Dorothy Conference: 2004
Table of Contents
Ephesians 4:1-5
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Ephesians chapter 4.
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith your call.
With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.
Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. And unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he Seth, when he ascendeth up on high, he led captivity captive.
And gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended up, far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.
And he gave some apostles and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slate of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted.
By that which every joint supplier, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love.
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that she henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.
Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him.
And have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.
That she put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt, according to the disciples.
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And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that she put on the Newman, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your rock, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole feel more, but rather let him leave her working with his hands, the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that need. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth for that which is good, but that which is good to the use of edifying.
That it may minister grace under the hearers, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed under the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ sake have forgiven you.
In general, I suppose we can say that in the first three chapters of Ephesians we have the doctrine of the Epistle, and beginning with verse one of chapter four, we start with part of the.
Exhortation to walk in accordance with the truth that we have in those first three chapters.
But I'd like to draw attention that from verse four through verse 16 of this chapter.
We again have part of the doctrine of the Epistle. Verse four through 16 is not exhortation, it is teaching as to what is.
Begins with that verse four. There is one body that is a truth.
As much today in 2004 as it was when the church was first formed on the day of Pentecost.
In that day, the testimony was beautiful to that truth. They gave testimony in their practical working out that there was.
Indeed, one body.
Today we know that the testimony is in ruins.
People that would come to any city in our land would say, while you have so many different groups of Christians, where in the world do I see that there is one body? We have to confess, brethren, that the testimony is in ruins. Still the truth remains. There is one body, and as God looks down into this world, the only thing he contemplates is one body.
Isn't that wonderful to get before our souls and realize that it is a reality today just as much as anytime in the history of the Church? There is one body.
But before we go on to that, we need to touch these first verses which are part of the exhortation of the Epistle. And Paul says in verse one, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. We have that heavenly calling developed especially in chapter one.
Verse chapter 2 as well but.
Especially in chapter one, that we are united to Christ the head in heaven. Oh brethren, precious truths that nothing can change our own unfaithfulness, our failure cannot change the truth that there is one body and that we are united to Christ in glory right here and now.
It's a reality.
But we need to learn to walk in accordance with that truth, and so we have practical exhortation in these first three verses as to carrying that out.
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Was making a journey on a ship.
And the custom was when they crossed the equator, they.
Carried on in a foolish way, you know, the dressed funny and so on. And the Crown Prince went along with that and somebody was there with a camera, snapped a picture and that appeared in the newspaper in England to front page. He was called and he was told that might have been all right for everybody else, but not for the Crown Prince of England.
You know, it wasn't becoming. I'm using that.
Walk worthy of your calling. Remember who you are, what the grace of God has made us to be, and the position into which grace has put us. Then there is a consistent way of living because of what the grace of God has made us to be.
It's not the calling here that's referred to by the apostle.
The same as we have in Colossians chapter 3, the peace of Christ, to which you are called into one body. It did not hear the collective calling and those.
Succeeding verses where all these virtues that are found in the Lord Jesus need to be exercised in our dealings and relationships one with another in Christ.
And our union with Christ and glory, right? Go back to chapter one. I think it's so beautiful there, brother.
All at the end of chapter one is praying.
And his prayer is, verse 18, that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward, who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.
And set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
Far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And that's what all things under his feet, and gave him to be that head over all things to the Church which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth All in all. Isn't that wonderful, dear brother, dear young people, to realize that there is a living.
Link A living union that exists between every member of the body of Christ here and that man. There's a man in the glory, a man of flesh and bones is seated at the right hand of God, a real man, and we are livingly, intimately united to him in glory right here and now. We need to leave that sex says settle into our souls.
Sometimes I think we talk about these things, but let the wealth of it sink into your soul. It's going to have an effect on you if you do. It's so wonderful to get ahold of that simple truth that we are united to Christ in glory. The apostle Paul, the instrument through which God gave to reveal that truth, learned that truth the day he was converted.
It's on the way.
To Damascus at Saul of Tarsus, and the Lord appeared to and in the way, and said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? He didn't say, Why are you persecuting those Christians? Because touching those Christians he was touching Christ in glory.
Real brother, it's a very real thing. That's why we need to be careful when we touch God's people, if it is in Word or in deed how we act towards them. They are beloved by God and He loves them. We need to pray for them. They may have their faults that let's be careful not to speak bad about it. Let's be careful to pray for them. They are part of His body.
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We are united to Him in glory.
When Paul speaks here in chapter four, he speaks as the prisoner of the Lord. I thought about that many times. A prisoner does not have the right to.
Do what he wants. He can't say I'm going down to the Dairy Queen downtown to have an ice cream.
He doesn't have that litter.
Do you? And I think we have liberties, brother.
Or have we come to realize too, that we too are prisoners of the Lord?
Prisoner is completely at the command of the jailer. He has to learn to obey if he doesn't.
There will be consequences. Not saying that we're under a rigid rule system, brother, but I say if we're going to learn to walk together, the idea that we can insist on our own rights, I have a right to express myself. They should listen to me.
That's what we learn in our American culture.
Human rights, democracy. But if we're going to walk together, brethren.
As members of Christ's body, we have to learn that we have no rights at all. There is somebody else that has all the rights. It's the one who laid down all his rights when he was here in this world and went to the cross to redeem us to God.
And if he did not insist on his rights, the one that did have the rights?
Are you and I insisting on our rights? I suggest that if we have that idea that we can insist on our rights, we are not going to be able to walk properly together as members of Christ's body. We have to realize that there's somebody else that is in complete command of every situation.
Being the prisoner of the Lord means to be in perfect liberty.
You know, we must not confuse that with what we usually understand under people in prison. It gives you perfect liberty to live as a Christian and.
Then endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit. Notice it doesn't say to keep the unity of the body. That is what even people who used to be gathered with us are saying.
Now I can practice fellowship with every member of the body of Christ.
Well, the unity of the Spirit is that which gives practical expression to the truth. It's a unity that is formed by the Spirit. By the Spirit we are gathered around the person of the Lord Jesus. I believe in grace. We are there and still are so gathered. But not everyone who is a member of the body of Christ is exercised about expressing the truth.
Of the unity of the Spirit, you know, it's practically giving expression.
But the Spirit has formed, so there's a truth that is practiced practically, not just.
Recognizing everyone that is a member of the body of Christ, of course that's the basis. But there are many members of the body of Christ with whom we cannot express the truth because of their doctrine and their way of life and what they are associated with. It's not just what they are personally.
Allowing themselves to be involved with association with evil defiles. We learned that from Second Timothy 2, but.
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A wonderful that we can give expression to the truth.
Of the one party, in a limited way, you might say. And you have a picture of that in the Old Testament.
Remember, there came a divided state when the 10 tribes rebelled against the House of David and they sent up centers of worship in Dan and Bethel.
But there were still 2 tribes that were at the divine center in Jerusalem. But there was a table of showbread in Jerusalem. How many loaves were on their table? 2, No 12 floors. And when we come together, our Lord's Day mourning and we have that low on the table.
It does not only speak of the body of the Lord Jesus.
It certainly does, but it also says we the many are one law. We can give expression to the truth of the one body, although not every member that is a member of the body of Christ is willing to meet on that ground. But how wonderful that we can still do so, and we can when we see that law, hopefully.
Do not just think of those gathered to the name of the Lord with whom we are in practical fellowship. We see every member in that law. I remember that Albert Hall used to tell the story that he met a dear Christian. I think it was Albert.
On Lord's Day after noon.
And he was a dear Christian and he said, I saw you in the meeting this morning.
Well, that rat said I wasn't in your beating this morning. I saw you there. I've never ever been into your meeting. Well, he said, let me explain. There was a loaf on the table and that represented every member of the body of Christ. And I know you to be a member of the body of Christ. And in that way I saw you on Lord's Day morning there in the meeting. Well, that's the proper attitude. It's sectarian.
If you only think of the gathered things you know as members of the body of Christ, we miss them. It would be so nice if everyone who is a member of the body of Christ would be willing to meet on that ground. Isn't that one of the reasons better and why we are so weak? You know we don't benefit from what we could be benefited from if every member of the body of Christ would be willing to simply meet as a member of the body of God.
I'm thankful that there are those not on that ground who still serve the Lord in the systems where they are. And there is food even for God's people through their ministry. I'm thankful for that. But we do miss them. If we don't miss our brethren in Christ, there is something radically wrong with us.
Sub interest in going to Acts 26?
To see that the Apostle Paul standing before King Agrippa.
Saying in verse seven of Acts 26.
Unto which promises are 12 tribes, instantly serving God day and night.
At this point the 10 tribes had been long gone. The two tribes had degenerated to the point where they put their Lord to death on the cross. And the apostle still remembers that there are 12 tribes. I thought of that when my brother mentioned the 12 loaves and the showbread in the in Jerusalem when the 10 tribes had left, and this is long after that.
And the apostle Paul didn't forget that there were 12 tribes to Israel. Well, we're in a day of weakness now in the in the church. And look, we need not forget there is one body. That's still the truth, isn't it?
Yeah, you've always thought about the prisoner of the Lord in the first verse as the ninth verse in Colossians chapter 4.
Verse 3.
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Losses chapter 4 and verse three says Withal, praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest.
As I ought to speak.
In that some of our Bibles when you have notes, it does say a prisoner in the Lord. Also because the apostles fall, unlike us, was physically imprisoned for the testimony of the Lord Jesus.
So he was called through his circumstances to manifest those very things that he was speaking about.
And it's the same for us as we read this chapter, you know, those glorious truths that are revealed to us, whatever be our circumstances, the ones that God has placed us in. In those very circumstances, God calls us to manifest the truth that we've been taught. The Apostle Paul in prison, well, he was manifesting, I believe in measures the character of Christ.
You and I in our circumstances were called in measure to manifest the character of Christ, and you and I in our relationships, in the assembly we were called to manifest.
The character of Christ. So if we're going to speak about these things and it's a the grace of God that allows us to speak about these things, and we will in the next few days, it's good to remember that if God can reveal these things to us to enjoy, he's calling us also the manifest as we speak of it.
It's good for us, too, to see that in this same book if we turn back to the second chapter of Ephesians.
You find that?
In the second chapter and the 14th verse, He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandment contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain. 1 Newman, Soul making peace.
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body, by the cross having slain the enmity thereby. It would seem that God is bringing before us in these verses, that he recognizes the enmity that existed between the Jew and the Gentile. It was probably the greatest hatred that there was.
Between people. And yet God had taken those same people, saved them and put them into one body. And now we have in this chapter, the 4th chapter, the working out of those same people that naturally hated each other, that there was a way that they could conduct themselves for the glory of Christ and go on at peace one with another. And it's a marvelous thing to see.
So.
If God took those people and put them in that kind of a relationship one with another so that they could be the working out of the of the truth of the one body, the expression of it, the going on, Is there not a way for us to in this day and age?
Some of us this morning were just considering a verse in First Corinthians 10.
Verse 32.
It mentions A3.
Three groups that there are in the world today.
He says give none offense.
Neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God. As we sit here, maybe we think we're Gentiles, you know, Gentiles anymore. There happens to be someone with Jewish ancestry that's a believer. He's not a Jew anymore. We're part of the Church of God. We're put into one body and it just comes out in these various places. So as you mentioned, the, the enmity between those two groups.
And how God took down the middle wall of partition. And now if we're believers, we're neither Jew nor Gentile, but we're part of a church.
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Keep that in mind.
We are to walk in the light of who we are. We are one body in Christ with all God's people. We are seek to walk in that. And the reason you say, Brother Heinz, that we don't.
Is lack of knowing how to put into practice these first three verses.
Before we leave verse one, I'd like to say one other thing I learned there.
Paul was a prisoner of Rome when he wrote this.
But he does not say, I therefore the prisoner of Rome.
He says the prisoner of the Lord. In other words, Rome may be in the instrument that God used.
So that he was a prisoner, but he looks beyond that. And I think, brethren, there's something so wholesome to learn here is that God may use different human instruments to cause circumstances that naturally speaking, we don't like.
Do we recognize the hand of the Lord in that? That's what Paul did, and he doesn't say the prisoner of Rome, the prisoner of the Lord.
And so often, brethren, we get into situations, difficulties that are far from pleasant. Do we recognize there's a man in the glory who is head not only of his church, but his head over all things to the church, in other words.
Every circumstance in your life that affects you and me is controlled by that man in the glory.
So instead of picking problems with human instruments, let's look beyond. Let's recognize the hand of the Lord in what he has allowed. Let's bow before him and then simply recognize that He has seen fit to allow this.
For our exercise.
And then in verse 2.
So important to consider in view of walking together in the measure that we can, brethren.
According to the truth of the one body, how we're going to do it.
With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering for burying one another in love.
Anybody have all loneliness and meekness here?
I think we're all willing to recognize that we still need to learn quite a bit of this.
I have to speak for myself that I need to learn quite a bit.
But oh, brethren.
To think about this, why haven't we gone on together with all our dear brethren?
Because of a lack of these things.
All loneliness and meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.
Where can we learn that?
I must say, brethren, that it humbles me and I see how problems amongst God's people stumble. Some of our young people and they see fleshliness perhaps in my person. It's going to stumble. It's not going to be a help, it's not going to bind together.
Where can we learn this?
See some of these things in some of our dear brethren, but no one.
Can say that they have come to the point they have it all.
That I love to just think of what the Lord Jesus says and let's just read it because it's so important brethren in Matthew Chapter 11 well known verses.
Matthew Chapter 11 and verse.
29.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Here's a place to learn it, brother. It's an invitation.
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Of the Lord, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Oh, isn't this wonderful to seek in our measure, to learn of that man that walked through this world?
And all holiness and meekness, yes, he had it all. There was no human imperfection in him as he went through this world. Complete perfection. And as we look at the Gospels and read through them and see.
The beautiful perfection that was always there, Oh brethren, to take his yoke and be able to say, Lord Jesus, let me walk with thee. That's the secret to learning these things.
Lawlessness, meekness. Somebody has said. Lawliness does not give offense. Meekness does not take offense.
We give offense, brother.
Too bad, but it's the truth of the matter, and I think we need to recognize it. Seek to be in the measure that we can, not ones that give offense. But there are those who perhaps are lowly, but they're not meek.
That brother didn't shake hands with me tonight. I don't know what he has against me.
We take offense.
That's another problem.
And we need to know what it means to not take offense, brethren.
Oh how important these things are. Moses from the Old Testament was called the meekiest man in the all the earth and you can read it in Numbers chapter 12 where?
His sister and his brother were complaining against him.
I said As the Lord only spoken by Moses, hasn't he spoken by us too?
And the Lord was jealous for his servant. And the Lord smote Miriam with leprosy. I don't know if she was the first one to start talking that way, but it was she that was smitten with leprosy. What did Moses do? Did you say, Hey, you got what you what you asked for None of that, brother.
None of that. What did he do?
Said Lord, heal her now. Isn't that beautiful?
Meekness didn't take a bit of offense. And I say, brethren, can you and I, perhaps to those who have acted in a way that offends us, can we sincerely get down on our knees and pray that the Lord will bless them, really meaning it? I know there's that old flesh in me that wants to see them grumble.
That's not meekness, brother.
Got to put that to one side and to learn what it means to.
Bear offense as well.
Oh, how important these things.
Some of you maybe have seen oxen in a yoke in South America. They still use yokes of oxen.
And one time when we were going through the countryside, I saw something that really impressed me. They were training a new LOX for the yoke. I'd never seen it happen before, but they put.
On one ox that is used to bearing the yolk in one side, and they put a new ox in the other side and then they let them go.
Was it ever interesting to watch? That new ox didn't like that Yoga threw his head in the air down, trying to shake it off right, Charge forward, charge back. And that poor old ox just had to sit there and take it all patiently until after maybe a couple hours, that new ox got so terribly tired of doing that he just bowed his head and accepted the yield.
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I stood there and I watched, and I said over mile how we must make the Lord supper with our charging ahead, going backwards, shaking our head one way and another.
Oh, brother, and do we know what it means to take his yoke on us to learn of him?
These precious characteristics of loneliness and meekness. The Lord help us, brethren, we don't learn those things. We won't be able to walk together as we are one body in Christ.
All lowliness and meekness.
Nobody is exempt here from this exhortation, brother.
Forbearing. I like to think of that word forbearing as self-discipline.
We talk about discipline in the assembly and there is discipline in the assembly, but here is something that is self-discipline.
Or bearing means maybe there's something that I don't like and that brother sitting over there. But instead of saying something about it, I'm just going to bear with it. We need to learn to know how to do that too, if we're going to go on together as members of the body of Christ.
For burying one another in love. Oh, how much he bore within us. Brethren, are we not able to bear with a little bit of things that we don't like in one another?
These are things that we need to think about in relation to walking through this world.
Manifesting that precious truth that Christ and His people are one, the Lord help us.
And meditating on these, just like to say that last word, Love, brethren, I think we all know what it means.
This is a golfy love. It's love that love not because of what the object is. It loves because of the source, God. So let the world. Why did he love the world?
There is one.
Answer because God is love, it's the source. And you say, well that brother is very lovable.
There's an opportunity then to love like God loves, because if he isn't lovable, then you can love him without any reason to love him except that God is not. And that's the kind of love that's to be manifested amongst his people here.
I like to be diverse in Titus.
To balance things, to show that there might be circumstances that.
His people have said tough love, love even in the family, you know, with children need to be disciplined and it has been called tough love love and that might also at times be necessary amongst all people and in Titus.
Three verse 10. A man that is a heretic after the 1St and 2nd admonition.
Reject. That also might occur, and we have experienced that, have we not?
People who are dividing and are on an agenda to divide God's people. Hopefully there will be those that discern this and take a strong position. We cannot always.
Deal with everybody alike if there is such a case, but there's also for the younger one.
A scripture in first Peter.
And he admonishes in the 5th chapter, the elders.
Toshua in the league, and practical admonitions are given there and then they are like it were under shepherds, under the great shepherd. But then in verse five it says, Likewise, Ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.
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All of you be close with humility.
The state will be subject 1 to another is not authentic.
The older ones are not asked to be subject to the younger ones, but the younger ones to the older ones.
Has got order in the Assembly. Of course, there might be a situation as we have experienced it in Brazil. When we first went there, the oldest brother there were about 30 years old.
So we told them.
One thing you're lacking is you don't have older brethren.
But if you walk in dependence upon the Lord and humility.
He can help you to carry on a testimony that is worthy of his name. Well, they're still going on there in Brazil. But we can be so thankful, dear young people, if we're in an assembly where there are older brothers and we can take this as an admonition for us as young people. And that doesn't mean that young people can never open their mouths in prayer or in worship.
As a matter of fact, it thrills me when I hear a younger person give thanks or pray, because that is a priestly privilege.
But there is such a thing as those who are in the lead and we better accept them. There are other scriptures that speak of that, but hopefully those who are in the position of leadership.
Demonstrate love and by their example more than anything else leaked, you know, by their godly example. Well, hopefully we take these things to heart, but young people do well in our society. That's a problem. You know, the young people do your own things. That's what they told in school, you know, and undermining.
God-given.
Authority in the home, in the society in general, even when it comes to the government, you know. What about Ephesians 521, Brother Heinz? What's that? What about Ephesians 521?
For him submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of fraud. Is there not that side there too, that in Peter first Peter 5 the correct rendering? Let me read it again.
Likewise, the younger submit yourselves unto the elder and be clothed. All of you be clothed with humility. In other words, the older ones are not expected to be subject to the younger ones, as it is in the King James. But they are to put on humility too, aren't they? Yes, humility is. In that way. They carry moral weight, I believe, don't they?
They lead more by their example than by words.
Put in a position, isn't there? It says that why be subject to your husband? So the husband has a position that God has given him, and he calls the wife to be subject to the husband because he's given her him that position. As members of the body of Christ, we don't have positions one above another. And in that connection we all need to be subject to one another.
Whether I'm an older brother or a younger brother, if there are things that need to be addressed to me because of the truth of the body of Christ, of the truth of Christ of Scripture, what needs to be done in a, in a, in an orderly way, because God has that kind of an order. But there is no authority, you might say, for a brother to Lord over others, as it says in first Peter chapter 5. And there is liberty in the body of Christ as considering each other as being one in Christ.
One above the other. This I feel is from the Scriptures and in that light we have a huge inspired in 21 which says the subject 1 to another in a fear of Christ because in Christ we're all one. So we have this relative directly one to another to be subject to one another. That doesn't take away from those that are in the league, those that are gifted, those that are leaders or older brothers that have a senior might say in the Lord that has a special place of respect.
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But we have this covering statement. I enjoy it, this way of this liberty to address each other in submission to one another. For a younger brother comes to me and he says to me about that thing you said. And I remember one young man did say that to me once. He said I didn't appreciate that, you know, and I appreciated that. He told me that because he was right. He was that about my discourse that was coming from the old man. And his young brother did me a favor. He came and he brought that together and he did it nicely and I received it. So I think there's that aspect to it, isn't there?
It also in First Peter 5.
It's blind on in the Darby translation. It's not just blind on humility. I can think I'm humble, but it's going on humility to War One another.
Hebrew chapter 13.
We have in verse seven remember them which have the rule in the King James. Unfortunately rule is not the best rendering. It should be those who take the lead.
Among you, and have spoken unto you the word of God.
Whose faith follows, considering the end of their salvation, their conversation.
So there is leadership spoken of and I remember distinctly Mr. Kelly pointing out this seems to go beyond the local Assembly, but in verse 17.
Obey them that take the lead among you and submit yourself, for they watch for your souls. That is local, Mr. Kelly said. You know there is such a thing as submitting to the rule, to the order that God has established, and First Peter certainly fits in with that as well. And we are in Laodicea days.
What does that mean?
Democracy in the Church.
That is what is Laodicea. Everybody thinks that he speaks with the same voice. That's not so. There are those who are in the lead and those who are left.
And it's nothing wrong in desiring.
According to First Timothy three such a place.
To be an elder, overseer or Bishop, those are the three words used for the same office and that's local. And that's very important to emphasize that because we have problems again and again amongst the same. Why? Because they think they have a right to interrogate and stick their nose into an assembling matter of another assembly.
It's local. What would you think if I would come to your home?
Where the Lord has put a man as the head of the family and I'm trying to tell and interfere in the order that he has established in the family, whether it is the family or whether it is the assembly. Oversight is local, let me emphasize that. And if he would keep that in mind, we would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble, Mr. Darby said. We bow to an assembly action.
Right or wrong, if it is wrong, trust that the Lord will correct it. And that is what we should remember. And the democratic idea that everybody thinks he has a right to interfere in what is local responsibility leads to no end of trouble. But here in Ephesians chapter four, we do not have that side.
Brought out, but to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bonds of peace. And then we find that there are three circles.
As it has been pointed out, the inner circle is inverse 4 to which only two Christians belong. There's one body and one spirit.
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Even as you are called in one hope of your calling. But then there is the sphere of profession, 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism. Every professing Christian is in that circle.
And faith here is not used for individual personal faith, That is the Christian faith in contrast to some other religious beliefs, just like we have it in Jude to content earnestly for deep faith once delivered to the Saints. But then we have the universal circle in verse six. One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all.
Spot in you all, only in your Christian. But these are helpful points that threaten knowing the scripture better than myself, and most of us here have pointed these things out so we can be exercised about these things.
To.
Remember to keep the unity of the Spirit, and we remember these three circles.
You know, we only allow true believers hopefully to be, say, in fellowship or at the Lords Table. But in a certain sense, we are part of the whole Christian profession. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism. You know, that's why brethren have said if somebody was baptized even as a baby in the Catholic system, he doesn't need to be baptized again.
Because he has entered by baptism the Christian profession. What? A baptism is not connected with the truth of the body of Christ. That is connected with the Christian profession, and we enter that by water baptism.
Like to say as we move on that what has helped me to understand the question of leadership that was mentioned of elders and deacons that are mentioned in First Timothy three, that they are connected with the truth of the church, not as the body of Christ, but as the House of God. It's order and conduct and discipline that is connected with that subject.
So it's helpful to keep it in its its context. Whereas in this chapter we are dealing with the church as the body of Christ. And here we have gifts. Gifts are always taken up in the context of the church as the body of Christ. Here we have it in this chapter in verse four. It's the body that's mentioned in verse seven and verse 11 speak of the gifts.
And so it helps to keep it in its context, like to say to before we move on the verse 3 again.
That kinda are going forward, but how important brethren, to walk in the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace. It is a unity that the Spirit has formed and we are to walk in that unity. Remember as a younger brother making a statement one time.
That we need to be careful not to break the unity of the Spirit. Your brother came up to me afterwards and said, brother, we don't break the unity of the Spirit. I didn't understand what he was talking about. He didn't explain any further. But there was a few weeks afterwards when somebody helped me to understand unity. The spirit is a unity that the spirit.
Maintains and my actions.
Maybe, perhaps in that unity, or if I act in the flesh, I am not keeping the unity of the spirit, but the unity of the Spirit is not broken. Either I act in the spirit, keeping that unity in the bond of peace like we are exhorted here, or I act in a way, perhaps fleshly, that is not in that unity. We need to.
Think about that.
And we have practical examples in the book of the Acts that I think are very helpful.
We don't want to get away from the chapter too much now, but next, chapter 15, you have an example of a problem that existed in the assembly of Antioch, but the problem had come from Jerusalem.
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And the brethren in Antioch, when they saw the problem, they did not settle it there, because they knew that this problem had come from Jerusalem.
And they weren't a separate.
Entity with those at Jerusalem. So they went to Jerusalem and the thing was settled in a way that kept the unity of the spirit. All we need to be careful in our relationships between assemblies to act in a way that does not.
That that is in keeping with the unity of that spirit.
Because it is the Spirit of God that is baptized all believers into one body, and so the exhortation is to keep that unity in the bond of peace.
I've used an example that's been helpful to me. My children have a unity that's proper to them, and that's that they're my children and I'm their father. And if they're all out playing in the yard and supper time comes and I come out and call them in for supper, and a few of them head in and the others say we're going to stay out here. And where are you guys going anyway? Well, Dad called us. It's time for supper. We've got to go in. Well, you're spoiling our fun. We're having a good time out here, and you're just kind of ruining everything. And we're brethren.
Where brothers and sisters together, Well, no dad's called us because the unity that's proper to them is the unity of their father. And SO3 head inside. Well, they're keeping that unity even though all aren't with them. They're keeping that unity because it's obedience to their father. And maybe even they get inside to the table and there's some squabble and one gets up and says, well, forget this, I'm going back out to play with the rest.
You know, it says keeping it in the uniting bond of peace.
Because we don't want to be anxious about it. We don't want to be in turmoil about it. That perhaps some of the other children didn't come in or someone got up and left. In chapter 6 it says having our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, peace in all our circumstances without anxiety going on in the path of faith speaks louder than anything else in the believers life as others look on keeping it in that bond of peace.
Without being anxious about what the Lord may allow to come in and through circumstances bring that humility and loneliness that we've been Speaking of. Because He has to allow a thorn for the flesh because of the abundance of revelation. And that's what Paul had. He was a prisoner. He was a sufferer for that truth. That's why he was a prisoner. The Jews and their enmity refused to hear him when he came to the point in his defense of his gospel that he was taking it to the Gentiles.
They didn't want to hear that. They didn't want to hear that the Gentiles were brought into equal blessing with Jews as one new man. So he suffered for that truth. But not only that, He had a thorn for the flesh because of the abundance of revelations given to him, lest there be spiritual pride.
God allowed that which kept him lowly, kept him humble, and God is allowed things with us as well to keep us lowly, to keep us humble because of the truth that He's given to us. There's a danger of being puffed up by it. Let's not be anxious about those things that He allows, but to go on in peace, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.
Maybe the time is up can still make this statement.
If we would not receive anyone who is a true Christian, and there is no scriptural reason not to receive him at the Lord's Table, we're not keeping the unity of the Spirit.
If we receive somebody who is not a Christian, as that is customary in many churches.
They fellowship with those that are not truly Christians. That's not keeping the unity of the Spirit either. So it would be nice if all who are members of the body of Christ would be willing to simply meet on that ground with us.
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170 Four 174.
Ephesians 4:6-12
Reading
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Verse seven. Should we start there? Why don't we start with verse 4/4?
I know you've commented on some of those verses, but just to get the connection.
Ephesians 4 and verse 4.
There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. 1 Lord, one thief, one Baptist, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all.
But unto everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Wherefore He set, when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists.
And some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
When we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
Maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love.
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that she henceforth walked, nor not, as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness in their heart, who being past feeling, have given themselves over under lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.
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But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.
That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that she put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your rock, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that need it.
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
But that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace under the hearers, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed under the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be a kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Know.
As we mentioned this morning, verse four through 16 is again the teaching part of the Epistle. We have statements of what is.
In the body of Christ there is one body.
Very clear statement of what is. It's not an exhortation, it's just saying what is.
And as Brother Heinz brought out this morning and I think.
Is well understood, but you have in verse four the circle of Christian reality.
Verse five you have the circle of Christian profession.
And verse six you have a circle that includes all creation in a general sense of the word. There is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all.
In that sense of the word you have in Luke's Gospel, the genealogy leads right back to Adam, which was of God. He is the Father of all. In that sense of the word. The last phrase of verse 6 refers back to the circle of Christian reality, the one body, verse 4.
In you all.
It can be said of the unbeliever, but in the general sense of the word, there is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all. And that gives the context for the verses that follow, and we consider the question of the gifts that have been given for the edifying of the body of Christ.
So in verse seven says Unto everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
You have 3 epistles in which the gifts are mentioned.
Romans 12, First Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4.
Here it is in the universal sense.
These are gifts that are given from Christ, ascended on, high in the glory. In First Corinthians it's more in the local sense.
They're gifts of the Spirit, and in Romans 12 it is perhaps more the individual focus. Of course, it's not individual when you're speaking about the body of Christ, but we are individuals and there is to be individual exercise in that context.
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Their gifts that are given of God. So the whole Godhead is involved in this question of giving gifts. Here in this epistle. Lord is important to see that the persons themselves are the gifts that are given.
From Christ descended in the glory.
And when it says Father, that is not in the same way that we as Christians know him.
Like he has made the father known.
Here it is the originator of all things. That's how the word father is used here. But.
The gifts mentioned.
The apostles and prophets.
Where there was original gifts that God used to communicate the scriptures to us.
As we have it already indicated in the second chapter of Ephesians, but.
At the evangelists, pastors and teachers are with us today.
And if anybody has such a gift?
His fear of service is not just the local assembly. His fear of service is universal.
You know, there are those who serve locally in the local assembly, but if somebody has one of these gifts mentioned here and even pastor is really shepherd, right? And there are those, thank the Lord that are able to shepherd God's people. And if they have that gift, they can shepherd God's people wherever the Lord leads them. But there is a distinction between.
That kind of shepherd care and what we had in first Peter, you know the overseer, they also are to shepherd and as we have in Act 20.
Feet the flock of God that is among you. He is addressing the elders there but it's so important to understand that these here are universal gift and if anyone has that gift is fear of service is universal. Now there is a warning giving given in Romans not to think higher of ourselves than we ought to think. The danger is that somebody imagines.
That he has a particular gift and it hasn't been given to him of the Lord. And that's what Paul wants again, not to think higher of ourselves. There's nothing wrong in a person in humility and humbly acknowledging what his responsibility, his annoying it and then independence upon God exercised that gift for the glory of the Lord Jesus and for the edification of man.
But, you know, we have to be so careful not to overextend ourselves, you know, And unfortunately that happens.
Far too often.
Especially where the liberty of the Spirit is understood, you know, there is the danger of abusing that liberty and taking a place not given to us of the Lord. But here it's not the local aspect, as already pointed out, it's the universal aspect. And I'm so happy whenever I run into a brother that has a gift of evangelization.
You know, and we used to have a brother among us that was a very gifted teacher. Unfortunately, he missed the path and he was making running down evangelization. I said to him, brother, you better be careful. If the evangelist doesn't do his job, you don't have anybody to teach, you know. So we should be thankful that the Lord raises up such that preach the gospel, bring souls to Christ. His sphere of service is outside the assembly.
Not that the gospel cannot be preached in the assembly, but properly evangelization is outside the assembly. And then they're brought in and the shepherd and teacher takes over. I'm quoting to you what I learned from the early brethren. The shepherd, a teacher, take over those that are brought into the assembly through the evangelist.
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It is interesting to see that in the three places where the gifts are mentioned, it makes a very specific point that they are given to every member of the body. Let's just notice them in Ephesians 4.
47 Where we are at right now, it says, Unto every one of us is given grace.
According to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Everyone. This includes sisters as well as brothers. Doesn't mean that sisters.
Take a place of teaching brothers in the public way. That's wouldn't be proper, but they have gifts just as much as the brothers. And I really believe, brethren, that much of the gift that has been given is lying dormant. Really exercises me when I see so many tremendously gifted young people. They're gifted in the natural sense of the word.
We're not talking about natural gifts here, we're talking about spiritual gifts, but knowing if they are believers in the Lord Jesus that there is a spiritual gift that has been given thereto many times, it lays dormant for a good part of their life. What are we going to say when we get to be before the Lord and the Lord says, I give you a gift, have you used it for me? What are you going to say to the Lord in that day?
I know sometimes people say, well, I don't know what kind of gift I have.
I really don't know that we have to understand to begin with what kind of gift you may have.
Sometimes give the illustration is my right hand, say I I'm not gifted. I don't know if I have the gift to to grab a hold of the pork and and feed this man.
It doesn't ask that. What does the hand do? It simply obeys the head. And it's a lot more gifted than my left hand, I can tell you that.
But it's something that we just simply ought to be exercised, brethren, in obeying the Lord Jesus head as he laid something on your heart.
I like what one brother gave. He quoted what the Lord, the Lord's mother, said to the servants at the wedding feast. She said all that he says to you to it.
Brother or sister in the Lord Jesus, she put something on your heart to do for Him. Do it.
I like to what the Lord said to Moses. He says, what is that in your hand?
A rod, Lord Rod's not much, is it? That was the rod that God used in the mighty way to help bring those people out of Egypt and to the borders of the land of Canaan. So the Lord has given something to everyone. The measure is not the same, and I don't think it's wise for us to try to go around measuring our gifts.
Simply do what you can in obedience to the head. That's what's important.
Going back to First Corinthians 12 just to see it there because it's repeated again.
In connection with the gifts of the Spirit.
1St Corinthians 12 and verse 7.
Perhaps so much the gifts of the Spirit, but the manifestation of the Spirit in the working of the gifts and the local assembly notice.
1St Corinthians 12 seven The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with all everyone.
Is there such a thing as just sitting like a stone on your seat and not doing anything? That's not the case in the body of Christ. There should be exercise when we come into the presence of the Lord. The Lord may not use me.
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Or he may use me, whatever should be all right with me, but I should be exercised to be an instrument that he can use if he sees fit to.
Now Romans chapter 12.
And notice.
Verse 3.
Heinz is kind of quoted part of this verse already.
I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Or as we have many members in one body and all the members have not the same office, so we've been many are one body in Christ.
Verse 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given unto us, so it gives measures of faith, measures of grace.
And my measure may not be what yours is, but the important thing is to use, to be exercised before the Lord. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Have you sincerely asked that question? Whatever He gives you to do to it. Oh, how much gift is not being used. It's lying dormant. Paul had to say to Timothy. Because I suppose he was a timid person.
Stir up the gift of God that is in me and the Spanish translation that says wake up it was sleeping. Wake up the gift of God that is in thee.
I look around the room like this and I think there must be an awful lot of gift that is lying dormant. The Lord exercise our hearts in this connection, brethren.
In First Timothy, he says.
Not to neglect the gift there, things are presented to church in order.
But then in the second epistle, stir up, you know, attempts to discourage a brother when he finds the condition not to be what it should be. And so it takes more spiritual energy. And that's the way it is presented in Second Timothy, you know, the house in disorder and stir up the gift that takes more energy. But.
It's wonderful that even already it was said that ladies have kids.
But about Aquila and Priscilla?
They took Apollos into their house and they taught him to weigh more perfectly. Aquila not alone, Priscilla too had a part in teaching Apollos the way more perfectly, but under the leadership of her husband, you know. And so it's wonderful that there are still Aquilas and Priscillas today, You know, that, Ken, you might say labour as a team.
For the Lord.
And ladies have to be exercised.
We know that they are not supposed to speak in the assembly, and that might tend to discourage them from searching things out and making things their own. But for the young ladies here.
Sooner or later you might get married and have children.
Who do you think has the most opportunity to teach the children? The mother?
But I have and my brothers have. Spiritually, we owe that to our mother more than anybody else. You know, from a child. She has taught us the Scriptures. So what a wonderful thing to have spiritually exercised, ladies. And you start being exercised before you ever get into that responsibility of raising children, you know, familiarize yourself with the truth of God, with the Scriptures and then share it.
With other sisters.
