Lassen Pines Family Camp: 2005
Table of Contents
Individual Faithfulness #1: 2 Timothy 1
Individual Faithfulness #2: 2 Timothy 2
Individual Faithfulness #3: 2 Timothy 2 continued
Companionship #1: The Best Companion
Companionship #2: The Marriage Relationship
Christ In The Passover Week
Address—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.
Two things.
I'd like to use this as a side comment.
Brother, you know that there's a prayer meeting.
Prior to this, for some of the counselors and a brother mentioned something that really touched my heart, he said tomorrow many of us will be going home and that let down is going to happen.
We have such a privilege.
These last few days to be in the company of Christians.
That we can encourage one another.
And he said that I thought perhaps I should add this comment. You know, I know what it's like. I've been a young people and it wasn't that long ago because I sometimes said to them, I am half as old as some of the older ones here, but I'm twice as old as many of you here. So you can figure that out. So I know what it's like when you leave a place like this. And I thought perhaps as a help.
That you can start off with a piece of paper, a blank one, perhaps the notepad you have.
A place where you'll find it easily and write two things down. One is.
What are the things that I should do that I have not been doing? Perhaps you can just put in a new habit. Perhaps you've been encouraged to read and to pray each morning. I thought if you write this down on it, it might help when you get home. Now, I was told this, that we all have habits. Good or bad, we have habits.
And you want to form a new habit, like I said, perhaps.
Praying early in the morning, reading early in the morning, whatever the case may be, I understand that if you can do it for 21 days in a row, it takes about 21 days to form a habit. Otherwise, we'll do it for three or four days and we stop now. The second thing I'd like you to write down and leave lots of room in between these two is.
Other habits that you think you should get rid of?
Write this down and you can exercise that now. Don't spend the time now to write those things down. You have lots of time this afternoon. I thought I would just offer that as a suggestion. A second side comment is that I noticed.
A lot of the older ones here are afraid of the young people, or maybe it is the other way around, I'm not too sure which. I didn't see a lot of young and old intermingling. Perhaps it was just me not noticing it properly and I thought we have a bit of time this afternoon.
Rather than spending time with those we already know well, perhaps I will challenge you to talk to someone you don't know, especially someone who's older now. I know the problem often is this. What do I say to them? Well, you can tell them who you are. I would love it when you folks come up and say hello to me, and perhaps even ask them what portion of scriptures they've been enjoying.
Or perhaps you can tell them the portion you have been enjoying and I thought maybe that would help.
Now let's get into what I have on my heart before me this afternoon.
As many of you know, today is the Lord state.
I'd like to perhaps take on the subject.
That would draw our heart closer to our Lord Jesus.
What I like to do?
Before I start the subject, I thought of something last night, I said.
Often it's hard to picture what a speaker is saying. I know sometimes I talk fast and I know that at times when I'm sitting there when a speaker talk very fast, I sort of go that was good and a few seconds later I have no idea what they told me. My mind, my short term or my recall is not very good. So I thought before I start the subject I want to offer some help for those who are visual.
Find a piece of paper.
Now I just want to prove this. I thought of this last night. It was so embarrassing that I couldn't find any piece of paper. So I grabbed one of these bank envelope that happened to be in my Bible case. So anything would do. And what I'd like you to do is go crosswise. I want you to make a chart with.
8 columns across.
And leave lots of room on the on the bottom of the column to take some notes. I want you to write a word Saturday on the 1St column. If you want to be lazy like me, just put in SAT. We really want to put in S the next column, put in Sunday or Lord's Day and just draw the week across starting Saturday.
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And I want you to end it on a Lord's Day.
So you should have a columns across. Can you picture that?
So you start off by Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Lords day.
Now underneath the first column that says Saturday, I want you to write down 9.
And then ten under Sunday.
11 under Monday. I'm pretty sure you can guess what the rest would be. 12/13/14 Fifteen 1617.
Are you with me so far?
Now I want you to go.
Backwards underneath Saturday.
I want you to write down one.
You go backward. I'm sorry. As I said, I meant to say Thursday underneath Thursday.
Right one Wednesday I want you to write.
Tuesday 345 and six. Now we're going to use this chart. I see a lot of puzzling faces already.
OK, we done on that. Now I'd like you to turn to Leviticus Chapter 23 and though often.
We're afraid to turn to passages as such. We mentioned that yesterday there are pages that are still glued together because we're afraid to turn to you and we shouldn't be with the word of God. They all when we want to study and through the help of the Spirit of God, He will reveal to us and there all seems to be a lot simpler than we think it is. I'm going to read a few verses and then we'll get back to the chart and hopefully we'll find that this charge become helpful.
Leviticus, chapter 23.
Beginning of verse four. These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocation, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.
In the 14th day of the first month even is the Lords Passover, and on the 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened bread unto the Lord. Seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation, Ye shall do no survival work therein, but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
Seven days in the 7th day is an holy convocation. Ye shall do no Sir vile work therein.
Verse 10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall weep the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheave of the first fruits of your harvest.
Unto the priests. Now I don't know if some of you have seen the connections here already.
The few number of days here mentioned.
Let's go back to verse five. What day have you noticed?
And there he sat in the 14th day of the first month. Now if you were to look at your charge that you created.
Underneath that 14 perhaps you can put the word pass over.
Now do you see the purpose of that chart? For those who are visual, this is going to be come very handy.
Now in verse six we find that it sets on the.
15th day of the month you can write down unleavened bread.
Verse 10 We find that another day is mentioned here.
It really didn't say the day, did it?
Which sets that the first fruit. Well, we know. I'm sorry, I read the wrong verse. Actually, it's verse 11. In connection to that, let me read that. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted for you.
On the moral after the Sabbath, well, this is a little bit tricky. We know that the you go through scriptures in that we'll find that the 14th day, the 15th to the 16th day is the Sabbath, which is the Saturday.
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And the Morrow after would be what?
Would be Lord's Day on the Sunday. In fact, keep this ward the Morrow after on the next day. We will come run into this a number of times. So on the Sunday at the end of your chart, that will be the 17th day of the week. That will be the Feast of Firstfruits.
Now my thought tonight is this morning is not the seven feasts of Jehovah. It was really more so of the Passover. But I thought this is a nice way to introduce it because we get to learn more than one thing at the same time. As you know, the word of God often speak of the sevens and as a side comment too, as someone have commented before.
When you learn the seven feasts of Jehovah.
The seven parables in the Matthews Gospel.
And the seven churches.
And when you can tie the three together, that's when Christian knowledge begins.
So here I thought I just introduced you three of the four of the seven feasts and it's not difficult to learn four more, is it? And we have time, we might even touch on the 4th one after that.
Passover is the first feast. What is Passover? Well, many of us know the story. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 12. It gives us a little bit more detail of what a Passover is. Now don't put your chart away because we're going to refer to that.
These are well known verses, but let's read this to refresh our mind there Exodus chapter 12 we'll begin at verse two. This month shall be until you the beginning of months. Ye shall, it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto the congregation of Israel, saying, in the 10th day of this month, they shall take to them.
Every man a lamb, according to the House of the Fathers.
A lamb or an hose?
Let's go down to verse six is to save some time there and ye shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Now some of you may have a little margin on the side of in the middle of the Bible there is this you look at it in the evening, it says between the two evenings. We'll get to that in a minute.
Because that is also very important. And we'll stop there for a moment. Passover, we notice when we read this time is very specific again. And I believe we often forget that the first mention of time is this. This month shall be unto you, the beginning of months. This is kind of interesting statement.
We all know that our calendar.
January 1St, we call that the new year, the beginning of the year.
July 1St, well, we just had that a few days ago in Canada. We have that as the celebration of the of the birth of the country where you focus folks a little bit behind you. Choose the 4th.
But if someone were to come to you and say, well, let's make July 1St the new year, how would you feel about that?
Because it's so important, we'll make that the new year. Well, here in the book of Exodus, the Lord actually said that. That's why it said this month, this is the month, if you have a chance to look up the Jewish calendar, is the month Abib, which really is the 7th month of the calendar year. And the Lord said this is going to be New year. So it's like us in July 1St, it's going to be the new year.
That's how important this event is.
That this month shall be until you the beginning of months. So if the Jewish system of calendars done properly, then the few days the month where the Passover month is the first of that month should be New year. We understand that the Jewish calendar did not follow that because Rosh Hashanah is still on the old calendar. In fact, this create a little bit of confusions for some of us studying.
God prior to Leviticus Exodus time, you will find the 7th month and the first month reverse because we changed the calendar. So we understand that we'll find a little bit more understanding from the Word of God in regard to some of the events and some of His ways of doing things. So the first thing we have to know is He changed the calendar on them. This is the beginning of month. Now in regard to the Passover.
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They had to choose that lamb on the 10th day. Now, if you look at what we just drew in the charts there, the 10th day is what?
Is the Sunday before his suffering? Isn't that interesting? Now just to help with you the not that I would endorse this part, I have to say that the Catholic system actually have these done very well and some of you may heard phrases like Good Friday and prior to that they have a phrase called Palm Sunday.
Well, that's because they understand.
That the Lord Jesus was the true Passover Lamb will find the scriptures. Throughout scriptures, the Lord Jesus is the shadow and tight, and it fulfilled all of it.
Today's topic is Passover Lamb and we'll talk about that in specifically, but we see it fulfill everything.
The sacrifices of old, there were four sacrifices of five, depending on how you look at it. Who fulfilled that too. And we won't have time to go into this. So here we see. And what I like to do really is not look at Passover from just the gospel standpoint, but I like the trace.
The last seven or eight days of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the events that happened.
And the fact that He fulfilled Passover as the true Paschal Lamb of God. So here we find on the 10th day that to choose a lamb on the 14th day between the evening, they had to take that lamp and they had to slay that lamb. And we know the rest of the story, don't we? We will. Our time is going quickly here. We'll find out that yet. You take the blood of that lamb and put it on the doorpost, on the sidepost and the upper doorpost there.
And when the destroying Angel come by, it will say, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. In the meantime, there to celebrate inside this portion will read just briefly. Let's go down to verse 8, verse 8, Exodus chapter 12, verse eight. And they shall eat the flesh in that night rose with fire.
And unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Eat not of it raw nor sodden at all with water, but rose with fire, his head with his legs, and with the pertinence there are. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning. And that which remaineth of it until the morning, ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.
It is the Lords Passover.
Oh, very specific instructions there to take that lamp.
They're gonna eat it. They're gonna partake of it. Here's a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. You're gonna partake.
Of that and how are they to eat it? Unleavened bread.
Self judgment.
Not to eat it raw nor sodden at all with fire, because this lamb, we have to remember, this lamb has to face the fiery judgment. So we are to eat, partake of the part remembering the part, the face, the fiery judgment rose with fire. We not just sodden it at all with water, Oh no, we can't. We have to remember that death, that suffering.
Of what our blessed Savior had the endure for us.
And you know, God even make profession, he says, let not of it, let nothing of it remain until the morning.
The Lord knows that there are certain parts that we probably do not enjoy, didn't understand it. Whatever the case may be, God said everything that is of Christ that's burned it because God.
Want it and accept it, every bit in part of our blessed Savior.
That is the Lord's Passover, isn't it?
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Yes, from the gospel standpoint, we often speak of that, of the blood, of that redemption, of that sheltering. But here we see death.
And bloodshed.
A picture of something that we mind us forever.
