Kentucky Conference: 2012
Table of Contents
Tough Times
Address—Doug Buchanan
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We can open our meeting with him #11 in the appendix.
What hearing words are these? There's weakness. Who can tell in time and to eternal days? Tis with believers well.
#11 in the back of the book.
And.
Cloud like my sister paper.
Of the Lord in prayer.
Gracious God our Father, we thank thee that through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Thou hast given us an optimistic view of life.
In spite of all that surround us here on earth.
We thank our God and Father that Thou hast sent a man to walk perfectly here on earth, to live a perfect life and give us an example.
Who fought the fight of faith?
And who endured even to the cross in faithfulness?
O our God, we are surrounded by.
Many things that weigh our spirits down.
And we looked at easy for help.
For encouragement.
For that which would raise up our eyes to see.
Where it all ends.
To see the Lord Jesus on high in glory. Not only is the example the author and finisher of faith, but the one who.
Helps us along the way.
Intercedes for us and cares for us.
We're here together at these meetings in our God and.
We believe it's going to be a like a mountain top experience.
But we've been in valleys too, Lord.
And there may be valleys before us to go through to prove thy loving kindness.
To make our faith grow. And so, Lord, we seek for help at this time.
As we look up, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
I have it on my heart to speak this afternoon.
On the subject of going through tough times.
I have been reading the book Samuel.
Of King David.
Who was a man?
We had a lot of experiences that are recorded for us.
He was a man of light passions like we.
I know it's wonderful when.
Our feelings and our emotions don't always have to be covered up. And when we can share them.
And when others can partake with us and encourage us.
We look at the life of David. He went through quite a few tests, quite a few hard times.
He wrote more songs than anybody else.
And in those songs.
We have lots to comfort, lots that health.
None of us would probably choose that kind of a life.
By choice.
Wonderful things that God knows how to choose for us.
That's part of the reason we could sing to him like we just sung.
Because we know the one who is in control.
Still, we have to go through those experiences.
And I believe in my own soul, without a doubt.
That the hardest thing that David went through.
Because what we're going to read about.
You know, problems within your own house are the hardest sometimes. Probably the hardest always. The closer to home things are, the more tender we feel them.
And so when his own son rose up against him.
And it would seek to usurp the Kingdom.
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It was a hard thing.
And I trust that as we read through this that I found encouragement myself in that.
Not that there's anything particularly really hard that I'm going through right now, but I know this is so common to us.
And we feel these things.
So if you'll turn with me to Second Samuel Chapter 15, we're going to start going to start by reading a little of the background here rather quickly in the first part of the chapter. But I want to get on to the last half of the chapter to touch on the points that we want to highlight this afternoon.
In Second Samuel chapter 15, beginning with verse one.
And it came to pass after this that Absalom prepared him Chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him.
An Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate. And it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him and said.
Of what city art thou? And he said, Thy servant is one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
Absalom said, moreover, Oh, that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice. And it was so that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him, and kissed him. On this manner did Absalom to all Israel.
That came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
And we'll drop down to verse 10.
Uh, but as Salem sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel.
Saying, As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then ye shall say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron. And when Absalom went 200 men, and Absalom and with Absalom went 200 men out of Jerusalem, that were called. And they went in their simplicity, and they knew not anything.
An Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gylanite, David's counselor, from his city.
Even from Guyla, while he offered sacrifices and the conspiracy was strong for the people, increased continually with Absalom and there came a messenger to David saying the hearts of the men of Israel.
Are after Absalom, and David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee, for we shall not else escape from Absalom. Make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.
Now we'll drop down to verse.
23.
And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over. The king also himself passed over the Brook Kidron, and all the people passed over toward the way of the wilderness.
And we'll stop there because the Knicks verse I want to take up individually.
As we.
Consider what is transpiring here in the life of Absalom.
We can look back and think of what must have gone through the heart of the king.
That could cause him to behave the way he did.
When I used to read this story, I always wondered why.
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Did he run away?
Why did he leave the city? Why did he give up that place that God had set him as king? This was at the end of the life of David. Probably write down maybe even the last year of his reign.
Now I have a family.
I have children, grandchildren.
I love them.
And if a situation like this would arise, I do not know how I would behave.
This really tries you to the core.
To deal with the situation like this, what Father is there that is valued to rise up in faithfulness in such occasion as this?
Ben said David was a good king, but he was a poor father. That's partly true, but he was also a good father in one sense. He loved his children.
Perhaps David had not been able to deal with this when it was a small problem. And so it is as we go through life, brethren.
Little things grow, the things that are not dealt with when we, when they begin, are not dealt with and they grow and become big things. But God is faithful and even in his governmental dealings like in this chapter.
I hope that after this meeting is over.
That each one of us is encouraged to trust the Lord in whatever circumstances the Lord may put you into.
Because I believe this story teaches us that those difficult circumstances that God allows.
Our God's way of helping us through and to deal with what He sees we need.
And to bring us along in whatever way God wants to form us, to make us what He wants us to be. We can trust God in his governmental dealings to only allow that which would for the believer, be for good one of our all. All of us will have that favorite verse. All things work together for good.
To them that are called, we believe that.
And yet when the when it comes down to the situation of going through those all things, it's still hard, isn't it? It's still hard.
And so David here.
When there's a rebellion.
And and David had dealt with this young man, Absalom. This wasn't the first attempt of Absalom.
To become someone.
And yet.
It went on and it went on.
And so as David looked back and as he marched out of that city, weeping.
All those thoughts that would come over his soul. I failed here. I did this wrong, I did that wrong. I should have done this and all these kind of things that could come to the mind.
So David leaves the city.
Perhaps he had.
Dealt with the situation that way in the past. I don't know.
It would seem that he couldn't really deal with what needed to be dealt with.
Now I want to get to the verse 24.
It says, And lo Zadok also, and all the Levites were with him, bearing the ark of the covenant of God, and they set down the ark of God, and Abayas there went up until all the people had done, Pennsylvania passed, passing out of the city.
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And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city.
And if I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both it and his habitation. But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee, behold, here am I, Let him do to me, as seemeth good unto him.
I think this is very instructive and lovely to see.
The attitude that the king had toward the ark of God.
And it's he behaves in almost exactly the opposite way.
That earlier on, the Children of Israel had behaved in connection with the Ark when they were fighting against the Philistines and they had lost the battle.
And they suggest that they should take the Ark up with them in the battle.
As if its presence would help them.
There's a difference between the Arc and the person who dwells in the Ark.
This is a very key point here if we only see the arc for.
As a representation of something, then it is an it.
But with David, it was Jehovah God's dwelling place.
And David would not make himself the focal point and use the art to go along and company him.
As if he were more important than the Ark.
Jehovah God.
I hope you see the point I'm making.
I'll tell you what Abraham Lincoln said during the Civil War War to illustrate the point further. When the Civil War was going on, both the North and the South claimed that God was fighting for their cause.
And they went to war in the name of God.
To fight the 'cause that each side thought was right to defend and to stand for. And someone, I'm told, asked President Abraham Lincoln.
Is.
Is God on your side?
How would you answer that?
How do you answer that in your life right now?
Maybe you are going off to college.
Is gone on your side? Maybe you're seeking a job?
Is God on your side? Are you raising a family and have difficulties in your family?
Is God on your side?
President Lincoln was a wise man, a man of thought.
And he said something like this. I can't quote it exactly.
I would never.
Venture to say that God is on my side, but I trust that I am on God's side.
Oh, brethren, the presence of the Lord, is that everything to us?
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It the arc, the dwelling place of God, was of more importance to David.
Than taking it along with him in passing through what he was going to have to do.
You know, sometimes when problems come in our assembly.
Sometimes we can think the best way to handle this is to take up our bags and go somewhere else to worship.
OK.
And there have been those who have been gathered to the Lord's name and strongly believed.
That they were gathered where the Spirit of God would lead them on the ground of the one body, and that this was the place where all believers.
Have the privilege and should be gathered.
I believe that. I believe that many and all, if not all of you believe that too and would seek to practice that. But you know, we get tested on this when there's some problem comes along.
And there have been those who packed up their bags. Now they're saying the Lord is somewhere else where they meet.
Does the lowered accommodate himself that way to the problems? Does he have to change his position?
Of gathering when things get difficult.
Gave the Lord his right place in this problem.
No blaming of God for what allowed here. In fact, we'll notice it later on. He says God sent him.
When a man was speaking evil of David.
Accepting these circumstances from the Lord, this is a great key. This is the first point I wanna make.
In going through problems.
Never get lose the focus of the Lord Jesus.
And where he gathers, and where you have the privilege of worshipping him.
And being a witness that there is one body, by breaking bread there and giving the Lord his rightful place.
So, David?
Gave the Lord his rightful place.
He submitted to the governmental dealings that God was putting him under to have to leave.
I believe every one of us ought to be able to look at our own license, see enough in our lives to say yes, Lord, to whatever circumstances he puts us in.
It's so easy.
To blame someone else.
To say if old brothers so and so hadn't been such a hard nosed person or brother so and so hadn't been so loose in his life.
All of these things the enemy will throw at us when we're down, when we're going through a tough time, when things are not easy.
This is the time, brethren, for us to stand firm.
When the going is hard, it was hard here for David.
While he's facing all of these critical decisions.
All this background of his life. Why, Lord, are you putting me through this? What have I done? What am I supposed to learn? Teach me, Lord, all of these things would be flowing over a soul at such a time as this.
So he says, carry back the ark of God into the city, and if I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord?
He will bring me again and show me both it and his habitation. Isn't that lovely?
This confidence, this faith that David had in the Lord.
It carried him through.
This difficult day.
Or days.
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Now in.
Verse in verse 26 and.
But if he say, I have no delight in thee, behold, here am I, Let him do to me, as seemeth good unto him.
Let's just change the perspective now a little bit.
God looking down on David and hearing these words, what kind of an answer is God, Jehovah going to give to this man that has this kind of attitude before him?
You don't have to know very much about God.
To know how God would respond to one who had this kind of an attitude.
This is not a man who's saying, Lord, I did everything to do it right, or at least I tried to do everything right.
Now, which plank do you want to stand on today? You want to stand before God as you're going through your difficulties on Lord, I've tried to do everything the best I can. Or do you wanna stand on this plank and say, Lord, if you delight in me, help me through this and bring me back?
There's your choices.
I know where I want to stand.
David, that's standing on Grace.
If he delight in me, oh, the more we get to know the Savior, the more we'll trust Him. And this will help us through these kind of experiences.
Now go drop going on down.
Versus umm.
27.
The king said also unto Zadok the priest, Art not thou a seer? Return into the city in peace, and your two sons with you, Ajay Miyaz.
The son, thy son, and Jonathan the son of Abayathar.
See, I will tarry in the plane of the wilderness until there come word from you to certify me.
Zdog, therefore, antibiotic, carried the ark of God again to Jerusalem, and they tarried there. And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet and wept as he went up and had his head covered, and he went barefoot, and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up weeping.
As they went up.
Now here we have the second point I wanna call attention to, and that is, I believe, humility.
Weeping, owning their condition as it was.
No justification of what he had done faithfully for the many years as a king.
No arguing with God over why he allowed this to happen.
And it had its effect on the rest of them too.
Isn't this a strange sight? A king leaving a city with a large group of people around him weeping?
Yes.
It is.
I was struck by a comment that someone made recently and some writings that I was reading of concerning who God used to write the scriptures.
You know, we have approximately 40 authors, human authors that God used to pin the scriptures that we read and the comment was made like this.
God seemed to have chosen pretty much the normal run of people to do his work, to write his book and so on. He didn't choose people that were exceptionally a lot better than all the rest.
Nor did he choose those who were poorer or less capacitated to do his work. He took people that were normal.
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That had failures and good points and strong points, and he used them to do his work. And we read through the Bible of the various authors and that is it.
King David himself is one of them.
So God is passing David through this experience, not just because he had failed miserably in the past.
We're gonna notice it towards the end of the meeting how the results of these different ones that.
Came to pass before David at this time.
Uh, and some of some of the evil becomes evident with some and others.
The, uh, deception comes to light others, the kindness is brought out and so on. So things are being brought to light by passing the King and his people through a a set of circumstances.
And God is working with the whole.
For good and blessing in the end.
Solomon was to be the next king, not Absalom.
The stage is being set for the choicest king of all.
Brethren, as we go through life, we're down to the end here. We're at just at the close of this time before the Lord comes and the circumstances that we're going through now, those of us gathered to the Lord's name.
We don't have much to lift up our heads about of what concerning what has happened in the recent years and how strong our testimony is for the Lord.
There's a lot to hang our heads over, there's a lot of failure, there's a lot of weakness, but the Lord is with us and the Lord is preparing.
All of us.
And he's keeping us.
He's guarding us.
He's not letting one little thing happen, but what there's a purpose for it. And so here was with David.
So they are humbled.
Verse 31 and one told David saying Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, Oh Lord, I pray thee, turn the council of Ahithophel into foolishness.
The next point I want to mention is prayer.
It was beyond his power as a king to change the circumstances.
David was well aware of the potential of a wise counselor helping out his son Absalom in his rebellion, and so he offers a prayer.
This is our resource too.
Rare.
Verse 32 And it came to pass, that when David was come to the top of the mountain where he worshipped God, behold who Shai the architect came to meet him with his coat, ramp, and earth upon his head. Unto whom David said, If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt be a burden unto me.
But if thou return to the city and say unto Absalom, I will be thy servant, O king, as I have been thy father's servant hitherto, so now will I now also be thy servant. Then mayest thou for me defeat the counsel of Ahithophel. And hast thou not there with these? Zadok and Abayath are the priests. Therefore it shall be that what things soever thou shalt hear.
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Out of the King's house thou shalt tell it to Zadok and Abaya through the priest.
Behold, they have there with them their two sons, Ah, Honeyes, Zadok's son, and Jonathan Abayathur's son. And by them ye shall send unto me everything that ye shall hear. So who Shield, David's friend came into the city, and Absalom came.
Into Jerusalem. Now I'm not going to comment on all of these verses, but simply to mention.
The the fourth thing here that we characterized out of that David at this time, when he got to the top there of the mouth, he worshiped.
Nothing.
Of problems.
And hard circumstances should hinder us from giving God His rightful place.
I am thankful.
That in the few problems that I have been through in my life.
The Lord has given me to be able to never give up this thing.
Being at the meetings to worship the Lord.
Things can come in that make it hard to go to meeting.
There can be problems there, there can be internal struggles that a soul goes through that make it difficult to be with your brother that you love.
And David, while he was in that kind of a circumstance, he worshipped God.
Was his soul full of troubles? Was he? Was he passing through deep waters? Yes, he was.
You know the Lord Jesus himself in the in the Garden of Gethsemane went through sorrow like no man in contemplating what was before him.
And if we had never been through any kind of a problem like that.
How would we relate to what the Lord Jesus went through to redeem us?
It is a privilege to go through these kind of circumstances in one in one way of looking at it.
When our souls are broken down, When we are overwhelmed.
We can still worship God.
We cannot do that if we blame God for any of our problems.
And that is a pit that the devil will try to throw us into.
No doubt.
And many have fallen into that.
I don't care how bad things get.
Never stop worshipping God.
In your life.
It will keep your soul through the hard times.
The intimacy of what your Savior went through can become more precious to you.
Having gone through that kind of a circumstance.
So we have 4 things here. Before we go on, I want to.
Recount them.
Keeping the Lord in focus the 1St place.
Is so important, making everything how it relates to God. Do not let the enemy put yourself in the center and make everything focus around you. You'll lose your bearings.
Make the Lord your focus. You know what's interesting? Just as I note on this, that in the second word in our assembly back home in Lawrenceville, we are going through the 2nd epistle of John where they have the instructions to the elect lady. And there in that chapter she is instructed as to who she lets in that house. And the test is not whether.
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The person at the door has something that appears good or not.
The test is how does it treat the Lord Jesus Christ, his deity and his humanity?
It's the same thing. The focus, the the criteria point is how does this touch the Lord Jesus Christ?
Does it honor him or does it not? Does it give him his right foot place or not? That's the test. Now, there are other things to consider too, but this is the first Test. This is what the Lord, this is what David is doing here. He's making the God's center in Jerusalem.
The focal point.
2nd humility.
3rd.
Prayer and 4th worship.
I believe these things help David this time.
Now I want to just go on and briefly and the rest of the time go over some of the other people that were involved to see some of the benefits to those around David. Because David as he faced different circumstances, different people that came to him. Now in the following verses, he has to make decisions. Is this a person, a true person or is this false and so on.
And so he is tested and I believe.
In general, the Lord helped David and he made the right decisions even though he didn't know all and there was deception in some cases.
Umm, now we'll drop down in Chapter 16.
Umm uh, and adverse umm.
Well, in verse, just start with verse one down to verse three we'll read. And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Zybid the servant of Mephibosheth, met him with a couple of ***** saddled, and upon them 200 loaves of bread, 100 bunches of raisins, and 100 of summer fruits and a bottle of wine.
And the king said unto Ziba, What meanest thou by these? And Ziba said, The ***** are for the King's household to ride on.
And the bread and the summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine that such be as faint in the wilderness may drink. And the king said, And where is thy master's son? And Zybus said unto the king, Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem. For he said, Today shall the House of Israel restore me the Kingdom of my father. Then said the king to Ziba, Behold.
Thine are all that pertaineth unto Mephibosheth, as Ibis said, I humbly beseech thee that I may find grace in thy sight, my Lord, O King.
Murphy Bishop was the one that David had taken and called up to remind him of his father Jonathan to sit with him at his table, and Mephibosheth had responded to that by sitting at the King's table and so he was a special one for David.
Now you have a serpent who had been given in charge of all of Mephibosheth, and he portrays before the king that Mephibosheth.
Was a trader.
Or gonna go back to his heritage as a family of Saul as if he was going to get the Kingdom now that David was.
No longer the king. Now there's a saying that when the boat sinks, the rats come out.
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It's true that when problems come, you find things that were hidden under come to light.
This is one of the things that God is dealing with.
Maybe not the primary thing, but.
Zyba here now, I don't know. I believe that, uh, Zyba was not speaking honestly here. If you go on to read the end of the story, we're not gonna have time to deal with all of these things. But David later on when when he comes back after Absalom is dead and he comes back into Jerusalem again at Mephibosheth comes out to meet him and then David asked him why he didn't go well.
And so Mephibosheth tells him another story.
And so you have two stories.
Which one was the RO the the true story?
I know which one I believe is true.
But I don't know that.
It's, uh, Scripture plainly tells us.
I believe that, uh, Zyba was slandering here.
But it doesn't look that way, does it? All these goods and all these things here.
Making friends with the right man at the right time. Zyba is here. Was this a true heart?
You see, when these tests come, we oftentimes are faced with this kind of thing. We don't know who's true and who's who's not real.
The Lord has to put us through problems and difficulties sometimes.
To reveal these kind of things.
Eventually Mufibrissa comes back and he's forgiven Zyba and David, it's interesting. I will give you my, my take on that. When, when, uh, when David asked Cyber, uh, when David asked Miss Fibbyshith why he didn't go.
Mephibosheth told him that he had been slandered and and so David says to him, Well, I told Zaida that thou and Zyba divide the land. But that's not what our verse here said.
Our verse here says you take it all. I give you all verse uh, verse 3 here.
What I believe David was doing was testing Mephibosheth. If he was really honest, he wanted to know who was really speaking the truth and so he put a test to Mephibosheth and he said uh I'll give you half and him half. And Mephibosheth answer proves who had the true heart. He says. Mephibosheth says yay, let him take all.
For as much as my king has come in peace again.
He was an occupied with the goods.
It was occupied with the person.
We can attend meeting, we can go along for the goods, for the good atmosphere, for the good food and for the fellowship, the friends that we can find at a place like this.
But there needs to be something more than that, and that is the person that's here, the Lord Jesus.
So that's one thing.
Umm, going on to, umm, in verse, umm, the following verses we have about CMI. I'm not gonna read them, but I'm gonna read verse 10, uh, to see David's answer when Abishai wanted to go up and slay, uh, Shimmyai, who was a Benjamite who was cursing David and throwing dust up in the air and making it a hard time for him.
Notice David's answer.
And the king said, Well, umm, verse 9 Then said Abishai the son of Ziroi, unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse? My Lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.
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And the king said, What have I to do with you, he sons of Zerwayia? So let him curse, because the Lord hath sent him.
Curse said to him unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so?
And then David goes on.
What a man of faith to be able to accept his circumstances from the Lord in this way. God sent him to curse.
This was true humility. This was true acceptance of what God would put upon the King.
Did did David deserve this kind of a treatment? Well, I'm sure we could reason why he didn't deserve this. No king should be treated this way, and David had had some failures in his past, but it didn't merit this.
David humbly accepts it.
God sent you.
What a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus who went all the way to the cross to be made a curse. David couldn't do that. He couldn't suffer in atonement for our sins. But he could be an example.
And so this is a a great thing to learn to see beyond the second causes.
The hand that moved them.
And so when problems come in our life, let's not be pointing our fingers to our brethren.
Or the one who's God uses to curse or to cause a problem, or throw dust in the air, or whatever.
It's not right that people do that.
But it's not our place in this in such a circumstance to be the one to correct it.
This was corrected later on.
Solomon did it as a wise man, and he did not even put to death Jimmy I because of how he treated David or how he treated Solomon, his son. He put him to death for his own disobedience.
Because he went out of the city when he wasn't supposed to do it.
So.
We, even a king like David, did not take upon himself to set everybody right that he dealt with.
God will do that.
And he did.
And he set David back on the throne again.
Well, there are, there are others. There are strivings over the Benjamites, 3 people and so on. Interesting little details you can see of, uh, how there was a strike and so on.
Well, I trust that this will encourage us to look to the Lord to go through the hard times. In closing, I want to read in Hebrews.
Chapter 10. Uh, these words, uh, trust that they'll be encouragement to us.
Hebrews 10.
Verse 35. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward. For you have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise for yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tear.
Great, our God and our Father, we thank Thee for the promises.
Of encouragement to us.
Romans 8:14-17
Reading
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Tim has to do with the love of God.
It was immediately followed by a hymn which spoke about the suffering of the Saints.
Or I should say more precisely, the sorrows of the Saints and the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Romans 8 we have the two combined.
We have the answer to the question of the love of God in the presence of suffering and sorrow.
I do not suggest that we try to begin with verse one.
But perhaps.
Beginning with verse 14.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 14.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For you have not received the spirit of ******* again to fear.
But you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of the present this present time, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in US.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who had subjected the same in hope.
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the ******* of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that, we see not.
Then do we, with patience, wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit also help with our infirmities.
For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did for know, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.
That he might be the first born among many brothers. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified, and whom He justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all?
How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died.
Yay, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
00:05:01
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake, we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter, Nay, in all these things.
We are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, no things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I think it's quite evident reading it that autistic bringing before us of love and suffering.
And really, I believe, reconciles the two.
Because man very often raises in his soul the question if God loves me, why do I suffer?
And in taking it off in the spirit of God, really brings before us first.
Our relationship with God.
And if we don't have the enjoyment of the relationship into which we have been brought and what it costs God to bring us into that relationship, what he says to us about suffering is not going to have the intended benefit.
Or acceptance in our hearts and in our souls.
And so it was that when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
The very first person we know we spoke to was married.
Magdalene and the very first subject he took up in resurrection.
Was I ascend unto my Father, and your Father to my God, and your God, because he was bringing her into the enjoyment?
Of a relationship that she had never known, no man on earth had ever known.
Until the Lord Jesus had accomplished the work of the cross and risen from the dead.
And then God started to fulfill something that had been in his heart from eternity. I want people to be my children.
I love them to the extent that I not only want to save them from the consequences of their sins, but I love them such that I want them to be my children. I want them to know me in that relationship. And that's where we began in the reading this afternoon in verse 14.
It says the sons of God, verse 15, the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA father, verse 16 we are the children of God.
And really to understand our present position on earth and that through which we do pass.
Which is part of our lives, and no one escapes it. We first have brought before us the tremendous heart of God.
In that he wants us to go through what we go through.
With the.
Conscious sense in us that we are his children and all that passes passes between US and himself in that relationship.
We see that thought of love and suffering expressed by the sisters in the 11Th chapter of John when a sorrow came into their home in connection with the death of their brother Lazarus. It's very significant. The message that they sent to the Lord. They said he whom thou lovest is sick. They didn't try to separate or question the two things. They realized that the Lord loved them and loved Lazarus just as much.
Even though he had allowed.
This difficulty to come into their home and brethren has been said. If we have that understanding in our souls, when trials come, there will be the proper reaction in our souls to the to the trial, and there will be the lessons and the blessed lessons learned and the blessing intended in the end. But it is interesting too, that in the introduction of this subject, and you have the Godhead brought out here, the Spirit of God.
00:10:09
You have the Father, You have God himself.
Later on, it's simply God who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect. And if God before us, who can be against us. But it is interesting that when it's introduced here, it's brought before us in connection with not only God as our Father, but the closest of relationship in that.
As to God being our Father.
And he uses this expression ABBA father. And it's beautiful to see this because this expression only appears three times in the New Testament.
And the first time we have the this expression is the Lord Jesus uttering these words as a man in the garden of Gethsemane.
But significant two in which gospel it is recorded. We won't turn back to it, but if we were to trace through Mark's Gospel, we would find that in keeping with Mark's Gospel and the character of the Lord Jesus, presented there as the perfect servant, the Lord Jesus, in his pathway up until the Garden of Gethsemane, never addresses God as his father in that book. It would have been out of keeping with the character.
Servant which is presented to us.
But when he comes at the end of his pathway, and his deepest trial is upon him, the hour of his suffering, not only at the hand of man in connection with his trial, but his hour of suffering at the hand of God in those hours of darkness that he anticipated so keenly As he bows in the garden, He doesn't just address God as his father, but now he comes, the perfect servant.
His path of service completed in this world.
As far as making no dispensing blessing on every hand, now he comes.
And he addresses God in all the tenderness of relationship, not just as Father, but as ABBA Father. And then that wonderful brethren that you and I in the deepest of our trials. And there are trials that I have no doubt their brethren here who are going through trials that some of us have never experienced in the path of faith and service and through this life. But isn't it wonderful that we can come now in the same intimacy?
That the Lord Jesus came in the garden in his hour of deepest trial in need and we can address.
God as our father, but more than that we can come as ABBA father. Just to finish my thought, the thought on the expression of a father, you do get it one more time in Galatians where the apostle there is rebuking the Gentile believers who were turning to the law as a way of life and to maintain their salvation. And he says again, the law never brought you into that kind of relationship.
And he reminds them of the intimacy of their relationship. And you have a very similar statement as to what we began here.
Repeated in Galatians chapter 4. I believe it is but all brethren, I say how good to keep before our souls that we have this same intimacy that the Lord had, no matter how deep the trial is.
Yesterday I had lunch in a restaurant.
And at the next booth over.
Was a little boy.
And then everybody in the restaurant knew was unhappy.
He was hollering.
And expressing his.
Sorrow, his pain is whatever.
To everyone.
Suppose I had gone over to that table and I said here son, or here little boy, come into my arms, would he have responded?
Of course not. It would have nothing to do with me, wouldn't have any interest in me at all.
His mother.
Took him in her arms, and she folded her arms around him and held him in that position.
It was based on a relationship between the two of them that no one else would have substituted at that moment, at least at that table.
00:15:05
And.
And he wasn't expressing some intellectual thoughts about the situation. He was expressing where he was and what he felt.
And I believe that in the expression I have a father that is brought before us, we are brought into relationship with God that is so connected that sometimes he wants us to go to him and not try to puzzle something out intellectually.
But he simply wants us to recognize, as it were, that he would put his arms around us and we would say to him.
