Detroit Conference: 1960
Table of Contents
Ephesians 1 - 1st Reading
Ephesians 1 - 2nd Reading
Joy & Happiness
YP Address—C.D. Andersen
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I'm sure it's the desire.
Of everyone to be happy.
We all want happiness.
It would be a strange person that would not be seeking happiness.
We know how the world is seeking happiness.
Trying to find happiness in the things of the world, the places of the world, the material things of Earth.
But they are not really happy. They think they are happy.
Perhaps there's a temporary pleasure in going on with the things of this scene, trying to get hold of as much of this world's goods as they can.
But it's fleeting, fleeting pleasure. It's not abiding happiness.
What we want is abiding lasting happiness.
And I believe everyone in this room is seeking to be happy.
We might ask ourselves a question. Are we really happy?
Are we rejoicing? Is there joy in our hearts?
Well, it's true that we're seeking happiness.
But what about God's side of it? Does he want us to be happy?
With that in mind, we might turn to John's Gospel, the 15th chapter.
We'll find there believe.
And it's the Lord's desire that we should be happy, we should rejoice.
John 15.
Verse 11.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
Would that tell us that the Lord wants us to be happy? He wants us to have joy?
I believe it would. I believe it's plague that the Lord wants us to rejoice.
And he tells us here that he has told us these things.
That our joy might remain and that our joy might be full.
Not just a pleading joy.
But a joy that remains.
Not only a little bit of joy, but fullness of joy. That's what the Lord wants for.
Sometimes we get into a state of soul.
Where we feel that the Lord isn't doing the very best He can for us.
The Lord isn't treating us right.
We are not really happy, we are not satisfied.
Well, it's surely not the Lord's fault. He wants us to be happy.
We are not really happy.
Let's examine ourselves. Let's judge ourselves.
Let's find out where the difficulty is.
We notice here that there are several things the Lord mentions in connection with this. He speaks of these things.
Have I spoken unto you? What things?
I read in verse 7, if you abide in me, that's one thing, and my words abide in you, that's another thing.
Then in verse 10 says, if you keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.
So first of all, it speaks of abiding in the Lord that is being attached to him.
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Personally attached to him that I don't believe that means the matter being saved, but it means having an attachment for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Leaving to him with purpose of heart.
That's what the Lord tells us to do.
And my words abide in you. We have a respect for the word of God, if that's the case.
That's one of the elements.
Makes for happiness.
Having a desire for the word, a great respect, reverence for the Word, obedience to the Word.
Letting the word.
The words of the Lord abide in US.
And then abiding in his love.
In the ninth verse we're told as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love, not continue in your love.
My love, your love is often cold.
We get away from the law, we get out of communion with him, and we feel a coldness in our hearts.
But if we continue in his love, thinking of his love.
Meditating on his.
That will warm our hearts.
Abide in my love, he said.
Abide in my love. Stay in the sunshine of his love. Walk on the Sunnyside.
Of the way of life.
If we want to get warm on a cold day.
We try to get into the sunshine.
I think we've all had that experience if we're walking down the street on a cold day.
We'd rather walk on the Sunnyside of the street than on the shady side.
We find ourselves doing that automatically, trying to get into the sunshine.
All that we might seek grace to get into the sunshine.
Of the Lord's love for us.
That will warm our hearts.
Now, John doesn't mention this only in the Gospel, but he mentions it over in his epistle.
About Joy first John one.
I John.
1.
Verse 4.
And these things right, we unto you that your joy may be full.
John had a great desire for the children of God, that they might have fulls of joy.
Speaks of it in his Gospel. He speaks of it in the Epistle.
Well, now it is not only John speaking, it's the Holy Spirit of God speaking through John.
So these words come right from the very heart of God himself.
The Lord was speaking it in John's Gospel, but here is the Spirit of God speaking.
Through the apostle.
Is it plain to us that God wants us to be happy?
Surely it is. His word proves it to him.
These things right, we unto you that your joy may be full.
We read about another one, the Apostle Paul.
He had joined the Lord. We might look at Philippians.
Philippians chapter 3.
And by the way, in the official to the Philippians we find joy mentioned many times.
It's a nice little meditation to go through.
That epistle and look up.
Trace all the times that the word joy or rejoice is used here.
If this is to the Philippians, gives us the normal Christian life.
And a normal Christian life is a happy life.
So oftentimes when the gospel is preached, the souls are urged to accept Christ as savior. They hesitate because they feel well. If I become a Christian, I'll lose all my pleasure, won't have any joy anymore.
I'll have to go around with a long face.
That's not true.
The Christian life is a happy life.
How could we be anything but happy when we know, as we heard this morning, of the various things we have in the Lord Jesus Christ?
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We have the redemption, the forgiveness of our sin. We're on our way to glory. We have a home there.
We have a blessed.
Future before us, being with the Lord Jesus Christ.
For the present we have all blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, and soon we are going to be with himself.
Always should be the happiest people on earth.
And if our life is a normal Christian life, it is a happy life.
Here in chapter 3 of Philippians, Paul says finally my brethren.
Rejoice in the law.
Rejoice in the law.
Is there anything else that we can really rejoice in?
Oh, I suppose we could think of something.
We rejoice in our.
In our loved ones, in our families, in our Christian Fellowship, Fellowship, in the Assembly.
But when it comes to the things of this world, is there anything in this world that?
Belongs to this world in which we can truly rejoice.
If we are honest with ourselves, we will say no, there isn't anything here that gives happiness.
There is nothing here that can rejoice, really rejoice one's heart.
But we can rejoice in the law.
Sometimes.
Our friends disappointed. Our loved ones disappointed.
As we had in the meetings.
In many things, we all offend.
We're all crooked sticks.
And you are disappointed in me and I become disappointed in you.
And so on.
But all we can never be disappointed in the law.
And we can always rejoice in him.
Rejoice in the Lord, he says.
Then he goes on to say, To write the same things to you, to me indeed, is not grievous, but for you to say.
And verse 3. For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit.
And rejoice in Christ Jesus. I believe that word rejoices a little different from the other one. It means boast in Christ Jesus. It has that element in it.
Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
Are we rejoicing? Boasting in Christ Jesus?
Over in the first chapter of Philippians in verse 21, Paul says.
For to me, to live is Christ.
For to me, to live is Christ.
Not anything else, Paul. No, not anything else. For me to live is Christ.
Not money, Paul. No, not money.
Not houses and landfall. No, not houses and land.
Not anything else, Paul. No. To me, to live is price.
Can we say that honestly? Can we say that from our heart to me, to live is Christ?
If we can get to that point where we can truly say that.
And we really mean.
We will be happy.
And we'll be able to say that we rejoice in the law. There's where our happiness is.
That is why the Apostle could say rejoice in the law.
Because he had no other object.
No one else.
You're satisfied with Christ. Was satisfied.
I notice another verse here in the second chapter, verse 21.
He says for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ. What a difference.
Paul says in the 21St verse of the first chapter. To me, to live is Christ.
Then in the 21St verse of the next chapter, he says.
All seek their own.
Not the things which are Jesus Christ. What a contrast.
Do you suppose those people were happy who were seeking their own?
They couldn't be.
They weren't seeking the source of happiness. The source of joy and happiness is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But what were they seeking? They were seeking their own, their own thing.
Occupied with their own thing.
Not the things which are the Lord.
Now a verse over in Galatians.
That gives us a little more of what the apostle.
Was telling us.
The Galatians were in a bad state.
They were giving up Christ.
Going back to the law.
It was not Christ only with them now, it was Christ and.
The Law, Christ and good works Christ and keeping the Law.
And we gather that the Galatians were in a bad state of soul. They weren't happy.
There must have been some reason why the apostle had to write as he did.
In the 5th chapter, verse 15. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
Were they in a happy state?
I would gather that they were not, and why they were leaving Christ.
And going back to the weakened beggarly element.
A lot of loss for these Galatians.
Paul says in verse 19 of the 4th chapter.
My little children.
Of whom I travel in birth again.
Until Christ be formed in you.
Oh, he says. I would. That Christ were filling your heart.
That he were the sole object of your hearts affections.
I travel, he says in birth again.
Oh, the apostle had gone through.
Anguish and exercise of soul for these dear people in Galatia that they might, when they heard the gospel, take the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.
And find their salvation in him.
Well, they had. They had rejoiced in the Lord Jesus.
Why they have been happy.
When first they received Christ as their Savior.
But now that happiness was God.
And he says, I am in deep exercise again for you that Christ.
May be formed in you.
I wonder what the Apostle Paul would say to us today.
I believe he is saying the very same thing because this word is for us. It wasn't only for the Galatians.
Is for us too.
The Word of God.
Is for us, all of us, and the Spirit of God is speaking to us today.
We are called little children. Yes, we are God's children. We are speaking to young people, especially this afternoon, Christian young people. And you are children of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You're the one.
The Spirit of God is addressing.
And he says I travel in birth.
Until Christ performed in you.
That's not that you might get saved.
But that Christ might have a place in your heart, that your affections might be 1.
I believe it's true that oftentimes when a soul is saved, the heart is one at the same time and there's a going on for the Lord from that time.
But then in other cases it seems that after soul is saved.
He goes on for a while, but he doesn't have real joy in the Lord. His heart isn't one.
And that soul is apartment to get mixed up with all kinds of things and get into difficulties and walk carelessly.
Not walk pleasing to the law.
And such. And one doesn't have joy, real happiness.
What does God want for us?
He wants our hearts to be won.
We might go back to Philippians.
And notice further in that third chapter, then of Philippians, what the apostle has to say about the heart being one.
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Philippians chapter 3.
Now he tells us something that he has given up, and he tells us why he has given them up.
It wasn't that somebody laid down a law for him and said, Now you have to give up this, now you must give up that, you mustn't do the other thing. Oh, no, it wasn't that at all. But look, verse four of Philippians. 3 he says, though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh I more.
Circumcised the 8th day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin and Hebrew of the Hebrews.
As touching the law of Pharisee.
These things were true, Paul. This is what he had as a man, as a good Jew.
Concerning the EU, persecuting the Church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless, or he had some things he could boast of as a good Jew.
And one wouldn't find any bulk with these things. The Seal was all right.
But it led him to persecute the church. It showed what a zeal he had.
He regretted persecuting the church.
But what about these things?
He gave them up.
But what things were gained to me? Those I counted lost for Christ. They were gained to him. It was an advantage to him.
To be of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin and Hebrew of the Hebrews, that was an advantage to him.
But he gave it all up.
When he found Christ or when Christ found him.
What things were gained to me? Those I counted Loss.
For Christ.
Something he did.
No doubt when he was first saved, he says. I am giving it all up for Christ. I found a truer game, the one that appeared to him on the road to Damascus.
That light of that glory of that one he saw on the road to Damascus.
Oh, what a vision, what a revelation he had of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, I count all these things long. That's something he had done, yeah, doubtless, he says. And I count all things.
Lost for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Now he doesn't put it in the past tense anymore, but he puts it in the present tense. I count all things.
First, he speaks of the things that were gained to him.
All things aren't included in that. But he gave up those things for Christ now, he says. In the present, the present moment, I count all things long.
For the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.
Not just that he started out well with the Lord, but he continued on.
All how important it is to continue on with the Lord.
For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them.
Now he seems to emphasize it and do count them.
But done.
Refuse.
That I may win Christ or have Christ for my gain.
Yes, his heart was one.
Christ had found a place in his heart.
And when Christ found a place there and filled that heart, all of these things went out.
God didn't say. Now you give up this. You give up the other thing. No. When Christ was filling the heart, they just, we might say, automatically left. They dropped off.
All that's what's needed, that's what's needed in your heart. And that's what's needed in my heart. For Christ is so Philip that all of these things, all things drop off and we look at them as refuge in mountain.
How we were reading in in Galatians.
About how the apostle was prevailing in birth until Christ be formed in them.
We might notice a couple more verses in that 4th chapter of Galatians.
We find there that the Apostle Paul is Speaking of Abraham.
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And Isaac and Ishmael.
And he sets these forth by way of an allegory or figure.
I am not going to go into the full meaning.
Of Isaac and Ishmael here.
But we notice in verses 22 and 23 something I believe that would be profitable for us.
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond made, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.
Now it's plain to us, for the Spirit of God is Speaking of Ishmael and Isaac.
Ishmael is the one that was born after the flesh.
Isaac is the one that was born by promise.
Ishmael speaks of a natural man.
Isaac speaks.
Of the Newman Isaac is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we have brought before us here.
The natural man.
I am the spiritual man.
Then over in.
Verse 29 it says but as then he that was born after the flesh.
Persecuted him that was born after the Spirit. Even so it is now.
Now get To get more of that story, we'd have to go back into the Old Testament.
And it might be well to go back.
And see what the Lord has to tell us back in Genesis.
Genesis Chapter 21.
Genesis Chapter 21.
And the Lord visited Sarah.
As he had said and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken, for Sarah conceived and bear Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him whom Sarah bear to him Isaac.
And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old as God had commanded him. Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born under him.
Now the birth of Isaac was a miracle.
When Isaac came into this scene.
It was an miraculous thing.
Abraham's body was dead. Sarah's body was dead, naturally impossible for them to have a child.
But still, they did.
In that way, Isaac is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ was a miracle.
And then pursuing it a little further.
When you and I were born of God.
We became children of God. That was a miracle.
Oh, what a miracle.
Because we were dead in trespasses and see.
And we couldn't make one movement toward God. We couldn't do one thing.
To change our hearts.
We couldn't save ourselves. We couldn't produce a new life within us, if possible.
No matter how much we might try to patch up the old life, we couldn't produce a new life. We couldn't get eternal life that way.
Here we find.
That the only way.
That Abraham and Sarah could have a son.
By promise, according to the Spirit, was for God to work a miracle. It wasn't patching up for fixing up issue. No, it wasn't that at all. It was bringing in a new person altogether.
And so when a soul is saved, it's not patching up the old.
It's not putting off this thing, or turning over a new leaf or putting off the other thing.
Trying to change the life in any way in man's strength? No.
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The only salvation for us, the only way we can be saved, is by bringing in a new life.
And that life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, I trust most everyone in this room this afternoon is the Lord.
That you have been born again, That that miracle has happened in your life.
That a new person has come in, a new life has come in.
Well, a new life.
Came into the household of Abraham.
Now we have two boys there. We have Ishmael, we have Isaac. What's going to happen?
And Sarah said.
God hath made me to laugh, so that all that here will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said to Abraham the Sarah should have given children supper? I born him a son in his old age.
And the child grew, and was we? And Abraham made a great feast, the same day that Isaac was we. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which he had born unto Abraham, mocking.
Wherefore she said Unto Abraham passed out this bond woman and her son. For the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight, because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight, because of the land, and because of thy bondwoman. And all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice, For in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
There came a time.
When Ishmael realized.
That here was another person that had come in to the household.
And Ishmael already was eyeing him.
And.
No doubt he had a sense of what was going to take place.
In a previous chapter.
Abraham had given expression to what was in his heart as connected with Ishmael over in chapter 17.
God was telling Abraham that he was going to have a son.
That was going to be.
The air.
But in verse 18 of chapter 17 Abraham said unto God all that Ishmael might live.
Before him all that Ishmael might live before thee.
Applying that to ourselves.
Have we ever felt or said anything like that? Remember, Ishmael speaks of the old nature, the old light.
Have we ever had a secret desire in our hearts?
That God would allow us to cherish, to nourish.
The old nature.
Allow us to pamper the old fleshly nature that we have.
Have we ever thought that, oh, that God would just allow me to have this? Or you would allow me to have that?
When we seek after those things that the old fleshly nature wants.
We get a bad conscience about it, and perhaps we would.
We would secretly desire that God might, as it were, give us a dispensation to do that which the old flesh wants.
Do we really go that far and say, oh, that Ishmael might live before thee?
What happened?
To the antitype of Ishmael. What happened to the old flag?
Paul says I have been crucified with Christ.
The old eye has been crucified with Christ. What place is there?
For the old sinful eye anymore, no place anymore.
And put on the cross.
I have been crucified with Christ, Paul says. Nevertheless, I live. Oh, how does he live?
Well, there's a Newman that has come in.
Christ has come into his life.
But the day of weaning comes for Isaac.
And a great feast is made. But it's that very day that a crisis takes place.
