YP Address—R. Thonney
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That meeting this afternoon with number 13 in the appendix.
Child of God by Christ's salvation.
Rise or sin and fear and care. Joy.
To find in every station something still to do.
Or bears think what spirit dwells within thee. Think what bothers Smiles are thine.
Thank that Jesus died to win thee child of God.
Wilt thou refine, haste thee on from grace to glory, arm by faith and winged by prayer, Heavens eternal day before thee.
God's right hand shall guide thee. There soon shall close thine earthly mission.
Soon shall pass thy Pilgrim days. Hope shall change to glad fruition.
Faith to sight and prayer to praise #13 in the appendix. Maybe we could stand up.
It's always good to get a little stretch before meeting after a good meal like we've had.
Like to start.
This afternoon by reading.
A couple verses in Philippians chapter 3.
In this chapter, Paul has been recounting all.
The things that he had to glory of Indiana, the flesh. And we'll start reading verse 7.
But what things were gained to me?
Those I counted lost for Christ.
Yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss.
For the Excellency of the knowledge.
Of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and to count them but dung, that I may win Christ.
One phrase more down in verse 10.
That I may know him.
Like to concentrate a little bit on that verse 8, the little phrase there, the knowledge, the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, Turn over to second Peter chapter one.
Peter here addressing his epistle, says in verse 2.
Grace and peace be multiplied.
Unto you.
Through the knowledge of God.
End of Jesus our Lord, verse three. According at his divine power, hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
Verse 8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you.
That ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Chapter 3.
And verse 18.
But grow in grace.
And in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to him be glory both now and.
Forever. Amen.
A brother made a comment some time ago that kind of hit home to me.
He said we profess to be believers in the Lord Jesus.
But at times it seems like.
The way we act, we really don't know who our God is.
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And I have really been searched by that statement. How much do you know you're gone?
How much do I know him? I can't point the finger out in any other direction because I know that there is tremendous need on my part.
To know my God better. But I say this because.
We're living in a world that is.
Contrary to the knowledge of God that we have presented.
In the revelation that we have because of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God's.
Beloved Son, and in the book that we hold in our hands.
In fact, there's a religion in the United States of America.
That is.
That permeates every level of society.
And I'm afraid I have to confess that I have been affected by that religion far more than I realized. It's called humanism.
Sometimes it goes under different names, maybe the new age, but it presents.
A God.
That is not the God of the Bible, and I say again, it permeates our society.
And I especially want to speak to our young people about it because I think it's important that we're aware.
Of what's happening in the society we live in.
The God of humanism is.
Me, myself and I and I see.
The selfishness of our society affecting.
Even those who are Christians. And like I say, I don't want to be.
Accusatory here. I have to recognize that I've been affected by it too.
Paul put it well in Second Timothy chapter 3 and talking of the perilous.
Last times when he said men shall be lovers, what of their own selves? And I see that that's the mainstream current of life in the United States. Do what you like. I'm not saying you're doing anything that's necessarily wrong morally in itself.
But the mainstream is to please yourself.
It would be nice if we could say that we're exempt from that.
But, brethren, I don't think we can exempt ourselves from being influenced by that stream of things.
Remember being down in South America trying to cross a rushing stream?
Down one of those Andes valleys one time, another brother and I were there together and we needed to get across that stream, and those streams run pretty fast.
And we decided that we would join arms.
At elbow, at the shoulder, and we left our shoes on. We left all our clothes on.
And we plunged into that stream to try to get across so we could get to that conference.
And I tell you, we made it. I wondered sometimes if we were going to make it. It wasn't over.
My waste the water level, but it was powerful and it drug us downstream quite a bit.
Before we were able to get down to the cross, brethren were living in that stream of things in our society. I think it is important that you and I are aware that that's what we are up against. Dear young people, you and I live in that society, and the Lord Jesus never prayed to His Father that we would be taken out of the world, but that we would be kept from the evil of this world. And so it's important.
To realize that we live in a world of self-centered selfishness.
I am appalled when I see the terrible need in other areas of the world.
Down in Central America, in Honduras.
The terrible devastation, the people. I understand there's something like.