Then what the most childlike expression that's used in that way? ABBA, Daddy, Father, and come into that sense of that's the one that loves us and with whom we have to do. And sometimes, brethren, we need to get below the level, if you will, of our minds and get into the enjoyment of that which is our true relationship with God.
In the end of the chapter you see the God side of it.
In its proper place. But it begins here with bringing us into that which establishes our souls in our relationship with our Father.
That will stand us in what we need when we pass through that which is part of life that all of us have to pass through as long as we're on this earth.
I also believe a very important second thing that's brought before us in these first verses.
Is in verse 17.
Not only our relationship as children of God.
Which is so important in the beginning of such a subject. But the second thing is, if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.
His future and ours.
Are totally linked together.
We don't ever forget that.
His future and ours are forever now that we are children linked together.
Enjoyed this thought of it couple of days ago and home at a Reading meeting.
In Mark's Gospel chapter 4.
The end of the chapter.
The Lord Jesus and the disciples are on the Sea of Galilee in about.
He's sleeping as they're crossing the lake.
A storm comes up.
They're afraid.
They're afraid of perishing.
And so they wake him up.
I think of this.
Are all the purposes of God from eternity going to go down to nothing on the Sea of Galilee in a storm?
Is all that God has planned and purposed before He ever created the world.
Fall apart because of a storm on a sea in which the one in whose all those things are going to be accomplished depend.
We perish, they say. That included him.
They hadn't yet entered into who he really was. They call him Master, meaning teacher, because they hadn't yet been brought into the realization fully yet. They were learning, but they had a lot yet to learn.
And so it sometimes is with us. But brethren.
The purposes of God.
Are linked now to us.
In him, in Christ.
00:20:02
And no storm.
In our lives either, just like no storm in his life is going to.
Ultimately, stop the accomplishment of all that God purposes and blessing for his Son.
Because he purposes for the enjoyment of eternity of his son, it's linked with us.
We can't be left out of it. We're children. We're heirs with him.
And so he is going to see at every step of the way, including the storms of this life.
That his purposes are going to be fulfilled and nothing is going to hinder him from it. And in that the Lord Jesus said to them peace.
Peace.
Don't be afraid.
I'm with you and I will be with you to the end and so we can always, if you will take that recognition, it is I.
It is I.
Be not afraid.
I can't help but think, Don, when you mentioned about the case of the boy who was having problems and bending them and not having anybody to tell talk to except in his mother.
A relationship had been formed between the two of them that.
Such a one could turn to, and that's what we needed before God.
The spirit of ******* as a law addressing itself to man in the flesh, will never capacitate us to either to obey, nor to really enjoy God properly, but when we have new birth and when we are have the spirit of adoption or sonship.
Then we have that that that life or that that can enjoy properly the relationship we have with God as sons of God.
And so God gives us that to us by spirit of God, and so we can enjoy our proper Christian relationship with God.
So God always gives us two things. He always did it for his people. One is that he always gives us a present portion and relationship to enjoy now and something in the future, and I to the future. And as we've been saying, that's really what we have in this chapter, isn't it? We have our link with the present and the future, and so we have the relationship of the sons of God. We belong to Him. We have the Spirit of God.
Now as the that link for the enjoyment of it as we go through this world as our present portion and then we have something at the end. But as we've been saying, if we lose sight of what is on the other, is that the end on the other side, we're not going to properly enjoy what we have now. Why is it so often we get under the trials and difficulties we don't enjoy, perhaps like we ought to, the relationship.
That we have of being the children and sons of God. Why is it we don't walk in all the intimacy of Him being our father and so on, and turn to Him when we should? Well, there may be many reasons, brethren, but I do suggest that one of the reasons is because we don't have the end in view, the purposes and fruition of everything. And so it tells us in First John chapter 3.
It says It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when we shall appear, he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And then it says, And everyone that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure. If we have the end in view, the fruition of everything in view, it's going to make a difference on our present state now.
It's going to have a practical purifying effect on our lives now.
So that we do walk as the children of God, so that there is that practical piety exhibited in our lives, so that it places the proper value on the things that we have down here. So it causes us to pass through the proper exercises concerning the trials and difficulties that God allows in our lives, but if we don't have the proper perspective as to the future.
00:25:19
Our proper perspective as to the present is not going to be right. And so in Proverbs 29 it says where there is no vision, the people perish or cast off restraint. They just live for the moment. They live for themselves and brethren. I believe this is perhaps more important to go over than any other time in our history, and the reason I say that is because so much of society today.
Would teach us to live for the moment, whether it's the credit card aspect of things, the instantaneous.
Availability of things in our lives, whatever it is, society teaches us to live for the moment without very much thought as to to the future. But, brethren, we cannot live our Christian life that way if we're going to, as I say, pass through the trials that are referred to here.
And they're going to have the proper effect and form, the proper character in our lives now. We must have the end in view, and we must have it from God's perspective, the fruition of his purposes, what he's doing in our lives now in relationship to what's going to be revealed in US and the glory that's going to follow in a coming day. It's vital to our lives now that we have the future before us.
So we are led by the Spirit of God says here.
And consequently, that's the only way we can talk to God.
Because we are then sons of God.
And then for we have not received the spirit of ******* again to fear, but they have received the spirit of adoption.
Whereby we cry about father.
Nobody is born safe.
We have to be saved.
And that's what it says here.
We have received the spirit of adoption.
And only by the dead spirit of God we can cry our Father.
I remember before I was.
Saved. I never talked to God as Father. I did it and I couldn't because I didn't know that way.
But then when I was.
Then I could call him other Father, because the Spirit of God told me that, told me now that I was.
A son of God.
And that is the witness by which we can say that we are Son of God, and we pray to Him as our Father.
I remember one time.
My wife's anchor.
Head visits from a man who was a leader of a little group Group of graduates.
And I wasted there sometime.
And they didn't know where it was. So the man asked me, Can you pray?
I said yes, I can't pray.
So I was able to pray.
Now if I would not pay.
In the relation with God the Father, I couldn't have prayed. I could have prayed but not led by the Spirit.
And this man, he was very well known and I could, I could sense that he was a saved man.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have asked me if I could pray.
We would like to ask a question here before we get too far removed from some of these verses, and it's in reference to what we have in that verse 16 the Spirit itself.
Bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The reason why I bring this up is because I think there's probably those in more of a younger generation who hear a lot of things about what I'll call personal words from God that if they're very quiet, that maybe they can hear God speaking to them.
00:30:16
And.
I just point this out because I'm not I don't believe that that's in essence what we have here. I just like maybe if somebody would be feel free to comment on this and one of the things just also in connection with this that.
I for myself, I have never, you know, experienced anything like that.
And and So what I have enjoyed is as I've meditated upon the word of God.
The Spirit of God has impressed many thoughts upon my heart that I've indeed richly enjoyed. I'm not so sure if that's exactly what it is either, but perhaps somebody could maybe help us with that.
Used a partial answer.
The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth.
In the Lord Jesus, when he promised in John's Gospel that when he went back to the Father he would send the Spirit, he said He will teach you all things.
And it is the spirit of truth. It is the spirit of God that confirms in our souls and our spirits that in us which we say is true. We live in a world of man, lives by opinion.
And if you want to spend all your time listening to everything that man has to say about every subject in the world, it's a pretty good way to come to a state in which you say who knows what truth is? Is there such a thing as truth? Is it from every man's perspective? And so on.
But God is telling us that when he says something to be the truth, he will also by His Spirit.
Confirm in our spirits and in our souls.
It is truth, and we do not then depend upon what anybody else has to say about it.
But we have it in ourselves, with God between us.
If something is sad and it's not the truth of God.
Then the Spirit of God will not confirm it in us. It will not.
Bring us into that assurance that this is truth, and yet God is saying to us when you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I put in you that sense that you are mine. You're one of my children, and in this particular case, he's affirming or confirming into this our own spirit. You're my child. You belong to me. That's the specific truth here.
That in John's first epistle you have it in a more general way. But it's a wonderful thing that we don't have to live our lives ever wondering, as the world does. In contrast, it says ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Man, if he doesn't have the work of the Spirit of God in him, will ever learn.
But he'll never have the certainty that what he's learned is true.
Absolute truth and unchanging but the believer can have the settled peace in the soul that what God says.
And what God says isn't a little voice in my mind. What God says is in His word, in the sense that's given here. And when God says it in its word, the Spirit of God. If we are willing to receive it, then a man will to do if any man will hear.
Then the Spirit of God will say yes, that word is truth, and that word is from me.
So when there's the enjoyment of the relationship of ABBA Father, and the truth is brought before us from the word of God, there's an immediate response. Isn't there? A response that desires not that enjoys it and desires to walk in it? When the truth of God is brought to bear on the conscience of an unbeliever, he squirms because he doesn't enjoy it. He's got a conscience, and thank God he does. When we preach the gospel, we want to aim at the conscience, the heart too, but the conscience.
00:35:00
But that when the, as I say, when the truth is brought to bear on the conscience, there's no enjoyment of it, he squirms under it. And hopefully then with the by work of the spirit of God, it's brought to bear in such a way that there's a ultimate result for for blessing. But as I say, when a child of God is walking in the enjoyment of the relationship, then there's going to be an immediate response to everything that said.
We understand this in natural things, don't we? When a child is walking in the enjoyment and sunshine of their father's love and there's relationship, when the father utters the word why, there's an immediate response. I realize that when things come into our lives that we don't enjoy that relationship, just like in the natural sense. Then again, there has to be brought to bear on the conscience and a work of restoration and so on. But I'm talking about in the normal sense of.
Sense of things. And that's a confirmation, isn't it, that we are the children of God, so we hear the truth this weekend. Is there that response in our souls? That would say, yes, that's wonderful, Our our spirit responds with what the Spirit brings before us, and there's that desire to carry it out for the Lord's glory and for the continuing enjoyment of the relationship. So perhaps that's part of our the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit as well.
I would like to, before we pass on, just go to a couple of verses in Isaiah in connection with the previous comments that were made.
I realized that Isaiah didn't perhaps have the full understanding and enjoyment of what he wrote, but we can apply it in connection with what we have in our chapter in Isaiah 43. He says verse one, but now thus saith the Lord that created the O Jacob and He that formed the O Israel.
Now notice this. Fear not. Why? How could he say through Isaiah to the people of God? Fear not. Well, he goes on to explain. You know, there was a real difficulty in Israel at this time, and God was going to have to deal in his governmental ways because of Hezekiah's failure and and so on. But he says, fear not. Now notice this, for I have redeemed thee, brethren. Can anything change that? Now again, Isaiah couldn't enter into the full import of this.
With the light he had in his day. But in the light of what we're taking up as being the sons of God and the children of God, and so on the ABBA, we can cry. ABBA. Father, I have redeemed thee. Can anything change that, brethren? No, not for one moment. No trial, no circumstance in our personal lives. No difficulty in the family. No problem in the assembly amongst the people of God. Collectively I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name.
You know he knows everyone of us. Individually, he takes everyone of us up in the trials of life. Individually, he deals with us in his chastening and child training. Individually, I've called thee by thy name, thou art mine brother. We belong to him, just like the little boy Don was talking to.
Talking about that boy, realized who he belonged to, who he could go to. He belonged to that parent we belong.
To our father. And then he says we're going to see the removal of the difficulties. It's all going to be smooth sailing. No? When thou passes through the waters, we pass through deep waters, don't we, brethren? We pass through very deep waters sometimes. But what does he say? I will be with thee. Isn't it better to go through deep waters with the sense of the Lord's presence than to have all smooth sailing and not have a sense of his presence with us? Then he says something else.
And though the rivers they shall through the rivers they shall not overflow thee. Do you feel overwhelmed sometimes just like the water's coming right over your your boat? Just tell a little story. I was with brother Garvin Seymour in South America a few months ago and we were going up the Esaquibo River against the current. It's one of those mighty rivers that you look to one side and see the the shore on that horizon. You look way over there and you see the shore over there and.
We were going up on a wooden boat, and, you know, for the first hour I thought, we're going to be alligator lunch before this is over. But you know what? I realized that that gave me peace after an hour. I said to myself every other day, I'm not here.
The guy that's running this boat runs it up the river with these people and makes it. And you know, brethren, we've got one. Who's at the hell do you feel overwhelmed? Like the waters coming right over your the your boat, so to speak. There's one who's in full control. And so he says, When thou walk us through the fire, he uses another picture here. When they'll walk us through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. Well, the three Hebrew children, they went through the fire. Would they have missed it for anything? Not to have a special sense of the Lord's presence with them?
00:40:28
Experience. It was to have like never before in their lives, that special sense. Well, when we take that verse and bring it in the to the context of our chapter, what blessing and comfort it brings to us. We're passing through the waters. We're going to come out on the other side. We're passing through the fire. We're going to come out on the other side. Keep that the other side in view and it will help us to go through with a sense of his presence, his love.
And an understanding of his purposes.
The next verse in that chapter in Isaiah. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel.
He's the same yesterday, today and forever.
We get to the next verse.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of gods and joy, heirs in Christ.
Now that puts us in a relationship with him in heaven.
Because the Lord Jesus is in heaven.
And we have our relationship with Him in heaven.
Once in a while I take a brother to a new specialist.
And if I ask something about his condition and so on.
The first question is.
What's your relationship? How are you related to her?
And if I said I am a friend, they say well.
We are not allowed to give you any information.
You must have a personal relationship with that person.
And that's all this question that has happened. It happens every time because I take them here and there and.
The first question what's your relationship? And that is very important for us. How do we get this to heaven?
If we're not in relationship with the Lord Jesus, we won't be able to heaven.
We have to have that relationship.
Don't let us drive too far from the text of the chapter, but I'd like to go back for a moment to Jeremiah.
Chapter 42.
A little bit more on the confirmation of truth.
And in this case some people that wanted to avoid some suffering. So in that way it's connected with our chapter, but in Jeremiah chapter 42.
And.
Just kind of the end of the story here, verse 20.
For you dissembled in your hearts the new translation, You deceived yourselves.
In your own souls.
When you sent me unto the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us unto the Lord our God, and according to all that the Lord our God shall say, So declare unto us, and we will do it. It's pretty amazing connection, isn't it?
He's saying you deceived yourself when you told me to go to the Lord and pray for you about this matter and all that he says to you, you say you will do.
And so he says, verse 21. And now I have this day declared it unto you, But you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God.
Nor anything for which he has sent me unto you, just to get the context of us, Jeremiah.
Was this is at the time when?
The king Nebuchadnezzar had come into the land for the second time and was carrying away a remnant of the people.
That had rebelled the second time against him. And when he did so, there were still some of the poor of the land, and they were afraid of Nebuchadnezzar. And there was a leader among them. And he said, as it were, they were talking among themselves, and they said, let's go down to Egypt.
00:45:02
And there will be protected from.
Nebuchadnezzar.
Jeremiah had been left in the land. He had not been carried to Babylon, and he was still there in Jerusalem. And so they go to him, they're considering something and they say, well, let's talk to Jeremiah about it, and let's ask Jeremiah to ask the Lord what the Lord has to say about it. Let him pray to the Lord for us. And whatever answer the Lord gives to that prayer, we're going to do it.
Whether to stay in the land or whether to go down to Egypt.
But God knows the heart.
And God recognized that in their hearts, the request for prayer.
Wasn't really real.
There was not within them the submissive spirit to do what was told to them, and so they don't obey. They did go down into Egypt. They did lose their lives as a result of it. And so it's a it's a word to us in the sense that sometimes we hear someone say. When the word of God is playing, if you will, the spirit of God is saying, This is my word, this is my truth. And I say.
I'm praying about it.
Because in hard I haven't accepted what God has said about it. So I say I'll pray about it, and then I can say what I did was what the Lord told me as a result of my prayer, when the Lord may be saying to me you disobeyed what I said to you in my word.
But in another way, the Word of God.
Will always be consistent with the mind of God.
And if we leave out the word of God and simply say, I pray for it and I got this answer and that's what I'm going to do.
Apart from the word of God bringing the bear on our conscience about it, it may be self deception to our own loss. And so for them, they were afraid. They were trying to avoid pain. They were afraid they might lose their lives if they stayed in the land, and sometimes in the matter of suffering.
The place of suffering is not to try in our own power and will to escape it.
But it is to stay in the path of obedience to the Lord, come what may with his blessing.
Mark just made a comment a few minutes ago, and there's been a few that have addressed it. Here's a very simple comment section with hearing the voice of the Lord.
My dad was on his deathbed.
And a couple days to live.
A couple days before I would.
Take that last breath and feel the pulse. Make those last part. Make those last couple of weeks.
He said to me this.
David.
Read the word of God.
With your ears.
Not just your eyes.
I'm a father. We are grow to shame.
Everybody's name and friendship.
We need my children because I'm playing.
No problem.
00:50:40
Satisfying.
In our falling, far from being.
My great source.
Light table is our place when we enjoy sunlight.
Incorporation.
A blind.
Rings.
Glory.
We hear me say.
We should never be behind your life.
Once lost children.
All I shall friends, shall proclaim.
You.
Right now for you.
Who?
Gospel—Jim Hyland
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To begin the gospel meeting this evening with hymn #21 on the gospel hymn shape decide for Christ today and God's salvation. See yields soul and body, heart and will to him who died for thee. Him #21 is someone complete started.
Nsnoise.
Thou thou canst last rain.
The land of the world can build yogurt and the blondes and the plaques and the plunge.
Dial zero 532.
954.
30.
It's not how far it is and.
Right.
Please do it for him.
At the beginning of the gospel. The first one is in the 53rd chapter.
Isaiah Chapter 53.
And verse one.
Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord?
Revealed and then back in the 42nd chapter.
Chapter 42 verse 23.
Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come? We're going to with the Lord's help this evening and presenting the gospel. Look at some expressions, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that begin with the word who, and that necessarily raises a question. It's often been said that questions are good when it comes to the gospel.
Because questions bring it right down to the individual. Often when the gospel is presented, especially in a setting like this in North America, often the question is raised Well, what about those who've never heard it before? What about those who've never had the word of God in their own language? What about those who've never had missionaries sent to them? How about them? What is God going to do with them? But that is not the question tonight.
The question tonight is, what about you? And what about me? And I began with some verses that often I have read at the end of a Gospel meeting, but I began with them this evening. In fact, for him that we sang is often a hymn that is sung at the end of a Gospel meeting. Decide for Christ today relevant to the message that has just been presented, that Him is often given out as a final invitation to souls to come to the Savior.
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Conclusion of a gospel meeting. But again I began this evening with that hymn because the seriousness of of the brevity of time and life is pressed upon my soul tonight. You know this, the clock is ticking. And I suppose that we can look at the clock this evening and think, well, in about 50 minutes or less this meeting is going to end. Yes, probably in 50 minutes or less, this meeting is going to end.
But you know, it may not end in the way that we think. It may not end with a.
Prayer and an Amen and getting up and shaking hands and speaking to one another and eventually going out the doors and getting into our vehicles and going to our place of lodging. This gospel may end long before 8:00 by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if this gospel meeting ends with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which could be at any moment now.
It will be too late to sing. Decide for Christ.
Today it will be too late to open to Isaiah chapter 53 and say who hath believed our report. It will be too late to turn back to the 42nd chapter and we this further question.
Who among us will give ear to this? It will be too late. Yes, it will. And there are many, many scriptures that confirm what I am saying. When once the master of the house hath risen up and shut to the door, it tells us that they're going to come and they're going to begin to knock, and they're going to say, Lord, Lord, open unto us. But when the door of mercy and grace is closed, it is closed forever.
You know, it's very interesting. If we were to go back and read carefully the account of the flood in Genesis and the account of Noah going into the ark and God shutting the door, it is very significant that you never read of that door being opened again. You know, when the flood was over and it was time to come out on a cleansed earth, it says they removed the covering of the ark and they came out.
I believe what the Spirit of God is seeking to impress upon us in the fact that we never read of the door of the art being opened again.
Is that once the door of grace is closed and the judgment of this world begins to fall.
As sincere as people may be, and as much as they may desire to be saved.
It will never happen. It will be.
Forever too late.
I stuck in my pocket before meeting a little tracked card you can find over on the UH track rack at Bible Truth. This is a reprint of a track card that was printed some years ago by a brother who's now with the Lord. On one side it simply says heaven. On the other side it says hell.
And back when this track card was first print, these track cards were first printed in a little bigger format than they're printed now.
The brother who put this together was asked why or what was his exercise in having a card to hand out with these two words on it, heaven on one side and hell on the other. You know what his answer was? He said. This is a track card for North America where they already know the story.
Not interesting, and as I look into an audience like this, though I may not know all your names.
I suspect that everyone here knows the story. That is, you know something of the way of salvation. You've heard before, in one way or another, that you're a Sinner, but you have also heard before.
That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You've heard about the cross. You've heard about the blood of Christ. You've heard invitations to come to the Savior. You've heard a verse like believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and Thou shalt be saved.
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You've heard for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
You've heard, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You've heard faith cometh by hearing and hearing, by the word of God.
You know that salvation is repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. You know the story.
But what about the 2 words on this track card? Heaven. Hell. If the Lord Jesus were to come before this meeting is over, have you believed the report? You know the story? Have you believed it? And have you taken heed for the time to come? There is a time to come in the reading meeting this afternoon for those of us who were here.
It was meant it's mentioned in one of those verses about the present sufferings. That's the present time. There's a present time, but there's a time to come as well, A time when we're going to leave this world. Are you prepared for that time? Who hath believed our report and who hath hearkened for the time to come? I trust that as we go on and we look at some further scriptures.
That these two questions will burn into your soul if you don't know.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
As your Savior, and if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, or tonight we beseech you at the beginning of this gospel meeting to look to the cross. Realize that the Lord Jesus there on Calvary's cross gave his life so that you could be saved, so that you wouldn't have to go to hell, so that you could be sure.
That your sins were forgiven and that you were on your way to heaven. Perhaps before we read some further scriptures, I'll ask this further question. What does Calvary mean to you?
What does the cross of Christ mean to you? What value does it have to your soul?
On more than one occasion I've had opportunity to stand at the base of the.
Eiffel Tower on more than one opportunity. I've had opportunity to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. My wife and I recently were in Paris and we met with another couple and their daughter and at about 11:00 at night we went up the tower.
You know, every time I go up that the Eiffel Tower or stand at its base, I think.
Of the engineer who engineered, designed, and engineered the building of the Eiffel Tower, His name was Gustav Eiffel. He was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That tower was built there, on the banks of the Seine, for two reasons. One was to mark the 100th year anniversary of the French Revolution. The French Revolution.
Was in 1789881789 I believe, and the tower was erected in 1889, a hundred years later.
But it was also built in conjunction with the World's Fair that was held in Paris at that time. But I was interested in a recent survey of monuments, historic monuments around the world.
And a society that conducts these kinds of surveys and studies conducted a study to come up with what the most valuable monument.
In the world is today.
They had several criteria to calculate the value, the California, the dollar value of these sites.
And the Eiffel Tower became in first.
The value that is placed on the Eiffel Tower by that society and has been published for all the world to see is 546 billion.
Dollars.
You know, to me, it's just a hunk of metal. It's beautiful when it's lit up at night, but it's just a hunk of iron. But that is the value that this world places on the Eiffel Tower.
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It is the most It is the most paid monument visited monument. It is the most visited paid monument.
In the world.
I can believe it. I've been there in the middle of the night, and there's lineups paying big money to go up to the top and view the city of Paris at night. But we're not talking about some monument that this world might place value on.
If they were tonight, this same society were to go to Calvary and view Calvary tonight.
To stand at Golgotha outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem.
I dare say they would place very little, if any value, humanly speaking.
On a place like that. But all I know, there's just so many here in this room tonight who thrill as we speak of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work of Calvary, and we place infinite value by the grace of God.
On Calvary's cross.
And so, with this in mind, let's go first of all to the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs, chapter 30.
Proverbs chapter 30 and verse four. Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath found the waters in a garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his son's name? And what? What is his name? And what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?
And then back in the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 5.
Exodus chapter 5 and verse 2. And Pharaoh said who is the Lord that I should obey him?
That I should obey his voice to let Israel go, I know not, the Lord neither.
Will I let Israel go? And one more verse for now in Luke's Gospel chapter 19.
Luke's Gospel, chapter 19 and verse 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich, and he sought to see Jesus.
Who he was.
We find here, back in the book of Proverbs in connection with the prophecy of Agar. Agar raises a question here, a question which I don't think he ever answered.
Who is he, And who is this person? Who is the person that created all this? Who is the Sustainer of the universe? Who is he? And what is his son's name? If thou canst tell, I don't think he ever really understood the answer to this. I realized that Isaiah later on gives us at least part of the answer. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
He also gives us there in Isaiah the name Emmanuel. We have it.
Summed up in the book of Matthew, in connection with the incarnation of the Lord Jesus, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. How wonderful that tonight we don't have to stay puzzled over the question In Proverbs chapter 30. We read it as a starting point perhaps, but we don't have to stay there. We can go further in the word of God and we can have confirmation as to who He is.
We can have confirmation as to who God is and who his Son is, the Lord Jesus Christ, because this is the one that tonight we have to present in the gospel. There is no other way of salvation tonight.
Salvation tonight is not by something. It's through a person. Oh yes, it's faith. It's faith in God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, Oh yes, Sir, it's believing on the on the Lord Jesus and so on. But it's a person tonight that we have to present. It's not philosophy, it's not sociology, It's not even theology. It's Christ. We preach Christ and Christ crucified because there's none other name under heaven.
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Given among men, whereby we must be saved, what does the person of Christ mean to you?
What does his name mean to you? Is it as ointment poured forth in your soul? Is it something that is precious to you?
Or is it just another name? You know, if we were to go out on the streets of Mayfield, or over to Paducah, or perhaps back in our hometown or city from which we've come, and we were to speak the name of Jesus reverently, all we would find very quickly.
It is still the song of the drunkard. It's still the despised name. It's still on the lips of the cursor. But oh, tonight the name of Jesus is precious to my soul. Is it precious to yours Tonight? What is his son's name? Oh, I'd like to tell you his son's name is Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. And God made sure that when the Lord Jesus was hanging on Calvary's cross.
His name was there, you know. They came to Pilate, who had written his name in Hebrew and Greek and Latin for all to read as they passed by, for others to gaze on as they sat down and watched the Lord Jesus in his suffering.
And they came to Pilate, and they wanted him to alter it slightly. But he said, this is who he was. You know, God was in control. God was giving testimony as his son sunder. And God caused Pilate an ungodly man who had bowed to the will of the people. God caused Pilate to say, what I have written, I have written, you know, Pilate couldn't change that if he wanted to.
Because God was in full control, and there was his name as the Lord, Jesus hung as a spectacle.
For men and for angels.
But isn't it very solemn to turn back to the account of Pharaoh?
When Moses and Aaron went in to stand before Pharaoh and give testimony, and to plead with Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go from their ******* and slavery in Egypt, Pharaoh in all his audacity, he might as well have shaken his fists to God. He said, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? Who is the Lord? And maybe you're saying that tonight, who's the Lord that I should obey him? I just want to live my own life, never mind those kinds of things.
Pharaoh came to a solemn end, didn't he? Drowned in the Red Sea.
I recently traveled up and down part of the coast of the Red Sea, right there, somewhere within a few miles of where that event took place. It's a very solemn thing to stand on the Sinai Bank of the Red Sea and look back toward Egypt and realize that somewhere, one way or the other, just a few miles, this where Farrell, who had the audacity to lift his voice against God, was drowned.
And to realize that someday Pharaoh is going to be raised.
To stand at the Great White throne judgment and he will have nothing to say in that day. Every mouth is going to be stopped in that day.
You know the Egyptians back in ancient history they spent.
Much of their life preparing for the afterlife, the Pharaohs built the pyramids. They amassed their treasures.