You know the scripture warrants about the dangers that women are tend to fall into, but there's nothing wrong when sisters get together to talk about the scriptures, you know, and how wonderful that there are ladies that know the scriptures and can share it and be a source of blessing.
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Titus told the older women to teach the younger women.
And no one is more qualified to do that work than older sisters. Older brothers have no idea what to say, and it's not their place.
That there is a place for older sisters and really believe brethren, that there is a real help if it's not easy in our today's world because we tend to think, well, don't let anybody mess in my life.
We'll do what we want. We formed a home here and but a sister who is exercised properly to go not in the spirit of I know it all, but.
Go to be a help to younger sisters that have just been married. It's a big help in the local assembly, and it's a big help, I shouldn't say in the assembly because it's more in the home, but that's an area where a sister can teach, not so much teaching the scriptures, but teaching godly principles that are based in the scriptures that do apply in the home. Very important.
The purpose of these gifts in the ministry that we have in the end of the 16th verse or the edification.
Of itself and love, the increase of the body and the edification of itself and love. 1St Corinthians 12 we have to profit with all.
And that's one aspect of.
Using whatever ability the Lord has given us for the profit with all the apostles here has quoted from the 68th Psalm and the eighth verse. It'd be nice to turn to that verse in Psalm 68.
On verse 18.
Realize that all this ability that the Lord has given to the.
Body for identification of itself is only for time.
When the Lord comes, we're not going to need that anymore.
But this is what we have in Psalm 68, verse 18.
Has descended on high. Thou hast led to pivoting captive. Thou hast received gifts for men. Yay for the rebellious also.
That the Lord God might dwell among them, we have that in the end of the second chapter of Ephesians to be an habitation of God by the Spirit. This is one of the aspects you might say that God is pursuing in the edification of the body and of the Church. You might say is that God would have His proper place now.
How many Saints?
To those of us who know about the wonderful truth of being gathered through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and take hold of what he says in Matthew 18 and 20, and I know we use that verse so very often because of our responsibility, you might say delegated responsibility from the Lord to loose and to bind on earth. He says there am I.
In the midst of death, and I would just I'd like to challenge our hearts in considering the privilege that we have that God is well among us. He dwells in our bodies by our spirits and he dwells in the church by his Spirit, and I believe he dwells in the local assembly. He's given his proper place to realize that each one of us in our souls that when we gather to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is present according to his promise, He is present when we minister and minister in his name.
To loosen to mind, but he's also there to enjoy your presence and that you would enjoy his.
It's good to see that in connection with these truths like you're bringing out in verse 8.
Brother Michelle, that it's in connection with the Lord Jesus in glory, consequent on His death and resurrection and ascension into glory, that the Body of Christ of the Church was formed.
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Wasn't formed before that, and our union with Him is with Christ in resurrection and in glory. Wonderful to realize that. And there in the glory He dispenses, He gives gifts to men.
And as we have it here, it's persons that he gives that are gifts to His Church, the body.
But it's versus 8-9 and 10.
Beautiful to see that he descended into the lower parts of the earth, and that then he ascended far above all heavens. We talk about 3 heavens.
But he's far above all heavens. There's a man in the glory.
Let's let that sink into our souls, brethren, the wonderful truth of the fact there's a man in the glory to whom you and I are united, intimately united. It's not a matter of our power. It's not a matter of what I can do. It's a matter of his power, That one that's sitting there in the glory. So often impossible situations present themselves. I think the Lord allows.
Impossible situations. Why? So we can prove how wonderful, how wise, how loving, how powerful He is. Do we realize, as we ought, the wonderful truth of our union with Him, that there, above all heavens, there's that Man to whom we are united in one body. He is our head.
We are members of his body.
Somebody has put it this way, and I enjoyed it either. As our head represents us in the presence of God, we as members of His body represent Him here in this world. How are we representing Him?
Sometimes I think when we give gifts to our children.
They may be expensive, it may cost us something. Some gifts don't cost very much.
But for the Lord to give these gifts, it costs him something to get that in verse 9.
He ascended, but he also descended into the lower parts of the earth.
Because the Lord his life to be enabled to give us these gifts, dear brethren. And you see that typified in in David in first Samuel chapter 30, when he had spoiled those Ziklag, you know.
The Amalekites was it. And then, after David had gained this great victory, he sends a presence.
To the elders of Judah in verse 26, that's first Samuel 3026. Behold the present for you of the spoiled of the enemies of the Lord. Well, David gained the victory, but he shares the spoils. He sends these gifts to all the others and the Lord, he had to pay a great price in order to extend these gifts to us, didn't he? He had to give his own life. We we think of the Lord as he is watching over the treasury there and he'd be held.
How they cast their gifts into the treasury. He said that that woman who cast in two mites cast in more than all. Why? I'm sure others cast in huge sums of money, but it was only a small percentage compared to her 100%. And that's what the Lord gave, He gave himself.
Someone have a thought on 2 words in the eighth verse. Captivity captive. He led captivity captive.
Margin says a multitude of captives and gave gifts and demands. What is the what is it that The Who are the captives there that the Lord led?
I don't think the emphasis is so much on us being set free, but that the captivity is LED captive. There is no possibility for us becoming captive since the captivity is LED captive. Isn't that the way it is? You know, captivity was led captive and that was accomplished when he went into death. It's wonderful to get ahold of that.
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You know we were captive to sin.
You're no longer captive to sin. But here the statement is that the captivity has been LED captive. There is no possibility of anyone who is now a member of the body of Christ to be a captive because captivity doesn't exist anymore for the believer.
I'd like to connect it with Hebrews 2 and.
Versus.
14 and 15 says for as much then as the children.
Are partakers of flesh and blood. He also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death that was the captivity.
That we were in.
Were all their lifetimes subject to *******?
He went into death because through the fear of death we were all our life subject to ******* and he took that completely away. He carried away captive our captivity. And now that we are set free, set free, brethren, not to do our own will, but to do the will of Him that gave his life for us. We have that expression in the Book of Judges.
In Deborah's song in the 5th chapter of Judges.
When the victory had been won over an enemy that had kept Israel captive.
So Judges 5 and verse 12 Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, utter a song. Arise, Barack, and lead thy captivity captive the son of a Hinoam. Then he made him that remaineth of dominions over the nobles among the people. The Lord made me to have dominion over the mighty.
So it was a reversal of ones that were captive became the captors.
They reversed the situation.
So those that were under the ******* of death here, that's gone away because the Lord went into dust.
So he couldn't give gifts to men without first leading captivity captive.
That's the important point in this verse.
And.
Not have I gotten, but what I received the hemorrhagic says grace has bestowed it since I have believed boasting excluded via base. I'm only a Sinner saved by grace. You know it would be so foolish to both of something that grace has given us, you know magnify the grace of God.
And so, and there's nobody that doesn't have some gift. The danger that we have is that we think of those who have the ability to minister the word publicly that these are the gifts.
And here in this passage you might conclude that but already reference has been made to other passages in the New Testament, Romans and 1St Corinthians. It clearly shows there are many other gifts and it is not necessarily a complete list of gifts, you know, but to show that there is a great variety of gifts.
And.
We ought to be exercised to let the Lord direct us. And an older brother told a younger brother who asked, how can I find out what my gift is? Well, the brother advised him, if you have an exercise to do something for the Lord, do it. And if you do it in humility, you will soon find out whether you do something that you're not qualified for, you know, And if we do?
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What the Lord wants us to do, we are happy in our own soul.
Because there is a sense of having the Lord's approval in our own soul, you know, and let two or three speak and the others judge, You know, if I overextend myself thinking that I have a certain gift and it becomes evident to my brethren that it isn't, they have to tell me, you know, it's their responsibility. And so how wonderful that we have.
Balance.
The possibility of being balanced. And we all at one time or another need to be balanced, right? And so it's a wonderful thing that we have brothers in Christ that can be a balance to us.
It's of interest in First Corinthians 12 is a longer list, and it's probably not a complete one either, but.
There's one there that I think is very interesting that anyone can can do very likely and.
1St Corinthians 12 and verse 28 when we should reach 27. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular, and God has set some in the church. First apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings. I notice this next one helps.
Government's diversities of tongues and so on helps.
Well, that's a gift. You can help somebody.
That's a gift. It's helpful.
Could I maybe interject a little thought here? We've looked at Romans 12 and 1St Corinthians 12 and we see that every man's given, Everyone is given a gift for the common prophet. We see here in our chapter that it's His grace.
That's given according to the measure of the gift of Christ to each one. It's His grace because that's the way He has designed to meet the needs of His body. It's His grace. And so gift is looked at in that term.
In Romans it's abilities given of God. Every one of us has abilities given of God.
But I would suggest that.
When it comes to.
Verse 11.
In the context of the chapter, it's like a victor who, coming home having won the victory, gives out prizes from the spoils.
And consequent upon a finished work in Calvary's cross, and being raised from the dead, and ascending back up into high, He, the mighty Victor, gives gifts from the spoils. And it's a more limited thought. And here it's not so much abilities given to everyone or grace given to everyone, but it's individuals given as gifts of Christ to the church.
And I would say, brother, not every believer is a gift of Christ to the church. And I don't want to say that to take away any thoughts that have come before because every one of us have received grace. And as we go down in the chapter, every one of us is a joint of supply. We need both things in the body. We need blood vessels to supply the nutrients to every member. And every one of us is a channel of supply, a vessel of supply. We need joints in our body in order that.
What is in our heads can be acted out in the body. If I don't have any joints, if all my joints are fused together, no matter what I think in my head, it can't be displayed. Every one of us gives the body of Christ's mobility in order that what is in the head in heaven can be displayed. But not everyone of us is a gift of Christ to the church. And I know, you know, we like to talk in a gracious way about gifts and of each one of us having that but.
I wouldn't want to do damage to this portion of the chapter and say, well, everyone's a gift of Christ to the church because it wouldn't be nice to say otherwise. I really think it's more limited.
00:45:12
Does say in verse seven though, doesn't it Steve? Unto everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
But what our brother said is so important is a gift to the church, you know, as we have it in verse 11, that is what you wanted to point out. And that's very important. While everyone has a gift, you know, and grace given, but not everybody is as a person a gift to the church. That's the point brought out here in the 4th chapter and.
So not to think higher of ourselves than we ought to think fits in, you know, and so.
But I'm troubled many times.
When?
They're in assemblies.
Are so many who hardly ever open their mouth?
You know.
Is there an exercise to lay hold of the truth of God? Is there an exercise to be able to contribute to the edification, encouragement, and comfort of the Saints? There ought to be an exercise like that. And then if we try to do something that the Lord hasn't called us to do, have the humility, Acknowledge it, you know?
And accept your limitations, but be satisfied and thankful for what He has given you, you know. And then by grace and the dependence upon the Lord, fill your place. Even sisters, you know, you know Lady Powersport, I think she was a very gifted lady, you know, she did not take the place of a teacher, but in her private way she could share.
With others, what she understood, you know, and even invited men to come to the castle.
And to get into the scriptures and share with each other what they had learned from the scriptures. So it's wonderful to run into sisters that are well taught, you know, and in a private family setting, there's nothing wrong.
For sister and brother's visit to Joining the Conversation, you know to join in.
Of course it's good if her husband is present and justice like Priscilla.
In fellowship with her husband, Todd Apollos, it's a very important scripture that they taught Apollo's the way more perfectly, so she had part in that.
Just want to say a word to I think it's important. I think you mentioned that Heinz, a gift is something that is given and it's.
Not to be something that the person himself glories in because it was given to them.
But I have liked some brothers said it this way. He says you don't give thanks to the gift, you give thanks to the giver of the gift. And I just say this, brethren.
I really believe there's a lot of gift lying dormant, but sometimes what I've seen is that when there is gift manifested, we so much glory in the gift.
That we become a stumbling block in their progress and usefulness. And I know brethren mean well when they compliment after a meeting. If they've enjoyed it. I know they mean well. But I have to confess for myself, brethren, that it's so easy to get top heavy.
And if the Lord hadn't given me some pretty hard blows to make me realize.
I'm nothing, just a simple instrument in his hand, and there can only be power in my ministry in the measure that I'm looking up to the head in heaven.
The gifts themselves can be destructive if they're not used with a looking up to the Lord Jesus in heaven. The Lord help us in our relationships one with another. If there is a gift, thank God for it. If it is useful, if it is helpful, thank God for it. But let's be careful not to make much of the gift. Let's make more of the giver of the gift.
00:50:25
And I really believe it will be a help to us. I still remember as a younger brother after a meeting.
Brother Ernie Wakefield came up to me and his comment I think is the comment I appreciated the most of any comment I've gotten after a meeting, he said. The Lord keep you, brother.
That was the comment I feel that helped me the most.
I know brethren mean well, and they mean to encourage a brother that perhaps speaks up, and I want to encourage younger brethren to use what the Lord has given you to.
But do it in relation to him. Don't expect a probation from your brethren merely.
Do it in relation to him. He's the one that gives the gifts.
And with use, a gift becomes evident.
And I think it's important that we realize you do not get a gift by studying. People think that they are a pastor because of a gift of because of studying in some school. That's not a gift, That's studying. Nothing wrong with studying. You don't get gifts by studying.
And so it's important to realize these are things that are given by the ascended head in heaven for the building up of his church, the body of Christ.
Let me quote that scripture that Paul says to Timothy and the King James. Unfortunately, that is not rendered very well. Study to make thyself approved unto God as if studying.
Would give the approval.
Use all diligence to be approved unto God.
That gives quite a different sense, doesn't it? So our exercise should be that what we do meets with his approval, you know, and if people benefit from what we're doing and what we're saying in Africa, quite a few times they thanked me for coming and ministering the word. And they also need economical assistance. And so I tell them, look.
If the Lord would not give us first, but we pass on to you in a spiritual or material way, there wouldn't be anything.
Thank the Lord for what comes to you, either in a spiritual or in a material way. So.
Source is him, not us.
We adjust to us.
These gifts here in the 4th chapter of Ephesians couldn't we consider these men that are given as gift are really special Arctic. We think of apostles and prophets and we consider the foundation of the apostles and prophets. We have it in our hands and the word of God-given to us. And then you have the evangelist and pastor teacher. Well, many of the gifts for those that God has given to the church are no longer with us, but we value the teaching that has come to us from the word of God through them and we enjoy it today and we're edifying today and the purpose is God has given these men is still pursued today even that the men are gone.
So we can't bow before them and put them on a pedestal because God has taken them away. But their value is still there for the church because the ministry is available. And when we consider the question of gift, whether a man is given as a gift as these ones mentioned here, I'm sure the Lord today still gives those to be evangelists or pastor teachers that are living among us. We find in First Corinthians chapter 13 the subject of love, and I think this is very important for us when we consider gift or ability.
You know, the Lord Jesus instead of Mary? He said she did what she could. She did what she could in 2004. There's a small testimony. Perhaps the most gifted brethren are not with us. They're in the camp somewhere. What are we going to do? Well, I think the Lord is telling you just each of us do what you can, do what you can. You have my spirit. I'll give you my love. You love your brethren and do what you can to Timothy, he says do the work of an evangelist. Perhaps Timothy has the ability to evangelize. Perhaps he didn't.
00:55:12
But he says do the work of an evangelist. We say there's no pastors among us. We're missing that. That's fine, it's true, but do what you can. Nobody's falling around those that are sick or they need to be visited. I'll do some of it yourself. Do what you can. This is what we can do today to encourage each other and build up what's left and strengthen the things that remain. There's a related subject, perhaps to this.
What about prayer? And maybe you've had the experience when you've finished praying isn't a single a man and you say should I make a mistake? Should I say something wrong?
What's wrong? Aren't isn't everybody supposed to say Amen?
What about that? Shouldn't there be? It's not an approval of the person necessarily, but agreement with what's said.
And it's noted that hardly anybody says Amen in the prayer meeting.
Something wrong there?
There's a verse in or two in Ezra that perhaps we could read.
As our chapter 5.
The work of building the House of God had ceased. God had allowed a test to come into his people in a letter was sent by their adversaries to the king, and the king ordered the work to cease, but they had no word from God to cease, but they allowed that to come in. And we find in the book of Haggai that they were just going back to their comfortable homes while the House of the Lord was left to languish there and then As for chapter 5 and verse one, it says then the prophets Haggai.
The prophet and Zechariah the son of Ido prophesied unto the Jews that were in Jude and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shall Teal, and Joshua the son of Josadec, and began to build the House of God which is at Jerusalem. And with them were the prophets of God, helping them, until that work began to prosper once again. And we read in Corinthians that.
Though tongues was a wonderful sign gift from God, yet they ought rather to prophecy, because prophecy brings the conscience into the presence of God, and that's what they needed. And as Ben mentioned, there seems to be gift on exercise amongst the people of God. Why? Because we're dwelling in our own sealed houses and there isn't devotedness to Christ. And so we ought to covet prophecy to bring our consciences into the presence of God, to stir us up, and that's why He's given those gifts.
Special gift and prophecies one of them to bring us into his presence to stir us up that the members of the body might fulfill their functions that they might go on to take up his interest here to below to take up where they left off building in the House of God caring for his interest down here instead of their own. And so he's given those gifts to stir us up to go on. He has a view to the ministry in that in those gifts given but the first thing.
That is, before him is the edification they're perfecting of the Saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. He would bring our consciences into His presence, that we'd be stirred up, each one of us individually, for the work of the ministry, that it would go on, that the body would be built up and edifying.
Where we get away from verse 11? I'd like to spend a little bit of time there. Apostles and Prophets has been mentioned already that it is the foundation work of the Church, so.
Not Old Testament prophets. These are New Testament prophets, men whom God used to give the word of God before the Canon of Scripture was completed.
We have the case of perhaps we can mention Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and also wrote the book of the Acts, which is very helpful instruction as to the church. These are men that God used to give us the foundation work, and brethren, it's wonderful to realize that we have a foundation.
That cannot be moved. I love to read that verse in Second Timothy chapter 2.
01:00:00
Where everything is in ruins and yet it says the foundation of God stands firm. It will never be broken up. You can count upon it that God's foundation is there and it's firm. It's laid out for us here in the Scriptures. Thank God for it, and it will never be moved. But that's foundation work and it's important that we use that, you know, when you're going to build.
It's important that you build on solid foundation. Somebody is building a house and they decide after they're getting building that well, they want an additional room out here, but there's no foundation. They build a room out there without any foundation. It's not going to last.
We're not left to our own selves as to what the program that we go on with is, brethren. It's all laid out in the Scriptures, and if we do something, there should be basis for it here in the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
Sometimes said that it takes sometimes digging down through the rubble of our own thoughts and ideas to get to where there is solid foundation. Then you can build and you can know it will be solid. How important to understand that the foundation has been laid. We don't have these men in person today. We have their writings here in the New Testament.
Then we get evangelists like hindsight. They bring in new souls, they go out to bring in the new material. And the last two, the pastors and teachers are those that build them into that building, that new building, the House of God. They're built in by those, but how important like.
Michelle was mentioning to do the work of an evangelist. Now he suggests.
Brethren, there's something healthy about gospel work, and I want to encourage each one here to do it. Maybe you say I don't have the gift for it. Do the work of it then.
Give out a gospel tract. Got gospel wallet calendars? What a wonderful way to share something of the word of God with souls.
Use them, go around the neighborhood you live in, give out calendars. It's the word of God that may hang on their wall for all year round. Who knows the blessing that it can be do the work of an evangelist and there are so many hurting young people today in this world have no idea which ends up.
We got the answer in the Lord Jesus. Let's be exercised about reaching out to those around in the gospel.
And then pastors and teachers are mentioned, and the work of a pastor is not necessarily a public ministry. I've known people who perhaps their work as a pastor was.
Seeing who wasn't there in a particular meeting night and maybe saying I'm going to make a mental note of that. Maybe I can go over to their home and read the word with them and see if I can encourage them.
That's the work of a pastor, to go after souls. You know, sheep, when they go astray, they don't come back on their own. They need somebody to go out after them. That's the work of a shepherd, a pastor. Let's be exercised. You young people sometimes have far more influence in your peers. If you're exercising, you can be a tremendous blessing. I have to say for myself, when I look back at my youth, I was raised in the meeting so-called.
But I must say that there were certain young people that were a tremendous help in the right direction at the right time. Thank God for them. Can't thank the Lord enough for them.
That's the work of a pastor, a shepherd you never find. I don't believe in Scripture, that there is such a thing as a pastor of a church.
That isn't found in Scripture. It's always in the plural pastors.
01:05:01
Remember in southern Bolivia?
A little gathering of the Lord's people where they were together sitting around the room.
And as they were waiting for the meeting to start, a missionary, I don't know what denomination or mission he came in from, but he walks into the room and he looks around the room and he sees everybody sitting there. Where's the pastor here?
After a moment, one of the brothers says well.
This brothers are pastors. This one, this one, this one, this 15 pastors. You must be rich to pay 5 pastors. No, Sir, these are just farmers. They till the ground, but they take care of God's sheep too. That's the sense of pastoring. It's the care of the sheep. Oh brethren, how often we don't help people.
In their need there's crying need. People feel wounded, they feel lame. We need to be exercised as to this gift of a pastor.
And teachers, just a word here before we get to the close of this meeting. The Assembly, brethren, does not teach. This is an important point.
So often.
You hear the expression the Catholic Church teaches, or some other evangelical church teaches.
The Church does not teach, brethren. The Church is taught by teachers that are given as gifts from the head. That's important. We do not establish the teaching.
We are taught by gifts that are given by the ascended hen.
And how important to listen when the scriptures are opened doesn't mean that teachers are always right. That's why it tells us in First Thessalonians 5 Despise not prophesying.
Proved all things hold fast that which is good. So it doesn't mean that everything's right. You got your Bible open in front of you. Why do you have that Bible in front of you for look at the Scriptures. Is that what it says? Prove it for yourself. And that which is good, keep a hold of it. That's the teaching we have here, brethren. Pass Timothy's told in second Timothy.
Forecast the form of sound words.
You know young people, do you have a form of sound words? You can't hold it for older ones if you don't know it.
And then in the second chapter he says.
The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Paul, Timothy, faithful men who teach others. That's how we have come into the truth. We didn't dig that all out by ourselves. We have benefited from the ability and teaching of others. You already mentioned the writings that we have.
One thing that I'm so thankful for having come to America is that there is this helpful ministry in English. We had some helpful ministry in German, but not much compared to what there is available in English. You know the Lord has used those brethren to recover the truth and others have benefited from it in other lands. Young people, are you interested in get a hold of this?
You know, I don't know how many books here were bought at the conference. Ministry books. You know, it troubles me when I realized that young people don't seem to be as interested in getting a hold of these things as they should, you know, And that is so helpful to written ministry that we have in the English language. And then we have so many beautiful hymns. I don't think there is a language that has as many beautiful hymns than English.
You know, but expressing scripture too, you know better. We're very careful what they put into this hymn book, you know, whether these hypes were scriptural, So much truth is learned by hymns. You know, I sometimes scream.
01:10:19
You know, and I see him in my dream, you know, well, when I wake up, I'm happy. You know, that even in my subconscious mind I was occupied with these things. But seeing at home with your families, you know, sing the songs with your children, don't just limit it to special occasions when you get together to sing. We have those occasions in Mozani and we enjoy it very much.
But seeing with the children and seeing by yourself, you know, when I came to America, I had to work at a machine operating a machine making Pistons.
Falls in engine Pistons. What did I do? I sang, you know, could I spend my time better? You know, I'm not just boasting. I'm just telling you that is something that we can do, you know, sing by ourselves, sing with the families. And it's wonderful when young people get together and say, you know, you only have singing. Mentioning connection with redemption.
The first song you know in Exodus and we will sing, according to Revelation 5, that new song in heaven. Singing is part of the redeemed, the privilege of the redeemed.
11 in the back.
I will not gain the glory, but Almighty of grace from 77 in the back.
Versus 4:00 and 5:00.
What was the number?
77 in the back versus 4:00 and 5:00.
Oh, you're more. They are.
And I.
I.
Gave you.
All my birthday.
All right.
I owe nothing.
To you.
Ephesians 4:12-15
Reading
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They go to me.
Ephesians 4 and verse 11.
He gave some apostles, some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ.
Can we all come in the unity of the faith?
Of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slate of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
But speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things which is ahead even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love.
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind.
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, being past feeling, have given themselves over under lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that he put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful US, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Wherefore putting away lines speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that need it.
00:05:12
That no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace under the hearers and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed under the day of redemption.
That all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake.
Hath forgiven you.
Remember my father when time explaining that the 11Th verse.
Too many commas in it.
It's not as though he gave some apostles over here and some prophets over there. But if you leave out the commas and you read it, he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists, some pastors and teachers there for the whole church. And we understand that. But it's a little better, easier to understand it maybe, if you leave out those hesitations.
I'd like to make a comment in connection with what was said yesterday in connection with the.
The servant of the Lord, and speaking, and then, and then.
Perhaps flattery being used after someone has spoke and how wrong that is and I.
I personally feel that the Scripture speaks about the script, that there's no place for flattery in the things of God that is used in the Christian circle quite often. But I do feel that there is a place where God has given, where he encourages and.
The comment was made.
In connection with when people speak that sometimes we go too far in the comments that we make to them afterwards.
And I do feel I felt this very much in connection with young people and I remember when.
Can I say going back years when I first started to preach the gospel. I remember the exercise going through you know, you you search before the Lord of I have I got a message from the Lord for this and get down after the off the platform afterwards and nobody says anything to you about the word that you just said. And you wonder did I blow it tonight? Did I say the wrong thing or what. And I do feel, brethren, that in our in our assemblies.
That when a particularly young person, when they're asked to take the gospel, that we need to encourage them and afterwards to tell them just something about maybe the chapter that they have spoken about, that something you've enjoyed about that particular chapter, you know, and I, I, I just want to pass that along to balance off a little bit what was said yesterday.
Thank you, Dave.
We have five years in the 11Th verse gifts men giving us gifts for the church. You know when we.
Called in the Tabernacle when he entered the holy place, there were five pillars to hold up the curtain to go into the into the holy place, and there were four to go into the holy of holies. And I've enjoyed them this way. And those five aspects, you might say of the Lords providing to introduce us into the holy thing. And there is a apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor teachers. We also have 5 authors in the New Testament that are given for the epistles. There's Paul and there's Peter and there's John and James and Jude.
And this is how God introduces us into the holy thing. As to the Holy of Holies, there were four pillars and the holy of Holies that speaks of the presence of God. And there was only one piece of furniture. That was the art which speaks of the Lord Jesus. And those four pillars remind us of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who bring before us the blessed person of the Lord Jesus. I just enjoyed these parallels, you might say, from the Tabernacle in the Old Testament and what we have in the New Testament.
00:10:03
I think it's been.
Spoken of before, but perhaps it's good to repeat it that there is a difference in.
Participation in assembly life between what are the gifts and what is the priesthood and.
In ministry meetings like this one, or perhaps what we call an open meeting where there is liberty for the Spirit of God to use a certain gift, either in teaching.
Or perhaps in exhortation or comfort.
That is one thing. That's what we are dealing with more here in this chapter in connection with the gifts. But when we are talking about the breaking of bread meeting where we come to remember the Lord or the prayer meeting.
I get the feeling sometimes, brethren, that we feel that there are certain ones that are more qualified to take part than others, and that is a lack of understanding that every single believer is a priest, and I think we need to be exercised about that.
I used to appreciate Brother Lundeen when it came to the breaking of bread meeting and sometimes the prayer meetings too. He would remove his seat up front and go back and sit somewhere in the back. I think. Don't look at certain brethren like they're more qualified than others when it comes to prayer and praise. There is no such thing in scripture. Every member, every.
Member of the family of God is a priest.
And we need to be exercised.
Sometimes we sit here and prayer means, brethren, we have so much to pray about.
Sometimes I feel like getting up and going saying brother, what is wrong? You're sitting back there in the back seat, so.
He exercised. Don't just wait for any people up here to take part. That is not right. That is not a right understanding of what priesthood is and we need to be exercised to pray. It may be some brother has one thing on his mind.
No problem with a short prayer.
Pray we've got lots of needs.
And you, younger brothers, applies to you too. Be exercised in the Lord's presence when it's the prayer meeting or the meeting, the breaking of bread. It's not a matter of gift that is being exercised, it's a matter of priesthood. In the Old Testament, all those born into Aaron's family, it was the great high priest, were priests.
And in the New Testament, all those born into the family of God are priests.
So we need to be exercised. The sisters are free just as well as the brothers.
The fact that they don't participate in leading in prayer doesn't mean that they don't pray. Whether Tom was saying yesterday that sometimes when we say man, hardly anybody says Amen. But when you everybody says Amen, that means it's assembly prayer. And there's a real power to assembly prayer. We need to be exercised. Follow the brethren. There's prayer. If you're in agreement, you can say Amen.
Sometimes there's things that I'm not exactly in agreement with that are prayed, but there's a lot that I am in agreement with, so I say Amen.
But let's be exercised. We need to distinguish between what is gift and what is priesthood. What we're dealing with here is gift. And yes, there is room for the exercise of gift. There ought to be room for the exercise of gift in assembly meetings for ministry of the Word.
We extend that thought, brothers, the Levites, because that.
We're all priests, like descendants of Aaron, but there was a whole family of, of Levi who were servants. They didn't enter into the holy place, but they had, they had something to do with the service of God. So every St. of God in the family of God is not only a priest, but he's also a Levi. But there's a field of service for every member of the family of God, isn't there?
00:15:05
So, his older brethren, we do well.
To remember that.
And.
Leave room for the younger ones to pray.
And encourage them to do so.
And that they are priests as well.
And of course, we have to remember too, there is a difference between assembly prayer and private prayer. You know, we have to discern and use judgment as to what.
We pray in the assembly, or what we express in prayer in the assembly, and the one who prays in the assembly is really the mouthpiece of the assembly. In other words, as much as possible, he should express what he knows.
Is the exercise of others in the assembly. You know, unfortunately sometimes we have experienced not so much amongst the gathered things, but where we used to be that people would preach to each other in prayer.
You know, and that is not of God. We have to remember that we are addressing Him and that those who publicly pray are the mouthpiece of the assembly and as much as possible should express what they know is the exercise of others as well.
Want to give a verse that has been a help to me to understand what assembly prayer is in Acts chapter 4.
Because there is the idea in certain circles, I think we are not in doubt about this, but it's good to have the scriptural principles. There are some places where everybody prays at once and they feel that that's assembly prayer. That is not assembly prayer. That is individual prayer. And it's confusing. But here in Acts chapter 4, when they are let free from the council.
Notice in verse 23.
Being let go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.
Notice verse 24 and when they heard that it's all plural, they lift it up. Their voice to God. One voice to God.
With one accord and said Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth, etcetera. But I think it shows there there is one voice heard, but they were all represented in that one voice.
That is assembly prayer, and that's where.
The use of the word Amen at the end. Sometimes I think we get the idea that Amen is just for the older brothers to say. If you look carefully at First Corinthians 14, it is the unlearned that say Amen.
It's not the older knowledgeable brothers per se, so it's something that we need to be exercised about. Ready.
1St Corinthians 14.
And verse.
Get the connection. Let's read 15 and 16.
What is it then? I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
Else when thou shalt bless with the Spirit, how shall he that occupy at the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?
So it's the one who occupies the place of the unlearned. If he can understand, he can say Amen.
Want to be clear there that in the assembly prayer meeting, just like in the remembrance of the Lord and that we're looking for the leading of the Spirit there. And so as has been said, it's not just a lot of individual prayers. There's a waiting on the Lord to be led to pray for the assembly. And this might be something that, you know, we, we find too hard to wait on and we're not sure you know, sometimes you go to a larger meeting and you have.
00:20:06
Sometimes two brothers and give him at the same time and you might say, well, that can't be the sort of God. But you know, when they're giving out the same hymn, you would think that's from the Spirit of God. So God, he takes our cause in his own hands and he helps us in our weakness. And perhaps as we carry it out, we carry it out in weakness. So you might be led to pray. You feel this in your heart. You have a burden and you want to pray. Perhaps you're shy because you say, well, I'm not going to pray properly. I'm not going to use the right words. I might forget somebody that's been mentioned.
Well, you just pray what the Lord lays on your heart. You know, we have this habit among the Saints. If we go to a prayer meeting and before the prayer meeting, we're going to pray for brother so and so who's 6 and sister so and so, who's 6, and this brother over here and that brother over there, and this situation here, maybe there's seven or eight or nine things mentioned.
And I found myself doing it. I'll get up in prayer and try to remember everybody has to pray for it. I don't think I have to remember. The Spirit of God knows who needs to be prayed for. And maybe I just pray for one or two and sit down and somebody else get up and pray for one or two or three. You know, we find ourselves as St. gathered to the Lord's name. We repeat the same prayers, different brothers with different words, and we pray about the same persons. And it's good for us to pray about the same person. But I believe there's nothing wrong with us if there have been 5 or 10.
Requests for prayer to pray for one or two that the Lord has laid especially on your heart.
And then sit down and the Lord will take that and lead someone else to pray for somebody else. And we'll all say Amen to all these prayers.
It's not very long.
Mentioned at the beginning of a prayer meeting. I think an assembly prayer meeting should be a continuum of prayer, not just repetition or limited.
And what I was saying is don't get into the habit of making long prayers. You know, that sometimes is not a good habit and I enjoy it very much.
There was a brother that was led to the Lord by some Christians in Munich, Germany. They were not gathered, but they were so-called brethren.
And we didn't know who they were, so we contacted them and they had a prayer meeting. And I was very favorably impressed the way they conducted their prayer meeting.
They spoke short prayers and maybe the same brother at different times, prayed twice or maybe even three times, but each time a short prayer. I was impressed, favorably impressed by that order. And we do not impress the Lord with lengthy prayers, you know, and then hopefully.
Others will be exercised to pray and the sisters can pray, although not audibly, but I hope.
Quietly they are in prayer before the Lord when a brother is ministering the word, you know it would be a nice thing for sisters while he is ministering to pray for him. Lord help the brother. You know, not just the sisters, all of us, but sisters can be a tremendous health in the meeting and you know I was told once.
When all the sisters passed away.
Somebody commented, you know, we will feel it in the assembly because these sisters were praying. Continued all the time, you know, for the brethren and for the testimony, sisters have a very important part.
Getting back to our chapter, we've spoken about the gifts in verse 11. Now verse 12 Through 16 tells us the purpose of the function of those gifts for the perfecting of the Saints.
For the work of the ministry. For the edifying of the body of Christ.
Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, into a perfect man.
Take it that is what we are growing unto a perfect man, Christ the head, we the body. And of course that will be the case that the coming of the Lord. But it's working towards that, isn't it that way. You understand that? Yeah, I would like to add to lead to full growth.
00:25:17
Spiritual maturity. These gifts are to be exercised to lead the Saints to mature spiritually. You know we have that in Hebrews, the word perfection in chapter 6. Go unto perfection or full growth. You know these gifts are to be exercised to help the Saints to grow. So are we willing to benefit?
From the exercise of gift, you know you can sit all your life.
Under the best of ministry, if you don't have a personal exercise to lay hold of these things by faith, you make very little progress, you know. But hopefully we will not just listen, we also take it in and the conscience will be affected. All truth, Brother Landin said, enters by way of the conscience, you know. So the conscience has to be affected.
And hopefully there is the manifestation of having benefited from the ministry by us growing spiritually. Perfection is spiritual growth.
I like to read the verses just previous to what you read there in Hebrews to their hindsight in chapter the end of chapter 5.
Because it helps to see what maturity or when the Scripture uses that word perfection. It's not thinking of perfection. Perhaps the way we use it, it's maturity or full growth. That's the purpose that we do not be like children here. It says in Hebrews 5 and verse 12 when for the time he ought to be teachers. You have need that one teach you again.
Which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is obeyed. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age. That's maturity, even those who by reason of use have their senses.
Exercise.
To discern both good and evil.
You know, we need food. We need good solid food to grow, but we need more than that. We need exercise. And a child that just eats and sits around is not going to grow properly, needs to get out and run, needs to exercise. And God knows that in our lives, brethren, He gives good food. The Christianity is not just sitting in conferences. We're going to go back to our home areas. We're going to meet the world head on again.
And we're going to be exercised if these things are just something we kind of store up in our memory or if we're going to put them into practice.
Be exercised about the principles of the Word of God and that exercise will make you to grow. In fact, I really believe of times, brethren, the Lord gives us difficulties so that we know how to be exercised. We don't like it, but we have to exercise and so.
These things are not something we just sit here and listen to.
The real proof of them, if we've gotten a hold of them, is when we go back home, do we put them into practice? Are we exercised? There's an interesting group of verses in Isaiah 28 as to learning.
And.
We'll never reach that full maturity, I don't think until we get to the glory. We never graduate from God's school. We don't know Isaiah 28.
Starting at verse 9.
To whom shall he teach knowledge, and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. So it doesn't come all in at once, does it? We pick up something here that we've been wondering about, maybe, and we come to a conference, and maybe we get that one thing.
