Dartmouth Conference: 2016
Table of Contents
Hebrews 12:1-3
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Awake is wrong.
Start screaming.
A good thing, so pleasant and I don't feel like it was that sound.
Far away.
Umm.
Stranger.
No one's dead. Birds can't hit any.
Tonight, uh, today and this morning is uh, spirit of dog is not coming before us, our wilderness journey.
I have thought of the Hebrews 12.
Uh, uh, reading or two. You don't need to continue the whole time, but I submit my, uh, request to the brethren walling up.
It would be very appropriate.
Maybe we wouldn't have to read the whole chapter today or something.
On the weekend, there's one to umm.
Maybe you should read the whole chapter.
00:05:18
Wherefore, seeing we also are compass developed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the end of us so easily be set up, and let us one patient erase that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted unto blood thriving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him.
Room the Lord loveth He jasoneth, and scourge of every son whom he receiveth, if he endure chastening God bealeth with you as with sons, Or what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? And if he be without justice meant, where of all our partakers?
And are you ******** and not sons? Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh.
Spirits and lives, for they verily for a few days Jason thus after their own pleasure, but He for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness. Now no chastening for the present seamless to be joyous or grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down.
Feeble knees, and make straight paws for your feet. That's that which is lame. Be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you and thereby.
Many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, and for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. We know how that afterward, and you would have inherited the blessing. He was rejected, for he found no place of repentance.
Though he sought it carefully, with tears, maybe he could stop there.
Well, you've also looked back here to the 11Th chapter, no doubt, and we have all these worthies of faith.
Who, Uh.
Let's walk to that part of the obedience and the faith and it's difficulties and trials.
And uh.
Finish their course.
With joy, as the Apostle Paul did. But there was failure in each one of them.
Not brought out in the 11Th chapter, but uh.
They all, umm.
What the path of space?
But uh, none were perfect.
And the and the apostle rings before us here, one who began the path of faith and finished it perfectly, the Lord Jesus as a man down here.
Amount of dependence and.
Confidence being gone.
Began the path of faith.
And finished it to the glory of God.
00:10:00
Why was the book of Hebrews written and why was it given to us?
Umm.
On 125 a day in the book of fevers we have.
The the doctrines of Christianity developed in death here were the Hebrews that were very much affected by the whole earthly order of things, the temple, the sacrifices, and all that was connected with the Jewish town, ordered of God in its inception, but corrupted by man, and much of tradition brought in and.
On the verge of being destroyed.
The apostle is exhorting the Hebrews.
To separate from that system which came to its end of the cross. Now God is introducing something infinitely better. All those.
Shadows were there in the Old Testament for us, and foreshadowing and figures and symbols. Now we have the substance in price.
Now we have.
A new position before gone. Now we have the Lord as a living man of God's right hand. Now we have no longer sacrifices. We have a perfect work that gives a perfect conscience. Before and gone now we have worship. Nothing through some ritual, some ceremony, which was ordered of God in the beginning. But now we have something that is a spiritual character. Now we have access into the holiest of all.
Not true. So now ceremony or tradition or even what God ordered in the Old Testament, now we have access into the holiest through the blood of Christ. So the whole book is a contrast to Judaism and.
And, uh, it brings before us the wilderness.
Journey of your believer, is that right?
When you measure the being of contrast, I knew a man when he was in college. He took a course at comparative religion comparing.
This is.
Contract not comparing making what the Jews allowed. Christianity is entirely different. Eventually it's it's either not a comparison contract without any mistakes a bit more than this either duty has had. Christianity is not an improvement upon Judaism.
You can't put the new wine into the old bottles. It's a complete contrast. It's something entirely new.
The Hebrew believers were very much attached to their formal religious system, which did have a foundation in the in the order that God has given at that time. But it became corrupted and it came to be an end of the cross. And how God is introducing Christianity is something entirely new. They cannot be mixed together. And that's what we can see all around us, a mixed.
Judaism and Christianity.
Systems that we have around us, we have, uh, imported into their system things that are definitely from Judaism, uh.
Choirs and ministers and roads and cathedrals and incense and what have you, One man ministry. It all has its origin in Judaism for it. And the apostle is saying now this has come to an end.
Now you have.
You have something infinitely better superior, their brother said. It's not comparing it, It's a contrast. It's what we have now, Revelation of Christ and uh.
The truth of God that was ministered by the apostles.
Under contrast Brother John and the introduction to the book in chapter one, verses one and two.
00:15:04
And it says God, who at different times.
Many times in different manners take on in time pass on the father by the prophets raised up prophets to speak to it, and children in the Old Testament. But this is a verse two has in these last days open on July his son.
He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world's.
On trasters were between those that God raised up to speak to his the children of old and his son that he gave that was with him from past eternity as who we have today that's speaking to us.
The writer of this epistle.
Certainly.
Want to?
Focus our attention.
I believe I know one other than Lord Jesus Christ the Son called the Son. And we see how the epistle begins with God who had sent me times. Well, if you look at the other epistles.
Most of the other epistles begin with the rider of the epistle, whether it be Paul or James or Jude or Peter. They put their name first. But here is God, and God is speaking now through his Son, and how important it is that we listen.
You know, leave them. The Lord Jesus was baptized.
It tells us that there was this.
Voice from heaven, it was the Father speaking, he said. This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. Hear ye him. And so today we might well question, who is it that we're listening to?
How important to realize that.
Christ as the last word, and I believe in this epistle the writer would seek to elevate a force to this one who is now seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. This is Jesus Christ.
You don't have any apostles name mentioned. It's.
Generally assumed that it was all. I couldn't think of anyone that could expound myself a wonderful umm.
Declaration of Christianity outside the apostle Paul. However, then his name is not given. But there is an apostle mentioned that's not Paul is Lord Jesus, look back at him third chapter.
Moreover, brethren.
I think there's a heavenly calling there we have in the apostle. They need before us are heavenly called contrast to Israel and an earthquake called. Consider the apostle.
And high priest of our profession, our confession, Christ be good. So in the apostle he came down from heaven.
To reveal God in manhood. He came from heaven.
With a message from the Father, Revelation of the Father, he's gone back to heaven now as I priest. He wasn't a high priest while he was down here on earth, but now he has assumed that character in manhood of High priest at the right hand of God.
And uh, that person is the Lord Jesus Christ, absolutely apostle.
Magnifies in this, uh, crystal.
It's been sent.
You know what sets apart Christianity from any other religion?
Is the fact that.
The leader lives, and that's resurrection.
Instead that.
This is what distinguishes Christianity.
That Christ lives and extinguishes every other religion.
And so I believe we see here in our portion how that we are to be looking unto Jesus, We're to be looking up, we're looking at a living glorified Savior. You don't find that in any other religion.
00:20:10
And how blessed we are, you know, to have our eyes open to see who she needs to do.
And the writer, he was writing to the Hebrews. But of course.
We, uh, find this epistle very precious to our hearts.
I was wondering over in Second Peter chapter 3 and verse 15 if Peter was referring to this epistle when he says in.
His 15th verse. This is second Peter 3/15.
Accountants are long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you well, Peter was rising to converted Jews.
But now he's speaking about how Paul had written unto them. I wonder if that might refer to this book. I think, uh, Wally, you could go on with the next verse too, because it says as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to understand which they are, they that are unlearned and unstable rest as they do also the other scriptures.
The word scriptures there is used in connection with what Paul wrote to the Hebrews. So I don't think there could be any other book but the book of Hebrews. So I think it's interesting that he says there the other scriptures.
I just mentioned that in passing.
I think there's something very practical in this first verse, isn't there? It says let us lay aside every weight and sin which cut so easily beset us.
I remember Paul Wilson speaking on this verse many years ago and he said, you know, if you were running a race.
You wouldn't wear an overcoat. If you wore an overcoat, you'd be sure to lose the race. Not that there's anything really, uh, wrong about wearing the overcoat, but it would certainly hinder you in winning the race. And so there are things in our lives, aren't there, that, uh, Christians, I suppose, could argue that there's nothing wrong with them, but their weights and they hinder us from running the race. And so I think it's very important here is that.
Lay aside every week and I think it should read and send, which does so easily be set or entangled.
I have enjoyed thinking of this way in connection with the this epistle, and I think we see it frankly in almost every epistle on whether it be in Paul's epistle, Peter's epistles, and so on, that God was using these men to take and encourage the Saints to go on.
You know, if you go back to the to the second chapter, in the first verse of the chapter, it says, Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard less than any time we should let them slip.
You know Satan cannot take away salvation from the believer. It's a precious thing. You receive the gift of God and you have it forever.
But one thing he will try to do in your life and mine, is to discourage us from going on.
And so you see the Apostle Paul in his ministry and again with Peter, you read Peter's ministry and you feel like these men, they were used of God to encourage the Saints. And that's why we need chapter or a, a meetings like this to encourage one another to go on in the path of faith because there's a danger of giving up. It's all around us. And when you see it more and more and one thing leads to another.
How much have we seen being given up of the word of God by so-called fundamental, umm uh.
00:25:03
The the Lord's people in the last 5-10 years, it's it's incredible to see it coming, it coming in but anyway, in this chapter, sometimes it's hard to know how to deal when you're faced with questions about.
Umm things as to how to give answers and it gets down to a logical argument of one person against the other and whoever mind is stronger is the one who wins the argument. But that's not the answer. It's really the Lord and the word of God. But I'm thinking of in connection with the with the the these verses here. See, we also are compassed about. Think of those people in the previous chapter.
What happened to them? Some of them were slain were martyrs for Christ.
Somewhere is a great victory.
Umm, and we look back and we're encouraged by seeing the faith that God gave those ones. And so He encourages us to go on and in connection with this, lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. I've enjoyed thinking of it two different ways. First of all, there's two things that are mentioned here, actually, three things.
There is weights, there is sins and there is a cross that are brought before us. Every word of God is pure and why does he choose these 3 words? To signify or to teach us three different things?
Well, we know what sin is. You know what your besetting sin is. I know what my be setting sin is.
And then it speaks of weights. And like our brother Stan was saying, you don't believe an overcoat on when you're going to take and run a race. You put it to the side. And there are things that that entangle us in this world. And God would have us to seek to, to, umm, to be released from the things that would hinder us in our Christian life. There's so many things today.
You know, you get up in the morning, you got one of these little phones, you have messages on it.
You know how, how it is, it's easy to, there's a little, little traps that are there to take us, our thoughts away from the beginning of the day. Uh, they come awaits. They can hinder us and faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And that's how the Lord got his, his guidance when he was here in this world.
And so you have before us the in this verse, the weights.
Which is different from sins. Weights can be perhaps to say, well I, I need this, I need that and so on. Yes, but do we keep it in its right place in our lives?
Waits and sin, and then it says, speak so in the next verse about the cross, and the cross brings before us reproach for the name of Christ.
And the Lord may have given you a particular cross to bear in connection with something that is a, that is a very difficult thing in your life. And the Lord had it, didn't he? He had a cross that he bore right to the very end. You know, it, it struck me just recently, I'm thinking about it, that the Lord, you know, the hardest day of his life was the last day of his life.
When he gave himself for us and he endured it.
He went on and saw the Lord, it seems to me through the apostle, we believe, uh, I think the same connection with my brother. And there was probably the Apostle Paul that wrote it, that, uh, uh, they want to encourage the Saints of God, the Hebrews to go on and he wants us to be encouraged to go on.
We may wonder why should I exert myself to live the life of faith when there's no promise of an easy life? We see all the people in the Chapter 11, so many people of faith, but they never, many of them didn't experience the results of their faith that they went all the way to the end of their life, but they had the faith. And then there was those towards the end of Chapter 11.
00:30:19
As you mentioned, some were stone sawn asunder. They were slain with the sword. They were killed. They were martyred for their faith.
And so it's not an easy life to live a life of faith because there is there are things that are going to to be hard and difficult in the life because this world hates the Savior. And if you're going to follow the Savior, this world is going to hate you too. And so when the life of faith is going to be very difficult. And so he's encouraging us here. He's not trying to hide the Lord's not hiding from us the fact that there's going to be difficulties in the life of faith.
But he says in verse two, look unto Jesus.
He's the author of Faith.
He's a finisher of faith. And so we look unto Jesus and he is the one who gives us the strength to go on. The Lord Jesus, he in his life, in his pathway here in this earth, it led him to the cross, but there was joy in it. There was joy in it for him and for us. There's joy in the path of faith. Maybe not right now, maybe we don't. We can still have joy now. But.
The Lord Jesus looked forward to the joy of doing the will of His Father, and we can have joy in doing the will of of God our Father even now.
Sometimes we argue for these weights and deaths. Their brother mentioned that there may be nothing more wrong with that.
Uh, and we know it will.
We're on it, but uh, they are hindering us in our pathways, but we loathe to give them up.
Because we like to do those things. But if we really have Christ before us, we have boys and girls here. I sometimes like to tell a story for the children. They all have no dogs. I'm sure you would probably have a dog. You take a dog who has a bone.
You can. I had a dog when I was young, Very nice dog. We loved him. He didn't get a hold of a bone. You couldn't get that bone out of his mouth. You could fall and yank and you could hit him and you could do anything. He wouldn't give up that ball.
Remember I used to grab the balls of the children on the street and they'd come weeping to my mother because Stubby wouldn't give up the ball. But.
If you take, how are you going to get that bone out of this number?
Just take that nice juicy piece of meat and put it in front of his nose. Immediately he'll drop that ball because you've got something much better.
You'll grab them as well. It's a just a.
Another, another station of how many often the things of this world hold us.
Because we don't have a view of crisis before, we don't have Him filling our vision. I think in the second verse, although I don't object to having the thought of the looking to the Lord and the glory, I think the primary thought is rewarding His pathway down here.
Looking unto Jesus, the beginner and the completer of the path of faith, and it was not easy to think of the difficulties, persecutions, the privations the Lord endured in His pathway. As a man, He never used His Godhead power to shield himself from any of the circumstances of the pathway of faith. He didn't use it. He never used a miracle for himself.
He was hungry, he was thirsty, he was tired of the Well of Sychar, and he never used his divine power to shield himself from those dead.
Demands of the earthly pathways, and he walked with God. He is put before us as the as our example.
00:35:06
I think it's encouraging in the in connection with that, that this chapter starts with a wherefore and wherefore pointing to something pointing to Chapter 11 and all these examples we have that as you mentioned listed of the walk of faith, and it's encouraging that.
Looking at our first verse, almost all of them had a weight or a sin that beset them and it's not recorded and it's recorded elsewhere in picture. It's not recorded in in that chapter, but them running their race with patience is recorded in that chapter and it's encouraging.
That's what the Lord would record, the Spirit would record, and we have.
Need people to look to as examples of faith and we have people in our lives to look to as examples of faith. But as it was mentioned, the the real example is is in verse two, looking unto Jesus primarily as our as is mentioned our example of how to walk in this world.
You're running running at a race that somebody mentioned putting a coat on. What does that do? It slows it down. What else does Awake do?
When if you're trying to run a race, it's a discouragement, isn't it?
You're trying to run a race and you have a weight in your back and you're not getting rid of it. It's discouraging. And we find out in the Old Testament, the children of Israel were traveling through the wilderness instead of getting rid of the weights. They murmured and complained, and it was a burden to them. And umm, oftentimes it could be just in the assembly. We're unhappy with things.
Unhappy perhaps with the our brethren and some way or another.
And it brings discouragement.
And so they can all be weights. And how many divisions are there around us because of discouragement where somebody has an idea and because others didn't want to go along with it. There's been division costs and all sorts of things because?
Just because of weights and but if the Lord tells us how to get rid of the weights, we have it in Philippians is to take it to the Lord.
I was just there that uh says be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And so I don't know when we have a weight, we know it's a weight.
We can't rely on our own strength and our own ability to get rid of that weight. We may we need help. And so in scripture we have, we have the help, uh, given to us as.
The access of prayer, same as the sin here, we, there's sin that perhaps comes into our lives and uh, we can't get rid of that sin, but I can go to the one that is able to get rid of it for me. I can go to the Lord and confess it and it's forgiven. And then I go on, but can't rely on my own strength and my own wisdom to get rid of anything.
But we can and him.
And so it's in the Lord. We have weights. We all get discouraged sometimes. I've gotten discouraged. And there's things that we just can't change. We know we can't change them on our own, but we know what that can. And we know one that is working for our benefit all the way through the pathway. And he's the one that we need to go to. There's some nice persons just in connection with the Lord's care for us and.
Chapter 13.
We enjoyed it like this. It is a Good Shepherd that gave his life for the sheep, for Jesus that saved us, dying on the cross, forgiving us our sins is.
Says here.
In the 21St of chapter 13, now the God of peace that brought a game from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, to the blood of the everlasting covenant, the promise, a wonderful, the great shepherd here that that lives for us now. He died for us on the cross, and now he lives for us.
It is the purpose.
That he has for us is to make you perfect or full grown in every good work to do as well working in you that which is well pleasing in the sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen. And then he says, I beseech you, brother, and suffer the word of exhortation, for I have written a letter unto you a few words, and to mention that we need the word of God, and we're to allow that expectation to reach our ears. It's good for us.
00:40:26
And uh, the Lord's purpose for us is that we might be full grown and he is interceding for us, our Great Shepherd, the one that died for us, Ross Malice living for us.
Just a quick little thought, uh, person is one of them. We have two examples, you might say those of chapter 311, and it truly is amazing to see what they endured.
My faith, uh, however, it's, uh, it's been mentioned that they were not perfect and we find from Old Testament scriptures and so on that they failed here and there. And so if you go over to chapter 13 and uh, look at verse 7.
It's a little different here, but uh, I'll apply it by May, uh, to those of Chapter 11, uh, towards the end of that verse, it says whose faith follow. So we are to look at the face that they had and, uh, and be encouraged and that, that is an example to it. Now, if you go over to first Peter chapter 2.
And the second example I might mention is in verse two of our chapter, The Lord Himself.
I just want to draw attention to verse 21.
Because in the middle of the university game, Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps.
Well, it just seems to me that every step that the Lord took for was in true faith and without weight and without sin, obviously. And so we can follow every step that we go.
When it came to the human examples, we are to follow their faith, and when it comes to the Lord Jesus, we can follow these steps.
Orders steadfast and the purpose wasn't it says in John six that he can't do the will of his father and in verse 2 where it says Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, umm Darby uses the word umm.
The leader and finisher of our faith, the leader and completers and when I think of the Lord on the on the earth, the first word that's Lord that are recorded as the word spoke, the Lord spoke we're in Luke chapter 2 when he was his parents had gone down to Jerusalem for the sacrifice and they started traveling home and realized he wasn't with them. They went back to find him. They found him sitting with those in the temple and asking them questions and they said in verse 48, son, why have so dealt with us?
That's with us. Behold thy father and I have sought thee were sorrowing and he said unto them, How is it that you sought me? Wished he not that it must be about my father's business. So he came here at that very focused to complete his father's will. And what were his last words during John 19 on the cross? He said it is finished and gave us the ghost. So we came here with that steadfast purpose, never wavering. His first words indicated that he's here to do his thought as well. And he finished on the cross forest with those words that he finished kind of a very neat connection to see.
That's nice. That was the purpose, wasn't it?
He came to do the Father's will. That was a joy that he had in in completing that will become his Father. Even though it meant going to the cross. It was a joy for him to do that will. I'd like to do thy will, God.
And we have been given the same nature.
And so it says, for the joy that was set before him. And when you and I received Christ as our Savior, we received the very life of Christ, and we treat the Spirit of God, and there is joy in doing the Father's will.
May the Lord give us to.
Desire to do it, and we will have joy in doing it. Connection with that reference to the Lord. You know how old He was in that second chapter of Luke 1212. Any boys and girls here 12.
00:45:01
Raise your hands if you're 12, anybody 12.
Close, close. I always, I have grandchildren and when they get their birthday card on 12 years of age, I always give reference to that, to that incident in the Lord's life when he was 12 years of age, and what it is said with ye not that I must be about my father's business when a child reaches about that age.
They are growing from being a child into puberty into manhood. And there is a, a, a, a that, that's a time of life that is very special. May not be exactly 12 years of age, maybe a little before, a little bit afterwards, but I think that the child becomes more directly under the, under the, umm, umm, the, uh, connection.
In a practical way with the with the God of the universe.
It says there in loop 2 at the end of the chapter, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God.
And then you see that he was living a very well balanced life as a young person.
Tells us here that he grew in wristband mentally.
There was growth and then there was stature physically.
And it says in favor with God and man spiritual growth.
But could we also say the social?
Doesn't it also say he was subject to them?
Who his parents are. It does it.
Could I ask you a question?
Brothers mentioned here that the Lord must be about his Father's business. What's our business? Once we're saved, we're ready for home, aren't we? We are fitted for Him. Why are we left here? What is our business?
You feel it, brother.
I think our undeniable privilege.
Is to show Christ to the world around us then, and that's in the first verse of our chapter, seeing we also are compassed to those who are so great a cloud of witnesses. The world around us is that cloud of witnesses.