There is something else about the Passover. We find that the children of Israel were told that they are there to tell their children and the children's children.
This Passover.
Was instituted approximately 1500 years before Christ.
This is now the year 2005.
3000.
Years 3500 years later, we find that the children of Israel still.
Tell the children and the children's children. That's how important it is in God's eyes and that he wants his people to go on with this.
And then we said that was the Passover feast.
The reason they read the second phase is the two fees seems to intermingle because on the 14 days the Passover.
And the 15th day is the unleavened bread. They are the key bed for seven days.
On the 17th day is the feast of the first fruits. That's a picture of resurrection. You know, our brother mentioned about the four things I like to look at as the three things as our brother mentioned last night in regard to the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We find a cross.
We found the blood.
And we find that resurrection. How do we find it in this passage?
Passover.
The Lamb must be slain, the cross, the blood must be shed. Without the shedding of blood there is no remissions.
What's after that? The feast of the First fruit resurrection.
On the 17th day, oh resurrection. We often preach the cross, but we'll forget. The resurrection is part of it. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart, watch that Christ die for us. I don't believe that's exactly how I was quoted. But believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead.
Oh, his resurrection isn't it? And thou shalt be saved. In fact, if you go through scriptures, you'll find resurrection is mentioned consistently.
And repeatedly.
Resurrection, if you were to go back and we won't have time to the 8th chapter of Genesis, we find the arch and perhaps we turn to that very briefly, just to encourage you into looking into the Word of God. Let's turn to Genesis chapter 8.
Verse 4.
And often reread and skim through it without seeing the details in the Word of God.
Genesis chapter 8, verse four. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
Now what did we say about the 7th month before Leviticus time that was named as that first month?
The 17th day. Now look back down on your chart. What was the 17th day?
That was the feast of the first fruit, isn't it? 17th day in Scripture speaks of resurrection here from the very beginning, the seed plot in this Bible, God had resurrection in mind, the flood death. Ah, but resurrection is brought out to us. Death and resurrection. The feast of the first fruits. Now time is Afghan. I'd like to move on now let's go down to.
John's Gospel.
Chapter 11, I believe.
A. Chapter 12. Gospel of John, chapter 12.
Going to read just one verse for now.
John's Gospel chapter 12, then Jesus.
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Six days before the Passover came to Bethany.
Now there was a reason why I have you write that chart. If you remember I had you write down some funny number like Thursday was one. Do you remember that on your chart?
Now go backwards. What is 6 days? We know the Passover was on that Thursday.
If we go six days back.
That would take us to.
Saturday prior to that which is the 9th day of the month.
Now let's go down to verse 12.
On the next day.
So what day would that be?
That will be the 10th day, isn't it? Now, There was something about the 10th day, if you remember.
They are to choose that lamb.
Well, on the 10th day we find that our blessed Savior enter into Jerusalem. Let's read the rest of the verses. Verse 12. On the next day much people that would come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him and cried Hosanna.
Blessed is the king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.
We know the story there, don't we? That he go in riding on the ass's coat?
He was setting himself up by God on the 10th day.
He was chosen.
As that Passover lamb.
Now let's go over to Mark's Gospel, Chapter 11.
The 11Th verse. What I like to do is tie that to the same time frame that we just had in John chapter 12 verse 12.
Mark's Gospel Chapter 11 verse 12 and I'm sorry verse 11 and Jesus enter into Jerusalem.
So now we establish that verse 11 is the 10th day of the month.
Verse 12.
And on the Morrow?
So what would that be?
That's the 11Th day. What did he do here? Well, what we'll find is that on the 11Th day, he recorded something of his activities and the 12 days, we're going to go into this in a minute with some record of his activities. I do not know of anywhere that mentioned the 13th day. And we see lots of activities in a minute on the 14th day and the 15th day. So let's go on verse 13 and seeing a fake tree. Now this is on the 11Th day.
And seeing a fig tree afar off, having leaved, he came, if happily he might find anything thereon. And when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for the time of the figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of the either after forever.
And his disciples heard it. So on the 11Th day, he cursed a fake tree. Now we'll find in scriptures that the fig tree is a picture of the nation of Israel. Israel was ready to be set aside as a nation before God.
Verse 20.
And in the morning?
What does that mean?
Another day gone by.
That's the 12 D.
And in the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dry up from the roots. Oh, how sad to see the nation of Israel. Here's a picture of it dried up. They didn't bear fruit for God. They were given up for a while.
Not forever. Now the Gospel of Mark actually time frame. Carry on. If you have time, you should read the rest of that, but we are very constrained with time here. The same time carry on right through the next couple of chapters and the next day begins in chapter 14. Let's go down to Matthew's Gospel, Mark's Gospel, chapter 14.
It begins by.
After.
Two days.
Was the feast of the Passover.
Now we have to learn to count the opposite weight. Here's the day. Two more days after that would be the Passover.
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Now you have to look at the chart again to Passover is on the 14th day, which we can relate to that as a Thursday.
So the 12 day of the Tuesday, if you add two more days after that will be the day you should be at.
So this is on the 12Th day.
Now let's go to Luke's gospel.
Chapter 22.
We read this passage often.
Now.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread drew 9, which is called the Passover.
This is a little bit difficult to interpret and I stand corrected in this year.
The Jews when it comes to this standpoint.
They are quite mixed up for the Passover and the fees of the 11 bread.
We see here is that the Feast of Unleavened Bread draweth 9, which is called the Passover.
Now we learned from the Leviticus chapter 23 that these are two distinct events, isn't it?
But they lump it together as one often.
But what they really mean is that I believe here is that the Passover Day is at hand. That's the 14th day of the month now.
The lamb is to be killed in the evening or between the two evenings of the 14th day.
Well, we have to learn too. Is that?
We as North American make everything in reference.
To our standpoint, we think we are the center of everything. It's easy to prove that. Open up any Atlas. If it's printed in North America, chances are you'll find United States and Canada to be in the middle of the whole world.
What we have to learn is that in God's eyes, Jerusalem is the center.
What we also have to learn is the way we count things or look at things a different culturally.
We can't count things the way.
The Word of God does give you an example. You want to learn scriptures in regard to prophecies. The number of days per month is 30 days.
Don't get you over intelligent and use the 365 and a quarter dates to be exact.
You're right to be exact, but prophecy often referred to the month as 30 days. We won't have time to go into that, but it's something that you can look into some more. Now as to counting of days.
The Jewish system counted sometimes tricky to our eyes, because part of a day could be included and counted as a day.
Now being Chinese, I can understand this a little bit better because N Americans are backwards in everything.
Even the language is backwards.
In China, the camp birthday this way, because I think there's a lot of Jewish influence on that. If you were born, if you were born the day before New Year.
The day after New Year, you would be two years old.
Think about that, you were born last year and this is this year, so that's two. Now I say that for a reason because that's how we need to cancel of the date and that's why people have problem with the three days and three nights. So I want you to keep that in mind. In fact, your brother mentioned at one time he said in North America we really do do that. We only do it when it's our convenience. And this brother gave the example that he said sometimes people commit minor offenses.
And they are sentenced to jail on weekend. You heard of that, right? Where he said a good lawyer would tell you, well, weekend means this. You go in at 11:55 Saturday night and you come out early Sunday morning. That's two days because you serve Saturday and Sunday. You might say, but he was only in for a few hours. No, he was in for two days. So we do that in this land, too.
Now the other thing we have to learn about day in scripture is this.
We think a morning and an evening or day and night is a day.
And we read through Genesis carefully, it will say in the evening and the morning is the day because the night cometh, but the morning come the joy to finish the day. Now let's get back to our chapter, Luke chapter 22.
So now we know that on that day, on the 14th day.
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A blessed Savior.
Set to his disciples.
Let's read verse 7. Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread.
When the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John saying, Go and prepare us the Passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, And behold, when ye enter into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where he enter in.
And ye shall say unto the Goodman of the house.
Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished there make ready. And they went and found, as He has said unto them, and they may ready the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the 12 apostles.
With him. And he said unto them, With desire, I have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
For I say unto you, I will not anymore eat thereof until we be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.
And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves, For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God shall come.
This is a very familiar passage, isn't it?
I don't know how many times I have read this and how many times I have heard this read on Lord's Day morning.
What a blessed passage. But here we find the Lord Jesus on the 14th day, the day before He suffered for you and I on that cross.
Such that his desire is to be with his own.
Not going to go through the details like we would have normally with this in regard to the Lord's Supper.
You all know the Lord's desire on that. We all know the picture. And I'm sure you heard of enough times of this man, the picture of the Holy Ghost carrying this picture of water, showing you the place where you are to be.
They are told to fine to the place for the Passover and let me share with you a couple of things that impressed me.
The question often asks, where do we go?
Well, we know when you heard the answer, but here the Lord gave a simple.
Answer to them.
You know, we know how we often look at a response or a request like that, and we raise a lot of questions, don't we?
Well, what if I can find that man? What if, What if, What if, What if?
But you know, these went out by faith.
And it would rather look at it from the standpoint of the answer and the result. Look at verse 13 carefully.
And they went.
And found.
As he had said unto them. Isn't that impressive? They didn't question him. They didn't waver. They went. They did. Exactly. We didn't have time. I should have mentioned earlier on, on the 10th day when they found that *** is cold. Imagine Lord told them to go fetch that and the only thing they have to say is the master have a need of it. You know, if I was the one to be asked to do that, it was. Yeah. But what if they say no?
Whatever. What if they say who are you? What if, What if? No, they went. You'll find when the Lord command us to do something, often if we obey, the result is very simple.
Obedience to the Word of God, dear young people, is important.
We don't need to doubt His word. And when we doubt his word.
That's when the intellectual side start to come in, and that's when we try to find things our ways.
We need a simplicity to believe that what He said we must do, and even if we did it wrong, I do believe that the Lord will correct it and He will lead us to the way we ought to be here. The response, the result is so dramatic. And they went and found.
As he had said unto them, and they made that Passover.
And then you know, another thing is God's word is sure we find it's just end when the hour was come, we'll find through all the gospel that they want to come get Jesus, they want to get him. But you'll see that often he says, but the hour was not yet count. But here is God's time when the hour has come, he sat down. Do you notice that the Lord was there before the rest, He sat down.
00:40:20
And he said to them with desire, I have desire to eat this Passover with you.
Before I suffered.
Now I want to make this clear. This is not the remembrance of the Lord. We often read this. This is the Jewish passed over.
He has to fulfill.
Passover Here on the evening of the 14th day of the month, our blessed Lord Jesus was there with His own. Partake of the Jewish Passover with His own.
Now here's what we have to be careful when we read this. Notice in verse 19, there's a little.
There's a little bracket, there's really is a separation, perhaps a bit of time frame in between.
I believe up to this point, perhaps even one like Judas was in there partaking that.
Passover with our blessed Lord.
And I believe there's a little bit of time here, and perhaps this is when Judas went out and this is when the Lord Jesus instituted the Feast of remembrance to himself. So verse 19 as a new chapter, as a new section here sets. And he took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them, saying, this is my body, which is.
For you this do in remembrance of me likewise also the cup after supper, saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you.
Oh, this is just hours before his death, before his sufferings, that he had you and I in mind.
That he instituted this feast so that we can remember him.
You know, you think of the Passover of old. They were to do it each year and young people, we have the privilege and the first day of the week, if not more often.
To remember what he has done for us.
Now some people may say well.
