Address—Dean Rule
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Like maybe before we pray to read one verse, you'd like to look at it together. It's in second Peter chapter 3.
In verse 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. Amen. We pray together.
What I'd like with the Lord's help this afternoon to talk a little bit about is God's school. They've looked one day a little bit of looking unto Jesus, the vision for our lives a little bit it just very briefly a communion with God the Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ and today.
That's the Lord's help. I'd like to talk a little bit about the school of God.
And maybe just to talk about a few of the characteristics of this before we look at some verses.
I don't know if any of you have ever been in the circumstance of coming up and having a a book report due the next day, or having a test in an English class or something like that that required reading something that was 4 or 500 pages and you ran out of time or you were busy doing other things. And so off you chug to the nearest bookstore and buy us the Cliff notes.
That have the questions and summaries and.
Some main points and some character sketches and everything else and they help you get through the test. I don't know if you've ever been in the position of trying to reduce everything you possibly could down to a one page set of notes that you could study, or whether you've gone off to someone else and said hey, would you mind loaning me your notebook? I've had classes that I found were rather boring and fell asleep in and every 15 minutes or so would try to wake up enough to.
The notes of the person next to me, you know, those things all can work in the schools that we go to in this world. But when we're talking about the school of God, we're talking about something that's different. And we're going to look at a few characteristics. We don't have very much time, but a few characteristics of it. Today we're going to find that God's school.
Doesn't have any comparative grades. It's a school that none of us will ever get out of until.
We hear the shout until we're called home to be with the Lord Jesus. It's a school.
That has extended hours in the sense that last 24 hours a day.
Seven days a week, 365 days a year, for the rest of our lifetime, because it's something that will influence where we are, what we're doing, the decisions we're making through all that time. That's another characteristic of God's school. God's school doesn't have shortcuts like some of the things that we talk about. Another thing about God's school.
Is that it's full of laboratories.
I don't know whether when you hear the word laboratory in a class, whether that's something that makes you.
Happy because you're doing something with your hands or whether it's the kind of thing you say, oh, I got to get through those because I'd much rather be taking notes or reading books or whatever. Different ones of us have responses to laboratories. I worked in laboratory for a number of years, and then they've gone and taught science and a lot of the classes are laboratories. That happens to be something I like, but maybe laboratories are something you don't like.
But God's school is full of laboratories, and so we're going to go and look at a few of the characteristics of it today. But one of the purposes of God's school is that he wants us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so perhaps we could start maybe in a little connection to what we had yesterday in Second Timothy.
Excuse me first Timothy.
We're going to read chapter 4, verse 10 to start.
And if you're trying to think of a little bit of a title to put on this, this is the admission requirements to God's School, the admission requirements.
One Timothy chapter 4 and verse 10. For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach.
Because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men.
Especially of those that believe.
Have you ever been frustrated by looking and looking at problems you've had in your own life, things that you have struggles with, and you look around the people that you work with or you go to school with and you don't see the same struggles in their lives. Sometimes it may look like their lives go along with sort of not having the same problems you do, some of the same conflicts you do.
00:05:17
The admission requirement to God's school is to trust.
In the living God is to know to be a believer, to know to be one who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To know him as your Savior. And immediately one of the problems that that those of us who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ have is a conflict. We have some conflicts that this that the rest of the people don't have. And the objective this afternoon is to not talk about those conflicts, but maybe for a very brief review to think about it. Once you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you still have the flesh. I still have the flesh. We still have something.
Sometimes just it seems like wells up and has desires that are so strong for things that are so wrong. It's a battle and we know it. It's a battle and it has a battle continually with the new nature that we have inside. Those who do not trust in the living God, those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior don't have that battle.
They don't have it another enemy and they're they're well known, but the first one, if you know, if you if you've never spent a lot of time reading the book of Romans, it's a excellent book to really try to read and digest. Another battle, another enemy we have is this world. It has a whole system built up that tries to make people comfortable, tries to attract us and everything else. It's full of attractions and this world is full of people who have sometimes very high.
