Des Moines Conference: 1993
Table of Contents
Acts 7:43-50
The Love of Christ Constraineth Us
Address—R. Thonney
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To God on high.
Peace upon earth and joy, Goodwill to man. We who God's blessing prove his name. All names above sing now the Savior's love too vast to scan. Mercy and truth unite. Oh, it is a wondrous sight.
All Saints above Jesus, the curse sustains.
Guilts bitter cup he drains nothing for us remains.
Nothing but love.
Love that no tongue can teach.
Love that no thought can reach. No love.
Like his God is its blessed source.
Death ne'er can stop its course.
Nothing can stay its force.
Matchless it is number 142.
Glory to God.
On my.
Way.
Bring good God.
No.
I'm running a flight and door that May God respond.
Let's pray.
Blessed God our Father, we're so thankful for that matchless love that has been shown to the likes of us in bringing us to thyself.
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Right into thy holy presence, blessed God our Father.
We thank thee for our Lord Jesus, for what He has done on that cross.
For that tremendous sacrifice will never.
Never understand, blessed Savior, the awful depths to which thought is go there.
But here we are once again, just to express our gratitude. Lord Jesus, thanks from the bottom of our hearts to Thee for having done it all for us. And now, Lord Jesus, we realize that there ought to be a corresponding response from our hearts as well. And we would ask as we open into Thy precious word, that we might be.
Edified and exhorted according to the need that thou to see in each one of us. Gracious Father, we ask thy blessing now giving thanks in that most worthy name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Like to turn first of all to a verse in Second Corinthians chapter 5?
Just one verse here.
But that expresses something of the thoughts that I'd like to express this afternoon as well. Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.
For the love of Christ.
Constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all. That they which lived should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them, and rose again. Especially verse 14 was what was.
Before me this afternoon, the love of Christ.
Constraineth.
In Christianity, brethren, this is.
The moving power.
The love of Christ constraints us. It is not characteristic of Christianity, as it was in Judaism, to have a set of rules and laws and commandments. We do have commandments in Christianity, but they are the guides to those who love Him.
And so he says in John's Gospel, if ye love me, keep my commandments.
But it supposes that there is love there.
And so I'd like to meditate a bit upon this point. I really believe that we need to get back again and again to Calvary brethren, because that's where you see, as in Northern place, the display of the love of God.
God has been revealed.
In no place like he has been at the Cross of Calvary.
In the darkness of those hours, from 12 noon to 3:00 in the afternoon.
When Jesus was hanging on that cross where no human eye could penetrate.
There it is, brethren, that we get the blaze of the revelation that God not only is light, but that God is love.
And know how we need to get back there, because that's what's going to stir our affections.
And that's the power of Christianity going on.
It's the love of Christ that constrains. It's nothing outward.
Perhaps we feel sometimes the decay of the outward testimony, and perhaps we want to maintain that which is outward. But, brethren, what we have to realize is that there is no power in looking to that which is outward. The power is in the enjoyment of the love of Christ.
It speaks in the third chapter of the book of Ephesians that ye being rooted and grounded in love.
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What is it, brethren, that will keep us steady, that will keep us grounded? The root system of a tree is the part of a tree that is not seen.
It is underground, but it is an extremely important part of the tree.
And it is an extremely important part of our.
Christian lives to be rooted in love.
Sometimes, you know, in the outta panel of Bolivia, where I had the joy of being for a number of years and still have the joy of going once in a while.
You see trees.
There are very few and far between on those High Plains of 12,000 feet.
And the wind whips across those plains and beats those trees from one side and from another.
That you'll find that those trees are very, very difficult to push over.
They're well rooted because the winds of adversity have.
Pushed at them so much.
And God allows winds of adversity in our lives. Why? Because He wants us to get better rooted in the love of Christ. It is the love of Christ that constrains us. And brethren, if we come here just merely to talk about doctrine without.
Understanding the love of the truth.
There will be no power as we go back home to live in the enjoyment and the good of the.
Doctrines of Scripture, how wonderful they are in their place.
Oh, it's so important at this point. The love of Christ constraineth us. It's not some outward force, not some outward set of rules and regulations. It is something that is inward. It is the love of Christ that constrains us. I'd like to turn back to the book of Song of Solomon.
For a verse or two to.
Show this.
In first of all, it occurs in the second chapter.
That this verse with.
Small Variations occurs three times in this book.
Verse six and seven, really seven that I have in mind, but let's read verse six. You get the picture of the bride and the bridegroom together. The bride says in verse six. There she is and his embrace.
His left hand is under my head and his right hand embrace me. That's where the bridegroom loves to have his bride.
There, where she can feel and enjoy his love.
O brethren, no wonder should speak in times of apostasy and giving up.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. How we need to be kept in there in that position, brethren.
In the conscious enjoyment of his love toward us.
It does not change. Brethren, our estimation of the love of Christ changes, but it is not our estimation that is the rule or the norm. It is the revelation that He is given at Calvary. Sometimes we've said don't judge the Lord's love by your present, by your estimation of present circumstances. Don't do it.
If you want to know the Lord's love, go back again to Calvary. That's where you get the.
Full revelation of His love. And that's where we need to keep ourselves, brethren.
That's the only thing that will keep us steady in these last days.
An appreciation of his love. And so she is in his embrace. Now notice what?
He responds in verse 7.
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I charge you.
O ye daughters of Jerusalem.
By the Rose and by the Hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake, my love, till he please. I just want to call attention Mr. Darby's translation. There's a note that translates the last little phrase till he pleads.
It says till it pleases.
In other words, there is the bride in the embrace of the bridegroom.
His left hand under her head and his right hand embracing her.
And then she gives this charge.
That is so important to him.
Don't anything disturb her.
From this place, don't let anything stir up.
This love until it pleases.
In other words, all he wants there to be.
Of constrainment and movement is the result of.
His love in her heart, that enjoyment of his love.
In her heart, may that move him move her.
May that move you and me as well, dear young person, There is no more powerful motive to move for the Lord than the enjoyment of the love of Christ. I say this because sometimes it seems to me that many.
Are moved, perhaps, by what they believe the brethren expect of them. I say that will never satisfy his heart of love.
Everything can be in order in an outward way and he not be pleased.
That's what happened in Ephesus in the second Epistle to Ephesus.
In Revelation chapter 2, everything was in order.
But he said, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Oh dear young person, O dear older one too, are you living in the enjoyment of the love of Christ, in the enjoyment of His loving embrace? He wants that and that alone to stir you to action.
That nothing.
May stir the loved of the bridegroom from that position in his embrace, except it be his love in her heart.
Oh, how important it is. The love of Christ constraineth us. So there she is. And you'll find this verse repeated three times in this book of Song of Solomon. She's in his embrace and all. How he loves to have her. Just there, brethren. Circumstances vary. Sometimes the tunnel gets pretty dark.
Sometimes we don't understand God's ways.
And we don't have to understand his ways, brethren.
But we need to know that He is God and that He knows what He's doing.
Don't allow doubts to come into your mind as to His love.
If you are surrounded with circumstances that are very contrary and very difficult to understand.
And Satan is there trying to.
Pound in his darts.
His fiery darts of doubts as to his love. Don't let them in.
Put up the shield of faith. Don't let those darts in. He loves you.
He loves you with a love that will never be.
We'll never have an end, and we'll never be frustrated in His purposes of blessing towards you. Never, absolutely never. Oh, how wonderful to get a hold of this in the soul. Oh, how important there's going to be any measure of going on that would not be a mere outward form of things, any mere constrainment in an outward way, but that it be His love that moves.
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You and me.
In whatever way we may be moved.
I'd like to speak in the life of David.
Of two cases in which this is evidenced in First Samuel chapter 18, we have.
David, who had come back from the slaughter of the Philistines.
Remember, in the 17th chapter is where he has the encounter with Goliath.
Goliath, that mighty giant, almost 10 feet tall.
Perhaps.
And covered with armor.
None of the men of Israel wanted to go down and fight with him.
Saw the king who was head and shoulders above all the people, didn't want to even go.
And take up the challenge of Goliath. Here comes the shepherd boy from the countryside to see how his brothers are doing.
And he takes the challenge. He has proved God out in the countryside alone. And if you don't prove the Lord alone in your own home circumstances, you can't prove them in public, brethren, No, David had proved the Lord when he met a lion and a bear. But now here's this giant and.
David says I will go. I'm surprised that Goliath.
Let him excuse me. I'm surprised that Saul let him go down to fight.
Goliath, because a lot depended on that fight. Goliath had said, if I win the battle against a man that you choose, then you'll be my servants. But anyhow, Saul permitted it. Evidently he saw the faith of that young man. And David goes down into the valley of Elah. Must have been a tremendous sight. They're the Philistines all on one side and the Israelites all on the other side.
And amongst those Philistines, amongst those Israelites, is the King's.
Son Jonathan and he sees this stripling is what he's called.
Go down into the Valley of Elah. It seemed like an awful, unfair challenge. David, that shepherd boy. No armor on.
And an exterior way. He had the Lord as his shield, but he goes down with his shepherd's bag, with his staff, and with his sling, and he goes to meet Goliath.
Confident.
That God was going to deliver him into his hand, and instead of being afraid of getting near, he runs to meet that giant.
He slings his stone, he makes that giant fall on his face. He keeps right on a running until he's on top of that giant. He pulls out the giants own sword and cuts off his head and comes back with the giant sword in one hand and the giants head in another.
I think that would have been pretty impressive to watch.
Tremendously.
But there's one who is touched to the depths of his heart.
By seeing that sight.
David was called into the King's tent.
So that Saul could ask him whose son he was, as if he didn't know him yet.
But then it says in the 18th chapter and this is where I'd like to read.
Because here we have a case of the love of Christ or infigue, the love of David.
Constraining.
Jonathan, the King's son.
First Samuel 18 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul.
That the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul, and David took him that day and would let. And Saul took him that day and would let him.
Go no more home to his father's house than Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul.
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle.
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Who said that Jonathan had to strip himself and give all these things to David?
Was there somebody?
Demanding that he had to do this.
Absolutely not.
It was the enjoyment of David's love, how he put his life in his hand and gone down to meet that Philistine that captured Jonathan's heart.
And of his own accord, without anybody saying to it, he said. David, I love you.
Here's my robe, my princely robe here.
You can have it.
Here's my sword.
Sometimes in old pictures you see at the end of the battle, one general hands is soared to the other.
A sign of complete surrender.
His bow bow was something. Shooting a bows and arrows was something that was.
Taught, especially, perhaps Speaking of the talents.
It too was given to David.
Oh dear young person, I see many of you with real talents.
But sometimes it grieves my heart to see all those talents being used.
By some earthly enterprise for earthly prosperity.
And the Lord Jesus who went down into the valley of death for us.
Who met Satan in all his power and defeated him forever.
He is left to one side. It grieves my heart.
I'm not here to take up a rod and to scold you.
What I want to do this afternoon is to lead you back, if I come in some, if I can, in some small measure to the cross of Calvary, so that there might be in your heart as in mine as well, some similar response as there was in Jonathan to David.
David, I love you here. It is everything.
The rogue, the princely robe, those clothes you wear.
Young sisters. Young brothers.
Have they been given to David?
That sword of surrender, has it been given to the Lord Jesus?
Oh, when I go back to Calvary. Let's go back there a few brief moments right now. Dear young person, Dear older one too.
For when I see the evidence of self will.
In the lives of those who profess to be the Lord's people.
It is greedy.
We're living in a day when self will is glorified.
We're living in a day when democracy encourages.
You to stand for your own rights.
I say that is not Christianity.
That is not Christianity.
Let's go back to that cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. No one who had rights as Jesus did.
No one, absolutely no one. He lived every moment of his life here for the glory of God. No other motive motivated him than to do what was the will of His Father.
That was his meat, that was his drink.
In every way, he always did.
The will of his father, and yet at the end of his 33.
Years of life they took him those of his own people.
Who profess to uphold the very word of God that they had in their hands at that time.
And they sought false witnesses to put him to death. What is the response of?
Him in those awful circumstances when they.
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Sought for false witnesses.
He didn't open his mouth. He was as a lamb.
Sheep dung before her shears. He opened not his mouth. How different from us. And they took him to Pilot to condemn him again. Pilate saw very convincingly that there was no fault in that man, and yet to please the people he allowed him to be condemned to the death of crucifixion.
The most severe?
And painful death that was ever executed in those times, Crucifixion. And they took the blessed Son of God outside the city of Jerusalem, and they nailed him, those huge nails to a cross of wood. They hung him up there between heaven and earth. Look at his head.
Crowned with thorns. Look at his face, so marred more than any man. See him hang there as they're pounding those nails into his hands and feet. What is the response? Father? Forgive them, they know not what they do.
And as he hangs there for three hours, those religious men were passing by him, insulting him, jeering him, never a response of wrath towards them.
And then comes those awful, awful hours of darkness.
When it was no longer God, a man's place to deal with him, but God in all the holiness of His being during those awful hours of darkness, laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, and on him fell the full weight of the wrath of God for our sins.
He went down into the wave of the judgment of God.
He went down to the bottoms of the mountains.
He went down into depth for us.
He did it all, he finished that work and he gave up his life.
To God.
Oh, and I stand there and see that I say, how can I come away from that place and still insist on my rights?
On what I want, how can we do it? But this is what is very common even amongst.
Those who are believers in the Lord Jesus, you hear these expressions.
I will be heard. I have my rights and they're not going to tell me what to do.
Is that the expression of one who has stood at that cross to see?
The Lord Jesus give up every right He had for our blessing.
O brethren, how we need to get back to Calvary again to see.
That awful, awful sacrifice that was made there for us.
So Jonathan gave it all to David.
Even to his girdler. We would call that a belt. You know, it tells us in the New Testament. Gird up the loins of your mind.
In other words, the long flowing garments of that day had to be controlled as they walked along.
Otherwise they might wrap around their legs and trip them up and so before they.
Started walking. They had a kind of a belled affair and they took that and they tied up their garments, they controlled them, Peter says. Gird up the loins of your minds. Sometimes our thoughts go helter skelter one way and another. Sometimes we think bad of this brother and that brother.
Gird up the loins of your minds. Don't let your thoughts go in any direction.
Control them and if they start going in One Direction that you know is not right.
Control it.
Be careful what you read, young people.
Be careful what you read, older ones as well.
Because it will affect the way you think.
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Be careful what you watch.
It will affect the way you think. God will hold you responsible.
And He holds us responsible for the thoughts that we entertain. Sometimes thoughts come into our mind.
But if we entertain those thoughts, if we continue to hold them there.
Then we become responsible not just merely for coming into our minds, but.
For holding those thoughts geared up the loins of your minds, I'd like to go over to Second Samuel to consider another.
Three persons that are part of David's mighty men.
That have always challenged me.
Second Samuel, chapter 23.
And verse 13 and three of the 30 chief went down.
And came to David in the Harvest diamond to The Cave of Adulam.
And the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Raphael, and David was then and then hold the Garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed and said.
Oh.
That one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate. And the three mighty men breakthrough the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out into the Lord. And he said, Be it far from the old Lord, that I should do this. Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it.
These things did these three mighty men here we have these three mighty men and it doesn't seem like in relation to the.
Ones that are numerated before one of his mighty men killed 800 at one time.
Another killed 300 and there are various that did tremendous feats.
What did these three do that they're going to be named?
In David, in the list of David's mighty men.
They were close to David when David was in The Cave of a dolem.
They heard David express a desire.
No command here involved. It was just a desire. But you know, in the New Testament it speaks that word that we mentioned earlier. If you love me, keep my commandments. But there's another word, He that keepeth His word. In him, verily, is the love of God perfected. What does it mean? What is the difference between keeping His commandments and keeping His word?
I just like to think of it in this way, dear young people, keeping his commandments.
Are things that he's definitely told us to do or to not to do.
And if you really, truly have felt the love of Christ, those commandments will not be grievous. They won't be hard for you to fulfill for Him since He did so much for you.
But keeping his word goes even further. His word is the expression of all his mind.
And it's not only keeping his commandments, but it is keeping his word.
Here these three were close to David in that cave. It wasn't a very pleasant place to be.
That they were close to David and they heard this desire of his heart. David had been raised. He remember he was born in Bethlehem and as a youth he probably drank from this cistern a lot. And he said, oh, that one would give me water from the well of Bethlehem, that is by the gate.
These three heard that desire that David expressed.
They went.
That city of Bethlehem was surrounded with a Garrison of the Philistines, the enemy.
Is that going to stop them? Is that going to intimidate them?
No, they breakthrough the Garrison of the Philistines. These three, three against the Garrison, kind of.
Dangerous odds, I would say, but they breakthrough the picture. They met that well. Perhaps two holding off the Philistines while the other takes some kind of a container and dips it down into that cistern to get some water out for David. Again, they breakthrough the lines of those Philistines to take that water to David.
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Some mighty military feat. Is that what they had completed? No.
Just fulfilled a desire that David had.
Dear young people, can I speak a word to you this afternoon?
The Lord Jesus.
As he left his disciples here in this world.
Expressed a desire for his people that they.
Do this in remembrance of me until he came again.
To break that bread, to partake of that bread, to partake of that cup. Perhaps you say, well, I go to the breaking of bread meeting. I ask you, do you do that in remembrance of him? Doesn't seem like a great thing. You might say, well, I remember the Lord without doing that.
His word is this. Do Remember Me?
I just like to leave that on your heart. I cannot. I do not want you to do it because I said for you to do it. I want to lay His word on your heart.
And if his love stirs in your soul, dear young person, do it. Do it.
His commandments are not grievous. Dear young people, another thing I want to share with you that I really believe His love would stir you about, and I want to leave it in this way on your heart. Go over to the New Testament.
22 Corinthians, chapter 6.
And verse.
11.
O ye Corinthians.
Our mouth is opened unto you, our heart is enlarged.
You're not straightened in us, but you're straightening your own bowels.
Now for a recompense in the same I speak as unto my children, be ye.
Also enlarged.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness, And what concord hath Christ with Belial?
Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said.
I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate.
Set the Lord and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Here's the call to separation. Separation sometimes is a word that we shrink from. It is not positive.
Brethren, if it isn't positive, it's because we're looking at the from.
We're not looking at the two.
And another verse that we could read in conjunction with this is in Hebrews chapter 13. Perhaps we should just read that.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
Verse 12 and 13 Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people.
With his own blood suffered without the gate. Let us go forth. Therefore notice this part, brethren, unto him.
Without the camp bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
Here it is separation, and here's the power of separation, dear young person.
Unto him.
Without the camp unto him, who are we talking about? Jesus, the glorious Son of God, the one who went down into the waves of judgment to redeem you and me.
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Oh, that there would be that link of fellowship established between your soul and him, that burning of His love in your heart to stir you to go after Him.
It's not merely from.
Yes, it is involved leaving some things behind, but when we consider the other side.
20 It's so much more glorious and great and powerful and good unto him without the camp. What is the camp? I'd like to just say this relation to this. I think it's important to see sometimes we use this expression camp as if it meant Christendom, and I think it's important to see the difference, the campus Judaism.
We are never told to come out of Christendom. We cannot come out of Christendom without becoming apostates to Christianity. The only way to get out of the great House of Christendom would be to become an apostate.
We're not told to come out of cursing them. Sometimes our expressions kind of infer that, and I think we need to be careful how we express that. But we are told here to come out of the camp, that Judaistic system of things that was characteristic of what was pleasing to man in the flesh. These principles have been introduced.
Into the great House of Christendom, and we are to come out.
In whatever way that this system, religious system presents itself.
We are to come out of it. May we be exercised about coming out of it unto Him. Never let us forget the focus, brethren unto Him. It's not unto a group of brethren that were gathered, it's unto Him. There was no place for Him in that system of religion. They took Him outside. They nailed Him to a cross outside.
And now we are called to go outside the camp unto Him over other than. If the love of Christ constrains your heart and mind, it will be our great pleasure to do just that. We don't want it to be in just a mere outward form of things, like I said before.
There is too much of that today and I fear sometimes even when young people take their place at the Lord's Table, they do it because of pressure from their parents.
And it's not a lasting thing. Later on, the test comes and it shows that it wasn't.
Real. And that's why I want to be careful this afternoon not to insist on this.
Because the brethren expect it from you. No far be the thought. The desire is to lead you back to Calvary, to see that one who hung there. Who said this.
Do in remembrance of me.
Can I speak another word please, to your hearts, to young people and older ones too.
It says in Hebrews. Perhaps we can go back to the 10th chapter.
Reading verses 24 and 25.
Let us provoke one another unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
Here's a word, I don't know if we can call it a commandment or not. I'm not just sure of that myself.
But if it is not a command, it certainly is a word. Let us.
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Consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
Brethren, there's enough of the flesh in any of us to cause tremendous problems.
Not just in some other brother over there.
In my heart, there's enough of the flesh to do that.
But here's the exhortation. Let us consider one another to provoke.
And to love and to good works.
Do we know what that means, brethren? Sometimes we say, well, somebody has left. Yes, maybe they have.
What is our attitude? Do we know what it means?
To go after souls in love, to seek to win them.
We sometimes think we have to convince them of our point of view. That's not what the scripture says.
Provoke unto love and to good works.
What provokes love, brother, is love. It's the primer that primes that old pump that we used to have to pour some water in if you want to get some water out. And nothing provokes love in someone else like love shown from us ourselves.
You know, this love that it speaks is a love that loves when there's nothing lovable.
In the object.
Sometimes in my.
Visits amongst the Latin peoples in Bolivia and Peru. I've heard the complaint there's no love in this meeting.
Sometimes, say the person that complaints that way is the first one guilty. Because the kind of love we're talking about here is not a love that waits to be loved, it's a love that loves when there's no love there.
There's some reason why, your brethren.
That we have in John's Gospel and Epistles.
Seven times the exhortation or the command.
By the Lord Jesus to love one another. And it's not like we had in the Old Testament which said love thy neighbor as thyself.
Because we are not in the picture any longer, we are not the measure of that love, he now says. As I have loved you, there's the measure.
Have you loved like he's loved?
I have to confess first of all here, my brethren, that failed in this.
Not loved like that.
My sacrifice for the Lord's people has been very puny, paltry.
But as I look at his sacrifice, I see the measure that we are exhorted.
To love as he loved us.
And so we're exhorted to provoke one another, and to love, and to good works.
Then the next verse says, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.
It's so easy to leave off the meetings, dear young person. I know you've got a lot of studies from school, a lot of homework, and again I say I don't want you to do this because I told you to do it.
Remember a young fellow that I knew?
Some years ago.
Who was studying medicine in university?
But in all the times that I knew him, he never missed a meeting.
Even though he had tests the next day maybe once or twice he missed but.
I really appreciated the devotion he showed.
And the desire to be right there where the Lord had asked him to be.
Yes, it might mean some sacrifice on your part. You might have to mean regulating your time, getting onto your homework when you get home from school so that you can be at the meetings. But it is a tremendous encouragement for you to be there, dear young person.
