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General Meetings Wheaton, August 1976. Second reading meeting.
So we are.
Hungry.
Oh my God.
Before we read our Art thou gracious master gone for us a mansion to prepare.
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300 and no.
2/26.
And forever.
Microsoft.
Dot com.
Yeah.
I want.
To go.
Inside.
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Hebrews 13 was at verse 9.
Nice to read the eighth verse first.
April Chapter 13, verse 8.
Jesus Christ the same, yesterday and the day and forever.
We're not carried above of divers and strange doctrines. Or is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats, which have not profited them, that have been occupied there yet?
We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat. We serve the Tabernacle, for the bodies of those beasts with blood is brought into the sanctuary by the High Priest, for sin are burned without the camp.
Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
Let us go forth, ever unto him, without the camp bearing his ripped throat.
For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
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, what to do good and to communicate. Forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourself, for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with greed.
Well, that is unprofitable for you.
Pray for us where we trust we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly.
I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.
Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make it perfect in every good work to do with will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
And I beseech your brethren, suffer the word of exhortation, for I have written a letter unto you in few words.
Know you that our brother Timothy have said at liberty, with whom, if he comes shortly, I will see you.
Salute all them that had the rule over you and all the Saints.
Italy salute you. Grace be with you all. Amen.
One reason I ask that the eighth verse be raised, I know it was commented on last Saturday in our reading CDN, but it has seemed to me that that.
Verse is something of connection.
Between the seventh verse and the ninth verse.
Has to the ninth verse, Speaking of those who who your leaders, who have spoken unto you, the word of God.
Whose faith, father? Considering the end of their conversation, their manner of life, what was the real issue? What was really before?
Those of whom he speaks, it was Jesus Christ.
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Doesn't speak about following their failures, for every servant of Christ has failed but to follow their faith. And what was their faith occupied with?
It was Jesus Christ, and there we have fullness as to his.
Person.
So we have the same yesterday that takes us.
Into the past.
Today, for he's in glory, living for us.
And forever for His coming for us, and we are to spend eternity in His company.
I just make this connection that in the next verse be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines.
All that first, the eighth verse, is the protection for us from being carried away with divers and strange doctrines.
For the one who is enjoying Christ and satisfied with Christ is not seeking something new, some strange doctrine to occupy his poor stupid mind.
I understand that that works same in places. Is perhaps a name.
Of the Lord is it?
Yes, I believe that's right. It's one of his titles, the same. That's wonderful to think of that here we have one that has that title. Not only that he acts the same, but he is the same, always the same. That's what he is in his person, the same. Unchangeable.
I was thinking of X1 present.
We have there an interesting portion.
X1.
And.
Verse nine, We do remember that this epistle to the Hebrews. It was written to Christian Hebrews.
And so the apostle is drawing their attention to this blessed one, in contrast to the Judaism.
Problems that confronted them. But here we have a wonderful verse.
While they beheld and when he had spoken these things.
While they beheld, he was taken up.
And the cloud received him out of their sight, while they looked steadfastly toward heaven.
As he went up, behold, 2 men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, while standing gazing up into heaven.
This same Jesus. Well, that's wonderful. This same Jesus.
Which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. Beloved, we have a glorified man in heaven.
He's taken that form. He will be always.
That and we're going to be like him.
And so the disciples, while they watched him go, they were sad, they were afflicted, and they were assured that this same Jesus.
Whom you've seen going to heaven will come again like manner.
And we are going to be like him.
Like him?
These bodies of humiliation are going to be changed, and the bodies of glory and fashion like his own glorious body.
Just think of it, beloved, A glorified man in heaven.
And we're going to be like him.
I often think of that verse 64th hymn by J&D like Jesus in that place of light and Love Supreme.
One span of sorrows full of grace, heavens bless and endless theme. Well, there's a wonderful theme for us. Heavens, blessed and endless theme.
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In connection there as gifted with every grace, is he not and every gift and also.
He now has all power as we have in Hebrews 2.
So that it's a man in the glory.
In that position.
Full of power, gifted with every gift, and in the place of the highest glory, we had read to us from Philippians yesterday.
There's no place higher than the place that Jesus has a man in the glory.
But our core hearts are slow to take these things in. We're going to be like him and we're going to be with him and.
