Address—D. Nicolet
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Let's open our meeting this afternoon with hymn #290.
Hymn #290 Why those fears?
Behold his Jesus.
Holds the helm and guides the ship. Spread the sails and catch the breezes sent to Aftus through the deep.
Going to read verses 2:00 and 3:00.
Though the shore we hope to land on only by report is known, yet we freely all abandoned, led by that report alone and with Jesus through the trackless deep move on. Led by faith, we brave the ocean, led by faith the storms defy.
Calm amid tumultuous motion, knowing that the Lord is nigh, waves obey him.
And the storms before him fly. Hymn #290 will sing the first verse and the 4th and the 5th verses.
Protection. We shall have a wandering way.
Trust me.
We shall.
Take the forecast.
On the ground.
Ignored.
Assess the Lord's blessing.
What I have on my heart this afternoon, beloved brethren, is to talk as the meeting was scheduled to the young people. But I trust that what we have and what we share will be used by the spirit in each heart.
Lord's Day Morning. Mr. Allen spoke to the children about a voyage, and though he was speaking to the children, I think we all felt that he was speaking by the Lord's goodness to each of us and beloved young people. I want to talk about another voyage this afternoon.
But before I do.
I want to tell you what the burden of my heart is in some measure, and I believe what the burden of the heart of the dear brethren who have gone to the labor of love, of hosting this happy time together. And so I'd like to turn first of all to a verse.
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In the book of Amos.
And one of the minor prophets.
The Book of Amos.
Joel Amos Obadiah.
Jonah, Micah.
The Book of Amos.
And in this solemn passage, I just have one verse, and then we'll look at one other.
Amos, Chapter 2.
And verse 11.
And I This is Jehovah speaking.
And I raised up of your sons for prophets.
And of your young man for Nazarites.
Is it not even thus?
O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord.
Young sons for prophets, young men for Nazarites.
And its soul. Now I'd like you to turn with me, please, to Hebrews Chapter 11 for the second verse.
Hebrews, Chapter 11.
And verse 23.
By faith Moses when he was born.
Was hid three months of his parents because they saw he was a proper child and they were not afraid of the King's commandment. I'd like to reread that in the Mr. Darbys translation. By faith, Moses being born was hid three months by his parents because they saw the child beautiful.
My burden, beloved young people.
Started really Friday night, so I had the privilege of sitting in the.
Assembly prayer meeting.
And I watched many of you come walking into that room.
And I've shared this with some other brethren.
And it's AI think.
A common thought among the dear brethren here, because I watched you beloved young people come walking into that room. I thought, Lord Jesus, what beautiful young man and young women.
And I don't only mean.
As to physical appearance, though, that certainly involved.
But I mean it as the way that Moses parents.
Amram and Jacobed viewed that precious little infant that God had given them. There isn't a parent here who doesn't look at every one of their children that God sends into their family and doesn't think that is the most beautiful.
Priceless treasure they've laid their eyes on.
That's the normal heart of the normal natural heart of parents. But I believe those two beloved parents in that day saw something far more precious.
They saw their child beautiful, but they saw him beautiful because they saw him as God saw him.
A potential deliverer for the people of God who were crying and groaning under the whip and the lash of the slave masters in Egypt.
And they said, if we listen to this wicked king.
There will have to be the destruction of a potential deliverer of God's people, and we aren't listening. We're not bowing to Egypt's king and allowing Egypt to destroy our child.
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And beloved young people.
And this afternoon, while I will be speaking in application to you from the word of God, I want you to know that.
The dear young man and the dear young women sitting here.
Every single one of you is a potential deliverer and preserver.
Of God's people.
I have in the 32 years that the Lord allowed me to teach.
Both at the secondary level and in college.
I have often heard students and instructors discuss the purpose of life.
Why am I here?
What am I going to do? What's it all about? And I don't think that's a bad question. I think it's a very good thing for you beloved young people to consider.
But not to consider it as the world considers it, without the light and the wisdom of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, to give you a proper answer and guide you in that answer.
Don't you consider it that way? Don't consider it in the way the world does and often ends up with no answer at all, in some cases tremendous.
Disappointments and sorrows and depression that end in, sad to say, dear young people saying after all reaching the conclusion using man's wisdom, there is no purpose for my life.