Feral Khufu, who reigned in Egypt from about 2589 to 2566 BC. He masterminded the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
Many years later, they found his vote buried beside that pyramid.
Why was that boat buried beside his pyramid?
That vote was buried there to help him in the next life, to help him travel. The very boat he had traveled up and down the Nile River buried with him so that supposedly it would help him travel to bliss in the afterlife. And those pyramids, monuments to the Pharaohs, the burying places of the Pharaohs, they spent their whole life. They were sincere. They went to great expense.
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But they were sincerely wrong.
It's a solemn thing to walk through the mummy rooms of the Cairo Museum.
And to see some of the mummies of the Pharaohs and nobility of Egypt.
Some of them 4500 years old. The fingernails, the eyelashes.
And there they are.
But you wonder where they are for eternity. Their bodies are there. I remember the last time I stood in the mummy room. I just stood there for a moment I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if the Lord came right now to see if any of these mummies would rise from these glass cases?
And to realize that if those who do not rise at that time will indeed rise at a later date to stand before God as their judge.
Who is the Lord that I should obey him? You know there are solemn warnings in the New Testament concerning those who obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know God is commanding you to be saved tonight.
God now commandeth men everywhere to repent. It's an invitation, yes, and we often present it that way.
But it's a command as well, because so much does God love you tonight that he's commanding you to be saved. Any of us who have children, if we see our children heading for something the edge of a Cliff or something hot that they're going to touch that we know.
Is going to have serious consequences. Do we just invite them to come back and stay away? No, We command them. We're in earnest. We may even reach out and grab them and pull them back. And God is commanding you tonight to be saved, if you're not already. And he's commanding you. Not in a harsh way. Usually we think of commands in a harsh way, but he's commanding you in a way.
That is in love because he does not want you to go to a lost eternity.
And God realizes that you are on the brink.
Of passing out of this world and going to hell.
Forever.
It's serious tonight. It is very, very serious. We're passionate about what we present from the word of God in regard to the gospel because these things are real. You might scoff at them tonight, but these things are real.
Farrell scoffed at it.
With God, fooling God wasn't fooling for one moment.
But you know to me it's so beautiful to turn from that. Who is the Lord that I should obey him?
To turn to the 19th chapter of the book of Luke to a well known story.
The story of Zacchaeus. And you know, as far as we read, Zacchaeus only had one opportunity to meet the Lord Jesus.
I wonder if you were to recount back in your memory as far as you can think and you were able to do to count. I wonder how many opportunities you'd come up with as far as your opportunity to be saved, opportunities to be at gospel meetings like this.
Opportunities when someone gave you a tractor a gospel invitation. Opportunities when, as a child, you sat, perhaps at the table, and your father or mother opened the word of God and read it to you.
But the Lord entered and passed through Jericho, and we never read that he passed through Jericho again.
And Zacchaeus realized he had an opportunity, and there were hindrances, because, you know, whenever we want to come to the Lord.
There's always going to be hindrances because there's an enemy that doesn't want you to come to the Lord Jesus tonight.
There's an enemy who wants to keep your soul from coming to Christ to drag you down to hell. And that enemy's name is Satan. But Satan is not your friend tonight. Satan doesn't love you tonight.
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Satan is a destroyer, and so there's always opposition.
As sure as I stood up tonight and opened this book, there's opposition.
But Zacchaeus wasn't going to let the opposition stop him.
You know, there were perhaps three things that could have hindered Zacchaeus from coming to the Lord. There was his possessions. He was rich.
There was the people, there was a big crowd and there was his profession. He was a publican or a tax collector.
Three things.
His possessions, the people, and his profession. He let none of it stop him. Zacchaeus was in earnest, and would to God that we were in earnest tonight.
His desire was to see Jesus who he.
Was, Farrell said. Who is the Lord?
Zacchaeus wanted to find out.
Do you wanna find out tonight? You know, it didn't take Zacchaeus long to find out because the Lord knew the sincerity of the heart of Zacchaeus. And maybe you say tonight, there's a lot of things I don't understand about the gospel and a lot of things I don't understand about the Lord Jesus. You know, there was a man in the 9th chapter of John like that. He had his eyes opened. He was blind from birth, and the Lord opened his eyes.
And there were a lot of people who came along and said, who is this man that opened your eyes?
Tell us about them. Do you understand anything about them? He didn't know much. Finally an exasperation, he said. I don't know who he is, but one thing I know, I was blind. And now I see.
That was enough for the blind man. One thing he knew about the Lord Jesus, he could open the eyes of the blind. But I dare say he found out a lot more about the Lord Jesus after that. And if you just come tonight realizing that the Lord Jesus is the savior of sinners, you'll find out a lot of things about him after you get saved.
Zacchaeus He wanted to see Jesus who he was.
He didn't know much about them, but he found out a lot more.
After he was introduced, and one thing he found out on this occasion was the Lord Jesus wanted Zacchaeus to. Not only did Zacchaeus want to see the Lord, but the Lord wanted an interview with Zacchaeus. And not only did the Lord want an interview with Zacchaeus, he wanted to abide with Zacchaeus at his house. He wanted fellowship and communion with Zacchaeus.
You know there's another man in the Gospels who desired to see Jesus as well.
His name was Herod, King Herod, and it says that he desired for a long time to see Jesus that some miracle might be showed him.
Completely different motive. Wanted to see the same person, but for a completely different reason. You know, Herod did see Jesus, but he never, as far as we read, saw a miracle performed in His presence.
Two very different men with two very different desires.
They both saw Jesus, but what a difference.
Who he desired to see him who he was, is that the desire of your soul and mind tonight?
You know, everyone of us have a need. We're all sinners.
I want to keep that in mind now as we go on to some further scriptures back in Mark's Gospel chapter 2.
Mark's Gospel chapter 2 and I want to read just the last question.
Of verse 7, just the last half of the verse. Who can forgive sins?
But God only and then in Matthew's Gospel chapter 19.
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Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 19.
And verse 25.
In the last part of the verse.
Who then can be saved And one more portion in Revelation chapter 6.
Revelation chapter 6 and verse 17. For the great day of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?
Robert Strand wrote a book called Especially for Mothers and there's a very interesting account in that book of a little girl, an 8 year old girl named Tessa. Tessa had a brother by the name of Andrew.
And Andrew was very, very sick. He had a brain tumor.
And Tesla at 8 years of old age, didn't really enter into what was going on. All she knew was her brother was very sick, had something very serious, and that her parents were very, very concerned about it.
And one day she heard overheard a comment made by her mother to her father. And that comment went like something like went something like this.
It will take would take a miracle to cure Andrew, but we can't afford a miracle. That was all of the conversation 8 year old Tessa heard.
But the wheels of her mind began to work.
And she went to her room and she got down off the shelf a glass jar in which she was collecting small change.
And she undid the lid of that jar, and she pulled, pardon the change out onto her bed, and she counted it very carefully.
She counted it once.
She counted it twice.
She counted it three times to make sure she had the amount right. You'll smile at this, but it was very real to Tessa.
She had $1.11.
She carefully gathered that change up and put it back in the jar, secured the lid, and when she thought nobody was looking, she slipped out the back door, out to the sidewalk and down the street to a local pharmacy.
She went to the pharmacist counter.
She could see that the pharmacist behind the counter was engaged in conversation with another man.
And so she waited, very politely and as patiently as she could.
She kind of coughed, cleared her throat a little bit to see if she could get the pharmacist attention. That didn't work.
She shuffled her feet a little bit, and finally she tapped the jar on the counter. That did the trick. The pharmacist looked up, somewhat annoyed that his conversation had been interrupted, but.
He came to the counter and he asked her what she would like.
She said. Sir, if you please, I'd like to buy a miracle.
He never had a request like that. A request for all kinds of medications. But a miracle he thought he'd misunderstood. He said, excuse me. What? What did you want to buy? She said. I'd like to buy a miracle, and I have the money right here in this jar. Sir, how much do miracles cost?
So I'm not sure I can sell you a miracle that I have miracles for sale, she said. But Sir, you've got to. She said I have $1.11 in this job, Sir. If it's not enough, I'll get the rest. I'll do anything I can. I'll put it on my account. But Sir, my brother is very, very sick and they say that the only thing that will cure my brother now.
Is a miracle. And Sir, I need to buy a miracle and I need to buy it now.
The man who was Beha, the other man who was behind the counter, had been listening intently to this little girl's conversation, and when tears finally filled her eyes, it was too much for him, he came forward and he leaned over the counter and he said, what is the problem? She said. Sir, I don't know, but there's something wrong with my brother Andrew's head.
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And I heard my parents talking and they said the only thing that would save my brother is a miracle. But they can't afford a miracle. In fact, as the story goes, they were going to have to give up their house to try to have some sort of pay for some sort of surgery for Andrew. They were going to move to a small apartment, give up much of their furnishings, and so on.
Tessa didn't know, but she was talking to doctor Carlton Armstrong.
A neurosurgeon from Chicago.
She said to him, Sir, she said I only have $1.11 here, but I I'm willing to do anything to try to get the rest if it's not quite enough. She had no concept of money.
He said it's plenty, he said. Come, come and take me to your home.
You see, that pharmacist and Dr. Armstrong were brothers. He was down from Chicago visiting his brother.
He left his brother at the pharmacy, somewhat to the annoyance of his brother.
And hand in hand, they went down the street.
To that home.
He introduced himself to the parents. He sat down with them and explained the nature of the surgery that would be needed for such a delicate opera and serious operation.
He told Tessa to keep her dollar. Eleven said this won't cost you one cent.
Some time later, he performed that surgery.
And Andrew recovered and is living.
Tonight you and I have a very serious problem if we're not saved, a problem that we didn't develop after we were born in this world, a problem that we were born with, a sin problem. We were born into this world sinners.
And I'm sure.
If we could ask your parents if that's true, they tell you it didn't take very long.
For that to manifest or show itself.
I was in the delivery room with both of my girls and it didn't take very long for those little fists to be squeezed.
And some red face screams uttered from those tiny figures.
We brought them home from the hospital and it didn't take very long to for them for me to realize they had inherited a sin nature from their father.
But who can forgive sins? What a question tonight who can forgive sins?
But God? And aren't we thankful for the truth of that statement? You know, there's so many statements in the word of God that were made by unbelievers in derision.
Questions raised in mockery.
But questions that were true, statements that are true in themselves.
Who can forgive sins but God? But aren't we thankful that the Lord Jesus as God manifest in the flesh?
Came into this world. His name, as we said earlier, was Emmanuel, God with us.
God, come down.
In the person of the Son a body hast Thou prepared me? And he went to Calvary's cross, and I thank God to be able to say once again He bore my sins in his own body. On the tree he shed his precious blood. On Calvary's cross, of which we read The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son cleanses us from all sin. Can it be any plainer than that?
Is the gospel complicated? Is the story of salvation difficult to understand?
It's so plain tonight that it says a wayfaring man, though a fool may not err therein. And if you go to a lost eternity tonight, not me, but God calls you a fool.
Yes he does, because God has provided everything and spelled it out clearly in His word so that there can be no mistake about it.
Who can forgive sins but God? But tonight I'm thankful that there are so many here who can say with the Apostle Paul, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness.
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Of sins. Do you possess the forgiveness of sins?
If there was one word to be placed on your tombstone after you died, could it be this word forgiven? I can't think of a better word to be placed on a tombstone than forgiven.
Who then can be saved? They asked.
The way of salvation is open to all tonight.
The little girl was asked at the end of a gospel meeting, what does the word whosoever mean? Oh, she said, Sir, that means you and me and everybody else.
You know, the gospel tonight is all inclusive. Whatever I think of this, I still think of our boyhood activities. I grew up in a somewhat rural setting, just outside the town of Smith Falls and behind my parents, 2 acres on which we lived.
There were fields of the old uh Highland farm and there was a Creek down uh half a mile a mile or so mile and a half behind and some woods and so on. And you know in the summer we boys, neighborhood boys would get together and I had cousins that lived across the field and we'd get together and we'd get all the scrap lumber we could. I remember 1 summer. We even found the hood of an old car and we dragged it back into the woods and we built what we called a Fort.
And we would work for hours, Mother used to say. If she'd asked us to work that hard, we wouldn't have. But we would work for hours, pounding nails, sawing wood, lifting those heavy pieces of lumber up and getting it just right and building up a platform in the trees and and so on. And when it was all done, we would usually post a sign at the door of our Fort. It would read something like this.
No girls allowed.
Or it might read members only. Or it might read must know the password. And there were several of us who had worked on it that passed around, whispered around the password, and oh, nobody else wants to know what the password. And if there was a leak, there'd be a meeting held of the boys. As to him, we'd be grilled as to who had let the password out.
But you know, the gospel is not like that. The Father's house. Entrance to the Father's house is not like that. So they are over the Father. The door to the Father's house is all may come, whosoever will may come. Everyone is invited, everyone is welcome. It doesn't matter what your age is either. Tonight a little child of seven or even 3 or 4 May enter into heaven through Christ the open door.
The invitation is to everyone. God loves you tonight.
He's provided a way of salvation.
I hesitate to tell this, but just to punctuate my point, couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending the Denver conference.
John's Uncle Bobby picked me up at the airport and I arrived a day before a conference was to begin and he was gonna take me and drop me off at the Holiday Inn where I was to stay for the weekend.
And he was very concerned. Jim, I don't know, he said. You know, the brethren provide a room on the mornings of the conference with a buffet breakfast and, but I don't know what you're going to do.
The tomorrow morning there'll be no buffet breakfast and so on, and I never said a word when I checked in. I opened my wallet and flashed a platinum card that I possessed simply because I travel so much.
So lady that was checking me and said, Mr. Highland, we're glad to have you here. Thank you for choosing Holiday Inn. And we'll give you a key to the concierge floor. It's on the top floor. You'll have to swipe it when you get on the elevator. We only let members up there. And uh, tomorrow morning the breakfast buffet starts at 6:00. And go up and use the business facilities through throughout your stay this weekend and there'll be a buffet breakfast every morning. Uh, you can avail yourself of. But remember, you'll need this special key. We just don't let anybody up there.
But that's not the end way if you get to heaven.
00:50:00
You know everybody who knows the Lord Jesus as their Savior. Everybody who accepts the invitation and is washed in the blood of Christ, has a key to the Father's house, has a path to the Father's house. You will be accepted. There are no questions because the work of Calvary has taken care of your sins.
Have you heeded the invitation? Some of the young fellows at the Denver conference that got wind of this asked if they I could take a guest. I told them I was sorry that I couldn't take a guess. But you know, tonight I can give an invitation to every person in this room.
Every person in this room.
I have the privilege the privilege of of extending.
From God himself, through the Lord Jesus Christ, an invitation to the Father's house, not just to have breakfast, not just to spend a weekend, I speak reverently, but to be there for all eternity. You know, when I get to the Father's house, I love these words, it says. And so shall we ever be with the Lord.
But I read a solemn warning in the 6th chapter of Revelation.
And if we were to back up here, we would find that the scene is that the Lord Jesus has already come.
The door has been closed and there are those who have had opportunity.
And now they come, and what do they want? They want the mountains and the rocks to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb in the face of him that sits upon the throne.
And they can't find any refuge in that day, even in death, even in disaster.
You know, people go to great lengths to avoid disaster today. There's a day coming when they're going to go to great lengths to try to be part of a disaster.
It's not solemn to think about.
Why? If there, you know there's going to be a hurricane. As we've read recently, if you know a volcano is about to erupt, if you live on an earthquake fault, you take every precaution to try to avoid disaster. But there's going to be those in the coming day who will actually look for disaster and want to be part of the results.
Of it, and they're not gonna be able to find it.
Who shall stand?
You know, there's nobody going to escape judgment in that day.
Not you.
Not anybody who's had opportunity to receive God's offer of salvation.
This meeting is almost over. At the beginning of this meeting we read that question. Who hath believed our report? We read that question Who will give He, He, He here and hearken for the time to come. God has been very gracious in giving you 55 minutes since this meeting started.
I can hardly believe it.
I can hardly believe it.
I thought maybe the Lord Jesus really would come before this meeting was over and he may yet.
Have you believed the report?
You know the story. Heaven, Hell. I don't have to tell you again the story that lies in between these two words. You know it, but have you believed it? It is a true report, whether you believe it or not.
Does not discredit the report. The report is true. God's word stands this book.
Is that it abides forever.
It stands forever. The Word of our God shall stand forever.
Whether you believe it or not, it is the truth of God. And this book, this report that you have heard, will someday judge you. The word which I have spoken, the Lord Jesus said the same shall judge him in that day. What does that mean really? We've quoted a number of verses here this evening. I'm going to quote one of them again. One of the most familiar verses you've probably that's probably ever been heard in this world.
I'm gonna quote it again. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You've heard that verse twice in this gospel hour, and if you refuse God's offer of salvation, that verse will ring in your ears again someday, but not presented to you as to salvation and a point of refuge.
00:55:26
But that verse will rise in judgment of you. The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day. That verse will rise in judgment, because you will realize.
The thought verse was given as an invitation and a warning. You refused it, and that verse will condemn you, and you will go to a lost eternity. You will go to hell realizing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you had opportunity and you refused it, and you will be condemned in your own heart. But all tonight the gospel message is still going forth. Tonight, there's one last opportunity.
One last invitation, but I say again who?
Hath believed our report. Do you know the Lord Jesus as your savior?
Do you know Jesus who he is?
Let's pray our God and Father how thankful we are for these questions raised in Thy word so long ago.
Gospel in Symbols
Children—John Bilisoly
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.
So we're going to have some things to look at this morning and I need your help and, uh, I'd like to have you help me answer some of the questions that we'll have. So if you'd like to come up even while we're singing, please do. Maybe one of you boys or girls has a song that we can start with.
I probably shouldn't hold it too close.
Anyone have a song? Alright, how about this young man?
Number three, number three. OK, Thank you.
Maybe so we can sing a few extras. Umm, we'll just sing the 1St and the last of these hymns. All right, number three, first and last, my hope on.
Our body itself.
I dare not drive somewhere with a friend of all the holy.
It is by name.
Of all the wrong kind of.
Sinking time.
All on their ground.
Thinking and last verse.
He turned away in Heaven's cross, and.
My name will pray to him on his hands.
And all are proud of mine, so it's great my last name's been.
Gone right and fall, never broadcast.
All right. Your ground is thinking that happened.
Uh.
OK, I think we're going to have one more from a girl, and there's some on the back that you might be familiar with if you'd like to look.
So if a girl has one to sing, that would be nice.
All right.
47 Thank you.
We'll sing all three of this one.
Right. Yeah. And so I'll start again and try on.
It goes to the.
Every day that it's around.
You also check on.
Are the juicer of all friendship.
Love and Islam.
00:05:12
Umm, very nice, and Lord willing, we'll do a little bit more singing later that goes along with our little subject this morning. But for right now, boys and girls, let's look to the Lord for His help in our time together. Our blessed God and our Father, we thank Thee for each one of the children that are in the room this morning. Precious jewels to Thee, and each of us are Thy jewels, but we just thank Thee for the value that Thou does place on us and the Word.
So much so that thou would send thy Son the Lord Jesus, to come into this world and to go to Calvary's cross.
And to lay down his life and shed his precious blood in order that lost sinners such as ourselves could be brought into favor with thee. To be called sons, to call the ABBA Father, to be thy children. Oh, we thank you for this relationship that is ours by sovereign grace. Now help us, we pray, as we open thy word together, and as we share a little bit. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Amen.
Now I know some of you boys and girls like to memorize.
Scripture, and that's a very good thing to do. So I want to give you an opportunity if you would like to say a verse that you've enjoyed or maybe it's the memory verse.
I have a paper here from last week. Romans 5/8 God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Who would like to say that verse or another verse? All right.
God commended his love towards us, that while we were yet sinners.
Christ died for us. Romans 5/8. Thank you very much. Anyone else? All right, Clive?
1158, thank you. All right. How about you? Would you like to stay at verse? OK, you understand nothing.
While we had sinners Christine for us. Number 5/8. Thank you.
OK, anyone else? How about you girls? Do you have a verse you'd like to say?
Would you like to say what? OK, how about this young man?
OK.
See if we can reach you here.
Want to step forward just a little bit? There we go.
Are you going to say the?
Go ahead and help.
Play. I don't know why.
But you mentioned laughter does.
It's not, Maria said. That for us.
5/8 very good thank you. I know exactly how you feel.
You want to stand up?
God committed his love toward us and lots of that. While we are yet sinners, Christ died for us. Burning 5/8 pretty good. See, I know your kids know that very well. And sometimes when you stand up here, it just you just forget. Funny how that happens. Who else you. How about down here? All right, Anybody else that's not up front here?
OK, All right. Very good. And that goes along, too, with what we're going to speak about this morning. Well, you know, boys and girls, what I wanted to talk about this morning is about symbols. Now, if I were to describe a symbol in my own words, I would say it's a little picture of something without any words. And you know, what's interesting about symbols is it doesn't matter what language you know, what country you're in.
A symbol can tell a story or it can give a message to wherever you're at. So it doesn't matter it it's, it's not bound by language. And that's what's interesting about symbols. You know, we have a lot of symbols in our lives. We're we're familiar with them. I'll give you a few examples.
Sometimes you're driving to the airport and you see a sign up ahead and it has a picture of an airplane on there and you say, oh, good, I'm on the right, right route. I'm going the right direction.
00:10:06
That tells you that that little airplane on that plane tells you that you're on your way to the airport and it's directing you. It might have an arrow under it, or maybe you've seen a symbol that says.
Maybe you're in a museum and you see a symbol that shows a little picture of a camera and there's a circle around it and a line right down through the circle and the camera is right in the middle there. What does that tell you?
Exactly. See, so you can look at that sign and right away, you know what that means. And it doesn't matter if you speak Chinese or if you speak Italian or French, Spanish or English, you see that symbol and you say, oh, I know what that means. Well, what I thought I would like to do this morning with your help is.
I have brought some symbols that I put together and I'd like to tell the story of God's salvation with symbols. Now, like I said, in the word of God too, we have lots of symbols used, especially when you get to a book like Revelation is full of symbols. Some of them are easy to understand, some of them are more difficult. Some of them we have to study and decide what is we're being told from these symbols. And so symbols are something important in our lives, aren't they? And we get used to them.
And we rely on them to give us information.
Well, this first one that I want to put up here is a little bit unpleasant, and I've tried to soften it a little. You'll see. But you'll see what it is. It's a symbol of something. And it's these, I might say too, about these symbols, that these, most of these, with maybe the exception of one of these, are what we would call universal symbols that are known the world over. And anyone could look at one of these and say, oh, I know what that means. So I have one here, the first one.
And our brother Don Ruhl kindly lent me this board and this is going to be helpful to put these up. Now, like I said, I this one is not very pleasant, but it conveys a message that we want to that's important in this story of God's salvation. What is this?
Good, very good. I was hoping somebody would mention danger. It certainly does mean danger. Umm, maybe you have seen this on a bottle? Has anyone seen this symbol on a bottle? OK, what does that mean?
Exactly. That's exactly what it means, and this has become a universal symbol to mean danger or poison or what else might it be a symbol of?
I'm going to tell you it's a skull and some bones under it, and this has become a universal symbol of something.
Yeah, that's right. You know, not that long ago, boys and girls in Spanish cemeteries, they used to actually put real skulls and crossbones under them to mark that it was a cemetery.
Umm, that's, uh, you know, like I said, it's not a pleasant symbol, is it? Now, let me ask you a question. So we're going to put this up for now.
Let me ask you a question. How did death come into this world?
Exactly. Let's read that. If you have a Bible and you want to follow along, we're going to look at a verse that's very emphatic, very clear.
About this, in Romans 5 and verse 12 it says, Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world.
And death by sin. So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. Now is that clear? Do we understand that boys and girls, that death came into this world because of sin? And then if we were to look over in our Bibles, some of us not even having to turn a page to the 6th chapter of Romans, it says in verse 23, for the wages of sin is who can finish it?
You want to stand up and finish it for the wages and how does what's the rest of it? The gift of the gift of God is eternal is eternal through Jesus Christ. Very good. I knew you know it just takes a little while, doesn't it? OK the gift of God is eternal life, but the wages of sin is death. You know what tells us in the Old Testament in the book of Ezekiel chapter 18 twice it says.
The soul that sinneth, who can finish that verse, The soul that sinneth it shall.
Die, that's what it says. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, you know.
00:15:04
There, it's interesting, but if we were to take the time to look, that word death is mentioned 22 Times in this book. And I thought of it in this way, boys and girls, that this book of Romans, it's kind of like a trial.
And you and I are standing before a judge, and this is a judge that is infallible. He cannot make a mistake. This is God as a judge judging man. And you and I are standing before him, and he we hear all the evidence against us. And this is what God pronounces as a righteous judge. He says your penalty is death.
That's a solemn penalty, isn't it? It says here that the wages of sin is death, and you and I have sinned. And so our penalty is death. And oh, if we had to stop there, it would be a very unhappy story that we're telling here with symbols. If that's the only symbol that we had to dwell upon, that would be sad indeed. But boys and girls, we need to realize.
From the very start here, that you and I are sinners before God. And as sinners, it tells us earlier in this book that there is none righteous, no, not one. And it says that we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and as sinners we deserve to die. But oh, let's move on now. We don't want to dwell and leave the story there. So we've got another symbol here.
Who can tell me what this symbol means? You've seen this before. Got lots of hands here. OK, love. Love. And look at that. I see it right on your bear. On the chest of his bear. He's got that same symbol there. Love. Very good. All right, now, let me ask you this. This isn't hard either. If we took the letter I and put it right here and then we have this symbol here. And then we took the letter U.
When we put it over here, what would that sentence say?
I love you, thank you. I love you too.
That's exactly what it would say. I love you. You know, that's a wonderful message, isn't it, Boys and girls, you know God has created us to respond to love.
And I know that there's not a person in this room that doesn't respond to love.
Now, some of us were talking recently about those that have been in solitary confinement and, and the effect it has on them and how it makes them reclusive and not wanting to be around other people. You know, that's sad, isn't it? But what a story that we could spend the rest of our time this morning on love.
Well, let's look at a verse here that brings out what kind of love we're talking about. You know, I might want to just say something else about this that like I said, you know, our brother Buchanan mentioned yesterday when David was fleeing from his son Absalom and leaving that beloved city Jerusalem that he loved and leaving the ark there, it says he went weeping. And those that were with him, since they went weeping too, it says David wept.
That's not just shutting a few tiers, that's shutting a lot of tiers. And he made this comment. He said sometimes it's good to let our feelings and emotions show. And I, I thought that was was good because that is true. Sometimes we bottle things up and you know, it's a good thing to say those words that this young man did to others. I love you. You know, it's such a simple thing. Sometimes it's a little hard to say. I hope my brother won't won't mind this, but I have a brother that.
Calls me from time to time or I'll call him and almost invariably his last words of the conversation before we hang up our he'll say love you.
And if I have it on speakerphone or if my wife Carmen is listening in, she'll look over and she'll smile at me because she knows that sometimes I'm a little bit stoic and maybe I hide my my feelings a little. And it's not as easy for me as as apparently for my brother to say that.
Well, each of us how good it is to be able to say to someone I love you, that's better. Husbands, did you tell your wife this morning that if you loved her.
Well, you still have time today.
It's a good thing for us men, you know, we, we might reason and say, well, she knows that. She knows that I love her. Yes, she does. But she likes to hear it anyway, as we each do. Anyway, let's look at this verse that I have for this one and let's go to John's Gospel.
00:20:18
Chapter.
5.
Three, John's Gospel, chapter 3. We can't leave this verse out. In fact, we don't even really need to turn to it. I'm going to have one of your boys or girls stand up and say John 316 for us. All right, there's a willing girl. You want to come forward a little bit so we don't have to stretch this too far and you just go ahead. And for guys who love the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that his, however believers in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. OK. What was your name? Hannah? Thank you, Anna. Anna, how much did God love this world or how much did he love us?
