Address—Mark Allan
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Maybe we could just get started this evening by singing 42 in the appendix.
I enjoyed this song when it was given out earlier this week, and it's extremely applicable to what I had on my heart. The last verse particularly was what had been given out earlier. And there's parts of that verse that I actually naturally retract from a little bit when it says we can suffer, we can die, but the message in it.
Very much encompasses what I'd like to speak about this evening.
And maybe we could just sing this hymn together.
Savior.
Just ask the Lord for his help.
Our God and Father, we just come before thee this evening.
And we just, we thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
The one who gave his life for us to give us life.
So that we can enjoy a week together as we've been able to be here at this camp.
To enjoy fellowship with one another, to share the Lord Jesus with one another, to have happy times. Lord Jesus, we just would thank Thee for this. We just would pray this evening as Thy word is opened.
We just would pray that Thy Spirit would have liberty and they would reach into the hearts of.
The speaker and everyone here in that it would bring fruit.
For your glory, Lord Jesus, we just would ask for Thy help that all that is said be honoring to Thee, and we just would thank Thee that we have a privilege to meet in this way and this have Thy word open, and we ask this all in Jesus name, Amen.
00:05:14
What I wanted to talk about this evening, I'm just going to start by.
Telling something that affected me for it was just a few weeks ago I was.
Just browsing the news and.
Google News on my phone, which I realized can be a horrible waste of time, but I noticed an article that said prominent Christian leader.
Is getting divorced and.
I looked at it. It was Joshua Harris who some of you may know. He wrote two books, A Kiss, Dating Goodbye and Boy Meets Girl.
And that book has probably had more of an impact on the assembly than just about any secular book. That aside by someone outside the assembly than any that I can think of in my age category, even up until this day. And, you know, I it, it hit me like a ton of bricks to to see that he had been brought up in a fundamental Christian family and homeschooled.
And you know, my immediate response was it must have been his wife.
And I don't say that.
Callously at all. That was my thought. I went on and.
Did a little bit of research on it and his wife had decided that she felt a little bit repressed, perhaps for the way that she lived. He had been a pastor at a large church for 12 years.
And I sort of chalked it up to difficulties between the two of them and then a few days later.
And the news mocked Christianity by saying I kissed marriage goodbye. And about a week later.
An article came out that said he had denounced Christianity entirely and it was mocking Christianity by saying like his Christianity goodbye.
And I, I'm just going to read you what he wrote. And I, and I, this meeting is going to start on a little bit of a sober note. I trust it will not end up there at all.
This is what he wrote, and it's just so searching to me, it said. I've undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is deconstruction. A biblical phrase is falling away.
By all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there's a different way to practice faith, and I want to remain open to this, but I'm not there now.
And I just, I didn't know what to think. You know, there's probably been 20 or 30 articles written on it since.
And you know I the easy thing for me to say. Well, he wasn't.
In the assembly.
On the way down here I was reading an article and.
Again the news, the Lord's blasphemy, Another Christian.
Worship leader. He's a worship leader from Hillsong who wrote the song He reigns.
Basically having lost his faith in Christianity, and this is what he wrote, this is Marty Simpson, he says.
He told the paper that he's struggling with many parts of the belief system that seems so incoherent with common human morality. This is a direct attack of Satan. I believe, as per what Rob spoke on this is if most of humankind had a choice, would we not rid the world of the scourge of cancer or sickness or disease? Why doesn't God do such a thing? Of course there's an answer to this question, but the majority of a typical Christian's life is not spent.
Considering these things, he said, questions such as these remain in the two hard basket.
And he also said, how many preachers fail? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen?
Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradiction? No one talks about it. How can God?
Beloved yet send 4 billion people to a place all because they don't believe and it goes on. You know, it really sobered me to read these and you know, I thought well.
Popular Christianity, The songs I don't have much depth.