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One little precept added to what we already have and one more line somewhere else and maybe a little comment in between times as a help. And so we we can't expect to have a crash course in Christianity, can we? It's a little by little. And as you were saying, it's it's putting it in practice. Then we learn something else on top of that.
This 12Th verse in our chapter, I like to think of what I use the word education. You think of a building, you know, an edifice and three things that we have in this verse. We have the building to build and then you have to maintain. There's maintenance and then you have to improve. And these are things that we find in our Christian life. We need to have a firm foundation and we're built up in the truth and then we need to maintain that which we have. If we don't do any maintenance, decay comes in and we lose. We lose things, we lose abilities and we lose.
We lose freshness and we get failed, and if we don't improve, we get stagnant and there's no progress in our lives. So we have the supply from the Lord in view of these three things to be built up, maintained and improved.
When Zachariah and Haggai prophesied, we might say the Saints were perfected.
They grew up, and the result was each went to his own work, and the ministry went on, and the result of that was the testimony was maintained at Jerusalem. And so his unceasing object is the perfecting of the Saints. Whether the ministry fails or whether the testimony fails, His unceasing object is the perfecting of the St. And as Mr. Darby translates this with a view to.
The ministry with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ that really I take that to be in the sense of corporate testimony, the result of the perfecting of the Saints, will be that those two things go forward.
And I think we need to, Brother Steve, keep in mind that the gifts are given for the whole body of Christ, not just merely for those.
As we are gathered here today to the name of the Lord Jesus, but it is for the whole body of Christ I cannot with a good conscience go into.
Denominational buildings that are built for a specific sector of God's people.
I can't do that. But in the measure that I meet up with believers perhaps.
In my home to have them in, perhaps at my work, I meet up with them.
To meet up with them and to enjoy something of the truth of God. To seek to be a blessing to them. That should be the spear before us, brethren, and what God gives.
He's given something to you, remember? Remember Albert Hayhoe used to say the truth of God is for the whole Church of God. We should not narrow that in our thinking just to a specific group, but for all Gods redeemed people. And though we may not be able to move into other circles, still we need to be exercised how we can without compromising.
Reach out to everyone of God's people.
What has been done?
My brethren is to have what they call cottage meetings.
With Christians in their home, we had that for 6 1/2 years in Wisconsin Rapids and.
Through work we came in contact with Christians and that led to a Bible study.
And.
Of course, we had to look into whatever scripture we were taking up. Maybe we benefited more from that than those that we ministered to because we had to, first of all, get to know the passage, understand it so that we could expound it. And what we did we.
00:35:13
Came to realize through contact with them that they knew very little of the Old Testament.
And so it led to a study of the Old Testament.
And young people, familiarize yourself with the Old Testament. You know, it's like a picture book, Mr. McIntosh says, that illustrates a lot of New Testament truth. And it's wonderful to get ahold of these types and shadows. And we only because we have the light of the New Testament, the revelation in the New Testament that we can understand.
The types, you know, Adam and Eve didn't realize that they would be a type of Christ and a church Oregon, any of these.
Marriages that took place, Joseph and his wife and so on. They are all types of Christ and the church. Isaac and Rebecca, one of the most beautiful types you know and so familiarize yourself.
With the Old Testament and what you will come to realize is that in one way or another, it always has to do with Christ.
You know, he's the theme of Scripture.
We have a brother back home that when he's asked the question, what church do you go to? He says, well, is there more than one?
It takes this, it takes it away and introduces it in a different setting completely. It's one body. Christ loved the church.
So it opens up an opportunity that way.
There's a point perhaps to be made and and does just qualify in this way.
It's quite true that.
As Brother Stan Jacobson put it, I liked it so much, the first look and our Savior space, when we're caught up to be with Him, is going to complete the work of God and our souls and that we're never going to be out of the school of God. We're never going to reach the end of learning down here. We're never going to.
Come to the point where we can say I've arrived. There's no more to learn until we're with the Lord. It's not until then we read in First Corinthians 13 that knowledge is going to cease. We're not going to need that anymore. We're going to continually need to grow. But this passage does not take that aspect up. It's in contrast with being children, and children are vulnerable. They need to be protected. They need to be guarded because they're an easy prey to the enemy.
And the desire of the Spirit of God, and this is to put before us that his object is that we be grown up so that we're not afraid, so that we're not vulnerable to grow up in the knowledge of Christ and to be established and settled. And so it's not so much that we won't be grown up in this passage until resurrection, but it's to be grown up here and now. And we live in a society that says, you know, I want to be a Toys-R-Us kid. I never want to grow up.
I always want to be a youth, but Scripture says youth is vanity. And the apostle says grow up, be mature. In countries where lifespan is much shorter than what we have here, maybe 40 years, 50 years old, there's an anxiousness to grow up and to enter into the mature relationships of life because it's short.
We don't live in a society like that. And the pressure is the opposite. Stay a child. Put all that maturity stuff off. Be a child as long as you can. Now the scripture says grow up, grow up, because if you don't, you're going to become a prey to the enemy. And when those winds of bad doctrine come, and when trials and difficulties come, you're going to be tripped up if you're not grown up in the truth.
It's in view of the what we have at the end of verse 13, and it's interesting in the new translation.
It puts it at the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ.
It's working towards that.
Christ, the head in heaven.
00:40:00
We his body here on earth, it's going towards the perfection of that. That's the purpose. That's the work that the God or the Lord Jesus has given these gifts for towards that brethren.
And we need to preach the truth and familiarize ourselves with the truth, not with all the doctrines and errors that are circulating in Christian profession.
Familiarize yourself with the truth. That will help you discern the error when it approaches you. You know when it is presented to you. So familiarize yourself with the truth. Don't study Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses and go into details of what they teach. No, you don't. You shouldn't do that.
Occupy yourself with the truth, look into it, take it in by faith, and that will prepare you to discern error when it comes your way.
The unity of faith is spoken here is that referring to being brought into what is that we had before 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism. This is what is and the ministry would be to bring us to that that one faith. We set it on one person, the Lord Jesus, who is true, but there are many details that I say connected with that that we learned from the Scriptures and were brought to the knowledge and assurance of somebody can believe in the Lord Jesus.
As a savior really in his heart, but be unsure that he's saved forever. Well, he needs to be brought to the unity of faith that the person of the Lord Jesus, the object of faith and what you have in him as the fullest.
I have wondered, Brother Michelle, if the thought there of the unity of the faith till we all come in, the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and the perfect man, if the ultimate end of that is really the coming of the Lord.
It's the end of it, that's certain, but we're going towards that now, yeah.
It says the knowledge of the Son of God there. That's remarkable, isn't it, Because it's not to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
It's the knowledge of who that person is. Who's the Lord Jesus. He was the perfect man, of course he was, but he's the eternal Son of God. And we've brought to that knowledge, aren't we?
And what Brother Steve was talking about in verse 14 is he says children are vulnerable. That's true. And says part of the purpose of these, the exercise of these gifts, is that we henceforth be no more children.
Toss to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. There's a lot of winds of doctrines around.
And I sometimes use the illustration of a paper out there doesn't have a lot of weight.
Wind comes from the north. Woo, she goes South.
Wind comes from the South and whoo she goes N where is that paper going to end up? In the garbage pile?
It's not good to be carried about with winds of doctrine. That's why God has given in the body, why the Lord Jesus has given gifts so that we are not that way. We're living in days of ruin. Many of the gifts that have been given are not gathered to the Lord's name. They're in different circles and organizations in the Christian profession. Their gifts too.
God cares for his people, and so sometimes we we feel it, we feel our weakness, but if we look to the Lord Jesus in our weakness, I really believe he can keep us from these things. Don't be carried away by winds of doctrine. You hear things, young people sometimes that seem to be kind of interesting. Be careful with winds of doctrine. They're made to carry you One Direction and another.
And it is not good to be carried one way and another. He is given gifts in his church.
So that we will not be that way.
00:45:03
Even amongst the gathered Saints is the danger that doctrines and practices are introduced which are contrary to Scripture. But about the local church, the local responsibility, that's a problem because some think that they have the right to interfere in the local assembly elsewhere. That's local. Oversight is local.
We mentioned that before. It's worth repeating it again.
Problems since we are amongst the gathered Saints, you know repeatedly this very thing. Well, if we recognize the Lord has vested His authority in the local assembly and we bow to an action as Mr. Darby says, right or wrong, and if it is wrong, trust that the Lord will correct it. Rebellion is not the answer. But what about the so-called Raven brethren?
That at one time were gathered, look how awful some of the doctrines are that they have introduced. And they're always looking for new light, you know. And well, I believe the truth has been recovered.
And I'm not saying that it is impossible that a brother has a thought that he has never heard expressed in the Assembly, or has not found in the writings of the early brethren, but generally speaking, the truth has been recovered. Our responsibility is, hold fast that which thou hast. You know we find that in revelation as to Philadelphia port past that which thou has, and that no man take thy crown.
So that is our responsibility. But the problem might well be, have we laid hold of these things? Have we made these things are owned by faith? It is not too bad to repeat this point. Lay hold of it and make it your own by faith, and then ask the Lord for grace to help you to practice and even in passing on.
The truth speaking the truth in law.
You know how important that is. I trust when we speak that the motive for that is love, not just for the Saints.
Love for the Lord Jesus and the Scripture speaks of the love of the truth, right So.
Speaking the truth in love, and that is not always talking sweetly.
You know, sometimes faithful words have to be spoken. Hopefully the motive is love. You know, just like a father and parents cannot always speak sweetly to their children. They have to exercise discipline at times. But I'm sure that in most cases, when parents discipline their children, it's because they love them.
And when I look back upon raising.
The children.
Have sometimes said what I could have done better than what I did is after I disciplined them, expressed that while I didn't enjoy what I was doing, that I was doing it because I loved it. You know, because I didn't want them to grow up.
To develop bad habits and practices. Well, here it speaks of speaking the truth.
In love just want to say brother Heinz, I think it's important to.
Holding what you say in connection with local oversight.
That it is a local matter, and that is in connection with the truth of the Church as the House of God.
What we have here is more the body of Christ and the gifts, and if we profess to take the truth, the ground that we are gathered is the truth of the one body, then we should at the same time be willing to listen to those that are gifts.
When they had come in, perhaps in the capacity of teaching or perhaps in the capacity of exhortation, we should be willing to receive that. It's not a matter of intervening authoritatively. I'm not speaking about that, but we should be willing to listen to those who the Lord may send to say something about it too. That's also in this truth of the one body that we're speaking about.
00:50:20
But like you say, it's all to be spoken in love speaking.
The truth in love. Notice in verse 21 a little further down, it's speaking.
Says as the truth is in Jesus, and I like to say for young people and for all of us really, that when we use the word the truth, I think we need to clarify that when we say the truth objectively, we are speaking about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this book that we hold in our hands, he said, the Lord Jesus said.
Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy Word is truth. Objectively. You have it in the person of Christ and in the Book we hold in our hands. It is the truth, absolutely.
Sometimes I fear that. Sometimes we speak about the truth and we make ourselves a reference point.
And people start looking at us and they see some things that are not in accord with the truth and they start shaking their heads. And I think we need to distinguish that if you go to 3rd John, I believe it is. I think you have it.
Perhaps we can say in a subjective way, because the truth should not be.
Only objective. It should be something that we're subject to as well.
Verse four of second John.
Well, let's read from verse one, the elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I, but also all they that have known the truth. For the truth sake dwelleth in US. There's the truth in US.
Yes, that should be the case, but we have to admit that sometimes, brethren, we fail in acting in the truth of God. And so there is a subject part of this.
Verse 4I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth. So the truth is in us, and we should walk in the truth. But when we speak of the truth objectively, keep before your souls.
The person of the Lord Jesus.
And the word of God. You will not find any inconsistencies there.
You will if you look at my person. You will if you look at any human instrument. You're going to find inconsistencies.
If you can remember that the truth objectively is in the person of the Lord Jesus.
And it is in his precious word.
This is a 14 verse referring to the children there would remind us of the officials of the Galatians where the apostle Paul writes to them as brother Heinz was suggesting love can speak boldly. He says foolish Galatians and but he refers to them. He says my children in Ephesians are Galatians chapter four. He refers to them in verse 19. He says my little children of whom I travailed and birth again until Christ be formed in you.
You know, you hear the gospel, you're subject to ministry.
Well, you have got that in your head, but you need to have it in your heart. You need to receive the Lord Jesus in your heart to become a child of God. And if you become a child of God and that's and then you're safe forever. You might be affected by evil doctrine, bad teaching, you'll never use your salvation. You might lose your way though and waste your life. You know, in our area there a little while ago, they had some little children. They lost their way. They were playing in cornfields.
And I guess it just rows and rows and they change rows and play hide and seek or something. And then they just lost their way. And these are huge cornfields. And they never got back home. They slept there in the cornfield and in the morning had the helicopters. And I volunteered and they looked for the children in the cornfield and it took a while before they found it. And when they found them, boy, you should have seen them. I saw them when they brought them in the helicopter. They looked tired. They're all dirty. They look like a mess. You know, that's what's going to happen to us if we're not listening to the word of God and we listen to every word of darkness.
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Going to make a mess of our lives and a mess of us. And so we just need to be concerned about that. That when we hear the gospel, dear young people, children, that it's something that you believe in your heart and older ones. Now that we hear the truth from the word of God, it's something that we believe in our hearts of truth that is in US. And as brother Bob was saying, if it's in us, we're going to walk in it. It's going to be seen in the measure in us. When the apostle Paul, when he speaks to the Galatians, he speaks of my children. He's not speaking to them as children of God because he didn't know.
And they really believed in their hearts of Christ be formed in you when you receive the Lord Jesus that's done once forever in your heart and you're safe forever. But you've got to be careful to all these winds of doctrine and be thankful that we can sit together here and have the word of God open before us and the spirit freedom minister to our souls. How do you get?
The Word of God from your head to your heart, brother.
That's faith, isn't it?
I sometimes give the illustration that has been a help to me that.
The Old Testament the clean animals were animals that chewed the cud and divided the hook.
And we need to know what it means to chew the cud. You listen to things that are said here.
Shouldn't takes a while. I don't put.
A mouthful or a piece of steak in my mouth and swallow it straight down. I detain it in the mouth for quite a while, chewing away, enjoying the flavor, and after a good while I swallow it down.
That's the way it's going to do me good.
By just.
Swallow my food straight down. It doesn't do me that much good. So we need to know how what it means to chew the cat. And something I can't do for you, brother, you can't do for me. It's a very individual thing. You listen to what said at these meetings. You say Christianity is not just merely sitting in conferences.
Going home, thinking about what those brothers said.
Chewing on it.
Making it your very own. And something Heinz said that was so important, I think too, is that the truth of God to get into the soul has to go through the conscience.
Talking about these things.
Get to recognize that off times my life isn't there.
Something that it speaks to me about, I've got to do some correcting. That's the way to grow, brothers. So these are important points. We want to really know what it means to grow.
Has through the clean animals and unclean. What helps me too very much is what was a clean and unclean fish.
You know a pitch that was clean, had to have fence and scales.
And if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Kelly, I learned from him, but he's to be understood by that the scales are like a protective armor that prevents the element through which the fish is passing from penetrating.
That's the divine nature by which we have escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And the Finns speak of the energy of the divine nature, the Spirit of God.
You know, that helps us to go against the strain that is not normal for Christians, even young people, to go along with all that is practiced in the world.
You notice peer pressure.
As they call it is a danger for young people when they go to school. But remember what a clean fish is, you know, and these characteristics should be demonstrated in our life as Christians Go against the stream. Don't let the element to which you're passing penetrating, you know, and we have what it takes to live.
01:00:17
Successful Christian life if we make use of what the grace of God has given us.
Verse 15.
Continues to what Brother Steve was saying about growing up. That's what it says. Speaking the truth in love may grow up. Yes, we need to know what it means to grow up.
Into Him in all things. And I think this is beautiful, brethren, True spiritual growth means that we learn to look to Him in all things. You know, God may use a human instrument to bring blessing in our lives perhaps.
We've been saved through some individual and necessarily you're going to understand why.
The person that brought you to the Lord perhaps will have an effect on your early spiritual growth, but if you grow properly, get the right kind of spiritual food.
The growth is going to lead you not to be looking to any human instruments so much as to the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that what ministry causes you to do to look to Him? That's proper ministry.
Sometimes.
It happens that some human instrument that God has gifted.
Wants to make himself the point of reference, and that is a danger signal. True spiritual growth once is to has the purpose of making us grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
So we need to grow up, but true spiritual growth is to make us to look to Him. Oh Lord, oh, oh brethren, the Lord is so faithful, so gracious, so living.
Still remember brother Eric Smith?
Is one of his statements. I remember so much. The Lord lives.
He's a living Lord.
And we need to be reminded of that. You know, it impresses me when, brethren in South America, some of those little meetings are so small. And you go there and you say, how in the world can they go on in this way? If they're looking to the head, they have everything they need in him. Doesn't matter about how weak, how insufficient we may think we are.
Sometimes we come into a meeting room and we look around and say who's here tonight? Oh, we have that brother and this brother. I guess we're going to have a nice meeting.
Is that looking to the head, brethren? I'm going to come in and say, oh, there's no special brother here tonight. I don't know what kind of mean. We're going to have, you know what I found? It's their simplicity in looking up through the Lord Jesus head. For as much as there may not be anybody that we normally learn from, the Lord gives real solid blessing. He lives, brethren, and he lives in his people here. We are members of his body.
Let's prove it. The Lord lives.
Anyone have a thought on what every joint supplier?
Like we wouldn't have any joints in our extremities. They wouldn't be of much use to us, right? You know, In other words, if our hand wouldn't move or we wouldn't have an elbow.
You know, and we would have just a straight stick.
01:05:00
Of an arm, so I think it speaks of helps.
Are provided by the Lord.
To assist the exercise of gift.
And the friends here that are using the French words the joints, they adjust and bind together.
So links to one another we're links to one another we're.
We're bound together and so the Lord has made us to be joint and you know, you know a brother who knows a brother and then so you have a connection with that other brother. And we know how we they do it in business all the time. You know, they have connections where we're connected to one another. We're connection points to one another.
But we might also say, brother, you would agree. I'm sure if somebody comes to me with a question and I don't have the answer, I perhaps can direct him to a brother that can give an answer. In that way, I am a joint, you know, and in that way we can help. But we don't always have the answers. But hopefully there are some or there is somebody that can answer.
If there is nobody, maybe we can pray about it together, that the Lord will open up something to us that we haven't understood before. He is there when we come together. He's in the midst. And have we not experienced that? That we're at a reading meeting and thoughts come to us that we have not heard or read? You know, the Lord gives it to us at that time.
So it's wonderful, but we're not just individuals, you know, we are members of the body. And you know, look how many members our physical body has. And it's unfortunate that many who are members of the body of Christ, we don't benefit from them because they're not willing to just meet as members.
Of the body of Christ but as Bob said thankfully there are those that have the ability and gift to minister to the Saints even if they're in the wrong position you know and there's food for them and there are even some of these programs that are a help to people under radio you know and so.
Whenever like back to the Bible, that program, is it still on? I don't know, but it was very helpful.
For many years, you know.
Speaks in Mr. Darby's translation Joints of Supply, and I like to apply it in another way too. Brethren, that I think we need to be exercised about it is something that is on my heart as the Lord is working in different areas of the world.
With their hindsight to go over to India and Bhutan and.
There are brethren in South America.
That's the exercised in seeking to strengthen the bonds. We are one body in Christ with them. We should be interested in how they're getting on and communicate with them if we can in some measure and to be joints. A joint is an area where there's a lot of stress at times, but it's very important so that we work.
Together not work against each other. The proper working of the body is not against one member against another, it is working together.
That is the proper thing, and so there are those joints of supply.
Our time is up. Just be commented with the 15th verse because in the French version he doesn't talk about speaking the truth in love. It says I'm being true in love.
That we might grow in all things unto him, which is the head Christ in all things. And I was thinking of that, and that in the measure that we've received the Lord in our hearts, that he's transforming us, we're being transformed into the same image. And this is the purpose of God for all things. For the big things, we can look at the body of Christ. And your brother was talking about Yetan or India or the work of the Lord in other places. But it comes right down to the little things too, and your family life, your school life, your work life, that you're growing into all things.
01:10:02
Unto Him to be like Him. You're like Him in your personal life, and you're going to be like Him in the assembly life, being true in love.
Ephesians 4:15-24
Reading
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Ephesians 417.
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that she henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart through being past feeling, have given themselves over under lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus. That she put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that she put on the Newman, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that need it, that no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
But that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace under the ears, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed under the day of redemption, but all bitterness, and wroth, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking. He put away from you with all malice, and be a kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
The second chapter here's a description of the Gentiles condition too, isn't there?
Verse 11.
Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision, that which is called the circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, that at that time he were without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
00:05:21
That's a pretty sad description of anyone, isn't it? But the next verse 13 says, But now in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. What a change the blood of Christ brought in the lives of the Gentiles.
As we've had a lot of admonitions the doctrine brought before us now in the 17th 1St, we're getting back to the walk and.
Our walk should be according to the doctrine that we hold. Scripture says that as a man believeth in his heart, so is he. And you find that when people lower the truth of God and their religion also their practice, their walk is very much lowered as well.
Now, if we have the truth of God and all its fullness, how it becomes us to walk, not this other. As we walk formally, as you're bringing out there in that second chapter, there should be a corresponding walk according to the truth that has been made known to us.
Captain was mentioned in verse one of chapter four. We haven't mentioned in verse 17 as you're mentioning.
And then in.
Chapter 5, verse two walk in love and in verse eight of chapter 5 at the end walk as children of light.
So Christianity is something to be lived out on the practical level.
It's not something we just talk about. That's a danger, isn't it, To just talk and not live it out?
One more Bob verse 15 walk starts respectfully. Also good.
But we're first of all brought into the dignity of what we possess.
So we have the truth brought before us as to who we belong to, into what the blessing we've been brought into in Christ. Now in view of that walk according to the position that we've been brought into.
But they used to be gentiles.
And.
But they weren't looked at any longer as Gentiles.
Jew and Gentile and the Church of God, you know but.
Anyone that is converted from?
The Gentiles.
You know, there's always the danger of still being influenced by the ways and how to do things before conversion.
And you know you find that.
In different parts of the world.
There are those who were practicing Pagan customs.
You know the danger is.
Still.
Practice some of these things even after conversion. You know, this is unfortunately what we came to realize.
With.
Brethren in Africa.
You know that they still to some extent at times.
Go along with the.
Charms, putting charms under children, even buried charms by their huts to protect them against the spirits. Well, I'm happy that Tim Ruga wrote that pamphlet on it and hopefully that will be a help to some of our brethren there and.
But what about us in the West?
What does Christmas have to do with the birth of the Savior?
If you know anything about history, you know that.
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When Constantine made the Christian religion the religion of his empire, thousands joined the Christian churches but continued to practice their Pagan customs. And then the church fathers decided to bring in the birth of Christ, and they literally said it is better to get drunk in honor to the birth of Christ than in honor to a hidden God.
You know, this is history. Even the world knows that in the history books. And but how many questions how among us, there are those that practice this to some extent. Maybe we won't have a Christmas tree, but I think I've seen that happen. We were visiting one time around that time. We're invited to a home here. They had a big Christmas tree in their house.
You know, that is amongst the gathered things. And in some areas it's worse than in other areas, you know, Canada, eastern Canada perhaps. But I'm thankful that we have a scripture here that admonishes us that we shouldn't walk the way the Gentiles walk. You know, we're delivered from this.
Hopefully we all will come to see that.
It's a dishonor. It's a masterpiece of the devil to associate the most blessed event that ever occurred in the history of this world, the incarnation of the Son of God, with Pagan customs. And the Lord Jesus wasn't born on the 25th of December.
That was a Pagan holiday.
Why do we know that he wasn't born on the 25th of December?
Shepherds were in the field up to this day. Shepherds are not in the field in the so-called Holy Land at that time of the year. So it must have been in the summer or later on in the spring or when the weather was such that they could stay in the field during the night. But.
We have to be faithful and allow our consciences to be touched. We should turn away from anything that is connected with paganism.
There is danger when the mind is at work, isn't there?
Significant and Leviticus chapter 13 when it speaks about the leprosy reaching the head that that individual was to be pronounced utterly unclean, and we think of the apostle Paul.
Their Athens.
Perhaps now the city at this time.
Represented the pinnacle of man's achievements and man's minds. So we see that the city in Acts Chapter 17 was given almost fully over to idolatry.
And then we see the philosophers there, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and what was their desire to fear some new things? And we're thankful that the apostle Paul could use this occasion to bring the word of God before them. And we just trust that there might be some blessings from that word that was given on that occasion.
It's a black picture when you consider what man is naturally having the understanding darkened.
00:15:01
You can't reason with a person whose understanding is darkened.
All you can do is let the light shine and hope that the light will penetrate the darkness. Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness or the margin says the hardness of their hearts.
So that they do not believe because they will not believe. It's the hardness of the heart. Man's will, naturally speaking is set against God. The Lord Jesus had to say you will not come to me that you might have life another place. He says how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hand gathereth her chickens under her wings and.
Ye would not.
Naturally speaking, the human will is against God, and that brings in darkness.
You read that verse last night in 2nd Corinthians 4 where it says the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not.
I have often marveled, and I used to live in Chicago.
A brother I used to live with there was going to medical school at the time, and he told me that there's the highest percent of atheists in the School of Medicine and the University of Chicago isn't that amazing, studying the marvel, the complexity of the human body and how it works.
And yet it is those people that were the highest percentage of atheists. It's because when a person sets their mind against God, there is a darkening that takes over. That's very serious. And that's what's happening in our country. As people turn away from God, there's a darkening. The Lord help us to live in the light, to walk in the light, to walk as children of light.
And verse 19 continues who being past feeling.
No feelings given themselves unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greedy puts it unsatisfied lust.
Never satisfied in their lust, their unclean lusts.
Thank God, brethren, I think we can see that our place is not there.
Our places elsewhere, there's 20 exactly.
So if the believer.
It is expected.
That the life is different.
This describes the unbeliever, not the believer.
You know, and we are not in darkness. We brought from darkness into light first. John, you know, is a beautiful epistle that brings out light and love, do you know? And so how wonderful we have the light of the revelation of God, and we have ourselves been brought into the light. And so we better remember what we or who we are.
And what the grace of God has made us to be and act consistently.
When we were over to Nigeria, we went to several leper colonies.
And we asked the leper, how did you first discover they had leprosy? I had no, no feeling in my finger.
And gradually it spread.
This first hero would remind you something like that verse 19 who being passed feeling.
They they have a seared conscience, they don't feel things anymore. And oftentimes, brethren, it may start with something small, like a so-called little white lie.
That was very easy to say that, you know it was untrue. But then we progressed to greater things and pretty soon we are really into trouble. But if we would judge that first misstep, you know, we would keep ourselves out of great transgression as we had the other day. But here evidently these folks are are past feeling they have.
00:20:11
A seared conscience, don't they? They can't feel anymore the effects of sit in their lives like the leopard.
It's hard to imagine when you read the.
Early chapters of Proverbs.
Which at times in my life I've had that habit of reading a chapter a day in Proverbs.
Hard to imagine young men when it speaks with a violent man or the corrupting woman. It's hard to imagine people just dedicated to such mischief. And yet if you pick up a newspaper or listen to the news, it's still going on today. But this is the heart of man. The heart of man hasn't changed. And the solemn thing is that.
The soul sins and it just it can't get enough of sin, and Scripture says we're hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
Like the leper who can't feel. And So what does the Sinner do for himself? He doesn't say, oh, I'm going to stop. I'm going to search for something else. He turns up the volume. He does more of the same. And so the the petty thief becomes an armed robber and the armed robber goes on to commit murder. And it just goes on and on, whether it's in the violent sphere or in the sphere of corruption and, and and vice and sin.
And of course we know that it doesn't satisfy.
And this is one of the basic, basic lessons of all of life is that the way of man is not in himself and he can't find that which he needs in himself. He has to find something outside of himself which is in Christ and God has it for him in Christ.
So I remember reading a book when I was a young man, how I think it was CS Lewis. He said, every man is born with this aching hole, this void, and he keeps trying to stuff things into it to try and satisfy himself. But God has ordained that the only thing that can satisfy the human heart with respect to its need to be loved, to be understood, and to have truth is Christ. And so even as little children, you know, you're on, it's a hot day and it's real hot and you're thirsty. And he said, oh, I'd love to have you say to a little child, it's hot and sweaty. He says, what would you say? What would you like to have the most? So cold ice cream. Well, give the child some cold vanilla ice cream.
And what happened in about 5 minutes? You just stand there and wait. I'm thirsty. I'm so thirsty.
Oh, what would you like now? Cold water. So give them cold water and drinks the cold water. How do you feel now? Oh, I feel terrible. And that's the way the world is. It's the things that man thinks he wants won't satisfy him. And so this is a basic lesson, You know that by the grace of God, for some of you have learned it or can learn it when you're six or seven or eight or nine, or learn it when you're older, like some of us had to. Some learn it when they're very old.
It's a profound lesson to learn, though. I love that verse in the Psalms that says at the end of the Psalm, I can't remember which one, it says all my springs are in thee. What a beautiful verse that is. So many have tried so many things, whether it's business or pleasure or this or that. And and it's as if the soul gets to the end of all those things and says, you know, all my springs are indeed. So in the next verse, verse or two is really what we have.
You have not so learned Christ. This is not the conduct that you learn by observing Him, and this is not what you would learn from His lips.
It doesn't even have to be the wicked things, does it? Because Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, he discovered that even the good things that he did planted gardens, he made irrigation and he and indulged in everything that he could to make it nice. And he said it was all vanity and vexation of spirit. It just didn't satisfy.
And I've really been thinking about that a bit, you know that.
If God had not used a man that had the wealth and the ability that Solomon had, we might still think maybe I can find some satisfaction in this world. But he chose a man that he endowed with great wisdom and authority. No one could stop him from doing what he wanted. And he says one of these verses here that he didn't refrain himself from anything that his heart desired, and it was all vanity and vexation of spirit. So you go to the New Testament and Philippians 4 and you find the apostle Paul in prison.
00:25:07
He's saying rejoice in the Lord again. I say rejoice in prison.
So in our chapter, it's having put off. I think it's supposed to be the correct way, isn't it? Having put off the old man and having put on the Newman. In other words, don't work at it. It's done because you believed the old man. That's Romans 6 instead.
Now the Newman that's in Romans eight, Well, he's happy. He's doing the right things.
And happy with it.
Yes. It's not really an exhortation there. It's not you walking up to me and say, Bruce, you need to put off the old man. It's you walking up to me and saying, Bruce, this isn't very consistent after all, you've put off the old man. It's reminding me what's true of me as a believer. I didn't understand it when I was first saved, didn't understand it for quite a while. But it was true of me when I got saved, that I am looked upon as one who has put off the old man and I put on the new. I understand.
That the meaning, the way it is put here is something that has taken place and is a continued state. You know, and.
So the old man has been judged, dealt with judicially in the cross, but the flesh is still in US. And, you know, that's very important to recognize, and it never improves. It's as bad in a believer as in an unbeliever. And the devil would like to use the flesh in the believer sometimes to do worse things.
Then an unbeliever, why that brings this honor upon the name of the Lord Jesus.
So recognizing this makes us aware that we need to stay close to the Lord Jesus and keep short accounts. You know when there is a thought coming into your mind that is defiling.
Touch it, you know, and it doesn't change with age either.
Jimmy Smith visited us.
He stayed at our house for five weeks after his wife had surgery in Rochester and had to go back there five weeks later. He didn't want to go all the way back to California. So I was at that time about 45 years old. And I said to him, I said, Brother Smith, I support by the time 1 gets to be your age.
One doesn't have as much of a problem as us younger men have. Oh, he said. Heinz. Don't say that. There is no fool like an old fool.
That was Jimmy Smith's comment. No fool like an old fool. The flesh does not improve and doesn't change whether we are 30 years old or whether we are 70 years old. The flesh is the same, but the old man has been judged, but the flesh is still there. And so we better remember that that how do we succeed in keeping the flesh down?
It's not just enough turning away from things.
You have to turn away from things, but the positive thing is feet on debt, which strengthens the Newman.
Feed the new man. You see, that's the positive side to the truth. Yes, we have to turn away from things, but if you only turn away, you're empty.
There's pleasure of seeing Four Seasons, Scripture says. But.
To turn to the Lord's things and feed the Newman, that's the secret. And every day. And hopefully, as we have pointed out, that the young people learn to do that early, not wait till they're 1520 years old. You know, if you're saved, you have a new nature, you're standing in a new position before God. Feed that nature.
And that nature will get strong. But starve the old, you know that's the secret. Starve the old and feed the new.
If there is any change in the flesh, Brother Heinz, I think you would say it gets worse, doesn't it? Yes, age.
But that's the reason why what you're saying about feeding the new is we have verses 20 and 21. So beautiful brethren, what is our food? Christ is our food. If so be that ye have heard Him and have been taught by Him.
00:30:18
As the truth is in Jesus, isn't it beautiful to turn from ourselves, turn to someone in whom there is complete perfection?
And to be able to say, as we look up into the glory.
My life is there. My life is Christ.
No fallacy there, no unbalance to be more occupied with Him is what transforms us. We could go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. What we.
Have, and I think it's so important, brethren, we need to have sometimes the negative things pointed out to us. But what's going to transform you and me is not mere negatives.
But it is what we are occupied with.
Notice verse 18, Second Corinthians 318. But we all, not just certain ones, but we all.
With open or unveiled face, beholding, as in the glass, the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
So the Spirit of God occupies us with Christ.
The measure that we are occupied with Him in all His glory. It hasn't a transforming effect on us, but we do need to be reminded that we have put off that old order of things. That's the position we are set in as believers in the Lord Jesus. There's a tendency to go in that direction. Remind yourself that was.
Something I used to belong to, I no longer belong to. That is seen in Scripture as having been put off and then in verse 23, be renewed in the spirit of your minds. I think it's so important to be careful what we allow our minds to be occupied with. There's an awful lot in Scripture about our thinking. What do you allow your minds to be occupied with?
It's going to have an effect on you. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. You are what you think about. Don't let your minds just go helter skelter in any direction. Control your thinking. Bring it back to thinking positive thoughts about the Lord Jesus. It's important.
That's why it says as the truth is in Jesus, not Christ, which would.
Before us, our position before God in Christ, but Jesus brings before us.
A right practical walk in our lives as we have the Lord Jesus setting an example in his life below.
Having put.
Please tell Mister Darby renders it and having put on the Newman, that's a nice.
Help to see the rendering in the Derby translation.
I have mentioned that before, and for the young people it might be helpful to repeat that we had a Bible study with Catholic people and they were devout Catholics trying to make it acceptable.
We look for a Catholic Bible and there are some good Catholic translations.
And while we were looking for the Bible in a Christian bookstore, they had a brief description about every translation available.
At that time, so I was interested to find out what they had to say about the Darby translation. Here is what they said. And mind you, that was not one of the so-called brethren that was a scholar or scholars who knew the original. They said it is the most accurate critical rendering available. Let's be thankful that we have that rendering. My wife always has it, you know, and so I can when I want to know how it is a more accurately rendered I look.
00:35:20
At the Bible that she has on her lap, you know, and at home when we have the Scripture reading in the morning and in the evening, we always read J and translation, you know, And if you don't have a translation like that, get one and you will find how helpful it is. And it gives you a clearer understanding of some passages that are not clearly expressed in the King James. Not that we want to replace the King James.
Darby did not have that in mind with the translation when he translated the Bible, but he wanted to give a translation that for those who didn't know the original, they had a more accurate rendering and could read it and compare it. And that's what we can do. And if you don't have a translation like that, if you're interested in accuracy, get one.
This is not on the subject, but as much as you say get one. There was a young man looking at Darby's translation over there and $60.00 he says, well, I'd like to have that if I can afford that. I forget what young man that was. Please see me afterwards.
Are they all that expensive? Aren't there some less expensive copies?
Here.
There are much more reasonable copies, yeah.
In German, the Alba Powder translation is the Darby translation in German, you know, and they wouldn't use the Luther translation because that is not nearly as good as the King James, you know. And the brethren always have used Darby translation, and he had helped translating that into German. He couldn't do it by himself, but he translated it into French.
By himself, he knew French as well as English.
And so we can be thankful to have a more accurate translation available for us.
I wonder if the these verses here 22, three and four when it mentions about the putting off and the putting on and even had brought before us about the Darby translation having put off, is it really the thought here of positionally that that is the position that we're brought into?
And therefore, in view of that, we are given in the rest of the chapter and going on into the 5th chapter, there's ministry there in view of that of how we are to to conduct ourselves. And so then it gets down to very practical things as we move on in the chapter. For example, the 26th verse, Be angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your rod.
Why does it say be angry and sin not? Well, is it not because that we have the old nature, and when our passions are, when we are, when we are?
