Kentucky Conference: 2016
Table of Contents
Seven Things to Remember
Address—Doug Buchanan
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.
Everybody else that wants to relive the Reformation and find out how you survive, pick your pick a name and you can come and check your, your survival rate up here on the, uh, chart at the uh, behind me here.
Could we begin with a hymn 170 One 171?
234829 52553.
94 Together and forever.
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello today.
31958.
9.
01/3.
This meeting may be a little different than normal meetings, uh, where we take up just a scripture and expound it, although we're not going to be far from the scriptures.
00:05:08
Uh, as I.
Thought about speaking a little of what? How God over the last 500 years has brought Christianity along.
I was impressed to notice that in the book of Acts when Paul when UMM Peter spoke on the day of Pentecost, he went back and rehearsed the history of Israel. When Steven spoke on in the 7th chapter he did the same thing. He went back to Abraham and and and told the history of what had happened.
And in the 13th chapter of of Acts.
The Apostle Paul did the same thing and it encouraged me.
Because.
I see that God, uh, has used His servants in that way.
Now.
We had I passed out some names to the young people particularly encourage you to, uh, follow up with, uh, some reading to find out some of the details.
Of how the Christian testimony got to where we are right now, some of the cost that was paid.
For us to have a Bible in our hands.
To be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is a wonderful thing. It did not come easy to get where we are here today.
And I hope that after this meeting that there will be more of a sense of appreciation.
For the things that God has given us today.
It's easy to take it for granted what we have. I'm not just talking about the material things we don't, we're certainly not excluding that, but the the spiritual things, the liberty and truth and freedom to worship God according to his Word.
It's a great privilege.
Another thought that struck me was about remembering.
Seven times in the New Testament.
We're given seven things and more than seven, but there's seven that I'm going to mention that we're told to remember.
They are. Remember the poor.
Remember Paul's bonds.
Remember our labor and travel.
Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead.
Remember them that are in bonds.
Remember those who have spoken to you the word of truth.
Remember how thou hast received.
So this meeting is gonna be about remembering.
The Lord would have us.
Not all of these things are are, uh, things that are to be remembered right now.
Well, remembering the poor would be, I think, not just remembering somebody that lived 400 years ago that was poor. There are poor today, but remember Paul's bonds.
That's nearly 2000 years ago.
Paul wrote three of his epistles from prison.
That ought to mean something to us. We ought not to forget that.
He was a prisoner of Jesus Christ.
Travail and labor, Jesus Christ raised from the dead.
00:10:00
Christianity is about.
Especially about a man that died and rose again and lives with power, and that has sent down the Spirit of God.
That Spirit of God is with us to this day.
That Spirit of God was with this list here of martyrs and those who suffered.
I have here as I was reading through a book. This is not a BTP book. I like Fox's Book of Martyrs, but by the way, Mr. John Fox is on this list here. I don't know.
Who drew Mr. John Fox's name?
If you like, I will give you a book, if BTP has it here of Fox's Book of Martyrs. If you come up here and I will, I'll buy that as a present for you. Uh, something to read. If you're interested in it, come to me and I will, I'll give you that book. It's interesting that Mister John Fox.
Uh, he's.
Why can't I see him? Yeah, there he is.
He died in 1587 of natural causes or he was not a martyr.
He was a martyr in the sense that he had to flee England and, uh, he wrote.
Many, many, many stories of martyrs, uh, for Christ, both in Europe and in England. None of these names here are taken from his book. These names are taken from a book by Mr. Daniel Neal in the early 1800s. I believe that he wrote this book.
And it's about 600 pages. He wrote other history books. And I got interested in this book because it is about the history of the Puritans. I was interested in the Puritans because they were our founding fathers, our country or North America in general.
Was settled because of Puritans.
The first ones that immigrated with their families to this country to escape the persecution and have freedom to worship God as their conscience would direct them, which was contrary to many of the laws and of the established church.
The Church of England.
Which was a break off of the Roman Catholic Church.
It's amazing that God used a man like King Henry the Eighth.
In order to get a divorce from one of his wives, he separated from the Roman Catholic Church. That's how the Church of England came into existence, and some of the some of the things of the Roman Catholic Church that were not according to God were dropped off.
But it cost a long time.
For the Church of England and the Puritan people that were in it to be free from all of the traditional.
Ways of worship that had come into the Christian testimony throughout the ages where Judaism was mixed up with Christianity.
And became a hardship and a burden and a difficulty, and did not allow the Spirit of God liberty.
To direct, as in a meeting where we meet together in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Let's turn over to the Book of Hebrews chapter 13.
00:15:02
This is one of the first scriptures that I want to read.
Hebrews, chapter 13.
I want to speak a little bit now about the camp.
Verse seven we've already.
No, we haven't have umm.
Hebrews 13 seven Remember them that have the rule over you.
Who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever.
Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats.
Which have not profited them that have been occupied therein we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood.
Suffered without the gate.
The gate of the camp. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come by Him. Therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
But to do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well.
Pleased.
The author here is speaking to.
Jewish Christians that were having a difficulty separating from the Jewish customs of worship and we're mixing it in with Christianity. And so he right here how that Jesus who was the new way suffered outside the camp.
And he died there, and he opened up a new way of approach to God.
And of the danger of not the danger of mixing Judaized ways in the Old Testament with the new way of worship.
We have an altar which.
We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle he's talking about. You can't go by, you can't approach to God through those things of the Old Testament that were pictures and signs of what was to come and to approach God.
In the same way you can in Christian testimony.
Down through the history of the church's ages.
Judaized ways have come in to Orthodox churches and ways of worship.
Robes, investments, music and things that were given in the Old Testament have crept in. An altar at the front, patterned after something Moses would have made in the Old Testament, have crept into.
Christian testimonies over the years and the two are mixed together and confused.
Now as I was reading this of these ones if you will notice afterwards.
I used to think that, you know, it was doctrinal, the main things that caused those early Christians, 500, four, 500 years ago in that part, in that time of the Reformation, I used to think it was mostly the doctrine that they saw that was wrong in the Roman Catholic Church or in the Church of England or whatever denomination they were in that had.
00:20:10
These customs from the Jewish traditions in them.
And I was surprised how many here.
Are were imprisoned.
For non conformity.
You know what that means?
Most of the people on this list were ministers, ordained ministers in the Church of England. They had studied in the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and so on, and they were very learned men. Many of you will recognize some of the names on there. James Usher, for example, was the disciple of one of the men here.
The ushers chronology at the end of in your Bible dictionary or in your.
In your chronology, that man James Usher lived at that time and, uh, he was a Puritan and he, uh, studied the word and put together a chronology that has stood over many ages. Well, you, it's become a standard.
Those men were within that circle of the only church.
In England that was allowed during those years.
During the reign of Queen Mary, which was 5, about five years. The first third of that chart took place during her reign, and she turned back to the Roman Catholic Church.
And persecuted those who who would not.
Go back to the Roman Catholic rituals and ways of worship and with reason. Her name is often referred to as Bloody Mary because of all the blood that was shed here. The list gives burned at the stake. I think almost all of them.
Christians. Most of these men.
Were ministers well educated and they would not submit to what was imposed by the Queen and her and the Archbishop?
Following her was the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Now she lived much longer as queen, nearly 35 years I think.
And she claimed to be of the Church of England, not Roman Catholic, but she was against the Puritans.
Within.
The the Church of England, the Puritans were a people, not a people that were four separating that came along later. These people here that were persecuted were not out forming new churches that came along later. And now today we have hundreds and hundreds of Protestant denominations that have.
Come out of the original church, the Roman Catholic or the succeeding Church of England, which was just a branch off of the Church of England. This is history. This is not something new to you all, but I'm just putting together a chronology of how the events.
Passed how we got to where we are today.
What it cost?
To be able to worship the Lord as we do.
How difficult it was to find this altar outside the camp.
So the non conformance here, not wearing the apparel they had, I wanted to get a a model of the of the apparel they used to wear and I couldn't couldn't get one. So you'll have to go back and look at some pictures. But the church robes, most of the people that suffered here.
00:25:09
On there were because they were ministers who refused.
To where the apparel that the Queen insisted they must wear if they were going to minister in the church and if they would not wear this apparel, they were removed forcibly, they were deposed, their wages were taken away from them or they were sent to prison, etcetera, etcetera.
I'm appalled.
I I think the pendulum has swung from 1 extreme to another. How many here today would be willing to stand up just to the clothes that you wear when you go to meeting and to die for it or be sent to prison? They were given opportunities to conform.
And they wouldn't do it. Why if it's just clothes?
Is it important how we dress?
Some people will say no, it's, it's what's inside the heart that's really that's count. Well, yes, what's in the heart counts.
But what's on the outside counts 2.
Maybe to a lesser extent, but our testimony is known by how we dress, how we conduct ourselves, how we live, and these people, to them it was important.
And so they were imprisoned, etcetera, etcetera.
Why did they not want to conform?
Put on the the priestly robes, they were beautiful to look at, probably. I would guess that's why Queen of Elizabeth liked that. She was royalty and she liked nice things and so on. And so the Lord knows why she did it. But why did they refuse it?
They called it Popish religion.
Our Popish.
Vestments and they had all kinds of words to describe it, and those who refused to wear those were suffering.
There were doctrinal issues along with it, yes, but this part about the clothes was the part that surprised me.
And so I leave it with you to.
Meditate.
When an unbeliever walks in a room like this and sees.
One of the first things that they will notice is they'll probably notice all the head scarves and and the hats, but they will also notice the clothes.
And they will immediately, very quickly make a judgment of what kind of people this is in this room.
They haven't talked to anybody yet, but already they will have formed opinion, good or bad, etcetera, etcetera.
Our Christianity needs to be worn outside too, not just in the heart, and so this is a challenge for us. Uh.
To represent Christ now.
I, I, I realize that there, there was a, there was a identification with the system, uh, that had adopted many things of the Old Testament.
In the Roman Catholic Church from which these people were struggling to become free.
And it costs them much.
And they paid the price.
And they in those years.
Uh, all the way up until they began immigrating to the United States to, to New England and Jamestown, Virginia and so on. It's interesting that South America.
00:30:14
Was colonized.
Over 100 years before North America.
Now I'm not here to I'm not that well versed in the history, but this surprised me.
It was probably the gold in South America that prompted the development of the colonies in South America.
North America was colonized by a people that were seeking religious freedom to worship God.
Without the cumbrances of.
The camp.
And they couldn't find it.
And they sought it.
But it wasn't until almost 200 years later.
In the early 1800s.
God worked began a work of among, specially among.
Anglican ministers.
Who were seeing the light of the Scriptures and they realized that they didn't need the human ordinations to preach the Word and to meet together.
And they began meeting on their own.
And eventually started breaking bread and we'll get to that a little bit later. But I don't want, I want to, I want to continue a little bit more with our verses here about in Hebrews, about without the camp. Now what is this camp here?
Referring to in Hebrews that we read, I believe.
Well, first of all, literally the camp was referring back to the time of Israel when Moses received the Tabernacle that ordered to build it, and when there was.
A sin in the camp, he had to take the Tabernacle out and pitch it outside, but the peep because the people were in sin. And it says that everybody, everyone who sought the Lord with went outside the camp.
To meet the Lord there. And so that's literally what happened that he's referring to. But what he's applying it to there at that time of the early Christians was that that is an example of how that Jesus suffered outside of the Jewish system. He was cast out by his Jews.
Jewish brethren rejected and crucified.
And he rose again and has now opened up a new Ave. of approach to God, which is the reality of what the Old Testament pictures were of an approach to God. And once you have the reality of Jesus who ascended up into heaven.
And now has opened it up for us to pray to God.
In his name and worship God.
In his name.
This is Christian test, this is Christian doctrine, this is Christianity established here on earth and you cannot mix the Jewish religion with the Christian religion. If you do that, you are getting back into the camp again and this is what?
These early Christians were struggling to become free of.
They saw that it was not right to have the, the colored robes and the, and all of these things and a holy place there in the church where it was called the altar and where you kneeled and you prayed and so on. All of these things were borrowed from the Old Testament and mixed in with Christianity and became.
00:35:12
A camp.
Thankfully, many of our Protestant brethren have gotten free, but much of those vestments of Jewish religion.
There's still some around us today, but those of us as gathered to the Lord's name, we have a great privilege of having been taught the difference between the Jew.
Is religion and Christianity which is heavenly.
There was an earthly people. We now know that there is also a heavenly people and we belong to that people and we approach God in spirit. We worship in spirit and truth. We don't worship the way they did in the Old Testament. And you can't mix those two things up. That's what the brethren and back 4234500 years ago did not see.
As I read through some of the stories and how the difficulty, they had an understanding that, for example, the relationship between the King of England or the Queen of England and the Archbishop, who was supposedly the head of the religious side and the King was the head of the civil side and those two.
Work together.
And produced some either much good or much.
Evil. Much difficulty.
People didn't understand when, when, for example, when they, these ministers would not conform because their conscience was against putting all these formal dresses on and so on, and the forms of prayers that were required. They weren't allowed to offer a prayer out of their own heart. They had to read the prayer out of a prayer book.
And they didn't like that, and they didn't know how to get free of it. They didn't know the right way because they didn't distinguish between the king and the head of the church, because they were mixed together and operating together. It was a state of confusion as to principles and truths. Young people.
We have been delivered from that we know.
Where the civil government is, and that just because you don't pray the way, uh, the king would require, doesn't mean you can't do it. Thankfully, we do have that liberty all over the country and so on. I'm just using an example to show how confusion results when you don't distinguish between the civil government and the religious.
Testimony of Christianity.
Here on the earth, those things are to be defined differently, they're not the same, and so on. Well, I hope I don't get you too confused with too many things here, but but this is what is referred to in these verses about the camp.
We have an altar which, whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is referring to the Old Testament way and it talks about the, the, the blood of, of, uh, the, umm, the animals that were sacrificed there and so on. When you start mixing that up with New Testament, it becomes confusion.
How wonderful it is.
To be able to worship the Lord in spirit and truth on New Testament ground.
So what that is?
A very important point for us.
To to be free to worship God as he intends us to do. You cannot mix in the Old Testament orders of thanks. They only bring in ******* and hardship and so on.
The Bre Those people paid a price, and with difficulty.
00:40:07
Got free of those kinds of things. We take it so much for granted today. And that's why I'm that's why I'm going back over this history.
Remember.
Those who have spoken.
Martin Luther to get justification by faith. What a struggle he had.
Deep exercise of soul praying at the at the door of the of the of the church there in Germany. And the Lord gave him light and he saw that it was by faith in Jesus Christ and his blood, and it cleared him up from so many of the things of the ordinances that he had been connected with.
There in Germany.
And so on.
You know I mentioned about John Fox here.
He was not martyred, you know, that spoke to me.
And it it spoke to me in this way.
Because usually the most faithful ones are the first ones to suffer. Now, yes, John Fox had to flee. He had to flee England. He and he, he went to Europe and Switzerland and so on. And it's there that he accumulated all the stories that he took and put in his book and for for several years, then he eventually came back to England during the the reign of the Queen.
Elizabeth towards the latter part, I think it was, and he was there. He never, never took up a position of being a minister of a church again after that time. He dedicated himself more to preaching the gospel and to writing his book and his stories that have been preserved to us this day. And God preserves that man.
And he didn't die a martyr, even though he wrote about so many that did.
Isn't it wonderful that God preserves his faithful ones?
It spoke to me in this way. Brethren, young people, if you're bold and if you're faithful in your Christian testimony, God can preserve you. We need not fear the enemy. We need not let the enemy intimidate us in our Christian testimony because of the hardships or the things or the insults or whatever reasons out there that the enemy has, and there are many of them.
Yes, we're given liberty, preached the gospel, but it still takes boldness. I'm not, I confess I'm not very good at it.
But I want to encourage us to be faithful. God can preserve you.
Now I want to go over to the book of Matthew 18.
Now we're gonna jump, jump ahead in history down to what I referred to before, when there was a group of, of uh, mostly clergy of the, of the Anglican or Church of England ministers who are well educated and they began meeting together, as you well know, Mr. Darby was one of them, Mr. Bellett and so on.
And this is the verse that spoke to them.
Among others, this well known verse in Matthew 18.
Uh, verse 18.
Fairly I say unto you.
Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
This much appreciated verse that we often refer to as being gathered to the Lord's name was what prompted those few. There were like five of them in a meeting that first time that they acted in faith on this verse and they realized that they didn't need the human ordination from the system they were connected with.
00:45:25
In order to carry on the work of God and in order to remember him and carry on the the look, the remembrance of the Lord in his death, because that is celebrated in the Church of England and and so on and and many denominations.
And they appreciated that.
But they saw in this verse that.
The name of the Lord Jesus is sufficient as a gathering center, as an authority. He binds in heaven what is agreed upon on earth in this case. And so they acted on it. And when they did that.
In the in the early 1800s.
They had no thought of starting a new church. That was the farthest thing in their mind.
It was an act of obedience that the Lord recognized when they agreed to gather together in the name of the Lord Jesus, not in the name of the Church of England, or not in the name of of the Church of Ireland or some other denominational name.
That is, that is the human part of it. They realize they didn't need the human.
Organizational structure that had been borrowed from the Old Testament and applied in the Christian testimony over the years and had grown until the Christian testimony became a great thing like the parable of the the mustard seed, where.
A little seed was sown in the ground with the intent that this.
Would produce a herb to use for food, but instead of be remaining what its purpose was, men made it grow up into a great denominational structure of human organization.
And this is what?
Can be referred to also as the camp.
Enrollments and in Hebrews and so.
A barrier was broken.
A hindrance was broken.
A direct relationship to the Lord Jesus and His name owned. Now I know that most all Christians will will tell you, Oh yes, we believe that too.
But actions.
Bear witness to other things being mixed together with it.
Do you break bread?
From week to week at the Lord's Table.
As you do so, do you see young people? Are you acting in faith, not gathered to a meeting? Are you gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus? Do you see He's the one that's ahead of it, He's the center. He's the one exalted in heaven, that owns it in heaven, and his people are here on earth.
That was that's the truth of the one body we speak about. That's the truth that Paul got the the day he was converted when the Lord smote him down and said, Saul, Saul, why persecute us, thou me?
And Paul realized at that moment that the church on earth was livingly linked with Christ in heaven and that Jesus felt it in heaven and he, he got a hold of the truth of the one body in that. That's the gathering center.
That is for us.
That's outside the camp that is only organized by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
00:50:02
And not controlled by a kingly authority or a religious authority that usurps that an Archbishop over a Bishop. And that was one of the things that they, those early men, contended with, that the Bible never spoke about a Pope nor an Archbishop. It only spoke about bishops and deacons.
No more. And they saw.
That the pudding of 1 Bishop over another Bishop was a human organization. They saw it was wrong.
It was putting an intermediary between a local person.
And the Lord directly. And so they broke that off from that campish organization and became free little by little. But it took 200 years, basically.
Tell brethren, came to know the liberty that we know today as being gathered the Lord Jesus Christ, Brethren.
This is not to our praise. I'm not talking about this to make anything of brethren. This is the contrary. It's the work of God by the Spirit of God in souls, individually gathering them to the person of the Lord Jesus, and each one seeing the Lord there in the midst. When you sit down at the Lord's table, do you just see brethren there or do you see the Lord there?
This is the key by faith we see.
The Lord there, and we gather in that reason, and He has.
Recognized it now for nearly 200 years.
It has carried on. I'm impressed with it. I've only been gathered about 50 years and yet I have seen all kinds of failures among ourselves.
Lots of it. Does it cause me to doubt that the Lord is there? Not really. I'm disturbed many times by things that happen, Yes, and I recognize young people. I have failed to in in my little part and being gathered to the Lord's name. But I have also seen that the Lord has faithfully preserved it.
In spite.
And it it, it, it makes me rejoice, it makes me give give praise to the Lord how he did the work in the beginning and delivering them from the camp and then and preserving us in all our weakness over the years. And I believe that the Lord will preserve a testimony till he comes back again. And we're getting near to that time. So my word to you young people is.
Appreciate.
What men in the past have paid to bring you, to help bring you where you are today. May the Lord keep us in the simplicity of this verse and the being gathered to the Lord's name. And may we.
See value in it. You know this breaking honestly, you know there's a lot of nice testimonies out there.
We can go down the street here and you can find a babysitter that will take care of your children while you worship, and you can listen to a nice, nice, uh, a better message than you're gonna get right here. I'm sure of that.
Well, what about the Lord Jesus?
What about what has been given to us here? Is it worth standing up for and keeping?
I believe it is. May the Lord help us to keep on till He comes.
Hebrews 11:1-5
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Redeeming Grace 237.
Rejoice, ye Saints, rejoice and praise the one they are.
Immigrating.
We have before some of the martyrs in the last meeting. I thought perhaps in this chapter it would give us some reasons of why one would go on and see how they walk by faith.
Chapter 11.
Now say is the substance of things hoped for the the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report through faith. We understand that the world were framed by by the word of God, so that things which are seen are not made of things which do appear by faith.
Able offer unto God a more excellent sacrifice than King.
By which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gifts.
And by it he being dead, yet speaker by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him. For before his translation he had his testimony that he pleased God, but without faith it is impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. My faith, Noah, being warned of God, of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepare an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
00:05:08
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whether he went by faith. He sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised therefore spring their even of one.
And him as good as dead. So many as the stars of the sky in multitude.
And at the sand, which is by the seashore innumerable.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He had prepared for them a city by faith, Abraham, when he was tried.
Offer of Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
I can't think that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying blessed for the sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning on the top of his staff.
By faith Joseph when he died may mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones. By faith Moses when he was born was hit three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the King's commandment. By faith Moses when he was come to years.
Refused to be called the son of Pharaohs daughter.
Choosing rather just software affliction with the people of God, and to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Four Seasons it seemed the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he has respect unto the recompense of the reward by faith He forsake Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as sin as seeing him.
Who is invisible through faith? He kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, lest he that destroyed the first born should touch them.
By faith they pass through the Red Sea, as by Drew Island, which the Egyptians saying to do were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the holy Rehab perished. Not with them that believed, not when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say?
But the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barrack, and of Samson, and of Jason, David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword.
00:10:23
Out of weakness were made strong.
Waxed a valiant invite, turned to flight the armies of the aliens women received the dead rays to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they may obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel markings and scourgings. Yeah, moreover upon and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, where tempted were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in desert, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all having obtained a good report.
Through faith received not the promise, God having provided some better things for us.
That they without us should not be made perfect.
To find a Hall of Fame for this or that in Chicago, they have the broadcast Hall of Fame. And I know there's probably somewhere a baseball Hall of Fame and a football Hall of Fame. And uh, there's a various music halls of fame and so on with these places where they celebrate the lives of people who have, as far as the world is concerned, excelled in some area.
This is God's Hall of Fame.
It's going to outlast them all.
Every Hall of Fame on this earth is going to crumble, be forgotten.
But this is.
Recorded for eternity.
So we have characters here who?
In many ways didn't live exemplary lives. That is, in many ways overall they did. That's why they're here. But you can find failures in every life.
But they were distinguished.
By their faith and are distinguished for their faith. Faith honors God. It was the first problem in this world in the Garden of Eden. Man did not honor God by believing and acting responsibly according to what God had said. And so faith is this the opposite of that faith taking God of His word is He re He regards as a supreme honor.
So the question facing each of us this afternoon is.
How seriously do we take God's Word?
What does it mean to us? You know, there's no expe expression. Uh, beauty is as beauty does.
And faith is as faith does.
How seriously?
To what extent do we base our lives on what God has said?
John chapter 3 there was a real nice definition of faith.
Uh, we often turn to when we, when we read this chapter in Hebrews and it goes along, John, right with what you were saying.
Uh, John chapter 3 and verse 33.
It says, uh, he that has received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
00:15:09
Faith always has to be based upon something.
And the, the validity of what it's based on, uh, will umm, be a test, as it were, as to, umm, the, the, the sureness of that faith. And our faith is based upon who God is and what he has said. So he that receiveth his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
Everyone in Hebrews 11 That we're gonna read about had decided that God's testimony was worth believing and that what God said was true, and so they based their actions upon who God is.
And that's the basis for faith. Faith puts confidence in what is sure.
I like the example in Romans 4 of Abraham two along with what's been said if we read a few verses there in Romans 4 about Abraham.
Verse 16 It says therefore it is of faith, that it might be of grace.
To the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed.
Not As to that only which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, I have made thee father of many nations before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Who against hope? This is Abraham believed in hope.
That he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead.
When he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered naughty at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.
And being fully persuaded that which he had promised, he was able also to perform. It's a beautiful example here of Abraham and his faith and the explanation of it. He believed what God had said, and he said it to seal as God is true. And in testing it was tried, but he believed God rather than circumstances, and God honored that.
And so, as it's been said, it glorifies God.
When we believe him.
Harveys translation uh it says God who quickeneth the dead. That means he gives life to the dead. That's.
Amazing in itself, but that's what God does. God gives life to the dead, and if you're a believer here, you're a living miracle.
God gives life to the dead and calls those things which be not. In other words, there are things that don't appear in reality, the reality we know.
As.
Darby's translation doesn't say if or though. It just simply says as being God calls the things that be, not as being God has.
An alternate reality that we're not aware of.
And God's faith is seeing things God's way, seeing things as God sees them. We can't see things the way God sees them by nature.
Only as God reveals them to us. God sees everything and he reveals a little bit of what he sees to us. And when we accept that vision, that's.
00:20:00
That seeing things God's way.
When? When we accept that revelation from God.
Chapter begins in explaining to us what faith truly is, because without understanding the first verse, the rest of the examples are not really that important, is it? So we have to truly know what faith is that is thought of By telling us that faith is a substance of the things pulled forward or things that you hope for, you wanted to be able to substantiate that.