They just didn't really didn't have a grounding in the word of God. And you know, I was talking about this with someone and they said there's a camp similar to this one, a little bit smaller one that's going on right now or this summer. Last 10 years, 100 people have gone, 30 people are no longer in the meeting or following the Lord. And they had actually counted. I, I hadn't even discussed it with them, But that's, and you know, I grew up going to the Bill of Solis camp in Newfoundland.
00:10:12
And if I was to look at that.
The number of my peers, they're following the Lord in it. I again, I shudder to even say these things. My heart aches. It's touched.
My family, my.
Assembly my closest friends growing up, you know a few of the cases that I was considering. Very often person comes to a very difficult situation in their life.
And.
They're faced to make a choice and sometimes they just throw everything.
And so I just thinking about what?
Went wrong and there's a couple of verses that I can point about because what I want to talk about this evening is very simply the Lord Jesus. I actually find it very difficult thing to talk about because everyone here knows about them.
And yet.
He is the answer to this question. So first I'd like to just read a verse in Jude.
With respect to.
To this that struck me just in considering.
This this is Jude chapter one.
There's only one chapter of course, verse 21.
Says there, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
And then down verse 24, and this is what I want to particularly point out.
There is one person who is able to keep us from falling now unto Him.
That is able to keep you from falling and present you.
Faultless before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
The simplistic.
Message this evening is do you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you leaning on Him every day?
And trust him because he is the only one who can keep you from falling. You know, I don't think probably.
Those. By all intents and purposes, I don't think you could say that either of those two people were saved. I don't know for sure.
The Lord knows that and I'll let him judge. But you know, this world is going in a direction where we are under the direct attack of Satan in popular culture today.
To the point where if you are a Christian.
It is completely incompatible with what society thinks is even right. And you know that is going to not make our lives if the Lord doesn't come, which of course is what we're looking for any easier.
But I just wanted to talk about the Lord Jesus this evening.
Because the situation today is not a whole lot different than it was.
Before, you know, sometimes we get to the point in our life where we don't understand, and there's things in my life that I don't understand.
Why things are in a certain for a particular question?
But I do know that I've seen what the Lord has done for me and if I look at His word, there's ample evidence and I can just say.
Lord to Himself go. So I'd like to turn to do another verse that just really struck me in connection with the streets in John chapter 6.
The Lord was in Capernaum, which was one of the primary places he taught during the 3 1/2 years of his ministry, just a little town. They all would have known him. And he started speaking on some very, very difficult things that they didn't understand. And you know what a bunch of people did? They just stopped following him. You know, I think as we get closer to Lord's return, there may be things that we just don't understand, but we can believe.
Word of God, we can believe Lord Jesus Christ and I just very struck by the wording of this passage specific to the topic that we're talking about. I have to watch my time.
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Let's just read in John 6.
And.
Verse 56 So I want to read the verse that was one of the things they were struggling with.
I'm not going to explain it, you can ask others. But it says He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in Him. As the Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your Father's did eat man, and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. These things said He in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
Many, therefore, of his disciples, when they had heard this, said This is a hard saying.
Who can hear it?
When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, And this phrase struck me.
Does this offend you? I don't know that I've ever heard a time in my life where people are offended by.
So many things.
And these people were offended by what the Lord had said about eating His flesh and drinking his blood. And I can understand that being a difficult thing for them to comprehend.
But I just want to go down in Peter's response is what really strikes me in this passage.
We'll reach start reading in verse 66. It says from that time many of the disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Then Jesus said unto the 12 will ye also?
Go away.
Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
Thou hast the words of eternal life.
Here he came to a point.
He recognized that the Lord had the words of eternal life. He wasn't going to turn away from him even though he didn't necessarily understand these things. We know the disciples didn't understand a lot of things until they were the Holy Spirit was given. And I just very struck by that in this passage. There may be things that we don't understand, but if we look, and what I want to talk about tonight is if we look, we can be amazed.
At the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, even though we may not understand everything, we can be absolutely.
Amazed.
