Hamer Bay Conference: 2023
Table of Contents
John 10:1-7
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
466.
For thou hast drawn us.
After the now let us run.
I sole desire.
166.
Started.
Lord, thou strong.
After need not let us run.
I never tried my friends and travel our comfortably.
Myself horrible thy soul will be in time.
I want to cheer our friends to strange.
Our strengths, our own people.
The blood flow without the God. Our strength, our strengths are straight from our shape, our shape, our shears.
What would the brethren think of John 17?
I just I submit to the the assembly of someone has another passage.
I was thinking of John's gospel as well, Chapter 10 but chapter 17 would be.
Go back to chapter 10 and or start to chapter 10.
I just feel there's perhaps a need for those that are younger to be established, and so chapter 10 is very helpful.
And is reading the Lord Jesus bringing in Christian doctrine, he gives the seed plot of the doctrine and then it's the apostle Paul that really brings it out a little bit later, but.
Yes.
00:05:01
Of the mining, the revenue, could you start with Chapter 10 this morning then?
That's all. That's all right.
John's Gospel, chapter 10.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the Porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. When he put us forth. His own sheep he goeth before them.
And the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.
This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they were, which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them. I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved.
And shall go in and out and find pasture.
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, but he that is in hireling, and not the shepherd who is owned, the sheep are not.
See if the wolf coming and leave it the sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scatter at the sheep.
The higher length lieth because he is in higher length and careth not for the sheep.
I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine as the Father knoweth me. Even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep and other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
Therefore, death. My father loved me.
Because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh that from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father.
There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad, Why hear ye him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can the devil open the eyes of the blind? And it was at the dedication there, and it was at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, And it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long does thou make us to doubt?
That would be the Christ. Tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, And ye believe not the works that I do in my Father's name, They bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one.
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works. If I showed you for my Father, For which of the those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou being a man, maketh thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law? I said, Your gods, if he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken.
00:10:03
Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in him.
Therefore they saw it again to take him, but he escaped out of their hand, and went away again beyond Jordan, into the place where John at first baptized, and there he abode. And many resorted unto him, and said John did no miracle. But all things that John spake of this man were true, and many believed on him there.
Graduated, the Lord is introducing the.
Principles of Christianity.
As we know, the Lord is looked upon as rejected from the very first.
Chapter of John's Gospel.
Here he is presented in his divinity, the eternal Son of God.
But the nation rejected him from the outset.
It wasn't a period of probation, so to speak.
But in the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus as the divine person.
Is unfolding.
The heart of God. The nature of God.
By his works and by his words.
He's really.
Laying establishment for Christianity.
Although it was not revealed.
In its fullness there are signs that show that now the nation of Israel, his own people to whom he came as Messiah.
Are we have rejected him?
And so the Lord looks on.
Beyond his earthly ministry.
To a time when the Spirit of God.
Would be here as the divine person.
On the Earth.
Within the believers.
So much of the latter part of John, especially jumper room ministry, is really introducing us into Christianity. What characterizes Christianity could ask that question. What characterizes Christianity? 1 There's a living man at God's right hand, never known in the Old Testament.
Manhood is there at the right hand of God.
#2 Very important. The Spirit of God is here to represent the Lord.
The promise of the Lord and the Father Spirit of God as a divine person.
On the earth, in the House of God, in the believer.
To give us understanding.
We've been looking at this book in Ottawa. It was remarked to last Wednesday that the disciples.
Apparently did not understand anything the Lord said before.
For the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Mr. Hale used to remind us of that, and it's true. So in John's Gospel, there's the, there's the.
The introduction of the principles really of Christianity and the separation from that whole Judaistic system.
With all its ritual and.
And it's ceremonies, but the Lord is bringing his sheep outside of the bowl of Judaism, which really?
It has rejected their Messiah and gathering them around the person of Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that right, Robert?
00:15:02
Yes, it's helpful. As you say in John's Gospel chapter one, maybe for the younger ones. Why did brother John say that the Lord was rejected right from the outset in John's Gospel while you go to chapter one and it says in verse 11, he came unto his own and his own received a knock. Who was his own, his own nation, his own people, but also you and I are included. His own creation. He came into his own creation.
God the Son.
And he was rejected from the outset, so this world has no room for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so if you're saved this afternoon or this morning and you know the Lord is your Savior, you live in a world that has no room for Christ. And so God sent his Son. And in John's Gospel, there is really a transition taking place. And as you probably know, John's Gospel was written, it's approximately maybe 8090. And so it was after Judaism was destroyed.
And so John and his ministry takes the Roman names for all of the places, and he uses Roman time. He doesn't use Jewish time. And so he would say the same thing. He would say, John would say it's 10:50. And so he uses Roman time. And so there's a transition taking place.
From brother, John said from the fold of Judaism.
To the in chapter 10 from the fold of Judaism to the flock of Christianity. So the key verse in this in this chapter is a little bit further on here in.
Verse 16.
Everyone of these chapters has a little bit of a transition taking place and so here the Lord is saying I'm going to call my sheep out of the fold of Judaism and a fold is some of some of them being to Europe. They've seen the folds where the enclosures where the sheep or the shepherd keeps his sheep at night.
And so they build a Stonewall about six or seven feet high, and sometimes it's a circle, sometimes it'll be like a square, and then it has an opening to go into that.
Fold. And it's about maybe 2 feet or maybe 2 1/2 feet wide. And that's where the shepherd lies. That's where he sits there and he lies across that opening all night. And he preserves his sheep. And so in Judaism they were kept.
In a sheltered place, God had set a hedge around that nation and.
But really it hadn't brought forth fruit for God. And so he's going to call us sheep out of that system of religion and he's going to bring them into the flock. So verse 16, chapter 10, verse 16, other sheep I have which are not out of this fold. We never were Jews were Gentiles, we didn't have Judaism, we weren't under the law. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold or one flock.
And one shepherd. And so he was bringing out the fact that there was going to be one church, there was going to be one company. And what would what would characterize them is that the shepherd would be in the center, he would be in the midst and the the sheep would be all around him. And so it was a flock without any walls around it, but it had the shepherd as the center, the focus.
Of the affections and the attention of those that were there. And so that's really the key of.
Understanding this chapter, we might just say just as we go through it.
Might point out there are seven things that the Lord brings out in connection with Christianity that are unique and really he gives a seed plot of it. Chapter 10 Here in verse nine he says by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.
Well, he speaks of salvation.
The Jews didn't know about salvation. They kept the law. And so salvation is a key point here. And then it says.
They shall go in and out.
And fine pasture. So they were going to have liberty.
00:20:01
Going to have liberty to go into the presence of the Lord. Only the Levites and Judaism could ever go into the presence of the Lord. And Aaron once a year within the holiest of all. But you and I have liberty. And so he says that they're going to have liberty and then they find pasture. So there was going to be pasture. What a rich provision the Lord has given us the doctrines of Christianity, the person of Christ who worked all finished.
Our souls are fed and nourished and then he says in verse 10 right at the end that they might have light and that they might have it more abundantly. And that's really eternal life. That's having a relationship with the Father and the Son, being indwelled with the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus himself brings this out and then in.
Really from verses 10 down to verse 15, he brings out the activity of the shepherd. And so he would personally shepherd the sheep and he would raise up those that were under shepherds. And so he gives little warnings about that. And then we have in verse 16.
That he would bring them out individually, as we said from the fold, those that were Jews remember in Matthew's Gospel Chapter 11 it says.
Let's just turn to it. I don't want to misquote it.
It says.
Verse 28 Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, they are laboring under the law, and they couldn't have that rest. I will give you rest. Take my ears upon you and learn of me for a meek and lowly and heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls. So he's going to call them out individually, out of the flock. Call them by name individually.
And they out of the fold and of Judaism and then bring them into Christianity. And then in verse 28 we have internal security, the principle of the truth of eternal security. I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. We don't know how.
Fearful it was for the Jew. He didn't know what was the step beyond death, beyond life into death. He didn't know there was fear. Even Hezekiah, king, good king, Hezekiah, he was, he was afraid and everything that all his hopes were in this world. But you and I know that we have eternal security. We can never be lost. Once our sins are forgiven, we're cleansed with the precious blood of Christ. So those seven things, he brings out the Lord Jesus.
In this chapter.
John's Gospel in the early chapters is a series of different accounts.
The Spirit of God selects out in the Lord's pathway, and then each one is followed by a discourse and instruction from the Lord. And so this chapter is a discourse. Well, what's the incident that the discourse is based upon? Well, that's Chapter 9 and Chapter 9. We have that man who is blind and whose eyes the Lord opened, but he was sent to the Pool of Siloam to wash, and that's where his eyes were open, so he's never seen.
The Lord, But what have He?
He'd heard his voice. That's what he had.
And so he's cast out as we know the accountant in Chapter 9 when his his question about how his eyes were open and he really confesses the Lord and his understanding is getting opened as he's being questioned, he grows in his soul as to who the Lord is, but he had never seen him and.
So.
He is cast out of the synagogue.
For the testimony that he bore to the Lord, even though he had never seen him and was just growing in his own understanding as to who the Lord was. And the Lord seeks him out and finds him. Verse 35. Jesus heard they cast him out. And when he had found him, well, that's what a shepherd does, doesn't he? He seeks a sheep that needs help, that's lost, that's wandering. And the Lord found him and.
He said unto him, Dost thou believe in the Son of God?
00:25:00
This blind man had never seen the Lord before, and now he was seeing him for the first time.
How did he know who he was?
He replies to him. Who is he, Lord, he says.
That I might believe on him, Jesus said unto him, Thou hath both seen him first time.
And it is that talking with the not the first time.
He had heard that voice before and he knew that voice. And he responds and he worshiped him. And so there is the account that the discourse is based upon the shepherd seeking a lost one, and that one recognizing the shepherd's voice. He'd heard that voice as soon as he heard it. And you know, it's, I'm not blind. I've never been blind, but I understand that people who lose one sense.
Tend to have other senses in their body that that try to fill in. And so people who are blind tend to have very good hearing developed. And so this man knew that voice. He knew the voice of the shepherd, though he had never seen his face. And he responds. And so that's what we get in the chapter. The Lord is the shepherd and the sheep his own respond to his voice.
We're coming in by the door of the.
Is that referring to the Lord fulfilling all the prophecies the Old Testament perfectly in his introduction? The Porter would be the Holy Spirit giving witness or testimony to who he was because the Holy Spirit of God.
Abode in the Lord.
And testified of him as a risen man in the glory, and he gave the disciples the the strength to testify for him. But coming back to the first part of the chapter, is it not referring to the Holy Spirit giving?
Shall we say confirmation from the Scriptures that this was the true shepherd, the shepherd of Israel?
The Messiah, yes, there are three doors. There are three doors that are mentioned in this passage. And the first door really does refer to the prophetic scriptures. And so the Lord Jesus was revealed as the Son of God, the eternal Son of God according to the Old Testament scriptures. So we might just turn to Isaiah Chapter 7 and see there that it was prophesied of him, verse 14.
Isaiah 7. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. And then in Chapter 9.
Prophetically speaking.
Verse six. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
The increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice. From henceforth, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. We could turn to different passages of Scripture and it speaks of the Lord Jesus. And so he came and the in harmony with all of those prophetic scriptures.
He fulfilled the scriptures were fulfilled by his coming into the world, the way he came into this world. So the first door is the door prophecy, and then the second door is mentioned in verse seven. And it's really that we might say the door of deliverance from Judaism, deliverance. And so he says, then said Jesus unto them again, verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. He was the means by which they could leave Judaism.
You left hedonism, you left the darkness of the heathen world by way of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious deliverance it was individually individual sheep he's talking about. And then the door, the last door is really the door of salvation. That's mentioned in in verse nine that I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved.
00:30:19
So really he brings out those through this door of prophecy was very significant because it says in verse one, Verily, verily I send you he that entereth not by the door, you know, the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. And so there were going to be those that were.
Might say defective elders among the children of Israel, those that would seek a following after themselves. In fact, it speaks of that in speak of it in the New Testament. But let's look at the Old Testament, Isaiah 56.
There were those that came and they tried to have the sheep follow them instead of the shepherd, and so it says.
Well, let's read verse 10.
His watchman Isaiah 56 and 10. His Watchmen are blind. They are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs. They cannot bark. Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yeah, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough. And they are shepherds that cannot understand. They all look to their own way. Everyone for his game, for from his quarter and then.
We could look at Acts chapter 20 for a similar passage in connection with Christianity.
It says that in verse 28.
Acts chapter 20, verse 28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves. He's speaking to the elders, to those that are in oversight in the assembly at Ephesus. They say you're responsible as shepherds under shepherds. Take heed therefore unto yourselves. Exercise self judgment and be careful with your own walk.
To all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood, or the blood of his own. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flocks also of your own self shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. So there's always the danger, whether it was in Judaism or Christianity, that.
Men will rise up and will speak to gain a following. They'll gather them, the sheep around themselves and exalt their cause and so on. But it's it's not profitable for the sheep. It's the shepherds that ought to exalt, be exalted. It's a shepherd that the Spirit of God would desire to have us follow and to hear his voice. And so the result of those that are.
Really engaged in this activity is to steal a thief or a robber, and there's a distinction, a thief.
Steals something, He takes it undercover of darkness when you're where you're not aware, you're asleep, you, you don't, you're not conscious and he takes it. You may not even know it's missing, but he takes it, it's gone. And so the enemy seeks to take the truth of God, the enjoyment of the things of God, the enjoyment of the person of Christ, and to just take it away just a little bit, just a little bit of the truth, just a little bit, and you don't even know.
The other way is to as a robber and a robber is a plunder, he broad daylight. A bank robber, what does he do? He breaks into the front door of the bank and he bowls and he breaks down and he plunders the people of God. He robs them in broad daylight. He denies the truth of God and he plunders. And so the Lord Jesus was warning them of this. And so he said, there are those that are destructive to the Saints of God.
To his sheep.
But he that entering by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. There's no wonderful to know that shepherd who entered in by those prophetic scriptures and that you can have assurance in your soul that he is the Savior that was prophesied that would come into this world. And the blessing that you have the relationship that you have with God as your Father and the Lord Jesus is based on his holy work.
00:35:16
The eternal life that the Lord speaks of, that there's something greater than any Old Testament St. enjoyed.
Eternal life.
In the sense in which John speaks of it.
Is divine life.
Of the Lord in resurrection.
He has formed a new creation race and.
The eternal life that we now possess has an understanding.
Of God as our Father, which was not known in the Old Testament.
So eternal life is something that is peculiar, you might say, to Christianity. It has all the fullness of the revelation of, of Christ, our relationship with God now.
As children.
Spirit of God and.
Dwelling within the believer.
It is a wonderful privilege, it is.
A very light from God.
Communicated to us, we will not have a different life in the glory than we have now.
We will have that same eternal life goes beyond.
What any Old Testament St. had.
Bringing us into.
The knowledge of of Christ in the glory, the knowledge of God as our Father. Is that right?
Yes, it's beyond.
When I was young, and then perhaps everyone here that was young thought eternal life was living forever.
And yes, all that are born into this world will live forever.
Even Satan will exist forever, but that's not eternal life. That's not what he's Speaking of.
The Old Testament Saints had divine life. Wonderful. They had divine life. They were born of God. David was born of God, but he was never indwelled with the Spirit of God. He could never call God his Father.
He called him the God Almighty. Perhaps he called him Jehovah. He called all those Old Testament Saints. They God was at a distance. They could never come into the presence of the Lord.
And they never knew the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
They didn't know the Holy Trinity.
But you do brother, explain this years ago and I think might be helped to give it they they had divine life and you have divine life too, but you have every blessing that God could possibly bestow upon you. It's like those Old Testament Saints. If you put it away and put it in automotive terms, they would have a stripped down economy car.
Crank up windows. No power steering, no power brakes.
Everything was just manual. Had to go and unlock the trunk, all the surfing.
That's what they had. They had divine life, but they didn't have all of the blessings of Christianity. They didn't even have eternal security. They didn't have the enjoyment of eternal security, but you have.
A nice car, the best on the planet with sunroof.
Cruise control, it's got every option that is possible to put up on that car.
You can't even think of another option to put on that car. You have divine life. You have a position of favor before God that is inalterable.
It's astonishing to think of what you have because you have eternal life. If you know the Lord Jesus as Savior, you can address God as your Father, and you know that his heart is 100% for you. Brother quoted in his prayer this morning James chapter one that we have a Father, the Father of lights, with whom is no variable is neither shadow turning. You cannot alter his love and favor towards you.
00:40:07
You're standing. You're standing is inalterable. Your state may fluctuate, but your standing is not multiple. So how thankful we must be. We should be for what we have been, what has been bestowed upon us in this way. And it's all a result, Robert, of the death and resurrection of Christ it all.
Pivots on the fact that now.
The Lord has gone through death is accomplished.
The will of God in.
Bearing the judgment for sin.
Now he brings us into.
Relationship.
With an understanding.
That we are children of God, sons of God.
We have the same relationship toward.
God the Father as he has as the father of love me even swallowed. I loved you. You've been noticing in the pain and John 15 so there's there's certainly a marvelous unfolding.
In the Gospel of John.
Of the Lord's desire.
That his people might be near to him and might understand.
His heart, his purposes, His counsels. Now this depended upon the coming of the Holy Spirit, which is taken up.
In its In the promises of chapter 13141516.
The Lord made it very clear that these things would not be possible, would not be understood, until the Holy Spirit of thought as a divine person, not an influence, not simply an influence, but as a divine person.
Sent from the Father by the Lord Jesus.
Not Incarnate, but a person that dwells in the body of the believer. So wherever we go, we take the Holy Spirit of God with us. He will not leave us. We are sealed.
Look at that verse Ephesians chapter 4.
Looking at it all of the other day, it's well known. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God verse 30 of the 4th chapter whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
The day of redemption there, of course, is the.
The glorification with Christ receiving the.
The glorified body.
That is a marvelous work of God to be indwelled with the Spirit of God.
You have the power to live a life for the Lord. Let's look at the 2nd Corinthians chapter one.
There are three things in connection with the Spirit of God.
That everyone of us that know the Lord Jesus.
God's Principles in Deuteronomy
Address—Steve Stewart
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.
Well, I think we're pretty well all here, so they don't have to agonize for a couple more minutes. We'll go ahead and get started.
Let's sing 174.
174.
My voice drops and you can't hear me. Just please shout. It's my tendency. Like to start with First Corinthians Chapter 9 for verse.
Hoping to.
Look back at Old Testament scriptures this afternoon would like to start.
With this verse one Corinthians 9.
And verse 9.
For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen, or saith he it altogether? For our sakes, for our sakes, no doubt this is written, that he that ploweth should plow and hope, and he that thresheth and hope should be partaker.
Of his hope, that little word altogether, saith he it altogether.
For our sakes.
The Old Testament Scriptures are full of principles, God's principles.
And what a benefit we get from them. When God wrote that in Deuteronomy 25, was it just that he cared for oxen? No doubt He does. But it was written all together entirely for our sakes.
Entirely for our sakes. So I'd like to look back at some principles from that same book in Deuteronomy that were written altogether for our sakes before we turn back one other scripture in Second Corinthians.
Two Corinthians in chapter 3.
Couple of verses there.
Speaking of those who were under that Old Testament economy of the law.
It says.
In the middle of verse thirteen of two Corinthians 3, the children of Israel could not steadfastly look.
To the end of that which is abolished, the law is in that order of things is that which is abolished. But they could not look to the end of that which is abolished, for their minds were blinded, for until this day remain at the same veil, and taken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away of Christ. Verse 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit.
00:05:05
And where the Spirit of the Lord is.
There is liberty, but we all, as we all with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord Israel under the law. And those injunctions couldn't see anything more than the bare letter, But now we who are dwelt by the Spirit.
Under a whole new economy, that of the grace of God.
We have the liberty to look back into those same scriptures and see Christ.
And every page they didn't have that. And you know, the deeper believers are involved in the systems of men that really bring them back under an Old Testimony economy. The Old Testament is a closed book to them.
Let's turn back to Deuteronomy 22.
The Lord quoted.
More times from the Psalms and any other.
Portion of the.
Old Testament, but Deuteronomy was number 2.
And how he drew from this beautiful book.
A book that was given after the failure of Israel.
And presented to them as that the principles by which they would enter into the inheritance of God and enjoy it.
And so we're going to read some of those principles and seek to draw from them for ourselves, because God's principles don't change.
His principle was you weren't to muzzle the ox that treads out the corn. It's still true.
The same principle applied spiritually in the New Testament to those who labor and the service of Christ were to be cared for.
Verse One. Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray and hide thyself from them. Thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it.
To him again, in like manner shalt thou do with his *** and so shalt thou do with his raiment, and with all lost thing of thy brothers which he hath lost and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise, that thou mayest, thou mayest not hide thyself. Thou shalt not see thy brother's *** or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them thou shalt.
Help him to lift them up.
Again.
In Exodus we read a similar.
Portion in Exodus 23. But there was an enemy. If they found an enemy's ox or *** they were.
Restore it to them and there it really is, the presents to us, the exercise of grace toward this world. That is certainly the enemies of Christ and the Christian were not to for bear the exercise of grace to them, but here it's a brother, here it's a brother, and it's love that would seek the care.
Of a brother and in the inheritance you know they were going to go into the inheritance and this is giving the principles.
Upon which they would enjoy that inheritance together. And if one had lost his property, his ox or sheep, and it was found, it was to be restored to that one who had lost it.
We have been given so much. We have been taught so well in the Scriptures over the years. So much has been recovered to us that we had lost.
Through the work of the Spirit of God, wonderful truths have been unfolded to us from this book.
00:10:02
They weren't just recovered for the Saints who are gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were recovered for the whole Church of God.
What was lost over the centuries, the Spirit of God has recovered it in a wonderful way, but it was for the whole Church of God.
And here you and I are in possession of these things just to keep them for ourselves.
No, they belong to our brother, to our sister. Some years ago, brother came into the office.
And he said, oh, I'm going down to Washington, DC. There's going to be a million man March Promise keepers are going to be down there. This goes back some years.
And it's going to be a wonderful time, and we're going to March on Washington and demand that the country be governed by Christian principles and whatever.
What do you say? You know, I said, Gary.
You know, I was just reading about Samson.
And how there, at the end of his life, he was. His hands were stretched out between those pillars and the House of the Philistine.
And he brought those pillars down.
And there was a greater victory in his death than there ever had been in his life. And I said, just reminds me of Christ.
How his hands are stretched out on that cross.
And the greatest victory he won was in his death.
Gary just looked at me, said never heard that.
The Old Testament's closed book to him.
I don't want anything to do with Promise Keepers, but I wanted to give him something back. He lost.
You're going to encounter your brothers and sisters in Christ. You have.
You have what they've lost and you have an opportunity.
To give it back to them.
You're not to withhold it.
You're to give it back as the Lord opens the opportunity.
And Christ is in every bit of these Old Testament scriptures. And what a privilege we've had to enjoy it.
But it's not just for us.
No, not all are going to be gathered to the Lord's name.
But you have the privilege to restore it to a brother. Well, maybe he's far away. You don't know him. How many believers there are, we don't know. Most of them we don't know.
But if one comes seeking, if the Spirit of God begins to work, and that brother, that sister's heart.
And they come seeking, do we have it by us? Is it with thee in verse two? Have we kept it? Have we kept that which he's committed to our trust to be able to restore it to our brother and our sister when the Spirit of God works in their hearts and they come seeking what they lost.
Needs to be with us. We need to keep it up.
You know, we need, you need to house that animal, you need to feed it, you'd need to take care of it if it was going to be able to be restored when that one came along.
And so we don't know hardly any of our dear brethren, just a few.
But the Spirit of God works at times, and one comes seeking. You know, years ago someone gave me a subscription to a magazine not recommending. I don't even know if it exists. It's called the Reincall. I don't know if it's any publication any longer.
And the burden of the brothers who put that out as a defensive dispensational truth and really speaking against ecumenical movement. But in the back. And what impressed me was readers wrote in and how often there would, and he put snippets of the letters in the back, how often they would say, oh.
I thought I was the only one.
In my church that saw that I felt so alone.
I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the odd person out, you know, like that. And it just struck me how many thirsty souls there are. We don't know who they are.
We don't know where they are, but we got thirsty brethren out there, and we've got that which should be with us to meet that need when they come. And they felt all alone in their desires, and what the exercise of their heart is by the Spirit of God.
00:15:16
There's another way I'd like to take this up.
The ox, the sheep, the ***.
They present to us aspects of the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was like that ox, so steady, you know, He could say, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. That patient study.
Labor for gone as he went through this world, the sheep.
As a sheep before it shears is dumb, so he opened it, not his mouth. That patient character that endures affliction and persecution and suffering.
You know the *** it says of the Lord when he came into Jerusalem. Behold, thy King cometh meek, lowly.
Riding on the hole of an *** that meek and lowly character that he displayed through this world.
Can my brother lose?
Those characters in his life.
Yeah, yeah. And I think we've run into those who have once perhaps had those characters and have lost them.
But in Galatians we read, Ye who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Who is spiritual is someone that never had a fall, no.
It's someone who habitually is judging self.
And detecting when they see departure in their own heart from the Lord.
And as a consequence, they have discernment to detect that in their brethren. They've removed the Moat in their eye.
And they can see clearly.
To help their brother or remove the beam in their eye. See clearly to help the brother. Brother remove the Moat.
And realizing how their their nature of their own flesh and how easily they can be tempted.
They deal with things.
And their brother in a much more patient.
And gentle way.
And yet they didn't spare the flesh in themselves. They're unsparing when it comes to the flesh. That's a spiritual person that's able to restore one that's out of the way to restore to them that lost character. You know, the oxen speaks of the highest of the offerings, the ability of the Israelite to worship in its highest character.
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.
But through the labor of the ox, there is much that's brought in. Proverbs 14. I'm not quoting it exactly.
It represents a brothers sisters ability to be a help and feed the Saints. I guess I'm thinking especially brothers.
I want to turn back to an incident.
That took place. I'm going to connect it with that in Genesis, you know the account.
Where Dinah went out to see the daughters of the land.
It was a bad move.
And she was defiled.
And her brothers contrived a plan for revenge.
Genesis 34, verse 25.
And it came to pass on the third day that they were sore. And the two sons of Jacob, Simeon, and Levi, Dinas, brethren, Dinah's brethren.
They were Jacob's sons, but they're called here at Dinah's brethren. These were the sons of Leah, and Dinah was the daughter of Leah. There was a family within a family.
00:20:00
They had an identification between themselves as the sons and children of Leah, distinct from the rest of Jacob's children, and they were offended.
It was their family honor. Jacob's family, no, Leah's family.
That they were out to set straight.
That took each of them, each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.
And so on.
Jacob brings that before them. Ye have troubled me. Verse 30 made me to stink among the inhabitants of the land.
And so on verse 31 and they said should he deal with our sister as within harlot?
Our sister, the sons of Leah.
Family Honor.
Jacob didn't say anything.
