Denver Conference: 2019
Table of Contents
1 Peter 1:1-8
The Mystery
Address—Steve Stewart
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Could we start with hymn #115?
115.
Head of the church, thy body.
Oh Christ, the great salvation.
No, no, no.
We ask the Lord's help. Our God and our Father, we look up to thee, and we thank Thee this afternoon that we have.
In thy precious word, a full revelation of thyself and the person of thy beloved Son.
All that thou art, and love and grace and in holiness righteousness displayed upon that cross, when we find that thou art forest, and thou has given thy beloved Son.
To redeem our souls and to bring us into nearest.
Relationship to the.
And the nearest relationship and association with I beloved son.
We pray that they'll help us as we take up Thy precious word this afternoon that it might.
Be for the blessing of our souls.
Our establishment in the truth presented to us in my precious word, that we might be here more for Thy glory and the glory of Thy beloved Son, while we await his return. And so we just ask Thy help in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
00:05:04
I'd like to take up this afternoon.
And touch on. We can only touch on it.
The subject of dispensational truth.
The cornerstone of that truth which is the mystery which was hidden God.
And its administration in this world.
The word dispensation comes from 2 words, house and law. I don't know Greek but it's something like Oikos's house. No Mia la oiknomia. He say it 10 times fast. You come up with the word economy. That's its English version.
It's an administration. You know, the president has a term of four years in the United States. It's a period of time.
But he also has an administration. He has a way that he orders the finances and affairs of the country. That's his administration. A dispensation is an administration. It's a carrying out of the order of a household. Like this world is like a large household, and God has a certain.
Order and way in which he is ordering things and functioning in this world.
House Law. Another word related to it is steward.
It's like a great stewardship and.
God has changed at different times and introduced new principles and his ordering and his dealings with man in this world, and if we're going to know how to walk in intelligence in a way pleasing to him, we have to know what he's doing.
The importance of dispensational truth is this.
Our life.
Our life in this world.
Spiritual life is governed by the revelation of God and His precious Word to our souls, and our faith is tested.
On the principles in His word that are for our time, for our dispensation.
For Abraham, it was a revelation of the Almighty God.
And his faith was tested on what was made known to him.
And in his call Israel, their relationship to God was to know Jehovah, and they were under law, and their test of their faith was how they conducted themselves under law.
The truths that are particular, and I use the word in a Broadway for our dispensation of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has gone on high and is glorified and he sent the Spirit of God down here to unite all his own to himself in heaven as their head. And the life and the energy of our life is dependent upon our understanding that truth and walking.
And that's where our faith will be tested. It's not in the truths that might be common to the Saints in all dispensations or what was for Saints in another dispensation. That's not what's our energy and our life here in this world, but what's true for the time that we are in.
We need to know those things, so I'd like to read.
3 scriptures in connection with.
The truths that are special for our dispensation. First one is in Colossians chapter 2.
Well, we're actually chapter one and two.
Colossians 1.
And.
Verse 23. If he continued in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven. Where have I, Paula, made a minister, who now rejoice in my sufferings, for you to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ and my flesh, for his body's sake, which is the Church or the assembly?
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Whereof I am made a minister.
According to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his Saints. Skipping down to chapter 2, verse one. For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for them, Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.
That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God. Leave out the last part of that verse. It's a textual error. Knowledge meant or the full knowledge or real knowledge of the mystery of God, in which it's referring to the mystery in which are hit all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
We see two things that Paul calls himself a minister of. The first is the gospel. He's a minister of the gospel preached in all creation, verse 23 of chapter one, and then he is a minister of the church, the assembly. She mentions at the end of verse 22 and then says, where have I made a minister?
Paul had two ministries, 2 great platforms of his ministry. The first was the gospel.
And the truths that we call in the Scripture, Paul's gospel, the place that the work of Christ.
Puts each one of us in in Christ individually. The second was a collective side of things, the truth of the assembly whereof he's made a minister and he calls that truth a mystery which was hidden God, a mystery which is hid from ages.
And from generations, but now has made manifest to his Saints. He calls the truth of the church a secret that wasn't known in the past, but only now has been revealed. Now means after the cross. And Paul was preeminently the one who was raised up of God to unfold the truth. Know what conflict I have for you that you would get a hold of this.
Truth of the mystery. Why? Because it's the key to unlocking all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in this book. If we don't have the truth of the mystery, we don't have the key in hand that unlocks the truth of this book if we don't know the truths that are particular and special to us.
And this time we are not going to understand.
This book.
In the mystery are hit all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And he was burdened that the Saints would know as many, even as hadn't see his, seen his face. Have you seen Paul's face? You haven't. And he's burdened for you and for me to get a hold of this truth.
We're going to look at the scripture in Romans chapter 16.
Where this mystery is mentioned again. Mystery isn't something mysterious. It's not something to be solved like the Hardy Boys.
It is a secret that has been revealed to us. It's not something we don't know the scripture tells us, but it's something that wasn't known before, but now it's known. Romans 16.
Verse 24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures.
Of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known.
To all nations for the obedience of faith.
He says I want you to be established Christians, and what's going to establish you? He says this truth of the mystery, these two platforms really of his ministry, the gospel he mentions and the truth, the revelation of the mystery. But again, he emphasizes which.
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Was kept secret since the world began.
Not only hid from other ages and generations, but kept secret since the world began. If we don't know the truths that are proper to our dispensation, we won't be established Christians.
We need to know that truth of the mystery to be established and to walk in a way that would be pleasing to him. Let's turn now to Ephesians, where we get this truth of the mystery taken up in more detail. In Romans, he only touches on it right at the end of the book. He doesn't develop it.
But in Ephesians we get its development.
We're going to look at.
Chapter one of Ephesians first.
Verse 8. Wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Again we get that thought of wisdom and prudence connected with the mystery, because he goes on to say, Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to his good pleasure, which he have purposed in himself, what is the secret of the will of God?
What is the mystery?
Of his will, verse 10. That in the dispensation or the administration of the fullness of times, he might gather together, or head up in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him.
This is the mystery of his will, the secret of his will. This truth was not known in the Old Testament. It was not part of the subject of the Old Testament prophets or Scriptures. They you could turn to First Chronicles, I believe it is chapter 29 and find that Jehovah is Creator is owned as head over everything.
Heaven and earth. You could turn to Genesis and find that Abraham lifted up his hands to the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. But you will not find any scripture that talks about the coming Christ, the Messiah that He was going to be over anything other than an earthly Kingdom, even if it spread from sea to sea and around the globe.
It did not contemplate anything more than a Kingdom under the whole heaven.
It was a secret in the heart of God that His beloved Son was not only going to have everything headed up in him and earth, but in heaven as well. The angels, powers, principalities and authorities, everything brought into subjection under Him. This was no expectation of any Old Testament St. whatsoever. It was a secret in the heart of God.
Little further in the chapter.
We find that God in his wondrous power raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead in verse 20, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and dominion, in every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. That's the Millennium. And have put all things under his feet and gave him to.
The head, the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth All in all. Upon the resurrection and ascension and glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, He was made head. It's going to be manifest in the fullness of times when God gathers everything and heads it up in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Fullness of times is the millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything in heaven and earth headed up under him, but God has exalted him to heaven and made him head now. And he said it says not over the church, but to it.
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And the Church, the assembly, is his body. When he has that place of headship over all things, the church is going to share that place of headship with him. The Church will not be under his headship, like everything in heaven and earth, but we'll share it with him as his.
Meat companion for all eternity. But what does it tell us about the assembly which is?
His body.
Years ago.
Had a number of conversations and I'll just sum them up kind of in one.
Brother said to me.
Brothers, but I'll make it 1 Conversation.
The Saints of God been the Saints of God in all times. What's true of the Saints in the past is true the Saints now. It's just been a developing revelation over time The 1St.
Member of the church was the first person who was saved, first person who had faith, which was probably Adam. And that's where the church began and it continues today. And it's just a developing revelation of the church over time.
And God has one purpose, that is the salvation of lost man and the problem with you folks that hold dispensational truth.
Is you hold that there's a dichotomy of purposes with God. You hold that he has two, that he has an earthly people and that he is a heavenly people and he has two purposes. And that you hold that Israel is going to be as earthly people in a Kingdom in some future day. And you really split that God has instead of 1 great purpose too.
And by the way, you know, you make too much of this mystery thing that it was hidden God, because doesn't it say in Ephesians 3 that the mystery is revealed? Let me just read the words to get exactly verse 5, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets.
The church was certainly spoken of in the Old Testament.
Well, the prophets who wrote those scriptures didn't understand what they're writing. And Peter tells us they had to look in and try and figure it out. So it was a partial revelation, was a full revelation as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets. It's just a full revelation now, and that's all it means, that it was hidden. God is that the prophets just didn't understand what they wrote.
It didn't, Paul say when he was speaking to Agrippa.
That he taught none other things than that which Moses and the Law did say should come, and the prophets done none other things than that. Why do you? Why do you say this is some secret that wasn't ever spoken of before?
And doesn't the Old Testament prophecy about the blessing going out to the Gentiles? The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall be brought into thee. And in Acts 15, when Paul went down to Jerusalem and says he was declaring to all about the conversion of the Gentiles, it's it's just a fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture.
It doesn't it say in Romans 16 that it's revealed by the scriptures of the prophets?
You know, I didn't know what to say to those things.
It threw my soul right over.
And in the vanity of my mind, I thought because I didn't have an answer, that there wasn't an answer.
And I realized how it affected everything I'd ever been taught.
Even being gathered to the Lord's name on the ground that there is one body, if this truth of the mystery really is just.
A figure of things that's really all was seen in the Old Testament. What? What is even this thing about being gathered on the ground of the one body? It just seemed like everything that I'd ever been taught was not true.
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And I think around that time.
This goes back a lot of years. Brother Bruce and Christy family came down to visit and kind of unloaded on him and we got talking. He said, well, isn't the truth of the mystery? Isn't that really the key to this? Isn't that really the key and answer to these things? And we got digging into those things and I found I was wrong. There are answers.
In the scriptures to all of these challenges, don't just throw everything overboard. The first challenge that comes and you don't have an answer from scripture, wait on the Lord.
The answers are in the answer book.
Well, let's continue on trust, I'll remember to answer those questions that we've raised. But the first is his body. The church is his body. You know, the other challenge that came to me and that time was how can you say the Old Testament believers weren't part of the church? How is it that you're going to come into blessing? I said, well, through the through the precious blood of Christ. That's right. How are they going?
To be in heaven.
Through the precious blood of Christ. Do you have faith? Yes. Do they have faith? Yes. They were part of the church.
I don't know what to say.
Let me ask you, what made you part of the church?
Are you part of the church? What makes you part of the church?
Was it faith?
Was it the blood of Christ?
Brother nodded his head.
Not exactly.
Brother Bill.
So let's look into that.
Going to hold our place in Ephesians and turn back to First Corinthians.
Chapter 12.
First Corinthians, chapter 12.
Verse 12 Whereas the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. For by 1 Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink.
Into one spirit, we're going to read another verse from Acts chapter 2.
Acts chapter 2 and verse 33.
Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He has shed forth this which ye now see and hear. What is He Speaking of? He's Speaking of the Holy Spirit having descended from heaven and indwelling those believers on the day of Pentecost, and the Lord Jesus said.
In John Chapter 7 he that believeth on me.
His belly shall flow rivers of living water. But then the divine commentary on it is this fake. He of the Spirit which was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
When he was raised and glorified, he sent the Spirit of God down, and the Spirit of God united the believers there in the Day of Pentecost into one body and to him their head in heaven.
No one before that could have been part of the church, because the Spirit of God was not yet given.
That's how you got to be part of the Church of God.
The indwelling Spirit of God united you to Christ.
Now it's true if we go back to Ephesians in chapter one that he will not indwell anyone.
This where brother Bill can you can nod your head. He will not indwell anyone who has not received the gospel of their salvation. Chapter one and verse 13, in whom ye also trusted. After that he heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and whom also after that you believe you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. There could be nobody.
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There could be no assembly until Christ was glorified and sent the Holy Spirit down.
No one could have been part of the church prior to that. No Old Testament St. but there's more.
There's more. Look at.
Chapter 2.
Verse 20 and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom He also are builded together for inhabitation of God through the Spirit.
Peter says in Acts 4 this is a stone which was set at Naughty of you builders.
And it's become the headstone of the Corner.
The Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 16 upon this rock I will build my church. It was future. He didn't say I am building or have built. It was future. The assembly was future, and it could not be built until the cornerstone was laid. And he didn't become that foundation stone until he had been set at nought of the builders at Calvary's cross.
And God had raised him from the dead and glorified him, and he became that foundation stone. Not one bit of that building. The assembly could have been started before that moment.
It says built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And in chapter four we read, when he ascended on high, he gave gifts unto men, and he gave some apostles and some prophets, those who are responsible for administering the truth of this edifice, the assembly.
Were given from an ascended Christ, laid upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
They came after his ascension, when he was glorified.
He gave them and so when we come to Romans and it says.
That has now been revealed according to the scriptures of the Prophets. That's not a good translation.
It should read this way according to prophetic scriptures. When we read in the New Testament, the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, it's referring to Old Testament scriptures, and we might take that from Romans 16, except we have a better translation.
By prophetic scriptures? What prophetic scriptures laid upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets? And when it's given in that order, it's those gifts that were given from an ascended Christ to the Church.
It's New Testament, prophetic scriptures, and chiefly Paul's, who has made a minister.
Of this truth, This was a secret hid in the heart of God. It was not any part of the subject of Old Testament Scriptures. Let's look a little on.
In chapter 3.
Verse one for this 'cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which has given me to you word, how that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote a four and few words, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.
Again, listen to the emphasis of this verse, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. If that's the only verse that we had in connection with the mystery being hidden, one could understand how somebody might put the construction on that verse, that it's a comparison of revelation, a little revelation.
In the old, but now it's fully revealed. But this isn't the only verse we have. And so we need to read this in context, drop down to verse nine. And to make all men see what is the administration of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God and nowhere else not hidden in prophetic scriptures.
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That gives us the context to understand.
Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed. It wasn't revealed in past ages, it's only now revealed. And who is it revealed to us through apostles and prophets again, that order of the gifts given from an ascended Christ, New Testament apostles and prophets.
What is this mystery? While we've talked about it, it's the church, but we get it.
In its detail.
Verse 6.
That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel.
That the Gentiles should be joint heirs, joint part, joint body, and joint partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel. Again, we need a better translation here though.
It shouldn't be that the gentiles should be fellow heirs, it should be they who are from among the nations should be fellow heirs.
And when Paul in Acts 15 and we referred to, says he went as he went from assembly, assembly traveling back to Jerusalem declaring the conversion of the Gentiles again, we need a better translation. The conversion of them from among the Gentiles. Yes, the Old Testament scripture spoke of the conversion of the Gentiles and Mass.
And they will be converted to the God of Israel.
And in that day 10 men of the nations shall take a hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, and say, We will go with you, for we heard God is with you.
And the sons of strangers shall build up the walls of Jerusalem, and the forces of the Gentiles will come in and flow in, but they will remain Gentiles, and they will remain strangers. And the Jews will be and will remain Jews, and those that lay hold of their skirt for blessing will remain of the nations.
The distinctions will not be dropped, but in Christ Jesus.
There is neither Greek nor Jew.
Barbarian or Scythian, bond or free, there are no distinctions.
Made.
In this new thing, And so we read in chapter 2 That he is abolished in his flesh. Verse 15 The enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances to make it himself of Twain. 1 Newman, Twain, Jew and Gentile 1 Newman. A new thing. This isn't the Gentile brought up to the level of the blessing of a Jew. It's not the Jew pushed down to the level of a Gentile.
But it's both brought to a new and higher and greater privilege than had ever been contemplated before.
There's a secret in the heart of God. Verse 18 For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit unto the Father. The Gentiles were strangers and foreigners, not part of the Commonwealth of Israel, the Jews.
They had the temple, but God dwelled in thick darkness. They did not have free access, and neither knew Him, His Father. But now we both have access freely to one who we know, His Father.
This is far beyond anything ever contemplated before.
So there was a twist of the scriptures that was presented to me.
That the salvation of the Gentiles in the New Testament, Paul declaring there was nothing other than what the prophets prophesied of. They prophecy of an end mass conversion of the Gentiles and some of it we find from other scriptures might be feigned fake.
What Paul was declaring was the salvation of those from among the Gentiles. And the Lord said to him, I'm going to call you out from among the people, the Jews, and from among the nations.
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Paul, in that way, is a sample man called out from both.
That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs. It's not the thought of an equal share. That's not the point. It will be. It's the point of equality. As peers, they both have the same title. Yes, the Gentile will be blessed in the Millennium, hanging on to the skirts of the Jew, subservient to the Jew and the nation. That will not serve thee. The scripture says God will judge.
That's not this. This is.
Coheirs.
Same title.
Of the same body. We touched on that in chapter 21. New body exists in the sight of God now composed of Jew and Gentile, no longer Jew or Gentile one body. No Old Testament Scripture ever contemplated even a blending of the Jew and Gentile. It maintained those distinctions.
But this isn't just a blending, it's one body.
Intimate union.
And partakers of his promise in Christ.
By the Gospel joint partakers equal share and the Messiah what? What is his promise in Christ by the gospel?
It can't be the Abrahamic promises because God promised Abraham.
That his seed would possess that land, and possess the gates of their enemy, and in the and in his seed with all the nations of the world, be blessed as nations.
The distinction between the nations and Israel is maintained in the promises to Abraham. This can't be the promises made to Abraham.
Hold your finger there. Let's just turn over to Titus.
Chapter One.
Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness and hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.
Joint partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel.
Eternal life was not something that was known in the Old Testament scriptures.
We have it together.
With all the other members of the body of Christ.
You will not find in this chapter any quotes.
From the Old Testament, because this was a revelation given to Paul.
They came to him, said Paul. Where did you get a scripture for all this? He says I don't have one.
This was given to me by Revelation. Well, you're a loose cannon, Paul. Oh, no, no.
It says it's now revealed unto his holy apostles, plural and prophets by the Spirit. I believe when Paul was given that divine revelation, the Spirit of God confirmed it to the rest.
And they could say they had it by Revelation 2, but he was preeminently its minister. Its minister.
Well, he goes on to say that he wants all men to see what is the administration of the mystery. There's a revelation of the mystery in verse 3. There's the knowledge of the mystery. And verse four, we only are going to get this by revelation from the Word of God. He wants us to know it, but there is a present administration of the mystery.
This body of Christ on the earth united.
To our head in heaven, under the direction of the head functions, and it carries out, and it acts in unity and in subjection to the head in heaven. What is displayed in this earth? Christ. Satan thought he got the great victory, that the purpose of God was spoiled.
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When he got rid of Christ on the cross. Oh, he's raised from the dead, always gone back to heaven. Well, looks like none of those prophecies are going to be fulfilled. The day of Pentecost comes and there is Christ again, and the members of His body. Oh, that truth has been practically given and poured out in vain upon the Church of God. But it wasn't upon Satan. He knew.
What had happened? And he set himself to attack it from the moment he knew.
He wants no display of Christ in this earth, and he has been successful in the testimony that we should have been, has been spoiled. But it's still the truth of God. And if we're going to walk in the power and the life that is ours in this present dispensation, then we are going to have to walk.
In faith in spite of the ruin, and seek to carry out the truth.
Of the one body in practice here in this earth.
And though it be but in a remnant character and in a remnant form, it's still the truth of God.
And it's still your life, and it's still the energy of that life. Not what came before, not what's going to come, and not what is common to all dispensations, but what is special to you and I right now.
Closing Prayer God and our Father, we thank Thee for this little time and Thy precious word and think of how full this chapter is. Goes to the heights and depths of the mystery.
The knowledge of the love of Christ that passes knowledge.
My desire that we would be filled with all thy fullness.
But we pray that help us to get practically hold of this truth of the mystery, we might not be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine, slight cunning, craftiness of men.
But to go on as established Christians.
To go on with that key.
While knowledge and wisdom from thy precious word.
Help us to walk by faith and the energy.
Power of the life.
And place thou hast put us in, we ask it in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
1 Peter 1:9-12
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.
Say #10 in the back.
In the back.
Land in his heart and tell the burning kill.
The Chamber of provocation of hell. But my friend.
Oh, painful. That presence will cease me for long and then I'll try out that.
Song.
God and Father, we thank you for the encouraging words of the hymn that we just saw.
We think of the subject that expressed aligned with what we enjoyed from Lightwood this morning. And so we just continue to look to the vote as we open that word again for the living of thy spirit, for that which would comfort our hearts, lift our eyes up and have a good.
Smoothness journey that we're on, just look to leave the meetings and just pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
Brother Burns suggested that we continue with the same chapter, but what first shall we start with?
Start.
9.
First Theater 1.
First night.
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of.
Soul of which?
Salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the great that you come unto you searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in that did signified, when it testifies beforehand to stop reason Christ.
And the glory that just follow.
Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they'd administer the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost, sit down through heaven.
Which things the angels desire to look into, wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you after revelation of Jesus Christ.
As obedient children, not fashioning yourself according to the former, lost in your ignorance.
But as he would have called you is holy, so be he holy in all manner of conversation.
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Because it is written be holy, for I am holy.
And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons, judges according to every man's work at the time of your soul journey here in fear, for as much as you know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by traditions from your Father.
But with the precious blood of Christ, I saw the Lamb without blemish and without spot.
Who verily, was poor, ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you, who by him to believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing you have purified your souls and obey the truth through the Spirit.
I'm I'm in love with the brethren.
That you love one another with the pure heart, purposely being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
For all flesh is that grass, and all the glorious men at the flower of grass.
The graph wither it and flower there a faded followed away.
But the word of the Lord endure forever.
This is the word which by the Gospel is a priest.
Why I suggested 11:30? Because this is the only verse that you find in Peter.
That is present salvation. Everything else is like in the Fifth Third, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. That is when we're glorified.
Is that right?
Verse nine you're referring to, right?
Going back to book eight, because I don't think we commented on it, who, having not seen any love and whom though now you see him not yet believing to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. So he spoke this morning about the sufferings of this world. One of the things they do is to wean us from this world to.
Develop those new tastes that we possess. If we're always feeding the old nature well, it should have surprised us that we still crave those things.
But there's a positive side to it as well. There's now a New Hope before us, and that hope is not a glorious land with streets paved with gold. It's a positive. And I think.
I think it's similar to what Paul gives us in Philippians, which is also a wilderness book.
When he says in Philippians chapter 3.
I pressed bullet the mock for the prize of the high clothing of thought in Christ Jesus. So it's a person that we have before us. And I know I I made this comment in another conference I was at just a month ago.
But.
As I have gotten older, if there's one thing that I trust, I'm learning and that is to develop affection for Christ. It's not a question of how much I love Him, but learn who He is. Have your hearts affections drawn out towards Him.
It's really to to know God and to know the Lord Jesus, not know about Him.
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That word.
And verse 9.
As a thought of an object.
In view.
Receiving the object and view of your salvation, repeat, or view of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. And so, as you say, brother, for them, what does the Jew look for? We thought this is he who should deliver Israel, right?
But that's not the object of their faith anymore, and the end of their faith is the salvation of their souls, not an object of temporal deliverance at all. Again, through this chapter, there's that constant contrast with what Israel had versus what they now have as Christians.
Are are you saying there that means that goes along with the eight first?
Receiving the end of their salvation is communion with the Lord or His presence.
And then?
The the the the object of faith isn't a temporal deliverance.
For Israel, what were they looking for?
Your faith was in the Messiah to come and deliver the nation, but now the the object of faith wasn't salvation in a temporal way as it was salvation of their souls. And they thought that. But there's the salvation, full salvation, not just of the soul, but a body as well that's been taken up and that's future.
I think that's good to see that in the Old Testament that would say and salvation occurs, but the Old Testament Saints didn't have the knowledge of salvation that we had. They didn't have assurance of salvation. We don't understand that. And we read the Psalms and we put ourselves in exactly the same position as the psalmist, especially when he's speaking as the voice of the remnant in Israel. We're going to miss apply those things to ourselves.
And now salvation will suddenly become a very unsure thing. The Psalms again, particularly those who speak of the voice of the remnant in Israel speaking, they're not speaking from a Christian physician. But it doesn't take away in any way the things we can enjoy from the Psalms. We've been going through the Psalms here locally in the Bible reading that occurs during the Sunday school classes. And I would say it has resulted tremendous blessing, it really.
So often it just flows on into what we've enjoyed in the breaking of thread, but it's a matter of understanding who something is written to or who is written by, and if it's not written to us, recognizing that, but taking the things that are applicable to ourselves from it.
And learning from them. But just to give an example from Nehemiah in connection with word salvation, Nehemiah Chapter 9, verse 27 says, Therefore Thou delivers them into the hand of their enemies who vex them. And then the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou notice them from heaven. And according to thy manifold mercies, thou gave us them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies. The saving there from the savage was a temple deliverance from their enemies.
That's what Israel looked for. They looked for temporal deliverance to the salvation that we have here in this chapter is no longer a temporal deliverance, but it's the salvation of their souls.
