Address—Steve Stewart
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We start our meeting this afternoon with him. 100 and 65165.
And all the church.
Will be on the door deep.
'S relationship, what I'm saying why it goes and glory.
My baby we shall breakthrough.
Them all and join our heavenly.
Program.
We see by the world.
And may we have the word?
From.
The last two hours.
I love the Lord.
Trust, with the Lord's help, maybe something that's kind of.
Little bit.
Under the normal I'd like to take up, but trust with the Lords help take it up in a way that beatifying. I'd like to trace a little history of the recovery of the truth and the early 1800s which truth we enjoy. I asked a question one time years ago and similar meeting.
00:05:11
Why are you here? Why are you here?
A lot of answers might come up and maybe with some of the youngest. Well, mom and dad brought me.
Maybe somebody else while my girlfriend was going to be here and maybe others. Well, I really wanted to be here under the sound of the word and enjoy the fellowship of the Saints. And might be many reasons, but that's not the question. The question is why are you here? How did it come about that there was a meeting in Pella that would host the conference?
How did all of that come about?
That's the question, why are you here?
Why is this even exist? Why are you here?
You're here because of a work of the Spirit of God many years ago, and I would like to go back and look a little at that. But two things are a little necessary. A brief outline of the history of the church, and we're going to also have some of the history of the instruments that God used.
And the recovery of the truth that we know and enjoy.
Revelation chapter 2.
We have beautifully presented to us.
Yesterday.
First love, Mary Magdalene and Revelation 2 The first Church of the seven churches that are addressed is Ephesus, and the Lord has to say that they had left their first love. And verse 4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because I was left thy first love. And so that was the beginning of the downward.
Spiral of the Church's history in this.
Earth, that they had departed from a place where Christ was the complete object of their hearts, eclipsing every other object.
They had works, they had those things that could be commanded, but they had left their first love. And the Lord speaks to them and tells them that they had fallen. It's a fallen church. And he tells them to repent.
He tells them to repent or that he would come and remove that Candlestick of testimony out of its place. Take the word quickly out of that verse doesn't belong there. He's not quick to those things, but he will remove that Candlestick if there isn't repentance. And so that church Ephesus would picture to us the early days of the church's history, perhaps just at the end of the apostles lives on it to those that follow them.
Those that say well we should go back to the early church fathers that were just after the apostles read their writings, get a good understanding of church order and how things should be done and what they understood. Well I read Clement Epistle to the Corinthians and who sat at the feet of the Apostle Paul and then seeking to bring before them the truth of the resurrection. He speaks of the phoenix.
And how when the phoenix bird dies.
There's a worm that comes out of its body and it's carried to the Temple of the Sun in Egypt, and there it's laid in the Temple of the Sun and it hatches out a new beautiful bird picture of resurrection. It's a mythological, fantastical creature. You're not going to get the truth of God from the early church fathers, Not at all, Mr. Darby said someone asked him if he read them. He said I quit.
You won't get it.
And that's a period of time.
That emphasis takes up and left their first love and there is decline. The Lord allowed persecution for around 200, two, 150 years to come in in the next church in that Smyrna and there's no call to repent there, but just to endure just to be faithful unto death and so they suffered persecution. It says here 10 days. There were ten really great persecutions outlined in history.
That take us up to the time.
Of an emperor of Rome named Constantine.
Constantine turned the tides on those series of horrible persecutions, and he made Christianity the religion of the empire.
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He.
Went and he gathered in those who had been outcasts and persecuted and rejected in the days of the idolatry of the Empire, and he honored them. He gathered them in. He kissed their severed limbs that they had lost.
And those persecution their empty eye sockets.
He embraced them, he welcomed them, he gave them the idolatrous temples, and all of those things he emptied.
Sent the idolatrous pre scurrying, and so on, and he elevated those poor persecuted sufferers to places of prominence and eminence.
And that's Pergamus. But there was a danger. There was a marriage there between Christianity and the world that took place in those days. There were tremendous church councils that took place discussing the doctrines as to the person of Christ in his work. And we get that as we come down to verse 13. I know thy works.
Where thou dwelleth, Stephen, where Satan's seed is. Because the higher you get in the authorities of this world, the closer you're going to get to Satan's seat.
He's the Prince in power of the air. The higher you get and every authority in this world, the closer you come to Satan's seat where he dwells.
