Glendale Conference: 1968
Table of Contents
Discipline
Address—E. Smith
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Thing together number 174100 and 74.
All patient, spotless, one our hearts in meekness, trained to bear thy yoke and learn of these that we may rest, obtain Jesus. Not enough the mind and heart to fill.
Thy patient life to calm the soul, find love. It's fear dispelled 174.
Patience.
There we are.
May we read together the 12Th of Hebrews?
Chapter 12 of Hebrews and beginning at verse one.
Wherefore seeing we also accomplished about with so great a cloud of witnesses.
Let us lay aside every weight.
And the sin which doth so easily beset us.
And let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.
The author and finisher of faith.
Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame?
And they sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him not endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
Lest he be wearied and faint in your minds.
Ye have not resisted unto blood.
Striving against sin.
And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children.
My son.
Despised not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint without rebuked of him.
Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourge us every son whom he receiveth. If he endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons.
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For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without testament, whereof all our partakers, then are yeast ******** and not sons.
Furthermore, we have head fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits, and live?
For they verily, for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure.
But he for our Prophet that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
Now no chastening, for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless afterward it meaneth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Therefore, lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet.
Lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed.
Follow peace with our and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Looking diligently.
Lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.
It has been asked of me.
A question concerning the testimony of the work in Bolivia and in Peru. And they mentioned, they asked me where it was in these days of small things, that so many of those dear ones were saved and happily gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we.
Humble ourselves in the presence of God, known that it has been of himself, He has done it. But there are some things beloved, that.
That have been manifested in the testimony there, for instance.
Implicit obedience to the Word of God. That is the first thing. The second thing that has been emphasized during these long years in the Testament. There is the matter of the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in our midst, in their midst.
That has been kept before them and has been obeyed.
And then again.
Another matter that has meant so much to the testimony.
And assembly decision holds.
No one ever opposes that during the 43 years that I served the Lord there, 42 rather that has never been opposed.
And the last is.
Sin.
Now this is by the grace of God.
Sin has not only been recognized.
But it has been judged.
And put away.
These points.
I just simply mention as a reply to the question these have characterized their testimony. And we rejoice, beloved, in spite of the day of small things, that there are over 1000 of these dear believers now there in that state.
These are not my own numbers. These, these. This is sent to me by the five labouring brethren, and each Lord's demanding 500 sit down and break bread together.
In this we praise the Lord and take courage, and it is upon these points this afternoon.
I wish to speak. We wish to speak to you, beloved.
Looking up certain scriptures pertinent to these points.
You'll notice here.
That the Apostle Paul, in speaking to these Christians, he says. Seeing that we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, where you get that cloud of witnesses in the previous chapter?
We shall call these rather spectators.
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And their witnesses to the truth and to the reality.
Of God's sustaining grace.
Now the apostle says, let us lay awake, lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset.
I have noticed in studying this portion that verses one to two do link up the previous chapters we've just mentioned.
But also verses one and two.
Give us things to be put up as Christians, to be put on.
And in verses 5 to 8.
There are things to be born beyond there are things to be born.
And I've often thought that as Christians it will either be with us a weight or a wing.
And some dear Saints complain sometimes that they are always being harped at to put off something, get rid of something, do something to walk in newness of life. And I'm reminded of a young lady who came to me and said, Mr. Smith, must I do this? And must I put off this? And must I do the other thing? And I said, dear sister, why don't you say, what can I put off, what can I get rid of that the Lord Jesus might be glorified in my life?
And she did so.
A happy sister, indeed.
And it says here, let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
A world beloved might not be a specific sin, but it would be something that hinders progress in the Christian life.
And I do feel.
Then this demands what we don't like to accept, not so heartily as we should. This demands discipline.
Discipline comes in below.
When these things that.
I read hindrances to us or waits. There has to be discipline exercised.
We might divide this up in a simple way.
I believe what we've read here this this afternoon from the 12Th of Hebrews is what we might call punitive discipline.
That is to say, let me illustrate it with what occurred when I first went to Yulo.
One day, the chief.
Appeared on his white mule with 9 attendants and the Chiefs and they were on their way to a ranch of Indians just about 200 yards from our little home. And I said to my dear wife honey, I said the the chief is on the warpath.
Well, he was going to inflict punishment on a young fellow who had violated the virginity of a maiden. Now that is a crime.
With the anchor.
And that's the only case I know. And down came this great big.
Strapping Chief 646 feet far with all the authority that he had. And what did he do? He ordered 4 steaks to be put in the ground, two to tie this young man's hands to and two to tie his feet to. And naked, he dealt him with his rawhide whip. 6 cuts that lifted the flakes. Oh, it really made my heart ache to see that young man. Is it any wonder?
That they feared to engage in that promiscuous business.
Now what's he do? He took the name away from that young man of the tribe, banished him, and he called for the maiden and he pulled her. Isn't it? Blood? Ran out of them and banished her from the tribe. And this is what we call punitive chastisement. It's rough. It's terrible.
Oh beloved, here we have the Father coming into your life and mine.
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And the South here ye have not resisted unto blood.
That is, you're not martyrs striving against sin, and he mentions how the Lord Jesus what suffering he endured.
Of the contradiction of sinners against himself. Now don't be faint in your mind, because you're not even martyrs.
And you have forgotten the exultation which speaketh unto you is unto children. And then the apostle says, My son.
Despise not thou the chasing of the law.
Nor faint when our tribute of him for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth. Now the apostle goes on. This is the the Father, beloved coming into our lives, and causing us to reflect upon our actions as believers. He comes in this way into your life and mine.
And then the apostle draws our attention to our fathers.
Who meted out punishment accordingly?
I always think of dear Father. My father was a powerful man, and he was rather irritable before he was saved and he never touched his children.
Because he was afraid of breaking a bone. But he stood by mother 100%, and with those steely blue eyes he watched her inflicted. And we got it. We thank God for it. It seemed pretty hard at the time.
But we thank God for it at an early age, his seven children.
Were saved and happily gathered to the precious name of Christ. Later on, Father was saved and happily gathered too. Mother used to have a switch on the wall, and she called it her admonition. She called it her admonition.
We got it. But here is the Father coming in, beloved.
And he says, Here our fathers of the flesh corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father's spirit?
And live for they verily for a few days, chasing us after their own pleasure, but he for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness. And yet in the other day we remarked that holiness really is the rejection of everything out from my life and yours that would be contrary to God's mind and to God's nature.
Yes, it was grievous and sorrowful, Apostle says. Now lift up the hands which hang down the feeble knees, and make straight paws for your feet, And then the session goes 15 which will come back to this, as the Lord enables, looking diligently, any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. We'll come back to that. Now the next aspect of.
We might look at John's Gospel now.
The 15th chapter of John's Gospel.
And we may call this another form of discipline. I think we can call this preparative discipline. Hebrews 12 is punitive and it's done in love by the Father.
Here we have preparative discipline, and this is very simple and very beautiful.
This discipline we might read a few verses. I am the true vine as verse one, beloved, And my father is the husband man. Every branch you need that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. You never can be, you never can be Reborn, beloved.
That's once and forever. Now abide in me though he says, And I knew, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except you abide in the IT abide in the vine. No more can ye except ye abide in the vine, abide in me, rather I am the vine, yell the branches. He that abideth in me, and I and him the same bringeth forth.
Much fruit, and I think that's the theme here. Here we have preparative discipline. The father comes into your life and into mine and begins pruning the pruning process, which we do not care to endure so often, unfortunately.
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I had remarked in another meeting that I had a very dear friend, a Colonel in the Bolivian army with whom I was associated when I was preaching the gospel to the troops and the war was over. And he invited me down to his beautiful ranch. And he said, Smith, I want you to come and be a few days with me and I want you to preach to my people. And that was an opportunity. I did go and he was pruning his vineyard. I said, Colonel, so and so I think you're doing.
You're you're cutting away too much.
I think you're going to spoil those lines, No, he said. Smith, We are not spoiling the vines. We are preparing them that they might bear much fruit. And he says when grape season comes round again, come down and stay a week, preach the gospel to the people and enjoy the grapes, which I did. By the way, Beloved, the Colonel has passed on without Christ, but there's a nice assembly formed there where he lived of 26 and fellowship.
Well, the Lord blessed them. Now here's the here is the Father coming into the vineyard.
Pruning your scissors is getting this scissors at work, You know, cutting off those things that hinder fruit bearing. Now the father would have us stand the pruning process below, and in order to do so, he has to cut deeply very often. This is then preparative discipline. We'll have to hurry on. Now, would you kindly turn to 2nd Corinthians?
12.
Verse one, chapter 12 Two Corinthians.
Verse one, it is not expedient for me, doubtless to glory, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
I knew a man in Christ about 40 years ago. Whether in the body I cannot tell, and whether out of the body I cannot tell. God knoweth such in one caught up to the 3rd heaven, and I knew such a man whither in the body or out of the body I cannot tell. God knoweth now how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which is not. It is not lawful for men to utter of such an one will I glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but.
In mine infirmities.
Verse 7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the Revelation that was given to me, a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
This is what we will, we shall call, preventive discipline, and it is that we might not become puffed up, beloved.
For pride is an abomination unto the Lord.
Oh, how many of God's dear people become lost dynamics through pride?
And how many problems do occur in the meetings?
Because of pride.
I remind my soul continually of two brothers.
They were useful men.
I'm not Speaking of South America now. I'm Speaking of old England. These were useful brothers.
Both were well taught in the word, and yet they were always at loggerheads, with the result that that meeting never grew.
In fact, it almost folded up because of this continual trouble.
One day. After years of this procedure. One day.
One of the brothers lay a dying.
And he sent for his brother to come immediately as he wanted to speak to him before he went home.
And he went immediately.
The thing he had never done, although he is, and he came and saw his dear brother.
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Breathing his last, propping himself up as best he could, he said. Brother, would you do me a favor?
Oh, he says. Brother, I'll do anything for you, anything you like. Well, he says. See that pillow?
Would you kindly take that out where the wind is blowing, strongly open it and let the feathers fly in the wind? He said certainly. And then shake it well, brother, and bring it back, please. So he did took it out where the wind was blowing, shook it well, and brought it back to his brother. And now he said, before I go, one more little favor, brother.
Would you kindly go and pick up the feathers?
An impossibility?
The feathers were never picked up.
And that matter will be righted at the judgment seat of Christ.
All the laughs of it. Pride, pride. And that brings us from.
Preventive.
Discipline over.
To another.
Kind of discipline, and it's called trespass. A trespass. Look at Matthew 18, if you please.
Verse 15 of Matthew 18.
Moreover, replied brother, shall trespass against thee go?
And tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, thou hast gain thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more. Let in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established, and if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee, as in he the man and a publican, verily I say unto you, whatsoever he shall bind on earth.
Shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth.
Shall be loosed in heaven.
Do you know, beloved, it's now 54 years since I gave my whole little life to the service of Christ, and without stopping by His grace, still seeking to go on witnessing for Christ.
On the 1St of January, 1915 I said, Lord Jesus, take this poor Sinner saved by thy grace.
And give me grace to stand in the gap before the land, even as the ox between the plough and the altar, ready for labor or for sacrifice. And he heard that prayer, And up to this day I find myself even though.
Tired not of it, but in it still seeking to serve him by his grace.
I've never known during those 42 years of ministry among those dear Latins and Indians, never known to go beyond the first point if thy brother hath aught against thee, girl.
Go. You know, I had an experience not so long ago in Tampa.
A certain dear brother whom we love. He objected a little rather to my pointed preaching, because we do speak pointedly to our dear brethren and to the soul. And he was offended, and he didn't come one of the brothers there.
In the meeting suggested that I better not go.
Because he may be annoyed and there may be words. I said, Brother, may I just point you to this verse And I intend to go by the Lord's grace and speak to that dear brother. Well, I went 40 odd miles away and looked up our brother. There he was. He received me and I said, dear brother, I've come. I believe you have something against me. You know what happened? He just grabbed me in his arms and whooped like a child on my shoulder and so that I own his was all over.
Finished. All of it was finished, beloved. Right there and then There's never been any more trouble. If thy brother hath all against thee, go, go. That's the order for the trespass. And if you compare that, we'll have to hurry along. If you compare Matthew 5, you'll see the other side of it. We might just read that below it.
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Actually.
Verse 23.
Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and their remembrance that thy brother have fought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar.
And go thy ways.
First be reconciled to thy brother.
And then come and offer thy gift. There's the other side of it, and it's very, very important. Beloved, those two pushed now just to hurry along a little, I'd like to speak something concerning.
Ecclesiastical discipline. It's not easy, beloved, and it costs lots of prayer and exercise before the love.
We might read first of all.
We might go now to 1St Corinthians 5 for a little while.
Verse one.
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife.
And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
For I have got early as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glory is not good.
Now there is, beloved, we'll notice.
Reading the last verses of this chapter.
There is something known as ecclesiastical discipline.
Let us read one or two more verses.
First of all it says purge out there for the old leaven that you may be a new lump.
Ye are unleavened, For even Christ our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you, an epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters. For then must he needs go out on the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortionate with such an one, no, not to eat.
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within, but them that are without? God Judgeth, therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
This is ecclesiastical discipline, beloved, as you know.
And it's very solemn. I want to tell you what happened.
During the war between Paraguay and Argentine and Bolivia.
A commanding officer was saved.
A powerful man.
And he went on for God. He was Julie. He desired to be baptized, and he went, and he desired to break bread. And he went on for God for 20 years.
That man I just loved so much. He was a gifted man. He was a gift to the church. But one day he suddenly fell with a stroke.
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His speech was taken from him.
But we carried him partly because he couldn't work back to his house and put him to bed, and he lay there with his pillow wet with tears. He couldn't speak.
For one solid week. And then his speech came back.
And it was then he confessed his sin that he had gotten into sin with a woman.
All below. What a shock it was to us all, that dear man.
And he had to be put away, and his own soldiers gathered to the precious name of Christ with him, his poor soldiers, these poor brother, had to raid him out.
Well, what happened?
I used to go every day and speak with him.
And he said brother.
Oh how Satan assisted me. Now the Lord freely forgave him.
But one day two of the young brothers was not very much teaching came to sympathize with him.
And you know what he said to them?
He said, you, brethren, go home and behave yourself. Go home and behave yourself. He forgot for the moment that he wasn't a commanding officer then. But he said brethren, go home and behave yourself. And do you know what he told them? He said the assembly decision must hold.
Must hold. Supposing it is wrong, one said. Leave it with the Lord, He said it was a lesson for his beloved. Leave it with a loud.
Well, he didn't live very long.
But he went home happily and freely, forgiven. But the Lord took him home.
There is a sin unto death that wasn't that. That wasn't a sin unto death.
But Ananias and Sapphira that seemed lost.
And if you read carefully, if you have time, Job 33 and also Job 36, you'll find that these these matters of a sin unto bed and a sin not unto death, you'll find there very beautifully portrayed. But there's a case where the the discipline of the assembly Beloved held. And it was a lesson for us right throughout the years, many years of God since he was taken.
And that lesson has remained with the Saints. The an assembly decision, Beloved holds.
If we lift that goal, dear beloved brethren in Christ, we are ruined.
And we are ruined also if we ever think.
That because fornication is practiced once, it is no longer fornication.
If it's practiced once beloved or 1000 times its fornication and is wicked and God will judge it.
Sometimes we let the bars down, and we are sometimes unfaithful. And as an old man, standing before your beloved with the love and confidence of my dear brethren, I want to be faithful.
These are difficult days. These are days of slumming over truth that characterizes us. If we let these truths slip, we're going to be folded up.
The assembly discipline must hold and.
The other point is that an assembly that does not recognize sin, judge it, and put it out. Beloved is no longer on the ground of an assembly.
If sin is not recognized, if sin is not judged and sin is not put out, we cannot say that we are on the ground of an assembly of the Assembly of God.
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Some may take.
An opposite view, but I believe the scriptures hold fast concerning this.
I was thinking very particularly of this.
That ecclesiastical discipline, beloved, is not an individual thing. It is something that touches the assembly.
And the conscience of the assembly must be awakened below.
Not only awakened, but there must be humiliation and self judgment and confession.
We have sinned, Daniel. Nine. We have sinned. Now. There was a point came up recently in South America.
Where there was failure and the whole assembly took upon itself.
The guilt.
And I can see dear Teddies and and Philemon Garnica.
And.
Domingo Choke, And those laboring brethren there, weeping before the Lord, and wondering that if the assembly had been in a good condition, that calamity that came to one meeting might have been averted.
And so they all got together.
Ate the sacrifice in the holy place. We have sinned. We beloved, we hang our heads in shame before God because of our lackadaisical spirit, because of our unfaithfulness.
Because we are, we are afraid to offend.
No. May we be found faithful, beloved.
The Lord is listening. The Lord is watching.
Things as they are today.
So what ecclesiastical discipline, though it is so solemn.
It is sometimes strictly necessary.
But what about this question of discipline? It is that the dear soul who has fallen might be restored. Oh yes, that's beautifully taught in 2nd Corinthians 2, because restoration is always to be sought in every case.
Of disciplinary measures.
There is another point.
We might read in Romans 16.
And this is concerning heresy.
Verse 17.
Now I beseech you, brethren.
Mark them with clause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which he have learned, and avoid them.
We will know that.
Heresy is not nearly the negation of certain doctrines. It it it, it absolutely has to do with that. But heresy, beloved, as you know, is the farming of a party.
This is the sin of currents, besides fornication, the forming of a party. I want to tell you what happened, beloved, in that work in Bolivia, which is so precious to my poor heart.
Her brother many years ago. An influential brother in that country too.
He got the impression that.
I was rather exclusive.
And so he began to form a party with himself.
He wanted to have music and he wanted to have more liberty to mix with the Saint, with the sect. And that, dear man, caused me many a tear in those early days.
Very difficult case to deal with, very strong minded.
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And so he managed to take with him 5 assemblies, 5 assemblies.
For five years I never put my foot inside those meetings, all my own spiritual children.
Left with a log. Prayed for this dear man.
At the end of the fifth year.
I got a letter.
Signed by 9 responsible breath saying brother Smith do come, we're in trouble do come, we're in trouble.
Will that meant four days on new Day, new back. So my dear wife, she prepared a little bit of a snack and my saddle bags and got on my mule in four days, battling through the rivers, sleeping under the stars.
Reached there one Saturday evening at 5:00.
Before I got there, sent a telegram from the nearest government station that I would arrive, God willing, at that time. And they were waiting.
And we got together over the word and the we converse together until 2:30 in the morning.
This dear man, and those he had tempted away, were convinced that they were on the wrong.
Position they were in the wrong position, that they had sinned against the truth, that they were guilty of heresy.
When they saw it, beloved. Oh, I thank God for that time. I was tired out, went down with pneumonia after that, very nearly went home to glory. But I was happy in the knowledge that that breach was healed. Healed. They ceased to ever speak about party system parties.
Do you know who they were? I'll name them.
One is called Philemon Garnika.
The other is called Lino Bueno. The other is called Domingo Choke. The other is called Demetrius. The other is called Cesatara 5, Laboring Brethren for God Prayful. They learned their lesson and beloved what has been the result.
Do you know that meeting there in I thought you almost That's where doctor class and I see his face here.
That's where we went. And Drive class knows all about that trip. That's a nice meeting today of 73 and fellowship.
But it almost folded up because of that party spirit. God was not pleased with it. It was heresy.
And I got a letter in this last meal from these dear brethren.
Saying rejoice Brother Smith with us that 21.
Have been added to the Lord chewing the gear and they're all at the table.
21 more.
What happened? The very heavens, the very doors of windows of heaven were opened. The breach was healed, and those dear men learned their lesson. Beloved, may we take these things to heart.
We dare not form any party spirit. I suppose one of the greatest trials of serving the Lord in in any particular place is the question of parental affection.
Parental affection.
Sometimes a decision is made to please.
One's own flesh and blood.
And the honor of the Lord is forgotten, brethren.
The.
Honor, the glory and the authority of Christ in our midst must be maintained at all cost. Must be maintained at all costs.
Sin in every firm must be recognized.
Judged and put up.
That God might bless his testimony.
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Now I'm not going to say anymore this afternoon I'm pretty tired, beloved, but I just asked prayer.
For the work in South America, there are now 31, I understand 31 assemblies in Bolivia.
And now there are three more in Peru.
And if the Lord will that Francis and I have strength, the goal to try and begin to help establish the work in El Salvador, just pray that we may be given strength to go. There's a nice little group through the efforts of our love, brother Ramon, who's present with us.
There in El Salvador, they need instruction, they need help.
And the last letter I got, a little photo has come and by the way, Ramon, I must give you that.
Photo of 50 odd children in the Sunday School. Just pray that we may be able to.
Go there and be a little help to them.
Then we do pray that.
Dear Ramon will have your prayers. Now. I've been with dear Damon. I've heard his ministry.
Loved him and loved his work for Christ.
Pray for our brother God has blessed His the Word, his testimony to the dear Mexicans, and God will bless the truth and faithfulness.
Now we're going to sing a hymn in conclusion.
256 I just love this Him, you know. And would you kindly stand and sing it together? Beloved, praise the Savior. Ye who know him, who can tell how much we owe him? Gladly let us render to him all we have an honor. Praise the Savior. You know him.
People name the child Abraham.
Not in you.
Nothing.
While we go.
Trust in him.
Thankfully, he is faithful changing network.
Lord, we love all, my dear.
Keep us long.
People sleep till thyself thy chill being.
Killed.
Racing.
Promise.
Always.
Then we shall be where we will stay.
Then we come.
Thing with all.
The.
End.
Most gracious God and loving Father.
We thank thee for thy precious word.
And we thank thee too, for the privilege granted us.
To just draw.
Our attention to these matters which so vitally affect the testimony.
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Of the Lord Jesus Christ in this scene for our gracious God and Father grant that we may be doers of it, the Word, and not hearers, only deceiving our own selves. Do bless thy dear people. Oh, how we thank thee for them, How we long to see them going on happily together with one mind and 11 hope before them Lord Jesus doom.
Keep the feet of thy dear people. We pray thee our hearts long for this.
To be a reality, we know that we are objects of Satan's hatred.
And the reason too, We know Lord Jesus, why he hates the truth of the one body, because it draws.
Thy dear people, so closely to one another. Blessed Savior, defeat the enemy. We pray thee and glorify the Lord Jesus. These are the last days, and we pray that thou its preserves in spirit, soul, and body blameless.
Unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and thus we give thanks.
Asking thy blessing in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I'm sure that Brother Alarcon and I shared in many happy memories of Bolivia that were raised by some of the comments of this afternoon and mentioned some of the very Dear servants of the Lord.
When we got to non love down there just recently, and it's a very comforting thing to me to recall that we we never were present at a prayer meeting amongst those dear believers without our mentioning the Saints in the United States, Canada, Mexico and other parts of the world. And it has been a very real thing to me today to realize that even this very day our brethren down in South America goes in Bolivia and Peru.
Have been praying for us, especially in connection with this conference. I received a letter from Brother Valderrama in Lima just this past week and he mentioned how the assembly in Lima was particularly praying for this meeting, which we are.
Having now, and the end of which is very rapidly approaching, how comforting it is to know that our brethren labor together with us in prayer in this way, and particularly are praying for the believers in the so-called.
North American World.
They're they're very much with us in their hearts and it's a great joy to think of them down there in that way.
The list of the special meetings which have been announced for the coming days is now out in the foyer behind me. It has been mounted over the bulletin board. I hope that everything is in order.
I will mention the specific details on it tonight before the Gospel Meeting.
And.
Call attention to any other points at that time.
With regard to the special meetings and some of the other meetings, the regular meetings for the coming week.
There will be served very shortly. We hope that everyone will stay to join us in the last meal of this conference. There's a lot of food there and we hope that no one will leave without eating.
The young people are invited for the final thing tonight. There has been apparently some question about who is invited and who is not. This is hard to say, but I would like to just say if you're accustomed to attending young people's meetings in your own community.
Welcome here and you can apply the term as generally as you wish. All the young people are invited to stay for singing, for a short address, and for a freshman's at the end.
It hardly seems that it should be necessary to mention once again the importance of taking home your valuables. I would like to have everyone look at his or her Bible and him book. Make sure the name you see inside is your own, Not merely that the book looks like one you brought with you. I've had many people ask me about bibles and hymn books. I'm unable to help any because none have been turned into me as being ownerless so.
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It would help a great deal if everyone would check his or her own hymn book and Bible and make sure that you have the right one, and above all, do not leave them carelessly around as you leave or as you go downstairs the meeting. It is surprising how many of these books just sort of seem to stray away by virtue of being left on a place unguarded, and we would like to see you take them all home with you at the end of the meetings.
It's all true for cameras and codes and sweaters and other belongings as well.
We'll do the best we can with picking up those things that are left around afterwards. I would like to also ask that all the parents keep close locked to the children's. Been some problems in connection with the drapes on the West side of the room, children crawling behind them and disconnecting the clock. So as a result we don't know what time it is. Also there is possibility of damage to the mechanism of the curtains.
If you don't know where your children are, please look for them. And this pertains to the little ones. We'd like to see them well controlled and well disciplined every year. We do have problems with damage to this building which we have to make good, and I think much of it could be preventive. Parents would perhaps just keep a little closer watch over the little ones that they know where they are at any given time. We'd like to have a little bit of help this evening from some of the local brothers and picking up many of the things which are.
Used in the general meetings, if there any who need transportation to or from an airport, railway station, please let us know.
From meeting 6:30 in the small room in the entrance to the north.
6:30 for prayer and the final meeting of this conference, Gospel meeting at 7:00 We trust that all will stay, and above all.
Will make an item of individual prayers. The Lord will really use His word and blessing to any who may be here this evening who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. This is a service that every one of us, young and old, men and women alike, can render to the Lord, and that is to pray about this matter personally and privately. Let's go downstairs now and have our evening meal.
John 4
Gospel—G.H. Hayhoe
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Shall we sing together? #15 on the hem sheet, Oh, blessed gospel sound. Yet there is room. It tells to all around. Yet there is room the guilty may draw near, though while they need not fear with joy they now may hear Yet there is room number 15.
Ah, Blessed Gospels, so.
Yeah, there is room.
Health.
Yeah, there is room.
So guilty.
They draw on the earth.
No. Violated not fear.
For joy they know may hear.
Yeah, there is room.
To turn with me tonight to the 4th chapter of the Gospel of John.
4th chapter of John's Gospel.
Beginning at the fourth verse.
And he must needs go through Samaria, then committee to a city of Samaria, which is called Saikar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the 6th hour. There cometh the woman of Samaria to draw water.
Jesus sat under her Give me to drink, for his disciples were gone away under the city to buy meat. Then set the woman of Samaria unto him. How is it that thou, being a Jew, Ask a drink of me which am a woman of Samaria, For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knowest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink.
Thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living Water, the woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father, Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give, him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hit her to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Gold call thy husband, and come hit her.
The woman answered, and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for those had five husbands. And he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that sense thou truly? The woman said unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped in this mountain and Jesus say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither at this mountain.
An Orietta Jerusalem Worship the Father he worshipping. Oh, not what we know. What we worship. For salvation is of the Jews, but the hour cometh. And now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiahs cometh, which is called Christ.
When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he? And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled, that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said, What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her? The woman then left her water pot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?
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Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.
In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat, But he saith unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples, 1 To another, Hath any man brought him, ought to eat? Jesus saith unto him, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
Say not either are yet four months, and then cometh harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white, all ready to harvest.
And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, and both that both heat of soth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that same true, one sauce, and another, Reapeth, I sent you to reap, that were on ye bestowed no labor other men labored, and ye are entered into their laborers. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified.
He told me all that ever I did so when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days, and many more, believed because of his own word, and said unto the woman. Now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
Well, isn't it very lovely, dear friends, that God should devote so many verses to a conversation the Lord Jesus had was just one lonely person beside a well. And don't ever think that in this crowd you are lost in the crowd to God as he looks over the company here tonight. You're an individual to him. He knows all about you. There's nothing in your whole life that is not an open book to him. And he sees you sitting here. He knows the very purpose for which you have come.
In all the thoughts that are going through your mind, the Bible says, I know the thoughts that come into your mind, everyone of them. It says all things are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom we have to do. And so tonight I want you to realize that as you sit in this room, God looks down upon you and he sees you. And I hope what is said tonight will be a message to you personally that you will not just let it Passover your head and say, well, that's just an address to a large crowd.
But that you will say, that's for me, the voice of God is speaking to me, and if so, I'm sure it will be for blessing because God wants to bless you. The Lord Jesus came into the world because he loved you and he wanted to save you, and he wants to bless you tonight, that you might have that joy and peace of salvation which only comes in believing.
It is a very interesting thing to notice too, that in the third chapter we have a man who was a ruler of the Jews and when the Lord Jesus was talking to this man, he said he must be born again. But in the 4th chapter here we have a woman who has sunk down in sin and the Lord Jesus taught her what true worship is. Now you know if you or I have been talking to either one of these.
We probably would have been telling Nicodemus he should understand what true worship was because he was a teacher and a master in Israel. And we would have been telling the woman that she needed to be born again, but not song with the precious Savior because the Lord Jesus knew the state of heart of each one and there might be someone here and just say, well, I think I'm quite a good person, dear friend, if you think you're the best person in the whole city of Glendale.
He must be born again. You can't get into heaven in that life with which you were born. In this world, you must receive a new life to enter heaven. And that's what the Lord was teaching Nicodemus. And so if he was going to show the necessity of new birth, he picks out the very best. And if he was going to show what true worship is, it would be one who had realized what it was to be saved from her sins. And dear friends, you can't worship God.
Until you have realized that you are a Sinner and that Christ died for you. And then your heart overflows in Thanksgiving to him for all that he has done in saving your precious soul. So how perfect the word of God is. And another thing I just like to call attention to that in this first verse it says he must needs go through Samaria. In the third chapter we have two other musts that I call attention to.
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The Lord said to this man, Nicodemus, he must be born again.
He must It wasn't something that he could choose for himself, whether it was a necessity or not, that he decided his own case as to whether it was really what his soul needed. No other one, the great physician who looked into his heart, said Nicodemus.
You may be a master in Israel, but you must be born again. You must have a new life.
If you're going to enter heaven. And then he brought out something else in that lovely chapter.
The Son of Man must be lifted up. Yes, the Lord Jesus was the only one who could make a sacrifice for sin. He was the only one who could settle a sin question for God's glory and for your blessing. There was no other way, for there was to be one person in heaven. The Lord Jesus must die. I remember when it dawned upon my soul that if I was the only Sinner in the face of the whole earth.
If I was going to enter heaven, it must be through the work of Christ. Not one could ever enter there, apart from what he did upon that cross. And then here we have the third one. He must needs go through Samaria. First he must be born again. And then, if blessing was to come, the Son of Man must be lifted up as a sin bearer upon Calvary's cross. But all that would have been in vain.
If it hadn't been that he sought me out, He sought me out. And that work on the cross is blessed and it's complete. But all there's more than that. The shepherd seeks the lost sheep, and tonight he's seeking you, just as the Lord Jesus sought that poor woman. She wasn't seeking him, he was seeking her. He was looking her out. And I suppose that she had no sense of this in her own soul when she came out that day.
To draw water to her, it was just another day, just another occupation that she was going to go out there and get some water to drink. But all you know, the Bible says the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. And perhaps you say, well, I don't know why I'm at this gospel meeting tonight, I suppose just a group of circumstances and I was invited and I came.
But God knows why you're here, friend. God knows why you're here. It was number accident. This woman came to draw water at the very same time that Jesus came to the well side. And it's no accident that you're here tonight. It was because God loves you and He's seeking you, and He is sending a message to your heart tonight that you might be brought to receive him as your Savior. And although you may not realize it, and you may not have thought of it before.
I want to tell you that he brought you here because he loves you, because he died for you, because he's seeking you. He wants you to be one of his companions in the glory, to share all that eternal bliss that has been won through the work on Calvary. So he must needs go through Samaria. And then just by seeming way of accident, this woman comes out to this well to draw water. And here it says.
In the sixth verse, now Jacob's well was there, Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey.
Sat thus on the well, oh, think of that precious savior, often weary but never ceasing to do his Father's will. Now going about as I read the Gospels, this is the thing that impresses me perhaps more than any other, is the way he constantly went on, unwearied in his service to his Father and for the blessing of man. When he was rejected, he still went on.
You read in one chapter every man went to his own house. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But the next chapter he's in the place teaching the people again, blessing the sinners. Oh yes, dear friend, Many waters could not quench love. Neither could the floods drown it. Man tried to stop the course of divine love when I was a child. Sometimes we try to stop a little stream by.
00:15:06
Putting some sand or stones or sticks and things, we try and stop it up.
Well, what happened? Well, the more we put in the way, the higher the stream rolls. And as long as there was plenty of water flowing from the source, the more you put in the way, the higher it rose. And so isn't it wonderful, man put obstacle after obstacle in the way of that course of divine love.
The people came to the Lord and said, get me hands, Sir Herod will kill thee.
He said, I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Oh no, dear friends, nothing could stop the course. And when they finally took and nailed him to a cross, thinking they were getting rid of the Savior, what happened?
Or just made the stream rise higher still. And where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, and the little hymn says the river of thy grace through righteousness supplied is flowing, or the barren place where Jesus died. And so man has not been able to stop the course of divine love. And the Lord Jesus was weary, but he still had time to think of this poor woman in her need.
In this incident, he says I have meat to eat that she know not of.
And they couldn't understand that they knew the Lord had been without food. And how could He have meat to eat? They didn't know about always said my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. And what brothers work? What was his work? That work that would save you and would save me? Yes, that was his meat. That was his drink. That was his joy. And so the Lord here sits down.
Well, and this woman comes out, and how wonderfully the Lord approaches her.
You know, so often we're unwise in the way we approach people. But here we have the one who knew everything, who was, who was light as well as love, who knew all about this woman as soon as he entered into conversation with her. And perhaps if it been you or I, we would have said, well, I know what kind of a person you are. You think you're hiding it from me, but I know. Well, not so with the precious Savior. No, he knew it all.
But how marvelous. I think the way he speaks to her is so blessed. Give me to drink. Could it be possible, dear friends, that a Sinner like her could give refreshment to the heart of the Savior? Oh yes, Oh yes. Do you want to give refreshment to the heart of the Savior? All I can tell the worst Sinner in this room, or I can tell them all self-righteous Sinner in this room.
That if you want to give refreshment and joy to the heart of the Savior, receive him tonight.
