Talk—Bill Prost
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Our loving God and our Father, we look up to Thee now this morning. And once again we thank you for the mercies of another day. We thank you for the sunshine. We thank you for the rain too. And we thank you most of all for what we have in the Christ.
That one who came down into this world, our God and Father, to make thee known. And we thank Thee that now we can turn to thy word so that we may learn more of the Lord Jesus, more of Thee, our God and Father. And we thank Thee above all, that to know Thee our God is to know our Lord Jesus Christ, to have life eternal.
And to spend eternity with thee. So we commend our time together to thee now, and pray for thy health as we open thy word together.
Praying too, for any year we may not yet know thee, Lord Jesus as Savior, we pray that from Thy word and by Thy Spirit, they may hear words whereby they might be saved. So we ask this, our God, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen.
Excuse me, I'm going to take this jacket off.
Well, for those that are new in camp, and I know there are a few, you can see from the handout that the subject we have this year is knowing God. And just to recap for a moment or two, in some of the meetings we've had already, we have seen how that God created you and me as men and women.
In order that he could have a relationship with us.
Because.
While God created this world, the plant Kingdom, and created the animal Kingdom, we pointed out that neither of those have the ability to relate to God or to know God in a real way. The animals, they live, they move, they act by instinct, but they do not have the knowledge of God, nor do they have.
Any part of their being that can.
Have a relationship with God.
For you and I as men and women, we saw from the book of Genesis that when God created man, he breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And we saw how that God wanted a relationship with his creature, how He came down in the cool of the day in the evening to enjoy.
The company of the man and the woman that he had created.
But we saw how that sin had come in. Man disobeyed the one commandment that God had given, brought sin into this world and for the distance between himself and God.
But we also saw how that God, in His grace and mercy, found a way whereby we could be brought back to God through the work of His beloved Son on Calvary's cross, and that now as a result of that.
We are not restored to the Garden of Eden. That would be, to use the word again, wonderful. It would. But now God has given us something even better. He's brought us into a relationship with himself that Adam never had, and he has brought us into a realization and a hope.
That Adam never had, and that is to enjoy.
The Father's house for all eternity. Now don't misunderstand me. Adam will be there. But Adam never knew God as Father. Adam never knew that he was going to spend eternity in the Father's house. But you and I now have that blessed hope. And so turning to our hand out.
Today, we would normally go on with Section 4 entitled Redemption.
But we've juggled the meetings a little bit in order to permit our brother, Phil Jennings, to have some meetings on a subject that he is having. And so today is Saturday, but I will not be having, as far as I know, a meeting tomorrow. And so we are going to double up with #4 and #5 today.
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Because there's a fair amount of overlap in this subject.
So we'll double up with four and five today and then, the Lord willing, on Monday.
If the Lord leaves us here, we'll go on with Section 6, and we may do a little more doubling up depending on how things go. So we'll consider #4 which speaks of redemption, and some of that we've covered already.
And we'll also talk a little bit more about a relationship with God that we have already mentioned.
And go a little deeper into it, just for a few minutes.
So what does the word redemption mean? What does it mean to be redeemed or to redeem something?
It literally means to buy something back.
And, you know, it reminds me of a boy, and this is a story that I heard when I was a young boy, about a boy who made himself a little boat. And he was clever, he was good with his hands. And he made this little boat, not very big. I don't know exactly how long it was, but he could take this little boat out, put a string on it, of course, so it didn't get away too far.
And it had little sales on it and so on. And he would sail it on little ponds and streams and so on.
Well, one day he was out sailing this boat, and it was a nice breezy day. And of course, you know what happened. The string broke, and before he could rescue that boat, it took off across the water and it was a big pond, a Big Lake on which he was sailing it, and he couldn't recover it.
Oh dear. He was really upset, but there wasn't much he could do about it. The boat was gone and his parents just consoled him and said, well son.
You know these things happen. Just a minute here.
These things happen.
Lo and behold.
Several months later he was in town and there was what they called a second hand store and of all things, looking in the window.
There was his ****. Wow, how did it get there?
Somebody evidently had found it, brought it to the second hand store, sold it for a little bit of money and there was sitting in the window for sale.
Well, of course, the boy went into the store and he said to the storekeeper, you know, that's my boat, That's my boat. I made that boat and I was sailing it on the water back a few months ago and the string broke and I lost it. But that's my boat.