In Thessalonians, it says we're going to live together with him. These are all very precious thoughts, and these are the thoughts that should occupy us because we're so near that moment when these things will be realized.
In connection with the thought of.
In our chapter be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines and thinking of the of the Lord Jesus being always the same. I was wondering about of thinking about a verse in the book of Malachi and also another verse in the Book of Proverbs, which would be good for a little admonition concerning this.
I was thinking in the Malachi chapter 3 and verse 6 where the he says I am the Lord. I change not, I change not. There's no change with him. He's the same, isn't he? And we're warned. We're admonished not to be carried about with every wind of doctrine and slight of men and there's much of it today. So he says I am the Lord, I change not.
Men's change, We change.
Views change, ideas change, but there's no change with him. Then I was thinking in the book of Proverbs, chapter 24.
And verse 21.
My son.
Fear thou the Lord and king, and.
Metal knots with them that are given to change.
I think this is a very precious verse to exhort us, isn't it? To cause us to be exercised about things that we see that are changes, men like innovations and something new? Well, the Lord is the one who does not change. He's the same. And we're told here in the book of Proverbs, which is God's wisdom for us down here in the pathway, isn't it?
Metal knot with them that are given to change.
Have nothing to do with them.
The Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Hebrews is a wilderness book, isn't it?
Good heart be established with grace, not with meats. Meats would suggest what's refined in Judaism, where there was forms and ceremonies that had to do with a religious system that was adapted to the natural man.
Well now instead of being occupied with Forbes and ceremonies and just having a a ritual so pleasing and satisfying to the place.
And the natural man we're to be established with grace.
And what a theme or a subject grace is, for it's by grace ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.
It's God's unmerited favor and then we get the standing of the believer is in grace. You get that in the 5th of Romans.
The Gray square in ye stand. What a comforting verse that is for the believer, because we fail so often, and might be fearful and doubtless to.
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Our salvation. But when we think that while God doesn't in any way count as what's wrong, yet he goes around with us in grace, and in grace he restores the wanderer and brings him back into fellowship and enjoyment of his love again, we need to hold truth in its connection and place, For there is the government of God for the believer in this scene. But that's not what we're considering.
At the moment and being established in grace, no God goes on with us in grace all through the journey here below. And then Peter speaks of the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So it carries us on, and that the revelation of when the rewards are given, then we will see that it was all of grace.
Whatever crown there is.
It's just crowned to be cast at his blessed feet. Instead of saying we are worthy, we are faithful and therefore we have a crown. Now up there we'll just cast it at his feet and say Thou art worthy or whatever is gained in connection with Christian walk and testimony is nothing but the result of his faithfulness and His grace in bearing with us because if he had.
Exercise his.
Here there are.
His ways of.
Holding us upon us, he could have set us aside so that we would not have had the privileges that we're enjoying.
So everything is fruit of His grace, and what a theme for us to be established in that. And it makes little itself, It makes much of Christ, doesn't it?
This first makes me think of the Gospel of Luke.
Because I believe that in the Gospel of Luke we have.
Grace predominantly before us, and it also reminds me of the time when in the 21St of First Chronicles.
When David had numbered the people and the plague broke out, and Arnon Aruna the Jebusite offered David his threshing floor.
For the sacrifice that the plague might be stayed.
And he also offered him.
Animals for a bird offering.
But David said that is not enough.
I'll have to have some for peace offerings and I want to buy them too.
And so he he not only offered bird offerings.
Offered peace offerings. That's the Gospel of Luke. That's the 15th chapter of Luke where the prodigal comes back and not only is he forgiven the sins that he has confessed, but now he has full liberty.
And that's what we have with Grace here.
The the one who is established in grace, even though he may fail. Like David, when he's restored, he's reminded of his true position. And that is the peace offering. It really. It puts us in the place of full liberty with God, not simply that we have had our sins forgiven, which is a very, very precious thing.
But that the whole work is accomplished and we are entitled to the enjoyment of the whole thing. And so we get grace brought before as much in the Gospel of Luke, and it's really liberty is it now? And communion as well as worship.
Another little sidelight of grace too, perhaps, I think, in connection with that which Arona gave to King David. It is said that King David repaid him in full for all that which he gave, and then, having repaid him in full, the scripture says all these things Did Arona as a king give unto King David.