But years later, he did Genesis 49.
Genesis 49.
Verse five. Simeon and Levi are brethren. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitation, or if you read the margin, their swords are weapons of violence.
O my soul, come not into their secret unto their assembly mine honor be not thou united. For in their anger they slew a man, and in their self will they dig down a wall. Marginal reference for dig down a wall they hold oxen.
They hold oxen. Do you know what it means to hold an ox?
It means to come in with a knife and cut the back of the leg just above the hoof where a tendon is, that controls the movement of the hoof, and to render that animal incapable of any kind of Labor, maybe even of walking it it without going through the hard work of trying to kill such a big animal, you destroy it.
You render it useless for what it is intended for.
They hold oxen.
Their swords were swords of violence, and we have in our hands the sword of the spirit.
We don't ever want to take it up and make it a sort of violence.
And in that way use it on a brother that renders him useless.
In his life of service, ability to feed the Saints.
It's so hard to restore that character to one that has it. It has been taken from him in that way.
What a wonderful thing to restore to a brother or a sister that which they've lost, whether it be the truth of God or whether it be the lovely characters of Christ that God would have displayed in the life of his own.
Raymond is mentioned in verse 3.
That which is outside that which is seen before the world. Again, I think it's the thought of Christian character.
That which the world has seen, oh, maybe someone has slipped away from the Lord and they've spoiled their testimony in this world.
Desire to bring them back into a way where that is.
What it should be again?
You know when.
Thing of the raiment when?
Native and Abayu sinned.
And they're trying to do something, you might say, in a in a religious way.
But it was, it was obnoxious to God. It wasn't according to his will, really, just following.
Perhaps what they might have seen in heathen world in Egypt, I don't know. Alcohol was involved.
00:25:03
Fire went out from the Lord and slew those two young men. What was the word of the Lord through Moses to Aaron and his sons?
Uncover not your head and rend not your garment.
You know when difficulty comes in.
We can come into a place where it's in the home or in the assembly where we uncover our heads.
What is the covered head speak of? It speaks of dependence and subjection to the Lord.
We can uncover our heads and forget that we need to be subject to what this book has, to the directions the Lord has for us. And we can in the difficulty.
Could you think of a more difficult day for Aaron?
Lost both sons in one day.
We can, in the difficulty and heat of the moment, uncover our heads and get out of the place of subjection to the Lord.
And think we can handle it out of our own thoughts, fix things in the assembly out of our own thoughts, and it never works. And what's the next thing that happens? Frustration.
Anger and the garment is rent.
And what's under the garment? Just the flesh. The flesh is exposed, and it's ugly.
And our brother never forget the sight.
And you might sew the garment back up, with the scars always there. Any brethren might forgive you.
But they can't forget, because that's how we are. We can't.
Will to forget we can desire, and ask the Lord to help us leave it behind.
But you know you don't forget the site.
Oh, to restore a Christian character to one.
What a tremendous work when it's been lost, but I just bring that in from Leviticus as to just a caution to keep ourselves in times of difficulty and dependence upon the Lord and subjection to His word, not to uncover our heads.
That the flesh doesn't get exposed and the Christian character not rent in front of our brother and destroyed.
Verse 5.
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. For all that do our abomination unto the Lord.
Thy God.
God has put the man and the woman each in their place according to His perfect will and His creation.
And each of them has a testimony to fulfill for him in this world.
And you cannot honor God more in your life than to fill the station in which he has put you, whether it is in creation, or whether it is in the body of Christ, or whether it's in individual service. You cannot honor Him more than to fill the station that He's put you in.
You know.
Hard to tell this one.
Years ago.
In Vestal, some of you knew Charles and row at little Lord took row it.
To be with himself.
As a young man and at the.
Funeral.
I think it was actually at the viewing and Charles went up to that casket at the end when folks are leaving.
And he put his hands on the edge of that casket.
And he said you were.
A helpmeet.
For me.
Thought about that a lot.
00:30:03
He couldn't have given her higher honor.
She filled the place that God had given her.
He couldn't give her a hierarchy.
You can't honor God more than to fill the place that He has given you.
And yours?
As a woman, yours is a man, not the same. They are distinct in the purpose of God.
And so there is a place for sisters.
A place for brothers.
And the brothers to take the lead in the assembly. I'm not going to turn to all the scriptures that we might take up. The woman is to keep silence.
And the brethren are the ones responsible to take up difficulties when they come into the assembly.
It's not the place for the sisters.
And the sisters in their spiritual life, as we read in First Corinthians 11, and the brothers, if they are going to speak to God or speak on behalf of God, they need to acknowledge the place that God has given them in that creation by how they cover or uncover their heads.
You know those things, their spiritual characters, aren't they? Woman is to be adorned with a meek and a quiet spirit, but yet they're connected with physical things as to how we dress, even to the putting on of a hat or taking it off.
As is appropriate to each one in the place that God has assigned them.
And when each is in its place, then things in the home and in the assembly.
Function as the way they should.
Turn over, just for a moment.
Chapter 25.
Verse 11 When men strive together, one with another.
And the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smideth him.
And putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets. Then thou shalt cut off her hand. Then I shall not pity her.
I'd like to turn over and add a few more scriptures from Proverbs.
And 31St chapter.
Proverbs 31.
Verse 10 Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is far above rubies.
Verse 13.
She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
Verse 16. She considereth a field and buyeth it. With the fruit of her hands she planted the vineyard.
Verse 19. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hands, her hand to the poor.
Yeah, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
What a beautiful place.
And service that a sister has.
You know it's in the home as well as in the assembly. Grandkids come running across the room after meeting.
And they push right by me and they know who feeds them. They know who comforts them and takes care of them. And if they line up for a hug with grandma and they happen to be standing in front of me waiting, then they'll say, oh, oh, and they give me a hug too. You know, They know. They know where that comfort and care comes from. The service of sisters.
In the assemblies just like that in the home and how needed it is.
But if his sister reaches in, even in defense of her husband, into assembly difficulties where she does not belong.
00:35:05
She may lose that hand of service.
You know the of the Lord, they say to him in the coming day, what are these wounds in thy hand? Those who which I have wounded in the House of my friends, those were hands wounded in the service of love. And it's the service of love that a sister has, and she might get wounds in that service of love.
But all it's a whole different thing to reach in into a sphere that God has given to the brothers and try and set things right. Oh sister, you might lose those hands of service and I've seen it happen and the service that they might want to bring later is rejected.
And yet there might be a sister whose husband is a difficulty in the assembly.
And troublesome. And she stays clear of the assembly having to deal with that. She's still free even though her husband.
Has proven himself to be kind of an obnoxious person, if I could put it that way.
She's still free in the assembly.
Comfort to care, to encourage to, to have that service of life.
But she involves herself deeply in it.
Loser.
Well, why is it that we see so many women in the.
In the professing Christianity, stepping into places in the forefront, public places, public ministry, administration and so on. It's because the men haven't been men went to a young brother's house one time years ago. They weren't in the meeting. We were friends. Went to his house. I don't know how it came up. His mother was there and she started complaining loudly.
About how her husband wasn't filling the place that he should in the home, wasn't the spiritual leader and on and on. And I could see him in the living room. I thought, he can hear you.
And she is going on and on about how she had to step in and do this and do that and do the other thing.
Because he wasn't filling the place that he should. She was right, he wasn't.
What should she have done?
She shouldn't have filled his place.
The best way she could have encouraged him to fill the place that God had given him was for her not to do it.
And leave him with the Lord.
It was a disordered home.
Well, what does he say?
All that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God He characterizes.
Will men and women getting out of the place that God has given them.
And creation. And I really think the principle carries right through into the assembly as well.
If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, and the damn sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young, but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go and take the young to thee.
That it may be well with thee.
That thou mayest prolong thy days.
You know, I think.
Especially thinking of the sisters place and the service or love. It just flows right into this next portion.
When the returning remnant came back.
To God centered Jerusalem, we read that there was a governor.
And we read that there was a high priest.
And justice, Like any family, you need the father and the mother. And so the governor, you might say, represented the father.
And the priest, the Mother, the governor responsible for order when they return to Jerusalem, and the Father's responsible for order in his home.
For making sure things run the way they should.
But what about the priest's side of things? Let's look at.
00:40:00
Scriptures in Hebrews.
Find the chapter.
Well, just looking at chapter 4.
Verse 15.
High Priest is touched with the feeling.
Of our infirmities.
Chapter 5. For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men and things pertaining to God, that He may offer both gifts.
And sacrifices for sins. And here's the verse I'm thinking of. Who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way? That's the priestly side of things. That's that mother side of things.
Both are needed in the assembly. Without the governor's side of things, there'd be just disorder and things would fall apart without that priestly side of things.
That side of things that speaks of intercession, of compassion, caring for those that are drifting out of the way.
There'd be no assembly.
Well, we need both. Both are and in their right place and they work together just like a mother and father in the home. They work together for the blessing of the home. And both of those characters need to be present in the assembly and they work for blessing in the assembly. But when we come to this.
Principle that we have brought before, starting in verse six of our chapter. It's really that priestly side of things, that Mother's side of things.
That aspect.
Of things that's brought before us.
I don't know if any of the children here have chickens. Anybody have chickens? Oh, some chickens, right?
You have eggs for breakfast.
Yeah, what if he had one chicken? Did you have egg for breakfast tomorrow?
Hopefully fit lays an egg right? You can have egg for breakfast tomorrow. What if you had chicken dinner that night?
Would you have an egg the next day? No.
No.
You have to let the chicken go if you're going to have egg the next day.
And that's really what he's saying here if you come across the bird's Nest and it's got little babies.
Or there's eggs there. You can't take the mother and the eggs.
What will you have left? If you take the mother and the eggs, you'll have an empty nest. That's all you'll have.
Anybody ever heard of empty nesters?
There's some here.
That means all their children are gone. They've moved up, grown up, moved away. You know, empty nesters. We don't want the assembly to be an empty nester.
And so we need that mother side of things in the assembly.
And so an Israelite, if he came across a mother bird and its little ones of the eggs, he could take the little ones.
He could take the eggs, but he had to leave the mother there.
Otherwise, there wouldn't soon wouldn't be any more birds in the land of Israel.
That mother bird speaks of fruitfulness.
And the potential?
For more broods.
And so they were to be careful not to take both the damn the mother bird and the young. Let's turn to 1St Thessalonians.
The Apostle Paul.
In his time with the Thessalonian believers was like a mother bird.
He had a love and a care for them and in that way he's an example for us.
He says in First Thessalonians chapter 2.
And verse 7 But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear unto us. That's that mother Spirit. He was there just like a mother amongst them. He could say, you have not many fathers. He was.
00:45:21
Father too, but he was a mother amongst those young believers there in Thessalonica. Oh, what a valuable character that is among the Saints of God.
What a valuable character you know in.
See, it would be in a little earlier in Philippians.
Paul speaks of another who had that character.
In Philippians chapter 2.
He talks about Timothy verse 19 but I trust in the Lord Jesus to send to both Thea shortly unto you. But I also may be of good comfort when I know your state, for I have no man like minded like minded like the apostle Paul who will naturally care for your state. I want to look at one more verse. I think it's beautiful to connect these.
In the End of Hebrews Hebrews 13.
Make you see this verse in a new light. It did.
Did for me.
Hand of Hebrews chapter.
13.
Verse 23 Know ye.
That our brother Timothy.
Is set at liberty.
Isn't it nice when that spirit.
Is free in the assembly. Our brother Timothy is set at liberty. No man like minded naturally care for your state.
Spoken of one who cared for them as a mother cherisheth her own children. There's a famous anthropologist and her name goes from my mind.
She was a godless woman.
Had no interest in men.
But in their anthropological studies, she kept running across one remarkable trait, and she said she just did not understand the lengths that parents would go through to protect their children.
So she said even though I don't care for men, I'm going to get married and have a child because I want to understand.
What it is?
That makes these parents be willing to even lay down their lives for their children.
That remarkable.
The care of a mother bird, what lengths that mother bird will go to to protect its young is remarkable.
You know, the count is given of, I think in a gospel tract of that might have been a pheasant. I can't remember what kind of bird it was. And I think there was a fire in the field and they found her.
All charred but under her wings.
For all those little chicks and the fire had swept through that field, and she had spread her wings and protected them. You know, Ruth Boaz said. You come under the shadow of the wings of the God of Israel.
And the Lord said to all Jerusalem, Jerusalem now that killeth the prophets, and stone us them that are sent unto thee. How often I would have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings.
This is the character of Christ.
We've seen them in the ox, the sheep, the *** and now the bird. We have the liberty to look back into these scriptures and see Christ in every place and pick up the principles of God that are unchanging.
And extend right to the day in which we live.
Well.
They were too, as it says in verse seven, Let.
The damn goal, Let the mother go and take the young to the.
When that spirit is free in the assembly, there's fruit, there's results, and they could take the eggs to themselves. The young, they got the benefit of that maternal care, of that mother bird's care. They got the benefit of it. And you know, the whole assembly gets the benefit of that motherly care when it's free in the assembly, the whole assembly.
00:50:21
Gets the benefit, says.
Take the young to thee, that thou mayest prolong thy days.
Do we want to see the assembly days, if we can put it that way, prolonged?
That character needs to be free. All we need both the man and the woman. We need both each in their place. We need both the father character and the mother character. But these verses really take up that mother side of things, and the importance of the principle is expressed in that Thou mayest prolong thy days.
When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall from thence.
We're all building a house, you might say.
Maybe in two ways. You know, as we're growing and understanding the truth, we're building a House of doctrine, putting everything in its place. And we're building a structure, you might say a doctrine of understanding the Scripture.
And we may interact with others in connection with what we're learning and growing in and as we're building that house and so on.
But we need to be careful in how we express the truth to others, that we don't present it in a way that stumbles them at all.
You know, let me just give an example.
In.
Romans.
And chapter 6 I believe it is.
Romans, chapter 6.
Verse 22 But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. I'm going to connect that with another verse. Let's look over it. Second Timothy, chapter one.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
Verse one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.
According to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus.
Now let's turn a little over to Titus.
Titus.
And chapter 3, verse 7.
That being justified by His grace, which should be made heirs according to the hope.
Of eternal life.
In all of these scriptures we see that the Apostle Paul looks at eternal life at the end of the path.
Not as a present possession.
We've had eternal life this morning.
And taking it up as a present possession.
Both are true.
Old brother AC Brown illustrated it this way. He said out here in the East Coast, we put a geranium in a pot, put it in the window and it cheers us up through the winter time. We enjoy it very much, he said. I went out to the West Coast and I found geraniums out there, grew up the side of the house up to the second story window. What's the difference out there? It's in its native soil and climate.
The life that we have, eternal life, is a present possession, is the same life will have at the end of the pathway, but then it's going to be in its native climate and soil.
That beautiful eternal life is a present possession, but it's also something looked at the end of the path. Now I go to a young brother and I say Paul taught that we don't have eternal life, won't have it until we're in heaven.
I stopped there.
That's an edgy way of presenting the truth of God, and it's liable to stumble a soul.
But there are those who have presented the truth in kind of a challenging, edgy way, clever way that stumbles souls.
00:55:07
It's not presenting all the truth.
And so we need to be careful as we're building this House of doctrine that we present the truths of God in a way that they establish souls.
And we built around the edge of that house up on the roof, a battlement that which protects somebody from going over the edge.
The same thing is true in our lives.
In those days the homes were built and the roofs were flat and in the evening and sometimes the steps were up the outside of the house and the family would be up on the roof in the evening and that's where they would enjoy their evening, that cool evening air. And that was, you might say, the living room of the house. The sleeping quarters were downstairs.
We need to live our lives in a way that doesn't stumble our brethren.
If they come in and see us living in our homes in a different way than what we talk in the assembly, they're going to go over the edge. We're going to stumble, our brethren. There's no battlement around the edge of the roof. It speaks of the living room, how we live in our homes.
Let's not stumble a brother or sister in the way that we live in our homes. May our homes be a place where it's a protective.
Atmosphere for the Saints of God and that in no way they go over the edge. Who goes over the edge?
You know, my son-in-law and daughters house, there's a set of stairs and what's across the top of that set of stairs is a little gate. Why? Because it's the little ones that go over the edge.
It is the little ones that get stumble here. It speaks of a man, but I just think especially how there needs to be that.
Life lived in the home that won't stumble, won't stumble a little one.
I've just got a few minutes left.
Verse 9 Thou shalt not so thy vineyard would diverse seize thus the fruit of thy seed, which thou hast sown in the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled. Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an *** together. Leviticus 19. We read that they weren't to sow their field with diverse seed.
The field might speak of a sphere service. The vineyard here, I think, speaks of personal joy, One's own vineyard.
The source of one's own joy.
If it's in service, we can't sow diverse seeds. You can't go out and preach the gospel and then turn around and and preach free will and the loss of eternal security and think that you're the the work, the labor in that field is not going to be forfeited. It will.
You can't preach contradicting principles. Preach one thing and then another thing that's destructive of the truth.
But there's something else in the field of service. She can't plow with an ox and an *** together.
You might find someone, brother, that has an interest in the gospel and, and let's go out and let's go to this this particular place and we'll, we'll preach the gospel or whatever. And you go together and someone gets saved and they say.
I think he'll come to my church.
Oh, wait a minute.
Doesn't the Scripture say that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth? They're not going to get the truth there at that church. Oh no, I want them to come to my church.
All of a sudden, this one you're laboring with, you find you're working with different principles, you've got a different object in view.
You've got the desire to see that that newly saved one comes into the knowledge of the truth and the other wants to swell the ranks of the church that they attend.
It's going to be forfeited work. You're going to lose your work. You're going to lose your labor.
01:00:01
You need what Paul called in Philippians, a true yoke fellow. We don't know who that was.
It's called in Philippians four True yoke fellow.
I don't know what kind of a brother he was, but to be in a yoke with Paul?
You you would have to be an ox, you know, but.
Beautiful, beautiful, true yoke fellow. Same object, same desire pulling together.
As to the vineyard.
You can't sow to the Spirit and so to the flesh and have any joy in your life.
You can't sew to the Spirit and then turn around and take up with fleshly things and think that you're really going to have joy in your life. It won't work.
You won't have a little joy and a little naughty. You'll have no joy.
The fruit of that vineyard would be not just defiled. Forfeited. Is the is the literal translation forfeited?
John 10:8-21
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
#231 Pilgrims in the wilderness.
Our dwellings is a cap.
With double pilgrims leaving through the waste, Revolt is sweet to sing together. We are not far from home.
231.
Our bread out of the bread from heaven, greatest and sure.
Not one will save the stranger.
The old ever seen before?
Whoever takes the whole side.
Shall we continue in John 10?
Would be nice. I I thought there were four readings like you did, but really there's only one tomorrow.
So, but we can take up the as much as we could of Chapter 10 here and then maybe take that last reading in John 17 as you suggested. All right.
John Penny a good coverage.
00:05:03
So perhaps from.
Verse eight of John 10. Maybe read down to verse 30.
John chapter 10, verse 8.
All that ever came before me, our thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door, find me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, but he that is in hireling and not the shepherd whose own the sheep or not. See if the wolf coming and leave it the sheep and flee it, and the wolf catches them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is in hireling and careth not for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd and know my sheep.
And I'm known of mine.
As the Father knoweth me, Even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
Therefore doth my father loved me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father. There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad, why hear you him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
And it was at the death at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter, And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believe not the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
But ye believe not, because you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my father are one.
I think of that verse in First John.
Chapter 2.
Where we have Costco to send the fossil.
He's Speaking of the anointing that.
Was given to the babes little children.
You've got through 2.
First coming down the chapter here verse 27. But the anointing which you have received of him abideth in you.
And you need not that any man teach you.
Now, a word of caution here. It doesn't mean that, please.
We don't need the exposition and the teaching of the Word of God. That's not the thought there. We do. We need to recognize the gifts which the Lord has given to the church for ministry and for the building up of the of the Lord's people. That's not what it's referring to here.
Certainly babes need teaching.
Find this in Brazil. They needed to need to be established in the present truth. But what I'm referring to is the latter part of the verse. But as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in Him.
00:10:13
So.
Even a babe in Christ has this anointing.
They have the ability to discern what is of the Shepherd's voice and what is not. It's not a question of having a lot of knowledge or having some great intellectual ability, but it's in communion with the shepherd. They may not be.
Shall we say great.
Great understanding of the truth of God.
But they do know the Shepherd's voice and.
When something that is contrary to the word of God and to the person of Christ is introduced, which John touches upon in his epistle here, the danger of deceivers coming in the those that have the even the little ones, the little children, they have that ability to discern. This is not the shepherd's voice. Would you say that's Robert is the case?
Yes, it's a wonderful provision, isn't it, of the Lord and everyone of his sheep were purchased with the.
Precious blood of Christ and so he has given provision so that we can detect error. Now in in this chapter we'll notice that he has different he mentioned different enemies, different character of the enemy that is given to us. We've noticed in verse 8, there's thieves and then there's robbers. So the thief is taking something when you're not looking when you're not conscious that he's doing it. The robber does it broad daylight.
And so the truth is plundered from the believers that sometimes in broad daylight and then you have the wolf a little later on and it says.
In.
Verse 12, it speaks of the hireling first. So you have a hireling in verse 12 and then you have the wolf cometh and so there's different characters. The enemy is a deceiver. He's we have a very real enemy.
And in the Word of God, it speaks of three enemies that we have. We have the flesh within us. We have the world system itself. Is that an enemy of God's people? And we have Satan as well. And so here there's different ones that are really under the influence of the enemy and doing the enemy's work. And so he speaks of the wolf coming, and the wolf is a destroyer, and he's really perhaps one who is.
Really comes in.
They've spoken of in Acts chapter 20. We might just turn to it again. It's.
Paul speaks to them and he says.
That there would be grievous wolves that would come in among them.
Verse 29. Chapter 20 of Acts. Verse 29. I know this.
That after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. So wolf comes in, He's a destroyer and.
He doesn't have any care or any love for the sheep, and often times wolves come in among the Saints of God because there's carelessness and reception to the Lord's table. And you know, the Saints in Jerusalem are very careful.
Paul said, oh, I'm a believer. I'd like to be received. I'd like to come and break bread with you. In Acts Chapter 9, they said, oh, wait a minute, we heard about you and no, you're not coming here. And so he had, he didn't have a letter of commendation, but he did have Barnabas that spoke for him and said, no, I, I've witnessed, I, I'm, I can corroborate. He is a believer and he has preached the gospel. He has preached that Jesus is the Christ.
He is real. And so there are wolves, and they're destroyers. And so perhaps really false brethren, perhaps even defective elders, those that once held the truth, those that once walked in the truth. But their doctrine has become defective. And instead of preaching Christ and magnifying Christ and his feeding the flock, they begin to destroy. And so Paul was warning of that.
00:15:10
Among the Saints of God. And then the hireling really is perhaps you might say an under shepherd and he's doing it for an ulterior motive and he's doing it for hire. And it's really a a picture of what we have in Christendom where people are called so-called pastors and they do their work and they do it for a dollar. They do it As for a living. They do it as a career, so to speak. And they may not even be saved.
But their hirelings, and if there's a test that comes, if there's danger, if they have to lay down their lives for their brethren, they don't do that. They flee.
And so there's different enemies. And so it's just a warning to us, each one of us, not everyone that says I'm a Christian and not every system you might say that says we're Christian is really out and out for the Lord. It's not perhaps not true. I'll just give one illustration. We were in the flea market in Texas and Mission, TX and had all kinds of Bibles and.
Ministry books out and so on and.
Woman came by and she says, oh, do you have any?
JW Bibles, I said no, we only have Christian Bibles.
And she said, well, Jehovah's Witnesses are Christian. I said, no, they you don't believe in the same Jesus that we do. That's not a Christian organization. It's an anti Christian organization. Well, she didn't like that answer. But really, they name the name of Christ, but they're anti Christian. They're anti Christ and the person and the work of Christ they don't value. And so the spirit of God is bringing out before us in John's Gospel chapter 10, there are different enemies.
Different characters to the enemy and we need to be on guard.
You see that?
These.
These sects that Robert has referred to certainly are anti Christian. Every false doctrine.
Will in some way attack the person and work of Christ.
So they I spoke to a woman when I was giving out tracks just two days ago. I'm a Jehovah's witness. I said you deny that the Lord Jesus is the eternal God. She tried to sidestep it. He's not the almighty God. I didn't get into any conversation with him, but first John with her first John 4 verse one beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God, whether they are a God because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Well, you look at First Corinthians chapter 3, you have the three different types of workers there, the one who who builds with good material would precious stones, silver, gold. And then there is the false there's the one that.
May be a believer, but yet.
He is not building with good material, and He's building up something that does not have the Lord's approval.
So there will be a loss. He may be saved.
So as by fire. But his work will not have the approval of the Lord, so it will be lost at the judgment seat of Christ. The third character that is mentioned in First Corinthians.
Three, where the question is ministry in the House of God?
Is a person who defiles the temple of God. It says here in 16 First Corinthians. Corinthians 316.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, that's what the Jehovah's Witness do. And other cults that are in the same category, they they defile the temple of God, but they bring their error. Not into heathen duck. No, no, they don't bring it into the Pagan sphere, they bring it into Christianity.
00:20:01
Into the House of God. So the apostle is very strong here. If any man defile the temple of God, that's exactly what they do.
Him shall God destroy. Not only is the work destroyed, but the the propagated leaves. The person who is propagating these evil teachings will also be lost eternally.
It says there.
For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are Another thing, Satan, you know, doesn't always present himself as a roaring light.
Probably he's more dangerous when he.
When he is presented as an Angel of light than any other time, Satan can use the scriptures. He knows the scriptures, he can use them.
To the detriment of the truth of God and to lead souls astray. That's why we have these cults and these sects. They will use scripture, but it's Satan undermining the truth of God and he appears as an Angel of light. So we could look at that verse. I think we're familiar with the 2nd Corinthians. He's never more dangerous than in that character. So we have to be on our guard and dependence on the Lord and.
Holding the truth of God in its integrity.
And Purity.
You'll get the thin EDGE of the wedge in. It can happen among those that are gathered to the Lord's name.
I think it's helpful to see that the Lord was not surprised by this activity. He told of it. He foretold what would take place and it's helpful to look at Matthew 13. He tells us what the end of those things is and he tells us in a parable, teaches it in a parable. Matthew 13 verse 24, another parable put it forth unto them, saying the Kingdom of heaven is like an unto one of the similitudes of the Kingdom.
A man sowed good seed in his field.
But while men slept, his enemy came, So cared among the wheat, And when his wedding.
But when the Blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said, An insert. Did not thou so good seed in thy field? And went Then hath it tears? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. And then the servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay, last, while you gather up the tears, you root up also.
The wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. And so the wheat is going to be gathered into the barn at the time of the Lord's coming. And I believe that the rapture, and we know that He's allowing this to take place. He's allowing the wickedness of Mormonism and the wickedness of these other sectors.