And those who are older as well, sometimes we get slack. Sometimes we say, oh, I'm so tired. I think the Lord understands and I'm tired. Yes, the Lord does understand that you're tired.
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The Did he complain of being tired as he carried that cross out of Jerusalem?
Did he complain or did he go all the way? Dear brother, dear sister, I want to stir your heart.
I'm not laying down a rule here that you've got to be at all the meetings. No far be that thought. Please remove that from your mind if that's what's there.
It's because of the love of Christ. If you feel His love, you will want to be there. It is not because of any outward constrainment. It is the love of Christ that constrains.
One other thing before I close this afternoon that I want to lay on your conscience.
And on mine as well.
And it is.
In the end of Matthew's Gospel.
28.
Verse 18 Jesus came and spake unto them, saying all power.
Is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore.
And teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit.
Spirit, Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever. I have commanded you the law, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world. Amen.
This simply this because this command, in a varied form, is repeated in each of the four gospels.
To take the good news of the gospel out.
This isn't something that is for justice. A few who are gifted evangelists.
Yes, God has gifted certain ones very specially in this work.
But each one needs to consider.
This responsibility to carry the good news out. Brethren, we're living in a day of unprecedented opportunity for the gospel. I'm amazed still, and I go down into Latin America, the openness of people to talk about the Lord, to talk about the word of God.
Many of those countries, you can go to somebody's home, they'll invite you right in. You can sit down and open up the word.
It's not like it is so much up here, even though up here there's an increasing People are increasingly aware of an emptiness in their souls and they need the gospel too. You and I are responsible. This is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace. Brethren, you and I are responsible to carry out the message.
Russia is wide open for the Word of God.
Is there somebody that feels?
The responsibility and view of that open door to carry the scriptures into that country.
You could form a lot of different excuses, but I say.
As someone else said at one time, given the clarity of the command of Christ to carry out the message.
Perhaps we need to consider if we have a call to stay home and rather.
Then consider if we have a call to go out.
Dear young person, I just want to lay this word on your soul as well.
You and I are responsible. There's parts of this world that are dying in war right now.
Millions are starving to death in Africa and are we content just to sit here and do nothing?
Dear young priest person, I lay the responsibility of this word on your soul and your conscience.
May you be exercised, may nothing else move you save the love of Christ. Let's just pray. Gracious God our Father, we're so thankful for thy love that reached down, that picked us up, that brought us to God.
We're asking at this moment, Gracious Father, that there may be some corresponding response in our hearts.
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To that great love, bless thy word, we pray. May it not be from any outward constrainment that we move.
But because of an enjoyment of the love of Christ, we pray thy blessing, gracious Father.
In the name of the Lord shall.
Colossians 3:1-7
Reading
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82880 thou whose mercies far exceeds all we can do or say is #288.
He was on those mercy.
Mercy.
From every.
Arm away.
From him.
I say it's our goal.
Hell.
For me.
Or three.
Colossians 3.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, For ye are dead, and your life is hit with Christ in God, when Christ who is our life.
Shall appear. Then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Mortify therefore your members, which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things seek the wrath of God, cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which he also walked sometime when he lived in them. But now ye also put off all these.
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Anger. Wrath, mouse. Blasphemy, Filthy communication out of your mouth.
Lie not one to another, seeing that you put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the Newman, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, Where there is neither Jew, Greek, nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision.
Barbarian, Scythian, born nor free, but Christ is all and in all put on therefore, as the elect of God, Holy and beloved, bow the mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering for bearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any.
As Christ forgave you, so also do ye, and above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
And let the peace of God ruin your hearts to the which also ye are called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns.
And spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever ye do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves under your own husband as it is fit in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing under the Lord. Father, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
Servants, obey in all things your masters, according to the flesh, not with eyes service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord, ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance. For ye serve the Lord Christ but he that doeth wrong.
Shall receive for the wrong which he has done, and there is no respect of persons.
Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.
One could say that we have here the practical application.
Of the truth we've had before being dead and risen with Christ.
There was a risen man alive upon the earth for 40 days, and he went up to heaven.
The viewpoint here is something that won't be in actuality when we won't be risen men alive upon the earth, but in Christ we are.
Go back to the second chapter.
Verse 12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye arisen with him.
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Through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision your flesh, has he quickened, or given life to together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses?
We are dead and risen with Christ.
If he then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Our object.
Is now above Christ and glory.
What we get in connection with the death of Christ is what we might term the other.
Part of the gospel we read in Romans one that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
To everyone that believeth the Jew 1St and also to the Greek, Well, the first part of the gospel we might say.
That's the power of God, and salvation is a salvation from our sins.
Were released through the precious Blood of Christ.
From the guilt that we accumulated by our many offenses against God.
But this aspect that we have before us here of being dead with Christ is the power of God that sets us free from the power of sin in our life, so that we can now live to the glory of God and free from the influences that once ruled our life. It's the power of God and the salvation that delivers us from the present power of sin in our daily life.
Chapter 2, verse 20 we have Wherefore if he be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why is the living in the world? Are you subject to ordinances? There we have, you might say, the negative side. We're dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world. If you go back a little in chapter 2, verse eight, he says, beware, lest any man spoil you.
Through philosophy and vain deceit.
After the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
The The danger at Coliseum was to be carried away by man's philosophy and man's religion. They deceived and the death of Christ, and our death with him.
It delivers us from that. In Romans 6, our death with him is to sin delivers us from sin, but here it's delivering from all the wisdom and the religion of the first man, that which man can glory in putting himself under some kinds of rules and regulations. So he's talking about spoiling the Saints in verse 8 again.
Through philosophy that's the world's wisdom and vain deceit, the world's religion after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And so in verse 20 we are dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, And if that be so, he asks the question. Since it is so, he asked why is the living in the world as though you were just a man living in this world?
Are you subject to ordinances? We're no longer viewed, from the standpoint of the Epistle to the Colossians as living in this world. We've died with Christ, and now we are seen, as our chapter begins, as risen with Him. And then we are to seek those things above, so as, having died with him, were delivered from all that which the first man.
Aspires after man's wisdom, man's religion.
We're dead to those things. Not just dead to sin. That's Romans. But here in Colossians, dead to the whole elements and principles of this world, the world system. We're now risen with Christ, and we're in a new world where Christ is. And so we we've been transferred from this world to another one, and we belong to that heavenly scene where Christ is. And so to put ourselves for Christians to put themselves under law.
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Or to get involved in the world's philosophy and psychology and all of these things?
We have died to this and we now have a new order of things that we've been introduced into.
And a new wisdom. It's the wisdom of God that He's given us in His precious word, not the wisdom of man. So the death of Christ not only delivers us from our sins, not only delivers us from sin as the power that of the evil nature that works within us, but delivers us from the very elements, rudiments, principles of the world that we are passing through. So the Christian is a heavenly man now risen with Christ.
And in the power of that risen light we enjoy another scene. And the the Epistle to the Ephesians goes one step further. We're seen as seated in the heavenlies in Christ. Colossians takes you across the Jordan and into the land, dead and risen with Christ. We've crossed the Jordan, and Ephesians puts us into the land in the. In the.
Possession of it seated.
In the heavenlies in Christ, Romans delivers us from Egypt.
And from the power of sin and the power of Pharaoh. And it's the Red Sea aspect of the death of Christ. But in Colossians and Ephesians we have what answers to crossing the Jordan.
Things in the second chapter.
Of Colossians, we have philosophy, which is the wisdom of this world. We also have Judaism, and we have idolatrous.
Things and all of these three things.
Say nothing to us who are new creatures in Christ. We have nothing to do with them. And the law, when we think of that, was given to men in the flesh. But we who have died, the law has nothing to say to us any longer. It's not for us. And so why? As if alive, still subjecting ourselves to rules and regulations. But that is exactly.
What?
Man is still seeking to do, and even in the name of Christ, but that is not Christianity. Christianity is that we are a new creature in Christ. And because we are a new creature of Christ, we have not only died with Him, we are now living with Him. We are risen with Him. We have a new life, and that is governed by altogether different principles.
And there is a new nature now that we have, which delights in the world and truth of God. And the Spirit of God empowers that life, but that life is also not at all connected with this world or with this earth. I think this is a very distinct difference that we should notice that he doesn't say in.
These in verse two, set your affections on things above, not on the things in the world.
He says under things unearthed, it has often been pointed out. There is such a thing as earthliness, earthly minded, you know, seeking all.
In connection with this earthly life, as if this is all that our life consists of, and as if Christianity is only given to improve life on earth. No, this life is connected with heaven. It's a heavenly life.
And that which we have in Christianity as our true blessing is all above and is not on the wilderness side of Jordan. The wilderness side of Jordan was really answered to blessings connected with this earthly life. It is on the other side, the resurrection side. It's the promised land, or for us, the heavenlies if we understand that, beloved.
We would be exercised not to exert all our energies to accumulate a lot of things in this world which are really.
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Or might well indicate that we are earthly minded. We ought to set our things, our hearts and things, above where the Lord Jesus is. Our spiritual blessings. That's where our blessings are not on earth.
In 2 1/2 drives that didn't cross the Jordan, they asked for their inheritance.
On the Egypt side, shall we say, of the Jordan, they chose it because they had a lot of cattle. They chose that inheritance for present advantage.
That's why they chose that in her for present advantage. Lot chose the well watered plains of Jordan for present advantage.
The 2 1/2 tribes were the first to be carried away captive. They're ones we need to be careful. And you, dear young people, in setting out in life, be careful that you don't choose just for present advantage. What is going to please the Lord? What is? What would he have us to do? We should ask ourselves. And so here.
We are dead and risen with Christ. Set your affection or your mind on things above, not on things on the earth has already been said. Are we earthly minded or are we going to be interested in spiritual things our dear brother brought before us the cross and the love of Christ had toward us?
There and giving himself for us, may that touch our conscience.
That we desire his things.
That his things are precious to us.
Those heavenly things.
It might be.
Interesting to turn back to Joshua.
Chapter 22.
Here in this chapter, Joshua sends back the army of the 2 1/2 tribes that you've done everything you should do. Now go home and enjoy your inheritance when we go to Chapter 7.
To verse 7. Rather now to the 1/2 betrayed Manasseh, Moses had given possession invasion.
That's the half pride that has just gone back across the Jordan, but under the other half thereof. This is the half that values the things of Canaan.
But in the other half thereof gave Joshua among their brother on this side Jordan westward.
And when Joshua sent them away also under their tents, then he blessed them, and he spake unto them, saying, Return with much riches under your tents, with very much cattle, with silver, and with gold, and with brass, and with iron, And with very much Raymond divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren. What a blessing they had compared to the other, because they value the things of cadence.
They valued the possession in Canaan, not on the other side of Jordan.
They're ones will find it the same in our own lives. Those things, spiritual things, those things above, will find them precious to our souls.
Like to mention in chapter 2 That we're considering before going on to chapter three that speaks as was pointed out in verse 13 of being dead and in verse 12 it speaks of being varied and then risen again.
And I think that's an important point to to consider.
The importance of seeing our present position in Christ is.
Dead, buried, and risen again.
They say that because there's a strong movement today and it is affected our thinking sometimes.
That.
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In psychological circles that speaks of the importance of a man keeping his self esteem up and to rebuild his self esteem to have self love, to have self worth. It's all a self-centered picture and it goes along with the society that we live in that makes man such.
A center of everybody's thoughts. Democracy foments that. What do the people want? It's not what God says. It's not what God thinks, what he gives us in his word. It's what do people think? And So what has come into even Christian circles, Evangelical Christian circles, you hear a lot of self esteem.
But when God has accepted us in Christ, he has put us now into a position where we as men in the flesh are dead. Not only dead, but we're buried. And something that's buried is out of sight. It's gone from public view. And I think it's extremely important to see that that's our position in Christ rather, and then risen again as well.
And now that we are risen again, the object that's set before us is not self at all. To speak about self esteem, rebuilding self esteem is really Judaism. It's going back because Judaism contemplated man in the flesh.
But in Christianity, that's where we start. How important to get these basic truths.
Settle in our souls, especially for those of us who are younger, but for us all, brethren, we don't understand them. And I say one thing more if we don't live in the enjoyment of these things, then these other ideas are going to creep in and they have crept in rather than even amongst those.
Got into the Lord's name that crept in these ideas, brethren, We need to get back to enjoy where God has put us in Christ.
Dad, whether it's connection with the religious system of things, this worldly system, or whether it's in connection with our sins, our sin nature, we're dead. Let them buried and risen again. And now the object before us is not self. Brethren, thank God. It's behind. It's God.
It's in the grave. It's buried. We have a light that's above now, Christ before the soul. So we're not looking in brethren. We're looking up into the glory of God. May I repeat something that he'll cross a number of years back?
Stated in Calgary as to psychology, he said that psychology deals with the condition of fallen man so as to preserve his pride. I think that's very well put, but let me add to what Brother Bob has, said Mr. Schuler, excuse me for mentioning his name, but he has great influence in prison done today speaks of possibility thinking.
And what it really amounts to is.
That if you can imagine something, you can accomplish it, and it's all connected with success on Earth.
And that is not Christianity. That's Judaism. Let me read a verse in First Timothy chapter 6.
Because that's so good to consider in this connection.
In verse 5.
Perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth. Supposing that gain is godliness from such withdraw yourself, but it really means is that through godliness you have material gain. Paul speaks of that as people with a corrupt mind we ought to withdraw from.
You know, I believe that many faithful Christians have suffered great loss in a material way because of their faithfulness to Christ. They have not been promoted. You just ask the brethren in Egypt. You know, they might far excel any masculine, but he will be hired and given the position of management because he's a master. And the much more capable Christian has to be satisfied with a menial job if he gets it in the first place.
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So that is the portion of Christians. But what will make up for it is if the heart is enjoying the true riches that which we have in Christ, that inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away preserved for us in heaven, and that we can already by faith and joy, if we don't enjoy these things and then have to suffer loss.
And lose out.
It will be a very hard thing, but the Lord will make up for it if our hearts are in the enjoyment of the things that really count not only for life but for eternity. Now, having said that, I don't believe we should in any way convey the idea that the blessings represented under wilderness side of Jordan are not things that God has for His people, because I believe they also were for His people.
The extent of the land that they will possess in the coming day will also include those parts, but I believe, and he imparts that life to us. To those who are his redeemed, he imparts that life.
But though they don't understand now, they will understand in that day of manifestation. I think that's an encouragement to you and I.
To not have to be understood, we don't have to be understood by the world now.
And that day just think of it, brethren, When Christ comes in glory, every eye shall see him, and where he's going to be, accompanied by his myriads of the redeemed, we're going to be seen as with them.
Then they will say that person I knew when I was down here in this world.
Before in his life I always thought he was strange. Now I understand why he lived that way. Now I understand our life is going to be manifested. It's a real encouragement, brother.
Give us a life, the life of Christ himself and Christ who is our life. We have that life, and that life can enjoy these heavenly things.
The man of the world can't enjoy them because he hasn't got that life. But we have the life of Christ, and because of that we can enjoy these heavenly things. There's an expression that is.
Sometimes use a Christian will talk to an unsafe person and he says I shared Christ with him. No, you don't. You don't share Christ with an unsaved person. You preach Christ to them, but they can't appreciate Christ. You can share Christ with a St. with a fellow believer, but you can't share Christ with the ungodly because they need to be born again. They need a new life so that they can appreciate him. Otherwise he can't be shared. So we share Christ with one another.
But we don't share Christ with the world.
They have an old nature.
Each one of us have an old nature, but here it's not given the.
The no received of being alive says Mortify your members which are upon earth.
The old nature in the place of death, and we are to mortify those things.
Which are the fruits of the old nature, put them in the place of death, and we.
Live in the good of the new nature, that life of Christ himself.
It's very significant that it says to mortify your members.
The old man was crucified.
The old nature has been condemned.
But it's enjoined on us here to mortify our members, because it is only as we yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, that the old nature can express itself. So it's to control our behavior and that which we lend these members that we are exhorted. The old man is dead, old nature is condemned, and it is I who, with my will lends a hand, if you please, to the old man, or the old nature to give expression to itself. So I'm to recognize.
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Remember Dad?
In First Timothy.
Chapter 6, verse 19 we have laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on and then another translation renders it lay hold on what is really life. Could someone comment on that?
Is that does that connect with the subject?
That would be those heavenly things that we're to seek. Those are the things which are really life. The things that are down here are not those things that are heavenly. Our portion. Those things are really life.
This is freaking.
Of those that have someone of this world's goods, but they're not to lay any store on them, they're to lay hold on these heavenly things which are really life.
This fifth verse.
You was mentioning.
The if we hold our members as dead to sin.
Then the evil nature, sin within, can't express itself through those members. And that's what you have. Starting with that list, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry. Those aren't our members, but those are the things that are expressed through our members when we don't hold our members dead to sin. So those are the things that our members do. And if we mortify our members, put to death our members and hold them in that place.
Then these things will not express themselves through us.
Mortifying our members is exactly what the Lord intended to convey when He said if I hand offend thee, cut it off.
Please explain that a little more. We don't actually actually cut off.
Please go ahead.
It just self judgment and we are never to be merciful to ourselves. Cut it off. No mercy to self judge. Let it be completely done.
First, John three has been quoted this second verse.
We are beloved, now are we the sons of God, And it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, as an explanation of that life. And then instead of taking the exhortation on the negative side, mortifying your members, it takes the positive side and says, Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure, which is.
A motivating thing like we heard this afternoon to go on for God, that wonderful word, pure, even as he is pure. Every man that hath this hope in him. That's the Lord's coming. We have the Lord's coming before us. We won't let these members that we have in the body As long as we're here act, we'll have a positive reason for pleasing God.
Even as she.
Unjust servant, the wicked servant said in his heart My Lord delayed his coming that he began to eat and drink with a drunken, and to beat the maidservants and the mint service. It is a purifying element to have an imminent expectation of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ before our soul. Lose that and what happens? The Church lost it early in her life, and she fell into the dark Ages. Lose the hope of the coming of the Lord.
And it leads to the allowing of these members to express themselves in these unholy things that we have before us in our chapter.
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16156.
Insurance spikes the core touches. We are hearts and things.
Praise the Lord 156.
And.
A Curse and a Blessing
Gospel—E. Tonn
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The word of God says.
In the beginning was the word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was gone.
In another place it says.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ.
The son of David, the son of Abraham.
And another place it tells us the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And in yet one more place, it says.
That you might know the certainty of the things in which you have been instructed.
If you were here this afternoon, or if you were not here, rather.
We had brought before us.
Somewhat of the deliverance from.
This world's principles and philosophies and thoughts.
The thoughts of men would tell you that there are no absolutes.
But these verses that we have quoted from the word of God, especially the last verse.
Gives us absolute certainty that the gospel of God's grace that we.
Are announcing tonight.
Can be believed. This is a faithful saying.
And worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world.
To save sinners. So it's our delight to tell you of a living savior tonight. So if you would please, let's look at him, She and turn to #14. We'll sing together.
Ah, the Precious, Precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that avails to take away.
Sin #14 on your hem sheet, please.
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing?
The word of God says come now, let us reason together.
Saith the Lord, Though your sins be a scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and though they be red like Crimson.
They shall be as wool the cleansing virtue of the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is described in his precious word as waiter than any.
Fuller or London can wash them. And so it is. We turn to the precious word of God tonight.
The reason with you for a few moments about the eternal destiny of your never dying soul. And if there's one in this room, only one who has never opened his heart to the grace of God and received the message from God's heart as it is in truth. Not the word of a preacher, not the word of man, but of truth, the word of God. We implore, we beg and plead with you at this moment to open your ear.
To that blessed story, that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life, as my soul was exercised in the presence of God. As to what to bring before this audience, tonight my thoughts turn two sets of 2 And so I would like to turn first of all to the book of Deuteronomy, to speak to your heart.
To bring before your conscience some issues that you must face.
When you pass from this scene or before you pass from this scene, Deuteronomy Chapter 11, verse 26.
Behold, I set before you this.
Day a blessing.
And a curse.
Solemn words.
And blessed words and I'm going to take them up.
00:05:00
In the reverse order from which they are mentioned here.
Because of the weightiness of what lies ahead.
I sat before you this day a curse. The word of God says now is the accepted time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. And so God is speaking to you, bringing before you two conditions.
The condition of a curse and a condition.
Of a blessing. And these are the only two conditions in which you can exist.
Before God, you either have the curse of God resting over you and the only expectation.
Of a certain judgment to come, or you are in the enjoyment of blessedness.
That this preacher, nor any in the room, can describe, until we reach that blissful place on high where we are released from the throes of this body to sing and speak that language that one of old has heard in words that cannot be uttered.
And so we have the thought of a curse and the thought of a blessing.
Two conditions that exist, one of which.
You exist in today.
God said to Adam.
Because thou hast eaten the fruit of which I commanded thee, saying no, not to eat.
A curse is upon this land, and in sorrow thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life.
Sin has brought a curse into the world, and everyone who has not yet received the Lord Jesus Christ, his Savior. Everyone who has not yet believed the message that God is speaking to you and has doubtless spoken to you on other occasions, you rest under that.
Awful.
Judgment A curse.
Those who would come seeking in some way.
To present themselves to God.
By a way other than that blood sprinkled away of which we spoke, the book of Galatians tells us rest under the curse because it says cursed is everyone who continues not in all things that are written in the book of law to do them.
There is no other way to escape the curse.
Then through the gospel of the grace of God that tells you of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ to give himself.
A ransom for your soul.
But we are so thankful tonight that we do not have.
Only the information that this world lies under a curse, and that your only expectation is a fearful judgment of God if you have not received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. But we have the joyful news to declare this evening that there is a blessing.
We read in the precious word of God.
Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven.
And whose sins are covered? Blessed is the man to whom God will not impute.
Sin.
We read.
Of blessing with all spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. This is the portion of those who, having heard the word of truth, believe the gospel of their salvation. So we have two conditions brought before us, a blessing and a curse, and the next two verses give us some of the characteristics of those two conditions.
Verse 27 A blessing if you obey the commandment of the Lord your God.
Which I command you this day, and a curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside.
Out of the way.
If the Lord enables us, and if the Lord Jesus Christ has not come, within a few moments we will speak about the way. But here we have the characteristics of those two conditions, one of which.
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You exist before God at this moment, the characteristic of those upon whom the curse exists.
Is they are children of disobedience.
Which in times past we had, we walked in the course.
Of this age, according to the power of the spirit, of the power of the air, who works in the spirit of the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom we also had our conversation in time past.
Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, doing that which the mind and the flesh will to do. These are the characteristics of those under the curse. Children of wrath, even as others, no hope without God and without Christ in the world. The curse of sin leaves an eternal stamp on the soul of that individual who will not come to the Lord Jesus Christ, he said to the Pharisees.
Ye would not come unto me in order.
That you might have life children of disobedience.