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Isaac is acknowledged as the heir, it would seem, that day.
He is given a place in the household.
That he didn't have before something is acknowledged here this day.
And the son of Hagar, Ethan was mocking.
He is not taking it very gladly. It does not please him.
To see Abraham making a feast for Isaac.
Ishmael wants all of the attention.
He wants the preeminent place in the household.
And so he stirs up a fuss.
Has that happened in your life?
The Lord Jesus Christ had come into your life.
Because the old nature like it.
Does that old nature, fleshly nature you have like the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Of course not. If you read more in the book of Galatians, you will find that there is a strife there. The flesh lusts against the Spirit, the Spirit against the flesh. These are contrary, the one to the other, so that you may not do the things that you would Oh thank God that His Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, and Christ lives there in our hearts in the power of the Spirit.
So that there may be victory.
Over the flesh.
No, Ishmael doesn't have to run the house.
Isaac must have that place. He is the heir. He is made the responsible one.
He is the one that has given that place of taking over the household in a coming day.
What about us? Have we given over our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ?
Or are we going to let Ishmael have his way? Do we want the old nature in us to run our lives?
Do we want to be subject to the motions of that, the emotions and emotions of that evil nature?
Or do we want to be subject to the Newman, the Lord Jesus Christ who has come into our hearts?
I believe that's what the apostle was talking about when he was writing to the Galatians.
I travel in birth again until Christ be formed in your heart.
Oh, I am so exercised that Christ might have your hearts, that he might be given that first place in your heart.
Like Paul says to the Colossians that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Colossians were in danger too. Ritualism.
Raising were coming in.
And it was taking them away from Christ. They weren't holding the head.
But all the apostle desired for them that in all things Christ might have the preeminence.
He was the solution. There he was the remedy.
All knew what those Colossians needed. They needed Christ and they needed to give Him the 1St place. He knew what the Galatians needed. They needed Christ, and they needed to give Him the first place.
And he can say from personal experience that if you give the Lord Jesus Christ the 1St place, you're happy.
And all of these other things mean nothing.
So Ishmael is cast out.
Bond the bondwoman and her son, they cast out.
Verse 10 For the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
Can we allow?
The old fleshly nature.
A place with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Would it be right?
To give a little bit of place.
To that fleshly nature.
To yield to it a little bit.
Well, when we think of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that he has done for.
How he left heaven to glory.
Came down into the scene of woe, sin, and sorrow.
When we see him, a man acquainted with grief, man of sorrows, walking through this scene.
How can we say, Well, Lord, it's all right for you to have a place in my life, but there's a little here that I want to keep for myself.
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We might think of our heart as having rooms in it.
Just like a house.
If we give over.
The keys of every room to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will go into every room.
Do we want him in every room of our heart?
Is there a little secret room here?
That we want to keep to ourselves.
Have you given as it were?
The key to every rule.
Of your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you given the Lord Jesus Christ the free run of your heart?
For Isaac it meant here that.
He would have a free run of the house. That was his. He was the acknowledged heir.
Is that what you've done to the law?
Have you acknowledged him as the heir, The one whose right it is we were singing about? That is, it's his right, and he's going to have his rightful sway over this whole scene in a coming day. And even those who have rejected him, they will have to come in their time and bow before the Lord Jesus Christ.
And acknowledge that he is Lord.
For those who die in their sins.
And I have to appear before him to bow before him. It will be eternally too late.
But every knee must stop.
Well, what a privilege it is to bow now.
To own him long that he has.
Right to our lives.
We're not our own anymore. We're bought with a price.
That's what the Apostle tells you. We're not our own. We're bought with a price. Think of it.
The price of the Precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a price He paid for.
Doesn't he have a right to us? He has a right to every inch of a.
He has a right to, we might say, every cell of it.
Glorify therefore, God in your body.
Glorify therefore, God in your life.
Think of the Lord Jesus Christ has come to dwell in our hearts.
It pleased him to come and take up his dwelling place in US.
Shouldn't we yield to him, say?
Take me.
Music. Do with me what you want.
Isn't he worthy?
He's done all things well and if we would give the Lord Jesus Christ.
The whole run of our homes.
We'd be happy.
Oh, that's the secret of happiness, having him filled and satisfied the heart.
It says in.
Verse 11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight.
Perhaps you are going through a struggle, going through much exercise of harm in this matter of yielding to the law.
And letting him have your whole heart.
You are going through a deep struggle.
We go through exercise of heart in coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
But I believe there is also exercise of heart in the matter of making him the Lord of our lives.
Owning his Lordship.
We own him as savior.
Have we owned him as law?
Lord was grievance in Abraham's sight. It was a deep matter of exercise to him.
God said unto Abram, Let it not be grievous in thy sight.
What Sarah has said.
And so he did.
Have you done what the Lord has told you? He wants a place in your heart and life.
He wants to be your law. He wants you to be happy.
Over in Jeremiah.
The second chapter.
Read what Israel did.
Verse 13.
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Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 13.
Jeremiah was a prophet when things were in ruin in Israel.
And he tells us here what Israel had done.
For my people have committed 2 evils.
What was the first one they have forsaken me?
The mountain of living waters.
They have forsaken me.
They didn't make the Lord their all. They weren't subject to the law.
They didn't find their delight in him.
What was the other evil then that they committed and hewed them out? Cisterns. Broken cisterns that can hold no water?
They forsook the Lord.
Well, when they forsook the Lord, they had nothing to satisfy them. They had nothing to fill their hearts.
They had nothing to make them happy. They were miserable.
And they were constituted in such a way that.
They couldn't remain that way. They must have something to fill the heart. So what did they do? They hewed them out. Cisterns, broken cistern.
But the assistant couldn't hold any water of joy for them.
They were seeking for other means of happiness, but they couldn't find it.
Tells us in the 18th verse.
And now, what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt to drink the waters of Sihor?
Or what hast thou to do in the way of a Syrian to drink the waters of the river?
They were going to Egypt. They were going to Assyria.
And they were seeking.
The joys of those places, the pleasures that they thought that could be found there.
But what happened? Some were taken captive to Assyria.
Were they happy there? No. Some were taken captive to Babylon. Were they happy there? And then there were others that went down into Egypt. Were they happy there?
No.
Egypt speaks of the world.
The world in nature.
If a Christian seeks his happiness in the world of nature, is he going to find it?
In the things that appeal to the flesh.
Going to find his happiness there.
Well, what about Assyria?
A series speaks of a world in pride and it's pomp and glory having a place in this world.
Perhaps some are seeking about a place in this world, a place in business.
Is that going to make you happy?
Call home.
Those are the broken cisterns. Those are the cisterns. They were hewing out for them sound.
Trying to find satisfaction in these things.
How do you do? They didn't find it. They found only sorrow.
And to this day, the nation of Israel is scattered.
And they won't have any joy until that coming day when they acknowledge their mistake and he gathers them around himself.
And they have again found the one.
That they forsook. They can't have any joy until then.
And you and I won't have any real joy until the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is the center of our lives.
The central object of our hearts, affection.
When our eyes are fixed upon him.
Oh, that's what we need.
Is to have Christ.
Filling and satisfying our hearts. And he can.
All we have the testimony from the Apostle Paul that he abundantly satisfied.
He didn't need all of these things. He had Christ, and that was enough.
And.
Others testify to that fact too, that Christ can satisfy.
Was John satisfied? Oh, yes, he was satisfied with Christ, the disciple whom Jesus loved and he reveled in, and he speaks much of that love.
How about Peter failing Peter?
Our Christ is the center of his life.
He's the supreme object.
Of his heart's effect. And he delights in the Lord Jesus, and he speaks of him as a precious one unto you which believe he is precious.
Is he precious to you? Is he precious to me?
Oh, that's what we need in these days, in these days of ruin.
Things are going to pieces around us. There is failure on every hand.
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Perhaps the meeting where you come from is just a little meeting. There are only a few gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And perhaps you have had thoughts like this. Well, there is not much for me in this meeting.
There's not much for me here and I've even heard some give advice to young people and say, well, don't go to such and such a meeting. There's nothing for young people there. I believe it's a mistake.
Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them. Isn't the Lord there in the midst of that little company?
If the Lord is there, there is surely something for young people.
There's something for you and me, if the Lord is there.
That means everything but the largest name or there may not be any gift.
Maybe there is no one who can do any teaching.
Perhaps there's not much ability.
To do anything, perhaps you might think even the prayers are weak and stumbling.
Don't look at those things. Christ is there. That is the important thing. Christ is there.
In the end of Ezekiel, the last words you get, the Lord is there.
The Lord is there. That is all important thing. That should have been the important thing for Israel.
It will be the important thing in the coming day after the temple is rebuilt.
That won't be the glorious temple, but it will be that the Lord is there. That's what makes everything lovely, and that's what makes for happiness. The Lord is there.
And the Lord is in the midst of those gathered to His name, and that's what makes it an attractive place.
For you and me.
All that it might be so more and more that Christ might.
Attractive, and our hearts might be 1 to him, that we might find our whole satisfaction in him.
He can feel and satisfy the heart.
Have you tried?
All taste and see that the Lord is look, good, blessed or happy is the man that trusted in him.
Have you tasted the scene that the Lord is good?
Taste it, He occupied with it. Let him feel and satisfy your heart.
And you have found the secret of happiness. Rejoice in the Lord, My Paul says Rejoice in the Lord. Don't try to rejoice in anything else.
It'll failure, but rejoice in the law. He'll never fail. He'll never disappoint you.
He won't. He won't disappoint you.
May God help us to find in Him our All in all.
Lessons from the Life of Solomon
Address—P. Wilson
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General Meetings, Detroit, November 1960 Addressed by Paul Wilson.
This meeting.
As I understand it is to especially for young believers.
And it's a happy privilege to address.
A company of young believers.
And it is my hope.
Has been my prayer.
That it may not only be something that will encourage the young believer to A.
Renewed devotion to Christ.
For a moment.
Or for a month.
But something that will.
Help to guide him.
In the rest of the journey.
We do not know how long the journey may last.
But we are passing through an enemy's land.
And young people, young believers, I hope you never lose the sense in your soul.
That this world is opposed to your Christ, to your Lord and Savior.
He was here once.
And they judged him to merit only the cross.
They spit in his face. They cried away with him.
And cast him out.
And the world has never repented of its deed.
And the world today is opposed to you.
When you seek to live for Christ.
And Satan is a God of this world as well as its Prince.
And he will seek to draw your heart away.
He cannot if you are saved.
Keep you from getting to glory at the end of the journey.
But he will seek to entice you into a path that will bring on sorrow in your life.
And dishonor to the Lord.
Now first this afternoon.
I might say this.
That I want to draw some lessons.
For us all.
The older ones of us as well as the younger.
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From the life of King Solomon.
For that, let us turn to 1St Kings.
3rd chapter.
I. Kings 3.
We might read the last clause of Chapter 2.
And the Kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.
Third verse of the next chapter.
And Solomon loved the Lord.
Walking in the statutes of David his father.
Only he sacrificed and burned incense in high places.
5th verse.
In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night.
And said.
Ask what I shall give thee.
And Solomon said, Thou hast showed unto thy servant David my father, great mercy.
According as he walked before thee in truth and in righteousness.
And in uprightness of heart with thee.
And thou hast kept for him this great kindness.
That thou has given him a son to sit on his throne.
As it is, not as it is this day.
And now, O Lord, my God.
Thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father.
And I am but a little child.
I know not how to go out or come in.
And thy servant.
Is in the midst of thy people which thou has chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered, nor counted for multitude.
Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad.
For who is able to judge this by so great a people?
And the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing.
God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing.
And hast not asked for thyself long life.
Neither hast thou asked the life of thine enemies.
Neither hast thou asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but has asked for this for thyself understanding to discern judgment.
Behold, I have done according to thy words.
Though I have given thee a wise and understanding heart.
So that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
And I have also given thee that which thou has not asked.
Both riches and honor.
So that there shall not be among the kings like unto thee.
If all I days.
If thou wilt walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my judgments.
As thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.
That was a beautiful prayer.
It breathed the Spirit of dependence upon God.
It breathes that lack of self-confidence.
That is so becoming to a child of God in this world.
And the thing that Solomon asked. Please, the Lord.
Well, dear young people, you're beginning your Christian pathway.
Suppose the Lord were to come to you tonight.
And say now.
Ask what you will.
What would you like to have while you are down here?
What would your answer be?
You know very often.
Our prayers betray our state of soul.
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What is your aim?
You know everybody.
Everyone, I think, has some sort of a goal.
Something that's before them.
We know as we look around in the world that there are those who have wealth as their goal.
They would sacrifice pretty near anything to attain wealth.
There are others that wealth would not concern.
They would like to have honor and position.
Power.
And then there are others that would just like to have a good time.
And have a lot of pleasure.
Now these things more or less move the world.
And you, you and I are in this world passing through it.
Subject.
To those allurements, then, entice the man of the world.
Now you remember in the 11 of backs.
That when some people got converted.
They sent for Barnabas. Now Barnabas was a wise man.
A good man.
Man whom the Spirit of God commenced.
And Barnabas went there.
And he had some advice for those young believers.
They were not necessarily young in years, but they were young in the faith.
And he exhorted the mall.
That with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.
What is our purpose?
I think of purpose.
Much as a rudder would be to a ship.
That is the thing that guides it and sets it on sets it on its course.
We know that a rudder will not make it go.
It takes more than that.
Rudder might be set.
But without power.
It wouldn't attain the desired goal for Halo.
Purpose, I believe.
Is necessary in the Christian pathway.
It won't give you the strength. You'll need to own your weakness before the Lord and ask him to keep you.
Ask him to help you. The prayer of Solomon is is good.
May the Lord give you dear young Christians.
A real purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord.
We do not know how long this journey is going to last.
The Lord may come.
Today.
And the journey would be over. But if he waits another day.
Are another year.
We know the coming of the Lord is near. Everything points to it in the world.
According to the prophetic scriptures.
But if he waits a little long.
What are what will the next day or the next week or the next year bring in your Christian pathway?
May it be your desire and mind.
And to advance further in the Christian pathway to the glory of God.
May it be your desire in mind to cleave to the Lord with the purpose of heart.
Then we'll be able to say with the poet or worldly pomp and glory.
Your charms are spread in vain. I've heard a sweeter story. I found a truer game. You wouldn't blame the man that had all the gold that he could carry for not taking some pennies if you offered them to him.
What would he want with pennies for? He would have to sacrifice gold to carry your pennies.
I found a truer gay oh, isn't the person of Christ.
The loveliness of Christ enough to win your poor heart and mind away from all it's here. Its pleasures, its wealth, its honor, its power.
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We were speaking this morning in the Bible reading of the time when we're going to reign with Christ.
He's going to reign and subdue all his enemies.
Well, dear young people, isn't that worth having? What glory, what honor has this world?
Compared to that which awaits us.
And to have it all and share it all with Christ, the one whose love has won our hearts.
Some of us were speaking the other day.
About the mistake in asking unbelievers to give their heart to Christ.
They can't give their heart to Christ. The heart is incurably wicked. Would he have it?
Or what I think of the man that they asked him if he had given his heart to Christ. It was just a simple soul. And he said no, but he's stolen.
He took it away.
Well, you can't help but loving him, as one had said to know him, Mr. Loving. Well, if you know the love of Christ, there's bound to be a response in your heart.
Well then we go on. It's a wonderful thing to begin well.
It's still another thing to end well.
You know, there have been many that have started out well in the Christian pathway.
And they stumbled and made miserable failures in the pathway. They didn't end well.
I remember years ago talking with our brother Penfield and Walla Walla.
Where we're speaking about Jacob and about some of his stumblings.
Never forget his comment.
He said, but he ended.
The last we see of Jacob, he is a worshipping dependent man. He worshipped leaning upon the top of his step, two things that had not characterized him in earlier life.
But may I add this dear young Christian, if you want to end with.
The best way to end well is to begin right now.
In purpose of heart to cleave to the Lord.
Oh, there is no time like the present.
To seek to live for Christ, to live all, to do all is to his glory, to live before him.
Oh, if you don't begin well. If you never make a beginning like that, you can't expect to end well.
No, there has to be a beginning.
I'm not speaking now about the beginning when you accept the Lord Jesus as you're saved.
That is paramount that comes first. We all admit that.
But has he won your heart?
