Dorothy Conference: 2018
Table of Contents
1 Corinthians 2:1-6
Reading
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May I pride.
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Would the brethren be happy to consider?
First Corinthians, chapter 2.
I've had it on my heart for the last couple of days. It's a chapter that brings before us.
The Spirit of God as the antidote to the mind of man and the things of God. And it seems to me that it is something that particularly characterizes the day in which we live. That is the ascendancy of the mind of man, not only in natural things, which is legitimate, but sad to say, also in spiritual things.
00:05:20
What would my brethren think of that suggestion?
OK. I commend itself, Rob. I like the suggestion.
That's good.
First Corinthians, chapter 2.
And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with Excellency of speech or of wisdom.
Declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world.
Nor of the Princess of this world that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordains before the world unto our glory, which none of the Princess of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as is written, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.
For the Spirit searcheth all things, yeah, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spear of a man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.
Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things.
Yet he himself is judge of no man, for who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him.
But we have the mind of Christ.
Perhaps just a little bit of background as to this chapter. We know, of course, that the Corinthians were a worldly people, naturally, and also a sinful people.
The name of Corinth has long been associated with immorality and sinful living. But they were also a very proud people, well educated, proud of the use of their minds, and sad to say, all that kind of thing tended to come into and spoil their Christianity. So Paul has to write to them and bring before them some of these things in order to correct all of that, and he begins right in the first chapter by.
Pointing out the divisions that is not full blown divisions perhaps?
The better word is schism. That is, they hadn't really divided uh apart from one another, but there were schools of opinion and.
Men's persons before them within the assembly. And so Paul deals, you might say in the first chapter with the pride of man in the flesh that wanted to intrude into the things of God. But here in the second chapter, it's perhaps more of a focus on the mind of man and.
Human wisdom that tends to intrude into the things of the Lord. And of course, the emphasis Paul puts on, uh, the antidote to it here is the power of the Spirit of God to minister Christ to our souls. And, uh, it seems to me that it's very apropos in the world in which we live because man's mind, of course, always has been at work in the things of God. It started very early in the Christian testimony with what is known as Gnosticism.
That is man presuming to have something that he had gotten apart from the revelation that God gives and that spoiled things very early on in the Christian testimony. The apostle John has to speak of it in his epistles.
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But in the world of today, we see it perhaps even more full blown and, uh, it has really spoiled much of the precious things of Christ, especially in evangelical circles in North America. So it's a very important chapter, I feel for us today and one to which we could well pay attention.
The end of chapter one the apostle brings out the gospel on how that in the gospel there.
It says in in verse 21 after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of the preaching. I think it should be to save them that believe it's the preaching of the gospel and it's really the whole thought of what we have in verse 23, Christ crucified. It's a stumbling block to the world.
And so that was the subject in the end of chapter one, is gospel as being something which man's wisdom is no help in at all. And those of us who are safe, we get that point. We understand that it's only by faith, but we're very tempted, aren't we, having been saved to go on and think that we can bring human wisdom into the things of God? And so in chapter 2, the apostle takes up with the Corinthians having then saved, the human wisdom was of no use to them either. Instead, it's divine wisdom by the spirit of fraud that is required for every part of our life.
As Christians? Hmm.
Mention speech here and in the 24th chapter of Acts we see the Apostle Paul before Felix and in the first verse.
The high priest descended with the elders, and he brought along with him an orator, and for the benefit of the younger ones, an orator is one that can speak well. He can speak clearly and usually distinctly.
And often they're very persuasive. So here an orator was brought and he brings an accusation against the apostle Paul and he speaks very smoothly. He butters up Felix, so to speak, in order to get the conviction of that was needed or that he wanted. But later on, we see that the apostle Paul desires to speak more or I do more the more.
Cheerfully answer for myself in verse 10 and we see that the words that the apostle Paul spoke exercised at least and measure Felix and it says he trembled while we would like to think that he believed everything but this is the spirit of this world. You put on a show you bring on an orator and a story comes to mind that I heard some years ago some place I believe it was in England that.
They had a speech contest and the subject that they had to recite was the 23rd saw.
And a well known orator got up. He pronounced every syllable correctly. He was very distinct. Then he sat down and there was one person left. He was an old farmer. And.
He didn't have to read the words that were on the paper in front of him. He recited it by heart. Then it came time for the announce announcement as to who the winner of the contest would be, and the judge said it was apparent that the first speaker spoke more distinctly. He used the proper voice inflections. But there was one thing notable.
The first person.
Read the 23rd Psalm. But the last person knew the shepherd. So let's keep those things in mind as as we read this chapter.
And that's why the apostle Paul, when he went to a place like Corinth.
It says he was in weakness in verse three and in fear and in much trembling.
Why was Paul not an educated man? Indeed he was. Could he not speak well if he so chose? I'm sure he could. But in every way he was afraid. He trembled lest something of himself would spoil the message that he had. And so God allows that the content of the message, the vessel that is Paul, whom he used to proclaim it, and the way he proclaimed it, all of them did not in any way impressed the natural man.
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Because Paul said, I want your faith to stand not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. And I would just suggest that that is a very practical comment for you and me today.
Yes, there is a place for Christian apologetics, and by that I mean the ability to put to silence those who raise arguments against the word of God. Yes, the proverb says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest to be wise in his own conceit. There is a place for pointing out to a man where his wisdom, man's wisdom, is actually foolishness, but in the long run.
What is it that convicts a soul? What is it that brings Christ before them, as Bruce has pointed out, What was it that made Felix tremble? It was the Word of God. And so you and I perhaps don't find ourselves in many cases, a match for the orators of this world, a match for those who have good ability in arguing about scriptural things. But there's no substitute for the Word of God.
Spoken in the power of the Spirit of God.
I've quoted it before, but it bears repeating, comes from one of our well known writers and others will recognize the author of whom I'm speaking. He said the word of God is a sword. And if a man argued with me when I had a natural sword in my hand or a good sharp knife, if he argued with me that that sword was a fake or that knife wasn't real, he said as a believer I wouldn't do it.
But there would be a very practical way of demonstrating to him that it was real. Use it on him. And that's what we should do with the Word of God when we get into arguments and difficulties with men.
The Lord Jesus had the same experience with Satan when he was tempted of the devil.
And he simply quoted to him the word of God, and Satan was defeated. But it has to be the sword of the Spirit, wielded in the power of the Spirit of God, not to bring glory to me, but to bring glory to the Lord.
That's what Paul sought to do.
The Apostle Paul's weakness.
Was not something that was changed.
He said he was in weakness. That's a fact. He was in weakness and trembling in uh, Ephesians chapter 6.
I I don't know about others. When I was younger I always pictured the Apostle Paul as this kind of fearless.
Fearless preacher. But that's not the way he describes himself. And I don't think he's just putting words out there. I think he was genuine, genuinely in fear and trembling. And he asked the Ephesians in chapter 6.
In verse 19, he asked them to pray for him.
That he would have utterance so he'd be able to articulate the burden that the Lord had laid on his heart.
And that he would open his mouth boldly.
Naturally for him to do that, then why would he ask to be prayed for? But he was genuinely uh.
Recognized his weakness and, uh, was asking for prayer that he would speak boldly because he says that's the way he ought to speak. Verse 20. Because of his message.
Well, that should encourage all of us. If we feel like we have a burden from the Lord, but we're shaking and trembling and it ought not to stop us, we ought to speak in faith as He did. This was not the vessel that you and I would have chosen to reveal the highest truth.
Because the Corinthians said that his speech is contemptible. That is referring to the way he spoke. So this guy, he's not a very good speaker.
And you and I probably would not have chosen him, but he understood the principle as laid out in the verses prior to our chapter.
God doesn't choose the way we choose because then the man with glory.
He uses the things that are not to bring to, not to things that are. That's the principle.
One way that, uh, many of the crew identify with our subjects is that, uh, this world is trying to teach us how to bring up our children. And so we have here in our chapter the wisdom of men. And so they try to teach us how we should raise our children. And so, uh, Dan and I were at a prenatal class, uh, a few months ago and they taught us a lot of good things and a lot of ways to bring up their children and how to change the diapers or feed the child or whatever it may be.
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But, uh, they also went further than that and they started teaching us how to raise our children. And at that point I said, oh, oh, oh, that's, that's not, that's not their place to teach us how to raise our child and screw in with the wisdom of men of how to take care of your children is also this instruction of how to raise your child. And, uh, that's just something that a lot of us need to be careful of both, uh, fathers and mothers as we read these things to help to.
Figure out how to bring up our children that we don't also swallow the wisdom of men in the way of raising our children, umm, when we should uh, be reading the word of God instead. There's a good verse in, uh, first Peter says connectionless, uh, actually second Peter chapter one.
Word 3 second Peter one and verse three according as his divine power.
Have given on to us all things that pertain us to life and costing it through the knowledge of him that have called us to glory and virtue. So from the word of God, we can learn how to raise our children just, uh, that one thing just to bring it right down to.
The level of the day-to-day, you know, you're up at 3:00 AM and you're trying to figure out what to do with this child and you know, they're, they're giving you advice on how to raise that. And so, uh, just a caution for those of us who are parents, so.
That's excellent, Howard, and I thank you very much. And coming from someone in your position that carries more weight because you've obviously heard it fairly recently.
An old brother now with the Lord under whose ministry I sat for many years, well, I shouldn't say many, but a number of years used to tell us, and it's very true, He said God's wisdom is not an improvement on man's wisdom. It is the exact opposite of it. God's wisdom is not simply an improvement on man's wisdom, it's the exact opposite of it. And uh, we will find that invariably in this world because.
Satan is the God and Prince of this world, and when he introduces the wisdom of man.
It will be the direct opposite of what God's wisdom is. God's wisdom is found in Christ and ultimately, of course, connected and found in the Word of God too.
So to expand on that a little bit, Bill, and if you need to qualify some of the things I say, feel free. But in verse two, it says I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And when you're talking about the exact opposite, Satan's objective is to minimize the Lord Jesus Christ, make him disappear out of our lives. And that's the sense in which it's opposite. His objective is to elevate men and himself into the position of God.
And it's in that moral sense that it's the exact opposite. Some of the things that I'm sure Howard heard in the course that he was taking are practical and wise things. And you'll find those same things in the Word of God, and you should listen to them.
But it is when it starts to go contrary to the Word of God. And I'm glad that Brother Howard has identified that some of the advice he would have been given with respect to rearing his children may be contrary to what the Word of God says. And it takes incredible wisdom in our day and age where there's so much in our society set against Christ and against the wisdom of God to know how to live our lives. The wisdom, as the Lord Jesus said, as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.
But, uh, where I'm coming to is that that I believe is the essence of the contrast that you're mentioning, that this world seeks to exalt man, and they do that by the assumption that man is innately good. And what do we learn in the scripture?
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none good. No, not one. That you don't hear from the world, That you don't hear from Satan. What do we hear instead in the Word of God? We hear what we have in verse 2.
I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And so that I believe is essential to understand that it is diametrically opposed to Christ and his right to God and what is morally right. And that's what we're seeing in the society around this is a drive towards everything that man does and everything that man wants without any constraints to the effect of lawlessness. And that's where the wisdom of man takes you to.
00:25:09
And it's a it's a apart from destruction.
It's already, it's been alluded to. I think it should be repeated because it kind of set the tone for what's before us is that man's wisdom and practical things here on the earth might have a place, but the biggest danger is when man's wisdom and intellect interferes with the word of God. And, uh, I believe brother Bill brought that before us. And, uh, that's what the Corinthians, they may take the gospel and.
The word of God and we're.
Using it in a sense, to exalt man's wisdom. And, uh, and it can be used that way.
But notice here the verse that Robert brought out is he was determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ. It doesn't stop there, he says, and him crucified.
That moment when the Lord was on the cross was the most shameful.
Time of all, the Lord's time here on the earth.
That was not something anyone would boast about. There's a man hanging on a cross. And so the apostle Paul brings it right down. This is what I want to know among you. The proud is this point, not only the Lord, but the Lord on the cross.
And that does away with boasting with pride with.
That's who we serve, that rejected 1 despise rejected, and he brings out not only the Lord Jesus Christ, but the the point in time when it was the most shameful.
Time and when you could have no pride in that.
And cross is also what brings out the judgment of this world, how opposed it is to Christ, and at the same time how that, uh, there's nothing in it to honor God in the world system that Satan has established through men here on earth. So I'd like to, uh, just take a moment and apply it in this sense, in terms of our Christian experience. And that is that sometimes we ask the question to ourselves. And I think in a sense it's a legitimate question to ask. We have to be careful about the answer.
How effective is our Christianity?
Are we getting people out? Are people getting saved? And the way that the tendency to measure that is a head count. How fast are the assembly is growing? How big is the work? I is, are things coming along? Another way to to measure that that people tend to do is how big is the revenue stream? How how big are the collections and, and what are we doing with resources? What's the return on investment? Now what I'm talking about is taking human wisdom and applying it to the domain of the Church of God. And it's a very natural thing to do.
But I believe it's contrary to the wisdom of God. So the natural thing to do when you see a church situation is you bring in an expert, a guy that's really good at marketing, and you get a lot of splash into the newspapers and you start drawing attention to your organization and you make sure you've got what appeals to people.
So what happens is you set aside the cross of Christ, the preaching of the.
The depravity of man and you start preaching perhaps prosperity and then you take out anything that would, uh, condemn anybody and you don't preach that. And you let all kinds of people, uh, just come in. And it becomes, if I can put it this way, a very happy kind of a social club. And I know that in Canada, probably more so in the United States, there's great concern in a lot of churches because there's only old people going to them and they're working on how to attract youth. And so you get the entertainment that is a, is presented there as the attraction to bring people.
And.
What ends up resulting Worst case, there's a church in Toronto.
Where they have amalgamated in the United Church of Canada and one particular church there has got a minister.
The minister is a publicly avowed atheist in a Christian Church, and this is allowed to continue. So that's the result of the wisdom of man. Yeah, you can do all kinds of things that would naturally appeal to people. But what you really need to do and what you really need to evaluate is, according to this chapter, is it a real work of the Spirit of God, like exists existed in the time of the Acts?
Are we recognizing that it's a day of small things and maybe that growth comes out of the Sunday school and maybe it's a 20 year project and not a six month project? And then how does God judge things later on in this book, in the next chapter, the chapter after it gives some of the ways that God measures success and God's looking at the quality and what's actually happening. So I, I just like to put that in front of you for your consideration because it's a temptation to look and look at the results, look at the head count, look at the revenue stream, look at the buildings and go, this isn't very impressive.
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But what I I challenge you to do, as we consider this chapter, think about what is happening for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is it a work of the Spirit of God that's happening, or is it something else? And what is really valuable to God is that work of the Spirit of God?
I was just thinking of how important this principle is and uh, I'd rather have been saying this over and over again about the fact that the things of God, the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world is directly opposed so much that the Lord said in Luke chapter 16, He said that the, that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination of the in the sight of the Lord. But we don't naturally think that way. And it's really important that we get a hold of what is said here.
And that we see this from the word of God itself, and that we accept it by faith because our natural minds don't agree with what's being said here. Mine doesn't. But the Word of God says this. And actually the conclusion of this whole section, I think lays it out very clearly. If you just skip over to chapter 3 and verse 18, it says let no man deceive himself if any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world.
Let him become a fool, that he may be wise, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. So there it is directly stated in the Scriptures that this principle that has been stated here this morning is true.
And we need to accept that by faith. Do we think we have some wisdom that we can bring from our natural experience or things we've learned in this world that we can introduce in the things of God that are somehow going to be an improvement to it? It's not going to work is somehow.
We're finding that we're not making real progress in learning the Scriptures, or maybe it's because we haven't become a fool like it says in these verses. We need to delay that aside. We need to take up the word of God and see what it says and.
Our hearts and obedience to it and just seek, simply seek to do it. MMM.
Yes, man's wisdom will always exalt man, and every false doctrine, without any exception whatsoever, exalts man to some extent and takes away from the glory of Christ.
And that, of course, is why false teaching is so popular. That's why if someone has said it goes around the world, well, the truth is still getting its boots on. It's just very, very popular because it exalts man. And, and we are finding that. And again, we don't want to spend all the time on negative things. There's plenty positive in this chapter, but sometimes a warning is needed and it was needed in Paul's day for the Corinthians. Uh, I would just add one comment because sometimes this expression.
I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Has been taken out of context to try and prove that there's no need to go beyond the knowledge of salvation, no need to enjoy the higher truths of Christianity. Uh, all you need to know is just the fact that you're saved and you know Christ is your savior and that he died for you. You don't need to get into anything else. That is not what those verses or those words mean. Paul was the vessel chosen of God to receive the precious truth of the assembly. He was the one who gave us.
All the counsel of God as we get in the 20th of Acts. And so in no way is he trying to rundown the enjoyment of higher truth. In fact, later on in the chapter, it's more the emphasis on how he communicated that truth.
In the beginning of the chapter, it's how he preached the gospel. Toward the end of the chapter, it's how he ministered the truth.
And he ministered both in the same way. But it is not meant to, uh, cast any negative view on those higher truths that he would give to believers. Oh, no, Sad to say, of course he had to tell the Corinthians, I can't, I can't give you strong meat yet You're, you're carnal, you are worldly Christians. You're not ready for it. You haven't matured yet. You're not ready for that strong meat. But he wanted to give it to them if they were in a right state to receive it.
00:35:06
And there is power in the Spirit of God.
Our brother said it's a day of small things, and indeed it is.
Indeed it is, and we have to recognize that in the last days we are not going to restore things to the way they were in the Apostle Paul's day. We can't pretend to the power of Pentecost, and it's a mistake to do so.
In Revelation chapter 3, John says to Philadelphia, Thou hast a little strength.
But the emphasis is on keeping his word and not denying his name.
But it's not necessarily a day of small things everywhere in the world. Is that right, Tim? There's blessing in some places. In some parts of the world where some of us have visited, there are those who preach the gospel. And there has been, on the average, a new assembly started every year. And they're building meeting rooms, not having to wonder what they're going to do with an empty one. And so the Lord is working, and there's tremendous blessing in some parts of the world.
And I say it on the one hand with joy and on the other hand with sadness, that there are areas of the world where some of those dear brethren, I believe, are taking the crown that could belong to those.
In Western countries who have had the truth at their disposal for many years and are giving it up and those dear brethren are taking hold of it or it's taking hold of them would be more accurate. And so I just, I only suggest, recognize that it's a day of small things, but don't think small. God never tells us to think small. And our brethren of past generations would say when the ruin of the church is recognized.
On the other side, there is no limit to what the blessed Spirit can do when He has the liberty to do so. Only it needs to be done with the recognition that we're living in the days of the ruin of the church, and so don't think small in the things of the Lord.
But recognize that it often is a day of small things.
I believe what Howard brought before us before eventually, uh, advice that the world can give to young parents.
It was excellent and I think it not only applies to that, but also to many other areas, marriage counseling and, and, uh, how to run a business and, and all kinds of aspects of life.
And often there are. There's been many books threatened to even.
By Christians, but when you take a look at those at those books, if you just peruse through.
You don't see much reference to the Lord Jesus Christ himself and to the things that we have been talking about. Uh.
Last since the beginning of this meeting.
It's a lot of human wisdom even on the part of Christmas. And I believe that that somebody has already said, I think it was Robert Peyton wants to take the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the even in the lives of human, we cannot take away our salvation like.
His face are are focused from focus being on the Lord Jesus move it away to into that human wisdom human and it sounds very good.
But he's removing our focus from the Lord Jesus on the human wisdom.
I'd like to just add a little bit to that and expand on it a little bit in this sense that.
It's important to recognize that the wisdom of the world is opposed to the Lord Jesus and to God, but it's also important that we pay attention to the wisdom of God that's in the Word of God. It's not good for us to be ignorant and unwise. God has given us His book so that we can learn from it. So in verse two, we've been talking about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Just taking that as an example, what can I learn about marriage from Jesus Christ and him crucified?
So Ephesians chapter 5 teaches us as husbands.
To love our wives as Christ loved the church.
And that's he was willing to go and die for the bride, his church. And it is a hard thing for a husband to be willing to die daily for the sake of his wife.
00:40:04
For me to be willing to give up my aspirations, what I wanted to do today for the sake of something my wife might need or want.
Now let's take the other side. That's me. And we kind of think of that as love. We think of that as the husband's role. And if he does that, everything's going to be wonderful in marriage. Not so.
Because not every wife is naturally responsive or godly or whatever. She she has things to learn from the word of God too. What does she learn from this second verse with respect to her marriage, Jesus Christ and Him crucified? What does that mean? What's that talking about is submission.
God wanted Christ to go to the cross, and he submitted to that desire. He said not my will, but thine be done.
As a wife, how willing are you to submit to a fairly unreasonable hustle and.
Are you willing to do it for the sake of Christ? And so that's where the wisdom of God comes into it. We need to understand how to apply these things in our own lives because the wisdom of God brings happiness and joy and obedience. And, and one of the things that we can have, if we pay attention to the word of God and we obey it, we can have absolutely wonderful relationships, husband and wife. And we've been talking about children. That's a great foundation for bringing up children to have that joy in our relationship. And then your children will want the same thing.
And if you grew up in a family where that wasn't modeled, you don't know it.
The way to and the place to learn it is in the Word of God. How do I apply this verse to my role as a husband?
Do I learn from? So it's one thing to say, yeah, we don't want the wisdom of the world. There's snares and it's going to turn us away from God. Yes, But are we paying attention to how to apply the word of God, how to put Christ into practice in my own life?
In the power of the Spirit.
That's just excellent, Rob, Very, very good. And we should always be careful not to allow what we witness against to eclipse what we witnessed for.
So Paul says in verse.
Six we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.
It's been mentioned before, but it's good to repeat it that the word perfect here has the sense of being mature or full grown. Now every believer is an instantly full grown, but it should be something that we as believers aspire to. Does that mean that I know everything about the truth of God in order to be full grown? No, no, that isn't the thought. The thought of being mature is to have an understanding of what God is doing.
In that particular dispensation in which our time is put.
I could say it in Old English in the time in which our lot is cast, but we don't talk that way anymore.
Uh, so Abraham could be told walk before me and be thou perfect. Did he know anything about the church? Did he know anything about Paul's ministry? No. But in the day in which he lived, God expected there to be an understanding of what God was doing and for Abraham's walk to be in keeping with it. That's what being.
Mature or full grown means I believe for you and me, and so do I understand that I'm living in a day when God has chosen to call His church out of every nation, every race, every ethnic group, and so on. For what? For heavenly blessings, For heavenly glory. That we are to be separate from this world. We're not to be conformed to it. That the church has a heavenly calling. That was what Paul sought to minister to.
To minister that precious truth, and that's why he could say to.
More than one assembly to whom he wrote, he could say, be followers of me. Why? Because he never made any mistakes? No, but because his life was patterned after a risen Christ in glory.
And here he was, walking in this world, following a rejected Christ and having his eye on coming glory.
Those who have that attitude are in a position to receive and live out the wisdom of God. And that's, I believe, what Howard was referring to. Yes, I can learn much when I go to school how to do math.
I can learn history, I can learn computer science, I can learn many different things, but when it comes to moral and spiritual subjects, this is where the wisdom is, isn't it? And in Christ.
Just say an application of this verse 2.
00:45:02
In verse six we speak with him among them that are full grown as you said.
If back in verse, umm, excuse me, it was speaking about the time when the apostle preached the gospel to them, Now he's speaking about what he taught them now as Saints. And I'm saying this because there are some who say our only role on earth is Christians is to go out and preach the gospel. But we don't find that in the word of God either. It's just a thought that some have. It's really important that we are together.
At times like this, our assembly readings, our times when we can just be together discussing the Word of God as Christians because there is much we need to learn as Christians. All the Christian life isn't about giving the gospel to the lost.
It's important if that is, and so we do see in these verses that the apostle did both first he was with them and the weakness in trembling, just presenting Jesus Christ and him crucified. I don't believe, as Brother Bill said, that brings the whole thought of Christian truth in there, but here it is now He's among those who are perfect and he's speaking not the wisdom of the world, but the wisdom of God verse heaven and the mystery. And this springs out the whole council of God. There's so much that we need to take in of the wisdom of God through the Scriptures as Christians.
And it's important that we are together to do it, or that we have that time where we can hear what the Lord is going to teach us as believers.
To emphasize what you're saying to him.
It's interesting to observe in First and 2nd Corinthians how the Apostle Paul was willing to change his plans for evangelization in order to have a positive income outcome in the uh, church, in Cor, in the assembly, in corps. He was uh, that was his priority to him was to see them go on in a way that was honoring to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, it's a wonderful thing to have the Spirit of God indwelling us as believers and of course also dwelling collectively among believers as the House of God. This chapter emphasizes that, although.
If we could put it this way, it doesn't really develop it. It's developed more fully in Ephesians, but here it is mentioned the Corinthians weren't ready for its development, but Paul brings it before them, I believe, in order to show what they were missing.
And to encourage them to be mature, to be.
Uh, shall we say perfect believers in that sense, to lay hold of what God was doing, because the Spirit of God dwells within us, wants to minister those things to our souls. My duty, my responsibility is to remove the hindrances so that he can work. I remember our late brother Clarence Lundgren used to use the illustration, he said.
If I have an apple tree in my backyard, I don't have to go and somehow, uh, teach that apple tree how to produce apples. If it has sunshine, if it has good nutrients in the soil, if it has water, that's what it naturally does, but I can deprive it of things that will hinder its producing apples. I could throw a big tarp over the tree if I had, depending on the size of the tree, if I had a big enough tarp, and that would prevent the sunlight from reaching it and it wouldn't do its job.
That is, the tree wouldn't. And so he said with us often there are hindrances, but God has far, far more in Christ for us through the Word of God and through the Spirit of God ministering it to our souls.
Than anything in this world. But of course the wisdom of this world has an appeal to the natural man.
And as we well know, no man having drunk old wine straight, we desireth new. What does he say? For he saith, the old is better.