And therefore, since there's no purpose for my life, the best thing I can do to get rid of this pain I feel every day is to take my life.
No. God has a purpose for your life, and I want to tell you that whatever the purpose for your life is.
This is included that you might be used in the sphere that God has seen good to place you for the preservation and the encouragement and the help of God's dear people and.
Beloved young people, we need it bad.
We need.
Those who have hearts to say, I want to serve and follow my blessed Lord Jesus, and I want to be a help to His beloved people.
The world you live in teaches you that there's one object that needs to be addressed and fulfilled, and that's called you.
You come first.
Everything about this society in which we live in this afternoon, I am going to refer when I refer to that world and that society as including both.
Canada and the United States, the North American society and culture, which is very, very similar.
That society in so many ways, subtle ways.
Almost totally innocent seeming ways teaches you from the day that you can begin to understand anything that you are to expect to come first, and the great purpose of your life is to find an immediate momentary satisfaction of some sort.
And I want to suggest to you.
That the world doesn't have a clue.
About what the real, fulfilling, satisfying purpose for your life that your creator intends for you is really all about.
And you know, I can't tell you either.
Because each one of you beloved young people is special and unique and wonderful, as is every single soul sitting in this room who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, each one so important to God.
That his son came into this world and suffered and bled and died on the cross, that you might forever fill and satisfy his heart in glory.
I know of no higher, more precious purpose in life to fulfill than to have the realization that you are giving joy to the heart of Christ as one of his redeemed own.
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And so every single one of us fulfills that, and every single one of us has an importance and a mission and a purpose.
But as I said, we're going to be speaking to the young people this afternoon. And so I want you to know, as we look at this voyage, that beloved young people, while I don't know what God has planned in his sovereign purposes of grace and love for your life, I know. And I say this reverently. Excuse me, I say this reverently. I know.
He needs you.
And I know.
Though I don't understand it, nor do I know the depths of it, I know that he infinitely cares about what you think and what you feel.
If he is so interested in you, beloved young brother and beloved young sister in Christ.
If he is so interested in you that he can give you the number of the hairs on your head.
I submit to you he is infinitely interested in you personally.
We do not have a cold, distant God. We have a God of love and grace who is intensely interested.
It's wonderful to me and I think to all of us.
To see when the Lord brings two young people together and to watch. And I suppose we have to be careful about that, because young people probably don't appreciate being watched like that. But it is a joy to watch the delight and the interest that those two show in each other. And there could be a lot of things going on. A thunderstorm, an airplane flying over, I don't know what, and that wouldn't take the interest away from two who have fallen in love.
And are interested in each other's company.
And I can, as one of many here, speak from a bit of experience that I can remember when the young lady that I saw in the Des Moines assembly, who I thought was so absolutely gorgeous that there was no way in this world she'd ever look at someone like me.
I got her, but you know it was.
A tremendous delight to sit and talk with her about common interests and realize that there was one other person now that really was interested in me.
What a joy and a delight.
And beloved young people, that's true. But in your heart, allow that. That's how God feels about you, in a much more infinite way. And with my beloved wife when I was when we were going together, what interested her came first to me.
Even if I didn't want to go shopping, it was OK if she was there because I'd get to be with her.
That's normal. We understand that.
Do you understand beloved young people, what you mean in some little way to the heart of God? Why he's counted the hairs on your head and he's not as the world and and Satan would seek to get you to believe out, to make you think that the whole mission and purpose of your being a Christian, as we said the other night and to the young people, that the whole mission and purpose of the Lord in saving you is to make you miserable for life.
That's like a wife or a husband or let's go back a step.
Two who are in love with each other and one turning to the other and say, honey, I know you love me and I know you just are waiting to make me miserable.
It doesn't fit. And yet we believe that we accept that kind of foolish reasoning, that after all that God who sent his Son to die on the cross, the one who hung the stars and the moon and the sun and the sky.
That he's out to make you miserable? What a lie. Well.
We probably aren't going to get very far in this voyage.
But with those comments as the burden of my heart, beloved young people, I want you to come on a voyage with me.
And I want you to understand. And I want all my beloved brethren to understand. I'm going to turn to a passage of Scripture.
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And I'm going to make an application from it.
Because I think the Scripture, as we heard this morning, is profitable.
And it's profitable for doctrine, for teaching.
And that comes first.