And evidence of things. And I believe that you are being used to crazy conviction of things not seen. So if you look at proofs first.
And that's what we call scientific. You need screws. Well, that's not faith. Faith is things that we don't see, but yet we believe.
Faith faith is a very important part of our Christian life. We find that it is by grace we are saying to faith and then we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So we see all these connections together and.
Above all, we can gain more faith, and we find that even the little measure of faith that we have is given from above, isn't it?
I struggled with this first for years, trying to understand that faith is the substance of things hoped for.
Or the conviction of things hoped for. And then I had a little interesting experience. I was working with a fellow named Brian.
Young fella and graduated from high school and came to work where I was working and had Bible truth publishers and as as soon as he saved up enough money he bought himself a nice motorcycle.
And he rode that motorcycle to to work for a year, and all of a sudden it disappeared.
And I said, Brian.
What happened to your motorcycle? And he said, well, you see, I wanna get married and I want a honeymoon.
What happened? He had met this girl named Laura out in New Jersey. That's where they live now. And he had a hope. Notice what the first says here. Faith is the substance of things hoped for.
So he had this hope.
And Laura made a promise.
That made that hope real to Brian. It substantiated that hope. It made it something he could work with.
That's when when Laura said I will, that hope became real. So Brian and he sold his motorcycle.
And when the hope?
That God has set me for us.
Becomes real. It changes our lives.
And the Football Hall of Fame or the Hockey Hall of Fame, whatever it might be, that's the reward, doesn't go beyond that. They may have some trophies in their cabinet, but.
Their Hall of Fame is it and here in Chapter 11 verse two it says for by it the elders obtained a good report.
All these people listed here, their faith wasn't just to receive a good report. There's something better, better for them.
Moses, he esteemed the riches of Christ greater riches, the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
For he had He had respect unto the recompense of reward. There's reward coming for them in verse 35.
They didn't want to receive deliverance because that they might obtain a better resurrection. There's a there's a better thing for them. Maybe they haven't received it yet, but there's a they, they that hope LED them all the way through their life and it kept them. And even in death, they still have that assurance that there's going to be a better resurrection. They're going to be made perfect.
00:25:25
So that's why we can sing before we get there.
I was struck with what was read this morning about Hannah, how she prayed and she was sorrowful and grieved. She had no son as soon as she got the re the word from the prophet or Eli the priest rather.
She was no more sad.
That was faith, wasn't it? She believed what had been said. She had the evidence of things not seen. The word of the priest said the Lord give it to you and and it changed her. That's fake.
If we wait till we get it, it's sight.
I believe it is a simple story. I remember reading when I was a young man of Hudson Taylor and they were on a journey and and all of a sudden he stopped and said let's thank the Lord for the food.
And so he thanked the Lord for the food. And he said, well, brother said, what, you don't have any food yet? And he said to him, if I remember the story, he said, yeah, but I the Lord is going to provide food. And when he does, you'll have to stop to thank the Lord. But I can start eating.
There's two ways to respond to the Word of God.
There's faith, believing and the blessing that follows. And there's unbelief.
Umm, I think the the ex the example of of that was in the Garden of Eden when God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good, uh, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they acted in unbelief and umm, what a tremendous curse. What think of the results of the unbelief res the response to the word of God.
And the unbelief that that they expressed and the results of that that followed, it was the umm.
The, the, the, the, uh, destruction, you might say of, of the human race, umm, but you know, God has now offered blessing through his son, the Lord Jesus on the cross, but he makes the, the, that blessing dependent on faith, doesn't he? If, if man wants to respond.
To the the message of the gospel and unbelief, the result is going to be eternal destruction, but if.
That offer of salvation is received by faith, then it ends up in eternal life. And So what tremendous, umm, consequences can come? And we can bring that down to a very practical level in our lives, can't we? When, when God promises us things through his Word?
We can respond in one of two ways. We can respond in unbelief and lose a tremendous amount of blessing in our lives, or we can respond in faith. Every time we respond in faith, we're bringing glory to God. We're actually saying yes, God is and he we're going to we're going to get as we go on in this chapter. He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So those who want to re react.
00:30:04
To the promises and to the Word of God, by believing him are going to receive a tremendous benefit. History of man proves that if we were so slow to learn.
That God is worthy of being thrust in his word is worthy of believing He's worthy of faith. Putting our full confidence we we have so many examples throughout the history of man, either of the blessing that comes by believing God and exercising faith or responding to what God says in unbelief.
Every time God speaks, we have to make that decision which way we're going to respond.
This is that you mentioned.
Two of the first is we know that the 1St man on this earth, they went on, they are not on this list, neither is the first man born into this world that will retain themselves. He's gone on this list didn't have the chance to be. So we see that they didn't. Faith was not they didn't have the faith required.
Abel is the first one mentioned there. So we see that in the following verses there were three men.
That walked in the face of it, we find in this chapter that if you find different types and different things in connection to faith and here let's go back to verse 3 before we go too far. 2 and that's that's for us. Do we believe what the world tells us It says through faith we understand the world we frame by the word of God. Do we go by what science tells us?
Or do we go by what the word of God tells us and then we find out that science actually back up with the word of God says it's creation is the word of God. Creation is from God. Let's let's turn to John chapter one. Perhaps when we read it now we see a slightly different perspective. We often read that and say the Lord Jesus is the Son of God. But think about that in creation standpoint, how this world came into being.
John chapter one, it says in the beginning was the Word. Well, how does this world get framed by the word of God, isn't it? But in the very beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. There's no argument about that. That's what faith is. There's no justification to see how true or how bad it is, is what God.
Faith is what God said it, I believe it and thus should send it. It should be from the word of God. That's why we can read after verse three and John one that all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. How can the world all form of chaos to nothing? There is a creator isn't it? And not only that, that is back to us as men again in him.
Was life.
And the light was the light of man. Oh, it's not just creation. There is life in there. So this whole world is frame using the word of God. In fact, let me even take a step further. When we have trouble and difficulties, I would say after this, because our faith, we need to believe that God will look after all things. And it's difficult, isn't it, when we waiver. So we find here that the word of God.
Through this book, give us examples of in verse four to verse seven, we find the example of three men who who walk in faith. Did they have books to read to prove it? Did they have someone else to convince them? No, they walk with God in faith. And we'll see different characteristics in this, in this book, which I just mentioned it briefly, we'll find, uh, in Abraham. What about the patience he has of faith?
And we'll find especially Abraham, the Lord bring out different aspects of faith that Abraham had to walk. And then they use example how by faith I believe is mentioned seven times by faith how others walked. And then they talk about individual that gone through warfare as we're exhausted early on in the last meeting, all because of faith.
00:35:12
I look at this chapter.
I see that there had to be a starting point.
With each and every one of them.
With that thought in mind for a moment.
Look at verse six of our chapter. But without faith, it's impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
I never pleased God until I believed and trusted in faith in His Son.
It was impossible to please him before that because I had rejected the gift above all other gifts up to that point.
So the first time that I pleased Him was the day I believed and trusted in the finished work of Christ.
So we have a starting point with each and every one of these people. Let's momentarily look at our starting point together. Second Timothy, Chapter one.
Excuse me?
Second Timothy, chapter one, the latter part of verse 12.
For I know.
Our brother talked about.
The word substance.
For I know.
Whom I have believed, and I am persuaded.
That he is able to.
Keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.
What have I committed unto him?
Keep our fingers there. Turn over to First Peter, chapter 4, verse 19.
First Peter chapter 4, verse 19. Therefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
I didn't know much about my salvation when I trusted in Jesus. And then I started reading. I started learning a lot about more things that took place than I realized. I had committed my soul to Him.
As a faithful creator against that day.
Against what day? Oh, there was vows that rang out in heaven.
What did he commit to me? He committed the gospel in safe keeping. He admitted to every one of us in here, didn't he?
There is valves that rang out. You're my child, you're accepted into the beloved, etcetera.
I believed and I am persuaded that he's the only one that's able to keep that which I committed unto him against that day.
Each and every one of these had a starting point.
What was the reward of 11:00 and 6:00?
He's a rewarder of them. Salvation, sure.
But there's a reward in that day.
The completion of my salvation. I was saved back here. I'm currently being saved now. I will be saved that day.
The day that we read in Titus 213 together this morning.
The hope, The blessed hope.
And the glorious appearing of.
Our great Savior, Lord Jesus Christ, he's able to keep that. I know it, I believe it, I'm persuaded. There's a little word in, in uh, Jude, uh, verse one, uh, that we are preserved.
Sometimes substance in Chapter 11 and verse one.
Is changed and translated in other.
Text as assurance.
I am so happy of that assurance that I know and I believe and I am persuaded and then I've committed it to the correct person against that day when I want to receive the completion, the reward of my of my salvation and I see my Savior face to face the perosa PAROIOUISA Greek they are emphasis is not on being snatched and taken away from the scene.
00:40:16
Their emphasis is upon seeing that blessed Savior face to face, there's my reward. When I with him throughout the endless ages of eternity, that's my reward. There's another word, Aosa. That means departure. The opposite. We're looking forward at the rapture is coming. Perosa. Aosa with departure. When he left, we're gonna have a Oh. So we're gonna depart from the world. Yeah. We're gonna be caught. We're gonna be snatched away in the moment and twinkling open eye. How beautiful that is. Yeah, but put the emphasis over on the other one.
The one that's coming here to Take Me Out of this scene, that I'm never gonna be down here anymore. I'm with him forever in eternity, and there's my reward on that day. Now, I got some substance, don't I? I got assurance right there. His word. His word says so.
I've committed my soul to the correct one.
He's a rewarder.
In verse four, we're introduced in the story of Abel and Cain. If you and I had witnessed.
Abel's sacrifice and Cain's sacrifice.
We probably would've been more attracted to Canes. He offered the fruit of the ground. Abel apparently slaughtered a lamb or a sheep.
It was a bloody sacrifice.
It involved death.
But Abel had God's mind and Cain didn't, and.
We need.
Revelation from God to know his mind in order to act.
In a way that pleases him. It's not it's it's not according to nature. Like I say, nature would have approved a cane sacrifice.
Verse, verse three and it's, uh, speaks about our responsibility to God as a creator. We have to, we have to start out from that. Umm, we're not.
We're not self-sufficient creative beings that have no no one to answer to. We do. And God has a purpose in why he created and and so on. And so we have to start out from that premise.
Then, uh, Johanna speaking about the able and keen and that then the same question comes in and this verse, doesn't it? Umm.
Cain's sacrifice did not deal with this in question.
Abel's dead and blood had been shed.
And that's why God could accept it.
We would like to do not deal with this in question.
But we have to.
Abel was willing to accept God for who he was, and that was that. He was a holy God who demanded a sacrifice or a penalty for sin, and so he was willing to meet God's requirements.
To be brought into God's fellowship, and that was faith.
I suppose that the witness to Abel was the coats of skins that God took to clothe Adam and Eve, and he saw in that that the death of some of a victim in order to clothe them in in in a suitable way before God.
00:45:04
So that you think that's where his he got his his face from?
Send message on to them, wouldn't you? The father has the responsibility to pass these things on to the children.
And Adam?
There had to be blood in order for him to come back into any sort of communion fellowship with God.
Abel he re. He recognized that by faith he recognized that there had to be the shedding of blood. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins and no forgiveness. And so he recognized he had to shed the blood. And so the blood must be shed for salvation. There must be the acknowledgment.
Of sin.
Able He wanted to worship God, and so he brought his animal to worship God.
To commune with God.
I think it's interesting to notice that in Genesis, I don't believe it mentioned much about Abel other than the sacrifices that we read of. We can speculate to say how Adam should should applaud him, or perhaps he could observe and learn. We don't know that. I think. I like to take it as he's a good example of what they did. He believed. He simply believed, and he did.
And God honored that, that it's interesting.
In in the book of Jude is someone quoted earlier. Let's just turn to that for a moment. It doesn't say able, but it talks about pain and they talk about enough and they give us a little bit different stories that they were Jude. Obviously there's only one chapter in that verse 11. It says woe unto them for they have gone in the way of pain. Well, we know it from here. The way of pain really is a picture of.
That's not faith. Cane wanted to do it this way. Perhaps it was elaborate, Perhaps it was a nice system of things. We don't know. We're not told that. But that's the meaning here, isn't it? They have gone the way of pain. It's not my thought to go further in my chapter, but it's instructive to go read that yourself. So I'd like to take it as a simple thing. Whether you understand or not, he did what he was told.
And then, as you mentioned here, the three men, Able Enoch and Noah.
They walked with God. So we don't know much about Enoch, neither Jewish, we know that he walked with God, but then in the book of Jude they told us a little bit more June 14 and Enoch also the 7th from Adam prophesied of these saying, behold the Lord Thomas with 10,000 things, with 10,000 of his things.
To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly needs which they have ungodly committed, and of all their heart speeches, which I mean godly sinners, have spoken against them.
We can learn of this. Until the book of Jude, we knew he walked with God, but here we find that he was a preacher of righteousness. He was preaching the judgment to come. And so that tells us how it leads on. It wasn't just in Noah's day, it was even before that that they were warned of the judgment to come because of the unrighteousness, but yet he walked with God. It was a tough time from the way it sounds, isn't it? Or wasn't it?
But yet he walked with God by faith. Then we find a third man. No one seemed to walk with God. We know no one's story there. He two was a preacher of righteousness for 120 years. That's a long time, isn't it, that he walked with God. It was all by faith. And it's interesting to Noah. Noah speaks of judgment.
In this world, often someone will use the phrase, and we're all from Adam, you know, probably heard of that. Well, really, to be technical, we can all say we're from Noah.
But yet we don't use that phrase through it, we'll use the phrase we're from Adam. Why do we not use the phrase that we're from Noah? I believe this is my theory on it is that Adam speaks of the fallen nature, Adam as a man. Sin failed before God and man today would even accept this and say, yes, oh, I said big deal. That's how corrupt this world has become. But yet when it comes to Noah, Noah.
00:50:23
Seeks of judgment to come, and this world is not ready to accept the fact that God will execute judgment against this world. So His coming is as it is in the day of Noah.
The thing, particularly the just thinking of the 1St and the 4th verses of 165. The fourth verse says, By faith we see the glory of which thou dost assure us the world despise, or that high prize which thou hast set.
Deforest hymn #165 first and last verses.
Nsnoise.
Gospel 1
Gospel—Tim Roach
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.
Maybe we could start our meeting tonight by seeing #4. Christ is the Savior of sinners. Christ is the Savior. For me, long I was changing since darkness. Now by His grace, I am free number 4.
Christ is the same.
Nobody is great, I am afraid.
Save the game.
So I'm saying I'm flying through my clinic.
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
I want to talk tonight about the Lord Jesus and His touch, the touch of Jesus hand and we will look in Matthew chapter 8.
And we know that sin is dirty.
And we're going to look at the contaminating aspect of sin. Matthew chapter 8, and we'll begin at verse one.
When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him, and behold, there came a leper, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will.
Be thou clean, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
This story, it says that the Lord Jesus came down, came down from the mountain, that that reminds me of the Lord Jesus when he came down from heaven, the Father sent his son to be the savior of the world and the Lord Jesus says I will go.
And so the Lord Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
And then our the verses here say the multitudes followed him. And so we know that there's many people going to many churches. We have many people here tonight. You're following Jesus. Maybe you're saved, maybe you're not, but you're following Jesus. You're here listening to the gospel meeting, and you're almost saved. You are almost saved. You know the Lord Jesus has come to die for you. You know that you are a Sinner. You know the gospel. You pray.
00:05:03
You know the the Bible verses. You are almost saved, but are you?
Are you really saved? Multitudes are following Jesus.
Then this story is about a leper.
The leper, it's a disease that.
There are different types of leprosy. I believe in the Bible, but it's a disease that makes you unclean, it makes you dirty. And there's many the lepers they had to call out when someone came near, They had to say unclean, unclean, and to let other people know don't come near because I'm contagious. And there's other contagious diseases today. There's HIV, there's AIDS and hepatitis B, and there's so many things that are contagious. But we just got done our camp in in Michigan and a lot of us got colds. They're contagious. We get sick because other people are sick. And that's just the way it is. And leprosy is that way.
In Jude chapter one, verse 23, it says and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. And so our lives become spotted by sin.
And we become contagious. And so I want hopefully, by God's grace and His love, can pull you out of the danger zone of hell fire tonight and put on you a clean garment, A garment that is suitable for the presence of the Lord Jesus.
And so I It is my desire tonight that you are clothed with the righteousness of God.
Colossians Chapter 3.
We'll look at a verse, some verses there.
I'll talk a little bit more before we read these verses sin.
It makes you dirty.
You Maybe you don't have leprosy or aids, but what about disobeying your parents? Or dishonouring your teacher at school? Or cheating in math class? I used to be pretty good in math when I was in grade school. Then one day, the boy next to me, he took the teacher's lesson book home and copy down all the answers in his notebook. Well.
He offered me that book.
Not the teachers book. I wouldn't take that I wasn't that bad. But I took his notebook and I took it and I read, wrote down all the answers in my notebook and.
Sin was contagious. I took his notebook. It was contagious. That summer I had a diving accident, drove off the rocks down into the water. I didn't dive out far enough and I landed head first on the rocks and crushed the vertebrae in my neck and split my head open.
I floated face down in the water in the current and Mr. Barry was downstream and pulled me out and they took me to the hospital.
Since that time I haven't been very good in math, but.
But it's a consequence, perhaps, of cheating.
But there was good news, because later that summer, in a Gospel meeting, Mr.
And I got saved and I thank God for that. Well, sin is contagious and it affects other people and it has long lasting effects.
Colossians 3 verse 5. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
We're gonna talk about sin tonight. Sin is what gets us into trouble. We're gonna talk about sin. This verse says mortify fornication. How do you mortify fornication? It means to flee or to run away from the temptation. Just like Joseph, he ran away from Potiphar's wife to get away from her quickly. So mortify does not mean to get as close as you can to the temptation and then resist it. No mortify. Mortify means.
To put to death. And so we need to put to death that temptation, Get as far away as we can from that temptation. While the list in our verse it goes on says uncleanness, inordinate affections, vile passions, evil concupiscence.
Covetousness. Covetousness is uncontrolled desire.
00:10:03
And.
Can desire for money, success, power, and these things so contain us and occupy us? It's idolatry. God calls it idolatry, and it's called idolatry because we begin to worship these things. And this uncontrolled desire can also refer to the lust of uncleanness that we have mentioned at the top of the list in this verse. Uncleanness I believe is more extensively described in Romans chapter one.
Let's go to Romans chapter one.
And we'll start at verse 24, and we'll see in these verses that uncleanness also refers to homosexuality.
Romans One verse 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature.
So they worshipped, and they served their own bodies more than the Creator, who is blessed forevermore. 26 For this God, for this 'cause God gave them up unto vile affections.
For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.
The world has created an atmosphere that says it's normal and it's natural for a woman to marry a woman and for a man to marry a man. And society has attempted to normalize this unnatural relationship. And now some young people from Christian families, they become confused by their identity because it's the they're given that liberty in school to choose.
And it may be that you have been lured into the idea that homosexual relationships are OK.
And you begin to rationalize in your mind how you can make this acceptable to your circle of friends.
Let's read verse 27.
And likewise also the man leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust, one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error.
Which was meat.
Recompense of their error that they receive in themselves.
What does that recommend? It's likely HIV, AIDS, syphilis, guilt, and more guilt. And ultimately it's doubting God that God even exists.
Because you can't go on when you know there is a God and you know it's a sin. It doesn't matter what sin is if you refuse to bow the knee to God and you continue in whatever sin it is.
You can't go on that way unless you decide in your heart that there is no God, because if there is a God then you need to.
Submit yourself to him. And so uncleanness in these verses seems to be closely connected with the spiritual, with the scriptural practice of homosexuality and heathen worship. And by scriptural practice I mean that homosexuality was practiced in the Bible times and the Bible.
Records it in scripture.
But it is the goodness of God that it is, that homosexuality is a sin that Christ died for.
And if you struggle with homosexuality, I want you to know that Jesus loves you.
And he wants to help you through that struggle and in first Peter chapter one and verse 7.
We see that Jesus wants you to cast your struggles on him because he cares about you.
Cast all your care on him, for he cares for you. Homosexuality is a forgivable sin.
And Jesus has forgiveness reserved for you.
Let's look at Acts Chapter 10, verse 43.
Acts 10 verse 43 To him give all the prophets witness that through Jesus name whosoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins.
That's forgiveness of sins, you know, talking about these things.
00:15:02
Makes us uncomfortable.
And feel dirty.
And that is because sin makes you dirty.
Well, let's go back to our story. In Matthew 8, the man was a leper. And this, this leper, he recognized his dirty condition. He knew that he had a need, this dirty contagious leper. He wanted to be clean, and so he came to the Lord Jesus and he worshipped him. He knew that Jesus is God, and so he came and he bowed the knee in worship. God says that every knee shall bow, so one day you will bow the knee to Jesus.
And I ask, will you willingly bow the knee tonight and worship the Lord Jesus?
Or will you be forced to bow the knee at the great white throne? Either way, either way, you will bow your knee to the Lord Jesus and God will be glorified.
At the Great White throne, the Lord Jesus will have the preeminence, and that means Jesus will have the first place in the rank, in position, in influence, in importance. He will have the preeminence because he is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, and he will have the preeminence as you are sent to an eternal damnation in the fires of hell. And Jesus will be glorified because God's justice.
We'll be satisfied.
The leper. The leper knew he was dirty.
And he asked the Lord Jesus, if you want to, you can make me clean.
He believed Jesus could do it, and he believed Jesus would do it. He would heal him.
And make him clean.
He knew he didn't deserve it, but he trusted in the grace and the mercy and the love of God. And so, because of the leper's faith, the Lord Jesus put forth his hand and touched him.
A verse says he was cleansed.
He was cleansed from that dirty, contagious disease of leprosy, and Jesus wants to cleanse you.
From your dirty contagious disease of sin tonight.
First, John 17 says the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will cleanse you from every sin.
And you don't even need to confess your sins to be saved. All you need to do is to repent towards God and to believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
Matthew chapter 8 again, verse 14. This is another story.
And it's about the restlessness and the unsatisfied condition of this lady, and that that compares to our restlessness and unsatisfaction in our life of sin. Matthew, chapter 8, verse 14. And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid and sick of a fever, and he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto them.
This woman says she was laid. In other words, she had no strength to get on the bed herself. They had to pick her up and set her on her bed, and they laid her there. She did not have the strength to get on the bed without help. She was weak and she was sick and she was without strength.
This is like the Sinner who doesn't have strength to do good, doesn't have the strength to please God doesn't, is not able to get saved by his own works and his own ideas. Romans chapter 5 and verse 6.
Romans 5 verse 6.
When we were without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
The lady in our story, Peter's mother-in-law. She had a fever.
And she was unsatisfied trying to get relief. I know in Malawi, there's a lot of people get malaria from the mosquitoes there. And when they're sick with malaria, they often get high fevers and they get brain damage and they vomit and they're restless, and they're looking for relief and they can't get it. And this is just like the effects of sin. Your soul has a fever, and you're thirsty for satisfaction. And so you look to the movies and you look to them, to the music.
00:20:04
And entertainment and you go.
Play sports and and you find friends and you and you fill up your time with work or school and you're trying to fill the emptiness that's growing inside of you.
But nothing satisfies. But you keep on trying time and again but you come up empty every time. In Ecclesiastes verse chapter one and verse eight it says the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the hear, the ear with hearing. And then in chapter 4 and verse 8 says something like this.
A person works all the time, but he's not satisfied with the money that he received.
There's no satisfaction in this world.
Well, this lady in our story, Peter's mother-in-law, she had a fever and she could not get satisfaction and so it says that Jesus reached, reached out and our verse says he touched.
Her hand. It is only through the touch of Jesus hand that you will receive satisfaction. You cannot be satisfied any other way. And so at the touch of Jesus hand, Peter's mother-in-law, she arose, she arose, She had life. The Lord Jesus says, I give unto them, My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Have you heard Jesus voice? Are you following Jesus?
Have you been touched by Jesus hand? Let's go to John 11.
John 11.
Verse 26.
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Believe us now this whosoever liveth.
There's evidence that you have life. There's evidence.
That you are saved. There's evidence that you believe. Well, Peter's mother-in-law Jesus touched her hand and she arose, and a verse says that she ministered unto them. There was evidence of life. And if you are saved, there will be evidence in your life. There will be service. There will be worship if there's evidence of good works but you don't believe.
You're not saved, but if you believe and there's no evidence.
There's no repentance.
You're probably not saved.
Belief and evidence for repentance. They go together for salvation without belief. Without repentance, you will perish.
So I ask you, is there evidence in your life to show that you are a believer?
Let's go to Matthew 20.
We have another story here.
It's about two blind men.
And so let's read Matthew chapter 20.
And we'll start at verse 29.
And then the the two blind men as they departed from Jericho, I'm sorry, this is Lord Jesus. As they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed him. And behold, 2 blind men sitting by the wayside, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord thou son of David. And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace, but they cried them more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David.
And Jesus stood still, and called to them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you? They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.
Excuse me, verse 34.
So Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight and they followed him.
An unrepentant or unbelieving Sinner is spiritually blind. He is not able to see the Kingdom of God. He is not able to understand how or why he needs to be saved. And so if you are spiritually blind, you need to be born again. You need to have that life. Second Corinthians, chapter 4.
00:25:03
And verse four it tells us that the God of this world that is Satan.
The God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God.
Should shine unto them. And so every heathen who recognizes God through creation.
And dies without hearing about Jesus.
It is because they've had their eyes blinded so that the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ would not shine unto them.
And you may say, that's not fair of God.
But let me tell you that the heathen do not go to hell because their eyes are blinded. They go to hell because they did not believe. Our verse is very clearly that Satan has blinded the minds of them that don't believe.