They won't read their Bible, they won't go to church, but they'll watch out. What are we showing? Are we showing them Christ? That is our privilege in this world.
Not so much of A job as a as a privilege.
There's the other side of the tube we have in the.
In John's Gospel chapter 13.
And.
Verse 10 Jesus said to him, Simon Peter he that is why he is not to save.
Not save to wash his feet, but it's clean every wet. You're clean, but not all.
Know what? Peter was born again. He was clean in the eyes of God through regeneration. But, uh.
Says, For you know who should betray him. Therefore he said here not all clean. So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments, sat down again, he said unto them, Knowing what I have done unto you.
You call me Master and Lord, and you say, well, for so I am.
By then your Lord and master have wash your feet. You also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done on you. Barely, barely. I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord either. He that is said greater than he that said him. If he know these things, happy are ye if he do them.
We just had an enjoy of the Lord. Jesus was adult. They liked to do the Father's will. That's where he came. Uh, God had given to him, uh, a Commission, you might say, to come into this world to save sinners. And the Lord delighted to do it for the Father's glory, even on the death, the death of the cross. But here we find with his disciples that they were clean and you are too.
00:50:15
If you have been reborn, you're clean every wet but.
We have in the pathway things that come up that defile us and today we're sitting here together at this meeting and we have the opportunity of washing on the others feet, removing those defilements that come in along the pathway and.
The Lord has given to us the privilege of coming together in this way where we can, uh, practice this and do this and, uh, said, if you know these things, happier ye if you do them. And so we should be happy to be able to be together and to be able to, uh, go over the word of God and, uh, learn the things that he will have for us.
What a privilege that is.
But there is the most of the other side too. There is a is a going out to the lost world with the light that we have to shine out, perhaps draw souls in. And so there's the two aspects of it.
You have the the apostle mentioning here sin.
Which does so easily Second time? Well, I think we all can understand that because we have an old nature.
That love sin.
And, uh, we will never be ridden of that, uh.
That terrible route there that we have in our beings until the Lord comes. God doesn't himself try to improve the old nature.
It can't be improved.
And it manifests itself in different ways. So we have to be on our guard because we all have a different, different weakness. I know my weakness. You know yours. But if we're not dependent on the Lord, that is going to assert itself in our life to the dishonor of Christ, exactly what Satan wants.
You know, I sometimes say he has good material to work on.
Because he knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our weakness. He knows what will appeal to you. He knows what will appeal to me.
You work in the assembly, you work in the family, works in the world. That's his fear. The world belongs to him. The Prince of this world is the God of it, and in any way he can lead us away from the word of God, from the path of obedience.
Into something that dishonours the Lord. It's mentioned here definitely as sinful and we have to be on our guard.
And the thing with them so easily be set up, I'm going to go back into the world.
On Monday, Tuesday hasn't changed. There's lots out there to appeal to the old nature.
Lots of things we know we have to be on our guard, dead with Christ.
Risen with him that old nature has been put away in the sight of God. We are to keep it in the place of death. Is that right there?
Keep the old nature where God has put it in the place of death.
I was just reading something recently at Darby had said. I really enjoyed it Umm he said that we should see umm Christ in our.
Are flushing ourselves and uh.
Realize that umm, we're dead and reasonable price and so.
Is our brother sister from the world and I want to just digress for a moment on the.
Well, this verse was sent to me by a brother so many times and I didn't understand it, you know, until I read it myself and, and uh, but since John sent me, I'll just read it quickly and it just says umm.
00:55:08
Umm, verse 18. I thought it sent me into the world. Even so, I also have sent them into the world.
Sent here.
I was thinking too Bill not the 33rd verse. Previous chapter John 16 verse 33.
The last part of this verse, that's what orchestra says, the silence in the world. You shall have tribulation, but be a good cheer. I have overcome the world, which I believe he was saying to his disciples that.
We run the race successfully. He overcame and so can you.
And so can we, because we belong to Christ.
You have support and said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
The Lord Jesus said all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.
And we can draw upon that power now we know the Spirit of God within us is the power of living to walk to please the Lord. And the Spirit of God would like to occupy us with Christ.
As that perfect object as far as heart, but you know, if we're allowing sin in our life.
Spirit of God is going to do something different. I don't think he's going to occupy us with Christ. He's going to occupy us with her. Let's see.
You know, that was my judgment that we might identify this.
And we don't lose our salvation, but if we allow sin.
Become weak as far as our testimony for the Lord and our our our joy. It wins like Enos were saying.
Salvation, I believe, comes from faith in Christ, but happiness comes through obedience to Christ.
You know, I have this book here, and every boy and girl knows that if I let that blood drop, the law of gravity is going to take it down. It's universal, always acts in that way.
Wherever you go in the world, wherever I am, however, if I take a balloon, a big helium balloon here, and I attached it to that book, by spring, what's going to happen? You know, it's going to rise right up into the ceiling, right up to the ceiling. Now, the law of gravity was there, very strong.
Trying to bring this book down to the floor but now I have.
Attached to it's something that is stronger than the law of graphics. I've attached to it a big balloon and it lifts that book up against the law of gravity. What do you say as the law of gravity been cancelled? No, no, it's still there, just as strong as ever. But I've introduced them to that book, A stronger law, and it rises against.
That natural law of gravity.
Because I have something stronger than.
That overcomes that law. Now you turn to Romans 6. We're on this line of things.
This is exactly what Ron has done.
He's brought in a new power that I never had before. What is that? Well, look in Romans 8 and verse 2 for the law. Now, that's not referring to the 10 commandments. There it is the principle, the principle. The new principle has been introduced now into the believer's life. Just like I put that balloon on that book. That's something that wasn't there before.
Now God has given us the spirit of life, a new principle, the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus have made me free from the law of sin and death. That's just like the law of gravity trying to pull that book down.
You take away the balloon that's going to fall down again, but now I've got something that is longer.
A new law, a new principle is acting on that book.
And when do you accept Christ as your Savior?
01:00:04
God gives you a new life and a new nature. That is true, but he doesn't take away the old nature. As we have said, it's still there, but now he says, I'm giving you a new power. You don't have to obey the those evil desires that rise up in your heart and that you may have lived in before you were saved. Those things no longer should characterize your life, you say, But I have a strong temptation.
To do those things still, yes, that's quite possible. But now God says I've given you a new power, the Spirit of God. So it says here the law of the Spirit of life is Christ Jesus has made me free from the lost sin and death. That's the free from the law of gravity now because there's a new power acting on it. So it is in the life of the belief. You've got the Holy Spirit of God. And as our brother Walling said, if he is operating.
And I'm agreeing, He's going to give us that power to overcome those evil desires that we find rising up in our hearts too often. But we don't need to obey the dictates of that old nature. Now we we have the Spirit of God to occupy us, deliver us and occupy us with Christ.
Let's go back in time.
I just noticed here that he says let us.
Run with patience the race that is set before us.
The The Christian life is an individual life.
But yet we've been put into the body of Christ and we are running. In a certain sense, we are running together. But us?
Run with patience the race that is set before us. And so, as members in the body of Christ, we go on together.
You think that maybe the apostles coming down to their level and right alongside them.
It's a good way to be, isn't it?
I have the same thought in the beginning of that verse one it says wherefore seeing we and.
I believe that individually we can ask the Lord for helping these things as our brother is mentioned, but we need each other and we need to be together, as our brother mentioned, to have a meeting like this or to come together so that we can watch each other's feet. But we also need that in our home assembly as well. And I believe that I've encouraged much to get into the local meetings and to be there for the prayer meetings and the reading meetings and, you know, put those things aside that are that are weighing us down, you know, our phones, as our brother mentioned, or computers or our.
Sport events or whatever it might be that we would get out and we would, uh, spend time and fellowship one with another. And you know, our faith can only grow if we're reading the Word of God and being together in fellowship.
I don't think that if we're trying to.
In case fast it's some read the scriptures on the phone.
Be very useful in that way to read the word of God.
Diabetic can certainly consume the first time unprofitable.
This word patience that we have here in the first verse really is the thought of endurance, isn't it? And I was just thinking that the second verse continues the thought of the race because, uh, it says looking unto Jesus, he's the object that we should have before us, isn't it? It's very easy to sort of get discouraged with the difficulties and trials of the pathway, but he's encouraging us here to.
Uh, endure keeping our eye on the Lord. And then he gives the Lord as the example because he says, umm, he's the author or the leader and finisher of our faith. Uh, who for the joy that was set before him. He had an object before him. What was that doing? The Father's will and the joy too, of having us with him in the glory. And So what happens? He endured just like he encourages us to endure in the first verse.
01:05:19
The Lord Jesus, he endured and what did he endure? He endured the cross. He, uh, despised the shame. And what was the result? He got to the end of the race and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. So he's encouraging us to follow the example the Lord has given. He has run that race and he endured to the end and now he's encouraging us to endure on to the end.
And it wasn't an easy passport. Yeah, No, the contradiction of sinners, that in itself.
Despising the shame.
Great, I don't do that. I make a great deal of the pain. The same thing I might endure for the Lord. The Lord despise the shame and his pathway at the right hand is oh God, that would be the end of our pathway too. But I agree with what Stan said.
The joy of having his people before Him. No doubt that was prominent in the Lord's desire, but also the joy of entering the glory.
Having finished that work that the father had given him to do.
Only in his pathway down here, which was not an opponent, of course, or through that awful suffering of the cross.
And he completed it. The hours of darkness.
The rejection of man is such a terrible way. You know, crucifixion was the most cruel way of putting a person to death, and also it was a very shameful thing. The Lord said the will of God was prominent and turned into the glory of manhood.
Umm, the joy that he had finished the work that the Father had given him to do. Of course we come into that blessing. But.
You know the Father was glorified and.
He was so pleased with the obedience of his son there through his death.
I was in the, uh, United States one time many years ago in a place where a lot of people were there for various reasons, and this one great big guy came in. Jewish fella wore a sweatshirt on the front of his sweatshirt was for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And he was sitting at a table with a whole bunch of other Jewish people.
So afterwards I went over to him and I said, Jonathan, I admire you for taking and wearing a shirt like that. Tell me your story.
And he did, and he was way off and he got Christ through. Christ got him, whatever way you want to put it. And the result was that he wanted to tell everybody else, and he didn't care about having that bearing some shame for the name of Christ.
Could we sing number three 12312?
Please unknown, my Lord.
Lay the burden.
Of my life.
That word.
Of joy when it was living. We would be doing anything in life.
01:10:43
OK.
Hebrews 12:4-11
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Whatever distress awaits us below, grace and Lord will he still 267.
Hopefulness resides in Jesus.
Lander all day.
Father.
And laid on the floor.
Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're going to be able to let you know if you face.
By the rings are there.
And nothing can burn about.
All of the things I've seen.
What happened to our own, as I said?
The Lord for the earth's own life and everything.
Took a long while, I said.
Yeah.
I'm going to get you out of breathe. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know.
And when you make it in process.
The widow may be now I'm against now I'm having a We're here and show our history.
Now who's the surrounding life? Allah Allah. Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah. Allah Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah Allah Allah.
OK.
Hebrew Chapter.
Well, another package.
You want more forests in that structure.
It was the mind of the revenue could probably read again from verse one down to.
Maybe you know there are 17 of them, whether we do them.
Hebrews 12. Reading from verse one to verse 17.
Wherefore, seeing we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every week, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him that endure such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be wearied and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted on the blood striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If he endure chastening, God deveeth with deeth with you as with sons.
00:05:16
For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without all our takers, then are ye ******** and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection under the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our Prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way. But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently. Lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, Let there be any fornication, or any fornicator or profane person.
As he saw who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright for, you know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected for, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
That's it. We're always encouraged by looking at our uh.
Brethren, that I passed it off, seeing that.
The apostle says in the 13th chapter, uh, remember them with with seven, remember them with, uh, the rule over you have spoken to you the word of God, whose faith follows.
Considering the end of their conversation, not their failure. Sometimes we follow their failures, but whose faith follows well.
They can encourage us as we look back upon the lives of devotedness to the Lord. But there's a perfect example brought before us here.
The Lord Jesus in his pathway down here, consider Him.
And endured such contradiction of sinners itself. You know that word, consider it means to inwardly meditate upon something.
Inwardly meditate, uh, it comes out in uh, chapter 3 where which we, uh, looked at this morning. Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, uh.
The apostle puts before us the Lord Jesus there, and the one that we are to inwardly meditate upon in His pathway down here in His ascension to the glory, and there is life.
There at God's right hand for us. Then there's other he considers the 10th chapter. Consider one another that you will provoke unto love and to good works that comes in in the United. There's 24 of the tense charges. Let us consider one another.
And provoke unto love, and to good works.
Inwardly meditate. How can I encourage my brother or sister in the path of faith to follow the Lord? Not by criticizing them, but by being an example to them myself in my walk.
And showing love so that they are stimulated.
To judge themselves and to follow the Lord more devotedly. Of course we need to have self judgment ourselves. And I think there's another considering the 8th chapter is the 9th.
The speech of the high priestly work of Christ there.
That was another, uh, insulin there.
Anyway, umm.
00:10:02
We have that word consider several times in the epistle and uh.
Inwardly meditate upon these things that are the apostle is bringing before us.
That we might profit from that here it is, considering the Lord in His path of rejection down here.
Such a contradiction of Sinner that he endured.
Being the full display of the heart of God in His pathway, and yet it brought out the hatred of man. There was nothing in the Lord that would incite that.
They hated me without a cost is the strongest condemnation in the Bible.
Because there was no cause for the hatred of man for the Son of God. But uh.
The evil nature, the enmity that was there in the heart of the the creature in the heart of this.
Soul of man against God, so it's considering him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
And we have we received persecution too, but it's really in small measures compared with what Christ passed through.
Were you thinking of chapter 3, verse one? Yeah, we we noticed that.
Adults at the other places. Chapter 7 verse four Now consider him outbreak this man was and he didn't even the patriarch Abraham and Hebrews 10th of the spoil.
No, the Hebrews at this point were suffering quite a lot of persecution from their, uh, their own Jewish brethren. You know that the 10th chapter is the epistle.
But, umm, many of them have lost their material possessions for Christ.
34 He had compression of being in my bones, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourself that you have in heaven a better enduring substance.
Umm, they were exhorted here not to cast the weight.
Therefore, your confidence which have great recompense will reward for they were suffering for Christ taking that outside place from the.
The nation and all the.
Ritual and uh, economy of the nation of Israel, Jewish nation has had so much to commend them, uh.
So much that they could admire and look up to and hear was a path of separation from them.
Now they were identified with Christ the Messiah, whom the world in the world had rejected, in the nation had rejected, and, uh, they did suffer.
Real persecution.
The apostle brings that on indeed.
Third verse of our tractor.
I think of what the Lord Jesus spoke with his disciples in John chapter 15 with respect to persecution.
It's very clear that.
We are not to uh.
Expect different treatment than what the Lord Jesus experienced himself.
And he says here in John 15 and verse 18, if the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have shown you out of the world, therefore the world hated you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord, if they have persecuted me.
00:15:19
They will also.
Persecute you.
If they have kept my saying they will keep yours also.
So on.
I think that you passed the call. You know, it's kind of privilege to suffer.
In fact, this desire was to know Christ.
The power of his resurrection.
And also the fellowship of his sufferings.
Kind of privilege.
And it was Peter, I believe, in the first part of the acts, wasn't it to?
Who with other apostles?
It says they counted joy.
Be able to suffer for the name of track so.
Ought not to, uh, shun suffering for the name of Christ? Peter states of it as being a privilege. Also happy are you reproached for the name of Christ.
Be part of our inward, uh, meditation, wouldn't it? Uh, Wally, remember, I think it says there, John, yeah, Remember what our Lord went through as a man. Also, we, we come together in Lord's Day. Remember him in his death.
We also meditate upon him there.
Reflects on what he has accomplished for us.
So this is a nice, uh, girth in there.
Mr. Garvey wrote that him this world is a wilderness life. He sang it this morning.
That was on the occasion that he was shut out from a hotel because of his testimony.
I understand.
He felt the reproach and did.
Remind me again, He was in a wilderness. I had no room for Christ. What we experienced, that is we are faithful, uh, every day, pray. Sometimes we avoid persecution because we are not as faithful as we should be through the Lord's name. So we compromise with the world.
But we lose that privilege.
Someone has said that there are two things that have been promised to us in this world that the Lord has promised to us in this world. He's promised, uh, in the world He shall have persecution and say there in John 615 or 16, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. He promised his presence also in the midst of persecution.
Umm, and.
It's, it's when, uh, and when looking at verses like we started with here in the third verse.
Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
Yes. Must he be wearied and faint in his mind? In your mind, you know, if you uh.
If you've lost a loved one.
And somebody comes up and aligns, say, at the Funeral Home, and they say to you, I know what you're going through. I've been there.
It means a lot you enter into something together with a person like that.
Well, the Lord says to us, as it were, I know what you're going through.
I've been there.
Consider him.
So when the frictions come, the purpose of it is to draw us closer to Him.
Uh, we has already been remarked. We naturally shrink from these things, but God wants our our affections and he wants us to realize.
Umm, the world we're going through is a world that has rejected him.
And we can't. The servant is not greater than his Lord, and we can't expect, we shouldn't expect a rosier path than what he went through when he was here. It's kind of hard to talk this way because we almost feel like it's our right to have something a little bit better in this world. But if we really, if we, if we really let our light shine for the Lord, I think we would feel more persecution.
00:20:34
This thinking of the rejection of the Lord Jesus, and yet He could still rejoice in it. I was thinking of Psalm 118.
And in the context of the stones, the builders rejected refused Psalm 118 and verse 22.
The stone which the builders refused has become the head of the corner, the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing and is marvelous in our eyes. This is the and then he then he goes on to say in his prayer, This is the day which the Lord has made will be we will rejoice and be glad in it. So I like to think of this perhaps as a prayer when the Lord is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, this is the day which the Lord has made.
He's going to rejoice and be glad in this day. How can he rejoice and be glad in the day when he's going to be persecuted and and crucified on the cross? Yet for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame. And so the Lord, even through the persecution and the hatred, he could still rejoice in doing the Father's will.
I was considering this word consider and it reminds me of a word that we used to use in science class. I used to use the science class examine. When you examine something, you pick it up. Could be a bug, could be a plant.
To be yourself a a onion cell could be anything small or big, but you pick it up and you handle it and when the Lord Jesus.
Appeared to his disciples they had troubling thoughts, he said in Luke 24.
An attorney with his own score.
He said. Why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
And you hold my hands and my feet.
Well, what would they say? They'd see those wounds in his hands and his feet.
Handle me and see. Handle me and see. That's what the Lord wants us to do here. I believe I.
Maybe totally wrong in this, but I believe He wants us to examine everything about Him. And as Dave says, been there, done it. The Lord has been there. Anarchy, worst tribulation, He's been there.
Our worst sorrow, our worst nightmare, He's been there. He knows all about it. He knows all about us and he knows what we're going through and he knows about our enemy, Satan, who wants to make us mess up so badly and has caused shipwreck in many lives. So what does he want our focus to be on? What he what does he want us to examine and look at and handle? See, it's Christ himself that's the one we should be looking on to. The Lord Jesus Christ, all that he went through for us.
He's doing for us now and you're sitting for us on high all those wonderful thoughts in the mountain and in the valleys too. He's there in the valley of the shadow death line there he's.
Promised never to leave us forsaken all the way home, Savior and Friend. And each one of us should examine Him more and more. I speak to myself, examine Him, handle and see. You'll never, never disappoint you.
They're on LU24, The two that were on our way to Emmaus, they were sad.
And you know Jesus himself too near and went with them.
And so he inquires as to why they're sad. You know, Lord Jesus doesn't want you and me to be sad. He wants us to be glad. He wants us to be happy.
So he finds out, you say. Well, you know.
This one that was.
Crucified.
We thought he was the one that was going to redeem Israel.
You know, they had Israel on their mind, the redemption of their nation.
And that, I think, was that there was a problem where they were set. You know what the Lord Jesus does?
00:25:06
He opened his Scriptures, it says, beginning at Moses and the prophets. He expounded unto them in all the scriptures.
The things concerning Israel.
No any concerning himself.
You know, he started, hearts burning.
He said, he said did not our hearts burn within us if he spoke to us by the way he spoke of himself. And I believe this is what is going to elevate our thoughts is to be focused on Christ, who he is, what he's done for us.
You know we find refuge in this love pulled out at the cross of Calgary.
I just enjoy what's being said about considering.
Meditate on the personal work of our Savior. I I noticed Mr. Darby says consider well.
Him that he worked contradictional sinners considered well.
I know for myself I spent enough time.
Contemplating the beauty of this wonderful person.
In fact, the theme of that chapter that we already.
