Kentucky Conference: 2008
Table of Contents
Looking at the Things Which Are Not Seen
Colossians 3:1-3
Reading
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.
Our souls this afternoon, I'd like to suggest perhaps we could consider the third chapter of the Book of Colossians.
Stop.
There's a reflection on things above, not on things on the earth for years bad, and your life ahead would drive them. God, when Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him and glory mortified. Therefore your members, which are upon the earth orientation and plainness, and organ affection, evil infupison and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things take the strength of God, incumbent on the children of disobedience.
In the woods he also won't sometimes when he lived in them, but now he also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy and filthy communication out of your mouth. Well, I have one to another saying that he has put off the old man with his seeds, and has put on the new man with his renewed and knowledge after the image of him and create him where there is neither Greek or Jews nor uncross decisions.
Barbarian, Dizzy and Biomedium Strength is all and enol.
Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, follow the birth of you, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.
Forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a floral against enemy, even as Frank forgave you, so also to ye. And above all these things put on cherry, which is a bound of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your heart through the which also here called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and managing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever you do, and where do you do all in the name of the Lord, See of us giving thanks to God and the Father by account. Why commit yourselves up to your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord Husband Leger wise, and be non voter against them. Children, obey your parents and all things where this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children's anger and blessing you disturb it. Servants obey. All things are masters according to the pledge.
Not what I heard was commendable, but I'm single as a parent for fearing God, and whatsoever he do, do it horribly answered the Lord, and not unto men, knowing them of the Lord, He shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for he serves the Lord praying.
But he that doeth wrong and people are wrong with he has done and there is no respect for the person.
Well, Christianity sets us in relationship to Christ.
But I remember one time our brother Chuck Hendricks raised a question at a conference like this. He said, what is Christianity? And someone said, well, Christianity can be summed up in one word, Christ. But that needs explanation because it's not Christ in the way the disciples knew Christ when he walked here on earth. They walked with the Lord Jesus. John said our hands have handled of the word of life. They saw him with the physical eye. They touched him in a physical way.
But as we read in another place, henceforth know we know man after the flesh.
For though we knew Christ after the flesh, henceforth know we Him no more.
No, we don't know Christ in the same way that the disciples knew Him when He walked here amongst men. Nor is it in the same way that His earthly people will be associated with Him in the coming day when He comes back and they see Him and they say, what are these wounds and so on. No, we're associated, brethren, with Christ, but it's Christ in glory. We are connected with a risen, glorified head who is seated at the right hand of God.
00:05:24
Now in the book of Ephesians, we find that we are already positionally seated in heavenly places in Christ. In Colossians, it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. We're still seen as here on our way with the glory before us. But brethren, we're associated with that man who is already seated at the right hand of God. He's our head as Colossians brings before us. He's the head of the body.
Were linked to him as the members here on earth by the Spirit of God. And in this chapter he begins the very practical exhortations that go along with the truth that has been brought before the Colossians Saints in the first two chapters as to Christ being the head as to be dead, being dead and risen with Christ and associated with him in that way and so on. And so now he's going to exhort us to set our affections or our mind on things above.
To be occupied with Christ, the one we're associated with. But I say it's not Christ here in this world. It's not Christ as we're going to see him in a future day or this world is going to see him in a future day. But it's Christ where he is now. And brethren, isn't that what we need? To be occupied with the man in the glory to realize our relationship to him, to realize as brother Bob. And what really brought this chapter home to my soul was when brother Bob was speaking about how.
The things that are seen are temporal. The things that are not seen are eternal. We've never seen Christ with the physical eye, but is he any less real to the eye of faith? We've never seen heaven, We've never seen our spiritual blessings. But brethren, are they any less real to the eye of faith? No. If we can just get a glimpse of Christ in glory, we can just get a grasp in our souls of all that we have in Him.
And all that is ahead in that future day of glory. Why that's going to adjust things. So we put off the deeds of the flesh so that we live to His glory now, so that we press on in the path of faith. And I know there's many problems and difficulties, many brethren here with real burdens, and they are real physical burdens and trials and family problems and assembly difficulties. These things are very real. But brethren, if we're just these days, we're here if we can just get a fresh glimpse.
Of the man in the glory, if we can just get a fresh glimpse of what's ahead, what is ours in him and the resources that we have in him, I believe it will encourage us and spur us on to go back. Maybe we will go back to the difficulties for a short time before the Lord comes, but it will give us the courage and strength to press on. As Bob said, not always to be delivered from them, but to be delivered through them with Christ before our souls.
Uh, conference many years ago, one of the leading brothers said, uh.
Be what you are.
And you read the.
In A Galatians 326.
We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus now pregnant, be that not a child of Adam. We don't know Adam anything. That's the only thing he's he's given to us really. Christ. It's life and it's heavenly life too.
Be what you are, a child God.
It's been helpful to my soul to see the context of this chapter in connection with the Old Testament truth.
In chapter 2.
And verse 11.
Or verse 10, We'll read it, and ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, Wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
00:10:02
This is the book of Colossians, and it brings before us in the Old Testament figure the children of Israel having just crossed the North River.
I've gone into the promised land and gone to Gilgal and there they had circumcision. And that's what we just read in chapter 2 is spiritual circumcision. And these chapters bring before us that thought. It begins with the facts and it's a fact. It's not a maybe thing, but we are dead with Christ and we have been raised with Him, our chapters and so it says.
We first had the fact of it in what we read and then there's a consequence of it in chapter 2 and verse 20 when he says if ye be dead with Christ, and then there's the result of being dead with Christ in chapter 3 verse one. Then he says if you be risen with Christ and there is a natural result for us of having been risen with Christ.
The consequence of being dead with Christ, as he says in verse 20, is from the rudiments of the world. In Colossians, the enemy of our souls is the world.
Enrollments. It's the flesh, and in Ephesians it's Satan and heavenly powers against us. But here it's the world, and when the children of Israel were in the wilderness.
The world was still in their hearts.
And they wanted to go back oftentimes to each other and every. I suspect everyone of us who's been on the road a little while at one time or another may be presently in our spiritual lives, we find the world.
Has a power to attract us.
And in this wilderness, in doctrine, yes, we recognize that, uh, doctrinally as a world, uh, and we're strangers and pilgrims, we say, and so on. And yet, like the children of Israel in the wilderness, there's that strength of the world to draw the heart back to Egypt. It's not until they get to Gilgal, the place of circumcision, that the reproach of Egypt.
Is rolled away.
And what we have in our chapter is that which delivers our hearts from each other.
It's the fact that our hearts are set and attracted because we are dead, because we are risen with him, that the object of our hearts is outside the world. He's in heaven. And if we be risen with Christ, and we are, then we're taught to put our affections, our thoughts, to have them centered in the Lord Jesus and if we find, in him.
An object of our hearts that satisfies the soul.
It delivers us from the power of Egypt, but if we have not practically found in Him, in His person as a man in the glory that which draws our hearts by affection.
As Ephesians 3 says, it speaks of the love of Christ in US, dwelling in US. If that love is not operative in the heart, then the things of Egypt will continue to attract Him.
And so, as we go through this chapter, the intent is to so fix our gaze upon our Lord Jesus as the man in the glory with whom we are associated by death and resurrection, that we will have enjoy the practical deliverance from the power of Egypt in our lives.
You see it illustrated in another way in connection with the children of Israel. Very quickly after they had crossed the Red Sea and entered the wilderness, as Brother Don said, their hearts returned into Egypt. I just say this, thank God they never got back there. But Steven in the 7th chapter of Acts, when he recounts their history, he says in their hearts they returned unto Egypt. And thank God we've been delivered from this world, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I under the world. Paul said concerning the cross.
And positionally we'll never get back there, but the danger is like the children of Israel, we return in our hearts. But it's interesting that there in the 16th of Exodus, as they blamed Moses and said would that we had died in Egypt and so on.
00:15:11
Moses cries unto the Lord, and the Lord tells Moses to tell the children of Israel to turn around. They were looking in the wrong direction. They were already looking back toward Egypt from whence they had come.
And when they turned around to lookout over the wilderness, what did they see? Well, it says they saw the glory of the Lord in the cloud. And as long as they had that glory before them, they were encouraged to press on amidst the difficulties and the obstacles that were there. The problem with the children of Israel is they lost sight of the goal. They lost sight of the end. They lost sight of the glory of the Lord that had been revealed in the cloud.
I just want to echo what Brother Dawn said. I believe, brethren, what's going to encourage our hearts to go on is to lift our eyes above the circumstances and the horizons of this sad, sin, sick, wilderness world. Now, not that we ever want to be indifferent to the circumstances that God passes us through. He allows us to pass through things in His schooling, in His training, sometimes in His chastening, and we need to be exercised as to those things and learn from them and so on.
But brethren, I believe that we learn from the history of the children of Israel that we need to look beyond those circumstances to see himself to have, as has been said, our affections go out more to him because where the heart is than the feet will follow Where the heart is, then it's not a hard thing to give up the things that are connected with the the old man and connected with this world and so on.
You know, I've just spent a week on the Sinai Peninsula. I've been to past Elam where the children of Israel encamped. I've driven through a good part in different occasions of the Sinai Peninsula. When scripture calls it a wilderness, that's exactly what it is. It is one barren piece of sand and rock for miles and miles, not a cloud in the sky to. It was 48°C when we were there. This year. It is a wilderness. But God was going to be everything to them.
In that wilderness He wanted them to find their whole delight and resource in Himself. Brethren, we are in a spiritual wilderness, but where are we going to find our joy and delight? What is going to capture our hearts affections? Oh brethren, it ought to be Christ. And if it's Christ, brethren, then these things, these practical things are really going to need exhortation to the heart that's attracted to Christ.
Oh brother, if we can just get a fresh glimpse of the man in the glory, I believe this is what we need for the last moments in which we live.
And it's beyond the wilderness even here, isn't it, across the Jordan, like Don Hussein, with the land before them. And I think that's good, what you mentioned before, Jim, that our union with Christ is in resurrection. That's important.
The body of Christ was not formed until after the Lord Jesus was risen from the dead.
Ascended to the glory and sent the Holy Spirit down to form the body of Christ in union with him is in resurrection. And I'd like to read those verses. You mentioned them, Jim, but in verse second Corinthians five, I think it's important to see this it says.
In verse 15 he died. For all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him that died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth knowing no man after the flesh, Yego, we have known Christ after the flesh. Yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, and you could read this, there is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God. So we're across the Jordan, the land before us.
Christ is in glory there and that's the object for our souls. Remember that in resurrection, the first person that the Lord Jesus met was Mary Magdalene and she wanted to touch him. And he said, touch me not. I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God. Mary wanted to have him back as she had known him here in this world. She wanted Him.
00:20:12
And Christ after the flesh, We don't know Christ after the flesh. And that's the error of pictures of Jesus. We don't know him that way. We know him in the glory. We know him as the risen ascended man in the glory. It's interesting you think about it. When the Lord Jesus appeared to different ones in resurrection, first glance they didn't seem to recognize him. Almost everyone that he that saw him.
And resurrection it's different, the relationship is different and so it's Christ in resurrection. Christ ascended at the right hand of God to that man. We are united by the power of the Holy Spirit. So he is the one now that we are to look to verse one says if or you can put since you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Oh brethren, what an exhortation for our hearts. Are we seeking those things which are above?
I stop sometimes at the end of the day rather, and think, what percentage of today have I been occupied with those things that are above? I'm afraid the percentage is pretty low most of the time, but we've been called to that scene of glory.
Brother, we're passing through down here and everyone knows we have to earn a living one way or another, but couldn't we up the percentage of being occupied?
That side, we're going home soon. Shouldn't we be more interested in heaven and heavenly things associated with our Lord Jesus there? It's a real exhortation for our hearts. Maybe it'd be helpful too in connection with what you've said, Bob and Don, that to just note very briefly the difference between the Red Sea and the Jordan and to say that Israel, and it's a physical illustration there. And so they were at three in three different positions in three different times in their history.
They were in Egypt, which is a picture of this world. They were in the wilderness, and we're in a spiritual wilderness. And then they went into the land, which figures to us what you have in Ephesians, the vast panorama of spiritual heavenly blessings that you brought before us in the previous meeting. That which we can have an enjoyment of in our souls now and take possession of in our souls by faith now, not something we have to wait to enjoy until we get to heaven.
And but in the crossing of the Red Sea, if I can put it this simply, I see the end of my sins. It's Christ death for me, and Christ died for my sins. The Red Sea took takes in tight, takes care of my sins, and they're gone.
But the crossing of the juror in the crossing of the Jordan, I see the end of myself because the crossing of the Jordan is not just Christ death for me, but my death with Christ. And so this brings us, as Dawn said, what we have in Colossians, where it's not just that Christ has died for us, but that we are dead with Christ and risen too, because Christ is risen. But it's it's our identification.
With the death of Christ. And so that's why Don mentioned that. It brings us to Gilgal, where there was the cutting off of the flesh. And until we see that, there really isn't the full appreciation and liberty of Christian position. There are many Christians who see at the cross the end of their sins, but they never see the end of themselves or Christ's death, their death with Christ, and they're never really brought into full Christian liberty.
They spend their whole life struggling with the flesh and not realizing what God has. The old man not realizing what God has done with it. It's dead. Yes, the flesh is still active and we're going to, he's going to take that up and remind them of this and not to go back to the deeds of the flesh.
So I think it's just helpful to put it in that in perspective. And so we are in all three. Two, we're in this world, we're still here in this world where Pharaoh is seeking to hinder souls from coming under the good of redemption and deliverance. We're still in a spiritual wilderness. We fight with Amlo, have that battle with Amalek, a picture of Satan's working on the flesh. And we're in Canaan as well, so to speak, where the enemy is seeking to hinder our.
00:25:19
Enjoyment of the things that are really ours in Christ. But as Don said, and I think it's how you said too, it's helpful to see that this brings us across the Jordan to Gilgal and brings us into proper Christian position so that we can then go on from Colossians go in and possess the land. Although as we said at the beginning, Colossians doesn't bring us that far. But I want to just echo what you said too about setting our.
Seeking those things that are above brethren, we sent spend a lot of time seeking the things of this world. And again, it just seems it takes everything we've got to survive in the work a day business world in which we find ourselves. But I just want to say this, especially to those who are younger, I believe more and more we need to learn to discipline ourselves to take time each day to consider.
The things that are above to consider Christ and all that we have in him, and those things that are of eternal value. Maybe years ago a brother could work at the bench with his hands and be occupied with the scriptures, have his Bible propped up and read and meditate. Maybe a brother could go out and run the plow or feed the cows and have his mind occupied with Scripture. But you can't run a combine like that.
You can't drive down the freeway like that. You can't run a computer like that. It takes all you've got to survive today in school and in work or wherever we find ourselves. But brethren, are we learning to discipline ourselves? They talk about time management, but I believe we need to learn to manage our time so that we take time every day to be occupied with Christ, where He is and his things. Brethren, those are the things that are eternal.
And I really believe that. And when we get on heaven's shore, Jim, we're going to look back and lament the fact. And we didn't spend more time.
With those things that are real and eternal and lasting.
That's why we have this exhortation here. Come on, brother, let's not just look at it and then go back home and be the same. Let's give more time to be occupied with those things that are above where Christ sits with God's right now. Let's do it.
It's interesting in this epistle and at the beginning of this third chapter how the Spirit of God uses Paul to bring before them that it's not possible to have both the world and to have Christ. Christ is in the heavens and the world is the world and it's not going to change. It rejected Christ and and so the affections of the world were exposed. The world for all it was and the flesh and all that it was, was exposed at the cross of Calvary. Now he says, you're heavenly men.
Your object is in heaven. And so that's where the mind needs to be, the heart needs to be. Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Someone has said that this epistle was perhaps written by Paul after these believers were only saved perhaps 1St about six weeks. And we might think this is quite deep, but they were connected with those things that had to do with the earth, and they knew what it was to live in the flesh and to act in the flesh. And so now Paul exposes what the flesh really is and how it works.
And how the world desires to, just as you have.
Illustrated that it seeks to SAP the energy and the time of the believer in every way. So now he says here you've got a new object. It's in the heavens, it's not in the earth. Lift up your head and your your eyes. It's above where Christ sitteth at your right hand at the right hand of God. Set your affection or your mind on things above and not on things on the earth. Now there's responsibility. He tells us how to do it.
In the rest remainder of the chapter.
Who say that Christianity begins with a man in the glory? I'd like to expend on that for a few moments.
When God looked at this world.
00:30:03
Particularly at the time of the flood, he said. The end of all flesh is come before me.
When the world crucified the Lord Jesus, God condemned the world.
That final condemnation. And so we live in a world that is condemned, and the life that we have, that we were born with in Adam has no future.
Inadamal die and that's the condition of mankind today. You meet a man on the street and he has a life that has no fruit for God in it, has nothing for God.
That is pleasing in his sight. He lives in a world that God has condemned and he has no future.
The Lord Jesus died.
And when we die with him, as we are seeing before God in his death, then we are delivered from that state of things.
The Lord Jesus rise and raises from the dead and in light. It is a life and it is a new position before God, where sin can never come, where death can never come, where God can find satisfaction and fruit to his own joy, and when the Lord Jesus rises to the glory.
There, there he begins something new.
And associates with himself.
Souls whose beginning, whose origin, whose future is connected with glory. It isn't connected with the earth at all. It's not connected with anything of the old creation. That's why Bob was reading in 2nd Corinthians 5. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation, and Christianity is something new, a work of God.
Through price that associates man in Christ with God, where God is in the glory. And so that's the destiny of such.
Their future. So it's not just taking us out of something old, but God is telling us something new that attracts our hearts and our thoughts and delivers. We are delivered, prices are delivered, but we're delivered from everything that was into something that is new. And an essential piece of it is found in our chapter where he says in verse 3.
Now you're dead.
And your life?
Is hit with Christ and God when Christ who is our life, we were born with a natural life that ends in death and has no future and no fruit in it for God. And so in the death and resurrection of Christ, God has now by new birth imparted to us.
A new line.
Not just another atom like life, but the life of Christ. We don't have it independently of Him. You and I have each lives and we can each die separately and all that. But the life that we have in Christ is truly different in its very character. It is life, his life that we share in.
And could I die? Not unless he can. Not unless he can. I have an atom light that I can die independently of anyone of the rest in this room. But I have a life in Christ that will last for eternity. It is as solid and as sure as Christ is alive from the dead forevermore. Because Christ, who is my our life, His head with Christ and God.
And so where's my future? Where's my life? Where's my goal? Where's my object? It's not here in the world, not in this chapter. It's Batman, who is my life, who is in the glory. And so we're taught, Put your heart, put your thoughts, put your life, your practical life.
00:35:01
And him.
That's what it says in verse 2. Doesn't set your margin in my Bible says set your mind.
On things above, not on things on the earth. There's a very definite exhortation. Set your mind on things above.
Be thinking about them.
Remember on time in South America, I took this up with a special meeting and I said, I want you to think about something up there and let's make a list of the things that are above where Christ sits at the right end of God.
It was interesting, the blank look. I saw everybody's face. It's, it's evident, brethren, we're not thinking about those things. What are those things about? Set your mind on it. We're going to be raptured at any moment. We're going to enter into that scene of glory.
And I know it far surpasses anything we know down here. And so we're limited in our ability to be able to understand much about that scene. But we still can, brother. And there's a lot in scripture that talks about those things above.
The Tabernacle was made according to the pattern of heavenly things.
We had meditate on the Tabernacle, maybe we'd understand heaven a little bit better.
That's our portion. That's where we're called to. We're not called for earthly glory or any position down here. We're going to have a place with Christ in that coming day of glory when he reigns over this earth. But our position is there. And so this is a very definite exhortation. Set your mind. I I suggest we use that as an exercise, brethren, to each day try to exercise our thoughts.