And you? You are no different. You will not go to hell because your mind has been spiritually blinded.
You will go to hell because you rejected Jesus Christ. You did not believe and you did not repent. Romans 10.
Romans 10 verse 13.
I like this verse going along together with the the two blind men who cried out to Jesus. And they said, Lord, open our eyes. And in Romans 10, verse 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. These two blind men they called upon the name of the Lord, and he healed them.
Now let's talk about you.
You are a Sinner.
You have a problem.
You're blinded by sin.
You need to call on the Lord and tell Jesus. Tell the Lord Jesus your problem of sin and your helplessness and ask Jesus to save you just like these blind men Lord.
We want to see.
And so the Lord Jesus he touched their eyes.
The touch of Jesus eyes. The touch of Jesus hand.
Can open your eyes so that you can see your condition of sin, so that you can see the danger of judgment, and so that you can see your need of a Savior. And Jesus will open your eyes so that you can see him as your Lord and Savior. Well, the wonderful thing is that these two blind men, they received their sight and they were healed. When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you also will receive spiritual sight.
So you can see the Lord Jesus, so you can be saved, and so that you can follow him.
Let's go to Romans chapter 6.
You can follow the Lord Jesus once you are saved. Romans 6, verse 3.
Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death?
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead.
By the glory of the Father, Even so, we also should walk in newness.
Of life. Baptism makes you a disciple of Christ.
And a disciple is one who follows. And when we are a symbol and when we are, when we are baptized into his death, we're symbolizing a fact that our old life is dead and it's buried under the waters of baptism. And from now on we are going to follow Jesus Christ. We're able to walk in newness of life, and so we're going to follow Jesus. That's what it means when you're baptized.
It means you want to follow Jesus and so.
If you're going to be baptized, you need to be true to your baptism, and so it's good to follow Jesus.
Back in our story in Matthew chapter 20.
Our story says about the two blind men who received their sight. It says they followed him, they were they, they were healed and they began to follow the Lord Jesus. And so part of salvation is repentance. Repentance is to turn away from the sin and to turn away from yourself and to confess Jesus as Lord.
00:30:10
And to follow him I ask you, Is Jesus the Lord of your life?
Or do you make your own choices?
You make your own decisions.
Are you ready to follow the Lord?
I cannot tell you how to follow the Lord.
To follow the Lord is just a it's just a natural response that you will have after you receive eternal life.
And you will receive eternal life by being touched by Jesus hand.
Let's go to another verse in John chapter 6.
John chapter 6 and verse 66.
From that time, many of his disciples went, Washington went back and walked no more with him.
Someone here might be hesitant to follow Jesus, to forsake all and to follow Jesus. Why? Why would you be hesitant to follow Jesus to leave everything else behind?
Maybe it's because you're not saved and you don't have the life that wants to follow him.
Or maybe you are saved, but there's guilt in your life that weighs heavily on your conscience.
Maybe he's cheating in school.
Maybe it's dishonest business practices.
Maybe your sin and your guilt comes from involvement in politics.
Especially this time of year.
In politics, perhaps consume you so you have no time for God.
And you're frustrated.
Because it doesn't matter which candidate Trump's the other.
There's no good choice.
But one of them will be God's choice.
It won't be man's choice, It will be God's choice. And we're told that God and Daniel were told that God chooses the basest of men to rule in his Kingdom, in the Kingdom of men.
Maybe your guilt.
Maybe your kilt comes from failure in sexual passion.
Matthew chapter 5. Let's go to Matthew chapter 5.
I'm sorry to be talking so much about sin.
But sin is what separates you from God. And if you don't recognize that, you are a Sinner.
There's really no hope for you.
Because you need to see yourself as God sees you.
And the Lord Jesus came to save the sinners. He didn't come to save the good people.
Lord Jesus didn't come here to condemn you.
To hell he came to save you. And so I want you to understand that your sin is what separates you from God and you need to have that sin taken away. Matthew 5, verse 28. Whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
So what is this first talking about?
We need to be careful when we look at women, at women, so that we don't look at them with lust in our hearts.
I guess it goes the same way for women looking at men, but sometimes this verse is about when you are obsessed with a picture on the Internet or in a magazine.
And the lust in your heart will rob you from peace and that guilt.
Can overwhelm you.
And perhaps it's that guilt that's preventing you from asking for your place at the Lord's table.
In James chapter one and verse 15 he says.
When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin, and when it is finished, it brings forth death.
00:35:03
Lust. Lust can destroy your marriage. It can destroy your family. It can destroy your dignity. It can destroy your integrity. It can destroy your job or your business or your friends. And it can mess up your relationships with those in the assembly.
Lust, when it is finished, brings forth death to many areas.
Of our life.
And so you need help.
But in this type of lust?
It's hard to ask for help. It's embarrassing and you can't overcome this kind of lust by resisting it. You need to flee from it. To run away from those pictures, you need to confess it.
Destroy it and forsake it. First John, Chapter One.
First John chapter one and verse 9. Now this verse is for believers.
Because if if you are getting saved tonight.
You might have these struggles too, and so God writes this verse to believers. Remember I said earlier that you can't get saved by confessing your sins, But this verse says we should confess our sins? But this verse is to a believer. It's the believer who confesses his sins.
Verse 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so Jesus wants to save you from your sin.
He wants you to enjoy your eternal life and He wants you to live.
By the Spirit and Proverbs 28 verse 13 it says he that covers his sins shall not prosper.
But whosoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.
You need to believe the promises of the Lord, that when whatever your sin is, when you confess and you forsake your sin, the Lord will forgive you, just like it says in first John 19. If we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so the Lord will forgive your sin, you will justify you, He will take the guilt away.
And then when the guilt of sin is gone.
And you accept the fact that there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
Then you will be free from the law of sin and death and you will want to follow the Lord Jesus. You follow Jesus as your Lord and so the touch of Jesus hand leads to walking in newness of life.
So I want to emphasize the the fact that it's a believer that confesses his sin. An unbeliever doesn't confess his sin, but he confesses that he is a Sinner.
And so and then he repents, and then he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he'll be saved.
Let me talk a little bit about Peter.
Peter was out in a boat with the other disciples.
They got in the boat, went out in the lake, and there was a storm. The Lord Jesus wasn't with them. And the way the wind began to blow and the waves were very boisterous and the ship was rocking and they were afraid, and the Lord Jesus came to them walking on the water.
And they thought it was a ghost and they were afraid. And the Lord Jesus tells them don't be afraid.
It is high.
And so Peter says, Lord, if it's you, bid me to come to you on the water.
And there was danger all around. The waves were boisterous. And Jesus says to Peter, he says, come.
Come, Jesus is here.
You don't see him, but he's here. Jesus is here tonight, he's saying, come.
Come unto me, all you who are struggling with your sin.
He says I will give you rest.
Don't you want to have peace from the guilt of your sin? Don't you want to have peace tonight, have peace in this life?
Peter took a step of faith.
He got out of the boat and he walked on the water.
00:40:01
He had never done that before.
He walked on the water and he was coming to Jesus.
But on the way he sinned on his way to Jesus.
He was sinking deep in his sin of doubt.
Are you? Are you doubting that Jesus has the power to save you?
To save you from your sin. Because as you look around you, you see that the boisterous waves of your sin is too strong for you to deal with. And Satan's there telling you you have time, don't worry about it. If you get saved, you can't enjoy this life and your doubts become too strong for you to deal with. Well, that's what happened to Peter. His situation was too difficult and he looked around him and he began to doubt and he began to sing.
And he realized he had no power.
To overcome his sin with his own strength. And so Peter calls out to the Lord. He says, Lord, save me.
And he said that as he was sinking deep into the waves of his sin.
And that is what the Lord wants to hear from you tonight. He wants to hear an admission of guilt.
He wants to hear a call of faith.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don't depend on your abilities. Don't depend on your.
Your understanding.
When Peter called out to the Lord and said, Lord save me immediately, Jesus hands stretched forth his.
And the touch of Jesus hand save Peter.
Jesus is here tonight stretching out his hands to you.
He stretched them out 2000 years ago when they put him on the cross.
And he hang there for your sins. He took the punishment for you because he loves you.
And he stretches out his arms for you tonight, he says. Come.
If you're ready.
To turn away from your sin and repentance towards God.
And you believe on the Lord Jesus as your savior tonight?
Call to Jesus's Lord.
And he will touch you. He will be touched by Jesus hand.
After Peter was touched by Jesus hand.
Peter lived his life to serve the Lord.
And later on.
Jesus gave Peter eternal life.
And he gave him the Holy Spirit, and he gave him the word of God. Peter had everything he needed to overcome any temptations of life, and he was able to live a life that gave glory and honor to the Lord Jesus. And Jesus offers these same gifts to you, eternal life, the Holy Spirit, the word of God. And he also gives you an association in the body of Christ with other believers.
Whosoever believes on the Lord Jesus will have.
Everlasting life.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will cleanse you from all your sin.
After you believe.
You'll be sealed by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God is a guarantee that you are saved as a guarantee that you will go to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven.
Now he wants you to be kept pure.
And to have other godly friends in the body of Christ.
And so that you will be prepared to serve the Lord Jesus.
The Bible tells us.
In Acts chapter 2.
It says.
They that received His Word were baptized.
And again in Acts chapter 8.
It says when they believed they were baptized.
Both men and women.
If you are going to be saved tonight, or maybe you're already saved and you haven't been baptized, you need to be baptized.
00:45:03
You need to be baptized so you can be ready to follow Jesus.
Baptism makes you a disciple, and a disciple follows Jesus.
Baptism.
Says I want to be identified.
With Jesus Christ.
Before we close, I want to share a poem that I wrote.
With you about the touch of Jesus hand. Some of you may have heard this before, but I'll read it again.
The touch of Jesus hand.
The leper came and worshipped too humbly. He could not stand to ask the Lord for cleansing through the touch of Jesus hand.
He came just then. Her health was dim, her fever to command. She had no strength to ask of him the touch of Jesus hand.
For two blind men, mercy would be their eyesight in demand.
By faith it was that they could see the touch of Jesus hand.
The prayer of faith shall save the sick belief held by a strand.
His will be done. We can't predict the touch of Jesus hand.
My guilt is justified by grace.
By faith and blood I stand.
With peace of God, I can embrace the touch.
Of Jesus hand.
If you have not yet experienced the touch of Jesus hand.
And you want to be saved tonight?
Come and talk with me.
Maybe you're struggling in your sin.
You need to be saved.
You need to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus. Let's sing.
#21
Decide for Christ today.
And God's salvation sea.
Your soul and body, heart, and will to him who died for thee.
Christ alone can save, break the power of sin. Christ is fully satisfied the heart that cleaves to him #21.
Decide for Christmas.
Day.
If I am right now.
I Encourage You to Read the Word of God
Children—David So
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Good morning.
I was hoping that more children up here we have 4. Is there anyone else who would like to join us up here?
No, I guess that's a tough one, huh?
You know, I, I don't blame you on that. You, you may not know this. I, I'm one who's always afraid to stand up. I'm one who's always afraid. And especially when it comes to saying versus I used to sit back and go, Oh, no, two more. Then it's my turn and I was shrinking my seat. So I don't blame you, but for thank you for those who are able to come up.
But let's begin our meeting by singing.
Ahem. Anyone of you have a favorite?
OK, Emma.
#47 OK, that's a nice 1 #47 in the back of our hymn sheet. When he cometh, when he cometh, when he comes.
Nsnoise.
Well, before we start, let's look to the Lord for help.
Blessed God and our loving Savior, we give thanks this morning for the time, uh, with thy word before us. We thank Thee for this Sunday school meeting. We thank Thee that children, young or old, are able to come under the sound of Thy word. We look to Thee. We ask for help, We ask for blessing for this meeting.
We pray, especially if there be anyone here.
Who are still lost in the sins, whether it be a little one or an older one too Lord.
We pray that that would work in the heart and conscience this morning, that that would help them to repent. And surely we know how precious it is to know that the blood of Jesus Christ, thy Son, cleanseth us from all sins. So we commit this meeting into thine hand, looking for help once more in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
All right, who would like to sing another hymn?
No, you gave one hour already. And if I do that, people were saying I play favor.
Yes. Oh, is that a stretch or arm?
No one else or thank you.
Hymn #40 Oh, this is an all time favorite, isn't it? Jesus loves me. And can we notice that when we're saying that it's me? This is about you. This is about no one else but you. Jesus loves me.
00:05:18
This I know, for the Bible tells me so. So let's sing this together. Jesus loves me.
Yeah, that's good at 9:00 today.
'S awesome, honestly.
Yeah, I don't think you just thought that's why you're serious.
I want me to be lost in love.
Anyone else for another one?
Yes, go ahead #33.
#33.
Nothing, either Gray or small.
Nothing.
In the past and it's just getting in bed and many Grand Prix gods.
You know, that's a really nice hymn. I know often.
With children's hymn we sing in the back of this hymn sheet. But this is a really nice hymn, isn't it? This tells us the whole gospel story. Tell me, is it not?
Oh, many of us here know the gospel story. The Lord Jesus died on the cross for us. And on the cross he said, it is finished. There's no more to be done. The work of redemption is fully accomplished. And yet, you know there are Christians out there that was trying to do extra things. They may say to you, you need to obey the Sabbath. They may say to you, you need to do this or that.
Well, when it comes to salvation here, the work is finished.
Now I ask your children to pick him. Is it OK if I pick one? Would that be OK? Yeah, I like to pick #42 many of you know, that's my favorite. It's a short, very short M. And in Sunday school meeting like this, we got children of all ages. Someone said to me or we were talking this morning about we're not getting older. And I told them I. I know I try not to grow up. And my wife thinks I.
Not growing up. So this year tells us a lot. The Hymns has a little child of seven. Anyone who was seven years old here. No. Oh, a little child of seven or even 3? No, that's not you. Three or four.
May enter into heaven through Christ, the open door. And I know some of you anticipating we'll sing it twice the second time around. I like to change the word so little because some are little older than seven. So we're seeing it this way.
A little child of 70, I know Brother Bill told me yesterday that he's 70 years old. He's old, right? But then he says, or even I'm going to like to change the next line too, or even.
34 Some of you, I'm sure, are around that age. So I like to sing it this way because the gospel is for all, isn't it? From a child of seven to 70, whether you are three or four or 34.
You are included in this hymn. Let's sing this together.
00:15:05
Breathe right here, you also know where you are.
Dial Ray.
809.
You know, I find the Sunday school is a very challenging meeting to address. The reason is do we speak to the three or four?
Or do we tailor it to the 34? So I find it difficult. So let's, through the Lord's help, perhaps a little message for the younger one first, and then perhaps a little message for the young people and for the rest of us, because we're all should be able to learn or learn something from that and children.
As I look around here, I believe all of you have been to Sunday school before, have you? Yeah, some of you are may not know very well.
But I do believe you have been to Sunday school, you've been to gospel meeting, and you know the answer of how to be saved. Am I right in saying that? Yeah, to be safe is very simple, isn't it? The Word of God says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Yeah, you're echoing that verse with me. Thank you. That's very nice, isn't it?
There's no more to be done is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in Romans says, If thou shall confess with thy mouth.
And believe in thine heart. Wait a minute. What are we to confess? Do you know that verse? Think about that for a moment. We are to believe.
We could confess how many of you know that verse and help you say that? Hold on a second. I forgot I have this say that verse for me. It's on.
If thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt. That's what I'm out, that's what I'm mouse.
I believe the Lord Jesus Christ would thy heart, thou shalt be saved. That's good, that's good. We missed a little bit that I was hoping to, but that's very good. Can anyone else help with that?
Believe in thine heart that.
God has.
Raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved. It's very important to realize it isn't. It is to confess him as our Lord, not just the name Jesus. Yes, the name Jesus. Every knee shall bow is going to come that day. But today you must confess him as Lord and believe that.
He's no longer dead.
00:20:00
He came to die, but God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be safe.
You know, we speak a lot of death, the Lord's death, but the Word of God always put death and resurrection together. You see that thought through our Scripture three days after His resurrection. So for the little ones, learn those verses.
My desire this morning is to encourage not just the younger one, but that a little bit older.
To read the word of God.
This is where the power is, isn't it?
And I know if I address you, you say I read this.
Well, someone said to me one time, he said, you know, Mr. So I know that person. When they go home, they act differently. It's sad, isn't it, that sometimes we have two lives. We know how to show our brethren and our young people how spiritually we appear to be. But this is nothing to do with being who you are with, but for yourself.
This book is wonderful.
I'm going to use.
A little example here, perhaps a little object lessons. When we look at this book, there's nothing you know. This is like the Lord Jesus. He said when they looked at him, he said it was like a root out of the dry ground. There's no beauty in Him that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And I find most of us treat his book.
Similarly, so I bought a bag.
A big bag so I can bring a little bag with me just for illustrations. So what do you think I have in this little bag?
What another bag?
You would think I'm Russian.
I love Russian, don't I? With those little dolls that have a doll inside a doll, right? But sometimes we look at something on the outside and go and what's in it. There's nothing in it.
You can't judge by the cover, can you? Well, there's no cover to this. You can't judge it either right now. Let me see. I need some volunteer here. If you can, then tell me what you see.
I would I would guess most of you wouldn't know because he didn't park this bag.
Oh, I forgot about this handy Oh.
Something sweet, isn't it?
Oh, before I toss it over now talk to your parents. Not all of you are allowed to have this, and some of you don't like candies. I know that, right?
And and I want to share with you one more thing. When you take these candies, they don't look good because I didn't realize how hot Kentucky is. And we left it in the car and then my wife decided to test it. She'd go, oh, it's gracious soft, so it's even more squishy. So you don't have to eat a squishy candy. But it that's all I have. I didn't have time to go to the store. Thank you for helping me. The rest of you can just watch and wait.
Oh, taste and see, the Lord is good. It's OK, I got more. We'll do that later. So in this little bag was hidden something sweet.
We didn't open this. Would you have known there were candy bars in there? Oh, I'm going to set some out here. What else is in there? Oh, there's more candies in there. See. See, when you look. Oh, there's different kind too. I'm going to sit out here for a minute.
And though some of you, if I forget, you might go run behind the podium later after meeting, right? And what's this?
Another candy, another bag.
Oh, wait a minute now.
I brought I brought a windbreaker. Would you have guessed there's a windbreaker inside this bag? Oh, you would have. You saw me stop it this morning.
Right.
Sometimes you have to open things up to see what it is, don't you? And wait a minute now, there's still more in there.
I'm not doing a magic show, so don't think that I I just thought this is kind of interesting to show the point. What do you think? Wow, another garment.
What you have? No, If you didn't open the bag would you even have gas?
00:25:02
Well, the Bible is like that. There is always something sweet and then.
There is garment it's interesting too. Garment in the word of God often speaks of the garment of righteousness right there. Now I'm fashionable, right? I believe this is the newest craze with this vest and that look like life jacket. So there's something in that we didn't know. Now let's let's turn to our Bible.
There are so much hidden.
I have about 5-10 minutes and I don't think I can tell you everything there is. Well, I really couldn't tell you everything there is because I don't know everything there is about the Word of God, do I? But there are so much in there. But I'll share with you something interesting.
This Bible has 66 books in there. Did you know that you did good? You heard me talk about that before.
66 books. 39 books in the Old Testament.
That leaves 27 books in the in the New Testament, right?
How many of you like math? How many you don't like math?
You know, I can never remember things, so I always go 39 books, 39 books, I can remember that, so I take 3 * 9. Is 27 OK, the 27 books in the New Testament.
Funny way to remember things, but you know, there's something interesting that God have one theme in this book. This theme is.
The Lord Jesus Christ isn't it? You know, at Sunday school, it's very interesting. I tell this story often, and this group is different. You're a little bit older a lot of times.
Some of what I say someone would say I have a question.
And often children would have their hands up before the question is raised. Have you ever seen that? Children are so smart, They know what the question is before it was asked. They put the hand up and then when the question is raised, they'll go umm, umm, and they'll say Jesus.
Have you seen that before? But if you really think about the little child is right, because everything we talk about is about Jesus.
When you read this and you go, I don't understand it, I don't know what it's talking about.
Well, then the first thing you should say is Jesus. How is Jesus applied to this passage? Would that help you read the word of God? It's a wonderful book if you want to, if you love mathematics. Oh, there are numbers all over this. If you like history, There are history right through if you like to know how to deal with people.
Is right, true, but above all, the most important question the word of God has to deal with is the question of sin, and this is a topic that this world no longer want to talk about.
Everyone want to say how good they are but ignore the fact that this has a benchmark that God sets and God sets for the wages of sin is death. But before that he says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Sad isn't it? Now I want to condense things a bit because of time. How many of you heard of the book called Isaiah?
Oh nice.
And most of the older ones haven't. Isn't that interesting?
Only the younger one know the book of Isaiah. How many books in the book of Isaiah? How many chapters in the book of Isaiah?
I'll give you a few seconds to think as you're flipping the pages.
How many chapters?
Your clothes? How many?
66 chapters in the book of Isaiah. How many books did we say in the whole Bible?
How many books in the whole Bible?
66 books in the whole Bible. Interesting you know Isaiah, the book of Isaiah is just like a miniature book of the Bible because the book of Isaiah we want time to let's turn to chapter one.
It starts off by stating something that most people don't like. Perhaps today they would even use the phrase is not politically correct.
00:30:02
Let me just read some verses, see if we know anybody like that.
Verse we'll start a chapter one verse two, Isaiah said hear O heavens and give ear O earth. Wow is telling us everyone here to listen carefully for the Lord has spoken, God has spoken, he won this world to know he said I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. Oh, this sounds bad, doesn't it? Right from the beginning of this book.
He said that his he raised children and they were rebellious. Verse three The ox knoweth his master, and the ask his master's grip. But Israel does not know my people does not does not consider.
Sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters, for they forsake the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backward.
He is speaking to the nation of Israel, but does that remind you of anyone or any country that you know?
God in this book, just like the Bible from the very beginning declare that.
Man a sinful before him and this is the first thing we need to understand that there is a God.
What's the first verse in the Bible?
In the beginning.
You know what it is?
In the beginning, who?
But in the beginning is God who created all things. So that's the first thing we have to know is there is a God. For then the book of Janus is tell us that man have failed man disobey God and he sinned. So here in the first book of Isaiah it tells us man sin. But then as we go through we won't turn to it. Now see the clock is running. Then he tells us he provided a way he said as unto us a.
Is given. He told us that so he's going to send a savior now, just for time's sake, let's turn to Isaiah chapter 40. I'll tell you why. Chapter 40, let's go back to what we said about how many books in the Old Testament. How many you remember how many books in the Old Testament.
39 So the first book in the New Testament would be which book number wise.
The the 40th book. So let's turn to the 40th chapter, because this is just like the New Testament, isn't it?
So you start off by saying God said comfort ye, comfort ye even though he condemned the people of sin.
Let's go down to verse three, chapter one, verse three, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make strayed in the desert a highway of our God. Does this man remind you of anyone in Scripture? There was a man in the New Testament we read. We read off. His name is John. He was peculiar. I guess today's phrase. He's weird, right? He doesn't even dress right. He wore camel's hair. He eats honey. That's OK.
But along with Locus, how many of you taste at locust? I see there are quite a few out in the field. Can you imagine? That's your diet. Honey and locust. It's different. But God raised them up. In fact, he was. We read about him yesterday. Someone read about Elizabeth. His mother is an interesting, eh? She was six months pregnant. So when we read the word of God, we know. Ah, wait a minute.
John is 6 months older than Jesus, but we don't think about that that way, do we? He was six months older, and he came as it was foretold in Isaiah. He came out of the wilderness. His job was to prepare a way. He was a forerunner.
For our Lord Jesus Christ.
This book tells us God must punish sin, but it tells us that even though for the wages of sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Children, young people, brethren, this is a wonderful book that we need to spend time to enjoy as this is the way God would speak to us. All right, we have 10 minutes left.
00:35:01
The reason for the candies? Oh, before I I know some of you are probably wondering why I brought a big bag too. Do you think there's a story behind this I'm going to use?
No, there isn't.
That's just to keep you guessing. Just like you know, it's like many things in this world. It's called fluffs. It's there to make you think there's something, but there is nothing. Mind you, I did use it to bring a few more candy bars for those who want to say the verses though. So what is the verse for today?
Psalms chapter 18, verse two. Am I right?
Any volunteer? OK, Emma?
I'll hold it for you. So you're reading it. Now close your Bible.
The Lord, the Lord is my rock, my fortress, my Deliverer, my God, my.
My deliverer.
No.
My string.
Umm, in whom I will trust my buckler, my hormone?
Redemption.
That's cool. Yeah. Anyone else?
Iraq may focus on my liver and humorous trust.
How do you learn? Did you learn more? No, that's good. So I'm on the way to ARMS 18.
22 tomorrow.
The Lord, the Lord.
As the Lord is my rock, the Lord is my rock, my fortress, my fortress and my deliverer.
In my delivery. Am I right?
Thank you.
Anyone else?
The Lord is my rock.
My fortress.
My strength.
My God.
Am I deliver?
And whom I will trust.
Psalm 18. Two.
Though is my rock and my fortress and my strength.
My God.
My deliver.
In whom I will Psalm 18 to.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength, and whom I will trust. Psalms 18, Two.
Everything OK? You can read it.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God and my strength, in whom I will trust my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower.
OK, good. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, fortress and my strength, my God, my deliverer, and whom I will trust my buckler in the horn of.
My salvation.
Umm, that's good. You learn most of it.
Anyone else? OK, you're going to try? No.
Any big boy big girls back there want to try it?
Well, that is very nice. Thank you for trying that. Now I'm going to set a bunch of candy bars back there. If you feel you set the verse and earned it and some of you may have said it quietly, that's OK too.
