Talk—Bill Prost
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Mercies for them we pray too for Thy special help for us here in camp today, commending ourselves to Thee and asking all, Lord Jesus, in Thy precious and worthy name, Amen.
I.
There may be a few that are new in camp this morning, and as you can see by the handout, the subject we have before us this year is knowing God.
And we have gone through a number of aspects of knowing God, far too numerous for us to try and recap this morning, but we basically have pointed out that knowing about God.
Is not the same as knowing God. But we also pointed out that God wants a relationship with you and me as His creatures. We pointed out that man has been created with the ability to relate to God and to have the knowledge of God.
Which is in distinction from the animal Kingdom who do not have that facility.
And so God created you and me to be able to have a relationship with Him. Sad to say, of course, we know that man sinned and alienated himself from God by his sin. But how wonderful that God provided a way through sending His beloved Son down into this world.
To die for you and for me, in order that we might have our sins forgiven.
In order that not merely might we be restored to that relationship, but in a much fuller and better way than if sin had never entered this world. Well, today we are ready for Section 12.
And I think what we're going to do is this, we have only three more meetings today, tomorrow and Wednesday morning.
And in order to try and finish up the handout, we'll consider Section 12 today, but then tomorrow we'll double up and we'll consider 13 and 14 together tomorrow. They'll go together, I think, reasonably well. And then on Wednesday morning we'll do Section 15.
So today we're going to consider Section 12.
Pretending to know God.
The one scripture, and I think it's really the only one we need, is in Titus chapter one. So let's turn to that.
Titus, Chapter one.
And this is a very serious verse.
Just a little bit of background.
Titus was sent by the Apostle Paul to the island of Crete. Crete. Now, I've never been there. It's an island in the Mediterranean, a very, very long history behind it. But the Christians were not a particularly good group of people.
I will say this, and I don't apologize for it.
In today's world, it's not politically correct to say anything negative about any ethnic group.
That is not a repeat, not scriptural. The Word of God does not hesitate to point out the failures of ethnic groups.
And the Christians? Well, they come under pretty strong language here, which, interestingly enough, comes from the pen of one of their own poets. Notice what it says in verse 12.
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said the Christians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
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What does Paul say? Does he say wherefore for Be careful that you don't offend them. Oh no, he says in verse 13, This witness is true.
Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.
In the Old Testament, in the book of Habakkuk.
The Spirit of God calls the Chaldeans that bitter and hasty nation.
Every ethnic group in the world has a plus side and a downside. Every nationality has certain characteristics which are good, but certain things which are a downside.
I happen to come from a German father and an English mother and both have an upside and both groups have a downside.
Yes, the English are stubborn and the Germans are hard headed and sometimes pretty brutal and difficult and I suffer from both if I don't judge it and I can easily admit it. The point is we need to recognize these things as Christians, not excuse them.
That's the problem now. It's not right, of course, for one ethnic group to say to another group You aren't.
Any good? We're the best. You're the poor relations and you don't amount to much. That's not scriptural either. But the point is we need to recognize that there are character traits that tend to be peculiar to different ethnic groups, and if we come to know the Lord, it's important to be able to deal with them. That's the background here. The poet that wrote this.
In verse 12 we know who he is and he lived at least 500 years before this was written, so this was nothing new.
But what does Paul say in verse 14? Not giving heed to Jewish fables?
And commandments of men that turn from the truth unto the pure, all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure.
But even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God.
But in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient, and under every good work reprobate.
It says there they profess that they know God. We could perhaps say, and I put that word in the handout, they pretend that they know God.
This is a very serious thing, and I'm going to speak particularly about what characterizes Christendom today. What is Christendom? What does that word mean?
It simply means that part of the world where the Bible has been generally accepted, where the laws and culture of the country have been based on the principles of the Word of God.
That includes much of Europe.
It includes North and South America.
I say again that part of the world where there is an open Bible, where the Word of God, its principles, its standards have been generally the basis for society.
That's wonderful to have that.
And people in the rest of the world very often recognize the benefits of that.
Tell you an interesting story.
And this is no slur on any part of the world. It's a true story. I can tell you the book in which I read it, if you like. But there was a man from India who was on a plane flying from New Delhi, India, to London, England.
And he was, to use a common expression, dog, tired. He hadn't had much sleep and this was an overnight flight.
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He was hoping to get on that play. Well, maybe not quite overnight. I think most of the planes, and I've been on them a number of times, that fly out of New Delhi toward England, they take off in the wee hours of the morning, 1:00 in the morning, 2:00, maybe 3:00 in the morning.
