Dorothy Conference: 2019
Table of Contents
Psalm 16:1-4
Reading
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Of all whose mercy?
For me.
All day.
I can.
Only dear how many days?
Oh, I hear you.
My.
Right now.
I pray to my name.
Oh no.
Reading John chapter 10.
Chapter 10.
Good Shepherd.
14.
I am the Good Shepherd, know my sheep.
As the Father knows me, Even so know I the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. Another sheep I have which are not of this whole. Them also I must bring. They shall hear my voice. There shall be one cold, one shepherd. Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life. And I think it again.
00:05:11
Verse nine I am the door. I mean, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, shall go in and now find pastor.
Him prayer.
I would like to suggest a passage that we might take up.
It's one that I cannot remember having heard taken up in a reading meeting, but I believe it could be very profitable for us.
Psalm 16.
It brings before us, and I'll just mention this for what my brethren might think of it, but it brings before us, as I'm sure many recognize, the.
Pathway prophetically of our Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect dependent man and ultimately of course as a pattern for you and for me in our pathway down here as also.
Walking a pathway of faith.
Perfectly dependent on the Lord and a pathway which ends in glory.
That be suitable.
Nice.
Chapter 16.
Midstone of David.
Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust. O my soul, Thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord. My goodness extended extendeth not to thee, but to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight. Their sorrow shall be multiplied that hasten after another God. Their drink, offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
Maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yeah, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord who hath given me. Counsel my reigns also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither will thou suffer mine. Holy One, to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life. In Thy presence is fullness of joy.
At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
Just another remark or true concerning this song.
As we said a moment ago, it brings before us the pathway, ultimately at the Lord Jesus Himself.
He addresses God and addresses.
Him as my Lord and as Jehovah, and so on, taking the position of the perfect dependent man down here.
We live in a complicated world today, getting more complicated and difficult all the time.
For some of us here in these favored lands, we don't suffer the outward persecution that many of our dear brethren in some countries suffer. But Satan is working very hard to turn everything against the believer and to bring everything into line with his that is Satan's thoughts, and so that ultimately we find that it is a more and more difficult world.
In which to live and move.
But the precious thing is that there is one who came right down into this world where we are and went through it.
00:10:09
Experiencing everything that a sinless man could experience in the pathway of faith and went through it in perfect dependence on his God and Father for everything. And now here this is penned for us, I believe.
To encourage you and me to go through a complicated, sinful and difficult world.
Which is ultimately Satan's world and to be able to walk a pathway of faithfulness to the Lord.
Independence upon him and a pathway which, as we see at the end of the Psalm, ends in glory. And so I would suggest that there is something in this Psalm for every one of us, even for children and those that are in public school here, because you are already feeling the complications of the kind of a world in which we Live Today. But what a blessed thing it is to realize.
There is another who has already walked that pathway and marked it out for us, and the only one who had a right to live, if we could say it reverently, independently chose to walk a pathway of dependence in order to market that pathway out for you and for me.
I think the way you explain that is very helpful.
I don't know how many have had the experience that I have had, but you come back to this Psalm. And it's not hard to recognize that the Psalm is speaking about the Lord Jesus since it's quoted in Acts and directly applied to him by the Spirit of God. And we'll get to that further down the chapter. But you come back here to this chapter and you look at what is spoken of and the thought of him putting his trust in God. And even more difficult, what we get in verse two. My goodness extends not to Thee.
You think, how could this be the Son of God? But it helps to understand the Psalm as you've explained it, that it's the Lord Jesus taking his position as a man. And although his perfect man, it expresses a place, a position he took in this world as subject man in this world, and it's viewed that way. And to look at it beyond that.
To see in this Psalm an expression of the Lord Jesus as God would be confusing, even though he is God. But that's not the expression of this Psalm, is it?
Yes, when He came into this world, He did not come into this world exhibiting His Godhead glory. And we say it with all reverence and yet with all truth. Had the Lord Jesus acted in this world in any way other than in perfect dependence, He would not have been an example for us.
Would it have been wrong for him, for example after the temp, or I should say during the temptations in the wilderness?
To change stones into bread in order to have something to eat? No, it would not have been morally wrong, but it would have been stepping outside of the pathway of dependence.
You and I, we say it reverently, could rightfully have said, well, I don't have the power to make stones into bread, I don't have that. So that if I'm hungry, what do I do?
But here was one who depended perfectly on his father for everything.
Perfectly on God as God, and he addresses him as God here in order that he might be the perfect example for you and me in the kind of world in which we live. And so the first thing he says is preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust. And I say to my own heart, that ought to be my prayer every morning when I get up.
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Before I go about my work, before I, in the case of those who go out to work, go out the door.
Before I engage in anything to recognize that as creatures we need the preserving care of the Lord every step of the way. We can't really take one step without being dependent on the Lord, and He doesn't want us to, does He? But if we go independence upon Him, we will find that that trust is never misplaced. Never misplaced.
It's not.
Not to take away from the application that that you've been.
Put before us as the Lord as our example, but it's also true.
That the principle of sin is a will.
Acting in independence of God.
And we know that man started with the very first man. Man failed.
The Lord Jesus came as a man.
And never exercised his will as a man.
He said that.
He's getting come to do my own will, and he said I do nothing but what the Father hath commanded me. So it wasn't just to be our example, but to fulfill God's purpose with respect to the first man.
Otherwise, he could not be the perfect sacrifice.
He had to be perfect as a man.
Order to be the perfect sacrifice for us to take our place in judgment.
So his perfection as a man was essential to his being our substitute.
He never is, brother Bill said. He never stepped out of that place, and you'll notice in the temptation in the wilderness.
Bill, you, you referred to it, if we look at that in Matthew Chapter 4.
See comes to him and he says.
If thou be.
The Son of God.
But he was was the Son of God.
But Satan is trying to get him to act in that capacity.
And to step out of the place of man.
But the Lord's response to him is what?
Man shall not live by bread alone.
As if to say, you want me to take a step out of this place, just for a moment.
And exercise my power is the son of God, but I'm not going to and so he shows I'm here as man. So there was a there was a temptation in the very fact that Satan tries to get him to act in capacity as the Son of God.
He was and he said he was, but he never acted in that capacity. He forever stayed while he was here. He stayed in the place of man, not only to be our example, but because it was essential to him being.
Qualified, you might say, as our substitute.
It's interesting to take those thoughts and then just turn back a page. In Matthew chapter 3, when the Lord came to John at the River Jordan, where he was baptizing those who came in repentance for their sins to wait for the Messiah to come. It was a baptism of repentance. The Lord comes and John.
It says verse 14 forbade him. The Lord came to be baptized and he forbade him. He had nothing to repent of. He was a perfect man.
I have need to be baptized of thee, and cometh thou to me. Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him, and when? And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him in a voice, and lo, a voice.
00:20:11
From heaven, saying, This is my beloved son, whom in whom I am well pleased.
The the beauty of it is this perfect man who needs no repentance comes down and he says what these ones are doing, they're coming and being baptized and repenting. It's the right thing, it's righteous and I'm going to take my place with them and I'm in taking my place. I'm going to stand with them that this is the right thing before God to do.
Though he had no need of such a baptism personally, God opens the heavens and marks him out that He is that perfect man, His well beloved Son. And what's I want to connect with that is when we go back to our Psalm and look at the two preceding psalms that lead up to the 16th Psalm and Psalm 14, we get God looking down from heaven and He's looking for a man.
And in Psalm 14, he says the Lord looked down from heaven to see the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.
They're all gone aside, they're all together, become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. And then the question arises in the 15th Psalm. Lord, who shall abide in thy Tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth with his heart, and so on. That was the Lord. He's looking for a man. In Psalm 14 he finds the man.
In Psalm 15, perfect, spotless, flawless man. And then that man identifies himself in Psalm 16 with a faithful remnant, and he takes the place that they have before God, And His expressions are their expressions and His experiences their experience, and He identifies himself with them just as the Lord did at the river Jordan with those repentant ones. Picture of the remnant waiting for the coming of the Son of God.
Another thing to realize too, in the Lord, not in the Lord being a perfect man in perfect dependence on God, is that we tend to think that we should not follow our own will because it's sinful.
That's not the reason we should not exercise our own will and independence of God, because that's not our place.
The Lord's will was perfect, and Bill alluded to this, that the Lord, there's no sin in him, and he was the Son of God. What would be wrong with him exercising his whip?
So it's not a question of whether of our sinful nature or any of that is the fact that God has to be given his place and we have to take our place and we should be the Lord's example is perfect. He had, he had no sin, nothing wrong with his will, and yet he still submitted to God and still laid aside his own will.
Yes, it is always the proper place for the creature to submit to the will of God. And as you say.
The question of sin for the moment doesn't really enter into it. Yes, because I am a fallen creature. My will is characterized by sin, which the Lords was not. But the proper position for the creature is to be submissive to the will of God.
And the Lord Jesus takes that place and will not depart out of it for you and for me. That is our position. Not one that we take voluntarily as the Lord did, but one in which we were born. And thus it is always correct for us to be in a place of submission. And of course.
For the believer, what a wonderful thing it is to recognize that in submission and dependence on the Lord, we can, as we said earlier, we can walk a pathway of faithfulness to Him through this world and honor Him in a difficult world.
In spite of all the distractions, all the difficulties, everything that may present itself to us.
00:25:11
I used to wonder, listening to some old meetings, especially some addresses by Brother HE Hayhoe. I never knew. And he would love to read those expressions in the Gospels where the heavens open. This is my beloved son and whom I have found all my delight. And he would stress that all. And I went looking for it and I couldn't find one of them that said all.
I used to enjoy the way he expressed it, but it it troubled me. Why aren't why does it the the Father say from heaven and whom I found all my delight? Well, there may be more than one answer, but a brother pointed me to Psalm 16 years later and he says verse two reads but to the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight.
Oh, when he has his Saints identified with him, then the Father says, In whom I found all my delight.
What grace that we should be brought into that place, identified with Him in such a way that the Father can look down and say of Him with His Saints, and found all my delight. He are they who have continued with me in my temptation, and moments later they were sucking and fled. That's us. And yet He says whom I have found all my delight. The Father loveth you because you know that.
He believed that I came out from him.
It's a marvel, I think, when you read that verse, to think of ourselves, an application included in that expression of delight.
Just one more comment on the second verse. We notice that the first reference to Lord is in capitals which could and properly should be translated Jehovah, which brings into focus of people in relationship in the Old Testament with Jehovah. But then the next one says, Thou art my Lord.
I say to my own heart, am I willing to say that? Not merely once, as if, well, I've said it. I've recognized God as having lordship over me. I've recognized as the Lord Jesus did the lordship of one over me, and recognize the Lord Jesus ultimately as also my Lord. But do I do that on a steady, regular basis?
Every day of my life is the Lordship of Christ, that which characterizes our lives. Oh, I would only say to my own heart and to each one of us how important that is.
It says in another place, there are gods many and Lords many, and there are many voices in this world today, many of those who want to tell us what to do, many who want to try and direct our lives in various ways and with seeming authority and seemingly knowing what they're talking about.
But there is only one for the believer.
To whom we should say properly, Thou art my Lord. And here was none other, as Steve has been bringing out, than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
He is God, as we've been noticing, and yet he comes into this world, takes the position of the creature, and says to Jehovah.
Thou art my Lord.
Now of course, in this kind of an expression it gets a bit beyond our human understanding, because was the Lord Jesus Jehovah? Indeed He was, indeed He is, but he, we might say for the moment.
In his earthly pathway, steps out of that place, takes the place of a creature and then says to the Lord, says to God, thou art my Lord. And as a creature he submits as a creature. We get it in the 50th chapter of Isaiah. He recognizes that every morning his ears need to be opened and he says, I, I open my ears.
00:30:15
In order to hear what what the Lord had to say to him.
And so that ought to be your position, and mine Thou art, my Lord. And then to go about whatever the Lord gives us for that day with that thought in mind.
Well, going on with what brother Steve was saying, what a precious thing it is to.
Recognize that the Lord looks down at you and me, and as it says, here he finds.
US.
Nothing but lost, guilty sinners before we were saved, but he calls us the excellent. Now here, of course, we know that ultimately it refers to the godly Jews, the godly Jewish remnant, those who, when the gospel of the Kingdom was preached by John the Baptist, and then later by the Lord himself, came and submitted themselves to that baptism of repentance and confessed their sins.
And took their place alongside the Lord Jesus, separating themselves from a guilty nation that would not and did not recognize Him.
But for you and for me, it's not a baptism of repentance in the same way, but it's taking our place alongside a rejected Christ in this world, isn't it? One who has been cast out and crucified, One whom this world has said about. We will not have this man to reign over us.
That is just the same as it was nearly 2000 years ago when they cast him out. And yet the Lord Himself can look down on you and me in the midst of that kind of a world and say You are the excellent in whom is all my delight. Why is Brother Steve is brought out? Because we are associated with his beloved son. We recognize him and honor him.
What a precious privilege that is in the day of his rejection.
Our brother this morning read that verse in the 110th Psalm. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Oh yes, there is a day coming when the godly ones in Israel will recognize their Messiah and will own Him in the day of His power. But what a precious thing it is to own Him now in the day of His rejection.
Just a little word on that expression. My goodness extendeth not to the, but to the Saints. So on.
I think the thought there is that.
We don't profit the Lord, if I can put it that way. Not that He doesn't appreciate what we do, not that He doesn't want us to serve Him, and so on, but He profits us. He is not dependent upon us, but we are dependent upon Him. And so I think that that's the thought of the goodness in that way.
That.
We're dependent upon Him to receive goodness. He is not dependent upon us to receive.
Anything.
Again, not to discount appreciation on his part for anything that we do for him. That's not the point. But he we need him. It's not so much that he needs us and the and the worshiper in the Psalm. He just owns that freely.
But how would you put that in the context of the Lord expressing this? I think it's when he identifies himself with a remnant, He comes right into their place and and so much so that he can express in his own words, their words.
00:35:00
Maybe there's at least that's how I've enjoyed it.
Yes, I believe it's the Lord Jesus so fully identifying himself as taking the place of perfect dependence himself, and he identifies with those who sought the Lord in such a complete way that he takes it well. You've expressed it well, Brother Steve, he says in that sense.
I am now the receiver of God's goodness to me.
Rather than the one who is extending goodness. Now was he able to extend goodness as God? Indeed he was. And let none ever take away from the preciousness of the fullness of the Godhead. Colossians 2 expresses it in very clear words. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
We cannot in any way.
Take away from that, but the Lord Jesus, as the perfect dependent man says I step out of that position and in that sense I don't dispense goodness.
In that sense I do it as the one who is perfectly dependent and who represents the Father. And so when he does His good works, he says the Father that liveth in me, He doeth the works. Did the Lord Jesus not have power to do those mighty works of miracles? Of course He did, and He had we say it with all reverence, the right as God to do them.
But he doesn't exert that right. He says my Father, and he does them. How? By the power of the Spirit of God in him. And so in every way he takes that place alongside those godly ones and says, I am not for the moment taking my place as being the one who dispenses goodness, but I am the one who is merely a channel of it.
I would have to say I I've struggled a little bit just because of the.
Where the King James is written here, I think you have the J&D in your mind. But we're reading the King James, aren't we?
Says My goodness extends not to thee, but to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight. It almost looks like he's not. His goodness isn't extending to God, but to the Saints. But what you're saying is, I think, more in keeping with the King James or the J&D translation.
If I understand you right, which is my goodness extends not to thee, then he puts a colon, and then there's the break right where now it's God is extending his goodness towards us to the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent thou hast said in them is all my delight. A very different thought altogether. So I I think it might be helpful for us to go away from the rendering in our King James and see how Mr. Darby has that.
Might say what is written in the Arabic translation.
Maybe another meeting?
Arabic translation.
Say thou art my God.
Thou art my Lord.
Thou art my goodness.
And there is none but.
It says like the Lord Jesus had received God, thou art my Lord, thou art my goddess, and that.
Could you repeat that?
OK.
My goodness. And there is none but the.
Thou art my Lord, my good, My goodness, there is none but.
00:40:01
Interesting, did everyone hear that?
The Arabic reads Thou art my Lord, thou art my goodness, and there is none but thee.
Well, if we go on to the fourth verse, we find other gods brought in, and these were the bane of the nation of Israel right up until the captivity. A very solemn thing.
They continually turned after other gods.
And you and I might perhaps legitimately say, well, I guess we don't have to worry about that. We would never think that putting up an idol made of wood or stone or silver or gold or something and bowing down before it. But the idolatry of the Old Testament, I believe, is the worldliness of the New Testament. And so we are told to flee from idolatry. And I don't believe the apostle was referring to.
Actual idols. John in his epistle says little children are children. Keep yourselves from idols. And I don't believe he meant literal idols. Anything that comes between US and God himself and takes that place before him is another God.
And there are many gods in the world today, aren't there? Many things we have in North America that we might call other gods? Wealth, pleasure, prestige, just to name a few, and many other things that we can pursue after that ultimately become our gods.
This says Hasten after another God, is in italics.
So.
This is this answering to what's in verse two, he says in verse 2.
Thou art my Lord or my Master. Yes. And then here is saying their souls were multiplied. Who would go after another other than the Lord? Is that right?
I think there's an important practical lesson between the end of verse one and the beginning or the contents of verse four. It's around the word trust.
Those who trust in the Lord will not come to harm.
But those who go after the kinds of things that our brother Bill was describing are putting themselves in harm's way in the way of sorrow. We know, for example, that riches make themselves wings and flee away. So you may think you have a nice big bank account, but it can be gone in a hurry. You may think that your friends are going to give you the happiness and satisfaction that you need in your life, but they can turn on you. You may think that your wife or your husband will give you the satisfaction.
That you need in life, but so many of those relationships end up broken.
Especially if we don't keep the Lord Jesus in them. So just like to by way of illustration, I've seen that Father sometimes be able to lift their children to the ceiling.
And as long as the child trusts their father, they'll keep their body rigid and they'll be enjoying the ride as their father maybe lifts them with one hand or two hands towards the ceiling and not afraid of the height. But when they start to think about how high they're going and they stop thinking about their father and the relationship that they have, then they go all limp and try and fall and everything comes down. So by way of illustration, I'd like to just encourage myself like Brother Bill was saying, preserve me. Oh God.
It's an important thing, but it has to do with understanding who it is that is preserving us.
It's not my bank account, it's not my friends, it's not my family, it's not my job, it's my God. Everything that I have, I've received from him. So I need to trust Him with all my heart. And when we start not trusting Him, that's when we start turning away that we have in the fourth verse, and it's a path of sorrow.
Satan will come and offer us a a shortcut to pleasure, won't he?
00:45:06
There's another way that you can be happy.
And that we find also in the temptation. She brought up the. That's the last one, isn't it? He offered the Lord a shortcut to the Kingdom, didn't he? You can have all these, all the kingdoms of the world, if you'll just bow down and worship me. Yeah.
And the Lord says to him, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only.
Shalt thou serve? He wouldn't do it. And so again, he's the perfect example of what's put before us in this verse, isn't it?
There's another kind of God.
As well that's become prevalent. Think of the scripture. God's many, Lords many.
And it's illustrated in the end of the book of Judges. The last few chapters of the book of Judges are moral appendix. There are counts that take place in the beginning of the book, and they give us the reason for the moral decline of the children of Israel. Throughout that book, two things happen. First man named Micah takes a little silver, and he makes a God.
In the end, the tribe of Dan picks up that God and a whole tribe goes into idolatry.
What did he do? He took a little silver. What we know, what Silver speaks of in Scripture, it speaks of redemption.
He takes one attribute, you might say, of God, and he makes himself a God that suits his thoughts, the way he thinks, and he's quite happy. Now he has a God and he develops a whole priesthood around it and so on. The tribe of Dan picks it up and they go on with the whole tribe goes into idolatry.
Not one whisper from the rest of Israel.
Whole tribe goes into idolatry, christened them today, takes a little aspect of Christ or God. God is love and they make an idol and that's the only attribute it has. And my God is love and he would never send anybody to a lost eternity. He would never do this, He would never do that. And they make a God from 1 attribute that they draw and they make a God that fits their mind, that fits their thoughts.
And Christendom is full of Jesus is, if I can put it that way. I don't want to speak irreverently that are nothing but things that are formed from men's minds as to what the Lord Jesus Christ is. And they're not what is presented in Scripture. And that's what they follow.
Evil doctrines attend those things. The denial of his humanity, a spotless humanity, a denial of His eternal sonship, denial of his deity. And they don't have the Jesus Christ presented to us in the word of God. They have an idol.
And Christendom has largely gone after those idols. The next incident that happens is a horribly immoral thing where a concubine is abused, murdered, and then the man who she belonged to cuts her in pieces and sends her out through all Israel. The guilty tribe was Benjamin. All of Israel rises up, they come down and they destroy Benjamin down to just a handful of men. They're outraged against the moral sin.
What about Dan?
What about Dan? Not a word.
We see a professing Christianity Today around us, outraged about moral abuses in this world and occupied with that. But the wicked doctrines that have pervaded Christianity, the disfiguring of the person of Christ, not a word said. Not a word said. It's the root of the moral decline in judges. There are idols as well that are have the name of Jesus on them.
That are not the Jesus presented to us in Scripture.