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2 million homeless in Honduras. Incredible. I don't think our minds get a handle on the terrible destruction that there was there. And yet we Americans go on living our lives as if everything were pleasure down here.
Your young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, I want to redirect your vision today.
Take it off yourself. And I want to put you to put your vision on the God that we profess to know in the Holy Scriptures. I've jotted down a few of the basic attributes of God that we have come to know in the person of the Lord Jesus. I'd like to go over them with you.
Because I find that in the world that we live in, the more that our hearts are set on God, the God of the Bible, the more the problems that surround us are not that much of a problem. But I meet up with souls all the time, believers in the Lord Jesus, that their problems just seem to indulge them. They don't know what to do.
They're consumed by them.
I want you to.
Turn your vision away from your problems. I'm not going to say you're going to be liberated from all your problems. That wouldn't be.
Realism.
But I want to turn your vision toward the kind of God that we have come to know in the Lord Jesus. To me, it just thrills my heart the more I realize the grandeur and the greatness and the infiniteness of the God that I have come to know in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know when you get Him in your vision, things are not near so hard any longer.
There's 2 verses in the Psalms that have often been flooded.
One says.
I will trust and not be afraid.
The other says, In what time I am afraid I will trust in thee.
Somebody used to say that's the 1St and 2nd class to train to heaven. And the first one he says, first of all, we'll trust God is before his soul and there's no room for fear. God is so big, so great, that there's no room for the fears any longer. But sometimes we have to admit that the fears creep in.
And generally, if you think about it, you're going to find that your heart is filled with fear.
When you let things down here, fill your soul.
Now, I have to admit, that's often been the case in my own life. That my heart.
Has given way to fear. But he remembers in the midst of his fears. In what time I'm afraid I will trust in thee.
Oh, how wonderful it is to know the God that we know and the person of the Lord Jesus.
And I just want to go over some of the attributes. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 33.
I'm just going to go over these fairly briefly because I want to get around to more.
Practical application of these things in our life, but it's important to have.
Clear right teaching as to who the God that we profess to know really is. Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse 27.
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Here God is called.
The eternal God.
Eternal simply means that he had no beginning.
Will have no ending ever existing. It is hard in our minds to comprehend such a thing because everything we know down here in this world has a beginning, has an end. Everything we know down here in this world and the creation itself at its beginning, and it will have it then. And so everything in our thinking process.
Excludes the possibility of such a thing, but God has revealed Himself.
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To be the eternal God. Isn't this wonderful that we can say.
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Somebody has said. You may think pretty long, but you'll never think so long that the everlasting arms are not underneath you. Isn't that tremendous? This God is our God.
Go over to Jeremiah 32.
And.
Verse 17.
Ah, Lord God, behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power, and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee. Beautiful verse this is.
An attribute of God that sometimes we call omnipotent.
All power belongs to God. There is absolutely nothing to hard for God. You may have problems in your life and I've often found that God allows in my life as allowed problems that I come to the end of my resources on and you know.
In the big American way of thinking, we try to figure out our problems on our own.
We're taught in our schools. Have confidence in yourself.
Christian ought to be a confident person.
But not self confident, dear young person, confident in the Lord. There is nothing too hard for our God. Isn't that wonderful? You've got a problem that seems too hard for you. Just let this verse sink into your soul. I find great comfort in it. There is nothing too hard for me. There's things in my life I say I don't see the possibility of that happening.
And yeah, in my own.
Limited, narrow vision of things. That's true.
But let's expand the vision a little bit to take in the greatness of our God.
There is nothing too hard for thee. Go over to Psalm 139 that was read this morning.
Just to point out two more attributes of God.
That, I think, are so tremendously interesting.
We'll read a few verses here. Psalm 139. Oh, Lord, thou searched me and known me, thou knowest.
My down sitting in my uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassed us my way, my lane down.
And are acquainted with all my ways. There is not a word in my tongue but lo.
O Lord, thou knowest it all together.
This is an attribute that we sometimes call omniscience. God knows everything. Dear young people, have you really thought about it? This is the God of the Bible.
When I see sometimes young people trying to hide little areas of their life.