Intelligence. California is probably the place in the world. There's more Nobel Peace Prize win, Nobel Prize winners, excuse me, and things like physics, I'm sure in California, from California than from almost any country, entire country in the world.
State that's full of people with with higher education and everything else and people that that are always constantly trying to set this world is the goal. The problem is a person with an IQ of 200 maybe twice as intelligent as a person with an IQ of 100, but a person with an IQ of 200.
Is a complete imbecile in comparison with the with God.
Have you ever thought about that comparison? This world is a system that people go around comparing themselves in classes, in jobs, there's rank orders on everything. And people look around and say, well, I'm smarter than he is. I'm smarter than she is. I've got it together up here. And they're so busy making the comparison, looking down, that they never stopped to look up and compare themselves against a God who is infinitely intelligent, who is the creator of everything.
Of everything, a person who can move behind all the scenes and move all the circumstances so that even in the middle of problems, they can workout for the benefit of a multitude of people. We can't do that. We can't resolve, if I could put it that way, schedule conflicts in an athletic event and things like that. But God is capable of resolving all the conflicts, and so we're in a world that tries to elevate itself.
But it forgets the God is so far above it.
And so that's one of the battles and the third battle, and it's well known, but maybe it's a review that I need and that's that Satan is constantly causing problems. He'll come up to you after you've done something, even for the Lord Jesus in a flattery about it, saying it'll be the first, if I could put it that way without us feeling it, He'll be the first to pat us on the back and say nice job. He's a great flatterer if that's what he wants to do in some cases, and he knows when that'll work.
On other occasions, he doesn't come to flatter, he comes to just tear us down and discourage us and make us feel really bad. And so there's one characteristic of this school that if we could look at it and and to to leave it there. But in the book of Isaiah, no. Excuse me, Psalms.
Some, I think it's 144.
Verse one and here we have an introduction to one of the teachers in this school.
One of the teachers in the school is the Lord Jesus.
Here in Jehovah, in the Old Testament, but it's the same one. Blessed be the Lord, my strength which teacheth my feet, my hands to war and my fingers to fight, my goodness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer, my shield and he and whom I trust, who subdueth my people under me.
00:10:10
Where we live, it's very common for university students and students and even other people to come to the university campus whenever there's a a raise in the gasoline prices go up or something around the central university. If you have to go anywhere close to it, the Main St. in front of it is always blocked whenever there's any problem. And if you want to go around it, the students can't get to their classes, classes have to be cancelled.
Because if you go down even a block below, I've had to go sometimes a block below because there's a post office that familial certain things at.
There'll be students out there and they'll be taking rocks and and throwing them and the police are there with a, with a blue and Gray sort of vehicle that has screens on all the windows. It's almost set up every time there's a protest as a war zone, the school is under siege. God's school, those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior are in a school that's constantly under attack. It's constantly under attack.
When you and I go off to some school where where we might.
Study or teach or whatever, It's a pretty calm place. There's not much at stake. It's the concept of teaching certain subjects and people learning it and and spitting it back out on an exam. But in God's school, all the students are constantly under attack. We're under attack from problems within ourselves. We're under attack from problems outside ourselves. And so one of the things that the students, those of us who are in God's school, those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior.
One of the things we have to learn how to do is to fight the battles. Now, it's not like a few years ago, the University of Beirut, Lebanon, where you would read about it and the teachers would be killed and everything else. That's not usually the the pattern, but there's an attack on you and there's an attack on me continually.
We can read our Bible in the morning. I had an experience in years and living in the Chicago area where several of us were bachelors and sharing, renting an apartment, then finally a house and stuff where I would go to a 711 or something like that in the morning and I might have spent some time that morning reading my Bible.
And praying and hopefully thinking some about what I'd read. And then then if things were busy and there wasn't, with the poor planning and everything else and a bachelor household, we might end up going off to the store to get some yogurt and something like that for breakfast. Well, I found sometimes the battle started the day I walked in a sense, out of out of the morning class, if I can put it that way.