There is the there is anger that can be for the Lords glory, but there's a danger for acting in the flesh and seeing that I already have the flesh in me having put off positionally. But there it is.
It's still there in my body. I am to guard against it as I walk through this world. And then it goes on to mention things about about stealing.
Well, I think even young children know about that. Mothers and fathers know about it, about how easy it is for a young child to take something that isn't theirs. And so and and and so when we get older as well, that can happen. And let him that stole steal no more. And so it's in view of the fact that we have the old nature, but God has given us the new nature.
00:40:08
And because of being brought into the position that we're brought into in Christ, that we are to walk according to the position we've been brought into.
I think it is as you say, Brother Dave, our physician, although verse 23 is perhaps the activity of the Spirit of God to conform us to it, as we have in Titus chapter 3 and verse 5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy saved us by the washing of regeneration. That's our position. And renewing of the Holy Ghost is the present activity of the Spirit of God to conform us.
To that position so.
We've put off the old, we've put on the new, but we need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, and that's the activity of the Spirit of God. But.
I would say that the angry and sin not letting out the sun go down upon your wrath is a direct illusion to Joshua praying that the sun wouldn't go down until they had completely routed their enemies and were never in a position in this life of letting the sun go down.
You might say on our wrath against sin God's never got God is never going to be in that position until sin is completely out of this world and neither is it good for us to allow the sun go down upon our wrath. Joshua wasn't going to and didn't want to leave off that battle until the enemy had been completely routed out. But before we pass off at the end of verse 24 created.
And righteousness and true holiness. And we've learned the truth as it is in Jesus. He is the truth, and He's the perfect display of the truth as we look at His pathway here on this earth. And that's how we learn the truth. We see it perfectly displayed in Him. And the result of the truth learned is righteousness and holiness, because that ought to be translated to righteousness and holiness of the truth.
That which the truth produces in our life, it's righteousness before God and towards men. And so we have the relationships here in our life towards others and its holiness, The true abhorrence in our soul of everything that is not according to the nature of God. And that's what comes out in these verses. Righteousness and holiness of the truth, The effect of the truth applied and the believers life and the Spirit of God.
The power of that new life, the power of that new physician, we've been brought into making it good, working it out, conforming us to the image of Christ, who is the truth and whom we've learned the truth.
The question in connection with his putting on and putting off.
And friendship uses a verb that you use only with clothing.
And my question is, this is the Spirit of God addressing?
Who we are putting on or putting off or what we are putting on and putting on and it's mainly if I'm putting off the old man, is it the old man that I'm putting off or am I putting off the clothes of the old man put on the Newman? Am I putting something on the Newman or am I putting on the? So I have two natures and I wonder if our understanding of it couldn't include the fact that we are unclosing.
The old man, so it says. Then in the next verse, putting off lying, there's a piece of clothes that belongs to the old man, just as the outward expression of what we are by nature and it puts up in our life. But we have a new man now living in us as Christ, and he's manifested what we have in righteousness and the holiness of the truth. But things that are manifest in our life belong to one or the other. One needs to be put off in all the expression that it would manifest.
In its activity and the other one needs to be put on practically and being manifest in our lives.
This might be one of those things that Stevens workmates would would accuse us of splitting hairs about when he was up there in the open meeting because people may think it's splitting hairs to speak about the difference between the old man and what Heinz brought out a few minutes ago with respect to what Scripture calls the flesh. And I think it's not. I think it's important because I think it's a practical help. At least I find it practically helpful.
00:45:04
There's three places in the New Testament that I know of where it speaks of the old man.
Another is in Colossians 3 and then in Romans 6.
And if you turn to Romans 6 for a moment, you'll see there and again the Darby translation is the help there in verse 6.
Romans 6 and six knowing this that.
Old man is, or I think J&D has it has been crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed. Then henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. As you say, the the figure in Ephesians 4 and I think also in Colossians 3 is of putting off a garment and putting on a new one. But there's a finality about this process that that God has under applied to us in grace.
And so in Romans 6, you see that the figure of death is brought in. So it's not merely a practical way that I may function on Wednesday versus Thursday, but it's really something that is true of every believer, based upon the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross that is applied to me now and grace. And so that just as he was crucified and was raised from the dead, I now have the privilege. And if I'm in my right mind, I look upon myself.
All that I used to be as a child of Adam, I had the privilege of saying, I'm I'm dead, that that old Bruce Conrad is dead. It's buried. And I can apply these verses to myself. My old man is crucified with him. And what's the practical effect? That the body of sin might be destroyed or rendered powerless, that henceforth we should not serve sin. You know, we can get, we can get, we can lose confidence and get discouraged in ourselves as human beings.
Through the process of not being able to accomplish success or victory in a moral sense in our lives, I try to lose weight, but I can't. I always end up eating and gain weight back. Or the workmaid who says I try to quit tobacco, but I try to not use this word and I keep and, and this pattern repeats in a life. But the believer has a whole whole. He has the panoply of God and he has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him.
And he has the he is in a position now that he can take advantage of the fact that he is no longer under sins power.
Every child in here that's understood the Gospel knows that they're free now from the penalty of sin, that the Lord Jesus bore the penalty of their sins on Calvary's cross.
That they will never come into judgment if they've understood the gospel. I think they understand that. But how many of us as believers, in a practical sense, day by day understand?
That we are also free today from the power of sin.
And I remember Norman Berry used to visit where I lived frequently. He used to take this up and it made a big impression upon us.
And he used to look around. I probably told this before. He told it a lot more times than I did, so I shouldn't apologize. And he would look around the room and sometimes he would look at me and he'd say, why do I sin? I need wait with that long pause, you know, And everybody would fidget. And then he'd say, because I want to, because I choose to. And his point was, it's not like an unbeliever who's really captive. He's responsible, but he's captive to sin. He's in sins, James. But because of the death of Christ, you and I are now free from the power of sin.
When the Lord comes will be free from the presence of sin. That will be the final deliverance, huh. But now even it's a beautiful it's a wonderful practical truth. So this what does this do? It doesn't put me to sleep. It increases my sense of responsibility and it opens up in my mind whether I'm a young person or an old, you know, you know, I don't have to I don't have to keep falling into this bad habit. This can be overcome. The Lord can help me and by looking to the Lord and the little thing and gaining the victory over it, independence on the Lord. It's what does this do, this brings.
This is experience that brings confidence and then we look to the future issues and we have hope and, and this is practical growth in a Christian. So I myself have enjoyed this teaching of the old man because as Gordon used to tell us many, many times, the blood of Christ puts my sins away, the death of Christ put me away. You often remember hearing Gordon saying that. And that's, that's the truth of part of the truth of the gospel, that our old man is crucified with him. And the practical effect of that is that we're freed from the power of sin. It goes on in Romans 6.
Verse 14 sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not under the law, but under grace. And so that that's a fact of every believer in this, every believer on the earth. This is true of all of us. But what happens when I fail? What's really happening in some literature even or pamphlets that we that amongst us we use brethren have gotten into the habit of using the expression old man or old nature's interchangeably.
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And I suppose if they were really being careful and just using scriptural language, they would use the word, the flesh.
Because in Galatians 5, we read that the flesh warth against the Spirit, the spirit against the flesh, so that you might not do the things that you would. Well, that's the language of Scripture, and that's the warfare that goes on inside. A believer is the flesh as as Brother Heinz was bringing it out. I'm responsible now to not allow the flesh to act. And I have power now because I have one who is strong in me, living in me, leading me, empowering me, that will help me so that I don't have to allow the flesh to act.
So many are in Romans 7, many experimentally are enrollment 7. What is Roman 7 all about and has the exercises of a man that has light.
And wants to please God, but he doesn't have the Spirit of God dwelling in him. He feels helpless. He's helpless, you know, although he desires and delights in the law of God, but he can't do it.
The nature gives us the delight and the possibility to enjoy the things of God, but not the power to do it. And that's what we have in Romans 8. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
It's not a set of rules, it's a fixed principle. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me feed. The spirit is the power, you know, and but it's also very important. Maybe I'd be permitted to use the picture of the deliverance of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
When they were sheltered by the blood on the door, they were sheltered from judgment. They were judgment free, but they were still slaves.
But the Red Sea is a picture of the death of Christ and speaks of our being delivered from the power of sin.
Pharaoh and his host dead by the shore. We are no longer slaves of Satan. We are delivered. But then we still have to Jordan.
What do we find in the Jordan?
Also a picture of the death of Christ. The 12 Stones were put in the middle of Jordan and they are there to this day, the scripture says. But on the other side, 12 Stones were put up at Gilgal. That speaks of myself having been put out of God's side. I don't exist before him anymore as a Sinner. The death of Christ has put an end to me.
And he sees me now in Christ. I'm a new creature. I'm in him. And that's how God sees us. And we have to learn to look at ourselves the way God sees us and then let this tremendous truth have its practical effects in our lives. We're a new creature. We're under resurrection side. That's what those 12 Stones on the other side speak of. So how wonderful. Let me repeat.
The blood on the door shelters me from judgment.
The Red Sea delivers me from the power of sin and Satan. That's what it is a picture of. And then the Jordan delivers me from myself. You know, I no longer exist before God as the Sinner. You know when the Himrata says I'm only a Sinner saved by grace, that is not quite correct. We enjoy that him. I'll enjoy singing it. But in the sight of God we are no longer sinners. And the Scripture refers to the Saints in Korean as Saints.
There was a lot of things wrong there, but in the sight of God, in their standing before him, they were Saints. That's how God sees us, and we better remember what the grace of God has made us to be and how he looks at us. Someone has said that the Red Sea is the death of Christ for us. Jordan is our death with Christ. It's interesting that to look carefully, it was.
Joshua who put those 12 Stones in Jordan. It wasn't the children of Israel. They took the stones out of the midst of Jordan and put them on the other side, but it was Joshua who put them in the middle of Jordan. So the victory really has been won already. It was won at Calvary. And that's what we have to learn. Like was read in Romans 6. Our old man is crucified with him. When was that?
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That was when the Lord Jesus was crucified. That was taken care of before God. Now it's a matter of our thinking that way and I like it's been a help to me. Verse 11 of Romans 6. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead, indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. In other words, reckoning is thinking that way. You're dead.
Think that way now.
So it's a matter of putting into practical effect what we really are before God. It's not a matter of struggling. Remember, as a young person, before I really understood this, how I struggled with those things, and I realized the battle is already over. It's simply for me to realize it and to think that way. I'd like to share my own.
Personal experience in connection with the question that brother Barry.
Raises an answer that it gives Why do we sin? Because we want to. And in connection with what? Our brother Bob just rocked war in that verse. Yes, my flesh wants to sin. That happens inside my head. I have a physical response that wants to sin.
But I can honestly say in my own head to myself, that is not me is dead. And the other thing that I found useful for myself is, if you look at this portion that we're looking up, contrasting what was on the old man and what the new man has in terms of works. One of the things I found useful is to remember that Satan always packages sin as a beautiful package and that when you open it, it's disgusting.
The pleasure of sin.
Is gone with the action. And so for myself personally, remembering those two things, that when temptation does come and I do respond to, remember if that was crucified with Christ dead, put it back in the place of death and then turn to Christ.
Recognized what was offered is disgusting and choose thou which is good. Switch this some different thought.
And that way you get deliverance.
And you can move on to what is for the glory of Christ. This does not put us in a vacuum either, does it? Because.
It says in each of these instances where it gives a practical explanation. 25 wherefore put away lying, but then it gives you something to do. You're not just sitting there. I can't lie, but you're to speak truth. Let every man speak every man truth with his neighbor for your members one of another, and you can go down to 28. Let him that stole steal no more. That's as far as the law went.
And it didn't give you anything positive, but here it says, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that need it. And in Romans 6 it speaks of the.
Using your members in a new way and the members maybe it was your hand it was stealing. Now your hand works to give, so it's turned around using the member another way. In 29 you have let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good for the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers. So again, it takes away the the wicked side and gives you the good side.
The new side, so it one way you can see it in relation to the law. It goes way beyond with the law.
All the law did was forbid the bad and that's a man under law doesn't have the deliverance.
But we have the deliverance and so not only can we stop doing the bad, but we're not in a vacuum. We have something good to do.
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And that's the Newman acting, isn't it? If he gets chapter 12, that's connected with obedience. There be not conformed to this world. That another translation. I don't remember which one and probably should be mentioned anyway, but I read it somewhere. Don't let the world press you into its mold. There's a pressure that needs to be resisted in that direction, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Well, as Christians, we perhaps tend to think things are a little restrictive sometimes, but we know we need to obey. And that's the the goodwill of God. But just imagine me being able to acknowledge that that is really God's will. That's huge. Someone who doesn't know the Lord as their savior in the old nature doesn't have the, the ability spiritually to acknowledge that the perfect will of God. Well, it's not so bad after all, And I should say the acceptable will of God. You know, it's a feeling. Well, this isn't so bad after all, but.
What we can say it's the perfect will of God.
We've actually developed a taste for doing what God has desired us to do from the very beginning. And then in that sense, perhaps the the effort isn't there anymore. But we need to start by doing that which we know to be right. And we gradually, and I wouldn't profess to be at the point where I can say it's the perfect will of God in my life, but every now and then we can get a taste of that. And the joy that that brings gives us the encouragement to continue.
Passive here to be transformed. You know we had that verse from Bob the 2nd Corinthians 318.
And we could see the more you gaze and the more you transform.
He angry and Sinner.
Our brother already indicated there are times when it is expected for us to be angry.
But we have to be careful that the flesh does not get the best of us when Moses, for instance, got angry.
I don't blame him for getting angry with God's people. I don't think the Lord himself would have blamed him for that. But what happened?
He called them rebels and he smote the rock instead of speaking to the rock. That's why he was not permitted to enter into the land. So there are times when, if we are indifferent, So what we might say when we hear or see some awful thing taking place.
That's not what the Christian is expected to show and to react in that way. But we better be careful that.
This anger doesn't become a fleshly anger, carnal anger. You know, Moses was justified of being angry, but.
He called them rebels and he smote the rock instead of speaking to it. So that's a warning for us.
We have to be very careful and it certainly is not a good thing to be occupied with evil.
Sometimes we cannot avoid it.
But it is a defiling thing.
Even when India sample brethren have to take up some sin that has been committed, you know it's a defiling thing and.
We all have to get into the presence of the Lord and get cleansed. You know, isn't that what we learned from the Old Testament? You know, if you came in touch with the leper, you were defiled.
You know, so in other words, it shows there is a danger in.
Getting overly occupied with evil. Sometimes we have to deal with it in the assembly, but be careful that the enemy doesn't use it to defile us and to stir up the flesh, and that we respond with the flesh and try to deal with the flesh in the flesh. You know, in a fleshly way, Moses.
Was when he came down from the mount and the children of Israel had made the golden calf. He was righteously angry with them, but he just spent 40 days in the presence of the Lord and I have often thought if we're going to be righteously angry for the Lord. We better have spent the 40 days in the presence of the Lord 1St and you notice in this chapter here that that it does have that verse 26 be angry and sin not.
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And go down to verse 31 and it says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you. So there is an occasion given when there is righteous anger, but then the guard is put up by God because he knows the passions that we have inside of us and how that we can react in an angry way that is in the flesh. And I always think of this verse here.
Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
In connection with our brother Armstead Barry, he told on more than one occasion a story about this, and I don't remember all the details, perhaps someone else does, but he told about some man that did, that did something that was very much against the Lord terrible. And I believe it was he himself or somebody that spoke to him about what he did and was angry with him because of what he did in the Lord's name or something along that line.
The Lord took that man's life the next day. I think it was lost, He was drowned, something I've forgotten to gain the details, but he always reminded us of that in connection with righteous anger. That was for the Lord, and the Lord's judgment came in. And I like that. But I find in my own life, and I tell you, brethren, particularly for myself more than anyone here, that anger is something that we have to be.
On guard with.
We can even be angry with our brethren, and it's an awful thing. And let's be on guard about that verse there at the end, about let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind one to another.
In Mark's gospel, twice you have the Lord Jesus angry and it's helpful and just point them out in Mark chapter 3.
And one day he's in the synagogue, and there's a man with a weathered hand, and he says, stand forth verse four. He said unto them, Is it lawful to good do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil to save life or to kill?
But they held their peace, and when he had looked around about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. Notice, brethren, he was not angry for something they did against him.
He was angry for something that they were seeking to impede the blessing going out to this poor man.
There was righteous anger. The other one is in the 10th chapter of Mark, and it's not real clear in the King James Version, but it's when they brought the children to Jesus in verse 13. They brought young children to him that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased.
The Darby translation reads He was indignant.
So there are times when it is right to be angry, but we do need, like Dave says to.
Be careful.
Not to sin, not to give place to fleshliness in us. What Heinz brought out about Moses getting angry, it cost him because he didn't control his anger and he couldn't go into the land of Canaan because of that time he lost his cool. Let's be careful brethren about our anger.
God knows that we all have moments when we feel indignant. That I found so often that I've gotten angry because I've only heard a part of the story. And I've been very I trust, I've learned in some measure not to give way to angry feelings when I've only heard part of the story.
It says in the 7th Psalm God is angry with the wicked every day, but also says in the second Psalm you know kiss the sun unless he be angry.
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He perished in the way. That's all in the gospel. Peter says be sober, be vigilant for your adversary. The devil is a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom it may devour if we ever let down our vigilance. And I really think that's what that verse is taking up.
Vigilance against sin. We're going to give place to the devil. We're going to give him a place if we ever let down our guard. Neil Womos brought before us a number of times and I think it's so lovely. Two things that happened in the Lords life. At the beginning of his ministry and at the end he made a scourge of small cords and cleansed the temple. He did not change from the beginning to the end, he was the same.
All the way through as to his thoughts about sin. And if we change, brethren, we will give place to the devil and we need to be careful. You know brother said to me the other day, if I need to take a screw out, I get a screwdriver out-of-the-box. If I need to pull a nail out, I get a claw hammer. And there's certain verses that take up certain things and address our souls with them. And there is as we've had to put away all anger and wrath. Let's use that screwdriver for the screw. But when it comes to being angry and sin not.
Let's use that tool for what it's meant to be be angry is an exhortation to be angry, and it has its place in the Christian's life and it's the right tool for that exhortation. The other tool in the verse is down below has its own place for its own exhortation in our lives. We need to reach for the right tool for the right application. Otherwise, you know, the boys take up a tool sometimes out of my toolbox and I say, why did you use this screwdriver to dig in the dirt?
You're ruined it.
Let's use the right tool from God's, if I can put it that way, toolbox.
Letting the sun go down on our wrath would not be giving occasion to the devil. If I have a situation where I should have gotten angry and I haven't, and I go to bed with my irritation, I'm going to wake up with roots of bitterness in my soul. And we know what that can do.
Derek Klein is nearly up, but we have instances in the Word of God where there was misguided wrath and anger. And not too long ago in Mount Tabor, we were looking at Brother Paul Hadley brought before us an incident in the life of David where.
There was misguided anger and we also see that in the life of Joab.
In the 18th chapter of Second Samuel.
And the earlier part of the chapter David admonishes the people to deal gently with Absalom, and I think David knew full well what absolute correspond. But later on in that chapter it says, Joab said unto the man that told him, And behold, thou sawest them, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground?
And I would have given the 10 shekels of silver and a girdle. You know, I've had missed the Lords mind in that. And he was intent on smiting. That was misguided anger and wrath, wasn't it? So we have to make sure as has been brought before us, what we were are angry about. Is it anger that's agitated by the flash or is it something?
We should be on guard about concerning.
The Lord honor and glory and just in connection with that admonition to deal gently and I know that.
Our ministry this afternoon has certainly told us about faithfulness, and we certainly do have to be faithful, but what a nice balance we do have in the Word of God and Psalm chapter 18, and it's repeated again in Second Samuel chapter 22.
Just look at a verse in Psalm 18.
Verse 35.
Get the connection? Let's read from verse 34. He teaches my hands to war, so that a bowl of steel is broken by mine arm. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation.
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And thy right hand hath Holden me, and thy gentleness have made me great, or it is rendered in the margin. With thy meekness thou hast multiplied me.
So we we need balance.
In our Christian lives, don't we faithfulness where faithfulness is needed and gentleness where gentleness is needed as well?
Why do we always get warmed up at the end of meeting #24 in the back of the book?
Nothing but Christ, don't we tread?
Nothing but Christ.
As.
Long.
Reading/Gospel
Reading
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What manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God?
Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not.
Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure, whosoever committeth sin.
Transgresseth also the law.
For sin is the transgression of the law, and you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth, in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous.
Even as He is righteous, he that committeth sin is of the devil. For the devil Senate from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning.
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That we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.
And wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil, and his brothers righteous? Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death unto light, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the breadwinner. But whoso hath this world's good, and see if his brother had need, and shutteth up his vowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in Word.
Neither in tongue.
But indeed, and in truth, and hereby we know that we are of the truth.
And shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
And this is his commandment that we should believe.
On the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as he gave us commandments. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and He and Him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he hath given us.
We will not be able in great detail in just one reading go into the whole chapter, but the Lord can help us by His Spirit to perhaps point out some of the important points in this chapter.
And.
Before we do comment, let me say that verse four is very badly rendered.
Mr. Darby said he would never read that verse the way it is in the King James.
Sin is not the transgression of the law. Sin is lawlessness.
There was sin in the world before the law was in this world, so that's a very bad rendering.
But another thing that is interesting is that in John's writings.
He does not use the term sons of God. He uses children of God and repeatedly in the King James just like here in this verse here.
There is sons of God in verse two. There is one exception in John's writings and that is in Revelation at the very end where sons of God is used. But otherwise it's always children. Now you might say why?
Make an issue of what is the difference of sons or children? Aren't we both? Yes, but the point is that children, we are children by birth.
We are sons by adoption and.
Somebody who might.
Have been born into a family. I remember brother Albert pointed that out.
Might say to somebody.
That is adopted.
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As if he is in a better position, having been born into the family. And this adopted son says they couldn't help but had to take you. But they wanted me. They adopted me. But we're both sons and children. Children by birth, sons by adoption. And Paul brings out sonship. You know where you find that, especially in his writings.
But not that we want to dwell on that lengthy, but it's a very.
Encouraging thought that we are both children and we are sons and John brings out especially being children. Except for one exception in Revelation, but.
Paul points out the sonship.
The children.
Fair resemblance to the parents, don't they?
I look around and I see children here and I probably don't know their names, but I can guess their family.
While their appearance.
Well, John is Speaking of those who are children.
And the characteristic of a child of God.
In verse 9, for example, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin for his that's God's seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he's born of God. Well, that's the new man.
So we have that characteristic of God.
Cannot send.
The earlier part of this epistle took up, didn't it, the sin if any man sinned.
So there is the possibility of us allowing the old man to.
Show up.
And there's a provision for it. Interestingly, it doesn't say when anybody sins. But if so, he doesn't make an excuse for us and say, well, you're going to sin. But he knows how weak we are, and he makes a provision for that. But still, we're children, and the children have the characteristics of the family.
And it is not characteristic of the family of God to sin, is it?
It is we are if we sin, we are not acting characteristically as children of God.
There is that possibility that we may, but we are not acting as children of God. Then it's interesting to consider that you have the family in John's writings. That's why it's birth, like you say, into God's family. It's not the Church of God in the John's writings and it's the family of God. That's why it's children, it's nature and it's.
What's characteristic of God's children? It's another expression that occurs a lot in the first Epistle. In the 11Th verse you see it. This is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that word from the beginning. And that refers back to the very first verse of the Epistle, that which was from the beginning.
Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon.
And our hands have handled of the word of life beginning. There is the beginning of the manifestation of divine life in this world, eternal life and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we who have been born into God's family have that very light.
So we're going to see what's characteristic of that life in this epistle.
In Genesis one verse one, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
We don't know when that beginning was, but that is the beginning of anything created.
The heavens and the earth, the angels obviously were in existence already when that was taking place, because the Scripture tells us they rejoice when they saw it taking place. But then in John's Gospel we have the Lord Jesus presented as the one that had no beginning. In the beginning was the word. That means to say the Word had no beginning.
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But in John's a pistol at is the incarnation.
That had a beginning when he took humanity into union with his person. That had a beginning publicly at a conference. Somebody was making this statement that it wasn't the incarnation.
And then linked it up with Luke, where the Lord said to his disciples, he were from the beginning with me. That is the beginning of his earthly ministry.
But in John's epistle, and that's how we have learned from those that knew the Bible better than us, and God used them to recover much of the truth. This is the way it has been explained and has been accepted amongst those gathered to the name of the Lord, that that is the incarnation, and there is a beginning, but.
How wonderful.
That in this epistle and in John's riding.
You have much about love and light, you know. These are two things that come up repeatedly, you know. And when it says that he that is born of God does not commit sin, we are seen in the divine nature, you know. And this is characteristic of John's writings too. He sees things black or white.
You know, and nothing in between.
But the other writings that show just like in Galatians.
The conflict between the spirit and the flesh, you know, they're a chose that we looked at as those who still have the flesh within. But here the believer is viewed in the divine nature and that nature does not sin.
Just noticing that.
The word love shows up in that first verse. It's love that bestowed this upon us.
God's love that brought us into the family.
In fact, the enmity of the world towards the Lord, toward our Savior, shows up against His children too. Therefore, the world knoweth us not because it knew Him not.
We can't expect different treatments than they gave our Lord.
The world is explained in chapter 2, isn't it?
Uh love not the world verse 15 neither the things that are in the world, if any man love the world.
The love of the Father is not in him, so it's a system of things that is directly contrasted to the love of the Father. Either your joy enjoy the love of the world or the love of the Father. You cannot enjoy this same two at the same time.
The Lord Jesus in this world walk through this world in the enjoyment of the love of the Father. There is no place this world had for him. And if we walk in that enjoyment too, brethren, and that is the antidote to worldliness, that is not merely just saying you couldn't, you shouldn't do such and such it is.
Enjoying the love of the Father. Oh what a blessed thing it is to realize that we are in love, brethren, in the love of the Father that will keep us from this world and worldliness.
It's helpful for the young people to understand that the word world is not always used in the same way.
Here in this epistle is already Brother Bob said that it's the system of things away from God and the devil is the God and Prince of this system of this world, the God religiously, the Prince politically. You know, many Christians don't recognize that and they get involved in the religious aspect of the world.
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And devil has religion for men in the flesh.
But also he is.
The Prince of this world. That's why for Christians to act according to the truth of this, we're not in the world, but not of the world. We're pilgrims and strangers. You know, we belong to heaven.
Heaven is our home.
And we're looking for the day when the Lord comes to take us there.
You know, that's our destiny. And we are just on a journey. You know, just like the Israelite when they left Egypt for 40 years, they were in the wilderness. And Mr. Darby said this world is a wilderness. White, you know, explains to us the spiritual lesson of the wilderness journey for what we learned from the children of Israel. There's nothing in this wilderness.
That sustains the spiritual life.
You know, they had to have the manna from heaven and the water from the rock, you know, to be sustained. And we have that in the Lord Jesus. You know, we have food and we have refreshment and both of that to us, there's nothing in this world system that will satisfy.
The Newman.
We all find it in the Lord Jesus, and that divine nature delights in these things, and the Spirit God helps us to enjoy it and to live it, to let it have an effect and walk according to what our souls enjoy, because we have the capacity for divine things because of the divine nature. But.
We have only power.
To walk what the divine nature enjoys through the indwelling spirit. I think we mentioned that before. That's the difference between Romans 7 and Romans 8IN Romans 7 you have a man that has knife and he enjoys even the things of God, delights in it, but he has no power to walk accordingly. But then in chapter 8 you have the Spirit of God-given as the power.
To help us to do what the divine nature delights in.
And we all have that. If we don't have the Spirit of God, we're not even Christians. Let me emphasize that if we don't have the Spirit of God dwelling in our bodies, we are not Christians. The Old Testament sayings had light, but they cannot be called Christians.
Only we as Christians have the Spirit of God dwelling in our bodies and that is what makes us Christians and makes us different from anything that ever lived on the earth before the day of Pentecost or those who will come to believe through the Gospel of the Kingdom after the Rapture. They will not be indwelt by the Spirit.
When the Lord Jesus comes and takes us home, according to 2nd Thessalonians 2, the Spirit will leave with us. He will still work, but He will not indwell anybody. He dwells in the church collectively and in the individual lever individually.
All when he writes to the Ephesians.
2nd chapter He says we were by nature the children of wrath. Notice the tremendous transformation that we have here now in verse 2.
He loved. Now are we the children of God?
By nature, children of wrath God's sovereign grace reaches us down and now we are children of God changed us completely. I guess there should be the corresponding change in our deportments. You know the Lord had against the children of Israel and Deuteronomy. Their spot is not the spot of my children. They weren't deporting themselves as children of God where they they they were certainly most cantankerous people. Just a little sampling was of what Paul.
Human nature is.
00:30:01
But now there should be a corresponding deportment. And as much as we are the children of God, outwardly it may not appear so. That's what the second verse says. It does not yet appear, but we shall be. Outwardly we are subject to the same frailties and sicknesses, temptations as others. As our brother stated, we have an indwelling spirit. You know. We have the power of the wherewithal to avoid so many of the things that the ungodly cannot refrain from.
And they're perilous against it. But we have one within who is a greater than the one that's in this world.
We have the characteristics, don't we? But it seems to indicate that we aren't always like him and.
End of that second verse, but the third verse brings before us the.
Purifying effects that if we live as those that are children of God, it's going to keep us pure. Every man that has this hope in him put a capital H there, hope in him, purify himself even as he is pure.
So we like to, we'd like to live up to the characteristic, to the family. And even in natural things we see that there are family characteristics, family things that all the children fall into and like to do that because it's the way their family operates. Well, the family of God is to be kept pure.
So if we have this hope Indiana, him, it's going to keep us pure.
I think that verse two also refers to what we will be at His appearing, our physical appearance. Now we have that nature, we have the right desires.
That nature, we have been born of God morally and spiritually, but I still got Gray hairs on my head, still got wrinkles on my face. And people might say, well, if you say you're a Christian, why do you suffer sickness and disease? And why do you die like just anybody else if you're one of the children of God, well, that transformation is coming, isn't it? And it will be manifest at his appearing.
We're listening to.
One of old Mr. Harry Hajos talks and he said in that day, brethren, when we are in the glory, the angels are going to look at us and say, I can tell that's one of the children of God. We will look like children of God then.
We may not appear that way now, but we will in that day.
We still will recognize Bob Tony in that glorified state when it says be like him, that means morally and physically, as you said. And if you want to know what that new body is like, look at the Lord in resurrection. You know, then you know what we will be like. He could eat, but he didn't have to eat to sustain that life.
You know and.
He couldn't face possibly death anymore. He was not subject to death even as a man. He laid down his life, but that cannot happen any longer. He cannot lay down his life again. And we will not be subject to death. We'll have a body like unto His body of glory, Philippians. So we will be like him, but we still recognise each other, just like on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Where you have a picture of millennial scene, Moses and Elias were recognized as Moses and Elias you know. But how wonderful to be brought into full conformity to Christ will only take place then will not only be morally but also physically brought into likeness with the Lord Jesus.
Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure, the hope of his coming again.
Is really something that searches us, doesn't it, brethren?
Have a little text in my house in my kitchen.
Sometimes the kids get arguing in the kitchen, you know?
That it has three. It's not scripture, but it has three lines to it. The first line is say something you want to be saying when Jesus comes.
Next line, do something you want to be doing when Jesus comes. The last line, go somewhere you want him to find you when Jesus comes.
It really does searches.
I'm spitting out some fiery words and the trumpet calls.
Were caught up to meet the Lord.
At that moment.
No, brother, and it is something that really makes us think twice how we're living.
He delivered momentarily, expecting the call to go home.
Bringing us into conformity with Christ is an ongoing work now.
And God wants to see Christ in US.
Who belong to him and he's working towards that end.
And the story has been told that a missionary came to Africa.
And preach the gospel. You know that was before they had.
Wrote that they have now, you know, they used the river as a road. So we stopped there at a village by the river and preached the Lord Jesus through them and somebody came to him and he said, I know that man, he lives up the river. What was he talking about? There was another missionary that had lived or was living up the river and had lived in such a way. When the new missionary told them about the Lord Jesus, he was reminded of that missionary up the river.
You know, that's a beautiful story. Christ is to be seen in US, and that is what God is trying to bring about in the life of all of us who belong to Lord Jesus. More of the Lord Jesus in US to be seen. That is what God's purpose is. And you know, the world doesn't see the Lord Jesus at this point.
But He can see him in his own, you know, and we can in our own feeble way show some of the characteristics that are perfectly seen in the blessed Lord. Love is one of the things you know, and of course here it speaks especially of loving those that belong to the Lord Jesus. But.
00:40:15
You can certainly show love of God that He has towards the Sinner.
You know the evangelists that goes out with the gospel. The motivating force is the love of God, but also love for the lost in order to bring them in. Love is the most powerful force in a Christian life.
It would be good, perhaps science, to explain in verse four what lawlessness is. Sin is lawlessness. We know that transgression of the law is sin, isn't it? But it's not a complete.
All inclusive definition of what sin is. Transgression of the law is sin. But sin includes a lot more than that because like you say before.
The law was ever given. There was sin in the world. What do you mean when you talk about law last night? What does that mean?
Not subject to any regulations. You know, man, if he recognizes that there is a creator, why don't they want to accept that truth? Because if they recognize that there is a creator, then they know they have to answer to the creator, you know, And lawlessness just doesn't want to have any rules, any restrictions.
Do what you please, you know, Believe in yourself as it sets up on that sign, you know, Believe in yourself. Please yourself. If you like it, do it, you know. But most people, even those who are not Christians, realize that there are some moral principles that a man should consider and live up to. But.
There is no power to live pleasing to God.
For men in the flesh.
And how wonderful that God, before he expects us to do anything pleasing to him, he gives us a divine nature and then he gives us the Spirit of God to empower that nature. And we have absolutely no excuse for sin. As Christians, we do sin if any man sin. It's not when if there is the possibility for a Christian to sin.
And how wonderful that the advocacy of Christ.
Comes into play not at the point when we repent.
From the time that we sin, you know He is there as our advocate, and I believe it is His work by the Spirit that finally leads the believer to repent and to be restored again. But in the meantime.
He maintains us. We are not stopping to be children of God. He maintains us. You know, he's our advocate or our lawyer if you please. You know, he maintains us in the presence of a holy God at all times. But.
A wonderful that we go on in communion and fellowship with him and that we do not only.
Please him that we do not grieve the Holy Spirit. We can quench the Holy Spirit by not allowing Him to lead us. That would be quenching. We can quench the Holy Spirit by a system that we send up among the Christians also in our individual life. Not let the Spirit lead us, but we can grieve Him.
If we.
Sin. The Spirit is grieved, you know, and he has to occupy us with our sin to lead us to repentance.
00:45:02
We turn to Romans 5.
We'll see clearly.
That, as Bruce Force stands, it is not correct. It would be a contradiction.
In Romans 5.
And verses 13 and 14 before until the law.
Sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there's no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned. After the similitude of Adams transgression, who was the figure of him that was to come? Now Adams?
Sin was the breaking of the law. He was told not to eat to the fruit of a certain tree, and he did. That was a transgression. That was a breaking of a law, and it was sin. But this 14th verse shows us that from Adam to Moses there was no law, and yet there was sin, because there was death, the result of sin and Adam.
Fear of him that was to come.
In First Corinthians 15, we read of the first Adam and the last Adam heads of a race. Adam was the race of sinners and the last Adam is Christ, and he's the leader of the sinless ones. So we're under that headship now, aren't we, in that family rather than.
Were in Adam's family too, but we're under the purity of the heavenly family in in first John 3.
John speaks of the Antichrist and in 2nd Thessalonians 2 That man is called the man of sin.
And he is the very height of what is given in verse four since his lawlessness. And in Daniel Chapter 11, he's called the king, but he's called the king that does according to his own will. He knows no other law than his own will. There is a reporter in Bosnia during the conflict there who was a veteran war correspondent, and he reported back that though he'd been in many conflicts, he'd never been.
In more fear.
Than he was in the conflict in Bosnia because as things broke down, there were roving bands of soldiers who had no captain, no government, no one to answer to. And he said, I see now that man is at his roots are basically evil. And I've never been in more fear in my life. I've seen what man is unrestrained, without law and maybe an example that even the youngest can understand.
You know, if there's a nice big mud puddle out there and boys and mud puddles seem to attract each other, and dad says don't jump in that mud puddle and they do it, that's a transgression of the law.
But even if Dad doesn't say don't jump in that mud puddle and you go and do it, you know when Dad catches up with you, he's not going to be happy. And so even without a law, to go and jump in that mud puddle is just doing your own will without any thought or acting, without any consideration of your father's will. And when man acts without any consideration.
Of God's will when just his own will is his only law? That's lawlessness.
It says in the Proverbs, the plowing of the wicked is sin.