Enough to give his son. It's we can't measure it, can we? We can't measure God's love. It's so he says he's so loved the world and when it says he loved the world, it doesn't mean this globe that were standing on this spear, but it means the people in the world. He so loved them that he gave his only begotten son because remember, they were sinners and God gave us sent his son to love us. Now let's look at one more verse in first John chapter 4.
And verse 10 herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
So let's just put this one up.
And this love of God.
Overwrite this one. So for right now I'm going to turn this one here because I'm I'm already tired of looking at it.
So we'll maybe look at it later at the end, but love, God's love, what a wonderful thing that is. OK, let's go to the next one here.
Now, this is a symbol that is very interesting. And I might mention too, that most of these symbols have histories. We don't have time to go into the histories of these. We'll say a little bit about this one. Who knows what this is. I'm sure you've seen it before. The Red Cross. That's right. Yeah. Well, there was a man named Henry Ducant, I think it is. He was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and he had a he was a businessman and he was traveling one time. He actually was traveling to.
Speak to Napoleon the 3rd and there was a battle that was going on when he arrived and he actually got there right after the battle.
Was finished. It was. It's a famous battle. I won't go into all the details of it, but there were close to 40,000 soldiers and this would have been in like 18.
Mid 1800s so 1830 something or maybe a little bit later than the 1850s anyway he he witnessed the aftermath of this battle and what so impressed him was that there were all these soldiers that were in various stages of dying because.
No one was tending to them. They were just left there to die. And he, he heard all this moaning and the groans and the cries of agony and pain and it so moved him that he completely forgot about doing his business and even meeting up with Napoleon. I don't know if he did or not, but he went out into the battlefield and he began to tend to those dying soldiers and he got some of the towns folks and all in this this town and they came out and helped him.
And then he went back and he wrote a book, which was published in 1862 about that experience. And that book was circulated. And it so moved the hearts of some men that were in authority that eventually there was a convention that was formed called the Geneva Convention, and a committee that was established called the International Committee of the Red Cross. And that was what prompted this symbol.
And what they wanted was a symbol that would be very vivid. Now why? Why would you if why would they want a symbol that could be seen from a long ways away? Anybody have an idea?
Where would this symbol be carried?
Why do you think?
I'll tell you why. They wanted to make sure that people could see this symbol, that that people that needed aid, that maybe were dying in the battlefield.
00:25:02
Could see this and they would know that there was help there also. It was a symbol of protection, protection for those that carried it. And part of this convention that was formed in the laws, the part of the Geneva Convention, was that it was not appropriate. In fact it was a crime.
That you would commit if you shot at anyone that bore this symbol on their arm or perhaps on their back.
Or maybe we're in a vehicle that had this symbol on. This symbol became worldwide known as a symbol of health, of care, those that were going to provide care. Interesting, isn't it? What they did was they took the colors of the the Swiss flag, which are a white cross on a red background, and they reversed them so that you wouldn't confuse it with the the Swiss flag, and it became a symbol of mercy.
And those that bore the symbol were protected under this international law from being shot at or being attacked because they were those that were providing service. And it didn't matter who they were providing service to, whether they were enemy or friend or foe, they were to be left alone. So a symbol of protection, Interesting, isn't it, that it's a cross and it's red? And I don't know for sure, but you can't help but wonder that if those that didn't devise this symbol.
And come up with this didn't have some biblical background and thought about the cross of the Lord Jesus. That's how I'd like to think about it. The cross of the Lord Jesus on which his precious blood was shed. What a wonderful story that is Well, let's look at a verse in.
In First Corinthians chapter one.
OK in First Corinthians chapter one and verse 18.
Says the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Our brother Jim mentioned how that that organization looked at all those different monuments throughout the world, but they didn't look at the cross. It didn't have value. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved. It is the power of God. And then in Colossians chapter one, we've been reading this recently and at home in our reading.
It says in verse.
20 and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.
By him I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.
OK, let's have the next one here.
Who can tell us what this is?
All right, what is that? It's a symbol.
Yeah, very good. It's a bird with a leaf in his mouth. What kind of bird do you think it might be?
Yes, you're right, it's a dove. What kind of leaf do you think it might be? Or a branch?
Exactly where did that come from? A dog with an olive branch.
The Bible. And I also know what that means. What does it mean exactly? Good. OK, where in the Bible did it come from?
Umm.
With Noah.
When the water went down, Noah sent a dove to see if there was a place that they could still get out on dry land and was there at first.
No, not at first. When he sent it the second time, what did it come back with?
An olive branch.
Very good. That's in Genesis 8. I was going to read it, but he told us, so I'm not going to read it.
He sent the dove out the second time, and it came back with an olive branch or an olive leaf, it says in its mouth. And no one knew from that that the water had flowed away from the earth abated, and that it was safe now. But he still waited, but it that it was soon going to be safe to come out.
Come out onto the land. So wonderful story and this has become a universal symbol of peace.
And uh, this olive branch in smell very biblical. It came right from the Bible, didn't it? So wonderful subject to talk about. We could talk a lot about peace, but let's look at John 14 and read a verse there about peace.
00:30:17
And.
OK and John 14 and verse 27, the words of the Lord Jesus Himself. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
You know, just think of hearing those words from the Lord himself. Peace, I leave with you. He was going to be leading his own. And they were sad at the thought of him leaving, but he assures them that he's going to give them a piece to fill their hearts. You know, there's a lot of boys and girls in this world that don't have peace.
There's a lot of men and women in this world that are troubled and they don't have peace. And that's because sin is such a, an awful thing. You know, there's a verse, I didn't quote it, but I'll quote it now, that's in James. It says lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death. And you know, I thought about that, boys and girls. And to me that is a very solemn thought that is brought before us in Scripture. It's almost like this. It's almost like sin goes out.
And it just makes havoc in the lives of boys and girls and men and women. It tears families apart. It tears marriages apart. It tears it makes people do awful things. It makes people voice other young men take guns and kill students, their fellow students and things like that. It just, it makes people rob banks. It makes people want to climb to the top of the ladder and they don't care who they step on to get there.
It's an awful thing. It's almost like sin just goes in and it does all it can and then it's it's like when it's finished, it just leaves them to die. Just like those men on the battlefield that that man saw that prompted him to write that book about having some means to help them, if that's what sin is like. But God has come in and his love and now he wants to not only save you, but he wants to fill your heart with peace, OK.
One more verse about peace in Romans 5 again. So Romans 5 and I'll read verse one.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope each boy and girl here has peace that settle peace in their hearts. OK, we're going to move around on to the last one here. This one may not be quite as familiar to you, but maybe to some of the older ones here.
Wow, I see some hands.
All right. I would be surprised, but we'll see. What do you think this might mean?
OK, I know exactly what you're talking about and why you would think that. But no, that's not what this symbol means. Now, I'll tell you a little bit. I'll give you a little bit of background real quick. When I was young, your age, I would see this in people's houses now, in their windows of their house. Like if you have a big window in your house, they would put these up in the window of the house. It would be a black piece of paper with a white hand on it. What do you think that might? Let me ask this question. It has anyone else here in the room?
Seeing this or or when they seen this in their neighborhood or OK.
Good.
Exactly. A safe home. Umm, we called it a helping hand.
And this was if, if this was displayed in your window, that mean that that meant that if someone was coming along and maybe even a child, if they were playing and they fell and skinned their knee and they needed help and they saw that house with the hand in the window, they could go up and knock on the door and and they could say I skinned my knee and those people would help them. Or perhaps someone was lost and didn't know where to find their way or had some other kind of a problem. They could go to a house like this, knock on the door and that, that this was the symbol.
That these people were displaying to say I want to help you. And you know, I thought of our Lord Jesus this morning as I was thinking about this.
And his helping hand. So let's turn to Isaiah 59.
Isaiah 59 and verse one. Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened.
00:35:04
That it cannot save neither his ear heavy. That it cannot hear. One more verse in the 119th Psalm.
Psalm 119 and verse.
173.
And that says.
Let thine hand help me, for I have chosen thy precepts.
Boys and girls, can we say that? Is that our desire? You know, if you're the Lords, and I trust each one of you know the Lord is your Savior. I hope you can say like the psalmist here, let thine hand help me, for I have chosen thy precepts. And one more verse. I said that was the last one, but one more in Hebrews chapter 13.
You know what it says in the end of verse 5?
For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. And then this wonderful verse in verse six, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. OK, so we've had these five symbols here and there's many, many more, but we, we had to limit them. I'm going to put this other one back up for a minute. And then what I'm going to do is I want to just quickly go through these again.
Giving this story of God's wonderful salvation for lost man.
And then what I would like to do is I'd like to see if there would be a boy or a girl that would be willing and have the courage to come up and in their own words, go through them like I'm doing and tell us the story one more time. So here we go. Man is a Sinner, a Sinner by practice, by nature, by practice. And the soul that sinneth it shall die. So that's our condition before God, boys and girls.
We deserve to die. We're guilty of death, but God and his great love for us sent his Son, the Lord Jesus to die on the cross. God has as if it were saying, I love you and I have a remedy for your sin and I want to save you and I want you to be my own child. And so he, how did he do that? He sent the Lord Jesus who died on the cross. His precious blood was shed. His precious blood cleanses us white as snow. We can think of the background like that.
What comes into our hearts as a result of that, we have peace with God being justified by faith that says we have peace with God. That's peace of conscience.
Our conscience doesn't condemn us like that little hymn says. Conscience now no more condemns me for his own most precious blood once for all has washed and cleansed me, cleanse me in the eyes of God. Beautiful hymn. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he wants to be our helper and he wants us to lean on him. He wants us to be able to to view him as our helper. And he's told us he will never leave us.
Nor forsake us and we can boldly say the Lord is my helper. OK, who would like to? We have a few minutes here. Who would like to come up here and step through those with us again and tell us the story?
I know there's somebody that would like to or would be willing.
I might even have a little incentive behind here for you if you're willing to do that.
Little bag with something in it for someone that's willing to do that.
Somebody do it for us. You can just say it in your own words. I want to see if you're able to understand what we're talking about this morning. Okay, All right, I'm going to give you the mic and you just step through those and maybe not too long a couple minutes. All right.
What does that remind you of the skull and crossbones?
Means either.
Danger. Death.
Or stay away, it's dangerous.
00:40:03
When the Lord comes.
This will happen.
To most people, to the people who do not know the Lord.
What does this one remind us of?
This one tells that the Lord loves us and wants us not to be, not to come to this the 1St.
Time.
This will tell you that.
This.
Is it's the Red Cross. It's.
The Lord.
We'll help you when your need is help.
Yes, he died for us on.
The bird was always, it tells.
Of peace and.
Please this.
Umm, this also is kind of like the Red Cross, but this tells you the Lord.
It can help you.
He's there and he.
If you see this sometimes.
You may remember this.
Of this symbol and it'll remind you to.
Ask for help, Luke, Luke. OK, thank you. Thank you very much, Luke. That was very nice. I'll have something for you after. OK. In the last couple of minutes, uh, what I wanted to do here, I said we're going to sing a little, umm, what I did was I went through and I thought of a, a stanza or a line, one verse of, of a hymn for each of these that we're all familiar with. So we can sing them from memory. But the first one that we're going to sing is death and judgment are behind us.
Grace and glory are before all the billows rolled over Jesus. There they spent their utmost power. So let's sing that together.
Death and judgment.
Are behind.
Glory.
OK, for God so loved the world he gave his only son to die on Calvary's tree from sin to set us free. Some days coming back, but glory, that will be wonderful.
His love to me.
Forgot.
It is always done. It is I am country tree from the same to set me free.
Someday.
Quite watering that will be.
The cross, the cross. So that's our game.
What there's a Lord was bringing the same time?
There comes to my heart a sweet strain there.
00:45:11
Great rain.
I think in the light and I can't swell again.
Oh one 34134 days.
We need to try again, but on the cloud.
Our times are in thy hand, Jesus the crucified, the hand are many sins had pierced, is now our guard and guide.
Our God.
And our land.
We'll get close in prayer. Our blessed God and our Father, we just thank thee for the wonderful message of I salvation through the Lord Jesus and his.
Shed blood at Calvary's cross.
The Cross
Address—Don Rule
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.
We'll begin this afternoon by singing the last song in the kimbap #85 and the appendix.
Made a starter.
Across the cross.
And one precipitation, one for the earth's water. On the water, on the water, on the water, on the flour. On the flour and the rainbow. The rainbow. The rain drivers are revised by the revised.
Nsnoise.
Right.
Our God, we ask as we open thy word, that thou would speak to us from it.
That each one of us may receive a benefit from thyself this afternoon.
That would affect our lives.
We desire that the Lord Jesus might be honored.
In each one of us, as we go through life, we ask our God and Father for thy blessing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Would you turn with me first, please, to John's Gospel Chapter 12?
John's Gospel chapter 12. We're going to start reading at verse 23.
And Jesus answered them, saying, the hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, then will my Father honor.
Now is my soul troubled?
And what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour.
But for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father, glorify thy name. Then came their voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said, An Angel spake to him.
00:05:06
Jesus answered and said This voice came not because of Maine, but for your sakes.
Now is the judgment of this world.
Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out?
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
This, he said, signifying what death.
He should die.
I suggest you keep your finger here. We're gonna look at two more places, and then we'll come back to this passage.
Go on to John chapter.
19.
John's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 14.
And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the 6th hour. And he saith unto the Jews.
Behold your King. But they cried out. Away with him, away with him. Crucify him.
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.
And they took Jesus and led him away.
And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.
Where they crucified him.
One more verse in Acts chapter 4.
Acts Chapter 4.
Manverse.
10.
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel.
That by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him, that this man stand here before you whole.
Before me this afternoon to.
Speak on what? Going what Sunday school we had this morning we talked about symbols to speak about crucifixion and the cross and what they mean.
The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Is the center really? We sometimes sing to him, the center of two eternities.
The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ was the most momentous day in the history of man and ever will be.
In connecting it with the resurrection 3 days later.
Simply stated here in John chapter 12 it says now.
Is the judgment of this world.
And God has divided everything on one side and the other side.
Of that day and that event.
And he declares to us that on that day he judged the world.
Absolutely and completely formed a judgment as to this world.
And the consequences of it.
And it's the desire of one's own heart that as we look at some of these things this afternoon, that we would desire more.
To identify ourselves in our lives with that day.
And the Lord Jesus in the position in which he was in that day.
00:10:05
Where we read.
When it says to us, the Lord Jesus speaking, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
The world as God sees it.
Before the cross was the world of Adams race.
And it says to us in First Corinthians chapter 15 that in Adam all die.
It then says, In Christ shall all be made alive.
On one side of the cross is Adams Rice.
On the other side of the cross.
Is that race of which Christ is the 1St?
On the one side of the cross from God's perspective.
There was absolutely no fruit.
For God, that's an amazing thing really, to think that man had lived here approximately 4000 years on this earth, and God had watched man and worked with man and interacted with man for 4000 years of history.
And had to say at the end of it.
No fruit.
Nothing that could satisfy God's view of what fruit is.
And so the Lord Jesus in due time is sent into the world.
As that good seed that is described here.
And if there's to be any fruit for God from the whole history of his creation.
It's going to come from that seed.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
But all fruit for God.
Comms as a result of death.
At the cross and it's after that death and resurrection that we have fruit for God. It's true that in the Old Testament there were people who were born again and in received a life in virtue of the anticipation of that cross and that day. But looked at in its general picture.
All fruit for God would come only as a result of the work of the cross through death.
But the character of that day, especially as it's before me this afternoon, is.
Crucifixion and even the word, the symbology to us of cross.
Lacrosse spoke of Shang.
The Cross spoke of rejection.
The cross was that place.
Where man told God what he thought about God's Son.
And he expressed what he thought of God's Son by crucifying him.
And God judged the world for it.
He condemned the world.
There was to be nothing for God from that world.
It was fruitless.
And God could have destroyed it righteously. But we know that His purposes were not that. And the Word of God gives us the wonderful.
Revelation now to us of what his purposes are.
Every one of us lives our lives in reality and in a practical sense on one side or the other, and sometimes we try to do both and leave sometimes very confused lives.
00:15:02
Because we.
Haven't accepted in practice what God says took place on that day, and we don't live according to what God has said about it, and I trust we'll see that as we go along.
But it's.
That time.
When he says concerning the work of the Lord Jesus there, that if he dies then there will be much fruit for God.
But at the same time from Adam to the cross.
Man was under.
Responsibility and testing by God.
In multiple different ways that are recorded for us in the Word of God.
Man stood responsible before God and was being tested in various ways as to whether he could.
Live honorably with God and in a proper relationship with God, whether he could be righteous and so on.
And God brought out by his ways.
That man was a failure.
He was not, would not be responsible to God.
And God for the.
Ultimate act of man in rebellion and in self will, and in enmity in his heart against God crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, and God pronounced as a result the judgment of the world.
It's important for us as we go through it to live our lives on that ground.
That we are living in a world that God has judged.
So the Lord Jesus immediately having said here and we won't talk about it too much at this point, but notice in verse 24 he said if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit and immediately applies it to your life and mine as soon as he says that if it.
Doesn't die, it abides alone, but if it dies, it bears fruit. He brings you and me into it in the very next verse. And he says he that loveth his life shall lose it.
And he hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal. If you don't judge your atom life, if I can refer to it that way, as God judges your atom life, you'll try to keep on living it, and you will not bear fruit for God in that life.
And so it's an important matter.
He says if you love that life.
That life that's on the one side of the cross, that's now judged, if you love that life, you're going to lose it.
You can't keep it.
But if you treat it as it is before God.
Then you may have that which is eternal in its character and in its life.
And so if you're going to walk properly with God, it says, if any man serve me, let him follow me. And so it's necessary if we want to have a life with God, that we follow the Lord Jesus in that place in which he has received from the world.
And what is that place?
He received crucifixion.
So the apostle Paul, as we'll see later, recognize that truth. And he said I am crucified with Christ. He took his place as a follower of the Lord Jesus. And he said I am crucified with Christ.
So here.
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It's important to.
Except.
That the world is judged.
The reason?
We read the verses in John 19 is because.
The choice that's made by the world is made on that day between two men.
Shall I crucify your king? The question is asked, and the answer We have no king but Caesar.
And with respect to the one that Pilot presented to them, he said crucify him, crucify him. We will not have this man.
Caesar.
Represents.
The top of the world.
That day and that hour, among men, the most important man, that man as man saw it in the world that day was Caesar.
He was the greatest ruler of the world. He was the supreme ruler, if you will, of the whole world at that time.
He was the top of what man might aspire to be among men.
In the exaltation of Man.
And the world says we will have no king but Caesar.
In 2012, the cry is exactly the same. We will have no king but Caesar.
We will exalt man, we will honor man if he excels among his fellows.
We will allow him to be cruel.
And corrupt.
But we will exalt him nonetheless.
Mine will be wowed.
By what the world produces.
Man will exalt those who excel among themselves.
If they can't climb above them and so on.
But the choice was to reject.
God's King, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God judged the world for it.
We follow Caesar.
Well, we follow Christ.
But if we follow Christ, we have to follow Him. If we're going to follow Him properly, we have to follow Him.
In the way of the cross.
And the way of crucifixion.
We can't have him otherwise.
As God wants us to have him.
We can't mix Caesar.
And God's King.
And please God.
I'd like to just, it's important, I believe I'd, I'd like to expand on this just a little bit. Go back with me to Genesis.
To see God's ways.
In the history of the earth, go back to Genesis chapter.
Umm 6.
Genesis chapter 6 and verse five. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him.
In his heart.
And verse 11, the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence, and God looked upon the earth and behold, it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me.
00:25:13
For the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth and then over in the end of chapter 8.
And verse 21.
And the Lord smelled a sweet savour. And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite any more new living every living. I will not I will I against fight anymore everything living as I have done. While the earth remain us see time and harvest.
And cold and heat and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
The statement in verse 13 of chapter 6 The Lord God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me.
Was really, from God's perspective, the end of expecting any fruit from man in Adam's creation. He examined all that had happened with man in the 1St 1500 years and he said the end of all flesh.
This come before me, but God's ways are wonderful to trace out in the Word of God, and still he was going to take the matter to its proper and full conclusion. And so he raised up Israel after the flesh, and gave them every privilege to make them a fruitful vine in the earth. He raised up prophets and priests and kings to help people. He established the law for man to see if a proper rule of life.
Would do anything, if you will, to teach man, but from God's actual perspective, the end of all flesh had come before him. At the time of the flood and before Noah goes into the ark, he says the imagination of man's heart is only evil. Continually and immediately after Noah comes out of the ark, he repeats the statement.
The judgment of man at the time of the flood didn't change the flesh in man, and God had seen the end of it. And so he says it's only evil continually. He just adds afterwards from his youth.
Uh, to his statement about it and so.
There are two men at this point.
In this little passage in the word of God that are called that they walked with God. I think it's something God puts there for us to to to recognize and appreciate. We're very familiar in chapter five with one of them, Enoch walked with God.
But I want to point out it also says NOAA.
Walked with God.
In the one case in Enoch's case, I believe it's referring to the heavenly people.
That is ourselves. We should be.
And we want to see, We want to desire.
Jim had a good tombstone statement.
I'd offer another one. It'd be wonderful if at the end of this life, each of us had written.
I trust not all on a tombstone because we aren't expecting all to have tombstones, but at least it could be written like it was of Enoch. He walked with God.
In Noah's case, I believe he's a picture of the earthly people and the ark is that which takes them through the judgments of the tribulation into the Millennium. But it says of Noah, Noah too walked with God, and God would have us, whether we're as we are a heavenly calling or in the case of the others, unearthly calling, that regardless it might be said of us that he walked.
With God.
Now let's go back to the.
00:30:02
New Testament.
To look at Second Corinthians chapter 5.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14 For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead.
And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth?
No, we no man after the flesh. Yeah, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Reading the new translation, old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.
And has given to us the Ministry of Reconciliation.
Well, verse 14 it says we thus judge if one died for all, then we're all dead.
That is, Jesus Christ died for all.
And that statement shows us that all were dead in their relationship to God.
He wouldn't have had to die for everybody if there were some that could say I have a living relationship with my God.
It's a statement along the line that.
Be from Adam to the cross.
Man was dead toward God.
Natural man.
God quickened. God gave life to souls, but in nature, in his in his flesh, man was in a state of death.
In Adam ALDI.
Then Christ shall all be made alive, and He's bringing that truth out.
So he says that they he died for all that they which live.
They which live, thank God. We'd like to say we all live. We're speaking God word.
Were they which live?
But the only way that there will be life with God is through the death of the cross and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who receive that life in resurrection.
Because in Adam there's no fruit, in Christ there's fruit. And so he.
Then goes on to say the practical consequence of it. These aren't just doctrines of Scripture, and they are, but they all have a practical effect if we accept the doctrine and live by it. He then immediately says that we which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.
But unto him which died for them, and rose again.
Adams Rice lives for itself.
The race of Christ lives for Christ.
It's easy for us to accept that we are sinners and that we need a Savior, and we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior with the expectation that because we have it's the right expectation, someday we'll go to be in heaven.
But God's message to us is if we're going to walk with God, we're not going to live for ourselves anymore.
We're going to live.
For Kim, who died and rose again, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 16.
Henceforth know we know, man after the flesh.
00:35:05
To know a man after the flesh is to know him in the relationship to Adam's race.
It's illustrated for us and Mary on the resurrection day. She said she wanted to touch him.
That is, she wanted to continue to have the kind of relationship with the Lord Jesus that she had had before he died.
She wanted to go back on the ground really of Adam's race, and he was teaching her. Mary, you can't know me that way anymore.
Even if you, as he says here about some of them, even if you once knew me that way, you can't continue to know me that way. The only way we can have a relationship with each other from this point on is on the other side of death.
So henceforth, no, we Him no more. After the flesh we go back and we look at the life of the Lord Jesus and we feed on it and we enjoy it as a perfect man on earth. But our relationship with Him is in resurrection and in new life.
And so.
He then says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature or a new creation.
God has started over.
In that way with a new creation.
It's interesting to me how he's doing it.
He started the first creation by creating a physical thing.
The heavens and the earth.
I don't know where angels came into the time sequence, but with respect to us, he started.
And he created the heavens and the earth.
And the last act of the creative work of God to create that creation.
Was to put life in the human soul in man, was to take that body which he had formed and and breathe into it the breath, the breath of life, and man became a living soul. That was the last act of that creation in the making of it.
Now God has started again with a new creation in Christ.
And he starts by giving life.
Imparting life into the human being.
The last act of this work, which is ongoing and we'll finish, will be the physical New Heaven and New Earth.
So he started one way and he went to the end of it. He started on the opposite side of it, if you will, and he's going to the end of it. And when the work is complete, there'll be a new heaven and a new earth.
And it's in its both exist at the present time, both the old and the new.
Interestingly enough, with Adam, I mean with NOAA, when Noah came out of the arc, he came out of the arc on the same physical Earth.
That of that first creation and God has said the end of all flesh is before me.
But then because of the ways of God, which are wonderful, God says yes, and I'm gonna do a mighty work. Noah, you don't know it, you don't understand it. But in God's way, he had a mighty work before him to do. And it was going to be the introduction of a new creation in Christ, and it was going to go on to a full end for God's glory. But he said while I do it.
I'm gonna maintain this present earth all the way to the end until I finish the hole. So he says I'll make a covenant with you, Noah. I won't destroy the Earth again. He made the covenant with the animals, it says. And it says he made the covenant with the earth itself.
In other words, he said, I'm going to do a work to bring about an end result. That's to my purposes. But I'm going to, in doing it, I'm going to keep this present Earth going until the end of that work. So there's a new creation, and it started.
00:40:12
And so we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. We're the beginning of the new creation that is in US. We're not finished yet.
We're not finished yet. We have redeemed bodies.
But the work, uh, the claim of that redemption at the cross, it says in Romans 8 that we await the redemption of our body. The work was done, but we still have to have changed bodies before we are fully part of the new, the full work of God in US and new creation.
I want to he talks in this chapter and I want to expand on it a little bit to see some of the other results of the separation that God makes between the old and the new.
He talks here about reconciliation and I'd like to go to Colossians chapter one and comment a little bit on the work of reconciliation.
Colossians chapter one and verse 19. And it pleased the Father, that in him that's in the Son should all fullness dwell, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you who were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.
Yet now hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.
To present you wholly and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.
Reconciliation to God could only be accomplished through death.
Nothing short of death.
Would reconcile man back to God.
Put it another way, there was nothing from Adam to the cross in God's ways with man and his perfect ways with man, that would bring about a reconciliation.
Between man and God.
Because.
Of the state of the human heart.
Man has enmity with God.
Because.
Man wants his own way and he does not want to be told no.
We all know it's true. I may have used the illustration in this room before, but I know of no better. If I put a yellow line on the floor here and I say to you, don't cross the yellow line, you want to cross it.
Because.
Man doesn't want to have any authority over him that restrains him.
And because God in the Garden of Eden put one rule before man and restrained him by it to maintain the relationship of Creator and creature, a master and the one who was under authority, the moment man sinned, there was in him an an enmity, an ill will toward one who restrained him, and it's never changed.
It didn't change for the 4000 years of history. Man fundamentally doesn't want to be told no. And if someone says no?
And has authority to force it. There can be ill will in the heart toward them.
And that's got included.
That's why there's not peace.
There's not peace between man and God, because in man's soul there's enmity.
Toward God. We will not have this man. We will not have God's king. We will not have God's authority. We will not get rid of them, crucify them.
00:45:10
Let us have a man of our own kind, one who will exalt himself after his own will.
And the consequences? Disastrous.