And we need to be careful we don't follow them, that we are following the Christ that is presented to us in all this completeness in the Word of God, not in man's thoughts.
It's the reason why we need to be continually in the Word of God, where we get to know God, we get to know the Lord. And especially younger believers, if any are led to the Lord, they need to be reading the book of John over and over again.
00:50:02
And by the way.
It's not irreverent to say another Jesus. That's a scriptural term. The Apostle Paul used that term another Jesus. And there's been lots of other Jesus presented to this world, especially in this day of multimedia. They've been movies and religions that bear the Lord's name.
All of them presenting somebody else.
And then the worst thing, and the most ominous thing perhaps, is our own hearts creating our own version of the Lord.
And again, what can preserve us from that is to be going through scriptures constantly back to the scriptures to have our thoughts about Him correctly.
That scripture Two Corinthians Chapter 11 verse 4 where Paul uses that expression.
And so it's very important, as we have said, to see that.
Hastening after something else.
Is, as Rob was pointing out, really a lack of faith, a lack of trust in the Lord.
Do we really trust the Lord for everything in our pathway? One of the things that has been coming in among believers today and.
Steve spoke of Christendom, yes, and we're part of it. We can't take our place apart from Christendom. We're part of it. And one of the things that has been coming in today is the fact that, well, yes, the Word of God is good to have and we need it, but sometimes we need to add human wisdom to it. Of course, that's nothing new. It was going on in the days of the apostles, or at least the beginnings of it, and we are warned about it in Scripture.
But.
To exhibit a lack of trust in the Lord will lead us into what we get in verse 4, hastening to something else, thinking that well, it's a good expression. A shortcut is Tim said to the Kingdom, a shortcut to something and the devil has many shortcuts which look very attractive and if some of us who are older may be permitted to speak this way.
We say to those that are younger, don't be taken in by the devil's shortcuts. They may look attractive, they may look as if they can get you somewhere. Some of the kings tried it in the Old Testament. There was a king by the name of Amaziah who hired mercenaries to fight the Lord's battles and eventually he was told no, send those men home, you don't need them. Let the Lord look after them.
But Oh dear.
What had he done? Spent 1000 talents of silver to hire them and he wasn't going to get it back.
And he says to the prophet, What shall I do for the 1000 talents of silver?
Oh, the prophet's response is beautiful. The Lord is able to give thee much more than this. And so if we have gone after another or another God or something, and maybe there's a price to be paid to get out of that situation.
I say to you, as I say to my own heart, pay the price. It's worth it. Whatever we need to do to get back into the position of trust and dependence on the Lord.
Well worth it.
And there's an expression here, I don't know whether I can explain it perfectly or understand it perfectly, but in the end of verse four it says.
There drink offerings of blood. Will I not offer?
Now drink offerings were not normally made of blood. They were made of wine or of something like that. Blood was meant to be sprinkled on the altar and meant to be sprinkled as we had in the prayer meeting on the mercy seat. It was that which, cleansed from sin drink offering, spoke of the joy with which the Lord offered himself to God.
00:55:03
And maybe others have further comments on this. The only thing I would say is that.
I believe that whenever we hasten after something else, there is going to be a distortion of the truth of God connected with it. Drink offerings of blood are never mentioned in the Old Testament in legitimate sacrifices, but here it's mentioned. I believe in my own soul anyway. It's mentioned as a distortion of that which God gave.
Which is the result of a lack of trust in God going after something else. And it may look innocent on the surface, but I believe you were bringing it out, Brother Steve, eventually. What is behind it is really bad teaching which distorts the truth of God. Am I right in that?
The psalmist felt a need to separate himself from that. He wasn't going to participate, and he wasn't going to even use the name of whatever God they were following.
And I think there's a lesson for me and that to be separate from the things that.
Would destroy my trust in the Lord.
Not that we can have no money, not that we can have no friends, no family, but don't take it up to the way the world takes it up as the source of your pleasure and satisfaction.
Yes, it's not what we have in this world that makes the difference, but where my heart is, isn't it?
And we don't want to dwell on that, but it's very interesting. If we were to go to Luke's gospel chapter 12, we don't need to turn to it, but we all remember the story of the rich man.
Land and ground brought forth plentifully, and he pulled down his barns and built greater.
And the Lord's remark on all of that was, Thou fool, this night, thy soul shall be required of thee. Not that there was anything wrong with having plenty, or building bigger barns, but he left God out of the picture. But there is a verse there that says, a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possessed possesseth.
If you look in the Darby translation, there's a little different twist put on it, which I believe is very instructive, the JND reads. A man's life does not have. A man does not have to be in abundance for his life to be in his possession, showing us that it's not what we have, but it's where our heart is that counts. A man with very little can be occupied with it more than the man who has much.
And so it's a question of where our hearts are and what we do and the use we make of what we have, not what we have. And so going after things in this world is where the problem is. But if God gives us those things, we can be thankful for them and then seek grace to use them for Him.
But there are always sorrows connected with going after another God.
We could turn to First Timothy 6 for a verse that is well known, but it bears repeating.
First Timothy 6.
It says there.
In verse 9, but they that will be rich, that's the question will be rich.
Fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For it should read, The love of money is a root of all evil, which while some coveted after they have heard from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows, and so the sorrows that are referred to here in verse four of Psalm 16.
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Are similar to the sorrows of First Timothy 6 and verse 10.
There are always sorrows connected with going after another God. Yes, it may look good at the beginning, and it may be the pleasures of sin for a season, but eventually it ends in sorrow. Nothing Satan ever gives us gives any ultimate pleasure in its end. It's always going to end in sorrow afterward.
Jesus and from his great Son.
His love is eternal and sweet eternal.
Life.
Walk in the circus of.
Suffering.
And ourselves.
The Eternal Sonship of Christ
Address—Steve Stewart
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Like to sing the 1St 2 verses of #27?
Lamb of God.
Our souls, our Lord.
And swinging.
There the Father's love and glory, joy.
In all.
We pray.
I'd like to start with a verse in Proverbs Few verses, chapter 30, Proverbs 30 and verse 2.
Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man neither learned. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy. Who hath ascended up into heaven or descended, Who had gathered the wind in his fists, Who had found the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name?
If thou canst tell, every word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them.
That put their trust in him.
The Lord's help. Tonight I'd like to look into the subject of the eternal sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ. The backdrop.
Of this talk tonight is that the enemy, from the very beginning of the manifestation of the Son of God in this world, sought to bring that truth into question, The very first words we hear.
From Satan, who were quoted earlier, If thou be the Son of God, taken up an unholy lips at the cross. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross and taken up in a coming day by one who is called the Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son.
The Lord's Jesus sonship is something that is eternal. It always was.
The error that has come in and been taught in Christianity is that his sonship was only temporal and in time, that he only became the sun upon incarnation, that he was not the Son before he was born in Bethlehem. And so I would like to.
Look at the scriptures that support that. Show us the truth of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ in His sonship. What is the importance of it? What is to be gained? What is to be lost if we do not hold?
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The truth of His eternal sonship.
Well, men reason from their own minds. And you know, brother, years ago took a twist on that little song. Wonderful things in the Bible, I see things that were put there by you and by me. But we don't want to come and put the impress of our thoughts on God's Word. We want God's Word to make its impress upon us. We want to glean our thoughts, gather our thoughts from God's Word, not the other way around. And so many reason from their own thoughts.
And they say.
Well, we know in natural relationships that the Father has a superior place in authority and dignity and so on than the sun. The sun is an inferior position. Therefore he, the Lord Jesus, could not have been Son in the past eternity, because He would have been inferior to God. And we know none of the persons in the Godhead are inferior to one another, are all equal. Therefore He could not have been the Son. But the reasoning is just human reasoning, the Lord Jesus said.
In Matthew, in John's Gospel chapter 5, my father worketh hitherto, and I work.
The Jews sought to kill him because he said God was, and you read in the new translation, Darby translation, his own father. He was exclaiming exclusive relationship to God the Father, and they were going to kill him because he said God was his own father, making himself equal.
With God.
He claimed equality with a father here in this earth.
In John chapter 10 he said I am the father are one and again they took up stones to stone him.
And he says, do you say I'm a blasphemer because I said I am the Son of God? They took up stones to stone him because they said he's making himself equal with God.
Yes, he claimed equality with God the Father.
Here on this earth as the Son of God.
No, you can't come and reason from a human understanding of Father and Son. We have to take our thoughts from the word of God. He was always equal with the Father. They reason that it says in Luke when the Angel spoke to Mary, That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Oh, you see its future shall be called. He wasn't the Son of God till he was born.
Well, that's to miss the subject. That holy thing that shall be born of thee is the subject of the angel's pronouncement that was future.
And when that holy thing was born, the Incarnate Son of God, for the first time a man in this world could look up and call God his own father.
And the heavens could open and say, This is my beloved Son. Yes, it was. He shall be called for the first time. A man would be called the Son of God. But that does not take away from the fact that he was Son of God from all eternity. And so they reason from the pronouncements of Him being Son in his manhood, that he could not have been Son from a past eternity.
They reason from the term begotten. God gave his only begotten Son.
Begotten, what does that mean? Was be getting and we read in the genealogy so and so begets so and so begets so and so. So only begotten means born. Therefore he wasn't born until his incarnation. So he wasn't the only begotten Son until incarnation. But that's to miss the force of only begotten.
In John chapter one and verse 18, it says the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, the eternal present. He always is in the bosom of the Father, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father. He always was in the bosom of the Father as the only begotten Son of God. If we look at Abraham we see a beautiful example of the use of that expression, Only begotten.
When God called him to offer up his son, he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.
But it was that his only son. No, he had Ishnail. If you read in the new translations, take thine only Isaac. There was only one Isaac. He had more than one son, but there was only one Isaac. Only begotten is an expression that tells us of the place that the Son had in the heart of the Father. He's the only one that has that place. He's the only.
Begotten and by faith we read in Hebrews Chapter 11, Abraham.
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The heir of the promises offered up his only begotten Son. If begotten is nothing but birth, then that's not true because he had another son, Ishmael. Only begotten has nothing to do with birth. It has everything to do with the place and the affections of the heart of the Father.
At the Lord's baptism at the river Jordan, the heavens open as he came up out of the water.
This is my beloved son, This is my beloved son. And John Baptist as he saw him, he said, I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God. And a little later in John chapter one, the Lord Jesus finds Andrew and he calls him. Andrew goes and finds Phillip and they too find Nathaniel and they bring him to the Lord and he's doubtful.
The Lord sees them and says, Behold, an Israelite in whom is no guile, how did thou know me? I saw thee when thou is under the fig tree, Rabbi.
Thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel.
Matthew, Chapter 16.
In Caesarea Philippi and the far north parts of the country, the Lord Jesus asked the disciples the question, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, AM? And there are all kinds of reasons and answers. You know, man cannot by nature perceive the truth of who the Son of God is. And that's why I read in Proverbs. I am more brutish than any man, and I have not the knowledge of the holy. And that's what we would have to say about ourselves.
By nature, outside of divine revelation, we could never know the truth.
Of the persons in the Godhead, who they are, and their relationship to one another, Father and Son.
And so the Lord turns to the disciples there in Caesarea Philippi, and he says, Whom say ye that I am? Peter says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Oh. Immediately the Savior responds with a peculiar blessing. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.
Outside of divine revelations, we could never know the truth as to the person of the Son of God. And he could say in Matthew, No man knoweth the Son but the Father. Matthew 1127 No man knoweth the Son but the Father, and no man knoweth the Father but the Son and he to whom He will reveal Him. He claimed exclusive knowledge.
As to the persons of the father and the son and the relationship and the relationship to one another.
None other knew it except he revealed it. It takes a divine person.
To reveal a divine person. And outside of that revelation, we could never know.
As we go on, I'm sorry, I'm not turning to all the verses. I'd rather have you not turn and just listen. If I get stuck, I'll turn.
As we go on in the Gospel of John, we come to Chapter 11 and the Lord presents himself as the resurrection and the life to Martha.
And he says, Believeth thou this? She didn't know what he meant. And so like we do at times when we get in places where we feel we have to say something, but we don't know what to say, she out of her mouth tumbles the common confession, I believe at that point of his disciples.
Yeah, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. This was by now the common confession of the disciples, not just reserve accessory of Philippi, not just a mountain top experience that so impressed Peter.
When they heard that voice from heaven on the Mount of Transfiguration, No, this was the confession of his disciples.
After the Lord died and rose again, and was received up into heaven, and the Holy Spirit came down, and the gospel went out. What are the gospel? Oh, there was a man.
Purposed in his hatred purpose to stamp out the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Arrested on the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus. He was converted, He was saved.
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And upon this salvation we read that straightway he was in the synagogues preaching that Jesus is the Son of God. And he could say to the Galatians, when it pleased God to separate me from my mother's womb, and call me by his grace that He sent me, and to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.
All was part of the gospel message, and when he wrote to the Romans, in the book of Romans, he said the gospel of God concerning his Son, declared to be the Son of God, with power by the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead.
He was presented as a Son of God in the Gospel message, and still is and always will be, till that time where that message comes to an end as an object of faith, saving faith as the Son of God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, the only begotten Son hath, shall not perish, but hath everlasting.
Life.
John, Chapter 20.
John chapter 20 and verse 31. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
And that believing he might have life through his name.
In one John chapter 3, it's the subject of the command of the Father.
For the obedience of faith.
John chapter 3 and verse 23 and this is his commandment that we should believe on the name.
Of this of his son Jesus Christ.
And what of the life of faith?
The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
Who loved me, and gave himself for me. And as to maturity and spiritual growth, Ephesians 4 and verse 13. Until we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the fullness of the stature of the Christ.
Want you to get this?
Faith in Jesus.
Is faith in him, in his identity as the Son of God?
Saving faith in Jesus's faith in him and who he is as the Son of God.
The question is, is his sonship just in time, just from when he was born? Is it from all eternity? Turn to Hebrews. Well, again, I am telling you not to turn because I'd rather have you hear the message, but I'm going to turn to Hebrews.
Chapter One.
Where we read, God put sundry times, and in divers manner spake in time.
Passed unto the Fathers by the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom He made the world's.
Enough for faith to rest on.
The Son made the world. He must have been the Son before incarnation, if as the Son, he made the world's.
Turn over to Colossians, where we find that. Repeat it again, Colossians, chapter one, verse 13 who have delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son.
Verse.
16 For by him who's the Him, his dear Son, were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Or subsist, or have their very existence in virtue of him.
Who is the dear Son of God? He created all as Son.
He must have been Son before he came into this world as the Incarnate Son of God.
The terms father and son are Co relative.
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That is, they are mutually inclusive. They are dependent upon one another. You can't have a son and not have a father. You can't have a Father and not have a son. And now we begin to see the bearing of the denial of the eternal sonship of the Lord Jesus is to deny eternal fatherhood of God the Father. Because if you don't have one.
You do not have the other John 16.
The Lord Jesus speaking in the Upper Room ministry to the disciples, he says to them, I came.
Out from God.
There's a special pronouncement of love.
The Father's part, therefore the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me and believed.
That I came out from God, I came forth from the Father. Same word I came out from the Father.
They believed in the Father's love was upon them because they believed the truth that the Son came forth, came out from God, came out from the Father. And this links the eternal sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ with God as God as well as God the Father. He is the Son of God as well as the Son of God the Father. I came out from God. He had to came out from the Father.
Again, those correlative terms than it was the son who came out.
What's the next thing?
And them come into the world.
He came out from the Father as the Son, and then he came into the world, His incarnation again. I leave the world by way of the cross resurrection.
And go to the Father Ascension glorification.
There's the pathway in John chapter one and verse 14. The apostle says and we beheld his glory. What kind of glory? The glory, and I'll read it quoted as in the new translation, the glory as of an only begotten with a Father full of grace and truth.
Why is it worded that way? Because the question is, what kind of glory did the apostle see?
The glory that they saw was the glory of the One of One who was the complete absorbing object of the Father's heart and His love and affection, walking with the Father. More than that, the Father, in Him walking through this world we beheld His glory, the glories of an only begotten with a Father.
And then it goes on in verse 18 to say, no man has seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him. All the glory that they saw was the glory that he had with the Father before the world began.
He was the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father from a past eternity, the object of His Father's delight and heart and perfect communion and fellowship. And when He came into this world, Incarnate Son of God, faith could look upon that man and see in Him that glory which He had had with the Father before the world began, and in John 17 and verse five, looking up to the Father.
Heading back to heaven, leaving this world, going back to the Father, He says, Glorify me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world began. Why had he had it been taken away from Him? No, it had been veiled in human flesh, and only the eye of faith could see it. But now He was going back to the glory as a man what He had not been before. And he's asking the Father to glorify Him with the same glory that he had had before.
Now that he was going back and to be there as a glorified man, and there he is today with that same glory.
Want to look at 2 words?
Words sent and the word given.
You find them throughout the Gospel of John, her brother said. It's a good gospel for a new convert to read it. It's establishing to the soul is to the person of our Lord Jesus.
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In John's Gospel, we get those words sent and given.
And so turn back to John chapter 3 at well known verse again.
Just referring by the way to Galatians, when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son. He had to be a son already if he was going to send him as the son.
He must be the son if he was going to send the son, and he must be the father.
If it was a son that he was going to send, the terms are Co relative. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
Verse 17 For God sent not his Son into the world.
All that word sent into the world is so important.
His sonship was not temporal. It was not that this person in the Godhead became Incarnate, then became the Son, and then God sent him on a messianic mission and onto the cross. Now he sent him from outside this world into the world. He was sent as the Son before incarnation.
John chapter 5. I just want to trace some of these.
Words find them over and over again.
Verse 30. End of the verse I seek, not mine own will.
With the will of the Father which hath sent me. Chapter 6, verse 29. Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he hath sent. Chapter 8, verse 16.
Yet if I judge my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am the Father that sent me. Verse 18. I am one that bear witness of myself, the Father that sent me, birth witness of me. John chapter 10 and verse 36 say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemous, because I said I am the Son of God.
Chapter 12. Verse 49.
For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me. He gave me commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. We've only touched on a few of the references in the Gospel of John with that word sent in connection with the Son and the Father, but there's a whole chapter devoted to it, and that is the 9th chapter of the Gospel of John, an exceeding precious chapter.
To my soul there was a blind man, blind from birth.
The Lord Jesus came, He spat on the ground, He made clay of that spittle, and he anointed the eyes of that blind man. You know that making of the clay is a picture of incarnations taking what was from himself and the earth and making clay.
A body was prepared him the Son of God took manhood into union with himself and dissoluble union. You could not separate the spittle from the dust again made clay.
But that's all that man saw when they looked on the Son of God. They just saw that human form and they didn't believe that he was a sent Son of God.
He puts that clay on that blind man's eyes. You know, if you put clay on a blind man's eyes, does it make it any better? It just makes it worse.
And so the Lord, the Son of God coming into this world, the Incarnate Son of God, only made man's sad condition worse all the less.
He had any possibility of seeing him for who he was. He had not the knowledge of the holy more brutish than any man. And what does he tell that man? He says, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which being by interpretation is sent.
And he washed in that pool called scent, and he came seeing. And the rest of the chapter is a series of things that take place in that man's life that bring him closer and closer to the knowledge of who he who the Lord Jesus is.
Until the Lord finds him, having been cast out by the Pharisees. He finds him. And what does he ask him? Dost thou believe in the Son of God? What is involved in that question? What is involved is that He's the same Son of God, sent into the world that He was. Son from all eternity, and scent of the Father into the world. Dost thou believe?
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In the Son of God.
That man looked into the face of the Savior, face he had never seen before, but he knew the voice. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life.
Oh, he knew that voice.
And he said, Who is the Lord, that I might believe? The Lord says, Thou hast both seen him, seen him, and here it is that talketh with thee.
Said Lord I believe, and he worshiped him. Oh the truth of the person.
Of the eternal Son of God, send into this world the Incarnate Son, gone to Calvary's cross.
To bear our load of sin, to save our souls and give us eternal life. It makes us bow at His feet as worshippers.
Dost thou believe in the Son of God?
Oh, we rejoice to say.
I believe and worship him the rest did not see.
They did not believe he was a sent son of God and they say are we blind?
Yes, John chapter 5, verse 23.
Read there that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son on earth, not the Father which hath sent him, We deny the eternal Son of God in His identity as the eternal Son of God, then we dishonor Him. And if we dishonor him, we dishonor the Father that sent Him because.
You cannot have one without the other.
In John's first epistle in chapter 2, we read verse 23. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. If we deny the Son as to who He is and his person, we don't have the Father. We cannot claim to know and worship God the Father if we deny.
Eternal Son, as to who He is, John chapter.
First John, chapter 4.
Verse nine And this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Here in His love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Verse 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Verse nine. God sent his only begotten Son into the world.
The sending of the begotten, only begotten Son of God was prior to His incarnation and into the world where He became the Incarnate Son of God. He had to be Son from a past eternity.
The sending of the sun is the very measure of the love of God.
God so loved the world, so is a is a measure. How much did he love that he sent his son? If he didn't send his son, then we have no measure of his love. It was a son who was sent to be the propitiation for our sins, to render a satisfaction to God in respect of our sins. It doesn't say he was sent to make propitiation. That's true.
It says He was the propitiation He in his person, His eternal Son of God, sent into this world to Calvary's cross. Whatever it took to satisfy the throne of God as the respect of our sins, whatever was required, He was that satisfaction.