But they had held fast His name, had not denied his faith, and there were still those who suffered for the truths of the Person of Christ and His work from professing Christians.
Not that he's in the world. And so he speaks of Antipas, his faithful Marty, who was slain among you. Who was slain among you.
Well, because of the consequence of them being put into places of prominence and the teaching of the early Church Fathers that said obey your Bishop, obey your Bishop, obey your Bishop.
The whole hierarchy of what became Catholicism developed.
And as.
Confusion as to the doctrines of salvation came in, things begin to spiral downward, and the gospel of salvation by works became prominent.
Salvation that required baptism.
And so on. And the next church we come to as Thyatira. And that's really the full blown.
Result of the papal system, Catholicism. The Church took the place of being the teacher instead of being taught, but it was really the hierarchy that was called the Church.
And pictured in this woman in verse 20, Jezebel, who called herself a prophetess to speak for God.
All dangerous to have. A Bible will teach you what you need to know. And what did she teach? She taught the servants of God to commit fornication, worldly interactions, and to bow down to idols because the idolatry that had been overthrown in the Pergamus days came sweeping back in.
And blended with Christianity and it became a thoroughly idolatrous system with all its images and icons and on and on. Brother was telling me recently of taking a picture of a bronze statue of Saint Peter over in the Vatican in Italy. And the toes are missing from so many people kissing the feet of that image over the year the toes have been worn off.
The Lord.
Speaks to each of the churches to repent, but he comes here and says I gave her space to repent and she would not repent.
And Judgment is threatened. He's going to destroy her and kill her children with death. And then he marks out for the first time a Remnant.
Verse 24 But unto you I say unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden but that which ye have already hold fast till I come.
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His coming is held out as the remedy rather than repentance and up to this point.
As you look at each church, you find that there is.
A. After the address to the church there is.
This expression, look at it in verse seven. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And then he says and gives in a word of encouragement to those who would overcome that condition of things in that particular church. But in Thyatira he changes it instead of having an ear to hear. And then a word to the overcomer.
Having an ear to hear with the expectation that in the church there would be an ear to hear.
And steady changes it. And he has a word to the overcomer. And then he says.
He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear. In other words, there is no expectation that there's going to be an ear to hear in the Church, but it will only be among the overcomers, among the remnant.
That church continues on, the 1St 3 have ended, but Thyatira continues on to the end.
And the Lord speaks of the judgment that is going to come upon it. Well, we know what happened. Because of the oppressions and horrors of Catholicism and the wicked doctrines, the Spirit of God began to work.
And that wonderful dawning of the Reformation took place. There were bright lights in those days. Almost. Really, we might save Martin Luther's work. It was practically an Apostolic work, as it was just an incredible upheaval.
In the Christian world and the wonderful truth that salvation is by grace alone and by faith was recovered, among other things.
But much of what they had had in Catholicism they carried with them out of it and held on to it. And after those bright lights were gone and with the Lord, things began to wind down again, and soon it was practically a gospel of salvation by works once again, and just dead outward deadness with a few.
Faithful ones amongst them. And that's what we have with Sardis. It's not the Reformation.
It's Protestantism. It's when the political entities of Europe.
Use the Reformation to throw off the yoke of Rome that had dominated them so long, and it became very convenient to be Protestant, to get rid of the chains of Rome. And they protested against the Catholic Church, became Protestant.
But the Lord has to say to them, Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain and are ready to die. For I have not found thy works perfect before Gone. They were letting go the great truths that had been recovered in the Reformation. They were slipping away.
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If thou therefore shall not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments. They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy and word to the overcomer.
And then the appeal for hearing EAR.
Among the overcomers.
There were those who sought to get back to the doctrines that had been taught by the great reformers that were burdened with the condition of the Church at that time. But those two great features remain before the world to this day. Christianity divided into those two great camps, Catholicism and Protestantism, and that's what the world sees to this day.
They continue to the end, when God will bring the professing church into judgment in the great tribulation.
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But there were those who sought to try and get back and to as they looked at all the empty profession, they wanted to get back to what they would call true religion, reality.
Not just a profession.
Of those were a company called Puritans.
Puritans. You know those from history books, right? I want to read you something. Pardon me.
I'll just make this comment.
For those who hold reformed theology. Covenant theology today.