I say, have you really come to know the God that the Bible talks about? You can't hide anything from Him. He knows your thought afar off.
Sometimes even at conferences, things go on that are pretty sad.
What a number of years ago, before I was married, I was at the conference somewhere.
On this continent.
And we were placed in the room with a number of other young fellows.
Two young fellows came in quite late at night.
And I heard him whispering. They thought probably I was asleep.
Do you think he'll smell our breath?
You know what they were doing.
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You think they were fooling anybody?
Do you think they were hiding anything from anybody?
Do you know the God we're talking about in this Bible? He knows everything about you. You can't hide one single solitary thought that nobody else knows about. You can't do it. He knows it all. That's what omniscience means.
Going on here a little bit, verse 5 Thou hast be set me before and behind, and laid thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Why ascend up into heaven? Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall thy hand.
Lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
This is an attribute that we sometimes call a NIP presence. God is present everywhere.
God is present everywhere.
There is inhumanism and New age, something that is called pantheism, that God is in everything and everybody. I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about God's attribute that he is everywhere at the same time.
Only God is omnipresent and you cannot escape His presence. There is no way this is the God that we are.
Revealed about in the Bible. Let's read another verse in Malachi.
Chapter 3. Another attribute of God.
Malachi chapter 3 and verse.
6.
Four, I am the Lord.
I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
This is an attribute that we sometimes call immutability. God does not change.
Of how we change. I look back over my little life.
And think how I've changed, not only physically, but my ideas have changed, my thinking has changed, everything about its changes.
But one of the attributes of God is He does not change. In fact one of the.
Titles he bears is the same. He never changes. That's one of the attributes. You can count on it. If he was faithful yesterday, he will be faithful to day and he will be faithful forever.
Let's go over to Numbers chapter 32.
For another attribute.
Of our God.
Numbers Chapter.
I'm sorry, it's chapter 23.
MMM.
Numbers chapter 23 and verse 19. God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.
Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Behold, I have received commandment to bless.
And he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. This is Balaam speaking. This is an attribute of God that we could call sovereignty. God is sovereign, He is over all.
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And he does as he wills, because he is sovereign and there is nobody that can stand.
And contradict. This is our God. This is the God. Can you see how great this God is to me? It just fills my heart when I meditate on the way. Scripture reveals the God that we have come to know and the person of the Lord Jesus. We know that the Lord Jesus is fully God.
At the same time, he is truly man. He is God.
And he is man, and we can know, learn to know our God.
Through the Lord Jesus, people sometimes misjudge.
The Lord Jesus, all they could see on the outside was a human form.
They said this is the Carpenter.
Another place, they said, this is the carpenter's son. We know his father and his mother and his brethren are with us today.
All they could see was what was outward. But to me, this is another tremendous thing about our God, that though He is infinite, eternal, He could reveal himself by coming into this world and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, He came right where we were this morning. And I just marvel at it, think that those religious leaders have their homes to go to.
Jesus.
The eternal God, the creator of the ends of the earth.
Had to go to spend the night in the Mount of Olives. Tremendous how he came down to right where we were.
So that the poorest of the human race could not say.
To God, you don't understand what it means to be so poor down here.
No one so poor as he was, and yet at the same time the eternal God. Oh, how it makes us bow in our hearts to worship, to praise this God that we can say is our God. Oh, to know Him better, we look at the perfection that was in Him.
At all times. Couldn't be otherwise because he was.
Not only God over all things blessed forever.
But he was.
Holy humanity, he was a man. He came right to where we were. And even though those religious leaders, those Pharisees, those scribes, those lawyers.
You know, I, I've had a few court cases that I've been involved in my life. There's anything I've learned to fear is some of those lawyers.
Now they can pick up your words and twist them around to mean exactly what you didn't mean to say.
I'm talking about those that have set themselves against the Lord Jesus.
And yet they came. They circled him. They looked.
For some flaw in his speech, they could not find one flaw.
Because he was completely perfect. This is our God. This is our God.
Can you trust them? Dear young people, I really, truly believe that the big problems that happen in our lives, God allows to happen to prove just how much you're willing to trust in the God that we're talking about here in the Word of God.
