Reading
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.
00:05:11
Ephesians chapter 5, starting with verse 15.
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, whereas in excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God.
Wives, submit yourself, and to your own husbands is unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the Savior of the Body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with a washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to Himself, a glorious church.
Not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So what men to love their wives as their own bodies? He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. Let. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife.
And they too shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let everyone of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
We've backtracked just a verse here in the 14th. I was thinking.
The last reading meeting, although it was time to close that we have an example of uh.
Who fell from the third story when Paul was preaching there at, uh, Proaze fell down to the level of the world and to all, uh, outward appearances, he was dead.
He looked completely unresponsive.
Uh, of course he was restored through Paul's intervention.
But, umm, he got tired of Paul's doctrine, Paul's teaching.
What a wonderful opportunity it was for him to hear the greatest teacher since the Lord lived.
But he wasn't taking it in. He was, he had his eyes on the world. He thought he could, uh.
Look into the the in the assembly and look out on the world at the same time. He was in a vulnerable position and no one came over to him and said you took us.
You're in a dangerous position. Why don't you come over and sit with us? There's a lot of pastoral care there. And so poor Utica's, We fell down from that eminence right to the level of the world. He looked like the world.
And that is a danger for the believer to.
Uh, lose his enjoyment of Christ, enjoyment of heavenly things, become tired. In particular, Paul's doctrine, uh, if we wanna put it in the dispensational context. And he fell right down to the level of the world. And as our brother mentioned in his talk, a dead person and a person that's asleep, it looks the same.
And that danger is even in the life of the believer that he can become so enamored with the world, taken up with it.
Entangled with it that he loses his interest in spiritual things, and he acts and looks like the world, dresses like the world, talks like the world, and he loses his spiritual discernment. So the apostle gives an exhortation. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from among the dead. That's not our place.
00:10:13
We are not part of the world anymore. We're in separation from this present evil world. We're not to go on with its character and it's, umm, it, it's whole entertainment. Uh, uh.
Material the whole entertainment scenario of the world and become like it in our thinking and in our actions and in our associations and in our fellowship, and we lose.
Uh, spiritually, the enjoyment of those things which are eternal. So the apostle exhorts here to wake up and not become less lethargic and, uh, drifting into those things which separate us.
From the Word of God.
If we looked at, uh, first Corinthians chapter one, we find there that there are two different kinds of wisdom. There's natural wisdom, the wisdom of the fallen man, and then there's the wisdom of God himself. And so in chapter one of First Corinthians, it says, umm, let's read from verse 20. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God.
The world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe for the Jews require a sign and the Greek seek, seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified under the Jews, a stumbling block and under the Greeks foolishness. But under them, which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And then if we looked back in the Old Testament, in the book of Proverbs, there's much that's spoken of in connection with wisdom. And it's really divine wisdom that's spoken of in the chapter two of the book of Proverbs. And we'll maybe just refer to, uh.
Let's just, uh, read verse 6.
For the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous, his buckler to them that walk uprightly. Well, we find here in this portion that we're just taking up versus 15 and 16 that there's umm the fallen foolishness of man and there's the wisdom of God that are contrasted and man at the fall when man fell into sin, he lost his ability to see things straight and to.
Walk in wisdom and you and I that are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ and we have new life. We have the very life of Christ. We have the capacity to walk in wisdom, and that is to appreciate the wisdom of God and to assimilate that wisdom and to walk in the light of it. The wisdom of man. I think his brother Harry Hale used to say years ago, it wasn't the wisdom of man. Wisdom of God wasn't an improvement on the wisdom of man.
It wasn't in any way. The wisdom of God is directly opposite to the wisdom of man in every facet. And so here we have this exhortation. See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools. This world is filled with foolishness because it doesn't walk in the light of the truth of God. But we're to walk as wise, redeeming the time or seizing every good opportunity, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise?
But understanding what the will of the Lord is. And so we need to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, and we need to recognize that the wisdom of God is far greater than anything that man claims as wisdom and knowledge.