The characteristic of those that are blessed we mentioned in.
Romans chapter 4. There's another in the Peters epistle that says elect according to God.
Through the sanctification of the Spirit, onto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ the curse, if ye will not keep the commandment.
It is a commandment from God, beloved.
That all men everywhere repent. For he has appointed a day in which he shall judge the world in righteousness by that man who sits at his right hand at this hour, because he gave his life up as a ransom to God in full payment of the sinner's guilt. And so we have two conditions.
With opposite characteristics indicating those two conditions. In which condition do you stand before God tonight? That issue has to be faced before you pass into eternity, because we know from the word of God.
That once the soul passes out of this scene we read in the 16th of Luke, that's a great gulf is fixed between the righteous and the wicked, so that none can pass from one to the other. That gulf is not fixed tonight, dear heart, but the moment one passes into eternity the condition in which he existed at the departure of his spirit.
Is the condition in which he shall spend all eternity. There's a verse in.
The Word of God that says As the tree lies fall, so shall it lie.
Solemn words, solemn issues, Issues That Must Be Faced In Time Before Eternity Begins. And Who knows at What Moment One May Pass From Time Into Eternity Most not Thyself of Tomorrow. For a man knoweth not What a Day May bring forth. Thank You, Brother.
Now we're going to turn to the New Testament.
And we are going to look in the book of Matthew's Gospel.
We spoke that we might, we would speak about two ways.
Matthew Chapter 7.
Two courses of conduct if you please.
Very brief little word with very sober consequences. Matthew, Chapter 7 and verse 13.
Enter ye in at the straight gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is the way.
That lead us to destruction.
00:15:00
And many there be which go in thereat.
Because street is a gate and narrow the way.
Which leadeth unto life.
And few there be that find it. Many are called we took up in our reading meeting.
A portion of the book of Colossians this afternoon. As most of you know, had we read in that first chapter of that epistle, we would have seen the universal aspect of the gospel of God's grace preached to every creature under heaven. And here it is being preached tonight to the sinners here who may not yet have taken God's judgment against themselves, as we often say, having taken sides.
With God against oneself. And we will speak about that in just a few moments.
If the Lord tarries, and I keep using that expression, beloved very advisedly.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, Behold, I come quickly.
Scoffers say oh, but that was 2000 years ago.
True God recorded it in his Word nearly 2000 years ago.
The words of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, Behold, I come quickly.
Let the scoffer scoff.
Faith's answer is it makes it sooner than it was.
It's true the Lord Jesus Christ could come any moment.
Not one item remains to be done.
Except for the last soul to believe.
To be saved. Will you be that one?
We have brought before us two courses of conduct here.
Two ways that lead to two different destinies.
You see how simple things are with God. He reduces them to the bottom line, as we say in the business world.
Where will you spend eternity? The word of God says.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
What does that tell you about us? What does that tell you about the individual?
Who chooses for himself the way he shall go.
The word of God says.
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man.
And the end they're off are the ways of death.
The enemy would have you think there is ample time the enemy.
Of your soul who would love to see you in the pit with himself. We read in the word of God that the that the hell was made for the devil and his angels. And I'm sure that many of you in this room have heard people say in a light and flippant manner.
There's plenty of time.
I have plenty of friends there.
No.
There will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth if one continues on that course.
On the Broadway because it leads to destruction.
Destruction in this context is the blackness of darkness forever.
Where the fire is not quenched, and where the worm dieth not.
I have often thought, beloved, that one of the consequences.
Of having taken the broad road to destruction is.
I could have missed it if I had only believed the conscience is at work.
The worm dieth not.
And the evil of man's heart is said to have been only.
Evil continually. The heart of man is desperately wicked.
Is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it?
You know the answer to that question. There are some here who do.
I try the reins. God knows the heart, and he knows what you're thinking at this moment.
The thoughts of men's hearts are known to God.
And he's looking inside.
Oh, I stand here and I look. Cannot tell.
00:20:02
What are the thoughts of many?
But the thoughts of a man's heart are known to God.
And so there is a Broadway and I have enjoyed very much what I heard a young man say not too many months ago.
There is one good thing about the Broad Rd. the course.
Of a man's life, One of the two courses of a man's life that he can take.
One good thing of the Broad Rd. is as room to turn around.
God commandeth all men to repent. Is it going to be a path of obedience?
To come to God in self judgment, as we will see a man in a few minutes who did.
Or is it going to be going on with the masses?
When you really think of it.
The few of us in this room and the ones in this city.
Who really belong to the Lord?
Are few by comparison to the many.
When you read of 100,000 people.
Congregating to watch a sporting event.
Difficult to conceive.
But there they are.
The Broad Rd. leads.
To destruction. The enemy of your soul would have you with him in that awful place.
But as with a blessing and with a curse, there are two courses of conduct.
And one is the.
The narrow way that leads to life.
The Lord Jesus Christ himself said I am the way, the truth.
And a life no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
And so there is a way of escape from that broad Rd. when one indeed turns in repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
He's on the narrow Rd. on his way to glory.
Assure for glory as if he were already there, it was referred to.
Reading this afternoon that we are raised up together and seated together in heavenly places.
In Christ, that's the end of the narrow way It does my heart great good.
To look into the glory by the faith I and see a man exalted at God's right hand.
Because it tells me what is the end of the road of obedience to God in that condition of blessing. What was it?
It was in the obedience of faith.
Naaman the leper went down to Israel's king.
With a letter from the Syrian king seeking help from his leprosy.
And when finally he reached the source of blessing, the prophet's door and was given direction from God like your heart and mind, his first response was rebellion.
And an insignificant servant, we might say, challenged his master.
If he had given thee some mighty work to do, would you not have done it?
Why? They're not, as we say in the obedience of faith, follow the word of God.
And be made whole there is a.
Destiny. That is a blessing, and there is a destiny.
That is a curse if.
Under Moses Law.
Souls died without mercy.
In the witness of two or three.
Of how much?
Sore judgment shall he be thought.
Who has denied the son of God and trampled under foot?
The blood of the covenant by which he was washed and on despite.
To the Spirit of grace.
The destiny.
Of those who are on the right, Rd.
Is but to be judged eternally, as the Lord Jesus Christ himself said in the 25th chapter, 25th chapter of Matthew to some, and they went away into everlasting punishment. That's the wide Rd.
But the narrow Rd. leads to life and we quoted that verse from John chapter 14, verse 6.
The way the truth and the life, the life of heaven, brought here and given to you and me, when we accept God's judgment against ourselves and flee for mercy to that blessed cross of Calvary to which we were so well pointed this afternoon.
00:25:11
Where sin abounded, grace over abounded, when man, in his highest act of infamy against the Creator, raised up his hand.
And Pierce the side of the blessed Son of God, We often sing in one of our hymns.
The very sphere that pierced thy side drew forth the blood to save. So when man exhibited his absolute worst in sinfulness against his God, God, in matchless, wonderful, indescribable grace, over abounded and forth from that dark scene of Calvary's hill came the Precious Blood of which we sang the Blood.
That cleanses from all sin the blood of Jesus Christ his Son Cleanseth.
From all sin, so that we are fit for heaven, we read in that first chapter of our Epistle to the Colossians.
That we have been translated out of the Kingdom of darkness, and translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, and made to be suitable, fit, made to be fit to be partakers of the portion of the Saints in light. All that you need to go to heaven is to have your sins forgiven. All that God could do, He has done, He provided the needed sacrifice.
And so now believing what God has said.
Believing what the Lord Jesus Christ has said, he said in John Chapter 3.
Speak that which we know, and testify of that which we have seen. He came from the Father's house.
He came from heaven.
To make heaven known. To make the heart of God known.
And said, and you receive not our witness.
So what do we have then? Two conditions and two ways. The Broadway leads to destruction, but you need not remain on that way. And the straight and narrow way that leads to life. What is it that makes the straight and narrow way?
It excludes evil, beloved, because the word of God says that there enters not one thing there.
That defiles or makes a lie. So we have two conditions.
And we have two ways that lead to those two destinies.
Now we'll look.
At two companies, Matthew 25.
Matthew 25, two.
There are two companies in this room tonight. They love it.
These two companies are described as wise and foolish.
Are you wise tonight?
The wise.
Take God at his word.
The proverb says The wise foreseeeth evil and hideeth himself.
The evil is that curse that's been pronounced upon man. The evil is that wide Rd. that leads to destruction and the wise. Here's the word of God receives it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth the word of God, and hides himself. And Oh my blessed friend, the only place of refuge is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The city of refuge that God himself has provided for the guilty Sinner.
The wise foreseeeth evil, and hideth himself.
But what about this foolish company?
It says in our Bible that.
Verse three of Matthew 25 they that were foolish.
Took lamps.
And took no oil with them.
Have you made a profession?
Of. Belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The question for everyone in this room who has professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is.
Am I real?
Or am I counterfeit?
00:30:03
There are these here, one of the companies who were foolish.
Indeed, they had a lamp.
They professed late, carried a lamp, but they took no oil with them. There was no source of light within.
How foolish, how foolish would I be in a room full of darkness with a flashlight and no batteries?
Like the virgins who had a lamp and no oil. Like you, if you have made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as a boy or a girl in your youth.
Gone on as a counterfeit.
We read.
Of a man in the Old Testament.
Whose wife was a godly woman.
And who himself was a fool?
Is it possible that your husband or wife? Your father or mother?
Is genuine.
And you're a falsehood.
Think of poor, poor, benighted Judas Iscariot.
Being in the company of the disciples, so as to be.
Exposed as to having a demon.
The Disciples didn't know he was a demon.
His behavior was so exemplary that when the Lord said one of you is a demon, he said, they all said, is it I? Is it I?
And even when Judas knowing his duplicity, his wickedness.
Arose to go out.
The disciples thought that he went to buy something.
For the feast, because he had the bag. We have two companies, the wise and the foolish.
Abigail, that godly woman to whom I referred, said to David.
A picture to us, Beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. In many ways, let not.
Take this man of the loyal to heart.
Even able for as is his name, so is he, and folly is with him.
The Word of God, says the foolish. God is not in all of their thoughts.
It also says of the foolish they say.
God won't require it.
And finally, they say there's no God, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Oh, you say, I would never say that. That may be true. You may never utter the words, but if you go on in your sins.
That's the end of that Broadway. That's the consequence that we'll talk about.
In just a few minutes.
Of continuing in that condition.
Of the curse being upon you, So we have two companies 2.
Courses of behavior to conditions in which people exist before God the Wise not only had lamps.
But they took oil with them in their vessel.
They were prepared. The wise seeth, the evil hides himself.
There they had affection for the bridegroom, one of the reasons I chose at him.
Is because it spoke of the bridegroom coming.
We have that very cry in our chapter. Behold, the Bridegroom cometh.
Through the much less grace of God.
The hope of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ was revived some years ago.
Can you imagine? Many of us in this room cannot imagine how dismal it would be if we had no hope of the Lorde return.
Christians a few 100 years ago didn't even know the truth existed. The enemy came in and robbed.
Believers of their hope, and they settle down in this poor world.
And the consequence was devastating, as it will always be.
When the hope of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ ceases to be a reality.
But those who had oil, the real ones, the wise ones, when the bridegroom came, it was real simple. They went into the bridegroom with a bridegroom, to the to the wedding.
00:35:00
But the sad reality is while the foolish were gone to buy.
He came.
At an hour when you know not.
The Son of Man will come. What a solemn reality.
To be ready, but what a much more solemn reality is to be a counterfeit and to have to make preparation after it's too late. We read of the rich man in Luke 16 in Hell. He lifted up his eyes.
In Boston a few years ago, I spoke to a 19 year old young lady about the reality of eternity.
And she said to me something along this line. I'm not religious and I don't believe that.
Oh, I said. But one day you will, and it will be too late. Like these foolish virgins. They weren't ready. The way to be ready, now, beloved, is to receive the word of God, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to take the place, as we will see in just a moment.
Of being a Sinner. And that leads me to the next couple that we would like to talk about. And I'm going to rush on into Luke because of time. I was going to speak briefly about the two contacts with the Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 10.
There are two. You look at it sometimes two contacts. The rich young ruler came with something to do.
And when the Lord said.
He should do what he should do.
Well, he says. I've done that all my life. And the Lord points up the foolishness of that statement. Go and tell all you have and give to the poor. And the young man went away sorrowing because he had much wealth.
He was earnest. He ran and knelt before the Lord. He was reverend, but he was like the foolish virgins. He wasn't real, and he went away soaring. But here is a thought from that portion in Luke chapter in Mark chapter 10. He did not go away unloved. It says in the Lord looked after him and loved him. And I have often said this, beloved there will not be a soul in hell who went there unloved, because God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten son. So let's turn to Luke 18 and we're going to see two.
Men who prayed to God.
Luke 18.
We have two men coming to God in prayer.
And one was a Pharisee and the other Republican.
Let me just tell you about a publican.
As I understand it, they were employees of the Roman government, Jews, and the government employee much despised and much hated because many of them were dishonest.
And this publican prayed to God, and there was a Pharisee.
There, who prayed to God, let me tell you about the Pharisees.
It says of them in Luke Chapter 7.
They rejected as to themselves the counsels of God.
Have you received as to yourself?
What God says about you, John the Baptist?
Profit beyond all born of women for excellence. That's the words of the Lord. That's the assessment that the Lord Jesus Christ made of that man. None more than women greater than John the Baptist.
He said to them, O generation of Vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come.
Rejecting the counsel of God as to themselves, the Pharisees said. We are not a generation of Vipers.
If a man will not receive the witness of God.
He says he makes God a liar.
That's the Pharisees. And so this Pharisee who stood up to pray.
I thank thee that I am not as other men are. I do this. I do that. You know the story, most of you.
If you do not know the story, read God's word. Read it.
And say to yourself, what is God saying to me from this book today?
And this Pharisee.
Would not even consider himself in the category of the Republican.
Pharisees stood and prayed. Verse 11. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men.
00:40:03
Extortioners unjust adulterers, even as this public. But listen to James. What he says.
Whose soul offendeth in one point, Keep the whole law guilty of one point, guilty of all. This man may not have been what he said.
Neither did he have affection for Christ. And the word of God tells us if any man love not.
The Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema that is cursed. The Lord comes, that curse is real, beloved, and the final Test is.
Have you affection for Christ? This Pharisee didn't have that. But look what he says about the public and.
Verse 13 Standing afar off would not so much as lift his head up.
To heaven.
Smote himself on the breast.
And said, God be merciful to me, the Sinner.
A dear brother that I knew many, many years ago loved to preach the gospel of God's grace.
Often said this to me, the more you can prove me the Sinner.
The more I can prove Christ is for me because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Paint me black with sin and I will plead the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that cleanses me.
From all sin but this publican knew where the problem lay.
He smote his breast. Here is the problem.
The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all men. The word of God clearly says.
Out of the heart of man comes all of these wicked things. It's not what goes into a man that defiles, but what comes out of a man that defiles. And so here this publican owns before God.
Not like the Pharisees who said we are not a generation of Vipers.
Oh yes, they said. We are exactly what you say. We are here. We want to be identified with a coming Messiah, and they were baptized of John's baptism, taking their place before God as sinners.
God proves himself, as he always does, a Savior God. We read that the Son of Man was manifested, the Son of God was manifested to undo the works of the devil. And so these publicans and harlots, the Lord Jesus said would go into the Kingdom before the Pharisees because they said yes we are.
Sinners.
Justified God agreed that they were exactly what God said. That's what it means, He justified God.
Being baptized of John.
And I envision in my own thoughts.
As some of those publicans and harlots were present on the day of Pentecost when the Church was born, I doubt it not. They became that faithful remnant that followed the Lord Jesus Christ when He was manifested as Messiah to Israel. And that is the nucleus we know of the Church of God now for the last thought.
There are two consequences, John.
Chapter 5.
Two consequences.
Verse 20.
8 John 5 and 28.
Marvel not at this.
For the hour is coming, in which they that are in the grave shall hear the voice.
And shall come forth they that have done good unto the resurrection of life.
They that have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Here we have the end of the.
Courses of life. The consequence?
Without entering into the means by which one arrives.
At the consequence of his behavior.
They that have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
The Apostle John said that he saw this dead small and great stand before a great white throne and the books were opened.
00:45:02
I trust if you are not the Lords at this moment, that the thought of standing before the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sends a chill upon your soul that causes you to flee quickly.
That bleeding savior at Calvary and avail yourself of the way of escape.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which first began to be spoken unto us?
By the Lord and listen to this and was confirmed.
See, it's a wonderful thing to receive a testimony The Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven.
Divine testimony.
And the Holy Spirit came from heaven, and in the person of the apostles confirmed that very salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ himself brought. And so we have those who are.
Arriving at.
The resurrection of judgment, that great white throne where those who neglected to receive the Lord Jesus Christ while they were here.
Traveled down that broad Rd. that concourse to corruption and destruction, and perished. And what do we see? We see them appearing again before the very one who paid in his life's blood to God all that his people owed. And there they their mouth is stopped.
Books are opened. There's a record underneath. What about the fool that said God does not require it? There it is.
The divine record.
Infallible record, and they face the consequence.
And have to arrive at that resurrection of judgment.
But the good news that we have sought to communicate in connection with these solemn warnings of the reality of the curse and of the course that leads to destruction.
And of the company in which there are foolish ones who fail to avail themselves of the provision that God himself has made.
When you really look at it, it's kind of stupid to go on in your sins.
Because of the seriousness of the consequence. And so we can tell you.
With absolute confidence, as Luke said in the beginning of his gospel, that you might know the certainty.
Of those things which you have been taught, many of you have heard the gospel of God's grace many times.
Are you still unbelieving? I trust not. I trust not. One soul in the room still says no to Jesus because he is pleading from heaven in the energy and power of the Spirit of God. Come down, come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Nothing to do, All is done. All that could be done has been done. I love these lines and I've often used it in the gospel of God's grace.
From whence this fear and unbelief?
Since God my Father put to grief his only Son for me payment, he will not twice demand first at my bleeding shirt, his hand, and then again in mine. God is not unrighteous. He has a righteous basis in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ to offer forgiveness full and free. All you have to do is agree to God.
That I'm as bad as he said. And flee to Christ, the Lamb of God. When John, that faithful prophet, was here pointing to that blessed man as he walked, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. So it is to him that we point you tonight. It is to the blessed Son of God, God himself. What does the Bible say? God was in Christ what he says.
God was manifest in the flesh in a body like this, a human body holy nonetheless. But here he is beseeching you to be reconciled to God. And the message hasn't changed. God hasn't changed. The Lord Jesus Christ hasn't changed. Many of us in this room have changed. We turned around on that wide road and we started for glory, and we're just as certain to be there.
As if we were already in what a wonderful thing it is that the Lord Jesus Christ is beckoning now from heaven.
The energy and power of the Spirit of God in this room tonight, where you sit and if you have one thought.
00:50:04
Of putting it off, don't delay.
Delay might result in the awful consequence of standing below the war that great white throne, the Lord Jesus Christ said, Never mind if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.
You have two choices.
To be drawn as savior at this moment where you sit.
Are to be drawn in that eventual day when the wicked dead stand before that awful judgment throne.
Whose face? From whom the earth and heaven flee away. What an awesome thing it will be to stand before him as judge to face the very one who offered himself without spot to God, who made his soul an offering for sin, in order that you might not perish, that you might be with him in glory for all eternity. So think of the twos, the two curses. I mean the two.
Conditions.
The two consequences? The two companies the whole bit.
The choice is yours. Don't play the part of the food and miss out on the greatest blessing that you could possibly know. Let's pray together.
Our gracious, loving God and Father, we thank Thee for Thy precious word.
That communicates thy heart, the man.
The Word was made flesh.
He took a body, became a man.
In order that he might die for men.
Oh, make the message good to some heart tonight.
Save a precious soul in this room, we pray, committing all to thee and the precious name of our Savior.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
We Have an Enemy But Jesus Loves Me
Children—M. Conley
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.
And I trust him. Shall I die?
He will play.
Yeah.
That's why I was here.
You know this is one of the most important things to get a hold of in your soul is that the Lord Jesus loves you.
You know when I first became a Christian.
I didn't, I didn't have a very good hold on that fact. In fact, I thought that I had to do a whole lot of things to win the Lord's approval and to win his love. Because a lot of times it's like that in the world. You know, you have a friend maybe and then you do something that he doesn't like and he doesn't like you anymore. Well, when I first come to know, the Lord is my savior.
I thought maybe the Lord was like that and that, and I know there were a lot of things in my heart that.
That weren't very good.
But you know, and so I was trying to win the Lord's approval and his love. Well, come to find out that Jesus loves me like this one verse here, verse 3. Jesus loves me though I'm bad. Yeah, come to find out that the Lord Jesus loved me while I was yet a Sinner and even when I was saved.
I still sin and the Lord still loves me, and he draws me back to himself. Oh, the Lord wants me to repent and to come back to Him and to confess my sin and to talk with him about it. But his love towards me, it doesn't ever change.
That's wonderful, isn't it? We can rest there. Someone else have a song they want to sing. Yes.
16.
Whosoever heareth.
Forever. Well.
Then the proclamation.
Is a loving Father called the wonderful whosoever will wake up? What is the weather come? It must not be right now, the Glory Lord.
00:05:00
Someone else have a song? Yes, little girl there.
#3 #3.
My hope is Nope, that isn't it.
He can all save him, promise and.
My name is Grace.
On his hands let all go round the eyes, smoking and praying. Please go to the Father's heart, to the heart of the world's deepest end.
You know, if if someone had a tendency to get nervous about certain situations or anything, this song would be an encouragement, wouldn't it? I'm finding encouragement in it.
Someone else? Yes, you.
36.
46.
But.
OK.
With a little straw hat on you right there.
47 the last one.
When he comes.
With you.
00:10:04
Right now.
It's not nice. It says they shall shine in his beauty. You know, when I what I'm going to talk about this morning, maybe we'll sing. We'll sing one more song, maybe. But what I'm going to talk about this morning is that is we have an enemy.
We have an enemy. I'm going to talk about that a little bit, but here it says we shall shine in his beauty.
You know the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus, it says wisdom makes a man's face to shine. And you know, the Lord Jesus can make us shine. The Lord can Jesus can make us beautiful.
A lot of times when I if I take a look or I see the things inside my own heart, I have to shake my head. I have to say, Lord Jesus, it's awful. It's awful.
But you know, the Lord Jesus, he's made, he's given me a new nature and to the Lord Jesus now he's made me very attractive to himself. That's amazing.
This little boy right here in the suit, you had a song you wanted to sing. Which? Which one was it?
180, I don't think we go that.
180.
180.
Does anyone know what song he wants? Do you know the first the first line?
OK, well I don't know which song that is because we only go to 47 here.
I don't know. Do you know the first line? Do you know what is? Do you know? Are you? Are you his sister? Do you know which one he's talking about? You don't know either. What?
OK, let's see.
