Address—Bruce Conrad
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Good afternoon everybody out there.
Let's start our meeting this afternoon with singing part of.
Hymn #270.
5.
God is light.
Though we go across the trackless wild.
Our Jesus footsteps ever show.
The path for every child.
Some brother could start that and let's sing just verses one through 1, two and three.
Forever.
Grace, come.
We grow.
Ask for God's help, Blessing.
Our God, our Father, we thank Thee for these few days we've been able to be together.
And to have thy word before us, which draws out our hearts to thee.
To thy beloved Son, and to the things which concern himself.
We thank Thee, our God, for setting Thy love upon us when we had no thought towards Thee.
And bringing us into such blessing. And we find ourselves here still in this world.
On our way home to heavenly glory.
And we feel our need.
We feel our weakness so often, young and old.
And we are encouraged, Lord Jesus, by the words of this him. Our Jesus footsteps ever show the path for every child we find ourselves in such positions on workable, sometimes untenable. How did we get into this place? How wonderful. Lord Jesus, there's always a path for faith. So we asked this afternoon as we open thy word.
I would guide us with I don't divine.
Editing by Thy Holy Spirit into that which would be for our prophet, our encouragement.
And we ask it, our God and Father, and the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I hope what I have on my heart to take up.
Is not a descent from the wonderful things we've already had before us.
Left to myself.
I would love to take up the the things in the high places that concern.
God's counsel for us.
In the Word of God, as we read it over the years and decades, for those of us older, we see these two threads of things we see.
We see God's counsel worked out.
In a large way, in a unique way for you and me in our lives. And then we see the other side of our responsibility.
00:05:06
I'd rather take up the former, but I have very much on my heart to take up that second part. That is our responsibility here in this world and I I think about every.
Every passage I've thought I should take up has probably been mentioned two or three times in these various readings, so you'll probably hear some repetition.
But just as a as a kind of an overarching verse verse.
We read in John 15 and we don't need to turn through it. Herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.
And so I would like to speak this afternoon about our pathway through this world on our way home to to our to the Father's house in a way that would bear fruit for God our Father. And first of all, I'd like to turn to Romans 15 just for a verse that I think is good to read.
Because I have on my heart to just speak of three different incidents in the life of Elijah.
In the Old Testament, as we are prone to call it.
In Romans 15.
And verse four for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.
That we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.
You can think, I'm sure, of a number of scriptures in the New Testament that give you solid scriptural.
Precedent for looking in the Old Testament scriptures and understanding that these things that happened unto them happen. For examples for you and me and think of the millions of us believers in in recent decades or in the past couple centuries that have pondered the sacrifices in the early chapters of Leviticus.
The meaning of the Passover in Exodus 12 we've we've perused over the book of Genesis.
With the New Testament lens that we've been given and these things, it's not just an afterthought with God that we should do this. It's it's a manner in which he teaches us. And so when Paul wrote to Timothy, he said all Scripture, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching or for doctrine and as a late brother.
London not. Not this one, but the.
Two steps up when used to say all scripture is not doctrine.
But it's profitable for doctrine, and so rather than turn to Romans 6 or Romans 7 or Colossians.
Chapter 3 or some of those passages and take up things in a kind of a technical, factual way. I thought it best to turn back and to use the structure of these types.
To remind ourselves.
Of much of a large aspect of our life here while we wait for the Lord's return. So with that, let's start by turning one other New Testament verse in Luke Chapter 9.
And then we'll go back to kings.
In Luke Chapter 9.
And it came in verse 57, Luke 9 and 57. And it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not were to lay his head.
And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God.
And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.
Now turn with me, please, to 1St Kings Chapter 19.
Well known portion I'm sure, even to the younger children perhaps.
First Kings 19.
00:10:02
We are here at.
In a chapter which is.
Very striking for the way.
The Lord is dealing with one of his servants.
I'm not sure if it was in the meeting or between the meetings. I think it was between the meetings. A brother mentioned to me how how remarkable that the apostle Paul should be, go through all this experience, have all this, this, this stewardship that he had of the gospel of the grace of God, and also as one of the stewards of the mysteries of God.