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe in our sure that thou art the Christ.
The Son of the living God.
Well, that's an introduction to sort of what I would like to speak about this evening.
And what I want to talk about was the Lord Jesus in the New Testament.
Recognizing the Lord is the only source.
Of us being able.
To be kept, you know.
I appreciated what was said earlier this week about the prayer. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. We can pray and ask the Lord to just open up our eyes to see beauty in the Lord, and he, I believe will will do that.
You know, as I mentioned earlier, I, I only have a few slides, not, not a lot here. I, this is not something I prepared for this meeting, but I had prepared a while back and never actually did anything with it. But, you know, today there's a failure of the church and the attacks of the enemy. That's what Robert spoke about.
And Satan, like he did in the Garden of Eden, and like he is, he's a liar and a murderer.
He's questioning absolutely everything.
To undermine our faith.
And I have a few of the things, and there may be some mistakes in this because I just added it this afternoon, But it says, doesn't the Bible fail with modern science? He's trying to say, I, yeah, the first few chapters, Genesis. No, no, you just can't trust the whole Bible. He's also trying to say, you really telling me that there's only one way to get to heaven? What about the rest of the world who believes other things?
He's also saying, shouldn't love override everything else? How could it? It's the same question. Is that what Marty wrote? How can a God of love have sent 4 billion people to hell?
Isn't being good enough? Of course good is by mansion. I'm not going to answer these questions. There are answers to everyone of them in the word of God.
But this is his attack. How can isn't the Bible full of bigotry and hatred? You look at the Old Testament. Isn't God a hateful God? How could they kill all the Canaanites?
Isn't Jesus just a good person? Is Jesus really coming back? It's a full frontal attack on Christianity, you know?
00:20:12
I had listened to a meeting that I enjoyed on Jesus in the Old Testament.
And I've been going through with my Sunday School class in Rio Ferry, a little haphazardly, but just to give an outline of the books of the New Testament.
And I had been thinking, OK, I've given sort of the key verse and thought of each one of the books of the New Testament. But I hadn't looked at the big picture of the New Testament. And it had been on my heart to look at it. And there's a lot of parallels, you know, where does the if the Lord had, if Jesus, if, if no one in this room knew the Lord Jesus and we were at the end of the Old Testament, you know, it would have been.
A very difficult time if you were a Jew and had the word of God.
Not terribly unlike it is for us now, you know, the Adam and Eve had failed in the garden and eaten the fruit when they shouldn't have. Innocence had failed. God had given mankind a conscience. And when he looked down in Noah's day and it was only evil and he destroyed the world, you know, after the flood, he said to Noah that.
That someone killed someone and they should also be killed. There was a form of government introduced and that failed.
Then he hand picks a man, Abraham, and gives him a specific promise.
And Abraham has trouble waiting for the promise and fails in that. And then he promises a whole nation, Israel, blessings if they keep the law and they fail. And that that's where the Old Testament ends. And if I just, I made a few notes here and if you compare a little bit of the notes here, it's not that different from where we are at the end of the day of grace. And I'm not going to go into dispensations. I know Tim has spoken on this before and that's not my intent, but just to.
About what it would be like if the Lord was not here.
At the end of the Old Testament, God's chosen people had turned from the Lord in Hosea.
Jose he labels them not my people, you know, the government which Israel had controlled the under Solomon particularly had had control over much of the world had been handed over to the Gentiles. So.
The government was no longer under the control that a person who knew the word of God would have thought. You know, only a few people remained at the place of the Lord's choosing.
There had been a promise of a Messiah that was hidden, sort of, in all these writings, and he hadn't come.
And in the book of Ezekiel, there was a promise of this new temple that was going to be beautiful and the Lord was going to be there and it was going to be wonderful. That hadn't happened. The end of Malachi, it ends with the threat of a curse.
What would it have been like to live at that time before the Lord?
Came.
And you know, we're living at the end of the day of grace. And what is it like to live at this time?