Not that there's anything wrong with plowing in itself, but the wicked do. They plow in their field just like a Christian would, but he does it without reference to God. Absolutely no reference to God.
I had a field and I found somebody plowing out there one day and go out and say whoever gave you permission to plow on his field, he said. Oh, was I doing something wrong?
Yeah, it's wrong to do it without reference to the owner. And that's what sin is, isn't it? It's doing their own thing without any reference to God. That's the principle of lawlessness. Don't like any restriction put on you?
00:50:02
Well, we have to love our brothers.
And in Christ, not that it is always easy.
Because sometimes brothers are more difficult to love, just like we have children.
We raised 10 of them.
Some of them are more obedient than others.
But we did love the mall, you know, and, but sometimes we can make it difficult for our brethren to love us because of the way we carry on and the spirit that we manifest. But.
Love.
Is of God.
And he loved us when there was nothing lovable in US. You know, he loved the Sinner. And so when it speaks of love in this epistle, it doesn't mean natural love that speaks of divine love. You know, we love because he first loved us. You know, unfortunately, the rendering there is falling short that says we love him.
Because He first loved us. The correct rendering is we love because we first loved us. We have the capacity to love because in Romans it says that He has poured out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. That's why we can show love, true love.
Any natural affection is a wonderful thing in itself, but Divine love goes further.
You know, it doesn't love the person for what we find in that person.
Morally.
But we love because he is the child of God, and therefore we have the privilege of loving that person and hopefully even when we have to perhaps faithfully speak to that person.
That the motive is love. You know that we really want to help that person. Just like when parents discipline their children.
They don't enjoy.
Punishing children. But they do it because they love them and they didn't want them to grow up crooked. That's why parents punish children, right? They don't want you to become a bad boy, do they?
That's why we have commandment to love one another.
Commandments isn't that interesting? And I think if you look carefully in John's Gospel and John's epistles, there's seven times.
You're commanded to love one another.
Not as in the Old Testament which commanded a.
Man to love his neighbor as himself. The reference point was how much you love yourself. You love your neighbor that way. But now we have been given a new nature that loves like God loves, and so the Lord Jesus changes. The reference point says love one another as I have loved you.
Now the reference point is not ourselves, it's.
The way he loved us.
That's a challenge to remember that like you say, sometimes those we love may not be lovable, but the character of love that we're talking about is love that loves when nothing is lovable. It's not the question of the object, it's the question of the source. We love because He first loved us. It's the character of God's love.
In verse 11 we have it. This is the message that we have heard from the beginning.
That we should love one another, verse 23 This is His commandment. That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment.
Interesting that it should be repeated so often to love one another.
But I like to remember Mr. AC Brown speaking about the commandments of the New Testament, and he said that is the directives of the new nature that we have of God. I think that's a good way to put it. The commandments are that which directs the new nature.
00:55:19
You have the capacity to love, and so we have the command to let that direct that new nature and loving one another.
What's that? John 15? You should love one another that you join me before you have any comment on that. Yeah, that's another one.
Of your enemies, the scripture says that was not expected of one under the law.
Of your neighbors.
But in discernment on the mount, that is one of the statements, Love your enemies.
You know.
So.
The grace of God and the divine nature given to us enables us to do that.
And it certainly isn't easy.
When you have an enemy, perhaps he has done some real harm or slander you, you know, circulating false rumors about you. The tendency is that we react in a carnal way.
But that's not what should take place.
In spite of that, we can show love.
And if we find it difficult, then we should think back to the Lord Jesus.
What he suffered on that Christ and there's love never was shut down. Could not damn up that stream of love. It just flowed wider and wider.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. What a touching statement it is, as it has been said. While they were driving the nail through his hands, he said, Father, forgive them, you know, and that is what you find then in his servants. When Steven is stoned, you know, he prays for his enemies and Paul, you know, when he had to appear before Caesar in the second epistle to Timothy.
The brethren should have been with him, but they also took him. But he didn't want that to be held against them. He said, After all, the Lord stood with me, you know so sometimes.
We could rightly expect more from our brethren than what we do get from them, just like Paul in the second epistle expresses. But he didn't want that to be held against them. So he had a spirit of forgiveness. You know, we can learn that only in the presence of the Lord Jesus going on in communion and fellowship with him.
For time is going by and I was just thinking.
Some of the latter verses 14 that says we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death to several tests in first John as to whether you're a believer or not. In the second chapter it's loving his word, but here it's you know you've passed from death unto life if you love your brethren.
And if any of you are like I was.
For many years, never sure that I was really saved. You know, this is a test. Do you really love your fellow Christian? Do you love your brethren and.
So it says, we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.
Our desires to be with other Christians.
And not hang around with the ungodly. We'd rather be with believers.
And there's another thought in the 16th verse which.
And I got help from from my brother sitting in this room enjoying it.
In verse 16 it says, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Now the Lord Jesus actually gave up his life when he laid it down. But the thought that was given is.
This is something we can do daily is to lay down our lives for the brethren. What does it mean? Doesn't mean give up your life, use your life, use your life. So you lay down your life. Someone calls you at a very inconvenient time and they need help. They need you so well, it's not too convenient now. Sorry, no, you drop what you're doing and you go to help.
01:00:26
I think that's one way you could express it. You lay down your life, your lives for the brethren, and probably a lot of this is carried on behind the scenes.
I'm sure that there's been a lot of love shown to us and we don't even know who showed it because we were given meals and somebody worked hard at that and somebody cleaned up and there's been a lot of love shown in that way. And maybe some of those folks that were called on to serve would rather have been doing something else.
Even the visitors that were asked to serve at the meal times, maybe they would rather have gone somewhere or been with other people, but I didn't notice anybody acting like they were under a burden. They seemed cheerful. Everyone that served us at the seniors table, they were very pleasant and and just went out of their way to to help us and to serve us. Well, that's and a little evidence isn't it, of laying down your lives for the brethren.
Those are the real laborers at a conference, aren't they? Yes.
Otherwise, told when he was going to a country where he might endanger his health, you know, whether he wasn't worried about his health.
And he quoted this verse, you know.
Laying down being willing to lay down your life for your brethren.
You know, and when we think of Tim and Elaine in Africa, you know, that's not a picnic to be in a place like that. We can pray for them.
But days we'd sacrifice connected with being willing to live in circumstances like that. So. But hopefully love is what prompts anybody to do what they do.
For the Lord, love for the Lord, and love for the brethren.
Remember Brother Alarcon telling when he first went to Oaxaca, Mexico to preach the gospel? Very dangerous. A lot of bandits in that area said one night he got up to preach and they didn't have any room large enough for them to preach in. So it's out in the open air.
He said as he stood up. One brother stood behind him, another stood beside him on the right hand and another on the left, and he.
Tell them you can sit down, brothers. Now we're going to stand here. He couldn't figure it out and he asked them afterwards, why did you do that? He says. There was danger that some bandit might shoot from the distance and try to shoot you and let them hit us and not you.
Risen to 17th verse.
So I have this world's goods and see if his brother have need and shut us up his bowels of compassion from him.
I have many books in my library that were given to me by Brother **** Gorgons. And I asked him, I said, Brother, why do you give me these books? You know I can buy them if you won't. Brother, I see you have a need, spiritual need, and I want to meet that need to supply it. He wasn't going to shut up his bowels with compassion.
From.
Our time's up, but we just got this note about Brother ****.
He thinks the Lord is calling him home.
Please pray that the Spirit will be sustained by the Lord if it is the Lord's time.
They may be spirit and suffering and gently ushered into the Lord's presence. His life has been marked by displaying the love of God towards the whole body of Christ and to lost souls, particularly the poor and prisoners. You know about His prison ministry.
In the coming day, many around the throne of God.
I mean dead at the deck and supporter molested them to the door of salvation and Keith sent this note, he says. I'm one of them. I really grieve for the thought of Dad struggling for air.
01:05:14
This morning when he told me how hard it was to breathe, I mentioned that he'll have no trouble at all taking in the sweet air of heaven, and he seemed to enjoy that thought. I remember him in our prayers.
Look to the Lord.
Our blessed God and Father, we.
Saddened that the.
On our side of things to hear this brother.
Nearing death's door on this side of glory. But we know.
Our God, that thou wilt soon receive him into thy presence, Lord Jesus. And so we just pray that though it's encouraged, this dear St. this labor that has toiled for thee. And I just trust now that thou witch to give him thoughts of thyself and comfort his soul and those of the family, and encourage his heart. And we just thank thee for the.
Love that he has shown towards many and so we would just commend him to thee and.
And two, this would remind us of the solemnity of life that it is at best very brief.
And though it seems long in many ways to those that are younger, it has.
Very short and so we just probably know there's a concern the brethren here that for one last time that the word of God would be offered the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ would be offered and that there is one here that.
Still indifferent to thy love, our blessed God, that thy spirit thou wouldst break that hardened heart, and that they might receive that love that is so longing to take them and to bring them into eternal joy and happiness. And so we ask help for the speaker, and for we're just thankful though, that thy word is powerful and rich and can do its work despite the servants. And so we just looked at thee now for this little time and asked this as we pray and.
Thy sons worthy and precious, name as Savior, sinners, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
This evening I'd like to quickly briefly talk about salvation's drama seen at Calvary and witnessed and evidenced in the two thieves there on the cross as the two responses to the work of the Lord Jesus. And before I do that, though, I'd like to read some verses in Deuteronomy chapter 30.
Sorry, chapter 32 and verse 29.
Oh, that they were wise.
That they understood this, that they should or would consider their latter end.
Anytime the verse begins with, oh, I feel it's the heart of God pleading with men. O earth, earth, earth. There's many verses in the Bible where it begins with O and so we should listen to the heart of God. And he wants and implores you that they would understand this, what that you would consider your end. Here's the dear brother going. He knows where he's going. He has utmost confidence and many of us do have confidence of where he's going. We know in whom we have believed and we have that confidence.
But where are you going to spend eternity that maybe there's some here?
And it's been told so often the gospel over and over and over. I know in our family, a child often reprove hardness is heart. That's the danger of hearing the gospel over and over again. You think, well, maybe some other time. I know I did. But you don't have time. You don't know about time. So where are you going to spend eternity? Consider it. Turn back one chapter on page over there, the 30th chapter.
Especially for most of you in this room have been raised in Christian homes. Verse 30. Verse 14. But the word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it no good to know it headwise. You've got to do it. You've got to accept, you've got to take sides with God. Do it. Verse 15. See, I've set before thee this day life and good and death and evil. Verse 19. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you.
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That I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life. God wants you to choose life. He's a life giver and He wants you to choose life. But life is full of choices. But there's only one that really matters, and that's the one that you make about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the only one that will have eternal consequences. Everything else is temporary, can change, but there's one choice you must make.
And that has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some of you may be apathetic and different. Put it off. You know that's a choice. That's a wrong one. That's a wrong one. You don't know your time. But it is a choice, but a wrong one. And so a loving God implores you to choose life.
Eternal word of God says that he that believeth on the Son hath life, and he that believeth not on the Son of God hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. That's serious, that's awful. We don't even like to contemplate it, but that is the reality, dear. 1 The wrath of God will abide upon you. Well, let's turn to Luke 23.
I mean, I like to read just briefly the 32nd verse through the 40.
43rd verse.
And there were also two other malefactors LED with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then said, Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his garment, and cast locks, and they parted his raiment and cast locks. And the people stood, Behold him. And the rulers also with him derided him, saying He saved others.
Let him save himself, if he be the Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, and saying, If they'll be the king of the Jews, saved thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew. This is the king of the Jews, and one of the malefactors which were hanging rail on him, saying, If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us.
Well, maybe you're saying, well, I'm not a malefactor.
I'm as it says here.
A malefactor, but in Matthew calls them thieves. Some of the thief well begged to differ with you. The Word of God says otherwise. Turn back to Malachi chapter 3, just the end of the Old Testament.
Malachi Chapter 3.
And verse 8.
Will a man rob God?
Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In ties and offerings?
Ye have robbed me. God says you have robbed me. If you're not mine, if you haven't taken sides with me, you've robbed me.
I like to think of the ties of that which we give of our bodies, so maybe our natural life and the offerings that may be of the spiritual life.
So you are a thief. If you're not a child of God, you've robbed God. And that are the worst type. You're robbing God.
Your very existence was given to you in this life. Life is a gift from God, but maybe you've used it for self. You've been endowed with talents and gifts, but you've used them for self. And maybe you've been blessed with good health and strength, but you've used it for self. Most of all, you've robbed God for communion and fellowship and worship. And that's what God wanted. The Father seeketh worshippers, and we owe that to Him. Not out of constraint, but He wants the willing people.
And so we have robbed God in many ways. We've wasted time and strength in the pursuit of disobedience.
And sin.
So see in the thief a picture of yourself in the sight of heaven. Your condition is desperate, and your heart is as wicked as the thief.
Let's go back to Luke.
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So at Calvary we have free crosses.
And it wasn't that by chance that these were thieves, God could have in His sovereignty placed other.
Criminals on the cross, but he saw to it that there was 2 Thieves.
And it was two responses to the Lord Jesus Christ in the middle.
And I want to see, I want you to vision yourself there at Calvary.
Where? Which side are you going to stand on?
Which side are you gonna stand on?
The one thief.
It says in verse 39 and one of the malefactors which are hanging railed on him, saying, If thou be the Christ saved thyself and us.
Reviling, rejecting what a fool is about to enter eternity, and he's reviling the very Son of God, the one that could save him, and he's reviling cursing the Lord Jesus Christ in the middle.
What a fool. What about you?
What's your response to the Lord Jesus?
But there's another malefactor.
He's repenting and believing.
And that's a wonderful thing. That's what we want you to do. Repent and believe, take sides with God, see the Lord Jesus in the middle as your Redeemer and your Savior. But you need to answer that question, Where are you? You need to answer that before God tonight or this afternoon.
As many in this room that are trusting and hoping and praying that if there is anyone here that they'll be sheltering under that blood.
But what must you do to be saved? We haven't got a lot of time, but it's seen very quickly here and that's.
Make salvation simple. It's not hard. It's so simple. It's a gift. What's so hard about a gift? You just receive it. So salvation is not hard, but there is a few conditions.
Therefore, but the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God?
Seen thou in the same condemnation, and we indeed, and we indeed justly, for we receive the due rewards of our deeds.
Dost thou not fear God? Fear God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. God is light and God is love. God is holy. And this thief began by the Spirit of God to see his sin, to see his need. And that's the first start of your step towards God, is to fear God. God is wrathful, God hates him, he cannot have in his presence. And so this dear one by the Spirit of God began to see in the Lord Jesus.
A savior and he says, and he rebukes the other one. Dost thou not fear God? It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God. And this one was the beginning to see that he takes sides. The second thing is to take sides with God, he says.
And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss.
You need to take sides with God. You need to take sides with God against yourself. This thief realized practically that the soul that sinners it shall die here he was hung out on the cross with two other maleifact in the Lord Jesus. He realized that he had lived a life of crime. He was paying the price. Maybe you're not going to pay the price quite yet. Maybe you don't know the Lord could come, but if you continue on in their sins, you might also by the government be judged and pay a life of.
Pay for the life of crime in jail or something. But this one was realizing practically that the soul that sineth it shall surely die.
Let's look at a verse in the Book of Lamentations.
Isaiah, Jeremiah. Lamentations.
Chapter 3.
In verse 39, Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands.
Unto God in the heavens we have transgressed and have rebelled.
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Let us search and try our ways. This this thief was beginning to search his ways.
So he sees himself as a Sinner.
The question is, do you?
To you if you do not see yourself as a Sinner.
Really, there's no remedy for you.
A drowning man who refuses the life raft or the lifesaver. If he doesn't see himself as drowning, he's not going to receive help. So if you do not see yourself as a Sinner, I pity you.
Foolishness. The only thing that awaits you is the wrath of God. The wrath of God abideth upon you. That's a foolish choice, solemn. And you make God a liar and Calvary redundant. All the things that we hold precious and you know to be true.
Are nothing that's.
Insane. That's insane. Don't delay. There's no reason to delay that. You benefit nothing by delaying.
Draw nigh to me, and I will draw an eye to you. This man began to draw an eye to God. This man, he says, has done nothing amiss. Isn't that wonderful? Can you think of the heart of the Savior there on the cross?
Being totally misunderstood, as my brother said today, none to comprehend, none to understand, and yet there was God the Father gave the Lord Jesus Christ a little foretaste of what his work would do, and he gave him this repentance center to encourage his heart. If you remember in the course of events.
The only words he have heard so far.
His Father forgive them for they don't know what they do. He hasn't seen the Lord Jesus go through the three hours of darkness. He hasn't heard the Centaurians say true of the Son of God or the veil rent or the rocks rent. He hasn't seen any of that. He has only heard Father forgive them. And seeing how the Lord Jesus maybe looked at these ones that were railing on in the compassionate, his eyes saw his bloody body. But that shortest sermon that our brother just said, Father forgive them.
But they know not what they do what.
Impact it had on that poor thief, shortest Thurman, but it sure had an effect upon that man. And that effect was.
Two verse 42 The other thing you need to do and he said unto him, Jesus he said unto Jesus, Lord, Lord, Remember Me Lord, if thou shalt confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised from the dead, thou shalt be saved Lord a wonderful it's a miracle and really salvation is a miracle just as much as our earthly life is a miracle. Salvation is a miracle this.
Rotten thief, that was the offscouring of society that the Romans said let's get rid of becomes a St. by the Spirit of God.
So he confesses him as Lord. It's wonderful. That's all he heard, he saw first hand. And we had those verses today in Isaiah 53.
And you don't have to turn to Barrida, verse 4. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with His stripes we are healed. And so he saw in the Lord Jesus.
This one that was atoning for him.
And he cries, Lord.
And the response of the Lord Jesus is beautiful and it's encouraging to our hearts.
There's a verse in Isaiah 30.
I think it's first.
19 Isaiah 3019. He will be very gracious unto thee, at the voice of thy cry. When he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
He will be very gracious. How quickly the Lord Jesus responded to this thief.
How quickly Ezekiel 18.
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There it is.
Ezekiel 1832 Says, For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, sayeth the Lord God, wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.
God takes no pleasure in the death of man. He created hell for the Satan and his angels, and he has no pleasure in the death of man.
Back in Lamentations 3, there's a verse in 57. Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee. Thou said his Fear not, O Lord, Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul. Thou hast redeemed my life. O Lord, thou hast seen my wrong. Judge thou my cause.
Have you seen him as your savior? That's the question. Have you seen him? He drew near. He's withdrawing God. He will draw near.
All you have to do is call, call upon the name of the Lord and He'll respond. He is gracious.
But Can you imagine the resounding joy in heaven when that thief took sides with God against himself and called this one, this suffering Savior, Lord, joy in heaven? And you can add that joy tonight, not only if your brethren, but for, for glory in heaven, for God's glory, if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ tonight as your Savior.
Verse 42 it says, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
You know God doeth exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or think. And here this thief, like that particle son, didn't know the heart of God. But the thief asked to be remembered in an earthly Kingdom, but Christ assured him of a place in paradise.
The thief asked to be remembered that the Savior declared that he should be with him, not just remembered in some, I have a Hindu friend that believes in reincarnation, and I asked him, he's a dear friend of good businessmen. And I said, well, what happens when you finally get spin off the wheel and this Nirvana stuff and he says, well, you float as a spirit in space. They said, well, that's kind of lonely in the darkness of space. What are you doing? I mean, come on, that's ridiculous. I said in Christianity, it's a relationship. We're going to be with God the Father and the Son and other believers. We're going to be in happy fellowship, not just floating around.
We're going to be with him. We're going to be with him. And so this one.
Received a response right away, so call upon him. That doesn't take much. It doesn't take much at all. How can you refuse such love? Choose life, choose life. Just close and reading beautiful hymn that we have.
In 321, and I'll start with the second verse, the dying thief beheld the lamb expiring by his side, and proved the value of the name of Jesus crucified his soul by virtue of the blood.
To paradise received redemption's earliest trophies stood from sin and death retrieved. And I trust you can put your name in here and join all of us who have already accepted. We too, the cleansing power of known of the atoning blood. By grace I've learned his name to own. Which brings us back to God. To him. Then let our songs ascend. Who stooped in grace so low. To Christ the Lamb, the sinner's friend.
Let Ceaseless.
Phrases flow.
Close in prayer our God and our Father. We are just so thankful.
That thou was invited all to come. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Thou art such a God.
Of love, of life, and now has implored anyone in this room tonight that is still indifferent to choose life.
And so we just pray that thy spirit, thou, would convict anyone in this room, and draw them to thyself for those cords of love.
And so we just thank you for these times that we've been hand over thy word, much responsibility, much truth has been given, and we just trust that it will encourage us. Those that are thine who walk more faithfully at a little time remaining and may be faithful in all that we do and say, and that Christ may be glorified in our bodies which are his. And so we looked at thee with thankfulness and pray in thy sons worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Hebrews 12
Address—R. Thonney
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Love Divine.
Let's pray.
Blessed God our Father, we're so thankful.
For the Lord Jesus, our glorious Savior. And we do ask this afternoon, as we have another opportunity to open Thy word, that Thy Spirit would have liberty in speaking and in hearing.
To use Thy precious word as thou to see fit. We confess our weakness, our insufficiency, but Lord Jesus, we're looking up to Thee, that glorified head in heaven.
And so we ask thee to give according to Thy thoughts, not our own. We ask for blessing for many that are already on the road for blessing. And they might go with a real sense of Thy presence with them, Father, and that they might meditate on Thy precious word we've had before. As we pray, Father, give thanks in that most worthy name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Like to turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 12.
Let's read this chapter. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross?
Despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.
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My son despised not the chastening of the Lord.
Nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement were of all our partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons.
Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, We gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our Prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness now.
No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.
But let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and holiness.
Without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently.
Lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as he saw, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing.
He was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. For ye are not coming to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and Tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, the voice of words, which voice they that heard, entreated, that the word should not be spoken to them anymore.
For they could not endure that which was commanded. And if so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, than heavenly Jerusalem, and to.
An innumerable company of angels to the General Assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven, And to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling. That speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that you refuse not him that speaketh.
For if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth?
Much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.
Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised sane.
Yet once more I shake not earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more signifying, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receive in the Kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God.
Acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.
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This chapter has been a favorite mine for many years and brethren, this is the chapter the Lord laid on my heart this afternoon as they thought about being up here.
We're living in days when there's been a lot of trouble and discouragement and trial.
We need to be refocused on what our goal is, what is the purpose of our being down here in this world? We need to understand that and understand it clearly.
And Paul here we believe to be the author of this epistle.
Starts out in verse one, speaking about this great cloud of witnesses around. He's referring back to the 11Th chapter where you have so many of those witnesses of faith from the Old Testament we have.
Abel, we have Enoch, we have Noah, we have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, we have Joseph, we have Moses, and there's quite a few more listed there.
They're all to encourage us. God gives us faith. Let me tell you, if he gives you faith, he's going to try that faith. And it's an individual trial.
The trial he puts you through is not going to be exactly the trial he puts me through, but we have those.
Stories in the Old Testament. And if you read through the stories in the Old Testament, you're going to find that there was failure on the part of those witnesses of faith.
None of us, brethren, can go through life and say I've made it without any failure. We all have it. But it's an encouragement. They didn't just when they had the failure, they didn't just stay there. They got up and they moved on. And now the encouragement to us is.
To having these witnesses of faith about us to take courage as well, he says. Here let us lay aside.
Every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us.
You know, there's things that hinder running as we ought to run.
If a person is going to run a race, he doesn't put on heavy boots and a heavy overcoat. Even though it might be cold outside, he tries to keep it as light as possible. Why? Because his objective is to get to the goal and get there first. He has to have that objective clear before his mind and every circumstance is judged.
Necessary or unnecessary according to how it contributes to that athlete getting down to the goal.
Brethren, God has given many material things to us in this country.
But I fear, and I hope you don't think I'm pointing the finger at you tonight or this afternoon. I'm pointing a finger right here.
I am surprised what a good pack rat I am and how much stuff I have stowed here and there around my house.
You know, those things are not necessarily wrong in themselves, but their weights that don't let you run as you ought to run. And you know, one thing that I really believe helps us to evaluate that is to get before our souls the goal before us.
Here it is the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.
That's the goal, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. Christ in glory is our goal.
Have you got that before your soul? I have to confess that so often there are so many heavy distractions that I lose sight of the goal and I need to step back from time to time.
And refocus and re evaluate things in my life.
So that I am free to run as I ought to run as a Christian. Brethren, the goal is of such tremendous worth that the Apostle Paul, who was privileged to be caught into the 3rd heaven to see the glory, when he came back, he didn't have words to be able to say even what he heard up there, it was so glorious.
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That he was a ruined man as far as pursuing anything of glory here in this world. He wasn't interested. He said, I've lost it all, and I count it all but lost for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Oh, I just longed to see you, dear young people, get on fire for the Lord.
I'm afraid we who are older haven't really gotten on fire properly. That would make you get on fire too. But let me tell you, if you get a glimpse of the glory before you, that high calling of Christ Jesus in glory, I tell you, nobody's going to be able to hinder your running like you ought to.
You know, in my years in Bolivia.
It was interesting the Lord seemed to bring us into contact with quite a few.
People that ran in the car races of Bolivia. I probably told some of these stories before, but it it helps to understand what I'm talking about and.
I had the opportunity to meet up with, I met up with, actually took my car to him to tune up and I got to know him. He was a mechanic. He had a mechanic shop and I learned later that he was one of the ones that ran. They have their races over the Bolivian roads down there. If you know the Bolivian roads, you'd see that it's quite a challenge. Those roads are and.
So in the course of our contact with that man, he got saved.
And he really showed evidence of getting the light turned on in his life.
But I never talked to him too much about racing. That was his big thing, and he kind of detected that I wasn't exactly all for it, although I'd never said anything that was wrong.
One day, I don't know if he was a little bit upset at me when I got to his house to visit him, he asked us over for Bible readings. And one day he comes in and he says, what's wrong with car racing? It's a good clean sport. I don't see anything wrong with it. Might as well. I don't see anything wrong with it either, tell you the truth. But I'd like to ask you a question, I said.
Supposing I'm racing between the cities of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.
And would it be all right for me to stop and take some pictures along the way? You know, some pretty scenery along the way? Maybe that would be all right if I stop and take some pictures. Oh, no, no, no, you don't do that, I said, what's wrong with taking pictures? Something morally wrong with that? No, no, no, there's nothing morally wrong with it. But when you're on a race, you don't do that, I said. You got it exactly.
When you know where you're going and you know the prize, that's before you.
There's a lot of things in life that are not wrong in themselves.
But you just don't do them if you really want to get the price.
And, you know, I'm amazed at how people sacrifice to earn earthly prizes.
I think the price for the car race is down there in Bolivia was not enough to recompense.
What they did to their cars on the race up here, I guess they get pretty good hefty prizes.
But brother, what is the price that is set before our soul? I think we lose sight of it. Christ in glory, eternal glory.
You believe that?
I don't know if we really believe it. You know, it's easy to say, yeah, I believe it.
Your response is not what you say with your lips. Your response is your life. You show whether you believe that or don't believe it.
And we need to refocus, brethren, the glory is before us. We're getting down to the end of this present dispensation. At any time, things are going to start happening in major sort in this world.
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We're coming down to the end.
Are you trying to make some earthly objective down here? Earning a good bunch of money? Having a nice fancy car? Nothing wrong with that in itself, perhaps. But let me tell you, you're falling far short of the goal that God has in mind for you. And this afternoon I'd like to refocus your vision.
To something beyond this world.
This world is too fleeting, too vain.
Don't be looking at that.
Lay aside the weights.
There is sin too. Sin is a positive hindrance in running.
The race and then it says verse two looking unto Jesus.
O brethren, it has been sad to me to see, in all the difficulties the Lord has seen fit to put us through, to see that we start looking in other directions than on the Lord Jesus Christ.
You're not going to get your directions until you have Christ before your soul.
How important it is we get occupied with one side and another side and this. They say this and they say this, and what's right? Brethren, let's refocus on the Lord Jesus Christ. He has allowed it, yes, but why? He has something to say to us.
And we need to listen to what he has to say to us.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It wasn't easy for him.
It was awful.
But did he ever turn aside? Did he ever say I'm not going to stand for all this injustice?
Not one word of it, he bowed.
To all the injustice that was done to him recognizing when Violet said I have power to.
Lusty or power to crucify the He said, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.
He recognized that Pilate had power.
Did Pilate use his power rightly?
Go away. But did he submit to that power that was so unjustly?
Executed upon him? Yes, he certainly did. Oh, the blessing that has resulted.
Because of that, running the race.
You know, and I know there's trials in your life and there's trials in my life, tough ones. I don't have the solutions. Ones things that really impresses me as I travel around in the Americas is that nowhere is life easy. It just isn't.
Up here we have plenty of material things, but let me tell you, the Lord knows how to put the thorns in the nest so that life is not easy up here either.
It's hard.
The Lord Jesus went through this life perfectly without one flaw, and He's the one we are to be looking to.
You're having a rough time. Look to him, He had a rough time. They hit him in the face, they spit in him, they crowned him with thorns, They nailed him to that cross, but he went straight on. Never varied from that course that was set before him. I love what it says here. Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.
And is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. What was the joy that was set before him?
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I love to think of it, brethren, that it was when he went back into glory.
To be able to say, in the words of John 17, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do completely to God's glory. That work was finished. No human eye was there to witness that when Jesus went back into the glory, but all the glory of that moment.
And I'm sure it includes you and me too.
As we will be there in that coming day. But that was the joy that was set before him. And then there were the heavy things that he had to go through. But because of the joy that was set before him, he went through it all. Now, brethren, the application to us is you've got heavy things in your life. I have no doubt that everybody here could tell me about some heavy thing they got in their life.
But.
Look at the goal before you. There is every reason to go on.
I sometimes put it this way, put the negatives on one side of the balance.
Put the positives on the other side. What's greater?
No question about it, the positives are far, far outweigh the negatives. We have every reason to continue on brethren, with our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. How easy it is to get distracted and be looking at this brother, that brother, this sister, that sister.
Not called to be looking so much at them, were called to be looking at the Lord Jesus Christ and following Him.
It's a another comment I should make in verse one is that it's a long distance race. It's a race that lasts our whole life long. We should run with patience or endurance. Keep on. It's not easy. Keep on.
Keep on.
And then we come to verse 3-4. Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your mind.
I enjoy the way the old version in the Spanish reads in that verse. I can transliterate it. It is.
Reduce your thoughts to Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself.
Consider him. Reduce your thoughts to him. You know our thoughts. Go helter skelter in One Direction and another.
Sometimes they say we have weight weight reduction programs.
We need thought reduction programs. Don't allow your thoughts to go just any direction. Control your thinking.
It's important to think right thoughts. Don't let your mind be occupied with wrong thoughts.
And maybe you haven't been treated like you should have by your brethren. Are you supposed to be thinking about yourself? Reduce your thoughts to him. I tell you we are in this country a self-centered generation and I have never seen a generation that is so unsatisfied because.
They're thinking about themselves. It's miserable.
To have to think about yourself all the time.
Let's change our thinking. Let's think about Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
Yeah, maybe I haven't been treated right, but I shouldn't be thinking about myself. The Lord is the defender of his people. He'll take care of the accounts that are not straight. Leave it with the Lord. Go on.
Reduce your thoughts to Him that endured such contradiction of sinners.
Against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds, I detect.
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That there are those who are weary.
Thank.
Reduce your thoughts to him, brother and sister, and the Lord Jesus.
He went through it all. He never gave up. Where is he now? He's at the pinnacle of glory. That's where we're called to as well. Don't give up.
You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. Some of our brothers and sisters in this world do resist to blood.
Hear about stories of the Muslim countries of over in China.
Where some of the Lord's people are losing their lives in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Don't hear about that in the Americas.
They're much more. They do, but.
We haven't gotten to that point yet. The Lord Jesus went all the way. All the way.
Then with verse five we have another subject that is introduced. It's the matter of.
Discipline.
We're to get our focus right first in the first three verses.
But then he says in verse five, and this is an important area of our lives to.
You have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.
My son despised not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
This is a subject that is perhaps not pleasant to think about, but it is important to understand.
In the sense that we're speaking here, every single believer in the Lord Jesus is under discipline, not talking about assembly discipline here. We're talking about the discipline of a father and his family and we're all under his hand of discipline. He loves us and that's why he disciplines us. Whom the Lord loveth, He chasing us.
And scourge us. That's a harder word yet.
You ever felt that? Have to confess, I feel it quite odd. Thank God for it, I've noticed.
In South America, sometimes their families that don't know how to discipline their children properly and a child that is not disciplined properly.
Is a child that is living in an uncertain world.
Sometimes their dad or their mom all of a sudden fly off the handle in a rage.
Either up to that time they can get away with it.
But we have a Father who is completely faithful.
O brethren, isn't it wonderful? I know I have a father that if I get out of line, he loves me too much.
To let me go my own way. I'm going to feel his hand.
And if we are truly believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have felt his hand in discipline.
There are three reactions.
That we can have to discipline. Notice verse five speaks of two of them. My son, despise not thou the chasing of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Despising the chastening of the Lord is just acting like everybody has problems. I'll get over it no problem. Not recognizing.
The Lord has something to say to us in that, you know, if we would listen to the Lord in the little things in life.
He wouldn't have to speak heavier, but the reason why he has to speak so loudly at times is because we don't listen.
When he speaks in the little things, every single circumstance in your life and mine is ordered by a hand of one who loves us supremely in the glory. He doesn't allow one circumstance in your life without a reason for it. I'm more and more convinced of it, Brett.
Still remember how I struggled and I was my youth I used to work at a hospital in Chicago and there was an accident in the hospital and one of my.
00:35:10
Fellow laborers there got pinched between 2 trucks and.
Killed right in front of my eyes.
And then in the course of legal procedures I got charged with his death and taken to law for a lawsuit of a half $1,000,000. Let me tell you, my mind was spinning. I thought I was losing my mind for a while till I read everything comes directly from the hand of God.
You know, we look at instruments, we look at circumstances, and we tend to blame them. Brethren, we've got to get beyond that. We've got to see the hand that orders every circumstance. He has a reason for it now, still remember?
When I read that little article.
Just hit me like a sledgehammer and I knelt beside my bed and I said OK Lord I know you got something to say to me and here I am. I want to hear it. And the peace that came into my soul never left.
The trial and the hearings went on for another four years and the Lord finally brought me out on top without any problem. But he had something to say to me and I guess I was kind of hard headed.
And he had to speak pretty loudly to get my attention.
Oh, isn't it wonderful that he is a faithful father, that he will not give up? I may be stiff necked and hard headed. Who's going to win out?
Me or him?
He's going to win out every time. He'll win out. He's not in a rush if you want to be hard headed with the Lord.
Go ahead.
He is going to win out in the end. He loves his people and that's what makes him discipline his people.
I really believe that.
That he's disciplined us.
Has gathered to his precious name. I don't profess to know.
Every reason why I know he has his reasons. There's been things that have exercised me. One thing that I feel exercised about, brethren, I just pass it on for your consideration is that in Speaking of the precious truth of being gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We need to seek to make Christ the focus and not ourselves.
It has come to me, and I've been challenged by it, that so often when we present the truth, we make ourselves the reference point.
Seek to reword the way you express those precious truths so that we are not the reference point. It's Christ that must be the reference point.
God is jealous for the glory of his Son. He's not going to give His glory to another.
When on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were seen there with the Lord Jesus.
Those 3 disciples that were there as well witnessing it.
Saw those two and I imagine it would have been impressive to them.
To the greatest servants of God in the Old Testament, Moses, Elijah, they were looking at for the first time.
Without realizing it, Peter got his eyes off the Lord and started thinking about them.
And, you know, he started talking before he knew what he was saying. It actually says.
He didn't know what he was saying.
Sometimes we do that, don't we? We start talking before we know what we're saying.
And he says, Lord, it's good for us to be here. Let us make 3 tabernacles, one for they put the Lord first, one for Moses, one for Elias. What was the problem with what he said?
He put the Lord Jesus on the same level as those two servants.
And immediately a cloud covered those two servants. They disappeared.
And a voice out of the cloud says, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. They fell on their faces. And well we might when we're in the presence of the Lord of glory, if we start looking at people.
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And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no man save Jesus only.
May it be so with us, brethren.
So 1 improper response to discipline is despising it, the other is fainting under it. It's saying, oh man, all these problems, I can't take this any longer. I can't go on like this. That's fainting under it. Neither he that despises or he that faints gets the blessing. God has a blessing in mind for you if he's disciplining you.
And neither of those responses are proper, the proper response we have down in verse 11.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous nevertheless. Afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby. How important it is to be exercised when the Lord speaks to us, not trying to justify one position over another. There are clear scriptural principles.
That should guide us. But brethren, it's not a matter of justifying.
It's a matter of getting into the presence of the Lord and humbling ourselves in recognition.
That he has something to say to us.
