Address—Bruce Conrad
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While everyone's getting situated, let's start by singing hymn #104.
Alba's purpose gave us being when in Christ in that vast plan.
ABBA chose the Saints in Jesus long before the world began.
What love the Father bore us so. How precious in his sight when he gave the church to Jesus. Jesus, his whole soul's delight in #104.
Shall we pray?
Our God, our Father, we.
Thank thee for the opportunity to be together here as thy children. We thank thee for the.
Gift of Thy beloved Son, whom Thou did send to be the Savior of the world. We thank Thee for that work in our hearts to pronounce with power and love. Let there be light, and we thank Thee that Thou hast drawn us unto Thy Son. We thank Thee for working in our hearts, that we have been able to see beauty in the one in whom Thou has found Thy delight.
So as we open the scriptures this afternoon, we ask.
For the guidance and leading of Thy Holy Spirit to take up some things from it which concern the glory of Thy beloved Son and of Thyself. We look to Thee, our God and Father, independence for speaker and hearers alike, and that our hearts would be opened and we would be able to receive Thy word and respond with understanding and joy to it. So we ask these things, our God and Father.
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Name of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Well, I had thought to escape taking up what some would consider a difficult subject, and I guess I consider it a little difficult myself.
But with the taking up of John chapter 3 and some of the comments that were made about it.
I thought it would be good for us to consider these two aspects of truth that in a certain way seemed to be opposed to each other, namely the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God to act in accordance with His own will.
I feel clear to take this up and it has been a joy to me to.
Pursue it in my own personal study.
I find it difficult to know exactly where to start to take it up. So we really need the Lord's help in this. But perhaps the simplest way would be just to kind of divide it between, you know, the left hand and the right hand. I remember a couple years ago when we were flew out to the East Coast to try to help one of our daughters while she was having her first child.
And because of COVID we had to isolate for X number of days.
And so we rented a little place on the beach near our house and, and I spent a lot of time walking and, and pondering this very question. I think Brother Kemp mentioned it in the readings. And I'm standing there on the beach and I'm thinking.
You know what a what a marvelous thing. Here I have a left foot, a left leg and a right leg. And here I have a right ear and a left ear. And the scientists tell us we have a right brain and a left brain. I don't know what each one does, but that's who we're told. And here I am looking out at the Infinity out there in the ocean, and I got a right eye and a left eye. And I thought, man, it's kind of like that with these two aspects of the truth.
And God has made man in a wonderful way.
And we are being asked to. We're encouraged to look at things that can't be seen.
I think it's the end of Second Corinthians chapter 4.
Let me let me just turn to that verse and you'll.
You'll appreciate this, I trust.
In 2nd Corinthians 4.
Verse 18 While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
You ask yourself, well how do I look at things that are not seen and then I'm asked to to take in and understand things that are that pass understanding.
So at a certain point we just have to stand in awe that God's ways are higher than ours, and in a certain sense we can't. We can't embrace them all at one time.
And so, so, so we go forward. So first, if those that have been through middle school, and I realize some are too young for that, in middle school you learn mathematics and you start to learn these long equations and you start to have to pay attention to parentheses. When Steve and I were young and learning, sitting under the feet of our teachers, we learned the prophetic scriptures and the outline of prophecy with the use of parentheses.
But there's also a parenthesis that has to do with man's responsibility, and it's a big one.
And then there's a parentheses outside of that, which really isn't a parenthesis at all because it comes from eternity and it goes to eternity. But let's just confine ourselves first to think about responsibility. And so as the brothers were were were commenting in the reading meeting today, it is very clear that man is responsible to God.
God has his rights.
And in a certain sense.
The rights of God and the sovereignty of God is the basis for all of man's rights, and as one brother put it, it's the basis of all morality.
And so we look back and we say, well, when did responsibility start?
Did it start an eternity past? I don't think you can say that it started an eternity past. Man didn't. There was a time when man began. And so we can trace back in the genealogy of the scripture and say about 6000 years ago, the 1St man, Adam and boys and girls. I don't understand. I know it pops up in the news all the time. We found a new man who's 30,000 years old and he was, I don't know about any of that.
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I really don't.
But scripture says that the 1St man, Adam was made a living soul and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And we have Adams genealogy all the way down to this present time. And to me that's what I need to know because that's what has God has taught me how old the earth is and all of these things. I leave that to the scientists, the geologists.