In setting them and thinking about something on that sphere of a, set your minds there. But there are two exhortations in these two verses that go necessarily together and in the proper order, because we can't set our minds on things above if we haven't done what it says in the first verse. And that is to seek those things which are above. If I don't know what those things are, how can I set my mind on them?
And so we might necessarily ask ourselves, how can I seek those things that are above? What's the practical way I seek those things above? You know, I'm afraid sometimes, especially those of us who get a little older, we use these expressions and perhaps we understand them to certain degree, but perhaps we don't take the time to explain exactly what we're to do. And maybe there's someone here and you say, well, it's all right to tell us to seek those things that are above and to set our mind on those things above. But how do we literally, actually, practically do it?
Well, before I I'm specific, I've enjoyed a little illustration in the Old Testament or a little contrast in connection with Lot and Abraham. Bob mentioned in the address how Lot in the 13th chapter of Genesis. He lifted up his eyes and he sought some things, but he only lifted up his eyes as far as the horizons of this world and what he saw he chose for present advantage.
It looked pretty good and he chose it, but it was only for present advantage. It was only seeking the things as far as the horizons of this world. But two chapters later, in the 15th chapter, Abraham lifted up his eyes too, but he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and he saw the stars of heaven. He thought, if I can put it this way, heavenly things. And the Lord gave him a wonderful promise based on the facts that he had lifted up his eyes a lot further than Lot. Not something for present advantage, but something that was going to have eternal blessing and consequence as well.
And the fulfillment of that will yet be in a future day. And what a blessing there will be, because Abraham lifted up his eyes to heaven. He sought, if I can put it that way, for our application. He sought those things that are above. Now we say, how do we seek those things that are above? But brethren, you'll never know what SARS in Christ if you don't read this book. If you don't open this book and seek and search through the Scriptures and learn of Christ and all that is ours in and through him.
00:40:06
How are you going to know? How are you going to set your mind in the second verse and think about those things if you don't even seek them out and know what they are? And so the first thing we have to do is know what they are. And I say you're not going to find out what they are by seeking the textbooks of this world. You're not going to know what things are about by taking philosophy and psychology and all the courses that the colleges and universities offer, not saying sometimes we don't have to.
Take in certain things to get through in this world, but those aren't the things that are above. They're things that are connected with this world. And some of those things may be not wrong in themselves. They may be necessary to get through life. But what are the things that are eternal? There's the things that are in this book. In the New Testament, you have the life of Christ. In the gospel, you have Christianity developed. In the epistles, you have the glories, the fruition of the glories of Christ in Revelation when he comes.
And he takes his rightful place. Then you go back to the Old Testament, and as Bob said, you have the tights and illustrations, the figures and foreshadows, the Tabernacle, and all these beautiful things that help to illustrate the truth of the New Testament. Seek those things. Search the scriptures daily. Seek those things, and then set your mind on them. Meditate on them. Give yourself holy to them. And then there will be.
Profit and fruit.
And then the affections will be set in the right perspective.
Why doesn't it say here in this first verse? Read about those things which are above.
It's because it requires diligence, it requires spiritual energy to not only read the Word of God, but to search diligently to seek those things which are above, to seek them out for myself personally and not just to come to a Bible conference or to go to the local assembly meetings and to have the Scriptures read. That's good. That's necessary in the Spirit of God is able to take the Word and to make it bear fruit in my life as if I will go to those events, to those and avail myself of those occasions.
But there's an individual energy of faith that's required to seek and to search. And God is hidden treasures all throughout his work. And Jim referred to Acts chapter 17. It's good. I'd like to just turn to it in verse 11. It says there in Acts 17, verse 11 about the Bereans, God commands them for what they did because it says they received the word, the word of God. They received it with all readiness of mind.
And so they had a heart and a mind prepared of God to be able to receive it in humility. And then they searched the scriptures. They searched. They didn't just read it. You and I have the entire word of God here in our hands. And these dear ones, they had the scriptures copied out by hand. And I see them, I just think of them pouring over those scriptures to, to just.
Learn for themselves.
In the energy of faith, what Paul was telling, telling them they wanted to know it and find it out for themselves. And then it says daily.
Wasn't just a sporadic thing. There was, there was a continuation, there was endurance. There was a desire. They weren't going to give up if they didn't find it the first day, they weren't going to give up, but they didn't find out about those things the second day. There was going to be endurance. And then once they actually acquired it for themselves and faith, they were going to set their hearts on it. They were just going to enjoy it in the presence of their God. And that's how we need to read the Scriptures too.
Do we think #234?
234.
Be of Good Cheer
The Fool Hath Said … No God
Children—Mark Breman
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.
Good morning.
How's everyone this morning?
We have a lot of chairs up here where the children can sit, some ones over here, maybe a few here left open for the children and across here. So please feel free to come sit up here.
Can't see my flowers from way back there very well.
So if you want it, come sit up here.
Well, thank you. And if there's anyone else that has the courage to come sit up here later on in the Sunday school, just go ahead and come on up and sit down. Maybe one of your friends is sitting up here and you can come sit by them.
I think we still have a minute or so, but we could get started. So who has a song that they would like to sing? If somebody doesn't have a song book, here's some more song books.
Do you like one? OK, there's extras here if someone would would like another songbook.
But who has the first song this morning they'd like to give out? Yes, Sir.
#25.
Let's sing the first and last verse of #25.
Life at best is very brief.
To be in time.
And continue on your way to make my soul and get it. And your product is done through the head.
Whenever he's gone, anybody make the mother's turn out these joints, and I'll help him well drink the Lord's name.
Umm, from darkness into lighting, from the way. Let's see the Christ.
On the stars for heaven to night.
The community and Sun medium time.
While my wife's updated the scars to me tonight.
And send you on your way. You may find the old congregate.
I'm here, right? Be just too late.
In time.
And you know, the last part of this verse, of the last verse that we sang says come and start for heaven tonight. And that was put in there for poetic reasons perhaps, but it means very soon. But what does the Scripture say? Behold, when is the accepted time?
Now, behold, now is the accepted time. Behold now.
Is the day of salvation right now Come to the Lord Jesus.
And I'm sure if the one who wrote this him knew that we were going to sing it in Sunday school this morning.
The ones who wrote this hymn would probably say make sure the kids know that it means right now and not to wait till this evening.
I have some flowers up here. The second verse says fairest flowers.
Soon decay, youth and beauty pass away. O, you have not long to stay. Be in time. You know it. You may have heard this before, but I'll say it again. It seems like just yesterday.
00:05:08
Just yesterday that I was your age, sitting on the front row of a Sunday school just like this, and time has flown by so fast.
Oh, I'm thankful that I know the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior, but I'm concerned that maybe there's a boy or a girl here this morning that has still put it off. It's still not come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
Come to the Lord Jesus this morning.
Who else has this song?
OK.
#28.
Let's sing the first verse in the chorus of #28.
Praise. It is a charming.
And thank you man from children.
Walls a year and shall give you.
Save my friend alone.
There's a long time to sleep.
Do you need any sunlight over all day from I have a chase? It's not time for revenge disease.
Sometimes we enjoy these hymns and I wonder if we think much about what they're saying sometimes when we sing, especially if we know a song fairly well. Boys and girls raised in the Sunday School have learned these songs from little on. And when we sing them, maybe we look around a little bit. But you know, it's good to remember what these songs are saying, what the words mean.
Can each one of you this morning say and Jesus died for me personally? Maybe you know that the Lord Jesus died but haven't yet said yes, He died for me personally and taken the Lord Jesus as your Savior.
Well, this morning, let's see.
Think about that, because we don't know.
Like we've seen before, life at best is very brief.
We don't know, you know, when we were on our way here, we were coming out of a little town called Albion, IL.
Headed towards Mount Carmel and about four miles out of town we saw a lot of flashing lights on the side of the road and it didn't look very good.
When we got up there, there was a cement truck.
That was laid over in the ditch and they were there. The emergency crew was there, but it was sad because they had a white sheet spread over the cab of that truck that was split open from the crash. Now, we don't know if that man or that woman, whoever was driving that concrete truck, we don't know if they actually survived or if they were taken in that accident.
But how many of you think that the one who was driving that concrete truck said when they got up in the morning, you know what? Today I'm gonna have a crash.
Raise your hand if you thought that's what they said today this morning when I get up. Today could be my last day.
A nurse? No, we don't know. I, I I would be so very surprised if that were the case. Nor did any boy or girl hear this morning get up thinking that.
Oh, then it's important, isn't it, that we be in time, because not only do we have situations like that, and the Lord is over all those things.
But he tells us in his precious word, Behold, I come quickly.
I come quickly and the Lord is coming and he could come before the Sunday school is over and I feel burdened about that, that maybe there would be a boy or a girl left behind.
Oh, be in time. Who else has this song to sing this morning? OK.
00:10:03
2829 OK, let's sing all of #29.
Uh, ruler once K.
Uh, last 30 days and I'm 38 words. We're doing like the flight, a mild, a milder come again.
He is not straightforward and I can't remember him. He didn't even have faith on my throat again. I better ever let him get the better of the years. I didn't know how to do it today.
Good morning. Good morning. I'm not again.
The children don't matter.
Don't stop and play after my dreams of the Lord. I bless not this man to ensure you begin plain. He must be in the heart again.
You must be born like them.
I better proceed better from the same day until the end of the day all our time again.
OK, J tomorrow big one again.
Give us a call back down.
You want to be born like that, I better be fairly come to sleep.
In my life again.
OK, we've had a couple of boys give out songs now about a girl. Maybe there's a girl that would like a song.
OK #41.
Around the throne.
I came from the apartment by big one will be already.
Uh, let me continue to tell her last name goodbye. And Joyce has never.
Been singing glory.
Glory.
Glory.
To God.
Umm.
Bring them to that world that you have no pride and 1St.
Where all this peace and joy and love have come to spill the rainbow singing glory.
Glory to God.
The gods, understanding the Shaggy's blood to her, jump with their sins. Now what is that most precious life? Behold, and wide and clean singing glory.
00:15:06
This is a song of joy, isn't it? Glory, glory, glory be to God on high.
It speaks of children singing that song. Older ones are going to sing that song too. But what is it that gives the children the joy and the older ones the joy as they sing this song? This song is this song is going to be sung around the throne of God in heaven. And how do those children get there? This this song tells us? And where do they get that joy that this song springs from?
Where does it come from?
Where does that joy come from?
It comes from heaven, he says, yes, originally it came from heaven. The Lord Jesus came down from heaven, came down as a man, and he walked through this world doing the glory of his Father and the will of his Father, and he went to the Calvary's cross, and there he died, and he bled for your sins and mine. And if you put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, He by the His Spirit will impart into you this joy.
And you too can sing this song. Glory, glory, glory be to God on high. I wonder if every boy and girl will be there when this song is sung in heaven. We don't know when. Very soon. Lord Jesus said, behold I come quickly.
OK, let's put our books down and let's close our eyes and we're just going to ask the Lord for His help this morning.
Father, we come before Thee and seek Thy help this morning because we need it, and we pray for each one of these boys and girls here in the Sunday School. Thou knowest each heart. Thou knowest each condition. And we pray, Lord Jesus, that as we have Thy word open before us and we speak of these things, that Thou would be magnified, and that that would be precious to the hearts of each one of us.
We pray that these children would have a sense of the in their souls this morning. So we go over these scriptures together and we say the verse and we look into Thy word and speak of it. We just pray for a blessing from thyself this morning. Lord Jesus, and thy most worthy and precious name we pray, Blessed Savior, Amen.
Well, at the Sunday School in Pella, we all say the verse that was in the Sunday School paper. And if you would like to say the verse this morning, you can say the verse and then we'll talk about the verse a little bit and I'll say it first, so that might refresh your memory a little bit. It says the fool has said in his heart there is no God. Psalms 53.
One, you remember that. OK, who would like to be first?
There's a race we'll start at this end of the row and we'll just work down here because I see some boys that are anxious to say OK.
The fool has said in his heart there is no God.
Psalms 53 one. Thank you very much. Would you like to say it too?
The floor has set in his heart. There is no God. Psalm 53 one. Thank you. Very good. You want to also, don't you?
The school has set in his heart that there is no God.
Psalms 53 one very good. Would you like to say it?
Undecided. OK, you don't have to. Would you like to say it?
53 One the fool has said in this heart there is no God. Psalm 53 one very nice. How about over here is this? Would you like to say it?
In his heart there is no God Psalm 53 one thank you, this will have set In his heart there is no God. Psalms 53 one.
The fool has said in his heart there is no God sign 53 one.
The fool has said in his heart there is no God. Psalm 53 one.
Thank you. How about back here? Would you like to say it OK? Would you? No, that's OK. That's OK. Yeah.
00:20:01
And I'm sure there's others who have memorized it too. And that's good, isn't it? To commit the word of God to memory. This is a solemn verse, isn't it? The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. That's a foolish thing to say, isn't it? And that's what the fool says in his heart. God's Word tells us that there is no God.
The first thing that I thought of when I thought of this verse is.
How foolish man could be to say that there is no God?
And what is it that brings man to the point where they would say there is no God?
It's pride, isn't it?
They don't want to stand before God.
Because if there was a God, they would have to do with him. So man would say there is no God out of his mouth, that he has a conscience that tells him that there is a God. But if he can say that out of his mouth, maybe he can persuade others that maybe to think similar thoughts. And then consequently, if there was no God, then they have no one to answer to, to be responsible to.
But there is a God.
And I thought of these flowers. That's one of the first things I thought of. Lance has a flower garden at home. And right across the front of the chicken shed, he has some big, tall flowers. And one day he was over there looking at those flowers. And he said, dad, look, there's little flowers inside the big flowers. Have you ever seen that? Now, there's some flowers here this morning that are kind of like that. And I have some magnifying glasses here.
If you want to come up and take a look at the inside of these flowers, please do. Who wants to come up here and take a look inside those flowers?
Do you see a little flower inside the flower? Yeah.
Now I'm not sure what these flowers are called.
No yellow flowers, they are very good. Would you like to look inside the flower?
Yeah.
You can pick any flower here you want to and look at it.
You think you could put together a flower like that? I know you. Some kids are pretty creative. I've seen some pictures that kids have drawn and seen some artwork and stuff. You think you could make a flower like that?
Mm-hmm. You, you think that if, if we, uh, took a, a scissor and cut that flower all up in pieces, that you could put it back together just the way it was?
No, God had to do a thing like that. We look at all the beauty of it all.
Even from little dandelions.
You know that song we sang the verse of it says.
Ferris flowers soon decay. Last night it was fairly late and I snuck over to Christopher's house to get a flower, and I cut a flower off of a big Bush that was in their backyard. A beautiful, beautiful flower. You know that Bush mat? Yeah. And I put it on the dash of my van. I thought this would be a fine, fine specimen.
For the children in the morning, what do you suppose happened? When I went out to my van this morning? It was even still dark out before the sun was up. And what had happened to that beautiful flower?
It it died, it was all wilted. And there it laid. It was, it was, it had died.
Death is in this world, even in beautiful things like flowers.
This world is cursed by sin. Man has disobeyed God and sin has come, and these flowers here will have an end. Even the beauties of God's creation like the as we know, the mirror on this table will come to an end.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
Everything in this life is going to be changed.
Except for your soul, if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, your soul can go to be with Him.
And when this scene falls under the judgment of God for sin.
You will be safe.
00:25:00
If you're saved, if you know the Lord Jesus as your savior, do you? Does each boy and girl hear this morning know the Lord Jesus as your Savior?
When you read this verse, there's two words there that are what we call in italics.
There is.
There is. So sometimes when we read the verse that has italics, meaning that perhaps the translator put that in to help us better understand the verse. Sometimes we read the verse and drop the italics. And what does it say if we do that? The fool has said in his heart.
No God.
Oh.
No God. Maybe there's a boy or a girl here this morning that knows that there is a God and would confess that there is a God. But you have said no God to his offer of salvation through the Lord Jesus. Oh, what a solemn thing that would be to say. No God, how sad. And man says.
Some men say there is no God man who doesn't want to be responsible for God before God. That is, they have all kinds of theories and all kinds of teachings that are just foolishness.
I saw a bumper sticker that said that fairy tales say that a frog became a Prince.
Scientists call it evolution.
That's how foolish it is, some of the things that men believe.
It's sad, isn't it? You know, one time we were at the zoo and we saw on the wall there, umm, a monkey painted and it was all hunched over and bent down with his face to the ground. And then the next painting, it was stood up a little more upright and it was a little more defined. And then the drawings went on in progression until the last drawing was a a drawing of a man that was walking.
Where did they get that idea?
The fool hath said in his heart.
No God.
You know.
They say that there was a Big Bang and these things just happened. What has happened every time you have saw a Big Bang? If you light a firecracker, does things come together real nice and pretty or do things fly apart and are destroyed?
The fool has said in his heart.
No God.
But you know, God had an intention. God had an intention. If we turn to the first verse of the Bible, it says in the beginning, God, what a wonderful thing God is. God is. We read that in Romans. It says God is, and he's the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. What a wonderful thing.
Acts chapter 17 as a verse I'd like to look at this morning.
Just the phrase of a verse, and we'll read some scriptures together here this morning.
Acts chapter 17 and verse 24, the first part of the verse, it says God that made the world and all things therein, there is a God. We sang of that God this morning, that God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever meaning you and me, and each one of us, and any boy or girl or man and woman in this world.
That believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Oh, do you know the Lord Jesus this morning?
Do you have everlasting life?
God's intentions in sending His Son was for you and me, that He might bless us.
That we might come to know him. Proverbs chapter 8.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus prophetically.
00:30:03
Verse.
22 The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting from the beginning, wherever the earth was. And we can read down through here about creation and and all that had taken place in the Lord Jesus was before all that.
In in verse.
Umm, 30, it says. Then I was by him as one brought up with him.
And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the inhabitable part of his earth and mighty lights wherewith the sons of men.
There is a God and he has a Son, the Lord Jesus, and in eternity past, even there he was thinking of perhaps boys and girls right here this morning in the Sunday School in Mayfield, KY.
In 2008 and wondering, pleading. He wasn't wondering. He was pleading with any boy or girl.
Oh, do you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior this morning? He was thinking of you and how He wants to bless you.
Let's look at verse in First Timothy.
Mm-hmm.
OK, OK.
First Timothy, chapter 2.
And verse 3.
It says this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The Lord Jesus would have you to be saved this morning and to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
Here the words there is is in italics also.
41 God, There is one God.
And one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to testify in due time. The Lord Jesus came into this world in due time.
He came to bear our sins on Calvary's cross.
He stood between God and man because God is holy.
And God loves you, and he the Lord Jesus, boy, the sins of each one that would put their faith and trust in him on Calvary's cross who gave himself a ransom for all to testify.
In due time, do you know the Lord Jesus this morning?
Oh, if there's a boy or girl here who does not know the Lord Jesus, may you put your faith and trust in Him even now.
Let's look at a verse in Psalms chapter 50.
Psalms chapter 50 and verse 10.
For every beast of the forest is mine.
You ever see a wild animal in the woods? They belong to the Lord there. He is the cattle upon 1000 hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains. The wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry would would I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and the fullness thereof. There is a God, and all things belong to Him.
These beautiful flowers, you know, as these flowers are setting up here, I saw a couple of little ants. They crawled out across the table and there's one right there crawling on the table. The Lord knows about that little Ant.
00:35:02
He knows about you. He knows about each one of us.
All these things belong to him, but what is the heart of man? Let's read on.
The first let's read verse 15 and call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
There is a day of trouble. There is a day of trouble for each boy and girl who doesn't know the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
It's now.