And feel free to come up if you think your mom, mom and dad need one as much as you do. Well, feel free to get one for your mom and dad. Let's sing one more hymn before we close anyone else that someone? Anyone else who haven't given to him yet?
Have you OK?
Hymn #44.
Into a text.
You know, often after a meeting or perhaps when we go home, and I know this happened to be a lot, someone would say, how was the conference? I would say it was nice. What did they talk about?
I don't remember.
So it's kind of nice sometimes to some things up. I know when we leave, sometimes we don't remember and I may not be very good at expressing myself so.
My message was to encourage you to read the Word of God. Even if we can't express things right, God will express it properly to you. This is the most important thing, isn't it? Read the Word of God and enjoy what He has.
Looking Back to the Cross; Looking Forward to the Glory Ahead
Two Annointings
Hebrews 11:6-26
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
181.
Nsnoise.
Chapter 11, beginning at verse 6.
But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
Buffet Noah being warned of God, of being warned of God, of things not seen as yet move with fear prepared and art to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith by faith. Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after.
In the land of promise, as in a strange country dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked for city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive speed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age. Because she judged, because she judged him faithful who had promised therefore sprang their even of one, and him as good as him, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude.
00:05:17
And as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things.
Declared plainly that they seek a country.
And truly, if they have been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country. That is an heavenly.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city by faith. Abraham, when he was tried OfferUp Isaac, and he that had received the promises offer of his only begotten Son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, according that God was able to raise him up.
Even from the dead, from whence also he received him in the figure. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, may mention of the departing of the children of Israel.
And gave commandment concerning his bones. By faith, Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the King's commandment.
When he was come to ears, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Four Seasons, it seemed the reproach of Christ. Greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. For he hath respect unto the recompense of the reward.
By faith he forsake Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood blessed ease, and destroyed the first born that should touch him. By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land which the Egyptians.
As saying to do were drowned.
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days, five days the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed, not when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barrick, and of Samson, and of Jason, of David also, and Samuel.
And of the prophets who through faith subdue kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions.
Quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword, our weakness were made strong Wax Valley, and in fight turn to flight, turn to flight. The armies of the aliens women received the death Ray's life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, and that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel markings and scourgings. Ye fall over of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sown asunder, they were tempted, were slain with the sword, They wandered about in sheepskins and goat's skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.
00:10:12
They wandered in desert and in mountains, and in tents and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us.
That they without us should not be made perfect.
He that cometh to God.
That's progress.
And the question is.
Would that describe us, each of us here? Are we coming to God or are we turning back from Him? Just very quickly get the contrast to that in chapter 2.
Chapter 3. Excuse me?
Umm, chapter 3.
And, umm.
Verse 12. Take heed, therefore, brethren, lest there be any of you.
An evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
We're doing one or the other. We're either coming to God or departing from Him. Right now. There's no neutrality in the matter.
He that cometh to God must believe that he is an.
God exists and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
There's several important points there.
I presume that.
Most, if not all here believe that God is.
Uh, recently read a biography of.
Uh, Albert Einstein I.
Got curious because I'd been kept running across a number of statements he made, so I thought I'd look a bit further into his life and try to figure out where he was spiritually. And up to the end of his life he maintained that he believed there was a God.
But he did not believe that God was a rewarder. He did not did not believe that the God who made the universe was personally interested in our personal lives. Him. That idea was ridiculous.
But the writer this epistle puts before us that we need to believe both things, not only that God exists, it's not enough, but that he is a rewarder. That is, he's one who's responsive. That's what this that's what is in this thought. Here God is responsive. He's not indifferent to us, He's not indifferent to our needs. He's not indifferent to circumstances. He's not indifferent to our prayers. He is a rewarder. He is responsive.
He's responsive to what we do for him. He's responsive to what we do against him. He's a rewarder.
But he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. I had in my home in this past week a girl who was raised as a Jewish.
00:15:07
Uh, not orthodox by any means. And she got into adulthood and she investigated Hinduism and Islam and Christianity and, umm.
Islam and and Jewish, Jewish religion as well. And she looked into what anything looked interesting to her and she put them all on the same plane and was just kind of, you know, juggling these ideas.
And she had a very casual attitude toward God.
God's not interested.
Not encouraging, shall I say, casual seekers or a casual relationship.
It says, uh, he that comes to God must believe that he is and that He is a warder of them that diligently, purposefully seek him.
But there is this in the relation to the first part of that must believe that he is.
God, according to the revelation we have of Him in the Scriptures, is so tremendously vast. There's no way that you and I can comprehend Him in our minds. It was a job that the question was presented, Canst thou by wisdom know God?
We all have to admit we know something, but who can know Him completely? And like you say, the attitude of thought that sometimes is in people's minds that they want to understand and make their own judgment call. God is known by the revelation He has given of Himself in creation and also in the revelation we have.
In the Word of God and also in the person of the Lord Jesus. And so we have to come to him by faith. There is no other way that is pleasing to God. To come to him on any other grounds is to say, in effect, I have the ability to make my judgment on God.
Wrong precedent to start with. You cannot start that way. God is infinite. God is.
Eternal. And when I think of that.
An eternal God, a God who always was, never had a beginning. Does your mind get around that concept? Just totally blows my mind.
The only way we can know Him is by faith. The presentation that we have in the scriptures of who God is, do we accept Him? Is that the position we take in relation to it, that that is where we have to start?
Person of the Lord Jesus.
Well, man has, man has had the privilege of viewing, umm, God and coming to know him through, through his own son who became a man and, uh, went to the cross. Uh, how would we really know God's love and believe in the God of love if it hadn't have been for his son giving his life and revealing who God is? And that's food for our faith, isn't it?
Romans 88, uh, reminds us that they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
I believe there is a an attempt that we can as you say but the intellect become and and know God. But that is not possible. The flesh cannot please God.
We're after of God. The world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God to send.
So by the, by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So it's skin. It's not our intellect that perceives it. In John one also, uh, it says, umm, he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not and so on. We have to submit our wills and our, our minds to the revelation that God has given of himself.
00:20:29
And when we do that and accept it, that's what faith is. God says this about himself and that should settle it. I should believe it. And so it's, it's important for us not to use our mind to figure things out. Not that the minds cannot perceive, uh, how God has revealed himself, but faith is necessary to accept God at what he says about himself.
And when we do that, it proves real to us, no doubt about it.
And I like to think of that verse in Romans chapter 10 where it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. How important it is to listen.
I have to confess, sometimes I read a chapter in my Bible and after I'm done reading it, I recognize my mind was off in some other direction. I really wasn't listening.
But it's important when God speaks to listen. And that's the way faith comes, by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The Lord Jesus said so often in his ministry down here. He that has ears to hear, let him hear. Are you listening?
That's important.
With a, with a, with a subject will, isn't it listening, willing to hear? The voice of the Lord says in revelation, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Well, if the ears are shut, then there won't be any revelation of God to the soul.
You think of what a beautiful picture it is to think of, uh, Rebecca?
Yeah, you can put your trust in me and I'll let you down, probably. But when we believe in God, God is always true to His word. That's one thing God cannot do. God cannot do. Something that we do is lie. God cannot lie. And so when he speaks it, there's lots that I don't understand. But since God is who he is and he cannot lie, I believe it.
It's interesting in this chapter you get so many different figures of faith beginning with Abel, Enoch, and verse seven is Noah, then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah and etcetera down through the chapter and faith manifests itself different in every one of them.
00:25:03
And so the faith that is in you is not going to be the same as in me. The point is, is that it is the living connection between our souls and God. Faith. Trust Him. He's to be trusted at all times.
For the benefit of his whole household. So he he had that in view before him and he trusted God about it and, and God told him into thou and my house into the ark. He had been spent a lot of time building that ark and then when the day came, he brought them in. And so there is such a thing as not just faith for me, but it's for my household.
That.
That God is interested not only in individuals, but in households all through the Word of God, thou and thy house. We know that Noah's sons, they were adults, they had their wives. They had to have faith enough to enter the ark themselves, and they did. But it doesn't speak of their faith in verse seven. It speaks only of noise.
By which he prepared the way that they could be saved.
And I I think that is encouraging to Christian parents is to.
Act in a way that includes your whole family. And so he moved with fear. He prepared an ark. He didn't just cross his arms and say, well, I guess if God wants to save my family, he will. No, it was getting out and rolling up his sleeves and getting to work, and it took a good number of years.
To build that ark, it was a huge.
Project. But he did it. And that's what faith does. Faith is active. Faith shows itself by actions. We're saved by faith, but the faith that saves is a faith that works.
Umm.
To that would be the case of Hezekiah, who when he was told of the judgment, he said it was good that it wouldn't come in his own days and he'd come in his son's days. That wasn't the faith of Noah.
And and we're not all in the same circumstances. And like you mentioned, rather that the faith of Enoch, he, he was translated. And you say, well, that's wonderful. And there was some scenes that he did not go through. He was translating. I'm not saying he didn't have any trials here. We know that it wasn't until after his son was born that he really had a testimony. And I'm here, it's to God. So his soul went through some things, but he was translated.
And then you have, uh, Noah, here's a storm going out on. It's a terrible storm, like it's never been on the on the planet, but where's he at? He's inside the ark. Maybe he can hear it. Maybe you're going through that kind of trial where you're not really being.
In the the severeness of the trial, you're being carried inside the ark. Wonderful faith is still needed in that circumstance and it and it goes on you get Sarah there's.
There's someone that, uh, had to, uh, battle self.
She has some things about self that was gonna take faith to overcome.
Maybe without his laugh and there were some things that she had to overcome. But there again, faith was needed. And so no matter what the circumstances in where they may seem very nice, very good for some Christians or very severe for others, whether it's what we might term an easy situation, faith is needed, a difficult situation.
00:30:20
Faith is needed. A situation with yourself personally, faith is needed. I just it just is an enjoyment to my soul to see all the different circumstances. Faith is needed.
We can't expect people to understand us either. I'm sure when Abraham was called to go out.
And he went out, it says in verse 8, not knowing whether he went.
Abraham, where are you going? I really don't know. God has called me. I think they probably thought he had lost something of his sense. But God had called and he went out. And that to me is wonderful to see. Faith is.
Obedient.
Trust and obey.
It was in the prison yesterday and they wanted to sing that song. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus. You know what?
If you don't obey, you're not really trusting. You're basically saying I know better than God, so I'm going to do it my way. That's not trusting. Trusting is obeying. And Abraham received a call and he went out.
Not knowing whether he went. And it says he sojourned in the land of promises in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob. Never read about Abraham having a house.
Jacob built a house and he got into trouble the place he built a house. But Abraham never built a house, even though he's a wealthy man.
You dwelt in a tent in a Tabernacle.
Because he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. I wonder if when God appeared to him that.
Stephen in Acts Chapter 7 speaks about God appearing to him. If he must have seen something of a city and that's what he was looking for, he never found it down here.
Found it helpful in this chapter to get a little sense of his context and his order. There's different outlines of it and each one has their own value to it. But I've enjoyed this. The Jewish Christians to which Hebrews is addressed were about to lose the temple. It was about to be destroyed. This is written just a little bit before there was the temptation to look back and they're being set on a journey. So if we look at this whole thing as a journey versus.
Four to seven in particular give the preparations. Abel took advantage of the sacrifice, the blood sacrifice, as a a foundation on which his faith rested as an individual.
Enoch walked with God. He's a like a figure of the church. He's caught up before the wrath to come. Noah takes advantage of the escape from the wrath going not keep kept from the raft like Enoch, but kept through the raft like the remnant will be in the future. But each takes advantage of the preparation made to avoid the wrath. Then from verse 8 to verse 22, there's patience.
We've already been introduced to the journey, and so Abraham's called out and he's on a journey. And each one of the characteristics down through verse 22 is the patience needed on that journey with the hope that lies ahead. And then from verse 23 through the end of the chapter, there's the perseverance of faith, there's robots, there's difficulties, there's problems. It's not that Joseph and Jacob and Abraham and Sarah didn't have opposition from the world around them.
But that's not the aspect of their lives that's emphasized in the summary given here, because from verses, uh, eight through 22, the, the thought is primarily the patience of their faith as they went on the journey that God gave them with the promise of the head. But in verse 23 and on, problems are introduced. There's the difficulties, there's the opposition from what was around. And so faith needs to persevere. Each one of us is in some aspect of that journey of faith. Perhaps there's some here that need that foundation.
00:35:32
Because the don't yet know the Lord is their Savior. Perhaps there are some that are heading out on the journey and it's it's tiring. We need the patience of faith and perhaps some are facing strong difficult opposition. We need the perseverance of faith, but every aspect of it connects us with the one that we don't see that the foundation of it all, the Lord himself.
I think this part here about Abraham being a living, a stranger and a Pilgrim in the land that he'd been promised to give, to be given.
Is particularly applicable to us as Christians in this day because we, we, we know, we've been taught that we have a heavenly city and we're expecting the Lord to come. In the meanwhile, we're living in this world and we're traveling through it.
And the great temptation is to settle down or to get occupied at building houses and forget the heavenly calling. So I, I really think that this is very specially applicable to us. It's interesting as Steven, what you're saying about the, the present situation of the, the Jews, the Christian Jews, that to whom this was written, uh, they, they at that time had, had already.
Made any of them fled from.
Jerusalem and had been dispossessed of their things and they had the spoiling of their goods. And so they lost a lot of material things. And so they're encouraged here by this. I don't know what's going to happen before the Lord comes, but those kind of things could happen to Christians today. We could lose everything in this world. And I mean, what we would our lives fall apart if we lost it all? Is that what we're occupied with?
So it's a it's a word to us.
To to live like Abraham did the pilgrimage stranger. When God sees that in US, uh, it says he's not ashamed that be called their God and he doesn't disappoint a man like Abraham. He gives them a better city than the earthly 1.
Speak to my old or.
By what am I persuaded and what am I embracing?
And it and it and it says here in our.
13.
They saw afor them afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Sometimes we don't see the fruition of things right now. We haven't yet. But he's coming and we know it, and we're persuaded. Let us embrace it.
OK.
Whenever I read this part about Abraham offering up his son Isaac and.
My soul contemplates the process of mind that went must have gone through Abraham and Isaac too, his son being a youth, and so on and obedient.
00:40:08
I say to my soul, I will love to be there in heaven when Abraham and God talked together about this.
What Communion?
And I think in some measure we, we can enter into that as, as not that we've offered up our sons, but uh, there is we, we can appreciate some of the sentiment of that.
The cost of God the Father giving his Son and so on. Well, we remembered it this morning.
What a wonderful thing that God chose the human beings to be of His likeness, to participate and have communion together over such things.
God has created us in his image and likeness. That means we can relate to each other like no other creature. And Abraham here when he went through that experience very hard and trying, but he's not going to be disappointed in glory afterwards or having been tested in that way and in as much as we go through the experiences of life too.
I, I like to look at the, the general outlook of life. One of the reasons God is didn't Take Me Home the day after I got saved was he wanted me to have experiences of life. And, uh, so if we look at it that way, it, it really gives it a positive motive and something, uh, not that we look for trial, but there is reward.
But when trial comes in, it's because God is wanting to share something very special with us. That's what's hard sometimes for us to get through, isn't it? That you just imagine Abraham had waited for that son for so long and finally had him. Oh, the joy it must have been to him to have him. God says, Abraham, that son whom you love.
Take him to the Mount Moriah or to the mountain. I'll show you. Offer him up there. As far as we know, there's no record of any backtalk on Abraham's party. Rose up early the next morning to put it into effect. That's faith. That's faith and the 8th and verse.
56.
Maybe indicate that after Abraham had obeyed.
The Lord explained to him why.
Read address.
Verse 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.
And he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet 50 years old. And hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was I am.
I wonder if.
Verse 56 might indicate that after he had believed God and performed that figurative death and resurrection.
The Lord shared with him but.
Oh no, we'll know soon.
That God was going to send his son and sacrifice him like Abraham did.
Elizabeth Dip an aspect of faith, we see a little bit different aspect of faith here up to that before is our brother mentioned. It shows the patience of faith. But now when we get to the 17th verse, actually the 17th to the 22nd verse, we see the example of having the confidence of faith. So Abraham has the confidence that God.
We'll look after his son. If he did get OfferUp, he had the confidence that he would be raised. So we see the example of Abraham, we see Isaac, we see Jacob in here. This I believe they have confidence of faith.
00:45:19
Interesting about Sarah here in verse 11. Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive. Seed was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised.
You go back to the Old Testament story in Genesis where the Lord promises that she's going to have a son, and she's listening in the tent and she laughs.
It doesn't look like to us that she had much faith.
But rather than that, it's a challenge to me sometimes, you know, outwardly you just don't see faith. But it could be there. And it was in the case of Sarah. Through faith, she had strength to conceive. See, that's quite something for a woman 90 years old to bring forth a child.
The same goes in verse.
Uh.
20 Here it says by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. If you read the story of Isaac giving the blessing to his sons, it doesn't look too much like Faith. It was like he liked a good meal of venison That that, uh, that Esau would make him.
And then he would bless him. Doesn't seem like much of faith there, but when?
Isaac Jacob gets the blessing and then later Esau comes in and it seems like it jolted Isaac to reality.
And he says, who is this that came before and has taken thy blessing? Yeah, and he shall be blessed. That's where they kicked in, I think. In that case, beautiful to see it.
Have had faults in their in their faith even Abraham when he was called he got as far as heroin and then he stopped and he didn't make any progress until his father had died and then he went on and this that really that from that date on is when Genesis really starts counting the days the years uh uh and so I, I, I, I wanna encourage one another here that.
This faith that we're speaking about isn't just a one time thing that somebody is brilliant at it and good at it. I, I believe these men slowly sometimes laid hold in their faith, grew to a point where they were strong in faith. And so we need to encourage one another that way. Don't get discouraged if you mess up one time or two times or many times. Keep on, keep on.
Jacob didn't look like he had faith. He was always conniving and deceiving to get what he wanted, but he believed God's promises and he wanted that blessing for himself. Esau didn't believe it. He didn't care about it. But Jacob?
He did what he had. He probably didn't have to do that to get the blessing, but he connived and deceived in order to make sure he got that blessing. He valued it even though it wasn't really his but.
13th chapter tells us whose faith followed. Considering the end of their conversation. I think there's something of the spirit of that and the remarks that were just made about, uh, Jacob and so on. There's the sense in which we're feeding on the work of God in these lives. A maggot feeds on a dead body. A butterfly feeds on the nectar of a, of a flower or the pollen in the flower. So there's the choice that we have in our brethren when we look on them. We can feed on what's of God in their faith, or we can attempt to feed on in them or in ourselves what's of the flesh.
00:50:04
The maggot will feed on what's of the flesh, what's of death, but the butterfly will feed on what's of God, What God is working in the life. That's what he gives us the feed on in these examples here in the chapter.
And a scoundrel in his life.
But his life really ends a lot brighter than his father Isaac, doesn't it? For Isaac was blind at the end of his life. But Jacob, the perception he had of the future is amazing.
It just is wonderful. Who is that man down there in Egypt? What's he doing? Well, he's in there blessing Pharaoh. Wow, that is amazing, it says in Hebrews here.
That the lesser is blessed by the greater. And so in a moral sense, Jacob was in a higher position than even Farrell when he blessed Pharaoh. So it is amazing what God did with that man, that scoundrel.
He renamed him, didn't he?
Israel, a Prince with God.
When God renamed him, it was at the wrestling match.
And that wrestling match, it's kind of a puzzle, but I believe during that wrestling match that I believe Jacob had faith in God's blessing way before that, but he couldn't.
He couldn't distinguish in his life the the stop scheming to get it and to to to just to wait and let God give it to him when he God would choose to give it to him and his and then that wrestling match seems like something got through that he realized he didn't have to win the wrestling match to get be blessed.
It's really when he stopped wrestling. Then God blessed him.
But God made him a prevailing at that time, didn't he? And I like what it says in Hosea chapter 12. Let me just read it about that point because I think that was the change changing point in Jacob's life. But at that time he he halted on his five the rest of his life. But look at what it says in Hosea 12 and verse three and four.
It's referring to Jacob and he he took his brother by the heel in the womb.
And by his strength he had power with God.
Yeah, he had power over the Angel and prevailed. He wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us.
So he wrestled like you say and finally the Angel said let me go for the dawn breaks. And he said.
Because the Lord had touched him in his thigh and he couldn't wrestle any longer. And, and Jacob said to the Lord, I will not let you go until you bless me. He couldn't struggle any longer. But I think it was at that moment that he prevailed, not by wrestling.
But by the simple faith to lay hold on God and not let him go.
Nsnoise.
Go and holding on. Uh, I'm backing up just a second, but no, uh.
I like that in this chapter, uh, does the creature believe the creator?
Noah responded to God's word.
And.
In the Gospel of John chapter 8 verse 31. Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then ye are my disciples indeed, and in Hebrews.
Uh.
I was thinking of one out of Chapter 10. I can't put my finger on it right now, but the thought that I wanted to do is when you said not letting go is the continuation. No, a bill on that arc for 100 years he was working.
00:55:04
And when he stepped out of that arc, he stepped out of it into a, a different dispensation. Uh, one had ended. The water had, uh, stabilized on the earth and it was dry. And he, he, but he worked and he continued according to the response that he did to God's word the way God wanted it. And we see that over and over again. Uh, not all of us always.
Respond well, maybe at the 1St in our life. Sometimes it's later in our lives. Uh, so we draw a different graph of different people's lives. We could, but it's beautiful to see in these passages about whether or not the one that the, the creature is actually believing the creator or not, and then he's continuing in it and not letting go.
The bones of Joseph are an interesting thing. I don't know if I have the ability to bring out a thought about it, but I'd like to share what I what I do have.
Joseph he by saying he tells the children of Israel to take their bones, his bones with him when they go across the the desert. Now bones are.
Don't have the flesh on them. You don't get an exact picture of what the person looks like, but it's not that it can't be done.
And I just think it's such a provision that faith has made a provision for us to go ahead and apply flesh to the bones of Joseph.
And, uh, that would be a retelling as they went across the desert, a retelling of who the person was.
What he looked like.
And they can start with the with the divine mind, they could play some mind that that is purposes and counsels always had our blessing in view.
They could. They could go to the eye. They could speak of eyes that overlooked nothing. Sauce in our deepest need, in our secret corner hiding.
They can talk about the ears and so on and so on and what and the shoulders that that could bear the lamb and and the heart and the legs that traversed the scene.
The hands, the arms that embrace us. I, I just think it's such an encouragement for our hearts, uh, as we put flesh on the bones of Joseph, you think as they travel across the wilderness.
The little boy says to his father. What's in that coffin, father? Well, that's the bones of Joseph.
Well, who's Joseph and the retelling of the story?
And he gives us to view things Christ we have brought before us more vividly. We have the skeleton in a way. Right now, brother, we have the skeleton, but we can put flesh on it. Someday we'll see him in completeness.
But it gives us to view things much, much differently the next the next one is Moses and they saw that he was a proper child. And isn't it because of Jesus that we see our children in a different light? Hasn't he made a complete change? What faith has provided for the child of God provision that in a bold Joseph.
I like to think of Joseph as.
Up his commandment as a proof of his belief in resurrection.
And that he, he died in, in, in, in honor in the place of, of Egypt. But that wasn't the place that God had promised the Hebrew family that they would live and be blessed in, in Egypt. And he believed that in the land of Canaan was where, uh, they work to be blessed. And he believed that hit those bones would be raised again.
01:00:02
In the coming day and he wanted to have them in the place of blessing.
Now, brethren, where is our place of blessing?
A lot of people when they, when they make preparations to die, they make.
A big monument and then the taller the better. The, the you go to a cemetery and people will point out, oh, that's the most famous person. Look, there he is. And so on. Joseph saw beyond this life and he, uh, saw a coming day of resurrection.
God couldn't leave this world in the state of sin and degradation and death or he wouldn't really be God. And the Old Testament Saints believe that and they it shines out in a few places. This is a remarkable one. I believe it's a particular this a particular message for us in our day.
They are living so close to the time when the Lord is going to raise the dead, and here in the Americas we have it a lot like what Joseph had temporarily.
Umm, do we see beyond this?
Are you as our object to make a name for ourselves in this life?
Or are we living for the future life, making provision there? That's to me what really speaks to me.
City.
It speaks, uh.
Of that again in verse 16, and it also speaks of a country in verse 14.
And it says it's a heavenly country.
And so I, I do believe like you say, doc, the importance of realizing.
That God has prepared for us something far greater than anything that we could set our sights on down here. And brethren, I just feel that the Lord has allowed this cycle in the political process in our country to be so bankrupt.
Of moral values so that we wake up to the fact that our place is not down here, our politics are heavenly. You want to put it that way? We are should have our height sights set on that heavenly city. We get a glimpse of that heavenly city in Revelation 21. Abraham never saw it, but we got a glimpse of it. And it's wonderful to set our minds on things above, to think of that side of things.
And brethren, are I have to confess so often? At the end of the day, I think now how much of today have I set my mind on things above like Scripture exhorts us, I have to confess, brethren, most days I can. It's not 10% even, it's less.
Brethren, are we called to this world, or are we called the heavenly things? These men they embrace says in verse 13, They were, they saw them, they were persuaded of them, they embraced them, and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Strangers the same word as as foreigner, because our country is in another place.
And Pilgrim is one that's on his way home. And that's what we are, strangers and pilgrims in this world.
Communion with God on Abraham's part was a help in him deciding that the promised land that he had been given was not really that which his heart was going to be taken up with. It was falling creation, even though it was. It was a land promised to him and it was affected by sin. I think that Abraham must have had some fellowship with God.
And he knew that that country that he was abiding in wasn't really characteristic of the God that he had come to know. And so he was look, looking for something that was.
01:05:12
More umm, suited to the one who he had come to know. And I think that as we value the fellow fellowship with the Lord, we'll come to realize that the, the, the world in which we live is so contrary to that which is umm, which umm, God values it's so it's so counter charity to the nature and and to the character of God that.