And whoever else ways forward on it. But we have in Genesis one, as we had this morning, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
And he put mine into a position where man was responsible and it didn't matter whether it was 10 trees or three trees or two trees or one tree, it didn't matter. Recently we had some young people over that are just starting to raise their children and bringing them to meeting. And they're trying to learn how to, how to get the, the, the, the child to behave in the meeting and not, you know, swing from the chandeliers and everything.
And I said, well, what we discovered in our life was you could bring in 60 toys, or you can bring in six toys, or you can bring in one toy. But sooner or later they're going to get to the end of the 60 or the 6th or the 1:00. And you're just going to have that, have that discussion or more that says, OK, here's what we're going to do. You're going to have this and you're going to sit there. And when we're done, we'll go out and you can play.
And so that's morality. And so it was in the garden that that.
The man and the woman were told you can eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you cannot eat.
One tree and one command. As a guys that I used to work with, you know when someone messes something, not just we just joke sometimes about after the damage is done, we say we gave you one thing. Of course they had more than that, but that's the way you had one thing to do and they had one thing to not do and they did it and the responsibility was.
Was manifest and you know, Adam chose, Eve chose.
They chose to do what they did, but God chose the consequences of it. I'm indebted to to John Kaiser for that bit of that that tidbit, and I've always appreciated it. We're all you can. You can choose today, you can choose tomorrow. You can make decisions in your life, but you're not free to choose the consequences of your decision. God keeps that to himself. We're guided in the word as to how He's going to respond to certain decisions that are made, but the decisions fall.
Him and so man 8 and off he went in under the governmental hand of God in responsibility and you could trace through the word of God and I'm sure you have how the earth the the 1St man born was a murderer, the very first man born, the 1St man born murdered.
And on it went from there until the earth was filled with violence and corruption.
And God said I repented, and I made man on the earth.
When you stop and think, and I'm going to cheat outside the parentheses a little bit first. When you come to think from the from Proverbs chapter 8.
Where the Spirit of Christ, I believe prophetically, says, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old, in eternity passed, before anything was made that was made, God had before him the children of men.
He had the children of men before him. I remember Brother Lundeen, the late Brother London saying man is God special, special masterpiece.
I know Satan likes to get to make us think that we're part of the animal Kingdom. We're not. There's a flesh of birds, there's a flesh of beasts, there's a flesh of birds, and man has a flesh, and man is God's special creation.
But when? When?
Man when the man and the woman transgressed.
Then the question comes from God.
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What have you done? Where are you?
And what have you done?
Now when we read the word of God.
We try to put inflection. We try to imagine the tone of voice. When the Lord Jesus was here and he said something. We imagine a tone of voice that we think he would have used in making a certain pronouncement.
And when I imagine God coming down and seeing.
That Adam and Eve had partaken of the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and Evil.
And now they were shamed, and the devil's lies that yes, man can discern good from evil, but he has no power to choose the good and to reject the evil. That was the poison of it all. No power at all. That part wasn't discussed, was it?
And God comes down and he says, what? What have you done?
Look at you. Where are you? What have you done?
For an eternity, if we could think of an eternity in time. He looked forward to his creation in man, having fellowship with himself. He came down to have fellowship with man in the cool of the day.
And man made that. He broke that.
And when I imagine those words.
What have you done?
Think of all the sorrow.
Think of all the sorrow in this world for the last 6000 years.
We know just a little bit, a little tiny bit of it.
Think of it all.
Overwhelming.
Brother Lundeen said one time in an address. He said if you knew the he was in Montreal, I think at the time, he said if you knew the sorrow.
And all the souls and all the hearts in one city block, he said. It would drive you insane.
World is full of sorrow.
It's full of death and death by sin.
What a break.
And how I just I just put those words of what have you done? Where art thou? And then there was the the the consequence for the responsibility is unfolding.
And so man becomes, he manifests the corruption that he brought on himself. The earth becomes filled with violence. There's a flood and the man comes out of the flood and he's given government and he doesn't govern himself. And God sets up priesthood in the priest fail and he makes them. He gives the people a king and the king fails and the and on and on it goes.
And the responsibility goes from one thing to another thing to another thing, with the same sad results. And so, as you know, in the parable in the Gospels, it says last of all, last of all, he sent his son.
Last of all.
And so he sent his son, and they say this is the heir, let's kill him, the inheritance shall be ours. And so they take the son. And after all the indignities, they nailed him to a cross of wood.
So in a certain sense, the curtain drops.