Because we read that in John chapter 3, that if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your savior, the wrath of God abides on you even now.
I'll come to the Lord Jesus, call upon him.
While there is still time.
Verse.
16 But unto the wicked God saith.
And I would think of those who say in their heart not only there is no God, but let's say no God or say no to God. What a solemn thing. I think this in a certain sense is looking forward to the scene when the Lord Jesus was rejected and what was in the heart of man that.
Caused man to reject the Lord Jesus, and nail him to the cross. But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do? To declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take?
Uh, my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction and casteth my words behind thee. You know, in the Lord Jesus was come on the scene. They rejected him, but they carried on with their ritualism and their formalism. Even after the Lord Jesus was put on the cross and he died. They it says that they took his body off of the cross because it was the Passover.
There was ritual and formalism, but the heart was not in it, they said. No God.
When thou sawest the thief, when thou can consider us with him, then thou can consent us with Him. And has been partakers, partaker with adulterers. Thou give us thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Think of all the things that they said about the Lord Jesus that was wrong, things that he was accused of.
People.
Just rejected the Lord Jesus and denied him, and he was the holy Lamb of God.
Verse 20 Even his own brothers and sisters rejected him. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother.
Thou slanderest thine own mother's son. These things hast thou done. And I kept silent. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such, and one as thyself.
That's why man wants to say there is no God because they think that God is just like them. There are some who teach a wicked doctrine that says that God is what God was, what man is, and man can become what God is. How sad.
That's not the God we know, is it? That's not the God of the Bible. That's not the one who sent his only begotten Son into this world to die for us so we might be saved.
Now if there's a boy or girl here this morning and you realize there is a God.
And you have to do with that. God, this next Psalm, we're going to read a few verses in here that will help us to understand what God is looking for in the heart that is seeking Him. We talk about being saved. You know, part of that is repentance, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And let's just read a few verses here and we can apply them this way in the gospel.
In verse 51, it says wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. This is the language that God is looking for in your heart and mind. If we don't know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, I know the Lord Jesus as my Savior and I had to say these words to the Lord before. What a wonderful thing it is when a soul comes to the place where they can acknowledge these things to God.
00:40:20
Verse 3 For I acknowledge my transgression and my sin, as ever before me against thee, and Thee only have I sinned. There is a God, and it is Him with whom we have to do.
Verse seven Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Verse 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Verse 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, thou wilt not despise.
If you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior this morning and you want to be saved, you want to come to know Him this morning right in your seat where you are. Come to the Lord Jesus and own that you're a Sinner and that you have rejected Him. I see here boys and girls that have probably sat in a lot of Sunday schools.
I trust there's none here, but it is the burden on my heart that there may be a boy or girl here this morning who doesn't yet know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. Come to the Lord Jesus and own that you're a Sinner.
Own that what he did on Calvary's cross was for you.
Let's look at John's Gospel, chapter 19.
John's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 5 Then came Jesus forth wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe, and Pilate saith unto them, behold the man, look at the Lord Jesus, behold the man. That's what we would ask for you to do this morning. Behold the man. Verse six. When the chief priest therefore, and officers saw.
Him, they looked at the Lord Jesus, He said behold the man. And when they looked at the Lord Jesus, there was a reaction.
What is the reaction in your heart this morning when the Lord Jesus is presented? Their reaction was they cried out saying crucify him, crucify him. How sad.
They, in a sense, said no God, no God, the fool has said in his heart, no God. Oh, I trust there's no boy or girl here this morning.
That would be that way and say no God, how sad if that were the case.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. There's a story I believe it's in Mark Chapter 9 of a man who had a son.
And his son had a problem.
But he did the right thing. He brought his Son to the Lord Jesus.
When this man brought his Son to the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus had a little talk with this man.
And the result was something that the man said that I would like us to look at real quickly.
Verse 24 of Mark Chapter 9.
And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou might unbelief. Maybe there's a boy or girl here this morning and you're struggling in your heart as to this word believe and wondering about it. Just say Lord, I believe help thou mine unbelief in the Lord Jesus.
Will take you up in his loving hands.
And he'll help your unbelief. Maybe you don't understand it all in simple faith. Just come to him. There's another verse about believing believe. It's in John Chapter 9.
00:45:21
John, Chapter 9.
And verse 38.
And he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, if there's a boy or girl here this morning and you in simple faith, come and believe on the Lord Jesus.
And don't be like the fool who says in their heart no God, but say yes to the Lord Jesus and believe on Him. The result is worship will flow from your heart and praise.
For what God has done for you, the Lord Jesus will fill your heart with joy and happiness.
End.
When the Lord Jesus comes, we have assurance from His Word that He will go home to be with him and be with Him and like Him forever. What a blessed thing. But you don't have that hope. If you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you have no such hope.
It's like these flowers here, they're gonna soon fade. We can enjoy them here and they're beautiful. They're gonna soon fade and pass away.
But what have you done with the Lord Jesus? Time is gliding swiftly by. Don't let another moment pass by before you trust in the Lord Jesus. Behold, now is the accepted time.
Behold, now is the day of salvation. Please don't say no God, let's close in prayer.
Lord Jesus, our hearts go out to any boy or girl here this morning.
Who may not know Thee? And we just pray that thou would touch them with Thy precious word, that they might not say no, God, that they might come to know Thee. Whom to know his life eternal. Lord Jesus, we just pray for each one.
We just thank thee, Lord Jesus, for going to that cross to bear our sins, to wash us wide and clean in thy precious blood. We thank thee, Lord Jesus, for a privilege if we're still left here, that we have to sit down, remember the night death together. We look to thee, Lord Jesus, and would commit thy precious word in the presentation of it to thy care. And we just commit the remainder of this conference that I love and care. If we're still left here, we thank you for the.
Precious ministry that we've had before us thus far and asked that that would continue to bless us in this way. My most worthy and precious name, Lord Jesus, Amen.
The Purpose of God
Colossians 3:4-11
Reading
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.
I'm going to suggest we start at verse four of Colossians chapter 3.
Therefore your members, which are upon the earth, communication, uncleanness and ordinary affection, evils and kupisin and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which sake the ramp of God comes on the children of disobedience, in the which ye also walks sometime when you live themselves. But now He also put off all these anger and wrath, malice, blasphemy and filthy communication out of your mouth. Line that one to another, saying that you have put off the old man with his ease, and have put on the new man.
We'll just renew it in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him. Where there is neither Greek nor two, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarians at the end find more free, but Christ is all and in all. Put out therefore, as the elect of God fully into love, bow the mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, and sickness, along 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 the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also ye are called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell on 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 you do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.
Why submit yourselves onto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord? Husbands, 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, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with Iservice's men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, 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.
Some very, very practical exhortations for our walk here in this world. But in the 1St 4 verses of this chapter, he lays, as it were, the foundation. Because the mind and the heart must be right if the exhortations are going to have their proper effect. And so sometimes that we hear exhortations and they really don't affect us, we don't take heed to their practical application in our lives.
And why is that, brethren? Well, perhaps it's partly true because we haven't set our mind on things above. We're not occupied with Christ where he is now. We don't understand true Christian position. If these things aren't understood and appreciated. And as I say, the heart isn't set right, then the the practical exhortations are not going to have any effect. And so before he takes up these practical things.
He brings before US1 more thing in our in the verse we started with, and that is what's ahead the future, because, brethren, we've had before us in the previous reading, that which is present where Christ is now, that which is is true of us now and that which we should be occupied with now. But brethren, there's a wonderful future ahead. This world has Christ hasn't been manifested in his glory to this world yet.
He came in loneliness and grace. They refused Him, and after He had remained on earth long enough to give ample testimony to His own as to His bodily resurrection, His feet left the Mount of Olives, and the cloud received Him out of their sight, and they saw Him no more. But there is a day coming, brethren, when this world is going to see Him in glory. The heavens are going to open up to reveal Him. The last glimpse. This world, God of the Lord Jesus, was hanging on a cross.
00:05:03
Crowned with a crown of thorns. But the day is coming, brethren, when He's going to come forth in power and glory, and wonder of wonders, we're going to be associated with Him. And so he reminds the Saints here He brings before them, When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. And, brethren, that ought to motivate us to live for His glory. Now that ought to motivate us to look up and by faith be occupied with Him.
Knowing that we're going to see him face to face in the coming day, knowing that he's going to be revealed to this world in power and glory, and we're going to be associated with him. And so in first John chapter 3, you have it again. It speaks of when he appears, we should, uh, shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And then it says, and every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure, brethren, to realize there's a day coming when Christ is going to appear in this world.
And we're gonna appear with and like Him, coming to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all of them that are about Him in that day. That is a purifying hope. The measure in which this grips our souls is gonna have a practical effect on our lives. And so, as I say, we're gonna go on and take up these practical.
Exhortations. But the object before us forms our character, the object before us forms our character. And so we have Christ seated there now as our present object.
Our present occupation and we have the glory to look forward to.
That's the contrast between verses three and four and verse 3.
Our life is hid. The world looks at us. They don't understand the way we live.
Why? Because our life is hit with Christ in God. But then the contrast is.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. So the time is gonna come when our life will be manifested. But I've found this exceedingly precious. Rather than to realize that we can say Christ is our life, we can look up into the glory of God. There's a man sitting up there.
A real man, resurrected in flesh and bones. He is our life. You know, it impresses me and I see it quite often that we get occupied with ourselves, brethren.
And sometimes it's pretty discouraging.
I should say all the time, it's pretty discouraging.
For myself, I have to say that, but we have the right by God's grace to say Christ is our life. He is hid with, uh, our life is hid with Christ and God. But we can look up and we can see that man in the glory, complete perfection at every turn. And we can say that's my life and the more you and I are occupied with him.
The more it's going to, perhaps unconsciously, but it will transform us, the more we're occupied with him. Yet when I fail, I have to judge myself. But beyond that, we shouldn't be going back over our failures again and again and again. Leave it behind. Ye are dead. When a person is dead, you're taken out and buried. Do they pull them up every once in a while to see how he's doing?
No, leave him there.
That's what we are. Our life is hid with Christ and God. Be occupied with that man and the glory.
SMS.
00:10:00
Phrase Our life to me is very precious.
It's wonderful to take it personally as you've been speaking, Bob, say this is my life and look up and see the Lord Jesus.
In all its perfection and and take that personally.
But it's a wonderful thing to take it the way it is presented here as collected.
Our life. I look around the room here. I think about this verse yesterday, looking around. This is something brethren, we share collectively. He is our life. We are bound together in Him.
And our time and our times together ought to reflect this.
It's important to recognize too, and it.
Point, it's our life. He is our life. A lot of times that word life is used as something, oh, he had a good life and it's the kind of life that the person lived and so on.
It's more than that here, and it's what's already been said.
Is it consistent with it more than that?
When we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive eternal life.
It is a totally new life. It's a life that is given to us in John three. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's the natural life that each one of us is born with. But that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. And so it's a life that comes from God.
But that's the life.
That eternal life, the life that comes in the Spirit, where is that life, is the life of Christ.
We, as as been said, are bound up in the same bundle of light. Each one of us naturally has our individual lives, our individual personal.
Life that's in the flesh, in the blood.
But when it comes to eternal life, it's one life and we have been made to partake in it, to share in that one and one only.
Life, and that is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we participate with Him in that life. He has it in himself, we have it in Him. That is, He has it.
As God, He has it in His own person, we have it as creatures in Himself, independence upon Him, and He maintains it. But it's the same one and only life. It's not like our natural lives, independent individual lives.
And consequently, when his life is displayed, because it's our life, we're displayed with it because we've displayed what we are which and what we have, which is his life. I say this because it's not talking about a character of life or simply I have a good life or I'm living the good life or I have a good object for my life or something like that. It goes beyond that.
It is the life itself is.
The life that we have is Christ. His life is our life.
And we'll have no different life when we get to glory than we have now. It will be the same life. The only difference is the flesh will be completely gone. Now we have the flesh. And so he finds it necessary to go on in these verses and exhort us to mortify or put to death there for your members and to put off the things of the flesh and so on. And we're going to need those exhortations as long as we're here.
But when we leave that all behind, we're going to be morally and physically like Christ, without anything from within or around us to distract us, to tempt us. And it will be no different life, I say, than that which we possess now. And that, wonderful brethren, to think that we have divine life now, the very life of Christ. As Brother Dawn has said, it's a life that delights in the will of God.
It's a it's a life that cannot sin because it's the very life of, of Christ. Now the question is what are we, what are we living in the good of that or are we acting in the flesh? It's one or the other. It's not a question of possession, brethren. It's a question of what are we living in the enjoyment and good of? Are we living in the good of the life of Christ? Or are we living, sad to say, sometimes we do. Are we living and in the.
00:15:20
Awfulness of the flesh. The flesh hasn't changed.
The flesh and a believer hasn't changed. The flesh in Peter was no different than the flesh in Judas. Peter denied his Lord three times with oaths and curses. Peter was weak. Peter was real, but the flesh in Peter was no different. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. But wonder of wonders, brethren, we have divine life. Christ is our life, and that in that way we can live for God's glory. But to think, brethren, that there's a day of display coming.
You know, think of it, you know, you, you look at my life now, you don't always see the life of Christ. You don't always see the manifestation of Christ in my life. But there's a day coming when the world is going to look on and they're going to see perfectly reflected in every believer Christ because there will be nothing to hinder in that day. And I think this verse four gives us to understand that.
When Christ comes back in glory, that is at the end of the Tribulation.
The the scriptures used 3 words in connection with that event. One is the appearing, another one is the revelation, and the other is the manifestation. But they are all in reference to when the Lord comes back in the probably what is in all time connected with this earth, the greatest display of power and glory there has ever been or ever will be.
When Jesus comes back and his Saints come with him, the myriads of those redeemed ones, and there they will see us, our neighbors, our unsaved neighbors will see us, and we will be manifested with Him in glory. Now the point is, as you were saying, Jim, what kind of testimony are we manifesting now?
My father-in-law was a officer in the Canadian Navy and he gave an illustration that has helped me in this chapter.
Verses 567.
Are those?
On a ship, let's say the ship has changed its commanders.
And there are some of the sailors on that ship that are so bad they have to be put to death. And that's what we have in verses 5-6 and seven. But there are other sailors on that ship that need to be put off the boat. So in verses 8:00 and 9:00, you have those sailors that are to be put off, and then you have the new crew.
For the new, uh, sailors.
You have in verse 1011.
Uh, well, 12 put on it says and 13 and 14 the ones that we are to put on. It has been a help to me. We can kind of think of that way. There's been a change in our commander. Once we receive the Lord Jesus Christ, it is no longer ourselves. It is Christ that is before us and there needs to be a change, complete change.
We're gonna be manifested before this world at the coming of the Lord, but in a certain way we are a testimony to this world even now by the way we act. How are we acting before this world?
There's a little bit of an Old Testament picture that's often we think of in Exodus chapter umm 34.
And verse 29, in connection with Moses, he was in the presence of the Lord, and he spent time in the presence of the Lord. He saw something of the glory of the Lord. And it says in verse 29, Exodus 3429, it came to pass when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses whisked not that his face, the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
00:20:03
And so there was evidence.
Of His occupation with divine things. And that's really what he's bringing before us here, isn't it? That there ought to be evidence in my life.
That I'm occupied with divine things or brother Harry Hail I never met him but I think of the thing that he oftentimes think of it. We can have as much of Christ as we want and our lives are going to show how much we want and so this is really he brings before us that Christ is our life in verse four and that future day when we're going to be appear with them. There was going to be a manifestation.
We're going to be acknowledged as those that, umm, had a love for the Lord Jesus and those that, uh, he has, uh, uh, redeemed those that he appreciated even as we, as we went on in the scene of his rejection and anything that was done for his glory as we walked through the scene and manifested his glory, He'll appreciate and we're going to be manifested there with him. But now in these verses of scripture, as you say in verses 5-6 and seven.
There are some things that are going to hinder that glory from shining out if I allow the flesh in any way. Is there a good part of the flesh? Is it is Are there? We think of civilization and we think of how there are some finer elements of what man has created. Perhaps the finest of music, perhaps the finest of dress, perhaps the finest of all these things. Is there a good part of the flesh? Can I take part of something that's good? But it's the of the flesh. God's conclusion concluded that it's all filthy. It's all.
Umm of the first man, Adam, and we need to put them says mortify. Therefore your members which are upon the earth, there isn't anything of the flesh that's profitable. And so it begins with fornication. Why? Because it's taking pleasure in something without reference to God whatsoever. No reference to God. I'm going to take pleasure in it. And so if I'm going to display the glory of Christ in this scene.
I'm not going to have the liberty to please myself.
Need to please Christ. Need to have a view of Himself in the glory of that coming day.
Contrast, uh, the things on earth are con are contrast in connection with the things we've had before us, the things that are above. We're just set our mind on things above where Christ sitteth, because everything that is above our heavenly is in reference to Christ. Thus God's reference point. Everything I say is in reference to Christ, but everything connected with this earth is in reference to the flesh and to man. It's for its self gratification.
Man draws a circle and puts himself in the center of that circle and does everything for himself.
That's man. He's the center of his world, but the center of God's thoughts and what he would have us occupied with in connection with heavenly things is Christ. So we've had Christ as the center of the world above. Now he's going to take up some things that, as you say, it really has man as the center, man as the reference point.
And self gratification. And isn't that the world we live in today?
And this really neutralizes our testimony if we get place to any of this, rather than we all have to recognize that our flesh responds to these things. But it says mortify put to death.
And a person that is put to death doesn't have any desire for these things. He's dead. We are dead, but we are to, uh, practically carry that out in our life. Don't give place to that. There's areas of the Internet that are terrible, brethren, and we need to not give even a little place to that.
TV, magazines, be careful of those things. If you let the flesh have just a little place, I'm going to keep the majority about just a little bit. Remember what happened to Saul? King Saul of the Old Testament. God told him to cut off the Amalekites completely and saw reserved a few that he thought were really good.
Who was it that ended up killing Saul?
00:25:03
He fell on his sword. He remembered to try to end his life, but he didn't end it. And it was an Amalekite that came along and put an end to Saul. And if we do not use a strong hand against the flesh, the flesh is gonna pop back in our face and completely destroy our testimony. Don't give place, not even a little bit to that. That's why it says mortify these things.
Their sexual sins that are mentioned here fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection.
Evocence. And then it mentions covetousness, which is idolatry, the desire to continue to have better and more and more brethren. We're getting ready for the move to glory. Shouldn't it be that we think about downsizing a bit? I think if we really think about it, it would be better. But covetousness, it seems like it's the American dream, bigger and better.
Let's not go that way, brethren. It's idolatry.
In Ephesians in a similar passage, Paul is warning the Christians in a similar light against the sins of the flesh and against fornication, and I find it very interesting. I'm referring to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 17.
He says this, I say, therefore intensifying the Lord, that he henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk. Now, isn't it interesting that earlier in Ephesians, Paul talks as to how they're sitting in the heavenlies and how how they have this new position as members of the one body where there are no Jews nor Gentiles? So that is our position, and yet we're still in this thing and we have these old sinful natures that need to be kept in the place of death, and we need to continue to reckon ourselves to have died in sin. So there's that practicality here.
But we are still Gentiles. We still have these simple desires and we have to deal with them seriously. So we have this wonderful new position in Christ. We're looking forward to the shout when we move, leave our whole simple bodies once and forever. And yet we're in this real world where there is that, uh, temptation that faces this. And we're still Gentiles. And we got to deal with this practically each and every last one of us that we're, we're not yet, umm.
Uh, in our new body, so we still have the old natures that have to be dealt with very seriously.