To God he offered himself without spot by the eternal Spirit on Calvary's cross.
He is the propitiation for our sins. Oh, think of it.
Think of those scenes leading up to the cross.
Thing of the Garden of Gethsemane who was the interchange between that holy scene was the Father and the Son.
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The scent Son of God going on to that cross.
Think of Calvary in all his darkness. Who was it there who was suffering on that cross?
It was the given Son of God.
Hear that cry from the depths of that darkness. My God, my God.
Why yourself forsaken me? Who was forsaken? It was the Son of God who was forsaken on that cross.
Though He were Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which he suffered. All the depth of the perfection of his obedience is connected with the fact that He is the Son of God, and the fact that He is the Son of God is that He is the eternal Son of God, the manifestation of persons in the Godhead.
Is dependent on the fact that it was the son who came to reveal him.
It was a son who created all things. What do we lose?
If we give up the truth of the eternal Son of God, we give up the truth of the Person who made all things. We give up the expression of the perfection of his obedience. We give up the measure of the love of God to us.
We give up the beauty of those scenes leading to Calvary. Oh, another is said. This sweat of Gethsemane, the agony of Calvary, the abandonment of the cross, are all bound up with the truth that He is the eternal Son of God. What have we lost?
Oh, and John first, John one. We've been brought into a circle of fellowship.
Of the Father and the Son this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom now has sent the circle of fellowship that we have been brought into the life we have been given to enjoy is eternal life. It's a life that was manifested here in this world when the eternal Son came a life that had ever been a life that was expressed in the relationship between the father and the son from the past eternity that's.
Eternal life, we've been brought into that truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. What have we lost if we've lost the eternal Son? We've lost that relationship of Son and Father in the past eternity, the very essence of eternal life. We don't have eternal life if we don't have the eternal Son.
And we align ourselves with the enemy of all that's good.
Who said if thou be the Son of God?
We align ourselves with Mormonism, with Jehovah's Witness, with 7th day Adventism, with Christian Science, who all deny that he's the eternal Son of God. John chapter 5 as we close the very summing up and others put it the precipitate of all of John's ministries in verse 21St, John 5 and verse 20.
And we know.
This is Christian knowledge. This is knowledge we could only have by divine revelation. This is knowledge we could only have from his precious word. And we know that the Son of God has come. Oh, what is embodied in that is all the summing up of everything that John has presented in his gospel and his epistles, that this is the eternal Son. We know the Son of God has come into this world.
And hath given us an understanding He's open to us, revealed the Father to us, those divine relationships in the Godhead, and all their beauty, and that we might know him, that is true, that we might be brought into that circle of fellowship and the enjoyment of life eternal.
And we are in him. That is true even in his Son Jesus Christ.
Oh, listen to the words of the apostle. This is the true God and nothing else.
This is the true God.
And eternal life, little children.
Keep yourselves from idols. Anything other than the full manifestation, the full revelation of the Father and the Person of the eternal Son of God.
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Is an idol. Behold the bad, which is Solomon's son of Solomon chapter 3. Song of Solomon chapter 3.
Verse 7 Behold his bed, which is Solomon's three score of valiant men are about it.
Of the valiant of Israel.
They all hold swords, being expert in war. Every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. Does our Solomon rest safely among us? Does the truth of the person of our Solomon rest safely among us?
Do we have the sword of the Spirit firmly grasping our hands, ready to the defense of the person of the eternal Son of God? We among the valiant? There's fear in the night.
Is the sword of the Spirit firmly bound upon our thigh, wrapped with a girdle of truth?
Just want to close with one more verse first John chapter 2.
Verse 26. These things have I written unto you, concerning them that seduce you.
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you all things in His truth, and is no lie, even at as it taught you, ye shall abide in Him. Now, little children, abide in him all we have the indwelling Spirit of God.
Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world, and He'll give you the spiritual instinct.
A natural, spiritually natural, recoiling from anything that would dishonor.
The son all The lesson of the man at the Pool of Siloam is this.
That the simplest faith in Jesus is saving faith. And there may need to be growth in the soul as to the truth of the person. And we need patience. And we need, if we can be a help to any of our brethren who have not grown up into that knowledge of who He is as eternal Son of God, we need patience.
And grace to be a help. They have an unction from the Holy One.
To know the truth of God and as that man came along in his soul.
Step at a time, he finally came to the truth of the knowledge that Jesus Christ.
Is.
The scent Son of God, and he worshipped him. It's very.
Psalm 16:5-9
Reading
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231.
We're pilgrims in love.
We are far from.
Home. Good morning.
No.
No, no stranger.
Lord.
Mercy.
Ask the Lords help.
For those that were not with us yesterday, we started out in Psalm 16.
Be nice to continue on with it because we didn't get very far.
Psalm 16.
Should we start with verse five? Would that be that'd be about right. Yeah. Thank you.
00:05:05
May I suggest that we just read the whole Psalm over again? Why not?
Sounds good.
Psalm 16.
Victim of David preserved me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust.
O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, My goodness extendeth not to thee.
But to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight, their sorrow shall be multiplied. That hasten after another God their drink. Offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yeah, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord who have given me counsel.
My reigns also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One, to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life in the presence. In Thy presence is fullness of joy.
At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
Thank you for reading the whole chapter, the whole Psalm. Part of the reason I suggested reading the whole Psalm is because right in the first verse, as in many of the psalms, there's a statement that's made. And then for the rest of the Psalm, there's an explanation of what that statement is. And so I think it's good to remind ourselves that the theme or the idea that the psalmist started out with was preserve me, O God, for indeed do I put my trust. And yesterday we saw.
A little bit of the hazards of idols and as we commenced this morning with verse five, we're going to see a little bit of why the psalmist put his trust in the Lord.
So just to recap a little of what we had yesterday, this Psalm is portraying the Lord Jesus as the perfect dependent man. It's really the Lord Jesus speaking. Of course, ultimately, I shouldn't say ultimately, but in writing it, it was the words of the psalmist, but as often happens, the Spirit of God.
Takes the psalmist beyond his own experience.
To bring in things that have to do only with Christ. And so this is the.
Perfect dependent man as depicted in the Lord Jesus. But of course, ultimately it's our pathway too. And so the Lord Jesus, although He was and is and ever will be the Son of God, yet he voluntarily took that place of dependence as a creature, submitting to everything that the Father wanted him to do in this world, not having a will of his own.
But simply following the will of the Father.
And thus showing us the pathway of faith in which we can walk.
So in verse five is Rob has pointed out we have some of the reasons why.
The psalmist, and ultimately the Lord Jesus himself, was able and willing to put his trust in the Lord.
And perhaps others can develop it more, but I suggest we have three separate things in this verse.
Inheritance and Cup and lot.
And all three, I believe, have a different meaning.
We know that the Lord Jesus has an inheritance coming to him, and if we were to turn back to the second Psalm.
God the Father says to him, Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And so the inheritance, I believe, is all created things, and God has ordained that the Lord Jesus is going to inherit and enjoy and reign over all created things. Does he have them now?
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No, they're all his, not only by virtue of creation, but by virtue of his work of redemption.
But they will be his in a coming day.
But then you and I, what do we have? Hebrews 9 talks about eternal inheritance and it talks in Peter about an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven. For you heaven is not the inheritance, but it's reserved in heaven. And so you and I are going to inherit all things with the Lord Jesus.
And we can look forward to that. We may not have very much down here.
Neither did he, but we look forward to it.
But then it says.
Then it talks about.
My cup, the Lord, is the portion of mine inheritance and my top. And I would suggest that the cup is the present enjoyment of all that we have in Christ. And so when it talks about the inheritance and our cup, it doesn't merely say that it's all created things, but it's Jehovah is the Lord himself. It's all embodied.
In the Lord himself everything that we have and even though we don't have the inheritance now.
The psalmist can say in Psalm 23, My cup runneth over. That was the present enjoyment of all that he had in the Lord, and you and I have the privilege of enjoying all of that now by faith.
But then, what about our lot? Our lot, I would suggest, brings in all the circumstances through which the Lord passes us.
And they're not always present, pleasant, I should say. The Lord could say in John 16 in the world you shall have tribulation. And sometimes the Lord puts us through difficulties and problems in this world.
But what is it doing to us? Ultimately, it takes us away from everything that might distract us and brings us into a deeper enjoyment of those things that are eternal. And so we realize more and more that the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And the Lord Jesus himself, if we could say it with all reverence.
Those were things that kept him going in this world because he looked beyond at all to what was in the future and to the joy that he would have in doing the Father's will. And being able to go back to the Father and say, I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. And then ahead of him was all that God had given him in that inheritance.
Speaks in verse six about lines.
A lot and the children of Israel were came into the land, and the land was divided among them.
They all got their lots.
And.
Unlike in the wilderness, where?
The food, the manna fell from heaven. They were provided for when they got into the land. That man has stopped falling from heaven, and they had to. They began at the start just to enjoy.
The food that was already in the land, but eventually they had to start there to till their land and to work it in order to have food. So the lot.
And speak of all of our circumstances. Sometimes in the world people say that's my lot in life and they're referring to all the circumstances, usually adverse.
But the law can be seen, as our brother said, is all of the circumstances that God has arranged in our life with this very important addition. It's our enjoyment of Christ in all of those circumstances, including the adverse, and perhaps even more importantly, the adverse circumstances where we can enjoy Christ and gain him, as Paul says, to gain that I may gain him.
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But in our circumstances, in all what we call our lot in life.
We have to, as it says, as a first Peter, all those things we add to our faith.
In order to sort of chill the ground, if we just go through life haphazardly and let things come and we don't.
Positively at positive energy till the land, so to speak, so that we might enjoy Christ in our circumstances. We have our lot, but we're not enjoying what was intended to be enjoyed in that. So it's all of our circumstances in life particularly you could think of the adverse circumstances of being most important an opportunity to gain price.
The the language the Lord is the portion of my inheritance reminds us of the Levite and in Numbers chapter 18 and verse 20 says in the Lord spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shall thou have any part among them. I am thy part, and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.
And so not only the Levite, but very specifically the House of Aaron, the priesthood.
The Lord was their portion and their lot, and you think of the Lord Jesus Christ himself and the 110th Psalm.
Set thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Thou art priests forever after the order of Melchizedek. And so there he is in heaven, waiting for that moment when he'll have his inheritance. The heathen, as was mentioned in Psalm 2, every created thing, he's son and heir. But there he is in heaven, our great high priest, and we've been brought into the family of that priesthood.
We've been made part of that priesthood and in that same sense we take our inheritance like the priests of old. It's the Lord himself. He's our portion, he's our inheritance, he's our lot. You know this is a Psalm of David. I I was thankful that little bit was read at the beginning. David was of the tribe of Judah and there arise that no priest we read in Hebrews from Judah.
But I think David all his life wished he was part of that family of Aaron. He longed to be in the Lord's presence. It's expressed over and over in the Psalms. And I think the, I think perhaps the highest point in David's life was when the ark was being brought back to Jerusalem and he put on a linen ephod, he put on a priestly garment, and he got as close as he could to the ark and he danced before the Lord. This was going to be his only opportunity.
And he wanted it and he wasn't going to give it up because once that arc went in behind the curtains of that tent, it was close to him. And so he took advantage and he got as close as he could. In the 15th Psalm, where we get God finding the man, He's looking for the first verses who shall abide in thy Tabernacle. That was David's longing to abide as close as he could to the Lord. And then now in this Psalm.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance. How close to the Lord can we get? How close do we want to be? He is our portion.
We see that David tells him how Thou and Zyba divide the law, but the fibership was so occupied with the person he didn't give any thought for.
The material possessions, he said that Zaiba could have it all.
So here's one who has occupation with Christ.
I would suggest another thought to in connection with that phrase.
00:20:00
Thou maintainest my lot.
And in connection with what Brother Ted was saying, we all have.
A certain lot in life and yes, on the one side it is connected with our circumstances.
A brother long since with the Lord used to remind us that God doesn't put his Saints into a classroom. He has an individual tuition for each one.
But then there is in that sense to a certain, shall we say?
Lot that each one of us has connected with the enjoyment of Christ and all that he is. Yes, it's all there for us. Everything of Christ is available to us. I trust we enjoy as much as possible, but being human and being what we are, we are generally characterized by a particular enjoyment of certain things perhaps.
Where others have a special enjoyment of something else, all that is quite an order. That's why in a reading meeting like this, it's nice to hear from different brothers.
But then it says thou maintainest my life. What a wonderful thing that is. Sometimes when it comes to going through circumstances, we can get discouraged. And it was mentioned in prayer this morning that there may be those here who are heavily burdened, those who are passing through difficult circumstances. Maybe it's family problems, maybe difficulties in the local assembly where we are.
Maybe something to do with financial problems, maybe health problems, maybe a combination of many different things.
Thou maintain us my life. But then what about the enjoyment of Christ? Does He maintain that for us to? Indeed He does, and if we are willing to follow Him, we can trust Him to maintain those precious things for us. A brother.
One of our old writers back in the 1800s made this remark. It meant much to my own soul, he said. If the Lord sees in you and me any desire in our hearts to go after Christ, we can depend on him to work it in US.
He will work it in us. He will, if necessary, put us through circumstances. He will make Christ real to us. If there's a desire there, that is a very precious thing. And so He maintains our lot, whether it's in the enjoyment of Christ, whether it is passing through difficult circumstances which ultimately are designed to increase our enjoyment of Christ, and of course, ultimately a view of coming glory.
And we can recognize and appreciate that it is the Lord that does that for us.
So he says yeah, I have a goodly.
Heritage.
And if we could see enough in all of our circumstances, again particularly in the adverse circumstances, that we have a goodly heritage.
Than we can gain and everything give thanks.
Says her brother said God has arranged all our circumstances so that we could gain price, so that we could enjoy Christ in them.
So tell us, Brother Ted, how could the Lord Jesus say prophetically here the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, when he knew that he was going to be rejected and went for the most part from the human side, his life looked like a complete failure. How could he talk like that? Well, two thoughts come to mind. One is for the joy that was set before him, you could see.
When that seed fell into the ground and died, he was looking for what would be produced from that beyond the grave, when actually he would have you and I, he would have all of us there as his produce. You might say, the result of that seed falling into the ground and dying.
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And in connection with that, I don't want to do all the speaking, but turn to a verse in Second Timothy chapter 2.
I believe the Lord through Paul was encouraging Timothy when things were starting to break up, when ruin was already starting to come into the church, when the precious things that Paul had so strenuously labored for were already beginning to be laid aside. And Paul has to say in the first chapter all day, which are in Asia, be turned away from me.
In Second Timothy 2.
He says.
In verse 8.
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel. But allow me to quote that as it appears in the Darby translation. It's a little different.
It reads Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David raised from the dead. According to my gospel, a little difference.
It is not so much that we need to remember the fact of the resurrection.
But remember the one who was raised from the dead.
What does that mean?
I believe the thought is that did the Lord Jesus see the results of faithfulness and obedience and submission to the Father's will during His pathway down here? No, he did not.
As Ted has been bringing out all of the blessing, all of the glory, all of the results of it came in resurrection. And you and I, if we are faithful to the Lord.
May not see the results of that faithfulness down here. We may not see the results of following Christ, submitting to his will, walking before Him in a world that has rejected Him and will reject us. But.
In this Psalm we will experience the blessedness of His preserving care over us, but we look on to the glory of the reward for a pathway of faithfulness to the Lord will be, not down here necessarily, but in coming glory.
There's a beautiful progression in these Psalms that lines up with that because you get the present enjoyment of that inheritance in verse 6.
But he's, it's a present enjoyment of what he's looking on to in the future. And then in the 17th Psalm, you get in the 15th verse. As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awaken Thy likeness there in resurrection. He's going to come into the good. And possession in Psalm 18 is a resurrection Psalm. It's remarkable in the beginning verses of that Psalm how it lines up.
With a with a very circumstances that surround the resurrection of the Lord, the earthquake. The stone was rolled back, the Angel sat upon it. His face was like lightning. The keepers fellas dead at his at before that appearance of the Angel, the Lord was raised from the dead. God raised him, His beloved Son from the dead. Until you see the picture of God coming down on the cherubs. He flies down.
And he raises him from the depths, and then he teaches my hands to war. And you get the the Lord as a man of war coming out of heaven to take that which is his by right. It's a beautiful Psalm. And so there's a progression, a present anticipation and present enjoyment of what's to come. Having it in resurrection and then going on and taking possession of it in power and glory in the 18th Psalm. It's a beautiful progression. We're going to go through that with him.
00:30:07
We're going to go through it with him.
So we've been talking about how this is Speaking of the Lord Jesus and his enjoyment of those pleasant places.
When He was going through trial as a man on earth, and it was in anticipation of those things. And I think if I understood rightly, spoke of two things. One was the joy of doing the Father's will. The other is the joy of having us that coming day. And I'd just like to go to verses to support that because we do often speak of it on the first one, just in Psalm 40.
Psalm 40. Psalm 40.
These are well known verses, but it's good to see them. Verse 7 Then said, I lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me, I delight to do thy will. Oh my God, hear thy laws within my heart. Was no doubt His first and primary delight, wasn't it, to do the will of His thought and his Father? And so that was the lines.
Late in pleasant places.
For him, no matter what the cost, but it also includes us. And I think that's wonderful to see from my point of view, our point of view. And just reverse on that. Matthew chapter 13.
Matthew 13 and verse 44 Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field, Speaking of us individually, unlike the Pearl which follows. He says, The witch, when a man hath found, he hide it, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Oh, the Lord had a joy.
In going to the cross, because of you and me as well, didn't he? So it's really precious to see these two things and then to consider in our chapter his attitude as a man on earth, to look forward to that and just take it as pleasant places where the lion were laid. Hard to think of of those things when we go through trial.
But the Lord is bringing us to the trial, to bring us into something that we wouldn't have had if we didn't have the trial. And the Lord plainly saw that, and He's Speaking of that here. But what would have happened if the Lord took up the Kingdom when He was here on earth? He had the right to it. What would have been the loss, or what would have been our loss if we had never gotten out of Eden? Tremendous loss, that would be.
Those were pleasant enough, but nothing compared to what was gained by his death and resurrection and by whatever trials that we might be LED through the things that He brings us through for His own glory.
In the 18th Psalm, there's another ninth bird, verse 19.
Brought before also into a large place.
Delivered me because he delighted in me.
We think of the Lord's goodness to the children of Israel, providing them that land of Canaan, that land which milk and honey.
But they had to go in and possess that man, didn't they? And we think of the Lord's blessings to the children of Israel as they went through the wilderness.
He provided matter for them on a daily basis and.
We see later on that they despise that, like to just read a verse that we have in Psalm 106.
Says verse 24.
Gay they despise the pleasant land. They believe not his word so.
Let us value these things. Let us value the position the Lord has brought us into.
And not like those that we read about here in Psalm 106.
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So I cannot really experience in our Psalm verse six very well unless I have fully appreciated verse 5.
My eye is really on the Lord if He really fills my heart, and if I really trust Him to maintain my lot, it's only then that I can look on present circumstances as being.
As it says here, the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
Again, we emphasize it is not easy to say when you're in the middle of difficult circumstances, and it's easy to talk about it when you're not going through it. But when we are going through very difficult circumstances, the test is, is the Lord really the portion of my inheritance and my copy? Do I really trust Him as Brother Rob was bringing out? It takes us back to the first verse.
Preserve me, O God, for thee do I put my trust.
And that's the only way we will be preserved. Otherwise Satan will persuade me that those difficult circumstances are not worth it to follow the Lord. I better look or look for a way around them. And Satan is quite ready through compromise to.
Perhaps allow us to go through something a little easier. But all of those circumstances, as we have often remarked, are designed for blessing for us and to bring us closer to Christ.
Like to link this to.
Because of the portion of mind inherits. Think this to Matthew chapter 6.
That's the first part of verse 21 for where your treasure is.
There will your heart be also.
So treasure is something that we value, portion is something that we value.
And so.
We have these wonderful verses both in Psalm 16 and in Matthew chapter 6.
So going on to verse 7.
We find a further revelation. It is the Lord that gives us counsel.
I suppose one of the commonest questions that is often raised.
How can I know the Lord's mind for a particular decision that I have to make in my life?
How can I know the Lord's mind for a particular situation that arises?
And we have to say that there is no human parameter by which we can judge the Lord's mind. Yes, if we have a positive scripture for us, that settles it. But there are many decisions in life, in the Christian life, that we cannot in that same sense have a positive scripture for. Rather, we have to rely on that statement again in the Psalms here, that the secret of the Lord is within that fear Him.
And it's in communion with the Lord that by the Spirit of God we can learn the Lord's mind.
But is he willing to give us counsel? Is He willing to make his mind known? Indeed He is. But sometimes we find, and I speak to my own heart, that in seeking to know the Lord's mind in a circumstance, we find that the Lord brings us into His presence by perhaps not giving us an immediate answer. Why is that? Oh, perhaps I have gotten away from Him.
Perhaps there is that in my life which I have allowed, which I have not judged in His presence.
And then when I go to the Lord seeking his mind, I don't get an answer.
I find that I can't pray in the right way. I find that I don't get immediate guidance. Well, of course, sometimes the Lord does not give me guidance until I really need it, but at the same time, the Lord uses all of that to bring us back to Him. And so sometimes the question of guidance.