What do you think happened? Could anybody guess? What do you think the storekeeper said to him? Some boy? Tell me here. What do you think the storekeeper said? Do you think he said? Oh, OK, I'll give it to you. Here you are. I'll give it back to you. Do you think that's what happened?
No, Sir, the storekeeper said. Well, son, you may be telling me the truth. I can't tell. But you know, I had to pay money for this boat and I'm sorry, but there's a price for it. If you want this boat back, you're going to have to pay me because I bought this boat and I have to make some money to keep my store going. You know, I can't just give it back to you or I'll lose money even if it is.
Well, you know, he went home and told his dad, and the dad said, well, son, I'll tell you what, I'm going to help you earn some money to get that boat back. And so like a good father, he gave the boy some jobs to do from time to time.
And after a while, it wouldn't take too long because the boy didn't want to wait too long in case somebody else came and bought the boat. But eventually.
He had enough money. He went back to the store, handed over the money and got his boat back.
And, you know, when he was going home with that boat in his hands, he kind of talked to the boat as if it were alive. He said, little boat, you're twice mine now.
You're mine because I made you, and your mind because I bought you.
You know, that's a good illustration of what God wants to do with you and me.
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We were his because he made us. But like that boat, we broke the string. We got away. We went away from God. We said we don't want to have a relationship with you. We'd rather have our sins. We'd rather live in degradation and sin and misery.
Now, as we said earlier in another meeting, there is pleasure in sin for a while, but it doesn't last. It doesn't last.
All the fun things that this world has to offer. After a while we get tired of them, don't we? They don't last. We want something new, something different.
But what God gives us, knowing God, it lasts.
It lasts, and not just for time, but for all eternity.
We're going to quote a verse now.
And you all know it pretty much by heart. Probably almost everyone here could quote it except the smallest children, John 3 and 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And so we're talking about redemption here, and that's under Section 4.
And.
The wonderful thing is that God has brought you and me into an even closer relationship with God than man could have ever known if sin had never entered this world.
You know, sometimes men say, could God have prevented sin from entering this world? Couldn't he have stopped Satan from tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden? Couldn't he have stepped in and stopped that from happening? Yes, he could. Yes, he could.
But God allowed it, because if sin had never entered this world.
You and I would never know the depths of love that exist in the heart of God for you and me.
Isn't that beautiful?
Because that sin entered this world, God sent His Son right down to where we are, and he experienced from without first hand.
The awfulness of what sin did in this world.
Now the Lord Jesus himself never sinned, and so he didn't experience from within the effects of sin.
I don't believe the Lord Jesus, for example, was ever sick. I don't believe he ever got up in the morning, as I do sometimes with a rotten migraine headache because the weather changes. I don't believe that he ever had, if we could say it reverently, the stomach flu where he got up in the morning and felt, Oh dear, I'm sick this morning or something like that.
Because he was perfect and he wasn't subject to sin.
But you know, when he saw whoops, the misery and the degradation and heartache and sorrow that sin brought into this world, he shed tears over it. He shed tears over it.
And maybe you'll allow a personal illustration.
You know, I've had the privilege of visiting some foreign countries and those of us that live in Canada and the United States, we lead a pretty cushy life, don't we, compared to the way some people in this world live. And I have sometimes said that every young person that grows up in North America ought to visit a so-called third world country because even if you were there just for a couple of weeks, it would change.
Outlook on life and you would see how the vast majority of the world lives.
Excuse me for a moment.
Now, when I go over to those countries.
I don't usually have to live the way the people live there. No, I don't stay in fancy hotels or all or anything like that. And I have not boasting, but I have slept in mud huts and that's no big deal. That works and and so on. And I've eaten food that was less than what I would like to have eaten and so on. But I don't normally have to live the way some of those people live.
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But you know who notices the difficulties and the problems over there the most? Do you think the people that live there notice them, or do you think I noticed them when I go there?
I noticed them. Why? Because the people that live there, they think, well, this is normal. That's all they've ever known. This is the way life is, and so they just accept it. But because I have known what it's like to live here in Canada or the United States, I feel it more than they do sometimes.
Things are very dirty in some of those countries and the people that live there don't pay much attention to it because that's the way they've been used to living all their lives.
But I notice it more and you know, that's the way the Lord Jesus was when he came into this world. Everything was very noticeable because here was the beautiful creation that He had made and it was all spoiled.
That what did he do?
He went to Calvary's cross and suffered more than you and I could ever suffer.
Suffer the judgment of God for sin in order that you and I could be saved.