Amalek in the Old Testament is a picture of Satan's working on the flesh.
And in the wilderness, Israel had war with Amalek in the 17th of Exodus. And the reason I say is a picture of Satans working on the flesh is because Amalek, if we trace his lineage with a grandson of Esau and Esau was a man who sold his birthright for momentary gratification for, as we would say, a bowl of porridge. He something for the moment he sold his birthright. And it's interesting if you follow the history of Amalek, the last mention of Amalek in the Old Testament is that in connection with Haman in the days of Esther.
And Haman sought to annihilate the people of God. He wasn't able to do it. And the flesh in a believer can never cause him to lose his salvation or drag him down to hell. But as Bob said, the working of the flesh, if it's given it's given place, it can cause us to lose our testimony. It can cause us to lose our joy. It can cause us to lose our discernment. But what's significant to realize is that.
In that battle with Amalek in the 17th of Exodus, they, they, it says Joshua disquieted Amalek, a discomforted Amalek with the edge of the sword. He didn't get rid of him because it says that they would have war with Amalek from generation to generation. And we need to realize, brethren, that the flesh is very real and the enemy is very real. And Satan in the believer, he can't rob him of his salvation.
But he seeks to rob him of his joy in the Lord. He seeks to rob him of his testimony.
And his discernment and so on. And he's not going to give up. And we can never in divine things say, well, we're home free. The Ephesians has been pointed out. They were able to take in the highest truth committed to man. The Colossians had not quite as high, but some wonderful truth presented to them. But on both occasions they needed these practical warnings and these exhortation.
00:30:17
As to moral evil, as to covetousness and the sample lists of sin, I say it's Satan's activity on the flesh, and we're going to have to deal with it until we get home to glory. So that's the first time in Scripture that I find right? Exodus 17.
That's the first time that I have found writing write these in a book and.
From generation to generation we don't get any better.
Our children are just like their parents. They come up, they got the same heart, their same nature. And so it has to go on in the assembly because the 5th chapter they had that horrible case and that lasted a good wage. And then in the just look at what it says in the.
7th chapter of Second Corinthians.
Cornet didn't, uh, get assembly perfect. They just were asked to have this again and again and uh, in the 7th chapter, the first verse, having therefore these promises daily, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the place and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Our God said it, be holy, for I am holy, be perfect for I am perfect. Dear Father in heaven is perfect. That's in the old heaven.
You're definitely just standard and we can't change it either and the assembly can't change it. And so we have to be teaching these things.
Teach the responsibility that comes individual in these collectives. I mean these simple sense or simple sense unclean things.
And, uh, I think it, uh, you go to the last chapter of Second Corinthians to show you that, uh.
You don't, Uh.
Get the assembly perfect heater.
In the 13th chapter of the 2nd Corinthians, this is the third time I am coming to you and so on. I told you and we're telling you.
Uh, examine yourselves the first five, whether you be in the faith, prove your own selves, know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except he be reprobates it. You don't get to pass the danger of these things are rising again in another generation in the assembly. So it's holiness in a practical way individually, but they're watching out for from the assembly.
I'd like to just say this too in connection with our comments as to why you often find that fornication heads a list of sample sins that are given. There are two other occasions other than Colossians 3 that I can think of, and probably more. One has been pointed out in Ephesians. Another one is in First Thessalonians 4 where he gives another list there and warning to the Saints and fornication heads that list as well.
And there may be other thoughts, but I would just suggest that fornication.
Is so serious for two reasons. One is because it spoils the picture of Christ and the Church.
The other is that it, and really in that regard, is that it's the the one sin that leaves a mark on the human body for the rest of a person's life. Now, brethren, that's not to say there isn't restoration.
Because where sin abounds, grace does much more abound, and God is greater than our failure in sin. But it is so serious when the type when what God set up at the beginning as not only for the blessing and happiness of man on the earth, but as a type of Christ in the church. God was from Eden looking right down well from a past eternity. But when he placed Adam and Eve in the garden, he was looking on to the time when his Son would have a bride for his eternal joy and satisfaction.
And to spoil the type of Christ in the church is such a serious thing that it's plus one sin, I say, that leaves a mark on the human body for the rest of a person's life. That's why it says in Proverbs.
A wound, not a scar, but a wound. A wound is something that doesn't heal. A wound and dishonor shall he get. And brethren, it's a very serious thing. And I, this has looked so lightly on in the world in which we live. Though I sometimes said the difference between my young people going to high school in Smiths Falls and my going to high school in Smiths Falls 25 years before, it was this that when I went to high school in Smith Falls, there was still some line of demarcation.
00:35:32
Between right and wrong, there was still some standard of morals, as blurred as the line may have become. But when my young people went no, it wasn't that the line was just blurred, the line was completely removed. Everything is now acceptable and morality is really an amoral society. We don't live in an immoral society. We've moved beyond that to an amoral society where there are no morals.
And brother young people, we need these exhortations and we need to take heed to them. David sinned. He fell into sin with Bathsheba, and he sinned grievously. And it's true, there was restoration for David, thank God, and he was used in a wonderful way by God subsequent to it. But a sword never departed from his house forever. I was just over in the Middle East, and it's very evident that when Abraham sinned, yes, he was restored to the Lord.
But its descendants are still the constant enemies of the people of God to this day. There's the fruit of what was sown in that sin and young people and all of us, because it's for all of us. We never get beyond it.
And we need to take heed to this. And why does fornication so often had a list of sample sins and warnings to the Saints of God? It's because it is so serious it's not worth it. Fornication is sexual activity outside the marriage tie, and Scripture absolutely and unequivocally forbids it. And if you do it a wound and dishonor you'll get.
We're talking plain, but it is very, very serious.
And don't fall into it. The world says, oh, it's only for a moment and nobody's going to know or find out. Oh, it's very serious. God knows. And we reap what we sow. What you say is right, Jim. And I just like to reinforce it with this All sin is against God.
And there is a syndicate your neighbor, but there is a syndicate yourself.
Like to make a few remarks connection with what's before us from Romans chapter 7:00 and 8:00.
What's before us is somewhat explained in more detail here.
Just to read a tiny bit of it.
In Romans Chapter 7.
Umm, verse 22 But I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, worrying against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I myself.
Serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
Chapter 8. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
Down to verse.
Umm 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is not of his.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is light because of righteousness, and so on. Just to make a few comments about what we have here.
Man.
Corrupted himself.
By his unbelief and his original disobedience to God, and when he sinned the first time, he was changed.
Because he received as a consequence of his sin and his body that which Scripture called sin. And it is a fixed principle and it's in the members. That's why in our chapter it says mortify your members because all sin that takes place in US is an activity of our members.
00:40:22
Of our body and sin exist in the body.
Actually, and we won't try to get to the finer point of it, but flesh and sin are not identical. We often use them synonymously, but they're not, and the flesh has to do with that which.
Determines our actions.
When Eve was in the Garden of Eden, she looked at the fruits and she said it's good to my eye.
It's desirable to make me wise and so on. And it motivated her by what she saw, because unbelief was there to take an action against God, and all of us now have that morally corrupt.
Flash and sin, and consequently when we see something, we look at it and we say that's desirable to me.
And I'd like it, and we wanna have it. And the sin in our members motivates us. It's a fixed principle within us that will always cause us through the flesh to disobey God.
When we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive a new life.
But we still have that flesh, and we still have sin in our members.
And in a practical sense, every one of us goes through the experience of finding out that the flesh doesn't change and the sin in it doesn't change. It's still there. It still acts the same way.
And I want to say it's still easily overcomes because the mind says hey do this.
But the flesh acting by sin does, says I'm gonna do that. And all of us know what it's like to say I won't do that again. Even as believers, I will not do that again. And we do it.
The point I want to make without trying to.
Develop it further is we must have a deliverer.
That's what the man in Romans 7 practically had to learn. He could not deliver himself from the power of sin and his members. He could not deliver himself from the flesh that was still in him, even though he had a life which desired to do good.
Until in his soul, practically he said, Who shall deliver me from this body of death?
And everyone who has life, even life in Christ in a practical sense, in the school of God, has to learn the necessity of having a deliverer.
Until we do, we will constantly try to overcome the flesh in US and be totally miserable and failing at it. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is not only our Savior, He is also our Deliverer. And He delivers us in two ways.
In our chapter, it's by the life he gives us.
In Romans it's by the Spirit, and so in chapter 8 we have the practical deliverance of the man suffering and the condition of Chapter 7, and in chapter 8 it's the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that has set me free.
And that is the Spirit acting upon our new life gives a power to cause us to make a different line of decisions that honor God and don't control us anymore by the flesh. And it said we don't learn this truth abstractly and doctrinally.
00:45:07
Alone, but others have said we must learn it in the school of God. Brethren, we don't just learn it in a Bible reading. And consequently I say it because it's so easy for us to just sit here and say put to death. That's what Scripture says, put to death your members. That is, we are responsible to live life in Christ by the power of the Spirit.
And make the practical decisions that don't give that flesh and pin a place. But we can't do it in our own power. That's the main point I want to bring. You cannot do it in yourself. But every one of us has tried. It's natural to us to try. And we're miserable. Often Christians can live a whole lifetime of misery because the domination of the flesh that's still in them controls.
So often the life and so the same faith that put our trust in the Lord Jesus as Savior. We need to look to Him as deliverer and allow the Spirit of God to have its work in US.
Just add to what you've said from others rules that really the subject of deliverance in Romans begins halfway through chapter 5 if you want to understand how the Spirit of God.
Unfold the subject of deliverance over the power of sin. We must begin.
Right around verse 12, chapter 5, and it's going to explain that there are two men that God sees. He sees Adam, he sees Christ. Chapter 6, God explained to us that the cross of Christ, that's first man, Adam, was condemned.
So we must see that.
Other of atoms, if we're going to understand deliverance, I'm so glad we covered just a little bit. No, we're not in the room, but the truth we have in Romans is really important for us to understand so that we can really understand philosophy. That's all I'll say. Well, I think that's helpful because I was thinking too in Romans 8, there was another important element thrown into the equation.
Before there was a turn around in that man's soul and that is he had to come to the realization it is no more I but sin that dwelleth in me. So those two things were important. Who shall deliver me? And it's no more I because maybe there's someone here. And you say somebody asked me to do something and I said I don't want to do that. And then you felt guilty because you said I really did want to do that, but it's no more I but sin that dwelleth in me. You were right in saying I no longer want to do that because the divine nature doesn't and it can't. But the question is.
The problem is that the flesh is there and the flesh wants to do it. And so when the man realized that, he needed to deliver and realized the light in which God saw him. God doesn't see me in the light of the flesh of the old man. He sees me in the light of the new man. He sees me in all the perfection of the life of Christ. But I would also like to say this as to the illustration in the 17th of Exodus, just to illustrate what Brother Dawn said, because I think it's illustrated so beautifully there.
In Colossians, as Don was saying, it's our connection with Christ in glory and our life being hid with Christ in God. And there were two secrets of the victory against with Amalek there, uh, overcoming Amalek there in uh, Exodus 17. One is their connection with Moses, a picture of the Lord Jesus gone on high to fill all things. Moses went up on the mount and Aaron and her stayed up his hands till the going down of the sun. And we won't go into the type but.
Just to suffice it to say, that's perhaps more what we have in Colossians.
But then there was another secret of their victory as dawn has been bringing out that's more in connection with Romans. And that is we have Joshua as the captain down in the valley of conflict with the people of God. And if Moses is a picture of Christ on high living for us and our connection with Christ in glory, then Joshua is perhaps more a picture of Christ in spirit because we have as the power for our lives.
00:50:09
To meet the enemy. Here we have the Spirit of God, and it's interesting that it doesn't say that Israel got the victory.
It was Joshua that discomforted Amalek. And how did he do it? With the edge of the sword. The sword speaks of the Word of God. And so it's the Spirit of God. The Word of God applied in the power of the Spirit. And that's how we're going to overcome the flesh. Brethren, we have the Spirit of God. We have the Word of God. You get a bad thought in your mind, Don't let it develop or it's going. Don't let it continue or it's going to develop into one of these sins.
But what do you do? Oh, you turn in your mind to the Word of God. You let the Word of God in the power of the Spirit come in and you fill a cup to the brim with water. You don't leave room for any air or anything else. And that's what we need to do. So I think it's illustrated very beautifully there in Exodus 17. We have Christ in glory and we're connected with him. Our life is hid with Christ and God, and we have the life of Christ. Christ is our life. And then we have the Spirit of God as the power.
So that we can meet the enemy and so that there can be victory. But it's not our victory, as Dawn was saying, we need to deliver. And if there's been any victory in our lives, brethren, we can't take credit to ourselves. It's all credit to him. And the figure that was mentioned yesterday of Israel when they went across the Jordan, went to Gilgal first. That's the cutting off of the flesh. It's the place of circumcision.
Means all the way around completely cut off in Philippians it talks about concision. Concision means cutting act. It's not cutting at brethren, it's cutting off. It's not allowing any place for it. And if there was going to be victory in Canaan, they needed to return to Gilgal every time they had a victory and.
Joshua would say that, he said. Let us return to Gilgal to renew the Kingdom.
It's important to return, to recognize any victory that God gives us, brethren, and I find it so often in myself that there's a tendency when there's something that I've done that might be something for the Lords. Glory to glory in myself. Got to get back to Gilgal if I'm going to continue to.
Have victory in my life or else there's going to be defeat in our lives.
We cannot trust that flesh anyway, shape or form, so it's to be cut off, be put to death. I'd just like to read those last three verses of Exodus 17 because I think we need it in writing and we need to read this book.
In the last three verses of Exodus 17.
Our last four verses.
Verse 13.
And Joshua discomforted Emily and his people with the edge of the sword.
Now this look at these last verses. And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this.
For a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua. That's true.
For I says the Lord will utterly put out remembrance of amulet from under heaven. And Moses built an older called the name of Jehovah Nissi. What does that mean?
Jordan SI the Lord might banner in the last verse.
But he said, because the Lord has sworn, think of that the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
Brother Bob, the verse that you quoted in Philippians chapter three, I think it's verse two, it says beware of the concision. That's something to be on guard against because we have this list that's given to us in Colossians chapter 3, verses 5 and six here, 5-6 and seven perhaps are one passage, one paragraph, and we're to be aware of not to make rules to allow a little bit of the flesh.
So that we can gratify the flesh a little bit in our course of life. Just give a little example of it in Matthews Gospel chapter 18. The Lord spoke there and he taught very clearly in connection with that very matter. In verse eight he says, Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee. It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed rather than to having two hands or.
00:55:27
2 feet to be cast into everlasting fire. Well, the hand perhaps might speak of my occupation, something that I might do for a living. And umm, if it's going to keep me from walking in a holy path, a path of obedience to the word of God, a path of life, I'm to cut it off. I'm to not to allow a little bit of it, just do it one day a week or something like that. No, I'm to cut it all off. The foot speaks of a course of life, and if there's a course of life that I'm going to go into.
And I'm walking in a particular path, and it's not a path of obedience to the word of God.
It's not going to. It's allowing of the flesh in my life and to cut it off, all of it, not just some of it. I'll give a little illustration. I had a brother. We were speaking a little bit about the entertainment of this world. And he said, you know, I used to have a television and I thought I could measure it. I thought I could just use the television just for the news and some of the finer elements of it, you might say. And he said, I found I couldn't do it. I had to take a hammer and smash it and put it in the garbage can.
And I had to be finished with it. And this is really what the word of God is giving us here in Colossians. We have a responsibility. The Spirit of God is not mentioned here because it's our responsibility before God to judge these things.
And to be done with them. And there's not just a little bit we're to be aware of the concision, we're to do it in entirety as Moses did. He forsook Egypt, He abandoned everything, every prospect that there was in Egypt. He turned his heart towards the Lord. Even before he left Egypt, he had forsaken it in his heart. And now we have that responsibility to identify those things that are of the flesh and to deal with them, to exercise self judgment.
Like to make a go back for comment on verse and Genesis chapter?
Three.
In our chapter.
Where we have, we've been talking about the flesh and we see it manifested in the things that are mentioned.
And it's corrupted form, in its most corrupted form, it didn't start that way. And the Garden of Eden, it didn't have that same developed character. But what happened is after man sinned the flesh in him.
Corrupted itself more and more until we see in the time of the flood two things, violence and corruption.
Filled the earth, but I won't because this flesh is so subtle. I would like to go back and just comment a little bit on where it is and its seed state and what characterizes it. And we see that in Genesis chapter 3.
And verse 6.
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desired to make one wise, she took.
Of the fruit thereof, and did eat.
This is really the seed of the flesh.
It's the beginning.
Of independence.
And self will.
It was good to the eye.
It was. There wasn't any question about it. It was good for food.
It was pleasant to the eyes. It was going to give her him something they hadn't had before. It was desirable.
We hear the expression. What's wrong with that?
These things that she said passed all the tests of a question like that, what's wrong with that?
Why shouldn't I do it, or have it or take it? It's good.
01:00:04
It's for good. It's for good food. It's pleasant to the eye, it's desirable. Why can't I have it?
There's two reasons. There's two things that are involved in it, the Lord said, and his own when he was tempted. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live. We don't just live by the food we eat, we also live.
By dependence and obedience to what God says.
That's why they forfeited their life, because they acted in independence and disobedience to what God had said.
The flesh in US will act in independence of God, and if it's desirable, if it's good, even though it's in a corrupted, awful, corrupted state now of fornication on cleanness and all those things, which is its most developed condition.
Still to the flesh it says, I want it, and it will take it. And in our chapter, why the life is so important to us is because God has now given us the life of Christ, which is characterized by dependence and obedience.
And consequently this has already been brought out. The Word of God is so important to us because the dependent man, the Lord Jesus, would not act without a word.
His opinion, his dependence as man was so great and so perfect. Even if there was food and he needed food, he would not take it because he was dependent on the word from the from God. And so he waited until.
He got it, the Word, and then He would eat, and He was obedient. I do always those things which please the Father, and so the Spirit of God acts in US in that life. And if the Spirit of God is there working instead of the flesh and sin, then if the dependent obedient man is manifested.
And so it is with us rather. And in the measure in which that life which is perfect in its dependence and obedience and has, has already been mentioned here, it's exhortation, its responsibility to live that character of life, to put away the old and to live the new, to put away the old character of life which is the flesh working in us. That's the old man, that's his character.
But God has made us the new man, and He wants us to live that life.
Well, this list that we've been considering in verse five, we very quickly see the seriousness of these things that are listed. But there's another list, brethren, and perhaps we look very lightly on these things sometimes. And that is in verse eight, he says, but now ye also put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another.
Seeing you have put off the old man with his deeds. Now, brethren, I think this list perhaps strikes us all. It strikes me perhaps we can say by the grace of God, we're not guilty of some most of the things that are all of the things of the first list, at least the out those outward moral things. But brethren, when was the last time we were angry? When was the last time you got angry at somebody? Or when was the last time we encouraged someone in that course?
You say I got angry at that person and they did such and such and you said, you know, I don't blame you. I would have got angry too. You know, that didn't help the person that just helped the person to act in the flesh. And so anger and and wrath, malice, these things, why not one to another, these things, these things strike home, don't they? But these things were to put off as well. Sin is sin Now it's true there are those sins, but.
Leave a mark on the human body. There are sins that affect others in a very real way. There's sins that have consequences for the rest of our life. There's things that sometimes we don't think are so serious, but they're very serious in the sight of God, and they are the manifestations of the flesh. And brethren were to put those things off as well.
01:05:23
Excuse me, umm, I'd like to just for the sake of the young people, I don't think.
Uh, we.
