Address—Bill Prost
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Well, I guess our clocks say that it's time to start.
Could we begin with him #171?
His voice we know, and boldly on the waters go to Him. Our God and Lord, we walk on life's tempestuous sea. For he who died to set us free have called us with His word. 171 Allow me to make a comment. This is a big room.
It does not work well if everybody doesn't sing.
Is that an upset?
171.
He bids us come. His voice we know.
And boldly on the water's goal.
To have more Golden Lord.
We work on life stand flesh your sins for he who dies to.
Get those free.
I've called us with his word secure on boisterous ways we trade.
Nor all the bills round us. Dread for the Lord we live.
The counter drives is for church run.
We posted as long as it's on souls on solid ground.
The wages.
From him we, we.
Can floods run high?
For heart so full of faith.
Increase.
That way they feel no more.
But for some day of steady I and normally no stretch.
Lie till all the storm is old.
Let's ask the Lord's help together.
If I could try and put a title on what I have on my heart this afternoon, it would be this.
Is it worth it?
Is it worth it?
Is the Christian pathway worth it first of all?
And is it worth it to walk in all that God has given us?
Let's turn to a few verses.
Revelation chapter 3 and verse 11, which we will if the Lord leaves us here, get to a little later on in these meetings. Revelation 3 and 11. Behold, I come quickly.
All that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
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Back in the book of Jude. Book of Jude.
Verse 3.
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend.
Excuse me for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints.
Now back in Second Timothy, chapter one.
Second Timothy. Chapter One.
Verse 13.
Hold fast to the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee. Keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in US.
And then back to Acts chapter 20 again, which we referred to in the reading this morning, Acts chapter 20.
And verse 32.
And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
Often the question is raised today, and I suppose it's not limited to young people.
Is it worth it?
There are many today, sad to say, in these favored lands in Western Europe and North America, who are saying it isn't worth it, The Christian pathway isn't worth it.
And perhaps equally as sad, there are those who are seeing precious truth in the Word of God and who recognize that it is the Word of God, and who are saying to themselves, this pathway is too difficult, it is not worth it.
Now, I suppose that in many cases it would not be articulated out loud.
As I have just said it, there would perhaps be other things said, maybe excuses offered, and maybe things that perhaps in their eyes would seem a valid reason why it wasn't worth it. But really, it comes right down to it. Is it worth it?
I was talking to someone a little while ago.
And this basic question was raised. Is it worth walking in the truth that you know?
Well, that tooth was nice, as long as it lasted, as long as things went along well. But it's all over with now.
Oh, I said, really? Is that the way it is? Are we not responsible before the Lord to walk before Him in what He has committed unto us in this precious word? Are we not responsible to walk before Him in what we know?
There's one verse I didn't read, but let's read it in Revelation chapter 2.
And here the Lord is speaking to Thyatira, which as we commented this morning, is pretty clearly representative of the Roman Catholic system. And I don't hesitate to say that. Not the individuals perhaps, but the system. And because of that system coming into place, God, if we could say it reverently, said there's no recovery.
That system perpetuates itself. It has children. There is no more hope for a full recovery. But what does he say in verse 25? Those that were right in the middle of one of the worst systems in Christendom, and I don't think that's going too far. What does he say?
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Revelation 2 and 25, but that would she have.
And leave out the word already. It's in italics and it shouldn't really be there, but that which she have hold fast till I come.
We are in Canada right now, but there are people here from the United States.
And you will remember the words of General Sherman back during the American Civil War when there were those who were being hard pressed in a place and his word to them was, hold the Fort, I'm coming, I'm coming. And that's what the Lord says to you and me today.
And I would like to offer this afternoon and if I may be particularly, uh, able to address the young people here.
But remember, we all need it.
There are a number of reasons why it is worth it to walk the Christian pathway to the fullest extent before the Lord, to honor the Lord in our pathway, and to walk in what He has has given us in His Word.
The first one I want to bring before you is number one. The Lord is coming.
We were never promised an easy pathway, and when the Lord Jesus was about to depart out of this world and to go back to heaven, one of the things he said to his disciples was.