And more than that, could have a relationship with God that had never been known before. Isn't that something? Let's turn to a verse.
That I really enjoy.
There are several here that we could turn to.
But let's turn first of all to the 20th chapter of John, 20th of John.
I was just checking to see which ones are in the handout here because it's nice to refer to the ones in the handout. John 20 And notice what happens here when the Lord is risen from the dead. And there was a woman, probably a relatively simple woman, but who loved the Lord Jesus because he cast 7 demons out of her.
And her name was Mary Magdalene.
And in verse 15, she's standing there and she doesn't recognize the Lord Jesus.
And Jesus saith unto her woman.
Why weep ourselves? Whom seeketh thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary.
Can you imagine that voice, The voice of the Lord Jesus that she knew well?
And instantly she knows who he is. She turned herself and Seth unto him, rabonae. Which is to say, Master Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But notice this, Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my father.
And your Father, and to my God and your God.
Isn't that beautiful?
The Lord Jesus brings you and me as Christians into the same relationship with God as Father as He has. Now don't get me wrong, you know there are some, sad to say, false religions that try and teach that if you work at it hard enough you will become a God.
And I might mention that we're living in the kind of.
The part of the country where there's a well known religion. That's pretty.
Common in this part of the United States that teaches that.
That you can become a God. We can all become gods. That's blasphemy. We will never be gods, but God is going to bring us as his creatures into that relationship with Him where we have the same nearness to God the Father.
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As the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
My God, my Father and your Father, my God and your God.
God does not want you to get saved.
Merely as a fire escape from hell.
How much time we got Jonathan? I get carried away here.
OK, cut me off if I go overboard.
I love to tell stories and I'm going to tell you a story, but a young man I met in my first year of university and we were about as opposite as day and night I came from.
A very good home, a godly Christian home. But my father was not wealthy. He was a farm laborer all his life. That was great, was a good upbringing. This young man's father was a lawyer, very wealthy man. This young fellow drove a beautiful convertible that a lot of us other students cast, I'm afraid, envious eyes on and so on, but I don't know why, for some reason.
Attracted to each other. And I gave him the gospel, and he came to gospel meetings and he heard the gospel.
But the world had a tug on his heart.
And he graduated, got his medical degree, became a plastic surgeon, moved to the United States, lived in North Carolina. We kept in touch a little bit.
And over and over again, we would have discussions about the Lord and he would say, Willie, I know you're right. His name was Bill, too. I know you're right.
But he never came to Christ. He went out into the world.
Years went by.
Three times married, three times divorced, and so on.
Finally, toward the end of his life, he started to realize his health was failing. He was a chain smoker, he got heart disease as a result of it, and so on. He started to have other health problems and he realized that things were not going well for him.
It took 50 years for him to come to Christ from the time I first knew him, 50 years.
But there came a day when he gave me a phone call.
Made my day, made my month, made my year.
Willie said that was his nickname for me.
I want you to know that Jesus Christ is now my Lord and Savior.
But you know, it was literally a fire escape from hell.
He's with the Lord now. He didn't live to be that old, only he lived to be in his early 70s.
And he was taken home to be with the Lord.
But it was a fire escape from hell. But you know, we missed out on so much.
Because God doesn't want you and me to be saved like that. I'm thankful He was. I had it deep down in my heart I thought the Lord's going to save him. I'm sure He is, and it took a long time. But the point is, God wants you to know Him.
Let's read one more verse.
First John Chapter 2. Phil turned to this last night and will turn to it again.
Because it's the same message. First John chapter 2.
And it talks about 3 categories of Christians in this chapter, fathers, young men and that includes young women and new believers or little children.
But notice what it says in verse 13.
I write unto you, fathers, because what ye have known him, that is from the beginning, and that's all it says, that's the Lord Jesus. That's all it says about them. Because when it repeats that in verse 14, it says the same thing with young men, it gives a little more.
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With children it gives a little more still. It talks about children because you have known the father.
Wonderful, but it talks about fathers. What is the essence of being a father in Christianity? Knowing Him, that is from the beginning. And to have Christ is to have everything, because as Phil brought out last night, if we know Christ, we know the Father because the Lord Jesus came to reveal the Father.
And we're going to enjoy a father's house.
Somebody raised the question in a reading meeting well over 150 years ago. Now. Will we actually see the Father when we get to heaven? I thought the brother gave a superb answer.