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So that even though he was fully repaid, yet it's listed in scripture as a gift. Isn't that a wonderful evidence of the very great grace of God? You and I know very well that if in our lives, by His wonderful grace.
There has been any privilege of service granted. Has he not fully and bountifully repaid us? And in the 1St place, where did the opportunity, the energy, the courage, the ability, or anything come from? It all together came from him in the 1St place. And then, after having done any little thing for him, he abundantly repays us with joy and gladness, and often with much more too.
And we look back by the grace of God in our lives and justice feel the abundant repayment already received. And yet he records what Arona got paid for as a gift, what wonderful grace in the heart of God that already delights to repay any little effort of service, and tells us it's all written down up above and it will be reviewed in that day as a gift.
Greatly appreciated.
I remember being at a conference in Montreal a few years ago, and a dear sister came up to be after one of the meetings, and the comments she made was she said. What amazes me is that I find myself sitting here and hearing the very same ministry that I heard 40 years ago, and I thought how lovely that was. It says that Timothy, that which thou hast heard of me, among many witnesses, the same.
Commit thou the faithful man who will be able to teach others also. And so here we sit today, and we're hearing the very same ministry that has been ministered amongst us for so long by God's one disgrace, the same ministry. And is it not lovely, friend, to realize that it's the same ministry given us to us of God that occupies us with the same person who never changes the Lord Jesus? I was thinking of this verse where it says.
Afford it as good than the heart be established with grace, not with beats. Is it not true that the history of the church has proven the need for this very kind of admonition, this very kind of mourning, because it is so natural to the human heart to want to turn back to meats, To want to turn back to some kind of form or ceremony or something that the eye can see something that the flesh can find some kind of acceptance in?
Something that the flesh can see and find some kind of delight in. It's perhaps something that they feel bolsters themselves, gives them some kind of a position in the eyes of the world. And it's been the very history of the church to do this very thing to see it says at the end of that ninth verse, which have not profited them, that have been occupied therein. The whole system of meets of forms and ceremonies and buildings and priesthoods and all this kind of thing.
Has been tried and it didn't work. It didn't produce any fruit for God. It didn't produce anything that God could find delight in at all. In the 11Th chapter of Mark, I believe it is. We find the Lord Jesus. It says of him there that he went to Jerusalem, into the temple, and having looked all about he will act and went out to Bethany. And I thought how lovely he could look over that whole system of things that had been originally established of God.
And find nothing there to satisfy his heart. And he would go out to be where there were those who loved him and where he could feel at home. Well, it's so with us. God has revealed to us by His oneness, grace, the oneness privilege of what grace has done and what grace has wrought. But we have to be constantly on guard, because there's ever the tendency of our hearts to turn back to something that has a form.
This was a big problem I just noticed. Here we're told what to be occupied with and what we should not be occupied with.
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In the eighth verse, we find what we should be occupied with, and thus Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. How wonderful, beloved, if we are truly occupied with Christ, there's nothing that takes the place of that.
It's really why forms ones Christian life is what preserves the mind from air and from.
What hinders a real spiritual growth in the soul? And it's something we have to cultivate because it doesn't come natural to us. But off times, in quiet moments in the night, maybe if we start thinking of a scripture and going over it.
While we're lying in quietness and get our minds on Christ or, I often find that to go through one of the Gospels and just follow the large pathway through chapter after chapter and it becomes a real way of getting the mine occupied where that blessed one because.
It's a natural to us to have a mind just traveling through things maybe that are.
Have no profit, or maybe get us out of communion and get us unhappy in our souls, But oh, what a precious thing it is, What a needful thing it is to be occupied with that blessed one. And then he tells us here that things are not to be occupied with and.
That in the next verse, which have not profited them, which have been occupied therein.
That is the mere empty form of religion if we're just occupied with going on and there is a danger even among those gathered the Lords name just to be occupied with with getting regularly to meetings and with little thought of why we're gathered together, what the purpose is so.
Get the mind on Christ himself found that will preserve us from the whole system of what is spoken up there as neat.
Not profited, as you say. It's really the whole system of forms that just satisfy the conscience and the natural man in a religious way. This is what the apostle was very earnestly trying to get these Hebrew Christians to see.
