Kentucky Conference: 2001
Table of Contents
2 Corinthians 4
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2nd Corinthians chapter 3, verse 17.
Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And but we all with open faith, beholding as in a glance the glory of the Lord, are changed from into the same image, from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we receive mercy, and we thank God, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in crappiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully.
But by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves, they remain conscience in the sight of God.
But for gospel behead it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them, that which believe not bless the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who was the image of God should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants, for Jesus sake for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled in every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death, for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
We're having the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken.
We also believe, and therefore speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sake, that the abundant grace might do the Thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God, for which 'cause we faint, that.
But though our outward man perish, yes, the inward man is renewed day by day, For our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the scenes which were seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporable, temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
It does seem, dear brethren, that in the days that we are living in is the time when there is a lot of breaking of the earthen vessel.
Look around. Trouble and trial and affliction all around and.
Sometimes we ask what is God's purpose in it all?
In this chapter we have perhaps one of the purposes in the breaking of the earth and vessel.
Is that the light of the glory of God, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ might shine out?
He's put a treasure in these vessels of ours and that treasure is not to be hidden. That treasure he has put there to shine out.
00:05:07
And I suggested we start reading the first two or the last two verses of chapter 3.
Because in that chapter you have the contrast between the Old covenant and under the law, which was the.
Administration of death in verse seven, chapter 3, and it's called the ministration of condemnation in verse 9.
And it's contrasted with the.
Administration of.
Of the Spirit in verse 8 and the ministration of righteousness in verse 9, which is what we have in Christianity.
And the old was so glorious that when Moses.
Got a glimpse of the glory of God, his faith?
Shown it was so real that when he came down from off the mountain.
People were afraid of him because his face shone. What had he been doing? He'd been seeing something of the glory of God. And yet in those Old Testament times, it was not a full revelation of the glory of God.
Moses was told you cannot see my face and live, but he said I'll put you in the cleft of the rock and put my hand over you and then I'll take it off as I go by and you'll see my back part.
But my face you cannot see.
And it was so glorious that it made his face shine.
But brethren, we have something that far out there exceeds what was under the law. The revelation of the that we have now, and the person of the Lord Jesus is a complete revelation. And so in the end of the chapter, that third chapter, he says. And this is Christianity, brethren, verse 18, we all.
Doesn't say some of you know we all.
In with open or unveiled face, beholding to the glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. It is the privilege of every true believer to look straight into the face of the Lord of glory and enjoy the full revelation of all that God is for us.
Person of the Lord Jesus, and that is what will transform your life and mine.
Looking at each other and we all have false brethren and criticizing each other for the faults we have will not change.
Like this will it's looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face. Moses, when he came out of the Tabernacle, had to put a veil on his face because the people were afraid of it. But when he went into the presence of the Lord, he took the veil off and talked to the Lord face to face. And that's our privilege now, rather than not as Moses with a partial revelation.
Of the glory of God, but with a full revelation that is given to us in the face of Jesus Christ. He is so blessed if we can get a hold of this is the ministration that he speaks of in the first verse of chapter 4. I just mentioned that it's kind of introductory.
There was a dear old Christian out in the Northwest years ago I.
Expect he's gone home to be with the Lord, but.
She's. I think she thinks she was blind, but anyhow.
If you roll the few lines of a little poem which Mr. Haley used to love, and he had a president leave the hand of her out, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
Many of you know it.
There were those in the days when the Lord Jesus walked here on earth, who saw the Lord Jesus here in this world walking as a man.
00:10:08
And John could say we have seen and looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life.
And what a privilege it must have been to see the Lord Jesus and hear his words as he walked here amongst men.
Peter said to having been one of those who had the privilege of being on the mount of Transfiguration.
He said we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. But brethren, I believe we have a far greater privilege than seeing the Lord Jesus when He walked here upon earth. We have the privilege this afternoon of by faith, lifting up our eyes to the open heavens and being occupied not with Christ on earth, but with a glorified man at the right hand of God. And this verse tells us that in the measure in which we do that.
There will be a reflection of Christ in our lives, in the measure in which we are occupied with that blessed one. And he does fill our gaze and our hearts. Then, it says, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
It's interesting with Moses there in the 34th of Exodus that it says that when he came out of the presence of Jehovah on the mount, it says his face shone. But there's an interesting comment made about it. It says he wished not that his face shone. He hadn't tried to make his face shine, but if I can put it this way, it was the unconscious reflection of being in the presence of the Lord.
And if you and I, and perhaps I can put it this way, in the measure in which you and I are, in the conscious sense of the Lords presence, looking full in his wonderful face, occupied with him in the glory, in that measure there will be an unconscious reflection of Christ in our lives. I say that because sometimes people talk about generating A testimony for Christ.
But I believe that it's not so much generating A testimony within ourselves, but it's being occupied with the man in the glory, so that we're like Moses. We wish not that our face shines. It's not that we've tried to generate a testimony, it's just there because of where we have been. And so it says of the early disciples in the Acts, when they came out from the presence of the Lord, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.
And brethren, as these meetings begin to unfold and we take up a portion like this.
We have the ministry of the Word before us by the Spirit of God, if you and I get a fresh glimpse of Christ.
And as a result, our hearts go more out to him and we're more occupied with himself.
Then when we leave this place, there will be a reflection of Christ will be changed into the same image from glory to glory.
Years ago in the city of Hamilton, I remember when I was just a boy.
In the back seat.
There the Mr.
Captain Williams, his name was he's gone now and his dear wife, she was at the Lords table. But Captain Williams, he always sat in the back seat.
You never did break bread.
But he was a true he was a real soldier. He was straight as a ramrod. Unreal. The real army captain.
And I admire him. I have to look up item.
Well, years run by and he still came to the meetings. And then some years later though I was there and I agree that Captain Williams. I said good morning, Captain Williams all kinds of no, no, he says no more, no more.
No more that I'm through, he says. I'm all through.
He got a glimpse of the man and the glory and all that he might have, might have taken pleasure in, had all faded away. Christ has the planted all that in his soul, that he was just plain Mr. Williams.
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And that's what it is in this chapter. It's any major brethren that we are seen as men in the flesh. It hinders the shining forth of the glory of God, and that's why God has to break the vessel.
And it's not a pleasant thing. And we're in a world where that takes place all the time, I'm sure.
Everyone of us has experienced it in their lives, in some measure, another unpleasant circumstances, things that we did not plan on. Why is Why does God allow that?
The vessel has to be broken so the light will shine out. It's a ministry. It's called in verse one. And he says, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy because it's not in natural strength that this can happen. Brethren, like Jim was saying, it's not something we can generate. It's in the measure that we are receiving mercy from God.
We faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness.
Nor handling the Word of God deceitfully. Those are things.
That hinder the shining forth of the gospel message, I must say, rather than that it has been impressive to me.
In living in Bolivia while I was, we were living resident in Bolivia. One of the greatest blows to the gospel in Bolivia was the fall, morally of a preacher of the gospel that was well known down there. I mean, he, the preacher of the gospel was here in the States, but his broadcast went down there.
And he did not renounce the hidden things of dishonesty. And when that came to be known, it was one of the hardest blows against the gospel rather than the Lord help us to use the sharp knife on ourselves to not allow place for the flesh. Flesh is always wanting to crop up and give it a little bit of room to operate in.
Lord, help us, brethren.
We need to renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully. But, and this is the part that I think is so important.
By manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
It's manifesting the truth.
It's using the truth of God and applying it to the conscience of men.
Not their minds, but their consciences.
Find in my own experience that there always seems to be the tendency on my part.
To appeal to men's mind.
Because I suppose we live in a country where education is put up so high on a pedestal and we like to feel that we are doing what is reasonable.
Not that Christianity is not reasonable, but, brethren, it's appealing to the conscience. And it is interesting in the life of the Lord Jesus how often he did this.
I often used to wonder why many times he was asked questions. He did not answer their curious questions. He answered their conscience.
Remember when they put that woman that was taken in adultery in the midst and they said to the Lord Jesus, Moses said in the law that we should stone this woman.
And what do you say? And the Lord Jesus didn't answer immediately.
But after riding on the ground, he stood up and said, He that is without sin amongst you, let him cast the first stone at her.
And you look at that, that wasn't really an answer to their question.
00:20:02
That was an answer to their conscience, and the light was so.
Brilliant to their conscience that they all beginning at the eldest.
Were convicted and went out one by one until there was #1 left but the Lord Jesus and the woman woman there.
That's commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And that's.
Way. The truth of God gets into a soul not merely through the mind. Yes, it does come in through the mind, but it has to get through the conscience to get to the soul. There's going to be any real work done.
How important, as you say, Bob?
But by a manifestation of the truth commanding ourselves to every man's conscience.
If we don't speak the truth, if we don't live the truth, we're not going to commend.
To anyone's conscience, I believe that's what we have in Ephesians 6.
The whole armor of God and that we need, of course, there in Ephesians 6. That's to grasp, hold and take.
Possession of our eternal position that we now hold in the heavens but.
If we don't walk according as the word of God directs us as a Christian, can we ever be?
Commended to anyone's conscience? No. As you were saying earlier about the gospel creature, how careful we have to be that we don't live a life.
We don't live alone. Speak the truth.
Yeah, indeed, says that he doesn't believe.
Any truth has ever received, but first through the conscience.
May be received into the mind, or maybe the intellect, but.
If he fails with it and he always remember that remark.
It remarks about the woman at the well.
All that the Lord told her was.
With no avail until he reached her conscience.
And he says go call my husband there, he got to the root of it.
And.
But all the truth that we ever received is first to the conscience.
Them through the heart, mind and the heart. There's no real growth in a soul unless the truth is received.
In that way, and I believe that's the thought in the parable of the sower that the Lord Jesus spoke of in his day. Because I used to ponder, when you read that parable, there was the seed that fell on the Stony ground. And you remember when the disciples came and asked the Lord Jesus concerning the meaning of the parable, he said that the seed that fell on the Stony ground was those that Anon received the word with joy.
And I used to ponder that because wasn't it good that they received the word with joy?
But I believe the thought brethren is that in receiving it in that way, there was number root.
There was no inward work. And so a soul may hear the gospel. We may even hear the truth of God ministered, We may read it ourselves. But unless it goes through the conscience, because that's the channel, then there's really not going to be any growth. And it's not going to have the practical purifying effect on our lives that the truth ought to have. It says in Isaiah's day. They said, prophecy unto us, smooth things. And you know it is.
Easy to hear, sometimes very good.
Maybe sound things, but that doesn't reach the conscience. They're just smooth things.
Some of us have been to funerals of taken by men who perhaps even aren't the Lords themselves. And sometimes the scripture is read John 14 or maybe even 1St Thessalonians 4 and it's just red and there's nothing for the conscience. You walk out and you say here we're souls who are on their way to eternity. They're in the presence of death, in the House of mourning. The scriptures that were read were very good. The things that were even said might have been good in themselves, but there was nothing to reach the conscience.
And so we always need to aim at the conscience when we present the truth. Yes, there needs to be ministry for the heart as well, as our brother dear has mentioned, but it must be aimed at the conscience. And, brethren, we never accomplish anything in dealing with souls or in the ministry of the word of God in the assembly. By glossing over things and not aiming at the conscience, never watered down the truth.
00:25:21
Or gloss over things because you think, well, that's what people want to hear. Oh, you'll never, you'll never be sorry by presenting the word of God as it is, and it is written for the conscience. And I believe when we presented in that way, then God can work by His spirit and bring about blessings.
Conscience is that part that man got when he disobeyed in the garden of Eden and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I think we can define conscience simply by that. It is the knowledge of good and evil, and every human being has that conscience within themselves, and it it is helpful.
To realize that even though a person may become an atheist, in their mind, their conscience never turns atheist. Their conscience within them always gives testimony to the truth of God and so present the word, even though they may say I don't believe that, present it because their conscience will give testimony to the truth of God.
So the conscience is the knowledge of good and evil, and every person has that, and we are to appeal to that. Somebody has said the like was mentioned earlier, The proper home of the truth of God is the heart, the soul, but the avenue is the mind and the conscience. And I just want to say this for all of us, believers as well.
If there is something of the truth of God that touches your conscience.
Don't harden your conscience against it. God has put that conscience there for a purpose. Somebody has said it's a good policeman, it's not a good guy. God has given us the word of God to guide us. But it is a good policeman. And as soon as you do something wrong, something inside you says you did wrong.
Don't ignore the voice of conscience. Keep a tender conscience at all times. Cultivate a tender conscience. Listen to the voice of conscience and God has put it there. But here we're dealing with the manifestation of the gospel to the lost, and we deal with the lost in that same way, seek to reach their conscience like has been mentioned, so important.
Years ago, you were at a constant in Chicago.
In the days of Brother Potter.
Someone asked Mr. Potter, what is conscience?
And you told what Mr. Potter's answer was. Would you, would you tell us now who told these hours naked?
Was the answer.
Say it again, will you, who told thee thou was naked?
Thank you.
I think what Brother Bob has said is very helpful to dwell on just for a moment, because God has given us two things for our journey here. He's given us a conscience, or I should say I'm sorry. Man received a conscience when he sinned in the garden. But God has given us something else now because as Bob said, conscience is never to be our guide. It is the check, but it's not the guide. I enjoyed a little story that was helpful to me when I was younger in connection with conscience.
About a young boy who went upstairs to change, to go out for the evening and he called down to his mother and he said, mother, I've got a shirt here, I want you to come and see if the collar is clean enough to wear tonight. And she called up the stairs and she said no, the shirt's not clean enough to wear and her son said, mother, you didn't even come and look, she said I knew if you questioned it, it wasn't clean enough to wear. And so the conscience is a check. It's that yellow light.
00:30:06
And never if you if we go beyond against that, our conscience, too often we're going to get a seared conscience. It's like a blacksmith years ago who handled hot things. After a while, his hands became so seared that he didn't feel those hot pieces of metal as he took them out of the fire from day-to-day because his hand had become calloused and seared. And it warns us in Ephesians about a seared conscience.
We have a good conscience, a bad conscience and a seared conscience in Scripture. I'd rather see somebody with a bad conscience than a seared conscience. Because a seared conscience you don't even realize. Like a brother was telling me about a man who he worked with, who professed to be a Christian. And one day in the office this brother heard this man take the name of the Lord in vain. And he spoke to him about it. And he said, you know, it used to bother me.
But I don't even know I'm doing it anymore. That's a seared conscience. He had a bad conscience about it at one time.
And instead of listening to that and being checked by it, he his conscience became seared. But let's go to First Timothy for a moment to see a verse that bears out or two that bears out what our brother Bob was saying. Because God has given us now the word of God as our guide. That's our guide and our direction, not our conscience. Let let's read in First Timothy chapter one.
And verse 19, holding faith and a good conscience, which some, having put away concerning faith, have made shipwrecks, of whom are Hymenaeus, and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blasphemy. Well, here in this 19th verse we have two things, faith and a good conscience. Now I suggest that in Timothy's epistles these two epistles to Timothy.
Often faith is looked at in a little different way than it just simply being the confidence that we have in God.
Its true faith is often looked at in that way in Scripture, but in Timothy's epistles, I believe it's more particularly in connection with the with the faith, the truth of God that has been given to us, we're told in Jud's epistle to earnestly contend for the faith.
Once delivered to the Saints. And here Timothy is exhorted as to these two things.
Not just to hold a good conscience, but how was he going to do it? There had to be faith that he had to hold the faith. And so, brethren, we need the word of God. Young people, are you going to have direction for your pathway? Are you going to know the mind of the Lord? You've got to open this book and read it, and that is the the guide. But then, as we've been saying, we have the conscience and keep a good conscience before God.
Judge those little things that come up when sin comes in and it does come in, then confess it. Get before him, and if he if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So if I could liken it to this, it's like the Mariner at sea. He doesn't just need a compass that maybe is like the conscience, but he needs the map. He needs the chart. Because a compass is no good if you don't know which way you want to go. And I keep two things in my vehicle when I travel. I keep a compass on the dashboard, but that compass is not my guide. It tells me if I'm going the right or wrong direction, and I check it regularly to make sure.
That I'm going in the direction I want. But I have beside me a map. I have a chart, and that chart tells me. That map tells me which direction I want to go. So I say, again, the word of God is our guide. It's like the chart. It tells us which direction we need to go. And then we have the conscience. I say maintain a good conscience. There's nothing like it.
Adam and Eve had no conscience.
In the garden before they sinned had no consent when God saw to it that when they when He doed them from the garden, that they took that conscience with them. And every child of Adams has has that conscience, Every child of Adam has that conscience.
00:35:04
I like what the Apostle Paul says in Acts 24.
Verse 16 I think it is so good, he says while standing before Felix.
Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience, void of offense toward God and toward men. He doesn't say. I always have a good conscience. Sometimes I see people. I hear people say that I have a good conscience.
But he says, I exercise myself, and I think that is important. Brethren, you may have a good conscience right now, but we need to constantly exercise ourselves to have a good conscience.
So in the book of the Acts here too, when Paul was.
Standing before the council.
And he said, I have lived in all good conscience before.
God until this day. And somebody close to told somebody the high priest or someone told someone close to him to hit him on the mouth.
And Paul says, God shall smite thee. Thou whited wall a little bit, maybe hasty.
And somebody called attention to the fact that the one he was speaking about was.
The High Priest evidently wasn't dressed in his high priestly robes, and Paul didn't recognize him.
But immediately Paul judges himself. He says. I wish not.
It was the God's high priest. For it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people immediately judged himself. That's the conscience and exercise, and I think that's so important, brethren, when something is drawn to your attention that is not right, don't defend yourself, judge yourself. That's why God has put that conscience there. And it's very helpful if we exercise ourselves to have.
That conscience void of offense toward God and toward men in the end of.
The book of Hebrews, Paul says, pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience. It was still an exercise of his to maintain a good conscience.
That was really what caused God to call David a man after his own heart, wasn't it? When David realized he had sinned, there was no hesitation. I have sinned. And I was just going to ask you, Bob, to elucidate a little bit on how you get a good conscience, but I guess that's it. If acknowledge your what you are, who you are, and go to the Lord of Honor, I have sinned.
How wonderful it will be.
When we're in a scene where there's no flesh.
Whichever seeks to go out to the things of the world, there'd be no enemy, no wicked enemy.
To to cause us to fail. Sometimes we won't be in a scene of anything which will be contrary to the nature.
And the holiness of that place to be up there and and all. We won't have any. We won't need any conscience up there. How wonderful it will be.
To be with the Lord Jesus.
Another illustration that I have found helpful for conscience is somebody is used illustration of our eyes. You may have good eyesight, but unless you have light, what is your eyesight? And you can have good eyes and wide open in a completely darkened room and you can stumble over things. Why? Because you don't lack in having good eyesight that you lack in light.
And so it's like Jim says, we not only need the compass, you need the road map. We not only need good eyes, but we need light.
And light manifests what there is there. And so conscience needs the light of the word of God. Sometimes people say, oh, I don't have any conscience about doing that.
Are you reading the scriptures? Are you letting the light of God's word shine?
00:40:04
On your conscience. Conscience is something that needs to be educated.
By the light of the word of God, it's important.
It's interesting in the incident that you mentioned in connection with the Apostle Paul where he smoked the high priest. What was it that exercised his conscience? That was the word of God, and he immediately quotes that scripture in connection with not smiting.
The Yes, thank you. And if so, it was the Word of God that was brought to bear on his conscience. It was the IT was the light.
And I believe that's one way we can exercise our consciences. I've heard people say, well, it doesn't bother me. I've even heard people say, well, it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you, but maybe it should bother you. Maybe it should bother me, whatever it is. And so we need to open this book and we need to come into the light. It's like the story told. Many have heard it before of a young boy many, many years ago, in the days of seagoing.
Ocean vessels are sailing ships and this cabin boy was.
Very unruly, and the captain had a great deal of difficulty with this boy to the extent that finally he shut him down in the dark hold of the ship, and from time to time the trap door would be opened and the boy asked if he was ready to come out, but in his darkened state and his rebellion.
He always said he was content to stay there, and they wondered what to do with this boy. They knew he could. They couldn't leave him there indefinitely.
And finally they came up with a solution and they took a Lantern and tied it on the end of a rope.
And they let the Lantern the light down into that dark hold, and that light revealed the true condition of the hold around. The boy showed the rats and the vermin and the dirt and the filth of that whole and immediately in the light. Now he wanted to get out of that place. He was ready to straighten up and to take orders from the captain and serve on the ship. But as long as he sat in the dark, he was content to be there.
And there's many people, they sit in the dark and they're content to be there, but when we bring the light to them.
Then the conscience is exercised in the light of God's word. But, brethren, I believe that's the way it is for you and me.
Why is it I'm so content sometimes to just go on with things in my life to become complacent?
Perhaps I'm not in the light like I ought to be. Positionally, I'm there. We're in the light. We get that in First John. But are we opening the Word? Are we letting its light exercise our conscience? That's how the conscience is going to be exercised. And if the conscience isn't exercised in the light of God's Word, then we're just going to become complacent Christians.
I believe Ephesians 429 through 32 is reputational. Life was the other Section 2 but no corrupt communication. Proceed out of your mouth that which is good for the use of edifying, and may miniature grace into the here grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed into the day of redemption, that all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ sake has forgiven you.
We have the power, do we not now, to not only refrain from evil, but the power to do good?
We've been Speaking of how Adam and Eve in the garden. When they sinned, they received a conscience because of sin, but they found out that they had neither the power to do good or the power to refrain from evil. And what an awful position it was. And if God had left man to that, what an awful condition of things that would be. And we see what it very quickly developed into there in the early chapters of Genesis. But now isn't it wonderful, brethren, that he's given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness?
And in these verses that we've read, he speaks a number of times of the Spirit of the Lord. So we're brought into a position now where we're given the divine life, the very life of Christ. And not only so, but we now have the power for that life. You and I can walk in the in a good conscience, in the light of God's word. We can walk for His glory here in this world, because the Spirit of God has been given as the power for our lives.
00:45:14
And I was thinking recently, when we stand at the judgment seat of Christ and our lives are brought into review, brethren, what excuse are we going to give the Lord Jesus in that day for some failure in our lives, for some discouragement, for some? Turning aside from the path of faith, what excuse am I going to give him? Am I going to be able to say I didn't have the power for that? Am I going to be able to say that I wasn't able for that? No.
He'll say, as it were. I've given you everything you need, all things that pertain unto life and godliness. So I think it's helpful to see as you we take up this portion, that the things that we have been Speaking of maintaining a good conscience, walking in the conscious sense of the Lord's presence, looking at the Lord with unveiled face, being occupied with the man in the glory, and so on, These things are brought before us as very practical of the next.
2-3 and maybe 4 verses or.
Predicated on the last part of the second verse.
By manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ it should read, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them. If our walk is such that we commend ourselves to the conscience of all, then the gospel of Christ is presented.
And if it's rejected, then verse three and four come into play, don't they? It's those that are lost. If our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. And why is it the God of this world blinded their minds?
And the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, if that ever shines into their heart, they're going to be saved. But.
The God of this world blinded their minds so that they never see that glory. And as we go through this world, I believe we're responsible to present to the man around us, to the world around us.
The truth Commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. I believe that our responsibility and how can we preach the gospel to anyone if we're living a life that's just like theirs? We can't do it.
I met a man years and years ago who.
Preach the gospel. He was a very fine gospel preacher. And one day he was writing in a Street car and he was giving the gospel to the man sitting next to him and he was smoking a great big cigar. And the man said to him, you get rid of that cigar and I'll listen to you.
Now that was the that's what we have in that, the end of that second verse, commending ourselves to every man's conscience. I believe it's important and we're responsible to do that. I suppose there's a good example of what you're saying, Brother Dave, in the Old Testament in connection with law, because there was a time when Lot gave a message in Sodom that judgment was coming on Sodom and Gomorrah.
But his life and what he said did not commend themselves in any way.
In other words, those that he spoke to, they said, as it were how can this man speak of judgment coming on these cities when he's built everything for time? Here was a man who sat in the gate, no doubt as the judge involved in the politics of the day. He had built everything for his present advantage, was living right in Sodom amongst those people. And so he couldn't. His words were were he. It says he seemed as one that mocked.
And, brethren, if our lives don't commend the gospel, we're going to seem as one that mocks as well, and the enemy can use it as an occasion of stumbling. And our words and our deeds need to correspond. If there's a nice comment the Apostle Paul makes in a Second Timothy, I think it is, he says thou has fully known. Notice these two things in the order, my doctrine and manner of life.