And that's, I must say, I speak personally to my own heart. How many times I've had to recognize that where I have been drinking, as it were, old wine, and then suddenly the appetite for the new isn't there and I have to go back to the Lord and recognize that I've allowed an appetite for things out there in the world to spoil my appetite for the things of the Lord. But it doesn't change God's desire. It doesn't change the fact that the Spirit is still there waiting to have me judge those things that are hindering His activity.
So that once again I can have the enjoyment of Christ and the wisdom of God as we have here given to me for my pathway.
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The apostle says that directly in chapter 3, the first verses, doesn't it?
I don't know if we'll get that far in these readings, but we'll bring bring it out a little just in case we don't. Well, that was the problem. He puts it in terms of meat and milk, doesn't he? So chapter 3, verse one, he says, I brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but it's.
Hunter, carnal, fleshly, even hunter babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with me. No doubt he wanted to give him those deep things of God, the things that we have in Ephesians, but he couldn't yet. And that's what he says here. For hitherto you were not able to bear it either yet or now. Are you able? You are yet carnal. And then he goes into why the strife and everything else that he's taking up in this epistle that was hindering their growth as Christians.
But I think it's very important to recognize that that there are things that come into our lives, things that we allow. The wisdom of man is one of those things. Fleshly things abound that we can allow into our lives that would hinder our growth in spiritual things.
And so where the Lord wants us to have meat from His Word, we're just not able to take it. And that's something we ought to be exercised about. What is that in my own life that is causing the Word of God to be unfruitful there?
I umm, I'll look for your forbearance. I've had trouble hearing. It's not, it's not the sound system. It's my, my own hearing problem. So, umm, but this chapter that we're in in verse.
Five, he speaks the reason why he approached them with the message the way he did. And it was so that their faith would not be in man's wisdom and the power of God. And we're speaking about the wisdom of God and the wisdom of man as if it has to do with what's being said. And, and admittedly it usually does, but I think in the first verse he indicates that he could have brought the same message in a different way.
He brought the message to.
Clearing unto them the testimony of God, but his emphasis is on how he did it right, how he did it, and he didn't bring it in. Uh, as many of us when we were younger, trying to speak to others, trying to convince them of the truth, we were bringing them the right message, but we're trying to use our intellect and, and man's wisdom and enticing words to bring the message. And the apostles saying, I didn't do that. I didn't come to you bringing the message that way. So it had less to do with the message and more with how he was bringing it.
And I would just say especially for the younger ones, but I think to all when it says that their faith should be in the power of God. And he says in verse four, he used the demonstration of the spirit and power. I'll just say this, all real spiritual power comes from submission.
All spiritual power that's real comes from submission. Anything else is natural power, even when preaching the Word of God.
It is only when we're in submission to the Spirit of God and practically in submission to our brethren. That is where real power comes from, real spiritual power, and it comes from nothing else.
Yes, and true Christianity makes nothing of man, doesn't it? True Christianity makes nothing of man and everything of Christ. And so if Christ is exalted, man becomes lower and lower. John the Baptist expressed it well when he said he must increase, but I must decrease. And so the more Christ is exalted, the more man is insignificant. And we find that brought out not to go on, but just to mention it that.
Paul answers all the attacks in court later on, and especially in the second epistle. By that very principle. They said, as it were, Paul, you don't amount to much. Your bodily presence is weak, and your speech is contemptible, and there's nothing about you that's very impressive. Paul, as it were, says in so many words, Well, brethren, if that's what it takes to make Christ exalted, that's fine, because I didn't want you to look at me anyway. And so he takes the low place.
Utter dependence on the Lord for His power. Spiritual power, not natural power.
Not natural oratory, not high sounding words.
Brother Harry, whom some of us remember, told us that his mother.
SAT sometimes under the ministry and I don't like to bring out a lot of names, but he told us this in reading meetings. He said my mother had the privilege of sitting under the ministry occasionally of Mr. Darby and she had heard a lot about him and heard about his knowledge of the word, which was more than most. And she went to hear him give an address and she said I came away. At first she said I was a young woman and I was a little disappointed. I was expecting a real.
00:55:23
Servant. I was expecting something really impressive.
But she said I wasn't at all disappointed in what he said. It was as Ted was bringing out, it was the way he said it that was disappointing, she said. When I read his ministry I had to read it three or four times to grasp what he was getting at. But when I heard him speak it was very simple, easy words, nothing difficult, not high sounding rhetoric. Why? Because he didn't want to attract to himself. And I have no doubt.
As was brought out earlier, that it was not just a conscious saying, no, I'm not going to use that big word or something like that. There was a real fear and a trembling that somehow S would get in the way of Christ and His exaltation. And I believe that was the same way with Paul when he says his Ted was bringing out, he was trembling and in fear. He wasn't just putting that on. It was real. He really felt that there was a danger of his getting in the way.
Of whatever the Spirit of God had to minister, and it had to be said in such a way.
That it didn't attract the Paul, it attracted to Christ.
In the wisdom of God and the power of God, not the wisdom of man. It's interesting you bring that verse out, Bill, what John the Baptist said, because if you look at the context, what John the Baptist was referring to when he said he must increase and I must decrease was his following. Yes.
I know that some have kind of applied that burst of my I must personally decrease and enormous, but what John the Baptist was referring to was his following because his disciples were concerned that people were starting to follow him.
So John the Baptist said, well, he is the bridegroom has the bride. I'm just a friend. I rejoice. He must increase, I must decrease. He was referring to his following.
Good.
It's interesting to consider the power of God. It's easy to read those words, but actually think about what it means.
God said, let there be light.
That's an incredible expression we're just all used to like, ever tried to make light?
We can't even comprehend how to do it.
God spoke, this whole world came into existence. It's incredible. And then we consider things that you can't see.
How did God take all my sins away?
I couldn't undo one of the things I'd done. And yet the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sins. That's the amazing power of God. And then think about what the future holds. In my Father's house are many mansions, but we're not. So I would have told you, the Lord Jesus ascended off this earth, disappeared into the clouds. That's power.
And he's coming again in power and majesty. There will be whole armies destroyed by the word of his mouth, by the word of his power. It's incredible. That's the power of God. And that is what the Spirit of God, through Paul is saying. This is what's available.
And so it's a real challenge to each one of us. To me, what's getting in the way of that power?
Sometimes at, uh, events like this at the conference will show up on the first day and I'll look around the room and who's sitting on the front row and say, wow, this is going to be a good conference and.
And I think those rooms appreciate brothers have gifts and so on. But I think what we see from the 1St.
Full of trying to bring out the 1St chapter. And then this chapter is when it comes down to it, when we're really looking around the room and we're looking at our brothers and saying wow, that he has a real gift and that was his parents. They're not looking for the Lord to bring us out. We're looking to our brothers.
And sometimes we're guilty of that when they pull up for the Lord for everything.
Make one comment too at the end of verse 6.
I suggest that that last clause is sometimes misconstrued. It says, yet not the wisdom of this world. That is, Paul speaks the wisdom of God among them that are perfect. He says, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the Princess of this world that come to not. And then in the end of the eighth verse it says, For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
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Some have thought that that simply means if they'd only understood the results of crucifying the Lord, oh, they wouldn't have. If, if they'd only understood what they were doing and what God was doing, then they wouldn't have done it. No, that's not the thought. The thought is if they had known the consequences of the finished work of Christ, the heart of man was so contrary that it would deliberately and willfully thwarted God's purposes.
In order to prevent the blessing. But they didn't understand it. And So what did they do? Him being the uh, by the determinate counsel of God, delivered by the determinate counsel of God, what ye have crucified and hanged on a tree. Man carried out what was God's plan for the wrong reasons, but if he'd known that he would afford God's plan just to be contrary.
And that just emphasises what we were saying before, that the heart of man, the wisdom of man, is always the opposite of God's wisdom when it comes to moral and spiritual things. And if we recognize that, we won't have any confidence in it.
Sometimes we say I don't understand everything in Scripture. There are many things I can't understand. That is true. And if this is a book of God and it is, and it is conveying truth from an infinite God.
Then it's, if I could use the term, it's not unreasonable that there are things in it that are beyond reason, not contrary to reason, but beyond reason. They have to be accepted by faith. And that's where the wisdom of man comes into the things of God. Because man says I will understand it. I have a good mind. Even as a Christian, I want to wrap my mind around this particular thing. And then that is where the error starts. We'll get to that later on in the chapter.
But I, I just point out that the natural mind of man, the Princess of this world, they had wisdom, but it comes to nothing because man can never rise above himself. If he wants to know anything beyond himself, he's dependent on divine revelation. And that's where we get it, in Christ and in the Word of God.
So I would just suggest in verse 7.
That the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom.
Is not exactly the mystery of Christ in the church, although there is a connection.
Rather, the mystery here, the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, I would suggest, is rather the fact that God was going to bring about the blessing of man and the ultimate removal of sin from this world.
And the defeat of Satan and the exaltation of his beloved son by having that same son come into this world and do what come riding, as it were, on a White Horse, and going forth to conquer. Not right away, no, rather going in, as we've already had, into the most shameful death that the heart of man could devise, and being despised and rejected in this world.
In order to accomplish God's purposes, in order to redeem you and me from the effects of sin, in order to bring us into blessing. That, I believe, is the force of what it says here, the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom.
Yes, that was all thought out, if we could say it reverently in the counsels of God in a past eternity, but it was a wisdom that was not revealed to the heart of the natural man. No going on in the chapter, it says.
Uh, the natural man verse 14 receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. You try and tell the things of God to the natural man. He says I don't, I don't believe that. I don't want that. That doesn't commend itself to me. You tell me that I have to be saved by believing on a man that was ultimately mistreated and hung on a cross. You tell me that's the way I have to be saved. No, I don't want that.
No, and sad to say, and brother Rob was bringing it out, Satan has done a good job of reducing Christianity to the level of a worldly religion that appeals to the natural man, even to the point, as you mentioned, Rob, and I had heard that before, not in Canada, but in England, where there is a man, an ordained minister, who was an avowed atheist, and yet here he was a minister and a Christian Church, and that was fine. Nobody complained about that. That was quite OK.
01:05:08
The authorities who ran that denomination were well aware of it and that that that was OK. And now that's an extreme, I admit. But we just say that once man's mind starts to work in moral, moral and spiritual things, that is ultimately where Satan will take it if if he's allowed to. And so.
Here we have the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom. What does that do? Ultimately, it makes Christianity the mustard seed in this world, not the great tree that it has become. God never intended that it should be the great organizations of this world that are in Christianity. Now, does God work through them? Sometimes? Yes, he does. God uses anything that has to do with himself as long as there's anything of himself left in it.
But that doesn't mean that that is what God intended, Christianity was intended, and properly is the following of a rejected Christ.
And that will never be popular, even among believers.
So we've had, uh, Paul, he was, uh, a natural and a trained orator. And we see some of his speeches as we read through the book of Acts.
But then he had a thorn in the flesh. He was made weak. He talks in our chapter here about he was with you in weakness.
And feared much trembling.
He didn't come to them in his natural.
Abilities, his trained abilities like he did to Festus and Agrippa and so forth. But in Philippians chapter 3.
And verse 7:00 and 8:00.
He says, but what things were gain to me, I counted loss for Christ. He was willing to give up those things that made him important in this world. Verse eight he doubtless, and I count all things but lost for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and to count them but down that I may win Christ. If we want to be of use to the Lord, we may, we may be, we may need to be willing to give up.
Some of our natural abilities, some of our trained abilities and so that we can be used for Christ, the Lord Jesus himself. He was the Lord of glory and in chapter 2 of Philippians in verse the end of verse 3.
We see, he says, in loneliness.
Of mine let each esteem other better than themselves. Verse five. Let this mind be in you, which was also.
In Christ Jesus and so the Lord of glory, he was brought low in weakness, brought to the cross, and now we go on following a man, Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's not a a it doesn't make us look important in this world, does it? It's humbling to follow a man who is ridiculed and mocked and crucified the shameful dead and.
If we're going to follow Christ, we may need to give up a little bit of who we are in order to follow Him.
172.
10-4.
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01:10:12
Uh, can I have a compliment to you, please? Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
MMM.
Rizpah and Humility
Open—Bill Prost
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.
Could you sing #193?
All that thou hast, thou hast for me. All my fresh springs are hid indeed.
Day I live well, I confess I nothing am get all possessed 193.
Nsnoise.
That's the Lord's help.
Could we turn please to a scripture that?
Has often been before me, and in fact some of us talked about it a little bit on the trip down here.
Second Samuel, chapter 21.
Second Samuel, chapter 21.
I don't want to spend too long on this because there's enough in this chapter.
For the full address but.
What has been on my heart lately is the need for.
Humility.
Perhaps collectively, but it starts individually.
I don't think anyone would argue that we are living in the last days.
And those last days are detailed to us in Second Timothy chapter 3.
00:05:03
Where it tells us that perilous times shall come.
And what is listed there is not the character of the heathen world, but rather the character of Christendom.
Unless there be any.
Degree of self satisfaction in our own souls. Let's remember that we are part of Christendom.
And that very often the ruin is felt most.
Among those who, perhaps with the best of intentions, seek to hang on to.
And give.
Testimony to the truth.
Here in Second Samuel chapter 21, we have, I trust, an example for us which is often spoken to my own soul.
Let's read from verse 10.
And then we'll go back and explain. I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but let's read from verse 10.
Andrews, for the daughter of AIA, took sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock.
From the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven.
And suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day.
Nor the beasts of the field by night.
And it was told David what Risper, the daughter of Elia.
The concubine of salt.
Had done.
Sackcloth in Scripture is a universal and well known type of repentance and humility.
What then occasioned what we just read here? What happened?
Way back in the time of Saul.
A king that Israel desired, but not a spiritual man.
A natural man in the context of the chapter we had before us this morning.
And in his lack of wisdom, he decided that these gibeonites in Israel.
Had to be gotten rid of.
They had been part of the nation's in Canaan whom the children of Israel were told to destroy. But by subtlety, you'll remember, they pretended that they had come from a far country and they sought to make an alliance with Israel.
Joshua, instead of looking to the Lord and asking the Lord what to do, went ahead and made that alliance.
And Israel was caught. They could not go back on their word, and they ended up in Israel in perpetuity. But they were made, as it says, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.
But so.
Actually profane the name of the Lord by going after them and trying to destroy them.
And here's one important point. God doesn't always settle things right away.
Because we're not told that anything happened in Saul's reign.
But here, way on in David's reign, long after Saul was gone, long after David had been on the throne, there's a famine in Israel for three years, and when David inquires of the Lord, he is told that it is for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.
That's an important point that we'll just make briefly without dwelling on it, and that is that sometimes we have to go back in the past in order to look for the reason that the Lord has allowed something either in our personal lives.
Or perhaps among us collectively.
Well, sad to say, while David did inquire of the Lord as to the reason for the famine.
It doesn't seem that he asked the Lord what to do for the solution.
Instead, he asked to.
And as we would say in modern language, they were out for blood.
They wanted revenge.
And they said, we want seven men of the family of Saul.
00:10:04
We want them to be killed and they even use spiritual language to.
Put a nice spiritual.
Covering over it all, they said we're going to hang them up unto the Lord and give you.
Whom the Lord did choose, Almost as if saying, The Lord chose that man's soul to be king, and look what he did.
So we're going to hang up seven of his sons as revenge for what he did.
And David went along with it.
Very, very sad.
It was allowed of God, yes, but it was rather a sad way to deal with the matter.
But at any rate, it happened.
And they're hung up there.
And those bodies were left.
Dead bodies, as they did in those days, for whatever desecration happened, either from the birds of the air during the day or the beast to the field by night.
You and I recoil at the very thought of such things, but it was rather common and done quite frequently, sad to say, in the history of mankind.
And here's this woman, Rizpah.
She was a concubine of soul. She didn't even have the status.
Of a wife she was a concubine. You may remember earlier in the same book of Second Samuel.
She was the occasion of a dispute between.
The son of Saul, a man by the name of Ishbasha, whom Abner, the captain of Saul's host, tried to put on the throne of Israel. And then Ishbosheth made an accusation about something Abner supposedly had done in connection with this woman. And Abner, as a result, was very angry with this Bosheth and said, I'm going to turn the Kingdom over to David.
Here she is having had two sons.
And there were other sons of Saul, the son of his daughter Mirab, apparently.
And all seven of them, two of Rizpah's sons and five of Murab's sons, all hung up there dead.
Has revenge to satisfy the.
What was she to do?
Was it a right way to handle it? No, it wasn't.
And more than that, it was against the law.
They were told clearly in the law in Deuteronomy that if they were to hang a man's body on a tree, it had to be taken down before nightfall.
They weren't allowed to leave it up there overnight. It was a disgrace.
But evidently David.
And the Gibeonites did not regard that law. And here it was.
What was risk for going to do?
She had no authority. She had no power.
She could have done a number of things. She could have started a campaign, gone around and tried to stir things up among the people and said look what's happening. That's contrary to the law.
And all this.
How do we handle it when there is a problem in our own lives where wrong is done, perhaps to us, or perhaps in the larger scale, when wrong is done among the people of God?
I can still remember quite a few years ago now, talking to a sister whom I knew very well.
And something had happened in an assembly.
Which affected her and it wasn't her local assembly.
And I still remember, I can hear her saying, Bill, it's so wrong. It's just so wrong.
I knew what she was talking about.
And it was wrong, Very wrong.
Turn over to Second Timothy for a minute.
Chapter 4 this time.
And verse 5, Second Timothy 4 and verse 5.
00:15:00
Watch thou in all things, but watch thou in all things endure afflictions.
Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of thy ministry.
In order to get the full force of what I'm trying to bring out, you have to go to the JND translation.
Because that phrase endure afflictions.
Is better translated by the Darby translation.
Bare evils.
Bare evils what?
Paul telling Timothy to put up with evil? Really.
What did he mean? Did he mean that things were getting so bad that the assembly could no longer judge evil?
No, that's not what he meant.
The assembly is to be the pillar and ground of the truth.
And already Paul had told Timothy in the second chapter that if there were such evil that the assembly couldn't deal with it, that he was to purge himself from vessels to dishonor.
So there is no way Paul meant that the assembly should just turn a blind eye to evil because the days were so difficult that it could no longer be dealt with. What did he mean then?
He was meaning that in the last days, Timothy, when things are weak, when all in Asia have turned away from me, you are going to see things done in the wrong way procedurally and you are going to see an attitude and spirit exhibited that is most on Christ like sometimes and you are going to have to.
Bear those evils, because there isn't.
Sometimes the moral and spiritual power to deal with it the way it ought to be dealt with.
And some of us had to learn that lesson the hard way.
And I have to hang my own head.
What is this woman, Rizzo?
Admirable conduct.
Here her. Here are her two sons hung up there.
Before the Lord of all things, as if the Lord approved of that, as if this honored the Lord, this revenge.
This hanging up of men's bodies.
For a long period of time so that the animals could feed off the dead flesh. Can you imagine what that did to a mother's heart?
I can't because I'm not a woman.
Some of you sisters probably can.
What does she do? She takes.
Sackcloth and spreads it out for whom?
For her.
Individually, she took the sin of Israel on herself.
And she says I take my place as part of the failure.
I was the concubine of that man that did that. I was part of the family.
Not that I believe she could have stopped it. I don't suppose Paul would have listened to a concubine if she'd stepped up and said, Saul, no, no, don't you touch the Gibeonites? It's very dealt for whether that would have made any impression on him.
But she takes the responsibility. She didn't put it out and make a big public show of it to try and attract everybody's attention, she says. I'm going to put out the sackcloth. Repentance. Humiliation at what?
At what needed to be judged in Israel because God allowed the famine to affect the whole nation.
David could have said, but Lord.
I I didn't do it and Saul's gone. Do I have to be responsible for what Saul did?
Sometimes yes, sometimes yes, we may have to revisit things in the past.
And sometimes we need to do it collectively too. Sometimes an individual has to do it. Sometimes an assembly has to do it.
That's a healthy thing if we're willing to do it.
And so here we find she spreads this sackcloth for her upon the rock.
That's one thing.
But then what else does she do?
O if the authorities in Israel had no regard for the law of God.
00:20:04
She did.
And she says I personally will stop.
The birds of the air and the beasts of the field from getting at those bodies.
Yes, I have no doubt that a mother's heart was involved because two of them were her boys.
And it was doubtless more than she could stand.
They have to know that there were hanging the bodies of her sons and the birds and the wild animals were going at them.
But she prevented the birds and the beasts from getting at any of those seven.
No light task day and night.
She probably had to lie awake. How she slept, I don't know. Where she slept I don't know. How she managed, I don't know. She couldn't have been a young woman. Must have been old enough to have sons that were growing up and so on.
But she did it, and it says from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven.
The Jewish harvest was generally in the late spring.
Because it had a Mediterranean climate and they would get rainfall in the fall and then that was the early rain.
And made their wheat spring up, and then they got the latter rain that brought it to completion so they could harvest it.
These men were put to death in the time of barley harvest, it says. And so she's there all that time.
Probably until what we would have called in script, or what scripture calls the early rain in the fall, not just a day or two, not just a week or two, it must have been a matter of some months.
She stood there, laid there, whatever it took.
To keep those bodies from being desecrated.
You know, sometimes.
And I say it I trust with all humility, because my heart is no better.
But sometimes if things that are wrong are done.
There's a tendency, isn't there, in a moral way, to desecrate the bodies.
There's a tendency to point the finger. There's a tendency on the one hand to say, well, I guess they had that coming to them or whatever it might be.
And perhaps even to invoke the name of the Lord, as these gibeonites did, and say, well, we're hanging them up under the Lord after all. And they could have said the Lord allowed it, which he did.
But I believe the Lord allowed it in order to bring out what was in His heart.
So she protects those bodies, she says. I'm not going to allow them to be desecrated.
I'm not going to allow anyone to do anything to them. I'm not going to allow those birds which speak of that which is unclean and the beasts of the field which speaks of that. That which was without is without reason, without logic. It just acts by instinct, she says. I'm not going to allow any of that.
I am going.
To protect those bodies.
And what happens?
What happens?
Call David. She didn't do it for that reason. I don't think she was trying to get David's attention, but it did.
David here is a type of the Lord.
And if you and I are willing as individuals to humble ourselves.
You'll remember in Israel.
When God pronounced both blessings and curses on Israel for either their disobedience or their lack of it.
And when Solomon gave his prayer the dedication of the temple, what did he say? Among other things?
He says if all Israel.
Or any man. Any man shall what? Recognize the plague of his own heart. Oh, oh, needful. It's easy to point the finger. It's easy to blame others. It's easy to say. Why can't they act normally So that we don't have all this trouble on our hands? No.
Let me deal with the plague of my own heart.
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And it comes to the attention of David.
And what happened?
David although he's a type of Christ, he's also a type.
Of a man in a position of responsibility who had acted wrongly.
And what does he do?
The Lord brings to David's attention, if we could use the term reverently, some unfinished business in his life.
Oh, this woman has an effect on others because David.
Realizes before the Lord I have been guilty to.
There's something in my past, David could have said, well, why? Why should I be responsible for things that Saul did? But then David realized, yes, David realizes, yes, I'm guilty too.
Verse 12 And David went and took the bones of Saul and Jonathan.
The bones of Jonathan, his son.
From the men of Jabesh Gilead.
You will remember that when Saul and Jonathan and Saul's other sons were slain on Mount Gilboa in that final battle with the Philistines, you will remember that the Philistines hung them up there. That's what the heathen did, hung up bodies to be desecrated.
And the men of Jabesh Gilead went all night long and rescued those bodies and buried them.
Why did they do that?
Why did they undertake all that? Oh, they had good memories, didn't they? They remembered in better days, when Saul had come to their rescue, when they were in big trouble.
And Saul had come to their rescue.
And they went and rescued those bodies.
But they'd never been given a proper burial. They'd never been properly treated. And David recognizes that, yes, it was wonderful for those men what they did. They did what they could. But David, as king, ought to have seen to it that they were given a proper burial. So what does he do?
He goes took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan and his son from the men of Jabish Gilead, which had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hanged them when the Philistines had slain Saul and Gilboa.
And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son.
And they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin and Zela, in the sepulchre of Kish's father. And they performed all that the king commanded, and after that God was entreated for the lamb.
One woman, what an effect she had. One woman's repentance, humiliation.
Had a tremendous effect because she took upon her the sin as if it were her own. She didn't point the finger, nor would she allow the bodies to be desecrated, she said. I am part of the failure.
She wasn't the only one.
You'll remember that Ezra did it in his day, even though I'm sure he wasn't guilty. Daniel did it in his day, even though I'm sure he wasn't guilty either. But both of them confessed the sin of Israel as if they were their own.
And God gave blessing as a result of it.
Well, the Lord can give blessing to you and me too, if we own our failure, own our sin, own our own responsibility, the plague of our own heart.
Spread out that sackcloth. Spread it out.
And then refused to allow the desecration.
No, sometimes we have to bear evils and go to the Lord about it, and we find that.
The Lord brings it to the attention of a David. He deals with something.
And then he looks after the very thing that needed to be done with those bodies. David didn't have to be told.
And get a petition signed by 5000 people and present it to David to remind him of his responsibilities. No, the Lord did that. The Lord brought it to his attention.
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And at the same time as he dealt with his lack of responsibility with Saul and Jonathan, he looks after those bodies that were hung up there too. And then the Lord was entreated for the land.
Well, I will only suggest that all that as a lesson for you and me too.
In these last days.
The Discipline of Children
Open—Will Hayhoe
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This morning in the reading we were reminded how that in our Bibles we have perfect wisdom and how that sometimes when we.
Glean knowledge from other than the Word of God and natural things. Often it's beneficial, sometimes not. But thankfully we can go to the Word of God and get perfect wisdom.
During the reading, Howard mentioned, umm, I think he said he went to a prenatal class and at some point it reached in the discussion that it went beyond scripture or the ideas that were presented were I.
I didn't talk to Howard afterwards, but it seemed like it was not in agreement with the Word of God.