We learn in the Book of Revelation that.
Spirit of Prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.
And that God's Son is really the center in the sun as you and around which everything evolves not.
About the Church, not Israel, not man salvation, but Christ.
But further than that, we can say that the two great themes of the prophetic scriptures about Christ.
Bookings are the sufferings of Christ and the glory that you follow.
And as we often notice.
To for a student in old times of the prophetic scriptures to.
Focus on the coming glory, Stephen pointed out. It would have been the revelation of the earthly glory of Christ as Messiah, Son of David.
And to Passover, the sufferings.
Was a vital mistake.
These are the.
Two key aspects of the.
Testimony of the Spirit down through the ages of prophetic scriptures.
The sufferings of Christ.
Glory that you follow.
So the two on the way to Emmaus, they said. But we trusted that he should have.
That he which should have been redeemed his rival. That's Luke 24, verse 31.
And they, as has just been said, they completely overlooked the suffering Messiah, which is fully detailed in the Old Testament. And So what is the what Jesus do? He says vote, not Christ. That is the society anointed 1 to have suffered these things and entered into his glory, beginning at Moses and all the prophets. He expounded under them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
And then verse 44 of them 24 says, These are the words which I speak unto you. Why?
But yet with you that all things must be fulfilled before written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. And that's the threefold division of the Old Testament, the entire Old Testament that the Jew had the, the if you ever pick up a Hebrew Old Testament, there'll be three things written on the front cover, say Torah, which is the Law, Nevine, which is the prophets, and Katuvi, which is the writings, the three fold division of which the Lord spoke of here, and he went through them.
I don't know how many verses he touched on, but that spoke of the suffering of Messiah. But it's the great mistake that we make that Steve touched on in his last meeting that we like to make the Scriptures all about ourselves. They were making Scriptures all about themselves. They look for the redemption of Israel. That was all about themselves. And if we take up Scripture thinking that man and his redemption is the center of God's thoughts and counsels, we will misunderstand and misrepresent Scripture. That is why it's so important.
00:20:03
That we have the dispensational outline that was just presented. We cannot understand Scripture if we make ourselves the focus of it. As has already been said, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is really the central theme of Scripture.
It's the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus. And so God does have one purpose, and that's to glorify himself in Christ, and two spheres, heaven and earth.
And now they were finding out they were going to be part of that heavenly spirit, not the earthly one. This.
Still one purpose of God horrifying himself in Christ.
But the pattern.
Is for them, isn't it? And for us it's not the glory then the sufferings.
I couldn't be the sufferings and then the glory, and so we shouldn't expect to follow a different pattern than the Lord Himself.
See here 2IN verse 11 The simple observation but once again the proof of the evidence that the Old Testament is the inspired word of God. For other places too we find second Peter the 1St chapter verse 21 Says for prophecy came on in old time by the will of man, the holy man of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and so they didn't just write down their own thoughts.
Inspiration is an interesting subject.
Because inspiration is not the same as dictation. There is some dictation. The word of the Lord came onto so and so, and then we have, as it were, essentially dictation. What the word of the Lord said to that individual for much of the Old Testament is the expressions.
Of men used of God and we have the human element there present in the word of God. So you read aim us. Amos was a farmer and he uses many farming illustrations.
God and His inspiration didn't choose, I mean chose to use men to present His Word exactly as He wanted it presented. The two are not incompatible folks. But God chose men of all inspired by the Spirit of God to write down things exactly as He wanted them. But they didn't remove the human element from those expressions as well. And then this of us mentions the Spirit of Christ, and we see and see that especially brought out in the Psalm.
You mentioned this on Thursday night, so those here, they're also give the repetition. But so often we read in the songs of experience of David, but the sun doesn't end with the experience of David. There is value in looking at the Psalms in the life of David and compared to historic accounts of David with the signs that he wrote at that time. There is value in that. But that's all that we saw in the Psalms. We had missed so much.
Because as I said, so many of the sounds begin with an experience of data, but they don't end there. Instead, we have the Spirit of Christ speaking. Psalm 22 is a good example. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Well, perhaps David in his experience cried that at some point. But to limit that sum to the experiences of David you, you've missed what that sound is really about. It's the Spirit of Christ speaking through David. We know that David spoke by the Spirit as he says it back in Second Samuel.
But, and particularly in the songs, you hear the Spirit of Christ speaking in a way that we don't even find in the Gospels.
I'd like to ask a question in regards to what's being said because I was struck with this first last week. It kind of raised a question in my mind, but.
Says the Spirit of Christ, which was in them. Brother Steve just pointed out to us that.
In volume of the Spirit of God is particularly what brings us to Christianity, and that the end volume of the Spirit was not known in the Old Testament.
So what does that expression mean, or how do we understand what it says? The Spirit of Christ which was in them?
I think in Ezekiel you have two similar expressions. Ezekiel 22 Says the Spirit hinted into me and.
00:25:02
And then Ezekiel 3224 says that the Spirit entered into me. But I think the vast difference is the abiding presence of the Spirit.
Go ahead. No, I thought exactly. It just came and went.
Now included forever. Never really.
The language in Second Samuel 23 that you were referring to. I'll just read it.
These be the last words of David. Then in verse 2 The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue.
I believe it's that phenomena and similar phenomena. Sometimes the Spirit of God came upon a person to perform actions as well as words, but that's a different thing than the Spirit of God being able to take up his residence or indwell a person based upon known salvation received.
After the day of Pentecost.
Barbara gives a illustration of it and lookout on this lake. And here's a boat and the sail is up and.
Motor skill. But all of a sudden there's something that makes that sale blow up and so it moves it then it stops. Something is not moving at anywhere. Now it now it starts to move again as the sale fills up. So there's some force that's moving that comes and it goes.
But say they take a sail down and now that book starts to move, you realize not only there was something that was causing it to go and stop, but now it has power inside. And that's.
The engine inside. And so that's the difference, I believe, between what the Old Testament Saints had. The Spirit came upon them and evident.
The prophesied and whatever you use them for. And then it went, and it came back. But now we're in dwell, and we never will be.
In first chapter of John verse 32.
John fair record saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and if the boat upon him.
And they knew him not, but he that sent me the baptized with water the same 7 To me Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit of God descending and remaining on him, sustained to see the baptism of those jokes.
John's writing is a very interesting because there are certain words you love to you.
Well.
Like some of them you could probably guess at, but the one you just spoke of is another one. Just word to abide I think. If I remember rightly it's a Greek word minnow, but it goes over and over and over again in John's writings is the thought of abiding and remaining.
Clearly absent in Psalm 51 where he says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. But when you get to John 14, he he says.
But you know, for heat dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
So it's in advance upon what we had in the Psalms.
And the Spirit of God acted upon.
Not only believers.
But unbelievers as well.
It's all prophesied, Balaam prophesied.
And so the Spirit of God would never take up his dwelling place and one who was not a believer and even the Old Testament believers didn't have the gospel of their salvation preached to them as we get in Ephesians 113, to believe and then be sealed by the Spirit in dwelling of the Spirit involves more than just him acting on someone and using them in a certain way involves him being the seal, the earnest, the anointing, and.
So on.
00:30:00
There would be this difference to that in New Testament times for believers that are part of the church with in-depth dwelling spirit. If a person speaks in the Spirit, they do it with the understanding also. That is expected of us, and that's common to believers. Now. I will pray with the Spirit. I will pray with the understanding also.
An Old Testament St. on the other hand, prophesied.
Reams of prophetic utterances without necessarily knowing the import of what it was all about, and so that they could be searching what was given to them to speak with perhaps limited, greater or lesser amount of light in what was uttered.
It was still the Spirit of Christ in them uttering because we read that all scripture is given by inspiration of God or God grief.
The understanding is more common to us in our day and not common to that same extent before the cross.
The reason I mentioned what I said about applying because that occurs there in John 14.
23 is an example of it. Jesus answered and Saddam to him. If the man loved me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our opposed with him.
And then just another grossing connection with the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit and Old Testament is just repeats what is already being said. The illustration of the sale is a very good one because.
In Genesis.
Six verse three says to look. It says the Lord said my spirit shall not boy strive with man. Again, it's the Spirit of God acting as an external force upon individuals. And most frequently it speaks of when it comes to the prophets and so on. And Even so that the Spirit of God came upon them. But I don't think we need to think that it was any different in Ezekiel's case necessarily.
It was a temporary.
Expression of the Holy Spirit through the prophet Ezekiel to write what he wrote.
A little footnote is going to be I've heard Christians occasionally make much of a thing called just a kind of glory, as though it is something mysterious and magical. But in fact it's really comes from the word shock. How much means to dwell? And back in the Old Testament, God dwelt between the cherubim and that was it.
Now we have the Spirit of God dwelling in US.
Which is really, when you think about it, quite a promotion. And it demystifies the words kind of.
Basically, we come back to the word Nick was talking about.
That John so loved. And that was the word of.
My.
I think we can say 2 from what Peter says a little later in his club, it was the spirit of Christ acting in Noah that gave Noah to be a creature.
Righteous this morning and coming judgment.
And so he says, Peter says in the third chapter.
Verse 18 for Christ also have one separate percentage adjustment and you might bring us together.
They couldn't have been quickened by the spirit by which also he went and preached.
Under the spirit of Christian prison, when sometimes we're just.
Once the long-suffering that God waited in the days ago, allow the Arkansas.
They're they're, they're awaiting a coming judgment, but the spirit of Christ preached to souls in the through Noah that judgment was coming. And to me it's just remarkable how early on in, in the word of God.
We have this thought of the spirit of Christ implied that.
00:35:07
God was anxious to bring forward, you might say person at this time.
As an agent, that would.
One upcoming judgment Spirit Christian.
Well, we have reviewed a number of.
Convincing and plain scriptures it seems to me in the address.
On the fact that the truth of the mystery was hidden God and not revealed.
Until the apostles and prophets of the New Testament from a risen Christ.
So understanding that.
These things in verse 12 That are ministered unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us, they administered the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel. So there is a line of blessings aside from the mystery that we reviewed together this afternoon, that the prophets could see. And they were wonderful things, and they prophesied about them coming. And perhaps it would include.
Such new covenant blessings.
Israel will enjoy in the coming day, and the believer enjoys already. We enjoy the knowledge of God. We enjoy forgiveness of sins as a known thing.
Other such blessings, and I suspect that that is what would be included, and other things too, perhaps in the things which are now reported unto you.
In Romans one verse two says I just read verse one as well because you need it for the connection. Romans one verse one all a servant of Jesus Christ told to be an apostle called an apostle separate into the gospel of God which he had a problem which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. The gospel was the subject of promise and.
That's the subject of the book of Romans. We don't get the church mentioned except at the very end in the first that Steve brought out at last address and interesting connection with that. Perhaps you could explain the 11 question you asked that didn't answer there from Acts 26.
Well, maybe we can look at it. I'm already turned there.
X-26 and.
Verse 22.
Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue on to this day, witnessing both to swallow and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.
So to take that scripture and say, well, you see, when Paul taught the mystery, he he really wasn't teaching anything other than what?
Moses and the Lord and the prophets that should come. But Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on to say what it was.
That Christ should suffer. And that's what we're having in Peter. That was the subject of the Old Testament.
And that he should be the first that should rise from the dead. And we get that in First Corinthians 15, that Paul declared unto them the gospel, that Christ should suffer, that he should die, be buried, be raised from the dead.
That should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, unto the Gentiles. All of those things were the subject of Old Testament scriptures, and all Paul was saying is that he didn't teach anything contrary.
To what you find in Old Testament scriptures. But he's not saying. That's all I said, but.
He talked far more, but the Jews were accusing him of teaching things contrary to the Old Testament scripture. He's saying I didn't teach anything other than what they said should come. But he didn't say I only taught what they said should come as the limit of his ministry. No, that's not true. And so it was true that Messiah was going to.
Show light to.
00:40:00
Not only with people, but even the Gentiles.
You know, alignment to the Gentiles and the glory of my people. Israel says in the temple when the Lord was born, and that was true, but.
That is actually taking an Old Testament scripture proving that Gentile blessing was in the mind of God and using it to show this isn't contrary to the mind of God that he would bless Gentiles. But if we want to get the truth of the mystery, then we have to go to the New Testament scriptures and find that it wasn't the Gentiles and vast, but those out from among the Gentiles, those from among the nations. So what did the apostles have?
When they were proving that what they were saying was according to the scriptures, they only had the Old Testament scriptures.
So they had to draw from the Old Testament scriptures and say, you see, it's like what God said here, but it may not be the fulfillment of it, but it's like what he says.
Gave proof to the fact that this was not contrary to what caught, it said.
So Paul's not saying this is all I thought.
Just saying I'm not teaching something contrary.
So when Peter.
Then is the thought here in verse 12.
He makes a reference of.
Angels desiring to look into these things.
How or why did Peter have that thought and what he's saying here? Did he have knowledge of this?
Do we suppose that?
The angels were aware of all this, that was.
Coming in As for this new thing?
I, I I.
Wondering if the significance of the way he ends the stock.
Verse 12 really comes in between the sufferings of Christ and the glories that fall. It is, it's the gospel, But you're talking about whether the angels are interested in these things. I think they are. You know, you're getting over in.
First Corinthians.
This is 11 where it says the angels observe whether we're taking their proper place has got.
Ordains that we should have in creation.
It says.
That's a tenth verse for this cause on a woman to have authority on her head. That is a head covering because of the angels. The angels are looking to see whether we are following or not or or existing.
So it's important to them. They learn through us, OK, to get that same thing in.
Ephesians where it says we will be.
So I think you get two things.
To the intent that now and the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known the manifold wisdom of God so.
The wisdom of God is revealed in the mystery, and its present administration, carrying out those truths on the earth are a display of the wisdom of God to all created intelligence. And so the angels look down and they see it in a very local way. And in Corinthians, the local assembly are these truths being carried out. They're interested. And Peter is the truth of salvation.
Well, we find the angels in attendance upon the blessed Savior and his agony in the garden and attendance upon His birth.
Glory to God in the highest and.
They're there at the tomb in his resurrection, you know, and, and every step of the way. And as this unfolded, the sufferings of Christ and so on. The angels are in attendance. They're interested. This is their Lord.
00:45:08
But they're not the subjects of salvation. How marvelous it must be to them. You know, come for Angel hosts or music or this site. So strangely said God, beseeching man, refusing to be made forever glad. How strange a sight to them. They watch this whole thing unfold. Our member old brother coder and prayers, remembrance of the Lord. I don't know if it sounds exactly scriptural, but I enjoyed it should all Father, he said.
And Speaking of the cross and that, and the the cruelty that the Lord received from the hands of man, he said that they said there must have been trouble in heaven.
Mighty power, God to restrain those angels. They would have come to avenge their Lord immediately, but they're interested in every aspect of it.
Correct there's another reason too. We read what Steven said in Acts 7. He says who have received the bull, but the dispensation disposition Sorry of angels and have not kept them. So the angels had a special place in the administration of things under the law in Judaism and so in Hebrews chapter one Paul if he actually the author, especially of.
The apostle in Hebrews, especially the Lord Jesus Christ himself, we believe Paul to be the penman, but the the author of this epistle makes brings out the subject of angels in the first chapter to show the superiority of this one that came the Lord Jesus Christ in connection with angels. So I wonder if not Peter here also is showing how the superiority of what we have is that this is something that angels are desiring to look into.
They have been assigned to.
Occupied with our.
Physician and our progress, if I could put it that way, at the end of Hebrews one, they have been sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. So, as you say, they have a an assigned invested interest in the sons of men that have been brought into blessing through redemption.
And when the Son of God came down from heaven, he passed angels by, as we read in Hebrews.
And he passed them by again when he went up.
The amazing thing is, we will too.
So if I understand brother Burns original intent for our portion.
We have in this portion.
The Lord Jesus having done so many things for us as believers.
And even angels are watching us from day-to-day.
There is someone in this room.
On the on a scale of suffering, someone is suffering the most of all of us.
Your brother, your sister, verse 13 lured up the ones.
Of your mind.
Be sober, hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Don't, Don't give up.
There might be a need be in your life and.
Sometimes the trampoline of a precious herb.
Sends forth a fragrance that others.
Revel in sometimes that suffering in your life.
Encourages someone else in the path of faith.
So this salvation was prophesied about.
And then it was reported by the apostles, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven the power of the Holy Ghost.
But it's going to be brought to us and then there's going to be deliverance from all suffering, isn't there?
There's a conduct suited to position into which we've been brought.
Good up ones loins being you're ready for action. So there's various examples of individuals in the Old Testament. So for example, says of Elijah, he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Josrio. You know, since we can get discouraged, we can get down and we can get very satisfied with this. The position we find ourselves in not very productive, not very fruitful. And here we have the wherefore there's a there's a there's something cut. This is not abstract truth that we've been Speaking of.
00:50:25
It's a word of encouragement, as Tim has brought out, and there is a conduct now as we go forward that's suited to the things that we've been reading about. That's consistent with the things that been reading about. It's not about just hunkering down and Bailey surviving. It's about getting up to our loins and being ready. Being sober. That's the opposite of being drunk.
Ready.
To do.
The Lord would have us to do.
Perhaps there's someone thinking too. I'll just what does that mean?
I've enjoyed connecting that with what we're doing and verse two are familiar with the 1St.
Says per year consent, your affection or another.
Remind on things about.
How we are bombarded with things.
But I really think that if we set our money on things above.
Generally effective that will be better our voice of our mind will be.
Somebody has said that to be sober is think God's thoughts.
You can be intoxicated well thinking about different things, so just think God stops.
If the garments girded up, it means it doesn't hang out all over the place, right?
And we can let our minds do that. Just.
Go wherever, right? Let it run. And we have, we can't do that as believers. We just can't let our minds just run wherever they would want to run. You need to tie them up. So it's the you need to gird them up and keep them out of the filth of this world. And so garments, if they're going to be kept clean going through a place where it's dirty, they need to be herded up or someone working out the field and.
I think this thought of sober.
And hope to the end the little marginal reference I have it says perfectly.
Perfectly is to have.
Bright thoughts about everything that is passing around us in this world. Where is it going to end?
Where is it going? Where is the course of this world taking this world to have sober thoughts? Are you going to make the world a better place? Are you going to rest its downward course, going to fix it up? That's not hoping perfectly to the end. That's not having sober thoughts about the direction of things that involve yourself in the politics of this world to make your Christian influence felt and do some good. It's not a silver thought.
As to the direction that this world is going, we want to have sober thoughts. We want to hope perfectly and not think that man's efforts are going to bring in the Kingdom.
It's not going to happen.
It's going to be the Lord Jesus Christ coming in judgment that's going to bring it in.
Practical illustration, perhaps, as Daniel before Belshazzar. Belshazzar said to him.
I've heard of thee that thou canst make interpretations, dissolve doubts. Now thou canst read the writing and make known to be the interpretation thereof. Thou shalt be clothed with scallop, and have a chain of gold about my neck, and shall feed the third ruler in the Kingdom. And the Daniel said, Oh, wonderful, and he doesn't. He says Then the annual essence said before the king, Let thy give faith to myself, and give thy rewards to another, that I will read the writing under the king, and make no one unto him the interpretation.
He read the writing on the wall. You would have said, Daniel, you didn't have sober thoughts. If you think it's going to be worthwhile being the third in the Kingdom for a day that's not sober. Daniel knew what that writing on the wall was. He said, let your gifts be another.
00:55:10
Would you have wanted that chain hanger on your neck, marking you as a third ruler of the Kingdom when those armies came through? It has the last thing you want to run your neck, right?
Well, some have more difficulty with this than others. We are all, as we say, sometimes wired a little differently and we have different strengths and weaknesses in our our soul ish or emotional makeup and in our bodies. But scripture never puts before us something that we don't have the ability or capacity to do in Christ and with this strength. And so we think of the psalmist in Psalm 16.
And this is something that.
Even though I believe that Psalm speaks prophetically of of the man Christ Jesus, yet we can follow in those steps where he said I have set the Lord always before me.
And so you just get up in the morning and you just, you know, like, like, like the sales on a boat and just let it go. It'll go somewhere.
Horrible way to start your day.
Soon as your eyes are awake it's like OK.
Where am I reading today and and get get after it. And so that whether you're working or whether you're retired or whether you're little, it's the right way to start the day is to set the Lord before you and the consequence was.
Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Sense of his presence and confidence.
But it doesn't stop there. Therefore my heart is clad. I've been talking about and reading about joy and rejoicing in First Peter One. This is where it comes from.
And my glory rejoiceth, my flesh also shall rest and hope, and so on. And so it's a very practical.
Advice for us is, and these these these little tools here, they can be used for, for really effective spiritual benefit or they can be a plague like, like nothing that's ever been invented before.
Back 20 years ago.
Everybody tried to keep a TV out of their house as as did we. These things are 1000 times more powerful for evil than ATV ever was. And they're right there. Yes, I have the concordance on mine and I look up verses and I look up hymns and, and I can click, click and see the where the Greek word is found in other places and etcetera, etcetera and and text your loved ones and your brethren.
Boy, how careful we need to be first thing in the morning that that you don't get on there and start on that news chain and whatever they call it. Thing goes from thing to thing to thing. Pretty soon you've wasted time and your mind is filled with things that don't profit.
As we were saying in the last meeting, so very important to set the Lord before you the time of being, let the Scripture speak to you, and then the time of prayer where we speak to it with Him.
Flight.
I could just quickly in the third verse, which I don't believe was commented on before, it says in the middle of the verse that he hath begotten us again into a life we hope. I believe it should be a living hope by the direction of Jesus Christ from the dead. And so the Lord Jesus had not been raised from the dead, then our hope would be a dead hope. But because he has been raised from the dead, our hope is a living hope. And what is brought out in this 13th verse though goes beyond a living hope. It says here and we hope to be end.
For the grace that is brought unto you in the revelation of Jesus Christ. I could just quickly read a verse from Romans chapter 8 says in the 24th verse, for we are saved by hope. We hope that is seen as not hoped for what a man see if why does he have hoped for and so the one who is loved, though he is unseen is now in this 14th verse. I'm sorry this 13th verse he is at the end revealed he is if we can say he is seen and at that point.
No, hope is no longer just a living hope. It is a realized hope. It is a hope completed, and because it has its object, it is fulfilled. It's not hope anymore because it has its object presented before it is something that is seen.
01:00:08
We sing 312 lead on a ****** board lead. On to victory.
Friday.
They don't. Almighty Lord.
Of victory.
And pregnant by my blessing.
Of all of you.
And.
Forever.
The Ten Similitudes of the Kingdom
Address—Bruce Conrad
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.
Start this afternoon by singing part of hymn #316.
3/16.
Just verses 3:00 and 4:00.
Of 316.
Thus far by grace, praise her.
It's all.
The game no one brings her.
Where I stand on.
Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for the prospect we have before us because of Thy holy work on Calvary's cross.
And because thy God, thy Father, has raised thee out from among all the rest of the dead, and assign thee that highest place in heaven.
We are.
Happy to look up by faith through the open heavens to see thee there.
We're happy to to ponder what has been put before us in my precious word.
That at the end of all things, this world shall be filled with thy glory.
And Lord Jesus, we thank Thee that we have.
The hope that is imminent.
That perhaps even today, faith will give way to cite. We shall be ushered into thy presence.
Shall see thee face to face, to be with thee, to be like thee. And in the meantime, we look to thee for fresh grace. Help us.
Day by day to put one foot in front of another, that we might be here for Thy glory. We might be kept through faith as we've considered today, that we might honor Thee in this very world where Thou was hated without a cause and cast out. So we ask Thy blessing as we open Thy precious word, that it would be for our profit and encouragement.
We look to Thee for Thy help in this, and we ask for Thy blessing, Lord Jesus, and Thy worthy and Thy precious name. Amen.
Well, let's just start with a I'd like to refer to a verse in the prophet Amos.
Probably a well known verse.
In the third chapter of Amos.
Verse 7 Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret.
Unto his servants, the prophets.
This verse probably reminds you of what was expressed to and about Abraham.
Back before the judgment fell upon Sodom, shall I hide from my friend Abraham that thing which I do? And what a great blessing it is that God has lighted up for us the end of the pathway.
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We don't know what a day will bring forth. None of us do.
But we do know where the end is and what a wonderful thing that is to have that assurance that whichever way the road takes or however long it may be, we're going to end up with. And like Christ, this is a comfort that He wants us to have. In the meantime, we have experiences.
We have experiences whether we're young or whether we're middle-aged or whether we're older.
We experience things in our life, in our minds. We experience other people around us. We experience the effect of organizations. We experience all kinds of things all day long.
And it is so helpful, one of the most helpful things about the possession that we have have received of this revelation from God, as it gives us, as our brother was saying in the earlier meeting, a context with which to understand and assign things their proper place in our lives.
And so I, it doesn't fall upon me if I'm, if I encounter an organization or a group of people or a request or a person or, or an attitude or whatever it is, my mind, as instructed by the word of God can process that and put it in the right context and then know how to deal with it. Often times it's just to yield to it. Oftentimes it's just to sigh.
Sometimes it's to take an action, but it's so important and we cannot probably stress enough.