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His manner of life commended his doctrine. What he said was commended by his manner of life. Now we sometimes can put the manner of life 1St, and then the doctrine second, but that's not the way it is, and that's the other side of it. But it says of the Lord Jesus too, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. He was that fine flower When they came at the end to accuse him, they couldn't find anything to accuse him of without bringing false witnesses against him.
Let's just take a minute and go to Daniel. I know I've mentioned this before, but I think it's along this line. A nice commendation concerning Daniel in the 6th chapter.
Daniel, Chapter 6. I'll just give the context here so I won't read very much, but we find here with Daniel. He had under the new king in this chapter we would say been promoted in his business. He'd done very well. He was serving under the new king, had an administrative part in the Kingdom and it invoked jealousy with his coworkers and they met together to see if they could find some occasion against Daniel.
And I think what it says in verse five is something for us to really consider. Notice what it says. Daniel 6, verse five. Then said, these men, these are Daniel's coworkers. We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except we find it against him. Now notice this concerning the law of his God. Now this is about the equivalent of you going off to school or work next week. If the Lord leaves us here and somebody tries to find something against you at school or work, and they finally conclude that the only thing they're going to find against you is that you're a Christian.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful commendation if your coworkers or your classmates discuss things and said well?
The only thing we find against the only fault we have with this person, this boy, this girl, this man, this lady, is the fact that they're a Christian. They couldn't find anything against Daniel except concerning the law of his God. And so it tells us in Philippians chapter two. I think it's the 15th verse. It says that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights in this world. That's the life we live.
And the 16th verse immediately says holding forth the word of life. Why is it in that order?
Because the life we live needs to be harmless and blameless and harmless and without rebuke. If we are going to then have the privilege and take the responsibility of holding forth the word of life to others.
Like someone has said, preach Christ always.
If necessary, use words.
But isn't that something that verse three brethren to really let fall on our conscience? If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. How tragic to think that we have the answer to this world's woes, to this world's problems in the Lord Jesus, and to hide that answer amongst those that are going directly.
Toward the lake of fire, Isn't there some responsibility on our part?
Those lepers outside the city of some area that found.
The Syrian camp, completely abandoned, said this is a day of good tidings. We hold our peace until the morning light. Some mischief will be taken. So we need to be exercised, brethren, in view of the tremendous need this country, this favored country that has been favored, perhaps materially, over most of the world.
Of all times.
And yet we are not letting the light shine. We should be doing all possible, brethren, because this world is getting right down to the line. We're getting down to the most awful judgment that this world will ever see.
Or ever has seen. And we have the answer. Are we going to hide it? This is something that applies not to just some gospel preachers here, brethren, This applies to us all. We've got the answer. Somehow, some way, we need to be exercised, occupied within letting the gospel be known. How tragic to have the answer and not give it to a perishing neighbor.
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Right next door to us, Lord, exercise our hearts, verse four says. In whom the God. Notice that it's the small G It's Satan. The God of this world has blinded the minds of them, which believe not a person says I don't believe.
Why don't they believe? Because Satan has blinded them and somebody that's blind you can shine.
Full light on them and they won't see. It's not so much that they can't see, it's more that they won't see. It's a matter of the will set against God. It speaks of that in those verses in Ephesians 4 that were mentioned a little earlier. It says the blindness of their heart.
I better quote. I better read that, but it's it's the willing.
Blindness.
It says having the understanding darkened.
Being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. It's a willing blindness. They turn from the light. They are blinded. They cannot see. I marvel.
Remember a young brother who was in medical school in Chicago telling me that in the University of Chicago, the School of Medicine had the most atheists in it, and I marvel when they study the tremendous complexity of the human body. How can you deny the existence of a maker? And yet that was where the most atheist were in that school.
Why? Because Satan blinds the mind and it would seem hopeless. How are we going to deal with somebody that is so blinded if we go on here? I think this is so beautiful in these verses that follow lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Notice verse 5.
We preach, not ourselves.
The Lord help us, brethren, to keep ourselves out of the picture but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves.
Your servants for Jesus sakes, that's all we are. Just some servants for Jesus sake. Then verse 6. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It's a reference to Genesis chapter one when this whole world was enveloped in darkness.
And God gave the command, Let there be light. And the light penetrated the darkness.
Now you and I are living in the midst of a world that is enveloped in darkness. What hope is there? I can't convince anybody to believe the gospel.
But what we can do is let the light shine and God can command.
That that light penetrates the darkness, and that's what's happening. The light penetrates the darkness of souls, and they see the light and they get saved. Oh, how wonderful it is. It's God's operation through the vessel that lets the light shine. That's why it's so important, brethren, to let the light shine. I believe that these three verses 5-6 and seven are extremely important.
We've preached not ourselves in the seventh verse, an earthen vessel. I believe it refers back to Gideon, who had 300 men who had earthen vessels and had lights in the vessel. But the the vessel, the light did not shine until that vessel was broken. And I believe that's true of each and every one of us too, that I don't believe the light of God's grace will shine out as long as we carry that earth and vessel in its whole state.
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The vessel's got to be broken and so, as you say, Bob, we preach Christ and not ourselves.
It's a sad thing to hear people stand up and talk about themselves. I believe it's a disgrace to God and to his glory.
But we've preached not ourselves, and the vessel is to be broken before the light shines out. I believe that's important to every, each and every Christian that we keep self in the background and let the word of God shine out.
You keep broken vessels around your house, Brother Dave. Beg your pardon? Do you keep broken vessels around your house? I throw them up. Why? Because they're no good.
That's what God uses. Isn't that amazing?
And that's what we are.
It's amazing that God picks up that which is of no value in this world and.
I believe what's been said of Mr. Darby that he was of no value to this world.
Well, when it comes to politics and the great things that this world has to offer.
Words Christians place in that.
Well, we should be of no value to this world. Our only value should be that we present Christ to those that are around us.
The little poem ought to be nothing, nothing, only to lie at his feet.
A broken and empty vessel from the master's youth made me.
Maybe just a little illustration for those who are younger. I've thought of it sometimes because as it's been brought out, we are simply channeled vessels used to bring Christ to to those who are lost. And I sometimes thought it of it when I take my children, perhaps to McDonald's or Burger King or whatever place it might be, and they order perhaps a milkshake, and that milkshake is in the in the cup.
But that milkshake does no good as long as it stays in the cup. And so they take a straw, a vessel, a channel, and then you stick that straw in the milkshake, and then you put it to your lips. And that straw is only a vessel, a channel that conveys something sweet and good from the cup to your lips. Now, brethren, if we could just learn to be like that, what blessing would flow out? We're just channels, bringing the sweetness and the glory of the gospel.
Of Christ. And are we occupied with those glories the glory of the gospel of Christ?
Do those glories fill our own soul? Are we tasting deep of the sweetness of Christ ourselves?
In the measure that we do that then as we've been heard, the vessels broken were put in the background and we're just like that straw, just the channel and the sweetness flows through and it is brought to someone else and they benefit because of it.
In Peter two first Peter chapter 2 and toward the end of the chapter the last few verses it says leaving us an example. And I believe the next verse is 8/9, 10:11 and 12:00.
Give us a little bit of that. The 11Th verse. It says that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh and so.
All these trials and sorrows I believe Bob mentioned at the beginning of the meeting.
All the trials and sorrows are a purpose in God's mind for you and me.
And the broken vessel is the one that he can use, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Well, we go back. I believe we ought to spend more time in the Gospels individually, that is, looking at the pathway that the Lord walked and how he walked, because He's the one that we have as the example, leaving us an example that we should follow.
In his steps.
In verse 6, just to go back there, in verse seven, it mentions this treasure. What is this treasure that we have in these earthen vessels? When it speaks of these earthen vessels, it means our bodies, our human bodies, they're made of earth, made of the dust of the earth. But the treasure, what is the treasure in it? It is what we have in verse 6.
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The light of the knowledge of the glory of God.
In the face of Jesus Christ.
Oh brother, I tell you to stop and think of that like you said, Brother Dave, to go back into the Gospels, to look as we read through those chapters at the glory of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ, his glory.
In a large part was veiled by that human form.
They said this is the Carpenter. That's all they saw there. But there was the moral glory that could not be hid. And there were times when his God had glory shone right through the human vessel when they came to take him. And he said, I am, they fell backward to the ground. They could not stand.
In the presence of the glory of Jehovah God.
In the person of the Lord Jesus, as he stood there, they fell backward to the ground. It was his glory, shining through his official glory, Shone out in the mount of Transfiguration. His faith shone as the sun. His garments were white as the light, but ought to pass through the life of the Lord Jesus and see the complete perfection. I marvel at it, brethren.
There been brethren that the Lord has used in my life, and I admire them. But the more you are with human vessels, the more as time goes on. You're aware of failure and inconsistency in different areas, but here's one that's completely consistent.
Always perfect, they came around him to try to find a fault, to lay hold of his words they sent out.
Lawyers to trap him. They always went away completely baffled.
Why? Because he was completely perfect. The glory of God shone in the face of Jesus Christ. And then I like to think brethren, connect that expression at the end of verse six with what we have in Isaiah 52 just to read it.
Verse 14.
As many as were astonished at the his visage or his face.
Was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of him.
Think of it as he hung on that cry.
In that face so marked.
All the glory of God shines earth.
Have we tried to get a glimpse?
Have we turned and looked in that direction? Breathing. Why is it that we so easily tend to look to human vessels?
Why is it that it is so hard for us to look straight into his face?
No wonder there's not more transforming power, brethren. But this is Christianity. It's the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the treasure that God has put into these poor hearts of ours.
Are we letting it shine out? Are we enjoying it? Brethren, What a treasure. Nothing can compare with this treasure. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And that's what's going to attract souls, isn't it?
It's Christ. It's not religion. It's it's not what we say, what we do, but it's the reflection of Christ in us that is going to attract souls to Christ. I remember a brother was telling me, an older brother was telling me one time about some souls that they had visited from time to time had a regular contact with. And when they visited, they and others visited them. They just sought to minister Christ to them. They never talked about coming to a certain place.
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They never talked about a certain group of brethren, so to speak. They just sought to minister Christ to them in a simple way from the word of God. And finally, after a number of visits after they had left one day they told them. Later the husband said to the wife. He said, we need to go and see what these people have. Why? Because they had presented some set of doctrines. Don't misunderstand me. Doctrine is good and there are times when those.
The doctrines need to be laid out. But what was it that attracted those souls? What was it that brought them to the assembly? It was Christ. It was a ministry of Christ. It was presenting to these souls from the Scripture the glories of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and brethren. This is true whether it's a testimony to the lost or whether it's seeking to minister to our brethren what's going to affect souls.
It's Christ. And we sometimes sing a little prayer. And I'm afraid, and I only speak for myself, but I'm afraid sometimes I sing these precious Christ exalting hymns so often that I'll think little about them. And many of the hymns we sing are in the form of a prayer, and we often sing this prayer.
All fix our earnest gaze so holy Lord on thee that with thy beauty occupied.
We elsewhere none may see How often have you sung that perhaps you can even remember the last time that hymn was given out in meeting, or you sang it at the dinner table in your family reading. But think about that prayer that we so often sing. Is it really the genuine and sincere desire of your heart and mind to have our gaze fixed on Christ so that we elsewhere none may see? Brethren, It's a good prayer for us to sing, but it's a good prayer for us to sing.
With real exercise.
Then when we come to verse 7.
It speaks of the earthen vessels. There we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
That the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. And I think this is such a lesson for us to learn, brethren.
That it's not a matter of what power we may have, it's the power of God that is manifested in human weakness and OFT times abject failure.
Think of what Brother Dave was mentioning in the book of Judges of Gideon. And the Lord appeared to him in the Midianites were impoverishing the land and they were weak. They could not resist the enemy.
And God called Gideon to.
Defeat the Midianites and Gideon called the Israelites together.
There were 32,000. God says that's too many.
Because if I give the victory to 32,000, then God could have given the victory to that many.
They would have gloated and said by my hand, have I gained this victory?
And so God says to Gideon, tell all those that are afraid to go home.
22,000 went home. That's reducing your army quite largely. 10,000 remain. God says too many still.
Lest Israel boast. And he brought them down to the waters to give them the test. And when the test is over, only 300 remained. It seemed foolish. It seemed ridiculous. 300 Now who are you going out to war with?
The Midianites that were extended in the valley as multitudes of them.
But this is the lesson we all must learn. The Excellency of the power is of God and not of us.
Why is it that we always focus on us?
I think it's because, brethren, we live in a humanistic culture. the United States, you, Canada, and we're always focusing how many are we?
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That's not the point, brethren.
Point is our God.
And so Gideon and his 300 men went. And what kind of weapons are they taking out there? In one hand they have this vessel with a lighted torch inside, and the other hand a trumpet figurative of the two forms of testimony. Brethren, the light is our lives. The light doesn't make any noise.
But the presence of the light manifests what is?
And we are light in the Lord. And the trumpet is that form of testimony that is audible that we can hear. Those are the two forms testimony. And so Gideon in this 300 men stood around the camp of the Midianites, and it has a set moment. Gideon and his 300 men broke that earthen vessel. Like you said, if that earthen vessel wasn't broken.
No light would shine out, but when the vessel was broken, the light shined out, and all these lights around the camp of the Midianites all of a sudden appeared and the Lord gave the victory. The Midianites rose up and killed themselves until there were hardly any left. What a tremendous victory. But what was God showing in this? The Excellency of the power?
Is of God and not of us, brethren. It's not us. It's what our God is. God is manifesting through broken vessels, and how sad it is that oftentimes, because we don't let the light of the gospel shine, God has to come into our lives and break the vessel.
And so he allows circumstances that are extremely disagreeable. But why? Because he's put that treasure inside of you, brother and sister, to shine out to the loss that are on every side. He's put that there not to hide, but to shine out. And in our weakness and in our failure off times, if we'll only own it, God can come in and show.
The Excellency of his power. Oh to God, we have what a tremendous God we have. Why has God preserved these wonderful Old Testament stories and examples for us? Why this is not to show us that what he wants to his people of old, he will be with, He will be to you and me right now, now, now. I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee.
One verse.
Product 2131. One verse 30 I say the forest is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord.
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one Christmas.
Glory of me.
Every day.
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2 Corinthians 4
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Grace and my grace bless him.
Well, I don't know that they made it.
Out.
Right, right.
Gracious God, our loving Father, we thank Thee.
But this hymn reminds us of our.
Place before thee. We are thy children.
Purchased by the blood only begotten son.
Thank you, our Father, for bringing us into such a blessed position.
We pray that as my children.
Might recognize our responsibilities unto thee and we.
Our Father, now that we have Thy Word open before us.
Nice curve would instruct us.
In the within, each one of us that desire to hear thy word, but to obey it.
We ask now for liberty, liberty, and eating forests. And we pray again that we might receive that which thou has for us youngest to build, pray. Ask you in thy name, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.
I would suggest we continue on in our chapter Second Corinthians 4 start with about verse 7.
Two Corinthians 4 starting at verse 7.
But we have this treasure and earthen vessel, that the Excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death, for Jesus sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal pledge.
So then, that work has been us, but life in you, We having the same spirit of faith, according and written, I believe, and therefore have I spoken, we also believe, and therefore speak, knowing that he would raise up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the Thanksgiving of many rebound to the glory of God.
For which 'cause we faint in that but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
We spoke a little bit about verse 7 yesterday.
Being our.
Bodies in chapter 5, verse one, it confirms that we know that if.
Our earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved. We have a building of God, and now house not made with hair and the eternal in the heavens. So we live in this body. That's our house.
It's the earthen vessel and God.
Has redeemed us by the precious blood of Jesus, but that is our spirit and soul. Our bodies do not yet are not redeemed, yet they will be redeemed in the full sense at the coming of the Lord. So we are subject to sickness.
Accidents, problems in our bodies, just like anybody else. And it speaks of the.
Earth and vessel in verse seven, that what we have in verse 8:00 and 9:00 is the way the earth and vessel is broken.
In the case of the apostle, he says we are troubled on every side.
Yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair.
Persecuted but not forsaken. Cast down but not destroyed.
Circumstances he passed through extremely difficult. In Second Corinthians chapter 12 it tells us that he was caught up into the 3rd heaven and when he came back why God saw fit to give him a thorn in the flesh some bodily affliction. It was called the messenger of Satan to buffet him and he asked three times that it be removed.
Lord said no.
My grace is sufficient for thee. Why doesn't God allow remove affliction?
It's not his will always to remove affliction from us, brethren. He leaves it with us so that in the weakness of that affliction we can prove his power. And that's what we have in verse 7. The Excellency of the power is of God and not of us. If it were our own power that carried us forward, we would have somewhat to glory in.
That God sees fit to leave circumstances in our lives.
It's interesting rather than we live a very comfortable life.
Here in the United States, you go to those Latin American countries, and sometimes those people have to sleep and they're cold. At night they get cold and it's not easy to live the way they do. But what impresses me when I come back to the United States, how comfortable it is.
God allows a thorn in our nests.
And I think if we go around the room this afternoon, everyone of us could tell about some thorn in your nest. God allows it there. Why? Why is that necessary? So that we can prove how great our God is. It's not us, brethren. It's him. That's what we are learning in this wilderness. How great, How sufficient.
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Our God is so. The Excellency of the power is of God.
And not of us. The vessel has to be broken in one way or another, and we don't enjoy that, do we?
But it's necessary so that we can prove how great our God is.
So he said to Paul There when he asked for that thorn to be removed, he said no. But he did give him a wonderful promise. He said My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. And so we don't go in our own strength, brethren, but we have the strength of the Lord as our resource. And when we learn our own nothingness, then we learn God's all sufficiency. And those are the kind of vessels that God can use in his service and for the blessing.
And out flowing to others, as long as we go in our own strength, there's not going to be victory or blessing in our lives. You see a little illustration of it in the Old Testament. When they went in to possess the land, they went up and they took Jericho and the strength of the Lord. The walls came tumbling down and it was all the power of God displayed because they went up in dependency. But then they said, well, AI is just a little city and we won't send up all our men. We'll go up and we'll take that with no difficulty.
Brethren, they were soundly defeated because they needed to learn that they couldn't take the enemy in their own strength. If there was going to be blessing and they were going to move forward into the land and possess it, it had to be in complete dependency on the Lord. And that's why too, when they had a victory in Israel, they had to go back to Gilgal. They had to go back to the place of self judgment, getting into the presence of God and realizing that yes, they had a victory, but it was nothing of themselves.
And so, brethren, may the Lord help us. There are trials in our lives allowed sometimes are always by the Lord, but sometimes they seem very severe. Get before the Lord as to why he has allowed this circumstance in your life. And when you back up to the 11Th chapter of this same epistle before Paul speaks of the experience in the 12Th chapter of being caught up to the 3rd heaven, and then the thorn in the flesh and praying that it would be removed, and the Lord saying no, and so on.
He's forced by inspiration to give a list of the things that he suffered in a physical way in his path of faith and service for Christ. And just read it slowly sometime. It's a tremendous list of things, things that I've never been called on to suffer in the path of faith and service for Christ. But as he says here, as he went through those things, was he forsaken? Was he cast down? Yes, he was cast down, but he was cast on the Lord.
Sometimes, said the Lord allowed something in your life. It's alright to feel cast down as long as it casts you on the Lord.
And you feel the Lord's arms arm of strength, and you rise up and go in that power.
But that list is a tremendous list of things. And it wasn't just things that happened once in a while. It was day in and day out, year in and year out. But it kept all dependent on the Lord. Was there ever, apart from the Lord Jesus himself, a servant of God, used in blessing like the Apostle Paul, But if it was because of, he practically carried out what we're going to speak of in these verses that follow in our chapter.
And he so fully accepted that thorn in the flesh that he could actually say I glory in tribulation.
A glory.
Just read it here, the 12Th chapter.
Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities. That's not a natural thing.
Glory in your infirmities. You don't find people doing that too much. But Paul says I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me because our fermenties bring us low brethren. Then God can show himself when we are exalted. People don't see the Lord brethren.
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But when we're brought low, then people can see the Lord, and that's I I honestly believe, brethren, the Lord has to deal with this so severely is because we get too big in the picture.
Sometimes they're Latin American brethren. How much value is there in a 0?
No value at all. Well, there's about 300 zeros here. Isn't there any value in 300 zeros?
No, no value at all.
But now let's take and put a number one up front.
The Lord Jesus is number one. Is their value now. Yes, there is value now.
Because it's what he is, brethren. It's not what we are, but we forget that we are zeros. We think we're something great.
And there's where we hinder the Lords working in our lives. Lord, help us. It's a constant battle to learn this lesson. It's not pleasant, naturally, but it's a necessary lesson.
John the Baptist said he must increase, but and I must decrease. And it's interesting the order in which he said that if I had been writing that, perhaps I would have said I need to decrease and he needs to increase. But that's not what John the Baptist said. He put the Lord first. He said he must increase and brethren in a measure in which he increases in our soul, in the measure in which Christ is more real and precious to us.
And we walk in the conscious sense of his company. We're going to realize our own nothingness.
Why is it so often we think a lot of myself? Why is it so often the tendency is to put self forward. It's because we're not in the enjoyment of Christ if we really get into His presence. And when John the Baptist saw that Blessed One walking here, and he was occupied with that Blessed One in his pathway, he said he must increase. And brethren I say in the measure in which that is practically true in our souls.
Then we will melt to the background. We will decrease in that way.
And so it's not that we try to again to decrease or to make ourselves low. We ought to humble ourselves, and we're given several exhortations in that regard. But let's get into the presence of this one. Let's look, as we were saying yesterday into his wonderful face, be occupied with the glories of the person of Christ. Are we anything in comparison to that? No brethren, as Colossians says, He is everything.
I'd like to just say this too about trials before we move on, because I think sometimes, particularly with those who are younger, there's a little misunderstanding. And that is that there are various reasons why God allows circumstances and trials in our lives. And I think it's important when we when the Lord allows something in our lives, whether it's something physical or whether it's an adverse circumstance.
It's good to get into the presence of the Lord and to ask the Lord now why has this been allowed in my life?
So often the tendency of our hearts is to look at others and judge why the Lord allowed something in their life.
And certainly when one member suffers, all the members suffer, and all these things ought to exercise us all. But I believe it starts right here. We need to get into the presence of the Lord, Lord, Why has this been allowed in my life? Because he allows things for various reasons.
And it isn't always because of sin. It isn't always because of his chastening. Sometimes it might be, and I need to be exercised about that. But I was thinking of the blind man in John nine. You remember when they brought him to the Lord, They said to the Lord, And this is the tendency of our hearts. Who hath sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? I see a circumstance in my brother or sister's life. I tend to think that well, what sin has been that they allowed in their life, that the Lord has allowed this?
But the Lord gave a very interesting answer to the disciples. He said neither this man nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him. There was going to be, through the healing of that blind man, a real testimony to the glory of God and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we were to go on in that chapter, we'd find that there was a real testimony because of what took place.
00:20:13
So it wasn't because of sin in his parents lives or in his his life. It was so that glory would be brought to God and to the Lord Jesus. And sometimes that's why the Lord allows things in our lives that the vessel as we've been saying, might be broken, that the light might shine out. Why? To bring attention to ourselves, to bring some glory or credit to us, no brethren, that there might be glory brought to God.
And to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that the Excellency of the power of this blessed one might be manifested in our lives. We were singing not we may live while here below, but Christ our life may be. That's a prayer. We sang it together. Did we mean it? Did we really think about it when we sang it? We sang it as a prayer. Not we may live while here below, but Christ our life may be.
There are other reasons too, not to get away from our chapter, but there are other reasons too why the Lord allows trials and circumstances. Sometimes it's to prepare us for something, sometimes it's so we can be a help to others. He often allows a trial comes in in His comfort and then we can comfort others with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. So I think it's helpful to see that these things are allowed for different reasons and do be exercised. And when something is allowed in your life, don't just brush it off and say.
Well, that's the kind of thing that happens to everybody once every once in a while, and things are bound to get better. That's not being exercised about what the Lord allows. There's not going to be fruit or blessing in your life, but when you get into the presence of the Lord and say why, and you're exercised, then I believe there's fruit and glory brought to him.
Verses 10 and 11 follow on this brethren and I think they are really precious versus back. That last verse of the hymn that you gave out Jim, really is, is what we have in these two verses. But notice they are quite alike these two verses, but there is a marked difference.