Going through 24, you could put a, uh, a theme on that chapter. It wouldn't be that word himself. It appears in a number of times in the country and sometimes have the idea Lord is ascended. He's at the right hand of God, but he's not really with us here in our wilderness circumstances. He's at a distance. That's our own thoughts as Clem has brought out we.
He is interested in every detail of our lives and although he is offended and glorified, he is there for us. He died to make us clean. He's living to keep us clean.
And to minister to us from the glory, and to walk with us in those times of sorrow and trial and sickness, He is not.
Is not UMM unaware?
To what his people are passing through and so as the Lord in resurrection there in Luke 24, who is walking with that that.
Couple think it is a couple.
Who, uh, did not know who he was, but uh, they, they soon found out, uh, just thinking of Emmaus, there's several things that it means that most great things, it means Warm Springs and the Lord didn't let them reach their destination. Uh, so Warm Springs, you can't wash your feet with it and you'd be refreshed.
Can't break it, be refreshed. But who would drink of water?
But most of the lovely thing about the dollars the Lord didn't let them go there, and he doesn't want us to go there.
Oh, it comes. It comes down coming on in the chest or.
We don't want you to become weary and faint in our minds.
That is possible.
Umm, sometimes we don't take the persecution to, uh, populate them.
Uh, but uh, it will bring a joy. We, uh, we take it from the Lord and realize that we're having a fellowship.
In his suffering, that shouldn't, however, cause us to retaliate.
Shouldn't be anywhere. Spirit of that.
Feeling in our minds, the Lord never retaliated. Uh.
On the cross when they.
When they spoke against him last evening.
Uh, pray for his enemies.
So, umm, you should pray for those who reject us.
Seek their blessings.
But the apostle goes on now to develop a thought here of, uh, of.
God's dealings with us.
We all need style training. We all require correction in our lives.
00:30:03
Umm, the Lord did not need tracing because he didn't have an old nature.
But because we have an old nature that, alas, displays itself too often indeed, chasing you chasing.
Now there are different types of suffering that the Christian may go through this certain sufferings that are preventative. There's others that are purgative.
And umm, there's others that umm.
Are punitive.
And all of these sufferings are sent from the Lord allowed of him and.
They're needful in our lives.
Now the Lord, he suffered everything that a righteous man could suffer, but he did not suffer.
An intuitive uh.
Ceiling or dealings of God because the old nature, He did not have an old nature, of course, and there was no activity but with us.
The Lord has to deal with us sometimes because if we do not trust.
Ourselves, as we should.
And the chastening comes into our lives.
But it's always from a hand of love and it's always for our benefit.
It doesn't appear pleasant at the time, but it does bring peaceable groups of righteousness. But notice under those which are exercised thereby.
Spell Life.
The Lord allows these things. He's perfect in his dealings. As for God, His way is perfect.
He deals with us according to his perfect wisdom, but sometimes circumstances come into our lives which are contrary to what we desire.
We should be exercised. Why the Lord has allowed this in my life.
For our benefit, but there should be exercise not to despise it.
And not to faint under it, but to be exercised about.
A notice in the section verse five through to verse 11, there's three words used that involve punishment or discipline. There's the word rebuke, scourge and chasten. And rebuke seems to have a sense of stopping someone in their tracks, giving them a firm no stop what you're doing. Scourging seems to be more of a severe punishment, but chastening has that sense of discipline or correction may involve punishment, but has the idea to correct us and shape us and change our behavior. And you'll look between verse 5 and 11, the word review because used once, the word discourage is used once, the Jason is used seven times.
Does that give us some indication of the waiting towards chastening versus scouring and rebuking give us some sense of God's grace in dealing with us?
I think Jason is a term that embraces these different types of dealings.
Uh, it was not, it was not present in the life, in the life of the Lord now here.
So it's because we have a tendency to wander from the Lord.
And even the danger of of allowing sin in our lives worldliness.
And uh.
Actually failed to judge ourselves about a certain course that we are following.
Says there in First Corinthians 11, if we would judge ourselves, we would maybe we should look at them first to get it. We would judge ourselves, we would not be chasing the law. And that's a meaning I want to admit regarding translation of that First Corinthians UH-11.
There it is in connection with, uh, the Corinthians who are going on carelessly at the Lord's Table, uh.
In a, in a, in a very serious way. And the apostle is rebuking them very strongly here.
And he says here in verse 31.
00:35:03
If we would judge ourselves.
We should not be judged, but when we are judged.
That has the address as the thought of tracing. That's not internal judgment there internal judgment has passed for the believer through the work of Christ. But this is a Father dealing God dealing with us. We are chasing of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world and turn over to first Peter chapter one.
There's 17 the same thought if you call on the Father, who without respective person judges according to every man's work past the time of your soldier in the earth and fear. Now, this is not the judgment seat of Christ. It's not eternal judgment that has passed through the believer, but it's the Father watching us every step of our pathway down here and because we are believers.
And we know Him as our Savior and our Redeemer. We get off with whatever we want. In no way. In fact, we're more responsible.
There's no respective persons in this matter if if.
We walk in a, uh, an ungodly way. Or, uh.
A way that is dishonouring to the voice. You will deal with us judges according to every man's work. That's our work down here, that's our conduct, that's our path down here.
When you say this, yeah, see, the gasoline is more of a correction mentioned there and, uh, it's, uh.
Verse nine. This was farthermore, we have fathers of her flesh, natural fathers.
Fathers which corrected us.
Gave reverence showing up rather being subjection onto the Father's spirit to live.
And we'd seen that the casting is more of a correction, things that we need have corrected in our pathway.
They might be preventive too, because Paul the apostle was as we know.
Wonderfully devoted to the Lord and his servants, but he had a thorn in his flesh.
Which we don't know, uh, precisely what it was, but he had a thorn in the flesh, and he besought the Lord to remove that thorn three times.
He thought, If this corn is removed, I will be able to serve the Lord better.
It must have been something that was very afflicting to the apostle.
Some think it was his eyes, and we don't. We don't. It doesn't tell us He needed it when he came down from the third heavens where he had been. He didn't need it when he was when he was up there, but when he came down, lest he should be exalted.
Leave out those words without measure. They shouldn't be there, lest they should be exalted.
The Lord demon this form, and he besought the Lord on three definite occasions. The Lord said no, that's enough, don't speak to me about this anymore.
And did not remove that thorn. But the apostle was taught dependence upon the Lord and learn to glory. Maybe you just look at a verse or two that way too. 2nd Corinthians 12.
Now that was what we could call a preventive suffering run.
Uh, thank you 7 and sugar less. I should be exalted to the abundance of the revelations that was given to me, a thorn in or for the black messenger of Satan, who buffered me, lest I should be exalted for this thing. I besought the Lord thrice that it might be part from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient.
For me, my strength is made perfect not in a big outward display of power, in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Well. This is all part of child training with the Apostle and.
Yeah, submit it and found that the award. Use that in blessing.
00:40:05
His likeness ministry.
It's another aspect of Chastening 2 That I have read about and and thought quite a lot about it. And that's preparative.
Umm, you read about, uh, somebody who has turned out to be a, a, a man that's been greatly used to the Lord. Then you read their story, their history, you discover that they went through a, a very difficult time of their life that helped to prepare them to be useful so that God could use them in a special way. So I'm just suggesting that we could add that to your list of PR John. Good. I'm sure that that's one of the case in the life of Moses, 40 years on the backside of the desert.
Elijah definitely, uh, a preparatory period there and uh, Jeremiah and others.
Also too it, it, uh, trials are, are used in, in preparing us to help others. David mentioned about, you know, if you go to a funeral, it's a loved one that passed away and somebody can relate to having the same experience. It is a comfort we haven't in the second Corinthians chapter one.
Verse three it says, blessed be God, even the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies.
The God of all comfort, who comforted us and all the tribulation. We may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort where we ourselves are comforted from God.
The sufferings of Christ about in US, so our consolation also abounded by Christ.
So things that we pass through here, uh, the Lord comforts us through the tribulation trials, and then also we're able to use those things to help others.
Nice to notice too here that the relationship is not broken when there is discipline that takes place because it says in that, uh, in that seventh verse, if you give, if you and your chastening God dealeth with you as with sons or what son is he whom the father chasteth not it's really part of the training or the.
The discipline for me, it brings in the thought of the host of God. It seems to me that conduct and of these things are all associated in that way. And, uh, but you also get it in first John, uh, two where it says any man's sin. We have an advocate with the father. He's still the father. The relationship is still there. The communion has been broken, but God wants that relationship. The communion restored with the relationship is still there.
It's wonderful to to for parents too, to remember this when dealing with children that they are.
They're still your children and to have their good and blessing in mind in connection with any discipline that takes place in the family, the child should feel, I think, I think the child should feel even in discipline that there's a very genuine concern on the parent for their good and blessing.
We may not always as parents through the discipline, just right.
But that isn't the case with God our Father. He knows exactly what we need and everything is needed in our lives. It doesn't give us more than we need or less. I think any trial or difficulty in our lives always result of need speed. God is the one that sees that.
But I go to Sears is in verse 10 about earthly fathers. They barely for a few days chasing us after their own pleasure in March and my Bible says it seemed good for meat to them. That's the good intentions, but for that's not always altogether righteous, maybe too harsh or too lenient, but says he for our prophet that we might be partakers.
Of his own, so the Lord never makes any mistakes.
00:45:02
We can trust him for that.
Perfect love, perfect.
As regard his way as perfect.
I find it interesting that we're talking in verse three about.
The suffering that we experienced from persecution.
But the express seems like.
The apostle is referring to Chasten.
At the board.
Well, I think even in the persecution that we might experience.
As believers for Christ, the suffering that we experience in that the Lord may detect something in US.
That needs correction.
There may be a lack of patience.
There may be pride that needs to be dealt with.
The wrong attitude.
But the pastor, he puts these two together, this persecution and suffering.
For Christ and also Jesus.
The Lord had 12 disciples.
And I think we can consider ourselves disciples as well with disciples, one who's in training and as we're being taught, if there's something that they do that's not exactly right, then there's the correction, there's the chasing. And it says in verse 10 that our fathers chastened us after their own pleasure. And so we have children. We chasing our children to do what we want them to do.
And sometimes it's for profit, sometimes it's just because of the way we as parents, our fathers want things done. But it says he the Lord chastens us for our prophet. And so when there's a chastening in the disciplinary.
Teaching discipline isn't always punitive or.
Or, uh, spanking. It's a.
It's training and sometimes chastening is needed for the training process so that we can learn for our profit and and why what's our profit for? And it says in verse 10 so that we might be partakers of His Holiness. And so there's a purpose for the chastening and so that we might become more like Christ and that he's guiding us and directing us in this in this scene here, so we can be conformed more to the image of his.
I think it's nice to see here, isn't it, that there are?
Two benefits to chasing we have the first one in verse 9 where it says that we be in subjection under the Father of Spirit. So the Lord wants us to learn to be in subjection to Him. And then it says at the end of the 11Th verse they which are exercised thereby. So He wants us to be exercised by what He puts us through, and the result will bring 2 blessings.
One, we are partakers of its holiness and the other blessing is that there will be peaceable fruits of righteousness. So it's nice to see have the, uh, the benefits of chasing and the blessings that follow.
To me it connects it as well to the home UMM when it mentioned to both the fathers of the flesh here in verse UH-9. Furthermore, we have had father fathers of our flesh with corrected us.
And we gave them reference. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits, and live?
I, I kind of brought this before my children when they're younger and bringing them up, but, uh, sometimes, uh, things can get a little bit TE tense between, uh, parents and, and, uh, children. And, uh, I said to, I remember in some occasions saying to my children, if you don't wanna listen to what I say, which I'm trying to teach you according to what the word of God is, God may have to deal with you in a different way when you get out from underneath the.
The subjection in the House.
00:50:00
And umm, so here you get, I think, that thought embraced in this verse. Here we had fathers of the flesh, and we gave them reverence. How much rather shall we not give place to the Father of spirits and live?
So it's a training ground. The home is a training ground for the time when children get older and when each of us get older, because the natural falls more and more into the spiritual realm as we go along in life, it seems to me.
And I'll tell you another thought that umm further CD Anderson gave years ago, umm, and diverse in in first Peter. What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And he said this, you teach your children to be obedient in natural things, and you're training them to be obedient to the gospel.
What shall the envy of them that obey? Not so obedience. Learning obedience in the home is training them to receive the being obedient to the gospel.
Good idea of the father experience. Tough term. I think we hear much in the New Testament.
And the spirit is the God consciousness part of the man. No animal has a spirit.
And.
God corrects that spirit.
Uh, sometimes, uh, allow the Spirit to uh.
The soul to control our thoughts and death.
But, umm, God wants our thinking to be right. We're not going to be able to walk right unless we think right, uh, and have God in mind. Naturally, we have our own thoughts about them.
And the wisdom of family.
It's always contrary to the wisdom of God.
The wisdom of God is not an improvement upon the wisdom of man. It's always the opposite.
In anything spiritual or moral.
It seems like the trial, perhaps one goes through for correction. He knows what, uh, what it is that God is seeking.
To correct.
Thinking of what we have in First Corinthians 10.
For 13 years there's there has no trial or temptation taking you but such as is common to man.
But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted or tried about that you're able, but with the trial also make a way to escape.
You may be able to bear it.
She's from this at the.
God, through a trial, reveals what he's seeking to correct and.
Way of escape is made for the person going through the trial.
I don't know that director or not but.
Seen that way.
First hearing, first present, 10.
Well, you have support.
Besought the board.
On behalf of that affixion that we had that's going in the flesh, that might remove it. See, Paul thought this would be an appropriate way of escaping to have the thorn removed.
But that wasn't.
God's thought he allows the thorn to continue, but he says the call by grace is sufficient.
But my strength is made perfect in your weakness.
And that I believe that word was an escape for Paul. Instead of having the form removed, you get a word from the Lord that enabled him to handle that problem.
All accepted the way of escaping the he accepted the grace of God gave to him.
But I would say here that there is a God does make a way of escape at a trial for those that are passing through it. We need disarmament perhaps to see it, but.
00:55:08
God is teaching us something and he would want to know what. He would want us to know what he's trying to teach us. Put this through a trial. I had a lady asked me this question one time. Her brother was dying of cancer.
And I don't know to this day if that man was a true believer or not. She may have been.
But in connection with that verse Enos that you referred to back in First Corinthians 10.
Before I read the verse again, I'll give your questions, He says. David. Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that God will not give us more than we can bear?
And she was thinking this in connection with the suffering that her brother was passing through. And this is the verse that she had in mind. Now I'd like some help in connection with this. How would you answer that question? Because it says here verse 13 to chapter 10, Second First Corinthians. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which ye are able.
But will with the temptation also.
Make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.
Somebody help me out here?
How would you answer that question?
Again, I don't think everyone needs the same level of correction in the trial.
Some may go through a trial, God may use a trial to teach one of his children a lesson and uh may just be a what you call a.
A mild trial, but the one learns from it the lesson that God has for them. Another child may be want to say more self will more stubborn if they take.
A little harder, uh, punishment in the trial to teach the person the same lesson.
But God knows what each one of us is able to handle.
Hopefully he puts upon anyone of his children more than they are able to endure.
But uh, we are to learn as it says here in Hebrews.
We got to learn.
It says we were to be subject in subjection under the father of spirits and live. And then in the 11Th verse, it should, uh, yield a peaceable group of righteousness onto them, which of exercise their body. And so there's those two things that God would have is to, uh, learn in the trial and be exercised by it.
And to understand what it's for that might be corrected, might be subject to it. Is that, is that right, John? Yeah, I'm thinking of that versus Joel, uh, Joel 13. No, the Lamentations 3. It is something that's taken up in job as well, but thinking of reversing Lamentation 332.
The golden cause Greek. You have to really have compassion.
According to the multitude of his mercies, where he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men, to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth. So the dealings of God are not arbitrary. They are.
4 hour benefit. He doesn't have any pleasure in seeing his child suffer. He doesn't have any pleasure in the judgment of the wicked in that coming day. There's no pleasure in that. He teaches the Sinner to come to Christ, to escape that judgment and so on. His dealings with us, it's in perfect wisdom. I forgot His way is perfect. There's another aspect here that we might mention.
Turn into, uh, season six because at these times of trial, which we meet Satan is, is very active and, uh.
He will attack.
When we are down, you know, as boys, we would say don't, don't hit a void when he's down. But Satan doesn't follow that he, uh, Ephesians 6.
01:00:03
Uh, it says there, uh, verse 16 above all, taking the shield of faith where which he shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wind. Now this is confidence in God. Why has the Lord allowed this trial in my life? I was seeking to please the Lord and it came uh, I.
The thoughts that come into our hearts. Satan is there with his fiery darts of doubt and questioning. God weighs with us.
And uh, if the, if those fiery darts gain an entrance, they can do a lot of damage, they can breakdown that confidence of the soul in the Lord and communion is interrupted. So he's ready right there.
The time of sickness, a time of loss, a reversal in your life and employment to whatever difficulties at school.
He said. Why has this happened? Well, sometimes we don't know, but, uh.
We can be exercised.
Submit to the Lord and to learn.
What? He would have us in the soil, take it from him.
The needs be on our part.
The trial comes and the needs be on our part, but there's a purpose of love on his part. But Satan is there, that shield of faith that we need to erect.
That God is doing the best for us every day of our lives according to our state of soul. Satan is opposed.
He says God doesn't love you.
He doesn't love you because he allowed this to come into your life.
He doesn't want to to do you good because this is not good that has come into your life. And if we allow him to listen to him, you try that in the Garden of Eden. He's an old serpent and they change his tactics, but he's still the same character. And he says God is withholding something from you that would make you happy.
And uh, especially in times of weakness of body, uh.
Those fiery darks are Pearl against the bullies.
With us true. That's why it says in that was the verse we looked at cast not away. Therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward the Lord that is our confidence in those times when we feel we just don't have the strength to go on. We don't know why this has occurred in my life.
Cast not away your confidence.
God valued your confidence. It would be rewarded as the judgment. See the price. That confidence that the Lord is good and He is working for our eternal benefit.
We're boys and girls know when your mother makes bread.
Uh, she uses certain ingredients.
Don't know much about making bread, but the salt and the.
Flour and there's eggs.
And there's other ingredients there, soda and salt. Now, do you eat any of those by themselves?
You don't. You don't eat salt and eggs by themselves. Flour. No, but put them all together. Put them all together. Put them in the oven. You have a delicious product coming out.
Delicious loaf of bread.
They're working together to produce something delicious for you, but when you look at them by themselves, you say boy.
Don't know how this can happen. So in our lives things are working out.
It was good, our lab.
Social theory wants to make us partake.
Of His Holiness and that is for our profit. I enjoy that mistake to him because.
You could have said here it was for his profit, but it's for our profit. He has our.
01:05:03
Good in mind. I think that's so beautiful because this is because he loves us with a perfect blood. You know, man of this world, often he takes advantage of people. We don't like that when people use us, manipulate us, hurt us for their own advantage. That's not so with God our Father. But I think holiness and happiness, they go together. You mentioned this morning obedience and happiness. Here is holiness.
And happiness. And happiness.
And holiness is really not only the abhorrence of evil, but loving that which is good, and this is what characterizes the Lord.
And it's also in verse 14. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.
So I think the Lord allows chasing in our lives.
That we might become more submissive to Him, that we might become more holy in a practical way. And by doing so we come into a greater enjoyment of the Lord, fellowship with Him to bring happiness. So this chasing is because the Lord loves us.
In connection with the father of spirits, I don't know.
Relates. But I'm thinking about how the disciples, they went into a Samaritan village.
And you know this village.
Rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so John and James, they said to the Lord, now shall we call for fire to come down from heaven and just annihilate these village because of their response?
You're in treatment, you know it's, George said.
You do not know what Spirit is going on.
They were not aware of that past spirit that was in them.
And sometimes I think in our own experience, you know, we think we're on the right track, and yet the Spirit isn't right.
And the Lord can detect it.
I just wondered if you know here it speaks about the Father of spirits. He knows what our spirit is and sometimes it needs to be correct.
I just like to say that was brought up there in First Corinthians again, chapter 10 about.
We go through a trial the Lord doesn't put on anyone of his own more than He is able to endure. And UMM mentioned that each one of those crafts, you know, has a level that God knows we're able to adore. And if we look at this one castle back in Hebrews Chapter 11 There I'm going to read UMM.
Uh, the two groups of people here 30 second verse. What shall I say more for the time with filming to tell of Gideon, Barrick, Sampson, Jeff, Nya, David, also Samuel and the prophets.
Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtain promises, stop the mouth of lions, Whence the violence of the fire escaped the edge of the sword. I would witness were made strong. Lacks value and fight turn to fight the arms of the aliens. That's one group.
Umm, well I should say women received or did raise their life again and others were tortured. This is the second group here. Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection, and others had trial of cruel mocking.
A moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword, They wandered about in sheepskins and ghostskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented.
Whom the world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and dams, and caves of the earth. And all these having obtained a good record through faith, we see not the promise. God having provided some better things for us, The day without us should not be made perfect.