How important, especially as we're young, to get God's thoughts, to get an outline of truth as our brother was putting before us earlier today, so that we know what we're about and we're not just empty or, or, or random spots in a three-dimensional, 4 dimensional universe. Just kind of figuring out as we go. That's not God's intent for us. And thankfully it doesn't have to be that way.
Now I'd like to turn to Matthew's Gospel in the 13th chapter.
And we're just going to with the help of the Lord.
Touch upon a few of my exercises to touch upon just, I suppose, the tops of the ways here, hopefully.
Of aspects about a line of truth that God has given us for a reason and it has to do with the Kingdom.
And I hope what Steven has brought before us about the mystery and it kind of brings back old memories to know, to remember the days when we were young and when that was a freshly discovered truth and how how much it helped us when we were dealing with the onslaught of of all the doctrines that are out there in Christendom. And it's been a stay in a stable, I'm sure for many of you, and it has for me over the years.
But also, I suppose we could assume from the fact that the word of God gives us ministry.
Teaching and instruction about the Kingdom, that there's a reason why we have this kind of instruction.
It's not just, you know, something stray on a on a bookshelf somewhere that we would take a fancy to and want to read. It is important for it's needful for us.
We need to understand these things in order to process what we see around us. And if it were so that the truth of the one Body and the Body of Christ, as Stephen brought out partially, was the only truth that we needed in order to be able to walk here intelligently and in peace and in a way that's a blessing to others, that's the only truth He would have given us.
He would have said I'm the head, the risen head.
You're the members of the body. That's it. But he hasn't just. We all appreciate that truth. And there's probably 40 brothers in this room that could stand up here and give us a very solid exposition of the truth of the one body.
But we also have that Christ is our anticipated heavenly Bridegroom and that we are the espoused bride. There's a side of things there, we realize. And we've been taught that on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and united us together into one body. I hope you got that.
Not to pick on you.
And the church was formed and so there was a laboring brother now with the Lord. And I was young and more impetuous than I am today. And he was at my my dining room table. And I said, well, what about John 20? And where the Lord breathed on them and said, receive ye Holy Ghost. And he scratched his head and he was a very well taught brother. And and I was just, you know, a young, young pup. And he says, well, I think that's probably just a picture.
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I went, oh, really, just a picture, huh? And he realized that was probably not a good answer. And we, we kind of had a discussion about it and I shared with him what I had learned, which was a thimbleful. But there are these other lines of things and we see that the Spirit of God brings them out so that we have this multifaceted way as our needs determine and the needs of our brethren to be able to put our experience and our work and service for the Lord into.
And an added one is the truth of the Kingdom. We're in a Kingdom.
And with with time racing on, we need to get right after it. Now I'm a big proponent of the 45 minute time frame, but I'm it's a challenge because I wasn't raised that way.
Especially in Palmyra, if you ever been there, they talk about Palmyra time and it's it's a whole another subject. But anyway, in Matthew 13.
Would just like to take up.
What the Spirit of God calls similitudes or parables of the Kingdom.
Now most all are familiar with the fact that a Kingdom headed up by Christ, the Son of David, was prophesied down through the ages by the prophets of Israel. It was their hope.
When the Lord Jesus came, he came as that one with all the bona fide, with the full resume.
And he displayed in what he did and said, and who he was, that he was that person to make all those promises good. And as you know, the people rejected him, the rulers rejected him. And so as we go through Matthew's Gospel, we see in chapter 12 That it kind of comes to a head and upon the.
Tipping point, if I could put it that way, in Chapter 12 of people just continually gainsaying him and challenging him and trying to catch him at his words.
That basically at the end of chapter 12, his mother, his brethren are looking for him, desiring to speak with him. And he says, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said of them, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren, for whosoever shall do the will of my father, which is in heaven, the same as my brother and sister, and.
And so basically, the Lord Jesus was closing down those those ties that he came to to fulfill and to enhance and to bring into the wonderful day of glory of the Kingdom on this earth. And so in the next chapter, he leaves in the first chapter. And I know this is a review for for most, if not many of you.
He leaves the same day out of the house and sits by the seaside.
And he begins to speak in parables. And the first parable, as you know, is the parable of the sower. The parable of the sower indicates that he's doing something new. We're not going to go look for fruit anymore from this fig tree or from this olive tree. We're not going to look for fruit anymore from this vineyard. We're going to do something new. I've got seed with me and I'm going to plant it. And we're going to do something different here.
And that's the beginning of Matthew 13. And as you know, the responses from the individuals, the seed was good, the seed is perfect. There's nothing wrong with the seed, but the seed fell in different ground, as you know, and resulted in a different response. The response and how that works inside a soul is not taken up in Matthew 13. We can read in John chapter 3. We can read in First Peter One or Second Thessalonians 2 like.
Had in the readings and we can read a little bit more about how the work of the Spirit of God in a soul brings life and what that life, how it displays itself and so on. That is not here in Matthew 13. It's not the intent of the Spirit of God to take that up.
But as we see as it goes down there, and we're just going to read a few verses here and there in Matthew 13.
Now the disciples asked him after hearing of this parable.
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Verse 10 Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given, and so on. And so now we have something revealed by the Lord that was different than what had been revealed, or what could have been expected in the profits down through the ages.
In the Old Testament, as we call it, that the Kingdom was now not going to be the way it was prophesied of a time when the children would play in the streets and, and, and, and. A man who died at 100 years old would be like a child dying when the knowledge of the Lord filled filled the land and sickness and disease were rolled back in. The bent of animals was changed and, and, and all those natural earthly blessings would be realized, no.
The Kingdom was going to take a different form, and that's why it's called here the mystery of the Kingdom.
This is not the same mystery that Steven was speaking about in his in his in his address. That is a more technical New Testament term for what he described as the truth of Christ and the church. This is the mystery of the Kingdom, and it is a different aspect of things. And I should say in advance because I kind of feel like I might be.
Confusing some of the younger ones who are maybe not used to hearing what you heard from Steven and maybe not even used to hearing this.
But I look at it this way, you know, when I was a little boy, my mom thought I should play the piano. It didn't work out that well, didn't, didn't go on for very long. But I learned enough that there's all these different notes. There's the white keys and The Black Keys. I never got to The Black Keys, but I learned that there's scales and there's notes that belong to different scales and people who read music, which I really don't.
Can look at certain things and notations and know.
What notes belong to that scale to that? Is that the right word scale? And, and so if it changes and there's four little bees there or something like that, then people who know music say, okay, these Black Keys belong and these white ones don't. It's the same piano.
It's the same keys. They don't change them out, but it's a different key for that particular melody. And the Spirit of God has given us New Testament believers these different melodies that are to be played as you will.
In different keys. And so we have the truth of the Kingdom that we're in. We have the truth of the one body. We have this wonderful truth that is really a higher thing than I'm taking up this afternoon.
Of the mystery. And we have the truth that we're the bride espoused as chase virgins for Christ. And we are also part of the House of God and in the House of God. And there are other figures that don't come to mind right now, but they're all needful for certain experiences or things that we see around us, whether in the world or in Christendom or, or or with Jews or Israelites that we may know.
And enable us to properly understand.
Where everything is headed, where it has come from and what we should think about it so.
It was a sentence of judgment upon these persons that were hearing this from the Lord. He put it in parable, not to make it clear, but to make it less clear. He obscured it, as he says there in verse 12. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance, and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables.
Because they seeing see not and hearing they hear not.
Neither do they understand, and in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah.
Which saith and then he quotes the passage from Isaiah. I think it says 43rd chapter.
And so we have a new thing here. We have sewing. We have a switching of gears by the Lord himself.
And so the apostles Paul and others take up. Well, what does that mean for Israel? Is Israel all done?
Is is is now the church? Israel's out, The church is in. Is it the same position? Is it slightly augmented? Steven addressed all of this in his.
Much of that in his address, but as we go on through, we hope to see that that is certainly not the case if we turn quickly to the Prophet Hosea.
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We shall see that in advance.
God predicted and prophesied.
Trying to think with that Hosea chapter 3.
He predicted as we were saying this morning, knowing the end from the beginning. He predicted what the what the response would be from the by the nation when the Messiah finally came. And he also predicts what will be The upshot after the nation in governmental blindness is set aside for a while and we don't have time to go into this much as I would like to, but right now, right today and for the.
2000 years or so, God has written a sentence upon Israel of Loami, not my people, they are not my people and his dealings with them are suspended if you have a device.
A tape player or something like that, there's a button on there that you can put boom just to kind of not wipe everything out, but just to kind of suspend it or stop it and hold it right there. And in a certain sense, that's what God is doing and that's the present situation.
Now they are still under his eye.
But as to actual events and working like the Potter does with the clay not happening right now, something new is happening. Hosea chapter 3.
In verse.
For for the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a Prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without tariff him. That's the present day. Afterwards shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.
And so that is the suspension you might say we have over here.
With Israel.
And so, getting back to Matthew 13, we start now into a series of of parables of similitudes, I suppose is the proper way to speak of them. They're seven in the 13th chapter, but the six?
The the second on through the 7th in chapter 13 in two groups of three are all called similitudes or parables of the Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven.
And they are parables of the Kingdom in its mystery form. When I say mystery form, I'm I'm distinguishing it from what's going to happen when the Lord Jesus returns from heaven in power and glory. And one of the things he will do through the process of judgments is he will bring a remnant of that nation into the blessing that was always part of his purpose.
As Steven said earlier, God has one purpose, and it's to exalt his beloved Son in the sphere of heaven and in the sphere of earth, and it will be done.
If we start to get fancy and start to spiritualize away, I looked the other day in my Bible, I have over 400 or 350 or 400 pages of prophetic scriptures, verse after verse, page after page from 16.
1617 prophets that all speak of the fact that they that the Messiah is going to be rejected, he's going to be cut off.
He's going to suffer, but lo and behold, that suffering would end up being for the blessing of his people, and he's going to bring them into blessing, as a matter of fact, without turning to it in Jeremiah. Jeremiah, what else can Jeremiah say? Says if the if, if the if the stars in heaven, if the sun and the moon and daylight and night stop from being an ordinance forever, so are my people not going to be brought into blessing in that day?
And the Apostle Paul, or the writer of the book of Hebrews, I happen to think it was Paul.
He speaks of this future blessing and calls it the new covenant, not I like the old covenant that I made with their fathers. God made no covenant with your Father in mind except his over there. But he made no covenant with with you and I, no matter what nation of the Gentiles we're from. We have no claim to this. But he says not the new covenant is not like the covenant I made with their fathers.
And then he describes what the New Covenant is with the House of Judah and the House of Israel. It could not be plainer.
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And you start getting fancy and saying, oh, it's spiritualized or oh, he, he changed his mind. This is this is the most absurd, borderline blasphemy.
'S excuse for a doctrine that I think I have ever heard.
Because pretty soon we say, well, God, he got, he got busy with something else. This is like the mockery that Elijah said to the prophets of bail. Oh, he's sleeping or he's busy.
We know that's not the God of glory, the God of the whole earth. He keeps the planets and everything perfectly.
And all the everything in your body and Everything Everywhere.
No, it's going to happen.
It's going to happen. Meanwhile, getting back to our topic, Matthew 13.
And so in these first three parables and I won't read them all.
We have in verse 24.
We have the Kingdom of heaven likened to a man which sowed good seed in his field, and while men slept the enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat.
And then the servants say, what do we do? Should we tear them up? And he says no, let them grow.
Tears are not good. It's not what you want. But the instruction here is let them grow together until the harvest. We'll deal with it then. And so these first three assimilitudes really have to do with negative things.
I work in a in a company and when I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to make sure we recruited entry level usually was engineers. And and so you, you know, you give them the propaganda and, and have somebody talk to them and, and no, nobody brings in a young just about kid graduating out of college.
And says, you know, it's, it's really, we have a great business plan, but.
It's really not working out that well and there's a lot of problems and we got some guys that don't do what we ask them to do. And we got some guys from the other company that infiltrated our company and, and we've got viruses all through our computer and our maintenance system on our cranes doesn't work. Nobody does that right? This is what God does, honestly, and he's done it in these first three parables, he said.
The the the the the field.
The field is the world and the tares of the children of the evil one. And then the next parable is.
The mustard seed, which properly would make a little mustard plant, but instead we have it's the least of all seeds. Verse 32. But when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. This is not a good thing either. This is the picture of undesirable, whether it's wicked spirits.
Or what have you. It is not what you want this little seed has has become.
Abnormally large in a way that is not intended by nature, and it has become thereby the host of undesirable birds, fowls of the air. And this is what the Kingdom of heaven. I don't mean to disappoint you or discourage you, but this is what the Kingdom of heaven.
Of what men commonly call Christendom or Christ's Kingdom is today and has become, it has become this a long time ago. And Scripture doesn't say it's going to be different. We'll get to that, Lord willing. The next parable is the three measures of meal, though the 11 hidden 3 measures of meal. And as Bible expositors have have labored as I've read over the years many times, 11 in Scripture is never a picture of anything good.
A little leaven leavens the whole lump is not a good thing. It pictures moral evil, it pictures doctrinal evil, it pictures things that spread insidiously that you don't want. And so doctrines have come into Christianity that are.
Dishonouring to Christ, into God, and in profoundly negative effect upon professing Christians.
And so this is the first three.
It's not a pretty picture, but it's reality. And that's why it's it's really striking that God starts out this way and says this, this, this is what's going to happen. And if you stop and think about it, even in the early days of the church before the apostle Paul was off the scene, if you think of how he wrote to Timothy and said in the second epistle and said.
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Perilous times will come, and he gives a list of moral degradation.
Which I assume is degradation inside the Christian testimony already at that time, which was basically very little different from the degradation seen in the world described in Romans one and two. But that's what had been had come into the testimony very, very early. And so in Acts chapter 20, when he meets with the elders from Ephesus, he says the same thing to them very early on. He says, I know that after my departure.
Grievous wolves shall enter in. Of your own cells shall men arise, taking disciples after them, not sparing the flock, and so on. Peter writes about mockers in the last time about false teachers. There were false prophets before, there are false teachers now. Jude writes about a scoffers in that line of things. Who am I leaving out? John in his epistle writes about.
Yes, you've heard about the Antichrist. Even now, there are many antichrists.
And so you have this complete testimony to what the Lord before all this is saying in these parables. But everyone, if you turn to second Peter, if you turn to Jude, if you turn to all those epistles, let's just do one. Let's just do Jude. You say this is a pretty disheartening picture.
I have a cousin who was as a kid a champion sailboat racer.
I always tried to get him to teach me how to sail. We never got very far with that.
But I learned from him that even though the wind is coming at you.
There's a way to tack and to go this way and to go that way and to go that way and to go right upstream into the wind. If your destination is that way and the wind is coming at you, you can still sail into the wind. And if I could put it that way, everyone of these epistles describes the wind in very plain terms and then says, oh, by the way, you have all the resources to tack right into the wind and achieve.
Spiritual success.
When Joseph allowed his brethren to go back to Jacob.
It says he gave them provision for the way.
And that's what he's given to you and me. We have provision for the way. Everyone of you young lads over there, all of us older ones, we all have provision for the way.
But then Joseph said to him, see that you fall not out, by the way. That's the responsibility, sorry. And so in Jude, just to pick one.
At the end after this description of things in the in the epistle from Jude.
What does he say here in verse 20? But but ye, beloved.
Building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. He ends with this doxology in verse 24. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, they're literally stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
That's not discouragement, that's not depression, that's not resignation. That's just reality of this is what's coming at us, but this is what we have, as the Lord told his disciples before he left.
In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world, and greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And every one of these testimonies to the dire reality that we encounter, not just in the world, but in Christianity or in Christendom, always ends with this encouragement and this positiveness, as if Paul says in the language of of modern American, you can do this.
You can do this.
And you have the resources to do this, and you got this. And here's the way. And so it's so encouraging. Now let's turn back to Matthew 13.
I'm sorry if I sound rushed.
Now the next three are also in this chapter.
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And we've passed over for the moment.
The end of this negative element and how God is going to deal with that because he's going to deal with it. It's not going to go on forever. This is always a challenge.
The entrance of sin into the world.
Is in a certain sense a reproach to God.
He made the world, and if you give the gospel out to your classmates or to your friends or to your workmates.
I'm sure you've had people say, well, if there is a God, how come there's so much suffering in the world, right? Everybody's heard that and it's a reproach.
Because.
God in his wisdom has allowed this to enter into the world. He allowed sin to enter into the world and death by sin, and he has allowed these forces, He created Satan. He has allowed this to happen.
And meanwhile, it is, it is a secret with men and women of faith all down through the centuries and Old Testament in New to know the secret that yes, it looks like evil is triumphing. It looks like things are out of control. It looks like there is no resolution of anything. But you just wait. You just wait.
When Habakkuk complained to the Lord about look at what your people are they they are a train wreck.
And the Lord says, OK, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to raise up the Chaldean and they're going to thresh through them. And you were not you. You won't even believe what's going to happen. And and then he's like back like this. And and then he says, but but Lord, why would you have a people more evil than than your own people? Be the judge of them. And then the Lord says, I will judge the Chaldean.
And the Lord graciously works with Habakkuk.
And to the point where Habakkuk soul, I could say he's like a weenie child. And at the last chapter of Habakkuk, he just prays to the Lord. And at the end of the book, as you know, the short little book of Habakkuk, he says he's my feet are like Heinz feet, and I walk upon mine high places his beautiful.
Beautiful.
The other shoe is going to drop.
The other shoe is going to drop.
And the scripture says he must reign, and he will.
In every renewed heart.
Is stirred by that.
God will make sure.
That it happens and that it's seen and it's displayed from the rising of the sun to the going down of the seam, every country.
Every people, everyone who's been given any responsibility, the Gentile power, the Jew, the 10 tribes, the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, you can read in the prophets. Everyone 1 by 1 by 1, they're going to have the proper response from God.
And the Lord will be glorified in his grace. And He is, and He's displaying in you and me the riches of His grace.
He's also going to display the glory of judgment because those people that say, well how could God be just or how could God be love? He allows you suffering. You'll see how God is just and you'll see how God is righteous and you'll see of his nature when he bears the lighting down of his arm.
The three parables.
That are joined together as the 5th, 6th and 7th in Matthew 13 start in verse 44.
The Kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath.
That field.
I believe the treasure speaks.
Of the of the preciousness to him, of each one of us as individuals, We're part of that treasure.
And he bought the whole field. Sometimes we say, oh, does so and so belong to the Lord?
We really mean is are they saved right. And you feel like saying everybody belongs to the Lord. He bought the whole field.
He bought the whole field.
Purchase. I think Bruce has written a nice pamphlet on this. Purchase is different than redemption.
00:40:00
And he's but he's bought the whole field. But it's those with faith that can say that they are amongst the redeemed.
In the next parable, it's the Pearl of great price, which is us together as the Church of God, that he loved and gave himself for.
And then in the next parable we see.
The Gospel net, if we could call it that. Verse 47 The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a net. It was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind.
And so, and they sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end. Should be of the age. I believe the Angel shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and so on.
And so those are the six that are in Matthew 13. Now there are at least four others in Matthew 18. Just to take a minute or two. In Matthew 18, we read a parable of the Kingdom in verse 23.
And this is the parable made where the man is forgiven a great debt and then he goes and fails to forgive his fellow servant who had a little tiny debt.
And I believe that parable brings before us the proper.
Moral state of you and me in God's Kingdom.
That we show the yielding this, the graciousness to our brethren and realize we've been forgiven such a debt. And if we fail to do that, there is a governmental response by God in this life that we will experience because the forgiveness that this man had was revoked. Judicial forgiveness is never revoked, but this kind of what we say.
Governmental forgiveness, if I could put it that way, can be revoked and the person is delivered to torment.
And you and I know that if we fail to forgive our brother, our sister, the real person who suffers from that is ourselves, because we start to experience a torment that is allowed emotionally or in other ways through the government of God. In Matthew 20, we see another one, if I can, the first verse of Matthew 20. The Kingdom of God is like unto a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard, and so on. This is where we get the expression, the 11Th.
And here we see the encouragement for us that we're all kind of come in at different times and in different ways and with different backgrounds. The apostle Paul didn't write. The Corinthians say such were all of you. He said, such were some of you. And some of us have been brought in late, and some of us have been brought in early.
I wasn't saved until I was in my early 20s and when I was brought into the assembly and began to attend the conferences and other things like that, and I met my peers who had been raising Christian homes, saved at three or four or they can't even remember. It's been so long for them. But they didn't look at me and say, oh, this guy, you know, he missed all, all the challenge of trying to please the Lord in high school. He just skated through as an unbeliever. I didn't get that attitude from anyone.
I didn't get that attitude. I think brethren were just happy that another like that woman that showed up here in the morning, another brand plucked from the burning, another trophy of his grace and and and and such were some of us. And so this this is, I think what we get in this parable, just the gracious way that we are happy with the portion that we've received from the Lord. We don't begrudge another and we serve together.
Happily and the Lord of the harvest.
He does what's right. Matthew 22 is the next one.
And here's the Kingdom of heaven verse two, Like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son, He he, he makes, he makes this wedding, he makes this feast. My oxen and my fatlings are killed and all things are ready. And this is a very common theme in the Gospel message. All things are ready, but there's resentment and resistance and they even kill the messengers.
And so he goes ahead with it anyway. And perhaps the lesson here is that we're going to have resistance.
We're going to have that headwind against us. Keep doing that which is right. Keep bringing the gospel before souls. Some are going to come in because we know He's going to compel them to come in. And finally, the lesson at the end of this is that those that do come in, they need to have a wedding garment because I failed to mention that one of the distinctions between the Kingdom of heaven and the Church of God is the body of Christ.
00:45:00
Is that entrance into the Kingdom of heaven is merely by profession?
Merely by saying I'm a Christian. Yeah, I'm a Christian. You know, I go to I go to the Methodist Church or what have you. And and you like assigned baptism to that as well. A sign that in this world we are a Christian. We profess Christ and a person who makes that profession is responsible and accountable for that profession. And it's a serious thing to do. But the body of Christ we only enter into by faith.
And we're joined as Stephen brought out.
By the receiving of the seal of the Holy Spirit when we believe the gospel of our salvation. And so there's the danger here in a world of profession and this is one of the things that Kingdom truth helps us it helps us understand how to respond and how to understand and how to interact with those that profess Christ that are in the Kingdom of the of heaven, which is the heavenly rule of of of this earthly administration while the king.
Is unseen in heaven, and so that.
We're not going to go trying to root tears out of town because they the guy down the street, I don't think he's real. I think he's a fake Christian. We need to go deal with him. I mean that it sounds ridiculous, but but the Roman Catholic system has the blood of martyrs are are at her feet for having done that for perhaps many centuries.
And so we need intelligence to know how to respond. And the last one in Matthew 25 of these of these 10.
Is of course the ten virgins, where again you have a mixture. All profess, all have some sort of an invitation they've received, and that's why they're there. And they're dressed and they got their lamps. And then as the bridegroom tarries, they all slumber and sleep. And then at midnight a cry. Behold the bridegroom. And some have oil and some don't, and the ones with oil arise, and they go in to the wedding.
And obviously this is a clear.
Picture of you and I as believers, hopefully have come out and we are waiting, we are watching, hopefully we are working for him, but how the Lord values not just waiting, but watching for him. And this parable brings the importance of that before us. And so we've just touched very briefly and very rapidly on these.
Parables or similar tools of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Kingdom of heaven began when that rejected Christ was raised, as someone once put it, God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead in defiance of man. Man said we will not have this man to reign over us. God says, well, no matter what your opinion is, he's going to the very highest place in heaven. That's what I think. And he's raised him in defiance of man and that's where he is. And that's when the Kingdom of heaven started, when he went off on high.
Kingdom of Heaven will not be forever in this character of a mystery of a mysterious form. It'll end not at the rapture, but when the Lord Jesus comes out of heaven with 10 thousands of his Saints.
In Revelation 19 and other places, we read about how the Lord comes out His vesture dipped in blood on a White Horse.
And he will defeat and he will bring, He will show the glory of God in the manifestation of God's holy nature, in the judgment of everything that offends in every aspect of this world. I wish we had time to take that up. We don't. You and I will be riding along, but I don't think we expect to do very much.
I think we'll be riding along in awe.
In all of what we see in this, this man, Christ Jesus, the Son of the Father from all eternity, finally coming to this world and taking his rightful place. I wanted to speak a little bit, but we don't have time about the coming judgments that will fall upon Christendom.
If I could just take a minute, there was a brother. I, I, I have certain responsibilities that that require me to drive. And so I listen to meetings at times. And the question was asked which, which everybody here will probably give me a, a straight answer. The question was asked, will the church go through the tribulation? Now if I asked all these brothers here and sisters, they'd all say, well, of course not. The church goes out before the tribulation. The church could go out today at the rapture, but his.
00:50:04
You know what his answer was? Yes and no.
Yes and no. And I thought it's like 5:30 in the morning. I'm driving along.
Wow, What's where is he going to go with this? And then I saw yes and no. Yes, the true church goes, every one of us goes up at the rapture. But when you use the term church for this vast professing system of things.