And reading them again, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
And I would say that this is normal Christian living.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be made manifest in our body.
That's what we should do, brethren, at all times.
But we don't always do that.
And what you have in verse 11 is what God allows in our lives outside of our control.
We which live are always delivered unto death. Now here's something that I'm not in control of it. I'm delivered to this circumstance that is so galling, so terribly hard to take. I'm delivered it into it. Why?
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest. And here it says in our mortal flesh, so that sometimes God does touch us in our bodies, we get sick, we get might have an accident, get impaired.
So it's our mortal flesh here. But isn't it wonderful that the life of Jesus could be manifest in my body?
Remember, brethren, the life that we have as Christians is life In resurrection. That's the life we have. But you can't talk about resurrection until you talked about death. Death comes first.
Before resurrection and so I'd like to put it in this way in verse 10.
In the measure that we carry about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
In that same measure, the life of Jesus is manifest in my.
00:25:05
Body. You're going to see me giving myself to the pleasures of the world.
That's not caring about my body. The dying of the Lord Jesus you're not going to see in my.
Body much of the life of Jesus when I live like that, but it's when.
I carry about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus and I look at that world out there and I say.
That's the world who has their hands stained with the blood of my Savior.
He died to that. And since he died for me.
I died with him.
And my life now is beyond the tomb. My life is in resurrection.
And that's where you will see the life of Jesus in a person. It's in the same measure that he carries the dying of the body of the Lord Jesus in his body that the life of Jesus will be made manifest.
But oftentimes, we do not live that way. Brethren, let's be frank about it.
That's not the American dream that we're talking about in verse 10. American Dream is to live it up, to do everything for yourself.
To get the most pleasure out of life possible.
So what does God do? He steps into our lives.
And he allows things that are extremely difficult.
He delivers us to death. Why? That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
Some years ago.
Is out in Gresham OR and brother Oscar Frazee there?
Knew a brother in the hospital. His name was Oscar. I don't remember what his last name was. Do you remember him, brother Dave? No, I don't.
Anyhow, he was.
When he was.
A newborn baby.
The doctors did an operation on him and something on his neck and somehow severed his spinal cord so that he was completely paralyzed from his neck down. When I was taken to visit him that time, I think he was 38 or something. I don't remember how old he was when he passed away, but.
He only had control of his face and that was *******. I don't know if you know what ******* is. It means that it goes in all sorts of contortions and.
Oscar Frazee had a way of communicating with him. He could, he could understand him, and then he would translate.
What he was trying to say.
And members sitting beside that.
Kind of on a stretcher and on wheels and.
It made you almost ashamed to look at him, brother. And he was so contorted, his face so twisted and turned, and his body not developed. And yet he started talking about the Lord Jesus brother.
The life of Jesus. You saw it there, and everybody in that hospital knew.
Albert was a shining testimony for the Lord Jesus, even though he couldn't even talk, right?
But it was the light shining out of that poor, broken vessel. Why does God have to allow trials in our lives to break these vessels?
It's because we don't bear about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus like we ought to. So God comes in and he allows catastrophes.
Why? Because the treasure inside he means it to shine out, brethren. He didn't put it in there to be hidden.
He put it in there to shine out. And so in one way or another, if we're not going to bear about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus.
Than God in his faithfulness will deliver us to death, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh, it says. Verse 11.
00:30:26
I'd just like to encourage each one of us, brethren.
In whatever way it is that there's a thorn in your nest or in mine.
To recognize, like Jim was saying, his hand in it.
And not only to recognize it.
But to bow under it and to thank him for it.
I like what Paul says in Romans chapter 5, just to go there a minute.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 3.
Not only so, he's been talking about being justified by faith in verse one and verse two, we have access and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. That's fairly easy to do, isn't it?
But then verse three says not only so, but we.
Glory. It's the same word as rejoice in verse two. We glory or rejoice in tribulations.
Also.
You rejoice in tribulations, Jim.
The hard one.
But to learn to do that is a great triumph in the Christian life, brother.
It's God that works in us. The willing and the doing of his good pleasure and how he works. We don't understand but to learn that it is his hand. More and more I'm convinced that nothing happens by chance in the life of a Christian. Absolutely nothing. Everything comes directly from the hand of God. Sometimes here we are blaming this person or.
Blaming that serious circumstances that that accident happened or that.
I got sick or something happened that way. No, brethren, It is his hand, and we need to bow under his hand, Jim was saying. And accept it and thank him for it. It's a real, real lesson for me, brethren, to.
Thank him for tribulations in everything. Give thanks, it says. And in Ephesians it says, giving thanks for all things, not only in all things, but for all things. It's part of his good pleasure in us. He's using it to form us for his purpose.
And in this chapter that we're taking up, it is that the light might shine out. That the life of Jesus might be made manifest. Can the life of Jesus be seen and people down here in this world? Yes, it can. How? Not if we're going to live worldly, not if we're going to go out and live it up in the world. No, because that's not caring about in the body the dying of Jesus.
So the life of Jesus will not be made manifest that way, but it's in the measure that I carry about in my body.
The dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus will be made manifest.
Sometimes the tendency of our hearts too, when a trial comes upon us.
Is to pray and ask the Lord to remove the trial. But brethren, I think we need to be very careful in praying that because again Paul prayed three times that the trial, the thorn would be removed and the Lord said, no, Paul, I'm not going to remove it. And you don't hear of him again praying that that thorn in the flesh would be removed. Paul realized that it was sent by the Lord and that the Lord was not going to remove it, but that it was, that it was so that he would prove the grace and the power and the all sufficiency of his God.
And so when a trial comes in our lives, yes, sometimes the Lord may pass us through something and remove it rather quickly.
If we learn the lesson. But he doesn't always promise to remove the trial.
00:35:04
And it's been a real joy and a cheer to my heart to visit brethren who have had long trials.
I went in just a few days ago to the hospital to see a brother, an elderly brother.
Lying on a bed of pain. He'd been there a long time. There had been a further complication in his condition.
He may never walk again fully. And when I left that room 1/2 hour later, it was just like a taste of heaven, brethren, He spoke about the Lord, He spoke of the glories of Christ. He spoke about the glorious hope. He quoted him after him from the little flock, about the Lord's coming. I tell you, it's been a long time since I've been refreshed and encouraged like that. I went in to encourage that brother.
That was lying on a sick bed of pain and somewhat confused in his mind as well. But though the outward man perished, the inward man is renewed day by day. And that brother, it's pretty hard to feel sorry for a brother like that. He's in heaven. In spirit. He he he's there. And what is the result? If I went in and he was chafing under that trial, I wouldn't have been encouraged, and he wouldn't have been encouraged. But what was the result? He was so in the enjoyment of Christ that the light flowed out.
The body was broken, the vessel was broken down, but the light flowed out. And he was encouraged in his own soul. And certainly myself and the brother that was with me, we went out of there. We said we've just had a little taste of heaven without being physically there. And so, brethren, these things are very real. We speak of them in the meetings. You young people, you hear some of us speak about these things. And yes, we enumerate them as things from the word of God. We give exhortation, but these things are very real.
He what Christianity is a very practical thing. Most of us remember our brother Bob Brimlose with the Lord used to have a little expression where the rubber meets the road and the rubber does meet the road. Wonderful to be here this weekend with 300 of the people of God and enjoy the precious truth from the Scriptures.
But we're going to go back. The Lord leaves us here. The rubber is going to meet the road on Monday or Tuesday. But when we get back to work and school in our homes, in the neighborhood, these things can be real. And let me give you just a little example from the word of God of two who rejoiced where the rubber met the road. And it was a difficult trial. And you know who I'm talking about? It was Paul and Silas. And you know, I've often wondered, brethren, if I'd been giving out the gospel there in Philippi and got thrown in prison because of it.
What would I have been doing? I must hang my head and confess. I probably would have been grumbling and saying, well, Lord, I thought I got a message to come over here and help somebody. And I've tried to give out the gospel, and now this is the result. But no, they were in the enjoyment of Christ. The vessel was broken and the light flowed out and there was joy. They prayed and sang praises at the darkest hour. And what was the result? Well, not only were they encouraged in their own souls, but.
The jailer, the prisoners heard them. The jailkeeper got saved. They were brought out and cared for because our joy in the Lord and our submission in difficult circumstances, Not our wanting to get out of it. But our submission in difficult circumstances, I believe, is a testimony to others because the world can suffer when they've done something wrong. If men suffer for wrongdoing they can take that, they realize.
That they're suffering, paying a penalty because of something they brought on themselves. But they cannot understand, the natural man, cannot understand how the Christian can suffer, sometimes even wrongfully, and rejoice in that. Really only the Christian that can do that, that has a joy that no man can take from them. And when the Christian rejoices in trials, and when he submits to the trial, then I believe God uses that in blessing and testimony to those around him.
I'm glad Jim you mentioned that about all the, I was thinking yesterday as we were speaking about the vessel, the earth and vessel being broken about Paul and Silas as you mentioned they were there in the prison.
Tells us they were praying and saying you praises and the prisoners heard many times. I believe we get the idea that.
00:40:01
Evangelism is something that carried on by those in public service. But all in Silas were not out in the public when they were evangelizing in this way, where they they were in in the dungeon. And how often are we presented with an opportunity where we may be in a public place who deserve to us and in simplicity, we can bow our heads and break. There are those watching the testimony.
And I believe too that.
Perhaps in our work, whatever it might be, something as simple as humming a tune that is, that we enjoy, we go into a public place. Today. You sit down to have a meal with someone and and the music is so loud that you can't even think. But if we're in a public place.
In our work, maybe public transportation, we might be humming a tune. Perhaps the person sitting next to us hears it. That can be a testimony. That's a an act of evangelism.
Well, the prisoners heard this, but I think it's interesting too that the jailer tells us was asleep. The earthquake came and he awakened. What is he doing? First thing he does, he takes his sword out. He's going to kill itself himself because he was afraid his charged had all left. Well, Paul speaks up. He says do thyself no harm. We are all here. What kept those prisoners there, I'm sure.
That was the hearing, the prayers and the praises that Paul and Silas, there was a testimony to them, I'm sure of it. So Paul says.
Says do thyself. No harm, We are all here.
Next, he calls for a light.
Someone mentioned to me once that we might, in our life, go about and think that no one ever takes note of our Christian testimony.
But if they're in trouble, they know who to come to. And so this trailer was in trouble, and he asked for light. So we can in our.
Private life, the earthen vessel that's been broken. We don't have to be in public ministry.
Public service to be a servant for the Lord. But those who about us see that light and they will ask for it when perhaps difficulty or trouble comes their way. Well, we know the rest of the story.
Taylor takes them to his house.
Cleanses our wounds and their.
Bad times? Well, there's opportunity presented by the testimony of these two held in cavities, but that did not restrict the shining 4th of the light that was in the earth investment.
Like to say too that.
It may not have been immediately that Paul and Silas sang praises to God.
They may have had their moments of being cast down because it was midnight.
When they did that, so it probably was a few hours of being felt, feeling quite low. And I'm sure they, as we feel, brought low, oftentimes brethren, but then they rose above it and sang praises, prayed and sang praises, and that's where God moved brethren. He shook the whole city and everybody knew something had happened in that prison that night.
1St Corinthians 1013 says go with the temptation, make the way to the gig that you may be able to share it.
Thinking about shell drag, meshach and the veggie go in the furnace. He didn't they they had told the Lord. Still the case. If the Lord doesn't deliver it and know this, we're going to honor him anyway.
You think if you ask those three men later, would you rather have avoided the furnace? What do you think you'd have said?
That issue, that way of escape that you may be able to bear.
With the Son of God walking with them in the furnace.
And the real purpose to all these verses we've been going through?
And from the 14th verse on to the end of the chapter gives us the real direction that God would point us to.
00:45:03
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. In Ephesians 5 it says Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but it should be holy.
And without blemish. Well, I realize this chapter I'm speaking about the Church, but to present us is when it's going to come to that day.
When we're presented before his father as his bride.
And so all these things that we've looked at, broken vessel to sustaining what God puts us through for his glory, and that's why he does it. He doesn't do it to hurt us. It's all to come to one end. And the last verses of this chapter give it to us all the way to the end of the chapter that we might be to his honor and glory. And that's not just in this world, but that we might be presented most desire not only for himself, but for the Saints of God.
He said in second in first Thessalonians 2 What is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming, sometimes said that before Paul was saved as Saul of Tarsus, his whole Benton energy was to stamp out the name of Christ and persecute the Christians. He said he thought within himself that he verily ought to do many things.
Contrary to the name of Christ, his whole energy as a young man was to was to carry out that mission.
But after he got saved and became the Apostle Paul, now his whole Benton energy was that the gospel would go forth, that the Saints would be encouraged in the Lord and go on together in the truth. And I believe that's really the thought in verse 12.
So then death worketh in us, but Paul says that's OK if it's life in you.
I'm content with my situation. I'm content with what the Lord has allowed and if it means daily bearing about in the body, the dying of the Lord and being delivered unto death, and so on. If it means the blessing of the people of God, then I'm content with that brethren. I covet that for my own soul.
And let's each examine our souls this afternoon. Is our desire really for the blessing of the people of God? Is that really what our motive? Are we content to go through some circumstance or have some trial left upon us indefinitely in our lives so that the light will flow out and there will be blessing in the salvation of the souls, or the encouragement and building up of the Saints of God?
Paul said that.
He was willing to be the off scouring of the earth. He was willing to be a castaway if it meant.
For the blessing of the people of God. What a motive. No wonder the Lord used this man.
In such a mighty way in blessing to the people of God. And I quoted those verses in the end of First Thessalonians. 2 And it's just as if Paul says, when I get to the judgment seat of Christ, which we heard about this afternoon, And he says, I see you Thessalonian believers there, and you're getting a reward.
So that's going to be reward enough for me. That's going to be my crowd, just to see you there and to see you get a reward for some faithfulness. Are you going to have a crown of rejoicing? Am I going to have a crown of rejoicing Because we handed the gas attend to the track, Never knew if he read it. But we're at the judgment seat of Christ, and there that person is, and we rejoice. Some brother or sister was going through a real trial and we put ourselves out. We made some sacrifice to be a help to that brother or sister, and maybe we never knew what the end result was.
But we see that brother, that sister, the judgment seat of Christ. And we find out that because we took their hand and helped them, made some little sacrifice in our lives to help that person over the rough spot there, they're getting a reward for their faithfulness. Oh, what a day it's going to be when we rejoice. But brethren, let's be humble in the presence of God, the presence of the Lord Jesus, and let's be exercised. Could we say this of ourselves? So then death worketh in US, but life in you. Tremendous thought, isn't it?
00:50:08
It's the secret of blessing.
Anybody that's a farmer knows that that has to do has to happen for there to be fruit, you have to put a seed into the ground. And what happens to that seed, it's attacked by the microorganisms in the soil.
It rots, it dies, but in its death it gives life to A.
New plan. And there is much fruit. And that's a principle not only in natural things but in spiritual things.
And I often think of the farmers. How much?
Seed they put into the ground. How many bushels of seed do you put in the ground, Caleb, in your operation?
But it's quite a few bushels, isn't it?
And I say, isn't that a big waste of C? What's going to happen to that seed? It's going to all rot in the ground. What in the world do you put that seed in the ground for? It's going to rot.
But you know that it has to rot, it has to die. In its death there will be much more fruit, and that's what is difficult for us.
I ask here anybody ready to die? Anybody like to die this afternoon? I don't think I'll get too many volunteers.
It's not naturally pleasant to die, and I'm not speaking naturally necessarily of natural death, although God does use that. Think of those five missionaries down in Ecuador who were killed. The tremendous searching and blessing that resulted from their death goes on to this day.
And they say it's the principle here that we have death worketh in us. But life in you, do you want your life to make a difference for eternity?
Here's the recipe.
Death worketh in us, but life in you. Look back at John 12, where we have the same thing in connection with the Lord Jesus.
It's so wonderful to see that this is a principle that runs through scripture.
John 12 and verse 23.
The Greeks had come up to the feast and.
They were not of God's earthly people.
Israel.
For there to be blessing to flow out to them.
Something had to happen.
And even though they told Jesus, Jesus answered verse 23.
Them and saying the hours come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
There it is, brethren. The Lord Jesus was that corn of wheat. He could have gone back to heaven alone.
Without dying, he had every right to.
But he set his face as a Flint to go to Jerusalem. Why?
Because he was going to accomplish his departure there, he was going to die.
And it's through his death that there is now much fruit.
Oh, the millions of souls that will be in glory because of the death of Jesus. But look at verse 25. He goes right on now. He that loveth his light shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it into life eternal. There's something that really challenges my soul, brother.
He that loveth his light, and I like to think that that is.
In general, the good American Dream. The life, Live it up, love, life.
You're going to live that way. You're going to lose your life. You may have a saved soul, but you'll have a lost life.
That he that hateth his life, that's a pretty strong word, hateth his life.
In this world.
00:55:00
Shall keep it unto life eternal. Then he goes on to say verse 27. If any man serve me.
Let him follow me where I am. There shall also my servant be if any man serve me.
Him will my father honor? We cannot follow the Lord in his atoning, suffering Brethren's. I want to make that clear.
But the principle is that death worketh in US.
Life in you, you and I want to be.
Fruit for God, for eternity in our lives. This is the principle. This is the recipe.
I can use that word.
Death worketh in us, but life in you and as.
Jim was saying the Apostle Paul. I think of him. He said I could wish myself a curse from Christ, that my brethren would be saved. My brethren in the flesh would be saved. Wow, what a desire, intensity of desire that gets across brethren when a person speaks in that way.
That gets across, and there has to be that in our lives. Bread. And if there's going to be blessing. Moses was another one. When God said, let me alone, he said to Moses, Let me alone, let me consume them in a minute for their idolatry. What does Moses say? Blot me out, Lord.
I don't block them out. What beautiful.
Intercession for the people of God and God. Of course it was the Spirit of Christ and Moses that God heard it and God did not wipe his people out.
But this is the principle. Death worketh in us, but life in you. And then what you were saying, brother Dave, it's because even if death does happen, even if physical death should happen to us, Brendan.
And it's not necessarily Speaking of that because what we have in our chapter in verses.
8:00 and 9:00 are really showing what it was they were delivered to, delivered to death.
Very difficult circumstances that was being delivered to death. So it's not necessarily physically necessarily physical death, but it could be, but then.
We have the certainty that even if the worst that could take place did take place, why There's resurrection before us, isn't it?
And God's answer is in resurrection, brethren. I love to think of that.
God's answer is not necessarily anything that we're going to see down here in this world. God's answer is in resurrection.
And it's so beautiful to keep that before us.
We don't live enough in the light of eternity, do we? And I've been struck with that verse in the 29th chapter of Proverbs. In fact, maybe we should just read it just to impress it on our souls.
Proverbs, chapter 29.
And verse 18 just the first expression of the verse.
Where there is no vision, the people perish. I think Mr. Darby translates it cast off restraint.
And I believe that this verse is an all-encompassing verse that applies to every sphere of life and society where there is no vision, the people perish. Some of us have been to countries that we refer to, sometimes as third world countries, and we wonder why they don't prosper or get ahead politically and economically and socially and so on. But you're not there very long until you realize that they're only living for the moment.
There's no long term plan, there's no foresight, there's no vision into the future.
They're only living for the moment and what they can get for the moment, and that's why they don't prosper. But brethren, this is true in our spiritual lives as well. Why is it we become so occupied with the things of this world? It's because we're only living for the moment, and we had lot brought before us already today. And it's interesting that when he lifted up his eyes, he didn't lift them up far enough. He only lifted them up as high as the horizons of this world.
01:00:06
And, brethren, if we only lift our eyes above the earth to the horizons of this world, we too are going to only live for the moment. These things that we've been Speaking of are not going to be carried out in a practical way in our lives. But when we have eternity in view, and that's what He brings before us in the end of this chapter, He speaks of eternity. He looks at it in light of what is ahead. He looks at it at it in light of God's approval.
The manifestation of things in the coming day, the coming glory and so on. And, brethren, if we live more in the light of eternity, it would make a difference on us, on our lives in a in a practical way now. And so let's have the goal before us, let's have the prize, and let's realize that there's a day coming when he's going to put his sense of approval and commend, as we've heard this afternoon.
According to his estimation and Paul had this when he wrote to the Corinthians and he said.
We labor that, whether present or absent, we might be accepted of him, you say. I've tried to help my brethren. I've tried to be involved in some little work for the Lord, and people misunderstand me. Sometimes they judge my motives. Just leave that with the Lord. Good to weigh what our brethren say to us and what others say to us in the light of Scripture. But Paul, who was treated so miserably by the Corinthian Saints why they questioned his authority as an apostle, They questioned his ministry.
His bodily presence was weak and his speech was contemptible. They treated him like the off scouring of the earth.
He said. That's all right. I'm living in view of eternity. I'm committing these things to the Lord.
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 I believe there's a real danger in the society in which we live, because what we're finding in the Western society now is less and less. I'm talking about impractical things now in the world, less and less of a vision, people just living for the moment what they can get. It's the instantaneous society. You've got a couple of credit cards.
In your wallet, you pull them out. You have a bank card. Everything is instantaneous. You push a button and you have the answer and the remedy.
But it's a danger, brethren, and I'm not saying sometimes some of those things aren't mercies and helpful. And we can certainly use the unrighteous mammon for God's glory and in a way that honors him. But the danger is that that scheme of things then carries over into our spiritual lives, into our Christian lives and following the Lord, and so that we lose sight of the fact that there needs to be that vision. And as we take up these last few verses, you'll see that Paul viewed things now.
In comparison to what was ahead in eternity.
Resurrection life is life in power, brethren, but it is.
I really feel that if we can get a hold of this, it's a tremendous thing. I think of those apostles in the first days of the church, in the book of the Acts, and how much the resurrection of the Lord Jesus figured in their preaching and they were living in the full power of resurrection life. I've often thought of it in this way.
That a person that is living in resurrection life as death is behind him.
And so they were threatened. They were even threatened to be killed. But can you scare a dead man by threatening to kill him? He's already dead. You can't scare him. And they were totally baffled. Those people in those days, those religious authorities, totally baffled, they could not scare them in any way. There was a power that they didn't know how.
To handle. That's the life that you and I have right now, Brett.
But why isn't it more manifest Is because we do not carry about in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus. The Lord. Grant us to think these things through and to make them practical in our lives. Brethren, it is so real. It's the life we have now. It's resurrection life.
01:05:18
I believe if we keep in view.
What God has in preparation for us, that's already prepared.
It's already there. It's just a matter of the moment when we hear that shout that calls us into that. If we keep that in view, we find it much easier to do the things we've been going through.
If.
It's always been said, and it's probably very true, that if you want to take something that's dangerous away from a child, you.
Offer him something far better, and that's exactly what we find in First Thessalonians in the first chapter.
It says they turned to God, which was far better than what they had. They turned to God.
From idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.
Well, what we have, what God has given us, what God has put into.
Our vision is so much better than what this world has to offer. If we can see it, if we can grasp it, if we can take hold of it, all these things that weigh us down in this world.
Would be very simple to cast off, but if we can't see it, if we don't understand, if we don't realize that what God has for us.
Is so much better than what we have. There's a song that we sing. We speak of the realms of the Blessed.
Of that home, so bright and so fair and the last line of that first standard, but what will it be to be there? Well, we don't.
Spend enough time in our own personal days.
Occupied with what God has for us, and I believe that's what we have in the last 6 verses of this chapter what God has for us, the last verse says.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but that the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen.
Are eternal, eternal what the word doesn't even.
Enter our minds correctly, because we can't conceive of that which is eternal, and so we can't really conceive. However we can look to Christ. We can joy in our God and in the love that He's had for us and giving His Son. And if we occupy ourselves with those things, the things of earth are going to pretty much grow strangely. Deal.
And those two things mentioned in verse 13, just like to mention it. They like to get down to the end of the chapter. But it says I believed and therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore we speak. And I think like you say, Brother Dave, it's important to think these things to through meditation, let them sink into our souls.
Do you believe? Do you really believe the Lord could come this afternoon yet?
We all nod our heads, brethren. If we really believe it, our lives would show it.
It would be evident to everybody around, but I sometimes have to. When I speak about the Lord's coming, I have to stop and say, come on, do I really believe this? This is so fantastically, tremendously wonderful. Do I really believe it?