But through death, God in new creation and the work of the cross established a basis of peace. That man can be righteous with God in peace and happy about it and thankful for it. But it includes a change in the human heart. He has to have new life for it to be so.
So we've preached the message of reconciliation. Be reconciled to God.
And if man is reconciled to God, he enters into a relationship of peace with God. But it's in receiving Jesus Christ, and in receiving the life which delights to please God.
And then the pieces, I mean, the war is over. Let's go over to Galatians chapter one.
I'd just like to notice two things to start Galatians chapter one and verse one.
Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
And go to the last chapter.
The last chapter.
And then verse 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature or a new creation.
Just want to point out that Galatians book begins with resurrection and the last part of it brings before us new creation.
What's brought out to us in Galatians is that which has to do with the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ and the new position into which it brings us.
But I just wanna say the foundation of it is the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, because everything that's going to bring fruit for God is on the other side of the cross in life. Having said that, let's go over to chapter 2.
And verse 20, Galatians 2 and 20. Thus the apostle Paul, and I hope it's your heart and mind. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I recognize my.
Rejection by the world.
I should have noticed it. I didn't. In chapter one, in about verse three or four, it says that he might deliver us from this present evil world.
If the truth of Galatians 2 and 20, and the truth that's brought out later, is not active in our souls, we will not be, practically speaking, delivered from the present evil world.
It will more or less spoil our lives from being fruitful for God.
But he says here I'm crucified with Christ.
There was in Romans, it's dead with Christ, but here it takes it, I think in a sense a step farther because it brings out that enmity of the human heart in crucifixion and the needs be of us of identifying ourselves with the crucified Christ.
And that there is not going to be anything, uh, for God in our lives unless we accept that.
00:50:02
And identify with it and say I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, Christ liveth. That's the Christ who rose from the dead liveth in me and the life which I now live. I lived a life on Adam's side of things. I now live a life on Christ's side of things.
The life which I now live, I wasn't born with that life. That's the life I now live. That's the life I have in Christ.
On the other side of the cross, the life which I now live, I live by faith.
I don't have everything yet that's connected with that life.
I don't. The world lives by sight. Adam's world lives by sight. Show me and I'll believe.
But the other side at the present, the state of things on the other side of the cross, is we live by faith. We embrace faith as a way of life, not only for salvation, but as the way we live. I live by faith.
And what faith is that? The faith which has the Son of God as its object and is constrained by the love of that object. And so I live the life which has Jesus Christ as its object, and that object constrains my heart. It's the one that loved me and gave himself for me.
Go over to Chapter 5.
Chapter 5, Verse 19 The works of the flesh are manifest. Which are these?
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations.
Wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying murders, drunkenness, revelings, and suchlike.
That's the world living its life in Adam's race.
It says in Romans chapter 8 concerning that condition of life, which is the life in which there's no fruit for God.
It says they that are in flesh.
Cannot please God.
Now there was statement if you're living only have the atom life, you're only belong in this world in that condition. Romans 8 tells us you're in flesh and they that are in flesh cannot please God. There's nothing of fruit for God in that life. The soul that's in that condition cannot please God.
You know, in a practical sense coming down here.
I don't know, but I passed with my wife through dozens of small towns.
Somewhat meandering down here through Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee.
Kentucky.
Then passed through multiple small towns and I often thought as I pass through those towns.
Is there fruit for God in this town or is this a town of people that are living?
Dying. I saw the cemeteries, I saw the hospitals to help them through life.
Thankfully, and I thank God, I saw churches and I trust the light of God and the truth of God in its measure was being presented to the people there and thank God for it.
But I looked at him and I saw these villagers or these towns.
In my mind, the world over.
Like man lives, he dies, another generation comes, it lives, it dies. And I thought of them as their fruit for God there.
Is there gonna be something for God that's gonna last from the cycles of life in those towns? Hope so. I believe so. You know, I enjoyed this. The other day we were going through Acts and we saw the data Pentecost and there were 3000 people saved that day.
That's wonderful. And we stop and we say, oh, I wish we could see 3000, people say.
Look at it this way.
I would be surprised, and so would you, if on this earth during this past 24 hours there have not been many, many more than 3000 people enter the Kingdom of God.
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Today, as far as adding to the Kingdom of God, it would not surprise any of us. I don't think at all if in the scope of where God is working in the Kingdom today, that there's way more fruit today than there was on the day of Pentecost over this period of 24 hours, God is working.
God's not limited by man's weakness and failure. He's producing fruit for himself and someday He will manifest it, someday soon we believe. But the point in here in chapter 5 is to get to verse 22. The fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy, peace, long-suffering, so on.
God brought you into new creation.
I forgot to point it out but in Second Corinthians chapter 5 it says.
All things are new.
And all things are of God. Two things there. In new creation, everything is new. God isn't using the old.
He isn't mixing the old and the new. He says all things are new, and secondly all things are of God.
When the new creation work is finished and it's an ongoing work of God, but when he finishes the the work.
Everything will be new and everything will be of God.
A perfect display of God's glory. In the first creation it was man and responsibility, and there's no fruit from it. In the second creation, it's all the work of God and it's all results in a perfect fruit.
And so in each one of us in this room, God is working to produce fruit for himself.
That new life.
God works in it to put in it his own love.
And they're fruit. We're the recipients of the love of God in US.
And she's the source of it, and he puts it in US.
Let us not hinder the inflow of it into our souls.
Joy.
We know what joy is in these things, peace before there was enmity. But when God saves the soul and reconciles it to Himself, he brings it into a relationship with himself that it is peace.
As it says in Romans 5, we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's a fruit that God is producing, and that fruit in the soul wasn't there before.
And it will be there for eternity now.
Blessed be God in the work He's doing. Let's go over to one last verse or times gone.
Chapter 6.
And, umm.
Verse 14 But 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.
One last appeal to my soul and yours, brethren.
It's an evil world.
Be content.
To be crucified to it.
Take your side with the Lord Jesus.
In your motives.
In your attitude of life, in your what interests you?
It's Satan's world.
He's the controller of it. He controls its entertainment. He controls its attitude. He controls the motives of men through it.
It's an evil world.
And Paul said, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me. That is Paul said, it's a crucified world, I'm crucified to it. And if you truly take your place that way and the motivations of your heart and the character of your life is according to that, then the world will say the second-half of the verse to you.
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Go follow your man.
We don't wanna have anything to do with you.
An eye to the world that is. The world will say if you want to follow him, go ahead, but we don't want you either.
Let's pray.
Our God, our Father, we just ask that we each one might.
With purpose of heart accept.
Our relationship to the cross.
And recognize.
Romans 8:17-24
Reading
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God from joint heirs with Christ, If so be that we suffer within that we may be also glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in US, for the earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Where the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in cold.
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the ******* of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth and pain together until now, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit. Even we ourselves grow within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does he hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patients wait for it.
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
And he that searches the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that we might be the first born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things?
If God before us, who can be against us, he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justified. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yeah, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.
Who also make it intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As is it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We had the last reading meeting. We have become children of God.
Part of God's family now.
And in becoming part of God's family, we have received the life and nature of that family.
Peter calls it the divine nature.
And having received the divine nature, the life of the family, it enables us, it gives us the capacity to feel.
Things as God sees them and feels them, so our Jesus who passed through this world as a perfect man, suffered.
He didn't have sin in himself, but he did suffer because.
Law in the person of the Lord Jesus with the nature that he had.
Felt the results of sin and man, another brother said. In many conferences like this for many years.
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He used to say something like this, he said. It is not the difficulty of the way.
But the compassions of his heart that made the Lord Jesus a man of sorrows.
An acquaintance with three. And this 1St 17 is it's if we suffer with him, this isn't suffering for him, this isn't suffering illness in the body and tribulations of that character, but in this first of different types of sufferings. This first one is suffering with him, that is having the same life and nature. We now have a greater capacity.
To feel what sin has brought upon mankind and to suffer in our lives as a consequence of it, in compassion and love for mankind.
The Lord Jesus daily experienced what it was to interact with people.
Who had in their in their bodies and in their lives that which was the consequence of sin. And he felt it.
It grieved his heart. It was a pain to him. And so as long as sin exists in the world, and it will exist through our lifetimes, we are going to be children of God. We are going to suffer, and we're going to suffer in that same character that he suffered. And so it calls it here, suffering with him.
I'll ask a question down in that regards that is suffering with him, but would it would that not also include the results of sin are all around us, including old age and and sickness and all of those things?
Wouldn't it include how the Lord felt when he?
Witnessed all those things and went through them. Yes, soon apart in his case.
But it's it was the compassion of his heart for everything that he experienced in his relationships with others that had been caused by the effect of sin, like old age. And so you see this.
So you see it in John 11, don't you, when the Lord Jesus comes to the grave of Lazarus?
There were really two reasons why he groaned and wept at the grave of Lazarus. One was sympathy for those sisters. He understood what they were passing through, how they loved their brother. They were sorrowful in connection with the death of their brother. But he also groaned and speared and was troubled as he felt the effects that sin had brought in. And it's really what you have in Isaiah 53, isn't it? When it says he.
Well, let me just, let me just read it. It's quoted in Matthew, but let me just read it in Isaiah.
Because sometimes this verse I'm going to read is applied to the cross, but it isn't it.
Is not the. Its application is not at the cross.
Verse 4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem and stricken, smitten of God and afflicted when it says He had borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. In Matthew chapter 8, I believe it's verse 17. You can look it up.
That verse is quoted there in connection with the Lord Jesus feeling the effects of sin that had come into the world as he went about and viewed it, as he touched those that were sick and healed them and so on. He felt it very keenly. And so at the grave of Lazarus you see those two things. And what I want to say in connection with what Dawn has brought out is that the Lord Jesus after 30 some years of life in this world.
Never became callous or indifferent to sin and its effects. He he was sent apart. He was wholly harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. He was the Holy One. And when he stood at the grave of Lazarus, he felt the effects of sin as keenly as he did at the beginning of his public ministry, and he never got used to sin and its effects. I say that because if we're not careful.
We can become callous and even indifferent.
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In and its effects we might go through a trial, it might be a long trial and afterwards we kind of build up a crust and we get a little bit callous to it. We lose several loved ones perhaps, and we the effect of sin and death kind of wears off a little bit. We're not as sensitive as or as keen to what we're passing through and so we need to be careful in that we need to keep close to the Lord, we need to walk in personal sanctification and holiness.
So that we don't get used to sin and its effects. But isn't it wonderful, brethren, to realize that even though that may happen with us, and it does, I I think to some degree we all have to admit that it does happen, especially as we get older and we experience more of these things. But aren't we thankful that there's still one now who, though he walked this world and is not in this world now? Yet as a man he feels with us the sufferings of this present time?
We sing a hymn that I believe sums it up so beautifully, he in the days of feeble flesh.
Poured out his cries and tears, and though ascended feels afresh what every member bears. And as we go on and we speak a little bit about the trials and difficulties of this present time, maybe there's someone here and you say, well, there's nobody understands me, just nobody I can go to in the difficulties and trials that really understands. But there is one who does, the one who went through it himself as the perfect sinless man.
And felt it with those sisters and so many others. Is the one that goes through it with us and not only sympathizes, but empathizes with us because he's touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
In the context of this portion, it speaks quite a bit about groaning in the verses that follow, and I think that's what Ronnie is, isn't it? Is.
The recognition that things are not the way God meant them to be in this world, and so the Lord Jesus himself groaned.
He realized how far things had come from when He created them, and he is the Creator.
Saw how far it had degenerated, and he felt it deeply.
And we do. As we look around in the world today, brethren, we need to be sensitive. We need to groan.
Sometimes thinking groaning is not complaining. Complaining is something that we shouldn't do.
Complaining says I'm not in agreement with this. I don't know, I don't appreciate it. But thrown in is simply the recognition that things are not the way that God meant them to be. So that is what it means, like has been brought out that we suffer with him.
Look over at Syria now and how women and children are being slaughtered.
As well as soldiers, you feel that?
Can we isolate ourselves from those things that are happening, children that are starving to death? Is this the way God meant it to be in this world?
How awful this world is, and we need to know what it means to groan.
Well, you see it too, don't you, with the children of Israel. You know, it's interesting that when they groaned, God heard their groanings and he came down to deliver them.
It showed that it wasn't wrong to groan under the ******* of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. But later on, when they murmured and complained, he came in in his governmental ways. He heard their groanings and there was blessing. But when they murmured and complained, as you say, that was not what they should have done. And when they murmured and complained, they were really questioning God's wisdom and God's care for the providential care in their lives.
But in this chapter, Brethren, we need to see that we have two things. We have a contrast, two things. It's really our present state, contrasted with what is ahead, with what, with the glory. And that's why in the verse we began with, he speaks of suffering, but then he speaks of the glory. We shall also be glorified together. And Brethren, what is it that's going to keep us from murmuring and complaining?
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Or not. We may groan, and that, Bob said, That's right, and the Lord groaned in spirit and was trouble. But what's going to keep us from murmuring and complaining? It's to keep in view what's ahead. If we lose sight of the end, if we lose sight of the glory and all that is before us, we are going to murmur and complain. And that again, was the problem with Israel, when they lost sight of what was before them.
And the end of the story, when they only saw their present circumstances, or they looked back to Egypt from whence they had come, they murmured and complained. And that is why in the 16th of Exodus, very shortly after they were in the wilderness and they were murmuring and complaining, and Moses cried to the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, tell them to turn around, they're looking in the wrong direction. And when they looked out over the wilderness, what did they see? They saw the glory of the Lord revealed in the cloud.
And as long as they kept that before them.
Though they felt their circumstances, it kept them from murmuring and complaining. But when they lost sight of the glory of the Lord in the cloud and what was ahead, and when they turned from 1 to one side or the other, or looked back, then the difficulties came in. They got under the present circumstances. And so that's what we're going to find in these verses that follow. He speaks about hope and the glory that's ahead and what's going to be revealed.
And he contrasts the sufferings of this present time with the glory that's going to be revealed in US brother.
Not that we want to underestimate the circumstances. You know, there's brethren right here in these seats are passing through real circumstances and we don't want to belittle them. We don't want to talk like they're nothing, but we need to put them next to what is ahead. We need to contrast or compare them with the glory, and that's what's going to make the difference.
When they first got into the wilderness, one of the first experiences the Lord passed them through was they came to the waters of Mara that were bitter.
And they couldn't drink them because of the bitterness. And God told Moses to cast the tree into the waters. And the waters were made sweet, which we believe is the picture of the cross of Christ, the death and resurrection of the Lord. Jesus is what gives us an escape from these things. And I hope before us of resurrection a new life. And so it's picture there.
But I want to. I want to look at our our chapter here in a in a broadview.
In seeing what God is doing in that when God made this world and allowed sin to come in or Satan brought sin and man brought sin into the world.
It looked like all was ruined, but God never makes something and allows it to go on incomplete.
Would not be God if he were. So God always finishes what he does and he's going to finish the work.
When both creations really.
But his plan to in order to undo sin and to give deliverance, was to send his Son, the Lord Jesus into this world, to identify with us in going through the world of sorrow and sin and feeling it all.
What was his purpose? To bring in deliverance. God took this upon himself to do it when no one else could do it.
But when God chose to send the Lord Jesus into the world and to bring in deliverance by going into death and rising again, and then his choice, brethren, was to associate a people with him in that coheirs, joint heirs, This is our privilege.
To be called to this, to be associated with him.
When he reigns, when he puts it all into into its proper place.
Now let me ask a question. Would it be right for us to sit there with him and be associated with him?
Without having experienced any part of what it cost him.
To redeem us.
No, it would not have been.
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If we suffer with him, we shall reign, so he gives us the privilege then in that sense.
Of passing through the life here and feeling those things, He gives us an ability to feel it like he felt it.
To go through these things.
If, brethren, we can see our life now in this view.
What we're being assault, who were being associated with where It's all going to end up how the Lord, when he gives, brings in the deliverance of the creation.
He's he has chosen to identify a special people with him in that hour.
We are a part of that people and so when we see this whole picture.
It it gives us this hope, It talks about hope that is not seen. We don't have a hope that we don't see by faith. We see where this is all going.
Know the creation is going to be delivered from all of this other people and believers in this world. They look out on it and all they have is a blight.
Fatalistic.
View of how the world must be going to come to an end in a catastrophe or whatever, they don't know, but not so for us.
I'd like to go back to connect this chapter to verses that we're familiar with earlier in Romans.
Chapter 3.
And verse 23.
All of sins and come short.
Of the Glory of God, Chapter 5.
Verse.
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope.
Of the glory of God.
And then back our chapter again.
Verse 18.
Verse 17. We may also be glorified together.
And then verse 18, The glory which shall be revealed.
God looked upon man, and he came sharp.
Well, the only standard that God could have, which is consistency with his own perfection and glory.
And man came short of it. And so in the Romans, and in the beginning of it he shows us what he did in Christ to bring us into a relationship that took care of sin.
And removed it from his site.
Justified us before him and declared us righteous. And then he said, Now you can have the hope.
You can rejoice in the hope of that which is still ahead of you which is entering into that glory of God.
That I purpose for you. And in our chapter we learn a little bit more about how we get there because it's still future for us.
But the day is coming. Today is really the day of God's grace.
He's working toward the day of his glory.
And right now we're in the liver time of the liberty of His grace, but we're going toward the day when they'll be in the liberty of His glory, and in that time when His glory is in display.
We will be perfect.
In spirit and soul.
And body we will be totally consistent in our chapter. In Chapter 8 we learn about the redemption of our body, which is something that's necessary in order to bring us into that which we hope for, which is to be in the glory of God.
John, who takes it up in his own way in his first epistle. It says any man that hath this hope in him.
Purifieth himself as he is pure, that is, he recognizes he's not in that condition.
That is consistent perfectly with the glory of God.
But he's on his way toward it.
And he is lives. His life is it where he purifies himself even as he is pure. But when we enter into the fullness of the glory of God, we will be pure. We will be like Him, perfectly like him. As it says there, we shall see him as he is. And that's what this chapter is bringing before us. Is that future glory.
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But it's saying you're not there yet that hasn't yet been realized.
But we did come short of it. Now we live in the hope of it, and it's coming ahead of us. As Jim puts it commented already earlier that we need to have that vision, if you will, of the end result of this work that's going on by God, when we shall be perfectly and completely fully measure up to the glory of God.
When it says here that we may suffer with them.
That also means that we should suffer with.
Them that are his own with our brothers and sisters when they are in big trouble.
We know the Lord Jesus could never get sick or have some kind of a cancer or anything like that, but he could suffer.
When they?
Those that had leprosy at that time, sometimes ten of them, sometimes two of them.
When they came to him and said, Lord, have mercy upon him, upon us.
Well, He could suffer with them. When He healed them, He knew what they were feeling when.
Their members were just wasting away and falling off their body, a terrible thickness.
He could suffer with him in their sicknesses, which were so terrible.
And he couldn't do any anything but immediately heal them. That's what was in his heart.
Well, we should have a heart like that too, because it says that we may be also glorified together. We talk sometimes a lot. How wonderful it's going to be in heaven to be with him.
And to have this wonderful place.
Good, we have promised it, but in order to have that same compassion that he had.
Did we suffer like he did? Was a creation with our surroundings? Sometimes I hear people say well, like the Syrians.
The Muslims, they say.
God had no son. Got nothing to do with that. Because you, We hate you.
But how do we feel about that?
I was thinking of the condition of the Israelites after the churches.
When Samuel was just in the process of growing up.
And there they were. They had wanted a king.
And now?
They were surrounded by the Philistines they were going to be.
Threatened to be destroyed and they had no weapons.
What did the Lord do to them then?
He made him feel their weakness when they when they thought they could bring the the ark of the covenants out and they made a great big.
Now is that now they were going to be.
Saved by the Ark, and they weren't. The Ark was taken.
And their failure seems so good, man put them in the in the temple of Dagger.
What did God do then? But he showed them that he knew what idolatry was. They can fell down right on his face. His head was cut off the second time, his hands.
It's he told him that idolatry means nothing, but they're just making the ark an instrument.
Of.
Helping them without being exercised.
Didn't work at all either, and later on he they would find out that the art arc had come, Had to come back.
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Yeah, I couldn't stay with the philistine, although. So it is today.
Mars lamps. They can't be saved unless they come to the Lord Jesus, but we have to have compassion with them to get to that point.
When we speak about the glory and so on, what is ahead?
It's helpful to see that there's not just going to be glory revealed to us. It is true we're going to view a vast scene of glory in a coming day. But brethren, we're not only going to view it, but we're going to be part of it in the sense that, as Don mentioned, we're going to have bodies of glory like unto his body of glory.
We're going to have glorified bodies in that day, and not only that, but when heaven opens up to reveal the Lord Jesus coming back in power and glory, it says in Thessalonians. He's coming to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that are about him in that day. That's more than just glory being shown to us or revealed to us. We're going to be part of it and when the world looks up in the coming day.
And they see Christ in the heavenly company. It won't matter where they look or who they look to. Every St. of God in that day is going to perfectly reflect the glories of Christ. Now this is what He's presenting to us, brethren, to encourage us to give us that vision, to go on with the sufferings of this little time, that which is referred to in the end of 2nd Corinthians 4 as our light affliction, which is but for a moment.
And again, in that chapter, he's making the contrast of the glory that that is ahead. And so if we can get ahold of that, we think of what's going to be revealed to us. But, brethren, it's more than that. And to think that we're going to be part of that glory that's going to be displayed in a coming day that ought to, that will encourage us and give us the strength to go on like to just say this too as we go down these verses.
Remember, brethren, that just because we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't mean we're immune to all the things that affect a world that is under the curse of sin. I say that because I know that there are those in some Christian circles who teach and have taught that if a person reaches a certain level of spirituality or holiness or whatever it may be.
That we now become immune to pain and suffering, and the things that affect a world of sin. But when man sinned in the Garden of Eden, not only did man come under the curse of sin, but as we have in this chapter, every level of creation came under the effects of the curse of sin. Everything from the leaves on the trees to the animal life. The whole creation, as he says here, groaneth and travaileth in pain.
The redemption hasn't been fulfilled yet. It's been secured by the work of Calvary, but it hasn't taken place. There will be the redemption to whip the purchased possession in a coming day when the world when the creation is set free. But brethren, let's realize that we are still in a world of sin and sorrow, and there's no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. I'm not immune to what my next door neighbor goes through.
You're not immune to what your fellow student who sits at the next.
Desk goes through even though you're a believer and he or she is not. But the difference is we have one who, as we've been saying, who is faithful with us, one who sympathizes, one who empathizes, one who cares for us, and one who gives us a vision of the coming glory to sustain us. Your ungodly neighbor goes through a trial, and they become depressed. They get overwhelmed.
People take their lives because they just can't deal with the present circumstances. They don't have the resource and the future that we have, and that's the difference with us. He passes us through these things, allows these things in our lives to focus our vision on what's ahead and to cause us, to avail ourselves of the present resource that we have in himself, and to prove that God is faithful.
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Sense of word? Race.
We call this the day of grace. We rejoice in the verse. By grace are you saved through faith?
And we can see the working of the grace of God in Romans to deliver us presently from the domination of sin.
And its power over us by the indwelling of the Spirit of God, even to us in grace.
But grace doesn't always have the sense of removing us from something painful.
The Apostle Paul shows us the other side of it, and other scriptures do as well, but I'll just use that one. He had a thorn in the flesh. It was painful to him. It was a trial in his life.
And three times he prayed that it might be removed from him.
Was the grace of God not active at that point?
In the need of that man, in the desire of that man, in the prayer of that man.
Lord gives him an answer. He says my grace is sufficient for thee.
My strength is made good the weakness.
That is.
The present activity of the grace of God is frequently.
To sustain us in the trial, not always to deliver us from it.
And that's very important for us to recognize as it was in the life of the Apostle Paul. He accepted it.
He accepted that for the rest of his life he was going to have the thorn in his flesh. He also rejoiced that the grace of God was going to sustain him the rest of his life.
In that and enable him to go on in that less than perfect condition of life. It wasn't the state of glory that he was looking onto, and in fact it was the very outcome of having seen that glorious none of us have. He was taken into the third heavens, and it was such a fantastic experience to his life, and the one else that ever experienced it before since that when He was brought back into the present condition of things.
He received that thorn of the flesh. He had a wonderful experience by Rice. But then he needed the grace of God to keep him in his soul from that point on to the end of his life. And so, brethren, it's good to accept the grace of God in our lives as that which enables to sustain us in the trials of life and in the anticipation of the full deliverance.
Not only accept the grace, but they accept the trial from the Lord, isn't it? I think that's important is sometimes we tend to tend to rebel against the circumstances of life, but it's accepting them from the hand of the Lord. And so that Paul could say I rejoice in my.
Afflictions so that because in that way the power of Christ rests upon me when I am weak.
Then am I strong and so experienced strength that was not human. It was strength from God that worked through the tribulation.
In this chapter here in verse 17, it deals with the question of errors, and necessarily that means we're talking about an inheritance. It's a very interesting theme in scripture to to meditate on what our inheritance is. I think perhaps one of the largest views of the inheritance is in Ephesians 1.
Where it speaks about every created thing in heaven and in earth.
That's our inheritance. But the inheritance today is marred with sin. What is called here the ******* of corruption?
Been mentioned how that when man, the head of the creation, fell into sin the whole creation.
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Suffered as a result.
But the Lord Jesus is going to receive the inheritance. He hasn't received it in fact yet.
In Psalm 2, prophetically he says he's told the Lord Jesus is told ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And so there's going to be an inheritance and we are united to him.
Position. So we are called joint heirs with Christ. But brethren that inheritance when he gets it, is not going to be marred with sin. It's not going to be under the ******* of corruption. And that's what we have in these verses. Verse 21 Says the creature itself also shall be delivered from the ******* of corruption.
Into and he could read it The Liberty of the glory.
Of the children of God. I don't think we have too much of A idea of the glory of the future day when Christ will reign supreme. And this creation that we live in today that is so marred, so struggling under the ******* of corruption, will be liberated. It's beautiful to go through the book of Isaiah and to read the different expressions.
Of joy that will reverberate in the earth in that coming day when the ******* of corruption is lifted off of this creation. The animal creation is going to be different. The lion is going to eat straw like the ox. The animals that today are ferocious are not going to be that way in that coming day.
Oh, and I day is just ahead.
You know, it's so tremendously different than what we know in the world today. And this world has known since the fall of man that it seems like it's almost fantasy when we read about it. But, brethren, it's going to take place.
In reality.
This creation is going to be liberated from the ******* of corruption. What a glorious day. I enjoy that little expression in Isaiah 55 where it says the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Trees clap their hands.
You can just imagine the trees moving with the breeze and.
The joy that will reverberate through the whole creation will be such that it seems like though even the.
Plant creation is rejoicing in the.
Liberation from the ******* of corruption that will take place in that day.
Oh, brother, and what a day of glory is at hand.
Sometimes when we speak of redemption, we limit it to ourselves, don't we? But redemption has a far, far more broader thought than just our being redeemed. And I think that's it's beautiful to see. And we don't really understand what the coming glory is, the vastness of the coming glory. The extent of the coming glory is if we just limit redemption to ourselves. Before I turn to a verse in Hebrews.
Just say this too, that we sometimes limit the thought of redemption by saying this redemption is to buy back, but that's only part of it. Redemption is to buy back, but it's more than to buy back, It's to buy back, to set free. You and I are redeemed. We've been bought back, but we've been more than bought back. We've been purchased. That's true. That's what purchase is. It's to buy. But we have been bought back or purchased to be set free.
I just want to read a couple of verses in Hebrews in connection with the broader thought of redemption. First of all, in Hebrews chapter one and these verses I'm going to read will notice a little difference in the in the Darby translation from the King James because in the in the King James translation it limits it to the thought of our redemption. But if we'll notice Mr. Darby's translation, there is really a broader thought than that.