Those folks, those people will not go at the Rapture. They will be here.
And that whole religious system will just blossom and blossom and blossom and ripen until it's a great, admirable thing in this world, just like the Western powers that that that this country is probably part of. And just like apostate Israel back in the land with riches and wealth and and pride in the chest puffed out. And just like the Arabs had come down and the king of the north and the king and all these other entities.
And they will meet.
A surprise that they will never recover from, and to whom much is given of the same as much required. And there is no people in the face of the earth that have received the blessing and privilege of hearing the gospel of the grace of God.
We speak about the great white throne, which is the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of the unjust, and they stand before God that a great white throne.
And it's a terrifying thing to put yourself in, to think that you could be in that situation. But we don't often speak about the judgment of the living.
But the judgment of the living will take place towards the end of the seven years of Daniel's 70th week.
And the angels will go forth. I'm not sure whether it's directly or with human instrumentality.
But they will gather out of the Kingdom all things that offend.
In the Western world that has been so privileged will be decimated.
If the if the providential judgments that fall aren't enough.
With famine and pestilence and civil war and all the rest aren't enough.
What will it be?
When angels gather out of the Kingdom all things that offend, little wonder the prophet said that a man will be scarcer than the gold. The gold of Ophir and a man will be rare in this privileged Western world. Sobering, isn't it? Sobering.
But so must it be the glory all belongs to him. He will be glorified. He'll either be glorified in US and the riches of His grace. He'll be glorified in His judgment, because the judge of all the earth does well. Well, I hope just a quick touch on this line of truth as to the Kingdom that we're all in as subjects to the King who is unseen in glory.
Is is a helpful aspect of the truth and that we're not confusing one another, but there are these.
Different keys and different.
I guess their keys on the piano and some of the notes are in a bunch of them and some are only in one or two. I guess I'm not a musician, but God would have us learn the scales and know where things fit. It'll enable us to be here more for His glory and to be enjoying these things before they come to pass. And that's one of His desires too. There's a crown for you and me if we love His appearing.
We just in our heart, just walking your dog someday and you just think it's going to be wonderful when the Lord comes and takes his rightful place. You get a crown for that.
Quite something, isn't it? What a wonderful day to be able to look beyond the long dark night.
And hail that coming day. Let's just pray.
Our God, our Father, we.
Thank you for the grace that has reached out to us. We know.
We had no thought towards Thee. We were traveling down a broad Rd. that leads to destruction. We thank Thee for the love on my part that has arrested us and brought us to Thy Son in sovereign grace. We thank Thee for the by keeping grace over us day by day and look to Thee for.
Thy help in giving us an appetite for the things which concern Thy Son. Help us to be diligent and to find ourselves searching the Scriptures regard to these things that we might lure. Jesus, bear fruit for Thee in this world while we wait for Thy soon return. We thank Thee for lighting up the end of the pathway for us. We thank Thee 2 for.
00:55:10
The lamp for our feet that we have in thy precious work. We commend ourselves to Thee. We thank Thee for Thy love. We look forward, Lord Jesus, to that scene of coming glory, when every eye shall see Thee and every knee shall bow. Lord Jesus, we look forward to that day with happy anticipation. We thank You for Thy love and Thy worthy and precious name. Amen.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Mark Rogers
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Good evening and welcome to the Gospel meeting.
It's nice to have these open meetings in such a way to proclaim something called the salvation story or the gospel. The good news, We're going to get to the most important salvation story in just a minute. But before we get there, we're going to talk about a salvation story that happened nearly 12 months ago, 13 months ago now, that impacted.
A particular region of the world in a great way, and the rest of the world watched on.
So before we pro ceed, let's ask for God's help.
Our Father, our God, now we just ask for help from the meaning here we consider these meetings that are set aside for not only encouragement, but also the salvation of souls. Father, we realize that us love us, that us love the world and we ask for help now that the the story of salvation of our Lord Jesus would be brought forth clearly. And so we love the Lord Jesus and thy name we pray, Amen.
So I gave this message about a year ago.
And.
Since that time.
It has to do with those over in Thailand. I have never been to Thailand. I understand it's a very beautiful country and.
I met with a missionary there this last eight months ago over lunch.
Who said?
I gave him kind of a rundown of how this message works is I'd like to know about it more because I have the gospels going forth heavily in Thailand right now because of what happened a year ago. What happened a year ago.
What Haiti? That's we had a soccer team happened. These are 12 young boys, ages 12 to 15. They were playing soccer one day. It was last June, June of 2018, and they were playing soccer and their coach decided to give them some time and go explore a local cave there.
So they went into The Cave and they were enjoying their time.
And lo and behold.
The senior coach of the soccer team started receiving calls. Where are the boys?
And he quickly found out that all these messages were coming in and this is the the assistant coach sitting here on the far left. And the assistant coach wasn't answering his phone either. So a search party was sent out in that region and they quickly found out.
That.
They were inside this cave and furthermore, while they were inside The Cave, what developed is that the water, the monsoon rains came down and started to flood The Cave.
And so they knew they were in trouble. And so the boys and the coach went back further into The Cave, deeper, to find another way out.
The parents quickly found out there was a string of bicycles at the entry of The Cave.
Pair of tennis shoes, soccer cleats. It looks like they're beside the bicycle and no boys.
They were lost.
They knew where they were, but they were lost.
And what breaks my heart as a parent and I know that every parent other parent in here would say the same.
There would be something to be said with love, with loss, to know exactly where your child is, but do not know the estimation of that child and what they're doing.
They knew they were in The Cave, but they had no indication at that time what the situation was inside.
The families did not know for 10 days.
They could do nothing. Each family could not do anything for their son.
They watched, they cried, and they waited.
Their love was to reconcile their son back unto himself themselves. That's what each and every parent desire of those 12 boys was going through.
Well, word quickly spread and the Taiwanese, the Thailand government, government there went into, went into order and it's a massive cave. This is the entry of The Cave here. Where's the water?
And they started pulling down resources from all over the world. Resources started coming in, for instance, which I was struck with.
These are these guys are carrying pipes to pump water.
00:05:03
And they had, according, you can look this up on Wikipedia, one oh, oh, oh, oh, people around that cave, rescue workers, representatives from many countries, 900 police officers, 2000 soldiers, helicopters, ambulances. And they're pumping 256,000,000 gallons of water in an effort to save these boys.
And outside, volunteers were scouring all over the mountain. It's a massive mountain, scouring for another way to get to these boys. Is there another way that we can reach them?
Meanwhile, also on the ground, a rescue plan was being formed.
The rescuers were trying to determine how is this going to operate. They pulled in on 100 divers. They were pulling in 700 diving tanks. And the most important thing is they called in the best of the world for this operation.
So much so that the best in the world were saying this is one of the top five caves they've ever dived in terms of difficulty, not to mention even a rescue.
The divers we'll get to in a moment, they pop up.
And they see the boys on the ledge 2 1/2 miles inside The Cave. They pop up and find the boys there.
They are found, but they're not saved.
Now the mothers in the back, the mothers that are, they're outside. They know their boys are alive.
But the odds are growing that this is not going to come back and have a live boy in their arms.
So 2 divers traveled for 25 two .5 miles, which took six hours one way, five hours coming back and they found the boys huddled.
There is a map of what it was 11 hour round trip the.
The professional divers said I can handle it, but I can't handle anybody else.
The very ones that were there to save said I can do it as a professional, but I am not certain that I can. We can bring these boys out of here. In fact, one of the divers there was a dive team from the US.
Specialist in the military was saying after the fact he was giving a 60 to 70% chance of bringing all the boys out safely of any of the boys.
Like you introduce you to the rescuers themselves.
These are two British divers, John Voluntan and Richard Stanton.
They are recognized worldwide as expert cave divers.
And one of them, one of them happened, he living in Thailand, the other one was called in urgently from the UK.
And these men huddled their minds the best in the world. They realized they had just found. These are the two men that popped up and saw the boys 2 1/2 miles in.
But now what do we do? And the thoughts came around to do we just leave them here for another few months, let the monsoon rains go by, somehow get food in here? Do we leave them in here? Do we get them swimming out? No, none of them have ever been swimming before and much less diving. This taps the resources of a professional. I don't know how they would do it. Or is there another way? Perhaps they can escape out And this is what all the volunteers were doing. Was running around upside the mountain there, scouring the jungle, looking.
For one more entranceway into this tunnel and it was soon concluded that there is one way in and one way out.
And that finally struck the professional divers. There is no other way to get these boys out.
They had gotten themselves out into a raised rock further on down the road there and 2 1/2 miles in taking refuge there. That's 1100 yards, the top of the peak here. So the object of drilling down would be a difficult prospect. I'd like to introduce you to another rescuer, very team rescue. This gentleman is out of the is out of Australia.
And all the world and that diving community said there's one man.
That can help us.
And they call this man in Australia. And the reason why it makes this man so special is he's an expert diver, to say the least, but he's also an anesthesiologist. He's a doctor.
And so they pulled him out of Australia.
And the world waited outside. In fact, Thailand actually gave him.
00:10:02
Gave him.
Indemnity is one word they indemnified him, meaning that if anything happens to these boys, he was not held responsible.
The striking thing about this gentleman here is while he's in The Cave, his father passes away in Australia.
Like you do. Here's another rescuer. This is one from the team Thailand. This was a man that his name is Saman Kunun. He was an ex Navy SEAL and he decided to volunteer for the job.
And he went in and he was hustling tanks into The Cave again. He's a specialized diver.
And he lost his life. He ran out of error. And it struck the whole community around The Cave, around the world as they're planning this operation, planning this operation. These kids were in there for 10 days at this point, and they're trying to find out how to get these kids out. And one of their own, a professional diver, just lost his life.
So what they would do is they would stage water oxygen bottles along the way and it was a cavity thing, so it wasn't complete water, but they had the skinny under some crevices and come up other sides and they had it was a very, very difficult pattern, very dark, very murky and had is complicated with everything from coldness to darkness to running out of air.
And a current to go with you as you're going in. As it said, it took six hours going one way that 2 1/2 miles.
The rescue plan is as such, the boys could not swim.
And so they developed this. They came up with the system again of a boy being in some kind of a stretcher apparatus with oxygen clamped over his face. And it would take a pair of divers to make that 5 hour trip coming out with that boy in unknown territory.
I'd like to stop here and talk about a salvation story that happened 200 and 2019 years ago.
They're hailing the one we just talked about as one of the biggest, the biggest rescue attempts on people in the last decade or more. The world watched intently as this happened. All the resources are being pulled in for the salvation of those 12 boys and the coach. But there was another time as well that a rescue operation went into place and it's still in place today. But the problem happened.
6000 years ago in the Garden of Eden.
Man was separated from God.
Because he sinned.
And they became lost. And he knew it right away. He knew it so much so that he and his wife, Adam and Eve went into the bushes and sewing themselves fig leaves because they found now they were exposed to God. God came coming through the garden and the cool of the day to commune with them. And they were in innocence and they found that they had sinned. And they're doing their best.
To cover up and they didn't know how to compensate for now to be in the presence of a holy righteous God.
And they were lost.
And they were trapped.
This particular picture was taken in an ape in July of 1969 from the Apollo astronauts.
The Apollo 11 Coming over the moon and they saw Earth.
And the reason why I put this picture in here is because I think of one verse.
For God so loved the world.
Now that's not meaning just the globe. That's not meaning the globe. That is all the people on the globe He loves, all the people on the globe that He gave His only begotten Son. And so astronauts 50 years ago now could now look back at Earth and get a viewpoint, if you could say it that way, of what God looks at Earth at, because man had never seen Earth from this perspective.
And so back to the Garden of Eden. Man sinned in the Garden. God had a salvation plan, and he was going to execute that salvation plan.
But tonight, if you're in the room or you're listening to the recording, you're either in one of two situations.
Either you know you are lost.
But maybe you're pretty good.
00:15:01
A lot of people are that way.
A lot of people say, hey, I'm all right, I'm Margaret. At the end of the day, it's going to balance out.
Maybe you don't know you're lost. These boys were back in The Cave. They knew they were lost. They knew they were in the dark.
Well, I'd like to open up to some passages in the book of Romans, so if you have your Bible with you.
Romans, chapter 3.
I could say that you could not go into that cave that day and ask the boys.
Are you lost and them not to say and agree with you and say yes we're lost and we're trapped?
So if someone it feels like they're not lost.
We can read from God's word in Romans chapter 3 verse 10. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. And we could turn over to the 6th chapter.
And verse.
I'm sorry, the third chapter, same chapter, sorry, chapter 3, verse 23 for all have sinned a little word, all snags everyone of us in this room, it snags everyone in the world for all have sinned and come short or fallen short of the glory of God. We are separated from God and either you recognize that you're separated from God or you don't recognize it and.
The premise of tonight is to know. The fact is you are separated from God.
And there is a plan of salvation that he would like to help you with. Let's turn over to the 7th chapter.
And now this is Paul Apostle Paul talking Chapter 7 verse 18. It says, For I know in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. There is nothing inside of me that is going to please God in its natural state.
Just like the boys that were huddled on that ledge.
In fact, the divers mentioned as they came up out of the water, the first thing they really got ahold of was the stench. They had been in there for 10 days.
They're living on a ledge, drinking out of the water, but there was a stench about him. And you and I, as sinners, stink before a holy, righteous God.
And unless you realize you stink with sin before a holy righteous God, you cannot be saved.
I'm afraid there are those today, they're raising their hand, says yes, I'll follow Jesus, and they don't realize that they stink with sin and the Savior has blood to wash the sin away.
Well.
If you don't know that you're sick, you stink.
Like to? Let's look at the rescuer now.
You know the rescuer.
The rescuers that came in, the two divers from the United Kingdom that came in, they popped up. The boy said, yes, we're lost. How long have we been in here? But when this, when this story of the divers is going to work well, we have to have the boys comply with the salvation effort. They have to recognize their loss. They have to recognize they're trapped and they have to accept the salvation means.
Because those on the outside already realize there is no other way out of here. We cannot drill a hole big enough. We cannot leave them in here for any length of time. The monsoon rains, the the forecast was showing that just in a couple three days, monsoon rains were coming in and the 256,000,000 gallons of water they're pumping out. If you want to see some interesting pictures, go look at the pumps that they're using. They had shipped in from around the world. Man's efforts were having a difficult time to keep those boys safe. The boys had to comply.
Of salvation, and if you're going to get out of this world safe and sound, you have to recognize you're a Sinner before a holy righteous God and accept his plan of salvation. So this rescuer that I'm Speaking of is the Lord Jesus Christ came 202,000 and 19 years ago.
And I'd like to turn to the very first chapter in the New Testament book of Matthew. Matthew, chapter one.
Verse 23.
Matthews penning this and he's he's penning this for the for the the essence of the Lord Jesus that is coming into this world, this globe that we just put on the picture on the picture there says, behold, a virgin shall be a child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted God with us.
00:20:03
Is that beautiful? Those divers had to get in next to them and they left divers in there with these boys. The divers had to be with them.
The Lord Jesus came out of glory, came down, took on the form of flesh, took out of flesh, born of a virgin, and he is God with us. You know, the book of Hebrews is being mentioned here this afternoon in various ports. And the beautiful thing about Hebrews, it's comparing and contrasting the fact that he's better than the angels. He's better than Melchizedek, He's better. He's better. He's better than Aaron. He's the best.
To rescue your soul.
Just like in this world, they were asking for the United Kingdom diver and they're asking for the Australian diver. They're looking for the best for those 12 boys and the best has been provided for your soul.
Let's turn over to the book of Isaiah.
Chapter.
6.
Beautiful thing. I'm not going to read the first portion of the chapters, not that long, but I'm not but I'm but I'm not going to read. I'll just read the 1St 3 verses. In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon the throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. And then he talks about these angels that are around the throne. Verse three. And one cried unto another and said holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full, full of his glory.
And the post of the door moved the voice of him.
That cry of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke. Just a little glimpse, the prophets having a glimpse of of heaven there and God Almighty sitting on his throne. And it says in verse 8, this is the verse I want to have. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then said, I here am, I send me. And it's nice to see the fact that in the past eternity there was one that.
To come and save your soul.
These divers had to volunteer, they had to say yes when they came, the one that from the United Kingdom, there's a pair out of the, I'm sorry, out of Australia and they had 45 minutes to pack their gear and to get on the plane that was heading back to Thailand. That's how urgent it was for these divers to get there. And this one that came out of heaven was coming out of heaven and it says laying aside his.
Glory.
And stepped into this globe of sin.
And then let's turn back to the portion we've been reading today there in in first Peter.
The same chapter that we're in.
This is where we get.
Verse 18 For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things of silver and gold, money couldn't buy these boys out of The Cave, as much money could be thrown at this. That is not going to happen, and your soul was not bought. What does Peter say with silver and gold from your vain conversations received by tradition from your Father's, but with the precious blood of Christ?
As of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who was, who fairly was foreordained.
Or foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times to You Beautiful in God's plan of salvation he was destined the Lord Jesus, the second person of the Godhead says here am I send me and he is the one that's stepping on the earth born of a virgin, born as a a babe and walk this earth for 33 1/2 years.
Amongst sin and you and I don't know what that's like.
Why? Because we've always been around sin. Sin has been around since the beginning, and since we were born we've always been accustomed to sin. But imagine stepping out of glory and heading down into the earth full of sin.
And to see him there at the grave, and you get the shortest verse of the Bible. Jesus wept. Why was he weeping? The effects of sin was making him weep.
Because he saw what glory was, He came from glory, and he had seen the effects of sin.
You know, if you and I, if you just.
If we put on that gear and went back in that cave.
Perhaps that rope we just grope our way along there, up and down and up and down. You got all the oxygen. Everyone, including myself, would be scared in that cave.
00:25:07
We are not accustomed to the environment that they were in that cave underwater.
The Lord Jesus came out of glory with bliss and came down in this world as a perfect man.
And he was 14 or predetermined, and he volunteered to be our rescuer.
Well, I like to do some comparison. These comparisons came clear to me when I was following the story a year ago. The rescue plan, They, they, this was a major development now that they found where the boys were. And so from day 10 through day 18, all the sharpest brains in the world were putting their heads together to figure out what the rescue plan is all about.
As we said before, the officials considered leaving them in there.
Thank God he didn't leave us here without a rescue plan.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, he tells Eve about a rescue plan.
Isn't that beautiful? 4000 years before he realized they were being communicated a rescue plan.
They couldn't swim out. We cannot get out of this situation of sin ourselves.
There is no other way, and the Lord Jesus comes on the earth and what's he saying? I am the Way, the truth and the life. No man comes under the Father, but by me.
And just as the divers realize there is one way in, and it's the same way going out, the same way of salvation has to happen. You have to come by Christ.
Like to turn over to the book of Titus?
Back towards the.
Again, if you.
Don't have your Bible with us? Just listen carefully. Titus, chapter 3.
Verse 5.
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. You know these boys could do nothing of their own.
They were completely at the mercy.
Of the doctors there.
They had to put on the mask, they had to go down in the water.
When we later found out that the anesthesiologist was doing his work and putting him to sleep.
They were helpless in their plan of salvation.
And you and I are helpless in our plan of salvation as well.
All of our rest has to be on the rescuer, and here it is.
His righteousness.
He saved us.
Again, too many today think they're being saved, but they're not resting completely on His blood and His righteousness. There's always some kind of works of my righteousness in the game, and it doesn't work that way. We read from from Apostle Paul. I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good things. Every boy had to come out in an unconscious state to make this work.
Perhaps we could turn back to the Book of Galatians for another angle that is arguably today.
Very common.
Galatians, chapter 2.
Verse 16.
Knowing that a man is not justified.
By the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even as we believe in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. And so today, even this very day, there are those that saying, I must worship on the Sabbath to please God.
And there's a problem. They're relying upon some work that they have got going on.
And so we are not justified, we are not put right with a holy righteous God by doing some kind of work on my own for Him.
00:30:00
Well, I'd like to look at this from another angle. This struck me hard.
And that is we spoke of him today, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is living inside of each one that has accepted the Lord Jesus Savior and had their sins washed away.
And he's working with the work that's been done back at the Cross. The reason why I have this picture, and I kind of faded him down a little bit because I don't want to bring him up, but it's very interesting. The anesthesiologist, Dr. from the from Australia stayed with those boys during that ordeal.
In fact, the documentary as I was watching, I can't find a video of him being interviewed. He seems to want to stay in the shadows. He was the primary guy that they wanted him on the rescue.
The Holy Spirit today is quiet.
But I think it's striking to see he has a mighty work and 1:00 work is well, I'd like to turn back to it. Let's go back to I'd like to read a few verses there in in John 14.
These words that we're going to read here, we're just going to cherry pick a few verses. These chapters right here have to do with our rescue. The Lord Jesus Christ the night before he was going to go to the cross. He gives us some important truths that hasn't been developed before. And so we see here in John 14 verse.
16 And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter. He may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, but you know Him, for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I am come to you. And so that doctor, as he went in, he was not the first to go in. He was called in, and he was there to stay with them, along with some other.
Island divers. They were to stay with the boys, to provide comfort, to buy food, to provide hope.
And the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus is saying, he says, I'm going to give you another comforter. I've been the comforter for 3 1/2 years. He's saying, but I'm now going to give you another comforter that he's going to bide with you and then we could turn over to the next chapter.
First the last, second, the last verse of chapter 151526. But when the comforters come, him will I send it to you from the Father. Even the spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me.
Dear friend, if you have not accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior, are you feeling a tug? Are you being convicted? This is what the Holy Spirit does. He's convicting.
If you're not being convicted.
I'm sorry.
But it's precious to have.
Those sins washed away and the Holy Spirit dwelling with you to give you hope.
Peace and joy and he and a large company in this room that says at the end of Revelation, even the Spirit and the bride say come, the spirit is wanting to go as well with the bride, the church, they're wanting to go as well. But the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is doing a work right now inside of souls and you can't hear them. Just like that diver was inside of that cave and you couldn't hear him. And today you can't see a video of him.
You just have to cherry pick. There is a power that is there that is preserving the rescue plan that the Lord Jesus laid out.
Let's turn over to the 16th chapter again. These are words that are being given from our Lord Jesus a few hours before He goes on the cross, verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away, For if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. Want to stop right here? If you read the words of the first divers that went in as they popped up in that picture, you saw the video. There's a video of the boys there in the headlight. How long have we been here?
These words are almost identical to what those United Kingdom British divers said. We will be back, we will send someone, we will bring food. And here the Lord Jesus saying, I'm going to bring you a comforter, It's advantageous for you that I go away and I go not away. These divers, if they didn't leave those guys, there was no way to tell the ones outside that the boys were inside alive, ready to be rescued.
So the divers had to leave them.
The Lord Jesus has gone back to heaven.
00:35:02
And it's necessary for him to go back to heaven, because it says, Behold, I go to prepare a place for you.
And he says, I'm going to go prepare for place for you. But I mean, if you give you a comforter, he says, for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you. Think about that. The Lord Jesus departed, he gives us a comforter.
But if I but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he has come, he will number one, he will reprove the world of sin. This is why today people don't want to talk about the word sin, because there's a conscience. We're wired with everything. Everybody has a conscience. Problem is to get wired in the Garden of Eden. That's what we gain when we send. We got a conscience. We didn't have a conscience before that. Now we have a consciousness. So everybody that walks the streets has a conscience. Whether you have accepted the Lord is not. And This is why people don't want to talk.
About sin because it bothers our conscience. And the Holy Spirit does. He reproves the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment of sin because they believe not on me a righteousness because I go not. I go to my Father and see me no more of judgment because the Prince of this world is judge. I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them. Now these divers could not spend very long with the boys. It took them six hours to get in there, and it's going to take them five hours to get out. That's our 11 hour.
Trip crawling along in water, murky water, cold water with limited oxygen. They had to leave, but he promised we will send others.
And they sent the best the Australian diver.
Get ahold of this because if you're lost in your sins, it's a sad thing because you 2 Sit in your own cave.
And the rescuer has come, and the rescuer wants to save you, but you got to go by his plan.
You cannot work your way out. You can do what Cain did. Cain decided to throw some other types of vegetables on the altar. You can't do it that way either.
And later on we read into and Galatians, you can't be doing any kind of the works of the law to be saved. It's not possible. You have to follow the plan of salvation and you have to admit that you're saved or you're you're lost.
So do you see yourself as lost?
You see yourself.
Burdened with sin, do you see yourself absent?
From the Savior, from a loving God. For God so loved the world. Do you see yourself absent from that?
He came down onto this cross. He came down this world and that 33 1/2 years, as we said before, he was man did his best all night in Pilots Hall. He whipped him, he plucked his beard out, he spit at him. And then he put the cross after doing that all night and tried to, he tried to drag it up. He couldn't even drill his too, too, too tired from that. They had banged a crown of thorns on top of him and they had mocked him.
Humiliated him and they put him up on the cross. And what does it say they did then?
They watched him there.
Man did everything he could do to this blessed one and they sat down and watched him there.
Well then we know the lights went out at noon. The sun went dark.