Receive them tonight. He wants a drink. And you're the one that confirms him A drink. You're the one that can give him joy. He's surrounded in glory with myriads of angels. But what does he want? He wants a redeemed company to surround him with whom he can share all the fruits of that toil and victory accomplished at Calvary. And he wants you to be there. And you can give joy to his heart. And he can give infinitely more to yours.
Or will you receive them? Give me the drink. What a wonderful thing. From the lips of the Savior to a sinful woman.
And it says here, for his disciples were gone away unto the city.
To buy meat. Why does it bring this in? Well, we can tell from the latter part of the story that the disciples would have only hindered this personal dealing between the Lord and this woman's soul. Yes, and the Lord had to do with her alone. Angel, I want to ask you, you've often been in crowds. Have you ever been alone with Jesus? Have you ever been alone in His presence? I remember reading a little incident about a.
A young man, he was quite a player and one of the teams and he was quite seriously hurt and taken to the hospital, but they seemed quite hopeful that he was going to improve but.
One one day the nurse came in and she put the screen around his bed and started to walk away and he said to her, well, what are you putting the screen around my bed for? Well, she said. I was told to do it and seeing he was, she wasn't going to do anything for him, he thought.
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I wonder if it's possible. I know they do this when people are going to die and they don't want anybody to see. I wonder if they haven't told me that I'm really going to have to die. I thought I was getting better, but now can it be that I'm really going to die? And there, alone, behind that screen, he faced his life in the presence of God. He recalled the gospel messages that he had heard.
He realized what it was to be a Sinner in the presence of a holy God. And there, behind that screen, he accepted the Lord Jesus has his own personal savior. In perhaps 15 or 20 minutes, or perhaps a little more, the nurse came back. Oh, she said. I'm so sorry. I made a mistake. I wasn't around your bed. I was supposed to put that screen I got in the wrong room, he said. Nurse, it was no mistake. It was no mistake.
He said I was brought.
To be alone with Jesus. And I found him behind that screen as my savior. Lord, dear friend, it's not a mistake when you get along with the Lord. And it was no accident either that these disciples went away to buy meat and that this woman was found alone with Jesus. The devil does everything he can to keep you from getting along with God. He can have her own religion you like, as long as it's a family religion, a national religion, a proud religion, but not that.
Brings you personally into the presence of God. The devil will do everything to keep you from that personal dealing with God. But God arranged it. The Lord Jesus had a dealing alone for this woman, and she's going to thank God for all eternity that she was left alone with the Savior. That young man is going to thank God alone for all eternity. He's going to thank God for all eternity that he was left alone.
To have a dealing with His Savior and to be saved. Well, how blessed it is when the Lord arranges such things.
Well, and the woman here, she was a little bit uncomfortable. It says in the ninth verse, then set the woman of Samaria. How is it that thou being a Jew, ask a string of me which I'm a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Here we see at once a prejudice between this woman and this person whom she took just to be a Jew. She said the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
And maybe you've never had any dealings with Jesus and there's a prejudice in your heart.
In having to do with him, you don't mind having to do with your fellow man you don't mind having to do with.
Shall I say religious ordinances and this sort of thing? But.
You're just really saying your heart, just what she said. Why? I don't believe in these personal dealings. I don't believe in talking about knowing Christ as your personal savior.
This woman said the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans because she didn't know who this person really was, nor did she know her need of him. Well, the Lord, the Lord didn't, shall I say he didn't retaliate to this. You know, sometimes, may I say this to those of us who are Christians. People say strange things when we're talking to them, things that perhaps hurt a little bit. Oh, don't retaliate. It's only an opportunity.
That God gives us and the Lord Jesus didn't at once say to her.
Well, you shouldn't have those prejudices. Oh, no. How gently, how wonderfully he broke this down. How wonderfully He showed that if there was a prejudice on her heart, there was blessing in his heart. And dear Sinner, is there a prejudice in your heart against Christ? Is there a prejudice when God tells you that you're a Sinner and the judgment is ahead of you? Well, I want to tell you there's no prejudice in his heart. Oh, how lovely the Lord's answer.
Jesus answered and said unto her.
If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee?
Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee.
Living water. Oh, how wonderful his answer to her. He shall I say he breaks down the prejudice by the love of his own heart. And he said it. If you only knew, he said. I know that you're ignorant. You don't know who it is. You've just classed me as an ordinary Jew. You don't know who it is who's speaking to you, but if you did, you would have asked and received living.
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Water.
Oh dear friend, that's what you need. This world can't satisfy. Men are making some great scientific advancements just this past week. They've made this trip and return from the moon. But I want to ask you, has it satisfied the inner longing of one soul?
Has it satisfied the inner longings of the people in America because this has taken place?
Is there one person who has an empty heart that can say now my heart satisfied because they made a trip to the moon?
Honour, dear friends, that won't satisfy your heart, but I tell you what will. The Lord Jesus came down from heaven and died for you, and he offers you a drink of the living water, and that love that offers this to you will satisfy the longing soul. He satisfies the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
Well, it was to be hers, then, just for the asking. Thou wouldest have asked of him, if thou knewest the gift or the free giving of God. Why does God give freely? Well, we have nothing to pay. We can't buy salvation. We're too poor, and God is too rich to sell. And so the Lord said, If thou knowest the free giving of God, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink.
Thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. I want you to notice the details of this story, because.
The attitude of this woman is so common today.
First of all, there was a prejudice in her heart. Secondly, when the Lord says that he could give her living water, she tries to bring it down to the realm of her own reasoning and she said.
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water? Have you done the same? You said, well, how can you bring peace and joy to my heart? How can I have that satisfaction?
And you want to reason it all out. All dear friends, you must receive the Savior. It's not something that you can reason out. It's something that you receive by faith. And so she would bring what the Lord was offering to her down to the understanding of her own mind. And I can't tell you down, shall I say, in a way that is.
Brought down to the level of human reasoning.
How you can receive Christ and how you can be saved, It's just when you receive him that.
He comes and dwells in your heart and that he gives you peace. You know, I'm a naturally reasoning mind myself. I can enter, enter into what this woman felt because I was just exactly that same kind. How could it be? And I tried and tried to figure it out until in simple faith, I just believed what God said. I just believed what God said because the Bible says without faith.
It is impossible to please God, dear friend, when you come to the end of yourself and just simply.
Take God as His word. Then God will give you that living water. He will give you salvation.
And every true believer in this room tonight can look back to a time when they struggled to, and then finally they just bowed their head and sat in the presence of God Well and blessed God. Thou says I'm a Sinner. I acknowledge it, and I believe that Jesus died for me. And something happens. The Lord Jesus comes into your heart. He gives you that free gift. He gives you a drink of the water of life.
It's received by faith, so she tried to figure it out. She said. Art thou greater than our father Jacob? What a comparison. What a comparison. Aren't, though greater than our father Jacob? There's no one here that's acquainted with the Bible at all that doesn't know that Jacob is one of the characters in the Old Testament that is almost notorious for all his scheming and tricky dealings.
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And yet she would say to the Savior, Art thou greater than our father Jacob? But many people would bring the Son of God down to the level of man. Yes, they'd bring him down to the level of man. Art thou greater than our father, Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and his children, and his cattle, while the Lord still he doesn't retaliate when she speaks in this way?
He said.
In the 13th verse Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Oh the Lord answers her in such a beautiful way.
He said if you drink of this water, you'll thirst again. And friend a young girl, let me tell you this, that you'll always thirst again from any pleasure that you ever enjoy in this world. As as one person put it, every person in this world is either going to find out or has found out that the world doesn't satisfy. He's either going to find out or he has found out. Yes, it doesn't satisfy.
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, you can write it across every pleasure the world has to offer. But all the water that I shall give him, The Lord said, I'll put the well in here, I'll put the well in here. And that's what happens when you're saved. The Lord Jesus comes to dwell in your heart. And tonight, dear friend, I don't stand here as being any better than any person in this room.
But the Lord Jesus came into my heart. He's the well spring in my heart.
He is the one who has brought me to know what it is to have peace with God, and to have that salvation which he alone can give. Oh, how wonderful a message. A well of water springing up into everlasting life. Well now she says, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come, hit her to draw. Yes, the Lord has now produced in her heart the desire to have a drink of the water of life.
And I hope that there's someone in this room who has found that the things of this world don't satisfy.
I hope there's a young person. I hope there's someone here, perhaps an older person, and you've found it out. I've had so many people tell me over and over again. Well, you know, when you're young, you think everything is bright and beautiful. But as you get older, you find that things disappoint you. Yes, dear friends, you'll find this. The things of this world don't satisfy, and the world is filled with thirsty hearts. Why are people so busy running to and fro?
Fly the great press that we see all about us to discover more things, to invent more things, Does it bring satisfaction? And no, dear friends, people are not any happier today. They're more suicides, more unhappy homes, more misery in this world, more dope, friends, everything. Why are people? Why do people do these things? Because they're seeking something that satisfies. And when they're frustrated, then they want to forget their troubles.
Oh, dear friend, have you come to this point? That's the point this woman came to. And isn't it lovely? When she came to this point she turned to the right person. She said, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come, hit her to draw. Now the Lord must speak to her conscience. A dear friend, if you are going to have to do with this one who is so infinitely holy, who hates sin, who hates sin, I say, and can't have one sin in His presence.
You can only be in His presence by having those sins removed. That's the only way one sin spoiled this world. And if God was to let one sin into heaven, it would spoil heaven too. It would spoil heaven too. But God has solemnly declared, there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defile us, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the Lamb's book of Life.
00:35:17
And if your heart is crying out all at once, something that satisfies, and perhaps you're seeking it in religion, oh, I hope tonight that you'll realize that Christ is the one you need. But we mustn't pass over this important thing. The Lord Jesus now must speak to our conscience. And so he said to her, go call thy husband and come hit her all that was a tender spot. She could argue, well, you know.
But this was a tender spot. Did this stranger know anything about her? Surely he didn't. Surely she could cover up in his presence. Surely she could talk to him so he'd never know what her life really was. And she said, I have no husband, just like Adam.
When he had sinned, he tried to cover up in the presence of God. All friends. You can't cover up in the presence of God.
All things are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom we have to do, the psalmist said, Thou hast set my secret sins in the light of thy countenance, and this woman was succumbed to the point where she realized that she was in the presence of one who knew everything that she had done. But cleverly she tries to cover it up, but she realizes in a moment that this is impossible.
There's an eye that's looking her through and through a friend. God has a record.
Then if you don't face that record now and have your sins blotted out in the blood of Christ, you'll face it at the Great White Throne.
And it will be too late then to have those sins blotted out. It's a right throne because there's no blood there, only spotless purity in the presence of a thrice holy God. And you can never enter heaven with those sins upon you. You can never be there unless they're gone.
And I beseech of you not to try to cover them up in the presence of God. Or you say, I'm not this kind of a person at all. I haven't done those kind of things. But remember, the thought of foolishness is sin. Remember, the plowing of the wicked is sin. Oh, you say. What's wrong with plowing a field? I didn't know that that was sin. Well, I sometimes put it this way. Supposing you were a farmer and you get up some morning.
And you lookout into your field and there's a man out there with a tractor and a plow.
And he's plowing in your field and you say to your wife, I wonder what that man is doing out my field out there.
And areas plowing up the field. So you go out and you say to them, well, what are you doing out here? Plowing, boy said. I didn't know there's anything wrong with plowing. What's wrong with ploughing?
I did not ever know before there was anything wrong with plowing. Oh, but you say it's my field. You never asked me. You never said a word to me. You just acted independently as if you had. I had no claim over you at all. And now, dear Sinner, I want to tell you this, that if you have never recognized God's claim over you, you are a Sinner tonight. And don't forget the verse says the wicked shall be turned into hell, That it doesn't stop there and all the nations that forget.
God.
Forget God.
The man said, well, I'll go back home and I'll, I'll get the harrows or I'll get the cedar. Would there be anything wrong with using the cedar in your field? Well, you say it's not a question of whether it's a plow or a cedar or whatever instrument you might care to use. The point is, you neglected to have anything to say to me or recognize you have any responsibility to me in coming into this field. And, dear friend, you have a responsibility to God, the God in whose hand thy breath is.
And whose are all thy ways? Hast thou not glorified in God's sight? You're a Sinner.
One who has forgotten him. But the Lord Jesus loves sinners. He loved this woman.
And the only reason he put her finger on his finger on her conscience was not to make her uncomfortable, so to speak.
But that repentance might lead her to salvation, and I hope repentance will lead you to salvation.
But what did she do? Just what people always do. You just see a display of human nature. And this woman, the same kind of nature I have. I like to reason. I like to make excuses. And now the next thing is she starts to talk religion. Oh, this has happened over and over again. You talk to somebody and you bring them to realize they need Christ and that they're a Sinner. And they say, well, my father was a minister. Yes, I had an uncle. It was a preacher. And this is exactly the way she started to talk. Oh, she said, sure, I'm religious. Sure, she said.
00:40:33
You're a frat at oil. I can talk to you about those things our fathers worshipped in this mountain. And you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Oh, yeah. She could have a fine argument about religion. Well, that's what people like, you know, As soon as you start to talk to them about their souls, they want to have an argument about religion. Well, which church is right? Which is the right place to worship?
God, your friend. The important thing is what about your sins and the presence of God? I didn't ask you.
What church you went to? I didn't ask you whether you worshipped in this mountain or that mountain. The Lord Jesus didn't ask this woman whether she worshipped in the mountain of Samaria or whether she worshipped at Jerusalem. He was seeking to bless her, to save her. And tonight, dear friend.
If you come into this meeting, the Savior wants to bless you.
Well, the Lord Jesus was just knocking out all the props, all the props. We have a lot of props, you know, We have the props of our arguments. We have the props of of our trying to hide our sins. We have the props of our religion. For one by one, the Lord was mocking these props out and bringing this woman to the point where she realized that she had nothing to stand on in the presence of this person, although he was a stranger to her.
And, dear friends, maybe you're a stranger to Jesus, but he's not a stranger to you. And if he's knocked out some of those props and made you feel uncomfortable and made you feel you don't want it, that you don't have anything to stand on, It's that he might plant your feet upon solid ground, and that you might be able to say on Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
And so notice.
Passing down to the 23rd verse.
The Lord Jesus said.
For the but the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
For the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. How could this woman worship him in truth? Sure, she could go to the mountain of Samaria. Perhaps she could play an instrument, perhaps she could sing in the choir, but she couldn't worship in spirit and truth. And perhaps you came into this room and said, well, how is it? Where? Where is the choir?
Where were the musical instruments?
Dear friends, let me tell you this.
That the only worship that ascends to God from this room tonight is that which comes from redeemed hearts. Redeemed hearts. And you may be able to play an instrument, you may sing in the choir, you may be a very active person in the church. But I want to tell you that the first note of praise that will ever ascend to the God who loves you and to the Savior who died for you, is when you say Lord Jesus.
I'll take thee as my savior, and then your heart overflows and Thanksgiving to him.
For what he did for you. And it's not how well you can sing or how sweetly you can play, but it's whether it comes from your heart. True worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth. And oh, that's the kind that God wants. Notice it doesn't say the Father seeks worship, it says he seeks Worshippers, worshippers always say what's the difference? Well, God could make all those empty chairs.
Sing His praise sweeter than any of our voices. If it was just noise and sound that he wanted. But He wants the worship of redeemed hearts, redeemed hearts and all. I would to God that your heart would be touched tonight. But the finger of His love that you might be saved and then your heart would rise up in praise, would overflow in Thanksgiving to the Savior that died for you while a woman realized now that.
00:45:01
She had nothing left to stand on, but all she came to the most wonderful point, the very point the Lord was seeking to bring her.
What did she say now? She said. I know a Messiah is coming and he'll tell us everything.
Oh, the Lord Jesus said I that speak unto thee, am he And friend, I want to tell you this, that when you come to the point where every prop is gone and you say, I need Christ, that's who I need at that moment. He's right there to enter your heart and to give you that peace and that joy. That's what was he was working for in the heart of this woman. Oh, how wonderful he was, just knocking out all those props to make her feel uncomfortable.
Now that godly sorrow might lead her to salvation, to salvation. And so he said, I that speak unto thee what a moment for her soul she was in the presence of the Savior, the one who loved her, the one who D come to die for her dear friend. That's where we want you to be brought tonight. That's where God wants to bring you into the presence of the Savior. And he said, I that speak unto thee, many of us can look back to that happy moment when we were brought into His presence.
And we found him So what did she do? She left her water pot. Yes, she had come to draw water from Jacob's well. But now, as another has put it, she left her water pot, and she went away with the well. The well was in her heart. Just what Jesus said had come true. The water that I shall give him shall be in him. A well of water springing up into everlasting life. And so now she left her water pot, and she went away with the well.
Yes, and people say, well, you should tell people they should stop doing this and that.
The Lord didn't tell her to leave the water pot, she left it. She had something better. The Lord didn't tell her. Now you go to your friends and talk to them and tell them what's happened. She did it. She did it voluntarily. She did it happily. The only person who was told to go to his friends was the man who said I want to be in the company of Jesus. And the Lord said, well, you can go back because the people that want to be in the company of Jesus will always have something to tell to their friends.
But this woman, this woman, the Lord didn't tell her. She just went. And it was a short message, wasn't it? A very short message. A strange message, really. What did she say?
Come see a man that told me all things ever I did.
Before this, she felt very uncomfortable when he told her the things that she did.
How could she go to the men and say he told me all things that ever I did. Come and see him. Well dear friends, I want to tell you this, that the person and the only person who knows everything I've said and done and thought is the person that I love the most. The person that died for me, the person that I'm going to spend eternity with. I'm not afraid of this person who knows all things that ever I did because his blood.
Has perfectly cleansed me and when I look into his blessed face he is going to say.
Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee. Yes, that Precious Blood so completely remove sin that we're not afraid of facing reality because we know that His Precious Blood takes every sin away. Friends, you don't have to hide your sins when you know the blood can cleanse them all away. The reason people hide their sins is because they don't know the Savior, but when you've known what He.
Has done for you. When you know him as your savior by then, you're glad that he knows it all.
Because I wouldn't want to have one sin left. And if the Lord didn't know all my sins, if he didn't know them all, there might be 1 left. You've heard people say, well you confess all your sins, the Lord will forgive them. Friends, I couldn't remember them all, I couldn't remember them all. But the Lord Jesus knows them all and He bore them all. And he said it is finished, it is finished. But now just a few more comments about the last part of the chapter.
The disciples come out, and now isn't this wonderful? The Lord Jesus says to these disciples.
Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white, all ready to harvest, and he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto eternal life.
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And I'd say to the believers here tonight, the Lord can do without us, but He gives us the privilege of being workers together with him. Yes, these poor disciples, the Lord, the Lord said to them, look in the fields, they're white already. He said, don't put it off, don't say in four months. And dear friend, let me say to those who are Christians, and I say it to my own heart, let us not say well in 1969.
I'm going to try and live more for the Lord. Start right now. Lift up your eyes and look on the fields. They're white already to harvest. White already. Yes, you say. Well, I hope to get some opportunities. I hope to prepare, and I hope I'll do this and that. The fields are white already. There's a work. The Lord Jesus is coming soon. The door of grace is soon going to be closed.
And now passing on to the 39th verse, says in many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified. He told me all that ever I did, How could they be saved by such a short sermon? How could they be saved by such a short term? And I say, dear friends, I'm more and more impressed with this, that it's not how much we say, but the reality that people see in what we say.
That counts. And I think that when those men looked at that woman and saw her face, they knew that she'd been in the presence of the Messiah, the Christ. She'd been in the presence of Jesus. Sometimes we say a lot, and we only spoil it, but oh, what a privilege to be able to speak just a few words for this wonderful Savior and the more we know of what he's done for us.
The more we'll be able to speak to others of that wondrous, wondrous love that saves, but now just to pass on to what we have in the in the closing part, here, 40th verse. So in the Samaritans were coming to him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and he abode there two days, and many more believed because of his own word, and said unto the woman. Now we believe not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves.
And know that this is indeed the Christ the Savior.
Of the world. What I want to bring before you is this. We have heard him ourselves. We have heard Him ourselves. I have tried in my feeble way tonight to tell you about the Savior, the one who died on the cross for you who shed His precious blood, whose blood cleanses from all sin. But oh, I'm not going to be satisfied that you should dust hear me. I want you to be able to say.
I've heard him myself. I've heard him myself. And I know that he's not only the savior of the world, He's my savior, My savior. Who, you say, How can I hear him myself? Well, if I could just speak of my own experience, I I can remember when I went home and I took my finger and pointed it to a verse in the Bible and I told the Lord, I just believed.
Words said, I heard him myself. Preacher might have been convincing, but dear friends, I want you to hear him yourself. Makes me think of a young lady who accepted the Lord as her savior some years ago. And it was through that verse that says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
And sometimes, sometime afterwards, a friend gave her that frame text.
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
And shall believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, as thou shalt be saved.
Has she wrote a little note back to these people? And she said, she said, I'm so thankful to have that verse to hang in my wall because that's my verse. Oh, isn't that nice? That's my verse. And I hope there's some verse in the Bible that you can say that's my verse.
That's my verse. Because the devil is going to attack you. The devil is going to try to put doubts in your mind.
00:55:05
The devil is going to try to erase from your mind everything he possibly can of the things of God.
But I hope that there's a verse that you say, that's my verse. And when the devil attacks you, you just repeat that verse because he can never stand the word of God. It says, take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, And that precious word of God will speak peace to your soul. It will enable you to meet the tempter. It will be that which will sustain you through life. But I'll believe it for yourself. He wants to be your savior. May God grant that if he has knocked out those props that it'll just bring you.
In contrition to the feet of the Savior, like it did this woman.
And you'll say it's Christ I need. And when you come to that point, he'll be standing right there, and he'll save you, and He'll save you. Now believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
Shall we sing the first and last verse of #3? My hope on nothing less is built than Jesus and the blood he spilt. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on his blessed name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand versus one and three.
I hope.
Nothing.
Less there's no.
Land Jesus.
And our bloody spell.
I dare not.
Draw some sweet as friends.
My holy.
Last night.
Oh Christ the soul.
Rockstar.
Oh, they're brown bells.
Sinking sound.
All other ground.
Sinking sound.
Eternally.
Is from a style.
My name is.
Brayvon.
On his hand.
Flat all out.
My soul get away.
He's still alive.
Alive. My last name stay.
On Christ the song.
All the ground.
Is sinking sound.
All of their ground bills thinking sound.
Obediance, II Kings 4, Gen 57, Gen 46
Children—W. Gill
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Now there's another song that isn't on our gospel sheet, but I think we know it and that's the gospel Bells are ringing. We all know the first verse and I'll read to you the the last verse and then we'll sing the 2 verses together. Last verse is the gospel. Bells are joyful as the echo far and wide, bearing notes of perfect pardon through a Savior crucified good tidings of great joy.
Do our people, do I bring unto you, as born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord and King?
Gospel bells are ringing. The gospel bells are ringing.
Over land, from sea to sea.
Lesser news are free salvation.
For you and me.
Or God so loved the world.
That is only son he gave.
So where believers in him?
Everlasting life shall help.
How they ring.
Overland from sea to sea.
Gospel.
Bells freely bring.
Blessed news to you and me.
The gospel bells are joyful as they echo far and wide.
Marry not so perfect pardon through a Savior crucified good tidings of great joy.
To all people do I bring unto you, is born a savior.
Which is Christ the Lord.
King Gospel bells, How they ring overland from sea to sea.
Gospel bells freely bring.
Blessedness to you and me.
Now let's sing one more song and that is on our hymn sheet #44, The Gypsy Boy.
Probably we know it by heart, but we sing it as it's written here on our hymn sheet #44.
Into the tent where a gypsy boy lay dying alone at the close of the day.
News of salvation we carried, said he.
Nobody ever has told it to me.
Salvation story. Repeat all and all.
Till none can say of the children of men.
No one ever has called me before.
Let me give you so love me up for a little boy.
Stand onto me the good tidings of joy.
My man will behold nobody.
00:05:04
Ever the story has told, tell it again. Tell it again.
Starving some story reaping our end.
Stay on the children of men.
Nobody ever has told me before.
Landing, we caught the last words of his breath.
Just as he entered the valley of death, lost them his son whosoever said he.
Then I am sure that he sent him for me.
Tell us again. Tell it again.
Salvation story reaping horrible.
None can say of the children of men.
Might be ever has told me before?
Now I'd like to talk about some boys.
And then two stories in God's Word and I want to turn to. And it's almost all about boys, so I hope you girls won't mind.
The first story is in the second book of Kings, chapter 4.
Second Kings Chapter 4.
The only way they won't read all of this. There aren't very many verses, so we will read this. Now they're crying a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead. And thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord, And the creditors come to take unto him my two sons to be bondsmen. And Elijah said unto her, What shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid, hath not anything in the house?
Favor part of oil. And then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad. Of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels. Borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee, and upon thy sons, and shall pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels to her. And she poured out.
And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said under her son, Bring me out a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more, and the oil stained. Then she came and told the man of God, And he said, Go sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou thy children of the rest.
Well, we're not going to talk very long about this story, but one important thing that I hope your children will realize, and that is that that lady's two boys were obedient.
This is most important to the next story that we're going to look at. Here's a lady in Israel, long time ago, and her husband died and she was left with her two boys, and I suppose her husband had a job, but when he died then there was no way to support the family. And then some men came around. I suppose they knocked on the door.
And they said you pay up or get out of here.
And I think she said, you're going to take her boys away from her. Well, she did what most all of us in this room would do. She went to the man of God about it, or we would go directly to the Lord himself. But she went to Elisha, who was the man of God in that day. And she said, you know, that my husband feared God. Now what can I do? Well, he told her what to do. We've just read the story.
But as I said, children, those boys were obedient.
Now, just yesterday morning, I know a young fellow, I mean, not just a boy, but he was told to do something and he said, who? Me. Why? Why do I have to do that? And that's the way boys are in it. Yeah, and girls too. Why do I have to do that? Well, this lady, she spoke to her boys and I kind of think that she said boys.
00:10:07
Mr. Elijah had told us what to do, and I'll have to have your help. You go to the neighbors. You go this way and the other boy go that way and borrow all the pans and pots that you can get.
And those boys went from neighbor to neighbor and they got these pans and pots and kettles and buckets.
And they brought them back. And then that Lady did that strange thing. She poured this oil into that bucket. And the the thing that she was pouring from never got empty. She filled that one up, and she filled that one up and filled that one up. But I want to say again, children, or how important it is to be obedient.
Now God loves obedient children, that is, he loves to see obedient children, and we have that in his word to be obedient children. Be obedient to your parents, for this is well pleasing to God.
So this is the little story here.
First of the two stories that I wanted to call your attention to. Now the other story is back in the book of Genesis and it starts in chapter 37.
And it's a long story and we're not going to have time to talk about it all.
We'll just read part of it.
Most of you know that it's going to be about Joseph.
And I said, I'm going to talk about a lot of boys. We just talked about a lady that had two boys. She didn't have any girls in her house.
Now when we talk about Joseph and his father, we have to remember that there were 12 boys in that house Ohio. 12 boys and only one girl. And that girl's name was Dinah. We don't really know much about her, just that there were thirteen children there, only one girl and some boys would say my only one girl to do all the dishes. But I'm glad there was one girl so I don't have to do them.
Well, we don't get any part of that kind of the story, but maybe there was trouble once in a while in that home because the boys didn't want to do what they were supposed to do, and we can have trouble in our homes that way too. But all we can make it much happier if we're obedient and don't say, well, why do I have to do that? Why can't she do it? Why can't he do it?
No, it's obedience that we want to see. And we're going to talk about obedience to God's word too.
Well, the story about Joseph where we want to start is Chapter 37.
Of Genesis and the 12Th verse.
And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock? And Shechem come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Oh, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the veil of Hebron, and he came to Shechem, and a certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field.
And the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he said, I seek my brethren, telling me, I pray thee where they feed their flocks. And the man said they are departed hence For I heard them say, let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan, and when they saw him afar off.
Even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit. And we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
And Reuben heard it, and he delivered them out of their hands, and said, Let us not kill them. And Reuben said unto them, shed no blood.
But cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him, that he might rid them out of their hands to deliver him to his father again.
Well, let's stop there.
How? As I said, boys and girls.
In that family where Mr. Jacob was, there were 12 boys.
12 boils and somewhere in the.
Somewhere when all those boys were born, there was one girl came to that family.
But now lots of things have passed in Mr. Jacob's life, and we know that Joseph's mother was dead.
But Jacob loved Joseph perhaps more than all the rest of those boys.
00:15:06
But the Joseph was one of the youngest, next to the youngest boy and the older boys, as we've had in our story here, they went out and took care of the sheep that their father owned.
And they led them quite a ways off so they'd find grass and water.
And then Jacob. I guess he hadn't heard from the boys for a while, so he called Joseph and he said, Joseph, I want you to go and find out how your brothers are.
Now do you think that Joseph said, oh, why me? Why do I have to do it?
Nor Joseph said, Here I am, Send me where you want me to go. And so you see, children, the importance of obedience.
How important it was for that Lady in Israel with her two boys, and it was important here in this story.
That Joseph being obedient to his father. Well, Jacob must have packed a little lunch, maybe a big lunch for Joseph and told him which way to go to find his brothers. And Joseph set off for that place.
And we know that he didn't find them right away. But pretty soon he found them ten brothers because Benjamin was still at home, you remember?
Ten brothers and they saw Joseph and they said here he comes, let's kill him.
Oh my, isn't that sad?
Just think of your Big Brother said that here he comes, let's kill him and get rid of him.
But that's what the human heart will do, boys and girls.
Well, Reuben said. No, let's not kill him. Let's sell him.
And so in the verses that follow our story here that we've been reading, we find how they sold Joseph, sold him as a slave. But they did something else too. When Joseph? When Jacob.
I was going to say when he sent him away, but it was before he sent him away. Jacob must have sat down with a needle and thread and made a coat. Now my father couldn't sew it all, but my mother did, and sometimes fathers can do that though. And Jacob made a coat for his son Joseph and his sister was a coat of many colors. Must have been a pretty thing. Joseph was 17 years old when this happened, so he wasn't just a little boy.
And I suppose it wasn't a little coat, but it was a coat that.
Jacob had made and it showed his love for his son Joseph, and then those 10 Big Brothers.
First they said let's kill them and get rid of them. Then they said no, let's sell them, but let's send the coat back to our father.
And they took a land and they killed that land and they drained that lambs blood into a pan, I suppose. And then they put the coat into that blood.
And then they sent the coat back to their father and they pretended something and they sent word to their father. And they said, we found this code must be Joseph's. And it's got a lot of blood on it. So suppose we just supposed that Joseph is dead. Wasn't that an unkind thing to do?
Oh, how unkind that was. And poor Jacob Lord cut his heart here so hard.
It hurt him so bad to think of what had been done to his son Joseph.
Well, we know from the story.
How they sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver.
And they sold them to some men that were on their way down to Egypt.
And then when those men go down to Egypt, they sold them again, sold them as a slave. And here was Joseph, only 17 years old and far from the home. His mother was gone, and now he's taken away from his father and mistreated.
Well, Joseph got a job there in Egypt.
And the man he worked for liked him very, very much. But one day somebody lied about him.
Somebody told some real mean naughty lies about Joseph.
And they put Joseph in prison.
I don't know if it was a nice prison at all. It may have been a really bad old prison, but anyway, they locked him in there.
00:20:05
And poor Joseph, I'm sure he would say. What did I do here? I did what my father told me to do, and now I'm in jail.
And he had to stay there for quite a while, more than two years. He stayed there and at last something happened and they came and they got him out of jail.
And while that was going on, there were some other things going on.
Well, in God's wondrous ordering, pretty soon Joseph. Instead of being in prison and being accused of things he didn't do, Joseph was right next to the king. Oh, it was wonderful how he was brought up to be next to the king.
But then what brought this about was that there was going to be a famine in Egypt.
Famine means there's no food, but Joseph told the king what to do.
Now there were some other things going on at that same time up in Canaan, where Jacob was with those ten, well, 11 boys and Dinah.
And what is going on there was that those folks too got hungry.
And they heard somehow they got word that down in Egypt there was lots of food to eat. And so Jacob said, you better go down there and get the food for us if you can so we don't starve here.
Well, they went on down to Egypt and I think maybe you remember the story.
Of how there they met Joseph.
And we're just looking a little bit at that. It's over in the.
Let's see, it's in the 44th chapter, 45th chapter.
45th chapter Genesis.
Joseph was a lot older now than he had been. I don't know just how old he was, but he was, I think, more than 30 years old, the 45th chapter of Genesis says. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him, and he cried, 'cause every man to go out from me, and there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known under his brethren.
But then Joseph said something was so nice, he says in the fifth verse.
Now therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me, hit her, for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years in which there shall neither be hearing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve your posterity in the earth.
And to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it is not you that sent me hit her, but gone. We're not a nice thing for Joseph to say. Joseph knew what his brothers had done to him, how they sold him as a slave. But now he says to those same men, he said, don't worry about it. Don't worry about what you did to me because God let you do it. And he sent me down here so I could help you out. Will children know that's the story of Joseph.
But that isn't the whole story.
Because when we read that story, it makes us think why that's like the Lord Jesus.
And that's the beauty of this story. Oh, I'd love to hear it ever since I was a little boy like some of you here, to hear about Joseph and then to realize it's like the Lord Jesus. And so as we hear that story, we say that boy that's like the Lord Jesus did, just like the Lord Jesus our children, if we were to love it.
I think in several places in our Bibles we'd find that the Lord Jesus was way up there in heaven long, long ago, and God said to him.
Something about going down to the Earth.
I think long, long ago there was a conversation in heaven.
When the Lord Jesus.
We know said something and God wrote it down. We had it this morning in our meeting even it says.
It says in the volume of the book it is written of Maine that is a long, long time ago.
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We think that God was talking in the Lord, Jesus was talking, and the question was what are we going to do about sinners?
What can we do to save awful sinners from their sins? And the Lord Jesus must have said, I'll go to earth, I'll go down there and become a man, and I'll die on Calvary's cross.
Well, you see, there came a day when God said today is the day, now's the time to go. And then the Lord Jesus came down to earth and he was born in Bethlehem's Manger.
And he grew up, became a man. But when I wanted to point out, was this children?
That just as we had those two boys in that lady's home, their mother's home, they were obedient.
And we had it in Joseph when old Mr. Jacob said. Joseph, I want you to go and see how your brothers are, he said. I'll go.
And the Lord Jesus like that said, I'm going down to earth he was obedient to his Father.