Among that tried to defile Christendom and have defiled the Christian profession in the great house. Why they seek to defile but they're allowed to go on to the end and there's not the discernment or the power to deal with it and he says just let it go on and at the end I'm going to deal with it and so.
It's an enemy that have done this. The terrors really speak of the evil persons that carry these evil doctrines, and they attack the person and the work of Christ, the holy person of Christ, and there's discernment on the part of God as to those.
What's he doing now? Gathering them into bundles?
So you go by, I think of this Scripture when I go by a so-called Kingdom Hall. They're being gathered into bundles, the groups that have no use for Christ, no use for the person, and the glory of that blessed man, and they're being gathered into bundles. And at the end of it all, they're going to face the judge. They'll be judged, but they're being gathered into bundles now.
So it's a warning to us that not everyone that names the name of Christ, not everything that is written in the name of Christ is for the glory of God and is according to the truth of God. So be careful what you read, be careful is the ministry. There's a lot of the things put out on the Internet. There's a lot of Christian books so-called put out. But be careful. There's a principle in scripture. We do not learn the truth of God from those who do not walk in it.
00:25:23
Let me say that again, we do not learn the truth of God from those who do not walk in it.
And so we need to be careful.
The apostle says in the first second in the Corinthians 11. Therefore I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve.
Through his subtlety.
So your mind should be corrupted.
From the simplicity that is in Christ.
Well, in the end of verse 12, he's Speaking of the wolf catch them and scatter at the sheep. So they're real believers that wonderful to just be going about your life and meeting another believer perhaps in the grocery store doing in the hardware store somewhere you meet another believer, your heart leaps, you're thankful he's a real child of God. But what has happened is that the wolf and the hireling.
Here, the results of their work as being increased in them, as in the Christian testimony, as the responsibility of the church, was delivered on demand. Why they didn't?
Really.
Care for God's sheep as the Good Shepherd kid and so the sheep are scattered. They're sheep, they're real, they're not false. They're they do belong to Christ. And so as her brother was saying in the previous meeting, we need to take care of them. We need you have something of the truth of God that you've enjoyed something perhaps a book or a booklet something I I've often times that when I was in business would give.
ACDI know that's antique now, but.
I would give a CD of a meeting to a brother in Christ that I knew that was in the camp somewhere, but it's our responsibility to.
Disseminate the truth of God.
We're responsible to encourage and to strengthen all of the Saints of God if they will receive some strengthening. Now, they may not appreciate what we bring before them at times, but what a wonderful privilege. The sheep are scattered. They're real, but our hearts should go out to them.
Again in this chapter, the Good Shepherd and giving his life in sacrifice.
For our sins, sins of the sheep taking our place in judgment, but now in the glory, he's still shepherd. He's given the character of Great Shepherd in his intercession as our great high Priest, our Advocate Hebrews, chapter 13. He's spoken of the Great Shepherd, and we have that access to him during our pilgrimage, during our pathway down here.
We can come boldly to the throne of grace the coming day. First Peter chapter 5 speaks of the chief shepherds, the reward that the Lord will give for those who have cared for the sheep, who have kept them from the attacks of the enemy.
That, the apostle warns up, will be a reward.
A crown of glory that fadeth not away. That's a future.
Aspect of Christ as shepherd, but here we have him in his sacrificial death.
Those that.
Were sinners guilty before him? He took our place in judgment.
So because of that, I think it's important how we look at our fellow believers, isn't it?
The Lord Jesus was willing to give his life to suffer for my sins, for theirs and so.
Instead of looking at them as perhaps they hold this ecclesiastical position or that if we consider them as the Lord's sheep, will help us to love them and to have a proper response towards them. Perhaps it is what is needed in shepherding is to bring the truth before them. But if we do it as them being the Lord's sheep, there's going to be such a difference in response and if we just are correcting somebody who's wrong because if it, if we come across that way, there isn't.
00:30:23
That love and care that's going to win the heart of the one that's seeking to be reached. And I was just thinking of this little verse. It says whose own the sheep are not. You know, each one is the Lord's own sheep.
And if each one of us could have that desire in our hearts to have our hearts expanded, to really view the sheep as the Lords, you don't make such a difference when you're seeking to be a help to somebody if you recognize they're the Lords, you know, he gave himself for this one.
Sometimes we can dislike somebody and be like, well.
They didn't really appreciate it anyway. So, you know, oh, well. But that's not the Lord's heart. He is the Good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. And if we can have that heart towards our brother, you know, it makes such a difference. I was thinking of that passage at the end of John Peters told to feed my sheep, to shepherd my sheep and to feed my sheep. So it's good for us just to have the Lord's heart towards his own. And I recognize I fail in this.
Perhaps as parents is maybe where we fail the most in it.
How we treat our children.
We view them as the Lord's sheep.
We have opportunity.
To care for them in some little way.
It could help us to.
Of the right spirit and how we deal.
Have a little example of that, don't we? In Acts chapter 18 of we could read from verse 24, the Spirit of God gives us little examples of those that were true shepherds and aquiline. Priscilla were a couple, a young couple perhaps, and they used their home for the Lord and for the Lord's people. They had the assembly responsibility. The assembly met in their home in a couple of different places, I think it was at Rome as well as that in Corinth.
For an emphasis.
Getting myself mixed up that in chapter 18 of Acts it says.
Verse 24. Certain Jews named Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in the Spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, who, when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them.
And expounded the way unto him, the way of God more perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass into IKEA, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive Him, who, when He was come help them much which had believed through grace. For he mightily convinced the Jews, not publicly showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. And so I take it that equivalent Priscilla brought this man into their home in a gentle, a kind way.
And they just expounded the way of God more perfectly unto him in such a nice way that there was real fruit for God as a result. And so they recognized that this the man was a man of God and maybe didn't have all of his ducks in a row. You might say doctrinely, but it's possible for us to speak the truth in love. And so it says in I think it's Second Corinthians chapter 5, that the love of Christ.
Constraineth us.
And so it's because we have love for the Lord Jesus that our souls are constrained to follow him and to walk with Him and to be a help to our brethren. It should be out of love for them.
Six times, it says, and the New Testament that he gave himself.
And you can look it up on your own time, but six times in here. I just read the Mr. Darby's translation.
In the 10th chapter of John and.
00:35:01
The thought is that it said yeah, verse, verse 13. Now he who serves for wages, please, because he serves for wages and is not himself concerned about the sheep.
I was just thinking about when we seek to help others of the sheath, you need to love them and care for them ourselves.
Well, it's John's ministry, He introduces us to the Father. And here in verse 15 he says, as the Father knoweth me, Even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep, other sheep I have which are not of this fold. There weren't of the Jewish fold Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one, it should say 1 flock and one shepherd.
And so the Lord Jesus introduces them to the relationship of the Father. You and I have a relationship, and we brought it out a little bit in the last meeting, but it's a wonderful privilege to acknowledge and to enjoy that relationship of the Father. Now it says that the Father is one who chastens us in Hebrews chapter 12. And for we had fathers in the flesh that chasing us after their own pleasure and so on, but he for our prophet.
And so.
You have a Father who has very great interest in every single detail of your life, and he was interested in your life before you were born, and he's still interested and he will do what is necessary that there might be fruit for him in your life. And you have a Savior who is faithful as well. So it speaks in.
Is it Romans chapter eight of the Lord Jesus and of the Spirit interceding for us?
Romans chapter 8 and.
It says there in.
26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, for he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
And so in verse 34 as well.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yeah, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of the of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Oh, what a it's a work of the Godhead.
To produce fruit in your life and in the days of our weakness, to intercede for us as we pass through this wilderness scene. You have a shepherd that's intensely interested.
In your life and He delights to have you follow him and to read His word, to walk in communion with him.
Of the Lord's obedience was unto death.
Death of the Cross.
He says in verse 17, therefore, that my father loved me because I lay down my life.
That I might take it again.
That refers to the Lord taking his life and resurrection.
The Lord had a body capable of death, but not subject to death. You and I have bodies that are subject to death, corruptible. If the Lord doesn't come, we go through the article of death. The body goes into corruption. That never would happen with the Lord. Psalm 16 that couldn't happen because there was no sin in that blessed one. It was the root of the old nature was was not there.
In fact, to say that the Lord could have sinned.
Is implying that he had an old nature which is really blasphemy. But the Lord was fully perfect, spotless, but he laid down his life voluntarily.
The Lord didn't need to go through the death of the cross.
Philippians chapter two. He humbled himself unto death, even the death of the frost that brings before us what the Lord suffered from the hand of man. That's not the atoning sufferings there because it's an example for us, but here I believe He refers to the complete work that the Lord would accomplish and the Father.
00:40:24
Loved him because he was going to to fulfill the will of God.
The first motive of the Lord's death was to to please his Father, to accomplish the will of God his Father. Of course, we come in as a result of that work.
But to have the joy that was set before Him would be returning to the glory, having accomplished the will of God his Father in debt.
Ask the question, maybe someone knows. Is it the burnt offering character of his death here? It says in Ephesians chapter 5 or? Yeah I think it's Ephesians chapter 5.
It says.
That we ought to walk in love, verse two, as Christ also have loved us and have given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. So it was a voluntary offering. It wasn't. It was one of the things, if I could speak personally, that.
When I was a young man and I considered the request of the Lord Jesus to remember him in his death.
This is what broke me down is to think that he didn't have to go to the cross.
That there was a time when his work was his father gave him to do in connection with the miracles and all those things that was done and at the time of his receiving up.
He said, his face steadfastly, to go to Jerusalem. He could have gone back to heaven.
He'd done his work as the father had given him to do, but there was one more work that his father had given him to do, and he would go to the cross. He would finish that work. And so it was a voluntary offering. He went of his own will, have his own volition, if we could put it that way. It was his father's will, but it was his desire as well. And so his desire is to have us remember him in his death.
And if there's perhaps a young person that's not asked for their place at the Lord's Table.
It's a wonderful thing. It's just it's not complicated and there's no, the Spirit of God doesn't tell us what age we should be at or anything like that, but that there's a desire to remember the Lord Jesus and his death in a very simple way and to remember him.
Is a voluntary thing, if I could put it that way. In the Old Testament, they were commanded. They had to eat the Passover. It was a commandment. There was no wiggle room, you might say.
But the Spirit of God and Christianity he appeals to the affections of the believer and the desire of heart to remember him.
I think that's the very thought in that Luke chapter 951 That came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up he steadfastly.
To go to Jerusalem, sometimes that's applied to the ascension of Christ, but I don't think properly speaking.
Any good? According to what Roberts mentioned here, there is no reason why the Lord could not have returned into the glory from the Mount of Transfiguration. Or when He had fulfilled his 3 1/2 years of public ministry, which was always a fragrance to the heart of God, He could have returned into the glory, but rather voluntarily and because of love for lost sheep like we were.
He went through the agony of the hours of darkness to redeem us, so it was love that led him there.
To the cross, and all the shame and reproach and suffering of those hours.
I think we all understand that Lord was six hours on the cross, three hours receiving reproach and shame and ignominy and mockery and the crown of thorns and the purple rope and the spitting. This was all the heart of man exposed in Ottawa. We've been noticing in in John chapter 15.
00:45:28
They hated me without a cause.
That's the strongest condemnation we have a man in the Scriptures.
But then there's the three hours of darkness.
Which the Lord must go through if our sins were to be dealt with and forgiven. And.
Purged, the Lord had to go into the deep waters of the darkness.
Forsaken of God doesn't say forsaken of the Father, but God dealing with sin. The majesty, the power and the holiness of God, demanded that punishment for those filthy sins that I have committed.
So that he, he paid the price fully. He glorified God about the whole question of sin, your sins, my sins. Some people say confess your sins and come to God. I'm sorry, I can't do that. I have too many.
But the Lord on the cross.
As it were, he confessed all my sins as his own, and bore the punishment for them.
All praise to His blessed name.
I think that verse you mentioned, brother Robert and Ephesians 5 would connect with Genesis 8.
And verse 21 in the offering that went up after the flood, says the Lord smelled a sweet savour. And what was the consequence? And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake, until he said in his heart, what did that sweet saver do? It move the heart of God? And so in Christ laying down his life, He really gave the Father fresh cause to love him and move the heart.
Of the Father, he always loved his Son from a past eternity. And so in John's Gospel chapter 3 and verse 35, it says the Father loveth the Son, have given all things into his hand, but now as a man, and he goes on to that cross and lays his life down. There's a fresh reason, fresh cause for the Father's love. And his heart is moved at that sweet savour offering a coverage.
It's so interesting. It says the father loveth the son there in chapter 3.
Earlier in that chapter, that well known verse for God so loved the world.
What's the difference? A little word so.
When you say when we read God so loved the world, we're saying this is how much this is what qualifies the love of God for this world. What is it called? What what qualifies it? What defines it? He gave his only begotten Son.
Is that measurable? It's immeasurable nonetheless, that little word. So is there. It's a love that is qualified by certain parameters, if I can put it that way. I don't want to be technical in that way, but there's a point to be made. There is no such qualifier when it says the father loveth the son, doesn't say he so loved the son, and then give qualifiers that define that love. Nothing there. The father loveth the son, period.
Different than God, so loved the world.
When it comes to the sun, you cannot define it, you cannot qualify. It is without qualification. He just loveth the sun and now the sun gives up even more recent fresh cause to love him and laying down his light.
Well, it says in verse 19 that there was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings.
And so.
The truth divides, the light divides from the darkness, and so the Lord Jesus was introducing a Father, and he loved the Father, the Father loved him, and he was going to lay down his life voluntarily in obedience to His Father's will.
00:50:15
And the world is divided by those that appreciate the sun and those that have no love for the sun. And so there's three divisions that are spoken of, I believe in John's Gospel and one is in John's Gospel Chapter 7. Each time it's one a different reason.
And it's yeah, John 7 verse 43.
So there was a division among the people because of Him, the person of Christ, the Son, the Father, love and the Son.
And they could see his Godhead glories were veiled, but they saw a man, and they saw a man walking in the favor of God, the full favor of God, in obedience to God himself. And his face radiated the joy of what it was to live for the Father. And so there was a division because of him, the person of Christ. And then a little bit later on, I think it's Chapter 9.
It speaks of another division in verse 16.
Therefore, said some of the Pharisees, this man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others said, how can a man that is a Sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
And so really it was because of his words, because of his works, I should say, his works, his miracles. There was a division.
And so if you do a work for the Lord.
If you in obedience seek to.
Offer your life to sacrifice to Him.
There's going to be division between you and this world because you'll be reflecting something of the glory of Christ. It'll divide.
And it's will cause a separation. But here it's his words in chapter 10, verse 19, His sayings. There was a division, therefore again among the Jews for these Saints. The Lord Jesus had expressions. You have expressions. When we were young, we'd say, oh, that's groovy.
That's a little while ago that we used to say that.
You might say it's cool, you would have some expressions. The Lord has expressions that he uses. And if you read the Scriptures, you will get to be acquainted with some of the expressions that the Lord Jesus uses as he goes through the experiences of the Gospels. And it's wonderful just to enjoy those little expressions of the Son of God. But the Pharisees had no use for those little expressions that obviously the Lord Jesus was in the delight of his Father.
And love to honor the Father, and loved his sheep. The Pharisees and scribes went say were hirelings. They had no care for the sheep.
They wouldn't defend the sheep and so there was going to be a loss.
Might just pardon a personal little story of perhaps I've told it before, but when I was a young boy he lived along the railway track. My dad lived work for the railway and.
The schoolhouse was less than a mile away and we could see it straight down the railway track and.
One morning he walked with us to go to school and then he came back to the schoolhouse at night and he walked back to the house with us. And then the next morning he got up and he walked to the school house again with us. And I said, dad, why are you walking to school with us? We see the school down the track. We can see it. And why are you walking to school with us and then coming and getting us? And he said, son.
Look just beyond the trees. What do you see?
It was about where the across the road. I said well there's some dogs over there. He says no son, those aren't dogs, those are wolves. We haven't even noticed 2 little boys walking to school. And then I understood. I I'd never forgotten where he was standing when he said that. He was standing between US and the wolves and he had a gun with them. We hadn't noticed, but he had stood between.
00:55:07
The wolves and ourselves.
And a true shepherd loves the sheep, and will stand before.
And defend the sheep, defend the truth of God, and in love for the sheep will do what it takes to defend them.
Just kind of going back through maybe a little bit of outline again, the Lord presents himself.
As the Good Shepherd here, but also the door.
And in the beginning we have the sheepfold and.
There's the one who doesn't enter by the door and climbs up some other way, beating the robber. But then the Lord enters by the door. He's the true shepherd of the sheep. The Porter opens to him. The Porter's the Spirit of God and the Lord Jesus. We read of him in the pronouncement of his birth to Mary, that the power of the of.
The Spirit of God would over shadow her in that birth and so the Spirit of God was involved in his birth.
And then at the river Jordan, he was anointed by the Spirit of God. He was involved by the Spirit of God. So he was marked out as we read him in Romans, one marked out as the Son of God by the Spirit of holiness. And so he was marked out clearly as the coming one. And so the Spirit of God is really that Porter he opened to him. And so the sheep hear his voice. He calleth his own sheet by name.
In that fold there might be other sheep, but there are those that are His own, who are His own sheep. They are those that are born of God. All that the Father given me will come to me. And so as born of God, they have faith, and they have an ear to hear, and when the shepherd calls, they hear his voice. His own sheep doesn't say that. This sheepfold is emptied of every sheep but his own sheep.
He says he.
Calls his own sheet by name. He puts them, He leads them out and he puts them forth. So he removes them from that pole. He puts them all out there they are in front of the fold. And now he takes the place is leaving them and he leads them away from that hole. They're not going to follow a stranger. They have life and they know the shepherd's voice, the others.
Don't respond, because they don't. Now not only is He leaving them out, but He is Himself the door by which they are going to enter into a whole new order of things that was not known under the Law, a whole new order of things. And you're only going to come into that by the Lord Jesus Christ. No man cometh unto the Father but by me, and so He is the door to that whole new.
Order thing.
And then that new order of things.
Go in and out and find pasture in for worship, out for service. That is going to be that new order of things and.
He's going to give his life for the sheep, but he's come that not only would they have life, but now have it more abundantly. They have life. And as a consequence there's faith and there's a response to the shepherd's voice. But now they're going to have life in a whole new character. And we've discussed that they're going to have eternal life.
And so he's leaving them. He's the entrance of that whole new order of things. They're going to have life more abundantly, but it's going to require him laying down his life, giving his life for the sheep. And throughout we find there are the thieves, the robbers. What does the thief come forth to steal, to kill, to destroy? And the higher length fleas. When the wolf comes, those different enemies are identified.
In Zechariah.
And chapter name is Chapter 11.
Zechariah Chapter 11 and verse 17. Woe to the idol or the worthless shepherd that leaveth the flock. The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye. His arm shall be cleaned right up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. That's Speaking of the Antichrist. He ultimately is the thief and the robbery.
01:00:10
He comes in some other way.
And his aim and intent is to kill and to destroy. And he has a name in Revelation that's called Apollyon, and that means a destroyer. He comes up, he doesn't come in the.
Legitimacy and fulfillment of prophetic scripture associated with the Lord. There's no Porter that opens to him, he just takes that place. The Lord said you. I came in my Father's name and you received me not.
Coming in his own name. Him he will receive. He comes in his own name. He doesn't come in any revelation of.
A relationship that we have in the Lord Jesus with the Father and the Son. You know, he comes in his own name and in Revelation 13 he appears on the scene.
And he is looked at as a beast in Revelation 13 and verse 11, a beast that comes up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb and spake as a dragon. You know, the thieves and the robbers.
It says in our chapter that the thief cometh.
But the Lord Jesus was sent of the following. That's a contrast the Antichrist comes, but he wasn't sound.
And so he comes, he appears on the scene and he really, it says he speaks as a dragon. Satan is the power behind him and what he has to say. And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, who's the 1St beast? That's the head of the revived Roman Empire. And he's, you might say, going to be his spokesperson, he's going to be his prophet. And what does he do? He causes an image to be set up of the beast.
And he causes all to worship that beast. What's going to happen to those sheep left in the folder?
What's going to happen to them? The thieves come.
The wolf's coming.
And he's going to do just exactly what the Lord said in this chapter.
What happens to him? What happens to that idle shepherd? We read it.
Well, he flees when the wolf comes.
And so there's a great enemy of Israel that in the end of the Tribulation comes down.
With destructive power to sleep through the land of Israel. And where is that shepherd, That worthless shepherd? He runs away. He's not going to lay his life down for those sheep. He's there to fleece them, to take advantage of them, to steal, to kill and to destroy. He wants what they have. He could care less for them.
And he flees. Who does he flee to? He flees to the protection of this first beast. Now Revelation 19, when the Lord comes out of heaven, after that great enemy, the king of the north comes down through the land, and the idol shepherd, the Antichrist, has run away. He now comes back with the beast. And in Revelation 19 the Lord comes out of heaven.
And says in verse 19, and I saw the beast, that's the first beast, the head of the Roman Empire and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war with him that sat on the horse that is the Lord Jesus and against his army. And the beast was taken. And with him, the false prophet, he's not looked at as a beast like a lamb, an imitation of Christ anymore. He got stripped off of that disguise.
When the king of the North came down and he ran away, he was exposed for what he really was. Now he comes back and he's with the first beast again, but he's not looked at as that beast like a lamb anymore. His disguise has been stripped away. All the faithful knew it was a disguise because he spoke like a dragon. But I got stripped away and what happened toward me and the first beast and his false prophet, because that's what he is.
Are cast into relation fire and that is going to be be the end of the thief and the robber and the wolf. He's going to be cast in the lake of fire, but he will have done this awful damage.
01:05:11
Well, I shouldn't call him the wolf, the thief and the robber. When the wolf comes, he runs away. He's the idol shepherd. The wolf is the king of the north. He comes down with his destroying armies. God deals with him too. But ultimately, I think in this chapter, it's looking on to prophetic events that are yet to take place.
But we've enjoyed the very practical principles applied to us right now, and God intends it to be that way from these scriptures.
That's really the young twins spirit coming back, isn't it? Does he have any Luke Chapter 11 go off and take it to him and seven other spirits more wicked than himself. Just what you refer to Mandarin and dwellings. That's the nation under the.
Under the idolatry of the worshipping the.
The Roman beast.
But it's wonderful in this our time is gone nearly to just go for a few moments on the eternal security of the believer.
You know we're on the shoulders of the.
Good Shepherd, that's the place of security.
Safety. The Lord holds the whole world on one shoulder.
Isaiah tells us that, but his sheep are held on both shoulders.
And they will never perish, and no man can pluck them out of his hand.
So we have the Spirit of God, as has been mentioned.
Is giving us the seal of redemption. We are secure. We are on the the place of strength and and safety on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd, also on his heart.
It's a little different there. The breastplate, you know, on the shoulders there were just two stones, two unique stones. The names of six of the tribes of Israel on one stone engraved were engraved on the on the stones as well.
Engraved on the heart of the Lord, and the six on the other. Onyx stone on both shoulders. That brings before us the eternal security of the believer. He will never perish.
Of course, when we come to the heart.
There were 12 Stones on the breastplate. You remember Exodus 2829? It gives you the names of each stone that was on the breastplate. The thought there is a little different. That's the place of affection, love, care. We've been Speaking of the Lord caring for the sheep. Your name, you're a believer, is engraved on the heart of the Lord.
So he knows all about you as you've been reading in the chapter here.
And He cares for us according to our need. We all have different personalities. Thank God for that. And we all have.
Different weaknesses. A weakness is not a sin, but it's something that we have to be careful about. What? The Lord understands his sheep perfectly. He understands my whole temperament, personality.
Which is different to yours?
And the Lord.
He does not.
Excuse our city.
If we allow that weakness to predominate and we yield to it, we're going to sin and we need the Lord to work as our great hype, as our as our great advocate. But we are on the on the heart of the Lord. He understands each one of us individually, personally. We've often been reminded that the Lord has a individual tuition for every believer.
In school you sometimes have special needs for the children. This child needs special needs. We, we have encountered this in education. Well, we all have special needs, don't we? And the Lord understands fully.
01:10:06
Our our our needs, and I'm not Speaking of sins or not to we're not to tolerate that and say, well, this is my weakness. This is the way I'm made.
And I can't, I can't stop doing this. No, that is unbelief. And that is, that is willful disobedience. Whatever the temptation is, we have a great high priest to help us in that hour of temptation. We're on his shoulders, that is true. We're on his heart, the place of love and affection that never changes. And so we have that provision of one who is interceding for us.
I think it was mentioned.
Earlier today that the Spirit help us our infirmities in that verse is referred to in Romans 8. It does not say the Spirit removes our infirmities. It doesn't say that.
He helps our infirmities. What does that mean? Well, Paul had an infirmity, didn't he? He'd be sought the Lord three times, especially that he could be delivered from this form in the flesh, which he says, this is hindering me in my service. Lord, take it away. Lord did not answer the prayer of the apostle Paul. He left him with that thorn, whatever it was.
It was quite a painful thing to him, but he had it for the rest of his pill remains the rest of his days. But the Lord said, I'm going to give you the grace to bear. The Lord doesn't remove our infirmities, but He does give grace when we come to the throne of grace and avail ourselves of that wonderful provision that our great high priest has for us.
Not all the sufferings of Christ as a man were to put away sin.
Some of his sufferings were in so that he could be faithful and merciful high priest who has passed through this this scene that we are in and knows all the bitterness of it and you've been noticing an Ottawa that if we're faithful to the Lord in testimony we we receive hatred from the world. But the point I'm trying to make.
Probably someone else could do it better is that the Lord intercedes for us to strengthen us, to help us to overcome.
The the the particular impediment or whatever.
Obstacle we have, the Lord is able to give us the grace to overcome. Is that right to Steve? Yeah, I think so. That's right 296.
296.
Divino considering where prayers come down.
Way ahead of squeezing.
Glory.
And thy.
Name.
The spirit sound of my new preservation.
Faithful.
Holy man, with thee joy.
01:15:08
And night for thou settlement.
We take our place.
And to work.
Nice poverty.
Lost and wandered by and praying.
Which Way Are You Going?
Gospel—Paul House
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.
Welcome to everyone to the Gospel meeting tonight.
Let's start with number 42, him #42.
Before we sing this him, I want to just tell you a story about the hymn.
When I was a little boy in Sunday school.
That was a few years ago.
Was an old man in the assembly in Ottawa where I lived as a boy.
And he said that this story about the little gypsy boy happened in Ottawa, which isn't too far away from here. About 5 hours drive, right? Six hours. I used to think when I was a kid singing this hymn, because I like singing it, that it happened somewhere else in the world. I thought it must have happened in India or Asia or Europe or somewhere.
But it happened in Ottawa.
Gypsy, Gypsy families that used to travel around. And this story happened then. So maybe if somebody could start this for us, please.
Into our tent where a gypsy boy land dying of.
Course on Thursday.
News of salvation.
We can reside in. Nobody ever has spoken to me.
That I can.
Celebration story.
Before I go.
Till one can say of the children of men.
Nobody ever has told me before.