Number one, you want to sing #1 We'll see #1.
With some brothers start that.
00:15:06
Oh, Chris Wayne.
I'm wrong to die?
Come on, come on, come on.
Christmas.
All the way.
Find him an unusual song for the Sunday School. It's in it, but you know, it's, I take it as from the Lord, because this has very much to do with what I believe the Lord has put on my heart to talk to you little ones about. This is a serious song, isn't it?
You know, Sunday school is serious business, very serious business. You know when something is very serious in the world, you know what they say? They say this is a matter of life and death.
Serious business. This is serious business we're involved in this morning.
Let's pray.
Our God and Father, we thank thee.
Well.
When? When?
I I was asked to take the.
The little children's meeting.
You know it's a good thing to do when someone asks you if someone ever asks you.
To take the meeting you know you're you're taking. That is so important because.
The Lord is going to. The Lord desires to use you to speak to hearts, to speak to hearts about.
That which is most important to God And what is that?
What is that that's most important to God the Father.
His son.
His son. So when I thought about that and I thought about our verse, well, I'll read the verse. I won't have anybody say the verse. It's and probably most of you know it and and I know I think we've had it a lot, a lot of times, but I was thinking about this verse.
And the verse is in Isaiah 53 verse 6.
I hope that's the verse Isaiah 53, verse six it says.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him, that's the Lord Jesus.
The iniquity of us all.
Well, when I thought about that and I thought to myself.
Every it says here it says all everybody, everyone not a one that and we read that in in Romans, there is none that seeketh after God. And I thought about that in relationship to myself. See this picture? I wonder So I it made me think of this picture. See this picture, see that? Can anybody guess who that is?
OK, just a minute. Don't tell anybody.
Anybody guess who that picture is?
Can anybody guess who that picture is? This is an old picture. Does that give you a clue?
Anybody guess who that picture is? None of my kids can answer.
Who is this?
Who is it? Who is it? It's me. That's right. You know, You know what? And I'm sure my mother would think that was cute, too.
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But you know what?
This person has been a lot of trouble to me. This person has been a real enemy. Did you know that?
Caused me a lot of trouble when I listened to this person.
And you know something? This person is thinking all the time. He's always thinking. But you know what?
He doesn't come up with anything good.
And I used to listen to this person. I used to listen to him. I used to think he was pretty smart too. I did. I was wrong. I was wrong.
He got me into a lot of trouble.
Anyway.
It says here all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him, on the Lord Jesus, the iniquity of us all.
Well, children, I'm not only speaking about, whoops. I'm not only speaking about myself because it says in this verse, it says all. And so I know that that applies to everybody in this room. So it doesn't make me feel self-conscious a whole lot because I know I have a lot. It says that Elijah.
Was a man subject to like passions? Elijah had the same problems.
As I did, and I know that everybody in this room, we all have different weaknesses, different problems.
But we all got this whole nature that causes us a lot of trouble. And it's, you know, it's an enemy. It's an enemy, Yeah, you know.
And when you know there's a verse, let's look at a verse.
Psalm 58, verse 3. Let's look at that verse.
You know we have, That's an awful thing. Well, the Lord knows He gives more grace, but I have this enemy that lives right here with me every day cannot get away from him. Well, that's not actually true because there's a nice verse that says I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith.
Of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
There's my escape from that old enemy, but I got this enemy. But every day he's trying things.
Every day, this enemy and all of you children and you older ones too.
You all got this enemy that lives right there and he's a problem and he's always thinking.
And he's always trying to bring us down the wrong Rd.
Anyway, here in Psalm 58.
Verse 3.
It says the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
It doesn't take long. We go astray right away.
Well, you know, it says, it says in the book of Job, it says in the book of Job that we're like, we're like a little wild donkey. And I, I didn't grow up on a farm. I haven't had hardly anything to do with farm animals. But I've seen pictures or heard stories about mules that when they decide they want to do something or when they decide they don't want to do something, they, they put all their force into it.
And a lot of times they're they're hard to deal with.
So we have, we have this enemy that lives right inside of us. That's kind, isn't that, isn't that, isn't that an awful thing? And this enemy that lives inside of us, he wants, he doesn't want anything to do with God. He doesn't. He wants to do with his own way. He wants what he wants.
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And this one that lives inside of you every day, he's going to be.
Telling you this this this would make you happy.
If you had this, you'd be happy. Or if you could do this, you'd be happy. Well, the Lord knows and the Lord gives us, the Lord gives us things to enjoy. We have things to enjoy, like like your family, like mom and dad and maybe maybe they take you to the park and things like that.
Well, I'm not talking about things like that. Those are those are nice things that we enjoy. Like we enjoy the sunshine and we haven't seen a lot of it recently. But when the sunshine comes out and it's dry out and and nice, we like to go out and to to play and to enjoy. I'm not talking about things like that, but I'm talking about things like when.
When, when mom, mom or dad asks us to do something and we, and we, we don't want to do it. And, and maybe we put up a fuss or maybe we look for excuses and, and maybe we think, well, it would be a lot better if if things were run this way. And, and our little minds start to work and to, to scheme rather than to say, rather than to say, well, that is what that is what mom asked me to do. And.
You know, it's sometimes, sometimes it's easy to obey mom and dad, isn't it? But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's not. And you know.
You know when it's hard to obey mom and Dad? You know that's the time that mom and Dad appreciated the most, when it's the most special to them. You know the last part of our verse in Isaiah 53?
It says when it talks about it talks that we've all gone astray. Well, isn't it a wonderful thing that the verse doesn't end there because.
You know, we're all, we're all little rebels in our own heart.
You know, but the verse after it says that we've all gone astray.
Then it says.
But the Lord hath laid on him.
The iniquity of us all.
You know that that song, that last song that we sang, the song, I don't know that I've ever heard it saying in Sunday school before.
But you know that little enemy, that little enemy that lives inside of you, that lives with you? He would tell you. He would tell you.
You don't need to be saved today. You're just young.
You 10 years from now you could get saved probably because there's so many people in this room that are over 10 and and I'm only 5 or that are over 15 or 20. But you know, a brother quoted in that in one of the meetings yesterday, he said both not myself of tomorrow.
For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth that little enemy that lives inside of you.
Is.
Today. Today what we're saying is this is serious business. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
And those are really enemies of God, aren't they? The Lord Jesus gave his life.
For his enemies and if you if you feel that in your own heart, if you feel that in your heart that you're a Sinner that really you're you're an enemy of God in the way that you think in the the just just it says was that that verse we read.
It says as soon as they come forth from the womb, they go astray. You know, it's a it's a good thing. It's a good.
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If you have to battle with somebody, if you have an enemy.
It's a good thing to understand your enemy. It's a good thing to know.
To know a little bit about him, what he's like, so that you're kind of aware of the things that he the tricks that he's going to use on you.
And so.
That last song that we sang almost persuaded if this morning.
If you feel, if you know, if you know in your heart that you're a Sinner and that you have done those, you've done things that are displeasing to God, that God calls sin.
It's, it's not. I'm asking you if you have or not because I know you have, because you have the same nature as I have.
But what's wonderful that's not wonderful. But what is wonderful is if you realize it, if you realize it in your heart, if you realize that you're a Sinner. And then here you come to the gospel meeting this morning.
And we sang that, that first song, Jesus loves me though I'm bad, and he waits to make me glad. You know, you really can't be glad when you're bad. Those two just don't go together. So if you feel that, if you, if you feel that I got an enemy that I live with every day and he makes me, he causes me to do things that are.
Displeasing to mom and dad.
Causes me to do things so that I'm just off by myself sometimes. You know that is what the enemy of ours. We have other enemies too. We have Satan. He's an enemy. He's an he doesn't like us one bit and he wants to he wants to drive us off by ourselves, drive us off to be be away from others that could encourage us in the Lord.
From others that would, if we're not saved, would tell us the gospel. The enemy wants to get us off by ourselves and to make us. And he wants to draw us out there. And sometimes he can make it because. Because we get so befuddled. You know what that word means. Is there any of you little, little ones know what befuddled means? I'm not sure if I know, but yes, Jenny.
Mixed up? Yeah. Confused. You know the Lord Jesus Christ, he said.
I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me this morning. What I want to tell you is if you realize that you're a Sinner and that you have this enemy. You have this enemy and this enemy.
You know the Lord Jesus said.
There in John 14 it's such a nice verse in John 14 here it is in verse verse 30 John 14 verse 30 the end of the verse it says the this is the Lord Jesus speaking. He says for the Prince of this world cometh. Does anyone know who is the Lord Jesus is talking about there?
I'll finish the verse, it'll make it easier. For the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. Does anyone know who the Lord Jesus was talking about there? Who? You're right, he was talking about Satan. It says the Lord Jesus says the Prince of this world cometh.
And hath nothing in me. The Lord Jesus is Speaking of Himself there.
The enemy had nothing in the Lord Jesus that he could take hold of.
You see what I'm saying? When the Lord when Satan tempted the Lord Jesus in the wilderness.
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Go like this. He couldn't catch him, thought that he was running. I don't know how to explain this, but there he had no hold on the Lord Jesus. He couldn't take hold of him because there was nothing inside the Lord Jesus. There was nothing inside the Lord Jesus that would respond to temptation. He could not sin. And so when Satan tempted him.
Nothing. Nothing that Satan could hang on to. This is not true of me. This is not true of me.
Satan finds things he can hang on to in me, yes.
This is that enemy that I have. Well, so this morning if you realize that you're a Sinner.
And you but and you realize that the Lord Jesus.
Love sinners.
What did a brother say yesterday? He said a brother said no one goes to hell on love.
The Lord Jesus loves sinners, but today you are still here.
You are still here on this earth, breathing, and you're still alive.
And the Lord is persuading you this morning. If you have not taken him as your Lord and Savior, today's the day. Today's the day. And remember, you have this enemy inside of you who will persuade you to go away from the Lord. But don't listen to him, because I'm telling you this morning He's an enemy and He wants to bring your life into.
Destruction.
That's a big word. He wants to make a mess out of your life and even after you get saved, he's still going to work on you. Oh, he's not going to give up, can't take you to hell with him anymore. But he can sure make you miserable and make a mess out of your life and have no testimony for the Lord. So just remember, you have an enemy. It's going to be it's with you and he will tell you not to come to the Lord Jesus.
Or once you calm, you'll still be there and you'll say don't, don't do what the Lord Jesus, He probably won't be that obvious at first. He's very subtle, says he's the most subtle of all creatures and it's true. But.
Come to the Lord Jesus, realize you have an enemy that lives inside, and come to the Lord Jesus. Don't listen to that enemy. Shall we pray? And then I have a little candy for the children.
Shall we pray our God and Father, we?
Communion 1 John 1
Address—C. Buchanan
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
To begin this meeting with singing #106, I will read the third stanza.
Says here, and oh tis joy, the path to trace by thee so meekly trod.
Learning of thee to walk in grace and fellowship.
With God.
That word Fellowship.
A long time ago I heard this explanation. Its fellows in the same ship. If that's not the origin of the word, it's a likely result anyway to have common things together, Communion together. In fact, in the scripture, the two words fellowship and communion are used interchangeably.
English is an interesting language.
We sang and spoke many times this morning about worthy.
Worthy is the lamb.
I heard this explanation of the way that word developed in the English language as starting out.
With two words.
Put together ending with SHIP.
Worth.
No, it's called first of all worthy ship.
Well, that was too long, so they contracted called worship. And when you talk fast and say worship, you just say worship. Well, fellowship with God. Some brothers start this 106. We'll sing the whole hymn.
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Let's pray.
One John. Chapter One.
I, John. Chapter one that.
Which was from the beginning, which we have heard.
Which we have seen with our eyes.
Which we have looked upon.
And our hands.
Have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested.
And we have seen it. And bear witness and show unto you that.
Eternal life.
Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
That which we have seen and heard.
Declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.
And truly, our fellowship is with the Father.
And with his Son Jesus Christ, these things rightly unto you, that your joy may be full.
This then is the message which we have heard of him. And declare unto you that God is light.
And in him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness.
We lie.
And do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light as he is.
In the light we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in US.
Few verses in chapter 4.
Chapter 4, the same book, the end of verse eight, God is love, and this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
Here is love, not that we love God, but that He.
Loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
No man has seen God at anytime.
If we love one another.
God dwelleth in US, and His love is perfected in US. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him.
And he and us, because he hath given us of his.
Spirit.
And we have seen and do testify that the father.
Sent the son to be the savior.
Of the world.
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Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
God dwelleth in him, and he and God.
And we have known and believed.
The love that God hath to us or toward us.
God is love.
We stopped there. This book.
We have.
A piece of revelation.
From God and it is a revelation of God.
Otherwise we could not know.
But by the grace of God, we do know God.
And God is.
Hebrews 11 It says, He that cometh to God must believe that he.
Is.
He is the eternal.
He is the great I am.
That is life, but more than life.
Eternal.
And God is light.
We read that in the first chapter.
Amazing to me.
That twice in the 4th chapter God says has written God is love.
Why did he put that there twice?
It's not a vain repetition.
Perhaps it's because we're so slow.
To believe it.
To know it.
Yesterday we heard of the love of God and the love of Christ and its drawing power.
In that chapter that was used, that was spoken of as a motive, and it is perhaps the most powerful.
That a servant of God can ever have.
To know, to believe.
The constraining power of the love of Christ.
There are two other motives in that chapter.
They are the glory.
To be present.
With Christ.
Think of that.
That's where we are headed, the glory present with Christ.
The other motive there for the servant.
Is the judgment seat of Christ? In those chapters that proceed 2 Corinthians 5, we have in the third chapter the ministry that's committed to the minister who is brought before us. In the 4th chapter we have this ministry in earthen vessels.
And then we have the motives, and oh, that motive of the love.
Of Christ.
Than just to say that in the 6th chapter.
Of two Corinthians we have the moral traits.
That are seen in the servant.
Well, we're not talking about that, but the revelation of God.
And there's a good deal right in this first chapter that we read.
We've been having.
In Colossians 3.
About setting our affections upon.
Things which are above, since ye then be risen with Christ.
Set your affections upon things which are above.
Yes, and God is sufficient in himself.
For everything.
Except.
Objects upon which to display is love.
And he's sufficient in that, in that he has made us to display that love upon us.
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Now he had one son that he loved so much.
But he wanted more like him.
And we shall see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Like Christ in glory.
Now the word of God is where we get the revelation of God and from God.
And your chapter here begins with.
That which was from the beginning.
And the beginning is the beginning of the manifestation.
Of eternal life on earth in the person of God's Son. Become a man.
That's the beginning here in our chapter. It's Christ come, the manifestation of that life in the person.
The apostle speaking, says we that which was from the beginning, which we.
We the Apostles have heard.
Talking about.
Jesus bringing those disciples together.
And Jesus, the manifestation of the life, come from God.
Hearing.
Hearing Jesus speaking, how intimate it was.
For those disciples, those strongers, not only did they hear him.
We have seen with our eyes, yes.
They saw Jesus.
And so remarkable was the sight that they left their eyes there.
Which we have looked upon.
Looked upon, that's more intense.
Then the intimacy for those who walk with the Lord Jesus as his chosen apostles in that day was that.
They handled him.
John the writer lay in his bosom.
And then he says of the word of.
Life now that was the person of Jesus here.
Manifesting that life.
Further down in our chapter it says God is linked. It is the light that makes.
These things, no.
Light makes the life known.
And light in the Word makes the love of God know.
And God was determined to make himself.
Known.
To us.
And to do that.
He has to bring us into fellowship with him in two communion with him to have common thoughts with God.
To agree with him.
What we have got?
Has come to us through the apostles.
That we is the writers of this book in particular.
Those who walked with Christ.
And we will include.
Paul, who was as one born out of due time. Who could say, have not I seen the Lord?
He had perhaps the brightest sight of the Lord of all.
Seeing him.
In heaven.
Seeing him there.
To confirm that, let's go back and check these things out as.
The Old Testament begins to reveal these things to us beginning in Psalm 22, where we have David writing by the Spirit about the Lord Jesus and His work of redemption upon the cross. It begins with atonement.
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But it takes up all the six hours on the cross prophetically.
Written 1000 years before it took place.
And what we want to see is what the last verse of Psalm 22 states.
To connect it with this we in our chapter in one John.
It says.
In Psalm 22, verse 31, And they shall come.
And shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born that he.
Hath done this.
Now there are two ways of looking at this and the present day way of looking at it is what John the Apostle is writing for our benefit. In first John one, he was one of those that came.
And declared the righteousness of God, who is Christ.
Unto a people that were not born when John wrote the book, but are living and present in this room in 1993, telling us about Jesus on the cross, even as Philip could tell the eunuch and preach Jesus from.
Isaiah the same.
From the Psalms we know who it was that did it, and what it was that he did. But they shall come. Also there is a prophetic thing in the Psalm, for the Psalms are always prophetic.
The some of the Lord's brethren, the Jews, will go forth with the gospel of the Kingdom.
In the seven years and convict.
Some of the Jews, a Jewish remnant, gathered together for the millennial day.
Out of the people who are living on the earth after we're gone, those who haven't heard the gospel, the grace of God will hear.
About Jesus and it will be convicting to some of those Jews.
And they will learn that they as a nation were guilty of crucifying their Messiah. And they shall hear and they shall learn that Jesus indeed was their Messiah. That's ahead of us. But now we know it. Let's go to Isaiah chapter.
Eight and get a few more words.
We won't read much, but we'll begin with verse 16, Isaiah.
816 bind up the testimony, seal the law among.
My disciples. Here's a reference to those days when the Lord was to be with his disciples, sealing up the testimony and recording the testimony, writing it down, putting it in the book so that we would know.
Jesus as our Savior, the revelation of God.
God manifest in the flesh that life manifested. Verse 17 I will wait upon the Lord.
That hideth his face from the House of Jacob, and I will look for him.
But then he says in verse 18, Behold I and the children.
Whom the Lord hath given me? This little part of the verse is quoted in Hebrews, chapter 2.
Referring doubtless to the children.
Gathered out by the gospel of the grace of God and brought into heaven.
Introduced there we can picture Jesus taking us in when he comes and turning to the Father says look, here's the children you have given me and I say you and I receive indirectly what the apostles received directly were putting the importance upon the word of the apostle, but all of the word where we get the revelation.
00:25:10
From God and the revelation of God, and when he reveals himself, he is the eternal God.
He is late and he is loved back in our chapter.
First, John.
For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness. Verse two and showing you that eternal life.
Which?
Was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
This was the living experience of John, a Peter of Matthew, of the 12 having Jesus.
The word of life.
Manifested in the form of the man.
Christ Jesus.
Who was then the manifestation of God himself? The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, says this writer in the Gospel.
So they saw, they heard, they looked upon, they handled.
And that life was manifested, that life which was always there.
So that in his gospel.
John begins in the beginning was.
The word he starts with imaginary, beginning wherever you want to put it, as far back as your thought can go.
And says to us the word was already there because he is.
Eternal God, but God.
Want each other. He wanted those with whom he could commune and make his thoughts known before you see.
When God made Adam and Eve, he placed them in the paradise of Eden.
And they being moral creation above.
The animals are a little lower than the angels were to be tested to see how far they could go.
In that creation.
Then it wasn't long, perhaps before the 2nd Sabbath as we might think. The fall came in.
And I like to think.
Of God.
Having his fellowship.
With his creature interrupting.
You and I.
Interrupt our fellowship with our Creator.
And with our Redeemer.
Through sin. This chapter is about that. To get that fellowship and to have it restored, we want to get into that. But there was God and he went out there in the garden.
And he says.
Adam, where art thou?
There he was hiding from God.
I don't think God had another Sabbath, for when Jesus was here he said my Father worketh hitherto and I work. God worked those 4000 years to see if there was yet anything that could be produced out of the first atom. We've had that nothing came before God.
The Lord came.
And with all his power in miracles displayed.
Having life and giving life. Raising from the dead.
They rejected him.
Sent him out of this scene but he finished his work whereby he is getting.
Children, the God.
Jesus could say I am the way, the truth.
And the light, no man come unto the Father, but by me.
00:30:00
He has undertaken to bring children into the glory. He has gotten us started on the way. He's going to bring us all the way home. But we're being tested now. And who is working now? Jesus went up on high. The character of this age is Christ the man in the glory and the Spirit of God down here working.
To save and to gather to his name and have a people who are in fellowship with God.
To walk in fellowship with God, I tell you it is.
Possible. It is expected. It is the way of joy and happiness.
Let's go on.
That which we have seen, says John, the apostles included, and her declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. Now we come to the first fellowship stated here. We don't want to miss this.
For the way we get into the fullness of fellowship is in the order we have it here.
I'm afraid.
Than in our failure.
And breakdown and division.
We have felt and tried to restore.
Fellowship with brethren.
First, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way to start with, nor does it work that way when sin comes in.
We have to first of all be in the fellowship with the apostles.
That's Acts 2. That's the very beginning.
They that received his word.
Were baptized.
And then they continued steadfastly in the apostles.
Doctrine.
The word that they wrote, that's what we're reading. John was an apostle. This is John's teaching by the Spirit of God.
By the way, we did find the Trinity mentioned in those few verses we read in the fourth of John.
The Spirit and the Father and the Son.
Yes, God is interested in us. He wants us to know Him.
And to.
Walk with him so that we can have fellowship with him, but we have to obey the teaching of the apostles if we're going to have fellowship with the apostles.
If I if you lie and do not the truth.
When it's condemned by the apostles doctrine, I don't have fellowship.
With the apostles according to the doctrine they wrote.
What we have got to do is read this book and abide by the teaching.
Of the apostles has given to us by the Spirit of God.
And obey it. Then we have common thoughts.
With the doctrine of the Apostles and we are in.
Fellowship with the Apostle.
Let's turn at this point back to 2nd Corinthians chapter 6.
To get those two words brought together fellowship and communion.
I think this was touched upon here in these meetings.
Verse 14. Two Corinthians 6.
14.
Paul certainly was an apostle. He gave us these words B.
He not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship?
Hath righteousness with unrighteousness, And what communion?
Half light with darkness there, I say.
Fellowship and Communion mean the same thing. They are interchangeable.
00:35:04
And you and I cannot have fellowship with darkness.
And fellowship with the light at the same time.
In our epistle.
Perhaps the last chapter first John, it says.
The whole world lieth in wickedness, or in the wicked one.
That's out there.
That's the world under Satan's control. It lies there.
We can't go along with that and have fellowship with the apostles.
If we go along with the apostles and our separate.
From the darkness and walk in the light as he is in the light.
We have fellowship one with another.
But the immediate effect.
Of having fellowship with the apostles. What is it right here? Quickly it says.
Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
We'll go back and read in First Corinthians chapter one.
To understand how it's put there.
To desire that place.
No fellowship.
I Corinthians.
Chapter One.
Verse nine God is faithful.
By whom you recalled under the fellowship of his son.
Jesus Christ, the highest possible kind of fellowship.