If we ignore.
The Lord.
It's a searching thing to consider, you know.
These things shouldn't be particularly new to me at all. But you know, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to step back from the New Testament a little bit. And, you know, it blows me away is the entire New Testament from Matthew 11 to the end of Revelation.
We talked about yesterday it being prophecy, being summed up as Jesus wins.
The New Testament you can almost summarize in one word, Jesus.
You know it's.
It's so easy for us to lose our focus on the Lord Jesus. I think of the man of Transfiguration. They wanted to build 3 temples.
They should have only been seeing Jesus only. And I just want to point out a few things that struck me.
How does the New Testament start?
First verse of Matthew and I know that the order of the books is not necessarily inspired, but.
The answer to all of the problems of the Old Testament.
We're going to be revealed in a single man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Holy Spirit gives just and I use a contemporary like a mic drop.
00:25:05
To say this is the promised Messiah that fulfills everything of the Old Testament. I'm just going to go through the books of the New Testament and point out what I've enjoyed. And you are Matthew 11. What does it say? The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David. I promised David that his descendants would sit on the throne. This is the person Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham I.
Abraham, that he would have seized as the sand of the shore, and the stars of heaven. This is the man.
In the book of Matthew he takes incredible.
Pains.
Not pains. He shows us the Lord as the answer to the Jews as the Messiah.
You know, if you're in a royal lineage, I'm a Canadian so maybe it's Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles William and handed down through George it it gives the the what is needed to know that Jesus is the Messiah.
According to the promise to David was that he was of the royal lineage and it just spells it out for you and says you want traces, It's there. I will go right back from Abraham all the way down to the Lord Jesus. If you have any interest in knowing whether Jesus is the answer, it is there. And by the way.
Verse 21 That she shall bring for the Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, and he shall save his people from their sins.
In Matthew.
He goes through and presents to us.
The Lord Jesus is the rejected Messiah, giving us the detail as a king.
You know, I can't talk about this mountain of learning I couldn't even begin to go into.
The books the the four gospels and tell you all the details of these things. They can be dugout and learned one at a time, but they're there.
Well, this, the genealogy is one of the very clear ones to me and one that I've enjoyed. But there it is. The Holy Spirit is showing us that Jesus is the Messiah. He's going to save his people from their sins. You go to Mark the next book.
And actually, so that's how the Word of God starts. I'm going to, I'm a little off track. You go to the end of the Bible or end of the New Testament. Where does it say? And I think Revelation very clearly is the end of the New Testament.
Is Jesus the focal point? Absolutely. Revelation 22, verse 20.
Even so, come Lord Jesus, the grace.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. It starts with the Lord. It ends with the Lord. You know even in those the first verse and the last verse you have grace in both both verses. David is a beautiful.
A model of grace, Abraham is a beautiful model of faith.
David's son, who the Lord referred to.
Is, is Solomon in all of his wisdom and glory, and Abraham's son is Isaac, which is a picture of the cross. Yeah, the Lord's, you have all, even the cross. You have the Lord's coming of grace just in these 222 verses at the start of the end of the New Testament. And you know, if you, it's not just Matthew and Revelation, if you were to go through, and I didn't even really necessarily think about this, if you go through every book of the New Testament.
You'll notice that almost every single one of them references the Lord Jesus Christ in the first verse of the book, and very often in the last verse of the book. He is very clearly.
The central focal point, and if you think that the fact that God's desire is to glorify the Lord, it helps us understand it a little bit. But to me, it's an incredible thing just to know that. I mean, if you go to Mark, let's just turn to Mark one.
What does it say there? The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets. Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before the you know the interesting thing in an all four gospel, the talks with John the Baptist, whose job was to say the Messiah is coming. His job was to prepare the way. This is the person who is the answer to all of the problems of the Old Testament.
He's here, you know, that's a in Mark. He's portrayed as the.
Perfect servant.
And.