Till I can say of the children of men.
Nobody.
Ever has told me before.
Let me wake up.
God sends his son is so adverse and he.
Grand, I am sure that he sent him for me.
Throw him again.
I wasn't planning to.
Have the same at the beginning, but boys and girls, I want you to listen really good, right for a minute, OK?
So over there down the road and around the corner, first house, we had a little prayer meeting tonight, OK?
And.
One after another after another of the brothers was praying for you kids.
There was one brother who said, he quoted the verse that said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such as the Kingdom of heaven. I was so pleased to hear that.
00:05:06
And so I want to try to make it as simple as I can tonight for you kids.
OK, and if I'm too complicated, I'm sorry, but I want to make it simple so that all of us are sure of where we're going when we leave this world.
I want to tell a couple of stories.
The first one I want to tell is about.
A place I went yesterday morning.
Usually I wear work boots and.
Jeans and a.
Work shirt, sweatshirt if it's cold but.
Yesterday morning.
I was wearing a suit.
And I was wearing a dress.
Shoes and a tie because I didn't go to work.
Yesterday, for about an hour during the day instead, I went to a Funeral Home.
A Funeral Home is where someone that used to be alive is laying.
In a coffin or a casket? I guess a casket is what you say now.
And they've gone.
And you know people that we know really well.
We know generally where they are, where they've gone.
So I went to the Funeral Home yesterday because an old lady who loved the Lord Jesus very much had died, had gone to be with the Lord.
And you know, this lady was sick in here.
She was starting to lose her memory and her ability to think, and she would kind of.
Be good for a while. And then she kind of fade away. And I knew her from the Bible class that we have. And Ralph Pilkington helps me do that. And so he said to me a while ago, he said, you know, when Eileen Fate comes into consciousness again and you said something that she really likes.
She gets a big smile on her face.
You know, she had Alzheimer, really Alzheimer's, really bad. And at the end she only was kind of sharp for maybe a few seconds every time we were there for half an hour. But five years I've known this lady and at the beginning, you know, she wasn't quite so bad. And she was 93 years old when the Lord took her to heaven. And so you kids.
You think? Oh, well, yeah, she was an old lady.
But old people die, right?
And it is appointed on to men once to die.
But you know, we read, we sang this song tonight about a little boy. Little boys die too little girls.
This old lady went to be with the Lord Jesus, and I went because her son.
Is a nice Christian man, and he came comes to the Bible meetings quite often and enters in happily to them.
So I went to comfort him and encouraged him because his mom had gone to heaven. You know we only have one mom, right?
We're sad when our mom.
Passes away and this man was crying. He's older than me. He's probably 65, we'll say, and he's crying. It's his mom.
But for you kids, what if it was you?
Do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
Have you asked Him to wash away all your dirty sins to save your soul so that you can go to heaven? You know, that's why we have the gospel meeting like this. We have it for you. And if tonight you've never come to the Lord Jesus and accepted Him as your Savior, then do it tonight. Ask the Lord Jesus to be your Savior right now.
You don't have to wait. Now I want to tell another story.
Last year.
We went to the conference in Belgium.
00:10:00
Before we went to the conference, we went to Holland with the purpose of seeing a family that we had got to know.
Who have been gathered and.
A real encouragement to us.
So we went to their house.
And we've got to know their kids over the years.
And the second girl in their family she has.
She had a boyfriend.
Except there was a bit of a problem.
The boyfriend was not a Christian.
The boyfriend had hair like this and it went all the way down here. He was a tough looking young man.
He had tattoos.
And he was the type of guy that.
I was a little bit apprehensive about him.
Not I can say his parents were too. I I know that.
You know, I really didn't.
Think much about it.
Prayed for them a little bit this year. We are at the conference in Belgium.
And there was a man who came up and said hi to me.
And I said oh hi. And I met him. His name was Lau. I said hi Lau.
He said that. Don't you Remember Me? I said no, Have I ever met you before? He said yeah, I met you last year in Holland.
He said. But I'm a Christian now.
And I said, yeah, he said. You remember?
And he held his hands out like this. He said, you know, the Lord saved me. I'm a different person. The hair was gone. It was normal.
He looked very nice and you know, it was such a treat. You know, a brother in our assembly, Brad Coble, said. Paul, what was the highlight of your trip? I just told you that's the highlight of my trip. Here's a man that was headed to hell.
And you can see it all over him.
He is headed to glory now to heaven. He gave his heart to the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus washed away his sins.
He reached in his pocket a while ago. He pulled out.
A little paper that was his.
Coupon to get into a nightclub.
That he used to like to go to before he was a Christian. You know what, he had no use for it. He put it back in like that was what he used to be. Tonight I want to talk a little bit about.
The way that we're going.
And I want to talk about three people who were going in different ways.
But the purpose of my talking tonight is to talk to your heart.
And ask you what way you're going.
Are you going in the way of the Lord?
Are you pleasing the Lord? Do you love the Lord?
As the Lord Jesus died for your sins.
Or are you on a different way? You know, that man Lau that I met last year was on a different course than he is now. But I can tell you he's a happy man now. He's a changed man.
And he's totally different. He's a happy man because he knows where he's going when he leaves this world. You know that old lady I told you about, who I went to see her son yesterday at the retirement home? She's with the Lord Jesus in heaven. I know she is because she loved the Lord. The Lord died for her because she asked Him to be her Savior. And he is. He was. He is.
OK, let's turn to Isaiah chapter 55.
Isaiah chapter 55, and we'll start with verse 6.
00:15:04
Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near.
The message is this tonight, now is when you need to seek the Lord. You need to come to Him now. If you're not saved, seek him now. And this is God. God is so kind, so wonderful. He says seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near.
And you know when I was a little boy.
I had the privilege of coming to a lot of meetings like this and I came here to meetings when I was little.
Because my parents would bring me to meetings like this.
And you know, it's a wonderful privilege that you kids have.
And I hope everyone of you will thank your dad and mom for bringing you to the conference. You know it takes a lot of work for dads and moms.
They got to prepare your clothes. They got to prepare all the stuff that you're going to eat on the trip, right? They got to buy the gas. Think of all the things that your dad and mom have to do it to prepare for you to be able to come to a conference, but they want you to get saved too. And my dad and mom wanted me to get saved. And by the grace of God, I did call ye upon him while he is near. What better place to accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior then?
Here at the Bible Conference.
You know, I think a lot of kids get saved at Bible conferences.
It's a perfect place to accept the Lord, and tonight come just the way you are to the Lord. Verse seven, Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return on to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my way, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Whereas the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh that bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth, that in my mouth it shall not return.
Unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper.
In the thing we're on to, I sent it.
You know, there's a tremendous number of verses in Isaiah.
It's a big book, but there's a lot of tremendous verses too.
I was talking to Dale this morning about this Isaiah.
You know when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Almost the whole book of Isaiah, as we have it, was found at that time.
You know, people have laughed and scorned the word of God for hundreds of years.
Here's a document that they didn't know about, documents that they found.
Right, not so long ago, maybe less than 100 years ago, I forget what year, but we have verses like in Isaiah that we just read. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Yeah, it's real. It's the word of God and it's for us, for you and for me. OK, so we talked a little bit about.
The way, and I want to talk about that tonight by we'll read 1St and Isaiah 53, verse 6.
Isaiah 53 and verse six says All we, like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Now this is.
This chapter is a wonderful chapter.
In Isaiah again, but.
This verse talks about all of us, and it talks about all of us going our own way.
That's our nature is to do our own thing. And you know what? A lot of us.
00:20:00
Have come to the Lord Jesus, but it's because of the grace of God that we've come. Otherwise we'd be just like all the other people we know, doing our own thing the way we want to do it, when we want to do it, and how we want to do it. And so here we have this wonderful verse that all we like sheep have gone astray. Now, is there any exception?
No, it says all all. We like sheep, you know. There was a comment made in the in the meeting today about sheep not being real smart.
I'm a sheep.
I'm part of the all and you know, I can tell you that there was a time where I was going astray.
I was going away from God and I was far from him in here.
And if there's somebody here today and you don't have love for God in your heart?
And this meeting is for you. You need to come to God just the way you are and to accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior. We have turned everyone to his own way. You know, if we're honest, each one of us can say, yeah, that's true. That's true of me.
I wanted to do my own way. I thought my way was the right way and the only way. It would bring me blessing. But God's way is the right way, and God brings us blessing. And then it says the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
You know when I was.
Few year, probably 30 years ago, I worked with a man who was Jewish.
And he had accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior. But in the process.
Of learning the gospel. He had gone to some of his rabbis at the synagogue that he went to in Ottawa and he said.
Can you explain to me Isaiah 53, please? I want to understand what this is talking about. And they are like, well, you know, we kind of skip over that.
No, I want to know what's Isaiah 53 about where it says he laid on him the iniquity of us all.
You know, and this man Howard is a dear Christian brother.
Before the Lord took him home.
Howard realized that this was speaking about the Messiah that Israel crucified and rejected and who bore the sins of each person who would put their faith and trust in him, including Howard.
Howard accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior.
Tonight.
Boys and girls, have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior? It's a wonderful thing to be a Christian, to belong to the Lord Jesus, to have our sins forgiven. Well, I said I wanted to talk a little bit about ways. And, you know, there's some people who refers to a particular person as having a way.
And so I'll tell you, I'll show you what I mean in in Jude. Let's read a verse in Jude.
So in Jude verse 11, before we read it, this verse, this chapter is talking a little bit about people that had rejected the Lord Jesus and weren't living the way that the word of God would be happy with.
And it says verse 11, woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaring of Cora Cora. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about Balaam because he has a way as well, but we're going to talk 1St about the way of Cain.
So Cain was the first baby that was ever born in this world.
He was born as a little baby and his dad was Adam. His mom was Eve.
Cain grew up, and Cain murdered his little brother. He killed him.
He was upset at him, so upset that he killed him. Can you imagine killing your brother or your sister? But that's what he did. Do you think God was happy with what he did? Not for a minute, No way. He was very unhappy. And if you turn to Genesis chapter 4, we're just going to read what happened.
00:25:18
So he killed his brother.
And he was a grown man when he did. He wasn't a little boy.
God talked to him about it.
And you know, instead of saying he was sorry and coming to God for forgiveness.
It says in verse 16 of chapter 4 it says and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden and so on.
That's the way of Cain. The way of Cain. You do something wrong, you sin and you know it. God talks to you about it and you run away and you don't deal with it. You leave the presence of God.
That's a solemn thing. You know, here's Adam and Eve. Can I say a religious family? We would call it maybe a Christian family.
A cane grows up. He's an unbeliever. He's not saved.
He kills his brother instead of repenting, he goes away from the presence of God. Young people.
Are you going away from the presence of God?
By the way, that you're living.
I hope there's nobody like that here today.
Now that verse in Jude spoke about Balaam.
There's four things about Balaam we read about the Council of Balaam in Numbers 2031.
Then we read a little bit more about the Air of Balaam.
Then we read about the way of Balaam, and then we read about the doctrine of Balaam.
There's a bit of a progression there.
The Council of Balaam was to corrupt the people of God and.
The enemies of God's people listen to the council, and they did corrupt the people of God.
And there was judgment because of it on the people of God.
But there was also judgment on Balaam.
Because in that same chapter 30 of not 31 of Numbers, we learned that he was killed as the children of Israel were cleansing the land of all the the unrighteous people who lived there and the evil people who lived in the land of Canaan. One of the people who died was this Balaam. Now we're going to read in Second Peter.
About the way of Balaam.
Chapter 2, Second Peter, Chapter 2 and verse.
15.
We'll just start in the middle of a verse because it's a long.
Sentence but verse 15 says which have forsaken the right way.
And are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bozar, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity. The ******* speaking with man's voice for bad. The madness of the prophet.
You know, when I was a little boy.
I used to think that this meant that the *** was stupid.
Says a dumb, a **** *** or a dumb donkey. I used to think that the the donkey was stupid.
But that's not what it means.
What it means is that the donkey could not talk.
You know that. Remember the story of how Balaam disobeyed God? And when it begins the way of God, the will of God, it says here the madness of the prophet. And tonight I want to speak faithfully to somebody here tonight who is going the wrong way.
You're mad.
You're out of your mind if you're walking away from God.
00:30:02
You young people that are here tonight that have been raised in the Christian home, that have been given everything by God, you've been given every chance possible. Don't walk away from it.
Don't.
And it says here verse 15 which have forsaken the right way.
You know, the longer I live, I realize that this is right.
This is the right way.
You know, I think of some of the guys I grew up with and what how they've lived in the sorrow and difficulty and anguish. They've had a misery.
This is the right way. Let's remember that.
Which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.
You know what Balaam really wanted was the money.
God communicated with with Balaam. He was a prophet.
But he wanted to get rich off it.
From the things of God, I hope there's nothing in our hearts like that. When we recognize that God has done so much for us, the material things of this world are nothing. But Balaam wanted money.
So much so that he was willing to corrupt the people of God to get it.
What a solemn thing.
And if you're not up to date on that story, I encourage you to read it back in numbers. It's quite a story.
God's purpose was to bless His people and this man.
Wanted money so much that he was willing to corrupt the people of God and he lost his life because of it.
Now in order to get.
Sort of to the bottom of what he was teaching.
The idolaters to do let's turn to revelation chapter 2 we're going to see how the doctrine of balaam had slept had slipped into the.
Church of Pergamos.
So Revelation chapter 2.
And verse 14.
But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel and to eat.
To eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
Now this perhaps is something that those of us who are a little bit of older can understand a little better.
But you know this man who is a wicked man.
He told the Moabites to do this.
To corrupt the people of God was a solemn thing, resulted in judgment upon thousands.
In the land of Israel, who followed along with these things?
Now the reason I'm reading this.
Is for all of us older ones.
You know, we live in a world that's very materialistic.
And we got to be careful that idols don't fill our hearts and minds.
This is what the people of God were enticed to do, to worship idols.
And who is really behind that? Was the devil, our enemy of our souls?
You know the devil would like us to worship any idol no matter what it is, as long as we don't have the Lord to give the Lord the first place in our hearts. OK, so then it says and to commit fornication.
You know, we live in a world where that's all around us.
Where this sin is very common.
And very sad and far reaching too. Consequences may we be preserved from this. But this man had this way.
And this was the way of Balaam.
So now we've seen the way of Cain to run away from the presence of God.
00:35:02
We've seen this man Balaam. His way was immorality and idolatry.
But now let's talk about another man who was going the wrong way.
But God touches his life. So let's turn and read a little bit about the salvation of the apostle Paul.
I like this story.
In Acts chapter 8, Chapter 9.
Acts Chapter 9.
And Saul yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went on to the high priest and desired him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, that's just, we'll stop here for a minute. But they used to say that all the early Christians, they used to call him the man of the way.
And so Paul was looking for any man any of this way, whether they were men or women.
He might bring them bound on to Jerusalem.
And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. And he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the ******.
And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise.
And go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood be speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man, But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight. Neither did he nor drink.
We'll stop there for a minute.
So here we have this man, a very gifted man, a very intelligent man.
A very a man that had been giving tremendous ability.
And had tremendous.
Things given to him, naturally.
He's on the way to get Christians to persecute them.
You know, he felt so bad after what he had done to these people.
He never really got over it, I don't think.
He was going the wrong way.
And God had his eye on Paul, on Saul.
And out of heaven this voice came, and this light.
And it's shone right on it.
And tonight, what about you?
Are you going the right way? Are you living for the Lord? Have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior yet?
Well, Paul?
Or Saul, as his name was at this point. Saul, not only did he not love Jesus, but he hated the people who did. And so he wanted to persecute them. And so he got these letters from the priest, high priest, to bring all these people.
Bound on to Jerusalem, I assume for trial. Not sure but I expect.
OK.
So then.
The Lord spoke to him.
Why persecute us? Thou me? To me, this is really beautiful. You know, sometimes when we have situations in life where somebody's being mean to us or unkind to us.
Well, it's really the Lord Jesus that we belong to where it is. So you know, the Lord Jesus is going to take care of us. But I like this verse. It's an encouragement to make it. The Lord Jesus really cares about me. What a privilege to be one of his.
Well.
Saul says, Who art thou, Lord?
00:40:02
This was a very personal thing.
Personal interaction between the Lord and Saul.
I want to tell you tonight that you need that if you haven't had it yet.
You need to get saved yourself. You know it wasn't good enough that my dad was a Christian or my mom.
Thankfully, my dad was before he went to heaven, and my mom is too.
And I hope that each one of us values the parents that the Lord has given to us, especially if they belong to Him. But what about you? Do you belong to the Lord Jesus to see your Savior?
OK, so let's go down a little bit In the verse. Verse six it says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and shall be told thee what thou must do. And then in verse nine it tells us that for three days he was in the city, and he didn't eat or drink and he couldn't see.
I don't know what happened in those three days.
But I can tell you when I've been in trouble and it's gone on and on and on and on and on.
The longer it goes on, the deeper the work goes in my soul.
Because I know that it's him. And you know what Paul knew? Saul knew that it was Jesus.
That had taken away his sight, and he was in earnest. He didn't eat for three days. He didn't drink for three days.
I haven't been three days not eating and drinking for a long time. It's painful.
But Paul was an assault was in earnest. Now let's read verse 10. To me, this is just the most beautiful story. You know, the Lord knows every detail of our life.
He loves us, He wants our blessing. And you know the Lord had this servant Ananias, and he was going to use Ananias for the blessing of Saul. The Lord knew about it years before when he well in the past eternity, but years before he had saved Ananias. And now Ananias is going to be useful for him. And there was a certain disciple.
That Damascus named Ananias, and to him.
Said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the street which is called straight, and inquire in the House of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, For behold, he prayeth.
And has seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand.
On him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard how man heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy Saints at Jerusalem, and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles.
And kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer from my namesake.
And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest hast sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes this had been scales, and he received sight forthwith.
And arose and was baptized.
So Ananias comes to Saul. To me this is so touching. He says brother Saul.
You know, when we accept the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we're part of the family of God. We have lots of brothers and lots of sisters. You know, Ananias had an interview with the Lord, and he was like, Lord, I've heard about this Saul, this guy's a killer, and you want me to go and be with him? What? Well, you know, sometimes the Lord asks us to do things that we think are hard.
But you know what? He had a purpose.
And the Lord knew all about savings, about the work that He had done in the soul of this man Saul. He is a chosen vessel unto me.
00:45:02
You know all of us here that our believers have benefited from this apostle, this Saul, this Apostle Paul later on his name was. What a wonderful privilege that this man Ananias had to go and call him brother Saul, that the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way.
As thou camest hast sent me.
So here we have our little expression again the way.
Saul's going the wrong way.
The light from heaven shines upon him. The voice from God shines in his heart.
And he changes his way.
Did he change direction physically? No. He kept going. He went to Damascus.
But he changed in here in his heart, and that's really what's important for each one of us is to change in here.
And what a privilege we have.
To be in a gospel meeting like this.
And to have time in the presence of God to be able to change our way if we need to.
I can't tell from the outside the way that you have purposed to go inside, but if it's not the right way, you have an opportunity right now to tell God that you're sorry and to change your way. That's what happened with this man's soul.
For three days he couldn't see. He didn't eat. He didn't.
Drink why he was an earnest about in here.
His soul, his heart, he knew that God had spoken to him.
And he changed his way.
Is there somebody here tonight that has the courage, with the help of God to do that, to change the way that you're going for the blessing of God?
For the glory of God and the blessing of His people. What a wonderful privilege. Well, I want to read in closing just a few verses.
I want to tell a story.
About this first verse that I read John 14.
John 14, verse 6.
Jesus saith unto him.
I am the way.
The truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father.
But by me?
Jesus is the way.
And I trust that everyone.
Loves the Lord Jesus, has accepted the Lord Jesus as their own Savior, and that you'll.
Really enjoy this verse when it says I am the way the Lord Jesus is the way to the Father.
The way to God, the way to blessing.
Now a little story.
So there's some people I know that live near us.
And I was talking to them a little bit about the gospel.
And the way it goes with a lot of my customers is that.
They know.
That the really bad people in the world that have done lots and lots of stuff bad like Hitler, you know, the the Nazi leader, Stalin, the Russian leader that killed millions of people.
They're OK with them being punished for their sins, they say. Oh yeah, yeah, there needs to be recompense for what they did. Oh yeah, yeah.
But then when it gets a little closer to home.
And it's like somebody that's done maybe not quite as bad a thing that we pick out of the news here and there. They go, Well, yeah, yeah. They deserve judgment.
But then it's like.
A little closer home, it's like, But what about your sense?
Then it's like, Oh no, you know, we don't want to talk about that. But when it's somebody who's done lots of sins.
00:50:05
Then it's OK for them to come into judgment, but not them.
So I was talking about Michelle Payette with them.
I was talking about the halfway houses that he goes to.
And how he's given the gospel to all these people over the years and how if you come to his class five times, you get a Bible and all those kind of things. And they're like, yeah, yeah, it's good if the if the if they those kind of people hear that they're sinners and that they need to, you know, be forgiven. And so they don't get judgment. But what about them?
I want to ask a question tonight. What about you?
You know, because that's really the importance of the gospel is that each individual has had an interview with God about their lives, about their, about their sins to make sure that the Lord Jesus is their Savior, you know?
We can look at other people, but tonight it's you. That's what we want to talk about, your need before God. What a privilege. The Lord says I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. So you have a privilege to come just like that little gypsy boy. You've never heard it before. There's nobody here in this room that can say they've never heard it before.
But you can come.
Tonight, if you haven't yet, well, let's read a few more verses.
We're going to read the verse back in Isaiah again.
We're going to read the one that.
Robert turned to today. I might need some help, Robert. I think it was 56.
Isaiah 56.
Thank you.
And I'm going to read down verse 11.
Yeah, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough and they are shepherds that cannot understand. They all look to their own way, everyone for his gain from his quarter.
You know, that's the world that we live in.
Everybody has their own way.
Everybody is going their own way, doing whatever they want to do to get away with as much as they can, to get as much of this world as they can, to get as much happiness as they can, whatever it is.
But are you going your own way?
And that's really the message tonight is that there is a way, and that's the Lord Jesus. He died on the cross. He shed his blood so that we could be saved. That's the way.
And if we're going a different way, then I'm here tonight to challenge you.
The way that you're on OK now in the book of Proverbs, I've been reading this with the boys at night and we've really been enjoying this. I've found a whole bunch of different verses, but there's a couple of verses that are repeated twice in the songs in in Proverbs and let's just look at them and there's one in chapter.
15.
No, it's chapter 14, chapter 14 and verse 12.
It says there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
You know, there's a lot of people that are headed in that way, the way of the world, the way of our enemy.
That don't regard the way of God and then in chapter.
1625 Thanks Ernie.
16 and 25 is the same verse.
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
And I'm sorry if you've heard this me say this before, but I kind of wonder if God doesn't put repeat verses so that if we missed the first one, we get the next one. You know what I mean? So it says there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Again, I put this out.
00:55:23
To each one of us, what is the way that we're on, you know?
Look good on the outside, No man maybe can detect any change with us or any difficulty, but the Lord knows and so do we.
Well, there's another verse in the.
16th chapter.
But I want to encourage us all.
In verse nine, it says a man's heart diviseth his way, but the Lord directed his steps to me. That's an encouragement. As a believer, you know, I can ask the Lord to help me in our life. In my life, I might think I know what I should do, but the Lord is the one that can direct me.
You know, there's a verse in the third chapter that's really been an encouragement to me too, as a believer.
Verse five. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him.
And he shall direct the iPads.
And then there was another verse that let's see if I can find it.
Verse chapter 15.
And it says in verse 24.
Says the way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath. So that's really the purpose of the gospel meeting, isn't it? To make sure that everyone knows the Lord Jesus as their savior. And so I would just ask you one last time that if you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus yet, if you've never accepted the Lord Jesus.
That as I pray you'll ask the Lord Jesus to be yours tonight.
You know the apostle or Saul had that interview with the Lord.
I am Jesus, and tonight that's what he's saying to you. I am Jesus.
And you can come to him just as you are, to have your sins forgiven.
Hymnsing and Talk 1
The Good Shepherd
Children—Kevin House
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.
Good morning everyone. Welcome to Sunday School.
Let's have some sing some songs together, maybe some of you children would have one you would like.
Heidi.
#3 is that a little ship was on the sea?
Or do you? Is that the one you want? Yeah, maybe. I think probably enough of us know what we could sing it.
A little ****.
It sailed the lonesome pleasantly and always home and bright.
Thyself thy sake in him.
When all my sword began to grind the wind.
By All Night Strong.
It's with the clouds. I cross the sky. It will slowly. It's all.
And all but one of them were so.
I'm thinking in a day.
Instead of what's all enough.
Everything happens. He was found some sleep.
And stir me preparation master say they pride their master.
Heard he rose rebelled the wind and when they still that way our word.
Into the swords and peace.
The.
Mighty winds open is well, and all our hearts in peace.
They gravely wandered, so many had passed as well as they.
We can explore the spirits and be no winds and see all the way.
All well, we know it's once the Lord.
The Savior Grand, The Friend.
Who is scared of those who drunk and swear will never never.
End.
All right. Thank you, Heidi. You have one, Kira.
#11 All right. Thank you.
Will your anchor hold in the storms of light, when the clouds unfold, their wings of shroud, when the storm tides left, and the cables?
Rain will be rained and Trevor Thornton Thor forever grave man.
00:05:14
And frustrates of him when the Breakers roar and the meaning of his name.
You're right.
Oh, in that one's daughter, when the water soak till you're laid as forever.
On the rising time, you can never fail.
While you're neighbor holds and have been the whole day.
Yes, Lydia, all right #44.
44 Into a gypsy boy.
Of salvation we carry, sadly.
Nobody ever has sold it to me.
Time and time again.
And unto me, until tidings of joy need I not perish. My hand will be home. Nobody.
Ever the story high school.
Tell it again. Tell it again. Salvation story. Creepy God.
Shall none can say on thy children of men nobody.
Ever has told me before.
And they wake up the last words of his friend.
God sent his son he so ever, said he.
Then I am sure that is a temporary.
Tell it again. Tell it again.
Salvation story reaping all right now.
No, none can say all the children of men.
00:10:05
No body, Amber has told me before.
Can you have one?
Number two, number two in this one come to Jesus gently calling or number two in the kids book, Which one?
All right, the little child of seven.
Is that the one you want all right?
For when the heart is clean.
Christ by the sun, I want to go.
In the soul green, sleeping with salvation. Brilliant love.
Which one would you like?
#4.
All right.
Do you know how the one you want?
Do you know how it goes? Is it Christ the Savior of sinners? Is that the one?
All right, Christ is the Savior of Savior. Christ is the Savior for me.
While I was changing since our past, now by His grace, I am free.
Say no. Nothing.
Save your own sinners like me.
Love, love that sun changing. Bless with all blessings so free.
How shall I tell of his praise?
This is such a savior for me.
Save your sinners, Savior of sinners like me.