And I guess that got me thinking about a subject that I trust will be helpful.
And it is a subject that is very real for those who are parents raising children and that is the subject of discipline. And just to offer initial comment about how that perhaps we think of the subject as you hear it and you get a little pain.
It's a little like, oh, why, Why talk about that? It it might hurt. And I think the Bible presents it as a part of our Christian experience throughout life.
And the more that we can learn in our youth that we need correction, it'll be for our benefit for the rest of life. And so I just would offer that as a general comment at the outset. And I trust I would have a, there might be something from the word of God that would be a help to parents. Let's turn to the book of Proverbs first for a few verses.
Proverbs chapter 12, verse one.
Says whoso loves.
Instruction loves knowledge, but he that hates reprove is brutish.
Could also read it. Whoso loves discipline loves knowledge, but he that hates reproof is brutish. Or another, maybe more blunt translation is is stupid.
You know, if we have the idea that correction is unnecessary or something to be avoided, we've missed the mark. For here it clearly says that if we love it, we'll gain knowledge. So again, take it as from the word of God. That's what God's Word says. Now let's go to chapter 13, Proverbs 13.
Verse 24.
Thankfully, again, it's the word of God. You're hearing a voice. Just take it as the word of God.
He that spares his rod hates his son, but he that loves him chases him, chasing him in good time.
A proof of love is the willingness to discipline a child.
Taken the other way then.
You don't.
You forget or are unwilling to take up with the necessary discipline.
You're missing the mark. It's necessary. Love is not suspended during discipline. It's a it's a proof of love and action.
It needs to be carried out.
Now chapter.
22.
Proverbs 22 verse.
15.
Foolishness is bound.
In the heart of a child, but.
The rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
David learned to say we won't read the verse, but you'll remember David and we know in the Bible that David is an example to us.
It's called the man after God's own heart, someone that God loved. David was brought to say that in sin my mother conceived me.
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That is, he was born in a condition, as we all are, in sin. There's no exceptions. It's OK and it's beneficial. It's necessary to recognize it and in our children when they're born.
We're a mother's heart. A father's heart yearns for their blessing and natural things, and you have that heart that reaches out to them from their very first breath that wants to take care.
Wants to see them grow and develop in natural things. You want protection? You want nurture.
What about the part where it says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child? Is there any exceptions? Did that start at ages two or three? No. Right from the very outset, the Bible is faithful. It tells us here foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. It's there. It's not exceptional. It's not unique to certain ones.
That you have to figure out whether it's so or not.
It's there. This is what the Bible says, and man's wisdom may be divergent from that. Let's just not go there. Let's just say that this is what the Bible presents. Foolishness found in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him. You want that to go away? What's necessary?
Is there any doubt what the word of God is saying here?
No, there's no doubt not. If we're willing to just receive it, it involves a lot of correction.
It's necessary.
Now let's go to chapter 23.
Proverbs 23.
Verse 13 Withhold not correction from the child.
First, thou beatest him with the rod. He shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell, or she'll deliverance. You want deliverance for your child, you're going to have to take up with a rod of correction.
You say Ouch. Well.
Maybe for some parents, again, maybe we've received information from our peer group, from a book, some other source and you say I don't know, I'm not so sure. Well, again, like we had in the reading this morning.
We're never wiser than the word of God. We're going if we receive something that is divergent from this, we're going to have to set it aside. We're going to have to take it up and receive it in all its simplicity and in its truth.
But you know what? God intends it for blessing.
It's it's not easy, but it's necessary and it's beneficial in the end.
When our kids were young, it became necessary for discipline. It was often done with, not always rightly, of course, all parents, we make lots of mistakes. We certainly did. But you know, you can see when done in the fear of God and in the simplicity of what God's Word says and carrying out in faithfulness and independence on him.
And submission to His Word, it brings immediate blessing. And I mean it can bring immediate blessing, not necessarily every time, because some wills are harder to be broken and God knows that, but in time it brings blessing.
So I just wanna say to those who are perhaps at that stage of life of having young kids and facing this subject, receiving information from your peer group, other parents, maybe you've observed some and you're wondering how does this play out And you see your child in a condition where they're not happy. There's clearly not submission. We heard this morning how important and necessary it is. I think it was Brother Porter to talk about.
Submission is everything in life.
For our blessing comes after we submit, and in this subject it applies. We're going to have to let ourselves be subject to the Word of God, not rise above it. We're going to have to be subject to it for our children to reap blessing. But it needs to be done. Let's turn then to the New Testament Hebrews chapter 12.
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Hebrews 12 It talks a little bit about chastening.
Book of Hebrews, chapter 12.
We'll start at verse 6.
For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. So we learn right there that the hand of God chastens everyone at every stage of our life.
It's part of Christian experience.
My son despised not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loves, he chases.
And every son whom he perceiveth, if he endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chastens not?
But if ye be without chastening, we're of all our partakers, then are ye ******** and not sons. Furthermore, we have had for others of our flesh, which corrected us, and 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 seems 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. A thought which is lame be turned out of the way but latter. But let it rather.
Be healed. Well, there's a lot in this passage and I, I just thought of it again. It's necessary for all of us to recognize whatever, whatever stage of life we're in, at the chastening of God.
Can come upon us.
So I would say to myself, to everyone of us here, if it comes upon us, we do well to receive what God has for us. But for a moment, if I could, just to encourage those of you who are parents with young children, you know, it's not easy. You perhaps say, OK, I I can see that Proverbs teaches it.
Uh, uh, OK, I get it, but you don't know what it's like day by day. I have a particular child and the will is particularly evident and so on. And God will give strength for the moment. So if I could, I'll just pass along perhaps a few things that I might offer that I'm sure other parents that have.
Faced the subject perhaps would think of.
Some and others to pass along, but I want to encourage those of you who are having maybe a hard time and carrying it out first of all.
As husbands and wives be together in prayer before the Lord, you have a child and you realize that you've come into the point where you need to carry this out beyond your knees before the Lord in prayer. Go to the Lord. He will give strength. Another thing I would say.
Is aim for the heart?
Fathers, we are to train up our children and the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The nurture side means that your child has a heart. Consider their heart where they are.
But don't let them deceive you. Children are very, very smart, and they're smart from a very young age.
I hope I'm not being too practical.
And if I am, someone will stand up afterwards and tell me so, and I hope they would.
Children are very smart from a young age.
In our own experience, they're very smart. When they're six months old, the will is very much in action, and it's very evident. It's not too young to get started again. The Lord will give discernment for the moment.
Next.
When it comes to the rod, which is physical correction.
B Discreet.
00:15:01
No one has to know that's going on other than mom and dad and the child.
You can find places and you can be discreet. I'm not saying that it can't be done, that others can know, but it doesn't harm or hurt to be discreet. If you're carrying out in the fear of the Lord, the Lord will help you with that.
The next thing is.
Be purposeful. Don't.
Don't be lethargic if you know that your child has a will and they all do and it's evident, look to the Lord for the opportunity. Not every opportunity when the will is displayed is the right occasion to deal with the matter at hand. There are times when you will not be able to deal with it. We live in a society, in a culture where you would not be wise to carry out physical corrections in certain places and that's why you might ask others for just and and certainly go.
But that doesn't mean you give up and not look for the occasion when it can be carried out.
And I would say to fathers, you know, if you're not home during the day and mom is.
And you need to be the one in the evening or whenever.
It's too hard on mom's heart. Dads, don't give up. You need to support your wife who is seeking to be a mother in the fear of the Lord. We live in a culture of, I could dare say wimpy fathers, wimpy men, men that don't want to take up with full responsibility.
Take time to find out from your wife when you're home in the evening how it's gone that day and if it's been hard for her.
You should carry on, don't give up. And finally, I would say be consistent. Your kids are watching. If you have more than one, the others are watching too. The fear of the Lord looked to him in your knees to be consistent.
The Bible says be not weary in well doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.
Try to carry on again in a dependent way. Keep open communication as parents between.
Husband and wife and seek to take care of one another and look to the Lord. Let's close then with a verse in Ephesians.
Chapter 6.
Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4.
And ye fathers.
Notice it says Fathers, and ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or might read the discipline and admonition of the Lord. And so it says, Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. Very important thing for fathers. And so I just want to offer.
Perhaps so I could?
Two reasons or two occasions that it would not be wise to go forward with physical discipline.
The one would be if there's any flesh going on in my heart.
In other words, if I'm stirred up and frustrated by what I'm seeing in my child and I don't like the behavior, and so rather than in the fear of the Lord, I in the flesh rise up in anger. Correct, my child, you're not going to make progress.
The child may even at a certain age, recognize it as wrath.
Be very careful, never correct your child.
In anger or frustration, you may actually need to wait for another occasion because you've allowed. At least speaking for myself, I allowed the flesh to rise up. Now, if it happens, God is merciful. We're thankful for that. But be careful. Never.
In anger.
And finally.
And this is important. Why are we disciplining them?
So that they may understand the heart of God from a young age. Again, chastening is part of our experience here on earth for all ages.
We are not correcting our children to bring outward conformance, to create a model child or a child that has the appearance of being in good order. That's not why we're doing it. We're doing it. They may understand from a young age that there's sin in them and if they understand from a very young age.
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Then when they get to be two and three years old and they understand more.
Aren't they going to then recognize and need to repent of their own sin in the presence of God and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior?
I think that that route of correction can help in that, bringing them to the point of true repentance before God. That's why we're doing it, that they may know Christ and who He is and understand from a year young age that inherent in US born and shaped and iniquity is that sin nature. That's what we're born with.
We trust that each one of our children may come to know the Lord Jesus Christ at a young age. A little child of seven or even three or four may enter into heaven through Christ the open door. And so we're disciplining with that in view, not for compliance and conformance and to achieve some level of behavior. And so I trust that these comments.
Might, umm be beneficial? Again, it's it's the word of God.
Umm, we can all go over these verses a little bit later on and and meditate on them and say, is this really what God is given? Is this the mind of God? Do I have it from the Word of God? If we have it, each one of us, from the Word of God, then we have it in the right way.
Without the Camp
Open—Paul Hadley
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Look in Exodus chapter 16.
This is the occasion when manna was given.
And at the end of the chapter.
Verse 32 And Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord commandeth, Fill an Omer of it to be kept for your generations.
They may see the bread wherewith I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pop, put an Omer full of manager, and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations. Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony to be kept.
The children of Israel did eat better and so on.
We have a pot of manna laid up before the testimony.
What was that testimony?
Wasn't the Ark?
The Ark wasn't built yet.
The law.
You don't get that until much later.
What could possibly be this testimony?
I don't know.
I suspect myself.
That it was the rod that Moses had.
Alright, I'd like to bring out here.
Is that there was something that Moses had that God used?
And Moses was not to forget that.
He laid it up.
He might be used of God for something some time.
It's easy to forget that.
You're not to forget it.
You might have some answer to prayer in your life. It's easy to forget it.
You are not to forget that. Lay it up. Moses had a little spot. I suspect it was a box. I have no idea what it was. It might have been a tent.
I just know what it wasn't.
Those things weren't there yet.
But every answer to your prayers is something precious for you to lay up, and it'll strengthen you for.
That which comes next.
So we have this testimony here.
Turnover.
Two Exodus 33.
This is after the law is broken.
That's chapter 32, where the law is broken.
And.
Reread.
That.
Verse seven. And Moses took the Tabernacle, and pinched and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation came to pass, that everyone which sought the Lord went out under the Tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.
What was this Tabernacle?
It wasn't what we find set up in uh, in chapter 40.
Haven't been set up yet.
Might have been a little tense.
I suspect it had that rod in it, but it doesn't say what it was. Maybe it had that rod in it?
And perhaps it had a pot of manna in it.
Everybody wanted to seek. The Lord went to that place.
But then we find in Numbers chapter one that.
That's the Tabernacle after it's set up, well, that's chapter 40 we read about the Tabernacle being set up. Chapter 39 I think it is as we read about the priesthood being set up.
Because she and uh, in chapter 33, there was no priesthood yet.
There were no singers yet that were waited for David's time.
No singers, no priesthood.
00:05:00
It was a Tabernacle though.
No royal garments. I mean no priestly garments.
None of that.
But it was a spot.
Where the Lord is recognized as.
Being there.
That's that spot that I recommend that you and I treasure in our hearts, where the Lord is recognized, where He has been there in your life, however that might be.
Then to go on as I said in Numbers chapter one, at the end of the chapter we find.
We find that the children, it says, uh, towards the end of the chapter, it speaks of the children of Israel. That's verse 52, pitch their tents. Every man buys on camp and every man by his own standard throughout their host, the Levite shall pitch around about the Tabernacle of testimony that there be no wrath upon.
A congregation of the Children of Israel.
So there was a time when this when this tent was outside the camp.
But then we find that it's inside the camp, just as it's meant to be.
What changed?
I would suggest this.
When Moses had to take that.
Tentative testimony outside the camp.
There was no sacrifice for sin.
There was law that was broken and no sacrifice for it. It had to be taken outside the camp.
There was no bloodshed.
And there was no mercy seat.
And so in chapter 40 of Exodus, there's the in chapter 39 of Exodus, the priesthood, chapter 40 of Exodus, the mercy seat in its proper place.
And you and I have a mercy seat and.
You and I have access to that.
So it's a beautiful thing to think of a time when that.
Testimony of the Lord's presence could be brought back into the congregation because now.
There was a mercy seat. Now it doesn't say that I'm.
I'm just trying to explain why it would be that it had to be outside the camp at one time, then it was brought inside the camp and another time I believe it's because there was a mercy seat and bloodshed and a priesthood. So that being said, what do we think of Hebrews 13?
There's a beautiful thought about that.
Hebrews 13.
Verse 10.
We have an altar where they have no right to eat, which serves the Tabernacle. Notice it doesn't say the temple, it says the Tabernacle.
The Tabernacle.
Was a picture, as we've often enjoyed.
That which we have now with the.
Uh, foreshadows what we have now, enjoyment of Christ.
And all being the boards and so on. Silver sockets of silver and things covered with gold. All those things that have different thoughts to them.
Umm, Temple really is more of a picture of that which is ahead in the Millennium.
So it's very appropriate that it speaks here of the Tabernacle, verse 11, for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp.
Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him, without the camp, burying His reproach.
Now, if you think of Exodus 33, where that little tent with whatever was in it was outside the camp.
The reproach was not on the tent, it was on the camp because of their scent.
So what's the approach that we're talking about here? Well, it explains in the passage what it is, and if we were looking, well, I guess I'll have to read it. The end of Leviticus 6 speaks of the sin offering.
00:10:14
Political 6 and.
Verse 30 And no sin offering whereof any of the blood is brought into the Tabernacle, the congregation to reconcile withholding the holy place shall be eaten. It shall be burnt in the fire. It wasn't for a priest to enjoy anything about a sin offering. That sin offering the blood was shed, but the priest wasn't to enjoy that. Would it be right for the priest to enjoy the fact that somebody else had sinned and had to come and give an offering? That's what.
Yes, in verse. In chapter 13 of Hebrews, the bodies of the verse 11, the bodies of those beasts, his blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest are burned. Without the camp, they had no right to eat of it. What we have to enjoy is something entirely different than what they had.
It was a reproach that sin was a reproach that had to be put outside the camp. What is? What is our enjoyment? We have the privilege of bearing his reproach.
Going outside and being occupied with the sacrifice instead of all that other stuff. We have the privilege of being occupied with the sacrifice, Jesus.
In shame.
Is it brought out brought out before in this meeting in shame hung on that cross? I was thinking as our brother Bill is Speaking of that, how that you often see pictures of Jesus on a cross.
You never, never see the shame.
Every single one of them has some garment hung around them.
You never see the shame of being hung naked on a cross.
But we have the privilege of looking on him as our sacrifice.
And bearing his reproach.
Let us go for forth therefore unto Him without the camp.
Bearing his reproach in our meeting recently in Mount Tabor.
We were reading.
In Second Corinthians and it says chapter 4 verse 10 always bearing about in the body.
The dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body, taking up our cross and following Him, having the privilege to partake a little bit of His reproach.
#252.
Sweet.
Heart.
Yeah, we'll get back and we'll get out of here and there's a lot of.
I don't know how that could be the one that's a little bit.
Yeah, I don't know how to play it.
Could we also sing the third verse of #173?
1 Corinthians 2:7-11
Reading
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243.
Nsnoise.
Most were here for the morning reading, but.
Thought we were in First Corinthians 2.
It'd be nice to go on with it, wouldn't it?
I agree. Where should we start with with verse 7 be OK? I know we talked about verses 7:00 and 8:00, but there might be another thought or two that we could bring out before going on. That sounds all right.
1St 7 then.
First Corinthians chapter 2 verse seven. But we speak the wisdom of God and a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the Princess of this world knew.
00:05:03
For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So, as it is written, I hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yeah, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the sphere of man which is in him?
Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the spear of God.
Now we have received not the sphere of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth.
But which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judge of all things, yet he himself is judge of no man, for who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ.
We already spoke a little about thee.
Wisdom of God in a mystery. That word mystery, of course, generally in the New Testament, doesn't imply something that's mysterious or hard to understand, but rather it's the sun. It's the sense of a secret.
Something that isn't made known to all or not necessarily at a certain time, but then is made known at another time and perhaps to different people. And so we talked a bit this morning about that hidden wisdom, which in this case, I believe emphasizes the fact that God was going to bring fallen man into blessing through the death and resurrection, of course, of his beloved Son.
But then it says, and this is something that perhaps we would wonder about, it says at the end of verse 7, which God ordained before the world.
Unto our glory.
If we had been writing it, at least I I would probably have said unto the glory of Christ. Isn't he the one that is supposed to have all the glory?
Indeed he is, but it brings in our glory here, I would suggest because.
That hidden wisdom had in mind not merely the glory of Christ.
But the association with of you and me with him.
He is glorified. We are glorified with Him.
A wonderful truth, and I speak for myself. I don't think it has enough of a grip on my soul the way it should. Do. I realize that I am heirs of God, an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ.
People squabble over inheritances in this world, and the world has a saying that you don't really know someone until you have to share an inheritance with them.
And that's sadly true.
But you and I are going to share an inheritance with Christ, and there will not be any squabbling over it, will there? That inheritance is so vast, and you and I will realize that we don't deserve one bit of it. It's his inheritance, but he's won at force, and he shares it with us. And so there is a glory that Christ will share with his Saints.
And I believe that's what's referred to here, not intended to put the focus on us, but rather to make us realize the wonderful position into which that hidden wisdom has brought us.
That's what the Lord was referring to in John 17.
20 Two.
00:10:00
On 17/22 of the glory the God gave us to me, I have given to them.
I believe so, yes. Uh, I have taken it that way.
In one sense it's future, and I believe the Lord is in one sense referring to future glory here. But there's another thought connected with that verse in John 17 and I would suggest it ties in with our chapter.
There was a glory, a moral glory, that the Lord Jesus exhibited in this world as a man who walked in all the humility that.
He was brought into by virtue of coming into this world as the perfect dependent man, coming right down to where we were and submitting to all the things that sin had brought in.
He submitted to all of those things from without, and yet He walked in all of the dignity as to who he was as the Son of God. And I, I would just suggest that that thought is there too, that you and I can share in that there is a wonderful glory in seeing a believer walk through this world.
Not resenting the slights and the persecution and everything that comes with walking a faithful Christian pathway and yet at the same time walking in all the dignity that he has as being a son of God. And I use that word son in the proper sense of the the word, the maturity. We are sons of God and brought into that position and to walk in all that dignity.
But without pride gives a moral glory that this world really can't understand. And yet. And yet it's there. How often that has been exhibited in this world by.
Dear believers, who in the face of untold persecution and death.
Have walked in calmness and dignity.
We see the Lord's, I don't want to enlarge on it too much, but we see the Lord Jesus in front of Pilate.
Here was a man that had been subjected to Roman scourgey.
And there he stands in front of Pilate, beaten and bruised by the Jewish leaders and all that they could do.
Given that awful Roman scourging, and we know what that entailed. And then he stands there before Pilate, and who was afraid?
Pilot. Every time the Lord opened his mouth, he, as it were, knocked the pilot off ballots.
Well, remember. And again, you don't wanna tell too many stories, but remembering how?
They tried to pursue it. Well, go back a bit. Yawn. Huss, the Bohemian martyr who was one of the forerunners of the Reformation, stood there before the Council of Constance, and he was there condemned to death because the the Emperor of Germany had broken his word. He guaranteed him a safe conduct.
And then the Church, the Catholic Church, persuaded him that he didn't have to keep his word to a heretic.
And he broke his word, and John Huss stood there in all the dignity of who he was as a son of God.
And quietly reminded the Emperor he knew he was going to be burned at the stake. Quietly reminded him.
That he had broken his word, and the Emperor sat there and blushed to the roots of his hair.
Quailed before him, couldn't look him in the eye. He was so afraid of this man that obviously had a moral power.
And 100 years later, they tried to do the same thing to Martin Luther. They tried to persuade the German emperor, guarantee him a seek conduct and then break your word. You don't have to keep your word. Oh, he said, no way.
I remember what happened to Cigars Fund, and it's not going to happen to me. No way. He was afraid. And I don't say that we should go about trying to make other people afraid. That's not the thought. But.
There is a wonderful dignity that the believer walks in in spite of being despised and rejected. Why?
00:15:02
Because he has the conscious knowledge of who he is before God.
I have a thought to hear of something for their conscience and.
The way he says is about the glory.
Before or day before the world unto our glory, this is what.
Has been done for us. But this isn't what the Corinthians were speaking. I think in the context in the end of the last chapter he had in verse 39 that no flesh should glory in his presence.
Then he brings in verse 30 what they have in Christ Jesus, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, He the glorious, let him glory in the Lord. So the problem was, as I understand it here they were puffed up because that in chapter 5 they were according to the wisdom of this world, striving with one another.
And it made tremendous problems in the assembly. So it seems to me that in part, the apostles reminding them that they've been brought by God's grace into a glory that absolutely eclipses anything they may strive for as men.
So it is for us. Isn't it Good to get a hold of it?
Yes, that's excellent. Our glory is to share with Christ in the coming day, and it eclipses any glory that we can ever have in this world, doesn't it?
Well, verse 9 brings out an Old Testament verse that's from.
The end of Isaiah chapter 64.
And in its original context, I believe it would refer to future blessing for Israel, millennial blessing, which will indeed be wonderful.
But as often happens in the New Testament, the Spirit of God takes a verse from the Old Testament and enlarges upon it in a way that you never could have gotten simply by knowing Old Testament truth.
And brings it out. And sometimes I would suggest this verse is misused.
I have not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.
The things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
I respect those who take this as referring to a future day and say, would it be wonderful? It's just beyond our understanding the glory that we are going to experience in that day. No doubt it is. But what's the next verse say?
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
He wants us to live in the enjoyment of them now and how blessed that is.
I well remember being at a Bible conference many years ago and a brother was so much enjoying this, he just burst out and he said, brethren, what a blessed path it is. And it is, isn't it, If we can live in the enjoyment of coming glory now.
Yes, it has to be by faith. We don't see it with the naked eye and.
I don't think any of us here would stand up and say I have enough of an understanding of it, but that there won't be any surprises when the Lord comes. I'm already enjoying the fullness of it. No, no, Paul could say. Having a desired and to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, far better.
Because even the best of faith in this world doesn't begin to appropriate the fullness of blessing.
But the thought is that by the power of the Spirit.
God wants to give you and me far more of the enjoyment of coming glory than there is in man's natural wisdom to detract from it.
Is that right, Rob? Amen.
And I think you're right too, that we don't really enter into it. And as it says here, it hasn't really entered into our hearts, our minds, what God has in his heart for us. Hmm, we have some idea from some of the verses and the ideas you've entered into. But to really understand what we possess right now and, and what God thought was for, for myself, I've just been absolutely amazed with the concept that my skin can be forgiven.
00:20:19
That which is absolutely impossible for me to do.
God in Christ is done.
And and once that opens the door for is amazing. It's just.
Beyond what I can grasp.
Sometimes I have wondered whether I'll get bored in eternity.
I just can't imagine that.
10,000 years of happiness and joy, let alone 10 million or 10 billion. And and yet this is part of the answer. I think that God and His infinite being has that which can thrill my heart throughout all eternity.
And as much as I can enter into it and understand that I can sort of feel and taste it a little bit now knowing that, uh, his heart is so full.
One brother explained it to us like this quite a few years ago.
He said if you live where there's snow, they've never yet found two snowflakes alike in all the snowflakes that have ever fallen. If you live where there isn't snow, they've never yet found two grains of sand that are alike, They're all different, he said. Those are little illustrations right in our world of the infinite glories of Christ that will take all eternity.
And will never exhaust them. As you say, Rob, you and I can't wrap our mind around that because we have minds that are bounded by time and something that's infinite. We can appreciate the concept, but our mind won't wrap around it, will it?
Can't, can't think of anything like that. But who is revealing this to us? A person of the Godhead. The Spirit is a person of the Godhead.
And He is here on earth right now for, among other reasons, to reveal to us.
The glories of Christ and all the glory that God has.
For us as a result of his work on Calvary's cross.
The Robert I was, I've often had the same thought as you had that you just expressed. I was talking to a brother in Montreal a couple weeks ago about that and how that everything that we have and enjoy, we get tired of.
And he says.
Except for my wife's cooking. He'll never get tired of his wife's cooking.
And I thought that is the key because there is a renewed hunger, uh.
I mean, we can enjoy our meal, but there's a renewed hunger that we have. And I thought that's what we press. We'll have an eternity, a renewed hunger that.
We just continue to enjoy these things on and off.
Very good. Now we have.
So much here we have that that which we enjoy for the village is bringing out that they didn't have back in the Old Testament times.
And there'll be so much more that we enjoy.
Uh, in that coming eternity, I might say.
And there'll be some things I think that we will perhaps never enter into. Let's think especially of of what we have in the Revelation, where it speaks of a name that no man knows for himself. Name suggests something about him.
There's something that.