And knowing the will will of God, of course, it has an application to our individual pathway. Uh, we cannot discern the will of God if we are not in a proper spiritual condition. It's not like a computer. You can put the data into a computer and it'll fill out an answer to you, but that's not so in spiritual matters. You cannot divorce guidance and knowing the will of God.
From your spiritual state.
00:15:03
But I think it has a wider application too, because in large part of Christendom they really do not know the will of God in regard to the truth of separation, truth of gathering according to Scripture, the apostles doctrine and fellowship, the pattern we have in the Word of God, the heavenly calling of the church, the position of the believer now is separate from the world, members of the body of Christ, and and so on.
They don't under this is the will of God for us now to understand this and to walk in, uh, inconsistency with Our Calling. I think this is all included in knowing the will of God today.
Just wanted to say something about the redeeming the time.
Umm, we had verse 15 walk circumspectly or carefully. That's really a summary of what we have in those other verses above. What not to do. We need to be very careful about that. And he says, but as wise and the wisdom now is in these next verses, 17, uh, 16 and 17. And the first thing, even before understanding the, the will of God, the first thing that's mentioned is redeeming the time.
And that's because.
As I understand it anyway, we may get all of those other things right.
And we may keep all of the wrong things out of our life.
And yet see, in knowing that we'll try to completely fill up our lives.
With legitimate things, there may not be any of the wrong things that were mentioned earlier, but with work and all the things that we may deem are necessary just to live our lives. And this is a tremendous challenge, especially for those who are younger and getting up to the time when you're going to be entering in the workforce. And now what is it that I'm going to be doing? Or perhaps you're already in the workforce and you're feeling these pressures already, or there's a young family and to your husband and it's very difficult maybe in their society to earn.
Enough for your family on a single wage, earner income or perhaps whatever. Maybe the two of you are working, but regardless, it's difficult to find time. There's not the time to open up the word of God first thing in the morning. There's not the time to get to the assembly meetings. There's not the time to have a family reading. There's not the time for those things that are important. Yes, you've avoided the bad, but you failed it instead with.
That would still distract from what the Lord desired.
My brother Dave was speaking to us last weekend about.
Purpose having purpose in our lives and.
I was so glad he did. It's so important that we take that seriously. Redeeming the time is something that all of us have to do, otherwise it gets away. It means that you've got to go with energy and take it.
Or it'll get taken away from you on things that aren't wrong.
And say, how do I do that? Well, as we have four times over in the word of God that just shall live by faith. Why does it say that? Because it's true. The only way we can live the Christian life is by faith. And by faith we take up God's on his promises. He says, this is what I want. This is the kind of walk that I want.
And if it's so, if He wants me to be together with those, not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, if He wants me to spend time and communion with him, is there a way that can be done, that those things can be done? The answer is yes, We can redeem the time. He made an absolute promise in Matthew 633.
Seek ye first. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Let's not get that backwards. We get it backwards. We'll never redeem the time. Redeeming the time means put the Lord's things first. Do whatever it takes to put the Lord's things first and let him take care of the rest, and that time will be redeemed.
Well, there's the apostle that's here about the excitement of nature. Uh, you're not drunk with wine, wherein is excess.
In contrast, he says the filled with the Spirit.
00:20:03
Well, uh, we know a person who is intoxicated.
Uh, we know it by their walk and we know it by their talk.
So the apostle says, don't allow the things of this world to, uh.
Lose out on spiritual realities and you get excited and, uh.
Filled with the things of this world.
Which may not be inherently wrong, but they are not.
You're they are not helping you spiritually in your pathway. They are not for the glory of God. They are weights that are holding you back in your progress spiritually.
In the understanding of the truth, the enjoyment of heavenly blessings now be filled with the Spirit. Now we're never told, and there's no exhortation to be sealed with the Spirit.
Because we are sealed with the Spirit when we believe the gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ.
Some Christians make the mistake of.
