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Reserve most graciously within thy shelter in cold. Move them from every mile away.
00:05:03
We covered quite a few points. If there is interest in moving to a different subject, I would think that would be fine.
Uh, there's certainly.
Plenty more to say about this sensation, but.
For some people, it's a more laborious subject than to other people. Uh.
If we were to take up a dispensation, uh again.
Umm. I would personally recommend that we kind of consider the, uh, practical effects.
Of having that kind of thinking.
And I know that might sound a little odd, but I think a lot of people understand what I'm trying to say.
If if you if you want to continue with the subject.
Umm. I I would suggest that just kind of seeing.
How the con? How the ideas of presented in scripture about this sensation actually affect the way that I think?
About Christianity and about the world around us.
Perhaps if we were to approach the subject from that standpoint.
It would be helpful if it's helpful to me, I hope it's helpful to others to get an understanding for why foundations really matter. For example, if we were to take up, which was not the suggestion, the seven dispensations, you can go through the seven or whatever number you chose to put it, go through dispensationalism and discuss.
As this law and government and so on, we could go through the different principles and somebody might come away and say, but I, I have to go home today and I, I've got some difficulties in my home. I've got some difficulties in the neighborhood. How does that exactly apply?
And so.
Umm.
I'd like to give a little bit of a background as to why foundations matter.
And there was a, a book, I didn't read it actually. I listened to the audio version of the talk called Seven Men Who Ruled the World From the Grave. And it went through seven people who were given from a Christian perspective, but whose ideas got planted in the 1800s actually, and they have an immense effect on the world today.
I'll give one of them the person that you here have probably heard of. But just to try to illustrate this point, that sometimes of the foundation and the critical nature of it isn't observed right away. With a man named Julius Wellhausen, who was one of the German theologians of the mid 1800s. And he basically approached the word of God as though he were wiser than that word. And he could bring his own thoughts to it and work on it and find out what really came from God and what was just filler in my own words.
Museum theologian and a university, and I suppose the vast majority of people in his day never heard his name, but he planted seeds and those seeds grew. And by the late 1800s, most seminaries in the western world had been affected by them so that students that were graduating from those seminaries had a disrespect toward the Word of God as a root foundation. And you'll read a lot if you read Mr. Kelly's writings and so on. He spent a lot of that, a lot of ink and saying some of that arguments and at by the Lady 1800s.
By the time of World War One, there were chaplains that worked with people on the field. And when they did, there are a lot of there's been a lot of distance between people and God. But the Word of God was still being taught in the churches where they live. And so somebody who wanted to deal with someone on the field could bring out the story of David and Goliath, but they could also talk about someone like Mephibosheth and the person would have heard of Mephibosheth and so they could draw lessons from Mephibosheth.
Administering to them on the battlefield, but.
Those seminarians graduated students who taught from pulpit and by the time of World War 2, the chaplains, some chaplains that served more or one served in World War Two and they said by the time they came to World War Two people were no longer the average person that they were dealing with on the battlefield had never heard of Methodists. They'd never heard of and name your Bible character in Bible story. Maybe they'd heard of David and Goliath and Noah and the point is this the seed planted in the mid 1800s that the word of God is not reliable.
00:10:34
Was finally bearing broad fruit in many from many pulpits where the Word of God was no longer being preached.
And so.
And that's just want to read a scripture in first Peter 2.
That gives the principal here giving it as the principal.
In verse six first Peter 2, verse 6, wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold I land Zion.
A chief cornerstone elects precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallow the same.
Is made the head of the corner. Peter's writing to those who had grown up, if with a Jewish background, who were now believers in Christ. They were Christians, and he's giving to them a very fundamental principle to understand.
The many of their brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and neighbors had a view of the Lord Jesus as an impostor to.
There was a stumbling over because when he came the first time, he came to suffer. He mentioned it in the first chapter.
He didn't come to reign and they didn't understand that very fundamental aspect of the Lord.
And it threw off their whole understanding of what God was doing and.
So to come back to the the subject that Bruce introduced, why does it matter? What difference does it make? I'll give one very simple, simplistic maybe example, but.
If we understand what God teaches in his Word about us as Saints that are called out, whose hopes are heavenly, then we're not going to become involved in the politics of the world around us, in our thoughts and our hearts. Forget for a moment running for local office. Maybe none of us here would do that.