And yet he should be apprehended in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem.
Spend a couple years in in restraint, a long boat ride across.
The Mediterranean to eventually to Italy and up through there where?
We suspect he wrote his epistles that Brother Don mentioned in the last reading meeting.
Those mountain peaks that we read about in Ephesians and Colossians and Philippians and Philemon.
But here we have with Elisha, who as you all know the story, and he stood valiantly for Jehovah in seeking to bring the people back to the acknowledgement of the law and its claims over them, and that what what should have been their blessing under the King's.
And at the moment of perhaps his greatest and most striking accomplishment, a little bit after that, a woman says to him, you're going to be, as we would say you're going to be dead. And he flees for days and days and days back to Horeb of all places. Why he would go back to to Horeb where the law was given.
Is a little bit puzzling, isn't it, because his ministry was to bring the people back to the law?
And he no doubt felt he had utterly failed in that. So he goes back to the place where it was given. He's not going to find any rest there. But how gracious God is with His servant.
He says to him twice after nourishing him along the way, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he tells him in verse just before where I'd like to read. He tells them there.
In verse 15 the Lord said unto him, Go returned on my way to the wilderness of Damascus. When thou comest anoint Hazel to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat, of Abel Mahola, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass at him that escapeth the sword of Hazel shall Jehu slay, and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall.
Yet have I left me 7000 in Israel all the needs which have not bowed unto bail.
And every mouth which hath not kissed him. So we departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphan, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him, and he with the 12Th. And Elijah. Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again.
For what have I done to thee? And he returned back from him, and took the yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen.
And gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him. Let's just get the other passages before us in second Kings.
Second Kings chapter 2, verse one.
And it came to pass when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind.
That Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
And I'd like to skip down to verse.
Verse six Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee here, for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they too went on.
And 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to view afar off, and they too stood by Jordan.
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And Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smoked the waters. And they were divided, hit her and thither, so that they too went over on dry ground.
And it came to pass when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken from the away from the. And Elijah said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked the hard thing, Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee. But if not.
It shall not be so, McCain to pass as they still want on and talk that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire.
And parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
And Elijah saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back and stood by the Bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smoked the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
And when he also had spit in the waters.
Hit her and thither and Elisha went over.
We'll stop there, tempting as it is to go on in Chapter 13 of the same book, Second Kings.
13.
Verse 14 Second Kings 13 and verse 14. Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness, whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, Oh, my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And Elijah said unto him, Take bow and arrows, And he took unto him bow and arrows.
And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand upon the bow.
And he put his hand upon it, and Elijah put his hands upon the King's hands.
And he said open the window eastward and he opened it. Then Elijah said shoot, and he shot.
And he said the arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria.
For thou shalt smite the Syrians in effect, till thou shalt to thou hath consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows, and he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite the ground. And he smoked thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou should have smitten five or six times. Then hath thou smitten Syria, to thou hast consumed it.
Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria.
But thrice?
Let's just stop there.
The transition between Elijah.
And Elisha, as most in this room would be aware, is a transition between a ministry of repentance.
And a ministry of that which follows repentance in our lives individually, repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
When?
I receive the work of God in my soul to turn me.
To lead me to repentance.
I reevaluate everything.
When my younger sister was saved and she had a little Cham, my father had a little, my father was not saved at that time, had a little chance to to see her and to be around her for a while. And he said to me, you know, she's really taken AU turn. And I thought, my, what a classic definition of repentance to take AU turn. And so we see here with Elisha, he's busy.
12Th.
Oxen, if you've ever been to Pennsylvania, where I'm from, the Amish people still to this day.
Plow with wide plows and multiple horses through these beautiful, beautiful soils there and one after another and they follow along. I can't imagine what it would have been like to see 12 Elijah with the last one.
In Elijah.
Never fulfilled the the command of the Lord to to anoint Jehu or Haziel, but he goes right to Elisha. I don't want to get bogged up in too many of these these wonderful details, but but to move ahead a little bit, what he does immediately go to Elisha because he's told Elijah is going to be prophet in thy room.
