Address—H. Short
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Of becoming us thou art and died.
Full Image Bear 259 if someone would start that please.
Lord Jesus.
Well, I mentioned that I would like to take up the book of James, which I still would like to do.
If we have.
Time here to finish. It'll be fine. If we don't, we'll be fine too, because there's no part of God's Word that anyone has ever fully ministered.
The reason the book of James is on my heart is because of the peculiar place that holds in the New Testament.
And some of it's the the background of why it was written, to whom it was written, that it's especially suited to us, and particularly, I suppose, as being gathered to the Lord's name as we believe and trust that we are.
But the book of James is unusual, the only book in the New Testament.
Written to the 12 tribes. To the 12 tribes. The Apostle Peter writes to a remnant of believers in the amongst that nation, and the Apostle Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews right to remnant in that nation. But only James writes to the entire 12 tribes.
Well, even in a certain way.
His is limited if we will later consider an expression he uses, but Paul does refer when he speaks to Agrippa that before he has conversion he along with the 12 tribes of Israel.
They fervently served God or worship God as they understood God to be.
That doesn't mean they were saved, nor does it mean that God accepted their worship or their service, for he didn't.
And but they had rejected the Lord Jesus.
But they were still considered the 12 tribes of Israel, and in our epistle I think it's especially interest to us because.
It is the first utterances from, you might say, Christianity. You can hardly say that, because it doesn't rise to Christian heights in its teachings. It leaves us right here on earth, and bears more upon our conscience than it does enlightening our minds.
As to what a Christian is. But it is the first utterance of Christianity. And the other thing remarkable about it to me is to whom it gives those utterances. It turns to the 12 tribes those who.
Had an outward relationship with Jehovah and crucified their Messiah. Rejected Christ, sent him back.
To glory without a Kingdom. And yet James still owns them as this 12 tribes, and he turns to them and writes well as we go through this epistle we were we were desired grace from God. To take these things that James writes and apply them to our hearts in similar in the similar circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Another feature about this epistle is that while it's the first utterance from Christianity, it's the last utterance to Israel as a nation, a last word to that nation, written by James Well.
We belong it are no doubt at the close. I don't like to say we're on the threshold of the Lord's coming. I don't know.
I know our God is a long-suffering God, and I know when I was saved at 23 years of age when I was about 24.
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My former Methodist Sunday School teacher came to the general meetings in Des Moines and and I told her we're at the end and she thought that the world could get worse. I said it can't get any worse. That was 43 years ago or so 40.
Two years ago, I honestly, at that age, did not ever, ever, ever dream I would be the age I am tonight. And I'm not going to say that the youngest one here tonight cannot reach the age of 65. I don't know. All I look at it as. It's an expression of the long-suffering patience of Christ and God to this world.
And as he is waiting in long-suffering, beloved, we must wait with him in that the burden of the book of James. It's to encourage faith, not to get discouraged by the circumstances that they found themselves in. And what were those circumstances? They were in the circumstances of a people, an outward relationship with God, suffering dreadfully under the hand of God.
For their disobedience, not enjoying the privileges that they should have been able to enjoy as God's earthly people, but rather scattered by God in his government. And yet James turns to them and said, I want to encourage your heart now anyone who has any idea at all of what the Church of God is and should be even here on earth.
Knows that we are not what we should be, and we are not enjoying the privileges that we should enjoy as the Church of God. Oh beloved, oftentimes I think we're the Church of God in order. I wouldn't be standing here this evening in a hall half empty. I wouldn't be standing here at all those far more gifted.
And then myself would be here, and this would just be one hall filled of many, many, many halls in the city of Cedar Rapids. But the church is not what it should be. It is a scattered church.
Well, with those remarks, I would like to go to the book now and just try to draw some.
Moral lessons from it for ourselves and.
Perhaps a little along the doctrinal side, but mostly seeking to strengthen our faith, to go on in a day when everything is marshalled against us, trying to keep us, and it's done a pretty good job trying to keep us to go on from going on in the path of faith. Well, the first thing I want to say is James. That's the first word in this epistle.
And he identifies himself, though in truth, as far as I know, none of us today really know which James this was. I know the early brethren that we are identified with, as gathered to the Lord's name, had varying judgments as to who this James was. I remember reading some of Mr. Kelly's ministry, and he is quite he was quite sure that it was actually the Lord's brother.