I I Speaking of a another baptism of the Holy Spirit that is doctrinally not correct. The baptism of the Holy Spirit took place only once.
At Pentecost, although there was a second installment in Samaria and with Cornelius, the baptism of the Holy Spirit does not take place again. When a person is saved, they're not baptized with the Holy Spirit. They are added into an already existing body. They're sealed with the Holy Spirit for security. It's the mark that God puts on that individual, that he has believed the.
The death and resurrection of Christ he has been brought into.
The family of God. He has consciousness of his sonship and his position. He is sealed. He is added into a body that already exists.
It is, it is not another incorrect incorporation of the body, but that individual, by believing in Christ and the finished work of Calvary, has the assurance of salvation. Sealed with the Holy Spirit was the earnest of the inheritance. But here the exhortation is to be filled with the Spirit. I have a room. There's all sorts of cupboards and tables and everything. If I want that room only for one thing, I've got to get rid of all those other.
Objects, tables and side boards and what have you. I only want chairs in that room. So everything else has to go. I want chairs only in that room. In our lives, there's a lot of rubbish, to put it plainly. And, uh, if you have a, uh, a glass and it has all sorts of rubbish, paper and refuse and stones and earth, how can you put any water in that glass?
First of all, you've got to get rid of all that those extraneous materials. It has to be thrown out. Then you can fill the glass with water.
And so in our hearts and our lives, there's those things that hinder the Spirit working in our souls. Maybe grieving the Spirit could be sin, but it could be other worldly things that just detract from the person of Christ. And uh, to be filled with the Spirit is to allow the Spirit of God to control every part of my being.
I have a visitor in my house but he has his own room.
He occupies that room, but I'm leaving the house for a period of time. So I say I have confidence in you. You're a reliable person here. You can have the use of the whole house. You don't need to stay in that room anymore. The whole house is yours. Then he fills the house, doesn't it? And he has access every place in the house. Do we allow the Spirit of God to have access into all those corners of our hearts?
That perhaps we uh.
We keep things in there that we don't like to expose. There's the hindrances. Being filled with the Spirit is an exhortation. And uh, it is important that we allow the Spirit of God to control our lives. That as our brother Robert mentioned, the Lordship of Christ comes in here. But the Spirit of God is the divine guest if I am careless.
00:25:29
Uh, if I grieve him?
Will he leave? Look in chapter 4, verse 30. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.
For fear that he may leave you.
And not come back. That's what it says. No, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. So he's never going to leave you. Go to the theater.
Go to some other worldly place of entertainment you take the Spirit of God with. You can't leave them behind. And he's grieved by you being in that place and partaking of its activities and you won't leave you. So don't grieve him. If we have grieved him a lack, which we do too often, then it requires self judgment.
Confession and restoration. The day of redemption spoken in that verse does not refer to the redemption of the soul. It refers to the redemption of the body. So if the Spirit of God is controlling us, it is going to be evident in our talk and in our walk as the contrast with a person who is inebriated.
I'd like to make a comment to to just bring this what you've been bringing before us, John, together with what our brother Tim brought before us.
In connection with redeeming the time.
Because, umm, time is something we struggle, umm.
I, I don't speak to people when I'm speaking to people at the meetings here and saying, you know, I just exactly have the right amount of time to do what I'm supposed to do.
I don't hear that, not what I hear. And yet the Lord Jesus, when he was here in a 24 hour day, he had exactly the amount of time that he needed to do what the Father wanted them to do. I, I don't do too well with that.
And umm, we have a tendency to go one of two directions with this.
Now there there are two my brother brought before me. There are two creatures in the word of God that are not characterized by great speed. One is the sloth, the other is a slug.
But they're brought before us in the word of God, in this way, the slothful.
And the sluggard?
As we go through the word, you go through it in the proverbs, you go through with many places. Uh, he has a problem with time and that he looks outside and oh, there's a lie in the street. I better not go out today or it's, uh, better not plant today. It's too windy as we had earlier, or it's too wet or it's too cold or it's too hot. Umm.