And then it's profitable to exercise our hearts to reprove and to rebuke and to give us instruction to make us miserable and legal and hard, and to make us happy, you know?
I'm kind of thankful that Brother Art Chance and his family aren't here.
We were with him last night.
Over at Chester and Sandy's had a wonderful time, but on the way over I rode over with Chester and hope you won't mind this, I rode over with Chester and Jessica sat next to me and I got to. I got to know her because I badly misjudged her age, but she gave me quite a bright smile and kept on talking.
And I'd like to think we became friends on that trip over there. We found out we both were interested in art and we both liked to paint.
And I just enjoyed last night.
Over there, watching the kids.
Kids are fun to watch, but I ask a question of.
Art that I've asked other parents.
I said art.
When Jessica comes to you to ask you for something, how can you look into those eyes and tell her no?
And we laughed.
And then he came up to me this morning.
And I'm going to give you just the essence of the answer he gave me this morning, because it's the same answer every single family, mother and father that I have asked this same question to has given me. How can you say no?
And they said, he said. Because we love her.
Because we love her.
I'm going to purposely leave the names out.
But I'm going to tell you and beloved young man, allow me to tell you this without making any judgments.
But I'm going to tell you about a young man who's happily married by the grace of God, has a very godly wife.
And by the grace of God has two children.
When he was in high school.
It became very obvious.
That he was given some real gift in athletics.
And along with that athletic gift, perhaps you could say rather than a gift in athletics, you could just say a gift of coordination.
And along with that, he was a very big young man.
And the school that he went to.
Which in the United States at that time, and I think still was pretty much taken up with three major sports, though there are a lot of others that are involved now. Football in the fall, basketball in the winter and wrestling to some extent. And baseball.
In the spring and summer.
And that school, like many or most schools, was desperate for young men and young women who could enter into a variety of sports and excel so that signs like these could be put up all around the walls of the gym. 1998 Nineteen 99 Champions Champions Championship.
And this young man was continually pressured by the various coaches in the school.
Where he went to join because of his size and his speed, the football team and then whatever else other sports he wanted to, but especially get on the football team. And he was told that was a ticket to a free ride at a Big 10 university.
I suppose if you pay for the for that expense now you're paying 50 sixty $70,000 for four year education at a Big 10 university.
He was in line for Oregon. Could have been, at least according to his hopeful coach.
A free ride.
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But he had a problem.
The problem he had was a legal hard misunderstanding.
Out of touch with reality, Dad.
Who said son?
Before God, to whom I'm responsible, I have an exercise that you're not getting involved in organized.
High school sports.
Now this morning, our brother Bauman and brother Bauman, I'm sure you'll forgive this comment because what you said about when you do something or give something up, do it for the Lord Jesus. It's very good.
But that's not why that young man gave up high school sports.
And that's not why he gave up the opportunity to go to a four year college free.
He gave it up.
Because he wanted to obey his dad.
And it hurt him bad.
And he felt it when he walked down the halls of that school.
And kids that couldn't bench press half of the weight that he bench pressed.
Tease him and mock him.
Why don't you go out for sports, you wimp?
And you know what He said.
He didn't say because I want to please and honor the Lord Jesus.
Though that would have been nice.
He said. Because my dad told me I couldn't.
That's as far as he could go.
But he told the truth.
And he bowed. He submitted, and it hurt.
And I don't know if that young man understands today totally what the exercises were his dad went through.
But I know he knows this.
Peace, happy and blessed.
And if you'll allow me.
I want to say.
That his two kids are just about the neatest kids I've ever seen. And I'm.
They're my grandkids.
And so I'm a little spoiled.
And we don't talk about sports.
But I thank God.
That he bowed to something he didn't understand and something that hurt him.
Because he's not hurting now. Do you understand beloved young people? There's something after today.
There's a book written, I think I've referred to this before. Is there life after high school quarterback?
And it was an educational book taken up on the syndrome that they were seeing happen so often among kids in high school who were made a focal point in something. I'm not bashing athletics, I want to tell you right now.
That I love to get together with the brethren. When the families and the young people live together and we play volleyball or softball or touch football or whatever, it is wonderful.
So I'm not bashing sports. It can be music, it can be drama, it can be debating, it can be on and on and on anything.
That puts someone up and everyone watches them and looks at him and oh, you're so good and all this and all that and then.
