, hold on 'cause I can check the one.
4 10-4 and it's a little bit of a blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
00:55:11
Yeah, sounds like a pretty good.
Rage is part of a verse from John 20.
John 20 the end of verse 20. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord?
Our loving God and Father, we can thank thee for thy Son, the Son of God, without his gift to save us from our sins. The one that we've had before us and the bees today. The Good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. The Shepherd of the sheep who is caring for us each day down here. The one about whom we are gathered and will gather as we remember him tomorrow.
Here at that time, thank you for that. I mean thank you, Lord Jesus, that thou thyself will come forth. The Lord himself shall descend. What a portion is before us when we will see Thy face there in glory. We thank Thee for the vision of Thee that we've seen today. We pray that it may encourage and keep us.
We thank you for thy word you've been able to meditate on, so we just tend to see for the remainder of the evening.
Praying for blessing on the on the gospel as it goes forth this evening as these things thanking me for the times of fellowship we have together too. So we ask all the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Root, Comfort Zone
Open—S. Rule, C. Buchanan
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.
We think 242 in 242.
Umm, last I mean there is a.
Maybe it's not.
Very clear.
All right, everything.
So.
Uh, yeah. I want to have a good day at the end of the month. Breathless. I'm down there. Let's describe it. Let's discriminate in, uh, 5 * 2 years. It's about 5 minutes and, and, and they can do with one network. Uh-huh.
Again, uh.
And so I'm burning things on completely.
My siblings gone and I prescribed everything evening together and two hours and two hours later, I love you.
Diversified.
Chapter 2, First Thessalonians 2 and it's.
And the verse 13 I was thinking of, but we'll read the whole verse. First Thessalonians 2.
13.
For this cause also thank we God without ceasing.
Because when you receive the word of God, which you've heard of us.
He received it not as the word of that, but As for his intrusion. The Word of God, which actually worketh also knew that.
Our Father, we thank you for thy word and thank you.
How we made having it open now.
We think of how Christians there at that time were commended for receiving it as the word of God, and we just trust that we would have that same, umm, appetite interest. That word is open, that we may hear Thy voice speaking to us from Thy word. Will they receive it? As it is indeed the word of God, it might have that effect of being.
Beneficial to each and everyone here. We thank You, Father for Thy word, and so we pray for Thy health, we commit it to Thee, and we ask that Thou provide us what is suited. We just give you thanks.
00:05:18
I trusted the floor that's put on my heart something very simple and I trust very practical. It's been a real help to me personally and I trust it will be to you as well.
It's gonna start with sadness, but end with the singing we were just singing about. So bear with me, It won't be what you think it is when we turn to the first portion. Umm. Or maybe it will Second Samuel, Chapter 12.
Just gonna read the first few verses. Second Samuel chapter 12 beginning with verse one.
The Lord sent Nathan unto David, and he came unto him, and said unto him. There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing save 1 little ewe lamb, which he had brought, bought, and nourished up, and it grew up together with him and with his children.
It's at ease of his own meat and drank of his own cup.
And lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. There came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd to dress for them for the wayfaring man that was come unto him. But took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
A number of years ago we moved into our current home. 12 years ago we moved in and we've been home for a couple of years and looking out the window of the living room area, kind of where we spend the biggest chunk of our time on to the backyard there was an ugly.
Bush. Just this ugly Evergreen thing. I couldn't give you the the gardener, I can't give you the species or whatever. It's just an ugly Evergreen Bush broken down. Been there since long before we moved in.
And we wanted to have a fruitful backyard. So one day it became my job to go in the backyard and get rid of that thing. And I'm not a gardener. So I bought one of these little hand saws, went into the backyard and thought, how am I going to get this thing out of the ground? I've got a regular shovel, a little hand saw. So I took all the branches and vigorously, it was kind of fun. Vigorously cut through the different branches, got down to the little.
Increasingly, probably three to four inch trunk on that thing. And now I could access the base of it and I dugout maybe 6-8 inches from the base of that Bush and didn't get far, far down in and ran into a route. And I thought if I jump on that spade, I'll cut through it. So I jumped on the spade and didn't cut through it. So I went around to the other side and maybe if I could rock this thing back and forth, I'd be all right. And I won't bore you with the details.