Then when he was here on earth, you know, somebody sold the Lord Jesus. Judas Iscariot sold them for 30 pieces of silver. Now they sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver. But you say, oh, that's like the Lord Jesus, isn't it? They sold the Lord Jesus and they sold Joseph.
But now the Lord Jesus.
Has made a way for us.
To be saved. You know, when Joseph's brethren, well, when his father, I think it was, was speaking to the 10 boys, he said, you go down to Egypt and save our lives, get some food and save our lives. And God the Father, our father said to the Lord Jesus, now it's time to go down to earth.
There to live and there to die like you promised you would. Oh, I think this is a wonderful thing that God wrote it down in this book.
What the Lord Jesus said. And then the Lord Jesus kept his promise and came down here to Calvary's cross. Now Joseph was put into prison, but the Lord Jesus actually died for.
It's a wonderful story, children, and seeing what they did to Joseph helps us to see what they did to the Lord Jesus.
But now the Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross and all children, I want to tell you again, if you girls just look here, the Lord Jesus, you know, he hung on Calvary's cross just like that with his arms stretched out. And you know what they did to him? They put nails through his hands. They actually took a hammer and nails and they pawned him through his hands.
And through his feet.
And then they put them. They raised up that cross. And children, they put a crown of thorns on his head. Now Queen Elizabeth in England has a crown. And there are other kings and Queens. They have crowns, all their beautiful things. But you know, those wicked folks there on Calvary's hill, they mock the Lord Jesus. They made fun of them. And they said, you said you're a king, so you ought to have a crown. And then they made a crown out of thistles and thorns.
And they put that on his head. And then they said, a king ought to have a staff in his hand, which is a long stick. You ought to have a staff in your hand. So they took a stick, an old weed, really, And they put it in his hand, But then they took it, you know, and they beat him over the head with it.
And then they spat on him and children. The Lord Jesus stayed on that cross for you and for me.
And Joseph, when he saw his brethren, you know, as we just read here, he said, don't worry about what you did to me, because God let it happen. God sent me down here to Egypt to preserve life. And so the Lord Jesus says that today, now the Lord Jesus hung on the cross like this, and he died there like that, with his arms outstretched. But all children, he's not on the cross anymore.
No, he's not on the cross anymore. He's not in the grave either. He's up in heaven. But you know, children, instead of his arms being out as they were on the cross, and now they're like this and they're saying come to me.
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And that's the invitation to your children today to come to the Lord Jesus.
Let's look at John 316 just to be sure we know what that verse says, you children that have your Bibles.
If you can find John 316.
For God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
No, Mr. Jacob had twelve sons and all. How he hated to give up just one of them. How he cried and wept and mourned over the loss of Joseph.
And then he was going to lose another son. Well, he lost Simeon, he thought, and then he thought he was going to lose Benjamin.
God gave up his only begotten son that you and I might live. That's John 316.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life, no children. That's why we're here today.
Doctor, Clausen said. I believe others have said it even today, that perhaps today is the last time. Perhaps we won't need a Sunday School paper next Lord's Day. Perhaps we're going to be there in the courts of glory, those of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior.
But now, children, I said that God wrote something down in his book that the Lord Jesus said.
And there's something else in this book that I'm awfully glad about. There's a page in God's book up there in heaven, and it says Walter Gill on it.
Because it means that Walter Gill is saved.
Now your name is there too, if you've taken the Lord Jesus as your savior.
And children, all we want you to take them. Take them right now as your Savior, the Lord Jesus says, Come unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. I'll save you forever.
And that is God's only offer.
Now it's not only to children. If there's any older person in this room, the same offer is made to you.
And or I urge you to take it.
You may think it's too cheap.
But all the cost we cannot measure.
I met a man just recently.
His name is Jim Robertson.
Talk to him about.
God's claims upon us.
And then I had occasion to visit his city again just a week ago.
And I found them, and we talked again.
And I told them about John 316.
And I told him how the Lord Jesus went to the cross and died there. And he said, he says to us now from heaven, no matter how bad a Sinner you are, if you just put your trust in me and say that Jesus died for me, then I'll take you into my family forever. I'll save you forever. And you know this poor man, Jim Robertson, he said, oh, I couldn't do that.
Oh, he said. I couldn't do that.
And he seemed to think that there was something more he had to do to work for salvation.
That that was too cheap. I don't think he meant that he didn't want it.
But all children, grown folks, It's God's only offer of salvation.
To take the Lord Jesus as your savior to save in your heart right here Jesus died from me. I deserve to die under God's judgment but Jesus died for me. Now don't forget that the Lord Jesus who hung on the cross like this now stands like this and or how happy you can make them if you would just come now today and say Lord Jesus, I take you as my Savior.
You know there's a verse in our Bibles that says the Lord Jesus says all day long.
I stretched out my arms to an unbelieving people. Just think of that. The Lord Jesus standing all day long with his arms outstretched and a people who pay no attention to him. They don't want him.
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That's Israel. But all children, right here in Glendale today, you can take the Lord Jesus as your savior. Now you can do it right in your seat where you are just to quietly say, Lord Jesus, I'm a Sinner, but I take thee as my savior.
And then he'll take his pen in his hand and write your name in his book.
And you know, there's something wonderful about that.
He not only has my name written on that page, Walter L Gill, but there's another name written under there.
And I don't know what that name is, and I won't find out until I get home. But he's got a special name for each of us that puts her trust in him. But all be sure, children, that your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, Boys and girls. Now I want to tell you one more thing.
I want to tell you one more thing. I urge you to get saved. But there's something more than that. God says I command you to be saved.
I command you to be safe.
Now that's pretty serious. And we talked about obedience. Those boys were obedient to their mother. Joseph was obedient to his father. The Lord Jesus was obedient and came down here to earth. Now there's one more. That's you. What about you being obedient? This isn't a matter of saying, well, maybe I'll get saved sometime.
Some time will be all right. Plenty of time. No, God says you get saved right now.
That's in the 17th chapter of Acts. It says God commands all men to repent.
Now I want to tell you what's going to happen, children.
We heard about it just the other night.
The rest of the dead lived not again for 1000 years, it says in Revelation. But then everybody on this earth who didn't put their trust in the Lord Jesus is going to be raised out of their grave and they're going to stand before the Lord Jesus.
And I believe it right there at that time.
The Lord Jesus can say I told you to get saved and you didn't get saved.
Now won't that be solemn?
Then we won't be able to say, well, I meant to or I forgot or I didn't know how.
No, God says you repent and get saved. Be obedient to this.
Children, this is what we're here for this afternoon. We've had these three days meetings.
Those of us who are older have enjoyed them so much.
But the folks here once again set aside 45 minutes for a special meeting for children, For boys and girls.
And it's my privilege to tell you that the Lord Jesus loves you, wants you, and even commands you to be saved. Now you can take them as your savior right where you are. Or you can come to me after the meeting or to your mother or father and just say I want to take the Lord Jesus as my savior. I knew a boy who did that.
He came to his mother one night and he said I can't sleep. I'm afraid I'm not saved.
And his mother said. Well, why don't you just kneel down right here by me?
And just tell the Lord Jesus I want to be saved. And he did that, and he saved saved forever. And that's the way we can all be saved. It's really the only way.
Now, children, our time is almost up. But all I urge you to be obedient to God's Word. Remember what we've had before us, the kindness of the Lord Jesus who went to Calvary's cross.
And the author of Salvation to You, Boys and Girls, Men and Women. Horrible one in this room.
Now let's take our hem sheets again.
And we'll sing the last 1 #47.
#47
When he cometh, when he cometh to make up his jewels, all his jewels, precious jewels.
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Is London his own like the Stars of the morning? Is Bright crown on the.
Face of shine and if you peace fry gems.
Crown.
He will gather. He will gather.
Sponge. And for his Kingdom all the deer ones, all the bright ones, is long, and his bones, like the stars of the morning, is bright Crown Adorni.
For his ground.
Little children. Little children.
Who love very lemurs are the jewels, precious jewels.
Is long and his own life. The stars of the morning is bright, crown adorning.
Space will shine in his beauty, Brighton for his ground.
It's a wonderful song, children. The Lord Jesus wants little children, but he wants big children too. But right now we're thinking about little children, young children. He wants them. And they're going to be jewels in his crown because he doesn't have the crown of thorns anymore. No, He has a crown of glory. But we who put our trust in him will be like jewels in his crown. Now let's close our eyes.
And bow our heads.
We're going.
1 Peter 2:1-5
Reading
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5, 275.
Our God is.
Singing about the tree. She'd be looking Peter.
There are two.
The verse we had before us was verse 24.
But perhaps we could.
Read the chapter, someone cares to read it.
First Peter 2.
Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all dial hypocrisy and envies and all evil speaking.
As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. If so, be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
To whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed indeed of men with chosen of God, and precious ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is the pain in the Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a cheap cornerstone elect.
Pressure, and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, which be the He is precious. But under that would be the stone which the builders disallowed. The same is made ahead of the corner, and a storm of stumbling, and a rock of a fence.
Even for them which stumble at the word being disobedient, where unto also they were appointed.
But he always told generation, a royal priesthood and a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth appraises of Him who have called you out of darkness unto the expression of life, which in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy. But thou have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from specially lost with war against the cold.
Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoer, they may by your good words, which they shall behold, glorify God on the day of dissipation.
So put yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake, whether it be to the King, a supreme, or of the governor, says unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of people do, and for the fray of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well duty they may put the silence location of foolish man.
As free and not using your liberty for a form of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honor all. Love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King.
Servants be something to your Baptist with all fear, not only to the good and Gentile, but also to the forward, for this is bank worth. If a man for conscience charge God in your Greek suffering wrongfully.
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For what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your fault, you shall take it patiently?
But if when you do well on summer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God, or even here on to where he called he Christ, because right also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his death. Who did no sin, neither was God found in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not Again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgment's right.
Who His own self, there are sins in his own body on the fridge, that we being dead to sinful, should live under righteousness, by whose strength he were healed.
For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and Bishop of your soul.
And sometimes get discouraged.
In our meetings here and there, because there are difficulties that come up.
Displays of the flesh and this kind of thing.
But as we read the epistles.
Do we find any of them that have no correction to give to those to whom they're written?
If we go through Paul's epistles, it's that if we go through Peter, it's the same. If we go through John, it's the same.
Things weren't perfect.
And so, beloved Saints of God, let's not get discouraged and feel like dropping out because things get in a mix up. But just remember these various things that Peter speaks about here, laying aside all malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speakings, well, those are the things that we find that causes sorrow.
They caused Peter sorrow in his day. There is nothing new, and we mustn't expect to find that perfect company where none of these things ever occur. It doesn't exist, brethren.
It's wonderful to see how the expectations are based upon a position that we're in, and this wherefore would indicate this as we look back in the previous chapter.
And we see the price through which we were brought into blessing, then the exhortations. And we noticed too, that it says here in the.
First verse all guile, and then Peter directs us in the last few verses to one in whom was found no guile, our blessed Savior. And so how we need this, brethren, to not just be occupied with negative things.
We we need the correction, but the correction in Scripture by the apostles is always in love, is it not, And predicated on a position we're in through grace and the power that avails for us so that we can walk in the power of that new life. We need the expectations. We need to know how to walk, but we also have that lovely example before us, our own blessed Savior. I was thinking of a verse 2.
In Matthew.
The 6th chapter.
In connection with our laying hold of the truth as newborn babes in the 22nd verse of the 6th chapter of Matthew.
The light or the lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil or wicked, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? Now the only light that comes into the soul is the light that we have in Jesus Christ.
And if we do not have that object before us continually, there's going to be replacing it, the old nature manifesting itself. And so there won't be any laying a hold of the scriptures because communion, it must be in holiness. And unless there is that enjoyment of a pure object, there will not be holiness with us.
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Previous Chapter Beloved, we do find the words obedient children. That's in verse 14.
And then in 15.
This it says, But as he which hath called you as holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation or behavior.
Well, we do know that this epistle is addressed to believers who were dispersed, the dispersed ones of Israel.
In the snow's particular problems, and of course here we have Christians as pilgrims and strangers upon the earth, so that holiness comes in here. And beloved, what is holiness?
Is it not the exclusion of everything from my life and yours that would be contrary to God's mind and God's nature and His word? Surely that would be holiness. And would that be perfecting holiness in the fear of God all beloved?
The exclusion from my life and yours of everything that would be contrary.
To the mind of God.
To his blessed heart of love country, to himself, His very nature for his very natures light. God is light, that's his nature. And so holiness comes in here.
Concerning the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim.
And so there is the laying aside.
Of all malice and guile.
This is a very solemn statement and.
It is remarkable that we are capable of practicing all this this list.
I'm reminded of an occasion in our readings in Bolivia.
That brother asked the question if we could practice, if a believer could practice that list.
Enumerated in Galatians 5 the works of the of the flesh. Well, the brother said he wasn't very old in the faith, but he said.
No. And then our brother Talia said yes.
Yes, so there was a week, there was a quiet moment for a while, and this younger brother said, brother, if I believed that I would do what I like and tell you, said dear brother, if you belong to Christ, you wouldn't like.
You just wouldn't like and it ended there. Well, that was a good note.
Yes, we are capable of anything unless that he keep his hands of love punch.
The word here refers to newborn babes. Is it only the new new child of God who has these dangers and needs the milk of the word to counteract them? Well, I think, beloved brother, that that word.
It says sincere milk. We translated that.
Into the Inca tongue as the unadulterated.
Were unadulterated. Well, I presume, dear brother, that spurs all, whether young or old, in the faith. And was there ever such a time as now?
To steer clear of anything that would adulterate the precious word of God. I remember hearing old Mr.
I think it was Mace. No, it was Walter Scott.
He was very old when I was listening to him in England years ago, and he spoke on this and he said, brethren.
The Word of God is open in our hands this afternoon.
And it will be open in heaven forever.
My word shall not pass away.
And so I hope that's in keeping with my brethren's thoughts concerning as newborn babes desiring the unadulterated word.
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Does it? Can we imagine a newborn babe not desiring the milk?
They will make a tremendous fuss until they get it. As you know, those who are fathers and mothers, they remember their children when they were little tots. They would make a big fuss to get that bill. They'd never be satisfied till they had it. Well, isn't that truly that should be our attitude, beloved to this blessed, blessed world of God. Perhaps, too, there's a parallel that.
Is practical, at least, that they babe does not yet have conflicting appetites. The appetite of the babe is for the milk with which it is nourished. It knows nothing of the culinary arts that bring all kinds of tempting dishes before its elders. And so here one's appetite is to be for that which is price. That's right, May I just remark.
One of the first fruits of the work in Bolivia.
A dear brother, Professor Dassa, He was a professor for 37 years in the university and I had the joy of leading him to Christ. Well, he was. He was a bachelor and very apartment in what he said one day, a young brother said.
I have been away listening to certain preaching and it was just as if pouring the milk into my mouth and Dassy said, poor brother, poor brother, it's time you were eating some meat and that's how he would speak to us. Time you eats a meat.
They appoint here is not that only are the babies that brother intended when he asked the question.
But that we all, as Christians, should ever desire the the precious milk of the Word.
Now another thought as to the babes, a baby.
Feeds frequently. It seems to have such an appetite for that milk that it feeds and feeds and feeds. I remember they used to feed babies as often as 2 1/2 hours apart. Maybe it's three and four hours nowadays. They keep changing their ideas, but as long as we're here.
Everyone of us will need to favor.
The reading the word, feeding on the word frequently.
As that word, as beginning in verse two, as newborn babes. Not that we are a newborn babes, that we should ever, ever cultivate that appetite for the Word of God.
There is one circumstance of course, that might hinder the babe having an appetite, and that is sickness. And I believe this is the point here, that we are spiritually sick when we allow the things that are spoken of here and it hinders the appetite for the Word of God. For we all know very well that if any of these things that are spoken of are growing in our hearts, it does hinder the appetite. We don't enjoy the Lord, we don't enjoy the meetings like we should.
Because these things have come in, I was also thinking of how it could be compared to a garden, because in the chapter before, it says that we're born again by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. Well, the seed is good. The seed bears good fruit. But weeds choke out the garden too. You know, you might have the very finest of seed. You might have good soil.
But alas, the good soil will make the weeds grow if the weed seeds are allowed there.
And so I believe that we're warned here of those things that would hinder the growth that would be the result of feeding upon the Word of God and having that appetite like the babe does for the Word of God, which liveth and abide it forever. But I also mentioned too in this first verse that there are things that are seen and there are things that are not seen. Perhaps we could say malice and guile would be things unseen.
But if these feelings are allowed and nursed in our hearts, then they grow, just like the little seed when it falls into the garden. It's not seen at once, but it'll grow. And so if we allow these things unseen by our brethren, and don't judge them, then they come into the more advanced stage of enemies and evil speakings which are apparent. Well, we surely need these.
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Mornings, because I'm sure each one of us desire to.
Be found feeding upon Christ and growing more. But alas, we have good soil in our hearts for these very things if we're not continually before the Lord. It's been said, you know that this first verse is like the farmer plowing the ground and getting rid of the weeds and getting the deep soil before the seed is put in.
So that the seed can grow, and so the principle of self judgment.
In our lives sobriety I believe we have in this first verse and then the result is laying hold of the word with an open clear heart and mind.
What? Our brother?
It may not always be seen.
But if it is there that God sees it, if we have a tender conscience, if we want not our own way, why, we'll recognize a hindrance that's there.
Now in the end of Ephesians 4 we have a verse. I might read the last.
Well, it's even 4:30.
The Holy Spirit is grieved.
By any unbecoming thing nursed in our hearts, and grieve not in the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger.
And clamor and evil speaking, we have that in our verse that we're considering.
Evil speaking, be put away from you with all all mouths, all mouths to be judged. How can there be happiness in the soul if malice is nursed and left unjudged?
When he was down at Bermuda he was addressing the children in the Sunday school and he said, children, can you tell me what honey is like?
So there was silence for a little while, and one little boy stood up. He said. I know what it's like, Sir, he said. It's very sweet.
He said how do you know? He said I have tasted it.
That we have here in our third verse. If so, we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Well, if we have, surely we should feed upon Him. And to feed upon His word surely will increase our appetite for more.
I know what is in the new translation that says the mental milk of the Word, because it's by the Word of God, intelligently received in the mind, by the Spirit, that we learn the mind of God. We learn those things that are displeasing to the Lord so that we can judge them. We also learn those things that are pleasing to Him. And that's why these Bible readings are so important. It is blessed to look to the Lord.
And to have himself as our object, but we need direction and we find this in the precious word of God. And so we need to this morning as we sit here, have open minds open to his precious word, not open to those defilements that are constantly liable to come in, but open to the precious word of God. And that mind that is brought into subjection to we have in Corinthians it says.
Casting down reasonings and.
Every high thought that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. I believe this is so important. Our minds are affected by all the things that we hear and see about us. But as we read the Word of God, we have the mind of God made known to us, and it's blessed to receive it in simplicity, just in the same way as a child does receives the word from its parent. And simplicity.
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And we're going to receive it in this way and seek grace from the Lord to act upon it in this way. We grow in the knowledge of the Lord and in grace.
1516 a good work to bring in.
5 words were found, and I didn't eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.
For I am called by thy name to Lord God, of course.
I think that's very important, but also the fact that there should be exercise in connection with the Word as we read it. There's a verse in the Corinthian in Romans, the 12Th chapter.
I was thinking of as a brother here. Was just speaking, but I'll read it in another translation.
The third verse of the 12Th chapter of Romans. For I say, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to have high thoughts.
But to think soberly.
Or so as to be wise. I believe it should reap so as to be wise, that is.
Our object in reading the scripture is not to exalt self, but to exalt Christ and the new man. The life that he has now is always to be kept in mind and so to think, so as to be wise.
The in the plying of the truth, we may just read truth and never be exercised by it. But I believe the thought here is that there might be the exercise in regard to our whole pathway as we read the Scriptures, because that's our subject here in this verse. Isn't it the the word of God, the sincere metal milk of the Word.
Concerning our young Christians, may we say that we don't read the word of God?
Merely to know. But we read it to do, to do, and that is a great secret to do. And if any man will do his will, he shall know of the teaching or the doctrine.
How often we read the word of God to know well our thoughts are just vain thoughts.
That word vain, we've translated into the ink of time of vacuum. So, beloved, we needn't feel very puffed up about our knowledge when it's a vacuum.
But we read the word of God to do it. How important that is.
Not merely the novel.
That's probably that very beautifully in the first chapter of the Acts, isn't it? The first verse.
The former treatise Have I made oath? Theophilus of all that Jesus began, both to do and to teach.
About the world Concerning the adulterated Word of God.
We know that there are students here.
Sitting in this meeting, there's no doubt there are number. There are many.
The attack upon the word of God is very real in these days. When I was a student it was real too. It was known more as rationalism, of course, in those early years. Then it came over to be modernism. Today it's agnosticism, atheism, although I have never met yet an atheist.
I've watched many souls die having preached Christ in the army during the war Tackle war. I saw many hundreds die and some of them were proud officers.
But it was remarkable how they cried for even for their mummies at the last they were afraid to die.
Concerning the adulterated word, you young Christian.
May will you not allow by the grace of God, anything, any teaching to upset.
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That simple faith in what is written.
Now one day a brother brought me a translation.
Of the New Testament into the Greek language, Greek and Spanish, well, I have never seen anything like that.
And he brought it to me. He said, Brother, here is a wonderful book.
Translation into Greek in the New Testament we can Spanish.
Well, we looked over at the back of the of the translation where you usually find the sting, you know, in the tale. And I said to him, Brother, would you like to sell me that testament? Oh, no, he said, I wouldn't like to part with it. Well, let us read John One together and we rate it together. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.
All the love, a God. I said, won't you tell me that? Well, he says if you persist, I will. What are you going to do with it? I said I'm going to burn it, Absolutely burn it.
And we spoke to him concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the sin of colossi.
They would put the Lord Jesus there, and the apostle comes forth with that matchless epistle, beloved, exalting the Lord Jesus to the highest pinnacle.
But he was a translator who had put the Lord Jesus at the very run lowest rung of the ladder.
No, Aegon. Well, that man was either a scoundrel or an ignorant man.
Well, there's no indefinite article in the Greek language. Well beloved, you dear young Christians in your trials in the colleges.
I was talking to a student and I said, what did you, what did you teach at 10? Well, Mr. Smith, he said. I was told to throw the bone everything that I had been taught.
And to get rid of that old fashioned idea of Christianity, Well, isn't that sad? And do you know that the lie goes faster than the truth? And when? And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
And how those wicked statements dwell in the soul. May we never listen to such people. Such preposterous teaching, beloved. Oh, may the Lord keep us at His blessed fate with the simple faith, the Apostle Paul.
In Second Timothy.
The third chapter.
On the 10th verse she.
Enunciates a very important principle.
Second Timothy 310 But thou hast fully known my doctrine.
Manner of life.
Now what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
That was pulling all my doctrine or my teaching and my manner of life.
There is no disharmony there.
The apostle sought diligently to be what he taught.
And he repeatedly refers to that same line of truth that his life and his doctrine were consistent.
So we should be much concerned and much exercised, brethren, that.
Our knowledge of the word doesn't stop with our heads.
But it finds its way into our lives, our daily lives, our contact with our neighbors, our friends, our relatives. There's never a time to take a vacation.
I remember reading an incident where a preacher was on a vacation and they were having some doings and they asked him to give thanks at the table. He said no, I won't do that, I'm on my vacation.
Well, there's never a time to take a vacation from godliness.
So the apostle connects his doctrine and his manner of life. Oh, may the Lord keep us in these last days. I believe what Brother Smith has just been saying to our young people as to what they're hearing in colleges and schools. I believe it's so important.
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The devil is behind it. It's an effort to discredit the word of God.
To rob them of all confidence in the Scriptures so they can do their own thinking and try to find God through their own poor depraved minds. That's where we are today. And I believe that you young people would be wise when you start into higher education, to say now by the grace of God.
I have committed myself to the truth of the Word of God and I'm not open.
To receive any of this infidelity that's being handed out, I'm not open to it. I'm not open to persuasion. I made-up my mind. I'm settled.
I believe that's important, brethren.
That's what we find in Colossians the 1St chapter and the ninth verse where it says where those the apostle is praying for the quash and said and to desire that you might be filled no room for anything else but with the wisdom.
With the knowledge of His will, and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord, and to all pleasing and principle in every good word.
Yes, I certainly believe it's very important that we should read the Word and get a good knowledge of the Word of God because that is what fortifies us against all the unbelief that we find around us. Very often we notice that when you carefully examine the attacks that are made, it's an ignorance of the Scripture that is behind them. Remarks are made, and if we knew the Scriptures well, we'd be fortified. We'd be able to lift the shield of faith.
I remember her reading a comment that we have more to be feared about by the ignorance of the word of God.
Among the people of God, and by the attacks of infidelity, because if we are not fortified by the knowledge of the word of God.
Then the enemy can get in one of those fiery darts. Someone were to lift the shield of faith. But we're all sought to know the mind of God, as it says in Colossians, that he might be filled with the knowledge of His will. So I surely would encourage each one here, whether young or old.
Read the word of God until our very thoughts are formed by us, and I believe this will protect us against the attacks that are being made in a very wonderful way in Colossians that's been referred to, I believe.
Another translation gives us the full knowledge, doesn't it? And also the true knowledge of God. Now coupling that with the exalted place that has been referred to.
That the Lord Jesus is given in Colossians, the highest place.
There's no room for man's reasonings and there's no room of setting anyone or anything in opposition to this position, this knowledge. And in Colossians we have the full.
Knowledge and understanding, and then we have the full assurance. That's really the helmet of salvation in the second chapter, the full assurance so that the believer is fortified and the young believer as he goes to school is fortified. Another thing in our chapter. We have whom coming is unto a living stone.
Now it's the living God, and the believer has a sense now.
And that he belongs to that which is living in contrast to all that man is connected with, that is dead, belongs to a scene of death. And as far as we are concerned, naturally as to the old man, ye are dead. That's also found there.
So the believers in that new position, he has the if he, if he wants it to, to meditate on it, He has the full knowledge of his will. He has the true knowledge of God. He has an object that's a man seated in the heavens beside the Father, the man Christ Jesus as the object for his soul. He has everything he needs.
Seating on the Word of God.
And growing.
I would like to read this short little poem of Brother Checklist I pasted in my Bible last evening. It just happened to fit into what we're talking about, I believe. In fact, I think I've enjoyed this particular little poem of Brother Checklist above all the other of his poems. I valued it so much I'll read it. Nature to the mind, attentive, teaches off a hidden truth.
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Even by a tiny insect speaking to our hearts recruit many a different plant will furnish daily food the insect needs, but it always takes the color from the leaf whereon it feeds.
Christians from the bread of heaven OFT times turn to earthly fare. But a telltale change of color, to their shame, they always wear.
If on Christ, the Lamb we're feeding will present a heavenly blue, but the taste of earthly follies changes to another you now there are so many competitive things to draw away our attention.
There are so many counter attractions also attractive they're made, but if we are robbing the Lord of the time that we should be spending in the precious word of God and the things of God.
It's going to tell in our lives in Philippians 19 or 8:00 or 9:00.
A verse of thought.
I will read verse 9 and 10 in Philippians 19 and 10, and this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in here. We get that full knowledge as a point here in full knowledge and in all judgment or intelligence, spiritual perception, spiritual mindedness here.
Verse 10. In order that he may judge of and approve.
The things that are more excellent. Now if there be two things, one more for the glory of Christ, another thing less for His glory, we should be actively exercised, discerning which would be better.
Now, this should be true of our bookshelves. This should be true of the magazines that we take and of what we give our attention to. I fear that we're living in days when the flesh has too much to say. All these attractive catalogues and and things that magazines mind, they're just full of wonderful things. But we can feed on some of these things.
To the detriment of our soul, we should learn to exercise, to favor the things of the Lord.
Margin gives us things that differ.
Yes, that's right. The things that differ.
Ready.
Sometimes, perhaps.
If so be doesn't that tell us that?
There's many aside and this desire is contingent about on some if so many, if it's really so that we have tasted that the Lord's grace.
Well, it is merely a formal thingism of laying the stye by turning over a new leaf. Nor is there something that we can make us to enjoy this desire with sincere milk of the word. But.
Having tasted that the modest graciously, and this is that the sweet precious thing, that of keepers indeed in the enjoyment of Christ.
Enjoying themselves, the grace of God, the goodness of God, it keeps us humble and blesses us, and we are able there, are we not, to lay aside and to have that desire for the sincere note of the Word.
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I would like to add, if I may, then, for our young people particularly, the subject before us is a very fundamental and essential character.
It's profitable to attend meetings such as this to hear addresses.
To be in the company of believers and to.
Thrive in that atmosphere of spiritual things such as we're doing now.
But the the foundation of the Christian walk is found in the.
Faithful pursuit of the Word.
All one recognizes that we're not always up on the plane of which our brethren have been speaking and.
Not a one here, I'm sure, but we confess there have been days when the word.
Was duly received in the heart.
No, no, no real joy in reading it, and perhaps something coming in that there was not even an appetite for it.
Still a faithful reading of the Word.
Preferably morning and night.
Will have its effect. I remember our dear brother John Tony Long now going to be with the Lord telling us years ago.
Of his experience in business in Walla Walla when he was with another brother in some line of merchandise and the business went through a period of real testing and they worked long hours and they both got careless about reading the word and soon they found that they were so engrossed in their business that even being at the.
Meetings with fellow Saints was not happy to them.
It's all they very purposely and I'm sure prayerfully set before them that they would not allow the pressure of these things to interfere with reading the word mourning and night. And our brother Tony told us that when they first resume this diligence and reading, they often didn't know what they read.
They read a chapter, but it had no meaning to them. But in due course of time, it did. And so one recommends that to all of us, no matter what our state of soul. And I'm sure we do know what it is to be depressed. Let us be faithful with that word, dear young married brothers and sisters.
Read that word to your children. Have them in attendance.
I know a brother who reads the word in his bed every morning, but I'd like to see him read it to his children, to his wife. That would be good that I just leave that word and not all equal to the great height. But the Lord will bless the Holy Spirit of God, will bless a faithful reading of His Word. Where is that Scripture? I can't turn to it right now. A lamb in the morning and a lamb in the evening, where is that?
Leviticus.
Or 29.
No, let me find out.
That excellent Job 29 and 38, verse 38.
Now this is that which thou shall offer upon the all their two lands of the first year, day by day, continually. The one lamb thus shall offer in the morning, and the other Lamb thus shall offer it. Easy. Yes, that's the verse I had in mind. I think it's.
A nice sound principle.
That we begin the day with Christ and we end the day with Christ.
And.
They probably don't. Pardon me, just a moment. In the old days they used to talk about the family all well. Perhaps we don't give it that dignified title, but I believe we're missing something if we don't don't open our Bibles together as a family every morning and every evening. The lamb in the morning, Christ to begin the day in Christ to end the day. I think we're the losers if we don't practice this now. I don't mean to say that we're for to forget Christ in between.
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But I do emphasize the fact the lamb in the morning and the lamb in the evening.
29.
It might connect with verse 42.
There shall be a continual.
Burnt offering.
Now there was associated with that burnt offering incentives, and in the verse before for a sweet savour and offering made by fire unto the Lord.
This burnt offering aspect must be an incense, must be Christ.
According to God's own appreciation of him. And God's appreciation of Christ is full. And if we ever come into God's presence with that confidence.
That will honor the Lord.
The blessing I noticed in the reading in Elijah's ministry when the three kings were gathered and they had no water in the desert. And Elisha is there.
When the blessing did come, it came at the time of this sacrifice. By the way of Edom, it says he was at the time of the offering of that sacrifice. Now the same thing was true.
In the 19th chapter or the 18th chapter, when Elijah was offering on the altar and the priests of bail were destroyed, you recall it was at the time of the evening sacrifice that the blessing came and the fire fell from heaven. And so that encourages us, although we may not immediately see the blessing, there is a blessing connected with the offering of the morning and the evening sacrifice.
In the first, Chancellor Andrew.
23 We notice that the word is presented as seed, there to impart divine light to those who receive it and believe it. And then in our chapter, the second verse, we have the same precious word presented as food for those who have received Christ.
So we surely need the feet of them, that Blessed One, as we get in the 6th chapter of John and verse 57. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even He shall live by me. Here we have Christ's sustenance of the new life.
So we need him all the time. I was thinking two of different references we have to feed him.
Israel and Egypt fed upon leaks, onions, garlic, things of the earth. The 44th chapter of Isaiah we find that Isaac Israel rather fed upon wind and then in Hozier in the no, I'm sorry, Ephraim fed up and wind Israel fed up in ashes in the 44th chapter of Isaiah. And then in the same the 13th chapter of Hosea says according to their pasture, so were they filled.
And it goes on to say, And their heart was exalted, therefore they have forgotten me.
So they are not feeding upon the living bread or otherwise they wouldn't have forgotten the Lord who is the living bread. And then we find in Song of Solomon, chapter one, verse seven, I believe it is. Tell me where thou theest. What a challenge to our hearts, beloved. Where do we feed? What do we feed upon? Tell me where thou feedest. Well, the Lord offers the living bread for us to feed upon, His precious word and Himself.
Do we not have a beautiful example of this in Matthew 4 where Christ is brought before us in connection with the temptation in the wilderness, and Matthew 4 verse four just?
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For the sake of time he answered, Christ answered Satan. He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
I believe we can connect that with here as to our living our life and in connection with the word in Peter as our growing.
So we have a beautiful example, I believe there in that 4th chapter of Matthew.
Which we read in connection with Christ as the dependent man.
Connection with our fourth verse. To whom coming is unto a living stone.
That's Christ, of course, a living stone, disallowed indeed of man, but chosen of God.
I believe we need to be reminded at the present time that the Christ of the Bible.
The Christ that the Word of God brings before us.
Is disallowed, indeed, of men. Now we've just this week we've seen the decorations of every imaginable kind all over the country from coast to coast.
About the birth of Christ.
And yet what mockery it is.
The Christ of the Bible, the Christ of Scripture, is disallowed, indeed of man.
Man do not want the Christ of the Bible.
Are they?
Have various imaginations and they bring forward these celebrations.
That have to do with this name, but as to the Christ of God that the one that's presented in Scripture they have no time for him.
There is an effort now to make.
Christianity, a popular thing to dress it up make it very appealing.
Modernize it, bring it up to date. Well, brethren, there's nothing like that in Scripture whatsoever.