In the world ye shall have tribulation.
But then he went on to say, fear not, I have overcome the world.
Young people and older ones here, I say it to all of our hearts. We are already overcomers because Christ has done the overcoming for us.
Yes, we are exhorted to be overcomers, and in every one of these assemblies, which we were remarking upon this morning in Revelation chapters two and three, it speaks of overcoming. But you and I are already overcomers in Christ. It's merely a matter of acting on what?
Has already been done for us. Isn't that wonderful?
We are already overcomers and the Lord says it's only for a short time. I am coming.
You know, in general, Sherman said that to those people, hold the Fort, I'm coming. It gave them a renewed energy and a renewed outlook because they said he's coming with reinforcements, he's coming to deliver us, he's coming and we can hold on longer.
Does that really get a grip on your soul and mind that the Lord is coming?
Earlier this year, some of us here.
Not merely my wife and I, but John and Eleanor were there too. We were at the conference hosted by the brethren gathered to the Lord's name in Bhutan. And they like question and answer me whether Dave will remember that too. They like question and answer meetings and, uh, the questions come pretty thick and pretty fast.
And somebody asked the question. We've been hearing for a long time that the Lord is coming.
And we've been hearing that it's only a little while.
Why doesn't the Lord come? What are we waiting for? We keep hearing about it and.
Nothing happens.
We are different ones of us answered questions and this one happened to fall to me.
I don't know if I gave a good answer, but I said to the company there I would like to show of hands of how many people here were saved in the last 10 years.
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And about 1/3 of the hands went up, about 150 people there, I would say.
150 people and probably about a third of them saved in the last 10 years. I said how about the last 20 years and I'd say a good 2/3 to 3/4 of the hands went up.
I said, you know, I was looking for the Lord to come far more than 20 years ago, but aren't you glad he waited for you? I said just imagine 2/3, maybe 3/4 of this company would have missed out if the Lord had come 25 years ago.
Aren't you glad you waited for you?
Yes, it is a little wild, but the Lord is long-suffering and we are to account that the long-suffering of our God is salvation, our Lord. I should say one reason why it's worth walking in everything the Lord has given us is because He is coming.
But I want to make a remark on that.
It says here in the address to Thyatira that which he have hold fast till I come.
And in Philadelphia it says, Hold that fast which thou hast.
You and I can't hold and walk in something that we don't have.
But what we have, we are to walk in.
Here they see other believers.
Walking in what they have and enjoying a great deal of blessing in their lives.
And sad to say, you may find that amongst those with whom you are, there doesn't seem to be the same degree of blessing, there doesn't seem to seem to be the same degree of enthusiasm and outreach and so on. And perhaps.
Well, I won't tell the story, but I can still remember a sister saying to me concerning the place where she went, she said. I know it's not scriptural, but it's alive.
It's alive.
That may well have been true. I was not familiar with where she went.
The point is we are to walk in what the Lord has given us, and if the Lord has given you that which you can walk in, I do not have the right to say I will turn my back on it and do something different. And that's why it refers and we won't turn to the verse, but it's in Second Timothy 2.
And verse 22.
It says there follow righteousness, faith.
Charity or love, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
That is the point, and I say to each one here into my own heart.
Am I calling on the Lord out of a pure heart? Is my heart pure before the Lord?
You know, the apostle Paul, when he was writing to the Corinthians, they were being critical of him. They made fun of his physical appearance and his, uh, physical attributes to some extent. We aren't sure just exactly what and how, but they made fun of him. They discounted his apostleship and all the rest of it.
And when Tel wrote back to them, or rather when he wrote the first epistle to them.
He says and we won't turn to it, but it's in chapter four. He says I know nothing by myself, meaning I am not aware of anything wrong in my heart by myself. But he says I am not hereby justified. He that judgeth me is the Lord.
He was not aware, though, of anything in his heart between him and the Lord. He was not aware that he was not living in the good of what the Lord had given him. Excuse me?
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Can you and I say that?