Couple hours later, uh, in a much larger hole around that thing and a whole bunch of roots down in the ground that I saw through down inside the ground. I got enough of it with the leverage from the shovel that the Bush was out and we had a eyesore in the backyard and we have a fruit tree there now.
A little while later on though, just down from that fruit tree, we wanted to put in some tomato plants, make the backyard a little more fruitful. They were digging quite a ways down from where that shrub had been and got just a couple inches below the surface. Shovel wouldn't go through and after digging around for a while, there was nice big healthy root. There's only one thing that could have come from, but I was a good long ways away and once again, go back.
The garage, pull out the little saw, saw through it to be able to put in a garden. And that's what I'd like to share with you this afternoon. Very simply in the life of David Trace, a route back that goes not just back to the prior chapter, but a whole long way back in his life to something that was a lot deeper than what was in the prior chapter until we come to the point where maybe there's more past that. That's as far as I've traced out the route. I'm going to take you back to that route, show you how the Lord pulled it out.
00:10:00
And then what can be put in the place of it in our own life? So if you look at this story here, there's nothing about adultery or murder in this story. I'm going to assume that all here, perhaps some of the younger ones don't know all the details, but I'm going to assume all here know this history of the prior chapter when David was guilty of lust that led to adultery, which led to murder.
And those are things that are out in the open, and they're the big.
Obvious part of David's life. And you look at those things and they're awful. But you know, this story doesn't talk about that.
That's not what the Lord brought to David and to his conscience. He wanted to go back further into the ground, to a root that was deeper, that over many years had gotten to this point. And So what he talks to him about is abusing his authority.
David was the shepherd. He began as a shepherd. He lived like a shepherd when he was running in the wilderness caring for his men. His men brought him water from the well at Bethlehem and he pours it out. He had such a care for his men, he realized what it cost. He had a love for them and you see it throughout the time that he was on the run. And he had a shepherd's heart as a king too. I don't want to over.
He acted many times as a king, like a shepherd, a lovely spirit.
But.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, things have been building up underneath and they broke out. And the analogy I began with the ugly Bush of Chapter 11.
You trace it back a little bit.
Perhaps the first thing you notice in Chapter 11 and going back in David's life was him walking on the roof and looking and the lust and the covetousness for another man's wife. And perhaps the first time we read the story, that's what the Lord brings and convicts our heart with. If that's something that we struggle with. Maybe a little bit later on we come back to the first verse of the chapter and it says and it came to pass after the year was expired at the time when the kings go forth, the battle that David.
Sent Jovan his servants, and we say, oh.
Back behind the lust and the covetousness was laziness. And so if I'm out in the yard, which my gardening analogy in our front yard are all the dandelions and they're beautiful flowers, but not in the front yard. And so the way to get rid of them isn't to mow over them, chop off the head, but to get out the dandelion digger and dig way down or however you treat your lawn that you treat it so you get out that deep root. And so if we trace.
Back the laziness of David. Oh, that's where this problem came from.
But when Nathan came to David, he didn't convict him of laziness. That's tracing back. That's part of the route that's leading back in a different direction. Let's turn back, though, a little bit further to Second Samuel chapter 5, just to read a verse.
We'll follow the route back from there.
Second Samuel, chapter 5.
And, umm.
Umm, verse 13.
Now this is when David has come to reign in Jerusalem.
He comes to Jerusalem and he's established himself finally in Jerusalem, and when he establishes himself as king there, look at verse 13. And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem after he was come from Hebron, and there were yet sons and daughters born to David. If you go along in this portion, you'll find a wonderful thing. This route was running underneath the ground, but on there were many other things.
Going on in David's life and in fact at this period of time when he takes the city of Jerusalem and becomes his capital city, the Philistines come up to threaten it and when they come up, if you look at it on a map, when they come up the valley of Raphael, I believe it is yes. It's in verse 18 of this very chapter just further down in this chapter, they come up that valley. It's the valley of the giants. And when you read about it, it's one thing here when you look at it on the map you find.
They're about four miles from the gates of his new capital.
When they got to this point and David inquires of the Lord, and then they come again, and David instead of going and acting on the pattern of the past, he goes and he inquires with the Lord again, and he gets a different fresh set of instructions.