The Christ of God is disallowed by this world, and it's only a work of the Spirit of God in our souls that's going to bring us to the Christ of God.
The one who came into this world.
Went to Calvary, was rejected, suffered, bled, died.
The only one that can save. And if we're not subject to him, the Christ of God. All this awkward celebration and honor that we give him is really an insult to God.
Brother Brown, at the beginning, the 24th verse, the expression that we should live unto righteousness is connected with the death of Christ and our death with him, is it not? And that sort of gives the character to this chapter, doesn't it?
The fact of the practical exercise under the government of God, because Peter gives us that, does he not the government of God?
Half is afflicted Saints.
Do we have to use effort to stand against Satans methods today?
It's just a question posed.
Well.
We do read that our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. That's in Ephesians 6.
And the remedy there is to put on the whole armor of God.
Maybe just read that as this question has been asked, beloved.
For we wrestle not verse 12 against flesh and blood, that is to say, against human beings, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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Well, we do know, beloved, that the 1St Heaven is full of them.
Demons.
And that's where the warfare is going on.
Demons.
In contrast, what we have in the force of Ephesians.
Verse.
OK, where it speaks that the reading and the.
Do you know verse 10 of chapter 3? Pardon me to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers.
In heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.
Well, here's the contrast, beloved, between good angels and demons. We have good angels here in verse 10.
And are they not all ministering spirits sent to them, and should be heirs of salvation? Here we are.
But in in concerning have we to use any effort?
The word in Ephesians 6 is stand.
Let us read that again, just for a moment.
Phase and say.
Therefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand there for having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery dots of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. But it's wonderful that verse 18 comes in here too.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication of the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints. Well, how blessed it is, beloved, to know that it is God.
Who willeth how is an English God? Who willeth to do by forgetting English?
Will continue both to will and to do, of his own good pleasure.
It's nice to notice here in this chapter we've been noticing how the incorruptible seed gives life and then there's food. But here where the house is looked at, the the Church of God as the House of God. It has to do with conduct, doesn't it? When the Church of God is spoken of as the body of Christ, Why? It's His love and care. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. He nourishes and cherishes that. But here we find the church looked at as a house.
Not here with man as the builder, but with God as the builder. When man does the building well, he may bring in some bad material, wood, hay and stubble. The day will declare that. But when the Lord Jesus is the builder, when God is the builder, why then there's no bad material? The Lord Jesus said on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And so building upon him where we have a sure foundation.
And we are brought in as living stones. So here we find the Church looked upon in its house character, and the wonderful blessed place we have as holy priests and royal priests, built upon this foundation that can never fail. The gates of hell can never prevail against that which He has built. But we may not always be in the enjoyment of the privileges belonging to the place, nor may we always act like we should in the place where we have been brought.
But it's nice the subject is introduced by bringing us to that person who has built us in his living stones, who is himself the chief cornerstone.
We often find that two things mentioned in this chapter are confused, worship and service. But in this chapter we find they're in divine order, are they not? Worship and chapters in verse five and service in verse 9. But sad to say, it's often reversed. People seem to think that service is far more important than worship, but we find it's in divine order. Here. Worship comes first or should do. They both have their place, but worship has the 1St place.
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That's the order in Ezekiel 44.
Emphasize their.
We sometimes would like to substitute activity.
For that which is God's portion. God's portion.
In Ezekiel 44, verses 10/11, 12:13.
And even quarantine it shows the Levites who are for service.
But in verse 14 says that I will make them keepers of the charge of the house for all the service.
But they had not kept the charge.
And when we get to verse 15, we have the priests. They are the ones that have immediate access into God's presence and who are, who are who serve in the interest and care of God. So in the last half of verse 15, these priests, the sons of Zadok, shall come near to me.
To minister unto me, and they shall stand before me.
To offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, and they shall keep the charge.
And it should come to pass.
That when they enter in at the gates of the inner Court, they shall be clothed with linen garments. I believe this speaks of the consistent life of practical righteousness. The linen garments, and no wool shall come upon them whilst they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within they shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins.
They shall not notice this now. They shall not burn themselves. With anything that causes sweat, there can be a great lot of energy and activity.
Out of place, but if the Lord has the 1St place.
In the heart, then the life will indeed be fruitful. In service, that'll be.
Fragrant with Christ and to God's glory.
That vote?
We have the same order in Hebrews 13. Do enough verse 15.
By Him, therefore, let us off of the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. That surely speaks of worship and the next verse service. But to do good and to communicate, forget not. For such sacrifices God is well pleased.
And the same order in the first four books of the Bible. In Genesis we find man is a Sinner. In Exodus man is redeemed with a lamb. In Leviticus, man is worshipping, but in Numbers he's serving.
I believe it's so very important to distinguish the difference and the order because so many today are bent on service, service, service, and they haven't time to be in the presence of God to worship. They think it's not important. But it's all important to mention, Beloved, that verse 16 that our brother cited from Ezekiel 44.
They shall enter into my sanctuary. They shall come near to my table to minister unto me.
And they shall keep my charge. Well, in this connection one is reminded in Psalm 93.
Holiness, become a blind house, O Lord, forever and ever.
Or, as we have it, for the ages of the ages.
In Peter we have the question of the building. Holiness becometh thine house, oh Lord, forever and ever.
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Another.
Thought is found, I think it's in Second Chronicles 20.
29 if I remember. Second Chronicles 29.
Yes.
In verse seven of Second Chronicles 29.
Also they have.
All but sad words of Hezekiah. They have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense, nor burnt offerings in the holy place unto God.
Now, verse 11, my son.
Be not now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen you.
To stand before him, to serve him, and that he should minister unto him.
And burn incense.
Oh, that's the loveliness of Christ and bring that before God is the highest privilege that any redeemed one can possibly have. Nothing can exceed that. And when we have become careless as to our highest privilege privileges.
And then resort to activity all. What a miserable substitute it is, and one doesn't want to ever be misunderstood.
Have anyone think that we are to be rocking chair Christians, as I think an expression Brother Willis used to use in the Steward? We are never intended to settle down in this world. The truth must have its balance, thus to think, because activity is a joyful thing.
I know what it is in my early days, preaching on the street frequently giving out gospel tracks. All is good when the heart is going along with the Lord. But to merely make a service as the great thing is surely not our particular calling. It is Christ must have the 1St place.
Another verse, say 6. Psalm 65, verse 4.
Blessed is the man.
Whom now chooses and causes to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts?
Can anything be more precious than that?
The spiritual house.
Mention here is that which will be complete when every believer.
Is there and we're caught away, Is that it?
I'm asking the question, you know the answer. Are we not now living stones in this portion here?
We will have the fullness of it when we are in the glorious True. But now is the line of truth here, isn't it? Yeah. I was thinking, though, that there is a contrast in the two last versions of Ephesians 2, is there not? We have in one case the thought of the temple and the other the Tabernacle.
Whereas here I suppose it's more the temple, is it not?
The temple in the end of Ephesians 2 is growing. It is not yet complete. The last verse.
Verse 22 of that chapter is the Tabernacle truth in that we are the habitation of God through the Spirit. In that sense, it's always a place where it's a Tabernacle while we are in the wilderness.
Temples almost finished though, isn't it? Amen.
We were enjoying, we were enjoying the verse on the I think Joyce leaning calendar this morning.
If I remember right, it might have been the other calendar, Second Chronicles chapter 3 and verse one, in which it speaks of Solomon began to build the house. He began to build the temple of the Lord, but it was on Mount Moriah, that place where Abraham offered up Isaac.
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And figure, at any rate, in that place where the threshing floor warning the Jebusite was, where the plague was stayed, he offered the burnt offering too. Burnt offering.
But.
David, before his death made a great provision for the building of this temple, the Lord Jesus Christ in his death, dying in our stead, shedding his precious blood, redeeming his Son to himself. He made provision, the Lord Jesus in his death for the building of this temple in virtue of that precious bloodshed.
The Holy Spirit is given to us by which we worship.
And we send 318 Oh Lamb of God, still keep us inside.
1 Peter 2:6-
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Here 2:00 and 6:00.
Two and verse 6.
Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay a design, the cheap cornerstone elect precious, and he that believe upon him shall not be confounded.
Unto you therefore, which believe He is precious.
What Uncle Sam would be disobedient? The stone which the builder disallowed, the same has made the head of the corner and a storm of stumbling and a lot of offense even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who have called you out of darkness into His marvelous life.
Which in time has were not a people, but are now the people of God.
Which has not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstained from fleshly lusts which are against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoer, they may by your good works which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Submit yourself to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake.
Whether it be the kitchen, the king as his friend, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with all doing he may put the silence, the ignorance of ink, foolish men as free, and not using your liberty for a close of militia, but as the servants of God.
Are all men love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King?
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and general, but also to the forward. For this is fact worthy of a man. For contradictory God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
For what glory is it if when you deposit it for your fault, you shall take it patiently?
But if when we do well and suffer for it, you take it, occasionally this is acceptable with God, or even here unto where you call, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us as an example that she should follow his step. Who did no sin. Neither was Nile found in his mouth. For when he was reviled, reviled not again.
When he suffered, he threatened laugh, but committed himself to him. That judges righteously.
To his own self there are sins in his own body on the tree. That we being death to sin, should live under righteousness. By whose strength you were healed, For ye were as she going astray.
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What are now returned unto the shepherd and Bishop of your soul?
This verse is a quotation of Isaiah 28.
And 16.
Peter uses the sixth verse and it's rather interesting to notice the connection in Isaiah.
Because it's at the time of the judgment that will fall upon unrepentant Israel in the coming day.
On the professors, but who refused to own that true, that true rock or stone.
That we have mentioned here a chief cornerstone elect precious, but it's their last opportunity. It's the time of the judgment falling upon the people who made a covenant with death. That is, they have.
Made a covenant with the.
Western Empire for protection.
And have taken up with idolatry and now the presentation to that people.
Again before the judgment falls of this foundation.
Upon which they can rest, therefore thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste. And that's the basis upon which the godly Jew comes in and rests while the judgments fall around him.
He rests upon this scripture in that coming day.
This epistle is addressed to the scattered of that nation. And they were in the good of it before that time, weren't they? They had not only found this one upon whom they could rest, but they had been brought into a still more wonderful place, being as we have in the verse before, and holy priesthood to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices.
When that time of blessedness has come in, there will be a physical house that will be built, rebuilt in Jerusalem, where there will be sacrifices offered. But now it's a spiritual building. And that is every believer is a living stone, and more than this, every believer is also.
A priest In that time there will be the one tribe as it was read to us, the tribe of Levi. But now, isn't it lovely that every believer now is a priest, a holy priest? Every believer can OfferUp spiritual sacrifices. They OfferUp, as we find in Ezekiel, They will OfferUp sacrifices in a commemorative way when the Kingdom blessing is brought in.
But now we offer spiritual sacrifices. I believe it's very important that we should lay hold of the fact that every believer now, brothers as well as sisters, we are all holy priests, all to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices. And all the sisters do not take an audible part. They still as worshippers can OfferUp these spiritual sacrifices. More than this, a spiritual sacrifice shows.
That it's not how well we can sing. It's not even how well we can express ourselves.
But it's that which comes from the heart that is acceptable sacrifice to God in worship, because it presents Christ in all the loveliness of his person and work. And that is Christian worship today.
The little difference here between what you read in Isaiah where it says He that believeth shall not make haste. It will be very difficult for the godly ones in that time when they see the progress of evil, to wait upon the Lord. Those who are in a hurry to get protection will turn to the 10 kingdoms, those who realize that the Lord is the one and whom they can trust and for whom they can wait.
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They will not make haste and when he comes, they'll say this is our God. We have waited for him. But it's, it's remarkable here that when the Spirit of God uses the verse in Peter, he doesn't speak in that way. He says he that believeth on him shall not be confounded because now we have this salvation. We have been brought into this place and we're not confounded. The law of the nation as a whole rejected him.
Those who believe now are not confounded. They have built upon a sure foundation.
There was BSD, the contrast.
Beloved in that day, for instance, in Isaiah 28.
There's the overflowing scourgement there in verse 15. Well, I presume that's the king of the north. Well, the Assyrian, he makes a covenant with hell there. But I was impressed.
In reading Isaiah 17 and verse 11, and Mr. Davi range it this way, in the day of taking possession thereof, the sorrow will be incurable. Well, we do know that a remnant will be spared.
In that day.
Brought through that tremendous time of suffering. And we are not to forget, beloved, that while the Jew is there in the land, he's not going to possess that until the Lord gives it to him. I've often thought of it in this respect, that.
While they feel that they've conquered much with their arms.
They're still there in unbelief.
Unbelievable in that coming day when they feel themselves secure behind on wall villagers, then it will be that the host from the mouth will sweep down with the Assyrian too upon them. I remember talking to a Russian concerning the meaning of Gog, and he sat at the same table as I did in one of those old hotels in South America.
And he looked like a Russian and I said, would you tell me if you are a Russian, are you a Russian? He said, yes, I am when you tell me the meaning of God. And he immediately said means that Russia, Vargas, Russia, this is a Russian, of course, Russians explanation of it. And then I said, what is the meaning of Maybach is that you don't pronounce that correctly? You should say Margot. Well, I said thanks very much. What's it mean?
The people of Russia and I asked him also the meaning of messing. He said Moscow and tubal to length where we licked the Germans. He said, well, he told me not to talk anymore about those prophecies of Ezekiel. So he said there's the destruction of my people all how real it must he must have been more than interested in those two prophecies of 38 and 39 of Ezekiel. Well, I just mentioned that by the way.
Because of that, the overflowing scourge, they sweep down upon that land, and unless the Lord Jesus.
Intervenes there they be consumed. Why I mentioned that, brethren?
The Zion is mentioned there and that is really the mountain of God's grace Zion and under the the failure of Saul's Kingdom.
Well, which was a man's choice is now turned over and the David God's choice. And that's why Zion comes in here. This is God's choice.
Because David rested from the Jebusites. And so this is a very important verse I lay in science.
A teeth cornerstone in talking to a Greek about that word stone.
I said to him, What is the difference between the living stones of Peter and the stone? Well, he said, explain what do you mean? I said, what is the word in Greek for?
A stone, a big stone voices us, Petra. And what is the meaning of a little stone? He says, Petros, this was an educated Greek, Petros. He said something like the children using their swings, the swing at the birds, little stone. But here we have the Lord yeast, the chief cornerstone, the great rock who are blessed. It is to dwell on that. Brethren, here's the rock and we read here, behold, I lay in Zion.
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Why? This is the Davidic under David, the God's choice under David.
And that's why Zion is mentioned here. It was rested as we just mentioned from the Jeb sites.
Cornerstone Electric.
No one could take that Zion until David came, could they? No. That's why it appealed to me, brother, this you know, when we, when I think of Zion.
Saul's choice faith undersolved faith, but not under David, the true David.
And as the remnant of the 10 tribes are gathered outside.
Of the Lamb, and God will gather them out of the nations. Ezekiel 20.
You gather them to the land, then they'll get the message deliverances in Zion, and each one will have to go in alone by their own faith, just like Lot had to go into the city of refuge by his own faith. He was delivered out of the city, but he had to go into the city of refuge by faith.
Well, all that group go into the city by faith.
10% well and that's all but those in the land, I suppose.
1/3 that is the two tribes. I was just thinking, Brother Smith, as you were.
Calling attention to the 17th chapter of Isaiah, it seems that beside the ones that are hidden away.
The two tribes.
There in the land, there will be a few berries on the top of the tree. Is that right? And there's where we get the Scripture in the Gospels that says one will be taken in another left. Because during the judgments, during the the Assyrians sleeping in, there will be those no doubt that will turn to the Lord who are in the land, who hadn't fled away with the Mass, who who were hidden away. But they'll be in the land and.
The Spirit of God will cause them to believe the gospel at that time. Is that right? Yes, I believe so. It was Mr. Wilson, you know, who used to speak of two slaughters. I spent some time with dear, dear brother, and he used to speak up. Two terrible slaughter, Time of slaughter. Well, he knew far more than I understand about it. And I wondered about that. There would be a very small percentage left.
These thoughts come up, brethren, when we read about science and praise waiteth for the in Zion. Praise wait for that Blessed One in Zion.
Zion is a city with in Jerusalem, isn't it? It's like a little inner city that David dwelt in. Is that the thought of China? Yes.
Because he rested from the Jebusite to remember Brown.
Just call attention that. The new translation though makes the word cheap. It just it just is the cornerstone where there is no other. There's just one cornerstone. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ. Everything must be built upon Him or it won't abide.
Nice the way it states in the sixth verse, a cornerstone he lacked precious and then in the seventh verse unto you therefore, which believe he is precious or the preciousness. Well, this one is precious to God. Everything is in ruins in this earth apart from him. Judgment would have to take away everything if it wasn't for this blessed one.
And how precious he is to God is the one who has upheld his glory and open the way of blessing. Well through gracies become precious to us. And this is characteristic of every true believer. Unto you therefore, which believe he is precious, or the preciousness. And this is the way one can tell whether faith is real, though the devils believe and tremble, and people can believe in Christ in a historical way.
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But if it's really in the heart, the heart goes out to the person. And so everyone in this room this afternoon who has really believed in his heart, his heart responds to the precious name of the Lord Jesus. If your heart does not respond to the precious name of the Lord Jesus, you might know about him, but I'm afraid you don't know him. But to those who believe in their hearts, those who have believed in the real sense of the word, He is the preciousness.
We have the Kingdom spoken of in Colossians in a very special sense.
It's called the Kingdom of the Son of his love or his dear Son.
Now perhaps that's a little different than what we speak of as the the Kingdom of David, because David's Kingdom will be on earth, will it not?
But still there's a sense in which we're in the Kingdom and I, I suppose especially in Colossians, there's a sense there of responsibility in the position we're in, that new position we're in. And so we're in the Kingdom of the son of his love.
But the Kingdom?
We have the expression here elect.
As to the person of the Lord Jesus.
Elect.
Precious.
He is the son of his love and we are identified with him in that position.
But Israel will be connected with him on the earth and the nations in a special sense.
I was thinking of the meaning of this word elect. It really means chosen. We have it in the second Psalm.
In the.
6th verse Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the degree the Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a Potter's vessel.
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be instructed, ye judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. Now for the for the earth there will have to be the recognition of this king in Zion.
But for the Church ye have ye hath he reconciled? We're already reconciled.
And that's what we can rejoice in today. We're looking back at the cross as accomplished things.
We are.
The chosen people for the heavenly calling.
And in the second Psalm it is for the earth. And in the 17th of John's Gospel in his prayer.
I pray for them. That's his heavenly people. I pray not for the world. In other words, the nations in due time, like it is in the second Psalm.
The seventh verse makes one think of the end of the 52nd of Isaiah on the first part of the 53rd. In the end of the 52nd of Isaiah, it speaks of that one whose visit was marred more than any man, and it says the king shall shut their mouths at him.
For that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Well, all are going to see the Lord Jesus given His rightful place. Yes, the kings of this earth will hear that cry that will go forth. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
But we delight to give him that place beforehand. We delight even now, so that the gun who is said it not by this world, we delight to acknowledge as being in the highest place. The little hymn puts it nicely. Christ of God, our souls confess the King and Sovereign even now. He we worship the obey on the Lord and Christ alway. And I believe this is the contrast that he is drawing here.
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The attitude of this world, who are going to someday see him, made the head of the corner.
And our present attitude that we have found him to be precious, we delight to come into his presence as holy priests and OfferUp spiritual sacrifices. And it's our privilege in this time of his rejection to show to others that we have laid hold of this, that he has become precious to us, and that our lives speak the fact that we have honored him and seek to honor him.
It's nice to see how Peter brings the person of Christ in. In every few verses of his ministry, he goes back to the person again.
In some respect.
So that keeps the heart fresh and the enjoyment of the truth.
It isn't knowledge we want unless it's the knowledge of the person, is it?
Especially Solomon, as much as he was the one that denied him there in Pilot's Hall.
This is a solemn word here, isn't it? Which stumble at the word, being disobedient, For unto also they were appointed, that is, they stumble at the word. When the Lord Jesus was here, they the scribes and Pharisees said.
We know that God spake unto Moses, but As for this fellow, we know not when she is. They had the scriptures, they professed to recognize that they were the word of God, and yet they couldn't see the one in their midst who was fulfilling all those scriptures.
Well, that was the result of that. While rejecting him. There was nothing but judgment then.
They must come under the judgment of God, but it's a solemn thing to think that prison them professors to have the word of God. They'll say to us what we all have the same Bible, but you see different things in a well, I stumbled at the word. They had the word, but they didn't see Christ in it.
They didn't see that he was the one who came fulfilling all these things and saw the result was judgment. When it says we're under all, so they were appointed. It doesn't mean that God predestimates anybody to be lost.
If they reject Christ, and then they're appointed, as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment rejecting Him, there's no other appointment for them but death and judgment receiving Him there's blessing.
I think it's helpful to notice, though, that there is no such thing taught in Scripture as any being predestinated to judgment only predestinated the glory. But rejecting Him, then there's no other end to the journey but the judgment of God.
'S.
It's a general principle.
Are you emphasizing it is a general principle that such will come under the judgment of God?
Everyone who rejects the Lord Jesus, that's the appointment. If they die in their sins, they they'll be lost. I just spoke of it in that way. Is that what you?
John 336 probably brings out that truth. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not or obey us not the Son.
Shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. That's a general truth.
In keeping with what you said, well that's why I quoted that verse and because it uses the same word appointment in Hebrews 9 and as it is appointed under man wants to die, but after this the judgment well it could stop there. That would be judgment for the whole human race. But now the next verse shows that God intervened in grace.
And it says, Wherefore Christ up? So also Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that looked for Him shall he appear the second time, without saying unto salvation. How did we escape that appointment? Well, we saw God's appointed One, the one who came, who bore our sins, who took the judgment for us. So when he comes again, it will not be for judgment, it will be for our final deliverance.
So how blessed the contrast. But the appointment, as you say is, is general. It's the whole moon race. If it were not for those whom God has saved in grace, those whose sins were laid on Christ.
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Salvation has a threefold aspect, of course. The I'm sure we all understand. There may be some young person who doesn't understand that through faith in his precious blood, we are saved from the guilt of sin.
But the Lord Jesus hasn't remained in the grave. He's risen, and he saves us by his life. Where In glory there, beloved, He saves us from the presence of, from the very dominion of sin, I should say, from the slavery of it, the power of it. But when he comes back again, He'll save us from sin's prison, so that we're saved now who faces his blood from sin's guilt. We are saved every moment of the way.
By virtue of his himself in glory from sins, power sins dominion, the slave will. But when he comes back again, it could be the day we trust that all here are ready.
When He comes, then we shall be saved from the very presence.
Of sin. I remember when our ex governor was saved in Bolivia.
He was deeply concerned. He's been at the table several years.
And he was deeply concerned for his loved wife. And one day he invited me to dine with him in the palace. And he said to his wife over the table, we read, we read the portion of the word together. And he said Alzheimer. And she looked up. If the Lord should come at this moment, I'd never see you again.
Well, that was huge of the law to awaken the desire in his dear wife's heart.
And he's been wonderfully saved. And the eldest daughter, al Serra. If the Lord should come just now, I would never see you again. All that went home. And that is true.
The language used in the ninth verse is much like quoted from the Old Testament, is it not? In various places, and.
It's very understandable with the Jew. He's writing to those who are dispersed.
And they understand from the Old Testament that they were a chosen.
People. But here it's in a new sense, is it not?
A different, different people, in fact.
In the Old Testament, five times we get the expression a people for a possession. That is the way it's translated and the more literal translation commencing in Exodus 19, six, it runs right through to Malachi 317 where it speaks about.
A treasure. It's exactly the same expression. A people for a possession. But now, why am I trying to emphasize this? I'll tell you why.
There is a teaching that many have have accepted that I do not believe is the real truth. They make out that the treasure of the parable in the 13th of Matthew, where he sells all to obtain the treasure or to obtain the fields, and on the Treasure Island it is taught that the treasure there is Israel. I do not believe it at all.
In the 13th of Matthew.
The Lord is is opening up a new field of truth. At the end of chapter 12 He turns his back on his natural people, Israel, his mother, his sister is his brethren. He turns his back on them at the end of chapter 12 and he goes by the seaside and he opens up 7 new parables, six of which are similitude to the Kingdom of heaven.
Referring to the gospel activity in this present age has nothing to do with Israel in particular. So in the New Testament the same expression of people for a possession is found in Titus chapter.
Two and verse 14, I believe Titus, you might look at it and this verse here. So the Holy Spirit uses this expression for Christians who are of the heavenly company five times in the Old Testament, those of God's earthly people.
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Look at Titus.
To maybe 14.
Yes.
Who gave himself for us?
That he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself. Here it is a peculiar people, a people for a possession, zealous and good works. And then our verse, verse 9. Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation. A people for a possession is the way it's translated.
Could we connect this with what we have in the end of the Galatians where it says?
Now the Israel of God, that is God, has singled out from that to nation a remnant according to the election of grace.
And so while the nation as such is set aside, God has in his goodness saved out of them a people for heavenly glory. And so that they are really the chosen generation, are the chosen race. It's true that God will yet bring the nation as such into blessing. But when God saved the Jew at this time, then he becomes part of what we have here, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation.
A peculiar people. Of course, it is true of all believers, whether Jew or Gentiles, that we are a royal priesthood and that we are a people for a possession. But could we say he applies it here to those of Israel? Because when they gave up their national hopes, so to speak?
And receive Christ. They didn't any longer look for the establishment of the Kingdom on earth, but they were begotten again unto a living hope. They were brought into a position more wonderful, like the Lord Jesus said when he was about to go to the cross.
He said that in my father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you and that is when he says, if it were not so, I would have told you. I believe it's this thought. Those disciples had followed the Lord Jesus expecting that he would establish the Kingdom and that they would have a place in association with Him in the Kingdom on earth.
Well, as it's as though he should say to them, well, I wouldn't have asked you to follow me in the path of rejection.
If I didn't have something better for you than what you anticipated, you were thinking of the house on earth, the.
Ezekiel's temple, and places of the bulbs near to he, to me in the earthly thing.
But he said, I have something more wonderful for you in my father's house. There are many above. And so he introduces them into this blessed thought. And so here these Jews cast out and despised by their nation because they had received Christ. Oh, he says, you're the remnant. You're the ones who are brought into the real blessing of Christianity. And so now instead of feeling well, our nation is all cast off. They could say, well, God hasn't forgotten. He has picked out some.
Who can enter into and enjoy this Christian blessing and no doubt along with Gentiles to but I believe it's brought in in this way to encourage as a believers among Israel of the being begotten again unto a living hope being brought into a new and more blessed position in Christianity than they ever occupied in Judaism. Now this is brought out in second Peter the first verse.
What you've been saying and it's connected with the promises.
Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, of them that have obtained like precious faith with us.
Through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Now I believe the point here is that.
It isn't the righteousness that we receive from Christ who died on the cross for us. That's true. But I believe here it's a question of God in righteousness, fulfilling all the promises that He made, which included what we're Speaking of now. In Hebrews, which was written to the same people, we find that they're looked at as a people who have never been severed. They're not seen as those like in Ephesians, who were.
Debt and trespasses and sins, but he addresses them as those who understand the Old Testament.
00:40:06
Types. But now he's revealing them in a new light, revealing them in connection with heavenly things and their true meaning, because the things were written before time, were written for our learning, that is, for those upon whom the ends of the world have come. Beside that, in the book of Acts, the early assembly or church was formed of Jews.
Now it wasn't until later that the Gentiles were brought in. And so we have really in the early ministry, like Peter gives us here, that which affects the Jew particularly, but he's brought into that new order of things which has to do with heaven and the heavenly blessings instead of the earthly Zion and that which surrounds the Kingdom of David.
Is that the thought of your friend and then that the 10th verse applies to Israel as cast off and having lost its national identity?
It's really limited to the elect.
Of the household of faith. These two epistles are addressed to believing Jews.
My question was we're not a people, but what does that have reference to? You were not a people, not a but now are the people of God?
The Israelites, the Israelites, the Jew always were a people, weren't they? But what's the reference there? You do have in Hosea the character of being disowned. And now here we have some, at any rate of remnant of the Jews who are old when it comes to application to the Gentiles people He's found to them sought, not after him.
Who were not a people and now are people. That has to do with us Christians in contrast to a nation of Israel.
We do find beloved. We find the select nation mentioned in Genesis and our brother mentioned Joel. It might be nice just to look at that. We know that.
The message that Peter gives here is concerning those who have been delivered from the dispensational law.
They've been brought into the blessing of grace, but may we just look back for a moment or two to the to the promise and then we can apply the 19th of Exodus verse 5.
While we're on that, if you wouldn't mind, we just mentioning this now. Therefore, if He will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. For all the earth is mine, and he shall be unto me of Kingdom, of priests and unholy nation. These are the words which thou should speak unto the children of Israel. However, in Hosea, her brother mentioned that casually. That's the second capture of Hosea.
We go back to verse 15, and I will give her her vineyards from thence in the valley of April for a door of hope, and she shall sing there as in the days of the youth, and as the day when she came up out of the land, the region, and shall be at that day. Save the Lord, that thou shalt call me easy.
Really means my husband and shall come in on the valley my master, For I will take away the names of bail him out of her mouth, and they shall be no more remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground. And I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely, and I will be trust thee unto me forever.
Yeah, I will be trust thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. I will even betrothe unto me and faithfulness, and thou shall know the Lord, and shall come to pass in that day. I will hear, saith the Lord. I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth.
And the earth shall heal the corn and the wine and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel. And I will sow her, Anthony, in the earth, and I will have mercy upon her that have not obtained mercy. And I will say to them which were not my people, that are my people. And they should say that my God, well, he's a wonderful, this is a wonderful covenant, but it has to do with the earth. And what we're on, beloved, this afternoon has to do with heaven. Amen.
We are a heavenly people and hear these Jews scattered. They are in the good of that matchless base of God. And so we have the difference between a heavenly entity, beloved, and an earthly entity.
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Now, in the reference that our brother mentioned in Galatians chapter six, I thought it might be well to call a little more attention to this.
Galatians 6 and verse 16.
As many as walk according to this rule that is of new creation. Notice the end of verse 15. As many as walk according to this rule, new creation. Peace be on them, and mercy and upon thee.
Israel of God.
Now, I'm sure our brother used this as referring to the godly remnant of Israel in this present age. You had that in mind.
Yes, of course, I there's probably a threat to it beyond that, but that's the thought mainly for sure. Now we're in the Romans 11 and verse 5.
Even so, then, at this present time, at this church age.
Also, there is a remnant that's a Jews.
According to the election of grace, amongst the many Christians being saved, there are some, relatively I suppose a few that are of Israel, and they are.
The elect according to this verse and they are the Israel God. That's what it refers to. They are the Israel of God and then in.
In first Peter chapter one, our epistle, verse 2.
Read verse one in connection. Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now he was the apostle to the circumcision.
To the Jews, to the strangers, and scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Asia, and Bethania.
Elect now this is the Israel of God. This is the remnant according to the election of grace. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Now it has to do with four known ones that God in eternity foreknew these ones.
It is not a question as God knew that you're going to accept Christ. That's a beggarly interpretation. But there are four known beings or persons amongst the Jews and that is.
I think the answer to that thought is to the Israel of God.
Connection with the passage that was read to us in the 19th chapter of of Exodus.
It says that they would be a nation of priests. Well, actually that was never fulfilled and it could not be fulfilled under the law because it was made conditional on their obedience and they never fulfilled that. But isn't it lovely to see here?
In this ninth verse of our chapter. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. This is something that is peculiar to Christianity. Or even in the time when Israel are blessed nationally, they will not be blessed so wonderfully as God has blessed us in Christianity.
The veil will be up in the millennial temple, and there will not be the fullest access into the presence of God, nor will Israel be able to manifest that which we can manifest now as royal priests by the Spirit in this present time. And so I think it's a very beautiful application because in that 19th chapter of, of Exodus, it was proposed to the nation if they could fulfill God's law. Well, they never did.
But how blessed that here in this time that God has introduced believing Jews and us through grace into a place more wonderful and could have been theirs even if they had fulfilled as a law. Because here we are, a chosen generation of royal priesthood. And now the.
Vail brethren, we can go into the very presence of God because and we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
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And who can truly show forth the praises of him who have called us out of darkness here? I believe it's the comparative darkness of Judaism that is in When Solomon spoke at the opening of the temple, he said that the Lord would dwell in the thick darkness.
God was not fully revealed in Judaism. Now will there be that same blessed even in the Millennium? The Lord will be more wonderful than it was in, say, Solomon's time. But we have been brought, those believing Israelites were brought beyond even that which was known in Judaism. The comparative darkness in which God dwelled. Now all the glory of God shines out in the face of Jesus Christ.
And we come into the very holiest every believer as a holy priest, whether to or Gentile, to OfferUp spiritual sacrifices. We are indwelled by the Spirit of God, a thing that is only true during the Church period. And so we can manifest in this world the very life of Christ before an ungodly world. And so he is encouraging these Jewish believers and us too, in a sense that we are brought into a more wonderful place than Israel ever did occupy or ever will occupy.
By being saved now.
And I think it's most precious enough to come home to our hearts with power, the privilege that we have in Christianity.
Interesting to notice how that in this particular age, when God did visit the Gentiles, I noticed the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name, that he includes a remnant of the Jews. Now the characteristic of his age is the gospel, the grace of God going out to the nations, not limited to that earthly people, Israel.
But within this great work of the gospel there is a remnant according to election of grace. Now I I said isn't interesting to also notice the reverse of this in the 66th of Isaiah. There we see the gospel of the Kingdom going out.
And.
Of the of the Gentiles, there will be those in faith that will bring in of the children of Israel, bring them back to the land for blessing. And those Gentiles are going to be priests in the Millennium and OfferUp this this, these people that they brought back.
As the children of Israel, you know the priests would offer a sacrifice. You got that in the 66th of Isaiah. I think you have to look at it in order to get my point.
I said.
66 and verse 18.
For I know their works and their thoughts.
It shall come that I will gather all nations.
And tongues and they Gentiles shall come and see my glory, and I will set a sign among them, see those he's Speaking of, and I will send those that escape of them. That's the Gentiles unto the nations to Tarshish bow, and Lud to draw the bow to Tubal, and Javon to the aisles are far off.
That I have not heard my fame.
Neither have seen my glory, and they now he's speaking the same people. They shall declare my glory among the nations.