So that their one desire is to live to his glory to please him.
Well, if we have that and have the sense of our own weakness, so that we say, Lord, help me, Lord, keep me. And that's a prayer we need constantly, and we never get too old for it either.
The Lord Jesus Christ of that perfect man down here said.
Preserve me, O God, for indeed do I put my trust.
What an attitude. But he was the perfect man.
Well, I want to turn to something else connected with Solomon, However, let's go to Deuteronomy 17.
Deuteronomy 17 and verse 14.
When thou art cometh unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein.
And shall say, I will set a king over me like as all the nations that are about me.
Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose.
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One from among thy brethren, shalt thou set king over thee.
Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not of thy bread, not thy brethren.
Right here I want to boss and inject the word.
This scripture was.
Disobeyed by the Jew.
When the Jews cried out, we have no king but Caesar.
Thou mayest not set a king over thee who is not of thy breath.
They said we have no king but Caesar.
Well, you know what Caesar did to them.
He's Florida.
Now to go back.
16th verse.
But he shall not multiply horses to himself.
Nor caused the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should multiply horses.
For as much as the Lord has said unto you.
Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself.
Then his heart turn not away.
Neither.
Shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his Kingdom.
That he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests, the Levites.
And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein.
All the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God.
To keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them.
That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turned not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left.
To the end that He may prolong his days in the His Kingdom, He and His children in the midst of Israel.
Now, there were specific directions for a king.
Now early in the days of Israel.
They'd only add Saul and David before them. Solomon ascends with Rome.
And he begins well.
But here was a scripture that directly applied to him.
And this Scripture told him three things that he must not do.
And one thing that he must do.
Now we all look upon Solomon as the Acme of wisdom.
We find Solomon in the Proverbs as the teacher.
In Ecclesiastes as the preacher.
Or what wisdom God gave that man. Suppose your brethren say, of you, Well, there's a young brother. That's very wise.
He displays good judgment. Well, that's a thing to be prized.
Not hastiness, not rashness, but calm deliberateness in the fear of God.
Is to be prized.
But let me add this, and this is paramount.
You will have no true wisdom.
Unless you go according to the word of God.
Here is the wisest man that ever lived.
And he had directions how to live, to please God.
He was told what to do and not and what not to do.
Now a man who had good judgment.
Good sound judgment would listen to this book to the word of God.
And the reason I turn to this subject this afternoon is this.
There never was a day like the present when the word of God is despised and said it not.
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And that by many true believers.
They're willing to accept from the book the fact that Christ died for their sins.
Accept him as their savior.
But have no regard to its precepts or direct directions in their lives.
We were speaking yesterday in the Bible reading.
This is a day when every man is doing what is right in his own eyes.
Mark you He's not doing what's wrong in his own eyes, but what's right in his own eyes.
And when he is doing that, his brother Jackson said everything is wrong.
If you and I are going to go through this world to God's glory.
We must, we must take counsel of the word of God.
We must go to it, as 119 Psalm informs us.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his ways?
By taking heed thereto, according to thy word.
We can't say, oh, I'm saved.
The battles over? No There will be 1000 traps set before your feet.
And the only way that you'll discover them is by the reading of the word of God and dependence upon Him. Now, as I said before, I do not want to.
Generate a temporary enthusiasm of young believers to say, oh, I'm going to live for Christ.
But what I want to point out most of all.
Are some principles.
That will guide you as long as the Lord sees fit to lead you, believe you here.
Solomon, the wise man, the wisest man.
Became an absurd fool.
Why? Well, I suppose first he didn't follow the injunction of copying it. He didn't go. He wasn't to go and buy a Bible and put it away.
He was to get that copy of the word of God from the priests.
And he was to copy it out by hand.
Now that may have been a slow and arduous task.
Nevertheless, that is what he was to do.
Think how much more that would be impressed on it.
If he sat down and diligently copied it, word for word all through.
Well, was that enough?
He was to copy it and have it there.
Not merely have the priest copied for it, you might say. Well, a man of his standing, the king.
Surely he could have someone copy it for him? No, he was to do it himself.
It isn't how many books you and I have in our libraries.
That will help us in our pathway.
May we be like the psalmist.
And say thy word, have I hid in my heart, not in my head?
In my heart that I might not sin against thee. What does it mean to hide it in the heart?
That is to have it there with affection.
To have it there is something we value something as a treasure.
Thy word if I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Well, Solomon was to copy it, and he was to get that copy out and he was to read in it.
When? Every Sabbath day.
What does it say?
19 verses that Deuteronomy 17 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life.
Dear Young Believer.
You can't neglect the reading of the word of God without damage to your soul.
I remember Mr. Potter having said.
I'm weary.
And I go to pick up the word of God to read it, and the enemy suggests you're too tired.
00:30:04
But he says I do it anyway.
And pretty soon the weariness is gone.
I am not saying that there may be weariness at times when the body just can't take any more.
But there is a lot of the weariness that is mental, That is, we think we are weary, too much so to read the word of God.
Mr. Potter said that feeding on the word of God is different than any other kind of feeding.
He said if I am hungry and I go and eat a meal.
The more I eat, the less I want.
But the more I read the word of God, the more I want. Have you ever proved it?
Did you ever pick up the word of God? The devil suggested. Well, you're weary. Maybe not. Now put it off. You pick it up and you read it. And the more you read, the more you enjoy it. Why? You found some treasure there that you didn't know was there? And then you say, well, I wonder why I didn't read that before.
Oh, he shall read there in all the days of his life.
I fear there are many Christians.
That think that the Lord's day is sufficient to get spiritual food for the week.
But it won't work that way.
You young parents here, you wouldn't think of feeding your child once a week.
Soon starve and die.
But how about our souls? How about feeding them?
We need to cherish the word of God and read therein all the days of our life.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his ways by taking heed thereto according to thy Word.
Well, what else? What was Solomon not to do now?
And if he'd been reading in this book, if he'd written it out and read in it every day, he couldn't have missed it.
Deuteronomy 17 was there.
Three things he was not to do.
It was not to multiply horses.
Nor greatly multiply silver.
Nor multiply whites.
Now you all understand that God permitted plural marriages in those days, polygamous marriages.
Such a thing would be entirely out of order.
In Christianity.
But he was not to multiply them.
Now let's go back to first Kings.
First Kings in Chapter 4.
Verse 26.
And Solomon had 40,000 stalls for horses for his Chariots and 12,000 horsemen.
And those officers provided vital for King Solomon, and for all that came unto the King Solomon's Table.
Every man in his month they lacked nothing. Barley also in straw for the horses and dromedaries, brought them onto the place where the officers were. Every man according to his charge.
Well, if we would go on and examine it further, we would find that he specifically did that which he was not to do.
He sat down and imported those horses from Egypt.
You can look it up for yourself.
He was not to multiply horses.
You know, in those days they trusted in horses.
A man's strength was as his horses were.
Some trust in horses.
But we will trust in the name of the Lord. Our God is the word that.
Well, did he multiply silver and gold?
00:35:14
Well, in connection with horses, notice the 10th chapter.
26 verse.
First Kings, 1026.
And Solomon gathered together Chariots and horsemen, and he had 1400 Chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he bestowed in the cities for Chariots, and with the king of Jerusalem.
Last verse no 28 verse and Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt and linen yarn, and the King's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. The chariot came up.
And went out of Egypt for 600 shekels of silver, and horse for 150.
See how he disobeyed the word of God?
What do you say? I can't see anything so terribly bad about it. He wasn't denying the Lord there.
No.
But remember, dear young Christian, if we disregard the word of God.
In one point.
And go our own way. We have started on the path of declension.
We're on the way down.
When we go contrary to the word of God.
Now then, in one Kings 10.
20 verse 27.
And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones.
And Cedars made he to be as the Sycamore trees that are in the veil for abundance.
He was not greatly to multiply silver or gold.
Why he made silver to be as the stones and troops?
Well, you may say, well, God allowed him to have all these riches and things that he might.
Test, The vanity of all here as is recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes.
And the preacher there tells us that after having tried it all, that all is banished.
There was one man that God allowed to try everything under the sun, and nothing satisfied the craving of his heart. He wrote over it all. It's all vanity.
Now, do you want to try and prove that it isn't vanity? Do you want to get a little of the world's glory? The little of the world's wealth gets some of the world's pleasure. I can tell you in advance on the authority of the word of God that it won't satisfy you. It's vanity.
Well, you see.
He introduced.
The horses brought them out of Egypt.
I need greatly multiplied silver.
Now, how about the other injunction?
Next chapter.
But King Solomon loved many strange women.
Together with the daughter of Pharaoh.
Women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zydonians, and Hittites.
Of the nations concerning which the Lord had said unto the children of Israel, ye shall not go in unto them, neither shall they come in unto you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.
Solomon clave unto these in love.
Washington Bow.
Disobedience.
And because he was the king, that didn't make it any less.
It made it worse.
Here he was the king setting an example of disobedience to the word of God.
It was worse for him to do it.
And here was the man that was to have copied the injunctions against it out of the book and read therein every day.
Deliberately doing that, which God forbid.
Oh dear young Christian.
How many wrecks?
There are in the Christian pathway.
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Of Christians who have disregarded the word of God.
They have turned aside to the right-hander to the left.
Some for gold and silver, some for pleasure.
And I suppose the most seductive of all.
Is marriage with an unbeliever.
A beautiful face.
A winning smile.
Lovely ways.
All the Polish that nature could give.
If the heart isn't right with Christ.
There are no companion for you.
He clave one to these in love.
Well, we were speaking yesterday, our brother Brown was reminding us.
How that some people pray.
But their minds are made-up.
Their minds are made-up to do something else.
Or even their prayers are hedged about with qualifications.
What they really want the Lord to do is to give them an OK to do as they please.
What do you think of a young man?
That meets an unbelieving girl.
He becomes enamored with her. He goes out with her. He finds her company. Very agreeable.
And it goes on day after day, maybe only occasionally at first.
He's a child of God, has the written word of God the direction for his pathway.
I'll inject something here.
In driving around the country, I frequently get onto the wrong Rd.
But every time I do it because I didn't go by the map.
Here is the map.
Now, do you think God is going to change the map for you?
And yet some young believers act as though he might.
And so they pray earnestly to hear them tell it.
About this unsaved girl.
I'm Speaking of a young man.
So whether they should marry this unbelieving girl or not?
God isn't going to change his word for them.
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers is always true.
And for a young believer to pray.
Almost in a case like that almost amounts to hypocrisy.
Here is the word of God that tells them not to do it. Why should they ask God whether they should or not?
The same is true. The young lady meets a nice young gentleman.
Very gentleman, gentlemanly. Everything is nice.
And one step leads to another, and after a while, she persuades herself that, oh, he's a Christian.
So nice he must be.
Then after after they're married.
I know.
Who married a man who claimed to be saved.
She found him in the world.
She married.
And the day they were married, he set his foot down and he said there will be no reading of the Bible in my house.
She continued to read the word of God herself.
And he practically ordered her out of the house.
After a little more protestation, he finally ordered her out of the house.
And lived years.
In more or less desolation.
Because of that man's deception.
She said to him afterward. Well, you profess to be saved.
00:45:00
He said yes, I did.
She said. Why did you do it?
He said. I made-up my mind to get you and I would have said anything that was necessary.
Now, this is not a fictitious case.
This is a case that I am personally acquainted with.
And you can go right down the history of the Saints of God and you'll find many failures. Young believer, do you want a failure like that?
Do you want to get away from the Lord?
Have sorrow in your life, ruin your testimony for the Lord. It may not be in marriage. It may be by great strides in the company for which you work.
Remember what a dear old brother, now with the Lord many years used to say it. So I'm told the higher you get in this world, the closer you get to the Prince of it.
Some of us have proved it.
There are so many ways in which you and I can be turned out of the pathway the Apostle Paul desired that he might finish his course with joy.
It's nice to begin with. It's still better to go on well and to end well. But if we do not follow this book.
In constant dependence upon the Lord, owning our weakness and our insufficiency in ourselves, we will not go on well, nor will we finish well.
Oh, there is always the danger. As long as we're in this scene, we need to be cast upon the Lord to guide and keep us. And never let anything shake your confidence in this book.
This book is the word of God.
Think of a book.
Written by so many different authors over 1500 years or more.
And yet all put together and so dovetail that if you remove one part, erect the structure.
Who did that man? No, the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God indicted it, and it all fits together.
Suppose you were to find a book written at the time of the Old Testament.
Five books appended to Suppose They dig up one over in Egypt.
Do you think it would have any practical bearing on your life and walk?
No, it would just be fit for the archives.
It would be something to put in the British Museum.
As a relic of some.
Importance is showing what they said or did then. But this word of God is just as applicable to you and to me today as it was to the Saints of God of other ages.
Those when Barnabas went and pleaded with them, exhorted them that with purpose of heart they would cleave to the Lord. Was that good then? Almost 2000 years later, it's still good, isn't it?
And I want to add something else to your young believer.
About the early part of this century.
There was a movement.
Called Fundamentalism in Protestantism.
And it was.
An effort.
To keep the whole truth of God from being given up.
That is the truth of man's fallen nature.
God the Creator.
Christ that came down born of the Virgin, the one who went to Calvary's cross and died the just for the unjust. Why did that movement come about?
Because Christendom was giving up the basic truths of Christianity.
In those early days.
Fundamentalism stood squarely opposed to the devil's lie of evolution.
I make no.
Hesitation about calling at that.
But today?
You will scarcely find.
A so-called fundamentalist school.
There isn't.
Tinctured with evolution.
If it has an outright embraced it.
Oh, how many there are. Oh, at one time. Recall stalwarts.
00:50:04
In the fundamentalist camp.
Who thrown it all overboard and accepted evolution?
Oh, not a fully no. No. Not fully no.
But you can't have any of it.
And have the God of the Bible.
It is either genesis.
Our evolution?
May I say this?
That in the first chapter of Genesis it says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Do you believe it?
The next verse says, And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
That was not the way that God created it. He created it, not a void we read in Isaiah.
But what happened between the time when he created it and the second verse of Genesis?
Is known to God.
And we do not need to know. But when he began again, when he began to put it in shape, to put man upon it, you get Genesis 1 unfolding it.
Genesis 1 unfolds the.
Act of God in preparing this earth to put man upon it.
They talk about prehistoric math. That's nonsense.
The first man was Adam, and we have his history.
Oh, surely they found some caves and relics of what they called Cavemen, but God didn't create them that way.
Man fell spirit, soul, and body.
All those ages where man.
Drifted into those crude things as the result of having given up the knowledge of God.
You can put all the ages.
And all the speculated ages.
Between Genesis 11 and Genesis 1-2 between those two verses.
Sure, there have been different.
Ages in this world before man was put upon it.
Yes, we are. We admit that.
These cold beds that they are digging the coal out of the earth for now, for man, they didn't get there by accident. God put them down there.
Carboniferous era, all that vegetation was deposited and turned in to make coal for man. Someone has said God saw that one, that he would have a church on this earth and they'd need some heat.
So he put it down there.
Now man digs it up and says there's no God.
And all this talk that you hear about?
This carbon 14.
That's a new fad of the scientists, or pseudo scientists, if I may excuse the word.
Carbon 14, but I'm told that it's useless beyond 60,000 years back.
And I've also been.
Doctor Steven Well, help that there are only two or three places in the United States where carbon 14 can be used to test anything.
It has to be so far removed.
From the outside interference.
That they have in such places.
Somebody brought me recently.
An article about the man they found down in the coal beds over in Africa. Here was the prehistoric man.
But you know what they found?
They said it in the thing they brought me that his arm, his arms re elongated.
And the reason they were elongated? It was the pressure of the coal for so many years.
I wonder why his head wasn't elongated too. I wonder why he wasn't spread sideways as well as lengthwise.
All this stuff that makes me sick and what bothers me most today is to see the thing being talked to the children from the early grades on up and so-called Christian teachers find it necessary to make an accommodation.
They think they have reached a stardom of motor.
So they can get along with evolution. I tell you, it can't be done. It's God and creation or evolution.
And Ultimate atheism.
I've been going into these things. I've been inquiring diligently into some of these things because I see what our young people are exposed to.
00:55:00
And when I see.
When I read what these people are teaching and talk to our brother Wilhelm out there who has audited some of their courses, I just.