They were very much attached to the temple and its customs, of course, as we know.
And consequently.
They were to learn that God had set this all aside.
Beloved Christianity is not an adjunct of Hebrew, of Hebrews, Hebrews not at all. This is the great scene of today with its specimens.
And it's paraphernalia.
We tend to go back to that, so the Lord.
The Apostle Paul, undoubtedly the author of this portion of this epistle. He wants to get these Hebrew Christians to see that those old customs had nothing really to do any longer. That Christianity was not an adjunct to Hebrews, Hebrews it was just.
To put them into ******* again, and not to let them see the joy and the privilege of what grace would affect.
How grace would affect their lives? Well, I've often thought of that in this sense.
That we do tend to go back to the the these things that belong to the to the Hebrew conception of things instead. Take, for instance, the vestments that we use in sectarianism.
And the paraphernalia that goes along with it, this is all taken from the old system. And so here is the apostle speaking to Hebrew Christians those who've been saved for the grace of God, and he wanted them to go to back.
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Not to the old things that they had been used to, but to see that Christianity was something different. It was based on divine grace. Our brother Barry was Speaking of lying awake at night and then Speaking of.
How we can be occupied with the scriptures? The Lord Himself and I got to thinking about something that's often said that if we lie awake at night, count sheep.
But then I ran across a little saying that said, well, instead of counting sheep, talk to the shepherd.
So sometimes, even in the waking hours, we can be occupied with the wrong thing.
We need to be occupied with Christ talking to him, and I believe that will put us to sleep faster than anything else I I remember.
Over in the Congo.
And in the Congo, there were evil spirits all around.
The Africans themselves were afraid of evil spirits. They were aware of them too, and that's why they were sacrificing.
To idols, and those are sacrificed. To idols, they are worshipping demons. So I suppose the sacrificing to idols was to keep the demons quiet.
But we as being there were aware of these demons or evil spirits all around.
And you feel it really more there than you do here. But I'm beginning to feel it more here, too, because I believe demons and evil spirits are more active in this country than they have been.
It's the enemy of our souls behind it. But one night when I was out in the villages, going from village to village preaching the gospel.
My wife was left back at the mission station.
And we had a native that was supposed to sit guard during the night, but I'm sure he fell asleep most of the time.
And this one night.
My wife was awakened.
And she saw some objects passing back and forth in the other room.
And the first thought she had was, well, there were evil spirits. Later on we learned about angels.
And we feel that there were angels there guarding my wife.
And she just looked to the Lord.
And she quietly went back to sleep again.
Well, when we are troubled, we can look to the Lord and commit everything to Him, and He does give his beloved sleep.
Dear Brother, Father made a suggestion that has been very helpful to me. He said in the early hours of the morning. Repeat to yourselves the 20th chapter of John's Gospel. Well, I got the thought, and I suppose for 60 years perhaps I've been repeating the 20th chapter of John. Wake up early and go over that.
Wonderful chapter.
Miriam has to be the first.
Early the first day of the week.
There at the 7th curve, Jesus and going on in that beautiful chapter, learn it by heart. I didn't have to learn by heart. I'd read it so many times. I just remembered it without.
Without learning it.
Verse by verse.
It isn't that a helpful way to start out the Lord's day? To just go over that first day of the week when the Lord rose from the dead?
Well, maybe some young people will act on that and practice it through life.
But the precious blood of Christ, brother bearing? I do know something of that, having lived so long in the foreign land.
How often sleep would leave one because of the presence of demons everywhere. Demon possessed both, and I would mention the precious blood of Christ.
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And go into a sweet sleep, the precious blood of Christ. Now we get This is very important.
Demon possession is very common.
Everywhere.
And you get it in the 6th of Ephesians.
But also in the fault of Ephesians. You get good angels there, and they read in us the manifold wisdom of God.
Huh. This Brother Dasser, of whom I've often spoken, Brethren, he was immediately.
And God saved that man. I used to feel uncomfortable when he came into the meeting. He was a professor in the university and a very respected one. And he came to the meeting and he would sit there and glare at me right through the whole hour, and I felt uncomfortable. One night the Lord saved that man, and he was gathered happily to the Lord's name. But this is something that's very, very terrible.