It's too dry. There's There's always a reason not to start a job.
And So what that does is puts us in a position where we're not making good use of time.
I don't usually have that problem. I have the problem with the slothful.
It speaks about the slothful he roasteth, not that which he takes in hunting.
He goes out, he shoots a deer and it lays there and it rots, goes and shoots another one, catches fish, leaves them to rot, doesn't do anything with them. And I have that tendency, not that I'm a hunter or Fisher, but I have the tendency to start lots of jobs and to don't get them finished.
And and that's that's the other extreme.
We can either have a difficulty with time where we don't start anything and nothing gets done, or we start a whole pile of things and don't finish them and nothing gets done.
And if you just look in your own life, I'm just going to ask a question, how did, is there anybody here that has the project they started that they haven't quite finished? Or is there anybody here that has some products, uh, projects they'd like to start, but they just haven't started? You know, we can identify with that, that we can identify with that. And that's what, what the, the Spirit of God is bringing before us in connection with redeeming the time, because there's one of two extremes that we can fall into, you know, I, I enjoy.
00:30:28
Us and just previous that to to this it's speaks of, uh, of walking circumspectly. You know John, you brought before us the thought of a cast, uh, earlier.
We have a brother in our assembly, umm, Phil Bierkoff. He's older now. He's in a home now.
But he was an avid gardener.
And umm, he didn't like the squirrels in his garden. So what he would do is he would get all these boards, just one inch boards, any nail nails through them.
So that when you, when they, you put the boards in his garden, all these nails were sticking up through the boards and you have them everywhere. And it, it, it, it kept, Varman said. But I was working there once and I was watching a cat try to go through his garden with all these nails sticking up everywhere. And let me tell you that cat was walking very, very carefully trying to manipulate his course through all these nails sticking up.
That's what this means. Walking circumspectly working.
Walking very carefully and making sure that we don't fall into one of two ditches with time, either not being able to start something or having the tendency to start lots of things and nothing gets done. And as John Spring brings forth, if we're filled with the Spirit, let me like the G, uh, like the Lord Jesus, who had just the right amount of time in a day to do exactly what he was supposed to do. He was never in a rush. He never needed 25 hours.
Never needed 23 hours. I I don't do well with that, but it's possible for us to do that if we're filled with the Spirit.
Might be good to turn to Luke's Gospel Chapter 9 right at the end. We'll see. Uh, a couple of people that felt like they didn't have enough time to get done what they needed to get done.
And their approach?
In verse 58, Luke 9, verse 58, Jesus said unto them, Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my Father. And 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 plough, and looking back as fit for the Kingdom of God. Well, we know that in the Epistles Paul says that in all things he might have the preeminence.
You know, the flesh is deceitful in each one of us and we all think that we have something that needs to get done before we give the Lord his portion, but it's not. So nothing can ever be right if the Lord doesn't get his portion first. And I believe that that's what we have brought out in teaching in connection with the what the Lord Jesus said to these two different individuals in Luke's Gospel Chapter 9. He said in essence, if we could put it in a nutshell.
Nothing's gonna be right if I don't get my part first. And you remember when Elisha went to stay with the widow woman and uh, uh, there was a little bit of a meal in the barrel, He said, uh, make me a cake first.
And she made him that cake first out of the meal that was in that barrel and the meal, the barrel of meal never wasted. She had enough her entire time of that, umm, salmon that was, uh, in the land. Well, I think brethren, we have this, uh, you might say, well, in verse 18, it says be filled with the Spirit. Well, how, how can I do this? Well, one of the first things that is so necessary is that we give the Lord Jesus the 1St place.
In our lives and were consistent in it.
And if we do that, the Lord will see to it that our were filled with the Spirit.
But that's not the only ingredient. He goes on to say that in verse 17 that we need to understand what the will of the Lord is. We need to recognize his Lord's, uh, Lordship, his desire to direct our activities. And we ought to, uh, ask him to be able to understand what his desire is. And umm, then he says, uh, really in verse 18, don't be filled. Don't be intoxicated with what this world is intoxicated with. It has all kinds of pleasure. Wine speaks of natural joy.