That's the end, because it was last of all he sent his son.
As some of the brothers maybe said this morning, no more testing.
Why test something when you know what it is? You've manifested what it is.
You now know that the crowning sin of man is when God came down to man in goodness. Man says You know what?
I don't want you either.
I don't want you either.
And so, in a certain sense, the moral history of the world ended at the Cross of Calvary.
With the murder of God's beloved Son, the moral history is over. There's no more test. God isn't testing man now. He's not testing nations. He's not testing anybody or anything.
Because that test has been over, the results are in and God has pronounced and as the brothers were mentioning this morning.
The flesh profiteth nothing.
And even a believer can say.
I know that in me that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
And we could read scripture after scripture. I think I quoted one in Job this morning. Or you could quote from various places in the scriptures to show.
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That man is not 99% bad and 1% good, but he's 100.00 out. As many as you want. Corrupt. The corruption is thorough.
And this is important to see, and we don't need to just jump on it. Sometimes in a reading meeting. We, we what, what's the expression in English? I know it's being translated. I try not to use figures of speech, but it's like we kill a dead horse. So here you've taken a couple kicks. Let me let me do it myself. And we, and I think sometimes young people get sick of hearing us talk about how bad man is in the flesh, in the old man. We've established that, I believe.
But the point I want to want to stress in this.
Is that though responsibility? The moral history of man and responsibility was ended at the cross. Personal responsibility still exists for every man, woman and child. I turn to Romans a minute ago.
Because we read there.
We read about the righteousness of God, we read about the wrath of God, verse 18 revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and so on and down the spiral goals.
And so we read if we, I think it's in Ephesians 5, if we flip over to there and just to extract a verse.
To extract a verse in this exhortation to Christians.
For which sakes I'm looking for that verse if somebody can help me.
Verse 6, Ephesians 5, and verse six. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
God is not testing man in a broad moral sense anymore in the great themes of God's dealings with men on the earth. But every man, woman and child is responsible. We read in Romans, I think it's the 14th chapter. Every man shall give account of himself before God. And then if we turn to Revelation 20.
Before we move off this subject.
In Romans chapter 20.
And I saw the dead, small and great stand before God. Verse 12. Romans 20. Revelation 20. Verse 12.
I saw the dead, small and great stand before God, and the books were opened and another book was opened, which is the Book of life.
And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works.
Verse 15 Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. I know sometimes you hear that a person doesn't go to hell because of their works, but for rejecting the Lord Jesus.
This scripture and many others show that a person is responsible for their works and these individuals that have the sad destiny of standing before a holy God in their sins are judged according to their works and they are cast into the lake of fire. And yes, a book is checked. A book is open to see if their name is found written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
And if it's not, we're on the ground of responsibility.
And so that's inside this parentheses of God's ways with man.
But let's move out beyond that. Let's go back, let's go back however many years and, and, and if, if man says, well, the earth is 9 billion, you're fine. 9 billion years.
Than before 9 billion years, 9 billion and one there was nothing and there was God, and there was the eternal God, and there was the Father and there was the Son.
And the Son was the delight of the Father, and the Father delighted in the Son, and love existed, and light existed in the moral character of God. But there's something else that took place then. So let's read, let's I want to read a series of verses.
That give us a window back into eternity past, because this is more important than how old the earth is anyway.
I, I guess, you know, I'm not a young earth person. Sorry, but I'm not.
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In First Corinthians chapter 2.
Paul jumps in.
In.
Six, we speak wisdom among them that are perfect or mature, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor the Princess of this world that come to naughty.
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory.
Which none of the Princess of this world knew, and so on.
We could turn now to Second Timothy.
In chapter one. Second Timothy. Chapter one.
And verse nine, God, who hath saved us, and called us within holy calling, not according to our works.
Getting outside the parentheses.
But according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And then Titus chapter one.
And verse 2.
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie promised before the world began, but hath in due times manifested His word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior.
And finally, Ephesians chapter one.
Well known passage to most.
Ephesians 14 According as He hath chosen us in Him, in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
These scriptures established that before.
As the brother was saying recently in one of our meetings, before he hung the earth upon nothing, that says in Job he hung the earth upon nothing.
Before he made the stars also.
There was a purpose that God has that Ephesians later on we could read in verse sorry chapter 3 and verse 11.
According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Eternal purpose.
The world.
Is a small place.
The farther man can see with his telescopes and with his mathematical concepts, the smaller it seems.