Nobody knows about the Lord Jesus but Himself, and perhaps we'll never know what that something is, but there will be enough to occupy us for all eternity.
And here mentions it's an unusual expression, but it says at the end of verse 10, the Spirit searcheth all things, yeah, the deep things of God.
00:25:05
Deep things of God.
Sometimes, and I must admit that I occasionally had the problem when I was younger.
I didn't appreciate hearing my brethren sometimes talking about perhaps the deep things of God and they would bring out things that went over my head. But that's not the right approach, is it?
I can still remember being at a camp.
Where they were playing baseball, and as generally happens, those that were playing baseball got a pretty good idea when they saw who was coming up to bat what he, or sometimes she was capable of.
And every now and then there would be a call. Go out, heavy hitter, move back, move back.
I never yet saw the players in the outfield just throw down their glove and say forget it, that ball will go way over my head, no hope for reaching it. They moved back as far as they could and good many years ago now. But I can remember one young man who was so anxious to catch the ball that he ran backwards and he caught it too. But he was about 6 inches, 6 inches into the lake when he caught it.
Never mind, he got the fly and that's what counted.
Well, I say to my own heart, as I say to each one, if we hear some dear brethren ministering the deep things of God, yes, we may occasionally miss the fly.
But don't hesitate to move back. Don't hesitate to reach for it, because maybe the next time it comes over, you'll get it and.
These things do not come through the natural intellect. They don't come through the natural intellect. They come because I am willing to allow the Spirit of God to work and I'm willing to deal with those things that get in the way.
Pardon, I keep saying that too often, but anyway, this is a personal illustration. I remember when I was going to university and I was.
Starting out trying to read our written ministry.
And maybe I started out on the wrong end of it, but I started reading J&D synopsis and things like that and sometimes it was over my head.
And sometimes in desperation, when I got home on a weekend, I'd go to my father with the book.
English wasn't his mother tongue and he had a grade school education, never even went to high school.
And I'd read him the passage.
Oh yes son, no problem. And he just spit it right out. Tell me exactly what it meant.
Yes. Why? Because if I can say it, my father's been with the Lord for a while. There was a heart for it, and a willingness to dig for, and a willingness to make it his own and walk in the good of it. And he could grasp it far easier than I, who was in college. I knew the English language way better than he did. He had a thick accent the rest of his life, but he could grasp things wide because it was coming through the conscience in the heart.
Not so much the intellect.
And I just say that because.
These things are not something that God makes difficult for us, but it's rather if the heart is right and the conscience is clear.
Those things, I believe, have come through to us, and God delights to minister them to us. Yes, God appreciates making us work for things. We value them a bit if we work for them.
But He doesn't deliberately make it hard for us. But sometimes the deep things take a little time and spiritual energy to grasp. In Acts chapter 4 and verse 13, it says when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled. They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.
Lord Jesus went back to heaven and one of the things that he did when he went back to heaven is requested his Father to send the Holy Spirit down to take his place as the helper as apparently.
00:30:10
And to be the teacher and he is been sent into this world for the believers to help us to know and understand the, uh, wonderful things, the Lord Jesus Christ to bring things back to mind. And so that's his role. Now there's an interesting verse in Romans chapter 8.
In verse 16 it says the sphere itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
If children, then heirs and heirs of God joint heirs with Christ.
If so, be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. And so once you.
Accept the Lord Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
God sends his Holy Spirit inside us, and then he starts to teach us and He actually communicates with us.
Through this book, we communicate back through prayer, but uh, that's one aspect of the, of what the Spirit of God does. But what we have in our chapter here is, is an incredible thing that, that same spirit that indwells me and you if you're a believer.
Understands everything there is no about God, every thought, every motive. Sometimes I am thinking something and I try to express it just in a natural way and I just have trouble getting the the words out. I know inside me my spirit knows what I want to try and communicate what I want to try and say, but the people on the listening end of what I have to say don't know what I'm saying, don't know what I'm meaning. But the spirit of God doesn't have that problem and he has the ability to teach us and one of the.
Beautiful things about being a Christian and having the Spirit of God indwelling you is the ability to get down on your knees, have your Bible open, and tell the Lord. I don't understand what this verse means.
You don't always get the answer that very moment. Sometimes you do.
Sometimes six months later, you'll be sitting in a reading meeting and you'll get the answer your question. The Spirit of God will teach you in that instant exactly what it meant. Or maybe in your private reading two years later, the Spirit of God will teach you. The light will come on and you'll understand. And you know, it may bring tears of joy to your eyes just to think that God has gifted you with this understanding by his Spirit. And these things are beautiful things they're talking earlier today about.
Treasuring up answers to prayer to build confidence, and this is part of what the Spirit of God does for us, is communicate these things of God and help us to learn it and understand it, not just through our mind as it was, but as we said, through our heart and conscience.
The Lord Jesus said twice to his disciples.
Call John 14 on 26th.
At the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, and the Father would send in my name He.
All things not just is not only the deep sense that Joe is thinking fish.
All things that is the 16th chapter, he will advise you in all truth.
Everything that we, everything that.
God wants us to know.
Who has gone And Wilkinson?
He talked to us by the Spirit of God, not by our any intellectual. I think we have.
I understand it right, there's a difference here.
The 1St 10 is talking about Revelation.
I think that's the case, that this is what God revealed by the Spirit, and this came through the apostles who revealed Word of God. And the deep things of God are what we have in the Bible, which are very, very deep.
However, would her brethren have been saying, I believe is fully brought out in verse 12. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
So however deep they may have been that the Spirit of God gave our revelation that got recorded in the Word of God, that same Spirit within each one of us is able to take that and make it good to us.
00:35:08
And so as far as the Spirit is concerned on his part, there's nothing too deep for any one of us. There may be other hindrances, and we get that at the end of the chapter and the beginning of the next, but the Spirit of God is both a giver and revelation, and both the one and also the one that helps to receive that which was given.
Well, we can all understand this in natural terms.
Verse 11 What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
You don't know my thoughts, I don't know your thoughts unless you choose to communicate them. Sometimes we can give a bit of a guess as to what someone's thinking, but it's a dangerous thing to do sometimes because very often we can be wrong and a lot of damage has been done by people.
Thinking they know what someone else is thinking and then making a wrong judgment based on what they think is going through their mind.
But it's the same with God. And as Tim has brought out, we can't know anything beyond ourselves in the things of God unless God gives us divine revelation. Man says I don't need divine revelation.
And then his mind goes to work. And there's almost no limit to the ridiculous lengths to which man's mind can go when he tries to operate in the moral and spiritual sphere without divine revelation.
And all you have to do is look at the false religions in this world to realize that how ridiculous man's mind becomes.
And ultimately, this chapter, I suggest, is a warning.
Even to the believer about using his mind in the things of God outside of Revelation.
Yes, there's nothing wrong with having a good mind, and a good mind can be a help in one sense in taking in the scriptures. But then the light that we should get from those scriptures, as we've already had, comes through the heart and the conscience. And as someone has said, the more brilliant the man's mind, the more likely he is to go wrong if he sidesteps divine revelation.
An old brother used to use this, uh, illustration to us, he said if you had a rifle with the sights that were altered so that they were off.
He said who would be most likely to miss the target, the good marksman or the bad one?
Well, the answer is the good marksman. The bad marksman might hit it by accident, but the good marksman will miss every time because he'll line everything up perfectly. But then, if the sights are off, you'll always miss. And so the most brilliant mind of man without divine revelation makes an utter fool of itself when it goes beyond what can be seen and when we're talking about moral and spiritual things.
They can only be known by divine revelation, and that's where man's mind has to end. But then even the divine revelation of the Word of God.
It's interpreted by the Spirit of God, and the worst things can happen when man's mind picks up even the Word of God.
And tries to go at it without the guidance and leading of the Spirit of God.
In that context, and I don't.
Suppose it hurts to spend another moment on it. Turn to the Second Epistle of John, because, sad to say, this has been unfortunately all too common an occurrence among dear believers. Second Epistle of John, verse 9.
It says, Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God, And that word transgressa is better translated.
Goes forward or progresses. There is a danger in divine things.
Of the human mind presuming to go beyond divine revelation.
00:40:02
And when we seek to do that and to try and reach out in speculation, in the things that have not been revealed, then invariably error comes in, and very often serious error. And as another has pointed out, the spirit of heresy is not necessarily the teaching of bad doctrine. The spirit of heresy is the mind at work in the things of God.
And so you may hear something and it just doesn't sound quite right and yet you can't put a finger on specific doctrinal error in it or something like that, but.
If the human mind is used in the things of God, it will not handle things the way the Spirit of God does. And immediately in a believer walking with the Lord, a spiritual believer.
A bell start to go off and without wanting to go ahead. That's what it means in verse 15. He that is spiritual judgeth or discerneth all things doesn't mean he knows everything but in walking with the Lord to use us an expression the bells start to go off when someone starts to take up the word of God, even a true believer, but take it up.
In natural and human wisdom and using it intellectually without being guided by the Spirit of God.
Yes, it often and usually does eventually lead to doctrinal error, but it doesn't start out like that. It's the human mind at work instead of allowing the Spirit of God to search the deep things of God for us and reveal them to us.
Impossible with the human mind to understand.
Get around.
For example the.
Cruise of sovereignty and responsibility.
It's it's impossible for the human mind to us to explain that and get around it.
When, as Phil said, when we start to try the new document, things are intelligent. We're only going to get ourselves here.
I'd like to talk a little bit about the concept of Revelation. As it says in verse 10, God hath revealed.
At the risk of being a little bit too simple, let me just compare the theory of evolution and what, uh, God has done in Revelation. So.
Man in the theory of evolution tries to figure out from current situation and from whatever evidence he has, what happened back in the beginning.
And he's just trying to draw lines back and extrapolate. Guess what happens based on what he sees today.
The difference between that and Revelation is.
God was there and he did it, and he simply tells us how it was in the beginning. God created the heaven and the earth. There's no way I can prove that. The question is, do I believe God when he says I did it?
And that's what he's doing is he's giving a revelation. He says, I created it all. I gave it to you, I put you in here. And it's not a question of proving it. It's a question of, I revealed it to you. I told you I was there. This is what I did. And that's really the only way you can know anything about these things because God has to reveal them. We can't guess it or figure it out. And so, uh, just very simply to understand that concept that these are things God knows.
And he shared with us that's what revelation is. And that's really the only way you can know it, because God shared it on the subject of revelation is something we need to be very careful about, isn't it?
We have it here.
There's much today that claims to be revelation from God book out now called Jesus calling. It's been out for a while and a lot of other things like that that are claiming to be fresh revelations from God and they're not Colossians. Chapter one, the apostle Paul says it was given unto him to fill up the word of God. And so we have it here complete now and we have the Spirit of God to teach us what it means through this world through this book and all those other things that come in we need to reject.
00:45:11
And occupy ourselves with only what we have here.
And that's what we get in verse 12, don't we?
It's the spirit of the world that says.
My mind is good enough to start figuring out those things.
And the spirit of the world can overtake a believer, can't it? Sad to say, it can't. We live, we move in this world.
And the spirit of the world can overtake us where we say I have a good mind, I can understand things. And man has discovered many things. And the discoveries and technology of the modern world is nothing short of amazing things that man has been able to discover. But as one brother used to comment to us years ago, he said.
Man is a discoverer. He is never a creator. And as Rob has brought out, when the Creator speaks and says this is the way it is, how foolish of man to say I'd rather reject divine revelation and figure it out for myself to the best of my ability. And of course.
Then there are just as many opinions in some cases as there are people well.
That's the spirit of the world. But Paul says we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we may might know the things that are.
Freely given to us of God. There's both a wonderful blessing there and yet at the same time a warning and a guard. If God hasn't chosen freely to give us those things, I don't need to know it. And that verse was read to us this morning where it's in second Peter in Christ. And notice it says in that verse in Christ.
Not in the Word of God, and I'll mention that in a moment. We have all things that pertain unto life and godliness. Why doesn't it say in the word of God? Because I can misuse the word of God.
And many have. And we have seen it all throughout the Christian profession where men have used the Word of God in the wrong way and they have tried to prove all kinds of serious error, supposedly backing it up with Scripture.
Why is that? Oh, because it's not the Spirit of God using the Word of God. But then where do we find that wisdom ultimately, in its entirety? We find it in Christ and in walking with Him. And if Christ is before me, in Him, well, of all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in knowing Him, the Spirit of God is able to minister Christ to my soul.
And everything else falls into place, doesn't it?
So on the one hand, we have all those things freely given to us of God, so many things that there will be an eternity enjoying them.
But if God hasn't chosen freely to give them to us, I don't need to spend my time speculating on them or trying to figure out something that God hasn't revealed to me. Or as, uh, Brother Robert was, bringing out Robert Muir, That is. I don't need to spend my days trying to wrap my mind around the Trinity. It's beyond my understanding.
And many things are in Scripture. Can I understand the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man?
Can I bring them together in the human mind? No, I can't, and the man that tries to do it or the woman either will end up in error going on the one side or the other. And the same for many other truths in the Word of God.
I have to accept them by faith and live in the enjoyment of them. But I have to say that is ultimately beyond my understanding because it is the truth of God.
340.
00:50:07
5.
Years old and.
The Gift of God, Eternal Life
Gospel—David Whitaker
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.
Well, tonight I noticed there's a lot of children that makes my heart happy. I think I could probably count 100 children here this evening. Lots of dear children. Uh, new crop, a fresh crop of children. So we're going to sing #42 on the back of the hem sheet.
I was at a conference not very long ago where I think there were six or eight children.
I was very disappointed.
Could someone please start hymn #42?
333330130 10-4 OH 10-4 OH 10-4, 00000 10-4 and 9:00 three. 025 and 35304 and glow.
Nsnoise.
Before we pray, I would like all 7 year olds.
Are you listening? Are there any 7 year olds here?
1.
Is there any more? Raise your hand real high if you're 7.
Oh, there's another one. Another one.
We got 3-4 some more in here.
Oh, oh, look at there. Wonderful. Good. Very good. A little child of seven. You know, seven is an interesting age. You stop being a little kid and you're starting to think, and there's something else that starts working when you're 7 years old. And I can prove it.
Shall we pray?
Well, because there are so many children here tonight, I see children. Oh my. They're all over the place. How wonderful. I got a question for the children. Here goes Like this. I want you to tell me the answer.
There's a Mama sheep, a sheep. She's in the fold, you know, And she finds us breaking the fence and she goes outside the pole.
Enclosure and she wanders off.
Over the hill.
Over the valley, across a stream in the woods, she wandered off.
Do you think she was lost? Yeah.
But while she was out there, she had a little baby lamb.
Do you think that Lamb was lost?
The girl says no, Bless your heart. That's our hearts. We'd like to see all of you children save that little lamb is born lost, lost.
Now.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save that which was lost. So tonight we're gonna, I'm gonna tell you some things with the Lord's help that you don't even know, and they may never been told you before.
Children with older folks, probably most of them, know this.
But some of you may not, and it's so serious.
But you know, someone said that the 10th meetings if someone didn't open the Bible within.
30 seconds. There would be someone in the back of the room waving like that. Let's get the book open. So let's get the book open. What do you think? What verse do you think we should? What's a good gospel verse, children? One that's real famous and popular. Can you think? Look at that, John 316. Let's look at a particular word in that verse.
Momachucci and Zombie We Zangiliakohashi, Achizi, Wachelli, Munini, Afuli, Akashic, Katoka, Eliose. Oh I'm sorry, this is English.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now, children, look at this verse right here.
00:05:04
Gave Oh, what a word that was. What a word that is a gift. And we're gonna talk a little bit tonight about the gift of God. We're gonna go down through a little story before we get to that wonderful gift. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our our Lord. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
God loveth a cheerful giver. It's kind of interesting to put that verse in there. Who for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.
Despise the shame, He went right to the cross for you children, to save your soul.
Now.
If we're born lost, we don't have to stay that way. We don't have to stay that way. So God has given us the gospel of the grace of God. You know, Apostle Paul at the end of his life, he said, I've finished my course with joy, Boy says, but do the work of an evangelist. That's some of the last things he wrote in his book is epistle through the work of an evangelist.
And you know something kids? Have you ever mailed a letter to anybody?
Sure you have. No, the letter's about the general envelopes about that wide. You don't see there how much is how? How wide is the gospel track? Just a little bit less.
I'm talking to all of you.
You don't have to face the person when you mail them a little gospel tract if they go, if you got to mail something into the telephone company, remember that usually the envelope is about that white and the gospel track just a little bit less. You can slip a gospel tract in there. Maybe four things God wants you to know, just something that they're opening up the letter like this and they're looking at it. What's this? What's the gospel? The gospel of the grace of God.
It's a love story. There was a.
Two boys, I think they were Ukrainian fellows and they were about 12 years of age. They came into the office where I worked and they had a box of candy.
And, uh, they wanted to sell me a, a box of Skittles, you know, Skittles and, uh, they were overpriced. I, I suppose they were twice, two or three times what I should have paid. But I looked at these boys. I said, OK, I'll buy a box of Skittles. So after the transaction took place, I said to these two young boys, I said, uh, let me ask you if you were standing at the gate of heaven.
And God were to ask you, how can I let you come into my heaven? You're a Sinner like this guy.
You know what he said? He says because God came down into this world, wrapped himself in in human flesh, and he went to the cross and he died for my sins.
He put his Skittles and all that stuff back in the box and he walked out the door.
Now if someone were to say that to you children, what would you tell them?
What would you tell him? How can God let you into his heaven? Because you and I are sinners.
What I'm going to tell you is something you might not know. You probably don't.
I'm gonna take you on the roof of the house.
Now this guy, he's nailing down the roof of his house, he's just a man of the world, doesn't know the Lord Jesus.
And he's nailing that roof down.
And he sees this guy coming. Oh, he's that's my neighbor. I hate that man in I can't tell you how much I hate that man, but what he's done to me.
I hate him with a passion.
And he hits his thumb and he smashes his thumb.
Now his neighbor's name was Joe. Do you think he takes Joe's name in vain?
No, he takes the name of Jesus Christ in vain.
There's something desperately wrong with that man.
And then I've heard people say, jeez.
All the time I've heard Christians say that that's called a minced oath. Why is it that within this heart of ours, those kind of things come out?
Especially the guy on the roof there. He's a grown man, sensible man and all that, and he takes the name of the Lord Jesus in vain. He doesn't say Lord, he says Jesus Christ.
Well, what I hate to tell you, but it's true deep down inside of us.
00:10:00
There's something that's called a fallen, broken nature.
And it's been imprinted.
A fixed principle of broken sin and you don't even realize it.
Usually think of doing something wrong. It's it's sinful. That's true and we shouldn't have done it, but you know, there's there's something a transgression is bad, but.
As you get older, you start to think about there's something going on down inside of me that's opposed to my God. It's I'm opposed to my maker.
That's awful, you know, God knows that, and God wants to take care of that particular problem, and how he does it is beautiful. That's what we're going to talk about, the gospel, the grace of God.
No children.
This is a love story, really.
And he got up above, and the Father, the Lord Jesus, God the Father, two persons that God had the Spirit also. They have a plan to bring you into eternal blessing.
It's called eternal life. What do you think eternal life means? Can someone tell me what eternal life means? What's a good?
Go ahead. Go to heaven. Yes. What else? Anybody else? Eternal. What's that mean?
For live to live forever and ever Well, Satan is going to live forever and ever forever. Well, you're right. You're going down the right line, but you know something, eternal life is something where it's more than living forever and ever, which we it is. It's coming to know God is your father, the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. The Spirit of God is your comforter.
The Bible is your guidebook. God's people are your companions and your friends.
Heaven is your home.
And the Lord's coming is what you're waiting for. It all comes as a beautiful package. Eternal life.
Have children. You can have that life by asking for it.
This gift.
Comes from the warmest heart.
Could ever be.
And that's something. It's a tender, loving heart.
And it's directed to you. God has so much. He can show his power. You know He can show his power by shaking the mountains, causing the earth to shake.
He can show his wisdom.
By spreading out the universe, that man can't find the end of it. He can intelligence, He can give something called DNA.
Talking to a man the other day, he says we're looking deep into the DNA and we're finding cures for this and we're finding cures for that.
He was a man. I don't think he was saved, but he was mystified and amazed at the order of God's DNA. It's a, it's a word that's a 3.5 billion letter long, something like that.
Now.
Your college students or high school children too. When you get a chance, look up something on your computer that says, uh, Fibonacci. Raise your hand to anybody. Have you ever heard that name? Fibonacci? Oh, look at that. There's a couple dozen. Well, there's another. Good for you. There's another word for it called the golden ratio.
I'm not going to explain it because I'm not good at it, but.
Look it up, you'll find amazing.
In the sway the the the seeds on a sunflower spins around like this, the way the waves curl around like that, and the waves all through nature you find.
It imprinted that Fibonacci's number. The man discovered it years ago. It's amazing. And you don't hear that in school because it just testifies to the design capabilities of our God. So you have to have things like that. And so you have his power. He can shake this world.
His artistic abilities, God's artistic, artistic abilities. And you children, you like to draw and you like art, so he likes you to like that.
But where is his love shown out?
His intelligence, his power, his wisdom, his artistic ability, his skill.
00:15:02
And his creatorial genius. Old children, it's amazing.
But how can he show out his love?
He did it wonderfully. This all started in the heart of your God.
Apparently there was a council. It was a council of peace between the father and the son.
And they said God is going to get the glory from this council. The Father said, who shall I send the Lord? She just said, send me, I'll go, I'll go. So where'd he go? He came from the heights of glory. And it began a lot of story that starts up there and it comes right on down here to Bethlehem's Manger where they laid that little baby.
Doesn't say he was born in the main jerk. He was laid in the Manger. We don't worry. He was born, just that it was in Bethlehem.
And there he was, he was raised up, his mother there, who was supposed father Joseph and.
It says the lines have fallen onto me in pleasant places. Yeah, I have a goodly heritage.
You know something he was cared for by his mother.
And outside that door of his house there was bitter hatred, bitter hatred for this one that came down. He came down into this world in love and compassion. Do you think the world appreciated him? No, they sought right away. O'Hara. He had a bunch of children killed and there started the mothers were fathers were weeping there in Israel because that wicked Herod. He had those children killed and they were two years old. I see. Two years old.
And my heart goes right out to a beautiful little children up and down the aisles here.
And Can you imagine that this wicked heritage said I want those children dead?
And so you know where those children went, by the way. They went to be with the Lord Jesus because of the precious blood of Christ.
So he.
Came down into this world and he walked among men like he had a he had a human nature.
You and I have a human nature.
He had divine nature.
We have a fallen human nature. He didn't have that.
In him was no sin, and so he was the one marked out of perfect sacrifice to go to the cross to pay the penalty for this man's sins, and there are a lot of them.
So as time went on, he had a gift for mankind, and He brought it with him. It was his self himself. And along with that gift says on the way the truth and the life becomes a life and truth away. And all that came with him, He came down from the Father up above, and he presented himself to this world. And did the world appreciate him? No, they did not Why?
Because, as I was saying a few minutes ago, deep inside of each one of our hearts is a settled.
Principle. Like I've said, think about trying to think of a better word. We are enemies of our God.
Oh, no. Is that possible? Yes, it is. We are enemies of our God when we're two years old, three years old, 30 years old, eighty years old, 100 years old were enemies of our God. I was at the airport yesterday. Before yesterday, there was a child there about 3, maybe four years of age. And that child was, by the way, I, I really appreciated what the brothers said about child raising.
This little boy.
He was kicking and slapping his father. It was shameful.
Like going over there and say, Sir, I want to tell you something.
If one of my grandchildren would have done that.
And they would stop it right there. But you know, to do that, you have to have a good conscience. I'll just take off on the sideways here a little bit. When you start life, children, you're gonna raise children. You can't have a bad conscience. You have to start with a good conscience because you can't discipline anybody if you yourself have a bad conscience. A conscience is something we're gonna talk about later on.
So here we come down into the world. The Lord Jesus came down the world, He presented himself to mankind, and he had a purpose.
00:20:06
Got a purpose, and that purpose was to go to the cross so that he could bear your sins in his own body on the tree.
I'll Fast forward a little bit here. The lot could be said, but there's what we call a sinner's bench. You have to kind of imagine that. And on that bench, there's room for two people and you're one of them.
Your lost Sinner, who do you think would be the other person sitting on the sinners bench?
You know this has been amazing to me, the Lord Jesus.
He came down and he's willing to sit beside the Sinner on the sinner's bench as if he took the place of being a Sinner. Is that possible?
He bore as if he was the Sinner. He didn't sin, but he took my sins responsibility of my sins upon himself, and God punished him for my sins.
What a beautiful, amazing, wonderful gift that was. And now what he can do, children, He can give you just for the taking, A free gift, and that is the gift of God, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So we've had the wisdom of God, the power of God. You know, there's been a little fire out our way where we live just South of us, umm, I think 12 or 14,000 homes were burned to crisp.
And the the smoke floated over a wicked city.
San Francisco noted for its wickedness.
And I suppose folks were thinking with their masks on, walking around there is this kind of like Sodom and Gomorrah?
You know children.
Guess how many times Solomon, how many books of the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah is found in this? Maybe in a couple of gospels. You think solving the more brother, What do you think? Couple three or four gospels, maybe a time or two in Isaiah? Uh-huh.
I believe it's 16 books of the Bible. 15 to 7 to 16 books of the Bible. You'll find Sodom, Gomorrah, Admiral Sodomites, and even in the book of Job. I could look it up for you after meeting here. It says they're unclean. They die in their youth.
Look at the margin, King James says. Sodomites, yes, this is a broken world we're living in, children, sinful world, and you have not tasted it to that degree.
Stay away children, Stay away from this world. He'll bite you. It'll really bite you. Well, anyway, just to finish off a little story, there was a lady was her husband, I guess they were driving out of those flames there, a place called Paradise.
California.
And the fire was all over the road in front of them, sparks flying off the windshield. And you know what she said.