Clarify that the meanings of some of these terms in verse 5, and I don't before we get too far away from it, I'd like to just go over them briefly because it's we use the King James Version, which I hardly approve of. But some of the words are not real current today's language. So I'd like to just briefly for the sake of the young people and those others.
Who might not be familiar with these terms? Go over them briefly fornication we've spoken of.
That's that's something that's openly spoken of in the world and understood uncleanness. We if we have a conscience, we know who we what uncleanness is. We when we come in contact with it inordinate affection. That's improper passion, something that's glorified in this world. It, it appears in sports, Umm, hockey games and and football games are notorious for improper passion. The same with a lot of these umm.
Uh, video games, violence, improper passion, and of course a lot of, uh, today's music involves improper or illicit passion. And then the word evil concupiscence. Word concupiscence is a big old fashioned word for lust and the world glorifies lust and God puts it right up in the top list. Here is something that is to be put to death.
And then covetousness. Well, that's a mild term. In today's language, it means greed.
And we can be guilty of it.
Greed, which is idolatry. Pardon my interruption.
I think it's important to have those distinctions because we live in a filthy world, and you and I might, as we live from day-to-day, get accustomed to the filth. But God sees things very clearly, and it is a filthy world and it glories in the filth of it too. And so these things are mentioned very specifically. God doesn't waste any words, and He says it very, very succinctly.
I'll just say that.
Here in, in the verse that you mentioned, Jim, it says three things that really have to do with our Roth, our anger. It says anger, Roth and malice. Now, if you and I were writing this, we might have just used one word. We might have just said anger. But what's the difference? Why does God use 3 words? Well, one of them, perhaps the first one is the rising up of indignation in my heart. I, someone cuts me off on the road or someone does something and I feel anger, right?
Well then it says rock. Well now I start to really feel it. It shows now on my face that I'm angry. There's wroth. Let every man be swift to hear. Slow to wroth.
Swifty here, slow to speak, slow to rock. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
And so it shows on my face, but then it says malice. Now it says I want to hurt somebody, I want to get back, I want to get even. But the Spirit of God records that the Lord could say vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay. So all three of those things are evil, and all three of those things are those reactions and the sin, the sin nature, the flesh rising up and action. And so every time.
That I feel angry every time that I feel anger.
Or Roth or malice. It's not the work of the Spirit of God at all. It's the work of the flesh. And I ought to judge it, ought to say it. And I often quote that verse to myself and James. I think it's chapter one. Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to rock. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wrath has the sense in it of retribution as well, doesn't it, to get even with that person and.
Do something I would like to.
Agree with what you say, brother Robert, I'd like to temper your comments with just this. That scripture says be angry and sin not. So there is a time for anger, but I'd like to show where the Lord Jesus was angry. It's interesting actually. I think the word occurs twice in Mark's gospel and the first one is in chapter 3.
01:10:26
And it's in connection with that man in the.
Synagogue who had a withered hand and there were those who were watching to see if you would, uh, heal him on the Sabbath day just with the purpose of accusing him. And he says in verse four, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil to save life or to kill. But they held their peace and then verse five. And when he had looked.
Round about on them with anger being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. Now here was an example of proper anger because there was no sin in the Lord Jesus, but there was anger at this juncture and I I like to think of it as that it was they were hindering the blessing in somebody else. It wasn't for something that it against him.
It was hindering the blessing for somebody else that he was angry about. And so there is a place for anger, but we need to be careful not to let the anger get out of hand. It's easy that that happens. And we need to ask if you're angry about something, are you angry because they did something bad to you? So that's not the case in the Lord Jesus. They hit him in the face, they crown them with thorns, they spit in his face.
Never any reaction of anger for those things, but it was when he they hindered the blessing that that God wanted so to give that he was angry. The other one is in a little further on in Marks gospel and it doesn't use the word anger but I think it is somewhat of the same thought.
It's where.
They tried to bring the children to the Lord.
Recently sees that it says uh.
It's, uh, in chapter 10.
Yes, chapter 10 and verse 13. And they brought young children to him that he should touch them, and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
And when Jesus sighed, he was much displeased. Somebody had the Darby translation there.
Indignant. Indignant. Yeah, it's somewhat of the same word there. It is also a case of somebody else that was being hindered in getting to the blessing. That was reason for the Lord being indignant.
Uh, just, uh, kind of balances. Appreciate that, yeah.
Verse nine it says.
You have put off the old man with his deeds. That is here in this chapter. It's not as thought as we have dealing with the flesh and Romans or Second Corinthians, always a bearing about the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus. That's something that needs to be done continuously. We always need to remember what it costs for Jesus to put away sin, to have a sensitive conscience, not to allow the flag to act in us our whole lives.
But the sense of what's put before us here is this is something that we're supposed to make a definite conscious decision about to do and be done with it.
We're to put off the old character of life, and from that point on we're to be characterized by a new life, new character to that life, as he says, verse sin and having put on the new.
And so in the positive sense, we've had to go over the sinful side, but here we introduced the other side of it. And he says, having put on the new, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and skipping down just for a moment to.
01:15:05
Verse 11 The bottom of the end of verse 11. But Christ is all and in all comment is this.
Life isn't lived in a vacuum. Life necessitates an object. You can't live life totally within yourself.
You God has so made us as a creature that we have to have things outside of ourselves that become the object of our lives.
And the natural realm, some people, their object of life is money or fame.
Or honor, or control and power. These are things that man goes after in order to make himself happy and be satisfied within himself.
But God gives us the one and only perfect object.
To satisfy the new man, and that is Christ is everything. And in all, as Paul said we had in the last meeting, for me to live is Christ. We have to have an object before our hearts in order to live life. You can't live it apart from that. Something is going to have its way over your attention.
So in this chapter it begins sets your mind on things above. Put your mind on your object, put your thoughts upon your object. And that's what it means in Galatians 2 and 20 when the apostle Paul says.
I am crucified with Christ, as you might say what we've already had. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live.
The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of Man. Pardon me, Son of God.
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Or to restate it this way, I live by the faith which has the Son of God as his, the object of that faith who lost me and gave himself for me. And so Paul was saying, yes, I live, I'm crucified with Christ, but I'm not still dead. I now live in Christ and that life which I presently live.
I live by faith in the object.
My object, the Son of God, is it a satisfying object? He loved me.
He gave Himself for me. Does that satisfy the heart? It sure does. If it is a soul that is totally given up to the enjoyment of its object becomes transformed to be like its object. And so in Second Corinthians chapter 3, we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord. That's the object.
Our change.
Are transformed into the same image even as from glory to glory, and so to have a proper object to the heart.
The Hands of the Lord Jesus and of God
Gospel—Jim Hyland
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.
Fall, please to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews, Chapter One.
Hebrews chapter one and verse 10.
And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth.
And the heavens are the works of Thy hands.
They shall perish, but thou remainest, and they shall wax old, as doth the garment. We're going to look at some scriptures in the presentation of the gospel this evening that bring before us the hand of God, or the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I thought it would be well to begin this evening with this portion that confirms to us beyond a shadow of a doubt.
That creation came from the hand of God. If we were to go back to the very beginning of God's Word, we find.
That in the beginning God created and all through the Word of God.
We have testimony after testimony that God is the Creator.
And not only God but the whole Trinity was involved. We know that it was in the power of the Spirit.
The Spirit moved upon the face of the deep because the Spirit of God is the mighty energy in which God has always moved. You know, if there's going to be blessing tonight in this gospel meeting, it must be in the power of the Spirit of God. We cannot save souls tonight.
But our comfort is tonight that we have the living word of God, that we have the Spirit of God to work.
That we have the Lord Jesus as the Savior of sinners to present, and that we have a message from the heart of God.
Who desires the blessing of souls far, far more than any human being on the face.
Of this earth. But I say the Trinity was at work in creation God.
The Spirit we find too, that if we were to back up in this very book of Hebrews.
We would find that the sun was there when the foundations of the earth were laid.
And that he was there at that time, and that all things were made by him. We read that there was nothing made that was not made by him.
We find too. He's the sustainer of the universe, upholding all things by the word of his power.
And I believe it's important to establish this we've already heard in these meetings.
How that there are those who have risen up over the centuries with their theories and their lies and their blasphemies.
And trying to propagate that the creation, the universe, the creation just happened, that it all came to into being by a series of cosmic accidents and explosions and so on. But all those things are the lie of the devil. Because if man can convince himself that everything just happened and that he just happened, and that he has his beginning and his ending on this earth in a few short years.
Then he can set aside in his own mind. He can set aside his responsibility.
To God, but all I say we want to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a creator.
That God brought things into existence. That the Lord Jesus is the creator of the and sustainer of the universe.
And that you're responsible to him tonight. You know Daniel in his day stood before a king.
Perhaps the greatest king of the day. And he said, the God in whose hand thy breath is.
And whose are all thy ways? Hast thou not glorified? You know, man goes on his own way today, doing his own thing, doing his own will. And he doesn't want to recognize that he's responsible to God. He doesn't want to recognize that every breath comes from the hand of a merciful God. But it tells us in the New Testament he giveth to all life and breath and all things.
Realize that as you almost unconsciously take one breath after another.
Sitting in these seats this evening that God in his mercy is allowing you.
To take that breath, he's sustaining life. It's interesting, it says in the book of James.
00:05:01
That we ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live.
Not an interesting statement. If the Lord will, we shall live. Now the verse goes on to say and do this or that, and we often think of it in that context as believers. We say, well, we desire to do such and such, or we plan to do this or that, or go here or there if the Lord will. But it's interesting that before it speaks of doing this and that before it speaks of activity, it says we ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live.
And God in his grace has allowed you to live.
Another few moments here on earth so that you have another opportunity to have the word of God before you and hear that once again that there is one that you are responsible to tonight. Do you realize tonight that you are responsible to God? That you can't hide one thing from God? You know, we can hide many things, and I suppose particularly when we're younger as boys and girls or even young people.
We hide things. We try to hide things. We're always trying to cover up in some way or another.
We try to hide things from our parents, We try to hide things from our teachers.
We try to hide things from those who are older. Sometimes we try to hide things from those at meeting perhaps.
But you know, we can't hide one thing from the one who made us.
He looks down tonight, and it says all things are naked and open under the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Yes, we do have to do with God tonight and God. God looks down. The eye of God rests in this room tonight, and he sees right into the heart of every boy, of every girl, of every young person, of every man and woman in this room.
I don't know if you've ever sat in an interrogation room and been interrogated by the police or some federal agency.
But you know, on Thursday I drove on my way here through Benton, KY.
Fenton, Kentucky is a place that's not very dear to my heart. In fact, I said to someone when I got here, I didn't know whether to drive fast and get through or slow so they wouldn't stop me for speeding, but I made it.
But not very long ago, I sat in an interrogation room in Benton, KY, 4 FBI agents, the Benton Sergeant and the Paducah Chief of Police, and I noticed the headlines of the paper this morning. They're going to replace him. But.
There we sat, six men, and their gaze burned through me and demanded nothing but complete honesty.
If you've ever seen a picture of an interrogation room, it's just as it is pictured.
Dark on the perimeter.
A round table, chairs in a circle.
You're closed in with them, a light in the middle, over the middle of the table. It's pretty intimidating.
And you realize as they flip their file that they probably know things about you that you've forgotten.
And that when they asked those questions, I suspect that a good many of those questions they already know the answer to.
And they will ask the same question a number of ways.
And when you walk out of there a couple of hours later, your mind is in such a spin. You hardly know what they've asked you or what you've told them. But you know, I have thought of it many times, because if you sit in a room like that and realize that they're burning gaze and they're cold, stark expressions demand nothing but truth.
Oh, what is it in the sight of God?
You know, I suppose people have gone away.
With many things by covering up. And I suppose there are people who are such good liars that they've got away with it, but oh, you'll never get away with anything in the interrogation room of God. He knows everything about you tonight, and he looks down and he knows whether you're saved or not. He knows whether you're just trying to cover up and hide things.
I have been shaken lately to realize that there are those who pass amongst the Lord's people who make a profession.
00:10:00
Of being Christians. Of being saved, Of having their sins forgiven.
And they're not real.
They do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.
As their savior, you can fool me. You may fool your parents. You know Judas fooled the other disciples for all those years. He walked with the Lord Jesus and the other disciples, you say, How do you know he fooled the disciple other disciples? Because when they came to the upper room at the end of the Lord's ministry, just before he went to the cross.
Those 12 men having walked together in very close company.
With the Lord Jesus and with one another for well over three years.
When the Lord said there was a betrayer amongst them.
You'd think, well, at least some of the disciples would suspect Judas. You'd think there would have been a slip here and there, that some of them would have at least looked down the table and said, well, I think it's Judas. You know, none of them suspected who it was. They all looked at one another, wondering who it was. And it wasn't until John asked the Lord Jesus who it was at the request of Peter that the Lord Jesus finally revealed.
Who the betrayer was?
In that solemn Judas never made a slip, and those men lived in pretty close company for those years. But he was clever in his cover up. But the Lord knew his heart. He didn't fool the Lord Jesus. No, the Lord knew exactly what was in his heart, and the Lord knew exactly what Judas was going to do in the moment He was going to do it as well.
I say you might pass amongst believers and you might fool everybody.
For a long, long time, but the Lord knows what's in your heart.
And so he's the one that made you. He's the one that brought the universe into existence.
He's the one that sustains it and he is the one that you are responsible to.
Tonight. But now I want to go on and read a couple of other scriptures.
First of all in Psalm 22.
Stop.
Psalm 22 and verse 16.
Four dogs have compassed me. The assembly of the wicked hath the enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. And then I want to read in Luke chapter 24.
Luke, chapter 24 and verse 36.
And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me, and see, For a spirit hath not flesh and bone, as ye see me have. And when they had thus when he had thus spoken, he showed unto them.
His hands and his feet. And then I want to read the last four verses of the chapter.
Verse 50. And he led them out as far as Bethany, And he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them that he was parted from them and carried up into heaven, and they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And we're continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. Well, we've spoken of how creation came from the hand of the Lord. But oh, here are these hands again.
And these hands now are pierced because of Calvary's cross.
Because tonight we want to present Christ and Christ crucified, because the way of blessing tonight is through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when this world was created, when it came forth from the hand of the Lord, He just spoke and it was commanded.
And he upholds that he sustains it by the word of his power, but when it came to redemption.
00:15:03
It took something far, far greater than just speaking by the word of his power.
No, it took God himself coming into this world in incarnation.
It took the Son to come at the bidding of the Father.
And to go to Calvary's cross and to die there between heaven and earth.
It took the Lord Jesus giving himself and Ohio. That's the gospel tonight.
And that's why the Apostle Paul said we preach Christ and Christ crucified.
He said in the end of Galatians. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross.
Of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me.
And I unto the world, can we really make too much of the cross of Christ tonight? Oh, I know there are just so many here tonight who thrill, as we speak of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ to the world its foolishness. And it tells us that the preaching of the cross is foolishness. But who is it foolishness to? To them that perish all there are those who scoff at the cross. There are those who mock when the cross of the Lord Jesus is spoken of in his death.
But they are those who are on their way to a lost eternity, and there are many in health and who will be in hell, and who are there tonight. Because they scoffed, Because they mocked, and they are going to perish. They passed out of this world, or they will pass out of this world in their sins and they will perish.
You know, Webster's dictionary tells us that the word perish means to die spiritually, not solemn to die spiritually. Other dictionaries will tell you that it's to pass out of existence and things like that.
But that's not really what Parish is. Or maybe from man's standpoint it is. But from God's standpoint, to perish is to die spiritually. It's to pass out of this world lost, to eventually stand before the Great White Throne, to be judged and to be bound hand and foot and cast into the lake of fire. But all the wonderful story is tonight that the blessed hands of the Creator of the universe.
Were stretched out on a cross of one and as we read prophetically of the Lord Jesus.
In the 22nd chapter, the 22nd Psalm, they pierced my hands and my feet. You know, there are just so many of us here tonight that have emotions run through our souls when we read a statement like that. But oh, I'm thankful for that statement. They pierced my hands and my feet. I am so thankful that the Lord Jesus went to Calvary's cross and gave himself for me.
He said he could have called 12 legions of angels to come.
To his rescue and deliver him that when they came to take him in the garden, there was a little flash of his glory, and they went backwards. But oh he allowed man to come and take him, and to lead him to Pilate's judgment hall. And from pilots judgment Hall they led him away to crucify him. He gave the very breadth and strength of those that lifted the hammer.
To pound those nails into his blessed hands and feet.
He allowed them to spit in his face. He allowed them to strike him again and again and again.
He allowed them to walk by at that crossroads and shake their heads and revile him.
Just sit down and watch him suffer in his agony.
Yes, he did, and I'm thankful he did. But what about you tonight?
Here were these disciples.
And here they were after the Lord Jesus had been crucified. And they were, they were gathered together and they were afraid. You know, there's a lot of fear in the world tonight. A lot of fear. You know, when I travel, I, because I travel so much, I have a pass.
To the lounges.
And when I'm in those lounges, I watch the faces of the upper echelon of the government and corporate world, men and women who come into those lounges to relax after or before their business meeting or seminar. They wait for their flight home or to their next appointment, and on one end of the lounge is usually a large flat screen television with CNN.
00:20:20
And on the other end of the lounge is the same thing with BBC or CBC or some other news station. And hour after hour these distressing newscasts are coming over the airwaves.
And I watch people as they watch those newscasts, the fear written in their faces.
Men's hearts failing them for fear and looking for those things.
That are coming on the earth, and I see men and women turn away.
And shake their heads. I've had men and women turn to me and say, where is it all going to end?
I've heard people say to one another, how can this go on? Because people today realize.
That there is this interplay of economic, political and social forces that are out of control.
And that it's got to give somewhere.
And yet they don't know what to do.
They don't have the answers because they're not looking for them in the right place.
They're looking for them in peace pacts and summits and negotiations and treaties and lining up with the United States and the allied forces and all that kind of thing. It's not working. I've just been over in that corner of the world. It's not working. It isn't working. The hatred that is there instilled in those people, really in God's governmental ways.
Isn't going to be solved.
By legislation. You can't make these people shake hands and love each other after all these generations.
And people are scared.
And the disciples here were scared too. They didn't know what was happening. They thought, as it were, it was the end of the world.
The Lord had been crucified. He'd been laid in a tomb. They thought it was all over.
For those, thank God it wasn't all over. And thank God tonight it's not all over.
Thank God there's a message of peace.
Thank God there's a message of salvation.
Oh, it may be all over for this world. You know, it almost is. This world is winding down.
For the judgment of God, it's not getting better, it's not improving, it's winding down.
And winding down very fast. But oh, there is a message of hope and peace.
And so the Lord Jesus comes, and he stands in the midst of them.
And he confirms that it is he himself in resurrection. And I just want to for a few moments.
Speak of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, because again, the gospel is summed up in these simple words.
He died, he was buried, and he rose again the third day.
According to the Scripture and the Lord Jesus confirms to them His resurrection, how could he give them a message of peace?
How could he calm their troubled hearts here? Oh, because he had died and risen from the dead.
And in his body he retained the marks of atonement. In fact, I believe for all eternity he's going to retain in his body those marks of atonement. For those of us who are finally gathered in the Father's house in a coming day, it's true. We're not going to see him as he was. We're not going to see him as a lowly man here in this world, weary with his journey, sitting on a well or laying his head down in the pillow in the back of a boat for a few moments rest.
We're not going to see him hanging on a cross of shame crowned with a crown of thorns, that which was part of the.
Result of the curse? No. We are going to see him crowned with glory and honor, and when he comes forth he is going to be crowned with many crowns, but nevertheless we are going to see in his body the marks of atonement.