It'll help. It'll help us to put a distance between.
Ourselves and the world, because there's really no likeness.
In uh, in its character.
They're just thinking about these bones of Joseph as their brother was talking about how the child would maybe ask what these bones are all about and who Joseph was. And it was an opportunity for the parents to tell the children.
Who Joseph was maybe about the promises that he believed that they would have and so a whole culture developed there in the in the Jewish economy now.
It's a good illustration for us too, as parents. We have children. Children ask about things that we do. Why are we, why do we have this, these meetings and we break the bread. We, we remember the Lord, what are these things about? And so we have opportunity to tell our children about the promises that the Lord has given to us and to establish our children in the faith too, and into the whole culture that we have.
As Christians and then also in verse 23 we talk about Moses by faith. Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents. They were protecting him, they were taking care of him.
Later on they put him in the bull rushes in the ark and they were caring for him. And then as the as the Pharaoh's daughter came and his sister found a nursemaid for for her for Moses and she went and got the mother. And so they were able to raise the Moses and bring him up and then nurture and the admonition of of God of the Lord and and instilled in him the value of those promises.
And and Joseph or Moses by faith, he he held on to those things, and he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He had that upbringing as a child.
And so if we train up our children the way they should go when they're old, they will not depart from it. And so it's a good, good, umm, illustration for us as parents to bring these things before our children, to explain to them what we do, why we do it.
And as young people, we get tired of hearing our parents say, do this, do that, don't do that. So that's not a good idea. But our our parents are looking out, not just for the moment, but they're looking to the future. There's there, it's a, a life of faith that looks to the future.
So before it talks about the faith of Moses, it talks about the faith of Moses parents and that's really what you have in verse 23. They had faith too. He was a man of the sons of Levi who took a daughter of the daughters of Levi to wife and Moses was born and says here in the King James he would.
They saw that he was a proper child.
Mr. Darby's translation, it is a beautiful child, what a beautiful thing a little baby is and it's most precious, a soul that will last for all eternity. And how important the direction that parents give to them. It's interesting here that he was hit three months of his parents. And that's why the home, our home should be a sanctuary from the world, brother.
To hide our children from the influences of the world. So many things can come into the home that really are the world in its thinking, in its spirit, and it'll have its effect on those little children.
01:10:05
Let's be careful to hide in our homes those little children from the influences of a hostile world. But it's interesting to think about when the time came when they could not hide Moses any longer. What Moses mother did, she built a little ark of bulrushes and put pitch on it so that it would float.
And she put that little baby right where the King's commandment had said that they were to be put into the river.
The place of death.
And I often think, brother, and that's where like you were saying, Tim, that Pharaoh's daughter found him and took him as her own child, gave him to Moses mother to raise for her.
Often think when she finally took that little child to the palace.
Maybe, Pharaoh would have said.
I said that those little children were to be put into the river.
Moses daughter could say father. He was in the river. I took him out.
Is the Pharaoh's commandment had been fulfilled and so in a sense, brethren, it's the principle of raising children to apply that principle of death to the flesh. Raise them as if they are believers because they are holy to the Lord by the faith of the parents. The children are holy doesn't say they're saved, they're holy and so we're to raise them as such.
And to train them up in the admonition of the Lord, to train them in the way that the Lord would have them to be trained. So it's important, these principles.
The faith of Moses parents. No wonder Moses had that same faith.
Perseverance. The first weapon of the enemy is fear. Through who? Through all their lifetime, Through fair *******. And we're told, we're told that Satan, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. He uses the weapon of fear to get the child of God out of the path of faith.
But here, Moses parents are not afraid of the King's commandments. They're not turned aside by the enemy's posturing. Why? Because they had faith in one that was far greater than the enemy.
And so we're told with Satan to resist whom resist steadfast were not told to get into the fight and attack, but we are told to resist and when we do he pleased because we're resisting in the power of one who is greater than the enemy. And so with with our children, it would be easy to look at our own strength against the enemy and be afraid. But if, like we heard of David earlier today, if we look at the enemy in the light of.
His enemy God, the God of the armies of Israel. Then there's No Fear.
01:15:05
Moses mother, I would guess when she was raising Moses she told him a lot of stories about the people of God that he belonged to.
But then he went off to the palace, and he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
But this seems to be the first evidence of faith in Moses himself, isn't it?
We don't know about anything before this anyhow.
And when he began exercising that faith, he killed an Egyptian and then the next day, 2 Israelites. And how is he going to handle that one? So.
It what he had something else to learn, but he was on the right side, it says. He refused.
He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. That was a stand that he had to take.
It's either Christ or the world. You can't have both.
Interesting report of Steven. Like you mentioned in Acts Chapter 7 it says they refused him when they were striving together.
And they refused him, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?
I've often thought, brethren, to be a ruler and a judge. To judge matters is relatively perhaps easy, but it goes on in the 7th of Acts to say that one that they refuse saying who made the a ruler and a judge? God sent him to be a ruler and a deliverer, and it's beautiful, I often think.
Sometimes we see situations amongst God's people and maybe it's fairly relatively easy to judge what's going on there, but what God's interested not so much of judging brother and as being a deliverer. Be a help to your brother and to get through this situation. That's what God's interested in. And for that it took Moses another 40 years of learning.
In the desert.
Unlearning a lot that he had learned and learning to trust God. And then he came back as a ruler and a deliverer.
God would rather have him practice on sheep than on humans.
Great tragedy.
When the Lord spoke to Peter.
He said Lovest thou me?
And then when Peter had learned.
That lesson, the Lord said, OK, now you take care of my sheep now.
Lord loves his sheep, brethren, We need to be careful with them.
Feed my Lambs.
Controversy doesn't feed.
01:20:00
We need to give solid exposition of Scripture that is such a blessing. Brethren, the Lord help us to feed God's people.
Well, we start with verse six. We're a Speaking of God as a rewarder and.
Moses recognized God as a rewarder, says he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. The the the phrase of the reward is not in Darby's translation, but the thought is still the same. He had respect unto the recompense. In other words, he knew that there would be consequences.
Of which he valued as a result of the choices he made.
He didn't. He did not know all the course ahead of him.
But he had respect onto the recompense. He knew that there was a God who would reward and that the reward was worth having.
And he gave up a lot for that.
He gave up that. We think of Abraham, who went out not knowing whither he went. He knew where he came from. He was in a a a. There was a prosperous place in the Fertile Crescent. Umm.
Abraham gave up.
For something that was indefinite in a sense.
Because of who offered it. And same here with.
Uh, Moses?
Anything from the hand of God.
Is better than the world the best the world can offer?
The verse that I was enjoying a little bit ago that I is found in Hebrews 10 and verse 23.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promise.
Maybe we could sing #169 #169.
Gospel 2
Gospel—Bob Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Or it is written.
As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
Let's sing #23 of the hymn sheet.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God.
On the cross for us. He shed his precious blood on the cross.
Nsnoise.
On the ground, on the cross.
The horizon will help the world without me crying in the heart and I'm all so tired.
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
Nsnoise.
First Peter, chapter 2.
I'm sorry, first Peter chapter one and verse 18.
For as much as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your Father's, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
00:05:07
Who, verily, was for ordained?
Before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.
Who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God, seeing you have purified your souls, and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.
Being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible.
By the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of grass.
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever.
And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
In this portion that we've read, we see two ways God is working. One way is for us, and that's redemption. And another way is in us. That's the new birth, being born again. God works for us and God works in US.
And I'd like to focus on those two things because they're extremely.
Important. Now, before I begin here, I really want to take a little bit of time to speak about the God we're talking about, because it seems to me in the world we're living in today, the true knowledge of God is fading. And man likes to be his own God. He likes to determine what he allows.
And he says when he says what he wants to do, he says don't judge me because I have my rights.
And if we're talking about Americans under the American Constitution, yes, I agree, there's rights.
But we're not talking about that tonight. We're talking about our relationship to God. And as we read at the beginning of this meeting, every one of us must give to of account of himself, to God. That is absolute. You cannot avoid that every single human being that has ever lived on this planet, whether he is now dead.
Or whether he still lives is going to come to the point of giving account of himself to God.
What kind of a God are we talking about? You know, Scripture tells us that God is light and that God is love. I mean this, this God that has created all things by the word of his power says in the very first verse of this Bible. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
God is in plural in that in the Hebrew text.
It can be a name, can be in singular, it can be in dual.
If there's two or, it can be in plural, and in that case it's God is in the plural.
Created is singular. There you have right in the very first.
Verse of the Bible the truth that God is a Trinity.
And so later on in the chapter it said, he says, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Who's talking. It's God in the plenty, in the plenitude of his person being Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And God, as we were mentioning this afternoon in the Bible study, is eternal. He never had a beginning, He always was.
This is the revelation that we have in the Scriptures.
God is infinite in many ways and his power.
We say he has all power. We call him.
Omnipotent He is, Omniscient he is.
Knows everything. He knows what you're thinking right now. I can look at you and I can make a guess at what you're thinking, but He knows it, and He's omnipresent. In other words, He's present everywhere. He's right beside you right now, and He knows everything about you. Oh, it's amazing to think of this God and the power that he has.
00:10:22
You know, I just got back tomorrow. It'll be two weeks that we got back from South America, but I always thoroughly enjoy the Andes of South America. Those of you who know something about the geography of the continent know that along the western coast there are two ranges of mountains called the Inner and the Outer Andes, and they run down through.
Columbia, Ecuador.
Peru, Bolivia, down into Argentina and Chile. And in Bolivia and in Peru between those two ranges is what they call the Alta Plano, the High Plains, which is that the altitude of 12,000 feet. Sometimes it gets up to 13,000 feet. This Alta Flannel. I just love standing there and seeing the vastness of it and those huge Andes sticking up.
Way off in the distance, way above the 12,000 feet mark.
And then I stopped back and I say.
Really, this planet is really nothing in the universe that we're talking about. We are a planet that is rotating around the sun, and the sun is approximately, they tell us, a million times larger than planet Earth.
But the sun, even though it is that large, is not one of the larger stars in the universe. There are much larger stars in the universe. In fact, we are part of a group of stars. It's called the Milky Way Galaxy. And if you ever get down to the High Plains of South American, get out in the.
Country areas away from the cities at night when there is no moon.
It is amazing the display of stars because you're up above a lot of the atmosphere. You can actually see other galaxies in the distance but with the naked eye. And they tell us that the Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across.
As the distances are so vast that they don't talk about miles, they talk about.
Light Years The light year is the distance that light traveling at 186,000 miles per second travels in one year.
And so the light that time it takes to get across our Galaxy is 100,000 years.
Just to give you an idea of the vastness we're talking about, the light that started to cross our Galaxy when Adam was placed in this world is not a tenth of the way across yet.
That's the vastness of the Milky Way Galaxy. But listen to this. One of the books I have about the universe says they calculate now that there are approximately 250 billion more galaxies in the universe.
How do you ever take that all in? I mean, we think we're so great.
Come on, take a look at the universe. There's somebody out there that is majorly more grand than we are. It's God, the God that is interested in you, the God that is light, and the God that is love. You know what? He knows every single thing about you. And you know what? He still loves you.
You guys, some of you knew me like some people do. You might not like me quite as much.
But God loves me even though he knows every single detail about me. Isn't that amazingly wonderful, This God, how did he make that universe? It says in Psalm 33, by the word of the Lord, where the heavens made.
He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Isn't that amazing to think of the of the power released by the word of the Lord? He spoke it into existence.
00:15:08
In his ways he put man in this world and we know the story of how man got into sin. He sinned. He did what God told him not to do.
That's the world we live in, and sin wrecks things we were hearing last night about how awful sin is. It wrecks people, it wrecks families. It wrecks nations.
And yet people don't seem to recognize people like to justify their sin.
I saw in the news, I don't know if it was today or yesterday, of a Church of England Bishop who defends his being gay.
He says that's who I am. I say you are just exactly right. You are a Sinner just like the rest of us.
But God, defend your sin. Repent of it.
Somebody is going to come up and say I like to murder people, you should let me have my rights to murder people. Are you going to allow that too? I don't know. People have just lost their moral bearings and it's awful where this country is headed. I should say this world is headed because it's not only in this country.
This problem but God.
Is not mocked.
Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. You cannot get away from the fact that sin brings death.
It's an awful thing, but it's the truth of the word of God and it's the truth in the world we live in. When God made man in the beginning, Adam the 1St man lived up to 930 years old.
Whatever happened to us?
Well, sin wrecks things, wrecks your health, it wrecks your life, it wrecks families. Again, I say it's an awful thing and God takes sin seriously. There's no way he's going to countenance it because he loves you too much to countenance it and to let that run without any brakes on it.
Is not love. People say oh if God is a God of love, he won't judge people.
Come on, He will judge because he loves. He's not going to allow sin and it's destroying effects to continue without any end in this world. And that's where we come to our portion here in verse 18 of this chapter we read it talks about being redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold.
But with the precious blood of Christ, you know who?
It is that went and paid the price of our redemption. It was the same God who created the whole universe. He came into this world as a little baby. He was born to a woman who was a virgin because it was important that he be without sin if he was going to answer to God for your sins and mine.
And he grew up in his life.
He never sinned, absolutely never sinned. He is the one that came to the end of his 33 1/2 years and he was called into the presence of the chief priests, the religious authorities of those days. You know what they did to him. One of those chief priests that tells about it in Matthew's Gospel came up and spit square in his face.
I mean, I've had people spit at me, but I've never had anybody come up and spit right in my face.
Awful insult. What happened? You know he had the power to completely dissolve the whole universe at that moment. He stood there and took it.
00:20:05
Why? Because there was no other way for you and I to be saved than for him to take it.
And he went to the cross. You know, the story that I love to tell about it because it's such a tremendously wonderful.
Thing to think about the creator of the universe being the one that went to that cross to hang there to rescue a rebel center like myself.
They stretched out his hands. They nailed him to his the cross. His head was crowned with thorns. His face was disfigured. His back was bleeding with the Roman scourge.
And there he hung.
You know, the physical suffering is hard to imagine. I can't imagine it, but.
It was not only the physical suffering, there was the suffering of his soul, the reproach that broke his heart. You know, it's hard enough to suffer physically, but a broken heart is even worse to suffer. He said. They said if he said he's the Son of God, let God deliver him.
Be delighted in him.
Did God deliver him?
God just let him hang.
And at 12 noon.
The sun got dark and for three hours.
Complete silence.
On that hill, Calvary, outside of Jerusalem.
What happened in those three hours? The question of sin had to be settled before God, and according to God's righteous standards cannot be according to any human standard.
And then those three hours, God laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And God emptied his righteous judgment on the head of his own.
You love it, son.
For three hours, suffering that judgment.
Without any complaint, at the end of those three hours we have on the record of Scripture, he cried. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God forsaken in the most awful moment of me? Why did he do that? You know why? Because he didn't want to forsake you in the lake of fire forever.
That was the only way it could happen.
God's righteous character had to be vindicated when Jesus paid the price.
On the cross, his righteous character was fully vindicated so that he is not compromised when he extends forgiveness of sins to the guilty Sinner. There is no other way that a person could be saved after he died because he gave up his life, said it is finished, and he bowed his head and died.
A soldier came with a spear and.
Put it into his side, and out flowed blood and water. You know the Lord Jesus had many wounds in his body, on his back, on his head, His hands, His feet.
Scripture never speaks of any of the blood that came out of those wounds. It only speaks of the blood that came out of one wound, the wound in his side. Why? Because that showed there was no more life in that battered body.
He gave it up for you and me. He loves us that much.
We are not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold. We think of silver and gold as non corruptible, but they are corruptible in comparison with the value of the precious blood of Christ.
Some of you may have heard of a Inca ruler in South America. His name was Atawalpa.
00:25:03
In Peru.
And when the Spanish came in.
At the Wawa gave orders not to attack the Spanish because they were mounted on horses and he thought they were some kind of demigod. So he let them come in and they conquered the Inca empire quite easily.
But they took Atawapa captive and Atawalpa and communicating with the Spaniards.
Offered a ransom if they would let him go.
It's quite a large room. I don't know exactly the dimensions of the room he was in.
And he was quite a large man and he reached up on the wall up to the point he could reach on the wall. He said to the Spanish, I will fill this room once with gold and twice with silver if you let me go. Well, they were interested in that kind of thing. And so they said, OK.
And he gave the commandment to his subjects in Peru to do that, to bring gold and silver.
And they did it. They filled it once with gold and twice with silver. You know what happened after that?
They strangled him to death.
It wasn't enough rents.
You know what it took to ransom your soul and mine?
Look at him.
Dead on that cross, the blood flowing from his side. That's what it took to ransom me. Do you understand the gratitude I feel in my heart to him for pain, My redemption with His precious blood.
Tremendous. It'll Lord help us. We're believers.
Never to forget the awfulness of the cost that was paid.
With the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb, without blemish, without spot.
Dull blemishes on that lamb. No spots. He was foreordained before the foundation of the world.
Manifest in these last times for you. Yes, this was God's eternal purpose to redeem lost mankind.
Way back before there was any creation in existence.
Only God, in the fullness of His purpose and his eternal counsels and his eternal counsels, he knew what mankind was going to do. And there the ver the blessed Son of God, in the bosom of the Father, said, Father, I will go, I will accomplish. So He was ordained for, ordained before the foundation of the world.
But manifest in these last times for you.
Then it says in verse 21, who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead.
And gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
His death did not end at the third day. They came to the tomb, and they found that the Angel of the Lord had pushed that stone that covered the mouth of the tomb to one side. He did not push it to one side to let Jesus out. He pushed it to one side to let everybody see that Jesus was no longer there.
He had risen, He had left those grave clothes, He had vacated them. He rose again in the power of an endless life. Wonderful, wonderful truth. That's the life that he offers Each true believer in the Lord Jesus is called eternal life. It's a life that is incorruptible, immortal. That's the life I now possess because of my faith in.
Jesus, wonderful, wonderful truth.
I have a life that can never, ever die. Oh yes, this body might die, but the life I have in this body is a life that can never die. That's the truth of the word of God. So he was raised again and now we come down to verse 23, says Dean.
00:30:07
Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Again I say redemption. What we spoke of, first of all, is something that God has done for us. Whether you accept it or not, it's done and it's done for us.
But there's something else that is necessary if you're going to enjoy salvation.
It's new birth, it's being born again, Jesus said to Nicodemus, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye be born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.
It's extremely important at this point of being born again. What does it mean to be born again? Some people think it is just kind of turning over a new life, new leaf in your life and.
Start straighten yourself up. That's not it at all.
It's God communicating by His word a new life to those that hear. Today we were talking about how it says a number of times in the Gospels. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Book of Revelation that says. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.
And I understand if you don't like listening to me. I don't have a problem if you wanna walk out on me.
But I want to ask you.
When God speaks, please listen for the good of your own soul. Listen because it's true. That means through His Word that He communicates new life to me. It is so amazingly wonderful to see it happen sometimes in souls.
Just got the word since I'm back from South America from my sister in Argentina who has her son.
In Chile and he has a business of.
Uh, deep sea diving on the coast of Chile. Quite interesting.
Our sisters often given him the gospel. I've met him too, and spoken something of the gospel to him that you know how it is. Often with young people, they listen a little bit, OK, OK, they go off.
The other day he had a client that came to do some diving.
And later on in the evening, after his time there, he called this young man up and says I'd like to come over tomorrow morning to talk to you.
And so he came over the next morning and said to this young man, his name is Arturo.
Arturo, I want you to know I'm a very successful businessman. I have everything I could possibly want. But you know what? That is not going to ever satisfy your heart and your soul. What you need is Jesus. And he reached over and he took him by the hand, and he prayed for him.
Arturo is a changed man now. Not through any.
Persuasive effort, but simply the word of God penetrated his heart. To me, it is the most beautiful thing to see.
You know, it's not something that's forced sometimes. Give the illustrations so people can understand a little better. We have a nature, like it says here in verse 23, that is corruptible. We are born into this world by corruptible seed. That's why I've got Gray hairs on my head. That's why my knee hurts sometimes.
That's why sometimes I get a cough or a cold.
Because I'm corruptible.
And you know, when young people are young, it's just like it says here, that all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. I see you young people. Wow. Good looking people. Good looking young guys. Pretty girls too. How long is that gonna last? Put on 50 years. And what are you gonna look like then?
00:35:21
I think it's gonna be quite a bit different.
That I must say I I can't believe I'm up to where I am right now.
You know, they're a little girl that said she was 7 here this morning in the Sunday school. I was seven when I asked the Lord to save me.
That was 65 years ago.
And you know, I never regretted doing that. But when you accept the Lord, I mean truly accept Him, not just an outward conformity.
There is something that takes place.
A person is born again by the word of God. The word gets in. That's what does it.
Tell you another story that happened in Bolivia years ago. There was a man, maybe I've told this story before, but it was impressive to me who I got to know at his mechanic shop he used to repair my Jeep, my Toyota Land Cruiser, and.
One day I said to him, umm, I settled accounts with you, Alfonso.
But just remember, we have an account to settle with God.
And he said to me, oh, we're pretty good people, Roberto, he called me. We're pretty good people. We're not that bad. I said, well, you can talk for yourself, but you can't talk for me. I'm not a good person. I've been pretty bad.
Well, I'm not that good either, he said. And so I left him a New Testament to read. And he said, you know, sometime after he said that book, you left me. I, I can't understand. That doesn't make any sense to me. Why don't you come over to my house?
And explain it to me. So one evening we went over there and I decided we start with John's gospel. And we got down to verse 4 where it says in him was life and the life was the light of men.
So I said to him, Alfonso, what is light? You know, He never answered me. He just looked at me the longest time. But it seemed to me that that moment the word entered into his heart. I don't know for sure because we don't really know that when God makes His word penetrate, but it was sometime after that.
When I visited his shop again, he said, You know that book you gave me?
I understand it now, it makes sense now. What happened?
He was born again by the word of God. Oh, it's so precious, this that lives and abides forever. Everything down here is temporary.
I was gonna give you an illustration of, uh, an animal that we all know pretty well.
A pig. You know what a pig likes?
A pig is enjoys himself if he can wallow in the mud, especially if it's a nice hot, nice hot day. There he is wallowing them out. Why does he do that?
That's his nature.
And so when the mother pig has her little piglets, try to teach them not to go to the mud.
You gonna do anything? Is it gonna have any effect? Absolutely no effect. Why? Because that's the nature. They were born with that nature, and they're gonna go wallow in the mud.
Let's pull one of those pigs out of the mud and let's brush them down real good and.
Get them all nice and clean. Besides that, we're going to tie them up and tie them to this post over here so he doesn't go out into the mud anymore. Have we changed that pig?
We changed him on the outside, but we haven't changed him in the inside. And when he gets loose, right back to the mud again. You know, people are born with a sin nature. Every one of us are born with a nature that wants to sin. God says don't do it, said I want to do it. God says do it and he said no, I don't want to.
00:40:20
Contrary to God, that's the nature we have. That's called the sin nature.
So this pig is gonna go back to the mud, and this man, even though he might dress up with a nice white shirt and tie and nice jacket, it's all outward. When he gets the chance, it's gonna be back to the sin again, whatever way it is expressed in that particular person.
What he needs is a complete change of nature. We could take that pig. It's impossible, but we're gonna say it's possible. We're gonna do an operation and put him out, and we're gonna operate and we're gonna put into that pig, uh, sheep's nature. You know, a sheep likes the green grass and where it's nice and clean.
And if it doesn't watch it, it might fall into the mud if it's not, if it gets too close to the mud hole.
But even in the mud, you're gonna see that sheep is not happy. That's not its nature to be wallowing in the mud. So we're gonna put this sheep nature into this pig now we're going to close them up and we're gonna bring them back to consciousness. Let them go. Now, is it gonna go off to the mud? No. Why not?
Because he has a different nature.
And it's important that you understand it's not somebody standing over you religiously saying, hey, if you step out of line, I'm going to whack you. That's not it.
It's God giving a new life that wants to please him, that wants to do what's right, that delights in the law of God after the inward man, wonderful truth of the new birth. This is what God wants to do for you. That's the work he does in US. The one work is what He does for us. Redemption.
But this is the work that He does in us. The new birth, the word of the Lord endureth forever. I'm going to read that verse 24 again. All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of men as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof felleth away, but the word of the Lord.
Endureth forever, and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.
It's not so much what I have to say about this word. It's the word itself. In fact, sometimes I think what I say might be a hindrance. Maybe it's a help, but it could be a hindrance too. It's the word itself that has to get into your soul. That's why I say if you want to ignore me, that's all right.
But please, I plead with you, don't ignore what God has to say.
God wants to give you a brand new life, a life that wants to please Him. And I live now not because of some brother or sister keeping track of where I go or what I do.
But because I have a life that wants to please him, Oh, it's wonderful liberty to be a Christian.
Sense of the word. So that's the gospel that we preach, the work of God for us in redemption, the work of God in US in communicating new life through His precious Word. I want to encourage those of you who are Christians.
What our brother ended his meeting his Sunday school with this morning.
To encourage you to read the scriptures. You know, sometimes people say I just don't have very much faith.
00:45:02
How can I get more faith?
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. If you want more faith.
Listen to God's Word and I.
I can't encourage you enough. I remember a young brother in another area that it was evident he really, truly had experienced the new birth. And you know, he was so hungry for the scriptures, he would be sitting on his bed for an hour, sometimes an hour and a half reading the word of God. I went by sometimes.
His bedroom and I saw him in there. Nobody was in there forcing him. Hey, you got to read the Bible.
Nobody. It was the hunger he had in his own soul. Oh, the blessing that it is when that takes place. So I encourage you young people, older ones, to to take time to read the scriptures. You know how much time it takes to read a chapter.