Got in the car, turned it on and drove to the nearest store.
And got to the store and behind the counter where I had to pay, there were things that I would see on the counter, magazines where there was a battle that started, things that went right to my eye, things that attracted my old nature. In fact, one of the things that I found I had to do is I had to drive a little farther to a store because I wasn't strong enough for the battle.
I wasn't strong enough for the battle.
And so we're in a school and when we come out of classes, we're constantly under siege. We're being attacked from every side, and we can't fight those battles on our own. But if we go in First Timothy chapter 4 and we go on in these verses, we get some examples of some things that that are supposed to characterize us. And we don't have very long. So I'm going to go through them fairly quickly.
First Timothy chapter 4 and verse 12. Let no man despise.
Thy youth.
I trust, and I think I can say it honestly. I don't despise your youth. I respect it. You've got energy that I no longer have. I didn't think that I would be saying 5 or 10 or 15 years ago that approaching 40 years old, I would already start to feel like I was running out of energy to do things.
But you've got it, you've got it, you've showed it when I see it on the ball field and that's great. Like Doug said this morning, I like to see people that go out and do something and do it with their whole heart where they don't just say, well, this is a championship game of four man volleyball, so I'm going to give it all I've got. But now I'm surrounded with a bunch of people that aren't as good volleyball players I am. So I'm just going to half, half heartedly do it. No, it's it's good to see you give it. Give it whenever you're doing it to to give energy and everything else. But you've got youth.
You've got energy. You've got energy that I don't have. I live in a place with my family in the mountains and.
Doors open if you ever want to come and visit. But I'll point, I could go to a place along the road or I can point out houses that are isolated up in the corners of them, you know, back in the hills and back in valleys and everything else. And I doubt if many of many of those people have probably never, never, never had anyone come to their house, knock on the door and said I'd like to talk to you about the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:15:16
And they're still waiting.
And I don't have the energy, very honestly, I don't have the energy to make it to a lot of those places. You do. What about your youth? How is it being used? It's fine to go out and play the games. I love them. I'm looking forward tomorrow to a softball game. But when it's all said and done, what about your youth? How are you using it? Is that energy something you say? I'll give God.
Time in my life. I'll give God energy in my life.
When I get to an age where I'm done doing what I want to do for myself or right now, are you giving the best of what you have to God? Are you giving everything you have to the Lord Jesus? That's a question for every one of us. Let's go on. In this verse it says, but be thou an example or a model of the believers in Word.
What are you saying this week?
You're closer. You're closer to the people that are in your cabin, in your tent deck than I am.
You, you know them better than I'll ever know them. What about the words that even come out of your mouth in this time? Sometimes they have needs, and there's no way that I'll ever get inside, if I can put it that way. Get inside their brains the way you can. Or they get inside your brains to understand. But you can be someone with your words to, to be able to comfort someone who's going through a difficult time, to perhaps exhort someone who is, who's really struggling with whether they should be.
Doing something to edify, to build up someone who's discouraged. You can be doing that in a way that many times those who are older, those who might meet at 7:00 in the morning for a prayer meeting might not be able to do. Are you using your words this week for the Lord Jesus? It says in conversation, but it perhaps if that was translated today, it would say in conduct.
Is your conduct something that attracts people to the Lord Jesus Christ? Makes people say hey, that person really wants to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and they want to live for him?
And that conduct can have an effect on others, it says. In love or in charity.
Is love being shown out?
You don't want to know how to show love in a very practical way. Have you seen any young person around here this week who seems to be a little isolated, who doesn't seem to know other people, who seems to be sort of standing off on their own? You know, hey, maybe you're with four or five people that you feel very close to, people that you enjoy being with and you have limited time being with. Would you spend 5 minutes today going over and saying, hi, my name is so and so? What's your name? Where are you from, like to get to?