Are you ready here? Two groups of people that went through the tiles. If I was to ask each one of us here, what upper hand, what group would you like to be in? I'm sure including myself would say the first group.
And no one would want to go through the trials that that second group went through.
01:10:04
But they all overcame because they had faith, and that's the way, that's the way that we overcome everything in our pathway today.
Space. We walk the faith not by sight. And so whatever the trial is that the Lord puts upon us, it's not more than able to endure. He doesn't put upon anyone more than they're able to adore. And so not everyone has the same kind of trial, but.
It says here these all having obtained a good report.
They all obtained a good report of God.
They all didn't give their lies, but.
It's still going through trials nevertheless. So don't you think, Venus, what that verse in First Corinthians 10 is saying that the Lord hath and promised to cut off the trial when we can no longer bear it, but He'll get the grace to go through it. And I think that's the thought, isn't it?
Is the chasing in our chapter?
Always a physical trial I'm thinking of.
Paul's words is Timothy. In Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 it says all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
Cannot God's Word also chasing us somewhere, maybe fiercely out of line, doesn't necessarily need to be a physical trial, but the Spirit of God working through His Word to correct us, to improve us. He goes instruction and righteousness.
It's all part of his corrective ways quickly with child training. Uh.
Uh, uh, education in the.
The Word of God is the correct system. You're right there.
Sometimes you don't listen.
We think that him nothing but Christ is only true. 24 in the appendix.
Your son Christ, God's living bread, 24 in the back.
Nothing but.
Christ as God rained.
Right.
No.
We Are Called to Live a Holy Life
Address—Tim Roach
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.
Afternoon. We can begin our meeting this afternoon by seeing #234.
And continuing the theme of the meeting today and as we've seen some of the verses of this hymn to notice the difference between.
The believer and the world and so.
Listing #234 Verse one, two and five.
We're not of the world.
With Strangers on Earth.
And in heaven.
I've been happy, dangerous.
I don't know why your eyes were hanging in the heart. Journey in the heart and thrilled.
And soon shall we endeavor our own prominent land.
Rover.
Fire, Song Man, Glory and.
And I have a very troubled.
A lot of children. I'm glad I'm sitting in the Lord. It's hard to remember the beginning.
So I want to talk about Christians in this present world and we Christians we live in a sin corrupted world.
And this world has so much to attract the Christian and at the same time the world's drawing our hearts away from the Lord Jesus.
This present world offers us some things that like we heard in the meeting earlier. They're not bad in themselves, but we might allow these things to to entertain us and to amuse us and so that we forget about living for Jesus.
And then we'll become we become distracted by this present world, but we also live in a present evil world which includes perhaps pride, jealousy, ***********.
Maybe you think *********** is not a sin. Maybe you think everybody does it. But.
The children of Israel, they were told to destroy the pictures.
What kind of pictures do you think they were told to destroy?
Well, maybe this present world has a boyfriend or a girlfriend. That's not a bad thing if the boy is old enough to work and to support a wife.
But the problem is that the present world offers you a boy or a girl who wants an emotional attachment from you, and then after that, emotional attachment.
Then comes the body.
And because romance is a progression after you touch the body, the next step in the progression is sex without marriage.
And in qualities.
But they don't want the Christ.
They like they they they like they. They want the Christian qualities, especially an employer. But they don't want Christ. And you will eventually be forced to make a choice between Christ or your friend. And so the present evil world offers you sex without marriage it all. It offers murder, disobedience to parents, and other bad things that Christians do before they're saved.
00:05:03
We Christians, we're called to live a holy life in separation from this world. Let's go to John 15.
John 15 and we'll read verse 9.
If you are of the world, the world would love his own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
We are born into this world.
And we live in this world with all the wickedness and the temptation around us.
And we are influenced. We are influenced by by entertainment and amusement and and pleasures of this world.
And yes, we are in this world, but we don't belong to this world.
And so we need to understand that as a believer, you are different from the unbelievers.
Because we are special to God.
Were the children of God? Were the heirs of God? Were joint heirs with Christ? We are more precious to God than the world.
And so the Lord has separated us from the world.
And so we are peculiar.
To the Lord Jesus, that means we're his special possession. And so the world. The world is in no way equal.
To the people of God, so in John 18.
Verse 36.
Jesus answered. My Kingdom is not of this world.
If my Kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews? But now is my Kingdom not from hence? In other words, Jesus is saying don't lower yourselves to the equality of this world. He doesn't want us to be equal with this present world. Because we're not equal by faith. We have a higher purpose for the Lord Jesus.
We can share the gospel.
We can live for Jesus. We give glory to the Lord Jesus. We're the light of the world to shine for Jesus. Not only that, we have a heavenly position. We are the bride of Christ and we will be married to Jesus and we have a home, a home that's in heaven, and that's where our future is. Our future is not here in this world. We're not here. We're not put here to clean up this old world and to get it ready for Jesus to come so that he can reign here on this earth.
That's not why we're here. We believers are above that.
We believers are above the worldlings in importance to God and the Lord. Jesus emphasized this in John 17. Let's look at some verses in John 17.
And verse 14.
'Cause I have given them thy word, and the world has hated.
World, but that you should keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
You see, we we believers, we are in a more privileged position, a privileged place more than the world. And therefore the world hates you because.
Christ has put you into a special place and He's given you a special privilege and he values you and the world will hate you. Because if you live like Christ, if you live like a Christian and you represent Christ, the world is going to hate you.
Look in verse 22.
And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.
See, the Lord Jesus gave glory to you. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been given the glory which thou gave us. Me. I have given them. He hasn't given any such glory to the world.
But He's given it to them, the believers in the Lord Jesus, that they may be one, even as we are one, I and them and thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one. And that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as Thou hast loved me. See God. God wants the world to know that He loves you, that He loves me.
00:10:21
Verse 24.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.
Jesus wants us to be with him where he is.
You see, the Lord Jesus doesn't want the worldlings in heaven with him. He doesn't want them in the Father's house. He wants you to be with him in the Father's house. He wants us believers. And that's that's why, because we believers, we are peculiar to God. We are His special possession because we belong to Jesus.
So we know that God is not a God of equality.
Everybody demands equal rights, and we we, uh, we often hear.
A lot of people demanding their rights, they want to be equal in Malawi, in Africa, often if we give a little food to one person.
Everybody. You have to give it to everybody else too. Everybody has to receive the same amount. It has to be equal or it's not fair.
And so in communism and socialism, they try to keep the common people at the same level.
Not too long ago, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, she was saying she wants to put a a six cent tax on every soda pop that was sold in the country and she wants to do that in order to create and support a universal daycare for the little children.
She wants to take the little children outside of the sphere of the parent's authority.
And so that they can begin to indoctrinate the children at an earlier age so the government can control the children.
You know, governments do not like home schoolers, and I'm not trying to promote home schooling, but it's just a fact. They prefer to institutionalized the children and to teach them all the same way, teach them all the same thing. And the government system is controlling what the children are learning. And in this way, the government is able to control what the world is becoming.
And so the governments of this world are attempting to equalize man.
So they can form A1 world government.
The the the Western powers, they are in part using global warming and climate change and the green revolution and sexual identity to bring all nations into conformity so that all nations have one goal. Even in in you hear this a lot in Malawi, that in in Kenya and some of the other countries, Uganda.
The Western powers are demanding that they that these countries accept homosexuality and the gay lifestyle and if they don't accept it then they don't get any funding, they don't get any sponsorship and so they're blackmailing, if you will, these third world countries and so.
It's, uh, these nations want to have one goal. It's another another thing that they're doing.
President of Malawi.
With all the people, they're starving, they're hungry and the president says to them, don't worry about the little things like hunger and foods and food supply. You need to think about the real important things like global warming and climate control.
That's how he cares for his people and that's being forced on them by the by the Western powers. Well.
To have all nations have one goal requires taking God out of society.
And as Mrs. Hillary Clinton says, she says, we need to redefine religion.
And it scares me what that might mean.
Then Mr. Obama, he says about America. We are not a Christian country.
00:15:05
You see, this world has become a degraded, immoral and a godless society.
And so all of this I believe is just just a precursor to the one world system that's gonna be uh uh, satanically energized by by the beast. And the beast is gonna be aided by the Antichrist. And so Satan knows that Jesus is going to have the perfect one world government and.
He's going to have a a good system of government. And so Satan is quickly trying to get his own system into place in order to override the future of Christians and Jews. And so Satan, as we were told in Genesis 3, Satan is bruising the heel of Jesus, the seed of the woman. You know, if the government can eliminate Christianity in schools and universities.
They can bring students into an equality that they can control. Let's go to Ephesians Chapter 6.
All of this Antichrist and anti Christian control of the children puts a big strain on the Christian family.
And in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse four, says, Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
Fathers, we are required by God to raise our children as Saints.
Because they are Saints if they know the Lord as their savior.
If they are not saved, we're told to raise our children as Christians anyway.
That's what our verse tells us here, he says. God tells us to bring your children up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
You know.
Women fought for equal rights so they could work like a man and so that they could go to war.
Now men are fighting for equal rights to be gay and so that they can use the woman's restroom.
Why? Because equality is an attempt to deny the reality of sin.
And they want to eliminate God from society. And so everybody, everybody, must feel that everything is equal, equal rights or it's not fair. But it's not so with God. God has special plans and blessings reserved for certain people that he's chosen to spend the time of eternity with. He's not a God of equality. He wants to bring you into blessing. He has brought you into blessing.
You are not, and he sets you in a separate.
Place that is safe and secure.
And so he wants you and I to be with him in the Father's house. And these special people are the ones who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
If you want to become one of these special people, if you want to become special to God in this way, you need to have, we're told in Acts chapter 20, you need to have repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And in Acts 301631 Says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And then you can be part of the family of God. You can be part of this special class of people who are going to be with Christ.
In heaven? Well, Jesus has made all these preparations in order to deliver believers from this present world. And let's look in Galatians chapter one and we'll read a verse about this Galatians chapter one.
Talking about.
The Lord Jesus says who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father.
00:20:01
So with all the preparations that God has made for us, a believer cannot remain the same.
He cannot remain the same spiritually. Either He will either progress or he will regress. He will go forward or he will go backward. You, as a believer will either live for Christ.
For you will live for yourself and this present world.
A believer.
In this world, a believer needs to be prepared to live as a Christian in this present world, our.
Are you ready? Are you prepared to live for Christ?
I want to talk a little bit about baptism. Baptism prepares a person for the Christian life.
Whether a person is saved or not, the meaning of baptism is the same. It means that from this day forward, this person is now going to live like a Christian in this present world.
And that is why some heads of some households in the Bible, they baptized everybody in their household. It was their way of saying if you live in my house, you're going to act like a Christian in this present world.
In this present world where UH authority is not respected.
We often find that heads of households, they don't take responsibility for those people who live in their house and they don't insist that they live and act like a Christian.
If you want to have a Christian home, the people living in the home must act like Christians.
Or else the name of the Lord Jesus will be dishonored.
And that is why someone like Lydia in Acts Chapter 16, she made sure that everybody in her household was baptized. So there was a mother-in-law or a servant if you're going to live in her house, whether you are saved or not.
You will be baptized as a Christian because from now on you're going to begin to live and to act like a Christian, and that was the privilege that the head of the household has, and Lydia was the head of her household at that time.
Now this isn't this is even more critical for a person who has been saved.
To be sure that he is baptized in preparation for his life that is about to begin here in this present world.
Let's look at Romans chapter 6.
One verse here in Romans chapter 6.
Verse four we are buried with him by baptism into death.
That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.
Even so, we also should walk in newness of life.
This verse shows us that baptism has more meaning for a true believer.
Accepting to be baptized.
Is like like you acknowledging that you are special to God.
You're like the one Pearl of great price in Matthew chapter 13, for which the merchant man, he sold all that he had to buy you for himself.
Baptism says.
That you no longer belong to this present world, you belong to Jesus Christ, and that you are ready now to walk in the newness of eternal life.
Baptism looks forward to the change that will take place in your life.
As you live like a Christian in this present world.
Let's go to second Timothy chapter 4.
Second Timothy Chapter 4.
If we're going to be baptized.
It is wise for us to be true to our baptism.
And that we would live a devoted life to that would give honor to the Lord Jesus.
00:25:04
And so let's look in second Timothy 4 verse 10.
Dimas hath forsaken me.
Having loved this present world, and is departed.
Dimas was not true. He was not faithful to his baptism.
Demas deserted Paul. He preferred the easy life without the stigma of Christianity.
It's like a Christian in school who has unbelievers for friends.
He conforms in some way to the world so he can be accepted by those friends. It's just a natural thing that we have. We want to be accepted and but we need to be careful of that because if we want to be accepted by the world, we have to do worldly things in order to be accepted. And So what was chasing in this world?
We don't know what he was chasing exactly. Might have been a girlfriend.
Living food.
Maybe it was success.
Maybe you was looking for a luxury. He wanted to be rich.
Maybe he just wanted a fast chariot.
I don't know, Maybe he went down to the Roman Coliseum to watch the Olympic Games on Sunday afternoon instead of going to the fellowship meeting.
Or maybe Dimas was looking for a more dynamic and more exciting church.
Whatever it was.
Demus he forsook Paul. He didn't want the teachings of the apostle Paul for some reason.
At that time. And so there's a reproach to live as a Christian.
And Demas felt the reproach of being gathered to the Lord's name only.
There is a cost. If you're going to live as a Christian, you may need to miss the Sunday afternoon football game or the hockey game in order for you to be assembling together with your fellow believers.
Let's go to Luke chapter 14.
Luke, Chapter 14.
And thinking again of demons.
Demas turned his back on the Lord Jesus and he deserted Paul.
Perhaps. Perhaps Amos was afraid of persecution.
And so he turned to the world for his comfort and his protection.
Whatever his reasons were, Dimas denied the name of Christ.
He wanted Christianity with off the cost.
He wanted Christianity without the law and without the reproach. Let's look at Luke chapter 14.
And verse 27.
It says here, whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Bear the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That means that you're going to suffer in this world for the name of Christ. The Lord Jesus suffered here, and he suffered on the cross for our sins. And if you're going to be a follower of Jesus Christ and you pick up the cross of Christ, you're going to suffer for him. But if you don't want to bear that cross, you can't be a disciple of Jesus.
Other Christians?
Can become easily disheartened and discouraged.
When a Christian who turns his back.
On Christ and goes to the world like a dog that returns to his own vomit.
It can discourage other Christians.
And Demas, I'm sure, was discouragement to his family and to his friends. And we know he was a discouragement to Paul.
Let's look in Proverbs chapter one.
Proverbs, Chapter One.
Verse 10.
00:30:00
My son of sinners entice thee.
Consent thou not?
Verse 11 If they say come with us.
Verse 15 If they say, Come with us, my son, walk not thou in the way with them, refrain thy foot from their path.
For their feet run to evil.
Don't allow others to change, to twist, to control your life for Christ.
Another bad consequence of a Christian running with the world is that a much light, a much needed light in the sin darkened world is put under a bushel. The sun is hidden.
Like that children's song that we sing? Hide it under a bushel? No.
It's the light of mine. I'm going to let it shine.
When Demas started running with the world.
He deprived the world of a testimony to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now when Dimas, when Dimas had been baptized, he had put on Christ.
Once Christ has been put on you, you can't take Christ off baptism, or Christ is put on you through baptism. And once you've been baptized, Christ is on you and you can't take it off.
You can't undo your baptism.
And so.
You and Demas are still responsible to live like a Christian in this present world.
And sadly, Dimas was not true to his baptism. Let's go to Galatians 3.
Galatians 3 and verse 27.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have.
Put on Christ.
So if you've been baptized, that means you have put on Christ. And if I if I have put on Christ, I should look like Christ.
And I should act like a Christian. And so when I have been baptized, I'm accepting. I am accepting the responsibility to live like a Christian.
And by my fruits you will know that is by my actions.
You will know. You should know, that I am a Christian.
And so.
Christianity or baptism makes me a professor, a professor. And so I am professing the fact that I'm going to follow Christ. And so baptism also looks forward to a godly life.
And both morally and doctrinally, baptism looks forward to a godly life. And so.
Not every Christian, though, needs to be back first.
You know, you're gonna shake your head and say, well, why doesn't every Christian need to be baptized? Well, let me tell you a story. I may have heard this before, but there was in, during the war, one of the wars. There was one of the soldiers. He was down in the trench and they were shooting at the other, other at the enemy, and he got shot and he was dying there, bleeding to death. And so he calls to the next man in the trench. He says, I'm dying.
I want to know how I can be saved, how I want to get right with God. And then his friend. He didn't know, so he asked the next man. That man didn't know, so he asked the next man and it went on down to 15 or 16 people before they found one man who had a New Testament in his pocket and he took out his New Testament and he opened.
The Bible to a verse and he put his finger on the verse and says show him this verse. And so they said the Bible back down through all the 16 men to the dying man. His friend read it to him. John 316.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
The man said. I believe, I believe.
Then he died.
That soldier did not need to be baptized. Why? Because he wasn't going to live here on Earth.
00:35:06
Baptism doesn't save you. Baptism expresses the fact that you want to live the Christian life, but if you're not going to live here in this world, he did not need to be baptized. He went straight to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus. Just like the thief on the cross, the thief on the cross didn't need to be baptized.
The Lord Jesus said to him, today you will be with me in paradise, and so that thief on the cross went straight to heaven. And so Christian baptism is for people who are going to be living here.
In this world, living in this present world. And so let's go to Titus chapter 2.
Chapter 2 and verse 12.
And gives us both the negative aspects and the positive aspects of living a godly life in holiness in Titus 2 verse 12, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts at the negative side, denying ungodliness and worldly not lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.
And so that's the positive. Live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, so soberly that would be dealing with ourselves.
Righteously would be dealing with other people, and godly would be interacting with God.
And so we should live soberly.
One thing.
As we deal with ourselves, one thing is to keep ourselves pure.
This is a difficult time in life to live.
In the world it's very impure, but the Lord tells Timothy. And and also it's for us too, says keep yourself pure.
Then another thing, he says.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. And so that's part of our our.
Our living soberly in this world. It's our dealing with ourselves. And so we should live in the power of love and of a sound mind. And there's a verse in Philippians 4/8 that it would also go along with living soberly.
Philippians 4.
In verse 8.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest. Whatsoever things are just. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.
And so we see. These are things we can think about feeling soberly.
Deals with ourselves. And so it affects my spirit, my soul and my body. And so we are we can think on these things if our mind, if our mind is right, and thinking about things that that are of virtue, it's going to have a keeping effect.
On our daily Christian life, we mentioned some of these verses about keeping ourselves. There's some others about keep yourselves from idols, keep yourselves from things strangled, keep yourself from from fornication. And so there's things that we keep ourselves from. And so that's part of living soberly in this life. That's man's responsibility. God's sovereignty says we are kept by the power of God.
And so we can't keep our salvation in Christ. The Lord Jesus is the one who keeps that for us. Well, the second point is that we should live righteously, and living righteously is interacting with others. Doing and let's look in into Galatians 6.
00:40:10
So as we interact with others.
We do good to all men.
That would be our neighbors.
Galatians 6 verse 10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.
Examples of perhaps doing good to all men would be loving your neighbor as yourself.
There's that, that beggar in the street. Do you avoid him, walk across the street and and ignore him or do you say, Oh well, if I if I give some money to him, he's just going to buy some more alcohol and get drunk again. And so we we ignore him.
And the Bible says do good to all men because it's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. And it may be that that little act of kindness will be what the Spirit of God uses to blow the wind.
The blows were we don't know where it's coming from or where it's going, but the wind is blowing.
And it may be that that act of kindness will touch the heart of that drunkard, whether he buys alcohol with your money or not.
Do good to all men, then we can bear one another's burdens.
We can give sympathy to those who are struggling, empathy to those.
Who are experiencing the same difficulties that we've experienced comfort to those who need comfort. Then we can be hospitable in our homes, do good to all men. We can invite people to our homes, be kind to them, umm, And then we can maybe help someone stranded on the side of the road. There's so many things that we do that are good to all men. We don't do these good things just to get a little pat on the back or or or.
Acknowledgement from our fellow man, but these good things are things that are done.
Because we have the new life, we have the spirit of God, and it's an overflow of the love of God flowing through us and out to others. But then the verse says especially to the to them who are of the household of faith, that means other believers. And so we can be good, do good to other believers, not just the ones in this room. It says to all men the household of faith. The household of faith includes all believers.
And extends to all other Christians. And so we have this common bond. Christ is the common bond that we have.
With other believers. And so the Third Point is that in our verses that we should live godly, and this is interacting with God. And so we can give love, we can give reverence towards God.
We interact with God and so live godly, so we can live as if we are always in the presence of God. If you knew the Lord Jesus was with you every day when you go to your bedroom, when you go to your school, when you go to your job.
In the Lord, Jesus is walking there with you and he's working at this station right next to your job.