Steak.
Fear for our dear young people because those things are put forth in these schools, religious schools at that.
With all the authority and conviction as though it were fact.
They teach that which is not that, dear young people, this is the word of God.
I want to call in closing turn you to Isaiah 8.
Verse 20 verse 20.
To the law and to the testimony.
If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
Now the teacher.
It doesn't make any difference what they call him.
Christian or otherwise that contradicts the word of God is wrong.
This word of God is true.
And so it says here, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them, not a little light.
And these so many preachers and teachers today are trying to accommodate Christianity to evolution. And so they'll allow a little of it, and another one will allow a little more.
But I am firmly convinced that the whole thing is based on a foundation of sand and that after continuous.
Or long research.
I'm not speaking.
From a motion, but from solid conviction.
Do not accept any part of it.
God created and that's enough.
And man is responsible to that creator.
And what they'd like to get away from is the idea they have to meet a creator, and so they'll have all kinds of excuses to do away with it, but they'll meet him just the same.
To jab with him there, brother Barry.
Number six in the appendix.
First and last stanzas.
Some brothers started six in the appendix first and last.
Luke 22:11
Luke 22:7
Man's Day, Days of Christ, the Lord, God
Moses and Faith
Address—C.H. Brown
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.
General Meeting Detroit, November 1960, Addressed by Chapter Brown.
All we had to do is take a look at the power of the Ferrari survive the other.
Day.
Call me.
Portion that I have before me, I want to read the verse in Philippians.
The third chapter.
Flipping 3 verse.
First one.
Finally, my brethren rejoiced in the Lord.
To write the same things for you to meet it to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.
It's this sentence I have before me to write the same things to you.
Me indeed is not great, but for you it is safe.
Well, that's sort of an apology.
For writing to the Philippians those things he had told them so often.
00:05:03
Because I know I told you all this before.
But I don't mind telling you again.
And I think it's good for you.
So I hope you will bear with me if I read.
A very familiar portion and one of the evil.
Heard that news on occasions like this over and over again.
I think scriptures of such a character that if we approach it.
Independence and asking to be part of God.
He can always give us something new from it, even though we've heard it many, many times before.
So in terms of the 11Th of the Hebrews.
We all know this is the Faith, the faith chapter.
We read from the 23rd verse.
By faith Bodies, when he was born was hit three months of his parents because he saw he was a proper child.
And they were not afraid of the King's commandment.
By faith Moses, when it was come to years.
Refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Choosing rather to suffer affection with the people of God.
And to enjoy the pleasures of San Francisco.
Assuming their approach of Christ, greater riches.
And the treasures in Egypt.
Or he had this respect.
Under the recompense of the reward.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.
For he endured as seeing him as invisible.
Two days he kept the Passover.
And the sprinkling of blood.
That he had destroyed the first born to touch them.
From my faith they passed through the Red Seas by dry land.
Which the Egyptians are saying to do or drown.
By faith, the walls and Jericho fell down after they were accomplished about seven days.
The Faith chapter.
Faith is the.
Substance. Are they substantiating?
The things hoped for.
The evidence of things not seen.
Faith is just as real and dynamic. A thing is electricity.
I don't suppose anybody's ever best to see electricity many things that.
They can't see, but we can see the effects.
So remember that.
Faith is something that does things.
It's the substance. It's good.
It has.
An unseen power substance to it.
You can see the effects of it.
But if someone says, well now show me your faith.
You'd have a a difficult time.
You asked me to show you my pocket knife. I can do it.
But let's show your face.
Faith is the.
Substance. A thing to vote for, the evidence of things not seen.
But all what a powerful factor. Expense.
The lives of God's people, down to the aces.
Here's a man with the name of Moses.
He comes into this world and humble circumstances.
Things were trying for the children of Israel with the time Holding was born.
They had some dear parents.
Does that have over you young folks this afternoon?
00:10:01
Some of you I can recognize and remember the heritage. Some of you I've known for.
Virus is generated.
The wonderful thing to have God returned.
Moses has the right kind of parents, Shirley.
When he was born, they they hit him.
I don't know whether this little babe was manifested any of the Adam rebellion against that process of being in or not.
But they saw he was a proper child, he child worth saving.
And the hitting from the animals.
Your parents, if they're Christians and then trying to hide you.
For many of his call off.
Much of the world.
Marcus would spell sorrow in your Christian life.
How have you reacted to it?
Have you ever gotten down on your knees and thank God that you have parents that have the courage to hide difference?
Or would you rather just turn you loose?
I'm saying I you can just take on from here. You're you're on your own.
We're not going to give you any advice. We're not going to say no anything. You just have your own way. You're like parents like that.
Not if you're wise, you wouldn't.
Sometimes young people take the bit of their teeth, they say, and go out on their own.
But all the unspeakable tragedy that followed that kind of self will.
Moses didn't have the wisdom to take care of himself this time.
Wisdom comes with years.
What is going on with God?
But his parents said he was the star.
They were not afraid of the King's commandment.
Ages the type in the world.
You get various animation scriptures.
Philistine is an enemy in the land. Those are enemies within. Professor Criticism.
Then they get the ammetes.
Well, there you get the entity of the place trying to ruin your life.
Here's Jesus the world.
How many Christians life has been ruined by fear of offending the world?
You know God and Prince of this world.
The God of it religiously, and the Prince of it politically.
But these parents were not afraid of the King's commandment.
What is the King's command?
Well, the God of this world has a mold.
And he's determined to force you into that bowl.
And turn you out as though you're in a process of assembly line production.
So that you come out at the end of a thorough world.
That's what he would do with him. He had his opportunity.
But these parents were determined that their child should not go through processing.
They were not afraid of the King's commandment. Thank God for parents like that.
Sometimes the world.
Puts the pressure on parents.
They say you're doing your children an injustice. You're denying them this and you're denying them that.
And they have the right to these things.
Well, thank God for parents that have the courage to say we're not rearing our children.
After the accepted standards around us in the world today, we're seeking by the grace of God.
To bring them up according to the truth of the word of God.
They're not afraid of the King's demand.
You can't always go on your parents protection.
There comes a time when.
00:15:02
Responsibility.
Is right at your door.
There comes a time when you have to take over.
So we're reading that money 1St, 24th verse.
Thy same closest like for how many years?
Yes, came the year.
Can't always ask father or mother to solve the problem.
You have to face this itself.
When he was coming here.
The first thing we read about him doing is refusing. He refused to recall the son of Pharaohs daughter.
That's the way life started out by refusing.
And you know much of your life, young folks.
If you're going to live for God in this world.
Much of your life will be a process of refusing.
Well, remember that we live in the enemies land.
This is not our home. Let's strangers and pilgrims here.
For those around us who go not to Lord.
Are constantly seeking.
To have us join with them in their pleasures.
Their ambition, their purposes, their desires, their schemes, their propaganda.
It's a constant battle all the way through.
But one of the first words that you've got to have in your Christian vocabulary is and old.
No, Moses.
Refuse.
Well, no matter how many of us would refuse. But Moses refused.
You know, he was the heir.
The throne of Egypt.
Refused to be called the son of Pharaoh.
They have adopted it. That put him in line.
For the Thrones of the greatest nation in the world.
He's headed right for him.
Did he do right when he refused? Did he?
Having a mind of God when he turned down an opportunity like that.
And may be dead.
But how many would have stood with him in the decision?
How many that pointed the finger at him and said poor fool.
I'm running with that. Oh, if I could just have had the opportunity of that boy had.
I certainly would have taken advantage of it.
The son of Pharrell, daughter.
I'm 87, No.
Well, I wonder, have you learned to say it?
Or are you allowing the?
Popular concept.
About to be paid for your life.
Doesn't make so much difference where you are.
Sometimes people say well.
I don't want to send my children to school.
Because they have to be exposed to the world.
Well, one doesn't doubt the sincerity is.
Paris, there are others that may talk that way.
But where can you go in this scene? Where can you live a normal life?
Without being exposed to the world.
The world doesn't confine itself to some of the activities that you might find in school.
Or a high school or college or professional education.
The world is all about.
As the Lord Jesus and that wonderful prayer that he made.
He didn't ask his God and Father.
Is all out of the world.
We did that for that.
We actually keep them from the evil that's in the world.
Now, I'm certainly not advocating for a moment.
The Spirit of.
Of just deliberately going out as the lion did and say who will give me a man to fight for me.
00:20:03
And a fear of Brahmano that walks out and says, I'll, I'll tackle the world, try to take care of it. I'm not asking for that spirit.
But I do say that.
Regardless of where we are.
Satan is going to have his his temptations. He's going to speak to forces.
And the step lock step at that headed way.
When the world around.
Have with the courage to say no.
How about it in the office where you work?
You happen to say no a good many times, don't you?
If you don't, we got one to get mixed up with what's going on.
The other day in Montreal.
Things there.
Buried brother. I'm known him for a good many years.
Some of you heard me tell this before, but the tips? Oh, pardon me.
But I think it has a point to it.
He went to work in this office the first day.
Think office, You know many deaths then.
The big fellow or 6 feet tall. That's a tremendous voice.
The first day it went there, he took his Bible with him and.
Lot of minutes before time to settle down the word.
Looked at this Bible like that, says Man. Here's where I stand.
Ladies, Bible down to the desk. We went to work.
I'm not telling you this imitating. I'm not telling you to do that same thing.
But in principle, it was a wonderful thing to do.
In other words.
And let it stand be known at the very start.
The result was.
He didn't have to say no.
When somebody asked him to Will you have it? Will you have a cigarette? He didn't have to say no. What?
Why, he just covered all the negatives and that one old stand that he's taken.
No one said we're going to go out and have a drink.
No one said. Would you like to show the night?
No one said whatever. Like have a liberal, a little game. The stakes aren't very high. They're going to meet for a few minutes after dinner. Did you have to say no? Certainly he didn't. He'd already said this.
Taking his stand on the book.
That was.
All these things.
Oh, how wonderful.
If we can learn to refuse.
And it'll be that all through your Bible.
You can't get past, you can't graduate, you can't get a degree where you're not having to say no because we live on the enemies land.
Temptations all around.
Well, that's the negative side.
Now on the next verse we get something else.
Not only where does they know?
We not only learn the negative side, but we choose choose things rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
What a wonderful thing.
That process of choice is.
It's what makes us laugh.
Life is a series of choosing.
Everyone in this room this afternoon.
What is because of the choices he's made?
Life consists of little else in that.
Start the day that way.
Open your eyes in the morning.
Well, have to make a choice. We're going to get up now. We're going to rest 5 minutes long.
You get up.
And you dress for the day.
00:25:01
Values. Choose what suits you're going to throw.
You make choice all the time.
Go down to breakfast.
Make a choice. What do you want for breakfast?
And then when you start to work, when you get to work about first it's choice, choice, choice all the way through, right down to the time when you finish the day.
Joyce Joyce Joy.
That's what forms carry.
Well, Moses chose rather.
How many chose rather? That shows that there were alternative choices to be had.
Chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.
Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Percy.
Two kinds of people in this world.
The people of God and the people of the world.
And they're all around us.
You wouldn't have to walk 5 minutes from here.
Find those who would have absolutely no use.
For this precious book.
For the very lines of truth that we're seeking to bring out this afternoon.
They would be violently opposed to them.
No, there are the people of God.
And there are the people of this world.
Ye are of this world.
What the Lord Jesus said to the unbelievers of his day.
But he said I'm not of his work.
Ye are from beneath. I am from above.
So in commending his disciples.
The Lord to God, his Father.
He said. They are not of this world, even as I am not of this world.
Northern ladies choice is that I'm going to cast in my life.
With the people of God.
For the wonderful thing here, young folks.
That's the happiest decision you'll ever make.
When you cast in your loss.
With the people of God.
All thank God they're here on this world.
We find them all around us.
But we have to recognize them.
It's not the majority. It's not the Great Teaming Brawl. Or no.
But here and there, intermingled are the people of God.
The other day.
I went into one of these laundrettes.
You out a little bundle of washing that accumulates on a trip bike fence.
He gave a pamphlet to.
The lady sitting next to me there, she was also there on the same kind of an errand.
The moment she saw the pamphlet.
He said that sounds good with.
How do I like that starter response?
So that led to a conversation.
And you know, we found ourselves.
100% agreement.
That we believe that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins.
But he arose again.
He ascended into heaven. They sent down the Holy Spirit that He formed the Church.
And he was coming any moment to take his old up, to meet him in the air.
That lovely conversation.
We were just oblivious.
For those others in the place.
Who gave every sign of being of this world, their language, their heavens, The things they were reading is they sat there waiting.
All told the story.
Belong with the world.
Presently this lady's son fine clean looking.
00:30:02
Young fellow about around 30 years of age came in.
And with this.
Becoming motherly, Pride introduced her son.
We had a monthly conversation about the things of Christ.
I've never seen him before and he's never seen me before.
What was the latest?
Belong to that company in this world.
People of God.
Choosing rather to suffer affection with the people of God.
Well, we learned in the scripture doing not that.
Those of us that know and love the Lord Jesus.
Find ourselves in an adverse world.
We may have to suffer.
Special persecution on the place.
Right now.
While we're sitting here and comparative peace and quiet.
We know that in other parts of the world.
Dear children of God.
That love the Lord Jesus just as much as we do.
Who have just as good a right to peace and quiet as we have.
Are languishing in prison.
They're neglected, they're persecuted, They're starved. Some of them are dying.
Their families taken from them.
The enemy has the power over them.
Their suffering, affection with the people's thoughts.
Some of them have been offered their liberty.
If they will deny Christ.
If they will quit their praying and reading their bibles and speaking about Jesus, they can go free.
But they choose rather to suffer a place than with the people of God that enjoys the pleasures of sin for his season.
Yes, the pleasures of sin.
Let's not say that there's no fun in being out in the world in sin.
It has its pleasures. It does.
You wouldn't find such modest news running after it if it didn't have some pleasure.
But what is written over the whole thing?
Far as either.
Yes, for a season, Payday comes along. It all has an end. The curtain falls and then walk.
Oh yes, that's.
There's the Rob.
That's the thing they don't want to think about.
They don't want think about.
They had a man out in California.
He lived in a palace.
The modern millionaire.
Lived a very wicked life.
And it was understood by his most eminent friend.
Nothing with one word that must not be mentioned in his presence.
All his friends knew was.
Don't you ever mention that word death in my presence. I don't want to hear it.
Quite limited.
The point is on the man wants to die.
And after this.
Judgment. Oh, that's where the trouble was.
You know you're in heaven sometimes turns into doors.
But your conscience does.
That man had a natural conscience that told him Sunday.
Going to stand in the presence of God and give an account of that wicked life of you.
And he died, yes.
He died. He had a funeral that cost several $1000.
But he died.
I mean there.
As a mirror public expense.
The Glaziers of Sin Forest season.
How thankful we can be here, uncle.
00:35:03
That we've been preserved from a life like that. Oh, what a mercy it is.
Oh, we ought to get on our knees every night and thank God.
For his mercy and saving our soul.
Might be preserved from the decease of Satan.
And end up at the last in hopeless outer dark.
Moses refused and Moses chose.
Now there was something else. The 26th birth.
Moses has seen their approach of Christ, the greater riches on the treasures in Egypt.
What?
Every man has his criteria.
His standards.
What are we by doing?
Supposing that someone were to give you a slip of paper.
And a pencil and say no.
Write down.
Would you like to make a list like that? Would you be honest?
Would you make it out so that somebody else would have the privilege of reading?
Howard is conformed with Moses plan.
Perhaps he didn't write this out, but he thought it through.
And what was it that he esteemed, that he desires, that he values? What was it to which his committed himself?
Why he has seen the Reproach Christ.
Reproach of Christ.
Greater riches, riches.
Than the traitors in Egypt.
Yes.
This man.
Is one of the parables of Egypt.
They discovered his.
And they found that it cost $15 million to bury.
That an expensive barrier.
But he was just as dead as those of them buried in the paupers tomb.
Moses might have had a barrier like that.
But you know, Moses.
Had one of the rare privileges of any man that ever lived.
I don't know of any other man. I at least I can't think of it at this moment.
Our movement said that God married.
Oh, how wonderful to happen. God thinks of much of me that he just takes over your barrel and seats doing himself.
How different that was from the burial that?
A seemingly reproach of Christ.