Is that love? Yeah. The world talks about love all the time. We talk about love all the time. But do we know practically how to simply show love to others who might be here? And I think there was a comment made some earlier today, People who are alone in a crowd. There's nothing worse than being alone in a crowd.
It says in spirit, in faith. You know what? It is in faith, in purity, the greatest attack almost on the life of a young person is on their purity, the greatest attack.
There's an attack on the purity of young women. There's an attack on the purity of young men.
If I can speak to the young women for a minute.
Don't ever be fooled.
By promises or statements of love from a young man who doesn't respect your purity, keep your purity.
Young men in this world.
Have made.
Millions and millions of statements of love with the objective of violating the purity of a young woman.
And then when the young man has what he wants, he's gone. He doesn't care about the young woman when he's done that. Don't ever let it happen. You're going to pay a price.
There's millions of young women in the world who now are carrying the price of the loss of their purity, and the young man has disappeared. Young men don't ever violate the purity of a woman.
00:20:05
You may be able to walk away from it the way people in this world walk away from it. You may be able to walk away from it with your feet. But your conscience will never walk away from violating the purity of a young woman.
That's on this list and it's inspired by God that that's in this list. And that's a very important thing. And don't think because we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, because we're we can be together at a time like this, that we're not tempted by those same things. And don't ever think you'll get beyond the age where you're going to be tempted by those things.
Purity are we examples of that in our life? There's everything in this world to defile us to to destroy that purity that God wants in our minds and we have to constantly fight the battle to get back and and speak in prayer to the Lord, confess what we've seen that gets at least our feet, if I could put it that way, dirty.
But purity is in the list. It says in verse 13 Till I come give attendance to reading.
To exhortation to doctrine, there is no when I was a young person.
And not that old and I don't think yet, but but I, I constantly thought, oh, it'd be great if I get one book that I could read and was about 75 pages and it would once I read that I would know what was in the Bible.
That somehow it could be condensed down that way. But I've got a question for you. It was a question that was asked many years ago, I believe, by Doug's father, Columbia Cannon, at a Des Moines conference many years ago when I was maybe 13 or 14 years old. He stood up and I don't remember what he spoke on, but I do remember he asked a question at the beginning of the meeting. He said, have you ever read the whole Bible from the first verse of Genesis?
To the last verse of Revelation. Have you ever read it all?
I hadn't read it well. That kind of spurred me on. It took a while but but give time to read.
Don't be no, I understand that there's days and I have them where two or three verses is is maybe all I get started with in the morning, but.
Two or three verses.
Multiplied out over 365 days if that's all we ever get.
Isn't very much.
It may get us through one book, one of the gospels or something like that.
If you have a class at school that's requiring a lot of your attention, you may.
You may have to read far more than that. You will have to read far more than that to get through the class. Well, this is a class that lasts for our whole life. I just have a question for you and don't answer it out loud, just answer it to yourself. Have you ever read this whole book from cover to cover? When you're done, did you start over?
This is the book that gives the instructions in the school of God. It's the book that will give the wisdom that we need when we're down here. So that's one thing in that verse #4 verse 14. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying out of the hands of the presbytery. We don't have anyone that comes and and puts their hands on us to give it to us now, but God has given you a gift.
And you may say, well, I don't know how, I don't know what it is.
If you get out on the baseball diamond.
The first baseman, if we can, we can go around to a few of the positions. The first baseman has to be someone who is very sure with their hands because the ball may come at any angle. They have to be able to keep their foot on the base and reach whether it's it's high and to one side or whether it's down in the ground. One of the they don't have to be the best person to throwing the ball on the team.
But they they should be very good at catching it. It's an absolute necessity. It's tough to be able to throw it, but but that's a characteristic. The person is playing third base and if there's a right-handed batter, they better have quick reflexes because sometimes it doesn't take the ball very long to get there. And if you want to play shortstop, you better be able to throw the ball long distance because maybe you're going to get it in the very deep part of the base paths. And if you're going to play left field, you better not be the slowest person on the team.