Think about it for a moment. A trained, professional army of powerful philistine enemies 4 miles from the gates of his city. How long is it gonna take him take them to walk casually? They'd be there in an hour.
00:15:07
And David stops and prays. It's not that David wasn't in a relationship with the Lord. It's not that David wasn't acting in a way that's a wonderful example of faith to us, but there was an element in his life at this time.
That wasn't being judged. There was the opportunity to judge it. Let's go back to chapter.
In the prior chapter.
It says, umm, verse 12 Now this is when the man killed Ishbashev, and they took his head. He was the head of the House of Saul that David was at war with. It took his head and came all night across the plane, brought it to David, and David judged them for their wickedness. And verse 12 it says, And David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet.
And hang them up over the pool in Hebron.
Perhaps you've made an application to cutting off the hands and the feet. But what struck me in reading through this was where did David learn that he acts in chapter four in a wonderful way? He acts with a righteousness that's right and proper. He acts with energy to not allow the wicked deed of these men that had killed Ashwasham. There was a very strong, positive spiritual element in his life at that time.
But.
Why did he cut off the hands and the feet?
Do we find that? Perhaps you can correct me afterwards. Maybe there is a place in the law that mentions that, but I haven't seen it. It doesn't seem to be the way that the Lord instructed them to. It's not the way Samuel acted, but there just seems.
Wait, when they entered the land of Canaan, what did they do with those that king? Was it Adam Ibiza? And he the one that had the 70 kings under his table and they maybe I got the number wrong. The thumbs were the great thumbs were gone, The great toes were gone, right? Imagine warfare in the day when you have to hold a sword without your thumb.
Imagine the day of warfare when you run to the battle.
Without your big toe, that's a way of rendering your enemy powerless. And here he is, David, new to the Kingdom, chopping off hands and feet. Where does that practice come from? Turn back another chapter to Chapter 3.
And.
In chapter 3 and verse.
Three.
I'll read.
Umm, yeah, just just first three David just become King and Hebron and it says in his second son Chili of Abigail, the wife of Naval, the Carmelite, and the third, Absalom, the son of America, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geisha.
Other than David tracing back the root of it sin to its real source when he re in Psalm 51, a wonderful meditation in its own right. As far as the actual actions of Chapter 11, this is as far back as I've noticed where it goes to this verse. But what's happening here? David's just become king. He's acted in faith when he's been on the run for many, many years. He's become king. And what's he doing?
If you look at a map.
Judah, with Hebron in It is in the South of Israel, the Kingdom of.
Saul's descendants that was still there that he was at war with comes north of there. And then if you move off to the to the side, the upper right, as you look at that map, the you're in northern northwestern Jordan and southwestern Syria today you find this land of Gisher. So what would you do with the king?
Here at war with another Kingdom, doesn't it make sense to make an alliance with a Kingdom that's up behind them? Didn't that happen later on? Didn't the king of Judah take money and send it to the king of Syria so that the king of Israel would turn away from him?
Let's go back to this verse. Absalom, son of America, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geisha. David's making an alliance.
With an enemy on the border of Israel, the 10 tribes at that time that he was fighting with, he's making an alliance. But where do you get that idea?
00:20:05
That doesn't match with the word of God and I would just suggest to you that it's not the main point that I want to make. I would just suggest to you that perhaps David, when he came to power as king, when he'd been on the run, it was so obvious that he had to turn to the Lord in everything that David, yes, he failed at times. He got scared and he ran away to the Philistine. He repents, he returns. One of the wonderful things in his life is his repentance, even with the sin that we're tracing back here.
But when he came into the Kingdom.
It's as though he looked for Where's the manual on how to run a Kingdom?
And he picked up a page of a chapter from the Canaanite, and he picked up a page of the chapter from other Eastern kings. And he looked at the way they built their power and they built their their harem and.
He's mixing that in with wonderful examples of faith without knowing it was going on. Let's turn back one more time.
To Deuteronomy.
Chapter 17.
Perhaps you can share with me afterwards if that route traces back further.
For Deuteronomy 17 says.
Verse 17. Notice the close.
Uh, company. These two verses keep Deuteronomy 17, verse 17. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself.
That his heart turned out away, neither shall he greatly multiply to himself.