It doesn't really take that much time. 5 minutes, a longer chapter. When it's a shorter chapter, two or three minutes. Is that too much time for you? Come on, you take more time eating your breakfast, your lunch and your dinner than that. And your soul is far, far more important than your body.
I ask you to take time to feed your soul.
You're gonna find it a tremendous blessing just to get the book open and to read it.
Just wanted to say before we close our meeting this evening that we are living in serious times. Our country is going downhill, morally speaking, very evident in so many areas and it's a matter of time when I expect there will be total collapse in this country.
Because there's no respect for God.
Or for the moral issues that we have in the Word of God.
We could talk about other areas like economics, which is in pretty bad shape, but we won't do that. But God speaks of upcoming time when we are going to stand and give an account to God that is without exception, people who are.
Who die and are buried are going to be raised from the dead.
Every.
Single cemetery on planet Earth is going to be completely emptied of all its bones.
Because they're going to be raised to give an account to God. There is ultimate accountability with God.
People seem to get away with things.
You know, we go to a prison to preach the gospel on Saturdays, and it's interesting to hear some of those men and.
They are pretty astute, some of them, what they do.
But sometimes they get off with stuff. But ultimately nobody gets off with anything, Anything. You're going to have to give an account to every act you have ever done, every word you have ever spoken, every thought you have ever entertained. You will stand before God to give an account. That's the truth of the Scripture. The books will be opened.
And the dead, it says, are judged by those things written in the books.
It's gonna be a terrifying experience for people who don't know the Lord is their savior.
I plead with you tonight, if you are still not settled in your soul, as to where you stand with God, to stop and to think and to repent of your sins and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, how important it is. Judgment is coming on this world and there is no other escape but in the precious blood of Christ, the one who died for our eternal redemption.
Hebrews 11:27-40
Reading
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
9.
Manchester Airport.
My name is Michelle John.
Everything goes on the island classifieds by.
My.
Real life.
Great home.
And it's all about Troy.
Uh, do you know how you're looking for your?
It.
And all the roads.
Let me see all that is one of the brave ways to be.
In the 1St 20.
Hebrews Chapter 11, beginning from verse 27.
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover.
And the sprinkling of flood, lest he that destroys the first born should touch them by say they pass through the Red Sea, as by dry land, which the Egyptians.
00:05:06
As saying to do were drowned by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days by Faith the harlot. They have perished not with them that believe not when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon.
And of Barack.
And of Samson, and of Jason, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets who through faith subdue kingdoms wrought righteousness.
Obtain promises.
Stuffed the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness were made strong.
What a valiant invite turned to flight the armies of the aliens women received a dead race to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection, and others had trial of cruel markings and scourgings. Yay, moreover.
Of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sought asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goats skins.
Being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, and these all.
Having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God, having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
I just want to make a comment about verse 26 before we go on to 27 Esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the riches than the treasures of Egypt. For He had recompense unto the recompense of the reward.
Sometimes we understand a little bit about the reproach of Christ, of being a Christian. But what did Moses know about the reproach of Christ? That was how many years before Christ was even born? But there's a verse in Deuteronomy 18.
And Moses writes about the Lord Jesus here he writes about Christ.
In verse 15, Deuteronomy 1815, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee.
Of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. And so there the re. The Moses didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ as we know Him, but yet He did know Him as as, and he was able to prophecy about Him. And but the reproach that he endured back then is the same as the reproach that we would receive now for the reproach of Christ.
I think somebody mentioned yesterday about.
Romans 8 the verse The carnal mind is enmity against God, and I would take it that even back then.
Moses experienced that in his time with the Children of Israel and even before, because this is before he was leading the Children of Israel out. But it's interesting.
Greater Treasures.
Then the treasures of Egypt, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, the reproach of Christ.
00:10:04
And rather than there's so much emphasis put on prospering economically, there is greater riches than economic prosperity. It is the reproach of Christ. Moses experienced it in his day, that refusal of God in the life of those that live by nature. And now today, it's the same reproach that we experience.
But in doing that he found greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
Had the whole world before him. Egypt was the greatest power in that day. World power. He hear, he turned back all of that he he refused, as we had before, to be called the sons of Pharaoh's daughter he could have inherited.
The wealthiest nation and be the ruler of the world as if it were, but he took on the reproach isn't it? That's the faith that he have and this is off topic that's so little we someone mentioned how old he was. It was interesting to see that there were three parts of Moses life. He spent the 1St 40 years learning the wisdom of the Egyptians, meaning the wisdom of this world. He was eloquent in speech and so on.
But that didn't do him any good at the school of God. Then God put sent him to the backside of the desert for 40 years in the desert that for God taught him. He spent 40 years.
In the world full of wisdom, 40 years to learn that he was nothing and that he need to be a dependent man depended on Christ and then he was able to spend the next 40 years serving his God and Savior.
He was mighty in Word and deed when he came out of Egypt, wasn't he?
When he came back from the backside of the desert, he said, Lord, I can't talk.
Interesting.
He lost all his self-confidence.
He had learned to trust in God.
For five days they were able to do this by faith, not the power of their own, but by faith in this society we're in, we're taught that you are the man. You can do anything. You put your mind into it, but hear the word of God. Teach us that it is by faith. Dependence is not a word that are accustomed to our society today, but as Christian walk, we learned we need to learn the word dependent.
Section of Christianity.
Identified with what's called the Word of Faith movement. Name it, claim it. It's very, very common and very pervasive and.
They they say if you have faith, you'll have the best in this world, you have enough faith. And here that's contrary to what Moses, the example we have here in Moses by faith, he forsook Egypt.
Turn his back on.
Faith is not just forgetting, it's for forsaking as well.
00:15:07
Directly, but we learned that all those Scriptures riches that we could have had, the power we could have had with the Egyptians, God took Moses in a way, Egypt was no longer world power after the Red Sea.
I suppose when you lost most of your army, you could become pretty well helpless after that. So all those things this world could offer, God can take it away in a moment's notice. So he was seeking for something that is far better. And here for us too, do we take on the same characters as pilgrims and strangers. This world is not our home. We're told that we are heavenly citizens. We have to look at ourselves as we've been lifted up already.
Seated on high, in heavenly places on high.
This is so wonderful. I think that there's a really vast difference in in, uh, God seeing me and I've seen God could Job experience, didn't he? I've heard of me by the hearing of the year, but now my knight see it the so Moses acted and it says, umm, that he did so not during the wrath of the king, for he endured.
As seeing him.
It's negative with me. He sees me, he sees all. He knows all about me. I can't hide from him and that can be somewhat of a negative feeling.
It's a blessing thing that He can and He does look upon us, but the day does come when when our hearts are so unwrapped with Him.
And knowing that everything he's done and everything he's going to do is on our behalf and for our blessing. And we start to see God, We see the heart of God. And, uh, this is a wonderful change. A wonderful change from knowing that he sees me, but then that I see him. How wonderful.
From Joe, I have heard thee with the hearing of the year, but now mine. I see it thee. We will not see the Lord unless we hear him first. Moses heard the Lord at the burning Bush.
And then he saw him by faith. We need to hear the Lord. We need to be in the word. It's it was Memphisized yesterday that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And you say, well, what a wonderful thing it would be to see the Lord. Well, we see him by faith now, but we never see him unless we hear him first.
Hearing comes before seeing. It comes before seeing a natural sense. The baby hears before it's born, but doesn't see till after it's born. There's nothing just in darkness until after it's born. But it's been demonstrated that a a baby before it's born can hear its mother's voice. So hearing comes before seeing. Umm and we are called to see the invisibles turn to UMM. Second Corinthians chapter.
4.
2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 4, verse 18. This is present tense.
We look 2nd Corinthians 418. We look not at the things that you're seeing, but at the things that you're not seeing. Now we're surrounded with things that we see. This world is very visually oriented and we see a lot of things that we that distract us and disappoint us and and entice us. And here's where our gaze needs to be. We look at the things which are not seen. How do we look at the things that are not seen while we hear the voice first?
We listen, get into the word and, uh, you know, you say, well, Moses had that, you know, you know, and I don't suppose Moses was always conscious of that. It's not a matter of being conscious of it.
We should never be conscious of not seeing. That's what we should need to guard against. We need to be con. We need to be never conscious of not seeing if we've lost the vision and we need to hear the voice again. But it says in chapter 12 of Hebrews verse two, we have the same thing before us, looking unto Jesus.
00:20:07
It's our privilege and that's what how Moses endured and we're all called to endure and God endurance is a great thing. God appreciates endurance, Man appreciates endurance. We can be thankful that the pillars in this middle of this room are not built out of sand. You're built out of something more durable.
18 Whom having not seen thee love, in whom thou now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
The Lord always responds to a look of faith and he, Moses saw Christ's day. I don't know what the vision was or what he saw, but to me it's like the Lord says what you look for, I am the fulfillment of and I will in person, I will be that person to you and.
And associate with you a little bit like it says back in.
The earlier in our chapter.
Wherefore.
Let me see here. I had it marked. He's not ashamed to be called their God.
Verse 16 But now they desire better country that is in heavenly.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.
For he hath prepared for them a city.
God, God responds to every every, every look of faith and M and it's all fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so they what they look forward to the Lord Jesus is the the fulfillment of we look back in hindsight, right? We really have a tremendous advantage really, but it still needs to be faith, doesn't it?
Believing this, the Lord Jesus said to Martha in John 11, If thou shouldst believe, thou should see the glory of God.
The, uh, Pharisees when the Lord was on the cross said come down from the cross that we may see and believe. For this world, seeing is believing, but that doesn't mean there's any faith in God. It's just trusting their own eyes. But for us, believing is seen and that's what we have here.
And that wonderful brethren, that we can know God. I think it is one of the most amazingly wonderful things that you and I know. God often mentioned that the Muslims say in their doctrine God is unknown and unknowable.
And you and I can know God.
It is amazingly wonderful He endured as seeing Him who is invisible, because faith comprehends beyond the visible world, beyond the physical realm.
Bless his life. And we see that so much in the book of first John. Uh, first John speaks so much about the knowledge that we have because we're his children and we have his life. Umm, the Lord Jesus says in first and says in John, one in him was life and the life was the light of men. And so that life which the Lord Jesus possessed.
Was, was able to shed the light of who God was to man and give him the understanding and the knowledge. And that, that is the reason why we have a relationship with, with God. And we, we, we, we come to, uh, to know him, who he is and, and his heart and his desire for us and what his nature is in, in, in life and love.
00:25:12
The.
Verse 28 says through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, lest he that destroyed the first born should touch.
Them, I suppose that Moses understood that the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt and it was God's desire to deliver them. But before they were to be delivered, there had to be a land sacrificed and blood sprinkled on the on the doorpost. It's a it's a, it's a beautiful picture of redemption, what Brother Bob brought before us last night.
We don't know exactly how much Moses entered into the truth that we have seen through the the, the cross and the death of the Lord Jesus and his his, umm, work at his his sacrifice that he made, uh, to satisfy God with regard to sin. But Moses.
Umm.
Acted upon the instruction.
Of of God.
And, and carrying out the, uh, the sacrifice that was made on the, the, the night of the Passover. And he was obedient, maybe in his solely recognized that God was going to take them up and deliver them from their ******* and their slavery, that there would have to be a substitute and bloodshed.
For God to take them up that way.
I think that brings out an important point, Bill, about obedience. Uh, sometimes your children ask you a question why they wanna know why before they obey. And, uh, thankfully God has told us many the wise of we do things we understand, for example, what the Passover speaks of, of how there was a substitute that which whose blood was shed in order.
That we might be free and redeemed and belong to God on a righteous basis, but.
It when it comes down to it, if our wheels are against God then and we don't obey, umm, how can we expect God to give us understanding? Uh, we ought not necessarily to need the understanding in order to obey. Then I don't believe it's faith anymore. So it's important for us. And I say this first, particularly to the younger ones.
You need to learn to obey, even if you don't understand why your parents are. The civil authorities have reasons to do such things. We need to learn to obey.
There are reasons.
That applies to us a role or two. That certainly does.
Lots of things I don't understand.
The Lord made a difference between the children of Israel and the Egyptians.
Says in the plague of darkness that fell on Egypt that the Israelites had light in their dwellings.
The Egyptians didn't have that, evidently.
But when it came to the question of the plague of the death of the first born.
There had to be death in every single house in Egypt, even in the Israelites house.
Not the death of the first born, but the death of a substitute.
A lamb without blemish was chosen and the blood was sprinkled on the doorposts.
And the upper door post.
That shows the importance of application. It's not enough that the blood of Christ was shed.
00:30:02
It needed to be applied and that's where we appropriate salvation on an individual basis. Each one needs to do that in the case of Egypt was the father of the household that had to make sure that that blood was applied not for man's eye but for God's side because it says when I see the blood God saw the blood, I will Passover you.
That's why it's called the Passover.
When there was not blood on the door.
The Angel went in and killed the first born.
There was death in every single house in Egypt.
And 29 we have the two parts of redemption. The 1St is what we're Speaking of through the blood of the Passover, and that delivered them from from destroying Angel, the hand of God. But they also needed to be delivered from Egypt, from the tyranny of Pharaoh. And that's the second part of redemption in passing through the Red Sea.
And coming up on the other side and seeing the, the pharaoh and his host dead, uh, and destroyed. And we, that's the, a part of redemption two that we are delivered from the power of sin and Satan and put on a, a ground where we're free to please God.
And there was redemption until that second part took place.
If you would have asked the children of Israel before they crossed the Red Sea, yeah, Egypt's side of the Red Sea. Are you saved?
They would have said no, look, here comes Pharaoh, but to take us back to Egypt.
But it was when Moses lifted up his rod over the Red Sea and parted the waters, and they passed through.
And then on the other side, he raised up his rod again, and the waters came over there on all his hosts. Oh, brethren, redemption.
Is being a price paid so that we can be set free and that is the full, uh, meaning of redemption is.
Being bought back at such a price to be set free to all those two parts, that's very important, isn't it?
We sometimes see death and judgment are behind us, but then what's before is because he rose from the dead, isn't it? Jesus died and we died with him. You'll fine tune the Scriptures very consistent when it comes to death and resurrection throughout. So here, Passover, I know it's not quite a thought here, but the faith that they have towards that, they celebrated that. When you go through it, it says on the 14th day between the evening, that would be the Thursday evening in a sense to Friday evening. They have a chance to do that.
The, uh, the resurrection scene is not until the 17th day that they after the Sabbath, which lines up exactly that year when they cross the Red Sea. Because after the Passover, they went out and the Lord told them to wait another night to see salvation. And when they crossed over the Red Sea, you'll find that it's on the 17th day of that month rather than the 14th, 15th day. The 15th day, they were still in the land of Egypt. You'll find a very consistent with the seven piece of Jehovah when it comes to the fees of the first fruit, which is on the 17th day of the month.
God saw all this not because he saw it just for Moses. He saw this from the very beginning before the foundation of this world. This is all his plan. That's his Son. He's the only one that can come and die for sinful men. So we find a deep room in the next chapter, in the previous chapter. There we find that the Son would say, I come to do thy will. O God, we need to tie that right back to it, don't we?
00:35:03
He said, I come to take away the purse, that I may establish the 2nd. We find all this is the work of the Father and the Son, together with the Spirit for the work of salvation.
I don't know, but I have heard that in the bottom of that Red Sea spray along that path there is still evidence they found wagon wheels still encrusted with with all the sediment in the bottom that the evidence of Chariots that tried to garlic go past that section of the Red Sea. So it was by say that Moses led his people through.
We're here at, the account goes.
Directly from the Red Sea to to the walls of Jericho, you don't have any any figures of faith during the 40 years in the wilderness.
Uh, but he goes to the land of Canaan where the walls of Jericho fell down and where rehab was a woman of faith, though. That's, that's God's purpose from us, for us really, isn't it, To take us out of the world.
And directly into his presence, heavenly blessing. That's what the land of Canaan is a picture of. But there is a conflict there too. Uh, it, it's not, it's not the same as Pharaoh in Egypt who had dominion there, but it's a heavenly host. And so we today have that conflict. We don't need to be afraid of Satan. Uh, he can have no power over us.
It when we're on the GR, identified with the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
We have a new life that death can't touch.
We've and it never will, but there is a conflict in heavenly places. There are a host of heavenly hosts that would seek to rob us of the enjoyment of what is really ours, the land of Canaan.
Student, do you think Jericho was not anything exactly normal?
It was compensating the wall about for seven days.
Once every day until the 7th day, and then on the 7th day seven times around.
It was by faith, wasn't it?
Tough and wondered.
Knowing people to be what they are.
If there is any complaining.
Awful lot of walking. What good is this doing? I don't see any cracks forming in the walls. What's the purpose of it?
I don't know, maybe that's my imagination talking, but anyhow, I remember years ago an article in a little paper, I forget where it came from, but it was called the The Boring Will of God.
Can you imagine them complaining?
I wonder if there might have been, but the point was that's what the instructions were.
And it was just simply to obey the instructions, and the walls came down.
I like to think of the face that they have. They shouted the victory and then the wall fell.
00:40:03
Your comment there about there were a lot of spiritual warfare that we don't see. Uh, what I.
Want to comment a little bit on the Ephesians 6 verse 12. I think this is important because it is a spiritual warfare as well.
Ephesians 6 verse 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Well, frankly, I don't fully understand all this stuff. It seems strange that the only part I seems to understand is the first, bur first part of it. We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
And the problem we often have is we like to argue our fight with our brethren when here it tells us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. There are so much more in there that we don't see. And we need to be in full dependence from the Lord and just walk on by faith. No one got you will take care of all that.
The seven, umm, the seven days wasn't the test, the test that paid for the the children of Israel, umm.
I, I, I think that we can say that faith, umm, is always tested. Uh, do we really believe God and his promises often times were asked to wait for whatever umm, supply that we have need of. And these children of Israel did exercise obedience, umm, to the word of God.
And they saw the results, but not right away. And I, I think that especially maybe the young people can be encouraged by the fact that, umm, faith that is confidence in God.
Is always going to be tested and God is sometimes going to ask us to wait for answers in our life, uh, for a period of time.
As we.
Sit and trust him and umm, I don't really know the purpose of the seven days, but it certainly seemed like the children of Israel had to obey God, uh, for seven days, although they didn't understand, uh, his commandment and his, his purpose and his plan. A lot of that in our lives isn't there, but we don't, we don't understand why God is choosing his timetable.
But.
There's always a reward if we're willing to be obedient.
There's there's as many simple instructions in the word God, and some of them we don't really like.
And we try to figure out ways to get around it, but faith is really simply just taking God, accepting God.
At His word and acting on it. And that's what Rahab did. That's what the children of Israel did here. God said walk around the walls 7 * 7 days and then seven times the 7th day. And so they did it. And those results, they took God at His word. They accepted that and they did it. There may have been complaining, but they accepted that. And then we have in verse 31 faith by faith their harlot Rahab perish not with them that believe not.
When she had received the spies with peace.
And so she didn't have an active faith there she was saved. She didn't confess her sins. She was a harlot. She didn't confess her sins, but she was saved. Why was she saved? Because she had faith and she acted in faith, and faith is accepting God.
At his word, and so she was told to put that red cord in her in the window. The red cord was a evidence of her face that she had of receiving the spies. And so when the wall when the children of Israel walked around the city of Jericho.
The walls fell down flat.
00:45:01
But not all the wool fell down because Rahab's house was on the wall and her house didn't fall down. And those who went in there were saved. There were a few in there. There weren't many, but they were saved. We, we read in the New Testament, broad is the way, why does the gate? And broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many who didn't go in to her house, many who did not have faith and they were destroyed. But then we read that.
Straight as a gate, narrow is the way that leads to.
To life. And there were just a few people who go in to that, to that narrow gate of salvation. And that's what happened here. A few people went into the house, a few people had faith.
And a few people were saved there in Rahab's house, and they just accepted God at his word. And that's what faith is. And when we read the Scriptures, some things we.
Are are very explicit in scripture. Some aren't so explicit as to what we should do. But if we are able to accept those things that are explicitly told us and accept them by faith and act on them just because God said it, even if I don't understand it, then I'll have light for other things that aren't so evident. To live, to act and walk in faith, to follow the Lord.
He is one of God's tools. He's outside time, he's eternal. And, uh, and when when reading through this chapter, I've noticed some things in reference to time that I think are worth looking at. Look at verse umm.
Umm 16 of our chapter it ends with.
Uh, the last, the last half the verses, he is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared. That's the past tense. It's already done. It's in time past. Look at the end of uh, verse 40, uh, the le end of the chapter. We haven't got there yet, but.
Summer thought verse 40. God having provided better.
Ours God holds before us promises based on his past performance. We we, uh, sung the song of the day. Our God had built the mountains or raised the fruitful hills and so on.
God has purposed us for blessing. It's from before time. And notice another word in that we overlooked in this chapter verse.
10.
King James Version says he looked for a city. New Translation I believe says he waited for a city.
Waiting is part of the training.
It's, it's part, it's an aspect of time. And you'll notice that in most of these cases given here, there was an, there was time involved. Umm, no, uh, preached and built for years. Umm, Abraham marched for years. And of course, Joseph was in prison over a period of years and.
Moses went through the periods of years and the children of Israel walked around.
Jericho for a period of days they waited on the red they waited a day I'm I'm sure their instinct was to get away from Egypt as soon as they could, but they waited a day before crossing the Red Sea has been pointed out and.
We probably forget about Rahab and her family who sat in the house in Jericho for seven days.
There's a helpful verse in First Corinthians chapter 10.
And we often read it in the King James Version and miss a very important point.
00:50:03
First Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13.
There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted of that year, Abel, but will with the temptation make.
The way of escape, not a way. We can always find a way of out of things. The Satan is always ready to offer us a way out of things, but we need to wait for God's way.
You'll make their way.
And that faith waits for the way he will make thee way to escape, that you may be able to bear.
We've spoken of here examples of those that waited, umm, in faith and umm, but there were, there's an instances in scripture of the opposite. Think of Saul, who was told to, umm, go and, and uh, I think he was to wait seven days and, and uh, and Samuel would meet up with him and umm, so he, he, he waited.
But Samuel didn't, didn't show. And uh, so he went ahead and I think it was he, he offered a sacrifice and Samuel came to him immediately afterwards. And then he, he was rejected as, as the king, umm, as God's king over his people. And it's, uh, I, I may have gotten that story a little confused, but umm, that's an, that's an example to us of the fact that the flesh.
Does not have the power or ability to, umm, to operate under the conditions of faith. The flesh does not have the ability. It can only be through the new life that we can exercise faith and we can take the Word of God act upon it.
Wait God's time for whatever he, he is he, he, he desires for our life, but the flesh does not have the ability to do that. So we are thankful we can be that God has given us the, the new life, divine life, and that life has been, has been, uh, displayed to us in the Lord Jesus, who is still waiting by the way, he's still waiting for the fulfillment of.
Of of receiving his bride and he's now now is the day of his patience. And one of the beautiful things that faith will do for the believer is it will produce umm patients. It will one of the umm steps of growth. In Romans chapter 5, tribulation worketh patience.
And, umm.
Patience, endurance or something like that. So that's one of the, one of the fruits that's, that is produced in the, in the path of faith is, is we trust God and we're willing to, umm, exercise patience that brings glory to God.
I was thinking of that same story. Yeah. Phil and the lack of faith in King Saul's place. And along with that, I, I think it's nice to notice that as we get down to the end of this chapter, we, the trials seem to get harder or at least longer, because up until now, uh, up until basically the middle of verse.
35 The answer of their faith comes in their lifetime here.
And God gives them what they hope for in a large measure. But uh, from the middle of verse 35 on.
People didn't see deliverance in this lifetime and they continued in, in the, in their hardships, uh, and didn't necessarily get an answer. And they're actually, they're still waiting, uh.
00:55:01
They're waiting in a better place, having died and and then the re. The last verse tells us why, which is so beautiful. I hope we get to that verse so before we finish the meeting here.
So I, I, I want to emphasize that because.
This walking the path of faith and waiting on God's answer, umm, it's, uh, we need to keep on in these last days because we're getting down close to the Lord's coming and then all the answers will come. But many, many answers to what, what we're looking for in our walking by faith here on earth, We may not necessarily see the answer come, uh, in our lifetime, uh.
We need to keep on anyway.
Overcometh the world, even our faith. And so it's interesting that many of these saw, like you say, Doug.
Uh, deliverance in their time, all these that time fails us to tell out.
Time is limited, time is short.
And it is interesting.
Uh, there are those who in this lifetime prevail, but really they always prevails, so.
Some do not see the victory in this life, but in giving their lives, really they prevail, don't they?
They're basically saying I value what faith gives me more than I value my own life.
And our brethren are being tested in that way in many parts of the world, brethren, and we need to remember them in our prayers. What's going on in the Muslim countries and the testimonies that are that are being heard tremendous.
Some are not delivered.
They give their lives, but they triumph even then.
Thank God you asked for a prayer for a brother in Egypt that seemingly stepped back, but we don't know what he went through and the awfulness of the torture that he must have sustained.
But still, like you mentioned, if in case of Peter, it was restored afterwards and that might be the case too. We don't know, trust it will be.
Many times is mentioned seven times. As we know, the number seven is God's perfect number. And by the way, we mentioned 4240 is the number for testing.
There were seven different aspects of his face which we talked we we spoke of in there already and when we gone through most is we find that there were seven different aspects of his faith. It becomes that six times or say about in regard to Moses by faith and once through faith. It's interesting how seven times and now the portion before us in verse 32, if you look at it, there was seven individual.
Read these verses, verse 33 who faith subdued, kingdoms were out, righteousness obtained, promises sought, the mouths of lions quench the vines, the fire and so on. And we think of dramatic, uh, instances in Scripture that these phrases bring to mind. But we walk by faith. Our lives are daily filled with miracles that we may never notice.