Live as if he's with your in your presence all the time, because spiritually He is with you. You can't see him, but Jesus is with you. He's here in this room today. He He knows what you're thinking. He knows how these things are being processed in your mind.
He knows how you're going to respond to the word of God and so.
Live as if you're always in the presence of God.
So we live godly, and then we live with the conscience of who he is. Who is Jesus? He is the Almighty. He's everlasting. He's the Creator to whom belongs all the glory and the honor and the.
Power and the and the love and respect. And we worship him, and we praise Him because of who he is. And so then another point is that the results of godly living will be a life of obedience.
We have love and reverence towards God.
And we can live godly, and we can reverence God or at school while we're at work.
In our words, it's evident by our friends.
And then finally, we can give reverence to God when we come into His presence at the meeting. I know sometimes there's circumstances.
00:45:08
But we can get to a meeting.
Be quiet, not whispering.
And we train our children to know that when we come to the assembly meetings that there needs to be reference towards God. But they don't learn that when they come to meeting they may, but that they really learn the reverence towards God.
At home. And so we need to instill a reverence in a godly fear, a godly living in the home, and so that when we come to the into the presence of the Lord in the assembly meeting, we will know how to behave ourselves and.
So another point of of godly living is to give place in our life to Jesus as Lord and so we can ask the Lord Jesus.
Lord Jesus, what do you want me to do? What would you have me to do today?
And be ready for the answer. It may be something that would surprise you. It might be something you don't really want to do. But if you're obedient and you do what the Lord has put into your pathway for you to do.
There can be blessing in your life, and so as Christians we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
Let's sing hymn number.
316.
We are by Christ redeemed.
The cost is precious blood. The Lord Jesus paid a great amount in order that you and I would belong to Him, so that he would keep us separate from the world, and so that He would put us into a peculiar place of His. Where we are, we are in it. We are valued in a special to God. We are, by Christ. Reading #316. Somebody start that, please.
Provide your eyes. Great day in the day. I'm alive. I'm a lot of life. I'm all right now. I'm all right. I'm all I'm all right. I'm not saying that I'm sitting right. I'm all right. I'm glad. I'm not sure. I'll show you. All right. I'll show you.
00:50:13
Great Children's Glory together.
They can be lost. No way. It's very hard.
About the wind, the blood flow, the blood flow.
Information to run the half of the day.
The relation to that we shall see you in the end of the day, and pray stood your brain.
The way I'm saying.
Let's pray our God and Father we have.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Matt Roach
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.
Part of the gospel meeting this evening. The gospel is the good news that God loved us so much that he sent his Son down to earth to die and paid the punishment that was due to us. This book, the Bible of God's word, it tells us that we've all sinned, we've all says in Romans.
For we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've all fallen short against the standard that God has given us. And God is a holy God, and his holy decree is that.
And God is a just God. You can't just overlook sin, you must punish it.
Requires death and judgment. But God is also a loving God. He's a merciful God. He's a great gracious God, and he put in, in the works of planet salvation that not only meets his righteous demands, but offers us salvation and eternal life. He sent his Son down to this earth. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Tell us in Hebrews 2 That it became man so that he could die, so that he could suffer death to pay for our sins.
Since a human condition required a human solution, Zoroji's came down as the perfect man. We know the story. He was born in Bethlehem.
Today to Mary, Virgin Mary.
He grew up. He walked around this earth. He faced trials and tribulations and suffering like we do, but without sin. He did good. He healed the sick, the blind, Elaine, and raised the dead to life.
Many was sent to the cross of Calvary. He went there willingly. He was nailed to that cool Roman cross where he shed his blood and he died.
That we could be saved. His death pays the pen the penalty that we had before God. And tonight it's simple faith that you need to reach out in if you wish to avail yourself for that salvation. Faith that the Lord Jesus Christ died and bled for your sins, and he rose again the third day, and he's in heaven today. And someday he'll come back, we believe very soon to take home those who have accepted Him as their Savior.
And if you haven't accepted him as your savior?
You'll be left behind, and someday you'll face him as your judge.
So tonight, I want you to listen to the words from this book. Take heed to them, but leave this room without taking them into your heart and accepting them. Perhaps we could start by singing Stand and Sing hymn #10 and we can save it. Start that for me. There's a Savior on high in the glory, A Savior who suffered in Calvary's tree. A Savior is willing to save now as ever. His arm is almighty, His love great imprisonment.
00:05:16
Oh, very, very good morning. I'm very.
I'm about to run rage from all the blood for the forest day together.
For I'm waiting for.
God to bear everything on God the same time.
And.
Oh.
No.
Fried chicken and the small men can't shake it shall.
Umm.
Ask for God's help before we continue.
Regarding our fault, we can see another hymn #28.
And we can start that then?
Yeah, so.
The earth shall gather.
Ready. Run from your eyes away.
To decorate takes place to menstrual through the cloud of wondrous plan.
Ning to rain so I don't know.
Yeah, it's a problem.
So high before all the 95.
Beginnings are strive for me.
Great. All right, everyone think they're doing their hands and I want to have a pleasant roll. I am going to do so. That's why they start riding this wild brown skeleton until God.
00:10:05
Saturday yesterday vibrates also one.
Of my brain.
Anything wrong? Sky glory?
Saved by grace alone.
Head of my heart tonight to talk about grace.
The truth of Christianity is separated from man's religion by a number of things. Our brother Wally today referred to the fact that Christianity has an empty grave.
Our Savior approached the dead, Return to heaven. That's the big distinguishing factor of the truth of Christianity. But another one is the idea of grace versus works. All other legends of man have manifest center man through his efforts trying to elevate himself to attain godhood, to achieve paradise, whatever the end goal may be. It's all about what man does. But Christianity takes back control away from us. We have no control. It's all in God's hands.
And it's great. And grace is unmerited favor or unearned favor. And it's a difficult.
We're sometimes understand. I've got a quote from WTP Wolfson, and he's defined grace as this grace is God's coming to a man that has sinned. That's God coming to us and taking him out of the condition in which his sin has placed him, a condition which he cannot by any possible means free himself by his own efforts.
So Christianity is about God coming to you. He's breaking that gap between himself and your sin. There's nothing you can do to earn it. He's coming to where you are, and he's offering you a solution to your sin that you yourself cannot earn. And I think in all the Scripture, one of the most beautiful examples of grace is the story of the thief on the cross. I'd like to turn to that tonight and read from Luke 23.
I'm going to start in verse 32 and I realize I'm coming into the story a little bit.
After a lot of things have happened, so by the forsaken time, I'm going to start in verse 32. I'll give you some background of what has happened up to this point. We have in chapter 22 The Lord Jesus Christ being betrayed into the hands of the Jewish rulers by one of his own disciples, Judas.
He was taken by those Jewish rulers and put to a false trial where he was accused of blasphemy, which was punishable in the Jewish law by death.
The irony of that is that he was the Son of God, but that you didn't believe it, so he assumed that he was blossoming.
The Jews accused him of after they took him to the Romans. They didn't even have they had no power of their own to crucify him or to put him to death under the Roman system. They need to convince the Romans to kill him. So when they took him to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, they accused him of insurrection or treason against Caesar, which was punishable by death in the Roman law.
Pilate spoke to Jesus.
I saw no fault in the man. He tried to release him because Jesus was sinless. There was no fault in him.
But the Jewish leaders went among the people and riled them up so that they cried out, Crucify him, crucified him. So Pilate, wanting to please them, had Jesus stripped of his clothing, had him scourge with that Roman whip which I understand is braided leather with bones and metal tied into it for the flesh from his back, says in Isaiah 53 that he was scared more than any man.
He was led from there to the hill of Calvary where he was nailed to that cross. And that's where I want to pick up the story here in verse 32.
And there were also two other malefactors, their fees that were led within to be put to death.
When they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, one in the right hand and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they pirated raiment and cast lots, and the people should be holding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying he saved others, let him save himself if he be Christ chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar.
And saying, if thou be the king of the Jews.
And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews. And one of the manufacturers were hanged railed on him, saying, If that would be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answer answering rebuke, can say thus not thou fear God, seeing Mauer in the same condemnation. For we indeed just we received a due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing, nothing amiss.
He said unto Jesus, Lord, Remember Me when thou come us into thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee today.
Shalt thou be with me in paradise? And there's both the 6th hour, and there's a darkness over all the earth until the 9th hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veiled, the temple was written in the midst. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
00:15:09
What a scene we have here before us, the scene of contrast. On the center cross, we have one nailed. It was thinless, perfect. On either side. We had criminals that deserve to be there, two thieves who do their works, what they've done in their lives. It ended up nailed to this cross. But in the center was one that didn't belong there. Not only was he sinless, he had a choice of whether he went there or not.
It tells us another gospel. When he was arrested, Peter, I believe it was, pulled out his sword and tried to fend off those that were coming to arrest Jesus.
Jesus told him to put the sword away and said, don't you know that I could call 12 legions of angels and set myself free?
We read another gospel where they tried to capture him at one point, but it was before his time and he just walked through the midst of them and went away. They had no power over him. He went to that cross willingly because of his love in his heart for us to die for us. But those thieves when I'm sure kicking and screaming to that cross.
And we know and and it says in verse 39 that they that one of the male factors, one of those thieves mock Jesus and said, if you be the Christ, come down from the cross.
And save us too. And we know brother gospels that at one point both those fees were mocking Jesus. They were saying that too. If you be the Christ, save yourself and us. But at some point that feat was touched by God. His heart was touched. Perhaps it was the prayer of Jesus in in verse 34 that perfect that prayer of perfect love being nailed to the cross. He prayed for forgiveness for those that were doing it. Imagine that would have spoken those watching.
Or perhaps it was Genesis conductor in the entire thing. I can imagine when hardened criminals were being nailed to that cross, the most foul things have been coming out of their mouth. They would have been screaming curses and hatred those that were doing it. But it says in Isaiah that.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was a land before shears. He was dumped. He said nothing to rebuke those that were mocking him. He showed nothing but love.
Quoted that wrong. It says he was oppressed and he was afflicted. He opened not his mouth. He was brought as a lamb through the slaughter, and the sheep before his shears his dump. So he opened not his mouth.
What a testimony to those watching and to those two fees, and one of these fees was touched by that. He was touched by what he had seen. God had reached out and touched his heart and he stopped his mockery and he realized what a condition he was in. There was nothing he could do. He was in a desperate situation, physically nailed to that cross. What can he do for himself? What religion of man could have helped him there? Could the message of Islam have helped him? Or good works have to outweigh your bad? What could he do? In a few hours? He had left to pay the debt that he owed, even if.
Should work it off and the Bible says that it's not that works with righteousness as we have done according to his mercy saved us. Even if he could have gotten down from that cross, the freedom would have been short lived. The Roman soldier put it, put him back up. So there's nothing he could do on that cross. There's no good works he could do. He was helpless.
Yet he recognized that. He recognized that without the help of the one in the center cross, he would perish.
And he turned to the Lord, and he said, Lord, Remember Me when thou cometh into thy Kingdom. He reached out to the only one that could help him in that situation.
And what did the Lord say to him? The Lord say no. A few minutes ago you were mocking me. I can't accept you. Did you say that? Did you say no? Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week or after you do some penance in the afterlife to a piece what you've done. No, He just said today you will be with me in paradise, instantaneous. That's the the assurance of your salvation. It's not in your hands that he could do nothing to save himself.
But he turned to the one that could help him.
True dependence on that salvation that is offered. Nothing he could do.
But instantly.
Given salvation.
And tonight, that same salvation is available to you. If you're hearing your sins, nothing you can do but reach out and faith the one that died for you on that cross. He shed his blood.
And man didn't take his life. It says in verse 46 that he delivered his spirit into the hands of his father, and he gave up the ghost. He gave up his life.
He was buried in a tomb, and we know that three days later he rose again, returning to glory. We'll come back someday for us.
In a lot of ways, when we're in our natural state as dinners, we're a lot like that thief. We're helpless. There's nothing we can do on our own.
We're not physically nailed to a cross, but we are enslaved to our sin. Nothing that we can do ourselves is All is all through grace. I'd like to turn to some verses in Ephesians chapter 2 to read about our conditions.
00:20:01
Seasons Chapter 2.
And we'll start in verse one. You'll notice if you're reading umm from King James, the words happy quicken during italics. They were put in there by the translator. If I want to leave those out to get the claw here, because that thought comes back in in verse verse 5.
Says And you who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh.
Filling the desires of the flesh in the mind and we're by nature the children of wrath even as others. So by nature we are dead in our trespasses and sins. You'll notice that the verb tense here is we're dead. Paul, the apostle Paul who penned these words and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was writing to those already saved. If you're here tonight in your sins, that verb changes to our you are dead in your trespasses and sins. What can a dead man do to help himself?
Nothing, it's too late. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. Horrible thing to think of.
Says in verse three that when you're in your sin, you're fulfilling the lust of your flesh and the desires of your mind. Your enslaved to that sin and you may say well I do good things, I'm not always doing evil things, but what purpose are you doing those good things? You're not doing them for God. They're worthless. Says in Isaiah, forget the reference that all our righteousnesses are filthy rags in his sight. All the good things we do, if not done for him are filthy rags. We can do nothing on our own. We are dead in our trespasses.
Apostle Paul talked about this further our loss condition. Roman St. Keep your finger. Stevens 2 will come back.
But in Romans 3, Paul writes further, picking up, uh, part way through verse nine, you said, for we have before proved, this is Romans 3 verse nine. For we have both proved, we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. So everyone, Jews and Gentiles, all the nations are under sin as it is written. There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understand it. There is none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of the way. They are together, become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, No, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulchre, and with their tongues they have used to see, and the poison of ASP is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is No Fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things, whoever the law say to them, who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be, may become guilty before God.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified at his sight, For by the Law is the knowledge of sin. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Not only that, it says there's none that even seek after God. We are truly trapped in our unrighteousness, trapped in our sins.
Incapable of doing anything for us, our mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, destruction and measure in our ways. And the law that was given to us, it only condemns us. The law that was given the 10 commandments, the the moral code that God gave the children of Israel for them to abide by. It didn't give them a a, a standard against which they could determine what was right and wrong and allow them to do good.
That measuring stick of the law only condemned them, made them realize they were falling short, and was by that law.
That we have the knowledge of our sin. Man is guilty before God with no excuse. Tell us in Romans one there without excuse because of the creation we see around us magnificent creation. A man knows there's a God. Further, man knows that he's sinning because of the law. God has written the law in man's hearts. But it doesn't end there. As I mentioned before, God meets us in his love. He reaches out to us in grace. Let's turn back to Ephesians chapter 2.
We'll pick up the best part of that chapter. Not the best part of the chapter, but the first part was talking about our wretched condition.
And then the good news that comes out in verse 5, but it says, but God, we read about how we were dead in trespassing and sins. But in verse four. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherein wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in our sins, have quickened us or made us alive together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, have raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages that come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace.
And his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
Even though we're in that rescue condition file in the sight of God, He loved us so much, they sent His Son to die for us. And there's nothing that we could do to earn that salvation. It's given to us.
00:25:01
Quote I read earlier God has come to us in our condition in our sinful condition that we found ourselves in. We had no power to help ourselves. He came to us in his grace. He gave us the faith to believe and if you're here tonight.
God can touch your heart and bring you to salvation. Is he the Word? Open your heart to the Lord and be saved.
For by grace here say through faith and not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of work, lest any man should boast. But we know when in heaven sitting before God or sitting with the other leaders that are there saying I got here on my own. I did some great things, that's why I'm here. No, we'll be there in adoration realizing what he's done for us. I have a quote here from William Faraday, which I just think is a beautiful, umm, acknowledgement of the grace that God has has shown us. He says this when our noblest doings.
Compared to what Christ has done for us, we feel constrained to put our hand upon our mouth and cast ourselves adoringly at His feet. He will delight to commend and reward even a cup of cold water given for His sake. But be it far from us to utter one word about the best we have done. It is grace alone that has put us under the path of Christ. Works cannot save.
No other system in this world can bring you to salvation. All those other systems look to you to do something. And yet this book, God's Word, tells us that those good things we do condemn us for the law that we try to follow condemn us. It exposes us for what we are as sinners. But God and his love and mercy and grace has come to us and given us a way of salvation.
And much like that deep from the cross where you're helpless.
The one in the center cross could help you tonight.
He's the one who can save you from your sin and put you on a path to glory, eternal life.
And it's just a simple reaching out in faith tonight, acknowledging who he is and that you're a Sinner and you need a Savior.
I wanna use the lock for this meeting time to tell a story I've enjoyed recently. It's happened about 70 years ago during the Second World War. Some of you in this room were alive during that time period. I will point you out. Some of you may have studied the store or the the history of the Second World War. You may recognize some of the names I'm going to use. And I ask for your forgiveness. Love your German names. I'll probably butcher them. But the story goes like this. It's centered around a man named Henry Garricki. Henry Garricky was born in 1893 in a small farming town in Missouri.
In the US, he was raised in a Christian home and when he ended high school, he went to seminary and he became ordained as a Lutheran pastor. He was given a church and pastor in the city of St. Louis, MO. And Henry had a heart for the gospel. He, he talked about how he was in the business of trying to win souls for Christ and when he wasn't in his, in his church on Sundays, preaching five or six, uh, messages every Sunday.
He was in the hospitals, in the homeless shelters and especially in the prisons. He spent a lot of time giving the gospel.
To the criminal and the underprivileged beyond church as he was called, as he would call them. I know that worked with Henry in his ministry would often recall him saying show them Jesus Savior from sin.
Well, Henry was pastoring that church when the Second World War broke out. He was married to uh, his wife Elma, and they had three sons. And his three sons enlisted in the army and were sent overseas to fight in the war. And in 1943, Henry felt called to join the military as well as a chaplain.
So he was sent to Europe and he served time in military hospitals, ministering spiritually and giving the gospel to wounded soldiers.
He was stationed in in England and France and Germany. He saw some of the worst things that you can imagine in that hospital. He was there working after D-Day and he saw the flood of wounded coming in, saw a horribly named people, people dying, gave the gospel to everyone that he could. And by the end of the war, he was tired of the bloodshed. He wanted to go home to see his wife.
But before he could go home, he got called in into the commanding, into the office of his commanding officer.
To be in, uh, November 1945 and as commanding officers, said Henry, before you go home, there's one more thing we're gonna ask of you. You've been selected for the internal security detachment at the Nuremberg prison in Nuremberg, Germany. You've been asked to be a chaplain Finossi, war criminals that are held there.
That was a lot to ask of Henry. A lot of people didn't believe that those men deserved to hear the gospel and be forgiven.
His commanding officer, after he told Henry that he was selected and tried to talk him out of it, said Henry, you're older than the rest of the child who use your age for an excuse. Turn this down and go home. But everyone wanted to pray about it. So Henry went away and prayed for a few days. He knew full well with these men had done These were just run-of-the-mill Nazi criminals. These are Hitler's inner circle. Men like Joakim von Ribbentrop, Herman Guring, Rudolph Hess, William Katell, men who had been involved in planning carrying out Hitler's.
00:30:05
Solution The murder of 6,000,000 Jews, other minorities. These men had, we can say, a blood on their hands with no one else. So Henry went away and prayed. He had experienced the results of their of the Nazi aggression first hand. Three of his two of his three sons have been brutally wounded in the war. And he recounts how he had gone into the cow concentration camp after he had been liberated to help out with some of the people they were freeing from there. And he accidentally touched a wall with his hand and came away smeared with blood.
In the human blood leaking through the wall. So he knew who he was going to be. He was asked to minister to these Nazi war criminals. So Henry said he prayed harder than he ever had in his life for those few days. He said by the end of those days, God had showed that these were not monsters, but souls that needed a savior. Sir Henry said that he would go. So he went to the Nuremberg prison and this is where the Nuremberg, uh, war trials occurred. And he had about 12 uh, criminals that were part of his area of responsibility.
And on his first day, Henry went around each one of these into cells of each of these criminals.
Nazi war criminals introduced himself and invited them to come out to his Sunday services. I won't go through the accounts of each one, obviously, because there's twelve of them, but there's kind of four of these stories or introductions that stood out to me. The first one was Rudolph Hess.
When he asked Rudolph has to come to his Chapel on Sunday for, uh, to hear the gospel and to hear about Jesus Christ. Rudolph has said no, I don't believe that stuff. If I need to pray, I'll do it here myself and myself.
He went in to see Herman Goering.
Gurig said, I know I don't believe it, but I'll come out to the, to the, the funding services. And he actually did, but he found out, uh, Henry found out that the prison psychologist that Goering are just trying to get her to sell more often. Goering said this to, to Henry Derrick. He, he said, to me, Jesus is just another smart Jew. No one's special.
You went into the Jokaban ribbon troughs.
Cell introduced himself and invited him out to a Sunday service.
And Ribbentrop said this religion business isn't nearly as important as you think it is.
But he came out to the services Ribbentrop did over time.