Silver and gold. Now the next verse. And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his Kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Priests, the Levites. The two verses go one right after the other, and I think that David had begun his reign here.
And he began when he sitteth upon the throne of his Kingdom.
They wrote out the book of the law. The verse right before this instruction was about not multiplying lives. It doesn't say not greatly multiply. Solomon did that. But it seems that as David began his reign, he's looking for how can I be king? And he's looking at the world's book on how to be king to carry out this new role in his life. And he's mixing that with true, proper, wonderful faith in the Lord.
But notice four things in the next verse. And it shall be with him.
And he should read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of His of this law, and these statutes to do them.
Once we got that shrub out of our backyard, that's not the end of it. It's an ugly scar. But once it was out, there was a place to plant where there's a nice honey crisp apple tree now and it's got a reasonable amount of fruit on it and looks nice. I hope it'll taste good this year. We'll see.
But there's a nice fruit tree growing in its place, and I would suggest to you that if there is something in your life, it would be good to turn to the Word of God to find it, and perhaps what's on the surface.
Isn't the real problem. I'll give you one example besides David, but I'm not necessarily concerned that there's anyone here who has taken the throne of a Kingdom and is going to abuse power. There may be a father or someone in the assembly or even a mother in the home, or a brother with younger siblings that may have abused authority and may need some of that instruction. But perhaps that's not the issue for you.
If there's one common struggle in my own life.
It's in the area of patience. Patience is not an area of fruit that grows naturally in the garden of my heart. But the problem is not to try harder on patients. I'll point out where the the at least one route that I'm aware of that's below the problem of impatient lies in a moment. But look for yourself in this verse of what the instructions were.
Says he was to learn to first of all he was to read therein. So the word of God was something that he was to read the in all the days of his life.
That was the book, it was to read, but not just to physically read, but you can read close the book and having a clue what we read. And so it was to read that he may learn to fear the Lord is God. That's the first thing, having that reverence in awe of God and of his instructions and what he's directing us in in our life. That's the bottom line. And we'll come to one other verse.
00:25:14
Umm, and I'll and I'm done. But.
It's covered even more beautifully, I think, in that other verse, so I'm not going to do it here with the fear of the Lord.
The next is to keep all the words of this law. I'd like to just suggest.
That that key thing is similar to what Mary did. Remember how she took those things? She kept them and pondered them in her heart. And I would suggest to you that there's the reading of the Word of God, that we would begin with the fear of God, that we would keep it in our heart. That is, it's something to meditate on. It's something to have. There is that fertile ground that's going to lead to fruit.
And so once the weeds been removed.
There's something that's going to keep new weeds from growing. That's reading the Word and having the fear of God before us. Then there's the keeping of it in our heart. That's the meditation on it each day. And then the last part of the verse to do them.
That carrying out of what God has instructed. Now just one more portion briefly and Ephesians chapter 5.
The weeds been removed, there's a fertile ground to plant it in and the Word of God and there's a chance for growth. We need to check on that growth.
In Ephesians 5. I'm going to read the verses in a moment, but I wanna give you one more.
Fruit analogy. Food analogy.
My wife, when she goes to buy watermelons, has a pretty good system. Works real well. Not foolproof, but it works pretty well because sometimes you go to the store and they get these giant bins sitting there on the on the pallet full of watermelons and Renee will go along and thump them sometimes. Pick it up, move it to where it's a good position for being pumped and tap on the watermelon. Listen to the sound.
Go grab another one, tap on it sometimes.
You find Warner quickly, sometimes it's the 8th or 9th watermelon and finally the sound is right and that's the good one. And we take it home and I guess it was a pretty Goodyear. It's almost always a really good watermelon. It's got a certain sound to it. Now look at these verses. Ephesians 5. I'm going to suggest to you, this is your, uh, heart freshness indicator. This is the watermelon thumping.
A verse that you can apply in your own life. Ephesians chapter 5 and verse.
Umm, we'll read from verse 18.
Through 20, through 2118 to 21 and be not drunk with wine. We're in a success That's going to dull the senses, dull the spiritual senses. If there's an overabundance of focus on natural joy, natural joy has its place, but the abundance of it is going to dull the sense. But be filled with the spirit speaking to yourselves. It's not talking about in the assembly, although it has its application, of course, but it says speaking to yourself.