And they shall bring all your brethren Jewish for an offering. See, as priests bring an offering, they'll bring an offering unto Jehovah out of all nations, upon horses and Chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts.
A variety of all kinds of vehicles to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord. Notice little word, as as these Gentiles of the nations shall offer, as the children of Israel bring an offering.
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In a clean vessel into the House of the Lord, and I will also take of them. That's the Gentiles, 4 priests and four Levites, saith the Lord. Now the nation itself was to be a Kingdom of priests, that is those that enter by faith. But here we also find the exception will be some of the nations too will be as priests.
This is connected with the thought on the 7th of Revelation where those who are connected with the temple.
Is that the entrance there?
Oh, I see your connection in the first half of that Chapter 7.
Of the Revelation we get the preachers, the 144,000.
Sealed out of the 12 tribes of Israel that will occur in the middle of the week, but they go out in that last half of the week and they herald the king and the and the Kingdom truth and the result of their work is seen in the last half of Revelation 7 where you see a great multitude.
Which you cannot number.
From the nation.
They are standing, as it were, in the Kingdom celebrating. And the question is asked, who are these? The answer is these are they that have come out of the great tribulation. So it's after the tribulation is over that these nations, you cannot number them, are the people. They will be there for blessing. Now our brother connects the two. At least some of them will be used as priests.
You wouldn't limit that verse in Isaiah 66 to merely the Gentiles, would you? Because in the previous.
And those right through it, which certainly refers to the ones that he's using from amongst the Gentiles to bring back his brethren, the brethren, the Jews, and offer them as a priest will offer them. Yes, that's clear. But in the 17 first.
They're mixed with the Jews, are they not?
The 17th verse They have sanctified themselves and purified themselves in the garden behind one tree in the midst eating swine's flesh in the abomination, and the mouth shall be consumed together, saith the Lord. In other words, I suppose there will be some Jews mixed with them. Well, the behind these.
Azari there.
Verse 17 they that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens. This is all an abomination to God behind.
One whatever that should read there behind one another, maybe in the midst.
Eating the swine's flesh. In other words, it's idolatry and abomination. And the mouse shall be consumed. Now that verse shows they'll be consumed of that sort. They are an abomination, an apostate group in verse 17. It really has nothing to do with the verses that follow. Judgment first judgment.
Oh no, those that escape.
So we're getting off our subject, but I just thought that when we come back that a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Well, the the apostle Peter would teach these days that the death of Christ.
And ended the whole Jewish economy.
Ended them, and He would teach them also that they belong to heaven, just as we do through faith in the precious blood of Christ. If we keep that before us, it may be a little help for the younger Christians.
A holy nation of peculiar people, that you should throw forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness into his marvelous life. Well, isn't that a wonderful portion? And so these Jews that were scattered now through faith in the precious blood of Christ, were a heavenly people.
In contrast to an earth, I was thinking to Brother Smith that our little company here this afternoon.
All that our thoughts have directed us to remind us that all the fruition of God's councils.
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Hinges upon the cross of Calvary, and whether it be Jew or Gentile, there's that coming day when he who suffered so much will see of the travail of his soul and will be satisfied. His word will be complete and everything reconciled.
And we value these thoughts, but I find my own poor feeble comprehension ever returning to our own present day. And I think with.
My heart drawn, I'm sure, the heart of many here. Through the precious place that we have, we too can say we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood. We too have been brought from darkness into marvelous light. Now the falls of the Galatians was that they had been brought into the same light and out of the same darkness.
Judaism that you like, But they failed to remain there. They returned again to the darkness of the law and the ordinances. And so they lost really their place as priests. Their position was still secure, but they lost enjoyment of it. Well, if we want to go on and the enjoyment of our place as those who are of priesthood, that is to offer spiritual sacrifices, we need to just look to the person.
Who has made this possible? And His work on Calvary? And then we turn to that 13th verse of the 13th chapter in Hebrews so frequently. By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
Heather Hales.
Is this 11Th first thing is going to be applied at the present time?
Well, I believe it all applies, that he is just comforting these Jewish believers by explaining to them that all these promises that God had made to Israel were fulfilled in a fuller way in Christianity.
That is, he says in that first chapter, He has begotten us again unto a living hope. That is, they they were brought into the health of the possession of Canaan and all that God had for them. Well, we know they suffered that because they couldn't keep the law. Now he says, well.
Now you have received the Lord Jesus. Now you're under the shelter of his blood. There is something more wonderful open to you and all that that was type in a shadow has been fulfilled. And I agree with what our brother Gill is saying and I think it's important that while primarily he is addressing believing Jews.
Brought him to the place which we Gentiles occupy, and they enjoy it in common with us, and so it's safe for us too. But it's helpful for us to see that the Spirit of God entered into the circumstances in which they were found and comforts their hearts in this way.
And shows us that the Word of God is one complete and harmonious whole. That God hadn't forgotten those promises to Israel, not that He ever was now making them good in Christ spiritually. And we as Gentiles can enjoy these things because now the middle wall of partition is broken down.
So all this applies to us as well as to them, except certain, such as a holy nation. Well, that could only be referred to Israel, but that was a special comfort to a Jew. To see his nation completely set aside was very disheartening and must.
Paul loved his nation, said he could wish himself a curse from Christ for them. Well, isn't it, wasn't it a comfort to say, well, God has a remnant even from your nation, and they're a holy nation to Him, even though the nation as such has rejected their Messiah? So I feel it is important that we should apply these things to ourselves. And I was thinking, brethren of this expression should show forth the praises of him who had called us, called you out of darkness.
Into His marvelous light. How often were occupied with showing our own praises. We want people to think well of us, and we're very heard of people say unkind things about us all. Brethren, how different our lives would be if our great concern was, What do they think of my Savior? Do they see Christ in me? Let them say what they wish about me, providing they see Christ in me. The apostle Paul was spoken against by the Saints of Corinth, but what did he say?
Well, he said we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And he says if the earth and vessel is broken down, it's that the life of Jesus might be manifested. And so whatever the circumstances of life may be, God has that purpose to draw forth praise to his beloved Son, and also that his praises should be manifested in our lives and so whatever our circumstances might be.
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To me, it's a great comfort. The Spirit of God fully entered into the circumstances and feelings through which these Jewish believers were passing. And brethren, he enters into ours. We're passing through certain circumstances too, perhaps a little bit different, but in many ways perhaps similar, while the Lord enters into these and shows us.
How he has brought us into such a wonderful place where we can enter into these privileges.
And manifest the life of Christ. The world gets depressed when their troubles come. Oh sweet. It is when the world sees that we have a portion that can't be taken from us and that only manifests itself in a fuller way when we're in trouble. I would like to ask you, brother, does not verse 9.
Refer to a limited people as a holy nation rather than to the nation of Israel.
Is this not spiritual truth for real believers? Here in verse nine, now over in chapter 4 verse 16.
I think our brother Wilson that asked a question, we'll see an expression in verse 16 of chapter 4.
Yet if any man suffer as a Christian.
Now that includes every real Christian on earth. I mean the expression does, for a Christian is an anointed one. Christ has gone on high, He, the anointed one has sent down the Holy Spirit and anointed us, and the Holy Spirit's anointing gives us to be Christian. Romans 8 Truth if any man have not the Spirit of Christ.
Is not of him. That's the guess what a Christian is a real Christian. So this term that Peter uses here is certainly not limited to the Jewish believers. What I had in mind was the exhortation here is to our wall.
I think that is one thing that is very needful today. That's the following verses. I think they do well to get into them.
In the eleven first, let's remind ourselves again before we have the exhortations of our position.
There's no use of talking about correcting our ways unless we are conscious of a certain position we're in.
We are dearly beloved.
That's the Saints of God. Now that's true whether one is walking well or whether one isn't walking well.
But if one isn't walking well, he is not enjoying the fact that he is dearly beloved. But it's true, is it not, that we are dearly beloved? And so the expectations are on that basis. And if we realize this, it, it touches and reaches our hearts rather than simply as something that like a legal line of things towards us. And so the first thing is, dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, that supposes that we're heavenly citizens.
It supposes we do not belong to this world. And so the stranger would would is the thought of away from home and the pilgrims is on his way. He's a stranger because he's not at home. He's in a strange land and the Pilgrim is on his way home. It's all in view of the rest. It's something like Hebrews. It's a rest that remains at the end of the road for us now on this basis.
We're not to take up with the things that belong to this world, and the things that belong to the flesh are the things that would draw our attention here, but those things that belong up there, where we're going.
Now is Mandy, we have a very fine picture of a pilgrim's path. May we read it? Numbers 20 and verse 17.
Numbers 2017.
Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country. We will not pass through the fields or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells. We will go by the King's Hwy. an official path laid out. We will not turn to the right hand, nor to the left until.
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We have passed thy borders. What a beautiful picture this is of a Pilgrim passing through the world without encroaching on its rights, having nothing to do with him. And we too should be characterized by this very principle here in this verse.
Whether or not there was that part when they entered in and possessed the lamb as their own. And there was the time when Abraham entered into it as a Pilgrim and as a stranger in a Pilgrim. And I believe that he goes back to that part where Abraham entered the land as a stranger and a Pilgrim. So all that Abraham had at that time was 10th and an altar, and he called upon the name of the Lord, and this part he was to.
Display the.
Character that he had been called to know the true God, but alas, we find that.
There was a stripe arose between his herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot and the Canaanites, and the Perazite was then in the land. And then too, when the famine came, he went down into Egypt, and he sought riches down there, and he had to be rebuked by Pharaoh.
He really lost his Pilgrim character. Well, as I say, there is the sense in which we possess all in the heavenlies, but also in Israel's history. There was that part which is pictured in Abraham's, and I believe that's what he's talking about here. And how many things there were that really warred against Abraham's soul. And when he failed to walk as a stranger in a Pilgrim by these things robbed him.
He lost the enjoyment of his blessed portion that God had given to him.
And we lose the enjoyment too of our portion. As our brother said, we're dearly beloved, but we may not be enjoying this. Abraham wasn't enjoying it when he went down to Egypt and became rich and silver and gold, but rendered a bad testimony before the king of Egypt.
What a comprehensive Denise Saints of God, Jewish believers as they were dispersed, passing through persecution, and as Peter writes them this letter and brings before them their new position, a heavenly position in Christ.
And so step by step is leading them on to that point. And now applying it to their walk into their ways, he reminds them in the 18th verse, the 19th verse of the first chapter, that they've been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. I can see these dear souls entering into the joy and comfort of this letter as they suffered much persecution and dispersed from nation to nation, truly.
Strangers and pilgrims, while in principle it surely applies to us, our position in Christ.
There is a progressive teaching in the apostles, this Epistle of Peter, and I'm sure you've noticed it. I'd like to just mention a few verses. First of all, the newborn babes. They desire the sincere milk of the word, the unadulterated.
Word of God. Now if we look over into that same chapter from verses 13 to 19, you get the Christians pathway marked out.
The Christians pathway so it's very practical. This is but when we come down to the to verse 10 of chapter 3.
We get something else for he that will love life and see good days or happy days, that he refrained his tongue from evil in his lips, that they speak no guile. Notice, beloved, the progressive teaching of this epistle. Let him avoid evil and do good. Let him seek peace and endure it. Now over in verse 14 of chapter four, we got something else. If he be reproached for the name of Christ, happier he for the spirit of glory and of God.
Resteth upon you on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your path is glorified. And then in verse 10 of chapter 5 you get the God of all grace with all the centuries eternal glory by Christ. These app that you've suffered a while make it perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. This is the progressive teaching of this epistle, and it's nice to notice that when I was in Bolivia.
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There were eleven of those dear Saints in prison.
11 of them for one solid week without food and without beds. It was fanaticism and that was followed, you remember, by the burning of the Saints home and I was there to see the remains. The child remains well one dear brother these these eleven were freed through a a mayor of the city of Tupisa whom I knew he was a military man and I said Colonel so and so these dear Saints.
You know they're in prison and they've done no harm. He says I'll get them out. He was a Roman Catholic. I'll get them out. And he kept his promise. And so they all came down after they were delivered. These poor dear souls, pretty thin looking and and weary. They came down. We had a reading on the on the 1St Epistle of Peter and we got over to verse 14 after five days just simply going through the leading themes other.
And I said to this old brother, he's now with the Lord. I didn't see him among the Saints this time. He was with the Lord. The sufferings were too great for him. But, and in those readings I said, Brother, how did it feel to be behind the bars? For I've been behind the bars too.
You know what he said? He read that verse 14.
The spirit of glory and of God rested upon me. Beloved brother, there was another victory. The Spirit of love and of God rested upon me. That's all he said.
Well, it was a concert. It was a confident dear Philimon Garnika. He was drawn. He was dragged through the streets.
Of that town that that have deserved of Christ. He was dragged through the street, and what a confident was to his own. The Spirit of God and of glory, brother rested upon. I thought you couldn't kill a man like that with an axe.
God sustained him and he was happy about it. He looked away to heavenly things. And that's the object of this peasant, isn't it, beloved, to get these Saints to look to the heavenly side of it, that blessed side, the heavenly side.
When we say that the subject of Peter is a pestle, is the grace of God and the government of God, particularly in the first epistle, connected with the House of God. And so we have the grace of God manifested, that we have been redeemed with a precious blood of Christ and brought into this wonderful place.
But now he brings in our conduct and also brings in the government of God.
When you read that passage about loving life and seeing good days, we may be saved and be rejoicing that we have a home in heaven, but if we don't conduct ourselves wisely in the world, we'll come under His government, even though we're sure of the glory. But then He brings in also an added feature, and that is that there may be suffering not particularly connected with His government, but connected with loyalty to Christ. This is what that brother experienced.
So there are two kinds of suffering that we endure here in this world.
We have to endure suffering as being part of God's governmental ways with this, with us here. But then there is also that which comes through loyalty to grace, and some have been in prison, some have lost their employment, some have had real hardships to endure because of confessing Christ. That is a feature that is introduced in the latter part of this epistle to encourage these Jewish believers and to encourage us too.
But even though we do seek to please the Lord, there will be suffering as belonging to Him.
And there the spirit of glory and of God rests upon us. But I'm afraid, brethren, that some of our suffering comes because of our miserable ways, because we don't bear the testimony that we should, because we don't act before the world as Christians. And so we suffered in another kind of a way. And there isn't the same joy in that kind of suffering, but there is a joy. If Paul had been in prison for stealing, he couldn't have sung like he did in the 16th of Acts.
But he was there bearing that suffering for Christ's sake, and so there was the Spirit of glory and of God resting upon him.
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The present malls run with their praises in that case.
And I feel that, brother, when the Colonel got me out of the dungeon, beloved, he, he said to me, Smith, what are you doing in here?
I said, Colonel, I'm a prisoner of my precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, he said, he said, you go home and I look after you. And he kept his word, took me off, took it, went over the head of the chief of police.
And said you go back home and I look after and he had a guard walking up and down the in front of that little bit of a room of mine for several days, oh, more than a week or more. And I he kept his word what he was surprised, I would say a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
12% would bring before us the fact that even though they may speak evil of the believer, if he carries on in uprightness there will be a testimony left behind.
And so that's the important thing, isn't it? A testimony?
Sing 46 in the back of the world.
Oh my God.
Play.
Right now.
I want to make.
The end of the day.
The Lord's Claim
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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.
I'd like you to turn with me, first of all to the third chapter of Numbers. I'd like to read a few scriptures.
3rd chapter of Numbers, beginning at the ninth verse.
And thou shalt give the Levites unto Erin, and to his sons they are wholly given unto him out of the children of Israel. And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait on their priests office, and a stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, And I behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel.
Instead of all the first born that openeth the metrics.
Among the children of Israel, therefore the Levites shall be mine, because all the first born are mine. For on the day that I smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, I held unto me all the first born of Israel, both man and beast. Mine they shall be. I am the Lord, and the Lord speak unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying.
Number the children of Levi after the House of their fathers, by their families.
Every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them.
Turn over, please to the 4th chapter, the 46th verse. All those that were numbered of the Levites, who Moses and Aaron and the chief of Israel numbered after their families and after the House of their fathers, from 30 years old and upward, even under 50 years old. Everyone that came to do the service of the ministry and the service of the burden in the Tabernacle of the.
Even those that were numbered of them were 808,000 and 503 score according to the commandment of the Lord. They were numbered by the hand of Moses, everyone according to his service and according to his burden. Thus were they numbered of him as the Lord commanded Moses.
So we also turn over to Romans chapter 12, the first verse. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that she presents your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that she may prove what is that good and.
And perfect will of God, for I say through the grace given unto me.
To every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
But to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man, the measure of faith.
And then in Galatians.
Galatians, chapter 6.
Galatians chapter 6 and verse 2. Bear ye one anothers burdens and soul fulfill the law of Christ. 4th A man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another, For every man shall bear his own burden.
Well, here, as I have read these passages, they bring before us the service of the Levites in the House of the Lord.
And perhaps we could say that which corresponds to it now in Christianity.
Just to look back a little and see the position of these Levites, they were once in the land of Egypt and they were slaves along with the rest of the children of Israel, and they were working under Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they were building treasure cities for Feral. For at this time Egypt was in a position of great glory. It was a land of great progress.
And the people of God were involved in all of this. They had part in it.
But the time came that they groaned under this burden, and gone in His goodness provided a way to bring them out from that dark land. And it tells us that God took the Levites in place of all the first born who were spared when the judgment fell upon the land of Egypt. God didn't bring out His people, Israel, because they were better than the Egyptians. They were idolaters like them.
And not one of us and dear young people can lift our heads and say we're any better than anyone else or any other young person we know. It's only the grace of God that has manifested itself that has brought us into this wonderful position of deliverance and now a favor. What was it that sheltered them from the judgment? God didn't say when. I see how good you are. Because, as I said, they were sinners along with the Egyptians.
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But he said when I see the blood.
I will Passover you and I hope each one here of you dear young people can say thank God I've taken shelter under the blood. Thank God. I know that the judgment will not fall upon me because the Lord Jesus is my Savior. He bore the judgment in my place and because of that I have escaped. Well, not only were they sheltered from the judgment, but in their homes there was a feast besides.
Now they had they had shelter from the judgment, and secondly, they had assurance by the word of God.
And if there's anyone here who's having doubts, may I turn you to God's precious word? Remember, what gave peace to those Israelites was the knowledge that God had spoken. They could rest implicitly on the precious, unchanging word of God. His eyes saw the blood, and because of this, he told them that he would pass over them. If there's a young person here and you say, well, I believe I've taken.
Under the blood. But it seems that I often have doubts. The only way to meet these doubts is to do just exactly what the Israelite had to do, Answer them by the precious word of God. Yes, you can say to every doubt that arises in your mind. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
One of the nests in their homes there was a feast. God not only wanted them to be safe.
He not only wanted them to be certain, but he also wanted them to be happy.
And so he provided a feast in their homes that they could be feeding upon that roast lamb. And what a happy home that was safe, that was sure. And it was feeding upon the roast lamb. And I hope, dear young people, you not only know that you're saved, but I hope in your soul there is some measure at least of the enjoyment of Christ, that He's precious to your heart, and you can speak of Him as a portion that has been made real.
But it's not merely a cold fact that you say, yes, I'm saved, I'm saved. But I hope He means much to your soul and that there are times in your life when you can really say, yes, I'm enjoying the Lord. I hope that's been your experience here at these meetings.
Well, there was more too. God didn't want to leave his people in Egypt. He didn't want them to be slaves there, for one thing. Nor did he want them to be occupied with building up Egypt. He was going to bring them to a good land and a large a land flowing with milk and honey, something better than the land of Egypt. Egypt was watered by irrigation. They weren't dependent on God sending rain for their crops, and they wanted by irrigation.
And this please the natural heart, because there wasn't that constant dependence upon God.
And God wants us to be constantly dependent upon Him.
Well, God brought them out through the Red Sea, and now they were out in the wilderness. And in that wilderness there was nothing around to satisfy the desires of their heart, no treasure cities to be hauled.
Nothing that would satisfy the natural heart but the Lord.
Wanted to be everything to them and he wants to be everything to you, dear young person.
And I hope you have found that this world is a judge saying, I hope in some measure you realize that it is a wilderness because it doesn't have what satisfies the Newman that God has given to you. This world is a wilderness wide. We have nothing to seek or to choose. We have no thought in the ways to abide. We have not to regret nor to lose. We're passing through.
Yet I believe that those who pass through these experiences of the wilderness in faith.
And simple joy in the Lord in their passage.
But now this brings us to the chapter we have read, when God said that because He had spared all his first born, he had a claim upon them. Yes, he told very clearly to Moses that those people belong to Him. And he said, Thou shalt give the Levites underwear, and to his sons they are wholly given unto him.
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Out of the children of Israel.
How many call your attention to the fact here that this was not the same blessed, holy liberty that we find in Christianity? It was a demand. It was a claim that God had upon them, and He has a claim upon you and upon me. He could exercise that claim in the way of a demand, but thank God, we're not under law.
We're under Grace and He wants you and I to respond out of love.
Not because we are taken like a Levite was taken and he, so to speak, must fulfill those responsibilities that were given to him. It's true it was a privilege, but how beautifully everything is holy liberty and Christianity and contrast to that which was set up under the law. They were taken, they were given.
To Aaron, that they might serve in the House of the Lord, and for all the service of the sanctuary.
Well, I do say, though, dear young people, of the Lord has a claim upon us. We have a nice example of this in the Old Testament. When Jonathan saw the great victory that David had won, nobody needed to say to him that David had a claim upon his heart. He came to David voluntarily and he laid everything at the feet of David.
And he said he belonged to him.
He said he stripped himself of his ball, of his sword, and of his girdle, and he recognized Davidde claim, perhaps not just as fully as he might, but as far as it went. It was most beautiful that he recognized this without even being told he should. It was the response of his heart.
And I hope that you and I feel the constraint of his love.
Not because I'm standing up here to say that you must do this or must do that.
And with a Levite, it was an obligation, shall I say, with you and I in a certain sense it's an obligation, but it's an obligation of love. It's a privilege bestowed upon us to present ourselves to the Lord. Well, these were taken. And the reason, as I say, was that it says here.
On the third in the 13th verse, because all the first born are mine.
Well, isn't it nice when our hearts respond and say, Lord, we are thine, we are thine. For on the day that I smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, I hallowed unto me all the first born in Israel, both, both man and beast. Yes, there were. The people belong to them and their possessions belong to Him. Yes, not only ourselves, but our possessions.
Now perhaps we could say that dear Jonathan recognized the Lord's claims over his possession.
But not fully over himself. There's quite a difference. Jonathan stripped himself of all he had.
And gave it to David. But as we know the story, I'm sure he didn't really give himself, for he didn't leave his place in the court of Saul. The wholeheartedly followed David. And the Lord has a claim not only on our possessions, but on ourselves. So there was, there were the people, and there were there beasts.
That is their possessions. Well, happy it is when we recognize.
As the little hymn puts it so nicely, love that transcends our highest powers demands our soul, our life, our all.
Well, they shall be mine, I am the Lord. Well, I just read these few verses here about numbering them.
From a month old, well, what were these children a month old know anything about their deliverance out of Egypt or God's claim upon them? This word must have been spoken for the benefit of the parents. The children couldn't even hold up their hand and say, well, I'm one of the Levites. No, they, they weren't conscious of all these things. And may I just pause here to say to those who are parents.
What a wonderful thing when your child.
Is born, born into a Christian home, born, so to speak, into the place of privilege, where I trust we as parents recognize the Lords claim over ourselves and over our possessions, and when he gives us little ones over them too. For when the people were returning from Babylon, it says that is resada right way.
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For themselves and for their little ones.
And for all their substance, so how beautiful this is, to see that they were numbered from a month old. And let me say again to those who are parents, what a privilege that your children have been brought into a Christian home. Do you number them in that place of privilege? Do you bring them up, as the Scripture says, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?
What our responsibility. What a privilege. I'm sure that we fail as parents. At least I have.
But the Lord is faithful, and we can look to Him, and we know that he will never fail.
He's the one that we can count upon where we turned over in the end of the fourth chapter.
It says here.
That these Levites were numbered and were appointed to their service. The 47th verse of the 4th chapter from 30 years old and upward. Well, perhaps this seemed like quite a gap from a month up to 30.
This mean that the Lord did not have a claim upon them until they were thirty. Well, it is quite interesting in tracing through different parts of the scripture to notice the different ages that are mentioned. It mentions them one month.
And first Chronicles 23 it says that from 20 years old and upward they were to serve the Lord and ministering, and in helping in the Tabernacle.
Then in another passage in numbers here, it speaks about from 25 years old. So we have 4 different ages given a month, 20 years, 25 years and 30 years. Well, I think this is very interesting and very instructive for us because it's nice when this is recognized when we're younger, but perhaps when we think of 20 years old, this is about the age when.
You start out and when it's natural, shall I say to.
Say, well, I'm going to, I'm going to plan my own life from now on. I think I'm old enough now, father and mother, that I have to make my own decisions and I have to plan for myself now because I'm getting a bit older. Well, at 20 years of age, David said that these Levites were to be already.
Engaged in the occupation of living for the Lord.
And so that we can see that there was a gradual fitting in to the position that they were to fulfill how fully acknowledging the Lords claim over them beginning at a month through till they're 2025 thirty and then on even to 50. Well, how this teaches us, doesn't it, that there is no particular age of our life that is exempt. There is no time when we can say well.
This is a gap period. I can do as I like just now. Now there is a time when we come to the Lord, and from that moment what a privilege to acknowledge His claims over us. Now there were two things in this 49th verse. I wanted particularly to call attention to the 49th verse of this 4th chapter. According to the commandment of the Lord, they were numbered by the hand of Moses.
Everyone, according to his service.
And according to his burden, thus were they numbered of him.
As the Lord commanded Moses.
Now here are these Levites were brought to Aaron, and Aaron appointed two things for them. He appointed their service and he appointed their burden. This is very interesting to me. You know, it's sort of pleasant to think that there is some service we can do, but I'm afraid that we shrink back from the other part.
A burden to bear and their young people. This I want to particularly bring before you this afternoon.
A service to do and a burden to bear. The service in connection with the House of the Lord, and then burdens. Felies burdens were associated with carrying certain things about the Tabernacle in its movement through the wilderness.
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Off times it was very hot. Sometimes there wasn't very much time between the moves. There might be times when they stayed in the place for quite a while. There might be times when it was, as it tells us, in the ninth of numbers a month, perhaps even down to a day. And after setting up the Tabernacle, it had to be pulled down again. All the things had to be picked up and they had to move on.
Well, perhaps you say, well it's interesting to do a service, but a burden, well do young people. The Lord gives us each a burden and you know, it's natural to us to think that we would be much happier with someone elses burden than with our own. We think, why is my lot cast in a certain place where it is?
Why am I in a little meeting where there's not much fellowship?
I like it when I come down here to Southern California and it's, it's really nice to have so many young people. We can have such a nice time, but it's not like this, you know? And my meeting where I am, there are not other young people and I'm just alone. Well, here was a Levite. Did he go and say to Aaron, well, I want to be carrying such and such things in the Tabernacle and I want to have the help of someone else to do it.
Now he had nothing to do with that. Aaron appointed to every man his service and to every man his burden. And, dear young person, the Lord has put you in the place where you are. He has put you there, and He is able to sustain you in that place. There may be problems, there may be difficulties connected with it. Some of the children of Israel had much as some of the Levites.
I should say, had much heavier things to carry than others. Just think of those boards that stood upright and how they must have been quite a thing to handle because they were heavy boards, I'm sure, overlaid with gold and then others. Why was it they got such an easy thing as perhaps just carrying the pins? Why was this? There was only one answer. Aaron appointed it. And you perhaps look at some other young person and you say, why is it?
Everything. Things seem to come their way, but not with me. I don't seem to get things. Things just work against me. Well, Aaron appointed a burden, and how could they happily go on in this place that they were put in? The only thing that would give them peace and happiness in that particular place was just the quiet sense. Well.
This is what I've been appointed to, this is what has been given to me and I can do this.
Unto the Lord, Oh, what a, what a piece this must have given in the soul of an Israelite. And then there was another point, and that's why I read in Galatians 3 at Galatians 6. And I'll just mention it here, because it says here, Bear ye one another's burdens. And then further on it says, Every man shall bear his own burden.
In connection with these Levites.
There were certain ones that had the caring of these boards and pins and certain other things and.
The Princess of Israel came and brought wagons and saw that instead of having the heavy work of carrying these boards, perhaps some long distance, why wagons were provided by the Princess of Israel, and this made it a little bit easier for them.
And so you say there were others who came forward and helped in the bearing of these burdens, and as they took them down, they could place them in these wagons, which made it a great deal easier. But there were some that didn't get any such help.
Yes, there were some, and God didn't allow them to have any help in what they were doing.
The clothes sites I believe it was, and they carried the holy vessels, and God told them that they had to carry those vessels on their shoulders. And when David made the mistake of making a new cart and tried to make it a little easier, God was not pleased. That was only copying the Philistines. No, no, Colophites had to carry the things that were given to them upon their.
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So you see, even in Israel, some had some help in bearing the burdens, others seemed to have the difficult task of having to carry the burdens alone. But this is the way it was appointed. And there was only one answer to their hearts, and that is, well, this is what has been given to us.
Then there were some that were covered in a certain way and others that were covered in another way.
Some of them that were covered with coverings that were very dull, like the badger skin and the art, for instance, in a beautiful covering of blue. All you say. I'd like to have a pleasant work to do at least. Why should I be given a drab task?
One that just makes me completely unnoticed and I work hard and it just doesn't look as if it's anything that I'm doing.
Well, some of those vessels that were carried looked quite attractive, covered with the blue, perhaps covered with a scarlet. Others were just covered with a badger skins. Who appointed it? Well, at the commandment of the Lord through Aaron, this was appointed to them and saw. Dear young people, I want to encourage you. I've seen a lot of.
Frustrated young people, those who feel all if I could just be in someone else's place, if things would just work out for me.
What is the secret of real contentment and happiness in your young life as to yield yourself to the will of God to be content that He is the one who should appoint your service and your burden. And if He is pleased to let someone else get some help and to see you struggle along with the burden on your shoulders and seemingly known to help, just say well.
This is the way the Lord has chosen He has a claim over me, has a right, you know, to say what I'm to do because I owe everything to him. I'm a redeemed person. And so how beautiful here to see that these people were brought to Moses and given this particular burden then there was a glad service to.
As we find in First Chronicles 23.
There was the service of song and there was the service of lighting the lamps. There was a service in connection with other articles and details about the Tabernacle. Each one had a service to do. How did they discover it? They did not choose it themselves. They did not say, well, I'd like to be the one who sings. I'd like to be the one who lights the lamps. I'd like to do this.
This was all appointed for them, and this is Christian life. This is the way the Lord would have it to be. Well, you know, sometimes others might appoint a service to us and they don't really enter into our feelings and our problems. But I want to tell you, dear young person, that the one who appoints your service and your burden loves you with an everlasting love.
Is planning your life saw that it might bring forth fruit for Him and His blessing for you.
Unbelief is the root of all our failure. We don't believe that God is as good as his word says. We don't believe that he is really planning for our happiness and so we think all if I could just have my own way. I've thought of that verse in first Peter 5 it says.
Casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you. But I have noticed that this verse is not a complete sentence. Perhaps you could turn to at First Peter chapter 5.
So I'd like to read the verse before first Peter chapter 5 and verse 6. This is part of the sentence. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. We often see this seventh verse.
Perhaps we all have the experience from time to time.
Of wanting to cast some care upon the Lord. And it seems difficult. It seems we can't leave it there. And we perhaps asked ourselves, why is it I want to leave this with the Lord, but I can't seem to leave it there. Well, you've noticed as I've called attention that the verse before is part of the sentence and the verse before says.
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Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.
Casting all your care upon Him. And if I can speak for myself, I have found that when I have a problem about casting my care upon the Lord, it is because I haven't bowed to His hand in His plan for my life. And really, when I find the problem of casting the care upon Him, the difficulty is this, that I want Him to make things the way I want them to be.
And so.
I'm coming to him and saying now, Lord, I can't really leave this here unless you change this the way I want it to be. But oh, when you just come into his presence and say, Lord, if this is the way you have planned my life.
Give me grace to submit and to take it from thee. The care is gone. You have left it with him when you have bowed to His hand, but not until then. And so we'd love to cast our care upon him if we could just have the assurance that in the end we were going to have our own way.
But he says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.
That he may exalt you in due time. Maybe He doesn't say that we should ever be without that that problem, as long as we're here.
Paul thought that if he could get rid of his thorn in the flesh, he would be so much better able to serve the Lord. But the Lord, as it were, said, Oh no, Paul, you're going to have that the rest of your life. But my grace is sufficient for thee all. How lovely, and yet how hard searching.
And I want to ask your your heart and and I'm going to ask mine. Would you really want the Lord to change your life to be according to your plan? Would you really look up in his blessed face and say, Lord, my plans the best. If you'll just order my life according to my plan, everything will be fine.
Would we really say this? Oh no, this is unbelief. And God has given us faith, and He likes faith to be an exercise. So there was a service, there was a burden, and it was appointed by Moses, our Aaron. How shall we just turn to this? Our brother spoke about this 12Th of Romans.
And I know he won't mind me making some further comments because.
It seems to fit in with what we're talking about today.
Again, I want to remark here the contrast. The Levites were taken and given to Moses. There was no choice in the matter, so to speak, and they were given and they were appointed as something that was their obligation, their duty. But here love has a far greater claim upon us.
We're redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. He loved us and gave Himself for us.
And yet with all this great claim that he has upon us, he doesn't say, take the Christians and tell them they must do this. Oh no, isn't this lovely? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that she present your bodies. Here goes a call out from the one whose hands were pierced for you, for you and I at Calvary.
Dear young person, here's a call from that savior that died for you.
Who saved you and I from eternal hell? Who loves us, and who will love us under the end? And he is holding out his hands, and he is saying, Will you give yourself to me? Will you trust my love? Will you trust my plan? Will you trust my power? Or must you do things yourself? All dear young person?
How touching this is, how it speaks to my heart.
And I trust to yours present your bodies a living sacrifice. Don't wait until you're old. Actually, the Levites retired from the heavy part of their work at 50. Oh, don't think that. Well, when I get through all my busy life and her family's sort of grown up, why? And then I think I can develop my time. But, you know.
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When you're young, you have to study, you have to set up a home, you have so many responsibilities.
We just have to devote ourselves to these things when we're young. At 50 years old, it was too late for the Levi. It was too late. God wanted the cream of his life and he wants the cream of yours, dear young person. Yes, and not, not that I would say that it's too late in the things of God. We were noticing the other day that.