Well, how are you going to know which position maybe your most ideally suited for? It's not by sitting and reading a book that says how to play softball or how to play baseball that that won't do it. Yeah, that may help. But you're going to have to get out in the field. You're going to have to get out and do it and find out. And if you're having problem at one thing, well, maybe it's time to go on and try something else. Well, that may be how you'll discover your gift.
00:25:17
Maybe there's going to be an opportunity, maybe you go out with someone else.
I sometimes have gone out with Rons brother Paul and and if the two of us go and we were to invite 100 people to a gospel meeting, if I invited them, one or two might come. If Paul invited them, 10 or 20 of them might come.
The Lord has given him a gift in making that contact and the contact with someone in the gospel.
Well, it doesn't mean that I, I wouldn't go invite someone, but I recognize there's someone who's far more gifted at that than I am. Well, are you ever out in, if I can put it, the playing field of life, putting whatever God has given you into practice, trying it, trying to perhaps share some verses teaching someone or whatever.
That's the way you're going to discover it, but don't neglect it. Verse 15. This is where we found Isaac in the field yesterday.
It says, meditate or occupy thyself with these things. Give thyself wholly to them.
That thy profiting may appear to all.
We're busy. We're living in an age that has so many things to attract us and so much business. If you're driving down the freeway in Los Angeles, it is not often in rush hour, a time where you can be completely daydreaming.
Because vehicles may stop in front of you, far in front, and the reaction time that you're left with is not very much. You and I have to make a determined effort to find time to think, to occupy ourselves with the things of God. Because we have days that in the day of convenience, we start doing more things and our time gets more filled. And so we have to meditate on these things. We have to take time. You and I have to look for quiet hours.
I I found that, for instance, in the university, one of the one of the few quiet hours I had was to try to find some time when I was eating to go off and and get away from other people. Or even in the middle of a crowd of people if I was at some place having a hamburger, sitting at a table myself and trying to tune out everything that was around into focus on these things.
You're going to have to find the time. I can't tell you when it is. I'm going to tell you that you have an advantage over many people in the world, and that's this. You're usually living in a place where it's not so crowded.
Many people in the world.
There are there are cases that there's a line painted here on the floor. And if I took from this fireplace over to where Brother Wally is and made a little square and took something like that. I have been in houses that had 10 people living in a space like that with three beds tied up on top of each other, no room to get a quiet time. It takes an extra battle.
Most of you probably have your own room, or a room with one, one other person, or maximum 2.
But you have spaces, you have houses where there's a basement you can go off and get into the corner.
Other people don't have that. How about you? How are you using that time? How am I using the opportunity of having?
Some quiet time without distractions. If we're going to give ourselves wholly to these things, we're going to have to have the quiet time. Because if you go back and you were to read the biography of anyone where people have done things and others have said that that life is worth writing down into a biography, you're going to find out that those people, those people had hidden time which no one ever saw.
Perhaps, or very few people knew about, they had quiet time alone with the Lord Jesus.
They had time that was spent where the Lord Jesus was bringing him through circumstances, where they were spending quiet time, where they got rid of things that would fill their time. And there are things we've heard of things that will fill our time. One thing that was mentioned this morning is music. I'm not going to stand up here and make some rule about music, but I am going to say that if.
It silence is a thing that young people today.
Are not very used to.
If I come in and I have students come in for a science test, there's a very common apparatus that nothing wrong with the apparatus that the instrument itself is fine, but they'll have a Walkman and they'll have earphones on and it's, it's like I can't go through the through the test for 5 minutes or half an hour without listening to music. I said, well, it's not going to help your concentration. Oh, I'm, I'm used to it. No problem. I said, well, you have answers recorded on the tape you're playing. No.
00:30:12
They there there's a but, but people live where where there has to be filled. How how are you at handling silence?
Think about that for a minute. God's school sometimes requires silence.
So that we can listen to the voice from above.
Can you handle silence?