But how many of us listen to the news, read the news, find the news somewhere, and you're driving home from work and you're listening to it and just all this turmoil. What's going to happen if the president does this and what's going to happen if the local politician does that? That's one way in which our thoughts become centered on the earth and what's happening here on the earth. Well, the theology, and it's a broad tent, so it can't paint everybody with one brush. There's lots of flavors that covenant theology, for example.
But is a broad general brush. It fixed the Saints today in the earth in the place of Israel and says now you live here and you make this place better. And in a broad sense, the dispensations puts the St. in heaven and says your hopes and the person that they're all tied to is there. You live there with his interests being carried out on the 3rd. And it has a fundamental daily effect on how we think.
You hear the news and you say, I look forward to the day my Lord is going to come and I want to live with the armor of light on that we heard about yesterday. I always think, wow, that's just terrible. We got to change this. And so in a very Broadway, the foundation is vital. Finished with one little example of very personal means. I hope you can visualize it. We shop for a home for six months, and one of them looked really good to us. We went back a second time with our brother Bernie Ganders, who's an architect.
And he went around the outside of it and he, he's looking at this and he's looking at that and he starts to point out things to me. And he determined that the house had four different foundations.
And he showed me where there was a water problem along one side and then why that led to spongy floors that had been they'd taken the house and they painted the walls beautifully. They laid new carpets in the bedroom. They cleaned everything up. But somebody that could take a check out the foundation went around and said, you're gonna have terrible problems here. And look at how this floor is spongy over here, and look how they've had a problem down there. My eye wasn't practiced enough to see it, but somebody came along that knew a lot better than I did and can point out where the foundation was bad. It would lead to all kinds of problems down the road.
00:15:06
And perhaps that's something of what we need is to see from the Word of God the foundation of what makes us heavenly people, what that looks like, and why it's important that we see the place God's given to the believer today.
I believe.
I maybe.
Slightly incorrect in that in that same book I think they talk about Sigmund Freud and the influence of Karl Marx. And as young people go on to university and college they will be confronted with these ideas. Modern psychology.
Uh, an alternate economic system which.
Seems appealing.
Umm, but there are dangers in all these things that.
Uh, our brother mentioned, talked about higher criticism which came in and uh, we know that there has been a great departure from what we had 200 years ago.
Just recently I was listening again to.
A tape by a Presbyterian minister. Some perhaps have heard of his name. Alistair Bay.
And he gave one of the best me messages that I ever heard on the blood of Christ. And he made reference to a theological seminary in our area, Princeton University, which started out as a very fundamental school and one of the first.
Uh, presidents of that university would call in every prospective graduate and before.
Uh, they graduated, He would make a personal conference in his office and he would say to them, make much of the blood of Christ. Now we know that that is largely absent.
In the churches today, and that's.
Again, uh, a departure, as our brother has just mentioned.
Would anyone suggest a a, a scripture or a starting point where we could begin this topic today?
At least several verses.
1St of May Virginia's capital city near both lands.
Hope you're talking.
Corinthians, chapter 3.
That sounds like a good idea.
Cycle is.
First Corinthians, chapter 3.
Were you thinking the whole chapter or verse 9 OK?
Take the whole chapter.
What's what's the thought of Mother's Day? What's your thought as to where we should start?
Because it's connected altogether. It was the principal from even worldly wisdom. And I think that's the that's my biggest concern is we all have different reasons for justifying it.
1St Corinthians 3 verse one. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as in the spiritual, but as in the carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with me.
From hit her to you were able not, not able to bear it neither yet now are you able, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you, and being in strife and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men for a while. One saith I am appalled, and another I am of Apollos. Are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollo?
That ministers by whom ye believe, even as the Lord gave to every man.
00:20:05
I have planted or polished water, but God give it the increase, so that neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one.
And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor, For we are laborers together with God. We are God's husband, and ye are God's building according to the grace of God, which is given unto me.
As a wise Master builder, I have laid the foundation in another build it thereon that let every man take heed to how he buildeth thereon. For other foundations can no man lay, and that is laid which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work.
Of what sort it is, if any man's work abide which he had built, thereupon we shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss that he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
No, ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man defile the temple of God.
Him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy.
Which temple ye are, let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him be a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men.
For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, in Christ is God.
They lead up to certain, uh, verse. So in this case, the verse that came to my mind was when we speak of foundation and knowing that if a foundation is destroyed, then it's easy to destroy the rest of it. So this chapter, to understand it, I, I'd like to divide it into 3 sections.
The first 2 verses really is the crux of some of.
Problems we have With all these different problems and and questions, the 1St 2 verses speaks about how the worldly wisdom could lead us away from the word of God.