There are no other options available. This is it. If I'm going to take that part out of the Bible, I have to get rid of the whole Bible. No, can't do that. This is only thing that's that's the only option really. Believe in it. Oh brethren, Lord help us to believe it. I honestly believe that we are unbelieving believers. We say we're believers, but we really don't believe it. You believe that your neighbor is on the way to hell.
Fire. And you never speak to him. Do you really believe that? I don't really think you really believe that.
If you really believe that, you would speak.
And that's what it says. Here we believe, therefore we speak. Lord, help us brethren, to search our hearts, because.
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When we don't speak to our fellow man anything of Christ.
Not even give them a gospel tract. Do we really believe what we profess to believe? I don't think we have the right to say we do. We really believe it.
If we really believe it in the right way, we will speak.
But everything like you say brother Dave is.
Appreciated by faith, and this is what is hard for young people at times to get ahold of. Because we're living in such a materialistic world. We evaluate everything as to the material result, but that's not what we have in the end of the chapter. It's looking at things.
Not the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen. How do you look at something that is not seen? It almost seems like an oxymoron. How do you do that?
I'm waiting for an answer.
Hebrews 11.
By faith we understand that the world were framed by the word of God, his faith. It takes faith to see this last verse of our chapter. And we don't look with eyes of natural look, we look with the eyes of faith. And that's the only way we can do it. And we see that in the 11Th chapter of Hebrews, because it was mentioned about Abraham this afternoon and he by faith went out from earth, the Chaldees.
And it's true. In leaving his city in his home, he went out not knowing whether he went. But faith, as I've always often said, always has an eye to the future. It always has an object or a goal before it. No such thing as blind faith. Faith is not a leap in the dark. And so when Abraham went out, it's true, he went out not knowing whether he went. But it tells us he looked for a city which hath foundation, whose builder and maker has got. Did he see that with the physical eye? He looked around him in Ur, the cowgies, and he saw a thing, a city with the physical eye. But he went out in faith because by faith he saw something that wasn't physical.
And with Moses too, who had all the glory of Egypt at his disposal as a young man.
What was it that caused him to turn his back on Egypt and lead the people of God for 40 years through the wilderness?
It says he endured as seeing him who is invisible, and the Saints in Peter's day, who were going through fiery trials. They'd been driven from their homes for their testimony, He says, Whom not having seen ye love, though now ye see him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy, unspeakable and full of glory. And so these things are not seen naturally, but I suggest to the eye of faith, they're a very real thing.
We don't. They're not something physical, but they're it's something that's very, very real. And that's why I said earlier that brother and I feel we don't live in the light of eternity enough. And we tend to put value and to hold on to tenaciously to things that are physical things in this life. But what is going to release our grip on things down here? It's to grasp in our souls the things that are eternal.
The things that are ahead, and we mentioned about Paul in the 11Th chapter of this epistle and the things that he suffered year in and year out, relentlessly, it seems, You say, how could he do it? The next chapter tells us the secret. He didn't just have a vision of the coming glory. He'd been there. He'd been caught up temporarily to the 3rd heaven. He'd been in the presence of a glorified Christ. He'd heard unspeakable words that it was not lawful for a man to utter.
And with that, before his soul he could come back and go on in the trials and difficulties of the way serving the Saints being delivered unto death because he knew what was ahead. And brethren, if we only could get one glimpse 1 inkling of what is ahead, what a practical difference it would make in our lives. And let's go just for a verse to 1St John to think helps to bear out Bob. I thought of this when Bob was speaking.
Of the truth of the Lord's coming. Because, brethren, if we were to go up and down these rows, I'm sure we could all enumerate many things in connection with the Lord's coming and in connection with the Father's house and the glory. And we can quote the verses, and we can enumerate them as a doctrine. But, brethren, that's not enough. That is not enough. And when John here in this third chapter develops the truth of the Lord's coming that was given by the Lord himself in John's gospel, I will come again.
01:15:24
Let's just read verse two of chapter 3, beloved. Now are we the sons of God? And it does not yet appear what we shall be.
But we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is now, brethren.
Here John develops what was given in his Gospel in the 14th chapter. In the 14th chapter, the Lord Jesus simply said he was coming again to receive them to himself.
Here John goes beyond that. He says you're not only going to be with Christ, you're going to be like him, and you're going to see him not as he was, not the man of sorrows. Here in this world. You're going to see him, the man of joy and glory. There at the right hand of God. You're going to see him as he is. But now notice what he says in the next verse.
And every man that hath this hope, I want you to notice this next word, this.
Hope in I believe we need to put great emphasis, brethren, on this little word in not anyone who can enumerate this hope, but every man that has this hope in him. Is this hope really in US? Has it got down into our souls? Has it gripped us when we get up in the morning? Is it with the realization?
That maybe before another sunset we're going to hear the shout and we're going to be there in the glory. We talk about it, brethren. It's going to happen one of these days, And some of us were speaking earlier. I heard of a young man read of a young man recently. He had on his bathroom mirror in his home 2 words. Perhaps today. I thought that was very good, because that young man wanted to be reminded every morning when he got up and looked in the mirror that this might be the day of the Lord's return. That's having this hope in US. And what is the result?
Every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. Not everybody that knows about this, not everybody that's waiting for the Lord to come, but everyone that has this hope in him and in the measure in which it is in us as a reality. It will have a practical purifying effect on our daily walk down here in this world while we wait.
The things that are seen are temporal. Everything we look around and see that I can see with my physical eyes is temporal, is for a few brief years of life down here, things that are not seen are eternal. They are the real things, brother. It's not what we see and what we see in our culture today is people madly.
Accumulating things that are seen, the Lord deliver us from that brethren.
The real things are things that are not seen. The Lord help us to renew our vision. I I can just see it sometimes. I remember enjoying Ephesians chapter one with the brethren down in the Dominican Republic, where they're so tremendously poor in a certain area, and I remember shortly after that in a wealthy home.
Where they had everything, I thought, well, maybe it would be nice to read Ephesians one again.
It just seemed like I was talking to a blank wall they didn't catch. There was no apprehension of the value.
Of spiritual things.
Oh, brethren, we need to be awakened to open our eyes in a new way.
Not the material things, but the spiritual realities because.
They are eternal. Going back a couple of verses here before we get to the end of our meeting, verse 16, he says For the which cause we faint not for though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. I love this.
The new life we have in Christ again we say brethren, is life, and resurrection is life that will never die.
We can actually say as believers we will never die. Death may touch this body of mine.
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But I have a life that will never die. It's life in resurrection. It's life that cannot die. The Lord Jesus was the first fruits and resurrection. Why is he called the first fruits? Because he was the first to rise in the power of a life that death can no longer touch. And that's the life you and I have. And so Paul says, because of this we faint, not, brother, what a thing we have, what a treasure we have.
We don't faint, and I love to see older brethren still. Remember old brother Jackson down in Florida when I was a young person? He was sitting in his armchair so weak he couldn't get up out of it by itself, and he kept talking about the Lord's coming. He gets so excited he start leaning forward and gesturing with his arms and all of a sudden flop back in his chair. His body was too old for his spirit.
His spirit was too young.
It was renewed day by day that really impressed me as a young person. He's got a treasure in there. His body was perishing, but the treasure wasn't. The new was renewed day by day. Then look at verse 17, brethren, where it goes along with it. All. Our light affliction Jim was mentioning in Chapter 11 of Second Corinthians.
The trial they long list of the afflictions that the Apostle Paul.
Went through man, I don't know anybody that can compare anything like it outside of the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul really suffered.
Beaten with rods. I don't know what that must have been like.
In the deep.
For the day and the night that must have been awful shipwrecked. But, he says, brethren, in comparison with the coming glory, that's light affliction, the glory.
It's far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Is there any way to compare it?
There's no way to compare it, brother.
The most we could suffer down here is.
It's going to be light, light, affliction and that coming glory. It just seems like he runs out of adjectives when he starts trying to talk about it.
Far more exceeding eternal weight of glory. What a contrast.
And this is before our souls, brethren. Is it real to us?
There's a comparison, it's interesting, between the affliction and the glory, and this is what really makes the difference. Or one of the things, and that is that the affliction. You notice It's for a moment.
30 years, 60 years. Some Saints have gone through trials, talking about physical limitations that some Saints have been born with and so on. But it's for a moment the glory is eternal, and that's what makes the difference. Brethren, if we could just get a hold of that and what are 30 years? What are 60 years? I know sometimes it seems a long time. Sometimes just a few days in a trial or a sickness or a difficulty seems like a long time, but it's only for a moment.
Compared to to eternity. So again, if we can keep this in in perspective, the things here, they're temporal. They're only for time. The affliction is just for a moment. The blessings that are ours in Christ, they're eternal. The glory that's going to follow rather than that's eternal. Can you can imagine having a trial for a little time and then coming out of it? Can you imagine being in glory and never coming down, so to speak?
Glory is going to burst on our souls.
We're going to be there with and like Christ, and that is never going to change. Now, Speaking of that visit in the hospital with that brother, maybe half an hour at the most. There's a little taste of glory, but we had to get on that elevator and go down and go back and get back to some practical things that needed to be taken care of. But think of glory that's eternal, and we're going to be ever with the Lord. Never a trial again, never an affliction, never a sigh, never a tear.
Brethren, we can't imagine, We don't really understand the glory that is ahead. But David said in the 27th Psalm I had fainted, except I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And brethren will faint too if we just look around us. This is the land of the dying. This is the land of trials and their very real trials. And we don't want to underestimate the trials and the circumstances that many of God's dear people are going through.
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But will faint if we only look at things in the land of the dying. But David, as it were, says I'm going to the land of the living and brethren, we're going there too.
While we look.
What a marvelous thing to be able to do, to look at that future glory which awaits each Christian.
Each one that has put their trust in the Lord Jesus while we look.
At the things that are eternal.
139.
This world is a wilderness wise We have nothing received or to choose with no thought in the ways to abide. We do not get 139.
Long ways to live by.
The prescribed heart to love.
By grateful.
May as far as ourselves.
Without wishes, crying forever on the rally.
Colossians 3
Reading
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We had on Saturday, I'd like to suggest.
The third chapter of Colossians.
It is a little different doctrinally than what we had, but it's along the same principle.
3rd chapter of Colossians.
Lesson Chapter 3.
If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
00:05:01
Mortified, therefore, your members, which are upon the earth on occasion uncleanness, and ordinate affection.
Kupison and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God, cometh on the children of disobedience.
In the which ye also wilt some time when he lived in them, but now ye also put off all these anger, rats, malice, blasphemy, guilty, communication. Out of your mouth lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision, nor uncircumcision, Barbarian Scythian banned more free, but Christ is all and in all.
But I'm therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye, and above all these things put on charity, which is a band of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts. To the witch also ye are called in one body.
And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving things to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord husband, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
Fathers, provoking out your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things. Your master is according to the flesh, not with thy service as men pleasers, but in singleness of hard fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord, he shall receive the reward of the inheritance. For ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he has done, And there is no respect of persons.
I believe it's very instructive to see where this official is placed.
Realized that the Bible is we have our hands today. Particularly the New Testament was not put in this arrangement till about the 4th century AD. For I believe just as God used man to write the word of God, God used man by the power of his spirit to arrange it. And it's interesting how these epistles are arranged. I won't go through them, but let's look not turn to it, but look for a moment at the epistle of Ephesians. Ephesians, we are in Christ.
Freedom and glory. We come back to Philippians, which brings us right back to earth. And Philippians is a normal, ordinary Christian pathway through this world, the path laid out by God. For a Christian, it's a normal Christian path. Colossians were still on earth. Ephesians were in Christ. Colossians is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's the first chapter.
And as to the character of the Epistle in Colossians, the first chapter, there is no there is no chapter in the book in our hands, in the Bible that takes us into a higher position of glory than the first chapter called. You want to see glory in its highest sense, that God has concluded, man. Look at the first chapter of Flush. And so now in the third chapter, I believe it's because of the glory that's demonstrated to us in the first chapter.
That the third chapter now brings us to a practical sense. What is our position in this world? How should we walk? What should we do? How should we serve?
We say David that summarize how we should serve in the 24th verse. He served the Lord Christ. He kept that before us, things involved in place for the day.
00:10:00
There's a lot of Earth in this chapter.
Tribal.
Suppose we can go through it. I'd like to get a couple of high points in one of them that I'm afraid very few Christians, including those that are gathered, really. Consider this in the 4th chapter of Ephesians. We have almost the same expression and I'll read the two places that are here. Verse 9. Let's not line up one to another. And.
I'll read it in a better translation scene, having put off the old man and having put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of human created these two verses.
Are absolutely nothing that we can do, and I I trust I'm not offending anyone. And what this was done at Calvary Cross when the Lord Jesus died. At Calvary Cross the ninth verse was fulfilled and the 10th verse was fulfilled. Now the putting off and the putting on are given to us prior to this the eighth verse, but now he also put off and then in the.
12Th work.
Put on, therefore and these are instructions to us that we can do and should do and ought to do. But don't be confused as to their standing. Our standing is the 9th and 10th verse.
Romans 6 Know ye not that the your old man was crucified with Christ?
2nd Corinthians 517.
ER, a new creation. Behold, all things are passed away. All things are become new.
With that for the basis for a Christian, now we can walk, but without that we can't walk.
We've already been placed in that position, a new position. We're a new creation. And as such we can now do the things that are required of us in this third chapter, putting off and putting off not. We never put on the We never put out the old man. We couldn't possibly do it. We never put on the new man. We couldn't possibly do it. That was gonna calculate once and for all.
In verse, one is our position as well. It's if then you be risen with Christ.
You might read that sense because we are risen with Christ. Go back to the second chapter.
And verse 12 It says, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, hath raised him from the dead. So every true believer this is his position.
Risen with Christ. Somebody has illustrated it as across the Jordan.
On the entrance of the land of Canaan, not having.
Yet gone in to possess it. But we are risen with Christ, and the land is before us.
And so we're told to seek those things which are above.
Our portion is heavenly, and that's what should be our occupation as well.
But brethren, I have to confess.
That when I get through a day's.
Of my living here in this world. So often I look back over the day. What percentage of this day have I been seeking? Those things which are above and I have to confess.
I have to say that it's a very small percentage that I was really occupied with those things that are above. We should be interested. We're going momentarily. We're going to be raptured out of this world to leave it all behind, to be there forever. That's what we profess to believe, brethren.
Don't we have any interest?
In being occupied with those things.
Now.
O brethren, it really exercises my heart, and I trust you don't think I'm exhorting you, brethren, This comes home to my own soul. Seek those things which are above. We are risen. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, that's your position. Now given that the exhortation is seek those things which are above.
00:15:13
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Oh, how wonderful. There's our Lord Jesus.
You look through scripture. It is a book that occupies us with heaven.
And heavenly things. And there's a lot that scripture says about heaven.
Last year when we were here, we were talking about the 21St chapter of Revelation.
The Heavenly City.
And I realized that.
Our concept, our ability to lay hold on those heavenly things, is severely limited by our earthly way of thinking. Still the scripture exhorts seek those things which are above.
Can I ask you, brother and sister in the Lord Jesus, to make a little inventory?
At the end of this day, how much have you been seeking those things which are above even in meetings down here, Like here, we're thinking of our friends, we're thinking of who we're going to eat dinner with and all the things that go along with it. Nothing wrong in those things in themselves, but they're not heavenly things.
And, brethren, we're called to heavenly glory. I am.
Convinced, Brethren, When we get there to heaven, I'm going to look back and I'm going to say, what in the world was I so occupied with those puny little things down there when heavenly glory is so tremendous?
I'm convinced of it. Remember Albert Hayhoe?
Giving illustration, he said one day when his boy Danny was small.
He was hanging up his pants after he'd gone to bed and out fell some junk out of his pocket.
And he picked it up and he said, Danny, what are you doing with this junk?
Danny says. Daddy, that's not junk. Those are my treasures.
You know how little boys have treasures in their pockets?
I'm afraid that's what's going to be like when we get home to glory, brethren. We're going to look back down there and say, what in the world Was I so occupied with those things when I'm called to heavenly glory?
Lord, help us, brethren.
To be seeking those things that are above.
It really wants us to have an enjoyment of heaven before we get there. We think, and we were speaking yesterday, of how wonderful it will be to be there and to come into the full good of these things, and to see that full blaze of glory in the presence of the Lord Jesus, and to look unhindered into his lovely and blessed face. But, brethren, I say he wants us to have an enjoyment of heaven before we get there, and it tells us in First Corinthians chapter 2.
I have not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.
But the very next verse tells us something else. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
And so we have these things brought before us in the word of God and the Spirit of God, to take of these precious things brethren, and make them good to our souls. And it ought to exercise us as we go about from day-to-day, that we don't grieve the Spirit of God. Why is it so often I don't seem to have in my soul the enjoyment of these precious things? Well, it's perhaps a number of reasons, occupation with things that are temporal things down here.
But sometimes, too, brethren, it's because we allow things in our lives that grieve the spirit of God, and he can't minister these precious things to us so that we have an enjoyment of them now in our souls. And I believe that's really what Canaan in the Old Testament pictures to us. It's that vast panorama of heavenly and spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ now. It's not something we have to wait for until we get home to glory.
Sometimes people think of Canaan as after the Jordan after death, something we have to wait to enjoy until we until we leave this world. But it's interesting with the children of Israel when they cross the Jordan. Maybe I'll just back up a moment to something that was helpful to me when I was younger. It's helpful to see that in the crossing of the Red Sea we see the end of our sins, but in the crossing of the Jordan we see the end of sin.
00:20:27
We see the end of the old man, the end of ourselves. And it's helpful to see that because when they came out up out of the Jordan, as it were, they were on resurrection ground, and the whole land was before them, and now they could go in and possess it. But if they had only remained on the banks of the Jordan after going through on dry ground, they never would have enjoyed what God had for them.
And brethren, are we content to remain on the banks of the Jordan? And so there's an exhortation in Joshua chapter one.
To the people of God, they were to go in and possess the land.
And it says every place that the soul of your foot credits upon that have I given to you for an inheritance. It was all theirs. But the question now was, were they going to go forward and enjoy what God had set before them? And sometimes I'm afraid there are many Christians, and maybe I have to speak to my own heart. We're content to know that we're saved. We're content to know that judgment is behind us.
We're content to know that heaven is before us when we leave this world. But, brethren, are we just content with that really, or do we really have that desire? Do our affections go out to Christ? Are we occupied with the man at the right hand of God that is brought before us in this first verse? And is our desire really to drink of these things, to take them in and enjoy them in our souls Now it's true we know in part, and we prophecy in part. We're not going to fully know until we get there.
But I say again, he wants us to have an enjoyment of heaven in our souls now before we get there. What a day it's going to be, but what an enjoyment we can have now.
Oh, object in Christ, isn't it?
And that's what draws our heart. Keep those things which are above where Christ set up and Christ be.
All God's thoughts are centered in Him, it's been said. And I believe it's true, that every page of the book that we hold in our hands.
In some way has a picture of the person of Christ and God. Thoughts are wrapped up in his Son.
And he wants children in his house like his Son. And so our thoughts should be wrapped up in the same. The fourth verse says, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall he also appear with him in glory. That corresponds with first John chapter 3, verse two. We know not what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. What a beautiful thing.
When he shall appear Christ, then we shall be like him, and with him but.
We shouldn't be waiting for that. Just for that moment. Our hearts and our thoughts should be occupied with his person, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
And that's what it says in verse 2, isn't it? It sets your the margin, says your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
You might say, well, how do you set your affections? It's setting your mind. It's a definite.
Control of your thinking set.
Your mind on things above you know how it is to let your mind gravitate.
To things down here in this world, to one thing and another. Not necessarily bad things.
But just occupation of things down here. Now scripture says take your mind and set it on things above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. And there if you really stop and think about it, brethren, in relation with the Lord Jesus and glory, there are many things to set our minds on that heavenly city, the tree of life, the river of the water of life.
Clear as crystal flowing out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, there's.
00:25:05
Things you can set your mind on, We're going into that scene of Glory.
Soon. And we're going to enjoy it. God wants us to be familiar with it right here and now. Set your mind on things above. Somebody has said you set your mind there. Your affections will follow. But then notice in verses 3:00 and 4:00, because I think it is beautiful to see in verse three your life is hid.
Verse 4.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, there is a difference.
Present tense. Our life is hid in other words.
The world looks at us today and says what do those people get out of sitting in a room on Labor Day? Why don't they get out and have a good time at the park or something? Get out and do something.
I don't understand those people. They are so different, so weird.
And that's what it means. Our life is hid, brethren. They don't understand. And I say if you're living as a Christian should live, you will never be understood by the world. If they do understand you, they might You must be living as a worldly lives.
Because they understand their own.
But our light is hid now, but just think of that future day.
That is refers to in verse 4, when Christ, who is our life and isn't that beautiful brethren, to be able to look up into the glory, to see a man earn the glory, and to say there's my light.
My life is not down here. My life is up there in the glory. Christ, who is our light. When he shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. In other words, and I like to think of it in this way, the appearing is at the end of the great tribulation.
Christ comes heaven and open, and Christ comes back riding that White Horse.
And the armies of heaven which are the redeemed come back with him riding on white horses.
That's disappearing and it says in Revelation chapter one every eye shall see him.
And they also who pierced him. And if they see him, surely they will see those that follow him. We are going to appear with him in glory. And in that day perhaps that unsaved neighbor that never understood us down here, when they see us coming with Christ in glory, they will say.
Oh, now I understand.
Why that neighbor lives so differently? Why he lived the way he did?
Now I see our life is going to be manifested.
In that day. But we should never expect to be understood down here.
Our life is hid now, but our life will be manifested in Christ.
Is our life, brethren, what you say, Bob, is the basis?
For the rest of the chapter.
And those first four verses give us the foundation by which and on which.
We can do the next.
1234 verses.
Mortified.
What would be the purpose or the reason to mortify our flesh if we didn't have some object to look to to do it?
And so the 1St 4 verses set the platform, set the basis for our Christian walk. In the next 4 verses which don't sound too good, but we're to mortify that which is of the flesh, that which is, as Bob's already brought out, that which is nothing but of this world. And so where do we get the power? Where do we get the strength? Where do we get the desire to do the next 4 verses? It's the first four.
The person of Christ and his glory and what he has in.
In view for us what a marvelous thing that he's going to display us again, Ephesians 5 and verse 25 and 26 and 27 that he might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. This is the prospect that we have. We're still here on earth and that's what Colossians is. We're here on earth, and so we have an object in heaven that directs our hearts, that causes us and gives us the strength.
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To walk and do the things which would mortify the flesh. And that's what we have in the next 4 verses.
There are two things that are intimately connected in connection with our hope.
We often speak of the proper hope of the believer as the to the to the rapture, the Lord's coming for his Saints, and certainly that's what we're looking for at any moment. But there are two things that are very intimately connected in Thessalonians chapter 2 or, I'm sorry, in Titus Chapter 2, where it says looking for that blessed hope. That's what we've been Speaking of earlier in these meetings, the hope of being raptured from this world at any moment.
But he doesn't stop there. And the glorious appearing brethren, it's really part of our hope, is it not?
To think that there's a day coming when not only are we going to be with and like Christ, but everything is going to be manifested in the light of His presence.
Our brother Bob was bringing before us yesterday afternoon the thoughts concerning the judgment seat of Christ.
And how everything will be manifested there, and He will place His proper value evaluation and sense of what was done for His glory. And brethren, we ought to live in the light of that of that moment. And as our brother Dave said, if we did that more it would take care of the things that were exhorted against here, things that are not in keeping with those who are dead and risen with Christ.
Not in keeping with those of us who are a heavenly people. And so we need to bear in mind that it's not only that we're going to be raptured out of this world, but there's a wonderful day of manifestation both for us at the judgment seat of Christ. And then it says in Thessalonians he's coming to be glorified in His Saints and admired in all them that believe in that day. Does a verse like that thrill and stir your soul? It ought to.
There's a day coming, brethren, when he is not, not only he is going to have his rightful place in this world, but as Bob said, we're going to come with him and we're going to. The world is going to look on. They're going to see these ones that were rejected and despised here as the followers of a rejected and despised Christ. And what are we going to reflect in that day? We're going to reflect Christ.
Oh, what a day it's going to be. But, brethren, in the meantime, may this exercise us.