I am inclined to think it was an apostle, and the apostle James who was the son of Alphaeus, and I understand that he could have been the James who was also called the Last. But what I would like to draw from him naming himself, without our knowing for certain which James it was. None of them feel that it was the James brother of John beheaded early in the Acts.
I don't know if it could have been him or not, but what I would like to suggest to our hearts is first let us identify ourselves with the testimony of God.
And the other that it would make nothing of ourselves if this is James the last. I just love that expression. It's the same spirit that John Baptist had, he said He must increase, I must decrease.
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That's so contrary to our hearts. It's so contrary to the world that we live in. I enjoy thinking, you know, in this whole world system and especially this North American continent that we live in, there are no universities.
That are going to teach us and have courses to teach us how to become nothing. No, they all advertise you. Come here.
Take our schooling and you can be successful. Well beloved, you and I will only be successful as we in truth become nothing. He must increase so James while he identifies himself.
He identifies himself not as an apostle.
Even if he is the apostle, it's suited to the epistle because the 12 apostles had no Apostolic authority in the 12 tribes.
They were not owned by the 12 tribes as apostles, and they themselves speak of themselves.
Being apostles, especially Peter.
And.
John to the circumcision. But they had no Apostolic authority and he doesn't speak of himself in an official capacity. Well, I would like to draw from this, this thing. We're in days of ruin. And you know, there would have been had the church gone on.
As we should have gone on, there would have been those who God could have still identified as pastors. There would have been those who we would know they were teachers. There would still be those who were.
Could have been identified. I don't know if this would be a right thought because the apostles did ordain the elders, but at least there would have been men of that character known by the assembly.
But here he just presents himself as a servant. Nothing official here. Now, beloved, do we want to go on in the path of faith? You would be surprised how encouraging it is, how strengthening it is to your faith, if in your heart.
You're content to be a servant.
I mean, in truth. Oh, none of us like it. Oh no, we don't like that. We don't mind opening the door, sweeping the floor if someone will say thanks and see you doing it.
But just do it unknown unsafe, but to do it just for the glory of Christ.
We don't. We don't find ourselves so ready to accept that role as a servant. But I tell you, if we can imbibe that spirit in our heart.
What are people going to do? You feel slighted? Well, of course I'm slighted. I'm just a servant. I didn't expect to sit next to the king. I didn't expect to get invited to the president's banquet. I'm just the servant. I'll clean up after they're done and after they made their message.
Well, I would like to suggest below that if we can imbibe the Spirit, the true spirit of a servant, that all I'm here for is to serve, serve my brethren, serve the Lord, I will give this this thing. We can become servants to the Church, but we don't want to become servants of the Church. We want to be servants of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is.
We don't want to get our directions, our orderings, from anyone. We want to be a servant of our Lord, get our directions from him, but serve and be happy in that capacity.
Oh, you know, it's so contrary to us. We're always wanting to get ahead and ahead of the servant. He's not ahead of anyone.
There he is down there, just serving. But oh, you know, it would save you a lot of offenses in your life. You get offended sometimes, Trace it back and see if it isn't because you wanted some recognition that you didn't get. Well, James says I'm just a servant. Then he says this. I'm a servant of God. I'm a servant of God. That's the most general name there is for God.
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God.
Is the God of everybody.
He is God of your neighbor. He is God of everyone. And Paul and James says I am a servant of God. And so our servitude may take the form of serving our neighbors or our fellow man, but we are servants of God. But then he adds this expression and of the Lord Jesus.
Christ. Do you think that took courage? You know you can talk to most anyone about God, but James was writing to the 12 tribes and he knew those people had hung the Lord Jesus Christ on a cross and said we will not have this man to reign over us while at the same time they were professing to be servants of God. That's what Paul meant when he said.
The 12 tribes serving God, I think Mr. Darby translates it incessantly. That is, they were really serving God as they knew him. But James says make no mistakes about it, beloved, if you're going to be a servant of God, you must be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the very first thing the Apostle Paul learned when he got saved.
He thought he was serving God and the Lord smote him down, he said. Who are you, Lord?
And he said, What? I am God. No, I am Jesus.
Well, you know, there's something about being the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ because there is a reproach connected with his blessed name that is very, very real. And James says I belong.