00:20:19
Throws his mantle on Elisha and.
Now, Elisha, he doesn't. He doesn't force him to come. He throws his mantle upon him. Elijah says to him, let me just go back and handle a few things. He says they're literally.
Let me I pray, they kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again, for what have I done to thee?
It's leaving him to his own judgment. Elijah had done what he was supposed to do. He had thrown his mantle on Elijah. Now it was up to Elijah. And I believe that we have a picture here, not only of salvation, not only of the grace of God that has come into our lives to bring salvation to us, turn us from darkness to light, but now are we going to follow him?
Because as we've had before us in these meetings, that's what he desires. We we all were quite struck by that comment.
Not just come unto me all either heavy laden, I will give you rest, but come down unto me. And so Elijah says, I want to go back and kiss my father and mother, but there's no record that he ever did it. Perhaps on the way he evaluated things. And he said, if I'm going to follow Elijah, it's the end of all of that plowing and of all of that work and of all of that stuff.
And he goes back and he, as we read, and he, he takes that instruments of his.
Livelihood of his, his plowing, and he burns them, and he turns those oxen into food for the people of God, and then he goes.
After Elisha and so young people, nobody is going to stand behind you and push you into following Christ.
Nobody can stand behind you and push you into the Kingdom of God. Nobody can push you. As much as as much as we would love to pick you up and bring you into the Kingdom of God and bring you into a place of being saved from the guilt and power of your sins, we can't do that. It has to be you that turn from darkness to light in your own soul when your own responsibility.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And I warn you that there's been people who have been decades at the Lord's Table.
And finally, in their 50s or 60s, they came to their brethren. They say, I I'm saved now.
Yeah, we know you're safe. No, I just got saved. And they said what? Yes, I just got saved. Even though I'm. I know I've been at the Lord's Table for a long time, and I don't fault such people because they don't know what they don't have.
They just feel perhaps they've made an intellectual assent that, well, I'm not going to be a Hindu, I'm going to be a Christian. And this is what Christians do. And sure, I, I believe this, that and the other. And so I'm going to, I'm living an upright life like the others anyway. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to go along with the Christians. And they don't know what they don't have.
And with this particular man whom I never met, I'm sure there's been more than one. They realized through the work of the Spirit of God that they had nothing, and the goodness of God LED them to repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they happily resume breaking of bread at the Lord's Table as real members of the body of Christ and those for whom the blood of Christ.
Brought redemption.
But here with Elijah, he starts out very nicely, doesn't he? Goes back, makes a clean break.
Follows Elijah's we have in the last chapter, but we don't read of him for many verses.
But when we get to 2nd Kings, when the time comes for Elijah.
Elijah's ministry to end here, we have a tipping point.
In Elijah's life.
And they leave from Gilgal, which is not the Gilgal, as I understand it, down by the Jordan where they were circumcised after coming across Jordan at the end of the wilderness journey that Gilgal is, is down there, as I understand it, in that low, low valley. There's another Gilgal apparently up in the high place. And that's where they started out. They started out from the high place to Gilgal and they came down to Bethel.
00:25:15
Which is that precious place where Jacob learned a wonderful lesson and and loved to tarry on those details. But but I don't feel I should. And then down to Jericho and then across Jordan. And the point I want to bring out in this in this in this picture here is that Elijah is following along with Elijah. Elijah is the established prophet and Elijah.
Is certainly a picture of Christ.
And he comes to the Jordan River, a well known picture of death and he.
Takes his mantle and he strikes the water and the water stop and across he goes and Elijah follows him there. And if you're a believer, you're like Elisha and you've crossed those rivers of death because of the virtue of Christ, not only not just living a righteous life here in this world, which he did as that holy one of God, a righteous man, the Son of God.
But he had to die.
It was through death he destroyed him that had the power of death and he had to die to deliver you and me from the ******* we were in. So Elijah goes across and now things get a little bit tighter between Elijah and Elisha and as we read there in in the second chapter.
The two went on at the end of verse 6.