00:35:32
And if we're intoxicated with the natural joys of what this world is taken up with, there really won't be time for the things of the Lord in the way that we should have. And then in verse, uh, nineteen, he speaks of the singing, uh, speaking unto yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart unto the Lord. And then he speaks of giving thanks, having a thankful spirit, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So here we have a little bit of instruction given to us as to how we can walk, how we can be filled with the Spirit. Give the Lord Jesus his first place, the place that He desires in the heart 1St, and then these things will fall into place.
There was a time when I was in the military and, uh.
The guys used to enjoy going and getting inebriated.
You could always tell when somebody had had too much to drink because it generally showed in their speech and in their walk. Here it says be not drunk with wine. We're in this excess. Being filled with the spirit and being filled with the spirit should be as evident as a drunken person. You can tell that they're in that case. So here's one. If he's in the spirit, he's going to be doing those things you just read in verse 19.
He's going to be trying to be an encouragement to others, speaking to yourselves and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. He's going to be giving thanks. He's going to have that kind of an attitude. That's evidence that we're filled with the spirit. And just to give an example to of the redeeming time, uh, there was a time when I brought a load of firewood, uh, home from a trust plant at home. My boys were little and, uh, they coming from the trust mill, they had been cut off from all the pieces of lumber. And so they were all kinds of interesting shakes there.
And my younger son was fairly young at the time, and so I had the boys. We need to unload the trailer here, so let's throw it all off here in the wood pile. My younger son saw those interesting shapes. And there was nothing wrong with the interesting shapes. He wasn't doing anything bad as our brother Tim brought before us, but he started filling his time with building interesting things with these shapes.
And my other son and I were, we were throwing the wood off and pretty soon my younger son started looking around and he said, but I wanted to help too. But he had not redeemed the time. He was busy. It wasn't bad. I wasn't going to give him a spanking for playing with blocks, but he had wasted his time. That's not redeeming the time as we just had a an exhortation. So just an example there. It might make a smile, but it's real. We do that in our lives all the time. We play with interesting things. We say there's nothing wrong with this.
Well, maybe there's not, but has the war got his place in our life?
Don't think that, uh, feel that more time when you retire. Uh, just retired seven years last week. I knew how much time was allowed for me for feeding.
And you say, well, now I'm going to fix a month and years I've spent all the time, but I have more things to do, more interruptions when I'm retired and when I was on the schedule before I went there.
So a wise word is thick with the schedule that you were able to do that way.
You are getting production, so that's private center, same thing like oh we haven't had our receipt with.
Probably verse 19 gives us the fact that we have a joyful spirit if we are filled with the spirit. And so we can speak unto ourselves. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Well, he gives the distinction between the types of songs that we sing. And so these songs are really hymns that we might sing it even in the, uh, Little Flock hymn book in connection with wilderness experience.
00:40:17
We all know what it is to go through the wilderness of this world. And so we can sing of those wilderness experiences and we can understand them and umm, then we can sing of these, uh, spiritual songs. We can, umm, really, uh, he brings us out as well. And uh, the epistle to the Colossians, it might uh, be good too, to look at that. In verse 16, it says that Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16. Let the word of Christ well in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing.
One another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. So these hymns really, we sing for worship and we address the, the Father and the son in connection with our hymns. And then we also have spiritual songs. So we might, uh, sing songs, spiritual songs. And I don't wanna minimize the spiritual songs, but uh, we sing spiritual songs even in connection with the gospel meeting, don't we?
Can we sing spiritual songs in the Sunday school hymn book and so on. We can be refreshed as we sing those songs. And there are times where we could perhaps feel a particular burden in our souls. And so we sing a song. We sing a spiritual hymn that reflects upon the wilderness experience that we're passing through. So the Spirit of God gives us these three different types of hymns that we can sing and that we can instruct ourselves, as it says here in.