00:40:06
Well, I shouldn't let me rephrase that. The question of knowing the Lord's mind cannot be separated from our state of soul.
And that's a very, very important principle to recognize. I cannot talk about being guided of the Lord without bringing my state of soul into the picture.
And that's why I believe, and I just suggest the thought. Maybe others have another thought. But the latter part of the verse says my reigns also instruct me in the night season.
I believe the rains in Scripture very often are a reference to the kidneys in the human body. And as most of us know, the kidneys are largely used to purify our blood. Now they have other functions, but for our purposes this morning, I believe the thought of purification is a good one if I wish to know the Lord's mind and to have His counsel.
I have to be ready to allow that purification process which the Lord seeks to do in our lives, and I would suggest it's a very important thing that the Lord wants to bring before us, something which is very necessary to recognize.
With the night night seasons or nighttime speak of those times when things aren't real clear.
You know when the lights on, when it's day and bright, you don't really think about having to navigate. It's pretty clear where you walk. You're not going to trip over things. Typically it's lights on, pretty clear things that are playing. But the night time is when things aren't like that. And I wonder too, if perhaps it's Speaking of the fact that many times when things aren't clear in our lives.
We sense restrictions on ourselves.
And sometimes we feel like that restriction is uncomfortable, but it's a great time to get in the Lord's presence and to enjoy communion with Him.
A notable teacher in the past and said that, you know, when he was laid low, it was a very valuable time to him. Most times when he was laid low and restricted from going about and so on, he gained a lot in those times through his communion with the Lord. So I'm just looking at the reins a little differently here as being restrictions that are upon us often times in our lives.
When we would rather they not be there, but they teach us in those times when things are not so clear.
Another practical point in connection with this verse seven. I will bless the Lord.
And I think that that's an important part of having trust in the Lord is taking the time to look back at your life and my life and understanding how the Lord has guided me and directed me in the past helps me trust for the future.
Before we go on, just want to go back real briefly to something my brother said.
About believing and that being the key to our enjoying Christ in our adverse circumstances. That is the key is to believe. It was unbelief that was the result of all the failure code of Israel. And I just thought of this verse in Romans, Romans chapter 15 and verse 13. It's a beautiful verse. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.
That's the key.
Especially in those adverse circumstances or when times aren't clear that God would fill you with all joy and peace in believing.
Leaving is the key.
Well, it's a wonderful thing always to have before us the goodness of God, isn't it?
I can remember well many years ago now, at least 3035 years ago now, speaking to a dear sister in Christ. And I say it with all humility, I trust, because it could happen to me.
She was very clearly away from the Lord. She was in tears because of difficulties and problems in her life.
00:45:10
And she was very obviously, in speaking to her, I could not help but notice that she was very obviously very bitter about the way things had gone. Very bitter.
I said to her, Have you been able to take these circumstances to the Lord? Now she was old enough to be my mother, so I was respectful in the way that I spoke to her. But I said, Have you been able to take these circumstances to the Lord in prayer and lay them out before Him?
Oh, she said. I've tried to do that, but the Lord doesn't answer me. He doesn't give me any answer.
Perhaps a little more recently, but still a good many years ago, there was a dear brother who was going through difficult circumstances, a brother younger than I, and I cringed at hearing his remark. He says he said to me, I trusted the Lord and I hesitate to repeat his words, but he said. But the Lord let me down.
Was that true? Indeed, not, indeed, not in both cases. And I say it, I guess again with humility, because it could happen to any of us. There was something in the lives of both of those individuals. I believe the dear sister I did not know so well. I do not know what the Lord was talking to her about. The other dear brother I knew somewhat about.
But I believe the Lord had something that He wanted to bring before them, wanted to teach them something in their lives that He wanted them to judge.
And instead of dealing with it, there was a serious doubt in their hearts as to the goodness of God. Dear Job, thousands of years ago, had to learn that lesson, that he was to justify God first of all.
And then to say to the Lord, if he didn't understand that, which I see not.
Teach thou me. May that be our prayer. So that, as Rob has reminded us.
We bless the Lord for the counsel He has given us in the past and at the same time allow Him to teach us what we need to learn.
In present circumstances.
Just another thought on the night. The night is when it's quiet. The night is when there's no activity.
And.
Sometimes the Lord needs to get us in a quiet place before we really hear what He has to say to us.
All the activity of life and the things that can occupy us sometimes shut out what he has to say to us. And so it's in a night season, in a quiet time, that we can hear his voice when everything else has been done and put away and responsibilities are done.
He needs to get us in a place where it's quiet.
In the 17th chapter and verse three it says Thou hast proved.
My heart, thou hast visited me in the night.
Thou hast tried me.
And we're familiar with that verse and Psalm 30.
Especially the latter part of the verse. Weeping may endure for a night or for a season, but joy cometh in the morning.
So it's often in the night when.
We plead with the Lord.
But we see as a result of that.
There would be a period of joy in the morning.
The next verse I have set the Lord always before me connected with the thought of preserve me, O God for and thee do I put my trust reminds us of first Peter and chapter one verse five we read who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time we are kept by the power of God and that's the only way we can be kept.
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But he says it's through faith, so we're kept by the power of God.
In setting the correct, the right object for our faith before us, that's how we're kept. And so I have set the Lord always before me. Do you want to be kept by the power of God? Then you have to have the right object before your soul. You have to have the Lord before you.
Is that second Corinthians sub?
After four or five.
Looking for where he says that.
I've got it wrong where he says I've not attained these.
Not that I have attained so this one thing I do.
Hebrews, Philip. Philippians 3. Is that the reference?
Yeah, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, it's Philippians 3.
Yeah, verse 12.
Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I follow after it, that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended.
And forgetting the things that are behind verse 13, pressing forward toward the mark.
Or to set the Lord before you, that's like.
Making him your goal, right?
And it is only when we set Him before us that, as the latter part of the verse says, we will not be moved.
Again, we trust. We say it with all humility and respect.
How many dear believers are being moved today? How many are being moved away?
From.
What is honoring to the Lord? Moved away from what the Word of God teaches, and Satan is very, very active today to bring us to that point where we are, shall I say, in a position where we can be moved.
It's very sad to see and again we say it could happen to anyone of us if we get away from the Lord, unless He is before us, we will easily be moved. And how easy it is to have our eye taken off the Lord, taken off what is due to Him, taken off what His word says, and then we're in a position to be moved.
David felt in his life the threat of that and we know that speaking for the moment about David, there were times in his life when he was moved. There was a time when a man by the name of name of Nabal refused to give any help and food to David when he was in rejection. And David became so upset and angry at the circumstance that his reaction to it, instead of trusting the Lord was.
Gergie on every man his sword. And had it not been for the intervention of Nabel's wife Abigail?
There would have been bloodshed on another occasion, we know when things were going rather badly for David. He said, I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul. And what does he do? He defects to the Philistines, goes over to active the king of the Philistines, and says, I'll be on your side now. Well, the Lord in his grace and in his Providence allowed that when David was ready to go to war with the Philistines against his own nation.
The Lords of the Philistines said no way, He'll turn on us eventually and fight with his own nation. No, you're not going with us, David. I believe that was the Lord's preserving care over David. But he was moved. There were times in his life and discouragement took over. And it can happen to us too, where the difficulties become so great that we are in a position to be moved. The antidote is what we have here.
I have set the Lord always before me because He is at my right hand. If I go through every circumstance in life as if the Lord were right here at my right hand, it will be a wonderful keeping power to us.
00:55:18
And this defined the Lord's own life perfectly, didn't it? There's.
Vivid example of it just before the cross at the end of John 16.
Illustrates this verse very well.
Verse 32 John 1632 Behold, the hour cometh, Yay. It is now come that you shall be scattered, every man to his own. You shall leave me alone. Why, they didn't have the Lord before them. They were thinking about their own trial and difficulty.
But he goes on, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
It's where the Lord left it, wasn't it? It's a perfect example of all these things.
Could we add one more scripture to that Tim in the 12Th of John?
I.
We find the most awful dilemma in verse 27 of John 12.
The most awful dilemma from 1 eternity to another when here the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe has to say.
Now is my sole trouble, and what shall I say?
Father save me from this hour, but for this cause cometh came I under this hour.
And in keeping with what you presented, Tim, what answers the question?
Father, glorify thy name.
Settle the issue, didn't it?
And it'll settle many, many problems for us if we simply look up and say Father.
Glorified thy name.
I look again at those words that we.
Have in our chapter in connection with the Pleasant places.
And.
We think of all that the ward has given to us.
I think of a question that Saul put before the children of Israel.
And First Samuel, chapter 22.
In verse seven of that chapter says, Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him.
Here now he Benjamites, will, the son of Jesse, give everyone of you fields and vineyards, and make you captains of thousands and captains of hundreds. Oh, he did not realize what was.
In the Heart of David and.
He usurped.
What belonged to David for himself? And so we know it would would have been the desire of David to bless those. But he is ascribed a wrong motive there, isn't it? But we know that God desires to bless his children.
And give each 1A portion.
And Satan would.
Come before us, just like Saul, hear and say God doesn't want to bless you. And we see that in the very lie that we have in Genesis. Satan told Adam that God had withheld something from him. And here we have Saul.
Ascribing something to David's heart that was not in his heart.
And may we ever value that which He has for us.
Now that we got down to this eighth verse, I'd just like to go back to something Brother Bill said to be in the meeting. I remember you correctly. You said that the Psalms, well, this Psalm was the Psalm, the Mick Pam of David. It was a Psalm of David where David spoke somewhat of his own experience, but the Psalm goes beyond his experience to that which could only be true of the Lord. That's what you said, and we hear that often.
01:00:04
This verse is.
One of the proofs of that, if you connect it with Acts chapter two, I think we should look at that because we often hear these things, but it's good to know why they're said. So Acts chapter 2 where Peter speaking on the day of Pentecost. He quotes these next 3 verses and beginning with this verse eight and then nine and 10. So Acts 2 is speaking in verse 22. You men of Israel hear these words.
Jesus of Nazareth, man of truth, of God, and so on.
And then verse 25.
He said for David speaketh concerning him.
I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is on or at my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. We're over. Also my flesh will rest in hope, because I will not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer, thine Holy One, to see corruption so very plainly. Here Peter, speaking by the Spirit of God, is saying what our brother brought before us.
That this.
Was not the case of David. David was Speaking of Christ, even if he didn't understand it, as Peter says in his first epistle, he knew that it was beyond his own experience and he spoke something prophetically. And now we're told this is about the Lord Jesus Christ. And so with the authority of the Word of God, we can come to this chapter and apply the things the way we're applying them in this meeting today.
Well, the result of all this is verse 9. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth. It's quite an expression. My glory rejoiceth. In acts that was just read to us, we find it says my tongue rejoiceth.
Those who know Hebrew, and I am no Hebrew scholar, but those who know Hebrew, tell us that the word for glory in Hebrew is the same as the word for tongue, which apparently is characteristic of the Hebrew language. Many words have multiple meanings, and that's why it could be translated tongue in the New Testament, but it is really the present rejoicing in view.
Of all that God is doing and is going to do for us.
The wonderful thing that the Lord Jesus had before him was the glory ahead.
There was glory going to come as a result of his work on the cross.
And as Tim Tim Ruga has already brought out, there was more than one reason for it. But perhaps the main reason was as we get in Hebrews chapter 12.
He was going to be able to go back to the father, having finished the work that the father gave him to do, and the joy of being able to go back and to say what he says in John 17.
I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gave us me to do.
But what was going to be the result of that? And now glorify thou me, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. And so there was going to be glory connected with all of that. And the Lord Jesus looked on to that glory and rejoiced in it. You and I can do the same. Is it our glory? In one sense, yes, because He shares it with us.
But it is a glory that He has which he gives us, isn't it? It's a glory that He shares with us.
But a glory that we will enjoy with them. And so you and I can walk through this world with glad hearts.
Yes. Are there times when we pass through difficulties? Yes, we do.
Are there times when we shed tears? Yes, we do, and there's nothing wrong with that. Are there times when the pathway is difficult? Yes. But through it all, the Lord will give us an inner joy, a gladness of heart, because there is that hope before us and we can look on to coming glory.
01:05:06
We've heard over the years, but it certainly bears repeating. You've never met a Christian at the end of their path that said they wish they hadn't followed the Lord. You'll meet plenty. Maybe you won't meet them, but there are plenty that will say, I wish I'd followed the Lord closer here. The Lord in this Psalm, he's facing certain death. He's looking onward beyond it to resurrection and beyond. And he can say, therefore, my heart is glad.
The Christian path is a happy path. He was a man of sorrows, but we can see his path was a happy path.
And he could look beyond what was just ahead of him to what would come. And resurrection he could say, my flesh shall rest in hope. His flesh would never see corruption. He was a sinless one. And his flesh would never see corruption. If we're laid in the grave, our flesh will, like David, see corruption. Nonetheless, I think we can apply it and say our flesh will rest in hope. Where is Paul today?
His soul and spirit are in the presence of the Lord. He's enjoying the Lord, but his flesh is resting in hope. He hasn't realized his hope yet. And not one of those who have passed from this scene have realized their hope yet will realize it together when the Lord comes. And resurrection. And we're caught up to meet the Lord in the air. And then our hope will be realized in resurrection, just as the Lords was.
I'm #64.
Oh, bright and blessed.
Can never fall in our long disturbance.
Roger where Yak we all?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that might have seen our string. I'm so tired.
Our hearts are safe on it for them.
01:10:03
Shines through all.
More.
I can't like see.
I.
Oh, blessed is our voice when we.
Love God.
And our mind is here.
Our needs are restore in the end in all of our souls. So.
Oh.
Right.
For our.
Destination.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rest
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.
2:38.
Our separate is.
Lord we all. It's All in all of you.
We are.
Sorry.
I.
Love.
Love, love, love, love.
Our soul.
Restore.
Exhaustion.
That's why.
I saw.
Joyride.
No, still shall be.
My soul shall.
Give.
Joy.
Ce Love.
Oh, oh, oh, three.
We pray.
Yes.
Would you turn with me, please to Hebrews chapter 4?
And perhaps we could read from.
Verse 9, Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 9.
There remaineth therefore arrest to the people of God.
For he that is entered into his rest he hath also. He also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
00:05:12
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into, or perhaps more accurately.
Through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
But was in all points tempted, like as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace.
That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help.
In time of need.
It's not my thought to enter into an exposition of this chapter, but particularly to mention three things that are brought before us in the last few verses of this chapter.
And I would suggest that they tie in with what we've had before us so far in the readings.
And are very needful for our own souls.
As a bit of background, we know that the book of Hebrews was written.
To as the title of the book would suggest to Hebrew Christians, Jewish Christians, some of whom.
Had taken an outward profession, but perhaps without any inward reality.
And there is a voice to their consciences in this book.
About the dangers of resting on outward position with no inward reality.
But others were true believers, but who had failed to enter into all of the blessings of true Christianity.
Because they continued hanging on to those.
Trappings of Judaism which were so precious to them.
And so the object of the author of the book, very likely the apostle Paul, although he is not identified as such, the object of the book is to exercise those who were not real, but to bring those others into the full and complete blessing of their position in Christ, as opposed to what they had.
Under Judaism.
And one of the things that they wanted to do and needed was to enter into REST.
When the Lord Jesus came to this earth, those who recognized him as the Messiah.
We're looking for an immediate Kingdom. They were looking for the glorious Kingdom that would bring in all those blessings that had been promised in the Old Testament prophets, and they were expecting that to happen.
And as we know, when it was revealed to them that it was not going to be immediate, many of them were very, very disappointed.
And even the Lord's disciples could scarcely take it in that the Kingdom would have to be postponed.
Verse 9 here I believe can have a dual application.
Does there remain arrest to Israel on earth? Indeed there is. There is going to be a visible Kingdom in the Millennium. The Lord Jesus must have His rightful place in the world that cast him out. He must reign, it says in First Corinthians 15, until He hath put all things under his feet.
But can you and I take that up?
As belonging to the Church, I believe we can.
Our rest is not down here, it's up there.
There remaineth therefore arrest under the people of God.
00:10:01
But what does the next verse say? And verse 11, verses 10 and 11?
Oh, the Lord would have you and me to enter into that rest down here.
Allow me to say it. And sometimes my own heart is no different.
I see many dear believers today who fail to enter into rest.
Sometimes we don't walk in the sense of that rest and peace.
One of our old writers in the 1800s challenges our hearts and our consciences by saying.
As I go about my everyday life, do I have as much rest and peace in my soul as if I were on my deathbed?
That exercised my heart.
If I were on my deathbed today, I wouldn't be worried too much about what was going to happen tomorrow.
I wouldn't be worried about affairs down here, the cares of this life and everything to do with this world.
And the things that are needful down here would not be so much of A concern to me, would they? No, I trust that I would be thinking about what was ahead in the glory.
Reminds me of my beloved and I don't think it hurts to mention her name. My beloved aunt by marriage, Ruth Smith lately of Ottawa, ON, who went to be with the Lord at the age of 96 a few years ago, having lived all her life in the same home. Born there, lived there, took it over with her husband when her parents died.
And lived in that house.
Until she went to hospital for a few weeks with cancer and then subsequently into Hospice care.
I don't think it hurts to tell this story.
When she was riding from the hospital to the Hospice care, which was only a matter of half a dozen blocks away from the home where she had lived all her life, her grandson, who is a paramedic, was in the ambulance with her and he said to her grandma.
Would you like us to route the ambulance past the house on 32 Bellwood Ave. just so you could have one last look at?
Her words ring in my ears, yet although of course I wasn't there to hear them, they were repeated to me.
Her words were beautiful. She said. Oh no, Matthew, I'm not looking back, I'm looking forward.
Oh, how that thrilled my soul. I'm not looking back, I'm looking forward. She was living in the enjoyment of that rest. But can you and I walk through all the circumstances, all the difficulties of life, and enter into that rest? Yes, we can.
But what does the Lord bring before us? Verse 12, the first thing.
For the Word of God is quick and powerful. Why does that have to be brought before us? Oh, because in the latter end of or the end of verse 11 it says lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. And note that that doesn't necessarily mean only an unbeliever as to salvation.
As believers, as we had this morning, we can fail to believe in the goodness of God. We can fail to believe that He is for us in everything that comes into our lives.
So what does God bring before us? First and foremost, his precious Word.
I don't think it hurts to mention that some of us were talking about this at the breakfast table this morning.
And we reporting out the importance of the Word of God.
And how that feelings can go this way and that way. Yes, God has given us feelings. He's given us emotions.
And they are important, but in anything fundamental and serious.
God doesn't refers to our feelings, He refers us to his word because it never changes.
00:15:00
Our feelings go up and down, but his word never changes the.
When the two were on the way to Emmaus, you will recall that they were discouraged and cast down because evidently all of their hopes had been dashed to the ground. The one whom they looked for as their Messiah and who was going to set up the Kingdom and as they thought redeem Israel, had been crucified.
And to them, it was all over with.
And here was the risen savior walking with them. But what does he do? Does he immediately say, But it's I, Here I am. Look at my hands. I'm real. I'm risen. Oh no. What does he do?
Spends whatever time it took to walk between 7:00 and 8:00 miles and bring this before them, the word of God. They needed to see it from the scriptures and so it says. The Word of God here in verse 12 is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. What does that mean?
I believe most of us know that man is composed of three things.
Body, soul and spirit, or as Paul puts it in Thessalonians, spirit, soul and body.
We all know what the body is. It's the house in which the soul and the spirit live.
And as James tells us, the body without the spirit is dead. But the soul and spirit are different because the soul is what makes us individuals. It's the seat of the appetites and desires. It's the seat of the emotions, if we could put it that way.
But the Spirit is rather the God conscious part of our being, that part of us that recognizes that there is a God by which we relate to God, by which God speaks to us, by which God's spirit works. We get in Romans 8, the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the sons of God, and so on.
But here the two are divided asunder by the word of God. What does that mean?
Oh, it means that sometimes the things that my soul desires can be affected by my old sinful self, and my soul can desire that which is contrary to what God would have me be occupied with. Even as a believer, I need the Word of God.
Permit me to reminisce a little. Sometimes we older ones do that a little too much. I hope I don't, but I can well remember, probably.
Good. 40 years ago now being at a meeting where our brother Gordon Hayhoe brought out.
The fact that in his younger years and that would have taken us back probably to 90 or 100 years ago.
He said the world, even though it was still the world in North America, was relatively Christian in its character. The Word of God was recognized as the basis of morality and law in society in Canada and the United States, and in a general way, at least outwardly, people recognize the morality of God's Word and walked by it.
So that the Christian did not in that sense.
Stick out so much.
But he said gradually the world has tangentially and on a tangent, moved further and further away from the Word of God.
So that the gap becomes wider and wider between what the world allows.
And what the believer should be doing.
And then he said, what is the answer? The answer is to be more and more familiar with God's Word. And so I would bring that before us because it's only the Word of God that will divide asunder between soul and spirit that will lead you and me to recognize what is of God and what is ultimately.
00:20:00
Part and parcel.
Satan's world? Excuse me?
It goes on to say and of the joints and marrow.
The marrow, as we know, is contained in the bones, and in order to get at the marrow you have to break the bone open.
Sometimes it takes something pretty hard to break a good stiff bone open, doesn't it? It does. They can be pretty hard, but the Word of God is able to separate things that need to be separated and how necessary it is.