Abram came out from her, the Chaldeans, and came into the land of Canaan when I think he was 75 years old.
So it's better late than never, but it's a privilege to come.
And present ourselves to the Lord while we're young and.
It says a living sacrifice, holy. Yes, God has saved our souls. He has given us a new life. He has put the desire in us to please Him. In the chapters preceding this, He has told us not only how our sins are put away, but we have a new life. And we're brought into such a wonderful position before God. And now it tells us that we have the power to keep the old nature in the place of death.
To present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. Isn't that wonderful? That he could ever accept a poor thing like me and use me? And dear young person, he can accept you, the Levite, He accepted him.
And he'll accept you. He'll accept you because you're one of his blood bought ones.
And it says which is your reasonable, Our brother read yesterday the correct reading intelligence service.
Intelligent. If you had said to a Levite, why do you?
Have to carry the ark in that particular way. Why do you have to cut the sacrifice in such and such a way? Why are the pins used and so on, and all these details? Why he would have to say, well, I don't know. It's just an act of obedience on my part. This was very beautiful. But isn't it wonderful that God has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence?
He's brought us into his family. He makes known his plans and his counsels. He talks to us.
As his children, and he wants us to know his plans, his purposes, his counsels.
He Stoops to tell us why he wants us to do certain things he doesn't give us like he gave to them an unintelligent service. He says, I'll tell you what the baptism means. I'll tell you what the Lords Supper means. I'll I'll enable you to serve me in an intelligent way. What a privilege is ours. We have the privilege of presenting our bodies to him and to do what we do not as servants merely.
The Lord says I have not called you servants for the servant. No, it's not what is Lord doeth, But I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard of my father, I have made known unto you.
And then he says, and be not conformed to this world. Our brothers spoke of this in a practical way yesterday, but I'd like to speak of it as a principle. Dear young people, I think there is quite a problem with many young people just to know what is conformity to the world. And I suppose every young person has asked this question. Well, Dad, how do you know it's conformity of the world? And I don't know what it is.
And you say, well, it's, it's very difficult to decide.
Some of these matters, well, isn't it very interesting here that conformity to the world is looked upon as a principle? And what is the principle? Well, I believe it's this. What is the principle of world operates on? The principle the world operates on is self.
Self, the principle that the Christian operates on, or should and does if he's in communion, is to do the will of God, to do the will of God. And so instead of trying to define some of these difficult things, I'd like to ask you.
Before you buy something. Before you decide what course you're going to take in school.
Before you decide about the job that you're going to take, before you buy a home or clothes or anything.
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Are you, are you looking up to the Lord and saying, well, Lord, I don't want to just act as a person of the world. I want to live to please thee. I belong to thee. Well, this is the principle. The world operates on the principle of self. So it's my car, my house, Yes. And I want to have the nicest car. I want to have the nicest home.
I want to have the nicest clothes. I want everybody to notice me because I'm someone important. This is the principle of world conformity. And brethren, and I say this for my own heart, did you notice that the first exhortations about conformity to the world are how we act to our brethren, and if we don't act to our brethren in the spirit of love and service to them?
We're just following a worldly principle.
We are passing among our brethren wanting to be noticed, wanting to be important, wanting to be considered something big and not living lives of sacrifice and service because we're not our own. We were just mentioning at the dinner table about one dear man of God back in Ottawa years ago, he said. Before I was saved, I wanted to be a great man in the world.
After I was saved, I wanted to be a great man in the Church of God.
And he said I had to learn that both were wrong.
Dear young people, so I'm not going to try and define some of the things because perhaps you'll say, well, brother Gordon, I think you're going a little too harsh on this or that, but I'm going to ask you in the presence of God, have you presented yourself to the Lord? Have you really said, Lord Jesus, I belong to thee. You have a claim over my life, my money.
Everything I possess, I want to acknowledge thy claims.
Oh, if we do this, we'll have a different principle controlling our lives altogether. And so he says, be not conformed to this world. And all I say again, it searches my own heart. Why did I buy that house? Why did I buy that car? Why did I take part in the meeting? What was it for? All I want to learn in the presence of God.
What it means to recognize that the whole life of the Christian.
Is the life of one who has been given to the Lord and that he appoints our service and our burden and not until we realize this are our minds transformed and so it says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Oh how important, transformed by the renewing of your mind. It's the same word used in 2nd Corinthians 3 in the last verse it says we.
Unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord. It says our change, the new translation is our transformed.
Into the same image from glory to glory. Occupation with Christ in glory.
Produces that change in US unconsciously. And we're not like Levites who had to say, well, I was appointed to this job, I have to do what? It's awfully heavy, but it's what I was appointed to. Oh no, we give ourselves to one who loved us and gave himself for us, who values the slightest thing we do for him.
Who says, well, when I appoint your service, I've been through the path before you. I know everything that you have to pass through. I know the kind of world you have to live in. I know what you have to meet.
I perfectly understand. I love you perfectly. And he appoints us our service and our burden be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That she may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? Yes, we prove it. How do we prove it? We prove it by walking in it. We prove it by walking in it. Did you ever find a Christian? Did you ever, dear young person, find a?
Who was living his life as one completely yielded to the Lord.
Who found a drudgery and misery? No, the happiest Christians are the ones who have learned that the secret of happiness is to be yielded to the Lord. Now I want to be understood in this because I think sometimes there is the thought in people's minds. Well, that means then that you have to spend all your time reading the Bible and praying.
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All dear young person, this is not true. God is interested.
Everything in your life He's interested in how you spend the hours when you need recreation for your body. He's interested in the boyfriend or the girlfriend you choose. He's interested in your appearance. He wouldn't have taken time in his word to tell us about all these things if he didn't care about what your hair looked like and what your clothes looked like and what your job was.
And whether you had a happy marriage, he wouldn't have told you this if he didn't care. He does care. He's interested in you and he's interested in everything in your life. He's planned for your happiness. And when we resist his will, we're resisting the will that is seeking our blessing and our happiness. And so.
The Levite was appointed his service and his burden.
And so here with us, we prove in this path the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It's his will them not our own. We seek his mind, we seek His will, We seek to do what's pleasing to him, because we know that we owe everything to Him. Is there a person here who would doubt that we're going?
Supremely happy in heaven. We all believe this. And whose will is going to make us supremely happy in heaven? Our own never, never. Our own wills only brought us trouble and sorrow, but His will is that which brings that happiness. Well now this brings us to the last portion we turn to, and I just like to speak of it briefly.
Galatians chapter 6 We did mention about burying one another's burdens.
Now I just like to mention here this fourth verse. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another, For every man shall bear his own burden. In a certain sense it was rather simple for an Israelite. He could talk face to face with Aaron, and Aaron could define in a very simple way.
What he would do, and if he had any question, he could go back and ask and it would be clearly laid out to him. But God has planned that as Christians, the only way we can discover his mind and will is in fellowship with him. We must be close to him.
You know, before I was married, I didn't know all about the likes and dislikes of my wife. I knew a little bit about her, but.
The better we get acquainted, the better we get to know one another, the better we get to realize our mutual likes and dislikes, our pleasures and our sorrows. We share these things. And you know, if she wants to give me a gift, I appreciate it very much if she didn't even ask me, but she just noticed there was something that I wanted.
And perhaps was like David, David said all that there was all that. I would have a drink.
Of the waters of Bethlehem. He didn't ask anybody to get it, but there were some men that just heard that.
And they went and drew water. And dear young people, the Lord has planned.
His Word, He has written it not like a law book in the courts of the land, but He has written it for loving, willing, and obedient hearts. Loving, willing and obedient hearts. He never intended to write it. I have said to the young people, sometimes there isn't a verse in Scripture you can't get around if you want to. God didn't write it, so you couldn't get around it if you want to. But if you really want to please Him, He'll show you. He'll show you, He'll make.
To you it's very blessed. And so says, Let every man prove his own work, get into the presence of the Lord, quietly seek his mind and his will. Saul of Tarsus said, Lord, what will thou have me to do? And the Lord showed it to him. And if you and I want to do his will, he'll show it to us, and he'll give us a piece in that path.
Perhaps you have wondered about this last expression?
And then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another? Well, and perhaps I could put it like this.
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We can read missionary books, we can hear of what others have done for the Lord, and we can and do rejoice in their service. But I want to tell you, dear young person, that you can have a rejoicing in your own heart of knowing that you are doing what the Lord wants you to do. Isn't that sweet? Isn't that sweet? You say, well, I can't cross the ocean and preach. Well, perhaps that isn't the will of the Lord for you.
And you can rejoice in that brother's service, but are you happy in the position that you're doing?
Are you happily bearing that burden for the Lord? Are you happily doing that service for the Lord?
Then you have something that is most sweet and precious. I covet it.
For myself and for you. You'll never have a steady, happy path as a Christian.
Until you have thought in your way to present yourself to the Lord.
To ask him to plan your life and to just quietly wait at the pulse of his doors.
And then have the sweet sense in your soul that you're doing what he wants you to do in the way he wants you to do it. And when others speak to you and say things, why, sometimes there may be criticism, sometimes there may be encouragement. But what gives peace in the soul? All the peace of being able to look up and say honestly in your heart.
Lord Jesus, I want to do thy will.
I want to please thee, I belong to thee, and this will bring a peace and a joy in your Christian life.
That the Lord wants you to have all dear young people, we may not be left here much longer. We only have the rest of our time. All how important in these best years of your life that you should acknowledge the Lord's claims and let him plan your life. And I'll tell you this, that as life goes on, I don't say there won't be times of testing and trial. God will test our faith, but all the peace, all the happiness.
Of going on in life with the confidence that the Lord is with us and in our feeble measure we're seeking to do His will. Again I quote the words, that little hymn, love that trend. I'll quote the whole verse. We're the whole realm of nature. Hours that were an offering far too small.
Love that transcends our highest powers demands our soul, our life, our all.
A Faithful Saying
Address—C.E. Lunden
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.
We've come together tonight to the announcing of the glad tidings.
And I'd like to turn first of all to First Timothy one.
And 15.
This is a faithful saying.
Worthy of all acceptation.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of whom?
IMG.
And so in the glad tidings, then we see the purpose of the announcing of these glad tidings.
That Christ Jesus.
Came into the world to save sinners.
Now the Apostle Paul, when he was old, wrote these words.
And he could add to it.
Of whom I am chief.
The sense of the love of Christ to his soul, as it grew day by day, gave him to realize what a Sinner he was.
And there may be those here tonight who have never heard the gospel before, who have never been at a gospel meeting of this kind, and they may not think of themselves as sinners.
And they may not realize the depth of the wickedness of the human heart.
Desperately wicked, and only God himself could know those depths.
But the Word of God tells us very plainly in Romans 3 that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
And it's the purpose of the Spirit of God in a day like this, when there's still liberty and when there's still hope that He might bring home to your heart and conscience a sense of your need before Him. Because unless you have a sense of your need, you'll never cry to the Savior for salvation.
And so the Spirit of God takes scripture upon Scripture to bring home to our hearts.
A sense of our need in His presence.
And all, my friend, if you realized.
What your destiny is without Christ, you would come to Him tonight.
Yes, if the Princess of this world had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. We see that man is blind.
He needs to have his eyes opened, and now we'll just turn to a few scriptures, starting with.
Matthew.
The.
9th chapter.
The first verse of the 9th chapter of Matthew.
And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. And behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed. And Jesus seeing their faith, said, under the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee. And behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemous, and Jesus.
Knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?
For whether it is easier to say thy sins be forgiven, they are to say, Arise and walk. But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then set the to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house. And he arose and departed to his house. But when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God.
Which had given such power?
Unto men I suppose that the first healing that the Lord.
Did in the Gospels.
It was the healing of the leper.
You know leprosy. Here we have the palsied man.
But leprosy makes us think of defilement.
And in order for God to bless us, He first has to cleanse us.
Because there's only one way that he can bless the Sinner, and that's with himself.
And God is holy.
And so we see that poor leper coming to Jesus in the Gospels.
If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, and Jesus said I will be thou clean.
Precious Savior, Oh my friend, have you been cleansed as we were singing tonight?
From the defilement of sin.
But here we have in this passage we've just read.
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Not a leper in his sins, but just another picture of man and his knee.
And that's what we would like to bring before you. First tonight, my friend, is the need. Man's need.
He's defiled. It's true. He's unfit for the presence of God, but he's also helpless.
We have a man here that's lying out of bed. In another gospel, we learned that there were four who carried him and let him down through the roof to Jesus.
And the Lord Jesus.
Tells the man.
Thy sins are forgiven. They.
Now that isn't why the man came to Jesus, you see, He didn't know his need.
He didn't know his need, but there were those who brought him to Jesus.
And how good it is when there are those who gather together to bring a man.
Or a woman to Jesus.
That they might have their sins forgiven.
And this man had a little realized his need until he got into the presence of Jesus.
And all that the Spirit of God would bring you into the presence of the Lord Jesus tonight, that you might realize your need.
You're a Sinner and you're on your way to hell, friend, without God and without Christ.
Unless you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
And so those about, they thought what a thing this is.
That he speaks of forgiving sins, but little did they know the person was who was forgiving sins.
And this poor world tonight doesn't know the Lord Jesus nor his power. Oh, how different this world would be if it were so.
And why? Is it because the enemy of our souls would hinder us from coming to that precious savior?
And so we find this man now in the presence of Jesus, and the question in his presence is sin.
Sins, the positive guilt that attaches to every human soul.
Oh my friend, God puts the question to you. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? And yet there are those who are selling their souls tonight for little or nothing.
What a solemn thing it is as we see men.
Bartering away their souls, trading them for this world's merchandise.
Isn't it so?
Yes, you know, the pleasures of sin are only for a season.
And God tells us that whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap. He tells us that we're going to have to do with Him about our sins.
And so this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sinners. And so, my friend, there's only one kind of people that the Lord Jesus can save. That's sinners. And He wants you and me to realize what we are in His presence tonight, sinners, except for that grace that has saved some here.
Now he says in the fifth verse, whether it's easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee.
Or just saying arise and walk.
All we see here the power of the Creator himself.
The Lord Jesus could say, if I had not done among you the works that none other man did, she had not had sin.
And to turn aside from a testimony like this only shows man's will at work because there was the positive proof of his person who he was the creator.
Who could cure leprosy? Who could raise a man up from the bed of palsy?
The same one that can forgive sins.
Oh my friend.
Little by little, little do these sins entwine us.
And as the Scripture says, bound in the cords of their sins.
And so it is with men.
Entwined by sin until they come to the point where.
It's too late.
Yes, my friend, while there's still the day of mercy, you dear young people, confess the Lord Jesus while you're young before.
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Sin takes over and then it's too late.
That is, the time comes when it's too late.
The time comes, it's not too late tonight.
Now, as long as the gospel goes out and you're under the sound of it, it's not too late, my friend.
And that's why the glad tidings are being preached.
Now in the next few verses.
We have another man and Jesus. As Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom. And he says unto him, Follow me.
And he rose and followed him.
Now we don't have any particular miracle connected with this that we observe.
And yet it certainly was a miracle.
Here's a man who's going on with his ordinary duties.
It's a picture, I suppose, of most of us here.
Not particularly afflicted with.
Palsy or leprosy or some disease of that kind. But as the Lord Jesus observes this man, he's going on with his regular duties. But what does the Lord observe with this man just the same as he observed with the other one?
Because the word of God tells us that all of sin. And perhaps this is a picture of you tonight, like Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom.
But when he got into the presence of Jesus.
He must have seen something different, because the moment the Lord Jesus speaks to him, he rises and follows Jesus. What happened? Nothing is said, but all my friends, what must have gone on in the heart of that dear man as he turns to follow Jesus? He must have realized himself a Sinner because of what follows.
Because now he fills his house with sinners. Notice.
And can it pass? As Jesus sat at meet in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
What a picture this is. You know, sometimes people take trips and they take photos and then they come home and look them over and show their friends.
But we have here a series of pictures of the Word of God that God wants to impress indelibly upon our hearts, and that for all eternity. All my friends, what a picture. This is Jesus, the Son of God, the Creator of all, sitting in the House of.
This tax gather and as he's setting their income, the sinners have sit down beside him.
Oh, my friends, what a picture. Have you ever taken the place of one of those sinners?
To hear and see Jesus.
Yes, what a day that was, and what a feast. Luke calls it a great feast. And what a great feast it was because this man, this dear man who had no outward visible need of healing, he had a need that was deeper and that couldn't be pictured as these others, but it was a real need.
And Jesus met it. And now his desire was that his fellow tax gatherers.
And his friends would come and hear and see Jesus, that they too might be saved.
And so he fills his mouth with sinners.
That they might too be saved.
Now we have a little word in the 12Th verse.
That I'd like to call attention to, but when Jesus heard.
That that is the Pharisees requesting these things.
He said unto them, They that behold need not a physician.
We have that little word need, and that's what the Spirit of God would bring before us, I believe tonight.
A sense of need.
Now they that behold need not a physician. But there were those here who needed the physician.
And yet they weren't awkwardly afflicted. These were sitting at the table with Jesus.
But they weren't whole that Oh my friend, you're not whole tonight unless you have a savior.
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You recall the man that lived in the tombs.
And after the Lord Jesus had cast out the demons, we see him sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed in his right mind.
Now it was whole. He hadn't been before.
And so these sitting with Jesus at the table were not whole.
Until the great Physician came that they might be healed.
Oh my friend, if you only knew and knew the need of your soul.
You know man's need is great.
It's never said that God needed anything.
There's only one thing that the Lord Jesus ever said that I know of that He needed.
One thing.
And that's when he sent them to bring the colt. He said you tell him the master have need of him and *** is cold. My friend. It's a picture of man.
Then there will be Wise though he would be born like a wild ass's coat.
And that's man before God, and yet God the Lord Jesus.
Said He hath need of him, O my friend, to think of this another picture before our souls.
The Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, He hath need.
And he's made it so.
That you might be with Him in the glory. He wants you there and He's made provision.
And so this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
That's the kind he has need of.
You qualify for this friend.
The 13th verse.
But go you alone. With that meaneth I will have mercy.
And not sacrifice, for I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
To repentance. And now we have more things introduced, we have his call.
He's calling you tonight, friend. He's calling you Sinner. He's not calling the righteous. He's calling sinners to repentance.
Yes, the blessed Savior himself said in the 13th chapter of Luke. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise.
Perish.
That blessed Savior who from his lips became those gracious words.
So that all men marveled. And yet in faithfulness to your soul and mine, he could say, Except you repent, he shall all likewise perish.
Yes, friends, you are on the downward Rd. if you are without Christ. The plowing of the wicked is sin.
Everything a man does is sin.
If he's without Christ.
Sin. If he has the knowledge of Christ and rejects him, he's living in sin his whole life is because it's only that new life that man has.
As redeemed.
That brings a difference because man is lost by nature.
But he's only condemned because he rejects the truth of God.
And the word of God is the means, my friend, by which you and I might be saved. He said his word and delivered them. It's the Word of God that is the means by which your soul and mind might be delivered from the coming wrath.
Sinners.
To repentance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Now if you turn with me to.
The 23rd chapter of Luke.
I believe we have the means by which sinners are saved here.
The 33rd verse.
Of the 23rd of Luke, and when they were come to the place which is called Calvary.
There they crucified him.
And the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left, then said, Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding in the rulers also with them derided him, saying He saved others, let him save himself. He be Christ the chosen of God. Verse 46.
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And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice.
He said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus.
He gave up the ghost.
We have in this picture before us now, that loving Savior going to the cross of Calvary.
Dying so that you and I might have eternal life.
We will hear those blessed words, Father, Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Oh my friend, there's forgiveness tonight for the Sinner. This is the means by which God can be just in justifying the ungodly because man is ungodly.
And he needs to be justified if he's going to be in the presence of God.
And God has provided a means, although we must all means die.
Whereby his baddest be not expelled from his sight, he's provided the means.
And that's Jesus.
And as we speak here of the cross tonight, my friend, we tell you that this is the only way.
That you and I might find a savior. It's through the.
Finished work on Calvary's cross in John's Gospel. We have added that.
Picture of the soldier plunging the spear into his side in death.
Because, my friend, it's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that cleanseth from all sin.
The Lord, when he was here, he could say thy sins be forgiven, but it was in virtue of his death.
God is holy and he must have payment of those sins.
And the Lord Jesus has made full payment in his death, so that you and I might go free.
Have you received the Lord Jesus as your Savior? This is a faithful saying.
Worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
He saved others.
Himself, he cannot say it.
Why? Because there was hanging.
Taking the full penalty for the Sinner. Taking the judgment of God that was due you and me.
Yes, he took it.
And he bore those sins in his own body on the tree. If you believe, you can claim him as your savior.
Turn to the 7th chapter.
Of Matthew.
Verse 13.
Enter ye in at the Strait gate, For why is the gate broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which win thereafter, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
That we have set before us the way here. It's Christ. It's the straight gate.
There was a question asked the Lord.
Once are there few be saved?
And he said to them to enter in the straight gate. It wasn't a question of how many were to be saved, but it's a question, are you saved? Are you saved?
Now remember a man for months and years telling me as I gave him the gospel? Well, what about the heathen?
What about the heathen? And each time I try to present the truth to his own soul, that.
He heard the gospel.
God.
Will take care of the heathen.
But it was he who was to have to do with God about the truth that he had heard.
That man rejected over and over again.
And you know he that often being reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed. One morning he went hunting, and as he got out of the car.
The gun accidentally went off.
And he shot himself accidentally, went into eternity, lost as far as we know, but having heard it over and over again. But all he could think about was what about the heathen? But my friend, what about you? Don't ask the question. Are there few be saved? What about you tonight? Have you settled this question? Have you entered into the straight gate?
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Are you with the many on the road to destruction?
All right with Are you with those who are saved, saved, saved through the blood of Jesus as we were singing Are you saved?
Oh how much there is today about people talking about religion. Read the 21St verse with me.
This is the class all about us who talk about religion.
Not everyone that says them to be Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord.
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? In thy name have cast out devils, Thy name have done many wonderful works.
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
How this verse shows clearly that there's no such thing as being saved and lost again.
I believe those who stand at this in this picture before us tonight are those who have heard the gospel and have preached it perhaps, and they're able to say Lord, Lord.
Now at that day, he will confess I never knew you.
I never knew you.
No, it's not a question of being saved and lost again. I never knew you.
My friend, it isn't enough to have religion.
There has to be.
A personal contact with the Lord Jesus. Like these pictures we've had before us tonight? The leper, The palsy man.
And in the same chapter we won't read it but.
You have the blind, the two blind men, and you know man is blind to the things of God unless Jesus opens his eyes.
Have you had your eyes open to see beauty in Jesus?
Then we have the dumb man also in the 9th chapter.
Have you ever confessed the name of Jesus on your lips?
The war is naive, even in thy mouth.
That if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.
Believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved my friend. Are you dumb tonight? Are you blind?
Have you confessed that precious name of Jesus? Have you seen that precious Savior as your own savior?
Well, John 10 a verse.
Ninth verse of John 10.
I am the door.
The children sing this in Sunday school and how simple the truth of it.
How simple the truth of John, and yet how profound I am the door.
By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. Do you believe that friend tonight?
Oh, how simple. The gospel message, the wayfaring man, or a fool need not err therein.
I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved. He shall go in and out and find pasture, that precious Savior.
Set himself before us tonight as the door.
We were talking about.
The straight gate.
Yes, he is that.
He's the way to John 14. The truth.
And the light and no man comes to the Father, but through Jesus.
Show Jesus.
In the 24th verse of John.
Five, it tells us.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He the heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent Me hath everlasting life shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.
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Oh, how simple the gospel message. And yet how many stumble.
It is the simplicity of simply taking Jesus at His word.
As we did, we saw the leper taking him at his word. I will be thou clean.
Dear young people, have you taken Jesus at His word? Have you had your eyes open? Have those lips of yours ever uttered the precious name of Jesus?
Your savior.
What a solemn thing it is to consider eternity.
As God sets it before us in his words.
What does Sodom say to have to stand before God and give an account?
Of our sins in his presence.
Because it surely will be the case for those who rejected the Savior.
Depart from me.
I never knew you.
Only at a prayer meeting there will be possibly denied if we're shaken.
I'm sure there are many who believe that here, if we're caught away, there will be a prayer meeting.
In this world.
And they'll be saying the words of these verses that we've just read.
Lord, Lord.
Open to us.
Depart from me. I never knew you.
What does solemn thing it is as we consider.
The opposite side.
The rejecting of Jesus as the Savior.
To that, I'd like you to turn with me to a verse in Luke the 17th chapter.
28 First the.
28th verse of Luke 17. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat.
They drank, they bought. They sold.
They planted. They build it.
But the same day that lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed.
All.
Even that shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. We have the ordinary habits of man here, which in themselves are not evil.
But we find it's a day when land is living without God, as we learned in the 16th chapter of Ezekiel of the sin of Sodom.
Pride full of bread.
And they didn't turn their hand to help the poor.
Let God out of their lives.
Pride full of the bread. We find ourselves in those very conditions tonight.
All around us, the pride of man building up.
Higher and higher.
You're thinking is something, but my friend, God says all have sinned.
And as the day coming, and God will judge this world in righteousness by that man.
And he's given witness to our man that he's raised him from the dead.
What a silent thing it is for an unsafe man to contemplate the fact that Jesus is raised from the dead.
Because if that is impressed upon the soul, he knows that he's going to stand before him in judgment.
John was made to the.
19th chapter of Genesis.
We have some solemn questions in Genesis.
Do you recall when Adam was?
Had sinned.
When the Lord came down, he said, Adam, where art thou?
You recall the time when.
Can you flew his brother Abel?
God said.
What hast thou done?
Yes, man is at a distance from God, but he's also done something.
He's turned away from God and he's rejected his son. Man has sinned.
The wages of sin is death.
And so now we have some more questions in this chapter.
In this 19 chapter.
00:35:01
Of Genesis.
And there came two angels to Sodom, and even and lots out in the gate of Sodom, and not seeing him, rose up to meet them. And he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, Behold, now, my Lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house you carry all night, and wash your feet. You shall rise up early and go on your ways. And they said, Nay, but we will abide in the street all night.
And he pressed upon them greatly, and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house, and he made them a feast.
And did bake unleavened bread. And they did eat.
Now here we have a particular picture in the House of lot.
You know, Lot once was with Abraham up on the plains.
But he pips his tent towards Sodom.
And now we see as a house in Sodom, and this chapter teaches us that he also sat in the gate as one of the rulers of Sodom.
And we find that he doesn't have the mind of God like Abraham.
Because of what he says.
He says turn in tomorrow, you go on your way.
No, he doesn't have the insight Abraham had. If you read the previous chapter, you'll see that Abraham was on his face before God, praying for Lot.
Because Abraham had been informed by God of what was going to take place.
And those tonight in this room, we know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior have been informed of what's going to take place in this world.
These angels had to lose that Lot knew nothing about.
He could say turn in and the morning can rise and go on your way. Little did he know what would happen in the morning.
And so the world goes merrily on its way.
Without the counsel that comes from the word of God, because they don't know God.
But my friend, the solemn warning of God to the Sinner is that God is going to judge this world in righteousness.
And he's going to judge by that man Christ Jesus.
I remember years ago, I don't know if it's still printed, we used to give out a track.
Your savior or your judge?
Oh, how precious tonight, my friend, that he's the savior. Even tonight for you. That the day is coming.
What he's going to have to judge for God's glory.
He is going to have to separate the good and evil. He is going to have to put down all wickedness and set up a Kingdom and righteousness in this world. It's coming.
Judgment's coming.
We have been speaking to you, my friends, about Christ. Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
But God tells us he's going to come as judge, too.
And so this count is.
In Genesis that Luke 17 refers to.
As it was in the days of Lot.
Little did these people in Sodom know what was going to happen on the next morning.
Little did not know though, he was a righteous man.
Not going on well though, but little did he know what was going to happen in the morning.
But all my friends.
What a wonderful thing it is to be ready.
When the judgment comes.
But it isn't just the plea from judgment.
As we've been speaking to that love of God to send his Son, that you might have eternal life, but he's warning of judgment. He's warning of those who reject such a Savior.
And now turn to the 12Th verse.
We will see questions brought to lot.
And the man said unto Lot, Hast thou hear any besides?
Study around thy sons, thy daughters, whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxing great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy us.
Now we find that.
The angels are saying.
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God is going to destroy this city that lot was trying to build up.
While I was sitting in the gate.
And the question gelat is now that reaches this conscience, I'm sure. Hast thou hear any besides?
God would impress my friends upon your hearts and minds tonight as we are nearing the very moment of the Lord's coming.
Hast thou hear any besides?
You may be saved, my friend, but how about that son and that daughter? How about that son-in-law and that daughter-in-law?
How about the father and the mother, the brother and the sister? But, my friend, hast thou willily besides?
Bring him out of this place, but we will destroy it.
You remember how Rahab gathered her loved ones into that upper chamber.
When the judgment fell upon that city, they were safe because they were under the scarlet line.
You will have saved my friend, nor your loved ones, unless they are sheltered under the precious blood of Christ.
Yes, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sins.
What does someone say it is to contemplate the judgment of God in leaving those loved ones behind.
Now we don't know whether Lot had any sons or not, but the angels inferred it in the statement.
It could have been that he had sons in that city. It could have been that they were so far away, couldn't find them.
Yes, I was in a home, a Christian home, a lovely Christian home, dear Christian parents, and as my wife and I were visiting.
There a dear sister broke down and she told us.
That run of her loved ones.
Had left and she doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know where she is.
Nor will she tell her parents where she is.
All my friends tonight, there's something wrong.
Are you and I could have said about our loved ones, are we putting business or pleasure or anything before this All important question.
I sometimes wonder if it isn't often the parents.
Who are hindering?
The blessing of their children.
Here we have it with Lot.
Lord was out of communion. Did little did he realize because he was taking, How much better for him to remain on the mountaintop with Abraham?
So he might have the mind of God.
Have failure any besides.
Do you remember the words of Judah when Benjamin?
Was in prison.
And he had made a vow to his father that he would bring him back.
Joseph put him in prison, put Benjamin in prison.
He said how can I go to my father in the lab? Be not with me?
Oh, father, Mother.
How can you go to your father in the lab? Be not with you?
Are you and I concerned tonight about our loved ones?
We cry to God for them.
That was lots case.
And all that lot has to look back upon the life of failure and ruin.
Because he left the place of God's appointment, he left everything behind. As we read in Luke, the judgment came and took all, all.
That's the history of life.
Daughters that shamed him, that's all he took out of the city. May God exercise our hearts then.
As to this.
For we will destroy this place.
Oh Sinner, what will you do?
When judgment falls.
Will you cry like those in Jeremiah? The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.
Saved. You can be denied by confessing that precious name of Jesus. Well, join the Lord Jesus Christ tonight as your Savior.
This is a faithful saying.
00:45:01
Word of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Are you a Sinner?
You're a candidate, my friend, for blessing, for salvation if you're a Sinner.
He came out to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Are you a Sinner?
15th verse.
We find that Lord have no He had no results with his sudden loss. Would you expect him to?
You know the word of God says, thou thy house.
But it doesn't expect the father to sit in the gate of a wicked city.
No, it's the faith.
He says, I will restore to you the years, the locusts of Eden.
But he doesn't expect the one to take that blessing to himself and to go out in the path of unrighteousness.
No, indeed.
He says it to faith.
Yes, and faith has the privilege now of walking and the power to walk in that new path. But remember, the promise still remains, Thou in my house.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
God promises it to faith only.
I will restore to you the years the locusts of Eton to faith only.
Faith only.
So that we might be broken before God.
About these dear ones.
But Lord had no results.
He sat on the gate of the city.
And the morning comes.
Yes, and it came to pass because, my friend, this was the last night of Sodom.
Or what a solemn time it will be when this earth.
Finds that the church is gone.
Well, there will be never again the gospel of the grace of God to be sounded out in this world.
Call my friend, perhaps that is. Tonight will be the last.
1 And then the pride goes out. Bring me at a vessel.
And the answer is, there is not a vessel more. And then, my friend, the oil will stay. The blessing of the Spirit of God that goes out tonight. The gospel of His grace will be over and past forever.
But a solemn thing this is to contemplate.
What would you do, my friend?
In the swelling of Jordan, as it says in Jeremiah, what will you do in the swelling of Jordans when the judgments of God are poured upon this scene?
And you know, you could have confessed Jesus Christ.
As your savior.
That that gospel meeting.
And had eternal life through believing in His name.
The morning arose before lots were taken up with this city, and his wife's heart there took two angels to drag him out of the city.
Arise, take thy wife and my two daughters which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
Now I think you'll notice in your margin the word found.
Found thy two daughters which are found here.
Now, we're not going to try to pass on these daughters, whether they're saved or lost, but we want to use the picture.
In the Old Testament addition, the question of that is the question of God's ways. These were two were found.
Oh, what a precious thing.
What a precious thing to have those children found and to be taken with us as we go into the Father's house.
Found. Lost. Yes.
Found, so they say, thy two daughters, which are found, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
Only those are found who will go taken out of the city.
Only those that are found.
The day of judgment falls only those who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those were found.
00:50:02
Will be taken.
17 birds came to pass when they brought them forth abroad. That he said, Escape for thy life.
Now notice the instructions. Look that behind thee neither stayed out. All the plains escaped to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
Now we find that.
In the 26th verse.
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Now we'll find that the instructions were escape to thy life and look not behind thee.
Escape for thy life.
And he let him out and not add the glue into that city of refuge himself.
God knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and He delivered lot out of the city.
But Lot had to go into that city of refuge that God had provided.
And you and my friend will have to go to that city where you'll be like lots white on the outside.
You'll have to bring thy faith tonight and take Jesus Christ as your Savior.
It is the mercy of God that led that family out of the city.
But it was faith, and faith alone.
Believing the word of God that enabled them.
Any of them to enter into that city?
Without faith, it's impossible to please God.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
And so the one who hears the word of God and believes his testimony.
He testifies that God is true. He receives his Son as his Savior. He has a city of refuge.
But here we see Lot's wife.
She.
She turned back.
She looked back.
She became a pillar of salt.
Disobedience.
To the word of God.
She rejected the testimony of God. She refused to obey His testimony. Her heart was in the city.
And so she looked back. Now she didn't die in the judgment of the city.
No, I believe, my friends, we have a picture here of the special judgment, the weights, those who've had a testimony, those who've lived as it were in lots house, the righteous man's house, those who've had the testimony of the gospel, the same as those who read, who would say, Lord, Lord, have we not preached?
