Des Moines Conference: 2000
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2 Timothy 2:1-5
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It'll be very profitable.
It's all there for my son. He's strong and great for his in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou have heard of me, among many witnesses, the same Smith thou the faithful man who shall be able to teach others also.
Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that wore us entangles himself with the affairs of his life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier? And if a man also strives for massage, yet is he not crowned, except to strive lawfully. The husbandman, that labourers must be first partaker of the truth. Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead, according to my gospel.
Maria and I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even under bond, for the word of God is not found. Therefore I endure all things for the elected sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It is a faithful thing, for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, he also will deny us. If we believe not. Yet he abideth faithful, He cannot deny himself.
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While these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no prophet.
But to the subverting of the hearers study to show thyself improved unto God, a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but Johnson and vain babbling. For they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as Duffy anchor of whom is Hymenaeus, and Clay leaders, who concerning the truth have heard saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of scum.
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth. Sure, having this field, the Lord knoweth them that are his, And let everyone that name it the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood, and averse, some to honor and some to dishonor. The man therefore perched himself from these who shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good word. Lee also used the lust to follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strikes, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men have to keep patience and meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God for adventure will give them repentance through the acknowledging as a truth.
And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
That Paul wrote evidently because in chapter 4.
He says. The time of my departure is at hand, so.
He's giving his last instructions to.
An individual. It's not written to an assembly, it's written to an individual. Timothy.
Evidently a young man, evidently A timid young man.
Nice to see a lot of young people here today and I think it's helpful in this chapter to see the different figures of a Christian that are given me are figures that we know quite well in natural life around.
Mentions in verse 2 The faithful Man, verse 3A Soldier. Verse 5 is a an athlete. Verse 6A Farmer.
Down in verse.
15-A Workman.
In verse 21 or 20 and 21 a vessel.
And in verse.
24 A servant of the Lord. So these are figures we know in natural life and false fairs and verse.
Seven, consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding. So there are lessons to be learned in these figures that we have that are extremely helpful for the day that we live in.
That's great in our chapter, and we can never overestimate or overvalue great.
About grace, it says in First Corinthians 10/9 You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every believer here, every believer in the world, knows something of this grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And one thinks of what Peter wrote about it in First Peter 113.
A bird that's a marvel to me.
He says There, therefore gird up the loins of your mind.
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Keep our minds, be sober, and hope to the end.
Or what the great that is to be brought under us at the revelation of Jesus Christ? Don't we know Jesus Christ be strong in the grace which is in Jesus Christ our Lord? Our chapter begins.
Now therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in grace peace.
So go, go to the Corinthians, said, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as though he was rich. Yes, for your text he became poor, that he to his property might be rich. Grace brings us into everything that Christ has.
Yeah, And then in the knowledge of our worldview discussion. And then that's great, that people undo us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. I tried to think of it this way, that evidently talking to me about the first time I see.
We're going to see him.
We're going to see his face. We learned Greek all the way through the wilderness.
And we're as we were singing, we don't need to fear the journey's length. But this will had a long time getting through the world. Some of us don't have so long. Some have a very short time. But when we get out of this world, we're going to be in heaven. We know the great by grace, Are you saved through faith?
So I bring this into his family and he's bringing us into that glory. And evidently Peter said the grace that's be brought and blessed, that's a revelation of Jesus Christ.
I guess that's something that Paul couldn't even write about the glory of that great.
Two, it goes along with following verses as well. For by grace are you saved through faith? None of yourself. It's a gift of God. None of works with any man should vote.
For we are.
His workmanship, A masterpiece created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before prepared for for us. I have enjoyed that very much, that what we are is what He has made us. It is God that work is thinking both the will and to do of His good pleasure. And so we are the product, the masterpiece.
Of the hand of God. He's a skilled Workman.
We don't always measure up to what we should, but then nevertheless we're we are what we are, but the grace of God.
Every all the glory to God.
If he's picked this up by his dear sovereign Grace, there's nothing I can boast of, Of what I am in myself, absolutely nothing. And this wonderful brethren to realize that not only are we saved by grace, but every step of the pathway down here is great. I love that verse in the 5th chapter. First Peter Two. It says the God of all Grace.
You need some more grace to go on, brother. Are you finding this tough in life? He's the God of all grace. Go ask him for more grace to go on. He'll give it. He has no limits to his giving and that's the power of going on in a day of ruin. Sometimes I think that Ball may have said maybe this is the way we would have thought he would have said, Timothy. Things are slipping so bad.
First chapter he mentions all in Asia and abandoned him.
Sit down some rules and regulations and make sure that the brethren keep to those rules and regulations.
It won't work. Rather, in our hearts don't work that way. What is it that draws the heart so powerfully is the realization that we stand before a God of all grace that is called listen to his eternal voice. And are we sufficient for these things, Brother? Absolutely not. But we have to prove every step of our pathway down here that he's a giving God. He's a God.
Of all grace. And so Timothy is exhorted to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus want to mention that when we speak of it that way, we're not speaking about laxity. And sometimes people think that when we speak of God, it's the God of all grace, that we are just passing over what is not right and what is not according to the.
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Standard that God sets up in his scripture in the scripture, but that's not the case because the Lord Jesus in order to be able to show grace to us more love sinners and to go to the cross and every one of those sins I've ever committed were laid on him and he bore the full penalty for it all. Grace is not passing over extreme lightly, and if somebody thinks that's what grace means.
That is not what grace means.
Grace take things seriously. The brother we can't go on except we know him to be the God of all grace, and we're not going to be able to go on in these days. It's a lesson where you constantly have to learn. Does anybody here learned it for good, or are we learning together?
Last epistle.
He concludes it with praise being with you.
It was mentioned that we are grow and great and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. These are the last words of Peter.
And when we turn to the last book of the Revelation, and we see the last word, John.
Concludes with God's grace. So this tells us, beloved, that these.
Agent Apostles who are the foundation of the Assembly.
Would have us to be occupied with the strength of God. It's also mentioned that it is sometimes considered grace might be.
Thought of as carelessness as the sin. Going to read Titus chapter 2 and verse 11.
That shows us why we do not need to fear grace.
Breeze.
Of God, which carries with its salvation for all men, has appeared teaching us and having denied.
Iniquity, ungodliness, having that I've worldly lost, we should live soberly and justly and piously in his best important things. But it doesn't stop there. It sets before us the blessed hope that is the expectation of the Lord Jesus Christ coming at any moment to take us out of this scene.
And it set before us great. The grace of God that has brought salvation to us, sets before us the hope of the Lord Jesus Christ coming to carry us out of this thing, to be with himself forever. And it sets before us a blessing, appearing when he comes to the very scene that cast him out and crucified him to establish the grace of God in this world. And so we have the grace that teaches us how to conduct ourselves and sets before us the hope of the Lord Jesus Christ not only.
In the Rapture, but in his appearing to set up the Kingdom of these worlds.
To be the Kingdom of our God. So grace is the integral, the essential element of Christianity. And because of the natural tendency of our hearts to seek of all, to seek a rule to keep, we are cautioned at the very end of the apostles days to be strong in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And my dream acceptable with reverence and godly fear, Hebrews.
Chapter 12. Grace will enable us to do that. But you know, I was thinking for your when you were reading Titus, that was true. I was having the five opens to that same verse.
Should we not ask ourselves whether we have come into the good of the grace of God? If we are not living godly, the grace of God will teach us that and the danger is of going to 1 extreme or the other. In June we have the warning of people that turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, using the grace of God as an excuse for sin.
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Well, it has helped me quite a bit personally is looking at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. He finds that the first Beatitudes have to do with righteousness and then the next Beatitudes have to do with mercy and grace. And it is suggested by this fact that there has to be a balance of things. We cannot just stress grace if we do only stress grace.
Then we might come to what is warned again in June, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. But if we do not balance righteousness with grace?
And only stress. Righteousness has been lead to legality, and it drives people away. There has to be a balance in these things, and the Lord's teaching on the Sermon of the Mount begins with this.
Showing these two things that we should hopefully have in the life of everyone of us righteousness and grace. A balance in these things is what the Lord is looking for.
Also there.
College with the pointing up of the bridge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Law. John. Chapter One. The Law came by Moses.
Of great and fruit came by Jesus Christ, and this is where we see the perfect expression of this grace of God the Lord Jesus coming. And in the coming and grace and truth we have that balance of grace and righteousness of which we have just about about what it is just a month. So praise in him.
He is the He is the pattern. He is the occupation for our parts which enables us to walk. Grace that is perfectly expressed, and I bless it, man.
You have another reference made to great to be established by grace. What establishes the soul is great.
And that's very important for us.
To lay hold of, not with me. That's the legal system that the Jews had. Don't do this. Don't do that. You have to do that. That is not what establishes the soul. Grace will establish the soul.
God, it's very blessing.
Free because of what the Lord Jesus has done. And so that's the basis of which all blessing ever comes to us is through Christ. It's great. And I was thinking of a case in the old system. Maybe it would help us understand the being strong in this and great.
Case of delight with the horem in Israel. Why this is the second kings. I will just refer to it and the lighthouses there, and they get into a predicament.
No water.
And they tried to the prophet and the when the prophet he liked to see this wicked king.
Doesn't have a message from God and he asked for a minstrel. The minstrel distracts him, gets his mind off the present condition, and then the communications can flow and he springs lessons. He brings water that they need, but rather when we live on the day of ruin, we can get our eyes off of the store, we can get taken up with the things around us and.
Become unusual, become not dispensers of what God really wants to give, and the basis upon which thought shall give pleasure, which is great. And so we have to get back to that basis. Sometimes it takes a minstrel to do that. Maybe, but we anyway, we need to get back to the stores. How can God bless in the day of ruin? We don't deserve it, rather.
And we we get our feelings wrapped up sometimes with our bread and or one another or our fault, and we get discouraged and the blessing drives up, as it were.
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Great.
I'm good. So Timothy, that's what we're going to do as he was going to go on and serve after.
Certainly applicable to us.
Great focus is on what God know how wonderful they turn from ourselves. God, the greatness of this Dean brothers know that all our blessings depends on him, not on ourselves anyway, we just simply are receivers of that great.
Thinking of Brother, he'll mentioned that person.
John's Gospel, Chapter One.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. I'd like to link that with the new, small, simple statement that we often use in the Gospel and John's epistle. God is light and God is love.
Grace is the manifestation of the truth that God.
And proof is the manifestation of this. Proof that God is like the 2GO hand in hand. You can't separate. If God is going to show grace, he's going to be, won't, will not compromise the standard of righteousness. He cannot deny himself. You have that, but he's going to show it. But he shows it on the groundwork of that standard.
So as you trade the Lord Jesus through this world, especially in John's Gospel, that is beautiful. To see how that sounds, you know, great. Explore, Never compromising the Son of God. Never. He makes that poor woman in the fourth John. She's been living a pretty bad life. But he speaks about the water, the will of living water, and she says, give me this water.
And he said go call my husband and come get it.
That had to be studied, too. The story of her life had to come out into the light. But all the two things that went beautifully together. We need to meditate, poor brother, on the perfection of those two things in the life of the Lord Jesus, and in meditating on them realize that this is our life. In the measure that we enjoy in Him, we are going to be conformed as well to that same image the Lord giveth to know.
These days have been mentioned these last days to know what it means to be strong in the grace that is crazy.
At first, Hebrews 13 was mentioned.
It is good.
The apostle says that the hardship is that embrace and not meet, and correctly it was mentioned that term of means refers to all of the ordinances and sacrifices of which that very official says they do.
Participated in them, had no profit in them, but with grace being the characteristics.
Responsibility of the assembly in this world to administer grace from God. It is necessary, and that is what the conclusion of the Apostle draws at the end of Hebrews, after showing the superiority of Christ and Christianity to all that system that the heart could be established in Greece, and knowing the dependency of the heart to return the law be caused against cancer.
Or falling great, giving up free. Our hearts are just so lean to to desire your role, to desire the law, and you have to be strong integration. You have to have hard sex and it's great of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Other birds are like this opportunity in First Corinthians 15 and verse 10 that speaks of the grace of God.
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By the grace of God.
I am what I am, and is great. Which was bestowed upon me was not vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I but the grace of God, which was with me. Grace is what makes you understand it properly. It makes you a willing servant for God.
I It's interesting in Latin America rather than where Catholicism, Roman Catholicism has prevailed largely that the word grace that is taught in that religious system is not the way, the word the way we know the word grace in description and to explain it, it means in the Catholic system.
A virtue that I possess. And since I have that virtue, God looks at me with favor. That is not the word grace in the Bible, but that's the thought, and I often run into it as I go to Latin American. Like whether you were saying there's a natural tendency of our hearts to return to the principle of law that what we have received, we have received because of some faithfulness of our own.
The principle of love. But I remember meeting up with a lady somewhere in Latin America and she said, oh, you must gain a lot of favor with God by doing what you're doing, right?
Ma'am, I do nothing to gain favor with God. I have favor with God because of what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary. And now he's won my heart. And all my desire is to show my gratitude to that precious Savior that died for me, and I want to work for him. That's great, making this way.
And if you really understand it, it will make you a willing service.
Jesus certainly would suggest, would it not, that if we want to grow in Gray and become more characterized by grace in our life, we have to look to him and go on in communion and fellowship with him. That is what is going to bring about the change here.
We know what the tendency is, and we certainly humbly have to confess that the world is coming in amongst us, and the tendency is that we emphasize and overemphasize subjective ministry that have happened among brethren.
And it has led to a very legal, awful system which even went to stray in a serious way. Dark final the overemphasis on subjective, practical things, he suggested. Lines in the Word of God is always based on objective reality that has to be, first of all established in the soul, clearly used and seen and enjoyed.
Then come.
Practical admonition based upon our standing and position in Christ. So we are expected to conduct ourselves because of what we are, not in order to become something. I think that's Christianity, and we cannot overemphasize the importance of personal communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus. You know, even in the.
Actor says that they took notice that they had been with Jesus. I think that.
Can't even still today be recognized in the life of the believer. Whether there is a life of communion and fellowship with him that makes all the difference. That's our source. It's not enough, it's in him. The divine order is given in the first chapter of Second Timothy. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, and then what follows for reprove, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
That the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good words. There is no proper Christian conduct without being established in Christian doctrine. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine.
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To improve the correct instruction and righteousness, assault the doctrinal is first, and then the practice according to God's purposes, follows from a clear understanding of the doctrine that God has given, that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good work.
It is not do and live, it's live and do.
Completely turned around, North gives us life as a for the David over here. Quoting from.
Defeating 2.
He works in IT and then he gives us something to do. Good work to follow that.
Live and do. And in our chapter here, the very next verse two, he goes right down to what we have been hearing of what you were saying to us, Dan. What is committed to us?
The things which thou hast heard of Maine, the oldest doctrine, and all this truth. Then he wants to provide a way for that to go on, and he has to come right on down to this day. So I think it'd be nice to look at this and see the change.
In which the truth of God has been preserved through the year we call 2000 from Paul's days. It's very simple in this second verse.
The things which God heard of me.
That's Paul. It's Paul Doctor. What was committed to him?
The same Smith Zou. Now you come if you're next in the line.
And then who's going to be after Timothy?
Faithful men, That's all said about It's not a history of brethren. It's the word carried down through faithful men goes right back from the beginning.
The God of all grace.
And then we're way down the cane. Aren't faithful men. We'd like to think about it.
I was thinking a very clear when somebody was talking over here and thinking about do and live and witness, he said. Contrasted to it many times I've heard him say it in your Christian testimony. It's not so much what you do that counts.
It's not so much what you say that counts, it's what you are. It gets right down to the roof, Christian, the hope of God.
The official will be avenged after the apostles tribes behavior of the Gentiles.
Says those who believe.
But you have not so learned the truth as it is in Jesus.
The priest is in him going about doing good in the midst of evil after goodness in his heart healing all those oppressive demons. The truth, as we see it demonstrated in the Lord of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the grace that he brought from the Father's power. And I put it this way here, watch.
We see in Jesus all that man should be to God, and we see in Jesus all God is command. That's the truth as it is in Jesus.
Notice it's not a gifted man, it's a faithful man.
The tendency is that we look to individuals that are capable and gifted, but faithfulness is keeping that which is entrusted faithfully.
It's demonstrated in the Old Testament when the remnant returns.
Some captivity.
The vessels that were entrusted to them were weighed out to them, and when they came to Jerusalem it was again way out, and checked to see that they had nothing, lost nothing of it, and I understand that sort of chapter. Brown has made the statement. I never heard him say it, that he had one exercise and that was that he wanted to test on the troops in the purity in which he had received it.
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That was the exercise of a faithful man. Now, Brenda, let me ask you, have we always faithfully continued in practicing the things that were recovered 170 some years ago? Is there not the danger for us that we might water down things, change things, adjust them to the conditions that we find in the Christian profession or perhaps even among ourselves?
Faithfulness is characteristic or characterized by maintaining what has been entrusted and not giving it up, buying the truth and not to sell it. You know, I hope we have that exercise and ask the Lord for help.
Because without His help we cannot keep anything. We cannot get anything without His help, the help of His Spirit, but we cannot either keep it without divine help. The Lord is able to do that.
Both passed the form of sound word which our circle of me chapter one in faith and love Christ Jesus, that good thing which was committed unto thee heat by the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in US.
Several verses in the 20th of act I'll read, as Paul was giving to me, how I kept back to nothing that was profitable under you, but it showed you, and it taught you publicly and from house to house further down. And now, brethren, I commend you to God.
Which is able to build you up and give you an A Harrison among all members were sanctified.
I am covenant. No man's silver or gold or apparel. Yeah, you yourselves know these hands minister my necessity for them that was with them. I have showed you all things how they're so laboring. You ought to support the week and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. How he said it is more blessed to heal than we see. He was a faithful man, and it gives us a little word for the seasoned elders.
What is becoming and should be becoming to us today?
God, and I think that's important. It's like was mentioned before. It's not called in, say Timothy, Timothy, Timothy. You look for some gifted preachers or some people that understand the truth real well, no, I didn't say that. Faithful men. And this is the way the truth is maintained as it's been mentioned already down through the centuries. And here you have 4 generations in this verse too.
I think it's important to see that men establish their organizational structures to propagate the truth like.
Sometimes.
Seminaries, And I think we realize that Harvard and Yale, those old institutions of learning, were established to teach the word of God. And now if you go there, you find that rank infidelity is taught.
Those institutions that man makes are not the way the truth is mentioned. The way it is maintained is from by word of mouth to faithful men. And that's something that really searches us. Do I walk in the truth that I know? Because if I'm not walking on it, in it, I really don't have it, brother. It's only in the measure that I walk in it.
That I have it.
And can pass it on to others as well.
But that doesn't really matter. And so I I felt it was so pertinent that I appended it to the back of my Bible, and I'll read it. Shut your eyes to that which attracts nature, and unflinchingly carry out what you know to be the revealed mind of God.
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Unflinchingly carry out what you know to be.
The revealed mind of God Do not join parties or allow party feelings to develop.
Didn't do that.
So however sorry we can be for him in a sympathetic, human way.
He was not faithful as he lost his life. How about Josiah, the king that rose up to the prime of the time in Israel of being God's people?
That.
He objected.
You might say to God using Pharaoh instead of him.
And he lost his length. Literally. You and I interfere in God's plans.
For the world, we're going to lose our testimony as a Christian.
That, I hope, are appropriate. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, Be thus minded, and if at anything you be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Now this verse. Nevertheless, where do we have already attained? Let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing nevertheless.
Where to we have already attained? Let us walk by the same rule.
Let us mind the same thing.
Brown mentioned.
He was a long time in this assembly and he spent. His name has been mentioned and.
It was this.
We are never wiser than Scripture. Amen. Never wiser than Scripture. God says that. That's it.
She was Speaking of Josiah.
Remarkable comment that God makes about him.
Never was there a king like him before him, and never was there a king like him after him, remarkable from God himself. And yet he failed an example to every one of us. Don't let us never get a high thoughts of ourselves. We'll fall.
A brother that labored amongst us years ago and is now with the Lord.
And preaching the gospel on one occasion made the comment along this line, he says. My mother never had to take me up on her lap and say, son, you must learn to lie because it'll stand you in good in the world. She didn't have to teach me that. Well, I have kind of translated that a little bit into this chapter and in this way.
God does not have to tell me to be hard on my brethren.
That comes out naturally, but he does give a place for hardness.
Be there for conduct.
Hardness. As a good soldier of Jesus Christ, when we engage the enemy, we don't give any quarter. There is a place for hardness, but not with our dear brother. We are to labor in love, admonishing one another and seeking to be of help. But the hardness comes in the engagement of the enemy when we're in the trenches, no quarters to be given.
An example of verse four. No man that wore it entangled himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him with chosen him to be a soldier. I got saved in April of 44, the same month I got became a man 21 years old and.
Shortly after, a brother who was among brethren.
And it helped to me quite a bit in my early days.
Asked me who I was going to vote for.
As in the election of.
November that year.
Franklin Roosevelt was running for the fourth term, and I said I'm, I'm voting for Franklin D Roosevelt.
He only commented. He says some of the older brethren consider it unwise for Christians to engage in the politics, even to cast a vote. Well, here's one question that will be casting a vote from Roosevelt. Then shortly after that, in my reading, I read this verse. No man that wore it entangled himself in the affairs of this life.
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That he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier well.
That was all I needed, a word from God himself to show me that as a Pilgrim and a stranger, I I had no place.
To determine the affairs of this life and.
A Pilgrim I had no right to vote. A stranger I didn't know how to vote.
So for since 1944, when I became a man, I have never voted. Thankfully, God knows what he's doing and he's running the affairs of this life in politics, not me.
You agree that enduring partners is not so much the question of showing to be hard, but to suffer. A soldier has to sacrifice the many of the comforts that we enjoy in everyday life, like you refer to being in the trenches. And so we have to expect in our Christian life.
That we don't always have an easy time, a brother 1-2 years ago said. To me, don't be surprised if you're in the front line if you're shot at.
And do a hardship or hardness. As a good soldier we have to expect that even the Lord Jesus says in this world we will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. So the Christian life, the young people, is not always easy.
And we need.
Men that are willing to endure and to suffer, girls, women, for the Lord Jesus.
And how important that we have to please him who has chosen us to be a soldier.
And we have to please him and not men. And in seeking to please him we might well come under fire.
But never mind. He doesn't leave us alone in these circumstances. He's at our side and helps us all along.
I say you said it's not always easy. It's hardly ever easy. The Christian life.
It's it's we're living in a culture where people want to please themselves and to make life easy. Every commodity, every comfort is offered to us.
And there's nothing morally wrong with the comforts. But, brethren, it seems that it takes away our power to be indulging in a lot of comforts. Paul is telling Timothy here, If you're going to be a soldier of Jesus Christ, you're going to have to know what it means to suffer. The Lord Jesus said, if anyone come after me, let him deny himself.
Take up His cross. Follow me. Have I denied myself something today for Jesus?
That's the character of a soldier. Not just do it to deny himself, but because he follows a Christ that is rejected. And it's not easy, brethren, The Christian life is not easy, and it seems to me that is a lesson that is hard for Americans to learn because we want everything easy. And I have to confess, brethren, for myself I have been affected by the culture through which I'm passing more than it is good.