We sometimes sing him in his own wounds in heaven, declare the atoning work is done, and when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he retained in his body the marks in his hands and in his feet and in his side. I want to speak for a few moments too, about the blood of Christ. Oh, it's vital when the Gospels preach that we stress the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:25:03
Because it's that precious blood that atones for sin.
It's through his blood that we have the forgiveness of sins, and John firmly declares the blood of Jesus Christ his Son.
Cleanses us from all sin. Peter further affirms that we have redemption through his blood and that we are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold. You know, the money markets are being shaken today. You know, in Canada we did very well for many years because the American dollar was so strong and the exchange was so good. And I'll never forget a few months ago when I went to the bank to change some American money into Canadian funds and they told me I was going to lose money.
In changing those funds, I just stood and stared at the teller, I said. I never thought we'd see that again.
It's leveled out a little bit, but you know, see if we were to open the paper.
On Tuesday, when the markets reopen and compare the.
U.S. dollar in relationship to the euro and the Japanese yen and the Canadian dollar or whatever, why we're going to find it may be very different than it was opening day last week. No, things changed. The price of gold and silver changes. I remember my father-in-law telling me years ago that the way to invest was no longer in gold and silver, but in precious stones.
Because they were more secure. But even that is being shaken today. Yes, the very foundations of what men have trusted in are being shaken, what they put their confidence in. But I'm glad that my redemption isn't based on something that changes in value, isn't based on something that has to be compared every day with against some other currency or some other commodity. No, my redemption is based on something.
That never changes in value. The blood of Christ is as precious to the heart of God tonight.
As when it was shared at Calvary's Cross and when it says the precious Blood of Christ. That's not my estimation of it or anybody else's. Because I'm glad that my redemption doesn't depend on my value or estimation of the blood of Christ. But it does depend on God's estimation. It does depend on God's value. And God says that the blood of Christ is precious and that we're redeemed with that precious blood. What about you tonight?
Are you redeemed with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus?
And so he showed to them his hands and his feet, and we find too that he leads them out later on.
And he lifts up his hands, those same hands that were pierced at Calvary's cross. He lifts up those hands and he blesses them before he ascends back to heaven. And, oh, tonight those hands are lifted up in blessing his. He desires to bless you tonight. You know, hands in Scripture usually speak a blessing. You know, it is rare in Scripture. We're going to notice an incident later on.
But it is rare in Scripture that hands speak of judgment, not interesting hands usually.
Not always. I'm not saying it. It always is so. But usually. Most often hands in scripture have to do with the dispensing of blessing. And he lifts up his hands and he blesses them here and all. Tonight. He wants to bless you. He wants your happiness. He doesn't want you to go to a lost eternity. No, He wants to save your soul. He wants to take you to be with himself.
In that happy home. But let's go on a few pages in our Bible to John's Gospel.
John's Gospel, chapter 10.
John's Gospel, chapter 10.
And verse 27.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them.
And they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave me them, is greater than all.
And no man is able to pluck them out, is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.
I and my father are one.
00:30:02
Well, I want to speak for a few moments of the hand of the Lord Jesus and the hand of God.
Not just in connection with blessing, but security. You know, I suppose everybody today is looking for security. They talk about job security. There's no such thing today. You know, years ago in my parents day, I suppose a person thought if they got on with the government or a large corporation that they were there until they no longer desired to be or until they retired. But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And it doesn't matter what level you're you work at.
Even if you're upper management or in the executive core, there's no such thing as job security. There's really no security of any kind in this world.
And men are realizing this again. Things are being shaken. The very foundation of things that people trusted in are being shaken. You know, you realize this when you're caught in a hurricane. If you've never been caught in a hurricane, it's not an experience you ever want to covet. It is a very frightening experience.
Especially when you're on an island. I remember being caught several years ago in Hurricane Lily when it hit the island of Saint Vincent. I remember visiting just after Ivan swept over, uh, Grenada, visiting that island and seeing the awful devastation. You know, there's a hurricane heading for the Bahamas, one heading for the golf course, Gulf Coast. It's a very, very frightening thing. And people take heed. People take warning. You know, people aren't fooling around in New Orleans tonight.
They had their fill of it when Katrina hit. They know what happened and most of them aren't fooling around. Although I did hear today that the people of Lake Charles that wasn't hit hard by Katrina, they're not evacuating. I think that's very solid. Not solemn to think that they're going to toy with chance and stay where they are. And yet we shake our head at that.
But aren't there people who are toying with eternity tonight, A storm of judgment that's coming over this world? And it's not a question of just where the eye of the storm is going to be, or what corner of the world it's going to hit. It is going to be a storm of judgment of such magnitude that no one will escape. And they'll say to the rocks and the mountains fall on us and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb and the face of him that sitteth upon the throne. There will be no hiding.
In that day, there'll be no escape routes. In that day, no, it will be a judgment that will affect all who have rejected God's offer of mercy. When I think of this, I think of a story I read recently concerning a the last absolute monarch of the country of Siam, which is now Thailand today.
I'm not going to try to pronounce his.
Name his Siamese name, but he was commonly known as Rama the 7th.
It was a man who came to power, and he was a shy, retiring man, and things were already in political and economic chaos when he came to power. And he reigned less than 10 years, just slightly less than 10 years. And you know, when he took the throne, he must have had some sense that he wasn't going to reign very long and that the day would come when he would lose his Kingdom, have to abdicate and perhaps flee the country into exile, and with this sense.
He took out two very large unemployment insurance policies.
One with a French underwriter and the other with a British He is reputed in history.
To be the only monarch in history that took out unemployment insurance against his throne.
But you know, his wisdom and his foresight paid off because history tells us that when he was exiled to England, he was able to live in considerable comfort and ease.
For many years, until the day of his death, he was a very wise man. He might not have been the best ruler, he might not have been the wisest king, but he was very wise when it came to the future.
But you know, we're not talking about unemployment insurance in case you lose your job. We're not talking about life insurance to take care of family who may be left after you've you've left this world. No, we're talking about security for eternity. And the believer who has trusted the Lord Jesus, as these verses tell us, are secure in the hand of the Lord Jesus and secure in the hand of God.
00:35:13
And no one, even the devil himself, can pluck them from the hand of the Lord Jesus.
Or the hand of God. I'm going to tell a little story that I've sometimes told, but I'll tell it for the sake of the children.
Someone, one of the boys, was telling me today that yesterday they had caught a toad and that they were examining that toad.
And it reminded me of a little story in connection with my friend Dan Macy. Some years ago, when Dan Macy lived in the Chicago area, he got up one Saturday morning and he didn't have to go to work at BTP, evidently. And he decided that it was time to cut the grass. And as he was going out that morning to cut the grass, his wife Ruth said to him, Dan, before you cut the grass, I want you to check one of the basement window wells. You know how sometimes when.
Part of the basement window is underground. There will be a metal shield that comes out to protect it. And evidently Dan had a fairly deep window well on his property, and his wife was concerned because she had noticed that some frogs had jumped down in that window well, and those frogs were caught there. They had easily jumped into that well, but they couldn't jump out. You know, that's like everyone of us born into this world.
We're in a pit of sin, and we can't get out of that pit of sin ourselves.
As much as we may try, we're caught there and caught fast in that pit of sin.
And so Dan went out, and he looked in that window well, and sure enough, there were half a dozen or so frogs.
Caught there. And they were trying, like everything, to jump out of that window well, but they just couldn't make it. They needed a deliverer. They needed someone to reach down, so damn thought and to rescue them. And so Dan got down and he reached down with his arm, thinking he could just reach into that window well and save those frogs. But he realized that that window well was so deep that those frogs were still just beyond his grass.
Now what was he going to do? He didn't want those frogs to die there, You know, he was more concerned about those frogs dying in his window well than really the welfare of those frogs. But nevertheless, he decided that if he was going to save those frogs, he would have to get down in the window well with them. And so very carefully, as he explained, without crushing those frogs, he put one foot down in that window. Well, put the other foot down.
Stooped right down where those frogs were and 1 by 1.
He put those frogs in his hand and he let them go across the lawn, and all those frogs were so glad.
To be free from certain deaths in that window, well, and you know, I think in a very simple way.
That story illustrates the gospel so beautifully. You know God spoke and brought worlds into existence.
But to save ruined man, to save sinners, the Lord Jesus had to come down.
He couldn't just reach down and save us. He had to come down into this world as a man. He had to go to Calvary Cross. He had to come right where we were, so to speak, it says. He took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And because he came down right where we were, now he can pick us up. He can pick us up in his hand. That hand that was pierced, that hand that was nailed to the cross, is the very hand that holds me secure for eternity.
That hand that was pierced for my sins is that hand that has reached down now, reached out, and saved me, and drawn me to himself. And that hand is never.
Going to let me go until I'm safe home in heaven, you know, when Dan picked up those frogs in his hand.
He just let them go across the lawn. But oh, when the Lord Jesus picked me up years ago.
Well over 40 years ago, when the Lord Jesus picked me up in his blessed hand, he's never let me go.
00:40:01
And God, as it were, has put his hand over that as well, so that I am secure beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I'll never lose my salvation. I have eternal life as the gift of God.
It's mine by the grace of God, and mine forever. I have No Fear of laying my head on my pillow tonight and wondering.
If I've done something today to lose my salvation.
No, by the grace of God I realize beyond a shadow of a doubt.
That I'm secure in the hand of God, secure in the hand.
Of the Lord Jesus. You know, it tells us in the 49th chapter of Isaiah that we're grave and on the palm of his hand. You know, if it just said we were written, we might wonder. You know, I've written many things on the palm of my hand, things I wanted to remember, things in school Perhaps I shouldn't have written on the palm of my hand because I wanted to remember them for the quiz or the test. But, you know, those things are long washed off and gone.
But you know, my name is not just written on the palm of the hand of the Lord Jesus. It's graven. You grave something on something. You can't erase it. Go down to a graveyard and find those dates and names etched in stone. Can you take soap and water and erase them? No, not for a moment. They're there. It's permanent. And my name is permanently graven on the hand of the Lord Jesus. Is your name graven on the palm of his hand. But now I want to go to Daniel Chapter 5 for a moment.
Daniel, Chapter 5.
And verse five in the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and rode over against the Candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the King's palace. And the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. I said earlier that usually hands in Scripture speak of the dispensing of blessing, But here's an occasion where there was a hand of judgment.
Here was King Belshazzar lifted up in his pride against God.
And what was it that brought down the final judgment on Babylon? It was sacrilege.
You know, not only did Belshazzar have this great feast, Not only was Belshazzar living a licentious life and fulfilling the lusts of his flesh and leaving God out, but he brought the vessels that have been taken from the House of God that his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the House of God in Jerusalem, and he desecrated them by drinking wine out of them and offering it to the gods of Babylon.
And God said that's enough. That's what brought the final curtain down.
And you know, I believe that what will bring the final curtain of judgment down on the Western world?
Is sacrilege. You know, I have been appalled in recent time to realize how they're even bringing scriptural expressions into advertising. And not just into advertising, but using scriptural expressions to advertise things that are completely contrary to the mind of God. Things that are used to fulfill the lust of the flesh and of the mind. You know God isn't going to stand for it.
And God is going to judge, and he's going to judge severely. And when this took place here.
In the court of Belshazzar in Babylon, that hand appeared over against the Candlestick, and that hand wrote, and that hand wrote of judgment. And we know by the end of the chapter that that very night was the king slain, and his Kingdom given to another, and all tonight judgment is hanging over this world. Judgment is imminent, and we want to stress this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I was reading recently a young man named Brian Stanley, and Brian Stanley was a student at Westfield Junior Senior College or State College in Massachusetts.
And on spring break, I think probably a year ago, he and quite a number of his fellow students went down to Acapulco, Mexico, and they stayed at a Best Western resort.
00:45:03
And they had, I suppose, what they would consider a good time.
But you know, the last night they were there.
At 4:00 AM, Brian sat bolt upright.
In his bed, awakened by the sound of shattering glass.
And he jumped out of bed and he went out on the balcony and he realized that the other tower of the hotel.
Was on, engulfed in flames, and that the glass he had heard shattering were windows popping out as the flames and smoke and heat engulfed that tower. And so he began going up and down the corridors of that hotel and banging on doors and yelling fire get out and seeking to warn people. A lot of people didn't take it seriously. They thought it was the spring break joke.
Of a college young person on his last night, many of them did take it seriously.
But he went up and down those corridors till the smoke and heat were so heavy that he had to get out.
He went down to the lobby where people were pouring out of the hotel and he went into the lobby bathroom and he took his T-shirt off and he rolled it up and he put it in the sink and he soaked it.
And he put it over his face and he went back up those stairs because he knew there were other of his fellow students.
That still weren't accounted for, and he began again to knock on doors and to warn people.
And by this time, people realized that there was some seriousness.
To the matter and that it was not a spring break.
And he nearly lost his life.
He choked.
He vomited. He nearly collapsed with the heat.
But you know, there was number loss of life that night.
There were some injuries but there was number loss of life and much of it was attributed.
To the heroic act of Brian Stanley, he was sincere. He saw the danger. You know, we're sincere tonight. If you would only realize the danger if we could shake you over. Hell, tonight, we would. To make you realize that these things are real. This was real here, and we don't have time to read on. But if we were to read on, we find that what was pronounced by the hand of God writing on the wall came true.
Before the night was over, it was fulfilled. And before this night is over.
The door of grace may be closed. The Lord Jesus may have come.
Because the coming of the Lord draws nigh, and the Lord Jesus may come, and the judgments may begin to fall on this world.
And for those who've rejected Christ, the door will be closed. And no more opportunity, no more invitation to come to the Savior. These things are real. We plead with you tonight to come to the Lord Jesus.
We're not going to turn to it for the sake of time, But you know, I was thinking and considering some scriptures as to the hand of God and the hand of the Lord Jesus. How? In Luke's Gospel chapter 8.
The Lord Jesus in the room of a little girl 12 years of age.
Reached out his hand and took her by the hand and raised her up.
Imparted life to her and raised her up to the joy of her parents.
And you know, I was thinking how perhaps at the end of a gospel meeting, there are parents here.
Who are praying for their children and young people. You know we can't save our children and young people.
We can't reach down in their hearts and turn it those parents in Luke chapter 8, they couldn't impart life to their daughter who had died, but there was one who could. And I think it's a great comfort to realize that the Lord Jesus desires to reach out his hand and take them by the hand and raise them up and impart life to them and give them salvation.
Are we willing just to commit our children and young people to him? He desires?
Their blessing, and He desires it very much. He's long-suffering to us, word, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
He's long-suffering to you, Mom. He's long-suffering to you, Father. Grandfather.
Or any other person here who's praying for a loved one. He's long-suffering to us word not willing that our loved ones should perish and so he reaches out and he takes her by the hand. But I just in closing want to turn to one more verse. It's in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 41.
00:50:23
Isaiah chapter 41 and verse 10.
Fear thou not, for I am with thee not dismayed, for I am thy God.
I will strengthen thee. I will help thee, yeah. I will uphold thee with the right hand.
Of my righteousness.
I read this for the encouragement of believers tonight, and I read it too, to encourage any who have not come to know the Lord Jesus.
You know, this is the positive side of Christianity. I am thankful that for many years I have experienced this verse.
The words of the Lord Jesus Fear not, you know, as believers.
We need to be aware of what's going on in the world, but we don't have to be overwhelmed by it.
We don't have to fear eternity because we know in whose hand all these things are.
Fear not. I am with thee. I have one who's with me every step of the way. It tells us in Philippians the Lord is at hand, not as he's right there beside you. Don't you like someone who's right at hand? He's right there. You feel his presence.
I've I've been able to experience that for many years.
I am by God be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. I will help thee.
I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness, One more little incident. In closing, in 1932, Thomas Dorsey left his home in Chicago to go to Saint Louis for an evangelical meeting.
He left at home in Chicago, his wife who was expecting.
And after the Gospel meeting that evening.
He was handed a telegram.
That his wife had died in childbirth while he was in the city of Saint Louis.
He returned home and a few days later his son who had been born.
Died as well.
He was so distressed.
Thomas Darcy was a musician and composer.
And he searched for answers in various ways. For days, everything seemed dark.
And then one day he sat down at the piano, and he began to play and to compose the words of a hymn that many of us have sung Precious. Lord, take my hand. Lead me on. Let me stand. I am tired. I am weak. I am worn.
Lead me on through the night. Lead me on to the light. Take my hand.
Precious Lord lead me on, and he found comfort. He found solace in those words. And I suppose many subsequent to the writing of those lines have found their comfort to realize that there's one there who takes our hand, who's with us over every rough spot, who's with us through the dark times and the bright times. Oh, I wouldn't want to trade places with anybody who isn't a believer. I wouldn't want to trade places with anybody who doesn't experience.
The presence and the help and the strength of the Lord Jesus in the field of that hand of power.
There at all times. Oh, tonight, at the end of this Gospel meeting, we want to plead with you.
I'll come to the Savior. Do you know the Lord Jesus? Are you washed in His precious blood?
Are you looking forward to being with him for all eternity? Do you feel tonight that's security?
Being in his hand and in the hand of God the Father, If you don't, as I pray, turn to the Lord Jesus and receive him this moment, our God and Father, how thankful we are for the glorious gospel. And we pray that thou blessed thy word to each heart. Tonight we think of how there may be someone here ready to get off these seats, who's lost and in their sins. So, like our God, we pray that they might not leave this room until they know Jesus as their Savior. We ask thy blessing. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory. Amen.
Colossians 3:10-25
Reading
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.
Colossians chapter 3, starting at verse 10.
And have put on the Newman, 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, norfree. But Christ is all and in all. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bow the mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering for bearing 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, in which is the bond 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 you do in Word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Father, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye 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 you 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 hath done.
And there is no respect of persons.
And exhorted to put off the old, but now we're exhorted to put on the new. We spent a great deal of time, and I trust to our prophet Speaking of those things that are not to characterize the believer in a practical way, those things that are really.
Manifestations of the flesh and because the flesh in a believer doesn't change. And I would just echo, I think someone already said it, but sometimes the young people, I think look at those who are a little older and think things are going to get better as they get older.
But the flesh doesn't improve as we get older. It's like that old pile of rotten lumber, the longer you leave it there, it's just not going to improve. You don't go back. You don't have a pile of rotten lumber and expect to go back in 10 years and find it improved and maybe pull out a few boards and use them. No, in fact, it's going to get worse if any, if anything. And so, uh, the flesh and as we get older, it doesn't get any better. It's, it's still there. And we who are older have these struggles as well.
But thankfully they're we're going to go on now and speak of the positive that which we are to put on. And these things are characteristic of the new man. And these things can be manifest in the power of the Spirit of God in your life and mind. And maybe there's someone here and you say, well, I came to this conference and I really haven't been living like I should. And some of these things have characterized my life. But you know, we don't have to go back the same way.
We have the power and every one of us brethren here sitting in these chairs here this morning have the same resources at our disposal again, the resources that we have in Christ and the power of the Spirit and from the Word of God. These resources aren't just available to a few or those who are older. No, these resources are available to all of us if we are willing to by faith, take hold of these resources.
And use them for the glory of God.
Our brother Darby's translation, it seems to put a past tense on this old and on the new as well. It says umm having put off the old man with his decent sounds like it's something that has been done. Having put it off.
And sometimes we spend a lot of trying time trying to put it off.
But God really sees that it's a it's, it's, it's, it's, it's in our history.
And we need to see it that way too, having put off.
It's helpful when you see things the way God sees that, and then we can practically enjoy that position that we've been placed in.
Because we spend a lot of time and effort trying to do something.
00:05:05
That, really, God has already done.
Well, I think Brother Buchanan Buchanan made the comment at the beginning of the first reading Be What You Are.