You walk up on a stage like this and you take a little roll of a piece of paper and you walk off the stage and nobody knows about you anymore.
And there was a phenomena that there was being an increasing scene, an increasing amount of suicides among.
Especially young men who had been star athletes in high school within six months of their graduation because all of a sudden nobody cared about him anymore.
Now if.
The world is that important.
And if it's so critical to be something in the world, how come Doesn't it last longer?
We haven't started on our voyage yet.
I had a girl in my class.
In high school.
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Who was a tall, very attractive young lady, very talented girls. Basketball is one of the I don't know what it's like here in Canada, but in the States, at least in Iowa, it's an absolute craze.
And she was very good. Not only was she very good.
Very attractive. Her parents were very wealthy.
And she not only was very good and very attractive and very rich, sounds like quite a combination, doesn't it?
Sounds like a combination that a lot of people in this world, a lot of young people, would give anything to possess.
Now let me tell you how much good it did her and how long it lasted. The team that year went to the state tournament.
Debbie was one of the starting six. They had six at that time instead of five.
One of the starting six players.
Not only that, she was crowned because of her looks.
Tournament Queen Quite an honor.
Not only that, but her team won the Class 4A state.
High school Iowa Girls Basketball Championship.
And I don't know of anybody on that team who had their picture blazed all over the papers more than Debbie.
The week before, the seniors graduated.
She came into my room the first time I had ever seen this. She sat down at my desk, at my desk, crying, angry, frustrated.
And I said, Debbie, what's wrong now, remember?
Looks well fame.
Ability. She had it all. And she also had a very, very nice looking boyfriend. I mean, that's the whole dream, right?
And she sat at my desk crying. I said, what's wrong? And she said everybody, meaning the coaches, the teachers, the adults and the kids.
Treat me like dirt. They treat me like I don't exist anymore.
She couldn't handle that.
Because she had been the center and the star of everything and now she was nothing. Because she was leaving and couldn't do any good for the school anymore. And her wealth and her looks and her abilities and her boyfriend and everything she had didn't keep the tears away.
Fulfill love at young people. The Lord Jesus can.
He can do for you what nobody and nothing else in this world can do.
You give him a chance, I say that reverently. Will you trust him?
Will you willingly in your heart, with all the problems and difficulties and insecurities and questions and concerns that you have, will you say to him, Lord Jesus?
I want the best.
And then sit back and see what he'll do for you.
Did you try that?
Just say Lord Jesus, I want the best.
Not what I think is the best.
Because I might think a scholarship to Big 10 university is the best.
What do I know?
You know the end from the beginning. I don't.
So I want the best, Lord, the best that you can give me. You think you can do better in that beloved young people? Can you out give Jesus?
Can the world out give Jesus?
Can your school your friends?
Careers. Can they out give Jesus? You already know the answer to that.
He tried that.
OK.
We still got time for a little bit of a voyage.
Let's go to Acts 27.
Now a way will we get through this chapter?
And I'm going to try, but we'll start and then I would like to encourage you to ask the Lord to help you finish it on your own time, do a little homework.
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Not a good word, right? But do it anyway, on your own time. Do a little homework, Read the rest of this and ask the Lord to tell you more about it. I want to say, before we get started, I'm going to make an application of this voyage that Paul made to Mylita and to Rome.
And the reason I'm going to make it is because of something that I would like to encourage everyone in this room to read, though I know many here already have and reread.
There's a pamphlet that's published. I'm sure Bibles and publications carries that. I'm sure that Bible truth carries it by our beloved brother Gordon Hayhoe called Paul's Voyage.
And he takes this chapter up, and he likens it to a history, an overview of the history of the Church of God from beginning to end. And it's wonderful. I really enjoy it.
And I would encourage you to read it just for It's short, it's easy, it's an easy read, and you can get a lot out of it.
And you'll learn a lot. And I would encourage you for that reason. But I'd also encourage it for another reason, because it's a wonderful example, and it was one of the early examples in my life that formed the way I read scripture.
And that was to recognize that there is in every verse in this precious book, a treasure chest so deep and so infinite that digging it as you won't even begin to get below the surface. And there are so many principles. There are so many. There's such a wealth of information, and it's precious to look at the word of God and say, Lord Jesus tomorrow. I want to tell that guy sitting next to me at school to bug off. I'm not interested in his advances.