They have to confess, brethren, and it takes away our power. You remember when the Lord Jesus met that father whose boy was demon possessed and the disciples found themselves powerless to cast out that demon?
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And they asked the Lord why? And the Lord said, this kind comes not out but by prayer and fasting. Sometimes I say we like to put a little E before the A In fasting we do more of that rather than we do fast.
And we thank God for good food we enjoy. But, brethren, when we give ourselves to so much of that, it really takes away our power. We need to be resolved to suffer as a soldier for Jesus Christ.
I would say we find him as a young man.
Before whom they laid their their clothes, you know, and I would assume, that the Apostle Paul had a fairly good position in the in the the army at that time of, if you can call it that, and perhaps had an entourage that gave him certain comforts in that army. And we know that in the arm and the armies and so forth of the day.
There are certain ranks. If you go up through and perhaps each ranks you go up through, you get a few more perks, you know, and and it's a little more comfortable than the one who is fighting in the trench. But the Apostle Paul, when he was saved, he became a different kind of a soldier. And now what do we see of him? If we turn to the 11Th chapter Second Corinthians, we find out what he did endure and what kind of a soldier was that, was he? And so nobody could say fall, fall. You know, you really don't know what you're talking about.
That you have. It's so easy, said I have learned to be abound and I've learned to be a face. And so when we read up his accounts in Second Corinthians Chapter 11, we know that the cost of false scares himself not at all he he endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Not the kind of soldier he was before. When he went to take to take the Christians and to bring them and cast them into prison. He perhaps had it very easy. He stood by. Like I say he stood by and let them cast their coats at his feet while they threw stones at the at the Stevens.
And So what a change there was in that man when he became a soldier of Jesus Christ.
Commenter 2 after the affairs of this life.
Politics has certainly been mentioned and it's a major factor in this country particularly.
But the seed of the Kingdom that was sown among thorns was choked out by the cares of this lake.
The man who was invited to the feast had bought a piece of ground and begged to be excused, and so forth. There are many issues that appeal very strongly to the human heart, but we are not to involve ourselves in these. Our mission is to announce the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to deliver souls from this present evil world.
We are ambassadors for Christ. Our citizenship is in heaven from which we look.
For the Savior to change these bodies of humiliation and the bodies of glory like His own. So there are many, many issues that so appeal to nature and to the human heart legitimate causes. But these are not those things with which we are involving ourselves in order to please Him who has enlisted us to be a servant or a soldier in his warfare down here.
Deceitfulness of riches is in death passage and in Mark there is something added. I don't remember it accurately, but the thought is the desire for many things. Isn't that what is characteristic of our society? You know, we have to have this, we have to have that and all these kind of things. And when did ever ordinary working people?
Were able to have what we have in this part of the world. So these are dangerous things that we become so occupied in reaching out for those things including comforts. As the Bob said, one of the ways how the light is hit is under the couch, right that speaks of these very things, things that you mentioned comfort. So that these comforts mean so much to us that we're useless.
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For the interest of God in this world.
Question of priorities in this verse 4, isn't it? It's to understand who is first. It is extremely important that a soldier learn that when his commander speaks, that is unquestionably first. Nothing can be put in there. You might have other occupations, but when it comes to.
What my commander says it is implicit.
Obedience, immediate obedience. And I think that's so important because.
We live in a society that is humanistic or man centered and so much revolves about around what I like, what I want.
And we have to get some points straight here that I is not the commander any longer in the Christian life. It is somebody else. And we got to know that with clarity. We have to know it, that there's somebody who commands.
Go back to Luke's Gospel Chapter 9, something that is been a help to my own soul.
And searching, I must say.
Luke Chapter 9.
Towards the end.
Verse 57 And it came to pass, that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes.
And birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. To follow Jesus, brethren, is not going to be easy.
And he said unto another, Follow me.
But he said.
Lord, notice these next words Supper.
Me first. That's the play of the culture that we live in. Me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou, and preach the Kingdom of God. 61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let notice the next two words. Me first. Can I say, brethren, That's the plague of our culture.
Let me first.
Go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house, Jesus said unto him. No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.
Lord, help us to get that priority right. We really can't be a good soldier until we get me first out of the way and make Christ first.
The Lord deals with his impatience, I think is beautifully brought out in the ninth chapter of Acts. There was a certain disciple named Ananias and him, the Lord said in the vision Ananias, He said, behold, I'm here, arise and go into the straight St. which is called straight, and inquire in the House of Judas. And he's seen a vision, a man named Ananias coming to him. Now. It's this dialogue that I think is absolutely beautiful.
And this is the way the Lord wants us to feel towards him. But notice the outcome then Ananias answered. Lord, I have heard by many of this man how much evil he has done to thy Saints at Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call in thy name. In essence, Ananias was saying, I can't do that. Why should I have to go?
But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way now I believe that in.
The life that you and I have and our communion with the Lord. There may be things that He says to us. And do we have the liberty of being able to say to the Lord, Lord, I don't understand or this is difficult. The Lord listens to that. But remember, the Lord did say to him, go thy way, but I believe it's important that we understand.
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That it's not like into the valley of death rode the 600, you know, and that kind of thing. God wants us to be able to talk to him, but let's remember that if he says go thy way, go your way.
The secret and our worst is the little word entangler.
If the things of this light entangle us, that's the secret of it.
When things in this life become bigger than they should be, we're entangled by them and it's a snare to us being good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and so the Lord said.
Your Father, your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things. So why should we threaten entangle ourselves with the affairs of this life when we have a consciousness in our souls that are calling those we have need of these things?
So I don't need to be overly occupied with the affairs of these of this life. There are those demands upon us, but we mustn't become entangled with.
We can thank the Lord for our comfortable bed, can't we? But.
Our these comforts hindering us from doing his bidding.
What did he have a comfortable bed to be thankful for?
Kids are also really to enjoy and we can be thankful for these things. It would be good for some of us to travel. Sometimes in South America or in Africa we would become more thankful and not to be so discontented. We can enjoy these things and appreciate these things, but do not give them too great of a place of importance.
Hebrews chapter 12 tells us to lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily.
Be set up. Let it run with patience the race that have set before it. So those weights are those things that entangle us and drag us down and prevent us from walking and running freely in the race. And if if we keep a hold on to those things, they become sins.
76 in the bag.
No more.
Than.
All day.
Oh wow. Let's go play.
I'm drawing.
My daughter.
My heart is sore. My heart is all my ground.
With it and it's better. I can't all along.
2 Timothy 2:5-18
Reading
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82 We've outcome still thy faithful word, the cross shall meet its sure reward, for soon must pass this little while. Then joy shall crown thy servants toil. We shall hear the Savior say, Arise, my love, and come away. Look up, for thou shalt weave no more but rest on heaven's eternal shore, the whole hymn.
Master, we will.
The rainbow.
All the way.
Love me.
Oh.
And all.
The first Thessalonians.
Well known to everyone. First Thessalonians, 4th chapter.
Starting with the.
16th verse For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.
With the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Our God, our Father, indeed.
That's better.
Second Timothy chapter 2 and verse 5.
And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully. The husbandmen that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. Consider what I say, and the Lord give the understanding in all things. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel.
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Wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer even unto bonds. But the word of God is not thou.
Therefore I endure all things for the Elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It is a faithful saying, For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us if we believe not. Yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself of these things, put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no prophet.
But to the subverting of the hearers.
Study to show thyself approved unto God a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but Sean profane and vain babblings. For they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat, will eat, as doth a canker of whomeneous and qualitas, who concerning the truth have heard saying that the resurrection is passed already, and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth. Sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are hid.
And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the masters youth, and prepared unto every good work.
Lee also youthful lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call in the Lord out of a pure heart.
But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do. Gender stripes and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men apartment to teach patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God for adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will.
His comment this morning?
As to the difficulties to be expected and the pathway of faith and service.
Where the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it was also mentioned the various characters and wedding the Believer.
Is portrayed in this chapter.
And in chapter in verse five we have.
AI think the figure of 1 striving injury competitively in the games and he says that one is not crowned except he strived.
Lawfully, that is, according to the roads, the apostle.
In First Corinthians 9.
And verse 27.
Refers to the rigor of self-discipline required in the pathway of faith and service, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection.
Lest by any means, when I have preached others, I myself should be a castaway.
Point is.
The fruit of the Spirit.
Is a number of things that he got first in Galatians chapter 5 and the last of those segments.
His temperance self-control.
And so we have here the.
The athlete who by rigorous training and self-discipline and control.
Dictates to the body so as to be in condition for the engagement when the battle comes.
Or when the competition comes.
So the requirement here is to strive lawfully. Plainly, that means that we.
Do all that we do.
To the glory of God.
According to the word of God.
We often encourage our young people to read the word of God.
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In one sense, and I don't want to be.
Facetious about it. You need to know what the rules are if we're going to compete.
For the glory of Christ, in winning souls for him, and in service for him amongst the Saints of God. And it is according to the Word of God.
Sometimes on the very smallest technicality we have seen in our school experience.
Possibly the best runner or the best jumper or whatever disqualified because.
Of a little violation, so here it is.
A crown when we strive, according to this precious book, that God has preserved for us in our own language.
Then the day we lived is to push those technicalities to one side and say, well, it doesn't matter that much, it does matter. And if you're really interested in the Crown, you have to pay attention.
To those technicalities, so to speak.
How important it is the reading and letting the word of God.
Dictate in every aspect of our lives. See so much of the attitude? Well, the Bible deals with the matters of of religion and of God. But when you have your business to take care of why, you take care of it yourself. No, the word of God deals with every aspect of life and you cannot ignore it and prosper. It can't be done.
The scriptural example.
Of driving lawfully in the service of the Lord is in 3rd John.
We know there were difficulties there because of this diatrophies, But Gaius in verse 5 Beloved, thou dost faithfully, whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers which have borne witness of thy charity before the church.
Whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sword, thou shalt do well.
Because they for his namesake, they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles.
This is very much ignored in Christendom.
They make a basket, pass around when they're preaching the gospel, and expect everybody to put something in there, whether they're saved or not. Well, I believe the point here is that they, the servants of the Lord, had gone forth for His name's sake, taking nothing from the unbelievers. And that is one way.
Also, you'll even find that some of the popular preachers, they invite people of the class to sit on their platform and even those who deny the fundamentals of the faith, asking them to ask for blessing upon the gospel campaign. Well, this is not according to the mind of God. And of course, as individuals now we do well to remember.
That the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, that we have to serve as directed by the spirit of God, and that we cannot accomplish the Lord's work in the energy of the flesh. And we do well to remember that. But even when it comes to fellowship in service, I think this is very important, that it's being ignored in the Christian profession.
In the first chapter of the Revelation where the Lord Jesus is set forth as He.
Who evaluates the activity of the particular assemblies of about which he is about to speak?
His eyes are as a flame of fire.
And when we.
Arrive at the final evaluation of service at the judgment seat of Christ. It is going to be the all seeing piercing eye of the Lord Jesus Christ that views the service performed in his name, and that which will not withstand the piercing examination of the eyes that are of a flame of fire will perish. It'll be burned up.
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And that which is durable, the gold and silver and precious stones, can endure the examination and scrutiny of the all seeing eye of the Lord Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation, the head of the assembly, the one through whom all ministry closed. This abides, and it is in view of that evaluation that we are instructed to drive to describe according to the principles and the instruction laid down in this precious book.
Verse 6 The margin is that helped to understand the thought that is presented.
The husband, laboring first, must be partaker of the fruits.
There's a lot of farmers in this area that could probably probably know a lot better about that than.
Some of us, But this is a principle that is very well known, that to get a crop you have to labor 1St and you don't get discouraged just because you don't get your crop in two or three days. You don't expect that. So the seed you wait for it to come up, you cultivate. It takes several months to get a good cry.
Sometimes when these principles are put into practice, we get discouraged because we don't see.
Immediate results. Don't get discouraged. That's what he's saying. You've got to labor first before there's going to be anything visible for what you're doing. And that's a really important principle in these last days too, because to be faithful to God, you may not see results that are very positive here in this life.
Just be assured that there will be results even though they are not immediately.
On our way to the Allendale Conference this spring.
We stopped for breakfast at a place and our waitress clearly confessed to be the Lords, and this illustrates the principle that's just been brought before us.
Told me of a lady that had just been hired that she had known in her history.
And as soon as they met at the cafe. Oh, she says, I have your name in the back of my Bible.
She said whatever for she said. 20 years ago you spoke to me of the Lord Jesus Christ and I got saved.
And she went 20 years without seeing the fruit of that simple witness. But here God graciously gives sometimes evidence, sometimes promptly. But they that honor me will I honor. That's an absolute principle of the word of God. And it may not come now, or it may come 20 years later as the sisters witness came. And it may be in the glory that we see the fruit of our neighbors. But the labor has to come first.
We labor.
And servants of God.
We labored according to the rules seeking by his grace.
To do that which is becoming as Saints of God, servants of God.
And we leave.
The results of the labor to the master.
Of the vineyard, shall we say, Who sees everything?
Knows the difficulty of the job.
And knows the desire of the heart, and he sees what is being done.
Being done unto himself.
So he is faithful to reward the labor according to his.
Ability And according to his wisdom, I should say.
We have to be persistent that it continuously working. I sometimes put it this way. We might start like a house on fire but then it doesn't last. That is not what is suggested in this verse. We continuously labor and don't give up. Don't get.
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Discouraged because you don't see fruit and result. You just got a letter in the mail that Brother Barry sent to us, A copy of a letter that Mrs. Director Munich wrote.
They have a place where we stayed at the Barry stayed there.
And they labored with them. We labored with them that quite a few years ago, started in 91.
Now the lady is saved. If you would see that letter, there is no doubt in your mind if you would read it that they are. She is saying husband isn't. Yes, but they took that much time. But so don't give up and I believe for us who have children.
To don't be discouraged when you do not see the results that you would like to see.
As early in their life as you would like to see it.
Be encouraged by what you see in the life of Moses and his parents. I don't think they really lived anymore by the time when Moses came brightly out for the Lord, and the Lord sighed and the Lord could use him. So we must not give up. We must continue to seek to labour and to be of help wherever the Lord gives us opportunity. And continuing it, don't throw in the towel.
That's not according to God.
Their laborers together with God is to get in First Corinthians 3.
Where you could say, who then is Paul, and who is Apollo, but ministers by whom you believe, Even as the Lord gave to every man I have planted the Paulus watered, but God gave the increase. Well, then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth of God that giveth history. Now he that planteth, and he the watereth, or one and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry. Ye are God's buildings. We're not on our own, are we?
Where laborers together with God and one another too.
All this was mentioned by thinking of him this morning in the pathway. We were talking about the our pathway, the pathway of faith of the Christian today is a difficult one.
But in the 11Th chapter of Hebrews, there is one verse we could read that's very helpful concerning Moses.
The 27th verse.
Through faith he forsook ego, the type of the world he left that behind.
Not fearing the wrath of the king, all the wrath of Pharaohs.
Through faith, he endured. That's just what we're talking about. He endured. He just kept on.
How could he do it, as seeing him that is invisible in our pathway, Faith is what will get us through.
Through faith, the next verse is interesting too.
He kept the Passover. Think of Moses.
Through faith he kept the Passover.
And the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed is the first born, should touch them. The next faith is when they get.
Through the Red Sea.
At plural air.
So I faith they pass through. Well, we've got the waters to pass through too, but God can hold them up and sustain us and we are to endure. I'm thinking of the race that Paul talks about in the third Philippians. A little bit different, but very nice to notice how he looks at himself as being in a race the third of Philippians.
Verse 13, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended.
But this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind just like.
Moses He forgot Egypt.
And.
Reaching forth unto those things which are before.
I suggest that this raise the pause in is not a competitive one.
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It's one that everyone's going to win. It's nice to think that you're going to win the race you're in. I'm going to win the one I'm in.
The Lord is going to bring us all the way home to the Father's house.
But we do have a test of endurance along the way.
That's an important point.
In most races there's more than one person. They may be running against time, but they're competing with one another. We're not in competition with one another, are we?
No, that's important because as you say, we're all in a race and only one. In the races down here, only one win. But in the race that you and I are in, we are all going to win. And that's the grace of God, and only the grace of God. It seems to me that the first part of this chapter is continuing on. It's been mentioned enduring, continuing on.
Maybe some have heard the story.
And Benny probably know the man. I won't mention his name, but he was a great violinist, one of the best that this world has ever known. And he had a concert in a city that's well known to everybody. And there was a lady in that city of high society, lady that went up to him afterwards and said to him, spoke to him by name and said I'd give my life to play like that. He said, lady, I have, and I think that's what we have here. I think that's what we have here. It's our life that we give.
It isn't that we start a day and as Heinz has said, and throw in the towel.
But we go on, it's a race of endurance and that won't end.
Until either we pass through the article of death or the Lord comes and calls us to himself that race is going to.
Continue.
We live in a culture where you are geared to think of immediate results. And everything around us is with that thought in mind. And if a person works for a company and doesn't get good results and in short order, why he's called in and the tactics are changed so that there will be results. And I think this is something that we need to think about. The important thing is to continue according to the word of God. Let it search us, brethren, Let's go on.
Seeking to go according to the principles of the Word of God. There will be results.
But they may not be immediate.
I read that verse in First Corinthians 9 and maybe it would be helpful to comment on the end. We are talking about laboring in the service of Christ after we have already been brought to Christ and peace with God. And the thought in the end of that verse is not the apostle having any doubt as to his destiny. I know whom I have believed and am persuaded he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
But he is examining his service.
Lest it be not acceptable, he says that he labored that he might be acceptable to God, not accepted of God. We had that issue that before us this morning. We are accepted in all of value and word that God places upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, accepted in the beloved, made holy and without blame before him in love. This is what we are, but then we are created.
God's workmanship created under good works. And now the Apostle says, let's see salmon our hearts, let's be exercised, whether or not this service is according to the word of God.
And acceptable to God. That which is not in accordance with this precious book will not be acceptable to God. And he's castaway as a son, certainly, but as a servant rejected because he wasn't according to the principles that God has given us.
A verse that is kind of a following on of that thought because we have the supreme example and the person of the Lord Jesus.
He says, Consider what I say, and the Lord shall give the understanding in all things.
Then he says, remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel.
In other words, here was Paul and he was just about to close his earthly pathway.
What kind of results could he show from his life? All in Asia had turned away from him. Must have been a terrible thing for him to think about those that had turned away from him. They were believers, but they didn't want to follow with all. And so he's about to terminate his life down here without hardly any results to show for it. And he's encouraging and seeking to encourage Timothy. And so he says, remember Jesus Christ.
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And at the end of the Lord's life down here, 3 1/2 years of arduous labor, How many disciples did he have? 12, But one was a traitor, Another one that said he would never deny him, denied him three times. All the rest forsook him and fled. It appeared a complete failure his life.
He said he was the king of the Jews, but he was crucified. It all was totally the opposite, the way it should be. But what Paul is saying to Timothy here, remember Timothy?
Results, the way God counts them, are in that day of resurrection. Don't look for results down here.
And oh, what an encouragement that is labor, labor on. Be encouraged, your young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus.
Older brothers too. But don't look for results down here. Results are in resurrection in God's account.
Chapter one, verse 12 fits in here, doesn't it?
I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
What is he talking about? His labor. He has committed it unto him against that day. In that day, God will recognize whatever was of himself, not only in Paul's life, in any of our lives. That's when everything will be brought to light, That which was of himself, and that will be rewarded. And so.
Of course it is wonderful when we do see results.
Even now.
And certainly.
We certainly have reasons to be thankful.
Who have seen results and do see results but in the final analysis.
God is the one that ultimately appraises everything, and even that which we might think was accomplished through our service might prove not to really have been.
What we thought it could be, but we'll be very happy to accept his appraisal of everything.
And wholeheartedly agree with him at that time.
Isaiah 49, verse 4.
Isaiah said. Then I said.
Verse 3 two, verse 3. And he sent it to me. Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
Reform, then, said I I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for not and in vain.
Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God.
Redial.
Thou saith the Lord, that for me from the womb to be a servant, to bring Jacob again to him, though Israel be not gathered yet, shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength.
One more that he said. It is a light thing that thou should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and just to restore the preserve of Israel.
I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth, and that's that, and that's coming right on down there. Tremendous what God answers the Lord in the prophecy there.
He had been sent to Israel. He was born of Israel. He had labored and labored. And what did they do to him? Completely rejected him, cast him out, named him to a cross.
What a thing.
Well, God had us in view as well as the Jews.
But he hadn't forgotten to. Do you come back and pick them up. Her blessing for the millennial reign. What a plan God has but here to be gathered, this word gathered.
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One of the most difficult things there is today is gathering is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's by the Spirit of God. And he does gather.
The song is the Spirit of God that has the power by the Word of God to save the soul, and it's only the Spirit of God who has the power to gather that saved soul to the person of Christ.
Who used to be known up here, he said to me one day, You know.
It's a much greater work of the Spirit of God.
Together to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ than it is to bring the salvation and get people saved.
Now I wasn't talking about the work of Christ. He did all the work of salvation.
And by the grace of God many are saved, and in the world today they.
Lift them as about a billion people that are under Christianity.
Well, there'd be a lot of those that are really saved, but how many are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ today? And what does the Lord think about that? What does God think about that, Those that want to feed his son? Well, we know what he thinks.
There is no better place on the face of the earth.
Enjoy the heaven ahead of time, you might say.
Samaritan who, when he was cleansed as he was on the way to the priest, turned around and came back and fell down with his face at his feet and gave God the glory. What a privilege to do that.
Remember Jesus Christ of the Seed of David.
Raised from the dead. According to my gospel, how many remember the Lord Jesus Christ every week?
At his table as one who raised from the dead.
I think this is almost a direct invitation to us to remember that person that he was dead, but he's raised from the dead, the celebrated according, as he has put it before.
Emphasize. Just Leave out two words. I'll go through it this way, remember.
If a person remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David raised from the dead according to my gospel.
It's not what he accomplished and went through in resurrection, but it's the person very important. Yeah. These are the two he's raised from the dead, the tremendous burst system.
And the seventh verse could read this way. Consider what I say, and the Lord will give the understanding in all things.
Jesus Christ of the seed of David raised from the dead, according to my daughter.
In what way is the gospel here referred to Paul's gospel? Maybe somebody could give us a statement about that and my according to my gospel.
Off the Guest four different special points that were revealed to Paul.
In the short order Philippians 3.
There are four different things given to Paul.
From Christ in heaven.
Which are stated that way.
I should say Ephesians 3.
And this brings in the Gentiles as well.
The first verse of Ephesians 3. For this cause I call the prisoner of Jesus Christ to you, Gentiles. If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, that's what we're getting in our chapter, which is given to me to yours. Now here's the special statement how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.
Skipping down to five, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men.
As it is now revealed under the Holy Proclaim and Prophet that the Gentile should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of the promise of in Christ by the gospel. Now that's one special revelation given to Paul. Let's go to 1St Corinthians 15 to get another one.
00:40:11
Notice how he starts.
Verse 51.
All right, that, behold, I show you a mystery, something that hadn't been known before.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.