There were the 12, maybe really the 11 There. This is quite Jewish and character, isn't it? How come you come here and say you can remember the Lord this way? What give you the authority? Let's keep our fingers here, but go to 1St Corinthians Chapter 11. We read these verses often. First Corinthians Chapter 11 and verse 23 here. The apostle Paul, the one who have seen the Lord.
He said in verse 23 this is how he begins.
This he said, For I have received of the Lord that which also I deliver unto you. Oh, what powerful message. And often we read from the beginning of this verse. But I love, I mean often we read from the middle part of this verse, but I love the beginning part of this verse, the apostle Paul.
Have told us that he received this from the Lord, and now he delivered unto us as Gentiles.
What he what did he deliver unto us? The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
And when he had given thanks, he break it and said take eat, this is my body.
Which is broken for you.
This due in remembrance.
Of Maine.
Now you see why when someone used the phrase his dying request.
The night in which he was betrayed, not just any knight, but yet to think he knew what was before him.
His desire was to be with you and I.
What is our desire, young people?
What is our desire, brethren, when we come?
Do we really come? No, when we have been gathered here.
By our blessed Lord will fulfill his dying request.
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There to feast.
Let's go back to Luke chapter 22 after this feast was instituted.
We find that they left.
And they went out to this place.
Verse 39. Keeping in mind of the time frame, this will be Thursday evening.
The 14th night, the 14th day of that week, they had just finished.
The Passover feast.
They went out in verse 39 and they came out and went as he was once to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples also follow him.
And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless not my will but thine be done.
And there appear an Angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him, and being in agony, he pray more earnestly. And his blood and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood.
Falling down to the ground.
Our Lord was still in full communion with his father.
Pray in earnest.
What blessedness to see the dependency have for the Father even before those hours.
What did he find? His own. And when he rose up from the prayer, he was come to his disciple.
And found them sleeping for sorrow.
Do we not find that?
Let's go further down in the chapter. We know that Judas came and he betrayed him with a kiss.
Verse 54 And they and took they him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest house.
Then we find Peter denied him thrice.
Verse 66 and as soon as it was day, now the next day.
Now we're into the 15th day. Friday morning, perhaps still late Thursday evening, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together and led him into the council.
And we find that from that point on, he was going from judgment hall to judgment hall. I'd like to turn to John's gospel.
Chapter 19. I want to make one more time reference a couple more time references here.
Before I go into the verse, I would explain one more thing. You'll find perhaps inconsistency with the time referred to in John's Gospel as in Matthew Gospel. Here we find it's not the inconsistency what it really is. The fact that we didn't understand the time engine in John is same as our time, the time mentioned in Matthew and Mark.
Is the Jewish time the Jews calendar time by sun up sunrise, the sundown. So when you see the six hour it means 12:00. They start at 6:00 at this time of the year. But when you see in John's gospel when they say the 6th hour you mean 6:00.
So we have to keep those references in mind. That's why you find with the Lord when and find that woman at the well.
It was in the morning.
It wasn't 12 noon because often people get mixed up and they say 6:00. No, it was six in the morning. And to think the blessed Savior travel all night.
To me, that one soul at the well here. Let's get back to John chapter 19. John's Gospel chapter 19. I'd like to go to verse 14 first and then we'll go back a little bit. John's Gospel chapter 19. And it was verse 14 and it was the preparation of the Passover.
And about the six hour.
So now we know we're into the next day to 15 day. They're still preparing for the Passover.
The reason for that was remember they have between the evenings from the 14th of the evening before the evening of the 15th.
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Evening often start at 3:00. It's hard to say that because it depends on a different time of the year. They go by sundown. I remember we got invited to a Jewish Home one time. One of our client wanted us over for supper and we got there at about 6:30 and he was a little upset because that time of the year, the sunset at around 5:45 and we were not supposed to be there after.
And I was interested to see his calendar to see that they like.
They like summer better than winter because in the summer the sun doesn't set until around 839 o'clock, so the day is longer before the Sabbath begins in the winter of an hour way. By about 5:00 the Suns already darkened in the winter, so the day is shortened.
So here we find that 6:00 in the morning. So here's our time reference. But what happened prior to this? Let's go back to first verse one of the chapter. Oh, throughout that night, early, early in the morning, way before this reference of 6:00 in the morning, then Pilate therefore took Jesus.
And scourged him, and the soldiers planted a crown of thorns.
On his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail king of the Jews, and they smoked him with their hands. We know the story here. To him we were reminded with that thorn of crown, and he was even being mocked. Verse 5 Then Jesus came forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said unto them, Behold the man.
And when the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, crucified Him, crucified him.
Perhaps a good on a verse A1 pilot therefore heard that saying he was more afraid.
Verse 10 Then set Pilate unto him. Speakest thou not unto me?
Knowest thou not unto me? No, I'm sorry, speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee? And Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it was given thee from above. I was going to make another reference to the hour, but our time is going. We know that after that.
They crucified him, we know that. We will remind it last night.
For righteousness sake of the hands of man.
And then from the 6th hour to the 9th hour, from 12 noon to three in the afternoon, a blessed Savior suffered on that cross.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, Even so must the Son of man be lifted up. 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. There He bared your sins, my sins, on his own body on that tree.
We know the story well after that, they found him dead already.
We won't have time to go into the seven utterances, but that's another beautiful portion to go into. We have time.
They came, we read that yesterday the soldier came. They found him dead already. So they break not his leg, but with the Spears it pierced his side. And it says forthwith came blood and water.
And we find that because it was the Sabbath that is to come.
They have to take his body down.
With the preparation of the Sabbath.
It was interesting too. It was 3:00. Now if some of you would have studied the Jewish traditions from the word of God, you find that there is a burnt offering to be made twice a day, evening and morning. And the evening burn offering happened to be around 3:00. Here our blessed Savior fulfill that blessed perfect burnt offering, the sweet smelling savour to God. He fulfill the perfect.
Paschal Lane.
We find in Corinthians there says Christ I will Passover.
Was sacrificed for us. There you fulfill it all because of your sins and my sins.
His body was taken down that night, that Friday night, the Friday afternoon, I should say after 3:00, he was put in a grave where no man had laid before. This morning one of the brothers talked about touch and he used the example of he said.
00:55:19
This man was dead and there was Barry and a touch the bone of Elijah and he came back to life. And I believe that's one reason why Scripture save God that he was put in a tomb when no man had laid before.
Lest the Jews can say that perhaps his resurrection is touching of Elijah's bones, because God wants to make sure that man knows that death did not overcome him. He's the one that says He laid down his life for us here. He said this is the commandment of the Father. He said He lay down his life that he may take it again. He has the power to lay it down and He has the power to take it up again because the power of.
Is what make us with our faith into believing in that Christ die for us, and that he rose again from the dead, otherwise our faith would be in vain. There in the night of Friday, he laid in the tomb Saturday.
The 16th day, the Sabbath day for the Jews, He was there in the tomb. But what do we read early?
The next morning early when they came to that tomb, they found just the linen cloth. They learned that why seek ye the living among the dead? They learned that the Angel saying that he is not here, he is risen. And dear brethren, dear young people, we have a risen Savior, and God safeguard that through our Scriptures.
Resurrection.
Or if you have a chance, look up the 17th day of the month in Scripture. Sometimes it's not clear. We even go and go into the book of Ruth. You'll find that when Naomi returned back to the land, he says that it was the beginning of barley harvest. And you'll find that the feast of the first fruit more likely was the barley. With farmers here, I know there are many farmers, You'll find that in April, May time frame, there are really not too much first.
To offer, but barley is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, something that is lowly, something that man didn't really want. It was animals feed something lowly. But I understand barley was laid through all the winter and when spring come was the first fruit that came up. Oh, we'll find them. That's why that boy with a body loaf was important to see. That's a picture of Christ of that lowly one, the one who took the seven steps down.
Who became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross? And then we find with the Resurrection afterwards. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. And there will be that day coming soon, that every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess him as Lord at the meantime.
He gave us this privilege each.
And every Lord's Day, if not more often, to remember him.
And he gave us the privilege to remember him.
Until he comes back for us.
So we go on. Let's go back to Corinthians, First Corinthians Chapter 11.
We read only the 1St 2520. I think we read verses 22 and 24. Let's read verse 25 on and after the same manner also he took the cup when he has stopped saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which this do ye as OFT as you drink it.
In remembrance of me.
For as often as he eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lords death till he come. Oh, what blessedness, what preciousness that He brought us. He gather us here.
So that we can remember him in his death.
Verse 28 Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
01:00:00
No, we're not just to come.
We had to come and examine ourselves.
And we find we're not worthy, we stay away.
Such you.
No, I set that wrong purposely.
You do find some that says I'm not worthy this morning, no.
Examine yourself. What does he say here? And so?
Let him eat that bread and drink of that cup. What privileged brethren, we have to be gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Like this thing just.
Won him before enclosing 245. Perhaps we'll sing just the last verse of that hymn. Perhaps we'll I'll read verse four. We'll sing verse five. We know they now as risen, the first born from the dead. We see thee now ascended the churches glorious head in thee by grace accepted the heart and mind set free.
We think of all thy sorrow, and thus.
Remember thee. You know this last verse we often sing, but not value it. It is till until He comes for us in glory. There's another portion here.
That which you remember is the second last stanza. More to thy death conformeth. Whilst we remember thee, let's commit ourselves, blessed Lord.
Practical Considerations for Christians
Address—David So
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Last few dates.
I really enjoy myself here.
We have the words before us, but also as young people, I think some of us enjoy not just the word but also the activities. Am I correct in saying that? You know what I've noticed when we're playing out there, we have fun, but when we play, I notice something. I'm not much of an athlete, but I'm able to observe.
What I've noticed is that it was so easy to find out other people's mistakes.
Some of you watch me play baseball. I try to play baseball.
It's kind of fun to watch someone missing the catch.
And especially the team is losing is always someone else's fault for missing that play, isn't it? And you know, this morning I had before me perhaps something along that line.
We often.
Look at other people's problems and forget to point the fingers back this way. Am I right in saying that it's so easy to say, how can you miss that ball until we get out there and the ball come at us? And of course we have good reason. We use borrowed gloves that didn't fit too well. I didn't have my running shoes on. I have whatever, but it's easier to look at someone else.
His problem isn't it, And this morning, with the Lord's help, he perhaps we can change the focus a little bit. I like to look at something that perhaps we should keep pointing the fingers back onto ourselves as we go through this. We have before us the Christian walk. I thought it was so fitting.
I look across the audience and I know some of you and many apologize. I'm still trying to learn your name. I apologize to you for perhaps ask for your names two or three times already. And I still don't recognize, you know your face. And some I haven't had a chance to talk with, but you know the Lord knows you. But this morning I like to turn to.
A portion in the Old Testament because I find that's often the Old Testament give us nice principles to follow.
And perhaps we can look at, well, maybe I'll put it this way, different stages.
Of growth or of Christian walk that we can.
And perhaps we can look and see where we're at and where we want to be in order to learn more about Blessed Savior.
Some of you may have heard me speak on this portion before, so if you have, please bear with me on that and I'm sure you'll know so well that at the next meeting you can help with it. I'd like to go to Nehemiah Chapter 3.
In this book here there are 10 gates that I mentioned.
Nehemiah Chapter 3. Now, before we go into the book of Nehemiah, I'd like to give a little bit of background.