Help me to know what to do and open the word of God and find out that the word of God is capable of answering that question.
I don't know how he's going to do it. I'm not God.
But the Spirit of God will do it. That's what the Word of God is all about. It's living, and you can count on it for everything in your life to answer questions. So it was when I read that pamphlet, I got a realization. Wow, I can read scripture like this, and I can learn and see things that are incredible that I didn't know were there.
And I'm still just barely scratching the surface, but I encourage you to do that. So we're going to look at this voyage not as a voyage of the testimony from its inception in the day of Pentecost till the time the Lord Jesus comes. We're going to look at this voyage as your life. Let's start.
Verse one.
And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy.
I'm going to read that in the new translation when it had been determined.
So how much input did you have beloved brother, beloved sister into your entrance into this world? Not one bit.
Somebody else, and I say reverently, God made a determination that you were going to come into this world and go on a voyage called The Voyage of Life.
It had been determined.
By someone else.
That Paul and those with him in that ship were going on a trip, and everyone of us is on a voyage this afternoon.
At the end of that voyage is very significant and very solemn. If there's anyone in this room sitting here who has never said to the Lord Jesus Christ.
One word, Yes.
If you've never said yes to.
Jesus, I want to finish this verse for you.
It was determined that we should sail into Italy, and Paul and certain other prisoners, and they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners onto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus Band.
They were going to Italy to stand before a supreme ruler of that day to be judged for what they had done in their life.
And there was number way they were getting out of that voyage. Someone else determined they were going on that voyage and someone determined where that voyage was going to end before Caesar.
And Caesar was going to take up the case of those people individually on that voyage.
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And determine what happened to them. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior?
Then your end is already determined.
The voyage is going to end in bliss and joy, with Jesus forever in happiness, never to stand before a holy God as judge for your sins.
Are you not saved?
Don't fool around with this question.
Beloved young people, kids don't fool around with it because.
If I understand history right, I'm going to ask Mr. Allen, was it Nero at this time that he was going to stand before Nero, the most wicked?
Example of ruling you could possibly think of. That's who Paul was going to stand before to be judged.
You're going to stand before a holy, righteous God.
Those prisoners on that ship may have thought of Nero. Oh, I am scared. I'm going to have to stand before me. He holds the power of life and death over me.
I hope if you don't know Jesus as your savior, you're trembling at the thought of meeting him as your judge.
Say yes to him now.
I had a.
I had quite a experience once.
Mr. Ellen, you and others who are instructors or teachers here know the joy of having to go through in service seminars at the beginning of every school year.
They always try to bring a speaker in who will somehow make that time a little less agonizing and boring.
And once it worked for me at the college, they brought in a man who had retired from the AP wire service, Associated Press, wire service in the United States. He had traveled all over. He was one of the head reporters of that service, and he had traveled all over the world getting stories for the AP wire service. One of the times he recounted was when he went to Ethiopia. And at that time there was a man, a little tiny man, perhaps less than 5 feet tall, named Haile Selassie.
Who was still one of the only. In fact, he said at that time the only remaining absolute monarch on the face of the earth.
Now, I don't know if he's true absolute monarch, but an absolute monarch is someone who says something and nobody changes his word.
And according to this man from the AP, Haile Selassie was the last one, and he arrived there to interview him the night after generals in highly Selassie's army had risen up in rebellion to overthrow him in a coup.
And had been defeated.
And he said, I got a measure of what I was going to face. And it was with some fear and trepidation that I wrote in the back of the army vehicle that took me into highly Selassie's castle or palace, wherever it was. And as I drove down the road, I looked on the right and left to see the heads of the men who had tried to overthrow him by the sides of the roads.
He said. I thought twice.
About how he's going to approach this man and talk to him. When I sat in his presence, would you be scared if you were being taken into that man? And you, he knew you were one of those who was involved in a coup d'etat overthrowing? Would you be trembling?
Why don't you tremble?
That you're going to meet God without Jesus Christ as your Savior.
We are going to give an account and those of us who know the Lord Jesus as savior.
Are going to be able to stand there in all the beauty and perfection.
Of Jesus.
And the rest are going to stand before him as judge. Well, let's go on beloved young people. You're on a trip.
And it's got an end now.