At the last trump, where the trump shall sound, the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
To save time, let's go on to.
One Corinthians 11.
There is the one body and there is something to.
Witness to that and when the.
All gets the revelation from the Lord from heaven about the Lord's Supper, what we call it. He introduces it in this way, the 23rd verse. Now this is Paul saying, this is part of his gospel. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. When he had given thanks, he break it, and said, Take this is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also he took the cup when he had stopped saying This cup is the New Testament my blood.
Which is shed for you This do ye as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lords death till he comes. The other one I think we already had read to us, But we'll go back to it again in First Thessalonians 4 The Rapture.
In short, it's the truth of the one body.
And.
The resurrection truth and a witness that there is one body in First Corinthians 11. Now how are we going to get into that place that he's going to bring us into? He introduces this in First Thessalonians 416. We've already read it, but we'll read it again for the Lord himself.
No, we should read the 15th.
This we say unto you by the word of the Lord. Paul saying, I got this from the Lord, I'm passing it on to you. This is my gospel, that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall not recede them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout that the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God and the dead and Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain, that may be us here, brother.
We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.
And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. So this is a part of Paul's gospel.
What you've said once it proceeds that this characterizes the dispensation that we're in, it keeps our feet in a steady path and our hearts and minds fixed on what God's thoughts are for this dispensation.
Paul's teaching Distance and how important for young people.
Middle-aged people, old people.
To clearly see what God's thoughts are about this dispensation, We could go into the Old Testament, we could pick up the period before the flood, after the flood, the time of Abraham, and there's not too much difficulty to discern what God's purposes are. But with so many believers, you come into the New Testament and, well, it's a wonderful thing to have love, which is true. It's a wonderful thing that this one is doing this work and that. But that's not.
What God's thoughts are for this dispensation, and to see it is to see Pauls doctrine, isn't it? How clearly and beautifully it settles the heart, where we get to it right Lead to fighting the word of truth. There are dispensation. You want to keep them straight.
Interesting that the apostle Paul, in writing to the Romans, and we know Romans, is not taken up with the doctrine of what we've just been discussing. But let's read the last three verses of the last chapter of the book of Romans. I think it's exceedingly interesting that he brings the very thought of what we've just been saying into this, the last three verses now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation.
00:45:08
Of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures.
And the New Testament prophets that says nothing to do with the Old Testament prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith that God only wise the glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. What a marvelous conclusion to the book of Romans, which doesn't doctrinally touch what we're talking about. But he says, this is my gospel, This is a story that I have to deliver.
Presenting these things that have been outlined to us and seeking, with God's help to maintain that truth. And to some extent, if we desire to walk in these things, we too will be suffering. Now Paul, it was to the point that he was imprisoned.
Yet what an encouraging statement it is.
He said the word of God is not found. There are some of these encouragement, encouraging statements in that second epistle. This is one of them. The word of God is not found. So bring the word of God, beloved Saints of God, beloved brethren, even the sisters, when they have an opportunity, you know it's not just the brothers that are in a race and that are.
To continue faithfully in service the Sisters as well the word.
Of God is not found, Mr. Darby once said. Somebody might say.
This thought doesn't cut. I know it cuts, and I'm going to use it. You know, the word of God is what God in his wisdom.
Is used as a means for man's blessing, whether it is new birth, whether it is feeding our souls or cleansing us some defilements. So the word of God is not bound, we quoted and bring it before souls. Then we have another statement that is so encouragement encouraging, he abideth faithful, even if we are not.
We haven't always been faithful halfway, but he abides faithful. Then another very encouraging statement in this chapter is that the foundation of God's standard firm that cannot be overthrown. So these are very encouraging statements in this chapter that we can enjoy in our own soul in view of the ruined condition that we find round about and even suffering in the service of Lord that we might have to face.
The word of God is not bound. He abides faithful and the foundation of God's standard firm.
Evidence of the word of God is not bound yet in the 16th of Acts, when the jailer himself was turned to God.
If the service of Christ puts one into restricted circumstances, then those of Caesar's household are black, the Chamberlain of the city. And so wherever one is, is the opportunity. Every individual with whom we come in contact is a prospect, and the world is a field, and the word of God will have its way with men.
Do you think that Taylor was the man over there in Asia that was calling for help?
Could be there were sisters over there meeting by the seaside.
Oh, and Silas found them, but they were having a hard time finding the man. But God knew where he was, and he dropped that man out of ******* to his sin and Satan through putting Paul in the prison. And then he took Paul out and silent he carried on the work, but he got his servant over to Rome and God, as it were. I hope I'm thinking right.
What are these prison epistles to be wrecked?
As they were who were, I guess maybe more in the president room, but we don't read in the word of God about Paul getting out of the Roman prisons.
We know he did, but he?
God was going to finish His word that way to reach us with all these wonderful epistles.
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What a survey that you've given us of, of God's ways.
Appalled. And this is the second imprisonment just before his death.
Same thing. Let's yawn on the Isle of Piedmont apartment. Rather he was bound there for the Word of God. He was exile there for the word of God. And some like to think, well, John, you've labored all these years an old man and look at you end up on that island all by yourself. But there he got the visions of God. And you and I have them today. And and and so the word of God is not found. And you and I can be unfaithful. We can depart from the word of God, but it does not change the truth of God.
And the truth of God keeps going off, and it always will. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word shall not pass away so.
God uses God is faithful to his word, and it's a wonderful thing that you and I can have four centers saved by grace. We can take that the word of God and continue it on and be workers together with God in it.
Somebody tell us very simply who the elect are this next bird or one word is used in the Bible. I can do her old thing for the elect.
Sake.
Go to world games, actually turn alive. There's another scripture and the gospel in the mind of covenant theologian and others. Their idea is that the gospel is going to convert the world and bring it into subjection to Christ. That's not true. The gospel is to bring in the elect of God. The jailer was one of them that you mentioned. And those ladies by the waterside there.
They were some of the elections and.
We don't know who they are, but we know that the gospel is God's means of bringing in the elect. And I remember John Person pointing out in First Thessalonians.
When Paul came to Thessalonica, he didn't know who the elect were, but he preached to all. But then by faith, love and hope manifested in their life when they received the gospel, he said, Knowing, beloved of God, your election.
So now he knew who they were. He didn't know when he was preaching to them. But so that takes the frustration out of gospel work, doesn't it? When we know we would like to everyone that we preach to to accept the gospel, but we know that God will use this as a means to bring in the elect. Of course, that also means that the servant better be directed by the Spirit of God and by the law.
To get to those souls and speak a word in season and out of season. So how important that is. Paul in Acts several times wanted to go someplace already come over to Macedonia and help us was said, you know, after twice he was in there. They were told to be gathered, saved and gathered amongst the Gentiles, and so he was directed, although he wanted to go someplace else twice, but the Lord didn't allow him to because there were other souls to be reached.
And in Corinthians you know he has to flee some Thessalonica, but in Corinthians he is told to remain there, because the Lord told me I have much people in this city, much people yet to be saved. And in John chapter 10.
The Lord Jesus speaks of the sheep from the pool, that is Israel, and those who are not of this whole them also I must bring that as Gentiles.
And he referred to them as he already before they have ever heard the voice of the Good Shepherd said. How wonderful the gospel brings the blessed God that takes every post thing away from any of us. It's got grace that has chosen us in Christ before the world was. He destined us for blessing. What's the difference between elections and predestination? The individual is elected. Predestination is what he is elected for.
To be conformed to the image of his Son. These are the simple explanations, I believe, as the scriptures plainly teaches it.
00:55:06
Truth. We ought to We don't get ahold of it. Nothing like it. It's it's Job himself. As Peter says. He left according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. All right, The vision chosen him before the foundation of the world. I'll remember and say what Eric Smith.
Said with a definition to elect by.
Red belt Indian there after he had labored there with the gospel, and they got hold of the truth, and they came to the Word.
Elect. And the question was that what does that mean he lacked?
And one of the old Indian chief says it means that before God ever dropped 1 stone in place, he was thinking of this poor old Indian.
That's a good understanding of elect.
Before creation, before the foundation of the world.
Oh, it's all grace, and it has to be.
There are two tracks about the rental production.
Responsibility comes in. Everyone in this room is responsible, having heard the word of God to accept it.
That doesn't change what's just been talking about, but.
That's still very much the word of God.
Every man is responsible.
2 Timothy 2:19-24 and Others
Reading
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#35 In the appendix All the past the Saints are treading, broadened by the Son of God, all the sorrows they are feeling, felt by him upon the road, all the darkness and the sorrow from around and from within, all the joy and all the triumph he passed through apart from sin.
All the path that takes the rest of the drive, and he's right. And he died from the cry.
I'm sorry, there was a little.
Bit of stuff that's the way it's all blah, blah blah blah, blah, blah blah blah blah oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, my God.
I don't know.
It's yesterday, my father laughing. Goddess.
Never mind.
What's going on in second Timothy 2?
And dropping down South, they can cover the last verses to verse 19 and reading to the end of chapter 2 and then pick up a few words few verses in chapter 3 beginning the verse 14.
Through the second verse of the 4th chapter. And then read the last verse of the assessment that you do that. I think you better run that by me again. All right, let's finish from verse 19.
To the end of Chapter 2.
Then go on down in chapter 3 to verse 14. Read those 4 verses and the first two of chapter 4.
And the very last.
Second Timothy, chapter 2 and verse 19. Nevertheless, the foundation of God's standard Sure, having this seal, the Lord will examine it, are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore birds himself from thee, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified in me for the master Hughes.
And prepared under every good work we also used for lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions, avoid knowing that they do gender strikes, And the servant of the Lord must not strive. But be gentle unto all men after teach patience and meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God's first adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taking captive by him at his will. Chapter 3, verse 14. But continues thou in the things which thou hast learned, and have seen assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned them, And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make me wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine.
Or recruit for correction or instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good works. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom. Preach the Word the instant in season out of season.
00:05:03
Recruit review Exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
Do the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit, Grace be with you. Amen.
So that is in Christ Jesus the last verse, the Lord Jesus Christ be with five years grace be with.
Through this state of soul and appreciated what God has done for us.
And then to pick up.
The inspection of living in a day in which we live.
As a witness.
We left through some opposed gospel, especially revelations given to him.
Namely, Ephesians 3, where the truth of the one body comes out.
With the Jews and Gentiles brought into the same body.
And then going on to 1St Corinthians 11, those verses from 23 on which we so often read, all his I have received of the Lord that was also I delivered unto you. And what is it? It's a witness that stands for the truth of the one body. It's a witness that the Lord table that loaf on the cup on the that loaf on the table is a witness that there is one.
And then the comfort that we need in the other special revelations that were given to Paul the old I show you a mystery.
1St Corinthians 15.
And then the last one, the Rapture of first Thessalonians 4.
With the You eat so much that we're expecting the Lord to come from heaven. These are part of the special gospel given to Paul. Now in our chapter we have noticed that he passes on and obtained these truths to be kept through.
From Paul to Timothy, to faithful men and to others. And the faithful men and others are still here on the earth. That's the way the witness goes on, and the tenor of the meeting yesterday in the open meeting.
Was remarkable, I thought. So I thought we should get on in this chapter and get down through the end of it, where we find out where repentance comes from.
Where did we come from?
And what leaks the restoration? What the exam. So I'll call attention to what we read in verse 25 of chapter 2.
Meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. If God notice that if God prayer adventures give them respect to their technology, the truth is God's truth. He's the one that can give us the change of mind, to obey it, to take it up and live according to it. And the positive words of the last verses of three and four would encourage us in our last meeting, I hope. Well let's get on with the staff at the beginning. Of course 19 his mother brothers have other things they can go back and pick up.
Some of the others in chapter 2.
Or study the sort of school come to God. The correct rendering is really useful diligence. The thought is not that by studying we become approved unto God, but that we should be diligent and have an exercise to be approved unto God. There is too much of time to please men in the Christian profession today.
The sermon of the Lord had to be exercised to be approved unto God.
And a servant that rightly divides or cutting in a straight line, as Mr. Darby said, the word of God, not adjusting it so that it is acceptable to the people, cut it into a straight line. He didn't have my words, the sister says in the Old Testament. Let him see the faithfulness. You know we need that kind of a thing, especially in a day of ruins. I'm sure that those who are faithful men.
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Spiritually exercise. Souls will approve.
Of a servant of the Lord that carries on with this kind of exercise. But that should be our exercise, every one of us that will be approved unto God, not to be men pleasers. Of course, we always, I hope, Abu, with love and compassion for men that are lost, or even for our fellow believers in life to try to be a help to them.
But our.
Responsibility is that we are serving the Lord and that we have to be approved by Him.
Whatever we're doing.
They come through especially you know how to write the divisor with the truth and agility connection. On Saturday something about this sensational truth. But there's a lot of confusion because of lack of distinguishing to whom God is speaking in the word of God and in First Corinthians chapter 10. It's good to see.
Paul distinguish us 3 distinct groups here in this world.
In verse 32 he says give none offense neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God. So when you read the scriptures, we can say that all scripture is written for us, but not all scripture is written to us. We should read it all because it is all profitable.
But I think it is important to read it in its context. We are not Jews.
We were Gentiles. But when you and I, those who are Jews and Gentiles, accept the Lord as their savior, they now belong to another third group, which is the Church of God, those that are called out for heaven. And so when I read the scriptures, I read distinguishing.
To whom God is speaking, so we don't apply the Old Testament directly.
Still, there is tremendous teaching and pictures in the Old Testament that help to enlighten the truth of the New Testament. But what we have down in our 19th verse now of our chapter speaks about the foundation of God.
That stand sure in the midst of bad teaching that was evident with this Hymenius and Philetus, Where is the foundation upon which we are built?
As a second chapter of Ephesians, we are filled upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. That's New Testament prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. So it's important that we be grounded in New Testament doctrines.
Not that we make little of any part of the Scriptures. It's all important. But it is not all written to us, it's all written for us. So it distinguishes what was written to the Jews, what was written to the Gentiles, what was written to the Church of God, sometimes given for the young people an illustrations, perhaps. Since we were three boys and not my home, my father had taken a trip and he writes the letter to us.
And he gives the general news, and then he gives specific instructions to each one of us boys what we are to do. We all read the whole letter, and we all read that. We all learn from the whole letter. But when it comes to direct obedience, I pay attention what he directed to me. If I'm going to start trying to do what he directed to my brother, I'm going to cause confusion. And that's what's happened in Christian circles, not distinguishing those three groups that Scripture recognizes.
God's confusion and people get into politics because they get into the Old Testament, and they see a man like Daniel, who is high up in the authority of the king of Babylon and the Kingdom of Babylon, and in medial Persian as well. And they say, well, why not? If we don't distinguish brethren, then there is confusion as to those points. It is important to distinguish you rightly.
00:15:20
Divide the word of truth.
That might be worth.
Let everyone that name us the name of Christ depart from iniquity, if you or I take the place of being a Christian.
We are under all the responsibilities that a Christian has, so that we read in First Corinthians. Notice in the first chapter the broadness of the Epistle.
First Corinthians chapter One.
All thus believe were still under the Church of God, which is important.
Of death to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called Saints, or things like calling. Now notice the largest with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus and Christ our Lord, both sears and powers, and then He goes through thee.
Things that had gone on in the church there through the epistle. But it turns us to the fact that profession is very great today and we can't always know who's a real believer who's not what the gods can. So the first part of the verse has one seal the foundation of God. Standard Stewart having this deal. The Lord knows them better here and that's all we need to know. We are the judge by the fruit. However President, I think that every one of us.
For ourselves can have the seal that I know that I am the Lord.
But I don't have to know about my brothers sister. We want to know and we want to see the fruit, so they ought to be there. So there's responsibility if I make a profession to be a Christian.
As somebody said, be what you want. Your child is God be with practice.
The name of the Lord.
Because it has to do with the lordship of Christ.
The and everyone who is in the Christian profession called upon the name of the Lord and.
Now those who do are expected to withdraw from unrighteousness. In the German, the word for iniquity is unrighteousness, and Pat Hindrance pointed out that that is how it is in the original unrighteousness. Why is that important?
Because in the collective tab, the first thing that is mentioned is righteousness.
Not love.
Licenses in the day of general ruin is the first thing that is strength in the collective path. Love is not left out, but it's so important.
This passage in the Word of God has been called the Path of the Faithful in the Day of Ruin, and that path is open to us. We cannot any longer practice the truth of the one body with every member of the body of society.
That would be nice with the truth. And he certainly missed those who are two members of the body of science, the authorities. And that is probably one of the reasons for the weakness that exists the Manhattan because they are missing so many of members of the body of Pride that could it's willing to meet on that principle could be of help to us. But the encouraging thing is that we do not need every member of the Body of Christ.
In order to practice the truth of the body of Christ. And when we had these problems some years back, one of the statements that was made over and over again by some who didn't understand it, that we have to keep the truth of the body of life. That's not true. We have to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace, that which gives practical excursion to the truth of the one body.
00:20:01
Leading on that ground and we can do that in a limited way.
With those that are willing to meet on that ground and think of the divided state in Intrahel when the House of David they sent us two other centers, but there was still the center in Jerusalem.
And.
There were still 12 laws on the table of showbread.
Representing all the 12 sides of Israel and those who meet today at the divine center when they break bread, a brother already mentioned that his expected to the truth of the one body. That loop on the table represents every member of the body of Christ, not just the gathered thing. And if you do not understand that we do not understand the truth of the Lord's table.
And we can give expression to that, although not everyone who is represented in that lobe is willing to lead on that ground. That is so encouraging. Beloved faces God that he can, in a limited way give expression to that truth. But when we give expression to that truth, we do not just express the truth that we who are gathered are represented in their flow. We teach every member of the body of silence.
I thought Albert Neil had given us that story and met his dear Christian 1 Lord for the afternoon. And he said I saw you in the meeting that day when I saw the next your meetings today. Well instead I saw you in the meeting today. So I've never been at your meeting. Well, he had to explain. It was a low bond at the table and that law represented every member of the body of Christ in the middle of represented you as well.
So we see. If we don't see every member of the body of Christ represented here, we have a limited view. We cannot fully expect fellowship with every member of the body of Christ. But I hope you never will have a limited view of the truth of the body of Christ.
There is one body. Absolutely nothing can ever change them. And as to the truth, it says no lies of the truth. But a lie doesn't change the fact that the truth of us now we are to walk in the truth practically.
Compressing.
The name of Christ, and happening and living up to it.
This statement at the beginning of verse 19 the foundation of God.
And sure.
Your testament, When the temple was destroyed in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the foundations were broken up, and when they returned in the time of Ezra, they had to relay the foundation. That is not the case in the time of ruin in this dispensation.
The foundation stands. Sure, the ruin is great, but isn't it a comfort brethren that where we are built upon stand Sure, Nothing can shape that foundation. Nothing can change it. And so sometimes, I say for those of us who are younger, we need to dig down through the rubble of our own spots and human opinions and teachings.
To get to where the foundation really is.
Latin America, when they built, they used bricks a lot down there. The builders often use a Plumb line. We need to use the Plumb line rather than in our actions as gathered to the Lord's name, or even in our lives individually. Does it square with the doctrine that we have from the apostles and prophets of the New Testament?
It's there. It's not for you and I to come to some agreement as to the program we're going to carry out. No, it's all set there long ago. It's just for you and I to discern what it is and to build on that foundation. That's where we are, brother. That foundation will never be changed. It stands. Sure.
00:25:04
Back to the first letter, Timothy the first official and chapter.
3.
First Timothy chapter 3.
All right to Timothy the first time says to him in verse 15. But if I carry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the House of God.
Which is the Church of the living God? The pillar ground, or the pillar is the port of the truth.
God established the foundation on the work of Christ on which he has a house, and in Timothy's first epistle, it's called the House of God. And now he exhorts Timothy, using this picture of the church as the House of God. He said, Timothy, I'm writing these things to you so that you will know and can share with others how you should behave yourself in God's house, and the House of God is a place of responsibility.
And God has given.
To that house which he calls his assembly to be the pillar and support of truth. And that's been the mind of God and the purpose of God, the intention for which he brings before us. The thought of the house is that place where God's truth is maintained and supported by the collective body that is the church.
But when Paul writes, Paul writes to Paul writes the second time to Timothy.
Sadly, when he addresses it by the Spirit of God, God is no longer able.
To use the same expression to refer to that house, OK, it was now called the Great House. Why is it the Great House here in Second Timothy, where in the first letter it was called the House of God?
Because those responsible had not maintained.
Their responsibility of being a pillar and support of the truth. And God can no longer own it by that which it was his purpose to call it. He does not call it by the Spirit anymore. The House of God. You know, you have a house many here in this room. I have a house. And there are people that might look at your house and mine and they might say, oh, that's Mary's house or Don's house or.
The so and so house. And it is identified by the people that live there and the behavior of those people. And so God has had to look upon that which should be called the House of God and say it's a great house. There are all kinds of things that are going on in that house.
That are not according to the mind of God, and not in keeping with His Holiness and his righteousness, you might say. Well, what do you do about it? Timothy might have said to Paul. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to set it all right? Can we set it right? Can we make it again to have the character in the House of God? He says no. God's foundation on which that house is built. Stand sure, and it will never change.
And he knows everyone that is his own, because there are many living in that house now and taking the name of belonging to the Lord Jesus who are not real.
Who are not of the house, really. There are others who have belonged to the house, but they're not acting in a way that's in keeping with the righteousness and character of the truth. So what happens? He says. You, Timothy, and those like you must depart from the iniquity. You must separate yourself.
Well, where do you go?
Castle out of the house. Every single person in this room belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ is in the great House. Only way you can get out of the house is to give up the protection of Christianity. And if you recognize you belong to the great house, you recognize that you belong to the rulers and you will feel it in your soul. You will recognize that you cannot disassociate yourself.
From those, you might say the Gentiles or those that are not part of the Church of God, who are looking at that house, and they see you as part of it, and you must recognize that and feel it. But that does not mean that you must go on with the evil that's in it.
00:30:03
The individual expectation is depart from iniquity, order that's been explained, unrighteousness. And then as we see what goes on later, you don't have to walk alone. You don't have to compromise the truth of God, because then it says to walk with them to call on the Lord out of a fewer hearts. And so the Lord in graciousness and mercy has still allowed that his people not have to compromise the truth of God.
But that they may go on according to that truth and fellowship with himself, and enjoy the privileges.
Of that that God has set up for his pleasure, and still individually and together be the pillar and support of the truth, of which one of those privileges is remembering the Lord Jesus and his death at his table. But the responsibility is much more than simply testimony to the truth of the one body. It is all the truth of God and connect connected with the House of God, and it's been maintained in its entirety.
By those you walk on with the Lord out of a poor heart.
Part of it verse 19.
That let everyone that name it the name of Christ departs from iniquity individual.
Verse 21 If a man individual again therefore purge himself from thee, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified meat for the master's use and prepared unto everyday work. And get down to verse 22 We have about following with others that I call on the Lord out of a pure heart, but I think it is important to see that it is individual here, and if there is not the taking those steps individually before God.