I know for many years I avoided books like this. Nehemiah. Well, first of all, I have trouble spelling the word and have trouble finding it.
So Nehemiah, in fact, I often say to people, if you look at our Bible, it's a shame that sometimes we look at our buy boat, we see finger marks. If you notice we get lights like this. You see well worn portion around the gospel and we may see well worn portion around the Psalms and around perhaps the first five books of Moses. And then when we get to portions like Ezra and Nehemiah, sometimes we have trouble opening the pages because.
Is still glued together. So we should because these books tells us a lot. And I find in learning these books helps us understand more of scriptures, the many portion of scriptures that we're afraid to turn to because we think is very difficult to understand, so we avoid it.
But really the word of God, I believe, is set up in such a way that even the simplest of mind can understand. And the one who is intellectual would never be able to fathom all of it. And this morning I don't pretend to know it very well and I enjoy talking to young people for this reason is you don't need to know it very well. You just share what you the little that you know. And I hope we can keep it simple that way.
But Nehemiah, we know that this is back in the day.
Where they have returned from captivity.
00:05:02
Now that sometimes stumps me too when people say captivities. What captivities? Well, it's interesting that if you go into the word of God and this year an O brother, help me understand that a bit. He said to me, he said, remember the word, the number six O 6.
And go.
606 OK, what's 606? And I scratch my head and I couldn't come up with what 606 is that he wanted me to understand, He said if you understand 606, it will make the Old Testament come to life.
606.
Now I see some puzzle faces here too, because I look worse than that when he told me that 606.
Well, 606 was really 606 BC. That was the first captivity mentioned. You see, if you remember the Old Testament, the children of Israel were told that when they go into the land, they're to obey the word of God. And if they don't, they will be scattered and they will take, they will be taken into captivity.
And one thing we have to learn from the word of God is the principle, and the Word of God is always true, and what God said will come to pass.
Every bit of it.
And Israel rebelled. We know that we see through the history of Israel, the 10 tribes rebelled. They were scattered amongst the nations. That was around 730 so BC.
Wasn't very long ago, was it? Was it? If you think about that solemn and dedicated temple at about 1005 BC, that's not long ago.
And then the two tribes left. We know that they didn't heed the warnings, so they too were carried into captivity. Were heard of a name, A man named Nebuchadnezzar, right? He's not a name that I can't spell. Nebuchadnezzar where he came.
And 606 BC and took the children of Israel captive. But we heard about Daniel a number of times this week. Now if you read the 1St chapter and the first verse of Daniel, it tells you that he was the first one of the first captives.
Read that carefully and you'll find that. And that was the time of 606 BC. So we understand that we can divide the scriptures nicely. Well, they to be into captivity for 70 years. You'll find then you talk about that after 70 years they have to return back into the homeland. So they did in the day of Ezra. Some did, many stayed. And then after this, Nehemiah was commissioned to rebuild the Temple. And this is the stage where we are at in.
Chapter 3 He came back after they were taken captive for 70 years that he came back to this place and he found everything was in ruined. So young people, if you look around you and see that everything seems to be in ruin, you can appreciate it or any worse of a problem. They didn't even have their homeland.
Everything looked terrible and then God helped to restore things. So let's look at a few verses here. I'd like to, if time permitting, go through the this chapter, chapter 3, and perhaps we go. Before we go into that, I'd like to do something a little bit different. I am beginning to learn that we all learn things differently. I know some people can listen very well.
They're called. Some people would like to see things in order to understand things. I remember when Jim talked about the instructions.
I think Jim was exaggerating a little bit because I know he is handier than what he said. But for me, I'm those that would rather look at something and then read the instructions afterwards when it doesn't work. See, we all learn differently, right? We learn. Some would like to watch and see. So I thought as a suggestion, I'm going to tell you what I'm going to talk about. Maybe you can write some notes in there. There are 10 gates that I mentioned here in this book.
If you want to do this, I'll share with you how I do because I can't take note when I take notes, I find that by the time I finish writing the 1St 3 words.
They are ready for verses ahead of me. So I'm going to give you a bit of hint of how I do it is I write a little number next to those portions. So if you want to, I'll tell you where these 10 gates are and then we'll come back to it. The first gauge is mentioned in verse one, so if you want to put a little one next to it, you can follow it afterwards. You see part way through that, except the sheep gate, that's the first gate. The second gate we're going to talk about is in verse 3.
It's called the Fish Gate.
00:10:02
The third one is in verse six, the old gauge.
The 4th gauge in this in verse 13, the valley gate.
The 14th one or the 5th gauge is in verse 14, the dung gauge.
The 6th one is in verse 15, the gate of the fountain.
The 7th gauge is the Watergate.
In verse 26.
The 8th gauge is the 8th one is in the in verse 28, the horse gate.
Verse 29. The Eastgate.
Verse 31 The gate of myth cart. So you got 10. Now let's go back to verse one. Let's read the 1St 2 verses first. Then Elias shift. The high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they build the sheep gauge. They sanctified it and set up the doors of it even until the tower of Mia. They sanctified it unto the tower of Hannah Neil and next unto him.
Build the man of Jericho, and next to them build Zakir, the son of Emory.
Now we talked about they were in a stage of rune. The gauge were destroyed. You know, the wars have been all run down here. The very beginning of the chapter God introduced this man named Eliaship. By the way, when we go through the Old Testament, often is very interesting to look up the meanings of the names. When you see the meaning of the name, you'll find that often they'll tell the story all by yourself. You can do that with the book of.
And take the names along and you'll find most of the meetings and the story just from that. So here, Elias Chef, you can guess that we're going to talk about the meaning of his name first because that name is very important. Elijah means God will restore.
That's the confidence that we must have. It's not up to you and I Often we see problems. We'll go out there and say let me fix that problem. No, when there are problems in the assembly, when there are problems at home, we have to remember God is the one that will restore our things. Look like it's in rude. More likely is, but God will restore. So Elias ship the high priest. He was the one that was.
That rose up to do the work for the Lord. The first gate that have to be repaired or rebuilt is the sheep gate.
The sheep gate. Well, think about that for a minute. What do you think that gauge were used for?
Well, I don't know Jerusalem very well. Talked to a brother who was there just recently. He can probably picture it better than I can. But in my mind I can see little lamb sheep going, being herded through the gate. Now we know that in the Old Testament.
Sheep or lamb is used really for one purpose and one purpose only.
What do you think that purpose is?
Is to be herded in.
As an offering.
So if that's what it is, what can we appreciate and associate that with? Well, I see that as that lamb that was led to the slaughter, yet openeth not his mouth.
I picture that first gate is the one that speaks of salvation. I picture that as the one that are able to tell for the story of the love of Jesus, of how He came as that spotless Lamb of God.
As the one who came as the willing victim to OfferUp himself to God.
To be the perfect sacrifice that perfected all the sacrifices of old. The Sheep Gate.
And young people.
Picture these gates. Are you inside this gate?
Because if you have not gone past this gate, the rest of the gates we are going to talk about would not mean anything to you. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as a Savior? Do you know and acknowledge that He's the Lord of your life and that He's the one who will have full control over your life?
00:15:10
Because if you don't, you will not recognize the rest of this and be able to say Eliaship God will restore everything.
You know, we look at each one.
We sometimes wonder we may see problem with certain young people.
And you know, the first concern we have is, are they of the Lords? And I know many of you here are.
And I would trust that you would pray for those.
The other day we had before us Repentance, isn't it?
The Gospel.
Repentance, the cross, the resurrection.
Oh dear friends, if you're not the Lord Jesus.
Repent while there's still time. So the sheep gate, and I trust that many here.
Have known this gauge. Remember one of my comments in the beginning was how do you compare yourself and you look and say, have I gone past the sheep gate as if it were what you have? Then let's look at the next gauge. Next gauge is the fish gauge.
Perhaps before I even go further, I like to just mention a couple more names here in the sheep gate, because it's important we spend a bit of time here and we'll have to rush a little bit on the the rest of it. There is a name that's interesting here in the toward the end of verse one. It says set up, I'm sorry, by yes, even under the tower of Mia Mia. If you think of that, it means 100.
Here's another reason we can think of that as a picture of salvation.
I think of that 100 sheep, 99 and one was lost, and the Lord loved each and everyone of you, and He wants you to be there. And the other thing I thought interesting was in verse two it talked about the man of Jericho. What do we know about the man of Jericho? Well, Jericho was the place that were cursed, wasn't it?
As if they have no part but here the man of Jericho working side by side with a high priest.
In order to rebuild the sheep gate, thus it not think of us the one who was we were at one time a far off from our God says without hope in this world. We have been brought night because of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then if you fully recognize the fact that we by right. Oh we don't have such things do we? We wouldn't be there, but by grace we have been brought near.
To our God and our Father. Then the sheep gauge, what means a lot of the fish gauge would mean a lot more. I would think of how the Lord would say that I will make you fishers of men.
Oh, what a wonderful thing to know that when we value the privilege of how He brought us into the blessings, then we should be able to go forth easily and tell the story of His love.
What joy it should be then. He's no longer ashore to be up here telling forth.
The fish Gate.
There's a lot more we can talk about that, but I'd like to go on to the next one.
Or perhaps we won't. Let's go to verse 5.
And next unto them the articulate repaired.
But the no boats put not the next to the work of the Lord.
The Tiktok kite.
The first one that can come to my mind is a man named Amos.
Wrote that book, Amos. What do we know about him, Amos? Amos said he was really a nobody. He was just a gatherer of Sycamore tree. You know, the Lord doesn't always call out those that are renowned. He can use anyone, can't he? When it comes to the gospel, it could be the feeblest way, could be a simple thing as passing our tracks. And yesterday I enjoyed the thought. Maybe the day before could even be the way we work.
And being an example to others that they can see that you are the Lords here. Even the one like Amos will claim to be a nobody. The Lord used him to tell for the story of his love. But then it's just the novolt, the nobles and look after someone who is noble, don't we? We like the heroes, we like the people that have good stature to look on to. But here it says they put not the next to the work of the Lord.
00:20:09
Young people, do not be discouraged when you find that there are many at times that were not in your eyes, want to work the work of the Lord. The Lord knows what are you to do? And remember, it's ourselves that we're to look at. You know, sometimes we blame things. Yes, you know that the enemy is busy working to discourage us. There is no doubt about that. The power of darkness is so great that we have something greater within us.
Now I was thinking often we blame, you know, sometimes people use the phrase the devil made us do it. You know, when something goes wrong. Oh, that's the work of Satan. And many times it's true. But I was thinking of the book of Job and some of you may be familiar with it. There are 42 Chapters, I believe in the book of Job and we'll find that only the 1St 2 Chapter, the first two chapters, Satan.
Was mentioned in there.
The other 40 chapters, what were the problems? Was it Satan?
No, that was Job and Job's friends until they recognize that they must acknowledge the God Most High and they recognize the pride what was hindering the communion with the Lord. So here we have to point the fingers back to ourselves first. Yes, the battle was without, but often is the battle that is within.
That was stumble us verse six the third gate. Moreover the old gauge repair Jehovah died the son of pas.
Pasaya and Mishaelum, the son of Bessie Bessodiade, they lay the beams there off, and set up the doors they are, and the locks they off, and the bars there off, and next unto them repair militia, the Gibeonite, and so on. This section of the old gauge go on all the way down to verse 12.
With descriptions of who's involved the old gate.