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Just to get the connection in Hebrews one, I'll read verse two happen these last days, spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things. Brother Bob's been Speaking of that. Notice this by whom also he made the world's. So the context here is in connection with the Lord Jesus as Creator. But now notice what it says in verse three, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person.
And upholding all things by the word of His power. Now he's not just the Creator, he's the sustainer of the universe as we get in Colossians by him. All things not merely consist but subsist work under his headship and direction. But now this is what I want to notice when He had by himself. I'm going to read this in Mr. Darby's translation. Made the purification for sin sat himself down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
I believe the thought here is more than just the fact that he's purged our sins. That's true.
He has, and we can read this the way it appears in the King James and we can enjoy it. As for how it appears, it's very true. He's purged our sins. But brethren, he's done more than that. As creator, he's made the purification for sin and redemption. At Calvary's cross, he's going to take creation back and set it free in a coming day on the basis of redemption. He's made the purification for sin. Now just go over to the second chapter.
Again, a very familiar verse, verse 9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death. It's a broader thought than just for every man, but the thought here is for everything. And so in Hebrews chapters 2, one and two, it's more than just our being brought into the blessing and good.
Of Deliverance and redemption. Later on we get that in the in more specific.
In the 10th chapter, by one offering it perfected forever them that are sanctified and and so on. But in these two chapters it's a broader thought and I thought of it in connection with what Bob said and we need to look at the full scope of that glory that's ahead. He's going to be glorified. He's going to be vindicated on this planet that spit in his face and cast him out. He's going to bring it all into a position of blessing where the the effects of the curse.
Are not felt like they are now in the Millennium.
And then in the eternal state, all taint of sin will be removed, all evil done away, and we shall dwell with God's beloved through God's eternal day. That really won't happen until the Millennium, and it will be finally the fulfillment of what John the Baptist said when he saw the Lord Jesus walking in this world. He said, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He's taken away our sin.
But he has not taken away the sin of the world yet, but he will in a future day.
Like to make a little plea on behalf of animals?
When God created us.
And I need he gave us a collective responsibility for him in his order of creation, he said. I'm giving you dominion.
Fish over the beast field.
All the suffering you see today in the animal creation is a direct result of our failure.
And we read here in these verses that the Lord isn't going to leave what we have failed in dominion that way.
He is going to restore to them that which was their place in the beginning.
As Doug said, he doesn't leave jobs unfinished.
And so I see that, brethren, because we ought to have, and the Lord get compassion on the animal as well.
Yes, it's true that after Adam, I mean Noah came out of the ark.
God gave to man the animal for food, as he had not previously done.
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And the consequence of that for the animal was to fear man, as he had not previously done.
It's also true that because of our failure and the consequences of sin and the creation, the animal creation has been equally affected by it, and some of God's creatures have become pests.
And those tests have to be controlled.
And so they are in the measure in which man is able to do it. I say all this, though, that we not treat them callously, that we recognize that their pain and suffering is a direct result of our own failure, and that we look forward with compassion to the day of let's describe your Romans 8, when the Lord will undo the effects in large measure, the effect of what we have done.
To the animal creation which now.
Wrongs and suffers and looks forward to, Perhaps not intelligently so, but in its effect they look forward to the Day of Glory.
To end the war, orders everything according to his own honor, his own majesty, and the animals again are brought into harmony with the creation. This might bring out the thought here that the animals here in verse of the Creek the creature.
In verse 19.
They were awaiting something specific.
It says for the earnest expectation, expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Well, I I take that to be us in new creation. Man in new creation is going to be manifest to the world as God intended for man to be.
And that will not be in its in its failure, as it was manifest the first time, the result of man being manifested the first time he fell into sin. And the effect was that it it it brought the creature under a curse.
Well, now the animals are looking for man to appear the second time.
For man to be manifest.
In what? God is going to place us in a new creation. And so I like the idea that the Spirit of God ties.
The the manifest state that that what the animals are looking for is the manifestation of the sons of God.
We failed them in the beginning.
First creation. Now they're looking for what God is going to restore.
Us in our relationship with him, as sons of God, and in that relationship.
We're we're not going to fail with the creature again.
David Oregon, your he has come to the point where in the Revelation he's no different from the Beast and he's called the Beast. That's the end final end of the fullness of the iniquity of man. And without further comment we see a lot of it in the United States today and that is tending toward that manner of life and behavior that is makes him of the character of what blog calls in Revelation at least.
Man being an honor and understand it's not like the beast perish.
I think. Can't think of a happier beast than that little donkey that took the Lord into Jerusalem.
Day before yesterday I was out in the field driving tractor, which I hadn't done for quite a while and felt like home and as I was driving.
I noticed a hawk out in the field, soaring above, waiting for the next rabbit to jump out. Sure enough.
I saw a little rabbit running down the road, around the road beside me. I thought. Oh dear.
I know what's going to happen to this rabbit.
And sure enough, as the rabbit got close to the end of the row, the hawk saw.
And the hawk guarding.
But that wasn't the first time I saw that happen. Few years ago I saw that same thing happened, and this time the rabbit ran to a man's house.
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And he found cover where he knew a man would be to protect him. There are many stories of animals that run to to the human. I believe God has input that an instinct in them that would look to man.
As the deliverer for them.
But rather, there's an effort being made today to protect the animal Kingdom that's not of God, that is seeking to do it without the Lord Jesus Christ. We who are Christians know there's only one man that's able to put this world back together and deliver the animal Kingdom from the ******* of corruption, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's told us how and when he's going to do it, and then he's going to.
His people with him at that time when he does it, so we know the God's plan how it's to be done. But there's a there's a humanistic way of approaching the suffering of the animal and trying to elevate animals and to care for them. As if we humans were still in control and able to get this job done if we all band together and so on.
I do not believe that kind of effort is God's way. It's a denial of the Lord Jesus at who has is the only one that has proven he's able to do it and so.
I'm a full agreement about making a plea for animals, but I warn us too that not to be caught up in the humanistic way of approaching this problem.
I'd like to comment on that.
Man was degenerated himself to the point where he acts like a beast.
And as part of the process on the other side, he wants to elevate the animal.
To treat it like himself.
And both directions are wrong.
The animal or the creature is the creature and will remain the creature and he is not to be elevated.
In the extreme sense of what sometimes you see in the things dog refers to, where man wants to elevate the animal so that he has a status like you're an animal, I am.
And he's really denying his twice in the way that he elevates the character of the animal, and it's wrong.
It's not a God, and it never will be. When God restores the animal to their place, it's to their place. They will never be brought into a place.
Equality of treatment equal to now. You get that in Romans, don't you? Earlier enrollments because it says they changed the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.
And that's what's happening today. As man gives up the light of God's word. They really go back to heathendom, go back to that which has characterized man for from from the beginning of man's history of of sin, and you find today that they're more concerned about saving whales than they are about saving babies and that kind of thing, but they worship and serve the creature more than the creator. When I was growing up in a suburb Of Montreal.
Out on a hillside nearby, there was a large pet cemetery with actual headstones. Some very nice ones too, where people could spend literally thousands of dollars and lay their pets to rest and all that. That kind of thing. So on the one hand, as we've been saying, it tells us in Proverbs, the righteous man regarded the life of his beast, and it's a poor testimony not to take care of what God has entrusted to us in creation, even if it's the animal Kingdom.
But on the other hand, we want to be careful that we don't get caught up in that movement. That would worship the creature more than the creator. All right, a farmer tell me once his cows knew the day he got converted.
President, on these efforts.
Man is getting to a dead end.
Because when you go to a zoo, just about every zoo.
01:00:00
You will see tablets telling you that such and such already extinct and they are going to.
Counteract against it by breeding them artificially and keeping them in zoos and in enclosures which they have created, but at the same time they are taking the natural habitat away from these animals.
So what's going to be the end of this?
Something is going to be missing. You're going to come to an end dead ended these things.
In verse 19 we have that there are going to be delivered at the manifestation of the sons of God, and of course that's the end of the great tribulation. When we come back with the Lord Jesus and our manifested with Him in glory, then they will be liberated.
From the ******* of corruption. But maybe we can go on just a bit here, brother, and where we get to the end of our meeting and touch verse 23. It has something very special to.
Not only they, not only the creatures, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves.
Waiting for the adoption to win the redemption of our body. We don't have the redemption of our bodies yet.
We who are believers get old. We have aches and pains. We have Gray hairs.
Just like anybody else.
But we are waiting for that day when we're going to receive the redemption of our body. Of course that will take place at the rapture.
When we will be changed, we're not looking for death. But in in First Corinthians 15, it says that the last Trump, the dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible.
And we shall be changed.
For this corruptible our bodies are corruptible, must put on incorruption.
And this mortal, this is the mortal body because it can die, must put on immortality. So it's like putting on some clothing. We're going to that's what's going to take place at the Rapture. And I think this is what it's referring to here, the redemption of our body. But I find it interesting, brother, that it's called the adoption.
Aren't we already adopted? Don't we already have as we have in verse 15?
We have received the spirit of adoption by which we cry ABBA, Father.
Why does it call this the adoption in verse 23?
When it speaks about the redemption of our body.
That's a question.
This is not an answer.
When the Lord Jesus died on the cross.
He paid the price.
For our whole person, body, soul, spirit.
He paid redemptions price that God should have his fact and body, soul and spirit.
And to mark out that fact, the Spirit of God, at that point in when we received the the message of the Gospel.
And we're born again and receive new life in Christ, the Spirit of God. At that point Dwells came to dwell in us, to mark us out as now belonging to him.
And he has already.
Been brought into us that life and nature which we will have for eternity.
He says. I want to preserve you, spirit and soul and body.
Until my coming about what's brought before us here is that we.
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Have not yet the results of that which is purchased at the cross and that is the Lord would say no, your body is. I have purchased your body too and I am going to finish the work in it that Bob just described in First Corinthians 15. And I believe in part that the adoption.
Connects itself with the Spirit of God, that is, identifies us with him as belonging to him.
I suggest one further thought. I think that's right, Don.
But that I heard a number of years ago, I think in a conference of a brother who said that now we look like.
That other people in the world, pretty much they're not that much difference in US and the man on the street.
But when we receive our new glorified bodies.
We will look physically like the sons of God.
Even physically we will look like it. And I think that's right. I don't think you'll have any Gray hairs. And that day, brother Dawn, will you?
Not planning on it, taking care of us.
No aches and pains. All those things will be a thing of the past. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to think about it. Those are so familiar to us now. But, brethren, we will have bodies that are incorruptible, impossible that they be sick or corrupted.
Immortal. Impossible. Those bodies that we will have.
That they can die impossible.
And impossible as well as all things are of God and new creation.
That failure will, or since we call it, will ever, ever come into that creation. It will not. And so it's a tremendous thing, not only the physical side of it, but even more importantly, the moral.
Side of it, the law will maintain that creation and moral perfection for eternity.
That's wonderful for us to rest in that there will never be in the new creation anything that will spoil the rest of God.
Salvation in the book of Romans is taken up in three different contexts, or three different the three different tenses in which we operate here in the realm of time. In the 5th chapter you get two of those contexts. Just go back and I'll read it.
Chapter 5 and verse 10.
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.
Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved from it by his life. I wanted to back up to verse 9. Actually, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. And so we are saved. We talk about being saved. Last night we preached the gospel and we pleaded with souls to get saved. And we rejoice to sit here in these chairs this afternoon as those who are saved. We're saved on the basis of the blood of Christ.
The the death of Christ and the shed blood. So it's his death that has given us that salvation, secured that salvation. And so we look back, some here, look back maybe over many years, some over a few years, maybe some just since last night. And we rejoice to look back to the time that we came to know the Lord Jesus and we were saved. But then I it says in the in verse 10 where I read that we're saved by his life. What is that?
That, I believe, is that which is present. His present intercessory life for us now is preserving us in the path of faith. As we've been saying at the in the earlier part of this meeting, the Lord Jesus is living for us, interceding for us as we go through the circumstances, the trials, and the difficulties of life. Here we have one who's preserving us by His life. We're saved from wrath through His death.
Were preserved through the path of faith by his intercessory life. Now just go over to the 13th chapter, which corresponds with what we have in our chapter.
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And he says in chapter 13, verse 11, and that knowing the time that now it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Here's something that's future we've just mentioned, a salvation that's passed.
One that's present and ongoing. But what is this? It's the redemption of the body. It's what we're waiting for when we will be caught out of this world from the very presence of sin and the circumstances that affect us in a world that's under the curse of sin now. And we will have glorified bodies, bodies of glory like unto His body of glory will have the redemption of the body. And that is the salvation that we're looking for.
The salvation that is yet future. I'd like to go back to Bob's question too, and I'd like to add just a little further thought, not to take away from what we've had, but just a little further thought to illustrate what we've been saying.
There were four of us growing up. We were all adopted. We were adopted at three different times from three different backgrounds. I was the oldest. I was adopted when I was two years of age. I have no recollection of of anything before that. Next, they adopted a girl, Jennifer. She was an infant.
But then, as the years went by, they adopt my parents adopted twins a way and a girl. And when they adopted those twins, those twins were five years of age. And the adoption process for them was very different than it had been when my parents had adopted myself and my sister Jennifer. And the difference was because the twins were older and the adoption agency felt that there needed to be probation.
To see how things went and if there was a proper adjustment time or a proper adjustment in time. And so my parents went to the adoption agency and they signed adoption papers. They adopted those twins.
But that wasn't the final transaction. Between the time they had they signed those adoption papers and the final transaction took place, there was a year or So's probation.
And then after the year they went and signed further papers and then everything was completed. They were part of the family for that year. They bore the highland name for that year. But the final transaction took place at a later date. And brethren, we are adopted as the sons of God. There is no question about it. Now. Where my illustration falls down is there could have been.
A difficulty a glitch between the 1St paper signed and the 2nd paper signed, and the agency might have decided to pull those twins from the family and not allow the final transaction, but rather.
Between us being adopted as the sons of God and the final, as it says here, the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body. There's no question about it, but there is a gap in between.
We are now here in a world of suffering. We don't always properly reflect as the sons of God, that we are the sons of God. There's not always that those proper, that proper reflection in our lives. Things come between us, but there's a day coming when the final transaction of adoption is going to take place and as we quoted earlier in this meeting, when the world looks up.
And sees us coming back with Christ. And to me it's one of the most thrilling truths of Scripture in connection with the glory.
He's coming to be glorified in his Saints, and to be admired and all them that are about him in that day. You know, Brethren, in the measure in which you and I are occupied with Christ and glory. Now there will be a reflection of Christ in our lives will be changed into the same image from glory to glory as if we get in the end of 2nd Corinthians 3. But that isn't always the reality of the situation, at least in my own life.
But again, breathing it just throws my soul to think that when the world looks up in a coming day and they see the sons of God manifested with Christ's coming in glory, there's going to be no doubt in the minds of those that look up who these people are. Because we will fully and unhinderedly reflect, physically and morally, the characteristics of the sons of God. We will be not only coming with Christ, but we will.
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Like be, be like Christ.
That's what it means in verse 24. We are saved in whole.
So there is no.
Question about it. Is it like you mentioned there might have been a question in the case that you're younger than.
But there's no question about it. But it is still future and that's why it is in whole.
I could just share one more thought regarding redemption. Brother Jim outlined the definition of redemption. Redemption is a price paid.
To purchase and and set free, but we're being set free from something being.
Being set free from slavery, slavery or ******* when man fell into sin, he lost his liberty, he lost his freedom, and he became a slave. And redemption is to pay the price in order to to bring us out from underneath the condition of slavery and to be set free.
That's the reason why the animals are looking for their redemption, because they're under the *******.
The the slavery that sin has brought them in, and we have here the redemption of our bodies. Well, as anyone here has recently gone through like our family has, the death of a loved one, we see the effects that sin brings the body under.
And you and I are not yet free.
From the ******* our bodies are not yet free.
From the ******* of corruption, we have not been yet set free.
To be beyond the reach of sin. And so we're looking for that time when we're going to be redeemed, we're going to be set free and even our bodies are going to be set free from the effects that they are now under because of sin and the the the ******* that that our bodies feel.
Could we sing #208?
#208.
In how we live our way.
Into.
The.
Jesus and Two Thieves
Gospel—Bruce Conrad
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It turns out he had been at the Lord's Table breaking bread for decades.
So what happens? It's not that people are mischievous, but they just haven't made the connection sometimes.
And of course, we know for those raised in Christian homes or raised in a Christian environment that, uh, sometimes it's many years before we really know that we've made a connection with Christ and we have assurance that we received God's salvation. And so let's start tonight with singing one of the hymns on the hymn sheet.
Hymn #2.
Let's just sing the first two stanzas of hit #2 if time permits.
Perhaps we'll sing the last two at the end. If some brother was trying to raise the tune for hymn #2 Comes. Is Jesus strictly calling?
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
Let's pray and ask for God's help. Our God, our Father, we thank thee again for the great opportunity to rehearse.
In nine years.
Wonderful message that has reached our ears and for many of us in this room has reached our hearts. Uh, we thank the our God and Father, the Taoist pleased to send thy Son, the darling of thy bosom into this world to be a Savior for sinners. We thank thee, our God and Father, for giving us thy precious word and we might open it and read and understand these realities that have affected our lives will affect our entire eternity.
And tonight as we open Thy word, we ask for Thy blessing, we ask for the liberty of thy Holy Spirit that we would be able to take up by precious word in a way that would make it good to some man or woman, some boy or girl tonight who is still unsure whether they're saved or lost, whether they're on the broad road or whether they're on the narrow road. And we just commit the time to the our God ask for Thy help. And we ask it in the worthy and precious name of our God and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Well, turn with me, please, to the Gospel of Luke.
Matthew, Mark and Luke.
I'd like to.
Take up tonight.
The most solemn time as a brother mentioned this afternoon.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was hung on a cross.
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Most everyone has read the story, most likely dozens if not hundreds of times.
In the 22nd chapter we read the account of the Lord being betrayed by one of his disciples, and they came and took him from the garden and took him to the House of the high priest.
And for that evening, he was mocked.
And.
Blasphemed and abused.
And when it came about morning, they were emboldened to take him to the Gentile authorities to pilot.
As we read in the early part of the 23rd chapter, Pilot being a Political man.
Felt that he could achieve something for himself if he sent this notable prisoner to Herod.
And so they took the Lord over to Herod.
And then after some time.
He sent back to Pilate and I'd like to read the account picking up at that point in Luke 23.
In verse 20.
Pilot therefore willing to release Jesus spake again to them, but they cried, saying crucify Him, crucify him.
And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise men, and let him go.
They were instant, with loud voices requiring that He might be crucified, and the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.
And Pilot gave sentence that it should be as they required. And he released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison whom they had desired. But he delivered Jesus to their will, And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon a Sarinian coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.
In verse 33.
And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary.
There they crucified him.
And the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left.
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots. And the people stood beholding, And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself, if he be Christ the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou be the King of the Jews, save thyself. In a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek.
And Latin and Hebrew, this is the king of the Jews. And one of the manufacturers which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man have done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus.
Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise. And it was about the 6th hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the 9th hour, and the sun was darkened in the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And when Jesus had cried, with a loud voice he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
And having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
Now with the centurion saw what was done, He glorified God, saying certainly this was a righteous man.
And so we have at least three crosses here that we read about.
We have two men who are in the process of being put to death for being thieves. Tells us in another one of the Gospels that they were thieves. They took something that didn't belong to them. We don't know what it was. It says in the Old Testament that men do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his hunger. Apparently it wasn't something that men would not despise. It was something more serious. We don't know whether they were old or whether they were young, whether they were a 20 year old or a 60 year old, whether they had families or.
00:10:03
Grandchildren, whether they stole a little or a lot.
And if we needed to know all that kind of detail, we'd have it in the Scriptures. But we don't. But the point is, here are two men who went along in their lives. You know, as it says in the Scripture, some men's sins are open beforehand and some they follow after. And I've committed sins. I'm sure that we're worse than what these men committed, as far as I know, if they were only put to death for being thieves and my life was spared, but these men's lives were not.
And little did they know their loved ones know. We don't know if they're wise or their children were there beholding. Maybe the mother of these men was there beholding. And there they were taken out and I suppose the the the spikes put through their hands and their feet and lifted up into a pre dug hole probably. And boom, there they are. And at that point in life, you're pretty well sure it's over.
We've perhaps many of us visited people in the hospital and and some some of the dear friends of mine, Saints of God, and they're just almost happy because they're just awed with the fact that by tomorrow I could be with the Lord. And others have that look of panic and fear in their eyes because they've never passed this way before. They don't know what to expect. And death seems like a long way off when we're young.
But it's the king of terrors and it stalks young and old. Many times I've been to, umm, funerals and especially if I'm asked to speak. And sometimes you don't know the person that well. And you get there and you find the place and you walk a little in the in the graveyard looking to the Lord about what to what to say or and you end up reading the tombstones made it a habit now to read them more diligently. And you see, you do the math died.
And born. And sometimes it's five or six years or seven or eight. No one's promising a young person that they're gonna live to be 20. And if you're 20, nobody's promising you you're gonna see 25 or 30. And so it is. Death is awaits and it's out there. And as the scripture says, it's the king of terrors to someone who does not know their destiny. Well, the destiny awaited these men. And to think of the audacity of them, it says in the other gospel that.
Umm, it, it says that they were being mocked and umm and blasphemed and and umm and sneered upon. One of the translation says, and it says the thieves that were crucified with them cast the same in his in, in his teeth. Can you imagine? I, I would think this is just me thinking. I would think if I was knew I had only a few hours left to live, I would have something else to occupy my thoughts and my mind other than mocking in a derogatory manner somebody else that's right next to me that's going through the same thing.
It's just unbelie. I I've pondered this many, many times. It's unbelievable to me. But that's the heart that I have and that's the heart that you have because our hearts are framed alike.
But the wonderful story that I want to get to is that as time went on, one of the thieves had a change of heart.
They had a tremendous change of heart.
And as you pick up here, where we read in verse, uh.
40 It says of the other the other manufacturer or thief for the children's sake. A malefactor is the opposite of benefactor, right? A benefactor does good or gives good. A malefactor is somebody who who does bad.
But the other answering rebuked him, saying, does not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation, and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. Wow.
That man, there's something going on there. There's something going on there. People that work in prisons and work with prisoners are always amazed how there's so many innocent men in prison. How all the men, so many, I shouldn't say all, so many of the men were framed, didn't do it. You know, all the whole excuses. We make excuses when we're little kids, when we're six years old and don't turn in our homework, and we make excuses when we're 60.
And in between.
But this man has a change of heart his.
Says in the in the book of Proverbs. I think it is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
00:15:00
And he says to his his, his fellow, his fellow thief, he says, Don't you hear God?
Don't you fear God?
He's starting to wake up and he's starting to fear God. He realizes perhaps that I've got a few hours left and I'm I don't know where.
And then to say, we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds.
Wow, that's that's wisdom taking hold in the in this man or boy's heart as well. To say I deserve this, to say I deserve this.
I can remember like it was yesterday when somebody was asking me in the in the lunchroom about this circumstance and.
My neighbor had given me a book to read.
He was a Christian.
And, uh, I was not. And, uh, he knew I was not. And so he gave me this book to read, hoping that I would become a Christian. And so I thought, OK, I'll be polite and I'll read this book. So I started to read the book one night on a bus heading home from a trip.
And you know it. To use the word convicted me is is almost sounds too trite.
But somehow God used that book to open my eyes for the first time and I was 23 years old.
And I realized something that I had never sunk in before, that I was a Sinner and that I was worthy of death.
And I can remember sitting in the back of that bus, that dark Greyhound bus, and I'm just, and I thought I was a pretty good guy. I mean, I did this and that, but you know, All in all way at all, you know, pretty good guy. I thought not that night, but the jig was over.
And I can remember the bus stop in some place in Nevada is heading back east and and it's the middle of the night and I'm sitting there staring ahead because I'm in state of shock, spiritual and emotional shock.
And I said to myself, you know, if God just was, if God himself walked on this bus and came down the hall on the aisle of this bus and said, Bruce, it's time for you to go. I'd have got out and gone because I felt just like this man did. I felt like I felt I was worthy of death. And I, the Lord let me Stew in that for a while, for a couple 100 miles, I guess. And then I'm looking out the window. And I said, but you know, I'm not dead.
And man, I got all my fingers and toes and and I'm still kind of whole and my mind I still have and my most of my health.
That doesn't compute. That doesn't make sense. I'm not. I should be. I'm just worthy of death.
And so that's where I picture this man.
Here he is, though. He really is going to die. He's got hours or minutes left. I don't know much about crucifixion. There are medical doctors. I've heard talk about it. I think I've heard Brother Pross speak about it and others. I don't understand all the details about how that works. But these guys knew that the jig was up for them. And he's able. This man is able, with his change of heart, say I receive the due reward of our deeds. But then he turns to the middle man on the middle cross next to him.
And says this man hath done nothing amiss. How little did he know? How many people in how many languages would quote his words down through the ages, huh, The centuries? How many times we've heard brothers at the Lord's table, or giving thanks or in prayer quote those words in our language, at least in English? This man hath done nothing amiss. We don't necessarily know what it was.
That impressed him about the man on the middle Cross. We know, and we read in this account how majestically the Lord behaved Himself through all that contradiction of sinners against himself. There were times when He answered.
There were times when he remained silent.
And there were time there was. There was never a time when he was anything other than dignified and gracious and majestic in the moral character of his being.
00:20:05
And perhaps God had stirred this man's heart, who was starting to awaken to see himself the way God sees him, as a guilty Sinner worthy of death. And now he starts to see that this man is different.
Wonders the majesty. And he was there on the cross too, and he could see and hear all of the blasphemy and the cursing and the spitting and the derision, the sneering by the priests and the soldiers and all this people wagging their tongues as they went by. He was the song of the drunkards, the psalmist tells us, and they that sat in the gates spake against him every his his superscription was written in the in the academic language, in the religious language.
And in his own language.
We're not exactly sure what it was that impressed him.
But he turns to him, and he says, turns to the Lord Jesus.
And he says, Lord, Remember Me.
Will now come us into thy Kingdom.
Well, we all know, naturally speaking, dead men don't enter into kingdoms.
Dead men go into graves.
What was it he saw, and how did he see it? We don't know. Was it? Did he ponder the superscription that he read there? Did he take to heart that all of these envious men were coming up and mockingly calling him a king?
Had he heard in the town that he lived in, somewhere in the land of Israel, that there was this man who claimed to be the king of Israel, who was the son of David, who was going to sit on his his father's throne?
We don't know.
And it probably made no important no difference to him until just a few minutes ago.
Pondering his faith, pondering this majestic man next to him.
And listening to the testimony.
Sometimes when people think they're giving a testimony about one thing, they're really giving a testimony to the exact opposite. Brother was just telling me about a story at at dinner the same the same way.
And perhaps all those people who came up with their directions and saying all those mocking things had the exact opposite effect on this thief. But he turns to him and says, Lord, Remember Me when thou comest into thy Kingdom.
There are a lot of a lot of men and women of faith down through the centuries.
Who it says God or the Lord remembered.
God remembered Noah. He remembered the promises to Abram.
He remembered Hannah.
There's a lot of men and women, and indeed, God always fulfills every promise he makes. Always 100 percent, 100.00%. He always does what he says he's going to do.
And here the thief says, Remember Me will now comest into thy Kingdom.
Now there are 7 as as people speak about it sometimes 7 utterances that the Lord made from the cross. If you count the time where he said to his mother, woman, behold thy son. And he said to John, behold thy mother. If you count that as one, then there are 7 utterances. And you have to flip back and forth between at least three of the gospels to to read them all and to and to try to discern what order they're in. In this gospel we have it looks like.