In this great house, then, it won't be clear verse 22 either. It is in the measure that you individually take that step, I myself as well, that later we will find that there are others who also occupy that position and we can find fellowship together. But it is not primarily looking at collective testimony, it is individually separating.
And then the results will be a collective testimony. I think that's that's important point to keep in mind in connection with this truth as to the palace, the great house.
Say that these fellowship with those who are saved and free of immorality and free of evil darkness, that is true, but it is short of what we learned from this testing. What this pastry teaches is that it is not just important what I am like, how I conduct myself, what doctrine I hold.
My association my entirely if I go on in fellowship with vessels to dishonor, I am depiled. So the grounds of gathering is the truth of the one body. You will fellowship only with those who belong to the Lord, and you have to separate some immorality and some evil doctrine. But if you go on with evil doctrine in the group of believers, where you are?
Or when there are individuals who are living immorally and they didn't judge by your association, you are disqualified for being received at the Lords table. Now these are important principles to get ahold of. We're not only meeting on the ground of the one body in separation from evil and the house aspect of the Church.
It already has been indicated.
Is maintaining God's order, God's holiness, Holiness the cometh thine house for God forever? Be he holy. Wasn't that right at the beginning of these meetings? Be ye holy, for I am holy.
Obviously I understand and accept what you said.
Could we be a little as impossible to do it? Feel free to tell me.
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Could we be a little more definitive?
As to the character of those, or the character of the physicians that those are in, from whom I am to encourage myself.
I don't think you like your thoughts. Well, it's not fair because I asked the question.
Let's be more definitive as to the character of the people or the character of the of the place that they are in, from whom we are to purge ourselves. I was raised across the Greeks in the meeting room in Bloomington. I was raised in the assembly and.
I'm not sure that I really sympathize.
With those that we might call vessels the dishonor. And yet I do understand that I have what I purge myself from. This is not a public confession. I understand it by the grace of God. But there may be some for whom being received at the Lord's table was a beautiful thing, and it continues to be, But they're not really sure that in their personal experience that they have separated from anything.
So they were never connected with anything, but there are those that we meet at school at work.
Someone giving out crack and we say beautiful grace of God heaven in our home there was 1 during the Columbine here he had a great big cross on a on a wheel and some of us had him at home and seeking to bring to him something a little more and I think he saw the shadows of it. But what is the character of what is is in the camp is that which we are to separate from.
Again, let me repeat it. Young people received at the Lord's table. I don't think he should be given.
Interrogation as to these things, but I'm sure from my own experience when I was younger I didn't understand and and could there be something Ecclesiastes believe?
One thing that you have to separate from what is the cardinal thing is listener. They act as if the Holy Spirit has not come.
To say how it's cleaning, they put a puny mortal in charge of divertits and ministry. He arranges everything, and he has to him stick out the passages that are to be read, and he might graciously call on somebody to lead in prayer, but he acts like he is the Holy Spirit. That's iniquity, That's unrighteousness. It ignores the fact that the Holy Spirit has come, the clergy system has thought.
It's bringing Judaism into the church, into Christianity. Beautiful instruments, choir, singing in the midst of the church, realizing that phrases. I'm not saying that we cannot have faith, that sort of Gordon bidding for me and can enjoy them, but we don't have solos in the assembly.
I'm just mentioning all of those kind of things. Other things can be added but not willing to judge. Evil is on the increase and we are in danger, beloved Saints of God, to accept people into fellowship that has no place at the Lord's table if they are in an adulterous union.
Remember, such a person does not have a place at the Lord's table in Christendom. That is more more acceptable, but not that should not be acceptable amongst those gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And the form that it presents itself, it could be ecclesiastical. What is spoken of here in these verses, prior verses 17 and 18, is really doctrinal iniquity, bad teaching as to the doctrine of resurrection, but it could include as well moral iniquity in whatever way iniquity presents itself.
I am responsible if I name the name of the Lord to depart from the nicotine. Don't connect that name with iniquity in any form whatsoever. That is my responsibility and the responsibility of every person that says I'm a Christian.
So this Great House is the great House of Christian professor profession. It's Christmas is what we generally speak of it, and I'd like to mention in verse 20 it mentioned Bethel. And of course every Christian is a vaffle, but it mentions vessels of gold and of silver, which are costly vessels which are durable vessels.
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Perhaps figurative of true believer, the Lord knows the matter is there are vessels of wood and a verse, those that are not of that much worth, and those that are not so durable. But then it goes on to say, some to honor and some to dishonor.
Sometimes in Latin America, I like to ask which are the ones to honor? Which are the ones to dishonor?
Without looking at verse 21, the answer is given. Oh gold and silver to honor and wouldn't through earth are to dishonor. That's not what scripture says.
Scripture gives the definition of a vessel to honor in verse 21. If a man therefore purged himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. You take an illustration. I don't know that many people have vessels of gold in their house.
But if you would come to my house above and look underneath the kitchen sink and see that for a garbage pail we have a vessel of gold.
I don't think you'll see that, but if that would happen, would that be a vessel to honor in that position?
Absolutely not. But it's the gold vessel, you think? Yes. No doubt the person that made that vessel made it for the table of the king. It's not in its right position there. And so to be a vessel to honor that vessel needs to be taken out of that position.
And scrubbed down and put in its proper place, and in that way it can be.
They have absolute honor, but I think that shows that there are many positions.
That disqualify even a real believer from being a vessel to honor. And so it's something that's presented to us to exercise each one of us brethren just because we're gathered to the Lords name. Sometimes there are those gathered to the Lords name that are going on with things that are dishonorable, that are iniquities.
There needs to be that purging if you want to be a vessel.
That the Lord, when he comes into his house, can say I need a vessel to do something with, right? Then you should be exercised about purging yourself from that which would hinder you from being a vessel ready for the masters use. You know when you go into your house you want to get a drink, you go right to where the clean glasses are, and you use those because they're ready.
You don't look in The Dirty dish files or a glass. Any clean glasses? Maybe you have to pull one out of The Dirty dish pile and you have to clean it up. Then it's ready to use. But the Lord, when he comes into the house in the midst of this confusion, he's looking and he will use those that are ready for his use, that are vessels to honor.
I think it's important for us not to go around placing tags of vessels to honor or vessel to dishonor this. The way this is presented, it's presented to exercise each one am IA vessel to honor ready for the masters use sanctified meat, for the masters use prepared to every good word.
Having a great house and live in brethren is it's hard to separate from our brethren better members of the body of Christ. We believe that there's iniquity there, and we're faced with this from time to time, and especially those that are learning truth. And they're connected with a system where dishonorable things are allowed and there's uncleanness, iniquity and righteousness.
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And it's a dilemma that those ask themselves, Must I separate from true Christians that I love?
That's a hard issue. Well, I think that's why the Lord tells us the Foundation stands purely because He maintains that, and we cannot maintain a testimony in its entirety that there is one body by gathering with all of them as they were in the beginning. That's impossible. That's why these instructions are for us in the time of ruined.
I thought it was real helpful that bridges are red in First Timothy about the house, in order, the House of God. God has given us 22 patterns here, one for the house and order. One what to do when the house is not in order, when you cannot meet together with all Christians because of defilement iniquity. The Lord tells us what to do. He says we must separate, and that's where it comes down to the individual, because you can't do it with the whole whole, the whole Mass. They won't do it.
There's been failures. And so individually we have to do that. And how beautiful that then that when we do that, that I so enjoyed that little story of the brother who recognized that those from whom he had to separate were represented in that loath, and that as it were still one way that we can give expression to the wholeness of the body of Christ.
By having just the one rope on there on the table, rather than than many which would give testimony to division rather than to the truth of God. There is one body. God maintains that there the foundation God has maintained. And so we kind of have to leave that with him as he does it, but walks in separation from the violence and then.
They're usefulness to the Lord. But if we stay in that mixture, then the Lord is limited to using us for defiled vessels just as defiled vessels like it's a garbage can that was mentioned. Even if the garbage can was of gold, it was defiled and how could the Lord use that? Well if that garbage can got cleaned up and it could be used like it really was intended.
Would you say that only together things are calling upon the name of the Lord out of a pure heart?
No.
I feel very strong that he had to question herself to think that way. I believe there are many who do not understand what the Lord has given us to understand and.
They do not necessarily call upon the name of the Lord out of his pure heart.
They don't know any better, but when the truth is presented and acknowledged by them, and they don't fall through it, then we can no longer say that they're calling upon the name of the Lord out of the pure heart. The story has been told that better, Borden, but.
Visiting with a believer, he mentioned somehow and the truth of the assembly and the body of Christ was discussed. And this was new to this man. He had not understood it, and he said that the end of the conversation he wished he had never met him. You know now he was under obligation as to the truth he had learned from Brother Gordon. So there are those who call upon the name of the Lord out of the pure heart, not knowing any better.
And he had to be very careful in.
Classifying stuff is not calling upon the name of the Lord of the pure heart, and if such, comes to the assembly.
Of course we cannot really receive them without them taking a step of separation, I believe. But they do not have to understand all that we have come to see before we receive them. You know, as long as we present the truth that by God's grace he has shown us that we live in separation from that which is contrary to His Word, and they're willing to accept that and identify with it, although they don't understand.
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We ought to receive them spiritually. Intelligence is not the conviction for fellowship. We have to be very careful not to just think of ourselves. Gather to the name of the Lord as those that fall upon the name of the Lord out of your heart.
A word sanctified here because that's where the word separation really comes into. It means set apart.
And I'm sure the sisters here did the dishes mainly in the houses. Sometimes brothers do the dishes too, but you take that for granted in your household. If I was doing your dishes for you, and after I got done washing a dish, I put it back with The Dirty ones, you say no, don't do that. And if I take a dirty dish and put it over where they clean ones were?
Don't do that. We take care of those things in our households. But when it comes to God's house, where God's house names when the name of Christ is owned, sometimes we want to not use as much care as we use in our own homes. We make a distinction between what's dirty and what's clean, to make a definite distinction, to make sure that they're separated because, like you say, there's contamination and we need to be careful.
In these things, where the name of the Lord is called upon in a collective way as well, we need to be careful about it.
I used to go a little pilot out there.
I thought about that, brother. I really don't have too much of the comment. Maybe somebody else does.
He said that I made an illustration out of the vessel of gold and said would you comment on the wood and earth?
Go back or and a silver vessel is definitely a system, you know, or two Christians. There's no question about wooden it's not being questioned, but are perhaps not real.
The Master Chief rather than what it made out of it and Joseph.
Life, he said. Take my silver cup and put it in the back of a younger.
Benjamin was not guilty of any minister of guilty. And so that vessel which was clean and was weak for Joseph, was even put in the mouth of his back of someone else. That was seen quite interesting. Then if we turn to Daniel chapter five, we find there that has taken the vessels of Jehovah's house.
And in verse 23 it speaks of dustbin.
Of silver, Gold, Brass, ironwood, stone.
But as he honored them.
No praise to God.
Of gold and silver, glass, silent stone. He is dishonouring God. Domestic Daniel Gibbons is not the God.
Give the message to judgment.
If I may make an application.
There are many deer, young fish.
Being taught to admire the important world.
To Excel and whatever you want to name it.
In Bathmat the World.
Misappropriating Assembly of God Help.
They don't mind if someone.
Take the viewers of these stripes at the end of giving the gold medal.
The only thing in both of his friends has nothing to sell someone else.
Getting back from his views of the ventilation.
We need to.
00:55:05
He vessels made for the massive use.
We talk about devotion to the Lord.
In the fields of white department.
He looked on and two brothers said.
Feel the distress that appears a white new harvest.
The young are going out to the degrees of this world.
Daniel started to run a year round and go ahead and be.
Oh man, going to be lost.
How?
Are we thinking?
Subtitle in this world.
He asked. It really doesn't mean that he's got 20 more versions and there's a very pleasant person that they threatened to the portion. Can we speed up a little bit?
The first would improve play vessel fast so on.
It's it's a real focus here, being clean commit to the man.
I'd rather do the fishing and the vessels up in this House.
Going to be verses at the end of this chapter.
Primarily apply to those who are in the collective tab or whether it is larger.
To also apply in our context with those that are not in that path. That might apply to both cases, but we will find even among those gathered through the name of the Lord Jesus, that there are situations where people are ignorant.
But I don't understand and to some extent even appalled because of lack of understanding. And you better remember the admonitions given here, that the servant must not strive.
And hence to, in a spiritual way, try to help us to recover themselves, so that they would recover themselves, and come to retention and maybe beloved service. The difficulties that we have experienced and where the Lord has humbled us, we have not been able.
In a spiritual way to be of help to those who didn't see certain aspects of the truth they actually opposed and they wanted a wider path. But did we have but it took to really help them. If he had been able to practice what Paul was saying, he at the end of the chapter, maybe some souls could have been rescued.
That most distinctive ball instructs Timothy to avoid strike it is. It is really remarkable how often in first and Second Timothy we don't have time to go through them now, but just in this chapter. Notice verse 14 of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no prophet, but to the subverting of the hears. Verse 16.
Shun for vain and vain babbling, so they will increase into more ungodlyness, and then, as it's been mentioned in Virginia 3rd, 23.
Foolish and unlearned questions of boys. Verse 24. The servant of the Lord must not strive. You need to avoid strife. We we, we gain nothing by strife. It really is remarkable, and I think it's something to notice in these last days of the Christian death.
The fight will work.
Only by the flies, some of the contentious.
01:00:02
Horrible attitude for a child. Applause.
An angry match served as driving all these other aspects of the nature coming out.
But be gentle unto all inclined to teach.
Those are the rules themselves.
I think of the children of Israel in Egypt building treasure. That is the payroll.
Here, dear believers whom references been made that are walking in all like they have, they are posing by strengthening the very system that keeps them in *******.
But God has to give repentance. I cannot save my brother, to whom I can have a measure of brothership, who is not gathered in the Lord's name. You must get out of that. I must minister Christ, walk in the truth, and a way to give him to realize.
Oh, I've been instructed religiously wrong and I've seen from the word of God a path that would take me outside, but.
Seek to bring one out without administration of the grace of God and the truth of God is to put him under law. He won't, He won't do it any favor they can mount which he's given his energy that still keeps him in *******. So I really have entered into my own soul.
The principle of being gentlemen of all, and not seeking to bring them out under any other principle of a diagnosis of the word of God.
Well, it's looking out right through the word all the way through. You have the word twice in the Psalms. You have it in the beginning of Isaiah, and it's always that order, separation from evil and then doing good.
In First Corinthians 15.
There's some verses, but one of them says simply be not the key. Evil communications corrupt good manners. And we can understand that. And if you want to find out what it was under the law, read the book of Haggai. We haven't got time to turn back on if I could, but it's such an easy principle to try to remember these hurts from ears he claims. To bear the vessels of the Lord was under the law too.
And it's the same person, just departed from evil then doing good.
To serve the living in true God and to wait for something. What a what a marvelous instruction to all of us.
Returned to God and they had to go to currency. So it wasn't hard to leave up there either. And if we can see the truth of Christ and the grace of Christ, we can give up associations that we file.
That relations all his furs used to come through and then bumped, You know, he sometimes reversed that order. Go unto him outside to him the same principle, and in our context with fellow believers who have not come into the enjoyment of what the Lord administration has given us to see, we can bring the scriptures before them, but the early brethren did.
Many times.
They had cottage meetings, reading meetings in homes where they brought the food before home. We can still do that.
May be thought will not always as a result of his efforts to gather to the name of the Lord, but even if they come to a full understanding of some scriptural truth, it's a worthwhile effort. And to go there and to just trying to force down their throat, come out from the system as we added to the name of the Lord.
Well, bring the truth of God before them, and so that they come to a greater appreciation of the Lord Jesus and the work that He has done, and everything perhaps, will fall into place. There's a possibility for us to reach out to souls, not just inviting them to the essentials, visiting with them, and bring their sisters before them, but he murdered me in chapter 3.
You were mentioning to others that you can and the Old Testament. That's all Timothy has, right? He didn't have the New Testament, yet he was admonished to continue in those things that become a child had learned. How much do we learn from the Old Testament and all scriptures is given by inspiration of God. We may be perhaps at times have neglected the Old Testament.
01:05:27
The offering and all that gives us such a better understanding of the various aspects of the death of Christ. And we better do not neglect the Old Testament because we will not have to say some of the New Testament if we don't have the Old Testament background. And we won't get the spiritual lesson from the Old Testament without the news. Well, the word of God is such a treasure.
We're only skipping or we're only on the surface of your mindset. There's so much to be enjoyed and may the Lord help us that we do not neglect this.
Daniel and a few others in the Old Testament.
The Lord Jesus Christ be with Zions here.
Briefly, with what could be more blessed than this?
Some of the endings of other epistles.
And you start to sit down through you see that this verse?
Is the richest beautifulness the Lord Jesus Christ? Be ready, Christ.
Lord God.
I save your heart.
Where, Lord?
Healthy.
We will go.
Everywhere.
At all.
I need.
If not when?
I.
Work.
Hard worker.
Oh boy, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, granddaughter.
Open Mtg.
Open—D. Rule, R. Thonney
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We just found that ever reached our ears when conscience charged injustice, rounds of grace removed our fears #10.
Turn with me, brethren, to Exodus chapter 33.
Last evening in the prayer meeting at Pleasant Hill and looking to the Lord for these meetings, the first hymn that was sung had to do with the journey that each one of us are on. At least we trust that all of us are on that journey home to glory. And a number of the hymns since that time have had that thought before us. And this morning, this afternoon in the reading, we had something of the grace of God.
Brought before us in different aspects of it.
Like to read this 33rd chapter of Exodus and perhaps add to some of the thoughts of the themes that have been before us thus far in our time together. Exodus chapter 33 and verse one.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart and go up. Hence thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send an Angel before thee, And I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hibite and the Jebusites.
Unto a land flowing with milk and honey. For I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned, and no man did put on him his ornaments. For the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff necked people, and I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee.
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Therefore now put off thine ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horeb. And Moses took the Tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto the Tabernacle of the congregation.
Which was without the camp, and it came to pass, when Moses went out under the Tabernacle, that all the people rose up and stood every man at his tent door.
And looked after Moses until he was gone into the Tabernacle. And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the Tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the Tabernacle. And the Lord talked with Moses, and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the Tabernacle door. And all the people rose up and worshiped every man in his tent door. And the Lord spake unto those face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
And he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun.
A young man departed not out of the Tabernacle, and Moses said unto the Lord, See thou sayest unto me.
Bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace.
In my sight now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace.
In thy sight. Show me now the way thy way, that I may know thee.
And that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation.
Is thy people? And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not offence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us?
So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also, that thou hast spoken.
For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by.
That I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away thine hand, and thou shalt see my back part, but my face shall not be seen.
Quite often when this particular chapter is taken up, the emphasis is placed on Moses pitching the Tabernacle outside the camp. That's not the subject that or the points of the chapter that is on my soul for this afternoon. But I just like to mention a few points that we have before us here to give a thought or two and desire that the Lord may use the chapter to be a blessing.
To each one of us individually.
The first thing is that these people were on a journey. They had started out, they had left the land of Egypt.
And.
They were going to the land that had been promised.
To Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And the Lord says, I'm going to send before you an Angel.
00:10:00
And he will drive out the enemies from the land that you're going to, that it might be your land. And it's a wonderful place. It's a land of milk and honey. And he presents to them a, a very, can I say, nice picture of the place to which they were going. And we too have had, can I put it the same way? We've had a lovely picture presented to us of where we're going. We're on our way home. We're on our way to the glory. It's our land that flows with milk and honey. And unlike these people.
God has so ordered this dispensation, as we call it, in which we live, that we can already enter in and enjoy that promised land in our souls day by day. We don't have to, as it were, wait to the end to begin the enjoyment of the land that's promised to us. And so these people had it in anticipation. They'd already sent the spies into the land and had brought back some of the fruit of the land that they could enjoy.
And yet the way the chapter starts out is a real word to the conscience, and I'd like to present it that way to our consciences because the end of the chapter is a real word of comfort and a word of promise to us. But sometimes we don't enter much into the promises of God because we don't allow the word of God to speak to our conscience is we'd like to have the good parts.
And we'd like to sort of pass to the side.
The other parts. And yet it's a solemn thing, the way the Lord speaks to the people in the beginning, because he says to them.
And after telling him of the land, the Lord says in the middle of verse three, I will not go up.
In the midst of the.
What a what a words are these?
And can we apply them? What if the Lord this afternoon were to say that to us? How would we feel? Thankfully, these people felt it.
They didn't just, can I say, rush out to grab a good word, a good promise, and say, oh, no, everything is all right. The Lord is going to go with us because he said this or that at some other occasion.
But in the circumstances in which they were on this day.
They treated that seriously, and they took it to themselves. And here's a word He says to them. I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. The Lord saw the heart of the people as it was, and He called it for what it was. He called him a stiff necked people and.
He says to them, lest I can see if I go with you, then I might consume you in the way because of what you are is a stiff necked people. Well, brethren, I'm not going to make any pronouncements this afternoon, but I will say let us each individually consider if we want the presence of the Lord to go with us and have a conscious sense of it in our souls. It can only be in communion with Himself.
We can't have the conscious sense of the presence of the Lord.
Except by communion, and these people were not going to enjoy it that way either.
They had to be in the presence of the Lord and own what He saw.
Before they could enjoy the promises which come later in the chapter. And so when the people heard these words.
It says they were as evil tidings and they mourned.
And no man did put on his ornaments.
I don't know for sure what the intended thought in the ornaments is, but it is a something that perhaps each one of us can in our own.
Consciences deal with before the Lord. Maybe it's something different in your life than it may be in mine, but are there things in our lives that can I say we put on in a public way?
Before the Lord, not just before man here it's not so much the ornaments as they were seeing perhaps by others, but it's more to me in my own soul the sense of what the Lord saw. And so they mourn and they leave off their ornaments. They don't put them on. And is there that that we may put on? And I say when we feel that we're going into the presence of the Lord.
That at other times we don't have on.
You know, sometimes when we come into the presence of the Lord on the Lord's Day or on an occasion like this.
There is a certain manner of behavior. There are certain thoughts.
00:15:03
Patterns that we may adopt and honestly to when we come into the presence of the Lord, but then when we leave or leave it in the collective sense and we go on about the daily business of life. Perhaps those ornaments are more for ourselves and are characterized in some different ways. Well, let us when the Lord wants to speak to us, as it were at times when He does.
Let's not put on ornaments. Let us come before Him and let Him speak to us as He sees us and as we may really be.
Well, the Lord then speaks to Moses here, and he tells them that.
Lest I consume they put off thine ornaments, that I may know what to do unto thee. And so.
The Lord then tells them what to do and they respond to it. And now he says, I'm going to decide what I am going to do.
And so they stripped themselves of their ornaments. And then we have the part of the chapter in which the presence of the Lord amongst the people, the Tabernacle is pitched outside of the camp, and the people see the presence of the Lord there as figured by the cloud. And it's interesting that it says in verse 10 and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the Tabernacle door, and all the people rose up and worshiped.
Every man in his tent door. Oh that a sense of the presence of God.
But always produce, in whatever circumstances or even need that we may have, that being in the presence of God would be that which would produce a reverential respect and worship from our hearts. Well, we thank God that He's brought us together in this way for these meetings. And may the time that we are spending together during these several days be a time in which we will have a collective sense.