In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to suggest to you that the freshness indicator for your heart before the Lord is verse 20.
And for me for sure giving thanks always.
For all things unto God and the Father.
Not talking about just giving thanks after the diagnosis of cancer or the what we would think of as the big things in life. That's important too, of course, but the freshness indicator occurs when the.
Turn signal on your way to work for green lasts for three seconds and the year of the second car in line and you don't get through and you have a problem with patients, you have a wonderful freshness. This is all hypothetical, right?
There's a great freshness indicator for whether the heart is thankful and in the fear of God.
For all things, at all times.
The Lord wanted that light to go red. I better get an extra 2 minutes for prayer on my way to work this morning.
00:30:05
Oh.
Maybe it's an indicator that there's a chance to turn back to that prior verse and fill the time up with.
Singing and making melody in my heart to the Lord. Maybe your issue isn't patience. Maybe your issue has a different, uh, character in your life. The freshness indicator on it is when you stub your toe. When you, whatever it happens to be in your own life. If it's giving thanks.
All things at all times. Then our relationship with the Lord is fresh. If not, there's an opportunity to back up a verse and start over. One more thing in verse 21.
Submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of it says God here in the King James. This is Christ and Mr. Darby's translation. I would just suggest another secondary maybe freshness indicator is when we're in the body of Christ and we're interacting with one another.
There's a whole bunch of roles that come later in this chapter. There's roles of authority and there's roles of submission. There's roles of certain kinds of responsibility and we're to respond to. It's fascinating to look at whether it's the Lord or the Christ or whoever in each of those relationships. But before we get to any of that, it's recognizing that where we are in the body of Christ, that spirit of submission to God in verse 20 carries over into verse 21 to that spirit of meekness and yieldedness.
And are dealing with everyone else as seeing them as a conduit, a blessing to me from the ascended Christ. There's another freshness indicator. If I'm indica interacting with my brother and my heart is filled with irritation. It's filled with filled with, umm, criticism. It's filled with everything that suggests that I view that my brother as the problem. Then if that's what fills my heart, there's not the Spirit.
Verse 20 The fear of the Lord and yielding to him in all things, and there can't be the opportunity for blessing to come through him with a yielded spirit.
I like our brothers.
Analogy of a freshness indicator.
And I have a freshness indicator that I believe the Lord has shared with me something that I need to work on, and I believe He's put on my heart to share it as well with you. Let's start by going back to the Gospel of John, chapter 10.
We were in this chapter yesterday.
Just going to read.
Just parts of a few verses here.
John 10 verse 11. First of all, I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
Verse 15 As the Father knoweth me, Even so know I as a father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Verse 17 Therefore death, my father loved me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. Now we had some discussion yesterday about these verses about the Lord Jesus as the Good Shepherd who gives his life, and the phrase that comes in and the other two verses and some translations in all three verses is laid down my life.
For the sheep, we had a lot of.
Encouragement about the Lord Jesus being the Good Shepherd who gave his life.
Not only in the reading meetings, but also in the gospel meetings.
He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world in the way he became. In that way, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world is by giving up his life, by laying down his life on the cross. And now through faith in Him, we can have our sins washed away. We can have eternal life.
That makes him the Good Shepherd.
But it doesn't only say I will lay down my life in reference to the cross, it just says I lay down my life for the sheep.
00:35:03
Turn with me to 1St John Chapter 3.
First John chapter 3 verse 16 hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us, and if we stop there we have that same.
Picture of the Lord Jesus giving his life for us.
But the verse doesn't stop there.
Start over again. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
The Lord Jesus laid down his life not only at the cross, certainly at the cross, but not only at the cross. Day after day he laid down his life for the sheep. He could say, I came not to do my own will.
But the will of him that sent me?
I can think of a time when he and his 12 best friends, the disciples, were in the wilderness. They had come apart purposely for the purpose of, uh, of getting away from the, the crowds, relaxing.
Maybe recuperating a little bit, the crowd found out where he was and they followed him. Now perhaps his purpose for going out there or the disciples purpose for getting away was to kind of raft and and get a little away time. But the crowds followed him and his heart went out to the multitudes. And once again he laid down his life. He set aside his own perhaps preferences, if I can put it that way.