You know, sometimes walking along the street, that man would be thrown down on the street.
He always dressed immaculately and he was thrown violently to the street and he would pick himself up and say to me, Brother Smith.
Demons can never enter the heart of a believer, but they certainly can harish one. They can harass them, and that was his very words. They can Harris one, but isn't that a comfort in that other chapter?
That the they read in the church in US in chapter 4 of Ephesians, the manifold wisdom of God. In the Greek it's the many colored wisdom of God. They read enough and how often we've said in their meetings.
Angels don't sing, but they say. And I wonder what they do say, beloved, when they see young Christians.
Absorbed with the beggarly elements of the world instead of instead of being absorbed with the person of Christ and his precious words, What do they say?
Do they say concerning our behavior? That's the meaning of conversation in First Timothy 4:00 and 12:00.
The word of the Apostle Paul to Timothy was Be thou an example of the believer in Word, in conversational behavior, in love, in spirit, and in purity.
Oh, how very necessary that is. But the angels read in US, beloved the many colored wisdom of God.
What do they say when we don't walk accordingly? Well, these these Hebrew Christians needed the excitation to forget Judaism, that Christianity was not an adjunct of Judaism at all. They had super abounding grace instead of the law and Judaism.
Is that right?
What are the questions altered? It says here we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which served the Tabernacle. So it's rather astonishing to think of Christians so far removed from Judaism who had the older?
Of great importance of all their history. And yet we've we've left all that system and it's been set aside as we have in the verse.
Just considered, but here we're definitely reminded that we have an altar.
On a very Doesn't it speak of the way of approach to God?
I know that.
In Genesis 26.
That Isaac build an altar and call on the name of the Lord.
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Usually associate the altar with sacrifices, as we have it in the rest of this chapter.
But we do find there, and in other cases, that it wasn't an approach to God where we can draw nigh to God.
That he also would speak of that, wouldn't it?
I'm glad you brought that out, because in Genesis, the orders that Abraham built and Jacob Bader built, it seems they were had more to do with worship than sacrifice. Don't you think it as you say it was the approach.
To come into the presence of the Lord.
Does not Christ replace everything?
That's otherwise visible to the Jew in his day. We find that in the beginning of Hebrews.
First of all, the angels were set aside in the second chapter, and in the next chapter Moses was set aside and Christ replaced him as the spokesman for us. And then Aaron was set aside.
And as we go through, we find there's another sanctuary.
The old one was set aside, and the priest, we have such a high priest, it's Christ. And as we go through Hebrews we find that man loses everything that belongs to an earthly religion. And there's nothing like the book of Hebrews to establish the soul not only in present grace, but in the true.
Approach to God, as our brother has stated.
Because Christ is the one that the Spirit of God sets before us as the object.
Now in commenting in general on these verses, we were Speaking of grace and.
You'll pardon me going back just for a moment, because it's such a great subject.
I believe that it's well to mention a few more things about grace that the heart be established in grace.
If Israel had learned their lessons.
And if we learn ours, Israel would have been ready for the Lord Jesus.
As a nation.
Because although Israel was under the law.
If God had dealt with them according to the law, they would have been completely set aside and destroyed. But at every turn we find God dealing with Israel on the ground of sovereignty.
Now this goes back even to the time of the beginning, before Israel was a nation.
When man sinned in the third chapter of Genesis.
Why immediately God has the promise ready not to man, but for the woman seed That was grace, was it not?
And after the flood.
We find that man receives meat to eat, which he did not have before his table was spread richer than before.
And in the comments that were made about Aruna and the threshing floor.
We find that Aruna was a Jebusite and God couldn't stop that plague in Israel because Israel had sinned.
And so in his sovereignty.
He stops that plague.
Outside of Israel, on the threshing floor of Aruna, the Jebusite, and by the way, Brethren, Speaking of the marvelous grace of God, which is beyond mercy, because mercy meets the need, wonderful as it is.
Why? That place where David offered that sacrifice was the very sight of the temple.
Mount Moriah, brethren, we cannot in any way reach to that marvelous grace of God. It meets us on every hand. And if we stop just for a moment to look back one day, and we, as sometimes we sing, count our blessings, we can't but.