So those two verses we should pay some attention to.
And then we find from verse three to verse 8 how there are various issues. We're not careful. You can cause divisions in the assembly. So we find that when worldly wisdom come into play, then often that get brought into the assembly and we exercise worldly wisdom in the assembly that cause difficulties when we ought to be exercising it from the Word of God.
And then the rest of the chapter, verse 9 to verse 17, it speaks about the foundation, but more so it speaks about how easily it is defilement can come into the House of God. Now this is First Corinthians. So we know that the House of it speaks of the House of God here and he speaks about how the foundation needs to be set right. So with that in mind.
We can look at it and and perhaps through the help, by the through the Lord's health, we can understand I I don't believe we can answer a lot of these questions with direct answers. We need to understand the principle and using the word of God when the circumstances arise.
In the 11Th Psalm, David could say verse three, If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
So it's important to have those established foundations, foundations.
00:25:05
We live very close to New York City, and I'm always amazed every time I look at the New York City skyline at the many new buildings that are springing up.
It almost seems that the next ones are higher than the ones that were there before.
But those buildings have to have a firm foundation, they have to be established.
In the bedroom.
Just a month or so ago, I went on a a river cruise. We took our 8th grade students out on the river and we went under the Brooklyn Bridge and.
Uh, there's an interesting story connected with that bridge.
They had to think the case on down deep in the river because it wasn't going to be a substantial bridge.
And the company that had the contract was the Rogue Wing Steel Works based in Trenton, NJ.
And the owner of the company and the chief engineer, Mr. Robling, decided that he would go down and check on the caissons one day and not realizing the depth, he actually contracted the bends and was permanently disabled and crippled for the rest of the project. But he had to go down deep.
In order to make that inspection, that was needed to make sure those foundations of that bridge were the way they were supposed to be, whether they met the plans that were originally laid out. And so those foundations were absolutely necessary to have correct.
I'd just like to bring out something that was connected with two comments in the last reading meeting on Saturday. There was two comments, I think, towards the end of the meeting, and I just kind of like to bring them together and apply what our brother's been bringing out about worldly wisdom being brought into the things of God. One comment was I think our brother Bruce brought out how when the Messiah came, there was a lot of folks who had disappointed hopes.
He didn't behave or do all the things they thought he was going to do. That was very hard for people to accept. And then another brother, uh, brought out at the end of the meeting about how John the Baptist as a positive example, was told something that was must have been very hard to hear, that he would decrease while the Lord would increase. A tremendous change. And in humility, he just accepted it because God said it. I think when.
We are shown something.
That doesn't exactly meet our expectations. There's a tendency in our hearts, speak for myself, to say this doesn't seem to fit. Let me bring in human wisdom to make it fit.
And I believe what was mentioned earlier in the meeting was a covenant theology, if we want to use that term, essentially takes disappointed hopes. Disappointed hopes about what? About the expectation of God's people when Christ came?
And rather than accept what God said, that the Kingdom was going to be fulfilled at a future day, that Christ must suffer, that he would go away, rather than accept that fact and believe what God said.
There is self will and human wisdom that comes in and says no, I'm gonna bring in my own wisdom and I'm gonna say the Kingdom is gonna be established at this time. It's gonna be done in a spiritual way. Umm.
Those prophecies are gonna be fulfilled in a spiritual or moral sense, not literally.
So I I I know this isn't easy to follow, but my point is simply this. When we come to the Word of God with our own thoughts and things don't seem to line up with them, the tendency of unbelief is to bring in human worldly wisdom into the things of God, to make things fit in some kind of a theological framework.
And not trying to speak, I'll of our brethren who have a covenantial viewpoint of of Scripture, but I believe that's essentially what that is. And in my reading of the ministry of our early brethren, there's something that comes out so clearly and it sounds so simple.
00:30:18
Simply believe in God when he says something. He means what he says. If he says that the city of Jerusalem will be rebuilt and established by Christ on the earth.
It is going to happen, period.
You just believe that and then when you come to the New Testament and you see the church unfolded, rather than saying he didn't mean what he said there in those Old Testament prophecies and set that aside. Rather than saying that, say he said Jerusalem is going to be rebuilt and the church is going to be established and have a portion of Christ. Both things are true. And then all this truth opens up all of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Romans 11 open up to us.
And it comes down to simply believing what God said.
And so I just present that to you, we don't always understand everything. None of us do. And I believe error comes in when rather than simply believe what God has said and submit ourselves to the absolute authority of God in his Word. When we instead of that, we bring in human wisdom and worldly thinking. So I think it is very important that we remember that when I'm taking up the word of God.