He said, I don't know of any scripture that actually says in plain words that we will see the Father, But he said, I cannot imagine being in the Father's house without being very much aware of his presence. Isn't that beautiful? Pardon me for a moment.
So as it says there.
In section 6 or sorry Section 5, God wants us to have a relationship with Him.
That intimate relationship, that happy day by day fellowship, communion, same word in the original in the Bible, He wants us to have that and we can have it now in another meeting we'll go over some of the hindrances to that and some of the things God may put us through in order to have that.
But before we do, we want to talk about.
One more.
Wonderful scripture, wonderful truth that is part of Christianity, and it's often not fully understood. There are several scriptures we could turn to, but the one I like the best is Acts chapter 13.
Now there's a different one I think in the handout, if I have it right.
I think First Corinthians one is mentioned there, but let's turn to Acts chapter 13.
And then I'll tell one more story. Acts chapter 13.
Having trouble here with this.
Little breeze blowing the pages.
Acts 13 and verse 38.
Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man that's the Lord Jesus is preached unto you, the forgiveness of sins.
But I'm going to read this next verse as it is more accurately translated in a better translation. In fact, is any? Does anyone here? I asked this before? Anyone here have a Darby translation handy that they could read it from? Or maybe not? You do, can you? Can you read it out good and loud for me, Henry?
No 39.
39th verse. Acts 1339.
And from all things from which he could not be justified in the law of Moses. In him everyone that believes is justified beautiful. Notice the expression in him, and in our King James instead of by him. It could read in him all that believe are justified from all things.
That is a divine revelation that was given first of all to the apostle Paul.
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When the apostles first preached the Gospel on the day of Pentecost, they didn't know that precious truth.
They preached the forgiveness of sins as we get it in verse 38, but the apostle Paul was given that revelation that every believer is.
In Christ? In Christ? What does that mean?
I'm going to illustrate this and I'm going to give credit where credit is due.
I got this. Probably some of you don't know this, but Wally Deer and I are first cousins and so his dad was my uncle and I got this story from his dad many years ago.
And I told this story in Aberdeen last Lord's Day, so pardon me those from Aberdeen that already heard it.
About 500 years ago, when the Reformation was coming in and the precious truth of justification by faith was just being recovered, there was an old man who had gotten hold of the real truth of the gospel, and he was on his deathbed and he knew it, and so did his family, and he was perfectly at peace.
Which they couldn't understand.
Because having been.
Brought up in the Roman Catholic Church, they were afraid they were led to believe that ahead of you when you die there was such a thing as purgatory. And I don't have any hesitation in saying there's not even a hint of such things in Scripture. No, there is therefore now no condemnation. It says in Romans 1 to them who are.
Again in Christ Jesus.
Beautiful. The old man was perfectly at peace, though, and his family gathered around growing up. Family, you know, adults, they couldn't understand it.
Father, how can you be so peaceful and relaxed?
Oh, he said. I'm resting on Christ and on the value of his precious blood.
Well, one other of his children still couldn't wrap her mind around it. She said. Father, what are you going to do if you get to the gate of heaven and the Lord won't let you in?
Well, they, they were, they were led to expect of course, and this again is not scriptural, but that Peter held the keys to the gate and that Peter stood there and on behalf of the Lord you either got let in or you got refused.
What are you going to do, Father, if you get to the gate of heaven and the Lord won't let you in?
Oh, the old man said with a smile on his face. If God won't let me into heaven, he'll have to put his own beloved son outside first.
Well, to the family, that was bordering on blasphemy.
Father, what kind of talk is that?
But did the old man have it right? Indeed he did. Indeed he did. He had gotten a hold of that precious truth that he was in Christ, that he was so fit for heaven because of the work of Christ, that he was just as fit as Christ himself. And if God refused him a place in heaven?
He had to put his own son outside heaven too.
The old man died, went to be with Christ. That's the end of the story. The rest of the story I don't know. Did his family get saved? I hope they did. I'm sure he had witness to them. But that is the kind of relationship into which God brings you and me, so that you and I are just as near to God as his beloved Son.
Just as dear to God as he is.
And he wants us to have that relationship with him so that we don't merely say, well, I know I'm going to heaven. I know my sins are forgiven. Yes, it's wonderful to come to Christ like that. But on the other hand, that is not knowing God. And I say again, God doesn't want believers who merely come to him because they want.
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A fire escape from going to hell.
Yes, Christ is that He's all of that, but He's much, much more and He wants you and me to live in the enjoyment of it.