Uh, Heavenly Father, keep us safe.
You know, he did took care of him right on through that fire. And a lot of stories come out of that, people that didn't have warning on the eastern part of that city. There was a little bit of warning, but the cell phones didn't bark at them or no sirens rang. It was a desperate situation. They had moments to flee. And I think they're 600. That didn't make it 600 people they can't even find.
The the bones, because the waters come down and wash them away.
Wow, think about that God has given you.
Not 15 minutes. How old are you? It's 11/12/13. All your life you've heard the gospel.
In the back in.
The days of Jonah, 40 days, they had in that city, 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown.
And you know they repented.
And then there were other times where, uh, Noah and both had many years to repent and then another seven days of grace.
And different times in Scripture, you'll find that time of grace was given and sometimes they accepted it, sometimes they rejected it. But you children have been told the gospel, and it's important for you tonight to believe the gospel that God has for you. It's free. So we're going to go on.
00:25:13
Inside that mind and heart of yours.
I don't know exactly where it is. It's called a conscience and pardon, this expression is not a very good enough, but it's like a monkey on your back.
He looked this way and it goes over that way.
This way and the monkey goes over that way.
Yeah, see, you can't get rid of it. So man has been given.
By God, a conscience.
And there was a little boy, little boy who was seven years of age.
And do you think A7 year old child has a conscience that tells him what's right, tells him what's wrong? Well, this little boy, he had a friend.
And his friend said, let's go to the ballpark and go under the bleachers, and we're going to take those empty pop bottles worth 2 cents apiece back in those days.
And we'll just take them to the, put them in a box and we'll take them over to the concession where they the next day and we'll collect our two cents or take them someplace else and collect the two cents a piece. And so they decided, they went over there and they picked up these bottles and they put them in a box and they start, they brought them home.
And one little boy said I don't feel good about this. He was seven. That's why I was concerned about the seven-year old.
But why? Because his daddy was a gospel preacher.
And it told him about sin, told him about the conscience, told him about the wages of sin as death, and the gift of God is eternal life. And so this, uh, little boy said to his fellow thief who was ten years old.
They were stealing these pop bottles. They were going to turn them in the next day. 5 bottles is going to be how much worth how much at two cents apiece.
Five. How many, How many cents is that gonna be? Go ahead. That's a 10 cents, $0.10 center. And so he got home and that little shoe box was full of 55 pop bottles, I think.
And he was a 10 cent center. But you know something, boys, his conscience, his conscience started working. And you know what his conscience said to him, this is not right. This is not right. And so the boys said to the other boy who was two years old or three years older, he says I don't feel right. And the older boys, oh, he was a Sinner. He was a thief too. He might have had twelve cents or something worth.
Of bottles, I don't know.
And the one boy said to the other boy, he said, I don't feel right now that's called a conscience. And God has put that in everybody's mind and heart. It's a, it's a guide. It's not perfect guide, but it is a guide.
That tells you when you're doing wrong and so.
One voice says I feel bad. The other voices. Aren't you saved?
The younger boy said.
No, I'm not saved so well, should we? Do you want to get saved? Yeah. So those two boys that got down on the dirt right there in front of their house.
And the older boys said, the younger boy, you pray after me and So what do I pray? I don't know what to praise. So the older voices, you do, you pray what I pray. And Lord Jesus, take away my sins.
And that boy got saved that wonderful. You know, it's just as simple as that, children.
God has made a way. He's opened up the way where you can have your sins forgiven.
Now out out our way visiting with people, we find out that there's something called works people, they want to work. This would be for the older folks here. They feel that they can do some good for God. But God has a gift. It's beautiful and he wants to give it to you. And if you want to work for it, then he said, oh, I've got nothing for you if you want to do something for God.
Nothing for you.
But if you want to take it as a gift, it's absolutely free. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So go on here. Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
A subtle principle of enmity against God how awful the.
00:30:02
When Adam sinned, children, death reigned. No, that's not the rain that you have outside right now. That's like it's king over your life. Adam sinned and death is reigned. And now today.
This world, children, is shaped like a great big tear, like a big teardrop. Yeah, I'm, I'm figuratively.
Speaking, there's so much crying and sorrow and terrible. There's people in.
There's people trying to get into this country.
Tonight.
That are from other countries where dictators have taken over and have just ruined things.
Because of their desire for power, God will deal with that. That's true. But there are people that don't have a home they don't have.
They've been burned out or they're the governments have chased them out or whatever. This world is suffering as sorrowful to not you children probably all come from homes where you loved and cared for. There's food on the table and you have homes to beds to sleep and all that.
Children, this world is not that way. There were many, many parts of this world is sadly broken. Why is because of sin. Sin has come in in such a way it is cut deep grooves in this world.
But you know something, God is going to take care of that. There's coming a day when all taint of sin is going to be washed away, all evil is going to be done away. And you know, so the Lord Jesus is going to come down here and he's going to straighten all this out. I talked to children. They don't realize the degradation of this world is so beautiful. That's true. But you older ones know exactly what I'm talking about.
You see what sin is wrought, and it's pathetic. It's pathetic.
But Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And in this, and I'll read you a couple of verses from the 72nd Psalm here. That's so beautiful. It says He shall judge the people with righteousness, the poor with judgment, and so on They shall, they shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the moon, grass as showers that water the earth, and so on and so on until it says.
Should be the Lord God. The God of Israel only doeth wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. All that's going to be gone.
And then it says Amen and Amen, the prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended. So there's a time coming when God is going to straighten it all out. But right tonight it has to do with the gospel of the grace of God. God comes down with a gift and he says, I want to do this for you. I want to make you my own child. Sons and daughters of a living God. I've given the pathway.
The the way the truth and the life has been marked out and.
The word of God and we got salvation is offered free and is in the form of a gift. Mercy is in the form of a packaged up as a gift and you can reach out and you can take it and you can be eternally blessed and brought into God's family. I think of it this way children. There is two families. I see these chairs lined up here. I suppose if we put.
A row of chairs going this way and a row of chairs going that way to make the point.
God has.
Well, I should say Adam has a family. Who's the head of that family?
It's Adam is the head of that family and that we're all born into Adam's family lost, but God as a family, the head of that family is the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we get out of Adam's family into the family of our Lord Jesus is by simply taking the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, your savior soul. He'll wash your sins all the way and make you a child of God now children.
You have to make that decision by faith. Your grandparents, parents are praying for you. And the Word of God is open here, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us. For by grace are ye saved through faith not, Not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord up.
At one time there was a.
The banker, I think he was, uh, snowed real, real. He couldn't drive his car to work. The snow was all piled up there and he was walking down the street to work and there was a sign there in front of a church building and it said the top of the sign of snow went up, the sign like that. It said the wages of sin. Next day it said the wages melted a little bit. The wages of sin is death.
00:35:06
He looked at that, he thought that's terrible and this, and it worried him because he knew he was a Sinner. And the sun came out and melted it down.
And it said the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I don't know if that man took hold of that or not, but that's the way the story read. So you children, you have had the gospel presented feebly. Indeed, the worst word of word of God is not feeble. And so gospel preachers, it's like this.
You go to the Redwood, California, just S Eureka, and you get that huge Redwood tree that goes, there's one of them there. There's 374 feet tall.
It's so tall they don't want you going there. So there's only 5 three groups of people that know where that tree is because people would ruin it if they went over there.
374 feet, 4 inches, something like that huge tree, but then you got a vine growing up the side of it, a little vine growing up the side of all Gospel Preacher is like that. He's just leaning on that tree. He's like the vine. You know, that tree is strong. It's been there for thousands of years. So no matter how feeble it is, you've heard the word of God tonight, children, and you know something, you can have it free.
The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now there's something that goes along with that that's so beautiful.
Lord wants to have his family with him in heaven.
And so what's he going to do? He's going to rapture. Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and a voice of the Archangel and trumpet of God. The dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord, and we can comfort one another with these words. Now where did the lost go? Where do the lost go? You tell me, boys.
The people that are lost and reject Christ.
I heard one man say I want to go to hell. Oh, that made me shiver. What'd he say that for?
So children, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. A man that is shopped the other day said I just don't know. I just can't get a hold of it.
V.
If I just believe it, I don't know if I have the faith for that. So what would you tell him? Open up the Bible and just believe it. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So we can thank the Lord Jesus for the gift of God and eternal life. Shall we pray?
Prepare to Meet Thy God
Children—Etienne Leger
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.
Well, good morning, everyone.
How's everybody doing today? You doing good. All right, so we're about to start Sunday school. Before we start, my name is ET. For those of you who don't know me, I'm from Montreal.
And, uh, we're gonna have a time to Sunday school here this morning, so who'd like to start with a song this morning? Raise your hand if you have a song you'd like to pick, Caleb.
#20.
All right #23.
Behold me.
We still have a few more spots in the front row if any kids want to come from the back. We also have spots in the 2nd row. I'm sure Mr. Frost or Mr. Roach or Mr. House wouldn't mind if you guys come sit beside them. There's also a spot beside James here because I have a lot of questions and I have prizes. I have a lot of interaction with you guys this morning, so if you'd like to be a part of it.
Welcome to Come up I don't Bite. So anyone else have a song they want to give out All right?
What #27.
OK, let's just sing verses 1-2 and three. OK, just for the sake of time.
#27 My God, I have.
A majority of rhythm and boring. How to blow your heart man. I'll be early on some time in the world.
OK, so we're going to look to the Lord for His help before we start. OK, so let's close our eyes and pray.
My God and Father, thank you so much for the Lord Jesus. Thank you so much that we can sing these songs with praise and worship to Him. Thank you that we have an opportunity this morning to speak to these kids, speak to these little friends, and we just pray that the message might be clear, Pray that there might be something that would stir in their hearts the need of a Savior and encouragement if they do know the Savior. Lord Jesus, we ask these things for your glory. Amen.
OK.
So.
As means of introduction, I've had the chance to travel around the world to different places. I've had chance to go to Malawi with Mr. Roach and Mr. Ruga, my father-in-law, and to India with Mr. Prost. And we've had a chance to talk to a lot of kids and it's been a lot of fun. Sometimes it's hard because we don't speak the same language and the translators sometimes a bit harder, but there's one thing the kids can do is they can follow signs. When kids, if I do an action or something, they can usually follow that and usually in Malawi.
The kids are getting very distracted. They get distracted by a lot of things because you have a room with 800 kids in it. If one kid makes a fuss, everyone gets distracted really quick, right? So we have something in Malawi that we do that I was taught to me at the schools in order to get the kids attention. So whenever the kids would not be paying attention, the teacher would do something really cool. The teacher would make the kids all do a certain set of hand movements. All right, and we'll do it. I know the kids and Dorothy know it pretty well, right? I think so. OK, we'll do it again. OK, Not all you guys are from Dorothy. So the teacher would say.
You guys gonna follow my instructions, OK, He'd say, OK, kids, hands up. Kids go hands up. And then teach her go hands down, hands up, hands down. Clap once, clap twice, hands up.
Hands down. And then do it a little faster. Hands up, Hands down. Hands up. Hands down. Clap once, up twice. Hands up, hands down. So today, if I feel that people are losing attention, if I'm putting you all to sleep, we might just have to get going. OK? So Josh, if you feel that the kids are I'm losing it, you gotta just give me a single. OK. Got you. All right, good. All right, So if you're on this side of the room in the front row, raise your hand, please.
Raise your hand. OK, Now I want you guys to look under your chair tape. Under your chair, one person has a piece of paper.
If you have it, pull it out. Oh no, it's taped to the bottom of your chair. Climb off your chair. Take a look at it.
Look for it.
On the other side, on the other side of the room, you have it OK.
Can you open that? What does it say?
Maria Daniel AMS 412 If you have a Bible in this rope, hold it in the air. No, hold it in the air. OK 123 go find Ms. 412 only on this side of the room if you have. If you find it, stand up and read it.
Today, prepare me to thy God, O Israel. Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Thank you, Daniel.
OK, if you're on this side of the room, raise your hand. Please raise your hand.
OK, look underneath your chair. Someone has a another verse underneath.
The tape The tape underneath your chair.
Everybody look. Uh, no. It's taped under the chair.
I don't think it's there. You have it OK. Can you open it up?
All right, if you have a Bible in this world, raise it up.
2nd Corinthians 6 verse 2GO.
00:10:07
The old now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Thank you. So in those two verses that we read.
There's a part of the verse I want to focus on. The first one was prepare to meet thy God, and the second part is behold now.
Is accepted time Behold, now is day of salvation. So really I want to talk about this morning is about being prepared.
About being prepared to meet the Lord.
So before we continue, let's sing one more song.
Maybe a girl this time? Does the girl have a song they want to give out?
Yeah.
Number six.
Let's sing verses one and two only, OK?
God and mercy.
Y.
And.
In the forest I am high.
Dangerous thing.
Of God for all that is why it's rain flowed in the rain tomorrow.
Thank you.
And so the verse I was thinking about Amos 412. Prepare to meet thy God.
Now this verse has really struck home to me this week and to my family because.
Umm, last Sunday we got news that my grandpa.
Was on his deathbed.
My grandpa is 99 years old. Is that old? It's pretty old. Anyone here 99 years old? Probably not. My grandpa was 99 years old and for the last 37 years of his life.
My dad, who is the only Christian in his family, has been trying to share with him the gospel.
And my grandpa has been closed to the gospel.
He has always tried to change the topic or every time we try to share with them a verse or share with them something from the Bible, he's been closed.
But last Lord's Day, I had the chance to go see him at the hospital and he was there lying down. He was in, uh, they had given him some, some, some, some medicine to kind of make him sleepy because he was in a lot of pain. He has cancer. And you know, right there and then for the first time in my, in my life and my dad as well, we were able to share with him the gospel.
Because he was so sick that he couldn't respond, but he could hear.
They say whenever you die, the last sentence that leaves you is the hearing, right, Mr. Frost? Yeah. So even though he was looking like he was sleeping, he could still squeeze her hand and he could still kind of try to say something, but he couldn't talk. And I got to share with him the gospel there. I I got a chance to go with him to Florida a few years ago for two weeks. And in two weeks, I wasn't even able to share the gospel for more than 10 seconds because he just cut me off or change the topic. And so right there.
And then I got the sheriff in the gospel and I share with him that verse that we read in Amos, Prepare to meet thy God. My grandpa is a very wealthy man, but I told him, I said, grandpa, when you're dying like this, you know you're going to die. You can't take your money with you. You can't take your car with you. Get a nice Mercedes. You can't take that with you. When you die, you're going to meet God. And how are you going to meet him? Are you going to meet him? Are you going to be ready to meet him?
00:15:10
Are you going to be trusting in in in your good works and what you've done?
Are you ready to meet your God? And so my grandpa passed away on Wednesday morning. So we don't know what the outcome was. I don't know if he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior. It's too late for him. He's met God right now, either as a savior or as a judge. It's too late for him.
But today, if you can hear my voice, if you're able to listen to my voice enough to do the hands up, hands down before.
You're able to listen and you're able to make a decision. And it's our prayer, it's a prayer of every parent in this room that their kids accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. My little daughter, she's one years old and she's too young to make a decision, but we, we pray for her every day that she accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as her person savior, because that's the best thing. It doesn't matter how fast you can run, doesn't matter how good she is at sports or at school.
It matters that she accepts Lord Jesus Christ as her personal Savior. So that's really the umm, the verse I had before me getting ready for Sunday school and they asked me to take the meeting.
Was prepare to meet your God and it's our prayer that everyone, young and old in this room.
Are ready to meet God not as a judge, but as a savior and friend.
And so having said that, I got thinking of being prepared. Now who of you has to prepare or drive a long distance to come to the conference? Raise your hand. A lot of you, right? Those are you from Dorothy, not so much, right? You just you live here, right? You don't really get you get your Bible case ready, your running shoes, it's about it. But you have to prepare. You guys come all the way from Nova Scotia, right? So what did you have to prepare When you when, when it when you came.
Close Patience. Patience. Yeah. How far is it from Nova Scotia?
That's a lot of patience, you know. How about you, Daniel?
OK.
How about you, Sandy? What did you have to get ready for the conference?
So far we have a lot of clothes.
How about you, Jack?
Did you prepare something? Did you bring something special?
Close. How about you? Anything else? Surely someone brought something else to close.
Did you what? What did you bring?
Did you bring your parents? That's important. Yeah, Yeah.
It's important to bring your parents to the conference. OK. Yeah. Savannah, your Bible. That's good. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, your heart, your heart, a prepared heart, that's very good. Anything else you have to prepare. We go to a conference.
Mani. Yeah, because you need money to to to to pay for things, for gas on the way. Yeah, God.
God. Well, it's good to prepare our hearts before God. Yeah. OK, Lily.
Sorry.
Yes, that's important, my wife says. Sometimes I worry too much about food, but yes, food is important.
Dude is important. That's in the long trips you have to eat. So these are things we have to get ready, right? And you guys only got ready something. So I know your your dad and mom had to take care of the strollers and diapers and car seats and all types of stuff. So good job to all the parents that made the effort to come to the conference. That's great. I'm a new dad, so I'm just learning about the conferences aren't as relaxing as they used to be.
That's good. We had a good word for parents yesterday, so I was encouraging. So. OK, so I have a suitcase. You don't have a suitcase? Yeah. You pack your suitcase, your parents help you sometimes raise your hand, and your parents help parents help you. Yeah, well, my wife helps me too, so that's OK.
We all need help and so I have a suitcase here.
Yeah, lots of stuff in there. So in this suitcase, I didn't put things in it that I needed for the conference. Like I don't have any clothes in there and all that good stuff. But what I do have is I have things in here that I'm thinking, I was thinking over this this week and when it comes to being prepared to meet our God.
00:20:09
Sometimes kids and sometimes older ones too.
We prepare things that we think will help us get to heaven.
We prepare things or we do things that we think if I do this, yeah, maybe God will accept me. And you know what? I can say that because I used to be sitting in those chairs a few a few years ago, and I had some of those same thoughts. So if I had them, chances are maybe some of you had these thoughts. So I have a a suitcase with a bunch of articles in it and their everyday articles. But we're going to go through them and we're going to kind of go through each one and explain how that.
If these things are good enough to get you to help you get into heaven, is that OK? Everyone follow me so far.
Yeah. Hands up, hands up. Hands down. Hands up, hands down. Clap once. Hands up, hands down. Anyone have any questions at this point? Questions, comments, observations. Yeah.
You forgot. OK, well let me know if you remember. OK Anyone else?
We're good.
OK, so I'm gonna need some volunteers. Who's a volunteer to help me out here? OK, well, stay seated.
OK, Levi coming over here.
I want you to put your hand in the suitcase. There's no tigers or lions or snakes. Just put your hand in there and pull one thing out only. OK. Not the chocolate bar in there. OK, well, one thing I Oh, thank you. Have a seat.
What's this?
Adjustment.
What's this for?
So you're saying who here helps their parents sweep sometimes?
Yeah, I help my wife do some, I help my wife sometimes sleeping. It's, uh, I'm still learning, but it's where we get better at these things, right? And so a lot of these, I know you can't help your parents. And this represents to me kids helping their parents. Is that a good thing? Who thinks a good thing to help your parents?
Most of you guys do. That's good. Yeah. Helping your parents is good. Your your parents like it. Whenever you help them, they're happy. They say thank you. And maybe you feel good about it, right. You feel good whenever you help your parents. Maybe you're helping your dad with a a project in the in the garage. You're helping with with something. And it's a good thing. But can helping your parents get you to heaven?
Maybe a little bit. What do you think?
You sure? Thumbs down. That's good, Paul. Good answer. Yeah. So this is one of our props here. So helping your parents, Well, it's a good thing it doesn't get you to heaven. And I used to think I was a pretty good kid myself. You know, I could. I was the oldest and. And being the oldest meant more responsibility. Mean that I kind of boss around my siblings. That was good.
Until I realized that being the oldest also meant to get more spankings because you got to lead by example. So that wasn't always fun, but I thought I was pretty good because I was the oldest.
And I'd help my dad, but that wasn't enough to get me to heaven. All right. He wants to help me with with something else. Mary Jane, can you help me come?
Gonna put your hand in there, get something, OK?
Oh, it's a Bible. Thank you for your help. All right, have a seat.
Bible. Hmm, what's this for?
Reading what else? Who here has a Bible?
Well, I will help you get to heaven.
Maybe. What do you think? Yeah. So if you die and you have your Bible in your hand, are you going to heaven?
You can read it. That's good. Yeah. What else? The If I die with the Bible in my hand, will I go to heaven? No. No. What if I read my Bible every day? What? What's that song say? Read your ballot for every day and you'll grow, grow, grow. Will that get me to heaven?
No. Some people are saying yeah, some people are saying no, yeah, because.
Sometimes, yeah. What do you think?
Yeah, yeah. It's good to meet you, Alva, Right? But it won't get you to heaven. Wait a second. Reading your Bible won't get you to heaven. Now, if you read the Bible and you believe what it says, you'll get to heaven. But it's not by having a Bible that gets you to heaven. When my wife and I got married, we got a Bible. It's like the family Bible is as big as a table almost. It's really special Bible, all types of pictures in it. But that Bible won't do any good.
00:25:01
Just because you have a Bible, just because you have a Bible, just because you go to the meetings.
It's because you sit in the front row will not get you into heaven. And that's an important point. The important thing is that we believe what is written in the Bible. So I don't want to confuse anyone by saying that the Bible isn't good, that you it's important to read your Bible, but you have to believe what is inside the book.
OK, someone else can help me out?
Come on.
OK.
It's French. Sorry, you guys don't know French. So this is what is this?
Yeah.
A teapot and this is there a cup? Yeah. So my daughter taught me last week how to pour a teacup tea into a tea pot. And she was sharing it with me. And it got me thinking, you know, I KN I've, I've been seeing a lot of toys out in the play area. And yesterday I was there and I saw a lot of kids sharing. I saw Jack there and Jack was helping other kids share with the toys. It was really good. Good job, Jack. And that was, I'm sure. And I saw other kids as well that were being kind and and being nice to each other.
Is that good? Is being nice to your friends a good thing? Will that get you to heaven? Are you sure? Yes. No, it won't get you to have it. It's it's a good thing your parents are happy. It's good to make friends. But it's not enough to get to heaven.
Being kind and sharing your toys will not get you to heaven. So now let's move on quickly here someone else.
Yeah, come on.
OK.
What's this?
A crap, yeah.
What? What kind of craft?
A dog or.
Yeah, it's a sheep. Oh, it's supposed to be a sheep or a dog. We're.
We kind of tried it out anyways. Umm.
This is a craft. Sometimes you guys go to Sunday school classes, you make a craft, right? And you and you're really happy to show to your mom and dad, right? Sometimes I see the, the, the, the door to the medium open and the kids come out of their class and they were holding all types of crafts to show their parents, right? And that's it. It's nice to make these crafts, but it's not gonna get you to heaven, right? Just because you were listening to your teacher, just because you maybe got a star, because you came to all the primary school classes and you were listening, that's not enough to get you to heaven.
All right, something else?
Alright, alright.
OK, what's this?
It's a verse. Yeah. It's a it's a gospel paper, right? Who here memorizes the gospel verse every week? Lots of your kids do. That's good. And I know some kids that can memorize whole chapters of the Bible. Is that going to get you to heaven?
Is memorizing scripture going to get you to heaven? Someone says Saint John 316. Who knows? John 316.
Who, Who can help me with that? Yeah, help me out.
You know it. You want to say it. No, you want to say it, Savannah.
That's very good. Get one of these. It's good to say first. And sometimes at conferences kids say verses and we're all very good job. It sends a really small, they can barely walk, but they're still like saying all these verses and they're like, wow, that's really cool. But that doesn't mean they're saved, right?
Now, I'm talking about a lot of external things. I'm talking about a lot of things that we can see that kids can do that are not bad in themselves, but they're not going to get you safe. All right, I'm going to read this up here and pull up something else. Oh, yeah. This is a good one, too. Who here draws these? Yeah, you do a good job of drawing. Yeah, you do that as well.
I used to do that, too. Yeah, you guys do it now. Is that gonna get you to heaven? No, it's not. You might get a you might get a book or a prize at the end of the year, but that's not gonna save your soul. All right, one more thing. There's gotta be something else in here who can help me out.
Alright, Isaac, come on, help me out.
Ta da OK.
Good old George Washington. What? What is this?
Piece of money is money good?
Who hear these? Their parents put money in the collection basket.
Who here has ever put money in the collection basket? Sometimes I used to help my dad. Sometimes he says you can't look at it, but you can put it in. That was the that was that was the deal. Yeah. Or sometimes kids I had, I had a kids a few years ago, umm, come to me and say I want to give some money for the kids in Africa. Was that a good thing? That's a very good thing. I was really encouraged. He wasn't very much, but for him it was a lot of money because he was able to. He gave the kid that didn't have that much of his Piggy Bank, but he gave the money for the Ki for the kids in Africa.
00:30:22
That's good, Mr. Roach. Will giving money for the kids in Africa get you to heaven? No, they they're really happy to get the money, but it's not going to get them in heaven.
And so I got all these things here that kids can do, all these things that.
I know in some aspects I and myself at one point in my life thought that you know what? I'm a pretty good kid. Who here thinks they're a real bad kid.
You think you're a bad kid? Yeah. Well, most of your friends don't aren't too sure about that. They think they're pretty good. Yeah. We like to think we're pretty good, right. We like to think that we're good runners, that we're obedient and that we're better than the other kids. Sometimes you see kids in meetings that are really bad. You know? I'm not like them. Yeah.
Sometimes that happens, right? Or sometimes you might think, well, look, I always obey my parents and I always do this and that. So I'm I'm, I'm OK, but that's not good enough in the eyes of God. Because in God's, when God looks at you, he doesn't look at things that you're doing. He's looking on the inside. And it's really hard for me to explain this without a prop, but there's no prop that really can justify it because when it comes to salvation.
Can you see if someone saved?
Who here thinks Mr. Prost is saved?