If you're going to live for the Lord Jesus Christ in this world.
You'll mind that it carries with it a major reproach.
Let us go for it there or unto him outside the camp.
Bearing his reproach.
They that will to live godly in Christ Jesus.
Shall suffer persecution.
Doesn't say they may, It says they can.
They that will deliver God.
That's part of it.
Peter writing in his day.
Says if you need, if you suffer from Christ.
Happy are you for the spirit of glory and of God rest upon.
If you suffer from pride.
What do they mean when he says the spirit of glory rest upon you?
Well, I think it means this.
And if you're suffering from Christ?
Actually suffering from Christ.
It marks you out as a candidate for growth. I think that's it.
The Spirit of God and the glory rest upon it, March you out of the candidate for gold.
00:40:05
Oh, what a wonderful.
To suffer for Christ.
Greater riches than the Prajers in Egypt.
Very few people in this world.
I've never heard of.
This poor disease.
Where, if you've ever heard of.
But all things are the multitudes that have been blessed through the faithfulness of Moses the man of God, Moses the man of God.
For he had respect under the recompense of the reward.
All young folks who have not been fully.
Let's not sell out.
Let's learn to evaluate things in the light of eternity.
He had respect.
Under the recompense of the reward, payday is coming.
Oh, yes.
It's coming.
Oh, how glad we'll be. How thankful we'll be in that day.
We didn't sell out.
I've just been visiting up.
For Canada.
And I visited in the neighborhood.
Of that dear young brother that was so tragically taken out of this world this year.
Only 20 years of age.
But you know the thing that hit my heart good as I went in and long in and out among those that knew the story?
They knew him intimately.
Thing that made my heart black was that that dear young man.
That made Christ his choice, and not only that.
But he was living for Christ.
He was bearing the reproach of Christ.
He was one who was marked up.
As one who was on the Lord's side.
It wasn't an indifferent light.
It wasn't a DRAM meaningless confession.
Everyone who knew him intimately knew that Christ was the opportunity to talk.
He had respect under the recompense of the reward.
Oh, how glad.
The dear young man is now.
Made the right choice.
I'm glad he'll be in that day when all passes and reviews the judgment seat of Christ.
That a few brief years, only 20 years.
That his few brief years were lived from God and was testimony for Christ.
All dear young believers here to say, let's just wake up, let's not make the final mistake.
I'm thinking that we've got to have our fling in the world.
Our taste of the platters of sin.
And then we're going to turn to God.
Satan not received.
Most of great views Moses chose.
Moses esteemed and now the 27th verse.
And by faith he for soaking, just not fearing the wrath of the king.
My faith he forsook Egypt turned his back on.
Have you done that?
Some of you keep Diaries.
Is there an history somewhere in that dire years?
It says by the grace of God.
Today I made my my decision.
I turned my back on each I for two feet.
That decision day came in Moses life.
We have to make it.
There came the time when it was now or never.
He had to make that decision, make it quick.
Well, he made it.
00:45:00
He decided to more save Egypt.
Have you made that decision?
Forsake this world.
All the cross of Christ.
By which the world is crucified unto me.
I under the world, the cross of Christ.
By which the world is crucified under me, and I under the world.
I notice this expression not fearing the wrath of the king.
Here's an encouraging word for you dear parents here this afternoon.
You remember what was said about Moses parents in that 23rd verse?
They were not afraid of the King's commandment.
And we're not afraid of King's commandment, the parents.
Well, they brought that boy up accordingly. They acted accordingly. They were not afraid of King's abandonment.
And you know, in the ways of God.
That same thing came out in the light of that boy.
The time came when he was on his own, as we've already said.
And you find him of the same spirit with his parents.
He forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.
Oh, remember parents?
If you seek Father Grace of God.
You'll be faithful.
With those dear children.
You can expect in God's time.
But that training will not be in vain. It comes out in the boy here.
He too is not fearing the wrath of the king.
He groups of people.
And now the next thing about him.
He endure.
In viewing? Oh yes, we'll be tested.
You don't know anything about a good soldier until he's been tested.
It isn't just having his shoe shine and being able to March with his shoulders back.
Be able to put on a good review day.
Appearance. That is my test out of soldier.
It's the forefront of the battle and testimony my brother is in encounter not.
Well, the test comes.
Test came the most.
He might have met Africa made that decision too.
Wanted the wilderness, the backside of the desert.
He might have said on further consideration.
On further consideration, I decided I made a huge mistake.
I'm going to split back, humble myself and see if I can't get it what I missed.
Oh no, none of that for Moses.
He endured.
He went on.
He grew. He developed.
When the time came for him to leave the people of God.
What I know wonderful leader he was.
We need to have a long schooling army gears on the backside of the desert.
But he'd been there with God.
When the time came going to be out in the foreground.
And he gave a good account of himself.
Ian Hewer.
Young folks, great thing to endure.
You go round and some of us have done for good many years.
And you say, well, what about Kim or John or Jack or whoever, whatever name you want.
And how's he cutting along? I remember him and I was here before. How's he coming along?
Well, it does your heart good.
When you ask that question and someone.
Breaks us a broad smile and.
That's all Jacks really, Jack. Wonderful.
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God is done wonderful things to that boy.
He's just a joy to resolve.
I've had that experience over and over again. Doesn't my heart go?
But sometimes, you know.
He strikes sad calmness.
And it's just as though someone was going to.
Hang a recent crease.
Shake your head.
Oh, poor boy. I'm just sorry to have to speak about it.
With the noise gone back, right back into the world.
He didn't endure. Go, he went back.
Not so with Moses.
He endured.
What enabled him to endure?
He saw him who was invisible. God, does that sound like a contradiction?
God isn't the least.
Sit appraised.
To make contradictions.
God is.
Any embarrassment at all?
In such blessed, wonderful holy contradiction.
The words full of them, but the child of soccer rejoices.
The interval comes along and that's all they can see what lies on the 3rd.
But always this wonderful to think.
That Moses have the eyes of faith.
Let's Pierce through That penetrated the unknown, and he looked up to a God whom he learned of value and to know.
He saw him with the eyes of faith.
It was just as real to him.
Though he meant face to face for this.
He saw him who is invisible.
Well, beloved, you and I can have that experience.
Many of their Christians.
Has burned of the state.
Has gone down into death with joy in his heart, with sorrow on his lips. How could he do it?
'Cause he saw him, it was invisible.
He died victoriously because the eye of faith led him to know and to recognize him.
Who to the natural eye is invisible?
On the 28th, 1St through Faith against the castle.
Through faith he kept, he believed was on set.
God told.
That night, everyone can take a laugh, keep it up for four days and kill it.
Wrinkle of blood upon little, the two cycles.
Moses did it. He acted on the direction.
He kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood.
Well, I'm talking supposedly to young Christians.
And I take it for granted.
That you have done this, that you have appropriated the Lord Jesus Christ as your own savior.
You've come to Jesus.
As a horrible Sinner.
You said I need the blood.
I need the Lamb of God.
And you said yes.
And you got saved.
You know that the blood is all the little in the signpost.
And you hear God say, when I see the blood, I'll Passover you.
So you know there's no judgment for you.
You believe you've received Christ, he belongs to you, and you're a peaceful God.
Or how wonderful that is.
By painting kept the family and the strengthening of blood.
No salvation without the blood.
But now let's just make one other point here.
He kept the Passover.
We had in our meeting this morning.
About the remembrance of the Lord.
I wondered, have you ever kept that?
Have you ever done what the Lord ask you to do?
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Have you followed through now this address up to this point?
All the way along you said Amen, Brother Brown. Amen. Amen.
Are you going to say Amen to what I'm saying now?
If the Lord can speak to you.
I'll put it stronger.
The Lord has spoken to you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
Have you done it?
You say No, I haven't.
What the reason why?
Ah, you know, there's a reason.
There is something deep down in your life that means more to you than Christ.
And you're saying no to love like that?
It seems to me to be so very sad.
To have the Lord come tonight.
And he made And you would have to say, Lord, I I never once thought enough of you.
To do what you asked me to do.
Never once.
Did I eat with bread and drinking cup and loving remembrance of what you did for me?
By saying he kept the Passover and strengthen your club.
So I want to go down to the 30th 1St because your time is up.
Faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were accomplished 70.
The one that said no, you can't go into the promised land.
We're going to keep you out.
But they were comfortable for seven days. That's the perfect number.
And then the walls collapsed where the Internet took the city.
You know, there's some people.
Marching around your citizens are unbelief.
Marching round and round in prayer.
All thanks gone through the prayers of the Saints.
Thank God for the for the thousands of souls that have been broken down and said yes to the pleading of the Spirit of God, because.
Dear ones and loved ones were going round and round.
In prayer of round and round, never ceasing 7 days.
Pray, pray. Pray.
All that wonderful to know.
Sooner or later, they answered God.
Or may we be men and women of faith and prayers. They will never cease to go round and round as we follow them in prayer for our loved ones, wherever they are. That was great.
Nazarite Separation
Sampson: Address
P.B. Geveden
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.
I'm going to test your patience this afternoon. I'm going to turn to quite a few scriptures, so I trust you'll bear with me. First one is in Deuteronomy.
The 4th chapter.
Deuteronomy chapter 4 and verse 37.
And because he loved thy fathers, he chose their seed after them.
And brought thee out in his sight, with his mighty power out of Egypt.
To drive out nations from before the greater and mightier than thou art to bring thee in.
To give thee their land for an inheritance as it is this day.
Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart.
That the Lord he is God in heaven above.
And upon the earth beneath there is none else.
We find here the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt.
By the might and power of Jehovah.
They had no power in themselves, no strength whatever to deliver themselves, and so they were dependent upon the strength and power of another. Now you turn to First Samuel 17.
One Samuel 17 and verse.
45.
Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword.
And with a spear, and with a shield, that I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
This day when the Lord deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee.
And I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air.
And to the wild beasts of the earth.
That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with Sword and spear.
For the battle is the Lords.
And he will give you into our hands.
We find that David and mere stripling, unused to war, takes a simple sling and five smooth stones.
And he goes forth in simple faith in God, nothing doubting to meet Goliath of God.
And with one of those stones.
He lays low the one who has for days defied the armies of Israel.
This was not done in his strength either.
Now if you turn to Zechariah Chapter 4.
The 4th chapter in Zechariah.
And verse 6.
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord hunters a rubber ball, saying not by might.
Nor thy power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art Thou, O Great Mountain?
Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying grace grace unto it.
Here we find Zerubbabel, the leader of the captives who returned from Babylon.
Undertakes A gigantic task of building the House of the Lord amidst much opposition from friend and foe, and he hears these wonderful words from the Lord, not by might.
Nor by power, but by my spirit, said the Lord of hosts. Now just a verse in Philippians 4.
4th chapter Philippians.
If Philippians 4 and verse 13.
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Words of the Apostle Paul. I can do all things.
Through Christ, which strengtheneth me.
Now will you please turn to the book of Judges? We would like to look a little at the birth and life of Samson.
The Book of Judges.
And I believe it's the 13th chapter.
13th chapter of Judges.
And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord.
And the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines 40 years.
And there is a certain man of Zora, of the family of the day, nights, whose name was Manoa, and his wife was barren and bayernot. And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold, now thou art, Baron, and bearest not, but thou shalt conceive, and there son.
Now therefore, beware I pray thee, and drink not wine or strong drink.
And eat not any unclean thing, for lo, thou shalt concede and bear a son.
And no razor shall come in his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb.
And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.
Then the woman came and told her husband, saying a man of God came unto me.
And his countenance was like the countenance of an Angel of God, very terrible. But I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name.
But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt concede, and bear a son.
And now drink no wine or strong drink.
Neither eat any unclean thing, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God.
From the womb to the day of his death.
And verse 24.
And the woman bear a son and call his name Samson.
And the child grew, and the Lord blessed him.
And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zora and.
We find here that the Samson.
Owed his birth not to the ordinary cause of nature, but to a special intervention of God.
Against all the accepted laws of nature.
This child was promised, and the time came when the child was born.
And this child was to be a Nazarite from the womb to the day of his death.
And it might be very interesting to notice some of the characteristics of the Nazarite in #6.
The 6th chapter of Numbers.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them.
When neither man or woman shall separate themselves to Thou valva Nazarite.
To separate themselves unto the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes or dried.
All the days of his separation shall eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the house.
All the days of the vow, his separation, there shall no razor come upon his head.
Until the days be fulfilled in the which he separated himself unto the Lord.
He shall be holy.
And shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow.
All the days that he separated himself unto the Lord, he shall cometh no dead body.
He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother or for his sister when they die.
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Because the consecration of his God is upon his head.
All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord.
Now we find there are three conditions, at least, that the Nazarite had to observe and fulfill.
In the third verse you notice he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink.
And should bring no vinegar of wine or vinegar of strong drink. Neither should he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eaten moist grapes or dried.
This sets forth, I believe, for the believer, complete separation from the things of earth.
And this is most important for us all, isn't it?
Complete separation from the things of Earth.
The Blessed Lord is spoken of as a root out of a dry ground.
I believe we might suggest this means that he drew nothing from this earth which contributed to his strength or his joy.
It all came from above.
And so we find here then the Nazarite was to separate himself from these things connected with the vine in the earth.
I wonder if you and I have done that yet.
Have we truly separated ourselves from the things which would tend to defile us?
Or how important it is?
This world is a defiling scene.
And you and I, through God's grace, need to walk in separation from it the things of earth.
The things that we see around and handle every day are soon going to pass away.
And most of the things that we see around us.
Have a defiling influence upon us.
And so, as children of God, we do need, by the grace of God, to separate ourselves from the things of earth. This was one of the conditions the Nazarite had to observe and fulfill.
And then in verse five it says all the days of the valve, his separation, there shall no razor come upon his head.
And till the days before Bill.
This, I take it to mean it, was a confession of his Nazarite children.
It was a confession of this.
He was to wear his hair long.
This was something that all could see.
And in 11Th chapter First Corinthians, we're told that if a man has long hair, it is a shame unto him.
So the long hair of the Nazarite would undoubtedly bring reproach upon the one concern.
And so we find here no razor shall come upon his head.
And in the long haired the Nazarite we see a symbol of subjection and humiliation.
And I believe these are the graces that you and I must exhibit to those around.
And if we do, they will constitute A testimony more striking than the long haired Benazarite.
People will be able to see that we have been with Jesus and have learned of him.
So here's another very important thing, isn't it?
A razor was not to come upon his head.
And then we find in verses 6:00 and 7:00.
All the days that he separated himself under the Lord, he shall cometh no dead body.
He shall not make himself unclean for his father or mother.
He was not to touch any dead body.
Not even for father or mother, or for the dearest object of his heart.
This scene is stamped with death.
Everything is going to pass away.
And so he was not to touch anything which was dead.
And this world is under the condemnation of God, and will soon come under His judgment.
But our citizenship is in heaven, from whence we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
So then here we have three simple, may I say conditions which the Nazarite should observe and fulfill.
And I suppose these three things do should apply to us.
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First of all, you and I, beloved, should be separated from the world, or how important this is, because you know as well as I do the world is creeping in in many cases.
And craving in the many hearts and homes.
Oh God. Grounded. It may not come into your heart or mine. Into your home or mine.
Or how we need beloved to keep the world out.
This world, as we have been reminded, is stamped stained with the precious Blood of Christ the Lord Jesus.
This world is responsible for the rejection of the Son of God and his crucifixion.
I was thinking this morning.
Oh, it touched my heart to think of it. It's recorded in John 10 where the Blessed Lord could say, Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life.
This proves to us that it was of his own voluntary will He laid down his life, a sacrifice for sin.
And it was indeed a sacrifice and an offering of a sweet smelling savour. The burnt offering aspect yielded himself up to God, his Father.
In order that you and I might be saved and eternally blessed. But then I thought of that verse in Luke 23 where it says And they came to the place which is called Calvary, and there they crucified him.
Ah, but how precious to realize that blessed One, He was not only crucified by the hands of wicked men.
But he laid down his life, a sacrifice for sin, of his own voluntary will, he says. Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again.
How precious the following words. And no man taketh it from me, all beloved waterproof.
That it was of his own will. He laid it down. No man taketh it from me.