******** his blood for my grandson who has just a savior for me.
Anybody else, any other children want to give one out before we?
Go on to the next part just to make sure nobody misses out that wants to give it a song.
All right. Sure. I think we know that one.
Running over.
Running over.
Since the Lord save me, I must stop you. My cup is fallen down.
All right. Thanks David and Kira for your help.
Anybody else want to give one out before we?
Pray.
Do you have one you want to sing together?
Which one?
Could you say it again please?
I didn't hear which one you said. Do you mind saying it again?
Oh, you sing running over at home? Yeah. Do you want to sing another song?
Which one do you think she might like, Jeremy?
OK, I think that's 81 in this book.
Stop and let me tell you what the Lord has done for me.
My sins and save my soul. He breaks my heart and he made me hope.
00:15:14
Stop and let me tell you.
What the Lord has done for me.
And tell the story of the Christ of Galilee.
And tell the story of the Christ of Calvary.
He'll forgive their sins. He will save their souls.
For the Lord may come to the end.
Watch the mirror.
For the Lord may come to the end. He will come again in the clouds for me, and Take Me Home for return.
Lord, the Lord may come today.
All right.
So which one of you children on the front row can tell me where we read in the reading meeting yesterday?
Anybody know Lydia?
10 Very good.
Any of the rest of your kids know something that we read about in the reading meeting? What is John 10 talk about?
We spent almost three hours yesterday reading and talking about John 10.
Can anybody remember something from John 10 that we talked about? I have to remember everything. I was just thinking of something.
What is John 10 talk about?
So I would like to talk a little bit more about John 10.
This morning.
Anybody remember something from yesterday?
Thanks, Sam, the Good Shepherd. Thank you.
The Good Shepherd.
I am not a shepherd.
But can you tell me what animals I do have, Timmy?
But none at your house. But what about at my house? Do I have some animals at my house? What animals do I have?
Chickens. Yeah, chickens.
Now, what do you think? Are smarter chickens or sheep?
That's a tough one, Ezra. What do you think?
You think chickens are? I'm not so sure about that, but I don't really know what the answer is.
But in this chapter that we read.
It says in verse 27, My sheep hear my voice.
And I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life.
And they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
So.
The first thing that it says here is my sheep, here my voice.
Can you hear my voice, David?
Can you hear what I'm saying? Yeah, you can hear me, right?
Yeah, All right. I want to try to do something here so your kids close your eyes. OK, So you can't see. All right, close your eyes. Yeah. OK. Now I'm going to pick somebody in the room to say something, and I want you to be able to see if you can tell who it is. Heidi, you got to close your eyes. OK. All right.
Praise the Lord. OK, you can open your eyes, kids. You know who said it?
00:20:05
What do you think?
Timmy's dad. That's right. Yeah, that's right. And you don't know him super well, but you could tell it was his voice, right?
And if somebody called on the phone, can you see them when they call?
No, but.
By listening before, you can often tell who it is. Even if they just say hello, even if they just say one word, you can often tell who it is. All right, now I want to think a little bit more about those chickens in the backyard. Sometimes we have a few chickens that like to jump over the fence and they like to get out.
But the problem is when it's night time, they don't seem to know how to jump back over the fence to get back into the safe place to stay at night in the chicken house.
And so they hide under a Bush. But you know what Mr. Coyote likes Deep chickens. And if he's.
Sniffing around you think under a Bush is a good place to hide for the night.
Well, it might work, but it also might not. But in the chicken house is the safe place to be. If the chickens in the chicken house and the door is shut, they're safe. Well, often when we come home for meeting, we have to go back around behind the house and we have to call. Come here, girls. You know what? Those chickens, they know my voice.
They know because they've heard since they were little chicks calling them to come, all right? And they know that I am the one who gives them food, and I give them water and I give them shelter. And they know my voice, right? They have experienced what happens when I call them to come. And so they come from wherever they're hiding and they get to go into the safety of the chicken house and then they're safe for the night. Nothing can get them.
All right.
Now all of us are alive in this world. Are we hiding under a Bush to be safe? Well, no, but the Lord Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and He wants you to be safe with him, okay? And he calls you to come to him, to be with him, all right? Just like I call those chickens, all right to come, all right. Now those chickens could say, you know what, I know better than that man I like.
Under my Bush. I'm not going to listen to him. I'm going to stay right here.
What happens when Mr. Coyote comes along that night? He's hungry.
He gets a nice chicken dinner because that chicken wasn't safe under the Bush.
Right. And for you children, the only safe place to be is with the Lord Jesus. All right, and he is calling you.
To trust in him.
All right, And why do you need to trust in him?
Well, we have since, right? We have sins that make us dirty when God sees us, all right? And that means we don't have eternal life and we are going to perish. You know, those chickens would get eaten by a coyote and then that's the end of them. But for a person who dies without the Lord Jesus, they perish. That means they go to hell.
They go away from God, away from light and love.
Everything good forever? That's a lot more serious than getting eaten by a coyote.
All right, so it's far more important while we're talking about this morning that you come to the Lord Jesus when he calls you to come to Him, then that those chickens come to the chicken house or a sheep comes to the shepherd, right?
It's very important to trust in the Lord Jesus.
All right. And I know that a lot of you children have trusted in him.
But I also expect that perhaps there's one or two that have not yet.
Trust the door, Jesus.
And I really like that you would trust him. You know those little chickens. Trust me.
Right. They trust me.
And you can trust Jesus a lot more because I sometimes could get frustrated with those chickens when they don't listen.
Maybe I'm not perfect towards them, but that's not how our Good Shepherd is towards us. He is always good.
So he gives eternal life. They shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
00:25:05
All right, let's see here.
This is in my hand, right? Could you pull it out of my hand?
All right, he could pull out of my hand even though I moved it the first time. He could pluck it out of my hand right now. I don't have the book any now, and I was sure does right now. Do you think I could get it away from Ezra?
Do you think so?
Yeah, I'm quite confident that I could, but we're not going to wreck the book.
Okay, so I could pluck it from his hand by using force because I know that I happen to know that I'm stronger than Ezra. All right, now what if I decided to hold it and say?
Ezra, you try and get out of my hand now do you think he could get it if I really wanted to stop him?
But what about tonight when I go to sleep? What if he snuck up in the night? Could he get it out of my hand? Probably.
Right. Because I'm pretty limited in being able to hold on to something. So you could pluck it out of my hand, or maybe there's somebody stronger than me, they could come and pull it out of my hand. All right, So this book isn't really that safe with me, is it?
It's really not that safe, but when we come to the Lord Jesus.
And we trust in him.
All right, says no man or no one can pluck them out of my hand. No one.
That doesn't mean any person or any Angel or demon.
In Romans it says, nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, nothing in the future, nothing in the past.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So if you have come to the Lord Jesus.
All right. And you have trusted in him. You know what that means? That means one of your one of his sheep.
I am a sheep that belongs to the Lord Jesus. And you know what? Nobody can take me away from him, no one.
You had a Christian friend in high school, and he had a lot of confidence. One day he got up on the in the cafeteria on one of the lunch tables, and he preached the gospel to everyone from one of the tables in the cafeteria. He had a lot of courage, but you know what? He thought that he could get lost out of the Lord's hand.
That was very sad.
And I tried to tell him no.
No one can pluck me out of his hand. That's what the Lord Jesus says. It's impossible. All right, so.
Do I always do things that are right? What do you think? Do I always do what's right? No. Sometimes I do things that are wrong. Do you sometimes do things that are wrong? Yeah. Are you still the Lord's sheep?
Yeah, can someone pluck you out of your hand because you did something wrong?
No, he said. No one can block me out of his hand.
Now if we do something wrong, kind of like a good dad, he's going to have to deal with us, right? To correct us, so we go the right way because he loves us.
But we're never going to get out of his hand, All right? Now, does that mean I always feel like I'm in his hand?
Well, sometimes my conscience tells me I did something really bad and I feel uncomfortable, but does that change that I'm in his hand?
No, all right, so we have to believe what God has said by faith, right? We listen to what He said and we believe it, all right? So when we feel like we're not sure, what do we do?
You know what I do? I repeat sometimes out loud, a verse of the scripture, just like this one.
Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.
Do I believe it? Yes, I do.
I believe it.
Am I worried anymore?
No, because I believe it.
All right. And so Satan will come to you many times in your life with doubts, kind of like an arrow he sings in at you.
To make you be like well.
00:30:01
If I really believed, would I have done that?
So what do we do? We go to what God has said. Do I believe it? Yes, I do.
Am I safe? Yes, I am.
All right, that's very important. And you children can be at peace in your lives. You don't have to be afraid. You can be in perfect confidence in the Lord.
Well, I think we know these scriptures pretty well.
But I'd like to just go over them briefly here again, verse 11, I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep and then down in verse 17.
Therefore doth my father loved me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. I'd like to just read a couple verses that I've enjoyed in regard in connection with this one in John 19.
Verse 30 says when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said it is finished and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost and then another one quickly in Mark chapter 15 that we just had a family reading.
And when the centurion which stood over against him saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, truly, this man was the Son of God.
Lord Jesus said he was going to lay down his life.
For the sheet.
Do you think that I would be willing to die for my chickens?
What do you think, Timmy? No, you're right. It was mere the chickens. The chickens would have to go.
Why would I die for my chickens?
They're just chickens.
Right. What do they matter?
I care about them, I like them, I try to keep them safe, but I'm not willing to die for my chickens.
So why would the Good Shepherd be willing to die for his sheep? Why wouldn't he just get new sheep?
Why would he be willing to lay down his own life?
For the sheep, then he would be dead.
Why would he do that?
What do you think? Why would he be willing to lay down his life for the sheep?
Go ahead.
Yeah, so that we could be saved.
That's good. Do you think that he loved those sheep?
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life.
For his friends.
That's the love that the Lord Jesus has showed towards you.
That's the love that he has given to me. He laid down his own life.
For the sheep.
If you're one of his sheep, does that not rejoice your heart to think that the shepherd was willing to give his life for you?
That he loves you enough to do that.
That's wonderful.
That's the shepherd that we have.
That has called us.
To follow him.
In verse 9 says I am the door by me.
Any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
Do you think that sheep like to eat Heidi?
You think so? Yeah, I think so too.
I don't think any of us like to be hungry.
So what would pasture help with? What do you think, Addie? What do you think? What do you think pasture would would be for sheep?
And then what would the what would they do in the pasture?
00:35:02
Yeah, they would eat.
And then they would get filled up and they would be hungry anymore, right?
All right.
As people.
Do we have a desire to be filled?
I certainly do.
Well, here it says that the Lord's sheep are going to go in and out and they're going to find pasture.
So that means that we're going to be filled.
The Lord Jesus is going to fill us. We're going to have enough to be satisfied in Him.
Does that mean I always am satisfied? You know, sometimes they're sheep.
And they're inside of their pasture.
You know there's an expression that says the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Never heard that expression.
The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
That's what our flesh says. Our flesh says the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. God is holding back. The Good Shepherd is holding back something from you that if you could just get you would be satisfied.
All right, you would be satisfied if you had.
That other thing, whatever it is.
All right, so who can tell me in the Garden of Eden?
Who came?
Saying that God was holding something back.
Satan did, yeah, And he kind of rested the truth. He twisted it said.
I'm going to just change it just a little bit.
But what happened when they tried to be satisfied?
By disobeying God, What happened?
They weren't satisfied, they weren't satisfied and now the rest of us, every person that has lived has been unsatisfied for the rest of time, naturally, because.
Eve and Adam listen to Satan. So Satan is going to come to you all of your life and he's going to offer you things, say, Oh my green grass is better. If you listen to me, you will be filled up.
Is it true?
It's always a lie. He never tells you the fine print.
But there's pleasure in sin for a season.
That his green grass will not satisfy you. But with the Lord there is pasture. There's that to satisfy and to fill the longing heart to give us to have joy in our lives.
Well.
That's primarily what I wanted to speak about.
It's the Lord's care towards us.
As his sheep. And you know what?
There's a work that we're called to.
And that's to care for one another as well.
To be shepherds too.
To care for the flock.
It's something that.
We often forget about.
Lydia, do you want to say your memory verse for this week?
Look, not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
All right. Is that how we naturally are?
Do we naturally want to think about other people or we want to think about ourselves?
We naturally want to think about ourselves. How do I feel about this? How does this affect me?
All right, but the Lord Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd?
He's the one given as the example in those next verses after that one, as the one, as the one who emptied himself, who laid down his life, who cared for the sheep.
And each one of us.
If we can enter into.
How much the Lord Jesus loved the sheep.
00:40:02
We can respond.
To him, we too will care for his sheep. I think that's just when you're an adult that you would care for the Lord's sheep.
No, it's not.
Right, his sheep are often little and I see some of you as siblings taking care of a younger sibling or maybe helping out a cousin.
Right, the Lord has care for these little ones.
And if you can.
Recognize His care towards those little ones. You too can do the work of being a shepherd.
Of caring for the others.
Not so that you look good.
Or that you'll get a reward, but because the Lord Jesus.
Loves those little sheep, those little lamps to feed them.
To watch out for them.
To make sure that in the assembly there's still waters.
Those little ones wouldn't be turned away.
Three Types of Sacrifices
Open—John Kemp
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.
Shall we see 200 and 85285?
The glorious light of courts above, joy for the Saints below, to us still manifest. Thy love that we adapt may know.
285.
Jesus, I had one.
It's crowned with glory now.
Let's try all the way again by the doors almighty.
Proud.
Where all the restraining wherefore it's great and speaking.
To the Lord bless.
Ed him, God understands him and heaven.
President Blower rings alone in the night and, well, I know where I'm very glad.
I'm not going to speak.
For any length of time.
I'm going to speak on a scripture.
And I don't think you've heard spoken on before.
At a conference.
But it's the word of God.
It may sound strange to you.
But it's the word of God.
And.
The lips of the Lord spoke this Luke 16.
The Lord gives some moral principles here.
That are important.
Not so much concerning.
Our spiritual blessings.
But concerning concerning our material possessions.
You know, the Lord is has claims upon us individually because of redemption. We should be willing to dedicate our lives to the Lord voluntarily willing to surrender our lives to him. That's Romans chapter 12. Maybe we'll speak a word on that later.
Could call that dedication.
There's also consecration, when the Lord puts something into our hands.
To to use for Him. Dedication is when we put something into the Lord's hands to be used for His glory.
00:05:11
And he said on Luke 16. And he said unto his disciples, there was a certain.
Rich man which had a steward.
And the same was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods.
And he called him, and said unto him, How is it?
That I hear this of thee.
Give an account of thy stewardship.
For thou mayest no longer be steward.
Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do?
For my Lord taketh away from me the stewardship.
I cannot dig to bathe. I am ashamed. I am resolved.
What to do that when I am put out of the stewardship?
They may receive me into their houses.
So he called everyone.
Of his Lord's debtors unto him.
And said unto the first, How much OS thou unto my Lord?
And he said in 100 measures of oil.
And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write, 50.
Then set it to another.
And how much OST thou? And he said in 100 measures of wheat.
And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write 4 score. And the Lord, This is not the Lord Jesus. Here the Lord commended the unjust steward.
Because he had done wisely.
For the children of this world.
Are in their generation.
Wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.
That when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful, and that which is least.
Is faithful also in much.
And if therefore you have not.
Been faithful in the unrighteous Mammon.
Who will commit to your trust the true riches?
And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's.
Who shall give you that which is your own?
Well, I think we all know the context of this parable that the Lord is giving.
This unjust steward was accused of wrongfully using his Lord's goods. He was dishonest.
He was not faithful.
The writing was on the wall. He was going to be dismissed.
From his.
Occupation there.
But you know, he still had control of the funds of his master's.
Possessions and.
He was in, he was in charge of the money and he had certain people who owed, who had debits to their account and.
He began to devise the plan.
I know I'm going to lose my job.
I don't want to be out there digging.
I don't want to be on the street panhandling looking for money.
Here.
You owe your Lord $100.
Forget that.
Just sit down and say it's settled for $50 another man, 8080 dollars. Don't worry about that. I'm in charge of the finances of my Lord. I'm not yet dismissed. So sit down and write 80 and we'll call it a deal. We'll we'll market paid.
It's it's settled.
And so.
Of course, his debtors were quite pleased with this.
00:10:05
This plan that he was carrying out.
But you know what was at the bottom of it? He says.
I'm going to be without a job.
I won't have an income and.
These people that I have graciously reduced their their liabilities.
They'll be my friends when I meet them on the street.
They'll greet me. Oh yes, I remember you. You did me a good favor. You saved me $50, which I couldn't afford.
All right, he's going to have friends.
When he loses his job because he's going to lose his job for sure, he's been dishonest.
But he looks on to the future.
He looks on to the time.
When he will need some.
Some financial or temporal help?
Because he's going to be.
Dismissed or we say fired and what's he going to do?
Well, you see the point of the parable.
The Lord goes on to make a remark here. Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.
That's I think the.
A term for the God of wealth, but the Lord uses it here in this sense. Make to yourselves, friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, really it's when it fails.
Ye may be received into everlasting habitations.
So all this the Lord is applying this the mammon of unrighteousness, let's put it plainly, is money.
And usually when people have money, they use it unrighteously.
If they have a lot of money, beware, there's not always honesty.
But you know, we can make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.
That's that's the temporal.
We might say the temporal.
Financial assets that we might have that could apply to other things.
What I'm going to speak of it in a broad application.
The Lord refers here to money. I would say this if you have money.
It doesn't belong to you, Belongs to another man. This is what the Lord says here. It belongs to another man.
So how are we using what the Lord has entrusted to us?
We have eternal blessings, forgiveness, eternal life. We have been speaking about a home in the glory, the companionship of the Lord down here in our pathway, if we are obedient and dependent, we have the Word of God. We have the high priestly work of Christ, we have his advocacy, we have the fellowship of our.
Brethren that we're enjoying this weekend.
All of these things are spiritual blessings that we can enjoy. But what about our pocketbooks? What about?
What the Lord has entrusted us with.
I said I would speak in a broad, broad character here. Certainly money is one of them.
If you have financial assets, the Lord has blessed you.
And he's given you that money, first of all, to provide for your family.
If any man provide not for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. So the first responsibility of a father is to provide what is needed for his family.
Not to give it to the Lord, not to put it into the collection box.
What is needed for the maintenance of his household?
00:15:00
But we all have more than we really need.
And why don't we send it up ahead?
We're not going to take us with us into the grave.
We're not going to take one ***** not $1.00 with us into the grave. Why not send it ahead? Why not have some treasure up there in heaven?
How we use what the Lord has given to us is important.
That's making friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. We'll meet it up there.
A treasure in heaven that fadeth not.
Or you say that's living for the Lord and following him. That's true, but it also applies in the temporal realm. I think this is where the Lord is explaining it here in our chapter.
And it's a privilege to know that we can use.
The mundane, the temporal things which the Lord has entrusted to us. It could be money, it could be possessions, it could be our home, it could be our car. It could be.
Our time, it could be our abilities, it all belongs to the Lord.
We're just stewards. The Lord has given it to us. You have a gift to ministry. Well, don't boast about it. It's it's been given to you by the Lord. We could look in First Corinthians 4. He has given us that. Use it for the benefit.
Of the people of God.
And what about our time? How much of it do we waste? I'm afraid I have to bow my head here and own that I waste time.
One golden hour set in, 60 diamond minutes lost, could never be found. It's gone.
So our time is a valuable commodity.
While they speak in the world, time is money.
But now we have a new master.
And we're not beating. We're not.
We're not.
Following the drum of Satan, who would say?
And the educational system. I was in education myself. The educational system, the philosophy is.
Do what you want to do. If you have an ambition, a pursuit, don't let anything stand in the way of it. Go ahead. You have the ability. Please yourself. Do what you want.
You're your own master and.
Everyone will will praise you. Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself. Psalm 1949.
I can remember that verse being.
Repeated by brother HE hayhole time and again men will praise thee, if thou doest well to thyself that Psalm 49 you better, you better read the book verse so that we have it here. The end of Psalm 49.
It says.
Well, while he lived he blessed his soul. And men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself. He shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see light. Man that is in honor and understandeth not notice these words is like the beasts that perish.
There is man without Christ. He lives for himself. He enjoys all the pleasures that his money can give him.
And he's not responsible to anyone.
But he is responsible to God.
For what he does with what God gives him.
Like the prodigal son, he was responsible for the goods that were put into his hands. What did he do? He wasted them in riotous living with women and wine until he had nothing. He was bankrupt.
But he was responsible for what was given to him. So are we.
But now on the positive side.
00:20:01
God wants us to have a reward in that coming day.
It's going to be the Lord's delight.
To give.
Rewards a probation for what is done for him. It may be something small.
Remember, the Lord said Mary did what she could and.
If we use what the Lord has given us.
For His glory, to promote His eternal interest down here.
That's the lesson we learned from the unjust Stuart. The Lord commended him. He says you're smart, you knew you were going to get fired and you prepared for the future.
Are we in the same in the same way?
Living in view of eternity? Or is this world, as far as we lift our eyes, the horizon of this world? Are we, like Lot, Lot separated from Abraham? He went into the great, the cities of the plain, picked up a woman there.
Drifted closer to Sodom, a wicked city that the Lord was going to destroy.
There he settled. He became a judge. He sat in the gate. What testimony did he have in Sodom? None whatever.
God was going to destroy the city. Abraham in communion, he pled with God, if there be 10 Lords, will you destroy the city? The Lord said no, if there are 10 I won't destroy it. He was thinking all the time of Lot, but there wasn't 10 righteous in the city of Sodom, so Lot will have to be pulled out.
He had to be pulled out of the city and his two daughters with him and his wife.
When he when he tried to be a testimony to his sons, they laughed at him. What's wrong with our father? He's trying to make this city, he's whitewashing this city, and he's speaking now with being destroyed. There's something he's demented.
But he wasn't.
God pulled him out, the angels took him by the hand, and they had to pull him out of the city of Sodom. And you know what happened? God's fire and brimstone came down on that wicked city for their gross immorality. What's going on today?
That's what God thinks of sin.
Anyway, the point I'm making, or trying to make is that there's a reckoning day coming.
And if those things that the Lord has graciously given to us, we're responsible.
What we do with what God has given to us.
And the reckoning day will come.
And the judgment seat of Christ.
There will be a review, a manifestation of our lives, and there will be rewards given at that time. Now, we've often been told it's not a motive for service. True, it isn't. But it is an incentive to know that what we do for the Lord will remain. It will go on into eternity.
Either doeth the will of God abideth forever, there it will not be lost.
What we do, what sacrifice we make for the Lord.
Like the sisters have in the conference here, it's going to be rewarded. It's in the Book of Remembrance, and someday that Book of Remembrance will be opened up. There is your page and there is your name on that page.
And there is what you have done for the Lord.
When you say I've forgotten a lot of what I've done, maybe you don't need to worry about that. The Lord does not forget our work and labor of love. He has it all recorded.
00:25:05
A cup of cold water is not a very big gift, a reward for that.
A cup of cold water, that little.
Help that you give to a soul that's sinking under.
Depression or discouraged, Oh, Satan, I think the greatest, the greatest weapon that Satan has, brethren, is discouragement. We often connect, connect Satan with as a roaring lion, you know, and in some countries in northeast India, that's the character he's showing, he's a roaring lion.
We don't see that so much in these countries.
But you know, Gordon Hales once said to me, he said, I believe that Satan as the roaring lion is when he discourages the Saints of God. It was a little different. It was a little new to me. The more I thought of it, the more I agreed with him.
If he can discourage you in the assembly where you are.
And lead you away. We've had it happen in Nepean, we've had it happen here.
He has accomplished His purpose. He doesn't want you to be gathered to the Lord's name on scriptural grounds. He doesn't want you to follow a scriptural order in your apparel and in head coverings and so on. He doesn't. The thin edge of the wedge is in there, and discouragement is one of His successful weapons.
Because if he can discourage a child of God, I speak for myself. I don't want to do any gospel work, Ben. I just want to sit and nurse my wounds.
And.
Discouragement.
Comes from Satan, doesn't come from the Lord.
He doesn't, as Jim Highland used to tell us. Have you got fears? They don't come from the Lord, they come from Satan. Anyway, I was going to speak on just three aspects, and then I'm finished.
Turn over to Hebrews chapter 13.
We're familiar with these verses, but I'll just make a few comments on them.
Hebrews 13 and verse 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. Here's the first sacrifice I want to speak about.
Giving thanks to his name.
We did that this morning. Our brother read that verse, giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in life.
We should be a thankful people from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to bed. We think of all the mercies of the Lord day by day, but also we contemplate the cost of our redemption, how much the Lord loved us to go down into the deep waters of death and judgment.
Surely that should bring forth praise from these redeemed hearts. It says here by him. Therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God just on Lords Day morning. That's what it says.
Continually.
You are gathered to the Lord's name seven days a week. You are in the House of God all the time.
You're never out of it.
And so this should characterize our lives. Alas, I have to bow my head and say it's it doesn't always characterize mine, But this is an exhortation here to give thanks to the Lord Mary. She poured out that ointment on the Lord. That's a picture of praise.
And Thanksgiving, all the disciples looked on critically, especially Judas.
You would like to have that money that was in that ointment, that alabaster box. He would like to have had the money that he could gain from that. And all the disciples said the same. But the Lord spoke up for Mary. She hath. Wherever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, this act of Mary shall be told as a memorial of her.
00:30:08
Sisters say, what part have we got in the in the?
Assembly, we can't speak. No, you don't speak. That would be disobedience to the Word of God. But you are holy priests just as much as the brothers. So you have the privilege on Lord's Day morning of offering your tribute of praise to the Lord silently. And the Lord has recorded it every thought.
Malachi 3 Every thought that a sister has on Lord's Day morning.
About the.
The sufferings of Christ.
The person of the Lord is recorded there in the Book of Remembrance.
What is the second? We've already spoken on the second sacrifice. It is the use of the temporal materials, we might say.
The the the stewardship of material things. We've spoken already of this, so we won't.
We won't belabor it again. I say our time is important, an important commodity.
And you waste time, you can't gain it again.
And so, first of all, however, the Lord must have his rightful place. Praise and Thanksgiving to the Lord comes first. Now, there's some controversy here.
Praises, praise and Thanksgiving is.
Is more important to the Lord than service. I don't accept that.
I would say there is an order, most definitely. First of all, the Lord should have the praise and Thanksgiving of our hearts.
But service is important.
We are left here to be a testimony to use those goods which the Lord has given to us for the furtherance of His interests, for the building up of the the Lord's people, for the encouragement of those who are young, for the preaching of the gospel. Wherever we go, the world is perishing. We have a we have a gospel field everywhere, and the time is short.
And the there's liberties in this country.
And all we need is.
The exercise to go out to realize the eternal destiny of souls that we are meeting every day. This is all part of service for the Lord.
It comes after worship, of course.
The third thing, and we won't have time to speak very much Romans on this passage, Romans chapter 12.
We have these verses that are well known. Romans 12. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Here's the third sacrifice. Our bodies. You know, our bodies in themselves are not sinful, but you know well man can use his body in a sinful way, and so can you.