Yeah, Can can you see inside his heart? No. I mean, I've had the chance to travel with him and I know he loves the Lord very much, but you can't see if he's safe. You can see his actions, but we don't know each other's hearts. So tonight, today in the front row, a lot of kids are happy. You're really good. It's really good that you're here. You're listening. It's great. But I don't know inside your heart. And your parents don't know inside your heart either. And that's why.
It's not a question of these external things. It's not a question of these things that you can do.
To get saved, it's a question of accepting something that was done for you, and that is what salvation is all about. It's something that we could not earn on our own. Now, these things are very good, like we said before, but they're not going to get you saved. There's a verse that we're going to read together in Titus chapter 3 and verse five. Could someone read that please, for me?
If you get it, stand up and read it.
Go ahead.
Of righteousness, which we have done according to His mercy, saves us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost. Thank you very much.
Not by works at which we have done these things are all works. Good works cannot save us. Good works cannot get us to heaven. But by mercy He saved us. The Lord Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago, He came down to earth. He came down to earth to die for us. He gave his life for us. He died for you, Lily. He died for you, Avery.
He died for you, Ernie.
He died for you.
He died for you, He died for me. Even if there's been only one person in this world, he would have come down and died for that individual.
He came and he preached good things. He came to show us the heart of the Father.
He came to teach us the way to God, but yet you know what? People took Jesus and said we don't want this man to reign over us.
And they put them on a cross, and he there, he, he died. But in doing so, he paid for our sins.
He was a righteous man. He had no sin and him was no sin and.
He was the perfect substitute for our sins, and it's by accepting it in our hearts.
By believing on Him that we can be saved, not by doing good things.
By accepting what's been done for us. So I'm going to read another verse in umm, the book of Romans 10 verse nine. Can someone help me with that? Romans 10 verse 9.
OK, he he stood up for Sorry Daniel, but you already got a chocolate bar, so.
That thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. Thank you. Does that mention good works in that, uh, verse? If that will confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thy heart that God had raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So today, right where you're sitting, just as I was sitting there probably some 20 years ago.
00:35:00
And I was listening to messages like this and answering questions. At that moment, I could have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Now, did I do it?
Do you think I did it at a conference?
No, I didn't do it at the conference. I remember where I did it, so.
I remember I was in my laundry room by the washer and dryer, and I remember that I was so burdened in my heart about my sin. Yeah, I was so burdened in my heart because I knew I was a Sinner. And I knew that I had done bad things. I thought I was a good kid, but I knew I'd done bad things. I knew that I could not save myself. So I remember right there beside my wall Kenmore washing machine.
I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I admitted that I was a Sinner, that I couldn't let the good things that I thought I could do were not good enough.
And then I had to accept God's free gift of salvation and then to be sure because like, you know.
Sometimes as kids, you probably maybe people remember relate to this that you kind of don't know if you did it the right way, right? Did I really do it was I sure did. I So I took my pen and I wrote a little cross right in the frame of the cabinet around the washer and dryer just so I would remember. And every time I forgot, I wasn't sure I would say if I go back and then remember that I put the little cross there.
Well, you see, that was when I.
Turn from darkness to light. That was when I accepted what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me. It wasn't a question of Maine doing something good.
It was accepting what was done for me. And today, if you're going to get to heaven, it's not on your own basis, it's not on what you can do. It's by accepting what the Lord says Christ has done for you. Let's sing a song.
Actually I want to sing umm. What can wash away my sin?
32.
I think 32 versus one and two, OK.
What can wash up?
Oh, right, just in the fall.
100 and Tino. Nothing like the bloody time.
What am I like to do now? I cannot survive. She comes o'er in my heart, and it's my gaze. Now I'll be at the bottom of the tree. Now what a crashing is the floor.
That makes me like I snow.
No, no, no, I know we're not because of the blind on sea come.
So we talked today about preparing to meet our God.
He is your God, whether you are a believer or not. He's still your God. Whether today you choose to reject God's free gift, He is still God. He is still the one who is the judge. He's still the one that you will face whether you choose to accept it or not. In fact, what I said before by my grandpa, whether he accepts it or not, God is still God. Whether you believe in a police officer or not doesn't change if he's an authority even more for God, right?
He is the one that we all have to meet. We talked about being prepared to go to a conference, right? We talked about that. We talked about things in our lives that we can think that will prepare us for heaven but will not actually get us to heaven. And I talked to you guys about my own story, how that I had to accept that free gift, the blood of Christ that was shed for me as you, just as the book of Galatians says, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
And in first John chapter one, it says the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us.
From all sin.
I have here a passport. Who has a passport, Yeah.
Why do we have a passport for?
Why do you use a passport?
Get across the border. That's good. Has anyone here ever had trouble at the border getting across the border? You sometimes, Yeah. It's already happened. Yeah, sometimes. I've gotten pulled over too, for a search in India. They often come and they always ask for passport. Passport, passport. They always want to see your passport and your visa to go into the country. But a passport is your ticket to the next country to go over the next country.
00:40:11
And my dad was sharing with my grandpa before he passed away that.
He needed a passport to go to heaven.
Now what is a passport to heaven?
Yeah.
Salvation, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sins. So today.
You might have a passport to go back home to Canada or whatever country you're from, or maybe when you come visit us in Canada. If you guys want to come to Canada, you're most welcome to come to Montreal. Great place. We have a conference in, uh, November. But you have to need your passport, right? You have a passport, Avery, no.
You guys one? Yeah, you got one. That's OK. You don't have it here right now. But the important thing is that you have your passport to get to heaven, that your sins are washed away by the blood of Christ. And so when it comes to being prepared, it's important that every one of us are ready to meet God.
You know, I was thinking about someone else in the book of Ezra. It talks about, look at Ezra, but talks about Ezra prepared his heart. Someone could someone quote that verse to me? Prepared his heart to seek the Lord, to do it. Is that what it says, Ezra? Is that what it says, Josh? Yeah. As he prepared his heart to seek the Lord. Yeah. So he had in his heart he was ready to seek the Lord. And here at a conference.
Umm, I know many of the parents that hope everyone here has come ready, prepared to seek the Lord. Now that happens. How do you prepare your heart? You know, in your, in your reading in the morning when you get ready, you, you have a time in the world, you prepare your heart to receive a blessing from the Lord. You make sure there's nothing in your life that is a compromise. You know, umm, I, I asked this the question, but I challenge myself that I spend more time, uh, getting my software to you this morning than I did preparing.
Part the challenge, right? We can sometimes get really worried about our outward appearance, but is our inward appearance? Are we ready? Is our heart ready to receive a blessing from the Lord? Last last night at the young folk hemsing talk our brother shared about challenged us all to read our Bibles and to pray that evening. And I hope all of us or most of us did that. And that's important that we prepare. We take that time individually, not this is not this is not for salvation. This is how you will grow.
In your faith, if you prepare your heart and if you allow God to come in and to teach you things.
From his word.
Now does anyone have any questions?
Questions.
Comment anything not clear.
I got one more chocolate bar.
That's my favorite one so I might keep it.
Alright, OK, we're gonna sing one more song. Let's sing one more song.
Jack.
#7.
I think verses one and two. OK did someone start the song please?
It is, uh, very, umm, hungry.
00:45:00
You know, if you go around in the gym and in the other room, there's all these motivational sayings on the wall.
Some of them are OK, but one of them is really wrong.
What does that say up there?
Believe in yourself.
Now could you believe in yourself to go to heaven?
No, I know what they mean, that you should believe in yourself, that you can do something.
But we gotta be careful that even in these things that we here at school, as we heard about in the reading meeting, that it's not man's wisdom that comes in.
That comes in to try to get us to think that we are and ourselves we're good enough because we're not good enough in our own. And whenever we realize that it's only through the power of Christ inside of us that we can can do things for him. It's a way better way of thinking, right? That's how we can have God's wisdom and not man's wisdom. So I just thought that was important. Even if you guys are at school, you, you hear things, you see things.
Are you, is it gonna help you in your Christian faith? Are you, are you, are you always comparing it with the word of God? That's really important. You can ask your parents questions if you.
Hear things at school or see things that you don't agree with or you're not sure about. Your parents can help you with that, and that's really important. You've got to compare everything with the Word of God, right? So let's just pray and thank you for your attention. OK, let's close your eyes.
Thank you, Father, for this opportunity we had to open your word and just talk a little bit about being prepared. We pray for every individual in this room. We pray for every child, an older one that might be holding out, anyone that might still be a stranger to your love and grace. Lord Jesus. We pray that they might even now accept this free gift and be prepared for heaven.
Thank you for this opportunity we have to share the good news. And thank you for these kids. I could listen to pray. Amen. OK, one last time. OK, Hands up, Hands down. Hands up. Hands down. Stop. Once up, twice. Hands up, hands down.
Classicness.
Overcoming in the Christian Life
Address—Bill Prost
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good afternoon.
Could we sing together hymn #300 and 12312?
Lead on Almighty Lord, lead on to victory.
Encouraged by thy blessed word, with joy we follow thee, 312.
Let's look to the Lord our loving God and our Father. We have sung encouraging words this afternoon and we do trust that they come from the depths of our hearts. When we sing Lead on Almighty Lord, lead on to victory.
We know, our God and Father, that the pathway of the believer ends in certain victory.
But we do trust that it is. It is the desire of our hearts, Lord Jesus.
Allowed to lead each one of us.
Not merely in order to reach the end of the pathway, but all the way along. So we commend our time together to Thee this afternoon and look to Thee for Thy guidance as we open Thy word together.
We do remember those two who have had to leave and who will be traveling. We pray for.
Thy mercies for them, by whatever means they are going, commending them to Thee. And we would also pray for our brethren gathered together in Saint Louis, who doubtless are enjoying similar meetings. We commend them to Thee, 2 and we ask Thy help as we do so. Lord Jesus, in thy precious and worthy name, Amen.
What is on my heart this afternoon is to take up something.
If I could use the term fairly simple and straightforward and down to earth, I couldn't help but be impressed with the number of children that sat up front here at the gospel meeting last night. And I really enjoyed seeing that. And I see a fair number of them, thankfully, that are still here and a fair number of young people.
Too, But I think we all need.
What I expect to talk about.
And here's what I have before me in the Reading meetings yesterday, and also to some extent in the open meeting we have had before us, The Walking in the power of the Spirit of God and in the enjoyment of Christ for our lives down here.
00:05:02
Yes, it's wonderful to look forward to coming glory and I trust nothing will ever dim that hope of the ever present expectation of the Lord's coming at any moment. But while we are down here, and I don't know whether others feel this way or not, but are there times in your life when you say.
It's all very good, it's all very wonderful.
But how do I get it practically?
How do I live?
Every day of my life in the enjoyment of Christ, how do I live with a sense of His presence? How do I live with that ever present fountain of joy in my heart that I hear others talk about so freely and I hear it ministered in the meetings?
Do you ever wonder that I have? I have.
Vignette in going to the Lord about it.
It came before me.
That it's not all that difficult.
It's not that God makes the pathway of faith a difficult one. In one sense, yes, God doesn't promise us an easy pathway through this world. The Lord Jesus could say to his disciples, it's at the end of John 16 in the world ye might have tribulation. No shall have tribulation.
So it's a fact.
But equally true, there is no need for you and for me to live our lives.
Constantly under the oppression.
Of this world constantly under the oppression of the old sinful self getting in the way.
Yes, the flesh never stops resisting.
It never gives up, and if you don't believe that, ask a few older brothers and sisters if the flesh ever gives up. It does not.
But there is a way to live the Christian life in real victory and in the enjoyment of the Lord, even in these last days.
I'm going to say something even further. There is no reason why you and I individually cannot enjoy the Lord in our own hearts and lives just as much as the Apostle Paul did at the beginning of the Christian dispensation. Now I hasten to say that I don't believe I do.
I don't know whether I've yet gotten to the point where Paul says and 2nd Corinthians Chapter 11.
He says I glory in tribulations also.
I don't know whether I can say that all the time.
But there is no reason, I repeat, why you and I can't have the enjoyment of Christ just as much as anyone did right in the beginning of Christianity.
We cannot expect to have the outward power of Pentecost. We can't expect to see, and it would be unintelligent to expect it to see, every Christian gathered back together in one before the Lord comes.
Scripture tells us that is not going to happen.
We're in the last days. We have failed. We are part of a ruined dispensation.
And we can't turn the clock back in that sense.
But again, I repeat individually, the enjoyment of Christ can be just as great as it ever was.
And we have been talking in our readings in First Corinthians 2.
About the dangers of the wisdom of this world and a vote On the contrary, the wisdom of God, which is always the exact opposite of this world.
And then how to live in the good of it?
But I'd like to turn to a few practical scriptures on that and then after that if there's time.
I'd like to speak a little about knowing and understanding the Lord's mind for your life and mine.
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Let's turn first of all to Galatians Chapter 5.
Galatians, chapter 5.
Now the Galatians were an unusual bunch of people, a group of assemblies, and someone had persuaded them that while they definitely needed to be saved by grace, yet they needed the rule of law as a means of living the Christian life. And Paul is so straight with them about that that he doesn't commend them for anything at the.
Beginning of the Epistle, not even like the Corinthians.
Excuse me? Paul at least found something in Corinth he could command, but in Galatia he starts right in because they had really taken themselves off the ground of Christianity. And notice what he says here in chapter 5 and verse 16.
But we'll read verse 13 to get a connection there.
Galatians 5 and 13 Four Brethren, ye have been called unto liberty wonderful. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Verse 16 This I say, then walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye cannot, or perhaps more accurately ye should not do the things that she would.
And then notice what it says, verse 19. Now the works of the flesh are these or are manifest. Which are these? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, Roth, stripes, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings in such light.
Of the which?
I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
The first point I want to make is, and it was made in the readings yesterday, the Spirit of God does not need to be, if I could say it, reverently prodded or otherwise encouraged to do what He is there to do, to fill our hearts with Christ, to lead and guide us in the Christian life.
Rather, you and I in responsibility have to get things out of the way that are causing the problem.
Sounds simple, doesn't it?
And we have every means at our disposal to do that.
Turn to Romans 6 for a verse. Romans chapter 6.
Verse One. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
Then going down in verse 6, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.
That the body of sin might be destroyed, That henceforth we should not serve sin.
Verse 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.
But alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The first thing that you and I need to do, and it is the worst thing we have to contend with.
Is to reckon that old sinful self within us to be dead?
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And it's a constant daily, hourly thing because, as another has put it, self judgment is the.
Absolute necessity for a walk in communion with God.
Self judgment is the absolute necessity, the inseparable condition from a walk in for a walk in communion with God.
Sometimes it's not easy to do, is it?
Sometimes I speak for myself. I allow thoughts in my mind that should not be there.
And they may not be overtly sinful, but they are representative of an attitude of self will.
The mercy of the Lord when He speaks to us about those things sometimes.
I don't know whether I should tell you this or not, but I will.
If you were close enough to look at that finger on my hand, you would see some scars on the end of it.
Came from getting into too close contact with the business. End of a chainsaw out at Morningstar camp.
Pretty well healed up now you can't see it unless you get close to it.
But it was one mess when it happened.
Wasn't in one sense carelessness, because although it was my fault, both of us, the other brother and I, had used chainsaws for many years and we were, I'd like to think, pretty familiar with them.
But it happened.
And I went to the Lord about it, and I said, Lord, why so? Is there something in this?
And I don't mind telling you. The answer came loud and clear. Yes, Bill, there's something you need to deal with.
And you better deal with it.
The Lord has ways of getting through to you and me.
With those things that are hindering us. But don't wait to have your finger messed up with the end of a chainsaw to judge the flesh. I needed to learn that lesson and I don't mind admitting it.
And if we walk in the spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, because.
When the Spirit of God is filling my heart with Christ, the flesh is kept in the place of death.
But it's kind of a circle, isn't it? Because the flesh keeps trying to rear its ugly head.
And as some brother put it, and I never forgot the comment, he said, we all want to be more like Christ, but most of us like ourselves too much to give up what we are naturally in order to be made over into another man.
Does that sometimes happen? Yes, it does.
And the works of the flesh. It mentions rather gross sins here.
At least most of them.
But I believe Paul mentions these gross sins because he wants to show us.
Where the allowance of the flesh and little things leads us to.
It starts with evil thoughts, then goes on to evil actions, and then goes on to worse actions.
In the next chapter in chapter one of chapter 6 and verse one, it says, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.
Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
We can be overtaken in false.
But I want to say something right here, and I'm passing on what an old brother said to us many, many years ago. He said if a dear believer falls into a sin along the character of that named in First Corinthians 5.
Don't call it being overtaken in a fault, he said. That individual has had to run a lot of red lights.
In order to get to that point. And it's true.
Being overtaken in a fault is meaning we catch something in the beginning and maybe a brother confesses it to others which is sometimes good, and there's a help to nip the thing in the bud before it takes over and causes full blown sin that has to be dealt with by the assembly. I just passed that on. It meant much to my own soul.
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Don't run the red lights in your Christian life. Judge that sin right away.
Now let's go on.
First John, chapter one.
And here we're going to read the part that's addressed to young men or young people.
Not trying to center you out because we all need it.
But notice in first John, Sorry, did I say chapter one? I meant chapter 2. Beg your pardon? First John chapter 2.
Middle of verse 14.
I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong.
And the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.
Oh, that's good, isn't it?
Isn't that good to hear that there are young men in that character?
And I may say, it does my heart good to meet up with young people who are reading the Word of God.
Who take notes at conferences? Who listen to good ministry? Who read good ministry?
Wonderful.
And the Word of God abides in you, and you're strong. Good.
But I appreciated what ET said this morning when he had a child pull that Bible out of the suitcase and hold it up.
And he made the point that merely reading the Bible and merely having it and knowing it.
Wouldn't save your soul.
And it will not keep you and me either.
Y.
Because that knowledge that gets into my head has to get down here, into my heart and into my walk.
We won't turn to the verse, but it's mentioned five times over in the Gospels. The one I'm going to quote is from Luke chapter 8 and verse 18.
Take heed therefore, how ye here. Well, we better read it, because I may misquote it. Luke 8 and verse 18.
And I think I just did start to misquote it.
No, I didn't take heed therefore how ye here. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he.
What she must to have?
So I may be so bold to speak from the vantage point of being a little older than many here.
I have seen young people who were strong, who had the word of God abiding in them.
And yet, who went off the rails in their Christian lives? Why?
Oh, there's more. Look at verse 15. First John 2 and 15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
Loved the world. The love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father.
But is of the world.
That has a special attraction when we're young.
And I well remember being there.
I don't like to speak about myself, but I was always a car buff. Loved cars, loved them. Oh boy, couldn't get enough of them.
Used to go to the showrooms when I was a kid back in the 50s and take a look at those beautiful brand new cars. And every year when the new models came out, we couldn't wait to see, you know, what's what's the Chevy gonna look like this year and what's Ford gonna do to try and keep up with them. And then I remember when Ford outsold Chevrolet. Yep B we got.
We built a car that was more attractive than theirs and so on. We love that sort of thing. And I wasn't the only one.
The things that are in the world.
But I had to learn that if I was occupied with those things, the love of the Father was an enemy.
That all those things came to an end.
Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life, and it will attack you even if you know your Bible well and even if you go to meeting and even if you love the Lord.
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I need to deal with those things and then what happens? Ah, I enjoy the love of the father.
There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. Consciously being able to go to your bed at the end of the day and have the conscious sense that you have sought to please the Lord. Oh, what a wonderful feeling that is.
Have you ever gotten up in the morning?
Read your Bible, and I hope you do because that's a good time to read it. Get up a bit early if you have to.
Head prayer, and I'll say what I keep on repeating. I hope it doesn't sound like a broken record, but to the young people and children here, you may grow up in a Christian home where there's a family reading. That's a great, great mercy. But if you're old enough to read and to have your own Bible, let me encourage you to read it for yourself. Find some time to read it for yourself.
I don't know whether it's a good idea to do this or not, but.
When I was young.
Young people and boys would be sent to bed on the early side, and girls too. And sometimes we'd sneak a book upstairs and we'd.
Little flashlight and we'd read it under the covers. I don't know whether anyone else here ever did that. Maybe kids don't do that anymore. But we sometimes used to do it not too long, because if you did it too long, then sometimes somebody come to check on you and then there'd be trouble. But you know, if you read your Bible like that, I think you'll get into a lot less trouble if someone comes in the room.
If someone comes in the room and you're reading some cheap comic book or something like that.
You'll probably get into a lot more trouble than if your mom or dad catches you're eating your Bible a bit.
Read it for yourself.
Even if you don't understand everything.
Because it gets to be a habit. And what does it say here in the end of verse 17? First John 2?
He that doeth the will of God abideth.
Forever.
And that brings us to our next point. First of all, we need to deal with the flesh. Secondly, we need to deal with.
The world around us.
And Satan is in both of those. We hardly need to bring Satan up before us, because we all know who he is, and he uses the world and uses that old sinful flesh in US to rob us of the enjoyment of Christ.
But now let's turn back to Galatians 5 for a moment.
Because this brings us to our next point and I want to read this first. Galatians 5.
We read about the works of the flesh, but what is the opposite of the works of the flesh?
In verse 22 does it say but the works of the Spirit?
Doesn't say that, does it? It uses a different word, the fruit of the Spirit.
Why the fruit? Oh, because, and we had it in the reading yesterday. The fruit is what is naturally the product of a particular tree that bears that fruit. I grew up on a fruit farm, so I was very familiar with all that, and it was just such a joy in the spring to see all those beautiful blossoms come out.
Love to walk through the orchard just filled with a beautiful fragrance.
And then later on they develop in most cases to beautiful fruit. Hopefully you didn't get a hail storm late or something like that or something that damaged the crop and there would be those beautiful cherries or Peaches or whatever it was.
You didn't call it the work of the tree to produce that, did you? It was the fruit.
And that's what the Spirit of God wants to do with you and me, produce this beautiful fruit.
Then we come, it says, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
Where is your will and mine.
Because most of the difficulty in my lifetime, and if I may say it, most of the difficulty I see in other believers, ultimately comes from what is the root of sin.
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What is the real root of sin? What does that word iniquity that occurs so often in the word of God mean?
It simply means the exercise of an independent will.
I have plans. I want to do this. I want to do that.
And I know this may sound a bit harsh, but it's true.
And I apply it to myself. I trust as much and more than an to any other.
The moment I say I want to do this.
If that plan, that desire, has not been made in the Lord's presence and with Him in mind, I am exercising an independent will, and that is sin.
That's why Scripture says, and we won't turn to the verse, it says the plowing of the wicked is sin.
Nothing wrong intrinsically with the act of plowing, but if I were to plow in a man's field without acknowledging his ownership of it.
I'd be doing the wrong thing.
We didn't plow much on a fruit farm, but I used to like to plow. There was something nice about seeing that soil turn over so beautifully. And I had a dairy farmer up the road from me who was a believer, and for some reason he was always behind in his work, and so I used to do some of the fall plowing for him.
But I always went where he wanted me to go, and I plowed where he told me to plow.
And there was a reason for that which you'll get a laugh at. He didn't want me to plow anywhere near the main road. He did that himself because he wanted it to look really good for the neighbors and I wasn't all that experienced. And so he he let me plow in the backfield where no one could see them. But if it was near the road, he wanted to plow.
I had to acknowledge his ownership and plow where he told me.
And so in your life and mine, I say, where is your will and mine? We have a lot of opportunities in North America here, don't we? Yes, I know it's not the same as it used to be. Things have been a little more difficult. The economy isn't as good as it used to be. Can't go out and get a job as easily as you used to. But let me tell you.
You want to get your eyes opened and many here have done it. Visit a so-called third world country and you will realize that we still have it very, very good here in North America.
And you, dear young people, doubtless some of you have ability and you have perhaps career choices ahead of you.
There's nothing wrong with a good education.
But where is my will in the whole thing? Have I made those plans in the Lord's presence, with a view to using that education, that career, using my life for the Lord? Or is it all just to gratify self?
You know, when I was young, the whole thought was even in worldly circles where I went.
Get whatever education you needed, get a job, get married, have a home and raise a family.
And I can still remember with a bit of a smile, one young man in my class when I was perhaps in my senior year, eyeing one of the good looking young teachers that came to our high school fresh out of university. And he was married. And he had a pretty fancy car. That was back in the 50s when cars had big fins on them. And he had one of these big cars with fins on it.
And he looked at that young teacher and he said, boy, he said he's, he's got it together, that guy, he's got a good job and a car and a woman.
Now, I don't mean to be crude about it, I'm simply quoting what he said, and he meant it in a positive way.
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But life has changed today. Now a lot of young people say I'd rather have a passport full of stamps from foreign countries rather than a house full of things.
Times have changed.
But is the will inside really any different? No, the will is the same. And the wisdom of this world that we've been talking about says if there's something ahead of you, go for it.
And it can be very subtle.
I read a book a number of years ago written by a man whom I'm sure was a believer, and it was literally entitled How to Know the Will of God for Your Life.
And when I read that book, I read it all the way through and I put it down, I said I have never seen such a subtle act of Satan to destroy the wisdom of God and the believer's life. That poor man, I am sure he was a believer, but he was so wide of the mark because.
His final conclusion was.
God gave you a good head on your shoulders.
He gave you a brain. Use it.
Make your plans. Use the good head that God gave you and make your plans.
Then go and check it against the Word of God to see if there's anything contrary to scripture.
And if there isn't, then go for it.
Is that what Scripture teaches us? No. But he had scripture pulled out of context from here and there, and I have never seen scripture, or seldom seen scripture woven together in such an intricate and impressive and convincing way to make his point.
But he was dead wrong.
Because it didn't take into consideration the wisdom of God. And what is the wisdom of God?
Some of us that live in the Rio Ferry area know where the Scotch Line Cemetery is.
And I've been there recently within the last few years at a burial.
In that cemetery, there's a tombstone of a man by the name of James Buchanan Dunlop.
Went to be with the Lord in 1928, long before most of us here were born.
And he gave an address way back on a New Year's Day, way back many years before that, 19108.