I would presume this too, that in Second Kings 14 it mentioned the corner date is probably the same gauge that is referring to. But how do we apply that to our lives? What is the old gauge? Something old is something old that's bad. Sometimes we look for new things. Sometimes we expect a speaker to teach us new things and new truth. Is there such a thing?
The old gays speak of something that's been.
For a long time, the foundation of things. The foundation truth.
Have you learned? What foundation are you resting on? Do you have a foundation at all? The old Gage speaks of that foundation truth. Who is there to rebuild and to hold hold fast of this old truth? So we hear the see that the first of the Gibeonites. But who are the Gibeonites?
It's interesting as we go through these incident, some of these old Sunday school stories that you have learned. Now we can start putting this together.
And by the way, sometimes they liken this. You know, a lot of young people will say, I don't know much about Scriptures, and you're right, many of us don't. But what's interesting is you have, as a child, been brought up under the sound of the word of God. It is like this. It's like having a puzzle being built and you have these little pieces because if someone asks you a specific question, you may know.
And now as you grow a little bit older.
As if you're starting to put these little puzzles together and you see more. Now, I don't know about you folks. I don't like puzzles. The only one I like are the one that will come up with about 10 pieces.
They're a lot easier to do, but from what I understand, a puzzle is a lot easier to build when you see the picture of the puzzle first. Am I correct in that if you don't know what the picture is and you pick up these little pieces?
They all look alike. You can't tell if it's the sky or the ocean. Well, those ten pieces is a lot easier. So if you're learning from the if you're a beginner, start with a 10 piece puzzle as if it were take learn the easy things first. And if you don't know the whole picture, learned the little pieces and by prayers and meditations and through the Spirit of God, he will reveal to you as those puzzles starting to form together.
00:25:04
Notice when you play that you may find a small section and say, Hey, I got this. So here we learned the Gibeonites, remember they were the ones that tried to deceive. Is it Joshua of old? They dress in the old clothes so that they would be spare. They stressed and pretended to be strangers. And the punishment of that was they were to be slaves, servants to them. They carry water, and they chopped wood for them. But here, when we get to this portion.
Help to repair the old gate. Who helped to guard the foundation truth. Oh, the Gibeonite. Who else? Well, let's go down to verse eight. We find part way through in that verse. We won't have time to read it through. There are the ghosts, myths. Verse 9, the rulers.
So we find here is not any particular group of people, but I find even more interesting. Let's go down to verse 12 and next unto him repair Shalem, the son of Hello Hash, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem.
Now the next portion I want you to read this carefully is that he and.
He and his daughters. Can you picture this here? The walls are in ruin.
You see boulders all over the place, and I can see this man in my eye, in my mind's eyes. There he was picking up the boulders. He's stacking it back up, building and rebuilding the wall and next to him.
His daughters.
Help rebuild, putting the work getting dirty down into it, young sisters.
It is very important for you too, to help rebuild this old gate. You might say, but I can't take part.
Is that the only thing I believe we've been exalted. What about praying one for another? Oh, there's so much. And you know, sometimes I get discouraged when I see a young sister or even some young man have the thought of saying, well, sisters don't need to know much. They're just going to get married, raise children. Oh, don't let that thought stay in your heart. You have to learn the Word of God. In fact, you'll find the importance of mothers throughout Scripture if you were to go through the book.
Kings. You will find that every time a good king is mentioned, his mother's name is mentioned.
Mothers play a very important role in the family and to help with the assembly, so the old truth need to be guarded.
Time is going, so I got to move a little bit faster here.
The 4th gate, the valley gate. Now remember we talked about this thing of this perhaps as the stages of growth or progress of our Christian walk. We're saved through the sheep in the sand from the picture of the sheep gate we want to tell for the story of God's love.
There is the fish gate, then the old gate. Once we learn the warrior of Salvation, then we learn that the gospel effort is not the only thing that should occupy all of our time. It's not that it's wrong to spend time on the gospel, but there are more in our growth to it. We have the guard and learn more of the foundation truth. Then we learn the valley gate.
Now I believe in Jerusalem, I have not been there and I would love to go there just to see it.
Jerusalem is at the edge of this valley, and that's why often you read that Jerusalem.
When enemies come, they would be besieged and optimist on the north side because that's the only way to get to it. And if you cut off the Northside, they cut off because they're surrounded by the valleys on the other three sides. So here, the valley gate, I would think of that as a place that would only only lead to the valley to a place that would go down.
And down.
And I believe from the application standpoint, that would be like our life when we learned more about our blessed Lord.
Then we learned that he is the one who took the lowly place. He became that man of no reputation.
He was despised and rejected of man. He went so low that it would become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. What are we to learn to be Christ like? We too have to learn that we must acknowledge.
00:30:08
Pride often is the biggest downfall to our Christian walk, isn't it? I remember brother had a picture one time of the word pride and he formed it in A in a form of a triangle starting with P and then R is a little bit taller. And if you look at that word there are 5 letters in it and in the very middle of that word pride, it has the letter.
I.
When you hear I too often we know pride has taken over. We need to be remembering from the walk from the practical standpoint. Go through this valley gate. Verse 14 the Dung Gate, but the Dung Gate.
The down gate.
Terrible thing, isn't it?
I don't think this would be a popular gate. This is where all the garbage.
Other wastes get dumped out.
Is it not something we ought to point our own fingers at ourselves again, that we are to purged ourselves from all filthiness of this world?
We're told that we're not called unto filthiness, but unto holiness.
And we need to.
Be able to spend time with our blessed Lord.
To remain holy, we have sanctification before us. I like the way someone had put it. We need to be ready, but we need to be sanctified so that we are ready for the Master's use.
Then verse 15.
The gate of the fountain. The gate of the fountain.
Oh, the fountain. We find the word fountain often used like to turn to scripture. I purposely didn't turn to a lot of places so you can take notes, but this one I like to turn to in Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 13.
Here.
The.
Row 2 problems that the children of Israel had and the reason I'd like to turn to it is this verse remained the same today.
Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 13. For my people have committed to evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and heal them, our cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Just two things. That's all they have committed.
Two evils his people are committed. Same to evil that we have around us today. What is the first evil? They have forsaken me, The fountain of living water.
Don't look at the person next to you. Don't even look across the room. Look out at our own selves. Have we forsaken our God? The other night we talked about Daniel with his singleness of heart toward God, his purpose of heart. And we talked about how easily it is for ourselves to be so occupied with things of this world, the care of this world.
And when that happened?
Have we not found that we easily to forsake?
The God that we ought to spend time with, The one who is that living fountain.
And then not only that, we find when we forsake God, we have problems and difficulties that seems to multiply before us. And in this world we often want to find solutions. And in our society, when a pill, a society, we often think that we can find a pill to take and it will take care of all of our problem right away, don't we?
So we find different help instead of turning to the word of God.
And I believe that's what he means by they fuel our cisterns. They were thirsty for what they need. Oh, instead of going to the fountain of living water, they get their own water. So they fuel our cisterns. And what did we find when we fuel our own cisterns? We find it is nothing but broken cisterns that holds no water.
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Have we tried to find solutions with our own by our own means, rather than be on our knees before God?
And wait for his answer. And wait for his deliverance. And how many times have we?
Been discouraged because our ways and our means did not find faux satisfaction here. The gauge of fountain I believe too, is also another picture of the Holy Spirit. We need to be depended on the Holy Spirit to lead, to guide and to direct, because He is the One.
That would help us, teach us, and comfort us in all of our ways.
Let's go down to verse 26.
Now come the Watergate. Watergate I know here in the United States of America.
The Watergate is something that some of the older ones don't want to talk much about, especially with President Nixon, but I don't believe that's what he's Speaking of here is a gauge, the water, a gauge.
Water, we know, speaks in the Word of God about the Word of God.
Now we didn't have time to read through the verses carefully and but we'll find that in each case as you talk about how someone repaired the gates. Here's one gate that if you read it through carefully, I do not believe you'll find the word repair being mentioned. Isn't that interesting because the Watergate speaks of the word of God. The word of God we have is always perfect.
It never ever need repairing. It is from everlasting to everlasting. It is His word.
And that we must abide with. So we find here, the Watergate being mentioned is the gate that we need to come to. But it's interesting of the order here too. We'll find that when we don't take that lowly place of the Valley gate, and then when we don't purge our lives from all the filthiness of this world, the Dungade, and if we don't let the Spirit work in our hearts, often we find that we don't want.
Spend a time to be cleansed by the water of the Word of God. We find those orders sometimes. It's interesting to notice when we applied it, we'll find the power thereof. The Watergate. Oh dear young people, turn to the Word of God for all your needs.
We have just five more minutes or so. Let's go down to verse 29, Verse 29, toward the end of that it talks about.
The East gate, a little bit abstract, isn't at the Eastgate. Well E is mentioned many times in the in scriptures if we were to go back to the Tabernacles.
What is in the east side? We'll find that the gate to enter to that place is in the east side. Moses and Aaron dwell on the east side. We find in Ezekiel when the Shekinah glory departed from the Temple, it left via the Eastgate, and they promised that when it returns, it shall return by the Eastgate.
What does that tell us? Oh, I will take it from the application standpoint. That should remind us of the coming of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Always the truth that we often forget and we need to be reminded often. In fact, when we look at the runes around us, instead of to be despair, we should be rejoicing. Not rejoicing over the problems or difficulties. But you know that.
Our blessed Savior's return is so Evan I the Eastgate young people don't forget that the Lord's coming is at hand and we should like John of oh would say from all heart. Even so come Lord Jesus. I actually miss one here as I'm talking verse 28 is the 8th gauge that I miss. I'll go back to it quickly the horse gate.
Well, I suppose the horse gate.
Is a place where they March the horses through a parade them through and horses in Scripture speaks of imperial power. We find that we won't have time to turn to you in the book of Deuteronomy they were told that when they talk about for the kings to do says the kings are not to multiply horses. Actually they're told not to multiply wives too and that's a wise advice. The reason they're told not to multiply forces is horses speaks of power.
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And our power and victory shouldn't be dependent at the hands of what man can control. Our victories from the Lord. That's why they're told not to multiply horses. We need to put our dependence upon our blessed Savior. Oh, we got to cast a care. We know that the fight is not ours. All we need to do is to be still.
And wait and see the salvation of the Lord. So that's the 8th, the 9th, 1, the Eastgate we mentioned, the 10th, 1:00.
The gate of Miss Part Well this is a hard one to explain. Myths part I believe it means the IT it means the appointed place as a place.
The appointed place and I believe.
It should speak to our hearts that there is that judgment seeks to come and we're to do all things not because of reward. We were reminded last night, but for the glory and honor of our blessed Lord and young people. I hope that this would help as we look at these these here that as we walk in our Christian path that we need to have to balance and seeing all this is being important. We need to realize that the.
Is the beginning of our blessing. In fact, if we look at the very last verse in this chapter, verse 32, it ends by going back to the sheep gate. We need not to forget the work of redemption of the cross. We need to be reminded often this year begins the sheep gauge and it ends. So we have to remember that the sheep gate of salvation.
And then the joy and privilege are tell forth the story of the love of God, the fish gate.
And then we have to get good hold of the foundation truth.
The old gate and then we need to learn to be humble before God and man. The Valley gate we need to purge all the filthiness of our hearts. The Dung Gate we need the Holy Spirit to lead, to guide and to direct. The Fountain gate We need to know that the victory is the Lord. The horse gate.