First ten of our chapter speaks of a wise master builder.
I've seen evidence of things that have taken place when the original plans.
Uh, have been changed and deviated.
Last summer I was in the city of Stockholm, Sweden.
And some perhaps are familiar with.
An ancient warship, the Vasa, which was.
Uh, brought up from the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
And on its maiden voyage in the 1600s, it hard It had hardly gotten away.
Uh, from the docks where, uh, the shift works were when it went down with the loss of about 50 lives.
And in reading further about that catastrophe, it was the largest warship built at that time.
We found out that the Swedish king was unhappy with the original plans of the naval architect and he ordered that fifty more cannons were put on the upper deck and that made that ship top heavy and it hardly sailed more than a a mile from the port. Wow, that that was a deviation.
From the plans of the Master Builder. And so we have an extrication at the end of verse 10. But let every man take heed how he buildeth. Thereupon. Do we add something as our brother Josh mentioned? Do we subtract something from the word of God? Or do we just believe what God has said and accept that?
The word of God, we're given a lot of principles. It's interesting we holding our hand.
Actually two bulbs, but they're called Testament.
You read the book of Hebrews that tells you that a testament is only good if someone had died. So we have the Old Testament and the New Testament testifying from God, testifying from the from the Son of God what his words are. In the New Testament there are, I believe, 27 votes.
Among the.
Error or teachings, you'll find that many will say.
Some of the apostle Paul's doctrines are not right. There are various reasons they will say you just follow through. Whether it be whatever name you put it, you'll find that they do not follow Paul's doctrine either. He's old fashioned his. This is that which is incorrect. That is the foundation food we have in our hands. Paul was used very differently by God. He presented a lot of truth.
00:35:30
I'll put a reveal to what what God has, especially in regard to the church. Now here's what's interesting. The 27 books in the Old Testament, 13 or perhaps 14 books are written by the apostle Paul forced through the Spirit of God. So if you say Paul's teaching is not proper and you start taking his books out, how much of A foundation do you have? How much of A New Testament?
Do you have so sometimes it's important for us not just as young people, but as all of us as we deem 1 to recognize what pause did your tea adoption is. And whenever you come up against with difficulties of various kinds of doctrinal errors, you'll find that cost options is missing. So we find pause options. We have just real briefly the first one that you said that.
All we all we are all being justified. We have all been redeemed. We make that very clear to us but he also go on and give us a little bit more truth that he also the one that tell us there is one body. Do we believe in that there is one body that there is one God. He's the one that really is bound to us and gave us the authority for the remembrance of the Lord. You know sometimes when we read Luke chapter 22 on on Lord say morning.
So we read, uh, that it that is set to its own with desire. I have desire to eat this Passover with you. So that really was the Passover scene. And he was with his, with his own is 12. And then afterwards shortly after with the 11 There he institute the remembrance of the Lord. So somebody say, well, what authority do you as Gentiles have to remember the Lord?
Do we really have that? It was instituted to the Jews.
But then Paul came along in First Corinthians 11. We perhaps must turn to that. Sorry, don't miss all that we you'll find often when we read that portion, we will leave the first little bit out, uh, Corinthians chapter.
Verse 23 First Corinthian 11/23 Often we read from the middle of the verse the Lord Jesus, not the Lord Jesus as the same night. Now let me read from the beginning of the verse. He said, for I have received of the Lord that which also I Paul deliver unto you. Oh, he gave us the authority if anyone ever questioned you so he, he instead he he.
Expounded or revealed more of the church truth. He talks about the rapture. We all know that. It's not my thought to go into this in in any detail knowing that you know it well too.
And it talks about what happened to the same two have gone before. So we find it First Corinth and 1St Thessalonians 4 That is, that those who have gone before towards the dead in Christ shall rise first. That's comforting, isn't it?
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together, and then we shall be. So shall we ever be with the Lord and and He also talked about the resurrection.
You'll find that some of it is missing, especially the coming of the Lord. We find that that is not being presented or being watched out for by many Christians in this world. And when you put those in place, you can easily, uh, distinguish the truth and the false. And Scripture tells us too, that we should, really shouldn't study all these problems. We're told to be simple to those things that are evil, but we should be wise to the word of God.
00:40:03
I appreciate the way that.
I'll bring things before the Corinthians we just finished in Reno Ferry last week, but I'm processing even in the verses we're reading where it says here it says there's a wide not to be able to drive late to foundation. Another build is Veronica. Let every man take heed how we build it there upon for no foundation can it sorry for other foundation can no man lay then that is laid which is Jesus Christ. You know the Corinthians there were some who kind of came in there and.