The biggest surprise for Henry that day is he went into the cell of Wilhelm Cassell. He was the commander of the German armed forces very high up in the Nazi regime. Bowen Catal was reading his Bible and when Antenna introduced himself, Patel held it up and said, this book said that even the center, like I can be saved.
Henriette first is skeptical, but over time he began to see cattle as a repentant Sinner.
But a testimony to God's grace.
Henry kept ministering to these men and many of them didn't believe what he had to say, but they grew to respect Henry because they saw in him a love that shone through. He had a sincere desire to win their souls for Christ. Henry wasn't popular by the way. He received piles of hate mail from many Americans, especially, umm, he was from America. The newest story hate mail from Christians as well, saying these men don't deserve the gospel. They don't deserve God's grace for what they've done.
But Henry knew that the gospel could save even the vile of Sinner. It could save that thief that was nailed to that cross. So you continue to give them the gospel.
And in the spring of 1946, a rumor started circulating through the prison cells that Henry was going home to his wife.
And William Gatell picked up a pen and he wrote a heartfelt letter to Alma Garricki, Henry's wife. And you can see that letter today. I understand it's at the Concordia Historical Institute in Missouri on display. He wrote a letter to her and had everyone of the Nazi war criminals in that cellblock. Scientists. It appealed to her to let her husband stay. They needed him. He respected them or they respected him. They saw the sincerity in him and they wanted him to stay even though they didn't believe in Christ. They saw Christ shoddy through Henry and they wanted him to stay there through the end of the trial. Henry's wife.
Sincere love for the gospel as well. She responded through airmail. Some simple words stay, they need you. So Henry stayed and he was there through the end of the trials. October 1St, 1946. The verdicts were handed down and six of the men on his watch were condemned to death by hanging, including ribbon through.
They were to be hung in the morning of October 16th of that year, 1946, and the evening before Henry went to each one of those condemned men to give them the gospel one last time, and to pray with them if they wanted it.
Met with Herman Goering. Goering rejected the Gospel of Christ, but he said to Henry, give me communion just in case.
Henry said I can't give you communion because the very one that instituted the Lord's Supper is the one that you're rejecting. I can't give you that communion.
So Goering shrugged his shoulder and said I'll take my chances.
00:35:00
Don't take your chance with your eternal soul tonight. Perhaps you're in here. You've heard the gospel many times and you've walked out in different I'll take my chances. There's no chance of tomorrow. There's no guarantee. Don't walk out with a chance. Walk out with a guarantee, with assurance, with confidence. That thief hanging on the cross could do nothing, but he had confidence that he would be saved by the one in the center.
You know, Goering was the first one that was sentenced to be hung the next morning. But Guru never made that walk to the gallows. Later that night, he process cyanide castle into his mouth and committed suicide. And as he was convulsing on his bed, foaming at the mouth, Henry was whispering the gospel into his ear, trying desperately to save this man in his final breath. As far as we know, he went to a priceless eternity. He made escape demands justice. He didn't appear to be hung the next morning. He may have escaped man's justice, but he won't escape gods.
Someday he'll stand before his, his judge, his creator, and his name we look for in the book of life and not found and be cast into utter darkness. And that's the same for everyone in this room tonight who is not saved. You 2 will stand before your judge. Someday you may have a charmed light down here. You may never meet do anything criminal and be held accountable by the government. You may live a good long life, but you won't escape God's justice. God said the soul that sins it must die.
And you will meet that creator one way or the other.
Needham saved standing on the righteousness of Christ that you can have eternal life so Guring didn't make it to the gallows and the next day the sentences were carried out and there were a couple of men like willing to tell that were hanging that day that did profess to be saved, but many went to their desk staying steadfastly loyal to Hitler and Henry Pennant for their ox. I want to talk a little bit about Ribbentrop. His story is incredibly.
Demonstrative, demonstrative of God's grace and the ability to save the vilest offender with going out of the way and not the lie to be hung. Ribbentrop has moved at the front of the list, So at about 1:00.
11:00 AM. He was led from his holding cell and he walked to the gallows. He climbed those 13 steps up to the platform, hands timed behind his back.
Uniform guards beside him and he was accompanied by Henry Garricky. Henry was president at the hanging of each one of those men that was on his watch and he preached the gospel at the very end for each of those men. The Ribbentrop got to the top of that platform. His his legs were shackled, hand remade, tied behind his back.
And he was asked if he had any last words.
And here's what Ribbentroff said.
Looking at his, at the witnesses there, this is what's on record as official last words. God protect Germany. God have mercy on my soul. My final wish is that Jeremy should recover her unity and that for the sake of peace, there should be understanding between the East and the West. So those are his official last words. They were captured by a reporter named Arthur Gates. I looked through the audio. We can get anything online now, the actual audio, this news broadcast.
And this secular reporter said this, it sounded like ribbon through.
Truly recognize the extent of what he had done. He sensed a repentance in his voice tho those weren't Ribbentros last words. After he finished saying those words, the witnesses, he turned and looked at Garr Garricki, Henry Garricky and he said, I will see you again, I will see you again.
One other man on that platform heard those words. He was the US Commandant of the prison, but they didn't mean anything to him, But they meant something to Henry, Doctor Ribbentroff said. I will see you again. The black hood went over his head, the noose was tightened and he was dropping to eternity. I will see you again. Why don't you say those words?
Well, only one person on that platform knew the story, and that was Henry. Henry had spent the last few minutes of Ribbentrop's life with him alone in that holding cell before he made the walk to the gallows.
He was there in prayer, driven through.
And here are Ribbentrop's last words to Henry Garricky.
I place all my trust in the blood of the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world. May God have mercy on my soul.
How could a man like that have confidence that he would see Henry Garrick again in heaven?
Certainly wasn't anything that he had done. If anybody deserved judgment, you might say with an off your war criminal. Yet he could look Henry in the eye and say I will see you again.
He could only do that because of his confidence in the blood of Christ. He had no other hope.
He was facing death, he was minutes away, and yet he had any confidence. That astounds me to be a moment away from dropping to your death and having the confidence to say to another Christian, I'll see you again.
I hope that I was in that situation knowing I'm staying, that I would have that same confidence. That's, that's, that's purely, that's putting yourself in God's hands completely and trusting what he's done for you. I place my trust in the blood of the Lamb and taketh away the sins of the world.
00:40:08
And tonight he might say that if the blood of Christ is saving a Nazi war criminal.
You can be saved as well. The violence offender reminded me of that him the stanza Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood to every believer, the promise of God. The violence offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus, a pardon receives the violence offender can be saved because it's not up to us.
Our lives are a mess on our own, but Christ came down and he died for us. He shed a fat blood, the blood that can give us confidence that we will be saved. He was perfectly righteous. So his death on our behalf, when we accept it, his righteousness is given to us so we can stand before God someday and say I'm clean, I've been saved.
Christ died for me. Your son, the Lord Jesus Christ died for me. I'm not here because I did anything on my own. I'm here because your Son died for me. He loved me enough to come down to this earth.
And die for us. What love, what grace. And tonight.
You can walk out that door and you can take a chance. If you're not saved, you can take a chance. You'll have another opportunity. Maybe you'll have a deathbed and you think you can convert there. But there's no there's no guarantee of tomorrow. Your death may come or.
The Lord may come to take home those who have accepted Christ as their Savior. And if you're left here, you will face death someday for your sin, and you will stand before that righteous judge.
Read about that in Revelation. Revelation chapter 20 I believe.
Revelation chapter 20.
And verse 11 And I saw a great white throne, him that sat on it, from whose face? From earth, Whose face? The earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were open, and another book was opened.
Which was the book of life, And the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the books according to their works. And that he gave up the dead that you're in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead, which are in them. And they were judged every man according to their works.
And nothing hell were cast in the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
As for those who reject Christ, what a horrible end.
Internal punishment. But John who wrote this, continued writing into chapter 21. This is the hope that's there for each of us to accept him as our Savior. Chapter 21, verse one revelation. I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first earth, the 1St heaven and the first earth were passed away and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold the Tabernacle of God.
And he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.
With an end for those who accept Christ as their Savior.
I don't know what it will be like to have God dwelling with us, tabernacling, umm, dwelling amongst us.
I can only think.
As William Faraday said in the quote I read that we can do nothing but fall adoringly at his feet for what he's done. You think of those as such, with the Nazi criminals that were saved ribbon through what must be.
In his heart he looks before that one to save even his sins. What joy, what adoration to realize that that one paid your debt for you.
And tonight, that same blood, as I said, has saved the thief on the cross.
Save Ribbentra that even saved the Apostle Paul and penned much of this. This New Testament Apostle Paul went around murdering Christians before he was converted and yet God brought him to repentance as well.
Paul's interesting story because from the fewest perspect Jewish perspective, he felt he was doing good works. Says in Galatians that if anybody has any reason to boast, it's me. I was jealous for my faith, but from the Christian perspective, he was killing Christians.
Yet God in His grace save the Apostle Paul as well.
And then inspired him to write much of our New Testament. He's the one that wrote whereby Gracie or saved through faith, not of work with any man should boast.
In one passage, I forget the reference, Paul called himself the worst offender, one of the worst sinners. And yet, what a story. Paul is saved by grace, recognizing that his works only condemned him. So tonight it's simple. Just reach out in faith, acknowledge you're a Sinner, that you need Christ as your Savior.
00:45:17
And he will be.
Able to save you immediately like the fat thief today will give me in paradise. Nothing you have to pay at all. Nothing. Nothing you can do to earn it. Nothing you can do to lose it. Nothing you can do that is so evil that it can't be forgiven. Is blood is powerful.
I first place my confidence in the blood of the Lamb that washes away the sins of the world.
That's confidence. That's faith in something that God did for you, not in your own.
Perhaps we get closed by singing hymn #28.
28.
Sorry, that would be 38 and 38.
Let me get started.
I know.
Her.
The problem is I don't know.
Goodbye. I'm just saying you need to get into the communication. Continue.
By all our hearts, be living in the living room.
Turn around in the way you've been in Raha hai hai hai.
And I am a man burning sway without being in the same hole.
Everybody's gone. Don't let it down.
Until.
Again.
I know.
I'm scared I'm gonna do the time dancing round of sin.
Threading and you're in the ending, in the eyes, through the thighs and thighs.
I really love and I have to break the British way.
And even take home.
To get your heart when it's kind of dead.
With me into God's hands, our God and our Father. Thank you for this opportunity to open the Word of God and to read. But the Lord Jesus Christ coming down in his great love for us and dying and shedding his blood for us, that we might be saved, we might have his righteousness credited to us.
We thank you for that grace that was shown to us.
We recognize.
Nothing that we can do. Who is that? If it was up to us, we don't have that confidence. Believe that we'd be truly safe. We're so thankful that it's in your hands.
We just ask, does anyone tonight in this room that has not accepted Christ as their Savior that they won't put it off any longer. They won't leave this room and take a chance with the eternal destination of their soul.
We just think of the message we're going forward elsewhere in this world. We just ask that it'll be delivered with power.
00:50:00
And a softly brought to the saving knowledge before Jesus Christ made for them on the cross. We just commit this evening into your hands, asking in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
What's in the Box Has Eight Legs and Stings
Children—Wally Dear
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.
Of course. And so.
Yeah, looks like we might be a little short on girls today, but nice to see everybody welcome everybody to our Sunday school.
And we always begin by singing. So you got a #4747 on the back, Let's sing 47 on the back.
And I'm going to make a suggestion in order to be able to say more of the songs on this great hymn sheet. Maybe we'll sing the first and last verse. Unless you indicate otherwise, we're going to see the 1St and the last verse.
They shall shine.
For his crown.
Who else says number?
Yes.
#4.
So we're still on the back page #42 a little children.
Surprisingly, all kind of.
Salvation Progress.
The scene sounds very good. Who else has a number? Next number 4444.
In 2010.
Nobody ever had so listen to me.
Tell him again, Tell him again. So salvation story ringing horizon, horizon.
Nobody ever has so many people.
Bending we got the last words of his breath, your daddy answered the valley under God. Thank you sun to show her everything he.
Then I am sure that he said him for being in heaven, and lay down again.
Again, but I'll make some story between your landlord to the Omaha and play of the Children of Men, though I need ever had so beautiful truth.
Yeah, another one number 4545.
Along in previous printing not included.
Does anybody have 45?
00:05:02
Minutes.
Too little lies to the Lord little God to live in. American squirrel never left the lonely to do all of our King's prayers live and still work for him all right again.
Why do they go on time? They just take it and they take the surrounding a little bit while I'm doing a little hard. Go ahead. And now they can buy. There's no more in Jesus. That's why I've expected me.
All the way from the end of the trailers and everything.
Very good.
Who else? Anybody else?
40 #40.
#4 Jesus loves me this kind of Does anybody need a hymn sheet with that extra hymn sheets here?
OK #4.
How many know the sign language?
To the chorus, I think I know it. We'll try it. OK, so when we get to the chorus, let's sing and sign. OK, so #4 Jesus loves me.
So we don't want you to be long. They are. We find being here strong. Yes, he comes by with me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, Jeez, that was bloody. Yeah. She's not loved me.
So.
One or two more. Anybody else have a number?
And if you know a song that's not on the sheet, we might be able to sing it by memory. Yes #5.
Oh, happy day number 50. Happy day. That makes my joy.
Under my God, one day let's go.
Rejoice and tell us, drive yours all around.
Happy days, happy days.
I mean, let's get in when she starts my thins already. You know, as we sing this song, I look around.
And I see some happy faces.
And I believe that these people are singing this song like they really mean it. They know the happy day in their life when their sins were all washed away.
And if that doesn't make somebody happy?
I don't know what else can, but you know I.
If we know the happy day when Jesus watched as soon as the way, now maybe there's somebody here today.
They can't think of any time when they ask Jesus to wash their sins away. They never had the happy day, and so they Can't Sing with a happy face if they're like that. But you know what today can become?
The happy day now what is the date today?
Who knows?
You know the date.
Today is.
00:10:01
Uh, there is this time you said what? It's the 22nd. Very good. May 22.
2016.
This can be your happy day if you've never asked Jesus to be your savior. So now let's sing the last verse.
Let's all stand up and do this, shall we? We'll sing the last verse and the chorus of #5.
I'll rest, my Lord.
His hands around nor ever grow thy nor become her to do it in my bed. Very goodness. Happy day Happy day for 19 and swami's my symbol.
Umm, my sins are away.
Repeat soccer. Well, let's take time for one more song. One more song. Anybody else have a number? Yes #4 #4.
Christ is the Savior of sin.
S outstanding, therefore I want to change him. Since darkness come by his Prince, I am free praying.
Staying around, staying in frightening.
How shall I come and praise her, and let us make sense of danger for me?
Straight to the last day and then take your own standards lightly.
Shining light on my grandson.
Well, this is him. She's aside.
Your chair floor.
Now we're going to ask the Lord for his help today.
So let's pray.
Our Godfather, we thank thee this morning for the wonderful message of the gospel. We thank Thee that Thou art still saving boys and girls from their sins. We thank you for the precious blood of Jesus.
That can wash them all away. And we do pray that if there's one in this hall here today who cannot sing with a happy heart or happy day when Jesus washed my sins away, may they call upon thee today.
For salvation.
May they turn to Thee, Lord Jesus, and put their trust in Thee and in Thy precious blood that was shed there at the cross of Calvary, in love for our souls. And so we commit this little sunny school today, thanking me for the opportunity to be together, and we just pray that Thy word might reach deep into each of our hearts.
At the entrance of thy word, give light, bring salvation. We ask this as we can.
Thy grace and goodness following the precious name, the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. Now I got something in this box.
It's big. It's got big eight lakes.
But don't worry, it's not going anywhere. It's gonna stay right there.
I wanted to show you something else.
00:15:03
Before I'm looking for the box, you see this book here. What does this say?
Holy Bible. Holy Bible.
The Holy Bible is the best book we could ever read. We sing a song about that, don't we? The best book to read is the Bible. If you read it every day, it will help you on your way. And so how wonderful to have.
The Holy Bible.
Oh, oh, Oh no.
This is not good.
I opened up the Holy Bible.
Look at this.
Is your Bible like this? No, no. Look at the law is Bible. It's filled with words.
I am so.
Thankful, I just rejoice. I'm so happy that I got a Bible like my Lord.
They're not a Bible like this.
Can you imagine how waffle it would be if we came to the Sunday school today and everybody opens up their Bible and there's not a word in the Bible?
That would be awful. It would be terrifying.
You put it very well terrified.
You know what David said.
In Psalm 28.
He said unto thee, Will I cry, O Lord, my God, be not silent to me. Let if thou be silent to me, I become like those that go down into the pit.
He's referring to hell.
You know, we got a Bible. It's got words, the King James Version of the Bible.
It has about 783,000 words.
Is the word of God, and God is speaking to us through this book and he's telling us.
About how bad we are, but how good and loving He is and how we can be saved.
It's all in this blessed book, the Bible.
And so, boys and girls, we can thank God for this 4th out. The fact is, there's some people in the world that don't have.
Bible.
And I got this little book from.
Organization that is seeking to bring the Word of God to all the different languages.
It's about 7000 languages, I believe, and they say there's about 1700 of their languages where there's not even a portion of the word of God. So these people are trying to translate this Bible so that other people can read the word of God like we are here today. The sad thing is there's many people.
In this country and in the United States, and they don't care.
If the Bible would look like this, in fact, they don't want to hear God speaking to them. I hope there's nobody like that here today.
Because God speaks to us.
In his word.
Can be the joy, the joisting of our heart. You know that's what Jeremiah said. He said thy words were found, I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.
So we got the Bible.
Everybody has words in their Bible.
And.
Today I want to open up this box.
Has anybody here ever got stung?
Yeah, how did you get stuff?
***** in the ear.
Right here a ***** my that sounds painful.
00:20:05
Are you OK now?
Quite a while ago. So you're OK now? OK, How about you, Rachel?
Where'd you get some? How did you get some like?
Call my wife, I wish to walk in by myself.
Right. Walking by a log, lots of water, one came out.
Were you pointing at the WAS?
Not really, because I know a man.
I don't know why the bees seem to be attracted to him.
And he saw AB and he pointed.
Has to be like that. And that fee came right? We stung him on his fingers and hit.
Never forgot that.
I don't think he ever will, even though the pain went away. Now where'd you get stung by AB? Right here.
Right over.
Well, you know, that's not a very nice thing. So we got somebody stung by a Hornet and we got somebody stung five feet Hornet B.
Wasp and wasp.
OK, so we got the three stingers.
Now I got something in this box.
And I told you, it's eight legs.
And.
Fig.
You know what?
I think you know what it might be.
Put up your hand if you think you know.
Exactly squats.
Scorpion now.
This scorpion.
Is bigger than most scorpions.
In fact.
I don't know that there's any, I don't think there's any scorpion in this size, but what I would like to do.
Is to put this fellow together really quick. See, he wouldn't fit in the box.
With his legs on so he had to.
Take off the legs.
OK, but I think we can put these legs on.
Rather quickly. So let's see what we got going here. This goes in here.
Like that?
I mean, this leg here goes here.
And has anybody ever been stung by a scorpion?
Well, earlier this spring.
We were out visiting in the southwest.
Please call Arizona.
And that's where my daughter lives.
You know, there was a man that came to service a couple of tanks.
Gas tanks.
And it's interesting that, uh, Mr. and Mrs. Ross, I think they were.
There at the same time as this man came to work on these these tanks OK LP tanks.
And he came over to us and he said, you know what you got Scorpions.
Underneath those tanks, and you better be careful. And we didn't know about that. But see scorpions, they like to live.
In a dry place.
And in a dark place.
And.
So they wanted to get rid of those scorpions.
Out of their yard.
And you know how Mr. Buchanan, he did that.
He went out.
At night when it was all dark and he had what they call a uh.
A blue light or an ultraviolet light?
00:25:03
And when he shone that light on the ground, the scorpions.
They began to glow.
And it was really amazing. They see a scorpion, he's got some kind of.
Chemical in his body that responds to the the blue light.
And it takes begin to glow at night. And then you can kill him because nobody likes scorpions. Is there anybody here like scorpions?
No, of course not. We want to get rid of the scorpion. Now this model here, I must say I had a hard time keeping the tail up like that. But you see on the end of this tail.
That's where the Stinger is.
And at the base of the Stinger, there's a little sack, like a little bag.
It's got poison. We call it venom. And when this scorpion.
Strikes and stings, Maybe another insect.
Or some creature of some sort, or maybe even a human being.
Maybe a boy or a girl. Then this venom comes out and it's poison, but rarely.
Does.
Scorpion sting.
Kill anybody but it makes them very it can make them very sick and it can be very, very painful. But usually they walk around like that because.
Before they sting.
They want the object to be right there in front of them so that Stinger tail comes right over and stings.
Now.
You say, well, I thought this was supposed to be a Sunday school father, Lord Jesus.
Well, it is, but you know the Lord Jesus spoke about scorpions.
And I just like to tell you a little bit about what the Bible says about scorpions.