Now that dispensational truth has been recovered, rejecting that truth might well go back and listen to these words of one of their own great leaders, a man named John Robinson, who is chief in gathering the Puritans together who would board the Mayflower and cross to the New World to escape the persecution they were receiving.
From the Church of England and the established national Churches, and as he addressed them in a farewell address that, by the way, lasted all day.
Better part of the day, I'm going to give you a few little sentences from it.
But they might well listen to these words of His farewell speech to those pilgrims, if God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His.
Be as ready to receive it as ever you were ready to receive any truth by my ministry, for I am barely persuaded the Lord has yet more truth to break forth out of His Holy Word.
For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further than the instruments of the Reformation. The Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things.
This is a misery much to be lamented, for though they were burning and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole council of God, but were they now living, would be as willing to embrace further light as that which they first received. I beseech you, remember, it is an article of your Church covenant that you be ready to receive.
Whatever truth shall be made known to you.
From the written word of God.
207 years later.
God gave relief to His people.
And the wonderful outpouring of that truth that John Robinson felt had not yet been.
Recovered to the Church of God.
And applause. At this point, I want to read the verse.
I just don't want to go overtime.
I've got to 1/4 after right trying to remember James.
Chapter 5.
Verse 7.
James 57. Be patient therefore, brethren.
Unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and half long patience for it, until he received the early and the latter rain.
In Deuteronomy we find that God promised Israel if they would obey, he would give them not only the early reigns, but the latter rains. And if you've ever had a garden, and we used to be drought prone in our area of New York, Southern Tier, and we would get nice rains up through into June. And then after that you watered your garden in July and August because you didn't get any more.
And old brother Bill Malardi used to work for the Farm Bureau in Northern Tier, Pennsylvania.
And he was responsible for administering loans to farmers. And he said there are so many miserable failures because of the droughts over the years.
You need the latter rain if you're going to have a garden. You need the latter rain if you're going to get fruit.
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And if we could draw an analogy from this might say those early days of Pentecost, those wonderful days, were like that early rain.
Firm gone.
And just as in Israel's history.
Those wonderful bright days when they entered into the land.
Jehovah remembered them as he looked back when they were first espoused to him, as it were.
Was like the early rain, but as time went on and they declined, they ended up being cast out of that promised land.
Where God gave relief and then the days as a rubble, He recovered a little remnant back to Jerusalem. Why? Why?
The king was coming.
He would have those there.
Ready to receive Messiah when he came. The simians, the ****.
Zacharias Elizabeth. He would have them there, ready to receive the king.
You know, as the truth of God was lost to the Church of God, the truth of what the church really was, it's hope, it's calling, the truth of the Lord's coming was lost to the Saints of God, as there any moment hope.
Why did God give a recovery of the truth in the 1800s? Because he wanted a people here, He wanted that here which would represent his bride, his body when he came back for his Saints, Mr. Darby said. I, when he saw the truth of the unity of the body of Christ and what it was, I looked around at the the established churches, the national churches, the dissenting churches, those who dissented.
From what the national churches were going on, he said. I didn't see that unity anywhere, nothing that represented.
The bride of Christ and this earth.
And then Isaiah and I-1 in verse nine we read, except the Lord had given to us a small room that we've been like Sodom and Gomorrah.
And so he gave. In the days of Ezra, Nehemiah, Latter Rain, he recovered a little remnant to Jerusalem. And in the days of the church's history in the 1800s, that truth of which John Robinson spoke was recovered to the Church of God, that he might have a people waiting.
For him.
That represented his bride, his body here in this earth.
You are part of that today.
It is an immense privilege.
I don't know how.
To adequately convey it to you.
And I know you have to be taught by God.
For it to become the reality that God would want it to be in your soul.
Let's turn back to Ezra.
A third chapter.
We're going to come back to Revelation in a moment.
Ezra, Chapter one.
Verse one Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his Kingdom, but it also in writing sang.
Down to verse three. Who is there among you of all his people? As God be with him, let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the House of the Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God which is in.
Jerusalem, verse 5 Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah, and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, and all them.
Whose spirit God had raised to go up to build the House of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem.
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I'm back to Revelation chapter 3.
We come to Philadelphia and Laodicea, so he said before the world are those two great features of Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism, but the next two churches are things that God sees, that the Lord sees, characters of things that come out of Sardis.
What is really remarkable about that little remnant going back to Jerusalem is they came out of the Kingdom of Persia. They had gone into captivity under Babylon.