Were teaching that.
There was no resurrection, which of course is an absolute foundational truth of which the Lord himself is the example. He goes back at the beginning of chapter 15. He says here's what the Bible says about it. Here's the evidence from the apostles here and he lays it out so incredibly in that chakra. And then later in the chapter, umm, he says don't, don't listen to people who don't have the knowledge of God is Josh was saying he he he very carefully who say how, how can the body be raised up? And he then he goes on in the doctor and he says if if someone has the knowledge of God and they look at creation around, they can see resurrection.
In, in creation around us. And then, then he goes on in the copter and in chapter 15 and he gets towards the end of chapter and, and uh, what happens here? He brings in the resurrection, the umm, the Lord's coming and our bodies being changed, something that would lend itself to dispensational truth. And he, he steps through it so incredibly. And at the end of that chapter, he just breaks down into praise and says, he says, oh, guess where's your sin? Oh grave, where's your victory? But thankfully God was giving us the victory for.
You're a large need this price and that is the foundation of how the Corinthians are to live the steadfast in this truth of the resurrection.
And that the Lord is coming and that your body is going to be changed and that will result in abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as your labor is not in vain. The Lord. And then if you look at how he expands upon that in First Thessalonians of the the Lord's coming and then in the Second Thessalonians where they're enduring persecution and they think that the the Lord must have already come. They're going through the tribulation. He corrects that in touch an incredible way. I remember.
When I was in my early 20s, Chuck Hendricks coming to Smith Falls and give speaking on that chapter and I was just like, wow, that that's really neat. And then, you know, you look a tiny look at these things through the eyes of simplicity and a child. I just finished going to revelation with my studies in class and.
Try anything, how do I take a book like revelation and boil it down so that it has meaning that can be appreciated. And, uh, you know, you go through the first few chapters. John is just into he's, he's been told the Lamb of God would take away the sin of the world and he never really thought he's on, he's on the Isle of Patness is a in a cave in exile. And God reveals to him this incredible truth and he's an episode simply possible the seven churches. And then they're going, well, you only see him in heaven after that.
Incredibly simple way and you know, it's easy to get confused in them and I can't say that I understand them nearly as in depth as I said, but sometimes we just try and think these through almost from the eyes of a child. They bring incredible encouragement and blessing to us if we're able to. And and you know, I, I remember when I was in my late teens trying to understand.
Dispensational truth and just going through it in my head and saying, yeah, the way God worked in the Garden of Eden was different after Adam, Sandy had.
And then the way that he worked before the flood was different than than after. And the way that things changed when God gave promises to to Abraham. And then things changed, obviously, when the law was given on Mount Sinai, it's not hard to see that God was working differently. And I, I realize that these things aren't necessarily easy and I.
Would be the last person to tell you that I could argue against you. Well, but it's nice to just be able to go through these things in simplicity and just ask yourself, what does the Bible teach?
And how does it have an impact and a bearing on my life?
00:45:02
Her brother Dave was speaking before about.
The apostle Paul and Paul's ministry and.
The value of that ministry.
Thinking of some occurrences in the Apostle Paul's life.
We know that he was set aside in a house prison in Rome.
And that enforced retirement.
Allowed him to pen some of the epistles that we know today.
I was just thinking of a versatility and of the book of Acts.
And the fact that.
He was granted a certain amount of liberty there.
In verse 30 of the last chapter of Acts.
And we see towards the end of that chapter that salvation goes out to the Gentiles.
But then in verse 30 it says, in all dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him.
That must have been a glorious time to visit the Apostle Paul there, and I'm sure he had a certain amount of leisure.
To bring out the truth that he had learned.
And what a precious privilege for those visiting him then it says, preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence. No man forbidding him. So it seems that he was granted complete liberty on this case, where perhaps in another situation he wouldn't have had it.
And so how thankful we can be for those present years of the Apostle Paul.
I'm thankful that we have mentioned made in this chapter two of the Gentiles.
About four years ago.
I was in the Macedonian region of Greece with our brother Emmanuel Daku.
And we were heading towards the coast and we got up onto a hill pop.
And there was quite a Vista before us, and we could see down below a city hugging the shore, the seashore.
And that city was mentioned in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Acts. It was the city of Neapolis. It was the 1St place on the European continent that the Apostle Paul.
Stood.
And my thought at that time was.