And Elijah took his mantle as we just spoke about smites the waters and they go over on dry ground.
That's where you are if you're a believer, if you put your trust in Christ last night.
You're on dry ground today.
You're on dry ground, you're on the rock, you're safe, and you have Christ as your Savior and your destiny is to be with Him and to share an eternal glory. But now we have something else here. It came to pass when they were gone over that Elijah said unto Elijah, Ask what I shall do for thee.
And Elijah said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing.
When Matt was asking those hard questions in the reading, I was thinking of how the rich?
The rich young, godly, rich young man came to the Lord Jesus. Maybe I'll stretch it by saying godly, but he clearly was an upright man.
And he came, and you can just picture the disciples, these guys that were traveling from place to place to place.
So they were, you know.
You know how you get when you travel a long time, you're in the same clothes all day after day, and they were not wealthy men anyway. And here comes this rich young guy, probably really well dressed, got it all together.
Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord says sell everything you have.
Take up your cross and follow me. Oh, it's the last thing you wanted to hear.
He went away sorrowful, but then my point in bringing it up, as the disciples said.
Let me, let me just, I think it's Matthew 19. I'll just quickly grab it here.
If I can.
When his disciples heard it, the Lord's response also included It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
And for a rich man to enter into heaven, into the Kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed.
Saying who then can be saved?
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible, but with God?
All things are possible.
He's asking you to do. He's inviting you to do. He's setting before you that it is your.
Intelligent service and responsibility, as we heard today, to do that with naturally speaking is impossible. And that would have been my answer if I had to answer you, Matt, in a smaller setting with God, it's with man it's impossible, but with God it's possible. So Elijah asked for a double portion of the Spirit and and young people.
One of the most wonderful things that ever came into my mind.
00:30:04
With respect to the gospel of the grace of God, as you can know so little and have so much.
Our late brother Gordon Hey ho when when when he met my sister and me when we were first saved, he marveled. I told him what I knew when I accepted Christ and he marveled. He he quoted that verse. Almost all things in the law are cleansed by blood because there's one little detail where someone who is really poor can bring a tenth part of an ephah and it can be a sacrifice for sin. You can find that I think in.
5 And so some of us knew nothing. I knew nothing about the blood of Christ. I knew nothing about what you learn in Sunday school. You had a wonderful children's meeting here the other day. Knew nothing. But when I laid hold of Christ as my Savior, which by the grace of God I did all these things, we have been talking about everything that he did and every glory that's associated with what he.
It is mine and yours. You don't have to understand it to have it.
But it's wonderful as you go along in your Christian life to begin to understand it more and more.
Some of the brethren in here for over 50-60, maybe even 70 years we have been studying the gospel of the grace of God to learn about his work and to learn more of his person. It's a lifelong, delightful, delightful process. But to me, it's wonderful that I see something I never saw before as a as an old man reading the scriptures.
This is true of me when I was 23, true of me then. These are wonderful things.
And what was true of Elijah?
In figure here a double portion. That's what you have.
I don't know if you picked it up in the reading today, but Old Testament Saints who had faith, they had that faith. They followed the Lord according to the light they had because they were born again. They had life.
But the character of life that the believer receives today is the different quality of life, because a man has now crossed Jordan, so to speak, and entered into heaven. And he has, he has, he has communicated to you and me what the Scripture calls eternal life.
And that's the life that is in his Son. At one time it existed solely and only and eternally in the Son himself.
But after the work on Calvary's cross and after his resurrection from among the dead.
That life is now communicated to you and me through faith.
And you have that life. It's called eternal life, and you presently possess it.
In most of the passages in the Word of God, sometimes it's looked upon at the end of the journey.
But.
You have it now. You have that eternal life. And so in John 20 when the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead.
Before he ascended up and sent the Holy Spirit down.
He says to Mary.
Whole nother beautiful subject.
Go to my brethren.
And tell them I ascend to my Father and your father, and to my God and your God.
And then he breathed on them and said, Receive ye, Holy Ghost.
I've pondered that for years.
The laboring brother who I won't name when I was young, young and poor.
And he came to our house for lunch and I was pondering it.