Because when the Lord shows us His will and commits truth to your heart and mind.
He shows us that which he would have us to walk in and it's only by walking in it that we are really in possession of it.
God will not allow me to have the theory of the truth up here without the practice of it in my walk.
OK, we said we would go over a few more questions as to or a few more reasons as to why it's worth it. As to why it's worth it. Let's turn back now for a moment to Matthew's Gospel.
And we don't have time to go into this in detail, but in Matthew 25 we have the Parable of the Talents.
Beginning in verse 14.
And here we find, for the Kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
And unto one he gave 5 talents, and to another two to another one, to every man according to his several abilities, and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made another 5 talents. And likewise he had received two, He'd also gained other two.
Excuse me?
But he that had received one went and digged in the earth.
And hid his Lord's money.
After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them.
And so he that had received 5 talents came, and brought other five talents saved. Lord, thou deliverest unto me 5 talents, the whole I have gained beside them five talents more. His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things.
I will make the ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliverest unto me two talents. Behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His Lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things.
I will make the ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
Here is the second reason I want to present to you as to why it's worth it.
It is worth it because the end of the pathway is entering into the joy of thy Lord.
And why does it say the joy of thy Lord?
Why doesn't it say our joy? Aren't we going to have joy in heaven? Isn't it going to be our joy?
Yes, it is, but turn, please to Hebrews 12, and I would like to suggest that this is at least one aspect of the joy of the Lord Hebrews 12.
First one. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.
The author and finisher of our faith. And here it is.
Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God?
Four times in the book of Hebrews we have the Lord Jesus seated on the throne of God.
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The first three he stands alone, but in this one he is an example for us.
And you'll notice for that reason that the atoning sufferings are not mentioned here, because we could not follow him into them. But we can follow him into the, shall we say, the despising and the shame and everything that went along with the cross as far as what man did.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
What was the joy that the Lord Jesus had before him? Oh, I suggest that the joy, the joy that he had was doing the Father's will so that he could go back to heaven at the end of his pathway and say, Father, I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do.
Isn't that beautiful?
Now don't get me wrong, none of us will be able to do that. There was only one who could say, I have finished the work which Thou gave us me to do. But the joy, the joy that was before the Lord was that this is the Father's will, and I am carrying out His will. And He looked on to that day when he would be there.
Before the Father, as it were, in heavenly glory, and say, I have finished the work, the joy was my my joy was my joy to do the Father's will. And in the coming day you and I.
We'll be able to enter into that joy to the extent I believe that we have walked in what the Lord has given us.
What kind of a pathway was it for him?
Can we even dare to speak of it? What a pathway. It was all the way to Calvary's cross. And just recently I have meditated a little.
And what it must have meant to him to suffer the ignominy and the shame from his own creatures in this world.
You and I are called to follow him.
Many years ago.
Many years ago, probably 4 or 500 years ago, when there was savage persecution in Europe for the name of Christ, there were two young women who were condemned to die and to be burned at the stake.
Just imagine tied up to a post in the ground and then firewood piled up all around you.
And the fire lit, and you gave up your life by being burned to death.
And in order to make it more difficult.
They were going to put one there and burn her at the stake while the other one had to look on.
Hoping, of course, that.
The second one would be so influenced by seeing her sister go through it that she would do what they wanted her to do and recant her faith in Christ.
Can you imagine what it was like for those key young girls to go through that ordeal?
Probably in their late teens or early 20s.
And you can hardly blame them for making an agreement between themselves that.
Whichever one of them had to go first.
Would somehow try and convey to the other.
What it was like to have to endure that awful death.
Well, the day came and it happened, and the first one was taken out and tied to that stake in the flames.
Going up around her and time went on because it doesn't take very long. And the second sister.
Thought that I guess I'm not going to hear anything from her. She's already with Christ.
But then the Lord gave that girl, in the midst of those claims, that strength to call out not in a weak, clavering voice, but in a loud voice strong enough that all could hear it. Come on, sister, it's worth it. It's worth it.