For the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus is that He has called us to have common thoughts with Him.
Fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
And so the light comes in and that's what we have coming down.
Here in these verses.
But the desire from God by the apostles expressed in verse 4.
Of our chapter These things rightly unto you, that your joy may be full.
I don't believe it's possible to have a greater joy.
The fellowship with God.
Fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord to agree.
Wholeheartedly with him.
The plea in the gospel is Be reconciled to God.
Have his thoughts about these things?
Well.
The joy is ours if we follow the doctrine of the apostles.
And enjoy fellowship with the Apostles, which brings us into this.
Fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Verse five. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declared you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Now we come to this statement.
God is light.
Light makes manifest.
And if God was going to reveal himself, he.
Had to come out into the light.
Now he did not do that in the full sense.
Until.
Jesus.
Dispensed his spirit there on the cross.
And what happened?
The veil of the temple was run entwined from the top to the bottom.
As though God saying.
With relief that it was done.
Now I can come out in light to my creature.
And bring them into the light as suited for the light, for redemption's work is done which has put away our sins and suited us for that light.
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Well, God is light and that speaks to the conscience, and in Him is.
No darkness at all. What a contrast. There is no agreement between light and.
Darkness.
So we've got this next verse coming up 6.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie.
And do not the truth? How simple and black and white is the truth in this epistle?
What do you say?
Do you say you have fellowship with him?
Now where are you walking?
Out there in darkness.
Or in the presence of the God whose light.
But if we walk or since we walk in the light, it should read in verse 7.
For the true light now shineth.
Yes, the veil is rent and God has come out into the light and we have the light.
The Word of God to guide us in the path.
Of his choosing so that we can walk with him.
And enjoy that fellowship with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ.
But it says, if we walk, or since we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
The fact is that the light is there.
And the believer here is looked at as in the light.
But it's walking. It's where you go down a path. I go down a path.
Is it the path of the light of the word of God for me to walk in?
Or do I head off into the darkness?
Or do you go off into the darkness?
If you walk in the light for the light is there and I walk in the light.
We are together as brethren. Why are not we all together?
Some are not walking.
Where the light shines.
We have to get back to this book.
Search that way, where the light directs us in holiness to walk with the One who is holy and true.
He never and can never change his character of holiness and truth.
We can know that way of holiness and truth through the light of the Word of God where that path is.
Well, as a brother said this morning in the Sunday school, we've got.
Our worst enemy in here.
And.
We breakdown.
And we fail.
And we don't always have that fellowship.
But it goes on and says here.
The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.
So what we find out practically is.
Then what the light reveals.
The sin covers.
Now this and these verses are excellent in the gospel.
To get into that communion, that fellowship the first time, to move out of Satans world, into the path of walking where the light puts you and I walking with God, so that there is a provision here.
Verse 8 says if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US for all. If sin and come short of the glory of God, well, we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. We've got to confess.
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That we are sinners.
But then we go to the book and see that one died for our sins.
And the way of being restored to communion.
That we want to talk about a little bit in verse nine is very simple.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our.
Sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now, this is not aimed at any particular person.
Has gone off and openly brought shame upon himself.
Or his family. Or somebody else.
Only.
It's aimed at all of us.
It's a necessary path.
To enjoy fellowship with God.
It's just confession.
Who so confesses and forsake of his sins shall have.
Mercy, What is Rita saying is that when I sin.
What I've got to do is to come to God and tell Him.
That I have done that. He knows it already.
It shouldn't be hard. No secret to him.
He already knows that I told that lie. I stole that thing. He knows it.
And the disobedient child is unhappy. We all want to be happy. We say We want to be happy, but we certainly don't like to confess our sins, do we?
It may be even harder, and I suppose it is.
To confess sins to a neighbor.
Or a brother than it is to God.
For God is readily disposed to forgive us.
When we confess.
It says here, if we confess our sins, he is faithful, He's always the faithful God. God is faithful and that he has called us into the fellowship, His Son Jesus Christ, First Corinthians one, He's always the faithful God. But what does it mean just to forgive?
I think a brother quoted yesterday God.
Cannot.
Judgment twice, demand once that my bleeding savior's hand.
And then again at mine.
When I confess my sins? When you confess your sins to God.
He has to forgive us because Jesus has already.
Born that sin, the guilt of it, and washed it away in his precious blood.
So that.
Children, young people, and particularly we who are old.
Be quick.
To tell God.
About that sin.
He knows it.
He wants the repentant heart to tell him to confess it and to agree with him.
That it was wrong.
And he has to forgive us. He is just to the work of Christ.
To forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That last verse of Psalm 22, they shall come.
And declare his righteousness unto people that have been, have not been born, that he hath done this.
That's that, the righteousness of God.
So, fellowship, Communion, what a blessed thing it is, and how tender it is, how easily it is interrupted.
And the hurt continues when we can't have full fellowship with some of our brethren.
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But, brethren, we can have.
Full fellowship with God.
And we can have fellowship with brethren who walk.
Where the light puts us, let's sing in closing #300 and.
11 while the several paths dividing.
We, our pilgrimage, pursue.
May our shepherds, safely guiding, still be kept in constant view.
May the bond of blessed Communion. There's the word.
May the bond of blessed communion, every distant soul, embrace.
Till an everlasting union we attain our resting place #311 Please.
We are glad this person.
Open Mtg. 6
Open—L. Judd, H. Brinkmann, L. Smith
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Her brother in his address.
Brought before fellowship communion.
One would like to turn first of all.
The very familiar passage, John's Gospel chapter 14.
John 14 verse one.
Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God.
Believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Well, this is a blessed hope that we can look forward to.
Looking for that blessed hope.
That moment when Christ will come to call us to be with Himself.
The beloved, this is still future. He hasn't come yet. He may come before the day is out, but still he hadn't come as yet. Another verse 23.
Madrid verse 22 Judah saith unto him, not a scarier Lord. How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not under the world?
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loved me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.
I read again.
My Father will love him, and we will come unto him.
And make our abode with him.
All such is the longing of His heart to have the communion, the fellowship of His redeemed, until that time comes that He can have them with himself in those courts of glory. He will come to us down here.
Oh, how much he desires the love of our hearts.
Dear ones, how often we may disappoint that blessed One when we do not give him that love. He had to say to Ephesus, Thou hast left thy first love.
Notice verse 27.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you not as the world give us, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Peace I leave with you. I like to think of that peace.
As the peace of knowing everything is settled between ourselves and a holy God.
Everything settled, our sins can no more rise against us.
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They were dealt with on that cross of Calvary. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you. Oh, this is a different piece. How did he go through this world?
However, in communion with the father.
Ever in communion with the Father, They're ones. He wants us to enjoy that same peace that was His peace.
He wants us to enjoy that communion with himself.
That he enjoyed with the Father. That is His desire, Beloved, One speaks for oneself. How far short we come at times of doing. And yet this is His desire for His redeemed for His own.
Now just a.
1St pick up a salt and revelation.
One verse 5.
Middle of the Earth.
Unto him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests. Unto God and his Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Just the thought. He has made us kings and priests. Peter would tell us we're a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood.
Let us know.
Turn back to the Book of Numbers.
Book of Numbers 18.
This book of numbers is a wonderful book. It's the wilderness book.
Numbers 18.
And we'll read from verse 8.
And the Lord speak unto Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of mine heave offerings.
Of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel under thee have I given them by reach of the anointing, and to thy sons by an ordinance forever.
This shall be thine of the most holy things reserved from the fire. Every oblation of theirs, every meat offering of theirs, every sin offering of theirs, and every Christmas offering of theirs, which they shall render underneath, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons.
In the Most Holy Place shalt thou eat it. Every male shall eat it. It shall be holy unto thee. And this is thine that he that that he offering of their gift with all the way of offerings of the children of Israel. I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons, and to thy daughters with thee by a statue forever. Everyone that is plead in thine house shall eat of it.
All the best of the oil.
And all the best of the wine and of the wheat.
The first fruits of them, which they shall offer under the Lord them have I given thee.
And whatsoever first ripen, the land which they shall bring under the Lord shall be thine.
Everyone that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.
Oh, first of all, we find God had given unto his priests the very best.
The best was for his priests, those that would approach unto him.
We find there are some things that the priests alone could eat, there are some things that the family could enjoy, and I believe it's true of us here.
Just keep your finger there and we'll look at the verse in Hebrews.
Chapter 10.
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Verse Hebrews 10. Verse 19.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness.
To enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He has consecrated for us through the veil.
That was to say, His flesh. And having a high priest over the House of Gaul, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promise.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as a minor of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
We have boldness to enter into the holiest, the very presence of God through the finished work of Christ on Calvary. And here we find.
That the Lord would give us the very richest portion.
Of his sacrifices.
Here that we might feed on them.
Verse 10. Numbers 18 In the most holy place shalt thou eaten. Every male shall eat it. It shall be holy under the.
Love, They couldn't carry that out. The high priest alone could go into the holiest once a year, not without blood. Christ and Christ alone could fulfill this.
No, the love there are not cross of Calvary.
He confessed our sins as though they were as old.
There, in those hours of darkness, he dealt with a holy and a righteous God concerning our sins.
Beloved, we have been given this to be our food.
To be our food.
No going on.
In verse 11 And this is thine, the heave offering of their gift with all the way of offering to the children of Israel. I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons, and unto thy daughters with thee.
By a statute forever everyone that is clean in thy house shall eat of it. Yes, there is that here for each one of us.
Each one of us, sons and daughters, everyone cleaning the house so easily and the Lord would have us to enjoy.
Now let us just go to numbers 28.
Work one.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel.
And say unto them my offering and my bread.
For my sacrifices made by fire. For a sweet favor unto me.
Shall you observe to offer unto me in their due season, and thou shalt say unto them, This is the offering made by fire, which ye shall offer unto the Lord, 2 lambs of the first year without spot, day by day, for continual burnt offering. One lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb shalt thou offer it. Even an intense part of an evil flower, for a meat offering mingled with the 4th part of an hint of beaten oil.
It is a continual burnt offering which was ordained at Mount Sinai for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord.
God's food, and he gives a portion of his food to us.
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That which delights his own heart, he would have delight our hearts. A continual burnt offering, morning and evening.
Beloved, are we found before him?
At the beginning of the day.
And is Christ the subject of our thoughts?
That which is pleasing to him. And at the close of the day again do we find ourselves vowed before him.
There was He would have us to enjoy that which is the delight of his own heart. And what is it? Oh, here we have Christ as the burnt, offering, holy offering Himself to God, fully glorifying God in every respect in which the 1St man had failed, and that which delights his heart he would have us to feast upon.
One last verse and Luke.
Chapter 12.
I'll read from verse 31.
But rather seek ye the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear not, little flock, what is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom? Sell that you have, and give arms. Provide yourselves bags with wax not old a treasure in the heavens that say with not where no thief approaches, neither moth. Corrupt us for where your treasure is.
There will your heart be also. Let your loins be girded, a boat, and your lights burning, and you yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto Him immediately.
Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. Verily, I assume to you that He shall gird himself.
And make them to sit down to meet, and will come forth and serve them.
And if he shall come in the second water, come in the third watch, and find themselves, blessed are those servants.
Well, this gives us a little of what our conduct should be down here.
Our eyes should be on Christ in glory. One single object. You know, dear ones, we had in our reading how that Christ is our life. This is the record that God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Christ is the source of that life.
He's given us that life that we might be able to enjoy, that which he enjoys the old nature cannot enjoy, but he's given us of his own life that we might enjoy that which he enjoys.
And so here, where your treasure is, there we heart thee also.
Is Christ our treasure? He should be. He is our glory and our hearts should be up there where He is. But I like to think too, the law.
Where your treasure is there where your heart be also. Oh, Christ has found His treasure down here.
And we're still here. And beloved, His heart is down here with us. Yes, our heart should be up there with Him. His heart is down here with His redeemed.
Let your loins be gird about and your lights burning. Are we ready to depart at a moment's notice?
Children of Israel at the Passover, their shoes and their feet, staff in their hand, their loins girded. They were ready to depart. Loved. Are we ready to depart?
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Is there a lot going on down here which we would desire, that the Lord might delay His coming a little? Oh, have I an object, Lord, below, which would divide my heart with Thee, which would divert us, even flow in answer to Thy constancy aloft? May He be our only object. May we have that single eye, that He, and He alone, is our object.
Verse 30. Verse 36. And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding.
When he comes in office, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants.
There is a special blessing for those that are watching for him.
Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.
Verily I say unto you, And he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to me will come forth and serve them.
Yes, just as He has given us down here that food which delights His own heart, so there in glory He will feed us with that which delights His own heart. Love. This is our portion.
This is what he has before us. He has given us the very richest of food for us to enjoy and he has given us a new life, his own life, that we might have the capacity to enjoy.
Christ, we heard.
Is to be the object for our hearts.
He is to be the treasure.
To him that we have been singing.
At the beginning of this meeting has brought to my attention.
Some verses about the Lord Jesus.
A brother in the address has been Speaking of the most wonderful truth of the incarnation of the Son of God, that which we have.
In first John one.
I hope with the Lord.
Help to bring that person before us.
From various scriptures, let's turn to Matthew Chapter 11 first of all.
Verse 25.
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.
All things are delivered unto me of my father and no man.
Knoweth the Son, but the father Nita knoweth any man, the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
The person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is a mystery and remains a mystery.
And according to the verses that we have read, we can never expect.
That we can ever understand the mystery of his person.
That God came down in the person of his Son.
And that he was manifesting God.
And that God was manifested in the flesh.
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Mystery. Who can understand?
That wonderful person.
No one can the Father Does the Father knoweth the Son?
But that which cannot be apprehended by the human mind.
Is given to us as an object for our hearts, like one has said.
Its darkness to my intellect, It's sunshine to my heart. By faith we can accept what the Word of God tells us about that person and enjoy it by faith, without ever pretending to understand that person in all its fullness.
Let's turn to John, chapter one.
I believe it is of utmost importance.
That we are clear.
In doctrine and in our thoughts concerning the person of the Lord Jesus. Because if we allow the enemy to rob us of the truth of His person, He really robs us of the Savior.
And we find in the word of God that the Lord Jesus is presented.
As the Son of God from all eternity.
He ever was the son.
He didn't become the Son, He was the Son, and the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. You know, in first John Four, we have these statements, both that the Father sent the Son, that God sent his Son.
You know He was the Son before he ever sent him. And in John chapter one I believe this truth is brought before us that He is the eternal Son of God. We read in verse one. In the beginning was the Word, the word was with God, the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him.
Without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
That was the true light, which light as every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by him. The world knew him not. He came unto his own. His own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become.
The sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bear witness of him, and cried, saying.
This was He of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me, and of his fullness have all been received. Grace upon grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son.
Which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.
You know, to say, as John says here, that in the beginning was the word, is to say that the word had no beginning. I brought a clam in his address, spoke of that which did have a beginning connected with His incarnation. But this goes back.
As far as you can before anything was made that is made. And here he was.
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The ever existing 1 The eternal Son of God. The Word was not only with God, the Word was God and it was a distinct person the same the one was with God. All the mystery of.
The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
Eternally, all three Persons existing, you know, and sometimes we speak of the first and second and third person in the Trinity. But really I believe it's not proper to speak in that way because it suggests that here is the Father, there's the Son, there's the Spirit, they're equal. The only difference is in the Persons, 3 distinct Persons.
Who can understand that?
I enjoyed the story that I heard is from Catalysis mind you.
That some St. was walking by the seashore, meditating on the wonderful truth of the Trinity. He couldn't grasp it. And there was a little boy sitting there with a little vessel taking water out of the ocean.
And this man said to this little boy, what are you doing? He said I'm going to empty the ocean.
Well, the man says, how can you with your little vessel, empty that vast ocean? And the boy said, just like I cannot empty this ocean with this little vessel, so you with your little mind cannot apprehend the truth of the Trinity. I think that's a beautiful story.
But how wonderful it is.
When the Son of God becomes a man.
He could say that he that has seen me has seen the father.
In him the fullness of the Godhead dwelled.
It is not only the sun that is revealed, God is revealed. The Triune God is revealed and seen in that One for all eternity. Beloved, we never need to see more than that blessed One.
We will have seen God fully revealed. Wonderful truth that is.
What is more wonderful?
Than, and I shouldn't say more wonderful, but what is overwhelming and should be overwhelming to our hearts is that this very person becomes our Savior.
It's this person who is God manifested in the flesh, that becomes the Lamb of God.
Again, something we can't understand, don't pretend to understand.
How the one who is God, the Son, is a man, is subjected to the judgment of God.
But could he have borne the judgment of God, if he would have been a mere man? Could he have borne in three hours of darkness the eternity of our judgment, if he would have been a mere man? Could he have exhausted divine wrath against sin, if he wouldn't have been more than a man?
Oh, what a precious person we have in the Lord Jesus.
And if he wouldn't have come as a man hiding his Godhead glory behind a human will. I believe our brother prayed that way this morning. And how beautiful that is. He never ceased to be God, but he hid his God had glory behind the human veil because we could not have looked upon him. We could not have handled him. We couldn't have stood in his presence if he would not have come in lowly.
For what a grace it is for this Blessed One to become a man.
To be a man among men.
Yes, to become our kinsmen Redeemer.
Wonderful.
We have not seen him with these eyes.
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But we have accepted the report of those who have.
And we still have this blessed book that tells us in four gospels about that wonderful person and how that person walked as man among men, revealing God the Father, revealing God, a God of love and of grace, that would not the death desire the death of the Sinner, but would draw the Sinner to himself.
You know, we think often of.
The work that the Lord Jesus has done.
But let us think more often of who He is and who it is that has accomplished that work of redemption.
It's the Son of God that loved me and gave himself for me. What a price, beloved.
What a sacrifice accomplished by that wonderful person, the Lord Jesus Christ. But let's now turn to Luke's Gospel. We know that in John's gospel we have.
The Lord Jesus presented to us as the Son of God. You know, sister, came to me at Calgary.
She said.
Why is it that the blood is only mentioned in John's Gospel?
Well, I said Tony and John's gospel that the Lamb of God is mentioned as far as I remember.
Because the Son of God is the Lamb of God.
And how wonderful.
God shall provide himself a lamb.
And He did provide it, but that Lamb was none other than His only begotten Son, the darling of his bosom. How must He have loved us?
That he would pay such a price in order to have you and me for himself.
Beloved, we ought to think more often under fact that we have been bought with a price.
That we're not our own. The price that God has paid to make us His. What a price.
He couldn't give more, and he didn't give less. He gave his only begotten Son in order to make us his. But in Luke's gospel, we had the Lord Jesus.
As the man Christ Jesus.
You know in the enemy has attacked that blessed person in both ways.
Trying to deny that he's got from eternity the only begotten Son.
But he also has dared to attack.
That humanity, the sinless humanity of a blessed Lord.
And he is some from eternity, but he is also as man the Son of God.
Let's turn to Luke 1.
We read.
In Luke 1, when the Angel appears unto Mary.
When she saw him verse 29, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
The Angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary.
For thou has found favor with God, and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth the sun, and shall call his name Jesus, and he shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his Father David, and he shall reign over the House of Jacob Forever and of his Kingdom.
There shall be no end. Then sent Marianne to the Angel. How shall this be seeing? I know not man.
The Angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee.
And the power of the Highest shall over shadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
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Wonderful verses.
Wonderful verses.
The Lord Jesus is born of a virgin.
A woman most favored many daughters in Israel.
Desired to be so privileged, I'm sure.
But Mary is the one who was chosen to be that instrument that would bring into this world the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, we know what Catholicism has made out of Mary.
And we certainly.
A poor these merry worship.
Let's remember, beloved, she is called the Mother of the Lord.
Elizabeth said that the mother of my Lord comes to me.
She was most favored a godly soul in Israel.
The Lord Jesus partook of humanity through Mary.
But here's the important truth that we should.
Seek to.
Get a hold of and count very dear and that is that has a distinct difference between.
The man Christ Jesus and you and me. He is fully man. He was made in everything like unto his brethren, sin apart.
For the first time there was a man on earth who was holy man, who was representing, you might say, holy humanity. Never true before.
When we look at Adam in innocent Sea, in the garden before he fell, we have innocent humanity.
And when he fell, we have sinful humanity, and you and I are all part of that fallen race.
We have a nature born with it that is passed on to us from our parents, sinful. But that was not true of our blessed Lord.
He did become man, fully man, spirit, soul and body.
But he was a holy man.
He knew no sin in him there was number sin, and he never sinned, neither could he sin.
The doctrine that is so rightly accepted and Christendom today, even in so-called fundamental circles, you wonder whether it can really be referred to still as fundamental circles, is that the Lord Jesus could have sinned. What it really amounts to is deny.
This statement that we have read.
The holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Blasphemous doctrine.
Blasphemous doctrine should be part.
So widely accepted in many circles. He could have said he didn't, but he could have no. Another statement that I've heard amongst the gathered Saints is that the Lord Jesus couldn't have sinned because he was God and God cannot sin. That statement indicates that the person who made that statement isn't aware that the humanity of the Lord Jesus was holy and therefore.
Incapable of sinning. Do you know that you and I that are saved and brought to the Lord Jesus, the nature that we receive, the new nature can also not sin.
He is born of God, sinneth not because in John we looked at in the divine nature which doesn't sin. The fact that we still sin and are able to sin is because we have only not only the divine nature, we have still the old nature, that flesh still within the brother and Sunday school very ably demonstrated there to us. But the blessed Lord had only one sinless human nature.
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And that's why he.
Take up that same question, and when the Lord Jesus walked as men amongst men, all that he faced, the temptations in the wilderness only proved that he was sinless.
The devil, the brother said, couldn't get ahold of anything. There was nothing in the Lord Jesus that would respond to any temptation. He manifested himself as pure gold that did not need to be purified. And when the Bible says that he learned obedience by the things that he suffered.
It simply means that it was a new experience in his eternal existence.
He was used to control and command.
But now he was in the place of obedience and subjection, and he practically learned what it is to be obedient.
It's a path of suffering, and it's a path of suffering for you and me.
If we walk in obedience.
Well, how wonderful.
His Lord Jesus is a new kind of a man.
A holy man, the only one that could go to the cross.
And become our kinsman Redeemer, because in the Psalms already we have that a Sinner cannot pay for his own sins or for the sins of another.
But the Lord Jesus had no sin of his own.
But He took you and my sins and confessed them as his own, and He was punished for them as if he had committed them all.
He voluntarily, according to the will of God, took upon himself.
You and my sins.
And poured a punishment of Porter, punishment of God against sin. And more than that, he was made sin. Not only did he pay for all that you and I had done.
He paid for that and was punished for that which produced all this sinful behavior in US. He did not only get punished for the fruits that we produced, he was also in him. Was that tree that produced the fruit judged?
And he could only do that because there was nothing in him.
Wholly harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. But now let's turn to John chapter 12.
Greeks come.