And we need to ever be mindful of the Lord's coming the Eastgate.
And be reminded that there will be that judgment seat of Christ.
Where I'll reward will be handed to us that crown of life and his young brother mentioned in his prayer, and then we will hand it right back to our blessed Savior. Is that the only thing we have to do in our Christian life? No, there's a lot more. No picture is perfect to describe the word of God. Some would say, well there are more than 10 gates. Well we don't have time to go into the other two as as often with the word of God we can be as simple as we can be.
Or we can expand us as much as we can just briefly mention it. There are two more gates, the gate of Ephraim that was mentioned, and the prison gate. Oh, that leave room more so for us and for the liberty of the Word of God. Is it not Ephraim? What do we think of it shall be a fruitful bow.
Well, how fruitful are you before the Lord? The prison gate, the judgment? Oh, then there is that bowel inside. Oh, and I trust that, young people, that you may go on in the power of the Word of God, that God may be everything in your life, and that He may lead you and direct you in all your path. Let's command ourselves.
Christianity #1: What Is Christianity
Christianity #2: What Is A Christian
Christianity #3: Christian Resources
Christianity #4: Practical Christianity
Considerations From Daniel 1
Address—Steve Bambauer
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.
While you're turning to Daniel chapter one where there's one of the portions that we'll read today in view of ultimately I trust a few thoughts on the glory of Christ and understand when I got here, I didn't get here till Friday night. I realized in listening as I sometimes do.
That somebody had already spoken on Daniel One.
Well, you know, the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the plane, there was a lot of overlap and was a lot the same congregation. So I decided to go ahead, not exactly as I planned, but at least starting with Daniel one in the first few verses to take that up. And I don't think we'll be at a loss, I hope.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.
This is the 606 number that was mentioned earlier and I had thought to go into a few dates and.
Brother so already did.
I don't think he's here. I looked for him. He's here, all right.
I thought maybe he had sent a mole to look at my notes and see what it's going to say because he said some of the things I was going to say and one of them was 606, but the previous to that is 1095.
Do you remember what happened in 1095 ASA in the Sunday school when I gave this? OK anybody know what happened in 1095?
Well, that's when Saul was inaugurated king of Israel.
And now we're 490 years down the course of history.
History is interesting to me, so I pick up on these things. And one time in Sunday school I posted these numbers on my wife, wrote them out on a bulletin board or a poster, 1095606, five, 36455 and 29. And this is not the lottery numbers, so don't go out and play them. But there is significance to these numbers historically. And when I was in college, it took quite a bit of history, but I wasn't saved then, so none of these things correlated.
Didn't mean a whole lot to me. I was there because Mom said I had to go rather than join the Marines.
And history is about the only thing I could pass and justice barely so had a little background in it. But when I got saved and I I noticed started reading the scriptures, lo and behold, the scriptures are written.
In an historical setting.
Things are happening in sequence of time. Time you know is what connects to events like a line connects 2 points.
And we live in time. And so God writes to us in an historical setting, in time through history. 1095 is the inauguration of Saul, king of Israel. 490 years later, in 606 BC, Nebuchadnezzar comes along and Israel is no longer a sovereign nation.
Jehoiakim is left in place, and in 588 God had had enough.
And they come in and besiege Jerusalem, and everybody has taken captive everybody. Now here is an earlier captivity in connection with the protagonists that we're going to speak about, Daniel and his three friends.
There's a significance to it being 490 years.
And if we go to Second Chronicles 36, we'll see what's going on at that time. I'll start at verse 14.
Of Second Chronicles 36 Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the House of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. This is an offense to God.
And when we cause an offense to God, we'll call that culpability. And there is responsibility and consequence.
It's no different now than it was with Israel.
This long time ago, and the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers. He sends messengers. He still does.
Blessed are the feet of them that bring the glad tidings their messengers.
That's how he gets his word out today is with messengers and this is the word.
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He doesn't always arrive arrive in person, although at times in past he has.
Rising up betimes, that means in the margin, continually and carefully. God is very careful about this, not haphazard. He has a purpose and plan. It's perfection and sending because He had compassion on His people.
He isn't just harping that you're not doing it right, I'm not doing it right. He says these things with compassion. That's a lesson for us.
In our relationships, when we deal in relationships that an exhortation be given with compassion. He had compassion on his people.
And on His dwelling place these two things are very important to Him. And we see this line of things clear through Scripture. What was their response? But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
There comes a point.
Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees. That's where we are in Daniel, who slew their young men with the sword and the House of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young men, or made an older man, old man for him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand, and all the vessels of the House of God, great and small, and the treasure of the house, the Lord, and the treasures.
Of the king and of his Princess. And all these he brought to Babylon no longer in Jerusalem.
So Jerusalem again from 606 is no longer a sovereign nation until 1948. That's a long time.
And if you'll carefully read the writings of Mr. Darby, I can't give you page a number. He speaks 150 years ago in the mid 19th century, about Israel being restored to its land and unbelief.
It happened 100 years after he wrote about these things, and he wasn't prophesying this, He was reading the scriptures to see this and was bold enough to state it in ink 100 years before it happened. Not seeing when or where, but it happened.
And all the intricacies of history, World War Two, when 6,000,000 Jews were were assigned to the concentration camps and the gas chambers and the and the Jewish culture in Europe was decimated. They came out the other end of that war. They said we cannot wait for the Messiah any longer. If we're to survive, we have to go back, carve out our own land and defend ourselves. And that's what they did.
But they left their city of refuge and they are ripe for destruction in that place.
Which is to come in Jacob's trouble.
And them that had escaped from the sword, verse 20 carried away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the Kingdom of Persia. This is when.
Then 70 years later.
Cyrus allowed a remnant to return 70 years later to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. Enjoyed her Sabbaths.
Somewhere buried, I think it's in Deuteronomy. They were to give the land fallow rest every seven years. They didn't do it from Saul.
To Jehoiakim, 490 years. They didn't do it. Seven every seven years. To divide 7 into 490, you get 70 years. What a coincidence. Now they're captive for 70 years while the land is given its fallow, whether they liked it or not.
What a coincidence.
As long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath to fulfill 3 score and 10 years back to Daniel one.
Along comes Nebuchadnezzar.
He didn't ask the Lord what he's to be doing, but the Lord is sovereign in history.
It's amazing.
If there was ever an evidence to me of the truth of the inspiration of scripture, it's that many minds through men have written this as they were led of the Spirit, not knowing exactly what they wrote, penning these things, putting it together as an intricate.
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Whole with integrity, that we upon whom the end of the age has come can look back and see how these things follow sequentially, one after another, according to prophecy, according to the Word of God. Nobody could have foretold this, so here they are.
There's Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego down in Babylon. I don't think they chose to be there, but there they are. Sometimes we don't choose to get where we are. You may think that you have a lot of choice in matters and that you're the master of your destiny and what you're about and your circumstances, but we aren't necessarily.
You didn't ask to be born in this country at this time.
But here you are.
It wasn't as delicate for these four. We live in a very pleasant situation.
The situation of the city is pleasant, but the water is still stale.
No matter how pleasant the situation of the city is.
If we're not drinking of the water, the fountain of life, no matter how much affluence we have and things we have and advantages we have in education we have, the soul is still desolate.
And desperate.
I don't see Daniel complaining about his situation.
Who takes it from the Lord and goes on? What's going on? This is the 6th century now, down in the late 5 hundreds, early 5 hundreds.
The king spake unto Ashburnaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king seed.
And of the Princess.
Ashbanaz is.
Nebuchadnezzar's.
Cabinet member who's watching over the Department of Education, if I can put it that way, in current terms.
He is a eunuch. He is the master of the eunuchs.
I assume by that that Daniel and his three friends are now eunuchs.
And I don't think they elected for that, but that's the case. Go to Isaiah 39 and we'll see why that happened.
In verse 7.
It's the judgment of God.
And Daniel and his three friends, I don't see any complaint on their part anywhere through this narrative.
That they file a complaint with God about their circumstances. They take it as from the Lord.
And we surely wouldn't consider that a very delightful perspective to be a eunuch in Nebuchadnezzar's college.
39 Seven and of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt, bigot. This is God speaking through the prophet to Hezekiah. You know he'd ask for another extension on his life when he had the boil.
And this is the consequence of his request.
The sons that thou shalt, that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt bigot, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
While Hezekiah said.
That's such a good deal.
Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken, not going to happen to me.
These are his descendants.
Manasseh was born during that period of time of 15 years that was extended to his life. Manasseh was his son. He was one of the most wicked kings of Judah.
Ahab was one of the most wicked kings of Israel.
Interesting factor about both Manasseh and Ahab is it is recorded that they both repented and God took note of it and honored it and showed them some measure of mercy.
God honored their repentance.
But the consequences of government were still in place.
Don't think.
Let me speak to myself. I point out three back that we can sin in haste and repentant leisure, and nothing's going to happen.
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There is the government of God.
And you don't have to get to be very old before you realize the reality of that.
Well, we're back to Daniel one early part of the 6th century.
And they're in college here.
Children in whom was no blemish, but well favored and skillful in all wisdom and cunning and knowledge and understanding science and such as had ability in them to stand in the King's palace. They did real well on the SAT and they got accepted in here. They're going to matriculate in three years and be put to work for the King's service.
This is hey, this is Yale or Harvard. This is the best they have in that day. What was going on?
In five, 5600 that era BC what was going on in sciences and in art and in literature.
Nebuchadnezzar had dug a tunnel under the Euphrates that he could walk under it. It was a half a mile long with no bulldozers.
He did that. That's quite a feat, and he could walk through that tunnel. You've got to have some kind of a circulation system going through. I don't know how they did all that. That's one of the things that was going on in this time frame. The calendar is presented has 12 months and 354 days in it. In Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar has some hanging gardens.
It's one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.
There are things to do in places to go and things to see.
ESOP wrote his fables in this century. You all know Esau. You've read his fables, haven't you? The tortoise and the hare, sure. Instead, he wins the race, goes back to 550 BC, and we're still reading about that. The boy that cried wolf. He slaps fables, goes up, watches the flock. Have you read this? I had to read this in sophomore English. I hope you had to.
I hope this isn't the heard. First time you've ever heard of Esop's fables. He cried wolf. He was getting bored.
He got into mischief, like one guy said. When the boys get bored, that's when they start to torture the cat.
So he's up there. He cries wolf. All the elders come up there with their sticks, no woof. The boys just beside himself. They go back down. They're not happy. A little while later, cries woof. The elders come running back up with their sticks. No woof.
Now they're real unhappy. They go back down to the village. He's sitting around up there. Guess what happens next. You've read this, haven't you?
Not sure the wolf shows up. Wolf, wolf. Nobody comes.
Nobody comes, so he writes these little stories that have points to them.
ESOP is the guy that wrote sayings that we still use today. Familiarity breeds contempt. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Things weren't that far.
Primitive even that long ago.
You remember in sophomore geometry this guy named Pythagoras who invented this triangle and you had to figure it out. Well, Pythagorean theorem and he also.
Designed the musical octave at that time over in Greece. So this is what's going on about that time Cyrus the king of Persia and you will read this in the book of.
Esther, this is especially interesting to me.
Developed a postal system and send out messengers by post and you get the first postal system in the Kingdom of the Medes and Persians in the middle of the 6th century and you have that word in.
In that book sent out by post, the reason why it's interesting to me is I am one of those guys. That's what I do for a living.