Awful time to take off in a plane, but when you get on that plane, you hope that you can lie your head back, if you can, and get some sleep. Well, this man wanted to get some sleep, but unfortunately beside him there was another man from India, a Sikh, who wanted to talk and he was very enamored with the fact that he was.
Doing business in England and he loved it.
And he wanted to talk, and this other man tried to shut him up. He was a Christian, but it wouldn't work. So finally he just gave it up as a bad job and talked with him, or did more listening than talking. And this other fellow, this Sikh, was trying to persuade him to start business in England. You need to start and do business in England.
Oh, he said. Why?
Why should I do business in England?
Oh, the Sikh said. Because everybody trusts you.
Interesting.
The same man was in the Netherlands staying with another Christian there in the Netherlands. Brother in Christ said we were out of milk. Let's go get some milk.
So he took his jug, walked down the road to a dairy farm where they had all the milk in a big cooler there, turned on the spigot, filled his jug, pulled a Euro bill out of his pocket, reached up on the shelf where there was a big bowl full of change, put the bill in the appropriate place, made his change out of the.
Bowl full of change up, up, overhead.
And went home with the jug of milk. His dear brother in Christ from India was absolutely flabbergasted, said I cannot believe this, I can't believe it, he said. If they tried to do that in India, he said, the first person that came along would not only take the milk, but the bowl of change too.
He was so surprised that when he was at a seminar.
A few weeks later, in the Middle East, he proceeded to tell that story.
And there was a man from Egypt that laughed the loudest and the longest, and so much so that everybody looked at him.
Because he was roaring with laughter so loud. And finally, when things quieted down, they said to him, why are you laughing so loud? Oh, he said, if, if, if some of us from Egypt were in that situation, we wouldn't just take the milk and the change we'd take, we'd be smarter than the Indians. We'd take the cows, too.
The Indian man's comment on the Egyptian was being too charitable to us Indians. Probably the cows would have disappeared too. Why did that happen? Why could they do that? And if I can say it bluntly, it happens where I live in Canada.
People put their farm stall food out front there, put their change out there. People come along.
Help themselves to what they need, tally up what they owe, put their money down. And I've talked to people that do that. They say very seldom does anyone cheat us. Why the effect of the word of God?
The effect of the word of God. But does that mean that people know God? No, it does not. And here Paul is talking about those who profess to know God, who pretend to know God. But what does he say?
In works they deny him, and he says some pretty strong language, abominable, disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. He's talking about unbelievers.
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We live in a pretty nice area, at least I'd like to think so. Where I live, all the neighbors know one another. Everyone will do a good turn for the other neighbor. If you need it, if you need help, everybody's available. You need something. I've got one of my neighbors who's got in who got in trouble in the middle of the night. Didn't hesitate to call another one to come over and help them out.
When my neighbor next door had a limb that he needed taken off a tree.
Big limbs, big as a man's thigh in that he didn't feel up to it. He told me about it, and he didn't hesitate to ask me if I'd come and take that limb off the tree for him and cut it up and so on. And the neighbor on the other side needed a couple of dead trees taken down. And everybody helps one another.
But the neighbor next door on the one side invited my wife and myself over for dessert one evening and we gladly went over and had a good chat and we started talking about the things of the Lord.
And I brought the gospel before them.
I knew where they went. They were good Episcopalians, or Anglicans as we call them in Canada, Church of England, Very faithful, good, upright people, very nice, very helpful. But when I got finished talking about the gospel, they were blank looks on their faces.
Oh, we never hear anything like that in our church 0.
And, you know, they avoid the subject now. They don't want to hear anymore. We're still good friends, but they don't want to hear about the things of the Lord. Same way with some other neighbors, good churchgoers, upright people, as far as it goes. But the bottom line is, do they know God?
No.
No, they don't. Don't want to hear anymore about the Lord. I've got a deep concern for one of them.
He's not well. He's only in his 50s and he knows very well that.
The chest disease, the pulmonary fibrosis that he has is going to get him.
But he doesn't want to know Christ. He doesn't want to know God.
I hope there's no one here like that.
They're enjoying the benefits of the Word of God.
But they don't want the God of the Bible. They don't want to admit their loss. Guilty sinners.
They don't want to know the one who will forgive their sins and really know the God of the Bible.
Maybe there's someone here like that today. I don't know everyone here today. Maybe there's someone here that isn't saved. You know, these words are strong that the Apostle Paul uses here in Titus. Why? Because these Christians were not particularly good living people. As we read verse 12. They weren't very nice people.
But the word of God sometimes.
Generate whoops generates in society.
An uprightness, A moral uprightness, which is because of the influence of the Word of God.