I said, what does that mean? What? Oh, that's a shouldn't call him out this way. He said that's just a picture of a picture. That's just a picture. He says, yeah, you get the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2. It must just be a symbol of it. I, I couldn't, I didn't, I couldn't, that didn't commend itself to me in, in in brethren language. And so I just kind of kept it there.
But I've come to see that it's a very special thing.
We have a double link with God in Christ. We have the same life and nature of him. And it's as a brother was saying this afternoon, it's resurrection life. And if you've put your trust in Christ, that's what you have. You have a life that's on the other side of death. You have a life that sin has never been attached to or never can be attached to.
00:35:16
And Matt isn't going to get any more of the Spirit of God if the Lord comes in 5 minutes.
You have the divine person in dwelling and you have a life that does not need to be augmented or added to.
5 minutes after the Lord comes. It's amazing, isn't it just an amazing thing?
The life that we have is going to be in its proper sphere.
It's going to be at home.
And it's hard for all of us to imagine what it's like to be somewhere for the first time and to feel at home there.
That's the place that is suited to the life that we have. And this place is not doing a tarry too long on this, but we share as individuals in this new creation of which Christ is the head of a new creation as a risen man, and he has communicated that life to us and you have it.
You have it, you have that life, but beyond that, as we as we more commonly understand in Acts chapter 2.
When the Lord Jesus ascended up on high, he received the Holy Spirit, you might say, a second time to give unto men. And so the Spirit came down and indwelt each of those believers personally and united them together. And God formed one body. Every believer united together by the Holy Spirit, indwelling to the head in heaven. And there is, and there still is one body.
And so if you're a believer, you're a member of the body of Christ, not because you have faith, but because the Holy Spirit is indwelling you.
And he's united you by 1 spirit, by that one spirit to himself as head in heaven.
And you have a life, that eternal life, the life of Christ.
And so in a certain sense, you have a double portion. Elijah wanted that.
And Elijah said you've asked the hard thing and.
Elijah goes up and he sees them because Elijah the the requirement was, if you see me when I'm taken up, you can have this desire and I don't know how many was it 5 times or six times or eight times? In our readings, different brothers quoted Second Corinthians 318. Most of us have a verse through which we got saved. I'm a Revelation 320.
There are John 3 Sixteens in the room. There are all kinds of believers. When you meet somebody, they'll tell you.
What verse the Lord used to bring them to himself. But Second Corinthians 3/18 was a verse the Lord used with me.
To get me into the place where I'm like a normal Christian.
If I I don't know exactly how to express it, but maturity in a Christian is walking along here in the earth with an object in heaven, which is Christ himself. And so to quote it one more time, we all with open or unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord.
Are changed into the same image from glory to glory, like being poured from vessel to vessel to vessel. The practical reproduction or or conforming.
Of your life, practically the boots on the ground part, the practical side to really what you are is through occupation with Christ in glory. People often say, or you hear people say, well you have to go back to the cross. And we do remember the Lord Jesus in his death.
But when we come for nourishment, for refreshment, for strength, for wisdom, we come to a man that is in heaven.
Not on the cross anymore, he said. Glorified man.
And so in picture when Elijah.
Comes across.
He sees him when he's taken up, and now it's like, OK, I've got it. And he goes to the water and this is the moment of truth, and he takes Elijah's mantle. He got it a second time, didn't he?
And he strikes the water. What's going to happen? Is it going to work?
It worked.
00:40:00
I think one of the most discouraging things.
To young believers.
Is we that are older.
And what I mean by that is through.
Perhaps being complacent.
Or lacking diligence.
We don't display in our lives that Christianity, if I could use that term, that it works.
Young people.
It works.
It works. I could give you we could go on till 9:00 at night.
On that it works.
It works. Elijah smoked the water and it worked.
You can get all wrapped up in apologetics.
Some people do. You can get all wrapped up in.
What we might call theology.
But there are people that were headed down the Broad Rd.
And they've been turned.
Now they're totally different in every way.
Except these same vessels, same Social Security number.