And I would like to just without going back or belaboring a point you'll bear with me for a minute, I would like to say another comment or two in connection with this expression. Set your mind. I believe it's something, brethren, that we need to be very exercised about in the day in which we live. I have children who are in the public school system and I never realized until I had children and young people in the public school system.
What an attack there is on the mind in the day in which we live. And I'd like to just say this as a warning, particularly to those of us who are parents. It's good to try to keep a check on these things. There's a great deal today to teach our young people to empty their minds.
I don't believe, brethren, we ever have a precept in scripture that would encourage us to empty our minds. Because if we empty our minds, the enemy is right there with plenty to fill the vacuum. Now this is perhaps more subtle and insidious than we sometimes realize.
Because sometimes it's done under the guise of relaxation or meditation. But I have seen and heard some very appalling things that have taken place in the classroom with our children and young people. But David said, thou anointest my head, that's the mind with oil. And I believe it speaks to us of bringing every thought into captivity under the obedience of Christ. That's what we're to do, brethren. We're to fill our minds with Christ.
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Because if you fill a cup with wheat, there isn't any room for the chaff. If you fill a glass with water, there isn't room for anything else. And maybe I could just draw a little application from an incident in John's Gospel that I know has a prophetic character. And what I'm about to say is certainly not the the meaning of this of this portion. But you remember in John's Gospel chapter 2, the Lord Jesus and his disciples were called to the marriage at Canaan of Galilee.
And there were six water pots there. And we know that vessels, as we had in 2nd Corinthians 4, are often used as a figure of the human body. We noticed which treasure we have in earthen vessels. And you remember, when they wanted wine, those vessels were empty and they wanted wine, which speaks of joy and praise, speaks perhaps for our purposes of the enjoyment of Christ in our souls.
What was the answer? Well, the Lord told them to fill the water pots with water.
Now, Brother Dave has mentioned that the way we fill our lives with Christ is to read this blessed book, and we can't stress that enough. Every line in this book brings before us some aspect of the person and work of Christ and young people. When you open the Bible, whether you open to the Old Testament or the New Testament, read Christ in every line. That's where you're going to receive a blessing.
And so they filled them with water, which often speaks to us of the word of God, the washing of water by the Word. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word? But you know scriptures tremendously accurate. And you notice the Lord, he simply told them to fill the water pot. And they had the faith even to go beyond that, because when they filled them, it says they filled them to the brim. I think that's that's good for us to realize.
Because again, when you fill something to the brim, there isn't room for anything else and brethren.
The remedy for worldliness, for worldly mindedness before being earthly minded, for being taken up with some of the things that were exhorted concerning in this chapter. The answer is to fill the water pot and to fill it to the brim. Don't just fill it part way, that leaves room for something else. Open this book every day of your life. Fill the water pot to the brim with Christ.
And I say that'll take care of everything else. If the mind is full of Christ, the affections are going to go out to him, and we're going to walk for his glory in the path of obedience.
I wonder if we could just look at one more verse and the first first Peter chapter 3 regarding the mind that.
Belabor the point. We do want to move on, but I'm not quite sure if this person that touched on.
First peterschet of one verse 13.
Because wherefore you're not the one of your mind be sober. These two things go absolutely hand in hand.
God is reminding us absolutely necessary that we take control with His health of our minds, because the enemy wants to use our minds to to draw us away from Lord Jesus, to get us our hearts off of Him as our objects. But if we first of all.
Come under the influence.
Of things we lose being so the opposite of being sober is being intoxicated. The more intoxicated we're no longer in control of our minds. There's something else that our minds run and influence us that can it can become intoxicated by by many, thank you, become intoxicated by entertainment. We can become incarnated by having fun, even laughter, I think.
And when we're intoxicated, there's no chance of being in control. And so first of all, we must be aware of the fact that we can't let something else control come in and control our minds and then.
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We have the responsibility of little Lord to turn off the loin of our mind, not just allow our minds to be loose, to just take in everything, to occupy our thoughts. Because we do that right, December, not to play our thoughts. Now, I would just like to tell you that's an encouragement to me is that God never asked us to do something that is impossible, that he can't give the grace to. Do you know we as natural men?
We could never control our mind. Absolutely impossible. But when God asked and imports us to do something, we know that it is possible that he can give the drink that we have the Spirit of God indwelling us. This is an encouragement to us that is possible for us to set our mind on heavenly things. Sometimes we might think as we go through the world and we're affected by the world around us. It just seems like it's impossible.
What God says to do it? It is possible, and so this is an encouragement to his brother. But if we do, if if we allow ourselves to be under unoving, influence of faith, world and intoxicated. But we'll never be able to gear up for one to remind, let's never be able to gather up so the box and direct those into.
Just the engages of the Lord wants us to have.
Something that I found helpful.
Brother Phil, in doing that, in controlling my thoughts, because sometimes, especially when I was younger, I found it to be so bad. Thoughts come up flying into your mind.
And it's like somebody says you can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from making nests in your hair.
And so you maybe can't control the thoughts. But what I found very helpful is as soon as those bad thoughts want to plague me, just start quoting scripture. Just put your mind on Jesus and tell you there's just no place for those bad thoughts when you do that, that's one way to gird up the loins of your mind. And that's very important exhortation. It's interesting that the first exhortation.
In connection with the armor of God in Ephesians 6 is that he says stand therefore and gird up. Gird the loins of your mind with truth. I'll read it. I'm not quoting it correctly, just turn to it in Ephesians.
Chapter 6 and verse 14.
Therefore, having your loins gird about with truth isn't that interesting that that's the first exhortation in connection with the utilization of the armor. We can't really take up the armor of God and use it properly unless our minds are gird about with truth, the word of God, and it's interesting just a little aside, but he ends by saying praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Holy Spirit.
So we begin by having our loins gird about by with truth, and then he ends by exhorting us for the need of prayer. And prayer is not one of the pieces of the armor. It's the spirit and attitude in which we take up the armor, and we use it in a proper way. But there's another way in our chapter 2 That I believe we can practically carry out what we've been Speaking of. Notice verse 16 of chapter 3 of Colossians. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.
Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And what has been a help to me is that when these thoughts come into your mind, think of some verse of a hymn. You know, brethren, we have a rich, vast heritage of good Christ exalting hymns. They're found here in the little flock hymn book The Echoes of Grace. There are other hymns that we sometimes sing on other occasions.
And these hymns, in a very real way, bring before us the person and work of Christ. They occupy us with the Lord Jesus. And what was a real help to me when I was younger, by the grace of God, I took time to memorize many of these hymns that we sing. And I want to encourage you, you young people, your minds are keen. We're getting autonomous, are getting a little further along. And you have to admit that things are slipping a little bit sometimes. And it is, it's, I find it a little harder now.
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To sit down and memorize A hymn or a portion of scripture, your minds are at their peak. Open this blessed hymn book. Open the Echoes of Grace hymn book in your room. Discipline yourself. It takes discipline, but discipline yourself to learn a hymn each week or a certain time period. You'll find that these hymns will come back to you at times when you really need them. Maybe you're faced with some difficulty, some problem.
The words of a hymn come back and it's a real help. Maybe some bad thought comes to your mind and your preoccupied with things of this life, some him. And as you drive down the highway sing maybe nobody me with those good Christ exalting hymns, keep Christ before my soul. So I just want to encourage you learn to value these hymns, take them up, learn them, and I believe they'll be precious to you as you get older and very real.
We have a very solid foundation here in this chapter.
And it's interesting that when God tells us something, he gives us an anchor to anchor to.
And so the 1St 8 verses, we start out with Christ, we come to the next four and it's practical exercise as to our walk. And then we come to verses 9 and 10. And I want to emphasize this, that everyone gets a hold of this, that this is our actual basis of standing. This is what God has done for every Christian.
Verse nine, he put away the old man. Verse 10 he gave you a new man.
This is where you and I as Christians stand if we don't have this for the basis for a solid foundation.
We're at sea without a rudder. And then the next verse is again give us an application of practicality.
It gets even further than that. When we get down into a little further on in the 14th and 15th and 16th versus, we get things that bring us back up to the glory. But we have to have an anchor. And in the Hebrews it's we're told we have an anchor, sure, and steadfast.
That entrance in the veil, within the veil, well, that's the work of Christ on Calvary. That's our anchor. That's where the work was done. That's where a Christian now stands. He stands on a finished work He's saved for eternity. But there are practical things in our lives has already been brought out Saturday and today. Things that we ought to put away and things that we ought to do. But we must have that basis first. We must know that.
God has done the work for us. The person of Christ has finished the work. We now have a foundation on which to stand, from which we go from either putting away what's bad or putting on what's good.
Go back to what we were talking about a moment ago, about bad thoughts at Mark 833. But when he had turned about and looked under the cycle through beautiful Peter saying you have to be behind these victims without favorite not The thing is the bee of God, but The thing is to be of men. But things like that come to my mind. That's what I say. Just be behind me. Immediately as we're through a hammer, something comes to mind.
I think the what you were mentioning brother Dave earlier.
That it connects somewhat with what we had in Two Corinthians 4.
Where it says in the 10th verse, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
That the light also of Jesus might be made manifest. Now this verse five it talks about putting to death. Mortifying is putting to death. That's the dying. Jesus died and we died with him buried in his grave. We lay and now we are resurrected with him and what should appear is not what we have in verse 5-6.
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But it is what we have.
In verses.
12 Forward it is those the life of Christ in US, and that's why he's exhorting in this way. So it corresponds in that way with what we had yesterday and the day before. But these are things to be put to death. These are serious things. And versus verse 5 and also verse 8 my recently with the Lord my father-in-law.
Norman Berry, in the Second World War, was in the Canadian Navy.
There's an officer and he kind of thought sometimes along those lines and he said it's like here having a change of command on board ship.
There was a bad captain. Now there's a new captain, so.
When the new captain comes on board, there are some of those shipmates that are so bad they have to be put to death.
There are others that are bad as well. In verse eight they are put off the ship and then there are others that are put on. That's the way he looked at it. And I think it's somewhat apropos rather and.
There are things in life that are to be put to death. These are pretty serious things. In verse five starts the list with fornication.
There's anything that plagues our culture today. It's sexual.
Perversion.
Sex outside of the marriage bond is what fornication means.
And we are to mortify that. Does it crop up in my mind? Yes, I have to confess it does. What do I do with it? Mortify it? Put it to death? Don't give any place to it.
And that's a serious thing. But they're not only stops, they're uncleanness. Oh, the amount of uncleanness in this world. Not only moral uncleanness, but spiritual uncleanness.
Inordinate affection. That means affections that are not ordered by the Word of God.
Evil Concupiscence. Concupiscence is uncontrolled lust and covetousness. That's the world we live in to always want more and more and more. And it's idolatry.
United States of America is one of the most idolatrous nations on the face of the earth.
But it's not idols of wooden stone, it's the idolatry that it speaks about here.
Covetousness, which is idolatry. These things, brethren, are to be mortified, to be put to death. No mercy shown to these things. Oh come on, can't you have a little bit of mercy? Let them go. No. Mortify them. The scripture says if you don't, it will get the better of you.
It's interesting that Saul in the Old Testament is a picture of a man in the flesh.
Head and shoulders above the rest to be admired, but.
When God told him to go and completely exterminate the Amalekites, he went and slaughtered a good bit of them, but he reserved the best.
And who was it that ended up killing Saul? Remember, it was in the battle with the Philistines.
But you remember who ended up killing Saul was not a Philistine.
It was an Amalekite because he didn't put them to death, they put him to death. And isn't that a solemn warning? If we don't do what scripture tells us to do to mortify these things, they will get the best of us. Sooner or later. They will, Lord, help us, brethren.
To mortify these things, it's something that.
Doesn't just disappear if you don't? No.
Saul was commissioned to destroy the Amalekites, and 600 years later an Amalekite rises up and wants to destroy all of the children of Israel.
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Haman, the aggregate. He was of the King's seed who Saul preserved. And so it's true that Samuel slew A gag. But one of his children got away, and he shows up 600 years later. If we don't mortify the things of the flesh, they're going to crop up and they're going to come to our sorrow.
Sin has consequences, as we've been saying, and I think this is perhaps something we don't fully realize in the day in which we live. Because sometimes we see those who go on in a course and it seems like nobody stops them. They just get away with things, even sometimes young people or those that are not so young who know the Lord, maybe even in the assembly. And you say, well, I've done that and nobody caught me, I got away with it. But sin does have consequences in our in our lives.
And we often quote in the gospel that verse that says whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. And we apply that in the gospel. And certainly that's true. And in the sixth verse of our chapter he talks about consequences here for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience. But what about for the the believer? We know the end consequence for the unbeliever will be held, but what about for the believer?
Fornication, moral evil. It is a sin. Brethren, young people, it is a sin that when allowed in our lives, leaves a mark on a person for the rest of their life. It says in Proverbs A wound and dishonor shall he get. And you see it with David. In the Old Testament David sinned and he sinned grievously in connection with Bathsheba.
And David was happily restored to the Lord. Just read, I think it's the 51St Psalm. And you'll find David was happily restored to the Lord and the joy of his salvation restored and so on. But a sword never departed from his house forever. Wasn't that a solemn consequence brought on David and his household? And sin in our lives can have consequences not just on us, but it may affect my family as well.
And I think we lose the sense of this. In a day when sin is so readily accepted, we've almost become an amoral society where anything goes. There's to be no standard, no limits. If it feels good, do it, they say, men following the lusts of the flesh and of of the mind. But what about David? I've been struck in the 73rd Psalm, where the psalmist looks out and he sees the prosperity of the wicked.
They go their own way, he says. Nobody stops them. They don't seem to have any restraint.
But later in that Psalm, he gets into the sanctuary, he said. When I got into the sanctuary, then understood either end, and it's interesting. At the end of the Psalm, he appreciates a sense of the Lord's presence. He says, Nevertheless, I'm continually with thee. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory. So he said, Sin separates now sin will never separate us from God for eternity. We're saved, That's true. If we're truly saved, we're saved for eternity.
But sin spoils our communion and is it worth it? Is it worth going on in a path of sin to lose the sense of joy and communion in our soul? So sin is costly. I remember Brother Paul Jeviden stood up to take a gospel. I think it was at a Montreal or an Ottawa conference when I was a young person and I'll never forget the opening statement of that gospel. He looked around and he said sin is costly.
And, brethren, sin is costly if we allow these things in our lives, not to belabor the point, but.
How interesting and how true that is.
David.
When he was accosted.
And he was very angry when he heard the parable.
He says he's going to pay fourfold.
David lost four sons.
He paid for.
As has already been said, we.
We don't get away with anything.
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God is gracious and.
And David at the end of his life, when he numbered the people, he said, let me fall into the hands of God.
For he is gracious and merciful. That's true.
But God also has a government.
And each and everyone of his children are going to pass through that government.
And be not perceived, it's already been quoted whatsoever a man so if that shall he also read. And the world will reap it in eternity and hell, but the Saint of God will reap.
Here on Earth.
Don't be deceived. Don't be fooled.
As has already been said, God lets us get away with nothing.
And the harvest is always greater than that which is sown.
So it's something to be We need to walk in fear and lowliness of mind and humbleness, brethren. We all have the flesh in us. We can't point to somebody else and say there it is over there. I've got it right here. And if I allow it to act, there will be in God's government consequences. Yes, he forgives sin, but God when he sees there's a weakness in a certain area in my life.
Puts his government in my life to help me so that I might not go in that direction again.
His government is for our own good. It's not to be feared in the sense that you fear the judgment of God, but it is something that we need to walk before God in all lowliness of mind.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That fear is a little different, isn't it? It's the fear of displeasing him.
Verse 8 tells of things that are to be put off.
Anger.
Wrath up and wondered what the difference between those two was.
It was explained to me. Perhaps someone else has thought about it. Anger is the emotion, perhaps.
Wrath is more than just the emotion, it's taking consequences into consideration as well.
Wrath. Those are to be put off malice. Blasphemy. Filthy communication. Is he talking to Christians here?
Brother Dave, is he talking to Christians here? Absolutely. This book is.
Colossians AS2 Christians.
Entirely in this shocking it is, but that's what we are capable of it Ephesians 4, He that stole.
Feel not again.
And verse 9 why not?
Christians Do they lie?
Oh, what a story, brethren.
That's what we are naturally speaking, and if we allow the flush to act, these are some of the things that will manifest themselves. But these are to be put off.
I think it's helpful if we consider those things mentioned in eight verse as a progression. Anger is something that I may, as Brother Bob has referred to, experience at a moment in time. In fact, anger can be good in the sense that it tells us be angry and sin not. So we may be repulsed by certain things that we experience in this life and we're to stay away from them. But sometimes.
Anger may flare up.
Within me and I don't deal with it. Scripture speaks of.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, and I believe for myself anyway.
Anger is something, or wrath is something that is a seed of anger. I may be angry at someone if I don't.
Judge that before the Lord. That anger is there, and it continues to.
Marinate. It continues to grow, and so the anger becomes greater, and then it grows into wrath.
And with Wrath, I believe again, there's that sense that I want to get back at my brother or my sister.
Then if there is the.
Allowing of that that raft to continue then it turns into malice and that is.
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A very serious offense, which I'm trying to I make it my motive to get back at someone or something that I've experienced.
The next thing in that list.
Is blasphemy.
I think some of us in this room may know even some servants of the Lord that have held some anger in their hearts towards a brother or sister and it has resulted in their blasphemy of that person slandering a person. God does not allow. Those allow us to get away with those types of things, those feelings towards our brothers and our sisters and I believe.
In the Old Testament we have a very good example of that.
We're Aaron and his sister Miriam spoke against Moses.
Aaron was not long in his life. Miriam became a leper. So there are very serious consequences that we may have to pay. If we allow these feelings of anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, then it also speaks then next of filthy communication.
Be not deceived.
Tells us in First Corinthians filthy communications, corrupt good manners, our whole.
Life, our whole testimony is going to be destroyed, wanted if we allow filthy communications.
What is the seed starts, goes back to anger. So I believe that there are feelings.
Amongst those that profess to be gathered to the Lord's name that have been sown in in times past, some of those feelings still linger amongst us and it.
Effects and infects our children and our young people. And we see some of those feelings that are perpetuated even today that it becomes like a cancer amongst God's people in the assembly. I believe we need to be very cognizant of them within ourselves, that we don't allow those feelings to crop up and then if they do that we don't check them and they.
Get progressed along what we have in this verse.
Isn't it interesting that?
What you say is certainly right and correct.
And if we harbor these things, it does become as a cancer and it's.
Very difficult to get rid of, but how interesting that we have a.
Swinging point, as it were in the 9th and 10th verses. And after that, until we get down later in the chapter, we have what's beautiful and good.
Put on therefore, the elect of God, holy and blood, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any. And here's the key, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye, And besides these put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. This is the beautiful side of this.
The work of Christ 9:00 and 10:00, one side putting away those things that are bad on the other side.
We put on which is before God, beauty.
Beautiful things. They're like Christ. They're like first Peter, first second chapter.
Leaving us an example in whose steps we should follow. And so this is what we have in these verses.
And then what a an anchor in the 15th verse and left the peace of Christ. It should be ruled in your heart the peace of Christ.
If we have that.
If we're occupied with Christ and we have the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts, the verses we've just read, 12 and 13 and 14 are going to be manifest in our life.
It really begins with the expression in the end of the 11Th verse, which we don't want to Passover.
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Where it says Christ is all and in all. Or if you notice Mr. Darby's translation.
It simply says Christ is everything, brethren. I think that's a good statement to just pause for a moment and consider.
In a practical way, can we really say that in our hearts is Christ everything to you? Have I so set my mind on things? Above that, Christ is everything to me. He's everything to us. As far as being able to carry out the exhortations that follow in these verses, as someone said, we can't do it in our own strength, but we have Christ as our life. We have the Spirit of God. We have Christ brought before us in the word of God.
He's everything. But is he really practically in my heart, everything.
If Christ is everything in my heart, then the things that follow here are going to be manifested in my life.
In a practical way, and it's interesting, in Philippians 2 we often read those scriptures on Lord's Day morning in connection with the death of the Lord Jesus and the remembrance of him, and then his exaltation and so on. But if you notice the context, the real context of those verses in verse five, it says let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Now that's the real context of what follows there.
In other words, it's given to us to follow as an example that the Spirit and the life and Spirit of Christ might be manifested in your life and mine. He humbled Himself. Do we know what it is to humble ourselves, brethren? We're to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. If we don't, the God may have to humble us, but He wants us to humble ourselves, made Himself of no reputation.
You know, we all usually have a reputation for something. Might be a good reputation, it might be a bad reputation, but most of us develop some kind of a reputation. Here's one. Just take the phrase that as it appears, he made himself of no reputation. He was here for the glory of God. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and so on. But that is left as an example for you and for me. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. But it cannot be brethren unless in a practical way.
We can truly say Christ is everything.
So these are things that should be evident in the life of believers. Vowels of mercy, kindness, this is the life of Jesus, manifest in our bodies, humbleness of mind.
Naturally speaking, we're all proud. Somebody has said pride is the last thing that dies within the human breast.
Humbleness of mind is not natural. It is the life of Christ and the believer.
Meekness not taking offense. Sometimes people may be humble, but not me.
And we need to think about this sometimes. We take offense at the least little thing, brother, and we need to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus. He was meek and lowly in heart.
Long-suffering, forbearing one another. This is self-discipline here, brother. Sometimes we talk about discipline of our brethren, the assembly, but this is self-discipline.
Forbearing. Forbearing is simply there's something in my brother that rubs me the wrong way. It's not that serious. Perhaps it just rubs me the wrong way, what I'm going to do about it.
Forebear that's important to exercise.
And forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against him, here's a quarrel.
Mention.
And then I like to think of verse 14 as the overcoat.
Above all, these things put on love.
O brethren, what should characterize believers above all else? Is this. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples. If ye have love one to another, that should be in evidence in our lives together. And I like to think of it, brethren, When it speaks of love, it's the agape love. It's the love of decision. It's the love.
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That doesn't depend on what the object is. It is more a question of what the source is. In other words, God so loved the world. Why did he love the world? Because God is love. It's the source, not the object. There was nothing lovable in the world to love it. But God so loved the world because God is loved.
And so often when you go around, I hear the complaint, oh, there's no love in this meeting.
And I sometimes say the person that's complaining is the first person guilty.
You know why? Because if there's no love in that meeting, you should start loving then. Then there would be some love there.
So you can't point the finger in any other direction except at your own soul.
Above all things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. Isn't that beautiful?
And so it's in the end of verse 13. Even as Christ forgave, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye, and above all these things put on love, Because to whom much is forgiven the same love as much. And brethren, if we could just keep before our souls that great love of the Lord Jesus in going to Calvary's cross to die for us, and that great debt that we owe, that he took care of in those hours of darkness.
Wouldn't that make a difference in our relationships one to another? You say that brother did something against me and I.
I just can't find the love to forgive them. Oh, how much did Christ forgive you? What has he forgiven you?
How much has he born with me in my pathway as a Christian? And so just to remember that, to keep that in focus, I believe then that in the measure in which I enjoy in my own soul, appreciate in my own soul what Christ has done for me and the love that motivated him to do it, That is the springboard then in my forgiveness and love in my relationship to my brethren.
This scripture here and.
The 13th verse is reminiscent, is it not of.
Ephesians 4 in the last two verses.
Everyone knows them, I'm sure, by heart, and what a marvelous picture here it says.
Even as Christ forgave you. And there it says, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. And So what a picture we have.
Has anyone ever been so?
Unkind to any of us that we could ever fit into the picture of the love of God towards us. Never. Never.
Even as God, for Christ sake, has forgiven you.
At the cross, the Lord Jesus could say, Father, forgive them.
Amazing.
Well, they know not what they do. Well, each and everyone of us were in a position of opposition to God at one time in our lives, and God and his mercy and His grace forgave us.
Is there ever a time when our brother or our sister could ever go beyond what God has forgiven us for? Never.
We ought to keep that in mind when we have a controversy with any of our brethren.
As we know they work in that verse, thanks a lot against security and garbage is love that. I heard that the meaning of charity is here is sort of like what we think of as all the letters. We get the mail when it's giving money to them as a charity. In other words, then we give something that we don't necessarily get anything bad. It's not a matter of all of you if you love me, it's a matter that.
Neither does would have a. Have a look.
And we're told to provoke unto love and to good works. What provokes to love is love. That's what provokes love. So we need to be exercised in putting on that.