00:30:00
Answers to prophecy in the Old Testament references to servant in the old you know, in America servant has no genealogy if I.
Came to work on a farm down here as a or. That's not a good example. If I was a servant to somebody anywhere, you don't necessarily expect like I'm not expected to trace my genealogies in the same way that Prince Charles would at all I'm just.
The Lord didn't highlight his genealogy in this book, but he's the perfect fulfillment of that perfect servant in the book of Mark. And we can see it there. And again, the Lord is the focal point, the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written and it just goes through of how he was a perfect servant in that book. You know, you go to Luke where he's pictured as the Son of man.
And the Lord isn't in the in the first verses of Luke, He's not.
Necessarily his name isn't mentioned, but but he he specifically talks about it says for as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order the declaration of those things which are most assuredly believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me, having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first to right under the in order. Most excellent Theophilus, if you go to.
It's crystal clear that he was giving an outline of the Lord Jesus in the book of Luke.
And in the book of Luke as a perfect man, you have the genealogy through his mother, which of course.
In Matthew, it's his legal father. In Luke it's his.
His mother.
Through man biologically you know it's an incredible to see how God presents the Lord Jesus to us in John and you know the world Satan just attacks us is Jesus really God He's just a good man. We're taking this up and and I I know these are things that aren't new to anybody here. First verse of John.
The purpose of John is to present the Lord Jesus as the Son of God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And then later on it says, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John says, Behold the Lamb of God. He presents the Son of God to the world.
The entire focus of these four books, Matthew answers the questions of the Jews in terms of him being a Messiah and fulfilling so many of those prophecies. Actually, all four of the books do, but.
Hear the Lord God shows us from 4 different angles. This is the person that is the answer to all of the problems. And you know the same thing is true even today.
Unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and present you.
Unstained. It is the Lord Jesus Christ and you know, we need to dig into these things.
To really come to an appreciation from, you know, when I had originally put this together.
I was looking at it just from an overview of the New Testament, but then when I stepped back and said what's a whole New Testament about and realized it's the Lord Jesus Christ. Every single book you can take and look at it from the perspective of who the Lord is. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John very clearly present the Lord in in different ways, you know?
So in the Old Testament they followed the 10 commandments and the law.
So how does Jesus affect everything? Well.
The central event of the Lord's life that happens at the end of the Gospel.
Gospels is his death and resurrection. The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is alive changes absolutely everything. It means when you have a difficulty in your life like Sean spoke about.
If you're human and maybe.
Your your father hasn't necessarily gone out. You can cry out to the Lord and he will. He's alive. You're not talking to a wall. You're not just reading a book. He is a living person and without the resurrection.
Our faith is in vain. You can read 1St Corinthians 15 to see absolutely crucial the Lord is alive. If you look at the other the other religions of the world, they don't speak of a risen living person who you can spend time with every day, who you can read their word, you can speak with them. The resurrection is absolutely critical. You know one of the verses and I that I appreciated with respect to the reservation if you go to ox.
00:35:21
Is the book after the gospels and it presents basically how.
The work of the Lord changes things. So the Old Testament and it just gives the history of it and you know, that's important to understand just.
And so you have different things.
In the book, the Book of Acts, and I'm not going to go into them, the Lord promises his return. The Lord's brightest form, the gospel of the Lord spreads out in the three missionary journeys. It talks about the transition from the law to grace and the assemblies. With the Lord's presence established, the Lord Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection changed absolutely.
Everything and it didn't just affect Jerusalem, it spread out to the whole world. And that includes the very fact that we can meet in this room tonight. And so here in this book, we're we're told in the first four books of the New Testament who the Lord is. In this book we're told how the history of how it impacted everything and how the word of God spread throughout the world. And that's absolutely necessary. And there's wonderful things, you know, as we understand the framework as it was mentioned earlier this week.
We can dig into these things and enjoy them a little bit more.
And so you have the book of Acts that does that if you go on to the next book.