Here that he opens the door and says, I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, he goes on and he says to the 12 tribes, and then he adds this expression which are scattered abroad. Now I take it from the apostles word there to Agrippa that they were looked at as 12 tribes, and they still were some of those 12 tribes at Jerusalem. And I suppose in one way those 12 tribes looked at as 12 tribes.
Wouldn't be looked at as scattered as still being in the land. But at any rate these are called scattered abroad. And whether in the land or out of the land, even if they were in the land, it was not in it as their possession. They were there as servants to the Roman government. And so here I point out again that here he's writing to a people who are suffering.
Under the direct government of God they were scattered abroad. Now did I mention smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. That's mighty is connected with the Lord Jesus being refused his rightful place as king in Israel. That smiting is not connected with atonement, though it happened at the same time.
It's connected with him being rejected. He was smitten, and the Israelites said we did esteem him smitten and stricken of God.
But in the sense of smiting, that is, cutting him off from having his righteous king, that was not atonement. And consequently the result of that smiting was the Lord says, smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. And it was so. Now I want to tell you this, friends, and especially you who are younger, you smite the Lord Jesus. I'm speaking morally now in your life.
And you're going to be scattered. You're going to lose the privileges, the blessed privileges, that Christ has for you, If you will crown him rather than smite him, smite the shepherd. If you say the shepherd can't be the king, then the sheep consequently, were scattered, and here they are scattered abroad, So you might say, well, it's all over for them. No, no, the grace of God, you and I.
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You know, we look back on our lives and it just seems like one failure after another failure after another failure. And I I could be easily discouraged if I reflect on my life. But there is something else I have to reflect on, and that's the grace of God. And here we see this first utterance from Christianity is an utterance of of a great grace to a nation scattered abroad.
Under the government of God crucifying their Christ, their Lord, their King, and yet God sending this letter to this people. And so he says to them what greetings that touched my heart.
When I read that word greetings.
Considering what we've just said, what these people had done to the Lord Jesus.
You would have thought James would have said, I'm done with them, I'm done with them. They're the last people I would want to write anything to about the Lord. No, he says. Greetings.
Once again, the Spirit of God hovering, as it were, over the deep where the waters of God's judgment had come. I'm referring to those the second verse there in Genesis 1, hovering over that nation as it were, in hopes that there would be a response to this epistle greetings.
Then, he said, my brethren counted all joy.
When you fall into divers, temptations or trials.
Oh, well, now here's something that we could make us all happy, couldn't it? Tonight a trial comes into our life and we would be the happiest people. Would we? Would we really? When I get up in the morning and tire, my car is flat, I say, oh, praise the Lord for this trial. No.
Why? Why my brethren counted all joy when you fall into divers, trials or temptations? Why? It's because, beloved, the character of these trials are different from those down in what is it? Verse 12 or so. Those trials come from our hearts, but this trial comes from God. What joy, what peace it brings into the life of a believer who has no one or nothing.
Between him and God isn't blaming his wife, isn't blaming his her husband in blaming the children.
No, you can't. You can surely relate to this. The kids, they shouldn't have been riding the bike that fast and they scratch your car.
Yes, they did it. But did the Lord have anything in that? Was he involved in it? Oh, how poorly we respond.
But beloved, if we don't respond to the book of James and reality into our lives, we may as well close the epistles of Paul. This is the foundation. This is the ground, you might say, that was dug up by James to put the seed of Paul into, you know, I believe it was the Saint James. That's why I think it was James the apostle who had Jerusalem.
Said brethren. I give my advice and after their counsel with Paul hearing what God was doing among the Gentiles, it was James who brought it together and said we're going to set Paul at liberty. We're not going to have him labor under the ******* of law keeping. We're going to set him free to labor in his sphere that God has appointed him. Well, I like to think of that book.
As that.
Like this, Ephesians, beloved, if we can get in our lives, if we can't accept a stubbed toe, you know, if. If you can't stub your toe without getting angry.
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You think you're going to understand Ephesians or Colossians. You're not going to God's Word is put together beautifully, wonderfully well. And that is, it's sown in good ground or it doesn't bear fruit.
Oh, we might study. You know, we could spend some time in, you know, I might get out in my room, which is my favorite place to be. I might just stay there and be enjoying the scriptures and that this didn't happen. This did happen, but it didn't happen in this consequences. And I hear my wife say, honey, something's wrong and you come upstairs and nothing's wrong.