So that's what's going on.
When Daniel is going to school.
No blemish well favored all of that.
How did he get that way?
Was going against the current, you know, Daniel and his three friends.
00:20:04
He purposed in his heart.
Somewhere along the line, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.
Come together to produce a Daniel. I pretty well think that the sovereignty of God precedes the responsibility of man.
But we're still responsible. Now, don't ask me to try to dovetail all that together. I don't know how to do that, but God has.
He does and he has God is intricate enough. If I can put this, and I want to speak reverently to take two things that we seem to be opposing each other, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man and they are both in fact true.
So how does Daniel get to this place? Now we're going to go to Romans chapter 12, and this is the same way.
That each of us.
Can be like Daniel, and Daniel isn't our object, the Lord Jesus Christ is. But Daniel is a great example.
For us, Romans chapter 12.
I think that if we go through these first three verses, maybe if we apply these things to ourselves, get them right down into our sandals, starting with.
Our thoughts.
Our heart, our conscience, flowing right down to our sandals.
We can live in some consistency like Daniel.
I beseech you therefore, brethren.
By the mercies of God.
Now that's the motivation.
Well, he beseeches. He doesn't say. Now listen, this is what you should be doing. This is what you ought to be doing. This is what is required of you. And all of that is true.
But he beseeches and he says, I beseech you therefore by brethren, giving them their standing, their relationship by the mercies of God. That's motivation.
That you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service. That's consecration. Consecration is to have the hands full.
Full of the mail. Not everybody's hand is the same size.
Shake hands with Bob and he wrapped it around there a couple of times. He's got big hands.
We don't all have big hands, but you can have hands full.
You know, and in John chapter 2, there were these water pots, two or three firkins apiece. They were to be filled with water, and that water was turned into the joy of wine when brought to the Lord. There was a whole big difference between 2 firkins and three firkins.
But they were filled. The point is that they were filled.
I don't want to compare myself with, you know, I look at a brother, he stands up and speaks. That is really nice. He sure knows the scripture, which I knew it like that.
And I can't come up to that, but I can fill my own hands.
Each one of us can do that. That's consultation.
And this is the reasonable service. Anything else is not reasonable. I want you to really think about this for the rest of your life.
That if the Lord isn't in it.
It doesn't make any sense. It's unreasonable, it is without profit, there is no purpose, it has no value, it is vain. Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
For you know that your labor is not in vain, it's not empty, it's not purposeless, it's not meaningless, it's not unintelligent when it's done in the Lord.
Be not conformed to this world, that sanctification. It's just being set apart.
Daniel could do that. They grabbed him by the arm. They hauled him down to Babylon.
They make them a eunuch, they stick them in their college, they're going to teach them all of these things. And yet in that situation, he is not conformed to this world. He is set apart for the Lord, and the Lord preserves him. But the end of Hebrews 11 Says that's not always the case.
00:25:23
But, as always, the Prophet.
Be not conformed to this world, but be that sanctification. Be ye transformed. This is transformation. This is done by the renewing of your mind. When we get saved, we're brought from death to life and darkness to light. But now we're talking about a transformation of the mind.
By the renewing of your mind, renewing, transforming. This is a process that goes on daily.
By reading and prayer and communion and fellowship and listening to ministry, this is how it's done. The mind, then is transformed.
David said that a new habit can be formed in 21 days. I thought it was 30 days, but I'm a little lower than average about those things. But it is doable. You know, whatever it is or whatever it takes for you, day after day, with diligence, reading, praying.
The renewing of the mind and that's how it's done. It's not done by osmosis.
That she may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. It's good and acceptable and perfect. It's the will of God and it's the only thing that is that.
This is a realization proving.
In the science class, you may prove things by the test tube or the Petri dish or the theorem, and you put these sequential reasonings together and if you can present that and get a consensus of contemporary's or the peer group or the gurus or the high priests of that organization.
It'll be pawned off as a fact.
That's the way they do that. It's a scientific method.
That's how they prove things. They get together at conferences, they hash it out, the elite. They come to a conclusion. They tear apart any ideas. They put them together. They take them apart. They look at it like a magpie with an acorn, and it goes like this and it goes like this. They look at one side and then the other, and then they come to a conclusion and then they tell the public it's a fact.
Because they conclude that evolution is a factor in consensus.
How is it that we prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God? Prove it is in our daily life and I will tell you that this is where blessing is.
Otherwise.
No, and that's the realization. It has fruit. These things have fruit. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, this is this is precious, this next one, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly.
Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. I'm going to call this humiliation.
And it doesn't come naturally.
Unless it's to the new nature in the presence of Christ.
Through the renewing of the mind.
With a sense of the Lord's presence and what's due to him and our brethren, fathers to children, husbands to wives, brothers to sisters.
There would be a lot less scratching and clawing and fighting and digging and kicking and biting.
If we applied this, if we didn't overlook the humiliation of this sequence, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But all right, we are not to go around.
Thinking lowly of ourselves either.
But to have no thought of self, Not too high, not so low.
But we're to think about something soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith, you know.
Most of the world.
Wouldn't have a clue about what we've talked about in Daniel. Why Daniel would do that.
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Why would why you would apply in a practical way these first three verses of Hebrews of Romans 12?
And how did we get from where we were to where we are?
Did we think about this and say, hey, this is a good idea, this is where it's at?
I'm smart enough and clever enough to sort this out, to know which side of the bread the butter is on and to get myself there.
I was talking a little earlier about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men. We had better sit down and consider these things.
But we're not prone to do that.
In 1960, well in the early 60s, I graduated from college and.
The Department of Defense sent their headhunters after me and said we have a deal for you. You can't resist because if you resist, I'll throw you in jail, he said. They called that the draft, you know, can't resist the draft.
You young bucks don't have to face that problem right now, but in those days it wasn't that way, so.
I thought I would get the best I could out of that and decided to join the Navy in the aviation program instead of wait around in a rice Paddy and fish heads and rice over in Vietnam. I had to go there anyway, and I thought I might see it from air.
So I applied and I went down to Pensacola, FL for Officer Candidate school. First thing that happens and.
You show up there and they put on this green long garment and boondockers and they shave your head down to nothing.
And this drill Sergeant shows up, and I will tell you something about drill sergeants. If you've heard the story, you've been here too long.
It's been 15 years since I've told it here.
Drill Sergeant shows up. You've got to know about drill sergeants.
They're the only guy I know of that can stand at attention and their knuckles drag on the ground. They get right up in your face, you know, And so they were doing that with professional acumen. Here was forty of us, four wide and 10 deep, 40 in this class.
Where face?
Well, I got a digress in a minute. I when I was a boy, I had a wart on one of my thumbs. I forgot which one it was, but that's the only way I could tell that from right. If if I felt that wart, that was the left hand. If it wasn't there, that was the right hand.
You're under pressure, laugh. You got just this amount of time to make up your mind. You got 5050 chance. If you don't laugh, face, that's not very much time. Laugh. I'm scratching this something scratching that time I got to make a choice, start going and everybody's going the other way.
Like this?
He saw it. Those guys don't miss anything.
I thought I'd camouflage it pretty well. This voice Bellers.
Who's that? What are you doing in my column? Get out of my ranks?
You can't be in my battalion. I was hoping he was thinking about somebody else. I was just looking straight ahead. Comes bearing down. I knew that it was all over.
He grabs me and he says, and they're all standing there, all on the parade ground out the seaboard, out there at Pensacola, you know, where they have those hurricanes. And he said, you go stand over there by those barracks about from here, that wall. I don't even want to see you. Yes, Sir. I go over there at Stan just about as.
In abstractively as I can. And he starts giving the troops the rest of 39 more commands, more commands, more commands, and they're not coming. We just come off the streets, you know, we didn't know anything.
So he's getting frustrated, as drill instructors are paid to do. And he starts this double time down the seawall. And I'm watching him go down there till they're just about out of sight. And then he says to the rear and they're coming back up here double time. And they go by and it's to the rear and they go back down there just about out of sight. I'm standing over here, doesn't see. You forgot all about me.
And then he's coming back up and he.
Brings them to a halt.
What are you doing over there, Sir? This is where you told me to stand.
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Get back in here. So I come back in the spot where I was at I-1 sweating has picked the Lynn off. Everything seems to be fine, but everybody else doubled over like this whiteboard off their nose and their mess.
Guy right in front of his name.
ALC Aviation arts of candidate site consists.
Vampire, you lucky stiff.
I didn't.
Volunteer.
To go over and stand by that building and watch these guys go down the parade ground, come back, go down the parade ground, come back, come doubled over in a heap.
Wasn't my choice, but I'm watching them do that and I'm thinking, well I'm glad I'm not with them.
Well, have you ever?
Seeing how this world in 20th century Western sieve can ravish young people.
It happens.
And Proverbs talks about the guy who looks out the casement of his window, and he's watching those who go into the House of the foolish woman and they take a beating in there. And I used to have a little corner grocery store out in the sticks, mom and pop, and people would come in there.
They were wrung inside out.
It doesn't mean that believers don't have difficulties, but we have resources.
I have often thought of that story, and I sure wasn't thinking about it at the time of the sovereignty of God picking us out for blessing and sparing us from grief and sorrow.
Responding to the whip of the Prince and power of the Air.
As men do today without Christ.
But it's no good until we take the scriptures. It's just not enough to make a profession. This has to be a reality in our souls. We have to go through these. 12345677, how about that?
Ions, motivation, consecration, sanctification, transformation, realization, humiliation, and meditation.
These things need to be a part of our life and reach our shoes, by the way.
For this to be a practical reality.
Now we're going to go to.
John.
Chapter 12 because.
Until we get this point, I think I have just enough time to cover it.
If I pace myself.
I just mentioned something, by the way, without charge, when I finished my two tours of duty in combat, flying in the back of F4's carrier base, I came back to Pensacola as an instructor in 1970 to 72.
And I took a class there that was to teach us how to be an instructor, how to teach.
Instruct instructors training class. It was for those of us who by the time we had finished our sea duty was were coming back for shore duty. And that was my ability at the time. And my job now was to train the guys that were just like me coming through now in 1972 and I wound up in a land survival.
Class teaching land survival. What anyway in this?
Instructor's training class was about 3 weeks long. It was a good class and they would give us tests and one of the questions on the test that I remember is that the key to delivering a good lecture is multiple choice. 1, knowing the material, two, organizing the material, Three, being articulated in the material for the use of visual aids.
I missed that question. Knowing the material, organizing the material.
Being able to articulate the material and the use of visual aids. What's the answer?
That's what I put. Knowing the material, the answer is organization, organization, organization. I have had some of the smartest people. I remember a guy in high school that could, he knew 5 languages. He knew Spanish as well as anybody in this room and we had him for Spanish one and he could not teach anything. He would draw at this angle and this angle just like I'm doing right now. And we never covered the course at all in the next year.
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In my junior year, we had a gal come in. She didn't know anymore Spanish than we did, but she organized that course. She went through the curriculum, she followed it. She got organized and it was a great class, but the first guy really knew the material and it wasn't organized. So anyway, that's always been an exercise to me.
It may be a help to you if.
You ever called to give an address or a lecture or anything like that to organize the material?
John, Chapter 12.
Verse 20 And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast. These Greeks, I take it, were Hellenistic.
Jews that lived in probably Asia Minor, what is now Turkey and the area there was Phil Hellenic. They they loved the Greek culture that was imposed upon them by Alexander the Great in in about 3/23/30 BC. Now we're down to 292827 AD, but that influence was.