The disciples certainly did, and He provided for the multitude, not only in his words, but I think in that example by providing them food, bread and fish.
And we can look at a number of other examples as well. Now the Lord did have times where He got away.
To with his, as I say, friends, his disciples, I believe the House of Lazarus and Mary and Martha was one of those places where he was able to get away and rest and recuperate. But day after day he laid down his life for the sheep. And here in first John it says, we perceive the love of God because he laid down his life for us, and then it presents.
The Lord Jesus laying down his life as an example.
To us.
Now we.
Cannot.
Lay down our lives in any way that would take away sins we cannot in any way.
Atone for or redeem. So that's not what it's talking about here. This is talking about in a practical way, setting aside perhaps our preferences laying down.
Our life for God's people. So now the place in John where the Lord Jesus says.
He that loveth his life shall lose it.
Jesus laying down his life day after day is an example for us of how we can lay down our lives for our brother. Now I would we're talking about freshness indicators and just in a real practical way the way the Lord has used this to.
Speak to me is some of those freshness indicators. Am I doing this?
OK, we like people who like the same things as us.
We like to hang out with people who like the same things that we like.
Nothing wrong with that, but is that the only people that we hang out with?
Or do we branch outside of our groups?
Are we willing to set aside our preferences in that way, lay down our lives and reach out to those who maybe we.
Don't have as much in common with.
00:40:02
I think that's one freshness indicator, if I could use borrow that phrase, of whether or not we are willing to lay down our lives for our brethren.
Are we willing to step outside of our comfort zone? Not just step outside of our comfort zone, but step outside in a direction towards our brothers. It just happens that earlier last this past week, I had through my work, I had two days of training that they sent me to. It was kind of a enjoyable class. It was what they called leadership training and they talked about different personalities and we all had to take this test to determine what our.
Personality preferences are and you know, they have this chart on the wall and it was kind of divided up into four different quadrants and every. I mean, there's a number of personality indicators out there. This one happens to be one that divides it into thinkers, controllers, team builders and expressive these four blocks. And perhaps some of you have.
Are aware of this? I think it's a Berkman method or something, I'm not sure exactly what it is.
But this is, and then of course, nobody is exclusively in one box right now, but it's a way of determining our own preferences. And we tend, one of the things we learned, which is we probably already knew, is we tend to like people who like the same thing. We tend to gather with people who think the same way we do.
But the the whole one of the main reasons for this this class was to help us to understand that the people in our work groups don't all fit into the same quadrants where we are. And we need to be willing to be phrase they use with adaptable. We need to step outside of our own comfort zone, take a step towards those people in our work group communicate in a way that they prefer to communicate.
For example, some of us are less expressive.
And some people come into the room and they are just more expressive and you can see them and you can tell right away that this person is an expressive.
Maybe you're thinking of someone, I don't know, but uh, there are people like that. I'm not, but I have people in my work group that are and when I communicate with them, I need to be willing to adapt and I don't need to back away because that person is just communicating in the way they like to communicate and I am communicating in the way I like to communicate.
And so we did several lessons and several in this class about stepping outside of our comfort zone. And I couldn't help but think about it myself. And then as I was discussing the same class with someone else, they said, you know what, that sounds like good Christian practice.
To be willing, if we're going to help one another, to step outside of our comfort zone, step towards the people, communicate perhaps in a way that we find a little unnatural or a little restrictive or, uh.
Different, But are we willing to do that? I think that is one very small way that we can lay down our lives for our brethren now.
I'm not talking about a forced 3 minute conversation with somebody on your way out of the meeting room.
Call.
That's a start.
You know, some of you come from large meetings. I've talked to some of you who come from. You have.
A a large meeting. Most of you probably come from a medium to a small.
Size, meaning some of you come from a very small and a few from what I'll call tiny. Less than 10 people.
Those of us that have the tiny meetings, we don't have as many opportunities to do this with our immediate brothers that we share fellowship with at the board's table just because of distance. There are other ways we can do this.
But I did not appreciate this.
This part.
Of being a Christian when I had a large assembly.
When you have a lot of people around, it's easy to participate in just your own subgroup of the meeting room.