Yes, something's wrong. There's water running all over the floor. Well, do you forget?
The enjoyment of what you enjoyed alone there? Or do you get angry because those newfangled connections that you didn't put on right came apart and there's water all over the floor? No, these are just.
Experiences. These are just trials. Little trials. Insignificant trials to cultivate truth.
In our heart, so that when things come into our lives, we can accept them from the Lord, and we can be joyful when trials come, You know. I don't know much about them, but I know.
By God's grace, the believer can joy in tribulations for trials. These kind. Then he says, knowing that the trying of your faith.
Coming to meeting the other night, we came and.
Just about thinking about trying to find a different way of being, but sure enough, there was a train and we wait, and I was so happy to get to wait on that train, no.
Was that train going to teach me patience? Did I really rejoice that I had to wait on the train? Well, I'll tell you tonight we were coming to meeting and I just saw the car starting up down the road. The train had passed and that's when I was happy. I wasn't happy when the train was sitting still right in front of me and I didn't know which way to go to get around it. I was happy that the train was going down. You see how contrary our natural hearts are.
To trial. And these aren't even.
They're not worthy to be considered trials, but what I'm trying to bring before our heart is if you're letting your life be upset by burned beans or fallen cakes or.
Footprints on the carpet or.
Difficulties with the machine at work.
You're not going to advance.
Into Paul's ministry and the enjoyment of heavenly things. So we're trying to lay.
It is hardly a Christian foundation, but it is we're hardly laying the Christian foundation. But these things, beloved we have to lay hold upon. Then it says but let patience or endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and wanting nothing you know, just to learn that the word your patience it could be transgression to.
My brethren.
You know, it took me a while to say those two words, my gathering. And perhaps sometimes in your life you find yourself speaking like I did in those early days about the Brethren, as if I were over here and the Brethren was there.
No, beloved, learn to identify with the Saints of God, even if we are under the government of God, even if we are in a weakened condition. Let's say you're my presence, you're my brother. I was walking, meet this man walking Dwight. We saw Kevin Cyberlin and and Brian Nicholas putting a sign up on the school that Kevin had made for the school. And I said there are a couple of brothers in the Lord and he said where do they go? They go to your meeting. I said yeah.
He said.
Are they your brethren or am I your brethren? Through I said. Dwight, you're my brother. Well, he's a limpid. I'm glad I I he's not my Lutheran brother, but he's my brother.
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Gravin learned to identify ourselves with one another. It's not a it's not a pretty lot, but do you really think you add a lot to our beauty?
And do you really think?
By that I'm saying, do you really think we are like Saul, head and shoulders above our grabbing? And we have to, when it speaks about condescending to men of low estates, He's not saying, I know you're a little bit higher than your brethren, but get down there and walk with them. You know, we're not higher than anybody. We're just all zeros. But James says, my brethren, well, then he goes on and he speaks about.
Perfection in a day.
When everything has been lost outwardly, God's government upon them, failure going on in quite a bad way. And he says he talks about perfection and notice how it's going to be achieved. It's going to be achieved by submission to trial.
I thought I just was reading about Gideon and he said, you know, wasn't Gideon. I'm not sure if it's Gideon or earlier. I think it was Gideon he's called.
The mighty man valor, and I'm with you, the Lord said. He said, if you're with us, how come we're having all these troubles? Well, beloved, it's because the Lord is with us that we have trials. It's because the Lord is with us. Your brother wrote to me. He said, you know, collectively we can expect difficulties and trials because he believed that where we exist here as a company tonight because of this working of the Spirit of God.
Well, if that's true, if we wouldn't exist tonight as a company, as an assembly.
Except because of the Spirit of God. But because the Spirit of God has formed us as a gathering, we can expect Him to work with us. As a gathering, you can expect trials not only in your own life, but in the assembly. What is it all about? It's about our perfecting. He's wanting to form Christ in our lives.
Could you desire anything more than that? By all it goes on. And he says, if any of you lack wisdom, now here are the question of wisdom comes up. I'm not sure why, but I do know never if more wisdom needed than in a day when everything is in confusion. You look around, you say, oh, this brother thinks that. My brother thinks that. And and those people over there, they do it this way. And these people over here, they do it that way.