But as late Brother Darby put it, though Earth itself is a small place, that which took place on it is not.
Because God chose the earth and made it so that it would be the platform for the display of His eternal purpose.
Eternal purpose.
And that eternal purpose included your blessing in mind.
I was rather astonished to hear a few years ago in a reading meeting an interpretation of what we have in Ephesians 1.
As if the election or the choosing same thing of believers was merely corporate.
And I suppose we should be generous with that interpretation, because the adoption or sonship of Israel was was collective and was corporate out of Egypt. Have I called my son? The nation was looked upon as his son.
And an Amos, you only have I known.
And he foreknew the children of Israel. And Paul gives credit in his epistle to the Romans that to the Israelite pertains the adoption, the national adoption, or the national sonship of Israel. And it was corporate. But that's not the way it is with believers.
To establish that, you can hold your finger in Ephesians and turn to Romans chapter 8.
Among other verses.
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In Romans chapter 8, the apostle has reached is about to reach the climax of how he has built from the ground up.
'Cause provision for man as an as in as individuals to be justified before himself.
Built that from the ground up, started with all different categories of sin and sinners and he builds it up through chapter 3-4 and five and takes it up into chapter 8 and then looking back in verse 28, we know that all things work to good Romans 828 for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. There's that word again.
For whom he did foreknow.
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren, for whom it does not say for what. If it was the Church, it would say for what?
And God's purpose is not that there is going to be such a thing as the church and I have, and I have in my purpose there is going to be this collective entity like, like you would have an orchestra or something. And so I'm going to have an orchestra. And then people have to compete to be the first violin or the second violin or the third violin, and they work their way into a good seat. Isn't that what you call it, an orchestra seat?
It's not that way, not that way at all. He chose individuals.
A question could have been asked this morning during the, during the reading in John chapter three. Well, OK, so it's so so I had the experience of repentance some years ago and, and, and then I, I had no choice. I had to bow the knee. I accepted Christ as my Savior. But you're telling me that you started the work.
My God started the work in me.
And and so if he started the work in me.
Well.
Well, like why me?
Why me? Why not somebody else? And that is the difficulty, one of the difficulties that people have with this truth of election.
Because they're looking back, I won't say they're like Lot's wife because she probably had other motives.
But this truth is understood in a positive way. I'm always baffled by believers that have a problem with choosing with election when they themselves have been chosen. Why would you have a problem with that? God loved you, He foreknew you. And that doesn't mean that just he has omniscience and knows everything, because we know he has that.
And James says that in Acts 15, known unto God are all his works from eternity. He has that.
But he didn't look at Bruce before, before Bruce was even born, and say, well, you know, he's probably going to be a pretty good guy. So I'm going to no, there was none of that. There was none of that. It starts with an eternal purpose, and that purpose went out to individuals, to you and to me. And I'm looking into dozens of faces now.
Of men and women and children that are going to spend an eternity.
Not only with Christ, but like Him. And why? Because He chose you.
And he loved you, and when the time came, he called you.
And then he made a work whereby he can justify you.
And at the end of the day, he's going to glorify you, and you're not done yet until you're glorified. You're going to be glorified to be with him like Christ.
And so I think it's important to see.
That this choosing has to do with individuals. It was made in eternity past and it's going to be carried out and displayed through. And we're like children thinking of time and eternity. Like, like we think that eternity stops and then time and then eternity picks up again. And I, I know I talk that way and sometimes think that way and it's, I know it's childlike, but I, I can't wrap my head around these things.
But for all eternity.
We're going to be the bride of Christ.
We're going to be glorified with him. It's never going to end.
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Now, if he had chosen you when you were five years old or six years old, it's still God's sovereign work.
It's still God's sovereign work to choose you, even if He chose you in time. But He chose you before time.
Because it was an eternal purpose.
And because he's God, he can do that, and that's what he did. How wonderful when we reflect on the fact that when God falls back onto his own sovereignty, what comes out? Goodness.
Goodness comes out because God is light and God is love.
But He chose us in eternity, and you are already up.
You are already a partially completed work of God because you've been turned to darkness, from darkness unto light. You have the Holy Spirit indwelling. You are members of his body. You are a citizen of heaven. You are part of a heavenly, a heavenly entity, even now while we're still here on this earth and in this world.
Chosen in eternity, we are part.
Of this eternal purpose, now we have eternal redemption.
We are. We have been given an eternal inheritance.