And all the rest. Same name most likely, but totally changed it works.
When we were over in at the Belgium conference.
Afterward we went pretty much straight over and afterwards we took one side trip before we started heading home.
To the north of France to Normandy. Normandy is the place.
Where?
So-called allies.
England, Scotland, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia.
Came across the English Channel and landed in Normandy.
To invade, to, to go.
And confront.
Nazi Germany that had taken over pretty much all the continent of Europe.
I'd heard about it from my father, who was a World War Two vet.
And other older people and read about it. My son read about it as a boy and I wanted to see it.
Who's ready?
Very touchy.
But the one thing that I came away thinking about that pertains to what we're speaking about today.
Is this one officer?
They had. It was a museum about the size of this room, but we spent hours in there. We went through everything.
And read all these statements and comments and testimonies and histories.
And this one, commander, and they're coming and these boats and the thing.
The front of the boat drops down and they come out and they get decimated.
And some of them make it to the beach.
And this guy, that was the.
Leader of some I'm not sure, I'm not an army guy but.
I don't know whether he's a Sergeant or Colonel, but he said I kept telling him get off the beach, get off the beach, get off the beach.
Because they had all these plans, as the boxers say, you have a strategy until you get punched in the face.
And they had all kinds of strategies, but then they get there.
And it's chaos and they're on the beach and they're young kids. 18/19/2022 he said. I kept home, get off the beach, keep going, keep going. And I sometimes think it's good advice for us older Christians. We have to get off the beach. We have to keep going.
Not just not only for our own enjoyment and the fruit in our own lives, but these younger ones behind us.
They need to see that Christianity works.
That it really does bring love to our brethren. It brings joy. It brings peace.
Brings all those aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. It works.
But we're so prone. Let me speak.
00:45:00
I know it's supposed to be young people to the older ones. We're so prone to get complacent.
And to stop pressing. And to stop pushing forward.
In following hard after Christ.
And the Apostle Paul, in the third chapter of Philippians, he expressed his personal exercise.
He wasn't pushing the Saints of Philippi from behind. He was saying basically, this is how I tick.
I was apprehended, and now it's my life to apprehend that for which I've been apprehended.
And I'm pressing for the mark of the high calling of God.
In Christ Jesus, he was getting off the beach. He was off the beach, clearly pressing ahead.
It's helpful to young people to see.
That even though we're way older than you, we're really the same people inside.
And we have the same needs, and Christianity works. I want to leave you that message. Christianity works.
Really. Does you read something in the Word of God? Believe it.
And if you walk in it, you'll see it works.
Off the beach they went because there's got to be room for others and everybody.
I know we're not to follow others in Second Timothy 2 That our brother read in the reading meeting, it says.
Follow after and it gives certain things with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. You don't follow others, but you follow with others. The difference isn't there. Christ is the one you follow. And Paul could stand up overseers in these new assemblies, but then he would say to the Saints, not I commit you to the oversight. I commit you to the Lord. I commit you to the God.
In the word of his grace.
Well, let's turn now. Time is going to.
1St chapter 13 where we read.
I won't reread it.
Elijah's at the end of his.
End of his life.
And the king Joash.
He appreciated Elijah, whether by legend or by hearing about him or how personal it was, I don't think we can know.
But he was Elijah was connected with that.
Exclamation. My father, My father.
Chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.
And the king quotes it, lamenting the death of this beloved man. Because Elijah's ministry is a ministry of grace as we all know it.
And so he says to the king, take bow and arrows.
Put thine hand upon the bow.
Elijah puts his hands upon it. He shoots. He didn't know what he was doing.
Why am I doing this? But here we go, shoots an arrow and Elijah says the arrow of the Lords deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria. That's good. It could have been something different, right? When he shot the arrow. It could have been something that you didn't want to hear some bad news about what was going to happen.
But it's not that. It's the arrow of deliverance. And then he says.
Take the arrows. And he took them, and he said unto the king of Israel, smite upon the ground.
Now, if you're the king.
And he said shoot an arrow and he's and then he interprets what you did.
In such a positive way, when he gives you the arrows, what would you do with them?