Of himself in a way that would be as these people were.
Can I say having put aside their ornaments?
And standing there waiting to see what the Lord is going to do. And then the result that was produced in them was something that honored God. There was worship and He was honored by it. Well, now we find that this is what perhaps more than any other, attracted my thoughts to this chapter is this conversation between Moses and the Lord.
And sometimes, brethren, we can have things collectively, but very often when it's a matter of the conscience and it's a matter of the heart, we ultimately individually have to get together with the Lord.
And let the Lord himself be the one that speaks to our own hearts. And it's a wonderful thing. I didn't hadn't really noticed it before reading it this afternoon as we were reading it here together, how the Lord speaks first to Moses and then Moses draws in to the conversation the people of God, and he brings also the others into their relationship with the Lord in what he has to say in his own conversation with the Lord.
And I think that's often the correct and proper way that the Spirit of God works with us here individually. He's going to work with you as a brother or sister, young person, by yourself and himself. And there's going to be that needed, can I say conversation between you in His presence. And if it produces the proper result in your soul, then your heart is going to reach out and bring others into that same, can I say, conversation of relationship.
And so here it's the Lord speaks to Moses as a man speaketh unto his friend.
And he says to Moses, or Moses says to the Lord. Moses said unto the Lord in verse 12.
See, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know.
Whom thou wilt send with me.
I like that.
Moses here saying well.
Lord, you've told me that I'm supposed to bring this people.
Oh, but you haven't told me who's going to go with me.
Moses didn't intend to bring such a people up by himself and alone. And in fact, if you think about it, he had similar conversations even with the Lord before they were delivered from Egypt, when Moses was in the presence of the Lord and giving the Lord all the reasons why he wasn't a suited vessel to do the job. And he gives him quite a number of excuses as to why he shouldn't be the one to take the people of God out of Egypt to the promised land. And one of them was, well, Lord.
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Who's going to speak? I can't speak. I'm not an eloquent person. And his brother was. He was told his brother would serve and help in that capacity and so on and so yet here he says, But you haven't told me.
Who you will send with me?
You have said this, Thou hast said, I know thee by name.
And thou hast found grace in my sight.
Isn't that a good starting point, brother, sister, in your personal sense, A relationship of going on to the promised land and going on with the people of God there?
I know thee by name.
I know thee by name.
Do you have that sense in your heart? I was thinking this morning as we were reading in Second Timothy Two. Really the first figure that is mentioned in that chapter is son, my son. We need to have a settled sense of our relationship.
With God as our Father, we need to recognize before all else, before we could be a servant, before we could have any other senses of relationship in service to God, the settled sense in our own soul that we are His child.
And that he calls us by name, He knows us individually by name. And Moses understood, at least in his own way, that for himself that he had been called, I know thee by name. And also he could repeat back to the Lord that he had thou hast found.
Grace in my sight.
Isn't that a wonderful thing? Just to rejoice in that I am an object.
Of the grace of God.
To know that God has according to His own heart and according to His own purpose of love.
Said. I'm putting my grace on you. I'm going to show.
My good favor I'm going to display what's in my heart toward you to you.
You are to be the object of my grace. And Moses had that sense that the Lord had said that to him. But he was concerned about the question of going on. He wasn't going to want to have, can I say, the people of God as a responsibility to care for them alone?
And so now he asks the Lord in verse 13. Therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy ***** show me now thy way.
That I may know thee, and that I may find grace in thy sight.
I could put it this way, it's a little bit hope not improperly crude, but.
Lord Moses is being honest with the Lord, and he says, well, Lord, this is what you've said. Now show to me that it's true.
You've presented this to me, now show me that you really mean it. And he goes on and he says, And consider that this nation is thy people.
Oh, how important that is.
We'll never have a right thought about the people of God if we don't always keep in mind, you know, early a verse or two earlier, he said this people.
But when he speaks here, he puts the people of God in their relationship with God. He says thy people.
Now God has, as it were, to respond according to who they are and the relationship in Daniel. God, because the people, lo am I was written on the people. When Daniel pleads with God and owns his condition before God, God never says they're my people. I don't think he says it once in the whole of Daniel, but Daniel always speaks about him as God's people.
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Always brings them before God as his own. Did Daniel not know that Lo am I had written? I'm sure he did.
And yet he had the right heart about it, and he presents them to God in according to the heart that he knew that God had for those people. And so here he says, considering that this nation is thy people, now how does the Lord respond? The Lord in verse 14 says, My presence shall go with thee.
Oh, brethren.
May your heart and mind have that sense this afternoon, individually and collectively.
Of the grace of God.
That would say to us, as he said here to Moses, my present.
Shall go with thee.
And I will give thee rest.
What more could we ask or want this afternoon?
We're on that journey and we're going to eventually get home, maybe sooner than later.
But what above all else, what our hearts desire on the way but to go on the journey.
In the conscious enjoyment in our souls of the presence of the Lord.
In grace with us my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee let rest.
Moses wants to be sure about it. He says in verse 15, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.
Been interesting the pronoun use, isn't it? If it go not with me, carry us not up him. How important that we individually have this sense of the grace of God toward us.
He knows what we are. He knows all about each one of us. There's nothing hidden from his eye.
We may individually own at times to be stiff necked.
And half two as it were, removed the ornaments.
But oh, what a wonderful thing that he says, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us?
Is that not adequate to your soul of the sense of the grace of God toward you, that He would go with you and with us?
That was what Moses was saying to the Lord, that the sense in which they would go up to the land was together, and it was the Lord's presence with them that gave them a sense of His grace toward them. And so he says.
So we shall be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.
We need to remember that.
If you want the presence of the Lord in your life.
It's going to be on his terms.
You and I may not command the presence of the Lord on our own terms.
It is always and only according to his own character.
That we can enjoy his presence.
And Moses had a sense of that. And one of the things that is required, necessary to enjoy the presence of the Lord in the journey is a separation from that which is contrary to his own character and nature. God is light and this world is darkness. God is love in this world. Doesn't really know anything about it.
Doesn't know what.
The love of God really is, at least if it knows it rejects it. And so he said, I'm going to go with you, but it's going to be in separation.
From the peoples of this earth.
So he says in verse 17, The Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also, which thou hast spoken.
For thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. Now what's the answer to the thing that Moses started the conversation with, where the question was?
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Who?
Will go show me how, the way that I may know thee, and who will go with me?
Verse 12 Go back to that, bring this people up. Thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me.
What's the answer to that?
The Lord says I'm not going to send somebody with you, I'm going with you myself.
Brethren, Lord hasn't said to you, Well, you know I'll meet you at the other end.
Or only that from time to time, as needed, I'll send an Angel to take care of your needs for you. The Lord says no, something better than that comes from grace. It says, I'm going to go with you myself.
I'm not sending somebody with you. We're going together. And so he says something that to me that satisfies the heart of Moses. And I'd just like to notice something in the end of the chapter that's not verse by verse, that there might be other time. But he says in verse 18, and he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.
If we have and actually the song that we started the this meeting with in #10 you don't need to turn to it, but it says.
Of grace, then let us sing a joyful, wondrous theme. Who grace is brought, shall glory bring, and we shall reign with him. That song ends in the glory.
And I believe that the true sense of grace in the soul for us in this time in which we live is that which takes the heart on out to the true end of it all, which is the glory. And so even in this case of Moses, that doesn't didn't have the revelation that has been given to us, the mystery that's been made known to us through Paul, yet his thoughts turn.
To wanting to see the glory of the person who had displayed the grace. And if we get ahold of, or better still, if it gets ahold of our souls, it produces this result in us that we have the thirst. We have a desire in our souls to see the source and see the one that is the source of grace, to see His glory, to see the display of the Excellency of Himself.
And that satisfies eternally the soul. It is that which leads us on. Heaven will be a wonderful place.
As far as its comfort and as far as the removal of all the pain and suffering of this life, but.
It is going to be to our souls the wonderful display of the glory of God and that.
The end result you might see in the soul of the working of grace to behold it is that which brings an eternal satisfaction to these hearts of ours. Now this before closing, I'm just going to read almost without comment a few verses in Isaiah chapter 43.
That give a little more.
Of perhaps what it says when he says, I've called thee by my name, which was the beginning of what he had to say to them. Isaiah 43 and verse one. But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee.
By thy name thou art mine, when thou passest through the waters.
I will be with thee.
And through the rivers they shall not overflow thee when thou walkest through the fire.
Thou shalt not be burned, either shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel.
Thy Savior there's five. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the West.
Verse 7 Even everyone that is called by my name, for I have created him. For my glory I have formed him.
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Yeah, I have made him.
Just like to.
Speak briefly, brethren, on something that is.
Impressed my own soul.
Perhaps something to do with what Don has to say, but going back to the 32nd of Exodus.
How much God loves his people.
And it's interesting in the New Testament we have that Moses was.
Faithful in all God's house as a ministry and servant.
And then it says Christ as a son over his own house.
Whose house are we? God loves his people and it is impressive reading through the scriptures.
How he does not let his people be evil spoken of lightly. He loves them, and they may be stiff necked and they may be rebellious, but how careful we need to be about speaking badly about the people of God. And I'd like to turn back to this 32nd chapter just to see how Moses and the spirit of intercession pleads.
For the people of God when they were so rebellious.
They had transgressed. They had made an idol.
And it was a serious, serious sin before God.
And so the Lord says, as we've already heard somewhat in chapter 33.
But let's go.
To verse nine of chapter 32, the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff necked people.
Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax spot against them, and that I may consume them, and I will make of thee a great nation.
You know what stiff neck is? I think some of us have had stiff neck. And when you get a stiff neck, you don't want to turn your neck much. You're going to turn it all. You turn your whole body.
You know, we get that way in a spiritual way, we think we're right, and maybe in a certain way we are.
But, O brethren, we cannot trust ourselves, We cannot trust our own judgment of things even that much. How often I form strong judgments about certain people and certain things, and the Lord has had to rebuke me about it. Now we need not to be stiff necked in the presence of the Lord. They were stiff necked. They were going in the direction of idols.
Let me alone, I'll consume them in a moment, and I'll make us be a great nation.
Look at Moses response, so beautiful.
Verse 11 Moses besought the Lord his God and said.
Why does thy wrath wax hot against thy people? Isn't that beautiful? He doesn't say my people, he says thy people, Lord, they're thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say for mischief? Did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the Lord?
This beautiful how he reasons with God against the destruction of his people.
Of course we know it was the Spirit of Christ in Moses that was speaking.
Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel thy servants, to whom thou sweareth by thy own self, and said unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of.
Will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit forever and.
The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do.
Unto his people. Isn't that beautiful, brother? May the Lord ever give us to have that attitude towards the people of God again. I say, they may be rebellious, they may be stiffness. What should be our attitude? The attitude of Moses in pleading the cause of God's people. He loves them, and he will not repent of his purpose to bless his people.
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And we need to understand it in our relations with God's people. Lord, help us not to have hard attitudes toward the Lord's people wherever we find them. Now, in contrast with this, Moses was a ministering servant in the House of God.
And is all servants near human servants, I say.
There is failure, and I'd like to go over to the Book of Numbers just briefly.
To see where Moses sailed.
What did he do?
That caused God to shut him out of the land of penis.
Course, we know that in grace.
We have Moses in the land of Canaan in the New Testament on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord Jesus.
But as far as the Old Testament is concerned, he was barred from entering that promised land. What was the reason here? The people are thirsty. And it is a constant history of complaining with these people against the Lord, against His servants. And Moses seems to weary of it. And we can get that way too.
We don't realize that they're not our people.
There is the Lord's people, and so he.
Is told by the Lord in verse seven of this chapter.
Verse 8 Take the rod, that's Aaron's rod and gather thou the assembly together.
Thou and Aaron, thy brethren, speak unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth his water.
Did they deserve to get water when they had been complaining so badly? Absolutely not. But oh how God blesses in spite of us. Brethren, we've got to realize that God bless us in spite of what we are so often gives. We don't deserve it and still gives us the kind of God our God is. And.
So Moses is told to do this, and he comes to the rock. Verse 9. Moses took the rod before the Lord, That's Aaron's rod as he commanded, and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together.
Before the rock, that rock was Christ. We read the New Testament.
And he said unto them, Here's where Moses spirit was provoked.
Here now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod, not Aaron's rod, but his rod, which is a rod of judgment, he smoked the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly in the congregation, drank in the their bees. Also God gave the water even when they didn't deserve a bit of it.
But what follows verse 12? The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, Therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. This is the water of Merabah, because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.
Dear Moses.
What a servant? I don't suppose there's a servant like him in the Old Testament.
But he failed.
Like every human instrument does fail and he failed to sanctify the Lord in the eyes of the people and he was barred from doing it. He got angry with God's people and he spoke in that anger and there were consequences for it. Oh, what lessons these are for us to think about. Another that we don't have time to look at is.
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The case of Elijah, another man God used in a mighty way.
In turning back those 10 tribes to the true God of Israel from idolatry from Baal.
And.
Afterwards he got discouraged. He was able to face, when he had God before him, the 850 false prophets of the Groves and a Bale. But then a woman, Jezebel, threatens to take away his life, and he runs.
How true of our hearts, what a reflection of our hearts if we don't keep our eyes on the Lord. And he runs and then the Lord meets him where he is and he says, what are you doing here, You like Elijah? And he says, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, and this people have forsaken thee. They've torn down my altars and I only I am left.
And they seek my life to take it away.
What the Lord say to Elijah?
Because he was pleading against the people of God, and God does not allow that.
What a lesson, he said. Elijah, go.
And anoint Elisha to be prophet in your stead.
You're going to be replaced, Elijah. I can't have you representing me. You're going to plead against the people of God. The Lord help us to think about these things. God loves His people, brethren. He loves them dearly even though they are stiff necked. May the Lord give us the grace to know in our relationships with them not to be hard in our attitude.
To plead, always plead.
For the people of God.
Open Mtg.
Open—D. Imbeau, H. Brinkmann, H. Short
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As we look around at all of these faces, we think of what has gone before us the last two days.
I believe that the Lord has blessed us.
I believe the Lord has given us encouragement.
And.
Not to honor man, but.
This afternoon our brother gave us a portion on Joseph.
What an encouragement. What an encouragement Joseph is.
What does God want from you And what does God want from me?
He wants us to walk according to his word. Let's just look at the book of Philippians and we don't have time to go through it all.
But I would recommend that at your privileged opportunity that you spend time in that book.
Not that it's above all Scripture, no, because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for reproof that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto every good work.
Let's turn to the book of Philippians and in the few minutes that I'm going to spend.
Let's just read a few portions in the whole book.
And as I said earlier, I recommend that you read it to yourself. It's a marvelous book. The book of Philippians is normal, everyday Christian life.
It's the kind of life that a Christian should live.
Each and every one of us have the ability, the capability, by the power of God and his Spirit. What Peter tells us that he has given us all things for life and for godliness, all things, in the book of Philippians is a normal Christian life here in this world where God is not wanted, where the Lord Jesus was cast out.
The book of Philippians is an everyday, normal life.
Let's look at a few verses.
Libyans, the first chapter. We'll read both of the first chapter, but only portions of the other.
I don't want to use somebody else's cup, or I don't want anyone else to use mine. So let's put mine on the right and the other one on the left.
Philippians chapter one Paul and Timotheus, the servant of Jesus Christ.
To all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons, by the way, bishops and deacons.
We have them today, but they're not ordained.
They're the elders and those, and it doesn't necessarily, and I want to qualify that a little bit. It doesn't necessarily mean old guys with Gray hairs and bald heads.
If those that God has raised up.
But I'd like you to think about a scripture in Matthew that says that the after the seed is planted, it comes out first to shoot and then the leaf and finally the ear and fruit. So it's not.
They're very young either.
Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.
Always in it, every prayer of mine for you, all making requests with joy.
For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing.
That he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Even as it is meek for me to think that of you all, because I have you in my heart.
Inasmuch as both in my bonds and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers.
Of my grace rather remarkable. The Apostle Paul was in Rome in prison.
And these Philippians prayed for him. He prayed for them.
And they helped him.
Now let's go on to a little further in the chapter.
To the 21St word.
Or for me to live is Christ.
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And the dialogue, you know, the book of Philippians is Christ all the way from the beginning to the end.
The first chapter is Christ, My life. The second chapter is Christ my pattern, and you may find some other things there yourself. The third chapter, Christ my object, and the last chapter, Christ my strength. The whole book is Christ. Can you go wrong if you have Christ as your pattern, as your life, as your object, as your strength? No.
Again, I say read the book of Philippians. It's good for everybody but all you young people, you teenagers.
If you want to live a Christ like life.
Read the book. A flippin walk in it.
The second chapter.
Our pattern.
If there therefore be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love.
If any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, that ye be like minded having the same love being of 1 Chord of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
And this verse gives us the key to this chapter. Let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God.
Or being God, really.
He didn't have to grasp after something that he was.
He thought it not robbery, or did not think it replied to be equal with God.
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him in the form of a servant.
And was made in the likeness of men.
But made himself of no reputation.
Do you have a reputation?
Do I think I have a reputation? No.
We have no reputation. If there is anything, it's a disreputable reputation. But this one had a reputation. He was God. He was the creator of the universe.
He made himself of no reputation.
And took upon him the form of a servant. You know what that tells you and tells me.
And being found in fashion as a man of servants, he took upon him in the form That's all you are. That's all I am.
A servant.
He took upon him the form of a sermon, and being in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death.
Even the death of the cross.
Now, before we read the next verse, let's turn to first Peter.
Chapter 2 for a couple of verses.
Verse 21 First Peter, Chapter 2 Verse 21.
Or even thereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. But when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously who his own self.
Bear our sins.
In his own body on the tree.
Now turn to the 19th chapter of John for one verse.
19.
Verse 5.
Then came Jesus. By the way, let's start from the.
Beginning John 19 verse one. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him, And the soldiers planted the crown of thorns, and put it on his head. And they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, king of the Jews, and they smote him with their hands. Pilot therefore went forth again, and said unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth wearing the crown of thorns.
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And the purple rose and Pilate said unto them, Behold the man. Now let's read the next version, chapter 2, verse 9. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess.
That Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Work for.
What a word for.
This world.
Denied the person of Christ.
They defiled him. They reviled him. They did everything that they possibly could.
Against him.
Now God says I have raised him to the highest place in heaven.
And given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
In the fifth verse it says let this bind be in you, which was also in Christ Eve.
In Hebrews that says ye have not yet resisted on the blood.
An example. What is the example that's been given to us? The person of the Lord Jesus and he alone?
Or it's true, we have in Hebrews. It says, whose faith follow? Remember them who have the rule or the care of you whose faith follow?
But all we have one that we should follow, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to live like Christ?
Read the book of Philippians. Now let's go to the third chapter.
And he's presented there as our object. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things to you. To me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, Beware of the Confession, For we are the Circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
What a verse, what a verse. Is this true of you, true of Maine?
That we have no confidence in the flesh.
You know, the flesh is a deceitful thing.
We really don't know it. We really don't know. We really don't know ourselves.
First thing we know, we're doing things that are.
Puffing up the flesh.
Well, we are the circumcision, and this doesn't, you know, this is in contrast to the circumcision of the Old Testament.
Contrast of the act of cutting off the flesh.
But this is a spiritual thing. We are the circumcision.
Which?
Worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
Is that what we did this morning when we were gathered here?
I trust each one of us.
Had a sense of what we were.
Doing this morning gathered around the person of the Lord Jesus with He in our midst.
No confidence in the flesh.
Let's go down to verse 10 that I may know him.
And the power of his resurrection.
And the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death.
Amazing if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after.
If that I may apprehend that, for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus, and why?
Was I apprehended of Christ Jesus because he wanted me in glory with himself?
And that's what the verse means, that I might understand why the Lord Jesus came down into this world, went to the cross to redeem me.
00:15:00
So that I could be with him and like him.
Great army. Now let's go to the 4th chapter.
We'll read most of it. Therefore my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for my joy and crown.
So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved, I beseech Odius, and sent a key that they be of the same mind in the Lord. By the way, this is probably the only comment we have in the whole book of any reprimand. You know the other, the other epistles. Even in the book of Ephesians in the 4th chapter it says let him that steal spill no more.
But here in this book it's not speaking about those things. It's speaking about a Christian life that we walk down here following the Lord Jesus Christ in his pathway with him as our example. And so we don't find any reprimand here, except maybe this. And I don't know if this is and I entreat thee also true yoke fellow, help those women which.
Which?
Labored with me in the gospel with Plymouth also, and with other my fellow laborers.
Whose names are in the book of life? Who labored with me in the gospel? It doesn't mean that these women went out on the street corner.
And preach the gospel. It doesn't mean that they went with the apostle Paul to another city and got up at the front of a group of men or women and preached to God. That's not what it's saying. I know, I know that people are using this scripture for that purpose, but that's not true. They helped him. They helped him in other ways.
They encouraged him. They may have washed his clothes, they may have ironed his clothes, they may have fed in, they may have cooked his food, I don't know. But they helped him.
You know, women are of great health.
It's been said, and I'm convinced it's true, that the total of any assembly.
Is really set by the women.
Of godly women, a mother in Israel. It says it mentions that more than once.
And saw a godly woman has a great effect not on a household only.
But on an assembly.
The Apostle Paul commends the witness. Think of these.
16th chapter of Romans How many times women are mentioned there by name?
They're important. No, they don't get up and preach. They don't come up behind the pulpit.
That's not their place, but they do have a place.
They do have a place. God honors A godly woman.
Proverbs.
Were given one at the end of the book.
Fourth verse, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice, Let your moderation be known unto all men, and the Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing. That doesn't mean to be a careless person. But what it means is don't worry, don't get concerned. And our brother this afternoon gave us a marvelous example of that and Joseph.
To depend on the Lord, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request.
Be made known unto God now, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. These two verses are marvelous, important, and true.
If you're in trouble, if you're in difficulty, if you're sad and sorry, take it to the Lord.
Take it to the one who can help you. He's the only one that can.
And after you've done that, leave it with him. In the seventh verse will be true.
Positively so God says it. And the peace of God. And what is the peace of God?
God's got settled peace about everything that ever will happen or ever has happened.
He's never been disturbed. He's never been caught flat footed, as the world says. Never.
I know the critics have said well, what about in Eden? No, he was not caught flat footed. God is not disturbed about anything. As our brother mentioned this afternoon, he does have a purpose. Those purposes will be carried out.
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Without question, every single purpose that God has ever had.
Will be fulfilled perfectly and on time.
When the Lord Jesus came to this world were given the scripture that at in the nick of time he came at the right specific time he came, God had it all ordered out beforehand.
The moment of his coming to call you and me to himself is set. Oh, I know there's other thoughts about that, but the time is set, and when that time comes, that shout is going to go forth and everyone in this room.
That knows the Lord Jesus as savior will be.
Caught up.
I wonder, I know this is not the gospel, but I wonder how many sheets will still have people sitting in them.
Think about it. Think about it.
And the peace of God, you know, the same peace that God has can fill our heart.
Believe it. It's true.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true and I want to touch a little bit on that, I've got. I see the clock is almost 4:00 and I don't want to go beyond 1/2 hour. I want to give someone else a chance to talk.