In this chapter and they want to see the Lord Jesus.
Verse 20.
There were certain Greeks.
Among them that came up to worship at the feast, the same came therefore to Philip.
Which was of the seder of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.
Philip Thomas and tell us, Andrew. And again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
And Jesus answered them, saying, the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
How would the Son of Man be glorified?
Man is never more in his glory than when he is in the place of obedience.
I believe that is what is meant here in this statement.
Man is never more in his glory than when he is in the place of obedience. We know that. We have later on the statement that God will straightway glorify him. That is, after he has accomplished the work of redemption. God will immediately glorify him, set him in his own right hand. But here we read.
Now is the son of man now.
The Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it. He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be.
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If any man served me, him will my Father honor thou? Is my soul troubled? And what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour, Father, glorify thy name. And came their voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and we glorify it again. The people therefore that stood by and heard it, said that it thundered. Others said.
An Angel spake to him.
Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of Maine, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all men unto me.
Wonderful truth that the Lord Jesus communicates here what he's really saying as a man.
I am that kernel of weed, but I am entirely alone. It's true, he has become a man, but although he is a man, he is alone.
As a holy man.
He's alone.
But when these Gentiles come, what brings what this brings before the Lord Jesus? The fact that if these Gentiles.
Should be brought to him. That was necessary, that he would go into death.
That he, the kernel of weed would die, but then he would bring forth much fruit. But the wonderful fact is, not only those Gentiles, even his disciples, were not one with the Lord Jesus.
There is no union with Christ apart from his death.
And he would draw not only these Gentiles to himself, but also his disciples. I will draw all men to me, he says. The one that went to the cause and died.
Has brought much fruit.
You and I are the fruit of the travel of His soul. We are offsprings, if I may say so reverently, of that Blessed One and of His death.
And he gives us.
New life as the risen Savior communicate resurrection life to us and brings us by the Spirit into union with Himself. Wonderful truth. He is the head of a new race.
Couldn't be apart from his death, beloved. That's true of you and of me.
If we have come to know the Lord Jesus.
Lord Jesus, are we one with thee? The hymn writer says. Yes, we are one with him. Not only are we members of his body, but we have the very nature that the Lord Jesus had when he walked here as a man on earth.
But you know, he also says.
That if we are his, our portion is.
Like himself that we might have to lose our life.
Not that we actually have to die as martyrs.
And burned to death.
Or die on the gallows.
No, our life.
Many times we realize we lose it. We lose out in this world because we belong to the Lord Jesus. If you really walk with him. We're governed by different principles. We don't seek self satisfaction. We don't turn to things that the old man would turn to because we have a new desire. We have a new object in life. Not only do we have an object in the person of the league, Lord Jesus, but we have a new object in our life and that is to glorify.
God to bring glory to the Lord Jesus who has redeemed our souls at such a cost to Himself. Beloved, maybe some of these thoughts that we have been able to bring before us this afternoon will warm our hearts to think of who that person is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of man. You know that him. 20 in the appendix.
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The first verse.
Smitten, stricken and afflicted. See him dying on the tree, tis the Lord.
The anointed Son of God and Son of Man.
The Lord Jesus Christ, perfect God, God bless it forever, perfect man, you and my Savior, if we don't hold on to the truth of his person.
We really lose everything, but how wonderful the word of God gives us.
These verses to enjoy gives us something for our hearts.
To cling to.
You know, if we do not have the enjoyment in our souls of the person and work of the Lord Jesus, the path of faith becomes treachery. It becomes a difficult path. But if that person and the work that he has accomplished fills our souls over a path of happiness, it is it might be some path where we lose out the Lord Jesus in his path of obedience.
Lost out, you might say. He had to die. He didn't receive glory here. It was a path of sufferings and it's a path of suffering for you and me. As many as desire to live godly shall suffer persecution, but being in the enjoyment and communion with the person of the Lord Jesus and with the Father.
It's a path of happiness and joy, may it be so every day of our life, because when the enemy wraps us of the enjoyment of these things, that he will discourage us. And when we see round about us the enemies work, who seeks to destroy and to lead souls astray, You know, just to think of the simple truth that this is the same person.
That we have presented this afternoon that has promised to be in the midst of the two and three gathered to his name.
Think of that.
He personally is present. What you want to miss any meeting when you really come to realize the Lord of Glory is where the two and three meet in His name.
Or do you look at the brethren?
You know.
This brother rubs me the wrong way, and this sister annoys me with her forwardness or whatever. Well, who would continue in the path of faith very long when they get their eyes off that blessed one?
But when you keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus, it gives stability to your path in this scene and consistency. You don't want to miss any opportunity to meet with the Lord of glory. We don't go to church.
We don't go to here, brother so and so we go to meeting to meet the Lord of glory, be in his presence who might use failing weak instruments to minister to our souls, but it is he that ministers to us and we have to see the Lord in the midst. We have to see the Lord in our fellow believers, you know, and we all have our shortcomings, but there is not one of them that.
We cannot see something of Christ in that we can enjoy and can be with.
You know from little on the children growing up in the meeting.
Might not lay hold of these things very early, but it's not impossible for a child to lay hold of the fact that my dad and Mark goes to meeting because they believe the Lord Jesus is there.
And it might be habitual custom.
For them for a long time, but hopefully it's still a good custom, you know, it's still a good custom to go to meeting.
You know, I don't remember anytime that ever in our family when I grew up, the thought came up, well, we don't go to meetings today. There just never came up.
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And what a good custom that is. And hopefully the time comes that they themselves come to see. My parents are going there. The Lord Jesus is there and I believe He is there. I don't need to see him with these physical eyes. I can take.
Him at His word, just like salvation, I take Him at His word. Who says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I take him at His word, and I take Him at His word. In the same way, when it comes with two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Let's pray to the Lord that that truth might remain a reality.
In our souls, because if the enemy wraps us off that we'll be like a ship without a rudder will be adrift. We become wandering stars. How long can you go on with any group of Christians before you get annoyed and bothered? You know you go from one group to the other because when you first meet the new group of Christians, you think they're wonderful people.
And then before long you'll find out there's no one that doesn't have any fault.
But you know, the Lord Jesus expects us to have the same patience.
And grace that he has with us.
You know, it takes a lot of grace on His part to put up with us, and we ought to ask Him for grace that we can put up with one another. And we can do that when we keep our eye on Him. The Lord will enable us to make steady progress, take certain clear steps in the path of faith, and be preserved for His glory, that object for our hearts.
Should mean everything to us.
Turn with me, please, to First Timothy 3.
Reading in verse 16.
And without controversy.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh.
Justified in the Spirit.
Scene of angels.
Preached under the Gentiles.
Believed on in the world.
Received up.
In Glory.
We've had him before us in these meetings.
A wonderful the truth contained in this verse.
But it says.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
We've had the person of the sun as a mystery.
Sometimes we get in our heads the idea that godliness is dues and don't's.
But this verse?
Binds it all to a blessed person, doesn't it?
We've had him as the Son of man and the Son of God.
Let's look at Hebrews chapter one.
Verse one. God.
Verse 2.
Athen, these last days spoken unto us.
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By his son or in son?
Something more of the same we've had before us, but it says whom he hath appointed heir of all things.
By whom also he made.
The world's or the universe?
Who being the brightness of His glory.
And the express image of his person.
And upholding all things by the word of His power.
All think of the glory.
In the person.
Of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
When he had by himself.
Purged our sins.
We've had before us as man. He was alone.
He had to say to his disciples, Thou canst not follow me now.
When he had by himself purged our sins.
Sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Oh, what a place he has now.
Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance.
Obtained a more excellent name than they.
For under which of the angels, said he, at anytime thou art my son, this day I have begotten thee.
And again I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
New translation says I will be to him for a father, and he shall be to me for a son.
He took that place.
Eternally the Son.
He took a place.
As a son to a father like you and I know it.
Obedient.
Though he was ever equal.
In verse 8. But unto the Son he saith.
Thy throne, O God.
Is forever.
And ever.
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy Kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness we've had before us.
In him was number sin.
There was not a nature in him to respond to temptation.
You could put him in the Crucible. The fire.
And apply all the heat and temptation you want. There was number dross.
No dross.
Unless loved righteousness and hated iniquity.
Therefore God, even thy God.
Oh, that dependent man had proven all, hadn't he?
This is a quotation from the 45th Psalm.
Hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
You and I who are redeemed are his fellows.
What a joy to his heart.
We've had fellowship and communion.
What a joy to his heart to have fellows.
At Sinai there was Thunder and lightning and earthquake and voices that the people couldn't stand.
We had in John 12 Thunder.
But he said this voice.
Is for your sake.
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Ah, veiled before their eyes.
Is the Son of God.
Not fire. Not an earthquake.
But the blessed person.
Who came to lay down his life?
That grain of wheat.
That, if it die, would bear much fruit.
Let us turn to Psalm 102.
In verse 10 we have.
Well, let's look at verse.
Seven I watch.
And Emma's a Sparrow alone upon the housetop.
Mine enemies reproach me all the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me.
Bribe eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.
Oh, we've had before us something of his manhood, how he felt.
I look for some to take pity and there was none.
Verse 10 because of thine indignation.
From thy wrath.
The Son of God.
Yes.
The Son of Man, yes.
For thou hast lifted me up.
And cast me down.
Notice the order.
The lifting up is first.
The casting down follows.
That's not Christianity.
There's no suffering. And then the glory.
Oh, he was lifted up in Israel. They wanted to make him king.
But then how did it go?
We know how it went.
They set away with him, crucify him. We will not have this man to reign over us.
So he was lifted up.
He rides triumphantly into Jerusalem a week later.
Is to go to the cross.
Lift it up and cast down.
Verse 23 This blessed man, this very God.
Your Redeemer in mine, what's it say?
He weakened my strength in the way.
He shortened my days.
He was verily man spirit.
Soul and body, how he felt it.
A man of perhaps 33 years of age.
He says he weakened my strength in the way he shortened my days.
I said, Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days.
Can our hearts get hold of that?
This very God.
Felt so deeply to be a man.
These words apply to him.
The punctuation is a little different.
In the new translation, I believe.
The next part of the verse is an answer.
I've wondered if these words were spoken in the garden.
Or on the cross.
But I know they're from the soul of the holy sufferer.
Our Lord Jesus.
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This answer comes to the suffering man.
He majors all in the garden and on the cross.
There too.
But the answer to this suffering man is.
Thy ears are throughout all generations.
He is very God.
Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth.
That's our Jesus.
And the heavens are the works of thy hands.
We had in Revelation this morning.
For thy pleasure they are and were created.
Oh what a man is your savior in mind, this very God.
They shall perish.
Holy sufferer.
You and I don't know how to measure what it is to have never known sin.
And contemplate being made sin.
When he said not my will but thine be done.
It was his peerless.
Holy soul.
Withdrawing from the thought.
Of being made sin.
But that's how great His love is for you and I.
And so this answer they shall perish.
The cry from that cross, Jehovah the sufferer.
Take me not away in the midst of my days. Jehovah on high answers Jehovah the sufferer. Thy years are throughout all generations of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure.
Oh, what a sight to the Father.
Was the sun on the cross?
In that obedience of his soul.
We know he's forsaken of God.
And who of us can contemplate that?
To know someone in nothing but love.
And purity.
And to have them.
Totally turn against you in judgment.
Can't measure. Can't.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure. Yeah, all of them shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou.
Change them.
There's the hope of resurrection in these very words, isn't there?
And they shall be changed, but thou.
Are the same.
And thy ears shall have no end.
Oh, does this speak.
In some.
Manner to your soul and mind, the man who loved you.
Gave himself for me.
I want to please him.
In Ephesians.
Chapter 3.
We've had the Apostles doctrine.
Verse one we get an apostle, a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
Verse three says, How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.
Verse 5. Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men.
Verse six that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs.
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And of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ.
By the Gospel.
Verse 9.
Verse 8 middle to verse that I should preach among the Gentiles.
Unsearchable riches of.
Christ.
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery.
Which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, We had in Colossians. Your life is hid with Christ in God.
And now there's this.
Wonderful mystery.
And again, this last phrase, who created all things by Jesus Christ, oh, see his person.
See his manhood.
See His glory, the Son of God.
Another last verse in John chapter 13.
Verse 3.
Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God.
And went to God.
Knowing.
Marvelous, isn't it?
The Son of God.
All given into his hands.
Conscious of where he came from, where he's going.
But it's the very basis for washing the feet of his disciples.
It's the very basis.
The last part of verse 8.
Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never watch my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not.
Thou hast no part with me.
We've had before us. We become defiled, by the way.
We all have things to confess that communion be maintained or restored.
The very.
Of where he came from and where he's going is a very 'cause that you and I should come and have the defilement washed away because he says I want you to have a part with me.
He's doing things in this world yet.
With us and he wants us to have part with him.
We're hiding anything. We don't have part with him.
The defilement has to go.
But we've had the source, the resource too, and what was spoken earlier.
About the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sin, the very Son of God.
The Son of Man.
You and I couldn't have it better.
Oh God, the wrath glorified, thy holy blessing thrown up, And as I read, the crucified now sit exhausted on my throat to heaven. Faith, we cry aloud, Where the art thou? Oh, I'm gone 110.
All my prayers.
For ourselves.
We.
Are all we have.
All before I come and give us.
Gospel 7
Gospel—J. Ryan
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.
Good evening all and welcome.
To another gospel meeting.
I wonder how many of us can recall the hymn that was first sung in this room this morning. What song was number one this morning? The first meeting this morning was.
Announced as a children's meeting, a Sunday school And what was the first hymn that we sang this morning?
I'd like to sing it again.
We turn to number 40.
This little song turns out to be the favorite hymn for many, many 1,000,000 millions of souls.
Have enjoyed this song. It's been translated into many languages.
Someone start #40 for us?
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Before we proceed any further.
Shall we just take out a moment to ask our God for help?
We asked either when.
Well, excuse me just a moment if I ask you to look again at the little song we just sang. It's on the Backpage. It's not too hard to find number 40.
I'd like to just count the number of times it says Jesus loves me. How often did we express that little phrase? The first line of verse one, the first line of verse two and the first line of verse three and again verse four and once more verse five. That's five times that we use that expression. We we mouthed those words.
Jesus loves me. That's 5 verses. Then in the chorus it's repeated. 3 * 5 * 3 is what, 15?
So in the chorus we set it 15 times. In the verses we said it five more.
20 times.
Have you ever stopped to count how often we may make that expression? Some of us in this room?
I suspect there's some over 80 years of age that have sat in gospel meetings like this at least once a week. That's a little over 50 * a year. A couple of weeks off. Maybe we had the flu or a bug of some sort.
How often have you heard the gospel?
80 * 50.
Quite a few times.
Right, 8 * 50 is 400.
80 * 50 is 4000. How many times do we have to hear before we take it in?
Can we ask you all a question?
The little song said, and we repeated it with some frequency. Jesus loves me. Can I ask a question?
Of each and everyone, young and old.
Do you?
Love Jesus.
There's no question about his love.
There may be some question of our mind. How responsive am I? How responsive have you been?
Do we answer to that love? Do we respond to it as we ought?
Jesus loves me now, the hymn tells us.
That we know this, it's an item of information that's known to us, That's something that's come into our heads, into our minds, into our intellect, and we've acquired an understanding that Jesus loves me. This I know. How come we know that? By what means have we come to that understanding? Verse 2, excuse me, line 2, verse one is real early, early in this little hymn.
That we get the answer. Where do we find this information? How come we understand this to be sold?
The Bible tells me so.
The Bible tells me so.
Now, what's so significant about information acquired from the Bible if you go to the Public Library?
And have any subject at all on your mind, whatever it is, and decide to look up something?
When you get a book off the shelf, the first thing you need to do these days is look up the front piece.
And try to find the date. When was this book written? Was this book written?
50 years ago, probably obsolete. Maybe it isn't pertinent, Maybe it doesn't answer the question in terms of today's world.
What if it's 100 years old?
It's probably completely irrelevant, especially if it's on some technical subject, it doesn't come close to the mark.
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How is it that this book?
Almost 2000 years since the last word in it was written.
How come that this book is to be relied on?
Unchanging thy word is settled, it says.
Forever.
Thy word is settled. No change.
That's because the author of this book is different from the authors of all the other books in the library.
Have you ever gone to a library? And at least in some of the major cities, I know one.
And go to the index and try to find a company of the Bible. Lots of libraries that don't have it anymore.
This book.
God's Word to you, to me.
It's to be relied on. Now where does it tell us in this book that Jesus loves me? I wish I had some of the 10 year olds here to try to get an answer to that. That question was asked once in a Sunday school class. Tell me, where does it say Jesus loves me?
Can you tell me the hymns writer says that the Bible says it, so where is it?
Well, one little boy, said John 316.
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Well that wasn't the answer the teacher was looking for because that doesn't say Jesus in that verse, it says God.
And it refers to the sun, so that God must be the Father. But where does it say Jesus loves?
You and me.
Can we turn open our Bibles to John 15?
John 15 You know, in this little prayer meeting that was had a few minutes ago, there were a number of voices seeking the Lord's mercies on behalf of the children in our houses, the little ones.
Not just one.
Had that concern, quite a few of the voices raised to pray, to plead that our God would be merciful for the children in our houses. So I'd really like to talk to the children. Is there anyone here of the age of three or four old enough to take it in that Jesus loves you?
John 15 verse 9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I, and the speaker is by name.
Jesus, he says.
John 15 verse nine. So have I loved you.
There it is in plain English, in our own native language.
Now.
When God repeats himself.
He's not stuttering, he's not stammering, he's not indefinite or speculating as to what he has said, so he has to repeat it to be sure he got it right the first time. No, he's just being emphatic.
Emphatic. He wants us to know without any doubt as to what He has said. Verse 9 So have I loved you. Now read verse 12, the end of the verse, the last four words.
I have loved you.
That's Jesus speaking.
I have loved you. What is your answer to that?
Can you say?
Jesus, I love you.
Now.
I wonder if we can find any reason why Jesus loves us.
You know, we read something about the state, what we are when we came into this world.
In Romans 3, let's turn to it briefly. Romans chapter 3, we have a little description of what we are.
This is what we are by birth. And you know if the parents that are present will excuse me for justice a moment.
00:15:05
That I might speak to the children.
And express an apology to the little ones, the young folks, the children here.
We brought you into this world.
And we brought you into a world of sin.
We ourselves, your fathers and mothers, were sinners in our sins.
And you've inherited something from us.
Sin, sin.
So here we are.
All of us, young and old.
Tainted with the same brush.
Sin. Romans 3 describes our state as sinners in this world.
Verse 10 as it is written.
That affirms authenticity, that establishes.
Honesty and the source. It is God's own truth. It is written There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.
Had a little burst from Isaiah 53. He's been quoted here in this room in the last couple of days. All gone astray, everyone turned into his own way.
They all are together become unprofitable. There was none that doeth good. No, not one.
Do I maybe have a 5 year old girl here?
That says that the little girls are made of sugar and spice and I haven't done anything wrong.
What does God have to say about me?
Verse 12 Again, the last expression in the verse, There is none that doeth good, no.
Not one.
Well, that's perhaps enough to establish.
The state of us, each young and old.
The physically attractive, the others not so attractive physically.
The mentally bright and the others not so mentally sharp perhaps.
The young, the old, the ones with substance, some wealth in their bank accounts and others with relatively little.
All in the same mold, all in the same state. Now why should Jesus love anybody so described?
Can you find a reasonable excuse?
Why Jesus should love me?
It doesn't seem too reasonable actually.
Well, you can understand it if there was some particularly attractive people in this world.
And the Lord could approach such and say I love you, you're a doll, you are most attractive to my eye, and I love you. But oh, the fellow next door.
He's a little blunt. He's a crusty sort of person. He doesn't behave himself too well for that person. No. No love for that person. Is that the way it says it in the book? No.
Jesus loves everyone.
That's really quite remarkable if you think about it.
We could understand the love of God shown out to lovely persons.
But that God should love the unlovely.
That's news, and that's where we are. God who loves the unlovely.
Jesus.
Loves me.
Jesus loves you. What is your response to that?
Now we've had a little bit in the last couple of days.
Something really kind of brought to our attention more forcibly this afternoon.
And I hope most of you, I suspect most of you, were here.
We had a little discussion as to who this man Jesus is.
00:20:04
You know if he was a person of no particular worth.
No particular reputation a man of.
No particular position in this world.
And he comes and shows some affection to us. Well, we can take it or leave it. So what? But who is he? Who is this man?
We had some definition of it today.
This afternoon our attention was called to the first chapter of John's Gospel. Just a few pages over, and we look at John one again.
And I hope that the youngest can follow this.
And won't read the whole chapter. Much of it was read this afternoon. But who is this man?
Whose name is Jesus?
Go to the encyclopedias, you can get quite a bit of material about the history of the man called Jesus. But who is he?
You might say that sounds kind of strange, shouldn't I say? Who was he?
Well, he was.
And it says Christ died. That's another one of his names. Christ died for our sins.
According to the scriptures and he was buried and he rose again.
And he's gone up to heaven. He lives.
We have a savior.
Who lives? He's alive.
He's sitting in the heavens, waiting to take his people.
To himself.
So it is present tense. Who is Jesus?
Is referred to sometimes as Jesus of Nazareth. The text over the cross of Calvary said this is Jesus of Nazareth as his home city, more or less the city where he was raised, not the place where he was born, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Was that an accurate statement?
Yes.
Quite accurate, but it wasn't complete. And what didn't really tell the whole story? Jesus of Nazareth, that was right. The King of the Jews, that was correct, but it didn't cover the ground. John One, the first chapter of John's Gospel.
Seems to cover the ground. Now let's look a little as to why this man Jesus should be recognized by us, received by us, accepted by us, each and everyone. In the first verse we find one of his names, the Word.
Capital W and the word Word in the first verse of the chapter.
And in a simple way, I like to think that that means that he's so thoroughly described God.
That there's no other need for work. He was the full expression of the Godhead.
As we also noted this afternoon in First Timothy.
The word now go down to verse.
Seven, in the middle of the verse, the light. Notice it's the Word, not one of many words, but the Word and in connection with light in verse 7, the light, the whole world in darkness.
Impenetrable darkness.
In Satan's control.
And there is light to be found in Jesus. That's one of his names, the light.
Now go down, perhaps to.
Well, verse 29, the Lamb again singular.
Not one of many lambs, or a lot of lambs in the Mosaic economy. In the Old Testament we just read of one today or two. The morning and the evening. Lamb every day, year round, year after year, for centuries. 2 lambs a day. But here is.
The Lamb, singular, specific, none like him.
And his name is Jesus.
Down to verse 34. Some further identification as to who he is.
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This is the Son of God.
Isn't that amazing?
A Lamb of God, the word delight, and he's also the Son of God.
You might put that slightly differently. This is God the Son.
Now, if God has been in this world, and the person of the Son, if God has walked the streets.
Of our cities, if God has been mistreated, the Son of God thrown out.