Are you willing to trust him?
The more you learn about him, the more you are going to trust him, I can guarantee you.
God is light and God is love, it tells us in John the 5th, so let's just read those just to have them before us first. John 1/7.
I'm sorry, first John 1/5.
This then is the message that we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
I don't know if we should say this is an attribute. This is what God is in his own being. God is light chapter 4.
And verse 8.
He that loveth not knoweth not God for God.
Is.
Love. These are two things that God is and is very deep. God is light. We were talking a little bit about this this morning and the reading. There is nothing you can hide in the light. You can hide things from brethren and people have been fairly successful for a time at hiding things from brethren.
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You can hide things from your parents.
There has been children that have been fairly successful at doing that for a time.
But when we are in the presence of the Lord Jesus, there is no way you can hide anything.
You know, today's world people, officials in government, have tried to hide the real truth, sometimes by telling half truths. And that's a very seemingly convenient way of getting out of tough situations.
You know the Lord Jesus met up with the Samaritan woman at John chapter 4.
And after she had asked to receive the water of life, why the Lord Jesus?
Touched her conscience and said go call thy husband.
Then come here.
And she told the half truth.
I have no husband.
In the presence of the light, there was nothing she could hide and the Lord Jesus.
Not in an accusatory way, but simply manifesting.
The truth of her condition made a statement. Thou hast well said, I have no husbands, for thou hast had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.
Pretty revealing.
She went back into that city.
She said to the men of that city. Some of them she'd probably stand with.
Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did is not just the Christ.
Had the Lord told her everything in her life?
But she realized she was in the presence of the Light and that there was nothing.
She could hide. Dear young people, have you learned to know?
This God of the Bible in that way.
I see people who try to hide things in their lives.
It's hard work. It's hard work. Don't try to do it.
Nice to meet those like that poor Samaritan woman who finally realized that there was nothing she could hide. What liberty of conscience to go right back and to testify to those men.
Come see a man that told me all things that ever I did. He didn't mean to condemn her, but it was important if she was going to enjoy what he had for her.
It was imperative that the whole history of her life come right out into the light. You're a young person. Are you trying to hide something in your life right now? Is there something that you know is wrong and you're trying to keep a kid? I say you're only robbing yourself a tremendous blessing. Don't do it. Get it out into the light.
Confess it, be done with it, and you're going to find the liberty, the joy.
That you can find in the Lord Jesus Tremendous.
I'd like to go.
In the minutes we have left, considering we could go on and on, considering the different attributes of our God as revealed in the Lord Jesus through the scriptures. Tremendous. Just to let your soul be filled to realize this God is our God. This is the one we've come to know. Is it true you're young people?
Or is there a different God you've come to know? A God that has eyes but doesn't see?
A God that has ears but doesn't hear.
There is a God being propagated.
Of that sort in our country today. I want to tell you it's a false God.
Don't be carried away with that kind of idea.
But I'd like to go to thinking of some practical points in this question of the God we have come to know. Like to talk of God as the creator God.
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You know, in schools today, the theory of evolution is being taught.
Even though I understand I'm not much of it.
First, in the VA is talking about science. There's some good school teachers here that could probably do a lot better than I could, but I understand that most scientists that are serious scientists do not totally reject.
Darwin's theory of evolution. Now it's just totally out of the realm of possibility. They still hold on to the vestiges of evolution in some way, but they don't know how to explain it.
But I say this, if it is so that this world and everything that is in it, this universe.
If you and I are the product of evolution, you know what you and I are just abstinence.
There is no purpose for being here because it's just the product of blind chance in materialistic things happen and that's why. And it crushes me to think of dear young people in the schools today being taught that venom.
Because if it's true, if that is true.
Their problems get so great and they realize there is no purpose for them being here. They often just try to end it. Many times they're successful, they end their lives.
That God has a purpose, the God of the Bible, if he is the God that we have learned him to be.
In the Bible and through the Lord Jesus, the God with whom nothing is impossible, the God who is the Eternal God the Infinite.
Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God.