Them and they had heard of Jesus and they had come down to this feast. And so the same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaid of Galilee, one of the apostles, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip didn't quite know what to do with that as an intermediary. So he comes and tells Andrew, and again Andrew and Phillip.
They said well I don't know the answer to that can.
Can these Hellenistic people, they're not exactly Jews. And this is this is Israel. And I don't know if these Greeks can come in like that. And what are we going to say? And so they come and they ask Jesus, can these Greeks?
Come in and have an audience with you. Can they meet you? And I have found in scripture that sometimes when a question is asked and the answer is given, I'm left scratching my head. How did the Lord answer that? How does this answer meet the question?
And I have to think about it sometimes, and this is one of those in this passage.
Sirs, can we see Jesus?
Well, you would enjoy a question like that if somebody said that. Tell me about Jesus.
But.
Before his rejection, he came unto his own.
But after his rejection and and in this Gospel, especially at the beginning, even God so loved the world.
I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me, so that it's all without distinction.
From the north, from the South, from the east, from the West, all may come.
But in their day, they had a question about that, and Jesus answered them. This is what his answer was.
The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
I might be standing there and saying the hours come that the Son of Man should be glorified. What can they see? Jesus, This was our question.
Maybe he'll answer it.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die and abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. There's no use meeting God if I can put it this way according to nature.
We're not just going to walk up and say meet the Lord Jesus Christ as equals are on our terms.
We are fallen, rebellious, hell deserving sinners.
And they have to know that now who is Jesus?
That they would like to see.
The Son of Man should be glorified.
Make me now to know Thy way, that I may know thee. Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory. You've read these. I suppose you've all taken notice and read each one of them.
By now.
That one I didn't notice until this morning. And we go out with that in mind. I pray thee, let me see thy glory. And that's what the Lord is saying here. The Son of Man should be glorified and that he must die. The grain of wheat, corn of wheat has to come to the ground. He's come to this earth, and He has come for the suffering of death, that He might death for every creature.
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But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit, otherwise no.
Because his life could not save us, it took His death to redeem us. He bore, I will say, our not the sins of the world, our sins in his own body on the tree. He was our substitute. I'm speaking as believer to believers.
He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life. Now there's going to be a moral revolution in the soul.
If we're going to be introduced into eternal life and see Jesus as who he is, if any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will my Father. Honor is going to take an attachment, a place of of a servant subservience. We own him as Lord. If we confess with the mouth, Jesus as Lord will be saved, for with the mouth confession is made.
Salvation. It's not just Jesus, but Jesus as Lord. We are going to honor him in that place and give him that glory. Now. Is my soul troubled? This cost him much.
This was not a routine, perfunctory thing that he came to do.
His soul is troubled.
And what shall I say, Father saved me from this hour? No, he would not, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Remember the verse that was read this morning after the breaking of bread, that David answered his brethrens question. Is there a.
Cause the answer comes back. For this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name.
Then there came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. He glorified it when he raised Lazarus from the dead in the previous chapter. He glorifies it again when he raises him from the dead by the power of God, because Jesus had glorified the Father.
He had vindicated the Father's nature, God, the nature of God, which is holiness, which is light.
And love.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts, light and love. You cannot define either one.
They are.
Those that is who God is light and love, but we know both of them by experience.
But you can't ask me to define either one.
Deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom for his soul. Who is calling unto whom? Deep under deep.
Love unto justice unto light, deliver him from going down to the pit. Deliver man. I have found a ransom for his soul that meets the justice of God.
A provision is made and God has made it. Jesus is about to.
Glorify the Father, and in so doing He is going to be glorified.
In all eternity, eyes will turn back as the as the cherubims in the temple, wing to wing, wing tip to wingtip, from one wall to the other, from eternity to eternity, and their faces are looking down on the ark, on the ark.
The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said, An Angel spake unto him. Some thought then that they would give resolution to this phenomenon. Somebody heard something.
So somebody that stood by some said, well, it thundered. You see, 75% of the scientific community today are atheists that operate on the principle of metaphysical naturalism. That means that there is just particles in motion all the way back, all the way forward, all the way out. Everything happens by time, space, chance, and the laws of nature. That's it.
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I'm sure of it. Therefore no God, 75% of more atheists of the elite scientists and.
Of today.
And they wonder about the other 25%.
Because they're so sure of it.
They want it to be.
So if they take the things of God and they look and they don't into the intricacies of this book.
And those dates 1095 down to 606, four, 190 years, 70 years later they come back from the captivity at 455 down to Cyrus gives the decree that they to Nehemiah, that Artaxerxes gives the decree to Nehemiah that he can start to rebuild 455 down to 29.
AD is 483 years. If you want to read Daniel Chapter 9, you'll see that there are 70 weeks. 70 * 7 each week represents.
A week of years. Seven years. In Each week another 490 years. What a coincidence.
But one week short, and that is Jacob's trouble. So from the time that our Xerxes gave allowance to Nehemiah and Nehemiah chapter 2 to go back and rebuild to the time when the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem was 483 years as a week left. And that's Jacob's trouble. And in the meantime, we're in this parenthesis of grace where the clock, the prophetic clock has stopped and when.
And also.
Daniel Chapter 9. That covenant is made. The clock starts ticking again.
The people therefore that stood by and heard it said that it thundered, some will make it out all of this to be.
The production of the human religious mind.
And that it's all a fantasy. That's how they will look at it.
Now, I said Daniel went to college and he didn't go to a Christian college. This was Babylon.
And you may be there and you're going to hear these things and you're going to get bludgeoned with these things. And when my daughter started Chico State over here, she wanted to go to the.
General study schematics just who they called it. They put all the disciplines together in a in an integration in this one class of about 30 kids that were accepted to this would would get all the science and philosophy and music and history English all of these things as one class and go through the whole freshman year together and she had to interview for this.
And a professor that she interviewed with.
Wants to get to know her. You know, what can you do and what are your thoughts and why you're going to this Jed to write a theme, a paper to submit to him as well as part of the application. Anyway, she made mention that she believed the Bible to be the word of God and she was a Christian and he said now you're going to have to be very comfortable with that because you will definitely be challenged in these next nine months if you take this class.
I mean, he gave her a warning.
He wasn't stuttering about this, He wasn't apologizing about this, he said. You will be definitely challenged.
In what you're about to learn in the next nine months and the way things would be presented, that's the way the secular colleges are today. They're going to tell you it thundered at least half of them. All the disciplines in college now, whether it's history or science, they're all taught or even comparative religions, they are all taught from a naturalistic perspective.
God is left out, therefore he's not there. Because things are taught from a naturalistic perspective. They start with this a priority this, this beginning thought.
And and plunge through all the way through with that.
This isn't a proof. This is what they want to believe. That's the way man is. And in education, he gets very clever about it and he's going to try to convince as many as you can. And some of your older young people that you may have seen fly off at right angles in the past got into college and embraced that.
It's like first Samuel Chapter 11, when those guys were coming down to forgot what tribe it is right on the border. And and they the tribe says, well, we'll link up with you. And and they said, well, we're going to put out your right eye. And they didn't think that was a very good prospect. So they went to Saul, who was just inaugurated king.
And Saul didn't think that was a very good prospect. So we got the armies together and he delivered them.
That's what's going to happen in the secular educations now, is there?
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Intent on putting out your right eye and giving you single only a you have no death perception. If you only have one eye, all you will see is the natural side of life. That's all they want to teach you.
So I want you to understand that.
There are plenty of people.
And Places to read and the apologetics section of Mr. Darby's writing writings are excellent about the same They're asking the same questions 150 years ago that they're dabbling with now. The answers are right in there.
So don't follow that.
You don't have to embrace that. It is not necessarily a logical conclusion that is imposed upon you.
That it is so that everything is by naturalism, it thundered. It's only Thunder, don't worry about it. Nobody said anything, they just thought they heard it.
Something thundered. I gotta tell you, there's a natural explanation for this. This is what they're gonna tell you.
It's like that Scottish philosopher Hume in the 18th century, he said.
I never saw a miracle.
My father never saw a miracle, my grandfather never saw him. I never heard anybody talk to anybody.
That ever saw a miracle? I have talked to people who have given me false reports. I understand false reports. Therefore all reports about miracles are false reports and there is no God. That's how he reasoned it.
I hope that didn't make sense to you.
Is God not allowed to do miracles when and where He wants to, Not at just the rude intrusion and demand of man to satisfy his idle curiosity. Every miracle of scripture that that God has done is for a purpose.
Now the other guy says.
Angel spoke to him. Something's going on out there. Don't know what it is. I think it was an Angel. Yeah. Let's worship angels. Let's develop a religion. We got to develop the spiritual side of man. Well, they recognize there is such a thing, and they go off at right, at left angles.
The guys that thundered right angles. Let's deal with angels.
Left angles.
They both got it wrong.
But you're going to hear both answers.
Jesus answered and said. Jesus answered and said man speaketh once, yeah twice and man perceiveth it not. The first time he spoke is in creation. Romans chapter one verse 20.
Man perceiveth it not. The second time he speaks is in revelation.
Hagar sitting out there in a heap in the 16th of Genesis in great turmoil, and God appears to her and explain some things to her. And her answer is, Thou art the God that reveals thyself, and so he is, because we may know that there is an infinite.
Eternal.
Divine, intelligent, autonomous being behind the whole show.
Cause and effect reasoned all the way back to the first 'cause tells us that the whole show runs by cause and effect. Even scientists know that they can't deny it. They want to put cause and effect all the way back in what they call an infinite regress into eternity. I can't fathom that.
A cause with a previous cause with a previous cause, and the whole thing is going in the way of entropy and the loss of entry energy is going one way.
Darby says that if you're going to put matter in eternity, you're dealing with an abstract, and you would have to put it there in a condition of stasis. Then how do you, how do you get the laws of nature into it to get it to move to be plastic, to get it into its present situation where we are?
Jesus has a word.
Man speaks once creation, God speaks once creation.
He speaks twice. Revelation. We're hostage to revelation. We must have a revelation. We can't know anything about God until he declares himself. He is the infinite and we're the finite. He is the eternal.
And we're the temporal.
And if I be lifted up, I will from the earth I will draw all men unto me.
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And as Ezekiel 2127 says, I will overturn, I will overturn, I will overturn it.
And it shall be no more is that it, till He comes whose right it is, as King of kings, as Lord of Lords, not to the cross the second time, as He did the 1St for sin, but to establish Himself, and every eye shall see him, and all kindreds of the earth.
Who see him arrive in his appearing at his second coming.
Will wail because of him. Revelation chapter one.
Thy Kingdom come.
Is the heart of the believer. We want to see Him have His rightful place. We want to see Him given the place that is his. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and it will be solved. Now. Would you look forward to seeing the Lord Jesus come?
This afternoon or would you wail?
I believe I'm talking to believers on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is our hope. And He will come and receive us unto Himself, and then he will return in glory. Make me now to know thy way, that I may know Thee to know Thee. Let me, I pray Thee, see thy glory. God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock in that chapter.
I think it's Exodus 33 and he said you cannot see my face and live, but I will put you in the cleft of this rock. What a picture.
And he says you may see my back parts.
And we can still see where God has been in the lives of believers in the creation of the whole show, when He has spoken and given us this word hymn #179.
Repentance
Special Singing 1