Or there's some noise in the sense some music, whatever kind it is, and I'm not sitting here in judgment on it, but but can you handle silence?
If someone said to you, I'm going to put you in a room that is absolutely soundproof and the only things you're going to have in there are a table, a chair, a mat on the floor and your Bible, and I'm going to leave you in there for the next six hours.
Does it sound like prison?
Or do you look at that as a oh?
No interruptions. I can spend time with the Lord. How does that strike you? How does that strike me? Is that time we could enjoy? Is that time we could benefit from?
Last verse Verse 16 Take heed to thyself and unto the doctrine.
Continuing them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself in the sense of save our testimony, and them that hear thee. And I'd like to just read some last verses before we close. Time has gone almost in Philippians. Excuse me, in Romans. I just like to read about the laboratory classes for a minute.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 3.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also. Knowing the tribulation worketh patience and patience. Experience and experience hope.
There was a young brother a number of years ago who asked an older brother to pray for him. He said I'm having a problem. He said I don't have much patience. And the story goes and I from the way I heard it, I believe it was a true story. The two of them got down to pray. The older brother said, dear Lord, please send tribulation into the life of this young, young brother.
And went on and and that was it. Young brother got up to him, got up from their knees and he said, I don't think you heard me right. He said I didn't ask for tribulation.
He said. I ask for patience.
Said But let's let's read this verse in Romans chapter 5. We glory in tribulations also knowing the tribulation worketh patience.
In God's labyrinth, in God's school, the laboratories often include tribulations. They include problems. They may be problems in relationships. They may be problems in in temptations. They may. There's many, many different kinds of tribulations. We don't have time to look at them now.
But tribulations are often the start of God's laboratories for us.
Because the tribulation is a thing that God uses to say.
Oh, now, now what am I going to do next? What am I going to do next? I've got this knowledge stored in my brain, but now I've got to find a way to apply it in the situation I'm in. That's God's laboratory. And in the objective, in the end, is what tribulation worketh. Patience. Patience means we have to wait on God because we don't have the answers in ourselves. We sometimes can't change the circumstances.
You and I may sometimes beat through a door, we may pound through it, and God may allow us to go through the door and find out on the other side that there was something he was trying to spare us from in our lives. In Psalms, you can read about the about the children of Israel and says he granted their request, but he sent leanness into their soul. Nothing is worth leanness in our souls. How often we've experienced that and it's not worth it. It's not worth it. The tribulation is far better.
Because the Tribulation produces patience, it produces a waiting on God in the circumstance.
And what about patience? It produces experience. It produces experience. Experience is one of the key ingredients of wisdom. I don't know if you've picked up one of those booklets that is in the back corner on Proverbs, but I picked up one a day or two ago and started to look at it and, and it talks about wisdom. It's a really worthwhile little booklet to read. It won't take you very long, but wisdom is a very important thing to to get something that through the experiences of our lives.
00:35:08
The Word of God applied in Him helps us know what to do from day-to-day in the things that we we confront and experience hope.
God never abandons us in any of our tribulations. We may turn away from Him, but He never abandons us.
He just shows if we'll let him, He shows how He's with us there the whole time, helping us, permitting things. If you never had sorrow, how could God comfort you? You wouldn't have any need of it. But isn't it wonderful to know God as the God of comfort?
You can go on through the whole list of any problems you might have. God permits them in our lives because that way we learn things that we would never learn any other way. We'll never learn them in heaven. We'll only learn them here. And so while we're in God's school.
Let's thank him for the lessons. Let's thank him for the lessons. Let's praise him for the lessons. If you've got some health problem.
Do you thank him for it? Are you upset?
It's a test. There will be other problems or relationships, problems with financial problems or whatever it might be. They're all opportunities for God in his school to show us that He's taking care of us. And if you want to find the other teacher, you can look in John 14 and 1St John 2 where it talks about the Holy Spirit being our teacher. He's able to take this, the instructions in this book.
And apply them individually to your lives and mind. Let's just thank our Father for it.