In Colossians teaching and admonishing one another. And so it has a sanctifying effect upon us. Not only do we sing joyfully, but we can sing those songs that are worth singing.
Because they have Christ at the center and perhaps some work, some aspect of the work of Christ. You and I have the blessed privilege of being able to listen to songs on spiritual songs, spiritual hymns on the CD's and so on. Those that are doctrinally accurate are better to listen to, and then we can also sing. It's evidence that we're living in the good of what we know.
And they can. Those hymns and songs, spiritual songs, can instruct us, can refresh us, can encourage us, and can encourage those that hear us singing.
I was thinking the, uh, in giving thanks unto the Father, Sometimes that's a difficult process. Uh, things come into our lives where we, we cannot see there's any good in this.
Why has the Lord allowed it? But you know, in the darkest time of the Lord's experience down here, when the nation rejected him, the leaders, the common people, you'll see it in Matthew, uh, I think it's Matthew 12 where the Lord said, uh, I thank the old Father. This was a very dark hour in the Lord's experience. It's in the Matthew chapter, UH-7.
Verse UH-25 at that time.
Jesus answered and said, I thank the old Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, hast revealed them unto babes, Even so far so it seemed good in thy sight. What a marvelous submission and example for us in the Lord's pathway down here. We're coming down to the end of the chapter, which we're not going to get to I'm afraid. You have two things brought out here. You have authority.
And submission.
And both are important. The board has, in the natural relationships of life, there is such a thing as authority. And we must recognize that. There's a breakdown of authority all around us. And man is, uh, doing his own will. It's lawless. Uh, he doesn't want to submit to anything. It's in the school system, it's in the, it's in the, uh, families can be in the assembly.
So submission is the healing principle of God.
Now we don't, uh, compromise with sin, but submission to authority is so important. Nearly all the divisions among brethren.
00:45:03
Have stemmed from that point. There has not been submission to authority. Nearly all the divisions which have been widespread, uh, and have caused much separation have basically flowed from that point. They did not submit to an assembly action there. It comes in in, in the collective sense, but there are submissions also as the apostle brings out here.
Lives to their husbands and the to the secular authorities too.
Between 19 and 23 is it?
21 and 22 They're submitting. Well in the Scriptures, in the New Testament, there are very few references to singing, but one was, and I think the Gospel of Matthew says having summoned him, they went to the Mount of Olives. So they sung him and then they went to Mount Olive. In Acts 16, they were in prison and they saying, Praise is unto God. Jesus said, I thank thee, Father, without his hidden these things from the wise.
And revealed them on debates in Matthew 23. And then he said, not my will, but thine be done. And Paul had preached and a demon had been cast out of a woman. And they were put in jail. And they submitted and they sang. He gave thanks. So each one of us, maybe we don't feel like singing. Maybe we come home from work or school or a trip and we don't feel like singing. Perhaps we're in verse 414. We're among the dead. Or perhaps we're in verse 15 and we're.
Seeking to walk circumspectly, and maybe we're not. Perhaps we're in verse 16 and we're just not getting anything done. We're not redeeming the time. Perhaps we're in verse 17 and we're maybe being unwise and we're not understanding what the will of the Lord is. Perhaps we're in verse 18 and we're socializing with the wrong people and imbibing the wrong things. Instead of being filled with the Spirit. There are roots, there are sources, there are traces, and the Spirit of God can convict our conscience.
And illumine our eyes to give us to seek. What is the hindrance?
It was a difficulty, the spirit of butts, and it's a we're there's a hindrance in my life and my heart in my walk. So singing and giving thanks and submitting, they're connected. And when we find it hard to sing, they're hard to submit. God can produce by this Holy Spirit a work in our soul so that we can be able to submit to His will and to one another and be an encouragement. It's God that has to do the work.
The umm.
Uh, just been looking at this, uh, 20th verse.
Uh, it it's a challenge.