This, this is the one of the chief failures of my life.
She failures in my life.
Looking back, I wish I had taken those arrows.
And destroyed them, smashed them so many times that they were unrecognizable.
But instead he stopped three times.
I don't know why.
And I'm not sure, but this isn't the first time Elijah Elisha had to bring bad news to Gahesai.
But generally, Elisha's ministry.
Was a ministry of grace and and blessing and.
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And as you think in your mind of the various incidents that are recorded, you clearly see that theme.
But here as it says here.
And the man of God was wroth with him.
And says you should have smitten twice as many times, five or six times, and then all this, then you would have then hath thou submitted Syria till thou hats consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.
The arrows are in your hand, young people.
They're in my aunt. They've been in it.
What are we going to do here?
We were reading in second Peter.
And one of the meetings we were at traveling.
They wanted to read in second Peter.
And that's the chapter where where where Peter says add to your faith virtue.
And I never really particularly studied that epistle.
And what I do sometimes is what does that word mean there?
What does that word mean there? Let me go to it.
Verse five. Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.
And so I tend to look up words first, and I was really taken aback that the word for virtue, if you have a concordance in your phone, you see it. The original word there for virtue is the word for a man. Not just man, generic, but man, a mailman, a male, masculine man. It's the word for masculinity.
Add to your faith.
Virtue. Masculine strength.
And I know I'm speaking to women as well as men, and to young ladies as well as young men. Doesn't matter what your gender is.
There's an aspect of things where we're all one in Christ Jesus within either male, more female, right bound or free.
And whether we are female in this earthen vessel or male, we need to have in our faith this masculine energy.
Virtue. We've got to get off the beach.
And show that spiritual energy.
And in the context of your lives, we, we, we know.
That the the culture around us in the West is going, you know what we older ones consider and you probably do to a crazy direction.
But all things work together for good.
To them that love God, another call according to his purpose.
And as painful as it and awkward as it is for you, I think it's going to work good. We know it is.
We know it is.
And so masculinity in the, in the current culture that we live in is not the way it used to be when I was a boy, this is what the boys did. This is how the boys behaved. This is how men, upright men lived. And this is how upright women lived. And the, and the girls and everything, the, the swim lanes were pretty clear.
And because these natural.
Relationships that are ancient relationships for men.
Are now taken up by the children of God.
With the added element, as one of the brothers was saying, it takes it up to a higher place, not just women.
Not just wives submit to your own husbands, but as it is fit in the Lord, not just children obey your parents.
But this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Oh, there's a we can take up these natural things.
With an added element that it pleases the Lord to conduct ourselves.
With grace and in holiness in these relationships that we're all in.
And so masculinity is spoken of where you in school or you young guys that are working, It's toxic masculinity, right? Toxic masculinity.
You've all read, you've all heard that that stuff.
And so people are starting to realize even in the in the culture at large, what damage they have done and are doing to the male element in society and to males by gender particularly. And they're starting to scratch their head and say maybe this isn't a good thing. And on the other side that it's the same with the females and traditional conduct of a female.
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Is looked upon as something old and archaic and no longer indeed good.
Spiritually speaking, we are not male nor female.
And spiritually speaking, we all need to have in our faith this masculine.
Drive and spiritual energy.
My wife has been reading a book.
About a lady.
Who lived in the early part of the 1800s? I took a picture of it here.
And her name was, she only lived 36 years or so, maybe 35. And.
Get this thing.
And her name was Theodosia Ann Howard.
And perhaps you've heard of her as Lady Powers Court.
And my wife has taken a long time to read this book.
And, and she carried it all around the world, matter of fact.
And it's I got other things I'm reading, but I did grab it one day.
And there's other sisters here reading it too. And I read the introduction and the appendix the.
The very front and the very back.
And I was really struck with this, this assessment that the editor of her letters.
She wrote a lot of letters. I should have said that to the younger people. This sister was married for a short. She got saved in early 20s. She was married for a short time and her husband died.