And so I would say here too, it says that it is discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart that brings in, not merely what we say.
Or what we do, but the motive behind it. And the motive behind something is even more important than the act, because God can reward a right motive, but He can't reward a right act that is done with the wrong motive, because it's the motive that gives value to the ACT.
And sometimes I speak to my own heart. There can be thoughts and motives in my heart.
Which may express themselves in what looks on the surface like something pleasing to God.
And yet the motive of the heart is wrong.
Permit me to share with you something that I read a little while ago.
Which really reached my own heart and conscience. I trust a brother made this remark in our written ministry.
He said I need Christ at the bottom, meaning for salvation.
And if I don't have Christ at the bottom, I'm not even a Christian at all.
But he said at the top, I can have an outwardly blameless Christian life where there are no gross sins and no outwardly serious errors.
But between Christ at the bottom and an outwardly upright life at the top.
I can have 150 things that the world pours in and with all kinds of thoughts and intents that are not of God.
And then he said this will not do.
And it's true.
No, the Lord wants you and me as we had this morning, to live a life in communion with Him. He wants us to walk with Him, to enjoy that privilege as the Lord Jesus did, of being the perfect dependent man with no will of his own during the will of God, while enjoying in His heart that which will be ours up there.
If we need a further word to our conscience, verse 13 brings it in.
We often use this verse in the Gospel, and rightfully so. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, for all things are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Absolutely, and to the unbeliever this ought to act as a serious voice.
If there's anyone here today that thinks he or she can hide from God, this verse shows us.
But does that include you and me? Turn back with me for a moment to Luke's Gospel chapter 12 for a verse.
Luke, chapter 12.
And verse two, well that will read the end of verse one. Luke 12, the end of verse one. Be wary of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known.
Everything will come out. For the unbeliever, it will be at the great white throne. For the believer, it will be at the judgment seat of Christ. It's going to have to come out those hidden recesses of the heart.
How good to get them out before the Lord now?
And have a clean sleep before him, so that there is not those, or there are not those hidden motives in the heart, which are contrary to the mind of God. The Word of God, by the Spirit of God, will do that. But let's go on. What else do we have here?
00:25:14
Something very precious in verse 14, and we won't go into it in a lot of detail. It's very well developed in the book of Hebrews and it was mentioned in the meeting this morning.
Seeing then that we have a great high priest.
That is past and it should read through the heavens.
Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession or confession it could be.
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
But was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin or sin apart.
The high priesthood of Christ. Now, it was brought out this morning, and blessedly so that you and I, every one of us who are true believers, are priests. We have the privilege to draw near, but we are here in this world. Where is our great high priest? He's passed through the heavens.
There to be in the presence of God for us. And what is he doing up there interceding for us?
In our infirmities.
Now notice.
And I know this is elementary. I hope this does not insult the spiritual intelligence of anyone. But infirmities are not sin. They can lead to sin, but they are not in themselves sin.
There are those here, I am sure, who have chronic illnesses and they can be a real burden to you. They're not sin, they're an infirmity.
There are those who have other infirmities, difficulties and problems in their lives that the Lord has allowed infirmities, things that can lead to sin, but are not sin in themselves.
They are things that come from without.
Those things can be very difficult.
And I think we all have to face it. There are times perhaps when we would look up.
As the Apostle Paul did with his thorn in the flesh.
And say, Lord, I don't really need this. I would be far better off without it. I could live a better Christian life. I could serve you better if I didn't have this infirmity.
Have we sometimes thought that?
And yet those infirmities are allowed of God, and we won't turn to it. But the beloved apostle Paul could say there in Second Corinthians.
After he'd been through the process, after he had asked the Lord three times to take away that thorn and three times over the Lord had said to him, no, Paul, I will give you whatever grace you need for it, but I am not taking it away. Paul gets to the point where he not only says.
OK, Lord, I submit, I will put up with it.
Is that what he said?
Let's turn to it Second Corinthians chapter 12.
What does he say there? Verse 10, Second Corinthians 12 and verse 10.
Therefore, I really take pleasure in infirmities. Oh my, that's quite something, isn't it?
In reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.
Wonderful.
Isn't that something in the middle of verse nine? He says most gladly. Will I therefore?
Therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of God may rest upon me.
00:30:07
What a step forward in maturity as a Christian to glory in that which was seemingly such a hindrance to him. We don't know exactly what it was, but it was evidently something physical.
And yet Paul glories in it. Why? Because he had a great high priest up there.
Who interceded for him?
And one who had been through it all.
There isn't one thing that can come upon you and me.
In the pathway of faith that the Lord Jesus could not have been through apart from sin. Now we want to make it clear, just so we understand, I don't believe that the Lord Jesus ever suffered a physical infirmity. I don't believe he ever had a headache. I don't believe he ever had what we would call the flu. I don't believe he ever woke up in the morning.
And said I feel rotten this morning. As a sinless man that could not be. He was not subject to those things.
But he was capable of feeling from without all of the effects of sin. Why? To put away your sins and mine? No, but to be able to feel with you and me and be a merciful and faithful high priest. And he is up there interceding for us.
Sometimes we say we need to go to Him as our merciful and faithful High Priest, and that is blessedly true.
As our advocate, he acts without our going to him. That's first John 1:00 and 9:00, and then the beginning of the second chapter. But as our great high priest, I believe he also acts for us without our asking. He doesn't need us to ask to intercede for us. No, he does so.
In order to do what? To support us in those infirmities and.
To make them good to our souls to the point that we get the blessing from them rather than there being just a.
Shall I say it?
I hesitate to use the words, but I've heard people say it. This problem is just one big pain in the neck. Have we used those words, if not outwardly, at least in our own minds? I'm afraid I have.
But know the Lord says, I want to lift you above all that. And there is one who has been through it all and who put up with everything in the pathway of faith as we have in Psalm 16, not only in obedience to the will of God, but to be a merciful and faithful high priest. One more thing.
Verse 16 and this I would suggest is separate from his high priesthood. It's not the same.
Let us therefore come boldly unto our great High Priest. Know it does not say that unto the throne of grace.
That we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
That, I believe, is put there for those Hebrew believers, because what kind of a throne were they accustomed to in the Old Testament?
Some of them saw it, others knew about it from it being written in Exodus. They knew what Mount Sinai was. They knew. Excuse me?
About that mountain to which man could not approach, they knew about the earthquake and the fire and the Thunder, and the voice of God that accompanied the giving of the law. So that even a man like Moses, who was familiar with the presence of God, had to say, I exceedingly fear and quake. And they were used to a God who stood at a distance and who made strong demands.
On them demands to which they could never answer.
It was not by any means in the Old Testament primarily a throne of grace.
00:35:05
Now I hasten to say that there is a good deal of the grace of God in the Old Testament if you look for.
It was the grace of God that did not consume that whole nation. For when Moses was up in Mount Sinai getting that law, what did they presume to do down below?
Made a golden calf and worshiped it. How awful. And so the Lord did not deal with them according to the requirements of that law. But in the Old Testament there was no approach to God in his near, in the nearness that you and I have.
Does the apostle, if it was indeed the Apostle Paul, but whoever wrote the book of the Hebrews, why does he bring in here at the end the throne of grace?
I believe it is this, at least to my own soul.
In whatever state of soul you and I might be, whether we are going on well before the Lord, or whether, sad to say, we have gotten at a distance from Him. And it happens. It happens in my life, sad to say. But whatever may be my state of soul, perhaps I have even shall I say it.
Had a serious fall in my life and maybe the devil is whispering in your ear.
Or maybe in my ear and saying, look at what you did, to use common terminology, look how badly you messed up. You cannot ever go on for the Lord again. You cannot be restored. You cannot ever bear a Christian testimony again. You had better just throw it all overboard and go out into the world.
Because you have made such a mess that you have ruined your life.
Yes, things. We do have consequences. I don't deny that. And in the government of God there may be lifelong consequences. There were, for example, in David's life and others in the Old Testament, and they could be serious.
But.
Whatever state our soul is in, we all we should remember that if we come back to the throne of God, it's a throne of grace. I think it's Mr. Ballot puts it so beautifully in his ministry, he says.
No matter how deeply we have failed.
If we turn around and come back to the Lord Himself.
We are always, always going to find that we are dealing with love.
Isn't that beautiful?
Does love sometimes administer timely discipline? Yes, it does. Does love Passover sin? That wouldn't be true love.
Does grace.
Make an excuse for sin? Absolutely not. We read in Titus. Well, let's turn to it, because it's good to read it. Turn to the book of Titus for a moment, just right back there before the book of Hebrews, and notice what it says.
Titus two and verse 11.
For the grace of God that bring us salvation hath appeared to all men.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and so on. What teaches us that? The government of God?
If necessary, yes, but not primarily. Know what teaches us that? The grace of God.
And the grace of God, properly entered into and understood, is the strongest antidote.
To the believers falling into sin.
That's why Peter says at the end of his second epistle, Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
00:40:00
The subject of Peter's ministry is the government of God, first of all in the House of God and then in the world.
And you and I, as believers, are in the House of God. What is the strongest force in the House of God?
To maintain order, there a sense in our souls of the grace of God. And so it says, let us come boldly under the throne of grace.
You know, when we have sinned, we don't like to think of coming boldly to the Lord, do we? And in that sense we should come with a sense of our failure, that's proper. But at the same time, we don't come as they did in the Old Testament.
Wondering whether the Lord can forgive one more time or something like that? No, Come boldly under the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy.
Says and find grace to help in time of need. Or perhaps the thought more accurately is find timely help.
That is, God would have us rather come to the throne of grace as a preventative measure.
Rather than after the failure has occurred.
If you and I had a deeper sense in our souls of grace, we would not fall into that sin in the 1St place. If I have in my soul a sense of what my blessed Savior suffered in order to put away sin.
And if I have, on the other hand, the sense in my soul.
Of what my old sinful self is capable of.
I wouldn't trust myself.
And I may say as an older brother that I have had to learn that the hard way and others have to.
My brother told me recently.
He's not much younger than I am, and he told me years ago of speaking with our late brother Clarence Lundeen, whom I had the privilege of knowing pretty well too.
And he told of how they were chatting together and the younger brother.
Say, just a wee bit younger than I am.
Was talking to him and somehow the subject of sin came up and Clarence Lundin made what at that time for the younger brother was a somewhat cryptic remark. He said, You younger brothers, you don't really know what sin is.
What did he mean?
Did he mean that somehow the older brothers had worse old natures than the younger ones? No, that wasn't what he was talking about. What did he mean?
He meant, I believe, that there are sometimes those who grow up in Christian homes and who thus are kept from the depths of sin that exist in this world and perhaps do not realize, as I did, not what the old sinful self is capable of.
And I can well remember my father telling me, he said, if we do not know what depths of sin we are capable of, the Lord will sometimes put us through circumstances and bring us to the brink of a Cliff to make us realize how bad we really are. That's what Clarence Lundin meant, I believe.
He'd been there, done that, as we say, in modern language, and he was just alerting that younger brother, you may have to go that way too.
I don't know whether he did or not. We didn't go down that road. The point is, what do we get to learn through that? The grace of God. We learned that from which we were saved. We learned what we were saved from. We learned not to trust ourselves. We learned to walk as we had in the readings. Independence on the Lord. We learn what Paul had to learn, that when he was weak, then he was strong.
Because that thorn in the flesh kept him from being lifted up in pride. Because he'd been caught up to the 3rd heaven.
A privilege that, as far as we know, no other believer had ever had, and probably never has had.
It was preventative and verse 16 is meant to be preventative.
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Yes, we can always go to that throne of grace, thank God. And it is a throne of grace. Let's never forget that. But it's meant to be resorted to in order that we might not fall into sin rather than having it happen afterward. Well, May God bless these thoughts to our hearts. They've been very precious to my own soul. I trust they can be made good to others too.
Psalm 110
Open—Michael Hapanowicz
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I would like to look for a little bit at Psalms 110, but if you will permit me before we take up those verses, just to say a little prayer for myself, if you'll permit that, maybe we can do that. God and Father, I just pray for courage and clarity and the thoughts to be expressed that they would be for the honor and glory of your name and for that of your Son. I just pray that our hearts will be stirred as.
We consider the worthiness of the Lord Jesus and for all that he has done.
We ask this in His name, Amen.
Just to read a few verses from Psalms 110.
It says in verse one, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth.
The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through the kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound the head over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up his head.
If we could, just by way of introduction, before we look at the specifics of the verses in this chapter, I want to turn to.
A couple of references. One is in Isaiah chapter 53.
This is from Isaiah chapter 53 and verse seven. It says he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. We could look at a verse. I believe it's in Luke's gospel.
And the crucifixion account.
This is Luke's Gospel chapter 23.
And reading from verse seven. And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad where he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of Him, and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. Then he questioned with him in many words.
But he answered him nothing, and the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him.
And Herod with his men of war, set him at naughty, and mocked him, and hurried him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were enmity between themselves. And then another reference in First Peter, chapter 2.
First Peter chapter 2 and verse 23. Who when he was reviled, reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him. That judgeth righteously.
And then finally to read a verse from Psalms 109, the 1St 2 verses of that chapter. It says, Hold not by peace, oh God, of my praise for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
We have the Lord Jesus and He is mentioned in Isaiah chapter 53 as a lamb before her shearers is dumb. So he opened not his mouth. In his trial before Herod, the Lord Jesus was arrayed there and accusations were brought and not once did the Lord Jesus open his blessed mouth to defend himself against the lies that were paraded against him.
Because, as we find in Peter, he committed himself.
To him that judgeth righteously, he would not take up his own cause to defend himself, because he committed that activity to God his father. But in Psalms 109 he makes this plea, and he says, Defend me.
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And the answer to that cry is given.
In the 110th Psalm, if we look at what is presented here.
This is God's response to the vindication of his man. And the first thing that we see in this chapter is he says, the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
This verse is quoted many times in the New Testament, and there's actually a couple different reasons why you get some different thoughts that are brought out of this one verse, but I want to point out a few things for our consideration here.
You'll notice, and this was mentioned when we were in Psalms, the chapter 16 that we were taking up, but the first Lord in the chapter here is in all caps is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D This is the word for Jehovah.
Notice the second word for Lord is capital L, but it's lower case R or lower case O, lowercase R, lowercase D This is the word for add on or add and I. It means master. And so if we read it, I think using those Hebrew terms, it might help us to see some of the distinction that is in this verse. It's the Jehovah said unto my AD and I.
Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool.
God the Father is speaking to God the Son, and David, the writer of this Psalm, calls him my Adonai, my master. And can't you hear the thrill in the voice of David as he considers what is said to his master?
Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. This is the greeting that the Lord Jesus was met with when he ascended to heaven, and was met there by his Father, who said, Sit on my right hand.
Until I make die enemies thy footstool. There is a promise of a future vindication, even as there is in the present a granting of a privilege that none other has ever had. You read in the beginning of the book of Hebrews, one of the things that marks out the Lord Jesus as greater than the angels is that God has never said to any Angel at any time.
Sit down on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. That is a privilege that has been reserved exclusively for his son.
And it is the first response of his heart to vindicate his son as to the degradation of his name that occurred here in this earth.
The second thing says, The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. And here this is a continuation of that promise of a future vindication that will take place here in this world where the Lord Jesus was rejected.
He had come as that suffering Messiah, but one day he will reign, and He will have the rod of his strength.
The third verse Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, and the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning.
Now has to do with thy youth.
If I'm to be fully honest with you, and I trust they have been already through this point, I have to tell you with this verse, I I'm not really sure that I understand it that well myself. So I'll just share with you something I've read about it and it struck me, the writer commented on this third verse that there would be a new generation that is given to the Lord Jesus.
Of those who have a heart that will follow after him.
He came to Israel, he came to his own, and his own did not receive him.
And yet there is this promise that is made to the Son, that in a coming day there will be a generation of young people raised up whose heart will follow after their Messiah. So I just present that to you as a thought here. He will be one day vindicated in the affections of His people.
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The fourth thing is given in verse four. The Lord has sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever.
After the order of Melchizedek.
There was the order of Aaron. There is the order of Melchizedek.
The order of Aaron is a temporary order. It does not last forever. The order of Melchizedek is an order that goes on forever and ever and has no end. It is one of the distinctives of that priesthood that makes that priesthood of Melchizedek greater than the priesthood of Aaron.
And what are we told here in this verse in Psalms 110? God has given his Son to be a priest after that greater order.
Of Melchizedek, it is part of the vindication that his son receives.
For those lying accusations that were presented him on his road to Calvary.
It's interesting. In this Psalm, you'll notice the first verse. It's really the psalmist. David is talking to you and to me about his Adonai.
And then in verse two, it says the Lord shall send the rod of thy strength. He changes. And then in the second verse, the psalmist really speaks directly on behalf of God the Father to God the Son. He speaks to the AD and I there's a change now in verse five. You'll notice for instance, in in verse two and in verse 4.
It's Lord there again in all caps. That's Jehovah now in verse 5.
He speaks to God the Father about God the Son, and he says here, the Lord at thy right hand, the Adonai at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, He shall fill the places and the with the dead bodies. He shall wound the head over many countries. And in these two verse he he speaks to God the Father of how God the Son is going to perfectly.
Execute.
The rod of his wrath in that future day as he reigns in this world in which he was once rejected. And I think it's beautiful. We could read of Joseph. I believe it is. He tells those that would go back to to give a report. Tell my father of all my glory that I have here in Egypt. And that's what the psalmist David does in these verses. He tells the father of the glory of the Son.
How the Adonai is going to to perfectly reign.
In that coming day.
Verse seven is an interesting verse. It's.
Such an abrupt change it, it almost gives you whiplash, but it says it goes from this description of wounding the head of many countries, and it says in verse seven, he shall drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up the head.
What is this talking about?
It's interesting. In the life of the Lord Jesus. You can trace it. Long before the Garden of Gethsemane, he had before him the prospect of his future crucifixion.
And that weighed on his soul.
But we're told of something different in this verse. It says He shall drink of the brook and the way, therefore he shall lift up his head. It's a reference to a refreshment that the Lord would receive in His earthly pathway that would give him the energy to lift up his head.
What is that?
I would suggest to you that the brook and the way.
Is the very verses we have just had before us.
The prospect that God the Father was presenting to him of this future vindication, that would be his.
But that was before the Lord Jesus. Even as he considered the sufferings of the cross, He saw beyond that to the future vindication that his Father would provide. And that was a refreshment to his weary soul that gave him to lift up his head as he walked through this world.
What an encouragement it is to our hearts as we consider what an encouragement it was to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
As he thought upon these very verses, And well might it be.
The reflection of our own attitudes to say, with David to rejoice.
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As he contemplates, Jehovah said to my ad, and I sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Hey.
Girl.
Be quiet.
I.
Also #110.
Oh God, now.
I.
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But.
Before we pray, would like to read just a few verses.
And Esther, chapter 6.
I think we're all familiar with the connection here, but let's just reverse 3.
And the king said, what honor and dignity have been done to Mordecai for this?
Then said the King's servants that ministered unto him, there is nothing.
Done for him.
But we'll see that there is something very shortly that would be done.
For Mordecai verse eight, it says.
But just to get a little connection.
Let's read the last part of verse seven for the man.
That the King delighteth to honor.
Let the royal apparel be brought, which the King useth to wear, and the horse that the King rideth upon, and the Crown Royal which is set upon his head.
Let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the King's most noble Princess, that they may array the man with all whom the King divided the honor.
And bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him.
Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king.
Delighteth to honor. Let's just look to the Lord.
Psalm 16:10-11
Reading
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You sing #230.
Oh Lord, when we the path retrace which thou on earth is trodden to man, thy wondrous love and grace, thy faithfulness to God, 230.
Oh Lord, when we.
Grace.
With God.
I was born.
Oh Lord, oh God.
Be nice to complete our enjoyment of Psalm 16.
Could we read from verse 9 even though we did discuss it because of its connection with verse 10? Would that be outright?
Psalm 16, verse nine. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer, thine Holy One, to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life in my presence, His fullness of joy. And at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
There is no doubt that in the Old Testament, the.
Interval between death and resurrection.
Was darkness to them. They did not know what took place.
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We learned from the New Testament that life and immortality, or perhaps more accurately, incorruptibility, were brought to light through the gospel.
And so, David no doubt could say, my flesh shall rest in hope.
But as we were remarking before.
The Spirit of God takes him beyond what a mere man could experience to talk only of Christ, because here it says in verse 10, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One, to see corruption.
I believe you alluded to it this morning, Brother Steve, that the Lord Jesus, as a perfect man, never having sinned His flesh, did not see corruption, even though he lay in the grave during the time he was there. He was definitely dead in every sense of the word as far as the body was concerned, but he did not see corruption.
But I would also point out that the correction in the verse here is rather necessary. The word is not really hell in the proper sense of the translation. It should read Hades.
And Hades as Greek, the new test or the Old Testament counterpart, and this is anybody can look this up. The Old Testament counterpart to it is sheol, the Hebrew word, And both have the sense not of a distinct place, as is often thought of, but rather of.
A condition.
So that Hades or Sheol is simply the condition of a soul and spirit without a body, and that's all they knew in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament, the wicked dead are often spoken of as being in Hades. In Revelation 20 for example, where you read concerning the Great White Throne death and it says hell, but it should read Hades delivered up the dead which were in them. What does that mean? It means that death delivers up the body, Hades delivers up the soul and spirit. They are reunited together.