But what should I do? What should I do?
I say just pray to God. Don't ask me for wisdom. Go to the Lord. Accustom yourself in your own personal life. You know, sometimes we live our lives as though the Lord were dead. Or at least the Lord had no personal interest in you. He does have a personal interest in you. His ears are open to your cry. You know our first tendency is our last brother. So and so about.
You know, one thing I like about getting older? There's fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer older, Brandon for me to turn to and ask for help. The sad thing about it is that some of the younger ones think I'm an older brother that knows something, and I don't know anything, but I know the one who knows everything. I know the one that if you go to him in simple childlike trust and faith, he will give you wisdom for the difficulty.
You're experiencing.
In your life, you know another thing that encourages me Now I've got, I've gone on a few years and those early years I used to pray for wisdom and I would go ahead and act and I wasn't just sure if I was doing right or wrong. But often times in looking back at the results of those acts and as I've grown older and become just a little bit more acquainted with the word of God.
I can see many times in my life that the Lord led me, though I was ignorant. I had asked for wisdom. He led me according to His wisdom without me really understanding what that wisdom was. But what I'm saying is that maybe you prayed about something and you don't know just exactly if what you did about it was right. Don't worry about it too much, don't afflict yourself. Another thing I would say to you though.
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Seek the word of God for your decisions. A lot of time it hurts my heart. The souls will say we believe the Lord opened the door for us to do this, and I think well from the little I know about scripture, it doesn't look to me like it's a door the Lord opened at all. It looks to me like you've been deceived, but I don't usually say anything to people. But don't go by feelings.
Try to be guided by the principles of God's holy Word. But sometimes we do wonder what we should do. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. Do you ever think you lack wisdom? Recently I was considering Simon the Pharisee who had the Lord into his home for dinner. And then this woman, this sinful woman, came in and washed the Lord. Speak.
With her tears.
A sinful woman.
A holy Savior. And there was Simon.
The Pharisee.
And he formed his judgment. He was so confident in his judgment he looked at the Lord and said, if this man were a prophet, he had known that this woman is a sinful woman.
He formed his judgment in his own self wisdom, in his own self-confidence and our Lord. And just like him, there were three things that Simon didn't know anything about. He didn't know anything about the heart, the repentant heart of that woman. He didn't know anything about the heart of Christ, and he didn't know anything about his phone. Hard, hard. But sometimes in our ignorance we can be so confident.
That we don't think we have any need of wisdom. How many times I thought, you know, I read something much that condemned me and then some writing of Mr. Darby, he said if you answer a brother's question without praying about it, you most likely will answer wrong. Well, I've many times have. I answered questions without praying about it.
Oh beloved, it's because we have confidence.
In ourselves, confidence in our knowledge well, if we lack wisdom.
Let us ask of him verse 6.
Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
Why do we waver, beloved? Why do we waver? Well, it's because of a lack of confidence in the Lord. I can think of all kinds of reasons why the Lord won't tell me the right answer. And they relate to my life. They may relate to my failures. They may relate to 10,000 things. I know about myself that the Lord surely wouldn't answer. But the scripture says.
Ask in faith. You know my failures.
Has not affected or changed the heart of God here, the restless people, these 12 tribes suffering under God's government. And James said, do you want wisdom? Turn back to the Lord? Ask in faith, Am I say about faith? I think it's mentioned some 15 times in this book and probably about 13 times. It's connected with work.
But faith is on the heart of this apostle. He's telling them, you know you're scattered because you didn't have faith, but I want to encourage you to a real faith. They thought they had faith in Jehovah. They didn't even know him, and he's trying to encourage them to a real faith. It's a wonderful thing, you know, if the Lord becomes real in our lives.
Do you know what it would do?
To change your life. Did you have a worry today?
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Some come into your life today that you got started getting concerned about.
Wonder what we're going to do about this?
It's wonderful. Bring God into it. Do you ever wonder if the Lord, if there's something too big for the Lord? No. You know there's nothing too big for the Lord. Bring the Lord into these things and they diminish. They they become as grasshoppers instead of us. We never were as big as a grasshopper. Let's bring our trials to the Lord.
This cast I burns upon the Lord. We had that in Sunday school and the brother pointed out for he careth not only for you, but he care about you. He careth about you. And the very went on to say you might go to the hospital and the nurses and the doctors will care for you. They will care for you. But you introduce love and they care about you. They have a real interest if I this guy going to live.