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I don't know what you and I will be called upon to endure if the Lord doesn't come, but I rather suspect that instead of martyrdom, as is still happening in many places of the world today, the kind of thing that you and I will be called upon to face perhaps will be persecution, we might say, from within what calls itself.
The House of God. It will be from within the great house, those who perhaps might even profess Christianity.
And yet it will be more and more difficult to act according to the whole Word of God, and to stand for what has been given to us in His precious Word. And it may not be physical persecution, but it may be many other things, sometimes in a way more difficult to bear than physical persecution.
And.
The rolling waves of the sea of troubles and difficulties and problems sometimes will tend to become so much.
That I speak to my own heart. I say it's not worth it. I want some peace and quiet. I want an easier path.
Satan says no problem, we can manage that for you, we can give you an easier path, but there will be a bit of compromise involved. You'll have to give up a few things, but after all, the Lord understands and times are difficult. Life isn't what it was 75 or 100 years ago. The world has changed. So this is the way He attacks believers.
In countries like Canada and the United States today.
Instead of saying he has been very successful, very, very successful.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Isn't that wonderful?
Is that worth walking for? Is that worth serving for in the little time we're left down here? Indeed it is. I believe it is.
Now let's turn over to another story, this time in Luke's Gospel, Chapter 19.
And here we have another very similar story, this time the parable of the pounds.
And again, we don't have time to go into it in detail, but I want to notice something here.
You know the parable of the talents, the emphasis is on God's sovereignty in that story in Matthew 25. But when we come to Luke chapter 19 in the parable of the pounds, it's more our responsibility, man's responsibility in the parable of the talents, God and his sovereignty gave.
5 talents to one and two talents to one, and one talent to one.
And you'll notice that the reward was not according to the talents given, but faithfulness in using what was given. That is the point. Faithfulness in using what was given. Have you been given much? You will be held responsible and more responsible than the one who isn't given as much.
God doesn't hold us responsible for what we do not have. But if you've been given more talents, God expects more.
And that again is responsibility, but it's God's sovereignty as to whom he gives those talents. But here in the parable of the pounds, let's notice what happens Route 19. And let's start reading from verse 12.
He that is, the Lord Jesus said. Therefore a certain noble movement into a far country, you receive for himself a Kingdom and to return.
And he called his 10 servants, and delivered them 10 lbs and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
But his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying we will not have this man to reign over us.
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And it came to pass that when he was returned, having received the Kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him to whom he had given the money. But he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy # hath gained 10 lbs. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant.
Because thou hast been faithful, and very little have thou authority over 10 cities.
And the second came saying, Lord, thy found that gain 5 lbs. And he said likewise to him be thou also over 5 sins.
And another came saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin, For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man. They'll take a stop that they'll lay us not down, and ****** that thou didst not sow. And he set unto him out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant? Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow.
Wherefore then gave us not thou my money into the bank that.
That might coming. I might have required my own with usury.
And he said unto them that stood by, take from him the pound, and give it to him that have 10 lbs.
And they said, under him, Lord, he hath 10 lbs. And here's a key verse repeated five times over in the Gospel. So it must be important with minor variations. Repeated 5 times. For I say unto you, that unto everyone which hath shall be given, but from him that hath, not even they hath shall be taken away from him.
As I said a moment ago, we don't have the time to comment on this in detail, but the point here is there is a third reason why it's worth it.
To walk before the Lord. And that is there is reward at the end of the pathway. Is it reward to enter into the joy of your Lord? Yes, and perhaps that's the greatest reward. But there is going to be what we could call a tangible reward if you and I walk through this world.
Despised and rejected, Whether despised and rejected by the world of unbelievers.
Or shall I say it despised and rejected, perhaps in the great House of Christendom?
God is going to vindicate you and me in the very world where that happened. He is going to vindicate his beloved Son. The Millennium is God's answer, in one sense, to the cross, because the very, very world where the Son of God suffered, where he was rejected and cast out and crucified.
God is going to vindicate him by having him rule over all things.
In the millennial day.
So it's the vindication of God's holy nature.
But it's also going to happen to you and me.