To stand before God for judgment.
But the believer is never spoken of in that way. When the Lord Jesus spoke to the thief on the cross, what did he say to him?
This day shalt thou be with me in Hades. Oh no.
Much better than that.
Technically it would have been a true statement, but the Spirit of God takes the believer into something beyond that. Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.
His brother Steve brought out in the address yesterday. The Apostle Paul has been there.
In soul and spirit with the Lord for many centuries, His body is awaiting the resurrection day.
And so the Lord Jesus prophetically here says, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, that is, He will not be left in the condition of a soul and spirit without a body. Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One, to see corruption. And as soon as that.
Resurrection day came. The Lord Jesus rises from the dead in all his power and glory.
And the angels appear as a witness of it. By rolling away the stone, the keepers became as dead men and as we had brought before us. And it's in the next Psalm, or rather the 18th Psalm. It's a resurrection song, bringing before us all the power of God displayed in resurrection. And so for you and for me, that's our prospect too.
Of course, we have a better hope because we may not even go through death. We trust that the Lord will come before any of us here have to die.
But if we do, yes, we will see corruption because we're part of a fallen race, but our flesh will rest in hope, sure hope, of the Lord's coming to raise the dead Saints and to change the living Saints, and all be taken up together into heaven.
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In Mr. Darby's translation to support what you're saying, Brother Bill, it is translated Thou wilt not leave my soul to shield. And it's interesting to me how the fact of hell is one of the things that atheists and humans really resent about the truth of Christianity. But I find it interesting that the person who tells us the most about how and talk.
The most about how is the Lord Jesus Christ the person we've been considering in this Psalm, and I think it's because he knew actually how awful it was that he came into this world motivated by love to try to reach those who are were lost. He came to seek and to save. That was the those which were lost. And I just think that it's on his part knowing what it was. It's his motivation and for us the same thing we learn in Corinthians.
Knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
So they were ignorant back then in the days of David about what it was. But the Lord Jesus has brought that information to us and it's revealed to us, and it's very solemn to think about it. It's a fact that's revealed. You can't know it any other way than the Son of God coming and telling us that that's the way it is.
And so the Lord Jesus really felt.
The going into death because it was the penalty for sin.
And He not only suffered on the cross the judgment for our sins, but He suffers the ultimate penalty of sin, which is going into death. But as we read in Hebrews, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to ******* Satan.
Holds men in ******* and still does.
And As for thousands of years, by the fear of death, God has taken that away in the finished work of Christ, the one who legitimately never had to taste death.
Voluntarily took upon himself a body capable of death, not subject to it capable of death. And so he could say of that.
Of his light, the life which he had in John 10. No man taketh it from me, I lay it down of myself. This commandment have I received of my father. You see the type of that in Abraham and Isaac going up to Mount Moriah. Isaac says, Behold the fire in the wood.
But he makes no mention of the knife.
I believe a reference to the fact that no man taketh it from me. I lay it down of myself. As far as human life was concerned, yes, Abraham took the knife to slay his son, and we know that the Lord intervened to stop that. But the Spirit of God through Isaac's mouth doesn't mention the knife. I believe because it was a type of the Lord Jesus who would lay down his own life.
By himself. And so the Lord Jesus really felt the going into death, because it was part of the penalty of sin. The wages of sin is death. And when God pronounced the curse on Adam, he said in the day that thou eatest thereof dying, thou shalt die. For Satan says thou shalt not surely die, meaning that you wouldn't die immediately.
But death was the ultimate penalty for sin, and the Lord Jesus suffered it. But he had that confidence in God. Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades. Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. And so in that sense, as we've said a moment ago, the Lord Jesus was unique. You and I can't say that, that we won't see corruption unless the Lord comes. But the same power that raised him from the dead will raise the Saints who have died in Christ.
00:15:16
And will change the living Saints to be like him.
This is a happy meditation on the Lord. What's being brought out? I'm sorry to go back to what you said a moment ago, but I I'd like to because.
There's a great error caught on this verse. It's not the only verse, but on this one at least that is that the Lord Jesus when he died did indeed go to hell, and that is where in his death He defeated him that had the power of death, but not without 3 days of unspeakable torment there.
That the Lord suffered, that is being taught widely right now, today, and you can hear it on the radio and other places. And so I think it's worth just pointing out again, what our brother Bill said is Hades is speaking about the condition of the soul after death. And for the believer, it's not at all talking about what is meant by the word hell or a place of torment. And Luke chapter 16.
You'll find that there was a rich man and Lazarus, and Lazarus was.
The one who died 1St and he went to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and in hell is Hades. He lifted up his eyes being in torment and that's what generally is referred to as hell.
And it's really the thought of torment there. But he saw Lazarus far off. Lazarus was also in Hades, but he wasn't in torment. He was in a place of blessing in Abrahams bosom. And this is what our brother was referring to in Luke. I think it's 22.
Paradise, Luke 23 I think that this day the Lord said to the thief, Thou shalt be with me in paradise. The Lord did not go to the place of torment.
He went to the place of blessing which he called paradise, and that teaching which is out there today, that the Lord, when he died he went and he suffered unspeakable torment for three days.
In this awful place, that's error and it denies that when the Lord Jesus said it is finished that He meant it is finished. It denied that His work was finished. Then the blood was shed, the work was complete and had to be completed at some later time. That's a tremendous error.
That those who call themselves Christians are teaching right now and we need to be aware of it and understand what this verse is really teaching. That the Lord was in that place of paradise as to His soul and spirit. His body was in the grave and He was not going to be suffered to remain there. He was going to be raised again in resurrection on the third day.
There's a bit of an aside, and it's kind of half question, half teaching, I guess. But when Lazarus, when the Lord left Lazarus in the grave, he left him there for four days.
Which means his body saw corruption.
And the Lord did that. Was that not to demonstrate?
His power, or if we could use the term frailty in frailty using the term his ability to raise up one whose body had been corrupted. And so he left him there purposely that long four days so that there would be corruption to show that he could raise him up nonetheless.
Yeah, that's I believe brother Ted. That's correct because Romans one tells us that he was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection literally translated of dead ones, not just of his own resurrection, but the the great proof that he was who he was the Son of God could quicken whom he will begin in John five was that he raised Lazarus from the dead.
And so just before the crucifixion, he's coming to Jerusalem, everything ordered of God, Lazarus dies. He's there four days. Without a doubt, this man is dead. And that's another reason for the four days, no question.
00:20:18
It's a it's a funeral and mourning and who comes.
A great company from Jerusalem come. There's a huge crowd there. God orders that too. He gives those four days for this crowd to gather because he is going to give the last great final witness to the fact that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
And he raises him from the dead and they reject that proof. They even want to kill Lazarus, put him back in the grave to to obliterate that. So he goes on into Jerusalem and he presents himself as Messiah.
And they say as much. Come down from the full of the ***. Stop these praises.
They reject him as Messiah. Then he says the Son of Man.
And they say, who is this Son of man? They reject him in those two chapters, the Son of God as Messiah and Son of Man. But the first great testimony is that he's the Son of God in Chapter 11. It was the last great witness Jerusalem had.
And further to that, we could point out that if there were any further witness needed.
God provides it and it's recorded in Matthew's Gospel that after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, it says many bodies of the Saints which slept the Rose and went into the holy city and appeared unto many. So as you say, brother Ted, whether it were four days or four years.
Or 4000 years, or whatever it was, there was a clear demonstration of God's power to raise the dead after corruption had set in. So there was absolutely no question for those who wanted to see it, that here was the power of resurrection embodied in the Lord Jesus.
Just to just to say it again, because I think I found these things kind of difficult. Hades is the condition of the spirit and soul separated from the body.
And unless we have additional context in the verse where it's mentioned, we don't know if it's a place of torment or a place of blessing. We need the additional context to know which way that soul went. Hell is the lake of fire where it's properly translated. Hell, it's the lake of fire, and there's no one in hell today.
No one.
The first ones that are going to be there are going to be the beast and the false prophet cast alive into the lake of fire, and the dead raised later on to receive judgment. All will be there. It's a place created for Satan and his angels, and he certainly will end up there too. But right now there's no one in the lake of fire. There's no one in hell, properly speaking. So people say the expression to die and go to hell.
Not yet die, yes, but Hades is the place, whether torment or blessing is, whether you've received Christ or not.
But hell, properly speaking, the lake of fire awaits the future.
I like the term the holy one.
Jehovah's holy One.
We know from the New Testament scriptures in him was number sin. He did no sin and he knew no sin. He was the perfect, holy spotless Lamb of God. Perfect.
Perfect sacrifice, the perfect substitute for you and for me, and for whosoever will wasn't he. Amen. And for that reason God did not let him see corruption.
Not one touch of sin on him, ever.
Other than when he bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
Amazing thing to think of God raising him from the dead, justification and taking him back to heaven. Proof that the work was completely done.
And waiting for the day when he'll bring him back as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
00:25:06
Scripture is so exact when we have a record of the mana falling or coming from heaven.
Didn't fall directly on the Earth, did it? Fell on the Duke. So that's another proof of what our brother Robert was saying concerning.
The holiness of the Lord Jesus. We think of that first, that holy thing which shall be born, and so.
How careful scripture is to maintain that?
But especially too when there is something connected with sin of the judgment of it or corruption that would be brought in because of it potentially. And so the Spirit of God is so jealous to guard the Lord's nature in these cases. I was just thinking too, what we have with the sin offering in Leviticus chapter 6. It brings in there the law of the offerings and the Spirit of God.
Guards it very jealously there as well, and tight. And there in Leviticus chapter 6 it says.
In verse.
The right verse in verse 25 speak unto Aaron and to his son, saying, This is the law of the sin offering. In the place where the burnt offering is killed. Shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord? It is most holy.
The Lord is an offering for sin and type with his sacrifice.
And it brings it out very specially in connection with it. You see the next chapter in the law of the trespass offering the same that He was most holy, never more holy, was the Lord Jesus. And when He was being made an offering for sin, and here in death, when corruption would have come in and affected any one of us, He spoken of as a holy one. There was no claim on Him, and it was not possible that He should be holding of it, Peter said.
He was above all of that, and of course we know the glory of the Father. We've been talking about that demanded He be raised some of the dead. But of his own self and His holy nature, there could be no touch, no mark on Him. And the Spirit of God points it out again here in the very term.
It's interesting to know too, in connection with the Lord's burial was to be a new tomb, wasn't it?
We read the account in the Old Testament of a body being thrown into a pit where the prophets bones were and life came. But that was not to be the case in connection with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It was a new tomb and.
They could not dispute the fact that it was a news new tomb and they had to accept.
What actually transpired?
In John's Gospel where we get those details.
Says in chapter 19 and verse 40. Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of Jews is to bury.
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre. Ran was never man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus.
Going back to Leviticus with the laws of the offerings.
And looking at the law of the burnt offering.
In Leviticus 6 again and verse 10.
The priest shall put on his linen garment and his linen breeches, and he shall put upon his flesh. Shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with a burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place. Isn't that striking? It says of the cross. There was a garden right by where he was crucified, and that's where they took the body of the Lord Jesus, and they laid it in a clean place, and the priest was to take the ashes.
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Having himself wrapped in that clean linen garment, you think of the Lord's body wrapped in that clean linen.
And the ashes were to be laid right beside the altar, Right beside the cross was that garden. And we know that the Lord was crucified outside the camp. And so then he was to take those ashes without the camp into a clean place. And that grave also not only break the side to the cross, it was outside the camp and it was a clean place.
Where they laid him, what are?
Ashes. Ashes are the witness of a completed and accepted sacrifice. The work was done. As our brother mentioned, he said it is finished. It didn't need any more to be done. It was done. Ashes are the testimony of a completed and accepted sacrifice. Sometimes we enjoy.
The thought and it's very right.
That in the Old Testament the fire consumed the sacrifice, but that the Lord Jesus on the cross consumed and exhausted the fire. Very true. But there is something for our souls as we look at the burnt offering and see it completely reduced to ashes, that conveys to our soul the intensity of what He endured on that cross and how completely everything went up to God. There was nothing.
Left it all, went up to him and a hymn writer wrote. And I think it's so beautiful. I've been to the altar and witnessed the lamb burnt wholly to ashes for me, and seen its sweet savour send up on high, accepted, O God, by thee. It's beautiful to go back and look at the ashes, the sacrifices completed.
The sacrifice was accepted.
Yes, God protects the.
Person of his beloved son, although he became an offering for sin.
Yet once the work of redemption was complete, once the soldier had pierced his side, God never allows wicked hands to touch the body of His beloved Son. God provides a rich man by the name of Joseph to put him in the new tomb, as we have been saying, and along with Nicodemus, they bury the Lord Jesus once the work was done. And God never allows.
Wicked hands to touch the Lord Jesus and so.
All of these things put together make the preciousness of himself and that work that he did more complete, don't they?
Well, the last verse of our chapter is also very precious.
Thou wilt show me the path of life.
For the Lord Jesus it was indeed a path of life, and it ends, as we see in the latter part of the verse. In thy presence is fullness of joy.
If the Lord Jesus on earth had God the Father at his right hand so that he would not be moved.
Then God the Father says, I will exalt him to my right hand.
And that's where he is today. And so you and I must.
Remember that.
It is a risen Christ who is our object. It is a Christ to walk through this world who is our pattern, but it is a risen Christ who is our object. And so when it's a question of showing us the path of life, yes, we see that blessed One in every step of his pathway down here, going through all the circumstances to which God had.
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Ordained him.
And as we have said earlier in these meetings, he goes through it as the perfect dependent man.
But then what is the end of the pathway?
In thy presence is fullness of joy.
Is there joy down here? Indeed there is. Was there joy in the pathway of the Lord Jesus down here? Indeed there was. But at the same time He was, and in that sense had to be, the Man of sorrows. He was the Man of sorrows because of His love, because of what He saw in the world around him, the ruin that sin had brought in, even though He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.
He weeps at the grave of Lazarus and the Lord Jesus no doubt felt every day of his life the awful sadness and heartache and ruin that sin had brought into this world, and none could realize it but He in its fullness. But in the coming day He will be the man of joy, and you and I will share that joy with Him. In Thy presence is fullness of joy.
Now, we don't want to be misunderstood.
If we turn over to John's Gospel for a moment.
John 17.
Verse 13.
And now I come to thee, or come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world that they might have.
My joy fulfilled in themselves. So the Lord Jesus wants us to have joy down here, and it's right that we should, and it's right that we should have His joy.
But it is the joy that he had. Who for the joy that was set before? And what joy was that?
The joy of doing the Father's will.
But then in a coming day, there will be fullness of joy.
In a little different way up there we will do His will perfectly because we will no longer have an old sinful nature, but the fullness of joy will result in the perfect rest that God will give for all eternity.
I enjoyed the expression in the hymn that our brother gave out at the end of the meeting this morning.
Oh, bright and blessed seems where sin can never come, And if you go down a few verses it says our God the center is his presence fills that land, and countless myriads owned as his round him adoring stand. But then in the next verse it says.
Our God, whom we have known well known in Jesus love.
Rests in the blessing of His own before Himself. Above God will rest you and I will rest, and the fullness of joy will be in His heart to see the blessing of His own, and in your heart and mind to see our blessed Savior given His rightful place and to enjoy.
And to see all his glory, fullness of joy.
In the 15th chapter of John's Gospel, the Lord not only speaks of his love, but He speaks of his joy.
Looking at.
Verse 10 If you keep my commandments, He shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.
That your joy might be full.
But could someone give a little description?
Of what the current scene in heaven is like from Christ being risen again, ascended, seated at the right hand.
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Perhaps a little bit of his activity, what he's doing now and what is the anticipation is I think would be very helpful if someone could give a outline of what that scene in heaven is now and the place that Christ is regard to Christ is held in there. If someone could give a little outline of that, I think that'd be helpful.
Well, I'll say something, and others perhaps can add to it, but we know that the Lord Jesus has been raised from the dead and ascended up to heaven, and he is now seated there at God's right hand, Seated because the work is done. As we've often remarked, no priest in the Old Testament could ever sit down in the temple or the Tabernacle.
The work was never finished, but the Lord is seated there, as we get four times over in the book of Hebrews in virtue of the work being done.
And we know, and we had that before us already, that the Lord Jesus is there now. And I believe his activity on your part and mine is both as high priest and advocate as high priest to intercede for us because of our infirmities. We had that before us in the open meeting. He's there as our advocate in order to restore us.
If we sin, and as we have often remarked before, the Spirit of God in the Word of God never assumes that the believer will sin because we have been given everything to enable us not to sin. Sad to say, we do, and as our advocate, the Lord is there acting for us.
Now, are there other things that the Lord does?
I believe he does from other scriptures. We know, of course, that while God does not openly intervene in the affairs of the world today.
So that men make a mockery of it and say, if God is really a God of love, why does he allow the awful suffering in the world today? Why doesn't he deal with it?
Either he can't do it, in which case he's not God, or he won't do it, in which case I hate the thought of the word. But they call him a monster for allowing things to go on.
No, God is allowing man to see the results of their having rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, while at the same time proclaiming a message of salvation and redemption in the message of repentance for those who will listen.
But in the meanwhile, through the angels and through the administration, the Lord Jesus.
I believe is still upholding all things by the word of its power, and as we get in Colossians by him, all things subsists. So all of those things he is doing up there, He is looking after us in every way up there as our high priest and our advocate. But he's waiting for that day to come when the Father gives him the word to come and call us home.
And no doubt as soon as that word is given, he will get up from that seat.
And will come and call us home. Now that's rather a short summary, but maybe someone can enlarge on it.
I don't know if I could enlarge on it, but I always been a little troubled by there's a line in one of the hymns in the Little Block hymn book that said thou art a blessed rest preparing, as if the Lord's up there, you know, building mansions for us or something. But as you said, the Scripture shows him seated.
When he said that I go to prepare a place, it was his going that prepared the place. He's not doing anything. It was his going there that prepared a place for us. Is that right?
As soon as the sun stepped back into that place as a man, our place as man was prepared.
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Cautions also tells us that he's hidden God.
Our life is hid with Christ in God. He's going to be manifest in the coming day once again. And when he is?
Then we will be too. He also is the occupation of the departed Saints.
Absent from the body, present with the Lord to depart to be with Christ.
Far better so in some way he is the present occupation of the Saints who have.
Departed this scene and are waiting with us for the realization of our hope when he comes.
We have that wonderful verse in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 11. We shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.
There's a sense of anticipation, isn't there? Waiting for that day when he can claim that Blood bought pride.
Does exactly what is entailed in that I couldn't say, but I know he's waiting.
There's a question, and I hope I don't open up a can of worms here right at the end, but I am curious.
In the first part of verse 11 it says Thou wilt show me the path of life.
In Acts 2, when Peter quotes the Scripture, he says Thou hast shown me.
The path of life.
Anyone have thoughts on why the difference?
Here it's our wilt, and there it's thou hast.
I learned a long time ago not to comment on something I hadn't meditated on, so I have no thought on it.
Well, Peter is given that by the Spirit of God, and he says it after the cross. It was an accomplished fact by then, but here it's spoken of before it happened.
Lord could speak in John's Gospel about a work that would be finished.
Even before we have the record of it being accomplished, and I think it's something of the same thing.
And one more little comment. Our time is nearly gone, but.
I suggest the thought, I hope it's the right one, that the Spirit of God, as we said earlier, I believe took David beyond.
What was normally the experience of an Old Testament believer? Someone has made the comment and it was a good one. I heard it 40 years ago or more that the Old Testament as far as the interval between death and resurrection was concerned, and as far as the precious truth that you and I enjoy. The Old Testament was like a dark night, but where God allowed occasional flashes of lightning to illuminate the whole countryside for a moment.
And then all was dark again, and I believe this is one of those flashes of lightning.
Because here David says in thy presence is fullness of joy. That is the fullness of joy in heaven will not be. And brother Steve has already commented on it and Ted too. It will not be the place, but rather the person that makes the place and.
One of our dear brethren again in our written ministry, said.
Even more precious than the glory will be the celebration of the grace that brought us there.
And in that grace, or rather in that person of Christ, we will see.
Forever, for all eternity manifested the beauty of all that that grace has done.
In thy presence is fullness of joy, but going beyond that, or I shouldn't say beyond it, but linking with it.
At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
The Lord very gladly and happily gives us the enjoyment of these things. Now we've talked about it.
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The Lord Jesus.
Is not only the portion of our inheritance, but also our cup.
The present enjoyment of all those things, but in that day there will be perfect enjoyment and pleasure in every possible way. Every possible realization of your heart and mind will be there in the glory down here. Do we have pleasure? Yes, we do. We enjoy the things of Christ and even in natural things God has given us certain pleasures, the pleasures of.
A relationship with someone else.
The pleasures of His creation, the pleasures of things that He gives us out of the goodness, the mercies He gives us in our lives, these are all things that we enjoy, but they come to an end down here. Up there. The pleasure will be forevermore. Nothing will spoil it. Nothing will come to an end. It will be forevermore. Did David enter into the fullness of what that meant? I don't believe he did.
Did he know how all that would happen? No, he did not. He had to wait, and so did every other Old Testament St.