Let him speak. You know, I've been reading through the book of Job again recently and it is so beautiful to see in that book.
How after Job's trials came on him and then the worst trial of all, his three friends began to accuse him.
And he starts defending himself.
And every time he answers. First of all, his friend. In their defense, it's interesting how.
His answer, somewhere in the answer, it all of a sudden turns from the friend he's talking to to God. And we know that Job didn't get out of the woods until he got into the presence of God. That's the answer, brother, to get into his presence, to realize he has something to say to us. If it's individual, if it's collective.
That's very important. He has something to say. Let's be exercised.
Verse 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down.
And the feeble knees. There's a picture of discouragement.
Hands hanging down.
Feeble knees.
Let's encourage somebody that's going through it.
Not go and try to interpret for them what the Lord has to say to them. The Lord is fully able to tell that person what he has in mind. But encourage him, saying, say to him, brother, the Lord loves you. Don't be discouraged. He has something good in mind for you. That's what it means to hold up the hands which hang down.
And the feeble knees. He's not trying to destroy us, brethren.
He's working for our own good, but there's things in our lives that need correction. It's so that we can be a partaker of His Holiness because of that, that he disciplines us.
And then verse 13 and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.
You know, brethren, we are called in one body.
And what I do necessarily effects others around me.
And I think I have liberty to do a certain thing.
But I'm to consider those around me. If I don't make straight paths for my feet, there might be someone lame that will get turned out of the way.
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Let's be careful the effect we have on others, the way we react.
What was said yesterday about being angry and sinning not was very good to think about because anger gets out of hand so often.
The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Now there are things to be angry about and like was mentioned yesterday.
The Lord Jesus was angry, but not for what they did to Him.
He was angry because they impeded blessing for others.
We tend to get angry when they do something against us.
That's not the example we have in the Lord Jesus. Think about it.
Lord help us in these things.
Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.
Then verse 14 follow peace with all men. We are to be peacemakers.
We had in Ephesians 4. We are to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Brethren, am I known as a person that goes around stirring up trouble?
Making problems.
Should be one. We should be known as peacemakers. They are the children of God.
Follow peace with all men and holiness. Peace is not at the expense of holiness.
Without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently, verse 15. Lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
It's not looking at each other with suspicion, brethren.
But it's looking diligently, lest any man should fail of the grace of God. What does that mean?
Fail of the grace of God.
It's reverting to the principle of law instead of grace.
It's easy to happen. I have to confess that it happens to me so often.
Or if I could just be more faithful to the Lord, the Lord would bless me more.
Is that a right thought?
That's law. That's the principle of law. You get what you what you do.
That's not right.
If I live like I ought to, I might enjoy my blessings more, but I don't get more blessings because of.
What I how I act?
But our minds, we tend to revert to that principle so easily.
You know, there's no more powerful principle to incite us to Christian living than the principle of grace.
Paul said to Timothy in Second Timothy chapter 2.
Thou therefore, my Son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Understanding grace properly makes a person strong.
Somebody has given the illustration of what happened years ago.
In the United States when there were still slaves around.
Slave market in the South. There was a young woman put on the platform and there was an Englishman standing there and English people were not supposed to have slaves. So everybody was surprised when he started bidding on this slave.
She was a young, beautiful woman.
And the price went up and up and up.
And she looked at that Englishman with quite a bit of suspicion.
And anger in her eyes.
What in the world does that guy want me for?
And finally, the Englishman gave the highest price and bought her.
And the slave came down off the block and was given to.
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Her new master.
And he took the key of the chain that had her bound.
And unlock the lock and took the chain off and said.
I bought you to set you free. You're free to go now.
She didn't know what to do.
And according to this story, she finally fell at his feet and said.
Sir, I'll serve you forever.
What created that tremendous change in that slaves heart while she wasn't a slave from then on, but what created that tremendous change in that young woman's heart?
Grace.
When you look at the cross, dear brethren, and see what the King of glory.
The eternal Son of God did for a wretched Sinner like me.
Can I be claiming my rights in this world?
I don't have a bit of understanding of what he did for me if I do.
Now our place is to.
Be surrendered at his blessed feet. Grace is a powerful principle. Grace is not accommodating sin. I think we understand that. In fact, there's the strongest type of condemnation given in the book of Jude, those that turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness. In other words, saying, oh God's gracious, you can sin a bet and then God will forgive you.
That's lasciviousness.
And that is strongly condemned, that is a person that does, that does not understand grace yet.
No, but grace is the most powerful principle to make us live like we ought to as Christians.
It says in Titus chapter 2 The grace of God has appeared to all men.
Teaching us that.
That denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live holy, righteously and godly in this present world.
Grace teaches us how to live, how to live rightly. It's not law that teaches us so. This is why it's so important to be careful in our relationships, one with another. Blessed any man fail of the grace of God. Why is that so important? Because when we fail of the grace of God.
There is something that springs up in the soil.
Their roots of bitterness.
Brethren, I want to speak pretty clearly on this matter of roots of bitterness.
Don't allow it in your heart. I know maybe you've been treated like you shouldn't have been treated.
But reduce your thoughts to the Lord Jesus, the King of Glory. He was treated far worse than any of us could be.
Leave it. Don't hold grudges. You know, sometimes we Americans think that we're pretty good guys.
Somebody does something bad to us and we just kind of pass it over.
But inside we're doing the slow burn.
Don't allow that to happen.
Get those roots of bitterness out of there.
Remember, older brothers used to challenge us. Do you have any hard thoughts about anybody in the sphere of your acquaintance? Do you?
Let it loose.
Remember a sister telling me some time ago about how she and her husband were treated in a certain place?
And she said to me, you know, I just said I just, I just, I just can't handle it. That's just too much. Can't handle it. Sorry, can't handle it. I'm not going to let loose of that. She said she was able to.
Hold on to that bitterness for about two days. After two days, she says.
I knew I was ruining myself worse than anybody else.
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Let loose of it.
The Lord Jesus forgave us so much. Shouldn't we be able to forgive others too? Read the end of Matthew 18. Brethren, that parable, We don't have time to do it right now. There is a parable there, a likeness of the Kingdom of heaven.
In which there is a man who was a 10,000 talent debtor.
I figured it out one time. I think it was approximately $10 million. He owed something that naturally speaking, he would never be able to get out from under him, and he was frankly forgiven.
And then he didn't want to forgive one of his fellow servants. It was, if I remember right, it was something maybe about in the order of 10/15.
He didn't want to forgive them that much.
What happened to that fellow? He was returned to the other.
The one that had frankly forgiven him and he was delivered to the tormentors. You know what the tormentors are? Your own conscience and heart and a person that holds grudges and bitterness in their heart.
Is delivered to tormentors. Let it loose, the Lord.
Delivered you from a lot more. He forgave you so much more. Let it loose.
Leave it alone.
Let those roots of bitterness be pulled out.
Before they contaminate many, that's happened too much amongst God's people.
But notice going on here it says lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, profane person, profanity is treating that which is sacred as common. That's profanity.
And that birthright, we heard about it this morning in the Sunday School. That birthright.
That was his. He treated it as if it was only worth a mess of pottage. He was a profane person.
He sold his birthright, and notice says verse 17. For ye know that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. There's a parentheses in there, and I think it's important to see that he did not seek repentance with tears. He saw never repented of what he did in despising his birthright.
What he sought was the blessing.
With tears. He sought the blessing with tears, but he never repented. And that's why later on in the Old Testament it says in the book of Malachi Esau, have I hated. Why did God hate him? Because he held that which was sacred as common and he never repented of it. He didn't even seek repentance. He sought the blessing and he lost the blessing because he had despised his birthright.
Lord, keep us from that. Time's up, brethren. But I just want to say before we finish, is that these?
Verses that follow give a tremendous contrast between Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. Mount Sinai is the law and Mount Zion is grace. These two principles are contrasted.
It is evident that we cannot obtain blessing on the grounds of law, but there is a tendency to go toward that. Again, it's a natural tendency of our human hearts. I see it in myself so often.
Putting people under a sense of obligation, it won't work. It won't work.
You've got to understand, grace, we have come to Mount Zion. We have come to the place where grace reigns. Brethren, oh, how important it is if I take up the law to condemn others. Remember, Brother Clem Buchanan told me this and it really has hit home with me. He said if I take up the law to condemn others, I'm going to end up condemning myself.
And that's the truth of the matter, brethren. We're not under that principle of things.
Or under the principle of grace.
And grace, as I say again, is not.
Overlooking sin, it is not accommodating it.
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But it actually shows what Jesus suffered to deliver us from sin. It's the most powerful principle. So he ends up this chapter saying in verse 28, we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace. He doesn't say let us have zeal. He doesn't say let us have a rigid principle of law. No, let us have grace.
Whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. Let's pray, Father, we're thankful for thy precious word. How clearly it speaks to us. Help us, Lord Jesus, to listen, to know what you have to say to us.
In these difficult times were passing through. Pray Thy blessing on our dear brethren.
And the way home again. We pray for Thy blessing the rest of the afternoon here too, in that most worthy name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
John 10, Plants and Hedges
Open—H. Brinkmann, B. Conrad
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
In the back.
I was a wall.
I I.
Was nothing.
I was my way.
To him, suggests John chapter 10.
Verse one.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheep pole pulled, but climbed up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. But he did enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep, to him the Porter openness, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he put us forth his own sheep.
He goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice, and a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.
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This parable speak Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they were, which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am calm that they might have life, and that they might have it.
Abundantly.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, but he that is in harling, and not the shepherd whose bone the sheep are not, see it the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and flee it, and the wolf catches them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is in hireling and careth not for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep.
And am known of mine, as the Father knoweth me, Even so know I the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep, and other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one pluck. Notice the difference. Fault is wrong here. 1 flock and one shepherd.
Therefore both does my father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father. There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings, and many of them said, He has a devil and is mad.
Why hear you him? Others said. These are not the words of him that has a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
And it was at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch, then came to Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ? Tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you. And you believe not the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But you believe not, because you are not of my sheep, as I have said, as I said unto you, my sheep.
My voice and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my father are one.
This beautiful passage.
And the way the Lord Jesus presents himself here is the result of what happened in Chapter 9.
In Chapter 9, the man that was born blind.
Testified of the Lord Jesus. They asked his parents but they were afraid and they said he's of age as Kim.
And so we find that he speaks up for the Lord Jesus.
And what happens?
They throw them out of the synagogue.
What kind of shepherds were these leaders of the Jews?
They were supposedly to be in the position of shepherds.
But they were not true shepherds.
They were feeding themselves already. In the Old Testament, shepherds like that are described and but then the Lord Jesus, he meets this man and he does not only give him physical size, he gives him to see who the Lord Jesus is.
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And what do we find?
He ends up as a worshipper at the feet of the Lord Jesus.
You know how wonderful that he got more than his eyesight, that he got to see who that wonderful person was that performed that miracle on him. But then, in contrast with these hypocrites, these leaders of the Jews, the Lord Jesus presents himself as the shepherd.
And he is the one that came according to all the prophecies in the Old Testament that predicted his coming.
And.
He didn't climb over the fence.
The doorkeeper opened the door to him.
You know, John the Baptist introduced him at the baptism of who he was, and so how wonderful that the Lord Jesus entered the Jewish fold.
For what purpose?
To lead the sheep out of the fold.
You know to him that we were singing Unfortunately uses the term as if we Christians are in a poll that's unscriptural.
Christianity is not a fault. A fault is a legal enclosure, and the Lord Jesus has come to lead his own out of that pole, never to return.
Christianity is not a legal enclosure.
That was Judaism.
But how are we kept as Christians? How are we preserved?
By staying close to the shepherd, you know, having an open ear for the shepherd's voice, you know, we cannot be far away from somebody. If we want to hear the voice of somebody, we have to be near the person that talks to us.
So that suggests that safety for us, who are part of the sheep of the Lord Jesus, is by staying close to Him.
And we don't have to be 15 or 20 years old before we can learn to be close to the Lord Jesus.
Every day, hopefully you will read the Bible for yourself and pray.
Hopefully you come to know him early in life and never learn to love this wicked evil world. What a privilege it is to grow up in a Christian home.
But it's not enough to learn to know about the Bible. The Bible is all about the Lord Jesus.
And it is to bring us closer to Him, and then we stick to Him.
And ask for grace that we be preserved in the path of faith, leading us as the Good Shepherd. But how wonderful he leads his own out of the fold, never to return.
You know common was made as to Ephesians chapter 2.
This morning.
You know that out of true and Gentile the Church is formed here. We too have two kinds of sheep, those who were part of the fold, the Jewish people. And then the Lord Jesus said I have sheep which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall be one plaque and 1:00.
Shepherd.
Christianity is not a cold. Christianity is a flock.
And how wonderful.
The Lord Jesus is near everyone of us, and we can enjoy His nearness individually in our life.
It's also wonderful that He has promised His presence in the midst of those that are gathered to His name.
But even to Christian home.
What makes the Christian home such a special home? Because the Lord Jesus is there, you know.
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He's not the head of the Christian home. The father and husband is the head of the Christian home, but the Lord Jesus is there. And what a difference it makes when we have a sense of him being near us.
Not only when we are at home.
When we're going to school.
When we're going to work, if we would really always keep that before our souls that the Lord Jesus is near me. He sees everything that I say, He hears it. Everything that I do, He sees the company I keep. He is there with me.
He might be grieved. The Spirit might be grieved.
By doing something that we shouldn't do or associate with people that we shouldn't associate with. That doesn't mean that we cannot have any contact with unbelievers. But for what purpose do we have contact with them? To tell them about the Lord Jesus? You know that they too might come to know the Good Shepherd.
Well, how wonderful that we can know the Shepherd's voice.
And you don't have to be a Christian for many years before you can discern and recognize the Shepherd's voice.
Whenever.
This scripture comes before me. I'm reminded of a dear old Christian lady.
Some people knocked on her door.
I believe they were Jehovah Witnesses.
And they were trying to peddle the era.
She listened to them for a little while and she said, would you please leave? I don't hear the shepherd's voice in what you're saying.
She could not prove them at all. She.
She didn't know the scriptures that well, that she could argue with them and show them from scripture that they were wrong, but she discerned that was not the Shepherd's voice. She asked them to leave.
We can perceive the Shepherd's voice.
And.
How wonderful. You know you and I can only be in one place at one time.
You know, people say, Heinz, why don't you come and visit us? Well, I said, only the Lord can be more than one place at one time.
But the Lord is with every individual believer, whether they are in America, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, wherever they are. Behold, I'm with you always, because He's not a mere man only He's God the Son. He is with every individual.
And that's why every individual believer, no matter where he lives.
Can hear the shepherd's voice and follow the Good Shepherd, but certainly by reading the Bible.
We can take it this way, that the Lord Jesus is speaking to me whenever I read this book. It's His word.
And he's presented in it.
And we might not understand much when we first start reading the Bible.
But read it anyway and as time goes on you will come to understand more and more. And when you have questions, go to Dad or Ma or to somebody else, some brother, and ask them about the questions that you have.
You know, that isn't enough to just read the Bible because we might have a sense of obligation that I should read the Bible, therefore I read it today. No, we ought to have the desire to read it because we feel in our souls that we need the light of the Word of God. You see, the Word of God is a light.
For their path and a lamb for my feet. That's what we find in the Bible. You know, it's so important that we use this book in that way.
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Because there is no question that ever would come up in the mind of anybody that does not have an answer in the Bible. We might not always know the answer right away, but it is in the Bible every question that comes up, any legitimate question.
Is answered in the Bible.
But then the Lord Jesus enters the fold of Israel and tests let his own sheep from Israel out of that fold.
But then he also is the door into Christian blessing. I am the door.
By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.
You know you need to Lord Jesus in order to enter into what we would call Christian blessing.
How wonderful that he opens things up for us.
And but there are a lot of people that he wants us about in this chapter.
There are those that came before him. There were thieves and robbers.
You know these people exist today.
And we face people like that.
Thieves and robbers, they don't come to bring blessings. They come to steal and to kill and to destroy.
Satan has his agents.
And that's what the Lord Jesus is referring to here.
And we have to be careful not to be misled.
Not to listen to just anybody.
I'm so thankful when I look back on my childhood because I grew up in a Christian family.
Where the Bible was read, my grandparents were already devout Christians. Grandfathers were teaching capable brothers amongst the so-called brethren. And to have that kind of a background, what a responsibility, but what a privilege to grow up.
Under Christian influence.
And from a child like Timothy.
To know the Holy Scriptures.
Tremendous.
I hope we come all to appreciate that.
I asked the children here and the young people, have you ever thanked the Lord for bringing you into a Christian family?
I think you ought to thank him.
And then not only thank him, make use of this influence and.
And I hope for the parents here in the audience that.
You read the Bible to the children every day.
At home.
You know when I grew up.
The war was going on.
Was a lot of turmoil. I was living in the area where the heavy industry was, you know, and there was a lot of turmoil. And the more the war went on and the closer it came to the end, the worse it got.
But in our home, the Bible was read.
And what a privilege to grow up under the sound of the Word of God.
Hitler forbade the brethren to meet.
So they couldn't publicly meet anymore. They met privately in homes.
But the parents brought the scriptures before us.
And.
How old you have to be before you read the Bible for yourself?
I've related that story before, and if you have heard it, bear with me.
By 10 or 8 year old granddaughter was visiting.
For a few days.
And she came to me and nobody told her to go to OPA. She said Oppa, let's read the Bible.
Can you imagine how happy that made me? Nobody had told her. Go to Opine, Tell him let's read the Bible. Well, I said, where are you reading?
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Or, she said, I'm reading in the book of Exodus.
So every day while she was there, she read me a chapter in the book of Exodus.
They were in Jordan.
For three years and I talked her on the phone once.
And I said, are you still reading the Bible for yourself? Yes, she said. Where are you reading? She said. I'm reading in the Book of Revelation.
I said that's not an easy book to read. I know, she said. But the first chapters are not that bad.
She realized the first chapters weren't as difficult to understand as the rest of the book, but I certainly didn't discourage her from reading the rest of Revelation.
You know the time will come when that girl will understand more of what she just read and didn't understand at that time.
But what a wonderful thing it is to have the Word of God.
But be careful of the thieves and the robbers.
You know, those who want to do harm to you spiritually. And then he says, I am calm that they might have life and that they might have it abundantly.
You know Mr. Darby's translated keeps it that way. Why is it more correct to read it that way? The Old Testament Saints did not have abundant life, that is eternal life. They had life, but they didn't have eternal life. This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ who end our sin. John 17. I believe it's the third verse.
It clearly shows what eternal life is.
Knowing God as Father and the Lord Jesus, the Old Testament Saints did not know God as Father.
The Lord Jesus came to make the Father known. He's still making him known.
To know God as Father, that's a Christian truth.
How wonderful to live at this time in the world's history.
In the Old Testament we have revelations of God, partial revelations of God.
You know, and in Exodus, when God revealed himself to Moses, he says.
I was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not know. In other words, he made himself known more fully to Moses than the way he was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So we have partial revelations of God in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, when the Lord Jesus comes, we have the full revelation of God, and he has made God known as Father.
Isn't it wonderful to have such a father?
Wonderful father, I told this story too before my wife and I walked walked every day 3540 minutes to get some exercise and.
There we always walk in the same area. There was a young lady that we saw and.
She always had such a happy smile and I said to my wife, I wouldn't be surprised if this girl, this young lady is a Christian. And one day I stopped her.
I said excuse me. He couldn't help but seeing you. Of course, after you see person 345 times, you say hello, you know, and we did that. But that time I stopped her. I said excuse me, but my wife and I have noticed your happy smile. Can you tell me what's the reason for your happy smile? Well she said if you have such a wonderful Heavenly Father, why shouldn't you? Well I've said happy to meet another family member.
Give us another family member that we met, another Christian.
Well, how wonderful to have.
Abundant life.
Eternal life.
00:30:00
And that is knowing God as Father.
But then we also find.
That the hireling is one.
That does what he does for what he gets out of it.
Base game financial gain.
You know, I hope.
This is not characteristic of any who wants to serve the Lord among us.
To do what we do for what we get out of it economically.
Christianity is known for what it gives, not for what it gets.
Anyway.
How wonderful.
That there are under shepherds.
You know, and they don't run away when there are problems.
They don't abandoned.
Debates in Christ.
You know how thankful we can be for those who have stood.
For the truth and resisted efforts of the enemy to do harm, spiritual harm to God's people.
Because they're not hireling the hireling fleet. He's only concerned about his own welfare.
And not to get into trouble himself.
But the under shepherds.
Had practiced, in measure at least, what was perfectly done by the Lord Jesus.
And then how wonderful that he knows.
His sheep and his sheep know him.
And.
He laid down his life for his sheep.
Could he give any more proof of his love for his sheep in laying down his life for them? That's the only way how we could become one of these sheep.
And the Lord Jesus died for us.
In order that we might be part of his flock.
And one of his sheep.
And then he speaks that the Father loves him because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. The Lord Jesus did not die as a result of the physical sufferings inflicted upon Him.
What happened just before he died? He cried with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost. He couldn't have done that had he died from the physical sufferings. Because if somebody dies from physical sufferings, he gets weaker and weaker and weaker. I've related this story before.
My dad passed away and we were on a trip visiting the assemblies in the West.
And we were afraid any day we're going to get the news. Dad is gone. But he honed, you might say. And we came to see him. He was still alive. He recognized me, but he was so weak he couldn't even say my name.
He would have liked to say my name. He was trying to, but he couldn't get it out. But the Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. No one could take his life from him. He laid it down by himself when he knew.
That atonement had been accomplished in the sufferings in the three hours of darkness.
Then he laid down his life.
He shed his blood. These three things have made full atonement, de atoning sufferings in the three hours, the laying down of his life and shedding his blood. A full work of atonement accomplished by the Lord Jesus and now.
He loves us and he's given to us eternal life and we shall never perish. Isn't that sad that there are Christians that.
Believe that.
00:35:00
A believer can be saved today and lost tomorrow. What do they make out of this verse? I talked to somebody one time and pointed that verse out. He believed that you can be saved today and be lost tomorrow. I said, what does it say there? I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand, and then nobody can pluck them out of the Father's hand. It's double security.
Well, he said nobody can pluck us out of the hand of the Lord Jesus, but we can pull ourselves out. I said. He's not going to let anybody go that he has.
Saved and we are in his hand.
You know, and not only in his hands. He puts that lost sheep on his shoulders.
Floral when he finds it, you know, when it comes to the government of this world, it says it's upon his shoulder, singular, but the lost sheep that is found is put on his shoulders.
We found a little bigger.
That presented a shepherd and he had a sheep on his shoulders. I said to my wife, we have to have that and we have it in our family room. And when I look at that, it reminds me that I'm on the shoulders of my shepherd to Lord Jesus as place of safety and strength, and he will take us safely home.
And no one plucks us out of the hands of the Lord Jesus. No one plucks us out of the hand of the Father. Eternal security. Do you know the Lord Jesus?
Does everyone in this audience know the Lord Jesus as a personal savior?
What are you missing?
You're missing the greatest blessing available for mayor. That is to know the Lord Jesus as Savior, knowing God as Father, and to know to have a home in heaven where we'll spend eternity with the Lord Jesus and with all the redeemed.
Well, I hope.
We're enjoying the truth of the Lord Jesus being our shepherd. Not only is he our head.
He is our Lord.
Individually, I believe he's not the Lord of the assembly, He's the Lord of the individual believer, but he's also our shepherd.
And He wants to lead us and guide us day by day until we are home with Him in the glory.
First Chronicles chapter 4. Thank you.
He came in a little late to the meeting this morning, listening.
Reading back and forth.
In this 23rd verse.
Came before me and I'm sure many have heard a similar application to what I think of when I read it verse 23.
These were the Potters and those that dwell among plants and hedges.
There they dwelt with the King for his work.
This is one of a number of interesting verses that just seems to be sort of inserted into these genealogies, in this case the genealogy of the sons of Judah.
And while I was listening during the reading towards the end of the reading.
A brother over this way was pointing us to Hebrews 13.
And he seemed to be very emphatic. I know he was emphatic.
About the importance of.
Us taking heed, knowing and submitting to those who are our guides, who take the lead amongst us, there are three places.
In Hebrews chapter 13, I think he read all three of them.
And he was pressing that and you know, that's the Hedges side.
00:40:00
And then some brothers over here, I'm not exactly sure who some of the brothers were turning us to another scripture in first Peter 5 and almost saying yeah, but.
How about this side of it? And that's the plants side, hedges and plants.
And I am indebted to Brother Heinz for telling the story at least several times that I've heard and I repeat now myself.
And if I can do justice to it, I'll try to. But the story goes like this. There was a young man, a young brother in the assembly, and he hadn't been saved or gathered very long.
And he goes to an older brother and he says, you know, I'm kind of troubled, he says.
You know, the brother over here, he's always pressing order and he's always talking about what's right and, you know, pressing us and exhorting us about all these things.
And he says, this brother over here, I don't hear him talking about that stuff. And he's always talking about love and graciousness and tenderness and kindness.
And he says, I don't get it. Why don't they, you know, speak the same thing?
And the older brother apparently gave a very wise answer.
And he said, well, that first brother, that's talking about order. He said if he didn't talk about those things and press those things, there wouldn't be any order in the assembly. And it's important to have order.
But he said if there wasn't the second brother and he wasn't speaking about those things, he said there wouldn't be any assembly at all.
I think I did justice to that to give the point of it.
And if I as I have gotten older and had the privilege to live.
In maybe five or six different assemblies and get to know the brethren in different places and.
And watch and experience the kind of local dynamic that goes on. Each assembly is different. I come to appreciate more and more.
The value of both of those aspects.
Of that spirit in a brother or sister that is just downright for you.
There's a text in the back I was noticing in between the meetings.
That I also have at home. It says God is for me.
And it's one of the few verses of Scripture I, strangely enough, had in my possession even before I was saved. I don't know what possessed me to. I guess I do really to have that verse, but I had a little placard.
Said God is for me and God is for us. He's for us and all that he is. And some people say that's a definition of grace.
But we also know there are brethren and there are assemblies where we know that the default attitude that the brethren have towards each other and towards me is it there for me.
That's a comforting protecting.
Enjoyable. It's a good thing, I'm happy to say, in this day when there is so much failure and disappointment that I even live in an assembly like that. I live in a place like that.
That if a report comes to mind or somebody says, oh, this brother, he did, you know, there without knowing the facts, their automatic response would be for me.
That's a beautiful thing.
But how important it is to that there be hedges because?
In the world we see all around us the fruit of there not being.
A black and a white of there not being good and evil, not being up and down. It almost becomes laughable for those of us in the work world, the extent to which people will go, whether it's an education or wherever there are people assembled to work. How people just have everything all twisted apart so that there are there's no right or no left, no good or bad. And the extent to which they go, the gymnastics they go through.
To sustain this type of thing is amazing to me at times.
But in the Word of God there is light and there is darkness.
And a hedge.
Is a principle. It may be a person or a group of persons.
In our lives that separate for us that which is on one side and that which is on the other. It says in the book of Proverbs, that he that breaketh the hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
00:45:02
Not a good thing to mess with hedges.
Hedges divide. In many countries, they're used almost like a fence or a wall to divide between what is this person's field or that that person's field, or between a piece of property that's meant to be plowed and cultivated in a piece of land that's used for a roadway.
And hedges keep out animals. The neighborhood I grew up in, and everybody seemed to plant hedges to separate their little tiny little plot of backyard. And as a little boy I'd hear these dogs barking. I'd be glad that my father had hedges up and some of the neighbors had fences. So these dogs, as big as I was, would not come pouncing in upon me. These were the Potters and those that dwelt among plants and hedges.
And so it's a needful thing, and we're happy a soul in his right mind. We're happy for order.
We are happy that brothers speak up and say, you know this is right and that's not right and this is the way walkie in it and we have the Holy Scriptures that are able to make us wise unto salvation and able to guide us.
I called his sister yesterday.
Who I knew was recently widowed.
And I knew she had lost her son and I knew she was probably alone. So I called her and it sounded like she had a whole lot of people in the house. I know she has a very small house.
I said I won't bother you if you have a lot of company. She says no, I'm at a conference. I said, really, what conference are you at? She says I don't know. She says. I think it was quite a while ago.
She was listening to a tape.
I said, well, how is the ministry? Is it out of date? She says no, I don't think so. She says it's the same thing I hear at the meeting. I said, well that's good, I don't think it's out of date.
Well, these are good things for us. What a happy thing that our parents or our grandparents, if they were believers, have the same scriptures opened and can get fed from that same same resource that we have in God's Son and in the Word of God and hedges to help us so that when we're perhaps in our formative years, we don't wander off into fields that we don't belong and get into things that we shouldn't get into.
A sister at Maybe it's what got me thinking of it too.
A sister at lunch was speaking about hedges.
And there is there is a time in our lives, and maybe these times revisit us as we get older.
Maybe it's not just the the young boys here that are young teenagers.
Maybe we go through these different times in our adult life when we're at particular times of stress, as we call it in a modern language or vulnerability.
And sometimes we get discouraged and we're maybe at the path where two ways meet all over again.
We notice in the Gospels how there was the young *** tide at the place where two ways meet, and it's often been likened to the restraint to the family and the assembly effect in our lives to keep us from wandering astray before the Lord comes along and does the work and says, hey, you're going with me.
But maybe there are times when we're older, when we're in our 70s or 60s, when we're through discouragement or some other weakness that comes upon us, where we need this kind of restraint and help.
And so we're happy for Hedges. We're happy for the brother that looks after us or the sister in that way and says, you know.
To remind you this is the right way.
But really the burden of my heart is to speak about the other side of it, that the brothers over here, I think were trying to get to, and that's the plant side. But what does a plant do?
Do I really need a plant?
We moved recently.
And neither my wife nor I. Thankfully, she's not here to hear this, our great decorators, and so our houses always look kind of sparse.
And it takes us a while to get things up on the walls and all that. So my oldest daughter came and she, I think you need a plant over here. It would look nice. So she went out to the store to try to buy us a big, big green plant. Well, what is it about plants that make people feel?
Good or what is it? It's attractive about plants. I really don't know. I never really thought about it, but I know in the sense of this scripture.
00:50:03
That there are brothers and sisters and we all know them, thankfully, that the Lord raises up and maybe they don't travel much and maybe they're not real active in oversight in the assembly.
But their presence there is a refreshment to everyone in that place and the people who come visit. I'm thankful. I know lots of plants.
And the effect upon your soul is maybe more than you realize lately.
Some of the ones I've known the Lord has been taking home.
Took one home here in Pennsylvania in the past year. Our beloved brother Hey was like that. He was a plant.
You know, you just like to be in the presence of a big green Fern and a sunny window.
And you could call Bob Hay without any agenda on a Saturday morning, no matter where you are living or how long it had been since you have seen him.
And you'd always kind of talk about the same things or the same person. And it was a lovely and refreshing thing just to kind of imbibe the spirit of Christ that whether he knew it or not, he he exuded.
He was a plant.
Well.
It was another brother maybe 10 years ago if you turn with me to Colossians chapter.
4 Colossians 4.
The Apostle Paul.
Writing to this assembly in verse nine of chapter 4.
Onissimus.
A faithful and beloved brother.
Who is one of you?
Some of us are specialists. We shouldn't be specialists. Maybe.
We stress one thing or another and we need our brethren to balance us out.
Maybe we're very preoccupied with what's with the hedge side of things and with order.
And maybe we press.
Faithfulness, which is good.
But in isthmus, here was faithful and beloved.
There may be beloved brethren that you try to you follow them and it's a crooked path. Or maybe they're get discouraged one week and the next week they're all encouraged and they're up and they're down and they're in and they're out. But they're beloved. They're sweet.
We love them and they love us.
Well, what a wonderful thing that the Spirit of God produces in a man like Onissimos.
The fruit of the Spirit of God, and of being near the Lord, so it can be said of Him.
He was faithful and beloved.
There was a brother maybe 10 years ago up up in the north US and we buried him and I believe the Lord let us to put this on his stone, faithful and beloved, what a valuable thing.
Now inisma one time if you turn to Philemon for I sit back down.
The little book just before Hebrews.
Miss Philemon wasn't always a faithful and beloved brother.
The way I piece it together, Philemon, I mean, excuse me, Onissimus.
Was apparently a runaway slave.
I've read that his name literally means profitable or profit bringing.
And in the verse 11 of Philemon.
Paul makes, as I understand it, a play on words he says, referring to an isthmus that in time passed he was to the unprofitable but profitable now to the and to me.
As I piece it together, he had run away and somehow he ended up in prison and somehow he came in contact with Paul and Paul led him to the Lord and he became a brother.
Because in verse 10 of Philemon it says, I beseech thee for my son on Isimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds.
And so Paul considered this man a son in the faith.
But the reason I turn here, other than the connection with Onissimos, is there's this beautiful spirit that the apostle Paul is able to display with Philemon.
00:55:06
And this is a spirit that it would be nice if there was a liberty for us to display amongst ourselves if we had this pattern with each other and if we had this confidence in each other to be able to say such things like Paul writes in verse eight and nine. Now Paul was an apostle and we read in other places that he had power to do some fairly what you and I would call heavy-handed things.
To deliver such a one unto Satan and so on.
And we see what happened to some imposters and some enemies of the faith that cross paths with the apostle when he was doing the work of the Lord.
People are going off blind and other things like that. He was, he was a man that they apparently didn't think much of to look at.
But he had the power of God behind him in his work with the Lord, and so he had an authority.
That was given him from the Lord, the head of the Church.
But notice in verse eight he says, Wherefore though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoying thee, that which is convenient. In other words, I have this authority, Philemon, to just write and tell you what I want you to do.
Yet for Love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such a oneness, Paul the agent, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ, I beseech thee for Onissimus, my sons, my son.
Well, this is beautiful.
For Love's sake, I rather beseech thee, being such a oneness by the aged. And he's able to say further that.
Down in verse 14.
I'm sorry, verse 21 Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say.
Paul had this official power.
And yet he was pressed to not have to use that or resort to that.
He basically used that which he had earned through love, and he's able to write to his brother Philemon.
And say, you know, it would be really nice if you did this and he doesn't press it officially.
And he says, I just beseech thee, I love you. You love me. Trust me in this. This would be a good thing to do. I'm using my words. And at the end, he says, you know, I have confidence that you're going to even do more than I say. What a what a do you have a friend like that?
I bet many of us do.
People that we could call in a pinch, or people that we need something, whether spiritual or natural.
And we know that they are for us and that they would do what they could to help us out or to help somebody. We felt it was important that they helped.
And so in Paul, you had a faithful and beloved brother. You had one with the.
Hebrews 13 Authority and yet the sweetness of one in first Peter 5.
Who bound humility on himself?
And displayed that amongst the Saints of God.
One time I was visiting in a place that I had lived, so I knew the brethren there very well.
But I was a visitor.
And there was a brother who was coming out with his family for quite some time, and he always seemed to be a little cranky and have his nose off to one side about this and that. And he was coming, but he was not really hadn't taken his place at the Lord's Table.
And after the meeting, I was out in the parking lot visiting around, you know, and he came over to me and we exchanged greetings and he started to list out some of his complaints.
And the one was this one this time was, you know.
I know you guys profess that you do everything by scriptural order, but he says, you know, I read about elders and I read about oversight in the word of God and he says.
I've been coming here for a while, he says. I don't know anybody in here that's an overseer or that would answer to that.
01:00:06
Because like, like Heinz was saying about Brazil, in that place there were a lot of young men were the oldest ones who by this time were only in their late 30s maybe.
And for some reason, my answer to him, he got a little bit surprised to myself. I said, well, I said, that's good that you've been coming here that long and you don't know who they are. That's I'm really happy about that.
Said if you were to come and to identify yourself with this place and go in and out amongst the Saints and be at the Lord's table here.
And if you acted in a disorderly way, I guarantee you, you would find out who they were.
But I said the fact that you don't know, I said, I think that's a good thing. And I know for a fact that the brothers who took the lead in that assembly had a real care for that man's soul.
Eventually, he did take his place at the Lord's Table.
But again, why? Why did I get up here? What do I have on my heart?
To summarize, it's this.
Is that we wouldn't be here today.
If it weren't for the grace of God keeping our feet in some manner in this path.
And we wouldn't be here happily if we didn't have an exercise about things that are right and orderly.
As the brother laid out in the reading meeting very emphatically, those things to me are just Givens. That's what I was taught when I was first saved, and I've never heard anything that would contradict that or seen anything in the Word of God.
But it can't just be that, can it?
Years ago when when a lot of us were single, we went to Otter Lake and Brother Gordon impressed upon us.
He says, you know, when you get married and you're the head of the home, it's not just, you know, running, I'm using my words, not his. It's not just running a tight ship and all of that and having everything, you know, the kids all ready to go at the right time and everybody with socks that match and all the rest. But he says as the as the as the father and the husband, you're responsible for the tone in your in your home and in your family.
And I remembered that sometimes I remember it.