Are you despised and rejected today? There is a day coming when God says you will have authority in this world.
Authority over 10 cities. Authority over 5 cities. Now here we're on the ground of responsibility. Everyone got the same # but some were more faithful and more exercised in using it.
And I say to you and to me, God looks for exercise in what he is committed to us. Very important, because there is one man in this terrible that did not use exercise.
He kept his palm. He didn't lose it. He wrapped it up carefully in a napkin.
He put it away somewhere where it would be safe, and when the Lord came back, he was able to open it up and say, Lord, here it is, use your pound.
I hope this application isn't going too far.
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But is it possible that sometimes those of us who are gathered to the Lord's name act with our truth the way this man acted with his pound? Do we wrap it up in a napkin and put it away somewhere so that we might be able to say at the end of the pathway, Well, Lord, here it is.
I went to the meetings and I listened in the reading meetings and I broke bread every Lord's Day, gathered to the Lord's name. And I, I kept the pound. I, I didn't go off into some denomination that was unscriptural. I didn't go off into something that I knew was contrary to the word of God. I kept the pound and it was pretty carefully wrapped up.
Is that what the Lord wants for us?
Allow me to quote a brother whose name will be recognized by some here, although I doubt if anyone here knew him. I certainly didn't. James B Dunlop, who grew up in England but emigrated to Canada, spent most of his life in eastern Ontario, although he traveled extensively.
And in an address he gave well over 100 years ago.
Which I only read. Obviously he made this remark. He said it is not enough simply for you and for me to lead good, morally upright lives and then go to heaven at the end. No, God looks for you and for me to act in this world as living witnesses of the grace that.
Has sought and found us, and another brother made a similar remark sometime later.
And I think I can almost quote it word for word, He said, if God has given you and me more truth than anyone or not, I don't mean I didn't mean to say it that way. If God has given you and me more truth than some others, we can use it in one of two ways. We can use it either to accredit and to distinguish ourselves, or we can use it for the blessing and edification of the whole.
The one who wraps his.
Pound in a napkin, I suggest, is like the one who doesn't recognize the rest of the body of Christ. Now don't get me wrong, we can't walk with those who are not walking according to the Word of God. But our hearts need to be broad enough to embrace every true believer, even though we walk a narrow path. And the Lord was not pleased with this servant who didn't use his pound.
God looks for you and for me as believers to hold the truth and exercise. And what does that mean? Oh, it means that the more we have, the more we will get because we live and walk in the good of it. And that's what that 26 verse means. God will not allow us simply to have a certain body of truth and hold it in our heads.
He expects us to be living it out and then we will get more and more.
But then, if it's appropriated rightly and we walk in it in the right way, there will be the opportunity of giving that blessing of that precious truth to others.
While others always walk in the good of it, no.
Do others always believe the gospel when we preach it? No. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't preach the gospel. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't make known the precious truth that we have. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't.
Use it for the blessing of any with whom we come in contact.
The third reason then, for it being worth it is there is reward at the end of the pathway. Now, God never presents reward in Scripture as a motive, as a motive for walking faithfully. No, there's only one motive in Scripture, for service or for walking faithfully before the Lord.
And that is love to Christ.
But then we must remember that the Bible never occupies us with our love to Him, but rather with His love to us. And if you and I are enjoying his love, our love will flow back to Him. And so it says in first John chapter four. We love. And the hymn really should be there. It should really.
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Read We love because he first loved us.
But if our love is being enjoyed, sorry, if His love is being enjoyed in our hearts, then our love will flow back. And whether it is in service in the gospel, whether it is in walking in the truth, whether it is in giving out the truth to others, it's all a result of the overflow in our hearts of what God has given us.
So reward is never a motive, but reward is an encouragement. And if there is discouragement, excuse me.
If there is discouragement in the heart of anyone here today.
Discouragement is the work of the devil.
And let me put it very squarely, what is real discouragement? Discouragement is not getting something that I think I ought to have. Sometimes it's not getting it from other believers, but we're still sometimes it's not getting it from the Lord, and then I get discouraged.