About four of them referred to at least, and three of them are are are quoted out to us and this might have been the second thing that the Lord spoke or the 3rd.
But I I think about this all the time, because the Lord communicated volumes and volumes in this one sentence to this repentant thief.
Think of all the truth and all the factual spiritual truth and reality that it communicates in one sentence, when he says, Verily I say unto thee, today or this day.
Thou shalt be with me.
00:25:03
In paradise.
Sometimes we we go to a funeral.
It's just six or seven or eight people sometimes.
Way out in the country.
And a clergyman may come very well meaning and read a bunch of scriptures from John 14 or First Thessalonians or all these different places. And I, I tell you, sometimes it gets me confused and I come away and I'm, I have to kind of get back in my car and get resorted out, you know, which scriptures apply to what. And a lot of people are.
Not clear throughout all of all the believers that are.
Out there in the earth today, and it's a nice thing to get a basic outline of these wonderful truths and realities.
And this verse is wonderful that way it wasn't going to be. He didn't have to wait as to the timing, the Lord said today, today.
He knew he was gonna die that day.
That's pretty obvious.
And the Lord said today.
Thou shalt be with me.
In paradise.
If you knew nothing more than that.
That's a wonderful amount of things to know.
I enjoy that verse that later on that the Apostle Paul uttered in Second Timothy chapter one.
He says Speaking of the Lord Jesus victory on Calvary's cross, he says he abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
And so it's not as if immortality is a new thing or that life is necessarily a new thing. I thought our, our, our brother took it up very nicely today.
But it's now been brought to light in a clearer way than it was before.
If an Old Testament St. who was born of God, born again, had faith, as Hebrews 11 tells us.
And that with that faith aspired. It says Abraham looked for a city whose builder and maker was gone. And different men and women aspired in different ways with faith.
But as one brother told me, he says it's like seeing the Northern Lights or like, like sometimes went up when a thunderstorm will happen at night and there'll be a a blight bright flash of light and you can kind of see the surrounding countryside. But it's it's not light on for good. But now the light's on for good. And these things that men and women of faith embrace, but they weren't revealed in the way they are now after the cross.
And now it's true that life and immortality are brought to light, brought out to sea plainly by the Gospel.
And so the Lord here, just before the Lord bowed his head, he says these wonderful words to this thief who repented and will speak about repentance at a moment, God willing.
He said today, no wait, no thousand years, no three years, no 40 days, no purgatory, no nothing today.
Thou shalt be with me. The Lord said that he was going to be wherever this place was, He was going to be there too, and He was going to be with him. Doesn't speak about it being a Kingdom or not.
And he says in paradise.
That sounds like a good place. I I haven't looked. Maybe years ago I looked up what that studied that word and I it's been so long I don't remember what the what the word really means in the original language, but it sounds good, doesn't it? Paradise.
Sounds like there's nothing wrong with that. And before that he says with me.
What a message to hear. What a what a mess you talk about a message of hope. What a message to hear when you're at the 11.9 ninth hour and you hear a message like that. Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
But you say to yourself, you may say, or you may rest the question.
How could the Lord do that? Why would He do that?
And is that fair?
00:30:03
If, if and. Just reasoning together.
It's this repentant thief was given by the goodness of God was given to repent.
And he was obviously given faith to lay hold of who that man was in some measure on the middle cross.
Because by grace, we read, are you saved through faith and that meaning the faith not of yourselves, It's the gift of God. How is it that that one thief got that gift and the other one didn't?
It doesn't sound fair.
Well, there's nothing fair at all, is there?
About a man who never sinned, bearing the judgment that I deserved or that you deserve.
Is there anything fair about that?
Is there anything fair about a man who lived a perfect life?
Who went through this world blamelessly, inside and out, who knew no sin, who did no sin, and in him was no sin, That he should have to go and bear the judgment for your and my foolishness.
Some of our sins are just repugnant, some of man's sins are are are just notable and horrible, and some of them are just small.
And just the to think that more, you know, just stealing something you don't need, just the small things and the horrible, most horrible thing, the famous sin you can ever and everything in between and on and on and on. So that the stench.
Of man's sin in this world rose up before God, as her brother was saying this morning continually, Is there anything fair about one who had no liability for any of that, that he should come and take it all upon himself?
And pay and buy and discharge that whole load of sin away. There's nothing fair about the gospel about a blameless 1 taking the judgment for a totally blameworthy one, if we want to talk about fair.
And as Paul says, and by the way, who art thou that replies against God?
The old brothers used to put it this way.
That the gospel expresses the love of God and the love of God is so vast and so powerful and so huge. It's so whatever the word, the opposite of exclusive it it goes out to all. And it could be said of the Lord. I stretch forth my hands all the day and no man regarded. It doesn't say God so loved the church, it says God so loved the world.
That he gave his only begotten Son. That's the heart of God.
He's not willing that any should perish. He wants all to come.
And so he gave his Son in love for all. And when you read the gospel verses or the verses that the children memorize when they're young, there's so many of them have that word all and the word whosoever, that's the heart of God. But the reality is, is our brother was saying before the cross, in the lack of fruit that the 1St man could produce for God, that no one would come.
Left to ourselves, and I know most everyone knows this, left to ourselves, there'd be no one here tonight.
Left to ourselves, none of us would have come.
If there's 120 of us here, 150, there have been 150 excuses.
All may none would. What happens then?
God says no, it's not gonna stop. It's not gonna end there. Some shall.
And he sees our backs going down the broad Rd. that leads to destruction.
It's just as difficult.
You. I've loved you before you were even formed in your mother's womb. You're coming with me.
Is is God not free to do that?
I think God is free to do that.
And if God didn't do that, you wouldn't be here as a as a Saint of God, and neither would I.
All may, none would, some shall.
God and sovereign grace reaches out and here, and as the hymn writer put it, the sovereign love arrests that man.
And Paul could say I was apprehended.
00:35:02
And the profit could say, the Lord could say in the profits I am found of them that sought me not.
And so he says of this thief, you know.
That's that's you know, that's enough for you.
You're good to come.
Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.
We've spoken a lot about the two thieves and not that much about the Lord on the middle cross.
Indeed, the Lord was.
The hope of Israel.
He indeed was the son of David, the one who was destined to sit upon the throne of his father David, it says in the very first chapter of this book of Luke.
More than that, he's destined to be a king of kings, and as the Son of Man, he would be the head over all the nations.
We had before us in the Reading meeting that he's taken his place by redemption as heir of all things.
We read in the pictures in the Old Testament from the earliest chapters of the Bible.
How that Abraham had a son, and to him he gave all that he had.
That's who the middle man was. We read in the very first chapter of Luke's gospel that.
An Angel is sent to Mary.
With this glad tidings, this message, fear not Mary verse 30 of the first chapter of Luke. For thou hast found favor with God, and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth the Son, and shall call his name Jesus.
He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the House of Jacob Forever. That hasn't happened yet.
And of his Kingdom there shall be no end. That hasn't happened yet either.
And then verse 35 the Angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over shadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
This man on the middle cross is the Son of God.
In a Christian country, we're so used to almost all of us, maybe it's changing now of hearing scriptural terms and names and expressions. Son of God, Holy Spirit, their schools named that way. It almost seems crazy that you know a school with these sacred names playing against another school in some game. But these names are all around us that we can become from the earliest age dull to them.
And I told you about two things that.
Have changed my life on that bus.
There was a third thing.
MMM And the third thing.
Was that Jesus was God?
And it was like.
An explosion went off in my.
Mind and heart that I haven't gotten over yet.
I went to Sunday school every week.
In those days, you had attendance pins and my little his little blue blazer, and I had pins that hung halfway down my chest, which is a testimony to my mother's diligence, not mine. I went to Sunday school, learned the verses, I colored in with my crayons, all of the pictures, and I knew the stories. And as I got older, I went and I sat in the Pew for the real church service and I.
You know, sat there and more or less listened and sang the hymns.
And somehow I made it through 23 years without ever dawning on me.
Any of the reality of what this was all about.
It's astonishing to me now to look back.
And I I I was taught John 316 and other verses.
But somehow it never impressed my dull head.
That God sent his own Son and that the man Christ Jesus is God.
00:40:02
And I don't know what it was in the book I read, it doesn't matter.
Picked up the book years later and it's you know, I don't, I don't even recommend it to anybody. The the Spirit of God used it with me to teach me something I should have learned.
That is age or younger that Jesus is God.
And so, as I say, I haven't gotten over that yet. I'm sure you haven't either.
And to read verses like in the book of Colossians, that in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead.
Bodily, and to read in John chapter one, that the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, that God was pleased to to present himself in all that he is in a man.
You know when a when a the best artist that ever lived or worked decides I wanna express everything that I feel and think.
And I wanna put that into a.
A painting or a piece of music, they can't do it.
They can make wonderful works of art, but they can't express everything they're feeling and all the breadth of their experience just as one man or one woman. It's impossible, I think, but it's not impossible with God. And when God decides and he says I want to express everything that I am.
And this is God's speaking.
Not a man, but God. All my majesty, my love, my holiness, my righteousness, my wisdom, my compassion, my discernment.
And every virtue that you and I are able to even think about.
And God decided I'm gonna display all of that and I'm gonna do it all perfectly and I'm not gonna leave anything out and I can do that.
And that was that holy thing that was born in Bethlehem's Manger.
Astonishing.
With the Son of God, who was with the Father before the worlds were made, Proverbs 8 teaches us right then I was by him as one brought up with Him from the beginning, before the earth was.
And so in Luke chapter one where we read he didn't become the Son of God in Bethlehem, the Spirit of God wants to impress upon you and me that this one who came, as the hymn writer put it, from Godheads fullest glory down into this world, never lost, never stop being everything that he was by becoming what he became.
And that way of expressing it is not original with me, but I love it. He never ceased to be who he was by becoming who he became. He took became a man. He took manhood.
Holy sinless manhood to his person it became a true man.
But he didn't leave anything behind. Except perhaps you could say that His glory, the display of His excellence here was.
Sales, but nothing left out. God can do that, and God did that.
And the Spirit of God just wanted to confirm, hey.
Son of David.
Son of Man, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the last Adam, Son of God, always was, still is.
And what a strange what a strange, strange event. We don't know much about those two thieves. We don't know what their life was like, whether they were really old or young. Their lives LED up to this point.
And this point that was, as the hymn writers put at the center of two eternities.
It was in God's mind and in God's heart that his Son would come. In the fullness of time, He would come.
And that everything would come together at that one strange and special tank.
When Satan's power would be unleashed in a way that it really had not been before.
And man would be left unrestrained in a way that was unlike what had been allowed before.
And God's love exposed his Son not only to that, as it's put that great contradiction of sinners against himself.
But also.
To Satan's wrath and fury.
And so the man on that middle cross.
He is the Son of God Himself.
00:45:01
And we get back to the question of what's fair or what's not fair.
And God in the gospel, you know.
Has gotten. I think someone mentioned this today.
God himself.
Has gained immeasurable glory through the through the sending of his Son, the Lord Jesus could say, then I restored that which I took, not away.
Her father used to come to the little meeting I lived in in May.
And he would always impress that upon us.
And he would when I was young, and he would stand over me, and he would say, Who did the Lord Jesus die for? Oh, he died for me. He died for God.
And he would press upon us and teach us and we haven't forgotten it. I trust that beautiful side of things that God got such great glory to himself by the work of his Son. And all that outrage of, of stench of sin in this world has been addressed more than adequately by the work of this man on the center cross.
In the old, in the Lord, Jesus could say to his Father before he went to the cross, I have glorified thee on the earth.
In the Old Testament, I think it was such that if you stole something, you had to restore it and you had to add the 5th part, right? So if you stole 100, you had to restore 120. And I suppose that's a picture to get us to, to think about these kinds of things. And so the Lord Jesus came and like, like the man, the Hebrew servant, he, he stands forth.
And he's he, he allows his ear to be pierced through with an awl. And he says, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children. I will not go out free. And his ears pierced through with an awe. And he declares that he's going to serve forever.
In the Lord Jesus by his work on Calvary's cross, which we didn't quite get to here in the account, the Lord Jesus by his work on Calvary's cross laid a foundation where God can now be righteous in justifying the vilest Sinner that believes.
And this is what we learn in the book of Romans, for example, in Romans chapter 3, that he is the propitiation or mercy seat for our sins and that God might. Let's turn there to Romans chapter 3 briefly. Our time is almost up.
In Romans chapter 3.
And verse 25, Speaking of Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation or literally a mercy seat through faith in his blood to declare his that's God's righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God to declare, I say at this time his. That's God's righteousness, that He might be just in the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Absent the work of Christ on Calvary's cross.
And God, I suppose, could have been just. And just like the animals were put in review before Adam, one after another to see what he would call them. But there was they just passed through one after another.
And Samuel came and they went through Jesse's sons one after another, through review. And God could have had a review of every man, woman and child.
And all of sinned and come short of the glory of God.
And he could have been just in just having one Ave. that we all went down and God would have been just but not a savior.
And again, absent the cross of Christ and the work of Christ on Calvary's cross, and people have this notion that God is just nice and too nice to really hold the center accountable for his sin. And he's just going to justify like, like our vision when we're little of our grandfather, just a kindly man who never yells and just everything is nice.
But that would be unrighteous.
And we know from from understanding the gospel that now because of the work of Christ, mercy and truth met together at the cross of Calvary, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other. And because of the work of Christ, God has now, through the work of his Son, laid a foundation where he can bless the vilest Sinner. Repeating myself, but still be just in doing it. It's so beautiful.
00:50:06
There will be a time, I suppose, when Israel has brought, brought black in the brought back into blessing where other nations would say, Israel, the Jews, those people, why are you blessing them?
It's the same principle of grace having been wrought by God on their behalf. Jesus, we're not taking that up tonight, But he died for that nation. He died for them.
If my chums from the neighborhood I grew up in and said you took Bruce Conrad to glory, are you kidding me? Christ died with Bruce Conrad. There's a lot of Bruce Conrads out there I think died for this one.
It's not fair.
In that sense.
What God has found a way where he can be just and justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That's why the thief on the cross that repented that God is able to justly and righteously bring him into eternal blessing. And it started for him already. We know the day it started because that day the Lord said you'll be with me in paradise and he's been there ever since. He's been there ever since.
When we go back to Loop 23 and finish up a few thoughts, a few more of the versus.
I'm not sure we read about the thief again, anything, he said.
We read in verse 44 and verse 45.
There was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. 3 hours of darkness.
When the man in Christ Jesus bore the judgment that a holy and righteous God poured out an unmitigated fashion against sin.
Imported out upon Christ.
The sun was dark, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.
I kinda think the thieves were still alive.
That they saw the sun darkened. Perhaps they heard the Lord's cry.
I'm not sure of the exact order.
Eli Eli. Lama Sabachthani.
I think they were still alive and they heard him give that. It says with he made a he cried with a loud voice. I understand in the original language it's just one word. Telestai means either finished or completed or victorious, something like that.
And then last of all, he says, Father, into my hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Can you imagine?
Witnessing this.
From how far apart were they? We don't know. Can you imagine witnessing this?
Pondering who this this is The this is the coming king.
He's going into a Kingdom. I'm going to be there with him. The realities of who this man was, the very Son of God, broke upon his soul. Now the sun has peaked across the horizon. It's morning time for him. And then he sees these things and hears these things, and he sees a man.
Address his God and Father, bow his head and die.
It's so touching how it says the Lord says of himself. The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. This is where he finally lays his head.
Just down on his own.
Just.
And the centurion gives a testimony. Surely this was a righteous man, we read in another gospel.
That the soldiers came along at the at the desire.
Of the powers that be that they don't want these dead people hanging on these crosses. You know, it's a holiday you know we don't want. This is unsightly.
And so they want this to be hastened along. So they come, and they break the legs of the first thief, and they break the legs of the 2nd. And I again, I apologize, I don't understand the Physiology of it, but you have to assume that it hastened their death rapidly.
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What a cruel, cruel thing to do to just finish off someone's life like that in such a cavalier fashion. And it says when they came to the Lord Jesus, he was dead already.
And so the thief must have seen the Lord expire.
And I'm not sure what he thought, but he could have thought he's going there, to that place.
He's going there and he's there and it's today. I'm going to be with him in a moment.
What a message to hear.
This happened some years ago as everyone knows, and we can't witness these things first hand like this thief did.
But you can have all the blessing and more. This thief he repented repentant literally means to turn around the hang AU turn.
Literally what it means hang AU turn, go another direction to have a complete change of thought. And that's what happened with that thief. He had repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And the scripture says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
That's what he did.
That's exactly what he did.
But his hands were nailed, his feet were nailed. He never got a chance to walk as a believer. He never got a chance to do a good work. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him do that work which is good with his hands. Never got a chance to do that. He had a chance to make a wonderful confession that changed his eternity with his lips. So do you. No one can promise us whether we have a minute or an hour or a day or a year, or however many much time in this life.
But we can tell you when the authority of God's Word, there's some wonderful facts that I can relate to you on his behalf.
And no matter who you are on the authority of this book, I can tell you with assurance that God loves you, that he sent his Son to die for you, and then if you put your trust in Him.
That you're gonna be with him too, for all eternity.
Paul could say absent from the body present with the Lord.
And in another place I'm in a straight betwixt the two.
He so much wanted to be with the Lord, with so much loved the service that he had on his heart for his brethren, he didn't know which to choose. Wasn't really his choice anyway.
And so the Lord lay down his life, a sacrifice for sin.
Lead that righteous foundation that God could bless the wildest Sinner. Won't you? Calm and accept the Lord Jesus as your Savior tonight, if you haven't done so already?
Confess him as Lord. Believe in your heart.
And you're going to be saved and be with Him forever in the Father's house and home of peace and joy. Well, let's just see, time permitting, a minute or two after these last two verses of him #2.
Come for night is gathering quickly over the world's fast, fleeting day. If you linger till the darkness, you will surely miss your way. Verse #3 and four of hymn #2. Someone would restart that for us, please.
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Nsnoise.
Umm.
Our God, our Father, we thank thee again for this message of love.
That has reached out to us. We thank Thee, our God, for that.
Romans 8:24-39
Reading
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Verse 24.
For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen, not hope. For what a man seeth, Why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patients wait for it.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. But we know not what we should pray for as we ought.
But the Spirit itself make it intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good.
To them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.
Moreover, who he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified.
Then he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things if God before us? Who can be against us?
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yeah, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written?
For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Said that, hope is an indispensable quality of life. And really, we live for hope, don't we? Even in natural things, we If you're sick or going through a difficult circumstance, you can get through today because there's always hope that things tomorrow will be better. You're going through pain, and the doctor comes in with some medication. You grit your teeth and bear the pain because you know you're hoping that the medication will take effect in a few hours or a couple of days.
And things are going to get better. And so we live for hope. But the hope here is not hope in the sense of which we usually use the word hope. Because hope connected with the first man and with this life, as you say, is uncertainty at best. There's many things we've hoped for in our lives, and they've never come to fruition. And wouldn't we be presumptuous, brethren, if we sat in these chairs this morning and said beyond the shadow of a doubt?
We are going to return to our homes later today or those who are traveling, perhaps tomorrow.
You'd say that's presumptuous. We hope to, but we use the word hope in these in connection with things in this life, in the sense that we would like it to happen. But we know that there are variables that may cause it not to happen, or at least to happen on the timetable that we had had planned. But hope connected with Christ and the next life is in no way uncertainty.
It's only hope in the sense that we're not in the full good and reality of it yet.
And so in the preceding verses, we've taken up in these the preceding 2 meeting meetings, that which is yet ahead, that which is ahead for the believer, that which is a head for all creation in connection with redemption and so on. And he says here we're saved by hope in the measure in which this hope which is sure and steadfast as we get in Hebrews Chapter 6.
In the measure in which this hope is a reality in our souls, rather we're going to be preserved to go on in the path of faith and service. We've already quoted it in a private meeting. But again, when he speaks of our hope in first John chapter 3, of being with and like Christ and appearing with him and so on, then he says every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
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So our hope is sure and steadfast.
There's no question about it. But it's hope, as I say, in the sense that we're not in the full good and reality of it yet. What a man hath, why does he yet hope for now a guide of faith, hope and love? But the greatest of these is love, because when we are in the full reality of these things, we're not going to need faith and we're not going to need hope. Our hope is going to be realized.
It helps to see that in Mr. Darby's translation is we are saved in Hull. And So what you mentioned brother, we're saved by grace, that's the means by which we're saved. But when we are saved, we are saved in hope. In other words, like you were mentioning Jim, we don't have the full realization of what our faith is going to bring us into. But that's our home. So we're saved in hope of.
What we were talking about yesterday the adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Let me use the simplest illustration possible. We'll suppose there's a boy or a girl here, and they've requested something for their next birthday, something very special, something that they've been hoping to have for a long time. And we'll suppose that mother and father come and they say to to you, we've secured that gift for you and we've put it away in a safe place until the proper moment, until your birthday.
And the morning of your birthday, the gift is all secured and it's ready. And so you're not in the full possession of it yet, but you're living in hope, aren't you? Now, again, it's not a question of whether you're going to get it or not. The assurance that it's been secured and put away is there. But in that sense, you're living in hope. You're looking forward to the day when you're going to have that gift brought out and placed in your hand. And that maybe helps us in a simple way to understand what we're saying.
It's all been secured.
The work of redemption, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ has secured it all. That's really why He says in Hebrews 6, where He speaks of our hope as sure and steadfast He presents to us Christ as the forerunner. If you ever have doubts as to your hope and what's ahead, just look up by faith and see where the forerunner is now. The forerunner is seated at the right hand of God.
And the fact that God has received him back there, having accomplished the work of redemption, and that the Lord Jesus as a man has already entered into heaven, is the assurance of the fact that everything is going to be brought to fruition according to God's purposes in the coming day. God now having raised his Son from the dead and received him back into heaven, God cannot, I speak reverently, go back on His promises.
And that's why, in the context there, he speaks of that hope, which hope we have as an anchor, the soul, both sure and steadfast. No other hope on earth could we speak of a sure and steadfast, but the hope of what is ahead is certainly that.
Isn't that why in the 12Th chapter it says we rejoice in hope? Very good.
And in the meantime we have verse 26.
We still have infirmities, but.
Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth in our infirmities.
For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
So the Spirit of God who dwells in us, we have help to go through.
Infirmities.
For the present time, what a wonderful provision for us, brethren, in the meantime that we are still in these bodies.
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It's good to realize that part of the path of faith and the life of faith is the opportunity of God to teach us things that we could not learn in heaven.
There are many things, brethren, that we are learning to know our God. We are learning to know our Lord Jesus.
That we will not or could not burn them in heaven.
And so we will look back when we get home with tremendous gratitude on having learned to know our God through the experiences of this life in things that.
We would not know if we did not pass through them.
I'll name a few of them that are just in this these couple of verses here notice in verse 20.
Five is refers to we expect in patients.
You'll never learn God as a God of patience when you get to heaven. There will be absolutely nothing in heaven that will be any need to exercise on God's part with respect to us. Patience.
But our God is a God of patience. We've had in this chapter the matter of comfort.
There'll be nothing in heaven that will require God to give you or I any comfort.
But we are presently learning to know our God as a God of comfort, and we only learn it through the experiences of this life to know Him in that way.
Now we know by faith we have the assurance of faith of these hopes.
But in heaven, there won't be anything that we would look to God and say, does God keep his promises?
Does God keep his promises? Is he a God but a promise keeping God?
By giving us hope now in things that we don't yet see, but he has promised to us and assured to what? To faith. Then we are getting to know our God is the God of that keeps promise. That does what he says he will do. But now to have it the enjoyment of it, requires the present exercise of faith, but in that character of faith when we get to heaven.
We won't exercise it, we won't need it. As Jim already said, it will already be realized and so on. We had in the next verse just one more. And the number of them, if you stop and count them up, is a very large number. I don't know if you can count it of the ways in which God is only being known or can be learned in this life.
And the next one is we have in the next verse the Spirit of God is an intercessor. Later on in the chapter we have more Jesus as an intercessor. Are you going to need the Spirit of God in intercession when you get to heaven? No, but you get to learn him now in that character and in that capacity, and you'll appreciate it for eternity. Will you know the Lord Jesus in heaven as an intercessor? No, not for you.
And yet now we get to learn his heart and his set later for us as an intercessor.
But we will look back on all these things from the eternal perspective, and we'll say all those things work together for good.
Every one of those details in my life that exercise those characteristics of God, those virtues, those power of God on my behalf.
Will be eternally remembered, eternally valued, eternally A cause of Thanksgiving and praise to him, and we will be able, in a fuller sense of the word, to say.
Just like to say a few words again back.
On what hope is, I was recently trying to explain that the the concept of folk to a young brother and the Lord brought before me the experience that this country has gone through in the last three to four years regarding the promise of hope.
There was a presidential campaign. That was when it was based upon the concept of hope for this country.
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And it was. It was given to the country as as something to look forward to the prospect of a brighter future, and it was based upon the ability for basically one man or one party to perform.
And unfortunately.
That was a prospect that was set forth.
Where the individual that was promising.
Relief and blessing was not really able to perform. And so it was a it was a baseless, hopeless hope that was presented. It was. It was actually.
Perform.
But it is not so with the hope that we are Speaking of here.
Our hope is not built upon the frailty of man.
To to produce.
It is built upon God.
Who is able to perform everything that he has promised. And that is the reason why I'm told is so sure. That is the reason why we can rejoice in hope, because that hope is coming from, has been promised to us, has been given to us by one who cannot fail.
And it's so wonderful for us to be able to speak about hope in these meetings in such a greater context than.
The natural man thinks of hope and change and things like that.
In in that regards, Phil, I I I think that probably these people that make these promises for hope do it on an idealistic measure.
That is, they have good ideals and they're right. They're right proposals, they're right ideals that they would wish to obtain.
And so I believe we as Christians can fall into that is not the.
Position that the Christian is we all in our family, our assemblies. We may have these things that we know are the good thing for everybody to have and seek to have a in your life.
You're a young parent. You say, oh, I'm going to raise these children. I want to do this, or I'm going to do my job. And you have good ideals. You know what the Bible says is right and you seek for that.
But it doesn't turn out.
We can't live our life just on the ideals that we have. We have to come to the Lord and to He is the one who can follow through with those things. And sometimes we find out, or maybe I should say many times we find out, that what we thought would be idealistic wasn't God's purpose.
And that he does have it, and he works it out, and we find it sometimes later on in our lives, that what we thought we the Lord would do in our life is not exactly what.
God had planned.
Isn't it wonderful, brethren, that when it that it's not, it's all right to have these things and go to the Lord about it, but not to base your faith on that?
The lower the spirit.
We know not what we should pray for as we walk ought. Sometimes we pray for the wrong thing even.
Isn't it wonderful that the Lord doesn't answer our wrong prayers and the Spirit doesn't intercede wrongly? So there's the eye perfect ideal and it's God's and God will perform it. To get a hold of that in your soul practically as you go through life is is a great secret and help.
To turn your It's all right to have purposes and seek for them, but if the Lord will.
And then wait on the Lord about these things and when he changes things like say yes, Lord, thank you.
God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth. And I think that is so great Doug in verse 28 that is in this section.
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It says we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, and then this part is sometimes forgotten to them who are called according to his purpose. In other words, God is doing in our lives what so often we do not understand at the moment.
So I'm amazed brother, as they travel around and see problems amongst God's people.
They get so tremendously complex, I have no clue what's going on and what God has in mind about it. And so it's happened so often that we don't even know how to ask. What do you do when you don't know how to ask?
And I think that's where it comes in verse 26.
The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
We can grow them, brother.
Things are not the way God means them to be, but God is working, and He's working in view of His eternal purposes.
You mentioned Doug, we have purposes related to life down here.
And they might be all good purposes not criticizing that.