And basically he said. And it's a very good word, he said. You and I are not left here.
Merely to live good, morally upright lives and then to go to heaven at the end, he said. We are left here for all that, but for much more than that.
It's true we are left here not to do our own will, but the will of God.
And if I want to do the will of God?
First of all, I'm going to have to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts.
I may have to give up some of those things.
That the world would dangle before me and it can be very difficult.
Can I tell you another personal story?
When I was interning, everybody wanted to get a good residency.
And I worked with another intern. He wasn't a believer, but he was a very God fearing man.
And we were working on the surgical service.
And we came under the eye of the chief of surgery. He liked both of us for some reason. I don't know why, but he did. I guess we both tried to do our work well.
And one day he invited us to come to a very exclusive club that he belonged to called the Granite Club in Toronto.
And everybody knew that if Bruce Tovey invited you to come to the Granite Club, boy, you were on the way.
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But it was reading meeting night.
The night he invited us.
What to do now?
I don't deserve any credit for it.
But I declined the invitation and went to reading meeting.
My fellow intern said you're nuts. You blew it.
But it didn't blow it as bad as I thought it would have.
Because a few months later, just as we were going off the surgical service.
Bruce Tovey came to me and said, Bill, if you ought to come into the surgical residency, the weighs wide open.
Now what to do?
I hope this isn't telling too many personal details, but just to show some of your younger ones that we've been there, done that.
I went home and got on my my knees and I said, Lord, what to do now?
Is this the path I should take?
And within 24 hours, the answer came back so strongly that I trembled.
The verse is in AI think it's in Isaiah no Jeremiah 45.
Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not.
And I declined that invitation too.
Now, I'm not telling you that to say anything about myself in a way that bolsters me. I hope not. But there are going to be difficult decisions that you have to make. And Satan is right there saying go for it, and so is this world.
Remember, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
So now we want to talk about knowing the will of God.
Sometimes people come and say, but how can I know what is the Lord's will for sure?
I want to know what the will of the Lord really is.
And how I can be sure of having it?
It's not an easy question to answer.
Because there is no human parameter by which you can measure.
The knowledge of the will of God. Why not? Because you cannot talk about knowing the will of God without bringing your state of soul into the picture.
Remember that you cannot talk about knowing the will of God without bringing your state of soul.
Into the picture.
We live in a world of instant answers to every question, and since the advent of the Internet we can go to the computer and get an answer to just about anything. Click of a mouse and you can have instant information about just any subject you want.
Except knowing the will of God.
Can't do that.
Suppose, for example, you feel that you'd like to go, and you feel the mind of the Lord in going to a university to study a certain thing.
And you make maybe several applications and you get accepted by more than one.
How do you know which one to go to? Is there a verse that covers that?
No, not really. Is there no verse that'll tell you to go this way rather than that way? Or maybe you have a job and then another job opportunity opens up and it looks good. Maybe it's a better salary.
Is there a verse that'll tell you whether to take it or not, or stay where you are? No.
How do I know the will of God for my life?
First of all, does the Lord want us to know his will? Let's turn over to John's Gospel.
Chapter 7.
John, Chapter 7.
And verse 17. Well known verse, but it bears rereading.
If any man now notice this will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine or the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
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It's the first part of that verse we want to focus on. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.
Now notice it does not say if any man will know his will. Why not?
Let me illustrate that.
And we've all had this experience. I have some very, very good friends. And if I went to one of those friends.
And said to him or to her, Will you do something for me?
I know very well the immediate answer would be, by all means, Bill, just tell me what it is.
But I have others that are not quite so close friends, although they're friends and if I were to go to them and ask them, will you do something for me?
There would be a rather cautious What is it?
And you know why? Because it would depend on what it is as to what the answer would be. Heaven. We all had that experience. Of course we have.
And maybe we have been guilty of it too.
The Lord doesn't want people to come to Him to know His will for that reason.
We can't go to the Lord and say Lord, show me your will. But with the thought in my heart when I know what the will of the Lord is, I'll decide whether I want to do it or not. Oh no.
We won't turn to the verse, but it's in Psalm 25. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.
Oh yes.
If we are going to go to the Lord and ask for His will, there must be an open heart that says Lord.
I will do it.
And whatever that will is, we can rest assured that if the Lord gives us something to do, He'll give us the wherewithal to do it. He doesn't give you and me something too hard for us. It may be something that we can't do in our own strength. It may be something that is difficult. But God never lays something before us without giving the needed strength and the needed grace for it.
But what does that teach us?
It teaches us dependence.
It teaches us dependence.
And the apostle Paul had to learn that turn over to Second Corinthians where we spoke of, which we referred to a little earlier. Second Corinthians.
Chapter 11.
And here's the Apostle Paul, and what does he have to say?
Sorry, chapter 12. Beg your pardon? Did I say 11?
Chapter 12 And if I said 11 previously in the address, I meant 12.
2nd Corinthians 12 What does he say here? Verse 10?
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions in distresses for Christ sake.
For when I am weak then am I strong?
When we're young, we think we don't need that.
But the Lord is ways of showing us.
That we do need it, and as I get older and others here can testify to the same thing, we find ourselves needing to be more and more dependent on the Lord.
Because we realize we don't have strength in ourselves.
We never did, but we realize that more as we go on in the Christian pathway.
But does the Lord delight to show us His will? Yes, indeed He does.
And then natural wisdom doesn't have to be applied. Turn to John's Gospel Chapter 11 to see that.
John, Chapter 11.
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Now these verses may seem to be a little going all over the place, but it's the only way to address this subject. John Chapter 11, we know the story well, how the Lazarus was sick, very sick, and of course his home was in Bethany, which is very close to Jerusalem, and the Lord was up in the north of Israel in Galilee.
And what happens here in verse three of the chapter?
John 11 and verse three. Therefore his sisters send unto him, saying, Lord.
Behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
Verse 5.
No, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Verse 7.
Excuse me?
Then after that, said he to his disciples, let us go into Judea again.
His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone the engulfs, Thou thither again.
Here's a dilemma.
We speak reverently in the life of our blessed Lord and Master.
On the one hand, he whom thou lovest is sick, and Scripture gives testimony that that was a true statement. Jesus loved that family. It was a haven of rest for him, apart from all of the things that were going on among those in positions of authority and power in Israel.
But on the other hand, his disciples remind him, Lord, they sought to stone you down in that area of Jerusalem, and that are you going back there again?
How to resolve that dilemma?
First of all, it says in verse six when he had heard therefore that he, that is Lazarus was sick, he abode 2 days still.
In the same place where he was.
Might have seemed a bit hard harder, don't you think? Instead of going right away.
But then his disciples come back, and when the Lord finally says, let's go.
They remind him about the persecution and risking his life that was going to be down there. And what does he say?
Beautiful verse 9, Jesus answered. Are there not 12 hours in the day?
If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not because he seeth the light of this world.
But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth because there is no light in him.
What did he mean? Oh, the Lord was saying in so many words, I have guided.
From the Father he lived the life of the perfect dependent man, and he did everything by the power of the Spirit of God, so that when he delayed it was because it was the will of God, even though it looked on the surface as if he were ignoring one of his humanly speaking best friends who was sick.
When he goes there again, he goes down in the face of persecution and the risk of his life. But he says, I'm walking in the light. Oh, I say to each one here today, you can walk in that same light. We don't need to go through our lives stumbling and bumbling and so on. Now, don't get me wrong, I have stumbled and missed the way.
Yes, I have, but it was I that made the problem.
Not the Spirit of God.
The Lord is willing to lead and guide, and He does so.
Right here. So the Lord Jesus goes, but he goes in the power of the Spirit of God and with the mind of God.
And no one stoned them to death.
It wasn't time for him to be crucified yet, and he knew that he would go in the protection of God. And you and I can do the same thing in our Christian lives.
But a word of warning.
And to see the Word of Warning, let's go back to Luke's Gospel, chapter 10.
Loop 10.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 10.
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Verse one and no. After these things the Lord appointed other 70 also.
And sent them two and two before his face into every city and place.
Whether he himself would come?
Now go down to verse 17. What's the result of that mission that.
He sends these 70 out to do.
Verse 17.
And the 70 returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils or the demons are subject unto us through thy name.
And he said unto them, I beheld Satan is lightning fall from heaven.
Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
So here's the verse. Notwithstanding in this Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.
The last thought I want to leave with us is this.
These 70 went out clearly with the mind of the Lord.
And they went out clearly with his power behind them, they come home. Shall we use the term flushed with success?
Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through Thy name.
And the Lord shared in that joy. The Lord looked on to a coming day that hasn't happened yet. And he says.
I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, no doubt referring to that day, a future day when Satan will be utterly cast out of heaven.
The Lord shared in that joy.
And he gives them more power. He says you can tread on serpents and scorpions.
Nothing shall by any means hurt you.
But even if we are in the mind of the Lord about where we're going, whether it's a choice we make when we are young.
A career choice. A choice about whom we might marry. Most important choice, Most important.
We need the wisdom of God for that. Don't take that step in in any way, shape or form based on human wisdom. Ask the Lord for His mind. But we can have the confidence in our own selves that we have the mind of the Lord.
And we can actually be used of the Lord, but the Lord gives us a little warning here.
It's possible, even in that for that old fleshly thing called pride to rear its head.
Francis Ridley made the remark. She said it's the last thing in us to die.
And even in the Lord's things, we can take a certain amount of pride. There can be what you might call grandstanding, telling everyone what the Lord is doing through you. Oh well, I want people to rejoice in what the Lord is doing and they can pray for me and so on. But there can be pride in that.
So the Lord gives a warning here. He says in simple terms, don't rejoice so much in what you have done.
Rejoice in what I have done.
He must have all the glory.
He must have the glory and so he says, don't rejoice in what you have done, even though they did it with his mind and his power and it was definitely the right thing to do.
Rejoice in what I have done.
That's why we needed the remembrance we had this morning, so that we wouldn't be so taken up with what we are doing, but rather with what He has done that keeps us in the right place. It keeps us humble before Him. Yes, we don't hesitate to go to the Lord and seek His mind.
01:00:01
And we can have the confidence in our own souls that we have the mind of the Lord. Because let me tell you from experience.
If you seek the Lord's mind, and he brings it by his Spirit powerfully to bear on your soul.
I can't explain it in human terms, but there's no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it.
But don't go around talking about it.
Have it to yourself. Go on for the Lord, because to boast about it is really to say.
I know I was walking so close to the Lord that I couldn't possibly have missed his mind.
No, just quietly go on in the path that the Lord is marked out. And remember, it is far better to be occupied with what He has done than what we have done.
What did we have to do with our names being written in heaven?
Oh, it chokes us up, doesn't it? What do we have to do with our names being written in heaven? Nothing but our sins. No pride in that, is there? Can't take any pride in that. What part did I have in being saved? Oh, I find out after I'm saved that it was God that even gave me the faith to believe.
No room for pride.
Well, our time is up. Let's sing just part of another hymn.
Number 77 in the appendix.
77 in the appendix.
And we'll sing just the last two verses, verses 4:00 and 5:00.
Oh, I am my beloved, and my beloved's mine. 77 in the appendix, the last two verses.
Just look to the Lord.
1 Corinthians 2:12-3:4
Reading
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172.
Will teach us more of thy blessed ways, Thou holy Lamb of God, and fix and root us in Thy grace as those redeemed by blood. 172.
Teach us more.
I must pray. Oh bring my heart and my Lord.
And I have to do it.
And I love you.
It's my heart.
Four days ago, Wisdom praying in the rain.
On my heart and I come on.
Here, and I want an arrogance of life on my heart.
To price.
So we carry on with First Corinthians 2.
Nice to finish the chapter I think.
Maybe we could read from verse 12 if that would be all right, although we did talk about it, but it leads into verse 13 and I would just suggest perhaps reading the 1St 8 verses of the next chapter. You probably won't get into it, but it ties together a little and there are some thoughts in the early verses of chapter 3 that could be brought into the end of chapter 2. Is that all right?
First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 12.
Now we have received not the sphere of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord?
That he may instruct him. But we have the mind of Christ and I.
Brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat, for his or two ye were not able to bear it neither yet now are you able, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith I am appalled, and another I am Apollo of Apollos, Are you not carnal? Who then is Paul? And who is Apollo's but ministers by whom he believes, even as the Lord gave every man?
I have planted, Apollo's watered. But God gave the increase, so that neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one. And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
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There are most wonderful things that are freely given to us of God, as we remarked yesterday.
We read in Ephesians 1 where it's developed more fully that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, and then they're detailed there for us in the 1St and 2nd chapters of Ephesians.
But here it's just alluded to. But the point that is made here again is seeking to turn those dear Corinthian believers away from man's wisdom, which always has an A tendency to intrude into the things of God. And so Paul says, even those things that we speak to you, we don't use the words of man's wisdom. It's the words which the Holy Ghost teach us.
Very, very important.
It's the Word of God used by the Spirit of God that imparts new life to the believer, that is, to the command and the man who is lost, I should say it imparts new life and makes him into a believer. But it is all a work of God. And God uses his word. You and I might say, well, what does it matter what words we use? Well, if it's the word of God that's used, he gets the glory and that's what counts. And man's wisdom can never improve on the words which.
God's wisdom uses, and so it says here, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.
And in that respect?
While words have a specific meaning for us.
In the particular language in which we are speaking. Yet when we speak according to Scripture, we have to attach the meaning to that word that Scripture gives it. We've already had that pointed out where the word perfect in the context of this chapter does not mean absolutely without fault. It means full grown or mature. And there are other words in Scripture that have to be taken that way and used in the way that the Spirit of God uses them.
And so how necessary to communicate spiritual things. That's really the sense of the last clause of the verse. Comparing isn't the best word. It probably is better to read. And the Darby, I think, uses this expression.
Communicating spiritual things by spiritual means.
Man's wisdom can never add anything to the revelation of God.
Is that right Tim? Is that have I got it right?
I would take it. So I was just looking back in verse 12 of the, uh, word spirit there now we have received not the spirit of the world, small S, but the spirit which is of God and small S and our King James. I don't think it should be. That's the Spirit of God, isn't it? There we have received the Spirit of God as you're talking about the last meeting. Umm, I think it's worth just going back and, and mentioning that because some of us were talking earlier about the same difficulty in, uh, second Corinthians chapter 3.
The, uh, original.
I understand was written all in in capitals, so you can't really determine from the original Greek whether it was.
Smaller S or capital S and it has to be determined by the context. But here it's the Spirit of God that is being referred to. It's not that we've gotten a spirit that can discern this even though we get a new life, but it really is the Spirit of God Himself that we have indwelling to teach us of these things, isn't it? Hmm.
I know this has been said before, but it bears repeating. That is why it is so important to be very, very careful when using a particular translation of the Word of God.
There is such a thing as dynamic equivalence, which means that some men and maybe even believers, and doesn't matter who they are or whether they're men or women, but.
In picking up those things that are written in the Word of God and seeking to translate them.
They would say, well, this is really what it means. This is what we would say today. And so instead of a direct equivalence to the original wording, it's really what someone's understanding of that scripture is. And the moment I do that, I no longer have the pure Word of God. I've got what someone else thinks that it means. Well, if they're right, that's one thing, but maybe they're not right. Maybe they're wrong.
00:10:07
And then the reader can never get beyond that wrong thought. And also the breadth of what is in the Word of God and what some have called the finer points of Scripture do not come out in that dynamic equivalent.
Now God can use those translations and He does, and we bless God for it. As my late father-in-law once said, I have never yet seen a Bible, no matter how someone had butchered the translation, where several things weren't clear and definite.
That is, first of all, the utter ruin of math. Can't get around that unless you destroy the Bible.
The fact that God loved this world and sent his son to die for.
Lost, guilty sinners can't get that out of the Bible unless you do a Thomas Jefferson and start cutting pieces out to make a Bible of your own. That there is an eternal consequence of blessing for those who believe and an eternal consequence of judgment for those that do not believe. Since you can't get that out of the Word of God, even with a bad translation and so on, he said. Those things are clear and definite and God can use that, but how much better to have?
The pure Word of God, the way the Spirit of God inspired it to be written. And then the Spirit of God can bring out from it what he wants us to know from it. And there's, as we've often said, one interpretation of a Scripture, but many different applications of it. But that's the work of the Spirit of God to do that, not for man to stick his hand into things and try and say, well, I know what it means. So here's how we'll say it.
Realizing, of course, that there is always a difficulty.
In translating from one language to another because often there isn't a real equivalent equivalent. And for example, and this is well known, the word that Scripture uses to describe the Spirit of God. Translated Comforter in John's Gospel, translated Advocate in first John. As those who know Greek tell us, there is no one English word that encompasses the entire thought in the Greek word. But wise translators then put in a footnote.
Explaining what it really means in a sentence and then using perhaps the best word that they could get in, in our case in English for that, but clearly making it out to the reader that it is not really conveying the whole thought that is always necessary going for one language to another. But just the same, what you and I want is the pure Word of God, which then the Spirit of God can use because that is communicating spiritual things by spiritual means.
And when Paul communicated the gospel, and when he communicated the truth to the believers, I believe he used the words which the wisdom of God which the Holy Ghost teacheth.
That's so important because.
Another way of maybe just restating what you said was that.
In order to have the.
Proper translation and do it in terms of dynamic equivalence. It means that I must have in my mind the meaning of the author and who can do that with the word of God? And we can understand some part of it, but it's absolutely presumptuous to think that we're going to.
Comprehend the meaning of even these words and be able to pass on all of that meaning in our own words.
He says in John 12 verse 49 for I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. I don't think that's the same thing. What I should say, I understand this right, is the substance of the message that was the message to be delivered, but what I should speak with the very words with which to deliver that message. And so when we take the Word of God and we get away from the very words.
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If we couldn't, we couldn't even attempt to teach, could we? But to go to comprehend it and to pass it on in its fullness is presumption, nothing more.
And we shouldn't be surprised, as we get in the next verse, if the natural man can't understand it. God hasn't written His word in such a way that a brilliant intellect can pick up this book and understand it. And man makes a mockery of it. He tries to understand it. He thinks that with his intellect he can understand it, but he makes a mockery of it because he doesn't understand the word of God. The natural man UN receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.
The natural man is simply an unbeliever. He's a man that doesn't have the spirit of God. He's not saved.
In the next chapter we read about a carnal man and a.
Carnal man is a believer who is not walking with the Lord. He's walking in a fleshly way. That's where the word carnal comes from.
The root word of it is Latin and it means meat. And so it's carnal, it's fleshly. That's that's referring to a believer that is fleshly. So you have three kinds of men. You have the natural man, a carnal man, and the spiritual man.
The spiritual man is the one who was walking with the Lord, where the Spirit of God is free to minister to him.
The things of Christ and to lead and guide. And as we said earlier, it is the Spirit of God who is here to make this precious book good to us. Doesn't come all at once as we get in Isaiah's line upon line here a little and there a little precept upon precept and so on. We get it slowly. But nevertheless it is the Spirit of God which is here to make it clear to us. But don't be surprised if the world doesn't understand it as well as not even wanting it and.
Yet there comes a point.
Sometimes in that unbeliever, when the Spirit of God through the word of God imparts new life, then what a difference, what a difference there is, then there's a a desire for it. Then there's an appetite for it. I want to hear more.
The individual gets saved and there may be a little period of time between when that new life is communicated by the Lord, and we won't go into that subject here, but that's spoken of as quickening. God by His Spirit uses the Word of God to impart new life. But then sometimes, very quickly, sometimes it is a period of time that individual realizes that the finished work of Christ has settled everything. He accepts Christ as his Savior.
He receives the Spirit of God. Then he's spoken of as being truly saved. Now he has an appetite for it. Now it begins to make sense to him. Now he wants to hear it, but not before.
I could just go back for a moment to have.
How we treat this?
I think there's a practical side to this with any of us. Umm, many years ago in Christendom.
There were those who didn't have the word of thought. It was hard to get copies of it, and they started to bring in passion plays. I understand the history of it, and the thought was, well, we can make the Word of God available in some form to everyone. And so they did. But the effect of it wasn't to draw people to the mind of God or to know the word of God better. The effect ended up being, as I recall from history, that.
One of the things is we have have so-called Christian movies that are presenting things from the Bible, all kinds of things from the Bible, from the death of our Lord to the flood to you name it. I, I don't even know what they all are. Umm.
00:20:07
My exercises, they go nowhere near any of it, but we need to consider each one of us for ourselves. Are those things communicating, uh, spiritual things by spiritual means? I don't believe that they are, but I know there's often a criticism. How far do you go with that? And so I don't know that I want to try to make a rule about it. I don't think we can. There's a child story book that's illustrating Bible stories. Is that communicating spiritual things by spiritual means? It's a question that I've been hit and I, I haven't quite known what to say. I haven't had a problem with that, but what's the difference? I think there's somewhat of a spectrum there.
And this isn't a robot. We need to read what this says and each one of us for ourselves we exercise is what I'm doing is what I'm the way I'm taking in something about the word of God. Is that truly what the Lord has for me? Is that something that's communicating a spiritual thing by spiritual means or not?
And we'll have to answer each one of us to the Lord for how we answer that question.
Is there a boss here in the progression of these verses? There's, uh, maybe like a change from God down to man at at every step on this chain is the spirit of God that makes the factory. Now, if you mercy first time we have God has revealed things by the spirit, the revelation. And then we have the fact that verse 13, which things also we speak common words which management can teach us, but which the Holy Ghost is. So we have the God reveal things by his spirit and we have that that God gives men to speak those things that he had revealed by his spirit and to put them into words. That would be inspiration.
God has this change and you know by which his thoughts come into our hearts, and that every step of the way is the spirit of time, and how wonderful that is that you have to be left unless they link so to see where a man comes in and he fills in the gas all the way through the Spirit of God.
Yes, that's very good, Josh. And uh, I heartily agree with that. And it's a wonder if we think about it for a few minutes, it's an absolute miracle that God can write a book because here it is in our hands. And in so far as, uh, it is written in, in our particular case, in the English language, it's written in words that you and I can read and the words convey a meaning to us. And yet what does this book give us? It gives us infinite truth from an infinite God.
But given.
To creatures who are finite, it's an absolute miracle, isn't it? And so it has to be God all the way through if there's going to be anything that you and I can get from it. And the minute a man puts his hand to it, he only spoils it. In any of those steps that you talked about, man can never come up with revelation of anything. He can only see what is of himself. He can't go beyond himself and what he discovers, nor can he speak anything to do with God except.
By the power of God, if he's going to communicate it in the right way, nor can he receive it unless he has the Spirit of God. And so it's a work of God all along the way. And it is, as I say, an absolute miracle. And that's why it says here they are foolishness under him. And there's almost no limit to which man so-called intelligence can go in utter foolishness in the things of God.
Brother called my attention to a piece he saw on the Internet some some years ago where a man, an unbeliever, was commenting on the 11Th chapter of Daniel. And of course, being an unbeliever, he was very sure that Daniel had written it as history and not his prophecy because it's so accurate. But then he made a comment that was almost laughable. He said I don't know what happened to the for profit or the poor historian because he got to verse 35 and then he just seems to have lost it because everything up to that point makes perfect sense.
And everything from verse 36 on is just doesn't make any sense at all and there's never been any history that even remotely corresponds to it, he said. I, I don't know what happened to him.
Well, we know very well what happened to him. He didn't understand that between verses 35 and 36 is the church period and everything from verse 36 on his future natural man can't get that. He has to understand the word of God to know that. But he thought he was being ever so smart and criticizing Daniel and making fun of the poor man that somehow could write something plausible and then just lose it and write nonsense for a while at the end of it and so.
00:25:26
That's just one example of man getting into absolute foolishness when he tries to understand the things of God. What he needs to understand is what the gospel preaches and the lost guilty Sinner, and he needs a Savior. Would it be correct to say that what you just described Bill as an incident would be an example of?
The end of verse 14 that these things are spiritually discerned.
Yes, go ahead, enlarge a bit on that. So it's an interesting thing to think about.
Yesterday the subject of God's sovereignty and men's responsibility came out, and I think so far this afternoon we've been talking mostly about how God, as you mentioned, it's a miraculous thing, what God has given us in His Word.
And it's a work of the Spirit of God to teach us at the same time. And so as you've been mentioning in your example Build that man doesn't have a hope of understanding because he doesn't have the Spirit of God as his teacher to help him understand. Now as a Christian, I have the Spirit of God indwelling me, and we have the opportunity to go to the author of the book and ask him what it means. That's how we get the sermon and understanding. And that's particularly how God uses his Spirit to make sure even if we are using a translation, that's not so good.
To help us understand.
But uh, what I'm leading to is.
What I have right now in my own heart, my practical experience from the Word of God, I didn't get that by strictly miracle.
I had to open the Word of God and when the Spirit of God laid something on my heart that needed to change in my life, I needed to do it.
And so that's the human responsibility side that I have, as you're mentioning your address this afternoon, Is it my desire, do I will, to do what the Spirit of God is trying to teach me from his work? Because that's one of the key places to learn it. And so when it comes down to discernment and understanding what in the Word of God, I need to have a willing heart to learn it and be submissive.
But I also need the Spirit of God to help me to understand what its meaning is. If I'm just using my own intellect, I won't get it.
That were discerned at the end of verse 14 is really the same word as is translated. Judge it in the next verse. The next verse could read. He that is spiritual discerns all things.
What a wonderful thing it is to have one, and I thought I think you put it very well, Rob, the author of the book Indwelling You and Me.
He discerns all things for us. So one who is spiritual, he discerns when error is being taught. He may not in every case be able to put his finger on it and explain exactly what the error is, but he deserves that something's wrong with it.
He discerns all things he can look around in this world and intelligent in the word of God. He says, oh, I know where things are heading. I see what's happening. I see where all this is going. He doesn't get all upset because a bad leader, at least in his view, is elected. He recognizes that God is overall and is working out his purposes. He doesn't look around at the rampant evil in the world and say I've got to do something about it. He has the word of God that says I'm going to look after that in the coming day. That's my job. Vengeance is mine, said the Lord.