All right, how many here I've seen a scorpion?
Beside this one.
OK, I see quite a few have seen one time.
I want some place and somebody had a scorpion as a pet they got at the pet shop and it was a rather unusual pet, but in any case.
The Scorpion.
It has a Stinger.
And it's not nice. And I think in the Bible the scorpion would speak to us, represent the power of Satan.
Yeah.
I like to read a verse and this is in Ezekiel chapter 2.
That's a little bit hard to find. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel. You don't have your Bible. Just listen.
You see the Lord, he sends Ezekiel.
To speak to the people who have turned away from God.
They don't want God, they want to go their own way and they were even worshipping idols.
And Ezekiel, he was sent with the word of God to these people. It was to the nation of Israel, because they were rebellious and they were stiff hearted and God in His goodness sought to communicate with them. He didn't just destroy them, He sent His word through His.
Servants Ezekiel. Now listen to this Ezekiel chapter 2 and verse 6.
The Lord says, Thou son of man, be not afraid of them.
Neither be afraid of their words.
Both briars and thorns be witty, and Dow dust dwell among scorpions.
Be not afraid of their words nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.
00:30:03
Now the point here.
Have you ever tried to talk to somebody about the Lord Jesus?
Maybe at school?
Or in your neighborhood.
And you find that.
Whoever you're speaking with doesn't want to listen.
He don't wanna hear about Jesus. They don't wanna hear.
The Word of God, they don't wanna hear the gospel.
And you almost feel like you're among scorpions.
And that's how the Lord describes his people, that it turned away from him. Scorpions, I remember one time.
I was.
In a place I saw some young people and they were sitting there at the table.
So I thought, you know, these young people, I think they need to know about Jesus.
They need to know how to be saved and so I walked up.
And I had a cracked in my pocket and I said, here's a little message of God's love for you.
You know what the young man said to me?
You said buzz off.
That's what he told me.
When he said that I started wondering, does he think I might be?
But the Stinger I, I think the fact that I tried to give him a gospel tract, it almost was kind of like a stink.
But the fact is, I kind of felt a sting myself.
Because of what he said.
So you know what I did? I just buzzed off. Yeah. I didn't stick around. They didn't want to hear it. Well, that's how these people were that we're reading about here, right here in Ezekiel. But you know, the Lord says to Ezekiel even because.
They're retaliates and they're stiff hearted.
Don't be afraid of them. Don't be afraid of their words.
And don't be dismayed by their looks.
You know boys and girls.
If somebody like that tells us to buzz off.
What we need to do is to post to somebody else.
We don't want to just give up.
Passing out tracks, telling others about Jesus because somebody said something rather nasty. And so the Lord here told Ezekiel, don't get discouraged, just keep on keeping on.
And I always recall with the Mr. John Kemp told me one time he says we need to be like corks. You know what a cork does when you push a court down into the water?
Just bounces back up and sometimes we find people try to put us down, but we need to keep on keeping on for the Lord just and the Lord will help us and the fact is we're on the winning side now if we turn over to.
Luke's Gospel Let's see what the Lord Jesus has to say about scorpions.
And I find this to be a great encouragement.
In Luke chapter 10.
Luke, chapter 10.
We find that the Lord Jesus had sent our disciples 70 to, uh, preach his word.
And also they had power over the devils, and in verse 17 they returned and.
These disciples, they say, Lord, the devils are subject unto us through thy name. They thought this was wonderful.
And in verse 19, well verse 18, he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
There was a boy named Billy.
And Billy, he used to come to the Bible hour. We had Lambert Lake. We lost track of Billy, but we just crossed paths with Billy just recently after many years, and we happened to find him in a interesting.
00:35:07
Place while it was in a bookstore.
And you know, Billy, he was asking, well, how's the Bible hour going?
But I always remember Billy coming out one day after a meeting. This was years and years ago, he said. The power.
Of the Lord is greater than the power of the devil.
I said, Billy, that's very true.
We need to keep that in mind.
Now we know the power of the devil is great, much greater than our power, but if we're on the Lord's side, we're on the winning side, because the Bible says, if God before us, who can be against us? And here the Lord says he gives his disciples power to tread on serpents and scorpions. But in the next verse, verse 20. Since notwithstanding this, rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you.
Rather, rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.
Let me ask you a question.
Is your name written in heaven?
I'm sure it's written.
On the record book at school, on the attendance chart at school, You got your name there. But the question is, what about heaven? You know, the most wonderful.
Truth is.
To know that we're saved in our way to heaven.
And all those that have accepted about Jesus put their trust in Him.
We know that we're going to spend eternity in heaven.
And that's wonderful to have our names in the Lambs book of life. But you know, as we go through this world on the way to heaven, God gives us the ability to overcome the power of Satan because the Lord Jesus at the cross defeated Satan. Did you know that it tells us in Hebrews chapter 2 That through death or by death he has destroyed him who has the power of death or he has made him weak and.
Delivered them through fear of death all their lifetime subject to *******. Now the Lord helps us day by day. Let's turn back.
This is Deuteronomy chapter 8 reference again to scorpions.
Deuteronomy chapter 8 and watch the time.
And here's what the Lord says.
Hormones.
Speaking the word of God.
Tells people how that the Lord had provided food for them.
From the skies, demand is coming down. Water out of the rock a couple of years ago. How many were here two years ago? Was it two years ago when Mr. Roach, he showed us how we get water out of a rock? Anybody remember that?
He had a big rock.
And I think somebody went with a stick and hit that rock.
Water keeps flying out all over the place.
Remember, of course it was bottled water and everybody was able to have a drink and that was so nice. So the Lord gave water out the rock. But here it also tells us in verse 15 to around 8:15, Who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness wherein where fiery serpents, these guys.
I researched it out there in the wilderness.
They were Slytherin around.
But they were out there in the desert, but something else was out there with the serpent.
What does it say? And scorpions.
Where they work. And you know, the Lord protected his people and he brings him through this desert and it tells us.
That it was.
00:40:03
Day by day.
Provision.
You know we have a wonderful guide. He's an all the way home savior, saves our souls for time and for eternity.
And we're all in the desert. You know, we've been singing in these meetings how the world is a wilderness wide, and we look forward to the day when we're gonna be with Jesus.
And the Lord Jesus is coming back, perhaps today. I hope the boys and girls are ready to meet Him when he comes.
How can you be ready? A qualifying PM say, Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner, I want to be safe, I want to go to heaven. He's listening to wash his sins away.
Now just in closing.
Years ago we were on a bus. It was down in, uh, Mexico.
And all of a sudden, this man jumps out of his seat. He starts shouting to everybody on the bus.
Your single medicine is bueno.
Para loskeenen.
Contra log este medicines muy bueno.
You know you still.
Do a song This right here.
And this medicine here, it tells us on this bottle how you can take a few drops and put it into lukewarm water and then you drink it. And if one of these guys bites you.
Then the pain will be as severe.
And I don't know if anybody ever thought one of these on the bus beside myself, but I bought 1:00. Not that it was so much afraid of it, scorpion, but I just thought it was interesting. And so it shows a picture of the scorpion.
And the interesting thing it tells me here too, if you got a toothache, you can, uh.
Saturated cotton in this put on the tooth and it's supposed to take away the pain so I don't know about that. Interesting.
You know, it's involved in Stunned and in the Bible, I think the one place where it says steam of death, and that's over in First Corinthians chapter 15. We don't have time to turn to it, but you know, boys and girls, people are afraid to die because they know they're going to have to meet God.
And they're in their sins.
And they're terrified. Often that's a thought. But you and I, we have a remedy.
For the stink.
And it is the blood of Jesus that can wash our sins away, so that we are before God, holy without blame.
Perfectly clean from all our Saints.
And there is no sting to death because.
Since I've gone the precious blood of Jesus, what a wonderful savior we have now.
This is a real scorpion.
And I'm going to.
I'll tell you what I see our time is we're going to pray. And if you want to look at a real scorpion.
And come up and have a look.
Yeah, that's not a big scorpion, but it's quite a size. Scorpions can get up to maybe 9 inches really big, but that's just.
Let's sit down just while we pray and then then you can come up, OK?
Dear Father, we thank Thee this morning that we have thy word to encourage our hearts and we think of how thy people evolve. They they walk through this.
Desert.
And their clothes did not wear out.
And their shoes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell, and they got food, they got water, and they were preserved from the fired surface and scorpions. And so we see that goodness in all of this. And we thank Thee for Thy provision for us today, too. We thank Thee that we have and all the way home, Savior, to protect us from the power of Satan.
00:45:13
And from his.
Influence.
And we thank the two for the Lord Jesus, who on the cross gave his life and shed his precious blood in order that the sting of death might be removed. So we thank thee for each one here today who has the assurance of salvation. But we do earnestly pray that there's one who has never yet called upon Thee that they might do so even now as we're praying.
They might be saved and have their sins washed away and know it and enjoy it.
And so we pray Thy blessing and the Gospel as it continues to be sounded for it.
Yes, and give thanks in the precious worthy name of our soon coming Savior, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Hebrews 12:12-29
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
After the.
What is my love possessed me not alright?
Or by night, or fun by day. Unchangeable. Thy gracious love, Our earthly time, our ceaseless views, 166.
Lord, thou hast run.
What happened at the present time?
A fried rice and children.
Uh, phone number 80808080. No, I don't like.
A while on the road, nothing can come in from the water here. I don't even have this place in your life.
All right.
And.
Then after that, you're back in your legs, the hanging blows up and no one there's a bridge. It's not like it's a thank you. Let's let's, let's play lay down.
Doctor that we've been looking at, uh, unless, uh.
Our brother has another passage.
Like to consider.
Uh.
Mind of the brethren, that shall we go on with this? Hebrews 12.
I guess we got down to about here.
Reading from the book of Hebrews, chapter 12 and verse 12 for the end of the chapter. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that was just laying be turned out of the way.
But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of being sold his birthright. For you know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected.
00:05:23
Where we found no place of repentance, though we sought it carefully with tears. For ye are not coming to the mountain that might be touching, and that burned with fire, nor in the blackness and darkness and Tempest, and the sound of a comfort in the voice of words, which voice they had heard and treated, that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through without dark, and so terrible was the sight.
Then Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But year comes among Zion, and under the city, the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, And to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven. And to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just been made perfect. And to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
See that she refused on him that speaketh.
For if they escaped nod, who refused him that spake on earth much more Shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, Whose voice then shook the earth? And now he has promised, saying yet.
The moving of those things that are shaken, and the things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved.
Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
Although we have some marvelous uh.
Revelations of the grace of God and the privileges of Christianity. The apostles developed throughout this epistle. Nevertheless, the standards of God's moral law have not changed.
Live in a moral world and dishonest the world.
By God's standard of holiness and sin have not changed.
Umm, and.
Even looking back on the verses that we have had before us, we should ever remember that there is a government of God in our lives. Perhaps the young people might have a difficulty understanding what we mean by the government of God.
Well, perhaps someone can explain it better, but it's God's dealings with us as children in the family. It's not a judicial character. The judgment of our sins was settled at the cross. That's not going to be raised again for punishment. I wouldn't call the government of God punishment, but it's God's dealings with us. We could be thankful that He does.
Because he says here.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. You look back in the Old Testament.
You certainly see the government of God very clearly illustrated in the lives of many of the Old Testament believers. And that's important young people and all of us that we read the Old Testament, not just the New Testament or some favorite passages, We need to read all Scripture. It's in the it's demonstrated.
In the lives of those Old Testament things.
Without going into detail and having definitely in the life of Davis and others, that is put it plainly whatsoever a man So what? That's Kelly also reads When I was young in Ottawa, Times without number, the brother, the older brother.
He highly respected gifted teacher. He used to repeat. You get off with nothing.
00:10:02
He got off with nothing in your Christian life. Every act has its present and its eternal consequences. That has never left me. And of course it's it's true, every word of it. And so it's not that we walk with a a a fear of the Lord and he's going to punish us, but we should walk carefully and in self judgment knowing that.
We, uh, have to deal with the Holy Father, one who abhors sin and, uh, whose standard of holiness has not changed. So in the world since, uh, we'll say since Dave and I went to high school, there's been a marked deterioration in moral standards in the world. We all know that in this country, but God's standard has not changed.
For nature, we don't have to yield to it. It's not inevitable that we have to sin. When we sin it's always our fault and it's always because we do not look to the Lord for strength in that hour of temptation. We think perhaps we can overcome that ourselves and we have a fall like Peter did. The point is is to put things in in a balance here that.
True, we are brought into a marvelous place in Christianity.
Superior to Judaism in every way. In fact, that's what the apostle deals with in the whole book. But there is a government of God in our lives. There's a governmental forgiveness, which means that if I judge that sin, the Lord will forgive it and can remove the governmental healing.
But uh, we can suffer. Well, that's what is mentioned in verse eleven. No chastening for the presidency grievous God would have itself You, uh, I'm not a father, but there are many fathers here. And if you're, you deal with your children, it makes fun of it you.
You uh, give a, uh, give a punishment and they, uh, flub it off or, umm.
Ignore it, it defeats the purpose of the of the discipline. And so God would have us feel these things, but nevertheless afterward to yield at the peaceable fruit of righteousness. But notice the last phrase unto them, which are exercise thereby. So when those things come into our lives.
Individually, we need to be exercised. Why has the Lord allowed this in my life?
He is speaking to me. He is speaking perhaps to correct me about something that I, uh, loathe to judge in my life, which is displeasing to him, may not be seen by our, by our brethren, but God can speak to us in these ways. So I just bring that before us, brethren. Uh, also we follow holiness, not in order to obtain it, but in order because we have a holy nature that wants to please God.
I'd like to ask a question.
Umm, in the life of David we see the government of God and umm, he sings so grievously, umm, with Bathsheba and umm, you know, he, Uriah, her husband, uh, killed by putting him on the front lines and uh.
We know that the sword, the Lord said to him that the sword sword would never depart from his house. Is there such a thing as Umm?
Lifelong.
Government of God and the other question I was going to ask was.
You know.
In Sodom and Gomorrah and.
The the terrible life that was down there and lot his, his, his.
Righteous soul or a saved soul was next daily by the.
The way people lived.
Just paraphrase it, but you know, umm, we, we know that the, we had to pay a price of that and, uh.
I'm just wondering there's some things that we can't have restored. I guess the question is that.
00:15:06
And then is that also included in the government dodge? And I don't know if I make myself quite plain. Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Well, certainly.
In the case of David, the warden marvelously forgave him that those sins and that he really committed adultery and murder. Umm.
At least he arranged with her. Uh, God gives her restore him marvelously. He wrote beautiful songs after uh.
We have in the scriptures.
But the results of his sin followed him to the grave.
Umm, the scars were there and, uh.
Remember a story in Ottawa?
About a a man who was a complete one thing stopped. He was a.
Lay on his belly and try to get the last drop of liquor from the bar.
But the Lord gloriously Savior delivered him from that habit. He was a bright testimony. They said, Brethren, I ruined my stomach, I ruined my health. For the rest of his life he suffered with stomach and digestive problems, and God never removed it. He died with it, but he was happy in the Lord.
So I went through the every act in our lives has its present and eternal consequences. You have that verse in Proverbs. His reproach shall not be wiped away, knowing the connection, moral connection there.
How careful we all need to be, especially the young people.
You know, you know what people say, well, you only live once, might as well have a good time while you're living. But the acts that we commit from our youth can leave scars for the rest of our lives.
There's a verse in Psalm 51 speaking about David and his sin and his forgiveness and here is he he's acknowledging his sin in Psalm 51 verse 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sins ever before me. Like her brother has said, those scars may be there for life if a a within a life that's lived in disobedience to God. But if we look in first John chapter one.
And verse 10, verse nine, it goes along with with David who who confessed his sin and he first he was forsaking that sin and he was forgiven and says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So if there's if there's the if there's the repentance and there's the forsaking and there's the forgiveness.
And the all unrighteousness is cleansed.
I have freedom to come and worship the Lord and serve the Lord and be a a be a help in the assembly.
You back up in that, uh, chapter.
In first John chapter one.
We find out what it is.
That renders fullness of joy.
And it's not circumstances.
In verse 3.
John says that which we have seen and heard. Declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things rightly unto you, that your joy may be full.
Now, if we've messed up and we find out that there are these scars, if there has been repentance.
And acknowledging, like you point out, confession of sin.
Fellowship with the Father and the Son.
Will be restored and that is fullness of joy.
Even though from a natural standpoint we might wish things were otherwise in our life, it's good to see.
That even though they're making scars, we can still have this fullness of joy, can we not? Because it's fellowship with the Father and the Son.
Jesus Christ.
We have no, uh, desire as believers that we shouldn't have to, uh, break the law or God's holy commandments and said that the law was holy and the commandment holy, just and good. The children of Israel were under that, uh, uh.
00:20:14
System under God's government, they were to keep the law. We know that they didn't have a heart to keep the law. But today in Christianity we've been given all things entertain on to life and godliness in Christ. And so we're in a in a in a brand new position before God in Christ on the other side of death as believers, but we're still under God's governmental feelings.
We don't have a desire like to break the commandments. We're not under those commandments at the old, uh, the children of Israel were under, but we are under God's, uh, holy law, his word. We're to keep his commandments. It says his words, but also there's a God's commitment to here on earth and we get in Romans chapter 13.
We're also to be subject to, uh, the government's in God as, uh, put into place here.
While we live breaking, uh, civil laws, we can also suffer.
It might be put into jail or put into prison depending on what one is done, and may not be delivered from it.
Yeah, one may be a Christian, and so we are subject to the laws of the land the governments of God has put into place, as well as God's holy lives.
I guess I feel for myself that by nature, I feel as man that we tend to be judgmental in our ways of thinking of people who hear about something in you.
Umm, our thoughts turn too often to me, to God is coming in government on a on a certain person.
Umm, I feel that there are scriptures even in the from the verse where we started with here that points in a different direction. Look at the verse where we started from Hebrews 12:00 and 12:00 and.
In the previous verse, it speaks about chastening.
No chastening, for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Now in the 12Th verse, where we started, Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees. What's the thought there? Why is that verse brought in? You know there's a brother who wrote long ago, Mr. Faraday.
And he made this comment. He said God hangs the key up near the door.
And if you go back to Genesis, because that's the the door that opens to this book that we have turn with me to the 15th of genital.
Genesis 15.
And, uh, verse. We start with, say, verse 19.
And he, that's, uh, Melchizedek serves verse 18. Melchizedek, king of Salem, is, I'm sorry, this is uh, Genesis 14, verse 18.
I was visiting king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest God, and he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth.
God owns everything.
And blessed be the most High God, which has delivered thine enemies into thy hand.
And he gave him ties of all, uh, ties of all. And the king of Sodom said unto Abram.
Give me the persons and and take the goods to thyself.
And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I will lift up my hand under the Lord.
00:25:06
The Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth.
What, uh, Abram was saying to the king of Sodom, and here I'm not gonna take the goods from you.
I'm gonna take them from God. He's the one who's the giver. The taking of them, the holding up the hands is holding up expecting a blessing. So Abraham was expecting a blessing.
From God rather than the taken from the king of, uh, of Sodom.
So over in our verse here it says lift up the hands that hang down.
You know when we get discouraged, when things come on in our lives, God wants us to look heavenward to get the blessing.
And so it says here that verse wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble meets its faith during times when things are difficult, when sorrows come into our lives, when when we stray from the Lord is to turn to the Lord. Now you remember when the Lord went back to heaven in the 24th of Luke, it tells us that he he lifted up his hands.
And bless them.
He wanted for the people of God as he went back into the heavens. He wanted the people to have the blessings of God. Well, I've enjoyed whenever I read that expression, lift up the hands that I I think that it is anticipating a blessing. You remember back in in Exodus where it speaks about Moses holding up his hands and his hands got weary and the two helped in connection withholding up his hands.
Why did he hold up his hands when he held up his hands? Why the people of God prevailed?
And so it's, it's, it's the energy of faith that would lead us to look up to ask God to intervene, to come in, in our lives. So I again, I just have enjoyed that thought here. There's encouragement, the grace of God and the government of God go together in our lives and when the Lord is speaking to us.
It's well for us to turn to him. And somebody is quoted just now from, from, uh, the epistle of John.
You know that book, First Epistle of John? You know what it's about? It's about fellowship.
It's a father who wants to have communion with his children and the and the and the father once com communion with his children based on light.
God is light in him is no darkness at all. And then what does he bring in? He brings in sin. He talks about sin. Is there going to be fellowship when there's sin? No. But is there a pathway for the child of God to come back so that they can be in fellowship again? That's what it's all about there in the first couple of chapters of the Epistle of John, if we confess our sins.
He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us. He's a father or a mother here, very happy. If their child is not happy in the home, something's wrong. No, the whole her home is disturbed by it. We want to have a happy home and it's the same with our Father, which is in heaven. He wants his family to be happy and he knows that sin.
Is, uh, has to be dealt with. And so there's chastening, but it's, it's, it leads a blessing if it's taken from the Lord.