You know, with shame, but as the Father and as the head of the home, we're responsible for the tone or in scriptural language, I I suppose the word we would use is the spirit in our home.
We set the tone in the home. Is it a tone like we all like to enjoy in the assembly of of being for me?
Is that my wife's impression of Maine towards her? I'm just flat out for her. Is that my children's impression?
Is there order and faithfulness, but also that tone, that atmosphere that we all crave to be loved and to be understood?
And so when our assemblies, we're thankful for order, we're thankful.
That we have guidance from the Word of God to find a right path.
But how careful we need to be that the tone of things is right.
That when we come together, when fresh converts are brought in, or those that are discouraged or.
In pain or wounded or any of the things that happened in the course of a life.
That there is that sweet tone of not just the faithful brother, but the beloved brother.
And so would to God, we're all, not just the fathers and mothers, but all of us in the assembly.
Desiring to have a right spirit.
The last if Second Timothy was the last epistle in the Scriptures that the apostle Paul penned, and maybe there's something of significance in the very last verse of that epistle where it says the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy Spirit, grace be with you.
How important it is in these last days when the enemy seeks to just wear out the Saints with trouble after trouble and trial after trial.
Now we don't just seek to do the right thing, but to have the right spirit in what we do.
And in our relations with all our brethren.
01:05:03
Cortana.
Your hands.
Do you hear me? I'm sorry, I'm just getting to our clouds.
Perfection, The Truth, Isaiah 40
Open—D. Martin, S. Stewart, J. House
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.
Because we look at some verses in Job.
We've had something of perfection in our readings and I'd just like to consider.
An aspect of perfection that I trust you'll understand in no way would conflict with anything that we've had in our reading meetings. I would just like to suggest a few thoughts on perfections that we can perhaps enjoy even now, even though it's already been said in the in the reading meetings that perfection is something that we will only realize and appreciate when we see his face for the first time yet.
While we're here.
May some of the perfections that we find in His Word and in His person overwhelm our hearts. And that's what I'd like to look at now in Job.
00:05:12
To introduce it.
In.
The 37th chapter of Job in verse 16. This is something that keeps coming back to me. Maybe a few here have heard me say something about this before, but it's the thought that's been overwhelming me for months, and it just keeps coming back. And I'd like to just suggest some of these thoughts to us this afternoon. And that is in the 16th verse. Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him, which is perfect.
In knowledge when we consider all around us in the vastness of the creation of of the universe and realize that we know the Creator.
How wondrous it is as we consider His signature and His imprint in everything around us. Do we consider that? Do we appreciate that the One who is the creator of it all? As we now look over to the 36th chapter and read the fourth verse where it says.
He that is it perfect in knowledge is with thee.
And that's a thought that.
I don't know if I can convey properly but.
We, I, I guess I have to say, we're so involved. I'm so involved in myself and in my own life and in everything that happens in my life, my family, my assembly, the things that.
Are so close to each one of us, we tend to see things through our own perspective.
But when we consider the works of the one who is perfect in knowledge and then realize that the one who is responsible for creating all of this says, I am with you.
How insignificant are we in the light of all of that?
The thought of of the creator of the universe recognizing me little.
Me, a dust mite on a hot air balloon. And yet he says, I who know everything, I'm with you. That thought just overwhelms me. What does it matter who I am, what my thoughts are, what my problems are, what my concerns are, what my exercises are? Even when I realized that the one who spoke and it was so, says I am with you.
And in the light of that, I just like to read 5 references in the New Testament that speak of perfection. And again, it's not anything that would differ from anything that we've heard this morning, but just perhaps add another perspective to it, and that is to look in Colossians.
Chapter one and verse 28.
Well, let's read 27 just to get the context. To whom we would make, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles? Which is Christ in you? The hope of glory, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. And we've had the thrill.
Explanation of the teaching of the sense of that perfection this morning, but I would just also like to suggest perhaps that we realized that.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And I don't know if it's I'm the only one who perhaps has a tendency to think this way. But sometimes we get so used to things growing old that we lose sight of the newness and the perfection of who we are in Christ. Those of us who know what it means to be parents when we see the perfection.
Of a new born child, the sentiments that overwhelm us, that sweep over us. Well, think of how God sees us when we're born again. Imagine the joy in the heart of God, the Creator, the one who's perfect in knowledge as he looks on you, as he looks on me, as we're born again and sees that new life within us. Does that new life ever become old?
00:10:16
It doesn't. And we have perhaps a tendency to think, well, you know, back when I was saved however many years ago.
And then we start, you know, looking at how things have progressed and how things have changed and certainly how we should have grown and realized we haven't grown nearly as much as we should. But the newness of who we are in Christ, I don't believe, ever grows old with God. And may we see ourselves as God sees us perfect in Christ, in a newness and an eternal newness.
That never grows old and will find its fulfillment for eternity in His presence. And now let's look.
In first John.
Chapter 4.
And verse 17.
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world perfect. There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Perfect.
In love, I can't begin to tell you how afraid I can be.
And I just began to realize that as I've read this verse over and over again. The fears that can come in and spoil the perfection. Fears of things in this world, of things that threaten us in every way possible. Fears of things that threaten the assembly and those that we love and the Lord's people. How we can. How many sleepless nights perhaps some of us have spent in the past year. The fear, the torment, the anguish, the pain.
That has had a tendency to, well, overwhelm my own heart. And then I realized it's because I don't realize and appreciate and understand the perfection of His love, not just for me.
But for each one of his people and for the assembly and for each one of his own, not just those that are gathered to his name or professed to be, but each one of his own. And I would just say this, I would say, what are you afraid of?
Are we afraid of not being gathered to the Lord's name when He comes? Is that something that causes us to act in certain ways that perhaps are not?
A showing out, a manifesting of the perfection of His love.
What's more important to my own heart, that I be gathered to His name, or that the Lord, before He comes, manifest His grace and mercy and power to His people in such a way that for eternity we will never, ever forget how the Lord was strong on behalf of those whose hearts were perfect towards Him. May we desire that the Lord would act, Not that we would be faithful, as important as that is, but may our hearts desire be that the Lord would act and glorify His name in His people before He comes.
Let's look over now in Second Corinthians.
Chapter 12.
And verse 9.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
I don't know if there's any time when we felt weaker, perhaps.
When we realized how weak we are in ourselves.
00:15:03
But you know, there's a verse at the end of Psalm 78 that I just enjoyed recently once again, and that is when Speaking of David, he guided them. He fed them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his hand. And you know, we tend to perhaps think of strength sometimes as brute force. And if there was ever any strength or power, it's in.
The person of the God's head, the Lord Jesus, the Father, all that we know of his infinite glory and power, but the skillfulness of his hand. It's not brute strength, it's absolute power used with perfect discernment and balance in our lives. And may we value that in our weakness. May we appreciate the perfections of the strength that he brings to bear in gentleness.
In our lives, in our lives as individuals, and in our assembly lives together, and as we consider all that exercises, each one of us so deeply. Or should.
Now if we could look at another reference to perfection in Hebrews.
At the end in chapter 13.
And it's at the.
20th verse that I'd like to start. Hebrews 13 and 20 Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen.
There is such a thing as a perfect work. And why is it perfect? Because God has prepared it beforehand. The works that He's given us to do are just those which He's prepared, which He allows us to fulfill according to His perfect will. And so we can look at what He has given to us to do as perfection, because they're His and not ours. And so may we be encouraged to do that which He gives us to do, because it's perfect.
Not because it's great or significant or noticed in any special way, but because it's a perfect work prepared by our loving and perfect Father for us to accomplish in His purposes for us. And now one last reference in John chapter 17.
We know this chapter probably almost by heart, and I have to tell you I struggle with this because this is the Lord's Prayer to his Father, and we know it will be ultimately answered in eternity. But what about now? What are we doing or not doing that would prevent that prayer from being answered to what in whatever measure it might be? And so let's look at verse.
22.
In John 17 and the glory which thou gavest me.
I have given them.
That they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and Thou in me. That they may be made perfect in one and the world, That the world may know that thou hast sent me and has loved them as thou hast loved me.
That is the Lord's desire for us, that we might be made perfect in one. And it's not just for eternity, because it's that the world might know. Certainly the world will know when we appear with Him. But what does the world see of it now?
May it exercise our hearts. May we have a desire, not that we would enjoy fellowship, or that certain things might be other than they are, but that the Lord's Prayer to his Father might be answered.
We turn to a scripture in the Gospel of John to start with.
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John, Chapter 5.
Chapter 5 and verse 46.
For had ye believed Moses?
He would have believed me, for he wrote of me.
But if he believed not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
There was never an honor given to the written word.
Above the honor that the Lord Jesus gave the written word in this verse.
To prefer it even above his own sinks we read in Hebrews.
And chapter 3, that Moses was but a servant in his house, but his son over his own house.
But it's because of the permanency that attaches to the written word. It's settled forever in heaven that He gives it this high honor.
And that's really.
What's on my heart and I'd like to look at a few scriptures and bring them together.
To that end.
Of the exaltation of the word, of the truth.
Could we turn over to the end of the Gospel of John?
John, Chapter 21.
Starting with verse one, after these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberius.
Just stop there.
It says in verse 14, this was the third time that he showed himself. The first time was connected with the first hymn we sang today, and that was in resurrection when he appeared in that upper room.
Having sent Mary Magdalene with that message, I ascend unto my Father, your Father, my God, and your God.
With that message of Christian truth, a relationship that.
He had always had.
As the Son was the father, but new to them, they were going to be brought into that place before the Father.
And so he appears to them, he says, Peace be unto you. And he shows them his hands and his sides, and then with the disciples glad when they saw the Lord, and he sends them forth in the Father's name. And so in resurrection he breathes that life into them, and the power of resurrection, and says, Receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God being the power of that life. And he sends them forth in the Father's name, and the good of that new relationship they were brought into.
And it's really Christian ground. That was the first appearing. The next appearing was in that upper room again eight days later. And there was one there who had not been there. The first time was Thomas. He had refused to believe.
That the Lord was risen, and so he abode in the darkness of that unbelief, until the Lord appeared that second time.
There's no message for Thomas to receive. I ascend to my Father and your father, my God and your God. There's no being sent forth in the Father's name. There's no in breathing.
To Thomas receive ye Holy Spirit, but as he sees those wounds in his hands on his side and receives that message of peace, he says my Lord and my God a picture of Israel the next appearing of Christ to his own and that private meeting he's going to have like Joseph with his brethren as he revealed himself to them and he shows that it was God's purpose that.
He went down into Egypt for their deliverance, and so Christ will reveal himself to his own, that remnant, and restore them to himself, and will appear to their deliverance, and they'll own him, my Lord and my God. Now this is the third time He appears, and it looks on to the day of His power and glory in the millennial Kingdom. And I'm not going to take time to read it all, but I think we're fairly familiar with the scene. The Lord is standing on the shore. The disciples are out fishing.
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And he calls to them, have you any meat? I say, no. They didn't recognize the Lord right away, but he was closest to the Lord in affection. After the Lord had told them to put the net over the side and they drew on those fishes, he says it's the Lord, it's the Lord. And they drew a great net full of fishes, and they dragged it to the shore. And for all the multitude of those fishes, the net wasn't broken.
It draws our thoughts back to a day when the Lord said to Peter.
Cast that net out and they drew it in and the net began to break. And as they loaded that ship up, the ship began to sink. And he cast himself at the Lord's feet and said, depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, but here in millennial perfection.
Then that doesn't break. The ship doesn't sink. They draw the net to shore. It's full of great fishes. There's no good to be put in vessels and bad to throw away. Everyone's a good fish.
Everyone is a good fish.
John was called by the Lord in the beginning of his ministry, and when he was called, the Lord found him, ending next here. The net doesn't need to be mended. It's millennial glory. It's all perfection. Though He uses man. It's manifestly the Lord's power in that day. No fish to escape through big holes in the net.
No bad doctrine. You know, the gospel that's gone out today and it gets holes in it. The doctrine of Christ has been corrupted in this world and the truth has been slighted. And so John's on the shore there when the Lord calls him, and he's busy mending Nets. And when the Lord leaves him, that's going to be his work. When the Lord's gone, he's going to have to mend the Nets.
And so John's ministry has a character of mending up the truth when it got misused, when it was discarded. I don't want to say broken, the truth can't be broken, but he had amending character in his ministry. The doctrine of Christ had become corrupted, and the Spirit of God used him to mend up finesse. I'd like to go to the end of the chapter.
Having just given that in a little synopsis.
And verse 17.
He said unto him, the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him, the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
I believe.
As Paul says of Peter, that he was the apostle of the circumcision, that this is the Jewish sheep.
Peter was especially charged with their care.
Verily I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou gerdest thyself, and walkest whither thou wittest. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry the whither thou wittest. Not this spake he signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he said unto him, Follow me, What important those words to Peter, who said he would follow the Lord?
To prison and to death. He couldn't in his own strength. And now the Lord says follow me. Oh Peter, what does it mean? Yes, you will follow him to prison and to death. And the Lord told him what death he would die and glorify God.
Peter turning about, see if the disciple whom Jesus loved following, which also leaned on his breast at supper and said, Lord.
Which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, And what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, What is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die. Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die, but if I will, that he tarry till I come.
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What is that to thee?
There's practical lessons that can be gleaned from this portion, but what I want to bring out of it is that Peter and John here are typical of two systems of things.
Peter, being the apostle to the circumcision, was closely linked with John. We often see them together in the Gospels, in their ministry. They were probably closer in affection to one another than Peter and his own brothers. We see them on the mount together. We see them here together as the Lord gets up from this meal he had prepared for his own, and he begins to walk down the shore, and he says to Peter, follow me. John isn't going to be left behind. And immediately he goes to follow.
Behind the Lord as well, and so they're linked together.
In connection with the Ministry to the circumcision.
Now in the beginning, when the gospel was preached, and the day of Pentecost and those years ensuing, the gospel went something like this. Repent.
And be baptized.
Repent because this nation is guilty of crucifying their Messiah. Be baptized and come on a new ground separate from this nation, which is under the judgment of God. Save yourselves from this unto our generation. And the Lord added to the church daily, not such as worse say, but such as should be saved. That is, they would be delivered from the wrath that was going to come, the judgment that was going to come upon that nation for crucifying their Messiah. And so Peter said, repent and believe, and the heavens that have received the Son of God are going to open, and he's going to come back and introduce those times of refreshing.
Promised by the prophets, the millennial glory in the Kingdom and Israel would be restored and brought in to replace.
Once again at the head of the nations, and the times of blessing will flow out to this earth, and their expectation was for the Lord to come and set that up.
And the church in those days had a character, if I can say the system of things in which it replaced Israel.
No longer the congregation of the Old Testament, but now a new one. A new one.
And it replaced that earthly Old Testament system of things.
But Peter says judgment must begin at the House of God.
Judgment must begin at the House of God, and so that earthly system of things was going to come to an end. Peter found out what death he would die. And so the Jews rejected the gospel that was preached. They took Stephen, cast him out of the city, and stoned him. He looked up and saw into the open heavens the Son of God standing on the right hand.
Of the throne of God waiting to come back and introduce those times of refreshing. And we never see them standing again at the right hand of God. Now he's taken his seat and they refused that offer.
They refused it, and then the Spirit of God raises up a man's Saul of Tarsus.
And he's converted in a wonderful way, and we know, and we've had brought much before us over many years of the ministry of Saul of Tarsus, whose name was Paul. And he introduces a heavenly system of things. Not an earthly system of things, of a view of the church as a replacement of that Old Testament congregation, but a new and heavenly system of things, of a bride called out of this earth.
Of a heavenly people, Jew and Gentile, joined in one body, a Newman.
And we've gotten that in Ephesians.
In 8070 the general Titus came with his armies to Jerusalem, and he destroyed that city, and before he did an offer went out to any who wanted to leave. They could leave, and the Christians left.
They left that city, and Titus with his armies destroyed it, and in contradiction to his own express commandment that the Temple be saved, it was torn down, and there was not one stone left upon another that the word of the Lord would be fulfilled.
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And two systems of things came to an end, the Old Testament.
System under the Law of Moses came to a full end, having rejected the gospel preached by Peter and the others beginning at Pentecost, and the temple was destroyed.
But that earthly system of things in which the church was looked at as a replacement of that congregation.
Waiting for the Lord to come and bring in the millennial blessing.
Also came to an end and Peter, the apostle of the circumcision.
He glorified God in his death on a cross.
And the heavenly system continued on. And that's what we have today.
And that's what we have in the book of Ephesians, the mystery that was hid in God, now made known for the obedience of faith to all nations. That secret that was hid in the heart of God from a past eternity. That the Lord Jesus Christ would be head over all things, not just on the earth as they expected to the Messiah, but in heaven also. And that he would have a companion, a bride, to share that place of glory with him, his body.
Flesh and of his bone.
And that system continued on, and so Peter and John continued down the shore.
And Peter finds that he's going to die.
And he says, what about this man? What about this man?
What is that to thee, Peter, If he continued till I come, What is that to thee? Follow thou me.
And so Peter, who said judgment must begin at the House of God, it did, and that temple was destroyed.
And judgment began at the House of God. But now John continues on. Paul is beheaded. He's with Christ, which he said himself was far better. The other apostles persecuted, some martyred. All gone but John.
John continues on down the shore, following Christ.
And he who was so closely linked with the apostle of the circumcision is left here to watch over that heavenly system of things that continues today.
That was brought out by Paul, not by John, but the Lord leaves him here as the guardian.
Of that system of things.
He's watching over it. He's mending the Nets.
Turn to.
First, John.
He too saw judgment beginning at the House of God.
And we get that in Revelation.
Chapters 1-2 and three.
And judgment will begin at the House of God once again, this time in connection with that heavenly system of things.
That's yet to come.
John First John chapter 5.
Verse one.
Whosoever believeth.
That Jesus is the Christ who is born of God.
And everyone that loveth him, that begat loveth him also, that is begotten of him.
Why do we love the children of God?
Because of who their father is.
You know, there's a lot of little rascals running around our meeting room.
A lot of different personalities, a lot of troubles. Some of those personalities sometimes come out in such not such a nice way. And the other fathers and mothers I'm sure can say the same thing. But you know.
I love them.
Why? Because they're always nice.
Because they're always well behaved.
No, I love them because of who their parents are.
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I love them because of who their parents are. Why do we love the children of God? Because they're nice. Because they're always well behaved.
Now you know what I mean. We love them because of who begat them.
Because of who begat them.
By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God.
And keep his commandments.
I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in truth. Because if we don't have the truth, we don't have love either.
The manifestation that I love God is that it keep His commandments. The Lord said If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. If I care not for His commandments, then I don't care for Him, and if I don't care for he who begat, then I don't really love those that are begotten of Him.
Without the truth, we don't have anything.
Oh, we had some helpful thoughts on hedges.
And on plants.
And we've had some helpful thoughts on lowliness and meekness.
The way we're to conduct ourselves.
Some helpful exhortations to lay to grow up.
But brother, and above all, is the truth.
It's the truth.
All what attracted your soul?
To this place.
I can tell you for my own self, it was the truth. I heard the truth spoken and I knew what it was in my soul. And where the truth is spoken and acted on, there will be love, there will be loneliness, there will be hedges, there will be plants, there will be all those things that are so necessary.
Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. If you believe not his words, how we believe what I say, He's exalted it above all His name.
And this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous.
Oh, how I remember. Pardon the personal reference.
Those bracing exhortations.
That we received as young men going from house to house, sitting in the living room of this older brother. That older brother being at conferences or meetings. I the words start ringing my ears. You young brothers ought to forego a few hamburgers and buy some good ministry.
We needed that.
We needed that.
Those brethren who addressed us like sergeants in God's army and made us stand up straight and said you got to get into the truth. Those things that in the camp they say, oh, that's hair splitting. It doesn't matter. You say to a brother at work, I said you want to take all these beautiful things in the word of God and make a meatloaf out of it. Just mash it all up and make it all the same and you lose out on all the delicacies, the perfections, the beauties of the truth of God.
Our brother Brinkman mentioned about his granddaughter reading Revelation. I know a.
Young brother, the first book of Ministry bought was on Revelation, and if I know young men, they love that book. The Lord wins in the end. There's armies and there's battles and there's all those things and there's they just want to dig into it.
We need the truth.
We need to be grounded in it, rooted in it, built up in it. Love, loneliness, all those things will flow from it.
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Our brother Stuart was.
Spoke at the beginning of his talk about the important place that the Word of God has been given by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yesterday afternoon, our brother Heinz spoke about the importance of the Shepherd.
Another brother spoke on plants and about hedges, the need to protect that which is growing.
Our brother Martin spoke about perfection.
And Thursday night and in the prayer meetings.
There is much prayer that there would be encouragement for the people of God, and I'd like to bring that together by looking at a few verses here in Isaiah chapter 40. We'll start with verse one.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
That's why we're here.
The Lord wants to encourage us to build us up so that we can keep on going for Him.
There may not be much time left, but He wants us to keep going.
Till the end.
Verse 4. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.
Start at the end of the verse. The rough place is plain. There are hard times. There are easier times a conference like this. I know that personally. It seems so easy to go on for the Lord.
It's not that easy. When you get out, you're working. Your coworkers don't love the Lord. You fellow students don't love the Lord.
Doesn't seem like there's very many who love the Lord, yet you come here and you find out that there are lots who love the Lord and you're encouraged.
The rough place is made plain.
That's what the time like this can do. It can take out some of the bumps, give us what's needed to keep on going.
The crooked shall be made straight.
Many things in life we don't understand.
We don't know why this happens. We don't know why that happens.
What the Lord does?
Everything happens for a purpose. All things work together for good. To them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose, there's a reason for everything.
And it will only work for our good and the end and.
When we get to heaven, I'll be able to look back and what I'll say is the little hymn said that we sung this morning. We'll be able to say how good is the God we adore.
Every mountain and hill shall be made low.
I like to think of times like this at conferences and get togethers of the young people and the brethren as mountains. You're a spiritual high, you're with your brethren, you're having sweet fellowship, precious ministry being.
Spoken of for being exhorted and built up in our holy faith.
And then we get back to the grind, and we need the Lord's help to continue on through the grind.
To keep going and he can do it. He'll be with us. He promised that. He said, Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world.
Every valley shall be exalted.
David in Psalm 23 said, yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, valleys of the hard times, times that are rough to take.
You know it says here every valley shall be exalted.
At the end of Psalm 23.
David comes out with that blessed verse, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
The House of the Lord will only seem so much sweeter because we've been through the valley of the shadow of death.
These times that we're passing through, where there's division, there's arguing.
And doesn't seem as though there's much love amongst the brethren. There are a hard time. They're a valley. Yet the Lord is with us. That doesn't change. May seem as though everything is changing, everybody's changing. Nothing is consistent, but He's consistent. And if we depend on Him.
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He'll be with us. He'll never let us down.
Verse 8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.
Lord Jesus said heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. We're guaranteed. It's the one thing that we can turn to no matter what the time, no matter where we are, no matter what we've done. We can read it, we can find encouragement, and we can use it to draw closer to Him that died for us.
Verse 11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom, and he shall gently lead those that are with young.
The Lord Jesus is the great Shepherd. He's tender. He's compassionate. He cares for each one of us.
My brother Heinz spoke about the hireling.
The hireling fleece.
The Lord's promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us.
He'll gather the Lambs with his arm.
The Lord's lament over Jerusalem and Matthew, he said. How often would I have gathered you as a hen, gathereth or chicks? That's a challenge to my soul as well as to yours. Do I let the Lord and my private life gather me under Him? Do I want to spend time with Him so that He can encourage me?
So that I can tell them what's bothering me.
So that if necessary, he can show me what I need to do so that I can live my life.
For His honor and glory.
The rest of the chapter is speaking about the glory of the Lord.
And how powerful he is.
But I just like to look at the last few verses. Verse 29 He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increases the drink.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as Eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
At a conference like this, we can get much encouragement. That's one of the ways that the Lord uses to give us power. Reading your Bible every day, even if it's only for a couple of minutes, give you enough to get through the day. You don't have to spend hours in prayer. Just talk to him a little bit. He wants to talk to you.
Even the youths shall faint.
Just to continue on every day.
Start it with a bang. Start it running. Run fast. If you're going to run the marathon, you can't Sprint the whole way.
You have to pace yourself.
But with the Lord you can do that. You can pace yourself.
Are you pacing yourself spiritually?
You depend on him. Spend time in prayer.
Each day is to be with him to gather the need of strength.
But they that wait upon the Lord, that's the key. It's not in our power. We can't.
Resolve any assembly difficulties. We can't do anything. We can't continue on. It's only through the Lord they that wait upon the Lord.
I have trouble doing that.
It's not easy just to say, Lord, it's in your hands.
But if we do, it'll bring peace to our souls, and it'll bring blasting in our Christian walk.
They shall mount up with wings as Eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
With the Lord.
He knows our each individual needs.
Some of us may be able to run spiritually, some of us may have to walk spiritually. It doesn't matter. The Lord wants to be with you and he'll keep going by your side. Like the poem Footprints, where the man looks back and he sees only one set of footprints. And the Lord says, that's when I carried you.
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That's maybe what come down comes down to in our lives.
But I think the reason why the prophet puts run and the spirit told the prophet to put run in here.
As well as walk is to accommodate the different stages of a Christian life.
And not faint.
Running, you're going fast. Walking, you aren't going so fast. Not fainting.
Implies that you may not even be moving at all, just standing still. That's what the Apostle Paul exhorts us to do in Ephesians after putting on the whole armor of God to stand.
To hold on, even if it's only just a little while, till He comes back. To hold on to the truth, the truth that He's given us in His precious word. May we do that till we come.
Or the.
Strong.
In Falls Fall 126.
Verse 3.
The Lord has done great things for us.
Whereas we are glad.
Turn again. Our captivity, O Lord, is the stream South.
May that sow in tears.
Shall reap the joy, he that goeth forth and weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. 127 Except the Lord built the house, they labor in vain that build it.
That the Lord keeps the city to watch him wake his **** in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early to sit up late to eat the bread of sorrows, or so can give it to beloved sheep, please.
Low children.
Our heritage of the Lord.
And the fruit of the womb is his reward.
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As arrows are in the hands of a mighty man, so are the children of the Union.
Happiest man that hath his quiver full of death.
Shall not be ashamed.
They shall speak with the enemies and the gates.
Psalm 144.
Verse 12.
That our son.
Maybe as plants grown up in their youth.
That our daughters.
May be as cornerstones polished after the similitude of the palace.
Lepers
Gospel—M. Payette
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A Savior who suffered on Calvary's 3A Savior is willing to save now as ever. His arm is almighty, His love great and free. Number 10 on your hymn sheet. Someone start it for me please.
There is a savior on.
The Lord.
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Prayer.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee tonight. We can sing of such a Savior on high in the glory, the one who hung in that cross of Calvary, to stand before thee, our God, and bear the punishment our sins deserve. And we just thank thee for thy long-suffering, Father, over this world, and which each one of us tonight. And thou are not willing that any should perish, but also come to repentance. And we thank Thee once again, Father tonight for the liberty of opening thy word and speaking from its pages.
And we trust with Thy help, telling others about the Lord's Jesus, the delight of thy heart. We pray for Thy blessing on our time together. Father, we count on Thy help by Thy Spirit. We ask it with confidence that would bless us tonight. In a worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Let's turn to the second Book of Kings.
And chapter 5. The second Kings, chapter 5.
A story that many of us know concerning a man whose name was Naman.
And I think we talked about on that this afternoon, a different 1 spoke about leprosy. And it's a story of a man who is.
Sick with leprosy, and we'll just read some verses here in Two Kings, chapter 5, from verse one. Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid, and she waited on Neyman's wife.
And she said unto her mistress.
With God, my Lord, were with the prophet, that is, in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in and told his Lord, saying Thus. And thus said the Maid, that is, of the land of Israel, And the king of Syria said, Go to go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him 10 talents of silver, and 6000 pieces of gold, and 10 changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying.
Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have their wits sent name, and my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Oh my God, to kill and to make alive, that this man does sin unto me to recover a man of his leprosy. Wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how we seek at a quarrel against me. And it was so when Elijah the Son, the man of God, had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes.
That he sent to the king, saying, whereforest thou rent thy clothes, Let him come now to me.
And he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Damon came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the House of Elijah. And Elijah sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan 7 times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
But Naman was wrought, and he went away, and said, Behold, I taught, he will surely come out to me, and stand, and call the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not a banana and far part rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage, and his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee to do some great thing.
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Would this thou not have done it? How much rather than when he said to thee, Wash and be clean? Then when he down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the sayings of the man of God, and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
Now here's a story of a man.
Who was healed?
But I would say he was almost not healed.
There are so many elements in name and story that could have been different.
And he almost could have been not healed.
But God's purpose was to heal, name was to bless this man and he worked out the path of naman and the circumstances in this man's life for him to be healed.
How did he find out about the possibility of being healed? Well, it was from a prisoner he had taken in one of his wars. A little maiden, the Israelites girl that knew where she lived. There was a man of God with the power of God.
She could have kept that to herself, but she didn't.
I trust this little girl had something in her heart from God which was love for others.
Even love for her Master. She'd been taken away of her land and brought into a strange land and she was to serve there. She could have hated her Master, but she didn't. She had a concern for him and wanted to see him blessed.
And this story within right here if this little girl did not speak up.
Many boys and girls here today you know I know. Some of you know the Lord Jesus.
This mighty man name, and he was right beside the king. You know, it tells us a little bit later on that when he went into the House of his God, the king would lean on name. It was like his right hand, you know, It was right by the king. Real important man, this man named. And this little maiden, this little girl, if she doesn't say what she knew to be true, Naman would never have been healed of his leprosy. But she spoke up.
It's nice for boys and girls who know the Lord Jesus to tell others, little people, big people, tell others about a man of God, not Elijah like in our story, but the Lord Jesus Christ that we've been singing about, the one who went to the cross. And you can heal all the lepers, you know. You know, the leprosy in the Bible is a picture for us of sin. And in that sense, you know, all of my mankind were all lepers. And we all need to be healed from leprosy. We need to be healed from sin and the only thing that can heal us.
Is the Lord Jesus by his blood. And it's wonderful that this little humble girl was used in blessing to this great man by the world standards. Name it. And that should encourage us who know the Lord Jesus to tell others, whether we're young or old to value every opportunity we have to tell others. And I would suggest to you that this young maiden had a fullness of heart that made her speak responsibility for you and I who know the Lord Jesus.
To tell others of the one that should be filling our hearts and we should have his name on our lips. Well, it starts with this girl and then it gets to the ears of the king. She could have said that and nobody carried a message, but somebody else carried the message right to the ears of the king. Now the king could have said.
I need you to rest on name and you can't go. I need you here so much.
But even the king, he had something in his heart for name and to see. Well, it would be a nice thing if Naaman was healed. He gave him a holiday. He let him go. He says you go and I'm going to write a letter. He even wrote a letter for him recommending him. He recommended him to the wrong person because he was ignorantly. I'll do what I can to help. You couldn't take away his leprosy, but he could recommend them. And he recommended him. And he recommended a letter to the king of Israel.
And it comes to the king of Israel. We find here in the king of Israel. He reads the letter.
And he gets all upset. Why is he upset? Because he thinks this is some sort of a trap. The king has sent him a letter to do something that he can't do. And then because he can't do it, he's going to come and make war with him. And he gets all upset and could have stopped right there. You know, Naman could have come with the letter. And the king says, your master just wants to make war with me. I can't do anything for you. Go back home.
00:15:18
But didn't happen that way, Elijah. Elijah heard about it. How did he hear about I don't know, but Elijah heard about it?
Said to the king, Send him to my house. So here's what we have.
There's Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot full of horses and Chariots. I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong place here. There we go.
Chapter 5.
Naaman came with his horses and with his Chariots. There we go, and stood at the door of the House of Elijah. There he is. The man of God is there. Naaman is there outside the door. And there's a possibility for naming. Now he's a lot closer to being healed than he was when he was back in Syria.
But you know, Naman, he was a man of the world, he says. I thought he was expecting things. He was a great man.
He left his country and made all this trip and had all this money with him and change of Raymond and gifts and everything. Oh, because one little girl I know, maybe she was seven or eight or nine, maybe 12. I'd said something and there was enough there for him to say, oh, go. And here he is. And the blessing is slow, but he's an important man. He's there with his horses and his Chariots, and he's expecting Elijah to come out.
But Elijah didn't come up. He sent a messenger. Verse 10. And Elijah sent a messenger unto him, saying.
Go and wash in Jordan 7 times.
That was hard on naming on his pride, you know?
That Elijah didn't come out. He sent a messenger. I'm not important enough for him to come to me. He sends a messenger.
And Golden Wash and Jordan 7 times.
Verse 11 Naaman was wrought and went away, and said, Behold, I thought.
That was Neiman's problem.
He thought, he thought wrong. Now many of us, we think wrong. Naman was thinking according to the standards of the world, how man would do things, how we expect God now to act like a man. God is God and he acts like God.
I thought he will surely come out to me, which he didn't. He didn't come out to him. He sent a messenger.
And he's going to stand and he's going to call upon the name of the Lord, and he's going to move his hand and he's going to pray. And that's how it's going to happen.
You and I tonight, we live in a world where a lot of people think.
This is what you need to do to be right with God. You need to do this. You need to go to church. You need sacraments, you need penitence. You need this, you need that. You need sacrifices, we think.
But God is not a man like us.
You know, this is a beautiful story because it ends with Naaman being cleansed. It's wonderful. But can you see, as we read down the story, how close he was to not being healed? All these elements were chained in his life, and finally he'll be healed. But here he's upset, and he's got his own thoughts, you know, about how things should have been done and it wasn't going to be done the way he thought. So he's going back home.
Ever been like that in your soul? You're upset at God because things aren't the way you thought they should be.
Maybe the Christians around you and treating you the way you thought they should treat you, but that the Christians as they go on together, they're not going on the way you thought they should be going on.
Well, it says here he was upset and he challenged verse 12. Are not Abayna and far par rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? Not only he sent a messenger, he doesn't do anything. Come and pray and put his handle. He says go and bathe in this Little River called Jordan. We have beautiful rivers in Syria, much nicer than Jordan. Why couldn't I take a bath there?
And I'm wondering if in his mind saying why 7 times? Why do I have to go in Jordan 7 times? Why not just once?
This God, this man of God is capricious. That's the right word in English. Capricious, you know, finicky just wants this, this, it's got to be this way and there and seven times and.
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Well, you know, he turned and went away in a rage. He started off from Syria and now he's heading back home to Syria with his leprosy because things weren't the way he thought. That's not what he expected.
But here in verse 13.
His servants came near. Other people intervened in Eamon's life. His servants came near and spade to him and said, My father.
Maybe Naman had real friends in his service. They called him Father, you know. They had a heart for him too, just like the serpent.
They see him going away and he's so close to blessing. They kind of believe maybe, you know, if he just went a bit further, it might happen to him. My father, if the Prophet had bid thee to do some great thing, willest thou that have done it?
How much rather than when he said to thee wash and be clean. You know, I'm sure Naman, if the prophet had said, now you're going to get the biggest pack sack you ever saw, you know, and you're going to fill it with rocks and you're going to go up this mountain here on bare feet. When you get to the top, your feet will be full of blood. And then you're going to ask God because of this wonderful feat that you've done for him to heal you. Well, Naman would have done it, I'm sure. And I'm sure God said to you, I'm going to bless you if you do this, you try and do it.
And they say I did it.
You know, there's no glory for this man of the court of the king of Syria to dip himself seven times in this teeny weeny river in Israel. He's not going to go back home and say I baited seven times in Jordan. He's not going to tell anybody about that, but he might have told him this is how I got healed. God said you go there and you do that and you know what he says it says there verse 14. Then when he down and dipped himself.
Seven times.
In Georgia.
You know 7 * 7 in the scriptures is a number that appears very often.
But I have a question. I'm going to answer it for you. But why seven times?
Why 7 times? Why not six times?
Why not 26 times what it says right there in the next sentence, according to the thing of the man of God? If the man of God had said 26 times, it would have had to dip in Jordan 26 times. But the man of God had said seven times. If you would have gone home to one of these fine rivers of Syria and dipped himself seven times in far apart, would he have been healed?
Now the other river, the Amana, No. What about dipping in Jordan 6 times? Didn't work. Had to be the way the word of God told him to do it.
Now, if you follow his story.
There were a lot of elements there that had to come into place for him to be healed.
When it comes to your story and my story.
It's not that complicated. God didn't ask me to go and dip myself seven times in any river to clean me from my sins. I didn't have to travel from Syria way over to Israel to hear the man of God. The word of God came to me and he told me about the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn't have to change clothes. I didn't have to move position. I didn't have to stand or tornado to lay down. All I had to do was believe in my heart the message that was coming from God to me.
Now Naaman is a good example. He's a man that almost didn't get healed.
And tonight I want to ask you, dear ones here in this room, are you saved tonight?