I could just imagine a man getting off a ship.
And that man was the Apostle Paul.
And what a debt I have to that man.
Made an impression on me overlooking that city. I wasn't thinking about the grandeur of the buildings, but I was thinking of the one that was use of God.
To bring the truth.
To those.
On the continent of Europe and what a debt we are.
Because often we like to have answers for anyone to ask us. And sometimes it makes us feel good that it's like we're knowledgeable. We get we know better than they. I don't believe that's what the Spirit of God would like us to do. We need to have a good foundation for ourselves first. Whether we can answer someone or not to me is not a major issue. Because Are you sure of your own salvation? Are you sure of your own standing?
And that's why we see certain ones that seems to go on so nicely.
And it looks like it was such a good testimony. And then we see them faded away or drifted away. So I like to go back to our chapter just a little bit, verse 12.
00:50:06
In fact, let me read the latter part of verse 10. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. So it's warning us here. How do you build your foundation? If you have a choice to start building a house today, how would you build? We have carpenters here, We have builders here. If I say to them, I want to save money and I see I save up a lot of cardboard boxes.
Let's start with that now use my money to make sure my living room is nice. Yeah, I see Phil was laughing already. We want to make sure the foundation is good. So how do we build verse 12? But as you reverse 11 for other foundation, can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ. That's the main foundation, isn't it? Do you have the Lord Jesus Christ before you?
We spoke about putting on Christ.
This is the main thing do you have he is the foundation verse 12. Now if any man build upon this foundation.
Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubbels. Oh, here's some other materials being mentioned.
Today, I don't think we would use gold as foundation breaks. It's kind of expensive.
But here the word of God specifically mentioned something. Now this list, I'm gonna use the word, uh, good material and bad material. So we see here, I would consider good material would be the gold, the silver, the press, the, uh, precious stones, the, the bad materials would be, would.
A and double S Well, what are these?
I believe gold should let should remind us in Scripture the righteousness of God.
Are we reminded of His righteousness constantly?
This is how we can become holy, because He is holy. His righteousness must come first. So some of you may have taken studies of the Tabernacle to think of that gold is used throughout, but then the next one is silver. What does silver remind you of? And I believe Scripture often used silver as a picture of redemption. So when we recognize the righteousness of gold.
Gold from pure gold. God's own righteousness.
Redemptive work. The one who loved me, who sent his son into this world to die for me, so that I can be redeemed unto himself. So we have pictures of gold, silver. That's interesting. Brass is not mentioned here, but we'll leave that thought for you to meditate on. But then pressure stones.
Precious stones. What here is really Speaking of God's house.
He speaks of you and I, every member, every believer, isn't it? So he used that for his house as the foundation for what's wrong with wood. We use wood. I remember years ago at home, they were trying to reduce the cost of building homes. So they say you can use pressure treated wood and they would even give you a lifetime guarantee on it. And I find out that if your rock would have it at the very bottom one, they'll just give you a piece to replace. Good luck taking it out and replace it.
Well wood, wood seeks of humanity. It speaks I believe it speaks of something. The word speaks of Christ too, but often it speaks of man made things. So we we talk about human wisdom. We may say it doesn't make sense. It really should have been this way instead of matching it up to see if that thought is proper and right according to the word of God and then.
You have wood and then we have a well, hey, really not something that lasts for a long time would A and stubbels often refer to together as things that get burned away. In fact, stubbles is interesting. We won't turn to it, but if you have time, you can turn to Job chapter 21. I think in verse 17 and 18 around Malachi 4, it speaks of stubbles as something being witches.
00:55:23
So how do you want to build your foundation? As a summary with Christ as the main foundation. So if your foundation is sure, no one can do that building.
If I could just add to that, David, uh, when it comes to the, the goal, there was no place for the righteousness of God was seen in, in, in, in, in more of a full display than at the cross. And so I think that the, the Saints in, in Corinth had really not grown to the point where they could fully appreciate the cross and it's full, uh, value and.
Uh, we see that they, they umm, in the first chapter there, they were taken up with man and, and that was the result of that was divisions within the body of Christ. And the answer to Paul's answer to that difficulty was to bring in the, the value of the cross of Christ. And, and so I, I don't know where in the, in the umm, Theo theology of.
Of covenant theology, I don't know where they have.
Exalted man in the process.
Of the the creation of this theology, but I'm sure you're going to find that is somewhere there is a lack of the appreciation of what the cross of Christ has done and satisfying setting aside man in.