And there is a work that went on for three hours that we have very little record of in the scriptures.
A work where a holy, righteous God took your sins and my sins and took them out on that man, the one that was providing the rescue on the cross.
Man could not see what was going on in that cross.
In fact, largely in the holidays. We always like to put the Lord Jesus in the Manger in the holidays. We'd like to have them resurrected at the holidays.
But man doesn't want to hear what went on with a holy, righteous God and his beloved Son.
Where the rescuer up on that cross says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
These moms were outside The Cave. These boys were inside and they were separated.
And it was hard. They actually scribbled notes. One of the divers had writable pad that they could scribble notes, he says here, start scribbling notes to mom and they were scribbling notes to mom to take back to the mothers.
It also bears on too that there are those that are inside The Cave, dark, deep in their sins alone, and there are loved ones that are outside The Cave. You can say it that way in the light.
That are waiting for their loved ones to be rescued.
00:40:03
And they can do nothing more than to pray to the very one that rescued them, the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavens.
And to provide the Holy Spirit to do his work.
Do you see God's salvation plan? Isn't it that simple? Have you accepted His image Savior? How about the Holy Spirit to come in and guide? He does that immediately when you wash your sins away. When He washes your sins away, will you accept God's salvation plan? These boys had to accept it full heartedly, 100%. Step into the water, put the suit on, put the mask on, hit the syringe, they go to sleep. They had to go through that.
They would not be saved.
And you and I have to fall on our knees before our holy righteous God and say unclean.
Unclean. I accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior to wash my sins away. That's how it happens. There's no fancy thing but to cry out to God one-on-one and accept His plan and realize there is no work that you can do.
Well, it doesn't end there. We have.
We have a crowd of jubilant Thailand people cheering.
We have the boys over in the right hand side there from their hospital. Everyone of them was rescued that night, that day, or actually over the course of three days, they're bringing the boys out four at a time.
Every time one came out, they cheered because the knowledge of not one coming out coming out dead. The mask gets twisted to the side. The divers don't know it and he could drown. Every one of the boys had his own challenges to come out in that beautiful to know that our Savior has done all the work.
Completely.
There are those walking the Earth today, it could be next door, could be down the street. That they are not certain if they're going, if the rescue plan is good enough for them.
That one sin may just kick them off the wheel so that they are saved and they are lost as they head into eternity.
They're scared.
Luke 15 Let's just turn to back back one gospel here as we wrap up Luke 15. Love this verse.
Luke 15 verse six says this is a shepherd going out looking for a sheep. He's looking for a sheep. He leaves the 99 behind. These rescuers were going in one at a time to look for these little sheep. And it says here, verse six, when he cometh home, he called together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise.
Joy shall be in heaven over one center that repenteth.
More than over 99 just persons which need no repentance. You know, that's beautiful. That shepherd went out looking for one sheep over the 99. I've owned sheep and I wouldn't go after one. I tell you that's that's on a rainy night. It's not worth it to me. But the shepherd has a shepherd's heart. And the Lord Jesus realizes he looked at this globe and he saw your soul in 2019. He knew that he had to come to this cross to take care of your sins and to reconcile you unto him. And the good news is.
There's joy in heaven over 1500 sinners that have been repent no one That's beautiful, that's beautiful. Apparently up in heaven. It doesn't get old. Every Sinner that's repenting there is rejoicing going on apparently does not get old there.
To see someone take on the Lord Jesus as their Savior and to see the Holy Spirit now and dwell.
That individual.
Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. The boys names, the 12 names that are out there, they're out there. They're known worldwide. They've given, they've been having some kind of notoriety that's going on. But I ask you the question, is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life? Because everyone that takes of this offer is written in the Lamb's Book of Life and he has the records of who? So we cannot look out across the crowd. We cannot look down where this recording is being.
Listen to we don't know what each and every soul is, but I do know this. There's a Lambs Book of Life and I can read in Revelation. It says the books are open.
He's keeping records. He knows the heart.
So tonight, either you remained lost and trapped in your sins.
Or you accept Him, take on his salvation, cling to Him, the rescuer, be forgiven of your sins, being dwelt with the Holy Spirit, and wait for His coming.
00:45:05
Shall we conclude by saying number?
44 Let's talk, Let's sing about another boy here, into a tent where a gypsy boy lay.
Into a tent where?
The salvation be carried. Sadly, nobody ever has fallen to me.
Telling my dad.
Salvation. Sorry.
Of the children of men.
Nobody can ever have sold me before.
Boy, send unto me like a tidings of joy.
Did I not perish? My hand will be hold. Nobody ever, the story has told.
Tell me again. Tell me again.
Salvation Story.
Till I can say on the children of men, nobody ever has told me before.
And then we cut the last words on his friend, just as he entered the valley of God.
God sent his Son you so ever, said he.
I am sure that he sent him to me.
Tell them again. Tell them again.
Salvation Story.
Still, I can't say on the children of men.
There's a story of a boy never heard the story before, given the gospel story in that tent as he's dying, breathes his last words, accepts the Lord Jesus and rejoices.
It's as simple as that. There's another boy. Shall we just give him thanks? Our Father, our God, we're thankful for the plan of salvation. Lord Jesus, what can we say to think of that tremendous cost, that rescue effort to come to lay aside thy glory, Lord Jesus, and come to this earth with the sin do you put up on that cross?
And to be God, to have full appreciation and raisy back up Lord Jesus. And now we can look back and take a whole the same rescue plan and wait for you to come back for us. Lord Jesus, we know the Holy Spirit is ready to indwell any of that accepts thee. Lord Jesus, we're thankful for the gospel going forth in this room. We do pray for the Gospels. It goes forth elsewhere. We also pray for the gospels that's going forth in Thailand right now. Our Father and our God, we consider this moment.
Event that took place and the souls there that are seeking in that dark country, we just ask for blessing upon them and for the salvation to be there. We love the Lord Jesus and thy name we pray, Amen.
Acts 16
Children—Michael Hapanowicz
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
All right, is this working?
People hear me. All right, well, good morning and welcome to the Sunday school. So it looks like most all of you kids are sitting up front. This is fabulous because I've got this here with me. There's 180 pieces of candy and I see six kids up front. So there's a lot to go around. And if you want a piece of candy, you've got to be sitting on the front row.
So you guys are the place to be. OK, so does any of you have a song? We've got these little sheets around, but if you know a song from here and you can tell us what it is, I'm sure that we can sing that from memory too. So who has a number they want us to start with?
Landon has #47 for us. OK, Is someone going to be able to start these songs for me today? I would appreciate that.
Morning. Let's shine.
A chance for a minute's crown.
Well, I remember when I was younger, this was one of my favorite songs, and it still is. And I've got a question for one of your kids. Does your mom have a jewel? Does she have one? No, she doesn't. Does your mom have one? Where is it?
Yeah, you got it right. It's on her ring. You think that she she values that jewel? Yeah, I'm sure she does. And that's what this song is talking about. It says God has.
Some jewels? His jewels are in a crown, they're not on a ring. And does anyone know what these jewels are?
Yes.
Yes, exactly. It's us, it says little children who love their redeemers. So I hope that includes you too, that you're a little child that loves your Redeemer. OK, who has another number for us?
Yes.
WIBLE.
I'm pretty sure we know that one if someone would like to start that for us.
I stand alone on the word of God.
And chains of a chef for me.
Well, that song talks about two things, right? Bible and the blood.
And I see that some of you here are you've got your Bibles with you. And that is really good because we're going to say a verse from the Bible a little later and then we're going to talk about the Bible. And so you guys can go along with us and that is fabulous. So who has another number? Yes, 15.
00:05:20
Oh, blessed and glossful sound.
Not fear with joy now may be here, yeah.
Sound in Christ, we say.
You're listening to party, Yeah.
Swelling now to say.
Oh, you can believe.
Yeah, there is a room.
Yeah.
There is no guests will be the last.
Yes, there is no.
Salvation stay from you will pass away.
Then grace no more will say.
Yeah, there is room.
So this is a nice song about the gospel that tells us that God has a house that he wants all of you children to come to by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says there is room for every single one of you. There's also still room on the front row in case any more kids come. So that's good too. All right, who has another song for us? This might be our last one this morning. Yes.
Jesus loves me. OK, I'm sure we know that one, so let's sing Jesus loves me.
Jesus loves me.
So.
He is strong.
Yes, it's not slow speak.
Jesus wants me to die and stay to open.
Life, He will wash away my sin.
Let the bottle, handsome child come in.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
00:10:13
Ways to hold me in hands on it may say from every arm.
Yeah, she's just like me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, dreams. I love steady.
My my ear fell white speed where I like Yes she transplants me.
Yes, she's always loves me.
Yeah, the streams of swords being of my motels being so.
Oh my God.
God.
She's a smart speak. The Bible tells me so.
All right, well, that singing was very nice, but now we're going to pray.
And then we're going to say the verse that you guys have memorized for this Sunday. All right, so let's just bow our heads and pray. God and Father, we thank Thee for this nice, beautiful morning that we can come here to learn about Your word. We just pray that each of these kids and the older ones too, would have hearts that are opened to hear what you would have to say.
So we just ask all of this if it is your will in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, well the verse that we have for this morning is not too hard. It says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Acts 1631. So who here thinks they know it?
Yes, you want the mic or no?
And thou shalt be saved first. John 10/9.
At 1631, perfect. All right. Do you know it?
No. OK, well, here I need to do this. You can. You can have two pieces of candy. And then later, if your mom and dad are OK with it, we'll see if we can have some more. OK, So do you know the verse?
The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
Galatians 522 and 23. Wow, that's even harder.
And he said, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved on thine house. Acts 1630 and 31.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
1631.
Leave on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be safe. Acts 1631.
The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Galatians 522 and 23.
00:15:07
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be safe and.
Nine House Acts, 1631.
And what is this, twice 1000 pieces?
At 642-1630.
Just cute. So you got it. That's right. OK. Well, you, you children did a fabulous job today memorizing your Sunday school versus. I'm very impressed. And you know, if I look down this row at you kids, this is a lot different than when I look down the row at the Sunday school I'm from. And it's not because some of you have blonde hair and all of you are in nice clothes instead of jeans. What I'm thinking of is the Sunday school that I go.
The children are from Nepal and they come from families that are Hindu families, and you come from families. I think I know all of you kids come from families that are Christian. And so in your house on the shelf where you would have a Bible, they have an idol. And in your house, on the wall where you would have a verse, they have an image of an animal like God.
And in your house at mealtimes when your dad stops and he prays and he thanks God for the food.
What they do is they take their food and they offer it to their dead ancestors. And so every verse they memorize is like a beam of light that pierces a thick darkness if they only have eyes to see. And the burden on my heart with them has been to tell them what you already know. And that is the verses that we memorize in Sunday school.
They're not like 1000 in one different islands that are all off by themselves.
These verses, they're connected to other verses. Every verse is found in a chapter. Every verse is part of a bigger story, and that is true of Acts 1631, the verse that we memorize today. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. It's part of a bigger story that happens in the city called Philippi. And So what I wanted to do with the time that we have left, which is already shorter than I would have liked.
Is to look at this 16th chapter of Acts and to see some of the things that happen in that city to those people. And so I see that some of you have your Bibles. That's really good. I'm going to read.
Just a few verses that will help us get some of the background on the people and the events of this 16th chapter in Acts. And so this is what it says in the 15th chapter and it says we're going to just start with.
Verse 39 And it says in the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other. And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And so there were these two men, they would travel together, and their name was Paul and Barnabas, And they got into an argument.
And that argument was so.
Heated and so fierce that these two Christian men.
And that is very sad, but sometimes that happens. And so Paul was now, he had lost the man that he traveled with. And it's good when we go and we do the work of the Lord that we can do it with someone else. So we're not by ourselves. And so Paul, he wanted someone to go with him.
On the journey that he was going to take, and this is what it says, it says, and Paul chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And so Paul was thinking, who's going to go with me now? And he was there in an assembly and they had a recommendation for him. They said we've got this guy here and he is really good. He's going to be a big help to you. And so Paul chose Silas because he was recommended by the brethren.
Good, when the people around us can say good things about us. And so then we come on and verse. Now we're in the 1St 16th chapter, the first verse. And it says Then came he to Derby and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timotheus, the son of a certain women, which was a Jewess and believed. But his father was a Greek, which was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lister and Iconium. Who him would Paul have to go forth with him and.
00:20:11
Circumcised him because of the Jews, which were in those quarters where they knew all that his father was a Greek. So now we have another man, and this is a young man. I don't know exactly how old he was, but I like to think that he's my age. And I thought that a couple years ago. And I'll probably think it's still in a couple years and Timothy will get older as I'll get older. But he was a young man. And So what it says here, you know, Timothy and Paul became very close over time.
Paul could refer to him as his own son in the faith. Timothy was a man that could sometimes be scared, but he was, we call him a protege. That means he learned under Paul, and Paul was a mentor to him. And so Paul, from the very first time they meet, Paul starts to act as a father to him. He even makes a father's decision. And he has Timothy circumcised here. And so once Timothy recovers from that surgery, then they start traveling.
Now we're going to in the next couple verses, it tells us how there God told these three men now that are together. Remember we've got Paul, he's the leader and we've got Silas and we have Timothy. So these three men they're traveling together and God tells them I don't want you to preach the gospel in this certain place. I want you to preach the gospel over here. And so we're going to read in the 10th verse. This is going to be.
Our final man is introduced here and says after he had seen the vision. I was talking about Paul.
Immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. And so you might have missed it if you blinked, but there's another man that gets introduced to us in this tenth verse. Now if I said.
We're going to go to the park like you and me, we are going to go to the park.
That means I'm going to the park too, because I'm part of the we. And if you look at the verses that go before this, the writer of this letter, he always says they and them. But now in the 10th verse, he says we. And so in this tenth verse, Luke, the man who wrote this book, now starts to travel with these three other men. So now you've got Paul, you've got Silas, you've got Timothy.
And you've got Luke. And Luke, he was a doctor, he was an evangelist, he was an apologist, and he was a close friend of the apostle Paul. In fact, at the end of Paul's life, when everyone else forsake Paul, there was Luke, a loyal friend. And so here Paul has three good men who are going to travel with him. So I've got a question for you guys and where I'm from at the gospel meeting.
If the kids come and they can answer a question.
We give them chocolate chip cookies. So I've got some chocolate chip cookies here with me. And so I'm going to ask a question and we'll see if anyone here knows the answer. Who can tell me at least two names of the four men that were traveling together?
Paul, that's one. Can you give me another one? Barnabys? No, those two separated from each other.
Paul and Timothy. Paul and Timothy, that's two names. Now can anyone think of the other two names?
Or at least give me one.
Look, very good. So we've got three and I think the one that we're missing is Silas. So let's see, maybe I should fiddle around with this.
Well, we've got.
Those were good answers and good tries. So I think we had three people, so we'll give a cookie to each one of you.
You're welcome.
All right, there you go. OK, so now we've got here's a harder question. This is going to be really hard. Let's see if anyone knows this answer. How did Paul choose Silas to go with him?
That's a fabulous answer, but we're going to let him answer. OK, since you've got a cookie.
00:25:04
No. All right. Well, we'll have you say that again.
Because the people said he was good. That's right. He was recommended to Paul by those that were in that assembly. So we're going to give you another cookie. And maybe if you keep getting more and more than you can start sharing them with your your cousins. OK, so now we're going to go to the next verses. And this says here, we're going to pick up in verse 12 and it says and from fence to Philippi. So now these four men, you have Paul, you have Silas, you have Timothy, you have Luke. These four men are in the city of Philippi.
And it says in verse 12, which is the chief city in that part of Macedonia, in a colony, and we were in that city abiding certain days.
I don't know how many days is certain days, but it's certain to the word of God in verse 13. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a Riverside where prayer was once to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the women, which resorted thither. Now this verse is really interesting. You know why it's really interesting to me?
Because when Jesus talked to the lady and John Scott's in the chapter 4 and she was a Samaritan, then the disciples came and they wondered.
Why is Jesus talking to a woman?
But by the time you get to this chapter.
Paul doesn't ask that question because he's learned what the disciples hadn't learned yet.
Which is that men and women are more valued and loved by God than you could ever imagine. And so Paul doesn't go to this Riverside, and he doesn't have some behemoth lectern built from the scraps of the HMS Resolute where he pounds. And he says thus saith the Lord, you know, Paul comes to that Riverside.
And he sits down and he just talks to the women that are there.
And he tells them the gospel. Let's look at that in the next verse. It says here.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended under the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. So now we have another person that we're told about, and we're told her name is Lydia.
And we're told what she did. It says here that she was a seller of purple. And so I've got some some things here with me.
To show and tell, I got this. It's kind of hard for me to hold up, but it's a fairly fabulous looking dress and it's purple and I've got this, and this is also a pretty fabulous looking shirt. It's a nice large size, 14 to 16, made in China.
And it's purple. And I've got this over here, this camouflage blanket. I'm not exactly sure where in the world you could wear this and blend in, but it's purple. And so we're going to put this here. And so Lydia was a seller of purple and purple was very expensive in those days. So if I came up to you and I said.
Do you want to buy this for $500? You would say no, I think what if What if I came up to you and said this shirt is only $1000?
You'd say no, no, thank you, That is out of my budget. OK, well, Lydia sold these things that were very expensive. And so she lived a pretty good life and she was a pretty nice lady. In fact, if Lydia was alive today and she walked through that door. Oh, wow. Is that Lydia?
And she walked through that door and she came in and sat down. She would fit right in, just like she will. OK, but here's something interesting about Lydia.
I understand that Lydia was a gentile.
And that she had turned from idols and in the light that she had, she wanted to be where the people of God were who were praying. And so that's what we have here of Lydia. We were talking the other day about in First Peter, and we could say this of Lydia, that there was a time before time.
00:30:11
Where God the Father said that women, that Lady Lydia.
She's mine, I love her.
And then after that, I don't know how and I don't know when, because it's like the wind. The spirit blows, and we don't know where it's coming from or where it's going. But there was a point in time where the spirit came to Lydia and to her dead soul. He breathed life, he said, let there be life. But Lydia had never heard the gospel of her salvation.
She had never heard the good news from God that concerns his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. But there that day, there at that river, the apostle Paul came, and he sat down.
And he spoke unto her the words of life.
And this is what it says.
This is oh man, I lost my place, but this is really incredible. It says here in Acts chapter 16 and it says, and the Lord opened her heart. Let me read exactly how it is whose heart the Lord opened that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And so the Lord did a work there and He opened her heart.
Later in the chapter.
We're going to find.
That God opened the doors of a prison and he used an earthquake to do it, and that was a miracle.
But here he opened her heart, and that was a miracle too. In fact, it was a bigger miracle for God to open the heart of Lydia than it was for God to open the doors of that prison. And I'm not a Greek expert, but if you look at the words, the one that's used for how God opened the heart of Lydia is a stronger word than the word that is used for when God blasted the doors of the prison cells open with an earthquake.
And so every single one of you, if you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are evidence that miracles are real.
Well, we have in this verse and it says and it came to.
Verse 15 And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. And so we see here the obedience of faith in two things. The 1St is that she got baptized, and the 2nd is that she shows Christian hospitality.
And so it's good to see when the Lord changes a heart that it changes the way we live. So I've got some more cookies to give out if I have some more questions that get answered. Who opened the heart of Lydia?
Yes.
Yes.
Now, and were you the other one who answered? OK, we'll give you both a cookie.
Spread some of the joy around.
All right. Now here's another question. This one's harder again.
How did Lydia show the obedience of her faith?
By obeying. That's very good, but more specifically.
She was by a river.
What do you think she did?
She did listen.
All right, someone who has a Bible, I think it's the 15th verse. Read it for us.
Where did my Bible go?
This is what it says. And when she was baptized and her household, she besought us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there. And she constrained us. OK, that was a that was a hard quit. All right, it's a hard question, but let's see if you can get it.
Yes, that was one way that she showed her obedience and the other one was through baptism. So we'll we'll give you another cookie. That was a hard question. Now we are running out of time, but we've got lots more of this chapter to cover. And so I have a question for an adult here. This city of Philippi was the site of a famous battle.
00:35:06
Who knows the generals that fought in that battle?
This is a stumper.
No historians among us.
Well, I get a cookie then.
This was the site of the battle between Octavian Mark Antony against the generals of Brutus and Cassius.
That ended the civil war in 42 BC and started the Roman Empire as we know it following the assassination of Julius Caesar.
But here's what I want you to know.
There is another battle that takes place at that city that is just as real. No, it's more real than the battle that took place in 42 BC. And it's not between men with swords. It is between Satan and his servants and God and his servants. You and I live in a spiritual war, and we see that in these next verses.
All right, so let's read them. This is in verse 16.
And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination menace, which brought her masters much gain by soussing. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this she did, and this did she many days. But Paul being grieved, turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And the Spirit came out the same hour.
We have a young girl who has talked about here. We're not told her name, but it says that she's a damsel. And if you look up that word, what it means is she's a slave. Now, she was a slave of some men who owned her by Roman law, but she was also a slave of Satan. And it says here that she was possessed by a spirit of divination.
And that means that an evil spirit controlled what she did.
And what she said and these men that owned her, they used her to make money because whether it was real or just fake, I don't know exactly how this would have worked, but she had at least people thought some ability to tell the future. And so they would come to her and they were willing to pay to have their future told. And she it says in this verse, she followed Paul and Silas and she cried out saying these men are.
Of the Most High God would show unto us the way of salvation. Now there's two very interesting things about this I want you to know. I was on the plane flying here to Denver and I was sitting in my seat and I opened up my Bible and I was reading this chapter and I was thinking, what am I going to tell the kids at Denver about this chapter? Now there was a man who was sitting just beside me. It was like if if we were in, if I was.
Seat here. He would have been in this seat right here. That's how close we were. And do you know what he was doing? Does anyone have a guess what he was doing?
Yes, reading my Bible. No he was not reading my Bible. Anyone else have a guess what he was doing?
What would you do if you were on a long plane flight?
You'd open up your Bible. That's very good of you. Well, this man was not opening up his Bible. This man had a tablet.
And he was watching a movie, and the movie that he was watching was inappropriate. What that means is the people in the movie were doing bad things that this guy should not have been watching. And I thought about that. Here I was with my Bible, and here he was with his tablet, maybe 18 inches apart from each other. And the Bible was as different from what he was watching as you could possibly be.
And here we have this damsel was following Paul.
Inside of her was an evil spirit, and inside of Paul was the Holy Spirit. And every step that she took as she followed Paul brought her one step closer to him, and it brought the Holy Spirit one step closer to the evil spirit. And can't you just think of the difference?
Between these two things.
That were so close you could read a child and touch and she cried. These men are servants of the Most High God, who show unto us the way of salvation. Now we've got 5 minutes left, so let's see how fast I can talk. God does not want His gospel to be preached by evil spirits. He wants his gospel to be preached by those of you who are saved.
00:40:25
And so at the point in this story.
Paul, he drives out, he says in this verse, it says, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And that Spirit had no choice at the name of Jesus Christ. He had to leave that young woman and now she had no more ability to tell the future. And now those men who owned her had no more way to get money and they were not happy about that.
And so they took two of the four men.
Remember, there was Paul, there was Silas, there was Timothy and there was Luke. And it appears they took the two that were Jewish. They didn't think that they had any right as Roman citizens because a Roman citizen, he was allowed to have a court case where you had to prove he was guilty before you could punish him. But that wasn't true if you weren't a citizen. And so they brought Paul and Silas and they said these men are Jews.
And they teach us customs that we can't observe, being Romans. You know what the magistrates did? They had the clothes rent from Paul and Silas, and they took rods.
And they beat Paul and Silas.
You know, Mr. Clark read in the first reading meeting from Second Corinthians. Paul had on his back 195 scars from the beatings he received from the Jews. But Jewish law said you could not beat a man more than 40 times.
Roman law had no such restriction.
And so when they beat Paul and Silas there with rods, it's without number. That's the thought where it says it beat them many times. And so there Paul and Silas were brought, their backs torn from the beating that they had received, and they were placed inside the deepest part of the prison. They went past one jail cell after another. And if you didn't know what Paul and Silas had done.
You would think that these two men were the most wicked criminals that had ever walked the face of the earth, but what had they done?
They had done nothing. They had done better. They were right, but they had done better than nothing. They had helped free a young woman from the power of Satan, and for that they were put in jail. Well, we have this.
I really wanted to get to this. We're not even going to get to our verse, really.
But this is what it says they did in the innermost prison. And I'm going to read it from the Darby translation. And I know that this might be kind of hard for you kids to think about, but pay attention.
Because if you understand this, this will help you so much. It says in 20 verse 25 and at midnight Paul and Silas in praying were praising God with singing and the prisoners listened to them. Did you get that? Let me read it again.
At midnight, Paul and Silas in praying were praising God with singing.
There's a man called Kelly, and this is what he says about that.
He says the praying and the singing are not two different things.
That the prayer they prayed was a song of praise and the song they sang was a prayer.
And so.
How beautiful it was that Paul and Silas there in that prison.
Could pray.