And you remember when Nebuchadnezzar made that great image?
And he brought everybody in and he said you're going to bow to that image or you're going to die.
And they bowed. Except for three. That's another story.
They were compelled.
To worship. That's Catholicism.
But when we get to the book of Esther under the Kingdom of Persia and we see King Ahazi, whereas he makes a great feast.
Invites them all in.
And it says of the vessels that they drank out, they're all diverse from one another. And none did compel. That's Protestantism. You don't like this flavor, Go get another flavor. You don't like this church, you're unhappy, it thinks you go start another church. None did compel. All the vessels were different. That little remnant came out of really what had been Babylon. And.
Persia.
5 Tyra and Sardis.
There are characters of things that God sees.
And.
When we look at, let's just look at a few things, the Church of Philadelphia, and to the Angel of the church in Philadelphia, right, these things saith He that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openness.
I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it. But thou hast a little strength, and has kept my word, and has not denied my name.
Key of David.
The Kingdom is going to rest upon his shoulder coming day.
And he is the one alone, able to change and make governmental authorities favorable to what he wanted to do. And he did.
And Zerubbabel's day, he made Cyrus favorable, favorable to the return of that little company.
And the Lord worked in the days of the recovery of the truth of God, and generally, wherever it spread, He allowed the governmental authorities to be favorable.
To allow its spread. And he did far more than that. He really moved whole nations. Whole nations.
You know, as as time went on and from the 1600s where we read about John Robinson and his farewell address to the Pilgrims, there was something that took place in Christianity called the First Great Awakening in the early 1700s. Great preachers, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield.
Remarkable to read accounts of those men thoroughly reformed in their doctrine.
Wesley's they preached. Many others preached.
Many were saved.
There were wealthy widows in England who used their estates that they had gotten from their husbands who had passed away, and they just funded the servants of the Lord in a wonderful way. And that gospel spread, and that empire of which it is set upon, which the sun never sat, because it was so spread around the globe, the preachers of the gospel went out from England.
Around this world God was feathering the nest for the recovery of the truth, and at the same time, in those places in Europe where they had not embraced the Gospel, France being one of them, they descended into deeper and darker turmoil and as men felt the oppression.
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Of the royal houses of Europe, and especially in France, they longed to throw it off.
And the poor became poorer and the misery was horrible, but because.
Of the gospel being received in England and its territories, there was a reduction among the population.
Of drunkenness and other vices. The people became more productive, they had money to spend, and the economy flourished. And in France it went right down.
And the oppression became so horrible, they finally murdered their own king and his family. And those who were called the Enlightenment teachers of France preached that there was no such thing as God ordained authority in this world, it needed to be all overthrown. And they incited the people. And they said the only thing that's going to rectify these oppressions is to let terror.
Reign in France. And it did.
And the guillotine devoured its victims until there was none left to devour.
And after the royal family was gone, the ruling authorities that were left in shambles in France trying to repel those oppressions got a young military officer from Italy. And they told him they're expecting a rebellion in France. And they said, you go put that down. He says, I won't unless I have the free reign to do whatever I want to do. I said, you got it. He lined the cannon up at the top of the streets and Paris, where he thought they were coming. And.
They did, and he fired grape shot and mowed them down. His name was Napoleon.
And within less than 20 years, he was putting the crown of the Empire of Europe on his own head.
And the world wandered after the beast, if I can borrow the term from Revelation.
And men's minds begin to work as to prophetic things and what was coming on this earth.
And there was a great stir as to prophetic truth in the end of the 1700s. The American colonies had descended.
Because of embracing the Enlightenment thinkers in France and their godlessness into a period of moral darkness and spiritual darkness that wouldn't be revived until the Second Great Awakening.
In New York City.
A man came there named John Darby.
He married a young girl.
Named Ann Vaughn.
Her father.
Was wealthy sugar plantation owner in Philadelphia.
He was friends of George Washington. He helped Benjamin Franklin negotiate the peace treaty between the new colonies, newly formed United States and England. They got married in New York City.
1784.
16 years later John Nelson Darby was born. His uncle, Henry Destaire Darby fought under Lord Admiral Nelson in the Battle of the Nile, and they were quite pleased to have Lord Admiral Nelson be there at the christening of their child stood in as his godfather, and so they gave him the middle name Nelson.
His mother because of health, Perhaps she died, we don't know for sure.