The Word of God comes to you. It's come to you perhaps many times, perhaps this is the first time you hear it, and I doubt that for most of you, but it's come right to you. There's a Savior on high and the glory, His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. He died on the cross 2000 years ago. He rose again from the dead. And God has been telling men and women and children for 2000 years believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and now shall be saved. Is that too complicated?
It's not complicated at all, you know? But before we go any further, I want to turn to another man who was in a similar position as Naman and his second Kings Chapter 7.
He was another man that the king leaned on.
00:25:01
It's the same prophet, the man of God in Second Kings Chapter 7.
Two, King seven was a time of famine because the Syrians had encircled the city of Samaria and they were in a siege and they were getting very, very weak because they had no food. And things, terrible things were happening in the city because of that. And the king was really upset and he wanted to put Elijah to death. But here's Elijah's prophecy in Chapter 7.
Then Elijah said, Hear ye the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord.
Tomorrow, about this time, shall a measure of fine flower be sold for a shekel.
And two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria.
Then the Lord on whose hand the king leaned, that's the one I want to talk to you about, Hans are the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shall not eat thereof. And there were four leprous men at the entering in the gate and of the gate. And they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? And we say we will enter. If we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there.
If we sit still here, we die also. Now, therefore, come, and let us fall into the host of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we shall live. If they kill us, we shall but die. And they rose up in the twilight to go into the camp of the Syrians. And when they were come to the uttermost part of the campus of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of Chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host.
And they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel had hired against us the Kingdom of the Hittites, and the king of the Egyptians to come upon us. Wherefore there rose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their ***** even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. And when these lepers came to the other most part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried then silver and gold and raiment, and went and hit it, and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried fence also, and went and hit it.
Then they said one to another, we do not. Well, this day is a day of good tidings.
And we hold our peace, if we carry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us. Now therefore come, that we may go and tell the King's household. So they came, and called unto the port of the city. And they told him, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians. And behold, there was no man there, neither a voice of man, but horses tied, and ***** tied in the tents as they were. And he called the porters, and he told it to the King's house within. And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants.
I will now show you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we be hungry. Therefore they are gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of this city, we shall catch them alive and get into the city. And one of his servants answered and said, Let some take, I pray, five of the horses that remain which are left in the city. Behold, they are as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it. Behold, I say, they are even as all the multitudes of Israel that are consumed. And let us send and see. They took therefore 2 Cherry horses. And the king sent after the host of the Syrian saying, Go.
And see, and they went after them unto Jordan, and lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels, with the Syrians had castaway in their haste.
And the messengers returned and told the king, and the people went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of God.
And a king appointed the Lord, on whose hand he leaned, to have the charge of the gate, and the people throughout him in the gate. And he died, as the man of God had said, who spake, when the king came down to him. And it came to pass, as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, 2 measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel shall be tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria. And the Lord answered the man of God, and said, Now behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven.
Might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shall not eat thereof. And so it fell out upon him, and the people trod him in the gate, and he died.
So here's another instance in the life of Elijah, and we find the king here to remember the king of Israel, when he got the letter, he thought the king of Syria was looking for war against him. Here, when the king hears the report, the good news that the Syrians have said always says, no, no, they haven't fled. They're hiding in the woods. They wouldn't come out. They'll jump on us. Didn't believe either, You know, that God was doing your work. You know, the great people in this world are ignorant of what God is doing.
00:30:23
This little girl in the Syrian camp, in the Syrian court there, which was inaudible, she had an idea of who God was and what he could do. Well, what happened here? There was famine, and then God decided to undertake for his people and deliver them from the siege of the Syrians. And this man, the captain, you might say, or the Lord on whom the king leaned, he said something that brought judgment upon him. He was.
Unbelieving.
He was unbelieving.
What does it say in the beginning? He says. Elijah says hear ye.
The word of the Lord Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow at this time shall a measure of fine flower be sold for a shekel in two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria.
That he said the day before. Because that's what's going to be tomorrow.
That's what it's going to sell for tomorrow.
Where'd you get that, Elisha?
From the word of the Lord thus saith.
The Lord, you know what happened. Guess what the price was the next day. Exactly what the word of God had said.
You know what's going to happen tomorrow.
You know what's going to happen in the end of the world.
You know what's going to happen when Lord Jesus comes? Exactly what's written in the Word of God.
And this man said even if God made windows in heaven, that's not going to happen. He put it as a question, but he doubted.
The Word of God, you know, it tells us in Revelation, the unbelievers.
It's not the ones that I've never heard. The unbelievers are those that have heard and have not believed. Do you believe the word of God tonight? The Word of God says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God is that he said we're all lepers.
We need to be healed. We need the leprosy to be taken away. Sin cannot enter into heaven.
And if you have sinned, as the Bible says, you're going to be estranged from God forever unless you can be cleansed from your sins.
You know that man name and he had to travel. There were all those circumstances in his life, he said. He almost wasn't healed, but he was.
Well, I know lepers in the New Testament, you know, you have in this story you have 4 lepers that carry the good news. The good news at that time was that the Syrians were gone and there was plenty of food and resources in their camp and they just needed to come and take it. It was good news for them. That's the good news they needed then.
Thought that as good news for you and good news for me. We have 4 lepers in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Who are these men? These were sinners just like you and me, but they met up with the Lord Jesus Christ and they were cleansed that were made whole. They became sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ like many here. And they have good news. If you read the gospel they'll tell you all all the same thing about the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is who God the Father wants to speak to you tonight about the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to show you from the gospels encounters, it's the same encounters in all the gospels. It's Matthew and Mark and Luke, the 1St 3 gospels, an encounter of a leprous man with the Lord Jesus.
Mark's Gospel chapter one.
Verse 40.
Mark one and 40 and their team a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
00:35:03
There was a man, he was in that condition of a leper. You know, if you look in Leviticus chapter 13, there were different manifestations of leprosy.
Could be a scab, could be a boil, an ulcer, could be spots. We spoke this afternoon. Leprosy of the head and the beard and the hair. There were different manifestations of the same sickness. Well, sin is like that. We have a sinful nature and there are different manifestations of that sinful nature. Can be lying, cheating, it's bad behavior. Could be just things going on in your heart, rumbling in your heart, having bad feelings and bad thoughts. Were somebody malice, speaking evil of others.
All sorts of manifestations of sin and some very gross things that I wouldn't mention here. It's all the same. Sickness called sin has different manifestations. This man was a leopard.
Did he have it on his arm, on his head, in his? I don't know, I don't know. But he had leprosy and he came to the Lord Jesus, beseeching him and kneeling down to him and saying that if thou wilt.
Thou canst make me clean.
If you go see a doctor.
You can tell them what you have and then you can say, can you help me, Doctor? You don't ask the doctor if, if you will, you can, you can heal me. You can't say that to the dog. Can you help me? Can you do something for me? That's not what the leper said. He knew this man, the Lord Jesus, could help him if he wanted to.
This is a remarkable expression of faith. He says, If thou wilt, thou canst make me whole, thou canst make me clean. The question is, do you want to do that for me?
Did the Lord Jesus want to heal this man? You read through these gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Anybody ever come to the Lord Jesus with a sickness, with a problem? He was deaf or mute or blind or a leper and not healed. They're all healed.
And all those that were dead, that were in his presence, he rose from the dead.
So the Lord didn't look him over and say what kind of leprosy you got? Oh, it's a bad case, No.
What kind of sins in your life?
Little since petty sins. There's something in your life you'd be ashamed to confess to anybody but the Lord.
Something that you've done, you're carrying with yourself nobody knows about but yourself. Maybe you're still going on with it. God sees it.
Is it hopeless?
Can a leper have such leprosy that he couldn't be healed by the Lord Jesus Christ?
There's no such thing.
Now he came to the Lord.
But the Lord Jesus, we had read Matthew 11 and 29 beautiful verses about the yoke, but it happened in 28. That's the gospel. The Lord Jesus, come unto me, I'll ye that labor, and I'll be laden. I will give you rest.
He's inviting you to come to him. He didn't get an invitation. This leopard didn't get an invitation. He came. He knew his need.
If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
Verse 41 and Jesus.
Moved with compassion.
Not rejoicing over the opportunity of manifesting his power.
Moved with compassion the heart of God and the need of man. What is there in the heart of God? They say, Hey, you need me. He was moved with compassion the love of God expressed in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Something you never do in the Old Testament to a leper.
You don't touch your leper.
You never touch a leopard because if you touch a leper, you become unclean too.
The lepers in the Old Testament, it says in Leviticus, if he had leprosy, he had to. If he was walking down the aisle of the street, he had to say unclean, unclean, unclean. Nobody ever touched him. This man in his leprosy, nobody ever hugged him.
Nobody ever kissed him because he was a lipper.
Sin isn't like that, you know.
Because sin doesn't isolate us from people, it just isolates us from God. We can have a lot of friends in sin. The only friends we can't have in sin is the Lord Jesus.
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But the leper had no friends but the Lord Jesus, and what did he do?
He didn't say I want you to be clean. He went over and he touched him. He put his hand on him. Never been touched. This person. He's a leper. He touched him.
The Lord Jesus would touch you tonight, my friend.
And said unto him.
I will.
Be thou clean.
Four times in the New Testament. In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus says I will. Just four times, unless I'm mistaken. My friend's concordance might be wrong, but that's all I found.
I found one in Mark, one in Matthew, one in Luke, and one in John. He says I will. He says to the Father, not my will, but thine be done. But here he says I will. What did he want? He wanted that leopard to be cleansed.
He does so the same account in Matthew and Mark and Luke. Three times he says of the leopard, I will be thou clean. Is there any doubt in your heart and mind tonight that the Lord Jesus will want to touch you tonight and make you whole and heal you from your sins?
There's no doubt in my heart that's what he's done for me and he wants to do that for you. And the 4th I will is John 17. We know that verse there with Father I will those whom God has given me be with me where I am. He wants those fairy lepers that he cleans with him in the glory to see his glory in the Father's house. Wonderful news in this the word of God.
Boys and girls, older ones, tonight I can't see in your heart. God says we're all lepers, we're all sinners, and we need a Savior. There's only one Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And tonight the Lord Jesus is able to touch you and make you whole. He's able to save you tonight.
And he will if you'll ask him tonight to be your Savior. He said, Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner. I trust you as my Savior. Somebody, you know, somebody people, they have little prayers. They say say this prayer where the Lord isn't fussy. You know, you could just say, Lord Jesus save me comes from your heart. He understands what you mean and he's going to save you tonight. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Well, our time is almost up. I just want another little comment on the leper, you know.
In the New Testament, in the Bible, you have people that were anointed.
By the command of God, the anointed kings, the anointed prophets, and the anointed priests.
And they anointed lepers.
That's the only four in the scriptures I found anyway, that were anointed prophet priests and kings and lepers. Wonderful to see that God loves the Sinner. I don't know tonight how bad a Sinner. I'm not interested how bad a Sinner you are, but God is interested tonight in saving your soul. Jesus is able tonight for 2004. I'm not sure the date, it's 730. Lord Jesus tonight is able to save everyone in this room.
And if he comes tonight?
He's not going to be able to save anybody that's still going to be in this room after he's come because you've heard the gospel and you're responsible before the Lord Jesus tonight to put your trust in him. Though this man, all he did was doubt the word of God there. And he challenged, how is God? God's going to open the head? How is he going to do that, you know?
But he died just like the word of God said. The word of God says that the unbelieving are going into the lake of fire. But all those that believe don't matter how big a Sinner there was. Maybe they had leprosy in their back and their front, on their hands, on their feet, on their legs, everywhere. But the Lord made them whole. And God can save by the blood of the Lord Jesus. Tonight, everyone of you here, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, we just thanked you for the Lord Jesus, for His work on the cross, for his shed blood, for His suffering for us taking our sins on His own body on the tree, being made sin for us too. We thank you for his victory Father, and for the glorious good news now that was proclaimed to this poor lost world. And thou has given us tonight to share in a measure in this room. We just pray Thee Father, for the boys and girls and older ones too, young people too, without us know the circumstances of our lives. We just thank the Lord Jesus for thy heart of love, thy heart of compassion.
That would touch us tonight and draw us to thyself. We pray there might be blessing in our souls tonight and into lost one soul tonight too. Father, we ask it with confidence and Thanksgiving and the blessed name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.
The Knowledge of God
Gospel—R. Thonney
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Let's start our meeting tonight with number six on our hem sheets.
God in mercy sent his Son to a world by sin and done. Jesus Christ was crucified to us for sinners. Jesus died.
Oh, the glory of the grace shining in the Savior's face, telling sinners from above. God is light and God is love number six.
God in mercy.
Let's.
Right, and our God and our Father were thankful for the Lord Jesus, and that through him we have come to know thee. And tonight.
Our thought in this meeting is that perhaps there are some who have not accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior here in this room. We're concerned about them, Father, and this is the purpose of this meeting to address.
00:05:15
Such a person, if there is, we pray that there might be a hearing here so that Thy word could penetrate. Father, we ask for blessing wherever the message goes out. Bless Thy precious word. We pray here as well, in that most worthy name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Like to read a verse first of all in?
Say about 3 verses in chapter four of Two Corinthians.
Pistol of Paul to the Second Corinth to the Second Corinthians.
Chapter 4 and verse 3.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believed not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants, for Jesus sake. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
What I'd like to speak on.
Tonight is the knowledge of God. You know this world that we live in. People have different concepts as to who God is. Even here in the United States, where the light of the gospel has shined out for many years, people have different interesting, weird ideas about who God is.
God does not leave us in the dark as to who He is.
He has given us a complete revelation of who He is.
In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ here in verse six it says He has shined in our hearts.
To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Oh, how wonderful it is to be able to say that we have been brought to know God.
God is so immense in his being, infinite in his power. How could a human being like myself ever be brought to know Him?
God has revealed Himself in the Person.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ, his beloved Son. And now we can say we know.
God, oh, what a wonderful thing that is.
You know, in the world we live there's a lot of darkness and increasing darkness as to the knowledge of God.
The Muslim religion that is supposedly the fastest growing religion in the world says God is unknown and unknowable.
Isn't that tragic? Over a billion people profess allegiance to a religion where God is unknown and unknowable.
We go over to the land of India, a land where there is, I understand now, over a billion in population. There's another religion, the Hindu religion, and if I remember rightly, Hindu religion says there are approximately 300,000 gods.
And one of the highest manifestations of God in the Hindu religion.
00:10:00
Get ready for this is the cow.
You laughed, but the cows wandered down the major avenues of that country, and you'd better not bother it that's gone.
Sad.
It is not the true revelation of God.
God has been manifested in His own Word, in the Person.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
His beloved Son God is known today. You know what the Scripture says. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
Oh, I revel in the fact that I can say.
This poor rebel Sinner, saved by the grace of God, I can say I have been brought to know God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know God? You know what concerns me?
I like to ask young people sometimes about God. What's God like?
And I get a lot of interesting responses.
But God has revealed himself. We can know what God is like.
And you know, in Judaism, in the Old Testament, which was a religion ordained by God, God was known, but it was a partial revelation.
And in Judaism, I like to think of it that the focus was more on man and if he could render to God what was due to God. Man showed himself a complete failure. And God in effect said at the end of that time of trial, they took those Jewish people, took their own Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And took him to the Roman authorities and had him hung on a cross.
The most awful crime they could ever think of doing. God says, in effect, the test is over. I'm not going to test man any longer. He's shown himself to have failed. Now I want to reveal to you what I am. And God in Christianity has revealed himself fully in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that very awful crime that they committed.
God has taken it, turned it around and made it the means of the greatest blessing that this world.
Has ever known salvation full and free to the Sinner that repents and believes simply in the Lord Jesus Christ?
God is known that, you know, what concerns me again, I say, is the fact that we're sitting here.
Amongst a group of people that I would guess most of us would say we're Christian.
And yet.
Amongst the Lord's 12 disciples of those 12.
One was not real.
I don't know how many were here tonight. 100 and 5200 people maybe.
Is there somebody that's not real here?
You say you're a Christian, but you know deep down in your heart you've never come to grips with your relationship with God. God is holy. God is omniscient. He knows everything. Somebody said some time ago to me.
One of the characteristics of God is that he can never learn anything.
He knows everything. He never learns anything. He knows everything. He knows every detail of your life. Those things that you've forgotten about, he knows about. And you can fool me. I've been fooled by a lot of people. Yeah, I suppose there will be a lot of other subtle Fool me too.
But as God looks at you tonight, you are completely manifest in His presence.
The Word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His presence, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
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Be warned.
I really fear that there are those who have been brought up.
As I was brought up in the meeting, so-called, we say.
Where we hear the word of God.
And yet never come to grips with the issue of our soul's salvation. Most important question you'll ever face is what you do with Jesus here and now in this life. It will determine your eternal destiny.
Two days ago in Washington DC, I had the privilege of visiting the Chilean consulate.
In that downtown Washington, DC.
He is a son of a brother in fellowship in Santiago, Chile.
He went to Sunday school as a boy.
I said, what is your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ?
He knows the gospel.
He doesn't, he says. I guess you would call me a Christian.
But I don't really have any relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I think everybody here, as I look around the room, I don't think there's anybody that hasn't had some form of Christian teaching.
What have you done with that?
You just kind of hold it as a certain amount of knowledge in your head.
Or have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart? You know, it's not just mere head knowledge that will be a blessing to you. It's accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Again, I say, remember here tonight, you're not dealing with me. I'm just up here talking a little bit.
You're dealing with God, and God knows everything about you. He looks straight through you. He knows every thought of your heart. Don't try to fool God. I plead with you. I see young people sometimes and I can tell by the way they react.
That they're goofing around with the things of God. It scares me. It scares me stiff because there's going to be a lot of people in hell that know how to quote John 316.
And it will be a torment to them forever. Is there somebody here who hasn't accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior? I ask you to think seriously about these things. I want to go over to the first chapter of John's gospel because there we have presented to us the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son.
Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of man.
In those two titles we have the glorious truth as to who He is in his own person. When we say Son of God, we are dealing with the question of His deity. Jesus is, in every sense of the word, God.
But at the same time, the Lord Jesus is, in every sense of the word, man.
Brother put it like this and it was a help to me. He says Jesus.
As God had a father, but he had no mother, Jesus as man had a mother but he had no father. He is unique in human history. There is no one like him. There is one God Scripture tells US1 Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. To be a mediator, a go between necessarily, he had to be God.
Necessarily, he had to be man, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'd like to read a few verses here in the first chapter of John's Gospel.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him.
And without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe He was not that light.
But was sent to bear witness of that light.
That was the true light.
Which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him.
And the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bear witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I speak. He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me, and of His fullness have all we received in grace. For grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No man that's seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.
He hath declared him.
Oh, what a wonderful portion this is. You'll notice in verse one that the Lord Jesus.
Is presented as the word of God. What does that title mean?
He is the expression of all that God is.
I stand here and I've got a thought in my mind. Now I want to try to communicate that thought to you. I use words to communicate that to you.
The Lord Jesus is God. He is very God, the Son of God.
And he is the full expression of all that God is. Isn't it wonderful to go to the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and read through them and realize this is our God?
To know Him is to know God in the fullest sense of the Word.
He is the word of God and we have 3 brief statements in verse one.
The Word in the beginning was the Word, His eternity. The Word was with God, His distinctness as a person in the Trinity.
And the Word was God, his deity.
He is in every sense of the word. This is the person we're talking about. How important it is that you young people get a hold of this to know who God really is.
Verse three says all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
There are some people that say that Jesus was the first creature and that he created everything else.
That directly contradicts what it says in verse three. Look at it carefully.
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Without Him was not anything made that was made necessarily. He was before everything created. He is not a creature, He is the creator. It's amazing how people try to get away from the truth of creation, that God spoke everything we know here in this creation.
Into existence by the word of his power.
Knowing that God to be the God that we do, that he is all powerful.
That he is all knowledge.
Is there anything difficult to believing that he spoke it all into existence, but people, because they do not know God, try their best to try to deny the existence of God?
In the recent edition of the National Geographic says on the front, was Darwin wrong?
I saw it in one home somebody had put underneath. Yes, big time.
But the article in that magazine tries to establish that Darwin was not wrong. Why do they take so many pains to try to establish the fact that man?
Evolved. It's because if that is true, there is no ultimate responsibility to a creator God, and man wants to get away from that. His conscience bothers him.
Now the truth is that there is a God who made it all.
And you and I are ultimately responsible to God. We will give an account to God. Believe it or not, you and I are someday going to meet up with the Lord Jesus Christ. Like I say, you may say I don't believe it. That does not change the fact that you are going to come face to face with Jesus someday. Have you ever thought about that? Seriously thought about that?
Verse four. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The Word of God is compared to light in the book of Psalms, but here it wasn't his word, but His life. His very presence here was the light. And what is light? Very basic question, what is light?
I've got some good eyes in my head, I can see you all, but if somebody would turn off all the lights.
Seal off all the windows.
For Askew, as much as I have good eyes in my head, I wouldn't be able to say a thing.
You need more than good eyes in your head, you need light, and light is what gives you to understand what is.
And Jesus is the light of the world. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not, you know, man's darkness was a willful darkness.
You can shine all the spotlights you want into the face of a blind man and he won't be able to see a thing.
Says in where we read in Two Corinthians chapter 4 the God of this world. And if you noticed when we read it, it's small God. It's not talking about the God of the universe, it's talking about Satan. The God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not.
Satan does not want the revelation of the true God.
To shine into your heart and soul. I ask you, dear young people, dear friend here tonight, if you do not know the Lord Jesus, don't put up the roadblocks to the Word of God. Open up your hearts to receive this revelation of the true God that we have in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. It will bless you forever if you receive that light.
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Verse six says there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Now this is John the Baptist, not John the.
Evangelist that wrote this, it's John the Baptist. The same came for a witness.
To bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
John the Baptist was a witness that was sent before to give testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have sometimes used this illustration if I would go downtown here in Millville during the day on a nice bright sunny day like it was today and.
Go up to every person I meet in the street. Hey Sir, you see sun shining? They'd look at me and say, what in the world are you talking about? Everybody can see the sun shining. I know that. Why are you saying that? But you know, when Jesus, the true light came into this world, men were so blind that God had to send a man before him to tell people this is.
The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
Man was so in darkness that he had no idea that the true light had come into this world, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was in this world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, the Jewish people, and His own received Him not. How tragic. Here was the Creator of the universe who had come into his own creation.
And I love to think of it.
Friends and brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus, the wonder of it.
That in Bethlehem.
2000 years ago.
One night there was a little baby born in the city of Bethlehem.
And where when his mother who was great with child.
And they came to the inn, a kind of hotel. We get pretty deluxe accommodations at conferences like this.
Mary, his mother, was great with child. Where did they tell her to go?
You might find some space out there where the cows are, and that's where our Creator came into this world.
In a stable.
Oh what a story it tells. The religious people had the Bible in their hands. They knew where he was to be born. They could tell the answers. They knew about the time frame he was to be born to. He used to be presented to Israel. They had no clue that their Creator had come into the world.
You're sitting there. You have the Bible in your lap. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you accepted Him as your own personal Savior?
Notice now verse 12. In contrast, there were some who received him, as many as received Him. To them He gave gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Isn't this wonderful? What do you have to do to become one of the children of God? What does the scripture say?
Believe on His name. It's not the mere acceptance of a certain quantity of historical facts about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is putting your trust, your confidence in that person.
That's the secret to becoming one of the children of God.
Was a joy to me in Bolivia a number of years ago when I was there by myself, a young man that I'd known in the area who was.
A student of law at the university there in Bolivia came to my house and.
Said you know what, I want to be saved, I want to get saved. And I asked the brethren what I have to do and they said you have to repent. He says I don't know how should I do that? What should I do? Well it was evident that the Spirit of God was working in him. So I took him in the house and we sat down and we read the 1St 12 verses of this chapter.
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And we got down to verse 12 and then I stopped and said, now look at verse 12.
You're going to university. You can read for yourself, what does God say you have to do to become a child of God? And he looked at that and he said.
Believe on his name, I said. Exactly. It doesn't say hear of anything about praying.
If you want to pray, that's fine. I'll get down on my knees and pray with you. But it doesn't talk about praying. What saves the soul is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I say the moment you trust in Him, you become a child of God. You're born into God's family by believing in His name.
Oh, how wonderful, how simple that is. He got down on his knees and prayed.
But I trust he understood that it wasn't in the praying that he was saved. It was in the believing. You may express that believing that trust by praying, but it's not in the praying. It's in the believing that there is life communicating, communicated.
Now look a little bit further here verse 13 which were born.
Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man.
But of God, you know, you and I did not decide to be born the first time.
It was not our will, it was the will of our parents.
To have children and we were the result.
You and I do not decide to be born the second time either. It's by the will of God. God wants children and His family and that's why He's sending forth His Word in this world tonight. Are you listening? Are you hearing? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Listen, I can tell sometimes by looking around the room.
People.
Who perhaps are politely sitting there, but they're really not listening.
Are you listening?
How important it is I can understand. If you have trouble with what I say, my explanations, I can understand that. But listen to what God says. It's a vital importance that you let His word penetrate into your soul. We are born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible.
By the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, all the glory of man as the flower of the grass flower fades.
The grass Withers, but the word of the Lord abideth forever. Oh, how wonderful it is to get that into your soul.
You know, I marvel at how you hear see in the front rows and back in the back rows too. Intelligence, freshness, energy, strength, and the young girl's beautiful young girls. How long does that last? Let me tell you, I sat on these front rows.
A few years ago. It doesn't seem like it's that long ago that I sat there. I'm up here now. Today you can see I got a bunch of Gray hairs on my head and I got a bum knee here. It makes me squirm a little bit Sometimes. Life isn't very long. Don't fool around with the years that you have. Make your ears count for eternity, not for the brief moments of time.
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The flower fades, but there's something that lasts forever, and that's the word of God if you accept the Lord Jesus. That word God uses to communicate new life in the believer in the Lord Jesus.
Now, verse 14.
14 The Word was made flesh. This is His incarnation, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth, and it's beautiful.
The word was made flesh. We've talked about how he was born.
And we beheld his glory, He says here, I sometimes have thought about that. What is the apostle John referring to when he says, we beheld His glory? One time on the Mount of Transfiguration He was transfigured, and his face shone as the sun, and his garments white as the light. That was His official glory, as the coming king of His Kingdom.
There were other times too, when his glory shone through the human veil.
There was the time he was on the boat and there was a storm and he was sleeping. Does God go to sleep? You know, sometimes we think he does, but he really doesn't. The Lord Jesus was asleep with his head on the pillow.
And they woke him up, and he in calmness rebuked the wind, and the wave became a calm.
Said, what kind of man is this? This was his disciples. It looked like they didn't even understand who he was. But I want to get before we get to the end of our time here in this Gospel meeting to one of the greatest manifestations of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ was the end of his 33 1/2 years in this world. They took him to Pontius Pilate, the governor. They condemned him to death.
Pontius Pilate turned him over to his soldiers, and Romans were known for their cruelty. They took him and they hit him in the face. They crowned his head with thorns. They beat that crown of thorns into his head. They came up and spit directly in his face. I've had people spit at me, but never anybody come and spit square in my face. And they did that to Jesus.
They did it to him. What an awful insult. Did he ever claim this is unjust? I'm not going to stand for this injustice. Never. One word of protest. They let him outside the city of Jerusalem. They took him to that hill of Golgotha. They stretched out his hands. They nailed them to a cross.
Now as they were nailing him there, the only response from his lips was Father forgive them, they know not what they do. Sure they pain must have been excruciating as they drove those nails through his hands and his feet.
There they hung him and he hung there from approximately 9:00 in the morning till about 12 noon.
They passed in front of him, mocking him, jeering him, doing everything they could think of to make him suffer more.
This is what they were doing to the one who was in every sense of the word God, and in every sense of the word man, the man Christ Jesus.
At 12 noon, something strange happened. Everything got dark for three hours.
It was dark what happened in those three hours. The prophet Isaiah tells us all. We, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone our own way.
But God has laid on him Jesus, the iniquity of us all, if there was going to be.
A Bob Tony in heaven. Somebody had to pay the price for my sins. God is too just.
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To allow any sin to be swept under the rug, nothing escapes his vision. No sin will ever escape its just penalty from the hand of God. And when Jesus was hanging there on that cross, that Sinner cross, in those three hours, God took the load of my sins and laid them on Jesus. And then he picked up his rod of judgment and he let the fury.
Of divine judgment fall on Jesus. For three solid hours there was complete silence on that center cross. The end of those hours, he cries, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
God forsook him. Why? So they wouldn't have to forsake this guilty Sinner that stands here tonight. I deserve to go to hell forever.
Yes, if I want to claim my rights, I do have rights. Rights to go to hell.
But Jesus bore my punishment on that cross before he died, He said It is finished.
All the judgment that was rightly against me.
As a guilty Sinner.
It's gone for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Like to put it this way, sometimes in the Old Testament there were a lot of sacrifices that were sacrificed, thousands, hundreds of thousands of sacrifices, and in every case the flames consumed the sacrifices.
But in the case of Jesus, the sacrifice consumed the flames. There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus.
The wonderful God that we know in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I say, friends, the brightest display of the glory of God shines from the darkness.
Of Calvary. There we learn, as in no other place, that God is light. He cannot Passover your sins, not even one little white lie. Absolutely impossible. It would be a denial of His holy nature to do so. Can't be done, Absolutely not.
But we learn too, that God is love. Their God's beloved Son bore the full penalty of sin for me.
Oh, we ask you to make it real with yourself, dear young boy and girl. Young people don't try to goof around any longer. We're getting close to the most awful judgment this world has ever seen. We're living right on the edge.
Of this period of the grace of God, it's going to end at any moment. The Lord may come before tomorrow dawns. Are you ready? Have you settled the issue with God or are you still trying to fool around? I plead with you, along with all those who are believers in this Lord, in the Lord Jesus in this room will unite to say to you.
Don't goof around any longer tonight right where you're sitting. Open your heart to receive him. And how do you receive him? Believe on his name.
Let's just pray.
Our God and our Father, we're thankful for Thy precious Word.
And the clarity with which it speaks to us. Yes, for thy blessing.
On those that have heard tonight, bless thy precious word, we pray.
In that most wonderful, that most blessed name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Perfect
Address—D. Martin
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Could we look at some verses in Job had something of perfection in our readings and I'd just like to consider an aspect of perfection that I trust you'll understand in no way would conflict with anything that we've had in our reading meetings. I would just like to suggest a few thoughts on.
Perfections that we can perhaps enjoy even now, even though it's already been said in the in the reading meetings that perfection is something that we will only realize and appreciate when we see His face for the first time. Yet while we're here, may some of the perfections that we find in His word and in His person.
Overwhelm our hearts. And that's what I'd like to look at now in Job to introduce it in the 37th chapter of Job in verse 16. This is something that keeps coming back to me. Maybe few here have heard me say something about this before, but it it's the thought that's been overwhelming me for months and it just keeps coming back. And I'd like to just suggest some of these thoughts to to us this afternoon. And that is in the 16th verse.
Thou know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge when we consider all around us in the vastness of the creation of of the universe and realize that we know the Creator.
How wondrous it is, as we consider his signature and his imprint in everything around us, that we consider that. Do we appreciate that? The one who?
Is the creator of it all as we now look over to the 36th chapter and read the fourth verse where it says he that isn't perfect in knowledge is with thee. And that's a thought that I don't know if I can convey properly. But we I, I guess I have to say we're so involved. I'm so involved in myself and in my own life and in everything that happens in my life, my family, my assembly, the things that.
I are so close to each one of us, we tend to.
See things through our own perspective, but when we consider the works of the one who is perfect in knowledge and then realize that the one who is responsible for creating all of this says, I am with you. How?
Insignificant are we in the light of all of that they thought of of the creator of the universe recognizing me, little me, a dust mite on a hot air balloon. And yet he says I who know everything. I'm with you. That thought just overwhelms me. What does it matter?
Who I am.
What my thoughts are, what my problems are, what my concerns are, what my exercises are, even when I realize that the one who spoke and it was so says I am with you. And in the light of that, I just like to read 5 references in the New Testament that speak of perfection. And again, it's not anything that would differ from anything that we've heard this morning, but just perhaps add another perspective to it and that is.
To look in Colossians chapter one and verse 28. Well, let's read 27 just to get the context. To whom we would make, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles? Which is Christ in you? The hope of glory whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present.
Man perfect in Christ Jesus. And we've had the real explanation of the teaching of the sense of that perfection this morning. But I would just also like to suggest perhaps that we realize that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And I don't know if it's I'm the only one who perhaps has a tendency to think this way, but.
Sometimes we get so used to things growing old that we lose sight.
Of the newness and the perfection of who we are in Christ. Those of us who know what it means to be parents when we see the perfection of a new born child, the sentiments that overwhelm us, that sweep over us, will think of how God sees us when we're born again.
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Imagine the joy.
In the heart of God, the Creator, the one who is perfect in knowledge, as he looks on you, as he looks on me, as we're born again and sees that new life within us, does that new life ever become old? It doesn't. And we have perhaps a tendency to think, well, you know, back when I was saved, however many years ago. And then we start.
You know, looking at how things have progressed and how things have changed and certainly how we should have grown.
And realize we haven't grown nearly as much as we should, but the newness of who we are in Christ, I don't believe ever grows old with God. And may we see ourselves as God sees us perfect in Christ, in a newness and an eternal newness that never grows old and will find its fulfillment.
In for eternity in His presence. And now let's look.
In the first John chapter 4 and verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world perfect. There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear.
Hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Perfect in love. I can't begin to tell you how afraid I can be, and I just began to realize that as I've read this verse over and over again. The fears that can come in and spoil the perfection. Fears of things in this world of things that threaten us in every way possible. Fears of things that threaten the assembly and those that we love in the Lord's people. How we can how many sleepless.
Night, perhaps some of us have spent in the past year, the fear, the torment, the anguish, the pain that has had a tendency to, well, overwhelm my own heart. And then I realized it's because I don't realize and appreciate and understand the perfection of His love, not just for me, but for each one of His people and for the assembly and for each one of His own, not just those that are gathered to His name or.
But each one of his own and I would just.
Say this, I would say, what are you afraid of? Are we afraid of not being gathered to the Lord's name when He comes? Is that something that causes us to act in certain ways that perhaps are not a showing out, a manifesting of the perfection of His love? What's more important to my own heart, that I be gathered to His name or that the Lord?
Before He comes, manifest His grace and mercy.
Power to His people in such a way that for eternity we will never, ever forget how the Lord was strong on behalf of those whose hearts were perfect towards Him. May we desire that the Lord would act, not that we would be faithful, as important as that is, but may our hearts desire be that the Lord would act and glorify His name in His people.
Before he comes.
Let's look over now in Two Corinthians.
Chapter 12 and verse nine. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ.
May rest upon me. I don't know if there's any time when we felt weaker. Perhaps when we realized how weak we are in ourselves.
But you know, there's a verse at the end of Psalm 78 that I've just enjoyed recently once again, and that is when Speaking of David, He guided them. He fed them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of His hand.
And you know, we tend to perhaps think of strength sometimes and as brute force.
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And if there was ever any strength or power, it's in the person of the God's head, the Lord Jesus, the Father, all that we know of his infinite glory and power, but the skillfulness of his hand, it's not brute strength, it's absolute power used with perfect discernment and balance in our lives. And may we value that.
In our weakness may we appreciate.
The perfections of the strength that he brings to bear in gentleness.
In our lives, in our lives as individuals and in our assembly lives together, and as we consider all the exercises, each one of us so deeply or should.
Now if we could look at another reference to perfection in Hebrews, the end in chapter 13, and it's at the.
20th verse that I'd like to start. Hebrews 13 and 20 Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.
To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
There is such a thing as a perfect work. And why is it perfect? Because God has prepared it beforehand. The works that He's given us to do are just those which He's prepared, which He allows us to fulfill according to His perfect will. And so we can look at what He has given to us to do as perfection.
Because they're his and not ours. And so may we be encouraged to do.
That which he gives us to do because it's perfect, not because it's great or significant or noticed in any special way, but because it's a perfect work prepared by our loving and perfect Father for us to accomplish in his purposes for us. And now one last reference in John chapter 17. We know this chapter probably almost by heart. And I have to tell you, I struggle with this because.
The Lord's Prayer to his Father, and we know it will be ultimately answered in eternity. But what about now? What are we doing or not doing that would prevent that prayer from being answered to what, in whatever measure it might be? And so let's look at verse.
22 In John 17 And the glory which thou gave us me.
I have given them that they may be one even as we.
Are one I in them and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one and the world, that the world may know that Thou has sent me and has loved them as Thou hast loved me?
That is the Lord's desire for us, that we might be made perfect in one. And it's not just for eternity, because it's that the world might know. Certainly the world will know when we appear with Him. But what does the world see of it now?
May it exercise our hearts. May we have a desire, not that we would enjoy fellowship, or that certain things might be other than they are, but that the Lord's Prayer to his Father might be answered.