Romans, you know.
I was struck.
I know there's some young people going to Israel shortly. I was there with my daughter over March break this year and at the Garden Tomb there was a.
Is a verse mounted in tiles and it said.
And I hadn't even really noticed the verse.
Although I knew it was there, but it said and it's so applicable to the, it said Jesus, sorry.
Jesus Christ and then it goes, this is Romans one verse three and it skips a couple sections which I never thought of. In this way Jesus Christ declared to be the Son of God with power.
By the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
With power.
By the resurrection of the dead, the United verse just struck me the resurrection. Here we have a book. What does this book do? It says it explains to us what we need to be do to be we need to do to be saved. And you know that's a question of this world that everyone.
Needs to consider this problem that ran all the way from Genesis through to Malachi. What's the solution to it? Well, Roman spells it out in a beautiful way. It gives the gospel you know if you go later on in the verse and notice by the way, the Lord is the focal point of that verse in Romans one verse three. But if you go and this verse was mentioned earlier this week.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe us.
To the Jew 1St, and also to the Greek.
The gospel of who? The gospel of Christ. It's all about the Lord Jesus. The whole book of Romans.
Is presenting the Lord Jesus. It takes a stay on that path of all of sin. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, and then if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Coined the Roman Rd. but it gives that little path of this is how to be saved.
It's all because of the Lord Jesus Christ and it spells it out, not just.
In a superficial way.
To the point where you may say, well ask Jesus to come into your heart and that's not not complete. You need to it goes through it in a very systematic and detailed way to help us to understand.
How what the Lord did and how it deals with the effect of sin and how we can accept Him as our Savior and what the effect of that should be on our life.
And how the Holy Spirit helps us to have power to do what we couldn't do previously.
You know, it's all about the Lord, but it explains that needed salvation that was needed from Genesis all the way to the end of Malachi just so that we can understand it. So you have four books that tell us who the Lord is, a book that tells how the Lord impacted history, a book that says this is what you need to do to be saved. And now you get into the Gospels.
00:40:25
In the first, in the next, the next books are letters to.
Assemblies or the bride and body of Christ and you know everyone has an aspect where.
It gives us incredible teaching and again, in almost every case points to the Lord and you want to know how we should meet as believers. Corinthians gives that to us in a beautiful way. It deals with difficulties that were hopping in an assembly to help explain how things should be done, but it really helps answer those questions.
That we would have on that, you know, you go to Galatians, we've been talking about legalism.
And bringing the law in when it shouldn't. You know Galatians is a book that.
In relation to legalism in general is a very good book to read and to think about because what had happened was.
Some of the Jews were saying, well, we need to keep this part of the law. It's OK to have Christianity and.
They were adding to, but the problem with that was was it was attacking what the Lord Jesus had actually done. It says in Galatians one it says I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.
Considering.
Legalism and want to come in in Galatia, they needed to look at the Lord and the.
Gospel of the grace of God and to look at it in that context and to add to what the Lord had done is that finished work on the cross was a very, very, very serious thing and I realized that not all.
Legalism is is in that format, but.
Just wonderful to recognize that here you have a book that's dealing with the very questions we've been talking about and it's all about.
The person of the Lord Jesus Christ and not, not straying from the grace of the gospel that's in there. You know, you go to Ephesians.
And what do you have in Ephesians?
Ephesians one is probably taken up more than any other chapter.
I've heard of Indiana reading meetings at conferences, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, but those blessings that we're given as believers?
Our wonderful things that need to be defended with the armor of God at the end of that book.
But you know that those blessings if you go to Ephesians 1.
Where do they come from?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all.
Spiritual blessings in heavenly places.
In Christ.
In Christ.
It's all because of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have those blessings.
You know, I can't go into these because obviously we can go on all day, but anyone of these and I'm not even particularly, it's just been helpful to me to get these this framework in my head to realize that the Lord is the central tenet of every book of the New Testament. So Ephesians, our blessings are in Christ. You know, Philippians, what do you have in Philippians? You know, I, I love Philippians. It's practical Christianity.