My, any brethren, whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things are honest whatsoever. Things are just what sort of things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise. Think on these things, brother and sisters in this room.
Do we consider this worse?
When we are together, are these the things that we talk about?
Is the person of Christ the subject of our conversation?
Do we talk about the things that are uplifting and pure and honorable and to God's glory? Think of us first.
Now in closing, let's read the verse that is the key to the chapter. Verse 13. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Christ our strength. Are you weak? Are you sad? Are you forsaken?
Never. If you're a Christian, Never. You may be sad, you may be weak. But the Apostle Paul says, when I am weak, then am I strong. When we consider and know that we're weak.
Christ, then, is our strength.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And beloved brethren, that is true.
I have something on my heart. I trust it is of the Lord.
And went up to the Bob who was speaking this afternoon about Joseph.
Yeah, it's a work that Joseph had to do in order to bring about restoration between him and his estranged brethren.
And.
This work of restoration.
The Lord Jesus has to do often in the life of his own today.
And we have spoken much in these meetings about the grace of God.
And how wonderful the restoring grace of God is. And we see that with Joseph in dealing with his brethren.
Now it's a picture of the Lord Jesus, and the 1St and primary application of that is what he will be doing in the coming day with his earthly people who rejected him and delivered him into the hands of the Gentiles of which Joseph is such a beautiful picture and he will deal with them in order to bring them to.
The point that they will acknowledge what they have done, and we find that without them realizing that Joseph understood what they were saying.
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In chapter 42 verse 21 They said one to.
Another We are very guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear. Therefore is distress, Distress come upon us. You see, that was necessary that they had to come to judge what they had done with Joseph.
They didn't realize that Joseph understood what they were saying. He was speaking to them.
By an interpreter, but there was still more needed before Joseph could really reveal himself to them and throw his arms around them.
When?
The danger was that Benjamin, the youngest brother, would be kept behind.
Joseph arranged things in such a way that they would feel the distress that their father must feel if Benjamin would not come back. See, they too had been totally indifferent as to what the sorrow they caused when Joseph was sold and the father was made to believe that Joseph had died.
And we find in chapter 44.
This statement.
Verse 30 Now therefore, when I come to thy servant, my father and the lad be not with us, seeing that this his life is bound up in the last life. It shall come to pass when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die. And thy servants shall bring down the Gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow.
To the great the last verse of that chapter. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me, lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father? These two things were necessary.
For the brethren to come to realize they had been totally indifferent about these two things, what they did to Joseph and what they had done to their Father, now the Lord Jesus dealing with us.
He too, at times has to bring us to the point that we come to realize what we have caused maybe our brethren, maybe our parents.
Or what we have caused the Lord grief in his heart and the dishonor done to his name. Now you and I as a fellow believer, cannot take that place that only the Lord has when it comes to dealing exactly in that way with other believers.
But we do have to remember, do we not that?
There are ways in which the Lord might use fellow believers to bring us to realize what we have done.
And that hopefully we will come to recognize what we have done wrong. And Tom, that it might come to a restoration.
According to the mind of God, there are Old and New Testament scriptures that help us when it comes to these kind of things and many times.
We might only think that when it comes to seeking to restore a person, that it is.
A simply action. But that is not what we learned in the New Testament. If a brother is overtaken in a false Galatians chapter 6 Ye that are spiritual restore such an one that is not an assembly action.
That is, spiritual. Men might have come to realize that a brother is on a course, and he might have even done something wrong, which does not necessarily require that the assembly deal in discipline with him, silencing him or putting him out, and they love him enough that they go and labor with that person to restore him.
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And that is always the aim of discipline restoration.
And what is a spiritual man? A spiritual man is a person that realizes he considers himself That this thing that my brother or sister has fallen into, I might fall into. I made-up the same stuff.
And that will help the person in humility to come and try to be of help to a fellow believer. I'm sure we oftentimes fail in this and do not in the right spirit.
Approach things or approach individuals, but I hope.
That the Lord will raise up or exercise.
Brother or brothers, if there is anything in my life.
That needs to be corrected that they love me enough to help me.
Be restored. Recognize what I have done wrong and the other scriptures that show that discipline or correction is not limited to assembly discipline. Thessalonians.
Gives another example a disorderly walk, but my thought is not so much to be developed discipline, but restoration.
Godly Restoration.
We have in Numbers 19 a scripture.
That, I think, gives us principles that are very helpful.
Because the red heifer.
I'm only referring to this trusting that most of us are familiar with these scriptures and not to take too much time to allow time for another brother. But in Numbers 19 we have the red heifer which was a sacrifice that was burned and the ashes of that red Heifer was taken to a clean place.
And it was used.
For cleansing A defiled person.
And it might be something that they have come in contact with a dead body.
Or have walked over a grave or come in touch with a bone.
You know, it might be something that has a defining effect on us, something that has just happened, or something that has happened a long time ago. The grave and the bone would speak of that. But the enemy can use such things to bring us into a defiled state of soul, and then we find that they didn't need to go to a priest.
Any clean person could take of these ashes, mix it with water and sprinkle that water on this defiled person on the 3rd and under 7th day.
But if it was not sprinkled on the third day?
It could not be sprinkled on the 7th day.
Now what's the lesson?
What I'm giving you is not necessarily what I myself have dug up in the word of God. I owe this understanding to others better taught than I am.
The application of the water of separation on the third day speaks of exercises through which the soul needs to go.
Recognizing the dishonor done to the name of the Lord.
At the evil what it is in the sight of God.
Psalm 51 has been used in David's life to explain that you read Psalm 51. What do we find? David is laboring under the conviction of the evil and sin that he had done. And he said against thee, against thee only have I sinned. He didn't look for second causes. He didn't say that woman if she wouldn't have taken that bath.
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So that I could observe her. Maybe I wouldn't have been tempted. He takes all the blame and he does not only blame his deed, he doesn't make any excuses, He also sees the cause.
And sin my mother conceived me. He recognized that he was a sinful human being. He had a sinful nature, and this occasion aroused it in him, and led him to dishonour the law.
It's so important, beloved Saints of God, that we learn that lesson, that when there is a person that has to be dealt with in discipline, naturally speaking, we like to see that person quickly come back into fellowship.
Now that might be a natural desire, and I don't think if anybody doesn't desire the restoration of any person.
There's something radically wrong with that person, but we cannot, and we better learn from this example in Numbers 19. Comfort a person as to the sin he has done before. There is a manifestation that that soul has gone through exercises that answers to the application of the water of separation on the third day.
We do great harm to a person if we apply the water of separation on the 7th day when it has not been applied on the third day. Where in David's life do we find the water of separation applied on the 7th day? It has been suggested that in Psalm 32.
You have the application of the water on.
The 7th day when the Prophet came to him and convicted him, he was applying the water of separation on the third day.
Thou art that man.
Now in Psalm 32.
David is in the enjoyment of knowing forgiveness. Blessed is the man who sins is forgiven. We cannot comfort somebody, cannot apply such scriptures before there is a conviction, an acknowledgement of the dishonor and the sin done by that person. We do great harm and we might cause problems for the testimony and bringing such souls.
Into the assembly.
Well, in Peter's life.
And before we go on, I should certainly read one scripture, and that is in Psalm.
23.
As the Good Shepherd.
Verse three, he restoreth my.
So how important that scripture is and how beautiful.
Days of work needed.
When sin hath come in that only the Lord.
Can bring about. He restoreth my soul and he finds that with Peter. You know what Peter did? He denied the Lord.
Three times.
And even with curses.
Yet how sad we find that even all the disciples.
Claimed that they weren't denied the Lord, but Peter seems to be the most prominent in it and.
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If they all deny thee, I will not.
He had confidence in the flesh a brother was talking about. We have no confidence in the flesh ought not to have.
The flesh profits nothing.
But.
Isn't this oftentimes beloved Saints of God that which leads to our fall self-confidence?
I won't do a thing like that.
You know, we heard about.
The path that in the Old Testament.
Elijah.
You know who stood against those bails? Priests.
And the Lord gave him the victory.
Then, by a threat of a woman, he flees.
And there is a tremendous helpful statement.
Made by him when the Lord confronts him there.
He makes a statement. I'm not better than my brethren.
I'm not better than my brethren.
What a terrible thing it is when we think I'm better than my brethren.
We can do better than our older brother.
Terrible, isn't it? But that is what we are able of.
Manifest it.
Our heart is as deceitful as that of anybody else, and if we don't go on with the Lord Jesus, we can manifest the same spirit of self-confidence, having confidence in the flesh. And then the Lord will have to allow us to make humbling experiences. And Peter is an example. But in Luke chapter 24.
We read and that is why I read.
Psalm 23.
The disciples underway to Emmaus.
Had a wonderful companion, not recognizing while he was walking with them that it was the Lord, but when they do recognize it, they go back to Jerusalem.
And when they get there.
They.
Are told this by the others verse 34 of Luke 24 saying the Lord.
Is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon.
He has appeared to Simon.
Do you have any doubt what took place there?
He was restored to the law.
In First Corinthians 15 we read.
That he appeared unto Peter. He's the first mentioned.
We don't have.
Mary mentioned she's not accepted as a witness.
There but he appeared unto Peter.
And Peter was restored at the beginning when the Lord looked at him.
I'm sure with a sad look of compassion.
Peter was touched in his heart, his conscience was reached and he went out to weep.
You might say the work of restoration was beginning right then and there. We have to come to that point. If we have dishonored the Lord Jesus that we come to sorrow over these things, feel these things.
As God feels them. Not that we ever really will be able to feel them to the same depth, but see them from His point of view and judging these things and judging us.
Unsparingly, but Peter.
Had that meeting with the Lord Jesus. Not much is said about it other than that he had that meeting with Peter. But then in John 21 we have.
What might be called Peter's public restoration?
Chapter 21.
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Verse 15.
So when they hit Dine, Jesus says to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas.
Lovest thou me more than the east? He says unto him. Yeah, Lord, thou knoweth that I love thee, he says unto him. Feed my lambs, he says to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He says unto him. Yay, Lord, thou knoweth that I love thee, he says unto him, Feed my sheep, he says unto him, The third day, Simon, son of Jonah.
Lovest thou me? Peter was grieved, because he said unto him the third time.
If he stumbled and fall.
You know, we should ask ourselves if there's ever a question arising as to going someplace or doing something. Can I take the Lord Jesus with me there? Would he be pleased?
If I do this or if I go there well.
Peter three times denies the Lord Here he has a meeting with the Lord and again the Lord has made a fire and has prepared food.
And but it was not until after they had eaten that the Lord takes up this matter with Peter.
You know, Peter, when John said that it is the Lord.
He couldn't get to him quick enough. He was the one that again had taken the initiative and said I'm going to go fishing and the others go fishing with him.
Well, that wasn't the last directing him, but the fact that he would.
Be so anxious to get to the Lord when he found out that's the Lord. They on the shore shows that he was restored. I'm sure you would agree with that. But he had denied the Lord three times.
And the Lord three times had to ask him, Lovest thou me?
And I understand the Lord uses a different word than the way Peter answers.
Peter uses the word I'm attached to thee. Why the Lord Jesus uses the word that would be used for divine laws?
But the third time.
He said.
Compete on using the word that Peter answered with.
And it really grieved Peter, you might say. Well, sit to Lord have to pry that deep to go three times into the question whether Peter loved him and loved him more than the rest.
While in his faithfulness he found it necessary to do that with Peter, he had publicly denied him, and he is dealing with him now publicly in the midst of his burden. And it was really necessary that this be done even in view of the place that Peter was to have in the midst of the early Church, as the apostle of the circumcision.
That has been said that.
In the restoration of any soul, there is not only a work needed in the person that needs to be restored, there is a work needed in the souls and hearts of those who have to do the restoration or to deal with him in restoration. And that is clearly, I believe, demonstrated here. You know, these brethren needed to hear from the lips of the Lord Jesus that Peter.
Was given charge over the land and over the sheep, you know.
So that they would accept him. And I believe it is beautiful to see that the Lord so completely sees Peter as a restored person, that he entrusts that which is dearest to him, to Peter.
You know, sometimes you hear thoughts expressed amongst the Saints of God.
That depending on what a person has done, he is handicapped for the rest of his life for public service amongst God's people. I don't think that that is what we learned from this incident, do we?
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We would have probably said that's the last one, that we entrust the lands and the sheep to who so shamefully denied the blessed Lord, but the Lord entrust his lands and his sheep to Peter. But another thing that we learned from this too, do we now is that love for the Lord Jesus is absolutely necessary in order to.
Be a shepherd in order to shepherd the lamb or the sheep. Love is the motive for any service, but especially when it comes in dealing with that which is the dearest to the heart of God. So may we, beloved brethren, benefit from the scriptures you and I at times might be.
Able to be of help to an airing brother to an airing sister.
But may the Lord help us that we do what we do, trying to help a person by using scriptural principles and not just be governed by natural affection and times Natural affections and ties and relationships have so often.
Done great harm to the person that needed help and to.
The testimony Well, let no one thinks that we are beyond that. People say blood runs thicker than water, you know, but.
We ought to put the Lord first, his honor first before.
We think of love and affection for our own flesh and blood. You know, we saw a man in Malawi. Allow me to give that story.
We had met his brother the day before he professed to be a Christian and in fellowship with Brethren, and he was a polygamist.
The very next day we meet his brother. At least he said he was his brother. But in Africa they called somebody, Your brother was a cousin. I think it was probably more cousins rather than Annette's brother. And he was giving out gospel calendars, these little pocket calendars. And so we greeted him, introduced ourselves to him, and then he said, I'm the brother of so. And so that's the man that we met the day before. And the Brethren had told us that he was a polygamist.
I said to him, do you know that your brother is a polygamist? Oh yes, he said he had three wives and he had a fallen out with one and he's still married to two.
I said, have you fellowship with him? He's my brother, he said He's my brother, I said, Do you love him more than the Lord? You put him above the Lord.
Three times I put before him his responsibility to let the brethren that for fellowshipping with him know that that man is a polygamist, and he became a polygamist after he was a Christian. You know when somebody is a polygamist before he is saved, Titus seems to be clear that that person couldn't be in the position of oversight. He had to be the husband of one wife. He couldn't.
Divorced himself from the obligation that he had entered into before he was saved, but he couldn't be in the position of oversight. But when that happens after somebody is saved, and that's unscriptural and we ought not to put a relative.
Friends above.
And make ourselves loyal to that man who is in a simple position. And course be loyal to him rather than to be loyal to the Lord Jesus.
Now we at best are very poor.
Helper to anyone but the Lord can help us to.
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Be in the right state of soul so that we can be a prop to a fellow believer. But remember, beloved brethren, we can only help be of real spiritual help to anybody that needs it by using the principles of this book, the word of God. We have to apply it first of all to ourselves. You know we cannot try to remove a splinter out of the eye.
Of a fellow believer. If we don't want to remove the beam out of our own eyes, we had to apply the word of God first of all to ourselves before we can apply it to anybody else.
I would like to follow on our beloved brother Heinz's words and.
It's such.
A wonderful subject.
Perhaps nothing higher, joy.
To a heart that desires the shepherding of God's sheep.
It seems, though 15 confirms this would be.
The joy.
The one restored.
And our beloved brother Hines has brought.
Important principles before our hearts.
They have recently in the scriptures, you know of the time in Israel's.
History.
The time when she should have brought forth a child, she brought forth wind.
Travail of soul that was not able to give birth to a son.
And our lost brother.
Said. And that's what I want to spend a little time on now.
He spoke to us of.
The work of God.
In the soul of the one being restored and behind said it's.
Also true.
That the Lord has a work to do in our hearts.
Who are the vehicles or the assembly that is to restore?
And that's what I have on my heart to see some of the workings.
In our hearts.
That is.
Probably equally important.
To the restoration of souls.
And I would like to turn to the Little Epistle of Philemon.
To see the working of the Spirit of God and the heart of a man, I would like to apply it.
The principles found here.
To an assembly.
We don't know a lot about Philemon, but what we read about him is good and.
And we mustn't add to scripture.
They lost the servant who fled from him and got converted by Paul.
I want to take it out there.
The restoration of the soul.
You might say to all thinking of it as Paul representing the assembly.
But as Philemon being the one who.
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Is going to receive back.
Unevenness and the working of the Spirit of God in Philemon's heart.
That he might be willing to receive this man.
Unassimess.
Back and we could think of here in principle as.
You know, someone said to me the other day they were asking a question about.
So unbelieving, the part said that's an unbeliever. But I said, well, I think the principal would apply to a believer. When a believer acts like an unbeliever, that's what they're acting like. And we mustn't.
Buy our fruits, people know us, and if we act like an unbeliever, I don't know that we have God's mind and looking at such a one.
As a believer, but unless in this anyway here, there's little question here. There's a loss of man when he left Philemon. We want to see some of the things that there was about Philemon and that there needed to be about Philemon.
For the restoration of his servant Onesimus.
First, I would like to call our attention to our brother, Heinz said.
About us in verse 5.
Hearing of thy Love, Paul says to an SMS.
And faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus.
And toward All Saints, that's the order. And that's the order that must be maintained.
Lords and glory as ever and before, the heart of God our Father and.
And for most of us, you know, we have a great problem in restoring souls because.
In most of our cases, we realize.
Not only we could have done the same thing. We have miserably failed in our lives, our Lord Jesus. Sometimes, you know, people might say something unkind about you. And I think if they knew me like God knew me.
They could say a lot worse than they have said and say it in truth.
But here was the man who had love for the Lord Jesus.
And he had love for all the things.
That's something that's got to be in our hearts.
If it hasn't hurt us to lose a sheet.
And we can scarcely restore them. And so there is this element of love.
Toward all the things, but I'd like to go down now.
And began reading, perhaps from verse 7. For we have great joy and consolation and thy love, because the bowels of the Saints are refreshed by thee, brother, there should be in our own heart.
Prior to restoration of anyone, testimony in our lives of refreshment for the Saints of God that we ourselves shouldn't be a thorn in the flesh of our brethren, That we ourselves shouldn't be a source of difficulty to our brethren, we can't restore others if we are a problem ourselves.
And so it says here yet for verse 9.
In verse 8. Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoying the.
That which is convenient lit for Love's sake, I rather beseech thee such as one as Paul the aged, now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. That is, the apostle with the power Apostolic authority, could have given directions, and sometimes people say, what should I do with this person who has left the assembly, or this one? How should we behave? I can't answer that, because each individual.
It requires a different exercise and wisdom from God for each individual is different and the Lord and the Apostle is going to put a rule down for Philemon but he is causing an exercise in Philemon heart. He is saying I could command this.
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But I'm not going to, because I want it to be done out of a willing heart. He was soliciting Conesimus for his own service, and he isn't going to force Philemon to give him up. But I'm thinking this afternoon about restoration of us all.
And he's called the age and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I'd like us to think of the assembly of God's people gathered to the Lord's name is.
We're at the close of the journey anywhere. We're like an aged person and you know, there are things I see in the words that there is something that is ideal.
But in practicality that seldom able to be attained to in days of weakness. And so Thyatira.
John knew. The spirit of God knew. I can't put any other burden on you. He had and even the apostle with the Corinthians. There were some things he had to let go. And we need to realize the day that we live in, we may not be able to accomplish deep.
The restoration of a soul in the perfect way and the vessels doing the restoring are not perfect vessels either. And so we have here a word that says.
He's all the age and he's beseeching, and I beseech thee, my son on SMS whom I have begotten.
Or my son an SMS who I've begotten in my bonds.
And Brother Heinz has brought that before us too. It's a very, very solemn thing for us in the restoration of a soul to ever keep in our mind. This is a child of God.
A brother or sister for whom Christ has died. And we must not take up the dear things of God as having authority over them, as being Lords over them.
We take them up in a shepherding, pastoral way, and realizing that it has caused the death of Christ to bring these children of God into this place of sonship. And Paul says, whom I have begotten in my bonds, verse 11, which in times past was to the unprofitable.
You know, and that's no doubt true, that when souls go away from the Lord's table, or certainly when they have to be disciplined by the assembly, it's because they become perhaps unprofitable. And but that's not.
How they're being brought back. God has brought in on estimates, life, and one time he may have been unprofitable, and it's not.
All I was thinking recently.
What is the soul? What is the state of the soul today? You know, what you think about 10,000 things that someone may have done yesterday. What is the state of the soul today? Because that's where we're working with the state of the soul today that needs to be discerned. And Paul says of Anessimus, you know, in the past we acknowledge he was unprofitable, but now I'm telling you.
He is profitable not only to thee, but to me.
Verse 12 Whom I have sinned again, that thou mayest receive him, That is my own balls. Here's another thing to discern. I'm thinking of the Apostle now as the apostle of the Lord Jesus having the Lord's mind. He said, you know, I'm Cindy Bonessimus back to you. We have to discern why souls are coming back. Is it the Lord that's bringing them back? If it is?
We need to be very, very careful that we not.
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Hinder the work of the spirit of God. And so if the soul is coming back, we need to discern why they're coming back. If it's the Lord that's bringing them back, we need to be careful. And Paul goes here now and working in an estimate in Philemon's heart that this restoration can take place.
And that his brother Heinz said, when the soul is restored.
Peter was restored to service and you know it's a, it's a.
It's hard, isn't it? It is a hard thing because restoration is a slow thing. Seldom, you know, those of us who were saved. You know, in one moment I I was a lost Sinner, and in the next two minutes later, I was a saved soul. But there was a vast work of God going on, and it's still going on in my soul.
And the same with the restoration of a soul that's heard from the path of truth.
This work we I don't you want a thorough, complete word, but it's a long process sometimes and we mustn't try to rush it along, but.
Paul says to firing them.
Who might have seen again that all therefore receive him? That is my own vows. Again I say to remember in our souls we're touching them, one who has been redeemed by Christ, and it says, touching Christ himself. And so we see here that he brings him back, And whom I have would have retained with me that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bounds of.
The Gospel.
As I say, that isn't.
Not on my heart at this time, but simply Philemon's receiving Onesimus for the glory of God, verse 15, for perhaps he therefore departed for a season.
Intelligence receive them forever. Beloved is in the mercy of God as our beloved brother brought before our hearts.
Sometimes I wonder. I read recently. I read a 51 page letter of a brother who wasn't. He's never been gathered.
And may bow my head in chains to think, Lord Jesus, here I am gathered, I believe to thy precious name. And here is a here is a brother who has been walking in a in a.
I don't know what to call it, a professing company, but it's obvious his heart is a shepherd's heart, and his desire for the Saints of God is surreal. And here I am, gathered to the Lord's name, and this brother isn't.
Beloved, why are we here?
It's because the sovereign grace of God and the spirit of God has kept us in the pathway and it's no credit to us. And so the apostle says.
To him he this brother departed, this man departed for a season, that thou shouldst receive him forever.
Where there is a true work of God.
Of restoration in the soul no one restored can often be restored to a far better state of soul than they had before they left. That is in God's way of accomplishing this work. He doesn't want to have to us to learn by our mistakes, but sometimes that's how we do learn.
And the restoration is often to a deeper appreciation of the Lord Jesus than there was before they went away. And so he says here.