God's plan and his thoughts and the exaltation of Christ. You know, God has based all of his blessing and all future blessing for this world on the cross and on the value of the work of Christ and the person of Christ. And so this foundation that he has laid, which is Jesus Christ. And this was one particular area in which the Corinthians.
Had not grown in their realization of and so he says you're you know he says I've I've I can't give you spiritual things because you're you're carnal in your thoughts and you still have you haven't gotten.
Free from valuing the 1St man.
And so I just bring that out because that righteousness, there was no place where the righteousness of God was revealed and more, more.
Completeness in the Cross of Christ.
That's nice. I don't know much about geology neither but what I do.
And one of the things they said is that Israel is the church, you know, Testament, and the church is the Israel in the Old Testament. So now the church has taken over the blessings of Israel, which is false because when God may have made a covenant with Abraham, if this is reversed, that means he wouldn't have kept a promise is now given to the Gentile. No, God, that's an, uh, I'll go back on his promise.
But because of one era, and that's the problem when the foundation is not sure when you let go of one little thing that something else can come in. So they, they, if they say that the church today is same as Israel of old and that then the church should have no trouble going back to obey or observe Sabbath. So you have the 7th day Adventist. They're saying they're Christians, but they observe Sabbath. And, and if you listen to what Brother Phil just said, well, they just finished.
Denying the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go back to Sabbath, you're saying the work is not completed, The work was not good.
So they denied the work of the Lord right through and it's just one error led to another. And then you have some Christian will say, you know, church buildings are getting expensive. You know, we've been looking for meeting room. It's expensive to find a place to meet. So they go, well, this is great, we're Christians, let's join and share space with the Seven Days Adventures. They use it on Saturday, we use it on Sunday, and now they share the building. You see that in common places.
01:00:07
On the surface, it's great we should have fellowship. We're all in one now, by the way, let's keep this here, be very distinct. Anyone who prefers to be the Lord, who believe in the finished work of the cross, they are Christians, they are part of the one body. So we have to be very careful that they are not enemies with us, but yet we can have fellowship with them because they don't take the same. They don't follow the word of God as we proceed something. So we have to be very careful. Sometimes we speak of evil workers and then sometimes we're only speaking about those we have difficulty having fellowship because truly they should be, uh, yesterday morning we remember the Lord.
We have that one loaf on there. I believe many Christians are represented because they are part of our own body.
In that first word here.
In chapter 3, the apostle in lamenting about something he says. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual.
But as unto Colonel, even as unto babes in Christ, well, how is it that he couldn't do speak to them about spiritual things? Because everything that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ is spiritual.
The Lord Jesus as a babe.
Started with the Holy Spirit.
Putting the seed in a woman, well, how can you explain that? We can't explain that that was a spiritual action, that he put the seed in a woman and.
And the Son of God.
Grew as a perfect man from a woman inside a woman.
People have tried to explain how that could be done by the Spirit. The things of the Spirit we have to accept as they are put in the Scripture. We cannot take something.
And that.
People can't put into their hands.
There was not something that somebody put put into their hands and then put it in there.
In the foundation of the world.
It started with God creating and people have tried to find out how did God create.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Well, he had to create the heavens first.
Because the heavens were gonna be the foundation.
People are constantly even to raise their higher education and all that.
That's all build. Buildings are evolution, and evolution is nothing. From nothing comes nothing. And they're trying to build and build and and get something into the hands of people.
Which is actually not there.
When we look in the skies from outside, we look up, we say that's heaven.
It then expands.
And and to that expense, things are going to be built.
But it starts with God building in a spiritual way.
Why couldn't he talk to them about spiritual things?
I've been constantly trying to figure out why is the spiritual things that coming 1St and to the spiritual thing, that's something we can put in our hands.
We can do.
Things with the Spirit, because the Spirit is, can only be handled by God, not by our thinking.
01:05:10
Bless my man is constantly hanging on to evolution. They can't think of any spiritual things.
So they have to make up something that they can put in into their hands and start building.
But not spiritual.
Only World Revised is the home.
So we got to figure out first here.
What should he have said to them first, when He spoke unto them?
And, uh, with and to spiritual.
OK in spiritual things.
They He. He.
Call Sam Carnal now, Colonel. Would be of the world, would be of the devil.
And our conversation and base.
In the most of the time, it's kind of.
We have to get used to start speaking about spiritual things because that's how God started.
It didn't.
He didn't start the universe with Earth, he started it.
With the heaven, and heaven is the expanse where he could.
Build on. He had to have something to build on and that's the expense.
It's not the oath he didn't start.