He was early bereft of his mother.
He went to a young age to Dublin, Roland Trinity College and Dublin graduated by the time he was 18 with high honors.
Was heading to be a probably would have been extremely prominent lawyer, but he was a believer and he was convicted in his heart that he could not use his talents.
Sell his talents to overthrow justice.
And he saw, as he said himself, that the church as a whole was largely ungrateful to Christ for all he had done for it. And he longed to devote himself to the service of the Lord. And he took up to become an Anglican minister and he was assigned to a County Wicklow in Ireland, where he served the Lord, I think around from age 18.
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Around 7-8 years.
In 1826.
John Ballot, who was his dear friend.
Said Mr. John Darby received a shock to his mind which he never recovered from.
Where he was laboring among the poor Irish, there were conversions of the Irish Catholics to Protestantism at a rate of about 800 a week.
And the consequence was as there was a rising persecution against the Anglican ministers.
In that area.
And the Archbishop of Dublin appealed to the King of England for protection for the ministers of the Anglican Church. And at the same time he sent out letters insisting that all of the new converts, the Irish Catholics that had converted, pledge allegiance to the King of England. He appealed to the King of England as head of the Church.
And insisted while he couldn't insist an Irishman.
Pledges his allegiance to the King of England. It doesn't work and immediately the work stopped.
The conversion stopped.
And that was the shock that John Bellett says he received to his mind and never recovered and were thankfully never recovered from it. At age 26, he wrote a letter to Archbishop McGee in Dublin. And it's a long letter you can look at. It's the first article in the collected writings. What were you doing at 26, I asked myself.
I read that letter.
26.
He writes a letter to the Archbishop of Dublin. He says, ought not the ministers of Christ to suffer for Christ? Why would we appeal to an earthly sovereign and not Christ himself and who is the head of the Church?
Is it really an earthly sovereign? Is it not Christ? And what is His Church? Is it not those who are His?
He writes in the footnote that article. He says This is the first germing of the truth in my soul.
But you know, he was a man who did not have peace in his soul. He did not know the deliverance.
Of the end of Romans 7 and chapter 8. And he struggled in seeking to be accepted by God. He looked back in those days that I preached the gospel, I had no business preaching the gospel.
And he had labored under that long. He said it was good to fast for a day. Well, if it's good to fast for a day, then why not too? If it's good for two, why not three, maybe five? To the point where he would go and ask his his Bishop or the one that was over him, is it OK to partake of the sacraments on Sunday because I'm fasting? And he began to just waste away. It was feared that he might die.
Continued his labours incessantly.
Still among the poor Irish Catholics, but God intervened.
And as we had this morning, all things work together for good.
And he was on a horse passing through an entranceway and a horse threw him against the side of that doorway and he was severely injured and he had to stop his labours. It probably saved his life.
And he was laid up.
And in that time alone with the Lord and the Word, he began to read, he said, I saw that my place in Scripture was the forgiven place. Not just that I could go for forgiveness, It was the forgiven place that my place before God was Christ's place before God.
That I was accepted in Christ before God, and then I was seated there in heavenly places.
In Christ and the purposes of God and that I have nothing more to do, and consequently nothing more to wait for, than the coming of the Lord.
And he began to see that that's what all the Saints were. They were all there in that place and all united to Christ in that place and united to one another by the Holy Spirit. He saw the truth of what the Church of God was. He saw the truth of deliverance, and he other things begin to unfold to him. He was reading in Isaiah 32A, King shall reign.
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Righteousness and the effect of righteousness as we get at the end of that chapter, quietness and assurance forever. And he said, I saw there was an economy of God that had not yet unfolded in this world. And he saw the future earthly Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ established in power and glory in this earth. He saw then the distinction between the hopes of Israel.
And the hopes of the church.
He saw the distinction between the Church being a heavenly people and a heavenly company, and Israel being God's earthly people, fulfilling His earthly purpose. But he saw one grand, wonderful truth in Ephesians 110, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together and learn all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in Him. And he saw that as the great key.
To unlocking the Word of God.
That Christ was the center of all that God was doing, and God intended to glorify Himself in His beloved Son.
In heaven and earth.
And John Robinson's expectation?
Was beginning to unfold.
All in the year 1827 while he was laid up first in bed and finally on crutches till the end of the year.