You have in every book a different aspect.
You have Jesus as our goal. You have Jesus, our example. Jesus is our, Christ is our, I should say, Christ and Christ is our life. He's presented as a different. The Lord has presented to us practically in every single book or every single chapter of Philippians. He's to be our joy, our example and our joy and what Christianity looks like. And it's presented in a very practical way by a man who's in prison. But it's all again, it's all about.
Jesus Christ, how can we deal with the difficulties? It's a beautiful book to look at from that perspective. You go to Colossians and you know, Colossians deals a little bit and I don't, again, I don't profess to have as even as clear an understanding as I should in some things. It deals with people who were steaming some days over other days. But you know what? The focal point or one of the verses I love in the first chapter of Colossians is on my parents wall.
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The theme of their marriage.
Then in all things he might have the preeminence.
No holiday, it's a person he deserves the preeminent place. You have some of the greatest truth about the Lord Jesus in the book of Colossians that it pleased and I'll read it as I just don't want to get it wrong.
It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.
It pleased the Father that the fullness of the God hedge dwelling. You know, I I another passage I was thinking about our focal point needing to be the Lord Jesus Christ. You know when the Lord was baptized. You have the Trinity, the Father saying this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased, the Holy Spirit coming down and the Lord there. This is.
The person.
That the Godhead wants to glorify. You know, I hesitate even saying these things for fear that I'll get mixed up and saying them technically correctly. But the Lord is the central.
The central point that he wants to glorify so in Colossians and you know, you get to the book of Thessalonians.
What's in Thessalonians, and this is so important, in the Old Testament, they were looking for the Messiah. What are we looking for?
We're looking for the Lord's return, The hope that we have in the Lord's He's going to give the shout and he's going to call us home.
Is in every single chapter.
Of Thessalonians.
That hope, which is the Lord Jesus, and you know, that's one of the things that keeps us, as it said in Jude is, is to look forward to that hope of the Lord coming.
Remarkable to me just to think about that a little bit again.
It's the Lord we're looking for. He's the focal point of that book. You go to Timothy and you know Timothy deals with the assembly or the body price in order and disorder. It's in first and 2nd. And in Titus you see setting right and bringing to order the the assembly button Christ by. And I'm not going to go into the detail of that, but again, this has to do with the fact that as believers, we are part of the variety of Christ. We're part of his body.
And the encouragement that the Holy Spirit is giving us through these books to individuals is a tremendous thing to consider.
And very humbling and searching the second looks, of course, give us things before the return of the Lord and near the end of the lives of of some of the of of these. And it's just it's beautiful to me to consider that you know, Philemon, we have.
And I was in going through this and just thinking about it, I was thinking, well, how is Philemon have to do?
With the Lord, but you know it's the grace of the Lord that had to be shown there towards that slave that ran away in that book and it was beautiful. Do you mean you just read the 1St chapter says Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ. The Lord has mentioned Timothy our brother, undefined, Lehman, our dearly beloved and fellow of laborer, and Afia and Archipelas our fellow soldier. The church has grace be unto you and peace.
From God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, beautiful to see that in that book, you know, you go on to Hebrews if you were a Jew and all of these things had changed.
It would be very helpful to have it explained to you as to OK So what about the law in the Old Testament? What does the Holy Spirit do? It talks about how the Lord fulfills and answers all of the things.
That are in the Old Testament and you know, first chapter of Bruce any point I pointed this out and it probably came from somewhere else, but Jesus is greater than the prophets in the first chapter and he's greater than the angels in the second chapter and he's greater than Moses in the third chapter and he's greater than Joshua in the 4th chapter and it goes on through the book greater than Aaron. He's the complete fulfillment. The focal point of Hebrew is to say Jesus is the answer to everything you had in the Old Testament.
Explain to you.
So that you can follow it. Beautiful to see that.