Like just think of the implications here.
Giving thanks always for all things.
Uh, I'd, I'd, I'd rather go keep on going on rather than spend some time there, but.
That's umm, you know, he writes to the he writes to the Philippians similarly, but he adds a little detail that that's very helpful for me. Let's look at Philippians chapter chapter 4, Philippians chapter 4 and verse 11. Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am.
Therewith to be content again the same thing. Do you and I realize the implications of this?
This is written. This is written from a Roman self.
The apostles freedom is not, it's not there anymore. Like even the concept of writing a letter to the Philippians and naturally speaking, having it get to Philippi is almost bizarre. And yet, of course, the Spirit of God is over everything. And not only did it get the Philippi, but it's here. We have it for us. But there's a little detail here.
That that I've appreciated says I have learned.
The Apostle Paul, when he was saved, he didn't come equipped with this.
It was a process, he says I have learned. And so he portrays that to the Philippians as he's writing to them in the grave circumstances he's in. And so as we look at our verse.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God. We realize, you know, when that seems like a real challenge for us. Let's realize that the apostle, even the great apostle, these things of contentment. That was a process that the Lord brought him to where he was able to be content with everything that came across this pathway. You know, we asked for something and if the answer was yes, he just say yes, that's great. But if the answer was no, he could say the same thing. Yes, that's great. That's the implications of of this portion.
00:50:28
And, uh, I'm afraid I'm not there, but I, uh, I, uh, I'm intrigued by it and I'm, I'm just, uh, I'm, I'm so thankful that it's here for me. And the apostle could say what he says here.
Plus, evidence in verse 21 That a spirit of submission is not only in connection with natural responsibilities as he brings out here, but umm, the submission to the will of God, to submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God. Everything was right.
And, uh, he had a subtle disposition, uh, in that Philippian wrote in the Philippians there. But, uh, it's evidence that we're walking in the spirit, isn't it? If we're walking in the spirit, we submit to what the Lord has laid in our lives. It's a very difficult thing to submit to some things that, uh, and it seems that the word, uh, the will of man is opposed, our wills are opposed to certain things and we don't want to suffer.
Anyone here want to suffer? No, we would rather not suffer. We'd rather really avoid that kind of thing, but the Lord that it might produce fruit in our souls, fruit for him for all eternity that might glorify him in our lives that we might redeem the time often times does allow suffering and what is the proper stance in our our response is to submit to it. And so there's a the Lord just gives us this. The apostle inspired of God gives us this to be filled with the spirit to sing to be a of a joyful spirit.
And to give thanks to God for all things. But notice it's in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He recognizes the lordship of Christ and he gives us instruction. And then there's submission, the.
Thought of submission here and then he brings in the natural relationships and how we can walk in the spirit in those natural relationships in a spirit of submission. And you know it says in James that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
And so we need to recognize that our will, sometimes the Lord has to correct our wills. There are two things that we, umm, are corrected with, if I could put it that way in, in Scripture, the Lord deals with us in discipline and on two counts. One is he will discipline us and correct us for disciplines.
And the second thing is that He will discipline us and correct us for our spirit.
And so we received discipline because of our disobedience, and we received discipline because of our spirit, or we might say today's language, our attitude.
And so because He loves us, He desires to correct our attitude as well as to deal with this governmentally in connection with disobedience. What a loving Savior we have and what is the process is to submit to it. And that's what we have in Hebrews chapter 12.
There's a headship here brought before us. We've spoken of the assembly and the the need for submission. I as again I say that a lot of the divisions, perhaps not all, have come from that.
The erosion of that principle of submission to the action of an assembly where the authority of the Lord is located.
But in the latter part of the chapter we have the Church of God brought before us a marvelous revelation to the apostle Paul largely misunderstood and christened them today, and misconstrued and.
Things thrown into confusion because they do not see the Church of God as a distinct entity.
Uh, in the past and present and future presented here that which is.