You know the Father, God the Father has a controversy with this world.
What have you done with Jesus? You say, Well, I wasn't there in 1900 odd years ago. I didn't drive the nails. Some Roman soldier did that. But what are you doing with him now?
What is your attitude toward him now?
God the Son in verse 34 and next.
In verse 41 it is once said to others, we have found the Messiah.
Messiahs. That's a Hebrew word that means.
The Christ the same as in the Greek Messiahs and Christ are synonymous 2 languages.
Meaning the one appointed by God and sent.
Set. We've had it quoted here several times today. The Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. The Savior. Isn't that strange? Did this world need a savior? Do you need a savior? You can't save yourself.
And so you do need a savior, and his name is Jesus, and there is none other name under heaven. You know, if there were some alternatives, things wouldn't be quite so, so awkward if we could suggest to you that maybe there's two or three different ways to get to heaven.
There are many ways to get to hell. We're well acquainted with that.
That's the Broad Rd. that was referred to last night.
Broad Road and many there go in there after.
But there's one savior.
Jesus.
Christ our Lord.
Christ, God's man. The next verse 45 identifies this same person. All these names in one chapter. Here he is the end of verse 45, Jesus of Nazareth.
Now the man who was speaking was a man, Philip.
And the best of his knowledge at the time, he said something, and in the word of God.
He's accurately quoted. This is what he said. Jesus of Nazareth comma, the son of Joseph.
Now we also had a little information this afternoon. We were told that he was not the son of Joseph. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost. He was not the son of Joseph. He was the son of Mary, but not the son of Joseph.
That's what this book tells us, and we believe it. Well, Philip was misinformed. He was reporting as to what his understanding of things was, that Joseph was the Father. He was misinformed, but he was not incorrectly informed with respect to his identity as Jesus of Nazareth.
Another name.
At the end of verse 49.
Thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel. The King. What does that suggest? Authority. High place? Dominion. The King?
He has rule. Are you subject to that rule, or are you rebellious, refusing to submit to that rule?
This is who Jesus is, the King.
And at the last few words of the chapter, another title, another name for Jesus.
The Son of Man, you know, it impresses me this way.
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If someone comes to me and wants to introduce me to a man who is.
The Word, the light, the Lamb of God.
The Christ.
Jesus of Nazareth, the King.
Why he's so high above my station, so far in excess of my position in this world.
But I have no possibility of ever making any acquaintance of such a person.
How many of us?
I've had an audience with the Queen of England, for example. How many of us have been in the White House? What chance do we have of reaching a man in high station? Not much.
So.
We the chapter doesn't close, leaving us with that quandary, that doubt. We're introduced the end of verse 51 to the Son of Man.
A man, a real man, we've had that brought before us today.
God manifest in flesh. God made visible, expressed in flesh, so that he could be reached, so that he could be handled, so that eyes could see it and talk with him, communicate with him. He was physically here as a man and as a man.
Is reachable by us today.
He's knowable. We can.
Communicate. We can reach this man, the Son of Man, although he is high and lofty.
As all these titles seem to indicate, no, I missed two titles, at least in this chapter. We go back and pick them up please in the second verse.
The same.
This was also brought to our attention a little earlier, just an hour or two ago from the 102nd Psalm. One of His names is the same, you know, He just never changes. He is the eternal Son, the eternal God.
One of the hymns in our Black book expresses it rather nicely.
This, this hymn #129 verse two, this Savior is present tense. The mighty God, the God of heaven above the God of heaven, that's who he is. Next line revealed in flesh.
Comma.
He shed his blood.
Blessed proof of endless love. He proved his love.
One of his names, the same unchanging God from eternity.
The Everlasting One, the I am, the Holy One of God, the same unchanging.
And one more title, one more evidence, one more statement I should say as to who he is. Verse one, this was touched on earlier today. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. He had separate identity. And notice this last, the Word was God.
Jesus is God.
Now can you afford?
To think lightly of such and one as this can you afford.
To think lightly of him.
He loves you. He loves you with intensity, with every fiber of His being. He proved it when He went to that cross, when He died for your sins and for mine. Christ died for our sins.
He didn't die for his own.
He had none.
The only sins?
That he had at that cross were those that he assumed, those that were laid on him, not his own, if he had so few as one.
He would not be a competent savior if he had so few as one sin approaching that cross. It was required in the Old Testament, you may recall, of the sacrifices that were to be brought. The Israelites, who had a conscience about his sins, would come and bring a beast, perhaps a lamb most commonly.
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An offering for sin.
And he presented to the priest, he lay his hand on the head of that little animal, and the priest would take it. The animal would be slain, and the blood poured out. But that animal was required under the law of Moses to be without blemish, without blemish, no fault. Now have you ever thought of what?
Fear might come into the minds of 1 The pious Israelite concerned about his sins, and he'd come to the priest to make that offering, to be relieved of all that guilty feelings that were on him to present a lamb. He knew it had to be a perfect lamb with no blemish.
Right, look at that beast and he'd say, well, it looks pretty good to me. And before I go to the priest, he might stop at one of his neighbors who was better acquainted with sheep.
Only my consultant neighbor and say is this is this animal really without blemish? The neighbor might say well.
From what little I know about sheep, I think that the sheep is a little heavy in his hips, or maybe his legs are too short for the body or too long for the body. No, a critical analysis would find something wrong with that beast.
Maybe the eyes are a little too close together. You're really not a perfect animal. So he go back to his flock and search out, try to call out, find one that may be more perfect this time. He might go to one who's in the business of raising sheep, one who is raised in the business of cultivating sheep, perhaps a PhD at the local university.
Who is well acquainted with what constitutes perfection in the Lamb? And he'd bring that beast to that person.
And you know.
The more careful you examine the thing, the more high-powered your microscope.
The more likely you are to find fault. There's something wrong with that animal. It's really tough to find perfection in this world.
So the Israelite who is the real conscience about his offering?
I don't know what really hesitate. Is this animal without blemish? It's required to be over and over again stated.
Must be without blemish, but here is God's land, the Lamb of God.
One of his title is in John One verse 29, The Lamb of God.
It would require perfection.
And.
It was provided the Lamb of God's own, providing the Son of his love.
The perfect.
Lamb of God, no spot, no blemish, no taint. He died for our sins.
And He is a Savior for sinners everywhere around the world, young and old.
Will you have him? He loves you, He wants you.
Do you love him?
So this savior.
Is Jesus that's his name?
That's only part of the story. He's much more than just the man Jesus of Nazareth.
He is God.
Isn't that tremendous to think that God who loved us would go to such lengths?
Now I'd like to just maybe touch on an illustration, return to the second chapter of the book of Ruth, and we'll just look at perhaps one verse.
And we get an illustration of how one lady laid hold of these things. One person.
Came in a blessing. She became a believer. Would you? Is there somebody here who is not a believer, who doesn't put your trust in the Lord Jesus? Haven't done it yet. Thinking about it, maybe you've heard there's a desirable thing to do, but you haven't done it. But here's an illustration of just how it's done.
Might be a help to somebody. Second chapter of Ruth, verse 14.
This is the story of a woman who was a of the tribe of the nation of Moab.
And she had no rights. She would not have Israel. She had no claims against the God of Israel.
She was a stranger and not to be admitted to the nation of Israel for 10 generations. And yet here she is. She presents herself in Israel a stranger with no rights and you without Christ, without God in this world tonight, sitting here, you have no claims against God either. You have no rights. You cannot press your claim on any ground of propriety and decency in yourself.
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Just like this more by this woman. No claims. A stranger with no claims.
Verse 14.
And Boaz said unto her, Well, further, we might notice this. She was a young woman. Probably, you understand, she was probably a young woman and she was a widow. She had been married. They lost her husband at a young age, and she's coming to Israel.
As it says in another place in this book.
That she had come under the wings of the God of Israel to trust in Him. She had put her trust in the God of Israel. And what do you put your trust?
Any confidence in yourself?
Worthless.
Worth less, worth nothing, worse than nothing. Confidence in yourself will deceive you.
Give you to think that perhaps things might turn out all right in the end. self-confidence.
Is ruined.
Boaz said unto her at meal time.
Come thou, hit her.
Boise is described as the mighty man of wealth, and our Lord Jesus is certainly that mighty man of wealth. He had unlimited wealth. He was the God of the universe. There's everything at his command. Nothing escaped him. It was all his.
And he says, come, hit her, the Lord Jesus.
Is here tonight and he is inviting you come and those of us who know him, perhaps the larger number that are present, can we understand him to be saying?
I know you, I've known you for a long time. I love you and I understand you have some affection for me, but would you come a little closer?
Come a little closer. He wants our company. He doesn't want us to be distant, cold, unresponsive. The lover of our souls wants our affections.
And he says, Come, Heather, come near, like Joseph said to his brethren, Come near unto me, I pray you, what a pleading of the heart of Joseph. That's what Jesus is saying to us, all of us, everyone in this room, come near unto me, I pray here.
And so, oh, I said unto this woman, come, hit her and eat, eat. Take it in. What good does it do to look at a fancy meal on the table? Sit up at the table, pull up a chair, take a fork in your hand and look at it. Look at it for 4 minutes. Make it 10. Look at it for 20 minutes. Everybody else at the table is through with their meal. They've enjoyed it, and they're gone. And there you are, still sitting there looking at it.
Eat.
Take it in.
Nor says the entrance of thy word giveth light the entrance of it that has to come inside. Take it in. This woman she ate.
She was invited to come and to eat.
And to dip thy morsel, dip participate.
Participate. Come in.
And then there's a period after that word vinegar and the rest of the verse it says and.
She sat.
She was invited to come, she was invited to eat, and then invited to dip. And she didn't do either of the latter. Either eat or dip. The first thing she did was to sit.
She recognized the majesty, the August person in whose presence she was, and she didn't plunge. The first thing she did was to come down.
Come down. Give them on herself to acknowledge her own nothingness. She sacked. She didn't run around displaying whatever she may have had in the way of attributes or qualities. She sat. Have you sat in the presence of Jesus to acknowledge His high worth and your own nothingness? Give up on yourself to acknowledge that you are nothing but a Sinner.
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You know a child of seven or even three or four can do it, but where you sit?
And those of us who may have known the Lord Jesus for years, can we do it again? Take our right place. We had no claims.
We belong at his feet, come down, down, give up on ourselves to acknowledge that we're nothing and took the Apostle Paul a few years to get to that. In one case, he said I'm the least of the apostles. That sounded sort of self renouncing.
At least of the apostles. But some folks may well have thought that's kind of pretentious. He's claiming pretty nice company. So he comes along a little later and he says I'm less than the least of All Saints.
That's more like it, isn't it? Less than the least.
Are we willing to take that kind of a place?
There's favor, there's blessing for anyone who will take that place.
Now that's not the end of the apostles history. Apostle Paul went a step further and he said.
I be nothing.
In the light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ my Lord, well, I can't pretend anything.
I be nothing. That's where we belong.
And that's not just an occasional or a one time event on the day we receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior, that's a lifetime position.
To take the bottom place, and that's what.
Ruth did. Here she sat.
Unpretentious. Undemanding.
Willing that he should have his place.
She sat. And now notice what Boaz did. This is what Jesus has done for those of us who know Him as our Savior.
He reached her parched corner. Can you imagine the Lord of glory, the God of the universe, extending himself to reach something to you?
He's extended himself to that extent to reach to you. Isn't that grand? Oh, it should make the heart burst, The Lord of glory.
Has reached and is still reaching. He's seeking our hearts.
He's reaching all the way across that table. We don't know how wide the table was.
Whether he had to stretch himself 3 feet or 13, I don't know, but he reached far enough to reach Ruth the Moabite, his damsel. And he's reaching for you. He wants your heart. He reached her parched corn. Parched corn, That suggests.
The harvested grain in the summertime and they can't eat it all. They have to put some in storage and at least in the old days they used to hang it up in the sun and dry it. Maybe put it into ovens to get it roasted to some extent to get removed the moisture from the grain so that it could be preserved and would last over the winter and be available through the winter months and into the spring before the next harvest.
Parched corn.
Our Lord Jesus.
He went through the furnace, he went through the fire, that intense heat.
And those three hours of darkness on that cross, when he bore our sins.
And I can appreciate that you can appreciate that when we do.
Our hearts just naturally go out to him. This is the man.
That took my sins on his shoulders, on his head.
He bore them.
There, and he wants us to know it. He reached her parched corn.
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And then toward the end of the verse, this woman responded she did eat.
She didn't eat. She took it in. She understood it. She received it.
She did eat and was sufficed and left, the new translation says.
She was sufficed and reserved some.
She had all she could handle and more. Oh our God is generous.
He will pour it out beyond our capacities to take it in, so that something leftover to share with others go down a couple of verses and.
Verse 18 And when she went to her mother-in-law that evening, and she gave at the end of the verse, she gave to her mother-in-law that which she had reserved after, she was surprised. She had all she could take him, and she had something leftover.
And now young people.
Children.
Your fathers and mothers that brought you here.
We've received something so grand, so great, so liberal, so majestic.
We've taken it in and it has made our hearts bubble.
And now we're here to tell you about it, and we have something of it leftover for you. Our God is liberal.
He's given of us. He's given to us sufficient to meet our every need. And there's something there for you.
Come unto me, the Lord Jesus says, Come, don't sit there unresponsive with your ears plugged up. Oh, I know it says in the Proverbs, the here and here and the seeing eye. The Lord hath made even both of them.
No, if I could, I would go up and down the aisles with a can opener and open up your ears and make your hair. Can't do that.
But God can.
It's our prayer that he would.
That you would be willing to sit and receive what he offers free at no cost to you, great cost to himself.
Come unto me, the Lord Jesus says, Come.
Hit her and eat.
And we just close with singing of a little song #42 Perhaps the Lord will open up the hearts.
Of someone of the little ones.
Maybe two or three of the little ones, or a dozen. Everyone of an age-old enough to take it in.
Number 42. Someone would start that one little verse for us, please.
Colossians 3:6-25
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We have one history of prominent.
Life.
3.
We started verse 6.
For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience in the which he also walked sometime when he lived in them. But now he also put off all these anger, Wrath, mouse, blasphemy.
Filthy communication. Out of your mouth lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian Scythian bond, nor free, but Christ.
Is all and in all.
Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, balls of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye, and above all these things put on charity.
Which is the bond of perfectness? And let the peace of God rule in your heart to the which also ye are called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grease in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever ye do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
Why submit yourselves under your own husbands as it is sitting the Lord?
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things.
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For this is well pleasing under the Lord.
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
Servants, obey in all things your masters, according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God, and whatsoever he do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.
Knowing that of the Lord, ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he have done. And there is no respect of persons. Masters give unto your servants that which is just an equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.
In First Corinthians 6.
And verse 9 Know ye not, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, Be not deceived either fornicators, nor adulterers, nor adulterers, nor feminists, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God, and such.
Were some of you. But you're washed, but you're sanctified.
But here justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God, so that which took place before we were saved, is wiped out by the precious blood of Christ.
Is gone in the sight of a holy God, but then goes on in our chapter.
But now, now we belong to the Lord. But now ye also put off all these. There's that which we need to watch as children of God. The old nature will exert itself. But now ye also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication. Out of your mouth lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds.
We have a nature, each one of us, that is capable of any one of these things. We need to be on our guard against it.
In the first part of our chapter, we've had the new life. Here, I believe we get the wardrobe that goes with it. There are things that we should put on and things that we should put on, and I think what the subject of the next few verses is those moral characteristics.
That should we should put off as no longer suitable for the new life and those moral characteristics that we should put on. I was thinking of that verse in in Revelation where it says as a bride adorned for our husband. Now, as those know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior is our desire to honor and glorify Him we have in our previous meetings.
The question of that which is suitable.
For him that was honest and glorifies him. And so as Christians we put off those things, those moral characteristics that would dishonor him. And in order to glorify him, we put on those moral characteristics that are set his honor and his glory.
Another illustration that has been used that was helpful to me was it's as if you have a picture of a ship and we have had a change of commanders on the on the ship there are some members of the old crew that are so bad that they must be put to death and that's what you get in verse 5, mortified. Then there are other members that are still bad, but they must be put off the ship.
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Verse 8. Anger, wrath, malice, etc.
And then there is a new crew taken on, and that's what you get the footing on in verse 12.
Bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. So for us, our younger believers, to look at our bodies in this way, there are members that must be put to death.
There are those things that must be put off I think we can all relate in some fashion to in verse 8 to anger, wrath. Those things rise up in our hearts sometimes when we find it rising up.
Remember these words put off.
And then to put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.
We certainly would not want to leave the impression that these things can be done by the determination to do them.
The battle is not ours, it is God's. The Spirit wars against the flesh and the flesh against the Spirit, in order that you should not do the things that you would.
So to be able to do these things that we are admonished to do, and to not do the things that we are not admonished to do, we simply have to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill flesh's desires.
And these admonitions are stated, beloved, in terms that mean to be in the state of having done it.
Walk in the spirit and you'll not fulfill Flash's desires.
First nine lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.
This is a positive statement as to what has been done. We put off the old man, we put on the new man.
But, beloved, we must remember that that old nature.
While it should be put in the place of death, it is still very active. If it's allowed to act, we need to keep it in the place of death, and if only as we go on with Christ.
That will be enabled to keep it in the place of death and being able to walk in the good of the new man.
I know that it said in Ephesians 4 verse 26.
Be ye angry, and sin not.
Let not the sun go down upon your right.
Put off all the anger head of the list.
The Lord looked round about him in anger because of the hardness of their hearts.
There is that which.
Might be racist anger, but still, let not the sun go down upon your off. Whatever we have, let's settle it immediately.
We find with Moses. I believe that.
He was angry.
But he said he spoke unadvisedly with his lips. I believe if anybody could give an example.
Would have the audacity to get up in a meeting like this and make blasphemy statements as to the person of the Lord Jesus. And if you don't feel any anger in your soul, there's something radically wrong with you.
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But the danger is that.
We ourselves get carried away and dishonor the Lord by not keeping.
Things under control, controlling our spirit. And some of us have more of a problem with that than others that we have to realize that. But we need grace and especially let's not continue in that state. Don't let it become a state. That's why it says let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
In other words.
Respond properly in any given situation, but don't let the flesh take advantage of it and lead to dishonor. I don't think that Moses necessarily was wrong in being angry, but he was wrong in allowing that anger to make him speak unadvisedly and not follow the directions given to him of the Lord, striking instead of speaking.
To the rock. Would you agree with that, Brother Clem? Yes, I do. Another meaning to let not the sun go down upon your wrath is to continue righteous anger against unrighteousness. Don't give up and and merge with unrighteousness. Don't lower your stagger.
That a nice point that I think is worthy of.
Seeing that Grant says be angry as long as the condition which causes that justifiable anger exists, the anger should exist. But added to that admonition is being angry.
And sin now, now I submit this to my brethren, but I think that tells us that just what Brother Heinz has said, if our anger gets control of us and and is the motive of our action and controls us. Remember when the Lord was angry He took a whip of a small cords he had.
Control of things. The anger we sometimes we sometimes say that the brother got mad.
So that means his anger, Control him and let him to do something unseemly. But as long as the condition exists, that of course is justifiable anger. The sun shouldn't go down on it. That is, we shouldn't stop being exercised above that condition of things. But that anger should not control us and cause us to do something that we later regret, which Moses did.
Lobby SIA is characterized by indifference, and they might even boast that they don't let themselves get riled up by doctrine that might be wrong or moral conduct that is wrong. That is Lavicianism in principle, and a godly exercise soul will not be indifferent when the glory of the Lord Jesus is at stake.
Rather than talking about the number 25, I'd like to read it.
Says in verse three, Israel joined himself on the bail Peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
And the first five goals are set up for the judges of Israel slagy everyone his men that rejoined under veil Fior. And the old one of the children of Israel, came and brought unto his brethren a Midian English woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation, the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. Now here in Phineas you see a picture of righteous anger. And when Phineas the son of Iliasia, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it.
He rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand, and went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through the man of Israel.
And the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. Those that died in the plague were 20 and 4000. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phineas the son of Elias, and the son of Aaron. The priest had turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake. Among them that I consume not the children of Israel in my jealousy, But there you see righteous anger executing judgment on evil.
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Palpable and manifest evil.
And God of course approves that. But as our brethren have been saying, to hold the anger so that it gets a hold of us and we we harbor unkind and and unchrist like thoughts would be of course to fall into the snare of the enemy. Wouldn't it give place to the devil?
This new creation, the verse we're considering, #10 verse 10, have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. We go back to the first chapter in the Bible, we find something about this and the old creation and God says in Genesis 126, let us make man.
In our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air.
Over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God, notice what it says. He created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him.
But man, the first man.
Through the moral fall lost that representation of the creator.
He failed in it and no longer the image.
But now God has worked in new creation. That's what we've got in our chapter in the new creation.
Man is here, created, renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him in a new life, which is the life of Christ, which can never ever sin. So a believer is a complex person. He has the old nature, yet he has the new nature.
Nature wants to express its will and that is sin. The new nature does not sin. We are exhorted to put on that new man in our practice down here.
See also How important knowledge is a disconnection?
And Mr. Darby translates it renewed in the full knowledge.
And people, the little knowledge.
Knowledge is such an important point in one recalls the verse in the Old Testament why people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge. This is not a knowledge that pops us up. This is a knowledge that knows God as he has come out and what is according to God for those who have been brought into association with himself and have gotten a new nature.
And.
Have been created all over again and they know what that position is that they have before God. They know God and know their position before God and therefore know what is according to his mind and will.
Says of the new creation old things are passed away, and behold, all things are become new. And in this new creation there is nothing of the old remaining, but all things are of God. So when we come to the end of the Revelation.
We are brought to a place and into circumstances where there is no need for the sun nor the moon, because the glory of the Lamb is the light of that place. When God created the earth, as we had brought before us in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, he set the sun to be the rule of the day and the moon to rule the night.
But in the new creation when God is finished with the work.
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We are brought into circumstances where there is no need for anything of the original creation, even the highest elements of those things that were created to rule the day and to rule the night. He is all we, and so we are here. No Jew, no Gentile, no free, no bond. Christ is all and in all.
Well, I was struck by the appropriateness of this chapter.
To be brought up at this time when there exists this difficulty among the Saints.
I think these are words that we all ought to take to heart, because there are many stories around about the brother. Hey Ho used to say The flex raises the flesh. Many stories about how brethren are in this situation are not practicing what we have before us here.
This compassion, love Abbott of mercy. And I think it's.
Really nice to bring the horse a portion such as this because we do have the place in this and we can get into some pretty heated controversy and conversation. It's very difficult.
To walk in the Spirit and the only, the new man that has seen them, and Christ likeness of being displaced.
There are filthy communication proceeding out of your mouth and booting this all over the place.
There are thine when these things may have to be spoken about. Went back to Numbers 19, we would find that LA age of the priest was to take a red heifer, and that heifer was to be killed.