When I was growing up.
They regularly every morning read the word of God in the public school I went to and also in the high school.
When I went to high school, senior students were given the passage to read every morning. And I can remember when I was in grade six and one of my classmates was designated to read a passage from the word of God, and I remember him publicly getting a royal chewing out from the principal.
For not being able to find the book of Philemon.
He was expected to know the Bible.
It's all changed now, of course, but nevertheless the basis of society in Canada and the US.
Is still the word of God, even though men on the surface don't want it. But having the benefits of the word of God is not going to save you.
If any of you are interested in the book that I got some of these stories from, I highly recommend it. The name of the Indian man that wrote it is As Long as Your Arm and I can't remember it but it's entitled The Book That Made Your World.
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And this man who comes from India is writing this book. And it's not thin. It's a good thick book.
And he is basically saying you people in the West are crazy because you are throwing out the very book that made the world you live in, and you are throwing out the very thing that has made the wonderful world that you enjoy. And we here in India who are Christians, we look on with wide eyes.
At the Western world, throwing out the very thing that's true.
He points out that everything they have in India that's really good was given them not by Indians who were Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims, but rather by the influence of Christianity that was brought from missionaries and others. And that is emphatically true.
And I don't say that to put down the Indian nation. I love them. I've been visiting India for over 40 years, as many of you know. But the point is, all the benefits of Christianity have come through those who have brought the Word of God, the book that made your world. Google it and you'll find it well worth reading. Now don't swallow everything the man says he's.
Got a bit of covenant theology mixed in with his Christianity and that but.
Nevertheless, a lot of what he says is well worth reading.
Let's go on though.
Let's get right down to the nitty gritty.
Suppose you are a child of God. Suppose you do know Christ as your Savior. Suppose you do know without any shadow of a doubt that your sins are forgiven, that you are under the shelter of the blood of Christ. You can gladly sing all these wonderful hymns that we have had before us. You can gladly enjoy the Word of God.
Do we really know God?
Do we really have a personal relationship with the Lord?
In North America, we are unusually blessed.
I counted up one time how many? Now, this is outside of the COVID pandemic, which has put a crimp on all of this. But I counted up how many Bible conferences there were that we could go to in North America in the course of a year, and there were more than 20. Now, you couldn't realistically go to all of them because.
Sometimes there were Bible conferences in different places on the same.
Weekend or something like that, and it couldn't be in two places at the same time, but basically there were all kinds of conferences you could go to and camps like this.
Where you could enjoy the fellowship of the Lord's people, and there were all day meetings you could go to, and young people's weekends and so on.
I ask you, as I ask my own heart, do we feed on those things as a substitute for a real relationship with the Lord Himself?
I hope I'm not speaking out of turn because I have not particularly enjoyed this COVID pandemic any more than anyone else has, although it hasn't been as hard on me as it has on some people, actually. Is everything OK she needs? Oh OK.
It hasn't been as hard on some of us in my age bracket as it has perhaps on you young people.
And I sympathize for you and I pray for you, but in a way.
Has it been a good thing to make us realize whether we really had a personal relationship with the Lord, whether we could enjoy one-on-one with the Lord when all of these things that we were normally having, all the nice get togethers, all the good fellowship?
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Was suddenly taken away from us.
Some of our brethren in other parts of the world, you know, they would consider themselves very happy.
If they got to one conference a year.
Maybe two, maybe. But that would be the exception, and they looked forward to it. But the rest of the time they don't get very much of that. In the little country of Bhutan, north of India, sandwiched between Tibet and India, the country's all mountains.
I've been there a couple of times. Only place in the world I ever got carsick because you go 15 miles an hour around these little.
Winding mountain roads and it takes a long time from get to get from A to B.
And a lot of people there simply break bread in small assemblies or sometimes only as families, and to get to see their brethren is a major undertaking. But many of them are very happy in the Lord. Same thing in parts of India where they're separated from one another. They don't have the wherewithal to travel the way we do. They don't have the money.
To go distances the way we do.
But they are enjoy the Lord and brethren who talk about situations in other parts of the world, in South America and other places. And there are brethren in Australia and New Zealand who break bread only as families, but rejoice in the wonderful privilege of knowing the Lord and being where He is in the midst. And they would hardly ever get to see their brethren now.
Enjoyed getting on Zoom calls in the last year and a half and so on and it has meant much to them. But they never would even dream of having all the privileges and the opportunities that you and I have. It's something we need to consider, don't we?
And so the reality of knowing the Lord is having a personal relationship with him and I will. We're getting late.
Yeah, it's almost 11:00, but I will end up by saying this.