In thy name.
Lot's wife.
The water had all the privileges.
Of a home where at least God was acknowledged.
It's a picture of Chris Adam, who's had a testimony.
Will that be judged with this world number?
Will have a separate judgment on its own. The Lord is coming out of heaven as a thief.
The judge christened them.
Those who have had the special privilege.
Will have a special judgment.
A lost wife stands as a solemn witness.
There on the plains outside of Sodom.
For those who after should live ungodly.
In this world.
And to live ungodly is simply to reject.
To leave God out of your life.
And that's what characterizes the masses today of those who outwardly profess.
Outwardly profess the name of Christ. How is it with you, friend? You've heard the gospel over and over again.
Have you confessed Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior? Are you washed in that precious blood of which we were singing?
Will you be able to stand on the day of judgment because you're sheltered under that blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? This is a faithful saying.
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Word with all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
1 Peter 2
Reading
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She's looking, Peter.
Laying aside all balance and all dial hypocrisy and envies and all evil, speaking as newborn faith, desire the sincere milk of the word, that she may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom, coming as unto a living stone, disallow the deed of men, the chosen of God, and pray he also has lively stones are built up a spiritual house.
Holy priesthood who OfferUp spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture. Behold, I lay of Zion, a cheap cornerstone elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be compounded.
Unto you therefore, which be the He is precious, but under that would be just the stone which the builders disallowed. The same is made ahead of the corner, and a storm stumbling in a rock of a fence, even to them would stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appoint.
What GR chose generation, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Execute your people that you should show forth the praises on Him who have called you out of darkness unto His threshing life.
Which in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God, Which has not obtained person, but thou have obtained mercy.
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and children, abstain from fleshly lusts with war against control, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doer.
They may, by your good word, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Submit yourself to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be the king and supreme, or of the governor, says unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of people do.
And for the praise of them let do well, For so is the will of God, that with well duty they may put the silence of a foolish man.
As free and not losing your liberty for a form of militias, but as the servants of God.
Honor all that, love the brotherhood. Dear God, honor the King.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the fullest Gentile, but also to the thrower. For this is thankward of a man. For conscience charged God in your grief, suffering wrongfully.
What glory is it yet when you be buffeted for your fault, you shall take it patiently.
If when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God or even here on to where you call the Christ, because Christ also suffered for leaving us an example that we should follow his death.
Who didn't know sin, neither was thou found in the mountain, Who when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him the judgment, right Who? His own self? There are sins in his own body on the tree. That we, being desperate, should live under righteousness. By whose strength?
For ye were as she going astray, but are now returned under the shepherd and Bishop.
Of your children.
We sometimes get discouraged in our meetings here and there because there are difficulties that come up.
Displays of the flesh and this kind of thing.
But as we read the epistles.
Do we find any of them?
That have no correction.
To give to those to whom they're written.
If we go through Paul's epistles, it's that if we go through Peter, it's the same. If we go through John, it's the same.
Things weren't perfect.
And so my love and Saints of God, let's not get discouraged and.
Feel like dropping out because things get in a mix up.
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But just remember these various things that Peter speaks about here, laying aside all malice and guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speaking, well, those are the things that we find that causes sorrow.
Well, they caused Peter sorrow in his day.
There is nothing new.
And we mustn't expect to find that perfect company where none of these things ever occurred. Doesn't exist, brethren.
The expectations are based upon.
A position that we're in and this welfare would indicate this as we look back in the previous chapter and we see the price through which we were brought into blessing.
Then the expectations and we noticed too that it says here.
In the.
First verse all guile, and then Peter directs us in the last few verses to one in whom was found no guile, our blessed Savior. And so how we need this, brethren, to not just be occupied with negative things.
We we need the correction, but the correction in Scripture by the apostles is always in love, is it not? And predicated on a position we're in through grace and the power that avails for us so that we can walk in the power of that new life. We need the expectation. We need to know how to walk. But we also have that lovely example before us, our own blessed Savior.
I was thinking of a verse two in Matthew the 6th chapter.
In connection with our laying hold of the truth as newborn babes in the 22nd verse of the 6th chapter of Matthew, the light or the lamp of the body is the eye. If, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil or wicked, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness?
Now the only light that comes into the soul is the light that we have in Jesus Christ.
And if we do not have that object before us continually, there's going to be replacing it, the old nature manifesting itself. And so there won't be any laying a hold of the Scriptures because communion, it must be in holiness. And unless there is that enjoyment of the pure object, there will not be holiness with us. We do find the words obedient children. That's in verse.
Thing and then in 15.
This it says, but as he which hath called you is holy.
So be holy in all manner of conversational behavior.
Well, we do know that this epistle is addressed to believers.
Who were dispersed? The dispersed ones of Israel.
In the slow particular problems and of course here we have Christians.
Pilgrims and strangers upon the earth.
So that holiness comes in here and beloved, what is holiness?
Is it not the exclusion of everything from my life and yours that would be contrary to God's mind and God's nature and His word? Surely that would be holiness? And would that be perfecting holiness in the fear of God?
All beloved.
The exclusion from my life and yours.
Of everything that would be contrary.
To the mind of God.
Through his blessed heart of love.
Country to himself, his very nature, from his very nature's light. God is light, that's his nature. And so holiness comes in here.
Concerning the Pilgrim.
Tell you. And so there is the laying aside.
Of all mallets.
And guile, This is a very solemn statement.
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And.
It is remarkable that we are capable of practicing all this this list.
I'm reminded of an occasion in our readings in Bolivia.
Her brother asked the question if we could practice, if a believer could practice that list.
Enumerated in Galatians 5. The work of the of the plague.
The brother said he wasn't very old in the faith, but he said.
No. And then our brother Talia said yes.
Yes. So there was a week. There was a quiet moment for a while.
And this younger brother said, Brother, if I believed that, I would do what I like and tell you, said, dear brother, if you belong to Christ, you wouldn't like.
You just wouldn't like.
And it ended there. Well, that was a good note.
Yes, we are capable of anything.
Unless but he keep his hands of love upon.
Brother Smith, The word here refers to newborn babes.
Is it only the new new child of God who has these dangers and needs the milk of the Word to counteract them?
Well, I think, beloved brother, that that word.
It says sincere milk. We translated that.
Into the ink of tongue as the unadulterated.
Were unadulterated. Well, I presume, dear brother, that's for us all.
Whether young or old in the faith? And was there ever such a time as now?
To steer clear of anything that would adulterate the precious word of God. I remember hearing old Mr.
I think it was Mace. No, it was Walter Scott.
He was very old when I was listening to him in England years ago.
And he spoke on this, and he said, brethren.
The Word of God is opening our hands this afternoon.
And it will be open in heaven forever.
My word shall not pass away.
And so I hope that in keeping with my brethren thoughts concerning as newborn babes.
Desiring the unadulterated.
Word.
Does it? Can we imagine a newborn babe not desiring the milk?
They'll make a tremendous fuss until they get it.
As you know, those who are fathers and mothers.
They remember.
Their children, when they were little tops, they would make a big fuss to get that bill. They'd never be satisfied till they hadn't. Well, isn't that surely that should be our attitude, beloved to this blessed, blessed Word of God.
Perhaps, too, there's a parallel that is practical, at least that's the same does not yet have conflicting appetites. The appetite of the babe is for the milk with which it is nourished. It knows nothing of the culinary arts that bring all kinds of tempting dishes before its elders.
And so here one's appetite is to be for that which is price. That's right.
May I just remark?
One of the first fruits of the work in Bolivia was a dear brother, Professor Dessa. He was a professor for 37 years in the university and I had the joy of leading him to Christ. Well, he was. He was a bachelor and very apt in what he said.
One day, a young brother said.
I have been away listening to certain preaching and it was just as if pouring the milk into my mouth.
And dancer said. Poor brother.
Brother, it's time you were eating some meat and that that's how he would speak to us. Time you ate some meat.
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The point here is not that only for the babes that brother intended when he asked the question.
That we all, as Christians, should ever.
Desire, the precious milk of the word.
Now another thought as to the babes.
A baby.
Feeds frequently. It seems to have such an appetite for that milk.
That it feeds and feeds and feeds. I remember they used to feed babies as often as two, 2 1/2 hours apart. Maybe it's three and four hours nowadays. They keep changing their ideas, but as long as we're here, every one of us.
Will need to.
Favor the reading the word, feeding on the word.
Frequently.
As that word, as beginning in verse two as newborn babe. Not that we are newborn babes, That we should ever, ever cultivate that appetite for the Word of God.
There is one circumstance, of course, that might hinder the babe having an appetite, and that is sickness.
Believe this is the point here, that we are spiritually sick when we allow the things that are spoken of here and it hinders the appetite for the word of God. For we all know very well that if any of these things that are spoken of are growing in our hearts, it does hinder the appetite. We don't enjoy the Lord, we don't enjoy the meetings like we should because these things have come in.
I was also thinking of how it could be compared to a garden.
Because in the chapter before it says that we're born again by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. Well, the seed is good. The seed bears good fruit. But weeds choke out the garden too. You know, you might have the very finest of seed, you might have good soil, but alas, the good soil will make the weed grow if the weed seeds are allowed there.
And so I believe that we're warned here of those things that would hinder the growth.
That would be the result of feeding upon the word of God and having that appetite like the babe does, or the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. But I also mentioned too, in this first verse that there are things that are seen and there are things that are not seen. Perhaps we could say.
Malice and guile would be things unseen.
But if these feelings are allowed and nursed into our in our hearts, then they grow, just like a little seed when it falls into their garden. It's not seen at once, but it'll grow. And so if we allow these things unseen by our Bradman and don't judge them, then they come into the more advanced stage of.
Enemies and evil speaking which are apparent.
Surely need these warnings because I'm sure each one of us desire to be found feeding upon Christ and growing more, but alas, we have good soil in our hearts for these very things that we're not continually before the Lord. It's been said, you know that.
This first verse is like the farmer plowing the ground.
And getting rid of the weeds and getting the deep soil before the seed is put in.
So that the seed can grow, and so the principle of self judgment.
In our lives sobriety I believe we have in this first verse and then the result is laying hold of the word with an open clear heart and mind.
It may not always be seen.
But if it is there, God sees it, if we have a tender conscience.
If we want not our own way, why we'll recognize a hindrance that's there.
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Now in the end of Ephesians 4 we have a verse. I might read the last.
Well, Ephesians 430, the Holy Spirit is grieved.
By any unbecoming thing nursed in our hearts.
And grieve not in the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed until the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking, we have that in our verse that we're considering evil speaking be put away from you with all, all mouths.
Malice to be judged. How can there be happiness in the soul if malice is nursed and left unjudged?
When he was down at Bermuda he was addressing the children in the Sunday school and he said, children, can you tell me what honey is like?
So there is a silence for a little while, and one little boy stood up. He said I know what it's like, Sir, He said it's very sweet. He said, How do you know? He said I've tasted it.
That we have here in our third verse.
If so, we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Well, if we have, surely we should feed upon Him.
And the feed upon His word surely will increase our appetite for more.
Mental milk of the Word, because it's by the Word of God, intelligently received in the mind, by the Spirit, that we learn the mind of God. We learn those things that are displeasing to the Lord so that we can judge them. We also learn those things that are pleasing to Him. And that's why these Bible readings are so important.
It is blessed to look to the Lord and to have Himself as our object, but we need direction.
And we find this in the precious word of God. And so we need to this morning as we sit here, have open minds open to His precious Word, not open to those beilements that are constantly liable to come in, but open to the precious Word of God. And that mind that is brought into subjection too, we have in Corinthians, it says.
Casting down reasonings and every high thought that exhales itself against the knowledge of God.
And bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. I believe this is so important. Our minds are affected by all the things that we hear and see about us, but as we read the word of God, we have the mind of God made known to us.
And it's blessed to receive it in simplicity, just in the same way as a child does.
Receives the word from his parents and simplicity and were to receive it in this way and seek grace from the Lord to act upon it in this way we grow in the knowledge of the Lord and in great, but that's very important, but also the fact that.
There should be exercise in connection with the word as we read it as.
There's a verse in the Corinthian in Romans, the 12Th chapter.
I was thinking of as her brother here was just speaking.
But I'll read it in another translation.
The third verse of the 12Th chapter of Romans. For I say, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to have high thoughts.
But to think soberly.
Or so as to be wise. I believe it should read so as to be wise.
That is.
Our object in reading the scripture.
Is not to exalt self, but to exalt Christ and the Newman.
The life that he has now is always to be kept in mind and.
So to think, so as to be wise in the flying of the truth, We may just read truth and never be exercised by it. But I believe the thought here is that there might be the exercise in regard to our whole pathway as we read the Scripture, because that's our subject here in this verse. Isn't it The Word of God, the sincere metal milk of the Word?
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May we say that we don't read the word of God nearly to know?
But we read it to do.
To do.
And that is a great secret to do. And if any man will do his will, he shall know of the teaching or the doctrine.
How often we read the Word of God to know.
Our thoughts are just vain thoughts.
That word vain we've translated into the Inca Tomba vacuum. So, beloved, we needn't feel very ****** ** about our knowledge when it's a vacuum, but we read the word of God to do it.
How important that is, not merely to know it.
In the first chapter of the act, isn't it the first verse?
The former treatise Have I made Earth? The optimist of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach concerning the adulterated Word of God.
We know that there are students here.
Sitting in this meeting, there's no doubt number there are many.
The The attack upon the Word of God is very real in these days. When I was a student, it was real too. It was known more as rationalism, of course, in those early years.
Then it came over to be modernism. Today it's agnosticism.
Atheism, although I have never met yet and.
Atheist.
I've watched many souls die.
Having preached Christ in the army during the war, tackle war, I saw many hundreds.
And some of them were proud officers.
But it was remarkable how they cried for even for their mummies.
At the last.
They were afraid to die.
Now concerning the adulterated word, you young Christian.
May will you not allow by the grace of God, anything, any teaching to upset.
That simple faith in what is written.
Now one day a brother brought me a translation.
The New Testament into the Greek language, Greek and Spanish will. I have never seen anything like that.
And he brought to me, he said, brother, here is a wonderful.
Book a translation into Greek the New Testament we can Spanish.
Well, we looked over the back of the of the translation, where you'll usually find the sting, you know, in the tail. And I said to him, Brother, would you like to sell me that testament? Oh, no, he said. I wouldn't like to part with it.
Well, let us read John One together, and we read it together.
In the beginning with the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God, all the love a God.
I said, won't you tell me that? Well, he says if you possessed, I will. What are you going to do with it? I said going to burn it. Absolutely burn it.
And we spoke to him concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the sin of Colossians.
They would put the Lord Jesus there, and the apostle comes forth with that matchless epistle, beloved.
Exalting the Lord Jesus to the highest pinnacle.
But he was a translator who had put the Lord Jesus at the very right most run of the ladder.
No, Aegon. Well, that man was either a scoundrel or an ignorant man.
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Well, there's no indefinite article in the Greek language.
Well beloved, you dear young Christians in your trials in the colleges.
I was talking to a student and I said what did you, what did you teach at 10?
Well, Mr. Smith, he said. I was told to throw the board everything that I had been taught.
And to get rid of that old fashioned idea of Christianity.
Well, isn't that sad? And do you know?
That the lie goes faster than the truth.
And when and the thoughts of you are long, long thoughts.
And how those wicked statements dwell in the soul.
May we never listen to such people. Such preposterous teaching at his blessed feet. With a simple faith, the apostle Paul.
Second Timothy.
The third chapter on the 10th verse. He enunciates a very important principle. Second Timothy 310 But thou hast fully known my doctrine.
Manner of life.
Now what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Thou hast pulling all my doctrine or my teaching.
And my manner of life.
There is no disharmony there.
The apostle sought diligently to be what he taught.
And he repeatedly refers to that same line of truth.
Life and his doctrine were consistent.
So we should be much concerned and much exercised, brethren, that.
Our knowledge of the word.
Doesn't stop with our heads.
But it finds its way into our lives, our daily lives, our contact with our neighbors, our friends, our relatives. There's never a time to take a vacation.
I remember reading an incident where a.
Preacher was on a vacation and they were having some doings.
And they asked him to give thanks at the table. He said no.
I won't do that. I'm on my vacation.
There is never a time to take a vacation from godliness.
So the apostle connects his doctrine and his manner of life. Oh, may the Lord keep us in these last days. I believe our brother Smith has just been saying to our young people.
As to what they're hearing in colleges and schools, I believe it's so important.
The devil is behind it. It's an effort to discredit the word of God.
To rob them of all confidence in the Scriptures so they can do their own thinking and try to find God through their own poor depraved minds. That's where we are today. And I believe that you young people would be wise when you start into higher education, to say now by the grace of God.
I have committed myself to the truth of the Word of God.
And I'm not open to receive any of this infidelity that's being handed out. I'm not open to it. I'm not open to persuasion. I made-up my mind. I'm settled.
I believe that's important, brethren.
Brother Brown in that's what we find in Colossians first chapter and the ninth verse where it says where those apostle is praying for the caution says and to desire that you might be filled no room for anything else.
But with the wisdom.
With the knowledge of His will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you might walk worthy of the Lord, and to all please and fruitful in every good work.
Yes, I certainly believe it's very important that we should read the Word and get a good knowledge of the Word of God because that is what fortifies us against all the unbelief that we find around us. Very often we notice that when you carefully examine the attacks that are made, it's an ignorance of the Scripture that is behind them. Remarks are made and if we knew the Scriptures well, we'd be fortified. We'd.
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Lift the shield of faith. I remember her reading a comment that we have more to be feared about by the ignorance of the Word of God among the people of God, and by the attacks of infidelity, because if we are not fortified by the knowledge of the Word of God, then the enemy can get in one of those fiery darts.
So we're to lift the shield of faith, but we're also to know the mind of God, as it says in Colossians.
That he might be filled with the knowledge of his will. So I surely would encourage each one here, whether young or old.
To read the word of God until our very thoughts are formed by it. And I believe this will protect us against the attacks that are being made in a very wonderful way in Colossians. That's been referred to, I believe.
The another translation gives us the full knowledge, doesn't it? And also the true knowledge of God, now coupling that with the exalted place that has been referred to.
That the Lord Jesus is given in Colossians.
The highest place. There's no room for man's reasonings.
And there's no room of setting anyone or anything in opposition to this position, this knowledge. And in Colossians we have the full knowledge and understanding and then we have the full assurance. That's really the helmet of salvation.
In the second chapter, full assurance, so that the believer is fortified, and the young labor, as he goes to school is fortified.
Another thing in our chapter we have whom coming is unto a living stone.
Now it's the living God, and the believer has a sense now.
That he belongs to that which is living in contrast to all that man is connected with, that is dead and belongs to a scene of death. And as far as we are concerned, naturally as to the old man, ye are dead. That's also found there.
For the believers in that new position, he has the if he, if he wants it to meditate on it, He has the full knowledge of his will. He has the true knowledge of God. He has an object that's a man seated in the heavens beside the Father, the man Christ Jesus as the object for his soul. He has everything he needs.
Feeding on the Word of God and growing.
I would like to read this short little poem of Brother Checklist I pasted in my Bible last evening. It just happened to fit into what we're talking about, I believe. In fact, I think I've enjoyed this particular little poem of Brother Checklist above all the other of his poem. I valued it so much I'll read it. Nature.
To the mind, attentive teaches off a hidden truth.
Even by a tiny insect.
Speaking to our hearts reprove.
Many a different plant will furnish daily food the insect needs, but it always takes the color from the leaf whereon it feeds.
Christians from the bread of Heaven.
OFT times turn to earthly fair.
But a telltale change of color to.
Their shame they always wear.
If on Christ the Lamb were feeding will present a heavenly blue, but the taste of earthly follies.
Changes to another you now there are so many competitive things to draw away our attention.
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There are so many counter attractions also attractive they're made, but if we are robbing the Lord of the time that we should be spending in the precious word of God and the things of God.
It's going to tell in our lives in.
Philippians 19 or 8:00 or 9:00.
A verse of thought. I'll read verse 9 and 10 and Philippians 19 and 10. And this I pray that your love may abound. Yet more and more in here we get that full knowledge is the point here. In full knowledge and in all judgment or intelligence, spiritual perception, spiritual mindedness.
In order that she may.
Job and approve the things that are more excellent. Now if there be two things, one more for the glory of Christ, another thing less for His glory, we should be actively.
Exercised discerning which would be better now. This would be true of our bookshelves. This would be true of the magazines that we take.
And of what we give our attention to.
I fear that we're living in days when the flesh has too much to say. All these attractive catalogues and and things that magazines mind, they're just full of wonderful things. But we can feed on some of these things.
To the detriment of our soul, we should learn the exercise to favor the things of the Lord.
Where is that scripture? I can't turn to it right now. A lamb in the morning and a lamb in the evening. Where is that Leviticus?
Or 2929.
Verse 38. Verse 38.
Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar, 2 lambs of the first year, day by day, continually. The one lamb thus shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb thus shall offer it even. Yes, that's the version I had in mind. I think it's.
A nice sound principle.
Begin the day with Christ, and we end the day with Christ.
And.
The.
Pardon me just a moment. In the old days they used to talk about the family all.
Well, perhaps we don't give it that dignified title.
But I believe we're missing something if we don't don't open our Bibles together as a family every morning and every evening. A lamb in the morning, Christ to begin the day, in Christ to end the day. I think we're the losers if we don't practice this. Now, I don't mean to say that we're to forget Christ in between, but I do emphasize the fact.
The lamb in the morning and a lamb in the evening.
29.
It might connect with verse 42.
There shall be a continual.
Burnt offering.
Now there was associated with that burnt offering incense.
And in the verse before, for a sweet savour and offering made by fire unto the Lord.
This burnt offering aspect must be an incense, must be Christ.
According to God's own appreciation of him. And God's appreciation of Christ is full.
And if we ever come into God's presence with that confidence.
That will honor the Lord. I notice in the reading in Elisha's ministry when the three kings were gathered and they had no water in the desert, and Elisha is there.
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When the blessing did come, it came at the time of this sacrifice, by the way of Edom, it says.
It was at the time of the offering of that sacrifice. Now the same thing was true.
In the 19th chapter, the 18th chapter, when Elijah was offering on the altar and the priests of bail were destroyed, you recall it was at the time of the evening sacrifice that the blessing came and the fire fell from heaven. And so that encourages us all that we may not immediately see the blessing there is a blessing connected with.
The offering of the morning and the evening sacrifice.
We noticed that the Word is presented as seed, there to impart divine light to those who receive it and believe it.
And then in our chapter, the second verse.
We have the same precious word presented as food for those who have received Christ.
Though we surely need to feed upon that Blessed One as we get in the 6th chapter of John and verse 57, as the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father.
So he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. Here we have Christ's sustenance of the new life.
Though we need him all the time.
I was thinking two of different references we have to feeding.
Israel and Egypt fed upon leak onions garlic things of the earth the 44th chapter of Isaiah we find that Isaac, Israel and then in hozier in the.
No, sorry, he framed, fed up and wind.
Israel fed up and ashes in the 44th chapter of Isaiah.
And then in the same the 13th chapter of Hosea.
There's according to their posture. So were they filled?
And it goes on to say, And their heart was exalted, therefore they have forgotten me.
So they are not feeding from the living bread, or otherwise they wouldn't have forgotten the Lord who is the living bread.
And then we find in Song of Solomon, chapter one, verse seven, I believe it is. Tell me where thou feedeth. What a challenge to our hearts, beloved. Where do we feed? What do we feed upon? Tell me where thou feeded.
Well, the Lord offers the living bread for us to feed upon his precious word and Himself. And Matthew 4, where Christ is brought before us in connection with the temptation and the wilderness, and Matthew 4 verse four just.
For the sake of time, he answered.
Christ answered Satan. He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.
But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
I believe we connect that with here as to our living our life and in connection with the word in Peter as our growing.
So we have a beautiful example, I believe there in that 4th chapter of Matthew and the verse which we read in connection with Christ as the dependent man.
Connection with our.
Fourth verse. To whom coming is unto a living stone.
That's Christ, of course.
In Livingstone disallowed. In need of men, the chosen of God.
I believe we need to be reminded at the present time.
That the Christ of the Bible.
The Christ that the Word of God brings before us.
Is disallowed indeed of men.
Now we've just this week.
We've seen decorations of every imaginable kind all over the country, from coast to coast.
About the birth of Christ.
And yet, hot mockery it is.
The Christ of the Bible, the Christ of Scripture, is disallowed.
Indeed, of men.
Man do not want the Christ of the Bible.
They have various imaginations and they bring forward these celebrations that have to do with this name. But as to the Christ of God, that's the one that's presented in Scripture. They have no time for Him.
00:50:18
There is an effort now to make.
Christianity, a popular thing to dress it up make it very appealing.
Modernize it, bring it up to date.
Well, brethren, there's nothing like that in Scripture whatsoever.
Christ of God is disallowed by this world, and it's only a work of the Spirit of God in our soul that's going to bring us to the Christ of God.
The the the one who came into this world.
Went to Calgary, was rejected, suffered Bled, died.
The only one that can save.
And if we're not subject to him, the Christ of God, all this awkward celebration and honor that we give Him is really an insult to God. Beginning the 24th verse, the expression that we should live unto righteousness is connected with the death of Christ and our death with Him, is it not?
And that sort of gives the character to this chapter, doesn't it?
The fact of the practical exercise under the government of God.
Because Peter gives us that, does he not the government of God to?
Use effort.
Stand against Satan's methods today.
It's just a question poll. Well.
We do read that our warfare is not against flesh and blood.
But against principalities and powers? That's in Ephesians 6.
And the remedy there is to put on the whole armor of God.
Maybe just read that as this question has been asked, beloved.
For we wrestle not verse 12 against flesh and blood.
That is to say, against human beings.
Against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.
Against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Well, we do know, beloved, that the 1St Heaven is full of them.
Demons.
And that's where the warfare is going on.
Demon.
In contrast to what we have in the fourth of Ephesians, verse 10 of chapter 3, pardon me through the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God.
Well, here's the contrast, beloved, between good angels and demons. We have good angels here in verse 10.
And are they not all ministering spirits sent to them who should be heirs of salvation? Here we are.
But in in concerning have we to use any effort?
The word in Ephesians 6 is stand.
Let us read that again, just for a moment, below.
Page 6 Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.
And having done all to stand.
And therefore having your loins burnt about the truth.
And having on the breastplate of righteousness.
And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery gods of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit.
Which is the word of God. But it's wonderful that verse 18 comes in here too, praying always with all prayer and supplication of the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
Well, how blessed it is, beloved, to know that it is gone. Who willeth? How is it mean that God? Who willeth to do I forget in English?
00:55:00
Will continue both to will and to do, of his own good pleasure.
Thank you. Notice here in this chapter we've been noticing how the incorruptible seed gives life and then there's food. But here where the house is looked at the the Church of God as the House of God, it has to do with conduct, doesn't it?
When the Church of God is spoken out as the body of Christ, why, it's his love and care. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, nourishes and cherishes that. But here we find the church looked at as a house, not here with man as the builder, but with God as the builder. When man does the building well, he may bring in some bad material.
Wood, hay and stubble. The day will declare that.
But when and the Lord Jesus is the builder, when God is the builder, by then there's no bad material. The Lord Jesus said on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And so building upon him where we have a sure foundation, and we are brought in a burning storm. So here we find the church looked upon in its first character and the wonderful.
Place we have as holy priests and royal priests, there upon this foundation that can never fail. Gates of hell can never prevail against that which he has built. That we may not always be in the enjoyment of the privileges belonging to the place Norwich, may we always act like we should in the place where we have been brought.
But it's nice the subject is introduced by bringing us to that person.
Who has better sinners? Living storms? Who is himself the chief cornerstone?
I often find a few things mentioned in.
That's not confused worship and service, but in this chapter we find there in divine order. Are they not worship and chapters in verse five and service in verse 9?
To say it's often reversed, people seem to think that service is far more important than worship.
But we find it then divine order. Here worship comes first. Or should do they both have their plate but worship has the 1St place?
That's the order in.
Ezekiel 44.
Emphasize their.
We sometimes would like to substitute activity.
For that which is God's pouring God.
God's portion.
In Ezekiel 44, verses 10/11, 12:13.
And even 14 it shows the Levites who are.
For service.
But in verse 14 says that I will make them keepers of the charge of the house for all the service.
But they had not kept the charge.
And when we get to verse 15, we have the priests. They are the ones that have immediate access into God's presence and who are.
Who served in the interest and care of God?
So in the last half of verse 15, these priests, the sons of Zadok.
Shall come near to me.
To minister unto me, and they shall stand before me.
To offer unto me the fact and the blood, saith Lord God.
They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, and they should keep the charge, and it shall come to pass that when they enter in.
At the gates of the inner court they shall be clothed with linen garments.
I believe this speaks of the consistent life of practical righteousness. The linen garments, and no wool shall come upon them whilst they minister in the gates of the inner court, and within they shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins. They shall not notice this now, they shall not.
01:00:20
Bird themselves with anything that causes.
Swept there can be a great lot of energy and activity.
Out of place, but if the Lord has the 1St place.
In the heart, then the life will indeed be fruitful. In service, that will be.
Fragrance of Christ and to God's glory.
Both.
We have the same order in Hebrews 13, do we not?
15.
By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. Not surely speaks of worship, and the next verse service, but to do good and to communicate. Forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
And the same order in the first four books of the Bible.
Genesis. We find man's a Sinner. In excellence man is redeemed with a lamb. In Leviticus man is worshipping, but in numbers he's serving.
I believe it's so very important to distinguish the difference and the order because so many today are bent on service, service, service, and they haven't time to be in the presence of God to worship.
They think it's not important and it's all important intervention. Beloved, that verse 16 that our brother cited from Ezekiel 44.
They shall enter into my sanctuary, they shall come near to my table to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge. Well, in this connection one is reminded in Psalm 93. Holiness become a blind house, oh Lord, forever and ever.
Or, as we have it, for the ages of the ages.
Peter, we have the question of the building holiness. Become a thine house. Who Lord forever and ever.
Another.
Thought is found, I think it's in Second Chronicles 20.
29 if I remember.
Second Chronicles, 29.
Yes.
In verse seven of Second Chronicles 29.
Also they have.
All but sad words of Hezekiah here they have shut up the doors of the porch, who put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor burnt offering.
In the holy place unto God now verse 11, my son's.
Be not now negligent.
For the Lord hath chosen you to stand before him, to serve him.
And that he should minister unto him.
And burn incense. Oh, that's the loveliness of Christ. And bring that before God is the highest privilege that any redeemed one can possibly have. Nothing can exceed that. And when we have become careless as to our highest privileges.
And then resort to activity all. What a miserable substitute it is, and one doesn't want to ever be misunderstood.
Have anyone think that we are to be rocking chair Christians? I think an expression Brother Willis used to use in a steward.
We are never intended to settle down in this world. The truth must have its balance.
01:05:00
But to think that because activity is a joyful thing, I know what it is.
In my early days, preaching on the street frequently giving out gospel tracks, all is good when the heart is going along with the Lord. But to merely make a service as the great thing is surely not our particular calling. It is Christ must have the 1St place. Another verse, say 6 Psalm 65, verse 4.
Blessed is the man whom now chooses and causes to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. Can anything be more precious than that? The spiritual health, and that's in here is.
That which will be complete when every believer.
Is there and we're caught away, Is that it?
Well, I'm asking the question. You know the answer. Are we not now living stone in this portion here?
We will have the fullness of it when we are in the glorious true. But now is the line of truth here, isn't it? I was thinking though, that there is a contrast in the two last verses of Ephesians 2, is there not?
We have in one case the thought of the temple, and the other the Tabernacle.
Whereas here I suppose it's more the temple, is it not? The temple in the end of Ephesians 2 is growing. It is not yet complete, the last verse.
Verse 22 of that chapter is the Tabernacle truth in that we are the habitation of God through the Spirit. In that sense, it's always a place where it's a Tabernacle.
While we are in the wilderness.
Temples almost finished though, isn't it? Amen.
We were enjoying, we're enjoying the verse on the I Think Choice Cleaning Calendar this morning.
Oh, if I remember right it might have been the other calendar, A second Chronicles chapter 3 and verse one in which it speaks of Solomon began to build the house. He began to build the temple of the Lord.
But it was on Mount Moriah, that place where Abraham offered up Isaac.
And figure at any rate.
In that place where the threshing floor horn and the Jebusite was, where the plague was stayed, he offered the burnt offering too. Burnt offering.
But.
David, before his death, made a great provision for the building of this temple.
The Lord Jesus Christ in his death, dying in our stead, shedding his precious blood, redeeming his Son to himself.
He made provision Lord Jesus in his death or the building of this temple. In virtue of that precious bloodshed, the Holy Spirit is given to us by which we worship.
1 Peter 4
Reading
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Continuing our chapter, we read the 1St.
Verses of the 4th chapter might please notice the thoughts there.
Continuing our subject and then adding to it the 1St.
5 verses of the 4th chapter.
First Peter 2.
1St 19.
For this in fact worthy of a man, for conscience, Lord God, in your grief, suffering, wrongful.
For what glory is it if when He has, if He be suffered for your fault, He shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God, or even here unto where He called across. Christ also suffered for us, leaving us the example that you should follow His steps.
Who did all sin? Neither was God found in his mouth.
When he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him. The judges right.
Who is also fair? Our sins, and his own body on the tree. But we being dead, descended to live under righteousness. By whose right you were healed? For he were as sheep going astray. But now I returned under the shepherd and Bishop of your soul.
On the 4th chapter.
For as much then as have suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. For these he that have suffered in the flesh have seen from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the place of the lust of men, but to the will of God.
Will the time pass of our lives face a fighters who have brought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in the stevia love X size of wine reveling fantasy abominable idolaters wherein they think it's strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of you who shall give account to him?
That is ready to judge the quick and the dead.
Should be exercised.
By the word of God. Otherwise it is not a proper conscience.
Man was not born with the conscience, he received it when he fell. But it has to be exercised by the truth of God. That's why it's so important to continually have the word of God before us that we have. In Hebrews 4, the word of God is living, inoperative and sharper than any two edged star, dividing between soul and spirit. That is. I take that to mean at least partially.
That.
We may have a certain desire to do something.
But we prove whether it's of God by.
The principles we find in the Word of God.
The latter believes who?
Be partly at least, the thought we have of dividing between soul and spirit.