Insight and to be burned.
The Las of the priests, the one that killed the heifer, the one that gathered up the ashes, all cleaned to start with, all doing exactly what Jehovah told them to do, and every one of them became unclean.
Because it has to do with God, which was a purification for sin, and so we cannot touch these things even in a right way without it having a defiling effect.
Beloved, if we can stay away from them, repeating them, and so on.
It's far better. Look at the Philippians chapter 4.
Birthday finally, brethren, Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are on us, whatsoever things are just. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.
It's withering to our soul to be occupied with the trouble. I repeat, it's necessary at times to be occupied with us.
But if it's not necessary, let us seek to be occupied with Christ. Christ is all and in all.
This consideration, which is of utmost importance, that a matter that needs to be dealt with among the people of God, should be dealt with in the smallest possible circle, that picture in Numbers 19 does not involve even.
The priests or the Levites, It says. A clean person has to sprinkle that water. One person.
Wasn't to be brought before the whole congregation, that our matters that come before the whole congregation, as we see it with the sin at AI, but at where this man took of the accursed thing about a matter ought to be considered and dealt with in the smallest possible circle. But this passage that we have under consideration here does not consider disciplinary matters.
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It brings before us how the Newman in normal circumstances manifest itself in his relationship with his fellow believers. That is what is before us. There are other passages in the Word of God that speak of how evil and situations have to be dealt with. If we were turned to this passage and say, look here, those brethren that have to deal with evil, they are not manifesting these things.
That is not what the spirit of God brings before us in this passage. The Newman in his normal relationship under normal circumstances. This is how it manifested itself. Certainly the danger is always that when we have to deal with evil, that we ourselves become contaminated is always the danger when a doctor and a nurse deals with a sick patient, that he contracts the same disease.
You know, and it's very, very dangerous and we better be careful. And the Lord has raised up those in the local assembly that deal with situations, and their responsibility is greater than the responsibility that others might have. But I think it's important to stress that here we have the normal situation, a normal relationship, and evil is not under consideration.
It's personal, isn't it? It's not assembly truth. It's personal to take these things. Every one of us as believers here have both of these natures, and I'm responsible to control my conduct. You're not. The Assembly's not. I am.
What you're saying is that 10 1/2 in that situation, that wasn't a normal he wasn't kind, that he wasn't showing mercy to that man and woman, and that's what you're saying. There are occasions when, and we would call them irregular, abnormal conditions that exist.
And you couldn't apply this passage as to how to treat someone.
Who needed to be disciplined? Who had dishonored the Lord? That's what you're saying, isn't it?
For instance, not to even eat with one that is described in First Corinthians 5 is that kindness. You know, we mix up divine love with natural kindness, and that is not proper. We are misusing the word of God. We better be careful that we don't handle the word of God deceitfully and really playing into the hands of the enemy to cover up evil and deal improperly with evil that manifests itself. But we deal with evil first of all in ourselves. That way it all begins.
Like I've got a, Clem said.
Cutting off the arm, plugging out the eye, we deal faithfully with that which manifests itself in ourselves. We have to take the beam out of our own eyes before we can deal with that in another, and that's where we fail so often.
So important that we keep the Lord before us, brethren, there's going to be these practical changes in our lives.
And I think that is why it's so beautiful in verse 11, where it brings Christ before us as being. Mr. Darby's translation says everything, Christ is everything, and in all this is the place that you and I occupy now as believers in the Lord Jesus.
It is a place where Christ is everything and all. There is no longer the national distinction of Greek, nor Jew, nor the religious.
Distinctions of circumcision or uncircumcision, The social distinctions of barbarian, Scythian bond, or free. There's only one rule that we can use the word rule in this way, brethren. There's only one rule here.
Christ is everything in all. What am I manifesting? Is it Christ? Or am I manifesting that old light that was before? And the more I'm occupied with those old things we've been thinking about, the more tendency that the flesh is going to feed on that, and then it will be manifest in my life. So it comes as a real challenge to each one of us. What do we feed on? Do we beat on problems amongst brethren?
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Be careful.
Brethren, we need to feed on Christ. Those things need to be put behind and we need to go forward. Christ should be before our souls. Yes, we do need to distinguish, as our brother was said, but we need to put Christ before us. It says, having him before our souls, that we will be transformed, says in Second Corinthians chapter three. We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. So it is as having him and all his glory for us that will bring an automatic, perhaps an unconscious transformation in our souls. We will be more like Christ the Lord give us to be exercised. What we feed on. What kind of literature, what kind of magazines do we have in our home?
What do we watch? Because it will form our moral characteristics that we manifest what we feed on. If you feed the old nature, the old nature will be manifest. You feed the new nature, that nature will be manifest. Christ will be seen.
In Galatians chapter 3, there's another thing added here.
In Galatians chapter 3.
Verse 26.
You are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Whose children? The children of God.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. That's there. There is neither bond nor free. But there's another thing. There is neither male nor female.
For you are all one in Christ. It's important to see this for back in Genesis 1 where we read it says created them. The image of God that says male and female created he them.
Now in that new life, that new nature, where Christ is all and in all.
The Lord takes this up in Luke 20. Let's read a little bit there to understand the wonders.
The new creation, the resurrection life, the risen life that we have in our chapter.
The Sadducees blood.
A case of a man having had seven wives, and asked whose wife would she be in the resurrection?
The Lord says in verse 34 Luke 20 and verse 34 Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world Mary and are given in marriage, but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection of that neither Mary nor given in marriage. Look what it says, Neither can they die anymore, or they are equal under the angels and are the.
Children of God.
That's what Galatians 326 said. Children of God being the children of the resurrection. Well, that's enough on that point. But the wonderful thing in our chapter and in our life is that we still belong to the old creation. And when we get into the new creation by faith in Christ Jesus, we belong to that. Now our test comes and God leaves us here to live in the old creation. They tell us how to do it.
So bringing in the responsible relationships as a husband and wife and fathers and children and servants and masters, we have privilege and responsibility every one of us according to our relationship. And we still have the relationships of the old creation, and we can have joy in living according to God, in the old creation and knowing that.
In the new creation and in the resurrection light, it is superior to all. It's Christ is all, and in you all.
00:40:03
Marin worth while put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, this is what we are.
Holy and beloved balls of mercy.
That which comes from our innermost being not superficial, but really coming from the heart, all the birthdays.
Kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.
Philadelphia genuine from the heart.
The spirit of forgiveness should characterize the Christian. We find this most beautiful illustrated in the Lord Jesus when we look at him at the cross. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do and.
Praying for his enemies, someone has said while the nails were driven to his hand. He makes that prayer, that request, and we see this beautifully.
Followed in both Paul and also in Stephen. You know, when Stephen was being stoned it was a prayer that this be not late to their charge to sin, Paul being.
Left alone, he could rightly expect comfort and aid in this difficult circumstance in which he found himself. Yet he didn't receive it.
But he prays for those, and he said Lord was really with him, He was not alone. So the spirit of forgiveness is what is to characterize the believer. And we are only followers of the Lord Jesus if we manifested in our lives. The grace of God is able to accomplish that in you and in me, holding grudges.
And this kind of a thing is a terrible thing amongst the people of God and while Matthew.
18 speaks of a personal transgression committed against the brother, and the brother should seek to restore that one. There is another scripture that might well be worth considering. For every one of us when we feel offended. It's the glory of a man to pass over a transgression.
And many problems that arise among God's people if he would follow that simple proverbs that would settle matters. Not everything has to be taken up. It's the glory of a man to Passover a transgression.
In Ephesians 4 we have similar verses of what we're reading, and they begin with the fact that we have the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us. Ephesians 4, the last three verses.
Easy to understand, you and I. And it says that about the Ephesians in chapter one. After that he believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. We have that divine guest living in US and he wants to occupy us with Christ, and that's what we've been having too. But.
When we grieve the Spirit, then he asked to make us think about what we have done.
But here it says, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, for by year sealed unto the day of redemption.
The allowance of the flesh is what grieves the Spirit of God, and we should not allow the flesh.
But we can't grieve him away. He stays there. We're sealed to the day of redemption. That's the new body. Then it goes on with these simple, practical instructions. And let all bitterness.
In Hebrews 12.
Says to me. You can think about it, looking diligently, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
Down in Illinois, we have a grass plant called Johnson's Grass, which is a fierce enemy of the corn plant. Until 10 years ago, there was no herbicide to control it. And when we wanted to get rid of that Johnson grass, not only did you have to control it as well as we could every year, but you had to go out and dig up those rhizomes, those roots that run to the ground and even left so much as a inch long piece of that root down in the ground, it would spring up the next year.
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And spoil the crap we have got in us. That old nature that will hold things that we don't even think are there and you have to look right down diligently. Am I holding something unforgiving against that brother, that sister? That memory of something 10 years ago? Is it still there? Sometimes it creeps up and you didn't know it was there.
Well here the practical word let all bitterness and wrath and anger. We've been Speaking of those and clamor and evil speaking. Evil communication be put away from you with all malice than the positive side be kind one to another. We have the power and the new nature to do this. Let brotherly love continue that 12Th of Hebrews begin that says forgiving.
One another.
What's the major? Even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you?
We had brought before us and John Epistle chapter One yesterday.
That if we say that we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in US. And so we have had a great deal said about the flesh that we all have remaining with us. But it's a tremendous help to us to realize that God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin and the flesh.
In order that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US, who walk not according to flesh, but according to the Spirit. So when we have been exhorted, as we have in our chapter, to put these things off, and to have the old man reckoned dead.
We have the blessed truth that the old man is crucified and that sin in the flesh has been condemned, laying hold of this by faith in the same principle that we lay hold of the truth. Christ died for our sins. We have peace.
Laying hold of the truth that the.
Sin in the flesh has been condemned, and the old man crucified gives us power to enable us to refuse the old man and to walk in the good of the new.
The laying hold of the truth by faith provides the power to do exactly what we've been enjoined to do in our chapter.
That fourteenth verse is very, very searching.
It says above all these things what things well, he spoke about.
As the elect of God put on therefore holy and beloved bowels of mercies.
Kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye you think that would be an exhaustive list. But then he says, above all these things put on charity or love, or as Darby has it, add love.
Which is the bond of perfectness.
So there's something to be added to these things that have been listed.
And that is love, which is total self renunciation.
Seeking always the good and blessing of the object before me.
That was Christ. He was love Incarnate, love personified down here.
Always seeking the blessing of others and the glory of his Father.
There's I'd like to hear some more on the on the verse, but there's so much in that verse above all these things it says put on love.
00:50:11
Second Peter chapter one we have.
Brought before us brotherly kindness or brotherly love, and then we have charity, or I believe we should say godly love. Maybe somebody could give us.
Little under both of those.
Brother in laws and godly love, brotherly love as the brother has his object and love brings in all the claims of God that that's how Mr. Darby explained the difference.
It's, you might say, a step higher than just brotherly love that brings in all the claims of God. But beloved.
What happens many times, and we have seen it in recent difficulties, is that problems of the past.
And feelings that people harbor.
When difficulties arise, will be used of the enemy to lead people astray, and we've seen that over and over again and that is a danger that exists in you and my life and.
This is how the enemy works.
And we have seen it again afresh.
Difficulty.
Let us be aware of that. But then this verse Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also ye are called in one body.
Is it possible? Yes. It is to end difficult circumstances that arise in our lives and into our in our assemblies, that the peace of God.
Be preserved in our hearts. You know, like in James you have this beautiful verse that the.
The fruit of righteousness.
Is sown in peace of them that make peace, that means that.
The peace is what is enjoyed in the soul of the brother that is making peace. He's not governed by anger, governed by sentiment against the person that might be harbored for years already.
It's important, but the love?
If it is really love that motivates you, that would motivate me in anything. What a difference it makes.
Enjoy too the thought in this verse 14 above all these things as we're putting on these different moral characteristics as we would put on clothes. This is the overcoat. Above all, what should be evident is love. It's divine love.
Interesting those verses you refer to as Second Peter.
At brotherly love and then add to that charity or love. There ought to be brotherly love amongst his brother. Let brotherly love continue. And that comes from a word I understand. That means there is a mutual appreciation and interchange and exchange. I appreciate. I value my brother.
He values me. And that's the thought of brotherly love. And there ought to be that, brother. But sometimes difficulties come in and there isn't. And when there isn't, that there still is love. And that's a different word in the original. It is agape love. It is love that loves not only according to God, but it is loves when there's no nothing lovable in the object.
And stuff my brother has done me in. He has spoken evil about me. I can still love. I still have that nature that is capable of loving even in those circumstances.
So it's important to understand, brethren, that it is love that loves when there's nothing lovable. This love loves because of the source and not because of the object.
00:55:06
They got tremendously important, brethren. We don't have an excuse for not loving one another. It just don't happen. Scripture is too clear, says in first chapter. First fear, Have verbal amongst yourself.
I don't think rather than any of us really make sure up here.
There is a danger and brotherly love.
Because we love someone. Or maybe seeking to cover up.
God love would have everything else and judge the communion might go on.
Says Let the peace of God rule in your heart.
Let's look into the Millennium a bit in Isaiah 32 and see what's going to rain there.
And along what's along with it?
In the 32nd.
Chapter.
Isaiah.
And the 17th verse, it says the work of righteousness.
Shall be peace.
And the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance.
Forever now there will be a righteous rain with a righteous king.
Reigning for 1000 years and there will be peace. But now for us in Romans 5, we begin the chapter with.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we have 6 times toward the end of that chapter and I want to read them. But we have a comparative thing between the two words as and so this develops. What gives us peace with God. Now in the 12Th verse it says as by one man sin entered the world and death by sin. So death passed upon all men for the role of sin. No peace yet the result.
Of sin verse 12, but not as the offense. So also is the free gift. Now we've got a gift brought there and the 16th verse.
And not as by one that sin, so is the gift. Again we have got the gift. I'm just reading briefly. Verse 18 says as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation. That's the old Adam sin that brought it. Now look what it says. So by the righteousness of one now Christ is brought into the picture.
The free gift came upon all men unto justification of light. Now we're getting that which brings peace. The the 19th verse has another contrast, as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now we've got righteousness in Christ, and then what reigns in the last?
Verse.
That as sin hath reigned unto death.
Even so, might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. I tell you this is what let's the peace of God rule in our hearts now because of all that God has done. What a contrast between the old Adam nature and the new life in Christ.
Darby translates that the peace of Christ. I was wondering if it would include.
In John 14 the Lord says, Peace, I leave with you my peace I give unto you. Was that not the peace that he knew as he went on in communion with the Father, And so we could enjoy that peace of communion.
It not only includes the joy and peace of going on Communion, but it also includes His having delivered himself over into the hands of him that judges righteously.
01:00:12
Depending and counting upon the righteousness of God to take up his cause.
So that if we follow in the footsteps of our suffering Savior, deliver everything over into God's hands and leave it with Him, we can rest in the same peace that He rested in as He delivered himself over into the hands of His Father.
And then there is this also. He is our peace. He made peace by the blood of his cross. We have peace as was pointed out in Romans 5 and Ephesians chapter two. He is our peace by just being occupied with himself at the right hand of God in circumstances that cannot be touched by man anymore. We have a settled peace in our soul, knowing that this is going to be the end of our journey as well. And then the calling comes in.
Do the witch also you're cold in one body. We get this developed much in Ephesians and we're worthy the vocation whereby we recall and that brings in the calling in the one body. But I believe also it has connection with the Trinity as children of God. We've read that in Galatians 326.
We have a relationship.
As children with a father now we're called in that and also in Ephesians One we have at the end of the chapter, we are called in one body, members of his body. That's relationship with Christ. And in Ephesians 2 we are building together for the habitation of God by the Spirit. Our Calling is in connection with the Trinity, with God the Father.
With Christ the Son and with the Holy Spirit, and in particular here it's connected called in one body that's living connection as being members of His body and He the head and be thankful.
Oh, we know all this. How can we not be thankful?
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The thing about too, huh? That's it. That's it. And I believe.
In the past, veteran were very particular as to what hymns they would sing. They were exercised that the hymns would express scriptural truth and verse scripturally correct. That is being lost.
You know we are in danger of picking a song and like to sing it because of the catchy tune.
You know, and then the shameful way of trying to express Christian truth in a rock music style is that spirituality. But.
We have heard this explanation as to psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, if the psalms speak more of the experiences of the believer and what God is in.
The difficult circumstances for The Believer and we have a lot of songs that have that character and we love to sing them, but then a hymn is something that.
Presents the glories of the Lord Jesus. You know it's more the character of worship.
And then spiritual songs express scriptural truth. How many things have I learned? How many things have you learned from the hymns that we have?
You know, and those who have come in amongst the gathered Saints and the systems of men, one thing that has impressed them is the spiritual tone of the hymns.
And we have a wonderful treasure in the hymns that we have in the English language.
Just think of hundreds of hymns that we have and spiritual songs.
That we can sing and we ought to sing more. Beloved, we listen to records. We listen to tapes and discs instead of singing. In the past, Christians sang more in the homes, and we ought to try to do that more.
That God intended for his people to write their own hymns and songs and translate the psalms into their own length.
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And rejoice in a proper way and.
For my own joy and experience, I can say amongst the gathered Saints the hymns and songs that have given out most of the time faithfully to me.
Testify to the spirituality that is in the assembly that they fit at the time. I don't say they always do, but they they generally do.
This is supposed to be done with grace in the heart unto the Lord the Apostle at the end of Hebrews, after he had presented the whole of Christianity to translate the Jews mind and Jewish believers mind from earthly things to heaven. He's saying that it is good that the heart be established in grace and not meets.
So it's the grace of God in our hearts that enables us to speak to ourselves and to teach one another, according to Ephesians the.
With these spiritual songs and psalms and hymns, with grace in our hearts to the Lord.
Bear in mind this 17th verse.
Whatsoever ye do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
What a difference it would make in our lives if we just bore that in mind all the time.
47.
Great all our wandering.
Rolls.
Of lighting I will be twice.
One grade by Crowley's name.
In God is where all.
This is great.
And God will make him praise for God.
Pray, praise, praise, grace and fire.
Heart. Soul.
Pray, let's pray.
On to God.
I praise his purpose.
Right, Grace, all the work shall run.
Little red.
But the last thing today.
Yeah.
Oh my God, that.
Concludes the work chapter we've had before us. The Lord brings before us those things in which each one of us are most apartment to fail.
01:10:10
Why husbands, children, servants, ******** The Lord bring before us that in which we are most apartment to fail.
Secret for us all to take home is in that third verse. Your life is hit with Christ in law.
2070 of the appendix.
Yeah.
Tears
Address—D. Rule
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The voice of Jesus say.
Come unto me and rest.
Lay down thou weary one, lay down thy head upon my breast.
I came to Jesus as I was weary.
And worn and sad, I found in him a resting place.
And he has made me glad #26 In the appendix some brothers started for us.
And my friend.
'S my sole great life.
Bow our heads in prayer.
Turn with me for.
Least a part of a verse in Romans chapter 12.
Romans, chapter 12.
And verse 15.
Rejoice with them that do rejoice.
And weep.
With them that we.
Now turn over to John's Gospel, Chapter 11.
John's Gospel, Chapter 11.
And verse 35.
Jesus wept.
We've enjoyed these several days the Spirit of God bringing before us in different ways, the person.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
00:05:02
Barely God and barely man.
The only man that has ever walked this earth that God could look down and.
Find his full pleasure in.
Could say this is what man is intended to be before me.
And find his pleasure in that blessed man and every aspect of his life here on earth.
And it's an inexhaustible treasure.
To God, to us to be occupied with Himself.
And we're just going to take up one more aspect.
Perhaps of our Lord Jesus this afternoon that we haven't considered particularly in our time together.
One example can I say of his humanity.
That's expressed to us in the shortest verse in the Bible.
Jesus wept.
I think very much about it. I'll start to cry.
Which is good, and if I do I find it's difficult to speak because I can't seem to do both.
But it would thrill my soul if the Lord were to touch your heart this afternoon in the same way.
That U2 will be brought to tears.
As you think of your blessed Lord.
And the way he presents himself to the heart.
And touches.
We need doctrine. It's absolutely essential.
If we don't have right doctrine, we'll never have a right walk.
I don't think we can value it too much.
But I think we also have to recognize the doctrine in and of itself is not enough.
It's not in and of itself the truth as it is in Jesus.
The truth as it is in the Lord Jesus.
Does not separate the doctrine from the whole person.
We're complex individuals in the way God has made us. We're not only mine.
But we're also heart and conscience.
And many other things as well.
And the truth of God has to take hold of the whole person, if it is as God intends it to be in US.
The last year for myself and I'm sure for many here.
It's been one of the most difficult in my life.
Some things have become more precious to my soul than they were before.
Perhaps being in the presence of the Lord Jesus is one of them.
But perhaps, too, the feeling of shame to his name.
But I think it's a wonderful thing to.
Seek to enter in in our souls.
To our Lord Jesus as a man.
Who entered in not only to the minds.
But to the feelings of his people.
Nothing cold there.
Nothing.
That.
Repelled.
In him.
I love when I think of Peter. He gets down after he realizes in his soul he hasn't been what he should be for the Lord, and he gets right down on his knees in the presence of the Lord and he says, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
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He was attracted to the Lord Jesus even though he in himself felt a discomfort.
Because of a sense of his own failing.
Here in this chapter we find our Lord Jesus brought before us in tremendous tenderness.
A person.
That entered in.
And weeps.
That's what was needed that day.
Especially for Mary.
We see a different reaction in Martha.
People are different.
And we're all different. Maybe the marks this afternoon will be more.
To the heart of the sisters and to the brothers.
But not to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
He spans all. He understands all. He enters into all.
Touches the heart of his people.
Like to notice a little bit of this story?
But before we do, we're going to come back to it. Perhaps we'll end here.
But the subject this afternoon has to do with tears.
I'd like to look at several other places in the Word of God where we have that thought brought before us, and then we'll come back here and see the perfect example of it in our Lord Jesus. Turn with me to Psalms 126.
Psalm 126.
And verse 5.
They that sow in tears.
Shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed.
Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
I'm indebted my brother London for the thoughts here, but they're precious to me now I want to share them.
We're not too used to this because we live in a different age.
But at the time this these psalms were written.
The Saints of God.
The people.
Of the land.
Took their seed.
From their crops and they divided it into two parts.
One part was reserved for their food and the other part was the seed that they were going to sow for the next crop.
And so this cycle repeated itself.
They apparently, at least in the land of Israel particularly, they sowed the seed in the fall and they got their crops in the spring.
But what did they do?
If the crop failed before it came to maturity.
They had to take the seed.
That was intended for their food.
And take from it.
And sew it.
Brethren, there are times in our lives when.
It may seem that the crop fails.
The seeds precious. It's valuable.
It's most important, but all of us are seed sowers in our lives.
And sometimes.
Christ Serving Us in Glory
The Eternal Son of God
Fellowship