And someone has used an even stronger definition of discouragement.
And it hurts.
Discouragement is unfulfilled self love.
Ouch.
It's true, isn't it? Discouragement is unfulfilled self love.
I have to have this. I want that and I'm not getting it.
And so I'm going to do something else.
No.
We never see discouragement among those in the Word of God who are faithful to the Lord. If anyone here can find a Scripture that implies that Paul was discouraged, I want you to show it to me afterward, at the end of his life when he writes the book of Second Timothy. He had strenuously labored for years both in the gospel and in the truth, and now here at the end of his life, shut up in a Roman prison.
Unable to travel around and he has to say in Second Timothy, chapter one, all they which are in Asia, the field of perhaps some of his brightest and best laborers, all they which are in Asia be turned away from me. Paul could have been a beaten man. He could have said Timothy, I guess I've done something wrong. I guess we better take a different approach. I guess something isn't going.
Right, it's not working.
We have to do something different.
And I can well remember in Buffalo, NY, a good many years ago, sitting across a table in a restaurant from a young brother not gathered to the Lord's name, never had been, didn't have any interest in it. But I had some contact with him and he wanted to start a church. And he said to me, Bill, you've had a lot of experience. You've traveled a lot in this world and seen a lot of things.
I want to start a church. What works? Tell me what works.
How do you answer that one? What works?
I don't think he liked my answer. I turned them to second Timothy, chapter one, and I said, well, let's see what worked for the apostle Paul. I said Paul had been faithful. I don't think you and I would argue with that, eminently faithful. And he was a man who was a strong gospel preacher. But he also could say, I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
And at the end of his life, what had happened? Had it worked?
It's not that well.
No, the reward for faithfulness is up there, not down here. It's up there, not down here.
And yet the pathway is worth it. It's well worth it.
#4 Let's turn back to that scripture in Second Timothy chapter one, and that'll be the last one we referred to because we refer to because our time is going.
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Second Timothy. Chapter One.
And here Paul talks to Timothy in verse 8, and he says, Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.
And then jumping down to verse 12, for which 'cause I also suffer these things.
Nevertheless, I am not ashamed.
For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
And verse 13, which we already read, hold fast the form of sound words which I was heard of me, and faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in US.
Now it's not so clear in our King James translation, but if you look in the Darby translation.
Verse 12 uses the word deposit for that which I have committed unto him against that day. That deposit which I have committed unto him against that day.
But then in verse 14, that good thing is also translated a good deposit.
We all know what a deposit is, don't we?
There are some children here who are younger. Have you got a bank account? I think some of you have. And do you make a deposit in it sometimes? Yes, you do. And what do you expect? You expect that that money will be there, kept safely until you need it, and nobody can steal it out of the bank.
Hopefully the banks have good insurance in that and you have every confidence that when you put the money in that bank.
It's going to be there.
But the banks sometimes fail.
They do, don't they? They do.
They sometimes fail, even today and back many years ago, before I was born, in what was known as the Depression in the 1930s, banks really failed. And I'm not trying to point the finger, but they tended a lot of them in the United States to fail at that time. And people lost their money. They lost it. They went to the bank to get their money out and it was gone.
Quite a few years ago now, back in the 1920s, there was a Christian man and I knew him.
And he lived in China because he was a missionary there. And he put his money in a bank. And one time his father came over to visit him from Canada. And he gave his father some money and said, would you put this money go down to the bank and deposit it for me? And the father went down and did that. Excuse me.
And when the father came back, he said son.
I don't like that bank, he said. If I were you, I'd pull all my money out of it and do it as quickly as you can, he said. That bank isn't safe.
Well, that father had been a banker and been in the banking business in Canada here all his life.
And the son said, well, what? What's wrong with it? What? Why are you saying that? Can you give me a bit of idea why you don't like that bank? And the father said, look, don't ask me to try and explain it. Just trust me. Go get your money out of that bank and put it somewhere else. So the son did it and on his way to the bank, he met someone else that he knew and the other man got into conversation with him.
And when he told the other man that he was going to pull all his money out of the bank on his father's.