But God's thoughts are beyond our thoughts. And brethren, let's not limit God's thoughts.
By.
Our small thoughts when God is working.
So often we don't understand what he is doing and so the Spirit then makes intercessions for us. In verse 27 it says he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit because he makes intercession.
For the Saints according to God.
William is there in italics.
So he makes intercession.
For the Saints according to God.
You know, I often think in connection with these verses of the case of Joseph.
Whose beautiful story we have in Genesis.
And as Joseph left his father's house when he was 17 years old to go to see his brethren.
He doesn't realize that he wasn't going to see his father again for 22 years.
And for thirteen of those years.
Everything seemed to go wrong.
I mean majorly wrong. What did Joseph done that things would go so wrong? Well, maybe you could say.
The stories those dreams he told kind of provoked his brother, and it may be so, but.
That things would go that wrong and he'd be sold as a slave, get down to Egypt and doing things rightly in his master's house. He gets falsely accused and lands in prison, and they're in prison. He's forgotten, I mean.
I'm amazed that Joseph didn't give up, but God had his purposes, brother. And if things are going wrong in your life, remember God has his purposes.
And his purposes are greater than our purposes. Oh, what a wonderful God we have. And let's not give up when things seem to go the wrong direction.
They're not the wrong direction as far as God's concerned. He has purposes and He is working his eternal purposes.
We live in a world where man glories in his purposes, but it's God's purpose that he's working in us now. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is to have a sense of that in our souls.
God gave Joseph some to know those purposes in those dreams, the very dreams that provoked the enemy of the the envy of his brethren.
Would have been.
The the hope that Joseph had that one day his brethren would bow down to him, he could have had that, that whole history. That's exactly what we have in our chapter here. God has told us His purposes. And so it helps us go through all this down here because we know the end of the story.
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Well, when it says here likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities.
Sometimes we hear that a safe person commits suicide.
Now what happened to them? I compared sometimes.
With a fuse goes out in our house, everything's dark.
Everything is just dark. It's everything quit when the fuse goes out. So what we have to do, we have to replace a fuse.
But then if something like that happens, well.
What did we do wrong?
In that House, we know what could have been done. We could have changed our views ahead of time, expecting that it might go out all the connections.
That go to our fuses.
Have to be we know those who are that field, they know what to do, and that can be prevented. Now we ought to do we ought to know, in a case like this also how to.
Prevent these things.
And how would we do that?
Turn over to a verse and are there on enrollments.
In verse Chapter 11.
And verse 33.
All of the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways?
Past finding out.
For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him? And it shall be recompensed unto him again. For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom the glory forever. Amen again in verse 23.
How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out?
Just a few more comments on the matter of the Purposes and Councils of God and Hope.
There are things that God has told us as to His purpose and counsel that we know with absolute assurance.
We know that our destiny is, as the bride of Christ, to be Co heirs.
We know that our eternal home is with Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.
We know that we are going to have redeemed bodies like unto his body of glory, and so on. We have a multitude of purposes and councils of God that are clearly and explicitly stated for us in the word. What we don't know is from now till then the ways of God in our lives that accomplish the present good in as we go toward those destinies.
And those ways of God, those ways of God with us are past finding out. And that's the reason why many times when we when we pray, we don't know what to pray for as we ought. There are things we do know what to pray for as we ought that have to do with we didn't have any uncertainty when we prayed for blessing in the gospel that souls be saved because we know absolutely with no question.
God wants those souls saved, and so we pray with confidence in the will of God and in the mind of God in those matters. But to take something else of a different character, someone gets sick.
Do we pray that they will get well? Well, that's a natural thing, and in some cases it may be the right thing. But we're often uncertain as to whether that's the will of God in that case and in that circumstance, to bring that outcome as to his ways in this life.
But we have feelings about it, and consequently God has made provision for us by the Spirit that is within us, that recognizes those natural and spiritual feelings in us and intercedes in ways that we can't ourselves formulate the right thought because we're not told always the will of God.
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In the matter.
And consequently we don't want to speak or to ask something against his will, and yet we want him to know how we feel about it. And so on. And so the ways of God are past finding out, even though in many things the purposes of God are clearly and explicitly stated. But another aspect of it. I'll go back to the example Doc used of Joseph.
Joseph had been explicitly told that his brethren would bow down to him.
It tells us in Psalm. I'm sure I'm getting the right song, but a Psalm 102 are close to that song. It says the word of the Lord tried him. What does that mean?
He knew the purpose of God with respect to his life was that that was going to happen. But he spent 13 years tried by that word in all the experiences through which he passed, and he was tested as to his faith year by year by year, as to his home, if you will, or his expectation. And it says the word of the Lord tried Him and brethren, There are many things that we have to go through life.
On the same ground, the word of the Lord will try us.
That's all we're going to have. The word of the Lord, the word of the Lord tries us as to do we really believe it? Will we really live by it, even though the passage of circumstances and difficulties in our lives doesn't express.
The answers to the desires that we have at that moment. And so it's what do we have. Faith lays hold, for is tried by the Word of the Lord.
And consequently God looks at it and says that face precious.
That faith which lays hold of the word of God without regard to the circumstances that God has said, And I'll live in that realization of His word for.
That's where it does not change, does it? People change. Circumstances change.
That's why it's so important to have our faith built on the word of God.
I think of what Joseph told his brethren after.
His father had died, he says. They came because they thought he would turn against them.
And he says to them, As for you?
Ye thought evil against me.
But God meant it unto good to bring, to pass, as it is to this day, to save much people alive.
And so even when people.
Turn against us. God can use that for good.
It was because he was sold as a slave to Egypt that he was down there and he was in the right spot at the moment.
That Pharaoh needed someone to interpret his dream, and God brought it back to the memory of the Chief Butler.
At the right moment and one day Joseph woke up in prison. At the end of that day he was the 2nd ruler.
All of Egypt. Who could ever imagine those kind of stories? God's ways are past finding out, brethren. And so how important it is to not go by outward circumstances that change so, so easily?
Go by God's word. His eternal purpose is for blessing.
And.
We have that verse 28. It's in contrast with verse 26, verse 26. We don't know what to pray for as we ought, but we do know.
All things work together for good. Doesn't say all things are good.
All things work together for good. The way his brethren treated him was not good.
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And the way he was falsely accused by Pharaohs wife was Potiphar's wife was not good.
But God made it to work together for good and brethren. I see so often that in our problems in life we are short sighted. We look at people.
That supposedly are opposing us. We look at circumstances if that wouldn't have been that way.
It would have been so different rather than we're short sighted. There is a God who is overall who is ordering all for a purpose that he has of ultimate good according to his purpose, not ours. His so often our purpose is in life. Brethren are short sighted, I have to say for my own.
Experience. But what is God's purpose? And then that's where we go on to verse 29. I'm sorry, I'm pushing ahead a little bit what we want to get through this chapter, brother.
There we have God's eternal purpose.
That purpose, that was purpose before there was any creation in existence. What was his purpose?
Whom he did for know, he also did predestinate to be conformed.
To the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brothers.
His eternal purpose is to make us, like Christ, to conform us to the image of His Son. That's what he's doing in our lives, and each one is different.
Not one exactly the same, and it is infinite wisdom.
Those councils that are past finding out.
He is working in the life of each one to bring us into conformity.
To the Lord Jesus.
What a tremendous thing it is to have these things open to our hearts.
I was talking to a brother down in Brazil.
This brother getting up close to the retirement age and in his job and he was hoping that you know, things would go easy for him as he finished out his last few years and it's working for this company.
Well, he told me, he said. You know what happened? They transferred me to another office where I had to take an hour.
Ride on the metro every morning in an hour, back every evening.
At his job, instead of getting easier, his job got harder.
First few days he went, you know, fretting a little bit.
And then he decided, the Lord must have some reason.
And so he said, You know, I realized that I needed to spend that hour train ride every day.
In the scriptures or reading ministry?
So I said I started taking books along my Bible along. And he said, you know what?
That was an answer of God, he said. My soul is becoming dry.
I wasn't fresh.
I wasn't in the word like I should be, and the Lord was not close to me in my heart, he said. That was the greatest blessing that happened to me.
And I just thought that a good example of all things working of one who got before the Lord and right now.
First had the crudeness to look to the Lord and then experience. Now not always will we see it here in this lifetime, the all the things working together for good, but sometimes he he does show us.
It's the timetable too that we need to be exercised about, isn't it, brother Doug because.
I was thinking, we've been talking about Joseph, but you know when Joseph interpreted the dream for the chief Butler? I suspect that Joseph thought the next day or so, as soon as the Butler was released from prison, that he would be called for and he would be released, maybe go back and work in Potiphar's house or have some servant job of servitude in the court of Pharaoh. But that wasn't God's purpose. And I can just imagine those who know me best can imagine how I must have ponder this because.
00:40:11
Think of Joseph. That was another two years before he he got released. That was a long time. Doesn't seem like a long time. But imagine sitting in a prison cell for another two years and thinking, here I thought God was going to intervene and I was going to get out and get my job back. But God had something far better than just another job as a servant in Potiphar's house or in the court of Pharaoh. He had a purpose for Joseph to be elevated, to be a ruler of the land.
But if Joseph had got out when he thought he would have, that wouldn't have worked out at all. It wasn't the time for Pharaoh to want somebody needs somebody to be over the the land. God had a perfect timetable. And I appreciate it being in Egypt this summer, you know, our brethren in Egypt, it it's pretty tough. It, it's difficult. I don't think any of us realize that what it's like to live, it's one thing to visit, but to live under those kind of conditions.
But you know, it's very interesting to me that they desired this year at the conference to take up the book of Esther.
Because I gulped at first when I they told me we were going to take up Esther, but the Lord gave us some very happy meetings, I trust profitable. But the reason they wanted to take up the Book of Esther was just what we've been saying. Because in the Book of Esther, though God does not openly manifest himself, He's not mentioned by name. He doesn't doesn't seem like he outwardly intervenes in the circumstances yet.
By the end of the book, there's no doubt that God has been in control of the government, the king, the personal lives of Mordecai and Esther. Providentially, he was over the people of God collectively, and that's what those brethren wanted to hear, confirmed by the word of God. But it is interesting when Mordecai speaks to Esther. You know, Esther and Mordecai didn't have something to go on as to the future like Joseph with his dream.
Or King David. Or David in his rejection, knowing that he was the anointed king for the future. And so on. You know what Esther said to Mordecai? I'll do this, I'll go in. But if I perish, I perish. And you know, it was mentioned as we took up the book. We read the story with confidence because we know the end of the story. Esther didn't know the end of the story. She didn't know how God was going to act and what, how the circumstances were going to play out.
But she was willing to go in obedience to Mordecai.
And I believe she had faith too, even though she said if I perish, I perish.
That she knew that God would deal in his own way with her and with the people of God and with the king and with the enemy. She had that confidence in her soul and brethren. Things don't play out as quickly as we think they should sometimes in our lives. Are we willing to just trust the Lord? Because there are many things we're never going to see and understand the full fruition of as to God's purposes in our lives down here.
I know it's a little different context, but I often think of what it says in First Corinthians judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, you say. I just don't know why that happened. I don't know why this has been allowed in my life. Leave it till the Lord comes, because at that time he's going to bring this to light. The hidden things of darkness make manifest the councils of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God. And we're not always going to understand or see things straightened out. And that's why I think Brother Don mentioned that earlier. It speaks of patience in the end of verse 25.
God, That's one of the great lessons God is teaching us is patience. Do we get discouraged? Do we get short sighted? Sometimes? You know, David did.
David. David knew he was the anointed king for the future, but read some of the Psalms of David. He was cast down. He was discouraged. He fled for his life. David was a real man. He felt those things. And sometimes his focus got off what was on the in the future and the purpose that God had in in the end. And and I do that sometimes too. I lose sight of the end. I get discouraged. But in those Psalms of David.
And in those circumstances of his life before you come to the end of the Psalm or the circumstance, he always came back to what he had in and of the Lord. He always came back to the promise of God. He always came back to what he knew God had promised for the future and could not fail. And that's what lifted him out of the slew of despond. That's what brought him out of the discouragement and gave him the courage to go on in the path of faith.
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And to realize, not in the same sense we do, but to realize rather that all things, while they are not good. Some are bitter experiences, but it's all working together in the end. God has His purpose, and when we see it in a future day, we're going to see it all in retrospect. We're going to see the whole thing in completion. And what are we going to do, brother? And question his ways there.
We're just going to praise Him for His ways, because one of the things that eternity and the judgment seat, the judgment seat of Christ and eternity will do is show us the perfection of all God's ways. Things we didn't know now, we'll see, were perfect as to what they were and the time frame and timetable in which they were allowed.
We'll say I wouldn't have had it otherwise, right?
Don't you think, Bob? That's why in the end of Revelation 5, the four beasts say Amen. Those four beasts that represent God's governmental ways in the earth, they say we see it all now. Everything was working out for a purpose. And I believe we'll say Amen as well.
Like to look at another aspect of this subject in Philippians chapter one.
A little different side of it.
Profitable.
For us in the ways of God.
Working things together for good.
He says.
The Philippians just not take too much time. We'll start at verse 21. For me to live this Christ and to die is gain.
But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor, yeah?
What I shall choose? I want not.
Brian was straight betwixt to having a desire to depart and to be with Christ.
Which is far better.
Nevertheless, to light in the flesh is more needful for you.
And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all.
For your furtherance and joy of faith, here's a man that is in prison.
And in prison, he's awaiting the day when he sees.
These are who decides whether he lives or dies.
And Caesar had the answer to no tribunal he didn't. He was supreme.
All they have to say is he lives or he dies and so you would say there's no way.
That this man could have any understanding of the outcome of his circumstances.
Because enough. It's not in his powers and the power of Caesar to decide whether he lives or dies.
But does he know whether he'll live or die? If you read these words carefully, he knows he knows the outcome.
He says first of all for you to live is Christ.
The point in this in this context here to me is he have no will of his own.
The expresses and afterwards desire between two things.
To depart to be with Christ, which for him personally was the better choice, but he recognized the Saints in Philippi had needs.
And there was their side, their need of it.
Having no will of his own, he goes to the Lord in the matter, and the Lord tells him what his ways are going to be in this situation, he says.
And verse 25.
Having confidence, I know I shall abide. He knew in faith the outcome of those circumstances. He knew what the Lord was going to do. He was going to be released. He was going to, for the sake of those in Philippi and elsewhere to fulfill that needed service to them. And he wasn't going to have what personal? If he had a personal will in the matter would have been. I'd rather be with the trust.
00:50:07
That was his own choice.
And I the summation of it, rather, is that sometimes the will of God in the ways of God are made known to us. In this circumstance particularly, it shows us that if we have no will of our home in the outcome.
There is liberty of the Spirit of God in many circumstances to make His will known to us, and we don't wait until the glory and so on to see the good of it.
Not everything is this way. This is another aspect of truth. But in the Apostle Paul's case, we see that sometimes the Enlightenment of God in our souls as to a specific circumstance in our present lives is having no will in our own we may have desires.
There, there may be that which we weigh and say this is good and that's better and whatever.
But if the outcome can be rested in the war and say whatever the Lord chooses is the way I want to go in this, there will be an enlightenment in our souls As to the mind of the Lord, I submit to you, It's true you can experience this in your life that the Lord will make now and at times what he's going to do and give you confidence as to, but it's an exercise of faith.
And the secret of the Lord is with them that fear now.
And we need that. We need that sense of it. And again one other thing connected with this is very practical side of things, but peace in the soul and circumstances in which we don't know the alcohol is founded. As the Lord Jesus said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. And I apply that to the believer in this sense coming to the Lord and submitting to him.
In it and there will be peace, but if our will gets involved in it, if we are insisting on.
The person gets better, the situation gets rectified the way we think it should, and so on. If we introduce our own will into the outcome, very often we will not have peace, and quite often we won't have a sense of how the world is working either. So these are two practical things that we can learn.
Even though, as Jim said, there are many things that we will have to wait until the glory before we see what God's hand was in it.
That's good, because answers don't give us peace. God gives us answers, as you say, but the answers in themselves aren't what's going to give us rest of heart in the circumstance. Again, I've often told, but I remember standing up to take the funeral of a young man in a very tragic situation.
And there was a room full of young people who I knew had come some from many, many miles for answers. And I said during the funeral service, I said I don't have the answers as to why God has allowed this. But I said even if we had all the answers today, we still wouldn't have peace about it unless we submit to God's will and realize that God has a perfect purpose.
As for God, his way is perfect. And so sometimes I say that because sometimes I hear young people and sometimes those of us who are not so young say, well, if God would only show me why, if he just give me some answers in this difficulty, I think it would make it easier, I'd be able to accept it better, No. In fact, I suggest sometimes God doesn't doesn't give there. One of the reasons at least that God doesn't give us the answer or the answer right away is because there hasn't been submission.
And as you say, sometimes when there is finally that submission, God, whatever you're allowing, I know it's best.
Then he comes in and he gives the the answer as well as the peace of soul. So I think what Don says very good to echo, it's not answers that give pieces to the soul and rest of heart. It is submission to the will of God and the understanding that whatever he's doing with us and in US is right.
As eternal purpose was formed before there was any creation and existence, and now we are here in this world.
Now we have our purposes, our thoughts.
00:55:03
The Brethren who is going to prevail in the end?
God's eternal purpose or my puny idea of what God might be doing?
Oh my brother, may the Lord help us to.
Seek to see his purpose in all these things that happen.
He's conforming us to the image of his son. He's working in ways we don't understand.
But his purpose is going to come to fruition.
Harold Highland, Was he some uncle of yours? Great uncle, Great. I still remember him talking about verse 30 here as the Upside Down rainbow. You remember that?
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
That was his way of putting it and I have really enjoyed it because it starts in heaven, you know, a rainbow really generally starts on earth and it swings up to heaven and back down to earth, but this starts in heaven.
When did he predestinate us?
Before the foundations of the world.
When did he call us? It's the second thing.
When we heard the gospel is when he called this.
When did he justify us? When we believe the gospel, we were justified.
When did he glorify us?
Wendy Gorbachev, Brother Bruce.
Are you glorified now?
No, I don't think so.
Not an actual fact, but in God's purposes it's so sure that he puts it in past tense. Isn't that wonderful?
Glorified there is the rainbow goes back up to heaven. It's going to all happen, Brandon. It's sure.
What a wonderful God, man.
And God is for us. Sorry John, just going to say God is for us when we read that. What can we say? God is for us.
I'd like to turn to Ephesians chapter One.
Ephesians chapter One.
Says.
Verse 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will.
According to his good pleasure which we have purposed in himself.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together and on all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who work at all things, according to the Council of his own Bill, to comment about the purposes of God in our relationship to them.
The ground, ground, eternal purpose of God is to glorify Himself.
Through his son.
Everything is also round back.
For the purpose of God to glorify himself through his Son.
And his son is the center around which everything that God purposes to do to fulfill his own.
Exaltation of himself.
That was found in the sun.
Connected with our chapter, it says we are to be conformed to the image of His Son, and we can immediately in our minds think of this wonderful purpose of God with respect to.
Me.
And at a certain level, that's all right. But it comes short.
He is going to conform me to the image of his son, to the exaltation of his son.
01:00:08
That's first, and that's most important.
And the natural man centers everything around what's in it for me?
And misses the whole purpose and counsel of God. And we as believers can easily slip into that.
And immediately look at every scripture and think about it, or be not so interested in hearing about it.
Because we can't see the relevance of it to ourselves.
Brethren, there's liberty, there's joy.
In being freed from being occupied with oneself to enjoy the purposes of fraud with respect to his son.
And to see how things are to the exaltation of the sun.
I love.
Think about it many, many times. I have a very close friend and brother in Christ in prison named Allen.
In prison the rest of his natural life.
But Alan was telling me about someone else he was seeking to help grow in their Christian life, in the prison, they willing.
And he said to me, Don, he said, I have to keep saying they're really over and over again, Willie.
It's not about us. It's about him, Willie. It's not about us. It's about.
That's liberty. That's liberty.
And the ways of God, and the purposes of God, and the dealings of God with us, and many things when we see it from.
The better perspective we're going to say It wasn't about us. It was about the accomplishment of his purposes to the glory of his son.
And there are many things. There are trials and difficulties through which we pass, and we say God is for us and God is for us.
Because he is God, because he is love, but also because he is not going to allow anything.
To keep him fulfilling the counsels of his own heart to the glory of his Son.
He gave us to the size of the.
And he's not willing to let anything keep the fulfillment of his own pleasure.
And giving his son a ride.
Fulfillment rather, but it's about here.
We wonder with a bride of Christ, why are we?
Why are we in the Councils of God?
The giant of Christ because God said it is not good.
A man should live alone and his son became a man.
Would he let him live alone? And he said it's not cool to imagine live alone because his son, in becoming a man, going to remain a man for eternity. Yes, he is. He took manhood and he will remain in manhood. And so the purpose in council of God was my son shall not live alone.
As a matter.
So you and I are part of that purpose of God. We can look at it and rightly enjoy it.
For what we are going to get out of what we're going to see in the coming day part of the bride of Christ. What a wonderful blessing. Yes, it is.
Greater and more liberty to the soul, but it's not what I'm going to get out of it, but what he's going to get out of it.
With the glory of God and the expectation of his Son. And that's some of what we have. And you might say they're inverted Rainbow in this chapter, all these things that he's doing.
Doing fulfillment of his own purposes in the exaltation of his own son.
The the woman was made for man, not man for the woman. And so you see the order there in creation. But men, we all like to have a happy wife, don't we? If she's not happy, the rest of us aren't very happy either.
And and so in our part.
It's good to enjoy what's our part so it'll be right rightly represented before the Lord.
01:05:02
And that's why it's important that we understand that God is for us rather.
It seems like so often when we get into tough situations.
Immediately Satan comes to our ear and whispers, look what's happening. Be objective. Recognize things are not for you. It's all going against you.
And it seems like that.
That is not true.
God has shown Himself to be for us. And if God be for us, who can be against us? He has displayed that He's for us. How he that spare not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, How shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?
God has shown himself to be for us at the cross, brethren. So often our own evaluation of present circumstances is so partial that it looks like God is not for us. But we need to go back to the cross to get the picture right.
God did not spare his own Son.
He gave him up for us all.
And if that's the case, if he was willing to do that?
Rather than there can be no question about it. God is for us.
I'd just like to back up and read again.
Verse 29 and 30 in connection with what you just said, and I'm going to emphasize, he for whom he did for no, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brothers Norover whom he did for destinate them he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified, And whom he justified.
Then he also glorified, you know, the in the purposes of God, we really didn't have anything to do with where we are.
In this place of blessing.
It all has to do with what God has done. It all has to do what He started in the Any from eternity past, we don't know. We can't put that in its place. But He thought of us.
It ends with he glorifies us.
And so we sit here today in all of the favor and blessing of God, not because of anything we have done. We is not in these verses. It's all He.
And then we get what you were, you were just bringing before us. The greatest thing that he did was he gave his son to die for us.
So it's just a wonderful thing. This is grace if we don't understand grace and we need to reread these verses and realize that God is for us.
Jacob looked at present circumstances and he said all these things are against me.
That was just looking at present circumstances.
But when we look at the big picture, we see that God is for us. And if God before us, who can be against us? But there are two things in these verses that we're reading that are sure.
Two things that we know for sure.
Were predestinated and were elect. He's going to. He speaks of being God's elect in verse 33. Election has to do with the person being predestinated has to do with the place.
We've often used the illustration that when there's an election in the United States or any other country, the there's a man that is going to be elected. He's there, a vote is going to be taken and he's going to be elected to the office of the President of the United States. And as a result of being elected to the office of President of the United States, he's predestined to live in the White House. And so you and I are the elect of God. As Bob said, we've been hand picked. We've been chosen in Christ.
Before the foundation of the world, we're called out people. But where are we? What are we predestined to? We're predestined to glory, brethren. We're gonna share in that glory. We're gonna see it all from God's perspective. And again, it's all as Donna said, it's all going to be in relationship to His son. We've mentioned several times in these meetings when heaven opens up to reveal the Lord Jesus coming back in glory. Every St. is going to reflect Christ. God is going to make sure of it.
01:10:15
They're going to see Christ everywhere, every everywhere they look in there, in every St. Christ is going to have his full exaltation not just in heaven. You know He has a place of glory in heaven now he's crowned with glory and honor. But you know the heart of God is never going to be satisfied till his Son is vindicated and glorified on earth and has his rightful place here the on this planet that spit in his face and cast him out and said we won't have him.
God is going to make sure that he has his full vindication, and we've been talking about looking ahead to the glory and accepting circumstances because of what's ahead. But think of the perfect example of the Lord Jesus when he was here. How could he take what he did as a man?
Who, when he reviled, reviled Not again. He's when he suffered. He threatened not, you say? How could he do such a thing? He committed himself to him, the Judgeth, righteously. He knew that there was going to be a coming day. It hasn't happened yet, and he's the man of patience, waiting for it now. A long time. You think you've waited a long time to see the purposes of God fulfilled in your life. Think of the Lord Jesus as a man. He's still waiting. After two millenniums, He's still waiting.
And there's it. But he knew there was a day coming when he would be vindicated by God and have his proper place on earth and brethren. If we can realize that and look on to that day of work and see it, as John said, all in relationship to Christ. But to remember too, there are two things that are sure. Things aren't sure in life, but there's two things sure We're the elect of God. Nothing can change that, and we are predestined.
To the glory. Nothing can change that as well.
There are four questions. Well, actually there are more than four questions in the end of this chapter, but.
I have enjoyed.
The I think it was Albert Hayhoe I heard it from first, but.
Comparing it to a court case.
Beginning with verse 31, it says if God be for us, who can be against this in a court case, you have a contrary party that's against you.
If God be for us, who can be against us? In verse 33 it says who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justify it. There you have the prosecuting attorney that lays out the charges against the person.
But who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
And then verse 34 He who is he that condemneth? There you have the judge.
That pronounces the condemnation.
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died? Who rather yeah, rather that is risen again, even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
And then the last one, verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
After the sentence has been pronounced, the jailer comes to separate that person. Put them behind bars.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Over other than every single facet has been answered by God in a way that there can enter no question about it.
And I think of what Don was saying, that we are to be the companion of Christ for Christ's own glory, eternal glory.
In that coming day of glory. But how important it is so that we would enjoy His love and His thoughts that we are confirmed in our own soul as to the position we occupy before Him of unchanging favor.
That's our place, even here and now.
That's why the subject is justification. It's more than just forgiveness, even, isn't it? We rejoice to be forgiven, but it is God that justifieth, and no charge can be brought up against us because we're seen in all the perfection of Christ. That's what justification is. We're more than just forgiven sinners. It's true we are forgiven sinners. But when God looks at you, when God looks at me, He sees us all in the perfection of Christ.
01:15:19
I think it's so beautifully illustrated in the boards of the Tabernacle that went up, went to make up that the walls of that building in the wilderness, because there were two things that characterized those boards. First of all, they sat in two sockets of silver. That's redemption, and that's wonderful to be redeemed. But there was something else had to be done with those boards. They had to be covered with pure gold. That speaks of a scene in all the righteousness and perfection of Christ.
And when we realized that brethren that were seen in that light.
Who can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? There's no charge. I'm not afraid of one charge of sin being brought up against me because it's been settled by one offering. He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. And it's true we have forgiveness through his blood. But in Romans we're justified by the blood of Christ. That's the basis in which we stand, and that is the security we have and the confidence that we have.
Before God as being seen in all the perfection and righteousness of Christ.
Seeing him number 75 in the appendix.
Number 75 in the back of the book.
No separation.
Of my soul.
Must have been.
Present Your Body As a Living Sacrifice to God
Demas, Luke, Mark - Sacrifice in Following Christ
Let God Make Your Choice
What Doest Thou Here