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To to think of the marvelous grace of God that meets us at every turn, not mercy.
That's true indeed. But think of grace. What right have we, brethren, to be called as have a part of the to be a part of the Bride of Christ? What right have we?
Now, mercy would put away all our sins, but to think that we have been called to the fellowship of God and His own Son. Now this is great, this goes far beyond mercy, and that we're going to dwell together with Him. We're going to be like Him when we see Him.
We'll be like him and as far as grace is provided.
As he is, we're already in this world that is, as we have in the Epistle of John.
So are we as he is, that is God, and his counsels has already placed us in that position that only grace could put us in. So I believe the subject of grace is a vast theme and something that we should meditate on that would draw our hearts away.
From all that which is visible in a religious way and would attach us to the earth. Because remember all of these things mentioned for Israel attach them religiously to the earth and that's why the apostle says in the 6th chapter of Hebrews, let us go on to perfection.
Leaving the beginnings of the Christ, that is, all those things that led up to this. Now we have the substance. And to go on to perfection in Hebrews is to be occupied with that one who is the forerunner who has already entered. And that's the object for our hearts. Now we're a heavenly people, as our brother Little told us. This is a wilderness.
Book, but we're going on to the rest that remains for the people of God.
And we have an object and the forerunner is already entered.
13 times over the words better.
Is mentioned in this epistle.
I hope I've counted them properly. 13 times the word better appears and it's most instructive to read.
The words that accompany that word better in this epistle.
So then that.
My brother London has said truly Christ is our altar.
So that.
Having Christ as our altar, now those who were connected with Judaism, they had no right to that altar while going on with an altar that God had set aside in Judaism.
We find, I'm sure, in going through the book of Hebrews.
That Paul has learned lessons from the time he went to Jerusalem and he took a vow. They were to offer certain sacrifices. The result was, as we know, he was made a prisoner and taken eventually to Rome. Well, they're a prisoner in Rome, I'm sure.
He'd gone over many things that he had not fully broken and separated from, because there was still a willingness to agree with that system to in order to keep peace with his brother. But he surely is completely and finally done with the whole system, because as he brings before us here, that Christ now is our altar, and that for those who.
Went on with another altar. They had no right to that altar. The Christians now was that.
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This is without the campus.
Now there's been a great deal of of question as to what the camp is, but it's really that which keeps the heart occupied with an earthly religion is that which keeps the soul away from the the real object.
That the Spirit of God has for us in the New Testament the camp. It may be religious, all right, and it may have a great deal of truth connected with it, but to be with the person.
He was outside the camp, and were to go on to him. Without the camp. All that belongs to the earth and an earthy religion, and that which man is set up in contrast to that which.
God has provided for us as an object, a way of approach to God.
And a place of worship.
Yeah, very clear illustration of what he's talking about here.
Because, he said, the body of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary.
Are burned without the camp, You know, like the great day of atonement. The blood of the first Bullock and then of the goat for the sins of the people, was carried by the high priests, and sprinkled on and before the mercy seat. But what about the body of that beast that was whose blood was carried?
Into the innermost sanctuary, that bird, that blood was burned outside the camp, so he takes up the illustration. There He said that Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood.
That is, separate the people now for himself.
That he pictures the Lord going out.
Of that gate of Jerusalem.
That cross below are there to Calvary's Hill, where he was crucified.
And the one that we now follow, the one that we worship, has been crucified outside of the whole religious system of Judaism. And if you bring in any religious system, why we find ourselves outside of that system.
So Christ up there, who is now on high in the glory above, is there because man has rejected him and given him nothing but the shameful cross. So his place up there marks our place out down here. We're outside of everything that the natural man would leave to as a religious system down here.
You know Diva, What is the camp?
Well, we do remember that the Tabernacle was in the midst of the 12 tribes around about it, and that area around it was called the camp.
The meeting place or the meeting was moved away from the.
The camp outside and in Exodus 33 and verse seven it was a power off prophet. Why? Because there was sin there. There was idolatry there.
Well, what is the camp thing today?
We are to go forth unto the Lord Jesus without the camp.
Bearing his reproach.
The camp today is this conglomeration of religious.
System rather than we've got to remember that continually.
There never was such a conglomeration of religious systems in the history of this world as today.
And.