We have eternal salvation.
And we presently possess this eternal line of things in Christ. We have eternal life now.
And we're going to possess it all the way into the future.
I was very intrigued lately when reading through Ephesians chapter one.
And those with concordances on their phones can check me out on this, but I believe it is so.
Where he speaks of being accepted in verse five. Let me just read from verse 5. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, which is really sonship by Jesus Christ to himself.
According to the good pleasure of his will.
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.
And I'm thinking, you know.
That word accepted.
It's not a great word.
It kind of it kind of. At least I'm I'm just saying in the English language, the word accepted is kind of like almost an indifferent word.
Like, OK, you can come in, you're accepted.
But when you look up the word, it's only used one other place and it's used of Mary.
Who? When the Angel visited her, he said, Thou art highly favored. It's the same word. It's only two places in the Word of God. The Angel saying that to Mary, he, he saluted her. Thou art highly favored.
She was going to be that mother in Israel that was going to bring forth the Christ, the Messiah. Highly favored. It's the same word for you and me. You're highly favored in the Beloved. You've been accepted into this eternal entity of light and love.
And so questions come up in people's mind.
And it centers around this.
I think it centers around.
Is God really fair?
Because he chose you.
And what about your next door neighbor?
What about the guy that I worked with?
Who was a stranger to Christ his whole life and died suddenly in a motel room?
What about him?
Then I will just say this.
That there's nothing fair.
About the only perfect man.
Coming down into this world.
Laying all his Godhead glory by unveiling it and walking through this world for 33 years.
And being reproached, misunderstood, doubted, challenged, all the rest. And finally?
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Abused.
There's nothing fair about the man Christ Jesus, who was that holy thing, even as man pronounced by the Angel in Luke chapter one. That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Making it very, very clear that the transition from Him in his Godhead glory to taking manhood to Himself was not going to sully the the inherent glory and holiness of that one.
At such points in the life of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God says, now I've got to say something here. When the Lord Jesus took his place with the excellent of the earth and was baptized of John is one of those times in the silence of heaven is broken. This is my beloved Son.
And so on.
There's nothing fair about that at all.
There's nothing fair about the sinless man Christ Jesus being lifted up like a mark for the arrows of the Almighty. And he could say, behold, if there be any sorrow like unto mine, yes, the world is filled with sorrow, but there has not been a sorrow based upon the word of God like the sorrow that he endured when a holy righteous.
Man in Christ Jesus.
Stood in the place for you and me, and was made sin.
That work has glorified God. That work has addressed the sin that came into the world, the outrage of sin against the holy nature of God. Because primarily, sin is an affront to God. You may sin against your brother or your neighbor, but ultimately all sin is against God.
And God is the one whose rights have been sullied by the entrance of sin into this world.
And the Lord Jesus could say, then I restored that which I took not away. He didn't take away from God's glory, He added to it.
And he offered himself as a sacrifice for sin, and God accepted the offering.
And proved that He did by raising him righteously from amongst all the rest of the dead. Nothing fair about that at all. Nothing fair, nothing unfair about that at all. It's not it's, it's so far beyond fair that we just take that right off the table in my mind. Take it right off the table because God has come out in unimaginable blessing for man.
And so.
You know, I believe those scriptures we read show that God's eternal purpose included the election of individuals to a destiny picked out ahead of time. The destiny is to be with Christ, to be in Christ and with Christ. That is the destiny.
Someone said no one, No one has been predestinated to a lost eternity because God has not done that. He's not willing that any should perish, but that all men might be saved. And by the offering of his Son on Calvary's cross, he has been justified in making an offer, a bona fide, honest offer, to whosoever will.
Because of the work of his son.
And that's what propecia, I know it's a big word. That's what propitiation is. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world.
The blood has been shed, the sacrifice accepted, and now the messengers can go out and say, have you heard the news that you can be accepted by God because of the work on Calvary's cross?
And so the offer goes out.
And it goes out. It's a bona fide offer.
Because people say, well, you know, if, if a man, if a man can't, if a man can't respond, then is it a bonafide offer?
But why can't the man respond?
Why can't the man respond? It's because he chose sin and a Sinner he became and so they offer goes out.
And it's a bonafide offer. It's a real offer to whosoever will. And the Bible, the Scriptures teach us.
That as as Brother Kemp put it in the reading, that since the whole world is now, is now a candidate to receive God's offer of pardon because of the work of Christ, then the offer goes out universally. It's not just to the Jew, it's to it's to man, it's to mankind, it's to whosoever, and out it goes.