Somebody's with you on it.
Says Paul.
Certain other prisoners and Julius the Centurion.
Now, in my application this afternoon for these few closing moments, I want to tell you that I want you to think of yourself as the Centurion.
Remember what, Mr. Baumann? I think it was Mr. Baumann in the Gospel said about what happened to the Roman jailer who led his prisoners go. He got to experience the worst penalty of the worst prisoner as his penalty for letting them go.
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I suppose the Centurion would fall under that category. It was his responsibility to get the cargo on that ship home as he had received it.
And if he didn't get that cargo as he had received it?
Too narrow? He would answer for it. Beloved young people, I want you to recognize in a world that says you're not responsible for anything you do. You don't have to bear responsibility that you are responsible for every thought and every action and everything you do.
You are responsible and that's why you need Jesus.
This ship was going.
He was a ship of Agra medium, and we launched meaning to sail.
Or I think that is we set sail.
By the coast of Asia, one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonians. Thessalonica being with us. There are two others that were on this ship, just as there are in your life. You're on a voyage.
And I'm going to suggest this application that God in his grace and I'm speaking to this company this afternoon, gathered in this room.
That you, in a very real way on your voyage of life, have a companion called Paul. You have been taught some of you from the earliest days of your youth, the beauties and the precious treasures of the word of God, the apostles doctrine, the Old and the New Testament. And so you have Paul with you and prisoners, You know, we have by nature a heart that's pretty bad.
And if we let it go, it's going to do pretty bad things.
And so we have a variety of ways of trying to keep those things prisoner.
But there were also two others.
There was Aristarchus, and I'll just encourage you to look at the five times that Aristarchus is mentioned in the Word of God. It's quite an interesting history.
But what's beautiful to see is that Aristarchus went through some real suffering. We're talking about that this morning, an Aristarchus learned very painfully what it was to suffer as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, the companion of Paul in the gospel. And what's beautiful is he's still with him. He says it's OK, even though following Paul has brought me difficulties. I'm not giving him up.
I'm holding to these precious things, and so beloved young people, look around the room. There's a lot of aristarchists in this room, and I'm not trying to build anyone up in Pride, but there's a lot of people who have gone down the path longer than you have, and they're still walking with Paul. Why did it make him rich? Did following the word of God make him famous?
Are they in high political office?
Look at their faces.
See if they're happy, which is what everybody says life is all about.
And so there's a testimony to you by the grace of God on this voyage you're taking.
Of a testimony that this life and path of faith is a wonderful path. Whose example follow. Whose faith follow, I should say whose faith follow. So there's Aristarchus. And finally there was one other the unseen recorder. We know That's Luke. He never mentions himself, but he's here recording. You don't see the spirit of God.
But there is a record being kept.
Of your life.
And May God grant that we have an exercise before God as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, to seek to live through His glory, because there's one who takes account of everything done to please him, and there's going to be a reward for every single word and thought and action you did to please the Lord Jesus. An absolute, unfailing record kept that you might have a reward well.
I.
Let's see. Let's go down here.
I went to there's Let's go to verse 6. The Centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy.
They were in a ship of Adrian.
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They change to a ship of Alexandria. And I don't know, I will say I feel the names in this chapter as they are, I think in all the word of God, but I think in this chapter have very special significance. But I'll just say that I would suggest that Alexandria has the thought of being a helper of man. Alexandria was, I don't know if it was the capital, but it was one of the main cities of the land of Egypt.
And you know, the ship was changed from Adrian to a ship from the world.
And that ship from Alexandria from Egypt that took those people toward Rome never made it.
Beloved young people, the world in which you and I live has all sorts of schemes and plans for how you're going to make it through this life and be happy. And it won't work. The ship's going down.
Because ship is not going to make it not the ship from the world.
Let's go on. I'm going to go real quickly to finish up here.
Verse seven, we aren't going to go quickly, but we'll just do a few more when we sailed slowly. Many days, you know, beloved young people, your life right now, if if you're like I think you are, If you're like many that I've had experience with, and if you're like I was when I was a young person at this point in life, if you're somewhere below the age of 18, life is going way too slow. Things aren't happening near fast enough for you.
They saw it sailed slowly. Many days. Don't despise that.