Our bodies are a vehicle of which can be used for the glory of the Lord, or it can be used for the service of Satan too, and for the indulgence of our lusts. Yes, the body is the vehicle of expressing what is within the heart if our hearts.
Are true to the Lord. This is a voluntary sacrifice.
It's not a command. The Lord isn't commanding you to do something.
The Lord never commanded anyone whom He blessed.
To follow him it was love that motivated Bartimaeus to follow the Lord, and it must be love. The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge if one died them, then all were dead. If we're close to the Lord, the The love of Christ will be a motive for us to go forth with the gospel to the lost and to serve the.
00:35:11
People, as you have done here in Hammer Bay, voluntary.
One thing to know the Lord is your Savior. Another thing to know Him as your Lord, to acknowledge the authority of the Lord in your life.
You are not your own. You've been bought with a price to glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are gods so.
The body can be used.
For the glory of the Lord, but be careful.
Because.
Because the body can be used other ways.
I've been thinking lately of what James says about the tongue and the.
We won't dwell on it, but it's frightening the way James describes the tongue. We won't take time to turn to it. Venomous serpent.
A raging fire is that? Is that the tongue?
In our members it is.
I sometimes say to myself.
If you've lived as long as I have, you would say, James, your description of the tongue is very accurate.
I would say very accurate.
If you can't control your tongue, it's not like that. You can control other parts of your body, but listen, that's negative. Our tongues can be used to praise the Lord, to encourage our brethren. We can use our bodies, our hands, our feet. Before we said these are our members. We can do what we want. That's the way the world talks.
When we come, when we're saved, these members that we have, they belong to the Lord.
And the body can be a vehicle of blessing.
Actually.
In Philippians 3, it speaks of our vile body that is a.
That is an expression that we don't use the word vile in that way now.
The body is not in itself vile. It's a body of humiliation.
It's a body connected still with this groaning creation, but it's a body of humiliation with infirmities and an old nature and.
But it can be used as the apostle develops in the book of Romans that Romans 6, excuse me, our members can be used for the the furtherance of the Lorde interests, for his glory. That's the way we should desire that our bodies be used.
And not for the dishonor of the the Lord Jesus.
And for the indulgence of the old nature, you know, we all have that old nature. I I was brought up in a group of believers that taught, at least their originator taught, that the old nature could be burnt out.
But I never found that was the case.
And I never found any of the people in the group that I was with that had that had a nature that was burned out. But we have a power now to control it. We have the Holy Spirit of God that gives us the power we have. We are delivered from the penalty of sin through the work of Christ, delivered from the power of sin as we.
Yield our bodies to the Lord and walk in dependence and self judgment.
And then we have.
Deliverance from the presence of sin when we're with the Lord. May God bless His word to us.
Thank you.
Comfort from 1 Peter 5
Open—Paul House
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.
Just a few simple thoughts, brethren.
First Peter, chapter 5.
We've so enjoyed John Chapter 10.
In the readings and.
I'd like just to read first Peter chapter 5.
With comment particularly on verse 10, but I'd like to read the chapter just to.
Encourage each one of us here. There's many different types of people that are here. There's people that are teachers, there's people that are.
Wives. Mothers.
And we need to.
One of us needs this incur the encouragement of this chapter. First Peter chapter 5. The elders which are among you, I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed.
Feed the flock of God which is among you.
Taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly. Not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.
Neither is being Lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves onto the elder. Yeah, all of you. Be subject 1 to another and be clothed with humility.
For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace.
To the humble.
Humble therefore yourselves 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. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil as a roaring lion, our brother spoke of this walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
Whom resist steadfast in the faith.
Knowing that the same afflictions that are accomplished in your brethren are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.
To Him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen.
Why, Sylvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose I have written, briefly exhorting and testifying, that this is the true grace of God, wherein ye stand, the church that is at Babylon elected together with you. Salute saluteth you, and so doth Marcus my son.
Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Well, brethren.
We've enjoyed our time together.
And you know, I love going to conferences, but then I have to go home.
And that's always hard to leave.
And it's hard to go back into our jobs and into the responsibilities that we have from day-to-day. But, you know, there's things that we get when we open God's word for encouragement. And my desire is this afternoon that this would be a little bit of comfort, a little bit of help for us as we go back into the world that we're from, that we're in normally.
Our brother has spoken about these sacrifices and.
I so enjoyed.
The privilege this morning that many of us had to.
With our mouths, honor the Lord Jesus Christ when we think of how He died for us.
00:05:01
And he gave his life. He gave everything.
It's our privilege to respond to His love this morning. You know, I have to admit my mind wandered a little bit.
I got distracted by things around me, but the Lord was there.
And He was, He appreciated every thought I had upon Him, every bit of praise that I had in my heart for Him. And free each one of us that did that for the Lord's honor and glory. What a wonderful thing to have the sacrifice of praise and then materially to give of ourselves. He's given everything for us.
So we can give a little to him, can't we?
What a privilege. And then our bodies. This is such a sad thing for me.
To see around where I live, so many people.
That are just ruining their bodies.
It's so sad.
So unnecessary.
And we've been spared as Christians.
From so much, and we can be thankful to the Lord for that.
But then I was thinking of the people that are here in this room, me being one of them.
What do I need? What do I need for the rest of today, The rest of my life?
Until the Lord Jesus comes from heaven, I need encouragement for me. And so verse 10, the God of all grace.
It starts with that, with him, with God, It starts with him.
And it says the God of all grace. What's grace?
Well, it's getting what we don't deserve.
What?
Has God-given me? What is God-given you?
You know, I can look around and actually Jeremy's not here, but he said to me at lunchtime, he said, Uncle Paul, what do you, what do you think when you see guys like me that have little kids now? I said, Jeremy, that's wonderful.
I don't have any remorse that I'm getting older.
I'm thankful. I can see blessing. I can see you, Jeremy.
Your praise in the Lord this morning you have 3 little girls. That's wonderful. I look back and I see well in the back. I remember when Will was a little kid this big.
He's got a family now to raise for the Lord. What a privilege we have so much that we don't deserve.
Do we deserve to go to heaven someday? No, because we've sent all of us. But the Lord in His grace reached down and saved our souls.
Do you know how much that's worth?
God has given us so much.
The God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory. That's where we're going. We're going to his eternal glory. That's what's ahead. We don't have to worry about things, do we? So I was just.
You know, we go to the retirement home, there's all these old people there and they can't have gardens anymore and they can't do this and they can't do that. They can't knit. They can't sew. They can't. But you know, I used to tell them, well, when people come to your room, be happy.
Be an encouragement to them. When your family comes to see you, talk to them about the Lord. Share the things that you've enjoyed in your heart.
I missed it.
What about the daily, hourly, minute by minute relationship that we can have with the Lord Jesus every day?
That's it.
You can be in a wheelchair.
Not able to do a garden, not able to knit, not able to sew, not able to do anything that used to be able to do. But you can be in the very presence of the Son of God.
That's what you can do, and to me, that is so important. It's something that we're so privileged to do today, to do now and to do the rest of our time in this world. Well, I was just enjoying that before us. We have the glory. It's ahead and it's going to be soon when we get to leave this poor world.
00:10:04
You know, I work as a contractor and I get to know people.
When we worked in their house for a week or a month or six months, you get to know people pretty well.
You know, I have this hope before me of the glory, and there's a lot of people who don't have that hope and they're miserable. They know that it's not getting better here. They know that it's getting worse.
Crime's getting worse.
Society's getting worse. They know it, they're afraid. But.
As a believer, I'm not afraid. I know the glory is ahead of Maine and it's eternal. It's not going to be for a week.
It's for the rest of eternity. Do I deserve it? The God of all grace, it's free. It was His love to me. And that's what is results in praise. The sacrifice of praise is when we dwell upon His goodness to us and that is so important for us.
Now it says after that ye have suffered a while.
You know, some of us have it pretty good.
Maybe we have bodies that don't have aches and pains.
Maybe we do. Maybe there's somebody here today and you are sore.
Your suffering physically.
But there's a lot of other ways to suffer too.
And I have some of those things. I have some family troubles.
I do. I have some troubles in my work too.
And I have other troubles.
And so do you.
And why do you have troubles? Why do I have troubles? Is it so that I can just be tough and conquer them myself? Or is it because the Lord wants me to be with Him a little bit, to tell Him about my troubles? That's what He wants. He wants us, and He wants our affection, and He wants our heart and our time.
And that's why we have troubles. But it's in view of the glory that's ahead.
We have a little bit of suffering now, but the glory ahead.
And the desire of the Lord, the desire of God.
Is that we would be perfect. You say perfect. How could I ever be perfect?
Full grown, that's what it means.
He wants us to go from grade one to grade 2 to grade 3 to grade 4 to grade 5 and so on in Christianity to learn about him.
To progress and to mature as believers. What a privilege that we have. And that's a desire that each one of us should have to be more full grown to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Establish.
Strengthen and saddle you. You know I can't go through each one of these and make a little difference between them, but I like those words.
I like to be established.
I like to be strengthened.
And I like to be settled too. And those are all things that are very important for us as believers to be happy in our souls. So it says here to make you perfect, establish, strengthen.
Saddle you.
What does it say next?
To him be glory and dominion forever.
And ever. Amen and so.
We have these sufferings in this life.
And it's in view of the Lord working these things in our lives to make us more mature.
Spiritually to strengthen us, to settle us, to establish us. But it's in view of His glory. That's why it's in view of His glory. And His Majesty may be an encouragement to us.
Give Him the First Place
Open—Steve Stewart
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.
Just thinking a little bit on this portion on our.
Brother Paul spoke it just.
Came home How It's an illustration of what he's brought before us. First Kings 17, the background.
We get in verse one.
Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be due, nor reign these years, but according to my word.
We read in James that he prayed earnestly and it didn't rain by the space of 3 1/2 years.
It is a tremendous drought.
Tremendous deprivation and all the land. God tells him to go by a brook named Cherith in verse three, and he sustained Elijah there for a little while, and then he sent him to a widow woman.
And he tells him in verse 9, Arise thee, rise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongs to Zion, and dwell there. And behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain the.
So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks. And he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.
And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal.
In a barrel and a little oil and a cruise, and behold, I am gathering 2 sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, and that we may eat it and die.
And Elijah said unto her, Fear not.
Go and do his house, said, but make me there of a little cake 1St and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel.
The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the crews of oil fail.
Until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah, She and he and her house did eat many days, and the barrel of meal wasted not. Neither did the crews of oil fail according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah.
You think of the desperation of this condition. You know our brother showed us slides last night.
And in one particular one, he said that was the last piece of bread they had they put out there for their guests to eat. It was a sacrifice, I think, of this profit coming to this woman and he meets her coming out of that city and she's on a mission. She's out to get a couple of sticks and she's going to take the little bit she has left.
Mix that meal flour and oil together and make a cake.
She and her son would eat it and that was the end of their food and they would die.
And here comes this man, he says, make me a cake.
Oh my.
But God had a purpose of blessing for her.
And you know, God has a purpose of blessing for each one of us here today.
Far beyond what she could have imagined possible.
God had a purpose of blessing for her.
And God wants you and I to give Him the first place in our life.
That's really what that's a little picture of with Elijah asking her for that cake to give him the first place in our life.
And then that blessing can flow to us unhinderedly.
00:05:02
But the what I want to bring out of this was.
She is a picture of where so many Christians are at in their lives.
They know the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
They know he died for them.
And beyond that, they have no understanding.
Of what the Lord has for them, not just in the future, but presently.
Right now, she said I'm going to get 2 sticks.
What can you do with two sticks?
You can make a cross.
She said I've got just enough.
Of Christ to die.
Should I have a handful of meal? And you know, in Scripture, flour and meal is always a little picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and his spotless humanity.
There was an offering in the Old Testament called the meal offering, a flower offering, and he was that to God. His whole pathway here in this world should have a little oil and a cruise.
And oil, often in Scripture is a picture of the Holy Spirit. You know when you got saved, when you put your trust in the Lord Jesus who died on that cross, you have Christ.
And you have the anointing of the Spirit of God, you have the Spirit of God indwelling you. You have those things.
But is.
And and if I can put it that way, that's enough to die on.
You'll be in heaven. That's enough to die on.
Oh, the Lord has so much more for us and our brother has been going through the things are both our brothers, the things that the Lord has for us presently in a life of communion and fellowship with him and enjoyment of himself.
He has much more than two sticks, if I can put it that way.
And so Elijah tells her, You go ahead and make that cake.
Because the Lord said that barrel of meal, it's never going to run out.
And that cruise of oil, it's never going to run out until the day that rain comes on the earth.
She is the first person.
Among all the thousands of Israel, and here it's outside of the land of Israel and Gentile land. She is the first person to hear.
That there was going to be an end to that drought. That rain was coming on the earth. Rain is a picture of blessing, he says. Rain's coming on the earth. She found out there is a wonderful, wonderful future ahead, and our brother brought that out. There's glory.
His eternal glory, that's ahead for us. But right now, right now, he said you're going to have something of Christ every day.
To live on, to sustain your soul, you're going to be able to go to the Word of God, if I can put it that way. And you're going to be able to have a handful of Christ every day. And you're going to find the power the Spirit of God is there available for you every day in your walk, in your pathway through this one. He has so much more.
Than two sticks for you and I.
But there are many who are satisfied with two sticks.
Good enough. I know that if I die I'm going to go to heaven and I just want to live my life how I want to live it. I really don't care about the rest. Not so interested in a walk of communion with the Lord and enjoyment of the Lord. I just am happy to know I'm going to be in heaven if anything happens to me.
You know there's something else you can make with two sticks.
Two sticks are the most rudimentary form of a ladder that you can make.
Remember seeing those long poles up to Cliff dwellings and little cross pieces like little crosses.
All the way up.
Two sticks bound together. It's the most rudimentary form of a ladder that you can make.
00:10:04
And so many look at the cross as nothing more.
Than a ladder to get them out of the pit and they go on their way to live their lives for themselves.
And it's a wasted life, though they may have a safe soul. The Lord has so much more for you and I than just two sticks, if I can put it that way. But a life of walking and finding every day is a portion of Christ and the power of the Spirit of God to make it good to our souls for us.
You see #1.
And #1.
Flowed through the grass crowd with glass and God waving again.
We praise me.
And will grace me, Lord.
To be your own real.
Blood pressure save joy and no power.
That makes him precious.
You.
John 10:22-42
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Can we think 230?
230.
Oh Lord, when we do the freaking praise.
We shall.
Human and I want your swallow and grace.
I hate for the rest of the spring.
So so.
It's right bring stronger than.
The brave.
Holy.
Spirit.
It's my fault there's women coming first.
And then swells in your eyes.
Say to him, so I told the world.
Your celebration.
And close.
Life. I have one trip.
By your birthday smiles.
Let alone bring to God.
Understand that there are some questions that some of our young brethren have asked and might feel encouraged to ask about some of the doctrines that we've been discussing and seeking to bring out in John's Gospel chapter 10. And so it might be appropriate to read the last part of John's Gospel chapter 10 again, perhaps from verse 22 to the end, and then for those that have questions.
To some of the doctrines that we've been bringing out to feel free to ask those questions that we might bring more clarity to the issues that perhaps are questions in some minds.
Sounds good.
To the end, you said. Chapter 10 of John's Gospel, verse 22 down to the end.
And it was at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him.
How long does thou make us to doubt? If that would be the Christ, tell us plainly.
Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believe not.
The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because you're not of my sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
00:05:18
I and my father are one.
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them. Many good works have I showed you from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we still may not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou being a man, maketh thyself God.
Jesus answered them. Is it not written in your law? I said, your gods.
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemous, because I said, I am the Son of God?
If I do not, the works of my father believe me not. But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works that you may know, and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him.
Therefore, they saw the game to take him, but he escaped out of their hand.
And when I get away again beyond Jordan, into the place where John at first baptized, and there he abode, and many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle. But all things that John spake of this man were true, and many believed on him there.
Just to recap, our brother Steve took up this passage and gave us a very nice.
Prophetic outline of the future day when the nation of Israel, a remnant, will be restored to the Lord.
And they will be true believers. They'll be sheep of the Lord. But this too applies to the day that we live in. And so the Lord Jesus was bringing in the truth, Christian truth. He was giving the seed plot. He wasn't giving a lot of details. Why didn't he give the details? They weren't indwelt with the Spirit of God and they couldn't understand the deep truths, the revelations that would be given to the apostle Paul. They didn't have the capacity to understand those things or to enjoy them.
And so the Lord Jesus did not go into those details, but we'll just mention those seven things again. And perhaps if there are questions about some of those doctrines that he was bringing out, perhaps we could just have more light on them. So in in verse nine, he brings out the truth of salvation. And our brethren was speaking earlier that it says if any man enter in, he shall be saved. That's new language.
It's really the Lord Jesus was bringing this out, salvation. The Jew never knew what eternal salvation was. He didn't know. He didn't use that term. He was safe. He was in the ark, you might say, and he was safe, but he didn't know salvation in this way. And then we go in and out. We have liberty to go into the presence of the Lord, and then it's vital for us to go into the presence of the Lord to learn of Him.
To walk in communion with him and then to go out into the world, perhaps in service or to do our whatever we have, our responsibilities, fulfill those responsibilities. And then it says that they'll find pasture. And so we have spiritual truth. We have sustenance by the Spirit of God. The truth of God is what sustains the believer, the new life that he has. He's it's vital for him to.
Feed upon Christ and to read the doctrines of Christianity and Paul's ministry particularly.
And it's absolutely vital. So he has nourishment. He finds pasture. And then it says in I think it's verse 10, yes, right at the end of verse 10, it says I am come that they might have life. So they're going to have divine life and that they might have it abundantly.
And so to have abundant life is to have eternal life, to be indwelled with the Spirit of God.
And to know the Father, to have a relationship that we didn't the Jew never had to have a father and to know it, to enjoy that relationship and to know the Son as the Savior, as our Lord and that one who is the object of our faith. And so it's that was also something that he was revealing. And then in really, we said from really from verse 11 down to.
00:10:12
Perhaps verse 15.
151615 Really.
He brings in the thought that of how he would shepherd his sheep. So I'm the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. There is a work, a shepherd in care that the Savior has for everyone of his sheep. And we know that a sheep has divine life. It's a real believer, and we can count upon the shepherding care of the Lord.
And he explains a little bit of his shepherding work. And we know our brother in the last meeting brought before us in chapter 5 of.
First Peter, that Peter was an under shepherd, he was a shepherd too and the Lord had anointed him, you might say, giving him that work, but every one of us is to be involved in that work of being a shepherd to look out for those that have a need and then.
In verse 16, he brings in the fold. And so there was a or the flock, I should say. There was a different principle in the fold of Judaism. There was an enclosure and so the nation was guarded. There was a fence round about. You could read it, the head. God himself protected that nation and there was, but there was no shepherd in the midst. There was no center to that fold.
In the flock, there's no fence around the flock.
But there's a center, and it's Christ Himself. And so He was bringing this out, that He himself would be that shepherd, and He would be the attraction for all of the sheep, and they ought to follow Him. And then we find that in the last one that we read, just read, had read to us in verse 28. I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.
My father.
Which gave them me is greater than all. No man can is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. And so we have eternal security. So the doctrine of eternal security is not some invention by the apostle Paul or any of the other apostles. It's the Lord himself that brought this truth out. And it's something that they didn't enjoy. They didn't have. It wasn't revealed to them in the Old Testament. It wasn't a part of Judaism. But you and I can if he can really enjoy and savor the fact that the death of Christ.
In His resurrection, the blood having been shed has brought us into a state before God, into our stand, into a standing before God that is unalterable. There is nothing that you could do or I could do or anyone outside could do to alter that standing before God. It is fixed. The sins are gone. You have divine life. You're indwelled with the Spirit of God. It cannot change.
So those seven things really the Lord brings out in this chapter and to assure His disciples as to the reality of what was coming in after Judaism. So this book is transitionary, as we said before.
There's a transition from Judaism to Christianity in this little gospel.
In the Gospel of John the Lord.
Makes a series of trips from Galilee to.
Come back.
And here he's come back to Judea.
Coming to Jerusalem.
And.
I think perhaps the final trip.
And so.
It's in verse 19 that we we didn't start with that, but there's a division therefore among the Jews for these things. There's different expressions in John, the crowd, the multitude is larger than the crowd. There's the Pharisees very narrowly, that particular sect. And then there's the Jews. And the Jews, I think is particularly the Jews of Judea.
And Jerusalem, and there was a tremendous pride associated with them of the fact of where they were born. And those who were born in Judea and Jerusalem looked at themselves as more holy, more Jewish than those who were from other parts of Canaan, of Palestine. And so there was a lot of pride. So it's the Jews that there's a division among them.
00:15:19
Of course.
Their suppositions are really blasphemous. You have the devil and this man, others say, how can a devil open the eyes of the blind? And so there's there's a struggle and trying to understand who this is. But their Lord says a little later, they're not my, these aren't my sheet and they can't hear my voice.
Because they're not my sheep.
Now there's a little verse in here that comes in.
It was at Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication, and it was winter.
And there may be other thoughts of that verse, but this is what has impressed me.
The time was closing the.
Time was closing.
The Lord's ministry and this scene was almost done.
And really?
If you think of that as more that summer and springtime for Israel, it's closing. It's closing and the cold is coming. He's soon going to be gone. It was winter and there are winter scenes in Scripture. You can go through them, but this certainly was one. And they then they circle him around and and ask what he had so plainly showed them.
You know.
How long does that make us to doubt? That'll be the Christ tell us plainly. But he had not only told them, He had proven.
In all his ways and in the works of power that the father had given him to do. But he says you believe me not Why? Because they didn't perceive the works of power, Because they.
Didn't you know he was speaking in a foreign language?
But because they did not have life.
They could not believe, they did not have faith. Fallen man is born into this world, does not have faith.
He does not, and so we read in Ephesians that let's just turn to that.
Ephesians chapter 2.
Verse 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith.
The face is that which is in the heart that lays hold on what God has said and believes it.
So by grace, we are saved through the instrumentality of faith.
And there.
So there's been a question raised, what does the word that refer to? Does that refer to grace or does it refer to faith?
It refers to faith.
Through faith and that or that faith not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God.
Not only is salvation come by the free grace of God, but the faith to believe that report, that testimony, is a gift of God as well.
It faith is a gift of God. They didn't have faith. They weren't his sheep. They were not born of God when God imparts life.
It's a package deal. You know, people come and they advertise and they say you can get a package deal. You can get your cable and your Internet access and a telephone and, you know, whatever channels you want on your TV. I'm not recommending that. I'm just saying they come with a package deal, don't they?
When God gives life, it's a package deal.
And that's illustrated in the 11Th chapter of John. The next chapter we have a man who's dead, His name's Lazarus. And when the Lord comes and he tells them to roll back the stone, they say he's really dead. You know this, this is useless, hopeless. What are you having us do? But they roll the stone back anyway. And the Lord says, and it says in verse 43. And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice.
00:20:31
Lazarus come forth, and he that was dead came forth.
Found hand in foot with grave clothes, and his face bound about with a napkin, Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
He was dead. How did he hear?
As a package deal.
Let's turn back to John. Fine.
Verse 25.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear.
The voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. Isn't it interesting that hearing is put ahead of living? Why? It's not that it really is exactly head, but it's a package deal. When he gives life, he gives an ear to hear.
And the faith to respond to what is heard. It is.
It comes as a bundle, as they say. All three come at once. Life comes with a hearing ear and the faith to believe and outside of that, man will never respond to God. It's the sovereign work of God. Scripture has a term for that. Two terms. First one is in John 3.
It's called new birth.
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see or enter into the Kingdom of God.
Paul calls it back in Ephesians 2 quickening. So let's go back to Ephesians 2.
Ephesians 2, verse four. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.
And then again, by grace, are you saved?
He quickened us. He made us alive.
He gave us a life that we did not have, and it came with faith and it came with an ear to hear. And that's why it says about Lazarus. He that was dead came forth. He hurt, life was imparted. He could hear, He could respond to the command of the Savior, and he came forth. He's a picture of quickening, spiritual quickening. When he gives that life, there's an ear to hear, faith to believe.
All at once. Outside of that, there's nothing.
And so the Lord says to them.
I told you.
And he believed not the works that I do in my Father's name. There bait they bear witness of me. But ye believed not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Faith my sheep here, my voice. They have a hearing here. They have faith to believe. These were not of his sheep.
So someone might ask, well, what's the difference then between quickening and new birth?
Well, quickening is an expression. It's a of the same thing really of new birth. It's but it's Paul's ministry. Paul says you're dead. You're separated from God morally, spiritually, you're dead. You can't respond to God even if you wanted to, but you don't want to. You're dead before God.
Peter, John says you're physically alive with a corrupted nature and a corrupted life.
00:25:00
And you need to be born again. You need a new life and a new nature. So that's the difference. John's ministry is different in this way. And so, Brother Gordon, I'll just give the illustration. It's a help. I found it to help when I was young. Maybe you find it as help too. But he used to say, you know, quickening is. You could illustrate it this way. Suppose you had a dog on the floor and he's dead and you put 100 lbs of bricks on his back.
Does he feel it? No. It's like a Sinner. He doesn't feel the weight of his sins.
He's dead morally, spiritually dead towards God. He's enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. And unless there's divine intervention, the story will never change. So the dog, if you had the power to give the dog life and you said live, that's like quickening you. And the dog would become aware and he would then feel the weight of bricks on his back. He'd struggle to get free.
And so a Sinner that is quickened.
He has divine life. He's safe like Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.
And he begins to have thoughts towards God and so he begins to have a sense of his sins. And so that's just a little bit of a, an expression. I would just say to and add to what you said, Brother Steve, in connection with what we receive at the time that we're quickened, we received divine life.
We receive faith to believe and.
We also.
Receive a gift, A spiritual gift.
At the same time, we don't know it at the time, but I don't know if this is the right scripture or not, but it's Ephesians chapter 4. I know He gives gifts, and that's the men themselves to the church, the gifts to the church, to the apostles, and so on. But in Ephesians chapter 4.
Verse 8 Wherefore he says, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
So you received a spiritual gift. You had natural gifts. He gave you natural gifts. You were born naturally into this world.
But then He gave you a spiritual gift as well, and He also has given you the faith to believe. So nothing starts with you, it all starts with God.
We're responsible, but really when we look back at it and by the grace of God.
We see that he had to act. We were dead in trespasses and since he had to act before there would be any movement on our part.
You might just say to in John 10 here verse 26, there are three things that mark a true sheep.
One we've mentioned is he believes. So the Pharisees in verse 26 and those that were there, they didn't believe, but a true sheep believes he has faith. That's really, you might say a mark on the heart. And then in verse 27, my sheep hear my voice. And so there's a mark on the ear. They have the ear, the capacity to hear divine, the divine voice, the voice of the Lord Jesus, and to receive divine communications.
And then the other thing is a mark on the foot. There's a following of the Lord.