Very good babe. Umm, I'm thinking along that line. Perhaps a going on with our chapter a little here that looking diligently.
Lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness bringing up trouble, you, and thereby many be defiled.
Well, alas, we have to admit that this has happened. It's happened collectively.
Happened individually and in many cases.
00:30:03
It's very, it's very point that the apostle puts his finger on here. That's been the call, this root of bitterness that is, uh, may not be seen by others but never been judged.
Presence of God spreads. You know, a roof can go a long distance under on the ground before it screams up it it can travel a long distance and then suddenly it will spring up. It's the same group only 100 feet away. But the point that I'm trying to make is that these things in our souls, if allowed and nurtured, can.
Lead to very serious results.
In our life and in the assembly.
And, uh, we know our own hearts and, uh.
We have that exhortation here, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble with you.
Not only does it troubles us individually, but it can affect many of us. And bring this on and the name of the Lord. And then we have the fornicator here who yields to self indulgence here. Esau couldn't wait until he got home. He had to have that mess of potatoes right away. No self denial. I've got to have it now. Well, reminds us of a lot that Bill referred to.
Wrapped up in the whole ungodly system wouldn't separate from it had to be dragged out of it.
And.
UMM lost his testimony, but here he saw for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright. You have no doubt. He didn't value the things that were important and of the spiritual value. He didn't say count upon them at all. He just looked for present enjoyment. That's what he wanted, present enjoyment. I wanna have that mess of podcast now. And uh, he got it. And he despised his birthright.
Uh, we, uh, regret it.
He regretted his choice after. Yes, there was remorse, was remorse in Judas. He can hang himself. But there was no repentance into this. There was no repentance in Esau either.
Uh, and uh, what he was seeking here was not to when he sought it carefully, he, he would have liked to have had the blessing, uh, and he regretted his choice in yielding to the to that self gratification, but he never repented of any of his act.
The root of bitterness too, wasn't it? Because he despised his brother? It was his own doing that he sold the birthright. Jacob didn't twist his arm. He sold it for a mess of pottage. And then the root of bitterness in his soul. He sought after Jacob's life. You know that he would have.
Slain his brother, but he was sent away, you know.
But another case where we have pain enabled pain did explain his brother same thing root of bitterness. He was jealous of his brother's offer before God. We've seen both cases there was it tells us that repentance is is the word God, not self pity, but repentance is to God only to God that we're what we have done and we see what you saw there was no repentance the Lord God.
Felt sorry that he lost his birthright, but uh, he didn't take the matter before and he left that root of bitterness build up inside. Sought after his brother's life. Does show how far roots of bitterness can go if they're on chat.
We need to think about how our actions affect others because we are being watched. We don't realize it perhaps, but we have those that are watching this and watching this carefully. You know, if I'm discouraged.
How can I possibly?
00:35:02
Encourage anybody else.
It doesn't work that way, you know, I gotta be encouraged myself in order to encourage somebody else.
That's why I believe it says lift up the hands which hang down.
And the feeble needs and we might think, you know, under chastening or discipline.
There is no excuse.
For that to happen, you know, it tells us, I think in the proverbs, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
You're thinking about yourself. I'm thinking about myself instead of about the Lord.
And your hospital has already showed us that whom the Lord loves, he chases.
So how can we discuss if we're focusing on the love of Christ, the love of the Father?
So we need to, I believe, lift up the hands, let's hang down and people knees.
And make straight pads for your feet. I noticed the margins in my Bible were straight. It says even past.
I believe if I allow sin evil in my life.
Then it's not an even past.
I'm making bumps in the past.
And somebody that's following, somebody that's watching, following it very easily be tripped up on one of those bumps.
Have you turned out of the way?
You know, it speaks about those that are lame.
Well, there are those that are weak in the faith. We need to consider these ones.
Look for the lawyer. It might be acting away. That wouldn't be offensive.
To these ones because each and everyone here to the heart of.
Follow peace with all men, holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently lest any man fail grace with God or fall from grace. It's not that they lose their salvation.
But they lose the enjoyment. I can do that in my own slope, you know, if somebody.
Search something.
Dad, I think.
It kind of hurts me. Well, why is that? Is it because I think I deserve better treatment?
Think of the grace of God.
And what is it?
It's, I believe, the kindness of God super abounding to those that don't deserve anything but that health and judgment. We heard about that last night and we need to keep ourselves in the love of God and in the grace of God.
And we need to look good. We don't lose sight of the grace of God because if we do, there will be bitterness, a root that's planted. And you know, it only gets worse.
But that route isn't pulled out.
Can I ask a question about?
Making straight paths versus following the straight path we think of the well known passage in Matthew 7 about entering narrow gate and following the straight top, which I believe is a call to salvation. We're on the straight path. But here it tells us to make straight paths. The idea that obviously when we enter the narrow gate were saved or put onto the straight path. We can then lose sight of the facts. Sometimes we get distracted by things along the way and we create our own stumbling and we are to I guess through the light of the word correct. Our path is the idea here that we're we're not leaving the straight path because we're on it. I'm gonna salvific standpoint. But in our Christian walk we can stumble because we're not exercising ourselves with the word of God and keeping our eyes in the past from a relationship between the two.
Making versus following.
It's a straight path and it's a narrow path on each side. Each ditch is dangerous. I always think of it. And one side is lasciviousness and the other side is legalness and tightness and not having any grace. And they're both very, very deadly. And you know, David.
00:40:13
I love.
How he knew, he knew he was being chasing of the Lord, He knew he was being afflicted of the Lord for his good, for his prophet. And uh, in Psalm 19119, uh, he mentioned several times, I'm not sure how many, I think it's six times. He says, uh, you know, uh.
I know, O Lord, that my judgments are right that verse 75.
And uh, and that's how in faithfulness has affected me. So if we never get afflicted by the Lord, we wouldn't want to go on for the Lord. We wouldn't want to, uh, read about them. We wouldn't want to be with other believers. And, umm, you know, he has to reach us through affliction. And uh, and verse 107, I'm afflicted very much quick in the whole world according to thy word, He knew according to God's word.
He knew that, uh, he was going to be, uh, there's an end to it. And uh, verse 67, it says, before I was afflicted, I want to spray, but now because I kept my word and so.
You know, uh.
In verse 92, unless thy law had been my device, I should have perished in my affliction. We didn't get the root of bitterness did not come out.
He and he, he knew, he knew when he was laying on his bed and he was being affected and all those things were happening against him. There was times, times when he was through in his bed chamber and you know, he, he was afflicted so much much, but he knew that.
I can't stay like this. I gotta go on for others and for myself. And so he was well aware of it, wasn't he?
And we know, I know. And I'm being afflicted. I know and I'm being patient and, umm.
I know I I always think of it this way.
Umm, you know, our, our, our comments, I think it's the worst is uh, the worst member of our body, you know, and uh, you know, uh, you know, a fast community, we have to judge them and uh, with the tongue, actions, thoughts and umm.
What I was just thinking of, umm, we know and uh, and then if we don't turn from it, the situation gets worse and, uh.
So once we turn to it, repent it's a lifelong condition of our state of soul is repentance towards God and.
If we don't have the evil that we're going on with, it's just like sleeping. Dessert under the rug keeps getting bigger and you have other things happening. You have funds, germs, bacteria, molds and keep getting bigger.
And then if we still no turn from it.
Well, the chasing is going harder and harder each time.
I think for myself that in connection with your question, Matthew.
Make straight paths for your feet. That's the Lord speaking to you and me.
And.
If you see me walking maybe taking a lot of part on Sunday and I just want to spend the rest of the week taking enjoying myself, self gratification and another person who is lame saying well look he looks like a pretty good Christian.
Well, look what he's doing all week long. What do you do? What do I do if I walk that way? I turn the other person aside, let that which is lame be turned out of the way. So, umm, uh.
I've heard of the expression, I suppose. Didn't hear it when I was younger, but younger people, I've heard it referred to smoke. You know what smoke stands for.
Sunday morning only Christian.
Well, if I'm going to be a small.
And the rest of my life is better for myself. I can turn around, I can, I can. I can stumble other believers that those that are lame be turned out of the way. Is that the thought there, Brother Stan?
00:45:08
I believe that's right what you're saying, yeah.
Umm, I was thinking of a verse in Judges chapter five. You don't have to turn to it, but it says in the days of jail the highways were unoccupied. In other words, the travelers were on the byways. They got off on the right hand or to the left.
And so I believe the straight path is the path the Lord has laid out for us. And as you say, if we get out of that path, we're going to be a discouragement, uh, to others.
But uh, Lord, what happens to be an encouragement to them so that they would be healed, as it says here in this verse? So, umm, it's very important for us to be exercised and remember that what we do has an effect on others. I remember I've said it many times, but I remember when I was young, a brother in the Smith Hall assembly came up to me and he said, Stan, you don't realize, but what you do has a real effect on what I do.
And I've never forgotten that, because I believe it.
We are either a good example or a bad example to those around us.
Yeah, I was thinking along that connection. And after that no man liveth unto himself and no man die of unto himself. So we are a health in the assembly or we're a hindrance one of the other and.
We should be exercised that.
There are pathway not only on Lord civil morning. We're gathered through the Lord's name seven days a week, not just Lord's Day one. We're at the Lord's table seven days a week. It only comes with the Lord's table once in our lives. We're there and uh, we should act in that character that what is becoming the Lord's presence at all times and then will be an encouragement rather than a a hindrance to a others.
My margin there where it says, uh, straight, it has the word even. I like that better in this sense that if we're walking on a path and it's smooth or even, we're not so apartment to stumble.
But if you're walking on a path that's bumpy and.
And, uh, Rocky And so on.
It one is at the stumble and so it says, uh, the margin there it says, uh, make even pass for your feet.
And, uh, we can get rid of the bumpiness and.
The lumpiness, you might say in our pathway by reading the Word of God and depending upon Him.
But these things here are following Peace with all men and holiness.
Without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God.
To think of.
Tells us here to follow peace with all men that is another person in Romans that says as much as is in you is lived peaceably of all men and.
We have everything that we need to do this that the Lord has given to us.
But it tells us here that we're to look diligently.
For this grace. So where will we look?
Diligently.
For this grace that we need, says looking diligently.
All of these with all men and holiness.
One verse I was thinking of in this connection, when we look diligently for, uh, example of grace, we no doubt find it, uh.
In God's love toward us and what the Lord Jesus has done by this thinking of one verse there in Ephesians chapter 4.
I should read verse 32 or from verse 30 it says uh, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, where thy year sealed on to the day of redemption, and let all bitterness and wrath and anger and hammer and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
You can't really, uh.
00:50:00
Do what it says in verse #1 or 31 unless we practice at 7:32 it says and be kind one to another gender artist, forgiving one another even as God for Christ sake has forgiven you.
How can we have bitterness, really, when we think about it, against our veteran?
Or.
Uh, walking on peaceably when we look at what the Lord Jesus has done for us.
We're we're here today because of what price has done for us.
Sitting here enjoying the Lord and.
Be able to meditate upon Him and all He has done for us. And yet we know that we have that flesh within us and we're capable of the things that spoken out here. Not walking in peace and showing peace and holiness, but.
We've got peace in the at the expense of holiness, you know, sometimes.
In the assembly, things might be just blurred over and not dealt with.
The presence of the Lord are compromised.
But we shouldn't introduce in the assembly anything that would bring umm.
Discord or unhappiness? However, there's certain things that must be dealt with for the Lord's glory, and it's not peace of any cost.
The peace of God.
And there's holiness. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace are kissed each other. That there is.
The other side that we know we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
But, uh, I mean, you should be, it should be shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace. But sometimes there, uh, evil must be dealt with and not to ignore in the assembly. I think the whole, umm, it's a, it's, it's an ongoing, umm, umm, subject here that is brought before us. And last time we were taking up more of the question of chasing.
And, uh, now it's moving on.
Two, when the chastening has taken place, when there is a correction, then there's a way to walk in humiliation before God, to go on. And so he brings in these various things here, like lift up the hands that hang down. The people need that there be faith and trusting and looking to God, and then make straight paths for your feet. Watch the next time be careful.
And uh, so you, uh, umm, uh, others are encouraged to go on by the way that you're walking. And now it has come to follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Now I struggle with this for some time in connection with this expression. What does it mean for without which no man can see the Lord?
Well, if we turn back to, uh, to the fifth chapter of Matthew, we would find this verse Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Does that mean with the physical eye? No, I don't believe it does. It is unmixed motives. Now the na, the holiness is referring to the nature righteousness appeal is is referring to more of the practical side of carrying out the the the.
The what the nature would bring before us, and here it is the nature. And so with unmixed motives so it speaks here. Follow peace with all men and holiness. Do you want the mind of the Lord in connection with your pathway in life?
If you run into something, some stumbling blocks and you're wondering what the mind of the Lord is, well, we need to come to the Lord in a way that we're, we, we are humble before him to know what his mind is. So it tells us back in the Psalms. The meek will he guide in judgment. Do I want my own way? You know how it says in the book of James? It says ye ask and ye ask a message that he may consume it upon your lust.
00:55:05
So I asked the question of the Lord, but really I got my own secret desire inside for getting what I want to get. But here it says about holiness, without which no man can see the Lord.
So, you know, it's a wonderful thing that in our pathway of light life that the Lord wants to guide us, but it's required that I have a state of soul where I am going to listen to what He wants me to do. I believe, you know that God wants to give that to every man and woman in this world. I I thought of it right from the very beginning, the 1St, the 1St chapter of the Bible.
What's it say?
Let there be light. The world is full of darkness and it's getting worse and worse and man's lost his way more completely. But for the believer, there's light for the pathway and there's individual light that the Lord would seek to give each of us for every stage of our life. So I just thought of it in connection with follow Peace with all men. Sometimes disturbing things come in that maybe affect in the home.
In a marriage.
Work situation assembly, wherever it is.
Seek to take the low place before the Lord and go on. Fall peace with all men. And I think it opens up so that the Lord is more able to open His mind to us. You know the verse over in Ephesians, it says grieve not the Spirit of God which is in you, whereby ye are sealed under the day of redemption.
If if I seek to walk with the Lord, the Spirit of God does not grieve. It's like you walking with a friend. You know, you're talking back and forth, but you got something between you and if you got something between you, it's kind of difficult to talk about every subject together. Well, we have a divine guest inside of you want us to open up the path for us in life. So you know what this all fits along with the the verses here.
God wants a people that are happy going on with them and so you get it in little thought developed through the chapter it seems to me.
And then when you say too, umm, that, umm, you know, uh, the servant of the Lord must not strive, but must be gentle, have to teach. And oftentimes, uh, we as Christians, umm, and some people are more prone to it than others and they get frustrated and, uh, with another person's watch because they try to force it, you know, I think it's Jehovah's fact, you know?
Umm, he defeated the enemy.
By singing and umm, and they're all singing and the enemy, uh, were killing each other off. They never even had to lift a finger, you know, so it's it's.
It's like great, umm, that we have to deal with others if we're cranky or if we're forceful, umm, it won't work. It doesn't turn the person the other way. And the Lord was never like that. He never ever force himself.
And we have to learn a real lesson all through our lives. And you know, umm.
He just doesn't want us to use force and when we do, we prove his work. That or the work that he has given us to do. We can. We can put an end to it pretty quick by being forceful.
Would you say that's true?
I mean by being angry with somebody.
And, uh, we have no, uh, right to be anger to anyone, you know, And we can't, uh, we can't meet the flesh with the flesh. No, I mean, that's what you're trying to do, that sometimes it never works. Umm.
As he remarked, we need to take that humble place and the coals of fire upon the head of our brother.
By returning not evil for evil, but good for evil. That's what the Lord did with us. And, uh, sometimes that's difficult, but, uh, it's the God's plan of, uh, of the grace of God being shown in our lives. The time is going and there's a lot more in this chapter here. I just wanted to make a few remarks on the, uh, balance of the chapter here because, umm, we have a remarkable.
01:00:21
Contrast.
Here, between the giving of the law and the whole legal system of Sinai, with what we now have in Christianity, the apostle is saying, you haven't come to the mountain of Sinai where God was declaring His Holiness. The mountain was smoking with fire. The people were standing up far off and terrified and trembling.
He said you haven't come to that mountain.
You have come to Mount Zion. Now God is not that. He has changed in His holy demands, but He's been revealed now in Christ. He's been revealed as a Savior God.
Brought us into a relationship now that the children of Israel did not have.
And, uh, and he says you're, you're brought to Mount Zion and all these wonderful.
Blessings that God has brought to the believer. Now the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, innumerable company of angels, and so on. Now we're the Church of the first born, written in heaven, God the Judge of all.
Well, he's not going to judge us, but.
And then brought to the one who is the judge.
And will.
Will take that place in the future day and the spirits of just men made perfect at the Old Testament Saints.
They are spirits now.
Umm, they haven't been made perfect yet. They will be when the Lord returns. And, uh.
They will have a uh.
Glorified body. I think that's the meaning of that verse there. And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. We are not under the new covenant now. Israel is going to be under the new covenant. We are.
Are we, we receive the blessings of the new covenant of grace, but we are not under any covenant now as the Church of God, blood of sprinkling, it doesn't call for vengeance as it did with Cain. He called for blessing. All our blessings now are through the blood of sprinkling, but with Cain he was a murderer and so on. So all of these things now we have in Christianity.
And members of the church and dogs in the highest place closest to the Lord, named, written in heaven and and and so on given to us in this 22 on there.
The first mountain is the mountain of law keeping. The 2nd mountain is the mountain of grace. The 1St mountain is what man can do and how man is made of failure. The 2nd mountain is what God has done, and that is great Mount Zion. It speaks of grace.
So a man's failure is brought before us in that first mountain, and the grace of God coming down to meet us in our need is brought before us, and that is the mountain that God seeks to bring before the Hebrews here now.
It's important, I think, to go back to the origin of something to find out you know the true meaning of what it's all about.
And really, the law is that which condemns it condemns.
The very best.
And there's no salvation.
It only exposes our scene.
The law is good. It's holy.
And God uses it to convict one of sin.
But as far as means of salvation?
01:05:02
It isn't available under the law because of the fact we are sinners. But when you look at when the law was given to Moses, you see the circumstances here and it's a terrifying experience to see that this mountain.
It's burned with fire.
It was black, dark.
There's a Tempest.
The sound of a trumpet, the voice of words, which voice they had heard and treated as a word, should not be spoken to them anymore. They don't want to hear any more of it.
It was so terrifying.
They could not endure that which was commanding, and there's so much as a beast touched the mountain.
It shall be stoned or thrust through with a dark This is vivid language describing the awfulness of this this scene, and so terrible was the sight that Moses said I exceedingly fear and quaint.
That's when the goal was given.
The loyalty by Moscow's well.
Does this description of Mount Sinai engage at high?
Now it's a fearful thing.
But as you point out, coming into the mouth of Zion, and this is great and this is what engages our hearts.
The grace of God, you know, it's been said, grace is God's riches at Christ's expense.
Grace does not demand anything of you and me.
It's a gifted card. It's a free giving of God.
I believe that.
It's the basis of our salvation.
By grace, are you saved through faith?
I like what you said, he said. There's no longer God requiring, but now God is putting in and God is giving.
Umm, you know what? We saw? We had to, we had to do, do, do.
I just have a quick question.
Verses 2223 and 24 I heard it said that it's a description of the Kingdom of God.
Would that be a correct statement?
We'll figure it on for that time yet as well. Uh.
It is a preview of the that coming scene of glory into which.
By grace repeated, the Christian is introduced.
General Assembly here is the the Angel. They are now the administrators of the Kingdom, but they're going to be called in, just like in Ottawa. We have the change of government recently and the ministers who were under the former government, they were called in. They no longer have a position. A new cabinet has been established in Ottawa now. And so we are going to be the administrators of that heavenly.
Seen in company with Christ, that's an acquired glory. That millennial glory that the Lord has is something that he has acquired through death. And what he's not going to take the inheritance. The inheritance is that all coming scene of glory, the earth and the heavens. You're not going to take it in possession until He has His people, his bride with him. So we're going to share all that millennial glory, acquired glory.
With the Lord, of course, we don't share His sonship, Lord or His divine glory.
But that's an official glory that that he's going to share with us. I think that's the general thought in the passage here.
It's all on the ground of the blood of Christ.
01:10:01
And the reward will be the mediator of that new covenant with Israel, who are going to be established and ruled in the Kingdom. They're going to have to longer be the tail, they're going to be the head, and all blessing will fall through that nation. So there's covenant of grace made with them, but we have part with Christ in that coming seat.
You sing #10 #10.
Praise is the sweetest sound.
Every shower can make it so when God can charge and jumpers.
And.
They're frozen by the rain.
Going on every day, that's not a dream.
Right.
OK.
How We Should Behave Ourselves in the House of God
Joy and Sorrow in a Time of Failure and Restoration
Gospel 2
Open Mtg. 7