For more than just am I going to get my money out of it. But because they love you, well, the Lord cares about us. He cares about us. And so we can cast our cares on him. He's interested. And if we ask in faith, he that Wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven by with the wind and talked, You know, the sea depicts the nations, the troubled seas and they they depict that.
Unstable condition of the nations. Where do you see stability in our country?
Everything they talk about is in trouble, and it's been in trouble a long time. You don't want to put too much blame on one man. The station has been in trouble a long time. From its conception, it's never been out of trouble, and it won't be out of trouble. But that isn't the way. The Lord wants you to go through life uncertain without wisdom. Wisdom to my.
A small mind is simply the ability to take the light of God and apply it to my life in a way that will preserve my life for the glory of Christ. You know, we can know it a lot of.
Answers from God's Word We I know a lot of truth and light from God's word, but if we don't know how to apply that scripture to our lives to bring us into joy, Amen of Christ.
And to overcome the circumstances and confusion of this world that we live in, we don't know the truth as we ought to know it, and so we can come to the Lord. We can have confidence in the Lord. And let not verse seven, let not that man who is wavering about, who doesn't have confidence in the Lord.
Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. You know your thoughts. I think about this today.
My thought about the Lord are quite important. What I think about the Lord, who I think he is, they're very important, but they don't change who He is and they don't change what He is.
Now if I have wrong thoughts about the Lord.
It's going to make quite a difference in my life. The Lord may let me feel those wrong thoughts and the consequences of those wrong thoughts. I thought of that steward, you know, he said.
He took that talent he had, he went over, and he dug a hole and he buried it. When the Lord came to receive his own, the prophet that should have been gained by using that talent for his master, he said. I knew, Oh, he was confident in his knowledge of the Lord, He said. I knew that thou art an austere man. Did that make his Lord an austere man? No.
No, it didn't. But it made his Lord change.
His response to this man's dealings with that talent he lost because of his false thoughts of the Lord, oh beloved Saints. The Lord the Lord Jesus Christ, is not an austere master. We've got to eradicate that thought of him from our hearts or it's going to adversely affect our lives.
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And if it affects my life adversely, it's going to affect the lives of those with whom I associate also my brethren in the assembly or my family or whatever else, you know, none of us portray.
A very good image of Christ. We've been created in his image, but we don't portray. But each one of us, I believe does portray a feature of Christ perhaps.
A More prominently than anyone else here tonight does.
And that's why it's important for us to listen to one another. You know the Lord, in a way. I don't know him. I need your imprint of the Lord. I need that help that that may be in my life too. And so, you know, I I've kind of made a practice of people that I don't especially like better than you. See where my heart is that I might not like because they're not like me.
And I can honestly say, if they were more likely, I'd like them left. But they grate me. I try to listen to those brethren because I know they have had an imprint of the Lord that I don't have, and I need it. So let us, instead of being graded by our bread and troubled by our brethren, let's consider the possibility that the Lord brought that brother, that sister, into this assembly.
For my sake that I might be matured and develop in that feature that they have that I don't have and beloved.
None of us, none of us, are making a very, very good display of being like Christ. We need one another.
Well, here we come. I you know, some of you are orderly and some of you aren't so orderly and they're a great one another Well, blend the two things. Learn to be able to hang a little loose and learn to not hang so loose.
Orders of God. Well, we mustn't let order stop something that the Lord wants to do. By that I mean it's orderly for the Son to come up and east and go down in the West. But if something needs to be done, think of this. It is something Elijah said. Stand still, son. He said it's time for you to stop your orderly course and the Lord.
Heard that because it was God's mind that something disorders. They tell me that.
Those who stay, the astronauts, the math, those scientists have found somehow, scientifically that the sun is missing today. You know, it's still twice and went backward once and stood still once. And we've lost the day and it's orderly. It's so orderly. But they tell me that scientists know something. They don't believe God's word but or a piece of iron falls into the water. It's orderly that it goes to the bottom.
But Elijah can say come on up, and it has to come up out of it. The order of gravity, the order of nature had to be reversed. Well, generally we want to be orderly, but sometimes we have to allow the house to be a mess because the kids won't feel at home if it's not so anyway, all of these things are real to us in our lives and.