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We'll read that in John Three if if we continue on in it, it goes out to whomsoever.
And God has glorified in the sending of it out, whether it is received or not received.
And so it is.
That.
Strange, isn't it, that men should say, well, if God is sovereign and he chooses some and not others, then is that really fair?
And again I go back to the fact that God has made provision for all.
And he has sent the message out to all, unto all. And it can be shown in the Word of God that Christ Jesus died for sinners, for the ungodly. And whoever you meet in any culture, any land, anywhere in the world, you can say God loved you and Christ died for you.
But you have to stop there and say, But if you receive him as your Savior, you have the privilege to say, He bore my sins in his own body on the tree. That is the privilege only of the believer.
And so the message goes out.
And men.
Decline the message.
Except God is free to fall back in his own sovereignty.
Because God could have shut the whole thing down.
He made the heavens dark during those three hours of darkness.
And after that, the Lord Jesus.
Having made the victors cry, he bowed his head and dismissed his spirit.
And the earth shook, and the temple was rent and twain and all the rest. And God could have said, You know what?
I really tried. I've tried for 4000 years. I sent them profits.
I sent them my word. I did all of this. I don't know what else I can do. I finally sent my own beloved son. Nobody, Nothing is more precious to me than my son. I have delighted in him for all eternity. Last of all, he sent his son.
And when the rejection was finalized of the sun when the spear went in to make sure to give testimony that he was really dead, God could have just said let's just shut it down. Would he have been righteous to do that? Yes, he would have been righteous to do that. He could have shut the whole thing down and said, I stretch forth my hand all the day and no man regarded. Let's just close this up. He has the power.
He just he has the power to withdraw his breath from from all flesh.
He can dissolve the whole world. He could dissolve it in one second from now, dissolve it all. He could have done it then.
But what does he do forthwith? Comes throughout blood and water.
And beyond even the gift of God's Son, now mercy, now forgiveness is offered. As Brother Adrian Roach used to say, all may, none would, and some shall.
And that is where we have to leave it.
For years when we would take up, I think we can have established from the word of God.
That the election of the believer is part of an eternal plan and an eternal purpose before the world was made and it is now being realized or or actualized in the calling and the new birth and the ceiling of believers and being joined to Christ.
Just totally lost my train of thought.
I know what it was.
The scriptures make it very clear.
That election is part of the truth of God, that God is free in his own sovereignty to do that.
The scriptures are equally and justice as clear and true that man still is responsible before himself.
And even if you take up the truth that we had this morning about man's total corruption.
00:50:02
Just in common sense, you know that just because somebody doesn't have money to pay doesn't mean they don't have a debt. If I borrow $1000 from you and, and I say I will pay it back next week and you come around next week and I say I'm sorry, I don't have any money, does that mean I, I don't still have a debt? No, I still my, my bankruptcy does not take away my responsibility and my debt.
And the Word of God is 100% clear that man is responsible. The soul that sinneth it shall die.
And if you believe not I am He, you shall die in your sins. And whither I go, ye cannot come 100% clear that there is responsibility, and I believe 100% clear that God has fallen back on His sovereignty.
And and, and says, you know what, some of them are going to come. They're all running down that broad Rd. but some of them are going to come. And he extracts this one and he extracts that one and he extracts this one.
And you find yourself part of this eternal counsel of God. And these things are hard to reconcile in our mind, I suppose, impossible to reconcile in our mind, as Brother Kemp was telling me after the morning meeting. And I used to just use that analogy that brothers used with the two railroad tracks. And if you in America that the tracks are 56.
And change apart, that's the gauge and you stand on tracks.
And we used to do some track work and you look way out ahead over here, you can see the tracks way out there and they look like they come together. But but the the illustration is, but they really don't.
And so we say, oh, well, they don't come together. And we just accept that because we look at things that are not seen and we understand things that are passing understanding. But I don't use that analogy anymore because it dawned on me that the tracks do come together. They came together at the cross of Calvary.
Because they're the only sinless man stood in the breach for you and me, and he took up your responsibility and mine. The debt was not cancelled. The debt was not forgiven. The debt was paid. Your responsibility and mine was addressed and addressed fully and addressed so fully that God was even glorified in the taking of it away.
Because as we read in the Old Testament.