Created the earth first, He started the heavens first, and that is something that we can see.
But we can't take it in our hands.
Brother Brian, you had a comment that you wanted to make. Yeah, pardon me. I, I'm thinking of Bruce's question at the beginning of comment regarding the practical effect of understanding our proper place in the world.
Dispensational truth is what we refer to as the things that we hold, and they have very practical bearing and very fundamental bearing as we've had before us with regard to the foundation of our life. They affect every single one of us and our attitude every single day. And one of those facts, one of the facts of understanding our position in the world, is the fact that we're ambassadors for Christ.
We're citizens of heaven. We're a heavenly company. Now those.
Thought we've heard as children, as the young adults and so forth, we take for granted. And yet if we really enter into what we have as citizens from the heavenly place, it affects our attitudes, our actions, how we conduct ourselves, the things that we take up in. They have a very practical variant of things that we don't take up in one thing that was mentioned earlier and very brief way, but correct way.
Was the fact that perhaps we will not get involved in politics? Why is that? Is it because we don't care?
No, it's what we do care.
Well, we care in a much higher plane where heavenly citizens and as ambassadors through Christ, we no longer get involved in the politics of the world that we're around and that we're in. No more than a Canadian ambassador to the United States would be concerned about things here that happened in America. They care about how Canada is affected. They care about representing Canada here in the US That affects us every day. So when we go to school.
When we do our work, are we a citizen of heaven? Are we representing the Lord Jesus Christ? And this really affects us very, very practically. Are we taking up so much with heavenly things, with spiritual things, and enjoying those things that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, that when we go to our workplace or to a school place, we reflect the country from which we come?
01:10:03
Are we occupied with those things? If I work in a garlic factory, I smell like garlic when I go amongst the people that I work with and people smell God and they say that guy smells like garlic. Well, when I taken up.
With heavenly things.
I wanna spell sweet.
In the second verse he says I have fed you with milk. Now how do you do that? Did he carry around part of the milk and and give those two people?
We have to have a spiritual application for it. I have fed you with milk. Milk is the basics of life of newborns.
And the cows eat grass, and eat grass of all kinds and outcomes milk.
They haven't figured out yet how to make.
Milk out of grass.
I think they haven't done that yet and they aren't going to do it.
He thought of.
Feeding the people with meat and get out of that milk condition. Milk is good all the way through baby. Start off with milk and grow up with it. It is very important.
To do it that way, it can be done any other way.
So we gotta develop that now how he fed them with milk.
And not with me.
I want to offer you a bit of meat. I mean, we only have a few minutes left. I'm thinking about the phrase time. We often say what time is it? Is the time almost up there in Scripture, there's the word time. Sometimes it used the plural times. Turn with me. I'm just going to turn to three passages, if that might help us identify the proper phase of time. Luke, chapter 21, verse 24.
Blue chapter 21, verse 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be LED away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down at the Gentiles until now. Notice here the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. What is the time times of the Gentiles? That's the time when God has taken away the authority in a sense from the Jewish nation.
And given it to the Gentile that began in the year 606 BC. It was given to a man named Epicanessa. So from that point on, Israel was no longer prominent in the world seed and there were four kingdoms. And you know the story. Just to save time, I won't go through that. And then let's turn to Galatians chapter 4, verse 4.
Galatians verse four but when the.
Faunas of the time was come. A little bit different, isn't it? The fullness of the time was come. Now let's read the verse in you. It would give you a better sense of what it means.
God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law. So we find here it was when men's responsibility was fully tried and God said there is no other way. So in that time he sent forth his son. So that's a different period of time and just one more in Ephesians chapter one.
We're verse 10. We often refer this to the key to the whole Bible and I hope you'll see why that in the in this case, the dispensation of the fullness of times.
He may gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. So this is the time when all rules and authorities will be under one Christ going to reign supreme here. Perhaps sometimes we refer to that as the millennial reign of Price, 1000 years that He will be king of things. So you could put this three times into perspective.
01:15:24
I kind of kicked off the subject.
And I'd like to make a final observation based on this most fascinating reading meeting.
It appears to me I'm listening.
This morning.
That's the misunderstanding of dispensation.
Is because of a dropping of Paul's doctrine.
And I appreciate what you said, Brian.
Kind of solidify that in my mind. It's been going in my mind for about 1/2 an hour or so.
But when we lose?
The true teaching of the heavenly calling.
We will fall back on earthly things.
And we'll make Earth our center.
And we will have just blown prophecy out of the water.
Thing #132.
Yes.