And I think that was a very helpful comment to begin with. And so the practical exhortations that we have in these chapters, and they are very practical exhortation, they are in light of what we are, what God has done. And that's really true in all of Scripture. The practical exhortations are always in view of the truth that's given in the first part of the epistle. And you often find that in the Scripture he gives.
The truth itself and the doctrine concerning our position or what God has done for us and in US or whatever. And then he goes on to say, now in light of what God has done in the blessing you've been brought into, now you have, there are some practical exhortations and some responsibility that we are to carry out. So I think that's very helpful.
Why is it different in an Asian store 24?
And 22.
I think if you read the new translation, it is the same. Having put off, it is something that is looked at as done. As far as God is concerned, it's done and we are to look at what look at things that way as well.
Like you say it, it is something to take God's testimony as to it. So nice people say, well the scripture says we are dead, but I don't feel very dead.
When temptation comes along, there is a response in me.
We are to believe God, brethren, not to believe our feelings. Our feelings change. And I think it is helpful too. It was mentioned the other day. Maybe we could turn to it in Romans seven. I think you mentioned that, Jim, in verse 17.
In his struggle, this man in the 7th of Romans comes to this point, and I think it is.
A helpful point to get to.
He says in verse 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Verse 20 Now if I do that, I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. In other words, he says there are two natures inside. There is one that wants to do right.
But has no power in itself to do that, which is right. And then there is the one that wants to do sin. That's the sin nature, that principle of sin in US. But then I think Don mentioned in chapter 8.
Verse eight it says so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But ye are not in the flesh. That is a good thing to remember, we who are believers in the Lord Jesus.
Are not in the flesh the position of the believer is in the spirit, the flesh or sin is in us, but we are not in that if we were in that we would have to obey it, but we are not in that position. We are in the spirit and the spirit of God is the power now of that new life in Christ. So it's it's good to distinguish those although there's.
Differences of meaning in the old man and the flesh or sin in the flesh, Those are terms that are somewhat related. I'm not sure that I understand it very well. You mentioned a little bit Don, yesterday. I don't know if there's.
That's a very difficult distinction to make it.
We benefit by going into great, deep detail.
00:10:04
I would just say.
I feel like we spent this.
Experience, direction and time yesterday as far as we can go.
On that subject, I feel like today we should go on the 1St 10.
And not try to go over yesterday. We, it's something that we gradually, little by little learn here a little, there a little. And my own soul, I feel like the Lord would have us not try to redo yesterday. Umm.
Isn't to say we have made it all clear or we have all understood it, but may the Lord help us. We've had scripture that we can go back to as Phil mentioned yesterday.
Umm Romans gives us more detail on this subject than we have here in Colossians Romans. The difference is in flesh and in spirit.
In Colossians, it's in life.
In death and then in life, and there are two different aspects of the subject. And in Romans you get more about the conflict with the flesh and Colossians the conflict is with the world and.
Consequently, picking up verse 10, I'd like to make a few comments about it.
First, it is renewed in knowledge.
Every one of us, when we're born, we start to acquire knowledge.
Our minds start to be filled with things.
And what we fill our minds with often produces.
The attitude, the interest, the direction of what we think about things and what's important to us. Every single magazine you open up.
Or see here on the radio or see on television. All the advertisement is to put in your mind something that will produce in you a desire to have something you don't have. That's the and when you hear somebody speak and give their quote opinion.
Starts to put in your mind thoughts of well this is right and that's wrong and something else.
The only place you can go to to get your mind straight and correct with God is the Word of God or that which helps you to understand it. That is the only solid basis to get your mind properly.
Trained, if you will.
To understand what is of God and what is of man and what is of yourself. When we go to the word of God, we learn about God, we learn about the Lord Jesus, we learn about ourselves, we learn about the world in which we live. We learn about everything we need for life and godliness. And so in Romans 12, it's speaking about people who get saved. And it says be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in other words.
Before, their minds were filled with man's thoughts. Their attitudes were formed by the thoughts of men now that they had been saved. The moment you're saved, you still have the same old mind, you have a new heart, you have a new life, but you still have the same mind. Some people, it takes them a while to get a different speech habit.
That the habit of speech which comes from the mind was born previous to salvation. And they don't always immediately drop some of the speech habits that are really not consistent with the truth of God. And so we need to, if you will, put aside the thoughts that were formed by man and his views of life and have the word of God as our food and it transforms, that is, it changes.
Our minds to think differently, to have different attitudes towards things and the ultimate. And this to me is wonderful. In uh, John 17, it says, and this is life eternal.
What is life internal?
That they may know the the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And much of the prayer that we had in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 3. And here is the thought that we might have the true knowledge of God.
00:15:13
That's the ultimate thing that transforms us, that we might have the true knowledge of Christ, and God takes that true knowledge. And one thing it does, the true knowledge of God, makes us humble.
Man is proud by knowledge.
But the true knowledge that comes from God makes the man humble as as it said in Job.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear.
But now I see.
Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. If we come to the true knowledge of God, it brings us to the true knowledge of our own selves and our own place, and that's a very humbling thing. If we come to the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, it fills the heart to overflowing.
And.
Understanding of knowledge comes, as Bob said the other day, in the heart. Ephesians, one tells us. And so he says, you need that knowledge, brethren. You need to be renewed in knowledge. And when you are, you'll find that Christ is all and in all.
Mr. Darby translates that in verse 11. At the end, Christ is everything. Everything.
Then he gives the in verse 11 here the distinctions between the Greek and the Jew. The natural man would like to have distinctions and boast in those distinctions, but God in his grace has formed the church and it's one body and every one of us is needs to be molded after the same image, the image of Christ, the one that's created us. And so there's no Greek nor Jew, there's no national distinction. And then the circumcision and the uncircumcision, why we might boast in our religion.
But he says there's no religious distinction either. And then barbarian and Scythian. And so we might say one is educated ones uneducated, we might boast in that. But he says there's no intellectual distinction either. And then he says bond are free. And so we might boast in our social standing as far as where we're at in our social standing in the in this world, but that doesn't have any place in the things of God either. And so the natural.
Man would boast in those things and God says when it comes to being conformed to the image of our Savior, the Lord Jesus or those natural things cannot enter in. They're not a part of the new life. And so we have responsibility to set those things aside and to have our occupation with that blessed one.
Knowledge without God.
Go ahead, go ahead in Philippians would help just one verse for me to live is Christ to live Christ.
That's sort of what you're saying to us, isn't it? Don live in Christ.
The only happy, satisfying.
End result and Paul earned it and he tells us and I just say may the Lord help us each one to learn the truth of it. Paul didn't say I've arrived, but he had arrived in the sense that that was the objective of his life and God would work in each one of us that it might be more 100% so and most of us would say we have a good way to go yet, but it it's still it's put before us as our pattern.
That we might find Christ.
Everything to our hearts and everything to our lives.
Eric used to put these things to us in a simple way.
If any man be in Christ, she is a new creation. We've had that verse several times quoted to us in Christ.
And we've recently lost some, but we still love and think about they departed to be with Christ.
00:20:01
But they don't like Christ yet.
When he comes, when he appears, we shall be like him. It's going to happen. We ought to make some little progress in our walk toward that place.
Well, the athlete says for me to live is is sports. The businessman says for me to live is business, but for the Christian, for me to live is Christ. Not thinking in connection with the comments that have been made that knowledge connected with this world or knowledge without God is the reference point always puts man at the center of everything. It makes everything of man. And whether it's in a national way, as you say, whether it's education.
Uh, Whether it's social standing or whatever, it makes much of man. And you only have to go to corners of the world where some of those ancient, uh, civilizations rose and fell to realize they had a lot of knowledge. You know, Egypt is a base Nation Today, but it wasn't a base nation at one time. And their understanding of the universe and all was tremendous. Those pyramids weren't just built haphazardly in the Giza desert, no.
They had understanding of things that was tremendous, but they didn't have God as the reference point.
Consequently, they made much of man and spent their whole lives exalting man and trying to prepare for the afterlife in a way that we've quickly see was not according to God's thoughts and so, but when.
We're saved and we get the knowledge of God. It's Christ centered. Man's knowledge apart from God is man centered, the knowledge of God.
Puts Christ at the center. It makes everything of Christ, and even in a religious way.
You know, Paul as Saul of Tarsus was a religious man. He was a real, very religious man, and he had a lot of knowledge and a lot of zeal, but it caused him to do very many things contrary even to the name of Christ. But after he got saved and he got the true knowledge of God and the truth as it is in Christ, why, it changed his whole focus. It took his eyes off man. It didn't make Saul of Tarsus the center of everything now.
It made Christ the center and I believe this is what he's saying here when he says Christ is everything. The knowledge of God makes everything of Christ and nothing of man. Now brethren, if if that's our focus, if our desire is to have the knowledge of God.
Then Christ is going to be everything it's going to. It is going to humble us. As someone has said, it's not going to make anything of self or of man. The difficulty is our reference point isn't always God and Christ. Often we get back to the elements of this world.
Where the reference reference point is man.
In verse 12.
Is put on there for as the elect of God, holy and beloved.
Previously said exhortations are based on.
Position, or the place in which God puts us, or what he provides for us. So when the epistles, the first chapters give the doctrine, and the latter chapters give the exhortations. And so he's going to say something for them to do put on.
But the when he does, he reminds him of three things.
And that is what they are, if you will, a lack of God.
Holy and beloved.
Every one of us who is in this room this morning to whom this exhortation will apply.
His first told You are elect of God, you are holy, and you are beloved.
And that is the basis on which we are told or given the exhortation.
To have our lives characterized by vowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness, and so on. I want to back up because the comment was made earlier about the 10th of the verb put off and put on and so on.
The Greek calls it the errors tense and the thought in it, which the English doesn't have a direct equivalence, so there's a lot of explanation that's been given about that Greek tense of the word, but the thought is.
00:25:08
To do something once.
And then from then on maintain that which is done.
Put it in one cent. I'm saved. There was one point in my life when I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the consequence of that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ continues on.
And it stays that way. I am saved. I don't go back and get saved again. I don't have to keep redoing my salvation. I was saved once and now the result of that faith in the Lord Jesus continues on and will continue on for eternity. And so that's the sense of fear that put on it is we are to put on as holy beloved elect.
The character of what we are.
As holy, beloved and elect, and we are to put it on, so that from now on and through the rest of our existence, we are to be characterized as people of mercy, kindness, humbleness, meekness and long-suffering.
We aren't to have to go back and keep becoming that. We are now to be seen as that and that is to continue with us. We're not to be humble one day and proud the next. We're not to be meek one day and overbearing the next and so on. But it is to be that which when somebody looks at our lives, they said, well, that person is a merciful.
Humble, meek person. Man would call it character.
This is the character that is to be displayed in our life. It is the character of one who is holy, beloved and elect of God.
So in verse 10 it is the heiress there.
It is, uh, having put off, put on the Newman and then verse 12 is the exhortation.
Put on, therefore, because of that put on, let it be seen in practical working it out in your lives. Vowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness.
Long-suffering.
Today's world.
Pride is exalted.
We're in the schools. They're often told to be proud of yourself. You often see the bumper sticker on a car, the proud parent of an honor student.
That's glorified in today's world, but pride is something that does not give place to God. It makes something of ourselves, as if we were the ones that were responsible for this honor.
I say sometimes, perhaps it would be cooperative with the thankful parent of an honor student.
Because that gives credit to God. But pride, brethren, is not what we are to be characterized by as believers in the Lord Jesus.
Humbleness of mind. And it has been said that humbleness is not being occupied with ourselves, even in a negative way. It is not being occupied with ourselves at all. That's true humbleness.
Someone recently told me of a couple of little acrostics. I might, I guess you would call them one. For faith is forsaking all, I take him. I as the center of that word. Faith forsaking all, I take him. That's really what we're Speaking of here. But pride is was presented as pursuing riches. I decide everything, and that's the flesh. Pursuing riches, I decide everything. I is the center of all the thoughts of the natural man.
But in faith we take, we review, we rejoice and enjoy.
The fact that we are elect of God individually, God has picked us up.
00:30:04
And we were ruined in sin and degradation, but he picked us up as individuals, and then instead of walking in the filth of this world, were holy. And that is the practical separation from evil is seen as in our lives, and we rejoice in that which is good. We didn't have the power to rejoice in that which was good before.
But we walk in practical separation from that which is evil, and then we have a sense of how He's loved us, and we walk in the sunshine of his love daily as we just seek to honor Him.
These are really attributes of Christ, aren't they? Those things that are seen in a believer. If what we have had before in the chapter is true, if Christ is our object, if we've set our minds on things above, if Christ in a practical way is everything to us, then these things that are attributes and qualities of Christ are going to be reflected and shown in a practical way in our lives.
It's already been alluded to, but that's what we have in the end of first Second Corinthians 3, where we all, with unveiled faith, beholding the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. What that verse really is saying, brethren, in the measure in which Christ is everything to us and in the measure in which we're occupied with him, there's going to be an unconscious reflection of Christ in our lives.
These things are going to be manifested in our lives and our relationships, one with another, without even trying. We're not even gonna realize that these things are characteristic of us if our focus and occupation is Christ Himself.
Might just point out that there's four times here in this chapter that it uses that term one another. In verse nine it says lie not one to another. And then in verse 13 forbearing one another and forgiving one another. And then in verse 16 partway through admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And so there is individual responsibility to manifest the spirit of Christ between one and the other.
And so sometimes we get the idea that perhaps we're lost in the crowd and we don't really take these individual responsibilities seriously, but God desires that as we have the relationship and the interaction one with another, that these things would be manifest in our lives.
Get back to this question, umm, the 1St that you just mentioned, uh, they're monitoring one another in Psalm. Continued spiritual thoughts, uh, probably explain that because how do you do that?
I'll give you a thought on that till I can speak from experience, having been around some people that sing occasionally and there are things that people have ministered to me that they would have difficulty putting into words and saying directly to me, but they admonished me and they're singing their hymns. I think that's provision of God.
In that scripture, we often can impart truth and admonish one another in in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs in ways that we couldn't perhaps directly.
I think it's nice too, to be able to have those him sings together in the home sometimes. Uh, umm, you know, I was visiting in a home and we just, uh, after supper, just, uh, open up the word of God and read together and enjoyed some of the things of the Lord. And then, umm, there was a him that came to mind. And one of the sisters went over to the piano and began to play the hymn. And it was in keeping with what we had been Speaking of in, in the word. And if I could use the term that, ahem, Singh broke out.
And so there were those that those hymns that were sung together. And then the psalms really are the inspired Word of God and they really give the feelings of the Lord in as was already mentioned, we have the enjoyment of being able to sing some of the songs and the young people sing songs together and they sing of the Word of God. And some of those psalms, we can enjoy them. The hymns are those things that are for worship.
00:35:02
We can sing hymns together and they are suitable for worship. They're suitable to present Christ to us and to speak to the Lord himself in prayer, as it were, as we sing together. And then those songs, spiritual songs or songs that perhaps we wouldn't sing in an assembly meeting, but our little ones can sing and they can admonish us too. Isn't it something that a young child can walk around the house and sing something about the Lord's coming?
A young child can walk around the house and sing oh be careful, little eye is what you see and those things and God in that way can use it to admonish even those that are older.
#231 Says Lord, since we sing as pilgrims.
Oh, give us pilgrims ways, low thoughts of self, befitting Proclaimers of thy praise. That's really a word of exhortation and admonishment to us. So there's many hymns that that are that way. They it's really prophesying.
It's really.
Speaking the word of God and in a way that is very helpful at times and I think again say that in the him it is something that gets to your heart more than perhaps just the explanation of Scripture. I I'd like to give the explanation I found in a there was a sister in the Oak Park meeting years ago, Annie Laurie Jordan.
And some of you remember her, that she had a hymn book that was given to her by Mr. Potter. And in the front of the Himbach he gave the explanation of these three psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. I thought it was quite interesting. What he said was Psalms are our experiences in the wilderness. So you have a lot of that in the book of Psalms.
We have hymns that relate to that in our hymn book and then hymns like you were saying, Robert is what is directly addressed to God.
Thou art the everlasting word, the Father's only Son that's addressed to God. Isn't that wonderful, brethren? Some of our we like to sing, and I think it's nice to sing about our blessings, but it's nice to at times just directly address.
The Lord Jesus Christ in worship and in praise, not only.
In our meetings together, but in our homes as well. And then spiritual songs, according to his little definition of it, was our spiritual blessings, and we sing about those. So that was the explanation that he gave, and I've enjoyed it.
I want to just say about Psalms as a safeguard, that I don't believe these are necessarily referring to the Psalms of David or the book of Psalms. And I say that because we want to be careful that we sing that which is intelligent for a Christian to sing. And sometimes I've heard the Psalms put to music or sung, and sometimes we're singing, they're singing things that aren't really proper Christian positioner.
Experience, for instance, remember not the sins of my youth, not proper for a Christian to sing that because our sins and iniquities are gone and he'll remember them no more. And and there are we we apply the Psalms, but they really don't bring before us many of them true Christian experience. But as you say, there are I believe hymns right in the little flock hymn book that could be put under the category of really all three of these, not just him, but.
Psalms and spirit spiritual songs. And I want to just say this too about hymns that are are singing that we want to be careful we don't build doctrine on him. You know, I believe that there are many who never grow in their souls because they take their doctrine from the hymns that they sing. And many of those hymns aren't sound in their doctrine. But aren't we thankful, brethren, that we have several collections, not just the little flock, but there's a rich.
Heritage of hymns that are built on doctrine, good scriptural hymns that bring before us the truth, and perhaps the truth in a way that there's no better way to express something than has already been expressed in the words of a hymn. And so we want to be careful that when we sing, we sing those hymns that are built on doctrine because it's those things we remember. And it's good to teach our children and young people to sing because they often remember what they sing.
00:40:22
Before what? What they read A child will often remember the words of a song before they remember the words of some book. And it says here it's been pointed out, admonishing one another.
Now in in the book of Ephesians, it says speaking to yourselves. I just wanna make this little differentiation. If you, if you'll allow me a little application. I believe first of all, we learned to speak to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. What does that mean? You ever wake up in the night and you're just struggling with something, some burden, some decision, and the Spirit of God brings before you the words of a hymn that are real comfort and you go over those in your mind.
Or you're driving your car and maybe something comes to your mind that's defiling, and then you go back to the words of some Him that brings Christ and the truth before you. I like to think of that as speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And that's why it's good to be familiar and memorize good scriptural, doctrinal hymns. But then there's admonishing one another. You know, in these meetings that we've had this weekend, there's often been in ministry.
The quoting of the words of a hymn, because, again, there may be no better way to express something than has already been expressed in the words of a hymn. That's admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and I believe both are important and helpful in our Christian life.
Like to back up and make a comment on verse 15?
ServiceNow the new translation.
Let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts.
God this morning is on a throne of peace.
And none of the events that are gonna take place in the world today are going to disturb his peace.
The Lord Jesus, when he lived here as a man on this earth, lived every day of his life in perfect communion with the God of peace.
And the Lord Jesus went through very difficult, more difficult than any of us.
Trials and tribulations and upsetting circumstances in his life.
But they never disturb the peace of his soul.
He went through each day.
In fellowship with God.
And in the calm, peaceful.
Sense of the throne of God.
When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, and he saw his disciples for the first time in resurrection, the first words out of his Merle were Peace be unto you. And then he says, My peace I give unto you.
And the Lord Jesus knew that he was going to be leaving them and returning home to the Father's house.
But he was passing on to them.
The desire of his own heart that they too they had had himself.
To go to in every circumstance that might, you might say, have disturbed peace for them. But he was saying, My peace I give unto you with the intent that they too would from that point forward live their lives in the same spirit of peace, that it would preside in their hearts in the same way that it had in His.