Yet we sometimes are drawn in.
To this because of some gifted speaker.
There's plenty of gift among those who are in the camp. Plenty of gifts.
01:05:04
But they don't speak all the truth, and some young Christians are LED away.
Because of the oddity of some of these men who are real orators, they tickle the ears. They get this, they get the people interested. Let me illustrate 1 case.
A very godly sister requested another sister to listen to.
One of the preachers over the radio.
And.
She said. Oh, you should hear that wonderful preacher.
And no doubt he was a fundamental preacher as far as the people would think.
But the other sister was had more discernment than this particular sister, and she said I wouldn't listen anymore to that man. Oh, she said. Why? He's one of the most wonderful preachers of this great region. But.
The sister said. Did you ever hear him teach that the church would go through the Tribulation?
No, she said. I'd never heard that. Well, she said. That's what he said this morning.
Now this is the we ought to go forth unto Christ outside this camp, brethren.
Going to cost some of you young people something to do it.
Oh, may the Lord so fix our hearts affection upon Christ and and give us discernment.
To discern that which is according to the Word. For we can easily be LED away by certain orators who do not teach the Word of God in its purity.
God has given us the very great joy of being gathered unto the Lord's name.
I like that word unto there. And it was that who drew my attention. It's a little Greek word, the EIS, that means unto.
And we are gathered, beloved, unto the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And that word there in the original would exclude every other name, whether you believe it or not.
That word would exclude every other name but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That may seem a little.
To some perhaps, but it has that meaning.
It puts us outside of everything.
But that blessed name now one day a young missionary from a certain institute here in Oak Park, I should say rather in Oak Park, presented himself to one of our brethren who's been saved 40 years. And he said, why don't you come over with us?
He said You are just a few here, but we are hundreds in the States we are hundreds.
And of course, the Matthew looked at this young man, the metro, 71 years of age.
He's 40 years the Lord. And he said, young man, can you have any more of the Lord Jesus with your hundreds than we can have with two? The twos, the three? And he quoted that verse from Matthew 1820 for where two or three are gathered together unto my name.
There am I in the midst of them. Needless to say, the young man had nothing to say. He.
Never came back again. Oh beloved, do we? Really and truly.
Know what it means to be really gathered to the precious name of Christ.
It's the most wonderful truth.
In God's book.
Concerning the gathering center, gathered to that alone worthy name.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ.
01:10:01
That's all right, I've said.
Going to say there were two things that exercised my heart.
And the one was.
When I was in system.
That the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't getting his rightful place. Man had usurped the place of the Lord Jesus.
And then another thing. The Holy Spirit was not given his place. Man was usurping the place of the Holy Spirit, making himself the chairman of meetings instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to be the guide and leader in the meetings.
That system.
And we don't want to go back into it.
May God keep us.
Would it be possible to read what you referred to in the 33rd of Exodus, Brother Smith?
You mentioned the chapter and the verse of seven.
Verse 7 And roses took the Tabernacle and finished it without the camp. A far off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out under the Tabernacle of the congregation.
Which was without the camp. And it came to pass, when Moses went out under the Tabernacle, that all the people rose and stood every nine and extent door, and looked after Moses until he was gone into the Tabernacle.
And it came to pass as Moses entered into the Tabernacle. Well, I didn't want to go so much into that, it says.
The 10th person, all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the Tabernacle door. All the people rose up and worship and then we get.
Read the 11 First Brother, Mary and Yes.
Well, the verse I was thinking about, Brother Sunbeam, was where everyone that inquired after the Lord went under that Tabernacle that Moses had pitched outside the camp.
Yesterday there was a remark made by a brother as to the successor to Moses and who was chosen.
And why he was chosen, and I think it's a point that's very important and we have it in the 11Th verse.
It says, And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp. But his servant Joshua the son of Nan, a young man, departed not out of the Tabernacle.
Now the one who was chosen to succeed Moses.
The one who was to lead the people of God into the inheritance which speaks of our present enjoyment of heaven before we get there as a heavenly people. I believe that's the type.
He was one brother who departed not from the Tabernacle. He was the one who dwelt there. That was Joshua. He dwelt there, and that was the way that God prepared his servant to take up this work, to lead the people of God into, shall we say, in tight heavenly things.