01:20:09
Charity that it speaks of her love. Just to get down to verse 16. I think it's so beautiful. Before we close, I think somebody mentioned verse 15 already. Let the word of Christ.
Dwell in you richly in all wisdom. I think that's so beautiful, brethren. It's not merely reading the Word. Let's let it dwell in you. Someone has said read the Word. Let the Word form your thoughts. So much so saturate your mind with the Word of God that you no longer think your own thoughts, but you think God's thoughts.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
In First John chapter two we have the young men spoken about.
And young men like to think of themselves as strong.
They glory in their strength. The glory of young men is their strength. And there it says that they are strong, and the word of God abideth in them, and they have overcome the wicked one. There is nothing that will make you strong, dear young brother and dear young sister in the Lord, as well as any of us who are older, as letting our minds be filled with the word of God.
Oh, the blessedness of it.
And may the Lord help us that we not only read the word of God.
But that the Word of God dwell in US richly in all wisdom, That's the only source of wisdom, isn't it?
No other source. In closing, I'd like to read that 17th verse as an encouragement to the young.
This is a touchstone whereby we can prove and know.
If what we're doing is pleasing to God, verse 17 and whatsoever ye do.
In Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Now here's the point.
If what you do, you can pray to God and thank him for what you're doing, it's acceptable to God.
If you can't do something and actually thank God that you're doing it, it's not acceptable to God. And bear this in mind, young people, if you have a thought in your mind as to whether this is right or wrong, can I thank God for it? Can I be thankful that I'm going to do this or I've been doing this if you can't?
Don't do it. And this verse is God's touchstone to tell you that he either can't accept or reject.
If you can't thank him for what you're doing, don't do it.
Don't do it.
And the word of God is the bottom line, isn't it? Because the Philadelphian Saints were given a commendation, they kept his word and had not denied his name. So if it's in accordance to the word of God, and then, as brother Dave says, you can thank him for it, for doing it, then we can be assured that it's according to his mind. And if we do, then he says, in the end of the chapter, you'll get a reward. Not with I service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, knowing that of the Lord, you shall receive the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ. Just leave the results with him. Don't look for a pat on the back down here.
Don't look for man's commendation, but look to the Lord for his approval. And as Brother Bob brought out the other afternoon, every man in that day will have praise of God according not to our sense of it or our brethren sense of it, but according to his sense of what was right and commendable.
#288.
O thou whose mercy?
01:25:01
I knew my face before the whole house or condition.
Ecclesiastes 9:13-18
Gospel—J. Hyland
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Is a savior on high in the glory, a savior who suffered on Calvary St. a savior as willing to save now as ever?
Is Almighty his love, great and free going to suggest that we stand up to sing this hymn #10? And if someone would, please start it?
Let's ask God's help and blessing our blessed God and Father how thankful we are this evening for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank thee that tonight there is a Savior on high in the glory. We thank Thee that He did indeed come into this world, go to Calvary's cross, and offer Himself without spot to Thee. We thank Thee for that precious blood that was shed that cleanses.
From every stain of sin. But we thank thee, too, that he is now risen, ascended, seated at thy right hand, and glorified. We look forward to many of us in this room to that moment when he's going to come forth and call us home to the Father's house. But now we are solemnized this evening, as another gospel meeting is before us, to consider that there may be somebody in this room who is still lost, still in their sins, And we pray tonight.
That as thy word is opened and read, that Christ might be presented in all His loveliness and beauty, and that there might be a work of grace and a work of Thy spirit to open the eyes of the blind and to turn souls, draw them to the Savior. We know that the work is vine, but we know that thy delight is to bless and to bless the Sinner. So we pray Thy blessing wherever the Word is going forth around this globe tonight, And by the many means that Thou art using to spread the glad tidings, we pray for much fruit.
But we look to thee, and beseech thee particularly on behalf of this time before us.
We own we have no might of ourselves, but we look to thee and beseech thee for blessing.
We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Amen.
We're going to begin this evening by connecting a number of portions of the Word of God.
And perhaps I could just say before we do that, that as we read these portions of God's precious word, God's living Word.
Do open your ears tonight to listen to what God has to say.
And as we read these verses together, if there is someone here who doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
You've never come to that point where you've realized your need and His great provision for you. Oh, tonight our prayer is that these scriptures that we read would be driven home in all their living power and in the power of the Holy Spirit. They might burn into your soul that your conscience might be awakened, that your affections might be opened to receive God's wonderful salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because it's not our ability tonight to present the word of God that is going to cause blessing.
It's not what we say, It's not the illustrations perhaps we use tonight.
But it is the word of God in all its glorious power. And he that hath ears to hear, let him hear, because faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And I love that verse at the beginning of Luke, Gospel chapter 15, it says, Then drew nigh unto him all the publicans and sinners, for to hear him their ears were opened. They were listening to what he had to say.
And no doubt blessing ensued. And so as we read these verses.
Listen to them as the very voice of God to you. This is God's word. This is God's voice to you. He's speaking, and he wants you to listen, and he wants to bless your soul. Tonight, let's turn first of all to Ecclesiastes.
00:10:12
Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9 The book that sometimes the boys and girls have a little difficulty pronouncing and finding in the word of God.
But if you go Psalms Proverbs, then you'll come to Ecclesiastes. We're going to read a little incident here in the end of the ninth chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Starting with verse 13, Chapter 9 and verse 13.
This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me.
There was a little city, and few men within it. And there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by wisdom delivered the city. Yet no man remembered that same poor man then said I Wisdom is better than strength.
Nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words.
Are not heard. Let's go to John's Gospel chapter 3.
John's Gospel chapter 3 and verse 16.
For God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him.
Should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Acts, Chapter 13.
Acts chapter 13 and verse 38.
Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren.
That through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.
And by him all that believe are justified from all things.
From which she could not be justified by the law of Moses.
One Timothy, Chapter 2.
First Timothy chapter 2 and verse 5.
Where there is one God and one mediator between God.
And men, the man Christ Jesus.
One more verse, 2 Corinthians chapter 8.
Two Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 9.
For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
That ye through his poverty might be rich.
Well, I suppose these verses that we have read together in the New Testament.
Are very, very familiar verses to most here. And perhaps if we were to go up and down these rows and even ask the youngest boys and girls here to quote at least some of these verses. No doubt these verses have been learned over and over and over again in Sunday School. They are what we refer to as so often Gospel verses because they bring before us the glorious gospel message, the message that we have to present this evening of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If we were to go to the first chapter of the book of Mark, where we have in Mark's Gospel the Lord Jesus brought before us as the perfect servant.
It's remarkable how that gospel, that gospel begins, that book begins, the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Oh, because tonight it's a person that we have to offer to you. Maybe there was someone here, and you sat in the reading meeting this afternoon and you heard something of the glories of that blessed person, the man who lives at God's right hand, the man who we were singing about, who's on high in the glory as the savior of sinners.
Was your heart touched this afternoon as you sat and had those verses read in your ears?
00:15:07
Or did you sit with no feeling at all as we have read these precious Gospel verses in the New Testament here together? Has it touched your heart? You know, I know I look into the faces of just so many who thrill as we speak of the glories of Christ, many who thrill as we go over and over the simple gospel story.
There's a precious hymn we sometimes sing. I love to tell the story.
For those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsty to hear it like the rest.
And when in scenes of glory we sing the new, new song, it will be the old, old story.
That I have loved so long, and I know there's just so many here who love the simple gospel story.
We love to go back and remember the pit from whence we have been digged. We love to go back to the cross.
We love to in our mind's eye. Picture that scene where the Lord Jesus hanging between heaven and earth.
Gave himself that scene where a soldier after the Lord Jesus had bowed his blessed head and dismissed his spirit.
A soldier came and pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
And if you sit here in this meeting tonight and this doesn't touch your heart.
I don't know what goes on within your heart tonight, but oh may.
The love of God, so touch your heart and constrain you that you would get a glimpse of that blessed one.
And that you would realize two things tonight.
Your great need and His great salvation.
But we turned back to the Old Testament and, you know, as we turn back to the Old Testament.
It all speaks of Christ because God has no other way of blessing tonight.
Other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the Lord Jesus was here, and he spoke to his own, it says, Beginning at Moses and the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
And so we can go back. And by picture, by foreshadow, by type, we see the glories of the person of Christ. We have His work brought before us in various aspects.
And we read this little incident. And before I commented, I'm going to tell a little story.
Because, you know, sometimes God allows circumstances and instances to.
Come up in our life that make the word of God very real and precious to us.
First time I ever had opportunity to visit in Belgium.
We sat down on Lord's Day morning, I suppose 10 or 12 of us.
In men in Belgium.
To remember the Lord.
Tomorrow morning, if we're left here on the table in the middle of the room, there will be a loaf.
And there will be a cup and many of us will have that wonderful privilege.
There are just in the country of Belgium, about 10 in fellowship at the Lord's table and we sat down together.
To remember the Lord in the breaking of bread.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed some portions of the Word of God and some Christian fellowship together.
And as the afternoon wore on, some of the brethren asked me if I would like to take a drive.
To Flanders fields.
John Mccrae, who wrote in Flanders Fields, The Poppies grow, was a Canadian, I believe, born in Guelph ON not very many hours from where I live, and I had learned his poem in school in Flanders Fields. The poppies grow between the crosses, row and row. And so I said yes, I would like to visit Flanders Fields.
It wasn't a very long drive and.
If we could go there this evening, we would be astounded at how big a piece of real estate Flanders Fields really is.
I was told that if we were to drive very slowly around the perimeter of that graveyard or graveyards, it would take approximately 1 hour and a half.
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And as you lookout over the green fields, there are rows and rows and rows of crosses almost as far as the eye can see.
Of those who gave their lives in service for their country.
Buried.
At that spot in Europe?
We were taken to Hill 66 because I was told that when you stand on Hill 66 and lookout towards Deepers, France, you are standing on Canadian territory.
It was designated as such because.
The bravery and the persistence of the Canadian troops who held in those trenches.
The enemy for, I believe, four months from coming in.
And overrunning Belgium.
And it stirs your soul to look across those mounds.
Mile after mile, and to think of what it must have been to spend those months.
There, in those trenches.
But that didn't stir my soul half as much as what took place next.
Because we were told that if we hurried, we could go into ether.
To what they call the Men and Gate, because it looks back towards men in Belgium.
And at 6:00 every night.
2 Knights have been missed since the First World War, and they were two nights during the Second World War.
When there was too heavy a shelling, too heavy a fire in that area to have this ceremony. But every night except two since the First World War and since that gate was erected, there is a very short ceremony. I don't suppose it lasts more than 10 or 15 minutes.
And the Last Post is played in memory of those whose names.
Are engraven on the plaques the stone plaques?
That make up the walls of the meningit.
And I was astounded to know that there were 56000.
Who were never found to be buried in Flanders fields.
And whose names are there as a memorial.
And we were told to that there has never been a night.
When there isn't at least two or 300 people for that ceremony, and as we looked around that evening, there were about 400 people present on that Lord's Day evening to remember those who had given their lives in the two great wars.
In sacrifice for their country and for humanity.
It stirred my soul to the very depth.
To think that just a few hours before.
Twelve of us, by the grace of God, had remembered a far greater victory.
Than was ever accomplished by anyone else in this world.
And 400 people would show up that evening to remember those who had died in Bath.
And it brought home to my own soul this story, this little incident tucked away here in the book of Ecclesiastes. Because here we find, first of all, there was a little city and few men within it.
And as we trace through the pages of the Word of God, we will find.
That a city in Scripture is often brought before us as a type of this world.
And particularly a type of this world going on in its independence of God.
Man has built a great system of things in this world that has left God out. Oh sure, he has religion.
Lots of religion. There will be lots of religion practice tomorrow in the city of Mayfield.
There will be lots of religion throughout the United States.
But this world is going on on a course that leads to judgment.
And man has built a great system of things, of which Satan is the head.
And we had in our chapter this afternoon that religiously, he's the God of this world.
We find 2 That politically he's the Prince of this world. We get that in John's gospel.
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There was a little city.
All this world is just a speck in God's great creation. It's just a marble.
Men are finding out today something of the vastness of the universe, and as they.
Get stronger and stronger probes and telescopes.
They are finding out that there is much more beyond than they ever thought or considered. You know, it tells us that God is stretching out the heavens. Man might get a probe, that he can stand farther into space. He might get a telescope that can look out farther and farther, but he'll never reach the end because God is stretching out the heavens and He measures them with a span. Men are finding out the greatness of the heavens, but they're not bigger than God's hand, and God is the Creator.
And sustainer of this universe.
Let's impress that upon our souls for a few moments.
A brother was telling me just last week.
That he wants to get out of teaching.
Because he feels it isn't very long until in this very state.
The state of Kentucky. He is going to be forced.
To teach evolution not as a theory, but as a fact.
Isn't that solemn?
Men trying to set aside the Genesis account of creation. Because if you can set aside in your mind the Genesis account of creation, then you have no responsibility to God, You have no responsibility to your maker.
But all I want to impress upon our souls that the Genesis account of creation.
Is true. Oh, it's true. God hasn't answered all our curious questions.
Because if he did, we wouldn't need faith. And by faith we understand that the worlds were framed.
By the Word of God.
And it tells us in Colossians concerning the Lord Jesus.
That by him all things not just consist, that's true, but all things subsist. This world works under his direction. Everything is sustained in its proper orbit because it says he's upholding all things by the word of His power. And you have to do with your Creator. You're going to have to meet God whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not.
Whether you wipe away the fact that there's a creator God or not, this book declares that it is appointed unto man wants to die, and after this the judgment not a solemn statement.
After this, the judgment, you are going to meet God.
Tonight, he's the savior.
He's a great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. But if you refuse God's offer of mercy tonight.
If you refuse his offer of salvation, let's make no mistake about it. There is a day of judgment coming.
Men would like to discredit the thought of hell, wouldn't they?
Men would like to tell us, well, this is hell now. Hell on earth. They have no idea.
What hell is really like? And the Lord Jesus when he was here?
And when he traversed the dusty streets of Palestine over and over and over again, he warned about coming judgment. He warned about the realities of leaving this world to enter a lost eternity, flee from the wrath to come. Were those just idle words? No. They were spoken in solemn mourning to those who were going their own way. And every day we had a clock here.
That could clock the number of souls that are going into eternity every minute. I'm sure we would be astounded.
Souls going over the precipice. Souls going into eternity.
Lost souls to lift up their eyes being in torment.
And to desire, like that rich man, momentary relief.
One drop of water, you know he never got it, and he never will.
How solemn. There was a little city.
And few men there in it.
We read that gospel verse.
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There is one mediator between God and man, the man.
Christ Jesus.
Isn't it wonderful to consider tonight that the Lord Jesus came down into this world?
Came to this very planet, walked on this globe as a man, it says. He humbled himself.
He was made in the likeness of men. He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
He came to this little city, so to speak. He came to this world.
He was born here, a man, and we find here in our story.
That there was an enemy as well.
That came and built.
Great bulwarks against the city. Who is that enemy? That enemy is Satan. You know there's an enemy here tonight. There's someone who doesn't want you to listen to the gospel message. There's someone who would rather have you talking to the friend beside you. There's someone who'd rather have your mind off 1,000,000 miles away and thinking about what's going to happen when you go back to school or work next week. But Satan's not your friend. Satan's your enemy.
And it tells us your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
He wants to devour you. He wants to drag you down to hell.
This enemy came. He had no care for the people of this city.
He besieged it. He built great bulwarks against it.
But in that very city there was found a poor.
Wise man.
This is the man Christ Jesus that we read about. This is the man that we have to present to you tonight.
And all if you could just get one glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you could just get one taste of His love and of His mercy. If you could just have some inkling of his desire for your blessing.
Do we have to wonder tonight if God loves you? Do we have to wonder if God desires your blessing tonight? No, indeed we do not.
And if the verses we read in the New Testament are not enough to confirm that, we could go on. And I challenge you to go on in your Bible.
From page to page, in this blessed book, it's God's will that all men be saved.
And come to the knowledge of the truth.
The Lord Jesus, when he was here, said, Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Ho everyone that thirsteth come ye to the waters. Jesus stood on that last day, that great day of the feast, and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
He desires your blessing. God loves you. We read that verse. God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten son.
Does the full import of a statement like that stir our souls tonight?
I don't have any sons, but I do have two daughters.
And I know I wouldn't send them out.
If I knew that they were going to be harmed, or if they were going to die, or if they were going to be treated cruelly.
By their classmates or people in the neighborhood or anywhere else.
I'd keep them home.
God sent his Son.
The one of whom it could be prophetically said, I was daily his delight, and he sent him into this world, knowing what the result would be. And the Lord Jesus came in obedience and love to his Father knowing.
That the end of the story would be Calvary's cross.
Just go in your mind's eye to that scene.
Lord Jesus, after his agony in the garden, after he had sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
And prayed, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me, and he rises.
00:35:02
And he goes forth, and they come, and they take him, and they put him on trial.
They mark him. They spit in his face. You ever been spit on? Probably the most degrading thing that can happen to a person. They spit in the face. The Son of God.
The one who was giving them their breath.
He allowed them, He gave them the strength to reach forth.
And it doesn't say they plucked the hairs of my beard, but they plucked the hairs of my cheek.
When my children were little, I realized very quickly that when those little fingers were wrapped around my beard.
That it didn't seem to matter too much if it was on my chin.
But the hairs of the cheek, the most sensitive part of the face.
They plucked the hairs of my cheek.
They beat him. They scourged him. They made their furrows.
One night in Port Harquar, Nigeria.
I saw the army March across the tarmac, the airport to Kuala Riot.
They had scourges in their hand poles with long pieces of leather on the end and in the end of those pieces.
They were tight, jagged pieces of metal. You never saw a riot squash squash so fast in all your life. It was a solemn sight I'll never forget.
They took that scourge and they beat my blessed Savior.
They took a crown of thorns, that which was part of the curse.
And they made a crown, and they didn't place it gently on his head.
They beat it into his blasted brow.
They bowed the knee and they mocked him. They said, Hail King of the Jews, did he, They believe he was the King of the Jews. Indeed they did not.
They said we have no king but Caesar.
And after they had abused him in every conceivable way.
They took him, and they led him outside the walls of Jerusalem.
That holy city that had deteriorated to such a point that it had religion without Christ because it is possible to have religion without Christ.
They took them outside those walls.
And he allowed man.
To take his blessed hands and his feet.
And to nail him.
To a cross of wood, to a Roman gibbet.
Little did those ones that swung the hammer realize that the very strength to lift that hammer was given to them by the one that they nailed to that crowd.
There were those who passed by that crossroads.
They reviled him. They shook their heads. They said, Save thyself, and us, if thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
There were those who sat down and watched him suffer in his agony.
And where is the heart so hardened? And who is so vile as he?
If the Savior suffer and says it is nothing to me.
They gave him vinegar to drink.
And when man was finished abusing the blessed Son of God.
God shrouded the scene in darkness.
Because all the physical sufferings of the Lord Jesus, as awful as they were, they never atoned for one sin.
But this world was shrouded in darkness.
The eye of man was shut out.
And my sins were laid on the blessed Lord Jesus, and I can stand here tonight on the authority of God's word.
To say that in those hours of darkness he bore my sins.
In his own body on the tree. Can you say that tonight?
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At the end of those hours of darkness, he cried with a loud voice, and said, My God, my God, why hast thou?
He cried. It is finished.
He bowed his head, and he gave up the ghost because he had said.
Of his life no man taketh it from me. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my father.
A little later, they came to that cross.
And that soldier broke the legs of the malefactor, the thief on one side of the Lord Jesus.
He broke the legs of the thief on the other side to hasten their death.
Because they didn't want those bodies to remain on the cross on that Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was on high day.
Did I say they had religion without Christ? Indeed they did.
And when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs, but one of the soldiers.
With a spear pierced his side, and I love these glorious words, forthwith came their out blood.
And water. If it said there came out blood and water, that would be enough to rest my soul on.
But it's forthwith God was in a hurry to bless. And as it were, that crowning act of man's hatred against the Lord Jesus Christ was the very Ave. the very moment that God was waiting for so that he could reach out in blessing to mankind and all. How glorious that we can turn and read. The blood of Jesus Christ. His Son cleanses us from all sin. He's made peace through the blood of His cross.
They took him down from that cross, not those wicked men who had nailed him there.
Not that soldier who had pierced his side.
But as the scriptures had prophesied.
Loving hands took him down from that cross.
And gently and lovingly Nicodemus St. Joseph of Arimathea.
Laid him in a new tomb.
But all Aren't we thankful tonight that that's not the end of the story? Aren't we thankful tonight that we can go on from that point and we can again go in our mind's eye to that scene so early in the morning, the first day of the week when those who, out of affection, came early to the Sepulchre?
Heard those glorious words, And I don't suppose there are many more glorious words than these in the Scripture.
He is not here. He is risen. Come see the place.
Where the Lord lay, oh, we boast tonight of an empty tomb.
It's true, the Lord Jesus died, but he died and was buried, and he rose again the 3rd day according to the Scripture. And we want to tenaciously hold on to the precious truth of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He could say to his own Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me Have the Lord Jesus didn't just rise in spirit, he rose bodily from the dead.
He came forth, and he remained on earth.
Before his ascension, to give ample testimony to his own that he had bodily risen from the dead.
Even appearing to about 500 brethren at one time, Because if Christ be not raised, our faith is in vain and ye are still.
In your sins. But oh thank God, he's risen, and not only is he risen.
But there was a moment in time when his feet left the Mount of Olives.
And he was taken up from them, and the cloud received him out of their sight.
The Lord Jesus is no longer in this world like he was 2000 years ago.
When he walked amongst men, no. The work of redemption is accomplished or Jesus has died. The blood has been shed, God is glorified, He's satisfied. And now the Lord Jesus is in the glory. And we were singing about him tonight. A Savior on high in the glory.
00:45:04
And so we find here this poor wise man, he delivered the city.
There's a little difference here, though. You know, these types, these illustrations, they always in some way fall short, which only magnifies what we have in Christ, the one of whom these are just pale reflections and feeble foreshadows. Because while this man here delivered the city through his wisdom, and while it's true, the Lord Jesus's wisdom itself.
He didn't just deliver the city through his wisdom by weakness and defeat.
He won the meat and crown trod all his foes beneath his feet by being.
Trodden down, he gave himself. He had to give his life.
At Calvary's Cross.
And yet no man remembered that same poor.
Man.
Have you thought about the Lord Jesus today?
How many people in the city of Mayfield around us today have stopped for a moment to consider not just a victory like we were Speaking of in connection with those who gave themselves?
In one of the great wars.
But a victory that was won at Calvary's cross.
How many people have really stopped to think about that, To think about the poor wise man?
And by the way, when was he poor? He was poor here in this world.
You know, you never read of the Lord Jesus handling a piece of money. He had to say, show me a penny.
Says the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, and the son of man hath not where to lay his head.
I was struck last night, the home I was staying in.
My Hostess offered me two pillows.
To see which one I would find the most comfortable.
I thought of the Lord Jesus.
The only time we read of him asleep in his pathway here.
Was with his head on a borrowed pillow in a borrowed boat.
Every man went to his own house. Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
He was poor in his pathway here, and ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That though he was poor, yet was rich though he was rich.
All He was rich in a past eternity. There he dwelt with the Father.
There he was in the glory. There he was in those ivory palaces.
But though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
That ye through his poverty might be rich.
Are you rich tonight? I don't mean do you have a large bank account. I don't mean do you have some large tracts of real estate?
But are you rich?
Some of us have had opportunity to visit in other parts of the world.
And it stirs your heart to sit down.
Amidst what we would think of as abject poverty.
And perhaps a few broken chairs or some crates hastily assembled so you have something to sit on.
Poor as far as this world is concerned.
But rich in faith.
Just in the enjoyment of the person and work of Christ.
Counting on the Lord Jesus every day to provide their needs.
Looking forward to the Father's house at the end of the journey. And when you enter a home, Oregon, a situation like that, there's nothing else to do but get out the word of God and enjoy the unsearchable riches of Christ.
And there aren't the distractions that we sometimes have here in this country.
And in Canada, where I come from, and I'm not saying we despise the many mercies that God has given to us.
But sometimes they can be a distraction in our enjoyment.
Of the things of Christ.
00:50:00
Ye through his poverty might be rich.
I've had several opportunities over the years to visit on a little island in the lower Caribbean.
Called the Island of Bakui.
Just a dot on the map 2 towns. You land by boat at a place called Elizabeth Town.