A song of praise and they could sing a prayer because they were thankful, even though their backs were bleeding, that they had been allowed to suffer for the name of Jesus and that that even at the moment they were singing.
There was an earthquake and it broke open the doors of the prison cell, and there was a man inside there, and he was afraid that the prisoners had escaped and he was going to kill himself so that he would escape the punishment of the Romans. And Paul says stop, don't do any harm to yourself. And that man was so afraid that he took a light and he came in and he was shaking.
00:45:24
And he asked them, Sirs.
What must I do to be saved?
And they said.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Let's just pray.
God and Father, how thankful we are for this 16th chapter of Acts.
We think of what was accomplished there in that little city, how it started, and how these two men, Paul and Silas, were faithful to share the gospel, even if that meant their back would be beaten. We thank you for their faith that they could sing a song of praise to you, even in their pain.
We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
The Christian's Relationship with Israel
Open—Steve Stewart
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
132.
Yeah.
Dress for God, blessing our blessed Father our God. It's a privilege to be here this morning. We've had the privilege to be around the table Lord Jesus and now we have this time that has been set aside where two or three would speak oracles from the our Father. May we see our Lord Jesus there in the glory this afternoon to be able to take away something, Lord Jesus of thyself.
Thy character, and without us due for us here on earth, and without us do for us right now in heaven.
Well, now we'll be doing for us too, that we can see in the scriptures. We're thankful for the open word in front of our laps.
We now take it responsibly, asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct to teach us my name. We give thanks, Lord Jesus, Amen.
Turn to Romans Chapter 9.
Romans, Chapter 9.
Verse.
One I say the truth in Christ I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.
That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites.
Chapter 10.
Verse one.
Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
Chapter 11.
I say then hath God verse one? I say, then hath God castaway his people, God forbid.
Verse 29.
For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.
Return back to Jeremiah to some verses that were referred to yesterday.
Chapter 31.
And verse 31.
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Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, though I wasn't husband unto them. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I'll put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be.
My people, and they shall teach.
No more every man is neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, No, the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity. Now remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the Son for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars, for a light by night, which divided the sea when the waves are of roar. The Lord of hosts is His name.
If those ordinances depart from before me, sayeth the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured in the foundations of the earth, searched out beneath.
I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.
One more scripture, I'd like to look at Isaiah and chapter 18.
Brother said to me yesterday a question had been asked and I thought it was a good question and it's one that has been somewhat on my heart.
Because I think we're influenced.
By its subject and the question was this what should our attitude be towards Israel today?
In the recovery of the truth.
Brother Darby said.
In the time when he was laid up in a horse accident and his convalescence, he read Isaiah 32, Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and so on. And he said, I saw there was an economy of God that had not yet unfolded on this earth, something that was yet to come, a Kingdom on this earth, and it was the dawning.
Of the and opening up and recovery of prophetic truth.
That we have so fully today.
And the consequence was, was to see that Israel was going to come in to blessing in a coming day, and that God meant what he said that we read in Jeremiah 31. And he was going to make a covenant with Israel, with the House of Judah, and with the House of Israel, not a covenant with the Church of God. What part of the church is Judah and what parts Israel? It makes no sense.
Not a covenant that began with Adam. It says it's new.
In contrast with the old, which was the law, How can it be new if it was all the way back with that? And those things make no sense.
And so the truth began to unfold that this was a covenant that's going to be made in the future and literally with both houses of Israel and God is going to bring them back into their land and is going to bless them in the coming day and.
The result of the recovery of the truth was an awakening and Christianity as to a right attitude.
Towards the Jews and towards Israel.
Prior to that they Christianity.
Has been the persecutors of the Jews.
In the Crusades, they slaughtered untold thousands.
Hitler used the words of the great reformer Martin Luther to justify his putting to death of millions of Jews.
Who advocated that those Jews who wouldn't receive the gospel and turn to Christ should have their tongues ripped out with hot pincers and so on and be put to death?
00:10:00
This was a new thought.
To the Church of God who had just looked at the Jews as Christ killers.
And in World War 2.
In southern France, or a group of Christians who from I can't remember the institution of Israel, received one of the highest accolades and honors. A group of Christians called in the French Darby's Darby Heights that sheltered Jews in World War 2 called one of the greatest acts of heroism towards the Jews who were suffering under Hitler.
In World War 2.
It affected.
Believers around the world.
It also affected the political landscape in this world.
A Balfour agreement 67 words that set up the framework for the introduction of the modern state of Israel. If you read Edwin Crosses biography of Mr. Kelly in there, you'll see a signature of Mr. Kelly and the flyleaf of one of his books on prophecy given to Lord Balfour.
Those men in the political circles of England who were largely instrumental in those things were influenced.
By the recovery of prophetic truth, it is shaped the current political picture in the world today.
But brethren had no intention.
And the recovery and the putting out of prophetic truth to involve themselves or that the Church should ever be involved with the politics of this world. Not at all.
And I think the verses we read in Romans gives us what the Christians attitude should be.
Towards the Jews today.
Desire that they should be saved. Objects of mercy, the same as the Gentiles. Because in Romans we find that God has made no difference. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
They're the objects of mercy, just as any of the rest of the lost and Paul would have been willing to give himself if he could in some way bring salvation to his brethren. Kinsman after the flesh. And God, he says, has not rescinded his purpose with them. The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. God is not going to change His mind and His intention.
Israel.
In fact, in Hebrews we read that because of the promises God made to Abraham, and he could swear by no greater, He swear by himself, and on those two things, his promise and his oath, we have.
Certainty in the refuge that we have fled to God is not going to change his mind.
If he could change his mind about Israel, what about us?
But what is and what should be our attitude? I think it's really contained in Romans. But Christianity has gotten itself involved in God's discipline with that people. And God does not look lightly upon anyone who meddles in his discipline in an individual's life, in a family life, in an assembly, or among the nations. And that's what we're going to look at.
In the 18th chapter of Isaiah.
Woe or hoe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia or Kush. Kush settled in two areas of the world, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the rivers of Kush are the Nile and the Euphrates. This is a land outside of the scope of the known nations that were involved with Israel in the Old Testament.
And he's calling to their attention. It's not so much woe, but hope.
That sendeth ambassadors by the sea. This is a naval power. Even vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning, hitherto a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled. Who else could that be? What other nation in this world has been so?
Scattered, So peeled. Just peeled right down to, to to the bare bones, so to speak.
00:15:09
And terrible awesome from the beginning when you think of the exodus out of Egypt hitherto and still remains a nation, still is recognized as a people in this world, it could only be Israel, can only be the Jew.
Whose land? The rivers have spoiled all. They had enemies from Egypt. They had enemies from Babylon.
They've been spoiled, all the inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth. See ye when he lifted up an end sign on the mountains, and when he bloweth the trumpet, hear ye. For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest. I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon the herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. For, for the harvest, when the blood, when the bud is perfect.
And the sour grape is ripening in the flour. He shall both cut off the springs with pruning hooks.
And take away and cut down the branches, they shall be left together into the fowls of the mountains, into the beasts of the earth, And the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
This land is shadowing with wings like a bird spreads its wings over its chicks. It is taking a stance towards Israel of protecting them, of promoting them, and of interfering with the government of God in that nation. This is a Western nation from beyond the rivers of Kush.
Who is the greatest protector of Israel in the world today in the Western nations?
You know.
In the end, this is going to be the beast.
It's going to be that Western empire over which he has had.
But you know, the descendants, the descendants of the peoples of the nations that occupy his Kingdom, occupy the land that we live in, and this land is going to be part of that sphere of the Western.
Empire of the Beast.
And we are interfering. I'm Speaking of us as the United States and the people. We are interfering with God's government and that nation.
We've aimed to get politically involved, and what burdens my heart is it could care less about the politics, but Christians have got themselves involved. This has become a big thing for Christians, the promotion of Israel. Why? An Israeli journalist wrote of a woman, Christian woman, over in Jerusalem who came to him near the Wailing Wall.
And knowing he was a Jew speaking to him.
She says, oh, it's so awful what's going to happen to you folks, you know, when the tribulation comes? He says, here they are putting one arm around me saying that's off, what's going to happen? Meanwhile, they're giving money to try and get a temple built over there so that the Antichrist can sit in it and bring the tribulation down on us.
What a what a horrible mix of thoughts. We have no business as Christians to involve ourselves in that way or to promote that. No, our desire for Israel is that they might be saved. It is not a wonderful Christian triumph that the United States moved its embassy to Jerusalem. And yet Christians are rejoicing everyone.
God says whoa.
He is going to come in just when everything looks ripe, just when it looks like everything's working out. And this shadowing power is going to protect them from their enemies. And he's going to bring in the Assyrian from the north and sweep through that land. And he's going to just like a pruning hook coming in just before the grapes are ripe, and he's going to sweep it clean.
And the nations are around, Israel are going to come in and just.
Feast on the carnage that's left behind.
And that Western Power is going to meet the Lord when he comes out of heaven after the Assyrian passes through, and he's going to meet his doom on the mountains of Israel too.
00:20:01
This is God's thoughts about the Western Christian world's involvement.
With Israel.
My burden for us is that we would have a right attitude and a right understanding of our thoughts towards those that people objects of mercy and desire for their salvation like any other. But we are not here to promote or to protect a nation that is under the discipline of God.
In this world there's a day coming, verse seven. And that time shall a present be brought unto the Lord of hosts, of a people scattered and peeled from a people terrible from their beginning, hitherto a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers are spoiled to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.
The Mount of Zion, he's going to bring it to pass.
He will yet restore them.
But not without passing under his disciplinary hand first that he might accomplish his work.
In that nation.
Israel's Restoration
Open—Bruce Conrad
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Matthew 26 and verse 26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it.
And gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body.
And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it. This is my blood of the New Testament or the New Covenant.
Which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine.
Until that day when I drink it new with you.
In my father's Kingdom.
Now, if you hold your finger there and I want to just refer to a passage we covered in the reading meeting the other day in First Peter One.
In verse 12.
Referring to the.
Profits.
Unto whom first Peter one and 12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things.
Which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you, with the Holy Ghost sound sent down from heaven.
Prophets and others, intelligent and diligently looking into the prophetic scriptures, saw in those scriptures a coming time of blessing that was not going to be for themselves, but for some others. Angels we had before us yesterday.
We're also desirous to behold these things. But for you and for me as Christians, we have the opposite in a certain sense. We have our blessings before us, laid out in the Scriptures of the New Testament apostles and prophets, but we also have as our portion to read, to understand, and to enjoy the portion that is for God's earthly people.
There is a verse in Matthew 13 which we didn't read yesterday which which I will turn to now. I think it's around verse 44 of Matthew 13.
52 Sorry, Matthew 13 and 52.
Then said he unto them, Therefore I should have read verse 51.
Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things?
Those were the things we were reviewing yesterday in the six or seven parables in Matthew 13.
Have you understood all these things? They say unto him, Yeah, Lord. Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the Kingdom of heaven.
Is like unto a man that is in householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.
We are to be, and it is our privilege to be, householders instructed in these things of the Kingdom of heaven.
And being instructed in those things, we learn and enjoy and have as a hope from God to be able to look forward to the time when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be glorified in heaven and in earth. And there are, if I could put it this way, there are old things which we read about in the book of Genesis. Some of the brothers referred to them yesterday.
There are old things that we read about in the book of Deuteronomy.
There are old things which we read about in Isaiah. We just read of some of the old things in Jeremiah, prophecies that are sure, they are as sure to be realized as your blessing is sure to be realized, no more and no less, because they are both founded upon, as our brother just said, God's promise, God's oath, and he is entitled to do it because he has raised His Son from among.
The rest of the dead and positioned him as a glorified man in a place where he is able to and will secure all blessing for everybody, anywhere, forever.
It's a nail fastened in a sure place, and all the glory hangs upon him. And so in in a similar way to what our brother has brought before us, It is our privilege.
00:05:09
And it is our joy to be able to hold not just mixed up things altogether. You go into my garage, you're going to find some mixed up things. You're going to find some tools that I had when I was in my 20s and you're going to have some find some nice tools that my son has in his teens.
And they're all mixed up together, unfortunately, most of the time. Once in a while we sort it out.
God expects us, and it's our privilege to have both in an orderly way.
And whether we use the figure of the piano keys yesterday, or of things old and things new, it's our privilege to hold these things, to have them as our treasures, and to be able to bring them forth for our enjoyment. The enjoyment of our brethren, our family, our neighbors, our workmates.
And of course, our our own hearts.
And so it's a happy thing to look forward to that day when the Lord Jesus will restore his beloved earthly people elect for the Father's sake.
Now most of you have come from the West, have not probably lived around as many Jews as I have.
But I I worked from the time I was.
Traveling around with my my dad in the summers is a three or four year old up until my mid teens for an organization that you couldn't be part of unless you were a Jew and we gentiles were the servants of Jews. And I was around Jews all day long from morning until night every summer in my youth and in school. Half of the kids were Jewish and the rest of us were either were mostly Protestant.
In the mornings, we everybody was in these neighborhoods and the Catholic kids in their uniforms walk this way.
And the Protestants and the Jews walk that way to the public school and we're all friends played together. But we, we knew and and we and, and as I read the scriptures, you know, I can remember teaching kids to swim for a job and, and waiting on them and their parents and all these things. And I picture sometimes in my mind's eye, what will these what will these ones look like that are finally delivered through that horrible threshing of brother mentioned.
Will they look like that, those kids on that corner house that, that I walk with or and I I don't know my way my mind works. I just try to picture these Jewish people that will be spared through not from, but through that terrible hour which will come upon them. And my heart goes out and I look forward to it. I really do. I look forward to it.
And in a sublime way.
God has woven these things together and had we spent time to read with some detail Chapter 9 and 10 and 11 in Romans, we would see the way these things.
So sublimely.
Woven together by God in His purpose, which is why Romans 11 in that section ends with that doxology of praise of like it does.
And so in Matthew 26.
Where we where we read.
The Lord Jesus said, instituted, as we say, this remembrance.
The loaf and the cup.
Is this a purely Christian thing? We had? I was thinking this this morning. We had the loaf and the cups before us this morning and I my mind started to travel along these lines.
We were speaking yesterday about.
The fact that after the Lord Jesus died and rose again.
And after he ascended up.
Into heaven he sent the Holy Spirit down to unite together the children of God, but that had faith into one body.
That was never existed before. It was a new thing.
But in the next chapter, I think it is in Acts chapter 3, Peter is speaking to the Jews and making to them a bonafide offer.
Let me read the whole Matthew 26. I think it's Acts 3.
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Yes, Acts chapter 3.
We're in Jerusalem in the beginning of the chapter.
And they heal the lame man, and it creates such a stir.
And Peter begins to speak, and then in verse 19, repent ye therefore.
And be converted. Those are two different things by the way.
So that your sins may be blotted out. Reading it as in the new translation, I think so that times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which was before preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive, until the rest times the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
At this moment, the Lord Jesus Christ is a glorified man, He seated upon the Father's throne.
Perhaps you could say he was standing on the Father's right hand.
He had already come, he had died, he had risen, and now he had ascended. And so Peters testimony here is that God would send Jesus Christ, He would send him back.
And all those promises that were tied to Him would begin to be fulfilled at that moment based upon their repentance.
And that wonderful Kingdom which you and I look ahead to would have been set up then.
In Luke's gospel, and maybe it's in another gospel too, when the Lord encounters.
The tree that bears no fruit.
I'm mixing 2 parables. There's there's the parable of the of the husbandmen that comes and he looks for fruit from the tree and for three years he finds none.
And he says, why come birth it the ground and And the man says.
Let's just give it one more year. Let's do something extra special. Let's dig around it and Dong it and then if not, cut it down. And I believe this special period of time after the ascension of Christ, the sending of the Holy Spirit and these apostles and witnesses of his resurrection were disseminated throughout Jerusalem and they and the environs to the Jew was that special year of digging around about it.
And Peter could look at them and point to them, and say, Ye have denied the Holy One.
And the just and you granted her murderer to be delivered unto you.
And pointed to their hearts and consciences. And though a remnant received the testimony, the nation did not, and the tree was cut down.
Did the Lord not know that that offer would be made? Of course He did.
Did the Lord not know that that bonafide legitimate offer to the nation, a last call if you will, for that time, would be given? He did. Did He know it would be refused? He did.
But the feast, the the the remembrance of the Lord in Matthew 26 is anticipation of that day, no matter whether that day would have come in 50 days or 55 days or 60 days or 2000 years. It's so interesting and as it turns out.
With the stoning of Stephen, who gave that that full comprehensive resume.
Of their privileges and their sin in the stoning of Stephen. There's Saul of Tarsus standing right there, and he's introduced and pretty soon he's converted, he saved, he's a chosen vessel to bring forth the fullness of the truth of the church.
The church had started in Acts 2, but the truth of the church unfolded to those that were in the church came a little later. And This is why Paul had this could say to the Corinthians sometime years later. He could say, I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, took bread and break it, and so on.
And if Peter and John were there, they say whole time out, Paul.
You weren't even there. We were there. How do you get off saying this is a revelation that you got?
00:15:05
It's a revelation that he got because the character of this supper took on an added element or character that you and I have been enjoying some of us for many years, and I hope everybody in this room will enjoy it. Before the Lord comes the privilege to sit here like Lazarus, one of those that sat at the table with him.
We enjoy resurrection life, of which Lazarus life was a figure.
To sit here like we did this morning.
And remember him the way he's asked us to do. And we recognize in that loaf not only the body, as the Lord put it before them in Matthew 26, broken for you, but also as Paul got the revelation. You know what? And as our brother was saying yesterday, the mystery now unfolded that out of Jew and Gentile He's made of two, one Newman.
You all partakers of one loaf. There is one body, and the loaf on the table takes on that added character.
As an emblem of that delivered from an ascended arisen Christ, ascended Christ through Paul to the others, to the Christian testimony. And now it is our custom, a scriptural and a happy custom. On the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread. We've done a lot of other things today other than break bread, and that's happy too.
But we came together to break bread and so the Lord Jesus anticipating that both those things.
Anticipating in a way that only he could.
He could look beyond like no other could, and see in present circumstances, whether it be whether it be the revelations given and saying, Father, you've hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes. So it seemed good and nice sight.
And he could see the encouragement they had when their testimonies was received. And he can look way beyond and say, I saw Satan falling like lightning to the earth.
When the long.
Day's work would be done.
He would be able to rest in the accomplishment of the fullness of God's purpose and counsel in heaven and in earth.
He said I will drink it new with you until that day, not drink it henceforth until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom.
Sister was was asking us about the vow of a Nazarite, which you can read about in #6.
Different from a Nazarene, which we sang about this morning, a Nazarene is someone from Nazareth.
The not highly.
Esteemed town in Israel in those days. But the vow of a Nazarite was a voluntary vow where an Israelite.
Stopped cutting his hair and let his hair grow long, no razor upon it.
He kept himself from the defilement of the dead.
And he?
Came at no or took no. Anything that came from the grape.
No wine, no grape, nothing like that.
The other day one of the brothers in the reading meeting, if you if you caught it, he made a comment on sanctification and he turned to Sir John 17, where the Lord said for this, he said.
For this 'cause I sanctify myself.
And I believe if I remember right, the.
The brother expressed it this way, that the Lord in in ascending up into heaven.
Where there is only one man right now, the first fruits, the first installment of the first resurrection is completed and there's one man in the glory, and that's him.
And there he is, set apart.
For our care, for our blessing, and for God's glory.
And in that sense, he's kind of like the Nazarite.
He says you know I'm not going to partake of Earth's joy's.
I'm going to be the Nazarite. I'm not going to drink any wine. This is going to be the last time until I drink it new with you.
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In my father's Kingdom, that hasn't happened yet. He's still the Nazarite on high.
And the woman's hair, the woman is the weaker vessel, and it's, I suspect, the man taking, taking voluntarily the position of submission and of weakness and deference.
And the Lord who's the one who has all power.
Who sustains the whole universe?
Allowed himself to be taken when he was here by wicked hands.
Allowed himself to be misunderstood, allowed himself to be taken in the garden, and so on.
It's the woman's hair.
And of course, separate from sin and from sinners in that high place, but there's going to come a day.
Just like there was a number six if you research it. When the Nazarites vow ends and he cuts that hair and he makes offerings.
And the vow is completed.
And so there is going to come a new day. It's coming soon. The Lord is going to reveal himself to his tried, tried people.
I wondered. I asked a brother this morning.
When the Lord comes.
It seems like there will be a somewhat private meeting.
With the remnant of Judah.
That are delivered from this through this great tribulation.
And at a certain point the Lord's feet stand upon the Mount of Olives. In the fulfillment of that prophecy. This same Jesus will come in like manners you have seen him go.
And they receive him as Messiah.
And they're delivered, and they're grateful, and they're full of praise and Thanksgiving and awe.
And then they say, but what are those wounds in your hands?
And it's then that they realize.
Who he is?
And it says in the prophet Zechariah that they mourn every man apart, in his wife apart, and every family apart.
And they realize, they begin to realize.
Irony is too shallow a word, but they realize and begin to. You can just imagine what would flood through their souls when they realize it was Jesus all along and after all. And yet there He is with them, blessing them, delivering them, saying peace, be not afraid, be not angry with yourselves, as Joseph said.
And so I was asking the brother, you know, when, when Joseph finally revealed himself to his brother.
He said he could, he couldn't refrain himself any longer. I think it was in the previous visit that he would go out and cut, compose himself. Being kind of that nature myself, I can understand it. And he composed himself and came back and spoke, you know, firmly or harshly to them. But at the he says he couldn't refrain himself any long. And he says I am Joseph, your brother.
But before he said he caused every man to go out from me because.
Ostensibly it was an official, these were foreigners, he was the head of state. There was some issues to be dealt with here. It was a quasi legal or formal meeting, the way I take it. But he couldn't contain it any longer. And he says, 'cause every man to go out from me. And he reveals himself to his brother. So I don't know.
I'd like to be there. I'd like to stand off to one side.
I'd like to see.
That moment.
I'd like to see the Lord's joy.
I'd like to see their joy.
I'd like to see the consummation of that love that has stayed with those people for thousands of years, and we'll bring them into blessing.
You say, well, why you select those people, why you bring them into blessing? I mean, they're not any they're any better than anybody else.
Why did he bring you in the blessing? Why did he bring me into blessing? It's the same principle.
It's because he's God, and God is love and his sovereign prerogative.
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That's what he decided to do. You say it's not fair. It is beyond fair.
We're way out of the realm of Fair here because he died for that nation. Let me in closing John Chapter 11.
John, Chapter 11.
Verse 47 Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we for this man do with many miracles? If we let him alone, all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, You know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people.
And that the whole nation perish not.
And this spake he not of himself, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation. Now we often read verse 52 because it applies to us more, but I'm going to stop at 51 for today's purposes.
He died for that nation. Romans 15 for a verse.
Romans 15 and verse 8. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.
And the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.
God is going to fulfill the desire of His heart.
To bring them into blessing.
And he's righteous in doing it.
Because he sent his son, who died for that nation. That's what the scriptures say.
And when brothers sometimes sit in reading meetings and say, well, it'll be the closing of the day of grace at the rapture, I always want to say no, no, no, no, no, no. God's not done with grace.
God is who he is, and He delights to show mercy and grace. It's part of his nature. And God has woven before us hundreds of years of moral history taking place in moral geography with moral principles to enable you and I to learn through his governmental ways more about himself, what his nature is and how he thinks.
And what he's like. And we learn that through the prophetic scriptures, among other places.
Last verse I promise. Zephaniah.
Think it is.
I'm looking for the verse. He will rest in his love. Yes, thank you. Zephaniah chapter 3.
I know it's time to quit. Thank you.
Zephaniah, chapter 3.
The Lord thy God, in the midst of these mighty He will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy.
What a wonderful verse.
He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing.
I've always, for many years, loved that verse.
Really has to do with the subject we're talking about when they're finally brought into a place and into a condition where they can happily spread themselves out under his wings as his beloved people.
He will joy over them with singing. His joy will be greater than everyone else's. Full the joy as fierce, the wrath, as the hymn writer put it. And I used to think in my King James, which I always read.
He will rest in his love. I've often thought What a beautiful verse. And then I saw.
In the margin it says he will be silent.
He will be silent in his love. What does that mean?
And so I looked in my purse, my set of friends I have in my study.
I have my personal reading meetings with these different ones.
And I enjoyed this comment. He says it is it would be silent because he is so moved.
00:30:04
You know, if someone's discouraged.
And they're in the meeting, somebody gives out a hymn or they're distracted. They don't hardly sing.
They don't sing very loud.
If they're happy in their soul and really enjoying being in the meeting, in the Lord's presence and with their brethren.
Like I think 98% of us probably were this morning. Sing loud and heartily.
But sometimes.
Goes beyond that you just Can't Sing.
It's just too touching, too beautiful.
There are times at weddings.
Times at funerals.
Times when you listen to your brethren speak or pray.
That's just touching like that.
Times when you're all by yourself in your room or in your car or in your study and you read something, it just touches you. Just to think that he is going to be touched like that.
Speechless.
Almost is the way it's interpreted. He will rejoice over thee with joy.