And as a consequence of those truths and many other that I'm not naming, there's almost nothing we hold that he didn't have, at least in its kernel in that year. It's remarkable, just so remarkable. It was the work of the Spirit of God. It couldn't have been anything else.
And there were others that were exercised about things in those days.
That he was acquainted with John Bellitt, young man who was going to be a doctor, Edward Cronin, a brother named Hutchinson and Mr. Darby suggested.
Let's meet together to remember the Lord in his death, just as members of His body.
Next Lord's Day, just depending on the Lord and the Spirit of God to undertake for us. In late 1827, those four met.
And for the first time.
And many.
In so many years.
There was that on this earth.
In collective assembly, though, on a remnant character that represented his body and his bride in this world, do you get discouraged when there's not many numbers? There's just 4. You think that was a bunch of old men got together? They were all in their 20s, maybe Hutchinson in his 30s. They were young men.
We get certain things that we conceive in our minds. Sometimes I think in actual historical facts. Dispel them.
Soon that work spread. They needed more room. There were more that were gathered. The Spirit of God was working incredibly.
They just found souls prepared everywhere to receive that truth, and that little company moved from Hutchinson's house to auction house they rented in Andrew St. in Dublin.
I found it very precious. They would go on Saturday night and clean up after the auction houses business was done and they would set the table up in the middle of the room, arrange the chairs, they put a loaf on the table and the and they'd go home for the night because they wanted to come into the Lord's presence in the morning. We had that verse before us and when the hour was come, he sat down.
And the 12 apostles with him, they had a sense that they were coming into the Lord's presence.
They laid claim on that verse, where two or three are gathered together unto my name. There am I in the midst of them. It wasn't.
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A dissatisfaction with the existing systems or rebellion work. It was just seeking to act on the truths that the Spirit of God was unfolding to their souls.
And trust and dependence on the Lord.
Soon Mr. Darby moved England. The work began to grow more and more. But you know, Satan has his counterfeits.
And in those expectations and stirrings as to prophetic things.
And as to looking around and seeing the low condition of the church in this world, there were groups of people.
Track societies and so on.
Professing Christian, Some believe or some not.
That we're meeting together. Kelly gives a very interesting account of this in the Bible treasury. And they were convinced that the Spirit of God was long gone from this earth. Spirit of God was no longer here.
And they were praying for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit of God.
Earnest prayers that the Spirit of God would be sent once again, like the Day of Pentecost, and there would be a wonderful Pentecostal revival. And they prayed. They prayed for power.
Is one thing you don't want to ask for over and over again, and that's power. There's two sources in this world. One's from God and the others from Satan. And in those meetings, suddenly people began to stand up here and there.
And give prophetic utterances. Yes, the Spirit of God is going to be poured out again. It's going to be a wonderful time. There's going to be a revival of all the gifts and on and on. And there was a Scottish clergyman named Edward Irving and he latched onto that. And there were those in his congregation that claimed to have.
Apostolic gifts, gifts of tongues, on and on.
He himself didn't claim it. He was quite taken with those that did, and he started a church called the Catholic Apostolic Church and he began to teach that Christ had a sinful fallen nature. And so coupled with those claims came evil doctrines as to the person of Christ. Satan was busy with his counterfeits. The truth had been recovered of the what the Church was.
The fact that the church is the habitation of God by the Spirit, the fact that he had fully fitted and furnished his church with gifts to meet the needs of his members and how those gifts would function and in their order and so on. And Satan was busy and said, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we got gifts, boy, we got them.
And came in with what became the forerunner of the modern Pentecostal movement.
Around that time, there were some who laid hold of parts of the teaching that had been recovered, and especially millennial hopes, you might say the truth of the Rapture. One was named William Miller Baptist Preacher, United States.
Fixed a date 1844 that the Lord would come. His followers all sold everything they had, went out to particular place to meet him. Interesting how many of these things came out of New York.
And they met him and waited for the Lord, and the Lord didn't come.
And they've given up their businesses, sold their belongings.
Some of them took the verse, except he'd become as little children. You shall not enter into the Kingdom of God. And they started rolling around on the ground and jumping up and down, acting like children. It was called the great disappointment.
It was Satan's counterfeit. Out of the great disappointment of prophetess arose named Ellen White, and we have the 7th Day Adventism. Out of 7th Day Adventism in its millennial aspirations came Jehovah's Witness. The Mormons came on the scene. All counterfeits to the work of God.