And then she was a widow at a very young age and she was very involved and instrumental when the early 20 somethings that you heard, their names came together and started to get real light in the Scriptures, especially about prophetic subjects. And it led to all kinds of understanding about other subjects. And she was part of that.
And lent her estate to facilitate many, many of those meetings.
Any rights of and she wrote these letters in their evidence of a spiritual mind and the editor is explaining that he doesn't want to.
He doesn't want to, didn't want to edit things because he felt he should not do that.
And he says here in the introduction.
About not editing, he says. I like those strong expressions. I would not wish to alter one of them. They bring back to my recollection the image of the strongest mind.
Uncommon masculine strength combined with the extremist feminine gentleness.
And so on.
Very interesting comment.
When I was pondering this issue of maleness and femaleness.
In Deuteronomy 22, as most of you probably know, there's a verse that says that a man shall not wear that which pertains to a woman, and a woman shall not wear that pertains to a man.
Because God made two genders, not 3 or 420. He did that for a reason. He could have made any number, and there's a glory associated with each.
And each is to be inhabited by us in a way that is for His glory and his honor.
And so wrath for me, rather than apply that verse and it says it's an abomination, so I take it it's not just a ceremonial thing, it's a moral thing. And today we see this craziness of that, what that verse was prohibiting to a ridiculous extreme. We all know that.
But I would submit to you that it has a spiritual interpretation for you and I that look back through the New Testament lens that we have. Just like not sowing your field with diverse seed or or the other injunctions, there have a rich spiritual meaning and that one does too. That one does too. There is to be maleness and there is to be femaleness.
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And spiritually, the apostle Paul referred to both when in First Thessalonians he wrote to these young believers, and he said I was.
Like a father to you, as a father, nourish encourages and nourishes his children.
So have I done to you. And then a few verses later, he takes the place of a nurse.
I was gentle among you as a nurse nourishes and cherishes her children. So whether we are male or female in our gender, we all know we stay with that. But spiritually there is to be both modalities in us. The sisters, just like Lady Powers, court the spiritual energy to run after Christ and the gentleness with one another of a traditionally feminine trait.
The world is closing in.
In its chaos, the Lord knows all about it. He's gathering out of people for his name, meanwhile.
And in due time, he will turn all these upside down things right side up.
Meanwhile, it's our glory, our glory to be.
Like Elisha wished that man had been just strike it multiple times. I wish As I look back in my life, I think, you know, I never left the Lord's Table. You're up in a minute, John. I never left the Lord's Table. I always went to meeting.
I always read the scriptures. I had a prayer life that wasn't.
Great.
But for large portions of my life, looking back, I think I was sleepwalking. I really think I was sleepwalking.
I'm ashamed of it. I was just going through the motions, as we say, mailing it in.
Stand up here like old Jacob.
And I would encourage you, don't be like that. Don't mail it in. Get off the beach. Move ahead.
Show that masculine strength in a spiritual way.
To follow hard after Christ. It's going to bring you present happiness and joy, and it's going to be for eternal reward.
And it's going to glorify him.
So don't coast. All of us, young or old, don't coast. So easy for us older ones to coast.
Pass us if you need to in your spiritual life. If we're coasting, pass us.
Hit the horn, let us know we need to.
Wake up and follow hard after Christ. Well, few scattered thoughts here. Let's just.
Pray and there will be the gospel in a moment.
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee for the richness.
Of my precious word that.
Speaks to our hearts.
We thank the our God for lighting up the end of the path for us.
And giving us assurance that we shall indeed arrive home.
In thy house to be with and like thy son. In the mean time we look to thee for grace.
That we would not be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but that we bear fruit. Fruit.
Our God and Father for thee, for thy glory, and Lord Jesus for thy glory, we thank thee for thy love.
We thank thee for the great work on Calvary's cross. We thank Thee we can look up by faith through the open heavens, and to see thee is that victorious man.
Who has completed the pathway here? Help us, Lord Jesus, to keep our eyes upon thee that we would follow hard after thee and we just commit these Scriptures that we've had before us before the of the encouragement of our hearts and for our stirring up and our most holy faith, we give thee thanks, blessed God, in the worthy and precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.