Or how it shows thee the wonders of the love of his heart toward his Father, in loving obedience to do the Father's will, and in love to us. That we might be brought to God, that we might be eternally saved and eternally blessed, that we might be with him up there in the glory for all eternity. Oh, what a cost to himself in order to affect this for us.
Where we find then Here we have these three conditions.
And this type, you know, had its perfect fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself that blessed one of whom it is written He was holy.
Harmless. Undefiled.
Separate from sinners.
Whole in his nature, harmless in his character, undefiled in his war, separate in his association, the man Christ Jesus and God would say to you and me, Behold my servant, mine elect, whom my soul delighted, or how precious to know such a blessed person as the Lord Jesus Christ, to have him as our own Lord and Savior.
And our Redeemer, the one who loved us and gave himself for us.
And now my return back to judges again for a minute.
Or more than a minute.
In the 24 first of the 13th of Judges.
And the 25th verse we read there that the woman bear a son and called his name Samson. And the child grew and the Lord blessed him, and the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times.
We find in the Old Testament that the Spirit of God moved.
People at times, but they were not indwelt by the Spirit of God as we as believers are today.
No, the Spirit of God moved them at times.
And so we find here and says the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan.
Now let us look at a few verses to see what Samson did, to see how this mighty power was manifested in and through him.
If you read the fifth verse of chapter 14.
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It says then when Samson down, this was after the Spirit of the Lord began to move him.
And his father and his mother to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath.
And behold, a young lion roared against him.
And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him.
And he rent him the lion as he would have rent a kid.
And he had nothing in his hand.
What a wonderful display of power we see here.
But we noticed that in the cases we read before of others.
Of children of Israel being delivered.
And David killing the giant and Zerubbabel? That was not their own part that accomplished these wonderful, amazing feats.
Now is the power of another working in and through them.
And we find, as we read on, that the Samson strength puzzled the Philistines to a great degree.
So much so that they are prepared to pay a great sum of money to find out the secret.
You'll find it in the. I think it's the.
16th chapter. We look at it soon.
And it's quite clear to see that Samson was not a strongman normally.
And yet, here he is.
In this vineyard of Timnath.
Facing a lion, a young lion roared at him.
What did he do? Did he run away? No.
It says the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him the lion as he would have rent a kid. He had nothing in his hand. What a mighty display of power.
But it was not his. It was the power of another working in and through him.
And the Philistines didn't seem to realize that They thought he was an abnormal, abnormally strong man, and they wanted to find out the secret.
Well, here then he caught this lion and killed it.
Underlying, I suppose, would speak of the power of the enemy. Peter speaks of Satan as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may divine.
And it reminds me of two cases in scripture where a lion is mentioned.
In the 13th chapter of the first book of Kings, it speaks there the man of God mentioned in the chapter I believe 15 times as the man of God.
And we find as we read the chapter that victories were given to him.
Simply because of his obedience to the word of the Lord.
But the time came, the latter end of the chapter. We find that he became disobedient to the word of the Lord.
And he listened to the voice of a lying prophet.
And what happened to him when he left the Prophets home? It says a lion met him, by the way. And how did he meet the lion? It says. And the lion slew him.
What a sad picture. We do not find that here.
Now the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson. He was a Nazarite, A separated. 1 And so there was a demonstration of the power of the Spirit in and through him.
But this man of God in 13th chapter, First Kings, he was a disobedient man of God and the lion slew him.
And the sad thing is, it says and men pass by and saw the carcass.
What a sad thing for the world to witness the sad results of disobedience.
That there is another lion mentioned in two Timothy chapter four. We might just turn to it.
In connection with the beloved apostle.
And Chapter 4.
The end of verse 17.
And I was delivered.
Out of the mouth of the lion.
Here was one in whom the Spirit of God was working too.
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I'm sure the Apostle Paul ever sought to walk in obedience to the Lord and in separation from that which would.
Ruin his testimony and rob him of that spiritual strength which he needed.
And beloved Saints of God, you and I need to be careful too, that we do not allow things to come into our lives which would rob us of the spiritual strength which we need.
And if you and I are going to.
Enjoy or seek to enjoy the things of the world.
We are going to suffer spiritually. The Lord is going to be dishonored and your power and mine as witnesses for Christ.
Will fail. Here we find the beloved apostle. The apostle was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
Good to see the contrast.
I'm not saying it was a literal lion here, but anyway, it would speak of the lion character of the devil, I believe.
And so we find in this 14th of Judges verse 5.
That Samson killed this lion he rented as he would a kid. Just imagine.
I wonder how we would feel if a young lion roared at us out of a vineyard. I guess we take to our heels, but he didn't.
There was a power there working in him, the power of God by the Spirit.
And he can face even a lion, take it and rend it with nothing in his hand. How wonderful. Now you turn to verse 19.
After the 14th chapter.
And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.
It's another occasion. And he went down to Ashkelon and slew 30 men of them.
Another wonderful exhibition of power he slew. 30 of them, took their spoil, and gave changes of garments unto them which expanded the Riddle.
Now the 15th chapter, verse 4.
And Samson went and caught 300 foxes. Have you ever tried to catch a fox?
Find your job. Wouldn't it be pretty difficult? I never have. I don't think I could run hard enough to catch one, but here was Samson.
How was he able to catch 300 boxes? It says the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.
There was a power there outside of himself. He caught 300 boxes. Just imagine.
And now if you turn to thee.
The 15th verse, fourteenth verse, rather the same chapter.
And when he came unto Lehigh, the Philistines shouted against him, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily.
Upon him and the cause that were upon his arms became his flax. It was burnt with fire, and his bands loose from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an *** and put forth his hand and took it, and slew 1000 men. Therewith just imagine the jawbone of an athlete slew 1000 men.
Another wonderful demonstration of God's mighty power through Samson.
And now the 16th chapter and verse 3 And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts.
And went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before he brought.
What a wonderful beat this was.
To take that gate and bars and everything and carry them to the top of a hill.
So we find then that all these.
Characters we've been reading of.
Were delivered from enemies stronger and mightier than themselves.
And were given victories.
Which would be impossible for them to gain by the ordinary strength of the flesh.
And so then it was a demonstration of the work of the Spirit of God. In and through them he gave deliverance from enemies greater than themselves.
How wonderful.
And to know we too have been delivered from enemies greater and more mighty than ourselves.
We have been delivered from the power of sin, we as believers.
And then we've been delivered from the judgment to come. What a wonderful deliverance.
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And from the ******* of sin, from death and hell.
You and I, as believers, have been delivered from these terrible enemies.
How wonderful. How we should thank God for it.
We have not only been saved out of these things, but we've been brought into a wonderful sphere of blessing.
And all these blessings we read of our brother read his son this morning. And there are many more. All these blessings which we have are ours, and more too, as a result of the work of another forest.
Another power has been working for us at Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ.
All beloved, how precious is the sacrifice of Christ? How precious is the Lord Himself? How precious is His work? And it's a perfect work, a work which has glorified his Father, a work which has brought us who believe to God.
Brought us into a place of eternal blessing and eternal relationship to how wonderful our blessings are, and they are all through another.
Not because of who or what we are.
But because of who he is and what he has done for us on the cross of Calvary.
That such a tremendous cost to himself.
And now we find that as we read down this 16th chapter.
We just look at a few verses.
It says, and it came to pass, verse four, that he sons and loved a woman in the valley of Sorich whose name was Delilah.
And the Lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him.
Entice him.
And see wherein his great strength lion.
Now the Philistines wanted to know.
Where his strength was.
What constituted this great and mighty strength? And so they said to Delilah.
Entice.
Have you ever been enticed? I'm sure you have. So have I. What am I to do? What are you to do when you are enticed?
First chapter Promise, we read, When if sinners entice thee consent, thou not.
This woman was a Sinner.
And she, the Philistine, said to her, You entice your husband.
Get out of him where his great strength Liam, so that we can afflict him and rob him of that string.
Dear friends, has Satan enticed you? You may be seeking to entice.
Some of us here right now.
In a silent thing, how are we going to meet him?
Well, my brother read the first tool, so quoted it yesterday in James 4.
Resist the devil.
And he will flee from you. We're not told to flee from him.
There, it says. We're to resist him.
And my brother, too, reminded us of what came before that. Submit yourselves.
When I read the verse that I do not miss quote at James Fawn, I think it's verse 17.
Verse seven. I'm sorry.
Submit yourselves therefore to God that comes before. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
But I was also struck with what comes after them.
The next verse it says draw night gone. That's the source of strength. Draw nigh to God.
And unless you and I do this, beloved friends and Saints of God, we will not be in a position to resist the devil.
We must draw nigh to God, We must.
Submit ourselves to him too, for his keeping, care and grace and his strength. Draw nigh to God. How important.
Before we attempt to resist the devil.
We are safe in His presence. Oh, indeed we are. Oh, how precious it is that we can draw near to him.
When we are enticed or tempted or tested and find that he is ever ready to hear us and to help us and to deliver to.
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According to his own will and wisdom.
Where we find?
That the Philistines said to her, Entice him, and see where in his great strength life. So then, dear young people, if sinners should entice you.
Consent thou not?
You will be enticed.
People of the world, you're perhaps you have worldly companions, you dear young people. They will seek to entice you away from the Lord, to walk in their palm, to follow them, to have fellowship with them in their things, in their pursuits. What are you to do? I have to submit to them now. Submit to God? What does he say about it?
He says enter not in the path of the wicked.
Go not in the way of evil men turn prominent if sinners entice thee consent or not.
So how precious that we have the word of God for these things.
And there is a danger of being enticed, perhaps more so the dear young ones. They have their difficulties and we realize it.
And we feel for you and your difficulties.
But when you are enticed, remember that Scripture in the first of Proverbs. If sinners and Pisces consent, thou not.
May we just turn to that because there's another verse or two I'd like to mention.
Proverbs one.
It's so important.
Verse 10 the one we've just quoted and part of verse 11. If they say come with us, what am I to do? What are you to do if a whirling comes up to you and say come with us, what am I to do?
Well, verse 15, my son, walk not thou in the way with them.
That's the answer to it. Walk, not bow in the way with them.
Refrain thy foot from their path, for their feet run to evil, make haste to shed blood.
So how good that we have this instruction for the pathway? When we are enticed either by the whirling or by Satan, we have the remedy. God has provided the remedy. And you know, we were just mentioning that in the Old Testament times, the Spirit of God moved.
These different ones at different times, but now you and I as a believer.
We are born of the Spirit. We are sealed with the Spirit. We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. So then there is the same source of power in us as that which was upon Samson.
How wonderful and precious it is, how good it is.
The strength is not ours, the power is not ours. We are very weak.
Above, you're a man. What we read about the apostle Paul, he says I can do all things. He doesn't stop there. There's no boasting, he says through Christ.
Which strengtheneth me.
Well then, verse 6 and Delilah said to Samson, now she comes to her husband.
Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength, liar, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.
And Samson tells of these ridiculous things.
That she should do. They are ridiculous really, for the man with such power, the power of another operating in and through him. And we find that the things that he suggested, why he was just able to deliver himself from them all when the Philistines came up.
But she says here later on in verse 1516.
She finally said unto him, How canst thou say I love thee?
When thine heart is not with me, thou hast mocked me these three times.
Dear Young Believer.
May I take these words and present them to you as believers.
As the voice of God to you.
How canst thou say I love thee? I am just presenting them now as the word of the voice of the Lord to you, to you as a young believer, You dear young believer, who sat here this morning, and perhaps did not partake of those emblems, perhaps did not remember the Lord and his death.
Might present these words to you. How can, as if they were from the law to your very heart, How canst thou say I love thee?
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When thine heart is not with me, I do believe that if your heart is with Christ, you would have that desire in your heart to respond to his loving desire to remember him and his death. Dear young believer, think about it. How canst thou say I love thee?
When thine heart is not with me.
Because if you have not responded to the desire of our blessed Lord as a true child of God, how can you say you love him?
Approve of your love is told out in obedience to the Lord, our brother was saying just now We need to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. Oh, how important that is. Not merely to say Jesus as my Savior, that's precious too, but to acknowledge him as my Lord, the Lordship of Christ. He has authority over me. He has a right to say this and that to me, and I have a right to listen and to obey him.
But what did you do this morning? Dear child of God, dear young brother, dear young sister? Did you respond to the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ? You said I didn't get a chance.
Well, what are you going to do about it in future if the Lord should leave you here?
And I wish to press these words home to your dear young heart. How can as if the Lord is saying to you, how canst thou say I love thee?
When thine heart is not with me.
I'm not saying applying the rest of the verse, thou hast mocked me. That has nothing to do with this.
You haven't mocked the Lord, I am sure of that.
But you have disappointed him.
If you haven't responded to his own loving hearts request, you've disappointed him. You've grieved his loving heart.
And you've robbed yourself of much joy.
And much blessing.
Oh, beloved, what a privilege we had this morning with a sense of the blessed Lord in our very midst, and the privilege of responding to his desire once more than this may be the last occasion. And you, dear young believer, who has disappointed him, who has neglected to respond to his desire all?
What a grief it should be to your heart. It's a sorrow to the Lord's heart.
You know it isn't for me to tell you to do that. It's the Lord asking you to do it. The Lord, as we have had before us during the readings, know how precious they have been.
And so it's the Lord's request for you.
Well.
Then it says and it came to pass in verse 16.
He pressed him daily with her words. Have you heard the word of the Lord pressing upon your heart?
As it pressed itself up from your heart, have you turned a deaf ear to it?
To that still small voice, that loving voice of the Savior of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Said this, do and remembrance of me.
How you felt about it? How have you treated his voice, his desire?
Well, it came to pass when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him so that his soul was vexed under death, that he told her all his heart.
And said unto her, Now he gives out the secret.
Samson here shares God's secret with a woman of the world.
And it robbed him of his strength when he most needed it.
What a solemn thing. He shared God's secret, the secret of his strength, with the woman of the world. He told her all his heart. He had no business to beloved Saints of God, You and I cannot.
Share God's secrets with the worldlings.
And they cannot contribute to the cost of the Lord's work, neither help us in it, without admiring our service and bringing dishonor to the name of the Lord.
Now the whirling has no place or lot in this.
But just imagine.
Samson. He told her all his heart, the secret of his strength, not his own strength. It was the strength of another.
And then he says, there have not come a razor upon mine head. So that was a confession of his Nazarite ship. He hadn't shaved his hair off. No, he was to keep it on. That was a symbol of his Nazarite ship. He was a separated one. And he was to be so to the day of his death.
Are you and I are going to seek, by God's grace, to be separated from the world unto the day of our death, if we should die?
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Well, it's a good thing for us if we do, if we do seek by God's grace to walk in separation from the world in its ways.
And its attractions and allurements, or how important it is that we should.
Well, he tells her. I've been an Azurite unto God, he says from my mother's womb.
What's going to happen now?
If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me.
Then I shall become weak and be like any other man. What a sad confession. He knew it. He knew that if he had his hair shaved off, he would become weak.
Because that was a symbol of his separation.
And a sign of the strength which was in him operating in him through another.
Well, he tells of this.
And then it says and when Delilah saw.
That he had told her all his heart. She sent and called for the Lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once.
Or he has showed me all his heart.
Have you opened your heart to a worldly? What? Have you told the worldly about your heart? Have you said I have Christ in here and I'm satisfied? Is that what you tell the worldings? Are you satisfied? Am I satisfied?
Should be if I have Christ in my heart. Our brother has been reminding us that's the only source of joy. To have Christ in my heart, to have him as my sole object.
And I'm sure that's true.
Well, she told them to come along, and then the Lords of the Philistines came up under her and brought money, brought money in the hand.
And no doubt, she thought, now is my chance, I am going to be made rich over this deal.
I'll tell them all about my husband, the source of his strength. He told me all about it, and I'll tell you.
No doubt she was there, ready to take the cash, and there says, and she made him sleep upon her knees.
Or a solemn picture, this is.
She made him sleep upon her knees.
Do you think, beloved child of God?
That all this sorrow, which we read off soon, which came to him. Do you think this would have been?
Averted, if he had been on his own knees in the presence of God.
Ah, he was not on his own knees. He was on Delilah's knees.
And let me tell you friends, that the laps of Delilah's are very numerous today.
The love of pleasure, worldly advancement, the love of ease, and many other things one could mention. They're the lapse of Delilah.
All God grant that we may not be found asleep in Delilah's lap.