Dear Daniel got very wonderful prophecies and when he says to the Lord I heard, but I understood not the only answer he gets. Go thy way, Daniel for the book is sealed until the time of the end Daniel, you'll have to be content and the same thing is recorded in first Peter chapter one when they asked questions of the Lord when they wrote some of these things and made inquiries, the answer they got was.
You're writing for people in a future day. Who are those people? You and I.
We come into the enjoyment of all these things. What a blessed privilege that is. Despite the close with the words of a Tay, the get tight that we have in Second Samuel chapter 15.
And the middle part of verse 21, surely in what place my Lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.
I had just one little comment.
This Psalm begins. The introduction is Psalm 15. Who shall abide in thy Tabernacle? In Psalm 16, He's abiding in it. He's in the presence of the Lord and enjoying the presence of the Lord, and he's enjoying the ahead of time, the inheritance. In the end of the Psalm, he anticipates going into the presence of the Lord, and you know that it says of the Lord, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.
Despising the shame, it reminds me of Moses on Mount Pisgah.
There he is. Whose company is he enjoying on that mountain? It's the Lords, and the Lord, as it were, takes him in hand and he shows them all the inheritance.
All of it in company with himself, and he dies before the Lord. Where did he go?
He went from the presence of the Lord into the presence of the Lord, having enjoyed all the inheritance as the Lord laid it out before him. And it's the same pattern in this Psalm. He goes from the presence of the Lord, viewing all the inheritance in a present enjoyment of what's ahead, and he goes into the presence of the Lord.
#39 On his Father's throne is seated Christ the Lord, the living One. All is total on earth completed. All His work for Sinner is done in the glory, seeing God's eternal son #39.
All this father from the sea.
Praise the Lord of everyone.
Oh, it's hard.
Done.
Eternal.
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God Sing.
From from the glory. From the glory.
To the.
Real time.
Well.
May we also sing the last two verses of #18 in the appendix?
#18 in the appendix verses 3:00 and 4:00.
Yeah, it must be.
Now.
Naaman, 2 Kings 5
Gospel—Kevin House
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Like to welcome everybody to the Gospel meeting this evening. Perhaps we could start by singing a song together here off of our hymn sheet #14 if another would start it for us. Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
The question is, have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Perhaps another would raise the tune please.
Have you Jesus?
Praise himself or you watched in the block of life.
For you all in the love in the soul of antiques.
Are you walking daily by the Savior side? Are you lost in the glory of the world?
Do you rise in someone in the grocery? All you ask in the world?
Will your soul be ready for the hand turns right, and be washed in the blood of the blood?
For you all.
In my soul, when people love the world.
Hold your father and stop it by your hands. How are you watching the world of the world?
The only person that can answer that in this room tonight is you. I don't know whether you are washed in the blood of the lamb.
I hope that you are. I'm thankful to be able to say that I am. You know what? I can say that on the basis of the word of God.
And it would be wonderful if every single person in this room that's old enough to understand could say, I am washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's let's ask for his help in prayer, particularly for me, but for you too, that you'll be able to listen to the word of God. Let's pray together.
God and Father were each one that is thine is thankful to be able to sing this hymn to be able to answer yes we are washed in the blood of the lamb. Just thank thee for the excellence of the Lord Jesus and just ask for help tonight to be able to bring out that word that that would have and then it would be able to convict any here that is still in the dark. There's still outside of the enjoyment of that wonderful love.
That is having thy heart, and that is give thy beloved Son the Lord Jesus.
To give his life, to provide salvation, that whosoever will may come. Just thank thee for thy grace. Just pray that each one that is thine might be in the enjoyment of it tonight. Just ask now. Father, in Jesus precious name, Amen.
Well, let's open the Word of God here together this evening.
To First Timothy.
First Timothy, chapter 2.
In verse 3.
Says For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved.
And to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom to be testified in due time.
We're getting these verses here. The heart of God, towards you and towards me.
You know what?
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If people measure tonight, I have in my heart towards you a care.
That you would be able to understand a little bit of the heart of God towards you.
Maybe you'll be able to perceive that. Maybe you'd be totally unaware of it. That's not what's important.
What's important is do you recognize that God loves you? He loves you and it's His desire that you will be saved and come to know Him.
Notice the verse in the Psalms that says God has spoken, you know, back home.
In our reading meetings, Uncle Rob pointed out some time ago, the people put build all kinds of devices to listen into outer space to see if there's any kind of voice or some kind of pattern that's coming in from aliens or something like that. But God has spoken.
We have His word. Does it mean something to you that God cares about you, not just everyone else? It's so personal. He cares about you and He wants you to be saved. You know, I had the privilege when I was a little boy getting down beside my bed.
Asking the Lord Jesus to save me because I recognized I was a Sinner. I needed to be saved. What about you?
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? We know what it is to take a bath, right? When I was a boy, I like to avoid taking baths. I figured that once a week was plenty for me. My mom and dad didn't think so. They seemed to think that I needed to have to be washed a little more than that. We know what it means to be washed, and after we're washed, it feels good to be clean and we like to get dirty again. But when we're washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus, it's not something we have to do over and over again. The blood of Jesus Christ is.
Once and for all to take away every sin, so that when God looks at you and looks at me.
He sees spotless.
I noticed on my sleeve, here on my arm, I managed to get a spot on my sleeve. My sleeve isn't spotless anymore, it's dirty. We know what that means too, to be dirty.
But when the Lord Jesus does his work, we are clean once and for all, and it's His desire that we would be. He doesn't want anyone to be lost.
Not even one.
Do you recognize that God loves you?
You know, if we turn over to the book of one John.
I, John. Chapter 4.
Verse nine. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him, through Him. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Over to verse 16 says and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. Verse 18 there is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because.
He first loved us, He first loved us. He first loved me. He first loved.
You How important am I in this world of all the billions of people?
Am I important? No. But God loves me and he cares about you. He cares if you stubbed your toe.
He cares if you're feeling laughed out, you know. He doesn't want anyone to be left out of his home, to be able to enjoy his son for all eternity. He doesn't want you to be left out. He wants you to be able to enjoy that love.
But he's not going to force you.
He's not going to twist your arm further and further until you finally give in, he pleads with you.
Come, come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
You know, sometimes we're tired. There's a lot of Labor in this world. There's a lot of care. There's a lot of pressure.
Sometimes we're weary.
Lord wants us to come to Him with those burdens. You know, I remember reading in Pilgrim's Progress.
Though Christian on his way to the Celestial city, and had a burden on his back, it was heavy, and the burden of sin is heavy, says a man shall be holding with the cords of his sins.
And I used to like to go out in the woods, do some work in the brush after school. There's a lot of people at school, a lot of pressures. Just go outside and be away from everything and just enjoy. The Lord is a maid.
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You know, I was out there one day and I found a little tree. It reminded me of a little child. The tree was maybe this tall, only maybe 4 feet. You know, the little tree was dead.
And it was dead because there was a little vine, little vine that started out real small and it grew and it grew around the tree, and it went around the tree and around the tree and around the tree. And it had leaves on it. And eventually that vine, it covered the entire tree and it blocked out all the light and it killed that tree. And I saw that. I thought, wow, a little tree was holding with the cord of that vine. And that's like a little child or an adult, whoever you might be.
Sin will wrap around you, and we'll try to hold you captive.
And there's only one person that can set you free from your sins, that's the Lord Jesus. You know, if you continue on, let that vine continue to grow, it's going to end an eternal death for you. So happen that little tree. And I was sad to see that, but it was a lesson for me right before my eyes of the effect.
What sin can do because that tree died because of sin. It wasn't for sin. There wouldn't have been death. The little tree was dead. Now how about you? Is there some kind of sin that's holding you down, keeping you back from the Lord Jesus that you would rather have instead of Him?
It's not worth it. There's nothing.
That's going to be able to satisfy your heart. Other than the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing else.
You know, I know that satisfaction, and yet sometimes foolishly, I go to other things to try to fill me up, and I try and try and fill myself and I'm empty. You know, if you don't have the Lord Jesus, if you don't know Him, you're not satisfied. You can try to distract yourself with many things, but it won't work.
You'll just have to try something bigger and bigger until you realize you have nothing.
And we read these verses here in first John 4.
Because it talks about the love of God towards ourselves.
But can you personally enter into verse 16? We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
If any of you have listened in Sunday school at all, or if your parents read the Bible, you're going to know that God loves you. But do you believe it for yourself that God loves me?
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
You know what if you knew everything about me? All the wrong things I've ever done in my life.
Might look at me a little differently, and probably rightfully so, but you know what? God knows all of that.
He knows everything about you and he still loves you.
Such grace.
Let's turn over to Titus.
That is chapter 3.
We read from verse 3.
For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish.
Disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
The being justified by his grace.
We should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
There's another scripture that says in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
You know, a lot of you children, perhaps young people, have been raised in Christian families. Not everyone.
But often when we are raised in a place of protection safety, it's easy for us to think.
That we're really not totally sinful, but there's something in there.
That's good. You know, my pride in my flashlights, to think that there's something in me that's good.
That's not true.
In me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. You know, I wasn't guilty of killing people or maybe stealing a lot of stuff or doing some things they might think are really, really bad.
You know in this list here.
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We have some things that even as a boy I knew I was guilty of. Boy's ever been foolish.
I certainly have been about disobedient.
Anybody ever been disobedient?
Anybody ever not been disobedient?
All of us are guilty of the things on this list. How about deceived?
Serving divers lusts and pleasures, trying to satisfy ourselves apart from God.
Living in malice and envy. How many people ever go to a birthday party of someone else and feel kind of a little envious at the presence that they got? You know, that's sin.
Do you recognize that you're a Sinner? You recognize in God's sight? Maybe in my sight. Maybe I see you doing kind things. I don't know what's in your heart, but God knows. Maybe there was a Lego set that your brother got.
You wanted to have it.
How both hateful and hating one another.
You know my brother's not here. You know what? My brother got delight out of making me angry.
You know what? There was a time in my life when I hated him.
Nobody else knew.
But I did, and God knew it. I hated him.
He delighted in me being upset and frustrated.
That was sin.
By the Lord's grace, he gave that to change.
It's wrong to hate, right? Lord Jesus says if we hate our brother, it's like we've committed murder in our heart.
So I was guilty of far worse than I thought.
How about you? Do you recognize that when God looks at you, He sees right down into the very depth of your heart? He knows everything that's there.
And He wants you to be able to bring that out into the light and be in His presence perfectly at rest.
Are you?
You know, we had in the readings about setting the Lord always before me.
We recognize if the Lord is right at your right hand, you know which hand is your right hand.
Some people have a hard time telling which is their right and their left. If the Lord is right there, he's right beside you.
If the Lord is there.
And he knows everything. Are you comfortable?
Are you rejoicing in that? Is that something that is marvelous to your heart, or is it something that kind of makes you?
You like you like? You'd like to get somewhere else in a hurry?
He wants you to be able to enjoy fellowship with him.
You can't have it in the darkness, That's impossible. It has to be in the light.
And so the kindness and love of God our Savior appear.
Does it mean something to your heart?
That God wants you to know the love and the kindness He has towards you.
Or is it just, boy, when this meeting is done, I'm going to be able to go play dodgeball. It's going to be amazing.
This is something that is going to be forever. It's not a game that begins and ends. As fun as a game might be. What about your soul?
That's not just over at the end of the night, it goes on forever. Your soul will never end.
And the Lord wants you to be able to be enjoyment with him of His son.
But he doesn't force you.
I'd like to go back to the Old Testament for a story here.
In Second Kings chapter 5 it's a well known story to many of us. I didn't know what to speak about.
Spraying about that.
We had in our reading meeting that the Lord instructs us in the night.
Last night I woke up.
Use the washroom.
And the story came into my mind.
Now how would this story come into my mind when I'm going to use the washroom in the middle of the night?
I hadn't been reading it in some time.
The Lord can answer our prayers.
He cares about our needs, whatever they are, and I experienced that last night.
He cared about me, you know. He cares about you too.
00:20:01
Let's read this together.
It's about a man who was a Gentile who was afar off from the promises of God.
He had leprosy, which is a type of sin.
And he was an enemy of the people of God, and God reached out and loved to him. He's reaching out to you tonight. Let's just read this chapter together. Second Kings 5, verse one.
Now name and captain of the host of the king of Syria was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance, sent to Syria. He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper.
And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive over the land of Israel a little maid. And she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, What God, my Lord, or with the prophet that is in Samaria? For he would recover him of his leprosy, when one went in and told his Lord, saying thus. And thus said the maid, that is, of the land of Israel.
And the king of Syria said, Go to go, I will send a letter into the king of Israel. And he departed and took with him 10 talents of silver, and 6000 pieces of gold, and 10 changes of Raymond. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is coming to thee, behold, I have therewith sent name and my servant to thee. But thou mayst recover him of his leprosy that came to pass when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God to kill and to make a life, that this man.
Descend unto me to recover a man of his leprosy.
Wherefore consider I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. And it was so when Elijah the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know there is a prophet in Israel. So Naiman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the House of Elijah. And Elijah sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan 7 times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
But Naaman was wroth and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand and call in the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not abandoned on far part rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage, and his servants came near and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?
How much rather than when he saith unto thee, Wash and be clean.
Then when he down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God, and his flesh came again like under the flesh of a little child, he was clean.
Stop there.
As we said, here's this man naming.
He's a strongman.
But he has a problem. The problem is he has an incurable disease, leprosy. You know, just like sin, you're not going to be able to go to any doctor to be able to get fixed of your problem with sin. Nobody can cure you of sin. Leprosy must be cleansed, not cured.
You know what? There was a little girl.
A little girl who had faith.
We learned in the New Testament that there weren't other lepers who had been cleansed before.
In the land of Israel. But this little girl, she cared for someone else.
Perhaps the man who had captured her and taken her away.
She had the spirit of Christ towards her Master and she wanted something good for him. Imagine being captured and taken away, taken away from your family, made to be a little servant for someone else and to think of.
Trying to do good towards that person.
This little girl had a tremendous spirit.
You know, she had a message that.
Brought tremendous blessing to Naaman and she just said to her mistress.
If Neiman went to the Prophet, he could make the mall better.
She was right, but it was by faith.
It wasn't because she had seen it happen before. It was by faith. You know, it's hard to keep good news to ourselves. It's a privilege to be able to share it.
And there's many kids, if you go to school, have no idea about the Lord Jesus, you could tell them.
So Naaman winds up in front of the most important man of Israel, the king.
00:25:04
What could the king offer Name. All he could do is tear his clothes.
If you go to important people in this world that are really smart.
They cannot save you.
You know what? There is an answer, and the word came from the Prophet. Send him to me.
The Lord was able to help Naaman with his problem.
We were talking about that problem being the problem of sin.
Your Naaman was willing to recognize that he had a problem, and so he was willing to look for help.
You know, I naturally like to do things myself.
How about you?
My little daughter was two years old. She would say it.
I'm going to do it myself.
And do it myself. We cannot save ourselves. We have to have the Lord Jesus save us. We cannot.
Save Ourselves name. And he was willing to acknowledge he needed help. You know what? We need to acknowledge that too, if we're going to have help.
So he came to the House of Elijah, and he came with his own ideas.
I know what he'll do. He'll come out and he'll do some big fancy thing and put his hand over the place and then I'll get all better.
But that's not what happened. Instead, just a messenger came out. You know, tonight there's just a messenger.
To tell you about the love of God, it's not somebody important.
Just a messenger to say that God loves you and he has salvation for you if you'll receive it.
And the message was go wash in the Jordan 7 times and you'll be clean. It was a very simple message. The message of the gospel is not complicated. Whosoever will may come. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. It's not complicated.
God has made it so the little child can understand that when Jesus died on the cross and his blood was shed.
That that blood. God accepts it to wash your sins away. And if God says that, you're cleansed.
What does it matter what anyone else says?
If God says it's true.
But you know what? Naman had his own idea. That's not the way it should be. Not just a simple messenger. The Jordan River is dirty. I don't like that way of salvation. And so he turned, and he went away in a rage. And I would expect the general of an army, if he's in a rage, it would be quite the thing to behold.
You know what? There were some people in his life. They were servants. They weren't real important people.
But they cared about naming.
And they cared that Naaman would be better. And so they came to him and they asked him.
If the Prophet had asked you to do something great thing, you would have done it. But he just asked you to do something so simple, wash and be clean.
I don't know about you, but I've been upset before when someone speaks to you. When you're upset, sometimes you don't listen the best right away. Sometimes it takes a little time.
Settle down a little bit to recognize that what the person said is true. You know what? By the Lord's grace.
Naman. He listened. He listened.
And he recognized these people that cared about him were right.
He needed to try it.
You need to try it for himself. Wasn't good enough for other people to go into wash. He needed to go himself. And so I don't know whether he turned his chariot or whatever. Anyway, he ended up at the Jordan River. They had to go down into that water. Most likely. It was kind of dirty water, just like he expected, and he had to wash.
In that water he had to go under. He came up.
And it wasn't cleansed and he had to go down again.
Six times.
Maybe it was on his arm. He could look at the spot and say it's still not cleansed.
I want to add to the word of God. I remember listening to a tape. The sister who read made these stories for us and.
She said one of the servants may have said.
He said seven times, Sir.
So he went down that 7th time.
And when he came up.
Flesh was like the flesh of a little child.
You don't expect Naaman was a very young man. I don't know how old he was, but generally as we get older, our skin doesn't get nicer. It gets wrinkly and maybe a little rougher. You know, the skin of a little child is so soft and so smooth.
00:30:16
You know that there was new life here that was given to Naaman. His leprosy was gone. He was cleansed. You know, he could look at that spot wherever it was. We're not told when there was on his forehead or on his arm or leg. Wherever he had, it was gone. You know what, when we're washed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, our sins are totally gone. You know nickname and regretted listening to his servants.
I think he would have rather kept his rage, went home, not humbled himself.
Not a chance.
Think anybody in this room that has accepted the Lord Jesus would say, oh boy, I really wish I hadn't done that. It was a terrible decision, no.
No one that has ever come to the Lord Jesus and that has been saved and said I wish I wasn't.
When we're clean, it's wonderful.
You know what? Naman had to humble himself and go down.
And have to be very old before we can be pretty proud.
Are you willing to humble yourself to accept God's offer of salvation for you?
You know we didn't read it.
But in the next story.
Going on further in the chapter, there's a man named Gehazi.
You know Gehezi, he was brought up or he had the opportunity of serving Elijah.
Read later on of how he was in the presence of the king, telling all the miracles.
That Elijah had done.
He got to watch.
You know Naaman comes back after he's cleansed.
And he wants to worship. He wants to worship the Lord. And if you're saved?
It's appropriate that you would desire to worship the Lord. There would be a response in your heart back to Him. He's done so much for you, for me.
Name and he wanted to give something to the prophet, but the prophet said no, I don't need anything. You can't pay anything for the blessing of God.
You know what? His eye, he looked at all this and he said I want to get something for myself.
So he decided he'd run after it.
So he runs after name and after name and leaves, and he makes up a lie, a story to help him to get what he wants.
Later on in the chapter it talks about men, servants and maidservants and vineyards and olive yards and garments and sheep and oxen.
You know, Gehezi, he didn't desire to have that relationship with God. He desired to have something for himself apart from God.
You know, he went out and he got it for himself.
Then he came back to the man of God and acted like nothing had happened.
Everything's fine.
And Elijah, he has to say, when not my heart with thee.
You know his eye went out from the presence of Elijah, a leper as white as snow.
You know, in this story we have two men, one that started with leprosy.
And got to know the Lord and ended up being a worshiper and one that was raised in a tremendous or given a tremendous privilege. I apply it to you children, young people that have grown up hearing the word of God.
And then to go and to look away from God to something else to satisfy your heart.
Porgy's eye. All he gets is leprosy.
What a contrast.
You know God desires for each one of us.
That we would know him, That we would come to the knowledge of the truth. That we'd be able to spend eternity.
Enjoying what he enjoys to be with him.
Which one are you?
Name and or gaze I.
I don't deserve to be in name and shoes.
By the Lord's grace, I am.
Many here are we have the privilege of being like Naaman to be able to return and to worship the Lord just like the leper of the dead. It gave thanks to God for saving him.
00:35:04
But is there someone tonight?
That when you look on the Lord Jesus Christ.
You think he's not enough to satisfy my heart? I've got to have something else.
You know, there's something else out there that's going to fill me. No, it's not. It's not.
I'd like to read maybe just one more verse before we sing #19 and in the reading meeting back home, John chapter 6.
Because I remember when I was a little boy, I went to gospel meeting. Somebody would give the gospel and I would wonder if I was really saved or not.
You know, this verse in John chapter 6 and verse 37 brought me tremendous peace. Perhaps there's a little one here.
And you don't feel peace in your heart. You've tried to trust in the Lord, but you're just not sure. John 6 and verse 37 all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Here's the part that I want you. If you can memorize this for yourself, you can repeat it to yourself whenever you have doubts. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast down.
Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast down if you have come to the Lord Jesus.
He will never cast you out. Can you rest in that?
That if you come to him, he's going to take you.
And perhaps you've had opportunity to be rejected in some way.
Rejection is a hard thing.
And if you're saying no to the Lord Jesus, that's what he's experiencing tonight, rejection from you. But if you come to him, he won't reject you. He'll take you. That's amazing.