Not that he's oblivious to the evil, but he knows where it's going to end and so on. The spiritual man, he deserves all things. And the result of that is a walk of peace before the Lord. He doesn't get all worked up over this and that that's happening.
I've seen people who were in business and they turn on the computer. Oh, oh, look what happened now. And there's a scramble to try and do something because of a certain turn in the stock market or a certain event that's happened. Or, and I can well imagine in this case, the president of this country, every morning he has to digest news and decide how to react to it, hopefully in an appropriate way. And you and I, as believers, we should be intelligent observers.
But the Word of God tells us how to react to it, what to expect. We have intelligence in the things of God. Either spiritual discerns all things. That's a wonderful thing.
00:30:04
Then the last part of the verse says He himself is deserved of no man.
Again, we say the world doesn't understand the Christian How can you be so calm and relaxed when you see what is happening? You realize what kind of a government we've got now? Do you realize what somebody else in another nation is going to do? Do you realize what may happen tomorrow, or whatever else it might be?
He himself is discerned of no man.
The world doesn't understand the believer because he's a heavenly man, but he walks through this world and is here to witness for Christ.
On the word discerning, it might be worthwhile just looking for a moment at Hebrews 4 and verse 12.
Says the Word of God, is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dis dividing asunder of soul and spirit of the joints in marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We understand the two edged sword and its ability to go in and separate things that need to be separated even though they're very intimately joined. Use a sharp knife to cut apart meat. Dissect.
An animal or.
If you're a surgeon, know how to cut this exactly apart in the right way. And then, uh, at the end of the verse, it talks about a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and.
When you're talking about discerning, I don't know if this is a good illustration or not, but somebody who's a Baker who understands cooking, maybe some of the wives in this room can take a cookie and they take a little bite and they're doing a little sniff test and they're figuring out what the list of ingredients is in that, uh, in that particular cookie. And I think that that's part of, uh, what the Spirit of God can do, discern the thoughts and intents. What's the motivation?
For example, behind this translation of this verse, is it to detract from the glory of the Lord Jesus and remove from him some of his defined glory or some is there some other motive? And then, uh, over in our chapter when we're talking about discerning, umm.
The same thing if there's somebody that comes in the Word of God and the Spirit of God working with an individual in communion with the Lord to be able to discern what the thought is or the motive of somebody to be able to understand.
What's driving them? So for example, I remember a story, uh, of one, I think it was a person who received some literature from the Jehovah's Witness organization and they read a little bit of it and somebody asked them why they stopped. And their answer was that's not the shepherd's voice in that literature. Not necessarily a well instructed person in the word of God, but the spirit of God help them to discern that there was something wrong with that literature. Maybe somebody could expand a little bit more or a little more clearly on that thought of that, what it means to be able to discern.
Well, I believe you've covered it pretty well, Rob. It means to separate things that differ and to see everything in its right light according to God's view of it, the Spirit.
Spirit of God enables you and me to look at everything as God sees it. They didn't have that in the Old Testament except from time to time. The Spirit of God came on people and as we know, inspired them to write the Old Testament books and inspired.
Certain ones at various times to give out the mind of God for the time, but no one was, if we could say it indwelt perpetually with the Spirit of God. But now you and I are, and that enables us to have God's thoughts about everything.
So that whatever I see, whether it's in my own life or in the assembly in the world around me, in the place where I work, something that someone's trying to teach me, I can look at that and with the Spirit of God, I can have God's thoughts about it. What a privilege that is absolutely beyond our understanding, isn't it? Now, we haven't time to go into it, but yes, there are words like, uh, in Ephesians we're told not to grieve the Spirit. And Thessalonians we're told.
Not to quench the Spirit, definitely there are things we can do which hinder the Spirit of God from giving us that discernment. But what a wonderful thing it is to have within us that which is able to give us God's thoughts on everything that we encounter in our lives.
00:35:05
And it echoes your thought, Tim, in the next verse, verse 16. Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?
Who is going to instruct the spiritual man that has the mind of the Lord? You were pointing out that sometimes men think they can, by dynamically changing the word of God to make it say what they think it means. As you rightly pointed out, in order to do that I would have to know the mind of God perfectly. And who has that? No, Who is known in the mind of the Lord?
That he may instruct him.
But then it's very interesting to me here what the last clause is in verse 16. It doesn't say, but we have the mind of the Spirit. Now. Scripture uses that expression in Romans 8, for example.
The mind of the Spirit. So there is such a thing, But here it says we have the mind of Christ. I.
I would just suggest that thought and I would be glad to hear the thoughts of others, but I'd suggest this thought that God would not have us in enjoying the presence of the Spirit of God, to focus on the Spirit of God in a way that detracts from the honor and glory of Christ. Because the work of the Spirit of God here and it tells us in John's gospel, he shall not speak of himself. The Spirit of God is here to glorify Christ.
To minister Christ to your soul and mind. And so properly understood, yes, the Spirit of God gives me intelligence to discern all things, but in order what? In order that Christ might be before me. So here it says I have them, we have the mind of Christ. There was one that walked through this world that always perfectly walked in the power of the Spirit of God, always perfectly did the will of God.
And that was our Lord Jesus Christ. And now you and I are called to follow in his footsteps. And it says here we have the mind of Christ, the perfect dependent man who walked through this world, not if we could say it reverently using his divine intelligences, God, but rather, and it was brought before us earlier. He did whatever the Father gave him to do. And the Son can do nothing of himself but what he see if the Father do. That's John 5.
And so I would suggest that expression is, uh, is simply showing us that while it is the Spirit of God that does all these things, ultimately his work is to point us to Christ.
Is that is that a right thought? I'd be glad to hear it if others have something different on it.
I would agree with that thought and would link it with the portion we had this morning during the breaking of bread in Philippians 2.
The whole verse that we started with this morning is that let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, and I'm sure most of you know by heart the rest.
How he humbles himself was a willing to go to the death of a cross. And I think that that's significant in this passage because if you're just thinking about the mind of the spirit, you're thinking about intelligence and knowledge and discerning things.
That that can be a point maybe that you can get some pride leaping off of. But what are we taking up in the next part of this book of Corinthians? In the third chapter, we're talking about that root issue that they're having verse three, envy strike divisions.
And so we need to look at the life of Christ and realize that inside the Godhead there is absolutely no jealousy, complete unity. It's not a question of the Spirit of God not getting the credit He deserves. There's no jealousy between them. But what we have to learn is the need for humility, right? Yes.
And there's no thought of seeking a place in this world where he had none.
That's not the time yet that we get in chapter 4 and we see the complete contrast there in verse eight. He says you're full now, you're rich. You have reigned as kings without us and I would cause you did reign, but we may also reign with you. That's the mind. Spiritual mind knows that that's coming. But their mind wasn't set on that. It was on glory now and they were puffed up and they were glorying in things that they had and were really interested in.
What they could get here the apostle said that they had something quite different. Verse nine I think that God has set forth us, the apostles lacked is that we're appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle into the world to angels, to men. We are fools for Christ's sake.
The year wise in Christ we are weak but you are strong we are honorable you are honorable we are and he goes on to speak more about where they were they he was sharing and the lock that the Lord Jesus had here and they were going on to living in a different way in this world and so that really is a part of what I believe what we have here neighbor Cardinal and their thoughts so they weren't entering into the deep things of God and that's why he takes us up and they.
00:40:26
The first part of Chapter 3, because it applied to them and it applies to us equally well today. If we're going to go on and take up with things that are around us that are flesh, the flesh at every one of us has.
Wants to enjoy, and I know it's got a tremendous pull on me. Then to that measure. We're not going to enter into these spiritual things. We're going to lose out on the greater things that the Lord has for us.
That must have been a very humbling thing for those Corinthians, so proud of their natural ability and their intellect and knowledge and wealth and so on, to have to be told they had plenty of gifts there too. Uh, uh, there was real gifts there.
And there's been quite a work the Lord had told Paul when he went to court. I have much people in this city, and we know that Paul stayed there. What was it? A year and a half, uh, preaching the word. So there was a lot of blessing, but he has to tell them. And it would have been very humbling. You're still babies. You're still not big enough to chew good meat. You're still having to be fed with milk. Well, in the sense in which Peter uses the term, uh, we never outgrow the need for the pure.
Milk of the word, but.
At the same time, the contrast is given here and Paul reassume. It's Paul who wrote the Hebrew says the same thing to them. They were carnal and they weren't ready for that which was strong meat. Paul wanted to give it to them, but they were in shape for it. Why? Because they weren't intelligent? No, because they didn't have gift. No, because they were allowing that in their lives, which stood in the way of the blessing that the Lord wanted to give them.
And it's interesting and it's humbling to us today to realize that the sin that he lays on them more than anything else is the envy and strife and the tendency toward divisions. I believe the word here is schism. It's not a full blown division. It's an inward disconnect. If I could use that word. It's not like the word enrollment 16 and 17 mark them which cause divisions. That's a much stronger word.
But there was that which existed. Were there plenty of other things wrong in Corinth? Indeed there were. There was wicked immorality going on. And Paul has to take that up in chapter 5. They were taking one another to court. And Paul has to take that up in chapter 6. They were getting drunk when they came together to have a, a meal together and to break bread. And he has to take that up in Chapter 11 and so on. But what is the thing that he mentions first Strike.
And ending and the tendency to divisions.
Why does he say that? Oh, I believe because in many ways that has wreaked more havoc among believers than the overt sin that we might recoil from.
Those things that are mentioned in First Corinthians 5, for the most part, are sins that can be identified and sad to say, they have to be dealt with by the assembly. Drunkenness can be identified and dealt with.
Taking someone to court with strife and envy, those things are inside, aren't they? And maybe my feelings are there, but I don't say them overtly. But there's a undercurrent that runs through things and it spreads and causes trouble, and it's fatal, causes more trouble among believers. And I don't lay this on anyone else but my own heart, because we can all be guilty of it. But it's a word to which we need to pay attention, I would suggest.
There is a difference between the umm.
I think there is, yes. I was just making a comparison, but tell us the difference. Well, they're the same as the way you said that they both hindered growth. So they both have that problem. But the one in Hebrews, if I understand correctly, has more to do with not going on the Christian doctrine to being stuck in Judaism and not living, leaving as the apostle places the principles of the beginning of the Christ, the beginning of his ministry, while as a man here on earth. It had more to do with those things of Judaism in the future day.
When he would take off with those people again, they hadn't gone on to the perfection of Christianity. And so it stunted their growth. They weren't ready for the meat. But here it's carnality, isn't it? It's a walk more than the doctrine. And so either way, we can take off with bad drop doctrine or that which isn't for us as Christians. Uh, that's the really the thought of Hebrews as I understand it. Or we can take up with, uh, fleshly living bad walk as Christians and the same way be stunted in our group in our Christian growth. And that's what we have here.
00:45:44
It would appear here in the beginning of the third chapter.
Is that if we look at verse, uh verse four, they were saying I am a call and another says I am of Apollos.
And so on. They were getting their eyes on men. They were looking for men as, uh, as spiritual as those men might have been. They were looking to mend, to give them the answers.
Or, uh, any questions that might come up?
And you might say, well, what was wrong with what would be wrong with saying I am appalled. I if I take Paul's side of of a question that must be right because Paul was an apostle sent to the Lord to teach.
But I believe, brethren, that when we get our eyes too much upon one brother, no matter how spiritually gifted he might have been, we might be, we might make a mistake if we just follow that brother.
Over a certain question that might come up, you might be making a mistake to just follow him without going to the Lord and say asking the Lord to show us his mind. We've been talking in the end of the of chapter 2, but knowing the mind of the Lord well, the Spirit of God.
Is always going to have and be able to give us and show us the mind of the Lord.
It it would be impossible for him not to do that. And uh, so if we, if the question comes up.
We need to get the mind of the Lord and we can only get that on our knees praying for the Lord's, the Lord to show us his mind by His Spirit to be looking at men, no matter how godly they might have been up to that point, how much gift they have. It could be making a mistake to follow that that brother.
Well, that is so good, Robert and.
Maybe I could take a moment and tell another short story.
I mentioned the name of James Buchanan Dunlap when I was speaking.
And I can still remember, this is reminiscing a little our late brother Armstead Barry, whom some here will remember. And he told me personally, he said I almost missed the path at the time of the Tunbridge Wells division. That was over 100 years ago now. And he said everybody was asking around here in certain circles in North America, referring to those who were.
Prominent and perhaps full time quote in the work of the Lord. They were asking, well, what do you think he'll do or which way do you think he'll go or what do you think he'll do in that situation?
And I can still remember Armstead, Barry said. Somebody raised the name of Mr. Dunlop and said, what do you think he'll do?
And somebody intended it as a derogatory comment, but they paid him the highest compliment they could have paid. They said, oh, he'll just pray his way through it as usual.
That was the way to handle it. He didn't have his eye on men. He didn't have his eye on well thought people or influential brothers. He prayed his way through it. And you're absolutely right.
We should never put our brethren between ourselves and the Lord. Do it the other way round. Put the Lord between us and our brethren. Then if our brethren are a help to us in ministering Christ, we can rejoice. But if they go wrong, then it only makes the Lord more precious to us.
And as you say, there's only one way to have the mind of the Lord, and that is to be in His presence.
What does it mean when it says I have fed you with milk? I think Paul certainly was assessing their spiritual state.
00:50:01
Found them wanting, found them to be carnal, he says. I fed you with milk. So clearly he adjusted the spiritual food he was giving them.
Not from meat down to milk. What what exactly does that look like called with Milky and then coming along with it. How does that help deal with the question of parties in an assembly, lines of groups of thought all coming together? How does that that reduce diet for a sick group or an I'll group or a carnal group? How does that help?
Well, I would suggest at least a partial answer when there's a ministry in the assembly.
I don't believe that everything has to be geared to one level of understanding. For those who need milk, there should be milk. For those who can handle strong meat, there should be meat.
But I believe if the Spirit of God is guiding us, as you say, and it's, it's Paul adapted himself to the condition of the Saints and the Spirit of God, if we have the mind of Christ, adapts the ministry to suit those to whom we're speaking. And if I can say it kindly, some of us have had the experience of doing that in foreign lands. I remember 1 Country that I visited quite a few years ago for the first time.
And I had a burning desire to bring before them the precious truth of gathering to the Lord's name.
But very rapidly I found out that that wasn't really what they mainly needed because some of them and many of them were mixed up on far more basic things like eternal security and what the meaning of baptism was and so on. Yes, we did minister the truth of gathering, but we had to emphasize more basic things that they had gotten wrong teaching on before we could start bringing out the truth of gathering to the Lord's name. But I believe the Lord helps us in this and the Spirit of God can show us.
How to?
Discern that, I don't know, Tim Roach or Tim Ruger. Have you had that experience and had to adjust your ministry accordingly in some cases without wanting to put down any particular place, But is that, is that right almost every time?
And I would only say too that if I am in a meeting at.
And I find myself capable only of milk and someone starts ministering strong meat.
Don't immediately get upset.
Ask yourself why you're not ready for the meat now. Yes, a new believer needs milk, no question. And we shouldn't deliberately and willfully minister the strong meat to a believer that hasn't gotten grounded in the basics, if we could use that term. But at the same time, well, I'm going to use an illustration. I can well remember talking to someone, uh, quite a few years ago now. And, uh, she was having trouble with what was being ministered in her local assembly.
And she made the comment, and I've heard it more than once from people since. Well.
I'm on a spiritual journey, you know.
I should have said it, but I didn't. I wanted to say to her, well, tell me something. You are 60 years old or thereabouts and you've been gathered to the Lord's name for 30 or 40 years. Is there a reason why you're still on a spiritual journey that can't understand some of these things? Yes, there are death heights and depths in Scripture that none of us will understand down here for sure. But what she was complaining about was not anything that difficult.
She needed to search her own heart the way the Corinthians did. Why was it that the appetite for strong meat wasn't there?
She was still on a spiritual journey even though she had been gathered for that many years and still found the strong meat a little bit hard to handle. Well, in her case, I don't think it was the fault of the ministering brothers.
I would add that as a relatively younger brother, sometimes you can conferences that we hear things that we do understand as we pointed out before. But I also have to accept in my own heart, am I just am I have I allowed things in my life that would?
Hinder me from growing, for example, I remember you're a young person. I'll be honest, I would drive development conferences with those young people and the music we listen to in the car was not glorifying to the Lord. And then you show up for the Congress and you say, oh, well, there was nothing for me there. It was dry. And the conversations and the patriots discussed were not glorifying the Lord either. And then you wonder why there's nothing there for you. So I would think it's a challenge to my to my peers or go to our younger as well. When you go to a conference, what are you listening to? What are you discussing with your friends? Have you come with a prepared heart or are you just expecting a good food fed TV? Umm, I recently joined the gym and if I only work with a 5 LB weight, I'm never going to get in shape if you're not willing to.
00:55:21
Dig down and try to put a bit of effort into careful what you eat or be careful how you train. You're never going to improve.
And it's gonna take effort and it might be hard if you're the only one in your group of friends that that don't that I think you wanna go on for that, to take courage and take out godly friends or godly habits that'll help you in your life.
Maybe to add to that example, if you go to the gym and you don't lift any weights at all, umm, you're not going to get any stronger either. And if we're not studying in our own personal time, uh, we don't even know what questions to ask what we don't even know what food we need to be fed. We are reading ourselves and ask questions ourselves. We've had here that this, this book we hold in our hands is some directly from God. The spirit is revealed all this truth. God has purposed this for us, work in US, provided everything.
The question is, are we eating?
Well, I believe this is one meeting we need to close right on time, am I right? Yes, I think it's.
Just about time for the gospel.
Ambassadors
Gospel—Tim Roach
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Maybe we could sing #332, the last two verses.
Just as I am, I love, I own has broken every barrier down. Now to be thine, nay, thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come.
Let's pray our God and Father. We give thanks for this opportunity to share the gospel. Once again, we just ask for the.
The help of the Spirit Today we just ask that if any don't know the Lord is their savior, that they might be quickened by the Spirit so that they might have the ability today to say, O Lamb of God, I come, you just ask for help today in Jesus name we pray.
Amen. Uh. My text for today is in uh second Corinthians 5.
Not a normal verse for a gospel meeting, but this is the one I believe. The Lord's given in Second Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 20 says, now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ dead, be reconciled to God. What we find in this verse that we believers, we have both a job to do and we have a message to preach. The job is that we are ambassadors for Christ.
And the message that we have is at the end of the verse be reconciled to God. An ambassador is a government official who he represents his country in a foreign land. And the ambassador's life should give honor to his country. And he knows he he's someone who knows his country very well and he can answer questions about his country and the ambassador. He also has a message for people who want to go to his country and the ambassador lives for his country. And that is how we should live.
As an ambassador for Jesus Christ, our life should give honor to the Lord Jesus.
The things we do, the things we say.
We should show others that Jesus Christ is important in our life. And I want to speak for a moment to the parents. Umm, do your kids know that Jesus is important to you?
Do they see Christ in you when you are at home?
Or do they see you skip the meetings so you can go watch the Super Bowl?
Maybe your business?
For movies.
Or sports. Or socializing with friends. Maybe these things are more important to you than Christ. Our children know. They know that they can see what what's important in our lives. And if these things are more important to us than Christ, why would our children want Christ know when the children are older now to decide for themselves?
If Christ is not important to the parents that your children will disappear from Christianity. But that's not half of the tragedy. Can you imagine a Christian parent being present and observing at the great White throne?
Maybe you have already lost your rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, and now on top of that you are there hearing the Lord Jesus say to your child.
I never knew you.
And then you'll hear your child's voice crying out. Lord, Lord, let me come in. I went to Sunday school.
I sat through so many meetings.
I didn't do so very many bad things, and I even prayed once. I prayed Jesus come into my heart.
00:05:01
But it didn't happen. It didn't happen because you did not believe and you did not confess Jesus as Lord of your life.
The Bible does not tell a person to ask Jesus into their heart.
The Bible says you need to have repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus.
But we know it didn't happen. We know you did not get saved because.
We can see that Jesus is not the Lord of your life.
Mom and dad.
Your children are your responsibility for you to give them every opportunity that they could be saved. You know I can preach here, I can preach to your children here at the conference, but you are the message that your children see every day.
We need to teach our children about Christ at home. We need to live Christ at home. And we need to be careful that we do not forsake coming together to the assembly meetings as a matter of some of you is.
Your kids need to see that Christ is the most important thing in your life.
Your kids see that? Your social life.
He is surrounded by Christians.
Or do they see that you surround yourself by the heathen friends that you've accumulated at work and in in other other places?
You know, if mom and dad are scarcely saved, what are the children going to do?
I want to speak to the unbelievers.
Because those that reject Jesus will stand there before the great white throne, and you will be bound hand and foot, and you will be cast down.
Down, down, as the screaming fades into the abyss of darkness, where you will endure the damnation of the eternal wrath of God in the lake of fire.
Many years ago there was a man and his family. Man's name was Placidus.
He and his family were Christians and they were arrested because they were Christians and they were taken into the Roman Coliseum and thrown in there for the wild animals to eat them.
While they were thrown in there, the wild animals refused to touch Placidus and his family, two children.
So what did they do? They had a brazen bull. It was hollow inside and they had a door to it. And they put Placidus and his family into the bull. They shut in and they shut the door and then they lit a fire underneath it and they cooked that family to death. They were slow cooked to death because they were Christians.
And while they were in there, the screaming of the family as they endured the intense heat and the pain, the screaming went out of the bull and it went out to the whole audience. As they stood around, they they sat around watching this family be burned to death. They heard them screaming out of this bowl.
Terrible children, children, don't let it happen. Don't let it happen to you. Don't let sin drag you down into the lake of fire. The Lord Jesus took all the fire of God's wrath for you. If you will only believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus. And you need to believe now, before Jesus comes. He could come at any moment, even before this meeting's over. I know we've said that for 2000 years, but it's still just as true today as it was then. The Lord Jesus is coming any moment from now, and you need to believe now before Jesus comes. You need to repent towards God and have faith towards the Lord Jesus.
Children, young people.
Listen, your mom and dad do what they can do.
They tried to teach you at home about the Lord Jesus. They bring you to the assembly meetings. They brought you to this conference here today. But it's your responsibility to have faith in Christ yourself. Mom and Dad can't save you. I can't save you. Only the Lord Jesus can save you, and he will only save you if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will be saved. All of us, believers, we need to live. We need to live as ambassadors for Christ.
And an ambassador, He will answer questions about his country, about his home country.
Each believer here should get to know the Lord Jesus. We need to get to know the Lord Jesus very well. We need to learn about our country that we're going to that that belongs to us, because we'll be with the Lord in heaven. And we need to know this very well so we can answer questions to people about our home country, and so we can answer questions about the Lord Jesus and His in the way of salvation and how we can get to that country of heaven.
00:10:16
Living for Christ.
It's not following a list of rules about what we should do or what we should not do.
The important thing.
Is to know Jesus Christ very well.
When you read your Bible and you pray and you study, you meditate, you obey. When you do this every day, you get to know Jesus a little bit more every day, little by little. And the more you know Jesus, the more you know about him, who he is and what he what he means to you. The more you get to know Jesus, the better you'll be able to answer the questions about the Lord Jesus and about the our home country of heaven.
Another duty of the ambassador is to arrange visas for the visitors who are going to come to visit their country, and the ambassador will tell you. He'll tell you what the requirements are for you to get that visa, so you'll be able to go to his country well as ambassadors for Christ.
We have a message to tell people. We have a message to tell them what the requirements are for them to go to heaven, for them to be saved. And the end of the verse that we started with it tells us the message that we have verse 21St 2nd Corinthians 5. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. At the end of the verse it says be reconciled to God. That's the message we have. Be reconciled to God as ambassadors of Christ. We believers, we have a ministry.
Of reconciliation. And that is why you are here tonight. We are here to tell you the way of salvation, to be the way to be saved from the punishment of your sin, so you can be reconciled to God by the death of his Son. So that you can be saved from your sins, so that you can be brought into a relationship with God. So you can have a fellowship with God. That's why we're here tonight. So you can be saved. Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God who loves you so much that he gave himself for you. He was willing to go to the cross and suffer the shame and the pain and the agony and the wrath of the holy God against sin. He was willing to do that.
As he hanged there on the cross, the Lord Jesus loves you so much He gave himself.
For you, Jesus, Jesus does not want you to go to that awful place of the lake of fire. He doesn't want you to go there, that that awful place of punishment. And so he has made arrangements for you to be saved. And he's offering this opportunity to you tonight for you to believe that Jesus died on the cross and that he shed his blood to save you from the penalty of your sins. Believe, Believe that Jesus was, was his God, and that he came down into this world and that he loved you. And that he was willing to go to the cross. And that he died on the cross. And believe that Jesus was buried and that on the third day he rose again.
So that you could have eternal life, so that you could have forgiveness of sins, so that you could have peace with God. Do you believe that? Do you believe that I mentioned the blood in first John chapter one and verse seven. We all know that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. When you have faith in the blood, God will be satisfied that Jesus Christ has paid the price for all of your sins.
All the sins you've done up to the time you're saved. All the sins you've done after you're saved. All the sins you do before the Lord Jesus comes. He's paid the price for all your sins. Now you need to accept the fact that you are a Sinner and come to him believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And then you'll be justified by faith without doing any of the works of the law.
Looks like time is up, but we need to remember that we are ambassadors for Christ.
Let us each live for Christ, and let us be a living message of the gospel. I know we went over the gospel rather quickly today. So if anyone wants to be saved, or if anyone has some questions or anyone wants to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and come and tell me that you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, I'd be happy to have to hear from you. Maybe we could close by singing.
That same one we started with, just as I am.
And we'll trust that you have gotten saved today, believe that you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, and will sing the first verse of 332. And instead of saying just as I am, the verse says, just as I was, That means you got saved, that you means you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. If you're not saved, please don't sing this. Don't say.
00:15:01
I can. You can say I come.
Right.