And it was done, and He had a purpose in calling into existence everything that's called into existence. Let's look at Revelation chapter 4 to see why God created the creation that we now live in. We are creatures in that creation.
And as such, oh, it's wonderful to know our God.
As the creator of God, we know Him a lot more intimately than that, but still this is part of.
The Revelation of the Word of God, Revelation, chapter 4.
In verse 10, and the four and 20 elders fell down before him that sat on the throne and worshipped.
Him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
You and I were created for God's pleasure, with a very specific purpose in mind. God created you.
Oh, isn't it tremendous? You know, we live in a world where sin has reaped a lot of havoc.
I heard some time ago about some of the freaks that were born over in Russia, in the area where they had that awful atomic explosion, that reactor that wasn't contained.
Some babies have been born with square heads.
Awful freaks, some without any arms because of nuclear radiation.
I heard one time of a person that was born and lived quite a number of years quite deformed.
Evidently had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
And in his testimony he gave the verse.
And it's in Luke's gospel.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Night Sight.
What tremendous glory to God from that deformed boss.
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That's where God created you. Not so that you can have fun down here in this world. That's not why God created you.
God created you for His pleasure, for his life.
Oh, it's tremendous to me to be delivered from thinking of myself all the time and what I would like to be able to think of my God, who made me with a specific purpose for His own pleasure.
Like to talk about God as he is revealed in the scriptures as Father.
As such, we are sons. We are sons of God. Let's turn to.
Ephesians for one play.
Ephesians, chapter one.
In verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ?
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.
According to the good pleasure of His will, there is the place you and I occupy, children of God, adopted into God's family. Tremendous to think of being adopted into a royal family in this world.
Far, far more than that, dear young people, if you are believers in the Lord Jesus, you have been chosen and adopted into the very family of God. And as such, the relationship between father and son is a relationship relationship of love.
Young people like to talk about being in love.
It's kind of interesting when you hear of somebody being in love.
Did you know that you're in love? You're a young person.
Did you notice the last two verses of verse 4?
That applies to every single believer in the Lord Jesus.
You're in love.
Nothing can change that life.
Jeremiah 31 Behold, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, a love that does not depend on what you are. He loves you. He loves you unchangeably. That's the kind of love. He loves you. We can look up into the heavens. We can say to the God that made this whole universe.
He's my father.
He's my father, I'm his child. Isn't that tremendous to enjoy? Is there something that he's going to allow?
In your life to bring you.
Displeasure without any reason for it? No way. If he allows something that is unpleasant in your life, it's because you occupy a place of love before him. He never allows a trial without a very specific purpose.
Of love towards you. Notice verse six of this chapter.
To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.
I like the way it says in the new translation. He has taken us into favor in the beloved.
Oh, I just revel in that God. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, God cannot look at you in any other way but of complete favor.
And if he allows a trial in your life?
Take it from him, Take it from him. He allowed it with a very specific purpose in mind. I see people today sometimes even Christians.
That gets so bitter.
You know.
Somebody said something bad about him, maybe even Christians are bad mouthed them.
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And they get better. Maybe on the outside they're nice and sweet.
But underneath, they're doing the slow burn.
They're bitter.
You know what you're doing.
If you're doing that.
You're calling in question the infinite.
Eternal God in his feelings. Don't do it. You're going to hinder yourself worse than you hinder anybody else.
You might cause problems for a lot of other people too. Get over it. Look beyond that person that talked to you that way. Look at the hand of one that has adopted you into his family and eternal love and whose love you cannot change.
Oh, to let the grandeur, the greatness of our God, fill our souls in fuller measure. God is my Father. I am one of his children.
Like to talk about the Lord Jesus?
In this position as head of the church.
You know, when we talk about God as Father, that's more in connection with the truth that the church is.
The House of God.
When we talk about the Lord Jesus Christ as head of the Body, that's in connection with the truth of the Church as the Body of Christ.
Go to the end of Ephesians chapter one.
The Apostle Paul here is praying for those believers.
To understand.
Three things. First of all, what is?
The.
Hope of his Calling, verse 18.
#2 What is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints?
And #3 what is the exceeding?
Riches of His exceeding greatness, of His power to us, which we believe according to the working of His mighty power.