He departed for a season that thou shouldst receive, and forever, not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother, beloved spiritually.
01:15:01
To me, think of that as a word from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Especially to me.
And so loved the heaven.
It's a it's a difficult work, the work of restoration, because I I want to reinforce with all of my heart what brother, beloved brother Heinz. It's a it's a heavy thing that weighs on the heart of brethren who have some little responsibility.
In the Assembly to discern the state of the soul of someone coming back because you don't want to hinder their coming back.
Nor do you want to hinder the work of restoration and repentance.
In the soul. And so you can do it either way you can.
I don't say lacks and hinder the work of repentance and restoration. Or you can expect too much and hinder the work of repentance and restoration. We belong the sayings of God, and we could hardly be weaker than we are, and we mustn't.
Expect more than others.
Than the Lord is getting from ourselves. And so he says bring him back as one who is beloved especially to me. Then he goes down.
And.
The first aid to me.
Verse 18.
If he.
Half wrong thee.
I suppose we haven't had wronged me in my life.
Haven't we wronged the Lord?
Look at Calvary's cross.
As though you were the only person that ever existed.
The sufferings of Christ would have just been just as intent, beloved.
But I love this heart of the apostle. He is not going to ignore the fact.
That this airing one had wronged by Lehman.
They clearly not invite his spirit if he hath wronged thee.
Put that on mine at home.
Now think of it, beloved Someone has wronged you, they wanting to be restored to the Lord's table.
Couldn't we have this spirit?
I said, oh, I'll be irreverent, but couldn't we have this spirit, Lord Jesus?
Paul identifies with the wrongdoing.
I'll go, Nestle, Listen, says I.
Will bear that cost.
Put that on my account.
I will pay it for him.
When I'm thinking of this, I'm thinking of.
Something akin to eating the sin offering. Oh beloved, it's it's a dangerous thing for you and me as believers.
To not identify.
With the airing one as though we had no heart in their departure.
As though they left the perfect company of believers.
We're not a perfect company of believers and often times I thought sometimes that expression if one be overtaken in the fall, sometimes the condition in the assembly can get so deteriorated that we can be a discouragement.
01:20:18
To things going on with the Lord. Holy Paul. For Paul said I'll, I'll take, I'll take the debt on, that's the missiles, and I will repair falsehood in verse 19.
Albeit.
And this is something to keep in our souls, beloved, albeit, albeit.
What was done to me than thine own self besides, and this has got to be in our hearts.
That the one being restored.
We're no better.
As I say, it took the death of Christ to save my soul, and so it's in a spirit of humility that restoration can be accomplished.
And it can't be done in any other way, beloved.
We've got a lot to be humble about.
Albeit thou always thine own so besides your brother, let me have joy at thee in the Lord. Refresh my bowels in the Lord.
Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say, and some other thing.
Remove these things to exercise our hearts, that our our heart be kinder, but our minds have the mind of Christ in.
To sometimes our heart lead us into air.
Cause the two.
I to him it's too long in our soul for the restoration of everyone who was once with us.
But we under wisdom of God is brought out in #19 and many other passages in God's Word and so.
Just pray, Lord Jesus.
Grace
Gospel—D. 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.
Hey, we've waited an extra two or three minutes for this gospel meeting.
Because He wants you to know that God is also waiting for some lost Sinner to come in. I don't know if that last one is in this room or not.
If they are, I hope they get saved tonight because that means the Lord can take us all home.
The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Like to start our meeting singing about that savior #10 on your hymn sheet?
There is a Savior on high in the glory.
A Savior who suffered on Calvary's tree. A Savior is willing to save now as ever. His arm is almighty, His love great and free. Oh, come now to Jesus, that dear loving Savior, receive him.
This moment and peace shall be thine. You don't need to wait till the end of this meeting to get saved. You can do it right now. Let's let's rise and sing hymn #10.
There is also.
The world.
8 BHK builder floor for sale in.
The house and.
Lunchtime.
Shall we just look to the Lord in prayer?
Blessed God.
This morning.
When I arrived here this morning.
My family know me that I like to. I don't like to be late for meeting.
And so we parked our car and started walking in here to the meeting room where we have the meetings. I've been here once before, several years ago.
And I had it before me. I got to get in there and get a seat.
We started walking and the person I was walking with.
Looked over and saw somebody.
They loved.
And quickly walked over and started speaking to that person and greeting them. Walked a little farther and then another person came up.
Hadn't seen for a long time.
And as I came and sat down here alone.
I thought.
Of my Savior was more interested in persons, the souls of men.
And where he sat.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Said, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
He is genuinely interested in your soul, dear friend, tonight.
00:10:01
We want to talk about him tonight and it seemed appropriate to me tonight to speak about.
What we've had before us in these meetings, great.
Introduce our subject tonight in the first chapter of John's Gospel.
The Son of God.
Come down to this earth. When we were singing about, he went back to glory. He's there now.
But he came to her. John's Gospel chapter one, verse one.
In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God.
The word was God.
Now, for the sake of time, we're going to drop down verse 14.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as 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 this fullness have all we received, and grace. For grace for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Dear friends, this is the person I want to talk about tonight.
God, come down into this world, the Son of God.
Come to tell you and me what he's like.
Ben said the man is wrong or he has a wrong concept in two different ways. Now, I don't want to just moralize here before you this morning, this afternoon.
But I believe this is the truth.
One is first of all, we have a by nature a wrong concept of God and who he is, what He's like.
Secondly.
We have a wrong concept of what our own heart is like, what we ourselves are like.
And when the Son of God, Jesus Christ, came into this world.
He made that all evident and plain, and I'd like to go through just a few little incidents, just a few days out of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ to bring before our souls.
What God is like?
And also what our own hearts are like.
You know, it's nice to have the little children here.
We love the little children.
But that doesn't take us very long as a parent.
To learn.
What the heart of man is like when he first comes into this world. As we grow up, you do, little children. Here tonight, you need to be safe.
Just because you haven't grown up and done all the wicked things that older people do doesn't mean your heart is any different.
You need to be saved.
You need to have your sins put away.
And there's only one person that can do it.
There was only one person that cared enough.
Soul and mind like the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did they let? Why did the Lord Jesus Christ let those wicked men take him and put him on a cross like a criminal and take a spear and open up his side?
Was he not able to control the situation there?
Oh, dear friend.
Take a look at that man and see how much he loves you.
Take a look at him and see that he let people do that to him to show them that he loved them.
00:15:00
And he wanted to show grace and truth.
God can overlook sin.
He must deal with it. God is true.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. We've had a little prefix to this chapter just in our previous meeting in the case of Moses.
Who wanted to see the glory of God? Who wanted to shepherd the people of God?
But it says about them they were a rebellious and a stubborn people.
4000 years.
Cried man before the Lord Jesus came into the world.
Ought to be enough to teach us what the heart of man is really like.
Young people.
Go out in life experimenting with your soul to learn what your heart is like. Go to the Word of God and see what God says about it and learn the lesson before you start.
Save yourselves many trouble.
You'll save dishonouring the Savior who came.
To die for you.
Grace and truth.
Came by Jesus Christ.
We had in our readings this day a little of how that.
Grace does not compromise the truth.
And I believe we'll notice as we go through some of these stories, these incidents in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, how that He perfectly always maintain those two things.
And here in preaching the gospel tonight, we must maintain these two things.
The truth of God. God is holy and we are sinners.
How can those two kind of people get together?
Nobody could do the job.
Not even Moses.
Who was a wonderful leader and shepherd, and he cared for those people of God.
But Jesus Christ did.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now let's go on over and notice that. Let's drop down to verse 29, the same chapter.
We are going to start out here noticing each day in the life of the Lord Jesus that He was here.
It's interesting that in this Gospel of John.
There are, I believe.
Just 28 days out of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ described to us here.
Everything in this book happened within approximately the best of my count. It's 28 days.
Out of the life of the Lord Jesus and we are not only going to touch on a few of them.
The second one is in verse 29.
The next day.
Jesus, John C seeth Jesus coming unto him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Now, this is a statement that we've often heard most all of us, but I want you to stop and think of the impact.
Of what this verse is saying, the Lamb of God which taketh away.
The sin of the world.
Think of that. Taking sin away out of this world. Who can do that?
It isn't just taking the sin out of your heart.
For my heart, it's taking away the sins of the world, the whole world.
And I believe that Jesus Christ is going to do that. He's already laid the basis for it on Calvary's cross.
And when it's all said and done in the history of man and the history of this world.
Sin is going to be completely taken out.
And where will you be, dear friend, when that takes place? You know, there's a lot of people that delight in sin. They think sin is fun.
And there is such a thing as the pleasures of sin that says.
00:20:03
Up to a point, there may be some pleasure in it.
But it also says the wages of sin is death.
That's a consequence.
And we're reminded about it all around us.
You know, there are many, many philosophies in this world.
And everybody, you talk to them about the Lord Jesus Christ, and they'll usually have some answer of what they believe and why they do what they do and so on. And.
Who has ever come up with a solution to take away sin out of the world?
Has he taken away the sin out of your life?
Have you dealt with the Lord Jesus about the sin question?
Can you say that he died?
For your sins thereon Calvary's cross, have you trusted in Him as your Savior to take those sins away?
If you do not do that.
I'm afraid you will find your place vanished in the lake of fire out of this world, to be a testimony for all eternity to what God does to sinners.
That refuse Jesus Christ the Savior.
The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. One of the first statements here. This is the second day in John's Gospel. The next day.
You know, we like to overlook this question about sin.
It's amazing how in our society.
They're inventing new words and new ways of expressions. Could not be offensive to people politically correct. But how are we going to do with this sin question?
We're going to describe it in new terms. We're going to change what sin really is.
Can we get around the issue that way? No, my friend.
We can.
Jesus Christ, my Savior came.
To deal with that question, to take it away, it's amazing. People talk about ways of reform, fixing up the world.
And if you read the newspaper, and I hope you don't do too much, but you get all kinds of stories about sin.
What it does to people and how people think it ought to be fixed up.
But nobody's come up with a solution to remove sin. Accept the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let's go on.
The third day, verse 43, chapter one, verse 43, the day following, Jesus would go forth into Galilee and find the Philip and Seth unto him. Follow me Now Philip was of the Seder, the city of Andrew and Peter. Peter find this Nathaniel and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
And Nathaniel said unto him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
They'll obsess unto him, Come and see.
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and theft of him. Behold, an Israelite indeed, of whom is no guile.
In whom is no guile? Nathaniel said unto him, Whence knowest thou mean? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, When thou lest under the fig tree I saw thee. Nathaniel answered and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and saith unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw the end of the fig tree, believeth thou?
Thou shalt see greater things than these. And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of God.
Nathaniel.
00:25:00
Is the next person to come in contact with the Lord Jesus here that it mentions?
The first time Nathaniel hears about the Lord Jesus.
Or Jesus.
He's skeptical.
Can any good thing come out?
Of Nazareth. Now I understand that Nazareth was a poor people lived the lower class, the unrefined, uneducated, fishermen and so on.
And so they were looked on by perhaps those of Judea that went to school and had the law and so on.
And so Nathanael has this concept.
Nothing good can come out of that place.
What kind of concept do you have tonight, dear friend the Lord Jesus? Have you come here skeptical?
Sometimes I notice there's even sarcasm about religious things.
That the Lord Jesus know about this.
Did he turn away from that man and say, oh, he's skeptical, I don't want him?
No, it's amazing the answer.
The statement that the Lord Jesus makes to Nathaniel.
Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no God.
I believe that was the best thing you could say about Nathaniel.
I believe it indicates that the Lord Jesus knew that when.
He revealed himself to Nathaniel.
Nathaniel would submit and obey to the truth.
And not be with guile. And so the Lord Jesus did reveal himself to that man.
Is there someone in this room?
That doesn't know the Lord Jesus yet. Are you still skeptical? Are you questioning this issue?
Look at the case of Nathaniel.
He didn't.
He didn't turn away from this man.
Because of his first skepticism.
No.
I believe Nathaniel did have an honest heart. You know, that's what it says about the Parable of the Sower.
That when it's sown in an honest and good heart, dear friend, that's what we ask you to bring.
To God, tonight we don't ask you to bring a good heart that is that one that you can fix up, but an honest heart and good in that sense that you will recognize the truth of God. You will recognize the Lord Jesus for who He is and for what He's done. If you do that, you'll get saved.
Because the Lord Jesus will show what's in your heart, Nathaniel, what was in his heart. And he just took out a little incident and showed what Nathaniel was doing when he was under that fig tree. We don't even know for sure what it was.
But it made that man realize that Jesus Christ knew all about him.
And I believe it made him realize that he also loved and cared about him.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No passing over the serious issues of life, No.
If he's skeptical, questioning the Lord, Jesus addressed that point.
And brought the truth of who he was before this man Nathaniel.
Oh dear friend, when the Lord Jesus is presented to you.
When this begins to dawn in your soul and you realize who that man is.
Are you willing to turn your life over to him?
Are you willing to own him for who he is, the Son of God?
That's what Nathanael says.
Rabbis, thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel.
Brilliant conclusions that the truth of God.
That's who He is, the Son of God.
Wonderful that God has recorded these things for us.
00:30:05
Dear friend, I believe.
That if you were the only Sinner in the world, God would have done all this here.
And this whole book of John and the whole word of God to prove to you the truth of Jesus, who is what he's done.
Now let's go on. We have the next case, Chapter 2. This is the 4th day. Well, it's the third day, but it's the fourth incident.
We're not going to read this whole part about the marriage feast.
But I would just like to comment on it.
That I believe it shows to us that Jesus Christ is the true one who can bring joy and happiness.
Into our hearts.
There was a situation in that, in that in that land of where the Lord Jesus was, where they were at a wedding feast and they ran out of wine. Terrible embarrassing thing that happened to A to a person who's hosting a wedding.
And the Lord Jesus provides, and he does it in such a way to show to us that He is a source to bring joy and happiness.
Your life into mine.
And I believe he's done it in a way that would show how that in the day of the Millennium.
In the reign of righteousness, when the Lord Jesus Christ is the King reigning over this earth.
That he's going to bring true joy and happiness.
There is a way to joy in this life.
The Lord Jesus Christ, I believe, is the solution. Now, I don't believe in preaching the gospel in such a way to to make people feel that if you just turn and come to the Lord Jesus, he'll make everything right and good and happy in your life and that all will go well the rest of your life. No, I don't see that's the way it's presented.
But it's presented.
In a way to make us realize that only those who know their sins are forgiven, only those who have a true relationship with their Creator God through the Lord Jesus Christ are those who have what is true.
Joy.
A guilty conscience, a bad conscience, is a terrible thing to live with.
I just heard the story about a man today.
This is tragic.
Man who is going on with the sin for 30 years.
Unconfessed.
And finally.
It came out.
Oh dear friend, don't wait that long to deal with this in question.
If you see this man, who he is and how he deals with sinners, why would you hold back something unconfessed that hinders true joy and happiness?
It is a slam to the Lord to hide things from Him.
It's an insult to all that he's done.
I really believe it is.
We think about those soldiers who buffeted the Lord and smote him and crowned him with thorns and so on, and all the physical abuse that they heaped on the Lord Jesus there when he was on the cross. But, dear friend.
What about your sins?
How are you treating the Lord?
Have you realized?
That he came to put those sins away.
Don't insult him by rejecting him.
Be like Nathaniel was without guile, wasn't covering up anything, everything out in the open.
If there were no forgiveness for sinners, yes, I can understand somebody wanting to cover things up and to pretend and to not really deal in honesty with the issues. But my friend, God has made a way where we can deal with this in question and your eternal blessing.
00:35:15
And then you turn from the Lord Jesus and put it on.
To go on to live a few years in this world and the way you choose, dear friend.
What are you doing to the Lord Jesus Christ? Most of you have heard about Him as a Savior. Most of you have been brought up in Christian homes where you've been taught these things. And yet I fear as I look out and see some of the young people and older ones too, is it real with you? Have you confessed the Lord Jesus as your Savior? Have you entrusted your soul to His care? Have you believed on Him as your Savior?
Now I'd like to go on there. There are several incidents I'd like to turn to.
The third in the second chapter, One more in the second chapter, verse 23.
This is the 6th incident in the life of the Lord for the 6th day.
The 6th recording anyway.
Verse 23 John 223 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, in the feast day, many believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. And then we have connected with this, the story about Nicodemus who came to the Lord.
As if the Lord were a good buddy he could associate with and they could be pals.
And that Nicodemus appreciated the qualities of the Lord, and they could go through life.
On that basis, and the Lord tells Nicodemus, Nicodemus.
You must be born again, Nicodemus. You got to start all over again. You got to have a new life.
And that's what's necessary to be saved.
Interesting. Learn this conclusion from the Lord Jesus that your own heart.
Is not worth trying to fix up.
It's not salvageable and the Lord Jesus when he came into this world.
That's what he says here he needed. Not that any should testify of man, for he knew.
What was in man?
Dear friend, he knows your heart. He knows how bad it is or how good it is. No matter what, he knows it through and through.
Did he stop the work of salvation because of that? No. That's one of the wrong concepts that our hearts often have. We don't really believe that God is for us. We don't really believe that God's plan is the best plan for our life.
And we choose our own way.
Oh, don't waste your years learning that.
Look at this blessed book and see what testimony the Lord Jesus gave about your heart and life.
Sometimes we hear people say, oh, I would never do such and such a thing.
Oh, dear friend, he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, the scripture says.
Take God's testimony. You know we ought not to have to go down a hard course of a sinful life.
Before we get saved many times, I believe it's so we have to learn the hard way. But I don't want that for any of you. I don't want you to go out there and learn what your own heart is the hard way.
Take God's word for what it says. He knows what the heart of man is.
And that's why he says you have to start all over with a new heart, a new life. You have to be born again.
Very basic concept, very simple, a new life. It was so simple, Nicodemus had a hard time getting a hold of us.
And I believe it's hard for us to get a hold of that because we don't want to relinquish.
The concept that we have about ourselves, that we think there's still some good in US.
00:40:04
Some good, they say. You know, well, it just needs the proper culture, the proper teaching and education, and then men will become better citizens and they'll love their neighbors and they'll treat their families better if you just give them the right environment. We're often told a story something like this.
Dear friend.
Don't learn that the hard way.
It's not the truth.
The Lord Jesus knew it from the day one, and he came to save.
By giving us a new life.
They born again.
A new life? Well, we must go on.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. I'd like to pass on over now to the fifth chapter.
For an important point, I believe to learn in connection with the Gospel, we're going to read a part of the 5th chapter. John, this is the 11Th day.
After this there was a feast of the Jews, this verse one, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, blind, all withered.
Waiting for the movement of the water, for an Angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water. Whosoever then, first, after the troubling of the water, stepped, stepped in, was made whole of whatever disease he had, and a certain man was there which had an infirmity 30 and eight years, when Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case.
He sat under him. Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him. Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool.
But while I am coming another step down before me.
Jesus said unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked, and on the same day it was Sabbath.
Now what I learned by this story.
Is that?
The Lord Jesus didn't just come to help those who can help themselves. You know, I had a father-in-law that told me once that that's what he believed. He said he believed that God helped those that help themselves. But what can this man do?
38 years in a pitiful condition.
Unable to help himself get to the solution, the remedy, the cure.
It's a picture of our helplessness or God and Jesus Christ came to help the helpless.
Have you admitted you're a helpless lost Sinner?
What a what a compassionate man.
Coming up to that man.
Laying there.
And it's a picture of our own condition. There's someone here.
It's not saved yet tonight.
The Lord Jesus loves you.
He wants to help you and so I believe we are. We are.
Correct in interpreting this as a demonstration of what he's like.
He helps those who cannot help themselves. How often we have to get to a dire circumstance before we'll turn to the Lord and ask for the Lord's help.
I've seen it over and over in my own life. I'm sorry to confess, but.
The Lord just kind of has to put the brakes or the some affliction on and then we finally turn and say, Lord help me.
00:45:03
Helpful. That's the kind of savior he is.
That's great.
Helping those who cannot do anything for themselves.
Because it's based all on what he is and what he wants to do and his power and ability and he wants the faith and he's able to say.
Nice step. Sometimes we have one without the other.
But the Lord Jesus is both.
Well, one more case in the.
8th chapter.
One would like to just dwell on just one of these. There's many other cases, but.
This chapter 8 of John's Gospel, the first few verses. I'd like to read it.
To me, it's one of the greatest of all stories of the grace of God.
And I hope it will touch your heart, dear friend.
Let's read it together, beginning with verse one, John 8, verse one.
Jesus went into the Mount of Olives, and early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him.
And he sat down and taught them. The scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery.
And when they had set her in the mid, they say unto him, Master.
This woman was taken in adultery, the very act. Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what sayeth thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger rode on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them.
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And again he stooped down and rode on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last.
And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers?
Hath no man condemned thee? She said. She said No man, Lord Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.
Can anyone doubt?
This is grace and truth.
Meeting a person who is in a terrible predicament.
As I mentioned before, if you read the newspaper, you know I've been struck in the last year or so.
Of how much?
The public attention.
Deals with things like this chapter that we've just read apart of.
The heart of man.
Will occupy itself.
With the grossest thanks.
And the Lord Jesus came down in the midst of that kind of a condom and speech.
Argue.
And they take this poor woman who is caught in an act of sin.
They single out one person and make a case out of her.
In order.
To discredit, I believe.
The grace and truth of Jesus Christ.
They looked at it, I believe if he accepted this woman.
Taken in a very sinful act.
Where is truth?
Where is truth?
Dear friend.
Can't you see that that same man?
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It told her go and sin no more. Was the man on the road up to Calvary?
To die for her sins, to put them away.
Make her spotless and clean in God's presence.
And that's what he wants to do to you, dear friend. He wants to take those sins and put them all away. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
But it's amazing the way that the Lord Jesus dealt with this case. You see, He didn't want just to take care of this poor woman's sin. Although she was the first, she was in the forefront here.
And I want to give a word of warning.
Dear friend.
If you reject the Lord Jesus and if you make your choice with this world.
That rejected him.
With this group of people portrayed here, that would take.
A woman.
Scandalized her publicly.
In order to prove a point against the Son of God. Is that where you want to cast your lot, dear friend?
Make your choice tonight.
It is either the world or the Lord Jesus Christ.
Which will you have?
To run, do you want to commend your soul?
Do you want to live it to the pleasures of this world?
And it's no different today. Read the newspaper and you'll see it's the same stories over and over.
Or do you see in Jesus Christ one worthy of your trust, one who is willing to forgive and to put away sin?
Oh, thank God. Many of us here have found that it's real. We've trusted Him as our as our Savior and as our Lord.
And he doesn't scandalize us.
What does God do to those who come in here with the honest and good heart and admit they're a Sinner? He takes all the sin away, and not only that, He takes away all the accusers.
Before he sends the woman away and says go and sin no more, he says woman where are those time users?
Hath no man condemned thee? I believe he asked her that question, for her to verbalize the answer.
And she verbalized and she said, No man, Lord.
Have you verbalized an answer?
To God have you said Jesus Christ, thou art my Lord.
Have you ever admitted that out loud, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth?
The Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. It's good not only to believe into your heart, but to say it out loud.