You go over the mountain and on the other side there's a little village called Padgett Farm.
And there are some real believers.
And nice opportunities for the gospel.
But one time I was there and I had my family with me and my girls had read in a.
Journal or geographic of some sort.
About a turtle sanctuary on the island of Bequeath.
And my wife suggested to me that we take some time from our busy schedule for the sake of my girls and we.
Go out to this turtle sanctuary.
I wish I could describe the road to get out of there, out there. I thought I was going to ruin the vehicle I was driving, but we finally got out to the end of this island and.
There is a turtle sanctuary, a refuge for an endangered species of turtles.
Called the Hawksbill turtle.
Very interesting to go through that turtle sanctuary and see how they.
Hatch and care for hawksbill turtles until they are able to be released back into the Caribbean.
But as I stood there and looked in those tanks, I thought of a story.
An incident that took place down in that part of the Caribbean some years ago.
Two men, a father and a son. They were fishermen, as many are in that part of the world. That's how they made their living. And it was in the days before there was a ban on the harvesting of Hawksville turtles. You can't harvest them now. It's highly illegal. You'll be fined, put in prison.
But this father and this son, they were out looking for hawksbill turtles and as I understand it, they're very hard to secure even.
In those days they were hard to secure and they brought a great price.
A large sum of money, and so it was worth spending some time.
Trying to get catch even 1 Hawksbill turtle.
They spotted a hawksbill turtle and they worked for some hours at trying to secure that turtle, but it had slipped under some rocks.
And they were not able to secure it. And so they returned to their village that night. And the next day they went out and they tried again.
And for two or three days this went on without any success.
Finally, the 4th day.
The father had had enough, he said. It's hopeless. We'll never secure our prize.
But the sun wasn't about to give up.
He went out that 4th day and four hours under the beating sun.
Worked until he had secured safely in his boat.
The prize that he knew would bring a great sum of money. But let me back up for a moment.
Before he went out that day, he had pleaded with his father to come. They were poor and he knew that this catch would secure a great deal of money that would be a great help to them for some time to come.
And he had pleaded with his father to join him, and his father had refused, and they had made a bargain.
That if the son without the father secured the turtle.
The Father would enjoy none of the proceeds.
It was the sons and the sons alone.
And when he returned, word had gotten to the village already.
That he was returning with a Hawk, spelled turtle, and there were many, including this father.
Down on the Wharf to welcome him home and to see his prize.
And his father was upset all he said.
Why didn't I? Why didn't you ask me to go with you today?
Son, said Father. I did ask you. I implored you to go.
The father said. You should have forced me to go.
You know, tonight we can't force souls to be saved.
The Spirit of God is striving and compelling sinners to come in that God's house might be full.
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We can't force souls to be saved, nor could that son really force his father to go out on that occasion.
And all what he missed because he didn't persist and go out.
But oh, tonight we're not talking about some monetary gain, something for time. Because what shall it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? But we're speaking tonight of the unsearchable riches of Christ. He wants you to have an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away. Is this your portion?
Are you saved tonight? Are you truly saved?
Are your sins washed away in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you looking for the Lord to come at any moment because?
God's Word solemnly declares that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. And many of us look up here up tonight in this room with glad anticipation, and we say from the depths of our heart Even so come Lord Jesus, but all the coming of the Lord Jesus will mean.
Door of mercy and salvation is forever closed. The master of the house is going to rise up and shut to the door.
And people will come and knock and they'll be in earnest, but there will be no more opportunity.
That door will of Mercy will never be opened again.
Then said I, wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is despised.
And his words are not heard. You know, when the Lord Jesus was here, it could be said of him.
He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grace.
And while it's true the Lord Jesus is no longer the man of sorrows here in this world, yet he still despised.
He is despised. I trust there's no one here who despises the precious Savior, the one who to so many of our hearts is precious unto you, therefore which believe he is precious.
His words are not heard. Isn't that true? Today? They have shut the pages of God's word. They don't read it in the schools. They don't want its light.
How many people respond to an invitation to come to a gospel meeting and to hear the precious word of God read?
Not very many in this day and age. His words are not heard but out. Tonight, at the end of this gospel meeting, I want to plead with you. God is pleading with you tonight. He loves you. Little chorus we used to sing in Sunday school. He loves you. He wants you. He died to redeem you, only believe His word. Have you believed? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou shalt be saved.
Its repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, I say, look up. The Lord Jesus has his arms extended wide. The invitation is going forth tonight. What more can we say? But He loves you. He wants you. He's ready and willing to pardon you, to forgive you, to bless you, to give you the unsearchable riches of Christ, to take you to his happy home in heaven when he comes.
To call his redeemed ones to himself.
What more can we say tonight? Oh, come, we're going to pray now. And if there's someone here and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, our prayer is that just where you are sitting in your seats, you will quietly, in your heart, talk to him.
And if you receive him tonight, then tell someone.
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Thou shalt be saved, and there would be just so many here who would love to hear a confession from the lips of the boys and girls and the young people here, to have the assurance that you're saved and that you're on your way to glory.
And I would like to make one final comment to those of us who know Christ as our Savior.
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Brethren, we've had some very solemn things before us from the word of God this evening.
And as surely as I pray and say Amen, the enemy is going to be busy.
To pluck away the seed that has been sown and to introduce every kind of thought and activity.
To distract the minds of those who are lost.
And may there be a conduct with us and a solemnity as we rise from these chairs.
Eternal issues are at stake.
Souls are on their way to eternity.
May we do nothing that the enemy can use to pluck away the good seed that has been sown.
That there might be much fruit tonight for God's glory and honor and for the eternal salvation of the lost. Let's pray.
Our blessed God and Father.
We thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we pray for blessing tonight. There's someone here who's lost. May they not rise from their chair before they have settled the question.
Of where they will spend eternity. We pray that thou blessed thy word tonight. May there be much fruit. We ask it for thy glory, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
My Servant
Gospel—M. Maurer
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Let's keep that in mind as we seek from God's Word.
To tell the good news of salvation.
And have the liberty of opening our gospel meeting tonight with the same hand.
That we opened with last night #10 there is a savior.
On high in the glory, a Savior who suffered on Calvary's tree.
The Savior is willing to save now as ever. His arm is almighty, His love great and free.
Dear loving Savior.
Those hours of darkness he suffered for sinners.
On Calvary's cross.
Forsaken.
Alone.
The Son of God.
Came a man.
To suffer on the cross.
What was it made him suffer those hours of darkness?
His love for sinners.
As we sing this song.
May our hearts consider the love of that Savior.
There is a savior.
God, we thank Thee for the message of the Gospel.
Message of thy love for sinners.
We pray God that.
Thy spirit might be free.
To work in each heart here this evening.
Those who are yet lost in their sins.
To turn them to the Savior.
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Those of us who know and love Thy blessed Son as our Savior.
That we might have our hearts warmed afresh.
At the hearing of thy love.
I love Lord Jesus.
Which led thee to suffer?
In those hours of darkness.
Now we ask our God for thy blessing on the meeting.
Recommend it to thy hands, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I'd like to start with a verse in Romans chapter 3.
Romans, chapter 3, verse 19.
Now we know that.
What things so ever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.
That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty.
Before God.
Guilty before God.
Guilty.
Of sin.
Guilty of sin, for which God has declared the penalty.
Of death.
Often.
They have in the audience.
Those who have murdered.
Those who have raped, those who have been raped.
Those addicted to drugs.
Caught up in gang activities?
And some of them just not wanted.
To look around the room here this evening, Perhaps there are none.
That would put themselves in any of those categories.
I'd like to read some verses from God's word.
To give us 'cause to pause.
And consider those words guilty before God.
We read in Galatians chapter 5 about the works of the flesh that are manifest.
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry.
Witchcraft hatred.
Variance.
Emulations.
Wrath.
Strife, seditions, Heresies.
Envying.
Murders.
Drunkenness.
Reveling.
We've been angry with someone.
The works of the flesh.
Sin.
Ever going out to have a good time?
The works of the flesh of the flesh sin.
But some people might regard as clean sins.
But the works of the flesh nonetheless.
Let's turn to Revelation chapter 21.
Speaking about God's heavenly city.
Verse 27.
There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defile it.
Neither whatsoever worketh, abomination or maketh.
A lie.
But they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.
These are those.
That will enter God's presence.
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To be forever with the Lord.
In heavenly bless.
Verse 8 But the fearful.
And unbelieving the abominable murderers, ************ and sorcerers and idolaters.
And all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire.
And brimstone, which is the second death.
God speaks of two deaths.
The sense of death is separation, physical death, separation of the spirit and soul from the body.
A temporary condition.
Because both the saved and the lost.
God is going to reunite.
After physical death.
The spirit and soul with the body.
Also speaks of a spiritual death.
That spiritual death is.
Separation of spirit, soul and body.
Forever from the presence of God.
This is the second death.
In the Lake of Fire.
Which burns the lake, Which burns with fire and brimstone.
Who is it that are there?
We read in the previous chapter that those that are put there are those whose names are not written.
In the Lamb's Book of life.
Is your name.
Written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Do you fit somehow in this eighth verse?
Fearful.
Fearful.
Of coming before God.
And so you stay away.
Fearful, perhaps, of what others will say.
And so you stay away.
God says these will have their.
Place.
In the Lake of Fire.
Unbelieving.
Doesn't sound so bad in today's society, does it?
But God says the unbelieving will have their part in the lake of fire.
Tonight, is there one in this room who is despising the long-suffering of God?
Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance.
Unbelieving.
Unbelieving of the goodness of God.
All the world may become guilty.
Before God.
My friend tonight.
You are either declared guilty.
Or righteous.
By God.
In Ecclesiastes.
God tells us.
He says, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, let thy heart cheer thee.
In the days of thy youth.
And walk in the ways of thine heart.
And in the sight of thine eyes.
Anyone here tonight?
That has before them the things that are seen.
We were talking this afternoon about the things that are seen being temporal.
The things that are not seen eternal.
Anyone here tonight that has their hearts set?
On things that delight their eyes.
Things that delight their heart. Temporal things.
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God says if that's what you want.
He says you can have it.
But he says no thou that for all these things.
God will bring thee into judgment.
All the world guilty before God.
Has God? Does God still have you?
In that category.
Does he see you tonight if guilty?
Owing a penalty for your sin that you can never pay.
A few days ago I was talking to a young woman.
In solitary.
Because of.
But she had done.
She was quite unaffected.
By the message of the Gospel.
She said she had been raised.
In a Catholic home, had gone through catechism school, she said. No, I'm not so sure there's anything to that.
Did she had things she wanted to do?
There are things that she liked to do, things that she intended to do.
Regardless of consequences.
Things that she would do at any cost to.
Satisfied her desires.
I said to her.
Margaret, consider this.
You have these desires which you want to satisfy regardless of the consequences.
Think about having those desires.
And never.
Ever again.
Having them.
Real life, having them met.
Fulfill.
Souls in Hell.
Will have the same desires they have had all their life.
Desires of sin.
Of lust.
To satisfy at any consequence.
But no chance.
Of ever having them fulfilled.
She looked at me. Her response?
You're being mean.
I said Margaret.
That's what God says.
This young woman.
Hardened against God, hardened against the gospel.
Having only the desire.
To fulfill her lust.
12 years old.
Anyone here 12 years old?
Hardened to the Gospel.
But know this.
That for all these things.
God will bring me.
Into judgment.
It's a dark picture.
God says your sins have separated between you and your God.
Remember separation from God.
Is eternal death.
Eternity in the lake, which burneth with fire and brimstone.
Tonight.
You are in God's sight.
Either guilty.
Or righteous.
Consider in your own heart.
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God's words.
Again turning to Romans chapter 3.
There is none.
Righteous. No, not one.
There is none that understandeth, There is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way.
There together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one.
Perhaps you're not one who will satisfy your lusts.
At any cost.
But this is God's view.
Of humanity today going on in sin.
None righteous.
None that doeth good.
No, not one.
All the world.
Become guilty before God.
The Lord Jesus told the story of a rich man.
One whose fields had yielded bountifully.
Didn't know where to put his goods.
But his eyes were on things that are seen. His eyes were on material things, those things which he had.
He called his.
He says, Where shall I bestow my goods?
Anyone tonight seeking after the riches of this world?
Is that?
The goal of your heart.
God says, thou fool.
This night shall thy soul be required of thee.
Who shall those things be?
He says.
Such are those that lay up treasure for themselves.
And are not rich toward God.
These are very plain words that God uses. He speaks of hell. He speaks of judgment. He speaks of sin and its consequences.
Where do you stand tonight?
All the world guilty before God.
That wasn't what God intended.
God says he is not willing that any should perish.
But that all should come to repentance.
If you perish.
You are perishing.
Because you have rebelled against the will of God.
For God, Southern loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.
But have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world.
But that the world through him.
Might be saved.
God sent his Son.
Into the world.
That the world through him, might be saved.
Last night our brother referred to Isaiah chapter 52.
Where it was prophesied that the Son of God.
Would go through these sufferings.
Where his faith would be so marred more than any man.
And it's far more than the sons of men.
We wonder.
And what God would allow his Son to go through.
00:25:00
Yet God says in that same prophecy.
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.
He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
My servant shall deal prudently.
A wise transaction.
Completed.
By the servant of God, his own Son.
God says in Job about the Sinner.
Says keep his soul from going down to the pit.
I have found a ransom.
God requires death as the penalty for sin.
I must pay the penalty for my sin.
For someone must pay it for me.
God in his wisdom.
In his love for sinners.
Provided a way.
Then he could be justified.
That he could be.
Righteous.
And yet call the Sinner righteous.
Those hours of darkness.
He suffered for sinners.
On Calvary's tree, all forsaken alone.
The Son of God became man so that he could die on the cross.
As God, he could never sin. He walked this earth for some 33 years.
Never.
A sin.
When he died on the cross.
It wasn't for sins, for his sins that he died.
Because God says he made him Christ.
To be sin for us who knew no sin.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.
What a transaction?
Brought about by the wisdom and love of God.
A substitute.
For guilty sinners such as you and I.
Think of the words of the solemnist.
Deep calleth unto deep.
At the noise of thy water spouts thy cataracts.
All God's ways and billows have gone over me.
In those three hours of darkness.
Infinity.
In that transaction with Infinity.
Dealt with my sins.
And God's is judgment.
That I deserved as a Sinner.
Infinity.
Dealing with Infinity.
Concerning God's cataracts of judgment.
Think about it tonight, dear friend.
God the Father.
God the Son.
Dealing with your sin.
Dealing with your sins and mine.
Those three hours of darkness on the cross.
He who knew no sin.
Made sin for us.
That we might be made the righteousness of God.
In him.
00:30:02
Jesus.
The Son of God there on the cross.
After suffering those three hours of darkness.
Because of your sin and mine.
That he might be our substitute.
Gave up his life.
He said I have power to give it up.
I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my father.
He gave up his life.
A soldier with a spear in hatred.
And rebellion against God.
Thrust that spear into his side.
And the blood that washes away every sin.
From those who trust him.
Flowed forward.
Three days later.
Early in the morning.
It's as though God couldn't wait.
To raise his son.
Who had so glorified him?
In that prudent.
Transaction.
That great transaction of infinite value.
God raised him from the dead.
Bodily.
He had power to take his life again, so he took it again.
And we read also that he was raised in the power of the Spirit.
The Trinity. The three Persons of the Godhead.
Focused.
On the resurrection.
Of the servant of God.
Who dealt prudently?
Who so satisfied God with regard to the question of sin?
That's that big word, propitiation.
Satisfaction. God is satisfied.
With the price that the Lord Jesus paid.
On the cross.
Now God says the sinners.
You can't.
By your own righteousness.
By your own works, be righteous in my presence.
But he says, now I have a righteousness to give you.
As a free gift.
Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He says it's offered to all.
But those who enjoy that gift?
Are those that receive it.
Have you received God's gift?
Have you made it yours?
God says.
You are justified.
Declared righteous.
As the free gift of His grace.
Because the penalty was paid.
The redemption price paid.
By Christ Jesus.
Now God says he is justified.
He is righteous.
In declaring me righteous.
Through faith in Christ Jesus.
Now this soul that was guilty before God.
With a penalty to pay.
Either my death or the death of a substitute.
Is paid by that substitute provided by God himself.
00:35:04
But friend tonight.
If you don't recognize yourself.
As guilty before God.
Guilty of an eternity in hell.
You'll have no appreciation.
For that gift.
Is there anyone in the room tonight?
That would despise.
The goodness of God.
The mercy of God.
Now that same righteousness of God.
That required eternal death.
As the penalty for my sin, that same righteousness now says.
I am righteous.
I am righteous because the penalty of my sin was paid. They're all washed away in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son.
God has given me a new life.
One that can never sin. One that can never die.
And through Christ Jesus my Savior.
God looks at me in that new life.
And, says Morris, malware.
Is righteous.
Can you put your name in that statement?
God in righteousness.
Declaring the Sinner righteous.
Because of that wise transaction.
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.
Perhaps there the?
Room Tonight can be divided into two groups.
Those who have received God's gift.
And those who have not.
For all sinners God says so.
But many in this room as a look in the faces before me.
I know can say.
God has justified me through faith.
In Christ Jesus.
But can each one of you say that tonight?
For yourself.
Righteousness on the basis of faith in Christ Jesus.
He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
God raised his Son from the dead.
God received.
The Lord Jesus Christ back to heaven.
This time with a body of a man.
There is a man now in the presence of God.
Not only in the presence of God.
But now at the right hand of God.
Exalted. Extolled.
Very high.
He's seated in the highest place.
That God could put him.
Expressing God's own satisfaction and delight.
In that prudent transaction.
That was fulfilled.
By his own son.
A man in the glory.
The assurance that as long as he is there at God's right hand.
The Center through faith in Him.
We'll be there also.
Is that what you have to look forward to tonight?
An eternity.
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With the one who so loved you.
Or do you despise?
The goodness of God which leads you to repentance.
Those that are whole need not a position.
But those that are sick?
The Savior tonight is being presented to those to sinners.
To those who know their need.
To know those who know they are guilty before God.
Are you there tonight?
God is going to be glorified, fully glorified.
By the death of his son.
God says in speaking forth the gospel.
We are a sweet savior unto God.
To them that are saved.
And to them that are lost.
To the One, the Savior.
Of death and to death.
To the other, the savior of life.
And to life.
And only God.
Understands that.
It's the work of God.
That makes the difference.
The Spirit of God working in your heart tonight.
If you are yet unbelieving.
But God is going to be glorified.
What if God?
Willing to show his power.
Willing to show his wrath and to make his power known.
Endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath.
Fitted for destruction.
What made, what fitted those vessels of wrath for destruction?
Sin God is still in long-suffering.
Waiting.
For sinners to.
To him.
God waiteth in patience for sinners to trust Him.
Is he waiting for you tonight?
God is going to be glorified.
With regard to you, your friend.
Either a saver of life and delight.
Or death unto death.
Before God this evening.
Will you be assured?
That it will be a savor of life into life.
As you sit there tonight, look down.
How many knees do you see?
God says every knee shall bow.
And every tongue confess Jesus Christ is Lord.
To the glory of God the Father.
Those needs will bow.
Will they bow tonight?
In worship.
To the Savior, the one who so loved you.
The one who gave himself for you, The one who, in obedience to.
Father.
Was willing to come to Earth.
To die as your substitute.
Will you bow before him tonight?
Or are you going to wait?
Till that day of judgment.
When with the heaven and earth fled away.
The Great White Throne.
White absolute holiness.
With the Lord Jesus, the one that God has ordained to judge the world in righteousness.
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Sitting on that throne.
Are you willing?
To stand before him.
Without your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
And be judged.
For the deeds of your life.
Every knee shall bow.
And every tongue confesses.
That Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Those knees will bow.
He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
God said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
God raised him from the dead. God received him back into glory.
Their seat is at God's right hand.
The one who waits to be your savior tonight.
He waited in patience.
For sinners to trust him, and says, I receive thee now, just as thou art.
Salvation and pardon, I heartily offered.
To all who receive me, my faith.
In their heart.
Will you?
Tonight.
Glorify God.
Through faith in his son.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
As your savior.
As the one who paid your penalty.
In your place.
Let's close by singing #36.
Oh, do not let the word depart.
And close thine eyes against the light.
Gore, Center. Harden not thine heart.
Thou wouldst be saved.
Why not tonight?
#36.
Do not let the word depart and close thine eyes.
Against the light.
Or shame, torture. Now your heart.
And what's been saved by the same time?
Great.
For God, we thank thee for the Gospel, the good news of salvation.
Thy blessed Son and his work on the Cross.
As our substitute.
We thank thee for thy love, our God.
And we pray that if there are any in this room.
Who have not yet put their trust.
In the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
That they might do so tonight.
Before it is forever too late.
Perhaps this could be the last gospel meeting.
We pray that Thou will solemnize each heart.
As to the native sinners.
So we ask for thy blessing, we ask thy care over us now through the night. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
I don't know about you, I was a little rusty on #36 and this little work on that.
Just got a couple things if you bear with me, just for a few minutes. First of all, they pass all the ham sheets to our right. Someone will collect those.
The next meeting will be tomorrow morning at 10:30. Prior for the meetings will be begin at 9:15.
There will be a young people saying tonight at the meeting room at Mayfield that will start at 8:30.
Sunday school papers again are at the back entrance on the podium.
And a couple of things that are not related to the meetings, if anyone here that's staying at either one of the motels, the the Days Inn or the Super 8, if you would like to stay over again the the discounted rate will be available available for you.
And justice, the last thing, I guess the custodians have asked us tonight to try to be gone in a timely manner where they can take care of things here in the room, possibly 8:30 to 8:40.
Thank you very much.
The Judgment Seat
Address—R. Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's start our meeting with #168.
168.
The night is far spent and the day is at hand.
No sign to be looked for The stars in the sky.
Rejoice then, you Saints, tis your Lord's own command. Rejoice for the coming of Jesus.
It draws 9. What a day that will be when the Savior appears. How Welcome to those who have shared in His cross a crown incorruptible then will be theirs, A rich compensation for suffering and loss. What is loss in this world when compared to that day? To the glory that then will from heaven be revealed.
The Savior's coming, his people may say, the Lord whom we look for our Son and our shield.
#168.
The night is far spent.
Gracious Father, thanks so much for the hope that shines brightly before us, the coming of our Lord Jesus. We look forward to seeing the face to face at any moment now, Lord Jesus, and how that fact does reflect on our lives down here. Help us this afternoon as we open my precious word to speak rightly.
00:05:18
And that thy spirit may have liberty to take thy word and bring it home to our consciences.
And hearts we ask thy blessing, Father, not only for ourselves.
But wherever thy people may be opening my word at this time, make it a real blessing.
Father, we pray and give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
Like to turn to start with to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5.
This afternoon to read a verse there.
Verse 10.
Two Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 10.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone.
May receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done.
Whether it be good or bad.
My recent trip down to Bolivia, the question of the judgment seat of Christ came up.
Recently up here since I've been back, it came up as well and I thought it's kind of interesting subject to consider perhaps this afternoon. It's an important subject. It's something that really.
Bears on every single one of us.
Because it says very clearly here we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
Now, when we consider this subject for believers, I trust that there is clarity with each one that we're not talking about judgment of our persons. That was settled forever when the Lord Jesus died for us on the cross of Calvary.
The question of the judgment of our persons is settled.
Jesus when he died said it is finished. The whole question of where we stand before God is settled. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. It also says in in John 524 that well known gospel verse.
It says He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me.
Hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death into life.
So the question of our persons, we are accepted in the beloved. We are as accepted before God as the Lord Jesus is. If there is any question as to our acceptance before God, you're going to have to lay that same question mark on the Lord Jesus there at the right hand of God. Do you dare to do such a thing? No, I'm sure no one would dare to do that.
That is our position. As He is, so are we in this world. But what we are dealing with here, and I think it is clear in this verse, if you'll notice it, it says that everyone may receive the things done in His body according to that which He hath done, whether it be good or bad. It's a question of the review.
Of our lives, of our works. This is an important thing to think about. Everything is going to pass in review before the judgment seat of Christ. Every word that I have spoken, every act I have ever done, even the very thoughts of my mind where I let them wander is going, is going to have to be an accounting done for it all.
It says in Matthew's Gospel every idle word that men shall speak.
00:10:03
He shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. That applies to believers too.