Let's just hope I'm not wandering. Let's turn over to Matthew, chapter 25. I just want to.
Look at the parable.
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In Matthew 25 of the Five Wise and Five Foolish Virgins.
Matthew 25 One then shall the Kingdom of heaven be likened unto 10 virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. And they that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps, while the bridegroom carried, they all slumbered and slept. And so that pictures to us that decline that we've outlined of the Church of God.
Downward, downward, downward, having lost the hope.
Of the coming of the Lord.
Asleep as to it.
And at midnight there was a cry made. Behold the bridegroom, behold the bridegroom, go ye out to meet him. And that midnight cry went out in 1827, and it reverberated through all the professing Christianity. There isn't one truth of all the recovered truth that is more affected professing Christianity and world today than the truth of the any moment expect.
Of the Lord's return. And I think that's remarkable because, you know, that was why he gave that letter in He wanted to wake up the Saints, to be ready to receive him. That's one of the reasons.
Well, those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil.
For our lamps are gone out with, the wise answered, saying not so, lest there be not enough for us and you.
But go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came also other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us.
But he answered and said, Verily I say to you, I know you not.
What is this flurry of activity picture to us? What are they doing? What is all the activity around? It's around getting oil. What is oil? A picture to us, You know, it's a picture to us of the Spirit of God, the power of the Spirit of God. This tremendous flurry of activity that took place around the time of that midnight cry and connection with gifts of the Spirit of God and their manifestation. And it was.
Absolute confusion.
It was Satan's counterfeit.
Scurrying around.
To get it. Have you received the gift of the Spirit? Comes the question. I did when I was saved. I don't need it again from you. Thank you.
Well, we have just a few minutes left. Let's go back to Ezra again. I'm just going to point out a few little things.
And this chapter, I guess, could really be a meeting in itself.
Verse chapter 3. When the 7th month was come, the children of Israel and the cities and the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. Then stood up Joshua the son of Jose back and his brethren, the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shaltiel and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings. Aaron, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.
And they set the altar upon his basis, for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries. And they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. They kept also the Feast of Tabernacles and on down.
To verse seven they gave money also unto the Masons, and to the carpenters, and meat, and drink, and oil to them aside, and into them of tire, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon.
From the sea of Joppa, according to the grant they had of Cyrus, king of Persia. There's a beautiful little picture in here in connection with the recovered truth the the burnt offering. The offer was to bring his burnt offering lay his hand on the head of that offering would be accepted before for him. The very first thing that came home to Mr. Darby was soul was this place in Christ and that full acceptance and the deliverance that he had in Christ.
The burnt offering I'm accepted in the beloved and then we finally gathered at the 7th month the 7th month began with the feast of trumpets reminds us of the truth of the rapture. If I can draw an application minds us of the truth of the rapture. That midnight cry went out the feast of trumpets. They set the altar on its basis so contrary to Edward Irving and his evil doctrine and others have followed in his steps they.
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As to the truth of the doctrine of the person of Christ, they weren't going to allow that altar to touch the earth. They didn't allow that the truth of the person of Christ and his work to be dragged through the mud. They upheld those truths.
And there was really a return to scriptural worship as to what it truly was.
They.
Have Joshua the son of Josiak priests, Zerubbabel, the governor. They saw the truth that all believers were in the priesthood. They saw the truth that there needed to be order in the assembly and that God had provided like the governor, the governor and the priest. There's those things that are supplied to the Masons and those who are building. That speaks to us, speaks to us of the thought of understanding the gifts.
And their place and building up and forwarding on the the assembly to meet the needs of each member, each gift in its place, each gift with its service. And in the end we find they come to this place where they their praises go up together, all bringing to the point of worship worship. They that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth, in hearts illuminated by the.
Truth of God.
And in the very end we find there were those that wept and those that shouted for joy.
You know, to see these things for the first time, it was just a shout of joy for me in my heart. Time went on and I realized more and more with the ruin of the church really was.
And so there's a place for both the shouting and the weeping.
With you know, God looks on to another day when the church will be with him in his glory.
No spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing, but how precious though so few in them to be here gathered on the ground, that there is one body, that which represents His bride and this world.
Be it ever so few, and to hold fast that which has been committed to our trust, he says to Philadelphia. You've kept my word, have not denied.
My name.
Well, may the Lord help us.