Because speechless. What a wonderful day that's going to be. As Christians, as believers, it is our privilege to have things new and old.
These are old things that I have spoken about and that Steven spoke about. It's our privilege to hold these things.
Great, great privilege in our possession, and that we might enjoy these things and look forward to that day when He will rest in His love. He will be glorified in heaven and wonderfully in this very earth where he was cast out and hated without a cause.
Say 310.
And to countless.
Experience.
Rosary.
No ground sparing.
1 Peter 1:13-25
Reading
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We see #40 in the appendix.
The heavens which now conceal Him, and councils deep and wise in glory, shall reveal Him to our rejoicing eyes #40 in the Appendix.
Kill to the Lord's son.
Great.
Song.
Went to the time of one night and.
All the way here shall grow.
Here he runs to pray for Graham.
Till.
Three.
You can take away transgression and rolling everywhere to you.
The heavens where it's now counting and consulting and voice and glory.
Breathing on him to our dreams of everything in life.
He shall come down.
By showers.
And join.
Flowers.
Where he runs out.
Shall be.
And righteousness.
In mountains from here to.
Our live gold.
And shall fall down.
Before him and go, and him says pray.
All day sunshine.
For him and his praise of people saying.
Yeah.
Right. And father, we just look to the ears once again we open thy word.
We pray that we might remember that it is a living world.
And that it would touch our hearts and conscience.
Described a day for my health and the leading of life Spirit was pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
So.
Thank the customer. Verse 14, I think you talked a little bit about the 13th 1St, but because kind of the subject is during the Kingdom and attend that 13 first, perhaps we could start with 13 first.
First Peter, chapter one, verse 13.
Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. But as he which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written.
Be holy.
For I am holy.
And if he call on the Father, who, without respect of persons, judge us according to every man's work?
Past the time of your soul journey here in fear.
For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Who barely was foreordained before the foundation of the world that was manifest in these last times for you.
Who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead?
00:10:03
And gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing you have purified your souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit.
Unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with the pure heart fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever.
And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
It might be good first just to say.
Some people read a little bit, maybe King James and so forth, that the.
Chapter in Isaiah 18, the second verse of the seventh verse destroyed that whole chapter. They look at it in a far different way. They interpret it.
Bald headed Ethiopians instead of.
Land it's great to be so just good I know some people use.
That beside the point, the other thing is that my exercise was that the suffering.
That we go through as believers and sometimes.
Paul knew why the Lord gave me McCord and the flesh it was to keep him low. He'd been in the 3rd heaven. He was in danger of being puffed up.
These displeasures just like yours and mine.
So he knew why God gave him that. But there are other things where we see James put the desk almost immediately after the Lord has gone to heaven. The Lord.
Taught him. He walked with him. He took him up to the transfiguration of the mountain. Showed him what it was going to be like in a Kingdom. Almost immediately, he allowed him to be put to death. Peter.
He rescued, we don't know why. So there are things that we don't know why, what, what a Christian father, Baxter, his toddler. We don't know why God allows those kind of things. There are some things that we do know that God chases us and or brings these things into our life, and I believe that we ought to.
See, if you find out, is there something in my life that needs to be a threat that we don't know why God would take a man like Jim that was 60 years old.
So there are some things that you just have to leave the Gods hand. But we do know that there's different ways in which we are going to be, we're going to have to suffer in this world and Christian and chapter. We said this before, we didn't bring it up.
I'm doing this just so we don't jump on a horse and ride off in all directions. You know, we want maybe.
Subject and then get back to the first chapter. But in the second chapter you, you get it's really suffering. In the 19th verse, you get the suffering of conscience. We might have to, you know, it might be quite easy if we're working for a company or something to, you know, take a little soap and take nothing here, take some pens. It takes chill. But for conscious sake we have to suffer. We can't do what the world does. They might take these things and think, well, that's just fine.
And there's many things that we can't do because of consciousness.
So that's the second chapter, but just to break it out. And so maybe some haven't seen this, maybe all have seen it, but in the third chapter we get.
And then 17th verse says where is better if the will of God be sold that you suffer for well doing whether there are evil doing and so the part of the first would say, but if you suffer from righteousness sake and that would be suffering for righteousness sake have to do something else righteous got to know a man who has a specific example, a man who has a construction company and he.
They got a great big settlement. They can and his partner said I cannot get my cash. He said you will get it out of the bank because we don't take things under the table. That's being righteous.
00:15:10
So now the next one is in the in the 14th, in the 14th verse of the third chapter, the 4th chapter.
Says Beloved think it's not strange concerning the fire trial which is to try you so some strange attack thing happened, but rejoice in as much as your teachers of Christ suffering.
So we suffer for Christ's sake, you know, if you give other gospel tract or suffering for Christ sake.
Do your reading the gospel and you're being persecuted or your people are don't like to be around you anymore because you're identified with Christ and then in the 5th chapter.
Well, it's because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion walking about, seeking.
It's suffering because it.
I don't know what how do you?
Satan's opposition, Satans opposition. Okay, that's good. Now we go back to the chat, right? But I thought maybe that we should just finish that subject so you know, we're not.
Disorder. I'm glad you took us through it.
The hope there seems to be he's putting the soap that ridic the Kingdom before him isn't.
In that 13 first, that supports what we have. These things are very important. We should be, you should be thankful that God has revealed again to it what's going to happen to this world, you know?
Say this and be quiet for that God purpose that man would have dominion over this earth.
That was glory of man was a gods glorious creation ten of the biological.
Universe so.
Satan tempted him. He lost that.
So if there's no Millennium, if there's no reigning of Christ of man ruling over this world, then God is lost. Satan is one. It affects the glory of God. So that God is going to have a man, he's going to have dominion over this earth, and he's going to rule for the glory of God like Adam should have for 1000 years.
Amen. It's imperative. Yeah.
So these aren't just things that should not affect our lives. If you really believe that, and this world is is reserved for fire, why would you want to settle down here?
It should separate us.
Those things are practical. That's just what I'm saying. Every doctrine has a practical effect.
Everything massages your heart. Some things are things that exalt the glory of God, and we ought to be interested in what is for the glory of God.
Got a question?
In Matthew 13.
And verse 41.
Says, The Son of Man shall send forth his angels.
And they shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and then that do iniquity.
And then?
Verse 43. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun and the Kingdom of their Father.
00:20:07
In our chapter we had.
An inheritance.
That's held out in contrast to an earthly inheritance.
That was is laid up in heaven.
For us in verse 4.
So what we're looking at?
The cell, the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ looking on to his appearing in the establishment of the Kingdom. Would you say that the portion of the believers that Peter is Speaking of in connection with the Kingdom would be more and the aspect of.
Shining forth in the Kingdom of the Father, a heavenly sphere of things.
Versus the Kingdom of the Son of Man where everything is gathered out that offends is Peter more the heavenly side and portion of the believers in in coming Kingdom?
Peter seems to be occupied with the government of God, which is more the sphere of, of earthly things. It is kind of striking in Matthew 13 where it's speaking really of of what call, for example, calls the judgment of the quick, the judgment of the living. And as we were saying the other day, that it's something we tend to forget and we focus on judgment at the great white throne and we forget that there is going to be judgment that takes place.
When the Lord bears his arm on this earth to remove out of it everything that offends, I personally don't know whether the angels will do that with with with directly, or whether they will use some other instrumentality.
But.
They will do it, and it will be a devastating judgment from God on the earth.
But the expression.
Kingdom of their Father believe is the heavenly side of the Kingdom.
And that would be more what we have with Peter.
So when the Lord Jesus comes to earth, he comes to Israel as Son of David, Messiah to the world.
Early takes the takes his place as the Son of Man.
And after we're gone, and he comes into this world and disappearing, he comes to the consternation of those that have left behind at that time. And it's the Son of Man coming as a thief in the night. No true Christian should think that the Lord will come upon them as a thief in the night. Nobody wants a thief in the night.
You know that's not a figure you would use of something that you expect with happy expectation.
Something you don't want to happen in this world will not want the Lamb to come upon them in that way suddenly and for destruction. So that's the judgment of the living.
You only have missed it, but can you go back over that thought of the Kingdom of the Father and.
Understanding connection. I know the reverse is mentioned, but well, I just was thinking that, you know, we we were expressing the thought that.
The hope is in connection with the Kingdom, but what aspect of the Kingdom? There is a side of the Kingdom called the Kingdom of the Kingdom of the Son of Man on this earth, that everything is gathered out of that offense, but there's the Kingdom of the Father.
In which the righteousness righteous shine forth. And that's a heavenly spirit of things. So Peter speaking to those who once really had an earthly hope for an earthly Kingdom.
Now he's Speaking of a hope of a Kingdom, but we want to be clear that it's not an earthly hope and an earthly Kingdom that's being set in front of them. It's a heavenly hope. It's a heavenly inheritance and a heavenly aspect of the Kingdom, which I think is called the Kingdom of the Father.
And is it, Is it an oversimplification to say that in the Kingdom of the Sun righteousness reigns, but in the Father and dwells?
00:25:05
But there's still activity putting down evil in the Kingdom of the Sun like we have in the 13th chapter.
But in the Kingdom of the Father, when everything is, if I can put it.
You know, wrapped up and delivered to the Father, as it says in First Corinthians 15, we get a different state of things where righteousness is pleased to dwell. There's no more governmental action.
Yeah, I think that's right from what we read of the of the Kingdom.
1000 year Reign of Christ.
There will be a need for government.
And Christ will be the head.
We're all things, including of the Earth.
There will be there will be peripheral people, people born we we can only sort of connect the dots of what we have in the prophetic scriptures, but.
Right. It's righteousness will reign at that time, and righteousness will return to the sphere of power and authority. Whereas when the Lord was here, righteousness was over here and authority was over there, and they were just disassociated from one another during the reign of Christ. Authority, righteousness will be together, as you say, at the end of the thousand years when this world is melted and folded up like a garment.
Peter teaches us later, and he creates a new heaven and new earth, righteousness as well. There will not be the need.
In that sphere, for anything to be addressed in a judicial, governmental way that that will all be passed.
And then that aspect of the Kingdom called the Kingdom of the Father. There's nothing to offend, nothing to be gathered out that way. And Peter says it's an inheritance that's without corruption.
So there is a time when during Daniel 70th week.
Between the time of the rapture of the Saints of God, first resurrection and the fury of Satan will be cast out of heaven, and it will be for rejoicing.
Heavens at the present time, or the sphere of conflict, just like the earth, or in a similar way to the way the earth is a sphere of conflict, spiritual conflict from a time when that will be ended.
Things will be according to God.
In the heavens.
Certainly no was in Peter didn't have a hope of the Lord coming back to earth and then raising.
What you get this is hope that was laid up for them. The inheritance incorrectly made it not away reserved in heaven for you SO.
This has to do.
When we come in at that time.
That the revelation of Jesus Christ so.
We mentioned he was supposed to pistol especially brings before us the government of God in connection with the righteous.
We're not going to take on the government, broaden connection unrighteous, but the first epistle is the government of God in connection with the righteous.
We've spoken of the suffering that we experience in this world. So in these next few verses 141516 we really have presented believe this is the children of the father, and if we're children of the Father, then the father disciplines.
And.
So it says it's a meeting children, not fashioning yourselves according to the form of lust and your ignorance. Their Christianity should change the way that we live. We don't live in a particular way to achieve a particular end, but because of who and what we are, it should change the way that we live. We we cannot continue to live in.
And now former lust. Now many in this room, myself included, were safe as a young child, but it doesn't change the way that we live. So in the 4th chapter he speaks. Here he says that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh. To the loss of management, to the will of God.
And so on.
Before that he says for he that has suffered in the in flesh have ceased to sin. You know Christ suffered because he was holy and he was made sin for us who knew no sin. But we suffer because we have a nature that wants to sin, that lust after sin. And even though we are to reckon that as being dead and counted as crucified, it's still very much alive.
00:30:30
Until the day that we have taken out of the scene and so we constantly.
Have to remember the place where that old nature and probably someone else can clarify and say this is better on time zone, but we still have those desires within us that lots of the things that are not appropriate. And so it says in our chapter verse 16 because it is written to ye holy for I am whole.
I think it's often mistakenly thought that grace somehow lowered God's standard and that the holiness that God showed in the Old Testament.
Is somehow no longer applicable, but God's nature has not changed God's holiness has not changed God's standard did not not change. He did not lower the bar. That was not how we're brought into salvation. It's through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that we brought into salvation. And so not to digress, but that's why at the end of Romans 3 it says there's a.
Read it because I won't be able to.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, Can we establish the law? The gospel didn't make a void the law. It didn't blow the standard that caught had. It didn't make the law of power so we could get over it. No, not at all. But rather Christ has in going to the cross.
Has suffered for our sins taken he was made sin for us who knew no sin and.
We have now made the righteousness of God in him, the law, the standard the God of establishment Israel was, was upheld. It wasn't lowered in any way in the gospel. And so we are likewise told upon to be holy, just as Israel was called upon to be holy. Now have separated people. And in Leviticus 20, you can turn to it at the end of that chapter. God separated among himself, himself, and they were called to be a holy people. As a result, we likewise have been separated to him and we're called to be a holy people. Nothing about the standard of God is in any way changed or being lowered. And so Paul says to Timothy, it's a little out of context.
I keep myself pure. These are practical exhibitions to us particularly as well today when Bruce spoke about the, the cell phone, well, the, the Internet, you know, we can connect ourselves with whatever evil we want in our own privacy so that anyone knowing God knows. And that expectation particularly, I'd say to a young man, keep thyself here. Repeat that to yourself frequently, often. Keep yourself pure.
You know, the desires that we have, the lust of the flesh, the pride of the three things mentioned there in First John, they don't see. Since you get older, perhaps in some respects they may lessen, but they never cease. You know, of a laboring brother no longer amongst us. And this is not a criticism of him. This is reality. He said if there was a pornographic magazine on the table, he would not trust himself in the same room with that magazine. But we don't have magazines anymore. We have what's called the Internet. Don't trust yourself with it. Don't go where you might be found.
I'm able to resist that temptation. That temptation doesn't die as you get older. It doesn't.
And so again, these these things in these buses, again, my point is simply very, very practical.
The law is wholly just and good, but at the same time the whole the law was not the full expression of the nature of God. We get that in Christ. And so if anything, as you say, not only is the standard not lowered. It's infinitely higher because the law would say do not steal the Lord Jesus went about doing good and we're called to walk in his steps and in specifically in his steps. The the the word of God would tell us now with a new life is they let him that stole steel no more, but rather let him work with his hands that thing which is good and it may have to get.
In the to him that has need. And so Christ is the full expression of of of of God and and that's the one that is before us as an object that we might follow and walk in his steps as you say.
00:35:17
You and I have that very light in that.
Life has been imparted to us. We have that lies in us, that desires those things and once was good. But you said we have another nature in there too that will go after those things, but we're not trying to do these things.
With something that's impossible to do it because we have a life containment.
It's empowering our soul, but a spirit will be.
That's what it says in chapter four. He that has suffered in the flesh or suffered in flesh has ceased from sin. You know, if I am thirsty and it's a nice hot day today and I think we all got thirsty, if I don't take a drink, I will suffer because of that.
So, but we live in a world today that says follow your natural desires and you are.
Going to put yourself if you don't.
If you have homosexual desires to sue them because you are not fulfilling yourself if you don't pursue them.
I have lots of desires that are inappropriate.
That would be, even in men's views today, inappropriate to pursue. If I was a kleptomaniac by nature and I saw something that I just prayed, I might just grab and take it because both the world's logic would say, well, if you don't, you're going to harm yourself psychologically.
I as a heterosexual male, I have attraction towards the opposite sex.
Let's say I never married.
Does that give me liberty to satisfy those desires that God indeed has given me in a way that's contrary to His word? No, it does not.
Has not been there's so many different things and I picked on an issue that happens to be very current in our society. But there are so many things that little things in life that we have a natural desire and and we have all different fence, all different vents that we naturally lost doctor, but they are not holding. They are not good and we need to resist them. And in resisting them we will suffer. That is good and right and proper.
We don't suffer to make us help secure, that's what.
Islam teachers, Hinduism teaches why and a better nails and make yourself here. It's what Christianity tried to do that that doesn't work but we have a new nature within us that did lakes as was already being said to do the word of God. We need to be that new nature.
And it's helpful to realize that grace.
In our lives is the power for us to walk to please the Lord.
And I can't remember where I I I read a very helpful little paper.
Pointing out that grace is the power of holiness.
And that is a good thing to.
Because if you sit here even with a new nature as a believer and a fallen nature, and you say, well, that's it, Nick's right, I want to really be holy. And then you start, you know, you know, like pick yourself up from your own bootstraps, so to speak, and improving yourself and, and those kinds of things, you will be disappointed.
But Paul wrote to Timothy to as a son, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the attractive power of grace.
Linking us to the object before us, Christ, and the things which concern our Lord Jesus Christ.
An attractive power.
In allowing ourselves in the new life to be attracted and to act on that attraction.
Is the way to have to walk in, in, in holiness, in a practical sense in this life, We are in our position.
Holy brothers.
That's our standing. That's the place that God has assigned us. Now, do you think of yourself as a holy person? I was sitting right in that seat a couple years ago in a reading meeting.
Another brother was sitting like right here, and he got up to pray.
00:40:03
And he prayed this. He said, Father, keep us holy.
And I mean, he went on with his prayer. How was his prayer?
Perhaps, you know, we're praying and I'm thinking.
Wow.
Do I realize that I am?
Holy, and that I should be praying to God to keep me that way. Or is it something way out here that I aspire to it? OK, maybe three years ago, I don't remember, but it has an effect upon me ever since. We need to reckon ourselves the way God does, and then we need to lay hold of the resources which are positive and good and forward, that we might not fall into the the various snares that are around us, and they are myriad.
Walk in the Spirit is God's way not to fulfill the lust of the flesh.
And I've known people that take us take.
I would like to battle. You just can't sit around all day not smoking.
It doesn't work.
Trust me.
Lord delivered me from that early in my conversion.
But Lord can give you grace to overcome these things and you won't be sitting around not doing something. You'll be taking up with that which is positive. Walk the Spirit going forward that way, independence upon him He won't fulfill. Flesh is frosty.
Did they cost you though?
She felt it and and if we just think, well, I'm just going to pray and God's going to deliver me from it and I and I and I want to say that there aren't certain habits that God and and individuals that God hasn't delivered them in that way.
But.
When we deny the flesh, there is a suffering that goes with us. Yes, there is a cost.
There is a.
He loves us too much to let us go our own way or get away with things either. You know, He is our Father, and we call upon Him as our Father and He doesn't chasing us like our earthly fathers did just for their own pleasure, but that we might be partakers of His Holiness. And the Father does purge the branches that they bring forth more fruit. And so if we don't.
Walk in a path of obedience. Obedience.
He says if he call on the Father who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your soul journey here in fear. He loves us too much just to let us go our own way, just like any father with his children. You're not just going to step back and say, Oh well, I hope you know, I hope they come around and decide to be obedient. If they're not obedient, father will step in and and he'll bring it discipline.
And.
In order to bring them back into the path of obedience, because really, that's the only happy pathway.
And so that's the object of his discipline, is that we would be partakers of His Holiness, that we would be holy and be like him. And that's a happy path sometimes.
We say we've heard someone say. I think at some time my parents said this to me.
I'm I'm disciplining you to show you my love.
And I didn't feel the love, as they say, but that's not why we discipline. We discipline our children to show them the holiness of God, that they might be partakers of holiness, to walk in the right path because we know that's going to be the only safe and happy path for them.
The motive is love.
It's not to show them love.
Because we load and go, Because He loves us, He does discipline us. If we were without chastening, then we'd be illegitimate. We would not be his children at all.
So explain this or should I should I just?
Walk kind of bearing that God might you know, because I do feel a lot of times that I need a good reading time to help you lock even your time with that than than being able to.
Comprehend how much God loves, but give us, give us a little word on in fear. What does that mean?
I think that is in, in the fear, in the sense of respect, not in the fear of the rod dropping, but you know.
If we go on and the deliberate path itself will, we are going to be afraid. We will be, because we know that that could come. I knew a young man and he got so far away from the Lord, you know.
00:45:13
Every time he would get into a car, he thought, this is my last ride.
Every time. Why? Because he knew he was like a fruitless branch in the line, and there was a fear there when he got back in a path of obedience and going on to the Lord. He's still under the Father's discipline. But it wasn't the same thought, you know, in that way. But we can get far enough away where we know we got it coming, so to speak, and we don't want to get that in that way.
But it's a it's a fear of respect that we would not want to disappoint him.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We read in Proverbs and probably a lot of the young men. I know it was my habit when young and I still sometimes do it today to read a chapter a day along with the calendar in the book of Proverbs and you'll see that early on the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As Steven said, it's not fear like God has a big, huge.
Law that's going to fall on you, but it is healthy respect for the for the dignity of the relationship we've been brought into and.
An affectionate parent that earns the respect of his or her child puts a strong motive in that child's heart to not want to disappoint that child. You have respect for your parents wisdom. Then you say, well, I know they are looking for the best for me and they've said this, so I think I should do that and that those are natural things. And and of course the Spirit of God wants the young person to morph from the natural relationship, wholesome natural relationship.
Into the spiritual one. What a wonderful thing that God is our father. I had a wonderful natural father just.
Dearly. He handled us so wisely and so well, so graciously.
And and then.
I now have a God is my father and.
And so we have that we're kind of primed for that same relationship and it.
It's a it's a good thing. You know it's it's the same reason why in first John two if any man sin writing to a believer if any man's sin, we have an advocate not with God says with the father, because we are in the family of God now and we have the privilege of that family chasing. I was a little kid in the neighborhood and especially in the summer.
My mom ruled with a rod of iron and this 8:00 or whatever, you come in, you go to bed and.
You know, there was no air condition. You could hear all the kids playing still out there. And it's like, but what about him? But what about they're not my son? You know, In other words, I have no relationship with them. I don't punish them when they're bad. I don't organize their life. You were in the family. This is the way we're going to roll. And so it is with you and me. An unbeliever may go on like a beast.
A man looks up, he's built that way. A beast looks at the ground, and an unbeliever may go on like a beast and not have the privilege of chastisement. We have the privilege of chastisement from a father who was always all loving as a purpose.
Strange that we ever.
That's why it says if he called the father. The point is it's a bundle package. You call on the father to supply your needs when you know.
For him to undertake for you and make a claim on his love, well, his discipline comes, but it's.
It's a package deal.
Be correct to say that the word if there is the if that we could say in the English language, since since you call on the father because that's what we do. We're his children, we call upon him. That's the nature of our relationship.
I think we often have a very negative view of discipline and and as I.
Father and I perhaps did not always carry out discipline in the right and appropriate way. And so I have a fact that I have an effect on my children as to how they perceive the discipline. That's unfortunate, because in Ephesians 6 it says He causes provoke not your children to wrath, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In Hebrews 12, it says, My son, despise not thou. The chastening of the Lord will faint without reduced of him.
00:50:12
So we're hastening industrial, in fact, the same work.
We we then tend to think of all discipline as being punitive. In other words, that rod that strikes when we do something wrong. Another way to look at discipline is the coach with the athlete you know he puts him through.
Painful experiences, not because he's punitively punishing him, but because he wants to get the most out of him. And so God's discipline is of that nature too. It's the stroke, as has already been said.
When we fail to listen, you know God's God is a loving father and we have the Spirit of God within us that allows us to cry. ABBA Father, I think it's so important that we learn from a very young age the value of prayer. Even the little children in this room should take to heart that they can anytime go to God and call upon him as a father. Father, maybe your earthly father will let you down and what treats you, perhaps always as you should.
So you have a father and I'll say Heavenly Father means one context to distinguish him from our earthly father. So you have a heavenly Father you can go to anytime you want and cry ABBA Father and he loves you and he will direct you when you don't listen. When I don't listen that that directing it's a little more.
Positive. I don't think that's an inappropriate word because alcohol in Hebrews 12 Says he's scourge with everyone that he loveth. So there are times that we need a scourge and we need a good spending.
But that's not where things begin.
And we have a him as a beautiful lion that says that he will never cause his child and needless here, never.
I wonder if there is also the thought in this thought of passing so dirty.
Passing the time of our social journey here and here there isn't also the thought of of a fear of grieving him, a fear of of displeasing him. And because he goes on, you'll notice at the end of that 17 verses of Poland and then he goes into the cost of our redemption and I have felt myself rather than I had a.
A greater sense of what cost the Lord should gain my soul. Wouldn't it make us perhaps more careful that we wouldn't do anything? That would be dishonoring to Him, knowing the immense price that He had to pay for our redemption. We were not redeemed with a corruptible thing.
Silver and gold, but it goes on to say precious price and I, I just feel in my own soul I could range over that. Wouldn't it? Make me more careful when I was tempted to do something that I know it's going to dishonor him that if I do this.
It says if I can carelessly sing or acting indifferent to what she paid for.
Should be should motivate us.
It should cause us to walk in here and not care. How can we walk carelessly now? We do I, I own that. I do.