Now, it's one thing to know a little bit about the truth, but it's another thing to be in the enjoyment of it. And how can one be in the enjoyment of the truth unless he dwells and abides in it? And we have that word abide often in the epistles of John and in the Gospel too, like we had the 15th chapter mentioned to us, the word abide. And that's so important, this young man abode.
He lived, he dwelt. He departed not from this Tabernacle. This was the center. This was the divine center. This was the place where they sought the Lord outside of the camp.
01:15:10
Would it not be an obligation, and merely an obligation, rather difficult to accept simply to be called outside the camp? Because after all, the camp is a place where man is honored and certain recognition is given to man.
And to step outside of all that would merely be a difficult obligation, where it not for the fact that it is unto him outside the camp. Oh, what a difference that makes. What a difference in fact, the way in which it's worded here seems to me to be so very touching. Let us go forth therefore unto him.
Every time I read this, I think of the language of the 19th of John.
Where we find picture to us the Lord Jesus in pilots judgment hall, crowned with thorns and bearing the cross, and the Spirit of God chooses to use these very words. He bearing his cross went forth. And you pause when you read those words and you see the one who loved us and died to redeem us.
Turning from pilots judgment hall, and going forth, Why did he do it? He knew what was before him, but in willing obedience to his Father's bidding, and in love to you and me that never can be fathomed, he went forth.
Now I believe he turns to us, and perhaps he would even say, I went forth for you. Will you come forth for me?
Oh, what a difference it makes. It's not hard to come outside the camp when we hear him calling us. When we hear him saying, let us go forth therefore unto him without the camps bearing his reproach. Yes, even though this is a so-called Christian land, it's remarkable what reproach there is associated with the person and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
To bear the names that Christianity or Christendom, shall I say the camp delights to honor, will gain us recognition and acceptance. But the?
The name of the Lord Jesus Christ alone still brings reproach. So I I would really just like to say to everyone here this morning who is redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, You know, and you are glad to know that he went forth for you. Someday you're going to see him and thank him that he did it.
And are you going to be able to remember when you do see him and when you thank him for going forth for you? Are you going to be able to have that glad eternal memory?
His Grace, you responded and went forth for him. It wouldn't be hard to bear the reproach. At the same time we rejoiced in spirit, and we bore his worthy name.
Wouldn't that be helpful to especially for the young who might have difficulty to see that Christendom today is the camp to elaborate a little more.
On what characterizes the camp.
And we find in the book of Hebrews all these various points.
And has been dealt with.
Human being could be the priest instead of the Lord Jesus.
The clerical system is today in Christendom, the principles that once were dominating Judaism.
Are now fine. Found in Christendom. There is an earthly sanctuary, while Christianity has a heavenly sanctuary we are worshipping.
Within the holiest of all yet outside the camp, beautiful thoughts. And so throughout this book we have the principles brought out which characterized Judah is the brother Smith already dwelt on it, so we had a clerical system is upheld. There is the character of the camp where there is a sanctuary.
01:20:22
And how often do you hear these terms in connection with a certain corner in a church at the sanctuary, then when they have a sacrifice other than the Lord Jesus, where the so-called Lord Supper is taken for the forgiveness of sin?
Again, that is going back to offering again and is going back to Judaism. And so one could elaborate, this is what will help any exercise. So to know where the camp is today, where the principles are found that once were in Judaism, and where they are upheld, they might be upheld to a greater or smaller degree.
Depending on how sound the Christians are. Yet it is nevertheless the principles of the camp. This will be helpful for anyone who is exercised. Perhaps about where is the camp. Well then, when you clearly see that these things that now dominate Christendom have no value anymore and are copied from Judaism, you have no difficulty to see it is your application.
To step outside that camp onto the one who was rejected and still is rejected, and sharing his reproach, it is our privilege today to do so.
I wanted to hear that side of things brought out. I thank you for bringing it out to because there are those that say, well, that just belonged to the days when this festival was written, where there was a Jewish system, where there was a temple and the priesthood and so on. And he doesn't refer to the time in which we're living that you brought out very clearly that it does refer to the time which we live in because.
Person Dumb has just copied Judaism and formed a system.
Like you'll find me and in the Jewish system and those days when this vessel was written.
No 1.