01:00:23
We'll find out about him later.
Another theme in the last part of this chapter is that there's some of the opposition that comes to faith comes from UMM, in this case their Jewish brethren and some of the Jewish ones that are listed here in the different incidences.
And then the second thing that's happened through these last few verses is that their people stand more and more alone. I think the section is.
Verse 32 in some ways where it gives Gideon and Barrack and let them opposite to their historical order. Gideon of putting them in historical order barracks when he had the opposition of the enemy.
Had 10,000 people with him, the encouragement of Deborah and no apparent opposition from his own people. But by Gideon's day there are many that we're going to follow. But by the time they were winnowed down, there were only 300 left.
And there was opposition. There were the ones from Ephraim, from among the people of Israel that opposed Gideon. And so Gideon's face shines a little more brightly and he's perhaps that's why he's listed first here. There starts to be opposition. The numbers are fewer oppositions from the prayer of God specifically. But Samson and Jeff saw the same pattern repeats. And Jeff's day, there's even more opposition. He actually had to flee across the Jordan because of opposition from his own family.
There's civil war in this time, and of course there's many details in his own failure, but there's a lot more opposition from the people of God.
And his army is even smaller, but by Sampson's day, 3000 from Judah come to find them and deliver them up. And who fought alongside Samson? He stood alone. And so in each of the cases, there's fewer and fewer to stand with the man of faith. There's more and more internal opposition. But God notices that, He sees that he values it. And then David and Samuel, again, they're out of historical order.
Perhaps there's more than one reason there. David's listed together with the other leaders, the judges, Samuel together with the prophets. But also in David's day he's there was opposition, wasn't there? Some of it caused by his own failure. But there's the rebellion of Absalom, there's other rebellions during the time. There's the fact that he was only crowned at first and in Hebron for a while. What was the opposition to Samuel on his day? Samuel had a hard way to go and but there wasn't warfare and.
Opposition of the people directly to Him. The Lord says they've rejected me, not you.
When the end of his when saw was to be anointed and then throughout the rest of the section. There's some hints of it. There are those that torture not accepting deliverance and then on through that last section. Some, for example, have suggested that the ones that were sewn asunder history records that happened with Jeremiah, but he was taken down into Egypt, dragged down by who? By his own brethren that opposed the ministry that God had given to him.
So these are the things that we face today. There may be more and more opposition from the Christian profession. There may be fewer and fewer numbers. They're not things that God doesn't recognize. They're not things that God doesn't give provision to overcome.
And in that provision of faith and overcoming, God sees the difficulty and he values it and he records it as He is here with these various models.
Denver 35.
Says that they might obtain a better resurrection. What's the thought of the better resurrection?
01:05:07
That would take oh, go ahead, some are raised to life on Earth.
Our resurrection is going to be not to be resurrected to life here on earth, but a heavenly resurrection. And uh, that's where the Lord Jesus was the first fruits of it. And that is what we, we look forward to. We don't expect just to be raised on earth like Lazarus or, or others that were. We're gonna be raised and taken up into heaven. So that's the better resurrection.
Yeah, it's a call.
Line of verse 35. Cleveland received their dead race to life again. That was resurrection down here.
It's, it's, and it's wonderful that God always answers what they hope for, even a bet in a better way than expected. Uh, so we've talked about Joseph's bones and so on. And because he wanted them buried, because he wanted to be raised in the land of promise that had been made to them. Uh, and so that's what he looked forward to, but he's gonna get, he's gonna actually have the better resurrection.
He's not just going to be raised in in the land of Canaan, he's going to be raised and taken up into heaven.
We believe the Old Testament Saints will will participate in the heavenly sphere. All those who died in faith, in essence, will have the better resurrection. There is a there is a resurrection to earth again.
Standpoint, we always look for deliverance. We pray for the deliverance, deliverance our circumstances, but we find from this portion here that the Lord doesn't always deliver our us out from the way we sit, does it? I was thinking of Samuel's friends when they were before the fire refurnished.
Daniel chapter 3. I'm sure we all know the story very well. The third chapter of Daniel.
Verse 17 and verse 18.
We see that they gave the answer to if God will deliver us at this moment and if God doesn't deliver us at this moment, what they would say Daniel 3 verse 17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us our thy hand, O king.
That's faith, isn't it? They have confidence that God will deliver them out from the terrible circumstance before them. However, they know too that maybe it is for His glory. So let's read on to verse 18.
But if not.
Is that not paid? I think that's still faith, isn't it? But if not, be known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up. We have the understanding that it is His will, and we cannot our guests. What God is going to do in order to bring the glory to His domain?
That story seems to be what's referred to in our chapter in verse 34, isn't it? Quenched the violence of fire.
33 Stop the miles of lions. It doesn't mention Daniel.
Could it also include Darius?
We couldn't sleep that night.
Are you suggesting one more that he may have had faith?
01:10:01
Nsnoise.
Three friends of Daniel.
Had a wonderful attitude.
They they were exemplifying what's in the middle of this 35th verse, not accepting deliverance, at least not from the hand of man. Had they denied the Lord and bowed the knee?
To the image, they could have been delivered, but they were not accepting deliverance. And you see a similar attitude in Genesis.
Chapter TWE 14.
And verse 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up my hand unto the Lord.
The Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take.
From a thread even to a shoe latch at and that I will not take anything that is line. And then again, of course, remember the case of Moses. It says he umm in our chapter, it says he forsook Egypt. Now the word forsook there as doesn't is not talking about leaving Egypt. It's his attitude and part of faith is having this attitude toward the world that we don't want the what the world has.
Whether it's good or bad, we don't want it. We don't want to take it from the world. We want it from the Lord. We want to take everything from the Lord. And so Abraham, he says. I lift up my hand. Umm, should have kept my place there, so I quote it better. Umm.
He says, I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord. He was looking to the Lord to meet his needs.
And as a consequence, he wouldn't take something simply from the world, from which is what the king of Sodom exemplified. And of course, Daniel's friends, when they, Daniel and his friends and the, and Daniel chapter one, they had the same attitude. They, they would not, uh, eat the King's meat. And it stood them in good stead later on that attitude. And I was just thinking, we need this attitude.
Of forsaking, not just leaving, but forsaking it's this is.
This word in umm.
Chapter Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 27. It says by faith he forsook Egypt.
Moses forsook Egypt before he left Egypt.
Moses forsook Egypt before he left Egypt. He first he left in his heart, before he left it bodily. And as a contrast, just by way of contrast, you find the word forsake mentioned in Hebrews 13 just to see the contrast.
Hebrews 13.
And.
Umm, verse 5 like a conversation, Be without covetousness, and be content with such things He have. For he has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Leaving as physical forsaking is the attitude and.
You know, if we don't forsake the world, we'll find ourselves forsaking something else. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10.
Verse 25.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
As the manner of summit.
But exhorting one another?
And so much the more as you see the approaching you know, if we don't forsake the world, we'll find ourselves forsaking the assembly, the assembling of ourselves together.
In Luke 6 and verse 45 it says a good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good.
01:15:00
An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart, from it for that which is evil, For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good for the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaks.
Moses.
Heart was abundantly filled with the.
Reproach of Christ.
They live for another world, didn't they?
And it's interesting we have in verse 35 that they might obtain a better resurrection. Better is a word that's used up. And in Hebrews we have it again in the last verse of our chapter, God having provided some better thing for us.
And then the last phrase that they these faithful ones we've been talking about.
Without us should not be made perfect.
We had this chapter at Pella conference as well and.
Mentioned that I asked the question of Columbia Cannon years ago. What verse do you give to show that the Old Testament Saints will be glorified at the same or will be taken up to heaven at the same time as the church? And this is the verse he gave me. I thought it was a very good verse. This 40th verse. God having provides some better thing for us.
That's resurrection.
Into the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Resurrection into incorruptibility into immortality, something that was not the case with those that were res resurrected in the Lord's time. Lazarus, as far as we know, must have died again. But we have a better thing, a resurrection that is an incorruptibility and immortality.
A life that cannot be corrupted. A life that cannot die again.
And they without us shall not be made perfect.
We often say that those that depart to be with Christ are far better, and it's true, but it's not the perfect state, brother. They are far better, but the perfect state is to be with Christ and resurrection, and that's what's contemplated here in verse 40.
Thinking of these lives of faith and their sufferings.
The end of the 37th verse Destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Let's think about our blessed Lord in regard to those very same things that He endured for us.
Might be seeing #18 in the back #18 in the back.
Mary at the Feet of Jesus
Looking Unto Jesus - I Want to Go With You Lord Jesus
Let Us the Race With Endurance
Open Mtg. 6
Open—B. Shane, L. Smith
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.
What raised the wondrous thought, or who did it suggest that we?
The Church to glory, broad should the sun be blessed.
M330.
Yesterday, not everybody was here until it came a little late. My brother Don spoke.
On remember and looked back.
At how the church had.
Of the assemblies had evolved.
Part of that was the Church of Europe. That's where that word came from, out of my mouth.
And our privilege, we remember those things.
That have been.
Opening an Ave.
And how comfortably we are here compared to some parts of the world.
This morning we also.
00:05:02
Remembered.
Turn with me to Genesis chapter 22 together, please.
Genesis chapter 22 and verse 13.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his thorns.
And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
Abraham had to turn around, didn't he? He had to look backwards.
And this morning when we remembered, we looked backwards in a point in time.
For our Lord Jesus paid the price on Calvary's tree to redeem us.
And he was the substitutional 1.
In the stead, he took our place.
And so we once again have looked back.
Eventually here in a few moments I'm going to try Lord willing to look forward. OK, I just read this verse to show that we have been remembering and then we remembered again this morning. We looked back to those precious moments where our Savior where our body on the tree and shed that precious blood, the substitutional one, the ram behind.
And our brother, when he got done this morning, gave out beautiful hymn 244.
And we turned around and we sang about the glory that lies ahead, the completion, the rapture.
Thank you for that beautiful him. I enjoyed it. 244 was a very beautiful him.
Very appropriate after we had been looking back, turning around, looking forward. Before we look forward, I want to look at one verse that is current now, Isaiah.
The same book we had in Sunday school. Isaiah once again.
Turn of May 2, Chapter 17, please.
Isaiah 17.
Verse one.
The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
I'm reading this because this is current.
We've been looking behind. We're reading the boy reverse that is current. You can walk over, you can push your button on your remote. You turn on your TV, you find the news.
And it goes to the Middle East.
It goes to that country of Syria.
This chapter is about Syria and our 10 tribes and how they will fall and verse one is about that great city that all the trafficking took place.
And was a huge center.
And God's word gave you prophecy and 1/3 of our Bible when it was written approximately.
With prophecy, a lot of it has been fulfilled.
We currently can see those bombings that take place and those ruins and those shambles of Damascus and the little children cut and bleeding and all that's taken place over there. What do we have you have on your lap, you have in your hand?
The living Word of God.
We spoke about how we stand and how we know and how we are assured of the promises. Every time that I can read a passage that is being fulfilled during my lifetime of prophecy, it thrills me because it gives me all the more confidence that exactly what He has told me will take place.
It's the living word, isn't it? Sharper than A2 edged sword.
Isn't that beautiful to know?
That you have the living word.
Now, as we look forward, we're going to look forward to prophecy, just a little bit of a touch for a few moments, the time, and I'll leave plenty of time at least for one more brother, OK.
00:10:07
Turn with me to the verses that I've read before in Titus.
The verse in Titus 2 and 13.
Looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Mark, Chapter 13.
Mark chapter 13, verse 32. But of that day and that hour, knoweth no man. Know not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take heed, take heed, watch and pray, for you know not when the time is.
Don spoke about those older believers and stuff.
Many of them looked at the rapture as post tribulation at the end.
Right now there's a movement going around in America in the denominational churches.
And they're teaching mid tribulation rapture.
That they're raptured in the middle.
And we from First Thessalonians of course preach and teach pre tribulation rapture.
Before the Tribulation.
And there are many, many other passages, and we couldn't take them all up. I want to take just a couple of them, just a few of them to give some of our younger Christians some other examples of why this is correct, of why we're going to be raptured.
Before the tribulation OK I don't have the time to take up what is wrong with the mid tribulation. I just wanna touch on what is correct on the pre tribulation OK?
With that thought in mind.
I'd like to turn to 2nd Corinthians.
2nd Corinthians, Chapter 11.
For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy.
2nd Corinthians 11 and two. For I have espoused you to be one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Here we look at.
The Lord Jesus Christ and how He looks at those that He's paid for.
And those that are going to become the bride.
The true Church.
As a chaste virgin.
One of the things that the mid tribulation people teach.
Is that they go through the first half of tribulation.
Let me ask every brother in here that's married, Before you got married, did you take your wife out?
And show your judgment to her before you got married.
Did you show her your raft? No.
You looked at that bride. That's gonna be your bride. Put her up on a pistol.
At the very top, the chase version.
The perfect bride bought and paid for and plants by his own blood.
If that took place to a bribe, what would she do? She'd have to go right through her mind. I'm gonna go on down the road.
We don't have to worry about that, do we?
He's here to protect me. He's here to love me.
He's here to take care of you and you. You, you.
As a chaste virgin and put on the highest pedal pedestal that he can put you on, He loves you at Calvary's tree, he said. Father forgive them. There was forgiveness their Calvary's tree out of love.
He came to redeem himself a bride.
Chased virgin pride isn't that beautiful?
00:15:00
Genesis chapter 19.
Genesis chapter 19 and verse one. And there came two angels to Sodom at the evening, and lot set at the gate of Sodom. And Lot seeing them, rose up to meet them. He bought himself his face towards the ground, et cetera, in verse four. But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed all the house roundabout, both old and young, and all the people from every quarter. And they called under the lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came?
Into the this night, bring them out into us.
That we may know them. Our brother preached the gospel and he spoke about gays.
Gays and lesbians.
And here we have an example.
Of that taking place, you say, oh, what's that got to do with the future? Give me a couple minutes. We're going to find it in his verses here, OK.
It's prevalent right now. It's all over the place.
Verse 13.
For we will destroy this place. The angels are talking.
Because the cry of them is waxing great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.
Now we know the reason why the two angels came.
The Lord looks at gaze and lesbians.
As an abomination.
He's the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changed it. He hates sin and unbelief.
Sin and unbelief.
Verse 16 And he lingered, and the men laid hold upon his hand. The angels did.
Lot.
Was still there and he hadn't gone out of the city like they had told him to do.
To get up his family and arise, take thy wife, thy two daughters, and that in verse 15.
And the angels removed him out of the city.
Verse 20 has for a little place to go to a little one. Verse 22. Here's the key to why I read it.
Hasty escape thither.
For I cannot do anything.
Till thou become.
Verse 24 Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the Lord.
Out of heaven.
It was impossible.
For the angels to do what God had told them to do until Lot was out of the city.
Now, are we starting to pieces together?
Impossible for his fire and brimstone of judgment to come down upon that sinful city until Lot was removed.
Turn with me please to 2nd Thessalonians skipping over a lot of my notes. I'm sorry I write big long notes, but at my age I need the help.
2nd Thessalonians.
Chapter 2.
Verse 6.
Verse three talks about the man of sin, the son of Perdition.
And we have in there the working of the mystery of lawlessness under the divine restraint.
Verse six. And now we know that with what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity death already work. Only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way.
In verse eight it speaks about that wicked one be revealed.
Chapter 6 of Revelations, the very first verses, there is a sign. That sign is the White Horse and that wicked one that's upon it.
The Jews asked for signs, don't they?
00:20:02
But here we speaks about the Holy Spirit that is working inside of you and you and you and you and you and you and me. That's restraining.
So that that wicked one cannot be revealed yet until we are removed.
Just like lot had to be removed out of the city.
When we read first in in the Epistle Thessalonians chapter four, we read about those dead ones being raised up and then those that are alive being caught up together in the air and forever with the Lord. I spoke on on the Greek word PAROUSIA yesterday and seeing him face to face and being with him forever.
It doesn't say that the Holy Spirit.
Is done in this world, it says. It's taken out of the way. We are restraining that wicked one. So he can't be.
Seen and let loose with everything that he wants to do, a false peace etcetera on down.
We are restraining you see how it matches.
Lot happen to be removed because Lot and then them angels couldn't put fire and brimstone.
On the Earth.
Each one of those.
In Revelations chapter 6.
Those first six things that take place in the first half of the Tribulation.
R up on the earth.
Chapter 6 look in verse 4 gonna take peace from the earth etcetera on down. At the end of seven there's another one that stands out with the beast of the earth. Verse 10 though all them that dwell on the earth etcetera on down and in verse.
12 from 12 down through 17, we have the six seal.
And in there we see the mountains and the rocks falling and all those mighty things that are taking place.
And there's fire and things that are taking place, the sun darkening the earth, being with the waters, being the blood. They're the judgments that God is placing upon this earth that affect the men and the women, the human beings that are on this earth.
What a blessing that is to know that we.
Have a blessed hope.
And are looking for His glorious appearing before His judgments take place on this earth.
Let that grasp inside you, young ones.
That we won't be here. That we'll be with our Lord and our Savior face to face. What a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thought that is. The Holy Spirit says he's out of the way.
There's 12,000 out of the 12 tribes of Israel that get saved, but not to the body of Christ or not to the as the bride. Excuse me? There's also a great multitude that gets saved. The Holy Spirit's still working on the earth. It's just that He's doesn't do the restraining ministry that He's doing inside of each and every one of us.
We're holding back.
Until we remove that wicked one and then he'll be revealed.
The Lord used you. He's used me. Sometimes we don't even realize it.
We're holding back on morals. Think on those things which are pure and holy.
I want to touch on Revelations 4 and then I'll sit down because I wanted to leave time.
Revelations chapter four and five.
I'll rightly divide the world of the Word of Truth real fast. Chapters two and three of the Church.
After that you don't read the word Church chapter four and five.
Are us in heaven?
Chapter 6 starts the tribulation through 18. Look at chapter 19 and verse 7.
Chapter 19 and verse 7.
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
00:25:02
Notice it's no longer the title of the church, it's the wife. The wife has made herself ready.
When it comes back in here, it's the wife from here, isn't it? Isn't that beautiful? And the marriage is gonna take place.
But chapter four and five.
Are things future?
Things hereafter verse one after this.
What is after this? This is after the Church is raptured.
Tribulation doesn't start to chapter 6. We now have another one, don't we, that assures us after this. What's he say? The door was opened into heaven. There's doors that are open in our books all the way through here. Ezekiel is opened in the heaven. He saw the wheels turning and the whirlwind and the governmental things, etcetera on down the line. Steven.
The heavens were opened.
Jesus, when he was baptized, the heavens were opened and he saw a dove ascending the Holy Spirit and landing upon him. And John is on the Isle of Patmos, and the doors are open and he's looking.
Not at the church on earth. It's after this he's now looking at the church in heaven. He's looking at the hereafter.
And there's a trumpet there, and I will show you at the end of the verse one these things which must be hereafter.
And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, the throne was set in heaven, and one that sat upon the throne.
Verse four, I want to get down to that one. Around about the throne were four and 20 elders. And upon the seats I saw 4 and 20 elders setting clothes in white Raven and on their head, and they had on their heads crowns of gold. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings, thunders and voices. And there were seven lamp stands of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God.
Who are the 24 elders?
Guys, sit down real fast, Exodus.
19.
Verse 3. Exodus 19. Verse three. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the House of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bury you on eagle's wings, and brought you under myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a Kingdom.
Of priests and a holy nation. And there are words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel came. Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses returned his words of the people unto the Lord.
The elders of the people 24 elders in Revelations 4 elders.
Are representatives.
In every assembly we have elders that are representatives, and in this chapter 4 the 24 elders are the representatives of the church.
The Bride of Christ.
The true Church that is already in heaven.
Isn't that beautiful to see that we're in heaven again another time in his scriptures? Scriptures will always match. It'll always teach us. It'll always fold it together.
And we'll learn a little bit more.
Elders started way back there for Moses. He brought the representatives of the people out.
The elders are not symbolic, don't take that that way, but the representatives of the people. In Acts 52 we see the elders of the church are represent representatives of the people. Once again, my time is up and I need to sit down. I want 2 little fast things. I want to clinch this chapter 5 and verse nine, Chapter 5 and verse 9.
00:30:09
And they sang sung a new song saying quote.
Thou art worthy to take the book and to open. The seals are out, for thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kind and tongue and people and nations. Angels don't need redeemed.
Nowhere does it teach in your Bible that fallen angels have a chance to be redeemed.
Only the true Church, the bride of Christ, has ever in Scripture been redeemed.
That's a new song because no one has sang it, because there is no one else in heaven that's been redeemed.
We will be the first ones in heaven to sing that new song because we are redeemed ones.
You and I were bought and paid for in full at the finished work of Calvary, and we will be up there singing that new song about redemption.
And the angels are gonna be sitting there viewing it and all the beings in heaven.
And the ones.
From the Old Testament.
At that wedding, there's always friends of the bride and friends of the bridegroom.
We've seen once again.
Here a redemption song, one verse.
And I'll sit down and leave that time and hope I didn't take too long.
Uh, I wanted to read.
One verse in.
First Thessalonians 11 and 10. There was a beautiful verse. Revelation 3 and 10. Two Revelations 3 and 10. Because thou has kept the word of my peace, I will also keep thee out from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. That's the word to the church in Philadelphia. So we have His word now. First Thessalonians 1.
First Thessalonians one and 10.
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us.
From the wrath to come because of his resurrection.
We will be caught up, ****** taken away, removed from this earth.
In resurrection form the new body like unto his.
And that wrath there means all forms of the wrath.
To come.
Another beautiful verse that shows us we will not go through that tribulation. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe sin had left a Crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
I'd like to speak this afternoon.
About.
2 anointings.
2 Kings.
Liters.
And about you?
Return to.
First Samuel.
In the days of.
First Samuel.
The priesthood.
Had gotten into a terrible state.
Yesterday we had a little bit about.
Hannah praying.
Eli.
Accusing her of being drunk.
She went to pray before the Lord.
And her lips moved, and God knew that.
Well.
Soon things develop there to where?
Her prayers answered and she presents a boy, a little boy to the Lord. His name was Samuel.
And the priesthood.
00:35:02
Basically.
Wanes out.
We'll not go into that detail.
In First Samuel chapter 8.
Samuel is old in verse one.
Verse three. His sons walked not in his ways.
We see failure in the priesthood. Now we're getting failure in one in a profit his family and.
These failures lead to changes.
35.
Israel's elders came and said.
Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways. Now make us a king to judge us, like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.
You know there are times when things arise amongst the people of God.
That the godly will just have to cast themselves on the Lord.
And bring their sorrows to him like Hannah did.
She not only brought her sorrows, she brought her boy.
The Lord answers him in verse 7. The Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, For they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
So.
I don't wanna dwell on these details. You might meditate on them later, but they reiterate.
In verse 20.
When he when they refused to obey the Samuel in verse 19.
Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be alike all the nations, that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.
We have then in verse in Chapter 9.
Well, that's gonna give them what they ask for.
What a wonderful thing it was when God.
Was the ruler the king over Israel?
They have rejected him.
Verse seven of the last chapter. But now we get a man of Benjamin in verse one.
And he had a son. Verse 2.
Whose name was Saul, A choice young man in goodly there was not.
Among the children of Israel, a goodler person than he. From his shoulders upward he was higher than any of the people.
How often you heard that little term Tall, dark, and handsome?
He probably qualified for all that.
I don't wanna go into more detail there.
Chapter 10 and verse one.
Quite a story follows this. Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it on his head, and kissed him, and said, It is not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance.
So here we have.
One anointed.
He appears humble at first.
And.
There are some battles fought where things are won and he seems humble there in Chapter 11 and verse.
12 There were those who.
Didn't like it that some people didn't want saw the rain over them.
And the people said after they'd won that battle.
Or said unto Samuel, Who is he that shall reign, that said, Shall Saul reign over us? Bring them in, that we may put them to death. Now here we get Saul answering there shall not a man be put to death this day, for the For today the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel.
And Samuel said to the people, come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the Kingdom there.
00:40:05
And all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord, and Gilgal Milford sacrifices, sacrificed, sacrifices of peace, offerings before the Lord and their soul. And all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.
So this all seems to have a good beginning.
But later he's supposed to do some battle and.
Do what he's told in the battle.
But he doesn't do it.
And not only so in verse chapter 13 and verse.
8:00 and 9:00.
And 10.
He even steps into the priestly area, offers a burnt offering.
And it was because of fear. People were leaving this king, this man that's supposed to be a leader.
Verse 11 Samuel said, What hast thou done? Saul said, Because I saw the people were scattered from me, that thou camest not within the days appointed, that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Mick Mash. Therefore said I, the Philistines will now come now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord, and I forced myself.
To offer a burnt offering.
Samuel said to Saul, Alice done foolishly, Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee.
For now would the Lord have established thy Kingdom upon Israel forever, but now thy Kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.
Really amazing changes and here's an anointed man, a king.
And he's done the wrong thing. Disobedience to the Lord.
Things get worse in Saul's life and.
It was a disappointment to Samuel chapter 16 and verse one. The Lord said to Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil and go. I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, where I have provided me a king among his sons.
Verse 13 Well.
Let's see verse 11.
By this time, Samuel has watched all the sons of.
Jesse passed before him, and he hears in the end of verse 10 The Lord hath not chosen these.
Or Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these. Verse 11 are here all thy children.
Said There remaineth yet the youngest Behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Sin, fetch him, for we'll not sit down till he come hit her. And he sent and brought him. Now he was Ruddy, and of a with all of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look at.
And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. And Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went up to Rhema, and the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Well, there's.
Quite a change.
Here's 2 anointings.
We have a king that's been disobedient and God is going to set him aside.
We read in my Jose. I think it is I gave them a king in my anger.
And I took him away in my wrath.
But how is it going to happen?
Here's this anointed young man and he's.