I believe more deeper coming. You dear children, have you told anyone that you've trusted the Lord Jesus as your Savior? Go tell somebody if you have. Oh, it'll do you go. The Lord Jesus wants to hear it too. He wants to hear it out loud.
And so do your parents.
And many others.
Oh, what it must have meant to his heart to hear her say No man Lord, No man Lord.
She accepted what the Lord had said about her. Her accusers. No more accusers.
What a wonderful Savior, Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Oh dear friends, our time is up.
This is the close of the Gospel meeting.
You may now take the Lord Jesus as your Savior if you haven't.
Trust him, he is real and genuine.
Everything that the scripture says about him is real and I believe that one of the way that Satan seeks to blind eyes and men and women is to discredit the gospel by forging many false and.
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Untrue things, you know, we're living in a society where.
People discredit. There's a difference in this country than in other foreign countries. You know, if you go out on the street today and offer people a gift, what happens?
No thanks. No thanks. No time. Walk on right by. Whether it's a track, if you even held out a dollar bill, I would venture that people would just walk on by. No, this are some gimmicks to this. We get advertisement in the mail almost every day of all these kind of gimmicks that aren't real. There's some fine print down at the bottom. The gospel is not that way. It's real, dear friend. There's no gimmicks to us.
The truth of God, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Believeth and benefit your soul and give God the credit for what He's done.
Our time is Apple.
I'm going to pray for your soul. Let's pray together.
Our God and their Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who came to make known the way South.
Three Words and All Liars
Gospel—D. Rule
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Someone started free.
I'll just mention it can be sung, I think to Oh Happy Day if someone likes to start that thing.
Saved. Why not tonight?
Lord must be saved by heart to life. Why not to lie? Why not deny?
Would you turn with me first for a verse in Revelation chapter 21?
Revelation chapter 21. Very solemn verse to begin a gospel meeting with.
Verse 8.
But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable.
And murderers. And ************. And sorcerers.
And idolaters and all liars shall have their part.
In the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death?
The three words that particularly come before me in this verse are and all liars.
You know, it's one thing to tell a lie.
And it's.
Equally, if not more serious, to live a lie and the burden of my soul before the Lord tonight is the young people in this room.
Who may be living a lie?
And I want to start out because I believe that most of you to whom I'm speaking tonight.
Come from Christian homes where the Word of God has been read.
And give an honor to and the majority of you have been under the sound of the Word of God for many years.
But I want to contrast you as a young person with young people that.
It is my privilege and responsibility to speak with a couple of times a week.
Who have not had the same opportunities that you've had.
In the main there are some very happy exceptions, but.
Many of them have not known a Christian home.
And many of them have been in very, very undesirable circumstances of life from the time they were born.
Remember recently seven of them in a group.
And not one of the seven could say they have been brought into this world within a marriage.
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Solemn, solemn circumstances to come into this world.
And many of them, I would say, are addicts of sin.
And they know it in many cases.
Their circumstances are very different than yours.
But I want to speak to you earnestly tonight and tell you.
I am concerned that your soul.
Is more hardened.
Than theirs.
This is not a serious thing to say.
You who have been brought up in a Christian home could be more hardened.
Then these young people.
Are you living a lie?
You know, spoke to one girl the other night, her name is Jenny. And Jenny said to me, she said my dad. And she pointed to the book in her hand, the Bible.
He said my dad told me it was trash.
Don't read it.
You've never had anybody, even a parent in authority over you that said such words to you. Such awful words.
And yet Jenny was open. She had that book in her hand.
Another girl, Crystal.
Couple of weeks ago was had to go about 30 miles in a transporter, a police van.
To see the judge.
And as she was going in the van, she was reading her Bible.
And the man that was driving the van, he looked at her and he said to her, you don't believe that, do you?
That book's not true.
Pretty big test for a girl.
On our way to court.
Have a Bible in her hand. Have a man say that. And he didn't stop there. He started to speak to her about it and how he thought people had come to be on the earth and so on. And she said it sounded pretty good.
What he seemed to be saying.
I thank God she rejected what he said.
But I wonder about you tonight. You've heard over and over and over again.
The truth and the love of God for your soul. And perhaps tonight, at this moment, you said indifferently in this room and your mind's on the clock and what you're going to do in an hour or two from now.
Because there is a hardening in your soul against God.
I want to take up with you tonight three young men.
And two of them.
Went out in the presence of the Lord.
And the results are awful.
And one of them he went out from the presence of his father.
But thank God.
He woke up in time and he returned.
And I want to solemnly warn you by the examples of these young men.
The consequences to you.
Of going out present for the Lord.
Turn with me for the first instance to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 4.
And we have the brief history of a young man.
Who made an awful choice? More than one in his life.
And I believe it has brought for him eternal consequences.
That are almost too bad to want to save.
Genesis chapter 4 and verse one.
And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
And she again bear his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but King was a tiller of the ground.
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And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, and offering unto the Lord.
And Abel he also brought of the first slings of his frock flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering, but unto Cain, and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, And why is thy countenance fallen, if thou doest well?
Thou shalt not be accepted. Shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field.
That Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto him, Where is Abel thy brother?
And he said, I know not Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, what is thou done?
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now art thou cursed from the earth.
Which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hands.
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a Vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth.
And from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a Vagabond in the earth.
And it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore Whosoever slayeth Cain.
Vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold, and the Lord set a mark upon Cain.
Lest any finding him should kill him.
And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.
There's two young men in the family that knew God in a very interesting and wonderful way.
At this time in the history of man, we know that God.
Personally spoke to them and visited them.
And these two boys, Cain and Abel's parents?
Had experienced God coming and visiting with them from time to time and speaking to them personally.
And here we find in this conversation, this little incident that's told to us, even Cain had that privilege of having Jehovah speak, as it were, face to face with him. And so we find that these two young men both present themselves to God. But I want to say to you that I believe that Cain was a young man that wanted God to accept him.
And deal with him on Cain's terms.
And I fear that there are many young people that grow up in this world and in Christian homes as well.
That have to do with God, but in the heart you want to deal with God on your own terms.
You want to decide the relationship that you will have with God as you want it to be.
And sometimes when it is presented to you that having a relationship with God.
Has to be on his terms. In your heart there's rebellion.
There's rebellion, and perhaps you sit in the room tonight and down in your soul there is a certain measure.
I can't wait to get out of here.
A feeling of restraint or constraint in you. Now, outwardly you're sitting quietly in your seat and you look fine.
You're nicely dressed. You were here perhaps all day. Maybe you didn't skip any of the meetings.
And you know that mother or father would perhaps be aware of it if you did. But when it comes to what God sees in you, and you don't have to do with me, and ultimately you don't have to do with your mother, your father either, but you do have to do with God. And God knows how to speak to you and speak to you personally in your life as he was speaking here with Cain and speaking to him concerning his own life.
00:15:09
And so Cain brings something to God that he had produced for himself in the earth.
And he is aware that God has not accepted it.
And it produces anger in Cain.
I'm amazed.
But I guess I shouldn't be how many young people that I visit with?
Are when it comes down underneath the surface, extremely.
Angry people.
And perhaps tonight you relate to that. Maybe it doesn't show outwardly and in some cases.
You may not even be personally completely aware of it. Many times we aren't always aware of what's going on in.
But I want to say to you that if in your heart there is a rejection up to this point in your life of God.
And the Lord Jesus, his beloved Son, there may be in you a measure.
Of anger against God and if there is anger against God.
You know, Cain realized when he offered something to God and it was not accepted.
That in the answer that the Lord gave to Cain, he says to him, he says to him. In effect, Cain, he says, Your countenance would look up with confidence.
If you didn't realize that all was well, that is, he said. If you had a sense of what you brought was acceptable in my sight, you would have looked up in countenance to me with confidence.
And dear young person, I think that you can recognize that many times that which your life brings to God.
Is that that you don't want to lift up your head, your countenance and confidence to God?
Abel brought to God a sacrifice which presents.
Through our minds to our thoughts, the Lord Jesus Christ and if we can come to God.
Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to God in confidence and we say with Thanksgiving thanks.
Or thy beloved son, my Savior. But if you bring anything else to God, there will be a sense in you.
That.
It isn't accepted.
It's not God's way, and so here Cain talks. But you know when you're angry with God.
Many times that anger is going to focus its attention on something you can see.
It will be perhaps a brother, a sister, a mother.
A father authority of some sort in your life, and there will be that focus of anger.
Taken out on someone else that perhaps consciously or unconsciously you are angry with because of their relationship with God. And that was the case in Cain's life. As a young person. He saw his brother and as he was angry with God, he was angry with his brother. And he saw it an occasion.
To do the worst in this case, he murders him.
I've heard young people say awful things to or about their parents.
You might say in speech they murdered them.
And it is taking out that anger on another.
And I'm not here tonight to say parents are perfect or anything like that. You know, the young people that we visit.
You can't use a loving father as an example with most of them because they don't even.
They'll say which father, the one that I was born with, I've never seen him.
My foster father or the one my mother takes up with now?
They have no concept. You can't even use an example or an illustration of a loving father with them.
That is an earthly type of father. They don't know anything about it. And yet I say to you, you do.
And yet there is that anger. There is that rejection.
00:20:00
That comes from wanting to have one's own way.
With God and not getting it.
To focus on another.
And yet here it says of this young man, the Lord asks him a question. The Lord said unto King, Where is Abel thy brother?
And he said I know not.
You know, it's one thing to lie to somebody.
And often it's not too hard to fool people, at least initially.
But it's a.
It's a, to me, almost an inconceivable thing to think it does any good to lie to God.
You may lie, but you can't fool God.
It's a foolish thing to think that you want to say to God. I don't know.
We can't fool God. God looks down tonight in love upon every single person in this room.
Beginning right here and going down every row, and he knows absolutely where you stand with him.
Be honest with God, at least. Maybe you're afraid to be honest with other people, maybe you're not.
When people seem to rejoice to say everything they think, or at least they think they think, and other people don't care to say.
But it isn't with man that you have to do, it's with the Lord. And Cain starts out and he lies. He says. I know not am I my brother's keeper?
He followed his mother, unfortunately.
But in the ways of his father, unfortunately.
But the point is, he himself, individually had to do.
With the Lord and the Lord had to do with him, and the Lord speaks a pronouncement upon him for what he had done.
And I want to say to you tonight.
You face an awful future when you die.
If you die without the Lord.
But I also want to say to you, if you've known the way of the Lord.
And you go out of his presence.
You face an awful present life.
Cain had the knowledge of the Lord stamped on him.
And the hand of the Lord on Cain's life was.
Such that he was a miserable man.
I was told a few days ago about a man.
I don't want to say too much.
But a man that.
Have been to meetings like this.
Remember the Lord Jesus in his death.
Leaked outwardly on Lord's Day morning.
And he turned his back on those things.
And on his family relationships.
When 1000 miles away and more started a new light.
He thought a new life.
Someone saw him.
In a grocery store, not even to speak to.
They said.
It was the most miserable looking face.
Anybody I've ever seen.
This man came he.
He said I'm going to be the Lord told him. He said, you know the ground is not going to yield its strength to you anymore.
Cain wanted to get his enjoyment of life, as it were, from the fruit of his own laborers from the ground.
And in this present life, Jehovah said to him, Cain, it's not going to give it strength for you anymore.
You're a young person, you can't trifle with God.
You may make choices, yes, but you can't trifle with God.
And I say to you, the ground is not going to yield its strength. That is whatever basis you form in this light as the ground on which you are going to find your happiness and pleasure, if you who know the way of God, leave it.
00:25:10
You will not.
Be blessed in your life and you will find.
That the ground will not yield. You know another sad thing about this man? He was a fugitive.
He was a wanderer.
He was somebody who spent the rest of his life searching.
And never found.
Searching, searching. Going from this thing to that thing to the other thing. Seeking something that would give some measure of satisfaction to the soul.
You cannot, you must not turn your back.
And expect that you are going to accomplish.
That which satisfies.
You know too much.
You have been exposed to the love of God.
And if you sit in your seat, hardening your heart.
Saying in a few years I'll be on my own.
And then and then.
It didn't going to work.
God is not going to allow it to work for you.
You may see somebody else, but I say to you solemnly and before the eye of God, if you do as Cain did.
And go out from the presence of the Lord. It's not going to work for you.
God cares for your soul.
God would speak to you tonight in love and concern and say to you, don't go.
Don't go.
You need a change.
You know when Cain talks to the Lord here.
He says to the Lord.
In verse 14 he says a number of things to the Lord, some of which are true and some of which are not.
Some of the things that he says the Lord has said to him, and they're true.
He said in verse 14, I shall be a fugitive in a Vagabond. That was true. God had said it.
But he also said, And from thy face shall I be hid?
God did not say that.
God told him that there was an opportunity for him.
God was not driving him from his presence.
God was offering to have to do with Him now in His life as He found it. And I say to you tonight, God is here tonight to deal with you as you are tonight, no matter what has happened up to this point in your life, no matter what's hidden there but others don't know about. God is here tonight to deal with you in love as you are, not to hide His face from you.
You know, it says. And to me, I'm struck with a number of examples of these people, it says.
As it says of Cain, he went out.
You know what God's word to you tonight is?
Come.
Come, Lord, Jesus says to you tonight, come.
Come unto me.
That's the heart of God for you tonight. And yet with Cain, you're like Cain. Perhaps, Cain also says in that 14th verse.
And it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall flay me.
You know, we judge other people by what's in our own heart.
And up to this point, there wasn't a single other person on the face of the earth that had ever done what King did. That is murder.
And yet, because Cain, in his own heart, had become a murderer, he judged everybody else that way. And he says, you know, everybody that sees me, they're going to slay me.
And if you stand here tonight or sit in your seat and you're in your sins, I say to you.
You have wrong thoughts about God.
And you have wrong thoughts about yourself.
00:30:02
That's what the word repentance really is all about tonight. You need to change. You need a change in your thoughts about God and in your thoughts about yourself. You need to recognize tonight that God loves you, that He personally cares about you as an individual.
And that the Lord Jesus.
Personally died for you.
It's one thing to say that he died for all men, and that's absolutely true, but I want you tonight to think about it as regards yourself.
And recognize that God's thought toward you are good and loving.
And if your thoughts of God are different than that, you need to change them.
If you say in your heart God doesn't care about me, you've got wrong thoughts about God.
If you say in your heart tonight, I don't care.
What God thinks you have wrong Thoughts?
If you say I don't need to be saved, I've got wrong thoughts about yourself.
You are.
A Sinner. You're like pain.
What are you going to do about it?
What are you going to do about it?
Are you going to sit in your chair and harden your heart and say pretty soon I get to go my way?
And in the meantime, be angry in your soul.
Why not tonight?
Why not tonight? Tonight's the night for you.
To get right with God.
Don't be like Cain. Terrible solemn example.
As it says of him.
Verse 16 Cain went out.
The presence of the Lord.
And the record would seem to show to us that he stayed there the rest of his life.
And went into an awful eternity.
God didn't drive him out.
He went out, he made that choice.
To the awful loss of his soul.
I'll turn briefly over to Luke Gospel chapter 15.
Luke, chapter 15.
Verse 11 And a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me.
And his father gives him in verse 13. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country.
And there are ways to do substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all their roles of mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in one.
And verse 17. And when he came to himself, he said.
How many hired servants of my father's have bred enough and despair, and I perish?
With hunger I will arise, and go to my Father, and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.
We saw him less than here. He won't consider this young man in much detail, but just to look at a couple of things that may relate to you in your life.
One of them is you can't enjoy.
Sin in the presence of those who don't want it.
And many a young person who rejects the love of God.
And the word of God in their life.
Has to, as it were, be like this young man and say I've got to get away.
And if that's what's in your heart tonight, please listen to the story of this young man.
For the blessing of your soul. God gives us these accounts so that we can learn from them and not have to experience the same things in our own lives. But here's this young man, and he wanted.
00:35:06
What his Father gave him and we can apply it to you tonight and say God has given to you.
Life a measure of health.
A certain amount of intelligence and capacity. God has given that to you as a loving Father.
What are you going to do with it?
Are you going to say as it were given me, I want it for myself. Remember what was said this afternoon? We are here. We are created.
For the pleasure of God.
Are we going to take the things that God has entrusted to us from Himself?
And as it were, say, no, it's not to be used for God and his pleasure for me. That's what this young man said, it's for me. And so he wanted to take from his father and use it, but he couldn't use it. You can't imagine, can you, that he would go next door and start a farm? No, Sir.
That wouldn't suit his desires. He was getting out of there. He was going where he could please himself without the eye of his father upon him.
And when we want to do that which we know is not pleasing in the sight of the Lord and in the sight of those who love Him, then our desire is to get out of that presence, to be free, if we can, in our conscience or our thoughts at least, from that influence that we reject.
And so this young man did. But I want to present him to you.
Because in one way, it's a wonderful thing to think.
That God didn't let him go.
He went right along with them, as it were his eye upon him, and he produced circumstances in his life that brought him to the point where the young man says I perish.
All God loved you.
And I trust that it won't have to be this way in your life, that you will have to be brought to the point.
Where you, as it were, waste.
All that God has given to you until it's all gone, and when you have nothing more to give than the friends are gone to.
Girl said to me the other night.
Named Bridget.
Comes from a home, she said. She said, you know, the greatest gift I have in this life are parents that love me and care for me.
But she said, you know my friend that I grew up with.
They got into drugs, they got into drinking and I got into it with them. You know, I wanted to go on with my friends. They'd been my friends all my life.
But she said, you know, tonight I'm here.
He's going to go to bed that night in the room.
Wall.
Cell door.
I'm here and she said they're out there.
And she said not only that, but.
You know, it was easier to start.
Than it is to stop.
Easier to start.
The path of sin than it is to stop.
It gained the control over the life.
So even we ourselves are aware.
That we are at it. Suspend we all are if we don't know the Lord Jesus.
But we're not always aware of it.
Solemn thing to come to the point where we have to say I perish with hunger.
And yet a wonderful thing that it says he came to the end of himself.
Give up tonight.
Give up.
Come to the end of yourself.
And turn around. Turn around.
And you'll find the Lord Jesus right there.
Became the Sikh.
And is saved. That was his life. And so the Lord Jesus has come to you tonight and he's right there. Turn around.
And let him hear his voice say to you tonight, come unto me, let him embrace you in the arms of love, as Savior is the one who died for you.
00:40:08
To remove your sins from the sight of God.
Just notice in passing.
That it's related, but it relates to what was said last night in the Gospel in John Chapter 9.
No, no.
It's not the verse I want Doug the woman taking an adultery.
John chapter 8. Turn to John chapter 8.
I'm not going to take this back up again, but I just want to notice one point here.
And this story of this woman that was before us last night and the Lord Jesus speak suits on the ground and then in verse nine and when?
And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even under the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Is that all important things, perhaps to notice that here with a crowd of people?
In the presence of the Lord Jesus.
And when the Lord Jesus spoke in such a way that their consciences were reached.
It says they went out 1 by 1.
From his presence.
Tonight, if God is speaking to your soul, don't go out those doors as they did 1 by 1.
With their consciences stirred.
Stay in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
This one woman.
Whose conscience was reached without a doubt.
Stood there while they all went out.
Sin was open.
You know, when they went out, in many cases, perhaps it was to continue to hide.
The sin in their lives of which they were convicted.
By being in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
If the Lord Jesus speaks to you tonight and convicts you of the sin that is in your life, don't go out of His presence.
Don't be like these people, they went out from the presence of the Lord 1 by 1 and left that one precious to the Lord Jesus soul to stay there and she got the blessing that day.
Oh, what relief.
What joy through her heart and conscience there was she too could go that day to her home.
At peace and enjoy, and in a knowledge that all was well between her soul and the Lord.
Now turn with me over to.
John 17.
John 13.
John's Gospel, chapter 13.
John 13 and verse.
21.
When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
Then the disciples looked on one another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus bosom, one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
He then lying on Jesus breath, said unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He, it is to whom I shall give us up when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped us up, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the slob Satan entered into him, then said Jesus unto him, That thou what that thou doest do quickly Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him.
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For some of them thought because Judas had the bag that Jesus had said to him by those things that we have need of against the feast.
Or that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the stop, went immediately out.
And it was night.
Is the Spirit.
Of Judith.
Present in this room tonight.
Do you have?
Solemn, solemn thought. But do you have tonight young person or older one?
The same spirit that Judas had.
Consider this young man.
He spent three years and more.
In the daily presence of the Lord Jesus.
He was exposed to all the love that's in the heart of God.
And in his case, perfectly so, without any spots or wrinkles or weakness that might be seen in other in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
He had a perfect expression of God's heart given to him and day by day for three years and 1/2 or so through this company with the Lord Jesus.
And here.
Right at the very end of the relationship between Judas and the Lord.
Lord, the stop was something that's given, that's in such occasions as a measure or expression of favor.
And here Jesus gives special expression of favor.
To this man, Judas.
And Judas.
Had in his heart.
Something else?
Judas was for Judas.
In his heart there was something that was more important to him in the Lord Jesus. In his case it was money. I don't know what it is in your life.
It is just fun.
But nonetheless, Judas lived to please himself.
And he did so in the face of the love of the Lord Jesus for his soul.
And he comes to this way and.
Says and he went out immediately.
And it was nice.
If you go out.
In the presence of the Lord.
It's going to be nice for your soul.
And for Judas, he went out into eternal night.
Forever.
What a example tonight.
For everybody in this room.
What an awful thing.
To have the love of the Lord Jesus.
Showered upon you to have the opportunity that the people of this room have been given in contrast to many.
Not had such opportunity, who have not had such love expressed to them from God's heart in the same open way that you have. And yet here this this young man.
Still in the prime of his life.
He goes out.
And God says of him, as it were, it was night.
Out into the darkness.
And I think of one other solemn thing about Judas.
The last public act of Judas with respect to the Lord Jesus.
Was to go up to him.
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And embrace them.
With kisses.
Not a problem thing.
A liar to the end.
I have spoken much of going out.
But I say to you tonight, you must be real with God.
You might stay outwardly.
But don't be like Judith.
Here he was, a man that went right up into the presence of the Lord Jesus, as it were, and he embraced him, and he covers them with kisses.
But it wasn't real.
It was not real.
This night in the soul of Judith.
Turn with me.
But one last verse.
In John chapter 6.
John chapter 6 and verse 30.
7.
We'll read verse 36.
Verse 35. I guess we'll read the three verses. John 635 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I say unto you, that ye also have seen me, and believe not all that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
You're a young person. The Lord Jesus is here tonight in spirit.
Right there with you. And he says to you, come now.
I will not cast you out.
I will not ask you out.
I don't even want to think about, you know, there's coming a time if we go out from the presence of the Lord.
If we refuse the one whose hands are outstretched, hands that are pierced.
A side that has shed his precious blood that cleanses from all sins stretched out to you tonight.
To refuse that.
Is to make certain that the time will come.
When it will have to be said.
And you?
Were cast.
Into the Lake of Fire.
You were cast.
Into the lake of fire. Now is the time in God's arms, and love is extended to you in grace and mercy and love, with arms outstretched. He says to you tonight I will not cast you out.
For God's Pleasure and Purpose
Gos.
Y.P. Sing
I Don't Have Time for That