When something was stolen, it was restored, the 5th part was to be added, and the Lord Jesus added the 5th part in glorifying God, even with the with the respect of taking away sin, God in sovereign love sent His Son.
God did not have to part with the darling of his own bosom.
In sovereignty he did that and he provided his son. He met our responsibility on Calvary's cross.
And that's why these two things clash together on Calvary's cross.
When I was a young.
First became a staff person on a construction site.
I remember.
One afternoon in the trailer with this big window in front of me, looking out on a road outside of a dam and just flipping through the drawings for some reason.
And an ambulance came smoking down from up the mountain and a young girl came speeding up on her lunch break from down below, and they crashed right in front of my eyes.
What a horrific crash.
When you work around high voltage or power, which I know.
Just about nothing about.
They show you films, educational films, to give you a sense of the power that lies in those voltages. And when something touches something that it shouldn't touch, men get blown up and horribly burnt.
In a in a less than a fraction of a second.
And there on Calvary's cross, these wires crossed together and this collision took place.
And God dimmed down the lights of the universe.
At the horror of the man Christ Jesus.
Bearing the wrath of God.
And not for a millisecond. And then a breaker switched at all. It went on for three hours.
And the sacrifice, you know, and sacrifices in the Old Testament.
They they shed the blood first. If you've ever if you raised animals for food, you know that.
00:55:04
They shed the blood 1St and the animal dies. Then the animals put on the fire and offers the sacrifice. In Christ Jesus. You had a man that was alive when he endured the fire of the wrath of God.
Hands outstretched, and there he was, and during that?
And so I believe.
Very fully that those two things that are so that seem at such contradiction to you and me, because responsibility says show me what you have, show me what you can do, give to me, respond to me.
It's, it's looking for something to be received and the grace of God that is now going out to you and me is the 180° off from that. It's give. I have something for you and I'm giving. And those things are just so, so completely apart. And so it is that you and I have been brought into blessing through the sovereign love of God.
I wish I could make this more understandable. Sorry for my my brain cramp there for a moment, but I know this comes up in the last two or three years when we've been in reading meetings with young brothers and older ones too. This comes up all the time.
And I have tried to address it with the Lords help. It's wonderful to think that God knew you before you were you and that he set his heart upon you and that he chose you. This should be a source of of of wonder. We all have our we all have our.
We all have our histories, and as I lookout I see a bunch of Gorgases and I see a bunch of Stuart's and a bunch of Rugas and everybody has a history.
And assemblies have history and I was saved in Palmyra, ME.
And that assembly had a characteristic too. And the characteristic was that above all things, they valued in another human being that they were worshippers. That was the highest commendation. If you heard Brother Royce say about another brother, he's a real worshipper.
There was nothing higher than that.
And the truth of election that God shows you before the worlds were made is a helped he. He could have chosen you and not told you. It could have been a secret. But he chose you and he told you he did. Why?
So that you would have the same experience that I had when I was first saved. And you can continue with all your Christian life because you say at various points, why me? And that's something that can't be answered other than because the Lord loved you and he set his heart upon you. And I've sat in meetings, sat in courses in university.
Looked out at a group of people this size or larger. I don't know of any of them. Others were believers or not. I knew I was. And I have to say, why me? Why me?
And it's those kinds of.
The understanding of this truth is meant to lead us to the enjoyment of that and so that our hearts can well often appreciation for One who has loved us so much that He paid such a price to have us for all eternity. In closing, let's just sing part of Him.
Hymn 331.
Let's just see.
Verses 7 and eight of him 331 If someone could start it please to a suitable tune.
01:00:29
Our God and our Father, we thank Thee.
For communicating to us.
That eternal purpose.
In which thou hits, glorify thy Son in heaven and in earth, and that there should be one.
A bride that should be one with him in heaven above, and that for all eternity.
We stand in awe, our God.
The great work accomplished by thy beloved Son on Calvary's cross. We thank Thee that we are part of the fruit of the travail of His soul. Help us to appreciate our God and Father, the love that Thou has shown to us in having chosen us before the foundation of the world. This humbles us.
It stirs up our hearts afresh. Help us to be here for the little while that is left to us. For Thy glory we commit that which was.
Brought before us from my precious word to thee.
Thank you again for Thy great love to us. We bless the precious Savior for being willing to be the sinner's friend. We look forward to thy soon return, when we shall be introduced into the liberty of glory along with thyself. We bless thee and thank Thee, Lord Jesus, and Thy worthy and precious name. Amen.