Probably a very good looking man too. He's Ruddy. I suppose that means rosy cheeked and beautiful countenance and goodly to look to. And we find out a little later he he's good on an instrument. But in chapter 17 we get Goliath challenging Israel.
And.
Goliath's challenge is.
Verse eight He stood and cried under the armies of Israel and said unto them, Why are you come out to set your battle in array? Am not IA Philistine. And ye servants of Saul choose you a man for you. Let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then shall ye be our servants and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel estate, give me a man that we may fight together.
00:45:29
David went down.
This.
Young person.
And while he's talking with Israel, there's King Saul and the whole army and they they are not going to go down against this giant.
While he talked with him, verse 23, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, spake according to the same words, and David heard them.
You see the difference?
Here is a newly anointed 1.
Who's a as anointing as of God?
He's one that the Lord is with and he hears the challenge. What he hears he is grieved about. The end of verse 26 says he says for who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? How do you look at the Lord's people?
Young brother. Young sister.
Do you only look at gathered Saints?
Does your apprehension of the truth of the one body go beyond those gathered to the Lord's name?
Let it include everyone redeemed by the blood of Christ and sealed by the Holy Ghost.
It must.
Or you're not understanding the truth that there is one body.
David looked at the enemy's words.
As defying the armies of the living God.
When he connects the armies with the living God.
He has somebody on his side that will take care of all armies, doesn't he?
Well.
His challenges are there solve questions in, but he's already proved things. He's looked at lambs and sheep and goats.
As God's possession.
And he's defied.
Took a lion by his beard and slew him, and he killed a bear. Why? Because he looked at those precious creatures.
As gods, as belonging to Israel.
He wasn't out there to lift weights and look like the strong man that's stronger than the other boys in school.
He's there to defend.
What is of God? What is food for Israel?
Lamb's.
Cheap goods, whatever it be.
That same God that delivered those creatures into my hand. The lion and the Berry is going to take care of this Philistine. I don't care how tall he is.
Because he's defied.
And as you look upon the people of God, redeemed to him by the blood of Christ, in this truth of the one body.
And you detect what is the working of the enemy.
You have someone on your side that David had on his side, the living God. It's only by what we get by divine revelation.
That we really possess these things, he says in verse 45. I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts.
The God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. He wasn't justifying Saul.
He's gonna take his head off.
In the end of verse 40 says that all the earth may know that.
There is a God in Israel.
The battle is the Lord's end of verse 47. He'll give you into our hands.
Marvelous words, isn't it? We know what happened and there's a wonderful picture there. Let's go to Second Samuel, chapter 2.
00:50:02
Goliath is a figure of the enemy's power.
David is a figure of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He went down in the valley.
And he picked up five stones, we know that.
The enemy fell.
Saul became very jealous because after Goliath fell and his head had been taken off and brought.
The women began to sing. Saul has slain his thousands, his 10 thousands, and this rift began.
Between one who had been anointed, whom God was setting aside.
And this man who is anointed, and he is not yet crowned king.
The rift began then.
But here in chapter 2, by the time I get to two Samuel.
Saul and Jonathan have already been killed in battle. It's very sad.
There's so much we can learn from these historical books.
But I was meditating a bit on this portion. Second Samuel 2.
And after Saul dies.
We know that several were told they were told that people were told he would demand certain ones from the people to enforce this office of king. And one of the persons was Abner, the son of Nair, and he's mentioned verse eight of chapter 2.
It says of him after Saul died, he took Ish, beset the son of Saul, brought him to Mahinam, and made him king over Gilgot, Gilead, and over the Asherites, over Israel and Ephraim, over Benjamin, and over all Israel.
Saul's son was 40 years old when he began to reign over Israel. He reigned 2 years, but the House of Judah followed David, and the time David was king in Hebron over the House of Judah was seven years and six months.
Here's a difference. We don't get any anointing.
For ishbashev.
You can't pass on down to the next generation.
In this situation at all, it has to be the man of God's choice.
So in these verses next.
Verse 12 Abner, the son of Ner, the servants of Ishmael the son of Saul, went out to Mahanayam to Gibeon, and Joab son of Zeirai of the servants of David, went out and met together by the pool of Gebian. So here we get an unanointed king and his servants.
But in Joab we get the servant of someone who is anointed. But is he really communicating?
With his captain.
As I meditated on this portion, my heart just went out to your dear young people.
This is a sad scene.
Verse 13. Joab, the son of Zerah, the servants of David, went out, met together by the pool of giving. They sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, the other on the other side of the pool. And Abner said to Job, Let the young men now arise and play before us.
And Job said, Let them arise. Then there arose and went over by #12 of Benjamin, which pertained to son of Saul, and 12 of the servants of David, And they caught everyone as followed by his head, and thrust his sword and his fellow side. So they fell down together. Therefore that place was called Hellcat Hazuram, which is in.
This is a very sad scene.
Here's young people.
With sharp swords.
And we get 2 captains, one under a king that has not been anointed.
And one captain under King has been anointed, but he's not communicating with his Lord, with his king.
Let me get this.
Sad, horrible loss of potential.
You dear mothers, they say a baby takes about 3000 diapers.
That's amazing, isn't it? I learned that because of somebody in Iowa that had seven children all at once.
00:55:05
Somebody gave him all the diapers they'd need.
But when you think of all this labor of parents that bring you into youth and manhood and womanhood, what an awful thing if your potential.
Falls under captains that are under a false king. Maybe you've gone off to college and you get some professor that begins to tell you lies about creation, about God, about the Son of God.
Are you grounded in the Word of God so that your heart is possessed by the chief Captain? You'll be preserved. That's what I want for you.
That you would listen to the captain.
This is just an awful scene and the result of it is.
Verse thir 17 there was a very sore battle that day, and abner was beaten, and the men of Israel before the servants of David and.
We read in verse 31. Oh, wait a minute, verse 25. The end of it.
The children of Benjamin gathered themselves together after Abner, and became 1 troop, and stood on the top of a hill. Abner called the Job. Shall the sword devour forever? Nor thou not. It will be bitterness to the latter end. How long shall it be ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?
Anybody trying to put you into a fight over spiritual things?
Be careful what leader you're following.
ODD wants you to be embraced in your heart's affections to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you know who you're following when you're following Him.
Verse 27 Job says as God liveth, unless thou had spoken surely then in the morning the people had gone up, everyone from following his brother. So Joel blew a trumpet, and all the people stood still and pursued after Israel no more, and neither fought they any more.
Well, we get other details here, but verse 31 Says, but the servants of David had smitten of Benjamin of Abner's men, so that 360 men died. Isn't that sad because you're following?
A misplaced captain.
Sometimes.
I can look at young people and they can tell by the way they dress or what they've done to their bodies.
They must be following a wrong captain.
And they're gonna sustain an appearance the rest of their life.
As they haven't listened to the one who's truly anointed.
It will reign forever and ever.
Well, these few meager thoughts have gone over time.
But, dear young people.
Seek the Lord with all your heart, He will not disappoint you. And be sure of who you're following.
That it's not some doctrine or some stance religiously.
For some.
Major effort to serve God that is unintelligent according to the Word. Be careful of who you're following.
You'll never go wrong following our Lord Jesus Christ.
Open Mtg. 11
Open—J. Ruga, D. Buchanan, R. Thonney
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
#208.
And hopefully.
I waiting little morning.
Nsnoise.
1.
Three.
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, 10-4.
No, no, no, no, no.
No, I'm trying to pray.
And now?
Luke, chapter 10.
And verse 38.
And now it came to pass, as they went, he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, and she had a sister called Mary, and which also sat at Jesus feet and heard his word.
00:10:00
Now let's also turn over to the Gospel of John chapter 10.
John Chapter 11. Excuse me.
John, Chapter 11.
And.
Let's just read, uh, verse 31 The Jews then, which were with her in the house, comforted her when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him.
Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
And let's also.
Go to chapter 12 and that same gospel.
And verse 3.
Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. Just a simple thought, brethren. I was thinking a little bit about this dear sister Mary.
In the word of God, she's at the feet of Jesus.
The first passage we read there in Luke, she was at the feet of Jesus and she heard his word.
Well, brethren, we've been here together and we've had mentioned in our meetings that we had to hear. We were using hearing to hear what God has to say to us. And there we find Mary in comfort there in Martha's house. And Martha is concerned about her sister helping her, but she has the better part sitting at the feet of Jesus.
And you know, I thought when we get over to the Gospel of John in chapter.
UH-10 or Chapter 11? We find there that she goes through a trial.
Her brother Lazarus is dead. He's in the grave. He's been in there four days.
An impossible situation, and yet Mary's limited faith.
Says She turns to the Lord and says, If thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died.
But that trial that she was to go through, she was to see the impossible made possible. She was going to see her brother rise from the dead.
She's at the feet of Jesus.
And then again we have in the Gospel of John Mary once again taking a.
A bottle of ointment and anointing the feet of Jesus and the odor fills the house.
Brethren, as we go back to our homes, is it not at the feet of Jesus that we're gonna hear His word? Is it not at the feet of Jesus that we're gonna get through the trials of life? And is it not at the feet of Jesus?
That our hearts will overflow with praise and adoration to our Savior. What a place to be at the feet of Jesus.
Word is gonna be short too.
Hebrews chapter 12, verses one and two.
Wherefore.
Seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which says so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus.
The one that Mary was looking to, sitting at his feet, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
00:15:14
I wanna tell a little story.
That illustrates what I want to communicate here this afternoon. It's a very short story.
Number of years ago when my family was young.
I was out in the field working, it was called the Jones farm and we are working on the Jones farm in the springtime and uh, my wife brought our lunch out as she often did so we could keep working longer and faster. And so all the children were brought out. We had a little small family that time.
And uh, we were had our lunch at noon time and it was time to move to a new farm. And so every farmer's boy.
Takes great delight in an opportunity right in a tractor or a truck or whatever convenience, and usually they have a favorite one they like to ride in.
And so I said to one of my children, we're going to such and such a field.
You can either ride in the tractor or you can ride in the truck.
I will never.
Ceased to admire the answer that was given to me.
The answer was this. I want to go with you.
I wanna go with you.
He didn't know whether it was going to be the tractor or the truck.
Brethren, that's what these verses are telling us about.
The journey before us, it's not so much the path, it's who we're going with, looking unto Jesus.
Let's continue this path of faith with our Savior along the way. That's what makes the path wonderful. It isn't just doing the right things and being faithful. Yes, that's all a part of it. We've had this wonderful chapter of the heroes of faith, and we have admired them.
And the apostle who wrote this after he gives them all.
He sums it up all and says now you can set all that aside. Now that's a good example, but now I'm giving you the real example.
Walked past the face with Jesus.
I also want to speak on Hebrews 12 brethren.
Because that seems a fitting climax to.
Our Chapter 11 first verse of chapter 12 is wherefore because of what we have meditated on in Chapter 11, now it is like our brother has said the.
To be encouraged in the race that is set before us.
It's a race, brother, and it's not easy.
It's not meant to be easy.
But there's something at the end that is worthwhile pursuing. And so here we are, compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, all those witnesses of the Old Testament of faith.
It says, and here's the exhortation. Let us lay aside every weight and the sandwich that's so easily beset us, and let us run with patience. The word is endurance, the race that is set before us.
Weights or something that hinder you running? Well, you know weights are not necessarily things that are wrong in themselves, but there are things that keep us from running properly this race that is set before us. What are the weights in your life?
00:20:02
In my life.
Still remember?
My late father-in-law, Norman Berry.
He used to go up to the tent in the summertime to have a gospel outreach up in Nova Scotia and at that time he had a business in Montreal of making signs. It was a sign maker and the business did quite well and he was there to direct it. But when he left it to go up to do the.
Gospel tent and he came back. He always found it in kind of disarray when he came back.
And so he was sharing the burden one time with our dear brother, late brother Eric Smith.
How he found it a problem?
And Brother Smith said to him one day, Is your business, uh, wing, or is it a weight?
That settled it for him. It was a wait and he laid it aside and he used his time from that fourth time forth for traveling around amongst the Lord's people. But there are weights. Nothing wrong with having a business, but you have to evaluate is it a wing or is it a weight? Does it help you or does it hinder you? And the excitation here is to.
Lay aside every weight.
And the sin which so easily sets us has been called the sin of unbelief, especially addressed in this.
Book and unbelief does hinder us. I have to confess, brethren, that's unbelief floods into my soul at times. I have to judge it in the light of Scripture and lay it aside too. And so we are to run with patience or endurance the race that is set before us. It's not easy.
And her brother Doug has said in verse 2 The importance of looking.
Unto Jesus, Yes, we look back at Chapter 11 and we see those witnesses of the faith. Thank God for them. They're an encouragement to us. But our sights should be set on the Lord Jesus. Did he have an easy time down here? No, it was far from easy. He came from the Father's house. And I marvel when I think of the simplicity with which.
Lived his life down here and how he went through that race of life as well. He's the author and finisher of our faith.
He for the joy that was set before him. What was that joy?
Primarily it was to go back into the Father's presence and to say, Father, I have finished the work that thou gave us me to do. That was his primary joy. Oh, I'm sure that the thought of having us there too came into the picture, but all the joy that was set before him.
He endured the cross despising the shame. Are there crosses in your life? Are there difficulties?
You know, everywhere I travel in Latin America, people tell me their troubles and their problems. I have to confess, brother, and I don't have any answer for the majority of it.
Sometimes I say to him, will you please tell me somewhere where I can go that there's no problems so I can go there.
And they always smile and say there's no place like that down here in this world. That's true. We're going to all have difficulties and problems. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to handle it?
That's the case. The Lord Jesus was on this race of life as well down here in this world as a dependent man. And I marvel at how simple he was in his life down here. You never read of the Lord Jesus having any money in his pocket. Maybe he did. I don't say he didn't.
But you don't read about it.
He said.
Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests. The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. He spent many a night out in the open under the stars. I'm sure he knew what it was to be cold. I'm sure he passed through this light. I often say to myself, why didn't the Lord have a house?
00:25:18
Is there anything wrong with having a house? No, we who are parents.
Are responsible to provide for our families and part of it is shelter.
But why didn't the Lord have a house? You know, the only answer I can come up with is that he came from the Father's house and there was nothing he found down here that can compare that. And so he really wasn't interested in anything down here.
The simplicity of his life, the only thing he had, materially speaking, were the clothes on his back and that they took away when they crucified him.
But he was without those weights in life. He could and he always had to share with the needs of others. I think it's so beautiful to see that.
But he despised the shame. And there's things in our lives that are hard we don't like to talk about. Maybe.
But if you compare them with what's set before us, brethren, eternal glory is ahead. Is there something down here in this poor passing world that could compare with that?
He went through it all. He despised the shame. He sat down at the right hand of God. Now verse three. Notice.
Consider him notice Mr. Darby's translation says consider well.
Him that endures such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be worried and faint in your minds.
Ever feel weary?
And faint in the race, the Christian race. I think we all relate to that.
I like to put it in the Spanish, the old version Spanish.
Ray Lucid W Westerpen samiento akil K sufri otal contradiction de pecadores Contra simismo paracinos uh fatigue gados in Westeros Mendes.
It translates this way rather than reduce your thoughts to him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.
And I think it's so important, brethren in our lives to reduce our thoughts to Him. You know, we tend to sometimes when things go contrary, we tend to think of our hurts and the way we were offended.
Reduce your thoughts to him. Don't go reducing your thoughts to yourself, it's not gonna really help reduce.
Your thoughts to him that endureth such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied faint in your minds. We have mentioned this before. We have weight reduction programs you lose some weight, we need thought reduction programs Reduce your thoughts to him. Our thoughts go helter skeller in all directions. We need to control.
Are thinking don't let it go in any direction.
Direct your thoughts to him.
Just think about what it must have meant to him when Judas came up and betrayed him with a kiss. You know how he spoke to him? He said, friend, why are thou come hit her? What is his supposed friend do he betrayed him?
To death. And then Peter, one who had said, Even though all the rest denied the eye will never deny thee, he denied three times, ever having known the Lord with both and curses.
And the rest all went in different directions. Did he feel that? Yes, he felt it rather. And he was a real man. He felt those things and all that. He went through the cross. His people mentioned last night about the chief priests coming up and spitting right in his face, those things.
00:30:13
Were hard. You and I go through some hard things.
But when we do, try not to be nursing your hurts and thinking over what took place.
Reduce your thoughts to him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, in other words.
A rate it existed sin.
Unto death.
And there are of our brethren in other parts of the world that are giving up their lives for the Lord's sake.
Heard the other day of a brother. I don't know if it was in Iraq.
Who had a Bible? And in many places where Muslims are, to have a Bible is almost a death sentence.
Anyhow, he had kept it hidden and one day a Muslim that he was acquainted with found him with his Bible and he said, you know what I think of that book and.
He said yes.
But, uh, he said his acquaintance said to him, I'm going to kill you for having that book. He said, Will you, before you kill me, allow me to ask you to take this book after you kill me and read it?
And he handed it to him and he took it, and then the man took his pistol and ended the life of our brother.
We have not resisted against sin to death, brother.
Our brother and our some are, but we need to continue on. We need to keep up the race.
The goal is ahead. It's worth going for. Don't get discouraged and faint in your minds.
And then verse five down through verse 11.
Speaks of the question of chastening or discipline.
That we will all experience, if we are part of the family of God. You have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not the chasing of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth and scourgeth.
Every son whom he receiveth.
Question of scourging, we all endure it. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is ye whom the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, and are ye ******** and not sons? So if you are a child of God, you're going to experience.
Chastening, but there are two reactions that are.
Fleshly reactions we read about in verse, uh, five. One is despising the change chasing of the Lord, the other is fading under it, despising it is when we go through a particular problems and well, everybody has to go through this and I guess I'll just tough it out.
Instead of recognizing the Lord's hand, we kind of.
Set our our minds to just simply tough it out, and that's despising the chasing the Lord. The Lord has his hands in every single circumstance in our life. How important it is to recognize it. But the other reaction, which is also a fleshly reaction, is fainting under it. Oh man, it always goes bad for me.
I don't think I'm going to be able to take this any longer. This is just too much.
That's 59. Don't do that either.
Because those that do that despise or they change or they, they, uh, faint under it, they don't get the benefit of what God really means in it. He means it for our prophet.
00:35:13
Notice verse further down.
Speaking about our, uh, earthly fathers, says in verse 10. For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he our heavenly Father, for our prophet, that we might be partakers of His Holiness.
And he says, verse 11 Now no chastening, for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous.
Nevertheless, afterward it yielded us the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. So the proper attitude, when there is chasing in in our lives and we all go through it, is to be exercised. Lord, You've allowed this. I don't understand what you're putting me through.
But please help me to learn what you have in mind.
For me and this, that's the proper attitude. Notice verse 12. Now wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees.
This picture is of discouragement. Hands hanging down, knees can't properly work. They're feeble.
Brethren, we need to encourage one another. When we see someone going through trials, say to them, don't get discouraged, it's the Lord that wants to help you. He's allowing this for a specific purpose.
I haven't think you know of poor Joseph when he in his life down here, how hard it went from 17 years old.
Up to 30 years old, everything went against the grain and I don't think there was anybody there to encourage Joseph. We have Christian brothers and sisters. Let's encourage one another. Let's, uh, lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet less that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it.
Rather be healed. You know, sometimes they talk about people that are lame. Here it talks about those that are lame being healed. I think this is beautiful to think about. And then it says verse 14, follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Verse 15 looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God.
Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby.
Many be defiled. How important is this looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God rather than what is the strength of our Christian testimony is to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. That was Paul's word to Timothy and second Timothy 2.
Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
There's a tendency sometimes to fail of the grace of God.
Means that we get back to the principle of law and think that under stringent rules and regulations that we can produce something for God. It doesn't work that way.
No, we are to be strong in the grace and when we see those who because of trials and problems.
They get away from the sense of grace in their souls and that we can only go on.
By the grace of God, we need to be.
Helpless, any root of bitterness springing up trouble you.
Those roots are something that are down deep inside, and if there is any bitterness, how often our older brethren have exhorted about that.
Remember, Mr. Hayhoe, how often he used to say, don't ever go to bed at night with any bitter, hard thought about any person in the sphere of your acquaintance?
00:40:01
Oh, how important that is to let it loose. Don't hold any bitterness toward anybody.
And then it says, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, and Esau did not value the things of God. He was a profane person, the birthright which was his because of being the first born. He sold it for a morsel of meat.
And then it says in verse 17, you know that how afterward when he would have inherited the blessing.
He was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
If you look at Mr. Darby's translation is very helpful there.
What he sought carefully with tears is not repentance. He sought the blessing after he lost the blessing. Remember, Jacob deceived his father and got the blessing, and he came back and he realized that he had lost the blessing. He sought the blessing with tears, but he never really repented.
And years later in the book of Malachi.
It says.
Jacob have I loved. Esau have I hated.
It was not written before those men lived and died. It was written many centuries after they lived and died. Why did he hate Esau? Because he was a profane man. He did not hold God-given things.
In a way that he should have valued, he didn't value them.
So then he says, you have not come unto the mount that might be touched. And he goes on to speak of Sinai, and then in verse 22 he contrasts it, where we have come to Mount Zion, Mount of Grace.
You remember what happened at Mount Zion when David numbered the people?
In the times of Israel and.
God sent a destroying Angel and a plague upon.
The children of Israel.
And.
This destroying Angel comes to Jerusalem, and he has.
That sword extended in his hand to kill in Jerusalem.
And David is given to see that destroying Angel and he goes.
And he purchases the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite to be able to offer a sacrifice.
And he offers a sacrifice there and.
At that place, God says to the destroying Angel, Put thy sword into its sheath. A sacrifice had taken the place so that God could show mercy.
That was the place where later the temple was built, the place of God's appointment. Beautiful, but that's Mount Zion. That's where we're come to, brethren, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of angels. Do you realize that you are being.
Witnessed by an innumerable company of angels. Still remember Brother Eric Smith.
Saying to us, What do the angels say when they see a disobedient Christian?
You know, angels can never, ever disobey. They disobey once automatic condemnation to the lake of fire forever.
And they see us careless in our Christian testimony.
Innumerable company of angels.
To the General Assembly and Church of the first first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. That's the Old Testament Saints. And to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel.
00:45:00
Verse 25 C.
That ye refuse not him that speaketh had so much said in this meetings about listening to what God says, how important it is.
We who sit and speak the word of God, sometimes we make mistakes. I don't try to defend the fact that I might make a mistake and there might be a brother that has to.
Correct it, but have your ear open to God's voice.
And you can tell it because the Spirit of God which indwells us, gives testimony to the truth of God. How important it is.
See that you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not who refused him who spake on earth, much more shall not they escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, Whose voice then shook the earth, but now hath promised, saying yet once more I shake not earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifies the removing.
Of those things that are shaken.
As of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken.
May remain, wherefore we receiving a Kingdom which cannot be moved. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. So there are those things which are to be removed, those things that are going to be shaken.
And those things that are made.
We have received a Kingdom which cannot be moved. Brethren, what are we living for? Things that are going to pass away in a few short years? Or are we living for those things which last for all eternity? It's a real challenge to think of those things. Just want to touch on a few things in chapter 13 as well because this is the practical.
Side of the Book of Hebrews.
Verse one let brotherly love continue.
This is the file a love. It goes along with the agape love oftimes in scripture you have the two side by side.
Second Peter chapter one mentions things that are to be added to our faith and it says we are at one of the things is love, brotherly love. And then it says to brotherly love add love. That's the agape love. That's the love that loves in spite of all loves. God loves us because God is love. You can't change that.
You can never change that.
Brotherly love. Sometimes it's there and it should be cultivated, brother.
But sometimes, because of offenses and problems, brotherly love is not very strong, and then we are to love with divine love important.
Verse two. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. I'm not sure if this refers to Abraham when he had the Lord come with two angels.
It does seem that Abraham was aware of who was there. At least he was aware that one of them was the Lord, so I'm not sure if that refers to him or not.
Maybe some of her other has a thought on that, but I find it interesting.
No. There's a brother down in Bolivia that we used to visit in Cochabamba and he also always said I'm always careful how I treat people, strangers that come to my door.
They might be an Angel.
That really impressed me. Sometimes, he says. There's people that dress like beggars and they may not be a real beggar, but they think they can get something off of you by that and you might be tempted to say get going. He says. I'd be careful not to say that because they might be an Angel.
Verse three Remember those that are in bonds as bound with them. Brethren, let's remember our brethren that are in bonds in other countries. It's not easy. It's terribly tough. We have such liberties in this country.
00:50:10
Verse four. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled.
But ************ and adulterers, God will judge.
Marriage is an honorable institution of God whereby a man and a woman live together.
And have intimate relations together. It's proper, it's of God. It's wonderful when it's of God. But the two cases here, ************ and adulterers, are those that go outside of the bonds of matrimony to fulfill their lusts.
And God will judge that. The Lord, help us not to get carried away with the thinking of this world. Lord, keep our thoughts. Be careful of the Internet and what's on that machine. If you let your thoughts go in the wrong direction, it's going to have devastating effects.
Marriage is honorable on tremendous to see young people.
Forming homes, bonds of marriage in the Lord. That's right, let it be held honorable in all and abet undefiled in verse five speaks about covetousness. It's what's so common in our country to have more and more and more.
The advertising industry is based on this to give you a desire to have more and more and more.
Let's be careful of that. Let's not let our minds go in that direction.
Be content. Isn't that a beautiful word? I'd love to see persons that are content with such things as you have. You know what? I found a lot more contented people amongst the poor of the earth than I have amongst the rich of the earth. Doesn't have to be that way, but that's the way I found it.
Why should we be content? Because.
He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not hear. What shall man do unto me? 173.
Nsnoise.
Going to School - Being in God's School
Close Relationships - Being Lead by Word of God