The word here for Sergey is really foreign residents.
I'm a foreigner to this country.
Lived here for longer than I even lived in Australia, but when I first came here it took probably 2 years before I actually felt at home in this country.
Find that odd? But just everyday little thing would catch you? That's different.
And remind you that your environment here, you're not a local. And if you feel out of place in this, well.
Good, good. That's a good thing. We should fill out a place in as well. We have foreigners here.
Someone said that it says sent to be risen with Christ set your affections and he said it should be set your mind on things above and so as someone has said you are what you eat and so we've heard a lot about that. So some people eat certain things doesn't agree with them, but you are kind of what you feed upon on your mind and I let these and you have he says you're gird up the loins of your mind.
00:55:12
So we're going to have girded mine, not just let it.
Float around and.
All kinds of different thoughts. Then it says sober. So a sober mind. And then there's a hope here for the revelation of Jesus Christ. And I thought that's a optimistic mind. But then the children, it's an obedient mind. There's obedient children. And like the brother just said, the fear of God. That's a reverent mind for the quality. So it's you are it's a lot to do with what you think about is an object.
Going to get your life used to be that you never went to one of these conferences. Somebody didn't say there is no substitute for communion. You can hear this old brother. There is no substitute for convenience. You know what there is no substitute for communion. And so that's a part of you are being led by the spirit. What does that mean? We we live by the spirit. That's what Galatians says, but we're don't walk by the spirit.
That's communion, you know, and, and if you can resist a lot of temptation if you're in communion when that temptation comes and so someone has said, and you know, like you were saying in the law, you know, we.
We, there's a scripture that says that the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in US who walk not after the flag, but after this terror. We had a brother. I probably given this illustration when he had a brother to have difficulty with that if you're not under the law, then you're lost. How, how can you explain that to him? And I thought of this illustration. There was a, a speed trap in this town.
It was engineered so that nobody's going to get through this town without at least 1 Ticket, and we're going to get a lot more tickets for most people.
Nobody's ever gone through that speed trap without even a ticket.
I come through it. He says how many tickets did he get? He said I didn't get any tickets. He said you're lying. Nobody can get through this feed trap without getting a ticket. I said I didn't get a ticket, so how do you do it? I said I knew nobody man who built this feed trap. And he said don't you worry about the signs, don't you worry about the law. You just follow me and when I stop, you stop. When I speed up, you speed up. When I slow down, you slow down.
How did I get through that? Not because I was under the law.
But because I was under the person who built that speed trap, and that's an illustration. You are not under the law because that the Spirit of God would never lead you to coven. He would never leave to lie. He would never leave you to do anything that's in that law because it's righteous and it's holy. But you're not under the law, you're under the Spirit. But you're going to walk in the Spirit. You're going to be in communion. And that's how you are in communion, isn't it? But.
Talking into the Lord, not just in the state of the state, but when you go out there and it's where it's the real world.
What is spell after and it takes effort. You have to different television. You have to turn up the loins of your mind. You have to thank God's spot.
Because let's be honest, what our brother back here is just said.
Would have been totally inappropriate.
20 years ago.
The young people are living in a world where it's totally appropriate.
You would have never heard those things. There's no need for it because the world was not like it is today for you.
But what he says absolutely true.
We add the value of relationship brought home one time when we were visiting some folks.
And talking about being preserved and his sister, who is now, I suppose, 60 years old.
Told me that it wasn't too difficult in high school for her to stay away from some of these bad.
Suggestions like why don't you come over, we're having a party tonight, or are you going to the dance Saturday? Because she said I had a relationship with my father.
01:00:05
And I knew my father would not like me to go to those places and do those things.
So when?
The opportunity came up, she said. I thought about my father and I loved my father.
And I didn't want to disappoint them.
So I didn't take up those opportunities.
So, like her brother, Byrne has said, relationship is a great.
Salvation to us in a practical way.
Keeping that close communion with the Lord, because if we don't, we tend to start drifting.
In Second Corinthians chapter 5, without turning to it, but there are a number of motivations in there, as you say, to want to please the Lord. The one you mentioned reminds me of the verse that says the love of Christ constrained us, and that is a wonderful, happy and positive motivation. There's also the shortness of the time.
There's the judgment seat of Christ.
There are a series of motivations that would fall under.
A lot of things that John is bringing out is to the fear of the Lord.
Love of Christ is a wonderful restraint, but as I think the world has a saying, out of sight, out of mind.
And that kind of thing. We're not occupied within our rubber wax cold and other things will rush in.
We're going to find ourselves stumped.
But it would be nice to move along a little in the chapter with a little time that's left and.
In the verses 18.
And so on in the next couple verses we see.
As John alluded, the motivation of remembering.
And great work that was being done by God on our behalf through the sun, not redeemed with vain, with a a.
Corruptible things with the precious blood of Christ.
For ordained before the foundation of the world manifest in these last times review.
And so by him.
Not in him, but the work, we realize it's by him.
Believe in God, raised him up from the dead, gave him glory.
Faith and hope might be in God.
We are attached through faith.
To the one who has been.
Raised and given glory as a man.
This is to be.
Powerful motivator for us.
Hour by hour, day by day life.
I know probably most of us pray.
Like Nehemiah, you know, he was put on the spot and he immediately prayed. I don't think he.
He had to give an answer and he prayed and that was was was admirable and virtuous.
I was thinking how Daniel prayed three times a day.
We really methodically.
He was, I assume, a busy working person with responsibilities and he got away.
You might try that sometime.
Is it yields really really good fruit in your life quickly?
Takes diligence to be able to get.
Get away from the.
Schoolmates or from the workmates in the middle of the day and.
Do that and have your prayer list and date and.
Elevate your soul.
And it'll keep your mind focused on the things that matter.
It's easy to get distracted.
Just a suggestion.
It's a good suggestion.
Friday, I think it was, I walk past the conference room in my office. The lights were off and I noticed a colleague kneeling on the floor.
Unfortunately, Moslem.
But.
I don't this taken the wrong way but.
Because they do it. The Muslims don't know how to spray. I, I don't say that in a nasty way, but we, we hear these other religions and they have very good prayer times and so on. They are not praying in the sense that we pray. They are not. They're reciting something. A Muslim, there is a form of prayer that's a free form that is not used very often, from what I understand.
01:05:09
But the reverence they have for their what they think is the word of God, their pattern of prayer, and so on.
Might make us pause and think.
There's this false Their religion is false. But what about us? We have the true word. God is living.
We get that. We value it not to, not to put it in a shrine and bow down and worship, but that's not the point. Which is almost what they do. But we get that prayer, we avail ourselves of it. Prayer meeting. But they're long, long pauses between prayers. What? Why did we find it so hard to pray?
My it searches my own heart.
But you know, prayer is so essential. It's a the Lord prayed all night.
He prayed and felt the necessity of it. As the Son of Man is especially heavenly, why do we feel it less so?
By the way, you don't have to go to doc conference room and deal down on the floor.
You could walk around the block. I'd only be too liberal or loose enough. I think you can walk around the block in the quietness is separated from school work, whatever it is and and pray.
In the.
In the airplane airport and there's 1000 people around here.
And there's a little him that doesn't never leave our sweet retreat. You could fill these things.
And probably really necessary, but.
Well, how is my soul purified when I have obeyed the truth?
Every religion of man tries to improve what's in wood by attacking what's output, and we never ever achieve it.
The best you can do is you have a lump of coal, you can cover it with gold and you have a gilded lump of coal and.
Every religion of man attempts to do that. But with Christianity there has been a work within us. Law could never accomplish that work with Innocent made a demand upon man, and the man of righteousness upon man, and the man came up short. But now there has been at work in US very good.
This is this is. This is what is absolute but.
The subjective side of it is a is the next part of so seeing that you have purified your souls and obeying the truth that happened when we were born again and believe. But then you get the practical side of it.
Under one claimed love of breath.
So what is absolutely the other one practically?
Very good, brother quoted. I think it was Bruce the other day from Philippians. It is God which worketh in you.
Both to will and to do abuse. That's a nice verse. So we we hopefully from the platform, when we preach the gospel, we speak about the work of Christ that was for us outside of us done in time some time ago. And it's important to preach the facts of the gospel so that when the Spirit of God works in the soul, they can lay hold of it. They can lay hold of those words.
Like Cornelius did, he laid hold of the words, and it made. Is that that?
Could be safe, but we also realize and we don't preach it from the platform.
That it takes a work of God in the heart.
Because the quickening power to turn a soul from death to life is in God's hand, in God's prerogative, and.
01:10:04
You see here in this verse that having purified your souls and obeying the truth and Spirit.
God works in the heart, gives us life, says let there be light just like in the first.
Versus the Bible.
He didn't say in sovereign power and grace, let there be life in my dark soul.
Would have been. What is that life? How does it manifest itself?
That's faith. Here's the word, place, hold of it. You think it's something all that we've done at first when we believe the gospel.
And then we learned that he's drawn us and brought us in and we say, how does? Why me?
And that's that's the question that will remain unanswered in a certain sense throughout all eternity.
Why does it through the spirit marked out in my Bible and I just looked in the new translation, it doesn't have that.
Do you have a thought on that?
No, I I don't. I have.
Got the brackets around that my Bible to remind me that it's not supposed to be there.
But it's really been born again isn't so so it's because you get that in the next first being born again. And so that happened. You know, that was a sovereign work of God. We didn't have anything to do with our first our first birth. We didn't have any do with our second birth. But so but it happened. Seeing that you have verified your souls and obeying the truth.
Then unto I'm saying love. This is the result.
The unfeigned love of the breath.
See that you'll love one another.
In John chapter 3 we learned that as believers we were born again. We were born of water. End of the Spirit.
And it speaks of the word of God, but the figure is water, and it associates the work of bringing the word to us with the effect upon us, because water washes and it makes clean. Later on in John chapter 3 we read about the blood.
And as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up and so on. We leave read about the other side of it, which is expiation and the blood of Christ and the work done for us. God has also done a work in you to give you to believe. It's giving you a life and.
As the Lord said to his disciples in in John 13 when he washed their feet.
I said if I don't wash your feet, you're not going to have a part with me.
You're not going to enjoy communion like.
Says you are all have been paid.
So it is that the effect of the sovereign work in US is to make us clean. We were guilty.
And God has addressed our guilt through the blood of Christ on Calvary Cross.
Was working filed as well and he's made.
There's moral defilement and there's judicial guilt. The work of Christ has addressed all.
And so it is when we speak of the moral effect inside of us. It's purifying work that has been done. We are now children of obedience. We desire to obey the truth. And what comes up out of that life? Love.
A lot of correct collectors said, I think I it just comes to me why that's not there because most of this verse is absolutely the new birth does give us a love for our breath, so it says. So let me read it like that.
Seeing He have purified your souls, and obeying the truth, and the unfeigned love of the brethren, that fact.
Now it says, see that your loved one another.
With a with a pure heart, fervent.
That's the way it should. That's practical.
Being born again gives us a love for our brother.
So what part were you saying is the practical part versus the absolute? Okay, I mean, I'll just read it again. And this is this is a fact. Seeing that you purified your heart, your souls, and obeying the truth unto unseemed love of the brethren, that's a fact.
01:15:01
The Newburgh gives you the love for your breath. Now, it says the expectation is see that you love one another with a pure heart verbally. That's the exhortation. That's the exhortation.
Time is up, I just wanted to make a comment. I think the reason this is brought in here is because Israel were born corruptible state. They were a natural family but there is now a beef family.
And so we have.
Not a corruptible state of the incorruptible. By the word of God there is a new family now, and there is connected with that and love.
We sing #316.
#316 we are by Christ Redeem cost.
Precious blood.
We are by christening.
And.
Swear, I know.
It's over.
Pray.
Lord.
Itself.
When Christ is on.
Morning shines, we shall his glory.
Strength.
Place.
And we?
And.
All the rain.
Shall see them face to face.
Where I'm satisfied.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Doug Jacobsen
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Begin by seeing #2, please.
To Jesus and we holy, He will care. It's all of praise.
When you're here from their heart, Holy, come down, I will give you rest.
House stands open where there is one and light and song.
And.
Turn into the Father.
All to you may now be honest.
From since and land of the.
I'm still waiting.
Sadly waiting.
Till the day it's for yourself.
And I don't say anything, Jesus, always when you're sworn in.
Let's ask the Lord's blessing.
Our God and Father, we thank Thee.
For the beauty that we have found in Christ. For the peace that we have found.
That passes understanding.
For the ministry of reconciliation that we most of us have received.
And now we pray that thou wouldst give the message.
From thy word.
By thy spirit.
To a soul in the room, perhaps tonight.
That knows thee not.
We ask it.
And the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Like to start in Proverbs chapter 6.
We're going to read about a sluggard, but we're not going to talk about a slugger. Anything but a slugger.
But the end is the same, so.
I I wanted to read Proverbs 6.
And maybe.
Verse 9 How long wilt thou sleep? O sluggard, When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
I suppose we could say a spiritual sleep.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth and I want as an armed man.
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Nowadays.
When we're going to visit our family.
Heather.
Sends me a text and when you're going to be here and I already have her in Google and they say we'll be there in 43 minutes.
When I'm going to meet a client.
Often there's traffic or whatever and so there's some going back and forth, but he tells me he's going to be there in 32 minutes and I say it's going to be 36 and we pretty much know when we're going to arrive.
In the olden days.
They had no such method of communication, and so I think this verse kind of escapes us.
The bill collectors coming, and he's coming 500 miles to collect.
And he comes to my door.
And he just knocks.
Whether I'm ready or not.
A guest comes like Jacob going to see Lavin.
I had no idea was coming. Just all of a sudden one day, here's my sister's son.
And so the door opens.
Are you prepared?
Are you ready?
Or not.
And we're going to read.
About a man a day of decision.
And he was not ready.
I love a good story.
And this is a good story. I'm going to read you a good story, but it doesn't end well for everyone.
In the story.
We're going to read Samuel I Samuel, 25.
And Samuel died, and all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Rhema.
And David arose and went down to the wilderness, to parent of parent. And there was a man in Mayon, whose possessions were in Carmel, And the man was very great, and he had 3000 sheep and 1000 goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail, and she was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance.
But the man was churlish and evil in his doings, and he was of the House of Caleb.
And David heard in the wilderness.
That naval did shear his sheep.
And David sent out ten young men. And David said unto the young men, get you up to Carmel and go to Nabal and greet him in my name of peace, the margin says.
And thus shall ye say to him that lives in prosperity.
Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace unto all that thou hast.
And now I have heard, that thou hast furers now thy shepherds which were with us. We hurt them not, neither was there aught missing.
Unto them all the while they were in Carmel. Ask the young men, and they will show thee.
Wherefore, let the young men find favor in thine eyes, for we come in a good day.
Give I pray thee whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David.
And when David's young men came, they speak to Nabel according to all these words, in the name of David. And ceased.
And Abel answered David's servant. Naval answer, David's servants. And said, Who is David, And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be So David's young men turn their way.
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And went again, and came and told him all these things. And David said unto his men gird on every man his sword, and they girded on every man his sword. And David also girded on his sword. And there went up after David about 400 men, and 200 abode by the stuff.
But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master, and he railed on them. But the men were very good to us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we anything. As long as we were conversant with them when we were in the fields, they were a wall unto us both by night and day, All the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore, no one consider what thou wilt do for evil.
Is determined against our master and against all his household, For he is such a son of Belial that such a man cannot speak, that a man cannot speak to him. Then Abigail made haste, took 200 loaves and two bottles of wine, 5 sheep ready, dressed 5 measures of parched corn, 100 clusters of raisins, 200 cakes of figs, and laid them on *****.
She said unto her servants, Go on before me. Behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Mabel. And it was so as she rode on the *** that she came down by the covert of the hill. And behold, David and his men came down against her, and she met them. Now David had said, surely in vain, if I kept all this, that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him. For he hath requited me evil for good.
So and more also do God under the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that ****** against the wall. And when Abigail saw David, she hasted and lighted off the *** and fell before David on her face.
And bowed herself to the ground.
And fell at his feet, and said upon me, my Lord, upon me.
Let this iniquity be, and let thy handmaid. I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thy handmaid.
Let not, my Lord, I pray thee, regard this man Abilio, even Nabal. For as his name is, so is he, Nabel is his name, and folly is with him. But I, thy handmaid, saw not the young man of my Lord, whom thou did send. Now therefore, my Lord, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath withholding thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand.
Now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my Lord be as an able. And now this blessing which thy handmaid hath brought unto my Lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow. My Lord, I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thy handmaid, for the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house, because my Lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.
Yet a man that is Saul is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul. But the soul of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God, and the souls of thy enemies. Them will he sling out as out of the middle of a sling. And it will come to pass, when the Lord shall have done to my Lord, according to the good that he has spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed the ruler over Israel, that this shall be no grief unto thee.
Nor offensive heart unto my Lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my Lord hath avenged himself. But when the Lord shall dealt well with my Lord, then remember thy handmaid.
And David said to Abigail, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent the.
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This day to meet me, and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand.
Notice how she knew him better than he knew himself.
For in very deed, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted, and come to meet me, there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light.
Any that ****** against the wall, so David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thy house. See, I have hearkened to thy voice, and I have accepted thy person. And Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabel's heart was married within him, and he was very drunken. Wherefore she told him nothing less or more, until the morning light.
But it came to pass in the morning when the wine was gone out of neighbor and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him and he became as stone. And it came to pass about 10 days after that the Lord smote neighbor that he died. And when David David heard that Nabal was dead, he said blessed be the Lord.
That hath pleaded the cause of my reproach.
From the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil. For the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail to take her to him to wife. And when the servants of David were come to Abigail de Carmel, they speak unto her, saying, David has sent us under thee to take thee to him to wife. And she arose and bowed herself on her face to the earth.
And said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord. And Abigail hasted and arose, and rode upon a *** with fine 5 damsels of hers that went after her. And she went after the messengers of David, and became his wife. David also took a hanoam of Jezreel, and they were both of them his wives. But Saul had given Michael his daughter David's wife.
To falty, the son of Laish, which was of Galen.
So shall thy poverty come.
Without warning.
As 1A traveler and they want as an armed man.
The first thing we notice.
David, of course, is in the wilderness, fleeing from Saul.
But I think there's an order of importance or an order of operations in these versus 2:00 and 3:00.
The first thing the Spirit of God tells us.
There was a Man in man whose possessions were in Carmel.
That's like 2 Counties that he kind of.
Had some control over. They were all in the land of Judah. They were side by side.
Mayon didn't have quite the the fertile land as caramel.
And the man was very great, we here.
And he had. Oh, whose possessions that word, possessions struck me this time as I was meditating upon it.
You had 3000 sheep, 1000 goats, and he was shearing his sheep.
In Carmel.
This man.
Well, let's see, Maybe I'm going to read the next verse too. Now, the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife, Abigail, and she was a woman of good understanding and of a beautiful countenance. But the man was churlish and evil in his doings, and he was of the House of Caleb.
00:20:08
What's outstanding about this man is he had a lot of possessions.
And you know, there was a rich young ruler.
Who on the outside?
Seemed to be a good neighbor.
Follow the law.
Undertook for the poor.
Did everything according to the law and was pretty sure of himself until the Lord put his finger.
On his possessions.
And so we live in a world.
That makes a lot of possessions and this man that was in the forefront.
Not only that, but he was of the House of Caleb.
You know, I noticed as I was driving back to the hotel this afternoon.
The the beautiful landscape here between here and the hotel.
And being in real estate, I looked off to the right and I could see those Equestrian estates and appreciate the setting, the beauty. All these things are from God.
God has camped around this nation like David's men in camped naval and they kept him from danger. They preserved what he had.
That's one reason why he should have given to David.
But he was of the House of Caleb.
And This is why.
When I thought about standing up here, this is really what led me to this passage. I'm looking in the faces of those.
For the most part, that are of the House of Caleb.
Caleb was a man of faith.
A man of perseverance.
A warrior.
One who endured.
Counting on the promise of God.
For 40 years in the wilderness.
And then claimed what God had promised.
Boldly.
Knowing that God would honor his request.
Defeated the enemy.
And gave good gifts to his children.
Of whom Nabel was a descendant.
What had naval done?
To earn this place.
Very little. He was probably a very good businessman.
But if he'd been in the deserts of Syria, he wouldn't have had much to work with. But here he had Caramel and Mayon.
In the heart of Judah.
Because of someone else's faithfulness.
And that's a warning to us, I believe.
It's delightful to see the the young people and the young marrieds.
Until recently, I thought of myself as young, married.
But.
I was reminded.
Of a time.
I was in Southern California.
In my late teens and 20s and there was quite a young people's effort. The expenses and others devoted a lot of time to bringing the young people together and this particular weekend we had a ski weekend and we were in the mountains in Big Bear.
All.
Going skiing that day and there must have been.
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35 or 40 of us.
If anybody was there, they know. I'm not exaggerating. There was a lot of young people right in the Buena Park and Fullerton and and Burbank areas could have been more. And you know, we sang the songs, we listened to the ministry, we went to Toledo conferences together, we went to Chicago conferences together. We saw each other.
You know, face to face.
Weekend after weekend, trip after trip, Walla, Walla, wherever it was, we saw the same bright faces.
And here we were.
At this.
Ski weekend.
And.
I had the right to name that. I keep forgetting.
My wife makes me take notes. I try not to look at them, but John Tabor.
Some of us remember John Tabor, a very, very unusual.
Person.
And he stood up. It was a it was somebody had a short word. And then there was a, you know, some of the young brothers were encouraged to pray. And so we were all ready to go skiing.
But not John Tabor.
He stands up with his great big Bible and he turns to Isaiah 3314 and he says I want to read a verse.
And here's the verse. Who among us?
Shall dwell.
With the devouring devouring fire, who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
I'm an impatient type.
So.
You know, now that he got that off his chest, I was ready to go.
But he wasn't ready to go.
He said. I feel that in this room there is somebody who doesn't has not received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
And so, being antsy, I looked around the room and all familiar faces again.
We were growing up together.
Going to college, enjoying.
Hymn sings and all that. And I looked around at every face and I thought.
John, you have lost your mind.
And he would not sit down.
He stood there for 1/2 an hour.
And he said, I'm going to wait until you stand up and admit that you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.
And he just stood there.
And you could have heard a pin drop for 1/2 an hour. After 1/2 an hour he closed his Bible and we went skiing and five young people.
That were there.
In their later life proved.
That it is very likely they did not have life.
The names shocked me.
Not recovered, never turned back. Started on a path.
That never ended.
Still sinning to this day.
Out of 40 young people.
So that's why I turn to this passage, because.
I and you.
For the most part.
Our children of Caleb.
We have been given.
More than we know.
Not here to talk about myself.
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But.
Doctors told me a few years ago.
I was a dead man.
I was a Walking Dead man.
I laid in my bed. My wife can't stand hospitals, so I'm by myself.
And I want to tell you I had perfect peace.
Can't say I was rejoicing. Can't say I was afraid, Can't say I was apprehensive. I was just at rest.
Two doctors came to me later and they said we knew you were a believer.
No lost person.
Goes faces death without agitation.
And that's what I want for you tonight.
The peace of knowing.
That.
If the traveler knocks, you're ready.
This man.
Was not ready.
And there are some things here for us I'm going to run out of time.
Abigail.
I hadn't really. Most of what I had meditated on was this first part, but in reading this.
From.
Her talking to David. Maybe someone else has noticed this before, but it sounds like Hannah.
I mean, she is telling David you are not going to kill Nabal.
You are going to be king, and the Lord is going to sling your enemies. He is going to give you the Kingdom.
David didn't even believe that. Not really. He kept falling short of that. But Abigail, she knew who God's man was.
And you know.
Spiritual things are individual.
When I was first married, a guy, a man, young man, came to me and he said, a laboring brother told me this is an individual path. You're married, but you're responsible directly to the Lord. And that is where Abigail stood. He knew what God's will was. You know, I can hardly come to Denver without talking about the Continental divide.
And you know what I'm going to say?
This man came to the Continental Divide. 1 part goes into the Pacific Ocean. One part goes into the Atlantic, down the Mississippi or wherever it is. I don't know much on that side of the Rockies.
You.
Take the sample out of the Gulf of Mexico and you look at the markers and you look at the DNA and you look at the source and you're not going to find any water that went down the West side of the Rockies.
It either goes one way or the other.
And this world is planting in our minds the Gray area.
That if you mean well, God can accept you If if, if you don't do anything to offend anybody, that you're going to be OK.
I want to read you a verse.
And you say oh.
And here's the thing about Nabal. Do you think that Nabal, when he woke up every morning, thought?
I hate David.
I don't think he ever thought about David.
Until he made a claim.
And so you say, I respect Jesus Christ.
You don't have anything against God until he makes a claim.
Until he touches you. Till he puts his finger on you.
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Then you find out and he finds out.
Who is inside? And here's what the Lord says.
If I can find it.
I'll just quote it.
He that is not with me.
Is against me.
Nabal was not with David. Abigail was.
And the day before, I don't think he would have said one way or the other, but this day.
When the traveler came.
And the finger was put on him.
He reacted and he had a conscience.