Nearest to the heart of God is presented in different ways, the body of Christ, the House of God, the Candlestick, the bride. But it's the Church of God formed at Pentecost by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. By the way, baptism is always a collective thing. It's never individual baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, those believers united into.
00:55:23
One body, but the church has never spoken of as being in Christ. That's an individual thought. The headship of the church is, uh, is to Christ. My hand is not in my head, but it is united to my head. It is directed by the intelligence of the head, but it's not in my head. And so we don't speak of the Church of God as being in Christ.
But it is united to Christ in the first chapter of Ephesians.
It speaks at the end of the first chapter. Hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, not head over the church, but head of all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth All in all. So we are united to Christ in the glory. It's not, it's not the individual aspect when it's when we're spoken of as in Christ. It is individual, but the headship of Christ.
Is a collective thought and we are united to Christ in the glory as his body. And the Lord is nourishing that body. He is caring for it. He is cherishing it. He is washing it with the water of the Word. There's a sanctifying process going on. We're having it this weekend when we're over the word of God, we're having our feet washed. The Lord is is washing his.
His church here in that sense, and then it's going to be presented to him without spot and wrinkle and the his portion for all eternity, although the body of Christ or correctly speaking.
Is something that is here on earth.
Uh, we met this morning as members of the body of Christ.
But uh, the body of Christ, uh, 200 years ago did not have the same members in it that there is now.
The members are are different in the in the body today than they were 203 hundred years ago, but it's the same body really. The body of Christ is an earthly aspect.
Some, uh, transferred into eternity, but it's more the bride of Christ that is in view and eternity.
Uh, and so the apostle speaks of the past, redeemed, the present, the washing, the sanctification and the presentation in the future. Maybe someone can add something to that. And.
We're, we're all kind of disappointed that we're not gonna get the husbands and wives here. I realize, umm, but maybe I could make a comment that would bring both together, Umm.
We've had before us submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God.
Umm, this, this is gonna be for both of us who are husbands and wives. Umm, we don't typically submit to something that we agreed to.
Otherwise it's not submission. There's a difference between submission and subjection.
Here we have submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God, and then right on the heels at it, He takes up with wives. Submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
I'm just gonna turn to a portion now in, in, in first, Peter, which will help us with this first.
I I'm not a wife.
I'm on shaky ground and we're not gonna hear from 1:00 today.
But in First Peter 4.
He takes up the thought of Abraham and Sarah, and then he says in the seventh verse, likewise he husbands.
Dwell with them according to knowledge.
Giving honor unto the wife.
As unto the weaker vessel.
And as being heirs together of the grace of life.
In the measure that we as husbands.
01:00:02
Dwell with our wives according to knowledge, and that's a whole address in itself. But in the measure that we do that, it's going to be very, very simple for our wives to reverence their husbands and for our wives to submit to their husbands. But the verse doesn't stop there. It goes on and says that your prayers be not hindered.
You know, it's a marvelous thing. My husband's wives are able to pray together.
And because there is this, umm, this union that we have where?
Uh, husband recognizes that the the wife is the weaker vessel and does everything in his power to dwell with them. According to knowledge, the wife is able to submit to her husband in a marvelous way. And what's the result? The prayers are not hindered.
No, no, no.
Uh.
The last verse of 298.
We stand.
Nsnoise.
11102528348, Maharashtra.
Two.
She pray their God and their Father, we thank thee so much for this and time that we've been able to have together over thy word and.
We just confess again that we so need these things.
For in ourselves we have no strength at all. But we thank you that we know that One who is all strength and that He has shared with us, given to us his very life. And we pray that that would help us to.
01:05:03
Walk in that life and to give Thee glory and honor in our lives, redeeming the time and being taken off with those things that are of they and to live our lives joyfully and thankfully too. We pray that these things would go with us after these meetings and remain with us until that day when the Lord Jesus.
Comes again and we will all be together again as we just sang, hopefully long for that moment, especially to see the face of our Savior. And so we thank Thee once again and His most precious and worthy name. Amen. Amen.