The capacity to follow the Lord. You know what an unbeliever may try to follow the Lord. He may try to be very religious. He may try to, in the strength of his flesh to do everything correctly and to look just like a Christian and to act just like a Christian. But really he's following his own thoughts in connection with how he should live and to make himself acceptable to God. He's really not.
Following the shepherd. But you have the capacity to follow the Shepherd because you know the Shepherd and he called you. He's called you to follow him.
So those three things we believe.
00:30:00
We hear and we follow.
Return to 1St John. The hospital does give some very solemn warnings there.
May be averse that.
Young people might not fully understand. We could make a few comments on it.
Chapter four of First John beloved, believe not every spirit.
But try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesseth.
That Jesus Christ is coming, the flashes of God, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is coming, the flesh is not of God, and that this is that spirit of Antichrist whereof we have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world. What does it mean to when it refers to the spirit of Jesus Christ coming in the flesh?
Well, that is really a declaration of His deity. You did not come in the flesh. You were born into the world, a human being partaking of flesh and blood, but you had no former previous existence existence.
Before your appearance in the world, but the Lord he.
Existed He from a past eternity. He was in the bosom of the Father, but he took flesh. He took manhood into union with Himself.
Within a body that was capable of death, but not subject to it. So he existed from a past eternity. Now every false doctrine that.
That is promulgated will attack the person and work of Christ in some way.
And the apostle is warning here, anyone who?
Refers to the Lord in this way.
Is really denying his deity?
So.
That is one of the hallmarks that the Lord Jesus was the eternal God, right?
Yes, the Gnostics at that time were saying that he came, but he was a spirit. He was not actually a man. And they had all kinds of.
Theories as to what kind of a body he had and so on. But the Spirit of God records that what was spoken of by the apostles and what the Spirit of God revealed at the beginning of the testimony of the Lord Jesus was that he had a real body. He was a real man.
With a real spirit, a real soul, and a real physical body.
He became became in flesh and he became flesh. He took manhood so that he might be able to die and that he might glorify God in his death. But then when he rose again, it was his same body that rose from among the dead, but it was changed. It had a different state. It was raised in a glorified state. And so that's why.
When he rose as a in a glorified state as a glorified man.
The disciples in John's Gospel chapter 20 were in that upper room, and as they were in the upper room, let's read it so that we don't, so that it's clear in everyone's mind and mine as well. It says in verse 19, John 20, verse 19. Then the same day at evening being the first day of the week when the doors were shut. The Spirit of God records that fast.
Where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews came Jesus and stood in the midst and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And then we know. For at the time when he was with walking with the ones that were going down to Emmaus, the veiled himself, they didn't recognize exactly who it was. And so he had the capacity to avail himself. But then he disappeared on them. He as they he broke the bread, he gave the thanks for the meal.
00:35:06
He broke that bread, passed it to them, he disappeared, and so they knew it was the Lord. Then he reappeared in that large upper room and he spoke to the disciples and upgraded them so he had a real body. And so this is really the.
The Spirit of God guards the deity and the manhood of Christ.
In the epistles of John that he had a it was a man in union with God himself. And so he was God, and he also was man and his God with glories as a man. We know, we can read in the gospels, we have the moral glories of the Lord told forth, but he was God as a man.
We have to just guard something here when we come to the person.
Of Christ.
We could we consider ourselves connected with the old creation. We have bodies speaking to Terry via after the meeting. The body is not spoken of as sinful, but.
It has infirmities, and it is.
Capable of sinning because we have an old nature in that body. Now the Lord never had that old nature. And the mistake that Christendom has made, they've considered the Lord as having an infirmity. That is error. The Lord did not have any infirmity. They would take that from Hebrews, I guess, chapter 4.
That the Lord partook of our infirmities. That's wrong.
An infirmity is not sin in itself.
We have various infirmities and we feel the more as we get older.
An affirm infirmity is the weakness.
And it's it identifies us with the the old creation.
And so we are we still a part of that old groaning creation, remember?
When the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead, he groaned in spirit.
But to say the Lord had infirmities, then you're connecting him with the the old, the old sinful Adam you're connecting him with.
With the 1St man, it's, it's not, it's not scriptural. Now an infirmity is not sin in itself, but it can lead to sin. Paul had an infirmity and we all have infirmities and he prayed three times that the Lord would would remove it and he did not. The Lord gave him grace to overcome that infirmity. And so the Lord can give grace to us when we to to overcome the.
The the the infirmity that we have so that.
It doesn't lead us into sin. You know what I mean? But that was not the case with the Lord, however. He was tempted in all points, as we are. He was tempted in every way that a righteous man could be tempted. He had all the sensibilities of a man. He felt hungry, He felt thirsty, He felt sorrow, He felt rejection.
He he felt pain when they nailed him to the cross. He was an impervious to discouraging and the nailing in this and so on. And so he was a perfect man, but entirely separate from any taint of the old nature. Now we have the old nature and we'll have it until the end of our of our.
Lives down here.
But that was that was not the case with the Lord in connection with the Lord, though it was not temptation to send it was really he was tested. That's the word that it's what we would use. The modern day expression would be he was tested in every way that a righteous man could be tested. We might get back to our chapter here and remember in verse 29 that the Lord Jesus is the one that introduced us to that relationship that we now have.
00:40:17
As the Father, and as you know, when he appeared to Mary Magdalene.
In I think it's John's Gospel chapter 20, it says in verse 17.
John 20 verse 17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but those of my brethren.
And say unto them, I ascend to unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and to your God.
And so that relationship now they could enjoy. It was something that the Old Testament Saints never, never enjoyed, that it wasn't a part of the revelation given to the.
Jew, or to the children of Israel. But you and I are brought into the very nearest relationship with God. We know Him as our Father.
So the Lord Jesus himself that delighted was a work that His Father gave Him to do to reveal the Father to us, the Father which gave them me. You have been given individually to the by the Father, to the Son.
Is greater than all no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. So the Lord Jesus plainly talked that he was the son of God, that he is God in verse 36 it says.
I am the Son of God at the end of that verse. Now if you have those that call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, they deny that he ever said that he was the Son of God, but this is one of the verses of scripture that you can use.
To say no, that's not true. He did say that he is the Son of God. He said I am. I said I am the Son of God. He is the Son of God.
So there hasn't been any questions yet, so maybe all hazard one.
Verse 30 is a verse that I think is sometimes used to cause confusion in in the Trinity.
So how are we to understand what the Lord Jesus is saying in verse 30 when he says I am, my Father are one?
Well, I'll make this point out in in connection with the Word Trinity. It's never found in the Scriptures Trinity. It doesn't say the Trinity, but it's an expression that Bible teachers have used to show that the Godhead is in three persons. And so in Genesis, even chapter one, it says in the beginning God or Elohim.
Created the heaven should say the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and so there was.
This plural Godhead, but they didn't have the details in the Old Testament as to how many persons. It said more than one person to the Godhead, but they didn't know how many persons. So here I and my father are. One is really that they are a part. Each one is a distinct person in the Godhead.
And so we have oftentimes different places in Scripture where the Trinity is brought out, and I think it's in Mark's Gospel.
Is it chapter 4 at the baptism of the Lord?
No, it's chapter 3.
Let's look at chapter 3 and verse.
16 Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him.
Chapter 3 of Matthew and verse 16.
Did I say Mark? I'm sorry, Matthew, Matthew 3 verse 16.
No, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God.
Descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. So he was anointed of the Spirit, indwelled of the Spirit.
00:45:01
A lower voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, and whom I am well pleased. And so we find that the Trinity is mentioned is revealed here in Matthew's Gospel at the baptism of the Lord Jesus. And So what the Lord Jesus was saying here in John's gospel.
That he was just as much God as.
Whose Father was and in John's Gospel was read to us this morning. We might read it in chapter one.
The scriptures are very plain. In the beginning was the Word. That is the Lord Jesus was the communication of who God is to man. He was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him. Without him was not anything made that was made. And so the Lord Jesus is presented in John's gospel as being a divine person. And so he says I am a divine person. My Father is a divine person. And the Spirit of God is also brought in in different passages. And so we have.
The Spirit, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit.
Brought a very distinctly, but there is one God.
And they are equal in importance. And I say sometimes we hear people speak of the first and second and third person of the Trinity. That is not a scriptural expression.
They are one in purpose and council, but there is a distinctness in the in the Trinity, the Father in Council and.
Purpose, the Sun, the one who accomplishes.
The purpose and will of God perfectly He was the Creator.
The Spirit of God is the the power for that.
For those works to be done, so you have the Father and counsel and purpose of the Son who carries it out. The Spirit of God is the power. But I was thinking of that verse, No man knoweth the sun but the Father.
That's that's something that we shouldn't forget to delve into the inscrutable mystery of the union of.
Of Deity with manhood has been a problem amongst brethren for centuries, and some very serious doctrine has come in amongst brethren.
Through delving in and trying to explain the the Trinity and the and the union of of deity with manhood.
That's an inscrutable mystery. We accept it by faith. The Lord was perfect God and perfect man, So as he walked in this world, He was the fullness of the Godhead in manhood.
Now the majesty and glory of his, of his past.
His past manifestation in the Godhead was veiled, so no one could see that majesty and power and divine glory. You never emptied himself of Deity, but He did empty Himself of of that outward glory that He had, that He possessed inherently as the Eternal.
Only begotten Son of God that was, that was never relinquished.
But it was veiled in the person of the Lord in manhood, so he could say, He that seeth me seeth the Father, So he was the perfect.
Expression of the heart of God and of the nature of God. We we cannot we cannot divide them.
Yet we we can acknowledge them as being distinct. But we must.
00:50:00
Leave this as a matter of faith. Maybe you can explain it better, Robert, than I can. No, I don't think so. But it was really, it was really a truth that existed in the Old Testament times but was not revealed. So let us make man in our own image. So we don't. We didn't. It wasn't revealed who those divine persons were.
But.
Let us make man in our own image.
Let us go down and see In connection with Genesis Chapter 11, the.
Tower of Babel.
Let us go down in.
Genesis chapter 19 in connection with the Lord going to Sodom and Gomorrah, there is little hints that there were in the Old Testament that there were more persons, that God was the plurality, but it's a Christian revelation. That's what we're reading here. It's a Christian revelation and the Lord Jesus himself revealed it. So we have the authority from the Son of God himself. He said he that have seen me have seen the Father, and we have the work of the Spirit of God.
Descending upon him and so on, empowering his service for God.
Because the Father and the Son are one in Trinity.
They're also, Brother John mentioned one in all their ways and their purpose and what they intend to do and their purpose in connection with the sheet and their council are all there one in every way in that way. And so in John 17, in the Lord's Prayer, he requests that the apostles and then on to those that would believe the word that the apostles brought would be one like they were one. Well, we can't be one in Trinity.
How can we be one? Well, we can be one in the way they were, in their ways.
Because they were eternity and their thought, their purpose, their aim, and it was manifested and displayed in this world. And so if you go back to Chapter 5.
And the Lord says in verse 17.
Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and thy work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because not only had He broken the Sabbath, but he said also that God was His Father, making himself equal with God. If you look at the new translation, it says, but said also that God was His own Father.
Exclusively.
They said you're making yourself equal with God. They they took that very plainly. My father worketh hitherto and I work that. He said God was his father, that he was making himself equal with God.
Putting himself on that same status and they picked up stones to stone him. Well, it's the same here in our chapter. I and my father are one. They take up stones to stone him. They very plainly go on to say.
Verse 33 For good works we still may not, but for blasphemy, because thou being a man make us thyself God.
Same as chapter 5. They looked at him in that claim as making himself equal with God, making himself God, but he was a man.
He was a man, and how can that be? Well, here was a man on the earth who was God.
And looked up, and a man for the first time ever in this world could look up and call God his own Father.
His own Father. God had acted towards Israel like a father in the Old Testament. He had acted towards them in the Capacity and character of a father. But no one could ever say that God was their own father in that way, and they knew exactly what it meant. And so I think that I and my Father are one is the result of the fact that they are one in Trinity, that they are one in their aim and purpose and thoughts towards the sheep.
But how do the how do the Jews take that he's making himself gone. That's pretty plain. They understood exactly what he was saying. They evidently didn't believe their prophetic scriptures because he says in we can quote the New Testament, it says in Matthew chapter one.
00:55:15
Behold, the Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.
Which being interpreted is God with us. So here was a man that would be born into this world and he would represent, He would not only represent God, but he would be God, God with us. But they didn't have faith and so they could not understand by natural reason.
Man cannot. He does not have the Capacity. He is responsible.
Before God to receive the testimony of the Scriptures and to believe, but apart from divine life, he has no Capacity to understand what God has communicated in this way.
Another thing we might mention along along the line of the Trinity, and that is the Spirit of God.
Was not a divine person on the earth in the Old Testament. Now he came upon people and he used them to perform mighty works like Samson and Gideon and so on.
But when the Lord was anointed there, in Matthew chapter 3 referred to, the Spirit of God came down as a dove upon the Lord, and that was the beginning of the Lord's public ministry. That was, you might say, the anointing, sometimes called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And although every act in the Lord's life was in the power of the Holy Spirit, but there was a special anointing.
Just at the time that he was going to step out into his public ministry.
Another thing we want to to guard against the Spirit of God is a divine person, not an influence. Now we we have a lot of charismatic movements in Brazil and this is something that needs to be guarded. He the Spirit of God is not an influence. Another point and this mistake is made by some Christians.
They pray to the Holy Spirit that is never, that is never supported by the Word of God. The Spirit of God is a divine person. He was never Incarnate because you can't see the Spirit of God, yet He dwells in your body as a divine person that you can't see him. So the work of the Spirit of God is always to exalt Christ, never to bring any glory to himself, never to speak of Himself.
So to praise or pray to the Holy Spirit is definitely unscriptural, and I'm afraid that some of our charismatic friends don't understand this.
We are told to pray in the Spirit, and so that is to pray according to the mind of the Spirit of God, what the Spirit would desire, and to be led of the Spirit in our prayers. And so to pray in the Spirit is to be found walking in communion with the Lord, and to be able to pray just as the Lord would have us to pray.
And so they prayed in the Spirit. We were admonished to pray in the Spirit. We might just turn to 1St Corinthians chapter one. And there we find that they really weren't walking in the right way. They weren't walking as one the testimony of what they should have been.
Was not.
Being.
Displayed so he says.
Verse 10 First Corinthians one. Verse 10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing.
In that there be no divisions among you.
But that he be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Well, why was it that they weren't praying for the same thing? Why wasn't? Why was it that they were there were contentions, It says in verse 11.
01:00:00
It was a work of the flesh, and so instead of being characterized by.
Living in the power of the divine life, walking in communion with the Lord and in obedience to the Word of God. Submission to the Word of God. There were debates, contentions, and there was not a submission to the truth of the Word of God. There was not a submission to what the Spirit would lead and how the Spirit would lead.
And so there was. The result was contentions.
Some of the discussions we've had about the Trinity and I and my father being one, that's.
Supposed to correct to say there's a oneness there because of their purpose and because of their relationship. And let us, as you mentioned, let us again, there's the three distinct persons, but there's a oneness and purpose.
And there's a oneness in relationship, and we get a little hint of that when we consider the merit of the men and wife. What are they considered? Whether whether.
Pumpkin and holy ************ they're one flesh. And this is, and I would say too, it's healthy, one purpose in the eyes of God as well.
Yes, they're one flesh, but there are two people. Yes, that's what I'm getting at. Two distinct persons and one flesh.
2 old natures as well.
But I think of the baptism of the Lord.
You know the only reason that we are indwelt by the Spirit of God is on the ground of the blood of Christ.
And the sacrifice of the Lord that was not necessary with the Lord, because there was number sin in him. So the Spirit of God in the form of a dove that that symbol of peace.
A vote on the Lord without any Application of blood. You'll notice in the Old Testament types that the priest first of all was anointed, was washed.
Then he was anointed with blood, and then he was anointed with oil on top of the blood.
Which is a picture, a symbol of.
Of the Spirit of God now dwelling in the believer. This is only known in Christianity that now he dwells within the believer on the ground of the finished work of Christ. Because of the the death of Christ, we're judicially, we're judicially cleansed and clear and the Spirit of God can dwell within us on the that ground.
Is that right? I don't think in the Millennium that they, the Spirit of God will indwell the the people who the believers who will occupy the millennial earth.
He will come upon them as He did in Old Testament times.
We might just turn to John's Gospel chapter 5. It really has to do with the similar situation as we find at the end of chapter 10. Here there were four different witnesses that God had given to the fact that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God. And so in verse 33 it says that he sent unto John and he bear witness unto the truth. And so John the Baptist gave us.
Testimony. Faithful testimony.
And said that He was the Word, the Word was come in the flesh, in flesh, and the Word dwelt among us, and so on. And then in verse 36, it's the works I have greater witness than that of John for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me, that the Father that sent you. So His works gave a testimony.
And then the Father himself which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape. And then in verse 39, it's the Scriptures.
01:05:02
The search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. They thought they would get life, divine life, if they searched the scriptures diligently and so on. But that's not the truth, that they needed to obey the scriptures and to have divine light conveyed to them. They are they which testify of Me, and you will not come to me that you might have life.
So those four things, those four witnesses, John the Baptist, the works of the Lord Jesus, the Father himself, and the Scriptures gave witness. And now we find at the end of this chapter that they really rejected his teaching in connection with the nation and the fact that he was the Son of God. And so it says in verse 39. Well, let's read verse 38. If I do. But if I do.
Though ye believe not me, believe the works that you may know, and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him. Therefore they saw a game to take Him, but He escaped out of their hand. Verse 40. In connection with what the brother Steve brought out at the beginning of the meeting, he began to receive. He began to distance himself from the nation of Israel. They went away again, and the Lord Jesus, he went away again beyond Jordan.
So he crossed the river Jordan it really at the at the north, I believe in the country and into the place where John at the first baptized, and there he abode.
And many resorted unto him and said, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were truth. Many believed on him there. And so his work now in the present day is largely outside of that nation. And he's beyond Jordan. He's laboring, he might say, by the Spirit of God and the power of the Spirit among the Gentiles.
John Jordan And so it's a very solemn, solemn thing if we reject the testimony of the word of God, the testimony of the works of God.
The testimony that God has given of His Son.
He will go somewhere else, the work will continue, but it may not continue here, it'll continue somewhere else. So I just want to apply it that way. And So what a solemn responsibility we have to bow to the truth of God and to live in the good of what we know is the truth of God.
That's opening the Ark, isn't it? We have that.
Occurrence for the.
One open the are studied the arc you remember and judgment fell upon him.
They're trying to the yard. Speaking of the person of Christ doesn't need our steadiness. It is.
It is his very essence.
Deity is is very essence.
Before we close, like to.
Go back and raise a question myself.
How do I know I'm a sheep?
What about if I'm not a sheep?
You know, there were those that heard his voice and those that didn't. Maybe. And all that we've taken up. The question comes up in the heart. Well, how do I know I'm a sheep?
You know it says that.
He knows his sheep.
And in verse 15 or verse 14, I'm the Good Shepherd and know my sheep and and known of mine.
As the Father knoweth me, or even as the Father knoweth me, and so I know the Father.
In other words, the sheep and the shepherd know each other like the father and son know each other.
So we might say, well, maybe I'm not a sheep, you know?
Like to go back to verse in Matthew 7?
Verse 21.
Not everyone that saith unto me, 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 not.
Have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name of devils? And then I named them many wonderful works. Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you depart from me that work iniquity. You know, once you come to the Lord and you're saved, you're always going to be a sheep. You're never going to lose that place that you have your kids always.
01:10:20
And we've had before us, Brother Kevin brought it out this morning. We're in the Lord's hands. We're in his hand, but we're also in the Father's hand too. And they're one. And there is no escape from those hands. The greatest power of the universe couldn't pluck us out of those hands once. We're a sheep, we're always a sheep. And so he says, Here, depart from me, for I never knew you.
If you're a sheep, he knows you, he knows you, He doesn't say Here, depart from me.
I used to know you, but now I don't.
He says to these ones, I never knew you.
And first or second Peter?
And chapter.
Two, connection with the thought of those who make a profession of Christianity might say, make a profession of a sheet.
But prove that they're not. It says in verse 22 it happened unto them. According to the true proverb, the dog returned to his own vomit again in the South that was washed her wallowing in the mire. Who vomited the dog.
Not is she?
Who was washed? A sheep? No, a Sal.
Never worry she they always were just a dog or some.
Never worksheet.
Once you're his sheep. Once you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You're there, eternally secure in his hand and the Father's hand. He'll never say. Depart from me. I never knew you. He knows you.
He knows you for eternity, you know.
Like to turn to verse 2.
And John chapter 6.
We know it's the work of God, as we've had before us to impart life where there wasn't any before. Sovereign grace of God to give life.
Where there wasn't any.
That's the truth of election. And one might say, well, how do I know?
If I'm one of the elect, how do I know if I'm one that he's going to make his sheep?
Verse 37 says All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.
That's true.
All that he sovereignly purposes to pick up and give to the Son are going to come to the sun.
You might say, well, how do I know I'm one of them?
How? How do I know? How can I be sure I'm one of them? I remember asking myself that many years ago.
The second part of that.
Verse is the answer in him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. How do you know if you're one of his sheep? How do you know if you're one that he's given life to? That comes with faith in a hearing here you just come, you just come.
And that will show that you're one of the sheep.
When you respond to his voice, you just.
Old brother named Bill War.
Years ago I was told made this comment.
I suppose maybe at a time in his life when he passed through questions that way in his own soul.
And he said, Elect or not, Lord, here I come.
They just just come.
And that shows you're one of this.
Because the truth of election is beautiful.
So important.
But it never can take away.
The truth.
Of verse 37 him that cometh to me I will and no wise cast out.
73 in the appendix, 73 in the back.
01:15:41
My father's voice.
Are all done for you.
The shadow, great salt and sheep.
Hornets.
In the world.
My soul.
Has made me whole.
What is seen in the last song of the qualifiers and I found.
The fall of the green shake.
What's the surprise? Me to the world full.
It's me thyself, Dorothy.
I love to be controlled.
I love my.
Tender, chocolate, swollen.
The peaceful.
I see no more until.
I love my health. You make my father's voice.
I love my God.
Four Suppers
Gospel—John Kemp
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.
And welcome to the gospel meeting your friends we.
Have a wonderful message to proclaim. We're going to open.
By singing #15 in our hymn sheets. All blessed gospel sound, yet there is room.
Well known him as someone would some brother would start it please.
O blessed Gospel sound.
January's room.
Yes, tells you all around.
Yes, there is room.
Sunny day in his swirling out to straight.
Oh no.
There is gross.
All rains are ready now.
Yet there is room.
Primary standard breathing ground.
Yes, there is room.
Oh God, it is now concrete.
Meaning for the mercy seat.
I say you're, you're well, me.
Yes, everything's room.
God tells his family.
1St.
Yeah, there is room.
I have on my heart to briefly touch upon.
4 suppers in the scriptures. It'll have to be brief.
But there's four occasions.
That supper is mentioned. We just had our supper. It's the last meal of the day.
And.
Each of these suppers has a different background.
I'll give you the names of the suppers and then I'm going to make some comments. One, the Gospel supper. We're going to start with that.
Then we're going to go on to the gospel of communion.
Or we better put it this way, the Gospel Supper.
The Supper of Communion.
#3.
The Supper of Joy.
And #4.
The supper of judgment.
So we're going to turn to the first supper.
00:05:01
In Luke's Gospel chapter 14, I think we're familiar.
With this passage.
We have a person here.
Speaking to the Lord.
You might think that he had some interest.
In eating bread in the Kingdom of God.
But I don't think he really did. He was a religionist.
He was.
He professed.
To have an interest. But when the test was put to him, he failed. So Luke 14.
Verse 15 And when one of them that sat at meet with him, heard these things, he said unto him.
Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God.
Well, that sounded like a nice statement. He wanted to eat bread in the Kingdom of God.
That's something I think everyone wants to do. No one wants to spend eternity in the blackness of darkness.
Everyone would like to eat bread in the Kingdom of God.
This man said that he did, but really he was a religionist. He wanted to give the Lord a compliment.
But I don't think that this man really was ready to go down.
With the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind and have his sins forgiven. I don't think so. The Lord says I'm going to test you. I'm going to test you, if you're really.
In earnest, dear friends, are you in earnest about your soul salvation?
Seeking Sinner and a seeking Savior always meet and tonight God is giving you one more opportunity.
To hear the message of salvation.
To listen to the word of God that liveth and abideth forever.
To take of the living water, whosoever will let him come and take the water of life freely.
Flowing from the heart of a Savior, God, the water of life.
Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God.
Well, the Lord says I'm going to test you.
So verse 16 He said, and said He unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many.
This is the Gospel Supper, friends, the first subject that we're going to talk about the Gospel Supper. It's a marvelous invitation.
When you go for a supper, you don't bring anything with you.
If someone is kind enough to invite you to a meal, they have made preparations.
You come because you're invited. You're not asked to pay anything or to bring anything on to provide anything. You come the way you are and partake of the supper.
The Gospel Supper is spread tonight.
For whosoever.
Who spread that supper? God himself.
Why is it a great supper? Well, because of the person who provides it to begin with. It's God himself that is providing this great supper. And you know, if you're going to have a great supper, someone has to pay for it.
You're not going to get it.
You're not going to get everything free if you provide a great supper for a large number. You're going to have to make preparations and get the meal ready and the.
The menu and so on. God has a great supper that he has.
Spread for whosoever.
And he wants everyone to be present at that supper. No one is excluded.
00:10:06
Whoever you are, you are invited to the Gospel Supper tonight.
God's heart is going out.
The feast is spread and all you do need to do is come as you are.
No money.
Don't try to fix yourself up, come as you are.
To the great Supper.
That God has prepared.
Well, he wanted the table to be filled. If you prepare a great supper, you don't want to sit there by yourself. So he says I'm going to send the invitation out. So what do we read here? And he sent his servant at supper time.
To say to them that were bidden come for all things are now ready. So the servant went out.
And he found people on the street and in the shops and he told them.
Come for all things are now ready.
I don't want to say, dear friend, tonight all things are ready for you.
It doesn't matter how dark a background you have. It doesn't matter how many sins.
On your record.
It doesn't matter how many times you have refused the invitation.
Once more God is saying come for all things are now ready.
The work was finished at the cross of Calvary. The price was paid. The Lord Jesus came from the glory and laid down his life in sacrifice. That the gospel of his grace may flow out to you, the Gospel supper.
Are you willing to come?
Come for all things are now ready.
But the strangest thing They began to make excuses.
Really, they were polite. They didn't.
They didn't want to offend the servant, but.
Really, they didn't want to come to the supper.
And they made an excuse, and we know the excuses. You know the devil is behind those excuses. How many souls have been lost for eternity by excuses? What excuse can you make that will bear the light of Christ's day? You cannot, the Lord has.
Invited you? He has showed you.
The way of salvation.
He has paid for it at the cost of the precious blood.