We will give account for our words in that day. They will be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. It's not a question here of condemnation of our persons. I again repeat, you don't get the wrong idea. It's a question that everything has to pass in review before the judgment seat of Christ. And there's some things that will be burnt up.
And there's some things that will remain. It's a question of our.
Works.
And there you know that verse in Matthew that I quoted every idle word that men shall speak, I often used to.
Admire.
My uncle Bob Tony out in Walla Walla WA went home to be with the Lord just recently.
He was a bachelor brother.
He, if you knew him, knew that he was a man of few words.
And often thought.
It'll probably go a lot easier for him than for me when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ.
O brethren, to be careful with our words.
It means so much.
A brother did something on me one time.
Some of us were invited. This is years ago before I was married. Invited a bunch of us young people over to his house for a meal.
And we were sitting on the couch joking around like young people do, you know?
And be unbeknownst to me, he had set a recorder behind the couch.
And when we were called to the table for the meal, he brought the recorder to the couch and played it back to it.
I must say, brethren, I was thoroughly ashamed to hear my voice.
Couldn't believe it how awful it sounded.
Try it sometime.
It brethren, we're going to stand before the judgment seat.
Shortly the Lord comes. This afternoon we're going to be raptured into his presence.
Taken into the Father's house.
When exactly? Well, when you get to heaven, brethren, it's not a question of when, because we're in eternity. We're not in the realm of time any longer.
But one of the first things that's going to take place is this. That is called the judgment seat. Notice again, we must all appear, is there anybody here that says, oh, that appears to you brothers that are responsible in the meetings? It doesn't really appear to me I'm not that responsible yet. And nobody's accepted here. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
That we might receive the things done in the body according to that he had done, whether it be good or bad.
Remember an old brother who used to say.
In his prayers to the Lord Lord.
Grave and turn eternity on my eyeballs.
In grave eternity on my eyeballs, brethren, we live a brief moment of time here in this world.
It's not going to be very long and we're going to all be gone.
From this world into that eternal day and what you do.
Now what I do now has consequences, not only.
For this realm of time that we are living in, but for eternity.
Is what I do today going to count for that eternal day?
Or is it something that will not?
Last, the test of the judgment seat of Christ. I'd like to go back to the First Corinthians where we have another portion that deals with this First Corinthians chapter 3.
And verse nine, we're going to read from there a few verses.
We are laborers together with God.
Ye are God's husbandry.
Ye are God's building.
00:15:03
According to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation.
And another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed.
How he buildeth thereon Notice that let every man take heed how he'd build it. Thereupon four other foundation can no man lay. Then that is laid which is Christ Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.
Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire.
And the fire shall try every man's work.
Of what sort it is.
Notice pretty inclusive that.
Statement The fire shall try every man's work. It's not a question of our persons again.
It's a question of our work.
It's going to pass in review in that day at the judgment seat of Christ. Now from verse 14 we have three different cases of how things will go for those that appear at the judgment seat of Christ. Number one, verse 14, if any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon.
He shall receive a reward. Here is a good worker, a real worker, and his work abides. Not only does his work remain, but he gets a reward on top of it.
Isn't this interesting?
Verse 15 #2 If any man's work shall be burned.
He shall suffer loss, that he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
Here's a real believer, but his work is burned.
And it actually says he will suffer a lot.
No reward spoken of here.
Verse 16 and 17 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
And here we have the last case, if any man defile the temple of God.
Him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy.
Which temple ye are? Here we have one who makes the profession of being a believer, and he isn't real at all.
Have an example in Judas Iscariot. Judas was one of the 12 apostles when our Lord Jesus was here in this world.
He passed amongst them, undetected by the other apostles.
He did evidently miracles. He cast out demons. He preached the gospel.
That they were sent out to preach.
Whereas Judas Iscariot right now he is called the son of Perdition.
He is in hell.
That awful.
The judgment of these, of course, will not be exactly. It will not be at the same time as the.
Believer, a real believer has his works manifested, but.
They will be tried as well, and not only is the work bad, but the Workman himself is destroyed. That's a solemn warning to anybody who is president, takes the place of a as a believer and is not.
You're only fooling yourself, you might say. I'm fooling everybody else. You're not fooling merely everybody else. You're fooling yourself.
God knows exactly where you stand. Judas Iscariot didn't fool the Lord for one moment.
00:20:00
He gave him numerous warnings that he should have picked up on, but he never did.
Sad solemn end to Judas Iscariot.
But I want to deal with these verses 14 and 15 where we have the believer, and I want to say here and read a verse in the next chapter as well that deals with the judgment seat of Christ. Perhaps we should read that to start with here.
It's speaking about stewardship in verses one and two.
And let's read from verse three. But with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged.
Of you or of man's judgment, yeah, I judge not mine own self.
For I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified? But he that judgeth me is the Lord.
Therefore, judge nothing before the time.
Until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.
And will make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God. Really believe that every true believer will have something that remains in that day of manifestation. Every true believer. I think this verse shows that.
But Paul is saying and because he was talking about the Corinthians there, and I'm sure the Corinthians evaluated how Paul preached.
He didn't have a powerful delivery, evidently, like some did and.
They evaluated those things, he says. Don't judge anything before the time until the Lord come and notice this part, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart.
In other words, at the judgment seat, not only what we do.
Is going to be manifested. The motives behind what we do is going to be manifested and rewarded accordingly.
Sometimes they give the illustration a little child may bring something to.
Their mother or their father that they prepared maybe for their birthday, but it's just a little piece of paper folded and colored, and it has very little worth really.
But the mother or the father that receives it values that.
Why? Because they value the motive behind it.
And the Lord is going to manifest not only the acts.
But the motives behind our actions in that day?
So this is an important thing to remember in connection with this. You know, we have an example in.
The mighty men of David.
Maybe we should read that it's in.
Second Samuel, I think it is chapter 23.
Second Samuel, chapter 23.
And verse 13.
Three of the 30 chief went down and came to.
David in the harvest time into The Cave of a dolem, and the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Raphael, and David was then in an hold, and the Garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.
And David longed and said, Oh, that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.
The three mighty men breakthrough the host of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate.
And took it, and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord.
And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it. These things did, these three mighty men.
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There are.
Six or five verses dedicated to these three mighty men. What did they do that they have their record written in Holy Scripture for us to read about so many years later? What was it that they brought to David? Was it some tremendous work?
It was some water. Water. Is that all? Nothing more than just some water.
That's all it was, just some water.
But scripture evaluates what was behind their doing that.
And what it costs them to bring that water. Sometimes, you know, we view things that people do for the Lord. And I think sometimes I have been guilty of judging a person wrong. I said, man, that's not much.
Scripture says judge nothing before the time the Lord will make the right judgment in his day. And so we are encouraged not to make judgments now, to leave the judgments for that day of glory. But those men like to think of how they heard that simple desire of David. David, you know, was from Beth.
Probably.
Drunk out of that? Well, a lot when he was a youth.
And he in The Cave of Adulam in his rejection.
And Bethlehem was under the power of the Philistines. The Garrison of the Philistines was there.
And he wished for a drink of there and near. These men took their lives in their hands, just three of them. Can you imagine?
Taken on a whole Garrison, and breaking through the lines of the Philistines.
And I can just imagine them standing there at the well and two of them fending off the Philistines well. One grew water out.
And they broke right back through the lines of the Philistines to take the water to David.
What a tremendous thing. It didn't appear like anything.
That important or that valuable? But it was valuable to David.
And it's recorded in Holy Writ for us to read about today. I think this is beautiful. You're a young person. Be encouraged to do what you do for the Lord. Maybe it turns out that it appears like it's a mess what you tried to do. Remember, the Lord is not going to only manifest the work itself. He's going to manifest the motives that motivated you to do what you did for Him. I think that's so encouraging.
I have to confess that sometimes I've tried to do things.
And it turned out all bad. It appeared like, man, I really made a mess of it.
But that wasn't my purpose in doing it. In that day. The Lord is going to evaluate not only.
What we do, but the motives behind what we do. And those are things that you and I cannot evaluate now. I think it's so important, brethren, we live in a culture, I suppose, that tends to form judgments about things that take place. And so we like to say, well, that is good and that is bad. And I have found in my own experience that so often.
I'm way off in my judgment. A little later I hear another detail and I completely change my.
Feeling about what took place. Why is that? It's because I don't see the full picture.
And that's why Scripture says judge nothing before the time we need to leave those things with the Lord, and He will form the appropriate and just judgment for it all.
But I like to go back to this third chapter, the 14th and 15th verses again.
To me, it's such an encouragement to us to work in view.
Of that eternal day and that which will remain.
For that eternal day, if any man's work abide.
Which he hath built. Thereupon he shall receive a reward.
00:30:02
Notice it talks about the work that is laid on the foundation in verse 12.
There are six different materials mentioned, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.
Three of those will remain the test of the fire. Three of those will not remain after the test of the fire. I might be able to fill this whole room with straw, hay and stubble.
And you put a match to it, it's not long before there's nothing left except some ashes.
And here comes the wind, and takes away the ashes. Nothing left.
For all my work of filling this place with.
The straw or hay?
But or I could say even wood.
But maybe work all my life long and I don't think this table.
I could fill that table even with gold and silver.
And precious stones, but put the fire to that.
And that fire is not going to hurt those things at all. They're going to remain after the test of the fire. Oh, brethren, the Lord help us to work in a way that our work may remain, that it may have the approval, the sanction of the precious Word of God that we hold in our hands. There's so much work being done today that is not done.
With the approval of God's precious Word. And that's why we need to read the scriptures.
To understand his thoughts. It's not our work that we are doing for the Lord.
It's his work that he is doing and uses us as instruments.
And then the measure that I understand his thinking, I can be an instrument that can be used with understanding in his work.
Remember when we moved from Santa Cruz and Bolivia over to Cochabamba? It's a nice area to live in Cochabamba, and there's a lot of missionaries there.
And when we went there.
Quite a few of them asked me when I met up with some of them. What do you come here for? Plant new churches?
I said no, Sir.
I'm not going to seek to add anything to the confusion of the multitude of churches that already exist here in this town. My desire in coming here is to work in view of the fact that God began what the Lord Jesus called my church on the day of Pentecost and that continues to this day. That's all my desire to recognize.
But how many people? There are sincere people. I remember a missionary coming in.
Fresh down there, couldn't speak Spanish too well yet came into our book room to buy some bibles.
And he said I've come to plant churches. My heart sank.
A little bit. As if there weren't enough already, he was going to start some more.
O brethren, may the Lord help us to work in the light of His Word. That way, when that moment comes of manifestation and glory, our work will remain, will abide, and there will be a reward on top of it. Isn't that encouraging? We shouldn't work nearly for rewards, but the reward is an encouragement for us.
To work for him in a way that there will be his approval in that coming day.
But then verse 15, If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss.
But he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire.
To me, here is something extremely sad.
A real believer, he is saved, no question about it.
But everything is burned up, as I mentioned before, I don't think that.
00:35:00
Any believer will be without anything.
Of God's approval in that coming day of glory, I think everyone will have something of praise from God.
But here is one whose work is burned up, and he suffers loss.
In I, John chapter 2, we're not going to look at it.
It speaks the apostle John about being ashamed before him at his coming.
Is that possible to be ashamed before him at his coming? Yes.
That's what Scripture indicates, and here it speaks of loss in connection with the judgment seat of Christ. To see so many years of work burned up. Oh brethren, the Lord search my heart. I hope I'm not just saying it to you, saying it to my own soul how this searches me. I want to work in a way that in that coming day of glory there will be something that remains for him.
I never forget the challenge it was to my soul.
As a young believer, when I went the first time with brother Eric Smith to Bolivia, it was in 1968.
And Bolivia doesn't have a lot of good roads like the US does.
And we left. We flew into the city of Potosi in the South. That the city.
Of approximately 13,000 feet altitude.
And from there we took a truck, Brother Eric Smith, who was older at that time, along with Ramon Alarcon. They sat up in the cab with the driver and the rest of us. We stood in the back of the truck for most of that day jouncing over those roads. And the last 15 miles was down a dry riverbed from the main road into the area where Brother Smith started his work amongst the Indians.
In the 20s, nineteen 20s and.
It is like I say, what happens there is that in the rainy season the rivers get swollen, but when the water dries up, there's no water there and they clear out the big boulders and you just drive down the riverbeds to wherever you want to go.
That at the end of that day we're going to weary. Here was the brethren waiting for us. They knew we were coming, and they had fixed up an arch of branches of.
Of eucalyptus trees that grow in that area.
And Willow trees.
And there they were, standing around singing hymns.
And I never forget dear Brother Smith.
Sitting in the cab of that truck.
And he couldn't get out. It seemed like for quite a while he just sat there with the tears streaming down his face.
To see the fruit of his laborers those many years.
You know, Brother Smith told me about his background as a young person. He had a lot of opportunity to.
Excel in New Zealand. His father was.
A personal friend of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, so he had opportunity to go into the direction of politics.
One of his father's other friends was a sea captain and offered to take him on in an apprenticeship to so that he could be a sea captain. He had opportunities in numerous areas.
But he specifically turned his back on it all with the conviction that God had called him to Bolivia.
To preach the gospel there and his father, who at that time was an unbeliever.
When he learned about Eric Smith's decision to go to Bolivia, it's.
You're foolish, son. Out of my house.
And he got thrown out of the house and he went to medical school. He studied a couple years in medical school.
Never finished that, but he had to work at the same time to support himself.
Brother Smith arrived in Bolivia in 1921.
And the work remains that was started there.
And that's not to glory in men I trust, brethren, but what I see in it so important is that if our lives correspond to what God has shown us in His Word, there will be. Brother Smith is gone to the Lord's presence now, but his work remains. It's going on. And it's so impressive to me to see how it continues to go on those brethren.
00:40:24
They are anxious to get together to read the word.
There are more conferences in South America. There are than there are in North America. And rather than when they get together for readings, they like to get together for readings. They start the reading meeting when I was down there this time starts at 9:00 in the morning and goes straight through to 12, starts again at 2:00 in the afternoon, goes straight through to 5:00. Once in a while they break it, but generally that's the order of the day. And although you get kind of weary sitting there.
Let me tell you.
The way the scriptures are opened up.
By leaving liberty to the Spirit of God to me is a tremendous testimony to the fact that it is the work of the Lord.
And not Brother Smith's work merely, nor anybody else's work. It is God.
Working amongst his people.
Oh that I would see more zeal amongst the young people here in this country.
To really get into the word, to grow in it.
To put time into it, young people, soon we're going to leave this world. We're going to go into the Lord's presence. Only what's been done in the light of His Word will remain the test of that day. Are you interested in something that will remain in that day, or do you want everything burned up? This is the challenge that comes to my soul. I have to confess that there's a lot in my life.
That will be burned up in that day.
Things I've done for my own pleasure.
Things I've done for myself.
And they're not saying that they're necessarily wrong.
But they're just not things that will remain the test to that day.
And that came home as a challenge, a real challenge to my soul. When I sat, I stood in the back of that truck that day when we got there at eulog, saw those dear brethren there. I said if Brother Smith had stayed in New Zealand, he might have been a powerful, well known figure in politics. He may have had a tremendous bank account. He may have had so many things that naturally speaking, we desire.
But now what does he have?
Remember visiting them there in the nursing home in Montreal on his last days.
Really nothing down here did he have.
But it was all waiting up there. Oh, this blessing that came from that light. Lived in view of eternity. Dear young people, live in view of eternity.
It's great to see some of you.
Taking major decisions in your life, getting engaged and getting married, and starting a family.
Can I encourage you Live simply live.
As scripture encourages this to as pilgrims and strangers.
We live in such a high standard of living in this country and I see that it ties us up time wise, it ties us up.
It ties our means up to all our all the things we own.
To the point where the Lords work.
Is put on second plane if not 3rd or 4th.
How is that going to figure when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ?
Managed to provide for his own, especially those of his own house. And I'm not saying that we should live like hermit.
But I'm saying that we can live, I really believe, more simply.
For the Lord in view of that coming day.
And I'd like to just speak in the remaining time of two in the Old Testament.
That are examples of these two verses 14 and 15.
We have Abraham and we have his nephew Lot.
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Both save souls. Perhaps we would not get the feeling that Lot was a saved soul from the Old Testament, but the New Testament clearly tells us that righteous man. So he was a righteous man. Scripture tells us that.
So he was a saved soul, but they lived according to.
Different principles.
Abraham was the father of faith. He lived by faith.
God called him in his native herb, the Chaldees, to go out to a land.
Where he did not know you would have come up to Abraham and seen him on his way out of ur the Chaldees.
And ask him, Abraham, where are you going? He would have said. I don't know.
God has called me, you might have said.
It might. It looks like he's lost his marbles.
Going where he doesn't know where he's going, but God had called him. He walked by faith. And faith is always based on the Word of God. That's what it's based on. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Oh dear young people, don't take a step, don't make a decision without the light of the precious Word of God guiding you.
But there was Lot and Lot did not live by that principle of life you.
You know it tells us in Two Corinthians 5.
Paul says we walk by faith, not by sight. Abraham walked by faith, but Lot walked according to that other principle. He walked by sight. Let's turn over to the book of Genesis just for a few moments and remain to us and look at it there because it's such a vivid.
Picture of what happens to a person who walks by sight.
Genesis chapter 13 they were having problems.
The herdsmen of Lot and Abraham.
And so Abraham says in verse 8.
And to lot let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen.
For we be, brethren, is not the whole Lamb before thee? Separate thyself.
I pray thee from me thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right.
If thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.
Lot was a younger man, I suppose. He certainly.
Should have given the first opportunity to his uncle Abraham. But it says in verse 10. Notice it very clearly. Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest into Zoar. Then Lot shows him all the plain of Jordan and Lot journeyed east.
And they separated themselves, the one from the other.
So a lot made his decisions based on the sight of his eyes.
I don't say that we close our eyes completely. No, we use our eyes. But don't make your decisions based on the sight of your eyes. Make your decisions based on the principles of God's precious Word, and you won't have to repent of it.
What portion did Abraham get?
Lot took the whole plain of Jordan.
Where it was so well watered, what portion did Abraham get? Verse 14 The Lord said unto Abram, After that Lot was separated from him, Left up now thine eyes, and looked from the place where thou art northward and southward, and eastward and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it to thy seed forever. He got everything.
He got everything. Why? Because he left the choice with the Lord, and the Lord gave him everything. Oh, the preciousness of living by faith and not by sight.
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But what happens? A lot Lot it says.
He journeyed to the east. Later on, it says that he pitched his tent towards Sodom. Later on, he's right in the gate of Sodom. That's where the judges sit in those old days. And the gate was the place of judgment and Lot got right in there in the midst of Sodom.
And in the 19 chapter.
Just to make a brief remark about the 18th chapter. I think it's so beautiful.
That Abraham has visitors.
He's a hospitable man, he's a wealthy man, he's got 318 servants.
Anybody that got 10 servants in their house here, please raise their hand.
I don't think so.
Once in a while you might have one come in do some cleaning for you, but.
Abraham was a wealthy man, but he has servants.
And here he has some visitors. I think this is so beautiful that the Lord.
Felt free to come and visit Abraham. It seemed to be a common occurrence.
Would the Lord feel free to come visit you at your house? Did you have time?
Would you have a place for him?
Abraham saw them standing there and he runs to meet them and I love this. He doesn't just command Sarah to.
Fix the food.
Now Abraham is #1.
And running around getting the food together. Yeah, Sarah does her part too.
That Abraham is the one that serves the Lord and those two angels.
That's kind of interesting. Do angels eat? They sure do. Here's the example of it. They eat food just like we do.
They don't need it, perhaps, but they do eat it, and the Lord ate too.
And Abraham was the servant. It wasn't Sarah that brought the food out.
It was Abraham. I think. This is beautiful. Something for us brothers to think about a little bit, I think.
Not to leave all the work perhaps to the sister, but to pitch in ourselves anyhow. That's by the way. But Abraham was the one who lived by faith. And I think it's so beautiful that the Lord did not hide from Abraham what he was going to do, because Abraham knew what it was to walk by faith, walk with the Lord before him. Not that Abraham didn't have his mistakes. He did have his problems in life.
But Abraham, the general tenor of his life, was walking.
By faith.
But in chapter 19, you have the two angels, not the Lord, but the two angels sent to Sodom, and they'd come there to get Lot and his family out of there.
And it's a pretty sorry story.
What happened in that city? Lot immediately seems to recognize these two angels.
And he?
Persuades them finally to come into his house. He prepares a feast for them.
And then the city is on an uproar.
Awful, awful confusion of that city.
What no one realized was it was the last night that Sodom would exist on the face of the earth.
That awful to think about.
Then.
They come and they plug the door, and the lot goes out and calls them brethren.
Oh, how far down can we get when we mix with the world?
Dear young people, God has called us to be separate. We are separate.
The Lord has sanctified us. We are a separate people to get mixed up with the world. You are inviting disaster.
And then he does something even more awful. He offers those men his daughters.
I can't imagine whatever made him do such an awful thing.
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Finally, the men rescue him and pull him in and smite the people with blindness.
And then say.
Who do you have in this city? Tell them to get out. We are going to destroy it and and a lot.
As mentioned yesterday, seemed like one that mocked.
Because he was not living.
Properly in separation to the Lord.
And what happens finally? The Lord being merciful to Lot?
The hold of Lot's hand, and of his wife's hand, and the other Angel of his two daughters hands, and they go.
Forcibly pulled out of the city and told to flee to the mountains.
And not look back.
And so they take off for the mountains and.
Lot's wife looks back and she stays there, converted into a pillar of salt.
Awful judgment. You could pull her out, but her heart was still in Sodom.
He lost his wife.
And they continue on.
And there, in the wilderness, his two daughters get him drunk.
And through his two daughters, he becomes the father of two.
Nations that are a thorn in the sight of Israel to this day.
O the offline he lost everything, everything burnt up.
That's the last we hear of Lot. And like I say, if it wasn't for what the New Testament has to say about Lot, we might not know. He was really a saved man after all. But he was. He was saved. Yet so is by fire. Everything burned up.
Do you want your life that way in that coming day, dear young people?
The way you live tells me whether you want your life that way or not. I want to encourage you to live for God, to live for that eternal day where we're soon going to enter in all its splendor into the Lord's presence.
Don't live for the brief moment of time.
That we are here in this world, and it's a brief moment. It's only a brief moment. I asked Brother Lino Bueno down in Bolivia. He was 99 years of old when he passed away. Sometime before that I asked him, does your life seem like a long life?
No, brother, it seems like yesterday I was a teenager.
And that's the way life is. Life goes awful fast. Don't waste your lives. I plead with you, dear young people, make your life count for God and for that eternal day.
And I want to say we all have.
Things that God has given us.
In Scripture it tells us about spiritual gifts.
They are given to us and we're going to be responsible in that day. The Lord is going to say it to you. I gave you spiritual gifts. What have you done with those gifts? Not only spiritual gifts, but there are what Scripture speaks of, of talents. I like to think of those as natural abilities that we all have.
And there's going to be an account given for those in that day as well.
We have our time. That's a precious commodity, Scripture says redeeming the time because the days are evil.
How many hours are there in a week?
Something like 100 and what, 70 or something like that? 68 maybe?
You work 40 hours, you've still got about 120 hours left. You're going to sleep.
Another part of that away, but you got quite a good chunk of time to use. How are you using it?
Just for your own pleasure, to do your own thing. Do you make time for the Lord?
When it comes to the meetings of the Assembly, are they a priority with you?
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Or is there something more important than being in the Lord's presence these things?
Will be manifest that the judgment seat time is a precious commodity.
There are other things too, and I look at you young people, and I say, what's tremendous energy you have? Use those energies for the Lord. Don't use them merely for this world and present advantage.
Our monies too, or another commodity that we're going to give an account for in that day?
And when we stand there and we see the percentage we spend on ourselves and the percentage we spend on the Lord's things, how is it going to appear? These are things that challenge deeply my own soul, brethren.
The Lord has put us in a country where there is tremendous commodities at our fingertips. How are we using them?
Shortly we are going to re raptured into the Lord's presence. Leave everything here in this world behind.
And then we shall be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. Lord grant us that we might work in view of being acceptable to Him in that day.
The Lord search my heart, brethren. Perhaps it searches yours as well. Let's pray.
Gracious Father, we ask Thy blessing on my precious word.
Granted to have its way in our lives. We ask Thy blessing, the meetings to follow as well. All in that most worthy name of the Lord Jesus.