Recommendation. The other man just poo pooed it and laughed at him and said I got $2000 in my pocket and I'm going to deposit it in that bank.
Well, the story has an interesting ending that some women took all this money out of the bank and put it in another one and the other man put his $2000 in.
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But the father was right.
And it didn't take long.
The very next day that bank closed its doors and never opened them again and there was no Deposit Insurance and everybody that had money in that bank lost it, every penny of it.
And the father was very glad for his sons or the son was very glad for his father's discernment and recommendation. But you and I have a place where we can deposit something that will pay eternal dividends. We've been given a depot. We can put a deposit up there. And Paula says, I am persuaded that he's able to keep that.
That deposit which I have committed unto him against that day, that day.
Paul talks about that day. What day is that? The day when you and I are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, When we're going to enter into the joy of our Lord, When the rewards are going to be handed out that day.
Paul did everything with that day in view to you and I.
That's the last reason that day, that deposit, We're all putting a deposit up there. How big is your deposit? How big is mine going to be? Every child here that has a bank account likes to see his bank account grow. Isn't it nice? Put a little more in and a little more and then when you need some money, it's there. Or maybe.
There are young people here and maybe you're saving for college, quite an undertaking to go to college. Today it's a lot more.
Difficult than when I went and maybe you need a little help from somebody, but I know young people today that save for college and it's nice to see that bank account grow.
But if you and I are making a deposit up there.
God has given us a deposit in verse 14 here, that good deposit which was committed under the keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in US. If you and I wanna make a deposit up there, we have to keep the deposit God has given us down here. We can't expect to make the deposit up there. If we say, but I'm not going to worry about the deposit I have down here.
And whatever God has given you and me from His word.
That is our deposit. Some may have more than others.
But Timothy had a deposit.
And that deposit grew. That deposit grew. Our deposit is always growing because again.
The more we walk in what we have, the more we get. And we don't ever stop getting that deposit in ourselves until we get to the glory, nor do we, I hope, ever stop putting the deposit up there if we're walking to please the Lord. And so there are those two deposits, one that God gives us to keep, one that we give him to keep.
But they're connected because it's according to.
Our responsibility with the deposit that we have been given.
That we can increase the deposit that we are putting aside up there. And so I want to encourage every young person here today, it's not a day to be discouraged. Yes, if we allow it to discourage us, we can look around us and say it's just not worth it.
But it is worth it, and God wants you and me to take an eternal view, not a temporal view. How long do we have in this world?
8090 years at the most, maybe 100 if the Lord gives us an unusually good constitution, or even a little over 100.
But basically the Lord gives us a short time down here in order to prepare for that which is eternal.
How important then to use what we have, not just for our gain, although it is our gain, but, as we said earlier at the beginning, to enter into the joy of our Lord.
We have a moment or two. Let's sing one more hymn in closing, and I would like to sing #15 #15.
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All that we were, our sins, our guilt, our death was all our own.
All that we are, we owe to thee, thou God of grace alone.
#15.
All that we were our sins.
Our guilt.
Our death was.
Alone.
All that we are we.
Owe to thee.
The God of the soul.
What a mercy found us in our sins.
And give us.
To be able to live thine and believing peace.
We found.
And thy Christ wailing.
All that we are saying on earth.
All that will.
Be.
When Jesus comes and.
Glory dawns.
World of tears in the end of the.
Let's close in prayer. Loving God our Father, we thank Thee for thy precious Word, and we thank Thee for the encouragement it gives us in these last days. For surely the Christian pathway is well worth it, even if it were 100 times more difficult than it is. We pray then, for that.
Strength for that encouragement from thyself.
That we might press on in what Thou hast given us, that we might be willing to hold that fast which we have, not merely to keep it wrapped in a napkin, but to use it effectively. As Thou dost give us the wisdom and guidance to do so for Thy glory and for our blessing, so we commend Thy word to Thee and ask our God for Thy.
Blessing especially upon our young people, those who face the most difficult day in which to live for Thy glory, but we commend them very much to Thee.
And ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.