That we might be found upon our knees. That's the place for strength.
To be on our knees before God. To humble ourselves. To judge ourselves.
And to see his keeping grace.
When we are enticed.
By the enemies of our souls, there's a whirling for Satan himself.
O beloved, I do feel my own soul. There never was a time.
When you and I should be more upon our knees than today, we see failure coming in in our own lives.
In the Church, we see worldliness creeping in.
Should this put us upon our knees or should we sit on Delilah's lap and fall asleep?
All how important it is to be on our knees.
Remember, dear brother, my sister Miss Willis knows him well. I won't mention the name that you'll possibly remember.
The dear young brother in China, he very rarely came to prayer meeting dear brother Christopher Willis said.
I'll have to mention his name now, Wayson we don't often see at the prayer meeting, he said. No, brother, I haven't much to pray about, so he didn't come.
But after a time, he left Shanghai and went down to Hong Kong.
On the way down.
They encountered a storm the sea.
And he and others were, I don't know, washed overboard or the ship was wrecked away. He was picked up, as I understand.
From his own lips.
And he was taken to an island and later brought back to Shanghai.
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The young brother came to the prayer meeting after that, he said. Brother, I have something to pray about now.
The Lord had to rob him of two things. He lost his possessions and he lost the spirit of independence.
And he came back the prayer meeting. Oh beloved.
Do we make an effort to be at the prayer meeting?
Do we spend anytime on our knees?
Seeking grace, keeping from the one who alone can keep us the God of all grace.
The God of power and strength.
Or how we need to be upon our knees. But here we find poor Samson was asleep.
Upon her.
And she called for a man.
And she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.
May we suggest the perfection of strength. 7 locks of his head.
And she began to afflict him.
What a solemn picture this is. She began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.
In connection with that, my return back to the second Timothy chapter 4.
His strength went from him.
It's the same verse for the other part of it.
Chapter 4. Two Timothy 17. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me.
And strengthened me.
Strengthened me. He assumed and lost his strength.
But here the apostle Paul, who was a dependent one upon God, he says, the Lord stood with me and he strengthened me.
That's what you and I need, beloved. Not physical strength, but spiritual strength to go on in dependence upon the Lord, in faithfulness to him till he come, and he may come today again, dear young believer, how canst thou say I love thee?
Can you say that to the Lord?
When your heart is not with him.
Well, it's good to challenge our hearts, not only the young ones, but everyone of us. So we find here then, if possible to say, notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthen me.
Now we find that Samson lost his strength.
And she said that Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said I will go out, as other times before. He was not conscious of this loss of strength at the moment, apparently, and shake myself.
Seems that he was in the habit of doing that when the Philistines came, he'd go out and shake himself.
And it says And he wished not that the Lord was departed from him.
While we were reading it, regarding a parcel of all, the Lord stood with him, gave him strength.
Here we find that Samson.
Wished not that the Lord was departed from him and he lost his strength.
Why? Well, I believe it was he say again. He shared God's secret with a woman of the world.
We cannot let the worldlings into the secrets of God, and we cannot walk in company with them without being robbed of spiritual strength.
And will I bring in dishonour to the Lord? Or how important it is then to observe these three conditions of the Nazarite?
To seek by God's grace to walk in separation.
From the world and its ways.
Has our strength gone and we wish not?
We lose spiritual strength.
Have we awakened that of our sleep?
And found the enemy waiting to complete the victory.
Well, we find here.
We awoke out of his sleep. He'd been asleep on Delilah's lap.
I wish not that the law was departed from him.
But in what lay the secret of Samson's string? Again, I say it was in the fact that he was a separated one under the Lord.
From the womb to the day of his death, he had nothing to do with the things of the earth. He was not to touch them.
O May God grant that you and I may know more what this means, not to touch the things of earth.
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Those things which would tend to defile us and rob us of the joys of Christ and spiritual strength too, to go on for him in the path of obedience and separation.
I wish not that the law was departed from him.
But the Philistines took him and put out his eyes.
What a solemn thing.
The enemies of the Lord took this man who had been manifesting.
These amazing feats.
Of power.
Now is in the hands of the enemy, not in the Lords hands. Now in the hands of the enemy, the enemies of the Lord, the Philistines.
They put out his eyes.
I believe make a suggestion.
That first of all, he lost his spiritual sight.
Now he's lost his physical sight.
Have we lost our spiritual sight?
Are we aware that the enemy of our souls is standing by and ready to draw a society to trip us up, to lead us into some wrong path?
Or how careful we need to be. How watchful. What is the remedy? Get upon our knees, not upon Delilah's lap, and not to fall asleep.
But to get into his presence.
And seek his keeping grace.
Because, beloved, you know the journey is not a long one.
We are well on the way toward home. We may be there before this day has closed. How precious.
And so then the Lord is looking for obedience, faithfulness in you and me, or from you and me. That's what He's looking for.
And I believe we can glorify the Lord in our body and in our spirit, which in God's if we spend much time on our knees.
Yes, and dependence upon the Lord and in self judgment all of course Samson that only got on his knees instead of sitting on Delilah's knees.
What a different picture we would have seen.
About the Lord allowed it.
And there it is.
And so we find then.
The Philistines put out his eyes, brought him down, brought him down to gaze, and down a downward palm, or her solemn. And what else?
And they bound him with betters of brass, and he did grind in the prison house. What a place.
For a man of God, what a place in a prison house grinding there.
No eyes, No spiritual sight. No physical sight. What a pathetic figure. What a solemn picture.
The result of 1 disobedience, he allowed the razor to come upon his head.
He was not the shame of his hair, but he allowed that to be done.
Through his wicked wife, well, they put out his eyes and then we find.
Verse 25 And he came to pass when their hearts were married.
Their hearts were merry. What for are now the enemies of the Lord had gained a victory?
Oh, the poor Samson. Their hearts were merry about it.
You think his heart was merry?
Poor Samson in the prison house now.
Lost his eyes grinding there in the prison house. But they were married.
They said call for Sampson.
That he may make us spoil. Just think of it, that Samson should afford sport for the enemies of the Lord through disobedience. Oh beloved, not solemn pictures we have in the word of God what solemn warnings to us all.
Oh God, grant that we may be preserved true to him.
They said call for Samson that he may make a spot and they call the Samson out of the prison house and he made them spawn.
This is indeed a solemn picture, isn't it?
This dear man making sport for the enemies of the Lord.
Without his eyes. And there they were, enjoying sports. Their hearts were merry.
I'm sure his heart was pretty sad.
But our brother reminded us in the address this afternoon how our hearts can be married to how they can be happy, not merry in the sense of the world.
But how our hearts can be perfectly happy.
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By going on with the Lord in faithfulness and obedience and separation.
By having him as the sole object.
O God, grant that he may be the object of your heart and mind.
We may seek by grace to go on faithfully till he comes, because he may come today.
Make a spot and they call for Samson out of the prison house, and he made them sport and they sent him between the pillars.
Watershed.
And it says there are about 3000 men and women that beheld while Samson made sport the spectacle to the world.
What a science picture. Oh God, grant that you and I may not be a spectacle to the world through disobedience or failure.
But that we may be preserved.
From those things.
Which would tend to rob us.
Of that spiritual power because we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God.
As a source of power, undoubtedly in Samson, the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and it was manifested in those amazing feats.
But he lasted.
Oh God, Grant that we may not lose ours, but that we may seek to go on with him.
A little while we left here.
I feel, I'm sure you do, beloved Saints of God, that the journey will soon be over.
We soon done to look right into the face of that blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to see him for the first time with our eyes. Samson lost his, but we do find that he called upon the Lord. That's good to see that in verse 28. And Samson called unto Lord and said, O Lord God.
Remember Me?
Samson says, Lord, you Remember Me, the Lord said to you, dear young Christian, this morning, Now Remember Me. That's what he said to you, didn't he?
What did you do about it? Well, it's good to dwell upon these things. Remember Me, I pray thee, and strengthen me. I pray the only this once, oh God, that I may be at once avenge of the Philistines of my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood and on which he was borne up, the one with his right hand and the other with his left. Samson sled, Let me die with the Philistines.
And he bowed himself with all his might. And the house fell upon the Lords, and upon all the people that were there in so the dead which he slew at his death, were more than they which he slew in his life.
Well, there's a great deal in the chapter. We haven't only just touched on the fringe of it, but I do believe there are some very valuable lessons here for us.
Beloved and again I say, may the Lord keep us.
May the Lord preserve us until he come.
That we may not be indulging in the things of this world which would.
The Woman of Samaria
Gospel—A. Barry
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General Meetings, Detroit, November 1960.
Gospel My Brother AM Barry.
To sing hymn #24.
24.
We will turn to the 4th chapter of John's Gospel.
John 4.
When, therefore, the Lord knew.
How the Pharisees had heard.
That Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John.
Oh Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples.
He left Judy, and departed again into Galilee.
And he must needs go through Samaria.
Then cometh he to a city of Samaria.
Which is called Psycho.
Here to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
Now Jacob's well was there.
Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey that thus on the well.
It was about the 6th hour.
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me the drink.
For his disciples were gone away into the city, under the city, to buy meat.
Then said the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me which I am? A woman of Samaria, or the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans?
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God?
And who it is assessed to thee give me to drink.
I would have asked of him.
And he would have given thee.
Living water.
The woman says unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with him, The well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water?
Art thou greater than our father, Jacob, which gave us the will?
And drank thereof himself, and his children, and his captain.
Jesus answered and said unto her.
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water, that I shall give him.
Thou never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
The woman passed unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw.
Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband, and come hit her.
The woman answered, and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands.
And he whom thou now has is not thy husband, and that sets our truly.
The woman says unto him, Sir, I perceive the thou art a prophet our fathers worshipped in this mountain.
He say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus says unto her, Woman, Believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet a Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Worship Ye know not, thought we know what we worship for Salvation is of the Jews.
But the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers.
Worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father sickest but to worship him.
God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him.
In spirit and in truth.
The woman sat on him. I know that Messiah cometh which is called Christ. When he is gone, he will tell us all things, Jesus says unto her.
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I let speak unto thee, and he.
And upon this came his disciples, and marvel that he talked with the woman. Yet no man says, while seeketh thou, or why talkest thou with her. The woman then left her water pots and went her way into the city.
And said to the men, come see a man.
Which told me all things that ever I did, Is not this the Christ? And they went out of the city, and came unto her. In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, saying mastery. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat, that ye know not of.
Therefore, said the disciples, 1 to another, Have any man brought him off to eat?
Jesus saith unto them, My need.
As to do the will of him that sent me.
And to finish his work, say not ye they are yet four months, And then cometh harvest, Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the field for their white, all ready to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathered fruit unto life eternal. And both he that soweth, and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that thing true. One sort and another Reaper, I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor.
Other men labored, and ye are entered into their laborers.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified he told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were coming to him, they just thought him that he would carry with him, and he abode there two days, and many more believe because of his own words.
And said of the woman, Now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard in ourselves.
And know that this is indeed the Christ.
The favor of the world.
Well, I trust the reading of this.
Portion in the Gospel of John.
Has touched the heart of everyone present.
Because it has.
Brought us into the presence.
All that one I desire to speak about tonight.
The Savior of sinners.
And more than that.
To be brought into the presence of that savior.
As one who is speaking.
The lost sinners.
For the way the Lord thought and found that poor woman of Samaria.
Is the very way that he is now at this time seeking.
To win any that's out of Christ.
In this world, in life is the same savior.
I know he's in glory. His sojourn here on Earth is over.
He's a glorified man at God's right hand.
But beloved friends, that one who is seated on high in the glory.
As a savior of sinners.
This very night in which we're presenting the gospel of God's grace.
The chapter opens with the fact that the Lord knew.
How the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John.
Aaron though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples.
No, people haven't changed so much as we might suppose from.
Those days.
So many centuries ago.
For the subject that they were.
Boiling about and disputing about is the subject that occupies for many today.
That is the subject of baptism.
And they were all wrong. They were trying to form a party, a party for Christ against the party for John the Baptist.
Remember an old brother saying one time you could be in a meeting where everyone was about half asleep. You could just say the word baptism and everybody would wake up.
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Well, how true that is. People like to have something.
That will start an argument.
Oh, we have those in all that want this form of baptism and another this mode of baptism.
But I believe as far as the Lord's interest is concerned, he's about AS.
Little.
Connected with those arguments as he was there in this chapter that we have read, the Lord just left. He left them to wrangle it out among themselves.
And he went out and searched.
Of a poor, weary Sinner.
I'm not discrediting baptism in any way, beloved friends. The marvelous truth.
And when we read that as many of you as have baptized unto Jesus Christ, we're baptized unto his death, therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death. But like this Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even though we also should walk in newness of life. What a marvelous truth. And when that is presented in power and ocean to the soul, I'm sure the Lord is with the message.
That gives us to walk in that newness of life, and to see ourselves dead and buried with Christ.
In baptism but the mere argument.
Is very offensive to the Lord.
And his interest is far remote.
From all man's arguments and speculations.
So it says he must need to go through Samaria.
I have over my desk where I write a pro field map.
A Palestine. I like to look at that map and.
Think of the wonderful history connected with it and the wonderful events that are yet to take place.
In that promised land, the one thing that.
Came to my mind thinking of that map of Palestine.
With the location of this city of Samaria Spanker right in the mountains.
Now there was a much easier route. The Lord could have called. He could have gone over to the Jordan and followed the more or less for the level.
Country up to Galilee.
But it tells us that he must need go through Samaria.
That rough mountainous country all they didn't travel on paved roads in those days with wonderful cars like we travel in you. Never read of the Lord writing, but on one occasion.
That was the ascent of Jerusalem. The Lord walked all those miles.
As he went through Samaria that day.
And he chose that rough, mountainous country for a very special purpose.
What was the purpose? Why did the Lord take that journey?
It was to meet one poor, weary, miserable, unhappy center.
And one of a race that the Jews.
Would have nothing to do with a despised America.
And more than that, this woman was an outcast.
Of the very people to whom she belonged, because we find her at high noon at the six hour.
After well alone. Or at least he went out when they were none. None of the women of the city had gone out to draw water.
You know, the customary time to draw water in those eastern lands was in the evening.
And I believe the reason she went out at high noon in the heat of the day.
Was because.
Her life.
Her wretchedness as a Sinner.
Had made her an outcast of society.
Though she shunned the face of man.
But marvelous truth, friend, the one who shunned the face of man because of her sins and wretchedness.
00:15:04
GAR ended company.
Blessed Son of God.
My wonderful grace, beloved friends.
Can we ever?
Measure the great.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Indeed, the apostle says he know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's all he were rich. Yet for our sakes, he became poor.
That he, through his poverty, might be rich.
I think one of the marvels of marvels is what we have presented to us.
And the Lord is there, sitting on that whale, waiting for the arrival of that woman. He knew she'd be there.
He was waiting to talk to her and the winner heart for himself.
To think of the creator.
Of this vast universe.
To think of the one who was the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person.
And indeed, the one who, though sitting on that well weary hired with his journey, was upholding all things at that very moment by the word of his power.
And all to get in company.
For the poor outcast of society.
Does it not tell beloved friends?
But there is no Sinner.
2.
For the blessed Son of God, and there is no Sinner whose condition is so bad.
That the Son of God is not in love and in grace, seeking to win.
That poor heart for himself.
We find the Lord didn't reform a miracle to quench his thirst on this occasion. In fact, we never find the Lord performing a miracle for his own ease and comfort.
He might see the multitudes by multiplying loaves and fishes.
All that 5000 men beside women and children were fed there in the wilderness, but when the Lord was hungry and the devil suggests to turn stones to bread.
He gave an answer that we may well consider. He says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
And it was the will of the Father that he should go through this world just as you and I go through this world.
Taste all its sorrows and trials.
And grief and disappointment.
He went through it just as every other man.
Passes through.
This sad, weary world in which we live.
So he asked. Drink of this one. And, you know, friends, we, we.
See the true winner of souls.
And since we have perhaps mostly believers here tonight.
I think it's quite instructive for us to get the true soul winner before us.
The Lord didn't say anything that drove that woman away.
Even when he reached her conscience, he didn't.
Get her conscience so bothered that he just fled away because of her sins and her and her guilt. But he says go call thy husband and come hit her.
Oh, isn't that lovely? Isn't that beautiful?