We know what it is to be different than that right of.
Put it another way, so often our piece is directly connected with our circumstances. His piece was not connected with or dependent upon the circumstances of his life.
00:45:05
When it's my piece is in my circumstances, then the moment something goes wrong, that's the end of my piece. Oh no, what am I going to do? Now this is terrible or whatever, but the Lord Jesus would teach us to walk in the same spirit of peace that it might preside in our hearts so that we too might face the changing and ever.
Sometimes difficult circumstances of life.
With peace. And he extends it here one step further because he says too umm, in the end of that verse he says.
To which also ye have been called in one body.
And so that same piece that doesn't characterize the world, but it is the desire that if it presides in US individually, then it would also, because we're one body, that same spirit of peace would be with us collectively.
We kind of jumped over versus.
13 and 14 as well, rather than I just like to go back there because it's so important. Meekness, uh, we didn't speak about that in the end of verse 12 either. Meekness is not taking offense. Humbleness of mind of being, not giving offense, but meekness not taking offense.
Long-suffering, important qualities to be put on, and then, it says in 13 forbearing one another.
And forgiving one another. And as we speak about discipline in the assembly, but this is self-discipline. And if we don't have self-discipline, how can we talk about disciplining one another? There is many, there are many things that we should simply for bear. Perhaps there's things that just kind of rubbed me the wrong direction with a certain brother. Well, many things, brethren, we need to learn.
To forebear it means just putting up with it ourselves, not making a vague matter about it. And it adds this in this 13th verse that you don't have in Ephesians. It's almost the same verse in the end of Ephesians chapter 4. But it says here if any man have a quarrel against any, sometimes there are points that come up amongst brethren, and we feel like we have a point.
That we would really like to make with this brother.
Well, this is something to be considered, brother, and sometimes it's not a matter of vital importance. Let's measure things properly and if it's that way, let's just let it drop. Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And then verse 14 been talking about things to put on in verses 12 and 13. And now in verse 14 it says above all these things.
This is something extremely important.
We were in the winter time. I think we had appreciate it better. We'd call it an overcoat. Today, the heat outside, maybe we don't appreciate it so much. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. Beautiful brethren, to think about love should characterize us thinking about the good of others, not thinking so much about our own profit, but on the good of others.
So Bob, I'd like to comment on these verses that you've been commenting on and say what struck me as you read that few verses is an absence of the first man, absence of the old man. If we, if we truly enter in our soul to our position of being dead to the first man, these characteristics would be on display. The 1St man won't get in the way.
Won't get offended.
Won't speak to put itself forward.
What we have in these verses is the absence of the 1St man.
And the presence of the 2nd man.
I thought on verse 14 when it refers to love being the bond of per perfectness or perfection, could we compare that perhaps to the mortar between the bricks in a building? That's the what binds it all together. Uh, I asked the question, how would we feel about going inside of a building where they been putting together just laid the bricks on top of one another without this mortar to bind them together, we wouldn't feel very safe there, would we? And it's very important.
00:50:29
When a building is erected, of course that they have the architectural plans, the perfect order, where all the bricks and where everything is to go. But if you had that wonderful order and lacked the mortar, the bond of perfection, then the order would still be worthless. Sooner or later the building would collapse. And I want to stay without being too controversial, that assembly order is all important and I believe in it and I hope we all do. But as important as order is, we have to have the love also amongst ourselves for the orders going to fail, just like a building would collapse.
Without water.
There is fruit for God if this is the order that we go on in and thinking of Isaiah chapter 32 and verse 17.
It says there in Isaiah 32 and 17 that the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. And so God's going to have His way among the children of Israel. There is going to be peace in His holy habitation. But in the present day that we live in, there is a desire that the Lord has to see that His people go on in peace on a righteous basis.
And that there might be that piece of God that rules in the heart. So the assembly should be a place of peace. It should be a place.
Of harmony among God's people and in individual.
Interaction with one another, as this portion brings before us, it ought to be characterized by peace and love.
Romans gives us the power of the new man in, in umm, uh, or the energy and what produces the fruit for God is the Spirit of God. Chapter 8 of Romans brings uh, mentions the Spirit of God 18 times I believe. But here really it's the word of God in.
That gives us the power, the instruction. And so he says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.
And then in singing with grace in your heart. So it's the word of God.
In our hearts, and it's the grace of God in our hearts as we are occupied with Christ.
And we reflect his, umm, holiness in our interaction with one another, and that's what produces the fruit for him.
Jimmy Smith was the one who put together the Spanish hymn book, and he used to use this verse 16 to show that the Bible and the hymn book go together. I like that.
But that's why I said earlier that hymns need to be based on the Scripture. And so it's interesting, isn't it, that he brings before us the Word of Christ. And so when the Word of Christ is enjoyed in the soul and understood, then if something that's presented in a hymn isn't doctrinally accurate, we reject it. And aren't we again, thankful for brothers of past eras like Mr. Darby, like Jimmy Smith and others who put together hymn books in other languages?
For those who had an understanding of the truth and were exercised to present hymns that were based on doctrine, and in our Little Flaw Kim book, for instance, you notice that some of the wording of the hymns is slightly different.
Than what it was written by the original hymn writer because Mr. Darby and others were exercised to make sure that they were scripturally, uh, scripturally sound and accurate. Just like to point out, it's interesting. We mentioned how that Christ is everything in verse 11. And then he brings before us three things in connection with Christ in the 13th verse, the forgiveness of Christ even as Christ forgave you. Then there's the peace of Christ as Dawn pointed out the new translation.
And then there's the word of Christ and brethren, when Christ is the focus of everyth of, of everything, then all these things fall into place, don't they? There's going to be love manifested. There's going to be peace. Uh, there's going to be forgiveness. There's going to be sound doctrine and teaching even in the hymns that we sing and admonish one another with. But it's Christ as the center. So it's like the, the hub of the, the wheel, the old fashioned wheel with carriage wheel with the folks.
00:55:34
You know, the hub is the center and the hub of that wheel is what holds the spokes together. And someone has said the closer the spokes are to that wheel, the closer they are to one another as well. And so again, it goes back to this statement. This this statement that he makes is really the center of everything. Christ is everything. So we have the forgiveness of Christ, the peace of Christ, the word of Christ. And he's gonna go on in the end of the chapter and the exhortations become more specific.
We've had some, we have some general exhortations in these verses that we're considering, but these, the exhortations are gonna become very, very specific now. But if Christ isn't everything, if Christ isn't the focus and center of our thoughts and our lives, these exhortations mean nothing. These, these relationships in our lives are going to be out of whack as they are in the world today. And why are they sometimes out of whack amongst the people of God? It's because Christ isn't everything.
Verse 17.
The translation says everything you do.
Everything you do to all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord brings in His authority.
And consequently, if there's anything that I would contemplate saying or doing that his name could not be associated with, it's not to be said or done.
That that. Excuse me, go ahead.
It first goes with Matthew 1820, gathering together in the name of the Lord.
Excuse me, if I could do it in his name, then it's not to be done, No, but because it is to be done in his name, then it's done in his name and so everything. Someone once commented I remember years ago and said, well, you mean you even eat your food?
And aren't there some everyday things that we just do?
I remember a brother being recounted to me about a brother in the Lord my wife's grandfather.
Who traveled among the Lord's people? And he was at a home one day and he was being encouraged to have another piece of pie, I think it was at the end of his meal.
And his response to a sister, I have eaten all I can eat to the glory of God. And that was the end of pushing the next piece of pie on him. He said it and he was, if you knew him, he was a man there. It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a light statement. He meant it totally seriously as an answer. I have eaten all I can eat for the glory of God. And so it was even in that, in doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And if it couldn't be done, it wasn't to be done.
So there are really no exclusions, exclusions to this comment. It's not most things you do or this and that you do. But we can stop ourselves and ask ourselves sometimes the question, can I do this to the honor and in the name of the Lord Jesus? Can I say this to someone in the spirit of Christ and in his name? Or is it me, my flesh?
That is, wants to say it or do it.
We've had before us.
Putting our mind on things above we've had before us.
Looking at the unseen, the things that are eternal.
But there's a lot in this world that's rather mundane or.
You know, what about sewing on a button or changing a diaper or doing dishes or a lot of things? How do you connect?
01:00:10
The mundane things with.
The unseen world. This is the verse that does it.
Whatsoever we do in Word or deed, you all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. I remember an old brother years ago that.
He smoked. He had trouble with that habit.
And one day he was driving down the road, about to light up another cigarette.
I can't give thanks for this.
And he threw him out the window and never smoked again.
Well, I was thinking of the little.
Remark, uh, heavenly motives.
In little things.
List the meanest drudgery to the highest form of service.
And with his commendation rather than review.
Martha had to be reviewed when she wanted her sister to help serve.
But later he served without that.
And this verse helps us attach.
A heavenly motive.
It's a very ordinary thing.
In connection with what you said there, Lemoyne, there's one other verse later in the chapter. We may not get down to it natural course of things at the rate we're going, but just to connect it, uh, there's one other verse that attaches mundane things with heavenly things in verse 23. Whatsoever you do, do it hardly as to the Lord and not unto men. Verse 17 gives us the authority, heavenly authority for what we do.
Verse 23 is a heavenly attitude.
Well, even Samuel as a boy ministered to the Lord, didn't he? And you say, well, what did he do in the temple? That was ministry to the Lord. Well, one thing it tells us he did, he opened the doors of the temple in the morning. You remember, after the Lord had spoken to him, he got up and he opened the doors. And then Eli called him and asked what had what he had heard from from the Lord. And I suppose he carried out very many mundane tasks. Eli was getting older. He needed help.
It's an interesting comment. Another place too, about the wood offering. Interesting, isn't it? The person who brought in the wood to keep the fire going for the offerings probably never thought it'd be recorded in God's eternal word as encouragement for others seem no doubt like a very insignificant and mundane task. But you know, it's not the greatness of what we do, or it's not what we do itself, so much it's doing it us unto the Lord, and that's.
That that's what we're to do, as Brother Dawn has said, to be in the name of the Lord, and it's to be with Thanksgiving. Maybe sometimes we feel the Lord's given us something to do that's not very pleasant. I can't say I ever thank the Lord for changing diapers. But as Lemoyne said, but if we can do those things with Thanksgiving and realize that this is what God has given us to do and to do it for Him in His name with Thanksgiving.
Than he values and appreciates it. And I think we need to be careful what we what we think of as maintain. Maintain mundane mundane umm.
What sister in this room would call mundane if the Lord had a garment here and yet needed a button?
Who would say, well, let somebody else do it, That's a pretty low job.
One sister here, if the Lord Jesus as a child was among us and needed his diaper changed, would say, well, that's kind of a low deal. I don't know, I'll let somebody else change the diaper before that child is precious to God.
And it is an honor in many respects to be able to do that which.
Is in His name. I want to go back. There was something that was on my heart and it's an appropriate moment to bring it back because of the thought of mundane and that is in scripture.
01:05:06
We know the Lord was a Carpenter.
We know Peter was a fisherman. We know Paul was a tent maker, and in the world today, many men are known by their occupation. He's an electrician or a farmer or a computer programmer or whatever.
In Scripture, you seldom find the woman.
Occupation I.
Identify and what she's doing. But I believe in my heart, brethren, that.
When you look at things from an eternal perspective, the sister generally has the greater opportunity in everyday life to do that which counts for eternity because her place.
Especially in the home with children is dealing with a child who has an eternal future. The man, when he plows his fields or when he programs his computer or so on, is not directly dealing with anything that is going to last for eternity and consequently she has an incredibly before God important responsibility.
In the care of that which is in its nature and being.
And so I say that because man has totally set upside down what's important and encourage people to think of their self importance as related to this life alone, when in the reality of things from God's perspective, what is truly important are those things.
Which will last for eternity, but at the same time God wants us to honor him in every single detail of our lives as we've just had to do all heartily as unto the Lord. And that's the idea in that verse that John said do it heartily is unto the Lord.
And that's why I use the illustration. If the Lord had a button on a garment that needed it, I think it would be easy to do it heartily.
As unto himself. But when it's some other thing, we don't identify it with Him, and therefore it becomes.
Monday, but it would be elevated to its true place if we did it as unto him, as if the Lord himself had said to us, I have a button for you to repair or replace on this garden. Or the Lord came to us and said, this child needs its diaper change.
Would you do it for me? And then it takes on its character?
So everything is to be done that way. It's interesting. And the the word in verse 22 is really servants, it says, but it's really slaves. In that time it talked about a person who is never really free to do anything apart from the service to his master. And yet it says in verse 24 at the end.
Ye serve the Lord Christ, so whatever is done.
Programming the computer or.
Brick Lane.
Or farming. It's to be done.
For the Lord and I must say, brethren, the idea that there are certain brethren that are in the Lord's service and others aren't is not a scriptural idea. We are all servants of the Lord. True, different capacities and different activities. But where the Lord has placed you, do it hardly.
As unto the Lord, ye serve the Lord Christ.
It's all the service of the Lord. And I sometimes say to the brethren in South America, many of them are bricklayers because they, they, uh, construct buildings with bricks more than they do with wood like we do up here. But I say, if you would lay those bricks and realize you're doing it for the Lord, you're not gonna do it in a sloppy way. You're not gonna cut the cement content of the mortar.
You use just to save some money. You're not gonna do it that way. And people are going to learn in time that you do a good job. Then comes the time to open your mouth to say a word for the Lord. They're going to listen to you more than somebody that is supposedly a preacher. And I find, brethren, if I say I'm a preacher or a missionary, it is a definite hindrance to people listen to.
01:10:24
To me, I find that sometimes when I say that, if I say that, it's just like they reach up and turn off their radio, they're not listening any longer.
Because they've been fed up with people that have a bad testimony that are preachers.
Do your work well, whatever it is, you are serving the Lord in the job you have right now. We have the idea that sometimes to serve the Lord you have to leave your secular work and take up your Bible and go out and preach and visit. That may be one way of serving the Lord, but you are serving the Lord in your secular work right now. Do it heartily for Him, the testimony that results.
Will be tremendous.
I was reading in the news of a monarch of a certain country that the story is that in order to relate to the common man and to see what's going on in his country, he actually is said to leave his bodyguards behind, disguise himself somewhat, and then drive a taxi cab just to be out there with the common people and know what's going on. And I read that of course I can relate to that, had to do the fact that I do the same occupation from time to time. But I thought to myself, isn't that really an example of what every Christian is even?
The slave that is mentioned in this passage, we have this wonderful position where children of the monarch, where kings and priests that are heavily calling, and yet God would have us here in the humblest of positions, even the slave. And there the world considers this a slave, but yet we're doing something for the Lord Jesus as a member of his body. We're still kings and priests even in that most state.
God doesn't lift us out of our natural relationships when we become believers in the Lord Jesus. So you have in these verses 18 wives, 19 husbands, 20 children, 21 fathers, 22 servants, and chapter 4 verse 1 masters. All those relationships are in place and to be.
Fulfilled properly in our Christian relationships now. And the responsibility is on me wherever I am as far as the relationship goes. And I say that because so often we hear people say, well, he's not doing his part or she's not doing her part. And so a wife might say, well, me submit to him. He doesn't love me the way he should. He sometimes acts in a bitter way. He holds bitterness against me.
Might say, Well, she she should, she should submit. If she submitted more, I'd love her more, and I wouldn't hold bitterness. A child might say, Well, obey my father when he makes me angry, and so on. A father might say, well, if they'd obey me, I wouldn't be so angry with the servants too, or the slaves. Well, if I had a decent master. But no. And Peter were the servants are slaves. They're to do their work properly and submit not just to the good and gentle, but to the forward.
And so God always places the responsibility on me. If it's the wife, she's responsible. If it's the husband, he's responsible.
The parents are responsible, the children are responsible, the employers responsible, the employees responsible.
I can't rather look at somebody else and say, well I can't do that because the other party isn't holding up their end or doing their part. No God requires of me when it's a little different, I know. But when the Lord was telling Peter something of the path that Peter was going to have in following the Lord, he saw John standing there and he said, but Lord, what will this man do? He said, well, what about John and his responsibility? The Lord said, no Peter, if I will that he tarry till I come.
What is that to thee? Follow thou me, he said. Peter.
I've got a path for John and I'll take care of John, but I'm bringing before you your responsibility and what you're going to have in following me now, you make sure you carry that out. Let me give you a little illustration that perhaps illustrates this. When we were children, particularly my sister and I, we would be given a task to do. Maybe it was to clean off the dinner table and do the dishes after the evening meal. And mother would leave us to the task and after a while she'd come back in the room and she usually say.
01:15:15
Jim, you're not doing what I asked you to do. And I would usually point at my sister and say, well, Jennifer's not doing her part.
And my mother would always say, Jim, you do what I've asked you to do, and I'll take care of your sister. Now that's what he's saying to us here. If we're wives, do what he's asked us to do. If we're husbands, do what he's asked us to do. If we're children, parents, servants, whatever, carry out before the Lord with Thanksgiving and do it heartily as unto the Lord. He says, thus where the reward is going to come, you're serving the Lord Christ, and that's where the reward and the blessing is going to be.
Just want to point out that in verse UH-17, we have that wonderful, uh, admonition given, but then the very first thing in verse 18 brings before a submission or being subject. And I believe the thought there is just as you are saying is being subject to the place that God has put us in. And Brother Dawn brought that out very beautifully in connection with the woman in the home. Just submit to that order that God has placed in your life and mine. Not all of us are.
Can be occupied the position of each one of these things that are is mentioned, you know, servants and masters and so on and and fathers. The the wife isn't to want the husbands place and the husband isn't to want to, you know, some other place. He's to fulfill the responsibility that God has placed him in that position. He's to submit to that order. And so it really begins with submission. What a happy state there would be in our homes.
In our assemblies, in the workplace of those that belong to the Lord Jesus, if we just submit it.
To the order that God has placed for our blessing.
So there's a reward at the end of the chapter for those that do these carry out these things for the Lord. There's a reward. He doesn't, uh, lose track of that. Everything's written down and he'll reward. And then he says don't seek retribution on the other person. Maybe there are those who haven't carried things out the way they should. Maybe the husband hasn't been what he should. Maybe the wife hasn't been what she should. Maybe the children haven't obeyed. Maybe the father has anger the children. Whatever he says, just leave that.
You know, brethren, we sow in our society today, we want to justify ourselves, We want everything straightened out and we want it straightened out now. He says, no, you serve the Lord, you go on in the relationship as God has established it, do it a service unto the Lord, and leave everything else with him. Now I often think of that verse in First Corinthians that says judge nothing before the time until the Lord comes, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, make manifest the counsels of the heart, and then shall every man have praise of God.
And brethren, are we willing to just go on with Christ as our center and our focus, seeking to live for His glory, to serve him, to manifest Christ in our lives and to leave everything else with him, Not to assert ourselves, not to look for retribution, not to look for justification here? You know the Lord Jesus did that, didn't He who was more misunderstood than the Lord Jesus, who when he reviled was revolved, revolved not again when he suffered, He threatened not. You say, how could he do such a thing?
He committed himself to him, the judgeth righteously. Paul was misunderstood, but he said we labor that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. He didn't try to justify himself or get things straightened out here. He said, I just leave those things and brethren, there's a day coming when it's all going to be straightened out for the glory of God and the glory of Christ. And what a day that's going to be. Well, are you and I until that day willing to just practically live Christ in our lives?
An expectation of this, uh, the 1St 21 and I believe we should at least mention it because of its importance.
Have the greatest responsibility, uh, within the family unit and, umm, there are times as far as when we see.
God's Order
Things Above
Things Above
Open Mtg. 9
God Our Perfect Father