Of his beloved Son Christ has paid the price that you might have forgiveness of sins. That's one of the plates that is on the table. Forgiveness of sins, How many sins? All your sins, they were all future when the Lord died and he wants you to have the assurance.
That your sins are forgiven.
You know.
I have many sins to my account.
But for all eternity there will not be one word from the lips of the Lord Jesus that He has remembered my sins.
The blood of Christ has affected the memory of God, and there I'm clean every wit by his grace.
But they made an excuse.
Foolish excuses.
They all, with one consent, began to make excuses.
Those excuses, dear friends, are from the enemy of your soul.
You're forging the chains that are going to hold you in a lost eternity. By those excuses, what excuse can you give?
Everything has been provided.
At infinite costs.
And so we read here they all with one consent began to make excuse. First said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. I pray thee have me excused. He puts a piece of ground between him and God.
00:15:03
The other man, he had something else.
Another said I have bought 5 yoke of oxen and I go to prove them. I pray they have me excused. Well he had to see their possessions and or it could be companions. Here there's a third man. He says I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. His companions were keeping him away from the supper possessions, whatever it is that is between.
You and God.
Get rid of it tonight.
And think of your eternal destiny.
I'm going to tell a story about a man that.
I enjoy reading about. We often sing his hymns. His name was George.
West Fraser. He lived from 1840 until 1896.
He was saved at 20 years of age.
During the great Irish Revival of 1859 and 1860, you know how that revival started. Four young men got on their knees in their cottage and prayed. And the Spirit of God worked in such a mighty way in the Irish revival that thousands were brought to Christ.
It started with a prayer meeting.
This man, George Frazier.
He was a fashionable young man and there was a man, there was a preacher by the name of Doctor Guinness. He was having meetings there in the Rotunda. And so the brother of George said, George, will you come with me to the meeting tonight? Well, I'm not really interested in that, but.
To please you all go along.
But there was standing room only. They couldn't get in.
The place was filled. They climbed up and sat on a windowsill looking down over the company. And if I can find the.
The word that they heard from Doctor Guinness, if I can find it here, the Savior calls to him. I go as guilty, lost, undone. Life and forgiveness flow. God's well beloved son, George Fraser heard those words floating through the air.
He was not saved. He went home, but he wanted to come back again.
And this time it was the same situation, standing room only. How are we going to get in here? He said to his brother. Well, there's a gutter. There's a pipe on the side there of the building. I'll climb up the pipe. And he did. He got to the top. The window was open. He sat on the window with his feet dangling over the crowd.
And Doctor Guinness.
Doubted out that the message, yet there is room, yet there is room that struck George Fraser very.
Strongly he came down from the window, but for two weeks he was in real soul trouble. He didn't know what to do. He was convicted of his sin.
But those words, yet there is room kept ringing in his ear. Finally.
He had just cast himself on the Lord and said if I perish, I'm going to perish at the feet of the Lord.
And that verse came to his mind. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He had heard that verse. It came to him.
The power of the Spirit of God. And there he bowed the knee to Christ.
And he was saved.
He wrote the hymn that we sang this evening. He wrote that hymn George W Fraser. He was gathered with those.
Who have the Lord's Table? And he wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in our Little Flock book. You look in the back and you'll see the hymns that George Frazier wrote. We sing them Lord's Day morning on that same night. Lord Jesus.
00:20:17
When all around the joint, and so on, to cast its darkest shadow across thy holy mind. George Fraser wrote that.
He was a very close friend of Mr. Macintosh.
In fact, they lived in the same city in Ireland.
But George Frazier.
Was devoted to the Lord. He married when he was 32. He didn't live long. He only lived about.
Let's see now, 56 years I think.
And he lives, right? He was. He died the same year as Mr. McIntosh died.
But George Frazier was devoted to the Lord. His hymns we enjoy to this day. Look in the back of your little flock and you'll see the hymns that George Fraser wrote.
He's with the Lord now.
But I want you friends to know that.
The Lord is waiting here in patience for you. What are you putting between your soul and God? The servant came and showed his Lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hit her, the poor and the maimed, and the halt and the blind.
Well, isn't that wonderful? God's house is going to be filled.
Those people who have religion without Christ will not be at that great supper. They will not be at the supper of joy that the Lord is going to.
Have for all who are believers. I'll speak of that later.
Oh my friend.
Man is wounded with sin. He's crippled.
All vitality, all vigor, all freshness, all power is gone. He is maimed, maimed, has wounded and crippled man and left him.
Without a hope.
In himself.
Halt A person who is halt, he cannot walk. How can you get in through the pearly gates of heaven if you're if you're a halt, if you're lame, how could you walk into heaven like that? You couldn't do it crippled by sin. Just think of it and.
What did the servant say? Bring in the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. How wonderful the heart of God is going out to whosoever.
All my friend, tonight is your opportunity to receive Christ.
And if you're without Christ, you're poor. You may have all the riches of this world in your coffers, but if you're without Christ, you're poor.
The little poem that I often quote.
In that connection, because I used to live in London and do gospel work among the poor of London, we used to have large Sunday schools there, and by God's grace, I distributed many tracks in the great City of London, England. Not London, ON, but I think of a poem that I enjoy.
It says in the heart of London City.
Midst the dwelling of the poor.
These bright golden words were uttered. I have Christ, what want I more? He who heard them ran to fetch her something from the world's great store.
It was needless died she saying I have Christ what want I more? Wasn't that a lovely testimony this poor soul who had nothing probably she had not even 1 Penny in her purse, but she had Christ and there are many poor in living in the flats of London, you know that are in that condition.
00:25:03
And they need the gospel message.
Soul that we speak of here, she had eternal riches and.
If we turn back in the book of Luke a few a few pages, we turn back to Chapter 4, we'll just see what.
What the Lord can do?
Umm, the Lord came to the city of Nazareth, where He was brought up.
And he went into the synagogue. That was the the custom of the Lord Jesus as a young man to be in the synagogue. Wasn't that a good example for us? Are we at the meetings, at the assembly meetings that are convened, or are we missing them? Are we careless about the Lord's presence? The Lord was in the synagogue, we read here.
He came to Nazareth verse 16, where he had been brought up.
And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue in the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read, And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. Now this is a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Himself. Those people had never heard these words before, and they were being applied to the Lord Himself.
The Spirit of God is upon me because he have anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Or isn't that wonderful? May we never tire of preaching the gospel to the poor. If you go to India, I hope you do Someday you're going to find millions of poor people that just live from hand to mouth. They have enough for the next meal.
And that's about all poverty. Poverty of Bombay is the worst in the world, I think.
Calcutta.
But those people have souls to be saved. The gospel is going out to the poor. In India, the majority of those who are saved are from the low castes, from the poor castes. Not many from the upper castes are brought to the Lord.
The upper caste Hindu.
Is not interested in those things. Some are saved, but not many. Well, it says here the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted. Well, there's a preacher in London, he said to the young people that were preaching. He said if you preach to broken hearted people you will always have an audience.
You'll always have an audience how many broken hearted people there are and no one can heal that condition, only the Lord.
He can heal the broken hearted. Preach deliverance to the captives. Oh, you say I'm not captive. How many people are captive to their lusts and to vile dispositions and unclean habits? They are captives to those things.
The Lord can deliver the captives recovering of sight to the blind. Well, if you're unsaved, you are spiritually blind to set at liberty them that are bruised, wounded by sin and Satan.
Blind spiritually.
You know, if you had a beautiful picture and you presented it to a blind person, he, he couldn't, he couldn't respond, he couldn't see, he couldn't see, he couldn't see any beauty in it.
And so it is with the unsaved. They don't see any beauty in Christ. For the believer, he is altogether lovely. He is the chiefest of 10,000. But to the unsaved, they have no interest. They're blind spiritually.
They might be on the edge of a precipice and not know their danger and.
He says here.
Yeah, give me.
Looking at our verse again.
Anyway, the Lord was there fulfilling that scripture and He speaks of preaching the acceptable year of the Lord. But you know that the Lord stopped that scripture at that point. If you look in Isaiah, you see it goes on and speaks of the day of vengeance of our God, but the Lord did not include those words. He stopped at the acceptable year of the Lord.
00:30:12
We have it here in.
And verse 19 to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Dear friends, we are in the acceptable year of the Lord today.
The day of God's grace, the day of His mercy, the day of salvation, the day of opportunity for you to be saved from sin, from hell, from judgment. It's the acceptable year of the Lord today. Tomorrow may be too late.
The worst?
The worst American airline crash took place in on September the 25th. I think it was 1978.
It was a large jet that was coming into San Diego.
And lining up for its landing strip and a little.
A little plane that was moving about.
Crashed with this huge jetliner and it lost its stability. The two people in the little aircraft were were immediately killed. But that huge airline.
It it was unstable it it.
It burst into flames. It came down with a tremendous bang.
And there was a brother just nearby who had his house and he was one of the first that got out and saw that awful catastrophe. 134 people ushered into eternity in a moment. There was no survivors. The last thing the pilot said were going down and everyone went into eternity.
One girl on that flight, the stewardess.
I don't know what her name was.
I don't know.
Anything about her, but she had accepted the Lord as her Savior 2 weeks before. How thankful the parents were that their girl, although sudden death, it was sudden glory for her. What happened to the others on the eternity will disclose. Dear friends tonight. Life is real, life is earnest, the grave is not its goal. The rest of your time.
I use this track a lot with young people.
See the title of it the rest of his time. This has opened the door for me to speak to more young people than any other tract.
I'll give you the background very briefly because time is going here.
Our brother. Our late brother, Berwick Island, known to some of us here. His son.
Was out on his motorcycle and I guess it was June 1984, just 300 feet from his work. He was on the motorcycle and the lady pulled out didn't see him and he crashed at a good speed into the side of her car and the.
The handlebars went into his stomach and his.
His chest and he was rushed from the Smith Walls Hospital to the Ottawa Civic, but he was struggling for his life. His parents were there with him, but they couldn't do anything. He passed into eternity that night, but he was ready. He went to be with the Lord. I often use this with young people.
Eleanor and I have visited 3 fairs this last September.
And we met, we meet a lot of young people at these fairs. We give out tracks to them. But this is the one I like because I say, my friend, read this practice about someone around your age. I want you to read it carefully and see what happened to Jeff. That was his name. And I want you, when you're finished reading the track, to say, to ask yourself if that had been me.
Where?
Wouldn't my soul be?
So the rest of our time we have no promise. Anyway, the gospel supper was spread, the invitation was given. The house is going to be filled with the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind. Not one seat will be empty.
00:35:15
And everything has been provided marvelously by the grace of God.
You know every debt will be paid. You have a debt of sin.
And that weighs upon you. Every debt will be paid if you accept Christ as your Savior.
It reminds me of a story.
Just briefly, about a debt. About debts. We all know what debts are. Some of people, that's all they have debts, piles of them. They, they can, they live, they can hardly.
Count all the debts they have.
There was an Irish nobleman.
In Ireland who had a large estate of tenants, but he came to know the Lord as his Savior and he was happy he the grace of God was filling his heart.
And so they called him the crazy Irish nobleman, because wherever he went, he preached the gospel. So one day.
He he put a notice up outside his office there.
And the notice read like this.
On such and such a day.
Between 12 between 10:00 and 12:00, anyone who comes will have all their debts paid.
Some people couldn't read it, so someone read it for them, but they said we can't. We can hardly believe this.
Do you think that he really means what he says, that all our debts will be paid?
If we just go into the office with him.
Well, we don't this sounds doesn't sound logical. Well the day approach it was 10:00 and quite a few people were outside looking at that notice and.
Wondering whether he really meant what he said, hesitating, along came an old man, 80 years of age, hobbling. He had his hands full of of all bills that he hadn't paid, and he saw the men looking there.
Suspiciously they said, are you going in? He says, well, I it says there that all debts will be paid between these hours. I'm going to go in. Well, you go in and come out and tell us what happened. So the man hobbled in there was the nobleman with his secretary at the desk. He sat down.
They totaled up all the debts that he had.
Boy, it was pretty high and he said no, nobleman said I'll look after all this, I'll stamp them all paid. You don't, don't have to worry.
Sir, he said. I'm so thankful that now I can die in peace.
And not bankrupt. Thank you so much, Sir.
I'll go out and tell the others. Nope, Nope, just stay where you are now, Sir, just stay where you are. So it was 1130114512 o'clock.
Now, the nobleman said. Now you can go out.
So this man went out, he didn't have any more of his debts and the people said what happened.
Oh, he said the nobleman, he, he took all my debts from me and he, he's going to pay every one of them. His secretary has them there. They're going to settle the, the whole debt that I had. Oh, wonderful, Sir. Now the nobleman had come out.
Sir, we're ready here. We have some, we have some papers that we want you to look at, please, the nobleman said. No. Remember I told you that the door was open between 10:00 and 12:00. It's now 12:00. The clock has struck 12. You're, you don't have any more opportunity to have your debts paid.
Oh, they were so.
00:40:00
Disappointed they could have had all their debts paid.
If they had believed the message that the nobleman had given them.
What they didn't believe it and how many people are in the same category? God is willing to settle that whole question of sin. He's dealt with it in the person of His Son. He wants to forgive that.
Tremendous debt that you have.
But if you won't come.
Then you're going to have to pay it yourself, and you'll never pay it. Through a lost eternity, that debt will be yours forever. In a lost eternity, you'll never be able to pay it. God wants you to bring your sorrows to Him. Little poem that I sometimes.
Enjoy. I'm just going to read it here that I've enjoyed many times.
You've carried your burden. You've carried it long or bring it to Jesus. He's loving and strong. You'll take it away and your sorrows will cease. He'll send you rejoicing with His heavenly peace. That's what God is offering you tonight.
Full free salvation everlasting. Rest peace with God. Don't lose the opportunity.
Of the gospel supper tonight, because tomorrow may be too late. He that believeth on the sun ha everlasting life. Verily I say unto you.
He that.
That reminds me of a story.
Let's see the verse John chapter John chapter 6 that we have that verse.
Just a minute here.
John, Chapter 6.
I have to move on here. I'm not going to have time to finish.
Yeah, verse 47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. Well, when I was younger I used to work in Italy with Brother Piero Patel, and he was a great evangelist and I learned a lot from him. We went all around the villages, the beautiful mountain.
Towns in Italy spreading the Gospel day after day.
Wonderful experience for me. But you know, every, nearly every day we had dinner in Brother Granite's home. And I'll tell you how Brother Granite was saved. He's an Italian. He was a rough young man, maybe 1820. There he was playing pool in the in the.
The pool room with the smoke.
Filling the the whole area and smoking with his friends and having a good time, he thought.
Suddenly the door opened and a man in a black coat, he stepped in and he had a black book like this. And he stood there and he held up that book. He opened it up and he's speaking in Italian.
And he boomed out that word, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life that struck the heart of the.
A brother, Giovanni Guaranitti, he said, who is that strange character that went into the pool room with all my friends? Where does he live? Well, in those days, in La Ropoli and Cosensa, he could find out where Mr. Mr. Bureau Pato resided, and he came.
Knocked at the door and said are you the man that came into the pool room and shouted out that verse from the Bible?
He says I want to know more about that because I've got a hungry heart and all this pleasure and everything, smoking and playing cards and so on. It doesn't satisfy my heart. Of course it was the joy of Brother Piero Patrol to open the gospel to him and he was saved. He's with the Lord now. But many times we've enjoyed the fellowship of Brother Giovanni Guariniti. I said there was 4 suppers. I.
00:45:07
Touched on one. The second one, I'll be very brief. We had it this morning. First Corinthians chapter 15.
11 Rather, it's the supper of communion. If you're not saved, don't take the supper of communion. It's not a means of grace, even for the believer. And if you're unsaved, it's a means of judgment. I've eaten, we've eaten and drunk in thy presence.
Professors.
That didn't have eternal life and they were trusting in some sacrament.
Only those who are true, truly believers have any right to partake of the Supper of Communion. It's a wonderful opportunity. It's a wonderful privilege. You know, the Lord's Supper is just like a picture in my home in Ottawa. I have a picture of my mother when she was living with me when I look at that picture.
I remember her as she was when she lived in the home with me.
It brings back my memory to what she was. She's with the Lord now, and the Lord's Supper is just the same. It's a picture of the Lord in death.
Mr. Darby said, whenever I remember the Lord, I think of a dead Christ. And that is true. That is the meaning of the Supper. We don't think of the the Lord in glory. We we acknowledge that he's crowned with honor and glory. But the Lord's Supper is is a recalling what he was when he was in death.
It's a picture of the death of Christ, a wonderful privilege.
And only for believers. Now that's the Supper of Communion. Well, let's look at the Supper of Joy. Let's turn to Revelation chapter 19.
And we're going to see here.
Another supper and.
We'll read from.
Verse seven. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready, and to her was granted that she should be arrayed.
In fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteous. This should read Righteousnesses of the Saints. And he saith unto me, Right blessed are they which are called unto the married supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Now this supper here is the supper of joy, and it's the bridal supper, It's the marriage supper of the lamb. It's the day of the Lord's joy when He will have his bride with Him in the glory, and we will.
Be there.
Trophies of His grace, and we will be arrayed in fine linen, it says here, which the apostle tells us is the righteousnesses of the Saints now.
A word of explanation there. It is not divine righteousness that is spoken of in that passage.
We have a divine righteousness through the work of Christ, but here it is a practical righteousness.
Here it is our conduct down here that is going to be manifest in that day. It's spoken of as a garment. When a woman walks into this hall in a garment, you everyone sees the garment.
And.
What we have done for the Lord, it may have been forgotten.
It may not be known by very many people, but every little act of devotedness in your life and mine is recorded. And as we were here, we're going to be up there.
And so at the marriage supper of the Lamb, our lives will be manifest.
00:50:01
Our conduct, our works.
How we have used what God has given to us, our time, our talents. The marriage supper of the Lamb is the time of Christ's joy and our joy as well but.
It will be after the judgment seat of Christ, and then will be manifest to everyone how I have lived down here. Have I lived for myself? Have I lived for my own pleasure?
And I haven't been interested in the Lord service or his interests. Well, all is recorded and that it tells us here that.
It is going to be manifest here in the 19th chapter of Revelation. Blessed are they which are called unto the married supper of the Lamb. Well, that's the Old Testament Saints, but we're going to be the bride. We are the bride of the Lamb. How wonderful. How?
Near a position we have to the Lord Jesus Himself. It's the joy of His heart and the joy of our hearts to be there.
As we have walked down here, so we will be known up there. In fact, our our place in the coming Kingdom which is connected with reward will be according as we have walked down here.
One Last Supper. This is a very solemn one. It's in the 19th of Revelation as well. We can't read. We won't read all of it, but.
Here in verse 13.
Or we'll go back to verse.
Verse 11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a White Horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire. On his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.
And his name is called the word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. What supper is that? That's the supper of judgment.
And, you know, at the end of the awful tribulation period.
The harvest judgments. The Lord is going to appear with the armies of heaven. Who are they?
His Saints, those that had been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, were going to accompany the Lord, and at this supper all the guests are going to come look on. In this chapter I saw an Angel verse 17 standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying, to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the.
Of the great God, that we may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men.
And the flesh of horses and so on. What a terrible time that will be.
When all man's pride will be brought down, the Lord who was crowned with thorns there on Calvary, now will have many crowns on his head. He will be exalted King of kings and Lord of Lords. He will have his rightful place. But this is not a Gospel supper. In no way.
This is a supper of judgment.
And terrible judgment, I think this is the judgment of the living. I think this is final. And those that have rejected the, the, the gospel message in the day of grace now could be present at this, at this, on this occasion. How terrible because after the church's rapture into the glory which might be tonight.
There's seven years of tribulation.
Or a little more, and then the Lord is going to return with his Saints.
So we trust in closing that each one here.
Will partake of the supper.
00:55:02
Of salvation, the Gospel supper, and come to thee knowledge of sins forgiven, pardon.
Eternal life.
The heart of God is reaching out tonight to sinners wherever they are. The door of grace is still open. You know, there was a man in Matthew 22. He attempted to go into the wedding feast without a wedding garment on and he was discovered.
And what did the host of the feast say? Friend, how comest thou in here not having on a wedding garment? And he was speechless. He had nothing to say because the garment was provided, but he refused to take it. He thought he was good enough with his own clothes. The garment, of course. The garment is Christ, our righteousness. How wonderful.
But what did the host say? Bind him hand and foot, take him away and cast him into outer darkness.
Some people, young people, when I preach the gospel, they say, well, my friends are going to be there. How many have said to me, I'm, I'm worshipping Satan? Well, I say to them, my friend, if you, if you, if Satan is your master, then you're going to spend eternity with him, but you won't have any friends there. It would be blackness of darkness. You wouldn't be able to see them anyway.
But that's the companions you want.
You're on that road. Oh dear friends, as we close our meeting, let me again underline the importance of settling the matter of your salvation tonight. To go away from this happy conference that we've enjoyed with peace in your heart, to lay your head upon your pillow with the.
Assurance that if you are taken into the next World before tomorrow morning.
It would be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
There's a man that was walking in our area. Time is gone. I know a young man or relatively 45 years of age.
He was walking out Sunday afternoon.
And.
He was crossing the street there, right near the the superstore where my wife often shops, and here was a young man fleeing from the police.
And going at an awful rate of speed and he hit that man in the intersection.
Knocked him down. I think there was a doctor in the area came. There was no sign of life.
45 years of age with his family gone into eternity. A couple of blocks from where I live. I passed. I passed that corner all the time. So life is real and life is earnest. But.
The day of the day of salvation is today. May God bless His word that each one under the sound of it tonight, maybe at that.
At that supper of joy with the Lord, when he comes, we're going to sing 1 little short hymn to to end.
How about #33?
#33.
Hymnsing and Talk 2
Little Flock Hymns
Conference Singing
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.
272.
And our joy has been gone.
Our rest is the glory.
Dividend swear to me here. Yeah, that's why I'm slanted.
340.
Father, we command our sins to lie, loving Jesus name.
Lord, which is a Tory name.
Give us all the answers to the grave.
282.
Master, we would no longer.
Be at home and that will change everything.
I can really trend in my blood slips go I saw the road as I choices in hell we will die prayer and by.
00:05:39
We will come stand by Gray. It will work, but I brought a shroud me make sure.
Reward.
For singing my smile. Stop, let's go wild.
And joy.
No brown thy servants store.
And we shall hear, they say. You don't say.
I rise my love and.
Come away.
No kind of voice.
Shall we no more?
My grandstand.
Offshore.
22 in the appendix.
The Holy One.
Circle.
Of thy love has.
Grave.
I'm still alive, Yes. Well, we'll be boldness.
Of.
Can we find a life?
First one God's grand, grand battle.
To thy dearly.
166.
Our presence.
00:10:22
What in my life?
Swinging on our start by night, our sun by day.
Our spring up light went far straight drought. I don't want to cheer our friends to do the same.
Our strength, our strength, our strength, Our strength, our strength, our ship.
Mercy spell Mercy.
And burger with us.
May come by and close our sins of every great sign, everyone.
We'll sing of the Shepherd, that joy, that light for the 2nd floor.
It is, fortunately.
Our most was right.
He was forever completely until the song.
And so forth.
No, so, just so glorious.
So heaven came till hearts.
And praise and sour tongue shall employ.
00:15:07
My land by swinging rain.
174.
We are not far from.
Well, well, no man, everything was.
We love screwed me in our breath from heaven, greatness and shore. Not one will save a stranger.
No one ever seen me before.
For everything.
The whole start attending and hilarious through the sky.
00:20:11
He has been all about.
All of our blood pressure.
The Lord says we sing Christmas song together by spell, grounds ways.
To hold the thought of the sun shall be taken as me.
Role play results of thy praying.
196.
The Divino.
Enjoy all of them's near where friends come down.
Let us swear by red and straight grounding. All right? Play Overstein Swell.
Save your being we still a big blessing.
Serving.
I see glory.
In thy name of.
Lord's journey.
To try and glory.
In your hands, in the glory.
Tonight, we take our place.
Went to where? The shed.
Well, here we sing, we try and sing the Great Britain.
Spray.
Water means all God, and in God bring it in.
His heart.
2, 112.
Called from above.
That timely man by birth.
No one survived by the sand and sober.
Has never been scared.
We stay God.
Shall be.
12.
Shell of the grandson. Great.
God dwell and dies.
I'll place my place, my life.
00:30:19
And I thou can't face.
Love again. It's all that's right.
Blood pressure and knowing.
To join the number one winter for the sand. But the world's still.
So freely.
Speaking of the storm, let it dawn.
What starts from heaven?
On his father's throne, is he dead?
Christ of life, and they make one.
Of his owner is completed all of his work for the sin and every time.
And the glory and the glory. And the glory.
Eternal Sun here in the glory and the glory.
Bring him down.
Sun.
Every day shall well before.
Again.
Every time you can bless his name.
Right, some never get child adore her and render the standard version.
Run the glory from the glory.
Glory Times Now on his word proclaim.
From the glory, From the glory.
God, that now is where the problem.
Oh my God.
And they are doing place what may glory well may glory.
Throughout living.
Here.
For 150.
Resolved. Grace of God.
For the Star of God, that's true. And I'm glad. I'm glad.
You.
Of the land above God.
'S down.
No.
00:40:04
Your best friend is all right, then your creature is Cross Strand 7.
Your father.
Calling the lake where it's made.
Till heavens be loved and Allah.
Will be all of them by God.
Will die and bring things to the nation.
61.
I'm so deep, I.
Hear the story of Lord Blake in God's Son.
In heaven.
So hard and not.
And God would join them while.
00:45:35
May thou swallow.
Heaven.
Middle.
Praise to the praise.
Last week to the world.
Have been given.
40.
For the place of death that has 1.
1 for us now.
We shall.
Pray for.
Artistic.
May start.
Forever.
Green.
00:50:01
285.
Jesus, thy head was crowned with thorns. It was crowned with glory.
Now.
That's right of the way again. By the doors almighty.
That's our person, proud.
Where all the restraining we're going to fall. It's great speaking.
The whole earth gave us all those. Thy Lord made the name.
God understand.
17 Heaven.
Present glory.
And well.
However, last.
Screaming.
1.
Big soul.
The printer knows that in the reading reference was.
We praise me and will praise me more.
To be our own real.
Blood pressure save Lord and no power.
That makes him precious.
230.
Oh Lord, when we do the freaking trees.
We'll show a lot of Thunder and strong.
Grace.
I pray for never to stay in the world.
00:55:37
What is rain?
Darkness. So great light.
The whole day is thy fall nurse name from Christ.
My father's voice.
I love you forever to grow.
The shadow, great salt and sheep.
The father saw what is strong.
Need for me 100 mill and Jill Horns has turned waves man.
01:00:06
I'm seeing like what's what was he and made me whole.
What are you seeing that I saw?
That I found no one dreams shape.
My tender shall words.
I love the peaceful.
World.
I.
See No More children.
Of my heavenly Father's voice.
I love my God.
Bless all.
Let Us Be a Living Sacrifice to Him
Doing Service As to Lord Not to Man