Although he was reaching her conscience and making her realize her terrible Satan guilt, yet he would win her heart to come right into his presence.
Well, the Lord didn't take up some subject that was mystical beyond her comprehension and understanding.
He just talked to her about what was there before him, about the whale.
00:20:04
Now we can just picture it, beloved friends.
There was an indifferent woman, miserable of course, wretches in her sins.
But coming there, I suppose, without any thoughts of eternity over hereafter.
Just to get a a pitcher of water to carry to her wretched home and her wretched existence there in Samaria.
And the Blessed Lord is going to find some entrance into that dark, sinful heart of that woman.
Let's trace carefully.
The means that he took.
The fine entrance.
Into that heart so far from God.
So he starts talking to her about the whale.
He says. Give me to drink. Wasn't that lowly grace?
Thank God, the Creator asking one of his creatures.
For a drink of water.
Our beloved friends, that the Savior that I would seek to direct your thoughts, your heart's affections too. Here's a knife, one soul lowly.
They're willing to take a drink of water, asking a drink of water.
From one obvious.
For the knighted creatures.
Ruined with the horrors and wretchedness.
To sin.
I know we may look with contempt on a character like that, but it's only God's grace that has kept any of us from stooping so long in sin. We have nothing to boast our friends.
Even if we haven't got the very bottom.
Of the ladder, so to speak.
It's only his grace.
That has kept us.
Because those things that we see in her heart are in your heart and my heart.
I believe it was, Tennyson said. These words every heart contested well.
Is a is a plot of warmer dust mixed with cunning sparks of pale.
Well, he was in a poetical way just saying what is said in the 17th chapter of Jeremiah.
Where it tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things.
And desperately wicked who can know it.
And we get the answer. I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the rain.
All those things we see the murderer going through the to the gallows. Our friends have murders in your heart and mind. The only reason we haven't committed murders. Perhaps the strength of the laws made us afraid to perform the deed.
If solemn isn't it to think what's in the human heart.
But all the grace of one that can meet the need.
Of one whose heart is so corrupt.
I'm so bad.
Well, the Lord.
In grace converses with us for soul, and you know, the first thing that.
That caught her attention.
That interested her in this stranger.
Was his condescending grace. She had seen lots of Jews and her day and time.
Which he'd never seen.
One like this stranger.
So, she says. How is it?
That you being a Jew.
Were the *** drink of a woman of Samaria. That's the thing that surprised her.
And beloved, isn't that the way the Lord reaches the hard heart of the Sinner, so hard and impenetrable that seems that nothing will ever reach or touch it? It's his wonderful grace.
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It's the goodness of God, you know. We're told in Romans 2 That leadeth to repentance.
That will accomplish what nothing else in all the world would ever accomplish.
10th verse Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God?
And who it is assessed to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given the living water.
What a marvelous statement that was of Jesus. And I believe, beloved friends, that that verse contains the whole gospel.
If thou knew us a gift of God.
For the first times he brings God before this poor sinful Samaritan crown to us, the gift of God.
And wood is there, the sun.
That I would survive of him, and he would have given the living water. There's the Holy Spirit, there's the Trinity.
Well, what is God's gift?
Beloved friends, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But what is that eternal life? Well, the Lord tells us in the 17th of John He says this is eternal life.
That he might know.
That they might know thee the only true God.
And Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent.
My beloved friends, the gift of God is Christ.
What a gift.
God is offering.
So this for a sinful world.
We read in John 316 For God's soul of the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's the gift of God, friends.
Gave his only begotten son.
Think of God.
Giving his son to this poor lost world.
Sending him into a world of sin and sorrow.
Sending him from those heights of glory into this world of woe, knowing what was before him.
And then when there was no remedy for guilty man.
To give him up to that shameful death of Calvary's cross.
Our friends when we think of what dogs gift is.
It's something so marvelous.
And it's just beyond us to think of what God is, is great. Love is offering.
The poor sinful man.
He couldn't bestow a greater gift, could he? God had only one son.
And yet he gave the darling of his heart.
For a sinful man.
And then he says, And who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink theirs the blessed Lord himself, who it is.
Oh, how important it is in this day of of.
Of every effort being made to dishonor the person of the Son.
To get hold of who it is.
Breaking your nose, feet.
Effort is to dishonor the person of the son.
But you know the Lord Jesus says if he believed not that I am he.
He shall die in your sins, and whether I go, he cannot come.
Lots of important things to lay hold of. Who that one, that blessed one that was there on that well talking to that woman really was.
Who it is?
So we as we think of His Majesty, his glory, His greatness.
His eternal existence. Then we think of him a lowly mind, a man that was nailed to the cross, a man that went through those hours of darkness forsaken of God.
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That's the man, friends, who it is, and that's the one that's addressing sinners, who it is. That says to thee, You see, it's a personal matter between the soul and the Savior. He's addressing the soul of the Sinner. That's the way he brings salvation to the heart of any lost one. He addresses the Sinner personally who it is that says unto thee.
And what is the way to enter into this blessing? How is it possible for one to receive, to possess this gift of God? It comes right from the heart of God to the Sinner, says If you'd ask of him, he would have given thee.
If God's gift is the Son who bestows it, and it's through him that that gift is receiving all apart, the Sinner has to do with that marvelous transaction is just to ask of Him.
Have you asked him for it? Is there anyone here that has never had to say to that blessed savior about his lost condition, his need of the Sinner?
Well, at all it takes, you see, is just to go to him personally.
You know, there's lots of men that are preaching.
Preaching through the land that would despise having a little audience like this. Wouldn't think it was there worth their time.
The priests do a little handful of people.
Oh no, they're too important.
They're got letters behind their names. They're famous evangelists. They're got their pictures everywhere. They're herald all over the country. They must have thousands.
To expend their efforts and their energies upon.
But how wonderful, beloved.
The Son of God.
The creator of the universe talking to one lonely Sinner.
And you see that all through this beautiful gospel of John, the chapter just before.
The Lord is talking to Nicodemus alone here, the woman of Psycho alone. In the next chapter, the 5th chapter, you have the Lord addressing.
That man at the pool of Bethesda.
Alone. And then in the 8th chapter when they brought in that woman and they all fled.
And left the the Lord. We find the Lord alone with that woman.
And in the 9th chapter, the blind man whose eyes were opened when Jesus found him in the temple there.
Another one alone with Jesus.
I wonder if there's any here that has never been alone with Jesus.
Oh, you say. Well, you mean that you want me to wait till I get home?
No, no, no. Right here. You can be alone with Jesus.
You can close out every other subject, every other person, every other thought, every other interest, and just have a little conversation in your soul, in your inmost heart.
With that savior of sinners. And I can tell you if you do, Prince, really from your heart.
The matter will be a federal matter.
You will find that you are saved, for no one ever had to do with Jesus.
In that way that didn't get the salvation.
Of their soul.
Well, the woman asked the question. Quite a question.
Says Art thou greater than our father, Jacob?
Which gave us the well drank thereof, and spouting his children and his cattle.
That was quite a question, wasn't it?
Art thou greater than our father, Jacob?
When you think of all the descendants of Jacob.
Why they have made history for the world, haven't they?
00:35:03
They had a wonderful history. There isn't a country that hasn't. The Jew is there. Praise their history back. They descended from that man, Jacob.
So when we look at history and when we consider.
All that the Jews have accomplished in the world.
And we could say what they're yet to accomplish.
We might ask the question ourselves.
Art thou greater than our father, Jacob?
Oh yes, if you compare man with man.
Of course, to consider that humble man there on the well with their father Jacob, where there was no comparison at all, was there?
Well, there was a question for all friends. The wonder and the beauty of the answer. That's what is precious.
To the heart as we consider it.
Here's the answer. And you know, when the Lord answered the question, he didn't give a direct answer that would satisfy the intellect. He gave an answer that reached the constants that went home.
To the.
Here is the answer.
13th verse Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water?
Shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that eyes shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him.
A will of water springing up into everlasting life.
All the answer was meeting the need of her soul. Lord didn't put up any argument as to who was the greater. He didn't say. Well, just the idea of thinking of Jacob compared with the creator. Well, there's no comparison at all, but no friends.
Oh no, the Lord didn't answer in that way.
He just replied in a way that gave that poor soul to realize that there was nothing in this world that would satisfy.
The longings of her heart.
Whosoever drinketh of this water, so thirst again.
And how true that is?
The world is trying desperately to find something that would satisfy the hunger.
Of their poor, empty hearts and they never find it. That's why these millionaires when they make their.
Their immense fortunes and get everything just like Mr. Young.
The head of the New York Central System after he got everything his heart could wish in this world with any committed suicide.
The things of this world satisfied the heart. Why, surely he'd be a satisfied man.
But it didn't satisfy.
Well, the Lord brings in then.
The true answer to the need of the soul. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of waters, bringing up into everlasting life.
To other friends, everyone here and everyone in this great world has a soul.
A soul is to live for all eternity.
And the things of this life, the things of this world, will never satisfy.
The longings of that soul that's destined to live through eternal Eagles.
But the Lord, and only the Lord Jesus, God's Son, could tell of water that would quench the longings.
Of the human heart.
The water that Jesus gives satisfies every longing of the human heart, but to see the woman still was in darkness of soul.
Or all she can think about is her life.
Of misery in this world. And she says give me this water that I thirst not neither come hit her to draw. She'd like to have that which would favor the embarrassment and the trouble of going to that will. That's that's wonderful.
00:40:11
Well, that's just away with people. If they can get something, you know, for to help them out in this world while they grasp for it.
I told sometimes.
About years ago at a political rally they had in Clinton, KY, county, seat of the county where I was raised.
The political One political party gave a free dinner.
They're advertised all over a free dinner.
Well, you know, the whole county turned out and they had place in the center roped off for.
The sandwiches and drinks they were going to serve and this mob broke the through the over the ropes and soon the tables and benches and everything they had there were scattered helter skelter.
A free meal, a few sandwiches.
Well, isn't that the human heart, though? Oh, they had a gospel meeting announced there. How many would have come out to hear the gospel and yet for one meal, while the whole county would turn out and be so ravenous that?
They broke up the whole thing.
Oh, how sad it is, isn't it, beloved friends?
Early It rejoices your heart and mind to think.
That though we were no better, and were so prone to ever taste of that living water.
That God in his infinite grace won your poor heart and mind.
For all that we have indeed drunk of that living water, and our souls have been satisfied.
What a privilege we had this morning sitting down to remember that Blessed One in his death.
There any place friends in this poor world to compare with that place?
Where we could remember that Blessed One in his death?
Well, the Lord speaks of.
In connection with the subject of a well of water springing up into everlasting life. And that's what happens when you accept this gift that God bestows, You get that that well of living water.
Within and it springs up. That is, it springs up in worship and adoration to the one who has loved you and given himself for you. Oh beloved friends, if that will of water is active in your soul, that will be the result. In your soul it will be praise and worship that blessed one who loved you so much.
Well, the Lord in answer to this question.
He says. Give me this water, the Lord says Go call thy husband and come hit her.
Well, that was the way the Lord used to reach her conscience, for she says. I have no husband.
The Lord says, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he who now now has his not thy husband.
That is, he revealed that she was just a poor, adulterous woman.
Now the conversation changes completely.
No more is she talking about getting water to satisfy the present first down here.
She's occupied with higher subjects than ever she'd been occupied with before.
He says, Sir, I perceive the power of Prophet.
Because she discovered that this stranger there at the well was one that knew all about.
Her sinful life.
And for she thinks of him as a property course. He was a prophet.
It was the great prophet indeed, but he was much more than a prophet. John was much more than a prophet. How much more? The son of God.
To the Prophet, priest and King, But all friends, what charm your heart and mind more than any other title that he so rightly bears, is that he was the Savior.
00:45:10
Well, the first thing that this woman thinks of when her conscience is reached and she finds herself in the presence of one who knew about her.
Her sinful life. Oh, she was supposed to be all very fair, respectable creature, I suppose.
No other heart likes the disease.
Folks around us, we like to pose as being much superior and better than we actually are.
But when you get in the presence of the searcher of Hearts, there's no use to try to pretend we're something we're not.
The reveals the real state of her poor spindle heart.
But she makes the same effort that thousands are making today.
To.
To prove that her religion is the right religion.
Oh yes, he says, our Father worship in this mountain. Ye faith in Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship. Oh yes, he jumps for religion.
Remember old brother Potter used to make this remark. He said that religion never saved anyone, but it had damn thousands.
And I believe it's true. Just as in the case of this woman, before she could be saved from her sins, she had to be received from her religion.
Well, the Lord gave some wonderful thoughts and connection with.
Reason and Jerusalem.
He tells her that Jerusalem is the place that God established, but he also tells her that the hour was coming when neither at Jerusalem.
They were to worship the Father.
I have a feeling that this woman understood.
What the Lord was talking about much better after the Holy Spirit came and she had that well dwelling in her.
From the thought and I rather agree with it or I wouldn't state it.
Positively that when Philip went down.
To a city of Sumerian preached Christ.
That it was this very city, because I believe it says he went down to the city. I believe that's the correct word, the city of Samaria.
See the Lord save this one poor woman. And she went out and told the people in the city to come see this man. And then many believe that because of her words, and many more believed because of Christ's words. And then Philip came along and reached the whole city, and there was great joy in that city.
Oh yes, there were many wells of water springing up into everlasting life before.
The whole story is told out in connection with God's grace to this city of Samaria.
Well, this conversation leads this poor soul.
To make.
To ask to tell the Lord that they knew that.
Messiah was coming. I want to just call attention to this.
That those Samaritans had a little bit of God's Word. They only accepted, I believe, the five books of Moses, that that was God's Word, wasn't it?
And in that portion of God's Word, there was.
A plain promise of the Messiah, I will raise up the prophets like unto me him till ye hear was written by Moses.
While this isn't their beloved friends, how God can use a little bit of His word wherever.
That word.
Is found in this poor world of ours. A little bit of his word. She has a little bit of his word, and it was just this. He knew that Messiah was coming.
Perhaps he was venturing to ask the question. Could it be possible, if you're that one?
For trans. When Jesus says, I that speak unto thee, and he.
It was all settled then, wasn't it?
As soon as those words were spoken by the Lord Jesus.
00:50:03
She had accepted it, or she didn't hesitate, and her heart was so filled with delight that she went away into the city.
He says come here man, which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?
And that's reasoning that baffles all the arguments of man.
A chained soul.
Like that man that Brother Wakefield was telling about last night. That poor old drunkard.
And to see him now sitting, enjoying the things of Christ, and in his right mind, friends.
What reasoning can ever produce?
An explanation what took place?
We visited him.
I'll tell you what he said, he said they used to call me old drunken date, he says. Now they call me preacher date.
Well, Walter made the change in that, in that poor center.
He got his eyes on that man.
That man. Christ Jesus, friends, come see you, man.
Well.
That's the gospel that we're seeking to present. Come see a man. It doesn't come get to know something about this religion or about this religious movement, this evangelistic campaign. No. Come see a man.
Get your eyes on Christ. Behold that wonderful Savior. He is a savior on high in the glory this very moment, Friends. And I can tell you this, if you see him by faith now and here, someday, you're going to see him with these very eyes of yours. I don't like these pictures of Christ. I think they're all the imagination of man. I believe that God has reserved.
A wonderful surprise for his own.
And I know there are not true friends because it says when we see him we shall be lacking if we're seeing a real picture of Christ.
While we wouldn't be here, we could get a real glimpse of that as he is.
Really. With these mortal eyes of our game on the face of Jesus?
We'd be transformed into his very image. Oh, it's marvelous to have to do with the Christ of God, beloved friends.
And one would just say this again.
He's presented, though, for the eye of faith.
We see Jesus as the Apostle Paul. That's the eye of faith, and you can look right into that glory by faith and see the very one who hung on the cross and suffered for sinners. Here below you can see him wearing the crown of heaven glorified up there, and you can receive in this very.
Night by faith in your heart.
We'll see #31.
I will sing of my Redeemer and his wondrous love to me on the cruel cross he suffered from the curse to set me free.
#31
I will.
Bring my.
Reading.
And here's what.
Wrong.
Hurt me.
All my partner.
00:55:03
I'm very.
Free.
I will.
And made me dream.
I will.
Praise my.
Hearing.
From our iPad.
How are you?
Where Wilt Thou?