I'm going to be very careful and very reverent how I'm speaking, but those of you especially that have the joy of being raised in Christian families have the joy of knowing what it is to have a city of refuge in the assembly where you have brothers and sisters in Christ who love you. Be thankful for the days of teenage years that seem to move slower than they ought, when you can be formed and molded without a whole lot of pain. If you're careful, I can tell you to be formed and molded when you're 50.
Or 60 or 70.
Is a bit more painful than when you're 17. Let the Lord do that work slowly with you.
But they were going slowly and it says.
Many days scarce were come over against the wind not suffering us.
If you're going to live for Christ in this world, you're going to.
Find that the wind doesn't always blow the easy direction. I don't know anything about sailing. When Mr. Ellen was talking about those tall ships, I thought, what if the wind wasn't blowing the right direction? Then what did they do? I suppose they know how to make those ships go. But you're going to find if you want to live for the Lord Jesus in this world, This is the application I'm making. If you want to live for the Lord Jesus in this world, you're going to find that the wind is not behind your back. Helping you, not the wind from the world.
Not the wind of man's opinions and thoughts and expressions. The wind is going to be against you, and it's going to make sailing difficult.
Well.
Wow.
Let's.
They came to a place called the Fair Havens.
Let me finish. Let me finish up with this verse 9 now when much time was spent.
And the sailing was now dangerous because the fast was now already passed. You know what a fast is, beloved young people? It's when you denied something.
You've got parents right now as young people living at home that deny you certain things. Remember what we talked about at the first of the meeting? That sometimes love says no?
And you're thinking.
Mr. Nicolette, in my life it seems like love always says no, that's OK. That's the fast. You're being denied something for your benefit. That you might be able to grow and develop spiritually, but now the fastest path and you're making your own decisions and you don't have to say no anymore. You can say yes and the sailing gets dangerous.
And in that dangerous voyage where the fast is now passed, no one can tell you so much. No anymore. You're on your own.
There's a place of refuge. Fair havens, may I say, beloved young people, get yourselves. Oh, I want to be careful.
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For the Lord Jesus sake, because of what it means to his heart.
Don't put off the joy of remembering him in his death.
And learn that the assembly with all the warts and the wrinkles and all the problems that you think you see is a fair haven. It's not commodious to the world, to winter in. It's not a comfortable place for the world. The baseball teams and the people down at the fair down there and all, they're not going to come in here this afternoon and say, oh man, this is neat, let's stay here and listen to this.
It's not a commodious place to winter, but I'm telling you, beloved young people, it's safe.
The fast is over. You're on your own. Some of you. You're making decisions.
You can say yes and no to things, and you need fair havens. You need the city of refuge, the assembly of those gathered to the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to find a haven of refuge. And don't look at it as a hard, legal, dry place that a bunch of old folks who don't really know what's going on are Lord Jesus is there. He knows what's going on.
And if he's there, why would you want to be somewhere else?
Fair havens stay there.
Get there and as much as it's going to do for you, remember this.
Remember this beloved young people.
It's going to first of all, give joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
Do you ever want to do I'll stop with this one.
He probably heard this before. Forgive me, but it's precious to my heart.
Girl that I had as a student got saved.
She was not one of those that I looked at the other night at the prayer meeting, walking in the room, thinking, Lord Jesus, these are such beautiful young kids.
She was kind of an attractive girl, but she had messed up.
And in some ways, she wasn't beautiful anymore.
But she did something really neat.
She told Jesus all about it and she was saved.
She got to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
And then she was really beautiful.
She came into my room about three weeks after she was saved and she sat down at my desk and she looked at me and she said.
Did you ever just sit there and think about him?
I need Did you ever just sit there and think about him? Here's somebody that knew what the bottom was like. She tested it at 16 years of age.
And she got saved, and she was clean and pure and white.
And she liked to sit and think about Jesus.
What do you think that meant to the heart of the Lord Jesus?
Did he have joy? You know he did so.
You'll find it a city of refuge, but think what it means to the heart of the Lord Jesus.
To be gathered to his precious name and to walk with him. Well, there's so much more. I wish we could go on. But it's OK. It's time to stop. You read it. Take your test now. You ask the Lord to help you see these things and to walk in them.
And I'm going to tell you something with assurance if you do.
I know you'll be happy.
Which, like I said, is after all, what everybody wants in this world is to be happy. Let's pray, Father, we thank.