James again, I was one that I struggled with a little bit just to think about, you know, I just read the 1St.
Few verses of the Book of James.
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And it struck me, says James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. My brethren, all joy when you fall into divers temptations. Knowing this, at the tribe of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect in entire, wanting nothing. You know it is the faith.
Evidence of faith in the Lord in that book that is shown by our works.
You know, for a while they didn't necessarily think that James should be part of the Canon of the New Testament, but they recognized later on that it should be. But, you know, the evidence of our faith in the Lord Jesus is shown by works in our life. It's beautiful to see that, you know?
Peter, again, I don't know these things very well, but you see suffering a lot in Peter. You see the Lords coming with reference to the Jews, more the appearing and how it had to do. In that respect, suffering is addressed, which is something that we don't. But you know who leads the suffering.
It's the Lord himself. Just if you go to first, Peter.
Chapter one it says searching what or what manner of time the spirit of Christ.
Which in them did signify when it testified beforehand of the sufferings.
Of Christ in the glory that should follow. So although it takes up suffering from a human perspective.
It was the suffering of Christ and the glory that followed that is brought before you know it. Again, the Lord is the central point and I know again this is nothing new. And in first John you see core Christianity and 2nd John you see the seriousness of of taking away from the person of the Lord. And in 3rd John divisive Christians. In Jude we already talked about the Lord is the safeguard in every one of these books from Matthew.
Through revelation, the Lord is presented to us. We need to spend time reading it, considering it, spending time in his presence. And then you have and I again, I appreciate it so much, which was said prophecy. It's that Jesus wins.
You just read the first few verses of of Revelation is all about the Lord, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants the things which must sortly come to pass.
And he sent and signified it by his Angel unto his servant John, who bare record of the word of God and the testimony.
And of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all the things that he saw. Blessed is he that read it.
And they adhere at the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein for the for the time is at hand.
The whole Book of Revelation. And again, none of these things are new.
It's all about the Lord.
Why did these things strike me just in going through them again just to consider?
How easy it is for us to lose. Get our eyes off the Lord.
But this whole New Testament, the whole Old Testament points to him. The whole New Testament shows us who he is and all about him. And we need to just look to him and spend time in his presence and you know.
The final verse that I would like to read just before we sing, you know, Tim gave us an outline of the Book of Revelation 1000 times better than I could ever do it. But the end of the church on earth before the scene opens in heaven in chapter 4.
What struck me there?
Was You've laid us here at the last church.
There they think that they're rich and increase with goods and they're not. But what does the end of that? Just those last few verses in terms of our need to be dependent on the Lord, to listen to him, to hear him like Samuel who heard the word of the Lord through his word and spending time in his presence. What does it say? Revelation 3, verse 20.
Behold, I stand at the door.
And knock.
If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him, and will Sup with him, and he with me. You're supping with the Lord.
You're in a very safe place.
Just as that hymn we opened up with.
I will Sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit in my throne, even as I also overcame and sat down at the right, sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear with the Spirit saith.
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Unto the churches.
Maybe we could just close by singing 309.
Somebody could start that.
What do you have nowhere else to?
Bring no sanction.
Every.
Thing.
Me now bring.
He's closing prayer.
Our God and Father.
We just come before thee, and we just would thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
We acknowledge how often our eyes.
Lose their focus on you, Lord Jesus, and turn to this thing, the things of this world.
And the enemy seeks to attack us. Lord Jesus, help us.
To just see thy beauty, so perfectly given to us by the Holy Spirit in the Word of God, help us to each value it, to dig into it, to climb that mountain that was talked about earlier, and to enjoy it.
Lord Jesus, that thou might be our sanctuary. Just pray for each one in this room.
It will be kept, O Lord Jesus, my power is not limited and thou art able just pray for Thy blessing on the balance of this time here to be profitable and that we be an encouragement in Lord Jesus that we would see.
We just asked this in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.