It's a wonderful thing to have the fellowship of our brethren, but.
Never put your brethren between yourself and the Lord.
It's easy to do.
And if we do that, then if suddenly our brethren are taken away?
Then when we can't find our brethren, we can't find the Lord because we're so used to going to the Lord through someone else.
Maybe it can be someone.
Whom we look up to, Someone who has been a real help to us.
Whether a dear brother in the Lord, who has been used of the Lord to encourage us, or a dear sister.
They're very valuable and let me never speak against them. We value those.
Whose love for the Lord?
Whose solid, prayerful walk with the Lord has been a real encouragement to us. And I can still remember, if I can speak from experience, what a hole it made in my life when 1 by 1, some of those older brethren whose ministry I valued, whose lives I looked, I looked at.
And how much they meant to me.
And I will say this just as a side remark.
What meant more than the truth they ministered was the godliness that lent the weight to their words. It was not their gift, but their godliness that meant far more than simply the truth that they presented. Now, the truth that they presented was wonderful.
Yes, it was wonderful, but it was their godliness that lent the weight to their words. And when they were taken away, it left a big vacuum in my life. But then I had to realize, where did they get what they had? Where did they get it? It was only a reflection of Christ, wasn't it? And each one had something.
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But none of them had as much of Christ.
As if I could say it reverently as Christ Himself. None of them were perfect. If I looked at them, I recognized failure. I saw failure in them. But I had to realize, OK, they've been taking a whoops, they've been taken away, but the Lord is just the same and He's there and He wants that relationship directly with us.
So never put your brethren between yourself and the Lord.
Rather, put the Lord between yourself and your brethren. We.
Then if your brethren are there, what can they do for us? They are a help to us to the extent that they bring Christ before us.
But if they're not there, if for some reason they're not there, what happens?
If the Lord is between me and my brethren, then it only makes the Lord more precious to me, doesn't it? Because He never fails. My brethren can fail me. They can say and do things that perhaps we say.
And there's failure there, and we recognize that. Or as we've just said a few minutes ago, suddenly they're not there anymore. And if we rely on them, then we don't have them. So I just finished with that remark and I say, let us be very sure that we cultivate a personal relationship with the Lord.
There can be a good deal of pretending.
If we're not careful, we can learn the right words to say, and as far as it goes, we can enjoy the company of our brethren. We can enjoy times at camps like this. But then, you know, you know as well as I do when we get home, we come down to earth with a bit of a thump, don't we?
Then suddenly.
Whether our Christianity is real or not.
Comes right home to our souls. We iron up on the mountain top as what it what is that are in our hymn book. We aren't on the mountain top any more. We're down. We're all the temptations, all the problems, all the attacks of the enemy are very real. And as the hymn says, then your faith is really put to the test.
But if the Lord is real to you, then you'll pass the test. You'll be able to follow the Lord.
If you get the chance for fellowship, wonderful, take it, enjoy it.
And when people in India and that talk to us about all the benefits we enjoy in North America, I don't tend to be either defensive or apologetic about it. I say to the new pray for us because we who have more are going to be held more responsible and the Lord is going to hold us responsible for all that he's given us.
So you pray for us. That puts matters in a different light.
But I say you're responsible for what you have. We're responsible for what we have. But we have the same Lord, and you can enjoy the Lord too.
And one last point.
Is there any limit in how much you can enjoy the Lord individually? I don't believe there is.
I don't think anyone would argue that we're living in the last days. We're right on the eve of the Lord's coming, right at the end, just at the point where the Lord is going to come, and as the Lord has predicted in his word.
Things are going downhill.
And we're at the end, if we could say it bluntly.
Of a ruined dispensation, man has failed in everything that God gave him to do.
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But if the collective testimony has failed, there is no reason why you or I cannot enjoy the Lord just as much, let's say, as the Apostle Paul did.
Now I speak for myself. I am sure that I do not enjoy the Lord as much as Paul did, but there's no reason why I can't.
Because every resource that was open to Paul is open to you and to me. Everything that was open to the believers in the early church, every resource that was open to believers 150 years ago when things were on the upsweep, when there was a tremendous revival, when the Lord was really working.
As individuals.
That's all there for you and for me just as much as it was in the best days of the churches history. And so I just say that to each one of us. We don't need to be bowed down with sadness or heartache or just say, oh, I'm just a poor thing or something like that.
Humanly speaking, we are.
And the Christian testimony has been, I'm afraid, a miserable failure, and we can't deny it. But at the same time, you and I can enjoy the Lord just as much as anyone ever did at the very best times in the church's history.
OK.