Is that right? That's why we should be careful when we judge another, because another may not have the same conscience. As was mentioned this morning, that verse read in Roman 14.
When we don't, this may not be as well advised in Scripture as others. And if they press something upon us, it becomes a legal matter rather than the exercise of the heart before God. It's hard for any of us to endure grief and suffer wrongfully, isn't it, if we're budgeted for our faults, for things that we do that we know are wrong?
When we naturally feel that this was coming to us for what we have said or done.
But when we have sought to please the Lord and then have to suffer, we don't get much credit from others. But isn't it nice this is acceptable with God?
And this ought to be an encouragement not only to the servant or to the person who has dealings with the world. For a good conscience is not appreciated very often, but even in our dealings with one another in the Assembly of God, sometimes even a Christian seeking to please the Lord may be.
00:05:11
Misunderstood. Well, he has to go on and have the consciousness of the Lord's approval and committed all to Him.
I'm just going to say the Lord was not only dismissed by those about him, but he was misunderstood by his disciples. But he committed everything to his Father, didn't He? Yes, and it was in view of the Kingdom here when the reward would be as well.
And we find the Lord Jesus is the example, as our brother Brown was calling our attention in that 24th verse at the beginning of the meetings to His own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live under righteousness.
By whose stripes you were healed, living unto righteousness. Now there's a reward in the Kingdom for that. To get that in Matthew, I believe it's Matthew 5, reward for suffering for righteousness. But then there's also reward for suffering for Christ's sake, which is a higher order of things I believe and more connected probably with.
The Church and its position today.
However, there's still that suffering for righteousness sake now in that connection.
I think of the Whitestone in in Revelation. There are many things in the life of the believer that he has to take being misunderstood, but the Lord knows all about it. And if it's done for him, there will be that in eternity that the Lord.
Knows about that in our lives that we have passed through and also.
He's chosen us to be his companions now in order to be proper companions as that little hymn we sing sometimes. Meet companions then for Jesus. Boring like he made.
In order to be.
True companions, we have to know something.
Of what he passed through here.
Now the Lord suffered in two ways. He suffered in atonement. You'll never understand the depths of that, but he suffered with the people of God.
And he was afflicted with them, and even in the Old Testament the Angel of his presence followed them.
So that when he was here and he passed through things that.
Men didn't realize what he was going through. His own disciples didn't realize what he was passing through. No one will ever know, even in his sufferings with the people of God when he passed through. Now will the believer will pass through things. He'll be misunderstood, he'll be misquoted, he'll be he'll be charged with things that are not true.
Often times.
But the spirit of submission becomes us, not self vindication. All this will come out in the Kingdom day when the day of manifestation and there will be His approval, which is worth more than the approval of men. And so I believe the thought here is living in the sight of God.
Toward God.
Reparations toward God, not toward men. Strive diligently.
And to show thyself approved unto God. That's Timothy.
All went through this, he got too much thanks for the church truth that he preached all in Asia departed from them and evidently is a fossil shipment. Things connected with him with questions and is only brought out from the power of the Spirit of God. He doesn't seek to defend himself.
But the Spirit of God causes him to stand in defense of himself. That was because there are certain testimony was committed to him, but it was not self indication, was it? And Peter did witness the Lord suffering here on earth thinly.
But he did not witness the suffering of death. Hebrews 2.
Darkness covered the whole land. No human eye could penetrate that darkness when the blessed Lord was made sin for us and then suffered under the hand of a holy God. Peter did not witness that scene, didn't he? But he did witness the sufferings of Christ here on earth.
00:10:11
All right, these two kinds of suffering that have been mentioned here after the and that is suffering for righteousness, say perhaps if we notice the third chapter in the 14th verse, it says.
Bodine, if you suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye.
And be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, and so on. Now the 4th chapter. And the first beloved thinketh not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange.
Happened unto you, but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, he may be glad also with exceeding joy, if he be reproached for the name of Christ. Happy are ye, or the Spirit of glory and of God rested upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, and on your, but on your part he is glorified.
Well, perhaps.
Were asked to do something in the company were working for and perhaps even something that we can't do even among others with a good conscience before God. And so we seek to please the Lord and we're misunderstood and perhaps misjudged for what we have done. Well, that's suffering for righteousness sake. But then supposing we speak up and confess Christ, we let it be known that we belong to him and.
To please him. Now there's another kind of suffering. The world hates Christ, and so we we suffer now because we have confessed his name. But the world is so dishonest that sometimes they dislike it when they have a fellow Christian working with him, even if he doesn't mention the name of Christ, if he just tries to do what's right.
He just tries to be honest, not right in his job. Well, we have to be content to suffer in both those ways.
And as it says, there's a happiness in it, the happiness of the Lord's approval.
This is particularly in connection with servants, isn't it? The principle applies in general.
Why does he say for what? For what glory is it when you be buffet for your fault, you should take it patiently. Why is the word glory brought in? Is it not looking forward to the time of the Kingdom when everything will be seen in its true life? We're not looking for glory now, I suppose. Not directly, but.
Associated with the thought is.
That which is honoring through the name of our Lord Jesus, isn't it? There's no worry.
To his name when, through my own faults or carelessness, I.
Reprimanded and buffeted.
If I'm known to be a child of God and I've gotten in the wrong path and called the task for it, this is actually a dishonor.
It detracts from the glory of the Lord Jesus in respect to my testimony.
I believe that would be commanded so very much. Perhaps we can raise Philippians.
19 up to 11.
These I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be a sincere and without offense to the day of Christ.
Being filled with fruits of righteousness.
We are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and the praise of God.
Righteousness, I think, has to do with our fellow man.
And the law wants us to.
There were the fruits of righteousness, not for our own glory, but unto the glory and the praise of God.
We have also the truth of lives which says in Hebrews 13 by Hindu or let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lives, giving thanks to his name. That's God works in Philippians. I believe his men word here is God works and also the glory of God.
00:15:25
And be reminded too, brethren, that.
If we are allowed to.
Testing in connection with the trials that are spoken of here.
It behooves us to.
Be very prayerfully.
Considerate of what has brought this reprimand or the disapproval.
Of some, and one thinks particularly of our relations, one with another, as children of God.
How prone we are in one speech of his own heart when?
Our brethren may have some opposing.
View as to an action or a comment on the scriptures, how prone we are to take revenues, perhaps even in these verses, and to justify ourselves whereas.
It would do us well to consider.
In a very prayerful manner.
Should I be subject to my brethren? Perhaps I am wrong after all, and more likely so than not.
And so not to use this as a place of refuge wrongfully, sometimes we hear brethren saying in such a situation, well, it'll all come out of the judgment seat of Christ.
Personally, I deplore this expression under those conditions.
As far as to be subject 1 to another, and if we know something of the sadness and the trial of having a word of reprimand from our brethren, let's remember that the Scripture tells us to be subject 1 to another and to accept that in humbleness. Now we may before God.
Conclude finally well, I I do feel that my position yet was right. My president do not understand it.
Well, let it rest there then, and not pursue it. It was a matter of discord among our fellow Saints.
Is that not a part of the discipline, the school of God?
That oftentimes we learn precious lessons by being misunderstood and submitting to it because after all, it's the it's the flesh being put in its place that.
Brings about spirituality with the believer. The flesh is kept in its place. Pride, because after all, you may be right, but there may be pride, and so the discipline that goes with it is most important.
21 We have various stoves, and they're all different colors.
And I believe there are a picture of that morally which will be seen in the millennial day when the believer will be used as a medium transmitting that light.
In the Kingdom.
It's a picture and that stone is formed now.
In its various colors, and it takes all of these things informing those colors in the believer that is forming each one for his place in that day.
We actually learn more of what the flesh is by false accusations than true ones because when we are falsely accused and get upset about it, it's because we're as good as saying, oh, I wouldn't do that. And so we get angry because we're accused of doing it. And I believe the Lord uses false accusations to discover to us what the flesh is.
With the Lord Jesus, it was never sold because He always pleased his Father.
But I think perhaps we could say this, but whenever we're falsely accused, perhaps this would be the right attitude to take. Supposing I say, well, I could have done it and I would have done it but for the grace of God. So why should I be angry when someone says that I did it? I have the satisfaction in my own heart of knowing that before the Lord it was not so.
00:20:09
And if he has allowed this false accusation, that has helped me to discover how much pride there was in my heart.
That thought I wouldn't do it, for it's much better to be accused of doing it and not have done it than to be accused of doing it and have have done it. So the Lord uses even false accusations in this way. And I believe that this was what we learn in the case of Job.
Those things that his brethren said about him were not true, but they discovered an immense amount of pride in the heart of Job which God was seeking to correct. God said about Joel before his trial that there wasn't a man like him in the earth. Then when the trouble came, his friends came and said to all Job, there's some secret failure in your life.
And you're hiding it. And John knew that this was not so.
But all these accusations really brought out to Job how much pride there was there. This was the thing God was seeking to judge or bring Job to judge and want to. Sometimes said a brother might be the most blameless brother in the whole meeting, and yet the Lord has to deal with such a one because we might be proud about it. And the Lord has to show us that pride that.
And give us to judge it for our good and for our blessing. So in the end, Joel discovered that it was not really for something that he had done, but it was an attitude of his heart of pride and self-confidence, a self righteousness that the Lord discovered to him. And he judged. And he said, I repent and abhor myself, and dust and ashes.
Well, I believe, brethren, that this is a very important lesson for us. But I also have this that.
Job did not really get the blessing. God didn't turn his captivity until he prayed for his friends. I think many of us have thought, at least I did, that God turned the captivity of Job when he said I repent and the poor myself and dust and ashes.
But God didn't. It was not until he had prayed for his friends, because.
If if God had turned his captivity when he repented in His presence, I think Joel might have said, well, I learned what God is trying to teach me. But those friends of mine never helped at all. They were just a hindrance, and he would have held a bad feeling toward them for the rest of the time. But can the Lord said, as it were, no job, that you mustn't hurt, hold any bad feelings toward those friends?
Because I was using them to discover the flesh in you. And so he prayed for them. And so let us remember this, brethren. I believe it will help us to overcome in situations where we are falsely accused and that we'll see that God is helping us to discover.
Through those things, what the flesh is. And I say again, much better to find it out that way than to find it through a fall.
This next expression here brings us to that, doesn't it? It sets before us that example in the end of verse 20. If you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God, acceptable with God, four, even 02 where he called because Christ.
That is, the life that the believer has now is that same life. It's in Christ.
And so.
We can't raise the standard, we can't lower it. There's only one standard described. We show these expectations as our brother Brown called her attention to the 24th person to start. They're all based upon the example that's set before us and the end of the chapter that we've come to them, a person's Christ.
Using this 1St frame for where or even here on to where he called. I don't know how far you press this what I was thinking we are called under this we can say well if you are falsely confused and supposing something happened.
Even here on two working calls, all these things were going to happen when the apostle Paul was called. The Lord says I will show him what great things he must suffer for by namesake.
00:25:04
On the next part of that day, the price also has suffered.
Think of the Lord Jesus Christ coming in from Maryland under his own and was going to see them not.
He was rejected and misunderstood. He would have been higher tax weight in his sleeve and he finally ended up on the Nokia. Must be lifted up and all that. But you know, he came in for the good of his own.
Understood all the way and he was crucified. Free diversion.
Proverbs 16 and 9 connection with which you just mentioned too.
A man's heart divided his way, but the Lord directed his steps.
Now in the.
In Matthew 12. In Matthew 12 and.
Chapter.
In the 25th verse.
At that time, at that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them on debate. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.
Now the point is that a man may devise his own way.
But his steps are directed of the Lord.
Jeremiah 10 tells us that a man cannot direct his own steps. Yes, I have it right here. Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. He is not in man that walkers to direct his steps.
Now we may devise our way, but the Lord directs the steps and out beautifully. You see it in the Lord Jesus himself and even in the time of extreme trial in his pathway here that we've just read up John the Baptist ministry had been rejected and he was about to be beheaded if he was not already beheaded the ministry.
The Was he beheaded at this time? I don't remember but at least his ministry was rejected. The Disciples ministry was rejected.
The Lord Himself was rejected and He turns his eyes to heaven and He accepts the path because He knows that everything up there is going on all right down here. God may allow things in the pathway for our testing, but it was all to be for blessing results.
And the psalmist gave a beautiful expression, and 143rd Psalm caused me to know.
The way wherein I should walk, where I looked up my soul under thee.
Good for us also to remember that God may not vindicate us in this world. The Lord Jesus was never vindicated in this world after a perfect life of doing His Father's will. Then at the very end all his disciples forsook him and fled.
Of the people that had been healed and blessed by him, he was left, as it were, alone to face all that enmity of man, and then finally forsaken of God. But where are the results of all that He suffered, whether all manifested in resurrection? And this is a very important thing for us, I believe that we.
Look for vindication here in this life. While we may not have it, it says there in the verse our brother just called our attention.
Says.
For.
But we're called to this.
It says even here under where you call because Christ also has suffered for us and it says.
That.
While I was thinking of the Second Timothy chapter 2 and the way it reads here in the new translation, Second Timothy chapter 2 and verse seven, I'd like to read it in the new translation.
00:30:03
Think of what I say, for the Lord will give the understanding. That's from the seventh verse. Remember Jesus Christ raised from among the dead of the seed of David, according to my glad tidings.
In which I suffer even unto bonds as an evildoer, For the word of God is not bound for this cause. I endure all things for the sake of the elect, but they also may obtain the salvation, which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
Well, here he is writing to encourage Timothy. In a day when everything was being given up and he was to seek to go on and labored in obedience to the word of God, could he expect to be vindicated? Oh no, he said that.
The Lord was not vindicated. How will we have understanding to know how to go on in a day, when to follow in the path of obedience means suffering, rejection and misunderstanding? All we have to look beyond this life. And so is the new translation reads. Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David, raised from among the dead.
Of the seed of David, according to my glad tidings.
That is where where the results of all that perfect work. It's all in resurrection and this is for us too an encouragement for it says in Philippians chapter one unto you. It is given on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.
A time of suffering. Now there were cases where God did vindicate his people. Joseph was vindicated later before his brethren, and they came down and recognized him as Lord of Egypt. But the Lord Jesus, the perfect one, was not vindicated in this life. Uriah the Hittite was not vindicated in this life. He was put to death.
In such a tragic way. So we have to leave some things with the Lord and to go on.
Satisfied with the Lawrence approval in our pathway. This is the only thing that really gives peace, whether individually or going on collectively, walking in the truth. Would you have in mind that verse in Isaiah 49, fourth verse connection with the Lord.
That's prophetic of him, I believe.
Yes, I think it's a very important verse.
That Isaiah 49 and four.
And then I said, I have laid it in vain. I have spent my strength for not and in vain. Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God. I remember some years ago.
In the Los Angeles meeting room.
A brother of our late brother Hathaway in Los Angeles, we've been a missionary in.
In Africa.
Come back and accept that meeting.
And this verse was brought up at that meeting.
He said no, I know why I came here tonight.
He said. I've been working down there for years and there doesn't seem to be any fruit.
But this verse is accomplished to my soul.
And I believe it is a comfort.
As the Lord could say, this is prophetic I believe.
I have labored in vain, I spread my strength through not and in vain. Yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God.
In this world you shall have tribulation.
I have overcome the world.
How refreshing it is to us in all the admonitions for the walk, to have our eyes turned to the one who walked perfectly before us.
And there is nothing that he's asked of us that He himself didn't in a perfect and thorough way, manifest in his walk. And so He sat before us here, as we've already had our attention drawn, as the One who not only suffered for us, but in that suffering, in that reviling, He returned. No reviling.
He went as a lamb, dumb before the sheep, dumb before shearers.
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What a gracious, loving Savior He was and how it encourages our hearts weak and people always be and often failing. Yet to remember there was that One whose steps marked a wilderness journey and we may follow those steps. We may times be uncertain as to our own selves, but when our eyes are on Him.
And we review the pathway that he walked and read again and again of His grace and his patience.
And his refusal to revile and to rebuke.
Those who who will harm him. Our own hearts are encouraged that we should follow in this pattern.
Weather station is used to know in connection with that verse.
Of a father going through the snow with his large boots and leaving large footsteps, and the little child jumping from one step to another who can't fill those steps, but he does walk in them. I believe that's the true reading here, is it not? In his steps. And so the child does not fill those steps.
But he walks in those steps.
He brought out in that precious burst when the large people have rejected them, and he said, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, stones, the prophets, how often would I have gathered you under my wings?
And that hand would gather her flock. Isn't this a word to us? Even when we, when we wander away and forget, are still going up to us, this children?
Yes, that's nicely brought out, Brother Dodge, and what follows here in this 24th verse.
We could stop at the end of the 23rd and sort of have a, shall I say, a self satisfied attitude as our brother Gill remarked, Well, we just committed to all to the Lord. He'll bring everything out right. Well, this is blessedly true. But here is something more and I think this most his most touching in this 24th verse, though his own self, there are sins in his own body on the tree.
Was He misunderstood by the nation? Was He forsaken by His disciples? Yes. And what did He do? Well, he not only bore it and did not return threatening, but more than this, He went to the cross and died for them. He went to the cross and the wording here is so beautiful. Pulling his own self.
There are sins in his own body, on the tree and all. Brethren, it isn't just enough for us to say, well, I've committed to the Lord.
Even if I'm not educated here, I'll be vindicated above. This is all blessedly true. But do we still continue in loving service to the very ones who have perhaps misunderstood? Do we still make sacrifices for their good?
This is what the Lord Jesus did. He not only committed the whole thing to his Father, who judged righteously, but he went to the cross and died. And he's going to be surrounded in glory with the very disciples who forsook him and fled for the last number from that very nation who cried away with him and with us too, who have so often been unfaithful.
Well, if we're going to follow this blessed example, it's not only in this.
Way of leaving with things with the Lord, but let us continue in loving service to the Lord and to our brethren. And this is following the example of Christ.
That's easy to follow in this step and pointed out.
Right before us, the nearness to a walk, and close nearness to himself. Now Peter we read in one of the gospels that he followed afar off.
When he was following.
And it's good to be followers, but Peter followed a far off and he got into serious difficulties. Well, if we want to get into trouble, that is our connection. Spiritual things follow or follow up because it's only close to his pierced side. In peace we can't abide.
So our I've often thought of that expression that he should follow in his steps.
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Brings before us that close walk with the blessed Savior.
Do we have that expression somewhere? Follow in his steps. This is the right rendering here at the right rendering, yeah.
This 25th verse is abound to our hearts.
For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned. It doesn't say that. We hope sometime we will.
That this is the place that grace has set us in, and are now returned unto the shepherd and Bishop of your souls. What a comfort we have here where the soul can rest either. Should we? No, indeed, who did no sin? We have the blessing. Fourfold testimony to the perfection of Christ.
In this verse, who did no sin?
In First John 3.
And the end of verse five. And in him is no sin.
In Hebrews 415.
He was without sin.
2nd Corinthians 5/21 He was made sin, and he finally appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
How wondrous and perfection that blessed person was.
I like Brother Gladding, what another has said in respect to the 25th verse and your thoughts.
That Christ had no sin in him, but hath sin on him. The Christian has sinned in him, but no sins on him.
But he did not very practice who?
We cannot go as far as we have in the 24th verse.
That's to him, and to him alone.
I only spoke of it as a principle. That was all that the Lord gave himself and that there should be that willingness. Of course, we could never, never do what He did. He suffered an atonement, as you said, but there should be with us the willingness as it tells us.
He laid down his life, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is the principle with us of being willing to.
Sacrifice ourselves, not in the sense of bearing sin, the Lord Jesus alone could do that, but in personal sacrifice and devotedness and love for one another. Shouldn't we?
That connects with the 4th chapter or as much as Christ is suffered for us.
Even there is not the atonement, but it's the will of God was definitely and always before him regardless of consequences and He is thus our example that we have the same mind. So we go on the 1St chapter 4.
I just noticed in the end of that second chapter the.
Shepherd and overseer of our souls that He is watching us in our pathway here. He is the he is the Good Shepherd that gave his life for the sheep, but now he is the Great Shepherd caring for us in our pathway here.
Until this third chapter, we have some very practical exhortations about our feelings and the relationships of life and with one another.
That also have something to do with our locking in a way that's pleasing to him and how often are we're tested in the daily things of life and the relationships of life and that courteousness says.
It's mentioned in the in the eighth verse. Finally, be all of one mind, have compassion one of another. Love is rather than be careful, be courteous that if we don't follow in this pathway, why we may enjoy a certain amount of the spiritual thing God would have us to enjoy, but in a practical sense that we don't experience what God has provided for us.
Even in the natural relationships of life, he is the overseer of our souls. He cares not only for our eternal salvation and our conflicts, perhaps in the spiritual, but he's concerned about how we go through life in a natural sense, how often these things are lacking. Well, he's the overseer of our souls.
00:45:17
The brown isn't the flesh used in more than one way in this? In the fourth, yes. In this 4th beginning of the 4th.
Chapter The principle of the flesh is used, as well as the thought of the body, isn't it?
Notice the first verse. For as much then, as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh.
In the second verse that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh.
To the lust of man. There's a different line of things, isn't it?
May we notice that those two words?
For us in verse one.
Is not the real thought.
Mr. Darby does have it in brackets in his translation.
Upon him very careful looking into this subject, 1 discovers that there's not any real ground, nor the context. Is it the thought of his atoning sufferings? It is his example as a sufferer that we are to imitate, that is, that we should not live unto our own will.
But unto God's will is the purpose of these first four or five verses.
Now as to the question you raised, I am aware of the fact that Mister Darby quotes from the 6th the Romans asked to.
Reckon yourself to be dead into sins. He actually quotes that in his exposition of this. But in general it is not Paul's doctrine here like it is in Romans 6IN general that's not Peter's line, but here the great point is.
That Christ was the example.
For suffering that we might also take up the following in his steps as to having one avowed purpose to live to God's will, regardless of every other thing.
That's the thought in these first four or five verses. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I leave, yet not I by Christ give it in me. Give it in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, engaged Himself for me.
I guess it's the same daughter.
Well, the only thing that I was going to call attention to was that there never was any principle of the flesh in the sense that it may be applied to us with the Lord Jesus, ever.
That is, the thought is that as he took a body down here.
Who manifested the will of God in that body? But when you come to the second verse, we find with ourselves that we had lived in the flesh, which is another lie of faith.
How about the latter part of the first verse? Either that suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin. Is that nothing?
Does that not also bring us to ourselves and that flesh which is identified with the old nature?
Is the thought here, does this commend itself that?
Ceasing from sin bring suffering in the flesh is clearly the essence of it.
Doesn't mean that we've done with we've done forever with the sinning, but there has been that misconduct and it's appealed to the flesh and through the grace of God I've I've cut it off while it has caused suffering in the flesh, the flesh didn't like it.
It was distasteful. Is that that command itself?
If we may add another thought here, the Lord Jesus Christ in that body prepared for him that knew no sin.
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He came to do the will of God.
His entire corpse.
Thus entailed a path of suffering.
Now he is an example for us who have.
An entirely different nature in flesh.
Now he accommodated himself to us by becoming a man, took flesh, but poorly flesh. In our case, we are in flesh.
Our problem is because of having this tendency to sin. But the great point is that the one principle he had in his mind always is to do God's will. Now that we can have.
That's what these verses teach, that we can have that purpose to do God's will regardless of the sufferings that go with it. They accompany. They accompany. His life was characterized by doing God's will and suffering for it. Now we in flesh, his followers have the Holy Spirit for the power to have the same mind in us that he had that purpose to do God's will. That's first four verses.
12 and two there it is running.
Hebrews 12 and 2 bear this out.
Read it.
Looking on to Jesus, the author, finisher of our faith.
Who Joy?
That was set before endured the cross despising the shame and to sat down with the right hand of the drone God with even the joy for him to do this.
That was who for the joy that was set before him.
Here you had the joy of doing God's will right through to the end of it all, the joy that was set before him. I suppose that would be to be returned to the glory.
I understand what you have brought before us, Brother Brown, but of course it's very difficult for us to disassociate the idea of the physical body from the common nature that's in it. And because of this, why there's not only physical suffering in doing the will of God?
That is, supposing a person, a slave, wanted to please God and his master wanted him to go into the idols temple. Well, he might be beaten and in that way physically suffered. But then there's also another side that wants he indulged himself in certain sinful pleasures.
And when he seeks to please the Lord, there's not only the physical suffering, he might endure a beating because he wouldn't fulfill the desire of his master, that would be suffering in his physical flesh, but when he says no to certain things that he wants enjoyed as a Sinner in his sins.
Now the, the, shall I say the fallen nature is involved and the flesh, the sinful thorn flesh has to suffer. And it seems to me that that thought is brought in here too. I believe what you say, that in following the war there is a certain physical suffering, so it says you have not yet resisted on the blood striving against sin. The Lord Jesus would rather die than disobey.
That the path of obedience involved physical suffering, and so is our brother. Read to us in Galatians 2.
That it says that the life which I now live in the flesh, that's not the fallen nature there, that's simply in the body. I live by the faith of the Son of God. However, there is something here that seems to introduce the life, the person who lived in his unsaved days.
And how in refraining from this, there may not necessarily be a physical suffering. I may not be beaten for it, but the old nature hasn't changed. And if I love certain things before, I say that fallen nature is still the same. And in following the Lord, there is not only the physical suffering that I might have to endure, but the flesh suffers in being restrained.
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that she should not do the things that she would.
00:55:04
The character of Peter's ministry is, some of us know, has to do with God's government.
And necessarily with our practice here and even in that 11Th verse of Chapter 2 we had today.
Or was that yesterday?
To abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul.
Peter is emphasizing practice.
Paul is emphasized, emphasizing in some of his teaching nature.
And here in the next verse.
Verse two you get that thought right there that he no longer should live the rest of his life. The great purpose is to get our hearts one to do God's will to get us to practice.
That doing God's will is our business. It's practice. And Peter emphasized the side of things because it's governmental truth.
And as I say, if we get too deep into Paul's doctrine here in Peter, I think that it misses the point.
Now what you say is true, by the way, brethren, I want to own that. But I think Peter's line is A trifle different.
How good it is to to take this second verse to heart and it should there be any here who have been walking in the.
In the path of self will, that this might be the day to make the change he should no longer. This is practical, is it not? He no longer could live the rest of his time in the flesh through the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
Turn to 1St Corinthians. I believe it's nine. I know this is in Paul's doctrine again, but still I I think that it's good for us to read this verse at the 27 first.
I'll read it in a different translation. I buffet my body.
9 and 27 I buffet my body and lead it captive, less having creeks to others. I should be myself rejected. Now this is complete rejection in the sense that one may even be a preacher and still he may not himself be saved because he proves it.
By the fact that he is not controlled the body. Amen. The Newman has a life that is able to the power of the spirit dwelling in it, and to keep his body under to read it in our regular translation. But I keep my body under. I keep under my body and bring it under subject into subjection, lest that by any means.
When I have preached to others, I myself should be.
A castaway. And so the principle here is that.
Believer suffers in the flesh, it's true, but there is that power that enables him walk to walk through the glory of God down here.
Rice left you that example. We have the same life.
It seems rather.
Nice that the expressions here, although one sees the difference between Peter's doctrine and Paul.
But substantially we have, I believe, what was thought to be brought before the young people in the opening verse of Romans 12.
There it's presenting our bodies, a living sacrifice.
Our sacrifice involves putting to death, doesn't it?
And so the there is the practical, I'm not speaking now the doctrinal truth, but the practical truth of the body indeed being under subjection, that the flesh may know practical death, and then service to the Lord in connection with it.
Leave that simple thought with us. Well, let's spend a little bit of a puzzle sometimes the young believers I know, a young believer back at home heard someone say, well, since I've been saved, I have no more desire to do those things. And this young person thought, well, I I'm afraid I couldn't say that because I find there is a desire in my heart to do those things I once did.
01:00:15
And.
He thought that there was something wrong with his Christian experience altogether, that he should even have a desire to do them. Well. Let us remember that the flesh never changes, and that when the flesh the fall of nature I speak of, is refused, it suffers. It suffers, and for a Christian to refuse something that the fallen nature wants not it involves suffering to that nature which wants to be given.
To exert itself. So when a Christian says, well I have no desire to do these things, it's the new man that doesn't have the desire. But the old man suffers when it's refused always. And so we have to. If a person doesn't understand the truth of the two natures, he finds it hard to just understand what is meant by.
A brother or sister who, says Hola, you wouldn't have any desire to do those things if you were saved.
All we do, the old nature is there, and it suffers when it ceases from sin. But of course, with the new man, its delight, its liberty, its joy is to do the will of God. And so, as far as the new man is concerned, I can say if the new man is speaking no, it has no desire for those things. And in a sense I identify myself with the new man.
That is, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I connect the eye with the new man, and so I can say, no, I don't want to do that. I don't find pleasure in it now.
That's the Newman speaking through me as an individual. But the the old nature, brethren, doesn't change. And when we refuse it, it suffers because it likes to be indulged.
Very, very true. We need it. In this case, the Lord Jesus had no kind of suffering.
Like you're Speaking of like we would have. And so in the beginning here of this chapter, it is that we should have the same mind as he had.
It is related to the purpose of heart, to doing God's will that we may have because we have a new nature and the Holy Spirit to help us to practice it.
You to trust with his own heart is a fool and one who has that self-confidence is sure to get into trouble because.
The heart is deceitful, above all things, industrially wicked. When we find ourselves in blessed circumstances and we think that everything is going right, that's just the time when the enemy is going to slip in.
Isn't it true that a Christian and brother Abel just mentioned I have no desire to do these things anymore. Put the side the word of God and becomes small and complacent and stops his prayer life. Those appetites will revive those things that he once loved. Became a Christian, learned to hate the love again. I think over a period of years this has been shown out.
And some.
Don't just restore them till their deathbed.
That's the third verse that we've come to for the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked in lascivious, less excessive wine, reveling vanity, abominable idolatry, valiant leader. Later we learned about a man who had forgotten his perch from his old sins.
And isn't that the result of neglecting the word and prayer?
Putting the present thing before us and corruption may not first take the form of moral corruption. It may be simply the the heart and the mind getting away from Christ. But remember, it will end up in corruption.
Get that in Hebrews, the one who turns away from the truth either goes back to the ordinances or ends in open sin. One of the two, possibly both Hebrews apostasy, but.
The other.
01:05:00
That you referred to.
In second Peter one, do you mean to say that the Christian can become blind?
Yes, it's a believer there. That's the difference in this connection with this verse, brethren.
This third verse, then we just turned to a verse in Corinthians.
Seven 7th chapter. First Corinthians.
Now it's the 6th chapter.
Six chapter first victims.
We've been speaking a little of the body.
And it's been before us in these meetings in the 12Th chapter of Romans.
The body.
In the 13th verse of the 6th chapter First Corinthians.
Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
God has both raised up the Lord and will raise, will also raise up us, raise up us by His own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
What know ye not that he which is joined, who in Parliament is one body or two set? He shall be one place, that he that is joined unto the Lord is 1 spirit.
Please fornication, I understand the meaning of plea is to stay as far away.
Parameters possible never to get close to it. Please Fornication every sin that a man doeth is without the body.
And he that committed fornication sinners against his own body. But know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and you're not your own or your bought was the price. Wherefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God.
God, believe this God. These verses are connected with what we have.
In the third verse of our 4th chapter.
First, Peter.
But the time past of our life, they suffice us to have brought the will of the Gentiles when we walk. Notice that when we walked, this was the character of the walk in lasciviousness.
Lust.
Excessive wine, revelings, bunch of things.
And abominable idolatry.
Now the judgment of God is going to come down upon these things.
And we find today that.
The world is manifesting openly what has been held back because of the suppression by the truth of Christianity in these lands. But when Christianity is being given up.
When the truth of the Scriptures are being set aside, the heathen tendencies are coming out again. Now this is set forth in the first chapter of Romans, but the heathen tendencies were. But I think you'll find in the last chapter, or rather the third chapter of Second Timothy, the apostle Paul lets us know that this will be the character of the end of Christendom.
This very thing.
Now we as Christians have a valuable trust in our hands. We have the truth of God.
And the enemy is seeking to break this up, to make it boy. And the way he's doing it is to bring in, first of all, that low state of soul that would neglect the word of God, neglect the prayer.
And then the result will be the allowing of these lusts of the flesh to come in and take over, whatever they may be. And the result will be, there will be no testimony left for the name of the Lord Jesus down here. So we should be especially on our guard, not only in our conduct, but in our language.
01:10:03
And all that pertains to our fellowship with one another that we remember.
That we are not our own. We're bought with the price and we're joined to the Lord. We have the Spirit of God indwelling us and we're we're reminded here that these things belong to our past, not the present, it said of the man who lives in resurrection life is living in the future.
And the present to him is the past. Living in the future, as far as what's before Him, is the object of being with Christ.
That's his object and the being, like Christ and everything in the present, is simply used in passing as it's needed. Never is an option.
Well, they're logged in with.
A licensed Creative 5 have to do with that.
The license 3/5.
Yes, Colossians three and five is the are the members upon the earth. If you look at the Colossians 2 and.
11 First it should read In whom also ye are circumcised, with the circumcision made without hands, and the putting off of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
The doubt in the fifth verse of the of the third chapter.
Mortified.
Therefore.
Your members.
In the death of Christ we are seen as the body of flesh being put off.
In the In the death of Christ.
Without the exercises, the members that we have on the earth.
That there to be mortified. I believe that's the teaching of this. That is the Gilgal truth in verse 5.
Colossians 35IS Gilgal truth? I don't want to get too difficult to be understood now, but you read in chapter 2 verse 11 about circumcision. Now there's a difference between circumcision truth and Gilgal truth.
It was at Gilgal where they did first circumcise the the males of all Israel. That was once never to be repeated for that generation.
Just once, is circumcision truth?
And our old man truth is related to that.
It can never be repeated. Our old man has been crucified with Christ.
Romans 66, Ephesians 4/22 and the correct translation. And in Colossians 3:00 and 9:00, which is before us here, the correct translation, It's always in the past tense so that circumcision is looked at as always in the past. It was at the cross of Christ that it occurred.
Fully, never to be repeated again. But then they did well to go back to Gilgal again and again and again when we come into God's presence.
Having no confidence in the flesh, judging it as such and.
Know that our strength is in the Lord and the power of His might.
That's Gilgal truth, no confidence in the flesh. We go forth from Gilgal, we need to be there again and again and continually go back to Gilgal, and that's Colossians 35 put to death. Therefore mortify the deeds of your body, the activities that are liable to go forth. That would be bad. Put them to death right at the start and keep it so.