I love that verse. It just seems like Paul runs out of adjectives.
And he well might. And he's talking about this power.
But then he goes on to say in verse 20 which he wrought in Christ.
When he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.
Far above all principality and power and might and dominion, in every name that is named, not only in this world, but that which is to come.
And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body.
The fullness of him that filleth All in all.
Did you realize, dear young brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, that as a member of Christ's body?
You are intimately, eternally linked with that man.
Of flesh and bones, who sits now at the horror pinnacle of glory in the whole universe.
All power is given to him, it says. Here he put all things under his feet.
And gave him to be the head over all things to his church. He's far above all principality.
And power, and might and dominion and every name that is named. Christians think that sometimes in these days we live, that we ought to get involved in politics and swing things in the right direction. Definitely we should pray for those in authority.
Not speak evil of them, scripture is clear about that, but to pray for them.
But did you know that as a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have connections to the man that is over the President of the United States?
You have far more sway by getting down on your knees and praying than you do getting out and mobilizing people to lobby for certain issues in government circumstance.
Do we understand this?
Sometimes when I see Christians getting so involved, maybe they don't get into the political operations.
But sometimes when we let our mouths loose, we say some pretty heavy things against elected officials. Let's be careful not to do that.
Even Michael the Archangel did not bring a railing accusation against Satan.
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But said the Lord rebuked me.
It doesn't mean we don't recognize evil where it is. I think we should, but we need to be careful.
How we react. Remember, there's a man in the glory, a real living man, you know, It comes to me again and again as I think about this, that so often.
Which seemed so far removed from our life down here in this world that we almost relegated to the realm of.
Theory. It's not a theory, it's a reality.
Our brethren in other countries where they're so severely persecuted, I think understand it better than we do.
I understand that the brethren over in China that are persecuted.
Ask that we don't pray that the persecutions stop.
They ask that we pray that they could get more Bibles.
Don't pray that the persecution stopped. Would we pray that way? I don't know.
Persecution isn't a very pleasant thing.
But God has used the Communist Party.
To make the gospel spread in China as it did not spread in the old time when missionaries were allowed into that country.
God is used the Communist Party. Yes, the Lord Jesus is head over all things. He often works behind the scenes in ways we don't understand. But don't question it. Every single detail of your life and mind is ordered by the hand of that man that sits on the throne of God.
Oh, what meaning that gives to everything that happened. Something negative happened in your life.
Did you stop to say thanks to him for it? That's not easy to do sometimes.
But that's faith. He is in full control of it all.
I think of when the disciples in John 21 went out fishing.
And there were good fishermen. That was their livelihood.
But all night long.
And they didn't catch anything.
You can almost detect it in their voice when the Lord stands on the shore. They didn't recognize it was the Lord.
He says children have any meat.
They didn't make their answer very long.
No, that's all I said.
I can imagine they were pretty discouraged.
But then he says.
Throw the net on the right side.
So often we're throwing the net on the wrong side, aren't we?
Anyhow, they threw it and immediately.
A great number of fishes.
I love what John says to Peter. Do you remember the words he said?
Immediately he says it is the Lord.
It wasn't his physical apparition there that brought that knowledge to John. It was what happened. The circumstances and maybe the circumstances in your life are tough.
Dear sister down in Ecuador that I got to know the other day.
Rocio is her name.
Her husband.
Was recently on business over in Ecuador in London, England. Some of you probably heard about it.
And coming home from the restaurant one night.
Somebody put a knife into him and killed him.
Left her with three children.
The oldest about 17.
Through the incidents, you got saved. I think he what Dean Rule thinks he was a believer.
But talking to her the other day?
Just really impressed me.
How completely she seems to be free of any bitterness of spirit in what's happened, takes it completely in the hand of God, realizing that that's what it took to bring her to the Lord Jesus.
And tears come to your eyes. She tells how much she longs.
For her family come to the Lord too.
Tremendous, beautiful. But you can only have that freedom from bitterness when you realize that everything is controlled from the hand of that man who sits on the right hand of God. This is our God. Dear young people, we have reason to take courage. We have reason.