But he's not going to force you. He just says come.
So let's sing #19 together.
Another would raise the tune of #19.
I saw her.
In the.
Sun.
The Christ. And so it's hard. It's hard. No, it's hard no more.
For me, their love and life and love and joy.
More.
The.
Before we pray, if you've never told somebody that you believed in the Lord Jesus.
You need to tell somebody. We confess with our mouth. It also helps us have peace.
We tell somebody that we have believed in the Lord Jesus.
You know we don't know.
How much time we have.
And I was in grade three, came to school one day, and there was a little girl who didn't come to my class.
She had died the night before.
Grade 3 is not very old.
Don't think you have lots of time.
We do not have any guarantee of time.
It's important that you decide to accept the Lord Jesus yourself now.
Do not put it off.
Burdens
Children—James House
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning everybody. I'm excited for Sunday school. I'm a little bit nervous, so to help me cover my nerves.
Who has the number they want to start with? Yes.
59 So the kids on the front row have the Sunday school books. For everybody else, this is a Memory test. 59 Let's talk about Jesus. Let's talk about Jesus.
The King of Jesus.
I pray, I am praying that simple life in the Lord.
We shall see. We shall hear.
More.
Anybody else?
Yes, Sir.
#28.
#28.
For God, so long.
It's on the Sunday night. What glory has no faith.
The excellent #8 #8.
#8.
Angry Birds.
So they bring some stuff with me this morning.
Does it look, does it look interesting, Avery? Well, hopefully this. I'm going to need some help. I'm going to need some volunteers. Does anybody here know how to read?
Oh good, because I'm going to need some help reading some Bible verses to read.
Maybe before we go any further so I don't forget, I'll ask the Lord Jesus for his help, OK?
God and Father and Lord Jesus, I ask for help this morning.
To present the message that's on my heart. We pray that you'd help me to listen to your word, help each of the kids, help everybody here to listen with open ears and open hearts. I ask for help, for strength and for calm and peace in Jesus name, Amen.
All right, how about one more and then we'll start into the lesson.
Yes.
39.
#39.
I am so glad that our Father.
Wonderful things in my Bible.
Jesus loves me. Jesus loves me. I'm so tired. Like Jesus was me. Jesus was in front of me.
Yes, it was my.
I am so glad that you're supposed to speak Jesus of Jesus.
I am so proud that it was so sick. She is a so sick of me.
So this morning I would like to talk about burdens.
You might say I have a burden to talk about burdens.
Now a burden is something that you have to carry. That's really heavy.
And up here at the front, I have a lot of different burdens. And this morning, our lesson has two parts. There's a part here for people, for kids, maybe for teenagers, maybe for adults, but mostly for the kids who have never asked the Lord Jesus Christ to take their sins away. They've never asked him to be their savior. And then there's going to be a second part.
00:10:12
For the kids, the teenagers, the adults. Hopefully for everybody, but mostly for the kids who have asked the Lord Jesus to take their sins away, who know that someday the Lord Jesus is going to take them to heaven.
So burdens. The first burden I want to talk about is the burden of sin.
But maybe before I get started, I'm going to hand out the verses.
I have 8 verses that need to be read. Can I get some volunteers?
All right, there's one for you.
One for you.
One for you and one for you.
So when it's your turn to read, I'll come over and I'll try to maneuver the microphone without deafening everybody and you can read.
So the first burden that we're going to read about is the burden of. We're going to talk about the burden of sin, so.
I've got three rocks here.
And in my pocket I have my wallet.
Now my wallet's not very thick.
I know a guy lived down the street from me. I used to work for him and his wallet is about that thick and somehow he puts that wall in his back pocket and he hopped in his truck and he drives around with it. I don't know how he does it because I wouldn't be able to sit still with something that big in my back pocket.
And you know, I need some help here. Is your name Caleb? Does that feel very heavy? No. But you know what? On purpose. I left this in my pocket when I left home. And by the time we got here to Dorothy 8 hours later, this wallet was a burden. And I'm sure there's some smart Alec out there who would offer to lighten it for me, but just sitting on it for 8 hours in the car made it really uncomfortable.
So I have 3 burdens here.
And I need some volunteers to hold these burdens. Perfect. How about you three guys? So you need to stand up and put the burden in your back pocket. First of all, is it very heavy, Levi? No. What do you think, Owen? Is that a heavy burden? No. Well, we'll see how long these guys can carry their burdens for. All right, now that it's in your back pocket, you can sit down.
You don't have a back pocket? Oh.
Well.
I gave it to you. You can hold on to it. We'll see if it works if it's in your front pocket.
All right, your name, Quincy. How does that feel, Quincy?
It hurts. Oh, oh, right away. I thought maybe this would turn into a toughness competition, but I'm glad it hurts.
Now I need the person who has the verse from Isaiah 55. Is that you, Emily? You have that one. All right, just a SEC.
All right, can you read that? There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked. There is no peace to the wicked.
What makes us wicked? We are wicked when we sin, and the Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Sin is when we do what we want instead of listening to what God wants.
So when we do things like lying and cheating and disobeying and stealing and being mean and being angry, those are all different sins. And there's a lot more than that. And the Bible says that we've all done since. Now, Quincy, how's your back pocket feeling?
What's that?
Still kind of hurts.
But I thought you guys said those rocks weren't very heavy.
But is it comfortable to sit there? Would you like to hop in your car and drive home? No.
You see, God gave everybody here, He gave all you kids something called a conscience, and when you do something bad, something called sin.
Your conscience starts to poke you.
And it starts to say you shouldn't have done that. That was wrong. And because you guys have grown up with your parents reading you the Bible, you guys have a really good conscience. It works really well.
And your conscience makes it so that you don't have any peace.
00:15:02
Quincy here, sitting on the front row. He doesn't have any peace because he's got a pain in his bum. He can't sit. It's not comfortable. He's got a rock in his back pocket. And sin is like that. When we sin, it becomes a burden. Even if it's just something small. Even if you say I haven't done a lot of sins, or maybe the sins that I did, they aren't really bad. They're still a burden.
Now let's see.
Who did I give a paper to next?
Video. Which one's yours? All right so now we're going to read about a slightly worse burden this now the burden is going from a small one that these guys have in their back pocket. You can take it out of your pockets now.
So we're going from a small burden, but now the burden is going to get bigger because as we sin, do you think our conscience stops bothering us? If you sin enough, do you eventually get peace? What do you think? If you sin enough, you get peace? Well, eventually your sins all go away if you do enough of them. No, they just get bigger and bigger and bigger and worse and worse. So.
Cassandra.
Readers, for mine, nicknames, iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. Thank you. That's Psalm 38, verse four for anybody who wants to look it up. My iniquities are too heavy for me. So now I need another volunteer.
All right, Caleb.
Can you come pick this up for me?
Is that heavy? Well, now we're going to do something. Can I take your handbooks?
And you hold that. Maybe if you hold it with two hands, it'll feel better. What do you think?
You see?
After you sin.
You're stuck.
You can't just get rid of your sins.
So can you hold out your hand?
I need the one that's holding the bank.
See. Because there's all kinds of people out there and they think that maybe they can do something. Does this hurt?
Hopefully not too much.
Now can you put your other hand around this one?
Yeah, good.
You know, last night in gospel, Kevin said that you'll be held by your sins, you'll be tied up by your sins. Do you feel tied up, Caleb?
So is there anything that Caleb can do? You walk around a little bit?
Is he stuck? What do you think he says? Is he stuck? Yeah, he's stuck. Do you mind sitting down? He's stuck. He's got this big, heavy burden. And you know what? He's stuck. He can't get rid of it.
Now that big.
It's a very fancy bag. It's an old bag now, but it's made by a company called Coach. And I didn't know this until a few years ago, but apparently Coach bags are very nice. And you know what the Satan does that the devil, he holds it up. He holds sin up. And he says this is really nice, you should do this. And then when we reach out and we do something that God tells us not to, and we grab that sin and we do it.
We're stuck with it. And then the devil says, well, maybe you should do some more.
You grab some more and some more and some more, and your burden, the big heavyweight you have to carry, gets harder and harder to carry. It gets heavier and heavier.
Now what are we going to do?
So Caleb, are you enjoying carrying that, that big burden around? No. Why don't you just let go of your burden? Can you, can you stand up and show everybody how you can just let go?
Oh, he's stuck now. Maybe if he wiggled enough he could get out of my tape job. But Caleb needs somebody to help him.
He needs somebody to get him out of his burden, to take away his burden, so.
We're going to talk just one more thing about Burdens Vienna. Can you read the verse?
Sorry, there we go.
There is No Fear in the love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has performed.
Fear has torment, and when we carry our burden of sin, it makes us scared. It makes us scared of our parents. It makes us scared of our friends. It makes us scared of God. It makes us afraid of the Lord Jesus. And that's not what he wants. The Lord Jesus wants us to be close to him. He wants to be our friend.
00:20:14
He wanted so badly for us to be close to him that he went to the cross and he died, and he shed his blood so that all of our sins can be taken away.
Now.
Caleb can't get rid of his burden by himself. He's getting close because he's wiggling in his tape. But you know what? This is just an example. You can wiggle all you want to, and you'll never get rid of your burden of sin. You can try doing all the good things you want, and you'll never get out of your burden of sin.
So I need the person with a verse in.
Let's see, what's this one? Yes, if you could read that one, Paul.
Psalm 18, six and seven, I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were delivered from the pots. He called in trouble and I delivered you. Thank you. That is talking about the Lord, that's talking about God. And he said you called and I delivered you. And God says I'm the one who can take away that burden. So, Caleb, can you come on back up here?
He's still got his burden. And you know, there's another verse.
I think who has Matthew 1128? Is that you, Tom? Can you read that loudly?
Thank you. That's the Lord Jesus talking. He says, come to me, Caleb stuck. He has this burden. He has no way to get rid of it. But I have a pair of scissors. And if I'm careful, we can get rid of this burden in no time flat. And the Lord Jesus died on the cross to take away our burden of sin because he doesn't want us to be scared. He doesn't want us to have our conscience saying you've sinned.
You've done evil. You're bad.
The Lord Jesus doesn't want that. The Lord Jesus doesn't want us to be far away from him. He wants us to be close. And our burden of sin makes it so that we can't be close to him. There we go. Does that feel a lot better?
You know, Caleb feels a lot better now that his burden of sin is gone, or now that his burden of the purse is gone. And you know what?
If you go to the Lord Jesus.
And ask him to take your sins away. You will feel a lot better.
The first verse we read said that there's no peace.
If you have no peace, you're never happy inside. You've always got something that's like a pain inside. It feels really heavy in your heart. You can't really be happy.
And that's what sin does. That's what our burden of sin does. It ruins it so that we can't be happy. Sin ruins it so that we can't be happy with our friends, with our brothers and sisters, with our parents, and most of all with the Lord Jesus.
But the Lord Jesus doesn't want you to carry your burden of sin. He says, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If you feel like you have a big burden, if you feel like you have a small burden, everybody, whether you're big, whether you're small.
You can come to the Lord Jesus and He'll take your burden away, and he's able to take your burden away because He died on the cross. Take your burden of sin away.
All right.
So that's the first kind of burden.
And you know, if you've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, that's something that's awesome, that's something that's special, that's something that nobody can ever take away from you. You know, this burden of sin, the Bible says that as far as the East is from the West. That's how far God takes our transgressions, our sins, and takes them away from us. He takes them so far away we can never find them. And God takes our burden of sin and he gets rid of it.
He takes it away.
He says their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more, because God looks down and he sees you and he sees that you believe in the Lord Jesus and that you trust his blood to take your sins away. And he says you are saved. And he looks at you and instead of seeing your big heavy burden of sins, he takes that burden away. He gives you peace and joy in your heart. And he says, now I see the Lord Jesus when I look at you.
Wouldn't that be awesome?
00:25:00
For God to be able to look down from heaven and see the Lord Jesus.
His beloved Son who died on the cross to see him instead of your big burden of sins. And the Lord Jesus says that no one can pluck you out of his hand.
Now.
That was the part for people who've never asked the Lord Jesus to take their sins away. And you know, if you've never asked him to take your sins away, it's not hurt. But you have to realize two things. You have to realize that your sins are bad, awful, terrible. And you have to realize that the only person who can help you is the Lord Jesus. And right now in your chair, if you feel like you have a heavy burden.
Ask the Lord Jesus to take it away and He will. Don't wait. Don't keep hearing that burden.
So now.
For the kids, the teenagers, the adults, everybody who's saved. I want to share something else about burdens.
Sam, do you have the verse that says Psalm 55? Can you read that for us in a loud voice?
Thank you, Psalm 5522. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you.
See No.
I decided on.
I think Tuesday what I was going to talk about.
I was debating talking about something else, and I decided to talk about burdens. And then last night the Lord decided that I needed to be tested on what I was going to talk about. And so He's sending a snowstorm between US and our house. And that was a burden to me. I heard it about it at supper and I thought, I don't want to drive through a snowstorm.
It's no fun driving through snowstorms. It's hard.
It's stressful, especially after dark.
Takes a long time, You don't get home as fast in a snowstorm. And I began to have a burden in my heart. It wasn't a burden of sin.
It wasn't because my sins were on my heart, because my sins are gone. I asked the Lord Jesus to take them all the way many years ago. But I began to have a heavy feeling in my heart and it was no fun.
And so the Lord made me come to him and cast my burden on him. So has anyone here ever felt sad? Anyone here ever felt like there was something that they were worried about, something they didn't want to do, somebody they didn't want to see, something they were scared of? There's all kinds of different burdens that we can have, different things that bother us, different things that make us unhappy and after we're saved.
God doesn't want us to carry all these heavy burdens around. He wants us to take those burdens.
And throw them on him.
It's what we get to do once our sins are gone, once God is our friend, once the Lord Jesus is our Savior. He wants us to come close to Him and give our burdens to him. So now we've got different burdens. And Galatians.
Chapter 6 talks about burdens. He says everyone of you shall carry his own burden. So I need three more volunteers. You, Sir. And Warren. And you, Connor or Cody. What's that, Connor? All right, so we've got Connor and Cody and Warren. So here we have a freezer bag.
Here we have a Walmart bag.
And here we have Emma's purse.
Sorry.
Now, each of these burdens is different.
Do you think God is only able to look after just one kind of burden, Cody?
You can look after all the burdens, even if they're different. All right, so who wants to carry the purse?
Oh, yeah, you pointed to him. All right, I'm sorry. Who wants to carry the freezer bag? All right, And Warren, you get to carry the Walmart bag. Now, you know, that Walmart bag, it's not very fancy. And Connor here, he doesn't really like the flowery purse. But maybe there's some people here, they look at they look at Connor's burden and they think, hey, I want that burden.
That's a fancy burden. It's got a shiny handle and our shoulder strap and a nice buckle and flowers all over and I wish I had that burden.
But you know, does the Lord want us to look at other people's lives and say, I wish I was more like that kid? Or, you know, I wish I had that teenagers life or I wish I was more like my friend?
00:30:01
Is it heavy worn? No. Is it nice? No. There's Gatorade and windshield washer fluid for the trip home.
But you know what? Cody has a different burden. And inside of Warren's Walmart bank.
There's tools.
You know, maybe you look at some people and you say, oh, I don't want their burden, their burdens, like a Walmart bag. You can keep your burden.
But if that gets heavy worn, can you put it down?
Oh, you could. Because you see, after you're saved you aren't stuck. Before you get saved you're stuck with your sins. But after you're saved, you aren't stuck. You can take your burden and cast it on the Lord. So.
Don't drop it on your toes. Why don't you cast your burden away, Warren? You throw it away.
He threw his burden away. Good job, high five. He got rid of his burn. You want to throw your burden away? It says cast your burden on the Lord. Throw your burden away.
There we go. You want to throw your burden away. I know you do.
Don't throw it too far. Each one of these guys, they cast their burden away. They threw it all right, You can go sit down. Thank you, guys. You know, the Lord wants us to take our burden, whatever it is that's bothering us, and take it and throw it on him. He doesn't want us to carry it around.
Because sometimes our burdens can get so heavy to us that we say.
I'm really sad and maybe we start to think that the Lord doesn't love us and maybe we start to think that our parents don't love us.
And maybe we start to think that the Lord doesn't have a plan for us. All these different things can start to happen when we try to carry our burdens. But the Lord wants us to take our burdens and throw them on Him.
But there's one more type or one more part to this that I want to talk about.
Who has the verse in Galatians chapter 6? All right, Summer, can you read it with a loud voice? No, all right.
Galatians 62.
Barrier, barrier one others burdens, and so fail, fail the law of Christ.
Thank you very one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Now I have one more burden up here.
And let's see who wants to help out who hasn't helped out yet.
All right, Clara. Right. Come on up, Claire. I have a burden here, and this is the biggest burden of them all. Can you pick it up for me?
Is that pretty heavy?
So you see, Clara has a really heavy burden, and in Galatians it says everyone shall bear his own burden. So the Lord has something in your life and he has something in my life and he has something in your friend's life that's different.
And it's not good to covet and to want what other people have in their lives because you don't know what other people are going through. What you need to do is you need to accept what the Lord has given you and cast your burden on him. But then there's another verse that says bury one anothers burdens. That means help out. And so that's talking about burdens that are really, really big. Not just a small burden, but a really big one.
So I need three more volunteers.
All right, you two guys haven't helped yet. You want to help Betsy. All right, because inside this backpack, there's four bags.
Now did you have a really hard time Clara lifting this?
No, I thought you were having a hard time lifting him. But you know what? If we take one bag out, can you hold that for me? Is that a lot easier than holding the whole thing?
So we have somebody helping, what's your name? Daniel. Dan. Did you mind helping out Clara?
Thank you all that. Just be careful the bags might rip. And what's your name? Andrew. So Daniel's helping and Andrew is helping and I'll help out too. Now, Betsy, can you pick up the backpack?
Is that easy? Oh, now it's easy.
I think Clara had to work pretty hard to pick up that backpack the first time, even if she won't admit it. But.
00:35:02
Well, you know what? Betsy is able to pick up that backpack. Why? Because she has people helping her. And so it says bear one another's burdens. Thank you, guys. Just careful when you put them down.
And God wants us.
To help each other.
How do you do that? How do you bear one another's burdens?
I'll show you one way and it's something that I don't do very well.
One way you can help.
Is you can pray.
You believe that you know that praying helps.
We can go to the Lord Jesus and we can pray for people.
We can tell them their names and maybe if we know them, we can tell them a little bit of what their burden is. And when we, when we pray for other people, it's like we're going up beside them and we're grabbing part of their heavy load and we're helping them lift it. And we can go every day. And maybe if it's a really heavy burden, we can go many times a day and help that person carry it. You know another way you can help carry somebody's burden.
I think everybody here is able to do this. Let's practice.
Can everybody do this?
Oceana, can you smile? Hey, there we go. Let's see anybody on the front row not smiling yet. You know what? You can give a smile. And a smile can help lift somebody'd burden.
Everybody here on the front row have two arms.
Everybody have two arms.
If it's somebody you're close to, you can go up and you can give them a hug.
Did you know that a hug can help lift somebody's burden?
Another way you can lift somebody's burden is to be kind. A few months ago I miss gospel because I was sick and there's a very sweet lady in Reno Ferry.
And the next day, on Monday afternoon, a bowl of soup.
Showed up at our door because she had heard that I was sick and she brought me a bowl of chicken noodle soup.
Is there anything fancy about chicken noodle soup?
No, but you know what? She was helping carry my burden.
She cared about me, she loves me, and she gave me a little bowl of soup because she loved me. And so we can do things, the book of Ephesians says. Be kind one to another, be tender hearted, forgiving one another. And that's how we can help pick up other people's burdens when there's something that's really heavy and hard to carry.
You can go and you can smile and you can show them that you love them.
You can be happy and help them out, and that's something the Lord Jesus wants. Is there anybody here that's too young to smile?
Are you too young to smile, Betsy? Oh wait, you're smiling right now.
Your name? Felicity. Are you able to give hugs? Yeah. Let's see. Oceana, can you give hugs?
Are you able to give a hug? Yeah.
What about you, Evelyn? Can you smile?
Maybe.
What's your name? What's that, Molly? Can you smile, Molly? These are things we can all do. It doesn't mean that we have to do something big or something fancy. You don't have to be able to make soup.
Something small can help somebody else carry their burden, and that's what the Lord Jesus wants us to do. He wants us to help each other. And that's something we get to do after we ask the Lord Jesus Christ to take away our burden of sin and to save us. So who has another song? We'll sing one or two more, and then we'll close. All right. What do you want, Caleb?
67 I suppose you want your inbox back to 67.
Oh, be careful, little eyes, what you see.
So be careful.
00:40:05
Be careful every time what you say then.
What you say?
So be careful.
Be careful.
Know we can't believe what you do.
Be careful.
What you, Alexander, will be careful.
All right, Levi, 62.
62.
My heart was spinning.
All right, all right, I have one more burden.
It's a very nice bird. It's really not much of a bird.
There's a very kind lady.
I think from up in North Jersey.
Anybody like this stuff? Yeah.
I got some smiles. All right, I'm going to sit here on the corner and after Sunday school.
If you do it very quietly, it's OK if they come up while you're making announcements, Mark. All right? Just be quiet, OK? Don't mob me, All right? And you guys can come up and get some candy.
Let's pray.