00:45:07
You have a smaller meeting. It's much harder, and the Lord uses that sometimes to push us outside of our comfort zone so we can do that.
Other practical ways is not just in our communication, but in our, in our words or our, uh, practices, the things that we do. You know, some of you may have a person in the meeting room who is the organizer. That's one of the quadrants, they call it controller.
And a person gets sick or a person has a baby and the chart goes up on the bulletin board. Sign up for meals. And oh, by the way, you can't just take whatever you want because we don't want people to take two things or the same thing two days in a row. So I'm going to.
Umm, coordinate control, even down to the menu and you roll your eyes and you think, uh.
I didn't want to do it on Tuesday. Thursday would be OK, but I didn't want to do it on Tuesday. But my name is on the board on Tuesday.
Take advantage of the opportunity that you have to lay down your life in that small way for your brother and your sister.
Some of us don't have a bulletin board with a list of names of meals we can.
Provide.
Or helping out, whatever way, whether it's a Sunday school or.
Vacation, Bible school or hobby class, whatever it is, these are all ways that we can lay down our life. And these I think, are in a sense a freshness indicator, at least as it relates to this particular aspect of our Christian life.
In just a.
To point out a few things I do see looking around the room.
Young people over here, mostly.
Young families over here, mostly.
I understand there's nothing wrong with that.
But do the young people only talk with the young people? Do the young families only talk with the young families? Or do we are we willing to?
Mix it up a little bit. Strike UA conversation with someone else. You know one thing I did learn in this leadership training, and I thought this was very interesting. If you take one step towards them, the re, the natural response of most normal people is to respond and take a step towards you. So if you communicate in a more open way with someone who is an open communicator, they will take a step towards you.
And communicate and respond and reciprocate and communicate in a way that subconsciously they already recognize that you like to communicate.
I find myself doing this without even realizing. You talk to somebody who's quiet and sitting at their desk like this and you, you find yourself sitting down and not looking them in the eye and you just look at the paper in front of you and you go through things that you wanted to talk about. Whereas somebody comes in and they said, how was your weekend? What did you do? You know, I did this and, and you find yourself communicating in a way that they like to communicate. And so you've, I, I just say this.
Because it's not just to the young people, but the older ones. Sometimes we feel a.
Reluctance, I don't know, to step towards the the the young people and they're not gonna be interested in the things that I have to say, are they?
But when you do take a step towards them, they in return respond and take a step towards you.
Do the married couples only communicate with other married couples?
Or are they willing to talk about, talk to, and reach out to others?
People with children, do you only talk about or hang out, sit at the table with people with children? These are just little freshness indicators. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but if that's only the people that we talk to and after meeting, we only talk to.
Our own little group.
Maybe we need to branch out a little bit.
The Lord Jesus and this is just these are just things that.
I am sharing because the board has revealed them to me. In my own life. I have a tendency and I don't think I'm alone in this. And it requires effort. It requires, again, stepping out of our comfort zone. There are people, and I believe there's people in this room who are naturally open and they see the people in the room that are by themselves. I'm not that way. It's I have to remind myself to look around and see who else is in the room and maybe.
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Make an effort. There are people who are naturally more open and aware of what's going of the people around them, and you may find it easier to reach outside. That's that's a gift, that's an ability that the Lord gave you. You can use that for him as well.
I hope that my.
Practical advice guidance is uh.
Not, uh, it it is.
I do not intend to point out anything to anyone. I don't know of uh, what you, who you hang out with after meeting. This is not a direct. This is not directed towards anyone, except maybe towards myself.
That's just one of the ways. There are so many other ways that we can lay down our lives for our brethren too.
And we have a wonderful example in the Lord Jesus. And as we go through the Gospels, we see way after way, day after day, how he in practical ways demonstrated laying down his life. And then of course, it did culminate in his going to the cross and giving his life for us. And that's the ultimate example. But most of us are not called that. Unbelievers are called to give up their lives for their for their brethren.
Uh, but most of us, for most of us, it's, it's a living sacrifice that we're called to. And, uh.
Just share some of those little freshness indicators and trust that the Lord, uh, uses that to maybe bring some things to attention in your own life.
Depending on the number 17.
May the great.
By all of the White Son.
Where all the Lords? Where the Lord stays around, Right, right, right on the floor, right above.