Let verse nine, let the brother of low degree rejoice and that he has exalted. You know I do that I kind of walking through your Iowa City and I see those young kids and at the hospital to those students. And when when the other day I saw this young lady, she came in, although she is brisk and she is a walk and I said I'm going to keep up with her, I did.
That by the time I caught her, I was panting a lot more than she was.
You know well.
You're in a world.
That's representative of youth and vim and vigor and prosperity. But here it says let the brother of low degree, that's what we are braved. You know I in the early days and I I think even up through the generation that brought bothered me in the assembly.
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Our brethren were sought after by the camp for ministry.
I haven't had anyone knocking on my door asking if I'd write articles for Bible Institute of Los Angeles. We're we're nothing. We're men and women of low degree. But what does it say? Let us rejoice. And that he is exalted, beloved, whatever we are in nature's realm. You, like, take a whole bunch of us out of this world.
And it wouldn't stumble much.
You wouldn't wonder. Might have to find someone off the street to replace you. But if it wouldn't stop the company from its progress. Now I kind of used to think from time to time a lot was on my shoulders where I worked, but when I left, it kept on going, still in existence. They don't even know who I am or who I was. But beloved, we have been exalted.
Thy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We're children of God and we can rejoice in that. It doesn't matter what we are in this world. We shouldn't even want to be anything in this world. We are children of God so let him. And here I think the thought particularly is the poor man and and I know a little bit about that and I enjoy that too. I enjoy walking around and.
One time on a trip we stopped at. I don't know why we did this, but we did. We stopped and pulled my old car up next to Mercedes and Cadillacs and it was a really wealthy little.
Tourist town and I could see my rings and cars and board faces that I didn't vlog here, but I was happy. Do you love it? I couldn't have. I couldn't take it. My life savings. They had probably more in their billfolds than I would have been able to have all my life savings, but.
They're not. They weren't radiating joy. They weren't happy. Oh beloved, we know Christ as our Savior. Let us rejoice and exalt. Even though we are low degree. Let us rejoice in the heat is exalted these do you enjoy what Christ has done for you and grace that he has made you a child of God? Oh beloved, then it says but the rich.
Let him rejoice, that's the thought, And that he is made low, because as the flower of grass he shall pass away.
Here the thought is here is a a Mr. Vanderbilt, and he gets saved, and he rejoices that he has found true riches. And for the first time in his life, he realizes he's been pursuing the wind.
He's been pursuing that. The tapes wings and flies away. That leaves you in the grave. I enjoy what a brother farmer, brother said you went to the bank, the banker said. There's a we'll, we'll, we'll call him Brother Jones. That wasn't his name and his neighbor, Mr. Smith. And Mr. Smith was buying up farms after farms in his area. He says the bank is saying, Mr. Jones bother you that Mr. Smith buying up all that land around you. He said no.
We're all going to end up with the same size slot anyway.
Wow, beloved that you might get a little couple of Gray side foot. You're not going to get anything to the grave here in this world. And a rich man who finds Christ knows that he knows his riches aren't connected with this life. And so he can rejoice that he's been set free from the pursuit of the wind now, tonight.
You've been set free from that pursuit. It doesn't have to be money. It can be anything. Mike, Mike, oh, my. Wouldn't ever have been particularly money.
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But there are other things I would have liked to been. I would like to be in a famous athlete.
If I don't watch myself, my mind still.
An old man can't run under the Iceland long wind it.
I still like to be a great athlete if I don't judge myself so our pursuit can be.
The wind, beloved and they are the wind. If our pursuit is not Christ, well these are just will go on from diverse. But in these are just things beloved, that we've got to have in our lives in a real way in order for that good seed of the Apostle Paul, those Christian high truths that the Apostle Paul was used of God to bring out in order for those to become a living reality.
Because they dig the garden for the seed to fall into. Let's pray Lord Jesus, help us all. We do fail, and we know it and not like those know it, but we know it. And we would go on. We would pursue thee by faith, We would lay hold of thee by faith. We would seek Lord Jesus to display Thee.
The God of all grace and this troubled world. Oh Lord, help us to reflect thee.
To reach out to the needy, help us to help one another in the assembly in this pathway that sometimes grows so weary and so confusing. Lord, help us we pray, and by precious name and.